Imaginary Conversations and Poems: A Selection
_Landor._ However, I do not complain that in oratory and history his
diction is sometimes poetical.
_Southey._ Little do I approve of it in prose on any subject.
Demosthenes and Aeschines, Lisias and Isaeus, and finally Cicero,
avoided it.
_Landor._ They did: but Chatham and Burke and Grattan did not; nor
indeed the graver and greater Pericles; of whom the most memorable
sentence on record is pure poetry. On the fall of the young Athenians
in the field of battle, he said, 'The year hath lost its spring.' But
how little are these men, even Pericles himself, if you compare them
as men of genius with Livy! In Livy, as in Milton, there are bursts of
passion which cannot by the nature of things be other than poetical,
nor (being so) come forth in other language. If Milton had executed
his design of writing a history of England, it would probably have
abounded in such diction, especially in the more turbulent scenes and
in the darker ages.
_Southey._ There are quiet hours and places in which a taper may be
carried steadily, and show the way along the ground; but you must
stand a-tiptoe and raise a blazing torch above your head, if you would
bring to our vision the obscure and time-worn figures depicted on the
lofty vaults of antiquity. The philosopher shows everything in one
clear light; the historian loves strong reflections and deep shadows,
but, above all, prominent and moving characters. We are little pleased
with the man who disenchants us: but whoever can make us wonder, must
himself (we think) be wonderful, and deserve our admiration.
_Landor._ Believing no longer in magic and its charms, we still
shudder at the story told by Tacitus, of those which were discovered
in the mournful house of Germanicus.
_Southey._ Tacitus was also a great poet, and would have been a
greater, had he been more contented with the external and ordinary
appearances of things. Instead of which, he looked at a part of his
pictures through a prism, and at another part through a _camera
obscura_. If the historian were as profuse of moral as of political
axioms, we should tolerate him less: for in the political we fancy a
writer is but meditating; in the moral we regard him as declaiming. In
history we desire to be conversant with only the great, according to
our notions of greatness: we take it as an affront, on such an
invitation, to be conducted into the lecture-room, or to be desired to
amuse ourselves in the study.
_Landor._ Pray go on. I am desirous of hearing more.
_Southey._ Being now alone, with the whole day before us, and having
carried, as we agreed at breakfast, each his Milton in his pocket, let
us collect all the graver faults we can lay our hands upon, without a
too minute and troublesome research; not in the spirit of Johnson, but
in our own.
_Landor._ That is, abasing our eyes in reverence to so great a man,
but without closing them. The beauties of his poetry we may omit to
notice, if we can: but where the crowd claps the hands, it will be
difficult for us always to refrain. Johnson, I think, has been charged
unjustly with expressing too freely and inconsiderately the blemishes
of Milton. There are many more of them than he has noticed.
_Southey._ If we add any to the number, and the literary world hears
of it, we shall raise an outcry from hundreds who never could see
either his excellences or his defects, and from several who never have
perused the noblest of his writings.
_Landor._ It may be boyish and mischievous, but I acknowledge I have
sometimes felt a pleasure in irritating, by the cast of a pebble,
those who stretch forward to the full extent of the chain their open
and frothy mouths against me. I shall seize upon this conjecture of
yours, and say everything that comes into my head on the subject.
Beside which, if any collateral thoughts should spring up, I may throw
them in also; as you perceive I have frequently done in my _Imaginary
Conversations_, and as we always do in real ones.
_Southey._ When we adhere to one point, whatever the form, it should
rather be called a disquisition than a conversation. Most writers of
dialogue take but a single stride into questions the most abstruse,
and collect a heap of arguments to be blown away by the bloated whiffs
of some rhetorical charlatan, tricked out in a multiplicity of ribbons
for the occasion.
Before we open the volume of poetry, let me confess to you I admire
his prose less than you do.
_Landor._ Probably because you dissent more widely from the opinions
it conveys: for those who are displeased with anything are unable to
confine the displeasure to one spot. We dislike everything a little
when we dislike anything much. It must indeed be admitted that his
prose is often too latinized and stiff. But I prefer his heavy cut
velvet, with its ill-placed Roman fibula, to the spangled gauze and
gummed-on flowers and puffy flounces of our present street-walking
literature. So do you, I am certain.
_Southey._ Incomparably. But let those who have gone astray, keep
astray, rather than bring Milton into disrepute by pushing themselves
into his company and imitating his manner. Milton is none of these:
and his language is never a patchwork. We find daily, in almost every
book we open, expressions which are not English, never were, and never
will be: for the writers are by no means of sufficiently high rank to
be masters of the mint. To arrive at this distinction, it is not
enough to scatter in all directions bold, hazardous, undisciplined
thoughts: there must be lordly and commanding ones, with a full
establishment of well-appointed expressions adequate to their
maintenance.
Occasionally I have been dissatisfied with Milton, because in my
opinion that is ill said in prose which can be said more plainly. Not
so in poetry: if it were, much of Pindar and Aeschylus, and no little
of Dante, would be censurable.
_Landor._ Acknowledge that he whose poetry I am holding in my hand is
free from every false ornament in his prose, unless a few bosses of
latinity may be called so; and I am ready to admit the full claims of
your favourite South. Acknowledge that, heading all the forces of our
language, he was the great antagonist of every great monster which
infested our country; and he disdained to trim his lion-skin with
lace. No other English writer has equalled Raleigh, Hooker, and
Milton, in the loftier parts of their works.
_Southey._ But Hooker and Milton, you allow, are sometimes pedantic.
In Hooker there is nothing so elevated as there is in Raleigh.
_Landor._ Neither he, however, nor any modern, nor any ancient, has
attained to that summit on which the sacred ark of Milton strikes and
rests. Reflections, such as we indulged in on the borders of the
Larius, come over me here again. Perhaps from the very sod where you
are sitting, the poet in his youth sate looking at the Sabrina he was
soon to celebrate. There is pleasure in the sight of a glebe which
never has been broken; but it delights me particularly in those places
where great men have been before. I do not mean warriors: for
extremely few among the most remarkable of them will a considerate man
call great: but poets and philosophers and philanthropists, the
ornaments of society, the charmers of solitude, the warders of
civilization, the watchmen at the gate which Tyranny would batter
down, and the healers of those wounds which she left festering in the
field. And now, to reduce this demon into its proper toad-shape again,
and to lose sight of it, open your _Paradise Lost_.
* * * * *
THE EMPEROR OF CHINA AND TSING-TI
On the morrow I was received at the folding-doors by Pru-Tsi, and
ushered by him into the presence of his majesty the Emperor, who was
graciously pleased to inform me that he had rendered thanks to
Almighty God for enlightening his mind, and for placing his empire far
beyond the influence of the persecutor and fanatic. 'But,' continued
his majesty, 'this story of the sorcerer's man quite confounds me.
Little as the progress is which the Europeans seem to have made in the
path of humanity, yet the English, we know, are less cruel than their
neighbours, and more given to reflection and meditation. How then is
it possible they should allow any portion of their fellow-citizens to
be hoodwinked, gagged, and carried away into darkness, by such
conspirators and assassins? Why didst thou not question the man
thyself?'
_Tsing-Ti._ I did, O Emperor! and his reply was, 'We can bury such
only as were in the household of the faith. It would be a mockery to
bid those spirits go in peace which we know are condemned to
everlasting fire.'
_Emperor._ Amazing! have they that? Who invented it? Everlasting fire!
It surely might be applied to better purposes. And have those rogues
authority to throw people into it? In what part of the kingdom is it?
If natural, it ought to have been marked more plainly in the maps. The
English, no doubt, are ashamed of letting it be known abroad that they
have any such places in their country. If artificial, it is no wonder
they keep such a secret to themselves. Tsing-Ti, I commend thy
prudence in asking no questions about it; for I see we are equally at
a loss on this curiosity.
_Tsing-Ti._ The sorcerer has a secret for diluting it. Oysters and the
white of eggs, applied on lucky days, enter into the composition; but
certain charms in a strange language must also be employed, and must
be repeated a certain number of times. There are stones likewise, and
wood cut into particular forms, good against this eternal fire, as
they believe. The sorcerer has the power, they pretend, of giving the
faculty of hearing and seeing to these stones and pieces of wood; and
when he has given them the faculties, they become so sensible and
grateful, they do whatever he orders. Some roll their eyes, some
sweat, some bleed; and the people beat their breasts before them,
calling themselves miserable sinners.
_Emperor._ _Sinners_ is not the name I should have given them,
although no doubt they are in the right.
_Tsing-Ti._ Sometimes, if they will not bleed freely, nor sweat, nor
roll their eyes, the devouter break their heads with clubs, and look
out for others who will.
_Emperor._ Take heed, Tsing-Ti! Take heed! I do believe thou art
talking all the while of idols. Thou must be respectful; remember I am
head of all the religions in the empire. We have something in our own
country not very unlike them, only the people do not worship them;
they merely fall down before them as representatives of a higher
power. So they say.
_Tsing-Ti._ I do not imagine they go much farther in Europe, excepting
the introduction of this club-law into their adoration.
_Emperor._ And difference enough, in all conscience. Our people is
less ferocious and less childish. If any man break an idol here for
not sweating, he himself would justly be condemned to sweat, showing
him how inconvenient a thing it is when the sweater is not disposed.
As for rolling the eyes, surely they know best whom they should ogle;
as for bleeding, that must be regulated by the season of the year. Let
every man choose his idol as freely as he chooses his wife; let him be
constant if he can; if he cannot, let him at least be civil. Whoever
dares to scratch the face of any one in my empire, shall be condemned
to varnish it afresh, and moreover to keep it in repair all his
lifetime.
_Tsing-Ti._ In Europe such an offence would be punished with the
extremities of torture.
_Emperor._ Perhaps their idols cost more, and are newer. Is there no
chance, in all their changes, that we may be called upon to supply
them with a few?
_Tsing-Ti._ They have plenty for the present, and they dig up fresh
occasionally.