non duco contentionis funern, dum constet inter nos, quod
fere totus mundus exerceat histrioniam.—petronius arbiter.
i do not draw the rope of contention,{1} while it is agreed
amongst us, that almost the whole world practises acting.
1 a metaphor apparently taken from persons pulling in
opposite directions at each end of a rope. i cannot see, as
some have done, that it has anything in common with horace's
tortum digna sequi potius quant ducere funern: 'more
worthy to follow than to lead the tightened cord': which is
a metaphor taken from a towing line, or any line acting in a
similar manner, where one draws and another is drawn. horace
applies it to money, which he says should be the slave, and
not the master of its possessor.
all the world's a stage.—shakespeare.
en el teatro del mundo
todos son représentantes.—calderon.
tous les comédiens ne sont pas au théâtre.
—french proverb.
rain came, and thaw, followed by drying wind. the roads were in good order for the visitors to the aristophanic comedy. the fifth day of christmas was fixed for the performance. the theatre was brilliantly lighted, with spermaceti candles in glass chandeliers for the audience, and argand lamps for the stage. in addition to mr. gryll's own houseful of company, the beauty and fashion of the surrounding country, which comprised an extensive circle, adorned the semicircular seats; which, however, were not mere stone benches, but were backed, armed, and padded into comfortable stalls. lord curryfin was in his glory, in the capacity of stage-manager.
the curtain rising, as there was no necessity for its being made to fall,{1} discovered the scene, which was on the london bank of the thames, on the terrace of a mansion occupied by the spirit-rapping society, with an archway in the centre of the building, showing a street in the background. gryllus was lying asleep. circe, standing over him, began the dialogue.
1 the athenian theatre was open to the sky, and if the
curtain had been made to fall it would have been folded up
in mid air, destroying the effect of the scene. being raised
from below, it was invisible when not in use.
circe
wake, gryllus, and arise in human form.
gryllus
i have slept soundly, and had pleasant dreams.
circe
i, too, have soundly slept—divine how long.
gryllus
why, judging by the sun, some fourteen hours.
circe
three thousand years»
gryllus
that is a nap indeed.
but this is not your garden, nor your palace.
where are we now?
circe
three thousand years ago,
this land was forest, and a bright pure river
ran through it to and from the ocean stream.
now, through a wilderness of human forms,
and human dwellings, a polluted flood
rolls up and down, charged with all earthly poisons,
poisoning the air in turn.
gryllus
i see vast masses
of strange unnatural things.
circe
houses, and ships,
and boats, and chimneys vomiting black smoke,
horses, and carriages of every form,
and restless bipeds, rushing here and there
for profit or for pleasure, as they phrase it.
gryllus
oh, jupiter and bacchus! what a crowd,
flitting, like shadows without mind or purpose,
such as ulysses saw in erebus.
but wherefore are we here?
circe
there have arisen
some mighty masters of the invisible world,
and these have summoned us.
gryllus
with what design?
circe
that they themselves must tell. behold they come,
carrying a mystic table, around which
they work their magic spells. stand by, and mark.
[three spirit-rappers appeared, carrying a table, which they
placed on one side of the stage:]
1. carefully the table place,
let our gifted brother trace
a ring around the enchanted space
2. let him tow'rd the table point
with his first fore-finger joint,
and with mesmerised beginning
set the sentient oak-slab spinning.
3. now it spins around, around,
sending forth a murmuring sound,
by the initiate understood
as of spirits in the wood.
all.
once more circe we invoke.
circe
here: not bound in ribs of oak,
nor, from wooden disk revolving,
in strange sounds strange riddles solving,
but in native form appearing,
plain to sight, as clear to heating.
the three
thee with wonder we behold.
by thy hair of burning gold,
by thy face with radiance bright,
by thine eyes of beaming light,
we confess thee, mighty one,
for the daughter of the sun.
on thy form we gaze appalled.
circe
cryllus, loo, your summons called.
the three
hira of yore thy powerful spell
doomed in swinish shape to dwell;
vet such life he reckoned then
happier than the life of men,
now, when carefully he ponders
all our scientific wonders,
steam-driven myriads, all in motion,
on the land and on the ocean,
going, for the sake of going,
wheresoever waves are flowing,
wheresoever winds are blowing;
converse through the sea transmitted,
swift as ever thought has flitted;
all the glories of our time,
past the praise of loftiest rhyme;
will he, seeing these, indeed,
still retain his ancient creed,
ranking, in his mental plan,
life of beast o'er life of man?
circe
speak, gryllus.
gryllus
it is early yet to judge:
but all the novelties i yet have seen
seem changes for the worse.
the three
if we could show him
our triumphs in succession, one by one,
'twould surely change his judgment: and herein
how might'st thou aid us, circe!
circe
i will do so:
and calling down, like socrates, of yore,
the clouds to aid us, they shall shadow forth,
in bright succession, all that they behold,
from air, on earth and sea. i wave my wand:
and lo! they come, even as they came in athens,
shining like virgins of ethereal life.
the chorus of clouds descended, and a dazzling array of
female beauty was revealed by degrees through folds of misty
gauze. they sang their first choral song:
chorus of clouds{1}
clouds ever-flowing, conspicuously soaring,
from loud-rolling ocean, whose stream{2} gave us birth
to heights, whence we look over torrents down-pouring
to the deep quiet vales of the fruit-giving earth,—
as the broad eye of æther, unwearied in brightness,
dissolves our mist-veil in glittering rays,
our forms we reveal from its vapoury lightness,
in semblance immortal, with far-seeing gaze.
1 the first stanza is pretty closely adapted from the
strophe of aristophanes. the second is only a distant
imitation of the antistrophe.
2 in homer, and all the older poets, the ocean is a river
surrounding the earth, and the seas are inlets from it.
shower-bearing virgins, we seek not the regions
whence pallas, the muses, and bacchus have fled,
but the city, where commerce embodies her legions,
and mammon exalts his omnipotent head.
all joys of thought, feeling, and taste are before us,
wherever the beams of his favour are warm:
though transient full oft as the veil of our chorus,
now golden with glory, now passing in storm.
reformers, scientific, moral, educational, political, passed in succession, each answering a question of gryllus. gryllus observed, that so far from everything being better than it had been, it seemed that everything was wrong and wanted mending. the chorus sang its second song.
seven competitive examiners entered with another table, and sat down on the opposite side of the stage to the spirit-rappers. they brought forward hermogenes{1} as a crammed fowl to argue with gryllus. gryllus had the best of the argument; but the examiners adjudged the victory to hermogenes. the chorus sang its third song.
1 see chapter xv.
circe, at the request of the spirit-rappers, whose power was limited to the production of sound, called up several visible spirits, all illustrious in their day, but all appearing as in the days of their early youth, 'before their renown was around them.' they were all subjected to competitive examination, and were severally pronounced disqualified for the pursuit in which they had shone. at last came one whom circe recommended to the examiners as a particularly promising youth. he was a candidate for military life. every question relative to his profession he answered to the purpose. to every question not so relevant he replied that he did not know and did not care. this drew on him a reprimand. he was pronounced disqualified, and ordered to join the rejected, who were ranged in a line along the back of the scene. a touch of circe's wand changed them into their semblance of maturer years. among them were hannibal and oliver cromwell; and in the foreground was the last candidate, richard coeur-de-lion. richard flourished his battle-axe over the heads of the examiners, who jumped up in great trepidation, overturned their table, tumbled over one another, and escaped as best they might in haste and terror. the heroes vanished. the chorus sang its fourth song.
chorus
as before the pike will fly
dace and roach and such small fry;
as the leaf before the gale,
as the chaff beneath the flail;
as before the wolf the flocks,
as before the hounds the fox;
as before the cat the mouse,
as the rat from falling house;
as the fiend before the spell
of holy water, book, and bell;
as the ghost from dawning day,—
so has fled, in gaunt dismay,
this septemvirate of quacks
from the shadowy attacks
of coeur-de-lion's battle-axe.
[illustration: coeur-de-lion's battle-axe. 260-221]
could he in corporeal might,
plain to feeling as to sight,
rise again to solar light,
how his arm would put to flight
all the forms of stygian night
that round us rise in grim array,
darkening the meridian day:
bigotry, whose chief employ
is embittering earthly joy;
chaos, throned in pedant state,
teaching echo how to prate;
and 'ignorance, with looks profound,'
not 'with eye that loves the ground,'
but stalking wide, with lofty crest,
in science's pretentious vest.
and now, great masters of the realms of shade,
to end the task which called us down from air,
we shall present, in pictured show arrayed,
of this your modern world the triumphs rare,
that gryllus's benighted spirit
may wake to your transcendent merit,
and, with profoundest admiration thrilled,
he may with willing mind assume his place
in your steam-nursed, steam-borne, steam-killed,
and gas-enlightened race.
circe
speak, gryllus, what you see,
i see the ocean,
and o'er its face ships passing wide and far;
some with expanded sails before the breeze,
and some with neither sails nor oars, impelled
by some invisible power against the wind,
scattering the spray before them, but of many
one is on fire, and one has struck on rocks
and melted in the waves like fallen snow.
two crash together in the middle sea,
and go to pieces on the instant, leaving
no soul to tell the tale, and one is hurled
in fragments to the sky, strewing the deep
with death and wreck. i had rather live with circe
even as i was, than flit about the world
in those enchanted ships which some alastor
must have devised as traps for mortal ruin.
look yet again.
now the whole scene is changed.
i see long chains of strange machines on wheels,
with one in front of each, purring white smoke
from a black hollow column. fast and far
they speed, like yellow leaves before the gale,
when autumn winds are strongest. through their windows
i judge them thronged with people; but distinctly
their speed forbids my seeing.
spirit-rapper
this is one
of the great glories of our modern time,
* men are become as birds,' and skim like swallows
the surface of the world.
gryllus
for what good end?
spirit-rapper
the end is in itself—the end of skimming
the surface of the world.
gryllus
if that be all,
i had rather sit in peace in my old home:
but while i look, two of them meet and clash,
and pile their way with ruin. one is rolled
down a steep bank; one through a broken bridge
is dashed into a flood. dead, dying, wounded,
are there as in a battle-field. are these
your modern triumphs? jove preserve me from them.
spirit-rapper
these ills are rare. millions are borne in safety
where ore incurs mischance. look yet again.
gryllus
i see a mass of light brighter than that
which burned in circe's palace, and beneath it
a motley crew, dancing to joyous music.
but from that light explosion comes, and flame;
and forth the dancers rush in haste and fear
from their wide-blazing hall.
spirit-rapper
oh, circe! circe!
thou show'st him all the evil of our arts
in more than just proportion to the good.
good without evil is not given to man.
jove, from his urns dispensing good and ill,
gives all unmixed to some, and good and ill
mingled to many—good unmixed to none.{1}
our arts are good. the inevitable ill
that mixes with them, as with all things human,
is as a drop of water in a goblet
full of old wine.
1 this is the true sense of the homeric passage:—
(greek passage)
homer: ii. xxiv.
there are only two distributions: good and ill mixed, and
unmixed ill. none, as heyne has observed, receive unmixed
good. ex dolio bonorum....
gryllus
more than one drop, i fear,
and those of bitter water.
circe
there is yet
an ample field of scientific triumph:
what shall we show him next?
sfirit-rapper
pause we awhile,
he is not in the mood to feel conviction
of our superior greatness. he is all
for rural comfort and domestic ease,
but our impulsive days are all for moving:
sometimes with some ulterior end, but still
for moving, moving, always. there is nothing
common between us in our points of judgment.
he takes his stand upon tranquillity,
we ours upon excitement. there we place
the being, end, and aim of mortal life,
the many are with us: some few, perhaps,
with him. we put the question to the vote
by universal suffrage. aid us, circe i
on tajismanic wings youi spells can waft
the question and reply* are we not wiser,
happier, and better, than the men of old,
of homer's days, of athens, and of rome?
voices without
ay. no. ay, ay. no. ay, ay, ay, ay, ay,
we are the wisest race the earth has known,
the most advanced in all the arts of life,
in science and in morals.
...nemo meracius accipit: hoc memorare omisit. this sense is
implied, not expressed. pope missed it in his otherwise
beautiful translation.
two urns by jove's high throne have ever stood,
the source of evil one, and one of good;
from thence the cup of mortal man he fills,
blessings to these, to those distributes ills,
to most he mingles both: the wretch decreed
to taste the bad, unmixed, is curst indeed;
pursued by wrongs, by meagre famine driven,
he wanders, outcast both of earth and heaven.
—pope.
spirit-rapper
the ays have it.
what is that wondrous sound, that seems like thunder
mixed with gigantic laughter?
circe
it is jupiter,
who laughs at your presumption; half in anger,
and half in mockery. now, my worthy masters,
you must in turn experience in yourselves
the mighty magic thus far tried on others.
the table turned slowly, and by degrees went on spinning
with accelerated speed. the legs assumed motion, and it
danced off the stage. the arms of the chairs put forth
hands, and pinched the spirit-rappers, who sprang up and ran
off, pursued by their chairs. this piece of mechanical
pantomime was a triumph of lord curryfin's art, and afforded
him ample satisfaction for the failure of his resonant
vases.
circe
now, gryllus, we may seek our ancient home
in my enchanted isle.
gryllus
not yet, not yet.
good signs are toward of a joyous supper.
therein the modern world may have its glory,
and i, like an impartial judge, am ready
to do it ample justice. but, perhaps,
as all we hitherto have seen are shadows,
so too may be the supper.
circe
fear not, gryllus.
that you will find a sound reality,
to which the land and air, seas, lakes, and rivers,
have sent their several tributes. now, kind friends,
who with your smiles have graciously rewarded
our humble, but most earnest aims to please,
and with your presence at our festal board
will charm the winter midnight, music gives
the signal: welcome and old wine await you.
the chorus
shadows to-night have offered portraits true
of many follies which the world enthrall.
'shadows we are, and shadows we pursue':
but, in the banquet's well-illumined hall,
realides, delectable to all,
invite you now our festal joy to share.
could we our attic prototype recall,
one compound word should give our bill of fare: {1}
but where our language fails, our hearts true welcome bear.
1 as at the end of the ecclesusæ
miss gryll was resplendent as circe; and miss niphet., as leader of the chorus, looked like melpomene herself, slightly unbending her tragic severity into that solemn smile which characterised the chorus of the old comedy. the charm of the first acted irresistibly on mr. falconer. the second would have completed, if anything had been wanted to complete it, the conquest of lord curryfin.
the supper passed off joyously, and it was a late hour of the morning before the company dispersed.
