Life Without and Life Within; or, Reviews, Narratives, Essays, and Poems.
An unspeakable pathos is felt from the minutest trait of this character,
and deepens with every new study of it. Not even in Shakspeare have I so
felt the organizing power of genius. Through dead words I find the least
gestures of this person, stamping themselves on my memory, betraying to
the heart the secret of her life, which she herself, like all these
divine beings, knew not. I feel myself familiarized with all beings of
her order. I see not only what she was, but what she might have been,
and live with her in yet untrodden realms.
Here is the glorious privilege of a form known only in the world of
genius. There is on it no stain of usage or calculation to dull our
sense of its immeasurable life. What in our daily walk, mid common faces
and common places, fleets across us at moments from glances of the eye,
or tones of the voice, is felt from the whole being of one of these
children of genius.
This precious gem is set in a ring complete in its enamel. I cannot hope
to express my sense of the beauty of this book as a work of art. I
would not attempt it if I had elsewhere met any testimony to the same.
The perfect picture, always before the mind, of the chateau, the moss
hut, the park, the garden, the lake, with its boat and the landing
beneath the platan trees; the gradual manner in which both localities
and persons grow upon us, more living than life, inasmuch as we are,
unconsciously, kept at our best temperature by the atmosphere of genius,
and thereby more delicate in our perceptions than amid our customary
fogs; the gentle unfolding of the central thought, as a flower in the
morning sun; then the conclusion, rising like a cloud, first soft and
white, but darkening as it comes, till with a sudden wind it bursts
above our heads; the ease with which we every where find points of view
all different, yet all bearing on the same circle, for, though we feel
every hour new worlds, still before our eye lie the same objects, new,
yet the same, unchangeable, yet always changing their aspects as we
proceed, till at last we find we ourselves have traversed the circle,
and know all we overlooked at first,--these things are worthy of our
highest admiration.
For myself, I never felt so completely that very thing which genius
should always make us feel--that I was in its circle, and could not get
out till its spell was done, and its last spirit permitted to depart. I
was not carried away, instructed, delighted more than by other works,
but I was _there_, living there, whether as the platan tree, or the
architect, or any other observing part of the scene. The personages live
too intensely to let us live in them; they draw around themselves
circles within the circle; we can only see them close, not be
themselves.
Others, it would seem, on closing the book, exclaim, "What an immoral
book!" I well remember my own thought, "It is a work of art!" At last I
understood that world within a world, that ripest fruit of human nature,
which is called art. With each perusal of the book my surprise and
delight at this wonderful fulfilment of design grew. I understood why
Goethe was well content to be called Artist, and his works, works of
Art, rather than revelations. At this moment, remembering what I then
felt, I am inclined to class all my negations just written on this paper
as stuff, and to look upon myself, for thinking them, with as much
contempt as Mr. Carlyle, or Mrs. Austin, or Mrs. Jameson might do, to
say nothing of the German Goetheans.
Yet that they were not without foundation I feel again when I turn to
the Iphigenia--a work beyond the possibility of negation; a work where a
religious meaning not only pierces but enfolds the whole; a work as
admirable in art, still higher in significance, more single in
expression.
There is an English translation (I know not how good) of Goethe's
Iphigenia. But as it may not be generally known, I will give a sketch of
the drama. Iphigenia, saved, at the moment of the sacrifice made by
Agamemnon in behalf of the Greeks, by the goddess, and transferred to
the temple at Tauris, appears alone in the consecrated grove. Many years
have passed since she was severed from the home of such a tragic fate,
the palace of Mycenae. Troy had fallen, Agamemnon been murdered, Orestes
had grown up to avenge his death. All these events were unknown to the
exiled Iphigenia. The priestess of Diana in a barbarous land, she had
passed the years in the duties of the sanctuary, and in acts of
beneficence. She had acquired great power over the mind of Thoas, king
of Tauris, and used it to protect strangers, whom it had previously been
the custom of the country to sacrifice to the goddess.
She salutes us with a soliloquy, of which I give a rude translation:--
Beneath your shade, living summits
Of this ancient, holy, thick-leaved grove,
As in the silent sanctuary of the Goddess,
Still I walk with those same shuddering feelings,
As when I trod these walks for the first time.
My spirit cannot accustom itself to these places;
Many years now has kept me here concealed
A higher will, to which I am submissive;
Yet ever am I, as at first, the stranger;
For ah! the sea divides me from my beloved ones,
And on the shore whole days I stand,
Seeking with my soul the land of the Greeks,
And to my sighs brings the rushing wave only
Its hollow tones in answer.
Woe to him who, far from parents, and brothers, and sisters,
Drags on a lonely life. Grief consumes
The nearest happiness away from his lips;
His thoughts crowd downwards--
Seeking the hall of his fathers, where the Sun
First opened heaven to him, and kindred-born
In their first plays knit daily firmer and firmer
The bond from heart to heart--I question not the Gods,
Only the lot of woman is one of sorrow;
In the house and in the war man rules,
Knows how to help himself in foreign lands,
Possessions gladden and victory crowns him,
And an honorable death stands ready to end his days.
Within what narrow limits is bounded the luck of woman!
To obey a rude husband even is duty and comfort; how sad
When, instead, a hostile fate drives her out of her sphere!
So holds me Thoas, indeed a noble man, fast
In solemn, sacred, but slavish bonds.
O, with shame I confess that with secret reluctance
I serve thee, Goddess, thee, my deliverer.
My life should freely have been dedicate to thee,
But I have always been hoping in thee, O Diana,
Who didst take in thy soft arms me, the rejected daughter
Of the greatest king! Yes, daughter of Zeus,
I thought if thou gavest such anguish to him, the high hero,
The godlike Agamemnon;
Since he brought his dearest, a victim, to thy altar,
That, when he should return, crowned with glory, from Ilium,
At the same time thou would'st give to his arms his other treasures,
His spouse, Electra, and the princely son;
Me also, thou would'st restore to mine own,
Saving a second time me, whom from death thou didst save,
From this worse death,--the life of exile here.
These are the words and thoughts; but how give an idea of the sweet
simplicity of expression in the original, where every word has the grace
and softness of a flower petal?
She is interrupted by a messenger from the king, who prepares her for a
visit from himself of a sort she has dreaded. Thoas, who has always
loved her, now left childless by the calamities of war, can no longer
resist his desire to reanimate by her presence his desert house. He
begins by urging her to tell him the story of her race, which she does
in a way that makes us feel as if that most famous tragedy had never
before found a voice, so simple, so fresh in its naivete is the recital.
Thoas urges his suit undismayed by the fate that hangs over the race of
Tantalus.
THOAS.
Was it the same Tantalus,
Whom Jupiter called to his council and banquets,
In whose talk so deeply experienced, full of various learning,
The Gods delighted as in the speech of oracles?
IPHIGENIA.
It is the same, but the Gods should not
Converse with men, as with their equals.
The mortal race is much too weak
Not to turn giddy on unaccustomed heights.
He was not ignoble, neither a traitor,
But for a servant too great, and as a companion
Of the great Thunderer only a man. So was
His fault also that of a man, its penalty
Severe, and poets sing--Presumption
And faithlessness cast him down from the throne of Jove,
Into the anguish of ancient Tartarus;
Ah, and all his race bore their hate.
THOAS.
Bore it the blame of the ancestor, or its own?
IPHIGENIA.
Truly the vehement breast and powerful life of the Titan
Were the assured inheritance of son and grandchild;
But the Gods bound their brows with a brazen band,
Moderation, counsel, wisdom, and patience
Were hid from their wild, gloomy glance,
Each desire grew to fury,
And limitless ranged their passionate thoughts.
Iphigenia refuses with gentle firmness to give to gratitude what was not
due. Thoas leaves her in anger, and, to make her feel it, orders that
the old, barbarous custom be renewed, and two strangers just arrived be
immolated at Diana's altar.
Iphigenia, though distressed, is not shaken by this piece of tyranny.
She trusts her heavenly protectress will find some way for her to save
these unfortunates without violating her truth.
The strangers are Orestes and Pylades, sent thither by the oracle of
Apollo, who bade them go to Tauris and bring back "The Sister;" thus
shall the heaven-ordained parricide of Orestes be expiated, and the
Furies cease to pursue him.
The Sister they interpret to be Dian, Apollo's sister; but Iphigenia,
sister to Orestes, is really meant.
The next act contains scenes of most delicate workmanship, first between
the light-hearted Pylades, full of worldly resource and ready
tenderness, and the suffering Orestes, of far nobler, indeed heroic
nature, but less fit for the day and more for the ages. In the first
scene the characters of both are brought out with great skill, and the
nature of the bond between "the butterfly and the dark flower,"
distinctly shown in few words.
The next scene is between Iphigenia and Pylades. Pylades, though he
truly answers the questions of the priestess about the fate of Troy and
the house of Agamemnon, does not hesitate to conceal from her who
Orestes really is, and manufactures a tissue of useless falsehoods with
the same readiness that the wise Ulysses showed in exercising his
ingenuity on similar occasions.
It is said, I know not how truly, that the modern Greeks are Ulyssean in
this respect, never telling straightforward truth, when deceit will
answer the purpose; and if they tell any truth, practising the economy
of the King of Ithaca, in always reserving a part for their own use. The
character which this denotes is admirably hit off with few strokes in
Pylades, the fair side of whom Iphigenia thus paints in a later scene.
Bless, ye Gods, our Pylades,
And whatever he may undertake;
He is the arm of the youth in battle,
The light-giving eye of the aged man in the council.
For his soul is still; it preserves
The holy possession of Repose unexhausted,
And from its depths still reaches
Help and advice to those tossed to and fro.
Iphigenia leaves him in sudden agitation, when informed of the death of
Agamemnon. Returning, she finds in his place Orestes, whom she had not
before seen, and draws from him by her artless questions the sequel to
this terrible drama wrought by his hand. After he has concluded his