No More Learning

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ALCUIN
299
DISPUTATION BETWEEN PEPIN, THE MOST NOBLE AND ROYAL
YOUTH, AND ALBINUS THE SCHOLASTIC
P
-
EPIN — What is writing?
Albinus — The treasury of history.
Pepin — What is language ?
Albinus — The herald of the soul.
Pepin — What generates language ?
Albinus — The tongue.
Pepin - What is the tongue ?
Albinus — A whip of the air.
Pepin— What is the air ?
Albinus — A maintainer of life.
Pepin - What is life?
Albinus — The joy of the happy; the torment of the suffering;
a waiting for death.
Pepin — What is death?
Albinus — An inevitable ending; a journey into uncertainty; a
source of tears for the living; the probation of wills; a waylayer
of men.
Pepin - What is man?
Albinus — A booty of death; a passing traveler; a stranger on
earth.
Pepin - What is man like?
Albinus - The fruit of a tree.
Pepin- What are the heavens ?
Albinus - A rolling ball; an immeasurable vault.
Pepin — What is light?
Albinus — The sight of all things.
Pepin — What is day?
Albinus — The admonisher to labor.
Pepin — What is the sun ?
Albinus — The glory and splendor of the heavens; the attract-
ive in nature; the measure of hours; the adornment of day.
Pepin - What is the moon ?
Albinus — The eye of night; the dispenser of dew; the pre-
sager of storms.
Pepin — What are the stars ?
Albinus — A picture on the vault of heaven; the steersmen of
ships; the ornament of night.
-


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300
ALCUIN
Pepin — What is rain ?
Albinus — The fertilizer of the earth; the producer of crops.
Pepin — What is fog?
Albinus - Night in day; the annoyance of eyes.
Pepin - What is wind?
Albinus — The mover of air; the agitation of water; the dryer
of the earth.
Pepin — What is the earth ?
Albinus — The mother of growth; the nourisher of the living;
the storehouse of life; the effacer of all.
Pepin - What is the sea ?
Albinus — The path of adventure; the bounds of the earth;
the division of lands; the harbor of rivers; the source of rains;
a refuge in danger; a pleasure in enjoyment.
Pepin — What are rivers ?
Albinus - A ceaseless motion; a refreshment to the sun; the
waters of the earth.
Pepin — What is water ?
Albinus — The supporter of life; the cleanser of filth.
Pepin — What is fire ?
Albinus - An excessive heat; the nurse of growing things; the
ripener of crops.
Pepin — What is cold ?
Albinus — The trembling of our members.
Pepin — What is frost ?
Albinus — An assailer of plants; the destruction of leaves; a
fetter to the earth; a bridger of streams.
Pepin - What is snow?
Albinus - Dry water.
Pepin — What is winter?
Albinus An exile of summer.
Pepin - What is spring?
Albinus - A painter
A painter of the earth.
Pepin - What is summer ?
Albinus - That which brings to the earth a new garment, and
ripens the fruit.
Pepin - What is autumn ?
Albinus — The barn of the year.


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ALCUIN
301
A LETTER FROM ALCUIN TO CHARLEMAGNE
(Written in the year 796)
YOUR Flaccus, in accordance with your entreaty and your
gracious kindness, am busied under the shelter of St. Mar.
tin's, in bestowing upon many of my pupils the honey of
the Holy Scriptures. I am eager that others should drink deep
of the old wine of ancient learning; I shall presently begin to
nourish still others with the fruits of grammatical ingenuity; and
some of them I am eager to enlighten with a knowledge of the
order of the stars, that seem painted, as it were, on the dome
of some mighty palace. I have become all things to all men
(1 Cor. i. 22) so that I may train up many to the profession of
God's Holy Church and to the glory of your imperial realm, lest
the grace of Almighty God in me should be fruitless (1 Cor. xv.
10) and your munificent bounty of no avail. But your servant
lacks the rarer books of scholastic learning, which in my own
country I used to have (thanks to the generous and most devoted
care of my teacher and to my own humble endeavors), and I
mention it to your Majesty so that, perchance, it may please you
who are eagerly concerned about the whole body of learning, to
have me dispatch some of our young men to procure for us cer-
tain necessary works, and bring with them to France the flowers
of England; so that a graceful garden may not exist in York
alone, but so that at Tours as well there may be found the blos-
soming of Paradise with its abundant fruits; that the south wind,
when it comes, may cause the gardens along the River Loire to
burst into bloom, and their perfumed airs to stream forth, and
finally, that which follows in the Canticle, whence I have drawn
this simile, may be brought to pass.
(Canticle v. 1, 2).
Or even this exhortation of the prophet Isaiah, which urges us to
acquire wisdom:—"All ye who thirst, come to the waters; and
you who have not money, hasten, buy and eat: come, without
money and without price, and buy wine and milk” (Isaiah iv. 1. )
And this is a thing which your gracious zeal will not over-
look: how upon every page of the Holy Scriptures we are urged
to the acquisition of wisdom; how nothing is more honorable for
insuring a happy life, nothing more pleasing in the observance,
nothing more efficient against sin, nothing more praiseworthy in
any lofty station, than that men live according to the teachings of


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302
ALCUIN
the philosophers. Moreover, nothing is more essential to the gov-
ernment of the people, nothing better for the guidance of life
into the paths of honorable character, than the grace which wis-
dom gives, and the glory of training and the power of learning.
Therefore it is that in its praise, Solomon, the wisest of all men,
exclaims, Better is wisdom than all precious things, and more
to be desired” (Prov. viii. i seq). To secure this with every pos-
sible effort and to get possession of it by daily endeavor, do you,
my lord King, exhort the young men who are in your Majesty's
palace, that they strive for this in the flower of their youth, so
that they may be deemed worthy to live through an old age of
honor, and that by its means they may be able to attain to ever-
lasting happiness. I, myself, according to my disposition, shall
not be slothful in sowing the seeds of wisdom among your serv-
ants in this land, being mindful of the injunction, “Sow thy
seed in the morning, and at eventide let not thy hand cease;
since thou knowest not what will spring up, whether these or
those, and if both together, still better is it” (Eccles. xi. 6). In
the morning of my life and in the fruitful period of my studies I
sowed seed in Britain, and now that my blood has grown cool in
the evening of life, I still cease not; but sow the seed in France,
desiring that both may spring up by the grace of God. And now
that my body has grown weak, I find consolation in the saying of
St. Jerome, who declares in his letter to Nepotianus, «Almost all
the powers of the body are altered in old men, and wisdom alone
will increase while the rest decay. ” And a little further he says,
« The old age of those who have adorned their youth with noble
accomplishments and have meditated on the law of the Lord both
day and night becomes more and more deeply accomplished with
its years, more polished from experience, more wise by the lapse
of time; and it reaps the sweetest fruit of ancient learning. ” In
this letter in praise of wisdom, one who wishes can read many
things of the scientific pursuits of the ancients, and can under-
stand how eager were these ancients to abound in the grace of
wisdom. I have noted that your zeal, which is pleasing to God
and praiseworthy, is always advancing toward this wisdom and
takes pleasure in it, and that you are adorning the magnificence
of your worldly rule with still greater intellectual splendor. In
this may our Lord Jesus Christ, who is himself the supreme type
of divine wisdom, guard you and exalt you, and cause you to
attain to the glory of His own blessed and everlasting vision.


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303
HENRY M. ALDEN
(1836-)
ENRY Mills ALDEN, since 1864 the editor of Harper's Maga-
zine, was born in Mount Tabor, Vermont, November uth,
1836, the eighth in descent from Captain John Alden, the
Pilgrim. He graduated at Williams College, and studied theology
at Andover Seminary, but was never ordained a minister, having
almost immediately turned his attention to literature. His first work
that attracted attention was an essay on the Eleusinian Mysteries,
published in the Atlantic Monthly. The scholarship and subtle
method revealed in this and similar works led to his engagement to
deliver a course of twelve Lowell Institute lectures at Boston, in
1863 and 1864, and he took for his subject “The Structure of Pagan-
ism. ' Before this he had removed to New York, had engaged in
general editorial work, and formed his lasting connection with the
house of Harper and Brothers.
As an editor Mr. Alden is the most practical of men, but he is in
reality a poet, and in another age he might have been a mystic.
He has the secret of preserving his life to himself, while paying the
keenest attention to his daily duties. In his office he is immersed in
affairs which require the exercise of vigilant common-sense, and
knowledge of life and literature. At his home he is a serene and
optimistic philosopher, contemplating the forces that make for our
civilization, and musing over the deep problems of man's occupa-
tion of this earth. In 1893 appeared anonymously a volume entitled
"God in His World, which attracted instantly wide attention in this
country and in England for its subtlety of thought, its boldness of
treatment, its winning sweetness of temper, and its exquisite style.
It was by Mr. Alden, and in 1895 it was followed by A Study of
Death, continuing the great theme of the first, – the unity of crea-
tion, the certainty that there is in no sense a war between the
Creator and his creation. In this view the Universe is not divided
into the Natural and the Supernatural: all is Natural. ut we can
speak here only of their literary quality. The author is seen to be a
poet in his conceptions, but in form his writing is entirely within
the limits of prose; yet it is a prose most harmonious, most melodi-
ous, and it exhibits the capacity of our English tongue in the hand of
a master. The thought is sometimes so subtle as to elude the care-
less reader, but the charm of the melody never fails to entrance.
The study of life and civilization is profound, but the grace of treat-
ment seems to relieve the problems of half their difficulty.
His wife did not live to read the exquisite dedication given below.


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304
HENRY M. ALDEN
From A Study of Death, copyright 1895, by Harper and Brothers
A DEDICATION
TO MY BELOVED WIFE
M
Y EARLIEST written expression of intimate thought or cher-
ished fancy was for your eyes only; it was my first
approach to your maidenly heart, a mystical wooing, which
neglected no resource, near or remote, for the enhancement of
its charm, and so involved all other mystery in its own.
In you, childhood has been inviolate, never losing its power
of leading me by an unspoken invocation to a green field, ever
kept fresh by a living fountain, where the Shepherd tends his
flock. Now, through a body racked with pain, and sadly broken,
still shines this unbroken childhood, teaching me Love's deepest
mystery.
It is fitting, then, that I should dedicate to you this book
touching that mystery.
It has been written in the shadow, but
illumined by the brightness of an angel's face seen in the dark-
ness, so that it has seemed easy and natural for me to find at
the thorn's heart a secret and everlasting sweetness far surpass-
ing that of the rose itself, which ceases in its own perfection.
Whether that angel we have seen shall, for my need and
comfort, and for your own longing, hold back his greatest gift,
and leave you mine in the earthly ways we know and love, or
shall hasten to make the heavenly surprise, the issue in either
event will be a home-coming: if here, yet already the deeper
secret will have been in part disclosed; and if beyond, that
secret, fully known, will not betray the fondest hope of loving
hearts. Love never denied Death, and Death will not deny
Love.
From (A Study of Death, copyright 1895, by Harper and Brothers
THE DOVE AND THE SERPENT
TH
.
HE Dove flies, and the Serpent creeps. Yet is the Dove
fond, while the Serpent is the emblem of wisdom. Both
were in Eden: the cooing, fluttering, winged spirit, loving
to descend, companion-like, brooding, following; and the creep-
ing thing which had glided into the sunshine of Paradise from


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HENRY M. ALDEN
305
the cold bosoms of those nurses of an older world — Pain, and
Darkness, and Death - himself forgetting these in the warmth
and green life of the Garden. And our first parents knew
naught of these as yet unutterable mysteries, any more than
they knew that their roses bloomed over a tomb: so that when
all animate creatures came to Adam to be named, the meaning
of this living allegory which passed before him was in great
part hidden, and he saw no sharp line dividing the firmament
below from the firmament above; rather he leaned toward the
ground, as one does in a garden, seeing how quickly it was
fashioned into the climbing trees, into the clean flowers, and
into his own shapely frame. It was upon the ground he lay
when that deep sleep fell upon him from which he woke to find
his mate, lithe as the serpent, yet with the fluttering heart of
the dove.
As the Duve, though winged for flight, ever descended, so the
Serpent, though unable wholly to leave the ground, tried ever to
lift himself therefrom, as if to escape some ancient bond. The
cool nights revived and nourished his memories of an older time,
wherein lay his subtile wisdom, but day by day his aspiring crest
grew brighter. The life of Eden became for him oblivion, the
light of the sun obscuring and confounding his reminiscence, even
as for Adam and Eve this life was Illusion, the visible disguising
the invisible, and pleasure veiling pain.
In Adam the culture of the ground maintained humility. He
was held, moreover, in lowly content by the charm of the
woman, who was to him like the earth grown human; and since
she was the daughter of Sleep, her love seemed to him restful
as the night. Her raven locks were like the mantle of darkness,
and her voice had the laughter of streams that lapsed into
unseen depths.
But Eve had something of the Serpent's unrest, as if she too
had come from the Under-world, which she would fain forget,
seeking liberation, urged by desire as deep as the abyss she had
left behind her, and nourished from roots unfathomably hidden -
the roots of the Tree of Life. She thus came to have conversa-
tion with the Serpent.
In the lengthening days of Eden's one Summer these two
were more and more completely enfolded in the Illusion of Light.
It was under this spell that, dwelling upon the enticement of
fruit good to look at, and pleasant to the taste, the Serpent
1-20


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306
HENRY M. ALDEN
»
denied Death, and thought of Good as separate from Evil. « Ye
shall not surely die, but shall be as the gods, knowing good and
evil. ” So far, in his aspiring day-dream, had the Serpent fared
from his old familiar haunts—so far from his old-world wisdom!
A surer omen would have come to Eve had she listened to
the plaintive notes of the bewildered Dove that in his downward
flutterings had begun to divine what the Serpent had come to
forget, and to confess what he had come to deny.
For already was beginning to be felt “the season's difference,"
and the grave mystery, without which Paradise itself could not
have been, was about to be unveiled, — the background of the
picture becoming its foreground. The fond hands plucking the
rose had found the thorn. Evil was known as something by
.
itself, apart from Good, and Eden was left behind, as one steps
out of infancy.
From that hour have the eyes of the children of men been
turned from the accursed earth, looking into the blue above,
straining their vision for a glimpse of white-robed angels.
Yet it was the Serpent that was lifted up in the wilderness;
and when He who became sin for us was being bruised in the
heel by the old enemy, the Dove descended upon Him at His
baptism. He united the wisdom of the Serpent with the harm-
lessness of the Dove. Thus in Him were bound together and
reconciled the elements which in human thought had been put
asunder. In Him, Evil is overcome of Good, as, in Him, Death
is swallowed up of Life; and with His eyes we see that the robes
of angels are white, because they have been washed in blood.
>>
From A Study of Death,' copyright 1895, by Harper and Brothers
DEATH AND SLEEP
,
HE Angel of Death is the invisible Angel of Life. While the
organism is alive as a human embodiment, death is present,
having the same human distinction as the life, from which
it is inseparable, being, indeed, the better half of living, — its
winged half, its rest and inspiration, its secret spring of elasticity,
and quickness. Life came upon the wings of Death, and
departs.
If we think of life apart from death our thought is partial, as
if we would give flight to the arrow without bending the bow.
SO


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HENRY M. ALDEN
307
No living movement either begins or is completed save through
death. If the shuttle return not there is no web; and the text-
ure of life is woven through this tropic movement.
It is a commonly accepted scientific truth that the continu-
ance of life in any living thing depends upon death. But there
are two ways of expressing this truth: one, regarding merely
the outward fact, as when we say that animal or vegetable tissue
is renewed through decay; the other, regarding the action and
reaction proper to life itself, whereby it forever springs freshly
from its source.
The latter form of expression is mystical, in
the true meaning of that term. We close our eyes to the out-
ward appearance, in order that we may directly confront a mys-
tery which is already past before there is any visible indication
thereof. Though the imagination engaged in this mystical appre-
hension borrows its symbols or analogues from observation and
experience, yet these symbols are spiritually regarded by looking
at life on its living side, and abstracted as far as possible from
outward embodiment. We especially affect physiological ana-
logues because, being derived from our experience, we may the
more readily have the inward regard of them; and by passing
from one physiological analogue to another, and from all these to
those furnished by the processes of nature outside of our bodies,
we come to an apprehension of the action and reaction proper to
life itself as an idea independent of all its physical representa-
tions.
Thus we trace the rhythmic beating of the pulse to the systole
and diastole of the heart, and we note a similar alternation in
the contraction and relaxation of all our muscles. Breathing is
alternately inspiration and expiration. Sensation itself is by beats,
and falls into rhythm. There is no uninterrupted strain of either
action or sensibility; a current or a contact is renewed, having
been broken. In psychical operation there is the same alternate
lapse and resurgence. Memory rises from the grave of oblivion.
No holding can be maintained save through alternate release.
Pulsation establishes circulation, and vital motions proceed through
cycles, each one of which, however minute, has its tropic of Can-
cer and of Capricorn. Then there are the larger physiological
cycles, like that wherein sleep is the alternation of waking. Pass-
ing from the field of our direct experience to that of observation,
we note similar alternations, as of day and night, summer and
winter, flood and ebb tide; and science discloses them at every


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308
HENRY M. ALDEN
-
turn, especially in its recent consideration of the subtle forces of
Nature, leading us back of all visible motions to the pulsations
of the ether.
In considering the action and reaction proper to life itself, we
here dismiss from view all measured cycles, whose beginning and
end are appreciably separate; our regard is confined to living
moments, so fleet that their beginning and ending meet as in one
point, which is seen to be at once the point of departure and of
return. Thus we may speak of a man's life as included between
his birth and his death, and with reference to this physiological
term, think of him as living, and then as dead; but we may also
consider him while living as yet every moment dying, and in this
view death is clearly seen to be the inseparable companion of
life, - the way of return, and so of continuance. This pulsation,
forever a vanishing and a resurgence, so incalculably swift as to
escape observation, is proper to life as life, does not begin with
what we call birth nor end with what we call death (considering
birth and death as terms applicable to an individual existence); it
is forever beginning and forever ending. Thus to all manifest
existence we apply the term Nature (natura), which means “for-
ever being born”; and on its vanishing side it is moritura, or
«forever dying. ” Resurrection is thus a natural and perpetual
miracle. The idea of life as transcending any individual embodi-
ment is as germane to science as it is to faith.
Death, thus seen as essential, is lifted above its temporary
and visible accidents. It is no longer associated with corruption,
but rather with the sweet and wholesome freshness of life, being
the way of its renewal. Sweeter than the honey which Samson
found in the lion's carcass is this everlasting sweetness of Death;
and it is a mystery deeper than the strong man's riddle.
So is Death pure and clean, as is the dew that comes with the
cool night when the sun has set; clean and white as the snow-
flakes that betoken the absolution which Winter gives, shriving
the earth of all her Summer wantonness and excess, when only
the trees that yield balsam and aromatic fragrance remain green,
breaking the box of precious ointment for burial.
In this view also is restored the kinship of Death with Sleep.
The state of the infant seems to be one of chronic mysticism,
since during the greater part of its days its eyes are closed to
the outer world. Its larger familiarity is still with the invisible,
and it seems as if the Mothers of Darkness were still withholding


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HENRY M. ALDEN
309
it as their nursling, accomplishing for it some mighty work
in their proper realm, some such fiery baptism of infants as is
frequently instanced in Greek mythology, tempering them for
earthly trials. The infant must needs sleep while this work is
being done for it; it has been sleeping since the work began,
from the foundation of the world, and the old habit still clings
about it and is not easily laid aside.
That which we have been considering as the death that is in
every moment is a reaction proper to life itself, waking or sleep-
ing, whereby it is renewed, sharing at once Time and Eternity
time as outward form, and eternity as its essential quality. Sleep
is a special relaxation, relieving a special strain. As daily we
build with effort and design an elaborate superstructure above
the living foundation, so must this edifice nightly be laid in
ruins.
Sleep is thus a disembarrassment, the unloading of a
burden wherewith we have weighted ourselves. Here again we
are brought into a kind of repentance, and receive absolution.
Sleep is forgiveness.
From A Study of Death, copyright 1895, by Harper and Brothers
THE PARABLE OF THE PRODIGAL
I
S"
TANDING of it would if
vital destination of all things to fly from their source, as if
it were the dominant desire of life to enter into limitations.
We might mentally represent to ourselves an essence simple and
indivisible that denies itself in diversified manifold existence. To
us, this side the veil, nay, immeshed in innumerable veils that
hide from us the Father's face, this insistence appears to have
the stress of urgency, as if the effort of all being, its unceasing
travail, were like the beating of the infinite ocean upon the
shores of Time; and as if, within the continent of Time, all
existence were forever knocking at new gates, seeking, through
some as yet untried path of progression, greater complexity, a
deeper involvement. All the children seem to be beseeching the
Father to divide unto them His living, none willingly abiding in
that Father's house. But in reality their will is His will — they
fly, and they are driven, like fledglings from the mother-nest.


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310
HENRY M. ALDEN
II
The story of a solar system, or of any synthesis in time,
repeats the parable of the Prodigal Son, in its essential features.
It is a cosmic parable.
The planet is a wanderer (planes), and the individual planet.
ary destiny can be accomplished only through flight from its
source. After all its prodigality it shall sicken and return.
Attributing to the Earth, thus apparently separated from the
Sun, some macrocosmic sentience, what must have been her won-
dering dream, finding herself at once thrust away and securely
held, poised between her flight and her bond, and so swinging
into a regular orbit about the Sun, while at the same time, in
her rotation, turning to him and away from him into the light,
and into the darkness, forever denying and confessing her lord!
Her emotion must have been one of delight, however mingled
with a feeling of timorous awe, since her desire could not have
been other than one with her destination. Despite the distance
and the growing coolness she could feel the kinship still; her
pulse, though modulated, was still in rhythm with that of the
solar heart, and in her bosom were hidden consubstantial fires.
But it was the sense of otherness, of her own distinct individua-
tion, that was mainly being nourished, this sense, moreover,
being proper to her destiny; therefore, the signs of her likeness
to the Sun were more and more being buried from her view;
her fires were veiled by a hardening crust, and her opaqueness
stood out against his light. She had no regret for all she was
surrendering, thinking only of her gain, of being clothed upon
with a garment showing ever some new fold of surprising beauty
and wonder. If she had remained in the Father's house
like the elder brother in the Parable — then would all that He
had have been hers, in nebulous simplicity. But now, holding
her revels apart, she seems to sing her own song, and to dream
her own beautiful dream, wandering, with a motion wholly her
own, among the gardens of cosmic order and loveliness. She
glories in her many veils, which, though they hide from her both
her source and her very self, are the media through which the
invisible light is broken into multiform illusions that enrich her
dream. She beholds the Sun as a far-off, insphered being existing
for her, her ministrant bridegroom; and when her face is turned
away from him into the night, she beholds innumerable suns, a


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HENRY M. ALDEN
311
myriad of archangels, all witnesses of some infinitely remote and
central flame — the Spirit of all life. Yet, in the midst of these
visible images, she is absorbed in her individual dream, wherein
she appears to herself to be the mother of all living. It is proper
to her destiny that she should be thus enwrapped in her own
distinct action and passion, and refer to herself the appearances
of a universe. While all that is not she is what she really is,-
necessary, that is, to her full definition,-she, on the other hand,
from herself interprets all else. This is the inevitable terrestrial
idealism, peculiar to every individuation in time — the individual
thus balancing the universe.
-
III
In reality, the Earth has never left the Sun; apart from him
she has no life, any more than has the branch severed from the
vine. More truly it may be said that the Sun has never left the
Earth.
No prodigal can really leave the Father's house, any more than
he can leave himself; coming to himself, he feels the Father's
arms about him — they have always been there — he is newly
-
appareled, and wears the signet ring of native prestige; he hears
the sound of familiar music and dancing, and it may be that the
young and beautiful forms mingling with him in this festival are
the riotous youths and maidens of his far-country revels, also
come to themselves and home, of whom also the Father saith:
These were dead and are alive again, they were lost and are
found. The starvation and sense of exile had been parts of a
troubled dream a dream which had also had its ecstasy, but
had come into a consuming fever, with delirious imaginings of
fresh fountains, of shapes drawn from the memory of childhood,
and of the cool touch of kindred hands upon the brow. So near
is exile to home, misery to divine commiseration — so near are
pain and death, desolation and divestiture, to "a new creature,”
and to the kinship involved in all creation and re-creation.
Distance in the cosmic order is a standing-apart, which is only
another expression of the expansion and abundance of creative
life; but at every remove its reflex is nearness, a bond of at-
traction, insphering and curving, making orb and orbit. While
in
space this attraction is diminished — being inversely as the
square of the distance - and so there is maintained and empha-
sized the appearance of suspension and isolation, yet in time it
»


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312
THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH
gains preponderance, contracting sphere and orbit, aging planets
and suns, and accumulating destruction, which at the point of
annihilation becomes a new creation. This Grand Cycle, which is
but a pulsation or breath of the Eternal life, illustrates a truth
which is repeated in its least and most minutely divided mo-
ment — that birth lies next to death, as water crystallizes at the
freezing-point, and the plant blossoms at points most remote from
the source of nutrition.
THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH
(1836--)
-
So.
POET in verse often becomes a poet in prose also, in com-
posing novels; although the novelist may not, and in gen-
eral does not, possess the faculty of writing poems. The
poet-novelist is apt to put into his prose a good deal of the same
charm and the same picturesque choice of phrase and image that
characterize his verse; while it does not follow that the novelist who
at times writes verse — like George Eliot, for example — succeeds in
giving a distinctly poetic quality to prose, or even wishes to do
Among authors who have displayed
peculiar power and won fame in the dual
capacity of poet and of prose romancer or
novelist, Sir Walter Scott and Victor Hugo
no doubt stand pre-eminent; and in Amer-
ican literature, Edgar Allan Poe and Oliver
Wendell Holmes very strikingly combine
these two functions. Another American
author who has gained a distinguished
position both as a poet and as a writer of
prose fiction and essays is Thomas Bailey
Aldrich.
THOMAS B. ALDRICH
It is upon his work in the form of
verse, perhaps, that Aldrich's chief renown
is based; but some of his short stories in especial have contributed
much to his popularity, no less than to his repute as a delicate and
polished artificer in words. A New Englander, he has infused into
some of his poems the true atmosphere of New England, and has
given the same light and color of home to his prose, while impart-
ing to his productions in both kinds a delightful tinge of the foreign
and remote. In addition to his capacities as a poet and a romancer,



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THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH
313
he is a wit and humorist of sparkling quality. In reading his books
one seems also to inhale the perfumes of Arabia and the farther
East, blended with the salt sea-breeze and the pine-scented air of
his native State, New Hampshire.
He was born in the old seaside town of Portsmouth, New Hamp-
shire, November 11th, 1836; but moved to New York City in 1854, at
the age of seventeen. There he remained until 1866; beginning his
work quite early; forming his literary character by reading and ob-
servation, by the writing of poems, and by practice and experience
of writing prose sketches and articles for journals and periodicals.
During this period he entered into associations with the poets Sted-
man, Stoddard, and Bayard Taylor, and was more or less in touch
with the group that included Walt Whitman, Fitz-James O'Brien,
and William Winter. Removing to Boston in January, 1866, he be-
came the editor of Every Saturday, and remained in that post until
1874, when he resigned. In 1875 he made a long tour in Europe,
plucking the first fruits of foreign travel, which were succeeded by
many rich and dainty gatherings from the same source in later
years. In the intervals of these wanderings he lived in Boston and
Cambridge; occupying for a time James Russell Lowell's historic
house of Elmwood, in the semi-rural university city; and then estab-
lished a pretty country house at Ponkapog, a few miles west of
Boston. This last suggested the title for a charming book of travel
papers, (From Ponkapog to Pesth. In 1881 he was appointed editor of
the Atlantic Monthly, and continued to direct that famous magazine
for nine years, frequently making short trips to Europe, extending
his tours as far as the heart of Russia, and gathering fresh materials
for essay or song. Much of his time since giving up the Atlantic
editorship has been passed in voyaging, and in 1894-5 he made a
journey around the world.
From the beginning he struck with quiet certainty the vein that
was his by nature in poetry; and this has broadened almost contin-
ually, yielding richer results, which have been worked out with an
increasing refinement of skill. His predilection is for the picturesque;
for romance combined with simplicity, purity, and tenderness of
feeling, touched by fancy and by occasional lights of humor so
reserved and dainty that they never disturb the pictorial harmony.
The capacity for unaffected utterance of feeling on matters common
to humanity reached a climax in the poem of Baby Bell,' which
by its sympathetic and delicate description of a child's advent and
death gave the author a claim to the affections of a wide circle; and
this remained for a long time probably the best known among his
poems. 'Friar Jerome's Beautiful Book) is another of the earlier
favorites. (Spring in New England' has since come to hold high
(


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314
THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH
rank both for its vivid and graceful description of the season, for its
tender fervor of patriotism, and for its sentiment of reconciliation
between North and South. The lines on Piscataqua River) remain
one of the best illustrations of boyhood memories, and have some-
thing of Whittier's homely truth. In his longer narrative pieces,
(Judith” and “Wyndham Towers,' cast in the mold of blank-verse
idyls, Mr. Aldrich does not seem so much himself as in many of his
briefer flights. An instinctive dramatic tendency finds outlet in
(Pauline Paulovna' and (Mercedes '-- the latter of which, a two-act
piece in prose, has found representation in the theatre; yet in these,
also, he is less eminently successful than in his lyrics and society
verse.
No American poet has wrought his stanzas with greater faithful-
ness to an exacting standard of craftsmanship than Mr. Aldrich, or
has known better when to leave a line loosely cast, and when to rein-
force it with correction or with a syllable that might seem, to an ear
less true, redundant. This gives to his most carefully chiseled pro-
ductions an air of spontaneous ease, and has made him eminent as a
sonneteer. His sonnet on “Sleep' is one of the finest in the lan-
guage. The conciseness and concentrated aptness of his expression
also- together with a faculty of bringing into conjunction subtly
contrasted thoughts, images, or feelings — has issued happily in short,
concentrated pieces like An Untimely Thought, Destiny,' and
(Identity,' and in a number of pointed and effective quatrains. With-
out overmastering purpose outside of art itself, his is the poetry of
luxury rather than of deep passion or conviction; yet, with the fresh-
ness of bud and tint in springtime, it still always relates itself effect-
ively to human experience. The author's specially American quality,
also, though not dominant, comes out clearly in Unguarded Gates,'
and with a differing tone in the plaintive Indian legend of Mianto-
wona. '
If we perceive in his verse a kinship with the dainty ideals of
Théophile Gautier and Alfred de Musset, this does not obscure his
originality or his individual charm; and the same thing may be said
with regard to his prose. The first of his short fictions that made a
decided mark was Marjorie Daw. The fame which it gained, in
its separate field, was as swift and widespread as that of Hawthorne's
(The Gentle Boy' or Bret Harte's 'Luck of Roaring Camp. It is a
bright and half-pathetic little parody on human life and affection; or
perhaps we should call it a parable symbolizing the power which
imagination wields over real life, even in supposedly unimaginative
people. The covert smile which it involves, at the importance of
human emotions, may be traced to a certain extent in some of Mr.
Aldrich's longer and more serious works of fiction: his three novels,


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THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH
315
(Prudence Paltrey,' 'The Queen of Sheba,' and 'The Stillwater
Tragedy. ' "The Story of a Bad Boy, frankly but quietly humorous
in its record of the pranks and vicissitudes of a healthy average lad
(with the scene of the story localized at old Portsmouth, under the
name of Rivermouth), a less ambitious work, still holds a secure
place in the affections of many mature as well as younger readers.
Besides these books, Mr. Aldrich has published a collection of short
descriptive, reminiscent, and half-historic papers on Portsmouth,–
(An Old Town by the Sea'; with a second volume of short stories
entitled “Two Bites at a Cherry. The character-drawing in his
fiction is clear-cut and effective, often sympathetic, and nearly always
suffused with an agreeable coloring of humor. There are notes of
pathos, too, in some of his tales; and it is the blending of these
qualities, through the medium of a lucid and delightful style, that
defines his pleasing quality in prose.
[The following selections are copyrighted, and are reprinted by permission of
the author, and Houghton, Miffin & Co. , publishers. )
DESTINY
TH
THREE roses, wan as moonlight, and weighed down
Each with its loveliness as with a crown,
Drooped in a florist's window in a town.
The first a lover bought. It lay at rest,
Like flower on flower, that night, on Beauty's breast.
The second rose, as virginal and fair,
Shrunk in the tangles of a harlot's hair.
The third, a widow, with new grief made wild,
Shut in the icy palm of her dead child.
IDENTITY
SOM
OMEWHERE — in desolate wind-swept space -
In Twilight-land - in No-man's land -
Two hurrying Shapes met face to face,
And bade each other stand.
«And who are you? ” cried one, agape,
Shuddering in the gloaming light.
“I know not,” said the second Shape,
“I only died last night! »


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THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH
PRESCIENCE
HE new moon hung in the sky, the sun was low in the west,
And my betrothed and I in the churchyard paused to rest –
Happy maiden and lover, dreaming the old dream over:
The light winds wandered by, and robins chirped from the nest.
T"
And lo! in the meadow-sweet was the grave of a little child,
With a crumbling stone at the feet and the ivy running wild —
Tangled ivy and clover folding it over and over:
Close to my sweetheart's feet was the little mound up-piled.
Stricken with nameless fears, she shrank and clung to me,
And her eyes were filled with tears for a sorrow I did not see:
Lightly the winds were blowing, softly her tears were flowing -
Tears for the unknown years and a sorrow that was to be!
ALEC YEATON'S SON
GLOUCESTER, AUGUST, 1720
TE
He wind it wailed, the wind it moaned,
And the white caps flecked the sea;
«An' I would to God,” the skipper groaned,
“I had not my boy with me! ”
Snug in the stern-sheets, little John
Laughed as the scud swept by;
But the skipper's sunburnt cheek grew wan
As he watched the wicked sky.
“Would he were at his mother's side! »
And the skipper's eyes were dim.
“Good Lord in heaven, if ill betide,
What would become of him!
“For me — my muscles are as steel,
For me let hap what may;
I might make shift upon the keel
Until the break o’day.
“But he, he is so weak and small,
So young, scarce learned to stand
O pitying Father of us all,
I trust him in thy hand!


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THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH
317
.
«For thou who markest from on high
A sparrow's fall — each one! -
Surely, O Lord, thou'lt have an eye
On Alec Yeaton's son! »
Then, helm hard-port; right straight he sailed
Towards the headland light:
The wind it moaned, the wind it wailed,
And black, black fell the night.
Then burst a storm to make one quail,
Though housed from winds and waves —
They who could tell about that gale
Must rise from watery graves!
Sudden it came, as sudden went;
Ere half the night was sped,
The winds were hushed, the waves were spent,
And the stars shone overhead.
Now, as the morning mist grew thin,
The folk on Gloucester shore
Saw a little figure floating in
Secure, on a broken oar!
Up rose the cry,
«A wreck! a wreck!
Pull mates, and waste no breath! )
They knew it, though 'twas but a speck
· Upon the edge of death!
Long did they marvel in the town
At God his strange decree,
That let the stalwart skipper drown
And the little child go free!
MEMORY
My mind lets go a thousand things,
Like dates of wars and deaths of kings,
And yet recalls the very hour
'Twas noon by yonder village tower,
And on the last blue noon in May -
The wind came briskly up this way,
Crisping the brook beside the road;
Then, pausing here, set down its load
Of pine-scents, and shook listlessly
Two petals from that wild-rose tree.


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318
THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH
TENNYSON (1890)
I
S"
HAKESPEARE and Milton - what third blazoned name
Shall lips of after ages link to these ?
His who, beside the wild encircling seas,
Was England's voice, her voice with one acclaim,
For threescore years; whose word of praise was fame,
Whose scorn gave pause to man's iniquities.
II
What strain was his in that Crimean war?
A bugle-call in battle; a low breath,
Plaintive and sweet, above the fields of death!
So year by year the music rolled afar,
From Euxine wastes to flowery Kandahar,
Bearing the laurel or the cypress wreath.
III
Others shall have their little space of time,
Their proper niche and bust, then fade away
Into the darkness, poets of a day;
But thou, O builder of enduring rhyme,
Thou shalt not pass! Thy fame in every clime
On earth shall live where Saxon speech has sway.
IV
Waft me this verse across the winter sea,
Through light and dark, through mist and blinding
sleet,
O winter winds, and lay it at his feet;
Though the poor gift betray my poverty,
At his feet lay it; it may chance that he
Will find no gift, where reverence is, unmeet.
SWEETHEART, SIGH NO MORE
T was with doubt and trembling
I whispered in her ear.
Go, take her answer, bird-on-bough,
That all the world may hear -
Sweetheart, sigh no more!
Sing it, sing it, tawny throat,
Upon the wayside tree,


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THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH
319
How fair she is, how true she is,
How dear she is to me
Sweetheart, sigh no more!
Sing it, sing it, and through the summer long
The winds among the clover-tops,
And brooks, for all their silvery stops,
Shall envy you the song -
Sweetheart, sigh no more!
I
BROKEN MUSIC
“A note
All out of tune in this world's instrument. ”
Amy Levy.
KNOW not in what fashion she was made,
Nor what her voice was, when she used to speak,
Nor if the silken lashes threw a shade
On wan or rosy cheek.
I picture her with sorrowful vague eyes,
Illumed with such strange gleams of inner light
As linger in the drift of London skies
Ere twilight turns to night.
I know not; I conjecture. 'Twas a girl
That with her own most gentle desperate hand
From out God's mystic setting plucked life's pearl —
'Tis hard to understand.
So precious life is! Even to the old
The hours are as a miser's coins, and she -
Within her hands lay youth's unminted gold
And all felicity.
The winged impetuous spirit, the white flame
That was her soul once, whither has it flown?
Above her brow gray lichens blot her name
Upon the carven stone.
This is her Book of Verses — wren-like notes,
Shy franknesses, blind gropings, haunting fears;
At times across the chords abruptly floats
A mist of passionate tears.
A fragile lyre too tensely keyed and strung,
A broken music, weirdly incomplete:
Here a proud mind, self-baffled and self-stung,
Lies coiled in dark defeat.


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THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH
ELMWOOD
In Memory of James. Russell Lowell
H
ERE, in the twilight, at the well-known gate
I linger, with no heart to enter more.
Among the elm-tops the autumnal air
Murmurs, and spectral in the fading light
A solitary heron wings its way
Southward -- save this no sound or touch of life.
Dark is the window where the scholar's lamp
Was used to catch a pallor from the dawn.
Yet I must needs a little linger here.
Each shrub and tree is eloquent of him,
For tongueless things and silence have their speech.
This is the path familiar to his foot
From infancy to manhood and old age;
For in a chamber of that ancient house
His eyes first opened on the mystery
Of life, and all the splendor of the world.
Here, as a child, in loving, curious way,
He watched the bluebird's coming; learned the date
Of hyacinth and goldenrod, and made
Friends of those little redmen of the elms,
And slyly added to their winter store
Of hazel-nuts: no harmless thing that breathed,
Footed or winged, but knew him for a friend.
The gilded butterfly was not afraid
To trust its gold to that so gentle hand,
The bluebird fled not from the pendent spray.
Ah, happy childhood, ringed with fortunate stars!
What dreams were his in this enchanted sphere,
What intuitions of high destiny!
The honey-bees of Hybla touched his lips
In that old New-World garden, unawares.
So in her arms did Mother Nature fold
Her poet, whispering what of wild and sweet
Into his ear — - the state-affairs of birds,
The lore of dawn and sunset, what the wind
Said in the tree-tops — fine, unfathomed things
Henceforth to turn to music in his brain :
A various music, now like notes of flutes,
And now like blasts of trumpets blown in wars.


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321
Later he paced this leafy academe
A student, drinking from Greek chalices
The ripened vintage of the antique world.
And here to him came love, and love's dear loss;
Here honors came, the deep applause of men
Touched to the heart by some swift-winged word
That from his own full heart took eager flight -
Some strain of piercing sweetness or rebuke,
For underneath his gentle nature flamed
A noble scorn for all ignoble deed,
Himself a bondman till all men were free.
Thus passed his manhood; then to other lands
He strayed, a stainless figure among courts
Beside the Manzanares and the Thames.
Whence, after too long exile, he returned
With fresher laurel, but sedater step
And eye more serious, fain to breathe the air
Where through the Cambridge marshes the blue Charles
Uncoils its length and stretches to the sea :
Stream dear to him, at every curve a shrine
For pilgrim Memory. Again he watched
His loved syringa whitening by the door,
And knew the catbird's welcome; in his walks
Smiled on his tawny kinsmen of the elms
Stealing his nuts; and in the ruined year
Sat at his widowed hearthside with bent brows
Leonine, frosty with the breath of time,
And listened to the crooning of the wind
In the wide Elmwood chimneys, as of old.
And then -- and then
The after-glow has faded from the elms,
And in the denser darkness of the boughs
From time to time the firefly's tiny lamp
Sparkles. How often in still summer dusks
He paused to note that transient phantom spark
Flash on the air -- a light that outlasts him!
The night grows chill, as if it felt a breath
Blown from that frozen city where he lies.
All things turn strange. The leaf that rustles here
Has more than autumn's mournfulness. The place
Is heavy with his absence.
Like fixed eyes
Whence the dear light of sense and thought has Aled,
1-21


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THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH
The vacant windows stare across the lawn.
The wise sweet spirit that informed it all
Is otherwhere. The house itself is dead.
O autumn wind among the sombre pines,
Breathe you his dirge, but be it sweet and low.
With deep refrains and murmurs of the sea,
Like to his verse - the art is yours alone.
His once
you taught him.
Now no voice but yours!
Tender and low, O wind among the pines.
I would, were mine a lyre of richer strings,
In soft Sicilian accents wrap his name.
SEA LONGINGS
Th
He first world-sound that fell upon my ear
Was that of the great winds along the coast
Crushing the deep-sea beryl on the rocks -
The distant breakers' sullen cannonade.
Against the spires and gables of the town
The white fog drifted, catching here and there
At overleaning cornice or peaked roof,
And hung - weird gonfalons. The garden walks
Were choked with leaves, and on their ragged biers
Lay dead the sweets of summer
damask rose,
Clove-pink, old-fashioned, loved New England flowers
Only keen salt-sea odors filled the air.
Sea-sounds, sea-odors — these were all my world.
Hence is it that life languishes with me
Inland; the valleys stifle me with gloom
And pent-up prospect; in their narrow bound
Imagination flutters futile wings.
Vainly I seek the sloping pearl-white sand
And the mirage's phantom citadels
Miraculous, a moment seen, then gone.
Among the mountains I am ill at ease,
Missing the stretched horizon's level line
And the illimitable restless blue.
The crag-torn sky is not the sky I love,
But one unbroken sapphire spanning all;
And nobler than the branches of a pine
Aslant upon a precipice's edge
Are the strained spars of some great battle-ship
Plowing across the sunset. No bird's lilt


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323
So takes me as the whistling of the gale
Among the shrouds. My cradle-song was this,
Strange inarticulate sorrows of the sea,
Blithe rhythms upgathered from the Sirens' caves.
Perchance of earthly voices the last voice
That shall an instant my freed spirit stay
On this world's verge, will be some message blown
Over the dim salt lands that fringe the coast
At dusk, or when the trancèd midnight droops
With weight of stars, or haply just as dawn,
Illumining the sullen purple wave,
Turns the gray pools and willow-stems to gold.
A SHADOW OF THE NIGHT
C
LOSE on the edge of a midsummer dawn
In troubled dreams I went from land to land,
Each seven-colored like the rainbow's arc,
Regions where never fancy's foot had trod
Till then; yet all the strangeness seemed not strange,
At which I wondered, reasoning in my dream
With twofold sense, well knowing that I slept.
At last I came to this our cloud-hung earth,
And somewhere by the seashore was a grave,
A woman's grave, new-made, and heaped with flowers;
And near it stood an ancient holy man
That fain would comfort me, who sorrowed not
For this unknown dead woman at my feet.
But I, because his sacred office held
My reverence, listened; and 'twas thus he spake:-
“When next thou comest thou shalt find her still
In all the rare perfection that she was.