Delphi Complete Works of George Eliot (Illustrated) (638 page)

A symptom of disorder, and prescribe

Strict discipline. Were I physician here

I would prescribe that exercise of soul

Which lies in full obedience: you ask,

Obedience to what? The answer lies

Within the word itself; for how obey

What has no rule, asserts no absolute claim?

Take inclination, taste — why that is you,

No rule above you. Science, reasoning

On nature’s order — they exist and move

Solely by disputation, hold no pledge

Of final consequence, but push the swing

Where Epicurus and the Stoic sit

In endless see-saw. One authority,

And only one, says simply this. Obey:

Place yourself in that current (test it so!)

Of spiritual order where at least

Lies promise of a high communion,

A Head informing members, Life that breathes

With gift of forces over and above

The plus of arithmetic interchange.

‘The Church too has a body,’ you object,

‘Can be dissected, put beneath the lens

And shown the merest continuity

Of all existence else beneath the sun.’

I grant you; but the lens will not disprove

A presence which eludes it. Take your wit,

Your highest passion, widest-reaching thought:

Show their conditions if you will or can,

But though you saw the final atom-dance

Making each molecule that stands for sign

Of love being present, where is still your love?

How measure that, how certify its weight?

And so I say, the body of the Church

Carries a Presence, promises and gifts

Never disproved — whose argument is found

In lasting failure of the search elsewhere

For what it holds to satisfy man’s need.

But I grow lengthy: my excuse must be

Your question, Hamlet, which has probed right through

To the pith of our belief. And I have robbed

Myself of pleasure as a listener.

‘T is noon, I see; and my appointment stands

For half-past twelve with Voltimand. Good-by.”

Brief parting, brief regret — sincere, but quenched

In fumes of best Havana, which consoles

For lack of other certitude. Then said,

Mildly sarcastic, quiet Guildenstern:

“ I marvel how the Father gave new charm

To weak conclusions: I was half convinced

The poorest reasoner made the finest man,

And held his logic lovelier for its limp.”

“ I fain would hear,” said Hamlet, “ how you find

A stronger footing than the Father gave.

How base your self-resistance save on faith

In some invisible Order, higher Right

Than changing impulse. What does Reason bid?

To take a fullest rationality

What offers best solution: so the Church.

Science, detecting hydrogen aflame

Outside our firmament, leaves mystery

Whole and untouched beyond; nay, in our blood

And in the potent atoms of each germ

The Secret lives — envelops, penetrates

Whatever sense perceives or thought divines.

Science, whose soul is explanation, halts

With hostile front at mystery. The Church

Takes mystery as her empire, brings its wealth

Of possibility to fill the void

‘Twixt contradictions — warrants so a faith

Defying sense and all its ruthless train

Of arrogant ‘ Therefores.’ Science with her lens

Dissolves the Forms that made the other half

Of all our love, which thenceforth widowed lives

To gaze with maniac stare at what is not.

The Church explains not, governs — feeds resolve

By vision fraught with heart-experience

And human yearning.”

“ Ay,” said Guildenstern,

With friendly nod, “the Father, I can see,

Has caught you up in his air-chariot.

His thought takes rainbow-bridges, out of reach

By solid obstacles, evaporates

The coarse and common into subtilties.

Insists that what is real in the Church

Is something out of evidence, and begs

(Just in parenthesis) you’ll never mind

What stares you in the face and bruises you.

Why, by his method I could justify

Each superstition and each tyranny

That ever rode upon the back of man,

Pretending fitness for his sole defence

Against life’s evil. How can aught subsist

That holds no theory of gain or good ?

Despots with terror in their red right hand

Must argue good to helpers and themselves,

Must let submission hold a core of gain

To make their slaves choose life. Their theory,

Abstracting inconvenience of racks,

Whip-lashes, dragonnades and all things coarse

Inherent in the fact or concrete mass,

Presents the pure idea — utmost good

Secured by Order only to be found

In strict subordination, hierarchy

Of forces where, by nature’s law, the strong

Has rightful empire, rule of weaker proved

Mere dissolution. What can you object?

The Inquisition — if you turn away

From narrow notice how the scent of gold

Has guided sense of damning heresy —

The Inquisition is sublime, is love

Hindering the spread of poison in men’s souls:

The flames are nothing: only smaller pain

Te hinder greater, or the pain of one

To save the many, such as throbs at heart

Of every system born into the world.

So of the Church as high communion

Of Head with members, fount of spirit force

Beyond the calculus, and carrying proof

In her sole power to satisfy man’s need:

That seems ideal truth as clear as lines

That, necessary though invisible, trace

The balance of the planets and the sun —

Until I find a hitch in that last claim.

‘ To satisfy man’s need.’ Sir, that depends:

We settle first the measure of man’s need

Before we grant capacity to fill.

John, James, or Thomas, you may satisfy:

But since you choose ideals I demand

Your Church shall satisfy ideal man,

His utmost reason and his utmost love.

And say these rest a-hungered — find no scheme

Content them both, but hold the world accursed,

A Calvary where Reason mocks at Love,

And Love forsaken sends out orphan cries

Hopeless of answer; still the soul remains

Larger, diviner than your half-way Church,

Which racks your reason into false consent,

And soothes your Love with sops of selfishness. “

“ There I am with you,” cried Laertes. “ What

To me are any dictates, though they came

With thunders from the Mount, if still within

I see a higher Right, a higher Good

Compelling love and worship? Though the earth

Held force electric to discern and kill

Each thinking rebel — what is martyrdom

But death-defying utterance of belief,

Which being mine remains my truth supreme

Though solitary as the throb of pain

Lying outside the pulses of the world?

Obedience is good: ay, but to what?

And for what ends? For say that I rebel

Against your rule as devilish, or as rule

Of thunder-guiding powers that deny

Man’s highest benefit: rebellion then

Were strict obedience to another rule

Which bids me. flout your thunder.”

“ Lo you now!”

Said Osric, delicately, “ how you come,

Laertes mine, with all your warring zeal

As Python-slayer of the present age —

Cleansing all social swamps by darting rays

Of dubious doctrine, hot with energy

Of private judgment and disgust for doubt —

To state my thesis, which you most abhor

When sung in Daphnis-notes beneath the pines