The future is
the present of God, and to the future it is that he sacrifices the
human present.
the present of God, and to the future it is that he sacrifices the
human present.
Warner - World's Best Literature - v08 - Dah to Dra
It ruled us and swayed us as
mysteriously as music. One young nurse, whom we all loved,
before any candle was lighted would often strain her eye to read
it for us; and sometimes, according to her simple powers, would
endeavor to explain what we found obscure. We, the child-
ren, were all constitutionally touched with pensiveness; the fitful
gloom and sudden lambencies of the room by firelight suited our
evening state of feelings; and they suited also the divine revela-
tions of power and mysterious beauty which awed us. Above
all, the story of a just man- man and yet not man, real above
all things and yet shadowy above all things, who had suffered
the passion of death in Palestine-slept upon our minds like
early dawn upon the waters.
-
The nurse knew and explained to us the chief differences in
Oriental climates; and all these differences (as it happens) express
themselves in the great varieties of summer. The cloudless sun-
lights of Syria-those seemed to argue everlasting summer; the
disciples plucking the ears of corn- that must be summer; but
above all, the very name of Palm Sunday (a festival in the
English Church) troubled me like an anthem. "Sunday! " what
was that? That was the day of peace which masked another
peace, deeper than the heart of man can comprehend. "Palms! "
what were they? That was an equivocal word; palms in the
sense of trophies expressed the pomps of life; palms as a product
of nature expressed the pomps of summer. Yet still, even this
explanation does not suffice; it was not merely by the peace and
by the summer, by the deep sound of rest below all rest, and of
ascending glory, that I had been haunted. It was also because
Jerusalem stood near to those deep images both in time and in
place. The great event of Jerusalem was at hand when Palm
Sunday came; and the scene of that Sunday was near in place to
## p. 4568 (#354) ###########################################
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THOMAS DE QUINCEY
Jerusalem. Yet what then was Jerusalem? Did I fancy it to be
the omphalos (navel) of the earth? That pretension had once
been made for Jerusalem, and once for Delphi; and both preten-
sions had become ridiculous as the figure of the planet became
known. Yes, but if not of the earth, for earth's tenant Jerusalem
was the omphalos of mortality. Yet how? There on the con-
trary it was, as we infants understood, that mortality had been
trampled under foot. True; but for that very reason, there it
was that mortality had opened its very gloomiest crater. There
it was indeed that the human had risen on wings from the
grave; but for that reason, there also it was that the Divine had
been swallowed up by the abyss; the lesser star could not rise
before the greater would submit to eclipse. Summer therefore
had connected itself with death, not merely as a mode of antago
nism, but also through intricate relations to Scriptural scenery
and events.
Out of this digression, which was almost necessary for the
purpose of showing how inextricably my feelings and images of
death were entangled with those of summer, I return to the
bedchamber of my sister. From the gorgeous sunlight I turned
round to the corpse. There lay the sweet childish figure, there
the angel face; and as people usually fancy, it was said in the
house that no features had suffered any change. Had they not?
The forehead indeed, the serene and noble forehead, hat
might be the same; but the frozen eyelids, the darkness that
seemed to steal from beneath them, the marble lips, the stiff en-
ing hands laid palm to palm as if repeating the supplications of
closing anguish,- could these be mistaken for life? Had it been
so, wherefore did I not spring to those heavenly lips with tears
and never-ending kisses? But so it was not. I stood checked
for a moment; awe, not fear, fell upon me; and whilst I stood,
a solemn wind began to blow,- the most mournful that
ever heard. Mournful! that is saying nothing. It was a wind
that had swept the fields of mortality for a hundred centuries.
Many times since, upon a summer day, when the sun is about
the hottest, I have remarked the same wind arising and utter.
ing the same hollow, solemn, Memnonian, but saintly swell:
it is in this world the one sole audible symbol of eternity.
three times in my life I have happened to hear the same sound
in the same circumstances; namely, when standing between
open window and a dead body on a summer day.
ear
And
an
—
-
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THOMAS DE QUINCEY
4569
Instantly, when my ear caught this vast olian intonation,
when my eye filled with the golden fullness of life, the pomps
and glory of the heavens outside, and, turning, when it settled.
upon the frost which overspread my sister's face, instantly a
trance fell upon me. A vault seemed to open in the zenith of
the far blue sky a shaft which ran up forever.
I in spirit rose,
as if on billows that also ran up the shaft forever, and the bil-
lows seemed to pursue the throne of God; but that also ran
before us and fled away continually. The flight and the pursuit
seemed to go on for ever and ever. Frost, gathering frost, some
Sarsar wind of death, seemed to repel me; I slept for how long
I cannot say; slowly I recovered my self-possession, and found
myself standing as before, close to my sister's bed.
O flight of the solitary child to the solitary God-flight from
the ruined corpse to the throne that could not be ruined! - how
rich wert thou in truth for after years! Rapture of grief that,
being too mighty for a child to sustain, foundest a happy oblivion
in a heaven-born dream, and within that sleep didst conceal a
dream; whose meaning, in after years, when slowly I deciphered,
suddenly there flashed upon me new light; and even by the grief
of a child, as I will show you, reader, hereafter, were confounded
the falsehoods of philosophers.
In the 'Opium Confessions' I touched a little upon the extraor-
dinary power connected with opium (after long use) of ampli-
fying the dimensions of time. Space also it amplifies, by degrees
that are sometimes terrific. But time it is upon which the exalt-
ing and multiplying power of opium chiefly spends its operation.
Time becomes infinitely elastic, stretching out to such immeas-
urable and vanishing termini that it seems ridiculous to compute
the sense of it, on waking, by expressions commensurate to
human life. As in starry fields one computes by diameters of the
earth's orbit, or of Jupiter's, so in valuing the virtual time lived
during some dreams, the measurement by generations is ridicu-
lous by millennia is ridiculous; by æons, I should say, if æons
were more determinate, would be also ridiculous. On this single
occasion, however, in my life, the very inverse phenomenon
occurred. But why speak of it in connection with opium? Could
a child of six years old have been under that influence? No, but
simply because it so exactly reversed the operation of opium.
Instead of a short interval expanding into a vast one, upon this
occasion a long one had contracted into a minute. I have reason
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THOMAS DE QUINCEY
to believe that a very long one had elapsed during this wander-
ing or suspension of my perfect mind. When I returned to my-
self, there was a foot (or I fancied so) on the stairs. I was
alarmed; for I believed that if anybody should detect me, means
would be taken to prevent my coming again. Hastily, therefore,
I kissed the lips that I should kiss no more, and slunk like a
guilty thing with stealthy steps from the room. Thus perished
the vision, loveliest amongst all the shows which earth has
revealed to me; thus mutilated was the parting which should
have lasted forever; thus tainted with fear was the farewell
sacred to love and grief, to perfect love and perfect grief.
O Ahasuerus, everlasting Jew! fable or not a fable, thou, when
first starting on thy endless pilgrimage of woe,- thou, when first
flying through the gates of Jerusalem and vainly yearning to
leave the pursuing curse behind thee,-couldst not more cer-
tainly have read thy doom of sorrow in the misgivings of thy
troubled brain, than I when passing forever from my sister's
room. The worm was at my heart; and confining myself to that
state of life, I may say, the worm that could not die. For if
when standing upon the threshold of manhood, I had ceased to
feel its perpetual gnawings, that was because a vast expansion of
intellect, it was because new hopes, new necessities, and the
frenzy of youthful blood, had translated me into a new creature.
Man is doubtless one by some subtle nexus that we cannot per-
ceive, extending from the new-born infant to the superannuated
dotard; but as regards many affections and passions incident to
his nature at different stages, he is not one: the unity of man in
this respect is coextensive only with the particular stage to which
the passion belongs. Some passions, as that of sexual love, are
celestial by one half of their origin, animal and earthly by the
other half. These will not survive their own appropriate stage.
But love which is altogether holy, like that between two children,
will revisit undoubtedly by glimpses the silence and the darkness
of old age; and I repeat my belief- that unless bodily torment
should forbid it, that final experience in my sister's bedroom, or
some other in which her innocence was concerned, will rise again.
for me to illuminate the hour of death.
-
## p. 4571 (#357) ###########################################
THOMAS DE QUINCEY
4571
I knew
OF
Reader,
LEVANA AND OUR LADIES OF SORROW
From Confessions of an English Opium-Eater'
FTENTIMES at Oxford I saw Levana in my dreams.
her by her Roman symbols. Who is Levana?
that do not pretend to have leisure for very much scholar-
ship, you will not be angry with me for telling you. Levana
was the Roman goddess that performed for the new-born infant
the earliest office of ennobling kindness,-typical, by its mode, of
that grandeur which belongs to man everywhere, and of that
benignity in powers invisible which even in pagan worlds some-
times descends to sustain it. At the very moment of birth, just
as the infant tasted for the first time the atmosphere of our
troubled planet, it was laid on the ground. That might bear dif-
ferent interpretations. But immediately, lest so grand a creature
should grovel there for more than one instant, either the pater-
nal hand as proxy for the goddess Levana, or some near kins-
man as proxy for the father, raised it upright, bade it look erect
as the king of all this world, and presented its forehead to the
stars, saying perhaps in his heart, "Behold what is greater than
yourselves! " This symbolic act represented the function of
Levana. And that mysterious lady, who never revealed her face
(except to me in dreams), but always acted by delegation, had
her name from the Latin verb (as still it is the Italian verb)
levare, to raise aloft.
This is the explanation of Levana. And hence it has arisen
that some people have understood by Levana the tutelary power
that controls the education of the nursery. She that would not
suffer at his birth even a prefigurative or mimic degradation for
her awful ward, far less could be supposed to suffer the real
degradation attaching to the non-development of his powers. She
therefore watches over human education.
Therefore it is that Levana often communes with the powers
that shake man's heart: therefore it is that she dotes upon grief.
"These ladies," said I softly to myself, on seeing the ministers
with whom Levana was conversing, "these are the Sorrows; and
they are three in number, as the Graces are three, who dress
man's life with beauty; the Parca are three, who weave the
dark arras of man's life in their mysterious loom always with col-
ors sad in part, sometimes angry. with tragic crimson and black;
## p. 4572 (#358) ###########################################
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THOMAS DE QUINCEY
the Furies are three, who visit, with retributions called from the
other side of the grave, offenses that walk upon this; and once
even the Muses were but three, who fit the harp, the trumpet,
or the lute, to the great burdens of man's impassioned creations.
These are the Sorrows, all three of whom I know. " The last
words I say now; but in Oxford I said, "One of whom I
know, and the others too surely I shall know. " For already in
my fervent youth I saw (dimly relieved upon the dark back-
ground of my dreams) the imperfect lineaments of the awful
sisters. These sisters-by what name shall we call them?
If I say simply "The Sorrows," there will be a chance of
mistaking the term; it might be understood of individual sor-
row,- separate cases of sorrow,—whereas I want a term express-
ing the mighty abstractions that incarnate themselves in all
individual sufferings of man's heart; and I wish to have these
abstractions presented as impersonations; that is, as clothed with
human attributes of life, and with functions pointing to flesh.
Let us call them therefore Our Ladies of Sorrow.
The eldest of the three is named Mater Lachrymarum, Our
Lady of Tears. She it is that night and day raves and moans,
calling for vanished faces. She stood in Rama, where a voice
was heard of lamentation,- Rachel weeping for her children,
and refusing to be comforted. She it was that stood in Bethle-
hem on the night when Herod's sword swept its nurseries of
Innocents, and the little feet were stiffened forever, which, heard
at times as they tottered along floors overhead, woke pulses of
love in household hearts that were not unmarked in heaven.
Her eyes are sweet and subtile, wild and sleepy, by turns;
oftentimes rising to the clouds, oftentimes challenging the heav
ens. She wears a diadem round her head. And I knew by
childish memories that she could go abroad upon the winds,
when she heard that sobbing of litanies, or the thundering of
organs, and when she beheld the mustering of summer clouds.
This sister, the elder, it is that carries keys more than papal at
her girdle, which open every cottage and every palace. She, to
my knowledge, sate all last summer by the bedside of the blind
beggar, him that so often and so gladly I talked with; whose
pious daughter, eight years old, with the sunny countenance,
resisted the temptations of play and village mirth to travel all
day long on dusty roads with her afflicted father. For this did
God send her a great reward. In the springtime of the year,
## p. 4573 (#359) ###########################################
THOMAS DE QUINCEY
4573
and whilst yet her own spring was budding, he recalled her
to himself. But her blind father mourns forever over her; still
he dreams at midnight that the little guiding hand is locked
within his own; and still he wakens to a darkness that is now
within a second and a deeper darkness. This Mater Lachrymarum
also has been sitting all this winter of 1844-5 within the bed-
chamber of the Czar, bringing before his eyes a daughter (not
less pious) that vanished to God not less suddenly, and left
behind her a darkness not less profound. By the power of her
keys it is that Our Lady of Tears glides, a ghostly intruder,
into the chambers of sleepless men, sleepless women, sleepless
children, from Ganges to the Nile, from Nile to Mississippi.
And her, because she is the first-born of her house, and has the
widest empire, let us honor with the title of "Madonna. "
The second sister is called Mater Suspiriorum, Our Lady of
Sighs. She never scales the clouds, nor walks abroad upon the
winds. She wears no diadem. And her eyes, if they were ever
seen, would be neither sweet nor subtile; no man could read
their story; they would be found filled with perishing dreams,
and with wrecks of forgotten delirium. But she raises not her
eyes; her head, on which sits a dilapidated turban, droops for-
ever, forever fastens on the dust. She weeps not.
She groans
not. But she sighs inaudibly at intervals. Her sister Madonna
is oftentimes stormy and frantic, raging in the highest against
Heaven, and demanding back her darlings. But Our Lady of
Sighs never clamors, never defies, dreams not of rebellious aspira-
tions. She is humble to abjectness. Hers is the meekness that
belongs to the hopeless. Murmur she may, but it is in her sleep.
Whisper she may, but it is to herself in the twilight. Mutter
she does at times, but it is in solitary places that are desolate as
she is desolate, in ruined cities, and when the sun has gone down
to his rest. This sister is the visitor of the Pariah; of the Jew;
of the bondsman to the oar in the Mediterranean galleys; of the
English criminal in Norfolk Island, blotted out from the books
of remembrance in sweet far-off England; of the baffled penitent
reverting his eyes forever upon a solitary grave, which to him
seems the altar overthrown of some past and bloody sacrifice, on
which altar no oblations can now be availing, whether towards
pardon that he might implore, or towards reparation that he
might attempt. Every slave that at noonday looks up to the
tropical sun with timid reproach, as he points with one hand to
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THOMAS DE QUINCEY
the earth, our general mother, but for him a stepmother,—as he
points with the other hand to the Bible, our general teacher, but
against him sealed and sequestered; every woman sitting in
darkness, without love to shelter her head or hope to illumine her
solitude, because the heaven-born instincts kindling in her nature
germs of holy affections, which God implanted in her womanly
bosom, having been stifled by social necessities, now burn sul-
lenly to waste like sepulchral lamps among the ancients; every
nun defrauded of her unreturning May-time by wicked kinsmen,
whom God will judge; every captive in every dungeon; all that
are betrayed, and all that are rejected; outcasts by traditionary
law, and children of hereditary disgrace:- all these walk with
Our Lady of Sighs. She also carries a key; but she needs it
little. For her kingdom is chiefly amongst the tents of Shem,
and the houseless vagrant of every clime. Yet in the very high-
est ranks of man she finds chapels of her own; and even in
glorious England there are some that, to the world, carry their
heads as proudly as the reindeer, who yet secretly have received
her mark upon their foreheads.
But the third sister, who is also the youngest! Hush!
whisper whilst we talk of her! Her kingdom is not large, or
else no flesh should live; but within that kingdom all power is
hers.
Her head, turreted like that of Cybele, rises almost be-
yond the reach of sight. She droops not; and her eyes rising
so high might be hidden by distance. But being what they are,
they cannot be hidden; through the treble veil of crape which
she wears, the fierce light of a blazing misery, that rests not for
matins or for vespers, for noon of day or noon of night, for
ebbing or for flowing tide, may be read from the very ground.
She is the defier of God. She also is the mother of lunacies,
and the suggestress of suicides. Deep lie the roots of her
power; but narrow is the nation that she rules. For she can
approach only those in whom a profound nature has been up-
heaved by central convulsions; in whom the heart trembles and
the brain rocks under conspiracies of tempest from without and
tempest from within. Madonna moves with uncertain steps, fast
or slow, but still with tragic grace. Our Lady of Sighs creeps
timidly and stealthily. But this youngest sister moves with incal-
culable motions, bounding, and with a tiger's leaps. She carries
no key; for though coming rarely amongst men, she storms all
doors at which she is permitted to enter at all. And her name is
Mater Tenebrarum,— Our Lady of Darkness.
## p. 4575 (#361) ###########################################
THOMAS DE QUINCEY
4575
These were the Semnai Theai, or Sublime Goddesses, these
were the Eumenides, or Gracious Ladies (so called by antiquity
in shuddering propitiation) of my Oxford dreams. Madonna
spoke. She spoke by her mysterious hand. Touching my head,
she beckoned to our Lady of Sighs; and what she spoke, trans-
lated out of the signs which (except in dreams) no man reads,
was this:
―――――
"Lo! here is he whom in childhood I dedicated to my altars.
This is he that once I made my darling. Him I led astray, him
I beguiled, and from heaven I stole away his young heart to
mine. Through me did he become idolatrous; and through me
it was, by languishing desires, that he worshiped the worm,
and prayed to the wormy grave. Holy was the grave to him;
lovely was its darkness; saintly its corruption. Him, this young
idolator, I have seasoned for thee, dear gentle Sister of Sighs!
Do thou take him now to thy heart, and season him for our
dreadful sister. And thou,"-turning to the Mater Tenebrarum,
she said, "wicked sister, that temptest and hatest, do thou take
.
him from her. See that thy sceptre lie heavy on his head.
Suffer not woman and her tenderness to sit near him in his
darkness. Banish the frailties of hope, wither the relenting of
love, scorch the fountains of tears, curse him as only thou canst
curse. So shall he be accomplished in the furnace, so shall he
see the things that ought not to be seen, sights that are abom-
inable, and secrets that are unutterable. So shall he read elder
truths, sad truths, grand truths, fearful truths. So shall he rise
again before he dies. And so shall our commission be accom-
plished which from God we had,-to plague his heart until he
had unfolded the capacities of his spirit. "
SAVANNAH-LA-MAR
From 'Confessions of an English Opium-Eater'
GOD
OD smote Savannah-la-mar, and in one night by earthquake
removed her, with all her towers standing and population
sleeping, from the steadfast foundations of the shore to the
coral floors of ocean. And God said:-"Pompeii did I bury and
conceal from men through seventeen centuries; this city I will
bury, but not conceal. She shall be a monument to men of my
mysterious anger, set in azure light through generations to come;
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THOMAS DE QUINCEY
for I will enshrine her in a crystal dome of my tropic seas. "
This city therefore, like a mighty galleon with all her apparel
mounted, streamers flying, and tackling perfect, seems floating
along the noiseless depths of ocean; and oftentimes in glassy
calms, through the translucid atmosphere of water that now
stretches like an air-woven awning above the silent encampment,
mariners from every clime look down into her courts and ter-
races, count her gates, and number the spires of her churches.
She is one ample cemetery, and has been for many a year; but
in the mighty calms that brood for weeks over tropic latitudes,
she fascinates the eye with a Fata Morgana revelation as of
human life still subsisting, in submarine asylums sacred from
the storms that torment our upper air.
Thither, lured by the loveliness of cerulean depths, by the
peace of human dwellings privileged from molestation, by the
gleam of marble altars sleeping in everlasting sanctity, often-
times in dreams did I and the Dark Interpreter cleave the
watery veil that divided us from her streets. We looked into
the belfries, where the pendulous bells were waiting in vain for
the summons which should awaken their marriage peals; together
we touched the mighty organ keys, that sang no jubilates for the
ear of Heaven, that sang no requiems for the ear of human
sorrow; together we searched the silent nurseries, where the
children were all asleep, and had been asleep through five gen-
erations. "They are waiting for the heavenly dawn," whispered
the Interpreter to himself: "and when that comes, the bells and
the organs will utter a jubilate repeated by the echoes of Para-
dise. " Then turning to me he said: "This is sad, this is pit-
eous; but less would not have sufficed for the purpose of God.
Look here. Put into a Roman clepsydra one hundred drops of
water; let these run out as the sands in an hour-glass, every
drop measuring the hundredth part of a second, so that each
shall represent but the three-hundred-and-sixty-thousandth part of
an hour. Now count the drops as they race along; and when
the fiftieth of the hundred is passing, behold! forty-nine are not,
because already they have perished; and fifty are not, because
they are yet to come. You see therefore how narrow, how incal-
culably narrow, is the true and actual present. Of that time
which we call the present, hardly a hundredth part but belongs
either to a past which has fled, or to a future which is still on
the wing. It has perished, or it is not born. It was, or it is
―――――――――
## p. 4577 (#363) ###########################################
THOMAS DE QUINCEY
4577
not. Yet even this approximation to the truth is infinitely false.
For again subdivide that solitary drop, which only was found to
represent the present, into a lower series of similar fractions, and
the actual present which you arrest measures now but the thirty-
six-millionth of an hour; and so by infinite declensions the true
and very present, in which only we live and enjoy, will vanish
into a mote of a mote, distinguishable only by a heavenly vision.
Therefore the present, which only man possesses, offers less
capacity for his footing than the slenderest film that ever spider
twisted from her womb. Therefore also even this incalculable
shadow from the narrowest pencil of moonlight is more transitory
than geometry can measure, or thought of angel can overtake.
The time which is, contracts into a mathematic point; and even
that point perishes a thousand times before we can utter its
birth. All is finite in the present; and even that finite is infi-
nite in its velocity of flight towards death. But in God there
is nothing finite; but in God there is nothing transitory; but
in God there can be nothing that tends to death. Therefore it
follows that for God there can be no present.
The future is
the present of God, and to the future it is that he sacrifices the
human present. Therefore it is that he works by earthquake.
Therefore it is that he works by grief. Oh, deep is the plow-
ing of earthquake! Oh, deep" — (and his voice swelled like a
sanctus rising from the choir of a cathedral) — "Oh, deep is the
plowing of grief! But oftentimes less would not suffice for the
agriculture of God. Upon a night of earthquake he builds a
thousand years of pleasant habitations for man. Upon the sorrow
of an infant he raises oftentimes from human intellects glorious
vintages that could not else have been. Less than these fierce
plowshares would not have stirred the stubborn soil. The one is
needed for earth, our planet,- for earth itself as the dwelling-
place of man; but the other is needed yet oftener for God's
mightiest instrument,-yes" (and he looked solemnly at myself),
"is needed for the mysterious children of the earth! "
VIII-287
## p. 4578 (#364) ###########################################
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THOMAS DE QUINCEY
THE BISHOP OF BEAUVAIS AND JOAN OF ARC
From Miscellaneous Essays'
B'
ISHOP OF BEAUVAIS! thy victim died in fire upon a scaffold
thou upon a down bed. But for the departing minutes of
life, both are oftentimes alike. At the farewell crisis, when
the gates of death are opening, and flesh is resting from its
struggles, oftentimes the tortured and torturer have the same
truce from carnal torment; both sink together into sleep; together
both, sometimes, kindle into dreams. When the mortal mists
were gathering fast upon you two, bishop and shepherd girl,—
when the pavilions of life were closing up their shadowy curtains
about you, let us try, through the gigantic glooms, to decipher
the flying features of your separate visions.
The shepherd girl that had delivered France-she from her
dungeon, she from her baiting at the stake, she from her duel
with fire, as she entered her last dream saw Domrémy, saw the
fountain of Domrémy, saw the pomp of forests in which her
childhood had wandered. That Easter festival which man had
denied to her languishing heart, that resurrection of springtime
which the darkness of dungeons had intercepted from her, hun-
gering after the glorious liberty of forests, were by God given
back into her hands, as jewels that had been stolen from her by
robbers. With those, perhaps (for the minutes of dreams can
stretch into ages), was given back to her by God the bliss of
childhood. By special privilege, for her might be created in this
farewell dream, a second childhood, innocent as the first; but
not, like that, sad with the gloom of a fearful mission in the
rear. The mission had now been fulfilled. The storm was
weathered, the skirts even of that mighty storm were drawing
off. The blood that she was to reckon for had been exacted; the
tears that she was to shed in secret had been paid to the last.
The hatred to herself in all eyes had been faced steadily, had
been suffered, had been survived.
Bishop of Beauvais! because the guilt-burdened man is in
dreams haunted and waylaid by the most frightful of his crimes;
and because upon that fluctuating mirror, rising from the fens
of death, most of all are reflected the sweet countenances which
the man has laid in ruins; therefore I know, bishop, that you
also, entering your final dream, saw Domrémy. That fountain.
of which the witnesses spoke so much, showed itself to your
eyes in pure morning dews; but neither dews nor the holy
## p. 4579 (#365) ###########################################
THOMAS DE QUINCEY
4579
dawn could cleanse away the bright spots of innocent blood upon
its surface. By the fountain, bishop, you saw a woman seated,
that hid her face. But as you draw near, the woman raises her
wasted features. Would Domrémy know them again for the
features of her child? Ah, but you know them, bishop, well!
Oh mercy! what a groan was that which the servants, waiting
outside the bishop's dream at his bedside, heard from his labor-
ing heart, as at this moment he turned away from the fountain
and the woman, seeking rest in the forests afar off. Yet not so
to escape the woman, whom once again he must behold before
he dies. In the forests to which he prays for pity, will he find
a respite? What a tumult, what a gathering of feet is there!
In glades where only wild deer should run, armies and nations
are assembling; towering in the fluctuating crowd are phantoms
that belong to departed hours. There is the great English
Prince, Regent of France. There is my lord of Winchester, the
princely cardinal that died and made no sign. There is the
Bishop of Beauvais, clinging to the shelter of thickets. What
building is that which hands so rapid are raising? Is it a mar-
tyr's scaffold? Will they burn the child of Domrémy a second
time? No; it is a tribunal that rises to the clouds; and two
nations stand around it, waiting for a trial. Shall my Lord of
Beauvais sit upon the judgment seat, and again number the
hours for the innocent? Ah! no; he is the prisoner at the bar.
Already all is waiting; the mighty audience is gathered, the
Court are hurrying to their seats, the witnesses are arrayed, the
trumpets are sounding, the judge is taking his place. Oh! but
this is sudden. My lord, have you no counsel ? - "Counsel I have
none; in heaven above, or on earth beneath, counselor there is
none now that would take a brief from me; all are silent. " Is
it indeed come to this? Alas! the time is short, the tumult is
wondrous, the crowd stretches away into infinity; but yet I will
search in it for somebody to take your brief: I know of some-
body that will be your counsel. Who is this that cometh from
Domrémy? Who is she in bloody coronation robes from Rheims?
Who is she that cometh with blackened flesh from walking the
furnaces of Rouen ? This is she, the shepherd girl, counselor
that had none for herself, whom I choose, bishop, for yours.
She it is, I engage, that shall take my lord's brief.
She it is,
bishop, that would plead for you: yes, bishop, SHE-when heaven
and earth are silent.
## p. 4580 (#366) ###########################################
4580
PAUL DÉROULÈDE
PAUL DÉROULÈDE
(1846-)
AUL DÉROULÈDE received his education in Paris, where he was
born. In accordance with the wishes of his friends, he was
An educated for the law; but before even applying for admis-
sion to the bar he yielded to the poetic instinct that had been strong
in him since boyhood, and began, under the name of Jean Rebel, to
send verses to the Parisian periodicals. When only twenty-three
years of age he wrote for the Académie Française a one-act drama
in verse, 'Juan Strenner,' which however was not a success. The
outbreak of the Franco-Prussian war in the
same year roused his martial spirit; he en-
listed, and at once entered active service, in
which he distinguished himself by acts of
signal bravery. A wound near the close of
the hostilities took him from the field; and it
was during the retirement thus enforced that
he wrote the lyrics, Songs of the Soldier,'
that first made him famous throughout his
native country.
(
Not since the days of the 'Marseillaise '
had the fighting spirit of the French people
found such sympathetic expression; his songs
were read and sung all over the country;
they received the highest honor of the Acad-
emy, and their popularity continued after peace was declared, nearly
one hundred and fifty editions having been exhausted up to 1895.
Déroulède now devoted himself to literature and politics. New
Songs of the Soldier' and a volume of Songs of the Peasant,'
almost as popular as the war songs, were interspersed with two more
dramatic works, also in verse, one of which, 'L'Hetman,' was re-
ceived on the stage with great favor. A cantata, Vive la France,'
written in 1880, was set to music by Gounod. He also wrote a novel
and some treatises dealing with armies and fighting, but his prose
works did not attract much attention.
Déroulède's best verses are distinguished for their inspiration and
genuine enthusiasm. Careless of form and finish, not always stop-
ping to make sure of his rhymes or perfect his metre, he gave the
freest vent to his emotions. Some of the heart-glow which makes
## p. 4581 (#367) ###########################################
PAUL DÉROULÈDE
4581
the exhilaration of Burns's poems infectious is found in his songs,
but they are generally so entirely French that its scope is limited in
a way that the Scotch poet's, despite his vernacular, was not. The
Frenchman's sympathy is always with the harder side of life. In the
'Songs of the Soldier' he plays on chords of steel. These verses
resound with the blast of the bugle, the roll of the drum, the flash
of the sword, the rattle of musketry, the boom of the cannon; and
even in the 'Songs of the Peasant' it is the corn and the wine, as
the fruit of toil, that appeal to him, rather than the grass and the
flowers embellishing the fields.
THE HARVEST
From Chants du Paysan'
TH
HE wheat, the hardy wheat is rippling on the breeze.
'Tis our great mother's sacred mantle spread afar,
Old Earth revered, who gives us life, in whom we are,
We the dull clay the living God molds as he please.
The wheat, the hardy wheat bends down its heavy head,
Blessed and consecrate by the Eternal hand;
The stalks are green although the yellow ears expand:
Keep them, O Lord, from 'neath the tempest's crushing tread!
The wheat, the hardy wheat spreads like a golden sea
Whose harvesters bent low beneath the sun's fierce light,
Stanch galley-slaves, whose oar is now the sickle bright —
Cleave down the waves before them falling ceaselessly.
-
The wheat, the hardy wheat ranged in its serried rows
Seems like some noble camp upon the distant plain.
Glory to God! - the crickets chirp their wide refrain;
From sheaf to sheaf the welcome bread-song sweeping goes.
Translated for A Library of the World's Best Literature,' by Thomas Walsh. .
## p. 4582 (#368) ###########################################
4582
PAUL DEROULEDE
IN GOOD QUARTERS
From Poèmes Militaires >
MIREBEAU, 1871
G
OOD old woman, bother not,
Or the place will be too hot:
You might let the fire grow old-
Save your fagots for the cold:
I am drying through and through.
But she, stopping not to hear,
Shook the smoldering ashes near:
"Soldier, not too warm for you! "
Good old woman, do not mind;
At the storehouse I have dined:
Save your vintage and your ham,
And this cloth-such as I am
Are not used to save it too.
But she heard not what I said-
Filled my glass and cut the bread:
"Soldier, it is here for you! "
Good old woman-sheets for me!
Faith, you treat me royally:
And your stable? on your hay ?
There at length my limbs to lay?
I shall sleep like monarchs true.
But she would not be denied
Of the sheets, and spread them wide:
"Soldier, it is made for you! "
Morning came the parting tear:
Well-good-by! What have we here?
My old knapsack full of food!
Dear old creature-hostess good-
Why indulge me as you do?
-
It was all that she could say,
Smiling in a tearful way:
-
"I have one at war like you! "
Translated for 'A Library of the World's Best Literature,' by Thomas
Walsh.
## p. 4583 (#369) ###########################################
PAUL DÉROULÈDE
4583
"GOOD FIGHTING! »
From Poèmes Militaires >
HE Kroumirs leave their mountain den;
Sing, bullets, sing! and bugles, blow!
Good fighting to our gallant men,
And happy they who follow, when,
Brothers in arms so dear, these go.
Yea, happy they who serve our France,
And neither pain nor danger fly;
But in the front of war's advance
Still deem it but a glorious chance,
To be among the brave who die!
No splendid war do we begin,
No glory waits us when 'tis past;
But marching through the fiery din,
We see our serried ranks grow thin,
And blood of Frenchmen welling fast.
French blood! -a treasure so august,
And hoarded with such jealous care,
To crush oppression's strength unjust,
With all the force of right robust,
And buy us back our honor fair;
We yield it now to duty's claim,
And freely pour out all our store;
Who judges, frees us still from blame;
The Kroumirs' muskets war proclaim;-
In answer let French cannon roar!
-
-
Good fighting! and God be your shield,
Our pride's avengers, brave and true!
France watches you upon the field.
Who wear her colors never yield,
For 'tis her heart ye bear with you!
Translated for A Library of the World's Best Literature,' by Katharine
Hillard.
## p. 4584 (#370) ###########################################
4584
PAUL DÉROULÈDE
A
LAST WISHES
From Poèmes Militaires >
GRAVE for me—a grave- and why?
I do not wish to sleep alone:
Let me within the trenches lie,
Side by side with my soldiers thrown.
Dear old comrades of wars gone by,
Come, 'tis our final "halt" is nigh:
Clasp your brave hearts to my own.
A sheet for me- a sheet - and why?
Such is for them on their beds who moan:
The field is the soldier's place to die,
The field of carnage, of blood and bone.
Dear old comrades of wars gone by,
This is the prayer of my soul's last sigh:
Clasp your brave hearts to my own.
Tears for me- these tears-and why?
Knells let the vanquished foe intone!
France delivered! -I still can cry,
France delivered-invaders flown!
Dear old comrades of wars gone by,
Pain is nothing, and death- -a lie!
Clasp your brave hearts to my own!
Translated for A Library of the World's Best Literature,' by Thomas Walsh.
## p. 4584 (#371) ###########################################
## p. 4584 (#372) ###########################################
RENÉ DESCARTES.
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## p. 4584 (#373) ###########################################
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## p. 4584 (#374) ###########################################
**NG
## p. 4585 (#375) ###########################################
4585
RENÉ DESCARTES
(1596-1650)
HE broad scope of literature is illustrated by its inclusion of
the writings of René Descartes (Latinized, Renatus Carte-
sius). Deliberately turning away from books, and making
naught alike of learned precedent and literary form, he yet could
not but avail himself unconsciously of the heritage which he had
discarded.
This notable figure in seventeenth-century philosophy was born of
ancient family at La Haye, in Touraine, France, March 31st, 1596;
and died at Stockholm, Sweden, February 11th, 1650. From a pleas-
ant student life of eight years in the Jesuit college at La Flèche, he
went forth in his seventeenth year with unusual acquirements in
mathematics and languages, but in deep dissatisfaction with the long
dominant scholastic philosophy and the whole method prescribed for
arriving at truth. In a strong youthful revolt, his first step was a
decision to discharge his mind of all the prejudices into which his
education had trained his thinking. As a beginning in this work he
went to Paris, for observation of facts and of men. There, having
drifted through a twelvemonth of moderate dissipation, he secluded
himself for nearly two years of mathematical study, as though pur-
posing to reduce his universe to an equation in order to solve it.
The laws of number he could trust, since their lines configured the
eternal harmony.
At the age of twenty-one he entered on a military service of two
years in the army of the Netherlands, and then of about two years
in the Bavarian army. From 1621, for about four years, he was
roaming as an observer of men and nature in Germany, Belgium,
and Italy, afterward sojourning in Paris about three and a half
years. In 1629 he began twenty years of study and authorship in
practical seclusion in Holland. His little work, 'Discours de la Méth-
ode' (Leyden, 1637), is often declared to have been the basis for a
reconstitution of the science of thought. It would now perhaps be
viewed by the majority of critics rather as a necessary clearing of
antiquated rubbish from the ground on which the new construction
was to rise. Next to it among his works are usually ranked 'Medi-
tationes de Prima Philosophia,' and 'Principia Philosophiæ. '
The long sojourn in Holland was ended in September 1649, in
response to an urgent invitation from the studious young Queen
## p. 4586 (#376) ###########################################
4586
RENE DESCARTES
Christina of Sweden, who wanted the now famous philosopher as an
ornament to her court. After some hesitancy he sailed for Stock-
holm, where only five months afterward he died.
It has been said of Descartes that he was a spectator rather than
an active worker in affairs. He was no hero, no patriot, no adherent
of any party. He entered armies, but not from love of a cause; the
army was a sphere in which he could closely observe the aspects of
human life. He was never married, and probably had little concern
with love. His attachment to a few friends seems to have been
sincere. For literature as such he cared little. Erudition, scholar-
ship, historic love, literary elegance, were nothing to him. Art and
æsthetics did not appeal to him. Probably he was not a great reader,
even of philosophic writers. He delighted in observing facts with a
view to finding, stating, and systematizing their relations in one all-
comprehending scheme. He never allowed himself to attack the
Church in either its doctrine or its discipline. As a writer, though
making no attempt at elegance in style, he is deemed remarkably
clear and direct when the abstruseness of his usual themes is con-
sidered.
Descartes's method in philosophy gives signs of formation on the
model of a process in mathematics. In all investigations he would
ascertain first what must exist by necessity; thus establishing axioms
evidenced in all experience, because independent of all experience.
The study of mathematics for use in other departments drew him
into investigations whose results made it a new science. He reformed
its clumsy nomenclature, also the algebraic use of letters for quan-
tities; he introduced system into the use of exponents to denote
the powers of a quantity, thus opening the way for the binomial
theorem; he was the first to throw clear light on the negative roots of
equations; his is the theorem by use of which the maximum number
of positive or negative roots of an equation can be ascertained.
Analytical geometry originated with his investigation of the nature
and origin of curves.
His mathematical improvements opened the way for the reform
of physical science and for its immense modern advance. In his
optical investigations he established the law of refraction of light.
His ingenious theory of the vortices-tracing gravity, magnetism,
light, and heat, to the whirling or revolving movements of the mol-
ecules of matter with which the universe is filled-was accepted as
science for about a quarter of a century.
In mental science Descartes's primary instrument for search of
truth was Doubt: everything was to be doubted until it had been
proved. This was provisional skepticism, merely to provide against
foregone conclusions. It was not to preclude belief, but to summon
## p. 4587 (#377) ###########################################
RENÉ DESCARTES
4587
and assure belief as distinct from the inane submission to authority,
to prejudice, or to impulse. In this process of doubting everything,
the philosopher comes at last to one fact which he cannot doubt-
the fact that he exists; for if he did not exist he could not be think-
ing his doubt. Cogito, ergo sum is one point of absolute knowledge;
it is a clear and ultimate perception.
The first principle of his philosophy is, that our consciousness is
truthful in its proper sphere, also that our thought is truthful and
trustworthy under these two conditions-when the thought is clear
and vivid, and when it is held to a theme utterly distinct from every
other theme; since it is impossible for us to believe that either man
who thinks, or the universe concerning which he thinks, is organized
on the basis of a lie. There are "necessary truths," and they are
discoverable.
A second principle is, the inevitable ascent of our thought from
the fragmentary to the perfect, from the finite to the infinite. Thus
the thought of the infinite is an "innate idea," a part of man's poten-
tial consciousness. This principle (set forth in one of the selections
given herewith) is the Cartesian form of the a priori argument for
the Divine existence, which like other a priori forms is viewed by
critics not as a proof in pure logic, but as a commanding and lumin-
ous appeal to man's entire moral and intellectual nature.
A third principle is, that the material universe is necessarily re-
duced in our thought ultimately to two forms, extension and local
movement - extension signifying matter, local movement signifying
force. There is no such thing as empty space; there are no ultimate
indivisible atoms; the universe is infinitely full of matter.
A fourth principle is, that the soul and matter are subsistences so
fundamentally and absolutely distinct that they cannot act in recip-
rocal relations.
mysteriously as music. One young nurse, whom we all loved,
before any candle was lighted would often strain her eye to read
it for us; and sometimes, according to her simple powers, would
endeavor to explain what we found obscure. We, the child-
ren, were all constitutionally touched with pensiveness; the fitful
gloom and sudden lambencies of the room by firelight suited our
evening state of feelings; and they suited also the divine revela-
tions of power and mysterious beauty which awed us. Above
all, the story of a just man- man and yet not man, real above
all things and yet shadowy above all things, who had suffered
the passion of death in Palestine-slept upon our minds like
early dawn upon the waters.
-
The nurse knew and explained to us the chief differences in
Oriental climates; and all these differences (as it happens) express
themselves in the great varieties of summer. The cloudless sun-
lights of Syria-those seemed to argue everlasting summer; the
disciples plucking the ears of corn- that must be summer; but
above all, the very name of Palm Sunday (a festival in the
English Church) troubled me like an anthem. "Sunday! " what
was that? That was the day of peace which masked another
peace, deeper than the heart of man can comprehend. "Palms! "
what were they? That was an equivocal word; palms in the
sense of trophies expressed the pomps of life; palms as a product
of nature expressed the pomps of summer. Yet still, even this
explanation does not suffice; it was not merely by the peace and
by the summer, by the deep sound of rest below all rest, and of
ascending glory, that I had been haunted. It was also because
Jerusalem stood near to those deep images both in time and in
place. The great event of Jerusalem was at hand when Palm
Sunday came; and the scene of that Sunday was near in place to
## p. 4568 (#354) ###########################################
4568
THOMAS DE QUINCEY
Jerusalem. Yet what then was Jerusalem? Did I fancy it to be
the omphalos (navel) of the earth? That pretension had once
been made for Jerusalem, and once for Delphi; and both preten-
sions had become ridiculous as the figure of the planet became
known. Yes, but if not of the earth, for earth's tenant Jerusalem
was the omphalos of mortality. Yet how? There on the con-
trary it was, as we infants understood, that mortality had been
trampled under foot. True; but for that very reason, there it
was that mortality had opened its very gloomiest crater. There
it was indeed that the human had risen on wings from the
grave; but for that reason, there also it was that the Divine had
been swallowed up by the abyss; the lesser star could not rise
before the greater would submit to eclipse. Summer therefore
had connected itself with death, not merely as a mode of antago
nism, but also through intricate relations to Scriptural scenery
and events.
Out of this digression, which was almost necessary for the
purpose of showing how inextricably my feelings and images of
death were entangled with those of summer, I return to the
bedchamber of my sister. From the gorgeous sunlight I turned
round to the corpse. There lay the sweet childish figure, there
the angel face; and as people usually fancy, it was said in the
house that no features had suffered any change. Had they not?
The forehead indeed, the serene and noble forehead, hat
might be the same; but the frozen eyelids, the darkness that
seemed to steal from beneath them, the marble lips, the stiff en-
ing hands laid palm to palm as if repeating the supplications of
closing anguish,- could these be mistaken for life? Had it been
so, wherefore did I not spring to those heavenly lips with tears
and never-ending kisses? But so it was not. I stood checked
for a moment; awe, not fear, fell upon me; and whilst I stood,
a solemn wind began to blow,- the most mournful that
ever heard. Mournful! that is saying nothing. It was a wind
that had swept the fields of mortality for a hundred centuries.
Many times since, upon a summer day, when the sun is about
the hottest, I have remarked the same wind arising and utter.
ing the same hollow, solemn, Memnonian, but saintly swell:
it is in this world the one sole audible symbol of eternity.
three times in my life I have happened to hear the same sound
in the same circumstances; namely, when standing between
open window and a dead body on a summer day.
ear
And
an
—
-
## p. 4569 (#355) ###########################################
THOMAS DE QUINCEY
4569
Instantly, when my ear caught this vast olian intonation,
when my eye filled with the golden fullness of life, the pomps
and glory of the heavens outside, and, turning, when it settled.
upon the frost which overspread my sister's face, instantly a
trance fell upon me. A vault seemed to open in the zenith of
the far blue sky a shaft which ran up forever.
I in spirit rose,
as if on billows that also ran up the shaft forever, and the bil-
lows seemed to pursue the throne of God; but that also ran
before us and fled away continually. The flight and the pursuit
seemed to go on for ever and ever. Frost, gathering frost, some
Sarsar wind of death, seemed to repel me; I slept for how long
I cannot say; slowly I recovered my self-possession, and found
myself standing as before, close to my sister's bed.
O flight of the solitary child to the solitary God-flight from
the ruined corpse to the throne that could not be ruined! - how
rich wert thou in truth for after years! Rapture of grief that,
being too mighty for a child to sustain, foundest a happy oblivion
in a heaven-born dream, and within that sleep didst conceal a
dream; whose meaning, in after years, when slowly I deciphered,
suddenly there flashed upon me new light; and even by the grief
of a child, as I will show you, reader, hereafter, were confounded
the falsehoods of philosophers.
In the 'Opium Confessions' I touched a little upon the extraor-
dinary power connected with opium (after long use) of ampli-
fying the dimensions of time. Space also it amplifies, by degrees
that are sometimes terrific. But time it is upon which the exalt-
ing and multiplying power of opium chiefly spends its operation.
Time becomes infinitely elastic, stretching out to such immeas-
urable and vanishing termini that it seems ridiculous to compute
the sense of it, on waking, by expressions commensurate to
human life. As in starry fields one computes by diameters of the
earth's orbit, or of Jupiter's, so in valuing the virtual time lived
during some dreams, the measurement by generations is ridicu-
lous by millennia is ridiculous; by æons, I should say, if æons
were more determinate, would be also ridiculous. On this single
occasion, however, in my life, the very inverse phenomenon
occurred. But why speak of it in connection with opium? Could
a child of six years old have been under that influence? No, but
simply because it so exactly reversed the operation of opium.
Instead of a short interval expanding into a vast one, upon this
occasion a long one had contracted into a minute. I have reason
## p. 4570 (#356) ###########################################
4570
THOMAS DE QUINCEY
to believe that a very long one had elapsed during this wander-
ing or suspension of my perfect mind. When I returned to my-
self, there was a foot (or I fancied so) on the stairs. I was
alarmed; for I believed that if anybody should detect me, means
would be taken to prevent my coming again. Hastily, therefore,
I kissed the lips that I should kiss no more, and slunk like a
guilty thing with stealthy steps from the room. Thus perished
the vision, loveliest amongst all the shows which earth has
revealed to me; thus mutilated was the parting which should
have lasted forever; thus tainted with fear was the farewell
sacred to love and grief, to perfect love and perfect grief.
O Ahasuerus, everlasting Jew! fable or not a fable, thou, when
first starting on thy endless pilgrimage of woe,- thou, when first
flying through the gates of Jerusalem and vainly yearning to
leave the pursuing curse behind thee,-couldst not more cer-
tainly have read thy doom of sorrow in the misgivings of thy
troubled brain, than I when passing forever from my sister's
room. The worm was at my heart; and confining myself to that
state of life, I may say, the worm that could not die. For if
when standing upon the threshold of manhood, I had ceased to
feel its perpetual gnawings, that was because a vast expansion of
intellect, it was because new hopes, new necessities, and the
frenzy of youthful blood, had translated me into a new creature.
Man is doubtless one by some subtle nexus that we cannot per-
ceive, extending from the new-born infant to the superannuated
dotard; but as regards many affections and passions incident to
his nature at different stages, he is not one: the unity of man in
this respect is coextensive only with the particular stage to which
the passion belongs. Some passions, as that of sexual love, are
celestial by one half of their origin, animal and earthly by the
other half. These will not survive their own appropriate stage.
But love which is altogether holy, like that between two children,
will revisit undoubtedly by glimpses the silence and the darkness
of old age; and I repeat my belief- that unless bodily torment
should forbid it, that final experience in my sister's bedroom, or
some other in which her innocence was concerned, will rise again.
for me to illuminate the hour of death.
-
## p. 4571 (#357) ###########################################
THOMAS DE QUINCEY
4571
I knew
OF
Reader,
LEVANA AND OUR LADIES OF SORROW
From Confessions of an English Opium-Eater'
FTENTIMES at Oxford I saw Levana in my dreams.
her by her Roman symbols. Who is Levana?
that do not pretend to have leisure for very much scholar-
ship, you will not be angry with me for telling you. Levana
was the Roman goddess that performed for the new-born infant
the earliest office of ennobling kindness,-typical, by its mode, of
that grandeur which belongs to man everywhere, and of that
benignity in powers invisible which even in pagan worlds some-
times descends to sustain it. At the very moment of birth, just
as the infant tasted for the first time the atmosphere of our
troubled planet, it was laid on the ground. That might bear dif-
ferent interpretations. But immediately, lest so grand a creature
should grovel there for more than one instant, either the pater-
nal hand as proxy for the goddess Levana, or some near kins-
man as proxy for the father, raised it upright, bade it look erect
as the king of all this world, and presented its forehead to the
stars, saying perhaps in his heart, "Behold what is greater than
yourselves! " This symbolic act represented the function of
Levana. And that mysterious lady, who never revealed her face
(except to me in dreams), but always acted by delegation, had
her name from the Latin verb (as still it is the Italian verb)
levare, to raise aloft.
This is the explanation of Levana. And hence it has arisen
that some people have understood by Levana the tutelary power
that controls the education of the nursery. She that would not
suffer at his birth even a prefigurative or mimic degradation for
her awful ward, far less could be supposed to suffer the real
degradation attaching to the non-development of his powers. She
therefore watches over human education.
Therefore it is that Levana often communes with the powers
that shake man's heart: therefore it is that she dotes upon grief.
"These ladies," said I softly to myself, on seeing the ministers
with whom Levana was conversing, "these are the Sorrows; and
they are three in number, as the Graces are three, who dress
man's life with beauty; the Parca are three, who weave the
dark arras of man's life in their mysterious loom always with col-
ors sad in part, sometimes angry. with tragic crimson and black;
## p. 4572 (#358) ###########################################
4572
THOMAS DE QUINCEY
the Furies are three, who visit, with retributions called from the
other side of the grave, offenses that walk upon this; and once
even the Muses were but three, who fit the harp, the trumpet,
or the lute, to the great burdens of man's impassioned creations.
These are the Sorrows, all three of whom I know. " The last
words I say now; but in Oxford I said, "One of whom I
know, and the others too surely I shall know. " For already in
my fervent youth I saw (dimly relieved upon the dark back-
ground of my dreams) the imperfect lineaments of the awful
sisters. These sisters-by what name shall we call them?
If I say simply "The Sorrows," there will be a chance of
mistaking the term; it might be understood of individual sor-
row,- separate cases of sorrow,—whereas I want a term express-
ing the mighty abstractions that incarnate themselves in all
individual sufferings of man's heart; and I wish to have these
abstractions presented as impersonations; that is, as clothed with
human attributes of life, and with functions pointing to flesh.
Let us call them therefore Our Ladies of Sorrow.
The eldest of the three is named Mater Lachrymarum, Our
Lady of Tears. She it is that night and day raves and moans,
calling for vanished faces. She stood in Rama, where a voice
was heard of lamentation,- Rachel weeping for her children,
and refusing to be comforted. She it was that stood in Bethle-
hem on the night when Herod's sword swept its nurseries of
Innocents, and the little feet were stiffened forever, which, heard
at times as they tottered along floors overhead, woke pulses of
love in household hearts that were not unmarked in heaven.
Her eyes are sweet and subtile, wild and sleepy, by turns;
oftentimes rising to the clouds, oftentimes challenging the heav
ens. She wears a diadem round her head. And I knew by
childish memories that she could go abroad upon the winds,
when she heard that sobbing of litanies, or the thundering of
organs, and when she beheld the mustering of summer clouds.
This sister, the elder, it is that carries keys more than papal at
her girdle, which open every cottage and every palace. She, to
my knowledge, sate all last summer by the bedside of the blind
beggar, him that so often and so gladly I talked with; whose
pious daughter, eight years old, with the sunny countenance,
resisted the temptations of play and village mirth to travel all
day long on dusty roads with her afflicted father. For this did
God send her a great reward. In the springtime of the year,
## p. 4573 (#359) ###########################################
THOMAS DE QUINCEY
4573
and whilst yet her own spring was budding, he recalled her
to himself. But her blind father mourns forever over her; still
he dreams at midnight that the little guiding hand is locked
within his own; and still he wakens to a darkness that is now
within a second and a deeper darkness. This Mater Lachrymarum
also has been sitting all this winter of 1844-5 within the bed-
chamber of the Czar, bringing before his eyes a daughter (not
less pious) that vanished to God not less suddenly, and left
behind her a darkness not less profound. By the power of her
keys it is that Our Lady of Tears glides, a ghostly intruder,
into the chambers of sleepless men, sleepless women, sleepless
children, from Ganges to the Nile, from Nile to Mississippi.
And her, because she is the first-born of her house, and has the
widest empire, let us honor with the title of "Madonna. "
The second sister is called Mater Suspiriorum, Our Lady of
Sighs. She never scales the clouds, nor walks abroad upon the
winds. She wears no diadem. And her eyes, if they were ever
seen, would be neither sweet nor subtile; no man could read
their story; they would be found filled with perishing dreams,
and with wrecks of forgotten delirium. But she raises not her
eyes; her head, on which sits a dilapidated turban, droops for-
ever, forever fastens on the dust. She weeps not.
She groans
not. But she sighs inaudibly at intervals. Her sister Madonna
is oftentimes stormy and frantic, raging in the highest against
Heaven, and demanding back her darlings. But Our Lady of
Sighs never clamors, never defies, dreams not of rebellious aspira-
tions. She is humble to abjectness. Hers is the meekness that
belongs to the hopeless. Murmur she may, but it is in her sleep.
Whisper she may, but it is to herself in the twilight. Mutter
she does at times, but it is in solitary places that are desolate as
she is desolate, in ruined cities, and when the sun has gone down
to his rest. This sister is the visitor of the Pariah; of the Jew;
of the bondsman to the oar in the Mediterranean galleys; of the
English criminal in Norfolk Island, blotted out from the books
of remembrance in sweet far-off England; of the baffled penitent
reverting his eyes forever upon a solitary grave, which to him
seems the altar overthrown of some past and bloody sacrifice, on
which altar no oblations can now be availing, whether towards
pardon that he might implore, or towards reparation that he
might attempt. Every slave that at noonday looks up to the
tropical sun with timid reproach, as he points with one hand to
## p. 4574 (#360) ###########################################
4574
THOMAS DE QUINCEY
the earth, our general mother, but for him a stepmother,—as he
points with the other hand to the Bible, our general teacher, but
against him sealed and sequestered; every woman sitting in
darkness, without love to shelter her head or hope to illumine her
solitude, because the heaven-born instincts kindling in her nature
germs of holy affections, which God implanted in her womanly
bosom, having been stifled by social necessities, now burn sul-
lenly to waste like sepulchral lamps among the ancients; every
nun defrauded of her unreturning May-time by wicked kinsmen,
whom God will judge; every captive in every dungeon; all that
are betrayed, and all that are rejected; outcasts by traditionary
law, and children of hereditary disgrace:- all these walk with
Our Lady of Sighs. She also carries a key; but she needs it
little. For her kingdom is chiefly amongst the tents of Shem,
and the houseless vagrant of every clime. Yet in the very high-
est ranks of man she finds chapels of her own; and even in
glorious England there are some that, to the world, carry their
heads as proudly as the reindeer, who yet secretly have received
her mark upon their foreheads.
But the third sister, who is also the youngest! Hush!
whisper whilst we talk of her! Her kingdom is not large, or
else no flesh should live; but within that kingdom all power is
hers.
Her head, turreted like that of Cybele, rises almost be-
yond the reach of sight. She droops not; and her eyes rising
so high might be hidden by distance. But being what they are,
they cannot be hidden; through the treble veil of crape which
she wears, the fierce light of a blazing misery, that rests not for
matins or for vespers, for noon of day or noon of night, for
ebbing or for flowing tide, may be read from the very ground.
She is the defier of God. She also is the mother of lunacies,
and the suggestress of suicides. Deep lie the roots of her
power; but narrow is the nation that she rules. For she can
approach only those in whom a profound nature has been up-
heaved by central convulsions; in whom the heart trembles and
the brain rocks under conspiracies of tempest from without and
tempest from within. Madonna moves with uncertain steps, fast
or slow, but still with tragic grace. Our Lady of Sighs creeps
timidly and stealthily. But this youngest sister moves with incal-
culable motions, bounding, and with a tiger's leaps. She carries
no key; for though coming rarely amongst men, she storms all
doors at which she is permitted to enter at all. And her name is
Mater Tenebrarum,— Our Lady of Darkness.
## p. 4575 (#361) ###########################################
THOMAS DE QUINCEY
4575
These were the Semnai Theai, or Sublime Goddesses, these
were the Eumenides, or Gracious Ladies (so called by antiquity
in shuddering propitiation) of my Oxford dreams. Madonna
spoke. She spoke by her mysterious hand. Touching my head,
she beckoned to our Lady of Sighs; and what she spoke, trans-
lated out of the signs which (except in dreams) no man reads,
was this:
―――――
"Lo! here is he whom in childhood I dedicated to my altars.
This is he that once I made my darling. Him I led astray, him
I beguiled, and from heaven I stole away his young heart to
mine. Through me did he become idolatrous; and through me
it was, by languishing desires, that he worshiped the worm,
and prayed to the wormy grave. Holy was the grave to him;
lovely was its darkness; saintly its corruption. Him, this young
idolator, I have seasoned for thee, dear gentle Sister of Sighs!
Do thou take him now to thy heart, and season him for our
dreadful sister. And thou,"-turning to the Mater Tenebrarum,
she said, "wicked sister, that temptest and hatest, do thou take
.
him from her. See that thy sceptre lie heavy on his head.
Suffer not woman and her tenderness to sit near him in his
darkness. Banish the frailties of hope, wither the relenting of
love, scorch the fountains of tears, curse him as only thou canst
curse. So shall he be accomplished in the furnace, so shall he
see the things that ought not to be seen, sights that are abom-
inable, and secrets that are unutterable. So shall he read elder
truths, sad truths, grand truths, fearful truths. So shall he rise
again before he dies. And so shall our commission be accom-
plished which from God we had,-to plague his heart until he
had unfolded the capacities of his spirit. "
SAVANNAH-LA-MAR
From 'Confessions of an English Opium-Eater'
GOD
OD smote Savannah-la-mar, and in one night by earthquake
removed her, with all her towers standing and population
sleeping, from the steadfast foundations of the shore to the
coral floors of ocean. And God said:-"Pompeii did I bury and
conceal from men through seventeen centuries; this city I will
bury, but not conceal. She shall be a monument to men of my
mysterious anger, set in azure light through generations to come;
## p. 4576 (#362) ###########################################
4576
THOMAS DE QUINCEY
for I will enshrine her in a crystal dome of my tropic seas. "
This city therefore, like a mighty galleon with all her apparel
mounted, streamers flying, and tackling perfect, seems floating
along the noiseless depths of ocean; and oftentimes in glassy
calms, through the translucid atmosphere of water that now
stretches like an air-woven awning above the silent encampment,
mariners from every clime look down into her courts and ter-
races, count her gates, and number the spires of her churches.
She is one ample cemetery, and has been for many a year; but
in the mighty calms that brood for weeks over tropic latitudes,
she fascinates the eye with a Fata Morgana revelation as of
human life still subsisting, in submarine asylums sacred from
the storms that torment our upper air.
Thither, lured by the loveliness of cerulean depths, by the
peace of human dwellings privileged from molestation, by the
gleam of marble altars sleeping in everlasting sanctity, often-
times in dreams did I and the Dark Interpreter cleave the
watery veil that divided us from her streets. We looked into
the belfries, where the pendulous bells were waiting in vain for
the summons which should awaken their marriage peals; together
we touched the mighty organ keys, that sang no jubilates for the
ear of Heaven, that sang no requiems for the ear of human
sorrow; together we searched the silent nurseries, where the
children were all asleep, and had been asleep through five gen-
erations. "They are waiting for the heavenly dawn," whispered
the Interpreter to himself: "and when that comes, the bells and
the organs will utter a jubilate repeated by the echoes of Para-
dise. " Then turning to me he said: "This is sad, this is pit-
eous; but less would not have sufficed for the purpose of God.
Look here. Put into a Roman clepsydra one hundred drops of
water; let these run out as the sands in an hour-glass, every
drop measuring the hundredth part of a second, so that each
shall represent but the three-hundred-and-sixty-thousandth part of
an hour. Now count the drops as they race along; and when
the fiftieth of the hundred is passing, behold! forty-nine are not,
because already they have perished; and fifty are not, because
they are yet to come. You see therefore how narrow, how incal-
culably narrow, is the true and actual present. Of that time
which we call the present, hardly a hundredth part but belongs
either to a past which has fled, or to a future which is still on
the wing. It has perished, or it is not born. It was, or it is
―――――――――
## p. 4577 (#363) ###########################################
THOMAS DE QUINCEY
4577
not. Yet even this approximation to the truth is infinitely false.
For again subdivide that solitary drop, which only was found to
represent the present, into a lower series of similar fractions, and
the actual present which you arrest measures now but the thirty-
six-millionth of an hour; and so by infinite declensions the true
and very present, in which only we live and enjoy, will vanish
into a mote of a mote, distinguishable only by a heavenly vision.
Therefore the present, which only man possesses, offers less
capacity for his footing than the slenderest film that ever spider
twisted from her womb. Therefore also even this incalculable
shadow from the narrowest pencil of moonlight is more transitory
than geometry can measure, or thought of angel can overtake.
The time which is, contracts into a mathematic point; and even
that point perishes a thousand times before we can utter its
birth. All is finite in the present; and even that finite is infi-
nite in its velocity of flight towards death. But in God there
is nothing finite; but in God there is nothing transitory; but
in God there can be nothing that tends to death. Therefore it
follows that for God there can be no present.
The future is
the present of God, and to the future it is that he sacrifices the
human present. Therefore it is that he works by earthquake.
Therefore it is that he works by grief. Oh, deep is the plow-
ing of earthquake! Oh, deep" — (and his voice swelled like a
sanctus rising from the choir of a cathedral) — "Oh, deep is the
plowing of grief! But oftentimes less would not suffice for the
agriculture of God. Upon a night of earthquake he builds a
thousand years of pleasant habitations for man. Upon the sorrow
of an infant he raises oftentimes from human intellects glorious
vintages that could not else have been. Less than these fierce
plowshares would not have stirred the stubborn soil. The one is
needed for earth, our planet,- for earth itself as the dwelling-
place of man; but the other is needed yet oftener for God's
mightiest instrument,-yes" (and he looked solemnly at myself),
"is needed for the mysterious children of the earth! "
VIII-287
## p. 4578 (#364) ###########################################
4578
THOMAS DE QUINCEY
THE BISHOP OF BEAUVAIS AND JOAN OF ARC
From Miscellaneous Essays'
B'
ISHOP OF BEAUVAIS! thy victim died in fire upon a scaffold
thou upon a down bed. But for the departing minutes of
life, both are oftentimes alike. At the farewell crisis, when
the gates of death are opening, and flesh is resting from its
struggles, oftentimes the tortured and torturer have the same
truce from carnal torment; both sink together into sleep; together
both, sometimes, kindle into dreams. When the mortal mists
were gathering fast upon you two, bishop and shepherd girl,—
when the pavilions of life were closing up their shadowy curtains
about you, let us try, through the gigantic glooms, to decipher
the flying features of your separate visions.
The shepherd girl that had delivered France-she from her
dungeon, she from her baiting at the stake, she from her duel
with fire, as she entered her last dream saw Domrémy, saw the
fountain of Domrémy, saw the pomp of forests in which her
childhood had wandered. That Easter festival which man had
denied to her languishing heart, that resurrection of springtime
which the darkness of dungeons had intercepted from her, hun-
gering after the glorious liberty of forests, were by God given
back into her hands, as jewels that had been stolen from her by
robbers. With those, perhaps (for the minutes of dreams can
stretch into ages), was given back to her by God the bliss of
childhood. By special privilege, for her might be created in this
farewell dream, a second childhood, innocent as the first; but
not, like that, sad with the gloom of a fearful mission in the
rear. The mission had now been fulfilled. The storm was
weathered, the skirts even of that mighty storm were drawing
off. The blood that she was to reckon for had been exacted; the
tears that she was to shed in secret had been paid to the last.
The hatred to herself in all eyes had been faced steadily, had
been suffered, had been survived.
Bishop of Beauvais! because the guilt-burdened man is in
dreams haunted and waylaid by the most frightful of his crimes;
and because upon that fluctuating mirror, rising from the fens
of death, most of all are reflected the sweet countenances which
the man has laid in ruins; therefore I know, bishop, that you
also, entering your final dream, saw Domrémy. That fountain.
of which the witnesses spoke so much, showed itself to your
eyes in pure morning dews; but neither dews nor the holy
## p. 4579 (#365) ###########################################
THOMAS DE QUINCEY
4579
dawn could cleanse away the bright spots of innocent blood upon
its surface. By the fountain, bishop, you saw a woman seated,
that hid her face. But as you draw near, the woman raises her
wasted features. Would Domrémy know them again for the
features of her child? Ah, but you know them, bishop, well!
Oh mercy! what a groan was that which the servants, waiting
outside the bishop's dream at his bedside, heard from his labor-
ing heart, as at this moment he turned away from the fountain
and the woman, seeking rest in the forests afar off. Yet not so
to escape the woman, whom once again he must behold before
he dies. In the forests to which he prays for pity, will he find
a respite? What a tumult, what a gathering of feet is there!
In glades where only wild deer should run, armies and nations
are assembling; towering in the fluctuating crowd are phantoms
that belong to departed hours. There is the great English
Prince, Regent of France. There is my lord of Winchester, the
princely cardinal that died and made no sign. There is the
Bishop of Beauvais, clinging to the shelter of thickets. What
building is that which hands so rapid are raising? Is it a mar-
tyr's scaffold? Will they burn the child of Domrémy a second
time? No; it is a tribunal that rises to the clouds; and two
nations stand around it, waiting for a trial. Shall my Lord of
Beauvais sit upon the judgment seat, and again number the
hours for the innocent? Ah! no; he is the prisoner at the bar.
Already all is waiting; the mighty audience is gathered, the
Court are hurrying to their seats, the witnesses are arrayed, the
trumpets are sounding, the judge is taking his place. Oh! but
this is sudden. My lord, have you no counsel ? - "Counsel I have
none; in heaven above, or on earth beneath, counselor there is
none now that would take a brief from me; all are silent. " Is
it indeed come to this? Alas! the time is short, the tumult is
wondrous, the crowd stretches away into infinity; but yet I will
search in it for somebody to take your brief: I know of some-
body that will be your counsel. Who is this that cometh from
Domrémy? Who is she in bloody coronation robes from Rheims?
Who is she that cometh with blackened flesh from walking the
furnaces of Rouen ? This is she, the shepherd girl, counselor
that had none for herself, whom I choose, bishop, for yours.
She it is, I engage, that shall take my lord's brief.
She it is,
bishop, that would plead for you: yes, bishop, SHE-when heaven
and earth are silent.
## p. 4580 (#366) ###########################################
4580
PAUL DÉROULÈDE
PAUL DÉROULÈDE
(1846-)
AUL DÉROULÈDE received his education in Paris, where he was
born. In accordance with the wishes of his friends, he was
An educated for the law; but before even applying for admis-
sion to the bar he yielded to the poetic instinct that had been strong
in him since boyhood, and began, under the name of Jean Rebel, to
send verses to the Parisian periodicals. When only twenty-three
years of age he wrote for the Académie Française a one-act drama
in verse, 'Juan Strenner,' which however was not a success. The
outbreak of the Franco-Prussian war in the
same year roused his martial spirit; he en-
listed, and at once entered active service, in
which he distinguished himself by acts of
signal bravery. A wound near the close of
the hostilities took him from the field; and it
was during the retirement thus enforced that
he wrote the lyrics, Songs of the Soldier,'
that first made him famous throughout his
native country.
(
Not since the days of the 'Marseillaise '
had the fighting spirit of the French people
found such sympathetic expression; his songs
were read and sung all over the country;
they received the highest honor of the Acad-
emy, and their popularity continued after peace was declared, nearly
one hundred and fifty editions having been exhausted up to 1895.
Déroulède now devoted himself to literature and politics. New
Songs of the Soldier' and a volume of Songs of the Peasant,'
almost as popular as the war songs, were interspersed with two more
dramatic works, also in verse, one of which, 'L'Hetman,' was re-
ceived on the stage with great favor. A cantata, Vive la France,'
written in 1880, was set to music by Gounod. He also wrote a novel
and some treatises dealing with armies and fighting, but his prose
works did not attract much attention.
Déroulède's best verses are distinguished for their inspiration and
genuine enthusiasm. Careless of form and finish, not always stop-
ping to make sure of his rhymes or perfect his metre, he gave the
freest vent to his emotions. Some of the heart-glow which makes
## p. 4581 (#367) ###########################################
PAUL DÉROULÈDE
4581
the exhilaration of Burns's poems infectious is found in his songs,
but they are generally so entirely French that its scope is limited in
a way that the Scotch poet's, despite his vernacular, was not. The
Frenchman's sympathy is always with the harder side of life. In the
'Songs of the Soldier' he plays on chords of steel. These verses
resound with the blast of the bugle, the roll of the drum, the flash
of the sword, the rattle of musketry, the boom of the cannon; and
even in the 'Songs of the Peasant' it is the corn and the wine, as
the fruit of toil, that appeal to him, rather than the grass and the
flowers embellishing the fields.
THE HARVEST
From Chants du Paysan'
TH
HE wheat, the hardy wheat is rippling on the breeze.
'Tis our great mother's sacred mantle spread afar,
Old Earth revered, who gives us life, in whom we are,
We the dull clay the living God molds as he please.
The wheat, the hardy wheat bends down its heavy head,
Blessed and consecrate by the Eternal hand;
The stalks are green although the yellow ears expand:
Keep them, O Lord, from 'neath the tempest's crushing tread!
The wheat, the hardy wheat spreads like a golden sea
Whose harvesters bent low beneath the sun's fierce light,
Stanch galley-slaves, whose oar is now the sickle bright —
Cleave down the waves before them falling ceaselessly.
-
The wheat, the hardy wheat ranged in its serried rows
Seems like some noble camp upon the distant plain.
Glory to God! - the crickets chirp their wide refrain;
From sheaf to sheaf the welcome bread-song sweeping goes.
Translated for A Library of the World's Best Literature,' by Thomas Walsh. .
## p. 4582 (#368) ###########################################
4582
PAUL DEROULEDE
IN GOOD QUARTERS
From Poèmes Militaires >
MIREBEAU, 1871
G
OOD old woman, bother not,
Or the place will be too hot:
You might let the fire grow old-
Save your fagots for the cold:
I am drying through and through.
But she, stopping not to hear,
Shook the smoldering ashes near:
"Soldier, not too warm for you! "
Good old woman, do not mind;
At the storehouse I have dined:
Save your vintage and your ham,
And this cloth-such as I am
Are not used to save it too.
But she heard not what I said-
Filled my glass and cut the bread:
"Soldier, it is here for you! "
Good old woman-sheets for me!
Faith, you treat me royally:
And your stable? on your hay ?
There at length my limbs to lay?
I shall sleep like monarchs true.
But she would not be denied
Of the sheets, and spread them wide:
"Soldier, it is made for you! "
Morning came the parting tear:
Well-good-by! What have we here?
My old knapsack full of food!
Dear old creature-hostess good-
Why indulge me as you do?
-
It was all that she could say,
Smiling in a tearful way:
-
"I have one at war like you! "
Translated for 'A Library of the World's Best Literature,' by Thomas
Walsh.
## p. 4583 (#369) ###########################################
PAUL DÉROULÈDE
4583
"GOOD FIGHTING! »
From Poèmes Militaires >
HE Kroumirs leave their mountain den;
Sing, bullets, sing! and bugles, blow!
Good fighting to our gallant men,
And happy they who follow, when,
Brothers in arms so dear, these go.
Yea, happy they who serve our France,
And neither pain nor danger fly;
But in the front of war's advance
Still deem it but a glorious chance,
To be among the brave who die!
No splendid war do we begin,
No glory waits us when 'tis past;
But marching through the fiery din,
We see our serried ranks grow thin,
And blood of Frenchmen welling fast.
French blood! -a treasure so august,
And hoarded with such jealous care,
To crush oppression's strength unjust,
With all the force of right robust,
And buy us back our honor fair;
We yield it now to duty's claim,
And freely pour out all our store;
Who judges, frees us still from blame;
The Kroumirs' muskets war proclaim;-
In answer let French cannon roar!
-
-
Good fighting! and God be your shield,
Our pride's avengers, brave and true!
France watches you upon the field.
Who wear her colors never yield,
For 'tis her heart ye bear with you!
Translated for A Library of the World's Best Literature,' by Katharine
Hillard.
## p. 4584 (#370) ###########################################
4584
PAUL DÉROULÈDE
A
LAST WISHES
From Poèmes Militaires >
GRAVE for me—a grave- and why?
I do not wish to sleep alone:
Let me within the trenches lie,
Side by side with my soldiers thrown.
Dear old comrades of wars gone by,
Come, 'tis our final "halt" is nigh:
Clasp your brave hearts to my own.
A sheet for me- a sheet - and why?
Such is for them on their beds who moan:
The field is the soldier's place to die,
The field of carnage, of blood and bone.
Dear old comrades of wars gone by,
This is the prayer of my soul's last sigh:
Clasp your brave hearts to my own.
Tears for me- these tears-and why?
Knells let the vanquished foe intone!
France delivered! -I still can cry,
France delivered-invaders flown!
Dear old comrades of wars gone by,
Pain is nothing, and death- -a lie!
Clasp your brave hearts to my own!
Translated for A Library of the World's Best Literature,' by Thomas Walsh.
## p. 4584 (#371) ###########################################
## p. 4584 (#372) ###########################################
RENÉ DESCARTES.
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## p. 4584 (#373) ###########################################
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## p. 4584 (#374) ###########################################
**NG
## p. 4585 (#375) ###########################################
4585
RENÉ DESCARTES
(1596-1650)
HE broad scope of literature is illustrated by its inclusion of
the writings of René Descartes (Latinized, Renatus Carte-
sius). Deliberately turning away from books, and making
naught alike of learned precedent and literary form, he yet could
not but avail himself unconsciously of the heritage which he had
discarded.
This notable figure in seventeenth-century philosophy was born of
ancient family at La Haye, in Touraine, France, March 31st, 1596;
and died at Stockholm, Sweden, February 11th, 1650. From a pleas-
ant student life of eight years in the Jesuit college at La Flèche, he
went forth in his seventeenth year with unusual acquirements in
mathematics and languages, but in deep dissatisfaction with the long
dominant scholastic philosophy and the whole method prescribed for
arriving at truth. In a strong youthful revolt, his first step was a
decision to discharge his mind of all the prejudices into which his
education had trained his thinking. As a beginning in this work he
went to Paris, for observation of facts and of men. There, having
drifted through a twelvemonth of moderate dissipation, he secluded
himself for nearly two years of mathematical study, as though pur-
posing to reduce his universe to an equation in order to solve it.
The laws of number he could trust, since their lines configured the
eternal harmony.
At the age of twenty-one he entered on a military service of two
years in the army of the Netherlands, and then of about two years
in the Bavarian army. From 1621, for about four years, he was
roaming as an observer of men and nature in Germany, Belgium,
and Italy, afterward sojourning in Paris about three and a half
years. In 1629 he began twenty years of study and authorship in
practical seclusion in Holland. His little work, 'Discours de la Méth-
ode' (Leyden, 1637), is often declared to have been the basis for a
reconstitution of the science of thought. It would now perhaps be
viewed by the majority of critics rather as a necessary clearing of
antiquated rubbish from the ground on which the new construction
was to rise. Next to it among his works are usually ranked 'Medi-
tationes de Prima Philosophia,' and 'Principia Philosophiæ. '
The long sojourn in Holland was ended in September 1649, in
response to an urgent invitation from the studious young Queen
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Christina of Sweden, who wanted the now famous philosopher as an
ornament to her court. After some hesitancy he sailed for Stock-
holm, where only five months afterward he died.
It has been said of Descartes that he was a spectator rather than
an active worker in affairs. He was no hero, no patriot, no adherent
of any party. He entered armies, but not from love of a cause; the
army was a sphere in which he could closely observe the aspects of
human life. He was never married, and probably had little concern
with love. His attachment to a few friends seems to have been
sincere. For literature as such he cared little. Erudition, scholar-
ship, historic love, literary elegance, were nothing to him. Art and
æsthetics did not appeal to him. Probably he was not a great reader,
even of philosophic writers. He delighted in observing facts with a
view to finding, stating, and systematizing their relations in one all-
comprehending scheme. He never allowed himself to attack the
Church in either its doctrine or its discipline. As a writer, though
making no attempt at elegance in style, he is deemed remarkably
clear and direct when the abstruseness of his usual themes is con-
sidered.
Descartes's method in philosophy gives signs of formation on the
model of a process in mathematics. In all investigations he would
ascertain first what must exist by necessity; thus establishing axioms
evidenced in all experience, because independent of all experience.
The study of mathematics for use in other departments drew him
into investigations whose results made it a new science. He reformed
its clumsy nomenclature, also the algebraic use of letters for quan-
tities; he introduced system into the use of exponents to denote
the powers of a quantity, thus opening the way for the binomial
theorem; he was the first to throw clear light on the negative roots of
equations; his is the theorem by use of which the maximum number
of positive or negative roots of an equation can be ascertained.
Analytical geometry originated with his investigation of the nature
and origin of curves.
His mathematical improvements opened the way for the reform
of physical science and for its immense modern advance. In his
optical investigations he established the law of refraction of light.
His ingenious theory of the vortices-tracing gravity, magnetism,
light, and heat, to the whirling or revolving movements of the mol-
ecules of matter with which the universe is filled-was accepted as
science for about a quarter of a century.
In mental science Descartes's primary instrument for search of
truth was Doubt: everything was to be doubted until it had been
proved. This was provisional skepticism, merely to provide against
foregone conclusions. It was not to preclude belief, but to summon
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4587
and assure belief as distinct from the inane submission to authority,
to prejudice, or to impulse. In this process of doubting everything,
the philosopher comes at last to one fact which he cannot doubt-
the fact that he exists; for if he did not exist he could not be think-
ing his doubt. Cogito, ergo sum is one point of absolute knowledge;
it is a clear and ultimate perception.
The first principle of his philosophy is, that our consciousness is
truthful in its proper sphere, also that our thought is truthful and
trustworthy under these two conditions-when the thought is clear
and vivid, and when it is held to a theme utterly distinct from every
other theme; since it is impossible for us to believe that either man
who thinks, or the universe concerning which he thinks, is organized
on the basis of a lie. There are "necessary truths," and they are
discoverable.
A second principle is, the inevitable ascent of our thought from
the fragmentary to the perfect, from the finite to the infinite. Thus
the thought of the infinite is an "innate idea," a part of man's poten-
tial consciousness. This principle (set forth in one of the selections
given herewith) is the Cartesian form of the a priori argument for
the Divine existence, which like other a priori forms is viewed by
critics not as a proof in pure logic, but as a commanding and lumin-
ous appeal to man's entire moral and intellectual nature.
A third principle is, that the material universe is necessarily re-
duced in our thought ultimately to two forms, extension and local
movement - extension signifying matter, local movement signifying
force. There is no such thing as empty space; there are no ultimate
indivisible atoms; the universe is infinitely full of matter.
A fourth principle is, that the soul and matter are subsistences so
fundamentally and absolutely distinct that they cannot act in recip-
rocal relations.
