Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 by Various

V >> Various >> Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862

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One of the victims sacrificed by Mr. Froude on the altar of his Moloch
even he must have reluctantly brought to the temple, and have offered
up with a pang, but whose character he has blackened beyond all
redemption, as if he had used upon it all the dirt he has so
assiduously taken from the character of his royal favorite. There are
few names or titles of higher consideration than that of Henry Howard,
Earl of Surrey. It is sufficient to name Surrey to be reminded of the
high-born scholar, the gallant soldier, one of the founders of English
literature, and a poet of equal vigor of thought and melodiousness of
expression. His early and violent death, at the behest of a tyrant,
who himself had not ten days to live when he stamped--for he could no
longer write--the death-warrant of his noblest subject, has helped to
endear his memory for three centuries; and many a man whose sympathies
are entirely with the Reformation and the "new men" of 1546, regrets
the untimely death of the Byron of those days, though the noble poet
was at the head of the reactionary party, and desired nothing so much
as to have it in his power to dispose of the "new men," in which case
he would have had the heads of Hertford and his friends chopped off as
summarily as his own head fell before the mandate of the King.
Everything else is forgotten in the recollection of the Earl's youth,
his lofty origin, his brilliant talents, his rank as a man of letters,
and his prompt consignment to a bloody grave, the last of the legion of
patricians sent by Henry to the block or the gallows. Yet it is Surrey
upon whom Mr. Froude makes his last attack, and whom he puts down as a
dirty dog, in order that Henry VIII may not be seen devoting what were
all but his very latest hours to the task of completing the judicial
murder of one whom he hated because he was so wonderfully elevated
above all the rest of his subjects as to be believed capable of
snatching at the crown, though three of the King's children were then
alive, and there were several descendants of two of his sisters in both
Scotland and England. Because, of all men who were then living, Surrey
most deserved to reign over England, the jealous tyrant supposed there
could be no safety for his youthful son until the House of Howard had
been humiliated, and both its present head and its prospective head
ceased to exist. Not satisfied with attributing to him political
offences that do not necessarily imply baseness in the offender, Mr.
Froude indorses the most odious charges that have been brought against
Surrey, and which, if well founded, utterly destroy all his claims to
be considered, we will not say a man of honor, but a man of common
decency. Without having stated much that is absolutely new, Mr. Froude
has so used his materials as to create the impression that Surrey, the
man honored for three centuries as one of the most chivalrous of
Englishmen, and as imbued with the elevating spirit of poetry, was a
foul fellow, who sought to engage his sister in one of the vilest
intrigues ever concocted by courtier, in order that she might be made a
useful instrument in the work of changing the political condition of
England. Henry's illegitimate son, Henry Fitz-Roy, Duke of Richmond,
whom he had at one time thought of declaring his successor, died,
leaving a widow, who was Surrey's sister. This lady told Sir Gawin
Carew that her brother had advised her so to bear herself toward the
King that possibly "his Majesty might cast some love unto her, whereby
in process she should bear as great a stroke about him as Madame
d'Estampes did about the French king." Madame d'Estampes was the most
notorious and influential of Francis I.'s many mistresses; and if
Carew's evidence is to be depended upon, we see what was the part
assigned by Surrey to his sister in the political game the old
aristocracy and the Catholics were playing. She, the widow of the
King's son, was to seduce the King, and to become his mistress! Carew's
story was confirmed by another witness, and Lady Richmond had
complained of Surrey's "language to her with abhorrence and disgust,
and had added, 'that she defied her brother, and said that they should
all perish, and she would cut her own throat, rather than she would
consent to such villany.'" On Surrey's trial, Lady Richmond also
confirmed the story, and "revealed his deep hate of the 'new men,' who,
'when the King was dead,' he had sworn 'should smart for it.'" Such is
the tale, and such is the evidence upon which it rests. Its truth at
first appears to be beyond dispute, but it is possible that all the
witnesses lied, and that the whole process was a made-up thing to aid
in reconciling the public to the summary destruction of so illustrious
a man as Surrey; and it was well adapted to that end,--the English
people having exceeded all others in their regard for domestic
decencies and in reverence for the family relations of the sexes.
Should it be said that it is more probable that Surrey was guilty of
the moral offence charged upon him than that his sister could be
guilty of inventing the story and then of perjuring herself to support
it, we can but reply, that Lady Rocheford, wife of Anne Boleyn's
brother, testified that Anne had been guilty of incest with that
brother, and afterward, when about to die, admitted that she had
perjured herself. Of the two offences, supposing Lady Richmond to
have sworn away her brother's life, that of Lady Rocheford was by far
the more criminal, and it is beyond all doubt. So long as there is
room for doubting Surrey's guilt, we shall follow the teaching of the
charitable maxim of our law, and give him the benefit of the doubt
which is his due.

The question of the guilt or innocence of Anne Boleyn is a tempting
one, in connection with Henry VIII.'s history; but we have not now the
space that is necessary to treat it justly. We may take it up another
time, and follow Mr. Froude through his ingenious attempts to show that
Anne must have been guilty of incest and adultery, or else--dreadful
alternative!--we must come to the conclusion that Henry VIII. was not
the just man made perfect on earth.

* * * * *

WHY THEIR CREEDS DIFFERED.

Bedded in stone, a toad lived well,
Cold and content as toad could be;
As safe from harm as monk in cell,
Almost as safe from good was he

And "What is life?" he said, and dozed;
Then, waking, "Life is rest," quoth he:
"Each creature God in stone hath closed,
That each may have tranquillity.

"And God Himself lies coiled in stone,
Nor wakes nor moves to any call;
Each lives unto himself alone,
And cold and night envelop all."

He said, and slept. With curious ear
Close to the stone, a serpent lay.
"'T is false," he hissed with crafty sneer,
"For well I know God wakes alway.

"And what is life but wakefulness,
To glide through snares, alert and wise,--
With plans too deep for neighbors' guess,
And haunts too close for neighbors' eyes?

"For all the earth is thronged with foes,
And dark with fraud, and set with toils:
Each lies in wait, on each to close,
And God is bribed with share of spoils."

High in the boughs a small bird sang,
And marvelled such a creed should be.
"How strange and false!" his comment rang;
"For well I know that life is glee.

"For all the plain is flushed with bloom,
And all the wood with music rings,
And in the air is scarcely room
To wave our myriad flashing wings.

"And God, amid His angels high,
Spreads over all in brooding joy;
On great wings borne, entranced they lie,
And all is bliss without alloy."

"Ah, careless birdling, say'st thou so?"
Thus mused a man, the trees among:
"Thy creed is wrong; for well I know
That life must not be spent in song.

"For what is life, but toil of brain,
And toil of hand, and strife of will,--
To dig and forge, with loss and pain,
The truth from lies, the good from ill,--

"And ever out of self to rise
Toward love and law and constancy?
But with sweet love comes sacrifice,
And with great law comes penalty.

"And God, who asks a constant soul,
His creatures tries both sore and long:
Steep is the way, and far the goal,
And time is small to waste in song."

He sighed. From heaven an angel yearned:
With equal love his glances fell
Upon the man with soul upturned,
Upon the toad within its cell.

And, strange! upon that wondrous face
Shone pure all natures, well allied:
There subtlety was turned to grace,
And slow content was glorified;

And labor, love, and constancy
Put off their dross and mortal guise,
And with the look that is to be
They looked from those immortal eyes.

To the faint man the angel strong
Beached down from heaven, and shared his pain:
The one in tears, the one in song,
The cross was borne betwixt them twain.

He sang the careless bliss that lies
In wood-bird's heart, without alloy;
He sang the joy of sacrifice;
And still he sang, "_All_ life is joy."

But how, while yet he clasped the pain,
Thrilled through with bliss the angel smiled,
I know not, with my human brain,
Nor how the two he reconciled.

* * * * *

PRESENCE.

It was a long and terrible conflict,--I will not say where, because
that fact has nothing to do with my story. The Revolutionists were no
match in numbers for the mercenaries of the Dictator, but they fought
with the stormy desperation of the ancient Scythians, and they won, as
they deserved to win: for this was another revolt of freedom against
oppression, of conscience against tyranny, of an exasperated people
against a foreign despot. Every eye shone with the sublimity of a great
principle, and every arm was nerved with a strength grander and more
enduring than that imparted by the fierceness of passion or the
sternness of pride. As I flew from one part of the field to another, in
execution of the orders of my superior officer, I wondered whether
blood as brave and good dyed the heather at Bannockburn, or streamed
down the mountain-gorge where Tell met the Austrians at Morgarten, or
stained with crimson glare the narrow pass held by the Spartan three
hundred.

Suddenly my horse, struck by a well-aimed ball, plunged forward in the
death-struggle, and fell with me, leaving me stunned for a little time,
though not seriously hurt. With returning consciousness came the
quickened perception which sometimes follows a slight concussion of the
brain, daguerreotyping upon my mind each individual of these fiery
ranks, in vivid, even painful clearness. As I watched with intensified
interest the hurrying panorama, the fine figure and face of my friend
Vilalba flashed before me. I noted at once the long wavy masses of
brown hair falling beneath the martial cap; the mouth, a feature seldom
beautiful in men, blending sweetness and firmness in rare degree, now
compressed and almost colorless; but the eyes! the "empty, melancholy
eyes"! what strange, glassy, introspective fixedness! what inexplicable
fascination, as if they were riveted on some object unseen by other
mortals! A glance sufficed to show to myself, at least, that he was in
a state of tense nervous excitation, similar to that of a subject of
mesmerism. A preternatural power seemed to possess him. He moved and
spoke like a somnambulist, with the same insulation from surrounding
minds and superiority to material obstacles. I had long known him as a
brave officer; but here was something more than bravery, more than the
fierce energy of the hour. His mien, always commanding, was now
imperial. In utter fearlessness of peril, he assumed the most exposed
positions, dashed through the strongest defences, accomplished with
marvellous dexterity a wellnigh impossible _coup-de-main_, and
all with the unrecognizing, changeless countenance of one who has no
choice, no volition, but is the passive slave of some resistless
inspiration.

After the conflict was over, I sought Vilalba, and congratulated him on
his brilliant achievement, jestingly adding that I knew he was leagued
with sorcery and helped on by diabolical arts. The cold evasiveness of
his reply confirmed my belief that the condition I have described was
abnormal, and that he was himself conscious of the fact.

Many years passed away, during which I met him rarely, though our
relations were always those of friendship. I heard of him as actively,
even arduously employed in public affairs, and rewarded by fortune and
position. The prestige of fame, unusual personal graces, and high
mental endowments gave him favor in social life; and women avowed that
the mingled truth and tenderness of his genial and generous nature were
all but irresistible. Nevertheless they were chagrined by his singular
indifference to their allurements; and many a fair one, even more
interested than inquisitive, vainly sought to break the unconquerable
reticence which, under apparent frankness, he relentlessly maintained.
He had, indeed, once been married, for a few years only; but his wife
was not of those who can concentrate and absorb the fulness of another
soul, wedding memory with immortal longing. Thus the problem of my
friend's life-long reserve continued to provoke curiosity until its
solution was granted to me alone, and, with it, the explanation of his
mesmeric entrancement on the occasion to which I have alluded. I repeat
the story because it is literally _true_, and because some of its
incidents may be classed among those psychological phenomena which form
the most occult, the most interesting, and the least understood of all
departments of human knowledge.

During a period of summer recreation I induced Vilalba to renew our
interrupted acquaintance by passing a month with me in my country
home. The moonlight of many years had blended its silver with his
still abundant locks, and the lines of thought were deepened in his
face, but I found him in other respects unchanged. He had the same
deep, metallic voice, so musical that to hear him say the slightest
things was a pleasure, the same graceful courtesy and happy elasticity
of temperament; and was full as ever of noble purposes, and the Roman
self-conviction of power to live them out. One of those nights that
"are not made for slumber" found us lingering beneath the odorous vines
which interlocked their gay blossoms around the slight columns of the
veranda, until even the gray surprise of dawn,--the "soft, guileless
consolations" of our cigars, as Aeschylus says of certain other
incense, the cool, fragrant breezes, gentle as remembered kisses upon
the brow, the tremulous tenderness of the star-beams, the listening
hush of midnight, having swayed us to a mood of pensiveness which found
a reflex in our conversation. From the warning glare of sunlight the
heart shuts close its secrets; but hours like these beguile from its
inmost depths those subtile emotions, and vague, dreamy, delicious
thoughts, which, like plants, waken to life only beneath the protecting
shadows of darkness. "Why is it," says Richter, "that the night puts
warmer love in our hearts? Is it the nightly pressure of helplessness,
or is it the exalting separation from the turmoils of life,--that
veiling of the world in which for the soul nothing then remains but
souls,--that causes the letters in which loved names are written to
appear like phosphorus-writing by night, on _fire_, while day, in
their cloudy traces, they but _smoke_?"

Insensibly we wandered into one of those weird passages of
psychological speculation, the border territory where reason and
illusion hold contested sway,--where the relations between spirit and
matter seem so incomprehensibly involved and complicated that we can
only feel, without being able to analyze them, and even the old words
created for our coarse material needs seem no more suitable than would
a sparrow's wings for the flight of an eagle.

"It is emphatically true of these themes," I remarked, after a long
rambling talk, half reverie, half reason, "that language conceals the
ideas, or, rather, the imaginations they evolve; for the word idea
implies something more tangible than vagaries which the Greek poet
would have called 'the dream of the shadow of smoke.' But yet more
unsatisfactory than the impotence of the type is the obscurity of the
thing typified. We can lay down no premises, because no basis can be
found for them,--and establish no axioms, because we have no
mathematical certainties. Objects which present the assurance of
palpable facts to-day may vanish as meteors to-morrow. The effort to
crystallize into a creed one's articles of faith in these mental
phantasmagoria is like carving a cathedral from sunset clouds, or
creating salient and retreating lines of armed hosts in the northern
lights. Though willing dupes to the pretty fancy, we know that before
the light of science the architecture is resolved into mist, and the
battalions into a stream of electricity."

"Not so," replied Vilalba. "Your sky-visions are a deceit, and you know
it while you enjoy them. But the torch of science is by no means
incendiary to the system of psychology. Arago himself admits that it
may one day obtain a place among the exact sciences, and speaks of the
actual power which one human being may exert over another without the
intervention of any known physical agent; while Cuvier and other noted
scientists concede even more than this."

"Do you, then, believe," I asked, "that there is between the silent
grave and the silent stars an answer to this problem we have discussed
to-night, of the inter-relation between spirit and matter, between
soul and soul? To me it seems hopelessly inscrutable, and all effort
to elucidate it, like the language of the Son of Maia, 'by night
bringeth darkness before the eyes, and in the daytime nought clearer.'
I shall as soon expect to wrest her buried secrets from the Sphinx, or
to revive the lost mysteries of the Egyptian priesthood."

"And yet, most of those marvels," answered my friend, "as well as the
later oracles of Greece, and the clairvoyance, mesmerism, etc., of
modern times, were probably the result of a certain power of the mind
to shake off for a time its fetters in defiance of physical
impediments, and even to exert its control over the senses and will and
perception of another. I do not doubt that in certain conditions of
the mind there arise potentialities wonderful as any ever conceived by
fiction, and that these are guided by laws unannounced as yet, but
which will be found in some future archives, inducted in symmetrical
clearness through the proper process of phenomena, classification, and
generalized statement. My own experience suffices to myself for both
assurance and prophecy. Although the loftiest, sweetest music of the
soul is yet unwritten, its faint articulations interblend with the
jangling discords of life, as the chimes of distant bells float through
the roar of winds and waves, and chant to imperilled hearts the songs
of hope and gladness."

His voice fell to the low, earnest tone of one who has found in life a
pearl of truth unseen by others; and as his eye gleamed in the
starlight, I saw that it wore the same speculative expression as on the
battle-field twenty years before. A slight tremor fled through his
frame, as though he had been touched by an invisible hand, and a faint
smile of recognition brightened his features.

"How can we explain," continued he, after a brief pause, "this mystery
of PRESENCE? Are you not often conscious of being actually nearer to a
mind a thousand miles distant than to one whose outer vestments you can
touch? We certainly feel, on the approach of a person repulsive, not
necessarily to our senses, but to our instincts,--which in this case
are notes of warning from the remote depths of the soul,--as if our
entire being intrenched itself behind a vitally repellent barrier, in
absolute security that no power in the universe can break through it,
in opposition to our will. For the will does not seem to create the
barrier, but to guard it; and, thus defended, material contact with the
individual affects us no more than the touch of a plaster statue. We
are each, and must remain, mutually unknowing and unknown. On the other
hand, does not fixed and earnest thought upon one we love seem to bring
the companion-spirit within the sacred temple of our own being,
infolded as a welcome guest in our warm charities and gentle joys, and
imparting in return the lustre of a serene and living beauty? If, then,
those whom we do not recognize as kindred are repelled, even though
they approach us through the aid and interpretation of the senses, why
may not the loved be brought near without that aid, through the more
subtile and more potent attraction of sympathy? I do not mean nearness
in the sense of memory or imagination, but that actual propinquity of
spirit which I suppose implied in the recognition of Presence. Nor do I
refer to any volition which is dependent on the known action of the
brain, but to a hidden faculty, the germ perhaps of some higher
faculty, now folded within the present life like the wings of a
chrysalis, which looks through or beyond the material existence, and
obtains a truer and finer perception of the spiritual than can be
filtered through the coarser organs of sight and hearing."

"Vilalba, you are evidently a disciple of Des Cartes. Your theory is
based on the idealistic principle, 'I think, therefore I am.' I confess
that I could never be satisfied with mere subjective consciousness on a
point which involves the cooperation of another mind. Nothing less than
the most positive and luminous testimony of the senses could ever
persuade me that two minds could meet and commune, apart from material
intervention."

"I know," answered Vilalba, "that it is easier to feel than to reason
about things which lie without the pale of mathematical demonstration.
But some day, my friend, you will learn that beyond the arid
abstractions of the schoolmen, beyond the golden dreams of the poets,
there is a truth in this matter, faintly discerned now as the most dim
of yonder stars, but as surely a link in the chain which suspends the
Universe to the throne of God. However, your incredulity is
commendable, for doubt is the avenue to knowledge. I admit that no
testimony is conclusive save that of the senses, and such witness I
have received.

"You speak perpetual enigmas, and I suspect you--for the second
time--of tampering with the black arts. Do you mean to say that you are
a believer in the doctrine of palpable spiritual manifestation?"

"I might say in its favor," was the reply, "that apart from the
pretences and the plausibilities of to-day, many of which result from
the independent action of the mind through clairvoyance, and others
from mere excitation of the nervous sensibilities, the truth of that
theory is possibly implied in the wants of the soul; for a want proves
the existence of an antidote as effectually as a positive and negative
interchangeably bear witness to each other's existence. But if you will
have patience to listen to a story of my own life, I can better explain
how my convictions have been beguiled into the credence which appears
to you unphilosophical, if not absurd."

"I will listen with pleasure,--first lighting another cigar to dispel
the weird shapes which will probably respond to your incantation."

Vilalba smiled slightly.

"Do not be disturbed. The phantoms will not visit you, not, I fear,
myself either. But you must promise faith in my veracity; for I am
about to tell you a tale of fact, and not of fancy.

"It happened to me many years ago,--how flatteringly that little
phrase seems to extend the scale of one's being!--when I had just
entered on the active duties of manhood, that some affairs called me to
New Orleans, and detained me there several months. Letters of
friendship gave me admission into some of the most agreeable French
families of that _quasi_ Parisian city, and in the reception of
their hospitality I soon lost the feeling of isolation which attends a
stranger in a crowded mart. My life at that time was without shadows. I
had health, friends, education, position,--youth, as well, which then
seemed a blessing, though I would not now exchange for it my crown of
years and experience. Fortune only I then had not; and because I had it
not, I am telling you, to-night, this story.

"It chanced, one day, that I was invited to dine at the house of an
aristocratic subject of the old French _régime_. I did not know
the family, and a previous engagement tempted me to decline the
invitation; but one of those mysterious impulses which are in fact the
messengers of Destiny compelled me to go, and I went. Thus slight may
be the thread which changes the entire web of the future! After
greeting my host, and the party assembled in the drawing-room, my
attention was arrested by a portrait suspended in a recess, and partly
veiled by purple curtains, like Isis within her shrine. The lovely,
living eyes beamed upon me out of the shrine, radiant with an internal
light I had never before seen on canvas. The features were harmonious,
the complexion pure and clear, and the whole picture wore an air of
graceful, gentle girlhood, glowing, like Undine, with the flush of 'the
coming soul.' I hardly knew whether the face was strictly beautiful
according to the canons of Art; for only a Shakspeare can be at the
same time critical and sympathetic, and my criticism was baffled and
blinded by the fascination of those wondrous eyes. They reminded me of
what a materialist said of the portraits of Prudhon,--that they were
enough to make one believe in the immortality of the soul. Life
multiplied by feeling into a limitless dream of past and future was
mirrored in their clear depths; the questful gaze seemed reading the
significance of the one through the symbols of the other, and pondering
the lesson with sweetness of assent and ever-earnest longing for fuller
revelation.

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