XVI. PREDESTINATION AND THE FREE WILL IN REGARD TO ASPECTS OF DEATH. 357 IT cannot be denied that the fatalistic idea expressed in the Italian motto of the Russells (Dukes of Bedford, &c.), Che sara sara ("What will be, will be "), has in practice often proved helpful and comforting to countless persons besides Oriental soldiers and followers of Mohammed, This brings up the whole question of whether it is justifiable to support and maintain and adhere to a religious or moral doctrine, or to invent one, because the doctrine in question is useful and comforting, and of noble or beneficial influence in some particular calling or mode of life-even when one cannot absolutely believe in the truth of it. Be such a course justifiable, surely it must be admitted that Napoleon, from his military point of view, improved on the ordinary fatalistic, Che sara sara, if, as is supposed (see further on) he declared that Death might overtake the coward, but never the brave, until his hour was come. The passive "Kismet" attitude towards life and death, right and wrong, may, however, well be contrasted with that expressed in the oft-quoted quatrain of W. E. Henley (1849-1903) "It matters not how strait the gate, How charged with punishments the scroll, I am the master of my fate; I am the captain of my soul." Cf. Longfellow (The Builders): "We are architects of Fate, Working in these walls of Time." 35 This motto, or an equivalent, occurs on various medalets. I remember, for instance, having seen a medal-like "pass" of some kind, bearing the Bedford coat of arms, with the motto in question below it. In connexion with Henley's above-mentioned verses, the tenth edition of Bartlett's Familiar Quotations refers to some lines by James Benjamin Kenyon, ending: "Be the proud captain still of thine own fate." Cf. also the following verses in praise of equanimity "Toss'd on a sea of troubles, Soul, my Soul, And to the weapons of advancing foes Undaunted 'mid the hostile might Of squadrons burning for the fight. Thine be no boasting, when the victor's crown Thine no dejected sorrow, when defeat 'Midst evil, and still bear in mind, How changeful are the ways of humankind.” There is no real contradiction between the vigorously objective attitude of W. E. Henley, &c., and the mystic, more passive, attitude, expressed by many, such as is suggested by the following stanza of Omar Khayyam :- "I sent my Soul through the Invisible Some letter of that After-life to spell, And answered, I myself am Heaven and Hell." Death may sometimes be successfully resisted by determined action, and a plaque, already referred to, representing Death in an attitude of fear or submission before Valour (or Virtue), was perhaps intended to express this idea. Napoleon, who believed in his "star" 358 English version, after Hay, given by Lord Neaves, The Greek Anthology, Edinburgh, 1874, p. 105. of destiny, is (as stated above) supposed to have said, "Death overtakes the coward, but never the brave until his hour is come"-a useful idea--more helpful than the Oriental Kismet" attitude-for a military commander. to instil into the minds of his followers, but a curious aphorism to come from one who himself indirectly caused the death of such a multitude of brave men. In one of her letters Madame de Sévigné, speaking of Marshal Turenne's death (1675), pointed out how glorious it was and how his reputation could have gained nothing had he lived longer. The cannon that killed him at that moment seemed to her to have been for that very purpose "loaded from all eternity." Lucan (Pharsalia, ii. 75) wrote: "Mors ipsa refugit Saepe virum." Cf. James Russell Lowell: : "The brave makes danger opportunity; The waverer, faltering with the chance sublime, Compare also the proud motto of Margaret of Austria (1480-1530), Regent of the Netherlands, daughter of the German Emperor Maximilian I, and (by her mother) granddaughter of Charles the Bold of Burgundy: "Fortune-infortune-forte une." The motto of Margaret of Austria may be read on her tomb in the church at Brou. On the upper slab of the tomb she is sculptured lying in queenly state, crowned with a diadem and clothed in rich robes, with a greyhound sleeping at her feet. On the lower slab she is represented, by a kind of gisant figure, as a mortal woman robbed of all her state.359 This motto of the great princess belongs to the group of which those of the Rohan family of France and the Barons of Coucy (who built Coucy Castle, in Dép. Aisne, France, 1225-1230) may be accepted as the types: "Roi ne peux, duc ne veux, Rohan je suis." "Roi ne suys, Ne prince, ne duc, ne comte aussy, Je suys le sire de Coucy." There are several variations of these Rohan and Coucy mottoes. 359 Cf. Christopher Hare (Marian Andrews), The High and Puissant Princess Marguerite of Austria, London, 1907, p. 336. Here I would refer again to Albrecht Dürer's famous copper-plate engraving (1513), which he himself called "Der Reuter" (Fig. 37), representing the "true knight," FIG. 37.-Dürer's "The Knight, Death and the Devil" (1513). a mounted soldier in splendid armour, who rides onwards to the end, by the way of duty, not deterred by the threats of Death, nor disturbed by the suggestions of the loath some Devil (with a pig-like snout 360), who both accompany him. Death explains to the knight the meaning of an emblem of mortality (a human skull) which lies exposed before him, and points out the common end which necessarily awaits every man; the Devil doubtless is seizing the opportunity for recommending the enjoyment of the grosser practices of hedonism before the inevitable decay of the body removes all opportunity for fleshly delights. Perhaps the fox's skin on the knight's lance signifies that he has successfully overcome the cunning temptations of the Devil. In this wonderful allegorical design by Dürer the ideal knight is not represented as the champion of chivalry in Mediaeval romance, the rescuer of beautiful and distressed princesses from "durance vile," nor as the Renaissance "chevalier sans peur et sans reproche," but rather as the "Christian hero" (typified later on in John Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress"), or, still more so, as the true "knight of duty of the modern civilised world, irrespective of differences in creed. He is the brave soldier and morally courageous man: "Der dem Tod ins Angesicht schauen kann, (Schiller, Wallensteins Lager, Elfter Auftritt.) Lionel Cust, in his fine explanation of The Engravings of Albrecht Dürer (London, 1894, p. 62), quotes a German poem in regard to the design in question : : "Across my path though Hell should stride, 360 There is something of the goat about this composite animal, and it may be noted that according to the strange notions of the Eastern sect called the Manicheans," the Devil was represented by a goat. Dürer's devil has certainly no obviously enticing qualities, and it is difficult to imagine that such a devil would find many followers. |