Cobwebs of Thought | Page 8

feel the loss his character sustained, through the contempt that grew upon him for the greater part of humanity. The Nemesis of contempt was shown in his inability at last to see even in individuals, the greatest things. Physical force came to be admired by him for itself. From hero-worship, he passed "to strong rulers, and saviours of society."
The worth of the individual, withered and changed, and Carlyle's hopes rested finally on strength alone, just as George Eliot's thoughts centred on the influence human beings exercised on each other, and there is extraordinary beauty in this idea. How striking is her conception of the good we all receive from even the simplest lives, if they have been true lives. "The growing good of the world is partly dependent upon unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life and rest in unvisited tombs." But some who read her books feel an underlying tone of sadness--a melancholy whisper as of a finality, an inevitable end to all future development, even of the greatest personalities. Many other writers have believed that men live in the world's memory only by what they have done in the world, but George Eliot is definite that this memory is all, that personality has no other chance of surviving. Her hopes rested on being:
"The sweet presence of a good diffused, And in diffusion ever more intense, So shall I join the Choir Invisible Whose music is the gladness of the world."
Both George Eliot and Carlyle over accentuated one the race, the other the individual.
Mazzini's place in thought was exactly between the two.
He believed in God and Collective Humanity. Humanity in God. He said: "We cannot relate ourselves to the Divine, but through collective humanity. Mr. Carlyle comprehends only the individual; the true sense of the unity of the race escapes him. He sympathises with men, but it is with the separate life of each man, and not their collective life."[3]
Collective labour, according to an educational plan, designed by Providence, was, Mazzini believed, the only possible development of Humanity.
He could never have trusted in any good and effective development from Humanity alone.
Nationality, he reverenced, and widened the idea, until it embraced the whole world. He said it was the mission, the special vocation of all who felt the mutual responsibility of men. But nationality of Italy meant to Carlyle, only "the glory of having produced Dante and Columbus," and he cared for them not for the national thought they interpreted, but as gigantic men. Mazzini cared for "the progressive history of mankind," Carlyle for "the Biography of great men."
Carlyle's sadness "unending sadness," came, Mazzini thought from looking at human life only from the individual point of view. And a poem by Browning, "Cleon" would have afforded him another example of "the disenchantment and discouragement of life," from individualism.
Browning was as great an individualist as Carlyle; he stood as far apart from belief in Collective Humanity, and Democracy as Carlyle did, though in Italy, he felt the thrill of its nationality, as Carlyle did not. But Mazzini might have said also truly of Browning, that, with the exception of Italy, "he sympathised with the separate life of each man and not with their collective life." The sadness Mazzini attributed to Carlyle's strong individualistic point of view, ought logically then to have been the heritage of Browning also. If Mazzini's explanation was the true one, it is another proof of the difficulty of tabulating humanity, or of making a science of human nature. For the Individualist Browning, far from being remarkable for sadness, was the greatest of optimists amongst English poets. He had a far wider range of sympathies, than Carlyle, for failure attracted him, as much as victory, the Conquered equally with the Conqueror, indeed every shade of character interested him. Perhaps he expresses through "Cleon" some of his own strongest feelings, his insistence on the worth of individuality, his craving for deeper joy, fuller life than this world gives, and his horror of the destruction of personality. Cleon, the Greek Artist, is indeed "the other side" to the poetic altruism of "The Pilgrims" and "The Choir Invisible." Never was the yearning for Personal Continuance more vividly and more humanly presented. The Greek Artist, without any knowledge of, or belief in Immortality, hungers after it. Browning represents him as writing to and arguing with the King, who has said:
"My life...... Dies altogether with my brain, and arm,...... ....triumph Thou, who dost not go."
And Cleon says if Sappho and ?schylus survive because we sing her songs, and read his plays, let them come, "drink from thy cup, speak in my place."
Instead of rejoicing in his works surviving he feels