“RUTH.”
She stood breast-high amid the corn,
Clasped by the golden light of morn,
Like the sweetheart of the sun,
Who many a glowing kiss had won.
On her cheek an autumn flush,
Deeply ripened,—such a blush
In the midst of brown was born,
Like red poppies grown with corn.
Round her eyes her tresses fell,
Which were blackest none could tell,
But long lashes veiled a light
That had else been all too bright.
And her hat, with shady brim,
Made her tressy forehead dim;—
Thus she stood amid the stooks,
Praising God with sweetest looks:—
“Sure,” I said, “heaven did not mean
Where I reap thou shouldst but glean,
Lay thy sheaf down, and come,
Share my harvest and my home.”
I hoped to find time for quoting one of his numerous ballads, in which he not only displays his facility in punning, and satirizes the lachrymose style of ballad verse prevalent at that period, but I must content myself with reciting the oft-repeated stanza with which one of his best ballads closes, burdened with the fate of Ben, the jilted sailor-boy:—
His death, which happened in his berth,
At forty-odd befell:
They went and told the sexton,
And the sexton tolled the bell.
If I were required to indicate that one of all Hood’s poems in which the humor is the maddest and merriest, I think I should, in spite of embarrassment, choose “the tale of a trumpet,” which, like the story of Miss Kilmansegg, rides double, and carries a moral behind it. Dame Eleanor Spearing, who was too excessively deaf to hear the scandals narrated in her presence, was beset by a peddler, who, with many arts and pleas, prevailed upon her to buy of him a marvelous ear-trumpet. From that time the dame heard sad and shocking tales at the village fire-sides, and, of course, repeated them, until the place was filled with “confusion worse confounded,” and in Hood’s own words:—
In short, to describe what came to pass
In a true, though somewhat theatrical way,
Instead of “Love in a Village”—alas!
The piece they performed was “The Devil to Pay.”
The discovery is soon made that the dame’s diabolical trumpet has blown all this mischief, and a condign fate overtakes the unhappy old woman. She is seized by the populace and dragged to the pond just as the peddler who sold her the horn makes his appearance, but—
“Before she can utter the name of the d—
Her head is under the water level!”
The moral of the story points itself, but you can afford to listen to the humorist’s quaint phrasing of it:
“There are folks about town—to name no names—
Who greatly resemble this deafest of dames;
And over their tea, and muffins and crumpets,
Circulate many a scandalous word,
And whisper tales they could only have heard
Through some such diabolical trumpet.”
I did not interrupt the outlines of the story to illustrate its wonderful plethora of puns and pranks, but you will not be averse to a moment’s delay here for a taste of its quaint quality. It is altogether a piece of poetical pyrotechny, in which there are verbal rockets, and serpents, and stars and blue-lights, and double-headers; but, as in many of his poems, the humor seems to go off chiefly with the giddy sparkling whirl and whiz of metrical Catherine wheels. The peddler commends his marvelous trumpet to the dame so marvelously deaf:—
“It’s not the thing for me—I know it—
To crack my own trumpet up, and blow it;
But it is the best, and time will show it.
There was Mrs. F.,
So very deaf,
That she might have worn a percussion cap,
And been knocked on the head without hearing it snap.
Well, I sold her a horn, and the very next day
She heard—from her husband at Botany Bay!
Come—eighteen shillings—that’s very low,
You’ll save the money as shillings go,—
And I never knew so bad a lot,—
By hearing whether they ring or not!
Eighteen shillings! it’s worth the price,
Supposing you’re delicate-minded and nice,
To have the medical man of your choice,
Instead of the one with the strongest voice—
Who comes and asks you how’s your liver,
And where you ache, and whether you shiver,
And as to your nerves, so apt to quiver,
As if he was hailing a boat on a river!
And then, with a shout, like Pat in a riot,
Tells you to ‘Keep yourself perfectly quiet!’”
******
In Hood’s remarkable poems of passion and imagination are to be found, perhaps, his patent of nobility in the realm of poetry. But, if it was made out there, it has had renewal in his later poems of humanity. It was in the last period of his great and restless toil that he flung off, like light fancies, some of his poems, whose stanzas will be echoed in the anthem of his undying fame. Of these are “The Lay of the Laborer,” “The Pauper’s Christmas Carol,” “The Song of the Shirt,” and “The Bridge of Sighs.” It was coincidently with the epoch of that comical and potential journal, Punch, (which has never failed to poke the heavy ribs of oppression, and to prick the great fat paunch of selfishness, in a very lively manner), that this new inspiration of brotherly kindness came to Hood. His troubled heart began to beat itself against the bars of its intellectual prison-house, and to wail out its resistless pleas for the poor, the friendless, and the desolate. “The Song of the Shirt” is one of the most extraordinary lyrics ever struck from the harp of poesy. Little thought he, however, that the lines—which, as they were written by his trembling fingers, were almost as spasmodic as if they had been literally convulsed out of his suffering frame,—little thought he that they would peal out on London’s ear, on England’s ear, and strike deep down into the national heart with a warrant for his immortality, more imperative and universal than any which his wit had framed, or his genius had wrought, from the beginning of his career down to the day on which he sang “The Song of the Shirt.”
“Now, mind, Hood, mark my words, this will tell wonderfully: it is the best thing you ever did,” said his wife, as she folded the manuscript for the pocket of Punch. And “tell” it did, for not only did England make it a household ballad, but France and Germany and Italy, even, engrafted it upon their popular anthology, while here, in the New World, we bear its odd burden,—
Seam, and gusset, and band,
Band, and gusset, and seam,
Stitch, stitch, stitch, and
Work, work, work,
not more in our memories than in our hearts. Let us not forget, moreover, that women,
With fingers weary and worn,
With eyelids heavy and red,
sent their shillings from their scanty earnings all over England to help sculpture the pale marble that covers poor Hood on Kensall Green.
Quite as remarkable as the song I have just dismissed is “The Bridge of Sighs.” It withstood the ponderous assaults of dull-headed and cold-hearted critics when it was builded, and now its somber arches will span the deep river of the popular feeling forever and ever. It is a marvelously tender ode, a rare carol of charity, warbled out fearlessly, where prudish philanthropy would have drawn down its hood and held its breath, lest, perchance, it should seem at the side of a fallen woman. Now may the world lift up its head and exult that sorrow, shame, and despair have found a champion, whose voice over the
One more unfortunate,
Weary of breath,
Rashly importunate,
Gone to her death,
echoes the divine verdict of Jesus of Nazareth over the sinful woman brought to him for the stern judgment of Moses, “Let him that is without sin among you cast the first stone.”
******
Much remains unsaid that I would fain say. But it is time for me to close. And what words shall I choose for last words concerning my subject, who, if he were indeed my subject, would make me doubly royal, for was not he the crowned king of kindly wits?
He did not live to laugh, albeit he often laughed to live. There is, indeed, a marvel to us in his exterior mirthfulness, for he had a deep fount of sadness in his soul. The last lines of his magnificent “Ode to Melancholy” afford us the key to his inner nature:
There is no music in the life
That sounds with idle laughter solely;
There’s not a string attuned to mirth,
But has its chord in melancholy.
Yet had he wept where he has laughed, had he poured forth bile instead of humor, had he exhaled dull vapors instead of fancies, he might have made a few miserable, but the many he has made glad would have missed the blessed sunshine of his song and spirit.
So, for his “Lays,” that yet lift us up; for his “Whims,” that we are but too happy to indulge; for his oddities that we even admire; for his “Own,” which is yet far more ours than his; for his “Designs,” which were never against any one’s piece but his own; for his “Pleas,” which pleased all classes of his clients; for his “Puns,” with which folly alone was punished; for his spirit, which was always of highest “proof” on trial; for his wit, which, witnessed of another’s, as Shakspere says, “it ambles, it goes easily;” for his worth, that had a morning and a noon tide, though it was never (k)nighted; for his heart, which in the chase of charity, was never be-hind; for his name, which is a covering of honor and a crown of bays;—for all these things, be blessings on the name and memory of Thomas Hood. [Great applause.]
Dr. Vincent said: I am surprised and delighted to learn that about seventy members of the C. L. S. C. went out after fossils with Colonel Daniels before breakfast this morning. I am very glad to learn that so many of our circle are interested in this department of study.
The members of the C. L. S. C. are most of them women, or a very large part of them women, and they hear on this ground a good many things said affecting woman’s sphere and work, and they hear in the course of the conversation a great many things said which may not be altogether true, in reference to the sentiments prevailing at Chautauqua concerning this question of woman’s work and woman’s sphere. I was very glad to know that opportunity was taken the other day to discuss one side of that question, and I am very glad that opportunity was given to discuss the other side this afternoon. We must remember in all this discussion, that the largest liberty is granted to all members of the C. L. S. C., that those who believe in woman’s suffrage, and those who are opposed to woman’s suffrage, may be equally loyal to the great objects of the Circle. One thing, however, must be said, that if woman is depreciated as to her relative social power, influence, or value by the managers of the Circle, they are not worthy of your confidence. For the Circle which proposes to exalt the home, and increase the intellectual power of woman as mother, and as a member of society, should certainly recognize as a fundamental doctrine woman’s equality in every legitimate respect with man. [Great applause.] And, if opportunity affords for the further discussion of this question, I hope we shall be able to avail ourselves of the opportunity, and have a thorough understanding among all members of the C. L. S. C. as to where those of us who are most devoted to its interests stand on these questions. I make these remarks, in as indefinite a way as I can, that through the mists you may catch the spirit of the hour, and not mistake the true sentiment of the Chautauqua Circle. [Applause.]
Adjourned.
Dr. Godwin’s “Man in the Moon.”—This amusing little work was published in 1638, and written by Dr. Godwin, Bishop of Llandaff in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, and collated to the see of Hereford by her successor, King James I. It was composed when the author was a young student at Christ Church College, Oxford, under the assumed name of Domingo Gonzales. One of the prints represents a man drawn up from the summit of a mountain, with an engine set in motion by birds, which was the mode in which the said Gonzales was supposed to have reached the moon. This curious and now scarce production [there is a copy of it in the British Museum] excited wonder and censure on its appearance, and is thought to have supplied hints to Dr. Wilkins, Bishop of Chester, in compiling his work called “A Discovery of a New World in the Moon.” Dr. Godwin is familiar to most clerical readers as author of “Præsules Anglicani,” a useful referential work, and his “Nuntius Inanimatus” is said to have contained the first hints of a telegraph, which useful invention was, however, not discovered till the end of the last century.
[AN UNNOTED EVIDENCE]
——————
OF THE NECESSITY OF A REVEALED RELIGION.
By Rev. R. H. HOWARD, A. M.
Do not the remarks of Timayenis, the author of our excellent history of Greece, relative to the effect upon the popular faith of Greece, of the progress of philosophic thought, or of intellectual inquiry, (see page 396), suggest a striking and forcible, not to say new, argument in favor of the necessity of a revealed religion—of a divinely inspired and attested, and hence absolutely authentic, revelation of God’s will? His language is as follows: “But perhaps the principal reason (for the persecution of Socrates) was, that his dialectic and searching system, though limited by him to human questions only, was finally applied by his hearers to the higher questions concerning the creation of the universe, and tended to undermine the foundations of the prevailing religion. The misfortune of ancient society was, that the popular religion was never to be the subject of any philosophical debate; either philosophy must be left to destroy the religion, or society, striving for the conservation of the latter, must limit, as much as possible, free philosophical research. Hence we see the most intelligent and most liberal of the Hellenic tribes continually persecuting, for religious reasons, the most prominent philosophers.”
Our author might have better said, it seems to me, that it was the misfortune of the popular religion in ancient Hellas to be of such a sort as not manifestly to be able successfully to abide searching scrutiny—the white light of scientific, or philosophic, investigation. Had theirs been a religion founded on fact, instead of the grossest absurdities, and embracing in their judgment only the highest, sublimest truth, instead of manifold and manifest errors, there would, clearly, have never been any occasion, on their part, to dread its becoming the theme of philosophical debate. Nay, the more severely it was subjected to this ordeal of intellectual inquiry the more clearly would its truth, evidently, be made to appear. Hence, to stand, as some people appear to, even in our day, in such mortal dread of rationalistic, or destructive, criticism, really evinces anything but a robust,—in fact, a very slender and tottering faith, or confidence in the divine, and hence immovable, foundations of their religion.
The line of argument suggested by the foregoing quotation may be stated somewhat as follows: Early in the historical development of a race certain religious beliefs at once spring up. These are born of instinct. Strangely, whatever their manifest absurdity, this feature seems at first to constitute no serious bar to their popular acceptance. Meanwhile, palpably erroneous and absurd as many of these beliefs may really be, they yet, in process of time, not only become deeply rooted, but come to serve certain important practical purposes. Meager and poor as they may be comparatively, they are yet, in point of fact, very much better than none. Without them, indeed, or deprived of the restraining, salutary influences of the same, society itself, perhaps, would be found to be quite impossible. Hence, as also doubtless from feelings of reverence therefor, a national faith, even if it is not all that could be desired, is always jealously guarded. The man who has the temerity to introduce any religious novelties, whatever the extent to which the latter may be really an improvement on the prevailing doctrines, will be likely to be looked upon, not only with suspicion, but as a public enemy, and hence, as one deserving of many stripes. “Strange gods” anciently received a no more hearty welcome or kindly hospitality than do “isms” and “heresies” generally at the present day.
Meantime, however bitter or determined may be the opposition thus developed against it, this antagonism is by no means going effectually to bar out the light of truth from men’s minds. Nay, this very persistent and determined effort to keep it out can naturally tend only to pique curiosity, awaken suspicion and scepticism, develop opposition, and stimulate inquiry. The light must come. Meanwhile, clearly, with this gradually progressive development of the intellectual life of a people, and the prevalence, hence, of a thoughtful, inquiring habit, on their part, of what, in modern times, is known as the “scientific spirit,” religion plainly, as well as everything else, must come in for its share of criticism and investigation. And woe to it if, in this its day of judgment, it be found wanting—if, in connection with this truly crucial ordeal, its foundations be found to consist only of “hay, wood, and stubble.” Nay, nor does it scarcely matter what interests besides may be involved, and must hence be sacrificed with it; it must all the same at once “step down and out.” The idea is that the development of brains is, in the long run, absolutely fatal to a religion founded in error—to all the fabrics of ignorance and superstition. True, these brains can never produce a religion specially worthy of being substituted for the one they have destroyed. But they can, and, in the very nature of the case, inevitably will, sooner or later, demolish and sweep utterly away any faith found to be fundamentally irrational and absurd.
Hence, now, in order to the stability of society, and a permanent and healthy national life,—in fact in order to all kinds of progress and of civilization, an absolutely perfect religion is necessary—one, to say the least, that can effectually, triumphantly, abide even the keenest search of man’s scientific ken. But, plainly, man’s unassisted genius—no merely finite understanding—is equal to the task of producing any such religion: this “one thing” thus so supremely “needful,” yet remains; therefore, if we are to have it at all, this faith must come from on high.
Divine interposition thus, by way of a revealed religion, is evidently absolutely indispensable to prevent nations, by virtue of their very intellectual activities, from undermining and subverting their own foundations, and ultimately destroying the very institutions that might otherwise be their pride and prove as enduring as time.
[LOSS AND GAIN.]
By Mrs. EMILY J. BUGBEE.
All’s lost, do we say?
When the stars of earthly hope go down,
When the light fades out in shadows gray,
When thorns grow sharp on the rugged ground,
And the birds of the summer flee away?
What’s lost?
Why, only our little throne of pride,
Only the outward trappings of life,
Only the friends that could not abide,
When sunshine faded and storms were rife.
What’s left?
Why God! and His true Heaven above,
The glory of earth, and sea and air,
The deathless pulse in His heart of love,
And we to His grand estate are heir.
Infinite gain:
The riches that never more take wing,
The gold wrought out in the furnace fire,
The strength that is born of suffering,
And the upward lift of the soul’s desire.