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Page 13
And what has all this to do with it? I will tell you. With the means
of doing a thing, nothing is difficult, if you only understand
thoroughly the nature of the thing. The obstacles that commonly deter
you are not in the thing, but in you; and until you understand this,
you will keep gaping and shrinking, and saying, 'It is impossible.'
Some folk, when looking out of a three or four storey window, feel as
if they were going to fall. This is their own fault, not the fault of
the window, for that is just like a parlour window, where they have no
sensation of the sort. A man sits peaceably enough on the top of a
tall, three-legged stool, and could hitch himself round and round, and
then get up and stand upon it erect for half a day, without any risk
of falling. Now, a steeple is much more securely fixed than a stool;
its top is as broad as a table; and there is nothing to prevent
anybody from standing upon it as long as he pleases, if he only will
not think he is going to fall. You go up half-a-dozen steps of a
ladder without fear, and then persuade yourself you can go no farther;
but there is nothing more dangerous in the next half-dozen, so far as
they are themselves concerned; nor in the next hundred, nor the next
thousand, for that matter. My secret consists in my _knowing_ all
this, although I feel that I have only described when, not how the
knowledge came. Perhaps you, who are book-learned, may be able to make
it out, and shew how it is that, when anything occurs to awaken the
mind, and enable one to work from knowledge, not habit, he is ten
times the man he was. Without this, I should have climbed a mast all
my life; but with it, I took to leaping up steeples by means of a
kite, in a way that makes many ignorant persons report that I manage
it by holding on by the tail.
But a man who goes up a steeple must take care how he behaves, for the
eyes of the world are upon him. He is not lost in a crowd, where he is
seen only by his next neighbours. That man must pull off his cap and
be affable; but he must not do even that to extravagance. When the
Queen was passing up the Clyde, an American seaman got on the
topgallant, and stood on his head. What was that for, I should be glad
to know? Suppose her Majesty was coming along Princes Street, just to
take the air like a lady, and look into the shop-windows, and I was to
go right up to her, and stand on my head--what would she say? I
surmise, that she would turn round to her Lord Gold Stick, and order
him to give me a knock on the shins. I know she would, for she is a
regular trump, and knows how people in every station should behave. I
am ashamed of that American: he is a Yankee Noodle!
It may be said, that the Queen has the same advantage as myself--that
she is up the steeple; but so is every ordinary bricklayer or emperor.
The thing is to be able to look and understand when you _are_ up. I
once saw a curious sight as I sat with the swallows flying far under
my feet. The people did not wander about the street here and there as
usual, but hundreds after hundreds of small objects came on in regular
array. Then I could see long lines of Lilliputian soldiers marching in
the procession, with their tiny bayonets glancing in the sun; and
every now and then came up a soft swell of music, feeble but sweet.
'What is all this about?' thought I. 'Are they going to set one of
these little creatures over them for a bailie or a king?' And one did
march in the middle with a small space round him; 'but perhaps,'
thought I again, 'he is only a trumpeter.' Howbeit, the procession at
last halted, and gathered, and closed, and stood still for a time; and
there was another small swell of the instruments, with a feeble shout
from the throng, and then they all stirred, and broke, and dispersed,
and disappeared. This was just like the view from the mast-head: it
made me feel grand. But when I came down, I had not replaced one
prejudice with another. I did not despise the creatures I came among;
for they were then of the same size as myself. I pulled off my cap to
them, and was affable; only it did give me a queer thought--not a
merry one--when I heard that the official they had made that day, on
going home to his house, out of the grandeur and the din, was heard to
commune with himself, saying: 'And me but a mortal man after all!'
Poetry? No, sirs, I have learned no poetry. I had poetry enough of my
own without learning it, and so has everybody else. I once knew a
fellow who wrote very good poetry; but few of us understood it. That
man lost his labour. It is nature that _makes_ poetry; the poet has
merely found out the art of stirring it in the hearts of men, where it
lies ready-made, like the perfume of a flower. A poet who is not
understood only makes a noise; and he is the greatest poet who makes
the greatest number of human hearts to leap and tingle. But the fellow
I mean piqued himself on not being understood. Like the Yankee Noodle,
he cut capers that had no intelligible meaning in them, just to make
people stare. As for my own share of poetry, I will tell you when I
feel it stirring most. You must know that in the view from a steeple
the form of objects is changed only in one direction--that is
downwards. The small houses, the narrow streets, the little creatures
creeping along them, and the feeble sounds they send up, make me feel
grand. But when I turn my eyes to the heavens, I see no shadow of
change. The clouds look awful, as if despising my poor attempt at
approach; and they glide, and break, and fade, and build themselves up
again--all in deep silence--in a way that makes me feel mean. Now this
mean feeling is real poetry. The meaner I feel, the grander are they;
and when I look long at them, and think long, and then begin to
descend to the earth, to mingle with the little creatures who are my
fellows, I tremble--but not with fear.
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