On the Old Road Volume Ii Part 28

91. With the clews now given, and an hour or two's additional reading of any standard historian he pleases, the reader may judge on secure grounds whether the truce of Venice and peace of Constance were of the Devil's making: whereof whatever he may ultimately feel or affirm, this at least he will please note for positive, that Mr. Wordsworth, having no shadow of doubt of the complete wisdom of every idea that comes into his own head, writes down in dogmatic sonnet his first impression of black instrumentality in the business; so that his innocent readers, taking him for their sole master, far from caring to inquire into the thing more deeply, may remain even unconscious that it is disputable, and forever incapable of conceiving either a Catholic's feeling, or a careful historian's hesitation, touching the centrally momentous crisis of power in all the Middle Ages! Whereas Byron, knowing the history thoroughly, and judging of Catholicism with an honest and open heart, ventures to a.s.sert nothing that admits of debate, either concerning human motives or angelic presences; but binds into one line of ma.s.sive melody the unerringly counted sum of Venetian majesty and shame.

92. In a future paper, I propose examining his method of dealing with the debate, itself on a higher issue: and will therefore close the present one by trampling a few of the briers and thorns of popular offense out of our way.

The common counts against Byron are in the main, three.

I. That he confessed--in some sort, even proclaimed defiantly (which is a proud man's natural manner of confession)[92]--the naughtiness of his life.

The hypocrisy[93] even of Pall Mall and Pet.i.t Trianon does not, I a.s.sume, and dares not, go so far as to condemn the naughtiness itself?

And that he _did_ confess it, is precisely the reason for reading him by his own motto "Trust Byron." You always may; and the common smooth-countenanced man of the world is guiltier in the precise measure of your higher esteem for him.

II. That he wrote about pretty things which ought never to be heard of.

In the presence of the exact proprieties of modern Fiction, Art, and Drama, I am shy of touching on the question of what should be mentioned, and seen--and should not. All that I care to say, here, is that Byron tells you of realities, and that their being pretty ones is, to my mind,--at the first (literally) blush, of the matter, rather in his favor. If however you have imagined that he means you to think Dudu as pretty as Myrrha,[94] or even Haidee, whether in full dress or none, as pretty as Marina, it is your fault, not his.

93. III. That he blasphemed G.o.d and the King.

Before replying to this count, I must ask the reader's patience in a piece of very serious work, the ascertainment of the real and full meaning of the word Blasphemy. It signifies simply "Harmful speaking"--Male-diction--or shortly "Blame"; and may be committed as much against a child or a dog, if you _desire_ to hurt them, as against the Deity. And it is, in its original use, accurately opposed to another Greek word, "Euphemy," which means a reverent and loving manner of benediction--fallen entirely into disuse in modern sentiment and language.

Now the compa.s.s and character of essential Male-diction, so-called in Latin, or Blasphemy, so-called in Greek, may, I think, be best explained to the general reader by an instance in a very little thing, first translating the short pieces of Plato which best show the meaning of the word in codes of Greek morality.

"These are the things then" (the true order of the Sun, Moon, and Planets), "oh my friends, of which I desire that all our citizens and youths should learn at least so much concerning the G.o.ds of Heaven, as not to blaspheme concerning them, but to eupheme reverently, both in sacrificing, and in every prayer they pray."--Laws, VII. Steph. 821.

"And through the whole of life, beyond all other need for it, there is need of Euphemy from a man to his parents, for there is no heavier punishment than that of light and winged words," (to _them_)? "for Nemesis, the angel of Divine Recompense, has been throned Bishop over all men who sin in such manner."--IV. Steph.

717.

The word which I have translated "recompense" is more strictly that "heavenly Justice"--the proper Light of the World, from which nothing can be hidden, and by which all who will may walk securely; whence the mystic answer of Ulysses to his son, as Athena, herself invisible, walks with them, filling the chamber of the house with light, "This is the justice of the G.o.ds who possess Olympus." See the context in reference to which Plato quotes the line.--Laws, X. Steph. 904. The little story that I have to tell is significant chiefly in connection with the second pa.s.sage of Plato above quoted.

94. I have elsewhere mentioned that I was a homebred boy, and that as my mother diligently and scrupulously taught me my Bible and Latin Grammar, so my father fondly and devotedly taught me my Scott, my Pope, and my Byron.[95] The Latin grammar out of which my mother taught me was the 11th edition of Alexander Adam's--(Edinb.: Bell and Bradfute, 1823)--namely, that Alexander Adam, Rector of Edinburgh High School, into whose upper cla.s.s Scott pa.s.sed in October 1782, and who--previous masters having found nothing noticeable in the heavy-looking lad--_did_ find sterling qualities in him, and "would constantly refer to him for dates, and particulars of battles, and other remarkable events alluded to in Horace, or _whatever other authors the boys were reading_; and called him the historian of his cla.s.s" (L. i. 126). _That_ Alex. Adam, also, who, himself a loving historian, remembered the fate of every boy at his school during the fifty years he had headed it, and whose last words--"It grows dark, the boys may dismiss," gave to Scott's heart the vision and the audit of the death of Elspeth of the Craigburn-foot.

Strangely, in opening the old volume at this moment (I would not give it for an illuminated missal) I find, in its article on Prosody, some things extremely useful to me, which I have been hunting for in vain through Zumpt and Matthiae. In all rational respects I believe it to be the best Latin Grammar that has yet been written.

When my mother had carried me through it as far as the syntax, it was thought desirable that I should be put under a master: and the master chosen was a deeply and deservedly honored clergyman, the Rev. Thomas Dale, mentioned in Mr. Holbeach's article, "The New Fiction,"

(_Contemporary Review_ for February of this year), together with Mr.

Melville, who was our pastor after Mr. Dale went to St. Pancras.

95. On the first day when I went to take my seat in Mr. Dale's schoolroom, I carried my old grammar to him, in a modest pride, expecting some encouragement and honor for the accuracy with which I could repeat, on demand, some hundred and sixty close-printed pages of it.

But Mr. Dale threw it back to me with a fierce bang upon his desk, saying (with accent and look of seven-times-heated scorn), "That's a _Scotch_ thing."

Now, my father being Scotch, and an Edinburgh High School boy, and my mother having labored in that book with me since I could read, and all my happiest holiday time having been spent on the North Inch of Perth, these four words, with the action accompanying them, contained as much insult, pain, and loosening of my respect for my parents, love of my father's country, and honor for its worthies, as it was possible to compress into four syllables and an ill-mannered gesture. Which were therefore pure, double-edged and point-envenomed blasphemy. For to make a boy despise his mother's care, is the straightest way to make him also despise his Redeemer's voice; and to make him scorn his father and his father's house, the straightest way to make him deny his G.o.d, and his G.o.d's Heaven.

96. I speak, observe, in this instance, only of the actual words and their effect; not of the feeling in the speaker's mind, which was almost playful, though his words, tainted with extremity of pride, were such light ones as men shall give account of at the Day of Judgment. The real sin of blasphemy is not in the saying, nor even in the thinking; but in the wis.h.i.+ng which is father to thought and word: and the nature of it is simply in wis.h.i.+ng evil to anything; for as the quality of Mercy is not strained, so neither that of Blasphemy, the one distilling from the clouds of Heaven, the other from the steam of the Pit. He that is unjust in little is unjust in much, he that is malignant to the least is to the greatest, he who hates the earth which is G.o.d's footstool, hates yet more Heaven which is G.o.d's throne, and Him that sitteth thereon.

Finally, therefore, blasphemy is wis.h.i.+ng ill to _any_ thing; and its outcome is in Vanni Fucci's extreme "ill manners"--wis.h.i.+ng ill to G.o.d.

On the contrary, Euphemy is wis.h.i.+ng well to everything, and its outcome is in Burns' extreme "good manners," wis.h.i.+ng well to--

"Ah! wad ye tak a thought, and men'!"

That is the supreme of Euphemy.

97. Fix then, first in your minds, that the sin of malediction, whether s.h.i.+mei's individual, or John Bull's national, is in the vulgar malignity, not in the vulgar diction, and then note further that the "phemy" or "fame" of the two words, blasphemy and euphemy, signifies broadly the bearing of _false_ witness _against_ one's neighbor in the one case, and of _true_ witness _for_ him in the other: so that while the peculiar province of the blasphemer is to throw firelight on the evil in good persons, the province of the euphuist (I must use the word inaccurately for want of a better) is to throw sunlight on the good in bad ones; such, for instance, as Bertram, Meg Merrilies, Rob Roy, Robin Hood, and the general run of Corsairs, Giaours, Turks, Jews, Infidels, and Heretics; nay, even sisters of Rahab, and daughters of Moab and Ammon; and at last the whole spiritual race of him to whom it was said, "If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted?"

98. And being thus brought back to our actual subject, I purpose, after a few more summary notes on the l.u.s.ter of the electrotype language of modern pa.s.sion, to examine what facts or probabilities lie at the root both of Goethe's and Byron's imagination of that contest between the powers of Good and Evil, of which the Scriptural account appears to Mr.

Huxley so inconsistent with the recognized laws of political economy; and has been, by the cowardice of our old translators, so maimed of its vitality, that the frank Greek a.s.sertion of St. Michael's not daring to blaspheme the devil,[96] is tenfold more mischievously deadened and caricatured by their periphrasis of "durst not bring against him a railing accusation," than by Byron's apparently--and only apparently--less reverent description of the manner of angelic encounter for an inferior ruler of the people.

"Between His Darkness and His Brightness There pa.s.sed a mutual glance of great politeness."

PARIS, _September 20, 1880._

POSTSCRIPT.

99. I am myself extremely grateful, nor doubt a like feeling in most of my readers, both for the information contained in the first of the two following letters; and the correction of references in the second, of which, however, I have omitted some closing sentences which the writer will, I think, see to have been unnecessary.[97]

NORTH STREET, WIRKSWORTH: _August 2, 1880._

DEAR SIR,--When reading your interesting article in the June number of the _Nineteenth Century_, and your quotation from Walter Scott, I was struck with the great similarity between some of the Scotch words and my native tongue (Norwegian). _Whigmaleerie_, as to the derivation of which you seem to be in some perplexity, is in Norwegian _Vaegmaleri_. _Vaeg_, p.r.o.nounced "Vegg," signifying wall, and Maleri "picture," p.r.o.nounced almost the same as in Scotch, and derived from _at male_, to paint. Siccan is in Danish _sikken_, used more about something comical than great, and scarcely belonging to the written language, in which _slig_, such, and _slig en_, such a one, would be the equivalent.

I need not remark that as to the written language Danish and Norwegian is the same, only the dialects differ.

Having been told by some English friends that this explanation would perhaps not be without interest to yourself, I take the liberty of writing this letter. I remain yours respectfully,

THEA BERG.

INNER TEMPLE: _September 9, 1880._

SIR,--In your last article on Fiction, Foul and Fair (_Nineteenth Century_, September 1880) you have the following note:

"Juan viii. 5" (it ought to be 9) "but by your Lords.h.i.+p's quotation, Wordsworth says 'instrument' not 'daughter.'"

Now in Murray's edition of Byron, 1837, octavo, his Lords.h.i.+p's quotation is as follows:--

"But thy most dreaded instrument In working out a pure intent Is man arranged for mutual slaughter; Yea, Carnage is thy daughter."

And his Lords.h.i.+p refers you to "Wordsworth's Thanksgiving Ode."

I have no early edition of Wordsworth. In Moxon's, 1844, no such lines appear in the Thanksgiving Ode, but in the ode dated 1815, and printed immediately before it, the following lines occur.

"But man is thy most awful instrument In working out a pure intent."

It is hardly possible to avoid the conclusion that Wordsworth altered the lines after "Don Juan" was written. I am, with great respect, your obedient servant,

RALPH THICKNESSE.

JOHN RUSKIN, Esq.