The greatest
tribute to Christianity in the modern world is Tennyson's "Ulysses."
The poet reads into the story of Ulysses the conception of an incurable
desire to wander. But the real Ulysses does not desire to wander at all.
He desires to get home. He displays his heroic and unconquerable
qualities in resisting the misfortunes which baulk him; but that is all.
There is no love of adventure for its own sake; that is a
Christian product. There is no love of Penelope for her own sake;
that is a Christian product. Everything in that old world would
appear to have been clean and obvious. A good man was a good man;
a bad man was a bad man. For this reason they had no charity;
for charity is a reverent agnosticism towards the complexity of the soul.
For this reason they had no such thing as the art of fiction, the novel;
for the novel is a creation of the mystical idea of charity.
For them a pleasant landscape was pleasant, and an unpleasant
landscape unpleasant. Hence they had no idea of romance; for romance
consists in thinking a thing more delightful because it is dangerous;
it is a Christian idea. In a word, we cannot reconstruct
or even imagine the beautiful and astonishing pagan world.
It was a world in which common sense was really common.
Pages:
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161