and whose perceptive and reflective powers are high, is certainly worth having; let us endeavour to collect a verdict. To begin with early legend. Demeter, or Mother Earth, was the daughter of Chronos (Time) and the sister of Zeus, the father of the gods. She wore a garland of ears of corn, she bore a mystic basket of ripe fruit, and as the source of all prosperity was worshipped with great splendour at Athens : "Demeter, the giver of harvests, the mother of plenty of peace, Who quickens the life in the seed-corn to ripeness and joyful increase." * She was the mother of two children, Plutus (Wealth), who was born in a thrice-ploughed field at harvest time, and Persephone, the gladsome spring: "Persephone, bringer of blossoms, Persephone, lady of light, Whose beautiful feet on the meadows the flowers from their slumber awoke, Till narcissus, and crocus, and iris, like flames 'mid the grasses outbroke!" Here we have a root idea, simple and comprehensive; that all Use and all Beauty spring from old Mother Earth, and are to be found with her, rather than among our fellow men. But let us analyse the Power of Nature in the light of modern thought and feeling, and we shall see first of all, that it tends to have an ennobling effect on man himself. The deterioration of the race in large towns is easily seen, and there is a quiet dignity in agricultural labour, a good and independence in rural and village life, a sturdy patriotism about the small landowner, that has caught the observant eye of the poet in all ages. * Homeric Hymn to Demeter.-Trans. Lady Charlotte Elliot. Hear old Horace rejoicing in his snug little farm among the lovely Sabine hills overlooking the wide campagna, and gloating in the possession of it : "Often did I pray that I had a piece of land, not so very large, with a garden, and near the house a perennial spring of water, and a little wood besides. Heaven has done more and better for me than my wishes. It is well; son of Maia, I ask nothing further, save that thou wilt continue to me these blessings. I trust that I have not increased my property by any evil arts, and that I am not going to diminish it by vice, or negligence." * Hear him again as, enamoured of every detail, he minutely describes it to a friend in most musical verse: "To prevent your asking, my good Quinctius, about my farm, whether with arable land it supports its master, or enriches him with the berries of the olive, or with orchards, or meadow lands or the elm clad with vines, I will describe to you its form and situation in easy, chatty style. Imagine a line of hills, unbroken save by one shady valley, whose right side the morning sun illumines; while, departing with its swift car, it warms the left. You may well praise the temperature. Why, as the thorns bear so liberally the cornels and sloes, as the oak and ilex gladden the herds with plenty of acorns, and their master with thick shade, you would say Tarentum was transported there, with all its leafy woods."+ Turn aside for a moment to a modern parallel, equally minute and loving, that describes how the charm of saying, "It is mine!" sheds a halo on even the most trifling incidents : "A little croft we owned,- -a plot of corn, A garden stored with peas and mint and thyme, And flowers for posies, oft on Sunday morn Plucked while the church-bells rang their earliest chime. My hen's rich nest through long grass scarce espied; The cowslip-gathering in June's dewy prime; The swans that with white chests upreared in pride * Horace, Satires, Book II. 6. Horace, Epistles, Book I. 16. The staff I well remember which upbore The bending body of my active sire; Where the bees hummed, and chair by winter fire; Our watchful house-dog, that would tease and tire The redbreast, known for years, which at my casement pecked."* But to return to Horace and his farm. He is not selfish in his pleasure, for he can enter into the joys of possession as felt by another, as well as gladly confide in his own fate, which has allotted him so goodly a heritage. "Around you a hundred flocks bleat, and cows of Sicily low; for you the mare trained for the chariot raises its neighing, you fleeces clothe, twice dipped in the purple dye of Africa: to me the Fate who cannot be false has granted a small domain, and the delicate spirit of the Grecian Muse, and power to scorn the envious crowd.” † And yet once more, even when he wishes to point a moral, and a very good moral it is, too, and drawn from Nature, he must put in a word about the solid satisfaction he feels in the personal possession of land and homestead : "Bailiff of my woods and of my farm, which makes me my own master again, but which you despise, though five households live on it, let us have a friendly contest whether you will root the thorns more vigorously from my land, or I from my soul, and whether Horace himself or his farm shall be in a better state." To come to our own country, we find Chaucer, the father of English poetry, giving advice such as has been given hundreds of times since his day on the insecurity of Wordsworth, "Guilt and Sorrow." + Horace, "Odes," Book II. 16. Horace, "Epistles," Book I. 14. competition, and the peace and solidity of a country life: "Fle fro the pres, and dwelle with sothfastnesse, Suffice thee thy good, though hit be smal, For hord hath hate, and clymbing tickelnesse (insecurity), Pres hath envye, and wele blent over al" (wealth everywhere blinds people). * The simple dignity of rural labour early attracted the notice of English thinkers, and many are the disparagements of more showy and less useful work. Gascoigne, in his comment on Piers Plowman, is very plain-spoken on the subject: "Behold him, priests! . . Such climb to heaven before the shaven crowns; But how? Forsooth, with true humility; They feed with fruits of their great pains Than corn-fed beasts, whose belly is their god, Shakespeare dwells rather on the fickleness and ingratitude and base subservience engendered by life in courts and camps, and descants again and again on the noble simplicity of life unhampered by these considerations: "Are not these woods More free from peril than the envious court? Here feel we but the penalty of Adam, The season's difference: as the icy fang And churlish chiding of the winter's wind,- That feelingly persuade me what I am. Sweet are the uses of adversity; Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous, Wears yet a precious jewel in his head; * Chaucer, born 1340. + Gascoigne, born 1536. And this our life, exempt from public haunt, Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, I would not change it." * And hear him again : Did you but know the city's usuries And felt them knowingly: the art o' the court, Is certain falling, or so slippery that The fear 's as bad as falling: the toil o' the war, A pain that only seems to seek out danger I' the name of fame and honour: which dies i' the search, As record of fair act; nay, many times Doth ill deserve by doing well; what's worse, Must court'sy at the censure." † Fixing our attention on the life of the city, we cannot fail to notice that in practical matters, such as the formation of juries or committees, we assume that a number of men acting together will secure the combined wisdom of all those separate minds, but this supposition, faulty even where they act in unison, becomes an error where the combination is of individuals, each acting on independent self-interest. Then the lower parts of human nature rise and begin to absorb the higher, and the whole mass tends to lie at a low average level, pulling down each eminence of truth or beauty that rises above it, as a quicksand might absorb the adjacent rocks and banks of earth. Tennyson touches on this with a light hand : |