Ye who are
watching
when my end draws near,
Speak not, I pray!
Speak not, I pray!
Warner - World's Best Literature - v24 - Sta to Tal
But it is conjectured that he
durst not venture upon this project, for fear of being torn to
pieces before he could get to the forum. Deferring therefore
his resolution until the next day, he awoke about midnight, and
finding the guards withdrawn, he leaped out of bed, and sent
## p. 14206 (#396) ##########################################
14206
SUETONIUS
sage in
.
round for his friends. But none of them vouchsafing any mes-
reply, he went with a few attendants to their houses.
The doors being everywhere shut, and no one giving him any
answer, he returned to his bed-chamber, whence those who had
the charge of it had all now eloped; some having gone one way
and some another, carrying off with them his bedding and box
of poison. He then endeavored to find Spicillus the gladiator,
or some one, to kill him; but not being able to procure any one,
« What! ” said he, have I then neither friend nor foe? ” and im-
mediately ran out, as if he would throw himself into the Tiber.
But this furious impulse subsiding, he wished for some place
of privacy, where he might collect his thoughts; and his freed-
man Phaon offering him his country-house, between the Salarian
and Nomentan roads, about four miles from the city, he mounted
a horse, barefoot as he was and in his tunic, only slipping over
it an old soiled cloak; with his head muffled up, and a handker-
chief before his face, and four persons only to attend him, of
whom Sporus was one. He was suddenly struck with horror
by an earthquake, and by a flash of lightning which darted full
in his face; and heard from the neighboring camp the shouts of
the soldiers, wishing his destruction, and prosperity to Galba. He
also heard a traveler they met on the road say, “They are in
pursuit of Nero;” and another ask, “Is there any news in the
city about Nero ? » Uncovering his face when his horse was
started by the scent of a carcass which lay in the road, he was
recognized and saluted by an old soldier who had been discharged
from the guards. When they came to the lane which turned up
to the house, they quitted their horses, and with much difficulty
he wound among bushes and briers, and along a track through a
bed of rushes, over which they spread their cloaks for him to
walk on. Having reached a wall at the back of the villa, Phaon
advised him to hide himself awhile in a sand-pit; when he re-
plied, "I will not go underground alive. ” Staying there some
little time, while preparations were made for bringing him pri-
vately into the villa, he took up in his hand some water out of
a neighboring tank, to drink, saying, “This is Nero's distilled
water. ” Then, his cloak having been torn by the brambles, he
pulled out the thorns which stuck in it. At last, being admitted,
creeping upon his hands and knees through a hole made for him
in the wall, he lay down in the first closet he came to, upon a
miserable pallet, with an old coverlet thrown over it; and being
((
## p. 14207 (#397) ##########################################
SUETONIUS
14207
>
both hungry and thirsty, though he refused some coarse bread
that was brought him, he drank a little warm water.
All who surrounded him now pressing him to save himself
from the indignities which were ready to befall him, he ordered
a pit to be sunk before his eyes, of the size of his body, and the
bottom to be covered with pieces of marble put together, if any
could be found about the house; and water and wood to be got
ready for immediate use about his corpse: weeping at everything
that was done, and frequently saying, "What an artist is now
about to perish! ” Meanwhile, letters being brought in by a sery-
ant belonging to Phaon, he snatched them out of his hand and
there read, “That he had been declared an enemy by the Senate;
and that search was making for him, that he might be pun-
ished according to the ancient custom of the Romans. ” He then
inquired what kind of punishment that was; and being told that
the practice was to strip the criminal naked and scourge him to
death, while his neck was fastened within a forked stake, he was
so terrified that he took up two daggers which he had brought
with him, and after feeling the points of both, put them up again,
saying, “The fatal hour has not yet come. ” One while, he begged
of Sporus to begin to wail and lament; another while, he en-
treated that one of them would set him an example by killing
himself; and then again, he condemned his own want of resolu-
tion in these words: “I yet live, to my shame and disgrace: this
is not becoming for Nero; it is not becoming. · Thou oughtest
in such circumstances to have a good heart. Come then; cour-
age, man!
The horsemen who had received orders to bring
him away alive, were now approaching the house.
As soon
he heard them coming, he uttered with a trembling voice the fol-
lowing verse:-
“Ιππων μ' ωκυπόδων αμφί χτύπος ουατα βάλλει:
(The noise of swift-heeled steeds assails my ears;)
>
as
he then drove a dagger into his throat, being assisted in the act
by his secretary Epaphroditus. A centurion bursting in just as
he was dying, and applying his cloak to the wound, pretending
that he was come to his assistance, he made no other reply but
this: «'Tis too late,” and “Is this your loyalty ? ) Immediately
»
after pronouncing these words he expired, with his eyes fixed
and starting out of his head, to the terror of all who beheld him.
## p. 14208 (#398) ##########################################
14208
SUETONIUS
VITELLIUS
E
H
(
>
WAS chiefly addicted to the vices of luxury and cruelty.
He always made three meals a day, sometimes four; break-
fast, dinner, and supper, and a drunken revel after all.
For these several meals he would make different ap-
pointments at the houses of his friends, on the same day. None
ever entertained him at less expense than 400,000 sesterces Cover
$20,000). The most famous was a set entertainment given him
by his brother, at which, it is said, there were served up no less
than two thousand choice fishes and seven thousand birds.
Yet
even this supper he himself outdid, at a feast he gave on the
first use of a dish which had been made for him, and which
for its extraordinary size he called “The Shield of Minerva. ”
In this dish were tossed up together the livers of char-fish, the
brains of pheasants and peacocks, the tongues of flamingoes, and
the entrails of lampreys, which had been brought in ships of
war as far as from the Carpathian Sea and the Spanish Straits.
He was not only a man of insatiable appetite, but would gratify
it at the most unseasonable times, and with any garbage that
came in his way.
He delighted in the infliction of punishments, even capital
ones, without any distinction of persons or occasions. Several
noblemen, his schoolfellows and companions, invited by him to
court, he treated with such flattering caresses as seemed to indi-
cate an affection short only of admitting them to share the hon-
ors of the imperial dignity; yet he put them all to death by
some base means or other. To one he gave poison with his own
hand, in a cup of cold water which he called for in a fever.
He scarcely spared one of all the usurers, notaries, and publicans
who had ever demanded a debt of him at Rome, or any toll
or custom on the road. One of these, while in the very act of
saluting him, he ordered for execution, but immediately sent for
him back; upon which all about him applauding his clemency,
he commanded him to be slain in his own presence, saying, "I
have a mind to feed my eyes. ” Two sons who interceded for
their father, he ordered to be executed with him. A Roman
knight, upon his being dragged away for execution, and crying
out to him, “You are my heir,” he desired to produce his will;
and finding that he had made his freedman joint heir with him,
he commanded that both he and the freedman should have their
throats cut.
## p. 14209 (#399) ##########################################
14209
SULLY-PRUDHOMME
(RENÉ FRANÇOIS ARMAND PRUDHOMME)
(1839-)
BY FIRMIN ROZ
ULLY-PRUDHOMME, born in Paris, May 16th, 1839, is the poet
who best represents the last third of the century. But he
represents it as a poet; that is, in beauty and in noble-
ness, in its most intimate aspirations, in its purest sorrows, in its
most beautiful impulses.
The spirit so freely poured out in romantic lyricism seemed, after
an enchanted rest in the picturesque poetry
of Théophile Gautier and the fancy of Théo-
dore de Banville, to reawaken and come to
itself again. After the period during which
it found the fullest expression, and that
during which it had seemed to forget its
own existence, behold it meditating in the
midst of tumult, and seeking illumination
to guide its way henceforth more prudently.
Leconte de Lisle examines the history of
the beliefs of humanity, and sets forth the
different forms of the Divine dream and
of the conception of life, in the Poèmes SULLY-PRUDHOMME
Antiques) (1853) and the 'Poèmes Barbares)
(1859); which made him, in the absence of Victor Hugo, then in
exile, the acknowledged master of French poetry. Around him are
grouped the poets who were soon to take the name of «Parnassians,"
after the publication of their verses by the publisher Lemerre in
the collection Parnasse Contemporain? (1866). Sully-Prudhomme,
younger by twenty years, came by another way. A very tender
sensibility was united in him to very serious reflection. His educa-
tion had favored these natural tendencies. Reared by a mother in
mourning, who was never consoled for the death of an adored hus-
band,- for whom she had waited ten years, and whom she lost after
four years of marriage, - the child had been placed in school very
young, and had already suffered from “the first loneliness. ) Later,
preparation for the École Polytechnique had developed in him a taste
XXIV—889
-
## p. 14210 (#400) ##########################################
14210
SULLY-PRUDHOMME
for the sciences, and had revealed to him the secrets of their exact
methods. A malady of the eyes obliged him to abandon his studies
just as they were about to be crowned with success. But his mind
retained their impress. The deepest feeling and the most scrupulous
thinking henceforth shared his inspiration; or to express it better,
mingled in and imbued an original poetry which is both analytic and
living, scholarly and emotional. Now sentiment dominates, illumi-
nated by a ray of careful thought (see L'Agonie,' which we cite);
now it is the idea developed, but colored, warmed, penetrated, by
feeling. Such are the delightful collections of the first fifteen years:
(Stances et Poèmes) (1865), "Les Épreuves) (The Tests: 1866), "Les
Solitudes) (1869), “Les Vrais Tendresses' (The True Affections: '1875).
But the philosophical thinking of Sully-Prudhomme did not find
satisfaction in the close analyses or penetrating intuitions which these
poems translated. The conflict of reason and the heart, which is the
drama of our time, tortured the poet. He resolved to consecrate to
it his dearest vigils. From this noble effort two grand philosophi-
cal poems resulted: (La Justice and Le Bonheur' (1888). Doubt-
less philosophic poetry already existed in our literature: Jocelyn'
and the Chute d'un Ange,' some parts of the Contemplation,'
(Eloa, Moise,' and Les Destinées,' are masterpieces. But Sully-
Prudhomme has done something different. For imaginative dreams
of philosophy he has substituted methodical investigation; slow,
prudent, but always anxious, and hence worthy of poetry. And his
ambition has been precisely to reconcile poetry with scientific re-
search, In order to adapt himself to the difficulties of this task,-
“to demand from the strongest and most exact of poets the secret of
subjecting the verse to the idea,” — he began by translating verse by
verse, with rigorous exactness and without altering its strong beauty,
the first book of Lucretius. Then he began upon his great poem,
"La Justice. This poem, very symmetrical in composition, comprises
eleven "vigils,” preceded by a prologue and followed by an epilogue.
After seeking justice in the universe without finding it, the poet dis-
covers it at last in the heart of man, which is its inviolable and
sacred temple. The first six vigils form the first part of the volume
(Silence au Cour' (Heart, Be Silent); the last five are grouped
in a second part entitled Appel au Cour' (Appeal to the Heart).
Each vigil is a dialogue between “The Seeker,” who pitilessly analyzes
every idea or every fact in a sonnet, and "A Voice,” which consoles
and reassures him by revealing the divine aspect of all things.
Le Bonheur? (Happiness) is a symbolic epic. Faustus and Stella,
set free from earth, seek the happiness which they had vainly pur-
sued here below. Neither emotional Intoxication” « Thought”
can realize this ideal so imperiously claimed by all hearts. The third
nor
## p. 14211 (#401) ##########################################
SULLY-PRUDHOMME
14211
part, Le Suprême Essor (The Supreme Flight), shows us that sacri-
fice alone can elevate us to a true felicity.
Doubtless there are laborious verses in these two long-winded
works, in which Sully-Prudhomme has attempted the difficult recon-
ciliation of pure thought with poetry. But there are incomparable
beauties, truly new. Never has philosophic poetry been more rigor-
ous, while retaining more of beauty; never has the fusion been so
close between the thought, the sentiment, and the image.
Sully-Prudhomme has published in prose a remarkable study in
æsthetics, 'L'Expression dans les Beaux-Arts? (Expression in the Fine
Arts: 1884); "Réflexions sur l'Art des Vers' (Reflections on the Art of
Versification: 1892); and a philosophical volume (1895) on the nature,
the limitations, and the extent of our learning, Que Sais-je ? (What
Do I Know ? ) His translation of the first book of Lucretius contains
a long preface Upon the state and the future of philosophy. ”
Firmin
Roz
TO THE READER
THESE
HESE flowers I gathered by the highway side,
Where good and evil fate has cast my days:
I dare not give them to you loosely tied;
I'll twine them in a wreath — to win more praise.
Still fresh, the rose is weeping tear on tear;
The pansy lifts her eye of purple hue;
Then the calm lilies, dreamers of the mere,
And budding corn; - and there my life lies too.
And thine too, reader, - is't not even so ?
One fate is always ours in joy or woe,-
To weep love's tears, and think, but never know,
How we have lost in dreaming spring's best day.
.
Then comes the hour when we would rise from play,
And plant some seed before we pass away.
## p. 14212 (#402) ##########################################
14212
SULLY-PRUDHOMME
UNKNOWN FRIENDS
NE line
One Re-ope the wound whose smart is not forgot
;
The word that doth another's sufferings tell
May drop like tears on our own anguished spot,
Where heart misjudged awaits its soothing spell.
My verse, perchance, may reach you and restore,
With lightning flash, the sleeping grief of old;
Or by that one true word — long waited for
The sudden name of all you feel unfold,
Nor tell the eyes from whom I learnt my lore.
THE MISSAL
A
MISSAL of the first King Francis's reign,
Rusted by years, with many a yellow stain,
And blazons worn, by pious fingers prest,-
Within whose leaves, enshrined in silver rare
By some old goldsmith's art in glory drest,
Speaking his boldness and his loving care,
This faded flower found rest.
How very old it is! you plainly mark
Upon the page its sap in tracery dark.
« Perhaps three hundred years ? » What need be said ?
It has but lost one shade of crimson dye;
Before its death it might have seen that flown:
Needs naught save wing of wandering butterfly
To touch the bloom
-'tis gone.
It has not lost one fibre from its heart,
Nor seen one jewel from its crown depart;
The page still wrinkles where the dew once dried,
When that last morn was sad with other weeping;
Death would not kill, - only to kiss it tried,
In loving guise above its brightness creeping,
Nor blighted as it died.
A sweet but mournful scent is o'er me stealing,
As when with memory wakes long-buried feeling;
That scent from the closed casket slow ascending
Tells of long years o'er that strange herbal sped.
## p. 14213 (#403) ##########################################
SULLY-PRUDHOMME
14213
Our bygone things have still some perfume blending,
And our lost loves are paths, where roses' bloom,
Sweet e'en in death, is shed.
At eve, when faint and sombre grows the air,
Perchance a lambent heart may flicker there,
Seeking an entrance to the book to find;
And when the Angelus strikes on the sky,
Praying some hand may that one page unbind,
Where all his love and homage lie, —
The flower that told his mind.
Take comfort, knight, who rode to Pavia's plain
But ne'er returned to woo your love again;
Or you, young page, whose heart rose up on high
To Mary and thy dame in mingled prayer!
This flower which died beneath some unknown eye
Three hundred years ago,- you placed it there,
And there it still shall lie.
LA CHARPIE
A
SOMBRE night, a starless sky!
Jeanne sits, her heart with weeping sore,
The cloth unwinding patiently
For soldiers wounded in the war.
Her lover to the war is gone:
His kiss yet fresh — 'twas but to-day:
Her brothers too! She sits alone:
They marched with him this morn away.
Now booms more closely on her ears
The cannon's summons, stern and loud,
“Surrender! Famine! ” Then she hears
Her City's “No” in answer proud.
Her holy task at last is o'er;
Has it not brought her spirit rest?
When suddenly her humble door
By timid hand is softly pressed.
A stranger girl is standing there
Within the door, her eyes as blue
## p. 14214 (#404) ##########################################
14214
SULLY-PRUDHOMME
As heaven, her features pale, her hair
Of gold, her dress of sombre hue.
And these her words:-Jeanne, have no fear,
The red cross on my arm I show;
My name and all that brings me here -
Oh, let me in ! - you soon shall know.
“At home they call me Margaret;
I've wandered from the banks of Rhine
For him on whom my heart is set:
Oh, let me in! Your grief is mine;
“By the same fears our hearts are torn;
Oh, by our youth, our love, our pain,
We're sisters now! leave hate and scorn
For deadly fight on yonder plain.
Together we'll our charpie weave:
For blood knows naught of colors two;
Those grow alike who love and grieve:
We'll weep together, I and you! ”
She, ere the words had left her lips,
The charpie threads asunder tore,
Working with trembling finger-tips
For soldiers wounded in the war.
ENFANTILLAGE
M"
Y LADY! you were little then:
Twelve years were mine;
Soon forgotten were your lovers,
All left to pine.
When we played among the others,
You still I sought;
When small hands were intertwining,
'Twas yours I caught.
As in gold and purple glory,
Poised o'er the rose,
Tells the butterfly his story,
All his heart glows;
## p. 14215 (#405) ##########################################
SULLY-PRUDHOMME
14215
Leaf by leaf, still nearer drawing,
Is yet too shy
All the honey-dew to gather
She holds so nigh:
So my heart was yearning wildly
Your lips to press;
'Twas your slender fingers only
I dared caress.
Through me thrilled a sudden rapture,
Then keen as woe:
What gave joy and pain such meeting ?
Love – long ago.
Twelve years only — and a lover!
'Tis not common.
You too, Lady — were you feeling
Like a woman ?
Did there come some thought bewildering
As, half afraid,
With your frock and with your dolly
You stood and played ?
-
If I praised too soon a poet –
Your tiny feet,
Too soon fair, you leant and touched me
With magic sweet.
I at least have ne'er forgotten
That even-tide
When we set up house together,-
Bridegroom and bride.
Gems you dreamed of;—I dreamed over
My vow to you!
Both were older than our years were,
Both different too!
We played at the dance and dinner:
You wished it so,-
Said that proper weddings must have
Some pomp and show.
You enjoyed it as a pastime,–
I thought it true,
## p. 14216 (#406) ##########################################
14216
SULLY-PRUDHOMME
Told my love aloud, and whispered
« Dearest to you.
On your cheek I ventured, dreaming,
One kiss to leave.
Play for me has all been over
Since that spring eve.
AU BORD DE L'EAU
Tºs
sit and watch the wavelets as they flow,
Two,-side by side ;
To see the gliding clouds that come and go,
And mark them glide;
If from low roofs the smoke is wreathing pale,
To watch it wreathe;
If flowers around breathe perfume on the gale,
To feel them breathe;
If the bee sips the honeyed fruit that glistens,
To sip the dew;
If the bird warbles while the forest listens,
To listen too;
Beneath the willow where the brook is singing,
To hear its song;
Nor feel, while round us that sweet dream is clinging,
The hours too long;
To know one only deep o'ermastering passion, -
The love we share;
To let the world go worrying in its fashion
Without one care —
We only, while around all weary grow,
Unwearied stand,
And midst the fickle changes others know,
Love - hand in hand.
## p. 14217 (#407) ##########################################
SULLY-PRUDHOMME
14217
CE QUI DURE
HO
ow cold and wan the present lowers,
O my true Love! around us twain;
How little of the Past is ours !
How changed the friends who yet remain.
We cannot without envying view
The eyes with twenty summers gay;
For eyes 'neath which our childhood grew
Have long since passed from earth away.
Each hour still steals our youth; alas!
No hour will e'er the theft restore:
There's but one thing that will not pass,-
The heart I loved thee with of yore.
That heart which plays in life its part,
With love elate, with loss forlorn,
Is still — through all — the child's pure heart
My mother gave when I was born.
That heart, where nothing new can light,
Where old thoughts draw their cherished breath,-
It loves thee, dear, with all the might
That Life can wield in strife with Death.
If it of Death the conqueror be,
If there's in Man some nobler part
That wins him immortality,
Then thou hast, Love! that deathless heart.
IF YOU BUT KNEW
I
F YOU but knew the tears that fall
For life unloved and fireside drear,
Perhaps, before my lonely hall,
You would pass near.
If you but knew your power to thrill
My drooping soul by one pure glance,
One look across my window-sill
You'd cast perchance.
## p. 14218 (#408) ##########################################
14218
SULLY-PRUDHOMME
If you but knew what soothing balm
One heart can on another pour,
Would you not sit - a sister calm
Beside my door ?
And if you knew I loved you well,
And loved you too with all my heart,
You'd come to me, with me to dwell,
And ne'er depart.
SEPARATION
W"
E WANDERED down, at dawn of day,
A narrow path — heart close to heart;
At noon, upon the world's highway,
I walk to right, you left - apart.
No more we have our heaven together.
How bright is yours! How black is mine!
Your choice is still the sunniest weather,
I keep the side where naught will shine.
Where'er you walk, gleams round you play -
The very sand has diamond beads;
No beams e'er light with gladdening ray
The cold gray soil my footstep treads.
Bird-songs and whispers full of sweets,
Caressing, woo your eye and ear;
Your hair the breeze, adoring, greets;
Your lip the bee, entranced, draws near.
And I - I can but sing and sigh;
My heart's deep wound is ill at ease;
From leaf-hid nests the fondling cry
Disturbs me more than it can please.
But Love! a sky forever bright
May make too keen our mortal joy;
The air's embrace has too much might;
The incense e'en of flowers may cloy.
Then yearns the soul for that calm rest
That closes round at closing day,
With half-shut eye, on some true breast
To watch Life's fever ebb away.
## p. 14219 (#409) ##########################################
SULLY-PRUDHOMME
14219
Will you not come and take your seat
By that highway at evening-fall?
I'll wait you there. We two shall meet
Where one deep shadow wraps it all.
THE DEATH AGONY
Y*
E who are watching when my end draws near,
Speak not, I pray!
'Twill help me most some music faint to hear,
And pass away.
For song can loosen, link by link, each care
From life's hard chain.
So gently rock my griefs; but oh, beware!
To speak were pain.
I'm weary of all words: their wisest speech
Can naught reveal;
Give me the spirit-sounds minds cannot reach,
But hearts can feel.
Some melody which all my soul shall steep,
As tranced I lie,
Passing from visions wild to dreamy sleep,-
From sleep to die.
Ye who are watching when my end draws near,
Speak not, I pray!
Some sounds of music murmuring in my ear
Will smooth my way.
My nurse, poor shepherdess! I'd bid you seek;
Tell her my whim:
I want her near me, when I'ın faint and weak
On the grave's brim.
I want to hear her sing, ere I depart,
Just once again,
In simple monotone to touch the heart
That Old World strain.
You'll find her still, - the rustic hovel gives
Calm hopes and fears;
But in this world of mine one rarely lives
Thrice twenty years.
## p. 14220 (#410) ##########################################
14220
SULLY-PRUDHOMME
Be sure you leave us with our hearts alone,
Only us two!
She'll sing to me in her old trembling tone,
Stroking my brow.
She only to the end will love through all
My good and ill;
So will the air of those old songs recall
My first years still.
And dreaming thus, I shall not feel at last
My heart-strings torn,
But all unknowing, the great barriers past,
Die- as we're born.
Ye who are watching when my end draws near,
Speak not, I pray!
'Twill help me most some music faint to hear,
And pass away.
The above translations were all made by E. and R. E. Prothero.
## p. 14220 (#411) ##########################################
## p. 14220 (#412) ##########################################
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## p. 14220 (#414) ##########################################
## p. 14221 (#415) ##########################################
14221
CHARLES SUMNER
(1811-1874)
HARLES SUMNER was born in Boston, January 6th, 1811. His
name is inscribed on the roll of men of letters; but it is
e indeed writ larger, and more familiarly known, upon a
somewhat different page. There can be no doubt, however, that the
effective orator has an honored place among literary artists. In fact
some men, weary of fictitious pathos and useless tears, might be
tempted to give the highest honors, even in the art of expression,
not to epic poet or romancer, but to him who in a vital crisis sways
a doubting Senate or a reluctant mob to heroic decision and action.
And this learned jurist, this many-sided indefatigable scholar, this
puritanic reformer and persistent doctrinaire, was an inspiring orator,
a powerful preacher of political ethics and civic righteousness.
Perhaps there has been no more typical example of that earlier
Bostonian culture, with its high standards, than Charles Sumner. He
knew nothing of such early hardships, such a struggle for intellectual
life, as Lincoln's. He followed his grandfather and his father from
the best classical schools to Harvard College, where he graduated in
1830. When he came of age he was already Judge Story's favorite
pupil. At twenty-five he was widely known, even to European
scholars, through his learned essays in the Jurist, and had pub-
lished several volumes of legal Reports' which are still standard
works of reference. His interest was deepest in the large problems
of international law. In England, thanks to Judge Story's enthusias-
tic letters and his own modest worth, he had such popularity and
social success no young American of private station had ever
enjoyed. He was repeatedly invited to a seat beside the judges in
the highest English courts.
From his three happy years in England, France, Italy, and Ger-
many (1837-1840), he returned to the rather uncongenial and un-
remunerative practice of law in his native Boston. He was not only
learned in history and kindred fields, but a trained connoisseur in
music and art as well. Naturally he was one of the favorites in
the brilliant circle centring about the Ticknors. His lifelong friend-
ships with Longfellow, and others of the group, were already firmly
knit. A casual remark of his at this period indicates an ambition to
become some day president of Harvard College. Judge Story's dying
as
## p. 14222 (#416) ##########################################
14222
CHARLES SUMNER
(
desire was that Charles Sumner should fill his chair in the Harvard
Law School.
But in that very year, this industrious many-sided scholar had sud-
denly discovered the sterner purpose for which his life had thus far
been the preparation. He was invited to deliver the Fourth of July
oration, in the presence of the citizen militia, on the eve of the war
of conquest against Mexico. His speech, on "The True Grandeur of
Nations,' was a fervent protest against all war as a survival of bar-
barism.
In the next autumn - eight years later than his old schoolmate
Phillips — he plunged into the Abolition agitation. His speech in
November 1845 at once gave him a leading place in the political
wing of the movement. The social ostracism and ridicule he had to
face cannot have disturbed his lofty soul. The partial abandonment
of his cherished studies no doubt cost him an inward struggle. But
there was no hesitation, when the call grew clear to him.
« ( Forego thy dreams of lettered ease;
Lay thou the scholar's promise by:
The rights of man are more than these. )
He heard, and answered: Here am I. ) »
It was in 1851 that a fusion of Free-Soilers and Democrats made
Sumner United States Senator from Massachusetts. He succeeded
Webster, and Clay left the Senate on the day Sumner entered it.
Mr. Carl Schurz makes effective use of this dramatic coincidence in
his noble Eulogy.
Sumner held his seat in the Senate until his death; his chair be-
ing kept vacant by his State for three years during his slow recovery
from the famous assault on him in his seat in the Senate chamber,
by Preston Smith Brooks of South Carolina. His assailant rained
blows upon his head with a bludgeon, while his victim was trying to
extricate himself from his seat until he fell senseless and bloody upon
the floor.
Through all changing conditions, almost single-handed at first, then
as leader of a triumphant party, again alienated from nearly all his
old associates, Sumner advocated always the ideal rights of man, the
cause of the weak against the strong. He had no conception of pol-
itic delay, of concealment, of compromise. He was not a practical
legislator even. Very few measures were enacted into law in the
form in which he presented them. He had in large measure the
scornful intolerance of the devoted reformer. Even as a preacher,
his lack of humor or wit would have seemed a heavy handicap. Yet
he was on the one hand the most welcome guest of gentle, schol-
arly Longfellow; and on the other the favorite counselor of shrewd,
## p. 14223 (#417) ##########################################
CHARLES SUMNER
14223
humorous, self-taught Abraham Lincoln, who, with all his sure-footed
caution, never chafed under Mr. Sumner's impetuous advocacy of the
most advanced ideal measures. Perhaps no civilian, save Lincoln him-
self, molded in so large measure the issues of that most vital crisis in
our national history.
From the fifteen stately volumes that record Charles Sumner's
life work, it would hardly be possible to select a page without some
allusion to the cause to which that life was so freely given. It has
seemed desirable for a literary work to select chiefly from some of
his other utterances, like the early Phi Beta Kappa oration at Har-
vard, commemorating four friends then recently departed.
There is an important biography of Sumner by his friend and
literary executor, Edward L. Pierce. The best brief summary of his
career is the Eulogy delivered at Boston by Senator Schurz. Besides
the exquisite dirge written for his friend's funeral, the poet Longfel-
low includes Sumner in the little group of "Three Friends) to whom
a sheaf of sonnets is devoted. Whittier also greeted repeatedly in
generous verse his fellow-warrior and beloved comrade.
IN TIME OF PEACE PREPARE FOR WAR
T
He sentiment that “In time of peace we must prepare for
war,” has been transmitted from distant ages when brute
force prevailed. It is the terrible inheritance, damnosa
hæreditas, which painfully reminds the people of our day of their
relations with the past. It belongs to the rejected dogmas of
barbarism. It is the companion of those harsh rules of tyranny
by which the happiness of the many has been offered up to the
propensities of the few. It is the child of suspicion and the fore-
runner of violence. Having in its favor the almost uninterrupted
usage of the world, it possesses a hold on popular opinion which
is not easily unloosed. And yet the conscientious soul cannot fail,
on careful observation, to detect its mischievous fallacy,- at least
among Christian States in the present age: a fallacy the most
costly the world has witnessed; which dooms nations to annual
tributes, in comparison with which all that have been extorted by
conquests are as the widow's mite by the side of Pharisaical con-
tributions. So true is what Rousseau said, and Guizot has since
repeated, that "A bad principle is far worse than a bad fact: »
for the operations of the one are finite, while those of the other
are infinite.
## p. 14224 (#418) ##########################################
14224
CHARLES SUMNER
I speak of this principle with earnestness; for I believe it to
be erroneous and false, founded in ignorance and barbarism, un-
worthy of an age of light, and disgraceful to Christians. I have
called it a principle; but it is a mere prejudice,- sustained by
vulgar example only, and not by lofty truth,-in obeying which
we imitate the early mariners, who steered from headland to
headland and hugged the shore, unwilling to venture upon the
broad ocean, where their guide was the luminaries of heaven.
Dismissing from our minds the actual usage of nations on the
one side and the considerations of economy on the other, let us
regard these preparations for war in the unclouded light of
reason, in a just appreciation of the nature of man, and in the
injunctions of the highest truth; and we cannot hesitate to brand
them as pernicious. They are pernicious on two grounds; and
whoso would vindicate them must satisfactorily answer these ob-
jections: first, because they inflame the people who make them,
exciting them to deeds of violence, otherwise alien to their minds;
and secondly, because, having their origin in the low motive of
distrust and hate, they inevitably, by a sure law of the human
mind, excite a corresponding feeling in other nations. Thus they
are, in fact, not the preservers of peace, but the provokers of
war.
In illustration of the first of these objections, it will occur to
every inquirer, that the possession of power is always in itself
dangerous, that it tempts the purest and highest natures to
self-indulgence, that it can rarely be enjoyed without abuse; nor
is the power to employ force in war, an exception to this law.
History teaches that the nations possessing the greatest arma-
ments have always been the most belligerent; while the feebler
powers have enjoyed for a longer period the blessings of peace.
The din of war resounds throughout more than seven hundred
years of Roman history, with only two short lulls of repose;
while smaller States, less potent in arms, and without the excite-
ment to quarrels on this account, have enjoyed long eras of peace.
It is not in the history of nations only that we find proofs of
this law. Like every moral principle, it applies equally to indi-
viduals. The experience of private life in all ages confirms it.
The wearing of arms has always been a provocative to combat.
It has excited the spirit and furnished the implements of strife.
Reverting to the progress of society in modern Europe, we find
that the odious system of private quarrels, of hostile meetings
## p. 14225 (#419) ##########################################
CHARLES SUMNER
14225
use of
even in the street, continued so long as men persevered in the
habit of wearing arms. Innumerable families were thinned by
death received in these hasty and unpremeditated encounters;
and the lives of scholars and poets were often exposed to their
rude chances. Marlowe, “with all his rare learning and wit,” per-
ished ignominiously under the weapon of an unknown adversary;
and Savage, whose genius and misfortune inspired the friendship
and the eulogies of Johnson, was tried for murder committed in
a sudden broil. “ The expert swordsman,” says Mr. Jay, “the
practiced marksman, is ever more ready to engage in personal
combats than the man who is unaccustomed to the
deadly weapons. In those portions of our country where it is
supposed essential to personal safety to go armed with pistols
and bowie knives, mortal affrays are so frequent as to excite but
little attention, and to secure, with rare exceptions, impunity to
the murderer; whereas at the North and East, where we are un-
provided with such facilities for taking life, comparatively few
murders of the kind are perpetrated. We might, indeed, safely
submit the decision of the principle we are discussing to the cal-
culations of pecuniary interest. Let two men, equal in age and
health, apply for an insurance on their lives, -one known to be
ever armed to defend his honor and his life against every assail-
ant, and the other a meek, unresisting Quaker: can we doubt
for a moment which of these men would be deemed by the
insurance company most likely to reach a good old age ? ”
The second objection is founded on that law of the human
mind in obedience to which the sentiment of distrust or hate
of which these preparations are the representatives — must excite
a corresponding sentiment in others. This law is a part of the
unalterable nature of man, recognized in early ages, though un-
happily too rarely made the guide to peaceful intercourse among
nations. It is an expansion of the old Horatian adage, “Si vis
me flere, dolendum est primum ipsi tibi” (If you wish me to
weep, you must yourself first weep). Nobody can question its
force or its applicability; nor is it too much to say that it dis-
tinctly declares that military preparations by one nation, in time
of professed peace, must naturally prompt similar preparations by
other nations, and quicken everywhere within the circle of their
influence the spirit of war. So are we all knit together, that the
feelings in our own bosoms awaken corresponding feelings in the
bosoms of others; as harp answers to harp in its softest vibra-
tions; as deep responds to deep in the might of its passions.
XXIV-890
## p. 14226 (#420) ##########################################
14226
CHARLES SUMNER
What within us is good invites the good in our brother, -gen-
erosity begets generosity; love wins love; peace secures peace:
while all within us that is bad challenges the bad in our brother,
- distrust engenders distrust; hate provokes hate; war arouses
war.
Life is full of illustrations of this beautiful law. Even the
miserable maniac, in whose mind the common rules of conduct
are overthrown, confesses its overruling power; and the vacant
stare of madness may be illumined by a word of love. The wild
beasts confess it; and what is the story of Orpheus, whose music
drew in listening rapture the lions and panthers of the forest,
but an expression of its prevailing influence? It speaks also in
the examples of literature. And here, at the risk of protracting
this discussion, I am tempted to glance at some of these instruct-
ive instances, - hoping, however, not to seem to attach undue
meaning to them, and especially disclaiming any conclusions from
them beyond the simple law which they illustrate.
Looking back to the early dawn of the world, one of the most
touching scenes which we behold, illumined by that auroral light,
is the peaceful visit of the aged Priam to the tent of Achilles to
entreat the body of his son. The fierce combat has ended in the
death of Hector, whose unhonored corse the bloody Greek has
already trailed behind his chariot. The venerable father, after
twelve days of grief, is moved to efforts to regain the remains of
the Hector he had so dearly loved. He leaves his lofty cedarn
chamber, and with a single aged attendant, unarmed, repairs to
the Grecian camp by the side of the distant sounding sea. Enter-
ing alone, he finds Achilles within his tent, in the company of
two of his chiefs. Grasping his knees, he kisses those terrible
homicidal hands which had taken the life of his son. The heart
of the inflexible, the angry, the inflamed Achilles, touched by the
sight which he beholds, responds to the feelings of Priam. He
takes the suppliant by the hand, seats him by his side, consoles
his grief, refreshes his weary body, and concedes to the prayers
of a weak, unarmed old man, what all Troy in arms could not
win. In this scene, which fills a large part of the book of the
Iliad, the poet with unconscious power has presented a picture of
the omnipotence of that law of our nature making all mankind
of kin, in obedience to which no word of kindness, no act of
confidence, falls idly to the earth.
Among the legendary passages of Roman history, perhaps
none makes a deeper impression than that scene after the Roman
## p. 14227 (#421) ##########################################
CHARLES SUMNER
14227
youth had been consumed at Allia, and the invading Gauls under
Brennus had entered the city; where we behold the venerable
senators of the republic - too old to flee, and careless of surviv-
ing the Roman name seated each on his curule chair in a
temple, unarmed, looking, as Livy says, more august than mor-
tal, and with the majesty of the gods. The Gauls gaze on them
as upon sacred images; and the hand of slaughter, which had
raged through the streets of Rome, is stayed by the sight of an
assembly of unarmed men. At length a Gaul approaches, and
with his hands gently strokes the silver beard of a senator,
who, indignant at the license, smites the barbarian with his ivory
staff; which was the signal for general vengeance. Think you
that a band of savages could have slain these senators, if the
appeal to force had not first been made by one of their own
number? This story, though recounted by Livy, and also by
Plutarch, is properly repudiated by Niebuhr as a legend; but it
is none the less interesting, as showing the law by which hostile
feelings are necessarily aroused or subdued. The heart of man
confesses that the Roman senator provoked death for himself
and his associates.
Other instances present themselves. An admired picture by
Virgil, in his melodious epic, represents a person venerable for
piety and deserts, assuaging by words alone a furious populace
which had just broken into sedition and outrage. Guizot, in his
History of French Civilization,' has preserved a similar instruct-
ive example of the effect produced by an unarmed man, in an
illiterate epoch, who, employing the word instead of the sword,
subdued an angry multitude. And surely no reader of that
noble historical romance the Promessi Sposi' can forget that
finest scene, where Fra Cristoforo, in an age of violence, after
slaying a comrade in a broil, in unarmed penitence seeks the
presence of the family and retainers of his victim, and by his
dignified gentleness awakens the admiration of those already
mad with the desire of vengeance. Another example, made
familiar by recent translations of Frithiof's Saga,' the Swedish
epic, is more emphatic. The scene is a battle. Frithiof is in
deadly combat with Atlé, when the falchion of the latter breaks.
Throwing away his own weapon, he says:
« Swordless foeman's life
Ne'er dyed this gallant blade. ”
## p. 14228 (#422) ##########################################
14228
CHARLES SUMNER
The two champions now close in mutual clutch; they hug like
bears, says the poet: ---
« 'Tis o'er: for Frithiof's matchless strength
Has felled his ponderous size;
And 'neath that knee, at giant length,
Supine the Viking lies.
But fails my sword, thou Berserk swart! )
The voice rang far and wide,
Its point should pierce thy inmost heart,
Its hilt should drink the tide. )
(Be free to lift the weaponed hand,'
Undaunted Atlé spoke:
'Hence, fearless quest thy distant brand !
Thus I abide the stroke. ) »
(
Frithiof regains his sword, intent to close the dread debate,
while his adversary awaits the stroke; but his heart responds to
the generous courage of his foe, — he cannot injure one who has
shown such confidence in him:
« This quelled his ire, this checked his arm,
Outstretched the hand of peace. ”
SOME CHANGES IN MODERN LIFE
A
USPICIOUS omens from the past and the present cheer us for
the future. The terrible wars of the French Revolution
were the violent rending of the body which preceded the
exorcism of the fiend. Since the morning stars first sang to-
gether, the world has not witnessed a peace so harmonious and
enduring as that which now blesses the Christian nations. Great
questions between them, fraught with strife, and in another age
sure heralds of war, are now determined by mediation or arbitra-
tion. Great political movements, which only a few short years
ago must have led to forcible rebellion, are now conducted by
peaceful discussion.
Literature, the press, and various societies,
all join in the holy work of inculcating good-will to man. The
spirit of humanity now pervades the best writings, whether the
elevated philosophical inquiries of the Vestiges of Creation,'
the ingenious but melancholy moralizings of the Story of a
Feather,' or the overflowing raillery of Punch. Nor can the
## p. 14229 (#423) ##########################################
CHARLES SUMNER
14229
breathing thought and burning word of poet or orator have a
higher inspiration. Genius is never so Promethean as when it
bears the heavenly fire of love to the hearths of men.
In the last age, Dr. Johnson uttered the detestable sentiment
that he liked “a good hater. ” The man of this age must say
that he likes “a good lover. ” Thus reversing the objects of re-
gard, he follows a higher wisdom and a purer religion than the
renowned moralist knew. He recognizes that peculiar Christian
sentiment, the brotherhood of mankind, destined soon to become
the decisive touchstone of all human institutions.
durst not venture upon this project, for fear of being torn to
pieces before he could get to the forum. Deferring therefore
his resolution until the next day, he awoke about midnight, and
finding the guards withdrawn, he leaped out of bed, and sent
## p. 14206 (#396) ##########################################
14206
SUETONIUS
sage in
.
round for his friends. But none of them vouchsafing any mes-
reply, he went with a few attendants to their houses.
The doors being everywhere shut, and no one giving him any
answer, he returned to his bed-chamber, whence those who had
the charge of it had all now eloped; some having gone one way
and some another, carrying off with them his bedding and box
of poison. He then endeavored to find Spicillus the gladiator,
or some one, to kill him; but not being able to procure any one,
« What! ” said he, have I then neither friend nor foe? ” and im-
mediately ran out, as if he would throw himself into the Tiber.
But this furious impulse subsiding, he wished for some place
of privacy, where he might collect his thoughts; and his freed-
man Phaon offering him his country-house, between the Salarian
and Nomentan roads, about four miles from the city, he mounted
a horse, barefoot as he was and in his tunic, only slipping over
it an old soiled cloak; with his head muffled up, and a handker-
chief before his face, and four persons only to attend him, of
whom Sporus was one. He was suddenly struck with horror
by an earthquake, and by a flash of lightning which darted full
in his face; and heard from the neighboring camp the shouts of
the soldiers, wishing his destruction, and prosperity to Galba. He
also heard a traveler they met on the road say, “They are in
pursuit of Nero;” and another ask, “Is there any news in the
city about Nero ? » Uncovering his face when his horse was
started by the scent of a carcass which lay in the road, he was
recognized and saluted by an old soldier who had been discharged
from the guards. When they came to the lane which turned up
to the house, they quitted their horses, and with much difficulty
he wound among bushes and briers, and along a track through a
bed of rushes, over which they spread their cloaks for him to
walk on. Having reached a wall at the back of the villa, Phaon
advised him to hide himself awhile in a sand-pit; when he re-
plied, "I will not go underground alive. ” Staying there some
little time, while preparations were made for bringing him pri-
vately into the villa, he took up in his hand some water out of
a neighboring tank, to drink, saying, “This is Nero's distilled
water. ” Then, his cloak having been torn by the brambles, he
pulled out the thorns which stuck in it. At last, being admitted,
creeping upon his hands and knees through a hole made for him
in the wall, he lay down in the first closet he came to, upon a
miserable pallet, with an old coverlet thrown over it; and being
((
## p. 14207 (#397) ##########################################
SUETONIUS
14207
>
both hungry and thirsty, though he refused some coarse bread
that was brought him, he drank a little warm water.
All who surrounded him now pressing him to save himself
from the indignities which were ready to befall him, he ordered
a pit to be sunk before his eyes, of the size of his body, and the
bottom to be covered with pieces of marble put together, if any
could be found about the house; and water and wood to be got
ready for immediate use about his corpse: weeping at everything
that was done, and frequently saying, "What an artist is now
about to perish! ” Meanwhile, letters being brought in by a sery-
ant belonging to Phaon, he snatched them out of his hand and
there read, “That he had been declared an enemy by the Senate;
and that search was making for him, that he might be pun-
ished according to the ancient custom of the Romans. ” He then
inquired what kind of punishment that was; and being told that
the practice was to strip the criminal naked and scourge him to
death, while his neck was fastened within a forked stake, he was
so terrified that he took up two daggers which he had brought
with him, and after feeling the points of both, put them up again,
saying, “The fatal hour has not yet come. ” One while, he begged
of Sporus to begin to wail and lament; another while, he en-
treated that one of them would set him an example by killing
himself; and then again, he condemned his own want of resolu-
tion in these words: “I yet live, to my shame and disgrace: this
is not becoming for Nero; it is not becoming. · Thou oughtest
in such circumstances to have a good heart. Come then; cour-
age, man!
The horsemen who had received orders to bring
him away alive, were now approaching the house.
As soon
he heard them coming, he uttered with a trembling voice the fol-
lowing verse:-
“Ιππων μ' ωκυπόδων αμφί χτύπος ουατα βάλλει:
(The noise of swift-heeled steeds assails my ears;)
>
as
he then drove a dagger into his throat, being assisted in the act
by his secretary Epaphroditus. A centurion bursting in just as
he was dying, and applying his cloak to the wound, pretending
that he was come to his assistance, he made no other reply but
this: «'Tis too late,” and “Is this your loyalty ? ) Immediately
»
after pronouncing these words he expired, with his eyes fixed
and starting out of his head, to the terror of all who beheld him.
## p. 14208 (#398) ##########################################
14208
SUETONIUS
VITELLIUS
E
H
(
>
WAS chiefly addicted to the vices of luxury and cruelty.
He always made three meals a day, sometimes four; break-
fast, dinner, and supper, and a drunken revel after all.
For these several meals he would make different ap-
pointments at the houses of his friends, on the same day. None
ever entertained him at less expense than 400,000 sesterces Cover
$20,000). The most famous was a set entertainment given him
by his brother, at which, it is said, there were served up no less
than two thousand choice fishes and seven thousand birds.
Yet
even this supper he himself outdid, at a feast he gave on the
first use of a dish which had been made for him, and which
for its extraordinary size he called “The Shield of Minerva. ”
In this dish were tossed up together the livers of char-fish, the
brains of pheasants and peacocks, the tongues of flamingoes, and
the entrails of lampreys, which had been brought in ships of
war as far as from the Carpathian Sea and the Spanish Straits.
He was not only a man of insatiable appetite, but would gratify
it at the most unseasonable times, and with any garbage that
came in his way.
He delighted in the infliction of punishments, even capital
ones, without any distinction of persons or occasions. Several
noblemen, his schoolfellows and companions, invited by him to
court, he treated with such flattering caresses as seemed to indi-
cate an affection short only of admitting them to share the hon-
ors of the imperial dignity; yet he put them all to death by
some base means or other. To one he gave poison with his own
hand, in a cup of cold water which he called for in a fever.
He scarcely spared one of all the usurers, notaries, and publicans
who had ever demanded a debt of him at Rome, or any toll
or custom on the road. One of these, while in the very act of
saluting him, he ordered for execution, but immediately sent for
him back; upon which all about him applauding his clemency,
he commanded him to be slain in his own presence, saying, "I
have a mind to feed my eyes. ” Two sons who interceded for
their father, he ordered to be executed with him. A Roman
knight, upon his being dragged away for execution, and crying
out to him, “You are my heir,” he desired to produce his will;
and finding that he had made his freedman joint heir with him,
he commanded that both he and the freedman should have their
throats cut.
## p. 14209 (#399) ##########################################
14209
SULLY-PRUDHOMME
(RENÉ FRANÇOIS ARMAND PRUDHOMME)
(1839-)
BY FIRMIN ROZ
ULLY-PRUDHOMME, born in Paris, May 16th, 1839, is the poet
who best represents the last third of the century. But he
represents it as a poet; that is, in beauty and in noble-
ness, in its most intimate aspirations, in its purest sorrows, in its
most beautiful impulses.
The spirit so freely poured out in romantic lyricism seemed, after
an enchanted rest in the picturesque poetry
of Théophile Gautier and the fancy of Théo-
dore de Banville, to reawaken and come to
itself again. After the period during which
it found the fullest expression, and that
during which it had seemed to forget its
own existence, behold it meditating in the
midst of tumult, and seeking illumination
to guide its way henceforth more prudently.
Leconte de Lisle examines the history of
the beliefs of humanity, and sets forth the
different forms of the Divine dream and
of the conception of life, in the Poèmes SULLY-PRUDHOMME
Antiques) (1853) and the 'Poèmes Barbares)
(1859); which made him, in the absence of Victor Hugo, then in
exile, the acknowledged master of French poetry. Around him are
grouped the poets who were soon to take the name of «Parnassians,"
after the publication of their verses by the publisher Lemerre in
the collection Parnasse Contemporain? (1866). Sully-Prudhomme,
younger by twenty years, came by another way. A very tender
sensibility was united in him to very serious reflection. His educa-
tion had favored these natural tendencies. Reared by a mother in
mourning, who was never consoled for the death of an adored hus-
band,- for whom she had waited ten years, and whom she lost after
four years of marriage, - the child had been placed in school very
young, and had already suffered from “the first loneliness. ) Later,
preparation for the École Polytechnique had developed in him a taste
XXIV—889
-
## p. 14210 (#400) ##########################################
14210
SULLY-PRUDHOMME
for the sciences, and had revealed to him the secrets of their exact
methods. A malady of the eyes obliged him to abandon his studies
just as they were about to be crowned with success. But his mind
retained their impress. The deepest feeling and the most scrupulous
thinking henceforth shared his inspiration; or to express it better,
mingled in and imbued an original poetry which is both analytic and
living, scholarly and emotional. Now sentiment dominates, illumi-
nated by a ray of careful thought (see L'Agonie,' which we cite);
now it is the idea developed, but colored, warmed, penetrated, by
feeling. Such are the delightful collections of the first fifteen years:
(Stances et Poèmes) (1865), "Les Épreuves) (The Tests: 1866), "Les
Solitudes) (1869), “Les Vrais Tendresses' (The True Affections: '1875).
But the philosophical thinking of Sully-Prudhomme did not find
satisfaction in the close analyses or penetrating intuitions which these
poems translated. The conflict of reason and the heart, which is the
drama of our time, tortured the poet. He resolved to consecrate to
it his dearest vigils. From this noble effort two grand philosophi-
cal poems resulted: (La Justice and Le Bonheur' (1888). Doubt-
less philosophic poetry already existed in our literature: Jocelyn'
and the Chute d'un Ange,' some parts of the Contemplation,'
(Eloa, Moise,' and Les Destinées,' are masterpieces. But Sully-
Prudhomme has done something different. For imaginative dreams
of philosophy he has substituted methodical investigation; slow,
prudent, but always anxious, and hence worthy of poetry. And his
ambition has been precisely to reconcile poetry with scientific re-
search, In order to adapt himself to the difficulties of this task,-
“to demand from the strongest and most exact of poets the secret of
subjecting the verse to the idea,” — he began by translating verse by
verse, with rigorous exactness and without altering its strong beauty,
the first book of Lucretius. Then he began upon his great poem,
"La Justice. This poem, very symmetrical in composition, comprises
eleven "vigils,” preceded by a prologue and followed by an epilogue.
After seeking justice in the universe without finding it, the poet dis-
covers it at last in the heart of man, which is its inviolable and
sacred temple. The first six vigils form the first part of the volume
(Silence au Cour' (Heart, Be Silent); the last five are grouped
in a second part entitled Appel au Cour' (Appeal to the Heart).
Each vigil is a dialogue between “The Seeker,” who pitilessly analyzes
every idea or every fact in a sonnet, and "A Voice,” which consoles
and reassures him by revealing the divine aspect of all things.
Le Bonheur? (Happiness) is a symbolic epic. Faustus and Stella,
set free from earth, seek the happiness which they had vainly pur-
sued here below. Neither emotional Intoxication” « Thought”
can realize this ideal so imperiously claimed by all hearts. The third
nor
## p. 14211 (#401) ##########################################
SULLY-PRUDHOMME
14211
part, Le Suprême Essor (The Supreme Flight), shows us that sacri-
fice alone can elevate us to a true felicity.
Doubtless there are laborious verses in these two long-winded
works, in which Sully-Prudhomme has attempted the difficult recon-
ciliation of pure thought with poetry. But there are incomparable
beauties, truly new. Never has philosophic poetry been more rigor-
ous, while retaining more of beauty; never has the fusion been so
close between the thought, the sentiment, and the image.
Sully-Prudhomme has published in prose a remarkable study in
æsthetics, 'L'Expression dans les Beaux-Arts? (Expression in the Fine
Arts: 1884); "Réflexions sur l'Art des Vers' (Reflections on the Art of
Versification: 1892); and a philosophical volume (1895) on the nature,
the limitations, and the extent of our learning, Que Sais-je ? (What
Do I Know ? ) His translation of the first book of Lucretius contains
a long preface Upon the state and the future of philosophy. ”
Firmin
Roz
TO THE READER
THESE
HESE flowers I gathered by the highway side,
Where good and evil fate has cast my days:
I dare not give them to you loosely tied;
I'll twine them in a wreath — to win more praise.
Still fresh, the rose is weeping tear on tear;
The pansy lifts her eye of purple hue;
Then the calm lilies, dreamers of the mere,
And budding corn; - and there my life lies too.
And thine too, reader, - is't not even so ?
One fate is always ours in joy or woe,-
To weep love's tears, and think, but never know,
How we have lost in dreaming spring's best day.
.
Then comes the hour when we would rise from play,
And plant some seed before we pass away.
## p. 14212 (#402) ##########################################
14212
SULLY-PRUDHOMME
UNKNOWN FRIENDS
NE line
One Re-ope the wound whose smart is not forgot
;
The word that doth another's sufferings tell
May drop like tears on our own anguished spot,
Where heart misjudged awaits its soothing spell.
My verse, perchance, may reach you and restore,
With lightning flash, the sleeping grief of old;
Or by that one true word — long waited for
The sudden name of all you feel unfold,
Nor tell the eyes from whom I learnt my lore.
THE MISSAL
A
MISSAL of the first King Francis's reign,
Rusted by years, with many a yellow stain,
And blazons worn, by pious fingers prest,-
Within whose leaves, enshrined in silver rare
By some old goldsmith's art in glory drest,
Speaking his boldness and his loving care,
This faded flower found rest.
How very old it is! you plainly mark
Upon the page its sap in tracery dark.
« Perhaps three hundred years ? » What need be said ?
It has but lost one shade of crimson dye;
Before its death it might have seen that flown:
Needs naught save wing of wandering butterfly
To touch the bloom
-'tis gone.
It has not lost one fibre from its heart,
Nor seen one jewel from its crown depart;
The page still wrinkles where the dew once dried,
When that last morn was sad with other weeping;
Death would not kill, - only to kiss it tried,
In loving guise above its brightness creeping,
Nor blighted as it died.
A sweet but mournful scent is o'er me stealing,
As when with memory wakes long-buried feeling;
That scent from the closed casket slow ascending
Tells of long years o'er that strange herbal sped.
## p. 14213 (#403) ##########################################
SULLY-PRUDHOMME
14213
Our bygone things have still some perfume blending,
And our lost loves are paths, where roses' bloom,
Sweet e'en in death, is shed.
At eve, when faint and sombre grows the air,
Perchance a lambent heart may flicker there,
Seeking an entrance to the book to find;
And when the Angelus strikes on the sky,
Praying some hand may that one page unbind,
Where all his love and homage lie, —
The flower that told his mind.
Take comfort, knight, who rode to Pavia's plain
But ne'er returned to woo your love again;
Or you, young page, whose heart rose up on high
To Mary and thy dame in mingled prayer!
This flower which died beneath some unknown eye
Three hundred years ago,- you placed it there,
And there it still shall lie.
LA CHARPIE
A
SOMBRE night, a starless sky!
Jeanne sits, her heart with weeping sore,
The cloth unwinding patiently
For soldiers wounded in the war.
Her lover to the war is gone:
His kiss yet fresh — 'twas but to-day:
Her brothers too! She sits alone:
They marched with him this morn away.
Now booms more closely on her ears
The cannon's summons, stern and loud,
“Surrender! Famine! ” Then she hears
Her City's “No” in answer proud.
Her holy task at last is o'er;
Has it not brought her spirit rest?
When suddenly her humble door
By timid hand is softly pressed.
A stranger girl is standing there
Within the door, her eyes as blue
## p. 14214 (#404) ##########################################
14214
SULLY-PRUDHOMME
As heaven, her features pale, her hair
Of gold, her dress of sombre hue.
And these her words:-Jeanne, have no fear,
The red cross on my arm I show;
My name and all that brings me here -
Oh, let me in ! - you soon shall know.
“At home they call me Margaret;
I've wandered from the banks of Rhine
For him on whom my heart is set:
Oh, let me in! Your grief is mine;
“By the same fears our hearts are torn;
Oh, by our youth, our love, our pain,
We're sisters now! leave hate and scorn
For deadly fight on yonder plain.
Together we'll our charpie weave:
For blood knows naught of colors two;
Those grow alike who love and grieve:
We'll weep together, I and you! ”
She, ere the words had left her lips,
The charpie threads asunder tore,
Working with trembling finger-tips
For soldiers wounded in the war.
ENFANTILLAGE
M"
Y LADY! you were little then:
Twelve years were mine;
Soon forgotten were your lovers,
All left to pine.
When we played among the others,
You still I sought;
When small hands were intertwining,
'Twas yours I caught.
As in gold and purple glory,
Poised o'er the rose,
Tells the butterfly his story,
All his heart glows;
## p. 14215 (#405) ##########################################
SULLY-PRUDHOMME
14215
Leaf by leaf, still nearer drawing,
Is yet too shy
All the honey-dew to gather
She holds so nigh:
So my heart was yearning wildly
Your lips to press;
'Twas your slender fingers only
I dared caress.
Through me thrilled a sudden rapture,
Then keen as woe:
What gave joy and pain such meeting ?
Love – long ago.
Twelve years only — and a lover!
'Tis not common.
You too, Lady — were you feeling
Like a woman ?
Did there come some thought bewildering
As, half afraid,
With your frock and with your dolly
You stood and played ?
-
If I praised too soon a poet –
Your tiny feet,
Too soon fair, you leant and touched me
With magic sweet.
I at least have ne'er forgotten
That even-tide
When we set up house together,-
Bridegroom and bride.
Gems you dreamed of;—I dreamed over
My vow to you!
Both were older than our years were,
Both different too!
We played at the dance and dinner:
You wished it so,-
Said that proper weddings must have
Some pomp and show.
You enjoyed it as a pastime,–
I thought it true,
## p. 14216 (#406) ##########################################
14216
SULLY-PRUDHOMME
Told my love aloud, and whispered
« Dearest to you.
On your cheek I ventured, dreaming,
One kiss to leave.
Play for me has all been over
Since that spring eve.
AU BORD DE L'EAU
Tºs
sit and watch the wavelets as they flow,
Two,-side by side ;
To see the gliding clouds that come and go,
And mark them glide;
If from low roofs the smoke is wreathing pale,
To watch it wreathe;
If flowers around breathe perfume on the gale,
To feel them breathe;
If the bee sips the honeyed fruit that glistens,
To sip the dew;
If the bird warbles while the forest listens,
To listen too;
Beneath the willow where the brook is singing,
To hear its song;
Nor feel, while round us that sweet dream is clinging,
The hours too long;
To know one only deep o'ermastering passion, -
The love we share;
To let the world go worrying in its fashion
Without one care —
We only, while around all weary grow,
Unwearied stand,
And midst the fickle changes others know,
Love - hand in hand.
## p. 14217 (#407) ##########################################
SULLY-PRUDHOMME
14217
CE QUI DURE
HO
ow cold and wan the present lowers,
O my true Love! around us twain;
How little of the Past is ours !
How changed the friends who yet remain.
We cannot without envying view
The eyes with twenty summers gay;
For eyes 'neath which our childhood grew
Have long since passed from earth away.
Each hour still steals our youth; alas!
No hour will e'er the theft restore:
There's but one thing that will not pass,-
The heart I loved thee with of yore.
That heart which plays in life its part,
With love elate, with loss forlorn,
Is still — through all — the child's pure heart
My mother gave when I was born.
That heart, where nothing new can light,
Where old thoughts draw their cherished breath,-
It loves thee, dear, with all the might
That Life can wield in strife with Death.
If it of Death the conqueror be,
If there's in Man some nobler part
That wins him immortality,
Then thou hast, Love! that deathless heart.
IF YOU BUT KNEW
I
F YOU but knew the tears that fall
For life unloved and fireside drear,
Perhaps, before my lonely hall,
You would pass near.
If you but knew your power to thrill
My drooping soul by one pure glance,
One look across my window-sill
You'd cast perchance.
## p. 14218 (#408) ##########################################
14218
SULLY-PRUDHOMME
If you but knew what soothing balm
One heart can on another pour,
Would you not sit - a sister calm
Beside my door ?
And if you knew I loved you well,
And loved you too with all my heart,
You'd come to me, with me to dwell,
And ne'er depart.
SEPARATION
W"
E WANDERED down, at dawn of day,
A narrow path — heart close to heart;
At noon, upon the world's highway,
I walk to right, you left - apart.
No more we have our heaven together.
How bright is yours! How black is mine!
Your choice is still the sunniest weather,
I keep the side where naught will shine.
Where'er you walk, gleams round you play -
The very sand has diamond beads;
No beams e'er light with gladdening ray
The cold gray soil my footstep treads.
Bird-songs and whispers full of sweets,
Caressing, woo your eye and ear;
Your hair the breeze, adoring, greets;
Your lip the bee, entranced, draws near.
And I - I can but sing and sigh;
My heart's deep wound is ill at ease;
From leaf-hid nests the fondling cry
Disturbs me more than it can please.
But Love! a sky forever bright
May make too keen our mortal joy;
The air's embrace has too much might;
The incense e'en of flowers may cloy.
Then yearns the soul for that calm rest
That closes round at closing day,
With half-shut eye, on some true breast
To watch Life's fever ebb away.
## p. 14219 (#409) ##########################################
SULLY-PRUDHOMME
14219
Will you not come and take your seat
By that highway at evening-fall?
I'll wait you there. We two shall meet
Where one deep shadow wraps it all.
THE DEATH AGONY
Y*
E who are watching when my end draws near,
Speak not, I pray!
'Twill help me most some music faint to hear,
And pass away.
For song can loosen, link by link, each care
From life's hard chain.
So gently rock my griefs; but oh, beware!
To speak were pain.
I'm weary of all words: their wisest speech
Can naught reveal;
Give me the spirit-sounds minds cannot reach,
But hearts can feel.
Some melody which all my soul shall steep,
As tranced I lie,
Passing from visions wild to dreamy sleep,-
From sleep to die.
Ye who are watching when my end draws near,
Speak not, I pray!
Some sounds of music murmuring in my ear
Will smooth my way.
My nurse, poor shepherdess! I'd bid you seek;
Tell her my whim:
I want her near me, when I'ın faint and weak
On the grave's brim.
I want to hear her sing, ere I depart,
Just once again,
In simple monotone to touch the heart
That Old World strain.
You'll find her still, - the rustic hovel gives
Calm hopes and fears;
But in this world of mine one rarely lives
Thrice twenty years.
## p. 14220 (#410) ##########################################
14220
SULLY-PRUDHOMME
Be sure you leave us with our hearts alone,
Only us two!
She'll sing to me in her old trembling tone,
Stroking my brow.
She only to the end will love through all
My good and ill;
So will the air of those old songs recall
My first years still.
And dreaming thus, I shall not feel at last
My heart-strings torn,
But all unknowing, the great barriers past,
Die- as we're born.
Ye who are watching when my end draws near,
Speak not, I pray!
'Twill help me most some music faint to hear,
And pass away.
The above translations were all made by E. and R. E. Prothero.
## p. 14220 (#411) ##########################################
## p. 14220 (#412) ##########################################
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## p. 14221 (#415) ##########################################
14221
CHARLES SUMNER
(1811-1874)
HARLES SUMNER was born in Boston, January 6th, 1811. His
name is inscribed on the roll of men of letters; but it is
e indeed writ larger, and more familiarly known, upon a
somewhat different page. There can be no doubt, however, that the
effective orator has an honored place among literary artists. In fact
some men, weary of fictitious pathos and useless tears, might be
tempted to give the highest honors, even in the art of expression,
not to epic poet or romancer, but to him who in a vital crisis sways
a doubting Senate or a reluctant mob to heroic decision and action.
And this learned jurist, this many-sided indefatigable scholar, this
puritanic reformer and persistent doctrinaire, was an inspiring orator,
a powerful preacher of political ethics and civic righteousness.
Perhaps there has been no more typical example of that earlier
Bostonian culture, with its high standards, than Charles Sumner. He
knew nothing of such early hardships, such a struggle for intellectual
life, as Lincoln's. He followed his grandfather and his father from
the best classical schools to Harvard College, where he graduated in
1830. When he came of age he was already Judge Story's favorite
pupil. At twenty-five he was widely known, even to European
scholars, through his learned essays in the Jurist, and had pub-
lished several volumes of legal Reports' which are still standard
works of reference. His interest was deepest in the large problems
of international law. In England, thanks to Judge Story's enthusias-
tic letters and his own modest worth, he had such popularity and
social success no young American of private station had ever
enjoyed. He was repeatedly invited to a seat beside the judges in
the highest English courts.
From his three happy years in England, France, Italy, and Ger-
many (1837-1840), he returned to the rather uncongenial and un-
remunerative practice of law in his native Boston. He was not only
learned in history and kindred fields, but a trained connoisseur in
music and art as well. Naturally he was one of the favorites in
the brilliant circle centring about the Ticknors. His lifelong friend-
ships with Longfellow, and others of the group, were already firmly
knit. A casual remark of his at this period indicates an ambition to
become some day president of Harvard College. Judge Story's dying
as
## p. 14222 (#416) ##########################################
14222
CHARLES SUMNER
(
desire was that Charles Sumner should fill his chair in the Harvard
Law School.
But in that very year, this industrious many-sided scholar had sud-
denly discovered the sterner purpose for which his life had thus far
been the preparation. He was invited to deliver the Fourth of July
oration, in the presence of the citizen militia, on the eve of the war
of conquest against Mexico. His speech, on "The True Grandeur of
Nations,' was a fervent protest against all war as a survival of bar-
barism.
In the next autumn - eight years later than his old schoolmate
Phillips — he plunged into the Abolition agitation. His speech in
November 1845 at once gave him a leading place in the political
wing of the movement. The social ostracism and ridicule he had to
face cannot have disturbed his lofty soul. The partial abandonment
of his cherished studies no doubt cost him an inward struggle. But
there was no hesitation, when the call grew clear to him.
« ( Forego thy dreams of lettered ease;
Lay thou the scholar's promise by:
The rights of man are more than these. )
He heard, and answered: Here am I. ) »
It was in 1851 that a fusion of Free-Soilers and Democrats made
Sumner United States Senator from Massachusetts. He succeeded
Webster, and Clay left the Senate on the day Sumner entered it.
Mr. Carl Schurz makes effective use of this dramatic coincidence in
his noble Eulogy.
Sumner held his seat in the Senate until his death; his chair be-
ing kept vacant by his State for three years during his slow recovery
from the famous assault on him in his seat in the Senate chamber,
by Preston Smith Brooks of South Carolina. His assailant rained
blows upon his head with a bludgeon, while his victim was trying to
extricate himself from his seat until he fell senseless and bloody upon
the floor.
Through all changing conditions, almost single-handed at first, then
as leader of a triumphant party, again alienated from nearly all his
old associates, Sumner advocated always the ideal rights of man, the
cause of the weak against the strong. He had no conception of pol-
itic delay, of concealment, of compromise. He was not a practical
legislator even. Very few measures were enacted into law in the
form in which he presented them. He had in large measure the
scornful intolerance of the devoted reformer. Even as a preacher,
his lack of humor or wit would have seemed a heavy handicap. Yet
he was on the one hand the most welcome guest of gentle, schol-
arly Longfellow; and on the other the favorite counselor of shrewd,
## p. 14223 (#417) ##########################################
CHARLES SUMNER
14223
humorous, self-taught Abraham Lincoln, who, with all his sure-footed
caution, never chafed under Mr. Sumner's impetuous advocacy of the
most advanced ideal measures. Perhaps no civilian, save Lincoln him-
self, molded in so large measure the issues of that most vital crisis in
our national history.
From the fifteen stately volumes that record Charles Sumner's
life work, it would hardly be possible to select a page without some
allusion to the cause to which that life was so freely given. It has
seemed desirable for a literary work to select chiefly from some of
his other utterances, like the early Phi Beta Kappa oration at Har-
vard, commemorating four friends then recently departed.
There is an important biography of Sumner by his friend and
literary executor, Edward L. Pierce. The best brief summary of his
career is the Eulogy delivered at Boston by Senator Schurz. Besides
the exquisite dirge written for his friend's funeral, the poet Longfel-
low includes Sumner in the little group of "Three Friends) to whom
a sheaf of sonnets is devoted. Whittier also greeted repeatedly in
generous verse his fellow-warrior and beloved comrade.
IN TIME OF PEACE PREPARE FOR WAR
T
He sentiment that “In time of peace we must prepare for
war,” has been transmitted from distant ages when brute
force prevailed. It is the terrible inheritance, damnosa
hæreditas, which painfully reminds the people of our day of their
relations with the past. It belongs to the rejected dogmas of
barbarism. It is the companion of those harsh rules of tyranny
by which the happiness of the many has been offered up to the
propensities of the few. It is the child of suspicion and the fore-
runner of violence. Having in its favor the almost uninterrupted
usage of the world, it possesses a hold on popular opinion which
is not easily unloosed. And yet the conscientious soul cannot fail,
on careful observation, to detect its mischievous fallacy,- at least
among Christian States in the present age: a fallacy the most
costly the world has witnessed; which dooms nations to annual
tributes, in comparison with which all that have been extorted by
conquests are as the widow's mite by the side of Pharisaical con-
tributions. So true is what Rousseau said, and Guizot has since
repeated, that "A bad principle is far worse than a bad fact: »
for the operations of the one are finite, while those of the other
are infinite.
## p. 14224 (#418) ##########################################
14224
CHARLES SUMNER
I speak of this principle with earnestness; for I believe it to
be erroneous and false, founded in ignorance and barbarism, un-
worthy of an age of light, and disgraceful to Christians. I have
called it a principle; but it is a mere prejudice,- sustained by
vulgar example only, and not by lofty truth,-in obeying which
we imitate the early mariners, who steered from headland to
headland and hugged the shore, unwilling to venture upon the
broad ocean, where their guide was the luminaries of heaven.
Dismissing from our minds the actual usage of nations on the
one side and the considerations of economy on the other, let us
regard these preparations for war in the unclouded light of
reason, in a just appreciation of the nature of man, and in the
injunctions of the highest truth; and we cannot hesitate to brand
them as pernicious. They are pernicious on two grounds; and
whoso would vindicate them must satisfactorily answer these ob-
jections: first, because they inflame the people who make them,
exciting them to deeds of violence, otherwise alien to their minds;
and secondly, because, having their origin in the low motive of
distrust and hate, they inevitably, by a sure law of the human
mind, excite a corresponding feeling in other nations. Thus they
are, in fact, not the preservers of peace, but the provokers of
war.
In illustration of the first of these objections, it will occur to
every inquirer, that the possession of power is always in itself
dangerous, that it tempts the purest and highest natures to
self-indulgence, that it can rarely be enjoyed without abuse; nor
is the power to employ force in war, an exception to this law.
History teaches that the nations possessing the greatest arma-
ments have always been the most belligerent; while the feebler
powers have enjoyed for a longer period the blessings of peace.
The din of war resounds throughout more than seven hundred
years of Roman history, with only two short lulls of repose;
while smaller States, less potent in arms, and without the excite-
ment to quarrels on this account, have enjoyed long eras of peace.
It is not in the history of nations only that we find proofs of
this law. Like every moral principle, it applies equally to indi-
viduals. The experience of private life in all ages confirms it.
The wearing of arms has always been a provocative to combat.
It has excited the spirit and furnished the implements of strife.
Reverting to the progress of society in modern Europe, we find
that the odious system of private quarrels, of hostile meetings
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CHARLES SUMNER
14225
use of
even in the street, continued so long as men persevered in the
habit of wearing arms. Innumerable families were thinned by
death received in these hasty and unpremeditated encounters;
and the lives of scholars and poets were often exposed to their
rude chances. Marlowe, “with all his rare learning and wit,” per-
ished ignominiously under the weapon of an unknown adversary;
and Savage, whose genius and misfortune inspired the friendship
and the eulogies of Johnson, was tried for murder committed in
a sudden broil. “ The expert swordsman,” says Mr. Jay, “the
practiced marksman, is ever more ready to engage in personal
combats than the man who is unaccustomed to the
deadly weapons. In those portions of our country where it is
supposed essential to personal safety to go armed with pistols
and bowie knives, mortal affrays are so frequent as to excite but
little attention, and to secure, with rare exceptions, impunity to
the murderer; whereas at the North and East, where we are un-
provided with such facilities for taking life, comparatively few
murders of the kind are perpetrated. We might, indeed, safely
submit the decision of the principle we are discussing to the cal-
culations of pecuniary interest. Let two men, equal in age and
health, apply for an insurance on their lives, -one known to be
ever armed to defend his honor and his life against every assail-
ant, and the other a meek, unresisting Quaker: can we doubt
for a moment which of these men would be deemed by the
insurance company most likely to reach a good old age ? ”
The second objection is founded on that law of the human
mind in obedience to which the sentiment of distrust or hate
of which these preparations are the representatives — must excite
a corresponding sentiment in others. This law is a part of the
unalterable nature of man, recognized in early ages, though un-
happily too rarely made the guide to peaceful intercourse among
nations. It is an expansion of the old Horatian adage, “Si vis
me flere, dolendum est primum ipsi tibi” (If you wish me to
weep, you must yourself first weep). Nobody can question its
force or its applicability; nor is it too much to say that it dis-
tinctly declares that military preparations by one nation, in time
of professed peace, must naturally prompt similar preparations by
other nations, and quicken everywhere within the circle of their
influence the spirit of war. So are we all knit together, that the
feelings in our own bosoms awaken corresponding feelings in the
bosoms of others; as harp answers to harp in its softest vibra-
tions; as deep responds to deep in the might of its passions.
XXIV-890
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CHARLES SUMNER
What within us is good invites the good in our brother, -gen-
erosity begets generosity; love wins love; peace secures peace:
while all within us that is bad challenges the bad in our brother,
- distrust engenders distrust; hate provokes hate; war arouses
war.
Life is full of illustrations of this beautiful law. Even the
miserable maniac, in whose mind the common rules of conduct
are overthrown, confesses its overruling power; and the vacant
stare of madness may be illumined by a word of love. The wild
beasts confess it; and what is the story of Orpheus, whose music
drew in listening rapture the lions and panthers of the forest,
but an expression of its prevailing influence? It speaks also in
the examples of literature. And here, at the risk of protracting
this discussion, I am tempted to glance at some of these instruct-
ive instances, - hoping, however, not to seem to attach undue
meaning to them, and especially disclaiming any conclusions from
them beyond the simple law which they illustrate.
Looking back to the early dawn of the world, one of the most
touching scenes which we behold, illumined by that auroral light,
is the peaceful visit of the aged Priam to the tent of Achilles to
entreat the body of his son. The fierce combat has ended in the
death of Hector, whose unhonored corse the bloody Greek has
already trailed behind his chariot. The venerable father, after
twelve days of grief, is moved to efforts to regain the remains of
the Hector he had so dearly loved. He leaves his lofty cedarn
chamber, and with a single aged attendant, unarmed, repairs to
the Grecian camp by the side of the distant sounding sea. Enter-
ing alone, he finds Achilles within his tent, in the company of
two of his chiefs. Grasping his knees, he kisses those terrible
homicidal hands which had taken the life of his son. The heart
of the inflexible, the angry, the inflamed Achilles, touched by the
sight which he beholds, responds to the feelings of Priam. He
takes the suppliant by the hand, seats him by his side, consoles
his grief, refreshes his weary body, and concedes to the prayers
of a weak, unarmed old man, what all Troy in arms could not
win. In this scene, which fills a large part of the book of the
Iliad, the poet with unconscious power has presented a picture of
the omnipotence of that law of our nature making all mankind
of kin, in obedience to which no word of kindness, no act of
confidence, falls idly to the earth.
Among the legendary passages of Roman history, perhaps
none makes a deeper impression than that scene after the Roman
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CHARLES SUMNER
14227
youth had been consumed at Allia, and the invading Gauls under
Brennus had entered the city; where we behold the venerable
senators of the republic - too old to flee, and careless of surviv-
ing the Roman name seated each on his curule chair in a
temple, unarmed, looking, as Livy says, more august than mor-
tal, and with the majesty of the gods. The Gauls gaze on them
as upon sacred images; and the hand of slaughter, which had
raged through the streets of Rome, is stayed by the sight of an
assembly of unarmed men. At length a Gaul approaches, and
with his hands gently strokes the silver beard of a senator,
who, indignant at the license, smites the barbarian with his ivory
staff; which was the signal for general vengeance. Think you
that a band of savages could have slain these senators, if the
appeal to force had not first been made by one of their own
number? This story, though recounted by Livy, and also by
Plutarch, is properly repudiated by Niebuhr as a legend; but it
is none the less interesting, as showing the law by which hostile
feelings are necessarily aroused or subdued. The heart of man
confesses that the Roman senator provoked death for himself
and his associates.
Other instances present themselves. An admired picture by
Virgil, in his melodious epic, represents a person venerable for
piety and deserts, assuaging by words alone a furious populace
which had just broken into sedition and outrage. Guizot, in his
History of French Civilization,' has preserved a similar instruct-
ive example of the effect produced by an unarmed man, in an
illiterate epoch, who, employing the word instead of the sword,
subdued an angry multitude. And surely no reader of that
noble historical romance the Promessi Sposi' can forget that
finest scene, where Fra Cristoforo, in an age of violence, after
slaying a comrade in a broil, in unarmed penitence seeks the
presence of the family and retainers of his victim, and by his
dignified gentleness awakens the admiration of those already
mad with the desire of vengeance. Another example, made
familiar by recent translations of Frithiof's Saga,' the Swedish
epic, is more emphatic. The scene is a battle. Frithiof is in
deadly combat with Atlé, when the falchion of the latter breaks.
Throwing away his own weapon, he says:
« Swordless foeman's life
Ne'er dyed this gallant blade. ”
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CHARLES SUMNER
The two champions now close in mutual clutch; they hug like
bears, says the poet: ---
« 'Tis o'er: for Frithiof's matchless strength
Has felled his ponderous size;
And 'neath that knee, at giant length,
Supine the Viking lies.
But fails my sword, thou Berserk swart! )
The voice rang far and wide,
Its point should pierce thy inmost heart,
Its hilt should drink the tide. )
(Be free to lift the weaponed hand,'
Undaunted Atlé spoke:
'Hence, fearless quest thy distant brand !
Thus I abide the stroke. ) »
(
Frithiof regains his sword, intent to close the dread debate,
while his adversary awaits the stroke; but his heart responds to
the generous courage of his foe, — he cannot injure one who has
shown such confidence in him:
« This quelled his ire, this checked his arm,
Outstretched the hand of peace. ”
SOME CHANGES IN MODERN LIFE
A
USPICIOUS omens from the past and the present cheer us for
the future. The terrible wars of the French Revolution
were the violent rending of the body which preceded the
exorcism of the fiend. Since the morning stars first sang to-
gether, the world has not witnessed a peace so harmonious and
enduring as that which now blesses the Christian nations. Great
questions between them, fraught with strife, and in another age
sure heralds of war, are now determined by mediation or arbitra-
tion. Great political movements, which only a few short years
ago must have led to forcible rebellion, are now conducted by
peaceful discussion.
Literature, the press, and various societies,
all join in the holy work of inculcating good-will to man. The
spirit of humanity now pervades the best writings, whether the
elevated philosophical inquiries of the Vestiges of Creation,'
the ingenious but melancholy moralizings of the Story of a
Feather,' or the overflowing raillery of Punch. Nor can the
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CHARLES SUMNER
14229
breathing thought and burning word of poet or orator have a
higher inspiration. Genius is never so Promethean as when it
bears the heavenly fire of love to the hearths of men.
In the last age, Dr. Johnson uttered the detestable sentiment
that he liked “a good hater. ” The man of this age must say
that he likes “a good lover. ” Thus reversing the objects of re-
gard, he follows a higher wisdom and a purer religion than the
renowned moralist knew. He recognizes that peculiar Christian
sentiment, the brotherhood of mankind, destined soon to become
the decisive touchstone of all human institutions.
