I went to the window and looked out. The moon was going down behind S. Wilfrid’s, and Leighstone was buried in gloomy shadow. Down there below me in the darkness throbbed thousands of hearts resting a little in peaceful slumber till the morning came to wake them again to the toil and the struggle, the pleasure and the pain, the good and the evil, of another day. The good and the evil. Was there no good and evil waiting down there by the bedside of every one, to face them in the morning, and not leave them until they returned to that bedside at night? Was there a great angel somewhere up above in that solemn, silent, ever-watchful heaven, with an open scroll, writing down in awful letters the good and the bad, the white and the black, in the life of each one of us? Were we worth this care, weak little mortals, human machines, that we were? What should our good or our evil count against the great Spirit, whom we are told lives up above there in the passionless calm of a fixed eternity? Did we shake our puny fists for ever in the face of that broad, bent heaven that wrapped us in and overwhelmed us in its folds, what effect would it have? If we held them up in prayer, what profited it? Who of men could storm heaven or search hell? And yet, as Kenneth said, a life that could not end was an awful thing. That the existence we feel within us is never to cease; that the power of discriminating between good and evil, define them, laugh at them or quibble about them as we may, can never die out of us; that we are irresistibly impelled to one or the other; that they are always knocking at the door of our hearts, for we feel them there; that they cannot be blind influences, knowing not when to come or when to go, but the voices of keen intelligences acting over the great universe, wherever man lives and moves and has his being; that they are not creations of our own, for they are independent of us; we may call evil good and good wicked, but in the end the good will show itself, and the evil throw off its disguise in spite of us—what does all this say but that there is an eternal conflict going on, and that, will he or will he not, every man born into the world must take a share in it?
That being so, search thine own heart, friend. Leave thy uncle, leave thy neighbor, and come back to thyself. Let them answer for their share; answer thou for thine. Which is thy standard? It cannot be both. What part hast thou borne in the conflict? What giants killed? What foes overcome? Hast thou slain that doughty giant within thee—thine own self? Is there no evil in thee to be cast out? No stain upon the scutcheon of thy pure soul? No vanity, no pride, no love of self above all and before all, no worship of the world, no bowing to Mammon or other strange gods, not to mention graver blots than all of these? Let thy neighbor pass till all the dross is purged out of thee. There is not a libertine in all the world but would wish all the world better, provided he had not to become better with it. Thy good wishes for others are shared by all men alike, by the worst as by the best. Begin at home, friend, and root out and build up there. Trim thy own garden, cast out the weeds, water and tend it well. The very sight of it is heaven to the weary wayfarer who, having wandered far away from his own garden, sinks down at thy side, begrimed with the dust of the road and the smoke of sin. You may tear him to pieces, you may lacerate his soul, you may cast him, bound hand and foot, into the outer darkness, yet never touch his heart. But he will stand afar off and admire when he sees thy garden blowing fair, and all the winds of heaven at play there, all the dews of heaven glistening there, all the sunshine of heaven beaming there; then will he come and creep close up to thee, desiring to take off the shoes from his feet, soiled with his many wanderings in foul places. Then for the first time he feels that he has wandered from the way, will see the stains upon him, and with trembling fingers hasten to cast them off, and, standing barefoot and humble before Him who made thee pure, falter out at length, “Lord, it is good for us to be here.”
TO BE CONTINUED.
CALDERON’S AUTOS SACRAMENTALES.
CONCLUDED.
II.
I. BALTASSAR’S FEAST.[55]
Of all Calderon’s autos, this is the one which has been the most generally admired, both on account of its intense dramatic power and popular character.
It has been translated several times into German (see note at end of previous article on the autos), and into English by Mr. MacCarthy.
The latter says in his preface: “This auto must be classed with those whose action relates directly to the Blessed Sacrament, because it puts before us, in the profanation of the vases of the Temple by Baltassar, a type of the desecration of the Holy Sacrament, and symbolizes to us, in the punishment that follows this sacrilege, the magnitude and sublimity of the Eucharistic Mystery. Although this immediate relation between the action of the auto and the sacrament becomes only manifestly clear in the last scene, nevertheless all the preceding part, which is only preparing us for the final catastrophe, stands in immediate connection with it, and, through it, with the action of the auto. The wonderful simplicity of this relation, and the lively dramatic treatment of the subject, allow us to place this auto, justly, in the same category with those that, comparatively speaking, are easy to be understood, and which, like The Great Theatre of the World, have especial claims upon popularity, even if many of its details contain very deep allusions, the meaning of which, at first sight, is not very intelligible.”
The auto opens in the garden of Baltassar’s palace with a scene between Daniel and Thought, who, dressed in a coat of many colors, represents the Fool.