Collected Works (Vol. I)

PREFACE 225 scheme with the ‘‘Pilgrim’s Progress.” Literary and spiritual experts will however readily detect minor differences in the treat- ment. It will be sufficient if I state that “the Unknown,” whether minstrel, pilgrim, or Egyptian sage, represents Tannhduser in his true Self,—the ‘‘Only Being in an Abyss of Light!” The Tannhduser who talks is the ‘‘Only Being in an Abyss of Darkness,” the natural man ignorant of his identity with the Supreme Being. The various other characters are all little parts of Tannhiauser’s own consciousness and not real persons at all: whether good or bad, all alike hinder and help (and there is not one whose function is not thus double) the realisation of his true unity with all life, This circumstance serves to explain, though perhaps not to excuse, the lack of dramatic action in the story. Love being throughout the symbol of his method, as Beauty of its object, it is through Love, refined into Pity, that he at last attains the Supreme Know- ledge, or at least sufficient of it to put the last straw on the back of his corporeal camel, and bring the story to a fitting end. To pass to more mundane affairs. I may mention for the benefit of those who may not be read in certain classes of literature, and so think me original when I am hardly even paraphrasing, that Tannhduser’s songs in Act IV. are partly adapted from the so-called ‘‘Oracles of Zoroaster,” partly from the mysterious utterances of the great angel Avé,’ perhaps equally spurious. Of course Bertram’s song is merely a rather free adaptation of the two principal frag- ments of Sappho, which so many people have failed to translate that one can feel no shame in making yet another attempt. There may be one or two conscious plagiar- isms besides, for which I do not apologise. For any unconscious ones which may have crept in owing to my prolonged absence from civilised parts, and the consequent lack of opportunity for reference and comparison, I emphatically do. One word to the reviewers. It must not be taken as ungracious if I so speak. From nearly all I have received the utmost justice, kindness, and consideration: two or three only seem to take delight in deliberately perverting the sense of my remarks: and to them, for their own sake, I now address 1 In '‘Dr. Dee,” VOL, I. these words of elementary instruction. You are perfectly welcome to do with my work in its entirety what Laertes did with his allegiance and his vows: but do not pick out and gloat over a few isolated passages from the Venusberg scenes and call me a sensualist, nor from the Fourth Act and groan “Mysticism!”; do not quote ‘‘Two is by shape the Coptic Aspirate” as a sample of my utmost in lyrics; do not take the song of Wolfram as my best work in either senti- ment or melody. As a gudd pro quo I give you all full permission to conclude your re- view of this book by quoting from Act III. ‘‘ Forget this nightmare !” I must express my great sense of gratitude to Oscar Eckenstein,! Gerald Kelly, and Allan MacGregor, who have severally helped me in the work of revision, which has ex- tended over more than a year of time and nearly twenty thousand miles of space. Some few of the very best lines were partially or wholly suggested by themselves, and I have not scrupled to incorporate these: if the book be but a Book, the actual authorship seems to me immaterial. I have written this preface in lighter vein, but I hope that no one will be led to suppose that my purpose is anything but deadly serious. This poem has been written in the blood of slain faith and hope; each foolish utterance of Tannhauser stings me with.shame and memory of old agony; each Ignis Fatuus that he so readily pursues, reminds me of my own delusions. But, these follies and delusions being the common property of mankind, I have thought them of sufficient interest, dramatic and_philo- sophical, to form the basis of a poem. Let no man dare to reproach me with posing as the hero of my tale. I fall back on the last utterance of Tannhduser himself: ‘‘I say, then, ‘I’: and yet it is not ‘I’ Distinct, but ‘I’ incorporate in All.” Above all, pray understand that I do not pose as a teacher. I am but an asker of questions, such as may be found confronting those who have indeed freed their minds from the con- ventional commonplaces of the platitudinous, but have not yet dared to uproot the mass of their convictions, and to examine the whole question of religion from its most fundamental source in the consciousness of mankind. Such persons may find the reason- 1 The famous mountaineer. P