write and make intelligible to his less-agination is not only not discredited, but is gifted brothers." more than ever in demand. So far from To discuss these views fully would re-imagination receding, like the Red Indian, quire several lectures, not the end of one. I can now but throw out a few sugges tions. before the advance of reason and criticism, the truth is that expanding knowledge opens ever new fields for its operaSo far is it from being true that reason tion. Just as we see the produce of our has put out imagination, that perhaps there coal and iron mines used nowadays for never was a time when reason so called hundred industries to which no one imagination to her aid, and when imagi- dreamt of applying them a century ago, nation entered so largely into all literary so imagination enters into all our knowland even into scientific products. Imag-edge now, in ways undreamt of by former inative thought, which formerly expressed generations. More and more it is felt itself but rarely except in verse, now enters into almost every form of prose except the barely statistical. Indeed the boundary lines between prose and poetry have become obliterated, as those between prose and verse have become more than ever rigid. Consider how wide is the range of thought over which imagination now travels, how vast is the work it is called upon to do. Even in the most rigorous sciences it is present, whenever any discoverer would pass beyond the frontiers of the known, and encroach on the unknown by some wise question, some penetrating guess, which he labors afterwards by analysis to verify. This is what they call the scientific imagination. Again, what is it that enables the geologist from the contortions of strata, a few scratchings on rock surfaces, and embedded fossils here and there, to venture into the dark backward and abyss of time, and reconstruct and repeople extinct continents? What but a great fetch of imaginative power? Again, history, which a former age wrote or tried to write, with imagination rigorously suppressed, has of late rediscovered what Herodotus and Tacitus knew, that unless a true historic imagination is present to breathe on the facts supplied by antiquary and chronicler, a dead past cannot be made to live again. A dim and perilous way doubtless it is, leading by many a side-path down to error and illusion, but one which must be trod by the genuine historian, who would make the pale shadows of the past live. It is the same with every form of modern criticism with the investigations into the origins of language, of society, and of religion. These studies are impossible without the ever-present force of imagination, both to suggest hypotheses and to vivify the facts which research has supplied. It thus has come to pass that, in the growing subdivision of mental labor, im that, till the fire of imagination has passed over our knowledge and brought it into contact with heart and spirit, it is not really living knowledge, but dead material. You say perhaps if imagination is now employed in almost every field of knowledge, does any remain over to express itself in poetry or metrical language? Is any place left for what we used to know as poetry proper- thought metrically expressed? I grant that the old limits between prose and poetry tend to disappear. If poetry be the highest, most impassioned thoughts conveyed in the most perfect melody of words, we have many prose writers who, when at their best, are truly poets. Every one will recall passages of Jeremy Taylor's writings, which are, in the truest sense, not oratory, but poetry. Again, of how many in our time is this true? You can all lay your finger on splendid descriptions of nature by Mr. Ruskin, which leave all sober prose behind, and flood the soul, like the finest poetry, with imagery and music. As the highest instance of all I would name some of Dr. Newman's Oxford sermons. Many of these, instinct as they are with high spiritual thought, quivering with suppressed but piercing emotion, and clothed in words so simple, so transparent, that the very soul shines through them, suggest, as only great poems do, the heart's deepest secrets, and in the perfect rhythm and melody of their words, seem to evoke new powers from our native language. If, then, so much imagination is drained off to enrich other fields of literature; if, moreover, that peculiar combination of thought and emotion which is the essence of poetry, now often finds vent in the form of prose, what place, you may ask, still remains for the use of metrical language? Is verse, as a vehicle of thought, any longer genuine and natural? Is it not an anachronism, a mere imitation of a past CRITICISM AND CREATION. mode? Have not the old channels which Perhaps we may say that it can hardly be denied that some of the old channels are dry, some of the early forms of poetry are not likely to be revivified. Old civilizations do not naturally give birth to epics. Such as they do produce are apt to be not of the genuine, but rather of the imitative, sort. Again, of the drama, in its poetic form, it may well be doubted whether it has not gone into abeyance; whether the world at least this æon of it will see another revival of the drama as a living power. Its place has been in a great measure usurped by the modern novel· (I wish they would condense their three volumes into one) - the modern novel, which depicts character, groups of men and women, their attitudes, looks, gestures, conversations-all, in fact, which reveals life with a power that versified dialogue can hardly rival. All this may be conceded. And yet there remain large and deep ranges of experience which, just because they are so deep and tender, find no natural and adequate outlet but in some form of melodious and metrical language. Whether this shall be by original genius, pouring new life and rhythm into the old and well-used metres, or whether, by striking out novel and untried forms of metre, which may better chime with new dences of thought, I shall not venture to say. ca You ask for reality, not fiction and filigree work. Well, then, there are many of the most intense realities of which poetic and melodious words are the fittest, I might say the only, vehicle. There is the poetry of external nature, not merely to paint its outward shows to the eye, but to reproduce those feelings which its beauty awakens. There are those aspects of history in which great national events kindle our patriotism, or striking individual adventures thrill us with a sense of romance. is the whole world of the affections, those There elements of our being which earliest awake and last the longest. affections, the yearning for those whom no The deep home more we see, the unutterable dawnings on the soul as it looks towards the Eternal, these which are the deepest, most permanent things in man, though the least utterable in forms of the understanding, how are they to be even hinted at they can never be except in a form of expressed words the most rhythmical and musical man can attain to? All this side of things, which more and more, as life advances, poetry is the only form of human speech becomes to us the most real one-to this which can do justice. tive or meditative thought, when the poet, And yet when all is thought and said, Must still believe, for still we hope Will be completed, not undone. poetry that gives utterance to faith, to deLastly, there is religious poetry, the found its earliest, so I believe it will find votion, to aspiration. In these as poetry its latest springs of inspiration. Not only as the life of individual men, but as the life of the race advances, the deepest thoughts, the most earnest emotions, gather round religion and the secrets of which it alone holds the key. And the more we realize the inability of the logical faculty to breathe in the unseen world, and falls back grasp the things of faith-how it cannot paralyzed when it tries to enter it — the more we shall feel that some form of song adumbration of spiritual realities and the or musical language is the best possible emotions they awaken. An expansion of has seen, since the time when Wordsworth the field of religious poetry this century approached the world of nature with a sensitive love and reverence till then unknown, feeling himself and making others feel that the visible light that is in the heavens is akin to the light that lighteth every man fying feeling, this more religious attitude both coming from one centre. This uniseen in men's regard towards the visible world, may we not believe it to be the pre lude of a wider unity of feeling, which | Whist is a game which requires no ordishall yet take in, not nature only, but all nary combination of qualities; at the same truth and all existence? And if some of time, memory and invention, a daring our most earnest poets since Wordsworth's fancy, and a cool head. To a mind like day, feeling too sensitively the unbridged that of Tiresias, a pack of cards was full gulf between things seen and things un- of human nature. A rubber was a microseen, have wasted themselves on intracta- cosm, and he ruffed his adversary's king, ble problems, and sung their own doubts or brought in a long suit of his own, with "in sad perplexèd minors," yet this shall as much dexterity, and as much enjoyment not disturb our faith that the blue heaven as, in the real business of existence, he is behind the clouds, and that that heaven dethroned a monarch or introduced a is the poet's rightful home. As growing dynasty." time gives men more clearly to discern the real harmony between thought and fact, between the ideal and the actual world, the clouds will pass off the poet's soul and leave him to sing aloud a free, rejoicing worship. In the hope of that day we live, and though we may not see it, yet we nothing doubt that co me it will. J. C. SHAIRP. From The Spectator. MR. DISRAELI ON WHIST. AMONG Mr. Disraeli's early squibs is a bit of rhodomontade called "The Infernal Marriage," in which he narrates a journey of Proserpine's, taken for the benefit of her health, after her marriage to Pluto, from her proper region, Hell, to the Elysian fields, in company with the blind seer, Tiresias, and his daughter, Manto. Passing through the regions of twilight, Proserpine complains of dejection, and Tiresias proposes a rubber at whist. This gives Mr. Disraeli an opportunity, under the disguise of Tiresias, to descant upon whist, and we need hardly say that his views upon whist contain an interesting compendium of his views on the strategy of life. No one can read the Theban seer's remarks upon the game, without observing that the squibs of Mr. Disraeli's early days record a good many of the principles which have been embodied in his later years, nor without wondering how far the game which Tiresias played, with Proserpine for his partner, in passing from the realms of twilight to the regions of Elysium, may not be in some sense playing now within or without the walls of the Radziwill Palace at Berlin. "Tiresias," says Mr. Disraeli, "loved a rubber, and was a first-rate player, though perhaps given a little too much to finesse. Indeed, he so much enjoyed taking in his fellow-creatures, that he sometimes could not resist deceiving his own partner, Whether Lord Beaconsfield will succeed in ruffing his adversary's king, as he would doubtless like to do, remains to be seen, but it seems by no means impossible that he may not be able to resist deceiving "his own partner" in the game he is now playing, and introducing, if he can, "a long suit of his own," in the place of the suit Lord Salisbury would prefer to play. Certainly the first rule Tiresias laid down for the proper mastery of the game has been followed by Lord Beaconsfield to the letter, if not applied with almost slavish literalism, and beyond the true spirit of the rule. It is this: “If I might venture to offer your Majesty a hint, I would dare to recommend your Majesty not to play before your turn. My friends are fond of ascribing my success in my various missions to the possession of peculiar qualities. No such thing; I owe everything to the simple habit of always waiting till it is my turn to speak. And believe me, that he who plays before his turn at whist, commits as great a blunder as he who speaks before his turn during a negotiation." This is a principle which would seem to have been not only applied, but over applied, during the recent negotiations. No one in England certainly has ever been able to charge Lord Beaconsfield with playing out of his turn. His opponent's whole game has frequently been threatened at every point, but no one has known where the threat would or could be enforced. He has kept back all indications of the strong points of his hand to the latest moment possible; and even now, all the world is disputing as to the true meaning and drift of his play. Tiresias, in the game we are referring to, trumps his partner Proserpine's best card, and when asked to explain his reason, answers that he did so because he wanted the lead. "And those who want the lead, please your Majesty, must never hesitate about sacrificing their friends." Lord Carnarvon and Lord Derby know well how true that principle is to the policy of their late partner, and perhaps even his present partners know it too. Proserpine, thus indoctri-proaches his royal partner for not leading nated, asks humbly if she was right "in through her adversary's ace. "I have playing that thirteenth card," and Tiresias often observed," he says, "that nothing replies, "Quite so. Above all things, I ever perplexes an adversary so much as love a thirteenth card. I send it forth, an appeal to his honor." That ace, perlike a mock project in a revolution, to try haps, through which Lord Beaconsfield the strength of parties." Was the sum- would now like to lead, is the strong Rusmons to the native Indian troops a thir- sian position in the neighborhood of Conteenth card of this nature, "a mock stantinople, which might be permitted now project," sent forth "to try the strength to take a trick, in order to prevent its of parties"? Or is, perhaps, even the being used for a more critical purpose in secret agreement with Russia such a proj- future. That is an appeal to the Russian ect, which Lord Salisbury is to play only honor in more senses than one, and very that Lord Beaconsfield may trump it, and likely Lord Beaconsfield will find it a puzget the lead into his own hand? If it zling appeal, though not, it may be, a quite suits him, he certainly will not hesitate successful one. When the game is won, about sacrificing his friends and their proj. Proserpine expresses her pleasure that ect, so soon as it has "tried the strength Tiresias had turned up the queen, and he of parties." rejoins, "I also, madam. Without doubt, there are few cards better than her royal consort, or still more, the imperial ace. Nevertheless, I must confess I am perfectly satisfied, when I remember that I have the queen on my side." And so, no doubt, the great player still says, conscious as he is that both "the imperial ace" and "the queen are in his own hand. What the imperial ace fails to take, the queen may win. But there is still more of the card-player's finesse in the Stygian game of whist to suggest thoughts on the strategy of the moment. The other players, besides Tiresias and his partner Proserpine, are the captain of the infernal yacht and Tiresias's daughter Manto. To Manto her partner complains that she should have forced his hand, since by weakening him she had prevented his bringing in his spades; whereupon Tiresias makes a speech,"You should not have been forced. If she made a mistake who was unacquainted with your plans, what a terrible blunder you committed, to share her error without her ignorance." If any of Lord Beacons field's partners try to force his hand, one may be quite sure that he will be by no means willing to let his hand be forced; and that if it seems to be forced, he will be not unlikely to use the appearance to cover some deeper plan of his own. The captain of the yacht asks whether he ought to have lost a trick rather than allow his partner to put out his plans, and Tiresias replies, with a purpose which, as it turns out, was not quite straightforward, "Next to knowing how to seize an opportunity, the most important thing in life is to know when to forego an advantage." The captain of the yacht takes this maxim only too deeply to heart, and by acting upon it, loses the game; whereupon Tiresias cynically remarks, "There are exceptions to all rules, but it seldom answers to follow the advice of an opponent." Is the Anglo-Russian agreement, which certainly looks like a leaf taken out of Mr. Gladstone's book, the rare exception referred to? Or is Lord Beaconsfield about to resume the lead by trumping the best card of his partner, Lord Salisbury, and so carrying out his own rule? Tiresias re The danger of this sort of finesse is, however, not trifling. The player who is profoundly determined never to play his strong card too soon, may play it too late. The player who trumps his partner's trick in order to get the lead, is but too likely merely to lose a trick by the process. The player who is afraid, above everything, of taking advice from an opponent, may find that he has neglected the only counsel by which he could have won his game. The player who leads through his adversary's strongest card, may find that he has played into that adversaries' hand. The player who declines to be forced by his partner may sacrifice himself as well as his partner. The player who sends out the last card of a suit to try the strength of parties, may find that strength too much for him. The player who too sanguinely introduces a long suit of his own, may find it the very play to give the best effect to his adversarys' trumps. Tiresias was clearly much too refined a player, and that, we imagine, might be Lord Beaconsfield's danger. He may yet refuse to follow his partner's lead, when his partner's lead is a lead stronger than his own. We should not be surprised to find that even with a queen and an imperial ace in his hands, Lord Beaconsfield had overfinessed his play, and lost the game. |