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The Book Of Eulogies (Page 2 of 4)
"One of the greatest lines in our literature is his. Speaking of an outcast — 'Not until the sun excludes the earth will I exclude you.'"
WALT WHITMAN On the Fourth of July, 1855, an anonymous book of poems arrived in the mail for Ralph Waldo Emerson. Emerson found the work astounding and, upon learning who the poet was, quickly wrote to him saying, "I rubbed my eyes a little to see if this sunbeam were no illusion; but the solid sense of the book is a sober certainty." A grateful Walt Whitman immediately had Emerson's note duplicated and used to advertise hisv Leaves of Grass. | ||||||||||||||||||
Illinois politician Robert Ingersoll delivered the following eulogy at Whitman's funeral in Camden, New Jersey. One of the most eloquent orators in the nineteenth century, Ingersoll was called "the great agnostic" because he expressed doubt in an afterlife, and while he was greatly admired by the more liberal-minded, he was much maligned by orthodox churchmen, who considered him a poisoner of impressionable minds. When he died, one newspaper wrote: "Robert Ingersoll died yesterday. Perhaps he knows better now." Again we in the mystery of life are brought face-to-face with the mystery of death. A great man, a great American, is dead before us, and we have met to pay a tribute to his greatness and to his worth. His fame is secure. He laid the foundation of it deep in the human heart. He was, above all that I have known, the poet of humanity, of sympathy. Great he was — so great that he rose above the greatest that he met without arrogance; and so great that he stooped to the lowest without conscious condescension. He never claimed to be lower or greater than any other of the sons of man. He came into our generation a free, untrammeled spirit, with sympathy for all. His arm was beneath the form of the sick; he sympathized with the imprisoned and the despised; and even on the brow of crime he was great enough to place the kiss of human sympathy. One of the greatest lines in our literature is his. Speaking of an outcast — "Not until the sun excludes the earth will I exclude you." A charity as wide as the sky! And whenever there was human suffering, human misfortune, the sympathy of Whitman bent above it as the firmament bends above this earth. He was the poet of that divine democracy that gives equal rights to all the sons and daughters of men. He uttered the great American voice, uttered a song worthy of the great Republic. He was the poet of life. He loved the clouds. He enjoyed the breath of morning, the twilight, the wind, the winding streams. He loved to look at the sea when the winds and waves burst into the whitecaps of joy. He loved the fields, the hills. He was acquainted with trees, with birds, with all the beautiful objects on the earth; and he understood their meaning and used them that he might exhibit his heart to his fellowmen. He was also the poet of love. He was not ashamed of the divine passion that has built every home in the world; that divine passion that has painted every picture and given us every real work of art — that divine passion that has made the world worth living in and gives value to human life. He was the poet of the human race everywhere. His sympathy went out over the seas to all the nations of the earth. And above genius, above all the snowcapped peaks of intelligence, above his art, rises the man — greater than all. He was true absolutely to himself. He was frank, candid, pure, serene, and noble. And for years he was maligned and slandered, simply because he had the candor of nature. He will be understood yet, and that for which he was condemned will add to the glory and the greatness of his name. He wrote a liturgy for humanity — the greatest gospel that can be preached. He was not afraid to live, not afraid to speak his thoughts. Neither was he afraid to die. Cheerful every moment, the laughing nymphs of day remained that they might clasp the hand of the veiled and silent sisters of the night when they should come. And when they did come, Walt Whitman stretched his hand to both. And so, hand in hand, between smiles and tears, he reached his journey's end. Today we give back to Mother Nature, to her clasp and kiss, one of the bravest, sweetest souls that ever lived in human clay. Since he has lived, death is less fearful than it was before, and thousands and millions will walk down into the dark valley of the Shadow, holding Walt Whitman by the hand, long after we are dead. And so I lay this poor wreath upon this great man's tomb. I loved him living and I love him still.
"Like a prince he would enter a room...."
RUPERT BROOKE In 1915, the poet Rupert Brooke volunteered to join the British army. Less than a year later, he died of an infection off the Isle of Skyros in the Aegean. In his most famous poem, "The Soldier," he prophesied the circumstances of his death abroad. Brooke was not only brilliant but he looked the way people thought a poet ought to look, with patrician features, golden, loose-flowing locks, and bright blue eyes. When he died, all of England mourned as if everything that was best and brightest about itself had sunk into the sea. At the unveiling of a memorial to Brooke at Rugby School, Sir Ian Hamilton, who had been the British military leader of the Mediterranean forces in World War I, remarked upon the effect Brooke had upon others. I have seen famous men and brilliant figures in my day, but never one so thrilling, so vital, as that of our hero. Like a prince he would enter a room, like a prince quite unconscious of his own royalty, and by that mere act put a spell upon everyone around him. In the twinkling of an eye gloom was changed into light; dullness sent forth a certain sparkle in his presence.... Here was someone who was distinguished by a nameless gift of attraction, head and shoulders above the crowd; and it is the memory of this personal magnetism more even than the work his destiny permitted him to fulfill that adds strength to the roots of his ever-growing fame.
"He now dominated Nature, which all his life he had served as a worshiper. In return, she had finally taught him to see beyond surface appearances; and, like herself, to create a world out of almost nothing."
PIERRE-AUGUSTE RENOIR The French painter and sculptor Pierre-Auguste Renoir, one of the leading impressionists, learned how to make light explode upon the canvas. At the end of his life he was cruelly afflicted with arthritis and unable to walk. But when a doctor helped Renoir regain the use of his legs, Renoir pronounced the success too great a drain upon his waning energies. "I give up," he said. "It takes all my willpower and I would have none left for painting." He sat down in his wheelchair and never walked again. In this excerpt from My Father, Renoir, his son, Jean, writes of his father's last days, when, despite excruciating pain, he painted one of his greatest works, The Women Bathers, which his son called "the tremendous cry of love he uttered at the end of his life." Jean Renoir became a filmmaker, director of Grand Illusion, La Bête Humaine, Rules of the Game, and many other films. The more intolerable his suffering became, the more Renoir painted. Some friends in Nice had found a young model for him, Andrée, whom I was to marry after his death. She was sixteen years old, red-haired, plump, and her skin "took the light" better than any model that Renoir had ever had in his life. She sang, slightly off-key, the popular songs of the day; told stories about her girlfriends; was gay; and cast over my father the revivifying spell of her joyous youth. Along with the roses, which grew almost wild at Les Collettes, and the great olive trees with their silvery reflections, Andrée was one of the vital elements which helped Renoir to interpret on his canvas the tremendous cry of love he uttered at the end of his life.... While he was being put into his wheelchair, the model went outside and took her place on flower-spangled grass. The foliage of the olive trees sifted the rays of light and made an arabesque on her red blouse. In a voice still weak from his suffering during the night, Renoir had the adjustable windows opened or closed, as he wished; and material hung up, to provide him with a protection against the intoxication of the Mediterranean morning. While one of us prepared his palette, he could not help groaning once or twice. Adjusting his stricken body to the hard seat of the wheelchair was painful. But he wanted this "not too soft" seat, which helped him to keep upright and allowed him a certain amount of movement.... My father's suffering devastated all of us. The nurse, Grand Louise, the model — often it was Madeleine Bruno, a young girl from the village—and I, all felt a lump in our throats. Whenever we would try to talk in a cheerful voice, it sounded false. One of us would put the protecting piece of linen in Renoir's hand, pass him the brush he had indicated with a wink of the eye. "That one, there.... No, the other one." The flies circled in a shaft of sunlight.... "Oh, these flies!" he would exclaim in a rage as he brushed one off the end of his nose. "They smell a corpse." We made no answer. After the fly had ceased to bother him, he sank back into his somnolence, hypnotized by a dancing butterfly or by the distant sound of a cicada. The landscape was a microcosm of all the riches in the world. His eyes, nose, and ears were assailed by countless contradictory sensations. "It's intoxicating," he kept repeating. He stretched out his arm and dipped his brush into the turpentine. But the movement was painful. He waited a few seconds, as if asking himself, "Why not give up? Isn't it too hard?" Then a glance at the subject restored his courage. He traced on the canvas a mark, in madder red, that only he understood. "Jean, open the yellow curtain a little more." Another touch of madder. Then, in a stronger voice, "It's divine!" We watched him. He smiled and winked, as he called us to witness this conspiracy which had just been arranged between the grass, the olive trees, the model, and himself. After a minute or two he would start humming. And a day of happiness would begin for Renoir, a day as wonderful as the one which preceded it, and the one which was to follow.... It was under these conditions that he painted his Women Bathers, now in the Louvre. He considered it the culmination of his life's work.... Renoir had succeeded in fulfilling the dream of his whole life: "to create riches with modest means." From his palette, simplified to the last degree, and from the minute "droppings" of color lost on its surface, issued a splendor of dazzling golds and purples, the glow of flesh filled with young and healthy blood, the magic of all-conquering light, and towering above all these material elements, the serenity of a man approaching supreme knowledge. He now dominated Nature, which all his life he had served as a worshiper. In return, she had finally taught him to see beyond surface appearances; and, like herself, to create a world out of almost nothing. With a little water, a few minerals, and invisible radiations, Nature creates an oak tree, a forest. From a passionate embrace beings are born. Birds multiply, fish force their way upstream, the rays of the sun illumine and quicken all this stirring mass. "And it costs nothing!" If it were not for man, "this destructive animal," the equilibrium of a world in ceaseless movement would be assured. This profusion of riches which poured forth from Renoir's austere palette is overwhelming in the last picture he painted, on the morning of his death. An infection which had developed in his lungs kept him to his room. He asked for his paintbox and brushes, and he painted the anemones which Nenette, our kindhearted maid, had gone out and gathered for him. For several hours he identified himself with these flowers and forgot his pain. Then he motioned for someone to take his brush and said, "I think I am beginning to understand something about it."... He died in the night.
"Earth, receive an honoured guest; William Yeats is laid to rest...."
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS William Bulter Yeats, who won the Nobel Prize in 1923, is considered the greatest lyric poet Ireland has ever produced. This tribute to him by a fellow poet is considered one of Auden's most masterful works, not only because of what he wrote, but because of the way in which he employed the numerous poetic forms Yeats used so well, within the body of the tribute.
In Memory of W. B. Yeats 1
Copyright © 1997 by Phyllis Theroux About the Author Phyllis Theroux is the author of California and Other States of Grace and Nightlights: Bedtime Stories for Parents in the Dark. The founder of the Nightwriters seminar, she is a magazine columnist, children's book writer, and was a regular essayist on The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer. She lives in Ashland, Virginia. More by Phyllis Theroux |
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