A Hero and Some Other Folks

by William A. Quayle

Don Quixote conceived a man ought to live for virtue. To be self-dedicated to the help of others; to be courageous as an army which had never met defeat; to be self-forgetful, so that hunger, pain, thirst, fatigue, become trifles; to have love become absorbing; to fill the mind's unfathomed sky with dreams outshining dawns; to count honor to be so much more than life, as that honor is all and life is naught; to interpret all men and women at their best, and so to expect good and not suspicion evil; to meet all men on the high level of manhood; and to love God with such persistency and eagerness as that the soul's solitudes are peopled with him as by a host,—if this be not a gentleman, we have misconceived the species. Read this history of his early and later battles for right, and you will not find an impurity of word, suggestion, thought. God's lilies are not cleaner. I confess that the knight's love for Dulcinea del Tobosa moves me to tears. I never can smile or jest at him when his heart and lips hold with fealty to an ideal love. His love created her. He found her a clod, but flung her into the sky and made her a star. Is not this love's uniform history? Blinded, not of lust or ambition, but of ideality. Saul met Christ at noon, and was blinded by his vision; and would not all brave men covet blindness thus incurred? And better to be blinded, as Don Quixote, by a ravishing ideal, than to see, besotted in soul and shut out from God. That humorous figure astride lean Rosinante, esquired by pudgy, sensible Sancho; eager for chances to be of use; faithful to his love as dawn to sun; strong in his desire of being all eyes to see distress, all ears to hear a call for succor; sitting a dark night through in vigil, tireless, courageous, waiting for day to charge on what proved to be fulling hammers, making tumult with their own stamping; or, again, asleep in the inn bed, fighting with wine-skins and dreaming himself battling with giants,—this does not touch me as being humorous so much as it does as being pathetic, unspeakably pathetic, and manfully courageous. I see, but do not feel, the humor. I have followed Don Quixote as faithfully as Sancho Panza on his "Dapple;" have seen him fight, conquer, suffer defeat, ride through his land of dreams; have seen his pasteboard helmet; have noted melancholy settle round him as shadows on the landscape of an autumn day; have seen him grow sick, weaken, die; but have known in him only high dreams, attempted high achievings; have found him honor's soul, and holding high regard for women; have been spectator of goodness as unimpeachable as heaven, and purity deep, like that which whitens round the throne—a human soul given over to goodness, and named, for cause, "Quixada the Good." And his goodness seems a contagion.

For two and a half centuries since Cervantes painted this picture of a gentleman, literature has given less or more of heed to similar attempts; though as result, as I suppose, there are but two life-size pictures which unhesitatingly we name gentlemen as soon as our eyes light on them. Profile or silhouette of him there has been, but of the full-length, full-face figure, only two. Shakespeare did not attempt this task. Aside from Hamlet—who was not meant to sit for this picture, though he had been no ill character for such sitting—there is not among Shakespeare's men an intimation of such undertaking. Would this princely genius had put his hand to this attempt, though, as seems clear to me, Shakespeare did not conceive a gentleman. His ideas were not quite whitened with Christ's morning light enough to have perceived other than the natural man. Shakespeare's men are always "a little lower than the angels;" whereas a gentleman might fittingly stand among angels as a brother. This one star never swung across the optic-glass of our great Shakespeare. That spiritual-mindedness which is life he scarcely possessed. This was his limitation. Spenser stood higher on this mount of vision. He conceived and executed a picture of pure womanhood, and, had he attempted, might have sketched a wondrous face and figure of a gentleman. Even as it was, he gave intimations of this coming king. He seems one who gathers fuel for a fire, but never sets the flame. His figures shift, and present no central character of manhood who grows and furnishes standard of comparison. Milton's genius was cast in a cyclopean mold, and needed distances remote as heaven and hell to give right perspective to his figures, and his supreme art concerns itself with Satan, and archangels, and God.

Of this ideal gentleman we have had growing hints. Literature, more and more, concerns itself with spiritual quantities. The air of our century is aromatic with these beautiful conceptions, as witness Jean Valjean, Dr. MacLure, Deacon Phoebe, Sidney Carton, Daniel Deronda, Donal Grant, Bayard, Red Jason, Pete, Captain Moray, John Halifax, and Caponsacchi. Some of these pictures seem more than side views. But a gentleman should be, must be, nobly normal. He is a balance of virtue. Symmetry impresses us in him, as when we look at the Parthenon. All his powers are in such delicate balance as that they seem capable of easy perturbation, yet are, in fact, imperturbable as stars. The gentleman in life is becoming a common figure. We have known such—so strong, quiet, heroic, calm, sure of the future, knit to God, big with fidelity and faith, that they translated into literal speech the holy precepts of the Book of God. So tested, this world grows surely better. Man has lost in romantic glitter of costume and bearing, but has gained immeasurably in manhood. The gospel is peopling the world with men. To suppose God meant to change men to saints was a misconception. St. Simeon Stylites was that old misconception realized. We can but honor him, so vast his hunger, so noble his strife, so courageous his attitude, when he shouts, "I smote them with the cross;" but St. Simeon did not realize God's notion. Goodness is fraternal, accessible, genial. John Storm, in Hall Caine's "The Christian," is susceptible to the same criticism. He is not balanced. He means well, but is erratic, fitful, lacking center. He is like a bird lost in storms, flying in circles. He thought to be a saint, whereas Christ did not come to make saints, but to make men; and the sooner we realize that a "saint" or a "Christian" is not the end of the gospel, the better will it be for Christianity. Christianity is God's method of making men; and Christianity is not an end, but a means. When God gets his way, he wants to have this world populated with men and women. Whether Caine meant John Storm for an ideal Christian we can not say. There is strength here, as in all he has written; but Storm's lacks are many and great. He is enthusiast, but flighty. He means well, but is spasmodic in its display. Storm might have grown into a hero had he lived longer, and, as a flame, leaped high at some point in his career. Both as man and Christian, he disappoints us. Red Jason, in "The Bondman," is a worthier contribution to the natural history of the gentleman. View him how you will, he is great. His moral stature lifts itself like the mass of a mountain. His nature seems a fertile field seeded down to heroisms, and every seed germinating and growing to maturity. Jason has virtues vast of girth as huge forest-trees, but he is scarcely companionable. Glooms gather round him as night about a hamlet in a valley. He is moral, imposing, heroic, yet is there something lacking—is it voice, self-poise, what?—lacking of being quite a gentleman. Nor was he shaped for such a role by his creator, but was meant to sit for the portrait of a hero. And such he is to the point of moving the spirit, as by the lightning's touch, Goethe was not capable of conceiving a gentleman. His "Wilhelm Meister" and himself fall so low in the scale of worth as to preclude his seeing so serene a face. Goethe's sky was clouded, and fine lines of finest character are only brought out under unhindered sunlight. Manhood is a serene thing. Though storm-bolts rain about it thick as hail, the quiet of deep seas reigns in it. And Dumas's men are each a bon vivant, save the son of Porthos. These dusty and bloody guardsmen had not enough moral fiber to fill a thimble. They think the world of men and women a field for forage. This physical dash and courage, this galloping of steeds, and sabers pummeling steeds' sides, stands instead of character. In "Marius the Epicurean," Walter Pater has given, as I think, a true picture of one who in the Roman era aspired to be a man. He is cold, and in consequence barren; but such is an accurate reading of Roman attempts at manhood; for ordinary Epicureanism was fervid to sensuality, and the Stoic was frigid. To heathen conception there was no middle ground. The warm color on cheek, the morning in the eyes, the geniality in the hand, the fervor at the heart, the alert thought, the winged imagination, the sturdy will, the virile moral sense, the responsive conscience, the courage which laughed to die for duty,—these could not be amalgamated. Heroic qualities have always been native to the soul as warmth to the south wind. All history is rich with tapestries of tragic and colossal heroisms, so as to make us proud that we are men. Heroisms are harsh, but manliness is tender. And in this seeming irreconcilability lies the difficulty of constructing a gentleman.

But attempts thicken. In our century they group together like violets on a stream's bank fronting the sun in spring. Literary artists, knowing how difficulties hedge this attempt, hesitate. There are many hints of the gentleman. Let us be glad for that, seeing we are enriched thereby. "Rab and His Friends" gives so strong a picture of stolid strength in love's fidelity, which knows to serve and suffer and die without a moan or being well aware of aught save love. And Dr. MacLure is a dear addition to our company of manhood, shouldering his way through Scotland's winter's storm and cold because need calls him; serving as his Master had taught him so long ago; forgetting himself in absorbing thought for others; lonely as a fireless hearth; longing for friendship which would not fail; reaching for Drumsheugh's hand, and holding it when death was claiming the good physician's hand. We could easily conceive we had been seated at the deathbed of a gentleman. Deacon Phoebe stands as a character in Annie Trumbull Slosson's "Seven Dreamers," a book which, outside Cable's "Old Creole Days," is to me the most perfect series of brief character-sketches drawn by an American author, and entirely worthy to stand by "A Window in Thrums," and "Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush," and "In Ole Virginia." Deacon Phoebe has forgotten himself. Unselfishness does not often rise to such heights. This "dreamer" of "Francony Way" is full brother to Sidney Carton, born across the seas. Self-forgetfulness, so beautiful as that even name and sex become a memory dim as a distant sail upon an evening sea,—this must be a sight fitted to bring laughter to the heart of God. Deacon Phoebe is one trait in a gentleman. Sidney Carton is of the same sort, save that the hero element stands more apparent. His is a larger field, a more attractive background, thus throwing his figure into clearer relief. Deacon Phoebe was the self-abasement of humility, Sidney Carton is the supreme surrender of love; but the end of both is service. There ought to be a gallery in our earth from which men and women might lean and look on nobilities like Sidney Carton. That beatified face; that hand holding a woman's trembling hand, what time he whispered for her comfort, "I am the resurrection and the life," as the crowded tumbrel rattled on to the guillotine, and he faced death with smile as sweet as love upon his face, and love making a man thus divine,—this is Sidney Carton, who stirs our soul as storms stir the seas. Bonaventure, as drawn by Cable, is of similar design. He is unconscious as a flower; but had learned, as his schoolmaster-priest had taught him, to write "self" with a small "s;" so an untutored soul, lacerated with grief, pierced by suffering, gave himself over to goodness and help, becoming absorbed therein. Such is Bonaventure. He was what Tennyson has said of "the gardener's daughter," "A sight to make an old man young."

Love has learned to work miracles in character. Rains do not wash air so clean as love washes character, whiting "as no fuller on earth can white" it. And how constantly manhood neighbors with love is a beautiful and noteworthy circumstance. Here place Pete, in "The Manxman." You can not over-praise him. Some esteem him a fabulous character; but knowing his island and people well, I feel sure he is flesh and blood, though flesh and blood so uncommon and superior stagger our faith for a moment. It is the glory of our race that at rare springtime it bursts into such bloom that painter and poet are both bankrupt in attempting to copy this loveliness. Pete is such an effort of nature. His letters to himself, written as from his wife, to cover her shame and desertion, present a spectacle so magnanimous and pathetic as to upbraid us that we had never learned nobilities so sublime. Love made him great. And Macdonald, in Donal Grant, has shown us a strong, pure soul of moral strength, religious appetencies, determined goodness, of elevation of character, of strength and wisdom, so that in his accustomed walk he might have met Sir Percivale or Sir Launfal. Good, and given over to God, he was found out by love; and love did with him as with us all—love glorified him. In his clean life is something sturdy you might lean on, as on a staff, and have no fear. So is Enoch Arden made hero by love. In love, remembrance, and absence of self, he is manhood. We have all wept with Arden, finding our faces wet with tears, though not knowing we wept. His story never grows trite. Each time we read, new light breaks from this character as if it were a sun. The sight of him when he, like a poor thief, looking in at the window,

"Because things seen are mightier than things heard,
Stagger'd and shook, holding the branch, and feared
To send abroad a shrill and terrible cry
Which in one moment, like the blast of doom,
Would shatter all the happiness of the hearth.

And feeling all along the garden wall,
Lest he should swoon and tumble and be found,
Crept to the gate, and open'd it and closed
As lightly as a sick man's chamber door
Behind him, and came out upon the waste;"

and when,

"Falling prone, he dug
His fingers into the wet earth, and pray'd,—"

the sight of him is as unforgettable as a man's first look upon the woman he loves. The poet was right. Arden was a "strong, heroic soul," and when he woke, arose, and cried, "A sail! a sail!" it was God's nobleman who sighted it.