Confessions of a Book-Lover Part 11

and "Pepacton." Burroughs's opinions upon the problems of humanity are more tiresome than John Bunyan's opinions on theology; but to go with him among the birds and the plants, to hope with him that the soaring lark of England may find its way down through Canada to our hedges, to look with him into the nests in the shrubs that border our roads is to begin to feel that joy in being an American of the soil that no other author gives. He cured the young New England poets and the singers of the Berkshire Hills and of the Catskills of celebrating the English thrush and the nightingale, as if those birds sang on the Palisades.

There is an epithet I should like to apply to John Burroughs, but he might not like it if he were alive. I recall the case of a pleasant Englishman who admired two American girls very much, because, as he said, they were "so homely." In fact, they were rather pretty girls, and he had not used the term in reference to their looks. It is the word with which I like to describe John Burroughs. Forty years ago, I met him at Richard Watson Gilder's. He was young then, and delightfully "homely" in the sense in which the Englishman used the word. Some of the refined ladies at Mrs. Gilder's objected to his "crude speech," for even in the eighties there were still _precieuses_. The truth is that his rural use of the vernacular was part of the charm. It never spoiled his style; but it gave that touch of homeliness to it which smelt of the good soil of the country.

Th.o.r.eau's "Walden" always reminds me--a far-fetched comparison but I will not apologize for it--of "As You Like It" played in one way by Dybwad, the Norwegian actress, and by Julia Marlowe in another. Madame Dybwad, being nearer to the Elizabethan time in her daily life, gives us an Elizabethan maiden with a touch of "homeliness"; but Julia Marlowe's, like Ada Rehan's "Rosalind," has something of the artificial character of Watteau. "Walden," then, is somewhat too varnished; but "Riverby" and "Pepacton" are "homely" and "homey."

To return to memoirs for a moment, that most delightful of all mental dissipations for a leisurely man. In looking for the second volume of "Walden"--for fear that I should have done Th.o.r.eau an injustice--I find the "Memoirs of the Comtesse de Boigne." One cannot imagine anything more unlike Madame de Boigne than Th.o.r.eau and John Burroughs! Why is Madame de Boigne on the same shelf with these two lovers of nature?

Madame de Boigne was never a lover of nature. She loved the world and the manifestations of the world, and--not to be ungallant--she is more like an irritated mosquito than like the elegant _camellia j.a.ponica_ to which she would prefer to be compared.

There is a great deal of solid comfort in the revelations of Madame de Boigne; she is at times so very untruthful that her malice does no real harm; she is so very clever; and she paints interiors so well; and gives the atmosphere of French Society before and during the Revolution in a most fascinating way. She always thinks the worst, of course; but a writer of memoirs who always thought the best would be as painfully uninteresting as Froude is when he describes the character of Henry VIII. But this is a digression.

Mr. John Addington Symonds speaks of the style of Sir Thomas Browne as displaying a "rich maturity and heavy-scented blossom." Mr. Mencken cannot accuse any modern Englishman or American of imitating, in his desire to be academic, Browne's hyperlatinism or his use of Latin words, like "corpage," "confinium," "angustias," or "Vivacious abominations"

and "congaevous generations."

Mr. Symonds says:

He professes a mixture of the boldest scepticism and the most puerile credulity. But his scepticism is the prelude to confessions of impa.s.sioned faith, and his credulity is the result of tortuous reflections on the enigmas of life and revelation. Perhaps the following paragraph enables us to understand the permanent temper of his mind most truly:

"As for those wingy mysteries in divinity, and airy subtleties in religion, which have unhinged the brains of better heads, they never stretched the pia mater of mine. Methinks there be not impossibilities enough in religion for an active faith: the deepest mysteries ours contains have not only been ill.u.s.trated but maintained by syllogism and the rule of reason. I love to lose myself in a mystery; to pursue my reason to an O alt.i.tudo! 'Tis my solitary recreation to pose my apprehension with those involved enigmas and riddles of the Trinity, Incarnation, and Resurrection.

I can answer all the objections of Satan and my rebellious reason with that odd resolution I learned of Tertullian, _Certum est quia impossible est_. I desire to exercise my faith in the difficultest point, for to credit ordinary and visible objects, is not faith, but persuasion."

Leaving all question of theology, or criticism of theology, aside, Sir Thomas lends himself to those moments when a man wants to dip a little into the interior life. It is a strange thing that nearly all the modern novelists who describe men seem to think that their interior life is purely emotional. Even Mr. Hugh Walpole,[2] my favourite among the writers in the spring of middle age, is inclined to make his heroes, or his semi-heroes (there are no good real honest villains in fiction now) lead lives that are not at all interior. And yet every man either leads an interior life, or longs to lead an interior life, of which he seldom talks. He wants inarticulately to know something of the art of meditation; his dissatisfaction with life, even when he is successful, is largely due to the fact that he has never been taught how to cultivate the spiritual sense. This is an art. In it St. Francis de Sales was very proficient. It gave George Herbert and a group of his imitators great contentment in the state to which they were called. As a book of secular meditation the "Religio Medici" is full of good points.

For instance, Sir Thomas starts one on the road to meditation on the difference between democracy and freedom, humanity and nationalism in this way:

Let us speak like politicians; there is a n.o.bility without heraldry, a natural dignity, whereby one man is ranked with another filed before him, according to the quality of his desert and pre-eminence of his good parts. Though the corruption of these times and the bias of present practice wheel another way, thus it was in the first and primitive commonwealths, and is yet in the integrity and cradle of well-ordered politics: till corruption getteth ground;--ruder desires labouring after that which wiser considerations contemn;--every one having a liberty to ama.s.s and heap up riches, and they a license or faculty to do or purchase anything.

[2] Mr. Walpole has almost forfeited the allegiance of people who admired his quality of well-bred distinction by writing in "The Young Enchanted" of George Eliot as a "horse-faced genius."

There are singular beings who have tried to read "Religio Medici"

continuously. Was it Shakespeare, whose works were presented to one of this cla.s.s? "How do you like Shakespeare?" the amiable donor asked. "I can't say yet; I have not finished him!" It seems almost miraculous that human beings should exist who take this att.i.tude toward Sir Thomas Browne, his "Urn Burial" or his "Christian Morals." It seems almost more miraculous that this att.i.tude should be taken toward Montaigne, and that some folk should prefer the "Essays of Montaigne" in the pleasant, curtailed edition of John Florio's translation, edited by Justin Huntly McCarthy! These small books are convenient, no doubt. If you cannot have the original French, or the leisure to browse over the big volume of Florio's old book as it was written, Mr. McCarthy's edition is an agreeable but not satisfactory subst.i.tute. It somehow or other reminds one of that appalling series of cutdown "Cla.s.sics," so largely recommended to a public that is seduced to run and read. A condensed edition of Froissart may do very well for boys; but who can visualize the kind of mind content with a reduced version of "Vanity Fair"?

Montaigne is a city of refuge from the whirling words of the uplifters.

At times I have been compelled from a sense of duty, a mistaken one, to read whole pages of Mr. Wells, whose "Marriage" and "The New Machiavelli" and "Tono-Bungay," will be remembered when "Mr.

Britling"--by the way, what did Mr. Britling see through?--shall be forgotten. As an antidote, I invariably turn to Montaigne. It amazed me to hear Montaigne called a skeptic. He is even more reverent toward the eternal verities than Sir Thomas Browne, and he has fewer superst.i.tions.

It was his humanity and his love for religion that turned him from Aristotle to Plato, and yet he is no fanatic for Plato. He is a real amateur of good books. Listen to this:

As for Cicero, I am of the common judgment, that besides learning there was an exquisite eloquence in him: He was a good citizen, of an honest, gentle nature, as are commonly fat and burly men: for so was he. But to speake truly of him, full of ambitious vanity and remisse niceness. And I know not well how to excuse him, in that he deemed his Poesie worthy to be published. It is no great imperfection to make bad verses, but it is an imperfection in him that he never perceived how unworthy they were of the glorie of his name. Concerning his eloquence it is beyond all comparison, and I verily believe that none shall ever equall it.

Montaigne sorrowed it a thousand times that ever the book written by Brutus on Virtue was lost. He consoles himself, however, by remembering that Brutus is so well represented in Plutarch. He would rather know what talk Brutus had with some of his familiar friends in his tent on the night before going to battle than the speech he made to his army. He had no sympathy with eloquent prefaces, or with circ.u.mlocutions that keep the reader back from the real matter of books. He does not want to hear heralds or criers. How he would have hated the flare of trumpets that precedes the entrance of the best sellers! And the blazing "jackets," the lowest form of modern art, would have made him rip out the favourite oaths of his province with violence.

"The Romans in their religion," he says, "were wont to say 'Hoc age'; which in ours we say, 'Sursum corda.'"

He goes to a book as he goes to a good dinner; he does not care for the _hors d'uvres_. Note how he rushes with rather rough weapons to the translation, by his dying father's command, of _Theologia naturalis sive liber creaturarum magistri Raimondi de Sebonde_. He thinks that it is a good antidote for the "new fangles" of Luther, who is leading the vulgar to think for themselves and to reject authority. His a.n.a.lysis of himself in the essay "Of Cruelty" is the message of a sane man to sane men; and he does not hesitate to point out the fact that no hatred is so absolute as that which Christians can cover with the cloak of Christianity. The discord between zeal for religion and the fury of nationality concerns him greatly, and he does not hesitate to read a well-deserved lesson to his contemporaries on the subject.

In Montaigne's time the theories which Machiavelli had gathered together in "The Prince," governed Europe. One can see that they do not satisfy Montaigne. To him they are nefarious.

"'The Prince,'" declares Villari, "had a more direct action on real life than any other book in the world, and a larger share in emanc.i.p.ating Europe from the Middle Ages."

It is a shocking confession to make, and yet the "Essays" of Michel de Montaigne give me as much pleasure, but not so much edification, as the precious sentences of Thomas a Kempis. They are foils; at first sight there seems to be no relationship between them; and yet at heart Michel de Montaigne, who was really not a skeptic, has much in common with Thomas a Kempis. If there were no persons in the world capable of being Montaignes, Thomas a Kempis would have written for G.o.d alone. He would have resembled an altar railing which I once heard Father Faber had erected. On the side toward the altar it was foliated and exquisitely carved in a manner that pleased Ruskin. On the outer side, the side toward the people and not the side toward the Presence of G.o.d, it was entirely plain and unornamented!

The friendship of Thomas a Kempis I owe to George Eliot. Emerson might easily perish; Plato might go, and even Horace be drowned in his last supply of Falernian; Marcus Aurelius and even Rudyard Kipling might exist only in tradition; but the loss of all their works would be as nothing compared to the loss of that little volume which is a marvellous guide to life. The translations of Thomas a Kempis into English vary in value. Certain dissenters have cut out the very soul of a Kempis in deleting the pa.s.sages on the Holy Eucharist. Think of Bowdlerizing Thomas a Kempis! He was, above all, a mystic, and all the philosophy of his love of Christ limps when the mystical centre of it, the Eucharist, is cut out. If that meeting in the upper room had not taken place during the paschal season, if Christ had not offered His body and blood, soul and divinity to his amazed, yet reverent, disciples, Thomas a Kempis would never have written "The Following of Christ." The Bible, even the New Testament, is full of sayings which, as St. James says of St. Paul's Epistles, are not easy sayings, but what better interpretation of the doctrines of Christ as applied to everyday life can there be found than in this precious little book?

You may talk of Marcus Aurelius and gather what comfort you can from the philosophy of Th.o.r.eau's "Walden"--which might, after all, be more comfortable if it were more pagan. The Pan of Th.o.r.eau was a respectable Pan, because he was a Unitarian; you may find some comfort in Keble's "Christian Year" if you can; but a Kempis overtops all! It is strange, too, what an appeal this great mystic has to the unbelievers in Christianity. It is a contradiction we meet with every day. And George Eliot was a remarkable example of this, for, in spite of her habitual reverence, she cannot be said to have accepted orthodox dogmas. Another paradox seems to be in the fact that Thomas a Kempis appeals so directly and consciously to the confirmed mystic and to those who have secluded themselves from the world. At first, I must confess that I found this a great obstacle to my joy in having found him.

If Montaigne frequently drove me to a Kempis, a Kempis almost as frequently in the beginning drove me back to Montaigne. It was not until I had become more familiar with the New Testament that I began to see that a Kempis spoke as one soul to another. In this world for him there were only three Facts--G.o.d, his own soul, and the soul to whom he spoke.

It was a puzzle to me to observe that so many of my friends who looked on the Last Supper as a mere symbol of love and hospitality, should cling to "The Following of Christ" with such devotion. Even the example of an intellectual friend of mine, a Bostonian who had lived much in Italy, could not make it clear. He often a.s.serted that he did not believe in G.o.d; and yet he was desolate if on a certain day in the year he did not pay some kind of tribute at the shrine of St. Antony of Padua!

I have known him to break up a party in the Adirondacks in order to reach the nearest church where it was possible for him to burn a candle in honour of his favourite saint on this mysterious anniversary! As long as he exists, as long as he continues to burn candles--_les chandelles d'un athee_--I shall accept without understanding the enthusiasm of so many lovers of a Kempis, who cut out the mystical longings for the reception of that divine food which Christ gave out in the upper room.

a Kempis says:

My soul longs to be nourished with Thy body; my heart desires to be united with Thee.

Give Thyself to me and it is enough; for without Thee no comfort is available.

Without Thee I cannot subsist; and without Thy visitation I cannot live.

And, therefore, I must come often to Thee, and receive Thee for the remedy, and for the health and strength of my soul; lest perhaps I faint in the way, if I be deprived of this heavenly food.

For so, O most merciful Jesus, Thou wast pleased once to say, when Thou hadst been preaching to the people, and curing sundry diseases: "I will not send them away fasting, lest they faint in the way."

Deal now in like manner with me, who has left Thyself in the sacrament for the comfort of Thy faithful.

For Thou art the most sweet reflection of the soul; and he that shall eat Thee worthily shall be partaker and heir of everlasting glory.

To every soul, oppressed and humble, a Kempis speaks more poignantly than even David, in that great cry of the heart and soul, the De Profundis:

Behold, then, O Lord, my abjection and frailty [Ps. xxiv. 18], every way known to Thee.

Have pity on me and draw me out of the mire [Ps. lxviii. 15], that I stick not fast therein, that I may not be utterly cast down forever.

This it is which often drives me back and confounds me in Thy sight, to find that I am so subject to fall and have so little strength to resist my pa.s.sions.

And although I do not altogether consent, yet their a.s.saults are troublesome and grievous to me, and it is exceedingly irksome to live thus always in a conflict.

Hence my infirmity is made known to me, because wicked thoughts do always much more easily rush in upon me than they can be cast out again.

Oh, that Thou, the most mighty G.o.d of Israel, the zealous lover of faithful souls, wouldst behold the labour and sorrow of Thy servant, and stand by me in all my undertakings.

Strengthen me with heavenly fort.i.tude, lest the old man, the miserable flesh, not fully subject to the spirit, prevail and get the upper hand, against which we must fight as long as we breathe in this most wretched life.

Alas! what kind of life is this, where afflictions and miseries are never wanting; where all things are full of snares and enemies.

There is no pessimism here, for Thomas a Kempis gives the remedies, the only remedies offered to the world since light was created before the sun. He offers no maudlin consolation; to him the sins of the intellect are worse than the sins of the flesh. He believed in h.e.l.l, which he never defined, as devoutly as Dante, who did describe it. They both knew their hearts and the world; and the world has never invented any remedy so effective as that which a Kempis offers.

It is the divine remedy of love; but love cannot exist without the fear of hurting or offending the Beloved.

The best book yet written on the causes that made for the World War and on their remedy is "The Rebuilding of Europe," by David Jayne Hill.

There we find this quotation from Villari illuminated: