Contemporary
moralists
denounced the habit of frivolous reading as
they do now.
they do now.
Warner - World's Best Literature - v10 - Emp to Fro
"Save our honor too," they call.
"To us it had not be-
come wholly clear what we fought for; besides our just deter-
mination to suffer no outward power to control us in matters of
conscience, we were also impelled by a higher spirit, which never
wholly unveiled itself to our view. To you this spirit is no longer
veiled, if you have vision for the spiritual world; - it now re-
gards you with high clear aspect. The confused and intricate
mixture of sensuous and spiritual impulses shall no longer be
permitted to govern the world. Mind alone, pure from all ad-
mixture of sense, shall assume the guidance of human affairs.
In order that this spirit should have liberty to develop itself, and
rise to independent existence, our blood was shed. It lies with
you to give a meaning and a justification to the sacrifice, by
## p. 5678 (#256) ###########################################
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JOHANN GOTTLIEB FICHTE
establishing this spirit in its destined supremacy. Should this
result not ensue, as the ultimate end of all the previous develop-
ment of our nation, then were our struggles but a vain and for-
gotten farce, and the freedom of mind and conscience for which
we fought an empty word, since neither mind nor conscience
should any longer have a place among us. '
>>
The races yet unborn plead with you. "Ye were proud
of your forefathers," they cry, "and proudly ranked yourselves
in a noble line of men. See that with you the chain is not
broken. Act so that we also may be proud of you; and through
you, as through a spotless medium, claim our descent from the
same glorious source. Be not you the cause of making us revile
our ancestry as low, barbarous, and slavish; of causing us to
hide our origin or to assume a foreign name and a foreign
parentage, in order that we may not be, without further in-
quiry, cast aside and trodden under foot. According as the next
generation which proceed from you shall be, so shall be your
future fame: honorable, if this shall bear honorable witness to
you; beyond measure ignominious, if ye have not an unblem-
ished posterity to succeed you, and leave it to your conqueror to
write your history. Never has a victor been known to have
either the inclination or the means of passing a just judgment on
the subdued. The more he degrades them, the better does he
justify his own position. Who can know what great deeds, what
excellent institutions, what noble manners of many nations of
antiquity may have passed away into oblivion, because their suc-
ceeding generations have been enslaved, and have left the con-
queror in his own way and without contradiction to tell their
story ? »
Even the stranger in foreign lands pleads with you, in so far
as he understands himself, and knows aright his own interest.
Yes! there are in every nation minds who can never believe that
the great promises to the human race of a kingdom of law, of
reason, of truth, are vain and idle delusions, and who therefore
cherish the conviction that the present iron age is but a step
towards a better state. These, and with them all the after-ages
of humanity, trust in you. Many of them trace their lineage
from us; others have received from us religion and all other
culture. Those plead with us by the common soil of our Father-
land, the cradle of their infancy, which they have left to us
free; these, by the culture which they have accepted from us as
## p. 5679 (#257) ###########################################
JOHANN GOTTLIEB FICHTE
5679
the pledge of a higher good,- to maintain for their sakes the
proud position which has hitherto been ours, to guard with jealous
watchfulness against even the possible disappearance from the
great confederation of a newly arisen humanity of that member
which is to them more important than all others; or that when
they shall need our counsel, our example, our co-operation in the
pursuit and attainment of the true end of this earthly life, they
shall not look around for us in vain.
All ages, all the wise and good who have ever breathed the
air of this world of ours, all their thoughts and aspirations
towards a higher good,-mingle with these voices and encompass
you about and raise suppliant hands towards you; Providence
itself, if we may venture so to speak, and the Divine plan in the
creation of a human race,- which indeed exists only that it may
be understood of men, and by men be wrought into reality,-
plead with you to save their honor and their existence. Whether
those who have believed that humanity must ever advance in a
course of ceaseless improvement, and that the great ideas of its
order and worth were not empty dreams but the prophetic an-
nouncement and pledge of their future realization; — whether
those, or they who have slumbered on in the sluggish indolence
of a mere vegetable or animal existence, and mocked every as-
piration towards a higher world, have had the right,- this is the
question upon which it has fallen to your lot to furnish a last
and decisive answer. The ancient world, with all its nobility
and greatness, has fallen-through its own unworthiness and
through the might of your forefathers. If there has been truth
in that which I have spoken to you in these addresses, then
it is you to whom, out of all other modern nations, the germs of
human perfection are especially committed, and on whom the
foremost place in the onward advance towards their develop-
ment is conferred. If you sink to nothing in this your peculiar
office, then with you the hopes of humanity for salvation out of
all its evils are likewise overthrown. Hope not, console not your-
selves with the vain delusion that a second time, after the
destruction of an ancient civilization, a new culture will arise
upon the ruins of the old from a half-barbaric people. In ancient
times such a people existed, fully provided with all the requisites
for their mission; they were well known to the cultivated nation,
and were described in its literature; and that nation itself, had it
been able to suppose the case of its own downfall, might have
--
## p. 5680 (#258) ###########################################
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JOHANN GOTTLIEB FICHTE
discovered the means of renovation in this people. To us also
the whole surface of the earth is well known, and all the nations.
who dwell upon it. Do we know one of all the ancestral tribes
of modern Europe, of whom like hopes may be entertained?
I think that every man who does not give himself up to vis-
ionary hopes and fancies, but desires only honest and searching
inquiry, must answer this question, No! There is then no way
of escape: if ye sink, humanity sinks with you, without hope of
future restoration.
CHARACTERISTICS OF THE AGE
From The Characteristics of the Present Age'
IN
N so far as this age admits the possibility of some of the knowl-
edge which lies beyond the confines of the mere science of
the physical world, although it does so in a somewhat incon-
sequential manner, and only because such things are also present
in experience, and on account of such experience are taught in
the schools, it becomes its highest wisdom to doubt of everything,
and in no matter to take a part either on the one side or the
other. In this neutrality, this immovable impartiality, this incor-
ruptible indifference to all truth, it places its most excellent and
perfect wisdom; and the charge of having a system appears to it
as a disgrace by which the reputation of a man is irretrievably
destroyed. Such scientific cobwebs are only devised in order that
young people of the lower classes, who have no opportunity of
seeing the great world, may by amusing themselves with them
develop their capacities for active life. For this purpose every
opinion and every proposition, affirmative as well as negative, are
equally available; and it is a contemptible blunder to mistake jest
for earnest, and to interest oneself for any side of such a con-
troversy as if it were something of importance.
With respect to the influence which it exerts upon Nature
and its employment of her powers and products, such an age
looks everywhere only to the immediately and materially useful,
-to that, namely, which is serviceable for dwelling, clothing,
and food, to cheapness, convenience, and-where it attains its
highest point-to fashion; but that higher dominion over Nature,
whereby the majestic image of man as a race is stamped upon
its opposing forces,-I mean the dominion of ideas, in which the
## p. 5681 (#259) ###########################################
JOHANN GOTTLIEB FICHTE
5681
essential nature of. fine arts consists,- this is wholly unknown to
such an age; and even when the occasional appearance of men
of more spiritual nature may remind it of this higher sov-
ereignty, it only laughs at such aspirations as mere visionary
extravagance; and thus art itself, reduced to its most mechanical
forms, is degraded into a new vehicle of fashion, the instrument
of a capricious luxury, alien to the eternities of the ideal world.
With respect to the legislative constitution of States and the gov-
ernment of nations, such an age either-impelled by its hatred to
the old — constructs political fabrics upon the most airy and unsub-
stantial abstractions, and attempts to govern degenerate men by
means of high-sounding phrases without the aid of firm and
inflexible power; or restrained by its idol experience, it hastens,
on every emergency whether of great or small importance,- being
convinced beforehand of its own utter inability to determine
upon a course of action for itself,- to consult the chronicles of
the past, to read there how others have formerly acted under
similar circumstances; and takes from thence the law of its own
conduct.
MORALITY AND RELIGION
From The Characteristics of the Present Age'
L
ET us consider the highest which man can possess in the
absence of religion; I mean, pure morality. He obeys the
law of duty in his breast, absolutely because it is a law
unto him; and he does whatever reveals itself as his duty, abso-
lutely because it is duty. But does he therein understand him-
self? does he know what this duty, to which at every moment
he consecrates his whole existence, really is in itself, and what
is its ultimate aim? So little does he know this, that he declares
loudly it ought to be so, absolutely because it ought; and makes
this very impossibility of comprehending and understanding the
law, this absolute abstraction from the meaning of the law, and
the consequences of the deed,-a characteristic mark of genuine
obedience. In the first place, let not the impudent assertion be
here repeated, that such an obedience, without regard to conse-
quences and without desire for consequences, is in itself impos-
sible, and opposed to human nature. What does the mere
sensuous egoist, who is himself but a half-man, what does he
know of the power of human nature? That it is possible, can
-
X-356
## p. 5682 (#260) ###########################################
5682
JOHANN GOTTLIEB FICHTE
be known only by its actual accomplishment, in ourselves; and
before its possibility is recognized in this way, and man has
elevated himself in his own person to pure morality, he can have
no entrance whatever into the domain of true religion; for reli-
gion also annexes no visible consequences to individual acts of
duty. So much for the refutation of that portion of error which
arises from the calumnious slander of pure morality.
Again, he who faithfully obeys the law of duty, as such, does
not understand the ultimate aim of this law. It is clear since
he, notwithstanding this ignorance, maintains an unvarying and
unconditional obedience; since, further, the law of duty, although
not understood, speaks forth constantly and invariably within him.
-that this want of comprehension causes no difference in his
actions; but it is another question whether such a want of com-
prehension is consistent with his dignity as a rational being. He
indeed no longer follows the concealed law of the universe, nor
the blind impulses of nature, but a conception; and in doing so
he acts, thus far, a nobler part. But this conception itself is not
clear to him, and with reference to it he himself is blind; his
obedience therefore remains but a blind obedience; and-by a
noble instinct indeed, but still with bandaged eyes-he is led on
to his destiny. But if this position be inconsistent with the
dignity of reason, as it unquestionably is, and if there lie in
reason itself a power, and therefore an impulse, to penetrate to
the meaning of the law of duty, then will this impulse be a
source of constant disturbance and dissatisfaction to him; and if
he still continue to hold by blind obedience, he will have no
other course than to harden himself against this secret desire.
However perfect may be his conduct,- that is, his outward and
apparent existence there is still at the root of his inward being,
discord, obscurity, and bondage, and therefore a want of abso-
lute dignity. Such is the position even of the purely moral man,
when regarded by the light of religion. How displeasing, then,
as seen by this light, must be his condition who has not even
attained to true morality, but as yet only follows the impulses
of nature! He too is guided by the eternal law of the universe;
but to him it neither speaks in his own language, nor honors
him with speech at all, but leads him on with dumb compulsion,
as it does the plant or the animal; employs him like an unreason-
ing thing, without consulting his own will in aught, and in a
region where mere mechanism is the only moving power.
-
――
## p. 5683 (#261) ###########################################
JOHANN GOTTLIEB FICHTE
5683
Religion discloses to man the significance of the one eternal
law, which as the law of duty guides the free and noble and
as the law of nature governs ignoble instruments. The religious
man comprehends this law, and feels it living within himself, as
the law of the eternal development of the one life. How each
individual moment of our earthly life is comprehended in that
eternal development of the one original Divine life, he cannot
indeed understand, because the Infinite has no limit, and there-
fore can never be embraced by him; but that every one of these
moments does absolutely lie contained within this development of
the one life, he can directly perceive and clearly recognize. What
was the law of duty to the moral man, is to him the inward
progression of the one Life, which directly reveals itself as life;
what is the law of nature to others, is to him the development
of the outward, and apparently inanimate, manifestation of that
one Life.
This one clearly recognized life now becomes throughly estab-
lished in the religious man, reposing upon itself, sufficient for
itself, and blessed in itself; dwelling there with unspeakable love;
with inconceivable rapture bathing his whole being in the original
Fountain of all life, and flowing forth with him, and inseparable
from him, in one eternal stream. What the moral man calls duty
and law - what is this to him? The most spiritual bloom of life;
his element, in which alone he can breathe. He wills and can do
nothing else than this; all else is to him misery and death. To
him the commanding "Thou shalt " comes too late; before it can
command, he has already resolved, and cannot resolve otherwise.
As all external law vanishes before morality, so before religion
the internal law also disappears; the lawgiver in our breast is
silent, for will, desire, love, and blessedness have already super-
seded the law. The moral man often finds it difficult to perform
his duty; the sacrifice of his deepest desires and his most cher-
ished feelings is demanded of him. He performs it notwithstand-
ing; it must be done: he subdues his feelings and stifles his
agony. The question: Wherefore is there need of this suffering,
and whence arises this disunion between the desires which have
been implanted in him, and the commands of a law from which
he cannot escape? -this question he dares not permit himself to
entertain; he must offer himself up with mute and blind obedi-
ence, for only under the condition of such obedience is the offer-
ing genuine. For the religious man this question has been once
## p. 5684 (#262) ###########################################
5684
JOHANN GOTTLIEB FICHTE
and forever solved. That which thus strives against our will,
and which cannot be crushed into nothingness, is imperfect life;
which even because it is life struggles for continued existence,
but must cease to be as soon as its place is occupied by a higher
and nobler life. "Those desires which I must sacrifice," thinks
the religious man, "are not my desires, but they are desires
which are directed against me and my higher existence; they are
my foes, which cannot be destroyed too soon. The pain which
they cause is not my pain, but the pain of a nature which has
conspired against me; it is not the agonies of death, but the pangs
of a new birth, which will be glorious beyond all my expecta-
tions. "
ELEVATING POWER OF RELIGION
From The Characteristics of the Present Age'
R
ELIGION elevates him who is devoted to her service above
time as such, above the transient and the perishable, and
puts him in immediate possession of eternity. On the one
original Divine life his eye reposes; there his love is rooted;
whatever meets his view and seems to be beyond this one ori-
ginal life, is not beyond it but within it, and is merely a tem-
porary form of its development according to an absolute law
which likewise lies within itself; he sees all things only in and
through this one original life, and in this life he sees the whole
infinite universe of being. His view is thus always the view of
the eternal, and what he sees, he sees as eternal and in the
eternal: nothing can truly be which is not, even on that very
account, eternal. Every fear of perishing in death, and every
effort to discover an artificial proof of the immortality of the
soul, lies far beneath him. In every moment of his existence he
has immediate possession of the eternal life with all its blessed-
ness; and he needs no argument or inference to prove the truth
of that which he possesses in ever-present feeling and conscious-
ness. There is no more striking proof that the knowledge of the
true religion has hitherto been very rare among men, and that
in particular it is a stranger in the prevailing systems, than this:
that they universally place eternal blessedness beyond the grave,
and never for a moment imagine that whoever will, may here
and at once be blessed.
## p. 5685 (#263) ###########################################
JOHANN GOTTLIEB FICHTE
5685
SPIRITUAL LIGHT AND TRUTH
From The Characteristics of the Present Age›
As the light of religion arisen within us? Then it not only
He dispels the previous darkness, but it has also had a true
and essential existence within us, even while it could not
dispel this darkness; now it spreads itself forth until it embraces
our whole world, and thus becomes the source of new life. In
the beginning of these lectures we have traced everything great
and noble in man to this,- that he lose sight of his own per-
sonal existence in the life of the race; devote his own life to the
purposes of the race; labor, endure, suffer, and if need be die, as
a sacrifice to the race. In this view it was always deeds, always
that which could manifest itself in outward and visible appear-
ance, to which we looked. In this way it was necessary for us
to open our communication with the age. Now, ennobled by our
progress from this point of view, as I foretold, we use this lan-
guage no longer. The one thing truly noble in man, the highest
form of the one idea which reveals itself within him, is religion:
but religion is nothing external, and never clothes itself in any
outward manifestation, but it completes the inward life of man;
it is spiritual light and truth. The true course of action is now
discovered of itself, for truth cannot act otherwise than according
to truth; but this true course of action is no longer a sacrifice,
no longer demands suffering and endurance, but is itself the
manifestation and effluence of the highest inward blessedness.
He who, although with reluctance and in conflict with internal
darkness, yet acts according to truth, let him be admired, and let
his heroism be extolled: he upon whom this inward light has
arisen has outgrown our admiration and our praise; there is no
longer any doubt, hesitation, or obstruction in his being, but all
is the one clear, ever-flowing fountain of truth.
Formerly we expressed ourselves in the following language:-
"As when the breath of spring enlivens the air, the strong and
fixed ice which but a few moments before imprisoned each atom
within its own limits, and shut up each neighboring atom in
similar isolation, now no longer holds nature in its rigid bond-
age, but flows forth in one free, animated, and glowing flood,- so
does the spirit world ever flow at the breath of love, and is and
abides in eternal communion with the mighty whole. "
Let us
______________
## p. 5686 (#264) ###########################################
5686
JOHANN GOTTLIEB FICHTE
now add: "This atmosphere of the spirit world, this creating
and combining element, is light-this originally; warmth, if it
do not again exhale, but bear within itself an element of dura-
tion, is but the first manifestation of this light. In the darkness
of mere earthly vision, all things stand divided from each other;
each individual thing isolated by means of the cold and unil-
lumined matter in which it is embraced. But in this darkness
there is no unity. The light of religion arises! -and all things.
burst forth and rush towards each other in reciprocal order and
dependence, and float on together as a united whole in the one
eternal and all-embracing flood of light.
This light is mild, silent, refreshing, and wholesome to the
eye. In the twilight of mere earthly vision the dim shapes
which crowd in confusion around us are feared, and therefore
hated. In the light of religion all things are pleasing, and shed
around them calmness and peace. In it all unlovely shapes dis-
appear, and all things float in the glowing ether of love. Not
that man devotes himself to the high will of fate, which is
unchangeable and unavoidable; in religion there is no fate, but
only wisdom and goodness, to which man is not compelled to
resign himself, but which embrace him with infinite love. In
these contemplations in which we have been engaged, this joyful
and friendly view ought to have spread itself over our own age,
and over the whole earthly life of our race. The more closely
this mild influence has embraced us, the deeper it has penetrated
all our thoughts and aspirations,—in a word, the more we have
attained to peace with the whole world, and joyful sympathy
with every form of existence, the more sure may we be and the
more confidently may we affirm, that our previous contemplations
have belonged not to vacant but to true time.
-
## p. 5687 (#265) ###########################################
5687
EUGENE FIELD
(1850-1895)
UGENE FIELD was born in St. Louis, Missouri, September 2d
or 3d, 1850. He was of New England ancestry, and spent
his early years in Massachusetts. "While he gloried in the
West," wrote one of his biographers, "and remained loyal to the sec-
tion which gave him birth and in which he chose to cast his lot, he
was not less proud of his New England blood, and not the less con-
scious of his New England training. " He studied at Williams and
Knox Colleges, and at the University of Michigan, and after his gradu-
ation in 1871 he traveled in Europe.
Returning to St. Louis he became en-
gaged in journalism, and was connected
with various newspapers in St. Louis, St.
Joseph, Kansas City, and Denver, until he
finally settled in Chicago. Through his
tales and poems he acquired popularity,
and in addition to his labors as a journalist
and poet he became a favorite lecturer. Of
his love of curios his brother says:-
—
EUGENE FIELD
"For years he had been an indefatigable
collector, and he took a boyish pleasure not
only in his souvenirs of long journeys and
distinguished men and women, but in the
queer toys and trinkets of children, which
seemed to give him inspiration for much that was effective in child-
hood verse. To the careless observer the immense array of weird
dolls and absurd toys in his working-room meant little more than an
idiosyncratic passion for the anomalous, but those who were near to
him knew what a connecting link they were between him and little
children, of whom he wrote, and how each trumpet and drum, each
'spinster doll,' each little toy dog, each little tin soldier, played its
part in the poems he sent out into the world. "
He was extremely fond of children, and some of his best poetry
was written on themes that interest childhood. His numerous lulla-
bies have been set to music by several American composers. He
was a devoted student of Horace, from whom he made many trans-
lations. Some of these are included in 'Echoes from a Sabine Farm,'
## p. 5688 (#266) ###########################################
5688
EUGENE FIELD
which he wrote with his brother, Martin Roswell Field, and which
was published soon after his death, which took place in Chicago,
November 4th, 1895. His last books were 'My House' and 'The
Love Affairs of a Bibliomaniac,' a series of essays on literary sub-
jects, interspersed with short poems. His other publications include:
A Little Book of Western Verse'; A Little Book of Profitable
Tales'; 'Love Songs of Childhood'; 'A Second Book of Verse'; and
'The Holy Cross and Other Tales,' the initial story of which has for
its theme the death of the Wandering Jew upon the mountain of the
Holy Cross. A complete edition of Field's works (10 vols. , New
York, 1896) is enriched with critical and personal estimates of the
man and the writer by Joel Chandler Harris, Julian Hawthorne,
E. E. Hale, Francis Wilson, and Edmund Clarence Stedman. Mr.
Stedman says:—
"Of all moderns, then, here or in the old world, Eugene Field seems to be
most like the survival or revival of the ideal jester of knightly times; as if
Yorick himself were incarnated, or as if a superior bearer of the bauble at
the court of Italy, or France, or of the English King Hal, had come to life
again,— as much out of time as Twain's Yankee at the court of King Arthur;
but not out of place, for he fitted himself as aptly to his folk and region as
Puck to the fays and mortals of a wood near Athens.
To come to
the jesters of history, which is so much less real than fiction,- what laurels
are greener than those of Triboulet, and Will Somers, and John Heywood,
dramatist and master of the King's merry interludes ? Their shafts were
feathered with mirth and song but pointed with wisdom; and well might old
John Trussell say: 'It often happens that wise counsel is more sweetly
followed when it is tempered with folly, and earnest is the less offensive if it
be delivered in jest. ' Yes, Field 'caught on to his time,- a complex Ameri-
can, with the obstreperous bizarrerie of the frontier and the artistic delicacy
of our oldest culture always at odds with him; but he was above all a child
of nature, a frolic incarnate, and just as he would have been in any time or
country. Fortune had given him that unforgettable mummer's face, that
clean-cut, mobile visage, that animated natural mask. No one else had so
deep and rich a voice for the reading of the music and pathos of a poet's
lines; and no actor ever managed both face and voice better than he in
delivering his own verses, merry or sad. ”
――――
•
## p. 5689 (#267) ###########################################
EUGENE FIELD
5689
TO THE PASSING SAINT
CHRISTMAS
From 'A Second Book of Verse': copyright 1892, by Julia Sutherland Field.
Reprinted by permission of Charles Scribner's Sons, publishers, New York
S TO-NIGHT you came your way,
Bearing earthward heavenly joy,
Tell me, O dear saint, I pray,
Did you see my little boy?
AⓇ
By some fairer voice beguiled,
Once he wandered from my sight,
He is such a little child,
He should have my love this night.
It has been so many a year,-
Oh, so many a year since then!
Yet he was so very dear;
Surely he will come again.
If upon your way you see
One whose beauty is divine,
Will you send him back to me?
He is lost, and he is mine.
Tell him that his little chair
Nestles where the sunbeams meet;
That the shoes he used to wear
Yearn to kiss his dimpled feet;
Tell him of each pretty toy
That was wont to share his glee;
Maybe that will bring my boy
Back to them, and back to me.
O dear saint, as on you go
Through the glad and sparkling frost,
Bid those bells ring high and low
For a little child that's lost!
O dear saint, that blessest men
With the grace of Christmas joy,
Soothe this heart with love again,-
Give me back my little boy!
## p. 5690 (#268) ###########################################
5690
EUGENE FIELD
DUTCH LULLABY
From A Little Book of Western Verse': copyright 1889, by E. Field.
Reprinted by permission of Charles Scribner's Sons, publishers,
New York
YNKEN, Blynken and Nod one night
Sailed off in a wooden shoe,-
Sailed on a river of misty light
Into a sea of dew. `
are you going, and what do you wish ? »
The old moon asked the three.
"We have come to fish for the herring-fish
That live in this beautiful sea;
Nets of silver and gold have we,"
Said Wynken,
Blynken,
And Nod.
WYN
« Whe
―――――――
The old moon laughed, and sung a song,
As they rocked in the wooden shoe;
And the wind that sped them all night long
Ruffled the waves of dew;
The little stars were the herring-fish
That lived in the beautiful sea.
"Now cast your nets wherever you wish,
But never afraid are we! "
So cried the stars to the fishermen three,
Wynken,
Blynken,
And Nod.
All night long their nets they threw
For the fish in the twinkling foam,
Then down from the sky came the wooden shoe,
Bringing the fishermen home;
'Twas all so pretty a sail, it seemed
As if it could not be;
And some folks thought 'twas a dream they'd dreamed
Of sailing that beautiful sea.
But I shall name you the fishermen three,
Wynken,
Blynken,
And Nod.
## p. 5691 (#269) ###########################################
EUGENE FIELD
5691
Wynken and Blynken are two little eyes,
And Nod is a little head,
And the wooden shoe that sailed the skies
Is a wee one's trundle-bed;
So shut your eyes while mother sings
Of wonderful sights that be,
And you shall see the beautiful things
As you rock on the misty sea,
Where the old shoe rocked the fishermen three,
Wynken,
Blynken,
And Nod.
IPSWICH
From 'A Second Book of Verse': copyright 1892, by Julia Sutherland Field.
Reprinted by permission of Charles Scribner's Sons, publishers, New York
N IPSWICH, nights are cool and fair,
IN
And the voice that comes from the yonder sea
Sings to the quaint old mansions there
Of "the time, the time that used to be";
And the quaint old mansions rock and groan,
And they seem to say in an undertone,
With half a sigh and with half a moan:-
"It was, but it never again will be. "
In Ipswich, witches weave at night
Their magic spells with impish glee;
They shriek and laugh in their demon flight
From the old Main House to the frightened sea.
And ghosts of eld come out to weep
Over the town that is fast asleep;
And they sob and they wail, as on they creep:-
"It was, but it never again will be. "
In Ipswich riseth Heart-Break Hill,
Over against the calling sea;
And through the nights so deep and chill
Watcheth a maiden constantly,-
Watcheth alone, nor seems to hear
Over the roar of the waves anear
The pitiful cry of a far-off year:-
"It was, but it never again will be. "
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EUGENE FIELD
In Ipswich once a witch I knew,—
An artless Saxon witch was she;
By that flaxen hair and those eyes of blue,
Sweet was the spell she cast on me.
Alas! but the years have wrought me ill,
And the heart that is old and battered and chill
Seeketh again on Heart-Break Hill
What was, but never again can be.
Dear Anna, I would not conjure down
The ghost that cometh to solace me;
I love to think of old Ipswich town,
Where somewhat better than friends were we;
For with every thought of the dear old place
Cometh again the tender grace
Of a Saxon witch's pretty face,
As it was, and is, and ever shall be.
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5693
HENRY FIELDING
(1707-1754)
BY LESLIE STEPHEN
AM," says Fielding incidentally, in his most famous novel,
"the founder of a new province of writing. " The claim,
though bold, is certainly not groundless. The English novel,
as we know it, has in the main been developed upon the lines laid
down by Fielding. It is true that Fielding, like every leader of a
new literary dynasty, inherited much from earlier rulers. He looked
back with reverence to Cervantes; and critics have shown that he
was influenced by Le Sage, and more distinctly by Marivaux.
In Eng-
lish literature, Defoe and Richardson in some respects anticipated
him; but with differences which show his originality. 'Robinson
Crusoe' is simply a narrative of facts, though the facts did not hap-
pen to take place. The author expects us to be interested in a
strange series of adventures, and is not consciously aiming at the
portrayal of life and character. Richardson, on the contrary, began
by composing edifying moral epistles, into which a story was intro-
duced by way of connecting thread. To his own mind the didactic
element always represented the ultimate aim; though his readers
become a good deal more interested in Clarissa than in the moral
which she was intended to point.
But Fielding-as he again tells us - means deliberately to describe
"human nature. " Like Shakespeare before him or Scott after him,
he is to set before us impartially the world as it presented itself to
him; to give us living and moving types of the real human beings
whom he had seen acting under the ordinary conditions of contem-
porary society. The novel, thus understood, has grown and flourished
and taken many different forms. We wonder at times what our an-
cestors did to amuse themselves in the days before it was invented.
Contemporary moralists denounced the habit of frivolous reading as
they do now. What was the seduction to which these frivolous read-
ers yielded? They had novels in the old sense of the word, stories
such as had been once told by Boccaccio and had lately been fur-
bished up by Mrs. Behn. Or they might seek for more prolonged
enjoyment in the voluminous romances of the Grand Cyrus' kind,
which, hopelessly unreadable as they appear to us, were still intensely
fascinating to many readers; to Fielding's cousin Lady Mary Wortley
<
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Gravi d'apres Reynolds par CaseADE
HENRY FIELDING
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to
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HENRY FELDING
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5693
HENRY FIELDING
-
(1707-1754)
BY LESLIE STEPHEN
AM," says Fielding incidentally, in his most famous novel,
"the founder of a new province of writing. " The claim,
though bold, is certainly not groundless. The English novel,
as we know it, has in the main been developed upon the lines laid
down by Fielding. It is true that Fielding, like every leader of a
new literary dynasty, inherited much from earlier rulers. He looked
back with reverence to Cervantes; and critics have shown that he
was influenced by Le Sage, and more distinctly by Marivaux. In Eng-
lish literature, Defoe and Richardson in some respects anticipated
him; but with differences which show his originality. 'Robinson
Crusoe' is simply a narrative of facts, though the facts did not hap-
pen to take place. The author expects us to be interested in a
strange series of adventures, and is not consciously aiming at the
portrayal of life and character. Richardson, on the contrary, began
by composing edifying moral epistles, into which a story was intro-
duced by way of connecting thread. To his own mind the didactic
element always represented the ultimate aim; though his readers
become a good deal more interested in Clarissa than in the moral
which she was intended to point.
But Fielding as he again tells us — means deliberately to describe
"human nature. " Like Shakespeare before him or Scott after him,
he is to set before us impartially the world as it presented itself to
him; to give us living and moving types of the real human beings
whom he had seen acting under the ordinary conditions of contem-
porary society. The novel, thus understood, has grown and flourished
and taken many different forms. We wonder at times what our an-
cestors did to amuse themselves in the days before it was invented.
Contemporary moralists denounced the habit of frivolous reading as
they do now. What was the seduction to which these frivolous read-
ers yielded? They had novels in the old sense of the word, stories
such as had been once told by Boccaccio and had lately been fur-
bished up by Mrs. Behn. Or they might seek for more prolonged
enjoyment in the voluminous romances of the Grand Cyrus' kind,
which, hopelessly unreadable as they appear to us, were still intensely
fascinating to many readers; to Fielding's cousin Lady Mary Wortley
(
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HENRY FIELDING
Montagu, for example, and to his contemporary Dr. Johnson. And
then, of course, the drama formed a larger proportion of light read-
ing than at present. But the comedy of the time to which they were
principally confined, brilliant as some of it is, shows but a very
limited aspect of human life. It introduced them to a smart game
of intrigue played by fine ladies and gentlemen, always clearly before
the footlights. The novel, with its flexibility, its freedom from all
external restrictions, enables us to enjoy to the full the pleasure-
obviously one of the greatest of pleasures-of steadily contemplating
ourselves. We do not see the characters by a single flash, as they
appear in some ingenious entanglement of affairs, but watch their
growth and development, their conduct through a whole series of
events, share their friendships and enmities, and are not prevented
from following them by the necessities of scenical representation.
Fielding showed his genius by perceiving the capabilities of the still
crude form of art, and he turned them to account in some directions
with a success scarcely surpassed.
Fielding explains his own theory of the art in some of those run-
ning commentaries in which some critics think-though I do not
that he indulged too freely. He aspired, as he tells us, to set forth
human nature. Naturally it had to be the human nature of his own
day, and of his own day in England; and a brief summary of his life
will show what that implies. Fielding's father was a soldier and
ultimately a general; but though connected with various great people,
he seems to have been always impecunious. Fielding, born April
22d, 1707, at Sharpham near Glastonbury, was sent to Eton, where he
was the contemporary of the elder Pitt, of Lyttelton, and of many
men who afterwards played a conspicuous part in the great game of
politics. Fielding, however, on leaving school had to leave the arena
in which a long purse was then essential. His father had married a
second time, and was burthened with a second family. Though he
made an allowance of £200 a year to Henry, it was an allowance,
said the son, which "anybody might pay who would. " Untroubled
by such considerations, he made love to a rich young lady, and even
put the young lady's guardian in fear of his life. Perhaps this per-
formance accounts for his being packed off to Leyden to study law.
Studying law, however, was not so much to his taste as writing
plays; and his first performance was acted when he was just of
age. Leyden and the law were soon deserted, and Fielding plunged
into the pleasures of a town life in London. He was six feet high,
strong and active, with enormous capacity for enjoyment and not
over-delicate in his tastes. Vigorous appetites and a narrow allow-
ance made some provision of ways and means essential. He had to
choose, said his cousin Lady Mary, between the trades of a hackney
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HENRY FIELDING
5695
coachman and a hackney author. The profession of author was just
coming into distinct existence; and the struggles and hardships of the
career have been commemorated by the best known authors of the
day.
Fielding belonged by birth to the social class which looked down
upon the hack author. Happily for itself, as Chesterfield remarked,
it had a more solid support than was to be found in its brains.
Fielding too had received a classical education, a fact which he is a
little too fond of indicating by allusions in his works. Play-writing
was the most gentlemanlike part of the profession, and therefore the
most attractive to the young man. The comedy presupposed some
familiarity with good society. Congreve, Addison, Steele, and many
others condescended to write plays, though they were also admitted
to the highest circles. Moreover, a successful play was more remu-
nerative than any other form of literary work. Gay had made a
little fortune by The Beggar's Opera. ' Fielding naturally followed
such examples with some gleams of success. It is indeed needless
for any one to read his performances now. He is, generally speak-
ing, in an artificial note, aping Congreve or adapting Molière. In
'Tom Thumb,' indeed,- a jovial burlesque, full of nonsense and high
spirit and broad satire, we see unmistakably the genuine Fielding.
It gave one of the only two pretexts, we are told, upon which Swift
ever indulged in a laugh.
<
The comedies may be kindly consigned to oblivion. There was
much else that Fielding would gladly have forgotten, in the part of
his life which most impressed his biographers. The reckless, jovial
rake, with pockets overflowing one day and empty the next, with a
velvet coat sometimes on his back and sometimes in pawn, some-
times admitted to the drawing-room of Lady Mary and then carous-
ing with boon companions in a tavern, or eclipsed for a period in the
sponging-house,—is the Fielding of this period, and has been taken
as the only Fielding. The scanty anecdotes which remain have
stamped the impression upon later readers. We are presented to
Fielding in the green-room, drinking champagne and chewing tobacco.
A friend has warned him that a passage in his play will offend the
audience. "Damn them! " he had replied, "let them find that out! "
The friend now reports that the audience are hissing. "Damn them! "
he exclaims, "they have found it out, have they? " The hisses, how-
ever, as we happen to know, affected him a good deal. Then we are
told how Fielding emptied his pockets into those of a poorer friend;
and when the tax-gatherer came, said, "Friendship has called for the
money; let the collector call again! " No doubt that was one aspect
of Fielding. To do him justice, it must be noted that a fuller record
would have shown some less equivocal proofs of good feeling.
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HENRY FIELDING
We dimly make out that the chief incident of Fielding's dramatic
career was his share in a quarrel between Cibber, then manager, and
certain actors to whom, as Fielding thought, Cibber had behaved un-
fairly. Cibber, the smart, dapper little Frenchified coxcomb, was just
the type of all the qualities which Fielding most heartily despised;
and they fell foul of each other with great heartiness. On the other
hand, he was equally enthusiastic on behalf of his friends. Chief
among them were Hogarth, whose paintings are the best comment
on Fielding's novel, and Garrick, whom, though of very different tem-
perament, he admired and praised with the most cordial generosity.
«< Harry Fielding," as his familiars call him, was no doubt a wild
youth, but to all appearance a most trustworthy and warm-hearted
friend. Fielding moreover was a devoted lover. The facts about his
marriage are all uncertain: but we know that he courted Charlotte
Cradock of Salisbury; that he was writing poems to her in 1730, and
that he married her (probably) about 1735. If we wish to know what
Miss Cradock was like, we are referred to Sophia in 'Tom Jones';
and still more to Amelia. Amelia was his first wife, it is said,
«< even to that broken nose," which according to Johnson ruined the
success of the story. Both novels were written after her death, and
are indicative of a lasting passion, which, whatever else it may have
been, was worthy of a masculine and tender nature. Miss Cradock's
lover was not free from faults,- faults tangible enough and evidently
the cause of much bitter remorse; but he was at least a lover who
worshiped her with unstinted and manly devotion. The marriage,
which took place when he was about twenty-eight, changed his life.
Vague stories-dates and facts in Fielding's life, all of provoking
flimsiness and inconsistency-indicate that he tried to set up as a
country gentleman on some small property of his wife's; that the
neighboring squires spited the town wit, who, if not very refined, was
at least a writer of books, and therefore justly open to suspicion of
arrogance; but that Fielding himself, which is not surprising, made a
bad farmer; and that before long he was back in London, with his
finances again at the ebb and additional burthens to support. His
first effort was in his old line: he took a small theatre and brought
out a successful political farce. Walpole was at this time still at the
height of power, but a formidable and heterogeneous opposition was
gathering against him. Whigs, Tories, and Jacobites were uniting to
denounce corruption, which was right enough; but imagining, not so
rightly, that the fall of Walpole would imply the end of corruption.
Fielding was a hearty Whig; a believer in the British Constitution,
and a despiser of French frog-eaters, beggarly unbreeched Scots-
men, and Jacobites, and Papists, and all such obnoxious entities. He
joined heartily, however, in the cry against Walpole by his 'Pasquin:
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HENRY FIELDING
5697
A Dramatic Satire on the Times. ' The piece had a great run; and
Fielding, always sanguine, no doubt hoped that at last he was getting
his feet upon solid ground. But Walpole was a dangerous enemy.
He obtained the passage of an Act of Parliament which made it
necessary to obtain a license for plays.
Fielding's occupation was gone. It was quite plain that no license
would be given to farces aimed at the prime minister.
He gave up
the theatre and made another effort. He entered at one of the Inns
of Court and began to study the law. He was still only thirty-two,
and full of abundant energy. He would leave his tavern (perhaps it
would have been better not to have gone to it) to go home and pore
over "abstruse authors" till far into the night. He was called to the
bar in 1740, and duly attended the quarter-sessions. Briefs, however,
did not come. Then, as now, attorneys looked with some suspicion
upon men distracted by literary aims. Fielding, in fact, was obliged
to support himself during his legal studies by working at his old
trade. He tried the usual schemes of a professional author of those
days. He brought out a periodical on the Spectator model, called
the Champion. He wrote a Vindication' of the old Duchess of
Marlborough, for which the duchess paid five guineas,- only, we will
hope, an installment. During the rebellion of 1745, he published a
journal intended to arouse John Bull out of his apparent apathy. He
had already struck out another and more fruitful line. In 1742 he
brought out Joseph Andrews'-to indulge in a great guffaw at
Richardson's sentimental 'Pamela. ' As he developed the story he
fell in love with his characters as Dickens fell in love with Pickwick,
and became more serious in his aims. By this book he made about
£200, and his success encouraged him to publish by subscription in
1743 three volumes of 'Miscellanies. ' In those days a subscription
was a kind of joint-stock patronage, and showed chiefly that the
author had friends among "persons of quality. " Fielding probably
made £400 or £500, which was no doubt a welcome transient help.
The 'Miscellanies' include one of his most remarkable if not pleas-
antest performances, Jonathan Wild the Great. ' 'Joseph Andrews'
had shown his true power, and it is perhaps rather remarkable that
'Tom Jones' did not follow until 1749. Whatever Fielding's anxieties,
it is noticeable that he did his work as thoroughly as if he had been
independent of the pay. Before speaking of his literary perform-
ance, however, I will continue the story of his life.
His wife died at the end of 1743. His grief, it is said, was so
great that his friends feared the loss of his reason. He had how-
ever children to care for, and was too brave a man to relax in his
fight with the fates. He had still some hopes of success at the bar,
and at one moment, probably on some gleam of success, declared
X-357
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HENRY FIELDING
that he would write no more. In 1747 he married Mary Daniel, who
had been an attached servant of his first wife. He did not know, he
said, where to find a better mother for his children or nurse for him-
self; and she seems to have justified his anticipations.
A patron or two had helped him during his struggles. Ralph
Allen, who had made a fortune by farming the posts, was a lover of
literature and a friend of Pope and Warburton. To Fielding, and to
Fielding's children after their father's death, he was a steady ben-
efactor, and Fielding showed his gratitude characteristically by por-
traying his friend as "Allworthy" in Tom Jones. ' Another patron,
by whom Fielding declared himself to have been mainly supported
during the composition of Tom Jones,' was his old schoolfellow
Lyttelton; and it was through Lyttelton that in 1748 Fielding was
appointed justice of the peace for Westminster. The office was a
singular one. In those days, and for at least two generations more,
London, though a large town even upon our present scale, was
merely an aggregation of villages. It had no systematic police.
Dogberry and Verges were still represented by decrepit watchmen
and stupid parish constables. They were ruled by magistrates who
were often of the family of Shallows and Silences. The chaos which
prevailed had at last induced Parliament to provide a paid and pro-
fessional magistrate. But according to the custom of those days,
he was to be paid by fees. The consequences are indicated by the
name of "trading justices" applied to these officials. Impartial and
speedy administration of justice was not the way to get fees. Field-
ing threw himself into his duties with characteristic energy. He
tried to be honest, and thereby reduced "£500 of the dirtiest money
on earth" to £300, most of which went to his clerk. He did his
best to call attention to abuses. He wrote a remarkable pamphlet
proposing a reform of the corrupting poor-laws. Another pamphlet
upon gin-drinking had great influence in producing the first Act which
attempted to discourage intemperance. He took up, perhaps with
more zeal than discretion, some of the strange tragedies which illus-
trated the squalor and misery of the London slums.
The queerest case was that of Betsy Canning, with which all Eng-
land rang for a year or two, and which is still worth reading in the
State Trials. A servant-girl in London had accounted for a month's
absence by inventing a story about having been kidnapped by gip-
sies. A gipsy was actually condemned for this imaginary offense:
but the girl herself was ultimately convicted of perjury and sent to
America to improve the morals of the colonists. Fielding believed
her story, took up her case with more than judicial warmth, and
exposed himself to some sharp criticism. He exerted himself, again,
to put down the highwaymen who flourished in the absence of police,
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HENRY FIELDING
5699
and who were regarded by Englishmen with a certain perverted
pride as exuberant products of British liberty. Fielding, while very
ill, set to work to devise a system for limiting their energies. Prac-
tically, I fear, it meant simply the employment of "trepans" who
betrayed the other members of their gangs. Fielding says however
that for the time he succeeded in putting down robbery, and sacri-
ficed his health in the effort. His constitution had in fact been
breaking down, from gout and an irregular life. His sanguine dispo-
sition led him to believe in one pretense of quackery after another:
in the great Bishop Berkeley's tar-water; in the treatment of the Dr.
Thompson who had already, it was said, killed Pope; and even in
the miraculous virtues of a well at Glastonbury. He was always
being "cured" without improving his health. At last he was sent to
Lisbon as a last hope. He sailed in the summer of 1754, and kept a
journal which remains to testify to his indomitable gallantry, buoyant
spirits, and flow of good-humor to the last. He died at Lisbon on
the 8th of October, 1754, leaving his widow and children to the care
of the kindly Allen and of his half-brother Sir John Fielding, who
had succeeded him as justice of the peace. The trust was worthily
discharged.
Till the age of twenty-eight, we see, Fielding had been a reckless
and impetuous pleasure-hunter. From that time till his death at the
age of forty-seven, he was engaged in a hard struggle to support
himself and his family and in an energetic attempt to do his duty in
a thankless office. The stains of the earlier period have injured his
memory, and it cannot be denied, imply serious moral defects; but
here I must touch the inevitable argument. It is most true that to
judge any man justly you must allow for the moral standard of his
time. Advantage, however, is often taken of this truth to draw ques-
tionable consequences. Whenever it is proved that a man broke one
of the Ten Commandments, it is roundly replied that in his day there
were only nine. Therefore, it is inferred, his want of honesty or de-
cency ceases to be a defect. Both fact and inference are often doubt-
ful. Fielding, for example, makes Tom Jones guilty of taking money
from a woman under circumstances which we all feel to be degrad-
ing. Nobody, it is replied, thought such conduct degrading then. I
utterly disbelieve the fact. A similar story is told of Marlborough,
and perhaps it was true; but it was certainly told by a malicious
libeler, and was meant to injure him. I feel sure that not only
Richardson and Johnson, who were obtrusively moralists, but such
men as Addison or even the easy-going Steele, would have thought
of Tom Jones just what Colonel Newcome thought. Some of our
ancestors were gentlemen, with feelings of delicacy, and should not
be libeled even to save a novelist's reputation. And in any case,
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HENRY FIELDING
5700
such a statement would explain the fact but does not alter it for
us. Coarseness is rightly disgusting, though we may show how men
came to be coarse, and perhaps show too that it did not then imply
all that it would imply in the present day.
Nothing, indeed, is more difficult than to compare the moral stand-
ard of a distant time with that of our own. That vice was common
in England under Anne and the Georges, is undeniable; but I do not
know that it is altogether extinct to-day. I fancy that a modern
police magistrate could still tell us stories which would prove that
the world, the flesh, and the Devil have not yet been renounced by
everybody. M. Zola's world does not seem to be purer than Field-
ing's. Look beneath the surface anywhere and you can find ugly
things enough, especially if you have a taste for the revolting.
It is easier, no doubt, to judge of the surface; and there we may
find an explanation, though not a justification, of Fielding's obtuse-
ness on certain points. He was in the world of fiction what Wal-
pole was in the world of politics. Both of them were men of strong
common-sense, and of great qualities which were strangely mixed
with much that is coarse and repulsive. They were both given to
boisterous conviviality, to vast consumption of "the roast beef of old
England," and to tremendous post-prandial sittings over their bottles,
at which the talk was no more delicate than the fare. They indulged
in cock-fighting, and cudgel-playing, and rough practical joking, till
we fancy that only a pugilist or a rough of to-day could find such an
atmosphere congenial. Such tastes however could be combined with
a real love of art and literature: Walpole, for example, collected a
great picture gallery; and he and his like often studied the classics
like men of the world, if not like scholars. Neither can it be said
that in the days when the British Empire was being built up, there
was a want of public spirit or energy, though some of the accepted
modes of political warfare were base enough. We are liable to mis-
understandings if we argue from the want of refinement to the want
of some high mental and moral qualities; though undoubtedly we
find a strange obtuseness upon some points of the moral code, where
higher views and more delicate sensibilities are required.
come wholly clear what we fought for; besides our just deter-
mination to suffer no outward power to control us in matters of
conscience, we were also impelled by a higher spirit, which never
wholly unveiled itself to our view. To you this spirit is no longer
veiled, if you have vision for the spiritual world; - it now re-
gards you with high clear aspect. The confused and intricate
mixture of sensuous and spiritual impulses shall no longer be
permitted to govern the world. Mind alone, pure from all ad-
mixture of sense, shall assume the guidance of human affairs.
In order that this spirit should have liberty to develop itself, and
rise to independent existence, our blood was shed. It lies with
you to give a meaning and a justification to the sacrifice, by
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JOHANN GOTTLIEB FICHTE
establishing this spirit in its destined supremacy. Should this
result not ensue, as the ultimate end of all the previous develop-
ment of our nation, then were our struggles but a vain and for-
gotten farce, and the freedom of mind and conscience for which
we fought an empty word, since neither mind nor conscience
should any longer have a place among us. '
>>
The races yet unborn plead with you. "Ye were proud
of your forefathers," they cry, "and proudly ranked yourselves
in a noble line of men. See that with you the chain is not
broken. Act so that we also may be proud of you; and through
you, as through a spotless medium, claim our descent from the
same glorious source. Be not you the cause of making us revile
our ancestry as low, barbarous, and slavish; of causing us to
hide our origin or to assume a foreign name and a foreign
parentage, in order that we may not be, without further in-
quiry, cast aside and trodden under foot. According as the next
generation which proceed from you shall be, so shall be your
future fame: honorable, if this shall bear honorable witness to
you; beyond measure ignominious, if ye have not an unblem-
ished posterity to succeed you, and leave it to your conqueror to
write your history. Never has a victor been known to have
either the inclination or the means of passing a just judgment on
the subdued. The more he degrades them, the better does he
justify his own position. Who can know what great deeds, what
excellent institutions, what noble manners of many nations of
antiquity may have passed away into oblivion, because their suc-
ceeding generations have been enslaved, and have left the con-
queror in his own way and without contradiction to tell their
story ? »
Even the stranger in foreign lands pleads with you, in so far
as he understands himself, and knows aright his own interest.
Yes! there are in every nation minds who can never believe that
the great promises to the human race of a kingdom of law, of
reason, of truth, are vain and idle delusions, and who therefore
cherish the conviction that the present iron age is but a step
towards a better state. These, and with them all the after-ages
of humanity, trust in you. Many of them trace their lineage
from us; others have received from us religion and all other
culture. Those plead with us by the common soil of our Father-
land, the cradle of their infancy, which they have left to us
free; these, by the culture which they have accepted from us as
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JOHANN GOTTLIEB FICHTE
5679
the pledge of a higher good,- to maintain for their sakes the
proud position which has hitherto been ours, to guard with jealous
watchfulness against even the possible disappearance from the
great confederation of a newly arisen humanity of that member
which is to them more important than all others; or that when
they shall need our counsel, our example, our co-operation in the
pursuit and attainment of the true end of this earthly life, they
shall not look around for us in vain.
All ages, all the wise and good who have ever breathed the
air of this world of ours, all their thoughts and aspirations
towards a higher good,-mingle with these voices and encompass
you about and raise suppliant hands towards you; Providence
itself, if we may venture so to speak, and the Divine plan in the
creation of a human race,- which indeed exists only that it may
be understood of men, and by men be wrought into reality,-
plead with you to save their honor and their existence. Whether
those who have believed that humanity must ever advance in a
course of ceaseless improvement, and that the great ideas of its
order and worth were not empty dreams but the prophetic an-
nouncement and pledge of their future realization; — whether
those, or they who have slumbered on in the sluggish indolence
of a mere vegetable or animal existence, and mocked every as-
piration towards a higher world, have had the right,- this is the
question upon which it has fallen to your lot to furnish a last
and decisive answer. The ancient world, with all its nobility
and greatness, has fallen-through its own unworthiness and
through the might of your forefathers. If there has been truth
in that which I have spoken to you in these addresses, then
it is you to whom, out of all other modern nations, the germs of
human perfection are especially committed, and on whom the
foremost place in the onward advance towards their develop-
ment is conferred. If you sink to nothing in this your peculiar
office, then with you the hopes of humanity for salvation out of
all its evils are likewise overthrown. Hope not, console not your-
selves with the vain delusion that a second time, after the
destruction of an ancient civilization, a new culture will arise
upon the ruins of the old from a half-barbaric people. In ancient
times such a people existed, fully provided with all the requisites
for their mission; they were well known to the cultivated nation,
and were described in its literature; and that nation itself, had it
been able to suppose the case of its own downfall, might have
--
## p. 5680 (#258) ###########################################
5680
JOHANN GOTTLIEB FICHTE
discovered the means of renovation in this people. To us also
the whole surface of the earth is well known, and all the nations.
who dwell upon it. Do we know one of all the ancestral tribes
of modern Europe, of whom like hopes may be entertained?
I think that every man who does not give himself up to vis-
ionary hopes and fancies, but desires only honest and searching
inquiry, must answer this question, No! There is then no way
of escape: if ye sink, humanity sinks with you, without hope of
future restoration.
CHARACTERISTICS OF THE AGE
From The Characteristics of the Present Age'
IN
N so far as this age admits the possibility of some of the knowl-
edge which lies beyond the confines of the mere science of
the physical world, although it does so in a somewhat incon-
sequential manner, and only because such things are also present
in experience, and on account of such experience are taught in
the schools, it becomes its highest wisdom to doubt of everything,
and in no matter to take a part either on the one side or the
other. In this neutrality, this immovable impartiality, this incor-
ruptible indifference to all truth, it places its most excellent and
perfect wisdom; and the charge of having a system appears to it
as a disgrace by which the reputation of a man is irretrievably
destroyed. Such scientific cobwebs are only devised in order that
young people of the lower classes, who have no opportunity of
seeing the great world, may by amusing themselves with them
develop their capacities for active life. For this purpose every
opinion and every proposition, affirmative as well as negative, are
equally available; and it is a contemptible blunder to mistake jest
for earnest, and to interest oneself for any side of such a con-
troversy as if it were something of importance.
With respect to the influence which it exerts upon Nature
and its employment of her powers and products, such an age
looks everywhere only to the immediately and materially useful,
-to that, namely, which is serviceable for dwelling, clothing,
and food, to cheapness, convenience, and-where it attains its
highest point-to fashion; but that higher dominion over Nature,
whereby the majestic image of man as a race is stamped upon
its opposing forces,-I mean the dominion of ideas, in which the
## p. 5681 (#259) ###########################################
JOHANN GOTTLIEB FICHTE
5681
essential nature of. fine arts consists,- this is wholly unknown to
such an age; and even when the occasional appearance of men
of more spiritual nature may remind it of this higher sov-
ereignty, it only laughs at such aspirations as mere visionary
extravagance; and thus art itself, reduced to its most mechanical
forms, is degraded into a new vehicle of fashion, the instrument
of a capricious luxury, alien to the eternities of the ideal world.
With respect to the legislative constitution of States and the gov-
ernment of nations, such an age either-impelled by its hatred to
the old — constructs political fabrics upon the most airy and unsub-
stantial abstractions, and attempts to govern degenerate men by
means of high-sounding phrases without the aid of firm and
inflexible power; or restrained by its idol experience, it hastens,
on every emergency whether of great or small importance,- being
convinced beforehand of its own utter inability to determine
upon a course of action for itself,- to consult the chronicles of
the past, to read there how others have formerly acted under
similar circumstances; and takes from thence the law of its own
conduct.
MORALITY AND RELIGION
From The Characteristics of the Present Age'
L
ET us consider the highest which man can possess in the
absence of religion; I mean, pure morality. He obeys the
law of duty in his breast, absolutely because it is a law
unto him; and he does whatever reveals itself as his duty, abso-
lutely because it is duty. But does he therein understand him-
self? does he know what this duty, to which at every moment
he consecrates his whole existence, really is in itself, and what
is its ultimate aim? So little does he know this, that he declares
loudly it ought to be so, absolutely because it ought; and makes
this very impossibility of comprehending and understanding the
law, this absolute abstraction from the meaning of the law, and
the consequences of the deed,-a characteristic mark of genuine
obedience. In the first place, let not the impudent assertion be
here repeated, that such an obedience, without regard to conse-
quences and without desire for consequences, is in itself impos-
sible, and opposed to human nature. What does the mere
sensuous egoist, who is himself but a half-man, what does he
know of the power of human nature? That it is possible, can
-
X-356
## p. 5682 (#260) ###########################################
5682
JOHANN GOTTLIEB FICHTE
be known only by its actual accomplishment, in ourselves; and
before its possibility is recognized in this way, and man has
elevated himself in his own person to pure morality, he can have
no entrance whatever into the domain of true religion; for reli-
gion also annexes no visible consequences to individual acts of
duty. So much for the refutation of that portion of error which
arises from the calumnious slander of pure morality.
Again, he who faithfully obeys the law of duty, as such, does
not understand the ultimate aim of this law. It is clear since
he, notwithstanding this ignorance, maintains an unvarying and
unconditional obedience; since, further, the law of duty, although
not understood, speaks forth constantly and invariably within him.
-that this want of comprehension causes no difference in his
actions; but it is another question whether such a want of com-
prehension is consistent with his dignity as a rational being. He
indeed no longer follows the concealed law of the universe, nor
the blind impulses of nature, but a conception; and in doing so
he acts, thus far, a nobler part. But this conception itself is not
clear to him, and with reference to it he himself is blind; his
obedience therefore remains but a blind obedience; and-by a
noble instinct indeed, but still with bandaged eyes-he is led on
to his destiny. But if this position be inconsistent with the
dignity of reason, as it unquestionably is, and if there lie in
reason itself a power, and therefore an impulse, to penetrate to
the meaning of the law of duty, then will this impulse be a
source of constant disturbance and dissatisfaction to him; and if
he still continue to hold by blind obedience, he will have no
other course than to harden himself against this secret desire.
However perfect may be his conduct,- that is, his outward and
apparent existence there is still at the root of his inward being,
discord, obscurity, and bondage, and therefore a want of abso-
lute dignity. Such is the position even of the purely moral man,
when regarded by the light of religion. How displeasing, then,
as seen by this light, must be his condition who has not even
attained to true morality, but as yet only follows the impulses
of nature! He too is guided by the eternal law of the universe;
but to him it neither speaks in his own language, nor honors
him with speech at all, but leads him on with dumb compulsion,
as it does the plant or the animal; employs him like an unreason-
ing thing, without consulting his own will in aught, and in a
region where mere mechanism is the only moving power.
-
――
## p. 5683 (#261) ###########################################
JOHANN GOTTLIEB FICHTE
5683
Religion discloses to man the significance of the one eternal
law, which as the law of duty guides the free and noble and
as the law of nature governs ignoble instruments. The religious
man comprehends this law, and feels it living within himself, as
the law of the eternal development of the one life. How each
individual moment of our earthly life is comprehended in that
eternal development of the one original Divine life, he cannot
indeed understand, because the Infinite has no limit, and there-
fore can never be embraced by him; but that every one of these
moments does absolutely lie contained within this development of
the one life, he can directly perceive and clearly recognize. What
was the law of duty to the moral man, is to him the inward
progression of the one Life, which directly reveals itself as life;
what is the law of nature to others, is to him the development
of the outward, and apparently inanimate, manifestation of that
one Life.
This one clearly recognized life now becomes throughly estab-
lished in the religious man, reposing upon itself, sufficient for
itself, and blessed in itself; dwelling there with unspeakable love;
with inconceivable rapture bathing his whole being in the original
Fountain of all life, and flowing forth with him, and inseparable
from him, in one eternal stream. What the moral man calls duty
and law - what is this to him? The most spiritual bloom of life;
his element, in which alone he can breathe. He wills and can do
nothing else than this; all else is to him misery and death. To
him the commanding "Thou shalt " comes too late; before it can
command, he has already resolved, and cannot resolve otherwise.
As all external law vanishes before morality, so before religion
the internal law also disappears; the lawgiver in our breast is
silent, for will, desire, love, and blessedness have already super-
seded the law. The moral man often finds it difficult to perform
his duty; the sacrifice of his deepest desires and his most cher-
ished feelings is demanded of him. He performs it notwithstand-
ing; it must be done: he subdues his feelings and stifles his
agony. The question: Wherefore is there need of this suffering,
and whence arises this disunion between the desires which have
been implanted in him, and the commands of a law from which
he cannot escape? -this question he dares not permit himself to
entertain; he must offer himself up with mute and blind obedi-
ence, for only under the condition of such obedience is the offer-
ing genuine. For the religious man this question has been once
## p. 5684 (#262) ###########################################
5684
JOHANN GOTTLIEB FICHTE
and forever solved. That which thus strives against our will,
and which cannot be crushed into nothingness, is imperfect life;
which even because it is life struggles for continued existence,
but must cease to be as soon as its place is occupied by a higher
and nobler life. "Those desires which I must sacrifice," thinks
the religious man, "are not my desires, but they are desires
which are directed against me and my higher existence; they are
my foes, which cannot be destroyed too soon. The pain which
they cause is not my pain, but the pain of a nature which has
conspired against me; it is not the agonies of death, but the pangs
of a new birth, which will be glorious beyond all my expecta-
tions. "
ELEVATING POWER OF RELIGION
From The Characteristics of the Present Age'
R
ELIGION elevates him who is devoted to her service above
time as such, above the transient and the perishable, and
puts him in immediate possession of eternity. On the one
original Divine life his eye reposes; there his love is rooted;
whatever meets his view and seems to be beyond this one ori-
ginal life, is not beyond it but within it, and is merely a tem-
porary form of its development according to an absolute law
which likewise lies within itself; he sees all things only in and
through this one original life, and in this life he sees the whole
infinite universe of being. His view is thus always the view of
the eternal, and what he sees, he sees as eternal and in the
eternal: nothing can truly be which is not, even on that very
account, eternal. Every fear of perishing in death, and every
effort to discover an artificial proof of the immortality of the
soul, lies far beneath him. In every moment of his existence he
has immediate possession of the eternal life with all its blessed-
ness; and he needs no argument or inference to prove the truth
of that which he possesses in ever-present feeling and conscious-
ness. There is no more striking proof that the knowledge of the
true religion has hitherto been very rare among men, and that
in particular it is a stranger in the prevailing systems, than this:
that they universally place eternal blessedness beyond the grave,
and never for a moment imagine that whoever will, may here
and at once be blessed.
## p. 5685 (#263) ###########################################
JOHANN GOTTLIEB FICHTE
5685
SPIRITUAL LIGHT AND TRUTH
From The Characteristics of the Present Age›
As the light of religion arisen within us? Then it not only
He dispels the previous darkness, but it has also had a true
and essential existence within us, even while it could not
dispel this darkness; now it spreads itself forth until it embraces
our whole world, and thus becomes the source of new life. In
the beginning of these lectures we have traced everything great
and noble in man to this,- that he lose sight of his own per-
sonal existence in the life of the race; devote his own life to the
purposes of the race; labor, endure, suffer, and if need be die, as
a sacrifice to the race. In this view it was always deeds, always
that which could manifest itself in outward and visible appear-
ance, to which we looked. In this way it was necessary for us
to open our communication with the age. Now, ennobled by our
progress from this point of view, as I foretold, we use this lan-
guage no longer. The one thing truly noble in man, the highest
form of the one idea which reveals itself within him, is religion:
but religion is nothing external, and never clothes itself in any
outward manifestation, but it completes the inward life of man;
it is spiritual light and truth. The true course of action is now
discovered of itself, for truth cannot act otherwise than according
to truth; but this true course of action is no longer a sacrifice,
no longer demands suffering and endurance, but is itself the
manifestation and effluence of the highest inward blessedness.
He who, although with reluctance and in conflict with internal
darkness, yet acts according to truth, let him be admired, and let
his heroism be extolled: he upon whom this inward light has
arisen has outgrown our admiration and our praise; there is no
longer any doubt, hesitation, or obstruction in his being, but all
is the one clear, ever-flowing fountain of truth.
Formerly we expressed ourselves in the following language:-
"As when the breath of spring enlivens the air, the strong and
fixed ice which but a few moments before imprisoned each atom
within its own limits, and shut up each neighboring atom in
similar isolation, now no longer holds nature in its rigid bond-
age, but flows forth in one free, animated, and glowing flood,- so
does the spirit world ever flow at the breath of love, and is and
abides in eternal communion with the mighty whole. "
Let us
______________
## p. 5686 (#264) ###########################################
5686
JOHANN GOTTLIEB FICHTE
now add: "This atmosphere of the spirit world, this creating
and combining element, is light-this originally; warmth, if it
do not again exhale, but bear within itself an element of dura-
tion, is but the first manifestation of this light. In the darkness
of mere earthly vision, all things stand divided from each other;
each individual thing isolated by means of the cold and unil-
lumined matter in which it is embraced. But in this darkness
there is no unity. The light of religion arises! -and all things.
burst forth and rush towards each other in reciprocal order and
dependence, and float on together as a united whole in the one
eternal and all-embracing flood of light.
This light is mild, silent, refreshing, and wholesome to the
eye. In the twilight of mere earthly vision the dim shapes
which crowd in confusion around us are feared, and therefore
hated. In the light of religion all things are pleasing, and shed
around them calmness and peace. In it all unlovely shapes dis-
appear, and all things float in the glowing ether of love. Not
that man devotes himself to the high will of fate, which is
unchangeable and unavoidable; in religion there is no fate, but
only wisdom and goodness, to which man is not compelled to
resign himself, but which embrace him with infinite love. In
these contemplations in which we have been engaged, this joyful
and friendly view ought to have spread itself over our own age,
and over the whole earthly life of our race. The more closely
this mild influence has embraced us, the deeper it has penetrated
all our thoughts and aspirations,—in a word, the more we have
attained to peace with the whole world, and joyful sympathy
with every form of existence, the more sure may we be and the
more confidently may we affirm, that our previous contemplations
have belonged not to vacant but to true time.
-
## p. 5687 (#265) ###########################################
5687
EUGENE FIELD
(1850-1895)
UGENE FIELD was born in St. Louis, Missouri, September 2d
or 3d, 1850. He was of New England ancestry, and spent
his early years in Massachusetts. "While he gloried in the
West," wrote one of his biographers, "and remained loyal to the sec-
tion which gave him birth and in which he chose to cast his lot, he
was not less proud of his New England blood, and not the less con-
scious of his New England training. " He studied at Williams and
Knox Colleges, and at the University of Michigan, and after his gradu-
ation in 1871 he traveled in Europe.
Returning to St. Louis he became en-
gaged in journalism, and was connected
with various newspapers in St. Louis, St.
Joseph, Kansas City, and Denver, until he
finally settled in Chicago. Through his
tales and poems he acquired popularity,
and in addition to his labors as a journalist
and poet he became a favorite lecturer. Of
his love of curios his brother says:-
—
EUGENE FIELD
"For years he had been an indefatigable
collector, and he took a boyish pleasure not
only in his souvenirs of long journeys and
distinguished men and women, but in the
queer toys and trinkets of children, which
seemed to give him inspiration for much that was effective in child-
hood verse. To the careless observer the immense array of weird
dolls and absurd toys in his working-room meant little more than an
idiosyncratic passion for the anomalous, but those who were near to
him knew what a connecting link they were between him and little
children, of whom he wrote, and how each trumpet and drum, each
'spinster doll,' each little toy dog, each little tin soldier, played its
part in the poems he sent out into the world. "
He was extremely fond of children, and some of his best poetry
was written on themes that interest childhood. His numerous lulla-
bies have been set to music by several American composers. He
was a devoted student of Horace, from whom he made many trans-
lations. Some of these are included in 'Echoes from a Sabine Farm,'
## p. 5688 (#266) ###########################################
5688
EUGENE FIELD
which he wrote with his brother, Martin Roswell Field, and which
was published soon after his death, which took place in Chicago,
November 4th, 1895. His last books were 'My House' and 'The
Love Affairs of a Bibliomaniac,' a series of essays on literary sub-
jects, interspersed with short poems. His other publications include:
A Little Book of Western Verse'; A Little Book of Profitable
Tales'; 'Love Songs of Childhood'; 'A Second Book of Verse'; and
'The Holy Cross and Other Tales,' the initial story of which has for
its theme the death of the Wandering Jew upon the mountain of the
Holy Cross. A complete edition of Field's works (10 vols. , New
York, 1896) is enriched with critical and personal estimates of the
man and the writer by Joel Chandler Harris, Julian Hawthorne,
E. E. Hale, Francis Wilson, and Edmund Clarence Stedman. Mr.
Stedman says:—
"Of all moderns, then, here or in the old world, Eugene Field seems to be
most like the survival or revival of the ideal jester of knightly times; as if
Yorick himself were incarnated, or as if a superior bearer of the bauble at
the court of Italy, or France, or of the English King Hal, had come to life
again,— as much out of time as Twain's Yankee at the court of King Arthur;
but not out of place, for he fitted himself as aptly to his folk and region as
Puck to the fays and mortals of a wood near Athens.
To come to
the jesters of history, which is so much less real than fiction,- what laurels
are greener than those of Triboulet, and Will Somers, and John Heywood,
dramatist and master of the King's merry interludes ? Their shafts were
feathered with mirth and song but pointed with wisdom; and well might old
John Trussell say: 'It often happens that wise counsel is more sweetly
followed when it is tempered with folly, and earnest is the less offensive if it
be delivered in jest. ' Yes, Field 'caught on to his time,- a complex Ameri-
can, with the obstreperous bizarrerie of the frontier and the artistic delicacy
of our oldest culture always at odds with him; but he was above all a child
of nature, a frolic incarnate, and just as he would have been in any time or
country. Fortune had given him that unforgettable mummer's face, that
clean-cut, mobile visage, that animated natural mask. No one else had so
deep and rich a voice for the reading of the music and pathos of a poet's
lines; and no actor ever managed both face and voice better than he in
delivering his own verses, merry or sad. ”
――――
•
## p. 5689 (#267) ###########################################
EUGENE FIELD
5689
TO THE PASSING SAINT
CHRISTMAS
From 'A Second Book of Verse': copyright 1892, by Julia Sutherland Field.
Reprinted by permission of Charles Scribner's Sons, publishers, New York
S TO-NIGHT you came your way,
Bearing earthward heavenly joy,
Tell me, O dear saint, I pray,
Did you see my little boy?
AⓇ
By some fairer voice beguiled,
Once he wandered from my sight,
He is such a little child,
He should have my love this night.
It has been so many a year,-
Oh, so many a year since then!
Yet he was so very dear;
Surely he will come again.
If upon your way you see
One whose beauty is divine,
Will you send him back to me?
He is lost, and he is mine.
Tell him that his little chair
Nestles where the sunbeams meet;
That the shoes he used to wear
Yearn to kiss his dimpled feet;
Tell him of each pretty toy
That was wont to share his glee;
Maybe that will bring my boy
Back to them, and back to me.
O dear saint, as on you go
Through the glad and sparkling frost,
Bid those bells ring high and low
For a little child that's lost!
O dear saint, that blessest men
With the grace of Christmas joy,
Soothe this heart with love again,-
Give me back my little boy!
## p. 5690 (#268) ###########################################
5690
EUGENE FIELD
DUTCH LULLABY
From A Little Book of Western Verse': copyright 1889, by E. Field.
Reprinted by permission of Charles Scribner's Sons, publishers,
New York
YNKEN, Blynken and Nod one night
Sailed off in a wooden shoe,-
Sailed on a river of misty light
Into a sea of dew. `
are you going, and what do you wish ? »
The old moon asked the three.
"We have come to fish for the herring-fish
That live in this beautiful sea;
Nets of silver and gold have we,"
Said Wynken,
Blynken,
And Nod.
WYN
« Whe
―――――――
The old moon laughed, and sung a song,
As they rocked in the wooden shoe;
And the wind that sped them all night long
Ruffled the waves of dew;
The little stars were the herring-fish
That lived in the beautiful sea.
"Now cast your nets wherever you wish,
But never afraid are we! "
So cried the stars to the fishermen three,
Wynken,
Blynken,
And Nod.
All night long their nets they threw
For the fish in the twinkling foam,
Then down from the sky came the wooden shoe,
Bringing the fishermen home;
'Twas all so pretty a sail, it seemed
As if it could not be;
And some folks thought 'twas a dream they'd dreamed
Of sailing that beautiful sea.
But I shall name you the fishermen three,
Wynken,
Blynken,
And Nod.
## p. 5691 (#269) ###########################################
EUGENE FIELD
5691
Wynken and Blynken are two little eyes,
And Nod is a little head,
And the wooden shoe that sailed the skies
Is a wee one's trundle-bed;
So shut your eyes while mother sings
Of wonderful sights that be,
And you shall see the beautiful things
As you rock on the misty sea,
Where the old shoe rocked the fishermen three,
Wynken,
Blynken,
And Nod.
IPSWICH
From 'A Second Book of Verse': copyright 1892, by Julia Sutherland Field.
Reprinted by permission of Charles Scribner's Sons, publishers, New York
N IPSWICH, nights are cool and fair,
IN
And the voice that comes from the yonder sea
Sings to the quaint old mansions there
Of "the time, the time that used to be";
And the quaint old mansions rock and groan,
And they seem to say in an undertone,
With half a sigh and with half a moan:-
"It was, but it never again will be. "
In Ipswich, witches weave at night
Their magic spells with impish glee;
They shriek and laugh in their demon flight
From the old Main House to the frightened sea.
And ghosts of eld come out to weep
Over the town that is fast asleep;
And they sob and they wail, as on they creep:-
"It was, but it never again will be. "
In Ipswich riseth Heart-Break Hill,
Over against the calling sea;
And through the nights so deep and chill
Watcheth a maiden constantly,-
Watcheth alone, nor seems to hear
Over the roar of the waves anear
The pitiful cry of a far-off year:-
"It was, but it never again will be. "
-
## p. 5692 (#270) ###########################################
5692
EUGENE FIELD
In Ipswich once a witch I knew,—
An artless Saxon witch was she;
By that flaxen hair and those eyes of blue,
Sweet was the spell she cast on me.
Alas! but the years have wrought me ill,
And the heart that is old and battered and chill
Seeketh again on Heart-Break Hill
What was, but never again can be.
Dear Anna, I would not conjure down
The ghost that cometh to solace me;
I love to think of old Ipswich town,
Where somewhat better than friends were we;
For with every thought of the dear old place
Cometh again the tender grace
Of a Saxon witch's pretty face,
As it was, and is, and ever shall be.
## p. 5692 (#271) ###########################################
## p. 5692 (#272) ###########################################
## p. 5692 (#273) ###########################################
5693
HENRY FIELDING
(1707-1754)
BY LESLIE STEPHEN
AM," says Fielding incidentally, in his most famous novel,
"the founder of a new province of writing. " The claim,
though bold, is certainly not groundless. The English novel,
as we know it, has in the main been developed upon the lines laid
down by Fielding. It is true that Fielding, like every leader of a
new literary dynasty, inherited much from earlier rulers. He looked
back with reverence to Cervantes; and critics have shown that he
was influenced by Le Sage, and more distinctly by Marivaux.
In Eng-
lish literature, Defoe and Richardson in some respects anticipated
him; but with differences which show his originality. 'Robinson
Crusoe' is simply a narrative of facts, though the facts did not hap-
pen to take place. The author expects us to be interested in a
strange series of adventures, and is not consciously aiming at the
portrayal of life and character. Richardson, on the contrary, began
by composing edifying moral epistles, into which a story was intro-
duced by way of connecting thread. To his own mind the didactic
element always represented the ultimate aim; though his readers
become a good deal more interested in Clarissa than in the moral
which she was intended to point.
But Fielding-as he again tells us - means deliberately to describe
"human nature. " Like Shakespeare before him or Scott after him,
he is to set before us impartially the world as it presented itself to
him; to give us living and moving types of the real human beings
whom he had seen acting under the ordinary conditions of contem-
porary society. The novel, thus understood, has grown and flourished
and taken many different forms. We wonder at times what our an-
cestors did to amuse themselves in the days before it was invented.
Contemporary moralists denounced the habit of frivolous reading as
they do now. What was the seduction to which these frivolous read-
ers yielded? They had novels in the old sense of the word, stories
such as had been once told by Boccaccio and had lately been fur-
bished up by Mrs. Behn. Or they might seek for more prolonged
enjoyment in the voluminous romances of the Grand Cyrus' kind,
which, hopelessly unreadable as they appear to us, were still intensely
fascinating to many readers; to Fielding's cousin Lady Mary Wortley
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Gravi d'apres Reynolds par CaseADE
HENRY FIELDING
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HENRY FELDING
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5693
HENRY FIELDING
-
(1707-1754)
BY LESLIE STEPHEN
AM," says Fielding incidentally, in his most famous novel,
"the founder of a new province of writing. " The claim,
though bold, is certainly not groundless. The English novel,
as we know it, has in the main been developed upon the lines laid
down by Fielding. It is true that Fielding, like every leader of a
new literary dynasty, inherited much from earlier rulers. He looked
back with reverence to Cervantes; and critics have shown that he
was influenced by Le Sage, and more distinctly by Marivaux. In Eng-
lish literature, Defoe and Richardson in some respects anticipated
him; but with differences which show his originality. 'Robinson
Crusoe' is simply a narrative of facts, though the facts did not hap-
pen to take place. The author expects us to be interested in a
strange series of adventures, and is not consciously aiming at the
portrayal of life and character. Richardson, on the contrary, began
by composing edifying moral epistles, into which a story was intro-
duced by way of connecting thread. To his own mind the didactic
element always represented the ultimate aim; though his readers
become a good deal more interested in Clarissa than in the moral
which she was intended to point.
But Fielding as he again tells us — means deliberately to describe
"human nature. " Like Shakespeare before him or Scott after him,
he is to set before us impartially the world as it presented itself to
him; to give us living and moving types of the real human beings
whom he had seen acting under the ordinary conditions of contem-
porary society. The novel, thus understood, has grown and flourished
and taken many different forms. We wonder at times what our an-
cestors did to amuse themselves in the days before it was invented.
Contemporary moralists denounced the habit of frivolous reading as
they do now. What was the seduction to which these frivolous read-
ers yielded? They had novels in the old sense of the word, stories
such as had been once told by Boccaccio and had lately been fur-
bished up by Mrs. Behn. Or they might seek for more prolonged
enjoyment in the voluminous romances of the Grand Cyrus' kind,
which, hopelessly unreadable as they appear to us, were still intensely
fascinating to many readers; to Fielding's cousin Lady Mary Wortley
(
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HENRY FIELDING
Montagu, for example, and to his contemporary Dr. Johnson. And
then, of course, the drama formed a larger proportion of light read-
ing than at present. But the comedy of the time to which they were
principally confined, brilliant as some of it is, shows but a very
limited aspect of human life. It introduced them to a smart game
of intrigue played by fine ladies and gentlemen, always clearly before
the footlights. The novel, with its flexibility, its freedom from all
external restrictions, enables us to enjoy to the full the pleasure-
obviously one of the greatest of pleasures-of steadily contemplating
ourselves. We do not see the characters by a single flash, as they
appear in some ingenious entanglement of affairs, but watch their
growth and development, their conduct through a whole series of
events, share their friendships and enmities, and are not prevented
from following them by the necessities of scenical representation.
Fielding showed his genius by perceiving the capabilities of the still
crude form of art, and he turned them to account in some directions
with a success scarcely surpassed.
Fielding explains his own theory of the art in some of those run-
ning commentaries in which some critics think-though I do not
that he indulged too freely. He aspired, as he tells us, to set forth
human nature. Naturally it had to be the human nature of his own
day, and of his own day in England; and a brief summary of his life
will show what that implies. Fielding's father was a soldier and
ultimately a general; but though connected with various great people,
he seems to have been always impecunious. Fielding, born April
22d, 1707, at Sharpham near Glastonbury, was sent to Eton, where he
was the contemporary of the elder Pitt, of Lyttelton, and of many
men who afterwards played a conspicuous part in the great game of
politics. Fielding, however, on leaving school had to leave the arena
in which a long purse was then essential. His father had married a
second time, and was burthened with a second family. Though he
made an allowance of £200 a year to Henry, it was an allowance,
said the son, which "anybody might pay who would. " Untroubled
by such considerations, he made love to a rich young lady, and even
put the young lady's guardian in fear of his life. Perhaps this per-
formance accounts for his being packed off to Leyden to study law.
Studying law, however, was not so much to his taste as writing
plays; and his first performance was acted when he was just of
age. Leyden and the law were soon deserted, and Fielding plunged
into the pleasures of a town life in London. He was six feet high,
strong and active, with enormous capacity for enjoyment and not
over-delicate in his tastes. Vigorous appetites and a narrow allow-
ance made some provision of ways and means essential. He had to
choose, said his cousin Lady Mary, between the trades of a hackney
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HENRY FIELDING
5695
coachman and a hackney author. The profession of author was just
coming into distinct existence; and the struggles and hardships of the
career have been commemorated by the best known authors of the
day.
Fielding belonged by birth to the social class which looked down
upon the hack author. Happily for itself, as Chesterfield remarked,
it had a more solid support than was to be found in its brains.
Fielding too had received a classical education, a fact which he is a
little too fond of indicating by allusions in his works. Play-writing
was the most gentlemanlike part of the profession, and therefore the
most attractive to the young man. The comedy presupposed some
familiarity with good society. Congreve, Addison, Steele, and many
others condescended to write plays, though they were also admitted
to the highest circles. Moreover, a successful play was more remu-
nerative than any other form of literary work. Gay had made a
little fortune by The Beggar's Opera. ' Fielding naturally followed
such examples with some gleams of success. It is indeed needless
for any one to read his performances now. He is, generally speak-
ing, in an artificial note, aping Congreve or adapting Molière. In
'Tom Thumb,' indeed,- a jovial burlesque, full of nonsense and high
spirit and broad satire, we see unmistakably the genuine Fielding.
It gave one of the only two pretexts, we are told, upon which Swift
ever indulged in a laugh.
<
The comedies may be kindly consigned to oblivion. There was
much else that Fielding would gladly have forgotten, in the part of
his life which most impressed his biographers. The reckless, jovial
rake, with pockets overflowing one day and empty the next, with a
velvet coat sometimes on his back and sometimes in pawn, some-
times admitted to the drawing-room of Lady Mary and then carous-
ing with boon companions in a tavern, or eclipsed for a period in the
sponging-house,—is the Fielding of this period, and has been taken
as the only Fielding. The scanty anecdotes which remain have
stamped the impression upon later readers. We are presented to
Fielding in the green-room, drinking champagne and chewing tobacco.
A friend has warned him that a passage in his play will offend the
audience. "Damn them! " he had replied, "let them find that out! "
The friend now reports that the audience are hissing. "Damn them! "
he exclaims, "they have found it out, have they? " The hisses, how-
ever, as we happen to know, affected him a good deal. Then we are
told how Fielding emptied his pockets into those of a poorer friend;
and when the tax-gatherer came, said, "Friendship has called for the
money; let the collector call again! " No doubt that was one aspect
of Fielding. To do him justice, it must be noted that a fuller record
would have shown some less equivocal proofs of good feeling.
## p. 5696 (#280) ###########################################
5696
HENRY FIELDING
We dimly make out that the chief incident of Fielding's dramatic
career was his share in a quarrel between Cibber, then manager, and
certain actors to whom, as Fielding thought, Cibber had behaved un-
fairly. Cibber, the smart, dapper little Frenchified coxcomb, was just
the type of all the qualities which Fielding most heartily despised;
and they fell foul of each other with great heartiness. On the other
hand, he was equally enthusiastic on behalf of his friends. Chief
among them were Hogarth, whose paintings are the best comment
on Fielding's novel, and Garrick, whom, though of very different tem-
perament, he admired and praised with the most cordial generosity.
«< Harry Fielding," as his familiars call him, was no doubt a wild
youth, but to all appearance a most trustworthy and warm-hearted
friend. Fielding moreover was a devoted lover. The facts about his
marriage are all uncertain: but we know that he courted Charlotte
Cradock of Salisbury; that he was writing poems to her in 1730, and
that he married her (probably) about 1735. If we wish to know what
Miss Cradock was like, we are referred to Sophia in 'Tom Jones';
and still more to Amelia. Amelia was his first wife, it is said,
«< even to that broken nose," which according to Johnson ruined the
success of the story. Both novels were written after her death, and
are indicative of a lasting passion, which, whatever else it may have
been, was worthy of a masculine and tender nature. Miss Cradock's
lover was not free from faults,- faults tangible enough and evidently
the cause of much bitter remorse; but he was at least a lover who
worshiped her with unstinted and manly devotion. The marriage,
which took place when he was about twenty-eight, changed his life.
Vague stories-dates and facts in Fielding's life, all of provoking
flimsiness and inconsistency-indicate that he tried to set up as a
country gentleman on some small property of his wife's; that the
neighboring squires spited the town wit, who, if not very refined, was
at least a writer of books, and therefore justly open to suspicion of
arrogance; but that Fielding himself, which is not surprising, made a
bad farmer; and that before long he was back in London, with his
finances again at the ebb and additional burthens to support. His
first effort was in his old line: he took a small theatre and brought
out a successful political farce. Walpole was at this time still at the
height of power, but a formidable and heterogeneous opposition was
gathering against him. Whigs, Tories, and Jacobites were uniting to
denounce corruption, which was right enough; but imagining, not so
rightly, that the fall of Walpole would imply the end of corruption.
Fielding was a hearty Whig; a believer in the British Constitution,
and a despiser of French frog-eaters, beggarly unbreeched Scots-
men, and Jacobites, and Papists, and all such obnoxious entities. He
joined heartily, however, in the cry against Walpole by his 'Pasquin:
## p. 5697 (#281) ###########################################
HENRY FIELDING
5697
A Dramatic Satire on the Times. ' The piece had a great run; and
Fielding, always sanguine, no doubt hoped that at last he was getting
his feet upon solid ground. But Walpole was a dangerous enemy.
He obtained the passage of an Act of Parliament which made it
necessary to obtain a license for plays.
Fielding's occupation was gone. It was quite plain that no license
would be given to farces aimed at the prime minister.
He gave up
the theatre and made another effort. He entered at one of the Inns
of Court and began to study the law. He was still only thirty-two,
and full of abundant energy. He would leave his tavern (perhaps it
would have been better not to have gone to it) to go home and pore
over "abstruse authors" till far into the night. He was called to the
bar in 1740, and duly attended the quarter-sessions. Briefs, however,
did not come. Then, as now, attorneys looked with some suspicion
upon men distracted by literary aims. Fielding, in fact, was obliged
to support himself during his legal studies by working at his old
trade. He tried the usual schemes of a professional author of those
days. He brought out a periodical on the Spectator model, called
the Champion. He wrote a Vindication' of the old Duchess of
Marlborough, for which the duchess paid five guineas,- only, we will
hope, an installment. During the rebellion of 1745, he published a
journal intended to arouse John Bull out of his apparent apathy. He
had already struck out another and more fruitful line. In 1742 he
brought out Joseph Andrews'-to indulge in a great guffaw at
Richardson's sentimental 'Pamela. ' As he developed the story he
fell in love with his characters as Dickens fell in love with Pickwick,
and became more serious in his aims. By this book he made about
£200, and his success encouraged him to publish by subscription in
1743 three volumes of 'Miscellanies. ' In those days a subscription
was a kind of joint-stock patronage, and showed chiefly that the
author had friends among "persons of quality. " Fielding probably
made £400 or £500, which was no doubt a welcome transient help.
The 'Miscellanies' include one of his most remarkable if not pleas-
antest performances, Jonathan Wild the Great. ' 'Joseph Andrews'
had shown his true power, and it is perhaps rather remarkable that
'Tom Jones' did not follow until 1749. Whatever Fielding's anxieties,
it is noticeable that he did his work as thoroughly as if he had been
independent of the pay. Before speaking of his literary perform-
ance, however, I will continue the story of his life.
His wife died at the end of 1743. His grief, it is said, was so
great that his friends feared the loss of his reason. He had how-
ever children to care for, and was too brave a man to relax in his
fight with the fates. He had still some hopes of success at the bar,
and at one moment, probably on some gleam of success, declared
X-357
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5698
HENRY FIELDING
that he would write no more. In 1747 he married Mary Daniel, who
had been an attached servant of his first wife. He did not know, he
said, where to find a better mother for his children or nurse for him-
self; and she seems to have justified his anticipations.
A patron or two had helped him during his struggles. Ralph
Allen, who had made a fortune by farming the posts, was a lover of
literature and a friend of Pope and Warburton. To Fielding, and to
Fielding's children after their father's death, he was a steady ben-
efactor, and Fielding showed his gratitude characteristically by por-
traying his friend as "Allworthy" in Tom Jones. ' Another patron,
by whom Fielding declared himself to have been mainly supported
during the composition of Tom Jones,' was his old schoolfellow
Lyttelton; and it was through Lyttelton that in 1748 Fielding was
appointed justice of the peace for Westminster. The office was a
singular one. In those days, and for at least two generations more,
London, though a large town even upon our present scale, was
merely an aggregation of villages. It had no systematic police.
Dogberry and Verges were still represented by decrepit watchmen
and stupid parish constables. They were ruled by magistrates who
were often of the family of Shallows and Silences. The chaos which
prevailed had at last induced Parliament to provide a paid and pro-
fessional magistrate. But according to the custom of those days,
he was to be paid by fees. The consequences are indicated by the
name of "trading justices" applied to these officials. Impartial and
speedy administration of justice was not the way to get fees. Field-
ing threw himself into his duties with characteristic energy. He
tried to be honest, and thereby reduced "£500 of the dirtiest money
on earth" to £300, most of which went to his clerk. He did his
best to call attention to abuses. He wrote a remarkable pamphlet
proposing a reform of the corrupting poor-laws. Another pamphlet
upon gin-drinking had great influence in producing the first Act which
attempted to discourage intemperance. He took up, perhaps with
more zeal than discretion, some of the strange tragedies which illus-
trated the squalor and misery of the London slums.
The queerest case was that of Betsy Canning, with which all Eng-
land rang for a year or two, and which is still worth reading in the
State Trials. A servant-girl in London had accounted for a month's
absence by inventing a story about having been kidnapped by gip-
sies. A gipsy was actually condemned for this imaginary offense:
but the girl herself was ultimately convicted of perjury and sent to
America to improve the morals of the colonists. Fielding believed
her story, took up her case with more than judicial warmth, and
exposed himself to some sharp criticism. He exerted himself, again,
to put down the highwaymen who flourished in the absence of police,
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HENRY FIELDING
5699
and who were regarded by Englishmen with a certain perverted
pride as exuberant products of British liberty. Fielding, while very
ill, set to work to devise a system for limiting their energies. Prac-
tically, I fear, it meant simply the employment of "trepans" who
betrayed the other members of their gangs. Fielding says however
that for the time he succeeded in putting down robbery, and sacri-
ficed his health in the effort. His constitution had in fact been
breaking down, from gout and an irregular life. His sanguine dispo-
sition led him to believe in one pretense of quackery after another:
in the great Bishop Berkeley's tar-water; in the treatment of the Dr.
Thompson who had already, it was said, killed Pope; and even in
the miraculous virtues of a well at Glastonbury. He was always
being "cured" without improving his health. At last he was sent to
Lisbon as a last hope. He sailed in the summer of 1754, and kept a
journal which remains to testify to his indomitable gallantry, buoyant
spirits, and flow of good-humor to the last. He died at Lisbon on
the 8th of October, 1754, leaving his widow and children to the care
of the kindly Allen and of his half-brother Sir John Fielding, who
had succeeded him as justice of the peace. The trust was worthily
discharged.
Till the age of twenty-eight, we see, Fielding had been a reckless
and impetuous pleasure-hunter. From that time till his death at the
age of forty-seven, he was engaged in a hard struggle to support
himself and his family and in an energetic attempt to do his duty in
a thankless office. The stains of the earlier period have injured his
memory, and it cannot be denied, imply serious moral defects; but
here I must touch the inevitable argument. It is most true that to
judge any man justly you must allow for the moral standard of his
time. Advantage, however, is often taken of this truth to draw ques-
tionable consequences. Whenever it is proved that a man broke one
of the Ten Commandments, it is roundly replied that in his day there
were only nine. Therefore, it is inferred, his want of honesty or de-
cency ceases to be a defect. Both fact and inference are often doubt-
ful. Fielding, for example, makes Tom Jones guilty of taking money
from a woman under circumstances which we all feel to be degrad-
ing. Nobody, it is replied, thought such conduct degrading then. I
utterly disbelieve the fact. A similar story is told of Marlborough,
and perhaps it was true; but it was certainly told by a malicious
libeler, and was meant to injure him. I feel sure that not only
Richardson and Johnson, who were obtrusively moralists, but such
men as Addison or even the easy-going Steele, would have thought
of Tom Jones just what Colonel Newcome thought. Some of our
ancestors were gentlemen, with feelings of delicacy, and should not
be libeled even to save a novelist's reputation. And in any case,
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HENRY FIELDING
5700
such a statement would explain the fact but does not alter it for
us. Coarseness is rightly disgusting, though we may show how men
came to be coarse, and perhaps show too that it did not then imply
all that it would imply in the present day.
Nothing, indeed, is more difficult than to compare the moral stand-
ard of a distant time with that of our own. That vice was common
in England under Anne and the Georges, is undeniable; but I do not
know that it is altogether extinct to-day. I fancy that a modern
police magistrate could still tell us stories which would prove that
the world, the flesh, and the Devil have not yet been renounced by
everybody. M. Zola's world does not seem to be purer than Field-
ing's. Look beneath the surface anywhere and you can find ugly
things enough, especially if you have a taste for the revolting.
It is easier, no doubt, to judge of the surface; and there we may
find an explanation, though not a justification, of Fielding's obtuse-
ness on certain points. He was in the world of fiction what Wal-
pole was in the world of politics. Both of them were men of strong
common-sense, and of great qualities which were strangely mixed
with much that is coarse and repulsive. They were both given to
boisterous conviviality, to vast consumption of "the roast beef of old
England," and to tremendous post-prandial sittings over their bottles,
at which the talk was no more delicate than the fare. They indulged
in cock-fighting, and cudgel-playing, and rough practical joking, till
we fancy that only a pugilist or a rough of to-day could find such an
atmosphere congenial. Such tastes however could be combined with
a real love of art and literature: Walpole, for example, collected a
great picture gallery; and he and his like often studied the classics
like men of the world, if not like scholars. Neither can it be said
that in the days when the British Empire was being built up, there
was a want of public spirit or energy, though some of the accepted
modes of political warfare were base enough. We are liable to mis-
understandings if we argue from the want of refinement to the want
of some high mental and moral qualities; though undoubtedly we
find a strange obtuseness upon some points of the moral code, where
higher views and more delicate sensibilities are required.
