Abbildungen der Seite
PDF
EPUB

Among the giant fossils of my past,

Like some small nimble mouse between the ribs
Of a mastodon, I nibbled here and there

At this or that box, pulling through the gap,
In heats of terror, haste, victorious joy,
The first book first. And how I felt it beat
Under my pillow, in the morning's dark,
An hour before the sun would let me read!
My books!

At last, because the time was ripe,

I chanced upon the poets.

As the earth

Plunges in fury when the internal fires

Have reached and pricked her heart, and, throwing

flat

The marts and temples, the triumphal gates

And towers of observation, clears herself

To elemental freedom-thus my soul,

At poetry's divine first finger-touch,

Let go conventions and sprang up surprised,
Convicted of the great eternities

Before two worlds.

What's this, Aurora Leigh?

You write so of the poets, and not laugh?

Those virtuous liars, dreamers after dark,
Exaggerators of the sun and moon,

And soothsayers in a tea-cup!

I write so

Of the only truth-tellers now left to God—
The only speakers of essential truth,
Opposed to relative, comparative,

And temporal truths; the only holders by
His sun-skirts, through conventional grey glooms;
The only teachers who instruct mankind,
From just a shadow on a charnel-wall,
To find man's veritable stature out,
Erect, sublime-the measure of a man,
And that's the measure of an angel, says

The apostle. Ay, and while your common men
Build pyramids, gauge railroads, reign, reap, dine,
And dust the flaunty carpets of the world
For kings to walk on, or our senators,
The poet suddenly will catch them up

With his voice like a thunder—“This is soul,
This is life, this word is being said in heaven,
Here's God down on us! what are you about?"
How all those workers start amid their work,
Look round, look up, and feel, a moment's space,

That carpet-dusting, though a pretty trade,
Is not the imperative labour after all.

(Ibid.)*

GEORGE DAWSON.

[Born, 1821. Educated at the University of Glasgow. Went to Birmingham as minister at Mount Zion Chapel, 1844. 66 'An Address to the Eclectic Society," 1846. Opened the Church of the Saviour, 1846. "The Demands of the Age upon the Church " published, 1846. "The Christian Sunday not the Jewish Sabbath,” 1866. Edited the Birmingham Morning News, 1871—3. Visited America on a lecturing tour, 1874. Died. 1876.]

A GREAT LIBRARY THE DIARY OF THE HUMAN RACE.-A great library contains the diary of the human race; for it is with the human race as with the individuals of it; our memories go back but a little way, or, if they go back far, they pick up here a date and there an occurrence

* My thanks are due to Mr. Robert Browning for permission to quote these passages from "Aurora Leigh.”

half forgotten.

But when a man keeps a diary of his life, he can at any time bring the whole of its scenes before him. The memory of the human race is just as short, as fragmentary, and as accidental as the memory of the individual; but when the books of mankind are gathered together in a room like this, we can sit down and read the solemn story of man's history, from his birth through all his mutations, and so, in learning the history of man, we reverence our ancestors, ascertain our own pedigree, and find the secret sources of the life we ourselves are now living. Remember, we know well only the great nations whose books we possess; of the others we know nothing, or but little. The great Hebrew people their solemn thoughts and their glorious story

lie

open to us because we have their books. We know the Greek, we are familiar with the Roman, but as for the nameless tribes which peopled the far deserts of the world-unchronicled, bookless, libraryless-we have but a name, a date or two, a few myths, some trumpery legends, and that is all. But here in this room are gathered together the great diaries of the human race, the record

ways.

of its thoughts, its struggles, its doings, and its The great consulting room of a wise man is a library. When I am in perplexity about life I have but to come here, and, without fee or reward, I commune with the wisest souls that God has blest the world with. If I want a discourse on immortality, Plato comes to my help. If I want to know of the human heart, Shakespeare opens all its chambers. Whatever be my perplexity or doubt, I know exactly the great man to call to me, and he comes in the kindest way; he listens to my doubts, and tells me his convictions. So that a library may be regarded as the solemn chamber in which a man may take counsel with all that have been wise and great and good and glorious amongst the men that have gone before him. If we come down for a moment and look at the bare and immediate utilities of a library, we find that here a man gets himself ready for his calling, arms himself for his profession, finds out the facts that are to determine his trade, prepares himself for his examination. The utilities of it are endless and priceless. It is, too, a place for pastime; for man has no amusement

« ZurückWeiter »