chapter 19
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Matthew Arnold calls the poetry of the best Greek poets the priestess of imaginative reason. Now the spirit of the ese people, as it is seen in the best spes of the products of their art and literature, is really what Matthew Arnold calls imaginative reason. Matthew Arnold says:_"The poetry of later Paganism lived by the senses and uanding: the poetry of medieval Christianity lived by the heart and imagination. But the mai of the modern spirits life, of the modern European spirit to-day, is her the senses and uanding, nor the heart and imagination, it is the imaginative reason."Now if it is true what Matthew Arnold says here that the element by which the modern spirit of the people of Europe to-day, if it would live right_has to live, is imaginative reason, then you see how valuable for the people of Europe this Spirit of the ese peo-pie is,_this spirit which Matthew Arnold calls imaginative reason. How valuable it is, I say, and how important it is that you should study it, try to uand it, love it, instead of ign, despising and trying to des藏书网troy it.
But now before I finally clude, I want to give you a warning. I want to warn you that when you think of this Spirit of the ese People, which I have tried to explain to you, you should bear in mind that it is not a sce, philosophy, theosophy, or any "ism, " like the theosophy or " ism" of Madame Blavatsky or Mrs. Besant. The Spirit of the ese People is not even what you would call a mentality_ an active w of the brain and mind. The Spirit of the ese People, I want to tell you, is a state of mind, a temper of the soul, which you ot learn as you learn shorthand or Esperanto_in short, a mood, or in the words of the poet, a serene and blessed mood.
Now last of all I want to ask your permission to recite to you a few lines of poetry from the most ese of the English poets, Wordsworth, which better than anything I have said or say, will describe to you the serene and blessed mood which is the Spirit of the ese People. These few lines of the English poet will put before you in a way I ot hope to do, that happy union of soul with intelle the ese type of humanity, that serene and blessed mood which gives to the real aman his inexpressible gentleness. Wordsworth in his lines on Tintern Abbey says:_
"... nor less, I trust To them I may have owed anift Of aspect more sublime: that blessed mood In which the burthen of the mystery, In which the heavy and the weary weight Of all this unintelligible world, Is lightehat serene and blessed mood In which the affes gently lead us on, _
Until, the breath of this corporeal frame And even motion of our human blood Almost suspended, we are laid asleep In body, and bee a living soul:
While with an eye made quiet by the power Of harmony, and the deep power of joy, We see into the life of things. "
The serene and blessed mood whiables us to see into the life of things: that is imaginative reason, that is the Spirit of the ese People.
THE ESE WOMAN
Matthew Arnold, speaking of the argument taken from the Bible which was used in the House of ons to support the Bill for enabling a man to marry his deceased wifes sister, said: "Who will believe when he really siders the matter, that when the femiure, the feminine ideal and our relations with them are brought into question, the delicate and apprehensive genius of the Indo-European race, the race whivehe Muses, and Chivalry, and the Madonna, is to find its last word on this question in the institution of a Semitic people whose wisest <dfn>藏书网</dfn>King had seven hundred wives and three hundred es?"
The two words I want for my purpose here from the above long quotatiohe words " feminine ideal." Now what is the ese feminine ideal? What is the ese peoples ideal of the femiure and their relations to that ideal? But befoing further, let me, with all defereo Matthew Arnold, and respect for his Indo-European race, say here that the feminine ideal of the Semitic race, of the old Hebrew people is not such a horrid one as Matthew Arnold would have us infer from the fact that their wisest King had a multitude of wives and es. For here is the feminine ideal of the old Hebrew people, as we find it in their literature: "Who find a virtuous woman? for her price is far above rubies. The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her. She rises also while it is<bdo>藏书网</bdo> yet night and giveth meat to her household and a portion to her maidens. She layeth her hands to the spindle and her fingers hold the distaff. She is not afraid of snow for her household ; for all her household are clothed in scarlet. She opeh her mouth with wisdom and in her
tongue is the law of kindness. She looketh well to the ways of her household ah not the bread of idleness. Her children rise up and call her blessed, her husband also and he praiseth her. "
This, I think, is not such a horrid, not such a bad ideal after all,_this feminine ideal of the Semitic race. It is of course not so etherial as the Madonna and the Muses, the feminine ideal of the In-do-European race. However, one must, I think, admit,_the Madonna and the Muses are very well to hang up as pictures in one s room, but if you put a broom into the hands of the Muses or send your Madonna into the kit, you will be sure to have your rooms in a mess and you will probably get in the m no breakfast at all. fucius says, "The ideal is not away from the actuality of human life. Wheake something away from the actuality of human life as the ideal,_that is not the true ideal."* But if the Hebrew feminine ideal ot be pared with the Madonna and the Muses, it very well, I think, pare with the modern European feminine ideal, the feminine ideal of the Indo-European ra Europe and America to-day. I will not speak of the suffragettes in England. But pare the old Hebrew feminine ideal with the modern feminine ideal such as one finds it in modern novels, with the heroine, for instance of Dumas Dame aux elias. By the way, it may i..erest people to know that of all the books in European literature which have been translated into ese, the novel of Dumas with the Madonna of the Mud as the superlative feminine ideal has had the greatest sale and success in the present up-to-date modern a. This Frenovel called in ese the Cha-hua-nuhas even been dramatised and put oage in all the up-to-date ese theatres in a. Now if you will pare the old feminine ideal of the Semitic race, the woman who is not afraid of the The Universal Order XIII.
snow for her household, for she has clothed them all in scarlet, with the feminine ideal of the Indo-European ra Europe to-day, the Camelia Lady who has no household, and therefore clotheth not her household, but herself in scarlet and goes with a Camelia flower on her breast to be photographed: then you will uand what is true and what is false, tinsel civilisation.
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