The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1897-09-05

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not sway us. On the other hand, the moral
power fostered by those creeds must, he said, by
all means be preserved. II the garden 10 about
to wither In n winter OF discomfort, let us speed
lily gather In the flowers and distil from thom an
essence Of ploty, selt-oblation, and patience. We
have been freed from the shackles OF history.
Duty, then, must be understood In q better way,
in harmony with q religious feeling which has
outlived conviction. Duty, In other words, and
piety are maids no longer; nor wives either, Tor
that matter. DecaloRuo and Convention, success
sivc husbands of DUTY. are both dead. Intellectual
conviction has breathod his last and religious
feeling or piety 10 alone. Two widows In weeds
OF mourning, sworn not TO rcmarry, but to live
on memories of old home happiness, duty and
piety come, as II were, to cspouse one another;
at least such seems to be Clough's hope. To see
the worth OF DOUBT that destroys dogmauc
knowledge; to give scope TO faith and yet not to
allow It to call itself knowledge; not only to see
the weight OF doubt, but to feel 1t. and. there
fore, to foster doubt while also fostering faith.
required, indeed. a courageous soul. The con-
sciousness that tho abjuration OF speculative
thought, tho determination to work In the dark,
could not bring peace Of soul save Mt the cost of
total solf-denial, was perhaps, our author sug-
gests, the very thing which compelled Clough
moro and more to an impartial groat-hearted
inclusivenoss; to sec things less and less from
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his own salvation. Notwithstanding. however,
all this magnanimous and diflcult devotion to
a God who will not reveal himself. Clough found
peace only In death.
II ClouEh. compelling doubt to what seems Its
legitimate function, and. at tho same time. pre-
venting any usurpation Of improper authority
by faith. could only 1.-Two In fierce unrest, Mr..
Swinburno Is not moro fortunate. He addressed
himself with "vlgor and rigor" to the solution
"a l. ~ 81
He attempts to solve It as follows: We must,
in the first place, eschew all legends associated
hitherto with outgrown superstitions. We may.
II we choose. pursue the path Of excuses to tho
abode OF a medieval Venus witch. We may in
dulge in dotings like Chastelard's on some OBJ
ject ofdesire. II safety or disenchantment should
again endanRer us, we may take imaginative
refuge In times tho religion Of which was other
than ours, and wherein Turk no hints Of our dis
cardcd superstitions In their wonted, and.
therefore,, dangerous form. We may seek an
asylum. for example, In the garden Of
Proscrpinc. with Atalanta in Calydon. with
Erechthous of legendary Athens. 1t may
be. however. that, in the end, we shall
behold the Greek Fate bearing unpleasant, il
remote, resemblance to Providence. Notwith-
standing all the fury Of Mr.. Swinburne's genius.
and all his scholarship, in spite OF his excursion
with Baudclaire into unhaliowed regions, and
his persistent use of colored glasses that make
familiar objects safely new and strange. he is
moi able to escape from his fierce unrest without
formulating a definite creed. This he does at
considerable length in more than one passage,
and Mr.. Guthrie would epitomize It thus: Life
offers q reasonable amount OF qualification in
return for Il definite amount OF %exertion and en-
durance. III you train yourself TO expect no
more than you are likely to get, you will be con-
tent Extravagant ambitions, unreasonable
heart.claims. unsatisf1aple spiritual aspirations.
must be deliberately extirpetcd. One can sys-
tcmuticallyi induce the atrophy. little by little.
of all those faculties. or, rather, supposed facul-
ties. for which the present life affords no scope.
Then the normal exercise OF the rest will
constitute the ummum bonum. Make
your mental and sentimental vision COIN
eide exactly with ocular perception. Get rid of
ghosts. Stop worrying about shadows, and
take a good hold of the bone with your teeth.
In other terms. eHtinguish yearnings, delicate
dreams, sensitive affections, ecstatic wants
which ilhere neither in the stomach, nor the
liver, nor the lungs. Be an intelligent, sensible,
reasonably genial, self-indulgent animal, and, II
you arc that and nothing else, you will find life
worth living. He who cuts his coat to his cloth
may go scantily clad, but does not get into his
tailor's debt. Scant clothing, too, 10 not so
dreadful when one is we'll rid of the Grass super.
stition of fine clothes. No doubt tho case Ia
here put somewhat coarsely, but our author sub
mits that it /. put truthfully. and he bids us
contrast Swinburne's philosophy with Words
worth's declaration that whose mind is but
tho mind Of his own eyes, he 10 o slave, the
meanest we can meet"
We come to Dante Gabriel Rossetti, realist
and symholist. who. in our authors Wow, at.
tempts to increase the power Of faith by artificial
stimulation. sufficient to make 1t quasi-inde-
pendent OF opinions and convictions. How has
he succeeded ! In his sonnet series we find q
tale OF life and love. OF faith and doubt, Tho
poet begins with the reminder, not expressed
but sub-conscious. that we are not otherwise
now than in the flesh. To anticipate tho time
when we shall be bodyless is absurd. Tho re-
lations of body servo as a continuous orchestral
accompaniment to the broken melody of soul.
Certain forms, tones. color combinations, DOS
lures, are indissolubly tangled with our loves and
hates. The body Of his beloved cannot be dis
tinguished by the lover from her soul. That her
soul lives he knows. because her body testihes 1t
to his senses. In absence it is memory and imag.
ination that. at his bidding. furnish her soul
with a body. Not always, however, do imagina-
tion and memory play their part 30 we'll. Lot the
lovers sit down in the same room, each busy
at a different task, and he feels all the while
her presence. Separate them many miles, and
only at happy intervals Is she felt TO be near.
Let death intervene, and then only at rare mo-
ments is his soul able to cry: Your heart 10
never away, but ever with mine forever Mr..
Guthrie considers it fortunate that Rossetti did
not torture his heart to explain the "why"o OF
love. His very skepticism delivered him from
such love-killing scrutiny. Tho loud sea of mys-
terry on which death and birth open; tho ulti-
mate things unuttered behind the intolerable
shaken shadow which serves them as a frail
screen; the impenetrable distances beyond the
utmost bound Of thought: all these are God TO
him. Love he describes as the last relay and ul-
Innate outpost OF eternity.
We have seen that Rossetti turned to love
and put q tremendous strain upon this passion.
A number OF relevant passages quoted by our
author from Matthew Arnold prove that the
latter found the boat OF love too weak, oven at
tho outset. to bear him on the seas of his dis.
tress. Each individual clings tenaciously to his
past, but n different past 80 chung to 10 a barrier
to mutual understanding. Even self-knowiedRe
is wanting. the primary condition OF the knowl.
edge OF others. Bafied. then. in tho direction
of COMMUNICATING. persOnal love. Matthias A.