http://www.romancatholicism.org
|
Some
Portraits Of Early Ideas Leonard
Feeney, S. J. (Sheed and Ward, 1941) XII. CHILDHOOD I BEGAN
this book with my first sound. I shall end it with my first silence. Now that
I am nearly through with my story, let me tell its secret. It is really time
for a nap anyhow, if you have been reading me continuously, so do not mind if
this chapter lulls you into silence. Do not even mind if it rocks you to
sleep. When
you are really asleep but think you are awake, you are in a nightmare. When
you are really awake but think you are asleep, you are in a dream. Sleep may
be said to define itself in terms of a nightmare. Sleep may be said to desire
itself in terms of a dream. But true sleep is neither a nightmare nor a
dream. It simply is, and is sleep. When
you are always asleep but think you are awake, you are a simpleton. When you
are always awake but think you are asleep, you are a loon. But a child is
neither a simpleton nor a loon. I learned the first lesson from a noisy adult
in the city. I learned the second lesson from a quiet adolescent in the
country. Poetry was my preservative in the one case, silence my preservative
in the other. When
the simpleton and the loon are united in one person, you have the childhood
of the madhouse, the most monstrous example of happiness in the world. If you
are undergoing this double experience in terms of genius, you are some
people’s definition of a poet. You are William Blake, unraveling the
metaphysics of a nightmare, reveling in the mysticism of a dream. If you are
enjoying the experience in terms of innocence, you are Little Boy Blue. If
you possess it in the form of ingenuity, you are The Wild Man of Borneo. This
is the best distinction I can make among Little Boy Blue, William Blake and
The Wild Man of Borneo, for those who conceive childhood, poetry and madness
to be merely different phases of the same reality. Thought
was made for the head. Love was made for the heart. A sentimentalist is one
who tries to love with his head. An emotionalist is one who tries to think
with his heart. Pease porridge
hot, Pease porridge
cold, Pease porridge
in the pot, Nine days old. Sentiment
and emotion are really pease porridge in the wrong pots, and a child is a
stickler for getting games right, especially when the rules are put
rhythmically. Hence you will find the child to be neither a sentimentalist
nor an emotionalist. Sentiment fires his head with fever, as it did mine in
the case of a little winged mosquito on vacation. Emotion chills his heart to
ice, as it did mine in the case of a little hair-ribboned girl at school. The
thinker must be cautious, but a child is the boldest of all thinkers. The
lover must be bold, but a child is the shyest of all lovers. Can it be that hair-ribbons
are the wings of a girl, and wings the hair-ribbons of a gnat? No one would
think so, really. No one would want them to be, really. But a poet would say
they were, to the single applause of the child. I
have balanced the child with the philosopher and found him to be the poet who
soared into Heaven. I have balanced the poet with the mystic and found him to
be the child who fell back to Earth. I have balanced the child with the
artist and found him to be lost in the labyrinth of his own ubiquity. What is
this earthliness of heavenly things and heavenliness of earthly things, which
is constantly being lost and found, and in which poetry and childhood unite?
We all know what childhood and poetry are in terms of performance. But what
are they in terms of essence and idea? The answer is: “Nobody knows, and
nobody cares,” least of all poetry and childhood. Neither knows what it
is nor why it is, but simply that it is, and it is enough. The
perfect recollection of self in remembrance is silence. The perfect
recollection of self in forgetfulness is sleep. In this sense poetry is
silence. And in this sense childhood is sleep. You
never have childhood completely, even when you hold it in your arms. You
never lose it completely, even when you send it abroad to play. The same is
true of poetry. Poetry will come to you when you least expect it, and will go
from you when you want it most. The same is true of childhood. Both are
impervious to analysis and synthesis, the analysis of ratiocination and the
synthesis of rapture. They
draw no conclusions, And
make no resolutions. How
then can you get them to behave — I mean in the sphere of their clear and
especial duties. It cannot be done by petting them. Parents try petting their
children and patrons try petting their poets, but there is in both childhood
and poetry an essential chastity that resists all excess in affection.
Neither can it be done by scolding them, as preceptors do with children and critics
with poets. For both childhood and poetry have a charity that forgives and
disregards all excess in correction. Frankly, childhood and poetry are both
imps, amenable to no motives except reward and punishment. Frankly, you must
either bribe or scare them. Ultimately you will need both Heaven and Hell to
be effective. For Heaven is the poetry of bribe, and Hell the childhood of
scare. Are
poetry and childhood the same thing? I do not know, neither does anyone. If
they are one, then they will never know how to divide, for their essence is
in simplicity. If they are two, then they will never know how to unite, for
their uniqueness is in distinction. But this much I do know: there are no two
things about which it is possible to say so many same things as about poetry
and childhood — unless they be silence and sleep. And the importance of
silence to sleep is the importance of poetry to childhood. Every
little boy is enough of a poet to imagine he is the general of his soldiers.
Every little girl is enough of a poet to fancy she is the mother of her
dolls. Now a shortage of soldiers and a shortage of babies might be
responsible for a world collapse. And wouldn’t it be awful if the soldiers
started killing off the babies in an effort to put things right again? Humpty Dumpty
sat on a wall. Humpty Dumpty
had a great fall. All the king’s
horses and all the king’s men Couldn’t put
Humpty Dumpty together again. And
who is Humpty Dumpty? He is an egg on a wall: poetry’s symbol for all things
unborn. A
child turns his playthings into thoughts. It is the only way he can learn. A
poet turns his thoughts into playthings. It is the only way he can teach. The
education of the child is in the playthings of the world, and the instruction
of the world is in the playthings of the poets. So, the nursery never ceases
and life is forever a game. Armed
with such wisdom, one might conquer the world. Armed with such wisdom, one
does. All things fall swiftly into place when you are playing a game. Rock-a-bye
baby, on the tree top — When
the wind blows the cradle will rock, When
the bough breaks the cradle will fall, And
down will come baby, cradle and all! Incidentally,
I might mention that the “all” in the impending catastrophe of the last line
in the above ditty includes not only childhood, but also poetry, silence and
sleep. Now
as far as there can be a definition, Rock-a-bye Baby is a perfect
definition of both poetry and childhood. Of course no philosopher will accept
it, for he wants it in terms of a syllogism which he can share with others.
Of course no mystic will accept it, for he wants it in terms of a
hieroglyphic which only he can decipher. M. Maritain in his Art et
Scolastique tries to turn poetry into prudence, so it can be passed
around among the metaphysicians. Abbé Bremond in his Prière et Poésie attempts
to turn poetry into prayer, so it can be whispered to a few mystics. But
poetry will not be laicized or clericalized by these easy snares. I cannot
think of a more imprudent place to put Rock-a-bye Baby than on a tree top,
yet that is where poetry puts him and the child likes it. I cannot think of a
more unprayerful thing to say to Rock-a-bye Baby than to remind him of the
pleasures of infanticide. Yet poetry does and the child thinks it is grand.
Prudence is an excellent thing, and so is prayer. But whatever else poets and
children are, they are not pious prudes. I
am willing to sway with Rock-a-bye Baby on the tree top in a perfect
statement of what poetry is. If the bough breaks and the cradle falls, then
down will come baby, cradle, and the author of this book. But they will not,
and I shall show why. The
to-and-fro of sound is a lullaby. The to-and-fro of motion is a rock-a-bye.
The to-and-fro of music is a melody. The to-and-fro of words is a poem. The
to-and-fro of thought is beauty. The to-and-fro of expression is art. The
to-and-fro of silence is sleep. The
vanity of water is a fountain, The
vanity of land is a mountain; The
modesty of wet is a well, The
modesty of dry is a dell. And what are vanity and modesty but the to-and-fro of some
lovely thing that deserves to be admired? But let us go back to Rock-a-bye
Baby. The
to-and-fro of water is a wave. The to-and-fro of air is a breeze. The
to-and-fro of sky is a cloud. The to-and-fro of light is a star. Look out! We
are rocking too hard! The bough is about to break and the cradle fall, not
downwards, but upwards, into the infinite spaces! . . . The
to-and-fro of God is a Child! Far
beyond the tree top . . . far beyond the stars, those occasional
clarities of the philosophers . . . far beyond the background of
the sky into which the mystics perpetually stare . . . tucked in
the nursery of The Divinity — in the great silence of God, in an eternal
sleep which is neither a nightmare nor a dream, but the living ecstasy of The
Blessed Trinity — there is a Filius Unigenitus: an Only Begotten
Child, who is the to-and-fro of The Father and The Holy Ghost, everlastingly
rock-a-byed and lullabied in the sacred processions of The Godhead. |