No More Learning

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4585
RENÉ DESCARTES
(1596-1650)
HE broad scope of literature is illustrated by its inclusion of
the writings of René Descartes (Latinized, Renatus Carte-
sius). Deliberately turning away from books, and making
naught alike of learned precedent and literary form, he yet could
not but avail himself unconsciously of the heritage which he had
discarded.
This notable figure in seventeenth-century philosophy was born of
ancient family at La Haye, in Touraine, France, March 31st, 1596;
and died at Stockholm, Sweden, February 11th, 1650. From a pleas-
ant student life of eight years in the Jesuit college at La Flèche, he
went forth in his seventeenth year with unusual acquirements in
mathematics and languages, but in deep dissatisfaction with the long
dominant scholastic philosophy and the whole method prescribed for
arriving at truth. In a strong youthful revolt, his first step was a
decision to discharge his mind of all the prejudices into which his
education had trained his thinking. As a beginning in this work he
went to Paris, for observation of facts and of men. There, having
drifted through a twelvemonth of moderate dissipation, he secluded
himself for nearly two years of mathematical study, as though pur-
posing to reduce his universe to an equation in order to solve it.
The laws of number he could trust, since their lines configured the
eternal harmony.
At the age of twenty-one he entered on a military service of two
years in the army of the Netherlands, and then of about two years
in the Bavarian army. From 1621, for about four years, he was
roaming as an observer of men and nature in Germany, Belgium,
and Italy, afterward sojourning in Paris about three and a half
years. In 1629 he began twenty years of study and authorship in
practical seclusion in Holland. His little work, 'Discours de la Méth-
ode' (Leyden, 1637), is often declared to have been the basis for a
reconstitution of the science of thought. It would now perhaps be
viewed by the majority of critics rather as a necessary clearing of
antiquated rubbish from the ground on which the new construction
was to rise. Next to it among his works are usually ranked 'Medi-
tationes de Prima Philosophia,' and 'Principia Philosophiæ. '
The long sojourn in Holland was ended in September 1649, in
response to an urgent invitation from the studious young Queen


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4586
RENE DESCARTES
Christina of Sweden, who wanted the now famous philosopher as an
ornament to her court. After some hesitancy he sailed for Stock-
holm, where only five months afterward he died.
It has been said of Descartes that he was a spectator rather than
an active worker in affairs. He was no hero, no patriot, no adherent
of any party. He entered armies, but not from love of a cause; the
army was a sphere in which he could closely observe the aspects of
human life. He was never married, and probably had little concern
with love. His attachment to a few friends seems to have been
sincere. For literature as such he cared little. Erudition, scholar-
ship, historic love, literary elegance, were nothing to him. Art and
æsthetics did not appeal to him. Probably he was not a great reader,
even of philosophic writers. He delighted in observing facts with a
view to finding, stating, and systematizing their relations in one all-
comprehending scheme. He never allowed himself to attack the
Church in either its doctrine or its discipline. As a writer, though
making no attempt at elegance in style, he is deemed remarkably
clear and direct when the abstruseness of his usual themes is con-
sidered.
Descartes's method in philosophy gives signs of formation on the
model of a process in mathematics. In all investigations he would
ascertain first what must exist by necessity; thus establishing axioms
evidenced in all experience, because independent of all experience.
The study of mathematics for use in other departments drew him
into investigations whose results made it a new science. He reformed
its clumsy nomenclature, also the algebraic use of letters for quan-
tities; he introduced system into the use of exponents to denote
the powers of a quantity, thus opening the way for the binomial
theorem; he was the first to throw clear light on the negative roots of
equations; his is the theorem by use of which the maximum number
of positive or negative roots of an equation can be ascertained.
Analytical geometry originated with his investigation of the nature
and origin of curves.
His mathematical improvements opened the way for the reform
of physical science and for its immense modern advance. In his
optical investigations he established the law of refraction of light.
His ingenious theory of the vortices-tracing gravity, magnetism,
light, and heat, to the whirling or revolving movements of the mol-
ecules of matter with which the universe is filled-was accepted as
science for about a quarter of a century.
In mental science Descartes's primary instrument for search of
truth was Doubt: everything was to be doubted until it had been
proved. This was provisional skepticism, merely to provide against
foregone conclusions. It was not to preclude belief, but to summon


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RENÉ DESCARTES
4587
and assure belief as distinct from the inane submission to authority,
to prejudice, or to impulse. In this process of doubting everything,
the philosopher comes at last to one fact which he cannot doubt-
the fact that he exists; for if he did not exist he could not be think-
ing his doubt. Cogito, ergo sum is one point of absolute knowledge;
it is a clear and ultimate perception.
The first principle of his philosophy is, that our consciousness is
truthful in its proper sphere, also that our thought is truthful and
trustworthy under these two conditions-when the thought is clear
and vivid, and when it is held to a theme utterly distinct from every
other theme; since it is impossible for us to believe that either man
who thinks, or the universe concerning which he thinks, is organized
on the basis of a lie. There are "necessary truths," and they are
discoverable.
A second principle is, the inevitable ascent of our thought from
the fragmentary to the perfect, from the finite to the infinite. Thus
the thought of the infinite is an "innate idea," a part of man's poten-
tial consciousness. This principle (set forth in one of the selections
given herewith) is the Cartesian form of the a priori argument for
the Divine existence, which like other a priori forms is viewed by
critics not as a proof in pure logic, but as a commanding and lumin-
ous appeal to man's entire moral and intellectual nature.
A third principle is, that the material universe is necessarily re-
duced in our thought ultimately to two forms, extension and local
movement - extension signifying matter, local movement signifying
force. There is no such thing as empty space; there are no ultimate
indivisible atoms; the universe is infinitely full of matter.
A fourth principle is, that the soul and matter are subsistences so
fundamentally and absolutely distinct that they cannot act in recip-
rocal relations. This compelled Descartes to resort to his strained
supposition that all correspondence or synchronism between bodily
movements and mental or spiritual activities is merely reflex or auto-
matic, or else is produced directly by act of Deity. For relief from
this violent hypothesis, Leibnitz modified the Cartesian philosophy by
his famous theory of a pre-established harmony.
Descartes did a great work, but it was not an abiding reconstruc-
tion: indeed, it was not construction so much as it was a dream.
one of the grandest and most suggestive in the history of thought.
Its audacious disparagement of the whole scholastic method startled
Europe, upon the dead air of whose philosophy it came as a refresh-
ing breath of transcendental thought. Its suggestions and inspirations
are traceable as a permanent enrichment, though its vast fabric
swiftly dissolved. The early enthusiasm for it in French literary
circles and among professors in the universities of Holland scarcely


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4588
RENÉ DESCARTES
outlasted a generation. Within a dozen years after the philosopher's
death, the Cartesian philosophy was prohibited by ecclesiastical
authorities and excluded from the schools. In the British Isles and
in Germany the system has been usually considered as an interesting
curiosity in the cabinet of philosophies. Yet the unity of all truth
through relations vital, subtle, firm, and universal, though seen only
in a vision of the night, abides when the night is gone.
With the impressive and noteworthy 'Discours de la Méthode'
(Leyden, 1637), were published three essays supporting it: La Diop-
trique,' 'Les Météores,' 'La Géométrie. ' Of his other works, the most
important are 'Meditationes de Prima Philosophia' (Paris, 1641; Am-
sterdam, 1642), and 'Principia Philosophia' (Amsterdam, 1644). A
useful English translation of his most important writings, with an
introduction, is by John Veitch, LL. D. ,-'The Method, Meditations,
and Selections from the Principles (Edinburgh, 1853; 6th ed. ,
Blackwoods, Edinburgh and London, 1879). See also, English trans-
lations of portions of his philosophical works, by W. Cunningham
(1877), Lowndes (1878), Mahaffy (1880), Martineau (1885), Henry Rogers,
Huxley, and L. Stephen.
For his Life, see Vie de Descartes,' by Baillet (2 vols. 1691);
'Descartes sa Vie,' etc. , by Millet (2 vols. 1867-71); 'Descartes and
his School,' by Kuno Fischer (English translation, 1887).
OF CERTAIN PRINCIPLES OF ELEMENTARY LOGICAL THOUGHT
From the Discourse on Method'
A$
SA multitude of laws often only hampers justice, so that a
State is best governed when, with few laws, these are
rigidly administered; in like manner, instead of the great
number of precepts of which Logic is composed, I believed that
the four following would prove perfectly sufficient for me, pro-
vided I took the firm and unwavering resolution never in a single
instance to fail in observing them.
The first was never to accept anything for true which I did
not clearly know to be such; that is to say, carefully to avoid
precipitancy and prejudice, and to comprise nothing more in my
judgment than what was presented to my mind so clearly and
distinctly as to exclude all ground of doubt.
The second, to divide each of the difficulties under examina-
tion into as many parts as possible, and as might be necessary
for its adequate solution.


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RENÉ DESCARTES
4589
The third, to conduct my thoughts in such order that, by
commencing with objects the simplest and easiest to know, I
might ascend by little and little, and as it were step by step, to
the knowledge of the more complex; assigning in thought a cer-
tain order even to those objects which in their own nature do not
stand in a relation of antecedence and sequence.
And the last, in every case to make enumerations so complete,
and reviews so general, that it might be assured that nothing was
omitted.
The long chains of simple and easy reasonings by means of
which geometers are accustomed to reach the conclusions of their
most difficult demonstrations, had led me to imagine that all
things to the knowledge of which man is competent are mutu-
ally connected in the same way, and that there is nothing so far
removed from us as to be beyond our reach, or so hidden that
we cannot discover it, provided only we abstain from accepting
the false for the true, and always preserve in our thoughts the
order necessary for the deduction of one truth from another.
And I had little difficulty in determining the objects with which
it was necessary to commence, for I was already persuaded that
it must be with the simplest and easiest to know, and, consider.
ing that of all those who have hitherto sought truth in the
Sciences, the mathematicians alone have been able to find any
demonstrations,- that is, any certain and evident reasons, - I did
not doubt but that such must have been the rule of their inves-
tigations. I resolved to commence, therefore, with the examina-
tion of the simplest objects, not anticipating, however, from this
any other advantage than that to be found in accustoming my
mind to the love and nourishment of truth, and to a distaste for
all such reasonings as were unsound. But I had no intention on
that account of attempting to master all the particular sciences
commonly denominated Mathematics: but observing that however
different their objects, they all agree in considering only the vari
ous relations or proportions subsisting among those objects, I
thought it best for my purpose to consider these proportions in
the most general form possible; without referring them to any
objects in particular, except such as would most facilitate the
knowledge of them, and without by any means restricting them
to these, that afterwards I might thus be the better able to
apply them to every other class of objects to which they are
legitimately applicable. Perceiving, further, that in order to


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RENÉ DESCARTES
4590
understand these relations I should sometimes have to consider
them one by one, and sometimes only to bear them in mind,
or embrace them in the aggregate, I thought that in order the
better to consider them individually, I should view them as sub-
sisting between straight lines, than which I could find no objects
more simple, or capable of being more distinctly represented to
my imagination and senses; and on the other hand, that in order
to retain them in the memory, or embrace an aggregate of many,
I should express them by certain characters the briefest possible.
In this way I believed that I could borrow all that was best both
in geometrical analysis and in algebra, and correct all the defects
of the one by help of the other.
AN ELEMENTARY METHOD OF INQUIRY
From the Discourse on Method'
EEING that our
enses sometimes deceive us, I was willing to
suppose that there existed nothing really such as they pre-
sented to us; and because some men err in reasoning and
fall into paralogisms, even on the simplest matters of geometry,
I, convinced that I was as open to error as any other, rejected
as false all the reasonings I had hitherto taken for demonstra-
tions; and finally, when I considered that the very same thoughts
(presentations) which we experience when awake may also be
experienced when we are asleep, while there is at that time not
one of them true, I supposed that all the objects (presentations)
that had ever entered into my mind when awake had in them
no more truth than the illusions of my dreams. But immedi-
ately upon this I observed that whilst I thus wished to think
that all was false, it was absolutely necessary that I, who thus
thought, should be somewhat; and as I observed that this truth,
-"I think, hence I am,". was so certain and of such evidence
that no ground of doubt, however extravagant, could be alleged
by the skeptics capable of shaking it, I concluded that I might
without scruple accept it as the first principle of the philosophy
of which I was in search.
-
In the next place, I attentively examined what I was, and as
I observed that I could suppose that I had no body, and that
that there was no world nor any place in which I might be; but
that I could not therefore suppose that I was not; and that on


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RENÉ DESCARTES
4591
the contrary, from the very circumstance that I thought to doubt
of the truth of other things, it most clearly and certainly fol-
lowed that I was; while on the other hand, if I had only ceased
to think, although all the other objects which I had ever im-
agined had been in reality existent, I would have had no reason
to believe that I existed; I thence concluded that I was a sub-
stance whose whole essence or nature consists only in thinking,
and which, that it may exist, has need of no place, nor is
dependent on any material thing; so that "I"-that is to say,
the mind by which I am what I am-is wholly distinct from
the body, and is even more easily known than the latter, and is
such that although the latter were not, it would still continue to
be all that it is.
After this I inquired in general into what is essential to the
truth and certainty of a proposition; for since I had discovered.
one which I knew to be true, I thought that I must likewise be
able to discover the ground of this certitude. And as I observed
that in the words "I think, hence I am," there is nothing at all
which gives me assurance of their truth beyond this, that I see
very clearly that in order to think it is necessary to exist,—I con-
cluded that I might take, as a general rule, the principle that all
the things which we very clearly and distinctly conceive are true;
only observing however that there is some difficulty in rightly
determining the objects which we distinctly conceive.
In the next place, from reflecting on the circumstance that I
doubted, and that consequently my being was not wholly perfect
(for I clearly saw that it was a greater perfection to know than
to doubt), I was led to inquire whence I had learned to think of
something more perfect than myself; and I clearly recognized
that I must hold this notion from some Nature which in reality
was more perfect. As for the thoughts of many other objects
external to me, as of the sky, the earth, light, heat, and a thou-
sand more, I was less at a loss to know whence these came; for
since I remarked in them nothing which seemed to render them
superior to myself, I could believe that if these were true, they
were dependences on my own nature in so far as it possessed a
certain perfection; and if they were false, that I held them from
nothing,— that is to say, that they were in me because of a cer-
tain imperfection of my nature. But this could not be the case
with the idea of a Nature more perfect than myself: for to re-
ceive it from nothing was a thing manifestly impossible; and


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RENÉ DESCARTES
4592
because it is not less repugnant that the more perfect should be
an effect of and dependence on the less perfect, than that some-
thing should proceed from nothing, it was equally impossible
that I could hold it from myself: accordingly it but remained
that it had been placed in me by a Nature which was in reality
more perfect than mine, and which even possessed within itself
all the perfections of which I could form any idea,- that is to
say, in a single word, which was God.
the
I was disposed straightway to search for other truths; and
when I had represented to myself the object of the geometers,
which I conceived to be a continuous body, or a space indefi-
nitely extended in length, breadth, and height or depth, divisible
into divers parts which admit of different figures and sizes, and
of being moved or transposed in all manner of ways (for all this
the geometers suppose to be in the object they contemplate), I
went over some of their simplest demonstrations. And in
first place, I observed that the great certitude which by common
consent is accorded to these demonstrations is founded solely
upon this, that they are clearly conceived in accordance with the
rules I have already laid down. In the next place, I perceived
that there was nothing at all in these demonstrations which could
assure me of the existence of their object: thus, for example,
supposing a triangle to be given, I distinctly perceived that
three angles were necessarily equal to two right angles, but I did
not on that account perceive anything which could assure
that any triangle existed; while on the contrary, recurring to the
examination of the idea of a Perfect Being, I found that the
existence of the Being was comprised in the idea in the same
way that the equality of its three angles to two right angles is
comprised in the idea of a triangle, or as in the idea of a sphere,
the equidistance of all points on its surface from the centre,
even still more clearly; and that consequently it is at least
certain that God, who is this Perfect Being, is, or exists, as
demonstration of geometry can be.
its
Ine
or
as
any


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4593
――――
THE IDEA OF GOD
From the Meditations >
THER
HERE only remains, therefore, the idea of God, in which I
must consider whether there is anything that cannot be
supposed to originate with myself. By the name God I
understand a substance infinite, eternal, immutable, independent,
all-knowing, all-powerful, and by which I myself, and every other
thing that exists, if any such there be,-were created. But
these properties are so great and excellent, that the more atten-
tively I consider them, the less I feel persuaded that the idea I
have of them owes its origin to myself alone. And thus it is
absolutely necessary to conclude, from all that I have before
said, that God exists; for though the idea of substance be in my
mind owing to this,- that I myself am a substance,-I should
not however have the idea of an infinite substance, seeing I am
a finite being, unless it were given me by some substance in
reality infinite.
And I must not imagine that I do not apprehend the infinite
by a true idea, but only by the negation of the finite, in the
same way that I comprehend repose and darkness by the nega-
tion of motion and light: since, on the contrary, I clearly perceive
that there is more reality in the infinite substance than in the
finite, and therefore that in some way I possess the perception
(notion) of the infinite before that of the finite, that is, the per-
ception of God before that of myself; for how could I know that
I doubt, desire, or that something is wanting to me, and that I
am not wholly perfect, if I possessed no idea of a being more
perfect than myself, by comparison with which I knew the
deficiencies of my nature?
And it cannot be said that this idea of God is perhaps ma-
terially false, and consequently that it may have arisen from
nothing (in other words, that it may exist in me from my im-
perfection), as I before said of the ideas of heat and cold, and
the like; for on the contrary, as this idea is very clear and dis-
tinct, and contains in itself more objective reality than any other,
there can be no one of itself more true, or less open to the
suspicion of falsity.
The idea, I say, of a being supremely perfect and infinite, is
in the highest degree true; for although perhaps we may imagine
VIII-288


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RENÉ DESCARTES
4594
that such a being does not exist, we nevertheless cannot suppose
that this idea represents nothing real, as I have already said
of the idea of cold. It is likewise clear and distinct in the high-
est degree, since whatever the mind clearly and distinctly con-
ceives as real or true, and as implying any perfection, is
contained entire in this idea. And this is true, nevertheless,
although I do not comprehend the infinite, and although there
may be in God an infinity of things that I cannot comprehend,
nor perhaps even compass by thought in any way; for it is of
the nature of the infinite that it should not be comprehended by
the finite and it is enough that I rightly understand this, and
judge that all which I clearly perceive, and in which I know
there is some perfection, and perhaps also an infinity of proper-
ties of which I am ignorant, are formally or eminently in God,
in order that the idea I have of him may become the most true,
clear, and distinct of all the ideas in my mind.
But perhaps I am something more than I suppose myself to
be; and it may be that all those perfections which I attribute to
God in some way exist potentially in me, although they do not
yet show themselves and are not reduced to act. Indeed, I am
already conscious that my knowledge is being increased and per-
fected by degrees; and I see nothing to prevent it from thus
gradually increasing to infinity, nor any reason why, after such
increase and perfection, I should not be able thereby to acquire
all the other perfections of the Divine nature; nor in fine, why
the power I possess of acquiring those perfections, if it really
now exist in me, should not be sufficient to produce the ideas of
them. Yet on looking more closely into the matter I discover
that this cannot be; for in the first place, although it were true
that my knowledge daily acquired new degrees of perfection, and
although there were potentially in my nature much that was not
as yet actually in it, still all these excellences make not the
slightest approach to the idea I have of the Deity, in whom
there is no perfection merely potentially, but all actually exist-
ent; for it is even an unmistakable token of imperfection in my
knowledge, that it is augmented by degrees. Further, although
my knowledge increase more and more, nevertheless I am not
therefore induced to think that it will ever be actually infinite,
since it can never reach that point beyond which it shall be
incapable of further increase. But I conceive God as actually
infinite, so that nothing can be added to his perfection.
And in


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RENÉ DESCARTES
4595
fine, I readily perceive that the objective being of an idea cannot
be produced by a being that is merely potentially existent,-
which properly speaking is nothing, but only a being existing
formally or actually.
And truly, I see nothing in all that I have now said which it
is not easy for any one who shall carefully consider it, to dis-
cern by the natural light; but when I allow my attention in
some degree to relax, the vision of my mind being obscured and
as it were blinded by the images of sensible objects, I do not
readily remember the reason why the idea of a being more per-
fect than myself must of necessity have proceeded from a being
in reality more perfect. On this account I am here desirous to
inquire further whether I, who possess this idea of God, could
exist supposing there were no God. And I ask, from whom
could I in that case derive my existence? Perhaps from myself,
or from my parents, or from some other causes less perfect than
God; for anything more perfect, or even equal to God, cannot be
thought or imagined. But if I were independent of every other
existence, and were myself the author of my being, I should
doubt of nothing, I should desire nothing, and in fine, no per-
fection would be wanting to me; for I should have bestowed
upon myself every perfection of which I possess the idea, and I
should thus be God. And it must not be imagined that what is
now wanting to me is perhaps of more difficult acquisition than
that of which I am already possessed; for on the contrary, it is
quite manifest that it was a matter of much higher difficulty
that I, a thinking being, should arise from nothing, than it
would be for me to acquire the knowledge of many things of
which I am ignorant, and which are merely the accidents of a
thinking substance; and certainly, if I possessed of myself the
greater perfection of which I have now spoken,-in other words,
if I were the author of my own existence,-I would not at least
have denied to myself things that may be more easily obtained,
as that infinite variety of knowledge of which I am at present
destitute. I could not indeed have denied to myself any prop-
erty which I perceive is contained in the idea of God, because
there is none of these that seems to be more difficult to make
or acquire; and if there were any that should happen to be
more difficult to acquire, they would certainly appear so to me
(supposing that I myself were the source of the other things I
possess), because I should discover in them a limit to my power.


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4596
PAUL DESJARDINS
BY GRACE KING
HAT a man stands for, in the life and literature of his day, is
easily enough estimated when his name passes current in
his language for a hitherto undesignated shade of meaning.
One of the most acute and sensitive of contemporary French critics,
M. Jules Lemaître, in an article on an evolutionary phase in modern
literature, expresses its significant characteristic to be - "L'idéal de
vie intérieure, la morale absolue, si je puis m'exprimer ainsi, le
Desjardinisme" (The ideal of spiritual life, absolute morality,- if
I may so express myself, Desjardinism). The term, quickly appro-
priated by another French critic, and one of the remarkable women
of letters of her day,- the late Baronne Blaze de Bury,—is literally
interpreted as "summing up whatever is highest and purest and
of most rare attainment in the idealism of the present hour. " And
she further, with the intuition of her sex, feeling a pertinent ques-
tion before it is put, singles out the vital germ of difference which
distinguishes this young writer as typical of the idealism of the
hour, and makes him its name-giver:-"What is in other men the
indirect and hidden source of their public acts, is in Paul Desjardins
the direct source of life itself - the life to be lived; and also of the
mode in which that life is to be conceived and to be made apparent
to the world. " Of the life, "sincerity is its prime virtue. Each
leader proves his faith by his individual conduct, as by his judgments
on events and men. The pure passion of abstract thought fires each
to do the best that is his to do. His life is to be the word-for-word
translation of his own spirit. "
The death-bed repentance of a century, born skeptical, re ared
decadent, and professing practical materialism; the conversion of a
literature from the pure passion of the senses to the pure passion
of abstract thought; the assumption of an apostolic mission by jour-
nalists, novelists, playwrights, college professors, and scientific mas-
ters, will doubtless furnish the century to come with one of its
most curious and interesting fields of study. It is an episode in evo-
lution which may indeed be termed dramatic, this fifth act of the
nineteenth-century epic of France, or it might be called, of Paris;
the story of its pilgrimage from revolution to evolution. M. Melchior
de Voguë, himself one of the apostles of the new life, or of the new
-


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PAUL DESJARDINS
4597
work in the old life, of France, describes the preparation of the
national soil for the growth of Desjardinism. He says:-
"The French children who were born just before 1870 grew up in an
atmosphere of patriotic mourning and amidst the discouragement of defeat.
National life, such as it became reconstituted after that terrible shock, re-
vealed to them on all sides nothing but abortive hopes, paltry struggles of
interest, and a society without any other hierarchy but that of money, and
without other principle or ideal than the pursuit of material enjoyment.
Literature
reflected these same tendencies; it was dejected or vile,
and distressed the heart by its artistic dryness or disgusted it by its trivial
realism. Science itself .
began to appear to many what it is in reality,
namely, a means, not an end; its prestige declined and its infallibility was
questioned.
Above all, it was clear from too evident social symptoms
that if science can satisfy some very distinguished minds, it can do nothing
to moralize and discipline societies.
«For a hundred years after the destruction of the religious and political
dogmas of the past, France had lived as best she could on some few fragile
dogmas, which had in their turn been consecrated by a naïve superstition;
these dogmas were the principles of 1789 — the almightiness of reason, the
efficacy of absolute liberty, the sovereignty of the people—in a word, the
whole credo of the revolution.
In order to shake that faith [in these
principles] . . it was necessary that human reason, proclaimed infalli-
ble, should turn its arms against itself. And that is what happened. Scien-
tific criticism, after having ruined old dogmatism,
made as short
work of the revolutionary legend as of the monarchical one, and showed itself
as pitiless for the rights of man as it had been for the rights of God. All
these causes combined, sufficiently explain the nihilism and pessimism which
invaded the souls of the young during the past ten years.
Clear-
sighted boys analyzed life with a vigor and a precision unknown to their pred-
ecessors; having analyzed it, they found it bad; they turned away from life
with fear and horror. There was heard from the peaks of intelligence a great
cry of discouragement: 'Beware, of deceitful nature; fear life, emancipate
yourselves from life! ' This cry was first uttered by the masters of con-
temporary thought,-. Schopenhauer, a Taine, a Tolstoy; below them, thou-
sands of humbler voices repeat it in chorus. According to each one's turn of
mind, the new philosophy assumed shades different in appearance — Buddhist
nirvana, atheistic nihilism, mystic asceticism; but all these theories proceeded
from the same sentiment, and all these doctrines may be reduced to the
same formula:-'Let us depreciate life, let us escape from its snares. »»
·
·
Paul Desjardins, by name and family, belongs to the old bourgeoisie
of France, that reserve force of Gallic virtue to which the French
people always look for help in political and moral crises. Like most
of the young men of distinction in the French world of letters, he
combines professional and literary work; he is professor of rhetoric
at the College of St. Stanislas in Paris, and a member of the brilliant
editorial staff of the Journal des Débats. Paris offered to his grasp


## p. 4598 (#388) ###########################################

4598
PAUL DESJARDINS
(
her same old choice of subjects, to his eye the same aspects of life.
which form her one freehold for all artists, and he had but the
instrument of his guild-his pen; the series of his collected contri-
butions to journals and magazines bear a no more distinctive title
than the hackneyed one of 'Notes Contemporaines,' but the sub-titles
betray at once the trend of originality: 'Great Souls and Little
Lives,' The Obscure Ones,' 'Companions of the New Life'; and in
the treatment of these subjects, and especially in his sketches of
character and critical essays upon the literature of his day, Desjar-
dins's originality resolves itself more and more clearly into spiritual-
ity of thought, expressed in an incorruptible simplicity of style. To
quote from Madame de Bury again:— "One of the chief character-
istics of Paul Desjardins's utterances is their total disinterestedness,
their absolute detachment from self. Nowhere else have you the
same indescribable purity, the same boundless generosity of joy in
others' good, the same pervading altruism. "
These writings were the expression of a mind on a journey, a
quest,—not of any one definite mind, for so completely has the per-
sonality of the author been subdued to his mission, that his mind
seems typical of the general mind of young France in quest of spir-
ituality, his individuality a common one to all participants in the new
movement, as it is called.
In 1892 the boldest effort of Desjardins's, -a small pamphlet, The
Present Duty,'-appeared. It created a sensation in the thinking
world of Paris. It marked a definite stage accomplished in the new
movement, and an arrival at one stopping-place at least. While the
critics were still diagnosing over the pamphlet as a theory, a small
band of men, avowing the same convictions as Desjardins, proceeded
to test it as a practical truth. They enrolled themselves into a
"Union for Moral Action," which had for its object to associate
together, without regard to religious or political beliefs, all serious-
minded men who cared to work for the formation of a healthy public
opinion, for a moral awakening, and for the education and strength-
ening of the modern decadent or enervated will power. In general,
it is common interests, doctrines, needs, that bring men together in
associations. The Union for Moral Action sought, on the contrary,
to associate men of diverse interests and opinions. adversaries even,
into collaboration for the common morality. In response to the
interpellations, questions, and doubts evoked by The Present Duty,'
Desjardins published in the Débats a series of articles on 'The Con-
version of the Church. ' They contributed still more to differentiate
him from the other leaders of the new movement; in fact, few caring
to share the responsibility of such radical utterances, he has been
left in literary isolation in his advanced position: a position which,
-


## p. 4599 (#389) ###########################################

PAUL DESJARDINS
4599
although it can but command the admiration and respect of the press
and the educational and religious contingent of Paris, none the less
attracts sarcasm and irony in the world's centre of wit, sensual
tolerance, and moral skepticism. As the reproach of his literary con-
frères expresses it, the author has given way before the apostle.
The "life to be lived" commanded the sacrifice.
Desjardins makes
now but rare appearances in his old journalistic places, and in litera-
ture he has determinately severed connections through which fame
and fortune might confidently be expected. He now gives his writ-
ings anonymously to the small weekly publication, the official organ
of the Union for Moral Action, depending for his living upon his pro-
fessorial position in the Collège St. Stanislas.
'Une Critique,' one of Desjardins's earliest essays, strikes the note
of his life and writings at a time when he himself was unconscious
of its portentous meaning to his world and his literature:-
―
"Whatever deserves to be, deserves the best attention of our intellect.
Everything calls for interest, only it must be an interest divested of self-
interest, and sincere. But above all we must labor-labor hard-to under-
stand, respect, and tenderly love in others whatever contains one single grain
of simple intrinsic Goodness. Believe me, this is everywhere, and it is every-
where to be found, if you will only look for it. .
"The supremacy of the truly Good! -here lies the root of the whole
teaching - the whole new way of looking at things and judging men.
"New views of the universality of our world, of poetry, of religion, of
kindness (human kindness), of virtue, of worth!
Think it over; these
are the objects on which our new generation is fixing its thoughts, and try-
ing to awaken yours. This it is which is so new! »
•
Translation of Madame Blaze de Bury.
Uran King


## p. 4600 (#390) ###########################################

4600
PAUL DESJARDINS
THE PRESENT DUTY
THE
HERE are many of us who at times have forgotten our per-
sonal troubles, however great they were, by picturing to
ourselves the moral distress of souls around us, and by
meditating on the possible remedy for this universal ill. Some
remain serene before this spectacle; they resign themselves to
fatal evil and inextricable doubt; they look with cold blood on
that which is. Others, like the one who speaks here, are more
affirmative because they are more impassioned, more wounded,
knowing neither how to forget nor how to be patient, nor yet
how to despair peaceably; they are less troubled by that which
is, than by that which ought to be; they have even turned
towards that which ought to be, as towards the salvation for
which their whole heart is calling. It is their weakness not to
know how to interest themselves for any length of time in what
does not in some way assume the aspect of a duty that concerns
them. They do not contest, in fact, that it is a weakness not to
be able to look with a disinterested eye on disease, corporal or
spiritual; a weakness to feel the necessity of having something to
do at the bedside of the dying, even if that something be in
vain, to employ the anguish of one's heart in preparing,
even up to the supreme moment, remedies in the shadow of the
chamber.
—
We are in a state of war. It would be almost cowardly to
be silent about our intimate beliefs, for they are contradicted and
attacked. We must not content ourselves with a pacification or
truce which will permit us with facile weakness to open all the
pores of our intelligence to ideas contrary to our conviction. It
is necessary on the contrary to gird ourselves, to intrench our-
selves. There is to-day, between us and many of our contem-
poraries, an irreconcilable disagreement that must be faced, a
great combat in which parts must be taken. As far as I can see
this is what it is. In a word, are subjection to animal instinct,
egoism, falsehood, absolutely evil, or are they merely “inele-
gances"? —that is to say, things deprecated just at present, but
which, well ornamented and perfumed with grace, might not
again attract us, satisfy us, furnish us a type of life equivalent
after all to the life of the sages and saints; for nothing shows us
with certainty that the latter is any better than the former.


## p. 4601 (#391) ###########################################

PAUL DESJARDINS
4601
Are justice and love a sure good, a sure law, and the harbor of
safety? Or are they possible illusions, probable vanities? Have
we a destiny, an ideal, or are we agitating ourselves without
cause and without purpose for the amusement of some malicious
demiurge, or simply for the absurd caprice of great Pan? This
is the question that divides consciences. A great subject of dis-
pute; surely greater than that of the divinity of Jesus Christ, for
example, than that even of the existence of a personal God, or
of any other purely speculative question you please; and above
all, one more urgent: for there are counter-blows in it, which
frighten me in my every-day existence,-me, a man kept to the
business of living from the hour I awake to the light until the
hour I go to sleep; and according to the answer I may give
myself on this point, is the spirit in which I dig in my little
garden.
Personally I have taken sides, after reflection; after experi-
ence also, I do profess with conviction that humanity has a des-
tiny and that we live for something. What is to be understood
exactly by this word humanity? In short, I know not, only that
this, of which I know nothing, does not exist yet, but it is on
the road to existence, on the road to make itself known; and
that it concerns me who am here. What must be understood
by this word destiny? I do not know much more; I have only,
so far, dreams about it, dreams born of some profound but
incommunicable love, which an equal love only could under-
stand; my conscience is not pure enough to conceive a stronger
conviction; I only affirm that this destiny of humanity, if it were
known, would be such that all men, ignorant or simple, could
participate in it. It is already something to know that, in short,
I see at least by lightning-flashes, from which side the future.
will shine; and I walk towards it, and live thus, climbing up
in a steep dark forest towards a point where a light is divined,
a light that cannot deceive me, but which the obtruding branches
of a complicated and apparent life hide from me. That which
will bring me nearer it is not arguing about the probable nature
of the light, but walking; I mean, fortifying in myself and
others a will for the Good.
We have on one side undecided and lukewarm allies, on the
other adversaries; and we are forced necessarily to combat. This
necessity will become clearer each day;
it is the "antag-
onism of negatives and positives—of those who tend to destroy


## p. 4602 (#392) ###########################################

4602
PAUL DESJARDINS
and those who tend to reconstruct. "
There is no ques-
tion here, be it understood, of knowing whether we are deceiving
ourselves in choosing such or such a particular duty; that I
would concede without trouble, having always estimated that our
moral judgments, like our acts, have need of ceaseless revision
and amelioration, according to an endless progression. There is
a question of much more; of knowing in an absolute manner
whether there be a duty for us or not.
Good is in fact
that which ought to be. Like Christ, who according to St. Paul
is not a Yes and a No, but a Yes, duty is a Yes; to slip into it
the shadow of a possibility of a No is to destroy it. .
The men of to-day are thus negatives or positives, as they
range themselves under one opinion or the other.
And they
must range themselves under one of the two. They cannot
escape. The question which divides us, to know whether we
live in vain, imposes itself upon every one who opens his lips or
moves his finger, upon every conscious being who breathes.
That So-and-so never speaks of it, never thinks of it, may be;
but their lives answer for them and testify loudly enough. I
confess that at first sight the negatives seem for the moment
the more numerous. They include many groups, which I shall
not enumerate here. I range with them the charming uncertain
ones, like M. Renan and his melodious disciples, the sombre and
nihilistic Buddhists; all those to whom the law of the completion
of man through the good is indeed foolish and chimerical, since
their lives imply the negation of it: I mean to say the immense
multitude of those who live in any kind of way, good easy
people, refined possibly, from caprice, coquetry or laziness, but in
complete moral anæsthesia.
Now we come to the positives. They include first of all, true
Christians, and all true Jews, attached to the profound spirit of
their religion; then the philosophers and poets who affirm or
sing the moral ideal, the new disciples of Plato, the Stoics, the
Kantians, famous or unknown, to whom life alone, outside of all
speculation, is a solid affirmation of the possibility and sufficiency
of the good. That the actions of these men and women, on the way
to creating themselves free beings, human beings, have the same
value as doctrine, cannot be denied. They labor and suffer here
and there, each one in his own cell; each one making his own
goodness consist in the realization of what he believes to be the
absolute good; making themselves faithful servants of something;


## p. 4603 (#393) ###########################################

PAUL DESJARDINS
4603
existing outside of themselves; the city, religion, charity, justice,
truth even, or beauty, conceived as modes of adoration.
All these compose, it seems to me, one and the same Church,
having the philosophers and poets of duty for doctors of divinity,
the heroes of duty for congregation. These may be called by
the general name of "Positives. "
Let our eyes be opened: everything that surrounds us is
vitiated; many of the children playing on the promenades are
sickly, their little faces are often enough marked with livid
blotches, their bones are often enough twisted, sad symptoms of
the degradation of parents. At every street corner are distrib-
uted libertine productions by traders in the depravity of the
weak. If any one wishes to recognize the furnace of vice
burning within us, let him observe merely the looks cast upon
an honest woman as she passes, by respectable men, old men.
What savage expressions intercepted under the feverish light of
the electric lamps! What tension, what spasms of covetousness!
What hallucinations of pleasure and of gold! Tragic matter
here, but low tragedies à la Balzac, not those acted under an
open sky by heroes. A few pistol-shots from time to time, a few
poisonings, some drownings: that is all that transpires of the
interior evil. The rest passes away in suppressed tears, brooding
hatreds, in accepted shame. In such confusion the consciences
of the best, of the most disinterested ones, lose the cleanness of
their stamp.
"You are smiling there at an obscenity," said I to
a friend; he protested; then reflecting, agreed with me, quite
astonished that he had not perceived it. Honest men are trou-
bled by all this circumjacent corruption. And rightly so, for at
the bottom they are parts of it; they are distinguished from it
only by more cleanliness, education, elegance, but not by prin-
ciple.
In fact, from top to bottom, all this society lives on sensation;
that is the common trait through it all, and it is graded accord-
ing to the quality of its sensations. . . Fundamentally there
is only sensation, with here and there unequally subtle nerves.
There are no terms less reconcilable one to another than research
of sensation and moral obligation. There is nothing more op-
posed. Therefore he who expects all from his sensations depends
absolutely on externals, upon the fortuitous things of life, in all
their incoherence; he is no longer a self-centre, he feels himself
no longer responsible, his personality is dissolved, evaporated; it


## p. 4604 (#394) ###########################################

4604
PAUL DESJARDINS
does not react, and ambient nature already absorbs him, like some
dead thing.
And this is where we are. I recognize then the evil; I see
it in its extent. Nevertheless, to paint this lamentable picture
once more is not to show our moral ideas. Our moral idea is
what we believe touching the life which shall be best; it is not
exactly our life.
Ever since the antique Medea of Ovid uttered that cry, many
others, one after another, have groaned over the fact that, seeing
the best and approving it, they yet follow the worst-alas!
Such a sorrow is to-day profound and universal; there where
vice abounds, sorrow superabounds. It is no longer that melan-
choly born of the insufficiency of external reality, once for all
recognized, that felt by Obermann and proud romanticists; but a
humble, narrow, ragged rancor, mixed with disdain, with dis-
gust, born of our insufficiency to ourselves, perceived thoroughly.
Never, I believe, have we been more generally sad than in these
times. And it is that which saves us; I find here our greatness.
He alone is lost who feels himself at ease and healthful in evil;
consciences without anxiety are the only hopeless ones.
Let us
hope then, for it cannot be denied that we feel we are very ill.
It is apparent that we are in labor with something which shall
be our cure. The symptoms of this painful labor are not lack-
ing. The works which are appearing now, pre-eminent in form,
but obscure and hesitating in principles, bear signs of the stress
in which they were conceived; soon they will seem merely spe
cious. In the poetry, romance, painting, music, of to-day, how
many exquisite works are born, not of energy guided by love,
but only of a dream of energy, a dream of love, on the shores
of inconsolable exile! The truth is, we no longer know what
become; when any one of the antique misfortunes strikes us,
death, abandonment, ruin,- we no longer bear it as our fathers
did. We no longer know the dignified, peaceful mournings of
old; but under an unexpected stroke, the torment, the compli
cated rending in the heart, show that it has been secretly under·
mined. We feel indeed divided within ourselves, and we need
to be unified; but the inward unification is possible only for the
absolutely debauched or the absolutely good man; there is
via media; half-virtue rends us.
to
no
-


## p. 4605 (#395) ###########################################

PAUL DESJARDINS
4605
Our spiritual life being in truth miracle and mystery, I do
not know how to explain what each one knows so well; I do not
know how there is developed within us that sublime state known
and described under different names by Socrates, Plato, Plotinus,
Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, St. Paul, St. Augustine, Tauler, the
author of the 'Imitation,' Shelley, Emerson, Tolstoy: but I
know that such a state, which we all know by experience, merits
alone the name of positive morality.
Well then, history
shows that what is true of each one of us personally, is true of
society.
THE CONVERSION OF THE CHURCH
WHIL
HILE a purer spirit is visibly awakening in ailing humanity
and turning it again to Christ, the religion of Christ is
rejuvenating. His church is no longer motionless. Thus,
in the midst of a great confusion, two religious movements
which correspond with one another are defining themselves with
sufficient clearness.
On the one side, men without any precise faith, and who
thought themselves without any faith, have perceived that they
carry within themselves that which they sought: an explanation.
of themselves, say a principle of salvation. At whatever point
these thinking men arrive, it is apparent at the present that
they are progressing in the way of the Evangel, and following
the path of the cross.
On the other side, the Roman
Catholic Church, governed by a vigilant Pope, has declared
herself. She has spoken of love, at the moment when all were
thirsty for love and self-forgetfulness; she intercedes for the suf-
fering masses, at the moment when others were going to do it
outside of her, perhaps against her. And more, she is resolutely
to-day accenting spirituality, after having so long accented ritual
or policy. The new spiritualists and the renewed Christians are
thus pushed forward to a meeting with one another by the need
of their practical co-operation, and also perhaps by the conscious-
ness of their intimate kinship. They are marching from both
sides, with the same rallying cry, Fraternity and sacrifice! Here
they are flying from the city of the plain, where a material civ-
ilization reigns, and claiming to suffice all; they are emigrating,
they know not whither, if it be only towards the heights; there
1


## p. 4606 (#396) ###########################################

4606
PAUL DESJARDINS
they are descending from their high, narrow, clerical, shut-in
fastness.
The conversion that the Church should make is a conversion
of the heart. It must become again a school of true liberty and
love. Herein lies all the anxiety of the moment; and the great
Catholic question lies not between the Church and the Republic,
but between the Church and the People, or rather between the
Church and the pure Spirit. By loving the people in truth, and
by making itself the people, it is clear that the Catholic Church
would simply be returning to its original source. Now, returning
to its original source is, in a word, all that the Church should
do; and that which, following her example, all old institutions
should do so as to live and to make us live. To last, means to
be re-born perpetually. In truth, each one of these institutions
was born in former times, from a definite need of the soul. And
at first they responded exactly to it, and that is why they pre-
vailed; all their strength came from the fact that they were
necessary; their weakness comes from the fact that they are no
longer so. At first the religious community was formed of the
imperious necessity of a deliverance from evil; it was not for
ornament, not for the charm of burning incense under arches;
neither was it formed to do what kings, warriors, and
judges are sufficient to do; these last would have absorbed it,
but they cannot, although they try to do so every day; but
they can never do so, unless the Church abandons her own func-
tions to usurp theirs. She would then, by forgetting her desti-
nation, commit suicide. But even then, another church would
form in response to the spiritual hunger and thirst which never
ceases. Thus the whole problem of the existence of an institu-
tion is to remain forever necessary, and therefore faithful to its
original source.
wc
Let us add that civil society cannot maintain itself without
also constant rejuvenation,- becoming young again; it also exists
only by the active consent of willing minds. It is essential for
the harmony of the whole that each person should be an indi-
vidual and not an automaton. As men, divided by the external
accidents of habit, condition, fortune, and united by that which is
fundamental within them, the weakening of that which is within
them disintegrates them; and thence the principal cause of our
divisions comes from hardly any one to-day being in his heart
that which he appears to be. Therefore, to bring back diverse


## p. 4607 (#397) ###########################################

PAUL DESJARDINS
4607
conditions to their original source and to the reason of their
being, to re-establish the principle in the centre of the life of
each, is to do the work of unification. To say to the priests,
"Be primitive Christians, imitate the chosen Master," is, socially
speaking, a good action which all Christians and non-Christians
should applaud, for the salvation of all depends upon it. The
remedy of our malady, without doubt, lies not in having all
France to mass, but first that all should make their faith the
rule of their actions. That which lies at the bottom of our con-
sciences is the thing by which we are brothers.
TWO IMPRESSIONS
From Notes Contemporaines >
Tw
wo impressions have remained with me. They date from a
month's wandering in Switzerland, at a time when there are
no tourists to be met. The first is of the exquisite scenes of
wintry Nature, as she shows herself at this season, when none
come to visit her- still, reposeful, silent, veiled-how much more.
touching and impressive than when profaned by the summer
crowd! This is the moment when the Jura should be seen! The
pine woods on the hills are but faintly powdered with snow, and
the patches of dry rusty vegetation beneath lie on the gray stones
like the broad red stains of blood. Seeds hang here and there on
the bare branches, mixed with the tendrils of the wild vine, or
with ghostly clusters of what were the flowers of the clematis.
The falling leaves are golden; those already fallen are of an
ashen gray.
The delicate tracery overhead is of infinite com-
plexity, exquisite in its endless detail; and the whole of this
disrobed Nature, in its unadorned simplicity, has an impress of
sincerity that reminds you of the drawings of Holbein. Flat
pools of shallow water lie about, carpeted with mosses and mir-
roring the sky; the smoke of the huts rises upward gaunt and
straight. No one is near; there are no passers-by; and there is
no sound, except that of a waterfall, fuller in its rush than at
any other season. Silence a silence so fragile that the step of
a single wayfarer on the road would be enough to break it—
reigns undisturbed, and covers everything like a winding-sheet.
My second impression is of another kind, though almost as
comforting, at least by the contrast; it was given me by the con-
versation of the peasant folk, plain humble mountaineers. The
—


## p. 4608 (#398) ###########################################

4608
PAUL DESJARDINS
speech and thought of these men is plain and direct, devoid of
artifice, clear and fathomable; they furnish you an unvarnished
tale of their own simple experience — the life experience of a
man, no more! They neither invent nor disguise, and are totally
incapable of presenting either fact or circumstances in a way that
shall suggest to the hearer another or a different sense. Our
woeful habit of ridiculing what lies indeed at the bottom
of our
hearts they have never learned; they copy, line by line and
stroke by stroke, the meaning that is in them, the intentions of
their inner mind. In our Parisian haunts, it seems to me that
their success would be a problem; but they are heedless of
<< success"; and to us, when we escape from our vitiated centres,
from an atmosphere poisoned by that perpetual straining after
effect, the pure undressed simplicity of these "primitives" is as
refreshing as to our over-excited and exhausted nerves are the
green, quiet, hidden nooks of their Alpine solitudes. With them
there is no need of imaginative expression; the trouble of
thought is useless; their words are the transparent revelation of
their beliefs. The calm brought to the hyper-civilized spirit by
this plainness and directness of Nature is absolutely indescribable;
and when I came to reflect on the profoundness of mental
quietude-I might say of consolation—that I had attained
during my wanderings, I could not help recognizing what a cruel,
fatal part is played in the lives of all of us by irony. It is, with
Frenchmen, a kind of veneer, worn even by the most unpreten-
tious in place of whatever may be real in them; and where
outward seeming is absent, they are completely at a loss.
to
Well-bred Frenchmen rarely if ever have or pronounce
an
an air of
opinion, or pass a judgment—unless with a playful obliquity of
judgment, and on things in general. They assume
knowing what they are talking about, and of having probed the
vanity of all human effort before they have ever
attempted or
approached it; and even this indifference, this disdain, this appar-
ent dislike to the responsibility of so much as an opinion,-
this is not natural, not innate; its formula is not of its own cre-
ation; it is but the repetition of what was originated by some
one else. The truth is, that in our atmosphere all affirmative
―――――――――
This habit of
It is a
action is difficult; it is hard either to be or to do.
irony has destroyed all healthful activity here.
instrument of evil; if you grasp it, it turns to mischief in your
hands, and either slips from and eludes them, or wounds you,
often as not, mortally.
mere
as


## p. 4609 (#399) ###########################################

4609
SIR AUBREY DE VERE
(1788-1846)
F
T CURRAGH CHASE, in the picturesque county of Limerick, Ire-
land, Aubrey Hunt was born in 1788. On the death of his
father he succeeded to the baronetcy and took the name
of De Vere. Though his deep love of nature prompted him while
very young to write descriptive verses, it was the drama that first
seriously attracted him. This form he chose for his first painstaking
work, Julian the Apostate. ' The play opens at the time when
Julian, having renounced the faith of his household oppressors, is
allowed as a pagan worshiper to participate
in the Eleusinian mysteries; when, it is
said, he consented to the assassination of
his uncle the Emperor Constantius. It
found an admiring and enthusiastic audi-
ence and received unstinted praise from the
critics. One wrote, "Lord Byron has pro-
duced nothing equal to it;" and another,
"Scott has nothing so intellectual or so ele-
vated among his exquisite sketches. "

SIR AUBREY DE VERE
'Mary Tudor,' a drama written two
years before his death in 1846, is his "most
considerable work," says his son, and "an
expression of his sympathy with great qual-
ities obscured by great errors and great calamities. " The sonnet
was however the form of composition he preferred, and as a son-
neteer he will be remembered. His sonnets are mainly historical,
though he wrote also some religious and descriptive ones which
Wordsworth considered "the most perfect of our age. " His earlier
ones, modeled after those of Petrarch and Filicaja, are inferior in
imagery, phraseology, and nobility of thought to those produced
under the influence of Wordsworth, a poet whose genius De Vere was
among the first to acknowledge, and whose friendship he regarded
as one of the chief honors of his life.
Like his friend, De Vere was a patriot, and in his historical son-
nets he has recorded his love for the land of his remoter ancestors,
whereas in the Lamentations of Ireland' he has expressed with
great ardor his love for the land of his birth. In 1842 he published
'The Song of Faith,' which with the exception of a few translations
was all he gave the world in twenty years. Devoted to his occu-
pations as a country gentleman, and being of a singularly modest
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4610
SIR AUBREY DE VERE
disposition, he neither loved nor courted fame, nor found in it any
incentive to action.
Sir Aubrey De Vere was not in the modern acceptance of the
term a national poet, nor was he, as so many of his contemporaries,
anti-Irish. He modeled his poems on the great English writers, but
all he wrote is pervaded with a deep sympathy for Ireland, and that
at a time when such sympathy was rare.
THE CRUSADERS
THE
HE flattering crowd wreathe laurels for the brow
Of blood-stained chief or regal conqueror;
To Cæsar or the Macedonian bow;
Meteors of earth that set to rise no more:
A hero-worship, as of old? Not now
Should chieftain bend with servile reverence o'er
The fading pageantry of Paynim lore.
True heroes they whose consecrated vow
Led them to Jewry, fighting for the Cross;
While not by Avarice lured, or lust of power
Inspired, they combated that Christ should reign,
And life laid down for him counted no loss.
On Dorylæum's plain, by Antioch's tower,
And Ascalon, sleep well the martyred slain.
A
THE CHILDREN BAND
From The Crusaders'
LL holy influences dwell within
The breast of childhood; instincts fresh from God
Inspire it, ere the heart beneath the rod
Of grief hath bled, or caught the plague of sin.
How mighty was this fervor which could win
Its way to infant souls! -and was the sod
Of Palestine by infant Croises trod?
Like Joseph went they forth, or Benjamin,
In all their touching beauty to redeem?
And did their soft lips kiss the Sepulchre?
Alas! the lovely pageant, as a dream,
Faded! They sank not through ignoble fear;
They felt not Moslem steel. By mountain stream,
In sands, in fens, they died no mother near!