No More Learning

Before New Orleans
the flood of the mile-broad Mississippi rose six feet above high-
est water-mark. One hundred and ten miles away, Donaldson-
ville trembled at the towering tide of the Lafourche. Lakes
strove to burst their boundaries. Far-off river steamers tugged
wildly at their cables, shivering like tethered creatures that hear
by night the approaching howl of destroyers. Smoke-stacks were
hurled overboard, pilot-houses torn away, cabins blown to frag-
ments.


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LAFCADIO HEARN
7141
And over roaring Kaimbuck Pass, over the agony of Caillou
Bay, the billowing tide rushed unresisted from the Gulf, tear-
ing and swallowing the land in its course, plowing out deep-sea
channels where sleek herds had been grazing but a few hours
before, rending islands in twain, and ever bearing with it,
through the night, enormous vortex of wreck and vast wan drift
of corpses.
But the Star remained. And Captain Abraham Smith, with
a long, good rope about his waist, dashed again and again into
that awful surging to snatch victims from death,-clutching at
passing hands, heads, garments, in the cataract-sweep of the seas;
saving, aiding, cheering, though blinded by spray and battered by
drifting wreck, until his strength failed in the unequal struggle
at last, and his men drew him aboard senseless, with some beau-
tiful half-drowned girl safe in his arms. But well-nigh twoscore
souls had been rescued by him; and the Star stayed on through
it all.
Long years after, the weed-grown ribs of her graceful skele-
ton could still be seen, curving up from the sand-dunes of Last
Island, in valiant witness of how well she stayed.
DAY breaks through the flying wrack, over the infinite heav-
ing of the sea, over the low land made vast with desolation. It
is a spectral dawn; a wan light, like the light of a dying sun.
The wind has waned and veered; the flood sinks slowly
back to its abysses, abandoning its plunder, scattering its pit-
eous waifs over bar and dune, over shoal and marsh, among
the silences of the mango swamps, over the long low reaches of
sand grasses and drowned weeds, for more than a hundred miles.
From the shell reefs of Pointe-au-Fer to the shallows of Pelto
Bay the dead lie mingled with the high-heaped drift; from their
cypress groves the vultures rise to dispute a share of the feast
with the shrieking frigate-birds and squeaking gulls. And as the
tremendous tide withdraws its plunging waters, all the pirates of
air follow the great white-gleaming retreat-a storm of billowing
wings and screaming throats.
And swift in the wake of gull and frigate-bird the Wreckers
come, the Spoilers of the dead,- savage skimmers of the sea,
hurricane-riders wont to spread their canvas pinions in the face
of storms; Sicilian and Corsican outlaws, Manila men from the


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LAFCADIO HEARN
7142
marshes, deserters from many navies, Lascars, marooners, refu-
gees of a hundred nationalities, fishers and shrimpers by name,
smugglers by opportunity, wild channel-finders from obscure bay-
ous and unfamiliar chénières, all skilled in the mysteries of
these mysterious waters beyond the comprehension of the oldest
licensed pilot.
There is plunder for all, birds and men. There are drowned
sheep in multitude, heaped carcasses of kine. There are casks of
claret and kegs of brandy and legions of bottles bobbing in the
surf. There are billiard tables overturned upon the sand; there
are sofas, pianos, footstools and music-stools, luxurious chairs,
lounges of bamboo. There are chests of cedar, and toilet tables
of rosewood, and trunks of fine stamped leather stored with pre-
cious apparel. There are objets de luxe innumerable. There
are children's playthings: French dolls in marvelous toilets, and
toy carts, and wooden horses, and wooden spades, and brave little
wooden ships that rode out the gale in which the great Nautilus
went down. There is money in notes and in coin-in purses, in
pocket-books, and in pockets; plenty of it! There are silks, sat-
ins, laces, and fine linen to be stripped from the bodies of the
drowned, and necklaces, bracelets, watches, finger-rings and fine
chains, brooches and trinkets. "Chi bidizza! Oh! chi bedda
mughieri! Eccu, la bidizza! " That ball-dress was made in Paris.
by - But you never heard of him, Sicilian Vicenzu.
"Che bella sposina! " Her betrothal ring will not come off,
Giuseppe: but the delicate bone snaps easily; your oyster-knife
can sever the tendon. "Guardate! chi bedda picciota! " Over
her heart you will find it, Valentino-the locket held by that
fine Swiss chain of woven hair-"Caya manan! " And it is not
your quadroon bondsmaid, sweet lady, who now disrobes you
so roughly: those Malay hands are less deft than hers; but she
slumbers very far away from you, and may not be aroused from
her sleep. "Na quita mo! dalaga! -na quita maganda! " Juan,
the fastenings of those diamond ear-drops are much too com-
plicated for your peon fingers: tear them out! -"Dispense, chu-
lita! "
Suddenly a long, mighty silver trilling fills the ears of all;
there is a wild hurrying and scurrying; swiftly, one after another,
the overburdened luggers spread wings and flutter away.
Thrice the great cry rings rippling through the gray air, and
over the green sea, and over the far-flooded shell reefs, where the


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LAFCADIO HEARN
7143
sheet-lightning of breakers,- and over
huge white flashes are,
the weird wash of corpses coming in.
It is the steam-call of the relief boat, hastening to rescue the
living, to gather in the dead.
The tremendous tragedy is over!
MY FIRST DAY IN THE ORIENT
From Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan. Copyright 1894, by Lafcadio Hearn.
Reprinted by permission of Houghton, Mifflin & Co. , publishers, Boston
"TERA
ERA? " queries Cha, with his immense white hat in his hand,
as I resume my seat in the jinrikisha at the foot of the
steps. Which no doubt means, Do I want to see any more
temples? Most certainly I do: I have not yet seen Buddha.
"Yes, tera, Cha. "
And again begins the long panorama of mysterious shops and
tilted eaves, and fantastic riddles written over everything. I have
no idea in what direction Cha is running. I only know that the
streets seem to become always narrower as we go, and that some
of the houses look like great wicker-work pigeon cages only, and
that we pass over several bridges before we halt again at the
foot of another hill. There is a lofty flight of steps here also,
and before them a structure which I know is both a gate and a
symbol; imposing, yet in no manner resembling the great Bud-
dhist gateway seen before. Astonishingly simple all the lines of
it are: it has no carving, no coloring, no lettering upon it; yet it
has a weird solemnity, an enigmatic beauty. It is a torii.
"Miya," observes Cha. Not a tera this time, but a shrine of
the gods of the more ancient faith of the land,—a miya.
I am standing before a Shinto symbol; I see for the first
time-out of a picture at least―a torii. How describe a torii
to those who have never looked at one even in a photograph or
engraving? Two lofty columns, like gate pillars, supporting hori-
zontally two cross-beams, the lower and lighter beam having its
ends fitted into the columns a little distance below their summits;
the uppermost and larger beam supported upon the tops of the
columns, and projecting well beyond them to right and left.
That is a torii: the construction varying little in design, whether
made of stone, wood, or metal. But this description can give no
correct idea of the appearance of a torii, of its majestic aspect, of


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7144
LAFCADIO HEARN
its mystical suggestiveness as a gateway. The first time you see
a noble one, you will imagine perhaps that you see the colossal
model of some beautiful Chinese letter towering against the sky;
for all the lines of the thing have the grace of an animated ideo-
graph,- have the bold angles and curves of characters made with
four sweeps of a master brush.
Passing the torii, I ascend a flight of perhaps one hundred
stone steps, and find at their summit a second torii, from whose
lower cross-beam hangs festooned the mystic shimenawa. It is
in this case a hempen rope of perhaps two inches in diameter
through its greater length, but tapering off at either end like a
snake. Sometimes the shimenawa is made of bronze, when the
torii itself is of bronze; but according to tradition it should be
made of straw, and most commonly is. For it represents the
straw rope which the deity Futo-tama-no-mikoto stretched behind
the Sun goddess, Ama-terasu-oho-mi-Kami, after Ame-no-ta-jikara-
wo-no-Kami the Heavenly-hand-strength god had pulled her out,
as is told in that ancient myth of Shinto which Professor Cham-
berlain has translated. And the shimenawa, in its commoner and
simpler form, has pendent tufts of straw along its entire length
at regular intervals, because originally made, tradition declares,
of grass pulled up by the roots, which protruded from the twist
of it.
Advancing beyond this torii, I find myself in a sort of park
or pleasure ground on the summit of the hill. There is a small
temple on the right: it is all closed up; and I have read so much
about the disappointing vacuity of Shinto temples that I do not
regret the absence of its guardian. And I see before me what
is infinitely more interesting: a grove of cherry-trees covered
with something unutterably beautiful,- a dazzling mist of snowy
blossoms clinging like summer cloud fleece about every branch
and twig; and the ground beneath them and the path before me
are white with the soft, thick, odorous snow of fallen petals.
Beyond this loveliness are flower-pots surrounding tiny shrines;
and marvelous grotto-work, full of monsters,—dragons and myth-
ologic beings chiseled in the rock; and miniature landscape work
with tiny groves of dwarf trees, and liliputian lakes, and micro-
scopic brooks and bridges and cascades. Here also are swings
for children. And here are belvederes, perched on the verge of
the hill, where from the whole fair city, and the whole smooth
bay speckled with fishing-sails no bigger than pin-heads, and the


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7145
far, faint, high promontories reaching into the sea, are all visible
in one delicious view, blue-penciled in a beauty of ghostly haze
indescribable.
Why should the trees be so lovely in Japan? With us, a plum
or cherry tree in flower is not an astonishing sight; but here it
is a miracle of beauty so bewildering that, however much you
may have previously read about it, the real spectacle strikes you
dumb. You see no leaves,-only one great filmy mist of petals.
Is it that the trees have been so long domesticated and caressed
by man in this land of the gods that they have acquired souls,
and strive to show their gratitude, like women loved, by making
themselves more beautiful for man's sake? Assuredly they have
mastered men's hearts by their loveliness, like beautiful slaves; -
that is to say, Japanese hearts: apparently there have been some
foreign tourists of the brutal class in this place, since it has been
deemed necessary to set up inscriptions in English announcing
that "It is forbidden to injure the trees. "
"Tera?
"Yes, Cha, tera. "
But only for a brief while do I traverse Japanese streets.
The houses separate, become scattered along the feet of the hills;
the city thins away through little valleys, and vanishes at last
behind; and we follow a curving road overlooking the sea.
Green hills slope steeply down to the edge of the way on the
right; on the left, far below, spreads a vast stretch of dun sand
and salty pools to a line of surf so distant that it is discernible
only as a moving white thread. The tide is out; and thou-
sands of cockle-gatherers are scattered over the sands, at such
distances that their stooping figures, dotting the glimmering sea-
bed, appear no larger than gnats. And some are coming along
the road before us, returning from their search with well-filled
baskets, girls with faces almost as rosy as the faces of English
girls.
―
As the jinrikisha rattles on, the hills dominating the road
grow higher. All at once Cha halts again before the steepest
and loftiest flight of steps I have yet seen.
I climb and climb and climb, halting perforce, betimes, to
ease the violent aching of my quadriceps muscles; reach the top
completely out of breath; and find myself between two lions of
stone, one showing his fangs, the other with jaws closed. Before
me stands the temple, at the farther end of a small bare plateau


## p. 7146 (#544) ###########################################

7146
LAFCADIO HEARN
surrounded on three sides by low cliffs- a small temple, looking
very old and gray. From a rocky height to the left of the build-
ing a little cataract tumbles down into a pool, ringed in by a
palisade. The voice of the water drowns all other sounds. A
sharp wind is blowing from the ocean; the place is chill even
in the sun, and bleak, and desolate, as if no prayer had been
uttered in it for a hundred years.
Cha taps and calls, while I take off my shoes upon the worn
wooden steps of the temple, and after a minute of waiting we
hear a muffled step approaching and a hollow cough behind the
paper screens. They slide open, and an old white-robed priest
appears, and motions me with a low bow to enter. He has a
kindly face, and his smile of welcome seems to me one of the
most exquisite I have ever been greeted with. Then he coughs
again, so badly that I think if I ever come here another time I
shall ask for him in vain.
I go in, feeling that soft, spotless, cushioned matting beneath
my feet with which the floors of all Japanese buildings are cov
ered. I pass the indispensable bell and lacquered reading-desk;
and before me I see other screens only, stretching from floor to
ceiling. The old man, still coughing, slides back one of these
upon the right and waves me into the dimness of an inner sanc-
tuary, haunted by faint odors of incense. A colossal bronze lamp,
with snarling gilded dragons coiled about its columnar stem, is
the first object I discern; and in passing it, my shoulder sets
ringing a festoon of little bells suspended from the lotus-shaped
summit of it. Then I reach the altar, gropingly, unable yet to
distinguish forms clearly. But the priest, sliding back screen
after screen, pours in light upon the gilded brasses and the
inscriptions: and I look for the image of the deity or presiding
spirit between the altar groups of convoluted candelabra. And
I see only a mirror, a round pale disk of polished metal, and
my own face therein; and behind this mockery of me a phantom
of the far sea.
Only a mirror! Symbolizing what? illusion? or that the uni-
verse existed for us solely as the reflection of our own souls?
or the old Chinese teaching that we must seek the Buddha only
in our own hearts? Perhaps some day I shall be able to find
out all these things.
As I sit on the temple steps, putting on my shoes preparatory
to going, the kind old priest approaches me again, and bowing,


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LAFCADIO HEARN
7147
presents a bowl. I hastily drop some coins in it, imagining it
to be a Buddhist alms-bowl, before discovering it to be full of
hot water. But the old man's beautiful courtesy saves me from
feeling all the grossness of my mistake. Without a word, and
still preserving his kindly smile, he takes the bowl away, and
returning presently with another bowl, empty, fills it with hot
water from a little kettle, and makes a sign to me to drink.
Tea is most usually offered to visitors at temples; but this
little shrine is very, very poor; and I have a suspicion that the
old priest suffers betimes for want of what no fellow-creature
should be permitted to need. As I descend the windy steps to
the roadway I see him still looking after me, and I hear once
more his hollow cough.
Then the mockery of the mirror recurs to me. I am begin-
ning to wonder whether I shall ever be able to discover that
which I seek-outside of myself! That is, outside of my own.
imagination.
The sun is gone; the topaz light is gone: and Cha stops to
light his lantern of paper, and we hurry on again, between two
long lines of painted paper lanterns suspended before the shops;
so closely set, so level those lines are, that they seem two
interminable strings of pearls of fire. And suddenly a sound-
solemn, profound, mighty-peals to my ears over the roofs of
the town: the voice of the tsurigane, the great temple bell of
Nungiyama.
-
All too short the day seemed. Yet my eyes have been
so long dazzled by the great white light, and so confused by
the sorcery of that interminable maze of mysterious signs which
made each street vista seem a glimpse into some enormous
grimoire, that they are now weary even of the soft glowing of
all these paper lanterns, likewise covered with characters that
look like texts from a book of magic. And I feel at last the
coming of that drowsiness which always follows enchantment.


## p. 7148 (#546) ###########################################

7148
LAFCADIO HEARN
IMPRESSIONS AND MEMORIES
From Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan. ' Copyright 1894, by Lafcadio Hearn.
Reprinted by permission of Houghton, Mifflin & Co. , publishers, Boston
"A
ND this," the reader may say, "this is all that you went forth
to see: a torii, some shells, a small damask snake, some
stones? "
It is true. And nevertheless I know that I am bewitched.
There is a charm indefinable about the place; that sort of charm
which comes with a little ghostly thrill, never to be forgotten.
Not of strange sights alone is this charm made, but of num-
berless subtle sensations and ideas interwoven and interblended:
the sweet sharp scents of grove and sea; the blood-brightening,
vivifying touch of the free wind; the dumb appeal of ancient,
mystic, mossy things; vague reverence evoked by knowledge of
treading soil called holy for a thousand years; and a sense of
sympathy, as a human duty, compelled by the vision of steps of
rock worn down into shapelessness by the pilgrim feet of vanished
generations.
And other memories ineffaceable: the first sight of the sea-girt
City of Pearl through a fairy veil of haze; the windy approach
to the lovely island over the velvety soundless brown stretch of
sand; the weird majesty of the giant gate of bronze; the queer,
high-sloping, fantastic, quaintly gabled street, flinging down sharp
shadows of aerial balconies; the flutter of colored draperies in the
sea wind, and of flags with their riddles of lettering; the pearly
glimmering of the astonishing shops.
And impressions of the enormous day, the day of the Land of
the Gods, a loftier day than ever our summers know; and the
glory of the view from those green sacred silent heights between
sea and sun; and the remembrance of the sky, a sky spiritual
as holiness, a sky with clouds ghost-pure and white as the light
itself, seeming indeed not clouds but dreams, or souls of Bodhi-
sattvas about to melt forever into some blue Nirvana.
And the romance of Benten, too,-the deity of Beauty, the
divinity of Love, the goddess of Eloquence. Rightly is she like-
wise named goddess of the sea. For is not the sea most ancient
and most excellent of speakers,-the eternal poet, chanter of that
mystic hymn whose rhythm shakes the world, whose mighty syl-
lables no man may learn?


## p. 7149 (#547) ###########################################

LAFCADIO HEARN
7149
THE TEMPLE OF KWANNON
From Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan. Copyright 1894, by Lafcadio Hearn.
Reprinted by permission of Houghton, Mifflin & Co. , publishers, Boston
A
ND we arrive before the far-famed Kamakura temple of Kwan-
non,- Kwannon, who yielded up her right to the Eternal
Peace that she might save the souls of men, and renounced
Nirvana to suffer with humanity for other myriad million ages;
Kwannon, the goddess of Pity and of Mercy.
I climb three flights of steps leading to the temple, and a
young girl seated at the threshold rises to greet us. Then she
disappears within the temple to summon the guardian priest, a
venerable man, white-robed, who makes me a sign to enter.
The temple is large as any that I have yet seen, and like
the others, gray with the wearing of six hundred years. From
the roof there hang down votive offerings, inscriptions, and lan-
terns in multitude, painted with various pleasing colors. Almost
opposite to the entrance is a singular statue, a seated figure of
human dimensions and most human aspect, looking upon us with
small weird eyes set in a wondrously wrinkled face. This face
was originally painted flesh tint, and the robes of the image pale
blue; but now the whole is uniformly gray with age and dust,
and its colorlessness harmonizes so well with the senility of the
figure that one is almost ready to believe one's self gazing at
a living mendicant pilgrim. It is Benzuru, the same personage
whose famous image at Asakusa has been made featureless by the
wearing touch of countless pilgrim fingers. To left and right of
the entrance are the Ni-O, enormously muscled, furious of aspect;
their crimson bodies are speckled with a white scum of paper
pellets spat at them by worshipers. Above the altar is a small
but very pleasing image of Kwannon, with her entire figure
relieved against an oblong halo of gold, imitating the flickering
of flame.
But this is not the image for which the temple is famed;
there is another to be seen, upon certain conditions. The old
priest presents me with a petition, written in excellent and elo-
quent English, praying visitors to contribute something to the
maintenance of the temple and its pontiff, and appealing to those
of another faith to remember that "Any belief which can make
men kindly and good is worthy of respect. " I contribute my
mite, and I ask to see the great Kwannon.


## p. 7150 (#548) ###########################################

7150
LAFCADIO HEARN
Then the old priest lights a lantern, and leads the way through
a low doorway on the left of the altar, into the interior of the
temple, into some very lofty darkness. I follow him cautiously
a while, discerning nothing whatever but the flicker of the lantern;
then we halt before something which gleams. A moment, and
my eyes, becoming more accustomed to the darkness, begin to
distinguish outlines; the gleaming object defines itself gradually
as a foot, an immense golden foot, and I perceive the hem of a
golden robe undulating over the instep. Now the other foot
appears; the figure is certainly standing. I can perceive that we
are in a narrow but also very lofty chamber, and that out of
some mysterious blackness overhead, ropes are dangling down
into the circle of lantern light illuminating the golden feet. The
priest lights two more lanterns, and suspends them upon hooks
attached to a pair of pendent ropes about a yard apart; then he
pulls up both together slowly. More of the golden robe is re-
vealed as the lanterns ascend, swinging on their way; then the
outlines of two mighty knees; then the curving of columnar thighs
under chiseled drapery, and as with the still waving ascent of the
lanterns the golden Vision towers ever higher through the gloom,
expectation intensifies. There is no sound but the sound of the
invisible pulleys overhead, which squeak like bats. Now above
the golden girdle, the suggestion of a bosom. Then the glowing
of a golden hand uplifted in benediction. Then another golden
hand holding a lotus. And at last a face, golden, smiling with
eternal youth and infinite tenderness,-the face of Kwannon.
So revealed out of the consecrated darkness, this ideal of
Divine femininity, creation of a forgotten art and time, is more
than impressive. I can scarcely call the emotion which it pro-
duces admiration; it is rather reverence.
But the lanterns, which paused awhile at the level of the
beautiful face, now ascend still higher, with a fresh squeaking of
pulleys. And lo! the tiara of the divinity appears, with strangest
symbolism. It is a pyramid of heads, of faces,- charming faces
of maidens, miniature faces of Kwannon herself.
For this is the Kwannon of the Eleven Faces,-Jiu-ichi-men-
Kwannon.


## p. 7151 (#549) ###########################################

LAFCADIO HEARN
7151
THE SHINTÖ FAITH
From Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan. Copyright 1894, by Lafcadio Hearn.
Reprinted by permission of Houghton, Mifflin & Co. , publishers, Boston
Ο
NCE more we are journeying through the silence of this holy
land of mists and of legends; wending our way between
green leagues of ripening rice, white-sprinkled with arrows.
of prayer, between the far processions of blue and verdant peaks
whose names are the names of gods. We have left Kitzuki far
behind. But as in a dream I still see the mighty avenue, the
――
ong succession of torii with their colossal shimenawa, the ma-
jestic face of the Guji, the kindly smile of the priest Sasa, and
the girl priestess in her snowy robes dancing her beautiful
ghostly dance. It seems to me that I can still hear the sound
of the clapping of hands, like the crashing of a torrent. I can-
not suppress some slight exultation at the thought that I have
been allowed to see what no other foreigner has been privileged
to see, the interior of Japan's most ancient shrine, and those
sacred utensils and quaint rites of primitive worship so well
worthy the study of the anthropologist and the evolutionist.
But to have seen Kitzuki as I saw it is also to have seen
something much more than a single wonderful temple. To see
Kitzuki is to see the living centre of Shintō, and to feel the life
pulse of the ancient faith, throbbing as mightily in this nine-
teenth century as ever in that unknown past whereof the Kojiki
itself, though written in a tongue no longer spoken, is but a
modern record.
Buddhism, changing form or slowly decaying
through the centuries, might seem doomed to pass away at last
from this Japan to which it came only as an alien faith; but
Shinto, unchanging and vitally unchanged, still remains all-dom-
inant in the land of its birth, and only seems to gain in power
and dignity with time. Buddhism has a voluminous theology, a
profound philosophy, a literature vast as the sea. Shinto has no
philosophy, nc code of ethics, no metaphysics; and yet by its
very immateriality it can resist the invasion of Occidental reli-
gious thought as no other Orient faith can. Shinto extends a
welcome to Western science, but remains the irresistible oppo-
nent of Western religion; and the foreign zealots who would
strive against it are astounded to find the power that foils their
uttermost efforts indefinable as magnetism and invulnerable as
air. Indeed, the best of our scholars have never been able to


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7152
LAFCADIO HEARN
tell us what Shintō is. To some it appears to be merely ances-
tor worship, to others ancestor worship combined with nature
worship; to others again it seems to be no religion at all; to
the missionary of the more ignorant class it is the worst form
of heathenism. Doubtless the difficulty of explaining Shintō has
been due simply to the fact that the sinologists have sought for
the source of it in books: in the Kojiki and the Nihongi, which
are its histories; in the Norito, which are its prayers; in the
commentaries of Motowori and Hirata, who were its greatest
scholars. But the reality of Shintō lives not in books, nor in
rites, nor in commandments, but in the national heart, of which
it is the highest emotional religious expression, immortal and ever
young. Far underlying all the surface crop of quaint super-
stitions, and artless myths, and fantastic magic, there thrills a
mighty spiritual force, the whole soul of a race, with all its
impulses and powers and intuitions. He who would know what
Shintō is must learn to know that mysterious soul in which the
sense of beauty, and the power of art, and the fire of heroism
and magnetism of loyalty, and the emotion of faith, have become
inherent, immanent, unconscious, instinctive.
Trusting to know something of that Oriental soul in whose
joyous love of nature and of life even the unlearned may discern
a strange likeness to the soul of the old Greek race, I trust also
that I may presume some day to speak of the great living power
of that faith now called Shintō, but more anciently Kami-no-michi,
or The Way of the Gods. "
((


## p. 7153 (#551) ###########################################

7153
XII-448
REGINALD HEBER
(1783-1826)
ON EARLIER generation of cultivated readers knew Heber by
heart, and the present one is inclined to rank him among
the best of the hymn-writers. His father was a country
gentleman of excellent Yorkshire family, incumbent of a double liv-
ing when double livings were legal and proper, and rector of Malpas
in Cheshire when his second son, Reginald, was born. Sent to Ox-
ford at seventeen, the boy began at once a brilliant university career.
In his first year (1800) he took the prize for his 'Carmen Seculare,' a
Latin poem describing the greatness of the
new century. He was but twenty when he
wrote in English his second prize poem,
'Palestine,' which was printed in 1807 and
several times reprinted; for it appealed to
the religious sense of the great middle-class
English public, still stirred by the remem-
brance of Wesley and the Evangelists. In
the theatre where it was recited it was
received with tumultuous enthusiasm, and
it is one of the very few prize poems that
have lived; Tennyson being perhaps the
only one of the great poets whose univer-
sity verses were admired by a later genera-
tion. There is a pretty story connecting
Walter Scott with the fortunate student's triumph. Scott, the smart
young sheriff of Selkirkshire, not yet famous, had become known by
his 'Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border' to that extraordinary book-
worm Richard Heber, half-brother of Reginald, whom the "Wizard"
afterward spoke of as "Heber the magnificent, whose library and
cellar are so superior to all others in the world. " Scott was visiting
his fellow antiquarian at Oxford, when the tall, shy, handsome young
undergraduate brought in his 'Palestine for their criticism. Both
the elders praised it, but Scott pointed out that a fine metaphor had
been missed in the description of the building of the Temple, and
Heber added the best lines in the poem :-

REGINALD HEBER
"No hammers fell; no ponderous axes rung:
Like some tall palm the mystic fabric sprung. "


## p. 7154 (#552) ###########################################

REGINALD HEBER
7154
Two years later he won a third prize for the best English essay,
'On the Sense of Honor,' was elected a fellow of his college, and
traveled extensively. In 1807 he received holy orders and took
one of the family livings, which had been kept waiting for him.
He proved to be a most devoted parish priest, improving the church
services, building up the schools, and raising the standard of health
and morals among his people. He never liked his position, he con-
fides to a friend, "as half squire, half parson," but he did his best to
justify his place.
In 1822 he accepted with much hesitation the appointment to the
bishopric of Calcutta. At that time the whole of British India made
one vast see, the care of which demanded almost superhuman labor
and endurance. Poor Heber, always ardent and zealous, traveled over
his spiritual kingdom from bound to bound, preaching, teaching, estab-
lishing missions, baptizing, confirming, patching up peace between
quarrelsome societies, settling clerical differences, doing social duty,
sparing everybody but himself, always cheerful, always attentive,
always eager to do the one thing more. Overwork, or the merci-
less climate, or anxiety, or all together, killed him at the end of
three years in the very midst of his labors, when he was not yet
forty-three.
He wrote prose enough to fill two or three volumes, most of it
sermons, addresses, and lectures, besides an interesting book of
travels called A Journey through India, from Calcutta to Bombay. '
But he is best remembered for his hymns, still sung to-day in all
Protestant Christian churches. More than any other hymn-writer,
perhaps, he has been able to give the simple utterance of faith or
feeling its place in institutional worship. Sunday after Sunday, in
the English churches, the splendid roll of his 'Holy, Holy, Holy!
Lord God Almighty' sweeps the soul of the listener as with the
rushing of a mighty wind; in the 'Hymn for the Epiphany' many a
believer finds the voice of his own passion of faith and gratitude; in
the funeral hymns are uttered the woe and the triumph of humanity.
Among the world's great singers Heber's name will not be found,
but with the poets whom many generations love, his place is assured.


## p. 7155 (#553) ###########################################

REGINALD HEBER
(THE MISSIONARY HYMN
INTENDED TO BE SUNG ON OCCASION OF HIS PREACHING A SERMON FOR
THE CHURCH MISSIONARY SOCIETY, IN APRIL, 1820
FR
'ROM Greenland's icy mountains,
From India's coral strand,
Where Afric's sunny fountains
Roll down their golden sand;
From many an ancient river,
From many a palmy plain,
They call us to deliver
Their land from error's chain.
What though the spicy breezes
Blow soft o'er Ceylon's isle,
Though every prospect pleases,
And only man is vile:
In vain with lavish kindness
The gifts of God are strown;
The heathen in his blindness
Bows down to wood and stone.
Can we whose souls are lighted
With wisdom from on high,
Can we to men benighted
7155
The lamp of life deny?
Salvation, oh salvation!
The joyful sound proclaim,
Till each remotest nation
Has learned Messiah's name.
Waft, waft, ye winds, his story,
And you, ye waters, roll,
Till like a sea of glory
It spreads from pole to pole;
Till, o'er our ransomed nature,
The Lamb for sinners slain,
Redeemer, King, Creator,
In bliss returns to reign.


## p. 7156 (#554) ###########################################

7156
REGINALD HEBER
SIXTEENTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY
WAKE
AKE not, O mother, sounds of lamentation;
Weep not, O widow, weep not hopelessly:
Strong is his arm, the bringer of salvation,
Strong is the word of God to succor thee.
Bear forth the cold corpse slowly, slowly bear him;
Hide his pale features with the sable pall.
Chide not the sad one wildly weeping near him:
Widowed and childless, she has lost her all.
Why pause the mourners? who forbids our weeping?
Who the dark pomp of sorrow has delayed?
Set down the bier: he is not dead, but sleeping.
"Young man, arise! " He spake, and was obeyed.
-
Change, then, O sad one, grief to exultation,
Worship and fall before Messiah's knee.
Strong was his arm, the bringer of salvation,
Strong was the word of God to succor thee.
TRINITY SUNDAY
OLY, holy, holy! Lord God Almighty!
Η
H Early in the morning our song shall rise to thee;
Holy, holy, holy, merciful and mighty!
God in three persons, blessed Trinity.
Holy, holy, holy! all the saints adore thee,
Casting down their golden crowns around the glassy sea;
Cherubim and seraphim falling down before thee,
Which wert and art and evermore shalt be.
Holy, holy, holy! though the darkness hide thee,
Though the eye of sinful man thy glory may not see,
Only thou art holy; there is none beside thee,
Perfect in power, in love, and purity.
Holy, holy, holy! Lord God Almighty!
All thy works shall praise thy name in earth and sky and
sea.
Holy, holy, holy! merciful and mighty,
God in three persons, blessed Trinity.


## p. 7157 (#555) ###########################################

REGINALD HEBER
EPIPHANY
B
RIGHTEST and best of the sons of the morning,
Dawn on our darkness and lend us thine aid;
Star of the East, the horizon adorning,
Guide where our infant Redeemer is laid.
Cold on his cradle the dew-drops are shining,
Low lies his head with the beasts of the stall;
Angels adore him in slumber reclining,-
Maker and Monarch and Savior of all.
Say, shall we yield him, in costly devotion,
Odors of Edom and offerings divine?
Gems of the mountain and pearls of the ocean,
Myrrh from the forest or gold from the mine?
Vainly we offer each ampler oblation;
Vainly with gifts would his favor secure:
Richer by far is the heart's adoration,
Dearer to God are the prayers of the poor.
Brightest and best of the sons of the morning,
Dawn on our darkness and lend us thine aid;
Star of the East, the horizon adorning,
Guide where our infant Redeemer is laid.
BEFORE THE SACRAMENT
READ of the world, in mercy broken;
Wine of the soul, in mercy shed;
By Whom the words of life were spoken,
And in Whose death our sins are dead:
B'
Look on the heart by sorrow broken,
Look on the tears by sinners shed,
And be Thy feast to us the token
That by Thy grace our souls are fed.
7157


## p. 7158 (#556) ###########################################

7158
REGINALD HEBER
TO HIS WIFE-WRITTEN IN UPPER INDIA
I
F THOU wert by my side, my love,
How fast would evening fail
In green Bengala's palmy grove,
Listening the nightingale.
If thou, my love, wert by my side,
My babies at my knee,
How gayly would our pinnace glide
O'er Gunga's mimic sea.
I miss thee at the dawning gray,
When, on our deck reclined,
In careless ease my limbs I lay,
And woo the cooler wind.
I miss thee when by Gunga's stream
My twilight steps I guide,
But most beneath the lamp's pale beam,
I miss thee from my side.
I spread my books, my pencil try,
The lingering noon to cheer,
But miss thy kind approving eye,
Thy meek attentive ear.
But when of morn and eve the star
Beholds me on my knee,
I feel, though thou art distant far,
Thy prayers ascend for me.
Then on-then on; where duty leads,
My course be onward still,
On broad Hindostan's sultry meads,
O'er black Almorah's hill.
That course nor Delhi's kingly gates
Nor mild Malwah detain,
For sweet the bliss us both awaits
By yonder western main.
Thy towers, Bombay, gleam bright, they say,
Across the dark blue sea;
But ne'er were hearts so light and gay
As then shall meet in thee.


## p. 7159 (#557) ###########################################

REGINALD HEBER
AT A FUNERAL
ENEATH our feet and o'er our head
Is equal warning given;
Beneath us lie the countless dead,
Above us is the heaven.
B'
Their names are graven on the stone,
Their bones are in the clay;
And ere another day is done,
Ourselves may be as they.
Death rides on every passing breeze,
He lurks in every flower;
Each season has its own disease,
Its peril every hour.
Our eyes have seen the rosy light
Of youth's soft cheek decay,
And Fate descend in sudden night
On manhood's middle day.
Our eyes have seen the steps of age
Halt feebly towards the tomb,
And yet shall earth our hearts engage,
And dreams of days to come?
Turn, mortal, turn! thy danger know:
Where'er thy foot can tread
The earth rings hollow from below,
And warns thee of her dead.
Turn, Christian, turn! thy soul apply
To truths Divinely given;
The bones that underneath thee lie
Shall live for hell or heaven.
THE MOONLIGHT MARCH
I
SEE them on their winding way,
About their ranks the moonbeams play;
Their lofty deeds and daring high
Blend with the notes of victory;
And waving arms, and banners bright,
Are glancing in the mellow light.
7159


## p. 7160 (#558) ###########################################

7160
REGINALD HEBER
They're lost, and gone; the moon is past,
The wood's dark shade is o'er them cast;
And fainter, fainter, fainter still
The march
rising o'er the hill.
Again, again the pealing drum,
The clashing horn,-they come, they come;
Through rocky pass, o'er wooded steep,
In long and glittering files they sweep.
And nearer, nearer, yet more near,
Their softened chorus meets the ear.
Forth, forth, and meet them on their way:
The trampling hoofs brook no delay;
With thrilling fife and pealing drum,
And clashing horn, they come, they come.


## p. 7160 (#559) ###########################################



## p. 7160 (#560) ###########################################


DEN
G. W. F. HEGEL.


## p. 7160 (#561) ###########################################

CEORGE WHEE
LORES WALDAM
PY A
18
Max
the 2-9) of AL.
that Sv. 4,
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the birthplace of A's
in the Midd´e A res; o' pis
of Christion the legy
man mysteism and I
migrated fien varsta a into
Jag freedom for the exe
Alter the Lutheran 12: . ''a'
瞿 ​16
es portions of Au gia.
government, rumbers epi
itants migrate 1 porta vard and
freedom.
SECTET
The father of out philosoper, Goo
under the government, being a
Revenues. It's mother was a we M-11 ·
The events of his youth and eady ma
us to the time of his mug with Sa
Lati school at the age of five years, a
1. . 11. It is reported of hr, that he i
tr´ndation at the age of eight years,
thirteen he bad done some study in geor
pd Hebrew. He translated the work
at the age of sevente on. His studies t
Iveliest possible inpression upon a's th
Works are struck with the fact that Gre
Short, the Greek view of the world--b
Tl. He read the Antigone) of Sons,
and for many years after this studied
the philosophies of Plato and Aristotle.
these philosophies are the same substa
to the truth that reason is the absolute
Greek philosophy gave him a vantage
[J
? ,


## p. 7160 (#562) ###########################################


120
HEGEL


## p. 7161 (#563) ###########################################

7161
GEORGE WILLIAM FREDERICK HEGEL
(1770-1831)
BY WILLIAM T. HARRIS
EORGE WILLIAM FREDERICK HEGEL was born at Stuttgart on
the 27th of August, 1770. His biographers mention the fact
that Swabia, the birthplace of Hegel and Schelling, was also
the birthplace of Albertus Magnus, the greatest genius for philosophy
in the Middle Ages; of his pupils,- Thomas Aquinas being the light
of Christian theology, and Meister Eckhart being the fountain of Ger-
man mysticism and philosophy. But Hegel's ancestor John Hegel had
migrated from Carinthia into Swabia in the seventeenth century, seek-
ing freedom for the exercise of his newly acquired Protestant faith.
After the Lutheran reformation, which extended into the mountain-
ous portions of Austria, was vigilantly repressed by the Austrian
government, numbers of the most industrious and intelligent inhab-
itants migrated northward and westward for the sake of religious
freedom.
The father of our philosopher, George Louis Hegel, held an office
under the government, being a secretary of the Bureau of Public
Revenues. His mother was a well-informed and intelligent woman.
The events of his youth and early manhood are thoroughly prosaic,
up to the time of his meeting with Schelling. He was sent to the
Latin school at the age of five years, and at seven entered the gym-
nasium. It is reported of him that he read Shakespeare in Wieland's
translation at the age of eight years, and that at about the age of
thirteen he had done some study in geometry, surveying, Latin, Greek,
and Hebrew. He translated the work of Longinus on the Sublime
at the age of seventeen. His studies in Greek literature made the
liveliest possible impression upon his mind, and all readers of Hegel's
works are struck with the fact that Greek methods of thinking-in
short, the Greek view of the world-became part and parcel of his
mind. He read the 'Antigone' of Sophocles at the age of eighteen,
and for many years after this studied Greek and Roman history and
the philosophies of Plato and Aristotle. He very early perceived that
these philosophies are the same substantially, both of them reaching
to the truth that reason is the absolute. The fact of his study of
Greek philosophy gave him a vantage ground; he became later the


## p. 7162 (#564) ###########################################

7162
GEORGE WILLIAM FREDERICK HEGEL
interpreter of the results of Greek philosophy into the language of
German philosophy, and was able to demonstrate the harmony of the
two great streams of human thinking.
At the age of eighteen he entered the University of Tübingen as
student of theology, and took great interest in the lectures on the
Psalms and on the Book of Job, carrying on at the same time studies
in biology and reviewing Greek literature. Schelling arrived at the
same university two years later, and awakened the more sluggish
intellect of Hegel into a new
ew activity. Before the advent of Schel-
ling, Hegel, it seems, had not looked upon philosophy as a process
of real knowing. It appeared to him rather like a record of curious
opinions, in which no trace of scientific necessity could be discovered.
But the fervent heat of Schelling's mind melted down these opinions
and separated the gold from the dross. Schelling could pierce at
once to the essential necessity of thought. He could see what belongs
to the constitution of the mind and determines the very structure
of thought itself. Schooled in the philosophies of Kant and Fichte,
Schelling grappled with the fundamental problems of philosophy with
as much assurance and familiarity as if they were every-day mat-
ters of the university lecture-room, or indeed of the students' boarding-
house. Hegel, five years his senior, borrowed courage from Schelling,
and commenced anew his studies in philosophy with an entirely dif-
ferent point of view. For fifteen years he willingly acknowledged
himself to be Schelling's disciple.
Meanwhile the French Revolution had begun, and was now in the
height of its progress. It was the external counterpart of the Kant-
ian revolution in philosophy. All realized institutions were attacked
by it, in the interest of individual freedom against authority. All
over Europe there came to be a feeling that man is the maker of
his institutions, and that he can demonstrate this authorship by tak-
ing to pieces Church and State, and reconstructing them at pleasure.
Kant and Fichte had attacked the problems of philosophy in the
same revolutionary spirit. It seemed to them as if they stood, for
the first time, face to face with truth. All other and earlier endeav-
ors had been fatuitous. Dogmatic philosophy had not attained truth,
but merely likelihood, or opinion. With the newly acquired faculties
of higher introspection discovered by Kant, it would be possible now
to settle ultimately and finally the attitude of the mind towards
fundamental problems of the universe. The problems of life could
all be solved without delay.
These views aroused unbounded enthusiasm. The Germans call
this epoch the "Aufklärung" (Enlightenment). It was a clearing-up
such as comes from cutting loose from the past, with a consciousness
that the individual commences a new book, with new ideas and with


## p. 7163 (#565) ###########################################

GEORGE WILLIAM FREDERICK HEGEL
7163
Hegel
no responsibilities to anything that has been written before.
had been much interested in Rousseau in his youth, and en the
French Revolution came to be discussed all over Europe, he like
most young men of his time adopted the gospel of liberty, equality,
and fraternity as his own. He and Schelling took an active part in
a political club founded for the dissemination of French ideas at the
university. In the course of a few years, however, he discovered the
shallowness of a movement which claims as its chief merit the neg-
lect of the past and the wholesale condemnation of existing institu-
tions. According to the principle of the French Revolution, no sooner
has something become an accomplished fact than it becomes a men-
ace to the freedom of the individual; it becomes tyrannical with its
authority. Hence, no sooner did the Revolution make a new consti-
tution than it began to amend it; for how could the people retain
their consciousness of freedom from authority unless they continually
recast their constitutional law? This lesson of the French Revolution
made the profoundest impression upon the mind of Hegel, given as
he was to looking behind the immediate appearance to the essential
form of the deed. He saw at once the irrationality of the Revolution,
and compared it to Saturn, who devoured his own offspring. He saw
vividly the absurdity of constitutional conventions which are to dis-
cover and adopt reasonable foundations, to be followed immediately
by new conventions which demolish the reasonable forms adopted by
their predecess
ssors. Hegel became conscious of the truth of the con-
servative principle which aims to build the present upon the past,
and to reinforce the insight of the present moment by the reflections
of all the rational hours that have gone before. This conservatism,
which appears in all of the works of Hegel, has been much con-
demned. It should be remembered that Hegel did not begin to write
books until he had reached this conclusion.
After two or three years' companionship with Schelling, Hegel,
having completed his theological studies at the university, left Jena
and became a private tutor in a family in Berne. It is interesting to
note that Fichte had held the position of tutor in Switzerland shortly
before this, and Herbart a similar position about the same time.
The three years of tutorship passed in studies on the most difficult
problems of all philosophies; namely, the reconciliation of the theo-
retical and practical sides of life the relation of intellect to will.
At this time, too, Hegel made a more thorough study of the Kantian
critiques, and took up Fichte's Science of Knowledge,' finding it far
more difficult to master than the Critique of Pure Reason. ' He
obtained, however, some assistance from Schelling in gaining an
insight into the subtle psychology of Fichte. For Schelling had
found the writings of Fichte more to his taste than those of any
―――


## p. 7164 (#566) ###########################################

7164
GEORGE WILLIAM FREDERICK HEGEL
other philosopher; and just as Fichte had been nurtured on the writ-
ings of Kant, the ideas of which he had proceeded at once to com-
bine in a new system, so Schelling recast in a new form the ideas of
Fichte. He hastened to construe the world of nature, a priori, by
means of transcendental ideas. Self-consciousness revealed the hidden
laws and principles implicit in ordinary knowing; and these laws and
principles, discovered in the unconscious activity of the mind, were
identified by him with the moving forces of nature. He attributed
them to "an impersonal reason, a soul of the world. " Thus it comes
to pass that while Fichte laid the greatest stress on the subjective,
the will of the individual, the consciousness of the particular person,
- that is to say, on the free moral will,- Schelling on the other
hand emphasized the objective, the unconscious development of nature,
and laid great stress on the gradual unfolding of reason in the inor-
ganic world of matter. There was no necessary incongruity in the
two systems. But the one-sidedness due to the intense emphasis
given to the opposite poles soon produced a conflict. Fichte subor-
dinated everything else to the moral will, and regarded nature as
merely phenomenal and scarcely worthy of man's attention.
ling, on the other hand, turned to nature and history as unconscious
realizations of spirit in time and space, and held them up to view as
worthy of all study. They were treated in his philosophy with rever-
ence as Divine incarnations. Fichte slighted time and space, and
what they contained. He neglected the forms of matter and the
results of history,— everything conventional, such as institutions, cus-
toms, and philosophical systems. The world, in short, was treated
somewhat as the French revolutionists treated the past. Schelling,
on the other hand, looked upon the world as a revelation of the abso-
lute, and held it sacred, while subjectivity (the ego and its interests)
became less important in his eyes; and as a consequence, human aims
and endeavors, even moral aims, lost their interest to him. Not so
however with Hegel. Hegel did not for a moment, while he called
himself a disciple of Schelling, fail to see that the moral world is
more important than the physical world; although he believed the
physical world to be what Schelling claimed for it.
In the midst of these great philosophical movements, Hegel had
(in 1797) become a tutor in Frankfort, and had reinforced his insights
obtained through the study of Fichte and the explanations of Schel-
ling, by a study of Plato and Sextus Empiricus the skeptic.