Edward Berdoe

“ Amid scenes not to be surpassed for grandeur and beauty on this planet of ours, his thoughts were selfish and mean, and untinged by one ray of the romance or poetry which the surroundings should have imparted to the least cultured mind. He, the distinguished man of science, whose name was known in every physiological laboratory of Europe, beheld all this glory unthrilled by emotion, and scarcely troubled to think, except of the purely physical causes of what he knew were to others sources of the profoundest and most entrancing sentiment. It can be killed—the love of goodness! ”

“ You are a philosopher; you disbelieve, you give to dreams at night the weight I give to the work of active day; to be consistent, you should keep your bed, for you live to sleep as I to wake—to unbelieve, as I to still believe. Common-sense terms you bedridden: common-sense brings its good things to me; so it’s best believing if we can, is it not? Again, if we are to believe at all, we cannot be too decisive in our faith; we must be consistent in all our choice—succeed, or go hang in worldly matters. ”

“ How often in the wards of the hospital or at the bedsides of out-door patients had he been moved by the contrast offered by the simple, sublime faith of some poor suffering Christian man or woman, whose sick-room was illumined by a light that never sprang from the human intellect, but rayed forth from the face of God Himself. Peace that yet was not indifference, cheerfulness that was not stoicism, made the chambers and the couches of these men and women unspeakably different from those of their unbelieving neighbours. ”

“ Prologue to Pacchiarotto. The poet is imprisoned on a long summer day with his feet on a grass plot and his eyes on a red brick wall. True, the wall is clothed with a luxuriant creeper through which the bricks laugh, and the robe of green pulsates with life, beautifying the barrier. He reflects that wall upon wall divide us from the subtle thing that is spirit: though cloistered here in the body-barrier, he will hope hard, and send his soul forth to the congenial spirit beyond the ring of neighbours which, like a fence of brick and stone, divides him from his love. ”

“ It is as certain that a savage will worship his fetish, pray to his idol, and believe in disease-demons, and their expulsion by charms and talismans, as that he will tattoo or paint his body, stick feathers in his hair, and rings in his nose and ears; it is part of the evolution of man on his way to civilization. To suddenly deprive a savage or barbarian of all his magic remedies, his amulets and charms, would be as foolish as it would be futile: foolish, because many amulets and charms are perfectly harmless, and help to quiet and soothe the patient’s mind ”

“ And as he thought and pondered in his heart, the sinking sun gloaming through the great west window scattered a thousand jewels over the floor around him, and he rose and knew that religion brightens life, and colours with rose and gold the dark shadow brooding over the soul of man. ”

“ Festus could have sat quietly at the feet of God. He could never have erred in this great way. God is not made like us. It will be like Him to save him! Now Paracelsus awakes; his failing strength struggles like the flame of an expiring taper. At first, in half-delirious phrases, he tells of the hissing and contempt which struck at his heart at Basle—the measureless scorn heaped on him, as they called him quack and cheat and liar. And now he cries that human love is gone; he dreams of Aprile; he calls on God for one hour of strength to set his heart on Him and love. ”

“ He is the most independent little deity, and cares for nothing but having his own sweet will upon us mortals. What he is chiefly to be praised for is the absence of favouritism and perfect impartiality which he always shows. None ever bribed him, none ever clad himself in panoply impervious to his darts. You may be hit before your beard has downed your chin with faintest bloom. You may go shot free till you are grey and bent, and then have to plaster up your hurt when you should be composing your epitaph, like the poor old queen in Browning’s play. ”

“ God will come in thunder from the stars to save her, so he will triumph over his decay; when the calm comes again after the fever has subsided, he will do something equal to his conjecture. He can project himself into all forms of Nature, live the life of plants, mount bird-like, breathe in a fish the morning air in the sun-warm water. He will build a thought-world; he is inspired. Pauline shall come with him to the world of fancy through the ghostly night and sun-warmed morning; he is concentrated, he drinks in the life of all, yet cannot be immortal for all these struggling aims. ”

“ Elsworth was not in love with Linda in any true sense. He was attracted towards her by her brilliancy, wit, and mental powers. She was not beautiful if you analysed her form and features,—not one of the latter would have passed muster with an artist; yet, taken altogether, with intellect and grace beaming from her eyes, and influencing every movement, she was just the woman a clever man would fall in love with while in her presence. ”

“ His heart was human once. He had loving friends in Würzburg; but love has gone, and his life’s one idea has absorbed him, to obtain at all costs his reward in the lump. God may take pleasure in confounding such pride. He may have been fighting sleep off for death’s sake. Is his mind stricken? He believes that God would warn him before He struck. And now from within he hears a voice. It is that of Aprile, the spirit of a departed poet, who has aspired to love beauty only. As Paracelsus has sought knowledge alone, Aprile would love infinitely all forms of art and all the delights of Nature. ”

“ Ixion had been admitted, all human as he was, to the company of the gods as their equal. He had faith in the good faith and the love of Zeus, and for acting upon it was cast from Olympus to Erebus. Man conceived Zeus as possessing his own virtues: he trusted, loved him because Zeus aspired to be equal in goodness to man. Ixion defies him, tells him he apes the man who made him; it is Zeus who is hollowness. The iris, born of Ixion’s tears, sweat and blood, bursting to vapour above, arching his torment, glorifies his pain; and man, even from hell’s triumph, may look up and rejoice. ”

“ Out of what poor elements does some great master create his new world! Shall we say that all this exuberant inventiveness is a mere ingenuity or trick of art, like some fashion of the day, without reality, without meaning?... Is it possible that inexhaustible evolution and disposition of notes, so rich yet so simple, so intricate yet so regulated, so various yet so majestic, should be a mere sound which is gone and perishes? ”

“ When Moses smote the rock and saved the Israelites, he had mocking and sneering for his reward: the ungrateful and unbelieving multitude behaved after their manner. Could Moses forget the ancient wrong he bore about him? Dare the man ever put off the prophet? But were there in all that crowd a woman’s face—a woman he could love—he would for her sake lay down the wonder-working rod, for he would be as the camel giving up its store of water with its life. ”

“ Here we discover the secret of the soullessness: the fellow has the tailor in his blood, even though the artist is supreme at the fingers’ ends. He is but the craftsman after all. Think of Fra Angelico painting his saints and angels on his knees, straining his eyes to catch the faintest glimpse of the heavenly radiance of Our Lady’s purity and holiness, feeling that he failed, too dazzled by the brightness of Divine light, to catch more than its shadow, and we shall know why there is soul in the great Dominican painter, and why there is none in the Sarto. ”

“ As for her child, it should not be the Count’s at all—“only his mother’s, born of love, not hate!” Then, with her fast-failing mind-sight, she turns to the image of “the lover of her life, the soldier-saint.” Death shall not part her from him: her weak hand in his strong grasp shall rest in the new path she is about to tread. She bids them tell him she is arrayed for death in all the flowers of all he had said and done. He is a priest, and could not marry; nor would he if he could, she thinks: the true marriage is for heaven. ”

“ The Fates bid Apollo go back to earth and wake it from dreams. Apollo demands a truce to their doleful amusement, and requests them to extend the years of Admetus to threescore and ten. The Fates ask him if he thinks it would add to his friend’s joy to have his life lengthened, seeing that life is only illusion? Infancy is but ignorance and mischief, youth becomes foolishness, and age churlishness. Apollo should ask for life for one whom he hates, not for the friend he loves. The Sun’s beams produce such semblance of good as exists by simply gilding the evil. ”