Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 66, No 405, July 1849. Various
– where's the board? Let us have a game.
NORTH.
Drafts – and you quote Anderson and the Shepherd Laddie.
TALBOYS.
Mr North, why so querulous?
NORTH.
Where was the Art of Criticism? Where Prose? Young Scotland owes all her Composition to me – buries me in the earth – and then claims inspiration from heaven. "How sharper than a Serpent's tooth it is to have a thankless Child!" Peter – Peterkin – Pym – Stretch – where are your lazinesses – clear decks.
"Away with Melancholy —
Nor doleful changes ring
On Life and human Folly,
But merrily, merrily sing – fal la!"
BULLER.
What a sweet pipe! A single snatch of an old song from you, sir —
NORTH.
Why are you glowering at me, Talboys?
TALBOYS.
It has come into my head, I know not how, to ask you a question.
NORTH.
Let it be an easy one – for I am languid.
TALBOYS.
Pray, sir, what is the precise signification of the word "Classical?"
NORTH.
My dear Talboys, you seem to think that I have the power of answering, off-hand, any and every question a first-rate fellow chooses to ask me. Classical – classical! Why, I should say, in the first place – One and one other Mighty People – Those, the Kings of Thought – These, the Kings of the Earth.
TALBOYS.
The Greeks – and Romans.
NORTH.
In the second place —
TALBOYS.
Attend – do attend, gentlemen. And I hope I am not too much presuming on our not ancient friendship – for I feel that a few hours on Lochawe-side give the privilege of years – in suggesting that you will have the goodness to use the metal nut-crackers; they are more euphonious than ivory with walnuts.
NORTH.
In the second place – let me consider – Mr Talboys – I should say – in the second place – yes, I have it – a Character of Art expressing itself by words: a mode – a mode of Poetry and Eloquence – Fitness and Beauty.
TALBOYS.
Thank you, sir. Fitness and Beauty. Anything more?
NORTH.
Much more. We think of the Greeks and Romans, sir, as those in whom the Human Mind reached Superhuman Power.
TALBOYS.
Superhuman?
NORTH.
We think so – comparing ourselves with them, we cannot help it. In the Hellenic Wit, we suppose Genius and Taste met at their height – the Inspiration Omnipotent – the Instinct unerring! The creations of Greek Poetry! – Ποιησις – a Making! There the soul seems to be free from its chains – happily self-lawed. "The Earth we pace" is there peopled with divine Forms. Sculpture was the human Form glorified – deified. And as in Marble, so in Song. Something common – terrestrial – adheres to our being, and weighs us down. They – the Hellenes – appear to us to have really walked – as we walk in our visions of exaltation – as if the Graces and the Muses held sway over daily and hourly existence, and not alone over work of Art and solemn occasion. No moral stain or imperfection can hinder them from appearing to us as the Light of human kind. Singular, that in Greece we reconcile ourselves to Heathenism.
TALBOYS.
It may be that we are all Heathens at heart.
NORTH.
The enthusiast adores Greece – not knowing that Greece monarchies over him, only because it is a miraculous mirror that resplendently and more beautifully reflects – himself —
"Divisque videbit
Permixtos Heroas, et Ipse, videbitur illis."
SEWARD.
Very fine.
NORTH.
O life of old, and long, long ago! In the meek, solemn, soul-stilling hush of Academic Bowers!
SEWARD.
The Isis!
NORTH.
My youth returns. Come, spirits of the world that has been! Throw open the valvules of these your shrines, in which you stand around me, niched side by side, in visible presence, in this cathedral-like Library! I read Historian, Poet, Orator, Voyager – a life that slid silently away in shades, or that bounded like a bark over the billows. I lift up the curtain of all ages – I stand under all skies – on the Capitol – on the Acropolis. Like that magician whose spirit, with a magical word, could leave his own bosom to inhabit another, I take upon myself every mode of existence. I read Thucydides, and I would be a Historian – Demosthenes, and I would be an Orator – Homer, and I dread to believe myself called to be, in some shape or other, a servant of the Muse. Heroes and Hermits of Thought – Seers of the Invisible – Prophets of the Ineffable – Hierophants of profitable mysteries – Oracles of the Nations – Luminaries of that spiritual Heaven! I bid ye, hail!
BULLER.
The fit is on him – he has not the slightest idea that he is in Deeside.
NORTH.
Ay – from the beginning a part of the race have separated themselves from the dusty, and the dust-devoured, turmoil of Action to Contemplation. Have thought – known – worshipped! And such knowledge Books keep. Books now crumbling like Towers and Pyramids – now outlasting them! Books that, from age to age, and all the sections of mankind helping, build up the pile of Knowledge – a trophied Citadel. He who can read Books as they should be read, peruses the operation of the Creator in his conscious, and in his unconscious Works, which yet we call upon to join, as if conscious, in our worship. Yet why – oh! why all this pains to attain that, through the labour of ages, which in the dewy, sunny prime of morn, one thrill of transport gives to me and to the Lark alike, summoning, lifting both heavenwards? Ah! perchance because the dewy, sunny prime does not last through the day! Because light poured into the eyes, and sweet breath inhaled, are not the whole of man's life here below – and because there is an Hereafter!
SEWARD.
I know where he is, Buller. He called it well a Cathedral-like Library.
NORTH.
The breath of departed years floats here for my respiration. The pure air of heaven flows round about, but enters not. The sunbeams glide in, bedimmed as if in some haunt half-separated from Life, yet on our side of Death. Recess, hardly accessible – profound – of which I, the sole inmate, held under an uncomprehended restraint, breathe, move, and follow my own way and wise, apart from human mortals! Ye! tall, thick Volumes, that are each a treasure-house of austere or blazing thoughts, which of you shall I touch with sensitive fingers, of which violate the calmly austere repose? I dread what I desire. You may disturb – you may destroy me! Knowledge pulsates in me, as I receive it, communing with myself on my unquiet or tearful pillow – or as it visits me, brought on the streaming moonlight, or from the fields afire with noon-splendour, or looking at me from human eyes, and stirring round and around me in the tumult of men – Your knowledge comes in a holy stillness and chillness, as if spelt off tombstones.
SEWARD.
Magdalen College Library, I do believe. Mr North – Mr North – awake – awake – here we are all in Deeside.
NORTH.
Ay – ay – you say well, Seward. "Look at the studies of the Great Scholar, and see from