No more wine? then well push back chairs and talk.
A final glass for me, tho; cool, ifaith!
We ought to have our Abbey back, you see.
Its different, preaching in basilicas,
And doing duty in some masterpiece
Like this of brother Pugins, bless his heart!
I doubt if theyre half baked, those chalk rosettes,
Ciphers and stucco-twiddlings everywhere;
Its just like breathing in a lime-kiln: eh?
These hot long ceremonies of our church
Cost us a little oh, they pay the price,
You take me amply pay it! Now, well talk.
So, you despise me, Mr. Gigadibs.
No deprecation, nay, I beg you, sir!
Beside tis our engagement: dont you know,
I promised, if youd watch a dinner out,
Wed see truth dawn together? truth that peeps
Over the glasses edge when dinners done,
And body gets its sop and holds its noise
And leaves soul free a little. Nows the time
T is break of day! You do despise me then.
And if I say, despise me, never fear
I know you do not in a certain sense
Not in my arm-chair, for example: here,
I well imagine you respect my place
( Status, entourage, worldly circumstance)
Quite to its value very much indeed:
Are up to the protesting eyes of you
In pride at being seated here for once
Youll turn it to such capital account!
When somebody, through years and years to come,
Hints of the bishop, names me thats enough:
Blougram? I knew him (into it you slide)
Dined with him once, a Corpus Christi Day,
All alone, we two; hes a clever man:
And after dinner, why, the wine you know,
Oh, there was wine, and good! what with the wine . .
Faith, we began upon all sorts of talk!
Hes no bad fellow, Blougram; he had seen
Something of mine he relished, some review:
Hes quite above their humbug in his heart,
Half-said as much, indeed the things his trade.
I warrant, Blougrams sceptical at times:
How otherwise? I liked him, I confess!
Che ch, my dear sir, as we say at Rome,
Dont you protest now! Its fair give and take;
You have had your turn and spoken your home-truths
The hands mine now, and here you follow suit.
Thus much conceded, still the first fact stays
You do despise me; your ideal of life
Is not the bishops: you would not be I
You would like better to be Goethe, now,
Or Buonaparte or, bless me, lower still,
Count DOrsay, so you did what you preferred,
Spoke as you thought, and, as you cannot help,
Believed or disbelieved, no matter what,
So long as on that point, whateer it was,
You loosed your mind, were whole and sole yourself.
That, my ideal never can include,
Upon that element of truth and worth
Never be based! for say they make me Pope
(They cant suppose it for our argument!)
Why, there Im at my tethers end, Ive reached
My height, and not a height which pleases you:
An unbelieving Pope wont do, you say.
Its like those eerie stories nurses tell,
Of how some actor on a stage played Death,
With pasteboard crown, sham orb and tinselled dart,
And called himself the monarch of the world;
Then, going in the tire-room afterward,
Because the play was done, to shift himself,
Got touched upon the sleeve familiarly,
The moment he had shut the closet door,
By Death himself. Thus God might touch a Pope
At unawares, ask what his baubles mean,
And whose part he presumed to play just now?
Best be yourself, imperial, plain and true!
So, drawing comfortable breath again,
You weigh and find, whatever more or less
I boast of my ideal realized,
Is nothing in the balance when opposed
To your ideal, your grand simple life,
Of which you will not realize one jot.
I am much, you are nothing; you would be all,
I would be merely much you beat me there.
No, friend, you do not beat me: hearken why!
The common problem, yours, mine, every ones,
Is not to fancy what were fair in life
Provided it could be, but, finding first
What may be, then find how to make it fair
Up to our means: a very different thing!
No abstract intellectual plan of life
Quite irrespective of lifes plainest laws,
But one, a man, who is man and nothing more,
May lead within a world which (by your leave)
Is Rome or London, not Fools-paradise.
Embellish Rome, idealize away,
Make paradise of London if you can,
Youre welcome, nay, youre wise.
A simile!
We mortals cross the ocean of this world
Each in his average cabin of a life
The bests not big, the worst yields elbow-room.
Now for our six months voyage how prepare?
You come on shipboard with a landsmans list
Of things he calls convenient so they are!
An India screen is pretty furniture,
A piano-forte is a fine resource,
All Balzacs novels occupy one shelf,
The new edition fifty volumes long;
And little Greek books, with the funny type
They get up well at Leipsic, fill the next
Go on! slabbed marble, what a bath it makes!
And Parmas pride, the Jerome, let us add!
Twere pleasant could Correggios fleeting glow
Hang full in face of one whereer one roams,
Since he more than the others brings with him
Italys self, the marvellous Modenese!
Yet twas not on your list before, perhaps.
Alas, friend, heres the agent . . . ist the name?
The captain, or whoevers master here
You see him screw his face up; whats his cry
Ere you set foot on shipboard? Six feet square!
If you wont understand what six feet mean,
Compute and purchase stores accordingly
And if, in pique because he overhauls
Your Jerome, piano, bath, you come on board
Bare why, you cut a figure at the first
While sympathetic landsmen see you off;
Not afterward, when long ere half seas over,
You peep up from your utterly naked boards
Into some snug and well-appointed berth,
Like mine for instance (try the cooler jug
Put back the other, but dont jog the ice!)
And mortified you mutter Well and good;
He sits enjoying his sea-furniture;
Tis stout and proper, and theres store of it:
Though Ive the better notion, all agree,
Of fitting rooms up. Hang the carpenter,
Neat ship-shape fixings and contrivances
I would have brought my Jerome, frame and all!
And meantime you bring nothing: never mind
Youve proved your artist-nature: what you dont
You might bring, so despise me, as I say.
Now come, lets backward to the starting-place.
See my way: were two college friends, suppose
Prepare together for our voyage, then;
Each note and check the other in his work,
Heres mine, a bishops outfit; criticize!
Whats wrong? why wont you be a bishop too?
Why first, you dont believe, you dont and cant,
(Not statedly, that is, and fixedly
And absolutely and exclusively)
In any revelation called divine.
No dogmas nail your faith; and what remains
But say so, like the honest man you are?
First, therefore, overhaul theology!
Nay, I too, not a fool, you please to think,
Must find believing every whit as hard:
And if I do not frankly say as much,
The ugly consequence is clear enough.
Now wait, my friend: well, I do not believe
If youll accept no faith that is not fixed,
Absolute and exclusive, as you say.
Youre wrong I mean to prove it in due time.
Meanwhile, I know where difficulties lie
I could not, cannot solve, nor ever shall,
So give up hope accordingly to solve
(To you, and over the wine). Our dogmas then
With both of us, though in unlike degree,
Missing full credence overboard with them!
I mean to meet you on your own premise
Good, there go mine in company with yours!
And now what are we? unbelievers both,
Calm and complete, determinately fixed
To-day, to-morrow and for ever, pray?
Youll guarantee me that? Not so, I think!
In no wise! all weve gained is, that belief,
As unbelief before, shakes us by fits,
Confounds us like its predecessor. Wheres
The gain? how can we guard our unbelief,
Make it bear fruit to us? the problem here.
Just when we are safest, theres a sunset-touch,
A fancy from a flower-bell, some ones death,
A chorus-ending from Euripides,
And thats enough for fifty hopes and fears
As old and new at once as natures self,
To rap and knock and enter in our soul,
Take hands and dance there, a fantastic ring,
Round the ancient idol, on his base again,
The grand Perhaps! We look on helplessly.
There the old misgivings, crooked questions are
This good God, what he could do, if he would,
Would, if he could then must have done long since:
If so, when, where and how? some way must be,
Once feel about, and soon or late you hit
Some sense, in which it might be, after all.
Why not, The Way, the Truth, the Life?
That way
Over the mountain, which who stands upon
Is apt to doubt if it be meant for a road;
While, if he views it from the waste itself,
Up goes the line there, plain from base to brow,
Not vague, mistakeable! whats a break or two
Seen from the unbroken desert either side?
And then (to bring in fresh philosophy)
What if the breaks themselves should prove at last
The most consummate of contrivances
To train a mans eye, teach him what is faith?
And so we stumble at truths very test!
All we have gained then by our unbelief
Is a life of doubt diversified by faith,
For one of faith diversified by doubt:
We called the chess-board white, we call it black.
Well, you rejoin, the ends no worse, at least;
Weve reason for both colours on the board:
Why not confess then, where I drop the faith
And you the doubt, that Im as right as you?
Because, friend, in the next place, this being so,
And both things even, faith and unbelief
Left to a mans choice, well proceed a step,
Returning to our image, which I like.
A mans choice, yes but a cabin-passengers
The man made for the special life o the world
Do you forget him? I remember though!
Consult our ships conditions and you find
One and but one choice suitable to all;
The choice, that you unluckily prefer,
Turning things topsy-turvy they or it
Going to the ground. Belief or unbelief
Bears upon life, determines its whole course,
Begins at its beginning. See the world
Such as it is, you made it not, nor I;
I mean to take it as it is, and you,
Not so youll take it, though you get nought else.
I know the special kind of life I like,
What suits the most my idiosyncrasy,
Brings out the best of me and bears me fruit
In power, peace, pleasantness and length of days.
I find that positive belief does this
For me, and unbelief, no whit of this.
For you, it does, however? that, well try!
Tis clear, I cannot lead my life, at least,
Induce the world to let me peaceably,
Without declaring at the outset, Friends,
I absolutely and peremptorily
Believe! I say, faith is my waking life:
One sleeps, indeed, and dreams at intervals,
We know, but wakings the main point with us
And my provisions for lifes waking part.
Accordingly, I use heart, head and hand
All day, I build, scheme, study, and make friends;
And when night overtakes me, down I lie,
Sleep, dream a little, and get done with it,
The sooner the better, to begin afresh.
Whats midnight doubt before the daysprings faith?
You, the philosopher, that disbelieve,
That recognize the night, give dreams their weight
To be consistent you should keep your bed,
Abstain from healthy acts that prove you man,
For fear you drowse perhaps at unawares!
And certainly at night youll sleep and dream,
Live through the day and bustle as you please.
And so you live to sleep as I to wake,
To unbelieve as I to still believe?
Well, and the common sense o the world calls you
Bed-ridden, and its good things come to me.
Its estimation, which is half the fight,
Thats the first-cabin comfort I secure
The next . . . but you perceive with half an eye!
Come, come, its best believing, if we may;
You cant but own that!
Next, concede again,
If once we choose belief, on all accounts
We cant be too decisive in our faith,
Conclusive and exclusive in its terms,
To suit the world which gives us the good things.
In every mans career are certain points
Whereon he dares not be indifferent;
The world detects him clearly, if he dare,
As baffled at the game, and losing life.
He may care little or he may care much
For riches, honour, pleasure, work, repose,
Since various theories of life and lifes
Success are extant which might easily
Comport with either estimate of these;
And whoso chooses wealth or poverty,
Labour or quiet, is not judged a fool
Because his fellow would choose otherwise:
We let him choose upon his own account
So long as hes consistent with his choice.
But certain points, left wholly to himself,
When once a man has arbitrated on,
We say he must succeed there or go hang.
Thus, he should wed the woman he loves most
Or needs most, whatsoeer the love or need
For he cant wed twice. Then, he must avouch,
Or follow, at the least, sufficiently,
The form of faith his conscience holds the best,
Whateer the process of conviction was:
For nothing can compensate his mistake
On such a point, the man himself being judge:
He cannot wed twice, nor twice lose his soul.
Well now, theres one great form of Christian faith
I happened to be born in which to teach
Was given me as I grew up, on all hands,
As best and readiest means of living by;
The same on examination being proved
The most pronounced moreover, fixed, precise
And absolute form of faith in the whole world
Accordingly, most potent of all forms
For working on the world. Observe, my friend!
Such as you know me, I am free to say,
In these hard latter days which hamper one,
Myself by no immoderate exercise
Of intellect and learning, but the tact
To let external forces work for me,
Bid the streets stones be bread and they are bread;
Bid Peters creed, or rather, Hildebrands,
Exalt me oer my fellows in the world
And make my life an ease and joy and pride;
It does so, which for mes a great point gained,
Who have a soul and body that exact
A comfortable care in many ways.
Theres power in me and will to dominate
Which I must exercise, they hurt me else:
In many ways I need mankinds respect,
Obedience, and the love thats born of fear:
While at the same time, theres a taste I have,
A toy of soul, a titillating thing,
Refuses to digest these dainties crude.
The naked life is gross till clothed upon:
I must take what men offer, with a grace
As though I would not, could I help it, take!
An uniform I wear though over-rich
Something imposed on me, no choice of mine;
No fancy-dress worn for pure fancys sake
And despicable therefore! now folk kneel
And kiss my hand of course the Churchs hand.
Thus I am made, thus life is best for me,
And thus that it should be I have procured;
And thus it could not be another way,
I venture to imagine.
Youll reply
So far my choice, no doubt, is a success;
But were I made of better elements,
With nobler instincts, purer tastes, like you,
I hardly would account the thing success
Though it did all for me I say.
But, friend,
We speak of what is not of what might be,
And how twere better if twere otherwise.
I am the man you see here plain enough:
Grant Im a beast, why, beasts must lead beasts lives!
Suppose I own at once to tail and claws;
The tailless man exceeds me: but being tailed
Ill lash out lion fashion, and leave apes
To dock their stump and dress their haunches up.
My business is not to remake myself,
But make the absolute best of what God made.
Or our first simile though you prove me doomed
To a viler berth still, to the steerage-hole,
The sheep-pen or the pig-stye, I should strive
To make what use of each were possible;
And as this cabin gets upholstery,
That hutch should rustle with sufficient straw.
But, friend, I dont acknowledge quite so fast
I fail of all your manhoods lofty tastes
Enumerated so complacently,
On the mere ground that you forsooth can find
In this particular life I choose to lead
No fit provision for them. Can you not?
Say you, my fault is I address myself
To grosser estimators than should judge?
And thats no way of holding up the soul
Which, nobler, needs mens praise perhaps, yet knows
One wise mans verdict outweighs all the fools
Would like the two, but, forced to choose, takes that.
I pine among my million imbeciles
(You think) aware some dozen men of sense
Eye me and know me, whether I believe
In the last winking Virgin, as I vow,
And am a fool, or disbelieve in her
And am a knave, approve in neither case,
Withhold their voices though I look their way:
Like Verdi when, at his worst operas end
(The thing they gave at Florence, whats its name?)
While the mad housefuls plaudits near out-bang
His orchestra of salt-box, tongs and bones,
He looks through all the roaring and the wreaths
Where sits Rossini patient in his stall.
Nay, friend, I meet you with an answer here
That even your prime men who appraise their kind
Are men still, catch a wheel within a wheel,
See more in a truth than the truths simple self,
Confuse themselves. You see lads walk the street
Sixty the minute; whats to note in that?
You see one lad oerstride a chimney-stack;
Him you must watch hes sure to fall, yet stands!
Our interests on the dangerous edge of things.
The honest thief, the tender murderer,
The superstitious atheist, demireps
That loves and saves her soul in new French books
We watch while these in equilibrium keep
The giddy line midway: one step aside,
Theyre classed and done with. I, then, keep the line
Before your sages, just the men to shrink
From the gross weights, coarse scales and labels broad
You offer their refinement. Fool or knave?
Why needs a bishop be a fool or knave
When theres a thousand diamond weights between?
So, I enlist them. Your picked twelve, youll find,
Profess themselves indignant, scandalized
At thus being held unable to explain
How a superior man who disbelieves
May not believe as well: thats Schellings way!
Its through my coming in the tail of time,
Nicking the minute with a happy tact.
Had I been born three hundred years ago
Theyd say, Whats strange? Blougram of course believes;
And, seventy years since, disbelieves of course.
But now, He may believe; and yet, and yet
How can he? All eyes turn with interest.
Whereas, step off the line on either side
You, for example, clever to a fault,
The rough and ready man who write apace,
Read somewhat seldomer, think perhaps even less
You disbelieve! Who wonders and who cares?
Lord So-and-so his coat bedropped with wax,
All Peters chains about his waist, his back
Brave with the needlework of Noodledom
Believes! Again, who wonders and who cares?
But I, the man of sense and learning too,
The able to think yet act, the this, the that,
I, to believe at this late time of day!
Enough; you see, I need not fear contempt.
Except its yours! Admire me as these may,
You dont. But whom at least do you admire?
Present your own perfection, your ideal,
Your pattern man for a minute oh, make haste
Is it Napoleon you would have us grow?
Concede the means; allow his head and hand,
(A large concession, clever as you are)
Good! In our common primal element
Of unbelief (we cant believe, you know
Were still at that admission, recollect!)
Where do you find apart from, towering oer
The secondary temporary aims
Which satisfy the gross taste you despise
Where do you find his star? his crazy trust
God knows through what or in what? its alive
And shines and leads him, and thats all we want.
Have we aught in our sober night shall point
Such ends as his were, and direct the means
Of working out our purpose straight as his,
Nor bring a moments trouble on success
With after-care to justify the same?
Be a Napoleon, and yet disbelieve!
Why, the mans mad, friend, take his light away!
Whats the vague good o the world, for which you dare
With comfort to yourself blow millions up?
We neither of us see it! we do see
The blown-up millions spatter of their brains
And writhing of their bowels and so forth,
In that bewildering entanglement
Of horrible eventualities
Past calculation to the end of time!
Can I mistake for some clear word of God
(Which were my ample warrant for it all)
His puff of hazy instinct, idle talk,
The State, thats I, quack-nonsense about crowns,
And (when one beats the man to his last hold)
A vague idea of setting things to rights,
Policing people efficaciously,
More to their profit, most of all to his own;
The whole to end that dismallest of ends
By an Austrian marriage, cant to us the Church,
And resurrection of the old regime?
Would I, who hope to live a dozen years,
Fight Austerlitz for reasons such and such?
No: for, concede me but the merest chance
Doubt may be wrong theres judgment, life to come!
With just that chance, I dare not. Doubt proves right?
This present life is all? you offer me
Its dozen noisy years, without a chance
That wedding an archduchess, wearing lace,
And getting called by divers new-coined names,
Will drive off ugly thoughts and let me dine,
Sleep, read and chat in quiet as I like!
Therefore I will not.
Take another case;
Fit up the cabin yet another way.
What say you to the poets? shall we write
Hamlet, Othello make the world our own,
Without a risk to run of either sort?
I cant to put the strongest reason first.
But try, you urge, the trying shall suffice;
The aim, if reached or not, makes great the life:
Try to be Shakespeare, leave the rest to fate!
Spare my self-knowledge theres no fooling me!
If I prefer remaining my poor self,
I say so not in self-dispraise but praise.
If Im a Shakespeare, let the well alone;
Why should I try to be what now I am?
If Im no Shakespeare, as too probable,
His power and consciousness and self-delight
And all we want in common, shall I find
Trying for ever? while on points of taste
Wherewith, to speak it humbly, he and I
Are dowered alike Ill ask you, I or he,
Which in our two lives realizes most?
Much, he imagined somewhat, I possess.
He had the imagination; stick to that!
Let him say, In the face of my souls works
Your world is worthless and I touch it not
Lest I should wrong them Ill withdraw my plea.
But does he say so? look upon his life!
Himself, who only can, gives judgment there.
He leaves his towers and gorgeous palaces
To build the trimmest house in Stratford town;
Saves money, spends it, owns the worth of things,
Giulio Romanos pictures, Dowlands lute;
Enjoys a show, respects the puppets, too,
And none more, had he seen its entry once,
Than Pandulph, of fair Milan cardinal.
Why then should I who play that personage,
The very Pandulph Shakespeares fancy made,
Be told that had the poet chanced to start
From where I stand now (some degree like mine
Being just the goal he ran his race to reach)
He would have run the whole race back, forsooth,
And left being Pandulph, to begin write plays?
Ah, the earths best can be but the earths best!
Did Shakespeare live, he could but sit at home
And get himself in dreams the Vatican,
Greek busts, Venetian paintings, Roman walls,
And English books, none equal to his own,
Which I read, bound in gold (he never did).
Terni, Naples bay and Gothards top
Eh, friend? I could not fancy one of these;
But, as I pour this claret, there they are:
Ive gained them crossed St. Gothard last July
With ten mules to the carriage and a bed
Slung inside; is my hap the worse for that?
We want the same things, Shakespeare and myself,
And what I want, I have: he, gifted more,
Could fancy he too had them when he liked,
But not so thoroughly that, if fate allowed,
He would not have them also in my sense.
We play one game; I send the ball aloft
No less adroitly that of fifty strokes
Scarce five go oer the wall so wide and high
Which sends them back to me: I wish and get
He struck balls higher and with better skill,
But at a poor fence level with his head,
And hit his Stratford house, a coat of arms,
Successful dealings in his grain and wool,
While I receive heavens incense in my nose
And style myself the cousin of Queen Bess.
Ask him, if this lifes all, who wins the game?
Believe and our whole argument breaks up.
Enthusiasms the best thing, I repeat;
Only, we cant command it; fire and life
Are all, dead matters nothing, we agree:
And be it a mad dream or Gods very breath,
The facts the same, beliefs fire, once in us,
Makes of all else mere stuff to show itself:
We penetrate our life with such a glow
As fire lends wood and iron this turns steel,
That burns to ash alls one, fire proves its power
For good or ill, since men call flare success.
But paint a fire, it will not therefore burn.
Light one in me, Ill find it food enough!
Why, to be Luther thats a life to lead,
Incomparably better than my own.
He comes, reclaims Gods earth for God, he says,
Sets up Gods rule again by simple means,
Re-opens a shut book, and all is done.
He flared out in the flaring of mankind;
Such Luthers luck was: how shall such be mine?
If he succeeded, nothings left to do:
And if he did not altogether well,
Strauss is the next advance. All Strauss should be
I might be also. But to what result?
He looks upon no future: Luther did.
What can I gain on the denying side?
Ice makes no conflagration. State the facts,
Read the text right, emancipate the world
The emancipated world enjoys itself
With scarce a thank-you Blougram told it first
It could not owe a farthing, not to him
More than Saint Paul! twould press its pay, you think?
Then add theres still that plaguey hundredth chance
Strauss may be wrong. And so a risk is run
For what gain? not for Luthers, who secured
A real heaven in his heart throughout his life,
Supposing death a little altered things.
Ay, but since really you lack faith, you cry,
You run the same risk really on all sides,
In cool indifference as bold unbelief.
As well be Strauss as swing twixt Paul and him.
Its not worth having, such imperfect faith,
No more available to do faiths work
Than unbelief like mine. Whole faith, or none!
Softly, my friend! I must dispute that point
Once own the use of faith, Ill find you faith.
Were back on Christian ground. You call for faith:
I show you doubt, to prove that faith exists.
The more of doubt, the stronger faith, I say,
If faith oercomes doubt. How I know it does?
By life and mans free will, God gave for that!
To mould life as we choose it, shows our choice:
Thats our one act, the previous works his own.
You criticize the soul? it reared this tree
This broad life and whatever fruit it bears!
What matter though I doubt at every pore,
Head-doubts, heart-doubts, doubts at my fingers ends,
Doubts in the trivial work of every day,
Doubts at the very bases of my soul
In the grand moments when she probes herself
If finally I have a life to show,
The thing I did, brought out in evidence
Against the thing done to me underground
By hell and all its brood, for aught I know?
I say, whence sprang this? shows it faith or doubt?
Alls doubt in me; wheres break of faith in this?
It is the idea, the feeling and the love,
God means mankind should strive for and show forth
Whatever be the process to that end,
And not historic knowledge, logic sound,
And metaphysical acumen, sure!
What think ye of Christ, friend? when alls done and said,
Like you this Christianity or not?
It may be false, but will you wish it true?
Has it your vote to be so if it can?
Trust you an instinct silenced long ago
That will break silence and enjoin you love
What mortified philosophy is hoarse,
And all in vain, with bidding you despise?
If you desire faith then youve faith enough:
What else seeks God nay, what else seek ourselves?
You form a notion of me, well suppose,
On hearsay; its a favourable one:
But still (you add), there was no such good man,
Because of contradiction in the facts.
One proves, for instance, he was born in Rome,
This Blougram yet throughout the tales of him
I see he figures as an Englishman.
Well, the two things are reconcileable.
But would I rather you discovered that,
Subjoining Still, what matter though they be?
Blougram concerns me nought, born here or there.
Pure faith indeed you know not what you ask!
Naked belief in God the Omnipotent,
Omniscient, Omnipresent, sears too much
The sense of conscious creatures to be borne.
It were the seeing him, no flesh shall dare
Some think, Creations meant to show him forth:
I say its meant to hide him all it can,
And thats what all the blessed evils for.
Its use in Time is to environ us,
Our breath, our drop of dew, with shield enough
Against that sight till we can bear its stress.
Under a vertical sun, the exposed brain
And lidless eye and disemprisoned heart
Less certainly would wither up at once
Than mind, confronted with the truth of him.
But time and earth case-harden us to live;
The feeblest sense is trusted most; the child
Feels God a moment, ichors oer the place,
Plays on and grows to be a man like us.
With me, faith means perpetual unbelief
Kept quiet like the snake neath Michaels foot
Who stands calm just because he feels it writhe.
Or, if thats too ambitious, heres my box
I need the excitation of a pinch
Threatening the torpor of the inside-nose
Nigh on the imminent sneeze that never comes.
Leave it in peace advise the simple folk:
Make it aware of peace by itching-fits,
Say I let doubt occasion still more faith!
Youll say, once all believed, man, woman, child,
In that dear middle-age these noodles praise.
How youd exult if I could put you back
Six hundred years, blot out cosmogony,
Geology, ethnology, what not
(Greek endings, each the little passing-bell
That signifies some faiths about to die),
And set you square with Genesis again,
When such a traveller told you his last news,
He saw the ark a-top of Ararat
But did not climb there since twas getting dusk
And robber-bands infest the mountains foot!
How should you feel, I ask, in such an age,
How act? As other people felt and did;
With soul more blank than this decanters knob,
Believe and yet lie, kill, rob, fornicate
Full in beliefs face, like the beast youd be!
No, when the fight begins within himself,
A mans worth something. God stoops oer his head,
Satan looks up between his feet both tug
Hes left, himself, i the middle: the soul wakes
And grows. Prolong that battle through his life!
Never leave growing till the life to come!
Here, weve got callous to the Virgins winks
That used to puzzle people wholesomely
Men have outgrown the shame of being fools.
What are the laws of nature, not to bend
If the Church bid them brother Newman asks.
Up with the Immaculate Conception, then
On to the rack with faith! is my advice.
Will not that hurry us upon our knees,
Knocking our breasts, It cant be yet it shall!
Who am I, the worm, to argue with my Pope?
Low things confound the high things! and so forth.
Thats better than acquitting God with grace
As some folk do. Hes tried no case is proved,
Philosophy is lenient he may go!
Youll say the old systems not so obsolete
But men believe still: ay, but who and where?
King Bombas lazzaroni foster yet
The sacred flame, so Antonelli writes;
But even of these, what ragamuffin-saint
Believes God watches him continually,
As he believes in fire that it will burn,
Or rain that it will drench him? Break fires law,
Sin against rain, although the penalty
Be just a singe or soaking? No, he smiles;
Those laws are laws that can enforce themselves.
The sum of all is yes, my doubt is great,
My faiths still greater, then my faiths enough.
I have read much, thought much, experienced much,
Yet would die rather than avow my fear
The Naples liquefaction may be false,
When set to happen by the palace-clock
According to the clouds or dinner-time.
I hear you recommend, I might at least
Eliminate, decrassify my faith
Since I adopt it; keeping what I must
And leaving what I can such points as this.
I wont that is, I cant throw one away.
Supposing theres no truth in what I hold
About the need of trial to mans faith,
Still, when you bid me purify the same,
To such a process I discern no end.
Clearing off one excrescence to see two;
Theres ever a next in size, now grown as big,
That meets the knife: I cut and cut again!
First cut the Liquefaction, what comes last
But Fichtes clever cut at God himself?
Experimentalize on sacred things!
I trust nor hand nor eye nor heart nor brain
To stop betimes: they all get drunk alike.
The first step, I am master not to take.
Youd find the cutting-process to your taste
As much as leaving growths of lies unpruned,
Nor see more danger in it, you retort.
Your tastes worth mine; but my taste proves more wise
When we consider that the steadfast hold
On the extreme end of the chain of faith
Gives all the advantage, makes the difference
With the rough purblind mass we seek to rule:
We are their lords, or they are free of us,
Just as we tighten or relax our hold.
So, others matters equal, well revert
To the first problem which, if solved my way
And thrown into the balance, turns the scale
How we may lead a comfortable life,
How suit our luggage to the cabins size.
Of course you are remarking all this time
How narrowly and grossly I view life,
Respect the creature-comforts, care to rule
The masses, and regard complacently
The cabin, in our old phrase! Well, I do.
I act for, talk for, live for this world now,
As this world prizes action, life and talk
No prejudice to what next world may prove,
Whose new laws and requirements, my best pledge
To observe then, is that I observe these now,
Shall do hereafter what I do meanwhile.
Let us concede (gratuitously though)
Next life relieves the soul of body, yields
Pure spiritual enjoyment: well, my friend,
Why lose this life in the meantime, since its use
May be to make the next life more intense?
Do you know, I have often had a dream
(Work it up in your next months article)
Of mans poor spirit in its progress, still
Losing true life for ever and a day
Through ever trying to be and ever being
In the evolution of successive spheres
Before its actual sphere and place of life,
Halfway into the next, which having reached,
It shoots with corresponding foolery
Halfway into the next still, on and off!
As when a traveller, bound from North to South,
Scouts fur in Russia whats its use in France?
In France spurns flannel wheres its need in Spain?
In Spain drops cloth too cumbrous for Algiers!
Linen goes next, and last the skin itself,
A superfluity at Timbuctoo.
When, through his journey, was the fool at ease?
Im at ease now, friend; worldly in this world,
I take and like its way of life; I think
My brothers, who administer the means,
Live better for my comfort thats good too;
And God, if he pronounce upon such life,
Approves my service, which is better still.
If he keep silence, why, for you or me
Or that brute beast pulled-up in to-days Times,
What odds ist, save to ourselves, what life we lead?
You meet me at this issue: you declare,
All special-pleading done with truth is truth,
And justifies itself by undreamed ways.
You dont fear but its better, if we doubt,
To say so, act up to our truth perceived
However feebly. Do then, act away!
Tis there Im on the watch for you. How one acts
Is, both of us agree, our chief concern:
And how youll act is what I fain would see
If, like the candid person you appear,
You dare to make the most of your lifes scheme
As I of mine, live up to its full law
Since theres no higher law that counterchecks.
Put natural religion to the test
Youve just demolished the revealed with quick,
Down to the root of all that checks your will,
All prohibition to lie, kill and thieve,
Or even to be an atheistic priest!
Suppose a pricking to incontinence
Philosophers deduce you chastity
Or shame, from just the fact that at the first
Whoso embraced a woman in the field,
Threw club down and forewent his brains beside,
So, stood a ready victim in the reach
Of any brother savage, club in hand;
Hence saw the use of going out of sight
In wood or cave to prosecute his loves:
I read this in a French book tother day.
Does law so analysed coerce you much?
Oh, men spin clouds of fuzz where matters end,
But you who reach where the first thread begins,
Youll soon cut that! which means you can, but wont,
Through certain instincts, blind, unreasoned-out,
You dare not set aside, you cant tell why,
But there they are, and so you let them rule.
Then, friend, you seem as much a slave as I,
A liar, conscious coward and hypocrite,
Without the good the slave expects to get,
In case he has a master after all!
You own your instincts? why, what else do I,
Who want, am made for, and must have a God
Ere I can be aught, do aught? no mere name
Want, but the true thing with what proves its truth,
To wit, a relation from that thing to me,
Touching from head to foot which touch I feel,
And with it take the rest, this life of ours!
I live my life here; yours you dare not live.
Not as I state it, who (you please subjoin)
Disfigure such a life and call it names,
While, to your mind, remains another way
For simple men: knowledge and power have rights,
But ignorance and weakness have rights too.
There needs no crucial effort to find truth
If here or there or anywhere about
We ought to turn each side, try hard and see,
And if we cant, be glad weve earned at least
The right, by one laborious proof the more,
To graze in peace earths pleasant pasturage.
Men are not angels, but, properly, are brutes:
Something we may see, all we cannot see
What need of lying? I say, I see all,
And swear to each detail the most minute
In what I think a Pans face you, mere cloud:
I swear I hear him speak and see him wink,
For fear, if once I drop the emphasis,
Mankind may doubt theres any cloud at all.
You take the simple life ready to see,
Willing to see for no clouds worth a face
And leaving quiet what no strength can move,
And which, who bids you move? who has the right?
I bid you; but you are Gods sheep, not mine:
Pastor est tui Dominus. You find
In this the pleasant pasture of our life
Much you may eat without the least offence,
Much you dont eat because your maw objects,
Much you would eat but that your fellow-flock
Open great eyes at you and even butt,
And thereupon you like your mates so well
You cannot please yourself, offending them
Though when they seem exorbitantly sheep,
You weigh your pleasure with their butts and bleats
And strike the balance. Sometimes certain fears
Restrain you real checks since you find them so
Sometimes you please yourself and nothing checks;
And thus you graze through life with not one lie,
And like it best.
But do you, in truths name?
If so, you beat which means you are not I
Who needs must make earth mine and feed my fill
Not simply unbutted at, unbickered with,
But motioned to the velvet of the sward
By those obsequious wethers very selves.
Look at me, sir; my age is double yours:
At yours, I knew beforehand, so enjoyed,
What now I should be as, permit the word,
I pretty well imagine your whole range
And stretch of tether twenty years to come.
We both have minds and bodies much alike:
In truths name, dont you want my bishopric,
My daily bread, my influence and my state?
Youre young. Im old; you must be old one day;
Will you find then, as I do hour by hour,
Women their lovers kneel to, who cut curls
From your fat lap-dogs ear to grace a brooch
Dukes, who petition just to kiss your ring
With much beside you know or may conceive?
Suppose we die to-night: well, here am I,
Such were my gains, life bore this fruit to me,
While writing all the same my articles
On music, poetry, the fictile vase
Found at Albano, or Anacreons Greek.
But you the highest honour in your life,
The thing youll crown yourself with, all your days,
Is dining here and drinking this last glass
I pour you out in sign of amity
Before we part for ever. Of your power
And social influence, worldly worth in short,
Judge whats my estimation by the fact,
I do not condescend to enjoin, beseech,
Hint secrecy on one of all these words!
Youre shrewd and know that should you publish one
The world would brand the lie my enemies first,
Whod sneer the bishops an arch-hypocrite
And knave perhaps, but not so frank a fool.
Whereas I should not dare for both my ears
Breathe one such syllable, smile one such smile,
Before the chaplain who reflects myself
My shades so much more potent than your flesh.
Whats your reward, self-abnegating friend?
Stood you confessed of those exceptional
And privileged great natures that dwarf mine
A zealot with a mad ideal in reach,
A poet just about to print his ode,
A statesman with a scheme to stop this war,
An artist whose religion is his art,
I should have nothing to object! such men
Carry the fire, all things grow warm to them,
Their druggets worth my purple, they beat me.
But you, youre just as little those as I
You, Gigadibs, who, thirty years of age,
Write statedly for Blackwoods Magazine,
Believe you see two points in Hamlets soul
Unseized by the Germans yet which view youll print
Meantime the best you have to show being still
That lively lightsome article we took
Almost for the true Dickens, whats its name?
The Slum and Cellar, or Whitechapel life
Limned after dark! it made me laugh, I know,
And pleased a month, and brought you in ten pounds.
Success I recognize and compliment,
And therefore give you, if you choose, three words
(The card and pencil-scratch is quite enough)
Which whether here, in Dublin or New York,
Will get you, prompt as at my eyebrows wink,
Such terms as never you aspired to get
In all our own reviews and some not ours.
Go write your lively sketches! be the first
Blougram, or The Eccentric Confidence
Or better simply say, The Outward-bound.
Why, men as soon would throw it in my teeth
As copy and quote the infamy chalked broad
About me on the church-door opposite.
You will not wait for that experience though,
I fancy, howsoever you decide,
To discontinue not detesting, not
Defaming, but at least despising me!
Over his wine so smiled and talked his hour
Sylvester Blougram, styled in partibus
Episcopus, nec non (the deuce knows what
Its changed to by our novel hierarchy)
With Gigadibs the literary man,
Who played with spoons, explored his plates design,
And ranged the olive-stones about its edge,
While the great bishop rolled him out a mind
Long crumpled, till creased consciousness lay smooth.
For Blougram, he believed, say, half he spoke.
The other portion, as he shaped it thus
For argumentatory purposes,
He felt his foe was foolish to dispute.
Some arbitrary accidental thoughts
That crossed his mind, amusing because new,
He chose to represent as fixtures there,
Invariable convictions (such they seemed
Beside his interlocutors loose cards
Flung daily down, and not the same way twice)
While certain hell deep instincts, mans weak tongue
Is never bold to utter in their truth
Because styled hell-deep (tis an old mistake
To place hell at the bottom of the earth)
He ignored these, not having in readiness
Their nomenclature and philosophy:
He said true things, but called them by wrong names.
On the whole, he thought, I justify myself
On every point where cavillers like this
Oppugn my life: he tries one kind of fence,
I close, hes worsted, thats enough for him.
Hes on the ground: if ground should break away
I take my stand on, theres a firmer yet
Beneath it, both of us may sink and reach.
His ground was over mine and broke the first:
So, let him sit with me this many a year!
He did not sit five minutes. Just a week
Sufficed his sudden healthy vehemence.
Something had struck him in the Outward-bound
Another way than Blougrams purpose was:
And having bought, not cabin-furniture
But settlers-implements (enough for three)
And started for Australia there, I hope,
By this time he has tested his first plough,
And studied his last chapter of St. John.