قراءة كتاب Percy Bysshe Shelley as a Philosopher and Reformer
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Percy Bysshe Shelley as a Philosopher and Reformer
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY
AS A
philosopher and reformer.
BY
CHARLES SOTHERAN.
INCLUDING AN ORIGINAL SONNET
BY
CHARLES W. FREDERICKSON
TOGETHER WITH
A PORTRAIT OF SHELLEY AND A VIEW OF HIS TOMB.
"Let us See the Truth, whatever that may be."—Shelley, 1822.
NEW YORK:
CHARLES P. SOMERBY, 139 EIGHTH STREET.
1876.
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1876,
by Charles Sotheran,
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.
TO
CHARLES WILLIAM FREDERICKSON,
OF NEW YORK.
Dear Friend:
As in ancient times, none were allowed participation in the Higher Mysteries, without having proved their fitness for the reception of esoteric truth, so in these days only those seem to be permitted to breathe the hidden essence in Shelley, who have realized the acute phases of spiritality. Among the few who have enjoyed these bi-fold gifts, none have had more fortuitous experience than yourself, to whom I now take the liberty of dedicating this volume.
Yours fraternally,
Charles Sotheran.
December, 1875.
view of shelley's tomb, in the protestant cemetery, at rome. from a sketch by a.j. strutt
"To see the sun shining on its bright grass, and hear the whispering of the wind among the leaves of the trees, which have overgrown the tomb of Cestius, and the soil which is stirring in the sun-warm earth, and to mark the tombs, mostly of women and young children, who, buried there, we might, if we were to die, desire a sleep they seem to sleep."—Shelley.
To the Memory
OF
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY,
BY
CHARLES W. FREDERICKSON.
That told the story of its countless years,
I stood, and wondered by the silent dust
Of the "Eternal Child." Oh, Shelley!
To me it was not given to know thy face,
Save through the mirrored pages of thy works;
Those whisper'd words of wood and wave, are to mine ears,
Sweet as the music of ocean's roar, that breaks on sheltered shores.
Thy sterner words of Justice, Love and Truth,
Will to the struggling soul a beacon prove,
And barrier against the waves of tyranny and craft.
Then rest, "Cor Cordium," and though thy life
Was brief in point of years, its memory will outlive
The column'd monuments around thy tomb.
My Dear Sotheran:—
The copy of the lines on our Beloved-Poet, which you requested, are entirely at your service—make what use of them you please.
Yours, sincerely,
C.W. FREDERICKSON.
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY, AS A PHILOSOPHER AND REFORMER.
A PAPER READ BEFORE THE NEW YORK LIBERAL CLUB, ON FRIDAY, AUGUST 6TH, 1875.
Mr. Vice-President and Members of the Liberal Club:
"The Blood of the Martyr is the Seed of the Church." Persecution ever fails in accomplishing its desired ends, and as a rule lays the foundations broad and deep for the triumph of the objects of and principles inculcated by the persecuted.
Driven from their homes by fanatical tyranny, not permitted to worship as they thought fit, a band of noble and earnest, yet on some points mistaken men, were, a little over two hundred and fifty years ago, landed on this continent from the good ship "Mayflower." The "Pilgrim Fathers" were, in their native land, refused liberty of conscience and freedom of discussion; their apparent loss was our gain, for if it had not been for that despotism, and the corresponding re-action, which made those stern old zealots give to others many of the inalienable rights of liberty denied to themselves, you and I could not to-night perhaps be allowed to meet face to face, without fear, to discuss metaphysical and social questions in their broadest aspects, without the civil or theological powers intervening to close our mouths.
"Fragile in health and frame; of the purest habits in morals; full of devoted generosity and universal kindness; glowing with ardor to attain wisdom; resolved at every personal sacrifice to do right; burning with a desire for affection and sympathy," a boy-under-graduate of Oxford, described as of tall, delicate, and fragile figure, with large and lively eyes, with expressive, beautiful and feminine features, with head covered with long, brown hair, of gracefulness and simplicity of manner, the heir to a title and the representation of one of the most ancient English families, which numbered Sir Philip Sidney on its roll of illustrious names, just sixty-four years ago, and in this nineteenth century, for no licentiousness, violence, or dishonor, but, for his refusal to criminate himself or inculpate friends, was, without trial, expelled by learned divines from his university for writing an argumentative thesis, which, if it had been the work of some Greek philosopher, would have been hailed by his judges as a fine specimen of profound analytical abstruseness—for that expulsion are we the debtors to theological charity and tolerance for "Queen Mab."
Excommunicated by a mercenary and abject priesthood, cast off by a savage father, the admirer of that gloomy theology founded by the murderer of Michael Servetus, and charged by his jealous brother writers as one of the founders of a Satanic School, for neither immorality of life nor breach of the parental relation, but for heterodoxy to an expiring system of dogmatism, and for acting on and asserting the right of man to think and judge for himself, a father was to have two children torn from him, in the sacred name of law and justice, by the principal adviser