PILGRIMS AT HORSHAM.
THE revolution or evolution of human ideas could not have been doubted by any one attending the celebration of the Shelley Centenary in the old and picturesque town of Horsham on August 4th, 1892. Not only did the names of some clergymen figure on the list of the Committee, but a white marble slab, with the poet's name and the date of his birth and his death, was exhibited at the meeting ; and the assembled company were informed that the slab would be placed that day in Horsham Church. If the memorial was decidedly inartistic, and if there was a feeling of incongruity in this clerical acceptance of the poet, once shunned by religious people, the facts only served to heighten the feeling that this last hundred years had certainly witnessed no less strange, if more gradual, changes in England than those which swept suddenly over France at the time of Shelley's birth. "I have never read a word he wrote," said one of the Philistines to a home-returning pil- grim, "but was not he rather a queer man and an atheist,—What went ye out to see " Certainly the man himself was an erring fellow-creature, his religious opinions wandered far from any orthodox paths, but Shelley was no real atheist. More than any other poet of the age, "he saw God in everything," as Mr. Gosse remarked ; but he cried out for more than spiritual sight; he wanted definite spiritual emotion, not recognising that in man's imperfect state, to see God is to die, and that even of his visions of holiness it is not lawful for the visionary to speak. Those who throw stones at Shelley the man, caring nothing for Shelley the poet, might have learnt at Horsham in the poetic language of a poet, that, in spite of the "busy piety of biographers," it was remarkable that a creature so nervous and so highly strung should have come out as well as he does from this close scrutiny, and should have been found in the end so little sprinkled with mire. No one now wishes to canonize Shelley that "Grand Seigneur of Democracy," but those who love this "Peregrine Falcon" love him because he soars above the commonplace, which now threatens to crush us ; because in this day of widespread constitutional sadness he shows us "the liquid joy of life," and makes us a gift of the pure elixir of youth, "a recapture of illusion " ; because in this age of hasty imperfection his work, without conscious apparent effort, is a grand protest against "the wretched heresy of neglect of form," for, as Mr. Gosse told us, no one has gone further than Shelley in technical perfection. Weary as Hegel was of over-erudition and common-sense, weary as we are of the ceaseless worship of Mammon and of material display, more and more shall we turn towards thepoet's inspiration, and in time we shall see his aspirations fulfilled
" Drive my dead thoughts over the universe Like withered leaves to quicken a new birth ! And, by the incantation of this verse, Scatter, as from an unextinguished hearth Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind? Be thou my lips to an awakened earth The trumpet of a prophecy ! 0 wind,
If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?"
But though Shelley appeals so naturally to the imaginative man, it is for the commonplace mind that he is specially use- ful, if through pilgrimages or marble memorials that mind can be attracted to his poetry, for, as Professor Nichol remarked at the end of his short but excellent speech at the Centenary, "Wild ideas are better than none." Many of Shelley's poems embody purely ideal passion, painting in exquisite words the baseless fabric of a dream, even the dream itself ; and it is from the loss of the power of idealising that we now suffer. Nothing now kindles our enthusiasm ; and the ideal life, which has been in all times the mainspring of the highest forms of literature, appears to be on its death-bed..
Childhood and youth teach us that human nature cannot live by common-sense alone, that imagination helps to form character as much as exact science, and we have known, persons of middle life who, evidently craving unconsciously for this elixir, cling to the poetic expression quite apart from
any meaning the words convey to them ; often, indeed, thin love resides in minds quite unable to understand the deep thought of the poet, and perfectly incompetent to imbibe any philosophical or ethical teaching it may contain. Without any comprehension of the cause, such as these will tell you they "love poetry," for they feel, though they cannot give expression to the feeling, that poetry leads them into an enchanted garden, and displays to them visions of exquisite- beauty, of which they do not even desire to know the meaning, or to doubt the utility. The visions are enough ; they have found the elixir of life, and they turn a deaf ear to the scien- tific man who asks "what is the good of it all ?" and to the philanthropist who affirms that poetry will not fill an empty stomach. Even the literary man pure and simple will tell us- that Shelley "made no sane and conscious effort to understand things," and that he was "the born child of illusion." Some would even translate this into "the born fool," but it is for these very reasons that he wrote " Epipsychidian," telling us- of the little soul within the soul; it is because with him all is abstract, all is shadowy, all is ghosts of passion or- passionate ghosts, because nothing is tangible, and nothing can be proved, that the small minority cling to him and recog- nise in him the poet who, by his own pure lyrical power, scorning the didactic element, raised in the opposite scale the heavy weight of the nineteenth century commonplace.
This, then, was the meaning of the Centenary at Horsham. There were no triumphal arches, no local enthusiasm repre- senting national glory in Shelley, who is cosmopolitan ; the pilgrims were few in number, and the ceremony short ; but those who were there were witnesses for the power of the Ideal, believing that the true seekers after gold are not always those who rise early and late take rest, in order to amass wealth, but that the highest honour should be given. to those who, in another manner, have given wealth to- nations. Shelley was one of these. A century has partly proved this, and his Centenary has justified both the Poet and the Ideal.
"They might lament—for I am one
Whom men love not,—and yet regret, Unlike this day, which when the sun Shall on its stainless glory set, Will linger, though enjoyed, like joy in memory yet."
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