I have seen all the works that are
done under the sun; and behold, all is vanity and a striving after wind.
done under the sun; and behold, all is vanity and a striving after wind.
Warner - World's Best Literature - v16 - Lev to Mai
An irresistible longing drove him westward, and
still westward, till some Indian scalped him, or till hunger, want,
bad food, and exposure broke him down, and the dreaded Genesee
fever swept him away. The moment such a man had built a
log cabin, cleared an acre, girdled the trees, and sowed a hand-
ful of grain, he was impatient to be once more moving. He had
no peace till his little farm was sold, and he had plunged into
the forest to seek a new and temporary home. The purchaser
in time would make a few improvements, clear a few more acres,
plant a little more grain, and then in turn sell and hurry west-
ward. After him came the founders of villages and towns, who,
when the cabins about them numbered ten, felt crowded and
likewise moved away. Travelers through the Genesee valley tell
us they could find no man who had not in this way changed
his abode at least six
times. The hardships which these people
endured is beyond description. Their poverty was extreme.
Nothing was so scarce as food; many a wayfarer was turned
from their doors with the solemn assurance that they had not
enough for themselves. The only window in many a cabin was
a hole in the roof for the smoke to pass through. In the win-
ter the snow beat through the chinks and sifted under the door,
till it was heaped up about the sleepers on the floor before the
fire.
Beyond the Blue Ridge everything was most primitive. Half
the roads were " traces
» and blazed. More than half the houses,
even in the settlements, were log cabins. When a stranger came
to such a place to stay, the men built him a cabin and made
the building an occasion for sport. The trees felled, four corner-
men were elected to notch the logs; and while they were busy
the others ran races, wrestled, played leap-frog, kicked the hat,
fought, gouged, gambled, drank, did everything then considered
## p. 9509 (#537) ###########################################
JOHN BACH MCMASTER
9509
After the notching was finished the raising took
Many a time the cabin was built, roofed, the
door and window cut out, and the owner moved in, before sun-
down. The chinks were stopped with chips and smeared with
mud. The chimney was of logs, coated with mud six inches
thick. The table and the benches, the bedstead and the door,
were such as could be made with an axe, an auger, and a saw.
A rest for the rifle and some pegs for clothes completed the
fittings.
an amusement.
but a few hours.
The clothing of a man was in summer a wool hat, a blue
linsey hunting-shirt with a cape, a belt with a gayly colored
fringe, deerskin or linsey pantaloons, and moccasins and shoe-
packs of tanned leather. Fur hats were not common. A boot
was rarely to be seen. In winter, a striped linsey vest and a
white blanket coat were added. If the coat had buttons- and it
seldom had-they were made by covering slices of a cork with
bits of blanket. Food which he did not obtain by his rifle and
his traps he purchased by barter. Corn was the staple; and no
mills being near, it was pounded between two stones or rubbed
on a grater. Pork cost him twelve cents a pound, and salt
four. Dry fish was a luxury, and brought twenty cents a pound.
Sugar was often as high as forty. When he went to a settle-
ment he spent his time at the billiard-table, or in the "keg
grocery" playing Loo or "Finger in Danger," to determine who
should pay for the whisky consumed. Pious men were terrified
at the drunkenness, the vice, the gambling, the brutal fights,
the gouging, the needless duels they beheld on every hand.
Already the Kentucky boatmen had become more dreaded than
the Indians. "A Kentuc" in 1800 had much the same meaning
that a cowboy" has now. He was the most reckless, fearless,
law-despising of men. A common description of him was half
horse, half alligator, tipped with snapping-turtle.
On a sudden this community, which the preachers had often
called Satan's stronghold, underwent a moral awakening such as
this world had never beheld.
Two young men began the great work in the summer of 1799.
They were brothers, preachers, and on their way across the
pine barrens to Ohio, but turned aside to be present at a sacra-
mental solemnity on Red River. The people were accustomed
to gather at such times on a Friday, and by praying, singing,
and hearing sermons, prepare themselves for the reception of the
## p. 9510 (#538) ###########################################
9510
JOHN BACH MCMASTER
sacrament on Sunday. At the Red River meeting the brothers
were asked to preach, and one did so with astonishing fervor.
As he spoke, the people were deeply moved; tears ran streaming
down their faces, and one, a woman far in the rear of the house,
broke through order and began to shout. For two hours after
the regular preachers had gone, the crowd lingered and were
loath to depart. While they tarried, one of the brothers was
irresistibly impelled to speak. He rose and told them that he
felt called to preach, that he could not be silent. The words
which then fell from his lips roused the people before him "to a
pungent sense of sin. " Again and again the woman shouted,
and would not be silent. He started to go to her. The crowd
begged him to turn back. Something within him urged him on,
and he went through the house shouting and exhorting and
praising God. In a moment the floor, to use his own words,
«< was covered with the slain. " Their cries for mercy were
terrible to hear. Some found forgiveness, but many went away
"spiritually wounded" and suffering unutterable agony of soul.
Nothing could allay the excitement. Every settlement along the
Green River and the Cumberland was full of religious fervor.
Men fitted their wagons with beds and provisions, and traveled
fifty miles to camp upon the ground and hear him preach.
The idea was new; hundreds adopted it, and camp-meetings
began. There was now no longer any excuse to stay away
from preaching. Neither distance, nor lack of houses, nor scar-
city of food, nor daily occupations prevailed. Led by curiosity,
by excitement, by religious zeal, families of every Protestant
denomination — Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians, Episcopalians
-hurried to the camp-ground. Crops were left half gathered;
every kind of work was left undone; cabins were deserted; in
large settlements there did not remain one soul. The first
regular general camp-meeting was held at the Gasper River
Church, in July, 1800; but the rage spread, and a dozen encamp-
ments followed in quick succession. Camp-meeting was always
in the forest near some little church, which served as the preach-
ers' lodge. At one end of a clearing was a rude stage, and
before it the stumps and trunks of hewn trees, on which the
listeners sat. About the clearing were the tents and wagons
ranged in rows like streets. The praying, the preaching, the
exhorting would sometimes last for seven days, and be prolonged
every day until darkness had begun to give way to light. Nor
-
## p. 9511 (#539) ###########################################
JOHN BACH MCMASTER
9511
were the ministers the only exhorters. Men and women, nay,
even children took part. At Cane Ridge a little girl of seven
sat upon the shoulder of a man and preached to the multitude
till she sank exhausted on her bearer's head. At Indian Creek a
lad of twelve mounted a stump and exhorted till he grew weak,
whereupon two men upheld him, and he continued till speech
was impossible. A score of sinners fell prostrate before him.
At no time was the "falling exercise" so prevalent as at night.
Nothing was then wanting that could strike terror into minds
weak, timid, and harassed. The red glare of the camp-fires re-
flected from hundreds of tents and wagons; the dense blackness
of the flickering shadows, the darkness of the surrounding forest,
made still more terrible by the groans and screams of the "spir-
itually wounded," who had fled to it for comfort; the entreaty
of the preachers; the sobs and shrieks of the downcast still walk-
ing through the dark valley of the Shadow of Death; the shouts
and songs of praise from the happy ones who had crossed the
Delectable Mountains, had gone on through the fogs of the En-
chanted Ground, and entered the land of Beulah, were too much
for those over whose minds and bodies lively imaginations held
full sway.
The heart swelled, the nerves gave way, the hands
and feet grew cold, and motionless and speechless they fell head-
long to the ground. In a moment crowds gathered about them
to pray and shout. Some lay still as death. Some passed
through frightful twitchings of face and limb. At Cabin Creek
so many fell, that lest the multitude should tread on them, they
were carried to the meeting-house and laid in rows on the floor.
At Cane Ridge the number was three thousand.
The recollection of that famous meeting is still preserved in
Kentucky, where, not many years since, old men could be found
whose mothers had carried them to the camp-ground as infants,
and had left them at the roots of trees and behind logs while
the preaching and exhorting continued. Cane Ridge meeting-
house stood on a well-shaded, well-watered spot, seven miles from
the town of Paris. There a great space had been cleared, a
preacher's stand put up, and a huge tent stretched to shelter the
crowd from the sun and rain. But it did not cover the twen-
tieth part of the people who came. Every road that led to the
ground is described to have presented for several days an almost
unbroken line of wagons, horses, and men. One who saw the
meeting when it had just begun wrote home to Philadelphia that
## p. 9512 (#540) ###########################################
9512
JOHN BACH MCMASTER
wagons covered an area as large as that between Market Street
and Chestnut, Second and Third. Another, who counted them,
declared they numbered eleven hundred and forty-five. Seven
hundred and fifty lead tokens, stamped with the letters A or B,
were given by the Baptists to communicants; and there were still
upward of four hundred who received none. Old soldiers who
were present, and claimed to know something of the art of esti-
mating the numbers of masses of men, put down those encamped
at the Cane Ridge meeting as twenty thousand souls. The ex-
citement surpassed anything that had been known. Men who
came to scoff remained to preach. All day and all night the
crowd swarmed to and fro from preacher to preacher, singing,
shouting, laughing, now rushing off to listen to some new ex-
horter who had climbed upon a stump, now gathering around
some unfortunate, who in their peculiar language was "spiritu-
ally slain. " Soon men and women fell in such numbers that it
became impossible for the multitude to move about without
trampling them, and they were hurried to the meeting-house.
At no time was the floor less than half covered. Some lay quiet,
unable to move or speak. Some talked but could not move.
Some beat the floor with their heels. Some, shrieking in agony,
bounded about, it is said, like a live fish out of water. Many
lay down and rolled over and over for hours at a time. Others
rushed wildly over the stumps and benches, and then plunged,
shouting "Lost! Lost! " into the forest.
As the meetings grew more and m re frequent, this nervous
excitement assumed new and more terrible forms.
One was
known as jerking; another, as the barking exercise; a third, as
the Holy Laugh. "The jerks" began in the head and spread
rapidly to the feet. The head would be thrown from side to side
so swiftly that the features would be blotted out and the hair
made to snap.
When the body was affected, the sufferer was
hurled over hindrances that came in his way, and finally dashed
on the ground to bounce about like a ball. At camp-meetings in
the far South, saplings were cut off breast-high and left "for the
people to jerk by. " One who visited such a camp-ground declares
that about the roots of from fifty to one hundred saplings the
earth was kicked up "as by a horse stamping flies. " There only
the lukewarm, the lazy, the half-hearted, the indolent professor
was afflicted. Pious men, and scoffing physicians who sought to
get the jerks that they might speculate upon them, were not
## p. 9513 (#541) ###########################################
JOHN BACH MCMASTER
9513
touched. But the scoffer did not always escape. Not a professor
of religion within the region of the great revival but had heard
or could tell of some great conversion by special act of God.
One disbeliever, it was reported, while cursing and swearing, had
been crushed by a tree falling on him at the Cane Ridge meet-
ing. Another was said to have mounted his horse to ride away,
when the jerks seized him, pulled his feet from the stirrups,
and flung him on the ground, whence he rose a Christian man.
A lad who feigned sickness, kept from church, and lay abed, was
dragged out and dashed against the wall till he betook himself
to prayer. When peace was restored to him, he passed out into
his father's tan-yard to unhair a hide. Instantly the knife left his
hand, and he was drawn over logs and hurled against trees and
fences till he began to pray in serious earnest. A foolish woman
who went to see the jerks was herself soon rolling in the mud.
Scores of such stories passed from mouth to mouth, and may now
be read in the lives and narratives of the preachers. The com-
munity seemed demented. From the nerves and muscles the dis-
order passed to the mind. Men dreamed dreams and saw visions,
nay, fancied themselves dogs, went down on all fours, and barked
till they grew hoarse. It was no uncommon sight to behold
numbers of them gathered about a tree, barking, yelping, "treeing
the Devil. " Two years later, when much of the excitement of the
great revival had gone down, falling and jerking gave way to
hysterics. During the most earnest preaching and exhorting,
even sincere professors of religion would on a sudden burst into
loud laughter; others, unable to resist, would follow, and soon the
assembled multitude would join in. This was the "Holy Laugh,"
and became, after 1803, a recognized part of worship.
EFFECTS OF THE EMBARGO OF 1807
From a History of the People of the United States from the Revolution to
the Civil War. ' D. Appleton & Co. , 1885. Copyright 1885, by John Bach
McMaster.
PAR
ARALYSIS seized on the business of the coast towns and began
to spread inward. Ships were dismantled and left half
loaded at the wharves. Crews were discharged. The sound.
of the caulking-hammer was no longer heard in the ship-yards.
The sail-lofts were deserted, the rope-walks were closed; the
## p. 9514 (#542) ###########################################
9514
JOHN BACH MCMASTER
cartmen had nothing to do. In a twinkling the price of every
domestic commodity went down, and the price of every foreign
commodity went up. But no wages were earned, no business
was done, and money almost ceased to circulate.
The federal revenues fell from sixteen millions to a few
thousands.
The value of the shipping embargoed has
been estimated at fifty millions; and as the net earnings were
twenty-five per cent. , twelve and a half millions more were
lost to the country through the enforced idleness of the vessels.
From an estimate made at the time, it appears that one hundred
thousand men were believed to have been out of work for one
year. They earned from forty cents to one dollar and thirty-
three cents per day. Assuming a dollar as the average rate of
daily wages, the loss to the laboring class was in round numbers
thirty-six millions of dollars. On an average, thirty millions had
been invested annually in the purchase of foreign and domestic
produce. As this great sum was now seeking investment which
could not be found, its owners were deprived not only of their
profits, but of two millions of interest besides.
Unable to bear the strain, thousands on thousands went to
the wall. The newspapers were full of insolvent-debtor notices.
All over the country the court-house doors, the tavern doors,
the post-offices, the cross-road posts, were covered with advertise-
ments of sheriffs' sales. In the cities the jails were not large
enough to hold the debtors. At New York during 1809 thirteen
hundred men were imprisoned for no other crime than being
ruined by the embargo. A traveler who saw the city in this
day of distress assures us that it looked like a town ravaged by
pestilence. The counting-houses were shut or advertised to let.
The coffee-houses were almost empty. The streets along the
water-side were almost deserted. The ships were dismantled;
their decks were cleared, their hatches were battened down. Not
a box, not a cask, not a barrel, not a bale was to be seen on
the wharves, where the grass had begun to grow luxuriantly. A
year later, in this same city, eleven hundred and fifty men were
confined for debts under twenty-five dollars, and were clothed by
the Humane Society.
## p. 9515 (#543) ###########################################
9515
EMERICH MADÁCH
(1823-1864)
BY GEORGE ALEXANDER KOHUT
UNGARY is a favorite land of the Muses. Romance, ardent
sentiment, and a certain mystic fervor give to her poetry an
exquisite charm. A thrill of fire and passion vibrates in her
songs and melodies. Her folk-lore and ancient traditions teem with
rich Oriental imagery and beautiful conceptions. These ancient gems
have in the present century received a fresh setting at the hands of
the literary artists, who have borne witness
to the unabated vigor of this people "barbar-
ously grand. " Of the modern school, Petöfi
the lyric poet and Madách the dramatic are
the most popular poets of Hungary.
Madách Imre (for the family name comes
first in Hungarian) was born in Alsó Sztre-
gova, Hungary, January 21st, 1823; and died
in his native town October 5th, 1864. Of
his life little need be told. He was notary,
orator, and journalist; at an early age he
wrote a number of essays on natural science,
archæology, and æsthetics. He wrote lyric
as well as dramatic poetry; but it is chiefly
through his two dramatic poems, 'Moses'
and The Tragedy of Man,' written almost simultaneously in 1860,
that he is best known. An edition of his collected writings, in three
volumes, was issued by Paul Gyulai in Budapest, 1880. His master-
piece, The Tragedy of Man,' has been rendered into German no less
than five times; the latest version, by Julius Lechner von der Lech
(Leipzig, 1888, with a preface by Maurice Jókai), being the most feli-
citous. Alexander Fischer gave a splendid résumé of this powerful
drama in Sacher-Masoch's periodical, Auf der Höhe (Vol. xvi. , 1885),
-the only analysis of it in any language except Hungarian. Though
it is too philosophical and contemplative in character, and not in-
tended for the stage, its first production, which took place in Septem-
ber 1883, created an immense sensation both in Austria and Hungary.
To English readers, Madách is a total stranger. His name is
scarcely ever found in any encyclopædia or biographical dictionary;
EMERICH MADÁCH
## p. 9516 (#544) ###########################################
9516
EMERICH MADÁCH
and strangely enough, no attempt has been thus far made to give
even a selection from this latter-day Milton of Hungary.
It is not here intended to explain the origin and inner development
of this fascinating drama, nor to draw elaborate parallels between
its author and his predecessors in other lands. Such a comparative
critical study would be interesting as showing the spiritual kinship
between master minds, centuries distant from one another, whose
sympathies are in direct touch with our own ideals and life problems.
Madách will plead his own cause effectively enough. To him, how-
ever, who in reading the Tragedy of Man' involuntarily makes such
comparisons, and might be led unjustly to question the author's ori-
ginality, the graceful adage Grosse Geister treffen sich (Great minds
meet) will serve as an answer. He should rather say, with true
artistic estimate, that the shading in the one landscape of a higher
life helps to set off the vivid and brilliant coloring in the other; so
that the whole, viewed side by side, presents a series of wondrous
harmonies. Madách imbibed, no doubt, from foreign sources.
He
was familiar with 'Paradise Lost,' and with the now obsolete but
once much-lauded epic, 'La Semaine (The Week), of Milton's French
predecessor Du Bartas; Alfieri's tramelogedia, 'Abele,' and Gesner's
'Death of Abel,' as well as Byron's 'Mystery of Cain,' may also have
come to his notice; Goethe's 'Faust' appears more than once, and may
be recognized in any incognito. Yet we cannot say with certainty
that any one of these masterpieces influenced his own work, any more
than Milton inspired the great German bard. We might as justly
tax him with drawing upon Hebrew tradition for the entire plot of
his drama, beginning with the fourth scene; for strangely enough,
Adam's experiences with his mentor and Nemesis, Lucifer, are fore-
shadowed in the very same manner in a quaint legend of the Jewish
Rabbis, told nearly twenty centuries ago. The comparative study
of literature will reveal other facts equally amazing. It is of course
self-evident that the morbid pessimism which rings its vague alarms
throughout the book is that of Ecclesiastes, whose vanitas vanitatum
is the key to his doleful plaint.
"I applied my heart to seek and to search out by wisdom concerning all
that is done under heaven: it is a sore travail that God hath given to the
sons of men to be exercised therewith.
I have seen all the works that are
done under the sun; and behold, all is vanity and a striving after wind. . .
And I applied my heart to know wisdom, and to know madness and folly: I
perceived that this also was a striving after wind. For in much wisdom is
much grief; and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow. " (Eccl. i.
12-18. )
This is the leading theme, and Lessing's soulful simile of the
ideal, the grand morale: "If God held truth in his right hand," says
he, "and in his left the mere striving after truth, bidding me choose
-
## p. 9517 (#545) ###########################################
EMERICH MADÁCH
"
9517
between the two, I would reverently bow to his left and say, 'Give
but the impulse; truth is for thee alone! '»
Thus, after traversing many lands the world over; after plunging
into every pleasure and being steeped in every vice; after passions
human and divine have had their sway over his spirit,- Adam con-
cedes to Lucifer that the world of ideals is illusory, existing only in
fancy, thriving but in our own souls, nourished by sentiment, and
supersensitive to the touch of grosser things. And yet the echo
which answers his sad pleadings, as he cries out disheartened —
is a wholly unexpected one in the grand finale. It teaches the
doctrine of eternal hope, as the great Hebrew pessimist Koheleth
summed it up, when only the Hellenic intellect reigned supreme and
the Hellenic heart was cold:-
"I have decreed, O man-
strive ye and trust! »
The ideal conquers in the end, should life and love not fail. Poetry
and sentiment transform even this valley of the shadow of death into
a Paradise regained. It is a song of the ideals in which salvation
lies; and the words of the Lord with which the poem closes are,
"Struggle and trust. »
Teorge Alexander Mohut
IRST CITIZEN
"O sacred poetry, hast thou then
Quite forsaken this prosy world of ours? »
FIRS
Second Citizen
SEVENTH SCENE
Scene: An open square in Constantinople. A few citizens lounging about.
In the centre the palace of the Patriarch; to the right a cloister; to the
left a grove. Adam as Tancred, in the prime of life, is seen advan-
cing at the head of returning Crusaders, accompanied by other knights,
with colors flying and drums beating; Lucifer as his armor-bearer.
Evening, then night.
--
-
FROM THE TRAGEDY OF MAN'
Behold, there comes another horde of heathen;
Oh, flee and double-bar the doors, lest they
Again the whim to plunder feel!
Hide ye the women: but too well
Knows this rebel the joys of the seraglio.
―
## p. 9518 (#546) ###########################################
9518
EMERICH MADÁCH
First Citizen -
Adam
First Citizen -
Lucifer-
Adam
Lucifer
Adam-
_____
Adam [to the knights]-
-
Lucifer-
And our wives the rights of the conqueror.
Hold! hold! why scatter in such haste?
Do ye not see the holy sign aloft
That makes us brothers in humanity
And companions to one goal? —
We bore the light of our faith, the law
Of love, into Asia's wilds,
That the savage millions there
Where our Savior's cradle stood
Might share sweet salvation's boon.
Know ye not this brotherly love?
Full many a time through honeyed words
Swift harm befell our homes.
[They disperse. ]
-
Behold, this is the accursed result
When scheming vagabonds
The sacred symbol flaunt,
And flattering the passions of the mob,
Presume unasked to lead. -
Fellow knights! Until our swords
To honor fair, to praise of God,
To women's guard, to bravery,
Be sanctified,- are we in duty bound
This demon foul in constant check to hold,
That in spite of godless inclination,
He great and noble deeds may do.
That sounds well. But, Tancred, what if the people
Do but spurn thy leadership?
Where spirit is, is also victory.
I'll crush them to the earth!
And should spirit with them alike abide,
Wilt thou descend to them?
Why descend?
Is it not nobler to lift them up to me?
To yield for lack of fighters
The foremost place in battle, were
As unworthy as to reject a comrade
In envy of his share of victory.
Alack! how the grand idea has come to naught
For which the martyrs of the circus fought!
Is this the freedom of equality?
A wondrous brotherhood were that!
## p. 9519 (#547) ###########################################
EMERICH MADÁCH
Adam Oh, cease thy scorn! Think not that I misprize
Christianity's exalted precepts.
Adam
My being yearns for them alone!
Whoever hath the spark divine may strive;
Lucifer - What a pity that thy spirit's lofty flight
Even now begets such sorry fruit;
Red without, within already rotten!
Lucifer-
Adam-
And him who upward toils to us
With joy we surely will receive.
A sword-cut lifts him to our ranks.
But guard we must our ranks with jealous eye
Against the still fermenting chaos here.
Would that our time were already near!
For only then can we be quite redeemed
When every barrier falls-when all is pure.
And were he who set this universe in motion
Not himself the great and mighty God,
I must needs doubt the dawn of such a day.
Ye have seen, O friends, how we have been received:
Orphaned amidst the tumult of the town,
Naught now remains save in yonder grove
A tent to pitch, as we were wont among the infidels,
Till better times shall come. Go; I follow soon.
Every knight stands sponsor for his men.
[The Crusaders pitch their tent. ]
Stop!
Hast thou no longer faith in lofty thought?
What boots it thee if I believe,
When thine own race doth doubt?
This knighthood which thou hast placed
As lighthouse amid ocean's waves,
Will yet die out, or half collapse,
And make the sailor's course even more fearful
9519
Than before, when no light shone before his way.
What lives to-day and blessing works,
Dies with time; the spirit takes wing
And the carcass but remains, to breathe
Murderous miasmas into the fresher life
Which round him buds. Behold, thus
Survive from bygone times our old ideals.
Until our ranks dissolve, its sacred teachings
Will have had effect upon the public mind.
I fear no danger then.
## p. 9520 (#548) ###########################################
9520
EMERICH MADÁCH
Lucifer-
Adam-
-
Adam-
―
Third Citizen.
Lucifer-
Adam-
-
Lucifer-
Adam
Lucifer-
-
――――
Adam-
Look thou upon this sword! It may by a hair's-breadth
Longer be or shorter, and yet remains the same
In substance. The door is opened thus to endless specula-
Adam-
Lucifer-
-
The holy teachings! They are your curse indeed,
When ye approach them unawares,
For ye turn, sharpen, split, and smooth
Them o'er so long, till they your phantoms
Or your chains become.
And though reason cannot grasp exact ideas,
Yet ye presumptuous men do always seek
To forge them to your harm.
-
tion;
For where is there limit pre-imposed?
'Tis true your feelings soon perceive the right
When change in greater things sets in. —
But why speak and myself exert? Speech
Is wearisome. Turn thou, survey the field thyself.
Friends, my troops are tired and shelter crave.
In the Capital of Christendom they will
Perchance not crave in vain.
The question is, whether as heretics.
Ye're not worse than infidels!
I stand aghast! But see what prince
Approaches from afar, so haughtily defiant?
The Patriarch successor to the Apostles.
And this barefoot, dirty mob
Which follows with malicious joy
In the captive's wake,
Feigning humility?
They are monks, Christian cynics.
I saw not such among my native hills.
You'll see them yet. Slowly, slowly
Spreads the curse of leprosy;
But beware how you dare insult
This people, so absolute in virtue and
Hence so hard to reconcile.
What virtue could adorn such folk as this?
Their worth is abnegation, poverty,
As practiced first by the Master on the Cross.
He saved a world by such humility;
While these cowards, like rebels,
Do but blaspheme the name of God,
In that they despise his gift.
## p. 9521 (#549) ###########################################
EMERICH MADÁCH
Lucifer-
Adam [facing the Patriarch]--
Who 'gainst gnats the weapons same would draw
That in the bear hunt he is wont to use
Is a fool.
Patriarch-
Monks
But if they in pious zeal, perchance,
Mistake the gnats for monstrous bears,
Have they then not the right to drive
To the very gates of hell
Those who life enjoy?
Father, we're battling for the Holy Grave,
And wearied from the way which we have come,
To rest within these walls we are denied.
Thou hast power here: help thou our cause.
Patriarch
Scale ye their walls, level them to the ground,
And spare ye neither woman, child, nor hoary head.
Adam The innocent! O father, this cannot be thy wish!
Patriarch-
My son, I have just now no time for petty things.
God's glory and my people's weal
Call higher aims now forth. I must away
To judge the heretics; who, like poisonous weeds,
Do grow and multiply, and whom hell
With force renewed upon us throws,
Even though we constant try with fire and sword
―
To root them out.
But if indeed ye be true Christian knights,
Why seek the Moor so far remote?
Here lurks a yet more dangerous foe.
Innocent is the serpent, too, while yet of tender growth
Or after its fangs are shed.
Yet sparest thou the snake?
Adam It must, in faith, have been a grievous sin
Which could such wrath from Christian love evoke.
O my son! not he shows love who feeds the flesh,
But he who leadeth back the erring soul,
At point of sword, or e'en through leaping flames.
If needs must be,- to Him who said:
Not peace but war do I proclaim!
That wicked sect interprets false
The mystic Trinity. .
XVI-596
―
Death upon them all!
There burns the funeral pile.
9521
## p. 9522 (#550) ###########################################
EMERICH MADÁCH
9522
Adam-
An Old Heretic-
Patriarch-
My friend, give up the iota, pray:
Your inspired valor in fighting
For the Savior's grave will be
More fitting sacrifice than this.
One of the Monks-
Satan, tempt us not! We'll bleed
For our true faith where God ordains.
Ha, renegade! thou boastest of true faith?
Too long have we tarried here: away with them
To the funeral pyre, in honor of God!
The Old Heretic-
Lucifer-
In honor of God? Thou spakest well, O knave!
In honor of God are we indeed your prey.
Ye are strong, and can enforce your will
As ye may please. But whether ye have acted rightly
Heaven alone will judge. Even now is weighed,
At every hour, your vile career of crime.
New champions shall from our blood arise;
The idea lives triumphant on; and coming centuries
Shall the light reflect of flames that blaze to-day.
Friends, go we to our glorious martyrdom!
The Heretics [chanting in chorus] –
——
My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?
Why art thou so far from helping me
And from the words of my roaring?
O my God, I cry in the daytime, but thou
Hearest not; and in the night season,
And am not silent. But thou art holy!
(Psalm xxii. )
Plead my cause, O Lord, with them that strive with me;
Fight against them that fight against me;
Take hold of shield and buckler and stand up for mine help;
Draw out also the spear, and stop the way
Against them that persecute me.
Monks [breaking in]-
-
(Psalm xxxv. )
[In the interim the Patriarch and the procession go by. The monks with
tracts mingle among the Crusaders. ]
Why silent thus and horrified?
Dost hold this to be a tragedy?
Consider it a comedy, and 'twill make thee laugh.
## p. 9523 (#551) ###########################################
EMERICH MADÁCH
9523
Adam-
Lucifer-
Adam-
Lucifer-
Adam-
Lucifer-
Nay, spare thy banter now! Can one
For a mere iota go firmly thus to death?
What then is the lofty and sublime?
That which to others may seem droll.
Only a hair divides these two ideas;
A voice in the heart alone may judge betwixt them,
And the mysterious judge is sympathy,
Which, blindly, at one time deifies,
Then with brutal scorn condemns to death.
Why must my eyes be witness of these varied sins?
The subtleties of proud science, and of sophistry!
That deadly poison wondrously so sipped
From the sweetest, gayest, freshest flowers?
I knew this flower once in the budding time
Of our oppressed faith. Where is the wanton hand
That ruthlessly destroyed it?
The wanton hand is victory,
Which wide-spread once, a thousand wishes wakes,
Danger allies, and martyrs makes,
And strength endues;
'Tis there among the heretics.
Verily, I'd cast away my sword and turn me
To my northern home, where, in the glades
Of the shadowy woods primeval,
Stern manliness, true artlessness yet dwell,
And the rancor of this smooth-tongued age defy.
I would return but for a voice that lisps
The constant message in my ears,
That I alone am called to re-create this world.
Love's labor lost; for unaided thou canst
Ne'er prevail against the ruling spirit of the age.
The course of time is a mighty stream,—
It buries thee or bears thee;
Nor canst thou hope to guide it,
But only swim adrift the tide.
Who in history immortal shine,
And wield uncommon power,
-
Knew well the time in which they lived,
Yet did not themselves the thought create.
Not because the cock crows does day dawn,
But the cock crows with the dawn of day;
Yonder those who, fettered, fly to face
The terrors of a death of martyrdom,
See scarce a step ahead.
## p. 9524 (#552) ###########################################
9524
EMERICH MADÁCH
A Monk in the centre of a crowd of Crusaders —
The Crusaders
Adam-
The thought but just conceived dawns in their midst
In the throes of death they hail so joyfully,—
The thought which by a care-free posterity
Will be inhaled with the air they breathe.
But leave thou this theme! Glance toward thy tent:
What unclean monks stroll about there?
What trade they drive, what speeches make
And gestures wild, insane?
Let's nearer draw, and hearken!
Adam
Here, father, here, give us
copy too!
Infamous trader, and still more wicked patrons,
Draw ye the sword and end this foul traffic!
Lucifer [confused]-
-
Lucifer-
Buy ye, brave warriors; neglect ye not
This manual of penance:
'Twill clear all doubt of conscience;
You'll learn therein much weighty mystery:
How many years in hell will burn
Each murderer, thief, and ravisher,
And he who doth our doctrines spurn;
It tells ye what the rich may buy
For a score or more of solidi;
And the poor for three alone
May swift obtain salvation's boon;
Whilst even he, to be quite fair,
Who such a sum cannot well spare,
May for a thousand lashes, mind,
Salvation bring upon his kind.
Buy ye, buy ye, this precious book!
I beg your pardon. This monk has long my partner been.
Not so deeply do I this world despise;
When praise of God soared high,
My homage also rose aloft,
Whilst thine remained becalmed.
Help me, O Lucifer! Away, away from here!
Lead back my future into past,
That I my fate no longer see,
Nor view a fruitless strife. Pray let me think
If wisdom is to thwart my destiny!
Awake then, Adam,-thy dream is o'er.
·
## p. 9525 (#553) ###########################################
EMERICH MADÁCH
9525
FIFTEENTH SCENE
Scene: A garden of palms. Adam, young again, enters from his bower;
still half asleep, he looks about in astonishment. Lucifer stands in
the middle of the scene. It is a radiant day.
Ye weird scenes and haggard forms,
How have ye left me lone!
Joys and smiles greet now my path,
As once of yore before my heart was broken.
Lucifer-O boastful man, is it thy wish, perchance,
That Nature for thy sake her law should change,—
A star appoint to mark thy loss,
Or shake the earth because a worm has died?
Have I dreamed, or am I dreaming still?
And is our life aught but a dream at last
Which makes an inanimate mass to live
But for a moment, then lets it fade forever?
Oh why, why this brief glimpse of consciousness,
Only to view the terrors of annihilation?
Thou mournest? Only cowards bend
Their necks to yoke, and unresisting stand
When yet the blow may be averted.
But unmurmuring doth the strong man
Decipher the mystic runes eternal
Of his destiny, caring but to know
If he himself can thrive beneath their doom.
AD
DAM-
Adam
Lucifer-
The might of Fate controls the world's great course;
Thou art but a tool and blindly onward driven.
Adam Nay, nay, thou liest!
still westward, till some Indian scalped him, or till hunger, want,
bad food, and exposure broke him down, and the dreaded Genesee
fever swept him away. The moment such a man had built a
log cabin, cleared an acre, girdled the trees, and sowed a hand-
ful of grain, he was impatient to be once more moving. He had
no peace till his little farm was sold, and he had plunged into
the forest to seek a new and temporary home. The purchaser
in time would make a few improvements, clear a few more acres,
plant a little more grain, and then in turn sell and hurry west-
ward. After him came the founders of villages and towns, who,
when the cabins about them numbered ten, felt crowded and
likewise moved away. Travelers through the Genesee valley tell
us they could find no man who had not in this way changed
his abode at least six
times. The hardships which these people
endured is beyond description. Their poverty was extreme.
Nothing was so scarce as food; many a wayfarer was turned
from their doors with the solemn assurance that they had not
enough for themselves. The only window in many a cabin was
a hole in the roof for the smoke to pass through. In the win-
ter the snow beat through the chinks and sifted under the door,
till it was heaped up about the sleepers on the floor before the
fire.
Beyond the Blue Ridge everything was most primitive. Half
the roads were " traces
» and blazed. More than half the houses,
even in the settlements, were log cabins. When a stranger came
to such a place to stay, the men built him a cabin and made
the building an occasion for sport. The trees felled, four corner-
men were elected to notch the logs; and while they were busy
the others ran races, wrestled, played leap-frog, kicked the hat,
fought, gouged, gambled, drank, did everything then considered
## p. 9509 (#537) ###########################################
JOHN BACH MCMASTER
9509
After the notching was finished the raising took
Many a time the cabin was built, roofed, the
door and window cut out, and the owner moved in, before sun-
down. The chinks were stopped with chips and smeared with
mud. The chimney was of logs, coated with mud six inches
thick. The table and the benches, the bedstead and the door,
were such as could be made with an axe, an auger, and a saw.
A rest for the rifle and some pegs for clothes completed the
fittings.
an amusement.
but a few hours.
The clothing of a man was in summer a wool hat, a blue
linsey hunting-shirt with a cape, a belt with a gayly colored
fringe, deerskin or linsey pantaloons, and moccasins and shoe-
packs of tanned leather. Fur hats were not common. A boot
was rarely to be seen. In winter, a striped linsey vest and a
white blanket coat were added. If the coat had buttons- and it
seldom had-they were made by covering slices of a cork with
bits of blanket. Food which he did not obtain by his rifle and
his traps he purchased by barter. Corn was the staple; and no
mills being near, it was pounded between two stones or rubbed
on a grater. Pork cost him twelve cents a pound, and salt
four. Dry fish was a luxury, and brought twenty cents a pound.
Sugar was often as high as forty. When he went to a settle-
ment he spent his time at the billiard-table, or in the "keg
grocery" playing Loo or "Finger in Danger," to determine who
should pay for the whisky consumed. Pious men were terrified
at the drunkenness, the vice, the gambling, the brutal fights,
the gouging, the needless duels they beheld on every hand.
Already the Kentucky boatmen had become more dreaded than
the Indians. "A Kentuc" in 1800 had much the same meaning
that a cowboy" has now. He was the most reckless, fearless,
law-despising of men. A common description of him was half
horse, half alligator, tipped with snapping-turtle.
On a sudden this community, which the preachers had often
called Satan's stronghold, underwent a moral awakening such as
this world had never beheld.
Two young men began the great work in the summer of 1799.
They were brothers, preachers, and on their way across the
pine barrens to Ohio, but turned aside to be present at a sacra-
mental solemnity on Red River. The people were accustomed
to gather at such times on a Friday, and by praying, singing,
and hearing sermons, prepare themselves for the reception of the
## p. 9510 (#538) ###########################################
9510
JOHN BACH MCMASTER
sacrament on Sunday. At the Red River meeting the brothers
were asked to preach, and one did so with astonishing fervor.
As he spoke, the people were deeply moved; tears ran streaming
down their faces, and one, a woman far in the rear of the house,
broke through order and began to shout. For two hours after
the regular preachers had gone, the crowd lingered and were
loath to depart. While they tarried, one of the brothers was
irresistibly impelled to speak. He rose and told them that he
felt called to preach, that he could not be silent. The words
which then fell from his lips roused the people before him "to a
pungent sense of sin. " Again and again the woman shouted,
and would not be silent. He started to go to her. The crowd
begged him to turn back. Something within him urged him on,
and he went through the house shouting and exhorting and
praising God. In a moment the floor, to use his own words,
«< was covered with the slain. " Their cries for mercy were
terrible to hear. Some found forgiveness, but many went away
"spiritually wounded" and suffering unutterable agony of soul.
Nothing could allay the excitement. Every settlement along the
Green River and the Cumberland was full of religious fervor.
Men fitted their wagons with beds and provisions, and traveled
fifty miles to camp upon the ground and hear him preach.
The idea was new; hundreds adopted it, and camp-meetings
began. There was now no longer any excuse to stay away
from preaching. Neither distance, nor lack of houses, nor scar-
city of food, nor daily occupations prevailed. Led by curiosity,
by excitement, by religious zeal, families of every Protestant
denomination — Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians, Episcopalians
-hurried to the camp-ground. Crops were left half gathered;
every kind of work was left undone; cabins were deserted; in
large settlements there did not remain one soul. The first
regular general camp-meeting was held at the Gasper River
Church, in July, 1800; but the rage spread, and a dozen encamp-
ments followed in quick succession. Camp-meeting was always
in the forest near some little church, which served as the preach-
ers' lodge. At one end of a clearing was a rude stage, and
before it the stumps and trunks of hewn trees, on which the
listeners sat. About the clearing were the tents and wagons
ranged in rows like streets. The praying, the preaching, the
exhorting would sometimes last for seven days, and be prolonged
every day until darkness had begun to give way to light. Nor
-
## p. 9511 (#539) ###########################################
JOHN BACH MCMASTER
9511
were the ministers the only exhorters. Men and women, nay,
even children took part. At Cane Ridge a little girl of seven
sat upon the shoulder of a man and preached to the multitude
till she sank exhausted on her bearer's head. At Indian Creek a
lad of twelve mounted a stump and exhorted till he grew weak,
whereupon two men upheld him, and he continued till speech
was impossible. A score of sinners fell prostrate before him.
At no time was the "falling exercise" so prevalent as at night.
Nothing was then wanting that could strike terror into minds
weak, timid, and harassed. The red glare of the camp-fires re-
flected from hundreds of tents and wagons; the dense blackness
of the flickering shadows, the darkness of the surrounding forest,
made still more terrible by the groans and screams of the "spir-
itually wounded," who had fled to it for comfort; the entreaty
of the preachers; the sobs and shrieks of the downcast still walk-
ing through the dark valley of the Shadow of Death; the shouts
and songs of praise from the happy ones who had crossed the
Delectable Mountains, had gone on through the fogs of the En-
chanted Ground, and entered the land of Beulah, were too much
for those over whose minds and bodies lively imaginations held
full sway.
The heart swelled, the nerves gave way, the hands
and feet grew cold, and motionless and speechless they fell head-
long to the ground. In a moment crowds gathered about them
to pray and shout. Some lay still as death. Some passed
through frightful twitchings of face and limb. At Cabin Creek
so many fell, that lest the multitude should tread on them, they
were carried to the meeting-house and laid in rows on the floor.
At Cane Ridge the number was three thousand.
The recollection of that famous meeting is still preserved in
Kentucky, where, not many years since, old men could be found
whose mothers had carried them to the camp-ground as infants,
and had left them at the roots of trees and behind logs while
the preaching and exhorting continued. Cane Ridge meeting-
house stood on a well-shaded, well-watered spot, seven miles from
the town of Paris. There a great space had been cleared, a
preacher's stand put up, and a huge tent stretched to shelter the
crowd from the sun and rain. But it did not cover the twen-
tieth part of the people who came. Every road that led to the
ground is described to have presented for several days an almost
unbroken line of wagons, horses, and men. One who saw the
meeting when it had just begun wrote home to Philadelphia that
## p. 9512 (#540) ###########################################
9512
JOHN BACH MCMASTER
wagons covered an area as large as that between Market Street
and Chestnut, Second and Third. Another, who counted them,
declared they numbered eleven hundred and forty-five. Seven
hundred and fifty lead tokens, stamped with the letters A or B,
were given by the Baptists to communicants; and there were still
upward of four hundred who received none. Old soldiers who
were present, and claimed to know something of the art of esti-
mating the numbers of masses of men, put down those encamped
at the Cane Ridge meeting as twenty thousand souls. The ex-
citement surpassed anything that had been known. Men who
came to scoff remained to preach. All day and all night the
crowd swarmed to and fro from preacher to preacher, singing,
shouting, laughing, now rushing off to listen to some new ex-
horter who had climbed upon a stump, now gathering around
some unfortunate, who in their peculiar language was "spiritu-
ally slain. " Soon men and women fell in such numbers that it
became impossible for the multitude to move about without
trampling them, and they were hurried to the meeting-house.
At no time was the floor less than half covered. Some lay quiet,
unable to move or speak. Some talked but could not move.
Some beat the floor with their heels. Some, shrieking in agony,
bounded about, it is said, like a live fish out of water. Many
lay down and rolled over and over for hours at a time. Others
rushed wildly over the stumps and benches, and then plunged,
shouting "Lost! Lost! " into the forest.
As the meetings grew more and m re frequent, this nervous
excitement assumed new and more terrible forms.
One was
known as jerking; another, as the barking exercise; a third, as
the Holy Laugh. "The jerks" began in the head and spread
rapidly to the feet. The head would be thrown from side to side
so swiftly that the features would be blotted out and the hair
made to snap.
When the body was affected, the sufferer was
hurled over hindrances that came in his way, and finally dashed
on the ground to bounce about like a ball. At camp-meetings in
the far South, saplings were cut off breast-high and left "for the
people to jerk by. " One who visited such a camp-ground declares
that about the roots of from fifty to one hundred saplings the
earth was kicked up "as by a horse stamping flies. " There only
the lukewarm, the lazy, the half-hearted, the indolent professor
was afflicted. Pious men, and scoffing physicians who sought to
get the jerks that they might speculate upon them, were not
## p. 9513 (#541) ###########################################
JOHN BACH MCMASTER
9513
touched. But the scoffer did not always escape. Not a professor
of religion within the region of the great revival but had heard
or could tell of some great conversion by special act of God.
One disbeliever, it was reported, while cursing and swearing, had
been crushed by a tree falling on him at the Cane Ridge meet-
ing. Another was said to have mounted his horse to ride away,
when the jerks seized him, pulled his feet from the stirrups,
and flung him on the ground, whence he rose a Christian man.
A lad who feigned sickness, kept from church, and lay abed, was
dragged out and dashed against the wall till he betook himself
to prayer. When peace was restored to him, he passed out into
his father's tan-yard to unhair a hide. Instantly the knife left his
hand, and he was drawn over logs and hurled against trees and
fences till he began to pray in serious earnest. A foolish woman
who went to see the jerks was herself soon rolling in the mud.
Scores of such stories passed from mouth to mouth, and may now
be read in the lives and narratives of the preachers. The com-
munity seemed demented. From the nerves and muscles the dis-
order passed to the mind. Men dreamed dreams and saw visions,
nay, fancied themselves dogs, went down on all fours, and barked
till they grew hoarse. It was no uncommon sight to behold
numbers of them gathered about a tree, barking, yelping, "treeing
the Devil. " Two years later, when much of the excitement of the
great revival had gone down, falling and jerking gave way to
hysterics. During the most earnest preaching and exhorting,
even sincere professors of religion would on a sudden burst into
loud laughter; others, unable to resist, would follow, and soon the
assembled multitude would join in. This was the "Holy Laugh,"
and became, after 1803, a recognized part of worship.
EFFECTS OF THE EMBARGO OF 1807
From a History of the People of the United States from the Revolution to
the Civil War. ' D. Appleton & Co. , 1885. Copyright 1885, by John Bach
McMaster.
PAR
ARALYSIS seized on the business of the coast towns and began
to spread inward. Ships were dismantled and left half
loaded at the wharves. Crews were discharged. The sound.
of the caulking-hammer was no longer heard in the ship-yards.
The sail-lofts were deserted, the rope-walks were closed; the
## p. 9514 (#542) ###########################################
9514
JOHN BACH MCMASTER
cartmen had nothing to do. In a twinkling the price of every
domestic commodity went down, and the price of every foreign
commodity went up. But no wages were earned, no business
was done, and money almost ceased to circulate.
The federal revenues fell from sixteen millions to a few
thousands.
The value of the shipping embargoed has
been estimated at fifty millions; and as the net earnings were
twenty-five per cent. , twelve and a half millions more were
lost to the country through the enforced idleness of the vessels.
From an estimate made at the time, it appears that one hundred
thousand men were believed to have been out of work for one
year. They earned from forty cents to one dollar and thirty-
three cents per day. Assuming a dollar as the average rate of
daily wages, the loss to the laboring class was in round numbers
thirty-six millions of dollars. On an average, thirty millions had
been invested annually in the purchase of foreign and domestic
produce. As this great sum was now seeking investment which
could not be found, its owners were deprived not only of their
profits, but of two millions of interest besides.
Unable to bear the strain, thousands on thousands went to
the wall. The newspapers were full of insolvent-debtor notices.
All over the country the court-house doors, the tavern doors,
the post-offices, the cross-road posts, were covered with advertise-
ments of sheriffs' sales. In the cities the jails were not large
enough to hold the debtors. At New York during 1809 thirteen
hundred men were imprisoned for no other crime than being
ruined by the embargo. A traveler who saw the city in this
day of distress assures us that it looked like a town ravaged by
pestilence. The counting-houses were shut or advertised to let.
The coffee-houses were almost empty. The streets along the
water-side were almost deserted. The ships were dismantled;
their decks were cleared, their hatches were battened down. Not
a box, not a cask, not a barrel, not a bale was to be seen on
the wharves, where the grass had begun to grow luxuriantly. A
year later, in this same city, eleven hundred and fifty men were
confined for debts under twenty-five dollars, and were clothed by
the Humane Society.
## p. 9515 (#543) ###########################################
9515
EMERICH MADÁCH
(1823-1864)
BY GEORGE ALEXANDER KOHUT
UNGARY is a favorite land of the Muses. Romance, ardent
sentiment, and a certain mystic fervor give to her poetry an
exquisite charm. A thrill of fire and passion vibrates in her
songs and melodies. Her folk-lore and ancient traditions teem with
rich Oriental imagery and beautiful conceptions. These ancient gems
have in the present century received a fresh setting at the hands of
the literary artists, who have borne witness
to the unabated vigor of this people "barbar-
ously grand. " Of the modern school, Petöfi
the lyric poet and Madách the dramatic are
the most popular poets of Hungary.
Madách Imre (for the family name comes
first in Hungarian) was born in Alsó Sztre-
gova, Hungary, January 21st, 1823; and died
in his native town October 5th, 1864. Of
his life little need be told. He was notary,
orator, and journalist; at an early age he
wrote a number of essays on natural science,
archæology, and æsthetics. He wrote lyric
as well as dramatic poetry; but it is chiefly
through his two dramatic poems, 'Moses'
and The Tragedy of Man,' written almost simultaneously in 1860,
that he is best known. An edition of his collected writings, in three
volumes, was issued by Paul Gyulai in Budapest, 1880. His master-
piece, The Tragedy of Man,' has been rendered into German no less
than five times; the latest version, by Julius Lechner von der Lech
(Leipzig, 1888, with a preface by Maurice Jókai), being the most feli-
citous. Alexander Fischer gave a splendid résumé of this powerful
drama in Sacher-Masoch's periodical, Auf der Höhe (Vol. xvi. , 1885),
-the only analysis of it in any language except Hungarian. Though
it is too philosophical and contemplative in character, and not in-
tended for the stage, its first production, which took place in Septem-
ber 1883, created an immense sensation both in Austria and Hungary.
To English readers, Madách is a total stranger. His name is
scarcely ever found in any encyclopædia or biographical dictionary;
EMERICH MADÁCH
## p. 9516 (#544) ###########################################
9516
EMERICH MADÁCH
and strangely enough, no attempt has been thus far made to give
even a selection from this latter-day Milton of Hungary.
It is not here intended to explain the origin and inner development
of this fascinating drama, nor to draw elaborate parallels between
its author and his predecessors in other lands. Such a comparative
critical study would be interesting as showing the spiritual kinship
between master minds, centuries distant from one another, whose
sympathies are in direct touch with our own ideals and life problems.
Madách will plead his own cause effectively enough. To him, how-
ever, who in reading the Tragedy of Man' involuntarily makes such
comparisons, and might be led unjustly to question the author's ori-
ginality, the graceful adage Grosse Geister treffen sich (Great minds
meet) will serve as an answer. He should rather say, with true
artistic estimate, that the shading in the one landscape of a higher
life helps to set off the vivid and brilliant coloring in the other; so
that the whole, viewed side by side, presents a series of wondrous
harmonies. Madách imbibed, no doubt, from foreign sources.
He
was familiar with 'Paradise Lost,' and with the now obsolete but
once much-lauded epic, 'La Semaine (The Week), of Milton's French
predecessor Du Bartas; Alfieri's tramelogedia, 'Abele,' and Gesner's
'Death of Abel,' as well as Byron's 'Mystery of Cain,' may also have
come to his notice; Goethe's 'Faust' appears more than once, and may
be recognized in any incognito. Yet we cannot say with certainty
that any one of these masterpieces influenced his own work, any more
than Milton inspired the great German bard. We might as justly
tax him with drawing upon Hebrew tradition for the entire plot of
his drama, beginning with the fourth scene; for strangely enough,
Adam's experiences with his mentor and Nemesis, Lucifer, are fore-
shadowed in the very same manner in a quaint legend of the Jewish
Rabbis, told nearly twenty centuries ago. The comparative study
of literature will reveal other facts equally amazing. It is of course
self-evident that the morbid pessimism which rings its vague alarms
throughout the book is that of Ecclesiastes, whose vanitas vanitatum
is the key to his doleful plaint.
"I applied my heart to seek and to search out by wisdom concerning all
that is done under heaven: it is a sore travail that God hath given to the
sons of men to be exercised therewith.
I have seen all the works that are
done under the sun; and behold, all is vanity and a striving after wind. . .
And I applied my heart to know wisdom, and to know madness and folly: I
perceived that this also was a striving after wind. For in much wisdom is
much grief; and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow. " (Eccl. i.
12-18. )
This is the leading theme, and Lessing's soulful simile of the
ideal, the grand morale: "If God held truth in his right hand," says
he, "and in his left the mere striving after truth, bidding me choose
-
## p. 9517 (#545) ###########################################
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"
9517
between the two, I would reverently bow to his left and say, 'Give
but the impulse; truth is for thee alone! '»
Thus, after traversing many lands the world over; after plunging
into every pleasure and being steeped in every vice; after passions
human and divine have had their sway over his spirit,- Adam con-
cedes to Lucifer that the world of ideals is illusory, existing only in
fancy, thriving but in our own souls, nourished by sentiment, and
supersensitive to the touch of grosser things. And yet the echo
which answers his sad pleadings, as he cries out disheartened —
is a wholly unexpected one in the grand finale. It teaches the
doctrine of eternal hope, as the great Hebrew pessimist Koheleth
summed it up, when only the Hellenic intellect reigned supreme and
the Hellenic heart was cold:-
"I have decreed, O man-
strive ye and trust! »
The ideal conquers in the end, should life and love not fail. Poetry
and sentiment transform even this valley of the shadow of death into
a Paradise regained. It is a song of the ideals in which salvation
lies; and the words of the Lord with which the poem closes are,
"Struggle and trust. »
Teorge Alexander Mohut
IRST CITIZEN
"O sacred poetry, hast thou then
Quite forsaken this prosy world of ours? »
FIRS
Second Citizen
SEVENTH SCENE
Scene: An open square in Constantinople. A few citizens lounging about.
In the centre the palace of the Patriarch; to the right a cloister; to the
left a grove. Adam as Tancred, in the prime of life, is seen advan-
cing at the head of returning Crusaders, accompanied by other knights,
with colors flying and drums beating; Lucifer as his armor-bearer.
Evening, then night.
--
-
FROM THE TRAGEDY OF MAN'
Behold, there comes another horde of heathen;
Oh, flee and double-bar the doors, lest they
Again the whim to plunder feel!
Hide ye the women: but too well
Knows this rebel the joys of the seraglio.
―
## p. 9518 (#546) ###########################################
9518
EMERICH MADÁCH
First Citizen -
Adam
First Citizen -
Lucifer-
Adam
Lucifer
Adam-
_____
Adam [to the knights]-
-
Lucifer-
And our wives the rights of the conqueror.
Hold! hold! why scatter in such haste?
Do ye not see the holy sign aloft
That makes us brothers in humanity
And companions to one goal? —
We bore the light of our faith, the law
Of love, into Asia's wilds,
That the savage millions there
Where our Savior's cradle stood
Might share sweet salvation's boon.
Know ye not this brotherly love?
Full many a time through honeyed words
Swift harm befell our homes.
[They disperse. ]
-
Behold, this is the accursed result
When scheming vagabonds
The sacred symbol flaunt,
And flattering the passions of the mob,
Presume unasked to lead. -
Fellow knights! Until our swords
To honor fair, to praise of God,
To women's guard, to bravery,
Be sanctified,- are we in duty bound
This demon foul in constant check to hold,
That in spite of godless inclination,
He great and noble deeds may do.
That sounds well. But, Tancred, what if the people
Do but spurn thy leadership?
Where spirit is, is also victory.
I'll crush them to the earth!
And should spirit with them alike abide,
Wilt thou descend to them?
Why descend?
Is it not nobler to lift them up to me?
To yield for lack of fighters
The foremost place in battle, were
As unworthy as to reject a comrade
In envy of his share of victory.
Alack! how the grand idea has come to naught
For which the martyrs of the circus fought!
Is this the freedom of equality?
A wondrous brotherhood were that!
## p. 9519 (#547) ###########################################
EMERICH MADÁCH
Adam Oh, cease thy scorn! Think not that I misprize
Christianity's exalted precepts.
Adam
My being yearns for them alone!
Whoever hath the spark divine may strive;
Lucifer - What a pity that thy spirit's lofty flight
Even now begets such sorry fruit;
Red without, within already rotten!
Lucifer-
Adam-
And him who upward toils to us
With joy we surely will receive.
A sword-cut lifts him to our ranks.
But guard we must our ranks with jealous eye
Against the still fermenting chaos here.
Would that our time were already near!
For only then can we be quite redeemed
When every barrier falls-when all is pure.
And were he who set this universe in motion
Not himself the great and mighty God,
I must needs doubt the dawn of such a day.
Ye have seen, O friends, how we have been received:
Orphaned amidst the tumult of the town,
Naught now remains save in yonder grove
A tent to pitch, as we were wont among the infidels,
Till better times shall come. Go; I follow soon.
Every knight stands sponsor for his men.
[The Crusaders pitch their tent. ]
Stop!
Hast thou no longer faith in lofty thought?
What boots it thee if I believe,
When thine own race doth doubt?
This knighthood which thou hast placed
As lighthouse amid ocean's waves,
Will yet die out, or half collapse,
And make the sailor's course even more fearful
9519
Than before, when no light shone before his way.
What lives to-day and blessing works,
Dies with time; the spirit takes wing
And the carcass but remains, to breathe
Murderous miasmas into the fresher life
Which round him buds. Behold, thus
Survive from bygone times our old ideals.
Until our ranks dissolve, its sacred teachings
Will have had effect upon the public mind.
I fear no danger then.
## p. 9520 (#548) ###########################################
9520
EMERICH MADÁCH
Lucifer-
Adam-
-
Adam-
―
Third Citizen.
Lucifer-
Adam-
-
Lucifer-
Adam
Lucifer-
-
――――
Adam-
Look thou upon this sword! It may by a hair's-breadth
Longer be or shorter, and yet remains the same
In substance. The door is opened thus to endless specula-
Adam-
Lucifer-
-
The holy teachings! They are your curse indeed,
When ye approach them unawares,
For ye turn, sharpen, split, and smooth
Them o'er so long, till they your phantoms
Or your chains become.
And though reason cannot grasp exact ideas,
Yet ye presumptuous men do always seek
To forge them to your harm.
-
tion;
For where is there limit pre-imposed?
'Tis true your feelings soon perceive the right
When change in greater things sets in. —
But why speak and myself exert? Speech
Is wearisome. Turn thou, survey the field thyself.
Friends, my troops are tired and shelter crave.
In the Capital of Christendom they will
Perchance not crave in vain.
The question is, whether as heretics.
Ye're not worse than infidels!
I stand aghast! But see what prince
Approaches from afar, so haughtily defiant?
The Patriarch successor to the Apostles.
And this barefoot, dirty mob
Which follows with malicious joy
In the captive's wake,
Feigning humility?
They are monks, Christian cynics.
I saw not such among my native hills.
You'll see them yet. Slowly, slowly
Spreads the curse of leprosy;
But beware how you dare insult
This people, so absolute in virtue and
Hence so hard to reconcile.
What virtue could adorn such folk as this?
Their worth is abnegation, poverty,
As practiced first by the Master on the Cross.
He saved a world by such humility;
While these cowards, like rebels,
Do but blaspheme the name of God,
In that they despise his gift.
## p. 9521 (#549) ###########################################
EMERICH MADÁCH
Lucifer-
Adam [facing the Patriarch]--
Who 'gainst gnats the weapons same would draw
That in the bear hunt he is wont to use
Is a fool.
Patriarch-
Monks
But if they in pious zeal, perchance,
Mistake the gnats for monstrous bears,
Have they then not the right to drive
To the very gates of hell
Those who life enjoy?
Father, we're battling for the Holy Grave,
And wearied from the way which we have come,
To rest within these walls we are denied.
Thou hast power here: help thou our cause.
Patriarch
Scale ye their walls, level them to the ground,
And spare ye neither woman, child, nor hoary head.
Adam The innocent! O father, this cannot be thy wish!
Patriarch-
My son, I have just now no time for petty things.
God's glory and my people's weal
Call higher aims now forth. I must away
To judge the heretics; who, like poisonous weeds,
Do grow and multiply, and whom hell
With force renewed upon us throws,
Even though we constant try with fire and sword
―
To root them out.
But if indeed ye be true Christian knights,
Why seek the Moor so far remote?
Here lurks a yet more dangerous foe.
Innocent is the serpent, too, while yet of tender growth
Or after its fangs are shed.
Yet sparest thou the snake?
Adam It must, in faith, have been a grievous sin
Which could such wrath from Christian love evoke.
O my son! not he shows love who feeds the flesh,
But he who leadeth back the erring soul,
At point of sword, or e'en through leaping flames.
If needs must be,- to Him who said:
Not peace but war do I proclaim!
That wicked sect interprets false
The mystic Trinity. .
XVI-596
―
Death upon them all!
There burns the funeral pile.
9521
## p. 9522 (#550) ###########################################
EMERICH MADÁCH
9522
Adam-
An Old Heretic-
Patriarch-
My friend, give up the iota, pray:
Your inspired valor in fighting
For the Savior's grave will be
More fitting sacrifice than this.
One of the Monks-
Satan, tempt us not! We'll bleed
For our true faith where God ordains.
Ha, renegade! thou boastest of true faith?
Too long have we tarried here: away with them
To the funeral pyre, in honor of God!
The Old Heretic-
Lucifer-
In honor of God? Thou spakest well, O knave!
In honor of God are we indeed your prey.
Ye are strong, and can enforce your will
As ye may please. But whether ye have acted rightly
Heaven alone will judge. Even now is weighed,
At every hour, your vile career of crime.
New champions shall from our blood arise;
The idea lives triumphant on; and coming centuries
Shall the light reflect of flames that blaze to-day.
Friends, go we to our glorious martyrdom!
The Heretics [chanting in chorus] –
——
My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?
Why art thou so far from helping me
And from the words of my roaring?
O my God, I cry in the daytime, but thou
Hearest not; and in the night season,
And am not silent. But thou art holy!
(Psalm xxii. )
Plead my cause, O Lord, with them that strive with me;
Fight against them that fight against me;
Take hold of shield and buckler and stand up for mine help;
Draw out also the spear, and stop the way
Against them that persecute me.
Monks [breaking in]-
-
(Psalm xxxv. )
[In the interim the Patriarch and the procession go by. The monks with
tracts mingle among the Crusaders. ]
Why silent thus and horrified?
Dost hold this to be a tragedy?
Consider it a comedy, and 'twill make thee laugh.
## p. 9523 (#551) ###########################################
EMERICH MADÁCH
9523
Adam-
Lucifer-
Adam-
Lucifer-
Adam-
Lucifer-
Nay, spare thy banter now! Can one
For a mere iota go firmly thus to death?
What then is the lofty and sublime?
That which to others may seem droll.
Only a hair divides these two ideas;
A voice in the heart alone may judge betwixt them,
And the mysterious judge is sympathy,
Which, blindly, at one time deifies,
Then with brutal scorn condemns to death.
Why must my eyes be witness of these varied sins?
The subtleties of proud science, and of sophistry!
That deadly poison wondrously so sipped
From the sweetest, gayest, freshest flowers?
I knew this flower once in the budding time
Of our oppressed faith. Where is the wanton hand
That ruthlessly destroyed it?
The wanton hand is victory,
Which wide-spread once, a thousand wishes wakes,
Danger allies, and martyrs makes,
And strength endues;
'Tis there among the heretics.
Verily, I'd cast away my sword and turn me
To my northern home, where, in the glades
Of the shadowy woods primeval,
Stern manliness, true artlessness yet dwell,
And the rancor of this smooth-tongued age defy.
I would return but for a voice that lisps
The constant message in my ears,
That I alone am called to re-create this world.
Love's labor lost; for unaided thou canst
Ne'er prevail against the ruling spirit of the age.
The course of time is a mighty stream,—
It buries thee or bears thee;
Nor canst thou hope to guide it,
But only swim adrift the tide.
Who in history immortal shine,
And wield uncommon power,
-
Knew well the time in which they lived,
Yet did not themselves the thought create.
Not because the cock crows does day dawn,
But the cock crows with the dawn of day;
Yonder those who, fettered, fly to face
The terrors of a death of martyrdom,
See scarce a step ahead.
## p. 9524 (#552) ###########################################
9524
EMERICH MADÁCH
A Monk in the centre of a crowd of Crusaders —
The Crusaders
Adam-
The thought but just conceived dawns in their midst
In the throes of death they hail so joyfully,—
The thought which by a care-free posterity
Will be inhaled with the air they breathe.
But leave thou this theme! Glance toward thy tent:
What unclean monks stroll about there?
What trade they drive, what speeches make
And gestures wild, insane?
Let's nearer draw, and hearken!
Adam
Here, father, here, give us
copy too!
Infamous trader, and still more wicked patrons,
Draw ye the sword and end this foul traffic!
Lucifer [confused]-
-
Lucifer-
Buy ye, brave warriors; neglect ye not
This manual of penance:
'Twill clear all doubt of conscience;
You'll learn therein much weighty mystery:
How many years in hell will burn
Each murderer, thief, and ravisher,
And he who doth our doctrines spurn;
It tells ye what the rich may buy
For a score or more of solidi;
And the poor for three alone
May swift obtain salvation's boon;
Whilst even he, to be quite fair,
Who such a sum cannot well spare,
May for a thousand lashes, mind,
Salvation bring upon his kind.
Buy ye, buy ye, this precious book!
I beg your pardon. This monk has long my partner been.
Not so deeply do I this world despise;
When praise of God soared high,
My homage also rose aloft,
Whilst thine remained becalmed.
Help me, O Lucifer! Away, away from here!
Lead back my future into past,
That I my fate no longer see,
Nor view a fruitless strife. Pray let me think
If wisdom is to thwart my destiny!
Awake then, Adam,-thy dream is o'er.
·
## p. 9525 (#553) ###########################################
EMERICH MADÁCH
9525
FIFTEENTH SCENE
Scene: A garden of palms. Adam, young again, enters from his bower;
still half asleep, he looks about in astonishment. Lucifer stands in
the middle of the scene. It is a radiant day.
Ye weird scenes and haggard forms,
How have ye left me lone!
Joys and smiles greet now my path,
As once of yore before my heart was broken.
Lucifer-O boastful man, is it thy wish, perchance,
That Nature for thy sake her law should change,—
A star appoint to mark thy loss,
Or shake the earth because a worm has died?
Have I dreamed, or am I dreaming still?
And is our life aught but a dream at last
Which makes an inanimate mass to live
But for a moment, then lets it fade forever?
Oh why, why this brief glimpse of consciousness,
Only to view the terrors of annihilation?
Thou mournest? Only cowards bend
Their necks to yoke, and unresisting stand
When yet the blow may be averted.
But unmurmuring doth the strong man
Decipher the mystic runes eternal
Of his destiny, caring but to know
If he himself can thrive beneath their doom.
AD
DAM-
Adam
Lucifer-
The might of Fate controls the world's great course;
Thou art but a tool and blindly onward driven.
Adam Nay, nay, thou liest!
