The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, November 17, 1895, Page 15

THE SAN FRANCISCO CALL, SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 1895. With the Literati, T. THE LAST MEETING OF the Chit-Chat Club, held on the occasion of the club’s twenty-first birthday, there was an unusually brilliant programme. The papers were carefully prepared - by gentlemen of ability, and were well received by the un- usually large assemblage of visitors. The Chit-Chat Club was organized in November, 1874, and has met monthly for dinner, followed by an essay and discus- sion. The only officer of the club is the secretary-treasurer. . The essayist of one meeting -presides at. the following. The niembers write in turn, announcing the < subject at the meeting preceding .the reading. The. list of membership is restricted to twenty-five, the list for 1895 being: Thomas F. Barry, James S. Bunnell, Don- ald Y. Campbell, Horace Davis, Frank P. Deering, Professor O. L. Elliott, Dr. Henry Gibhons Jr., Albert Gerberding, George W. Haight, Willard B. Harrington, William | Greer Harrison, Joseph HasBrouck, Alfred Holman, Joseph Hutchinson, Sheldon G. Kellogg, Gerrit L. Lansing, William H. Mills, A. F. Morrison, Charles A. Murdock, | James D. Phelan, Arthur Rodgers, Eli T. | Sheppard, William Spronle, Rev. Horatio | Stebbins, Professor John M. Stillman. | Essays dufing 1894-95 have been read as follows: Harrison, “Samuel Pepys and | His ‘Times'’; Gerberding, “The Currency of the United States”; Murdock, “Kidd's Bocial Evolution”’; Sprounle, “The Decline of Poetry”; Kellogg, “The Hawaiian Re- public and Its Future’’; Deering, *‘The New Charter and Municipal Reform”; Gibbons, “Reéecent Improvements in Medicine’’; * Hutchinson, ‘Dangers of Codification”; Harrington, “The Gold Standard in- California’”; Haight, “The tell us of the classics in ancient and in modern times. THE CLASSICY IN ANCIENT AND MODERN TIMES. 1 BY PROFESSOR EDWARD B. CLAPP I should hardly venture to ask your at- tention to the time-worn subject of the classics if T had not the warrant of your express invitation; for no quecstion has been more thoroughly discussed than this, and little that is new remains to be said. But in spite of the persistent assaults of that distinguished graduate of Harvard, whose ancestors were Presidents of the United States, the classics will not down, | and I should be unworthy to be a student Legal: and Political Status of Woman”; 2odgers, ‘‘The Hawaiian Republic.” At the fast meeting Frank P. Deering | was the p ding officer. In opening the | proceedings he said: | my bappy privilege to-announce that | the ‘twenty-first birthday of the | at Club, It gives me very great | to welcome all, especially our | n this anniversary. Twenty- | ago, when the club came into | e and received. its name, the sis- | < Literature and Political Economy | its sponsors. To them was fealty | ed, and they with never-varying | ess have guided our feet as we | gone out into the world of thought. It was the hope and the design of the rs' of the club that we should meet | ach-month and bring tributes alternately | our guardian soirits, in proof of our nstancy and for our own improvement. Ve have so imet. But questions of the day, . the " practical. probiems of life have rather- led us away- from the un- ubled paths of fancy, the quiet retreats of Literature to pass more time than we shonld perhaps in the excitement of vex- ing -and not altogether satisfying con- | troversies. ] A glance at the list of our last year's work found upon the menu will show that f € { c = toward our Godmother Literature. So to- night we propose to return to her and to give ourselves over to the en joyment of an evening wholly hers. Never reproachful, always comforting, she repays even shight attention with rest and calm, and for devo- tion leads us to companionship with the elect of the earth and gives us the best that man has felt or has thought. To share this evening with us and to make this anniversary perfect have come a few choice friends, whose practiced hands will help us renew pleasures we have almost forgotten. Once again shall we know the Grecian’s power, the Latin’s matchless charm. To us will be revealed that where- in mind found its solace during the darkest period of the whole world’s history. In modern fiction shall we see life retold with all its pathos, all its helpfulness. Inspired verse will lay her glories bare, and through all and over all shall be felt the infinence of wit and humor that lift the world of letters above the world of earth and turn man away trom his griefs and from his failures. All these are literature’s own. With a full sense of what is in store for us let us turn back. the leaves of history, breathe once more the charmed air of Athens ana of Rome, and follow Professor Edward B. Clapp of Berkeley, who will “PROFESSOR EDWARD - B. CLAPP. . [From a vhotoaranh.1 | we have been nezlectful of our duty ) of Greek if 1 werenot glad of an oppor- | tunity like this to givea reason for the faith that is in me. And if I shall prove | to have less to say of the great claims of | Roman literature and history upon our at- | tention it is not from any exclusive prefer- | ence for my own favorite line of stuay, but | because the attacks upon the classics have been chiefly directed against the Hellenic side of classical scholarship, while the im- portance of Latin studies is scarcely ques- tioned by intelligent men. | Has the study of Greek literature and | Greek life any claim upon the men and | women of to-day? The question is a per- | fectly legitimate one. In a time like ours, when all beliefs, however sacred, are piti- lessly assailed, no opinion can long hold its ground on the mere basis of tradition. We live in a busy world, where there is much for each of us todoand to learn. Departments of investigation which were quite unknown to our fathers press them- selves upon our attention with the utmost insistence. Why should we turn aside from so much that is fascinating and use- ful as well, and apply ourselves to the sayings and doings of a handful of distant cousins who lived and died so many years ago? Why should men of fair ability be willing to withdraw themselves from every avenue to wealth and power, voluntarily relinquishing the so-called prizes of life to rivals of perhaps no more than equal intelligence and energy, in order to spend laborious lives in poreing over the pages of ancient philosophers and poets? Have we not the rich storehouse of English literature at hand, needing no mastery of a difficult foreign tongue to unlock its treasures? And if English does not suffice us have we not Dante and Goethe and Lessing and Moliere and Cervantes in languages less hard to learn than Greek, and with subject matter which lies much nearer to modern thoughts and modern interests? In at- tempting to express to you the feeling of the student of Greek toward questions like these, I would not lay too much stress upon the intrinsic superiority of Greek literature. It may be that the Divine Comedy is as significant a poem as the Iliad, although I doubt it. It may be that Hamlet is a more perfect tragedy than King (Edipus, though few compe- tent critics would say so. It may be that Tennyson in borrowing from Theocritus has improved upon his Sicilian master, though this is not the view of Stedman. You may even assert that Kant wasas profound a thinker as Plato, though I have yet to meet the philosopher who s0 regards him. But there is fair room for difference of opinion in a matter so largely subjective as this, and so long as the world agrees in placing the Greek writers at least on a par with the giants of later days, we need not demand that they be ranked above them all. XNor would I insist too strongly upon that aspect of the question which regards Greek literature as the key to the true apprecia- tion of modern books, though the truth and importance of this view can haraly be overestimated. The historical method of study is the most characteristic feature of modern scholarship; that method which is not content to examine a phenomenon as it appears to-day, but must see it in its growth and origin, must trace it to its source, and so discover itsessential nature. This kind of study if applied to any de- partment of modern literature leads us inevitably to the Greeks, for it is from them that modern writers have drawn their inspiration, and in their works that they have, consciously or unconsciously, found their models. No man can under- | | city than San Francisco, but she num- stand Milton without knowing something of Homer and Vergil, or appreciate Racine without having read Sophocles and Eu- ripides. In fact, itisno exaggeration to say that any writer, any literary student or critic who is ignorant of Greek litera- ture is so seriously handicapped that nothing but unusual genius can overcome the disadvantage under which he labors. John Stuart Mill declared that the battle of Marathon was a more important event in the history of England than the battle of Hastings. It is certainly true that to the student of English literature Homer is more important than Beowulf. Moreover, | it is quite unnecessary to remind a com- | pany of scholars that our beloved mother | tongue itself is largely made up of Greek | and Latin elements. Though Bunyan wrote | his immortal work with little knowledge of the ancieat tongues, yet there are few Bunyans, and the ordinary man will find that the sure and instinctive feeling for the meaning of English words which he | gains from his study of Greek and Latin is fully worth all the labor which it has cost him. I am bappy to say that my colleagues in English at Berkeley are unanimous in their testimony on this peint and agree in thinking that some ac- | quaintance with Greek is practically es- sential to the thorou:h study of English. But these facts are too familiar to call | for more than passing notice. Iam not so much interested in presenting to you the strongest arguments to prove that men need tostudy Greek as in tryingto interpret the feeling of the Greek student himself toward his work. We are not devoting ourselves to thisancient literature because we ought to; because we think we derive | from it better mental training thaa could | be gained from any other form of disci- pline, or because we regard it essential to | the comprehension of the masterpieces of ! our own and other modern languages. We study it because we like it, We find in ita charm of restrained and ordered beauty which we do not find elsewhere. And though I may not be able fully to account for this fascination, yet no man of average intelligence can seriously devote himself to the study of Greek without feeling the attraction. There are those who would place Greek in the same category as Sanskrit, admitting | for it a certain historical and philological importance, but denying its claim upon the attention of the ordinary student. | But this opinion is quite inconsistent | with certain well-known facts. We find few persons studying Sanskrit except pro- | fessional scholars. But the world is full of men like the lamented Judge Reardon | of your own city, who delighted to spend the scanty leisure of a busy life in loving absorptidn in the precious fragments of Sappho; or like that distinguished lawyer of Baltimore who, at his recent death, left as his most urgent request to his children that they should collect and pub- lish the results of his lifelong study of Zschylus. What 1s it that attracted these men, and attracts us, to the Greek writers? It is plain that there is some magic in the Greek mind and character which has not yet lostits potency. The language itself is indescribably beautiful and parfect, but that is not all. The his- tory of that heroic people is a story which still thrills the most thoughtless reader. It was the Greeks who first showed the world what civic freedom is, and on a single day, at Salamis and Himera, they proved its power by hurling back the shattered hosts of the two mightiest bar- baric despotisms from the free soil of Attica and Sicily. But beyond ail this it is the unequaled genius and creative power of the Greek mind which attract and hold the interest of the student. And on this point, in spite of all that has been said by many eloquent writers, I doubt if we realize a fraction of the truth. Let us suppose that in the course of the next century the half-civ- ilized people of Lapland should develop for themselves, without following foreign models, a national literature of unequaled beauty and power; that they should create a large number of entirely new literary forms which should cast in the shade our epic and drama and lyrie, our novel and oration and philosophic treatise, and that these forms should become the standard of taste for the whole world through all its progress in culture and refinement for the next twenty-five hundred yesrs. Suppose that, furthermore, they should originate an architecture and a sculpture which should be the despair of imitators for cen- turies to come; and finally that they should produce new views of politics, of morals and of philosophy which should serve as an inspiration for the profoundest think- ers of ages and nations yet unborn. If any nation should do all this in the space of the next one hundred vears, what opinion should we form of its genius? And yet this is precisely what was accom- plished long ago by the people ot a sterile peninsula in Southeastern Europe, for the most part in one short century. Athens, at the height of her glory, was a smaller bered among her citizens within a_single century Hschylus and Sophocles, Herodo- tus and Thucydides, Plato and Aristotle and Demosthenes: Phidias, the greatest sculptor of all time, and Ictinus, the architect of the Parthenon. And these names are but the beginning of the list. All this in one hundred years. Since then the world has moved onward more than two millenniums. Education has in- creased, universities have multiplied, and myriads of men have written and specu- lated and carved and built. And what have we accomplished? In epic poetry the ages have produced in Dante one man, and but one, who may Berulpu be ranked with Homer, although ante himself was proud to call himself the humble disciple of that lesser ancient bard whose poetic light was but a reflec- tion of Homer’s greater splendor. Shakes- peare and Goethe may compete on equal terms with Sophocles, but we look in vain for another. No phil'oaopher can dispute the absoiute pre-eminence of Plato. In sculpture, eyen Michael Angelo himself serves only as a foil for the absolute perfec- tion of Phidias and Praxiteles. In fact it is doubtful whether the combined efforts of the whole civilized world, from the Christian era till to-day, have produced so much work which will live in art and literature as was created by that handful of Athenians in three or four generations. If this statement is true, or even ap- proximately true, do we realize the infer- ence which' we must draw as to the cre- ative genius of the Greeks? With every advantage of education, with the best models before our eyes from infancy, with the most studied efforts of modern times can scarcely rival. Say what you will for other subjects of study, which I am far from wishing to disparage, there is noth- ing so stimulating to the mind as direct contact with genius, best of all in the per- son of the living teacher, but since this is rarely possible, we must in most cases be content with the written word. Now, the world has not seen and is not likely soon to see a people so gifted as the Greeks, and hence tfie classics will not be super- seded until something better has been found to take their place. 5 But I must basten to my final point. We sre often told that the classics are well enough for a select few, but that the average man desires something more prac- tical. In what I have already said I have tried to show that this isan error, and that practical considerations of the highest im- portance would lead us to cling to the classics as the foundation of our culture. But that they are not practical, in the cur- rent cheap and degrading sense, is, after all, one of their highest merits. We are overwhelmed, we are swamped with the practical. We are steeped in finance. We live in a whirl of machinery; we worship the almighty dollar. Heaven avert the day when education, too, shall become merely vpractical! If classical siudies, while possessing rare intrinsic charm and interest, and educational utility of the highest order, can, at the same time, by their very remoteness from our ordinary | currents of thought, lift the mind from the practical to the ideal and withdraw us, for afew yearsat least, from the deadly materialism of modern life, et us be thank- ful for it. It is but fair to say that improved meth- ods of teaching must be introduced to remove the often well-founded charge of dullness and drudfiery from the study of Greek and Latin. uch has already been accomplished in this direction, and much more can yet be done. But with all our efforts to make the classics attractive, one | fact must not be forgotten. The untrained boy, at the outset of his course, can never be expected to appreci- ate the importance of such studies. If left to himself at this critical period he is almost certain to neglect the classics for other lines of work which offer returns that are more specious and apparent, though not more real. Thousands of in- telligent boys bave made this mistake, and too often they find it out when it is too late to rectify it. In nine cases out of ten the man who has not enjoyed a classical J:repnrm.ory | education, if he spends his life among neogle of culture, will feel in some inde- finable way that he has missed scmethm§ which he cannot afford to be without. therefore believe most profoundly that it is the duty of the university, by a wise prescription of reguired studies, to throw the whole weight of its prestige and au- thority in favor of a certain amount of classical training, in order that, before rejecting these studies, the boy may have a fair opportunity to learn something of their interest and value. And will you pardon me, in closing, a word of reference to our own State? In climate, in landscape and in skies Califor- nia is almost a second Hellas. Whatcould be more appropriate than that we, who en- joy the privilege of helping to shape the 15 JENERAL LU.IUS H. FOOTE, [From a photograph.] across my vision ; the Troubadours, late in | hand, chanting their gay songs, the ladies | holding their *‘courts of love” to decide | fine points of amorous courtesy, splitting | bairsto determine the exact duty of the | knight to his lady iove. | And over all this unreal scene broods the grand majestic universal church, claiming supreme power in earth ana heaven, hold- ing in her right hand the keys of heaven and hell, exalting always the ascetic un- worldly virtues, poverty, chastity, self- abnegation, these were the spells that would open the gates of the kingdom and the monk and the hermit would be sum- moned to the highest seats in paradise. How strange and unreal all this seems to | us, yet these were the ideals of human life | in Western Eurove for many generations. | Underneath all this fantastic surface were | saints and heroes as noble and devoted as | the world ever saw. What expression did this strange form of society find in literature? The times HON. culture of this splendid empire, shcu]d‘pm ourselves in closest touch with those gifted men who once wrought such marvels amid surroundings so much like ours? Why should we not seize our opportunity to lay the broadest foundations at the oute set? Mast we imitate the errors of some of our sister States in the Mississippi Val- ley, which, in a mistaken effort for the so- called practical, groped in blindness al- most for generations, with the reproach of Beeotian dullness upon them, waitine till some Rockefeller would come, and, b sheer force of millions, set their ucation on a solid basis? No stranger who comes to work among the young eople of California can fail to be impressed with a certain peculiar quality of mind which he tinds here. There is a quickness and keenness of perception in these young people which is by no means common in the Kast. If we can but bring them into relations of reverent sympathy | with ‘their intellectual kinsmen in ancient Greece, why ma; thg not some day give the world another Homer, ora second Plato? I believe that it is within our power to pave the way for a liter- ary and artistic renaissance on these ro- mantic shores which shall raise California to the level, not of Wisconsin and Illinois, not merely of Connecticut and Massa- chusetts, but of the most brilliant com- munities and epochs which the world has seen. Only we muet not be misled by a narrow utilitarianism which would cut us off from our choicest source of inspira- tion. If we will let the classics do for us what they did for Italy at her renaissance, the name of San Francisco may some day be more celebrated than that of the Flor- ence of Dante and the Medici. The Chairman—Not all the greatness of man’s intellect, of which we have so inter- estingly and forcibly heard, could keep the governments of the earth from toppling into chaos. For ages the earth was wrapped in a gloom throuch which no brightness seemed to come. But it was there, and it pierced that night like stars. It was in the song and story and brought solace to the mind of man. Medieval lit- erature—what it was, its legendary grace, the secrets of each art unfolded to thou- sands every vear by accomplished teach- ers, we yet produce almost nothing which can stand comparison with the nntaught and unaided work of & few Greeks, who ate with their nnglgrs and worshiped the sun and moon. Throwing aside all the enthusiasm of the professed Hellenist, and planting ourselves upon the universal opinion of mankind, this fact is the great- est marvel of history and would be pro- nounced incredible if it were not true. 1t does not, therefore, seem to me to be a mere accident perpetuated by tradition that the general consent of the most en- lighl.cnef nations has decided that there isno more valuable subject for the gen- eral student, none which more mwerfi‘h stimulates the creative faculty in ‘art an literature, than the Greek classics. In dealing with these ancient writers we are not reading the works of brilliant imita- tors or laborious compilers, but we are going back to the very source of the world’s intellectual life. These men wrought with that freshness of energy and freedom of movement which fe- long to the explorer of new paths, and yet with a severe artistic beauty which its wonders that still delight—will be once again revealed to you by Mr, Horace Davis. e MEDIEVAL LITERATURE. HORACE DAVIiS. BY HON. The medieval period I conceive to be that era of transition extending from the time of Charlemagne to the dawn of the Renaissance—say to about 1300— during which the Gothic tribes were slowly becoming adjusied to their new homes and their new religion. It was a time of strong motives, violent passions and strangecontrasts. War, love and religion were the prime motives. It was the era of knight errantry, chivalry and the Crusades, and the stage of action is filled with such men as Peter the Her- mit, Godfrey, Tancred and Richard the Lien-hearted. As I look at it from its softer side an- other and a very different army troops HORACE DAVIS. [From a photograph.] were turbulent and stormy, and true liter- ature is a shy growth. It rarely gains free expression in such periods. There were plenty of books, ponderous tomes of scholastic philosophy and divin- ity, full of subtle discussions on points be- yond human comprehension; there were | pious lives of impossible saints; there was ( finical wire-drawing of fine spun senti- ment by the Troubadours; but all this is not literature. The literature, that which | has the eternal element in it, must be something that appeals to the heart of the | people, something that touches their inner : self ana brings to light their hepes and | fedrs, their joys and sorrows, their ideals and failures. For such a literature we must go to the Trouveres and romancers of the north. They alone have felt the heart-beat of the period, because they wrote for the popular ear. The Barons and ladies of that day | longed for amusement and diversion as | much as the novel-reader of to-day—nay, more, for, 1solated as they were in their lonely castles, they gave a double welcome to the lay of the minstrel, the song of the trouveres or the prose romance, which DR. J. | of his age. | him that these lovers were devoted an. brought them in touch with the outer world. I fancy that Crestien of Troyes or. ‘Walter Map feit the pulse of his audience as keenly as Thackeray or Browning .or Hall Caine, and wrote to please the-taste: And so _there grew up a vast body of poetry and romance, the latter partly in verse and partly in prose—mostly written in French, the literary language of that day—and many of these romances have come down to us. Some of them told of the love and ad- venture of their own time. Others revived the history of old Greece and brought out. Achilles and Hector and Troilus and Alex- ander the Great, fighting and jousting and making love like worthy knights on true medieval principles. Charlemagne was the subject of another cycle of romances. He was far enough away in time to be wrapped in the mists of myth and legend and they clothed him with the exploits of his great ancestor, Charles Martel, s When Roland brave and Olivere And every paladin and peer On Roncesvalles died. But most popular and widespread of ‘all, was the romance of Arthurand the Knights of the Round Table. Story after story. gathered around the central figure of Arthur till the legend seemed to fill the aspirations of the time and its unbounded - popularity gave 1t a currency sach. as no other subject has ever. .had- unless it be the Iliad of Homier. It spread over all Europe, from Scotland to Italy and Spain. It was translated into all the languages of Western Europe. It was retold in. endless variety, and formed the staple of ro- mance for nearly 400 years, till the coming ef: the Renaissance gave new subjects of thought and formed new standards of taste. . Then after a temporary eclipse it was revived again, and with undying interest it has been repeated tn new forms even in our own day. What was_the secret of the charm that gave it such & hold upon the men and women of the: middle uges? 1 am not speaking of Malory's “Morte Darthur,” but of that cycle of earl romance from which he compiled his immortal book. They were written from 1150 to 1225, during the period of the second and third Cru- . sades, when the impulse of chivalry was at {15 highest, and they were saturated with its spirit. Together they formed the epic of chiv- alry. Arthur, Launcelot and Tristram filled the re- quirements of knlghl]y virtues—fearless in battle, merciful to the vanquished, devoted in friendship, tender and true in love, alwi ready to peril_their lives for sufiering ‘woms they formed the models for chivalric example. The loves of Launcelot and Guinevere, of Tristram and Isolde—to us they seem guilty passions—but Malory, pious as hLe was, has no word of blame for them. It was enough for true. The standards of medieval morality not only justified bui exalted them. “While she lived,” says Malory of Guinevere, in his quaint way, “while she lived, she was & true lover and therefore she had a good end.” £ The quest of the Grail added a_religious sig- nificance to the whole story and rounded out the prevailing motives of the day—war, love and religion—filling the measure of noble pur- ose according to the spirit of the times. &To these claims wero added the sympathy excited by the romantic fate of AHE’IJIII‘ him- seli, his unequal struggle with the fate that finally crushed him; it was the familiar story of man fighting against de:l(nr. Arthur became King of England at the age of 15, a mere boy in years. He found .lfil country ravaged by anarchy and civil wi With Merlin’s aid he subdued the rebels drove out the Saxon invaders, restoring the Ckristian faitn, which had been trampled un- der foot by his pagan enemies, and bringing peace and prosperity to the country. He established at London the mos¢.magnifi- cent court in Western Europe, drew around him the most famous heroes of Christendom, and founded the order of the Round Tableass bulwark to his throne. Borne forward on the flood tide of success he brought under his rule ail the British isle: crossed the ocean and conquered the pag: of Norway and Denmark, sabdued Gaul and Ger- many, overthrew the aimies sent against him by the Roman authorities, followed them across the Alps into the Holy City itself, where he was crowned Emperor by the Pope. During this wonderful career he performed feats of prodigions personal valor. Single- handed he encountered and slew a monstrous giant, releasing from cuguvity & number of noble ladies,and afterward decided a clmgd{n by a duel on an island in the Seine with the R‘on:i-n;I general, whom he slew after a desper- ate fight. Letgving Rome he returned to England, the Emperor of Western Europe, the most con- spicuous figure in Christendom, the idol of his countrymen. Then came the episode of the Holy Grail. This was the sacred cup from which our Savior drank at the last supper. Joseph of Arima. thes brought it to England, where it remained in his family, dispensing miraculous blessings on the land til], in the increase of wickedness, it disappeared from among men. Soon after Arthur's return it began to be DENNIS ARNOLD. > [#rom a photograph.}