A Hero and Some Other Folks

by William A. Quayle

"A sign betwixt the meadow and the cloud."

But to what purpose? Hear him call,

"I smote them with the cross,"

and feel assured from such a word that he who spoke, had he been where the battle raged, had left his stroke on many a shield; for his words have the crash of a Crusader's ax. What a loss it was to men that St. Simeon came not down from his pillar, clothed himself, made himself clean and wholesome, instead of filthy and revolting, and dwelt with people for whom Christ died. A religious recluse is a religious ignoramus, since he does not know that the one-syllable word in the vocabulary of Christ is, "Be of use." The problem of living, as Arthur saw vividly, was not how to get yourself through the world unhurt, but how to do the most for some one besides yourself while you are in the world; and this attitude is otherness, altruism. Nurture strength to use. Pass your might on. Knighthood was to serve everybody else first, after the fashion of the Founder of knighthood, even Christ, "who came, not to be ministered unto, but to minister." King Arthur served. Play battles stung him not to prowess, but, as Lancelot saw, in the actual battle, the hero was not Lancelot, but Arthur. May be a too deep seriousness was in him. I think it probable. He had been more masterful in wielding men had he been colored more by laughter and jest. We must not take ourselves, nor yet the world, with too continuous seriousness. There are intervals between battles when warriors may rest, and intervals in the stress of deeds and sorrow where room is given for the caress and wholesome jest. That arch-jester, Jack Falstaff, had much reason with him. We like him, despite himself, and despite ourselves, because there was in him such comradery. Though he was boisterous, yet was he jovial. All characters, save Christ, have limitations. Arthur had his. Lack of sprightliness was his mistake and lack. But the work to be done fills him with might unapproachable, so that,

"Like fire, he meets the foe,
And strikes him dead for thine and thee."

He is no play soldier, and foemen mark his sword as a thing to fear. A mutilated herdsman, rushing into Caerlaen, and shaking bloody story from his hideous wounds, which, Arthur hearing, though a tourneyment would blow its bugles on the plain erelong, forgets the coming joust, remembering only a wrong to be avenged, and evil-doers to be punished or destroyed, so they may no longer be a noxious presence in the land, and goes, and at tourney's close comes back, through the dark night, wet with rain; but he has cleansed the hostile land of villains on that day. In human nature is a bias to escape the world, to get out of the turmoil, to seek cloisters of quiet, which bias "The Holy Grail" attacks. Arthur was no friend to the pursuit of the grail; not that he loves not, with a passion white as sun's flame, the good and pure, but that he has sagacity to see such quest will scatter the round table and its fellowship, and would dispeople his forces, whose presence makes for peace and sovereignty in all his realm and compels the sovereignty of law. Him, their king, these errant knights heeded not, so enticing and noble seemed the warfare they espoused, and thought their sovereign cold and calculating, while, in fact, he knew them for visionaries. He was right. Without them he was bankrupt in strength to compel social betterment. The visionary, in so far as he is simply visionary, is foe to progress; for progress comes by battle and by association in affairs, and he who would be helper to the better life of man must mix with the currents of his time. Snowdrifts in the mountains and on the northern slopes that hold snows in their shadows for the summer's use; and dark mountain meadows, where fogs and rains soak every particle of sod, and waters percolate through the spongy root and soil to form bubbling streams; and the pines, whose shadows make a cool retreat where streams may not be drained dry by the sun; the silver threads of tributary brooks; the sponge of mountain mosses, which squeezes its cup of water into a larger laver,—all these seem remote from the broad river on whose flood merchants' fleets are slumbering, nor seem participants with these floodgates to the sea; yet are they adjuncts, though so far removed, and pay their tribute to the flood.

Their service was as pronounced and valuable as if they had been huge as Orontes. There is an absence which is presence, and there is a presence which is absence; and what is asked of all men, near or far, is that they be helpers to the general good. They must not, by intent or mistake, escape their share of the public burden.

A poet seems apart, and is not, but is to be esteemed a portion of this world's most turbulent life. To intend to have a share in this world's business is important. To shun the taking up your load when need is, is to be coward when your honor bids you be courageous. This means, be a citizen, neglect no office in that worthy relation; be not wandering knights, pursuing fire-flies, supposing them to be stars; but be as Arthur, who found the Holy Grail, and drained its sacramental wine in truest fashion, in "staying by the stuff;" in being statesman, soldier, defender of the weak, reformer, liver of a clean life in public place, builder of a State, negotiator of schemes which make for the diminution of earth's ills and increase of earth's fairer provinces. Edward the Confessor was a monk, wearing a king's crown and refusing to discharge a king's offices, and thought himself a saint by such omission, when what God and the realm wanted and needed was a man to rule and suffer for the common weal. Arthur was not a thing "enskied and sainted;" rather a wholesome man, whose duty lay in working for men. Sir Percivale became a monk; other knights returned no mote, thus spilling the best blood of the table round. Meantime the king's enemies multiplied, and these visionaries decimated the ranks of opposition to the wrong; but come what would, King Arthur served. An appeal to him for help found answer, though treasons plotted at his back. As to his last battle, though his heart was breaking, he marched nor paused, perceiving, so long as he was king, he must uphold the order of the State. He was no dilettante. Great service called him, and he thought he heard the voice of God. Duty is a ponderous word in Arthur's lexicon. In "Lucretius," Tennyson shows the moral apathy of materialism by letting us look on at a suicidal death, and hear the cry, half-rage and half-despair, "What is duty?" and in that fated cry, atheism has run its course. Here it empties into its dead sea, and materialism finds its only possible outcome. This materialist of long ago is the mouthpiece for his fraters in these last days. There is one speech, and that a speech of dull despair, for those who say there is no God; and for them who have no God, there is no duty, for duty is born of hold on God. King Arthur, sure of God, therefore never asking, "What is duty?" but in its stead urges the nobler query, "Where is duty?" and so infused himself into the blood of empire; aye, and more, into the spiritual blood of uncalendared centuries.

And King Arthur was pure. Vice is so often glorified and offers such chromo tints to the eye as that many superficial folks think virtue tame and vice exhilarating. Here lies the difficulty. They look on those parts which are contiguous to vice, but are really not parts of it. In the self of vice is nothing attractive. Lying, lust, envy, hate, debauchery,—which of these is not tainted? Penuriousness is vice unadorned, and who thinks it fair? Like Spenser's "false Duessa," it is revolting. Drunkenness, bestiality, spleen,—what roseate views shall you take of these? Who admires Caliban? And Caliban is vice, standing in its naked vileness and vulgarity. Man, meant for manhood, self-reduced to brutehood,—that is drunkenness. In an era when Dumas by fascinating fictions was making vice ingratiating, Tennyson was rendering virtue magnificent. Can any person of just judgment rise from reading "Idyls of the King" without feeling a repugnance toward vice, like a nausea, and a magnetism in virtue? An admiration for Arthur becomes intense. The poet draws no moral from his parable: doing what is better, he puts morals into one's blood. While never railing at Guinivere, he makes us ashamed of her and for her, and does the same with Lancelot. He makes virtue eloquent. King Arthur is neither drunkard nor libertine, therein contradicting the pet theories of many people's heroes. He loves cleanness and is clean. He demands in man a purity equal to woman's; setting up one standard of mortals and not two. The George Fourth style of king, happily, Arthur is not; for George was a shame to England and to men at large, while Arthur is a glory, burning on above the cliffs of Wales, like some brave sunrise whose colors never fade. To men and women, he is one law of virtue and one law of love. When the years have spent their strength, then vice shows itself hideous vice. The glamour vanished, no one can love or plead for wickedness. Virtue is wholly different; for to it the ages burn incense each year, rendering its loveliness more apparent and bountiful. Virtue grows in beauty, like some dear face we love. Heroism is virtue; manliness is virtue; devotion is virtue. Sum up those remembered deeds of which the centuries speak, and you will find them noble, virtuous. Seen as it is, and with the light of history on its face, vice is uncomely as a harlot's painted face. King Arthur is virile and he is noble, engaging and fascinating us like a romance written by a master, full of persuasive sweetness and enduring help.

Besides, King Arthur was a religious man. This is the transparent explanation of his career. He is an attempted incarnation of the precepts and love of Christ. This long-vanished prince knew that if a king might but repeat the miracle of Jesus' life in his own history, he would have achieved kingship indeed. "Mea vita vota" was Dempster's motto,—a sentiment Arthur knew by heart. His life was owed to God, and right manfully he paid his debt. Arthur exalted God in his heart and court and on hard-fought field. So intense and vivid his sense of God, he reminds us of the Puritan; but the Puritan touched to beatific beauty by the interpretation of love God's Christ came to give. Tennyson always made much of God, saw Him immanent in every hope of human betterment, saying, as we remember and can not forget: