[1] The detailed analysis of the elements which women, by the facts of their constitution, must bring to the organization of life, cannot be entered into in this volume. I hope to deal with it in part elsewhere.
[2] The handsome edition of Diderot’s “Œuvres” in some twenty volumes, edited by AssÉzat and Tourneux, contains nearly a fourth of previously unpublished material, much of considerable interest. The centenaire edition of his “Œuvres Choisies,” comprised in one moderate-sized volume, includes all that most people need read of Diderot’s works, and is, on the whole, a most varied and judicious selection, made by such competent editors as Letourneau, LefÈvre, Guyot, VÉron, &c. Mr. Morley’s well-known work on Diderot and the EncyclopÆdists has done more than anything else to create an intelligent English interest in the matter.
[3] “Timid and awkward in his own cause,” says Meister elsewhere, “he was scarcely ever so in that of others.”
[4] “C’est le Bible, plus que tout autre livre,” a well-known French critic wrote, “qui a faÇonnÉ le gÉnie poÉtique de Heine, en lui donnant sa forme et sa couleur. Ses vÉritables maÎtres, ses vrais inspirateurs sont les glorieux inconnus qui ont Écrit l’Ecclesiaste et les Proverbes, le Cantique des cantiques, le livre de Job et ce chef-d’oeuvre d’ironie discrÈte intitulÉ: le livre du prophÈte Jonas. Celui qui s’appelait un rossignol Allemand nichÉ dans la perruque de Voltaire fut À la fois le moins ÉvangÉlique des hommes et le plus vraiment biblique des poÈtes modernes.”
[5] The significance of Lowell, a great writer unquestionably, seems to be chiefly national.
[6] See an interesting paper of “Recollections of J. F. Millet” in the “Century,” May, 1889, to which I am indebted for several of the painter’s utterances here quoted.
[7] I think this defective scientific perception is perhaps as responsible as any failure of moral insight for the vigorous manner in which an element of “manly love” flourishes in “Calamus” and elsewhere. Whitman is hardy enough to assert that he expects it will to a large extent take the place of love between the sexes. “Manly love,” even in its extreme form, is certainly Greek, as is the degradation of women with which it is always correlated; yet the much slighter degradation of women in modern times Whitman sincerely laments.
[8] This island, I may note in passing, is the home of a black-haired race, very unlike the typical Norsemen, and which has been identified with those “black strangers” spoken of by the Irish chroniclers who described the Viking invasions.
[9] Many books and pamphlets dealing with his life and works have appeared in Denmark, Sweden and Germany. The chief of these are Vasenius’s “Henrik Ibsen, ett SkaldeportrÄtt,” Stockholm, 1882; Passarge’s “Henrik Ibsen: Ein Beitrag zur neusten Geschichte der norwegischen Nationalliteratur,” Leipsic, 1883; and H. Jaeger’s “Henrik Ibsen, 1828-1888,” Copenhagen. The last-named, now translated, is by far the best.
[10] It may be noted that this was the first of Ibsen’s dramas to be translated into English, by Miss Catherine Ray, in 1876. To Mr. Gosse belongs the honour of having first introduced Ibsen to English readers, in an article in the “Fortnightly,” in 1874. The first of his social dramas to be translated into English was “The Doll’s House” (under the title of “Nora”), by Miss Frances Lord in 1882.
[11] I take this, and much of what follows, from N. Tsakni’s interesting book, “La Russie Sectaire.” It is scarcely necessary to refer the English reader to the valuable series of works in which Stepniak has set forth the condition of modern Russia.
[12] See the interesting paper, “A Visit to Count Tolstoi,” in “Century,” June, 1887.
[13] It may be said that religion, as even the etymology of the word witnesses, has been a force on the side of repression. That also is true; it cannot indeed be too strongly emphasized. Only in the strength of that joyous expansion could men have acted and suffered such intolerable torture in the service of religion. (It must be remembered, however, that in certain stages of civilization religion is largely identified with morality). It is necessary to generalize from the most various and highly specialized cases in order to arrive at a reasonable definition.
[14] The late William Cyples, in his charming and neglected magnum opus, “The Process of Human Experience” (p. 462), rightly traces this form of religion to the feeling generated between lovers, friends, parent and children. “A few have at intervals walked in the world,” he adds, “who have, each in his own original way, found out this marvel ... it has proved sufficient for them even to wish enough to help their race; instantly these secret delights have risen in their hearts. Straightway man in general has become to them so sweet a thing that the infatuation has seemed to the rest of their fellows to be a celestial madness. Beggars’ rags to their unhesitating lips grew fit for kissing, because humanity had touched the garb; there were no longer any menial acts, but only welcome services. It was the humblest, the easiest, the readiest of duties to lay down life for the ignorant, the ill-behaved, the unkind,—for any and all who did but wear the familiar human shape. That this ecstasy of humanity should rise so much higher than any other is according to the plain working of the law of accumulation of finer consciousness by complexity in the occasioning activity. Remember by how much man is the subtlest circumstance in the world; at how many points he can attach relationships; how manifold and perennial he is in his results. All other things are dull, meagre, tame beside him. If the most part of us are only as dross to one another, in place of being of this priceless value, it can only be from the lack of mutual services among us. Without these how can we but want sufficient adaptiveness of mood,—how can we help groaning under the weight of instincts half organized or wholly unfulfilled?”
