Nature Mysticism Part 15

And Schopenhauer asks why the sight of the full moon has upon us an influence so soothing and elevating. His explanation is in harmony with the general trend of his philosophical doctrine. He says that the moon has so little relation to our personal concerns that it is not an object of willing. We are content to contemplate her in pa.s.sive receptivity. We have here a problem which is well worthy of discussion. Let us bring the matter to the test of actual experience as embodied in modern prose and poetry. For while it goes without saying that the qualities of physical remoteness, elevation, and vastness, have their own peculiar mystical power, and that they are especially manifested in the phenomena of the starry heaven, there is a danger of emphasising this fact to the detriment of the basic principle of Nature Mysticism. In order to bring the discussion within reasonable limits, let it be confined to Schopenhauer's example:

"That orbed maiden, with white fire laden, Whom mortals call the moon."

Is it true that there is, alongside of the feeling of her remoteness, none of the active emotion which essential kinship would lead us to antic.i.p.ate?

Appeal might at once be made to the proverbial "crying for the moon"; and there would be more in the appeal than might appear at first sight. For there comes at once into mind the sublimination of this longing in the lovely myth of Endymion which so powerfully affected Keats, and fascinated even Browning. Appeal might also be made to the sweet naturalism of St. Francis with his endearing name, "Our sister, the Moon."

There is, moreover, the enormous ma.s.s of magical and superst.i.tious lore which gives the moon a very practical and direct influence over human affairs. This may be ruled out as not based on facts; but it remains as an evidence of a sense of kinship of a practical kind. And if this fails, there is the teaching of modern science. We now know that the tides are evidence of the moon's never-ceasing interposition in terrestrial affairs, and that, apart from her functions as a light-giver, innumerable human happenings are dependent on her motion and position.

There is even a theory that she is part and parcel of the earth itself, having been torn out of the bed of the Pacific. And, in any case, her surface has been explored, so far as it is turned to us, and, with a marvellous accuracy of detail, mapped out, and named. Science, then, while measuring her distance, certainly does not increase the sense of our alienation from her.

But let us turn, as proposed, to the writings of modern seers and interpreters. See how Keats a.s.sociates the moon with the humblest and most homely things of earth:

"Some shape of beauty moves away the pall From our dark spirits. Such the sun, the moon, Trees old and young, sprouting a shady boon For simple sheep; and such are daffodils With the green world they live in."

There is no sense of a gap here, in pa.s.sing from heaven to earth.

In a strain of stronger emotion, he makes Endymion speak:

"Lo! from opening clouds, I saw emerge The loveliest moon that ever silvered o'er A sh.e.l.l from Neptune's goblet; she did soar So pa.s.sionately bright, my dazzled soul Commingling with her argent spheres did roll Through clear and cloudy."

There is little of Schopenhauer's pa.s.sive and contemplative receptivity here! Rather a mingling of being in a sweep through s.p.a.ce.

Catullus sang how that:

"Near the Delian olive-tree Latonia gave thy life to thee That thou shouldst be for ever queen Of mountains and of forests green; Of every deep glen's mystery; Of all streams in their melody."

And Wordsworth, in fullest sympathy enforces the old-world imaginings. He dwells on the homely aspect:

"Wanderer! that stoop'st so low, and com'st so near To human life's unsettled atmosphere; Who lov'st with Night and Silence to partake, So might it seem, the cares of them that wake; And through the cottage-lattice softly peeping, Dost shield from harm the humblest of the sleeping"--

And links on these friendly thoughts to the mythical spirit of the past:

"well might that fair face And all those attributes of modest grace, In days when Fancy wrought unchecked by fear, Down to the green fields fetch thee from thy sphere, To sit in leafy woods by fountains clear."

Or take the famous Homeric simile so finely translated by Tennyson:

"As when in Heaven the stars above the moon Look beautiful, when all the winds are laid, And every height comes out, and jutting peak And valley, and the immeasurable heavens Break open to their highest, and all the stars Shine, and the shepherd gladdens in his heart."

The stars are here a.s.sociated with the moon--so much the better for the principle now defended.

Compare this with some lines from Goethe himself--the Goethe who would persuade us that the stars excite no craving, and that we are happy simply in their glory. He thus addresses the Moon:

"Bush and vale thou fill'st again With thy misty ray And my spirit's heavy chain Castest far away.

Thou dost o'er my fields extend Thy sweet soothing eye, Watching, like a gentle friend, O'er my destiny."

Browning felt the charm of a lambent moon:

"Voluptuous transport rises with the corn Beneath a warm moon like a happy face."

So with an English picture from Kirke White:

"Moon of harvest, herald mild Of plenty, rustic labour's child, Hail! O hail! I greet thy beam, As soft it trembles o'er the stream, And gilds the straw-thatched hamlet wide, Where Innocence and Peace reside; 'Tis thou that gladd'st with joy the rustic throng, Promptest the tripping dance, th' exhilarating song."

To emphasise this aspect is not to forget that there is another.

Wordsworth experienced both types of emotion. Time, he sings:

"that frowns In her destructive flight on earthly crowns, Spares thy cold splendour; still those far-shot beams Tremble on dancing waves and rippling streams With stainless touch, as chaste as when thy praise Was sung by Virgin-choirs in festal lays."

But abundant evidence is available to prove that the position taken by Goethe and Schopenhauer may easily lead to a loss of true perspective. The moon and stars, though remote, are also near: though they start trains of pa.s.sive and contemplative thought, they also stimulate active emotions and even pa.s.sionate yearnings. What more pa.s.sionate than Sh.e.l.ley?

"The desire of the moth for the star, Of the night for the morrow, The devotion to something afar From the sphere of our sorrow."

There do not seem to be many poets who have brought into clear ant.i.thesis and relief this dual aspect of the mystic influence of the heavenly bodies. But it definitely arrested the imagination and thought of Clough, whose poem, "Selene,"

deals wholly with this theme. It is too long for quotation here, though the whole of it would be admirably in place. Enough is given to show its general drift. The Earth addresses the Moon:

"My beloved, is it nothing Though we meet not, neither can, That I see thee, and thou me, That we see and see we see, When I see I also feel thee; Is it nothing, my beloved?

O cruel, cruel lot, still thou rollest, stayest not, Lookest onward, look'st before, Yet I follow evermore.

Cruel, cruel, didst thou only Feel as I feel evermore, A force, though in, not of me, Drawing inward, in, in, in, Yea, thou shalt though, ere all endeth, Thou shalt feel me closer, closer, My beloved!

The inevitable motion Bears us both upon its line Together, you as me, Together and asunder, Evermore. It so must be."

It behoves the nature-mystic, then, to be wholehearted in defence of his master principle. _h.o.m.o sum, et humani a me nil alienum puto_--so said Terence. The nature-mystic adopts and expands his dictum. He subst.i.tutes _mundani_ for _humani_, and includes in his _mundus_, as did the Latins, and as did the Greeks in their _cosmos_, not only the things of earth but the expanse of heaven.

CHAPTER x.x.xII

EARTH, MOUNTAINS, AND PLAINS

And thus the three great nature-philosophers of the old world, Thales, Anaximenes, and Heracleitus, have been our guides, so to speak, in surveying the most striking phenomena of water, air, and fire. The fourth member of the ancient group of "elements" has received but incidental treatment. Obviously it could hardly be otherwise, especially within the limits which such a study as this imposes. The varied and wondrous forms of vegetable and animal life have likewise made but brief and transient appearances; but this omission has been due to a definite intention expressed at the outset. It may nevertheless be well, before concluding, to cast a glance over the rich provinces which still lie open to the nature-mystic for further discovery and research.

The more striking features of the landscape have always arrested attention and stimulated the mystic sense. The peculiar influence of heights has been noted at an earlier stage, though but cursorily. Much might be said of the enormous effect of mountain scenery. The most direct form of nature-feeling finds expression in Scott and Byron; and the description of crags, ravines, peaks and gorges, bulks largely in their writings.

Typical are these lines from "Manfred":

"Ye crags upon whose extreme edge I stand, and on the torrent's brink beneath Behold the tall pines dwindled as to shrubs In dizziness of distance."

or Sh.e.l.ley with his

"Eagle-baffling mountain Black, wintry, dead, unmeasured, without herb, Insect, or beast, or shape, or sound of life."

Indeed there are few poets, even those who are chiefly concerned with man and his doings, who do not often turn to mountain scenery at least for similes. And it could not be otherwise; for the immanent ideas here manifested are self-a.s.sertive in character and specially rich in number and variety. As it has been well expressed, nature's pulse here seems to beat more quickly. In olden days the high places of the earth a.s.sociated themselves with myths of G.o.ds and t.i.tans. Fully representative of the world of to-day, Tennyson asks:

"Hast thou no voice, O Peak, That standest high above all?"

And his answer turns on the mystic bonds that bind the deep and the height into a cycle of interdependent activities.

"The deep has power on the height, And the height has power on the deep.

A deep below the deep And a height beyond the height!