He
demonstrated
38 PREFACE TO THE FRENCH EDITION.
Krasinski - The Undivine Comedy
The
blessing of the Church gave him a wife richly gifted in
body and soul, of an amiable temper, and possessing that
ready conception of the sublime and beautiful so calcu-
lated to throw over the life of the poet the atmosphere
necessary for full poetical development. The young
couple spent the first two years of their married life in the
land of their fathers, not indeed wholly untroubled, but
far from the vexatious turmoil of the world. The malady
of his eyes, as well as his general ill health, held him aloof
from society, limiting his intercourse to a few trusted
friends, among whom was Amilie Zaluska, who had grown
up with him, and whom he loved as a sister. His first
son, Ladislaus, was born in 1844. He would gladly have
continued to reside in his native land, but as this could
not be without the most injurious influence upon his
health, he was forced to resume his wanderings, tarrying
BIOGRAPHY OF KRASINSKI. 23
for some time in Nice. The frightful occurrences of
which Galicia was the theatre, in 1846, affected him most
painfully. When referring to an opinion regarding these
circumstances expressed by him at a much earlier date,
he passionately exclaimed: "Ah! why was I not a false
prophet? " and almost cursed the exactness of his pro-
phetic vision. These startling events gave rise to a
discussion with the fiery poet, Julius Slowacki. This
discussion awakened intense interest, and will ever re-
main a most valuable exposition of the political opinions
of the times ; it also placed in the strongest light the an-
tagonistic genius of the two poets.
Toward the end of the year 1847, ^"<^ about a year after
the birth of his second son, Sigismund returned to Rome,
and was consequently an eye-witness of the political
scenes occurring during 1848 in the capital of the world.
His religious feelings were always deep, and it was most
natural that during his sojourn in Rome, a man of his char-
acter and antecedents should become through conviction
an ardent champion of the Catholic Church. In June,
1848, he returned to Heidelberg, whence he paid a short
visit to France, then convulsed by revolution. After a
trial of sea-bathing, he remained some time in Baden,
where, in spite of severe physical suffering, he labored upon
the first and third divisions of " The Undivine Comedy,"
of which, as already stated, he had finished the second
part in Vienna. It was his custom while thus occupied
to have his wife seated at the piano, that he might hear
her play the melodies he loved. When Baden was also
drawn into the whirlpool of the revolution, he went to
Berne, in which place he was utterly prostrated by sick-
ness. When just beginning to recover, he received a com-
mand from the Government to return immediately home.
He obeyed the summons, and suffered the necessary re-
sults. He spent that winter in Warsaw, but in consequence
of the disastrous effects of the rigor of the climate upon
his delicate organization, he was threatened with total
loss of eyesight. With great difficulty he obtained from
Russia permission again to leave Poland. He tried sea-
bathing at Triport, which, instead of mitigating, greatly
increased his maladies. He was allowed to select Heidel-
24
BIOGRAPHY OF KRA^ilNSKI.
berg as his residence for the winter, where his wife soon
joined him. The disease of his eyes had so increased as
to incapacitate him for all literary labor. The following
summer he spent at Baden ; the following winter in Rome.
He took great interest in the excavations and disinter-
ments then being made in the Appian Way, finding in
them the subject of a masterly poem dedicated to his wife,
which has never as yet been published. He went also
again to Naples, and was a frequent guest in the Palace
of the Grand Duchess, Stephanie von Baden, who took
as great pleasure in the society of the Polish poet as she
had already taken in the perusal of such of his works as
she could obtain in French. He then went to the Rhine,
but was ordered by the Government to return to Poland,
where he arrived with his family late in the autumn of
1852, and remained there until the close of the next
summer. But as his residence in that climate would have
been certain death to him, he again applied for permission
to go abroad. Having obtained it, he went to Boppard,
on the Rhine, to try for the second time the water-cure,
but he derived no benefit therefrom. His sons remained
in Warsaw with their grandfather, while he, tortured by
continual suffering, remained upon the Rhine. His wife,
after having given birth to a daughter, followed him to
Heidelberg, — the only place abroad in which the Russian
Government would allow him to remain for any length of
time. Dreadfully emaciated, he had become so weak
that, with tottering steps, he was only able to walk for a
few moments during the day under the shadow of the trees
in front of his dwelling, and could only Avrite with his
pencil. In this pitiable condition, the command was
again issued for his immediate return to Poland ! His wife
instantly returned to Warsaw, to endeavor to have the
order canceled. After the most untiring efforts she ob-
tained its recall, but with the express understanding that
permission to rejnain ah'oad was granted for the last time.
Return was certain death, but as Russia knouts her own
poets, she could scarcely be expected to attach any im-
portance to the prolongation of the life of the noble Pole.
The death of the stern Nicholas, in 1855, so for allevi-
ated the position of Krasinski that his residence abroad was
BIOGRAPHY OF KR AS IN SKI.
25
no longer bound by conditions so rigorous. The nomi-
nation of his father as Governor of Poland gratified him
exceedingly, so much the more as the appointment was
received with general satisfaction by his countrymen.
He tried the water-cure again at Kissingen in 1856, but
he remained so ill and debilitated that during a period of
ten months he was only able to move about by the aid of
crutches. He spent the following winter in Paris, and
was advised by his attending physician there to try sea-
bathing the ensuing summer.
But a heavy misfortune now fell upon him. Through
the failure of the house Thurneissen, he lost not only a
considerable portion of his own, but nearly the whole of
his wife's property.
As the old general greatly longed to see his son and
grandchildren once more around him, Sigismund deter-
mined to gratify the wishes of his father, although he was
well aware that such a journey in his state of health would
prove highly injurious to him. A new and deeper sorrow
awaited him on his return to his native land : the death
of his idolized daughter, Elizabeth. Utterly prostrated,
he hastened to Heidelberg, to place himself under the
advice of Dr. Chelius. He spent the remainder of that
winter tortured by perpetual cramps and spasms. He also
lost his beloved friend, Ary Scheffer. Dr. Walther, of
Dresden, pronounced his lungs affected, and advised him
to try Plombieres, from which trial, however, he derived
no benefit. He also tried the springs at Ems, but with
no better effect. He then returned to Dresden, to place
himself under the immediate care of Dr. Walther: useless
efforts ! The skillful physician saw at once the rapid
ravages of the deadly disease, and could only advise Italy
or Algiers. Krasinski, not satisfied with the advice of one
physician, went to Dr. Louis, in Paris, for additional con-
sultation, but, too timid to tell him the whole truth, that
physician gave him so much encouragement that he re-
soved to remain in that city. A new method of medical
treatment was essayed, but at its very commencement his
heart was again wrung by severe affliction. A telegraphic
dispatch announced that his father was lying at the point
of death. In consequence of his utter exhaustion, he was
3*
26 BIOGRAPHY OF KRASINSKI.
unable to hasten to the dying bed, and was forced to
commit this tender duty to his wife, who fulfilled it so
efficiently that she arrrived in time to close the dying eyes
of Count Vincent Krasinski. The news of this death fear-
fully shattered the sinking frame of Sigismund ; he with-
drew from society, and was scarcely to be seen even by
his most intimate friends. He tried to soothe his aching
heart by preparing a sketch of his father's life for the
Italian sculptor who was to execute the monument of
General Krasinski, but was only able to bring it down to
1827.
Meanwhile, he was constantly urged by his friends,
who saw how rapidly he was declining, to seek a milder
clime; but he would not listen to their entreaties, and
remained in Paris. He watched the course of political
events with intense interest, and his soul was filled with
divinations of important and widely-spread changes yet
to be. His illness now suddenly assuiped a form so
marked that he at last became alarmed, and recalled to
Paris his wife, who, at his request, had remained in War-
saw to attend to the inheritance left him by his father. His
three physicians agreed in the opinion that his days were
numbered, and his wife saw on her return that there was
no hope for the husband so dearly loved.
The seal of death was indeed already upon him, and,
after a painful struggle, lasting through ten entire days,
his pure and immortal soul left his racked and suffering
body during the night of the 23d to the 24th of Febru-
ary, 1859.
The coffin containing his mortal remains was placed
temporarily in the Church of the Madeleine ; but later,
accompanied by Count Zamoyiski, it was taken to Po-
land, and at Opingora, the ancestral seat of the Kra-
sinskis, his body found its final resting-place, surrounded
by illustrious ancestors.
And this is all our author, who evidently loved the
subject of his biography, ventures to tell us of the inter-
nal life of the man, of the exhausting conflict between
filial veneration and duty and intense and glowing
patriotism, forever surging through the soul of the
sublime Poet.
BIOGRAPHY OF KRASINSKI.
27
After a judicious analysis of the works of Krasinski,
which we omit because the subject is more widely treated
by the older and younger Mickiewicz, as well as by
Julian Klaczko, our biographer continues:
A fragment only has as yet appeared of an apparently
large work, entitled "Cracow in 1858," which seems to
be written in the style peculiar to this poet. A volume
of extracts from his letters has also been published in
Paris, under the supervision of one of his dearest friends,
Constantine Gaszynski, under whose name Krasinski pub-
lished "The Dawn. "
Poland venerates in him the distinguished author, the
inspired poet, the sublime spirit, the brave man who
knew how to sustain hope in adversity, and to quicken
with new powers the sinking soul. The effort of his life
was to attain moral perfection in his own being. But he
rested not in this alone ; he strove, even through his
own constant sickness and sorrow, to call it forth not
only in individuals, but to make it the life-pulse of his en-
tire nation / The character of his works, and their mar-
velous influence upon his countrymen, have justly entitled
him to the rank of a truly National Poet. Every chord
which as an individual he struck upon his lyre rang in
harmony with the desires, feelings, thoughts, and hopes
of the Polish People. There certainly have been men on
earth who could absorb into their own wider and deeper
being all the thoughts, feelings, and hopes of their coun-
try ; who were capable of fusing them in the glow of
their own genius, and of bringing them forth in the clear
light and close unity of art. Undoubtedly Krasinski
takes a high, if not indeed the very highest, place among
such rare national creators. Continually crushed under
the weight of severe bodily afflictions, deeply wounded
in heart, he took into his inmost soul the sad history of
his People ; he felt it as his own anguish, and placed it
as his peculiar seal upon everything he has written. Sin-
cerity, truth, glow of sympathy, knowledge, nay, clear
prophetic insight, were the strong rounds of the ladder
by which he ascended to such glittering heights. Wher-
ever his people still breathed, not yet crushed to dust
under the merciless foot of the spoiler, there the Poet,
28 BIOGRAPHY OF KRASINSKI.
raising his own sorrow-crowned head above the miseries
of Time, gazed with the holy trust of the martyr far into
the heavens, and " there saw God," divining with sacred
pride and joy that Future which the Polish people see
clearly revealed to them through their present agonies,
and which their poets, in spite of chains, prisons, tor-
ture, and exile, never cease to sing to them. In the vast
world of thought and the wide regions of poetry there
were no limits for Krasinski, and he reveled in that
mystic freedom of art which was alike denied to himself
and country in the sphere of politics. But no impurity
ever sullies his noble pages, and what he wrote on politi-
cal regeneration is already graven on the heart of the
world.
And yet he never once stooped to win popular ap-
plause. Compared with the contemporary writers of
Poland, he is especially distinguished by a nature not
objectively, but essentially and spiritually poetic, which
is stamped deeply upon all his writings. But his peculiar
traits are not to be found in the rich gifts of an excitable
fancy, wealth of imagery, charms of vivid description, or
luxury of ever-varying combinations. They are to be
looked for in a higher region, — in a love for justice, and
a clear and far-reaching insight into truth, into its devel-
opment in things yet to be, a power of so distinctly
portraying the future that one is strongly disposed to
characterize his works as "Apocalyptic. "
Known until now only as the "Anonymous Poet," he
never sought literary fame, but concealed the good he
was effecting as sedulously as others conceal shame. En-
joying the love and esteem of his countrymen, blessed
with a wife as high-souled as beautiful, and lovely chil-
dren, surrounded by many and true friends, and in the
possession of large property, he might have been re-
garded as one highly favored by destiny. But health,
that most inestimable of blessings, was denied him from
youth until his last sigh ; and his heart was wrung by
never-uttered sorrows. He was thus no friend to idle
and useless amusements, and was seldom seen in the
saloons of the gay world ; but he loved social inter-
course with the friends whom he trusted, and it always
BIOGRAPHY OF KRASINSKI.
29
gave him pleasure to converse upon the historical and
philosophical questions of the day. Then would he open
a mine of intellectual wealth, of original and striking
views, of profound ideas, which, under more favorable
circumstances, would have made him at least the equal of
the statesmen of his time.
Devout in the very depths of his soul, he shrank from
no sacrifice for his family or friends, and was generous
and magnanimous almost to prodigality. His own words,
uttered in defense of the spirit of knighthood, are won-
derfully appropriate to himself:
" He burned, a never-consumed offering, upon the altar of his counti-y. "
PREFACE.
TRANSLATED FROM LADISLAS MICKIEWICZ, SON OF ADAM
MICKIEWICZ, THE GREAT POLISH POET.
Extracted from the French Edition of the Works of Krasiitski.
Polish Poetry, in the nineteenth century, stands in
striking contrast with contemporary literature. While
the latter has fallen under the corrupting influence of the
schools, has proclaimed art/or the sake of art, and volun-
tarily restricted its empire to the mysteries of the worship
of the Muses, the former has pursued another path, and
Poetry has remained in Poland, what it ought ever to be
in the heart of a great people, the vigorous and spon-
taneous expression of the feelings and thoughts which
constitute the spirit of the nation. From this common
fund have the poets, or, to use their own language, the
"prophets" of Poland, drawn all their inspiration; and
prophets they really are, for like tongues of fire they were
given to their people to express all their hopes and all
their agonies.
They cling to a firm belief in the Resurrection of their
Country, but no more than the patriotic feeling which en-
genders it is this faith confined to themselves, for however
irreconcilable it may seem with the actual fate of Poland,
it is, nevertheless, found in all Polish souls impressed by
an internal conviction far more powerful than the external
evidence of the moment.
Is it not indeed truly surprising to see this People, which,
in the day of its greatest prosperity, and two centuries
before its fall, had the fatal foreknowledge of that fall,
3'
32
PREFACE TO THE FRENCH EDITION.
affirm with the same certainty, now when its ruin is con-
summated, its approaching resurrection? In this faith,
opposed to nature and fact, is there not something re-
sembling a pledge from Providence, something like a
sacred promise made to the oppressed ? At least the poets
have so understood it, and, confiding in this intuition,
they have, in the absence of a terrestrial country, created
an ideal one, the admission into which is only to be won
by devotion and virtue.
" To be a Pole
Is to have noble aspirations and a flame divine. "
Thus the aim of the Polish poets was essentially national,
but it would be a great error to deduce from this that the
absorption of the genius of Poland in the sad mysteries
of its own existence ever rendered it a stranger to the
thoughts and interests of the West. So entirely would
such a deduction be contrary to fact, that it is precisely
through the intuitions of her poetical genius that the
close union of the West and Poland — perhaps indeed the
dependence of their mutual destiny — is most clearly
revealed, the moral and intellectual life which animates
both springing from the same sources, and the whole
social organism being governed by the same necessities.
The works of the Anonymous Poet bear the frequent stamp
of this truth. They are full of important lessons even for
the most prosperous peoples. We have placed ourselves
in this double point of view in publishing these transla-
tions. The alliance between France and Poland, con-
secrated by blood, will be cemented by related ideas.
We hope it will be fertile, for to it we owe that system of
international justice, acknowledged by France, which is
summed up in the principle of the nationalities. It is
impossible to deny that the initiative in this movement
belongs to the reclamations of Poland. However warped
this principle may have been in Germany or elsewhere, it
cannot be gainsaid that it constitutes a moral progress
which will benefit all Europe.
It may be reserved for the history of Poland under her
present circumstances to introduce another motive-power,
as yet too little heeded \\\ public life, the principle of Duty
PREFACE TO THE FRENCH EDITION.
Zl
as tlie *' primum mobile" of the State and of the citizen.
Is not her martyrdom truly a constant appeal to the self-
sacrifice of her sons, and to the fraternity of nations ?
That the nationalities are really collective individuals,
that each one has its part to play in the destiny of this
world, and that the lesson to be taught by Poland is the
guidance of governments by principles of abstract justice
and duty, are favorite themes with the Anonymous Poet.
He regards a nation as an entity differing from a merely
politically constituted State ; the one being merely a human,
the other a divine idea founded in the very nature of
things. It is the duty of nations to translate the designs
of God into the world of fact ; to incarnate them, to
make them useful to the entire humanity. Such should
be their aim and the purpose of their existence. Should
they fail to fulfill their mission, should they betray it, they
must perish as nations ; but if they struggle for the truth,
material. force alone will not be able to repress their de-
velopment ; their spirit must at last prevail, and they will
rise into a higher life.
From this theory springs a system of political morals,
not different from individual morality, nor parallel with
it, but the same elevated to a higlier degree. Applying
these conclusions to the situation forced upon his coun-
try, the Poet teaches her that hate is death to the spirit,
and always strikes it with im])otence.
To struggle without relaxation is an absolute necessity,
and he desires and urges it ; but let it be a constant com-
bat of good against evil, of light with darkness ; let the
love of God and man guide and support it, for such love
is the pledge of victory ! Without an ardent desire that
equal justice may be meted out to all, without Christian
forgiveness and moral superiority, he sees only cham-
pions of passion, or base gladiators in the wide arena.
The future of Poland looms magnificently before him ;
she is to resume her existence in the reconciliation of ex-
tremes and antagonisms, in a reign of peace and happi-
ness. He has no doubt of the progress of humanity, but
he assigns, as its absolute condition, the reparation of
one of the greatest crimes committed since the Death on
Calvary, — the assassination of a Nation, the violent sup-
4
34
PREFACE TO THE FRENCH EDITION.
pression by man of a thought of God ! He predicts a
glorious resurrection to Poland, if she will faithfully guard
the principle of life implanted in her, if, surrounded by
hate, she can preserve herself from a moral fall.
Such are the ideas which have presided over the crea-
tion of all his works, and which he has interpreted with
unequaled splendor. He endeavored to present his
thought under two aspects: — the sterility of hate, dem-
onstrated in *'Iridion" and "The Undivine Comedy;"
and the fertility of love, as illustrated in "The Dawn"
and "The Psalms of the Future. "
We will attempt to give a rapid analysis of these poems.
Iridion is a type of the man of antiquity in deadly
combat with Fate. The descendant of an illustrious
family, which had fought to the last for the independ-
ence of Greece, he only lived to pursue victorious Rome
with the implacable enmity which had been enjoined
upon him by his ancestors. To aid him in the superhu-
man task to which he had been consecrated from infancy,
the intense hate of several generations had been occupied
in gathering mighty resources for the hour of struggle.
Wealth, influence, rank, relations with the barbarians,
alliances with their leaders, etc. , had all been skillfully
prepared. He, in his own person, seemed created for
such a role. To great vigor, manly beauty, and the en-
trancing fascination of a demigod, he joined the inexora-
ble heart of a hero. He knew neither pity nor weakness.
He had left room in his soul for only one thought, one
desire, — the destruction of Rome. Whatever this one
passionate thought could conceive, he executed without
recoiling from any sacrifice. On the other hand, the
Eternal City, under the rule of Heliogabalus, was but a
corpse, crushing with its inert weight all who sought to
live. All was peril without and confusion within ; soci-
ety was crumbling into ashes, and there was nothing to
sustain it save the imperial power, formidable for all who
feared it, but weak for those who defied it. Iridion
found everywhere fit instruments of vengeance ; he op-
pressed with the oppressors, and conspired with the
conspirators. His indomitable energy urged on the
conspiring and antagonistic elements to a gigantic and
PREFACE TO THE FRENCH EDITION. 3-
decisive struggle, which he intended should terminate in
their mutual destruction.
A single force refused to be made use of to serve the
hatred of Greece: the persecuted Christianity, which re-
pelled all violence, and placed its sole hope in spiritual
arms. Astonished at a resistance which he could not
understand, he at first sought to subdue it, but, growing
irritated, he moved too rapidly, and precipitated events.
The outbreak took place, but brought not the anticipated
results. Uniting in the name of their resentments, men
often move together in the path of their own interests.
Hatred, the savage sentiment of individual egotism,
although it may be strong enough to unite men in a
common action, is not sufficiently powerful when it be-
comes necessary to exact obedience from them ! Helio-
gabalus perished, but Rome endured. The efforts of the
heroic leader, aided by many chances of exceptional
success, miserably failed, because the whole enterprise
was vitiated by the very idea which inspired it !
The tendency of the poem is still more fully unveiled
in the epilogue. Introducing the supernatural into the
web of the plot, the Poet transports Iridion into our own
epoch, and shows him that very Rome which had op-
pressed others, itself destroyed and degraded, — fallen as
low as even his hate had dreamed it. But these black
ruins do not glorify vengeance, for above them rises the
Cross, the emblem of those Christians who had re-
nounced the transitory supremacy of power to establish
a reign of faith, charity, and forgiveness.
And this Cross, which here appears as the synthesis of
the Past, the Poet will once more bring before our eyes
in glory, as the supreme hope of the world of the
Present ! It will shine from the skies in sign of pardon
and alliance, and, in seeing it, the guilty conqueror will
say, "GaliL/EE, vicisti! " and will be engulfed in his
own nothingness! Such is the denouement of "The
Undivine Comedy," in which the glowing imagination
of the Anonymous Poet has traced the struggle which
is to precede that apocalyptic day.
Humanity, in "The Undivine Comedy," Is severed
into two camps, under the leadership of two chiefs,
36 PREFACE TO THE FRENCH EDFTION.
Count Henry and Pancras. Irreconcilable enemies, both
having issued from a like critical spirit, the one repels
the Future, the other the Past. This absolute exclusion
is on both sides the fruit of an utter want of faith. Pan-
cras is the personification of human reason, which deifies
itself in its own essence, and believes only in finite calcu-
lation, — in action as the result of the power of numbers.
Count Henry also personifies human reason, which glori-
fies itself, in his case, in his own individuality, denying
all general laws, and, as a rule of conduct, bowing only
to his individual fancies. If he believes in the cause
which he defends, it is because he believes in himself,
and when he is defeated, he despairs and rushes into sui-
cide. He kills himself at the very moment that the God
of Life has chosen to reveal Himself in the most striking
manner to the conscience of the Peoples !
A feeling of astonishment is at first created by the fact
that our author gives the victory to Pancras, the cynic
and scorner, the unyielding antagonist of the truth whose
triumph is announced. But this victory was necessary to
demonstrate that in any struggle undertaken only with
the arms of hate, the advantage is always assured to blind
force. A still deeper design is also manifest. The de-
feat of Pancras by Count Henry would have only resulted
in the glorification of the genius of man ; and the inter-
vention of the divine symbol, instead of originating an
instantaneous reaction, would but have strengthened the
pride of Count Henry, in such case, invincible. Now
neither pride, nor genius, are the supreme arbiters of
human destinies ! The onward path which in their free
progress leads men to good, is the Good itself, and it
alone, in which, according to the noble words of the
Poet, all wisdom is contained ! Upon the perfecting of
virtue and on its reign depend our salvation in this world
and in the next. Triple and one, identical in its terms
which cannot be separated, cause, means, and effect, that
good is origin and life, divine order and immortality, for
it is the universal bond which links the Spirit of every
being to the Spirit of God. It proceeds in its manifesta-
tions by order, harmony, love, and union, and is the woof
in the work of the universe which, in the divine loom.
PREFACE TO THE FRENCH EDITION.
37
supports and unites the infinite threads of Creation : —
threads which all move under its direction, and weft, to
which every human effort must be attached, if fertile or
imperishable results are to be evolved. Whosoever works
otherwise, builds upon the sands; striving to annul the
labors of the centuries, he can found nothing true, real,
or absolute ; the lightest wind will sweep away the build-
ing reared by his ignorance and presumption.
All the generous ardor with which such convictions in-
spired our Poet, he wrought into the service of his cause
in "The Psalms of the Future. " Sublime Pleader! His
nation in its agony was then ready to rush into measures
of extremity, but, braving unpopularity, he started up at
once to the defense of practical good sense and chivalric
honor, against the madness of despair.
In 1846, Galicia was mined with conspiracies, all of
which had adopted the national flag as their symbol of
order and rallying sign. Nevertheless, for some of the
affiliated, this flag was to bear in its folds, not only the
independence of their country, but also a violent and
radical transformation of society. These radicals, while
holding up the foreign usurpers to the indignation of the
people, also doomed the higher classes of the Polish na-
tion as accomplices in an oppression from which they,
however, had been the first to suffer. The Government
of M. de Metternich, though fully informed with regard
to the insurrection, left free course to the democratic and
socialistic propaganda, certain in advance that when the
revolution did break out, it would fall exhausted by mutual
destruction before reaching the Government, and that in a
soil so torn and uprooted by internal convulsions, it would
be easy to build a firmer foundation for Austrian power.
The Anonymous Poet understood the danger, and di-
vined the calculation of the Austrian Government ; he
endeavored to avoid the peril, and disappoint Austria;
and to effect this, he used the arms which his own genius
placed in his hands, — that mastery of poetic form which
stamped his words with so much authority ! He wrote
the Psalms of Faith, of Hope, and of Love, and in them
he made eloquent appeals to the heart, as well as to the
political acumen of his fellow-citizens.
He demonstrated 38 PREFACE TO THE FRENCH EDITION.
all that was false in their ideas, all that was culpable in
their contemplated acts, dissuading them from their de-
signs ; and then, rising to a majestic grandeur of concep-
tion, he opened before them paths which would inevitably
lead them to realize the highest ideal upon earth.
But the passions of men were already unloosed, and
nothing could arrest them. They found even an apologist
in a man of genius and a rival of our Poet, who replied
to him in poetic tones — a mingling of biblical prophecy
and zealous polemics — " that all jjrogress must be bought
by blood, and that God renewed the face of humanity as
He did that of the earth, by a series of deluges ! " The
contest of the two poets retains its celebrity among the
literary glories of Poland, and we will find its last echo
in the final scene of "The Fragment," which was not
published until after the death of the author.
The contest was still in progress, when the events them-
selves assumed the reply. Truly it was not Poland, but
the all-powerful administration of M. Bach, which rose
from the massacres in Galicia ! Austrian domination
triumphed materially and morally over its opponents, and
seemed to realize the conditions which render a victory
final. The ideas of the Anonymous Poet, slighted at a
time when they would have insured success, were now
confirmed in every conscience as a reproach or a regret.
But the utter discouragement which pervaded all minds,
joined to the conviction that repentance came too late,
struck such regret with sterility. Alas ! hours of like
prostration occur in the history of most nations ; hours
of gloom and despair, when all that is still living lives
only in the feeling of impotence and utter nothingness!
Such terrible trials are inevitable in the course of time ; —
probations which decide upon the life or death of a people,
as it shall triumph over its despair or abandon itself to
torpor ! . . . , The Anonymous Poet, always in the
breach, felt it now his duty to react against this dis-
couragement, and to use the moral authority he had
gained through such tragical occurrences to waken the
dormant energies of his comjiatriots. Under this con-
viction, he published the "Psalms of Grief and of Good
Will," in which, through his ideal, he re{i|vns to hope,
PREFACE TO THE FRENCH EDITION.
39
— hope for Poland, whose immortality he never ceases to
proclaim !
Especially is the last Psalm remarkable for its boldness
of conception. In the very moment in which accumu-
lated disasters bore his country to the earth, and the
wretchedness of slavery consumed it like a leprosy, not
suffering himself to be shaken by its apparent decomposi-
tion and death, and looking far into the future, he points
out how everything is preparing for and aiding in the
Advent of Eternal Justice.
Addressing himself to God, he thanks Him for all the
benefits He had never ceased to bestow on Poland, and
blessing His all-powerful Hand, he exclaims: "It is not
Hope which we beseech from Thee, O Lord ! it falls upon
us like a rain of flowers, — nor is it the destruction of our
enemies: their doom is written on to-morrow's cloud !
It is not to break the gates of our grave : they are already
broken, O our God 1 Nor is it arms for the combat :
they are already speeding on the tempests' wings ! Nor is
it succor: Thou hast already oped for us the field of ac-
tion, but in the midst of this explosion* of dire events,
we pray Thee, Lord, to purify our hearts! Give us the
gift of gifts : the Holy Will which opens every grave! "
A faith so vast, so limitless, almost defying Heaven to
disappoint it, could not be without influence over other
souls. It ought to have elevated and inspired them, — and
so indeed it really did. Therefore the Psalms are not
regarded merely as a literary fad, but as a political event,
which has its place marked in the National History.
The Dawn was written several years before the Psalms.
It is composed of a succession of lyrical pieces, in which
we seethe constant development of the political and hu-
manitarian ideal which had become, as it were, a religion
to the Poet. This poem shadows forth the earth restored
to the rule of harmony, which is itseternal law, and, after
its deluge of blood and crime, blossoming anew under
the eye of God.
All the works of the Anonymous Poet are written in the
spirit we have essayed to portray in this succinct analysis.
He devoted himself to the development of these ideas, and
* The Revolution of 1848.
40 PREFACE TO THE FRENCH EDITION.
to their introduction into the morals and life of his nation.
The mere singer of the beautiful, the worshiper of the
Muses, is elevated by him into sterner regions ; he uses
the poetic powers to enforce moral convictions, profound
thoughts, and conscientious patriotism. In other circum-
stances, and under another government than that to which
Poland is subjected, he would not have strung the lyre,
but would have mounted the rostrum, and become the
centre of political action. But neither rostrum nor po-
litical life was possible for him upon his native soil.
Through poetry alone could he popularize his conceptions
by preserving their precision in the frame of an exquisite,
imperishable, and easily-retained form : poetry is also the
delight of the nation, whose woes are cradled in its magic,
and whose soul palpitates in its divine accents, its lyric
enchantment. Therefore he bowed his genius to the exac-
tions of rhyme and rhythm. And never had he to com-
plain that he had so done, for not only did he attain the
proposed political aim, but he won a brilliant literary
glory, only surpassed by that of Mickiewicz.
Before closing this preface, one point remains to be
glanced at, which would furnish material for a long devel-
opment, a profound examination. The Anonymous Poet
is ranked in Poland among her Catholic writers. It would
be far more conformable with the truth to say that he pos-
sessed a religious soul, for, with regard to the doctrines
revealed in his works, it is very evident that there are wide
gaps to fill and important theses to be cut off, before it
would be possible reasonably to include them in any de-
fined limits of the dogmas of the Church. At all events,
a commentary would be required to establish their exact
meaning and bearing. But if the judgment of the public
upon this point is erroneous, it is because that public is
more logical than the author himself. Without following
him into his theosophic ideas, obscure even for those ac-
customed to such studies, his readers became imbued with
the moral side of his work, and seized upon its spirit, —
a spirit which was soon to find its final form in Catho-
licity, to which the author definitely returned toward the
close of his life.
This said, let the reader read and judge !
ANALYSIS OF THE UNDIVINE COMEDY.
EXTRACTED FROM " T. ES SLAVES," A COURSE OF LECTURES DELIV-
ERED BEFORE THE COLLEGE OF FRANCE (1842-43), BY THE MOST
RENOWNED MODERN POLISH POET, ADAM MICKIEWICZ.
[In this very remarkable work, by Adam Mickiewicz, written in
French, and which, by some strange oversight, has not yet appeared in
Engh'sh, no less than four lectures are devoted to a criticism upon " The
Undivine (or Infernal) Comedy. " The Essay of Julian Klaczko has
been found so long and exhaustive, that it is the intention of the Trans-
lator to give but a few condensed extracts from the analysis of Mickie-
wicz. The whole course of Lectures is recommended to the reader, as
full of information not elsewhere to be found; and, although in the
latter portion somewhat blemished by the elaboration of certain futile
theories, containing a mine of brilliant, deep, and highly original
thoughts. — Translator. ]
The word "Undivine" is used in preference to "Infernal" (the term
employed in the French translation) as better expressing the relation of
the drama to the " Divine Comedy" of Dante. The word is so appro-
priate that its coinage may be pardoned. — Editor.
It is my intention now to place before you the analysis
of a very remarkable work which appeared in 1834, en-
titled "The Undivine or Infernal Comedy. "
I will not call this work a fantastic Drama, although it
is now customary to give this name to all compositions
in which the characters and scenes are not immediately
derived from the world of prosaic reality. Utility and
Reality are indeed the boast of our century; but what
can be more variable, more contingent, than what we
choose to call solid reality, — that visible and material
world which is ever on the wing, which is always yet to
be, and which has no Present ? It is through the soul
alone that we are able to seize the connections and rela-
41
42
ANALYSIS OF THE UNDIVINE COMEDY.
tions of the visible world ; it alone gives them fixity or
reality ; it alone generates ideas, institutions, litera-
ture, — the only things truly real, the only things which
penetrate the soul, become incorporated with it, and
constitute the living traditions of the human race. Every
work which causes the chords of souls to vibrate, which
generates new views of life, must be considered real;
and foreign writers render but justice to Polish Poetry in
declaring it, so regarded, as very real ; — and there is
nothing more palpitating in its strange actuality than the
work we are now about to consider.
The time, the place, the characters of "The Undivine
Comedy" are all of poetic creation. The scene of the
drama is laid in the future ; and, for the first time in the
history of art, an author has attempted to construct a
prophetic play, — to describe places, introduce persons, re-
count actions which are yet to be. The struggle of the
dying Past with the vigorous but immature Future forms
the groundwork of the drama. The coloring is not local
nor characteristic of any country in particular (though
we recognize it to be Polish by the melancholy contrast
felt rather than seen between the state of the nation and
that of the individuals who compose it), because the
truths to be illustrated are of universal application, and
are evolving their own solution in all parts of the civil-
ized world.
The soul of the hero. Count Henry, is great and vig-
orous ; he is by nature a poet. Belonging to the Future
by the very essence of his being, he becomes disgusted
with the debasing materialism into which its exponents,
the new men, have fallen ; he then loses all hope in the
possible progress of humanity, and is soon presented to
us as the champion of the dying but poetic Past. But in
this he finds no rest, and is involved in perpetual strug-
gles and contradictions. Baffled in a consuming desire
to solve the y)erplexing social and religious problems of
the day by the force of his own intellect ; longing for,
yet despairing of, human progress; discerning the im-
])racticability and chicanery of most of the modern i)lans
for social amelioration ; finding nowhere his ideal ; ^he
determines to throw himself into common life, — to bind
ANALYSIS OF THE UNDIVINE COMEDY.
43
himself to his race by stringent laws and duties. The
drama opens when he is about to contract marriage.
The Angels desire to aid him, to open a way into the
Future for him through the accomplishment of his du-
ties j the Demons tempt him to embrace falsehood.
Voice of the Guardian Angel. " Peace be to men of good will ! Blessed
is the man who has still a heart : he may yet be saved !
Pure and true wife, reveal thyself to him ! And a child be born to their
House ! "
Thus the words once heard by the shepherds, and
which then announced a new epoch to humanity, open
the Drama. They are words spoken only to men oi good
win, — men who sincerely seek the truth, — who, in great
or new epochs, are able to comprehend it, or willing to
embrace it. The number of those who have preserved a
heart during the excited passions of such eras is always
very small, and without it they cannot be saved, for love
and self-abnegation are the essence of Christianity.
To instill new life and hope into the disappointed man,
the Angel ordains that a pure and good woman shall join
her fate with his, and that innocent young souls shall de-
scend and dwell with them. Domestic love and quiet
bliss are the counsel of the heavenly visitant.
Immediately after the chant of the Angel, the voice of
the Demon is heard seducing the Count from the safe
path of humble human duties. The glories of the ideal
realm are spread before him ; Nature is invoked with all
her entrancing charms ; ambitious desires of terrestrial
greatness are awakened in his soul ; he is filled with
vague hopes of paradisiacal happiness, which the Demon
whispers him it is quite possible to establish on earth. In
the temptations so cunningly set before him by the
Father of Lies, three widely-spread metaphysical systems
are shadowed forth: ist. The Ideal or Poetic; 2d. The
Pantheistic; 3d. The Anthropotheistic, which deifies
man. The vast symbolism of this drama is recom-
mended to the attention of the reader.
Abiding by the counsel of the Angel, our hero mar-
ries, thus involving another in his fate. He makes a
44 A. VA LYSIS OF THE UNDIVINE COMEDY.
solemn vow to be faithful, in the keeping of which vow
he takes upon himself the responsibility of the happiness
of one of God's creatures, a pure and trusting woman,
who loves him well. A husband and a father, he breaks
his oath. Tempted by the phantom of a long-lost love, —
the Ideal under the form of a maiden, — he deserts the
real duties he has assumed to pursue this Ideal, — per-
sonated indeed by Lucifer himself, and which becomes —
true and fearful lesson for those who seek the infinite in
the finite — a loathsome skeleton as soon as grasi)ed !
From the false and disappointing search into which he
had been enticed by the Demon, he returned to find the
innocent wife, whom he had deserted, in a mad-house.
False to human duties, his punishment came fast upon
the heels of crime.
In the scene which occurs in bedlam, we find the key
which admits us to the meaning of much of the sym-
bolism of this drama. We accompany the husband into
the mad-house to visit the broken-hearted wife, and are
there introduced into our still-existing society, — formal,
monotonous, cold, and about to be dissolved. Our hero
had married the Past, a good and devout woman, but
not the realization of his poetic dreams, which nothing
could have satisfied save the infinite. In the midst of
this strange scene of suffering, we hear the cries of the
Future, and ail is terror and tumult. This future, with
its tu'rbulence, blood, and demonism, is represented as
existing in its germs among the maniacs. Like the
springs of a volcanic mountain, which are always dis-
turbed before an eruption of fire, their cries break upon
us; the broken words and shrill shrieks of the madmen
are the clouds of murky smoke which burst from the ex-
plosive craters before the lava pours forth its burning
flood. Voices from the right, from the left, from al)ove,
from below, represent the conflicting religious opinions
and warring political parties of this dawning Future,
already hurtling against those of the dissolving Present.
Into this pandemonium, by his desertion of her for a
vain ideal, our hero has plunged his wife, the woman of
the Past, whom he had sworn to make happy. It is to
be observed that she was not necessarily his inferior, but.
ANALYSIS OF THE UNDIVmE COMEDY. 45
in the world of heart, superior to himself. A true and
pure character, feeling its inferiority, and anxious to ad-
vance, cannot long remain in the background ; it has
sufficient power to attain the height of self-abnegating
greatness. God sometimes deprives men of the strength
necessary for action, but He never robs them of the foculty
of progress, of spiritual elevation. Meanness and grovel-
ing are always voluntary, and their essence is to resist
superiority, to struggle against it : thus all the bitter reac-
tions of the Past against the changes really needed for the
development of the Future, spring from a primeval root
of baseness.
An admirable picture of an exhausted and dying society
is given us in the person of the precocious, but decrepit
child ; the sole fruit of this sad marriage. Destined from
its birth to an early grave, its excitable imagination soon
consumes its frail body. Nothing could be more exquis-
itely tender, more true to nature, than the portraiture of
this unfortunate but lovely boy.
After the betrayal of our hero by his Ideal, the Guar-
dian Angel again appears to him to give him simple but
sage counsel :
" Return to thy house, and sin no more !
Return to thy house, and love thy child ! "
But vain this wise advice ! As if driven to the desert to
be tempted, we again meet our hero in the midst of storm
and tempest, wildly communing with Nature, trying to
read in her changeful phenomena lessons he should have
sought in the depths of his own soul ; seeking from her
dumb lips oracles to be found only in the fulfillment of
sacred duties; for thus alone is to be solved the perplex-
ing riddle of human destiny, — "Peace to men of good
will. " Roaming through the wilderness, sad and hope-
less, and in his despair about to fall into the gloomy and
blighting sin of caring for no one but himself, he hears
the angel, who once more chants to him the divine lesson
that only in self-sacrificing love and lowly duties can the
true j^ath to the Future be found :
"Love the sick, the hungry, the despairing!
Love thy neighbor, thy poor neighbor, as thyself, and thou wilt be re-
deemed ! '■
5
46 ANALYSIS OF THE UNDIVINE COMEDY.
The reiterated warning is given to him in vain. The
Demon of political and warlike ambition then appears to
him under the form of a gigantic eagle, whose wings stir
him like the cannon's roar, the trumpet's call; he yields
to the temptation, and the Guardian Angel pleads no
more! He determines to become great, renowned, to
rule over men : military glory and political power are to
console him for the domestic ruin he has spread around
him, in having preferred the delusions of his own excited
imagination to the love and faith of the simple but tender
heart which God had confided to him in the holy bond of
marriage. The love and deification of self in the delu-
sive show of military and political glory is the lowest and
last temptation into which a noble soul can fall, for indi-
vidual fame is preferred to God's eternal justice, and men
are willing to die, if only laurel-crowned, with joy and
pride even in a bad cause.
In the third part of the comedy we are introduced into
the "new world. " The old world, with its customs,
prejudices, oppressions, charities, laws, has been almost
destroyed. The details of the struggle, which must have
been long and dreadful, are not given to us; they are to
be divined. Several years are supposed to have passed
between the end of the second and the beginning of the
third part; and we are called to witness the triumphs of
the victors, and the tortures of the vanquished. The
character of the "idol of the people" is an admirable
conception. All that is negative and destructive in the
revolutionary tendencies of European society is skillfully
seized upon and incarnated in a single individual. His
mission is to destroy. He possesses a great intellect, but
no heart. He says: '^0/ the blood we shed to-day, no
trace will be left to-? norrow. '' In corroboration of this
conception of the character of a modern reformer, it is
well known that most of the projected reforms of the
present century have proceeded from the brains of logi-
cians and philosophers.
This man of intellect succeeds in grasping power. His
appearance speaks his character. His forehead is high
and angular, his head is entirely bald, his expression cold
and impassible, his lips never smile, — he is of the same
ANALYSIS OF THE UNDIVINE COMEDY.
47
type as many of the revolutionary leaders during the
French reign of terror. His name is Pancras, which
name, from the Greek, signifies the union of all material
or brute forces. It is not by cliance he received that name.
The profound truth in which this character is conceived
is also manifested in his distrust of himself, in his hesita-
tion. As he is acting from false principles, he cannot
deceive himself into that enthusiastic faith with which he
would fain inspire his disciples. He confides in Leonard
because he is in possession of that precious quality.
His monologue is very fine ; perhaps it stands next in
rank to that of Hamlet. It opens to us the strange secrets
of the irresolution and vacillation which have always
characterized the men who have been called upon by fate
alone to undertake vast achievements. In proof of this,
it is well known that Cromwell was anxious to conceal
the doubts and fears which constantly harassed him. It
was those very doubts and fears which led him to see and
re-see so frequently the dethroned Charles, and which at
last drove the conscience-stricken Puritan into the sepul-
chre of the decapitated king, that he might gaze into the
still face of the royal victim whose death he had himself
effected. Did the sad face of the dead calm the fears of
the living?
It is well known that Danton addressed to himself the
most dreadful reproaches. Even at the epoch of his
greatest power, Robespierre was greatly annoyed because
he could not convince his cook of the justice and perma-
nence of his authority. Men who are sent by Provi-
dence only to destroy, feel within them the worm w^hich
gnaws forever: it constantly predicts to them, in vague
but gloomy presentiments, their own approaching destruc-
tion.
A feeling of this nature urges Pancras to seek an inter-
view with his most powerful enemy, the Count; he is
anxious to gain the confidence of his adversary, because
he cannot feel certain of his own course while a single
man of intellectual power exists capable of resisting his
ideas. In the interview which occurs between the two
antagonistic leaders of the Past and Future, the various
questions which divide society, literature, religion, phi-
48 ANALYSIS OF THE UNDIVINE COMEDO.
losophy, politics, are discussed. Is it not a profound
truth that in the real world also /«<'/? /«/ encounters always
precede wa/i'r/rt'/ combats ; that men always measure their
strength, spirit to spirit, before they meet in external fact,
body to body ? The idea of bringing two vast systems face
to face through living and highly dramatic personifica-
tions is truly great, suggestive, and original.
But as the Truth is neither in the camp of Pancras nor
in the feudal castle of the Count our hero, the victory will
profit neither party !
The opening of the last act is exceedingly beautiful.
No painter could reproduce on canvas the sublime scenery
sketched in its prologue; more gloomy than the pictures
of Ruysdael, darker than those of Salvator Rosa. Before
describing the inundation of the masses, our author natu-
rally recalls the traditions of the Flood. The nobles, the
representatives of the Past, with their few surviving ad-
herents, have taken refuge in their last stronghold, the
fortress of the Holy Trinity, securely situated upon a high
and rocky peak overhanging a deep valley, surrounded and
hedged in by steep cliffs and rocky precipices. Through
tliese straits and passes once howled and swe])t the waters
of the deluge. As wild an inundation is now upon them,
for the valley is almost filled with the living surges of the
myriads of the " New Men," who are rolling their millions
into its depths. But everything is hidden from view by
an ocean of heavy vapor, wrapping the whole landscape
in its white, chill, clinging shroud. The last and only
banner of the Cross now raised upon the face of the
earth streams from the highest tower of the Castle of the
Holy Trinity; it alone pierces through and floats above
the cold, vague, rayless heart of the sea of mist, — nauglit
save the mystic symbol of God's love to man soars into
the unclouded blue of the infinite sky !
After frequent defeats, after the loss of all hope, the
hero, wishing to embrace for the last time his sick and
blind son, sends for the precocious boy, whose death-hour
is to strike before his own. I doubt if the scene which
then occurs has, in the whole range of fiction and poetry,
ever been surpassed. This poor boy, the son of an insane
mother and a poet-father, is gifted with supernatural facul-
ANALYSIS OF THE UNDIVINE COMEDY.
49
ties, with second or spiritual sight. Entirely blind, con-
sequently surrounded by perpetual darkness, it mattered
not to him if the light of day or the gloom of midnight
was upon the earth ; and in his rayless wanderings he had
made his way into the dungeons, sepulchres, and vaults
which were lying far below the foundations of the castle,
and which had for centuries served as places of torture,
punishment, and death for the enemies of his long and
noble line. In these secret charnel-houses were buried
the bodies of the oppressed, while in the haughty tombs
around and above them lay the bones of their oppressors.
The unfortunate and fragile boy, the last scion of a long
line of ancestry, had there met the thronging and com-
plaining ghosts of past generations. Burdened with these
dreadful secrets, when his vanquished father seeks him to
embrace him for the last time, he shudderingly hints to
him of fearful knowledge, and induces him to follow him
into the subterranean caverns. He then recounts to him
the scenes which are passing before his open vision among
the dead. The spirits of those who had been chained,
tortured, oppressed, or victimized by his ancestors appear
before him, complaining of past cruelties. They form a
mystic tribunal to try their old masters and oppressors;
the scenes of the dreadful Day of Judgment pass before
him ; the awe-struck and loving boy at last recognizes his
own father among the criminals ; he is dragged to that
fatal bar, he sees him wring his hands in anguish, he hears
his dreadful groans as he is given over to the fiends for
torture, — he hears his mother's voice calling him above,
but, unwilling to desert his father in his anguish, he falls
to the earth in a deep and long fainting fit, while the
wretched father hears his own doom pronounced by that
dread but unseen tribunal : ^'■Because thou hast loved no-
thing but thyself, reve}'ed nothing but thyself and thine own
thoughts, thou art damned to all eternity /' '
It is true this scene is very brief, but, rapid as the light-
ning's flash, it lasts long enough to scathe and blast ; —
breaking the darkness but to show the surrounding horror,
to deepen into despair the fearful gloom. Although of
bald and severe simplicity, it is sublime and terrible. It
is so concise that our hearts actually long for more, un-
5*
5°
ANALYSIS OF THE UNDIVINE COMEDY.
willing to believe in the reality of the doom of that ghostly
tribunal. It repeats the awful lessons of Holy Writ, and
our conscience awakes to our own deficiencies, while the
marrow freezes in our bones as we read. >
Nor is the close of the drama less sublime. Because
the Truth was neither in the camp of Pancras nor in the
Castle of the Count, IT appears in the clouds to con-
found them both.
After Pancras has conquered all that has opposed him —
has triumphantly gloated over his Fourieristic schemes for
the material well being of the race whom he has robbed
of all higher faith — he grows agitated at the very name
of God when it falls from the lips of his confidant, Leon-
ard: the sound seems to awaken him to a consciousness
that he is standing in asea of blood, which he has himself
shed ; he feels that he has been nothing but an instrument
of destruction, that he has done certain evil for a most
uncertain good. All this rushes rapidly upon him, when,
on the bosom of a crimson sunset cloud, he perceives a
mystic symbol, unseen save by himself: "The extended
arms are lightning flashes ; the three nails shine like stars,"
— his eyes die out as he gazes upon it, — he falls dead to the
earth, crying, in the strange words spoken by the apos-
tate Emj^eror Julian with his parting breath, "ViciSTi
Galilee ! " Thus this grand and complex drama is really
consecrated to the glory of the Galilean !
Nothing more intensely melancholy than this poem has
ever been written. The author could only have been born
in a country desolated for ages ! Therefore this drama is
eminently Polish. The grief is too bitter to express itself
oratorically. Its hopeless perplexity of woe has also its
root in the character and depth of the truths therein de-
veloped. The poet-hero aspires for the Future ; it dis-
apjioints him ; — he then grasps the dying Past, because,
as he himself says, " God has enlightened his reason, but
not warmed liis heart. " His thoughts and feelings cannot
be brought into harmony.
blessing of the Church gave him a wife richly gifted in
body and soul, of an amiable temper, and possessing that
ready conception of the sublime and beautiful so calcu-
lated to throw over the life of the poet the atmosphere
necessary for full poetical development. The young
couple spent the first two years of their married life in the
land of their fathers, not indeed wholly untroubled, but
far from the vexatious turmoil of the world. The malady
of his eyes, as well as his general ill health, held him aloof
from society, limiting his intercourse to a few trusted
friends, among whom was Amilie Zaluska, who had grown
up with him, and whom he loved as a sister. His first
son, Ladislaus, was born in 1844. He would gladly have
continued to reside in his native land, but as this could
not be without the most injurious influence upon his
health, he was forced to resume his wanderings, tarrying
BIOGRAPHY OF KRASINSKI. 23
for some time in Nice. The frightful occurrences of
which Galicia was the theatre, in 1846, affected him most
painfully. When referring to an opinion regarding these
circumstances expressed by him at a much earlier date,
he passionately exclaimed: "Ah! why was I not a false
prophet? " and almost cursed the exactness of his pro-
phetic vision. These startling events gave rise to a
discussion with the fiery poet, Julius Slowacki. This
discussion awakened intense interest, and will ever re-
main a most valuable exposition of the political opinions
of the times ; it also placed in the strongest light the an-
tagonistic genius of the two poets.
Toward the end of the year 1847, ^"<^ about a year after
the birth of his second son, Sigismund returned to Rome,
and was consequently an eye-witness of the political
scenes occurring during 1848 in the capital of the world.
His religious feelings were always deep, and it was most
natural that during his sojourn in Rome, a man of his char-
acter and antecedents should become through conviction
an ardent champion of the Catholic Church. In June,
1848, he returned to Heidelberg, whence he paid a short
visit to France, then convulsed by revolution. After a
trial of sea-bathing, he remained some time in Baden,
where, in spite of severe physical suffering, he labored upon
the first and third divisions of " The Undivine Comedy,"
of which, as already stated, he had finished the second
part in Vienna. It was his custom while thus occupied
to have his wife seated at the piano, that he might hear
her play the melodies he loved. When Baden was also
drawn into the whirlpool of the revolution, he went to
Berne, in which place he was utterly prostrated by sick-
ness. When just beginning to recover, he received a com-
mand from the Government to return immediately home.
He obeyed the summons, and suffered the necessary re-
sults. He spent that winter in Warsaw, but in consequence
of the disastrous effects of the rigor of the climate upon
his delicate organization, he was threatened with total
loss of eyesight. With great difficulty he obtained from
Russia permission again to leave Poland. He tried sea-
bathing at Triport, which, instead of mitigating, greatly
increased his maladies. He was allowed to select Heidel-
24
BIOGRAPHY OF KRA^ilNSKI.
berg as his residence for the winter, where his wife soon
joined him. The disease of his eyes had so increased as
to incapacitate him for all literary labor. The following
summer he spent at Baden ; the following winter in Rome.
He took great interest in the excavations and disinter-
ments then being made in the Appian Way, finding in
them the subject of a masterly poem dedicated to his wife,
which has never as yet been published. He went also
again to Naples, and was a frequent guest in the Palace
of the Grand Duchess, Stephanie von Baden, who took
as great pleasure in the society of the Polish poet as she
had already taken in the perusal of such of his works as
she could obtain in French. He then went to the Rhine,
but was ordered by the Government to return to Poland,
where he arrived with his family late in the autumn of
1852, and remained there until the close of the next
summer. But as his residence in that climate would have
been certain death to him, he again applied for permission
to go abroad. Having obtained it, he went to Boppard,
on the Rhine, to try for the second time the water-cure,
but he derived no benefit therefrom. His sons remained
in Warsaw with their grandfather, while he, tortured by
continual suffering, remained upon the Rhine. His wife,
after having given birth to a daughter, followed him to
Heidelberg, — the only place abroad in which the Russian
Government would allow him to remain for any length of
time. Dreadfully emaciated, he had become so weak
that, with tottering steps, he was only able to walk for a
few moments during the day under the shadow of the trees
in front of his dwelling, and could only Avrite with his
pencil. In this pitiable condition, the command was
again issued for his immediate return to Poland ! His wife
instantly returned to Warsaw, to endeavor to have the
order canceled. After the most untiring efforts she ob-
tained its recall, but with the express understanding that
permission to rejnain ah'oad was granted for the last time.
Return was certain death, but as Russia knouts her own
poets, she could scarcely be expected to attach any im-
portance to the prolongation of the life of the noble Pole.
The death of the stern Nicholas, in 1855, so for allevi-
ated the position of Krasinski that his residence abroad was
BIOGRAPHY OF KR AS IN SKI.
25
no longer bound by conditions so rigorous. The nomi-
nation of his father as Governor of Poland gratified him
exceedingly, so much the more as the appointment was
received with general satisfaction by his countrymen.
He tried the water-cure again at Kissingen in 1856, but
he remained so ill and debilitated that during a period of
ten months he was only able to move about by the aid of
crutches. He spent the following winter in Paris, and
was advised by his attending physician there to try sea-
bathing the ensuing summer.
But a heavy misfortune now fell upon him. Through
the failure of the house Thurneissen, he lost not only a
considerable portion of his own, but nearly the whole of
his wife's property.
As the old general greatly longed to see his son and
grandchildren once more around him, Sigismund deter-
mined to gratify the wishes of his father, although he was
well aware that such a journey in his state of health would
prove highly injurious to him. A new and deeper sorrow
awaited him on his return to his native land : the death
of his idolized daughter, Elizabeth. Utterly prostrated,
he hastened to Heidelberg, to place himself under the
advice of Dr. Chelius. He spent the remainder of that
winter tortured by perpetual cramps and spasms. He also
lost his beloved friend, Ary Scheffer. Dr. Walther, of
Dresden, pronounced his lungs affected, and advised him
to try Plombieres, from which trial, however, he derived
no benefit. He also tried the springs at Ems, but with
no better effect. He then returned to Dresden, to place
himself under the immediate care of Dr. Walther: useless
efforts ! The skillful physician saw at once the rapid
ravages of the deadly disease, and could only advise Italy
or Algiers. Krasinski, not satisfied with the advice of one
physician, went to Dr. Louis, in Paris, for additional con-
sultation, but, too timid to tell him the whole truth, that
physician gave him so much encouragement that he re-
soved to remain in that city. A new method of medical
treatment was essayed, but at its very commencement his
heart was again wrung by severe affliction. A telegraphic
dispatch announced that his father was lying at the point
of death. In consequence of his utter exhaustion, he was
3*
26 BIOGRAPHY OF KRASINSKI.
unable to hasten to the dying bed, and was forced to
commit this tender duty to his wife, who fulfilled it so
efficiently that she arrrived in time to close the dying eyes
of Count Vincent Krasinski. The news of this death fear-
fully shattered the sinking frame of Sigismund ; he with-
drew from society, and was scarcely to be seen even by
his most intimate friends. He tried to soothe his aching
heart by preparing a sketch of his father's life for the
Italian sculptor who was to execute the monument of
General Krasinski, but was only able to bring it down to
1827.
Meanwhile, he was constantly urged by his friends,
who saw how rapidly he was declining, to seek a milder
clime; but he would not listen to their entreaties, and
remained in Paris. He watched the course of political
events with intense interest, and his soul was filled with
divinations of important and widely-spread changes yet
to be. His illness now suddenly assuiped a form so
marked that he at last became alarmed, and recalled to
Paris his wife, who, at his request, had remained in War-
saw to attend to the inheritance left him by his father. His
three physicians agreed in the opinion that his days were
numbered, and his wife saw on her return that there was
no hope for the husband so dearly loved.
The seal of death was indeed already upon him, and,
after a painful struggle, lasting through ten entire days,
his pure and immortal soul left his racked and suffering
body during the night of the 23d to the 24th of Febru-
ary, 1859.
The coffin containing his mortal remains was placed
temporarily in the Church of the Madeleine ; but later,
accompanied by Count Zamoyiski, it was taken to Po-
land, and at Opingora, the ancestral seat of the Kra-
sinskis, his body found its final resting-place, surrounded
by illustrious ancestors.
And this is all our author, who evidently loved the
subject of his biography, ventures to tell us of the inter-
nal life of the man, of the exhausting conflict between
filial veneration and duty and intense and glowing
patriotism, forever surging through the soul of the
sublime Poet.
BIOGRAPHY OF KRASINSKI.
27
After a judicious analysis of the works of Krasinski,
which we omit because the subject is more widely treated
by the older and younger Mickiewicz, as well as by
Julian Klaczko, our biographer continues:
A fragment only has as yet appeared of an apparently
large work, entitled "Cracow in 1858," which seems to
be written in the style peculiar to this poet. A volume
of extracts from his letters has also been published in
Paris, under the supervision of one of his dearest friends,
Constantine Gaszynski, under whose name Krasinski pub-
lished "The Dawn. "
Poland venerates in him the distinguished author, the
inspired poet, the sublime spirit, the brave man who
knew how to sustain hope in adversity, and to quicken
with new powers the sinking soul. The effort of his life
was to attain moral perfection in his own being. But he
rested not in this alone ; he strove, even through his
own constant sickness and sorrow, to call it forth not
only in individuals, but to make it the life-pulse of his en-
tire nation / The character of his works, and their mar-
velous influence upon his countrymen, have justly entitled
him to the rank of a truly National Poet. Every chord
which as an individual he struck upon his lyre rang in
harmony with the desires, feelings, thoughts, and hopes
of the Polish People. There certainly have been men on
earth who could absorb into their own wider and deeper
being all the thoughts, feelings, and hopes of their coun-
try ; who were capable of fusing them in the glow of
their own genius, and of bringing them forth in the clear
light and close unity of art. Undoubtedly Krasinski
takes a high, if not indeed the very highest, place among
such rare national creators. Continually crushed under
the weight of severe bodily afflictions, deeply wounded
in heart, he took into his inmost soul the sad history of
his People ; he felt it as his own anguish, and placed it
as his peculiar seal upon everything he has written. Sin-
cerity, truth, glow of sympathy, knowledge, nay, clear
prophetic insight, were the strong rounds of the ladder
by which he ascended to such glittering heights. Wher-
ever his people still breathed, not yet crushed to dust
under the merciless foot of the spoiler, there the Poet,
28 BIOGRAPHY OF KRASINSKI.
raising his own sorrow-crowned head above the miseries
of Time, gazed with the holy trust of the martyr far into
the heavens, and " there saw God," divining with sacred
pride and joy that Future which the Polish people see
clearly revealed to them through their present agonies,
and which their poets, in spite of chains, prisons, tor-
ture, and exile, never cease to sing to them. In the vast
world of thought and the wide regions of poetry there
were no limits for Krasinski, and he reveled in that
mystic freedom of art which was alike denied to himself
and country in the sphere of politics. But no impurity
ever sullies his noble pages, and what he wrote on politi-
cal regeneration is already graven on the heart of the
world.
And yet he never once stooped to win popular ap-
plause. Compared with the contemporary writers of
Poland, he is especially distinguished by a nature not
objectively, but essentially and spiritually poetic, which
is stamped deeply upon all his writings. But his peculiar
traits are not to be found in the rich gifts of an excitable
fancy, wealth of imagery, charms of vivid description, or
luxury of ever-varying combinations. They are to be
looked for in a higher region, — in a love for justice, and
a clear and far-reaching insight into truth, into its devel-
opment in things yet to be, a power of so distinctly
portraying the future that one is strongly disposed to
characterize his works as "Apocalyptic. "
Known until now only as the "Anonymous Poet," he
never sought literary fame, but concealed the good he
was effecting as sedulously as others conceal shame. En-
joying the love and esteem of his countrymen, blessed
with a wife as high-souled as beautiful, and lovely chil-
dren, surrounded by many and true friends, and in the
possession of large property, he might have been re-
garded as one highly favored by destiny. But health,
that most inestimable of blessings, was denied him from
youth until his last sigh ; and his heart was wrung by
never-uttered sorrows. He was thus no friend to idle
and useless amusements, and was seldom seen in the
saloons of the gay world ; but he loved social inter-
course with the friends whom he trusted, and it always
BIOGRAPHY OF KRASINSKI.
29
gave him pleasure to converse upon the historical and
philosophical questions of the day. Then would he open
a mine of intellectual wealth, of original and striking
views, of profound ideas, which, under more favorable
circumstances, would have made him at least the equal of
the statesmen of his time.
Devout in the very depths of his soul, he shrank from
no sacrifice for his family or friends, and was generous
and magnanimous almost to prodigality. His own words,
uttered in defense of the spirit of knighthood, are won-
derfully appropriate to himself:
" He burned, a never-consumed offering, upon the altar of his counti-y. "
PREFACE.
TRANSLATED FROM LADISLAS MICKIEWICZ, SON OF ADAM
MICKIEWICZ, THE GREAT POLISH POET.
Extracted from the French Edition of the Works of Krasiitski.
Polish Poetry, in the nineteenth century, stands in
striking contrast with contemporary literature. While
the latter has fallen under the corrupting influence of the
schools, has proclaimed art/or the sake of art, and volun-
tarily restricted its empire to the mysteries of the worship
of the Muses, the former has pursued another path, and
Poetry has remained in Poland, what it ought ever to be
in the heart of a great people, the vigorous and spon-
taneous expression of the feelings and thoughts which
constitute the spirit of the nation. From this common
fund have the poets, or, to use their own language, the
"prophets" of Poland, drawn all their inspiration; and
prophets they really are, for like tongues of fire they were
given to their people to express all their hopes and all
their agonies.
They cling to a firm belief in the Resurrection of their
Country, but no more than the patriotic feeling which en-
genders it is this faith confined to themselves, for however
irreconcilable it may seem with the actual fate of Poland,
it is, nevertheless, found in all Polish souls impressed by
an internal conviction far more powerful than the external
evidence of the moment.
Is it not indeed truly surprising to see this People, which,
in the day of its greatest prosperity, and two centuries
before its fall, had the fatal foreknowledge of that fall,
3'
32
PREFACE TO THE FRENCH EDITION.
affirm with the same certainty, now when its ruin is con-
summated, its approaching resurrection? In this faith,
opposed to nature and fact, is there not something re-
sembling a pledge from Providence, something like a
sacred promise made to the oppressed ? At least the poets
have so understood it, and, confiding in this intuition,
they have, in the absence of a terrestrial country, created
an ideal one, the admission into which is only to be won
by devotion and virtue.
" To be a Pole
Is to have noble aspirations and a flame divine. "
Thus the aim of the Polish poets was essentially national,
but it would be a great error to deduce from this that the
absorption of the genius of Poland in the sad mysteries
of its own existence ever rendered it a stranger to the
thoughts and interests of the West. So entirely would
such a deduction be contrary to fact, that it is precisely
through the intuitions of her poetical genius that the
close union of the West and Poland — perhaps indeed the
dependence of their mutual destiny — is most clearly
revealed, the moral and intellectual life which animates
both springing from the same sources, and the whole
social organism being governed by the same necessities.
The works of the Anonymous Poet bear the frequent stamp
of this truth. They are full of important lessons even for
the most prosperous peoples. We have placed ourselves
in this double point of view in publishing these transla-
tions. The alliance between France and Poland, con-
secrated by blood, will be cemented by related ideas.
We hope it will be fertile, for to it we owe that system of
international justice, acknowledged by France, which is
summed up in the principle of the nationalities. It is
impossible to deny that the initiative in this movement
belongs to the reclamations of Poland. However warped
this principle may have been in Germany or elsewhere, it
cannot be gainsaid that it constitutes a moral progress
which will benefit all Europe.
It may be reserved for the history of Poland under her
present circumstances to introduce another motive-power,
as yet too little heeded \\\ public life, the principle of Duty
PREFACE TO THE FRENCH EDITION.
Zl
as tlie *' primum mobile" of the State and of the citizen.
Is not her martyrdom truly a constant appeal to the self-
sacrifice of her sons, and to the fraternity of nations ?
That the nationalities are really collective individuals,
that each one has its part to play in the destiny of this
world, and that the lesson to be taught by Poland is the
guidance of governments by principles of abstract justice
and duty, are favorite themes with the Anonymous Poet.
He regards a nation as an entity differing from a merely
politically constituted State ; the one being merely a human,
the other a divine idea founded in the very nature of
things. It is the duty of nations to translate the designs
of God into the world of fact ; to incarnate them, to
make them useful to the entire humanity. Such should
be their aim and the purpose of their existence. Should
they fail to fulfill their mission, should they betray it, they
must perish as nations ; but if they struggle for the truth,
material. force alone will not be able to repress their de-
velopment ; their spirit must at last prevail, and they will
rise into a higher life.
From this theory springs a system of political morals,
not different from individual morality, nor parallel with
it, but the same elevated to a higlier degree. Applying
these conclusions to the situation forced upon his coun-
try, the Poet teaches her that hate is death to the spirit,
and always strikes it with im])otence.
To struggle without relaxation is an absolute necessity,
and he desires and urges it ; but let it be a constant com-
bat of good against evil, of light with darkness ; let the
love of God and man guide and support it, for such love
is the pledge of victory ! Without an ardent desire that
equal justice may be meted out to all, without Christian
forgiveness and moral superiority, he sees only cham-
pions of passion, or base gladiators in the wide arena.
The future of Poland looms magnificently before him ;
she is to resume her existence in the reconciliation of ex-
tremes and antagonisms, in a reign of peace and happi-
ness. He has no doubt of the progress of humanity, but
he assigns, as its absolute condition, the reparation of
one of the greatest crimes committed since the Death on
Calvary, — the assassination of a Nation, the violent sup-
4
34
PREFACE TO THE FRENCH EDITION.
pression by man of a thought of God ! He predicts a
glorious resurrection to Poland, if she will faithfully guard
the principle of life implanted in her, if, surrounded by
hate, she can preserve herself from a moral fall.
Such are the ideas which have presided over the crea-
tion of all his works, and which he has interpreted with
unequaled splendor. He endeavored to present his
thought under two aspects: — the sterility of hate, dem-
onstrated in *'Iridion" and "The Undivine Comedy;"
and the fertility of love, as illustrated in "The Dawn"
and "The Psalms of the Future. "
We will attempt to give a rapid analysis of these poems.
Iridion is a type of the man of antiquity in deadly
combat with Fate. The descendant of an illustrious
family, which had fought to the last for the independ-
ence of Greece, he only lived to pursue victorious Rome
with the implacable enmity which had been enjoined
upon him by his ancestors. To aid him in the superhu-
man task to which he had been consecrated from infancy,
the intense hate of several generations had been occupied
in gathering mighty resources for the hour of struggle.
Wealth, influence, rank, relations with the barbarians,
alliances with their leaders, etc. , had all been skillfully
prepared. He, in his own person, seemed created for
such a role. To great vigor, manly beauty, and the en-
trancing fascination of a demigod, he joined the inexora-
ble heart of a hero. He knew neither pity nor weakness.
He had left room in his soul for only one thought, one
desire, — the destruction of Rome. Whatever this one
passionate thought could conceive, he executed without
recoiling from any sacrifice. On the other hand, the
Eternal City, under the rule of Heliogabalus, was but a
corpse, crushing with its inert weight all who sought to
live. All was peril without and confusion within ; soci-
ety was crumbling into ashes, and there was nothing to
sustain it save the imperial power, formidable for all who
feared it, but weak for those who defied it. Iridion
found everywhere fit instruments of vengeance ; he op-
pressed with the oppressors, and conspired with the
conspirators. His indomitable energy urged on the
conspiring and antagonistic elements to a gigantic and
PREFACE TO THE FRENCH EDITION. 3-
decisive struggle, which he intended should terminate in
their mutual destruction.
A single force refused to be made use of to serve the
hatred of Greece: the persecuted Christianity, which re-
pelled all violence, and placed its sole hope in spiritual
arms. Astonished at a resistance which he could not
understand, he at first sought to subdue it, but, growing
irritated, he moved too rapidly, and precipitated events.
The outbreak took place, but brought not the anticipated
results. Uniting in the name of their resentments, men
often move together in the path of their own interests.
Hatred, the savage sentiment of individual egotism,
although it may be strong enough to unite men in a
common action, is not sufficiently powerful when it be-
comes necessary to exact obedience from them ! Helio-
gabalus perished, but Rome endured. The efforts of the
heroic leader, aided by many chances of exceptional
success, miserably failed, because the whole enterprise
was vitiated by the very idea which inspired it !
The tendency of the poem is still more fully unveiled
in the epilogue. Introducing the supernatural into the
web of the plot, the Poet transports Iridion into our own
epoch, and shows him that very Rome which had op-
pressed others, itself destroyed and degraded, — fallen as
low as even his hate had dreamed it. But these black
ruins do not glorify vengeance, for above them rises the
Cross, the emblem of those Christians who had re-
nounced the transitory supremacy of power to establish
a reign of faith, charity, and forgiveness.
And this Cross, which here appears as the synthesis of
the Past, the Poet will once more bring before our eyes
in glory, as the supreme hope of the world of the
Present ! It will shine from the skies in sign of pardon
and alliance, and, in seeing it, the guilty conqueror will
say, "GaliL/EE, vicisti! " and will be engulfed in his
own nothingness! Such is the denouement of "The
Undivine Comedy," in which the glowing imagination
of the Anonymous Poet has traced the struggle which
is to precede that apocalyptic day.
Humanity, in "The Undivine Comedy," Is severed
into two camps, under the leadership of two chiefs,
36 PREFACE TO THE FRENCH EDFTION.
Count Henry and Pancras. Irreconcilable enemies, both
having issued from a like critical spirit, the one repels
the Future, the other the Past. This absolute exclusion
is on both sides the fruit of an utter want of faith. Pan-
cras is the personification of human reason, which deifies
itself in its own essence, and believes only in finite calcu-
lation, — in action as the result of the power of numbers.
Count Henry also personifies human reason, which glori-
fies itself, in his case, in his own individuality, denying
all general laws, and, as a rule of conduct, bowing only
to his individual fancies. If he believes in the cause
which he defends, it is because he believes in himself,
and when he is defeated, he despairs and rushes into sui-
cide. He kills himself at the very moment that the God
of Life has chosen to reveal Himself in the most striking
manner to the conscience of the Peoples !
A feeling of astonishment is at first created by the fact
that our author gives the victory to Pancras, the cynic
and scorner, the unyielding antagonist of the truth whose
triumph is announced. But this victory was necessary to
demonstrate that in any struggle undertaken only with
the arms of hate, the advantage is always assured to blind
force. A still deeper design is also manifest. The de-
feat of Pancras by Count Henry would have only resulted
in the glorification of the genius of man ; and the inter-
vention of the divine symbol, instead of originating an
instantaneous reaction, would but have strengthened the
pride of Count Henry, in such case, invincible. Now
neither pride, nor genius, are the supreme arbiters of
human destinies ! The onward path which in their free
progress leads men to good, is the Good itself, and it
alone, in which, according to the noble words of the
Poet, all wisdom is contained ! Upon the perfecting of
virtue and on its reign depend our salvation in this world
and in the next. Triple and one, identical in its terms
which cannot be separated, cause, means, and effect, that
good is origin and life, divine order and immortality, for
it is the universal bond which links the Spirit of every
being to the Spirit of God. It proceeds in its manifesta-
tions by order, harmony, love, and union, and is the woof
in the work of the universe which, in the divine loom.
PREFACE TO THE FRENCH EDITION.
37
supports and unites the infinite threads of Creation : —
threads which all move under its direction, and weft, to
which every human effort must be attached, if fertile or
imperishable results are to be evolved. Whosoever works
otherwise, builds upon the sands; striving to annul the
labors of the centuries, he can found nothing true, real,
or absolute ; the lightest wind will sweep away the build-
ing reared by his ignorance and presumption.
All the generous ardor with which such convictions in-
spired our Poet, he wrought into the service of his cause
in "The Psalms of the Future. " Sublime Pleader! His
nation in its agony was then ready to rush into measures
of extremity, but, braving unpopularity, he started up at
once to the defense of practical good sense and chivalric
honor, against the madness of despair.
In 1846, Galicia was mined with conspiracies, all of
which had adopted the national flag as their symbol of
order and rallying sign. Nevertheless, for some of the
affiliated, this flag was to bear in its folds, not only the
independence of their country, but also a violent and
radical transformation of society. These radicals, while
holding up the foreign usurpers to the indignation of the
people, also doomed the higher classes of the Polish na-
tion as accomplices in an oppression from which they,
however, had been the first to suffer. The Government
of M. de Metternich, though fully informed with regard
to the insurrection, left free course to the democratic and
socialistic propaganda, certain in advance that when the
revolution did break out, it would fall exhausted by mutual
destruction before reaching the Government, and that in a
soil so torn and uprooted by internal convulsions, it would
be easy to build a firmer foundation for Austrian power.
The Anonymous Poet understood the danger, and di-
vined the calculation of the Austrian Government ; he
endeavored to avoid the peril, and disappoint Austria;
and to effect this, he used the arms which his own genius
placed in his hands, — that mastery of poetic form which
stamped his words with so much authority ! He wrote
the Psalms of Faith, of Hope, and of Love, and in them
he made eloquent appeals to the heart, as well as to the
political acumen of his fellow-citizens.
He demonstrated 38 PREFACE TO THE FRENCH EDITION.
all that was false in their ideas, all that was culpable in
their contemplated acts, dissuading them from their de-
signs ; and then, rising to a majestic grandeur of concep-
tion, he opened before them paths which would inevitably
lead them to realize the highest ideal upon earth.
But the passions of men were already unloosed, and
nothing could arrest them. They found even an apologist
in a man of genius and a rival of our Poet, who replied
to him in poetic tones — a mingling of biblical prophecy
and zealous polemics — " that all jjrogress must be bought
by blood, and that God renewed the face of humanity as
He did that of the earth, by a series of deluges ! " The
contest of the two poets retains its celebrity among the
literary glories of Poland, and we will find its last echo
in the final scene of "The Fragment," which was not
published until after the death of the author.
The contest was still in progress, when the events them-
selves assumed the reply. Truly it was not Poland, but
the all-powerful administration of M. Bach, which rose
from the massacres in Galicia ! Austrian domination
triumphed materially and morally over its opponents, and
seemed to realize the conditions which render a victory
final. The ideas of the Anonymous Poet, slighted at a
time when they would have insured success, were now
confirmed in every conscience as a reproach or a regret.
But the utter discouragement which pervaded all minds,
joined to the conviction that repentance came too late,
struck such regret with sterility. Alas ! hours of like
prostration occur in the history of most nations ; hours
of gloom and despair, when all that is still living lives
only in the feeling of impotence and utter nothingness!
Such terrible trials are inevitable in the course of time ; —
probations which decide upon the life or death of a people,
as it shall triumph over its despair or abandon itself to
torpor ! . . . , The Anonymous Poet, always in the
breach, felt it now his duty to react against this dis-
couragement, and to use the moral authority he had
gained through such tragical occurrences to waken the
dormant energies of his comjiatriots. Under this con-
viction, he published the "Psalms of Grief and of Good
Will," in which, through his ideal, he re{i|vns to hope,
PREFACE TO THE FRENCH EDITION.
39
— hope for Poland, whose immortality he never ceases to
proclaim !
Especially is the last Psalm remarkable for its boldness
of conception. In the very moment in which accumu-
lated disasters bore his country to the earth, and the
wretchedness of slavery consumed it like a leprosy, not
suffering himself to be shaken by its apparent decomposi-
tion and death, and looking far into the future, he points
out how everything is preparing for and aiding in the
Advent of Eternal Justice.
Addressing himself to God, he thanks Him for all the
benefits He had never ceased to bestow on Poland, and
blessing His all-powerful Hand, he exclaims: "It is not
Hope which we beseech from Thee, O Lord ! it falls upon
us like a rain of flowers, — nor is it the destruction of our
enemies: their doom is written on to-morrow's cloud !
It is not to break the gates of our grave : they are already
broken, O our God 1 Nor is it arms for the combat :
they are already speeding on the tempests' wings ! Nor is
it succor: Thou hast already oped for us the field of ac-
tion, but in the midst of this explosion* of dire events,
we pray Thee, Lord, to purify our hearts! Give us the
gift of gifts : the Holy Will which opens every grave! "
A faith so vast, so limitless, almost defying Heaven to
disappoint it, could not be without influence over other
souls. It ought to have elevated and inspired them, — and
so indeed it really did. Therefore the Psalms are not
regarded merely as a literary fad, but as a political event,
which has its place marked in the National History.
The Dawn was written several years before the Psalms.
It is composed of a succession of lyrical pieces, in which
we seethe constant development of the political and hu-
manitarian ideal which had become, as it were, a religion
to the Poet. This poem shadows forth the earth restored
to the rule of harmony, which is itseternal law, and, after
its deluge of blood and crime, blossoming anew under
the eye of God.
All the works of the Anonymous Poet are written in the
spirit we have essayed to portray in this succinct analysis.
He devoted himself to the development of these ideas, and
* The Revolution of 1848.
40 PREFACE TO THE FRENCH EDITION.
to their introduction into the morals and life of his nation.
The mere singer of the beautiful, the worshiper of the
Muses, is elevated by him into sterner regions ; he uses
the poetic powers to enforce moral convictions, profound
thoughts, and conscientious patriotism. In other circum-
stances, and under another government than that to which
Poland is subjected, he would not have strung the lyre,
but would have mounted the rostrum, and become the
centre of political action. But neither rostrum nor po-
litical life was possible for him upon his native soil.
Through poetry alone could he popularize his conceptions
by preserving their precision in the frame of an exquisite,
imperishable, and easily-retained form : poetry is also the
delight of the nation, whose woes are cradled in its magic,
and whose soul palpitates in its divine accents, its lyric
enchantment. Therefore he bowed his genius to the exac-
tions of rhyme and rhythm. And never had he to com-
plain that he had so done, for not only did he attain the
proposed political aim, but he won a brilliant literary
glory, only surpassed by that of Mickiewicz.
Before closing this preface, one point remains to be
glanced at, which would furnish material for a long devel-
opment, a profound examination. The Anonymous Poet
is ranked in Poland among her Catholic writers. It would
be far more conformable with the truth to say that he pos-
sessed a religious soul, for, with regard to the doctrines
revealed in his works, it is very evident that there are wide
gaps to fill and important theses to be cut off, before it
would be possible reasonably to include them in any de-
fined limits of the dogmas of the Church. At all events,
a commentary would be required to establish their exact
meaning and bearing. But if the judgment of the public
upon this point is erroneous, it is because that public is
more logical than the author himself. Without following
him into his theosophic ideas, obscure even for those ac-
customed to such studies, his readers became imbued with
the moral side of his work, and seized upon its spirit, —
a spirit which was soon to find its final form in Catho-
licity, to which the author definitely returned toward the
close of his life.
This said, let the reader read and judge !
ANALYSIS OF THE UNDIVINE COMEDY.
EXTRACTED FROM " T. ES SLAVES," A COURSE OF LECTURES DELIV-
ERED BEFORE THE COLLEGE OF FRANCE (1842-43), BY THE MOST
RENOWNED MODERN POLISH POET, ADAM MICKIEWICZ.
[In this very remarkable work, by Adam Mickiewicz, written in
French, and which, by some strange oversight, has not yet appeared in
Engh'sh, no less than four lectures are devoted to a criticism upon " The
Undivine (or Infernal) Comedy. " The Essay of Julian Klaczko has
been found so long and exhaustive, that it is the intention of the Trans-
lator to give but a few condensed extracts from the analysis of Mickie-
wicz. The whole course of Lectures is recommended to the reader, as
full of information not elsewhere to be found; and, although in the
latter portion somewhat blemished by the elaboration of certain futile
theories, containing a mine of brilliant, deep, and highly original
thoughts. — Translator. ]
The word "Undivine" is used in preference to "Infernal" (the term
employed in the French translation) as better expressing the relation of
the drama to the " Divine Comedy" of Dante. The word is so appro-
priate that its coinage may be pardoned. — Editor.
It is my intention now to place before you the analysis
of a very remarkable work which appeared in 1834, en-
titled "The Undivine or Infernal Comedy. "
I will not call this work a fantastic Drama, although it
is now customary to give this name to all compositions
in which the characters and scenes are not immediately
derived from the world of prosaic reality. Utility and
Reality are indeed the boast of our century; but what
can be more variable, more contingent, than what we
choose to call solid reality, — that visible and material
world which is ever on the wing, which is always yet to
be, and which has no Present ? It is through the soul
alone that we are able to seize the connections and rela-
41
42
ANALYSIS OF THE UNDIVINE COMEDY.
tions of the visible world ; it alone gives them fixity or
reality ; it alone generates ideas, institutions, litera-
ture, — the only things truly real, the only things which
penetrate the soul, become incorporated with it, and
constitute the living traditions of the human race. Every
work which causes the chords of souls to vibrate, which
generates new views of life, must be considered real;
and foreign writers render but justice to Polish Poetry in
declaring it, so regarded, as very real ; — and there is
nothing more palpitating in its strange actuality than the
work we are now about to consider.
The time, the place, the characters of "The Undivine
Comedy" are all of poetic creation. The scene of the
drama is laid in the future ; and, for the first time in the
history of art, an author has attempted to construct a
prophetic play, — to describe places, introduce persons, re-
count actions which are yet to be. The struggle of the
dying Past with the vigorous but immature Future forms
the groundwork of the drama. The coloring is not local
nor characteristic of any country in particular (though
we recognize it to be Polish by the melancholy contrast
felt rather than seen between the state of the nation and
that of the individuals who compose it), because the
truths to be illustrated are of universal application, and
are evolving their own solution in all parts of the civil-
ized world.
The soul of the hero. Count Henry, is great and vig-
orous ; he is by nature a poet. Belonging to the Future
by the very essence of his being, he becomes disgusted
with the debasing materialism into which its exponents,
the new men, have fallen ; he then loses all hope in the
possible progress of humanity, and is soon presented to
us as the champion of the dying but poetic Past. But in
this he finds no rest, and is involved in perpetual strug-
gles and contradictions. Baffled in a consuming desire
to solve the y)erplexing social and religious problems of
the day by the force of his own intellect ; longing for,
yet despairing of, human progress; discerning the im-
])racticability and chicanery of most of the modern i)lans
for social amelioration ; finding nowhere his ideal ; ^he
determines to throw himself into common life, — to bind
ANALYSIS OF THE UNDIVINE COMEDY.
43
himself to his race by stringent laws and duties. The
drama opens when he is about to contract marriage.
The Angels desire to aid him, to open a way into the
Future for him through the accomplishment of his du-
ties j the Demons tempt him to embrace falsehood.
Voice of the Guardian Angel. " Peace be to men of good will ! Blessed
is the man who has still a heart : he may yet be saved !
Pure and true wife, reveal thyself to him ! And a child be born to their
House ! "
Thus the words once heard by the shepherds, and
which then announced a new epoch to humanity, open
the Drama. They are words spoken only to men oi good
win, — men who sincerely seek the truth, — who, in great
or new epochs, are able to comprehend it, or willing to
embrace it. The number of those who have preserved a
heart during the excited passions of such eras is always
very small, and without it they cannot be saved, for love
and self-abnegation are the essence of Christianity.
To instill new life and hope into the disappointed man,
the Angel ordains that a pure and good woman shall join
her fate with his, and that innocent young souls shall de-
scend and dwell with them. Domestic love and quiet
bliss are the counsel of the heavenly visitant.
Immediately after the chant of the Angel, the voice of
the Demon is heard seducing the Count from the safe
path of humble human duties. The glories of the ideal
realm are spread before him ; Nature is invoked with all
her entrancing charms ; ambitious desires of terrestrial
greatness are awakened in his soul ; he is filled with
vague hopes of paradisiacal happiness, which the Demon
whispers him it is quite possible to establish on earth. In
the temptations so cunningly set before him by the
Father of Lies, three widely-spread metaphysical systems
are shadowed forth: ist. The Ideal or Poetic; 2d. The
Pantheistic; 3d. The Anthropotheistic, which deifies
man. The vast symbolism of this drama is recom-
mended to the attention of the reader.
Abiding by the counsel of the Angel, our hero mar-
ries, thus involving another in his fate. He makes a
44 A. VA LYSIS OF THE UNDIVINE COMEDY.
solemn vow to be faithful, in the keeping of which vow
he takes upon himself the responsibility of the happiness
of one of God's creatures, a pure and trusting woman,
who loves him well. A husband and a father, he breaks
his oath. Tempted by the phantom of a long-lost love, —
the Ideal under the form of a maiden, — he deserts the
real duties he has assumed to pursue this Ideal, — per-
sonated indeed by Lucifer himself, and which becomes —
true and fearful lesson for those who seek the infinite in
the finite — a loathsome skeleton as soon as grasi)ed !
From the false and disappointing search into which he
had been enticed by the Demon, he returned to find the
innocent wife, whom he had deserted, in a mad-house.
False to human duties, his punishment came fast upon
the heels of crime.
In the scene which occurs in bedlam, we find the key
which admits us to the meaning of much of the sym-
bolism of this drama. We accompany the husband into
the mad-house to visit the broken-hearted wife, and are
there introduced into our still-existing society, — formal,
monotonous, cold, and about to be dissolved. Our hero
had married the Past, a good and devout woman, but
not the realization of his poetic dreams, which nothing
could have satisfied save the infinite. In the midst of
this strange scene of suffering, we hear the cries of the
Future, and ail is terror and tumult. This future, with
its tu'rbulence, blood, and demonism, is represented as
existing in its germs among the maniacs. Like the
springs of a volcanic mountain, which are always dis-
turbed before an eruption of fire, their cries break upon
us; the broken words and shrill shrieks of the madmen
are the clouds of murky smoke which burst from the ex-
plosive craters before the lava pours forth its burning
flood. Voices from the right, from the left, from al)ove,
from below, represent the conflicting religious opinions
and warring political parties of this dawning Future,
already hurtling against those of the dissolving Present.
Into this pandemonium, by his desertion of her for a
vain ideal, our hero has plunged his wife, the woman of
the Past, whom he had sworn to make happy. It is to
be observed that she was not necessarily his inferior, but.
ANALYSIS OF THE UNDIVmE COMEDY. 45
in the world of heart, superior to himself. A true and
pure character, feeling its inferiority, and anxious to ad-
vance, cannot long remain in the background ; it has
sufficient power to attain the height of self-abnegating
greatness. God sometimes deprives men of the strength
necessary for action, but He never robs them of the foculty
of progress, of spiritual elevation. Meanness and grovel-
ing are always voluntary, and their essence is to resist
superiority, to struggle against it : thus all the bitter reac-
tions of the Past against the changes really needed for the
development of the Future, spring from a primeval root
of baseness.
An admirable picture of an exhausted and dying society
is given us in the person of the precocious, but decrepit
child ; the sole fruit of this sad marriage. Destined from
its birth to an early grave, its excitable imagination soon
consumes its frail body. Nothing could be more exquis-
itely tender, more true to nature, than the portraiture of
this unfortunate but lovely boy.
After the betrayal of our hero by his Ideal, the Guar-
dian Angel again appears to him to give him simple but
sage counsel :
" Return to thy house, and sin no more !
Return to thy house, and love thy child ! "
But vain this wise advice ! As if driven to the desert to
be tempted, we again meet our hero in the midst of storm
and tempest, wildly communing with Nature, trying to
read in her changeful phenomena lessons he should have
sought in the depths of his own soul ; seeking from her
dumb lips oracles to be found only in the fulfillment of
sacred duties; for thus alone is to be solved the perplex-
ing riddle of human destiny, — "Peace to men of good
will. " Roaming through the wilderness, sad and hope-
less, and in his despair about to fall into the gloomy and
blighting sin of caring for no one but himself, he hears
the angel, who once more chants to him the divine lesson
that only in self-sacrificing love and lowly duties can the
true j^ath to the Future be found :
"Love the sick, the hungry, the despairing!
Love thy neighbor, thy poor neighbor, as thyself, and thou wilt be re-
deemed ! '■
5
46 ANALYSIS OF THE UNDIVINE COMEDY.
The reiterated warning is given to him in vain. The
Demon of political and warlike ambition then appears to
him under the form of a gigantic eagle, whose wings stir
him like the cannon's roar, the trumpet's call; he yields
to the temptation, and the Guardian Angel pleads no
more! He determines to become great, renowned, to
rule over men : military glory and political power are to
console him for the domestic ruin he has spread around
him, in having preferred the delusions of his own excited
imagination to the love and faith of the simple but tender
heart which God had confided to him in the holy bond of
marriage. The love and deification of self in the delu-
sive show of military and political glory is the lowest and
last temptation into which a noble soul can fall, for indi-
vidual fame is preferred to God's eternal justice, and men
are willing to die, if only laurel-crowned, with joy and
pride even in a bad cause.
In the third part of the comedy we are introduced into
the "new world. " The old world, with its customs,
prejudices, oppressions, charities, laws, has been almost
destroyed. The details of the struggle, which must have
been long and dreadful, are not given to us; they are to
be divined. Several years are supposed to have passed
between the end of the second and the beginning of the
third part; and we are called to witness the triumphs of
the victors, and the tortures of the vanquished. The
character of the "idol of the people" is an admirable
conception. All that is negative and destructive in the
revolutionary tendencies of European society is skillfully
seized upon and incarnated in a single individual. His
mission is to destroy. He possesses a great intellect, but
no heart. He says: '^0/ the blood we shed to-day, no
trace will be left to-? norrow. '' In corroboration of this
conception of the character of a modern reformer, it is
well known that most of the projected reforms of the
present century have proceeded from the brains of logi-
cians and philosophers.
This man of intellect succeeds in grasping power. His
appearance speaks his character. His forehead is high
and angular, his head is entirely bald, his expression cold
and impassible, his lips never smile, — he is of the same
ANALYSIS OF THE UNDIVINE COMEDY.
47
type as many of the revolutionary leaders during the
French reign of terror. His name is Pancras, which
name, from the Greek, signifies the union of all material
or brute forces. It is not by cliance he received that name.
The profound truth in which this character is conceived
is also manifested in his distrust of himself, in his hesita-
tion. As he is acting from false principles, he cannot
deceive himself into that enthusiastic faith with which he
would fain inspire his disciples. He confides in Leonard
because he is in possession of that precious quality.
His monologue is very fine ; perhaps it stands next in
rank to that of Hamlet. It opens to us the strange secrets
of the irresolution and vacillation which have always
characterized the men who have been called upon by fate
alone to undertake vast achievements. In proof of this,
it is well known that Cromwell was anxious to conceal
the doubts and fears which constantly harassed him. It
was those very doubts and fears which led him to see and
re-see so frequently the dethroned Charles, and which at
last drove the conscience-stricken Puritan into the sepul-
chre of the decapitated king, that he might gaze into the
still face of the royal victim whose death he had himself
effected. Did the sad face of the dead calm the fears of
the living?
It is well known that Danton addressed to himself the
most dreadful reproaches. Even at the epoch of his
greatest power, Robespierre was greatly annoyed because
he could not convince his cook of the justice and perma-
nence of his authority. Men who are sent by Provi-
dence only to destroy, feel within them the worm w^hich
gnaws forever: it constantly predicts to them, in vague
but gloomy presentiments, their own approaching destruc-
tion.
A feeling of this nature urges Pancras to seek an inter-
view with his most powerful enemy, the Count; he is
anxious to gain the confidence of his adversary, because
he cannot feel certain of his own course while a single
man of intellectual power exists capable of resisting his
ideas. In the interview which occurs between the two
antagonistic leaders of the Past and Future, the various
questions which divide society, literature, religion, phi-
48 ANALYSIS OF THE UNDIVINE COMEDO.
losophy, politics, are discussed. Is it not a profound
truth that in the real world also /«<'/? /«/ encounters always
precede wa/i'r/rt'/ combats ; that men always measure their
strength, spirit to spirit, before they meet in external fact,
body to body ? The idea of bringing two vast systems face
to face through living and highly dramatic personifica-
tions is truly great, suggestive, and original.
But as the Truth is neither in the camp of Pancras nor
in the feudal castle of the Count our hero, the victory will
profit neither party !
The opening of the last act is exceedingly beautiful.
No painter could reproduce on canvas the sublime scenery
sketched in its prologue; more gloomy than the pictures
of Ruysdael, darker than those of Salvator Rosa. Before
describing the inundation of the masses, our author natu-
rally recalls the traditions of the Flood. The nobles, the
representatives of the Past, with their few surviving ad-
herents, have taken refuge in their last stronghold, the
fortress of the Holy Trinity, securely situated upon a high
and rocky peak overhanging a deep valley, surrounded and
hedged in by steep cliffs and rocky precipices. Through
tliese straits and passes once howled and swe])t the waters
of the deluge. As wild an inundation is now upon them,
for the valley is almost filled with the living surges of the
myriads of the " New Men," who are rolling their millions
into its depths. But everything is hidden from view by
an ocean of heavy vapor, wrapping the whole landscape
in its white, chill, clinging shroud. The last and only
banner of the Cross now raised upon the face of the
earth streams from the highest tower of the Castle of the
Holy Trinity; it alone pierces through and floats above
the cold, vague, rayless heart of the sea of mist, — nauglit
save the mystic symbol of God's love to man soars into
the unclouded blue of the infinite sky !
After frequent defeats, after the loss of all hope, the
hero, wishing to embrace for the last time his sick and
blind son, sends for the precocious boy, whose death-hour
is to strike before his own. I doubt if the scene which
then occurs has, in the whole range of fiction and poetry,
ever been surpassed. This poor boy, the son of an insane
mother and a poet-father, is gifted with supernatural facul-
ANALYSIS OF THE UNDIVINE COMEDY.
49
ties, with second or spiritual sight. Entirely blind, con-
sequently surrounded by perpetual darkness, it mattered
not to him if the light of day or the gloom of midnight
was upon the earth ; and in his rayless wanderings he had
made his way into the dungeons, sepulchres, and vaults
which were lying far below the foundations of the castle,
and which had for centuries served as places of torture,
punishment, and death for the enemies of his long and
noble line. In these secret charnel-houses were buried
the bodies of the oppressed, while in the haughty tombs
around and above them lay the bones of their oppressors.
The unfortunate and fragile boy, the last scion of a long
line of ancestry, had there met the thronging and com-
plaining ghosts of past generations. Burdened with these
dreadful secrets, when his vanquished father seeks him to
embrace him for the last time, he shudderingly hints to
him of fearful knowledge, and induces him to follow him
into the subterranean caverns. He then recounts to him
the scenes which are passing before his open vision among
the dead. The spirits of those who had been chained,
tortured, oppressed, or victimized by his ancestors appear
before him, complaining of past cruelties. They form a
mystic tribunal to try their old masters and oppressors;
the scenes of the dreadful Day of Judgment pass before
him ; the awe-struck and loving boy at last recognizes his
own father among the criminals ; he is dragged to that
fatal bar, he sees him wring his hands in anguish, he hears
his dreadful groans as he is given over to the fiends for
torture, — he hears his mother's voice calling him above,
but, unwilling to desert his father in his anguish, he falls
to the earth in a deep and long fainting fit, while the
wretched father hears his own doom pronounced by that
dread but unseen tribunal : ^'■Because thou hast loved no-
thing but thyself, reve}'ed nothing but thyself and thine own
thoughts, thou art damned to all eternity /' '
It is true this scene is very brief, but, rapid as the light-
ning's flash, it lasts long enough to scathe and blast ; —
breaking the darkness but to show the surrounding horror,
to deepen into despair the fearful gloom. Although of
bald and severe simplicity, it is sublime and terrible. It
is so concise that our hearts actually long for more, un-
5*
5°
ANALYSIS OF THE UNDIVINE COMEDY.
willing to believe in the reality of the doom of that ghostly
tribunal. It repeats the awful lessons of Holy Writ, and
our conscience awakes to our own deficiencies, while the
marrow freezes in our bones as we read. >
Nor is the close of the drama less sublime. Because
the Truth was neither in the camp of Pancras nor in the
Castle of the Count, IT appears in the clouds to con-
found them both.
After Pancras has conquered all that has opposed him —
has triumphantly gloated over his Fourieristic schemes for
the material well being of the race whom he has robbed
of all higher faith — he grows agitated at the very name
of God when it falls from the lips of his confidant, Leon-
ard: the sound seems to awaken him to a consciousness
that he is standing in asea of blood, which he has himself
shed ; he feels that he has been nothing but an instrument
of destruction, that he has done certain evil for a most
uncertain good. All this rushes rapidly upon him, when,
on the bosom of a crimson sunset cloud, he perceives a
mystic symbol, unseen save by himself: "The extended
arms are lightning flashes ; the three nails shine like stars,"
— his eyes die out as he gazes upon it, — he falls dead to the
earth, crying, in the strange words spoken by the apos-
tate Emj^eror Julian with his parting breath, "ViciSTi
Galilee ! " Thus this grand and complex drama is really
consecrated to the glory of the Galilean !
Nothing more intensely melancholy than this poem has
ever been written. The author could only have been born
in a country desolated for ages ! Therefore this drama is
eminently Polish. The grief is too bitter to express itself
oratorically. Its hopeless perplexity of woe has also its
root in the character and depth of the truths therein de-
veloped. The poet-hero aspires for the Future ; it dis-
apjioints him ; — he then grasps the dying Past, because,
as he himself says, " God has enlightened his reason, but
not warmed liis heart. " His thoughts and feelings cannot
be brought into harmony.
