Loe raamatut: «The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, No. 57, July, 1862», lehekülg 4
No tyrant ever was preceded to the tomb by such an array of victims as Henry VIII. If Shakspeare had chosen to bring the highest of those victims around the last bed that Henry was to press on earth, after the fashion in which he sent the real or supposed victims of Richard III. to haunt the last earthly sleep of the last royal Plantagenet, he would have had to bring them up by sections, and not individually, in battalions, and not as single spies. Buckingham, Wolsey, More, Fisher, Catharine of Aragon, Anne Boleyn, Rocheford, Cromwell, Catharine Howard, Exeter, Montague, Lambert, Aske, Lady Salisbury, Surrey,—these, and hundreds of others, selected principally from the patrician order, or from the officers of the old church, might have led the ghostly array which should have told the monarch to die and to despair of redemption; while an innumerable host of victims of lower rank might have followed these more conspicuous sufferers from the King's "jealous rage." Undoubtedly some of these persons had justly incurred death, but it is beyond belief that they were all guilty of the crimes laid to their charge; yet Mr. Froude can find as little good in any of them as of evil in Henry's treatment of them. He would have us believe that Henry was scrupulously observant of the law! and that he allowed Cromwell to perish because he had violated the laws of England, and sought to carry out that "higher law" which politicians out of power are so fond of appealing to, but which politicians in power seldom heed. And such stuff we are expected to receive as historical criticism, and the philosophy of history! And pray, of what breach of the law had the Countess of Salisbury been guilty, that she should be sent to execution when she had arrived at so advanced an age that she must soon have passed away in the course of Nature? She was one of Cromwell's victims, and as he had been deemed unfit to live because of his violations of the laws of the realm, it would follow that one whose attainder had been procured through his devices could not be fairly put to death. She suffered ten months after Cromwell, and could have committed no fresh offence in the interval, as she was a prisoner in the Tower at the time of her persecutor's fall, and so remained until the day of her murder. The causes of her death, however, are not far to seek: she was the daughter of George Plantagenet, Duke of Clarence, brother of Edward IV., and Henry hated every member of that royal race which the Tudors had supplanted; and she was the mother of Reginald Pole, whom the King detested both for his Plantagenet blood and for the expositions which he made of the despot's crimes.
One of the victims sacrificed by Mr. Froude on the altar of his Moloch even he must have reluctantly brought to the temple, and have offered up with a pang, but whose character he has blackened beyond all redemption, as if he had used upon it all the dirt he has so assiduously taken from the character of his royal favorite. There are few names or titles of higher consideration than that of Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey. It is sufficient to name Surrey to be reminded of the high-born scholar, the gallant soldier, one of the founders of English literature, and a poet of equal vigor of thought and melodiousness of expression. His early and violent death, at the behest of a tyrant, who himself had not ten days to live when he stamped—for he could no longer write—the death-warrant of his noblest subject, has helped to endear his memory for three centuries; and many a man whose sympathies are entirely with the Reformation and the "new men" of 1546, regrets the untimely death of the Byron of those days, though the noble poet was at the head of the reactionary party, and desired nothing so much as to have it in his power to dispose of the "new men," in which case he would have had the heads of Hertford and his friends chopped off as summarily as his own head fell before the mandate of the King. Everything else is forgotten in the recollection of the Earl's youth, his lofty origin, his brilliant talents, his rank as a man of letters, and his prompt consignment to a bloody grave, the last of the legion of patricians sent by Henry to the block or the gallows. Yet it is Surrey upon whom Mr. Froude makes his last attack, and whom he puts down as a dirty dog, in order that Henry VIII may not be seen devoting what were all but his very latest hours to the task of completing the judicial murder of one whom he hated because he was so wonderfully elevated above all the rest of his subjects as to be believed capable of snatching at the crown, though three of the King's children were then alive, and there were several descendants of two of his sisters in both Scotland and England. Because, of all men who were then living, Surrey most deserved to reign over England, the jealous tyrant supposed there could be no safety for his youthful son until the House of Howard had been humiliated, and both its present head and its prospective head ceased to exist. Not satisfied with attributing to him political offences that do not necessarily imply baseness in the offender, Mr. Froude indorses the most odious charges that have been brought against Surrey, and which, if well founded, utterly destroy all his claims to be considered, we will not say a man of honor, but a man of common decency. Without having stated much that is absolutely new, Mr. Froude has so used his materials as to create the impression that Surrey, the man honored for three centuries as one of the most chivalrous of Englishmen, and as imbued with the elevating spirit of poetry, was a foul fellow, who sought to engage his sister in one of the vilest intrigues ever concocted by courtier, in order that she might be made a useful instrument in the work of changing the political condition of England. Henry's illegitimate son, Henry Fitz-Roy, Duke of Richmond, whom he had at one time thought of declaring his successor, died, leaving a widow, who was Surrey's sister. This lady told Sir Gawin Carew that her brother had advised her so to bear herself toward the King that possibly "his Majesty might cast some love unto her, whereby in process she should bear as great a stroke about him as Madame d'Estampes did about the French king." Madame d'Estampes was the most notorious and influential of Francis I.'s many mistresses; and if Carew's evidence is to be depended upon, we see what was the part assigned by Surrey to his sister in the political game the old aristocracy and the Catholics were playing. She, the widow of the King's son, was to seduce the King, and to become his mistress! Carew's story was confirmed by another witness, and Lady Richmond had complained of Surrey's "language to her with abhorrence and disgust, and had added, 'that she defied her brother, and said that they should all perish, and she would cut her own throat, rather than she would consent to such villany.'" On Surrey's trial, Lady Richmond also confirmed the story, and "revealed his deep hate of the 'new men,' who, 'when the King was dead,' he had sworn 'should smart for it.'" Such is the tale, and such is the evidence upon which it rests. Its truth at first appears to be beyond dispute, but it is possible that all the witnesses lied, and that the whole process was a made-up thing to aid in reconciling the public to the summary destruction of so illustrious a man as Surrey; and it was well adapted to that end,—the English people having exceeded all others in their regard for domestic decencies and in reverence for the family relations of the sexes. Should it be said that it is more probable that Surrey was guilty of the moral offence charged upon him than that his sister could be guilty of inventing the story and then of perjuring herself to support it, we can but reply, that Lady Rocheford, wife of Anne Boleyn's brother, testified that Anne had been guilty of incest with that brother, and afterward, when about to die, admitted that she had perjured herself. Of the two offences, supposing Lady Richmond to have sworn away her brother's life, that of Lady Rocheford was by far the more criminal, and it is beyond all doubt. So long as there is room for doubting Surrey's guilt, we shall follow the teaching of the charitable maxim of our law, and give him the benefit of the doubt which is his due.
The question of the guilt or innocence of Anne Boleyn is a tempting one, in connection with Henry VIII.'s history; but we have not now the space that is necessary to treat it justly. We may take it up another time, and follow Mr. Froude through his ingenious attempts to show that Anne must have been guilty of incest and adultery, or else—dreadful alternative!—we must come to the conclusion that Henry VIII. was not the just man made perfect on earth.
* * * * *
WHY THEIR CREEDS DIFFERED
Bedded in stone, a toad lived well,
Cold and content as toad could be;
As safe from harm as monk in cell,
Almost as safe from good was he
And "What is life?" he said, and dozed;
Then, waking, "Life is rest," quoth he:
"Each creature God in stone hath closed,
That each may have tranquillity.
"And God Himself lies coiled in stone,
Nor wakes nor moves to any call;
Each lives unto himself alone,
And cold and night envelop all."
He said, and slept. With curious ear
Close to the stone, a serpent lay.
"'T is false," he hissed with crafty sneer,
"For well I know God wakes alway.
"And what is life but wakefulness,
To glide through snares, alert and wise,—
With plans too deep for neighbors' guess,
And haunts too close for neighbors' eyes?
"For all the earth is thronged with foes,
And dark with fraud, and set with toils:
Each lies in wait, on each to close,
And God is bribed with share of spoils."
High in the boughs a small bird sang,
And marvelled such a creed should be.
"How strange and false!" his comment rang;
"For well I know that life is glee.
"For all the plain is flushed with bloom,
And all the wood with music rings,
And in the air is scarcely room
To wave our myriad flashing wings.
"And God, amid His angels high,
Spreads over all in brooding joy;
On great wings borne, entranced they lie,
And all is bliss without alloy."
"Ah, careless birdling, say'st thou so?"
Thus mused a man, the trees among:
"Thy creed is wrong; for well I know
That life must not be spent in song.
"For what is life, but toil of brain,
And toil of hand, and strife of will,—
To dig and forge, with loss and pain,
The truth from lies, the good from ill,—
"And ever out of self to rise
Toward love and law and constancy?
But with sweet love comes sacrifice,
And with great law comes penalty.
"And God, who asks a constant soul,
His creatures tries both sore and long:
Steep is the way, and far the goal,
And time is small to waste in song."
He sighed. From heaven an angel yearned:
With equal love his glances fell
Upon the man with soul upturned,
Upon the toad within its cell.
And, strange! upon that wondrous face
Shone pure all natures, well allied:
There subtlety was turned to grace,
And slow content was glorified;
And labor, love, and constancy
Put off their dross and mortal guise,
And with the look that is to be
They looked from those immortal eyes.
To the faint man the angel strong
Beached down from heaven, and shared his pain:
The one in tears, the one in song,
The cross was borne betwixt them twain.
He sang the careless bliss that lies
In wood-bird's heart, without alloy;
He sang the joy of sacrifice;
And still he sang, "All life is joy."
But how, while yet he clasped the pain,
Thrilled through with bliss the angel smiled,
I know not, with my human brain,
Nor how the two he reconciled.
* * * * *
PRESENCE
It was a long and terrible conflict,—I will not say where, because that fact has nothing to do with my story. The Revolutionists were no match in numbers for the mercenaries of the Dictator, but they fought with the stormy desperation of the ancient Scythians, and they won, as they deserved to win: for this was another revolt of freedom against oppression, of conscience against tyranny, of an exasperated people against a foreign despot. Every eye shone with the sublimity of a great principle, and every arm was nerved with a strength grander and more enduring than that imparted by the fierceness of passion or the sternness of pride. As I flew from one part of the field to another, in execution of the orders of my superior officer, I wondered whether blood as brave and good dyed the heather at Bannockburn, or streamed down the mountain-gorge where Tell met the Austrians at Morgarten, or stained with crimson glare the narrow pass held by the Spartan three hundred.
Suddenly my horse, struck by a well-aimed ball, plunged forward in the death-struggle, and fell with me, leaving me stunned for a little time, though not seriously hurt. With returning consciousness came the quickened perception which sometimes follows a slight concussion of the brain, daguerreotyping upon my mind each individual of these fiery ranks, in vivid, even painful clearness. As I watched with intensified interest the hurrying panorama, the fine figure and face of my friend Vilalba flashed before me. I noted at once the long wavy masses of brown hair falling beneath the martial cap; the mouth, a feature seldom beautiful in men, blending sweetness and firmness in rare degree, now compressed and almost colorless; but the eyes! the "empty, melancholy eyes"! what strange, glassy, introspective fixedness! what inexplicable fascination, as if they were riveted on some object unseen by other mortals! A glance sufficed to show to myself, at least, that he was in a state of tense nervous excitation, similar to that of a subject of mesmerism. A preternatural power seemed to possess him. He moved and spoke like a somnambulist, with the same insulation from surrounding minds and superiority to material obstacles. I had long known him as a brave officer; but here was something more than bravery, more than the fierce energy of the hour. His mien, always commanding, was now imperial. In utter fearlessness of peril, he assumed the most exposed positions, dashed through the strongest defences, accomplished with marvellous dexterity a wellnigh impossible coup-de-main, and all with the unrecognizing, changeless countenance of one who has no choice, no volition, but is the passive slave of some resistless inspiration.
After the conflict was over, I sought Vilalba, and congratulated him on his brilliant achievement, jestingly adding that I knew he was leagued with sorcery and helped on by diabolical arts. The cold evasiveness of his reply confirmed my belief that the condition I have described was abnormal, and that he was himself conscious of the fact.
Many years passed away, during which I met him rarely, though our relations were always those of friendship. I heard of him as actively, even arduously employed in public affairs, and rewarded by fortune and position. The prestige of fame, unusual personal graces, and high mental endowments gave him favor in social life; and women avowed that the mingled truth and tenderness of his genial and generous nature were all but irresistible. Nevertheless they were chagrined by his singular indifference to their allurements; and many a fair one, even more interested than inquisitive, vainly sought to break the unconquerable reticence which, under apparent frankness, he relentlessly maintained. He had, indeed, once been married, for a few years only; but his wife was not of those who can concentrate and absorb the fulness of another soul, wedding memory with immortal longing. Thus the problem of my friend's life-long reserve continued to provoke curiosity until its solution was granted to me alone, and, with it, the explanation of his mesmeric entrancement on the occasion to which I have alluded. I repeat the story because it is literally true, and because some of its incidents may be classed among those psychological phenomena which form the most occult, the most interesting, and the least understood of all departments of human knowledge.
During a period of summer recreation I induced Vilalba to renew our interrupted acquaintance by passing a month with me in my country home. The moonlight of many years had blended its silver with his still abundant locks, and the lines of thought were deepened in his face, but I found him in other respects unchanged. He had the same deep, metallic voice, so musical that to hear him say the slightest things was a pleasure, the same graceful courtesy and happy elasticity of temperament; and was full as ever of noble purposes, and the Roman self-conviction of power to live them out. One of those nights that "are not made for slumber" found us lingering beneath the odorous vines which interlocked their gay blossoms around the slight columns of the veranda, until even the gray surprise of dawn,—the "soft, guileless consolations" of our cigars, as Aeschylus says of certain other incense, the cool, fragrant breezes, gentle as remembered kisses upon the brow, the tremulous tenderness of the star-beams, the listening hush of midnight, having swayed us to a mood of pensiveness which found a reflex in our conversation. From the warning glare of sunlight the heart shuts close its secrets; but hours like these beguile from its inmost depths those subtile emotions, and vague, dreamy, delicious thoughts, which, like plants, waken to life only beneath the protecting shadows of darkness. "Why is it," says Richter, "that the night puts warmer love in our hearts? Is it the nightly pressure of helplessness, or is it the exalting separation from the turmoils of life,—that veiling of the world in which for the soul nothing then remains but souls,—that causes the letters in which loved names are written to appear like phosphorus-writing by night, on fire, while day, in their cloudy traces, they but smoke?"
Insensibly we wandered into one of those weird passages of psychological speculation, the border territory where reason and illusion hold contested sway,—where the relations between spirit and matter seem so incomprehensibly involved and complicated that we can only feel, without being able to analyze them, and even the old words created for our coarse material needs seem no more suitable than would a sparrow's wings for the flight of an eagle.
"It is emphatically true of these themes," I remarked, after a long rambling talk, half reverie, half reason, "that language conceals the ideas, or, rather, the imaginations they evolve; for the word idea implies something more tangible than vagaries which the Greek poet would have called 'the dream of the shadow of smoke.' But yet more unsatisfactory than the impotence of the type is the obscurity of the thing typified. We can lay down no premises, because no basis can be found for them,—and establish no axioms, because we have no mathematical certainties. Objects which present the assurance of palpable facts to-day may vanish as meteors to-morrow. The effort to crystallize into a creed one's articles of faith in these mental phantasmagoria is like carving a cathedral from sunset clouds, or creating salient and retreating lines of armed hosts in the northern lights. Though willing dupes to the pretty fancy, we know that before the light of science the architecture is resolved into mist, and the battalions into a stream of electricity."
"Not so," replied Vilalba. "Your sky-visions are a deceit, and you know it while you enjoy them. But the torch of science is by no means incendiary to the system of psychology. Arago himself admits that it may one day obtain a place among the exact sciences, and speaks of the actual power which one human being may exert over another without the intervention of any known physical agent; while Cuvier and other noted scientists concede even more than this."
"Do you, then, believe," I asked, "that there is between the silent grave and the silent stars an answer to this problem we have discussed to-night, of the inter-relation between spirit and matter, between soul and soul? To me it seems hopelessly inscrutable, and all effort to elucidate it, like the language of the Son of Maia, 'by night bringeth darkness before the eyes, and in the daytime nought clearer.' I shall as soon expect to wrest her buried secrets from the Sphinx, or to revive the lost mysteries of the Egyptian priesthood."
"And yet, most of those marvels," answered my friend, "as well as the later oracles of Greece, and the clairvoyance, mesmerism, etc., of modern times, were probably the result of a certain power of the mind to shake off for a time its fetters in defiance of physical impediments, and even to exert its control over the senses and will and perception of another. I do not doubt that in certain conditions of the mind there arise potentialities wonderful as any ever conceived by fiction, and that these are guided by laws unannounced as yet, but which will be found in some future archives, inducted in symmetrical clearness through the proper process of phenomena, classification, and generalized statement. My own experience suffices to myself for both assurance and prophecy. Although the loftiest, sweetest music of the soul is yet unwritten, its faint articulations interblend with the jangling discords of life, as the chimes of distant bells float through the roar of winds and waves, and chant to imperilled hearts the songs of hope and gladness."
His voice fell to the low, earnest tone of one who has found in life a pearl of truth unseen by others; and as his eye gleamed in the starlight, I saw that it wore the same speculative expression as on the battle-field twenty years before. A slight tremor fled through his frame, as though he had been touched by an invisible hand, and a faint smile of recognition brightened his features.
"How can we explain," continued he, after a brief pause, "this mystery of PRESENCE? Are you not often conscious of being actually nearer to a mind a thousand miles distant than to one whose outer vestments you can touch? We certainly feel, on the approach of a person repulsive, not necessarily to our senses, but to our instincts,—which in this case are notes of warning from the remote depths of the soul,—as if our entire being intrenched itself behind a vitally repellent barrier, in absolute security that no power in the universe can break through it, in opposition to our will. For the will does not seem to create the barrier, but to guard it; and, thus defended, material contact with the individual affects us no more than the touch of a plaster statue. We are each, and must remain, mutually unknowing and unknown. On the other hand, does not fixed and earnest thought upon one we love seem to bring the companion-spirit within the sacred temple of our own being, infolded as a welcome guest in our warm charities and gentle joys, and imparting in return the lustre of a serene and living beauty? If, then, those whom we do not recognize as kindred are repelled, even though they approach us through the aid and interpretation of the senses, why may not the loved be brought near without that aid, through the more subtile and more potent attraction of sympathy? I do not mean nearness in the sense of memory or imagination, but that actual propinquity of spirit which I suppose implied in the recognition of Presence. Nor do I refer to any volition which is dependent on the known action of the brain, but to a hidden faculty, the germ perhaps of some higher faculty, now folded within the present life like the wings of a chrysalis, which looks through or beyond the material existence, and obtains a truer and finer perception of the spiritual than can be filtered through the coarser organs of sight and hearing."
"Vilalba, you are evidently a disciple of Des Cartes. Your theory is based on the idealistic principle, 'I think, therefore I am.' I confess that I could never be satisfied with mere subjective consciousness on a point which involves the cooperation of another mind. Nothing less than the most positive and luminous testimony of the senses could ever persuade me that two minds could meet and commune, apart from material intervention."
"I know," answered Vilalba, "that it is easier to feel than to reason about things which lie without the pale of mathematical demonstration. But some day, my friend, you will learn that beyond the arid abstractions of the schoolmen, beyond the golden dreams of the poets, there is a truth in this matter, faintly discerned now as the most dim of yonder stars, but as surely a link in the chain which suspends the Universe to the throne of God. However, your incredulity is commendable, for doubt is the avenue to knowledge. I admit that no testimony is conclusive save that of the senses, and such witness I have received.
"You speak perpetual enigmas, and I suspect you—for the second time—of tampering with the black arts. Do you mean to say that you are a believer in the doctrine of palpable spiritual manifestation?"
"I might say in its favor," was the reply, "that apart from the pretences and the plausibilities of to-day, many of which result from the independent action of the mind through clairvoyance, and others from mere excitation of the nervous sensibilities, the truth of that theory is possibly implied in the wants of the soul; for a want proves the existence of an antidote as effectually as a positive and negative interchangeably bear witness to each other's existence. But if you will have patience to listen to a story of my own life, I can better explain how my convictions have been beguiled into the credence which appears to you unphilosophical, if not absurd."
"I will listen with pleasure,—first lighting another cigar to dispel the weird shapes which will probably respond to your incantation."
Vilalba smiled slightly.
"Do not be disturbed. The phantoms will not visit you, not, I fear, myself either. But you must promise faith in my veracity; for I am about to tell you a tale of fact, and not of fancy.
"It happened to me many years ago,—how flatteringly that little phrase seems to extend the scale of one's being!—when I had just entered on the active duties of manhood, that some affairs called me to New Orleans, and detained me there several months. Letters of friendship gave me admission into some of the most agreeable French families of that quasi Parisian city, and in the reception of their hospitality I soon lost the feeling of isolation which attends a stranger in a crowded mart. My life at that time was without shadows. I had health, friends, education, position,—youth, as well, which then seemed a blessing, though I would not now exchange for it my crown of years and experience. Fortune only I then had not; and because I had it not, I am telling you, to-night, this story.
"It chanced, one day, that I was invited to dine at the house of an aristocratic subject of the old French régime. I did not know the family, and a previous engagement tempted me to decline the invitation; but one of those mysterious impulses which are in fact the messengers of Destiny compelled me to go, and I went. Thus slight may be the thread which changes the entire web of the future! After greeting my host, and the party assembled in the drawing-room, my attention was arrested by a portrait suspended in a recess, and partly veiled by purple curtains, like Isis within her shrine. The lovely, living eyes beamed upon me out of the shrine, radiant with an internal light I had never before seen on canvas. The features were harmonious, the complexion pure and clear, and the whole picture wore an air of graceful, gentle girlhood, glowing, like Undine, with the flush of 'the coming soul.' I hardly knew whether the face was strictly beautiful according to the canons of Art; for only a Shakspeare can be at the same time critical and sympathetic, and my criticism was baffled and blinded by the fascination of those wondrous eyes. They reminded me of what a materialist said of the portraits of Prudhon,—that they were enough to make one believe in the immortality of the soul. Life multiplied by feeling into a limitless dream of past and future was mirrored in their clear depths; the questful gaze seemed reading the significance of the one through the symbols of the other, and pondering the lesson with sweetness of assent and ever-earnest longing for fuller revelation.
"As I lingered before this fair shadow, I heard my name pronounced, and, turning, beheld the not less fair original, the daughter of my host. Now do not fear a catalogue of feminine graces, or a lengthened romance of the heart, tedious with such platitudes as have been Elysium to the actors, and weariness to the audience, ever since the world began. The Enchanted Isles wear no enchantment to unanointed vision; their skies of Paradise are fog, their angels Harpies, perchance, or harsh-throated Sirens. Besides, we can never describe correctly those whom we love, because we see them through the heart; and the heart's optics have no technology. It is enough to say, that, from almost the first time I looked upon Blanche, I felt that I had at last found the gift rarely accorded to us here,—the fulfilment of a promise hidden in every heart, but often waited for in vain. Hitherto my all-sufficing self-hood had never been stirred by the mighty touch of Love. I had been amused by trivial and superficial affections, like the gay triflers of whom Rasselas says, 'They fancied they were in love, when in truth they were only idle.' But that sentiment which is never twice inspired, that new birth of
'A soul within the soul, evolving it sublimely,'
had never until now wakened my pulses and opened my eyes to the higher and holier heritage. Perhaps you doubt that Psychal fetters may be forged in a moment's heat; but I believe that the love which is deepest and most sacred, and which Plato calls the memory of divine beings whom we knew in some anterior life, that recognition of kindred natures which precedes reason and asks no leave of the understanding, is not a gradual and cautious attraction, like the growth of a coral reef, but sudden and magnetic as the coalescence of two drops of mercury.
