Talks on the study of literature.

by Arlo Bates

Like waiting nymphs the trees present their fruit;

the line means nothing to us unless we are able with the eye of the mind to see the sentient trees holding out their branches like living arms, tendering their fruits. When Dekker says of patience:—

'Tis the perpetual prisoner's liberty,
His walks and orchards;

we do not hold the poet's meaning unless there has come to us a lively sense of how the wretch condemned to life-long captivity may by patience find in the midst of his durance the same buoyant joy which swells in the heart of one who goes with the free step of a master along his own walks and through his richly fruited orchards.

Almost any page of Shakespeare might be given bodily here in illustration. Take, for instance, the talk of Lorenzo and Jessica as in the moonlit garden at Belmont they await the return of Portia.

Lor. The moon shines bright. In such a night as this,
When the sweet wind did gently kiss the trees,
And they did make no noise,—in such a night
Troilus, methinks, mounted the Trojan walls,
And sighed his soul toward the Grecian tents,
Where Cressid lay that night.
Jes. In such a night
Did Thisbe fearfully o'ertrip the dew,
And saw the lion's shadow ere himself,
And ran dismayed away.
Lor. In such a night
Stood Dido with a willow in her hand
Upon the wild sea-banks, and waved her love
To come again to Carthage.
Jes. In such a night
Medea gathered the enchanted herbs
That did renew old Æson.

The question is how this is read. Do we go over the enchanting scene mechanically and at speed, as if it were the account of a political disturbance on the borders of Beloochistan? Do we take in the ideas with crude apprehension, satisfied that we are doing our duty to ourselves and to literature because the book which we are thus abusing is Shakespeare? That is one way not to read. Again, we may, with laborious pedantry, discover that all the stories alluded to in this passage are from Chaucer's "Legends of Good Women;" that for a single particular Shakespeare has apparently gone to Gower, but that most of the details he has invented himself. We may look up the accounts of the legendary personages mentioned, compare parallel passages in which they are named, and hunt for the earliest reference to the willow as a sign of woe. There is nothing necessarily vicious in all this. It is a sort of busy idleness which is somewhat demoralizing to the mind, but it is not criminal. It has, it is true, no especial relation to the genuine and proper enjoyment of the poetry. That is a different affair! The reader should luxuriate through the exquisite verse, letting the imagination create fully every image, every emotion. The sense should be steeped in the beauty of that garden, softly distinct in the golden splendors of the moon; there should come again the feeling which has stolen over us on some June night, so lovely that it seemed impossible but that dreams should come true, and in sheer delight of the time we have involuntarily sighed, "In such a night as this!"—as if all that is bewitching and romantic might happen when earth and heaven were attuned to harmony so complete. We should take in the full mood of the lines:—

When the sweet wind did gently kiss the trees,
And they did make no noise.

The image of the amorous wind, subduing its riotous glee lest it be overheard, and stealing as it were on tiptoe to kiss the trees, warm and willing in the sweet-scented dusk, makes in the mind the very atmosphere of the sensuous, luscious, moonlit garden at Belmont. We are ready to give our fancy over to the mood of the lovers, and with them to call up the potent images of folk immortal in the old tales:—

In such a night
Troilus, methinks, mounted the Trojan walls,
And sighed his soul toward the Grecian tents,
Where Cressid lay that night.