And Theos Alwyn was essentially, and above all things, faithful to the lofty purpose of his calling,--he dealt with his art reverently, and not in rough haste and scrambling carelessness,-- if he worked out any idea in rhyme, the idea was distinct and the rhyme was perfect,--he was not content, like Browning, to jumble together such hideous and ludicrous combinations as "high;-- Humph!" and "triumph,"--moreover, he knew that what he had to tell his public must be told comprehensively, yet grandly, with all the authority and persuasiveness of incisive rhetoric, yet also with all the sweetness and fascination of a passioned love-song. Occupied with such work as this, London, with its myriad mad noises and vulgar distractions, became impossible to him,--and Villiers, his fidus Achates, who had read portions of his great poem and was impatient to see it finished, knowing, as he did, what an enormous sensation it would create when published, warmly seconded his own desire to gain a couple of months complete seclusion and tranquillity.
He left town, therefore, about the middle of May and started across the Channel, resolving to make for Switzerland by the leisurely and delightful way of the Rhine, in order to visit Bonn, the scene of his old student days. What days they had been!--days of dreaming, more than action, for he had always regarded learning as a pastime rather than a drudgery, and so had easily distanced his comrades in the race for knowledge. While they were flirting with the Lischen or Gretchen of the hour, he had willingly absorbed himself in study--thus he had attained the head of his classes with scarce an effort, and, in fact, had often found time hanging heavily on his hands for want of something more to do. He had astonished the university professors--but he had not astonished himself, inasmuch as no special branch of learning presented any difficulties to him, and the more he mastered the more dissatisfied he became. It had seemed such a little thing to win the honors of scholarship! for at that time his ambition was always climbing up the apparently inaccessible heights of fame,-- fame, that he then imagined was the greatest glory any human being could aspire to. He smiled as he recollected this, and thought how changed he was since then!
What a difference between the former discontented mutability of his nature, and the deep, unswerving calm of patience that characterized it now! Learning and scholarship? these were the mere child's alphabet of things,--and fame was a passing breath that ruffled for one brief moment the on-rushing flood of time--a bubble blown in the air to break into nothingness. Thus much wisdom he had acquired,--and what more? A great deal more! he had won the difficult comprehension of HIMSELF; he had grasped the priceless knowledge that man has no enemy save THAT WHICH IS WITHIN HIM, and that the pride of a rebellious Will is the parent Sin from which all others are generated. The old Scriptural saying is true for all time, that through pride the angels fell; and it is only through humility that they will ever rise again. Pride! the proud Will that is left FREE by Divine Law, to work for itself and answer for itself, and wreak upon its own head the punishment of its own errors,--the Will that once voluntarily crushed down, in the dust at the Cross of Christ, with these words truly drawn from the depths of penitence, "Lord, not as I will, but as Thou wilt!" is straightway lifted up from its humiliation, a supreme, stately Force, resistless, miraculous, world-commanding;--smoothing the way for all greatness and all goodness, and guiding the happy Soul from joy to joy, from glory to glory, till Heaven itself is reached and the perfection of all love and life begins. For true humility is not slavish, as some people imagine, but rather royal, since, while acknowledging the supremacy of God, it claims close kindred with Him, and is at once invested with all the diviner virtues. Fame and wealth, the two perishable prizes for which men struggle with one another in ceaseless and cruel combat, bring no absolute satisfaction in the end--they are toys that please for a time and then grow wearisome. But the conquering of Self is a battle in which each fresh victory bestows a deeper content, a larger happiness, a more perfect peace,--and neither poverty, sickness, nor misfortune can quench the courage, or abate the ardor, of the warrior who is absorbed in a crusade against his own worser passions. Egotism is the vice of this age,--the maxim of modern society is "each man for himself, and no one for his neighbor"--and in such a state of things, when personal interest or advantage is the chief boon desired, we cannot look for honesty in either religion, politics, or commerce. Nor can we expect any grand work to be done in art or literature. When pictures are painted and books are written for money only,--when laborers take no pleasure in labor save for the wage it brings,--when no real enthusiasm is shown in anything except the accumulation of wealth,--and when all the finer sentiments and nobler instincts of men are made subject to Mammon worship, is any one so mad and blind as to think that good can come of it? Nothing but evil upon evil can accrue from such a system,--and those who have prophetic eyes to see through the veil of events can perceive, even now, the not far distant end--namely, the ruin of the country that has permitted itself to degenerate into a mere nation of shopkeepers, --and something worse than ruin,--degradation!