The Art of Arts

To educate man is the art of arts, for he is the most complex and mysterious of all creatures.  (St. Gregory the Theologian)

The Pleasure of Reading

Reading in truth makes us more human; our pleasure in it is the best measure of any book’s worth because that pleasure’s depth signifies how profoundly we left ourselves and entered into the story and how much of the allegorical and sublime meaning we captured while our disbelief was suspended. (John Granger)

Hiawatha and Anthologies

Most poetry collections only include a portion of Hiawatha’s Childhood, just one chapter in the 22 chapter poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.  We have a children’s picture book of that part, but I have never really “gotten into the story” much.  It’s about an Indian baby who learns the names of the animals from his grandmother and calls the birds, “Hiawatha’s chickens” and the animals, “Hiawatha’s brothers”.  It’s nice enough, but not really one I wanted to read over and over.  But after reading Longfellow’s other poems and especially the longer Evangeline, I decided to find and read the entire poem to the children during our after lunch poetry time.  I was quite surprised to find that, at our rate of 20-30 minutes per day for poetry, the poem will take us just over three weeks to finish.  But so far the time and effort have been well worth it.  The poem tells the story of Hiawatha, an Ojibwan Hercules.  Read the entire poem here.

Longfellow begins:

Should you ask me,
whence these stories?
Whence these legends and traditions,
With the odors of the forest
With the dew and damp of meadows,
With the curling smoke of wigwams,
With the rushing of great rivers,
With their frequent repetitions,
And their wild reverberations
As of thunder in the mountains?


I should answer, I should tell you,
"From the forests and the prairies,
From the great lakes of the Northland,
From the land of the Ojibways,
From the land of the Dacotahs,
From the mountains, moors, and fen-lands
Where the heron, the Shuh-shuh-gah,
Feeds among the reeds and rushes.
I repeat them as I heard them
From the lips of Nawadaha,
The musician, the sweet singer."

He tells how Hiawatha is raised by his grandmother, Nokomis, a star that fell from heaven, to know the animals, birds, and ways of the forest.

Chapter five tells of Hiawatha’s Fasting:
"Not for greater skill in hunting,
Not for greater craft in fishing,
Not for triumphs in the battle,
And renown among the warriors,
But for profit of the people,
For advantage of the nations.”

And of how his prayers are answered by one who gives his life for the people, through a death and resurrection.

We just finished the first half. Hiawatha has wooed and won his beautiful wife, Minnehaha, Laughing Water:"Thus it was they journeyed homeward;
Thus it was that Hiawatha
To the lodge of old Nokomis
Brought the moonlight, starlight, firelight,
Brought the sunshine of his people,
Minnehaha, Laughing Water,
Handsomest of all the women
In the land of the Dacotahs,
In the land of handsome women.”

Just another example of how “anthologies” often do just the opposite of what they intend.  The short excerpt makes us feel like we “know” a work and often inoculates us from the desire to read the entirety, thereby missing the beauty of the whole.

Guest post by my wife.

Longfellow's Hiawatha and Men and Women

Guest post from my Wife:

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, writing in the mid-nineteenth century, seems to have an understanding of the relationship between man and wife, that is severely lacking in our day, despite, or maybe because of, all our obsession with making things “equal between the sexes”.
He begins Chapter 10 of his Epic Poem, Hiawatha, by saying:

"As unto the bow the cord is,
So unto the man is woman;
Though she bends him, she obeys him,
Though she draws him, yet she follows;
Useless each without the other!"

At the end of the chapter, he again sums up the interplay of interdependence of man and woman in the advice given to Hiawatha and Minnehaha, Laughing Water, by the sun and the moon:

From the sky the sun benignant
Looked upon them through the branches,
Saying to them, "O my children,
Love is sunshine, hate is shadow,
Life is checkered shade and sunshine,
Rule by love, O Hiawatha!"


From the sky the moon looked at them,
Filled the lodge with mystic splendors,
Whispered to them, "O my children,
Day is restless, night is quiet,
Man imperious, woman feeble;
Half is mine, although I follow;
Rule by patience, Laughing Water!"


Though we moderns might wince at the word, “feeble”, yet look who is ruling: both, “Rule by love, O Hiawatha . . . Rule by patience, Laughing Water!” A beautiful echo of the words of St. Paul in Ephesians:

“Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.”

Anthropologist Margaret Mead said, “Every adjustment that minimizes a difference, a vulnerability, in one sex, a differential strength in the other, diminishes the possibility of complementing each other, and leads to a duller vision of human life in which is denied the fullness of humanity that each might have had.” (quoted from Preserve Them, O Lord)

St. Gregory the Theologian said, “In our living together, we are one another’s hands, ears, and feet. Marriage redoubles our strength, rejoices our friends, causes grief to our enemies. A common concern makes trials bearable.”

Oh, that we moderns, with all our “wisdom,” might regain but a small measure of the wisdom of the ancients.

Michael Faraday the great experimentor

Michael Faraday went to work as a janitor in order to be near the scientist Sir Humphry Davy.  From that humble beginning, he would experiment his way to being one of the greatest scientists of his age.  Due to his faith in Christ, he sought no gain from his discoveries and even turned down an appointment as the President of the Royal Society and an offer of a knighthood thinking it not right to accept worldly honors.  He even turned down a government request to develop poison gasses for use in the Crimean War.

An excellent lecturer, Faraday gave a series of talks for boys and girls that became the wonderful book:  The Chemical History of a Candle.  In the lectures, Faraday uses a candle as a bridge to discuss chemicals and their reactions, gasses, the atmosphere, gravity, and so much more.  He said "there is not a law under which any part of this universe is governed which does not  come into play and is touched upon in these phenomena.  There is no better, there is no more natural philosophy than by considering the physical phenomena of a candle."

The lectures demonstrate his great skills at experimentation and scientific reasoning that are very easy to grasp.  A true model of the scientific endeavor and a worthy classic to be studied by students of science.

        

Of Stories and Essays

”Bree said, ’And now, Tarkheena, tell us your story. And don’t hurry it – I’m feeling comfortable now.’

”Aravis immediately began, sitting quite still and using a rather different tone and style from her usual one. For in Calormen, story-telling (whether the stories are true or made up) is a thing you’re taught, just as English boys and girls are taught essay writing. The difference is that people want to hear the stories, whereas I never heard of anyone who wanted to read the essays.”

– C.S. Lewis, The Horse and His Boy

The True Order of Knowledge

"It is better to be a simpleton and to approach God with love than to be a know-it-all and, at the same time, be an enemy of God." These are the words of the priest-martyr, St. Iraneaus of Lyon. The truth of these words have been confirmed at all times and is also confirmed in our time. One thing must be added to this, namely, that the lovers of God are not simpletons because they know God well enough that they are able to love Him. Of all human knowledge, this knowledge is more important and greater. To this must be added that the enemies of God cannot be more knowledgeable, even though they consider themselves as such, because their knowledge is unavoidably chaotic, for it does not have a source and does not have order. For the source and order of all knowledge is God. Some of the saints, such as Paul the Simple, did not know how to read or write yet with the strength of their spirit and divine love surpassed the entire world. Whosoever approaches God with love, that person is not capable of crime. Knowledge without love toward God is motivated by the spirit of criminality and war. St. Euthymius the Great taught: "Have love; for what salt is to food, love is to every virtue." Every virtue is tasteless and cold if it is not seasoned and warmed by divine love.

(source:  The Prologue from Ohrid, April 2)