A Dish of Orts : Chiefly Papers on the Imagination, and on Shakespeare

“But why talk of polish with reference to such a character, seeing that no amount of polishing can bring to the surface what is not there? No polishing of sandstone will reveal the mottling of marble. For it is sandstone, crumbling and gritty—not noble in any way.”

Is it so then? Can such be the real nature of the man? And can polish reach nothing deeper in him than such? May not this selfishness be polished away, revealing true colour and harmony beneath? Was not the man made in the image of God? Or, if you say that man lost that image, did not a new process of creation begin from the point of that loss, a process of re-creation in him in whom all shall be made alive, which, although so far from being completed yet, can never be checked? If we cut away deep enough at the rough block of our nature, shall we not arrive at some likeness of that true man who, the apostle says, dwells in us—the hope of glory? He informs us—that is, forms us from within.

Dr. Donne (who knew less than any other writer in the English language what Polish of Style means) recognizes this divine polishing to the full. He says in a poem called “The Cross:”—

  As perchance carvers do not faces make,

  But that away, which hid them there, do take,

  Let Crosses so take what hid Christ in thee,

  And be his Image, or not his, but He.

This is no doubt a higher figure than that of

polish

, but it is of the same kind, revealing the same truth. It recognizes the fact that the divine nature lies at the root of the human nature, and that the polish which lets that spiritual nature shine out in the simplicity of heavenly childhood, is the true Polish of Manners of which all merely social refinements are a poor imitation.—Whence Coleridge says that nothing but religion can make a man a gentleman.—And when these harmonies of our nature come to the surface, we shall be indeed “lively stones,” fit for building into the great temple of the universe, and echoing the music of creation. Dr. Donne recognizes, besides, the notable fact that

crosses

 or afflictions are the polishing powers by means of which the beautiful realities of human nature are brought to the surface. One can tell at once by the peculiar loveliness of certain persons that they have suffered.

But, to look for a moment less profoundly into the matter, have we not known those whose best never could get to the surface just from the lack of polish?—persons who, if they could only reveal the kindness of their nature, would make men believe in human nature, but in whom some roughness of awkwardness or of shyness prevents the true self from appearing? Even the dread of seeming to claim a good deed or to patronize a fellow-man will sometimes spoil the last touch of tenderness which would have been the final polish of the act of giving, and would have revealed infinite depths of human devotion. For let the truth out, and it will be seen to be true.

Simplicity is the end of all Polish, as of all Art, Culture, Morals, Religion, and Life. The Lord our God is one Lord, and we and our brothers and sisters are one Humanity, one Body of the Head.

Now to the practical: what are we to do for the polish of our manners?

Just what I have said we must do for the polish of our style. Take off; do not put on. Polish away this rudeness, that awkwardness. Correct everything self-assertive, which includes nine tenths of all vulgarity. Imitate no one’s behaviour; that is to paint. Do not think about yourself; that is to varnish. Put what is wrong right, and what is in you will show itself in harmonious behaviour.

But no one can go far in this track without discovering that true polish reaches much deeper; that the outward exists but for the sake of the inward; and that the manners, as they depend on the morals, must be forgotten in the morals of which they are but the revelation. Look at the high-shouldered, ungainly child in the corner: his mother tells him to go to his book, and he wants to go to his play. Regard the swollen lips, the skin tightened over the nose, the distortion of his shape, the angularity of his whole appearance. Yet he is not an awkward child by nature. Look at him again the moment after he has given in and kissed his mother. His shoulders have dropped to their place; his limbs are free from the fetters that bound them; his motions are graceful, and the one blends harmoniously with the other. He is no longer thinking of himself. He has given up his own way. The true childhood comes to the surface, and you see what the boy is meant to be always. Look at the jerkiness of the conceited man. Look at the quiet

fluency

 of motion in the modest man. Look how anger itself which forgets self, which is unhating and righteous, will elevate the carriage and ennoble the movements.

But how far can the same rule of

omission

 or

rejection

 be applied with safety to this deeper character—the manners of the spirit?

It seems to me that in morals too the main thing is to avoid doing wrong; for then the active spirit of life in us will drive us on to the right. But on such a momentous question I would not be dogmatic. Only as far as regards the feelings I would say: it is of no use to try to make ourselves feel thus or thus. Let us fight with our wrong feelings; let us polish away the rough ugly distortions of feeling. Then the real and the good will come of themselves. Or rather, to keep to my figure, they will then show themselves of themselves as the natural home-produce, the indwelling facts of our deepest—that is, our divine nature.

Here I find that I am sinking through my subject into another and deeper—a truth, namely, which should, however, be the foundation of all our building, the background of all our representations: that Life is at work in us—the sacred Spirit of God travailing in us. That Spirit has gained one end of his labour—at which he can begin to do yet more for us—when he has brought us to beg for the help which he has been giving us all the time.

I have been regarding infinite things through the medium of one limited figure, knowing that figures with all their suggestions and relations could not reveal them utterly. But so far as they go, these thoughts raised by the word Polish and its figurative uses appear to me to be most true.

BROWNING’S “CHRISTMAS EVE”

Goethe says:—

  “Poems are painted window panes.

  If one looks from the square into the church,

  Dusk and dimness are his gains—

  Sir Philistine is left in the lurch!

  The sight, so seen, may well enrage him,

  Nor anything henceforth assuage him.

  “But come just inside what conceals;

  Cross the holy threshold quite—

  All at once ‘tis rainbow-bright,

  Device and story flash to light,

  A gracious splendour truth reveals.

  This to God’s children is full measure,

  It edifies and gives you pleasure!”

This is true concerning every form in which truth is embodied, whether it be sight or sound, geometric diagram or scientific formula. Unintelligible, it may be dismal enough, regarded from the outside; prismatic in its revelation of truth from within. Such is the world itself, as beheld by the speculative eye; a thing of disorder, obscurity, and sadness: only the child-like heart, to which the door into the divine idea is thrown open, can understand somewhat the secret of the Almighty. In human things it is particularly true of art, in which the fundamental idea seems to be the revelation of the true through the beautiful. But of all the arts it is most applicable to poetry; for the others have more that is beautiful on the outside; can give pleasure to the senses by the form of the marble, the hues of the painting, or the sweet sounds of the music, although the heart may never perceive the meaning that lies within. But poetry, except its rhythmic melody, and its scattered gleams of material imagery, for which few care that love it not for its own sake, has no attraction on the outside to entice the passer to enter and partake of its truth. It is inwards that its colours shine, within that its forms move, and the sound of its holy organ cannot be heard from without.

Now, if one has been able to reach the heart of a poem, answering to Goethe’s parabolic description; or even to discover a loop-hole, through which, from an opposite point, the glories of its stained windows are visible; it is well that he should seek to make others partakers in his pleasure and profit. Some who might not find out for themselves, would yet be evermore grateful to him who led them to the point of vision. Surely if a man would help his fellow-men, he can do so far more effectually by exhibiting truth than exposing error, by unveiling beauty than by a critical dissection of deformity. From the very nature of the things it must be so. Let the true and good destroy their opposites. It is only by the good and beautiful that the evil and ugly are known. It is the light that makes manifest.

The poem “Christmas Eve,” by Robert Browning, with the accompanying poem “Easter Day,” seems not to have attracted much notice from the readers of poetry, although highly prized by a few. This is, perhaps, to be attributed, in a great measure, to what many would call a considerable degree of obscurity. But obscurity is the appearance which to a first glance may be presented either by profundity or carelessness of thought. To some, obscurity itself is attractive, from the hope that worthiness is the cause of it. To apply a test similar to that by which Pascal tries the Koran and the Scriptures: what is the character of those portions, the meaning of which is plain? Are they wise or foolish? If the former, the presumption is that the obscurity of other parts is caused not by opacity, but profundity. But some will object, notwithstanding, that a writer ought to make himself plain to his readers; nay, that if he has a clear idea himself, he must be able to express that idea clearly. But for communion of thought, two minds, not one, are necessary. The fault may lie in him that receives or in him that gives, or it may be in neither. For how can the result of much thought, the idea which for mouths has been shaping itself in the mind of one man, be at once received by another mind to which it comes a stranger and unexpected? The reader has no right to complain of so caused obscurity. Nor is that form of expression, which is most easily understood at first sight, necessarily the best. It will not, therefore, continue to move; nor will it gather force and influence with more intimate acquaintance. Here Goethe’s little parable, as he calls it, is peculiarly applicable. But, indeed, if after all a writer is obscure, the man who has spent most labour in seeking to enter into his thoughts, will be the least likely to complain of his obscurity; and they who have the least difficulty in understanding a writer, are frequently those who understand him the least.

To those to whom the religion of Christ has been the law of liberty; who by that door have entered into the universe of God, and have begun to feel a growing delight in all the manifestations of God, it is cause of much joy to find that, whatever may be the position taken by men of science, or by those in whom the intellect predominates, with regard to the Christian religion, men of genius, at least, in virtue of what is child-like in their nature, are, in the present time, plainly manifesting deep devotion to Christ. There are exceptions, certainly; but even in those, there are symptoms of feelings which, one can hardly help thinking, tend towards him, and will one day flame forth in conscious worship. A mind that recognizes any of the multitudinous meanings of the revelation of God, in the world of sounds, and forms, and colours, cannot be blind to the higher manifestation of God in common humanity; nor to him in whom is hid the key to the whole, the First-born of the creation of God, in whose heart lies, as yet but partially developed, the kingdom of heaven, which is the redemption of the earth. The mind that delights in that which is lofty and great, which feels there is something higher than self, will undoubtedly be drawn towards Christ; and they, who at first looked on him as a great prophet, came at length to perceive that he was the radiation of the Father’s glory, the likeness of his unseen being.

A description of the poem may, perhaps, both induce to the reading of it, and contribute to its easier comprehension while being perused. On a stormy Christmas Eve, the poet, or rather the seer (for the whole must be regarded as a poetic vision), is compelled to take refuge in the “lath and plaster entry” of a little chapel, belonging to a congregation of Calvinistic Methodists, who are at the time assembling for worship. Wonderful in its reality is the description of various of the flock that pass him as they enter the chapel, from

                     “the many-tattered

  Little old-faced, peaking sister-turned-mother

  Of the sickly babe she tried to smother

  Somehow up, with its spotted face,

  From the cold, on her breast, the one warm place:”

to the “shoemaker’s lad;” whom he follows, determined not to endure the inquisition of their looks any longer, into the chapel. The humour of the whole scene within is excellent. The stifling closeness, both of the atmosphere and of the sermon, the wonderful content of the audience, the “old fat woman,” who

                    “purred with pleasure,

  And thumb round thumb went twirling faster,

  While she, to his periods keeping measure,

  Maternally devoured the pastor;”

are represented by a few rapid touches that bring certain points of the reality almost unpleasantly near. At length, unable to endure it longer, he rushes out into the air. Objection may, probably, be made to the mingling of the humorous, even the ridiculous, with the serious; at least, in a work of art like this, where they must be brought into such close proximity. But are not these things as closely connected in the world as they can be in any representation of it? Surely there are few who have never had occasion to attempt to reconcile the thought of the two in their own minds. Nor can there be anything human that is not, in some connexion or other, admissible into art. The widest idea of art must comprehend all things. A work of this kind must, like God’s world, in which he sends rain on the just and on the unjust, be taken as a whole and in regard to its design. The requisition is, that everything introduced have a relation to the adjacent parts and to the whole suitable to the design. Here the thing is real, is true, is human; a thing to be thought about. It has its place amongst other phenomena, with which, however apparently incongruous, it is yet vitally connected within.

A coolness and delight visit us, on turning over the page and commencing to read the description of sky, and moon, and clouds, which greet him outside the chapel. It is as a vision of the vision-bearing world itself, in one of its fine, though not, at first, one of its rarest moods. And here a short digression to notice like feelings in unlike dresses, one thought differently expressed will, perhaps, be pardoned. The moon is prevented from shining out by the “blocks” of cloud “built up in the west:”—

  “And the empty other half of the sky

  Seemed in its silence as if it knew

  What, any moment, might look through

  A chance-gap in that fortress massy.”

Old Henry Vaughan says of the “Dawning:”—

  “The whole Creation shakes off night,

  And for thy shadow looks the Light;

  Stars now vanish without number,

  Sleepie Planets set and slumber,

  The pursie Clouds disband and scatter,

All expect some sudden matter

.”

Calmness settles down on his mind. He walks on, thinking of the scene he had left, and the sermon he had heard. In the latter he sees the good and the bad intimately mingled; and is convinced that the chief benefit derived from it is a reproducing of former impressions. The thought crosses him, in how many places and how many different forms the same thing takes place, “a convincing” of the “convinced;” and he rejoices in the contrast which his church presents to these; for in the church of Nature his love to God, assurance of God’s love to him, and confidence in the design of God regarding him, commenced. While exulting in God and the knowledge of Him to be attained hereafter, he is favoured with a sight of a glorious moon-rainbow, which elevates his worship to ecstasy. During which—

  “All at once I looked up with terror—

  He was there.

  He himself with His human air,

  On the narrow pathway, just before:

  I saw the back of Him, no more—

  He had left the chapel, then, as I.

  I forgot all about the sky.

  No face: only the sight

  Of a sweepy garment, vast and white,

  With a hem that I could recognize.

  I felt terror, no surprise:

  My mind filled with the cataract,

  At one bound, of the mighty fact.

  I remembered, He did say

  Doubtless, that, to this world’s end,

  Where two or three should meet and pray,

  He would be in the midst, their friend:

  Certainly He was there with them.

  And my pulses leaped for joy

  Of the golden thought without alloy,

  That I saw His very vesture’s hem.

  Then rushed the blood back, cold and clear,

  With a fresh enhancing shiver of fear.”

Praying for forgiveness wherein he has sinned, and prostrate in adoration before the form of Christ, he is “caught up in the whirl and drift” of his vesture, and carried along with him over the earth.

Stopping at length at the entrance of St. Peter’s in Rome, he remains outside, while the form disappears within. He is able, however, to see all that goes on, in the crowded, hushed interior. It is high mass. He has been carried at once from the little chapel to the opposite aesthetic pole. From the entry, where—

  “The flame of the single tallow candle

  In the cracked square lanthorn I stood under

  Shot its blue lip at me,”

to—

  “This miraculous dome of God—

                This colonnade

  With arms wide open to embrace

  The entry of the human race

  To the breast of.... what is it, yon building,

  Ablaze in front, all paint and gilding,

  With marble for brick, and stones of price

  For garniture of the edifice?”

to “those fountains”—

  “Growing up eternally

  Each to a musical water-tree,

  Whose blossoms drop, a glittering boon,

  Before my eyes, in the light of the moon,

  To the granite lavers underneath;”

from the singing of the chapel to the organ self-restrained, that “holds his breath and grovels latent,” while expecting the elevation of the Host. Christ is within; he is left without. Reflecting on the matter, he thinks his Lord would not require him to go in, though he himself entered, because there was a way to reach him there. By-and-by, however, his heart awakes and declares that Love goes beyond error with them, and if the Intellect be kept down, yet Love is the oppressor; so next time he resolves to enter and praise along with them. The passage commencing, “Oh, love of those first Christian days!” describing Love’s victory over Intellect, is very fine.

Again he is caught up and carried along as before. This time halt is made at the door of a college in a German town, in which the class-room of one of the professors is open for lecture this Christmas Eve. It is, intellectually considered, the opposite pole to both the Methodist chapel and the Roman Basilica. The poet enters, fearful of losing the society of “any that call themselves his friends.” He describes the assembled company, and the entrance of “the hawk-nosed, high-cheek-boned professor,” of part of whose Christmas Eve’s discourse he proceeds to give the substance. The professor takes it for granted that “plainly no such life was liveable,” and goes on to inquire what explanation of the phenomena of the life of Christ it were best to adopt. Not that it mattered much, “so the idea be left the same.” Taking the popular story, for convenience sake, and separating all extraneous matter from it, he found that Christ was simply a good man, with an honest, true heart; whose disciples thought him divine; and whose doctrine, though quite mistaken by those who received and published it, “had yet a meaning quite as respectable.” Here the poet takes advantage of a pause to leave him; reflecting that though the air may be poisoned by the sects, yet here “the critic leaves no air to poison.” His meditations and arguments following, are among the most valuable passages in the book. The professor, notwithstanding the idea of Christ has by him been exhausted of all that is peculiar to it, yet recommends him to the veneration and worship of his hearers, “rather than all who went before him, and all who ever followed after.” But why? says the poet. For his intellect,

  “Which tells me simply what was told

  (If mere morality, bereft

  Of the God in Christ, be all that’s left)

  Elsewhere by voices manifold?”

with which must be combined the fact that this intellect of his did not save him from making the “important stumble,” of saying that he and God were one. “But his followers misunderstood him,” says the objector. Perhaps so; but “the stumbling-block, his speech, who laid it?” Well then, is it on the score of his goodness that he should rule his race?

                  “You pledge

  Your fealty to such rule? What, all—

  From Heavenly John and Attic Paul,

  And that brave weather-battered Peter,

  Whose stout faith only stood completer

  For buffets, sinning to be pardoned,

  As the more his hands hauled nets, they hardened—

  All, down to you, the man of men,

  Professing here at Göttingen,

  Compose Christ’s flock! So, you and I

  Are sheep of a good man! And why?”

Did Christ

invent

 goodness? or did he only demonstrate that of which the common conscience was judge?

                  “I would decree

  Worship for such mere demonstration

  And simple work of nomenclature,

  Only the day I praised, not Nature,

  But Harvey, for the circulation.”

The worst man, says the poet,

knows

 more than the best man

does

. God in Christ appeared to men to help them to

do

, to awaken the life within them.

  “Morality to the uttermost,

  Supreme in Christ as we all confess,

  Why need

we

 prove would avail no jot

  To make Him God, if God he were not?

  What is the point where Himself lays stress?

  Does the precept run, ‘Believe in good,

  In justice, truth, now understood

  For the first time?’—or, ‘Believe in ME,

  Who lived and died, yet essentially

  Am Lord of life’? Whoever can take

  The same to his heart, and for mere love’s sake

  Conceive of the love,—that man obtains

  A new truth; no conviction gains

  Of an old one only, made intense

  By a fresh appeal to his faded sense.”

In this lies the most direct practical argument with regard to what is commonly called the Divinity of Christ. Here is a man whom those that magnify him the least confess to be a good man, the best of men. He

says

, “I and the Father are one.” Will an earnest heart, knowing this, be likely to draw back, or will it draw nearer to behold the great sight? Will not such a heart feel: “A good man like this would not have said so, were it not so. In all probability the great truth of God lies behind this veil.” The reality of Christ’s nature is not to be proved by argument. He must be beheld. The manifestation of Him must “gravitate inwards” on the soul. It is by looking that one can know. As a mathematical theorem is to be proved only by the demonstration of that theorem itself, not by talking

about

 it; so Christ must prove himself to the human soul through being beheld. The only proof of Christ’s divinity is his humanity. Because his humanity is not comprehended, his divinity is doubted; and while the former is uncomprehended, an assent to the latter is of little avail. For a man to theorize theologically in any form, while he has not so apprehended Christ, or to neglect the gazing on him for the attempt to substantiate to himself any form of belief respecting him, is to bring on himself, in a matter of divine import, such errors as the expounders of nature in old time brought on themselves, when they speculated on what a thing must be, instead of observing what it was; this

must be

 having for its foundation not self-evident truth, but notions whose chief strength lay in their preconception. There are thoughts and feelings that cannot be called up in the mind by any power of will or force of imagination; which, being spiritual, must arise in the soul when in its highest spiritual condition; when the mind, indeed, like a smooth lake, reflects only heavenly images. A steadfast regarding of Him will produce this calm, and His will be the heavenly form reflected from the mental depth.

But to return to the poem. The fact that Christ remains inside, leads the poet to reflect, in the spirit of Him who found all the good in men he could, neglecting no point of contact which presented itself, whether there was anything at this lecture with which he could sympathize; and he finds that the heart of the professor does something to rescue him from the error of his brain. In his brain, even, “if Love’s dead there, it has left a ghost.” For when the natural deduction from his argument would be that our faith

  “Be swept forthwith to its natural dust-hole,—

  He bids us, when we least expect it,

  Take back our faith—if it be not just whole,

  Yet a pearl indeed, as his tests affect it,

  Which fact pays the damage done rewardingly,

  So, prize we our dust and ashes accordingly!”

Love as well as learning being necessary to the understanding of the New Testament, it is to the poet matter of regret that “loveless learning” should leave its proper work, and make such havoc in that which belongs not to it. But while he sits “talking with his mind,” his mood begins to degenerate from sympathy with that which is good to indifference towards all forms, and he feels inclined to rest quietly in the enjoyment of his own religious confidence, and trouble himself in no wise about the faith of his neighbours; for doubtless all are partakers of the central light, though variously refracted by the varied translucency of the mental prism....

  “‘Twas the horrible storm began afresh!

  The black night caught me in his mesh,

  Whirled me up, and flung me prone!

  I was left on the college-step alone.

  I looked, and far there, ever fleeting

  Far, far away, the receding gesture,

  And looming of the lessening vesture,

  Swept forward from my stupid hand,

  While I watched my foolish heart expand

  In the lazy glow of benevolence

  O’er the various modes of man’s belief.

  I sprang up with fear’s vehemence.

  —Needs must there be one way, our chief

  Best way of worship: let me strive

  To find it, and when found, contrive

  My fellows also take their share.

  This constitutes my earthly care:

  God’s is above it and distinct!”

The symbolism in the former part of this extract is grand. As soon as he ceases to look practically on the phenomena with which he is surrounded, he is enveloped in storm and darkness, and sees only in the far distance the disappearing skirt of his Lord’s garment. God’s care is over all, he goes on to say; I must do

my part

. If I look speculatively on the world, there is nothing but dimness and mystery. If I look practically on it,

  “No mere mote’s-breadth, but teems immense

  With witnessings of Providence.”

And whether the world which I seek to help censures or praises me—that is nothing to me. My life—how is it with me?

  “Soul of mine, hadst thou caught and held

  By the hem of the vesture....

                  And I caught

  At the flying robe, and, unrepelled,

  Was lapped again in its folds full-fraught

  With warmth and wonder and delight,

  God’s mercy being infinite.

  And scarce had the words escaped my tongue,

  When, at a passionate bound, I sprung

  Out of the wandering world of rain,

  Into the little chapel again.”

Had he dreamed? how then could he report of the sermon and the preacher? of which and of whom he proceeds to give a very external account. But correcting himself—

  “Ha! Is God mocked, as He asks?

  Shall I take on me to change his tasks,

  And dare, despatched to a river-head

  For a simple draught of the element,

  Neglect the thing for which He sent,

  And return with another thing instead!

  Saying .... ‘Because the water found

  Welling up from underground,

  Is mingled with the taints of earth,

  While Thou, I know, dost laugh at dearth,

  And couldest, at a word, convulse

  The world with the leap of its river-pulse,—

  Therefore I turned from the oozings muddy,

  And bring thee a chalice I found, instead.

  See the brave veins in the breccia ruddy!

  One would suppose that the marble bled.

  What matters the water? A hope I have nursed,

  That the waterless cup will quench my thirst.’

  —Better have knelt at the poorest stream

  That trickles in pain from the straitest rift!

  For the less or the more is all God’s gift,

  Who blocks up or breaks wide the granite seam.

  And here, is there water or not, to drink?”

He comes to the conclusion, that the best for him is that mode of worship which partakes the least of human forms, and brings him nearest to the spiritual; and, while expressing good wishes for the Pope and the professor—

  “Meantime, in the still recurring fear

  Lest myself, at unawares, be found,

  While attacking the choice of my neighbours round,

  Without my own made—I choose here!”