We must not be tempted to call things by too fine names, lest we should disguise them. All that is great is plain and familiar. The Ideal Tendency is simple love of life, felt first as desire and then as satisfaction. The men who represent it are not seekers, but finders, who go on to find more and more; for in the poet desire has fulfilled itself. Enjoyment makes the artist. He has gone on before us, reaching into the abyss of possibility; but he has reached more mightily. He begins to know what is promised in the universal attraction, in this eager turning of all faces toward our future. There is a centre from which no eye can be diverted, for it is the beam of sight. Look which way you will, that centre is everywhere. The universe is flooded with a ray from it, and the light of common day on every object is a refraction or reflection of that brightness.
Shallow men think of Ideality as another appetite, to be fed with pretty baubles, as the body is satisfied with meat and sleep; but the representative of that august impulse feels in it his immortality, and by all his lovely allegories, mythologies, fables, pictures, statues, manners, songs, and symphonies, he seeks to communicate his own feeling, that by specific gravity man must rise. It is no wonder, then, that we love Art while it offers us reinforcement of being, and despise the pretenders, for whom it is pastime, not prophecy.
For, in spite of all discouragement from the materialists, men stultified by trade or tradition, we have trusted the high desire and followed it thus far. We felt the sacredness of life even in ourselves, and there was always reverence in our admiration. We could not be made to doubt the divinity of that which walked with us in the wood or looked on us in the morning. The grasses and pebbles, the waters and rocks, clouds and showers, snow and wind, were too brother-like to be denied. They sang the same song which fills the breast, and our love for them was pure. The men and women we sought, were they not worthy of honor? The artist comes to bid us trust the Ideal Tendency, and not dishonor him who moves therein. He is no trifler, then, to be thrust aside by the doctors with their sciences, or the economists with production and use. He offers manhood to man and womanhood to woman.
We have named Ideality a love of life. Nay, what is it but life itself,and that loving but true living? What word can have any value for us, unless it is a record of inevitable expansions in character. The universe is pledged to every heart, and the artist represents its promise. He sings, because he sees the manchild advancing, by blind paths it may be, but under sure guidance, propelled by inextinguishable desires toward the largest experience. He is no longer afraid of old bugbears. He feels for one, that nothing in the universe, call it by what ugly name you will, can crush or limit the lift of that leaven which works in the breast. Out of all eyes there looks on him the same expectation, and what for others is a great perhaps for him has become unavoidable certainty.
THE HOUR BEFORE DAWN
"The mind of man is first led to adore the forces of Nature, and certain objects of the material world; at a later period, it yields to religious impulses of a higher and purely spiritual character."
HumboldtCHAPTER I
Alpheus and Eleusa, Thessalian Greeks, travelled in their old age, to escape poverty and misfortune, which had surely taken joint lease with themselves of a certain hut among the hills, and managed both household and flock.
The Halcyon builds its nest upon a floating weed; so to the drifting fortunes of these wanderers clung a friendless child, innocent and beautiful Evadne.
Some secret voice, the country-people say, lured the shepherd from his home, to embark on the Ægean Sea, and lead the little one away, together with his aged wife, to look for a new home in exile. Mariners bound for Troas received them into their vessel, and the voyage began.
The Greeks lamented when they beheld the shores of Asia. Heavy clouds and the coming night concealed the landmarks which should have guided their approach, and, buffeted by the uncertain winds, they waited for the morning. By the light of dawn, they saw before them an unknown harbor, and the dwellings of men; and here the mariners determined to be rid of their passengers, who vexed them by their fears; while to these three any port seemed desirable, and they readily consented to put off towards the shore. At the hour when the winds rise, at early dawn, they gladly parted from the seamen and the tossing ship, and took the way before them to the little town.
No fisherman, shadowless, trod the sands; no pious hand lighted the fire of sacrifice in the vanishing twilight; even the herds failed to cry out for the coming day. Strange fears began to chill the hearts of the Thessalians. They walked upon a trackless way, and when they entered the dwellings they found them untenanted. Over the doorways hung vines dropping their grapes, and birds flew out at the open windows. They climbed a hill behind the town, and saw how the sea surrounded them. The land on which they stood was no promontory, but an island, separated by a foaming interval of water from the shore, which they now saw, not distant, but inaccessible.
Then these miserable ones clung to each other on the summit of the rock, gazing, until they were fully persuaded of their misfortune. The winds waved and fluttered their garments, the waters uttered a voice breaking on the rocky shore, and rose mute upon the farther coast. The rain now began to fall from a morning cloud, and the travellers, for the first time, found shelter under a foreign roof.
All day they watched the sails approaching the headlands, or veering widely away and beating towards unseen harbors, as when a bird driven by fear abandons its nest, but drawn by love returns and hovers around it. Four days and nights had passed before the troubled waves ceased to hinder the craft of the fisherman. The Greeks saw with joy that their signals were answered, and a boat approached, so that they could hear a man's voice crying to them,
"What are you who dwell on the island of the profane, and gather fruits sacred to Apollo?"
"If I may be said to dwell here," replied the old man, "it is contrary to my own will. I am a Greek of Thessaly. Apollo himself should not have forbidden me to gather the wild grapes of this island, since I and this child and Eleusa, my wife, have not during many days found other food."
"It is indeed true," exclaimed the boatman, "that madness presently falls upon those who eat of these grapes, since you speak impious words against the god. Behold, yonder is woody Tenedos, where his altar stands; it is now many years, since, filled with wrath against the dwellers here, he seized this rock, and hurled it into the sea; the very hills melted in the waves. I myself, a child then, beheld the waters violently urged upon the land. Moved without winds, they rose, climbing upon the very roofs of the houses. When the sea became calm, a gulf lay between this and the coast, and what had been a promontory was left forever an island. Nor has any man dared to dwell upon it, nor to gather its accursed fruits. Many men have I known who saw gods walking upon this shore, visible sometimes on the high cliffs inaccessible to human feet. Therefore, if you, being a stranger, have ignorantly trespassed on this garden, which the divinities reserve, perhaps for their own pleasure, strive to escape their resentment and offer sacrifices on the altar of Tenedos."
"Give me a passage in your boat to the land yonder, and I will depart out of your coasts," replied the Greek.
"What are you who dwell on the island of the profane, and gather fruits sacred to Apollo?"
"If I may be said to dwell here," replied the old man, "it is contrary to my own will. I am a Greek of Thessaly. Apollo himself should not have forbidden me to gather the wild grapes of this island, since I and this child and Eleusa, my wife, have not during many days found other food."
"It is indeed true," exclaimed the boatman, "that madness presently falls upon those who eat of these grapes, since you speak impious words against the god. Behold, yonder is woody Tenedos, where his altar stands; it is now many years, since, filled with wrath against the dwellers here, he seized this rock, and hurled it into the sea; the very hills melted in the waves. I myself, a child then, beheld the waters violently urged upon the land. Moved without winds, they rose, climbing upon the very roofs of the houses. When the sea became calm, a gulf lay between this and the coast, and what had been a promontory was left forever an island. Nor has any man dared to dwell upon it, nor to gather its accursed fruits. Many men have I known who saw gods walking upon this shore, visible sometimes on the high cliffs inaccessible to human feet. Therefore, if you, being a stranger, have ignorantly trespassed on this garden, which the divinities reserve, perhaps for their own pleasure, strive to escape their resentment and offer sacrifices on the altar of Tenedos."
"Give me a passage in your boat to the land yonder, and I will depart out of your coasts," replied the Greek.
The fisherman, hitherto so friendly, remained silent, and words were wanting to him wherewith to instruct the stranger. When he again spoke, he said,
"Why, old man, not having the vigor or the carelessness of youth, have you quitted your home, leading this woman into strange lands, and this child, whose eyes are tearful for the playmates she has left? I call a little maid daughter, who is like unto her, and she remains guarded at home by her mother, until we shall give her in marriage to one of her own nation and language."
"Waste no more words," answered the old man, "I will narrate my story as we row towards your harbor."
"It were better for you," said the boatman, "that they who brought you hither should take you into their ship again. Enter our town, if you will, but be not amazed at what shall befall you. It is a custom with us to make slaves of those who approach us unsolicited, in order to protect ourselves against the pirates and their spies, who have formerly lodged themselves among us in the guise of wayfaring men, and so robbed us of our possessions. Therefore it is our law, that those who land on our coast shall, during a year, serve us in bondage."
Anger flamed in the eye of the stranger.
"You do well," he cried, "to ask of me why I left the land which bore me. Never did I there learn to suspect vile and inhospitable customs. If you have pity for the aged and the unfortunate, and would not gladly see them cast into slavery, bring hither some means of life to this rock, which cowards have abandoned for me. Meanwhile, I will watch for some friendly sail, which, approaching, may bear me to any harbor, where worse reception can hardly await me.Know that I fear not the anger of your gods; many years have I lived, and I have never yet beheld a god. My father has told me, that, in all his wanderings, among lonely hills, at the hour of dawn, or by night, or, again, in populous places, he has never seen one whom he believed to be a god. Moreover, in Athens itself are those who doubt their existence. Leave me to gather the grapes of Apollo!"
So saying, he turned away from the shore, not deigning to ask more from the stranger.
When the golden crescent moon, no sooner visible than ready to vanish in the rosy western sky, was smiling on the exiles with the old familiar look she wore above the groves of Thessaly, the sad-hearted ones were roused again by the voice of their unknown friend.
"Come down to the shore," he cried; "I have returned to you with gifts; my heart yearns to the child; she is gentle, and her eyes are like those of the stag when the hunters surround him. Take my flasks of oil and wine, and these cakes of barley and wheat. I bring you nets, and cords also, which we fishermen know how to use. May the gods, whom you despise, protect you!"
Late into the night the Greeks remained upon the border of the sea, wondering at their strange fate. To the idle the day is never sufficiently long,the night also is wasted in words.
CHAPTER II
The days which the exiles passed in solitude were not unhappy. The child Evadne pruned the large-leaved vines, and gave the rugged cheeks of certain melons to the sun. The continual hope of departure rendered all privations supportable.
Was it hope, or was it fear, that stirred their bosoms when at last a sail appeared not distant? They hoped that its white wings might turn seaward!
"Mother," cried the shepherd, "no seaman willingly approaches this shore, for the white waves warn him how the rocks He beneath the water. Even walls and roofs of houses are seen, or guessed at, ingulfed formerly by the sea; and the tale of that disaster, as told us by the fisherman, is doubtless known to mariners, who, fearing Apollo, dare not land upon this island. While, on the other hand, we have heard how pirates, and even poor wayfaring folk, are so ill-received in the bay, that from them, though they be not far off, we yet look for no assistance. Let us, then, be content, and cease to seek after our fate, which doubtless is never at rest from seeking after us. And let us not be in haste to enter again into a ship, (so fearful and unnatural a thing for those born to walk upon the land,) nor yet to beg our way along painful and unknown roads, in search of men of a new religion and a different language from that of Greeks. Neither, dear wife, if we must suffer it, let us dread slavery too much. Life is long enough for those who die young, and too long for the aged. One year let us patiently give, more especially if it be unavoidable to give it. Vex me with no more lamentations; some unforeseen accident may relieve us from our misfortunes."
Eleusa, the good old wife, ever obedient to the husband of her youth, talked no more of departure, nor yet complained of their miserable lodgings in the ruined huts, on which her housewifely care grieved to expend itself in vain.
Evadne would not be restrained from wandering. She penetrated alone the wildest thickets; the nests of timid birds were known to her; and she traced the bee to his hidden city. Deep in the woods she discovered a wide chasm, in which the water of the sea palpitated with the beating of the great heart of Ocean from which it flowed. Trees were still erect, clasped by the salt waves, but quite dead; and all around their base were hung fringes of marine growth, touched with prismatic tints when seen through the glittering water, but brown and hideous when gathered, as the trophy remaining in the hand which has dared to seize old Proteus by the locks. All around this avenue, into which the sea sometimes rushed like an invading host of armed men, the laurels and the delicate trees that love to bend over the sources of the forest-streams hung half-uprooted and perilously a-tiptoe over the brink of shattered rocks, and withered here and there by the touch of the salt foam, towards which they seemed nevertheless fain to droop, asking tidings of the watery world beyond.
The skeleton-arms of the destroyed ones were feeble to guard the passage of the ravine. Evadne broke a way over fallen trees and stepping-stones imbedded in sea-sand, and gained the opposite bank. The solitude in which she found herself appeared deeper, more awful, than before the chasm lay between the greater island and the less. She listened motionless to the soft, but continual murmur of the wood, the music of leaves and waves and unseen wings, by which all seeming silence of Nature is made as rich to the ear as her fabrics to the eye, so that, in comparison, the garments of a king are mean, though richly dyed, embroidered on every border, and hung with jewels.