As the
descendants
of Jacob, whose eldest sons the King of
Egypt caused to be drowned in the Nile,
We cry unto thee, Lord.
Egypt caused to be drowned in the Nile,
We cry unto thee, Lord.
Warner - World's Best Literature - v15 - Kab to Les
”
And all answered, "It is true.
<<
Let us abolish science and
thought. ”
And when he had followed the example of the first two, a
third said:-
"When we shall have plunged man back into brutishness by
taking away religion, science, and thought, we shall have done
much; but something will still remain to do. The brute has
dangerous instincts and dangerous sympathies. One people should
never hear the voice of another people, lest it should be tempted
to follow an example of complaint and agitation. Let no sound
from without penetrate to us. ”
And all answered, "It is true. Let no sound from without
penetrate to us. ”
And a fourth said:-
“We have our interests, and the nations too have theirs which
are opposed to ours. If they were to unite in self-defense, how
could we resist them ? Let us divide to reign. In every hamlet,
every city, every province, let us establish an interest opposed to
that of other hamlets, other cities, other provinces. Then all
will hate each other, and will not think to unite against us.
And all answered, "It is true. Let us divide to reign!
Concord would destroy us. ”
And a fifth, when he had twice filled with blood and twice
emptied the human skull, said:
"I approve all these means; they are good, but inadequate.
To create brutes is well; but intimidate these brutes — strike
them with terror by an inexorable justice and frightful penalties
- if you would not sooner or later be devoured by them. The
executioner is the prime minister of a good prince. ”
And all answered, “It is true. The executioner is the prime
minister of a good prince. ”
And a sixth said:-
"I acknowledge the advantage of prompt, terrible, inevitable
penalties. Yet there are brave spirits and despairing spirits who
.
brave penalties. If you would govern men easily, soften them
by pleasure. Virtue is naught to us; it nourishes force: let us
exhaust it by means of corruption. ”
C
»
## p. 8851 (#475) ###########################################
LAMENNAIS
8851
And all answered, "It is true. Let us exhaust strength and
energy and courage by means of corruption. ”
Then the seventh, having like the others drunk from the
human skull, with feet on the crucifix, spoke thus:-
« Down with Christ ! - there is war to the death, eternal war
between him and us. But how can we tear the nations from
him ? It is a vain attempt. What then shall we do? Listen to
me. We must win the priests of God with goods, honors, and
power. And they will command the people in the name of
Christ to submit to us in all things, whatever we may do, what-
ever we may order. And the people will believe them; and will
obey from conscience, and our power will be stronger than ever
before. "
And all answered, "It is true. We must win over the priests
of Christ ! »
And suddenly the lamp which lighted the hall went out, and
the seven men separated in the darkness.
And to a just man, who at that moment was watching and
praying before the Cross, it was said: “My day is drawing near.
Adore and fear nothing. ”
Translated for (A Library of the World's Best Literature) by Jane G. Cooke.
CHAPTERS FROM (WORDS OF A BELIEVER)
INTRODUCTORY, TO THE PEOPLE
T"
his book was made principally for you; it is to you that I
offer it. May it, amid so many ills that are your portion,
so many sorrows that bear you down almost without any
rest, reanimate and console you a little.
You who carry the burden of the day, I would that it might
be to your poor tired souls what, at midday in the corner of a
field, the shade of a tree no matter how stunted it may be —
is to one who has worked all the morning under the hot rays
of the sun.
You are living in evil times, but these times will pass away.
After the rigors of winter, Providence sends a season less rude;
and the little bird blesses in his morning songs the beneficent
hand which has returned to him warmth and abundance, his com-
panion and soft nest.
## p. 8852 (#476) ###########################################
8852
LAMENNAIS
:
Hope and love. Hope softens all things; and love renders all
things easy. There are at this moment men who are suffering
much because they have loved you much. I their brother, I
have written the account of what they have done for you, and
what has been done against them on account of it; and when
violence shall have worn itself out I shall publish it, and you
will read then with tears less bitter, and you also will love these
men who have so loved you. At present, if I should speak to
you of their love and of their sufferings, I should be thrown into
the dungeon with them. I would descend into it with great joy
if your misery could thereby be lightened a little; but you would
not recover any ease from it, and that is why it is better to wait
and pray God that he shorten the trial. Now it is men who
judge and strike; soon it will be He who will judge. Happy
those who see his justice!
I am old: listen to the words of an old man. The earth is
sad and dried up, but it will turn green again. The breath of
the wicked will not eternally pass over it, like a wind that blasts.
What is being done, Providence wishes should be done for
your instruction, so that you may learn to be good and just
when your hour comes. When those who make an abuse of
power shall have passed before you, like the mud of the running
gutters in a day of storms, then you will understand that good
alone is durable, and you will fear to soil the air which the
breath of heaven has purified.
Prepare your souls against that time, for it is not far off, - it
nears.
Christ, laid upon the cross, has promised to deliver you.
Believe in his promise: and to hasten its fulfillment, reform that
which needs reformation within you; exercise yourselves in all
virtues, and love one another, as the Savior of the human race
loved you till his death.
IN The name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy
Spirit, Amen.
Glory to God in the highest of heaven, and peace on earth to
men of good-will.
The Father begot the Son, his Word, his Verb: and the Verb
became flesh, and dwelt amongst us; and it came into the world,
and the world knew it not
## p. 8853 (#477) ###########################################
LAMENNAIS
8853
The Son promised to send the consoling Spirit, which proceeds
from the Father and himself, and which is their mutual love:
will come and renew the face of the earth, and it will be like
a second creation.
Eighteen centuries ago the Verb scattered the divine seed, and
the Holy Spirit fertilized it. Men saw it flourish; they tasted the
fruit, the fruit of the Tree of Life, replanted in their poor hab-
itations. I tell you there was a great joy among them when
they saw the light appear, and felt themselves all penetrated by
a celestial fire.
At present the earth has again become cloudy and cold.
Our fathers saw the sun decline. As it descended below the
horizon, the whole human race thrilled. Then there was in that
night I do not know what; it has no name. Children of the
night, the west is black but the orient begins to lighten.
II
LEND your ear and tell me whence comes that noise, confused,
vague, strange, that one hears on all sides.
Place your hand upon the earth, and tell me why it thrills.
Something that we know not moves inside the world; a labor
of God is there.
Is not each one waiting in expectation? Is there a heart that
is not beating?
Son of man, mount to the heights and proclaim what thou
seest.
I see on the horizon a livid cloud; and around, a red light like
the reflection from a conflagration.
Son of man, what seest thou besides?
I see the seas raising their floods, and the mountains shaking
their tops.
I see the rivers changing their courses, the hills tottering and
falling and filling up the valleys.
Everything is giving way, everything is moving, everything
is taking on a new appearance.
Son of man, what seest thou again ?
I see storms of dust in the distance; and they are rolling
hither and thither, dashing, breaking, mingling together. They
pass over the cities; and when they have passed, naught is seen
but the plain.
## p. 8854 (#478) ###########################################
8854
LAMENNAIS
I see the people rising in tumult, and the kings turning pale
under their diadems. War is between them; a war to the death.
I see a throne, two thrones, broken into pieces, and the peo-
ple scattering the fragments over the earth.
I see a people fighting as the archangel Michael fought against
Satan. His blows are terrible, but he is naked, and his enemy
is covered with thick armor. O God! He is fallen; he is struck
to the death. No! he is but wounded; Mary, the virgin mother,
throws her cloak over him, smiles upon him, and carries him for
a while out of the fight.
I see another people struggling without a pause, and gaining
minute by minute new force in the struggle. This people bear
the sign of Christ over the heart.
I see a third one, upon which six kings have put the foot;
and every time he moves, six poniards are plunged into his
breast.
I see upon a vast edifice, at a great height up in the air, a
cross which I can barely distinguish, because it is covered with
a black veil.
Son of man, what seest thou yet again ?
I see the Orient, troubled within itself. It sees its antique
palaces falling, its old temples crumbling into dust, and it lifts
its eyes as if to seek other grandeurs and another God.
I look towards the Occident: A woman with a proud eye and
serene face; she traces with a firm hand a light furrow; and
wherever the plowshare has passed I see arising new genera-
tions, who invoke her in their prayers and bless her in their
hymns.
I see in the North, men whose only remaining heat is con-
centrated in their heads, and it intoxicates them; but Christ is
touching them with his cross, and their hearts are beginning to
beat again.
I see in the South, races bowed down under I know not what
malediction; a heavy yoke is bearing upon them: but Christ is
touching them with his cross, and they are straightening up
again.
Son of man, what seest thou still ?
He does not answer: let us call again:
Son of man, what seest thou ?
I see Satan flying, and Christ surrounded by angels coming to
reign.
## p. 8855 (#479) ###########################################
LAMENNAIS
8855
V
When you see a man conducted to prison, or to execution, do
not hasten to say, « That is a wicked man, who has committed a
crime against men. ” For perhaps he is a good man, who wished
to serve men, and is being punished for it by their oppressors.
When you see a people laden with chains and delivered to
the executioner, do not hasten to say, “That is a violent people,
who wished to trouble the peace of the earth. ” For perhaps it
is a martyr people, dying for the salvation of human kind.
Eighteen centuries ago, in a city of the East, the pontiffs and
king of the day nailed upon a cross, after having scourged him
with rods, a rebel, a blasphemer, as they called him.
The day of his death there was a great terror in hell, and a
great joy in heaven.
For the blood of the Just had saved the world.
VIII
IN The beginning, labor was not necessary for man to live;
the earth of itself supplied all his needs.
But man did evil; and as he revolted against God, the earth
revolted against him. It came to pass to him then as it comes
to pass to the child that revolts against his father: the father
recalled his love from him, abandoning him to himself; and the
servants of the house refusing to serve him, he has had to go
out to seek here and there his poor life, eating bread earned by
the sweat of his brow.
Since then, God has condemned all men to labor, and all have
their work to do, either of the body or of the mind; and those
who say "I shall not work,” are the most miserable.
For as
worms devour the corpse, so do vices devour them;
and if it is not vices it is ennui.
And when God wanted man to go to work, he hid a treasure
for him in the work; for he is a father, and the love of a father
never dies.
And to him who makes good use of this treasure, and does
not foolishly waste, there comes to him a true rest; and then he
is as men were at the beginning.
And God gave them also this precept: "Aid one another; for
there
are among you some stronger, some weaker, some sickly,
some healthy; and nevertheless they all must live.
And if you
## p. 8856 (#480) ###########################################
8856
LAMENNAIS
(
act thus to one another, all will live; because I will recognize
the pity that you had for your brother, and I shall make the
sweat of your brow fertile. ”
And that which God promised has always been verified, and
never has he who aids his brothers been seen to lack bread.
Now there was once a wicked man, and cursed of Heaven.
And this man was strong and hated work; so that he said, “How
shall I do? If I do not work I shall die, and work is unendur-
able to me! ”
Then a thought came from hell into his heart. He went
by night, and seizing some of his brothers while they slept,
he put them in chains. "For,” said he, "I will force them
with rods and with the whip to work for me, and I will eat the
fruit of their work. ”
And he did as he thought; and others seeing this, did like-
wise: and there were no longer any brothers, there were masters
and slaves.
It was a day of mourning upon all the earth.
A long time afterwards there was another man, more wicked
than the first and more cursed of Heaven.
Seeing that men had multiplied everywhere, and that their
multitude was innumerable, he said to himself: "I might well
perhaps enchain some of them, and force them to work for me;
but I should have to nourish them, and that would diminish my
gain. Let me do better: let them work for nothing; they will
die, in truth, but as their number is great, I shall amass riches
before it greatly diminishes, and there will always be enough of
them left over. ”
And now all this multitude lived upon what it received in
exchange for its labor.
Having spoken thus to himself, the man addressed himself
more particularly to a few, and he said to them: “You work
six hours, and you are given a piece of money for your work:
work for twelve hours and you will gain two pieces of money,
and you will live much better, - you, your wife, and your child-
ren. ”
And they believed him.
And he told them again: “You work only half the days of
the year: work all the days of the year, and your gain will be
double. ”
And they believed him again.
((
(
## p. 8857 (#481) ###########################################
LAMENNAIS
8857
-
And it came to pass from this, that the quantity of work
having become greater by half, without the need of the work
becoming greater, half of those who formerly lived from their
labor found no longer any one to employ them.
Then the wicked man whom they believed said to them: "I
will give work to you all, on the condition that you work the
same length of time, and that I pay you but half of what I
formerly paid you; for I am very willing to do you a service, but
I do not wish to ruin myself. ”
And as they were hungry,—they, their wives, and their child-
ren,- they accepted the proposition of the wicked man, and they
blessed him; «for,” said they, “he is giving us life. ”
And always continuing to deceive them in the same way,
the wicked man ever increased their work and ever diminished
their salary.
And they died for the want of the necessities of life, and
others hastened forward to replace them; for indigence had be-
come so great in the country that whole families sold themselves
for a piece of bread.
And the wicked man who had lied to his brothers amassed
more riches than the wicked man who had enchained them.
The name of the one is Tyrant; the other has no name ex-
cept in hell.
(
XII
When one of you suffers an injustice, when on his road across
the world the oppressor throws some one down and puts a foot
upon him, no one hears him if he complains.
The cry of the poor ascends to God, but it does not reach
the ear of man.
And I asked myself: “Whence comes this evil? Is it that
He who has created the poor as well as the rich, the weak as
well as the strong, has wished to take from the one all fear in
their iniquities from the others all hope in their misery ? »
And I saw that this was a horrible thought, a blasphemy
against God.
It is because each one of you loves himself alone, because
each is separated from his brother, because each is alone and
wishes to be alone, his complaint is not heard.
In the spring, when everything revives, there comes out of
the grass a sound which arises like a long murmur.
## p. 8858 (#482) ###########################################
8858
LAMENNAIS
This sound, formed of so many sounds that they cannot be
counted, is the voice of an innumerable number of poor little
imperceptible creatures. Alone, not one of them could be heard;
all together, they make themselves heard. You also are hidden
in the grass: why does no voice arise from it ?
But if any one has committed an injustice against you, com-
mence by banishing all sentiment of hatred from your heart, and
then, lifting your hands and your eyes above, say to your Father
who is in Heaven: “O Father, thou art the protector of the in-
nocent and the oppressed; for it is thy love that has created the
world, and it is thy justice that governs it.
« Thou wishedst that it should reign upon the earth, and the
wicked man opposes his evil will. That is why we had deter-
mined to fight the wicked.
“O Father! give counsel and help to our minds, and strength
to our arms! »
When you have thus prayed from the depths of your soul,
fight and fear nothing.
XV
You have but one day to pass upon the earth: order it so that
you may pass it in peace.
Peace is the fruit of love; for love lies at the bottom of pure
hearts as the drop of dew in the calyx of a flower.
Oh, if you knew what it was to love!
You say that you love, and many of your brothers lack bread
to sustain life; clothing to cover their naked limbs; a roof to
shelter them; a handful of straw to sleep upon; while you have
abundance of everything.
You say that you love, while there are sick ones in great
numbers, languishing on their wretched couches without help;
unhappy ones weeping, and no one to weep with them; little
children going about all stiff with cold, from door to door, asking
the rich for a crumb of bread from their tables, and not getting it.
You say that you love your brothers; and what would you do
if you hated them ?
## p. 8859 (#483) ###########################################
LAMENNAIS
8859
XXIII
LORD, we cry unto thee, from the depths of our misery, like
animals who lack pasture for their little ones.
We cry unto thee, Lord !
Like the sheep robbed of its lamb,
We cry unto thee, Lord.
Like the dove seized by the vulture,
We cry unto thee, Lord.
As the gazelle in the claw of the tiger,
We cry unto thee, Lord.
As the bull exhausted and bleeding under the shaft,
We cry unto thee, Lord.
As the wounded bird that the dog pursues,
We cry unto thee, Lord.
As the swallow faltering from weariness, as it crosses the
seas and struggles in the waves,
We cry unto thee, Lord.
As travelers lost in a burning desert, without water,
We cry unto thee, Lord.
As the shipwrecked on a sterile coast,
We cry unto thee, Lord.
As he who in the night, near a cemetery, meets some hid.
eous spectre,
We cry unto thee, Lord.
As the father ravished of the bread he is taking his starving
children,
We cry unto thee, Lord.
As the prisoner whom unjust power has thrown into a dun-
geon dark and dank,
We cry unto thee, Lord.
As the slave torn by the whip of his master,
We cry unto thee, Lord.
As the innocent led to execution,
We cry unto thee, Lord.
As the people of Israel in the land of bondage,
We cry unto thee, Lord.
As the descendants of Jacob, whose eldest sons the King of
Egypt caused to be drowned in the Nile,
We cry unto thee, Lord.
## p. 8860 (#484) ###########################################
8860
LAMENNAIS
As the Twelve Tribes, of whom the oppressor increased the
tasks every day, cutting off every day from their food,
We cry unto thee, Lord.
As the Christ upon the Cross, when he said, "My Father!
My Father! Why hast thou forsaken me? ”
We cry unto thee, Lord.
O Father! Thou didst not forsake thy Son, thy Christ, save
only in appearance, and for a moment;
Neither wilt thou ever forsake the brothers of Christ.
His divine blood, which redeemed them from the slavery of
the prince of this world, will redeem them also from the slavery
of the ministers of the prince of this world. See their pierced
feet and hands, their opened side, their head covered with bleed-
ing wounds. In the earth which thou gavest them for a herit-
age a vast sepulchre has been hollowed out for them; and they
have been thrown into it, one upon the other, and the stone of
it is sealed with a seal, upon which in mockery thy name is
engraved. And thus, Lord, they are buried there; but it will not
be for eternity. Three days more, and the sacrilegious seal will
be broken, and the rock split asunder; and those who sleep will
awaken; and the reign of Christ, which is justice and charity, and
peace and joy in the Holy Spirit, will begin. Amen.
Translated for (A Library of the World's Best Literature,) by Grace King.
## p. 8860 (#485) ###########################################
## p. 8860 (#486) ###########################################
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WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR
## p. 8861 (#489) ###########################################
8861
WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR
(1775-1864)
BY WILLIAM CRANSTON LAWTON
AR
ERHAPS there is no English author save Gray to whom the
epithet “classical” is oftener applied than to Landor. This
Suur is not merely a tribute to his mastery of Latin equally with
English verse. Even his unrivaled masterpiece, the imaginary corre-
spondence of Pericles and Aspasia, is no mere marvel of learning,
no mosaic of remembered details; but rather a great free-hand ideal
picture, conforming only to the larger frame of historic fact. Nearly
all his work is equally creative, and has a peculiarly detached effect,
independent of all else whether in reality or fiction, like the best of
Hawthorne's imaginings. This unlimited fountain of original though
not sustained creativeness is the greatest proof of Landor's genius.
Next to it is a style, in all his prose and the best of his verse, so
polished, graceful, indeed faultless, that we may at first fail to per-
ceive beneath it the pulse of life, the heat of conscious effort, which
is after all essential to the highest enjoyment. This very fact, how-
ever, marks the most striking contrast between Landor's art and his
outward life. That contrast will to some extent vanish on closer
scrutiny of both.
Count no life happy until its close, said Solon. Rarely indeed has
a man been born and bred with fairer prospects, lived in more con-
stant turmoil, known greater depths of self-inflicted unhappiness, or
spent his last earthly days more utterly forlorn, than Landor. "I
never did a single wise thing in the whole course of my existence,”
said he near the end of his long life. Too sweeping though this is,
are tempted to cry Amen! It is really incredible that a man
endowed with so many virtues, and of such wondrous intellect, should
have failed so utterly, and one may say so invariably, to adjust him-
self to the necessary relations with his fellow-mortals. Yet it is
equally certain that he “never did a single ” cowardly, cruel, or coldly
selfish thing. His life, however, long as it was, seems like the un-
broken activity of a volcano. Were his genius less rare and lofty, his
later years especially would tempt us to an ignobler comparison; for
we are reminded of a piece of firework, occasionally sending a bright
star heavenward, but never ceasing to sputter and flare until it burns
its own heart out at last!
we
## p. 8862 (#490) ###########################################
8862
WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR
C
»
Landor was the eldest son of a prosperous physician at Warwick.
By entail he was assured heir, through his mother, of estates in War-
wickshire worth nearly £80,000. Sent to Rugby at the age of ten,
he immediately distinguished himself by the quality of his Latin
verses. Indeed, his delightful biographer, Sidney Colvin, calls him
“the one known instance in which the traditional classical education
took full effect. ” This does not appear to be a slur on the quality
of Professor Jebb's Pindaric odes, or of the Latin hexameters with
which Munro supplies the gaps large or small in Lucretius's text.
But Landor by lifelong impulse poured forth creative verse quite
as rapidly and forcibly, though not quite so faultlessly, in Latin as
in English. For satire especially he seems to have preferred the
strength of the deathless Roman speech. Much of his English poetry
is a reluctant translation from his own classic originals.
When his master gave the school a half-holiday for Landor's
Latin verses,” the boy complained fiercely that his poorest perform-
ance was selected for the honor. This belief was expressed in an
abusive addition to the copy of verse itself! Similar outbreaks of his
Muse finally led to his enforced withdrawal from the school. There,
as afterward at college, he always refused to compete for prizes:
valuing his own performances too highly to let them be measured at
all against rivals' work.
He entered Oxford at eighteen, and was known during his one
year there as
“the mad Jacobin,” in a time when the French Revo-
lution had frightened even the students of England away from radi-
calism. His departure in disgrace from Oxford was brought about by
a lawless prank. Aggrieved that a Tory neighbor dared entertain
socially the same night as himself, he riddled his shutters with a
shotgun. His arrival home was signalized by a violent quarrel, at the
end of which he left his father's house forever. ”
Until his thirtieth year he had a small allowance, lived partly in
a remote corner of Wales and partly at Bath, read hard chiefly in
the classics and English poets, and tried his own wings. Love was
not one of his chief teachers, though the lady whose name, Jane, is
glorified as Ianthe,” had a lasting influence over him. Resenting
Byron's adoption of this beloved title, he declares he
« — planted in a fresh parterre
Ianthe; it was blooming when a youth
Leapt o'er the hedge, and snatching at the stem,
Broke off the label from my favorite flower,
And stuck it on a sorrier of his own. ”
Rose Aylmer, — the short-lived daughter of Lord Aylmer, — whose
beautiful name has been immortalized in a lyric brief as Catullus and
## p. 8863 (#491) ###########################################
WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR
8863
“sad as tear-drops of Simonides,” was Landor's neighbor and friend
in Wales. She lent him a book containing the sorry “Arabian” tale
which suggested his first important poem. (Gebir) is a romantic and
tragical epic. Into less than two thousand lines of blank verse is
packed action enough for an Iliad. It is very hard to follow the plot.
The close-knit blank verse is rather too regular also. Still it is a
great creative work; chaotic and aiinless ethically, but in detail often
masterly. It had no readers then save Southey, and few at any time
since. Landor said loftily that he would have been encouraged to
write more if even foolish men had read it, since “there is something
of summer even in the hum of insects. »
(Gebir) has influenced English poetry profoundly, nevertheless.
Southey loved it from the first. Shelley, like Charles Lamb, was
never weary of repeating certain passages. Of our own contempora-
ries, Swinburne pours out loyal praise, with his usual lavishness, in
the article on Landor in the Britannica. In the same year (1798)
appeared the famous Lyrical Ballads, beginning with Coleridge's
(Ancient Mariner) and ending with Wordsworth's “Tintern Abbey. )
Either of these has still a thousand readers to (Gebir's) one. Which
was really the weightiest portent of the new day may well be ques-
tioned. Landor never sought, and probably never seriously hoped for,
wide popularity, even in the future. «I shall dine late,” he says; but
the dining-room will be well lighted, the guests few and select. ”
This fantastic epic by a youth of twenty-three already justified those
haughty words; and all the brother poets just mentioned, with a
goodly number besides, have testified to its influence upon them.
Byron indeed - and others attempted to appropriate such gems as
the verses on the sea-shell:-
“Shake one and it awakens; then apply
Its polisht lips to your attentive ear,
And it remembers its august abodes,
And murmurs as the ocean murmurs there. )
The year 1808 was like an epitome of Landor's whole life. The
wealth recently inherited from his father (the estates being released
from entail by special act of Parliament) was all absorbed by a mag-
nificent estate some eight miles in extent, in Monmouthshire. His
plans — to build up the ruined abbey of Llanthony which gave the
place its name, to erect for himself a goodly mansion, to reclaim
the land and reform the peasantry were all broken in upon by a
sudden expedition to Spain, where Landor went campaigning against
Napoleon with a regiment equipped at his own expense. Presently
the volunteers had all melted away; and their generous patron, hav-
ing quarreled out with his hosts, his allies, and his superior officers,
## p. 8864 (#492) ###########################################
8864
WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR
recrossed the Channel, to resume his denunciation of all in political
office and his strife with every one within five leagues of his estate.
The chief fruit of his Spanish tour was the tragedy Count Julian. '
Like his other plays, it is quite unsuited to the stage. The hero,
who turns against his king to avenge his daughter, is a careful psy-
chological study. The drama, however, like all Landor's longer works,
is read and remembered, if at all, rather for details, for picked pass-
ages, than for its general effect. Mr. Lowell's remark is an acute
one,- that Landor is hardly a great thinker, though he has certainly
uttered adequately great thoughts. He lacks the longer, the lasting
inspiration, that merges all the exquisite detail of an Othello' or of a
Prometheus) in the resistless sweep of the master's design. When he
is for the moment indeed inspired, his perfect command of style,
of utterance, carries him with perfect ease to a height where he has
absolutely no masters.
As we are trying to indicate, Landor's life and his work help
to explain each other — and both need explanation. His marriage
was perhaps his gravest mistake. He fell in love with a stranger's
pretty face, and instantly avowed his choice. He married a few weeks
later, in 1811. The bride was sixteen years younger than he; and
not content with quarrels of his creating, seems to have started
them forever after, at will, by taunting him on his age! Whether
any woman could have guided this stormy nature through life may
be doubted.
By 1814 he had sunk £70,000 in his estate, and fled from England
to escape his creditors. Llanthony passed into his mother's wise con-
trol. She was able to meet all demands, make provision for the
support of Landor's family, and transmit the estate much improved
to his posterity. Even upon his southward flight he parted in anger
with his wife at Jersey, and hurried to France alone in an oyster-
boat! But the irrevocable » breach was closed within a year.
During the next two decades Landor lived almost wholly in Italy,
chiefly in Florence and Fiesole. This is the happiest period of his
career, and probably his warmest admirers wish it had been the last.
The works also on which his fame rests most secure are the fruit of
this epoch. The Imaginary Conversations cover an astonishingly
wide range in ancient and modern life. Though an untiring reader,
Landor had not by any means an encyclopædic memory in matters
historical or biographical. He owned at any one time few books;
for though he bought many, he gave them away no less eagerly.
His dramatic scenes are not in the least mosaics pieced together from
«authorities” or “sources. ” On the contrary, he chose by deliberate
preference events which might have occurred, but were quite un-
recorded; and he austerely refused to lay upon his interlocutors' lips
## p. 8865 (#493) ###########################################
WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR
8865
any single sentiment or thought save what he believed to be original
with himself!
The elemental impulses of Landor's nature were generous, and not
ignoble. He had thirteen pitched battles as a schoolboy, and won
eleven; but they were all against older boys, and probably waged to
put down bullying. He once threw his cook out of the kitchen win-
dow; but put his head out instantly thereafter, exclaiming ruefully,
“My God! I forgot the violets! ) Not only toward flowers but toward
all animals he was humane to the point of eccentricity. He would
not shoot any living creature, nor even hook a fish. Profuse as he
was in unwise giving, unable to resist playing the generous patron
whether himself penniless or prosperous, his own needs were of the
simplest. Even his fiercest quarrels were rarely in behalf of his own
rights; and many of the most threatening outbreaks vanished in
peals of uproarious and most infectious laughter, whenever his sense of
humor could be touched before his stubborn pride was too firmly set.
Of course, Landor's life in Italy was by no means a monotonously
peaceful one. He had to fee from more than one resting-place «for
speaking ill of authorities,” preferably in scurrilous Latin verse. The
current Italian remark quoted about him is perhaps too delicious to
be merely true: “Tutti gli Inglesi sono pazzi, ma questo poi! (All
the English are crazy, but oh — this one! ) Had he died at sixty,
in the bosom of his family, in his lovely Fiesolan villa, he would
have left not only the Conversations, but the Examination of
Shakespeare,' the Pentameron,' and even the greater part of his
perfect masterpiece, Pericles and Aspasia. ' These three may all be
regarded, indeed, as Imaginary Conversations which have burst the
lesser frame.
It is generally said that the heat and turmoil of Landor's outward
life are absent from his literary creations. In some degree this is
certainly true. His workmanship-above all, the finished detail in
word and phrase — gives a certain sculpturesque calm and coolness
to his work. Nevertheless, his fierce hatred of tyranny and of brutal
selfishness, his tender sympathy with helpless innocence, may be felt
throbbing beneath every word of such scenes as Henry VIII. 's last
interview with Anne Boleyn. There is no purer patriot than the
dying Marcellus, who gives his generous foeman Hannibal a new con-
ception of Roman character. Polybius, as he rides in sad triumph
through burning Carthage, receives from the vanquished an awful
lesson in retributive justice. The womanly tenderness of Godiva is
set in a dazzling light which makes the last laureate's graceful
verses seem tame. The sweetness of human destiny is wonderfully
touched in the words of Thetis, herself an immortal, when her husband
grieves that he grows old: There is a loveliness which youth may
XV-555
## p. 8866 (#494) ###########################################
8866
WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR
be without, and which the gods want. To the voice of compassion
not a shell in all the ocean is attuned; and no tear ever dropped
upon Olympus.
The happiest subject and the most perfect execution, however,
must be sought in “Pericles and Aspasia. While largely true to the
outlines as we know them from Thucydides and others, this is still
a creative romance, depicting adequately a noble attachment which
ended only with life.
It is with the greater reluctance, therefore, with pity, and even
with bewilderment, that we recall how, in the very days when this
supreme and happy masterpiece was approaching completion, the
sixty-year-old Landor deserted his wife and children in Fiesole, and
after a few months' leisurely sojourn in other parts of Italy, passed
on with little evidence of regret to England. The quarrel was in its
origin almost trivial. Mrs. Landor, we are told, had indulged once
too often in the lifelong habit of criticizing her husband in the child-
ren's presence! He indulged, we believe, in no abusive Latin verses
on this occasion. He promptly stripped himself of nearly his entire
income, leaving the deserted family in comparative affluence; but all
the well-meant intercession of friends proved vain. He established
a modest home in England. Some stanch friends remained to him.
His literary career was by no means ended; indeed, his fame grew
in the next decade.
Twenty-three years later, quite penniless, fleeing from the disastrous
results of an ignoble libel, the incorrigible octogenarian schoolboy
arrived, wild-eyed and combative as ever, at his own gate! After
repeated quarrels had made his longer stay there impossible, Mr.
Browning took the old lion under his protection. Prosperous brothers
in England provided a modest pension. In these days Swinburne
made a pilgrimage to Italy expressly to see his revered master;
and among the most faithful to the end, Kate Field has an honored
place.
Some of our judgments on Landor's character as inan and poet we
have already attempted to deliver.
And all answered, "It is true.
<<
Let us abolish science and
thought. ”
And when he had followed the example of the first two, a
third said:-
"When we shall have plunged man back into brutishness by
taking away religion, science, and thought, we shall have done
much; but something will still remain to do. The brute has
dangerous instincts and dangerous sympathies. One people should
never hear the voice of another people, lest it should be tempted
to follow an example of complaint and agitation. Let no sound
from without penetrate to us. ”
And all answered, "It is true. Let no sound from without
penetrate to us. ”
And a fourth said:-
“We have our interests, and the nations too have theirs which
are opposed to ours. If they were to unite in self-defense, how
could we resist them ? Let us divide to reign. In every hamlet,
every city, every province, let us establish an interest opposed to
that of other hamlets, other cities, other provinces. Then all
will hate each other, and will not think to unite against us.
And all answered, "It is true. Let us divide to reign!
Concord would destroy us. ”
And a fifth, when he had twice filled with blood and twice
emptied the human skull, said:
"I approve all these means; they are good, but inadequate.
To create brutes is well; but intimidate these brutes — strike
them with terror by an inexorable justice and frightful penalties
- if you would not sooner or later be devoured by them. The
executioner is the prime minister of a good prince. ”
And all answered, “It is true. The executioner is the prime
minister of a good prince. ”
And a sixth said:-
"I acknowledge the advantage of prompt, terrible, inevitable
penalties. Yet there are brave spirits and despairing spirits who
.
brave penalties. If you would govern men easily, soften them
by pleasure. Virtue is naught to us; it nourishes force: let us
exhaust it by means of corruption. ”
C
»
## p. 8851 (#475) ###########################################
LAMENNAIS
8851
And all answered, "It is true. Let us exhaust strength and
energy and courage by means of corruption. ”
Then the seventh, having like the others drunk from the
human skull, with feet on the crucifix, spoke thus:-
« Down with Christ ! - there is war to the death, eternal war
between him and us. But how can we tear the nations from
him ? It is a vain attempt. What then shall we do? Listen to
me. We must win the priests of God with goods, honors, and
power. And they will command the people in the name of
Christ to submit to us in all things, whatever we may do, what-
ever we may order. And the people will believe them; and will
obey from conscience, and our power will be stronger than ever
before. "
And all answered, "It is true. We must win over the priests
of Christ ! »
And suddenly the lamp which lighted the hall went out, and
the seven men separated in the darkness.
And to a just man, who at that moment was watching and
praying before the Cross, it was said: “My day is drawing near.
Adore and fear nothing. ”
Translated for (A Library of the World's Best Literature) by Jane G. Cooke.
CHAPTERS FROM (WORDS OF A BELIEVER)
INTRODUCTORY, TO THE PEOPLE
T"
his book was made principally for you; it is to you that I
offer it. May it, amid so many ills that are your portion,
so many sorrows that bear you down almost without any
rest, reanimate and console you a little.
You who carry the burden of the day, I would that it might
be to your poor tired souls what, at midday in the corner of a
field, the shade of a tree no matter how stunted it may be —
is to one who has worked all the morning under the hot rays
of the sun.
You are living in evil times, but these times will pass away.
After the rigors of winter, Providence sends a season less rude;
and the little bird blesses in his morning songs the beneficent
hand which has returned to him warmth and abundance, his com-
panion and soft nest.
## p. 8852 (#476) ###########################################
8852
LAMENNAIS
:
Hope and love. Hope softens all things; and love renders all
things easy. There are at this moment men who are suffering
much because they have loved you much. I their brother, I
have written the account of what they have done for you, and
what has been done against them on account of it; and when
violence shall have worn itself out I shall publish it, and you
will read then with tears less bitter, and you also will love these
men who have so loved you. At present, if I should speak to
you of their love and of their sufferings, I should be thrown into
the dungeon with them. I would descend into it with great joy
if your misery could thereby be lightened a little; but you would
not recover any ease from it, and that is why it is better to wait
and pray God that he shorten the trial. Now it is men who
judge and strike; soon it will be He who will judge. Happy
those who see his justice!
I am old: listen to the words of an old man. The earth is
sad and dried up, but it will turn green again. The breath of
the wicked will not eternally pass over it, like a wind that blasts.
What is being done, Providence wishes should be done for
your instruction, so that you may learn to be good and just
when your hour comes. When those who make an abuse of
power shall have passed before you, like the mud of the running
gutters in a day of storms, then you will understand that good
alone is durable, and you will fear to soil the air which the
breath of heaven has purified.
Prepare your souls against that time, for it is not far off, - it
nears.
Christ, laid upon the cross, has promised to deliver you.
Believe in his promise: and to hasten its fulfillment, reform that
which needs reformation within you; exercise yourselves in all
virtues, and love one another, as the Savior of the human race
loved you till his death.
IN The name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy
Spirit, Amen.
Glory to God in the highest of heaven, and peace on earth to
men of good-will.
The Father begot the Son, his Word, his Verb: and the Verb
became flesh, and dwelt amongst us; and it came into the world,
and the world knew it not
## p. 8853 (#477) ###########################################
LAMENNAIS
8853
The Son promised to send the consoling Spirit, which proceeds
from the Father and himself, and which is their mutual love:
will come and renew the face of the earth, and it will be like
a second creation.
Eighteen centuries ago the Verb scattered the divine seed, and
the Holy Spirit fertilized it. Men saw it flourish; they tasted the
fruit, the fruit of the Tree of Life, replanted in their poor hab-
itations. I tell you there was a great joy among them when
they saw the light appear, and felt themselves all penetrated by
a celestial fire.
At present the earth has again become cloudy and cold.
Our fathers saw the sun decline. As it descended below the
horizon, the whole human race thrilled. Then there was in that
night I do not know what; it has no name. Children of the
night, the west is black but the orient begins to lighten.
II
LEND your ear and tell me whence comes that noise, confused,
vague, strange, that one hears on all sides.
Place your hand upon the earth, and tell me why it thrills.
Something that we know not moves inside the world; a labor
of God is there.
Is not each one waiting in expectation? Is there a heart that
is not beating?
Son of man, mount to the heights and proclaim what thou
seest.
I see on the horizon a livid cloud; and around, a red light like
the reflection from a conflagration.
Son of man, what seest thou besides?
I see the seas raising their floods, and the mountains shaking
their tops.
I see the rivers changing their courses, the hills tottering and
falling and filling up the valleys.
Everything is giving way, everything is moving, everything
is taking on a new appearance.
Son of man, what seest thou again ?
I see storms of dust in the distance; and they are rolling
hither and thither, dashing, breaking, mingling together. They
pass over the cities; and when they have passed, naught is seen
but the plain.
## p. 8854 (#478) ###########################################
8854
LAMENNAIS
I see the people rising in tumult, and the kings turning pale
under their diadems. War is between them; a war to the death.
I see a throne, two thrones, broken into pieces, and the peo-
ple scattering the fragments over the earth.
I see a people fighting as the archangel Michael fought against
Satan. His blows are terrible, but he is naked, and his enemy
is covered with thick armor. O God! He is fallen; he is struck
to the death. No! he is but wounded; Mary, the virgin mother,
throws her cloak over him, smiles upon him, and carries him for
a while out of the fight.
I see another people struggling without a pause, and gaining
minute by minute new force in the struggle. This people bear
the sign of Christ over the heart.
I see a third one, upon which six kings have put the foot;
and every time he moves, six poniards are plunged into his
breast.
I see upon a vast edifice, at a great height up in the air, a
cross which I can barely distinguish, because it is covered with
a black veil.
Son of man, what seest thou yet again ?
I see the Orient, troubled within itself. It sees its antique
palaces falling, its old temples crumbling into dust, and it lifts
its eyes as if to seek other grandeurs and another God.
I look towards the Occident: A woman with a proud eye and
serene face; she traces with a firm hand a light furrow; and
wherever the plowshare has passed I see arising new genera-
tions, who invoke her in their prayers and bless her in their
hymns.
I see in the North, men whose only remaining heat is con-
centrated in their heads, and it intoxicates them; but Christ is
touching them with his cross, and their hearts are beginning to
beat again.
I see in the South, races bowed down under I know not what
malediction; a heavy yoke is bearing upon them: but Christ is
touching them with his cross, and they are straightening up
again.
Son of man, what seest thou still ?
He does not answer: let us call again:
Son of man, what seest thou ?
I see Satan flying, and Christ surrounded by angels coming to
reign.
## p. 8855 (#479) ###########################################
LAMENNAIS
8855
V
When you see a man conducted to prison, or to execution, do
not hasten to say, « That is a wicked man, who has committed a
crime against men. ” For perhaps he is a good man, who wished
to serve men, and is being punished for it by their oppressors.
When you see a people laden with chains and delivered to
the executioner, do not hasten to say, “That is a violent people,
who wished to trouble the peace of the earth. ” For perhaps it
is a martyr people, dying for the salvation of human kind.
Eighteen centuries ago, in a city of the East, the pontiffs and
king of the day nailed upon a cross, after having scourged him
with rods, a rebel, a blasphemer, as they called him.
The day of his death there was a great terror in hell, and a
great joy in heaven.
For the blood of the Just had saved the world.
VIII
IN The beginning, labor was not necessary for man to live;
the earth of itself supplied all his needs.
But man did evil; and as he revolted against God, the earth
revolted against him. It came to pass to him then as it comes
to pass to the child that revolts against his father: the father
recalled his love from him, abandoning him to himself; and the
servants of the house refusing to serve him, he has had to go
out to seek here and there his poor life, eating bread earned by
the sweat of his brow.
Since then, God has condemned all men to labor, and all have
their work to do, either of the body or of the mind; and those
who say "I shall not work,” are the most miserable.
For as
worms devour the corpse, so do vices devour them;
and if it is not vices it is ennui.
And when God wanted man to go to work, he hid a treasure
for him in the work; for he is a father, and the love of a father
never dies.
And to him who makes good use of this treasure, and does
not foolishly waste, there comes to him a true rest; and then he
is as men were at the beginning.
And God gave them also this precept: "Aid one another; for
there
are among you some stronger, some weaker, some sickly,
some healthy; and nevertheless they all must live.
And if you
## p. 8856 (#480) ###########################################
8856
LAMENNAIS
(
act thus to one another, all will live; because I will recognize
the pity that you had for your brother, and I shall make the
sweat of your brow fertile. ”
And that which God promised has always been verified, and
never has he who aids his brothers been seen to lack bread.
Now there was once a wicked man, and cursed of Heaven.
And this man was strong and hated work; so that he said, “How
shall I do? If I do not work I shall die, and work is unendur-
able to me! ”
Then a thought came from hell into his heart. He went
by night, and seizing some of his brothers while they slept,
he put them in chains. "For,” said he, "I will force them
with rods and with the whip to work for me, and I will eat the
fruit of their work. ”
And he did as he thought; and others seeing this, did like-
wise: and there were no longer any brothers, there were masters
and slaves.
It was a day of mourning upon all the earth.
A long time afterwards there was another man, more wicked
than the first and more cursed of Heaven.
Seeing that men had multiplied everywhere, and that their
multitude was innumerable, he said to himself: "I might well
perhaps enchain some of them, and force them to work for me;
but I should have to nourish them, and that would diminish my
gain. Let me do better: let them work for nothing; they will
die, in truth, but as their number is great, I shall amass riches
before it greatly diminishes, and there will always be enough of
them left over. ”
And now all this multitude lived upon what it received in
exchange for its labor.
Having spoken thus to himself, the man addressed himself
more particularly to a few, and he said to them: “You work
six hours, and you are given a piece of money for your work:
work for twelve hours and you will gain two pieces of money,
and you will live much better, - you, your wife, and your child-
ren. ”
And they believed him.
And he told them again: “You work only half the days of
the year: work all the days of the year, and your gain will be
double. ”
And they believed him again.
((
(
## p. 8857 (#481) ###########################################
LAMENNAIS
8857
-
And it came to pass from this, that the quantity of work
having become greater by half, without the need of the work
becoming greater, half of those who formerly lived from their
labor found no longer any one to employ them.
Then the wicked man whom they believed said to them: "I
will give work to you all, on the condition that you work the
same length of time, and that I pay you but half of what I
formerly paid you; for I am very willing to do you a service, but
I do not wish to ruin myself. ”
And as they were hungry,—they, their wives, and their child-
ren,- they accepted the proposition of the wicked man, and they
blessed him; «for,” said they, “he is giving us life. ”
And always continuing to deceive them in the same way,
the wicked man ever increased their work and ever diminished
their salary.
And they died for the want of the necessities of life, and
others hastened forward to replace them; for indigence had be-
come so great in the country that whole families sold themselves
for a piece of bread.
And the wicked man who had lied to his brothers amassed
more riches than the wicked man who had enchained them.
The name of the one is Tyrant; the other has no name ex-
cept in hell.
(
XII
When one of you suffers an injustice, when on his road across
the world the oppressor throws some one down and puts a foot
upon him, no one hears him if he complains.
The cry of the poor ascends to God, but it does not reach
the ear of man.
And I asked myself: “Whence comes this evil? Is it that
He who has created the poor as well as the rich, the weak as
well as the strong, has wished to take from the one all fear in
their iniquities from the others all hope in their misery ? »
And I saw that this was a horrible thought, a blasphemy
against God.
It is because each one of you loves himself alone, because
each is separated from his brother, because each is alone and
wishes to be alone, his complaint is not heard.
In the spring, when everything revives, there comes out of
the grass a sound which arises like a long murmur.
## p. 8858 (#482) ###########################################
8858
LAMENNAIS
This sound, formed of so many sounds that they cannot be
counted, is the voice of an innumerable number of poor little
imperceptible creatures. Alone, not one of them could be heard;
all together, they make themselves heard. You also are hidden
in the grass: why does no voice arise from it ?
But if any one has committed an injustice against you, com-
mence by banishing all sentiment of hatred from your heart, and
then, lifting your hands and your eyes above, say to your Father
who is in Heaven: “O Father, thou art the protector of the in-
nocent and the oppressed; for it is thy love that has created the
world, and it is thy justice that governs it.
« Thou wishedst that it should reign upon the earth, and the
wicked man opposes his evil will. That is why we had deter-
mined to fight the wicked.
“O Father! give counsel and help to our minds, and strength
to our arms! »
When you have thus prayed from the depths of your soul,
fight and fear nothing.
XV
You have but one day to pass upon the earth: order it so that
you may pass it in peace.
Peace is the fruit of love; for love lies at the bottom of pure
hearts as the drop of dew in the calyx of a flower.
Oh, if you knew what it was to love!
You say that you love, and many of your brothers lack bread
to sustain life; clothing to cover their naked limbs; a roof to
shelter them; a handful of straw to sleep upon; while you have
abundance of everything.
You say that you love, while there are sick ones in great
numbers, languishing on their wretched couches without help;
unhappy ones weeping, and no one to weep with them; little
children going about all stiff with cold, from door to door, asking
the rich for a crumb of bread from their tables, and not getting it.
You say that you love your brothers; and what would you do
if you hated them ?
## p. 8859 (#483) ###########################################
LAMENNAIS
8859
XXIII
LORD, we cry unto thee, from the depths of our misery, like
animals who lack pasture for their little ones.
We cry unto thee, Lord !
Like the sheep robbed of its lamb,
We cry unto thee, Lord.
Like the dove seized by the vulture,
We cry unto thee, Lord.
As the gazelle in the claw of the tiger,
We cry unto thee, Lord.
As the bull exhausted and bleeding under the shaft,
We cry unto thee, Lord.
As the wounded bird that the dog pursues,
We cry unto thee, Lord.
As the swallow faltering from weariness, as it crosses the
seas and struggles in the waves,
We cry unto thee, Lord.
As travelers lost in a burning desert, without water,
We cry unto thee, Lord.
As the shipwrecked on a sterile coast,
We cry unto thee, Lord.
As he who in the night, near a cemetery, meets some hid.
eous spectre,
We cry unto thee, Lord.
As the father ravished of the bread he is taking his starving
children,
We cry unto thee, Lord.
As the prisoner whom unjust power has thrown into a dun-
geon dark and dank,
We cry unto thee, Lord.
As the slave torn by the whip of his master,
We cry unto thee, Lord.
As the innocent led to execution,
We cry unto thee, Lord.
As the people of Israel in the land of bondage,
We cry unto thee, Lord.
As the descendants of Jacob, whose eldest sons the King of
Egypt caused to be drowned in the Nile,
We cry unto thee, Lord.
## p. 8860 (#484) ###########################################
8860
LAMENNAIS
As the Twelve Tribes, of whom the oppressor increased the
tasks every day, cutting off every day from their food,
We cry unto thee, Lord.
As the Christ upon the Cross, when he said, "My Father!
My Father! Why hast thou forsaken me? ”
We cry unto thee, Lord.
O Father! Thou didst not forsake thy Son, thy Christ, save
only in appearance, and for a moment;
Neither wilt thou ever forsake the brothers of Christ.
His divine blood, which redeemed them from the slavery of
the prince of this world, will redeem them also from the slavery
of the ministers of the prince of this world. See their pierced
feet and hands, their opened side, their head covered with bleed-
ing wounds. In the earth which thou gavest them for a herit-
age a vast sepulchre has been hollowed out for them; and they
have been thrown into it, one upon the other, and the stone of
it is sealed with a seal, upon which in mockery thy name is
engraved. And thus, Lord, they are buried there; but it will not
be for eternity. Three days more, and the sacrilegious seal will
be broken, and the rock split asunder; and those who sleep will
awaken; and the reign of Christ, which is justice and charity, and
peace and joy in the Holy Spirit, will begin. Amen.
Translated for (A Library of the World's Best Literature,) by Grace King.
## p. 8860 (#485) ###########################################
## p. 8860 (#486) ###########################################
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## p. 8860 (#488) ###########################################
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WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR
## p. 8861 (#489) ###########################################
8861
WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR
(1775-1864)
BY WILLIAM CRANSTON LAWTON
AR
ERHAPS there is no English author save Gray to whom the
epithet “classical” is oftener applied than to Landor. This
Suur is not merely a tribute to his mastery of Latin equally with
English verse. Even his unrivaled masterpiece, the imaginary corre-
spondence of Pericles and Aspasia, is no mere marvel of learning,
no mosaic of remembered details; but rather a great free-hand ideal
picture, conforming only to the larger frame of historic fact. Nearly
all his work is equally creative, and has a peculiarly detached effect,
independent of all else whether in reality or fiction, like the best of
Hawthorne's imaginings. This unlimited fountain of original though
not sustained creativeness is the greatest proof of Landor's genius.
Next to it is a style, in all his prose and the best of his verse, so
polished, graceful, indeed faultless, that we may at first fail to per-
ceive beneath it the pulse of life, the heat of conscious effort, which
is after all essential to the highest enjoyment. This very fact, how-
ever, marks the most striking contrast between Landor's art and his
outward life. That contrast will to some extent vanish on closer
scrutiny of both.
Count no life happy until its close, said Solon. Rarely indeed has
a man been born and bred with fairer prospects, lived in more con-
stant turmoil, known greater depths of self-inflicted unhappiness, or
spent his last earthly days more utterly forlorn, than Landor. "I
never did a single wise thing in the whole course of my existence,”
said he near the end of his long life. Too sweeping though this is,
are tempted to cry Amen! It is really incredible that a man
endowed with so many virtues, and of such wondrous intellect, should
have failed so utterly, and one may say so invariably, to adjust him-
self to the necessary relations with his fellow-mortals. Yet it is
equally certain that he “never did a single ” cowardly, cruel, or coldly
selfish thing. His life, however, long as it was, seems like the un-
broken activity of a volcano. Were his genius less rare and lofty, his
later years especially would tempt us to an ignobler comparison; for
we are reminded of a piece of firework, occasionally sending a bright
star heavenward, but never ceasing to sputter and flare until it burns
its own heart out at last!
we
## p. 8862 (#490) ###########################################
8862
WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR
C
»
Landor was the eldest son of a prosperous physician at Warwick.
By entail he was assured heir, through his mother, of estates in War-
wickshire worth nearly £80,000. Sent to Rugby at the age of ten,
he immediately distinguished himself by the quality of his Latin
verses. Indeed, his delightful biographer, Sidney Colvin, calls him
“the one known instance in which the traditional classical education
took full effect. ” This does not appear to be a slur on the quality
of Professor Jebb's Pindaric odes, or of the Latin hexameters with
which Munro supplies the gaps large or small in Lucretius's text.
But Landor by lifelong impulse poured forth creative verse quite
as rapidly and forcibly, though not quite so faultlessly, in Latin as
in English. For satire especially he seems to have preferred the
strength of the deathless Roman speech. Much of his English poetry
is a reluctant translation from his own classic originals.
When his master gave the school a half-holiday for Landor's
Latin verses,” the boy complained fiercely that his poorest perform-
ance was selected for the honor. This belief was expressed in an
abusive addition to the copy of verse itself! Similar outbreaks of his
Muse finally led to his enforced withdrawal from the school. There,
as afterward at college, he always refused to compete for prizes:
valuing his own performances too highly to let them be measured at
all against rivals' work.
He entered Oxford at eighteen, and was known during his one
year there as
“the mad Jacobin,” in a time when the French Revo-
lution had frightened even the students of England away from radi-
calism. His departure in disgrace from Oxford was brought about by
a lawless prank. Aggrieved that a Tory neighbor dared entertain
socially the same night as himself, he riddled his shutters with a
shotgun. His arrival home was signalized by a violent quarrel, at the
end of which he left his father's house forever. ”
Until his thirtieth year he had a small allowance, lived partly in
a remote corner of Wales and partly at Bath, read hard chiefly in
the classics and English poets, and tried his own wings. Love was
not one of his chief teachers, though the lady whose name, Jane, is
glorified as Ianthe,” had a lasting influence over him. Resenting
Byron's adoption of this beloved title, he declares he
« — planted in a fresh parterre
Ianthe; it was blooming when a youth
Leapt o'er the hedge, and snatching at the stem,
Broke off the label from my favorite flower,
And stuck it on a sorrier of his own. ”
Rose Aylmer, — the short-lived daughter of Lord Aylmer, — whose
beautiful name has been immortalized in a lyric brief as Catullus and
## p. 8863 (#491) ###########################################
WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR
8863
“sad as tear-drops of Simonides,” was Landor's neighbor and friend
in Wales. She lent him a book containing the sorry “Arabian” tale
which suggested his first important poem. (Gebir) is a romantic and
tragical epic. Into less than two thousand lines of blank verse is
packed action enough for an Iliad. It is very hard to follow the plot.
The close-knit blank verse is rather too regular also. Still it is a
great creative work; chaotic and aiinless ethically, but in detail often
masterly. It had no readers then save Southey, and few at any time
since. Landor said loftily that he would have been encouraged to
write more if even foolish men had read it, since “there is something
of summer even in the hum of insects. »
(Gebir) has influenced English poetry profoundly, nevertheless.
Southey loved it from the first. Shelley, like Charles Lamb, was
never weary of repeating certain passages. Of our own contempora-
ries, Swinburne pours out loyal praise, with his usual lavishness, in
the article on Landor in the Britannica. In the same year (1798)
appeared the famous Lyrical Ballads, beginning with Coleridge's
(Ancient Mariner) and ending with Wordsworth's “Tintern Abbey. )
Either of these has still a thousand readers to (Gebir's) one. Which
was really the weightiest portent of the new day may well be ques-
tioned. Landor never sought, and probably never seriously hoped for,
wide popularity, even in the future. «I shall dine late,” he says; but
the dining-room will be well lighted, the guests few and select. ”
This fantastic epic by a youth of twenty-three already justified those
haughty words; and all the brother poets just mentioned, with a
goodly number besides, have testified to its influence upon them.
Byron indeed - and others attempted to appropriate such gems as
the verses on the sea-shell:-
“Shake one and it awakens; then apply
Its polisht lips to your attentive ear,
And it remembers its august abodes,
And murmurs as the ocean murmurs there. )
The year 1808 was like an epitome of Landor's whole life. The
wealth recently inherited from his father (the estates being released
from entail by special act of Parliament) was all absorbed by a mag-
nificent estate some eight miles in extent, in Monmouthshire. His
plans — to build up the ruined abbey of Llanthony which gave the
place its name, to erect for himself a goodly mansion, to reclaim
the land and reform the peasantry were all broken in upon by a
sudden expedition to Spain, where Landor went campaigning against
Napoleon with a regiment equipped at his own expense. Presently
the volunteers had all melted away; and their generous patron, hav-
ing quarreled out with his hosts, his allies, and his superior officers,
## p. 8864 (#492) ###########################################
8864
WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR
recrossed the Channel, to resume his denunciation of all in political
office and his strife with every one within five leagues of his estate.
The chief fruit of his Spanish tour was the tragedy Count Julian. '
Like his other plays, it is quite unsuited to the stage. The hero,
who turns against his king to avenge his daughter, is a careful psy-
chological study. The drama, however, like all Landor's longer works,
is read and remembered, if at all, rather for details, for picked pass-
ages, than for its general effect. Mr. Lowell's remark is an acute
one,- that Landor is hardly a great thinker, though he has certainly
uttered adequately great thoughts. He lacks the longer, the lasting
inspiration, that merges all the exquisite detail of an Othello' or of a
Prometheus) in the resistless sweep of the master's design. When he
is for the moment indeed inspired, his perfect command of style,
of utterance, carries him with perfect ease to a height where he has
absolutely no masters.
As we are trying to indicate, Landor's life and his work help
to explain each other — and both need explanation. His marriage
was perhaps his gravest mistake. He fell in love with a stranger's
pretty face, and instantly avowed his choice. He married a few weeks
later, in 1811. The bride was sixteen years younger than he; and
not content with quarrels of his creating, seems to have started
them forever after, at will, by taunting him on his age! Whether
any woman could have guided this stormy nature through life may
be doubted.
By 1814 he had sunk £70,000 in his estate, and fled from England
to escape his creditors. Llanthony passed into his mother's wise con-
trol. She was able to meet all demands, make provision for the
support of Landor's family, and transmit the estate much improved
to his posterity. Even upon his southward flight he parted in anger
with his wife at Jersey, and hurried to France alone in an oyster-
boat! But the irrevocable » breach was closed within a year.
During the next two decades Landor lived almost wholly in Italy,
chiefly in Florence and Fiesole. This is the happiest period of his
career, and probably his warmest admirers wish it had been the last.
The works also on which his fame rests most secure are the fruit of
this epoch. The Imaginary Conversations cover an astonishingly
wide range in ancient and modern life. Though an untiring reader,
Landor had not by any means an encyclopædic memory in matters
historical or biographical. He owned at any one time few books;
for though he bought many, he gave them away no less eagerly.
His dramatic scenes are not in the least mosaics pieced together from
«authorities” or “sources. ” On the contrary, he chose by deliberate
preference events which might have occurred, but were quite un-
recorded; and he austerely refused to lay upon his interlocutors' lips
## p. 8865 (#493) ###########################################
WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR
8865
any single sentiment or thought save what he believed to be original
with himself!
The elemental impulses of Landor's nature were generous, and not
ignoble. He had thirteen pitched battles as a schoolboy, and won
eleven; but they were all against older boys, and probably waged to
put down bullying. He once threw his cook out of the kitchen win-
dow; but put his head out instantly thereafter, exclaiming ruefully,
“My God! I forgot the violets! ) Not only toward flowers but toward
all animals he was humane to the point of eccentricity. He would
not shoot any living creature, nor even hook a fish. Profuse as he
was in unwise giving, unable to resist playing the generous patron
whether himself penniless or prosperous, his own needs were of the
simplest. Even his fiercest quarrels were rarely in behalf of his own
rights; and many of the most threatening outbreaks vanished in
peals of uproarious and most infectious laughter, whenever his sense of
humor could be touched before his stubborn pride was too firmly set.
Of course, Landor's life in Italy was by no means a monotonously
peaceful one. He had to fee from more than one resting-place «for
speaking ill of authorities,” preferably in scurrilous Latin verse. The
current Italian remark quoted about him is perhaps too delicious to
be merely true: “Tutti gli Inglesi sono pazzi, ma questo poi! (All
the English are crazy, but oh — this one! ) Had he died at sixty,
in the bosom of his family, in his lovely Fiesolan villa, he would
have left not only the Conversations, but the Examination of
Shakespeare,' the Pentameron,' and even the greater part of his
perfect masterpiece, Pericles and Aspasia. ' These three may all be
regarded, indeed, as Imaginary Conversations which have burst the
lesser frame.
It is generally said that the heat and turmoil of Landor's outward
life are absent from his literary creations. In some degree this is
certainly true. His workmanship-above all, the finished detail in
word and phrase — gives a certain sculpturesque calm and coolness
to his work. Nevertheless, his fierce hatred of tyranny and of brutal
selfishness, his tender sympathy with helpless innocence, may be felt
throbbing beneath every word of such scenes as Henry VIII. 's last
interview with Anne Boleyn. There is no purer patriot than the
dying Marcellus, who gives his generous foeman Hannibal a new con-
ception of Roman character. Polybius, as he rides in sad triumph
through burning Carthage, receives from the vanquished an awful
lesson in retributive justice. The womanly tenderness of Godiva is
set in a dazzling light which makes the last laureate's graceful
verses seem tame. The sweetness of human destiny is wonderfully
touched in the words of Thetis, herself an immortal, when her husband
grieves that he grows old: There is a loveliness which youth may
XV-555
## p. 8866 (#494) ###########################################
8866
WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR
be without, and which the gods want. To the voice of compassion
not a shell in all the ocean is attuned; and no tear ever dropped
upon Olympus.
The happiest subject and the most perfect execution, however,
must be sought in “Pericles and Aspasia. While largely true to the
outlines as we know them from Thucydides and others, this is still
a creative romance, depicting adequately a noble attachment which
ended only with life.
It is with the greater reluctance, therefore, with pity, and even
with bewilderment, that we recall how, in the very days when this
supreme and happy masterpiece was approaching completion, the
sixty-year-old Landor deserted his wife and children in Fiesole, and
after a few months' leisurely sojourn in other parts of Italy, passed
on with little evidence of regret to England. The quarrel was in its
origin almost trivial. Mrs. Landor, we are told, had indulged once
too often in the lifelong habit of criticizing her husband in the child-
ren's presence! He indulged, we believe, in no abusive Latin verses
on this occasion. He promptly stripped himself of nearly his entire
income, leaving the deserted family in comparative affluence; but all
the well-meant intercession of friends proved vain. He established
a modest home in England. Some stanch friends remained to him.
His literary career was by no means ended; indeed, his fame grew
in the next decade.
Twenty-three years later, quite penniless, fleeing from the disastrous
results of an ignoble libel, the incorrigible octogenarian schoolboy
arrived, wild-eyed and combative as ever, at his own gate! After
repeated quarrels had made his longer stay there impossible, Mr.
Browning took the old lion under his protection. Prosperous brothers
in England provided a modest pension. In these days Swinburne
made a pilgrimage to Italy expressly to see his revered master;
and among the most faithful to the end, Kate Field has an honored
place.
Some of our judgments on Landor's character as inan and poet we
have already attempted to deliver.
