those-ie. the lawgiver and the statesman-who What makes a nation happy, keeps it so, do far more for mankind than the inventor. Better a wholesome polity with oil lamps than a pocket edition of hell' with a nobler installation of electric-light than was ever yet dreamed of by the 'Wizard of Menlo Park." Whatever way we look at it, this worship of applied science is pure superstition. Applied science has done much to reduce friction and increase population, and may do more, but she cannot overstep the limits set her. To talk of science making new men in a new world is utterly absurd. Not till she finds out the cause and meaning of life will she be capable of any such claim. If and when she has done that, but not till then, M. Berthelot may claim what he claims for her without superstition. THE POET'S FUNCTION AS INTERPRETER PEOPLE are apt to talk as if the poet had no function in the modern world, or at any rate as if his only function were to amuse and entertain, and as if the State, in its higher and political aspect, had no need of him. The poet, we are told in effect, is an anachronism in an age like the present a mere survival from more primitive times. Those who argue thus are badly instructed, and are reasoning from the imperfect premises afforded by the early and middle Victorian epoch. For a moment the world was exclusively occupied with industrial and other utilitarian objects, and naturally enough the poet seemed out of place. He proved nothing, he made nothing, and he discovered nothing-or at any rate nothing in the regions of science and invention. But this overshadowing of the poet's function in the State was not real, but merely accidental and temporary. Though people thought so for the moment, machinery is not everything; nor is it the least true to say that the song of the singer is never something done, something actual. Tennyson put this with splendid insight when, in his plea for the poet, he reminded the world that The song that nerves a nation's heart Is in itself a deed. While the possible need for a Tyrtæus exists, and that need can never be wholly banished, the poet must always have a real use. But there are other functions no less real, and hardly less important, which a poet may perform in the modern State. He may act as interpreter to the nation, and show it, as only he can, the true relations and the true meaning of the different parts which make up the whole. The great difficulty of every nation is its inability to realise and understand itself. Could it do this truly, a nation could hardly take the wrong road and bring itself to ruin and confusion. But few nations have this faculty, and therefore they need so sorely an interpreter, one who by his clearer vision shall show them what they are and whither they tend. And for the mass of mankind only the poet can do this. The ordinary man, whether rich or poor, educated or uneducated, apprehends very little and very vaguely save through his senses and his emotions. Maps and figures, dissertations and statistics, fall like water off a duck's back when you talk to him of the British Empire, of the magnitude of our rule in India, and of the problem of its dark races; of the growth of the English-speaking people in Canada and in Australia ; and of how our fate, as a nation, is inextricably bound up with the lordship of the sea. He hears, but he does not mark. But the poet, if he has the gift of the interpreter-and without that gift in some shape or form he is hardly a poetwhether he works in prose or verse can bring home the secrets of empire and the call of destiny to the hearts of the people. Of course he cannot touch all, but when he does touch he kindles. He lays the live coal on men's minds; and those who are capable of being roused have henceforth a new and different feeling and understanding of what he tells. Mr. Kipling's fascinating poem, 'The Native Born,' is a reminder to us of how large a share he possesses of this interpreting power. His work is of extraordinary value in making the nation realise itself, especially as regards the Empire and the oneness of our kin. One of the great difficulties of the mere politician, who knows himself but cannot interpret, is to get the people of this country to understand that when the Englishmen born over-sea assert themselves, and express their glory in and love for the new land, they are not somehow injuring or slighting the old home. When Englishmen hear of and but partly understand the ideas of young Australia, young Canada, or young South Africa, as the case may be, they sadly or bitterly declare that there is no love of England left in the Colonies, and that the men of the new lands think only of themselves, and dislike, or are indifferent to, the mother-country. The way in which the pride and exultation of the 'native born' is conveyed makes that pride and exultation misunderstood. When we hear people talk a language which we do not know we are always apt to think that they are full of anger and contempt, and that we are the objects of this anger and contempt. Now the uninspired social analyst or the statistical politician might have preached and analysed for years and yet not have got the nation to understand the true spirit of the 'native born,' and how in reality it neither slights the old land nor injures the unity of the Empire. His efforts to prove that the passionate feeling of the 'native born' should be encouraged, not suppressed, fall, for the most part, on empty ears. He may convince a few philosophers, but the great world heeds him not. But if, and when, the true poet comes, he can interpret for the mass of men and make clear and of good omen what before seemed dark and lowering. Take the poem by Mr. Kipling to which we have just alluded. The poet does not reason with us, or argue, or bring proofs; instead he enables us to enter into the spirit of the 'native born,' and by a flash of that lightning which he brings straight from heaven he makes us understand how the men of Australia, and Canada, and Africa feel towards the land in which they were born. Thus interpreted, their pride ceases to sound harsh to our ears, and we realise that the native born' may love their deep-blue hills, their ice-bound lakes and snow-wreathed forests, their rolling uplands, or their palms and canes, and yet not neglect their duty to the mother-land or to the Empire and the race. Surely a man who can do this has done something, and something of vast importance for the whole English kin. He has dropped the tiny drop of solvent acid into the bowl, and made what was before a turbid mixture a clear and lucent liquor. But we must not write of the poem and not remind our readers of its quality by a quotation. To show its power of interpretation, take the first three verses: We've drunk to the Queen, God bless her! We've drunk to our mother's land, We've drunk to our English brother (But he does not understand); We've drunk to the wide creation, And the Cross swings low to the dawn— Last toast, and of obligation— A health to the Native-born! |