 A true and perfect account of the miraculous sea monster or wonderful fish, lately taken in Ireland bigger than an ox yet without legs, bones, fins or scales, with two heads and ten horns of ten or eleven foot long, on eight of which horns there grew knobs about the bigness of a cloak button, in shape like crowns or coronets, to the number of a hundred on each horn, which were all open and had rows of teeth within them, and in all other parts wonderful and unparalleled, together with the manner how it first appeared, and was taken at the place called Dingle Eichef in the west of Ireland, and since brought to Dublin to be shown publicly, and all other material circumstances relating thereunto, faithfully communicated by an eyewitness. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Whereas several rumours and various reports have been spread abroad in discourse concerning these strange fish, taken in Ireland, we, having a very perfect and faithful account and description thereof, sent us some time since in a letter from a credible person that was an eyewitness of that monstrous sight, have thought fitful unveiling a report from the disguises of fiction, and preventing the abtrusion of, readers note, there is damage to this word, imperfect relations on the too oft abused world, to present the same plainly and truly in public view as a fig real and deservedly admirable. On the third of October last past, at a place called Dingle Eichef in the county of, readers note, damage to this word, the west of Ireland, one James Steward, riding by the seaside, as the tide was coming in, perceived at a distance something of a strange bigness to make towards the seawall. At first he apprehended it might be some horse that might have been caught away with the violence of the tide, and having recovered himself was now swimming to land, but approaching nearer, on a closer view, he was infinitely surprised and amazed, not so much at the bigness, which yet he found to exceed that of a horse, which he first took it for in the body, as at the uncouth shape and number of strange horns of great length, which rendered it not a little terrible to behold, in so much that he durst not go nearer to it, least it should destroy both him and his horse, wherefore riding off he went immediately to one Thompson that dwelt hard by on the beach, and, acquainting him with the strange adventure, desired his aid, and that he would break ropes and hand-spikes with him, and what other help he could procure, but there being none at that time at home, but himself and his wife, they could not get any other assistance. However, they too went down with him to the place where the man and his wife were both almost astonished at the sight of this strange monster, and the woman especially so far frightened that she would, by no means permit her husband, should go near or meddle with it, yet steward the first discoverer boldly adventured to ride up pretty near it, and at last to touch it with a rope, and found it made no resistance, but lay stranded on the ground, and wanted water to carry it off. Upon this Thompson and his wife, seeing it so peaceable and inoffensive, grew courageous, and came near to assist the other man, and by their joint labour they got ropes so about it, as they tumbled it over, and were able to hail it further on shore. During all which time it made no resistance, but when they went to lay hold on the horns, they found there on shells, like coronets with teeth within them, which got hold of their hands and fingers, so that they were glad to let them go, and the night coming on they were forced, for that time, to leave it, having dragged it quite upon dry land. Early next morning they returned with more company, whom the noise of this rare accident soon drew together, but at their coming they find the monster quite dead, and now had time to view, and not without wonder, consider its wonderful and prodigious shape, which they found as follows. The length of this sea-wonder, horns and all, was full nineteen foot, and in bulk or bigness of body, somewhat larger than a horse. It had two heads, the largest of which, joining immediately to the body, had no perfect distinct shape, but like a vast lump, where in nothing plainly appeared but two eyes, of an oval form, and of extraordinary bigness. This great head carried the horns ten in number, of which the two longest were situated in the middle, and were smooth. Unlike the other eight, viz four on each side were all raised or crooked, and upon them grew curious shells as it were of the bigness of a large clock-button, but in form and shape, like crowns or coronets, two and two together, and over against each other to the number of one hundred in all on each horn. On top of every one of these buttons or coronets was the resemblance of a pearl, which was to open and shut as a little mouth, and had within it a row of teeth, so that it should seem, beside the mouth of the little head, which we shall describe it by and by, this monster received nourishment for its body at eight hundred several places for to that number or thereabouts, did the crowns on all the eight horns amount. Besides, it had a natural power to contract or draw in these horns into its head as a snail does, and extend them again at pleasure. But when it was dead, they all stood out at their full length, some of them being eight or ten foot long, and the two longest, which were of equal size, and length eleven foot. Between these two smooth longest horns, and in the middle of all the rest, grew up from the great head, the little or smaller head, at about three or four foot distance. This was a shape much like the head of a hawk, looking upward, and had a strange mouth and two tongues in it, and here too, no doubt, did it take in much of its nourishment. The body itself, besides the horns, was about eight or nine foot long. It was altogether smooth without scales, fins or legs, and all over of a flesh color, and only a large fleshy skin like a mantle, which was far to the back, but hung down loose on both sides with fringe round at bottom. And this was of bright red or the outside, and perfect white within. This mantle was generally supposed to be its chief support in swimming, for it had not one bone in or about, nor any tail, but towards the lower end, it grew sharp like a wedge. In brief, everything in the said monster was wonderful. The liver being taken out is credibly reported to have weighed thirty pounds. For experiment, the people boiled some of the flesh, but the longer it boiled, the harder it became. It gave a very good scent as it boiled and seemed fat, but in boiling, the fat hardened and no creature, though several at diverse times were tried, would eat a bit of it, or so much as taste of it. A true draft of this rare animal, together with one of its heads, and two of its horns, was carried to Dublin on the 16th of December last, and presented to several persons of honour, since which time there is leave granted by authority, for the public showing thereof, both in Dublin and other places. We might now devote the reader a little, and tell him that some zealots, hearing of a strange creature with several heads, ten horns, and more than triple crowns, took it for the apocalypse beast, and fancied the pope was landed in person. But, non-bonem as Lydia cum sancta, we dare not profane a text for a jest, nor play the fool with thunderbolts, and hope none will be so impertinently vain as to place every strange production of nature to be account of prodigies, since if we consider how large a share the sea makes of this inferior globe, and that nature is ever active and wonderfully fruitful, we may not irrationally conclude, or at least suspect, the ocean to be inhabited with many several species of creatures as the earth, and that the vast wilderness of waters contains as many monsters and altogether as strange ones as any in the deserts of Africa. Finish. End of a true and perfect account of the miraculous sea monster, or wonderful fish, lately taken in Ireland, bigger than an ox, yet without legs, bones, fins, or scales, with two heads, and ten horns, of ten or eleven foot long, on eight of which horns they grew great knobs about the bigness of a cloak button, in shape like crowns or coronets, to the number of one hundred on each horn, which were all open and had rows of teeth within them, together with the manner of how it first appeared it was taken at a place called Dingle Itchuff, faithfully communicated by an eyewitness. Goodbye Timothy Ferguson. The Pause. From Preparation for a Christian Life by Soren Kierkegaard. Published in 1850. Translated by Lee Hollander in 1923. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Pause. Come hither unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I shall give you rest. Pause now! But what is there to give pause? That which in the same instant makes all undergo an absolute change, so that instead of seeing an immense throng of them that labor and are heavy laden following the invitation, you will in the end behold the very opposite. That is, an immense throng of men who flee back shudderingly, scrambling to get away, trampling all down before them, so that if one were to infer the sense of what had been said, from the result it produced, one would have to infer that the words had been prokol oprokol esteprofani, rather than come hither. That gives pause, which is infinitely more important, and infinitely more decisive, the person of him who invites. Not in the sense that he is not the man to do what he has said, or not God, to keep what he has promised. No, in a very different sense. Pause is given by the fact that he who invites is and insists on being the definite historic person he was eighteen hundred years ago, and that he, as this definite person, and living under the conditions then obtaining, spoke these words of invitation. He is not, and does not wish to be, one about whom one may simply know something from history. For example, world history, history proper, as against sacred history, for from history one cannot learn anything about him. The simple reason being that nothing can be known about him. He does not wish to be judged in a human way from the results of his life. That is, he is, and wishes to be, a rock of offense in the object of faith. To judge him after the consequences of his life is a blasphemy, for being God, his life, and the very fact that he was then living, and really did live, is infinitely more important than all the consequences of it in history. E. Who spoke these words of invitation? He that invites. Who is he? Jesus Christ. Which Jesus Christ? He that sits in glory on the right side of his father? No. From his seat of glory he spoke not a single word. Therefore it is Jesus Christ in his lowliness, and in the condition of lowliness who spoke these words. Is then Jesus Christ not the same? Yes, verily, he is today, and was yesterday, and eighteen hundred years ago, the same who abased himself, assuming the form of a servant. The Jesus Christ who spoke these words of invitation. It is also he who hath said that he would return again in glory. In his return in glory he is again the same Jesus Christ. But this has not yet come to pass. Is he then not in glory now? Assuredly, that the Christian believes. But it was in his lowly condition that he spoke these words. He did not speak them from his glory. And about his return in glory nothing can be known. For this can, in the strictest sense, be a matter of belief only. But a believer one cannot become except by having gone to him in his lowly condition. To him the rock of offense and the object of faith. In other shape he does not exist. For only thus did he exist. That he will return in glory is indeed expected, but can be expected and believed only by him who believes, and has believed in him as he was here on earth. Jesus Christ is then the same, yet lived he eighteen hundred years ago in debasement, and is transfigured only at his return. As yet he has not returned. Therefore he is still the one in lowly guys about whom we believe that he will return in glory. Whatever is said and taught every word he spoke becomes ill-ipso untrue if we give it the appearance of having been spoken by Christ in his glory. Nay, he is silent. It is the lowly Christ who speaks. The space of time between, for example, between his debasement and his return in glory, which is at present about eighteen hundred years, and will possibly become many times eighteen hundred, this space of time, or else what this space of time tries to make of Christ. The worldly information about him furnished by world history or church history as to who Christ was, as to who it was who really spoke these words, or this does not concern us, is neither here nor there, that only serves to corrupt our conception of him, and thereby renders untrue these words of invitation. It is untruthful of me to impute to a person words which he never used, but it is likewise untruthful in the words he used, likewise become untruthful, or it becomes untrue that he used them, if I assign to him a nature essentially unlike the one he had when he did use them, essentially unlike, for an untruth concerning this or the other trifling circumstance will not make it untrue that he said them. And therefore if it please God to walk on earth in such strict incognito as only one all-powerful can assume, in guise impenetrable to all men, if it please him, and why he does it, for what purpose, that he knows best himself, but whatever the reason and the purpose, it is certain that the incognito is of essential significance. I say if it please God to walk on earth in the guise of a servant, and to judge from his appearance exactly like any other man, if it please him to teach in this guise, if now anyone repeats his very words, but gives the same the appearance that it was God that spoke these words, then it is untruthful, for it is untrue that he spoke these words. B. Can one from history learn to know anything about Christ? No. And why not? Because one cannot know anything at all about Christ, for he is the paradox, the object of faith, and exists only for faith. But all historic information is communication of knowledge. Therefore one cannot learn anything about Christ from history. For whether now one learn little or much about him, it will not represent what he was in reality. Hence one learns something else about him, then what is strictly true, and therefore learns nothing about him, or gets to know something wrong about him. That is, one is deceived. History makes Christ look different from what he looked in truth, and thus one learns much from history about Christ. No, not about Christ. Because about him nothing can be known. He can only be believed. C. Can one prove from history that Christ was God? Let me first ask another question. Is any more absurd contradiction thinkable than wishing to prove, no matter for the present, whether one wishes to do so from history, or from whatever else in the wide world one wishes to prove it, that a certain person is God? To maintain that a certain person is God, that is, professes to be God, is indeed a stumbling block in the purest sense. But what is the nature of a stumbling block? It is an assertion, which is at variance with all human reason. Now think of proving that. But to prove something is to render it reasonable and real. Is it possible then to render reasonable and real, but is at variance with all reason? Scarcely, unless one wishes to contradict oneself. One can prove only that it is at variance with all reason. The proofs for the divinity of Christ given in Scripture, such as the miracles and his resurrection from the grave, exist too, only for faith. That is, they are no proofs, for they are not meant to prove that all this agrees with reason, but, on the contrary, are meant to prove that it is at variance with reason, and therefore a matter of faith. First then, let us take up the proofs from history. Is it not 1800 years ago now that Christ lived? Is not his name proclaimed and reverenced throughout the world? Has not his teaching, Christianity, changed the aspect of the world, having victoriously affected all affairs? Has then history not sufficiently, or more than sufficiently, made good its claim as to who he was, and that he was God? No indeed. History has by no means sufficiently, or more than sufficiently, made good its claim, and in fact history cannot accomplish this in all eternity. However, as to the first part of the statement, it is true enough that his name is proclaimed throughout the world, as to whether it is reverenced, that I do not presume to decide. Also, it is true enough that Christianity has transformed the aspect of the world, having victoriously affected all affairs, so victoriously indeed that everybody now claims to be a Christian. But what does this prove? It proves at most that Jesus Christ was a great man, the greatest perhaps, whoever lived. But that he was God? Stop now. That conclusion shall with God's help fall to the ground. Now, if one intends to introduce this conclusion by assuming that Jesus Christ was a man, and then considers the 1800 years of history, namely the consequences of his life, one may indeed conclude with a constantly rising superlative, he was great, greater, the greatest, extraordinarily and astonishingly the greatest man who ever lived. If one begins, on the other hand, with the assumption of faith that he was God, one has by so doing stricken out and canceled the 1800 years as not making the slightest difference one way or the other, because the certainty of faith is on an infinitely higher plane, and one course or the other one must take, but we shall arrive at sensible conclusions only if we take the latter. If one takes the former course, one will find it impossible unless by committing the logical error of passing over into a different category. One will find it impossible in the conclusion suddenly to arrive at the new category God. That is, one cannot make the consequence or consequences of a man's life suddenly prove at a certain point in the argument that this man was God. If such a procedure were correct, one ought to be able to answer satisfactorily a question like this. What must the consequence be? How great the effects? How many centuries must elapse in order to infer from the consequences of a man's life? For such was the assumption that he was God, or whether it is really the case that in the year 300 Christ had not yet been entirely proved to be God, though certainly the most extraordinarily, astonishingly greatest man who had ever lived, but that a few more centuries would be necessary to prove that he was God. In that case we would be obliged to infer that people in the fourth century did not look upon Christ as God, and still less they who lived in the first century, whereas the certainty that he was God would grow with every century. Also that in our century this certainty would be greater than it had ever been, a certainty in comparison with which the first century is hardly so much as glimpsed as divinity. You may answer this question or not. It does not matter. In general, is it at all possible by the consideration of the gradually unfolding consequences of something to arrive at a conclusion different in quality from what we started with? Is it not sheer insanity, providing man is sane, to let one's judgment become so altogether confused as to land in the wrong category? And if one begins with such a mistake, then how will one be able at any subsequent point to infer from the consequences of something that one has to deal with an altogether different, in fact infinitely different, category? A footprint certainly is the consequence of some creature having made it. Now I may mistake the track for that of, let us say a bird, whereas by nearer inspection and by following it for some distance I may make sure that it was made by some other animal. Very good, but there was no infinite difference in quality between my first assumption and by latter conclusion. But can I, on further consideration and following the track still further, arrive at the conclusion, therefore it was a spirit, a spirit that leaves no tracks? Precisely the same holds true of the argument that from the consequences of a human life, for that was the assumption, we may infer that therefore it was God. Is God then so like man? Is there so little difference between the two that, while in possession of my right senses, I may begin with the assumption that Christ was human? And for that matter has not Christ himself affirmed that he was God? On the other hand, if God and man resemble each other so closely, and are related to each other in such a degree, that is, essentially belong to the same category of beings, then the conclusion, therefore he was God, is nevertheless just humbug. Because if that is all there is to being God, then God does not exist at all. But if God does exist, and therefore belongs to a category infinitely different from man, why, then neither I nor anyone else can start with the assumption that Christ was human, and end with the conclusion that therefore he was God. Anyone with a bit of logical sense will easily recognize that the whole question about the consequences of Christ's life on earth is incommensurable with the decision that he is God. In fact, this decision is to be made on an altogether different plane. Man must decide for himself whether he will believe Christ to be what he himself affirmed he was, that is, God, or whether he will not believe so. What has been said, mind you, providing one will take the time to understand it, is sufficient to make a logical mind stop drawing any inferences from the consequences of Christ's life, that therefore he was God. But faith, in its own right, protests against every attempt to approach Jesus Christ by the help of historical information about the consequences of his life. Faith contends that this whole attempt is blasphemous. Faith contends that the only proof left unimpaired by unbelief, when it did away with all the other proofs of the truth of Christianity, the proof which, indeed, this is complicated business, I say, which unbelief invented in order to prove the truth of Christianity, the proof about which so excessively machadoo has been made in Christendom, the proof of eighteen hundred years, as to this faith contends that it is blasphemy. With regard to a man, and it is true that the consequences of his life are more important than his life, if one then, in order to find out who Christ was, and in order to find out by some inference, considers the consequences of his life, why then one changes him into a man by this very act. A man who, like other men, is to pass his examination in history, and history is in this case as mediocre an examiner as any half-baked teacher in Latin. But strange, by the help of history, that is, by considering the consequences of his life, one wishes to arrive at the conclusion that therefore, therefore he was God, and faith makes the exact opposite contention that he who even begins with this syllogism is guilty of blasphemy. Nor does the blasphemy consist in assuming hypothetically that Christ was a man. No, the blasphemy consists in the thought which lies at the bottom of the whole business, the thought without which one would never start it, and of whose validity one is fully and firmly assured that it will hold also with regard to Christ, the thought that the consequences of his life are more important than his life, in other words, that he was a man. The hypothesis is that us assume that Christ was a man, but at bottom of this hypothesis, which is not blasphemy as yet, there lies the assumption that the consequences of a man's life being more important than his life, this will hold true also of Christ. Unless this is assumed, one must admit that one's whole argument is absurd. Must admit it before beginning. So why begin it all? But once it is assumed, and the argument is started, we have the blasphemy, and the more one becomes absorbed in the consequences of Christ's life with the aim of being able to make sure whether or no he was God, the more blasphemous is one's conduct, and it remains blasphemous so long as this consideration is persisted in. Curious coincidence. One tries to make it appear that providing one but thoroughly considers the consequences of Christ's life, this, therefore, will surely be arrived at. And faith condemns the very beginning of this attempt as blasphemy, and hence the continuance in it as a worse blasphemy. History says faith has nothing to do with Christ. With regard to him we have only sacred history, which is different in kind from general history, sacred history which tells of his life and career when in a basement, and tells also that he affirmed himself to be God. He is the paradox which history never will be able to digest or convert into a general syllogism. He is in his debasement the same as he is in his exaltation, but the 1800 years, or let it be 18,000 years, have nothing whatever to do with this. The brilliant consequences in the history of the world which are sufficient, almost, to convince even a professor of history that he was God, these brilliant consequences surely do not represent his return in glory. For sooth, in that case it were imagined rather meanly the same thing over again. Christ is thought to be a man whose return in glory can be and can become nothing else than the consequences of his life in history. Whereas Christ's return in glory is something absolutely different and a matter of faith. He abased himself and was swathed in rags. He will return in glory. But the brilliant consequences in history, especially when examined a little more closely, are too shabby a glory at any rate a glory of altogether incongruous nature of which faith therefore never speaks when speaking about his glory. History is a very respectable science indeed. Only it must not become so conceited as to take upon itself what the Father will do, and clothe Christ in his glory, dressing him up with the brilliant garments of the consequences of his life, as if that constituted his return. That he was God in his debasement and that he will return in glory all this is far beyond the comprehension of history. Nor can all this be got from history, accepting by an incomparable lack of logic, and however incomparable one's view of history may be otherwise. How strange, then, that one ever wished to use history in order to prove Christ divine. End of The Pause from Preparation for a Christian Life by Soren Kierkegaard, published in 1850. The Pause, part two, from Preparation for a Christian Life by Soren Kierkegaard, published in 1850, translated by Lee M. Hollander in 1923. This is a LibriVox recording. A LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. D. Are the consequences of Christ's life more important than his life? No, by no means, but rather the opposite, for else Christ were but a man. There is really nothing remarkable in a man having lived. There have certainly lived millions upon millions of men. If the fact is remarkable, there must have been something remarkable in a man's life. In other words, there is nothing remarkable in his having lived, but his life was remarkable for this or that. The remarkable thing may, among other matters, also be what he accomplished. That is, the consequences of his life. But that God lived here on earth in human form. That is infinitely remarkable. No matter if his life had had no consequences at all, it remains equally remarkable, infinitely remarkable, infinitely more remarkable than all possible consequences. Just try to introduce that which is remarkable as something secondary, and you will straight away see the absurdity in doing so. Now, if you please, whatever remarkable is there in God's life having had remarkable consequences. To speak in this fashion is merely twaddle. No, that God lived here on earth. That is what is infinitely remarkable. That which is remarkable in itself. Assuming that Christ's life had had no consequences whatsoever, if any one then undertook to say that therefore his life was not remarkable, it would be blasphemy, for it would be remarkable all the same. And if a secondary remarkable characteristic had to be introduced, it would consist in the remarkable fact that his life had no consequences. But if one should say that Christ's life was remarkable because of its consequences, then this again were a blasphemy, for it is his life which in itself is the remarkable thing. There is nothing very remarkable in a man's having lived, but it is infinitely remarkable that God has lived. God alone can lay so much emphasis on himself that the fact of his having lived becomes infinitely more important than all the consequences which may flow therefrom, and which then become a matter of history. E. A comparison between Christ and a man who in his life endured the same treatment by his times as Christ endured. Let us imagine a man, one of the exalted spirits, one who was wronged by his times, but whom history later reinstated in his rights by proving by the consequences of his life who he was. I do not deny, by the way, that all this business of proving from the consequences is of course well suited to a world which ever wishes to be deceived. For he who was contemporary with him and did not understand who he was, he really only imagines that he understands when he has got to know it by help of the consequences of the noble one's life. Still, I do not wish to insist on this point, for with regard to a man it certainly holds true that the consequences of his life are more important than the fact of his having lived. Let us imagine one of those exalted spirits. He lives among his contemporaries without being understood. His significance is not recognized. He is misunderstood, and then marked, persecuted, and finally put to death like a common evildoer. But the consequences of his life make it plain who he was. History which keeps a record of those consequences reinstates him in his rightful position, and now he is named in one sentry after another as the great, and the noble spirit, and the circumstances of his debasement are almost entirely forgotten. It was blindness on the part of his contemporaries which prevented them from comprehending his true nature, and wickedness which made them mock him, and deride him, and finally put him to death. But be no more concerned about this, for only after his death did he really become what he was, through the consequences of his life, which after all are by far more important than his life. Now is it not possible that the same holds true with regard to Christ? It was blindness and wickedness on the part of those times, but be no more concerned about this. History has now reinstated him. From history we know now who Jesus Christ was, and thus justice is done him. Ah, wicked thoughtlessness which thus interprets sacred history like profane history which makes Christ a man. But can one then learn anything from history about Jesus? No, nothing. Jesus Christ is the object of faith, when either believes in him or is offended by him. But to know means precisely that such knowledge does not pertain to him. History can therefore, to be sure, give one knowledge in abundance, but knowledge annihilates Jesus Christ. Again, ah, the impious thoughtlessness. For one, to presume to say about Christ's abasement, let us be no more concerned about his abasement. Surely Christ's abasement was not something which merely happened to him, even if it was the sin of that generation to crucify him, was surely not something that simply happened to him, and perhaps would not have happened to him in better times. Christ himself wished to be abased and lowly. His abasement, that is, his walking on earth in humble guise, though being God, is therefore a condition of his own making, something he wished to be knotted together, a dialectic knot, which no one shall presume to untie, and which no one will untie, for that matter, until he himself shall untie it when returning in his glory. His case is therefore not the same as that of a man who, through the injustice inflicted on him by his times, was not allowed to be himself, or to be valued at his worth, while history revealed who he was. For Christ himself wished to be abased. It is precisely this condition which he desired. Therefore let history not trouble itself to do him justice, and let us not in an impious thoughtlessness presumptuously imagine that we, as a matter of course, know who he was. For that no one knows. And he who believes it must become contemporaneous with him in his abasement. When God chooses to let himself be born in lowliness, when he who holds all possibilities in his hand assumes the form of a humble servant, when he fares about defenseless, letting people do with him what they list, he surely knows what he does and why he does it. For it is, at all events, he who has power over men, and not men who have power over him. So let not history be so impertinent as to wish to reveal who he was. Lastly, ah, the blasphemy, if one should presume to say that the persecution which Christ suffered expresses something accidental. If a man is persecuted by his generation it does not follow that he has the right to say that this would happen to him in every age. Insofar there is reason in what posterity says about letting bygones be bygones. But it is different with Christ. It is not he who by letting himself be born, and by appearing in Palestine, is being examined by history, but it is he who examines. His life is the examination, not only of that generation, but of mankind. Woe unto the generation that would presumptuously dare to say, let bygones be bygones, and forget what he suffered, for history has now revealed who he was, and has done justice by him. If one assumes that history is really able to do this, then the abasement of Christ bears an accidental relation to him. That is to say, he thereby is made a man, an extraordinary man to whom this happened through the wickedness of that generation, of fate which he was far from wishing to suffer, for he would gladly, as is human, have become a great man, whereas Christ voluntarily chose to be the lowly one, and, although it was his purpose to save the world, wished also to give expression to what the truth suffered then, and must suffer in every generation. But if this is his strongest desire, and if he will show himself in his glory only at his return, and if he has not returned as yet, and if no generation may be without repentance, but on the contrary, every generation must consider itself a partner in the guilt of that generation. Then woe to him who presumes to deprive him of his lowliness, or to cause what he suffered to be forgotten, and to clothe him in the fabled human glory of the historic consequences of his life, which is neither here nor there. F. The misfortune of Christendom. But precisely this is the misfortune, and has been the misfortune in Christendom, that Christ is neither the one nor the other. Neither the one he was when living on earth, nor he who will return in glory, but rather one about whom we have learned to know something in an inadmissible way from history, that he was somebody or other of great account. In an inadmissible and unlawful way we have learned to know him, whereas to believe in him is the only permissible mode of approach. Men have mutually confirmed one another in the opinion that the sum total of information about him is available if they but consider the result of his life and the following eighteen hundred years, namely the consequences. Gradually as this became accepted as the truth, a pith and strength was distilled out of Christianity. The paradox was relaxed. One became a Christian without noticing it, without noticing in the least the possibility of being offended by him. One took over Christ's teachings, turned them inside out, and smoothed them down, he himself guaranteeing them, of course, the man whose life had had such immense consequences in history. All became plain as day, very naturally, since Christianity in this fashion became heathen dumb. There is in Christendom an incessant, twaddling on Sundays about the glorious and invaluable truths of Christianity, its mild consolation. But it is indeed evident that Christ lived eighteen hundred years ago, for the rock of offense and object of faith has become a most charming fairy story character, a kind of a divine good old man. People have not the remotest idea of what it means to be offended by him, and still less what it means to worship. The qualities for which Christ is magnified are precisely those which would have most enriched one, if one had been contemporaneous with him, whereas now one feels altogether secure, placing implicit confidence in the result, and relying altogether on the verdict of history, that he was the great man, concludes, therefore, that it is correct to do so. That is to say, it is the correct and the noble and the exalted and the true thing, if it is he who does it. Which is to say, again, that one does not in any deeper sense take the pains to understand what it is he does, and that one tries even less to the best of one's ability, and with the help of God, to be like him in acting rightly and nobly, and in an exalted manner, and truthfully. For not really fathoming it in any deeper sense, one may, in the exigency of a contemporaneous situation, judge him in exactly the opposite way. One is satisfied with admiring and extolling and is, perhaps, as was said of a translator who rendered his original word for word, and therefore, without making sense, too conscientious. One is, perhaps, also too cowardly and too weak to wish to understand his real meaning. Christendom has done away with Christianity without being aware of it. Therefore, if anything is to be done about it, the attempt must be made to reintroduce Christianity. End of The Pause Part 2 by Soren Kierkegaard from Preparation for a Christian Life translated by Lee M. Hollander. The Poetic Principle by Edgar Allen Poe. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Josh Kibbe. In speaking of the Poetic Principle, I have no design to be either thorough or profound. While discussing very much at random the essentiality of what we call poetry, my principal purpose will be to cite for consideration some few of those minor English or American poems which best suit my own taste, or which, upon my own fancy, have left the most definite impression. By minor poems, I mean, of course, poems of little length, and here in the beginning permit me to say a few words in regard to a somewhat peculiar principle which, whether rightfully or wrongfully, has always had its influence in my own critical estimate of the poem. I hold that a long poem does not exist. I maintain that the phrase, a long poem, is simply a flat contradiction in terms. I need scarcely observed that a poem deserves its title only in as much as it excites by elevating the soul. The value of the poem is in the ratio of this elevating excitement. But all excitements are, through a cycle necessity, transient. That degree of excitement which would entitle a poem to be so called at all, cannot be sustained throughout a composition of any great length. After the lapse of half an hour at the very utmost, it flags, fails, a revulsion ensues, and then the poem is, in effect, and, in fact, no longer such. There are no doubt many who have found difficulty in reconciling the critical dictum that the Paradise Lost is to be devoutly admired throughout, with the absolute impossibility of maintaining for it, during Perusal, the amount of enthusiasm which that critical dictum would demand. This great work, in fact, is to be regarded as poetical only when, losing sight of that vital records that in all works of art, unity, we view it merely as a series of minor poems. If, to preserve its unity, its totality of effect or impression, we read it, as would be necessary, at a single sitting, the result is but a constant alternation of excitement and depression. After a passage of what we feel to be true poetry, there follows inevitably a passage of platitude which no critical prejudgment can force us to admire, but if, upon completing the work, we read it again, omitting the first book, that is to say, commencing with the second, we shall be surprised at now finding that admirable which we before condemned, that damnable which we had previously so much admired. It follows from all this that the ultimate, aggregate, or absolute effect of even the best epic under the sun is annulity, and this is precisely the fact. In regard to the Iliad, we have, if not positive proof, at least very good reason for believing it intended as a series of lyrics. But to granting the epic intention, I can say only that the work is based in an imperfect sense of art. The modern epic is of the sepacititious ancient model, but an inconsiderate and blindfold imitation. But the day of these artistic anomalies is over. If, at any time, any very long poem were popular in reality, which I doubt, it is at least clear that no very long poem will ever be popular again. That the extent of a poetical work is, to terrace paribus, the measure of its merit, seems undoubtedly when we thus stated, a proposition sufficiently absurd. Yet we are indebted for it to the quarterly reviews. Surely there can be nothing in mere size, abstractly considered. There can be nothing in mere bulk so far as the volume is concerned, which is so continuously elicited admiration from these Saturnine pamphlets. A mountain to be sure, but the mere sentiment of physical magnitude which it conveys does impress us with the sense of the sublime. But no man is impressed after this fashion by the material grandeur of even the Columbiaad. Even the courtelies have not instructed us to be so impressed by it. As yet, they have not insisted on our estimating Lamar, timed by the cubic foot, or pollock by the pound, but what else are we to infer from their continual plating about sustained effort? If, by sustained effort, any little gentleman is accomplished in epic, let us frankly commend him for the effort. If this indeed be a thing concomendable, but let us forbear praising the epic on the effort's account. It is to be hoped that common sense in the time to come will prefer deciding upon a work of art rather by the impression it makes, by the effect it produces, than by the time it took to impress the effect, or by the amount of sustained effort which had been found necessary in affecting the impression. The fact is that perseverance is one thing and a genius quite another, nor can all the courtelies in Christendom confound them. By and by, this proposition, with many which I have been just urging, will be received as self-evident. In the meantime, by being generally condemned as falsities, they will not be essentially damaged as truths. On the other hand, it is clear that a poem may be improperly brief. Undue brevity degenerates into mere epigrammatism. A very short poem, while now in them producing a brilliant or vivid, never produces a profound or enduring effect. There must be the steady pressing down of the stamp upon the wax. De Berengea's rot enumerable things, pungent and spirit-stirring, but in general they have been too imponderous to stamp themselves deeply into the public attention, and thus, as so many feathers of fancy, have been blown aloft only to be whistled down the wind. A remarkable instance of the effect of undue brevity and depressing a poem, and keeping it out of the popular view, is afforded by the following exquisite little serenade. I arise from dreams of thee, in the first sweet sleep of night, when the winds are breathing low and the stars are shining bright. I arise from dreams of thee and the spirit in my feet, as led me, who knows how, to thy chamber window sweet. The wandering airs they faint and the dark, the silent stream. The champacodars fail like sweet thoughts in a dream. The nightingale's complaint, it dies upon her heart, as I must die on shine. Oh, beloved as thou art. Oh, lift me from the grass. I die, I faint, I fail. Let thy love and kisses reign on my lips and eyelid's pale. My cheek is cold and white alas, my heart beats loud and fast. Oh, press it close to shine again, where it will break at last. Very few, perhaps, are familiar with these lines. Yet no less a poet than Shelley is their author. Their warm yet delicate and ethereal imagination will be appreciated by all, but by none so thoroughly as by him who has himself arisen from sweet dreams of one beloved to bathe in the aromatic air of a southern midsummer night. One of the finest poems by Willis, the very best, in my opinion, which he has ever written, has no doubt through the same defect of undue brevity been kept back from its proper position, not less than the. The shadows lay along Broadway, to his near the twilight tide, and slowly there a lady fair was walking in her pride. Alone walked she, but viewlessly walked spirits at her side. Peace charmed the street beneath her feet, and honor charmed the air, and all a stir looked kind on her, and called her good as fair. For all God ever gave to her she kept with cherry care. She kept with care her beauty's rare from lover's warm and true, for heart was cold to all but gold, and the rich came not to one, but honored well her charms to sell, if priests the selling do. Now walking there was one more fair, a slight girl, Lily Pail, and she had unseen company to make the spirit quail. Tooks to want and scorn she walked forlorn, and nothing could avail. No mercy now can clear her brow from this world's peace to pray, for as love's wild prayer dissolved in air her woman's heart gave way, but the sin forgiven by Christ in heaven by man is cursed all way. In this composition we find it difficult to recognize the Willis who has written so many mere verses of society. The lines are not only rich the ideal but full of energy, while they breathe in earnestness and evident sincerity of sentiment for which we look in vain throughout all the other works of this author. While the epic mania, while the idea that to merit and poetry prolixity is indispensable, as for some years past been gradually dying out of the public mind, by mere dint of its own absurdity we find it succeeded by a heresy too popably false to be long tolerated, but one which in the brief period it has already endured may be said to have accomplished more in the corruption of our poetical literature than all its other enemies combined. I allude to the heresy of the didactic. It has been assumed tacitly and evoudly, directly and indirectly, that the ultimate object of all poetry is truth. Every poem it has said should inculcate a morals and by this moral is the poetical merit of the work to be adjudged. We Americans especially have patronized this happy idea and we Bostonians very especially have developed it in full. We have taken it into our heads that to write a poem simply for the poem's sake and to acknowledge such to have been our design would be to confess ourselves radically wanting in the true poetic dignity and force. But the simple fact is that would we but permit ourselves to look into our own souls we should immediately there discover that under the sun there neither exists nor can exist any work more thoroughly dignified more supremely noble than this very poem this poem per se this poem which is a poem and nothing more this poem written solely for the poem's sake. With as deep a reverence for the true as ever inspired by the bosom of man I would nevertheless limit in some measure its modes of inculcation I would limit to enforce them I would not enfeeble them by dissipation the demands of truth are severe she has no sympathy with the myrtles all that which is so indispensable in song is precisely all that with which she has nothing whatever to do it is but making her a flaunting paradox to read her in gyms and flowers in enforcing a truth we need severity rather than efflorescence of language we must be simple precise terse we must be cool calm unimpassioned in a word we must be in that mood which as nearly as possible is the exact converse of the poetical he must be blind indeed you do not perceive the radical and chasmal difference between the truthful and the poetical modes of inculcation he must be theory mad beyond redemption who in spite of these differences shall still persist in attempting to reconcile the obstinate oils and waters of poetry and truth dividing the world of mind into its three most immediately obvious distinctions we have the pure intellect taste and the moral sense I place taste in the middle because it is just this position which in the mind it occupies it holds intimate relations with either extreme but from the moral sense is separated by so faint a difference that Aristotle has not hesitated to place some of its operations among the virtues themselves nevertheless we find the offices of the trio marked with a sufficient distinction just as the intellect concerns itself with truth so taste informs us of the beautiful while the moral sense is regardful of duty of this latter while conscience teaches the obligation and reason the expediency taste contents herself with displaying the charms waging war upon vice solely on the ground of her deformity her disproportion her animosity to the fitting to the appropriate to the harmonious in a word to beauty an immortal instinct deep within the spirit of man is thus plainly a sense of the beautiful this it is which administers to his delight in the manifold forms and sounds and odors and sentiments amid which he exists and just as the lily is repeated in the lake or the eyes of emeralds in the mirror so is the mirror oral or written repetition of these forms and sounds and colors and odors and sentiments a duplicate source of the light but this mere repetition is not poetry he who shall simply sing with however glowing enthusiasm or with however vivid a truth of description of the sights and sounds and odors and colors and sentiments which greet him in common with all mankind he I say has yet failed to prove his divine title there is still a something in the distance which he has been unable to attain we have still a thirst unquenchable to allay which he has not shown us the crystal springs this thirst belongs to the immortality of man it is at once a consequence and an indication of his perennial existence it is the desire of the moth for the star it is no mere appreciation of the beauty before us but a wild effort to reach the beauty above inspired by an ecstatic prescience of the glories beyond the grave we struggle by multi-form combinations among the things and thoughts of time to attain a portion of that loveliness whose very elements perhaps that pertain to eternity alone and thus when by poetry or when by music the most entrancing of the poetic moods we find ourselves melted into tears we weep then not as the abbot gravena supposes through excess of pleasure but through a certain petulant impatient sorrow at our inability to grasp now holy here on earth at once and forever those divine and rapturous joys of which through the poem or through the music we attain to put brief and indeterminate glimpses the struggle to apprehend the supernal loveliness this struggle on the part of soul's fittingly constituted has given to the world all that which it the world has ever been enabled at once to understand and to feel as poetic the poetic sentiment of course may develop itself in various modes in painting and sculpture and architecture in the dance very especially in music and very peculiarly and with a wide field in the composition of the landscape garden our present theme however has regard only to its manifestation in words and here let me speak briefly on the topic of rhythm contending myself with the certainty that music in its various modes of meter rhythm and rhyme is of so vast a moment in poetry as never to be wisely rejected is so vitally important and adjunct that he is simply silly who declines its assistance i will not now pause to maintain its absolute essentiality it is in music perhaps that the soul most nearly attains the great end for which when inspired by the poetic sentiment it struggles the creation of supernal beauty it may be indeed that here the sublime end is now and then attained in fact we are often made to feel with the shivering delight that from an earthly harp or stricken notes which cannot have been unfamiliar to the angels and thus there can be little doubt that in the union of poetry with music in its popular sense we shall find the widest field for the poetic development the old bards and men singers had advantages which we do not possess and thomas more singing his own songs was in the most legitimate manner perfecting them as poems to recapitulate then i would define in brief the poetry of words as the rhythmical creation of beauty its soul arbiter's taste with the intellect or with the conscience it has only collateral relations unless incidentally it has no concern whatever either with duty or with truth a few words however an explanation that pleasure which is at once the most pure the most elevating and the most intense is derived i maintain from the contemplation of the beautiful in the contemplation of beauty we alone find it possible to attain that pleasurable elevation or excitement of the soul which we recognize as the poetic sentiment and which is so easily distinguished from truth which is the satisfaction of the reason or from passion which is the excitement of the heart i make beauty therefore using the word as inclusive of the sublime i make beauty the province of the poem simply because it is an obvious rule of art that effects should be made to spring as directly as possible from their causes no one is yet having been weak enough to deny that the peculiar elevation in question is at least most readily attainable in the poem it by no means follows however that the incitements of passion are the precepts of duty or even the lessons of truth may not be introduced into a poem and with advantage for they may subserve incidentally in various ways the general purposes of the work but the true artist will always contrive to tone them down in proper subjection to that beauty which is the atmosphere and the real essence of the poem i cannot better introduce the few poems which i shall present for your consideration than by the citation of the poem along fellow's wave the day is done and the darkness falls from the wings of night as the feather is wafted downward from an eagle in his flight i see the lights of the village gleam through the rain in the mist and a feeling of sadness comes over me that my soul cannot resist a feeling of sadness and longing that is not akin to pain and resembles sorrow only as the mist resembles the rain come read to me some poem some simple and heartfelt lay that shall soothe this restless feeling and banish the thoughts of day not from the grand old masters not from the barred sublime whose distant footsteps echo through the corridors of time four like strains of martial music their mighty thoughts suggest life's endless toil and endeavor and tonight i long for rest read from some humbler poet whose songs gust from his heart as showers from the clouds of summer or tears from the island start who through long days of labor and nights devoid of ease still heard in his soul the music of wonderful melodies such songs of power to quiet the restless pulse of care and come like the benediction that follows after prayer then read from the treasured volume the poem of thy choice and lend to the rhyme of the poet the beauty of thy voice and the night shall be filled with music and the cares that infest the day shall fold their tints like the arabs and is silently still away with no great range of imagination these lines have been justly admired for the delicacy of expression some of the images are very effective nothing can be better than the barred sublime whose distant footsteps echo down the corridors of time the idea of the last quatrain is also very effective the poem on the whole however is chiefly to be admired for the graceful insouissance of its meter so well in accordance with the character of the sentiments and especially for the ease of the general manner this ease or naturalness and illiterary style it has long been the fashion to regard his ease and appearance alone as a point of really difficult attainment but not so a natural manner is difficult only to him who should never meddle with it to the unnatural it is but the result of writing with the understanding or with the instinct that the tone in composition should always be that which the mass of mankind would adopt and it must perpetually vary of course with the occasions the author who after the fashion of the north american review should be upon all occasions merely quiet but necessarily upon many occasions be simply silly or stupid and has no more right to be considered easy or natural than a cockney exquisite or then the sleeping beauty in the waxworks among the minor poems of bryant none is so much impressed me as the one which he entitles june i quote only a portion of it there through the long long summer hours the golden light should lie and thick young herbs and groups of flowers stand in their beauty by the oriole should build and tell his love tale close beside my cell the idle butterfly should rest him there and there be heard the housewife bee and hummingbird and what if cheerful shots at noon come from the village scent or songs of maids beneath the moon with fairy laughter blint and what if in the evening light betrothed lovers walk in sight of my low monument i would the lovely scene around might know no sadder sight nor sound i know i know i should not see the season's glorious show nor would its brightness shine for me nor its wild music flow but if around my place of sleep the friends i love should come to weep they might not haste to go soft airs and song and the light and bloom should keep them lingering by my tomb these are their softened hearts should bear the thoughts of what has been and speak of one who cannot share the gladness of the scene whose part in all the pomp that fills the circuit of the summer hills is that his grave is green and deeply would their hearts rejoice to hear again his living voice the rhythmical flow here is even voluptuous nothing could be more melodious the poem has always affected me in a remarkable manner the intense melancholy which seems to well up perforce to the surface of all the poet's cheerful sayings about his grave we find thrilliness to the soul while there is the truest poetic elevation in the thrill the impression left is one of a pleasurable sadness and if in the remaining compositions which i shall introduce to you there be more or less of a similar tone always apparent let me remind you that how or why we know not this certain taint of sadness is inseparably connected with all the higher manifestations of true beauty it is nevertheless a feeling of sadness and longing that is not akin to pain and resembles sorrow only as the mist resembles the rain the taint of which i speak is clearly perceptible even in a poem so full of brilliancy and spirit as the health of Edward Cote Pinkney i fill this cup to one made up of loveliness alone a woman of virginal sex the seeming pair gone to whom the better elements and kindly stars have given a form so fair that like the air to his less of earth and heaven her every tone is music's own like those of morning birds and something more than melody dwells ever in her words the coinage of her heart are they and from her lips each flows as one may see the burdened be forth issue from the rose affections are as thoughts to her the measures of her hours her feelings have the flagrancy the freshness of young flowers and lovely passions changing off so fill her she appears the image of themselves by turns the idol of past years of her bright face when glance will trace a picture on the brain and of her voice and echoing hearts a sound must long remain but memory such as mine of her so very much endears when death is nigh my latest sigh will not be life's but hers i filled this cup to one made up of loveliness alone a woman of her gentle sex the seeming pair gone her health and wood on earth there stood some more of such a frame that life might be all poetry and weariness a name it was the misfortune of mr pinkney to have been born too far south had he been a new englander it is probable that he would have been ranked as the first of american lyrists by that magnanimous cabal which is so long controlled the destinies of american letters and conducting the thing called the north american review the poem just cited is especially beautiful but the poetic elevation which it induces we must refer chiefly to our sympathy in the poet's enthusiasm we pardon his hyperboles for the evident earnestness with which they are uttered it was by no means my design however to expatiate upon the merits of what i should read you these will necessarily speak for themselves bocolini in his advertisements from parnassus tells us that zealous once presented apollo a very caustic criticism upon a very admirable book where upon the god asked him for the beauties of the work he replied that he only busied himself about the errors on hearing this apollo handing him a sack of unwinnowed wheat bait and pick out all the chafers reward now this fable answers very well as a hit at the critics but i am by no means sure that the god was in the right i am by no means certain that the true limits of the critical duty are not grossly misunderstood excellence in a poem especially may be considered in the light of an axiom which need only be properly put to become self-evident it is not excellence if it required to be demonstrated as such and thus to point out too particularly the merits of a work of art is to admit that they are not merits altogether among the melodies of thomas more is one who's distinguished character as a poem proper seems to have been singularly left out of view i allude to his lines beginning come rest in this bosom the intense energy of their expression is not surpassed by anything in byron there are two of the lines in which a sentiment is conveyed that embodies the all-in-all of the divine passion of love a sentiment which perhaps has found its echo in more and a more passionate human hearts than any other single sentiment ever embodied in words come rest in this bosom my own stricken dear though the herd is fled from thee thy home is still here here still is the smile that no cloud can or cast and a heart and a hand all thy own to the last oh what was love made for if tis not the same through joy and through torment through glory and shame i know not i ask not if guilt's in that heart i but know that i love thee whatever thou art thou hast called me thy angel in moments of bliss and thy angel i'll be amid the horrors of this through the furnace and shrinking thy steps to pursue and shield thee and save thee or perish thereto it has been the fashion of late days to deny more imagination while granting him fancy a distinction originating with collage then whom no man more fully comprehended the great powers of more the fact is that the fancy of this poet so far predominates over all his other faculties and over the fancy of all other men as to have induced very naturally the idea that he is fanciful only but never was there a greater mistake never was a grosser wrong done the fame of a true poet in the compass of the english language i can call to mind no poem more profoundly more weirdly imaginative in the best sense than the lines commencing i would i were by that dim lake which are the calm position of thomas more i regret that i am unable to remember them one of the noblest and speaking of fancy one of the most singularly fanciful of modern poets was thomas hood his fair inez had always for me an inexpressible charm oh soggy not the fair inez she's gone into the west to dazzle when the sun is down and rob the world of rest she took our daylight with her the smiles that we love best with morning blushes on her cheek and pearls upon her breast oh turn again fair inez before the fall of night for fear the moon should shine alone and stars unrivaled bright and blessed will the lover be that walks beneath their light and breeze the love against thy cheek i dare not even write would i had been fair inez that gallant cavalier who rode so gaily by thy side and whispered thee so near were there no bonnie dames at home or no true lovers here that he should cross the seas to win the dearest of the dear i saw the lovely inez descend along the shore with bands of noble gentlemen and banners waved before and gentle youth and maidens gay and snowy plumes they wore it would have been a beauty a stream if it had been no more alas alas fair inez she went away with song with music waiting on her steps and shootings of the throng but some were sad and felt no mirth but only music's wrong in sounds that sing farewell farewell to hear you've loved so long farewell farewell fair inez that vessel never bore so fair lady on its deck nor danced the light before alas for pleasure on the sea and sorrow on the shore the smile that blessed one lover's heart has broken many more the haunted house by the same author is one of the truest poems ever written one of the truest one of the most unacceptable one of the most thoroughly artistic both in its theme and in its execution it is moreover powerfully ideal imaginative i regret that its length renders it unsuitable for the purposes of the structure in place of it permit me to offer the universally appreciated bridge of size one more unfortunate weary of breath rationally important it gone to her death take her up tinderly lifter with care fashion so slenderly young and so fair look at her garments clinging like seriments wills the wave constantly drips from her clothing take her up instantly loving not loathing touch her not scornfully think of her mournfully gently and humanely not of the stains of her all that remains of her now is pure womanly make no deep scrutiny into her mutiny rash and undutiful past all dishonor death is left on her only the beautiful where the lamps quiver so far in the river with many a light from window encasement from garret to basement she stood with amazement houseless by night the bleak wind of march made her tremble in shiver but not the dark arch of the black flowing river mad from life's history glad to death's mystery swift to be hurled anywhere anywhere out of the world in she plunged boldly no matter how coldly the rough river ran over the brink of it picture it think of it disillute man lovin it drink of it then if you can still for all slips of hers one of eve's family wipe those poor lips of hers using so clamily loop up her tresses escaped from the comb her fair obron tresses wills wonderment guesses where was her home who was her father who was her mother had she a sister had she a brother or was there a dear one still and a nearer one yet than all other alas for the rarity of christian charity under the sun oh it was pitiful near a whole city full home she had none sisterly brotherly fatherly motherly feelings had changed love by harsh evidence thrown from its eminence even god's providence seeming estranged take her up tinderly lift her with care fashioned so slenderly young and so fair air her limbs frigidly stiff and too rigidly decently kindly smooth and composed them and her eyes closed them staring so blindly dreadfully staring through muddy impurity as when with the daring last look of despairing fixed on futurity perishing goomily spurred by contumely called in humanity burning insanity into arrest cross her hands humbly as if praying dumbly over her breast owning her weakness her evil behavior and leaving with meekness her sins to her savior the vigor of this poem is no less remarkable than its pathos the versification although carrying the fanciful to the very verge of the fantastic is nevertheless admirably adapted to the wild insanity which is the thesis of the poem among the minor poems of lord Byron is one which has never received from the critics the praise which it undoubtedly deserves though the day of my destiny is over and the star of my fate bath declined thy soft heart refused to discover the faults which so many could find though thy soul with my grief was acquainted it shrunk not to share with me and the love which my spirit bath painted it never bath found but in thee then when nature around me is smiling the last smile which answers to mine I do not believe it beguiling because it reminds me of shine and when winds are at war with the ocean as the breasts I believed in with me if their billows excite an emotion it is that they bear me from thee though the rock of my last hope is shivered and its fragments are sunk in the wave though I feel that my soul is delivered to pain and shall not be its slave there is many a pain to pursue me they may crush but they shall not contend they may torture but shall not subdue me tis of thee that I think not of them though human that did not deceive me though woman that did not forsake though loved thou forbearst to grieve me though slander thou never could shake though trusted that did not disclaim me though parted it was not to fly though watchful it was not to defame me nor mute that the world might be lie yet I blame not the world nor despise it nor the war of the many with one if my soul was not fitted to prize it it was folly not sooner to shun and if dearly that air bath cost me and more than I once could foresee I have found that whatever it lost me it could not deprive me of thee from the wreck of the past which both perished thus much I at least may recall it with taught me that which I most cherished deserve to be dearest of all in the desert of fountain is springing and the wide waist there still is a tree and a bird in the solitude singing which speaks to my spirit of thee although the rhythm here is one of the most difficult the versification could scarcely be improved no nobler theme ever engaged the pen of the poet it is the soul elevating idea that no man can consider himself entitled to complain of fate while in his adversity he still retains the unwavering love of woman from Alfred Tennyson although in perfect sincerity I regard him as the noblest poet that ever lived I have left myself time to cite only a very brief specimen I call him and think him the noblest of poets not because the impressions he produces are at all times the most profound not because the poetical excitement which he induces is at all times the most intense but because it is at all times the most ethereal in other words the most elevating and most pure no poet is so little of the earth earthy what I'm about to read is from his last long poem the princess tears idle tears I know not what they mean tears from the depths of some defined despair rise in the heart and gather to the eyes and looking on the happy autumn fields and thinking of the days that are no more fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail that brings our friends up from the underworld sad is the last which reddens over one that syncs with all we love below the verge so sad so fresh the days that are no more ah sad and strangers in dark summer dawns the earliest pipe of half awakened birds to dying ears when unto dying eyes the casement slowly grows a glimmering square so sad so strange the days that are no more dears remembered kisses after death and sweet as those by hopeless fancy feigned on lips that are for others deep as love deep as first love and wild with all regret oh death in life the days that are no more thus although in a very cursory and imperfect manner I have endeavored to convey to you my conception of the poetic principle it has been my purpose to suggest that while this principle itself is strictly and simply the human aspiration for supernal beauty the manifestation of the principle is always found in an elevating excitement of the soul quite independent of that passion which is the intoxication of the heart or of that truth which is the satisfaction of the reason for in regard to passion less its tendency is to degrade rather than to elevate the soul love on the contrary love the true the divine eros the uranium as distinguished from the diana on venus is unquestionably the purest and truest of all poetical themes and in regard to truth if to be sure through the attainment of a truth we are led to perceive a harmony where known was apparent before we experience at once the true poetical effect but this effect is a referral to the harmony alone and not in the least degree to the truth which merely served to render the harmony manifest we shall reach over more immediately a distinct conception of what the true poetry is by mere reference to a few of the simple elements which induce in the poet himself the poetical effect he recognizes the ambrosia which nourishes the soul in the bright orbs that shine in heaven and the volutes of the flower and the clustering of low shrubberies and the waving of the grain fields and the slanting of tall eastern trees and the blue distance of mountains and the grouping of clouds and the twinkling of half hidden brooks and the gleaming of silver rivers and the repose of sequestered lakes and the star mirroring depths of lonely wells he perceives that in the song of birds and the harp of bolos and the sighing of the night wind and the repining voice of the forest and the surf that complains to the shore and the fresh breath of the woods and the scent of the violet and the voluptuous perfume of the hyacinth and the suggestive odor that comes to him and even tied from far distant undiscovered islands over dim oceans, illimitable and unexplored he owns it in all noble thoughts and all unworldly motives and all holy impulses and all chivalrous generous and self-sacrificing deeds. He feels it in the beauty of woman, in the grace of her step, in the luster of her eye, in the melody of her voice, in her soft laughter in her sigh, in the harmony of the rustling of her robes. He deeply feels it in her winning endearments, in her burning enthusiasms, in her gentle charities, in her meek and devotional endurance, but above all, ah ha, far above all, he kneels to it. He worships it in the faith, in the purity, in the strength and the altogether divine majesty of her love. Let me conclude by the recitation of yet another brief poem, one very different in character from any that I have before quoted. It is by Motherwell, and is called The Song of the Cavalier. With our modern and altogether rational ideas of the absurdity and impiety of warfare, we are not precisely in that frame of mind best adapted to sympathize with the sentiments and thus to appreciate the real excellence of the poem. To do this fully, we must identify ourselves in fancy with the soul of the Old Cavalier. Then mount, then mount brave gallants all, and don your helms amane. Death's couriers, fame and honor call no shrewish tears shall fill your eye when the sword hilts in our hand. Heart whole will part, and no wit sigh for the fairest of the land. Let piping swain and craven white, thus weep and pulling cry, our business is like men to fight. End of The Poetic Principle by Edgar Allan Poe Read by Josh Kibbe Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail The Present Moment by Soren Kierkegaard Published in 1855, translated by Lee M. Hollander in 1923. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Moment Number One by Way of Introduction Plato says somewhere in his republic that things will go well only when those men shall govern the state who do not desire to govern. The idea is probably that assuming the necessary capability, a man's reluctance to govern affords a good guarantee that he will govern well and efficiently. Whereas a man desirous of governing may very easily either abuse his power and become a tyrant or by his desire to govern be brought into an unforeseen situation of dependence on the people he is to rule so that his government really becomes an illusion. This observation applies also to other relations where much depends on taking things seriously. Assuming there is ability in a man, it is best that he show reluctance to meddle with them. To be sure, as the proverb has it, where there is a will, there is a way. But true seriousness appears only when a man fully equal to his task is forced against his will to undertake it, against his will, but fully equal to the task. In this sense I may say of myself that I bear a correct relation to the task in hand, to work in the present moment. For God knows that nothing is more distasteful to me, authorship. Well, I confess that I find it pleasant, and I may as well admit that I have dearly loved to write in the manner to be sure which suits me. And what I have loved to do is precisely the opposite of working in the present moment. What I have loved is precisely remoteness from the present moment. That remoteness in which, like a lover, I may dwell on my thoughts, and, like an artist in love with his instrument, entertain myself with language, and lure from it the expressions demanded by my thoughts. Ah, blissful entertainment. In an eternity I should not weary of this occupation, too contend with men. Well, I do like it in a certain sense, for I have by nature a temperment so polemic that I feel in my element only when surrounded by men's mediocrity and meanness, but only on one condition, namely that I be permitted to scorn them in silence, and to satisfy the master-passion of my soul. Scorn. Opportunity for which my career as an author has often enough given me. I am therefore a man of whom it may be said truthfully that he is not in the least desirous to work in the present moment. Very probably I have been called to do so for that very reason. Now that I am to work in the present moment, I must alas say farewell to thee, beloved remoteness, where there was no necessity to hurry, but always plenty of time, where I could wait for hours and days and weeks for the proper expression to occur to me. Whereas now I must break with all such regards of tender love, and now that I am to work in the present moment, I find that there will be not a few persons whom I must oblige by paying my respects to all the insignificant things which mediocrity with great self-importance will lecture about, to all the nonsense which mediocre people by interpreting into my words their own mediocrity will find in all I shall write, and to all the lies and culminies to which a man is exposed against whom those two great powers in society, envy and stupidity, must of necessity conspire. Why then do I wish to work in the present moment? Because I should forever repent of not having done so, and forever repent of having been discouraged by the consideration that the generation now living would find a representation of the essential truths of Christianity, interesting and curious reading at most, having accomplished which they will calmly remain where they are. That is, in the illusion that they are Christians, and that the clergy's toying with Christianity really is Christianity. End of The Present Moment by Soren Kierkegaard Recollections of Audubon Park by George Bird Grinnell This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for information or to volunteer. Please visit LibriVox.org. The interest which we all feel in John James Audubon, and in those connected with him, must plead my excuse for writing this and for the too frequent use of the first person singular. I spent my boyhood in Audubon Park, and what I have to say relates to the members of the Audubon family and chiefly to the woman whom, quite as much to her husband, we owe the greatest work on ornithology that America has produced. I should like to give you some impression of the personality of Madame Audubon and her son John Woodhouse, and to make you see the surroundings of their later lives somewhat as I recall them. Lucy Bakewell Audubon was a fit mate for her great husband. For her steadfastness and determination supplied qualities, in some degree he lacked. I believe that of the two, she was the stronger, as she was the better balanced character. If she did not have her husband's vivacity, charm, versatility, and artistic talent, she possessed characteristics more important, the force to keep him up to his work, the faith to cheer his heart when discouraged, the industry and patience to earn money that he might continue his struggle, and the unyielding will to hold the family together. It was largely through her assistance and support that at last he won success. A few years after the death of Audubon, my father moved to Audubon Park. I was a very small boy, about far enough advanced in polite learning, to know A from B. At that time Madame Audubon conducted a little school for her grandchildren, which was attended also by some of the neighbour's children, of whom I was one. It was my first attendance at a school. Except for two houses, with the plots of land about them, the whole tract of Minningsland, or Audubon Park, then belonged to Madame Audubon. Victor, the eldest son, was bedridden as the result of an accident, and John Woodhouse, a man of great energy, managed the property, and looked after the sale of the books. The family had abundant land, which was more or less encumbered and quite unsailable, but its resources and money were small and uncertain. I have a vivid memory of an occasion when my father took me with him, when we went to see Madame Audubon to conclude the purchase of a piece of land, and of the great relief, satisfaction, and even gratitude that she expressed to him for his willingness to make the purchase. The scene touched me, even though three years afterward I did not understand its meaning. John W. Audubon was quite without business training, but he worked hard and faithfully to relieve the family embarrassment. He built several houses in Audubon Park, which were sold or rented, and in a field east of what is now Broadway, built a large frame house, which for some years was occupied, as a tenement by workmen in the nearby sugar refinery. All these things brought in some money, but there was always a heavy burden of debt. Madame Audubon was a most kindly, gentle, and benignate woman. She was loved and admired by everyone and, by most people, I think a little feared, for she had the repose and dignity of a great lady, and was not given to jokes or laughter. With the children she unbent far more than with older people, and they loved her dearly, and took their small troubles to her, with the utmost confidence. Yet the children too stood a little in awe of her, and in her presence were never mischievous or playful at inopportune times. Her grandchildren, of course, called her grandma, and she became grandma to many other little ones of different blood. She lived with her son Victor, and the school was carried on in her bedroom, the southeast corner of the second floor of that house. In the school room she was tireless, passing from one child to another, seeing that each was properly at work, helping, explaining, encouraging. During the hours of school each child received a personal supervision that was practically continuous. She was tall, slender, erect, always clad in black, and always wore her white cap. I never saw her without her spectacles. The Audubon park of that day was quite different from what it became later, except for the land about the Audubon houses near the river, and that immediately about two houses higher up on the hill. It was a tangle of underbrush and saplings, above which many forest trees, some of them of great size. Much of the land between the present 155th and 157th streets was overgrown with thick standing young hemlocks, and no grass grew on the shaded ground. North of 157th street were the near woods, so called, through which ran a brook, and this tract remained wild and unimproved until the year 1870 when it was added to Audubon park. To the north of 158th street was a larger piece of woodland. Great white pines stood about the Audubon houses, and on one of them grew a vine of fox grapes, some of which the children always managed to get after the first hard frost of autumn. At a little distance from the houses the Hudson River railroad ran across a wide cove on an embankment, and the tide from the river rose and fell in the ponds lying between this causeway and the old river bank. In these ponds the boys fished for killies and eels, and in summer went crabbing. In winter the quiet water froze and we had good skating. The ponds were long ago filled up and even their memory has passed away. The interior of Audubon house was attractive, an old fashioned country house, more or less worn and shabby from the tramping and play of a multitude of children. In the hall were antlers of elk and deer, which supported guns, shot pouches, powder flasks, and belts. Pictures that now are famous hung on the walls. In the dining room facing the entrance from the hall was the portrait of the naturalist and his dog, painted by John Woodhouse Audubon. The painting of pheasants started by a dog, now in the American Museum, was in the parlour south of the hall, and the picture of the eagle and the lamb upstairs in Madam Audubon's bedroom. Everywhere were vivid reminders of the former owner of the land. To the north of the Victor Audubon, and east of the John Audubon house on a hillock, was the wooden building with a cellar known as The Cave, where some of the old copper plates were stored for a time. This building was always locked and the boys seldom had an opportunity to look into it, except when John Audubon opened it and they were permitted to follow him in. John Harden, the man who boxed these plates, died last summer in his 89th year on the very borders of Audubon Park, where he had lived for 67 years. Grandma Audubon gave me my first conscious lesson about birds. I cannot remember a time when the common names of the more familiar species were not known to me, though I presume the list was not a long one. It included, however, the passenger pigeon, which was seen in the dogwood trees each autumn, and the white-headed eagle, which in winter was extremely abundant on the floating ice of the river, and sometimes brought its captive fish to the trees in the park, there to eat them, or as often to quarrel about them with its fellows, and sometimes to drop the prey. One of my early recollections is of being called from the breakfast table one morning to look at a large flock of passenger pigeons that was feeding in a dogwood tree twenty-five or thirty feet away from the house. There were so many of the birds that all could not alight in it, and many kept fluttering about while others fed on the ground, eating the berries knocked off by those above. Thirty years ago an account was printed in the Auc, by Mr. George N. Lawrence, of birds at Manhattanville before 1850. Audubon Park was only a mile above Manhattanville, and fifteen or twenty years later, than the time written of by Mr. Lawrence, conditions there had not changed. The region was still untouched country. The city of New York had not begun its northward march. On Sixth Avenue the pavement stopped at twenty-third street, and on Broadway the dirt road began at thirty-sixth street. It was Grandma Audubon who, when I was a little fellow, identified for me a bird that I had never seen before. One morning in late winter, or early spring, on my way to school I had almost reached the Victor Audubon house when I saw a dozen or twenty small greenish birds feeding on the grass under a pine tree. I approached them slowly, trying to see what they were, and they did not fly, even when I was within a few feet of them. I did not know them, and they were so tame that I resolved to try to catch one. The crab net used in the summer always hung in the area under the Victor Audubon piazza. And backing away from the birds, I ran there, secured the net, and returned. It was not difficult for a cautious lad to get near enough to the little birds, to pass the net over one, and when I had caught it I rushed into the house and up to Grandma's room, and showed her my prize. She told me that the bird was a red cross-bill. A young one, pointed out the peculiarities of the bill, told me something about the bird's life, and later showed me a picture of it. Then, after a little talk, she and I went downstairs and out of doors, found the bird still feeding there, and set the captive free. Two or three years later, Mr. John Audubon performed a leg service for a small companion and me. Neither of the two boys was as yet permitted to carry a gun, but, like some other boys, they managed now and then to get a hold of guns, borrowed or stolen, and to go shooting. In the large piece of woods north of 158th Street, we saw a flock of birds fly up into a tulip tree, and recognized them as pigeons, but small ones. It happened to be my turn to use the gun, and after appropriate care, in stalking I killed one of the flock. As we had supposed it was a pigeon, unlike those we knew, yet one whose picture we had seen. We found the plate of the bird, a ground dove, and to make sure we were right we took the bird to Mr. John Audubon, who was mending fence at the corner of 158th Street, and Riker's 12th Avenue, and asked him what it was. He looked at it with interest, and told us that it was a ground dove, adding that there were many of them further south, but they had never seen one here before. This may have been in the autumn of 1860 or 1861, not in 1862, as I have said earlier. After a year or two of attendance at Madam Audubon's school, I was sent to a boy's school. For years, however, I took lessons in music and French, from a granddaughter of Madam Audubon, daughter of John Woodhouse, and granddaughter of Reverend John Bachman, and was always in close association with the family. A favorite playground of the boys of Audubon Park was the loft of John Woodhouse's barn, where, piled up against the walls, were rows of wooden boxes full of bird skins, collected by the naturalist and his sons. We had been told not to meddle with these, and usually obeyed the injunction, knowing that if we did any harm this playground would be close to us. Here in the barn, too, were piles of the old red muslin-bound ornithological biography. One of these sets was given to my father perhaps sixty years ago, but unfortunately the old red covers had been torn off and something more modern substituted for them. One day in winter, a great pine in the front of Victor Audubon's house was cut down, and while splitting it into lengths, for fuel the men found, almost in the center of the trunk, a cluster of small round black objects, which proved to be leaden bullets, rifle balls. We boys were tremendously excited by the find, and imagined an Indian tragedy where the captive was tied to the tree and tortured by being shot at, as was a common practice of the savage, according to the dime novels of the day. When Mr. John Audubon came up and saw the bullets in the wood, he recalled that many years before his father, some visitors, and he had shot rifle at a target tacked upon this tree-truck, and here were the balls revealed by the axe. When I was twelve or thirteen years old, some of us were given guns and made weekly excursions, no longer secret ones, after the robins, yellow hammers, and wild pigeons, that during the fall migration congregated in the berry-bearing trees that were so abundant in the woods. At a somewhat later date, the boys in Audubon used to go up on the roof of our house and shoot at the wild pigeons passing over. Sometimes we killed several in a day, though there was much waste of ammunition. With Jack Audubon, son of John Woodhouse, and the oldest grandson of the naturalist, I was often in winter and spring went over to the Harlem River to lie in wait for muskrats on an arm of the river, which, if it existed today, would cover the old polo grounds, 155 to 157th Street and 8th Avenue, and run back about to the present 145th Street, west of 8th Avenue. In those days wild ducks were often seen in spring and fall along the lower Hudson. Usually they were out of reach of the small boys, though I remember that Jack Audubon killed a blue-winged teal on the Hudson in the early sixties. Nevertheless, when we made excursions, up to Dykeman's flats, we occasionally killed in the marshes there and along the Harlem River a wood duck, a teal, or black duck. But such great game was most unusual, almost always at the proper season of the year, there were many small shorebirds on the Dykeman marshes, which the little boys hunted faithfully. English snipe were often started there, but I do not know that any of us ever killed one. Sometimes we went as far as Bronson's, now Van Cortland Park, where quail were started and an osprey had its nest in a tall tree that no one could climb. I saw John Woodhouse Audubon almost daily, for, as a playmate of his sons, I was always in and out of his house, and besides he was a close friend of my father, and often in the evening came to our house. He was a most kindly man, but sometimes spoke quickly, and I was a little afraid of him. If he felt like coming up to our house in the evening, he came out of his door and stood before his house, a hundred yards distant from ours, and shouted my father's name, and when answered called out, If you have nothing to do, I'll come up and play you a game of billiards. A little later he appeared, hatless and without overcoat, often powdered with snow if it was storming, and shied with old-fashioned carpet slippers from which he stamped the snow as he opened the front door. Often John Audubon painted in the barn, and the boys stood at a little distance, and in silence watched him as the subject grew under his brush. He had a beautiful mare, Donna, of which he was very fond, and that he painted. Often he received natural history specimens from a distance, and we boys gathered about him, and with breathless interest watched to see what wonderful things he would draw forth from these boxes. I recall especially a great white arctic hare that he held up for us to see, which to my wondering eyes seemed larger than I was tall. With the hare were some dark-colored birds, which must have been spruce grouse, and some white ptarmigan, strange creatures from the north. The picture of the eagle and the lamb always possessed a fascination for me. I greatly admired it, and often talked about it to Grandma Audubon, and on one occasion she told me, that after her death the picture should be mine. Boy, like I treasured this memory. But the promise was not again referred to. However, on the day that Madame Audubon departed for Louisville, September 18, 1873, I received from her a note, perhaps one of the last she ever penned, which said that in case of accident to her on her journey south, I should take possession of the eagle and the lamb, and that if she and her granddaughter safely reached their destination, the picture would be in her will for me. It now hangs in my house. I never again saw Grandma Audubon. For in 1874 she died, full of years. She was a great woman, and as good as great. The help she gave to the people about her, who needed it, rich as well as poor, will be remembered as long as those who knew her shall live. Some tributes to her greatness have been printed, but no words written or spoken can ever tell of all the good that she did. End of Recollections of Audubon Park, by George Bird Grinnell, read by Christopher Hoving.