FOLLOW THE GLEAM.

Evening Star, Issue 18173, 13 January 1923, Page 2

FOLLOW THE GLEAM.

We discussed receutly.-on this page ‘The Lost Chords of Life/ The subject reaches far, goes deep, and' is vitally related to practical life. We return to it again. Wc shall consider it from another standpoint, Tennyson’s beautiful poem, ‘ Merlin and tho Gleam,’ will give us both, starting point and end 1 . It is one of his last poems, and expresses his matured views on life and destiny.

According to tho old legend, Merlin was a magicaan born of a virgin and* tho spirit of the air. He grew up to be a mighty man, yet torn with doubts and fears. How did he escape into the light of truth ? Ho escaped by following the gleam. So he says at the end of his days; “I am Merlin, and I am dying.” And he goes on to tell in the poem how everywhere in life the gleam glimmed before him—in the happy home, in the grey nights, when the landscape darkened and he wandered in the wilderness the light glimpsed, and he followed the gleam. And at kat ho had his reward. He passed out of the shadows into the land whore it is night, no more. It as the expression of his pursuit of the ideal. Ho wrote the poem as ho was looking into the grey mists of the Valley of the Shadow, and this is his message to us;

0 young mariner, . , . Fro it vanishes Over the margin, After it, follow it, Follow the gleam. And Merlin is Tennyson himself. He intends in that poem to give an outline, of his own literary and spiritual evolution. As to what he means by the gleam, there is an interesting note in bis son’s edition of his poems, it is too long to quoin here, but readers are referred to it for a fuller explanation of the question. Wo are concerned just now with the duty he urges ; Follow the gleam.

For we all have gleams of one sort and another. It is not the poet only who sees visions and dreams dreams. Everybody does. The schoolboy does not leanr his lessons by the light of tho lamp; lie learns them by the light of memory and hopo. He has his ideals of what ho is going to be and do. Perhaps they all fade out as manhood conies. The glow and the glamor pass. Tho man loses his early enthusiasm. He becomes just a, worker. It is difiicu.lt to stir in him tho flush and fire of early youth. But that does not mean that that flush and fire were false and unreal. “There are trees whoso fruit does not ripen till the leaves fall off. but the ripe fruit does not laugh at the fallen leaves, whoso strength it has drawn out into its own perfected shape and cc.lor.” And now, as, with his calm, dry faro seeming so unemotional, go unmoved, tho man goes about his labor, doing his duty, and serving his generation. It is really the lire of his youth, which no longer blazes but bums within him, that makes the active power' of that dry, prudent, ccunsdoirfcious man. But even that man still has his dreams and visions. There is something that he calls duty, and ho feels 1 it marshals him to 'bo andi do something. That work which he did yesterday ho sees to-day how it might ho done. That falsa or angry word which escaped' an hour ago I troubles him now. and 1 ho is moved to un- ! say it or to apologise. That prompting } within him which suggests some, hind or unselfish action to-morrow—all these arc his gleams that summon him out to follow them. And what life is devoid of suck experiences? In the spheres of sordid work, ot high art, of morals and religion', the gleams arc ever coming and going, beckoning and alluring. It is very true as Browning sings • O we’re sunk enough, God knows, But not guile eo sunk that moment?, Sure though seldom, .-ire denied us When tho spirit’s true endowments Si and out plainly from the false ones And apprise it if pursuing, Or the right way or tile wrong way To its triumph or undoing. That is so. And it is the treatment of these dreams that makes -the triumphs or tho tragedies of life.

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The need and iho craving of these gleams arc so well understood that men and women resort to all kinds of expedients to create and foster them. When the desire for the gleam, rises no higher than the senses it is enough to find artificial stimulants for those. Hence the concert hall, the picture shows, the theatre, the dance. This is all an effort to rein force the normal self. Lower down resort is had to coarser stimulants, aw alcohol, opium, and such like. “ Enmez-vmis, ” says .Baudelaire—-be drunken, And strange gleams are struck out when drink gets on iho bridge and takes control of the ship of life. Its good effects have been cflcn discussed. Many have held that it gives, tor a time anyway, intellectual illumination, if not higher. In his ‘ leaves from an Inspector’s Koto Book’ Dr John Kerr tells of a man who, when he was obeying Baudelaire’s injunction, was greatly given to discuss theological problems. One night when ho was thus argumentatively tipsy he called on the minister, a man of exemplary patience. The latter suggested to him that he bad bettor come and sec him again when be was a bit more sober, and he would be glad to discuss the problems suggested. “ Hoots, mon,” replied the spirit-filled disputant, “I dinna gie a dam for them when 1 am sober.” Then we have Charles Lamb. His fat end Crosslcy is on record to the effect that one evening when Lamb was ©bviously drunk “he discoursed at length upon ■Milton with a fullness of knowledge, an eloquence and a profoandity of critical power, which left an impression never to bo effaced.’’ And wo all know from He Quiucey’s ‘Confession of an Opium Eater’ what effect that drug had upon him. And the growing craze for drugs of one sort and another is indicative of this innate human desire to dream dreams and see visions. But experience shows that in the end along that way lie madness and death. We have Lamb himself, in a letter to Coleridge, making the pitiable confession: “I have been drinking too much. 1 find mv moral sense in tho last stage of a consumptive and my religion getting faint,” For all such methods of arousing the gleam the old words are still in order: “What profit had ye in those things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of these things is death.” And: so, as the Irish poet who writes under the pseudonym “A.E.” (Mr G. W. Russell) says: Keep the secret cense celestial Of the starry birth, Though about you call the bestial Voices of the earth. Higher up we find, other ways of reeking iho gleam. The study of podry, (he practice of church ordinances, Christian Science. Spiritualism, Theosophy, and Iho dozens of ethical cults and ghouls of religion are sought out for this purpose. Richmond, tho great painter, finding his imagination getting dull, sought counsel from Blake. The latter said to his wife: “Kate, what do we do when the visions forsake ns?" “We kneel and pray,” she replied. History vindicates that. Unless

tho records of the experiences of multitudes bo only the stuff of which dreams are made, prayer is certainly one of tho most effective ways of keeping sight of the gleam. Tennyson, describing its meaning for his own life, said: “ Prayer is like opening a sluice between the great ocean and our little channels, where tho sea gathers itself together and flows in at full tide.” Space will not- permit of further elaboration of the methods men resort to in order to create the gicam. Wc pa=s to another point.

s How can one be sure that in following k the gleam that seems to beckon them they are not following will-o’-the-wisps? That is a large question and important, and , cannot be adequately answered hero and j now. Only suggestions may be offered. There is first of ail the individual expertB ence. Ho must make trial of tho ideal ( that beckons him. He must follow tho light given him. But ho will bo well 2 advised not to trust wholly to his own j inner light. Ho will bo wise to test it j by tho experience of others. History has accumulated a vast store; and though ' a man is not necessarily bound to follow ’ the faith of others, he ought not to set it at defiance without tho most careful ; scrutiny. Chesterton, lias some significant words about what is called the ■* Inner Light and the Higher Thought.’ Ho says that if .Tones takes to worshipping the inner light he will likely end in worshipping Jonoa himself. Let Jones worship cate or crocodiles, but not the god | within. Christianity came into the world firstly in order to assert with violence , that a man had not only to look inwards, ; but to look outwards, to behold with ; astonishment and enthusiasm a divine , company and a divine Captain, A man 1 will do well to correct tho gleam that allures him by this external standard by the experience of the highest of the race. Only one other thing is there space for stating. Any gleam that allures us out of sympathy with the needs and society of our fellow-men is sure to bo a will-o’-the-wisp,and will lead us only into swamps and quagmires. In many of his poems Tennyson seeks to make this clear. With all his passion for the ideal, ho •never allowed it to peduce him from the actualities of life and sympathy with his fellows. Ho distrusted every gleam that tempted io this. He elaborates this in the Holy Grail. It was the search for this which Jed to tho wreck of tho Round Table—as his best interpreter, Stopford Brooke, puts it. “That ascetic religion, an exciting pursuit of signs and wonders, severance from home and from the common love of man and woman, and a retreat from tho daily work of the world into cloistered seclusion, or in pursuit of a supernatural spiritualism, are, save for a i few exceptional characters, entirely evil. I These things dissolve society, injure human life, and produce the very evils they arc intended to overcome. Tho opposite life to that is tho life of Arthur.” And our ago would do well to lay this warning to heart. Sf TT -A- iv So we come to a last point. The gleam that Tennyson, followed, ho says, did not [ betray him. It took various forms at difi ferent times. As he sang in an earlier i

poem, ‘ The Voyage ’: And now we lost her, now she gleamed, Like Fancy made of golden air; Nov; nearer to tho prow she seemed, Like Virtue firm, like Knowledge' fair ; Now 1 high on waves that idly burst, Like Heavenly Hope she crowned the sea 5 And now, the bloodless point reversed, She bore tho blade of Liberty. But still bo followed, the gleam brightening and broadening. And so to the lands’ Last limit I came. . . , There on the border Of boundless Ocean, And all but in Heaven, Hovers the gleam. It was noi w,recking light that ho saw and followed. Ho was not betrayed by

his ideals. And his life and achievement; give emphasis to his appeal: 0 young mariner, Down to tho haven, Call your companions, Launch your vessel, And crowd your canra*, And, oro it vanishes O’er the margin, After it, follow it, Follow tho gleam. “ Who would not wish to have writter that?” says Stopford Brooke. Who wouk nut wish to have so lived as to bo able tc leave that last impulse to tho young, (c cry in death that prophet cry?