HAWTHORNE'S PSYCHOLOGY: contributed by C. T.
HAWTHORNE'S Blithedale Romance is a study of the psychology underlying the human relations that arise from the subtle inner feelings within the deepest and most diaphanous regions of the human heart.
With an incomparable delicacy and precision of touch, revealing the hidden framework of the underlying design, he clothes with apt speech these specter glimpses into the realm of human motive.
Pity 'tis that his glimpses into these depths should be clouded by the temperamental gloom of his own nature—always seeking justification of its own pessimism, always weaving despondent tragedies that the light of Theosophy would have transformed into inner victories in the midst of outward defeat. Yet he seems only to have penetrated to certain depths of gloom and doubt, and then to hesitate to take that one step deeper where forever dwells the light that dispels all shadows.
Like a modern Virgil he leads us to the brink of the deepest chasms, and then abandons us to our own intuitions. Possibly he saw farther into the depths than he could record in human speech—and so wrote on from romance to romance in search of the expression that forever eluded his pen.
LIFE AND TEACHINGS OF PYTHAGORAS:
by F. S. Darrow, Ph. D., A. M.
I. Life
Pythagoras, the pure philosopher deeply versed in the profounder phenomena of nature, the noble inheritor of the ancient lore, whose great aim was to free the soul from the fetters of sense and force it to realize its powers, must live eternally in human memory.—H. P. Blavatsky
THIS world-famous Greek teacher of "the Heart Doctrine" was born about 580 b. c. on the island of Samos and died about 500 b. c. Before his birth it was prophesied to his father that a son was about to be born to him who would be a great benefactor of mankind. Some even went so far as to declare that Pythagoras was a human incarnation of Hyperborean Apollo.
It is related that when a mere youth he left his native city to begin a series of travels to the wise men of all countries, from the Hindûs and Arabs in the East, to the Druids of Gaul in the West. We are told that he spent twelve years in Babylon, conversing freely with the Magi, by whom he was instructed in all their Mysteries and taught the most perfect form of worship. He spent twenty-two years in Egypt as an intimate of the most learned hierophants, under whose tutelage he mastered the three styles of Egyptian writing, the common, the hieroglyphic, and the sacerdotal. He brought with him a personal letter of introduction to Amasis, the reigning Pharaoh, who forthwith wrote to the hierophants and requested them to initiate Pythagoras into their mysteries. Pythagoras first went to the priests of Heliopolis, but they, true to the inveterate Egyptian suspicion of foreigners, although hesitating to disobey Amasis openly, tacitly refused to initiate Pythagoras and advised him to go to the sacred school at Memphis, ostensibly because it was of greater antiquity than that of Heliopolis. At Memphis also he met with the same finesse, and was next sent to the school at Thebes, where finally under the most severe tests—tests which nearly cost him his life—he was fully initiated into the Egyptian Mysteries and thereafter had free access to the treasures of the hierophants.
After leaving Egypt Pythagoras returned to Greece by way of Crete, where he descended the Idaean cave in company with Epimenides, the great Cretan prophet and seer, who in return for the removal of the plague at Athens in 596 b. c. accepted from the grateful people only a branch of the sacred olive of Athena, and refused the large sums of money which were offered, because he declared that spiritual gifts can not be bought and sold. From Epimenides and Themistoklea, the Delphic Pythia, Pythagoras received further instruction. In the course of his travels he became an initiate not only in the mysteries of India, Babylonia, Egypt, Greece, and Gaul, but also in those of Tyre and Syria.
Pythagoras studied the various branches of knowledge, especially mathematics, astronomy, music, gymnastics, and medicine, and contributed very greatly to the development of these sciences among the Greeks, for he was a man both of singular capabilities and of great acquirements. His personal appearance was noteworthy. He was very handsome and dignified; regularly dressed in white, and wore a long, flowing beard. He never gave way to grief, joy, or anger, but was accustomed to sing hymns of Homer, Hesiod, and Thales, to preserve the serenity of his mind, and he was very eminent for his power of attracting friends. The religious element was predominant in his character, and his entire life was ruled by humanitarian and philanthropic motives. He was opposed to animal sacrifice, and on one occasion purchased a large draught of fish, which had just been caught in a net, and set them free as an object-lesson in kindness.
Pythagoras was a practical occultist, and is said to have understood the "language" of animals so as to be able to converse with them and tame even the most ferocious. It is said of him that upon one occasion he was seen and heard publicly speaking at far distant places both in Italy and in Sicily, on the same day, a physical impossibility. It is also stated that he healed the sick, had the power of driving away evil spirits, foresaw the future, recognized character at a glance, and had direct communication with the gods.
Finally at the age of nearly fifty, Pythagoras went to southern Italy or Magna Graecia, after an unsuccessful attempt to establish a society in his native city, and in 529 b. c. founded the Pythagorean Brotherhood and the School of the Mysteries at Crotona. He gained extensive influence immediately and attracted great numbers of all classes, including many of the nobles and the wealthy, so that the society grew with wonderful strides and soon similar schools were established at many other cities of Magna Graecia: at Sybaris, Metapontum, Tarentum, and elsewhere. Each of these consisted of three hundred members accepted under inviolable pledges of secrecy and bound to Pythagoras and to each other by the most sacred of obligations.
The statement as to the death of Pythagoras, which occurred when he was about eighty, vary. One account says that he was banished from Crotona and fled to Metapontum where he died after a self-imposed fast of forty days. Another says that he was murdered by his enemies when the temple of the school at Crotona was burned to the ground, either by the nefarious Kylon who because of his unworthiness had been refused admittance to the Brotherhood and his wicked associate Ninon, or by the frenzied townspeople. At the same time similar persecutions in the other cities where the branch schools had been established resulted in the (supposed) murder of all but a few of the younger and stronger members, who succeeded in escaping to Egypt. Thereafter individual Pythagoreans, unorganized in Schools, which were everywhere successfully suppressed, continued to keep the light burning for centuries. The doubtful point is, whether the temple and the various assembly halls of the Pythagoreans were burned at the end of the Leader's life, or about a hundred years after his banishment and death by starvation. Telauges, his "son," is said to have succeeded his father as the Head of the shattered society, but little is known of him. It is significant that the Pythagorean Brotherhood and School of the Mysteries at Crotona flourished during the last twenty-five years of the sixth century B.C., the accepted date of its overthrow being about 500 b. c.
II. The School
It was a Pythagorean maxim that "everything ought not to be told to everybody." Therefore membership in the society was secret, silent, and guarded by the most solemn forms of obligatory pledges and initiations. Members were classified as Akousmatikoi or Listeners, Probationary Members, who did not live at the School, and Mathematikoi or Students, Accepted Members, who lived with their families at the central School of the Mysteries or at one of its branches. Probably the Mathematikoi were further divided into two classes: the Pythagoristae or exoteric members, and the Pythagoreans or esoteric members.
Practically any candidate of an upright and honest life was admitted at request as a Listener, but only the fit and the worthy were accepted as Students. Listeners, wishing to become Students, were forced to pass through a period of probation lasting from two to five years, during which their powers of maintaining silence were especially tested as well as their general temper, disposition, and mental capacity. A good working knowledge of arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music, (the four branches of Pythagorean mathematics), was required preliminary to admission to the School. Only the most approved members were admitted to the Esoteric Section. Women were admitted (an innovation from the Greek standpoint). Among these Theano was the most distinguished. She had general supervision of the women.
The members were devotedly attached to their Leader and to one another. They were enabled to recognize other members even when unacquainted by means of their secret symbols, and it is recorded: "If Pythagoras ever heard that any one used symbols similar to his, he at once made him a companion and a friend." Unquestioning loyalty was given to the counsels of Pythagoras by his disciples, for whom the ipse dixit of the master settled all controversy, and the rank and admission of candidates depended solely upon the intuitive discernment of Pythagoras, who made all appointments.
The Students wore a special dress and had vows. They were trained to endure fatigue, sleep little, dress very simply, never to return reproaches for reproaches, and to bear contradiction and ridicule with serenity. The School of the Mysteries was a school of life, not a monastery. Pythagoras did not aim to have his disciples withdraw from active life, but taught them how to maintain a calm bearing and an elevated character under all circumstances. The intention was to train them to exhibit in their personal and social capacities a reflection of the order and harmony of the universe. The membership was international.
As it was a Pythagorean maxim that "friends should possess all things in common," new members upon entering the School handed over their personal possessions to the proper official who turned them into the common treasury. A student was at liberty to depart from the School at pleasure and at his departure he was given double his original contribution, but over his former seat was erected a tomb, funeral rites were performed, and he was ever afterwards referred to by the loyal members as deceased.
Purity of life was required and temperance of all kinds was strictly enjoined. All members ate at a common refectory in groups of ten, as at the Spartan syssitia. The diet was subject to a most careful regulation and consisted largely of bread, honey, and water. Animal foods and wine were forbidden. It is stated also that beans were tabooed because of their indigestibility and tendency to produce agitated dreams.
Much importance was attached to music, and to the physical exercise of the disciples. Each day began with a meditation upon how it could be best spent and ended with a careful retrospect. The students arose before the sun, and after breakfast studied for several hours, with an interval of leisure, which was usually spent in solitary walks and silent contemplation. The hour before dinner was devoted to athletic exercises. In the course of the day there were mutual exhortations not to sunder the God in each and all but to preserve the union with the Deity and with one another. The students were accustomed to visit Pythagoras at night, and went to sleep with music.
In a subsequent article some of the main tenets of the Pythagorean Brotherhood will be outlined.
THE AMERICAN WOMAN IN POETRY:
by Grace Knoche
CURRENT literature, from the freshly printed book to the literary columns of the daily press, affords certain unique opportunities for reviewing woman's work in the light of past achievement and future promise. Take, for instance, the single factor of woman in poetry—where past centuries number their woman poets by the twos and threes, as the last generation has done by little more than the threes and fours, the present finds them springing up thicker than clover in a fallow field and in many cases with a sweetness and fragrance in their songs as of clover blossoms themselves.
To the thinking mind this has a certain significance as relating to the inner unseen tides of that spiritual awakening now so seeming near for all mankind. For what holds poesy at its heart holds music there, and harmony and rhythm and something of that divine potency that lies in number; and with Theosophy at our doors we do not need Plato to tell us that
rhythm and harmony find their way into the secret places of the soul, on which they mightily fasten, bearing grace in their movements and making the soul graceful in him who is rightly educated.
The following are a handful of poems by women—most of them, significantly enough, by wholly or comparatively unknown writers—from among the last month's journals and papers, by no means a representative list, but just a few that found their way in the natural course to the study desk. Some compel attention because of the wholesomeness of sentiment and a certain honest openness in their delivery, others because of their musical lilt and flow, still others because of both. There are a few that may live, some that of a certainty will not and that yet have a value now. But that may be said of a hastily gathered handful of anything in its era.
They are typical of a surprisingly large class, while none of those whose poems are herewith quoted, with the exception of Edith M. Thomas, have so far written very much.
The first, by Angela Morgan in the Cosmopolitan, is a real Theosophical challenge, a veritable battle-cry, with something of the trenchant force and fire that flashes and thunders from out the lines of the old Beowulf:
Reined by an unseen tyrant's hand,
Spurred by an unseen tyrant's will,
Aquiver at the fierce command
That goads you up the danger hill,
You cry: "O Fate, O Life, be kind!
Grant but an hour of respite—give
One moment to my suffering mind;
I cannot keep the pace and live."
But Fate drives on and will not heed
The lips that beg, the feet that bleed.
Drives, while you faint upon the road,
Drives, with a menace for a goad;
With fiery reins of circumstance
Urging his terrible advance
The while you cry in your despair,
"The pain is more than I can bear."
Fear not the goad, fear not the pace,
Plead not to fall from out the race—
It is your own Self driving you,
Your Self that you have never known,
Seeing your little self alone,
Your Self, high-seated charioteer,
Master of cowardice and fear,
Your Self that sees the shining length
Of all the fearful road ahead;
Knows that the terrors that you dread
Are pigmies to your splendid strength;
Strength you have never even guessed,
Strength that has never needed rest.
Your Self that holds the mastering rein,
Seeing beyond the sweat and pain
And anguish of your driven soul
The patient beauty of the goal.
Fighting upon the terror field
Where man and Fate come breast to breast,
Pressed by a thousand foes to yield,
Tortured and wounded without rest,
You cried, "Be merciful, O Life!
The strongest spirit soon must break
Before this all-unequal strife,
This endless fight for failure's sake."
But Fate, unheeding, lifted high
His sword and thrust you through to die.
And then there came one strong and great,
Who towered high o'er Chance and Fate,
Who bound your wound and eased your pain
And bade you rise and fight again.
And from some source you did not guess
Gushed a great tide of happiness—
A courage mightier than the sun—
You rose and fought, and fighting, won.
It was your own Self saving you,
Your Self no man has ever known,
Looking on flesh and blood alone;
The Self that lives as close to God
As roots that feed beneath the sod.
That one who stands behind the screen,
Looks through the window of your eyes—
A being out of Paradise.
The Self no human eye hath seen,
The living one who never tires,
Fed by the deep eternal fires.
Your flaming star, with two-edged sword,
Made in the likeness of the Lord.
Angel and guardian at the gate,
Master of Death and King of Fate.
Perhaps more musical and exquisite in its technic is the following (by Edith M. Thomas in the Century), yet one looks in vain for the note of positive assurance that sings and rings out of the poem just quoted. Now one expects in poetry something more than rhymed philosophy, of course, and sheer beauty of rhythm has more than once endowed paucity of thought with an almost immortality. But the content is important, none the less. In the preceding poem one feels a mighty conviction forcing its way through every limitation to the goal of expression. The work of the older and better known poetess is more clearly poetic—to those who know the path and know the way its Sphinx-like questionings evoke their own answer in the deeps of consciousness. To the many, however, the first poem must reveal more.
THE UNKNOWING
I know not where I am:
Beneath my feet a whirling sphere,
And overhead (and yet below)
A crystal rampart cutting sheer—
The traveling sun its oriflam.
What do I know?
I know not what I do:
I wrought at that, I wrought at this,
The shuttle still perforce I throw;
But if aright or if amiss
The web reveals not, held to view.
What do I know?
I know not what I think:
My thoughts?—As in a shaft of light
The dust-motes wander to and fro,
And shimmer in their flight;
Then, either way, in darkness sink.
What do I know?
I know not who am I:
If now I enter on the Scheme,
Or revenant from long ago;
If but some World-Soul's moment-dream,
Or, timeless, in Itself I lie.
What do I know?
Here is a sweet touch from the Kansas City Star. The very name of the writer of it is so in keeping with tender dutifulness and so suggestive of clean-swept hearths and ministries to tiny, clinging hands, that one wonders if it be not a pseudonym. A miniature "psalm of daily duty" is it:
At morn I yearned a song to sing
That would inspire and teach
In words so true all men would hear
In them their own soul's speech.
But Duty stopped my pen and showed
The day's dull round of care—
The service to another's need—
A burden I should share.
At night the Day sung to the past
Her record clear and strong,
And richer, sweeter than I dreamed
I heard complete my song.
—Emily Householder
And from the same paper another ringing note on the sacredness of the day's duty—but this is no psalm, rather a trumpet call, gorgeous, full, and technically so splendid that it suggests the ancients:
TODAY
Voice, with what emulous fire thou singest free hearts of old fashion,
English scorners of Spain sweeping the blue sea-way,
Sing me the daring of life for life, the magnanimous passion
Of man for man in the mean populous streets of Today.
Hand, with what color and power thou couldst show, in the ring hot-sanded,
Brown Bestiarius holding the lean, tawn tiger at bay,
Paint me the wrestle of Toil with the wild-beast Want, bare-handed;
Shadow me forth a soul steadily facing Today.—Helen Gray Cone
Will you have music? Then read these, so different in content, so unlike in the touch, for one is threaded through with compassion and tenderness while the other is just a little note of joy in life, which might rise out of self as well as unself in certain not yet conscious natures.
CANDLEMAS
O hearken, all ye little weeds
That lie beneath the snow,
(So low, dear hearts, in poverty so low!)
The sun hath risen for royal deeds,
A valiant wind the vanguard leads;
Now quicken ye, lest unborn seeds
Before ye rise and blow.
O furry living things, adream
On winter's drowsy breast,
(How rest ye there, how softly, safely rest!)
Arise and follow where a gleam
Of wizard gold unbinds the stream,
And all the woodland windings seem
With sweet expectance blest.
My birds, come back! the hollow sky
Is weary for your note.
(Sweet-throat, come back! O liquid, mellow throat!)
Ere May's soft minions hereward fly,
Shame on ye, laggards, to deny
The brooding breast, the sun-bright eye,
The tawny, shining coat!—Alice Brown
THE WAVES OF BREFFNY
The grand road from the mountain goes shining to the sea,
And there is traffic on it and many a horse and cart;
But the little roads of Cloonagh are dearer far to me
And the little roads of Cloonagh go rambling through my heart.
A great storm from the ocean goes shouting o'er the hill,
And there is glory in it, and terror on the wind;
But the haunted air of twilight is very strange and still,
And the little winds of twilight are dearer to my mind.
The great waves of the Atlantic sweep storming on their way,
Shining green and silver with the hidden herring shoal;
But the little waves of Breffny have drenched my heart in spray,
And the little waves of Breffny go sweeping through my soul.
—Eva Gore-Booth
The two following poems attack the same theme, a fruitful and varied one to lovers of Lomaland where the winter rains are the year's beneficence. But note the full rich lines of the work of the unknown writer, albeit the sonnet is of course the more difficult poetic form.
THE FOUNTAINS OF THE RAIN
The merchant clouds that cruise the sultry sky,
As soon as they have spent their freight of rain,
Plot how the cooling thrift they may regain:
All night along the river-marsh they lie,
And at their ghostly looms swift shuttles ply,
To weave them nets wherewith the streams to drain;
And often in the sea they cast a seine,
And draw it, dripping, past some headland high.
Many a slender naiad, with a sigh,
Is in their arms uptaken from the plain;
The trembling myrmidons of dew remain
No longer than the flash of morning's eye,
Then back unto their misty fountains fly:
This is the source and journey of the rain.
—Edith Matilda Thomas
RAIN
The patient rain at early summer dawn;
The long, lone autumn drip; the damp, sweet hush
Of springtime, when the glinting drops seem gone
Into the first notes of the hidden thrush;
The solemn, dreary beat
Of winter rain and sleet;
The mad, glad, passionate calling of the showers
To the unblossomed hours;
The driving, restless midnight sweep of rain;
The fitful sobbing, and the smile again,
Of spring's childhood; the fierce unpitying pour
Of low-hung leaden clouds; the evermore
Prophetic beauty of the sunset storm,
Transfigured into color and to form
Across the sky. O wondrous changing rain!
Changeful and full of temper as man's life;
Impetuous, fierce, unpitying, kind again,
Prophetic, beauteous, soothing, full of strife:
Through all thy changing passions hear not we
Th' eternal note of the Unchanging Sea?
—Laura Spencer Portor
Nothing is worse than bad poetry, unless it be bad art of every kind, of which the world today is having a surfeit. That we find a greater abundance of wretched verse, however, than of wretched painting and sculpture, and that there are still those who think that the poet's equipment need consist of little more than an unbalanced emotionalism, we may attribute perhaps to the fact that the pen and ink are readier to hand with the majority than palette and brush or calipers and modeling tool. Conceit and ignorance, working together, have made "to write poetry" almost a reproach.
The remedy would seem to be to diffuse a few simple truths, such as that true poetry has nothing to do with emotionalism, nor sentimentality, nor bad spelling, nor with metres that "interfere," like a clumsy horse's feet; and that where one in ten thousand who care for poetry may try to write it and succeed, the rest will fail and will neglect their proper duties besides. It is so in art, in literature generally, in music, in all things—the safe path is to drop the gleam and fire and fragrance of the soul-touch into one's life in the shape of a more courageous performance of the daily task, whatever it may be, and be content with that, which is the greatest thing in the world, anyway. If the Muse should decide to pick us out, willy nilly, she has ways of letting us know. Poesy has its technic, as has all art, and sentimental ignorance can never hope to pose as inspiration among those who know.
The real point to be emphasized is that this is part of a certain outreaching on idealistic lines of which the wholly remarkable work of the young women of the present generation in music, composition, painting, and sculpture, constitutes other parts. And this outreaching towards an art expression along various lines is so general, and is so differentiated in essence from the results of ordinary scholastic work or the general movement for the higher education of woman, that it cannot justly be ignored.
Few young women will, in the ordinary course, win a separate fame along the solitary path of pure art. Most of them, and most of those who come within the radius of the influence of their aspirations and their art work, will become wives, home-makers, mothers. Many more will become teachers, or are that now, wielding potent influence. It is these who will strike the keynote for the quality of atmosphere that is to shape, as it will surround, the generations yet unborn; and, because of that, the feeling and aspiration that many of the poems seen in our current journals disclose, is important and significant at this transitional time.