in the great poems by the ideas and tendencies thus revealed. And finally, in the last part, I shall try to fasten on the important and peculiar points of that culture of which he took advantage to express his ideas. In studying the sources of his conceptions, I see in external inspiration only an occasion which helped and clarified the workings of his own peculiar thought. This fourth part will make clear also with what side of his own time he is to be connected. The book as a whole will thus link Milton's art to his thought, and both art and thought to his life, one in itself, varied in its expressions, political, private, philosophical, or artistic. And in doing so, it will endeavor to reveal his permanent value for us, to show that he was a man who suffered and fought, who sang and thought in such wise that he can bring comfort in all the struggles of man in all times, and not only the pleasure of mere artistic dilettantism. 1 The very center of Milton's personality seems to me to consist in a powerful feeling of egotism and pride, in the fullest self-consciousness of a tremendous individuality. And yet nothing mean or petty mixes here, and Trelawny, who, with all his faults, was a man and a judge of men, could permit himself to say: "The greatest man, although not the greatest poet, John Milton." 1 This is because there was deeply rooted in Milton a tendency to look upon himself not as an exception in the romantic manner, but as a normal representative of human nature. His high opinion of himself is also a high opinion of man. In the divorce pamphlets as well as in the letter on edu1 Records of Shelley, Byron, and the Author (London, 1878), p. 215. cation, in politics as well as in religion, he always tried to apply to others such rules and methods as he found good for himself. 1 Moreover, Milton always knew how to place above himself the Impersonal, the Cause. Great as he felt himself to be, he never forgot that he was first of all a great Servant. Hence a noble humility in his pride. He could sacrifice himself: to a Cause, he sacrificed at one time all his literary ambition, at another his eyesight; personal interest and the gratification of vanity had no place in his life. He often boasted of what he had done, but he had never undertaken anything in order solely to derive glory or profit from it; the mark of the Impersonal is on all that he did. This fact places him high above the great lords of literature, above Byron as above Hugo. Hence his exquisite courtesy towards his friends, hence his admirations - Galileo, for instance. He knew his peers; he could treat as equals all men of intelligence and culture. Hence again the balance of his character, that selfpossession so rarely found in company with excessive pride. Whereas Byron probably thought himself fit to be king of Greece, Milton did not believe himself worthy of a commission in the Civil War.2 This legitimate pride, in the full and fair knowledge of his capacities, as a representative of mankind, is the center of Milton's personality. His intelligence works with this feeling behind it always. Hence his fundamental idea that human nature is good and great, and, in essence, divine. Hence the necessity of liberty for man. But this pride is implanted in an intelligent and sensitive nature, which sees failure clearly and suffers deeply from it. 2 Cf. Masson, The Life of John Milton (London, 1871-1880), II, 472-86. Hence his theories of the Fall. And the same feeling of pride allows him no thought that places outside man either fall or regeneration. Clearly and pitilessly, Milton makes man responsible for his failure and his shame. We shall find in Milton, then, not only a supreme poetical genius and an incomparable master of expression, but a clear and powerful intellect and will, a deep and quick sensitiveness, and, towering above all other traits, pride - pride tremendous and yet worthy of respect because it does not separate Milton from his fellow-men, but rather unites him to them in sublime aspiration towards an ideal common to all mankind. Milton's thought comes from all these elements. The distinction between feeling and idea is purely fictitious, for Milton in any case. In his most abstruse ideas, apparently the work of the purest intellect, we find his feelings, elaborated and transposed into the refining, analyzing forms of language and art. |