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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/39037-8.txt b/39037-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9f418ba --- /dev/null +++ b/39037-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,14336 @@ +Project Gutenberg's Life Without and Life Within, by Margaret Fuller + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Life Without and Life Within + or, Reviews, Narratives, Essays, and poems. + +Author: Margaret Fuller + +Release Date: March 3, 2012 [EBook #39037] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN *** + + + + +Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images available at The Internet Archive) + + + + + + + + +LIFE WITHOUT +AND +LIFE WITHIN; +OR, +REVIEWS, NARRATIVES, ESSAYS, AND +POEMS. + +BY +MARGARET FULLER OSSOLI, + +AUTHOR OF "WOMAN IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY," "AT HOME AND +ABROAD," "ART, LITERATURE, AND THE DRAMA," ETC. + +EDITED BY HER BROTHER, +ARTHUR B. FULLER. + +BOSTON: +ROBERTS BROTHERS. + +Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1859, by +ARTHUR B. FULLER, +In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts + +[Illustration: colophon] + +_Cambridge: +Presswork by John Wilson and Son._ + + + + +PREFACE. + + +Every person, who can be said to really live at all, leads two lives +during this period of mortal existence. The one life is outward; it is +passed in reading the thoughts of others; in contemplating the +struggles, the defeats, the victories, the virtues, the sins, in fine, +all things which make the history of those who surround us; and in +gazing upon the structures which Art has reared, or paintings which she +hath inscribed on the canvas; or looking upon the grand temple of the +material universe, and beholding scenes painted by a hand more skilled, +more wondrous, in its creative power, than ever can be human hand. The +life passed in examining what other minds have produced, or living other +men's lives by looking at their deeds, or in any way discerning what +addresses the bodily eye or the physical ear,--this is often wise and +well; essential, indeed, to any inner life; but it is outward, not +self-centred, not the product of our own individual natures. + +But the thought of others suggests or develops thought of our own--the +history of other men, as it is writing itself imperishably every day +upon their souls, or already has written itself in letters of living +light or lines of gloomy blackness--gives rise to internal sympathy or +abhorrence on the part of us who look on and read what is thus writing +and written. Our own spirits are stirred within us: our passions, which +have been sleeping lions, our affections and aspirations, before angels +with folded wings,--these are awakened by what others are doing, and +then we struggle with the bad or yield to it; we obey or disobey the +good, and our internal moral life begins; the outward universe or the +Great Spirit in our hearts speaks to our souls, leading first to inward +dissatisfaction, then to aspiration for and attainment of holiness, and +now the inner spiritual life, which shall transfigure all outward life, +and throw its own light and give its own hue to all the outward +universe, has begun. These two lives are parallel streams; often they +mingle their waters, and each imparts its own hue and characteristic to +the other. Sometimes the outer life is the main stream; men live only in +other men's thoughts and deeds--look only upon the material universe, +and retire but seldom within: the inner life is but a silver thread--a +little rill, scarce discoverable save by the eye of God. Again, with +many the outer life is but little; the passing scene, the din of the +battle which humanity is ever waging, the one scarce is gazed upon or +the other heard by those who retire much from the outward world, and +live almost exclusively upon their own thoughts, and in an ideal realm +of fancy, or a real one of internal conflict, which is hidden from the +outer vision. Better is it when the stream of outward and inner life are +both full and broad--when the glories of the material universe attract +the gaze, the realm of literature and learning invite the willing feet +to wander in paths where poetry has planted many flowers, philosophy +many a sturdy oak of truth, which centuries cannot overthrow--and when, +on the other hand, men do not forget to retire often within, and find +their own minds kingdoms, where many a noble thought spontaneously +grows; their own souls heavens, where, the busy world withdrawn, they +commune much with their own aspirations, fight many a noble battle with +whatever hinders their spiritual peace, and where they commune yet more +with that Comforter, the Divine Spirit, and Christ, that Friend and +Helper of all who are seeking to make the life of thought and desire, as +well as outward word and deed, high and holy. + +It is not a brother's part to pass critical judgment upon a sister's +literary attainments, or mental and spiritual gifts, nor is it needful +in reference to Madame Ossoli. The world never has questioned her great +learning or rich and varied culture; these have been uniformly +acknowledged. As a keen and sagacious critic of literature, as an +admirer of whatever was noble, an abhorrer of all low and mean, this +she was early, and is, so far as we know, without any question regarded. +That her judgments have always been acquiesced in is far from true; but +the public has ever believed them alike sincere and fearless. The life +without,--that of culture and intelligent, careful observation,--all +know _that_ stream to have been full to overflowing. + +More and more, too, every year, the public are beginning to recognize +and appreciate the richness and the beauty of her inner life. The very +keenness of her critical acumen,--the very boldness of her rebuke of all +she deemed petty and base--the very truthfulness of her conformity to +her own standard--her very abhorrence of all cant and mere conformity, +long prevented, and even yet somewhat hinder, many from adequately +recognizing the loving spirit, the sympathetic nature, the Christian +faith, and spiritual devoutness which made her domestic and social life, +her action amid her own kindred and nation, and in Rome, for those not +allied to her by birth and lineage, at once kindly, noble, and full of +holy self-sacrifice. Yet continually the world is learning these things: +the history of her life, as her memoirs reveal it, the testimony of so +many witnesses here and in other lands, a more careful study and a wider +reading of her works, are leading, perhaps rapidly enough, to a true +appreciation of the spiritual beauty of her soul, and men see that the +waters of her inner life form a stream at once clear and pure, deep and +broad. + +In presenting to the public the last volume of Margaret Fuller's works, +the Editor is encouraged to hope for them a candid, cordial reception. +It has been a work of love on his part, for which he has ever felt +inadequate, and from it for a time shrunk. But each volume has had a +wider and more cordial welcome than its predecessor, and works received +by the great public almost with coldness when first published, have, +when republished, had a large and cheering circulation, and, what is far +better, a kindly appreciation not only by the few, but even by the many. +This is evidence enough that the progress of time has brought the public +and my sister into closer sympathy and agreement, and a better +understanding on its part of her true views and character. + +The present volume is less than any of its predecessors a republication. +_Only one of its articles has ever appeared before in book form._ As a +book, it is, then, essentially new, though some of its reviews and +essays have appeared in the columns of the Tribune and Dial. A large +portion of it has never appeared at all in print, especially its +poetical portions. The work of collecting these essays, reviews, and +poems has been a difficult one, much more than attended the preparation +of the previous volumes. Unable, of course, to consult their author as +to any of them, the revision I have given is doubtless very imperfect, +and requires large allowance. It is even possible that among the poems +one or more written by friends and sent her, or copied from some other +author, may have crept in unawares; but this all possible pains have +been taken to prevent. Such as it is, the volume is now before the +public; it truly reveals her inner and outer life, and is doubtless the +last of the volumes containing the writings of MARGARET FULLER OSSOLI. + + + +CONTENTS. + + +PART I.--REVIEWS. + + Page. + +MENZEL'S VIEW OF GOETHE 13 + +GOETHE 23 + +THOMAS HOOD 61 + +LETTERS FROM A LANDSCAPE PAINTER 69 + +BEETHOVEN 71 + +BROWN'S NOVELS 83 + +EDGAR A. POE 87 + +ALFIERI AND CELLINI 93 + +ITALY.--CARY'S DANTE 102 + +AMERICAN FACTS 108 + +NAPOLEON AND HIS MARSHALS 110 + +PHYSICAL EDUCATION 116 + +FREDERICK DOUGLASS 121 + +PHILIP VAN ARTEVELDE 127 + +UNITED STATES EXPLORING EXPEDITION 141 + +STORY BOOKS FOR THE HOT WEATHER 143 + +SHELLEY'S POEMS 149 + +FESTUS 153 + +FRENCH NOVELISTS OF THE DAY 158 + +THE NEW SCIENCE, OR THE PHILOSOPHY OF MESMERISM OR ANIMAL MAGNETISM 168 + +DEUTSCHE SCHNELLPOST 174 + +OLIVER CROMWELL 179 + +EMERSON'S ESSAYS 191 + +CAPITAL PUNISHMENT 199 + + +PART II.--MISCELLANEOUS. + +FIRST OF JANUARY 207 + +NEW YEAR'S DAY 219 + +ST. VALENTINE'S DAY 226 + +FOURTH OF JULY 232 + +FIRST OF AUGUST 236 + +THANKSGIVING 243 + +CHRISTMAS 250 + +MARIANA 258 + +SUNDAY MEDITATIONS ON VARIOUS TEXTS.--FIRST 277 + +" " " SECOND 280 + +APPEAL FOR AN ASYLUM FOR DISCHARGED FEMALE CONVICTS 283 + +THE RICH MAN.--AN IDEAL SKETCH 287 + +THE POOR MAN.--AN IDEAL SKETCH 297 + +THE CELESTIAL EMPIRE 304 + +KLOPSTOCK AND META 308 + +WHAT FITS A MAN TO BE A VOTER.--A FABLE 314 + +DISCOVERIES 319 + +POLITENESS TOO GREAT A LUXURY TO BE GIVEN TO THE POOR 322 + +CASSIUS M. CLAY 326 + +THE MAGNOLIA OF LAKE PONTCHARTRAIN 330 + +CONSECRATION OF GRACE CHURCH 337 + +LATE ASPIRATIONS 344 + +FRAGMENTARY THOUGHTS, FROM MARGARET FULLER'S JOURNAL 348 + +FAREWELL TO NEW YORK 354 + + +PART III.--POEMS. + +FREEDOM AND TRUTH 357 + +DESCRIPTION OF A PORTION OF THE JOURNEY TO TRENTON FALLS 357 + +JOURNEY TO TRENTON FALLS 361 + +SUE ROSA CRUX 365 + +THE DAHLIA, THE ROSE, AND THE HELIOTROPE 367 + +TO MY FRIENDS, (TRANSLATION.) 368 + +STANZAS WRITTEN AT THE AGE OF SEVENTEEN 370 + +FLAXMAN 371 + +THOUGHTS ON SUNDAY MORNING, WHEN PREVENTED BY A SNOWSTORM +FROM GOING TO CHURCH 371 + +TO A GOLDEN HEART WORN ROUND THE NECK 374 + +LINES ACCOMPANYING A BOUQUET OF WILD COLUMBINE 375 + +DISSATISFACTION, (TRANSLATION.) 377 + +MY SEAL-RING 378 + +THE CONSOLERS, (TRANSLATION.) 379 + +ABSENCE OF LOVE 380 + +MEDITATIONS 381 + +RICHTER 383 + +THE THANKFUL AND THE THANKLESS 384 + +PROPHECY AND FULFILMENT 385 + +VERSES GIVEN TO W. C., WITH A BLANK BOOK 385 + +EAGLES AND DOVES, (TRANSLATION.) 387 + +TO A FRIEND, WITH HEARTSEASE 388 + +ASPIRATION 389 + +THE ONE IN ALL 390 + +A GREETING 393 + +LINES TO EDITH, ON HER BIRTHDAY 394 + +LINES WRITTEN IN HER BROTHER R.F.F.'S JOURNAL 395 + +ON A PICTURE REPRESENTING THE DESCENT FROM THE CROSS 396 + +THE CAPTURED WILD HORSE 397 + +EPILOGUE TO THE TRAGEDY OF ESSEX, (TRANSLATION.) 400 + +HYMN WRITTEN FOR A SUNDAY SCHOOL 404 + +DESERTION, (TRANSLATION.) 405 + +SONG WRITTEN FOR A MAY-DAY FESTIVAL 406 + +CARADORI SINGING 409 + +LINES IN ANSWER TO STANZAS CONTAINING SEVERAL PASSAGES OF +DISTINGUISHED BEAUTY 409 + +INFLUENCE OF THE OUTWARD 410 + +TO MISS R.B. 411 + +SISTRUM 413 + +IMPERFECT THOUGHTS 414 + +SADNESS 414 + +LINES WRITTEN IN AN ALBUM 416 + +TO S.C. 417 + +LINES WRITTEN IN BOSTON ON A BEAUTIFUL AUTUMNAL DAY 420 + +TO E.C., WITH HERBERT'S POEMS 422 + + + + +Life without and Life within. + +PART I. + +REVIEWS. + + + + +MENZEL'S VIEW OF GOETHE. + + +Menzel's view of Goethe is that of a Philistine, in the least +opprobrious sense of the term. It is one which has long been applied in +Germany to petty cavillers and incompetent critics. I do not wish to +convey a sense so disrespectful in speaking of Menzel. He has a vigorous +and brilliant mind, and a wide, though imperfect, culture. He is a man +of talent, but talent cannot comprehend genius. He judges of Goethe as +a Philistine, inasmuch as he does not enter into Canaan, and read the +prophet by the light of his own law, but looks at him from without, and +tries him by a rule beneath which he never lived. That there _was_ +something Menzel saw; what that something was _not_ he saw, but _what_ +it _was_ he could not see; none could _see_; it was something to be felt +and known at the time of its apparition, but the clear sight of it was +reserved to a day far enough removed from its sphere to get a commanding +point of view. Has that day come? A little while ago it seemed so; +certain features of Goethe's personality, certain results of his +tendency, had become so manifest. But as the plants he planted mature, +they shed a new seed for a yet more noble growth. A wider experience, a +deeper insight, make rejected words come true, and bring a more refined +perception of meaning already discerned. Like all his elder brothers of +the elect band, the forlorn hope of humanity, he obliges us to live and +grow, that we may walk by his side; vainly we strive to leave him behind +in some niche of the hall of our ancestors; a few steps onward and we +find him again, of yet serener eye and more towering mien than on his +other pedestal. Former measurements of his size have, like the girdle +bound by the nymphs round the infant Apollo, only served to make him +outgrow the unworthy compass. The still rising sun, with its broader +light, shows us it is not yet noon. In him is soon perceived a prophet +of our own age, as well as a representative of his own; and we doubt +whether the revolutions of the century be not required to interpret the +quiet depths of his _Saga_. + +Sure it is that none has yet found Goethe's place, as sure that none +can claim to be his peer, who has not some time, ay, and for a long +time, been his pupil! + +Yet much truth has been spoken of him in detail, some by Menzel, but in +so superficial a spirit, and with so narrow a view of its bearings, as +to have all the effect of falsehood. Such denials of the crown can only +fix it more firmly on the head of the "Old Heathen." To such the best +answer may be given in the words of Bettina Brentan: "The others +criticise thy works; I only know that they lead us on and on till we +live in them." And thus will all criticism end in making more men and +women read these works, and "on and on," till they forget whether the +author be a patriot or a moralist, in the deep humanity of the thought, +the breathing nature of the scene. While words they have accepted with +immediate approval fade from memory, these oft-denied words of keen, +cold truth return with ever new force and significance. + +Men should be true, wise, beautiful, pure, and aspiring. This man was +true and wise, capable of all things. Because he did not in one short +life complete his circle, can we afford to lose him out of sight? Can +we, in a world where so few men have in any degree redeemed their +inheritance, neglect a nature so rich and so manifestly progressive? + +Historically considered, Goethe needs no apology. His so-called faults +fitted him all the better for the part he had to play. In cool +possession of his wide-ranging genius, he taught the imagination of +Germany, that the highest flight should be associated with the steady +sweep and undazzled eye of the eagle. Was he too much the connoisseur, +did he attach too great an importance to the cultivation of taste, where +just then German literature so much needed to be refined, polished, and +harmonized? Was he too sceptical, too much an experimentalist,--how else +could he have formed himself to be the keenest, and, at the same time, +most nearly universal of observers, teaching theologians, philosophers, +and patriots that nature comprehends them all, commands them all, and +that no one development of life must exclude the rest? Do you talk, in +the easy cant of the day, of German obscurity, extravagance, pedantry, +and bad taste,--and will you blame this man, whose Greek, English, +Italian, German mind steered so clear of these rocks and shoals, +clearing, adjusting, and calming on each side, wherever he turned his +prow? Was he not just enough of an idealist, just enough of a realist, +for his peculiar task? If you want a moral enthusiast, is not there +Schiller? If piety, of purest, mystic sweetness, who but Novalis? +Exuberant sentiment, that treasures each withered leaf in a tender +breast, look to your Richter. Would you have men to find plausible +meaning for the deepest enigma, or to hang up each map of literature, +well painted and dotted on its proper roller,--there are the Schlegels. +Men of ideas were numerous as migratory crows in autumn, and Jacobi +wrote the heart into philosophy, as well as he could. Who could fill +Goethe's place to Germany, and to the world, of which she is now the +teacher? His much-reviled aristocratic turn was at that time a +reconciling element. It is plain why he was what he was, for his country +and his age. + +Whoever looks into the history of his youth, will be struck by a +peculiar force with which all things worked together to prepare him for +his office of artist-critic to the then chaotic world of thought in his +country. What an unusually varied scene of childhood and of youth! What +endless change and contrast of circumstances and influences! Father and +mother, life and literature, world and nature,--playing into one +another's hands, always by antagonism! Never was a child so carefully +guarded by fate against prejudice, against undue bias, against any +engrossing sentiment. Nature having given him power of poetical sympathy +to know every situation, would not permit him to make himself at home in +any. And how early what was most peculiar in his character manifested +itself, may be seen in these anecdotes related by his mother to Bettina. + +Of Goethe's childhood.--"He was not willing to play with other little +children, unless they were very fair. In a circle he began suddenly to +weep, screaming, 'Take away the black, ugly child; I cannot bear to have +it here.' He could not be pacified; they were obliged to take him home, +and there the mother could hardly console him for the child's ugliness. +He was then only three years old." + +"His mother was surprised, that when his brother Jacob died, who had +been his playmate, he shed no tear, but rather seemed annoyed by the +lamentations of those around him. But afterwards, when his mother asked +whether he had not loved his brother, he ran into his room and brought +from under his bed a bundle of papers, all written over, and said he had +done all this for Jacob." + +Even so in later years, had he been asked if he had not loved his +country and his fellow-men, he would not have answered by tears and +vows, but pointed to his works. + +In the first anecdote is observable that love of symmetry in external +relations which, in manhood, made him give up the woman he loved, +because she would not have been in place among the old-fashioned +furniture of his father's house; and dictated the course which, at the +crisis of his life, led him to choose an outward peace rather than an +inward joy. In the second, he displays, at the earliest age, a sense of +his vocation as a recorder, the same which drew him afterwards to write +his life into verse, rather than clothe it in action. His indirectness, +his aversion to the frankness of heroic meetings, is repulsive and +suspicious to generous and flowing natures; yet many of the more +delicate products of the mind seem to need these sheaths, lest bird and +insect rifle them in the bud. + +And if this subtlety, isolation, and distance be the dictate of nature, +we submit, even as we are not vexed that the wild bee should hide its +honey in some old moss-grown tree, rather than in the glass hives of our +gardens. We believe it will repay the pains we take in seeking for it, +by some peculiar flavor from unknown flowers. Was Goethe the wild bee? +We see that even in his boyhood he showed himself a very Egyptian, in +his love for disguises; forever expressing his thought in roundabout +ways, which seem idle mummery to a mind of Spartan or Roman mould. Had +he some simple thing to tell his friend, he read it from the newspaper, +or wrote it into a parable. Did he make a visit, he put on the hat or +wig of some other man, and made his bow as Schmidt or Schlosser, that +they might stare, when he spoke as Goethe. He gives as the highest +instance of passionate grief, that he gave up for one day watching the +tedious ceremonies of the imperial coronation. In daily life many of +these carefully recorded passages have an air of platitude, at which no +wonder the Edinburgh Review laughed. Yet, on examination, they are full +of meaning. And when we see the same propensity writing itself into +Ganymede, Mahomet's song, the Bayadere, and Faust, telling all +Goethe's religion in Mignon and Makana, all his wisdom in the +Western-Eastern Divan, we respect it, accept, all but love it. + +This theme is for a volume, and I must quit it now. A brief summary of +what Goethe was suffices to vindicate his existence, as an agent in +history and a part of nature, but will not meet the objections of those +who measure him, as they have a right to do, by the standard of ideal +manhood. + +Most men, in judging another man, ask, Did he live up to our standard? + +But to me it seems desirable to ask rather, Did he live up to his own? + +So possible is it that our consciences may be more enlightened than that +of the Gentile under consideration. And if we can find out how much was +given him, we are told, in a pure evangelium, to judge thereby how much +shall be required. + +Now, Goethe has given us both his own standard and the way to apply +it. "To appreciate any man, learn first what object he proposed to +himself; next, what degree of earnestness he showed with regard to +attaining that object." + +And this is part of his hymn for man made in the divine image, "THE +GODLIKE." + + "Hail to the Unknown, the + Higher Being + Felt within us! + + "Unfeeling + As nature, + Still shineth the sun + Over good and evil; + And on the sinner, + Smile as on the best, + Moon and stars. + Fate too, &c. + + "There can none but man + Perform the Impossible. + He understandeth, + Chooseth, and judgeth; + He can impart to the + Moment duration. + + "He alone may + The good reward, + The guilty punish, + Mend and deliver; + All the wayward, anomalous + Bind in the useful. + + "And the Immortals, + Them we reverence + As if they were men, and + Did, on a grand scale, + What the best man in little + Does, or fain would do. + + "Let noble man + Be helpful and good; + Ever creating + The Right and the Useful; + Type of those loftier + Beings of whom the heart whispers." + +This standard is high enough. It is what every man should express in +action, the poet in music! + +And this office of a judge, who is of purer eyes than to behold +iniquity, and of a sacred oracle, to whom other men may go to ask when +they should choose a friend, when face a foe, this great genius does not +adequately fulfil. Too often has the priest left the shrine to go and +gather simples by the aid of spells whose might no pure power needs. +Glimpses are found in his works of the highest spirituality, but it is +blue sky seen through chinks in a roof which should never have been +builded. He has used life to excess. He is too rich for his nobleness, +too judicious for his inspiration, too humanly wise for his divine +mission. He might have been a priest; he is only a sage. + +An Epicurean sage, say the multitude. This seems to me unjust. He is +also called a debauchee. There may be reason for such terms, but it is +partial, and received, as they will be, by the unthinking, they are as +false as Menzel's abuse, in the impression they convey. Did Goethe +value the present too much? It was not for the Epicurean aim of +pleasure, but for use. He, in this, was but an instance of reaction, in +an age of painful doubt and restless striving as to the future. Was his +private life stained by profligacy? That far largest portion of his +life, which is ours, and which is expressed in his works, is an unbroken +series of efforts to develop the higher elements of our being. I cannot +speak to private gossip on this subject, nor even to well-authenticated +versions of his private life. Here are sixty volumes, by himself and +others, which contain sufficient evidence of a life of severe labor, +steadfast forbearance, and an intellectual growth almost unparalleled. +That he has failed of the highest fulfilment of his high vocation is +certain, but he was neither Epicurean nor sensualist, if we consider his +life as a whole. + +Yet he had failed to reach his highest development; and how was it that +he was so content with this incompleteness, nay, the serenest of men? +His serenity alone, in such a time of scepticism and sorrowful seeking, +gives him a claim to all our study. See how he rides at anchor, lordly, +rich in freight, every white sail ready to be unfurled at a moment's +warning! And it must be a very slight survey which can confound this +calm self-trust with selfish indifference of temperament. Indeed, he, in +various ways, lets us see how little he was helped in this respect by +temperament. But we need not his declaration,--the case speaks for +itself. Of all that perpetual accomplishment, that unwearied +constructiveness, the basis must be sunk deeper than in temperament. He +never halts, never repines, never is puzzled, like other men; that +tranquillity, full of life, that ceaseless but graceful motion, "without +haste, without rest," for which we all are striving, he has attained. +And is not his love of the noblest kind? Reverence the highest, have +patience with the lowest. Let this day's performance of the meanest duty +be thy religion. Are the stars too distant, pick up that pebble that +lies at thy foot, and from it learn the all. Go out like Saul, the son +of Kish, look earnestly after the meanest of thy father's goods, and a +kingdom shall be brought thee. The least act of pure self-renunciation +hallows, for the moment, all within its sphere. The philosopher may +mislead, the devil tempt, yet innocence, though wounded and bleeding as +it goes, must reach at last the holy city. The power of sustaining +himself and guiding others rewards man sufficiently for the longest +apprenticeship. Is not this lore the noblest? + +Yes, yes, but still I doubt. 'Tis true, he says all this in a thousand +beautiful forms, but he does not warm, he does not inspire me. In his +certainty is no bliss, in his hope no love, in his faith no glow. How is +this? + +A friend, of a delicate penetration, observed, "His atmosphere was so +calm, so full of light, that I hoped he would teach me his secret of +cheerfulness. But I found, after long search, that he had no better way, +if he wished to check emotion or clear thought, than to go to work. As +his mother tells us, 'My son, if he had a grief, made it into a poem, +and so got rid of it.' This mode is founded in truth, but does not +involve the whole truth. I want the method which is indicated by the +phrase, 'Perseverance of the saints.'" + +This touched the very point. Goethe attained only the perseverance of +a man. He was true, for he knew that nothing can be false to him who is +true, and that to genius nature has pledged her protection. Had he but +seen a little farther, he would have given this covenant a higher +expression, and been more deeply true to a diviner nature. + +In another article on Goethe, I shall give some account of that +period, when a too determined action of the intellect limited and +blinded him for the rest of his life; I mean only in comparison with +what he should have been. Had it been otherwise, what would he not have +attained, who, even thus self-enchained, rose to Ulyssean stature. +Connected with this is the fact, of which he spoke with such sarcastic +solemnity to Eckermann--"My works will never be popular." + +I wish, also, to consider the Faust, Elective Affinities, Apprenticeship +and Pilgrimages of Wilhelm Meister, and Iphigenia, as affording +indications of the progress of his genius here, of its wants and +prospects in future spheres of activity. For the present I bid him +farewell, as his friends always have done, in hope and trust of a better +meeting. + + + + +GOETHE. + + "Nemo contra Deum nisi Deus ipse." + + "Wer Grosses will muss sich zusammen raffen; + In der Beschrankung zeigt sich erst der Meister, + Und der Gesetz nur Kann uns Freikeit geben."[1] + + +The first of these mottoes is that prefixed by Goethe to the last +books of "Dichtung und Wahrheit." These books record the hour of turning +tide in his life, the time when he was called on for a choice at the +"Parting of the Ways." From these months, which gave the sun of his +youth, the crisis of his manhood, date the birth of Egmont, and of Faust +too, though the latter was not published so early. They saw the rise and +decline of his love for Lili, apparently the truest love he ever knew. +That he was not himself dissatisfied with the results to which the +decisions of this era led him, we may infer from his choice of a motto, +and from the calm beauty with which he has invested the record. + +The Parting of the Ways! The way he took led to court-favor, wealth, +celebrity, and an independence of celebrity. It led to large +performance, and a wonderful economical management of intellect. It led +Faust, the Seeker, from the heights of his own mind to the trodden ways +of the world. There, indeed, he did not lose sight of the mountains, but +he never breathed their keen air again. + +After this period we find in him rather a wide and deep Wisdom, than the +inspiration of Genius. His faith, that all _must_ issue well, wants the +sweetness of piety, and the God he manifests to us is one of law or +necessity, rather than of intelligent love. As this God makes because he +must, so Goethe, his instrument, observes and re-creates because he +must, observing with minutest fidelity the outward exposition of Nature; +never blinded by a sham, or detained by a fear, he yet makes us feel +that he wants insight to her sacred secret. The calmest of writers does +not give us repose, because it is too difficult to find his centre. +Those flame-like natures, which he undervalues, give us more peace and +hope, through their restless aspirations, than he with his +hearth-enclosed fires of steady fulfilment. For, true as it is, that God +is every where, we must not only see him, but see him acknowledged. +Through the consciousness of man, "shall not Nature interpret God?" We +wander in diversity, and with each new turning of the path, long anew to +be referred to the One. + +Of Goethe, as of other natures, where the intellect is too much +developed in proportion to the moral nature, it is difficult to speak +without seeming narrow, blind, and impertinent. For such men _see_ all +that others _live_, and, if you feel a want of a faculty in them, it is +hard to say they have it not, lest, next moment, they puzzle you by +giving some indication of it. Yet they are not, nay, _know_ not; they +only discern. The difference is that between sight and life, prescience +and being, wisdom and love. Thus with Goethe. Naturally of a deep mind +and shallow heart, he felt the sway of the affections enough to +appreciate their workings in other men, but never enough to receive +their inmost regenerating influence. + +How this might have been had he ever once abandoned himself entirely to +a sentiment, it is impossible to say. But the education of his youth +seconded, rather than balanced, his natural tendency. His father was a +gentlemanly martinet; dull, sour, well-informed, and of great ambition +as to externals. His influence on the son was wholly artificial. He was +always turning his powerful mind from side to side in search of +information, for the attainment of what are called accomplishments. The +mother was a delightful person in her way; open, genial, playful, full +of lively talent, but without earnestness of soul. She was one of those +charming, but not noble persons, who take the day and the man as they +find them, seeing the best that is there already, but never making the +better grow in its stead. His sister, though of graver kind, was social +and intellectual, not religious or tender. The mortifying repulse of his +early love checked the few pale buds of faith and tenderness that his +heart put forth. His friends were friends of the intellect merely; +altogether, he seemed led by destiny to the place he was to fill. + +Pardon him, World, that he was too worldly. Do not wonder, Heart, that +he was so heartless. Believe, Soul, that one so true, as far as he went, +must yet be initiated into the deeper mysteries of Soul. Perhaps even +now he sees that we must accept limitations only to transcend them; work +in processes only to detect the organizing power which supersedes them; +and that Sphinxes of fifty-five volumes might well be cast into the +abyss before the single word that solves them all. + +Now, when I think of Goethe, I seem to see his soul, all the +variegated plumes of knowledge, artistic form "und so weiter," burnt +from it by the fires of divine love, wingless, motionless, unable to +hide from itself in any subterfuge of labor, saying again and again, the +simple words which he would never distinctly say on earth--God beyond +Nature--Faith beyond Sight--the Seeker nobler than the _Meister_. + +For this mastery that Goethe prizes seems to consist rather in the +skilful use of means than in the clear manifestation of ends. His +Master, indeed, makes acknowledgment of a divine order, but the temporal +uses are always uppermost in the mind of the reader. But of this, more +at large in reference to his works. + +Apart from this want felt in his works, there is a littleness in his +aspect as a character. Why waste his time in Weimar court +entertainments? His duties as minister were not unworthy of him, though +it would have been, perhaps, finer, if he had not spent so large a +portion of that prime of intellectual life, from five and twenty to +forty, upon them. + +But granted that the exercise these gave his faculties, the various lore +they brought, and the good they did to the community, made them worth +his doing,--why that perpetual dangling after the royal family? Why all +that verse-making for the albums of serene highnesses, and those pretty +poetical entertainments for the young princesses, and that cold setting +himself apart from his true peers, the real sovereigns of +Weimar--Herder, Wieland, and the others? The excuse must be found in +circumstances of his time and temperament, which made the character of +man of the world and man of affairs more attractive to him than the +children of nature can conceive it to be in the eyes of one who is +capable of being a consecrated bard. + +The man of genius feels that literature has become too much a craft by +itself. No man should live by or for his pen. Writing is worthless +except as the record of life; and no great man ever was satisfied thus +to express all his being. His book should be only an indication of +himself. The obelisk should point to a scene of conquest. In the present +state of division of labor, the literary man finds himself condemned to +be nothing else. Does he write a good book? it is not received as +evidence of his ability to live and act, but rather the reverse. Men do +not offer him the care of embassies, as an earlier age did to Petrarca; +they would be surprised if he left his study to go forth to battle like +Cervantes. We have the swordsman, and statesman, and penman, but it is +not considered that the same mind which can rule the destiny of a poem, +may as well that of an army or an empire.[2] Yet surely it should be so. +The scientific man may need seclusion from the common affairs of life, +for he has his materials before him; but the man of letters must seek +them in life, and he who cannot act will but imperfectly appreciate +action. + +The literary man is impatient at being set apart. He feels that monks +and troubadours, though in a similar position, were brought into more +healthy connection with man and nature, than he who is supposed to look +at them merely to write them down. So he rebels; and Sir Walter Scott is +prouder of being a good sheriff and farmer, than of his reputation as +the Great Unknown. Byron piques himself on his skill in shooting and +swimming. Sir H. Davy and Schlegel would be admired as dandies, and +Goethe, who had received an order from a publisher "for a dozen more +dramas in the same style as Goetz von Berlichingen," and though (in +sadder sooth) he had already Faust in his head asking to be written out, +thought it no degradation to become premier in the little Duchy of +Weimar. + +"Straws show which way the wind blows," and a comment may be drawn from +the popular novels, where the literary man is obliged to wash off the +ink in a violet bath, attest his courage in the duel, and hide his +idealism beneath the vulgar nonchalance and coxcombry of the man of +fashion. + +If this tendency of his time had some influence in making Goethe find +pleasure in tangible power and decided relations with society, there +were other causes which worked deeper. The growth of genius in its +relations to men around must always be attended with daily pain. The +enchanted eye turns from the far-off star it has detected to the +short-sighted bystander, and the seer is mocked for pretending to see +what others cannot. The large and generalizing mind infers the whole +from a single circumstance, and is reproved by all around for its +presumptuous judgment. Its Ithuriel temper pierces shams, creeds, +covenants, and chases the phantoms which others embrace, till the lovers +of the false Florimels hurl the true knight to the ground. Little men +are indignant that Hercules, yet an infant, declares he has strangled +the serpent; they demand a proof; they send him out into scenes of labor +to bring thence the voucher that his father is a god. What the ancients +meant to express by Apollo's continual disappointment in his loves, is +felt daily in the youth of genius. The sympathy he seeks flies his +touch, the objects of his affection sneer at his sublime credulity, his +self-reliance is arrogance, his far sight infatuation, and his ready +detection of fallacy fickleness and inconsistency. Such is the youth of +genius, before the soul has given that sign of itself which an +unbelieving generation cannot controvert. Even then he is little +benefited by the transformation of the mockers into worshippers. For the +soul seeks not adorers, but peers; not blind worship, but intelligent +sympathy. The best consolation even then is that which Goethe puts +into the mouth of Tasso: "To me gave a God to tell what I suffer." In +"Tasso" Goethe has described the position of the poetical mind in its +prose relations with equal depth and fulness. We see what he felt must +be the result of entire abandonment to the highest nature. We see why he +valued himself on being able to understand the Alphonsos, and meet as an +equal the Antonios of every-day life. + +But, you say, there is no likeness between Goethe and Tasso. Never +believe it; such pictures are not painted from observation merely. That +deep coloring which fills them with light and life is given by dipping +the brush in one's own life-blood. Goethe had not from nature that +character of self-reliance and self-control in which he so long appeared +to the world. It was wholly acquired, and so highly valued because he +was conscious of the opposite tendency. He was by nature as impetuous, +though not as tender, as Tasso, and the disadvantage at which this +constantly placed him was keenly felt by a mind made to appreciate the +subtlest harmonies in all relations. Therefore was it that when he at +last cast anchor, he was so reluctant again to trust himself to wave and +breeze. + +I have before spoken of the antagonistic influences under which he was +educated. He was driven from the severity of study into the world, and +then again drawn back, many times in the course of his crowded youth. +Both the world and the study he used with unceasing ardor, but not with +the sweetness of a peaceful hope. Most of the traits which are +considered to mark his character at a later period were wanting to him +in youth. He was very social, and continually perturbed by his social +sympathies. He was deficient both in outward self-possession and mental +self-trust. "I was always," he says, "either _too volatile or too +infatuated_, so that those who looked kindly on me did by no means +always honor me with their esteem." He wrote much and with great +freedom. The pen came naturally to his hand, but he had no confidence in +the merit of what he wrote, and much inferior persons to Merck and +Herder might have induced him to throw aside as worthless what it had +given him sincere pleasure to compose. It was hard for him to isolate +himself, to console himself, and, though his mind was always busy with +important thoughts, they did not free him from the pressure of other +minds. His youth was as sympathetic and impetuous as any on record. + +The effect of all this outward pressure on the poet is recorded in +Werther--a production that he afterwards under-valued, and to which he +even felt positive aversion. It was natural that this should be. In the +calm air of the cultivated plain he attained, the remembrance of the +miasma of sentimentality was odious to him. Yet sentimentality is but +sentiment diseased, which to be cured must be patiently observed by the +wise physician; so are the morbid desire and despair of Werther, the +sickness of a soul aspiring to a purer, freer state, but mistaking the +way. + +The best or the worst occasion in man's life is precisely that misused +in Werther, when he longs for more love, more freedom, and a larger +development of genius than the limitations of this terrene sphere +permit. Sad is it indeed if, persisting to grasp too much at once, he +lose all, as Werther did. He must accept limitation, must consent to do +his work in time, must let his affections be baffled by the barriers of +convention. Tantalus-like, he makes this world a Tartarus, or, like +Hercules, rises in fires to heaven, according as he knows how to +interpret his lot. But he must only use, not adopt it. The boundaries of +the man must never be confounded with the destiny of the soul. If he +does not decline his destiny, as Werther did, it is his honor to have +felt its unfitness for his eternal scope. He was born for wings; he is +held to walk in leading-strings; nothing lower than faith must make him +resigned, and only in hope should he find content--a hope not of some +slight improvement in his own condition or that of other men, but a hope +justified by the divine justice, which is bound in due time to satisfy +every want of his nature. + +Schiller's great command is, "Keep true to the dream of thy youth." The +great problem is how to make the dream real, through the exercise of the +waking will. + +This was not exactly the problem Goethe tried to solve. To _do_ +somewhat, became too important, as is indicated both by the second motto +to this essay, and by his maxim, "It is not the knowledge of what _might +be_, but what _is_, that forms us." + +Werther, like his early essays now republished from the Frankfort +Journal, is characterized by a fervid eloquence of Italian glow, which +betrays a part of his character almost lost sight of in the quiet +transparency of his later productions, and may give us some idea of the +mental conflicts through which he passed to manhood. + +The acting out the mystery into life, the calmness of survey, and the +passionateness of feeling, above all the ironical baffling at the end, +and want of point to a tale got up with such an eye to effect as he goes +along, mark well the man that was to be. Even so did he demand in +Werther; even so resolutely open the door in the first part of Faust; +even so seem to play with himself and his contemporaries in the second +part of Faust and Wilhelm Meister. + +Yet was he deeply earnest in his play, not for men, but for himself. To +himself as a part of nature it was important to grow, to lift his head +to the light. In nature he had all confidence; for man, as a part of +nature, infinite hope; but in him as an individual will, seemingly, not +much trust at the earliest age. + +The history of his intimacies marks his course; they were entered into +with passionate eagerness, but always ended in an observation of the +intellect, and he left them on his road, as the snake leaves his skin. +The first man he met of sufficient force to command a large share of his +attention was Herder, and the benefit of this intercourse was critical, +not genial. Of the good Lavater he soon perceived the weakness. Merck, +again, commanded his respect; but the force of Merck also was cold. + +But in the Grand Duke of Weimar he seems to have met a character strong +enough to exercise a decisive influence upon his own. Goethe was not +so politic and worldly that a little man could ever have become his +Mæcenas. In the Duchess Amelia and her son he found that practical +sagacity, large knowledge of things as they are, active force, and +genial feeling, which he had never before seen combined. + +The wise mind of the duchess gave the first impulse to the noble course +of Weimar. But that her son should have availed himself of the +foundation she laid is praise enough, in a world where there is such a +rebound from parental influence that it generally seems that the child +makes use of the directions given by the parent only to avoid the +prescribed path. The duke availed himself of guidance, though with a +perfect independence in action. The duchess had the unusual wisdom to +know the right time for giving up the reins, and thus maintained her +authority as far as the weight of her character was calculated to give +it. + +Of her Goethe was thinking when he wrote, "The admirable woman is she, +who, if the husband dies, can be a father to the children." + +The duke seems to have been one of those characters which are best known +by the impression their personal presence makes on us, resembling an +elemental and pervasive force, rather than wearing the features of an +individuality. Goethe describes him as "_Dämonische_," that is, gifted +with an instinctive, spontaneous force, which at once, without +calculation or foresight, chooses the right means to an end. As these +beings do not calculate, so is their influence incalculable. Their +repose has as much influence over other beings as their action, even as +the thunder cloud, lying black and distant in the summer sky, is not +less imposing than when it bursts and gives forth its quick lightnings. +Such men were Mirabeau and Swift. They had also distinct talents, but +their influence was from a perception in the minds of men of this +spontaneous energy in their natures. Sometimes, though rarely, we see +such a man in an obscure position; circumstances have not led him to a +large sphere; he may not have expressed in words a single thought worth +recording; but by his eye and voice he rules all around him. + +He stands upon his feet with a firmness and calm security which make +other men seem to halt and totter in their gait. In his deep eye is seen +an infinite comprehension, an infinite reserve of power. No accent of +his sonorous voice is lost on any ear within hearing; and, when he +speaks, men hate or fear perhaps the disturbing power they feel, but +never dream of disobeying. But hear Goethe himself. + +"The boy believed in nature, in the animate and inanimate the +intelligent and unconscious, to discover somewhat which manifested +itself only through contradiction, and therefore could not be +comprehended by any conception, much less defined by a word. It was not +divine, for it seemed without reason; not human, because without +understanding; not devilish, because it worked to good; not angelic, +because it often betrayed a petulant love of mischief. It was like +chance, in that it proved no sequence; it suggested the thought of +Providence, because it indicated connection. To this all our limitations +seem penetrable; it seemed to play at will with all the elements of our +being; it compressed time and dilated space. Only in the impossible did +it seem to delight, and to cast the possible aside with disdain. + +"This existence which seemed to mingle with others, sometimes to +separate, sometimes to unite, I called the Dämonische, after the example +of the ancients, and others who have observed somewhat similar."--_Dichtung +und Wahrheit._ + +"The Dämonische is that which cannot be explained by reason or +understanding; it lies not in my nature, but I am subject to it. + +"Napoleon was a being of this class, and in so high a degree that scarce +any one is to be compared with him. Also our late grand duke was such a +nature, full of unlimited power of action and unrest, so that his own +dominion was too little for him, and the greatest would have been too +little. Demoniac beings of this sort the Greeks reckoned among their +demigods."--_Conversations with Eckermann._[3] + +This great force of will, this instinctive directness of action, gave +the duke an immediate ascendency over Goethe which no other person had +ever possessed. It was by no means mere sycophancy that made him give up +the next ten years, the prime of his manhood, to accompanying the grand +duke in his revels, or aiding him in his schemes of practical utility, +or to contriving elegant amusements for the ladies of the court. It was +a real admiration for the character of the genial man of the world and +its environment. + +Whoever is turned from his natural path may, if he will, gain in +largeness and depth what he loses in simple beauty; and so it was with +Goethe. Faust became a wiser if not a nobler being. Werther, who must +die because life was not wide enough and rich enough in love for him, +ends as the Meister of the Wanderjahre, well content to be one never +inadequate to the occasion, "help-full, comfort-full." + +A great change was, during these years, perceptible to his friends in +the character of Goethe. From being always "either too volatile or +infatuated," he retreated into a self-collected state, which seemed at +first even icy to those around him. No longer he darted about him the +lightnings of his genius, but sat Jove-like and calm, with the +thunderbolts grasped in his hand, and the eagle gathered to his feet. +His freakish wit was subdued into a calm and even cold irony; his +multiplied relations no longer permitted him to abandon himself to any; +the minister and courtier could not expatiate in the free regions of +invention, and bring upon paper the signs of his higher life, without +subjecting himself to an artificial process of isolation. Obliged to +economy of time and means, he made of his intimates not objects of +devout tenderness, of disinterested care, but the crammers and feeders +of his intellect. The world was to him an arena or a studio, but not a +temple. + +"Ye cannot serve God and Mammon." + +Had Goethe entered upon practical life from the dictate of his spirit, +which bade him not be a mere author, but a living, loving man, that had +all been well. But he must also be a man of the world, and nothing can +be more unfavorable to true manhood than this ambition. The citizen, the +hero, the general, the poet, all these are in true relations; but what +is called being a man of the world is to truckle to it, not truly to +serve it. + +Thus fettered in false relations, detained from retirement upon the +centre of his being, yet so relieved from the early pressure of his +great thoughts as to pity more pious souls for being restless seekers, +no wonder that he wrote,-- + +"Es ist dafür gesorgt dass die Bäume nicht in den Himmel wachsen." + +"Care is taken that the trees grow not up into the heavens." Ay, Goethe, +but in proportion to their force of aspiration is their height. + +Yet never let him be confounded with those who sell all their +birthright. He became blind to the more generous virtues, the nobler +impulses, but ever in self-respect was busy to develop his nature. He +was kind, industrious, wise, gentlemanly, if not manly. If his genius +lost sight of the highest aim, he is the best instructor in the use of +means; ceasing to be a prophet poet, he was still a poetic artist. From +this time forward he seems a listener to nature, but not himself the +highest product of nature,--a priest to the soul of nature. His works +grow out of life, but are not instinct with the peculiar life of human +resolve, as are Shakspeare's or Dante's. + +Faust contains the great idea of his life, as indeed there is but one +great poetic idea possible to man--the progress of a soul through the +various forms of existence. + +All his other works, whatever their miraculous beauty of execution, are +mere chapters to this poem, illustrative of particular points. Faust, +had it been completed in the spirit in which it was begun, would have +been the Divina Commedia of its age. + +But nothing can better show the difference of result between a stern and +earnest life, and one of partial accommodation, than a comparison +between the Paridiso and that of the second part of Faust. In both a +soul, gradually educated and led back to God, is received at last not +through merit, but grace. But O the difference between the grandly +humble reliance of old Catholicism, and the loophole redemption of +modern sagacity! Dante was a _man_, of vehement passions, many +prejudices, bitter as much as sweet. His knowledge was scanty, his +sphere of observation narrow, the objects of his active life petty, +compared with those of Goethe. But, constantly retiring to his deepest +self, clearsighted to the limitations of man, but no less so to the +illimitable energy of the soul, the sharpest details in his work convey +a largest sense, as his strongest and steadiest flights only direct the +eye to heavens yet beyond. + +Yet perhaps he had not so hard a battle to wage, as this other great +poet. The fiercest passions are not so dangerous foes to the soul as the +cold scepticism of the understanding. The Jewish demon assailed the man +of Uz with physical ills, the Lucifer of the middle ages tempted his +passions; but the Mephistopheles of the eighteenth century bade the +finite strive to compass the infinite, and the intellect attempt to +solve all the problems of the soul. + +This path Faust had taken: it is that of modern necromancy. Not willing +to grow into God by the steady worship of a life, men would enforce his +presence by a spell; not willing to learn his existence by the slow +processes of their own, they strive to bind it in a word, that they may +wear it about the neck as a talisman. + +Faust, bent upon reaching the centre of the universe through the +intellect alone, naturally, after a length of trial, which has prevented +the harmonious unfolding of his nature, falls into despair. He has +striven for one object, and that object eludes him. Returning upon +himself, he finds large tracts of his nature lying waste and cheerless. +He is too noble for apathy, too wise for vulgar content with the animal +enjoyments of life. Yet the thirst he has been so many years increasing +is not to be borne. Give me, he cries, but a drop of water to cool my +burning tongue. Yet, in casting himself with a wild recklessness upon +the impulses of his nature yet untried, there is a disbelief that any +thing short of the All can satisfy the immortal spirit. His first +attempt was noble, though mistaken, and under the saving influence of +it, he makes the compact, whose condition cheats the fiend at last. + + Kannst du mich schmeichelnd je belügen + Dass ich mir selbst gefallen mag, + Kannst du mich mit Genuss betrügen: + Das sey für mich der letzte Tag. + + Werd ich zum Augenblicke sagen: + Verweile doch! du bist so schön! + Dann magst du mich in Fesseln schlagen, + Dann will ich gern zu Grunde gehen. + + Canst thou by falsehood or by flattery + Make me one moment with myself at peace, + Cheat me into tranquillity? Come then + And welcome, life's last day. + Make me but to the moment say, + O fly not yet, thou art so fair, + Then let me perish, &c. + +But this condition is never fulfilled. Faust cannot be content with +sensuality, with the charlatanry of ambition, nor with riches. His heart +never becomes callous, nor his moral and intellectual perceptions +obtuse. He is saved at last. + +With the progress of an individual soul is shadowed forth that of the +soul of the age; beginning in intellectual scepticism; sinking into +license; cheating itself with dreams of perfect bliss, to be at once +attained by means no surer than a spurious paper currency; longing +itself back from conflict between the spirit and the flesh, induced by +Christianity, to the Greek era with its harmonious development of body +and mind; striving to reëmbody the loved phantom of classical beauty in +the heroism of the middle age; flying from the Byron despair of those +who die because they cannot soar without wings, to schemes however +narrow, of practical utility,--redeemed at last through mercy alone. + +The second part of Faust is full of meaning, resplendent with beauty; +but it is rather an appendix to the first part than a fulfilment of its +promise. The world, remembering the powerful stamp of individual +feeling, universal indeed in its application, but individual in its +life, which had conquered all its scruples in the first part, was vexed +to find, instead of the man Faust, the spirit of the age,--discontented +with the shadowy manifestation of truths it longed to embrace, and, +above all, disappointed that the author no longer met us face to face, +or riveted the ear by his deep tones of grief and resolve. + +When the world shall have got rid of the still overpowering influence of +the first part, it will be seen that the fundamental idea is never lost +sight of in the second. The change is that Goethe, though the same +thinker, is no longer the same person. + +The continuation of Faust in the practical sense of the education of a +man is to be found in Wilhelm Meister. Here we see the change by +strongest contrast. The mainspring of action is no longer the +impassioned and noble seeker, but a disciple of circumstance, whose most +marked characteristic is a taste for virtue and knowledge. Wilhelm +certainly prefers these conditions of existence to their opposites, but +there is nothing so decided in his character as to prevent his turning a +clear eye on every part of that variegated world-scene which the writer +wished to place before us. + +To see all till he knows all sufficiently to put objects into their +relations, then to concentrate his powers and use his knowledge under +recognized conditions,--such is the progress of man from Apprentice to +Master. + +'Tis pity that the volumes of the Wanderjahre have not been translated +entire, as well as those of the Lehrjahre, for many, who have read the +latter only, fancy that Wilhelm becomes a master in that work. Far from +it; he has but just become conscious of the higher powers that have +ceaselessly been weaving his fate. Far from being as yet a Master, he +but now begins to be a Knower. In the Wanderjahre we find him gradually +learning the duties of citizenship, and hardening into manhood, by +applying what he has learned for himself to the education of his child. +He converses on equal terms with the wise and beneficent; he is no +longer duped and played with for his good, but met directly mind to +mind. + +Wilhelm is a master when he can command his actions, yet keep his mind +always open to new means of knowledge; when he has looked at various +ways of living, various forms of religion and of character, till he has +learned to be tolerant of all, discerning of good in all; when the +astronomer imparts to his equal ear his highest thoughts, and the poor +cottager seeks his aid as a patron and counsellor. + +To be capable of all duties, limited by none, with an open eye, a +skilful and ready hand, an assured step, a mind deep, calm, foreseeing +without anxiety, hopeful without the aid of illusion,--such is the ripe +state of manhood. This attained, the great soul should still seek and +labor, but strive and battle never more. + +The reason for Goethe's choosing so negative a character as Wilhelm, +and leading him through scenes of vulgarity and low vice, would be +obvious enough to a person of any depth of thought, even if he himself +had not announced it. He thus obtained room to paint life as it really +is, and bring forward those slides in the magic lantern which are always +known to exist, though they may not be spoken of to ears polite. + +Wilhelm cannot abide in tradition, nor do as his fathers did before him, +merely for the sake of money or a standing in society. The stage, here +an emblem of the ideal life as it gleams before unpractised eyes, +offers, he fancies, opportunity for a life of thought as distinguished +from one of routine. Here, no longer the simple citizen, but Man, all +Men, he will rightly take upon himself the different aspects of life, +till poet-wise, he shall have learned them all. + +No doubt the attraction of the stage to young persons of a vulgar +character is merely the brilliancy of its trappings; but to Wilhelm, as +to Goethe, it was this poetic freedom and daily suggestion which +seemed likely to offer such an agreeable studio in the greenroom. + +But the ideal must be rooted in the real, else the poet's life +degenerates into buffoonery or vice. Wilhelm finds the characters formed +by this would-be ideal existence more despicable than those which grew +up on the track, dusty and bustling and dull as it had seemed, of common +life. He is prepared by disappointment for a higher ambition. + +In the house of the count he finds genuine elegance, genuine sentiment, +but not sustained by wisdom, or a devotion to important objects. This +love, this life, is also inadequate. + +Now, with Teresa he sees the blessings of domestic peace. He sees a mind +sufficient for itself, finding employment and education in the perfect +economy of a little world. The lesson is pertinent to the state of mind +in which his former experiences have left him, as indeed our deepest +lore is won from reaction. But a sudden change of scene introduces him +to the society of the sage and learned uncle, the sage and beneficent +Natalia. Here he finds the same virtues as with Teresa, and enlightened +by a larger wisdom. + +A friend of mine says that his ideal of a friend is a worthy aunt, one +who has the tenderness without the blindness of a mother, and takes the +same charge of the child's mind as the mother of its body. I don't know +but this may have a foundation in truth, though, if so, auntism, like +other grand professions, has sadly degenerated. At any rate, Goethe +seems to be possessed with a similar feeling. The Count de Thorane, a +man of powerful character, who made a deep impression on his childhood, +was, he says, "reverenced by me as an uncle." And the ideal wise man of +this common life epic stands before us as "The Uncle." + +After seeing the working of just views in the establishment of the +uncle, learning piety from the Confessions of a Beautiful Soul, and +religious beneficence from the beautiful life of Natalia, Wilhelm is +deemed worthy of admission to the society of the Illuminati, that is, +those who have pierced the secret of life, and know what it is to be and +to do. + +Here he finds the scroll of his life "drawn with large, sharp strokes," +that is, these truly wise read his character for him, and "mind and +destiny are but two names for one idea." + +He now knows enough to enter on the Wanderjahre. + +Goethe always represents the highest principle in the feminine form. +Woman is the Minerva, man the Mars. As in the Faust, the purity of +Gretchen, resisting the demon always, even after all her faults, is +announced to have saved her soul to heaven; and in the second part she +appears, not only redeemed herself, but by her innocence and forgiving +tenderness hallowed to redeem the being who had injured her. + +So in the Meister, these women hover around the narrative, each +embodying the spirit of the scene. The frail Philina, graceful though +contemptible, represents the degradation incident to an attempt at +leading an exclusively poetic life. Mignon, gift divine as ever the Muse +bestowed on the passionate heart of man, with her soft, mysterious +inspiration, her pining for perpetual youth, represents the high desire +that leads to this mistake, as Aurelia, the desire for excitement; +Teresa, practical wisdom, gentle tranquillity, which seem most desirable +after the Aurelia glare. Of the beautiful soul and Natalia we have +already spoken. The former embodies what was suggested to Goethe by +the most spiritual person he knew in youth--Mademoiselle von +Klettenberg, over whom, as he said, in her invalid loneliness the Holy +Ghost brooded like a dove. + +Entering on the Wanderjahre, Wilhelm becomes acquainted with another +woman, who seems the complement of all the former, and represents the +idea which is to guide and mould him in the realization of all the past +experience. + +This person, long before we see her, is announced in various ways as a +ruling power. She is the last hope in cases of difficulty, and, though +an invalid, and living in absolute retirement, is consulted by her +connections and acquaintance as an unerring judge in all their affairs. + +All things tend towards her as a centre; she knows all, governs all, but +never goes forth from herself. + +Wilhelm at last visits her. He finds her infirm in body, but equal to +all she has to do. Charity and counsel to men who need her are her +business, astronomy her pleasure. + +After a while, Wilhelm ascertains from the Astronomer, her companion, +what he had before suspected, that she really belongs to the solar +system, and only appears on earth to give men a feeling of the planetary +harmony. From her youth up, says the Astronomer, till she knew me, +though all recognized in her an unfolding of the highest moral and +intellectual qualities, she was supposed to be sick at her times of +clear vision. When her thoughts were not in the heavens, she returned +and acted in obedience to them on earth; she was then said to be well. + +When the Astronomer had observed her long enough, he confirmed her +inward consciousness of a separate existence and peculiar union with the +heavenly bodies. + +Her picture is painted with many delicate traits, and a gradual +preparation leads the reader to acknowledge the truth; but, even in the +slight indication here given, who does not recognize thee, divine +Philosophy, sure as the planetary orbits, and inexhaustible as the +fountain of light, crowning the faithful Seeker at last with the +privilege to possess his own soul. + +In all that is said of Macaria,[4] we recognize that no thought is too +religious for the mind of Goethe. It was indeed so; you can deny him +nothing, but only feel that his works are not instinct and glowing with +the central fire, and, after catching a glimpse pf the highest truth, +are forced again to find him too much afraid of losing sight of the +limitations of nature to overflow you or himself with the creative +spirit. + +While the apparition of the celestial Macaria seems to announce the +ultimate destiny of the soul of man, the practical application of all +Wilhelm has thus painfully acquired is not of pure Delphian strain. +Goethe draws, as he passes, a dart from the quiver of Phoebus, but +ends as Æsculapius or Mercury. Wilhelm, at the school of the Three +Reverences, thinks out what can be done for man in his temporal +relations. He learns to practise moderation, and even painful +renunciation. The book ends, simply indicating what the course of his +life will be, by making him perform an act of kindness, with good +judgment and at the right moment. + +Surely the simple soberness of Goethe should please at least those who +style themselves, preëminently, people of common sense. + +The following remarks are by the celebrated Rahel von Ense, whose +discernment as to his works was highly prized by Goethe. + + + "_Don Quixote and Wilhelm Meister_! + + "Embrace one another, Cervantes and Goethe! + + "Both, using their own clear eyes, vindicated human nature. They + saw the champions through their errors and follies, looking down + into the deepest soul, seeing there the true form. _Respectable_ + people call the Don as well as Meister a fool, wandering hither and + thither, transacting no business of real life, bringing nothing to + pass, scarce even knowing what he ought to think on any subject, + very unfit for the hero of a romance. Yet has our sage known how to + paint the good and honest mind in perpetual toil and conflict with + the world, as it is embodied; never sharing one moment the impure + confusion; always striving to find fault with and improve itself, + always so innocent as to see others far better than they are, and + generally preferring them to itself, learning from all, indulging + all except the manifestly base; the more you understand, the more + you respect and love this character. Cervantes has painted the + knight, Goethe the culture of the entire man,--both their own + time." + +But those who demand from him a life-long continuance of the early ardor +of Faust, who wish to see, throughout his works, not only such manifold +beauty and subtle wisdom, but the clear assurance of divinity, the pure +white light of Macaria, wish that he had not so variously unfolded his +nature, and concentred it more. They would see him slaying the serpent +with the divine wrath of Apollo, rather than taming it to his service, +like Æsculapius. They wish that he had never gone to Weimar, had never +become a universal connoisseur and dilettante in science, and courtier +as "graceful as a born nobleman," but had endured the burden of life +with the suffering crowd, and deepened his nature in loneliness and +privation, till Faust had conquered, rather than cheated the devil, and +the music of heavenly faith superseded the grave and mild eloquence of +human wisdom. + +The expansive genius which moved so gracefully in its self imposed +fetters, is constantly surprising us by its content with a choice low, +in so far as it was not the highest of which the mind was capable. The +secret may be found in the second motto of this slight essay. + +"He who would do great things must quickly draw together his forces. The +master can only show himself such through limitation, and the law alone +can give us freedom." + +But there is a higher spiritual law always ready to supersede the +temporal laws at the call of the human soul. The soul that is too +content with usual limitations will never call forth this unusual +manifestation. + +If there be a tide in the affairs of men, which must be taken at the +right moment to lead on to fortune, it is the same with inward as with +outward life. He who, in the crisis hour of youth, has stopped short of +himself, is not likely to find again what he has missed in one life, for +there are a great number of blanks to a prize in each lottery. + +But the pang we feel that "those who are so much are not more," seems to +promise new spheres, new ages, new crises to enable these beings to +complete their circle. + +Perhaps Goethe is even now sensible that he should not have stopped at +Weimar as his home, but made it one station on the way to Paradise; not +stopped at humanity, but regarded it as symbolical of the divine, and +given to others to feel more distinctly the centre of the universe, as +well as the harmony in its parts. It is great to be an Artist, a Master, +greater still to be a Seeker till the Man has found all himself. + +What Goethe meant by self-collection was a collection of means for +work, rather than to divine the deepest truths of being. Thus are these +truths always indicated, never declared; and the religious hope awakened +by his subtle discernment of the workings of nature never gratified, +except through the intellect. + +He whose prayer is only work will not leave his treasure in the secret +shrine. + +One is ashamed when finding any fault with one like Goethe, who is so +great. It seems the only criticism should be to do all he omitted to do, +and that none who cannot is entitled to say a word. Let that one speak +who was all Goethe was not,--noble, true, virtuous, but neither wise +nor subtle in his generation, a divine ministrant, a baffled man, ruled +and imposed on by the pygmies whom he spurned, an heroic artist, a +democrat to the tune of Burns: + + "The rank is but the guinea's stamp; + The man's the gowd for a' that." + +Hear Beethoven speak of Goethe on an occasion which brought out the +two characters in strong contrast. + +Extract from a letter of Beethoven to Bettina Brentano Töplitz, 1812. + +"Kings and princes can indeed make professors and privy councillors, and +hang upon them titles; but great men they cannot make; souls that rise +above the mud of the world, these they must let be made by other means +than theirs, and should therefore show them respect. When two such as I +and Goethe come together, then must great lords observe what is +esteemed great by one of us. Coming home yesterday we met the whole +imperial family. We saw them coming, and Goethe left me and insisted +on standing one side; let me say what I would, I could not make him come +on one step. I pressed my hat upon my head, buttoned my surtout, and +passed on through the thickest crowd. Princes and parasites made way; +the Archduke Rudolph took off his hat; the empress greeted me first. +Their highnesses KNOW ME. I was well amused to see the crowd pass by +Goethe. At the side stood he, hat in hand, low bowed in reverence till +all had gone by. Then I scolded him well; I gave no pardon, but +reproached him with all his sins, most of all those towards you, dearest +Bettina; we had just been talking of you." + +If Beethoven appears, in this scene, somewhat arrogant and bearish, yet +how noble his extreme compared with the opposite! Goethe's friendship +with the grand duke we respect, for Karl August was a strong man. But we +regret to see at the command of any and all members of the ducal +family, and their connections, who had nothing but rank to recommend +them, his time and thoughts, of which he was so chary to private +friends. Beethoven could not endure to teach the Archduke Rudolph, who +had the soul duly to revere his genius, because he felt it to be +"hofdíenst," court service. He received with perfect nonchalance the +homage of the sovereigns of Europe. Only the Empress of Russia and the +Archduke Karl, whom he esteemed as individuals, had power to gratify him +by their attentions. Compare with, Goethe's obsequious pleasure at +being able gracefully to compliment such high personages, Beethoven's +conduct with regard to the famous Heroic Symphony. This was composed at +the suggestion of Bernadotte, while Napoleon was still in his first +glory. He was then the hero of Beethoven's imagination, who hoped from +him the liberation of Europe. With delight the great artist expressed in +his eternal harmonies the progress of the Hero's soul. The symphony was +finished, and even dedicated to Bonaparte, when the news came of his +declaring himself Emperor of the French. The first act of the indignant +artist was to tear off his dedication and trample it under foot; nor +could he endure again even the mention of Napoleon until the time of his +fall. + +Admit that Goethe had a natural taste for the trappings of rank and +wealth, from which the musician was quite free, yet we cannot doubt that +both saw through these externals to man as a nature; there can be no +doubt on whose side was the simple greatness, the noble truth. We pardon +thee, Goethe,--but thee, Beethoven, we revere, for thou hast +maintained the worship of the Manly, the Permanent, the True! + +The clear perception which was in Goethe's better nature of the beauty +of that steadfastness, of that singleness and simple melody of soul, +which he too much sacrificed to become "the many-sided One," is shown +most distinctly in his two surpassingly beautiful works, The Elective +Affinities and Iphigenia. + +Not Werther, not the Nouvelle Héloise, have been assailed with such a +storm of indignation as the first-named of these works, on the score of +gross immorality. + +The reason probably is the subject; any discussion of the validity of +the marriage vow making society tremble to its foundation; and, +secondly, the cold manner in which it is done. All that is in the book +would be bearable to most minds if the writer had had less the air of a +spectator, and had larded his work here and there with ejaculations of +horror and surprise. + +These declarations of sentiment on the part of the author seem to be +required by the majority of readers, in order to an interpretation of +his purpose, as sixthly, seventhly, and eighthly were, in an +old-fashioned sermon, to rouse the audience to a perception of the +method made use of by the preacher. + +But it has always seemed to me that those who need not such helps to +their discriminating faculties, but read a work so thoroughly as to +apprehend its whole scope and tendency, rather than hear what the author +says it means, will regard the Elective Affinities as a work especially +what is called moral in its outward effect, and religious even to piety +in its spirit. The mental aberrations of the consorts from their +plighted faith, though in the one case never indulged, and though in the +other no veil of sophistry is cast over the weakness of passion, but all +that is felt expressed with the openness of one who desires to +legitimate what he feels, are punished by terrible griefs and a fatal +catastrophe. Ottilia, that being of exquisite purity, with intellect and +character so harmonized in feminine beauty, as they never before were +found in any portrait of woman painted by the hand of man, perishes, on +finding she has been breathed on by unhallowed passion, and led to err +even by her ignorant wishes against what is held sacred. The only +personage whom we do not pity is Edward, for he is the only one who +stifles the voice of conscience. + +There is indeed a sadness, as of an irresistible fatality, brooding over +the whole. It seems as if only a ray of angelic truth could have enabled +these men to walk wisely in this twilight, at first so soft and +alluring, then deepening into blind horror. + +But if no such ray came to prevent their earthly errors, it seems to +point heavenward in the saintly sweetness of Ottilia. Her nature, too +fair for vice, too finely wrought even for error, comes lonely, intense, +and pale, like the evening star on the cold, wintry night. It tells of +other worlds, where the meaning of such strange passages as this must be +read to those faithful and pure like her, victims perishing in the green +garlands of a spotless youth to atone for the unworthiness of others. + +An unspeakable pathos is felt from the minutest trait of this character, +and deepens with every new study of it. Not even in Shakspeare have I so +felt the organizing power of genius. Through dead words I find the least +gestures of this person, stamping themselves on my memory, betraying to +the heart the secret of her life, which she herself, like all these +divine beings, knew not. I feel myself familiarized with all beings of +her order. I see not only what she was, but what she might have been, +and live with her in yet untrodden realms. + +Here is the glorious privilege of a form known only in the world of +genius. There is on it no stain of usage or calculation to dull our +sense of its immeasurable life. What in our daily walk, mid common faces +and common places, fleets across us at moments from glances of the eye, +or tones of the voice, is felt from the whole being of one of these +children of genius. + +This precious gem is set in a ring complete in its enamel. I cannot hope +to express my sense of the beauty of this book as a work of art. I +would not attempt it if I had elsewhere met any testimony to the same. +The perfect picture, always before the mind, of the chateau, the moss +hut, the park, the garden, the lake, with its boat and the landing +beneath the platan trees; the gradual manner in which both localities +and persons grow upon us, more living than life, inasmuch as we are, +unconsciously, kept at our best temperature by the atmosphere of genius, +and thereby more delicate in our perceptions than amid our customary +fogs; the gentle unfolding of the central thought, as a flower in the +morning sun; then the conclusion, rising like a cloud, first soft and +white, but darkening as it comes, till with a sudden wind it bursts +above our heads; the ease with which we every where find points of view +all different, yet all bearing on the same circle, for, though we feel +every hour new worlds, still before our eye lie the same objects, new, +yet the same, unchangeable, yet always changing their aspects as we +proceed, till at last we find we ourselves have traversed the circle, +and know all we overlooked at first,--these things are worthy of our +highest admiration. + +For myself, I never felt so completely that very thing which genius +should always make us feel--that I was in its circle, and could not get +out till its spell was done, and its last spirit permitted to depart. I +was not carried away, instructed, delighted more than by other works, +but I was _there_, living there, whether as the platan tree, or the +architect, or any other observing part of the scene. The personages live +too intensely to let us live in them; they draw around themselves +circles within the circle; we can only see them close, not be +themselves. + +Others, it would seem, on closing the book, exclaim, "What an immoral +book!" I well remember my own thought, "It is a work of art!" At last I +understood that world within a world, that ripest fruit of human nature, +which is called art. With each perusal of the book my surprise and +delight at this wonderful fulfilment of design grew. I understood why +Goethe was well content to be called Artist, and his works, works of +Art, rather than revelations. At this moment, remembering what I then +felt, I am inclined to class all my negations just written on this paper +as stuff, and to look upon myself, for thinking them, with as much +contempt as Mr. Carlyle, or Mrs. Austin, or Mrs. Jameson might do, to +say nothing of the German Goetheans. + +Yet that they were not without foundation I feel again when I turn to +the Iphigenia--a work beyond the possibility of negation; a work where a +religious meaning not only pierces but enfolds the whole; a work as +admirable in art, still higher in significance, more single in +expression. + +There is an English translation (I know not how good) of Goethe's +Iphigenia. But as it may not be generally known, I will give a sketch of +the drama. Iphigenia, saved, at the moment of the sacrifice made by +Agamemnon in behalf of the Greeks, by the goddess, and transferred to +the temple at Tauris, appears alone in the consecrated grove. Many years +have passed since she was severed from the home of such a tragic fate, +the palace of Mycenæ. Troy had fallen, Agamemnon been murdered, Orestes +had grown up to avenge his death. All these events were unknown to the +exiled Iphigenia. The priestess of Diana in a barbarous land, she had +passed the years in the duties of the sanctuary, and in acts of +beneficence. She had acquired great power over the mind of Thoas, king +of Tauris, and used it to protect strangers, whom it had previously been +the custom of the country to sacrifice to the goddess. + +She salutes us with a soliloquy, of which I give a rude translation:-- + + Beneath your shade, living summits + Of this ancient, holy, thick-leaved grove, + As in the silent sanctuary of the Goddess, + Still I walk with those same shuddering feelings, + As when I trod these walks for the first time. + My spirit cannot accustom itself to these places; + Many years now has kept me here concealed + A higher will, to which I am submissive; + Yet ever am I, as at first, the stranger; + For ah! the sea divides me from my beloved ones, + And on the shore whole days I stand, + Seeking with my soul the land of the Greeks, + And to my sighs brings the rushing wave only + Its hollow tones in answer. + Woe to him who, far from parents, and brothers, and sisters, + Drags on a lonely life. Grief consumes + The nearest happiness away from his lips; + His thoughts crowd downwards-- + Seeking the hall of his fathers, where the Sun + First opened heaven to him, and kindred-born + In their first plays knit daily firmer and firmer + The bond from heart to heart--I question not the Gods, + Only the lot of woman is one of sorrow; + In the house and in the war man rules, + Knows how to help himself in foreign lands, + Possessions gladden and victory crowns him, + And an honorable death stands ready to end his days. + Within what narrow limits is bounded the luck of woman! + To obey a rude husband even is duty and comfort; how sad + When, instead, a hostile fate drives her out of her sphere! + So holds me Thoas, indeed a noble man, fast + In solemn, sacred, but slavish bonds. + O, with shame I confess that with secret reluctance + I serve thee, Goddess, thee, my deliverer. + My life should freely have been dedicate to thee, + But I have always been hoping in thee, O Diana, + Who didst take in thy soft arms me, the rejected daughter + Of the greatest king! Yes, daughter of Zeus, + I thought if thou gavest such anguish to him, the high hero, + The godlike Agamemnon; + Since he brought his dearest, a victim, to thy altar, + That, when he should return, crowned with glory, from Ilium, + At the same time thou would'st give to his arms his other treasures, + His spouse, Electra, and the princely son; + Me also, thou would'st restore to mine own, + Saving a second time me, whom from death thou didst save, + From this worse death,--the life of exile here. + +These are the words and thoughts; but how give an idea of the sweet +simplicity of expression in the original, where every word has the grace +and softness of a flower petal? + +She is interrupted by a messenger from the king, who prepares her for a +visit from himself of a sort she has dreaded. Thoas, who has always +loved her, now left childless by the calamities of war, can no longer +resist his desire to reanimate by her presence his desert house. He +begins by urging her to tell him the story of her race, which she does +in a way that makes us feel as if that most famous tragedy had never +before found a voice, so simple, so fresh in its naïveté is the recital. + +Thoas urges his suit undismayed by the fate that hangs over the race of +Tantalus. + + THOAS. + + Was it the same Tantalus, + Whom Jupiter called to his council and banquets, + In whose talk so deeply experienced, full of various learning, + The Gods delighted as in the speech of oracles? + + IPHIGENIA. + + It is the same, but the Gods should not + Converse with men, as with their equals. + The mortal race is much too weak + Not to turn giddy on unaccustomed heights. + He was not ignoble, neither a traitor, + But for a servant too great, and as a companion + Of the great Thunderer only a man. So was + His fault also that of a man, its penalty + Severe, and poets sing--Presumption + And faithlessness cast him down from the throne of Jove, + Into the anguish of ancient Tartarus; + Ah, and all his race bore their hate. + + THOAS. + + Bore it the blame of the ancestor, or its own? + + IPHIGENIA. + + Truly the vehement breast and powerful life of the Titan + Were the assured inheritance of son and grandchild; + But the Gods bound their brows with a brazen band, + Moderation, counsel, wisdom, and patience + Were hid from their wild, gloomy glance, + Each desire grew to fury, + And limitless ranged their passionate thoughts. + +Iphigenia refuses with gentle firmness to give to gratitude what was not +due. Thoas leaves her in anger, and, to make her feel it, orders that +the old, barbarous custom be renewed, and two strangers just arrived be +immolated at Diana's altar. + +Iphigenia, though distressed, is not shaken by this piece of tyranny. +She trusts her heavenly protectress will find some way for her to save +these unfortunates without violating her truth. + +The strangers are Orestes and Pylades, sent thither by the oracle of +Apollo, who bade them go to Tauris and bring back "The Sister;" thus +shall the heaven-ordained parricide of Orestes be expiated, and the +Furies cease to pursue him. + +The Sister they interpret to be Dian, Apollo's sister; but Iphigenia, +sister to Orestes, is really meant. + +The next act contains scenes of most delicate workmanship, first between +the light-hearted Pylades, full of worldly resource and ready +tenderness, and the suffering Orestes, of far nobler, indeed heroic +nature, but less fit for the day and more for the ages. In the first +scene the characters of both are brought out with great skill, and the +nature of the bond between "the butterfly and the dark flower," +distinctly shown in few words. + +The next scene is between Iphigenia and Pylades. Pylades, though he +truly answers the questions of the priestess about the fate of Troy and +the house of Agamemnon, does not hesitate to conceal from her who +Orestes really is, and manufactures a tissue of useless falsehoods with +the same readiness that the wise Ulysses showed in exercising his +ingenuity on similar occasions. + +It is said, I know not how truly, that the modern Greeks are Ulyssean in +this respect, never telling straightforward truth, when deceit will +answer the purpose; and if they tell any truth, practising the economy +of the King of Ithaca, in always reserving a part for their own use. The +character which this denotes is admirably hit off with few strokes in +Pylades, the fair side of whom Iphigenia thus paints in a later scene. + + Bless, ye Gods, our Pylades, + And whatever he may undertake; + He is the arm of the youth in battle, + The light-giving eye of the aged man in the council. + For his soul is still; it preserves + The holy possession of Repose unexhausted, + And from its depths still reaches + Help and advice to those tossed to and fro. + +Iphigenia leaves him in sudden agitation, when informed of the death of +Agamemnon. Returning, she finds in his place Orestes, whom she had not +before seen, and draws from him by her artless questions the sequel to +this terrible drama wrought by his hand. After he has concluded his +narrative, in the deep tones of cold anguish, she cries,-- + + Immortals, you who through your bright days + Live in bliss, throned on clouds ever renewed, + Only for this have you all these years + Kept me separate from men, and so near yourselves, + Given me the child-like employment to cherish the fires on your altars, + That my soul might, in like pious clearness, + Be ever aspiring towards your abodes, + That only later and deeper I might feel + The anguish and horror that have darkened my house. + O Stranger, + Speak to me of the unhappy one, tell me of Orestes. + + ORESTES. + + O, might I speak of his death! + Vehement flew up from the reeking blood + His Mother's Soul! + And called to the ancient daughters of Night, + Let not the parricide escape; + Pursue that man of crime; he is yours! + They obey, their hollow eyes + Darting about with vulture eagerness; + They stir themselves in their black dens, + From corners their companions + Doubt and Remorse steal out to join them. + Before them roll the mists of Acheron; + In its cloudy volumes rolls + The eternal contemplation of the irrevocable + Permitted now in their love of ruin they tread + The beautiful fields of a God-planted earth, + From which they had long been banished by an early curse, + Their swift feet follow the fugitive, + They pause never except to gather more power to dismay. + + IPHIGENIA. + + Unhappy man, thou art in like manner tortured, + And feelest truly what he, the poor fugitive, suffers! + + ORESTES. + + What sayest thou? what meanest by "like manner"? + + IPHIGENIA. + + Thee, too, the weight of a fratricide crushes to earth; the tale + I had from thy younger brother. + + ORESTES. + + I cannot suffer that thou, great soul, + Shouldst be deceived by a false tale; + A web of lies let stranger weave for stranger + Subtle with many thoughts, accustomed to craft, + Guarding his feet against a trap. + But between us + Be Truth;-- + I am Orestes,--and this guilty head + Bent downward to the grave seeks death; + In any shape were he welcome. + Whoever thou art, I wish thou mightst be saved, + Thou and my friend; for myself I wish it not. + Thou seem'st against thy will here to remain; + Invent a way to fly and leave me here. + +Like all pure productions of genius, this may be injured by the +slightest change, and I dare not flatter myself that the English words +give an idea of the heroic dignity expressed in the cadence of the +original, by the words + + "Twischen uns + Seg Wahrheit! + Ich bin Orest!" + +where the Greek seems to fold his robe around him in the full strength +of classic manhood, prepared for worst and best, not like a cold Stoic, +but a hero, who can feel all, know all, and endure all. The name of two +syllables in the German is much more forcible for the pause, than the +three-syllable Orestes. + + "Between us + Be Truth," + +is fine to my ear, on which our word Truth also pauses with a large +dignity. + +The scenes go on more and more full of breathing beauty. The lovely joy +of Iphigenia, the meditative softness with which the religiously +educated mind perpetually draws the inference from the most agitating +events, impress us more and more. At last the hour of trial comes. She +is to keep off Thoas by a cunningly devised tale, while her brother and +Pylades contrive their escape. Orestes has received to his heart the +sister long lost, divinely restored, and in the embrace the curse falls +from him, he is well, and Pylades more than happy. The ship waits to +carry her to the palace home she is to free from a century's weight of +pollution; and already the blue heavens of her adored Greece gleam +before her fancy. + +But, O, the step before all this can be obtained;--to deceive Thoas, a +savage and a tyrant indeed, but long her protector,--in his barbarous +fashion, her benefactor! How can she buy life, happiness, or even the +safety of those dear ones at such a price? + + "Woe, + O Woe upon the lie! It frees not the breast, + Like the true-spoken word; it comforts not, but tortures + Him who devised it, and returns, + An arrow once let fly, God-repelled, back, + On the bosom of the Archer!" + + O, must I then resign the silent hope + Which gave a beauty to my loneliness? + Must the curse dwell forever, and our race + Never be raised to life by a new blessing? + All things decay, the fairest bliss is transient, + The powers most full of life grow faint at last; + And shall a curse alone boast an incessant life? + + Then have I idly hoped that here kept pure, + So strangely severed from my kindred's lot, + I was designed to come at the right moment, + And with pure hand and heart to expiate + The many sins that stain my native home. + To lie, to steal the sacred image! + Olympians, let not these vulture talons + Seize on the tender breast. O, save me, + And save your image in my soul! + + Within my ears resounds the ancient lay,-- + I had forgotten it, and would so gladly,-- + The lay of the Parcæ, which they awful sung; + As Tantalus fell from his golden seat + They suffered with the noble friend. Wrathful + Was their heart, and fearful was the song. + In our childhood the nurse was wont to sing it + To me, and my brother and sister. I marked it well. + +Then follows the sublime song of the Parcæ, well known through +translations. + +But Iphigenia is not a victim of fate, for she listens steadfastly to +the god in her breast. Her lips are incapable of subterfuge. She obeys +her own heart, tells all to the king, calls up his better nature, wins, +hallows, and purifies all around her, till the heaven-prepared way is +cleared by the obedient child of heaven, and the great trespass of +Tantalus cancelled by a woman's reliance on the voice of her innocent +soul. + +If it be not possible to enhance the beauty with which such ideal +figures as the Iphigenia and the Antigone appeared to the Greek mind, +yet Goethe has unfolded a part of the life of this being, unknown +elsewhere in the records of literature. The character of the priestess, +the full beauty of virgin womanhood, solitary, but tender, wise and +innocent, sensitive and self-collected, sweet as spring, dignified as +becomes the chosen servant of God, each gesture and word of deep and +delicate significance,--where else is such a picture to be found? + +It was not the courtier, nor the man of the world, nor the connoisseur, +nor the friend of Mephistopheles, nor Wilhelm the Master, nor Egmont the +generous, free liver, that saw Iphigenia in the world of spirits, but +Goethe, in his first-born glory; G[o]ethe, the poet; Goethe, +designed to be the brightest star in a new constellation. Let us not, in +surveying his works and life, abide with him too much in the suburbs and +outskirts of himself. Let us enter into his higher tendency, thank him +for such angels as Iphigenia, whose simple truth mocks at all his wise +"Beschrankungen," and hope the hour when, girt about with many such, he +will confess, contrary to his opinion, given in his latest days, that it +is well worth while to live seventy years, if only to find that they are +nothing in the sight of God. + + + + +THOMAS HOOD. + + +Now almost the last light has gone out of the galaxy that made the first +thirty years of this age so bright. And the dynasty that now reigns over +the world of wit and poetry is poor and pale, indeed, in comparison. + +We are anxious to pour due libations to the departed; we need not +economize our wine; it will not be so often needed now. + +Hood has closed the most fatiguing career in the world--that of a +professed wit; and we may say with deeper feeling than of others who +shuffle off the load of care, May he rest in peace! The fatigues of a +conqueror, a missionary preacher, even of an active philanthropist, like +Howard, are nothing to those of a professed wit. Bad enough is it when +he is only a man of society, by whom every one expects to be enlivened +and relieved; who can never talk gravely in a corner, without those +around observing that he must have heard some bad news to be so out of +spirits; who can never make a simple remark, while eating a peaceful +dinner, without the table being set in a roar of laughter, as when +Sheridan, on such an occasion, opened his lips for the first time to say +that "he liked currant jelly." For these unhappy men there are no +intervals of social repose, no long silences fed by the mere feeling of +sympathy or gently entertained by observation, no warm quietude in the +mild liveries of green or brown, for the world has made up its mind that +motley is their only wear, and teases them to jingle their bells +forever. + +But far worse is it when the professed wit is also by profession a +writer, and finds himself obliged to coin for bread those jokes which, +in the frolic exuberance of youth, he so easily coined for fun. We can +conceive of no existence more cruel, so tormenting, and at the same time +so dull. We hear that Hood was forever behindhand with his promises to +publishers; no wonder! But when we hear that he, in consequence, lost a +great part of the gains of his hard life, and was, as a result, harassed +by other cares, we cannot mourn to lose him, if, + + "After life's fitful fever, he sleeps well;" + +or if, as our deeper knowledge leads us to hope, he is now engaged in a +better life, where his fancies shall take their natural place, and +flicker like light on the surface of a profound and full stream flowing +betwixt rich and peaceful shores, such as, no less than the drawbacks +upon his earthly existence, are indicated in the following + +SONNET. + + The curse of Adam, the old curse of all, + Though I inherit in this feverish life + Of worldly toil, vain wishes, and hard strife, + And fruitless thought in care's eternal thrall, + Yet more sweet honey than of bitter gall + I taste through thee, my Eva, my sweet wife. + Then what was Man's lost Paradise? how rife + Of bliss, since love is with him in his fall! + Such as our own pure passion still might frame + Of this fair earth and its delightful bowers, + If no fell sorrow, like the serpent, came + To trail its venom o'er the sweetest flowers; + But, O! as many and such tears are ours + As only should be shed for guilt and shame. + +In Hood, as in all true wits, the smile lightens on the verge of a tear. +True wit and humor show that exquisite sensibility to the relations of +life, that fine perception as to slight tokens of its fearful, hopeless +mysteries, which imply pathos to a still higher degree than mirth. + +Hood knew and welcomed the dower which nature gave him at his birth, +when he wrote thus:-- + + All things are touched with melancholy + Born of the secret soul's mistrust, + To feel her fair ethereal wings + Weighed down with vile, degraded dust. + Even the bright extremes of joy + Bring on conclusions of disgust, + Like the sweet blossoms of the May, + Whose fragrance ends in must. + O, give her, then, her tribute just, + Her sighs and tears and musings holy; + There is no music in the life + That sounds with idiot laughter solely; + There's not a string attuned to mirth, + But has its chord in melancholy. + +Hood was true to this vow of acceptance. He vowed to accept willingly +the pains as well as joys of life for what they could teach. Therefore, +years expanded and enlarged his sympathies, and gave to his lightest +jokes an obvious harmony with a great moral design, not obtrusively +obvious, but enough so to give a sweetness and permanent complacency to +our laughter. Indeed, what is written in his gayer mood has affected us +more, as spontaneous productions always do, than what he has written of +late with grave design, and which has been so much lauded by men too +obtuse to discern a latent meaning, or to believe in a good purpose +unless they are formally told that it exists. + +The later serious poems of Hood are well known; so are his jest books +and novel. We have now in view to speak rather of a little volume of +poems published by him, some years since, republished here, but never +widely circulated. + +When a book or a person comes to us in the best possible circumstances, +we judge--not too favorably, for all that the book or person can suggest +is a part of its fate, and what is not seen under the most favorable +circumstances is never quite truly seen either as to promise or +performance--but we form a judgment above what can be the average sense +of the world in general as to its merits, which may be esteemed, after +time enough has elapsed, a tolerably fair estimate of performance, +though not of promise or suggestion. + +We became acquainted with these poems in one of those country towns +which would be called, abroad, the most provincial of the province. The +inhabitants had lost the simplicity of farmers' habits, without gaining +in its place the refinement, the variety, the enlargement of civic life. +Their industry had received little impulse from thought; their amusement +was gossip. All men find amusement from gossip--literary, artistic, or +social; but the degrees in it are almost infinite. They were at the +bottom of the scale; they scrutinized their neighbors' characters and +affairs incessantly, impertinently, and with minds unpurified by higher +knowledge; consequently the bitter fruits of envy and calumny abounded. + +In this atmosphere I was detained two months, and among people very +uncongenial both to my tastes and notions of right. But I had a retreat +of great beauty. The town lay on the bank of a noble river; behind it +towered a high and rocky hill. Thither every afternoon went the lonely +stranger, to await the fall of the sunset light on the opposite bank of +the full and rapid stream. It fell like a smile of heavenly joy; the +white sails on the stream glided along like angel thoughts; the town +itself looked like a fair nest, whence virtue and happiness might soar +with sweetest song. So looked the scene _from above_; and that hill was +the scene of many an aspiration and many an effort to attain as high a +point of view for the mental prospect, in the hope that little +discrepancies, or what seemed so when on a level with them, might also, +from above, be softened into beauty and found subservient to a noble +design on the whole. + +This town boasted few books, and the accident which threw Hood's poems +in the way of the watcher from the hill, was a very fortunate one. They +afforded a true companionship to hours which knew no other, and, +perhaps, have since been overrated from association with what they +answered to or suggested. + +Yet there are surely passages in them which ought to be generally known +and highly prized. And if their highest value be for a few individuals +with whom they are especially in concord, unlike the really great poems +which bring something to all, yet those whom they please will be very +much pleased. + +Hood never became corrupted into a hack writer. This shows great +strength under his circumstances. Dickens has fallen, and Sue is +falling; for few men can sell themselves by inches without losing a +cubit from their stature. But Hood resisted the danger. He never wrote +when he had nothing to say, he stopped when he had done, and never +hashed for a second meal old thoughts which had been drained of their +choicest juices. His heart is truly human, tender, and brave. From the +absurdities of human nature he argues the possibility of its perfection. +His black is admirably contrasted with his white, but his love has no +converse of hate. His descriptions of nature, if not accurately or +profoundly evidencing insight, are unstudied, fond, and reverential. +They are fine reveries about nature. + +He has tried his powers on themes where he had great rivals--in the +"Plea of the Midsummer Fairies," and "Hero and Leander." The latter is +one of the finest subjects in the world, and one, too, which can never +wear out as long as each mind shall have its separate ideal of what a +meeting would be between two perfect lovers, in the full bloom of +beauty and youth, under circumstances the most exalting to passion, +because the most trying, and with the most romantic accompaniments of +scenery. There is room here for the finest expression of love and grief, +for the wildest remonstrance against fate. Why are they made so lovely +and so beloved? Why was a flower brought to such perfection, and then +culled for no use? One of the older English writers has written an +exquisite poem on this subject, painting a youthful pair, fitted to be +not only a heaven but a world to one another. Hood had not power to +paint or conceive such fulness of character; but, in a lesser style, he +has written a fine poem. The best part of it, however, is the innocent +cruelty and grief of the Sea Siren. + +"Lycus the Centaur" is also a poem once read never to be forgotten. The +hasty trot of the versification, unfit for any other theme, on this +betokens well the frightened horse. Its mazy and bewildered imagery, +with its countless glancings and glimpses, expressed powerfully the +working of the Circean spell, while the note of human sadness, a +yearning and condemned human love, thrills through the whole and gives +it unity. + +The Sonnets, "It is not death," &c., and that on Silence, are equally +admirable. Whoever reads these poems will regard Hood as something more +than a great wit,--as a great poet also. + +To express this is our present aim, and therefore we shall leave to +others, or another time, the retrospect of his comic writings. But +having, on the late promptings of love for the departed, looked over +these, we have been especially amused with the "Schoolmistress Abroad," +which was new to us. Miss Crane, a "she Mentor, stiff as starch, formal +as a Dutch ledge, sensitive as a daguerreotype, and so tall, thin, and +upright, that supposing the Tree of Knowledge to have been a poplar, she +was the very Dryad to have fitted it," was left, with a sister little +better endowed with the pliancy and power of adaptation which the +exigencies of this varied world-scene demand, in attendance upon a sick +father, in a foreign inn, where she cannot make herself understood, +because her French is not "French French, but English French," and no +two things in nature or art can be more unlike. Now look at the position +of the sisters. + +"The younger, Miss Ruth, was somewhat less disconcerted. She had by her +position the greater share in the active duties of Lebanon House, and +under ordinary circumstances would not have been utterly at a loss what +to do for the comfort or relief of her parent. But in every direction in +which her instinct and habits would have prompted her to look, the +_materials_ she sought were deficient. There was no easy chair--no fire +to wheel it to--no cushion to shake up--no cupboard to go to--no female +friend to consult--no Miss Parfitt--no cook--no John to send for the +doctor--no English--no French--nothing but that dreadful 'Gefullig,' or +'Ja Wohl,' and the equally incomprehensible 'Gnadige Frau!' + +"'Der herr,' said the German coachman, 'ist sehr krank,' (the gentleman +is very sick.) + +"The last word had occurred so frequently on the organ of the +Schoolmistress, that it had acquired in her mind some important +significance. + +"'Ruth, what is krank?' + +"'How should I know?' retorted Ruth, with an asperity apt to accompany +intense excitement and perplexity. 'In English, it's a thing that helps +to pull the bell. But look at papa--do help to support him--you're good +for nothing.' + +"'I am, indeed,' murmured poor Miss Priscilla, with a gentle shake of +her head, and a low, slow sigh of acquiescence. Alas! as she ran over +the catalogue of her accomplishments, the more she remembered what she +_could_ do for her sick parent, the more helpless and useless she +appeared. For instance, she could have embroidered him a night-cap--or +knitted him a silk purse--or plaited him a guard-chain--or cut him out a +watch-paper--or ornamented his braces with bead-work--or embroidered his +waistcoat--or worked him a pair of slippers--or openworked his pocket +handkerchief. She could even, if such an operation would have been +comforting or salutary, have roughcasted him with shell-work--or coated +him with red or black seals--or encrusted him with blue alum--or stuck +him all over with colored wafers--or festooned him. + +"But alas! what would it have availed her poor dear papa in the +spasmodics, if she had even festooned him, from top to toe, with little +rice-paper roses?" + +The comments of the female chorus, as the author reads aloud the sorrows +of Miss Crane, are droll as Hood's drollest. Who can say more? + +So farewell, gentle, generous, inventive, genial, and most amusing +friend. We thank thee for both tears and laughter; tears which were not +heart-breaking, laughter which was never frivolous or unkind. In thy +satire was no gall, in the sting of thy winged wit no venom, in the +pathos of thy sorrow no enfeebling touch! Thou hadst faults as a writer, +we know not whether as a man; but who cares to name or even to note +them? Surely there is enough on the sunny side of the peach to feed us +and make us bless the tree from which it fell. + + + + +LETTERS FROM A LANDSCAPE PAINTER.[5] + + +This is a very pleasing book, and if the "Essays of Summer Hours" +resemble it, we are not surprised at the favor with which they have been +received, not only in this country, but in England. + +The writer is, we believe, very young, and as these Essays have awakened +in us a friendly expectation which he has time and talent to fulfil, we +will, at this early hour, proffer our counsel on two points. + +First. Avoid details, so directly personal, of emotion. A young and +generous mind, seeing the deceit and cold reserve which so often palsy +men who write, no less than those who act, may run into the opposite +extreme. But frankness must be tempered by delicacy, or elevated into +the region of poetry. You may tell the world at large what you please, +if you make it of universal importance by transporting it into the field +of general human interest. But your private griefs, merely _as_ yours, +belong to yourself, your nearest friends, to Heaven and to nature. There +is a limit set by good taste, or the sense of beauty, on such subjects, +which each, who seeks, may find for himself. + +Second. Be more sparing of your praise: above all, of its highest terms. +We should have a sense of mental as well as moral honor, which, while it +makes us feel the baseness of uttering merely hasty and ignorant +censure, will also forbid that hasty and extravagant praise which strict +truth will not justify. A man of honor wishes to utter no word to which +he cannot adhere. The offices of Poet--of Hero-worship--are sacred, and +he who has a heart to appreciate the excellent should call nothing +excellent which falls short of being so. Leave yourself some incense +worthy of the _best_; do not lavish it on the merely _good_. It is +better to be too cool than extravagant in praise; and though mediocrity +may be elated if it can draw to itself undue honors, true greatness +shrinks from the least exaggeration of its claims. The truly great are +too well aware how difficult is the attainment of excellence, what +labors and sacrifices it requires, even from genius, either to flatter +themselves as to their works, or to be otherwise than grieved at +idolatry from others; and so, with best wishes, and a hope to meet +again, we bid farewell to the "Landscape Painter." + + + + +BEETHOVEN.[6] + + +This book bears on its outside the title, "Life of Beethoven, by +Moscheles." It is really only a translation of Schindler, and it seems +quite unfair to bring Moscheles so much into the foreground, merely +because his name is celebrated in England. He has only contributed a few +notes and a short introduction, giving a most pleasing account of his +own devotion to the Master. Schindler was the trusty friend of +Beethoven, and one whom he himself elected to write his biography. +Inadequate as it is, there is that fidelity in the collection of +materials which makes it serviceable to our knowledge of Beethoven, and +we wish it might be reprinted in America. Though there is little +knowledge of music here, yet so far as any exists in company with a free +development of mind, the music of Beethoven is _the_ music which +delights, which awakens, which inspires, an infinite hope. + +This influence of these most profound, bold, original and singular +compositions, even upon the uninitiated, above those of a simpler +construction and more obvious charms, we have observed with great +pleasure. For we think its cause lies deep, far beneath fancy, taste, +fashion, or any accidental cause. + +It is because there is a real and steady unfolding of certain thoughts +which pervade the civilized world. They strike their roots through to us +beneath the broad Atlantic; and these roots shoot stems upward to the +light wherever the soil allows them free course. + +Our era, which permits of freer inquiry, of bolder experiment, than ever +before, and a firmer, broader, basis, may also, we sincerely trust, be +depended on for nobler discovery and a grander scope of thought. + +Although we sympathize with the sadness of those who lament the decay of +forms and methods round which so many associations have wound their +tendrils, and understand the sufferings which gentle, tender natures +undergo from the forlorn homelessness of a period of doubt, speculation, +reconstruction in every way, yet we cannot disjoin ourselves, by one +moment's fear or regret, from the advance corps. That body, leagued by +an invisible tie, has received too deep an assurance that the spirit is +not dead nor sleeping, to look back to the past, even if they must +advance uniformly through scenes of decay and the rubbish of falling +edifices. + +But how far it is from being so! How many developments, in various ways, +of truth! How manifold the aspirations of love! In the church the +attempt is now to reconstruct on the basis proposed by its +founder--"Love one another;" in the philosophy of mind, if completeness +of system is, as yet, far from being attained, yet mistakes and vain +dogmas are set aside, and examinations conducted with intelligence and +an enlarged discernment of what is due both to God and man. Science +advances, in some route with colossal strides; new glimpses are daily +gained into the arcana of natural history, and the mysteries attendant +on the modes of growth, are laid open to our observation; while in +chemistry, electricity, magnetism, we seem to be getting nearer to the +law of life which governs them, and in astronomy "fathoming the +heavens," to use the sublime expression of Herschel, daily to greater +depths, we find ourselves admitted to a perception of the universal laws +and causes, where harmony, permanence and perfection leave us no excuse +for a moment of despondency, while under the guidance of a Power who has +ordered all so well. + +Then, if the other arts suffer a temporary paralysis, and +notwithstanding the many proofs of talent and genius, we consider that +is the case with architecture, painting, and sculpture, music is not +only thoroughly vital, but in a state of rapid development. The last +hundred years have witnessed a succession of triumphs in this art, the +removal of obstructions, the transcending of limits, and the opening new +realms of thought, to an extent that makes the infinity of promise and +hope very present with us. And take notice that the prominent means of +excellence now are not in those ways which give form to thought already +existent, but which open new realms to thought. Those who live most with +the life of their age, feel that it is one not only beautiful, positive, +full of suggestion, but vast, flowing, of infinite promise. It is +dynamics that interest us now, and from electricity and music we borrow +the best illustrations of what we know. + +Let no one doubt that these grand efforts at synthesis are capable of as +strict analysis. Indeed, it is wonderful with what celerity and +precision the one process follows up the other. + +Of this great life which has risen from the stalk and the leaf into bud, +and will in the course of this age be in full flower, Beethoven is the +last and greatest exponent. His music is felt, by every soul whom it +affects, to be the explanation of the past and the prophecy of the +future. It contains the thoughts of the time. A dynasty of great men +preceded him, each of whom made conquests and accumulated treasures +which prepared the way for his successor. Bach, Handel, Hadyn, Mozart, +were corner-stones of the glorious temple. Who shall succeed Beethoven? +A host of musicians, full of talent, even of genius, live now he is +dead; but the greatest among them is confessed by all men to be but of +Lilliputian size compared with this demigod. Indeed, it should be so! As +copious draughts of soul have been given to the earth, as she can quaff +for a century or more. Disciples and critics must follow, to gather up +the gleanings of the golden grain. + +It is observable as an earnest of the great Future which opens for this +country, that such a genius is so easily and so much appreciated here, +by those who have not gone through the steps that prepared the way for +him in Europe. He is felt, because he expresses, in full tones, the +thoughts that lie at the heart of our own existence, though we have not +found means to stammer them as yet. To those who have obtained some clew +to all this,--and their number is daily on the increase,--this biography +of Beethoven will be very interesting. They will here find a picture of +the great man, as he looked and moved in actual life, though imperfectly +painted,--as by one who saw the figure from too low a stand-point. + +It will require the united labors of a constellation of minds to paint +the portrait of Beethoven. That of his face, as seen in life, prefixed +to these volumes, is better than any we have seen. It bears tokens of +the force, the grandeur, the grotesqueness of his genius, and at the +same time shows the melancholy that came to him from the great +misfortune of his life--his deafness; and the affectionateness of his +deep heart. + +Moscheles thus gives a very pleasing account of his first cognizance of +Beethoven:-- + +"I had been placed under the guidance and tuition of Dionysius Weber, +the founder and present director of the Prague Musical Conservatory; and +he, fearing that in my eagerness to read new music, I might injure the +systematic development of my piano-forte playing, prohibited the +library, a circulating musical library, and in a plan for my musical +education which he laid before my parents, made it an express condition +that for three years I should study no other authors but Mozart, +Clemente, and S. Bach. I must confess, however, that in spite of such +prohibition, I visited the library, gaining access to it through my +pocket money. It was about this time that I learned from some +schoolfellows that a young composer had appeared in Vienna, who wrote +the oddest stuff possible, such as no one could either play or +understand--crazy music, in opposition to all rule; and that this +composer's name was Beethoven. On repairing to the library to satisfy my +curiosity as to this so-called eccentric genius, I found there +Beethoven's 'Sonate Pathetique.' This was in the year 1804. My pocket +money would not suffice for the purchase of it, so I secretly copied it. +The novelty of its style was so attractive to me, and I became so +enthusiastic in my admiration of it, that I forgot myself so far as to +mention my new acquisition to my master, who reminded me of his +injunction, and warned me not to play or study any eccentric productions +until I had based my style upon more solid models. Without, however, +minding his injunction, I seized upon the piano-forte works of Beethoven +as they successively appeared, and in them found a solace and delight +such as no other composer afforded me. + +"In the year 1809, my studies with my master, Weber, closed; and being +then also fatherless, I chose Vienna for my residence, to work out my +future musical career. Above all, I longed to see and become acquainted +with that man who had exercised so powerful an influence over my whole +being; whom, though I scarcely understood, I blindly worshipped. I +learned that Beethoven was most difficult of access, and would admit no +pupil but Ries; and for a long time my anxiety to see him remained +ungratified. In the year 1810, however, the longed-for opportunity +presented itself. I happened to be one morning in the music shop of +Domenico Artaria, who had just been publishing some of my early attempts +at composition, when a man entered with short and hasty steps, and +gliding through the circle of ladies and professors assembled on +business, or talking over musical matters, without looking up, as though +he wished to pass unnoticed, made his way direct for Artaria's private +office at the bottom of the shop. Presently Artaria called me in, and +said, 'This is Beethoven,'--and to the composer, 'This is the youth of +whom I have been speaking to you.' Beethoven gave me a friendly nod, and +said he had just been hearing a favorable account of me. To some modest +and humble expressions which I stammered forth he made no reply, and +seemed to wish to break off the conversation. I stole away with a +greater longing for that which I had sought, than before this meeting, +thinking to myself, 'Am I then, indeed, such a nobody that he could not +put one musical question to me? nor express one wish to know who had +been my master, or whether I had any acquaintance with his works?' My +only satisfactory mode of explaining the matter, and comforting myself +for the omission, was in Beethoven's tendency to deafness; for I had +seen Artaria speaking close to his ear. But I made up my mind that the +more I was excluded from the private intercourse which I so earnestly +coveted, the closer I would follow Beethoven in all the productions of +his mind." + +If Moscheles had never seen more of Beethoven, how rejoiced he would +have been on reading his pathetic expressions recorded in those volumes, +as to the misconstructions he knew his fellow-men must put on conduct +caused by his calamity, at having detected the true cause of coldness in +his own instance, and that no mean suggestions of offended vanity made +him false to the genius, because repelled by the man! + +Moscheles did see him further, and learned a great deal from this +intercourse, though it never became intimate. He closes with these +excellent remarks:-- + +"My feelings with respect to Beethoven's music have undergone no +variation, save to become warmer. In my first half score of years of +acquaintance with his works, he was repulsive to me, as well as +attractive. In each of them, while I felt my mind fascinated by the +prominent idea, and my enthusiasm kindled by the flashes of his genius, +his unlooked-for episodes, shrill dissonances, and bold modulations gave +me an unpleasant sensation. But how soon did I become reconciled to +them! all that had appeared hard I soon found indispensable. The +gnome-like pleasantries, which at first appeared too distorted, the +stormy masses of sound which I found too chaotic, I have in after times +learned to love. But while retracting my early critical exceptions, I +must still maintain as my creed that eccentricities like those of +Beethoven are reconcilable with his works alone, and are dangerous +models to other composers, many of whom have been wrecked in their +attempts at imitation." + +No doubt the peculiarities of Beethoven are inimitable, though as great +would be as welcome in a mind of equal greatness. The natural office of +such a genius is to rouse others to a use and knowledge of their own +faculties; never to induce imitation of its own individuality. + +As an instance of the justice and undoubting clearness of such a mind, +as to its own methods, take the following anecdote from Beethoven's +"Pupil Ries":-- + +"All the initiated must be interested in the striking fact which +occurred respecting one of Beethoven's last solo sonatas, (in B major, +with the great fugue, Op. 106,) a sonata which has _forty-one pages of +print_. Beethoven had sent it to me, to London, for sale, that it might +appear there at the same time as in Germany. The engraving was +completed, and I in daily expectation of the letter naming the day of +publication. This arrived at last, but with this extraordinary request: +'Prefix the following two notes, as a first bar, to the beginning of the +adagio.' This adagio has from nine to ten pages of print. I own the +thought struck me involuntarily that all might not be right with my dear +old master, a rumor to that effect having often been spread. What! add +two notes to a composition already worked out and out, and completed +months ago? But my astonishment was yet to be heightened by the +_effect_ of these two notes. Never could such be found again--so +striking--so important; no, not even if contemplated at the very +beginning of the composition. I would advise every true lover of the art +to play this adagio first _without_, and then with these two notes which +now form the first bar, and I have no doubt he will share in my +opinion." + +No instance could more forcibly show how in the case of Beethoven, as in +that of other transcendent geniuses, the cry of insanity is raised by +vulgar minds on witnessing extraordinary manifestations of power. Such +geniuses perceive results so remote, are alive to combinations so +subtle, that common men cannot rise high enough to see why they think or +do as they do, and settle the matter easily to their own satisfaction, +crying, "He is mad"--"He hath a devil." Genius perceives the efficacy of +slight signs of thought, and loves best the simplest symbols; coarser +minds demand coarse work, long preparations, long explanations. + +But genius heeds them not, but fills the atmosphere with irresistible +purity, till they also are pervaded by the delicate influence, which, +too subtile for their ears and eyes, enters with the air they breathe, +or through the pores of the skin. + +The life of a Beethoven is written in his works; and all that can be +told of his life beside, is but as marginal notes on that broad page. +Yet since we have these notes, it is pleasant to have them in harmony +with the page. The acts and words of Beethoven are what we should +expect,--noble, leonine, impetuous,--yet tender. His faults are the +faults of one so great that he found few paths wide enough for his +tread, and knew not how to moderate it. They are not faults in +themselves, but only in relation to the men who surrounded him. Among +his peers he would not have had faults. As it is, they hardly deserve +the name. His acts were generally great and benignant; only in +transports of sudden passion at what he thought base did he ever injure +any one. If he found himself mistaken, he could not humble himself +enough,--but far outwent, in his contrition, what was due to those whom +he had offended. So it is apt to be with magnanimous and tender natures; +they will humble themselves in a way that those of a coarser or colder +make think shows weakness or want of pride. But they do so because a +little discord and a little wrong is as painful to them as a great deal +to others. + +In one of his letters to a young friend, Beethoven thus magnanimously +confesses his errors:-- + +"I could not converse with you and yours with that peace of mind which I +could have desired, for the late wretched altercation was hovering +before me, showing me my own despicable conduct. But so it was; and what +would I not give could I obliterate from the page of my life this last +action, so degrading to my character, and so unlike my usual +proceedings!" + +It seems this action of his was not of importance in the eyes of others. +Of the causes which acted upon him at such times he gives intimations in +another letter. + +"I had been wrought into this burst of passion by many an unpleasant +circumstance of an earlier date. I have the gift of concealing and +restraining my irritability on many subjects; but if I happen to be +touched at any time when I am more than usually susceptible of anger, I +burst forth more violently than any one else. B. has doubtless most +excellent qualities, but he thinks himself utterly without faults, and +yet is most open to blame for those for which he censures others. He has +a littleness of mind which I have held in contempt since my infancy." + +As a correspondent example of the manner in which true greatness +apologizes for its errors, we must quote a letter, lately made public, +from Sir Isaac Newton to Mr. Locke. + + "Sir: Being of opinion that you endeavored to embroil me with + women, and by other means, I was so much affected with it as that, + when one told me you were sickly, and would not live, I answered, + ''Twere better if you were dead.' I desire you to forgive me this + uncharitableness, for I am now satisfied that what you have done is + just, and I beg your pardon for having had hard thoughts of you for + it, and for representing that you struck at the root of morality in + a principle you laid down in your book of ideas, and designed to + pursue in another book, and that I took you for a Hobbist. I beg + your pardon also for saying or thinking that there was a design to + sell me an office, or to embroil me. + + "I am your most humble and unfortunate servant, + + "ISAAC NEWTON." + + + + +And this letter, observe, was quoted as proof of insanity in Newton. +Locke, however, shows by his reply that _he_ did not think the power of +full sincerity and elevation above self-love proved a man to be insane. + +At a happy period Beethoven thus unveils the generous sympathies of his +heart. + +"My compositions are well paid, and I may say I have more orders than I +can well execute; six or seven publishers, and more, being ready to take +any of my works. I need no longer submit to being bargained with; I ask +my terms, and am paid. You see this is an excellent thing; as, for +instance, I see a friend in want, and my purse does not at the moment +permit me to assist him; I have but to sit down and write, and my friend +is no longer in need." + +Some additional particulars are given, in the letters collected by +Moscheles, of the struggles of his mind during the coming on of +deafness. This calamity, falling upon the greatest genius of his time, +in the prime of manhood,--a calamity which threatened to destroy not +only all enjoyment of life, but the power of using the vast treasure +with which he had been endowed for the use of all men,--casts common +ills so into the shade that they can scarcely be seen. Who dares +complain, since Beethoven could resign himself, to such an ill at such a +time as this? + +"This beautiful country of mine, what was my lot in it? The hope of a +happy futurity. This might now be realized if I were freed from my +affliction. O, freed from that, I should compass the world! I feel +it--my youth is but beginning; have I not been hitherto but a sickly +creature? My physical powers have for some time been materially +increasing--those of my mind likewise. I feel myself nearer and nearer +the mark; I feel but cannot describe it; this alone is the vital +principle of your Beethoven. No rest for me: I know of none but in +sleep, and I grieve at having to sacrifice to that more time than I have +hitherto deemed necessary. Take but one half of my disease from me, and +I will return to you a matured and accomplished man, renewing the ties +of our friendship; for you shall see me as happy as I may be in this +sublunary world; not as a sufferer; no, that would be more than I could +bear; I will blunt the sword of fate; it shall not utterly destroy me. +How beautiful it is to live a thousand lives in one! No; I am not made +for a retired life--I feel it." + +He _did_ blunt the sword of fate; he _did_ live a thousand lives in one; +but that sword had power to inflict a deep and poisoned wound; those +thousand lives cost him the pangs of a thousand deaths. He, born for +perpetual conquest, was condemned through life to "resignation." Let any +man, disposed to complain of his own ills, read the "Will" of Beethoven; +and see if he dares speak of himself above a whisper, after. + +The matter of interest new to us in this English book is in notes and +appendix. Schindler's biography, whose plain and _naïve_ style is fit +for the subject, is ironed out and plaited afresh to suit the "genteel" +English, in this translation. Elsewhere we have given in brief the +strong lineaments and piquant anecdotes from this biography;[7] here +there is not room: smooth and shorn as it is, we wish the translation +might be reprinted here. + +We may give, at parting, two directions for the study of Beethoven's +genius and the perusal of his biography in two sayings of his own. For +the biography, "The limits have never yet been discovered which genius +and industry could not transcend." For the music, "From the depths of +the soul brought forth, she (Poesy) can only by the depths of the soul +be received or understood." + + + + +BROWN'S NOVELS.[8] + + +We rejoice to see these reprints of Brown's novels, as we have long been +ashamed that one who ought to be the pride of the country, and who is, +in the higher qualities of the mind, so far in advance of our other +novelists, should have become almost inaccessible to the public. + +It has been the custom to liken Brown to Godwin. But there was no +imitation, no second hand in the matter. They were congenial natures, +and whichever had come first might have lent an impulse to the other. +Either mind might have been conscious of the possession of that peculiar +vein of ore, without thinking of working it for the mint of the world, +till the other, led by accident, or overflow of feeling, showed him how +easy it was to put the reveries of his solitary hours into words, and +upon paper, for the benefit of his fellow-men. + + "My mind to me a kingdom is." + +Such a man as Brown or Godwin has a right to say that. Their mind is no +scanty, turbid rill, rejoicing to be daily fed from a thousand others, +or from the clouds. Its plenteous source rushes from a high mountain +between bulwarks of stone. Its course, even and full, keeps ever green +its banks, and affords the means of life and joy to a million gliding +shapes, that fill its deep waters, and twinkle above its golden sands. + +Life and Joy! Yes, Joy! These two have been called the dark Masters, +because they disclose the twilight recesses of the human heart. Yet the +gravest page in the history of such men is joy, compared with the mixed, +shallow, uncertain pleasures of vulgar minds. Joy! because they were all +alive, and fulfilled the purposes of being. No sham, no imitation, no +convention deformed or veiled their native lineaments, or checked the +use of their natural force. All alive themselves, they understood that +there is no happiness without truth, no perception of it without real +life. Unlike most men, existence was to them not a tissue of words and +seemings, but a substantial possession. + +Born Hegelians, without the pretensions of science, they sought God in +their own consciousness, and found him. The heart, because it saw itself +so fearfully and wonderfully made, did not disown its Maker. With the +highest idea of the dignity, power, and beauty of which human nature is +capable, they had courage to see by what an oblique course it proceeds, +yet never lose faith that it would reach its destined aim. Thus their +darkest disclosures are not hobgoblin shows, but precious revelations. + +Brown is great as ever human writer was in showing the self-sustaining +force of which a lonely mind is capable. He takes one person, makes him +brood like the bee, and extract from the common life before him all its +sweetness, its bitterness, and its nourishment. + +We say makes _him_, but it increases our own interest in Brown, that, a +prophet in this respect of a better era, he has usually placed this +thinking, royal mind in the body of a woman. This personage, too, is +always feminine, both in her character and circumstances, but a +conclusive proof that the term _feminine_ is not a synonyme for _weak_. +Constantia, Clara Wieland, have loving hearts, graceful and plastic +natures, but they have also noble, thinking minds, full of resource, +constancy, courage. The Marguerite of Godwin, no less, is all refinement +and the purest tenderness; but she is also the soul of honor, capable of +deep discernment, and of acting in conformity with the inferences she +draws. The Man of Brown and Godwin has not eaten of the fruit of the +tree of knowledge, and been driven to sustain himself by the sweat of +his brow for nothing, but has learned the structure and laws of things, +and become a being, natural, benignant, various, and desirous of +supplying the loss of innocence by the attainment of virtue. So his +Woman need not be quite so weak as Eve, the slave of feeling or of +flattery; she also has learned to guide her helm amid the storm across +the troubled waters. + +The horrors which mysteriously beset these persons, and against which, +so far as outward facts go, they often strive in vain, are but a +representation of those powers permitted to work in the same way +throughout the affairs of this world. Their demoniacal attributes only +represent a morbid state of the intellect, gone to excess from want of +balance with the other powers. There is an intellectual as well as a +physical drunkenness, and which, no less, impels to crime. Carwin, urged +on to use his ventriloquism till the presence of such a strange agent +wakened the seeds of fanaticism in the breast of Wieland, is in a state +no more foreign to nature than that of the wretch executed last week, +who felt himself drawn as by a spell to murder his victim, because he +had thought of her money and the pleasures it might bring him, till the +feeling possessed his brain that hurls the gamester to ruin. The victims +of such agency are like the soldier of the Rio Grande, who, both legs +shot off, and his life-blood rushing out with every pulse, replied +serenely to his pitying comrades, that "he had now that for which the +soldier enlisted." The end of the drama is not in this world, and the +fiction which rounds off the whole to harmony and felicity before the +curtain falls, sins against truth, and deludes the reader. The Nelsons +of the human race are all the more exposed to the assaults of Fate, that +they are decorated with the badges of well-earned glory. Who but feels +as they fall in death, or rise again to a mutilated existence, that the +end is not yet? Who, that thinks, but must feel that the recompense is, +where Brown places it, in the accumulation of mental treasure, in the +severe assay by fire that leaves the gold pure to be used some +time--somewhere? + +Brown,--man of the brooding eye, the teeming brain, the deep and fervent +heart,--if thy country prize thee not, and had almost lost thee out of +sight, it is because her heart is made shallow and cold, her eye dim, by +the pomp of circumstance, the love of gross outward gain. She cannot +long continue thus, for it takes a great deal of soul to keep a huge +body from disease and dissolution. As there is more soul, thou wilt be +more sought; and many will yet sit down with thy Constantia to the meal +and water on which she sustained her full and thoughtful existence, who +could not endure the ennui of aldermanic dinners, or find any relish in +the imitation of French cookery. To-day many will read the words, and +some have a cup large enough to receive the spirit, before it is lost in +the sand on which their feet are planted. + +Brown's high standard of the delights of intellectual communion and of +friendship, correspond with the fondest hopes of early days. But in the +relations of real life, at present, there is rarely more than one of the +parties ready for such intercourse as he describes. On the one side +there will be dryness, want of perception, or variety, a stupidity +unable to appreciate life's richest boon when offered to its grasp; and +the finer nature is doomed to retrace its steps, unhappy as those who, +having force to raise a spirit, cannot retain or make it substantial, +and stretch out their arms only to bring them back empty to the breast. + +We were glad to see these reprints, but sorry to see them so carelessly +done. Under the cheap system, the carelessness in printing and +translating grows to a greater excess day by day. Please, Public, to +remonstrate; else very soon all your books will be offered for two +shillings apiece, and none of them in a fit state to be read. + + + + +EDGAR A. POE.[9] + + +Mr. Poe throws down the gauntlet in his preface by what he says of "the +paltry compensations, or more paltry commendations, of mankind." Some +champion might be expected to start up from the "somewhat sizable" class +embraced, or, more properly speaking, boxed on the ear, by this +defiance, who might try whether the sting of Criticism was as +indifferent to this knight of the pen as he professes its honey to be. + +Were there such a champion, gifted with acumen to dissect, and a +swift-glancing wit to enliven the operation, he could find no more +legitimate subject, no fairer game, than Mr. Poe, who has wielded the +weapons of criticism without relenting, whether with the dagger he rent +and tore the garment in which some favored Joseph had pranked himself, +secure of honor in the sight of all men, or whether with uplifted +tomahawk he rushed upon the new-born children of some hapless genius, +who had fancied, and persuaded his friends to fancy, that they were +beautiful, and worthy a long and honored life. A large band of these +offended dignitaries and aggrieved parents must be on the watch for a +volume of "Poems by Edgar A. Poe," ready to cut, rend, and slash in +turn, and hoping to see his own Raven left alone to prey upon the +slaughter of which it is the herald. + +Such joust and tournament we look to see, and, indeed, have some stake +in the matter, so far as we have friends whose wrongs cry aloud for the +avenger. Natheless we could not take part in the _mêlée_, except to +join the crowd of lookers-on in the cry "heaven speed the right!" + +Early we read that fable of Apollo who rewarded the critic, who had +painfully winnowed the wheat,--with the chaff for his pains. We joined +the gentle Affirmative School, and have confidence that if we indulge +ourselves chiefly with the appreciation of good qualities, Time will +take care of the faults. For Time holds a strainer like that used in the +diamond mines--have but patience and the water and gravel will all pass +through, and only the precious stones be left. Yet we are not blind to +the uses of severe criticism, and of just censure, especially in a time +and place so degraded by venal and indiscriminate praise as the present. +That unholy alliance; that shameless sham, whose motto is, + + "Caw me + And I'll caw thee;" + +that system of mutual adulation and organized puff which was carried to +such perfection in the time, and may be seen drawn to the life in the +correspondence, of Miss Hannah More, is fully represented in our day and +generation. We see that it meets a counter-agency, from the league of +Truth-tellers, few, but each of them mighty as Fingal or any other hero +of the sort. Let such tell the whole truth, as well as nothing but the +truth, but let their sternness be in the spirit of Love. Let them seek +to understand the purpose and scope of an author, his capacity as well +as his fulfilments, and how his faults are made to grow by the same +sunshine that acts upon his virtues, for this is the case with talents +no less than with character. The rich field requires frequent and +careful weeding; frequent, lest the weeds exhaust the soil; careful, +lest the flowers and grain be pulled up along with the weeds. + +It has often been our lot to share the mistake of Gil Blas with regard +to the Archbishop. We have taken people at their word, and while +rejoicing that women could bear neglect without feeling mean pique, and +that authors, rising above self-love, could show candor about their +works, and magnanimously meet both justice and injustice, we have been +rudely awakened from our dream, and found that chanticleer, who crowed +so bravely, showed himself at last but a dunghill fowl. Yet Heaven grant +we never become too worldly-wise thus to trust a generous word, and we +surely are not so yet, for we believe Mr. Poe to be sincere when he +says,-- + +"In defence of my own taste, it is incumbent upon me to say that I think +nothing in this volume of much value to the public or very creditable to +myself. Events not to be controlled have prevented me from making, at +any time, any serious effort, in what, under happier circumstances, +would have been the field of my choice." + +We believe Mr. Poe to be sincere in this declaration; if he is, we +respect him; if otherwise, we do not. Such things should never be said +unless in hearty earnest. If in earnest, they are honorable pledges; if +not, a pitiful fence and foil of vanity. Earnest or not, the words are +thus far true; the productions in this volume indicate a power to do +something far better. With the exception of the Raven, which seems +intended chiefly to show the writer's artistic skill, and is in its way +a rare and finished specimen, they are all fragments--_fyttes_ upon the +lyre, almost all of which leave a something to desire or demand. This is +not the case, however, with these lines:-- + + TO ONE IN PARADISE. + + Thou wast all that to me, love, + For which my soul did pine-- + A green isle in the sea, love, + A fountain and a shrine, + All wreathed with fairy fruits and flowers, + And all the flowers were mine. + + Ah, dream too bright to last! + Ah, starry Hope! that didst arise + But to be overcast! + A voice from out the Future cries, + "On! on!"--but o'er the Past + (Dim gulf!) my spirit hovering lies + Mute, motionless, aghast! + + For, alas! alas! with me + The light of life is o'er! + No more--no more--no more + (Such language holds the solemn sea + To the sands upon the shore) + Shall bloom the thunder-blasted tree, + Or the stricken eagle soar! + + And all my days are trances, + And all my nightly dreams + Are where thy dark eye glances, + And where thy footstep gleams-- + In what ethereal dances, + By what eternal streams. + +The poems breathe a passionate sadness, relieved sometimes by touches +very lovely and tender:-- + + "Amid the earnest woes + That crowd around my earthly path + (Drear path, alas! where grows + Not even one lonely rose.") * * * + + * * * * * + + "For her, the fair and debonair, that now so lowly lies, + The life upon her yellow hair, but not within her eyes-- + The life still there, upon her hair--the death upon her eyes." + +This kind of beauty is especially conspicuous, even rising into dignity, +in the poem called the Haunted Palace. + +The imagination of this writer rarely expresses itself in pronounced +forms, but rather in a sweep of images, thronging and distant like a +procession of moonlight clouds on the horizon, but like them +characteristic and harmonious one with another, according to their +office. + +The descriptive power is greatest when it takes a shape not unlike an +incantation, as in the first part of the Sleeper, where + + "I stand beneath the mystic moon; + An opiate vapor, dewy, dim, + Exhales from out a golden rim, + And, softly dripping, drop by drop, + Upon the quiet mountain top, + Steals drowsily and musically + Into the universal valley." + +Why _universal_?--"resolve me that, Master Moth." + +And farther on, "the lily _lolls_ upon the wave." + +This word _lolls_, often made use of in these poems, presents a vulgar +image to our thought; we know not how it is to that of others. + +The lines which follow, about the open window, are highly poetical. So +is the Bridal Ballad in its power of suggesting a whole tribe and train +of thoughts and pictures, by few and simple touches. + +The poems written in youth, written, indeed, we understand, in +childhood, before the author was ten years old, are a great +psychological curiosity. Is it the delirium of a prematurely excited +brain that causes such a rapture of words? What is to be gathered from +seeing the future so fully anticipated in the germ? The passions are not +unfrequently _felt_ in their full shock, if not in their intensity, at +eight or nine years old, but here they are _reflected upon_:-- + + "Sweet was their death--with them to die was rife + With the last ecstasy of satiate life." + +The scenes from Politian are done with clear, sharp strokes; the power +is rather metaphysical than dramatic. We must repeat what we have +heretofore said, that we could wish to see Mr. Poe engaged in a +metaphysical romance. He needs a sustained flight and far range to show +what his powers really are. Let us have from him the analysis of the +Passions, with their appropriate Fates; let us have his speculations +clarified; let him intersperse dialogue or poem, as the occasion +prompts, and give us something really good and strong, firmly wrought, +and fairly blazoned. + + + + +ALFIERI AND CELLINI.[10] + + +These two publications have come to hand during the last month--a +cheering gleam upon the winter of our discontent, as we saw the flood of +bad translations of worse books which swelled upon the country. + +We love our country well. The many false deeds and low thoughts; the +devotion to interest; the forgetfulness of principle; the indifference +to high and noble sentiment, which have, in so many ways, darkened her +history for some years back, have not made us despair of her yet +fulfilling the great destiny whose promise rose, like a star, only some +half a century ago upon the hopes of the world. + +Should that star be forsaken by its angel, and those hopes set finally +in clouds of shame, the church which we had built out of the ruins of +the ancient time must fall to the ground. This church seemed a model of +divine art. It contained a labyrinth which, when threaded by aid of the +clew of Faith, presented, re-viewed from its centre, the most admirable +harmony and depth of meaning in its design, and comprised in its +decorations all the symbols of permanent interest of which the mind of +man has made use for the benefit of man. Such was to be our church, a +church not made with hands, catholic, universal, all whose stones should +be living stones, its officials the cherubim of Love and Knowledge, its +worship wiser and purer action than has before been known to men. To +such a church men do indeed constitute the state, and men indeed we +hoped from the American church and state, men so truly human that they +could not live while those made in their own likeness were bound down to +the condition of brutes. + +Should such hopes be baffled, should such a church fall in the building, +such a state find no realization except to the eye of the poet, God +would still be in the world, and surely guide each bird, that can be +patient, on the wing to its home at last. But expectations so noble, +which find so broad a basis in the past, which link it so harmoniously +with the future, cannot lightly be abandoned. The same Power leads by a +pillar of cloud as by a pillar of fire--the Power that deemed even Moses +worthy only of a distant view of the Promised Land. + +And to those who cherish such expectations rational education, +considered in various ways and bearings, must be the one great topic of +interest; an enterprise in which the humblest service is precious and +honorable to any who can inspire its soul. Our thoughts anticipate with +eager foresight the race that may grow up from this amalgamation of all +races of the world which our situation induces. It was the pride and +greatness of ancient nations to keep their blood unmixed; but it must be +ours to be willing to mingle, to accept in a generous spirit what each +clime and race has to offer us. + +It is, indeed, the case that much diseased substance is offered to form +this new body; and if there be not in ourselves a nucleus, a heart of +force and purity to assimilate these strange and various materials into +a very high form of organic life, they must needs induce one distorted, +corrupt, and degraded beyond the example of other times and places. +There will be no medium about it. Our grand scene of action demands +grandeur and purity; lacking these, one must suffer from so base failure +in proportion to the success that should have been. + +It would be the worthiest occupation of mind to ascertain the +conditions propitious for this meeting of the nations in their new home, +and to provide preventions for obvious dangers that attend it. It would +be occupation for which the broadest and deepest knowledge of human +nature in its mental, moral, and bodily relations, the noblest freedom +from prejudice, with the finest discrimination as to differences and +relations, directed and enlightened by a prophetic sense as to what Man +is designed by God to become, would all be needed to fit the thinker. +Yet some portion of these qualities, or of some of these qualities, if +accompanied by earnestness and aspiration, may enable any one to offer +useful suggestions. The mass of ignorance and selfishness is such, that +no grain of leaven must be despised. + +And as the men of all countries come hither to find a home, and become +parts of a new life, so do the books of all countries gravitate towards +this new centre. Copious infusions from all quarters mingle daily with +the new thought which is to grow into American mind, and develop +American literature. + +As every ship brings us foreign teachers, a knowledge of living +contemporary tongues must in the course of fifty years become the +commonest attainment. There exists no doubt in the minds of those who +can judge, that the German, French, Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese +tongues might, by familiar instruction and _an intelligent method_, be +taught with perfect ease during the years of childhood, so that the +child would have as distinct a sense of their several natures, and +nearly as much expertness in their use, as in his own. The higher uses +of such knowledge can, of course, be expected only in a more advanced +state of the faculties; but it is pity that the acquaintance with the +medium of thought should be deferred to a period when the mind is +sufficiently grown to bend its chief attention on the thoughts +themselves. Much of the most precious part of short human lives is now +wasted from an ignorance of what might easily be done for children, and +without taking from them the time they need for common life, play, and +bodily growth, more than at present. + +Meanwhile the English begins to vie with the German and French +literature in the number, though not in the goodness, of the +translations from other languages. The indefatigable Germans can +translate, and do other things too; so that geniuses often there apply +themselves to the work as an amusement: even the all-employed Goethe +has translated one of the books before us, (Memoirs of Cellini.) But in +English we know but of one, Coleridge's Wallenstein, where the reader +will feel the electric current undiminished by the medium through which +it comes to him. And then the profligate abuse of the power of +translation has been unparalleled, whether in the choice of books or the +carelessness in disguising those that were good in a hideous mask. No +falsehood can be worse than this of deforming the expression of a great +man's thoughts, of corrupting that form which he has watched, and toiled +and suffered to make beautiful and true. We know no falsehood that +should call a more painful blush to the cheek of one engaged in it. + +We have no narrowness in our view of the contents of such books. We are +not afraid of new standards and new examples. Only give enough of them, +variety enough, and from well-intentioned, generous minds. America can +choose what she wants, if she has sufficient range of choice; and if +there is any real reason, any deep root in the tastes and opinions she +holds at present, she will not lightly yield them. Only give her what is +good of its kind. Her hope is not in ignorance, but in knowledge. We +are, indeed, very fond of range, and if there is check, there should be +countercheck; and in this view we are delighted to see these great +Italians domesticated here. We have had somewhat too much of the French +and Germans of late. We value unchangeably our sparkling and rapid +French friend; still more the searching, honest, and, in highest sense, +visionary German genius. But there is not on earth, and, we dare to say +it, will not be again, genius _like_ that of Italy, or that can compare +with it, in its own way. + +Italy and Greece were alike in this; those sunny skies ripened their +fruits perfectly. The oil and honey of Greece, the wine of Italy, not +only suggest, but satisfy. _There_ we find fulfilment, elsewhere great +achievement only. + +O, acute, cautious, calculating Yankee; O, graceful, witty, hot-blooded, +flimsy Southron; and thou, man of the West, going ahead too fast to pick +up a thought or leave a flower upon thy path,--look at these men with +their great fiery passions, but will and intellect still greater and +stronger, perfectly sincere, from a contempt of falsehood. If they had +acted wrong, they said and felt that they had, and that it was base and +hateful in them. They were sagacious, as children are, not from +calculation, but because the fine instincts of nature were unspoiled in +them. I speak now of Alfieri and Cellini. Dante had all their +instinctive greatness and deep-seated fire, with the reflective and +creative faculties besides, to an extent of which they never dreamed. + +He who reads these biographies may take them from several points of +view. As pictures of manners, as sincere transcripts of the men and +their times, they are not and could not be surpassed. That truth which +Rousseau sought so painfully and vainly by self-brooding, subtle +analysis, they attained without an effort. _Why_ they felt they cared +little, but _what_ they felt they surely knew; and where a fly or worm +has injured the peach, its passage is exactly marked, so that you are +sure the rest is fair and sound. Both as physiological and psychical +histories, they are full of instruction. In Alfieri, especially, the +nervous disease generated in the frame by any uncongenial tension of the +brain, the periodical crises in his health, the manner in which his +accesses of passion came upon him, afford infinite suggestion to one who +has an eye for the circumstances which fashion the destiny of man. Let +the physician compare the furies of Alfieri with the silent rages of +Byron, and give the mother and pedagogue the light in which they are now +wholly wanting, showing how to treat such noble plants in the early +stages of growth. We think the "hated cap" would not be put a second +time on the head so easily diseased. + +The biography of Cellini, it is commonly said, is more interesting than +any romance. It _is_ a romance, with the character of the hero fully +brought out. Cellini lived in all the fulness of inward vigor, all the +variety of outward adventure, and passed through all the signs of the +Zodiac, in his circling course, occasionally raising a little vapor from +the art magic. He was really the Orlando Furioso turned Goldsmith, and +Angelicas and all the Peers of France joined in the show. However, he +never lived deeply; he had not time; the creative energy turned outward +too easily, and took those forms that still enchant the mind of Europe. +Alfieri was very different in this. He was like the root of some +splendid southern plant, buried beneath a heap of rubbish. Above him was +a glorious sky, fit to develop his form and excite his colors; but he +was compelled to a long and terrible struggle to get up where he could +be free to receive its influence. Institutions, language, family, modes +of education,--all were unfit for him; and perhaps no man was ever +called to such efforts, after he had reached manly age, to unmake and +remake himself before he could become what his inward aspiration craved. +All this deepened his nature, and it _was_ deep. It is his great force +of will and the compression of Nature within its iron grasp, where +Nature was so powerful and impulsive, that constitutes the charm of his +writings. It is the man Alfieri who moves, nay, overpowers us, and not +his writings, which have no flow nor plastic beauty. But we feel the +vital dynamics, and imagine it all. + +By us Americans, if ever such we really are to be, Alfieri should be +held sacred as a godfather and holy light. He was a harbinger of what +most gives this time its character and value. He was the friend of +liberty, the friend of man, in the sense that Burns was--of the native +nobleness of man. Soiled and degraded men he hated. He was, indeed, a +man of pitiless hatred as of boundless love, and he had bitter +prejudices too, but they were from antipathies too strongly intertwined +with his sympathies for any hand less powerful than that of Death to +rend them away. + +But our space does not permit us to do any justice to such a life as +Alfieri's. Let others read it, not from their habitual, but an eternal +point of view, and they cannot mistake its purport. Some will be most +touched by the storms of his youth, others by the exploits and conquests +of his later years; but all will find him, in the words of his friend +Casella, "sculptured just as he was, lofty, strange, and extreme, not +only in his natural characteristics, but in every work that did not seem +to him unworthy of his generous affections. And where he went too far, +it is easy to perceive his excesses always flowed from some praiseworthy +sentiment." + +Among a crowd of thoughts suggested to the mind by reperusal of this +book, to us a friend of many years standing, we hastily note the +following:-- + +Alfieri knew how to be a friend, and had friends such as his masculine +and uncompromising temper fitted him to endure and keep. He had even two +or three of those noble friends. He was a perfect lover in delicacy of +sentiment, in devotion, in a desire for constancy, in a high ideal, +growing always higher, and he was, at last, happy in love. Many geniuses +have spoken worthily of women in their works, but he speaks of woman as +she wishes to be spoken of, and declares that he met the desire of his +soul realized in life. This, almost alone, is an instance where a great +nature was permanently satisfied, and the claims of man and woman +equally met, where one of the parties had the impatient fire of genius. +His testimony on this subject is of so rare a sort, we must copy it:-- + +"My fourth and last passion, fortunately for me, showed itself by +symptoms entirely different from the three first. In the former, my +intellect had felt little of the fires of passion; but now my heart and +my genius were both equally kindled, and if my passion was less +impetuous, it became more profound and lasting. Such was the flame which +by degrees absorbed every affection and thought of my being, and it will +never fade away except with my life. Two months satisfied me that I had +now found the _true woman_; for, instead of encountering in her, as in +all common women, an obstacle to literary glory, a hinderance to useful +occupations, and a damper to thought, she proved a high stimulus, a pure +solace, and an alluring example to every beautiful work. Prizing a +treasure so rare, I gave myself away to her irrevocably. And I certainly +erred not. More than twelve years have passed, and while I am writing +this chit-chat, having reached that calm season when passion loses its +blandishments, I cherish her more tenderly than ever; and I love her +just in proportion as glide from her in the lapse of time those +little-esteemed toll-gatherers of departing beauty. In her my soul is +exalted, softened, and made better day by day; and I will dare to say +and believe she has found in me support and consolation." + +We have spoken of the peculiarities in Alfieri's physical condition. +These naturally led him to seek solace in violent exercise; and as in +the case of Beckford and Byron, horses were his best friends in the hour +of danger. This sort of man is the modern Achilles, "the tamer of +horses." In what degree the health of Alfieri was improved, and his +sympathies awakened by the society and care of these noble animals, is +very evident. Almost all persons, perhaps all that are in a natural +state, need to stand in patriarchal relations with the animals most +correspondent with their character. We have the highest respect for this +instinct and sincere belief in the good it brings; if understood, it +would be cherished, not ridiculed. + + + + +ITALY.--CARY'S DANTE. + + +Translating Dante is indeed a labor of love. It is one in which even a +moderate degree of success is impossible. No great Poet can be well +translated. The form of his thought is inseparable from his thought. The +births of his genius are perfect beings: body and soul are in such +perfect harmony that you cannot at all alter the one without veiling the +other. The variation in cadence and modulation, even where the words are +exactly rendered, takes not only from the form of the thought, but from +the thought itself, its most delicate charm. Translations come to us as +a message to the lover from the lady of his love through the lips of a +confidante or menial--we are obliged to imagine what was most vital in +the utterance. + +These difficulties, always insuperable, are accumulated a hundred-fold +in the case of Dante, both by the extraordinary depth and subtlety of +his thought, and his no less extraordinary power of concentrating its +expression, till every verse is like a blade of thoroughly tempered +steel. You might as well attempt to translate a glance of fire from the +human eye into any other language--even music cannot do that. + +We think, then, that the use of Cary's translation, or any other, can +never be to diffuse a knowledge of Dante. This is not in its nature +diffusible; he is one of those to whom others must draw near; he cannot +be brought to them. He has no superficial charm to cheat the reader into +a belief that he knows him, without entrance into the same sphere. + +These translations can be of use only to the translators, as a means of +deliberate study of the original, or to others who are studying the +original, and wish to compare their own version of doubtful passages +with that of an older disciple, highly qualified, both by devotion and +mental development, for the study. + +We must say a few words as to the pedantic folly with which this study +has been prosecuted in this country, and, we believe, in England. Not +only the tragedies of Alfieri and the Faust of Goethe, but the Divina +Commedia of Dante,--a work which it is not probable there are upon +earth, at any one time, a hundred minds able to appreciate,--are turned +into school books for little girls who have just left their hoops and +dolls, and boys whose highest ambition it is to ride a horse that will +run away, and brave the tutor in a college frolic. + +This is done from the idea that, in order to get acquainted with a +foreign language, the student must read books that have attained the +dignity of classics, and also which are "hard." Hard indeed it must be +for the Muses to see their lyres turned into gridirons for the +preparation of a school-girl's lunch; harder still for the younglings to +be called to chew and digest thunderbolts, in lieu of their natural +bread and butter. + +Are there not "classics" enough which would not suffer by being put to +such uses? In Greek, Homer is a book for a boy; must you give him Plato +because it is harder? Is there no choice among the Latins? Are all who +wrote in the Latin tongue equally fit for the appreciation of sixteen +Yankee years? In Italian, have you not Tasso, Ariosto, and other writers +who have really a great deal that the immature mind can enjoy, without +choking it with the stern politics of Alfieri, or piling upon a brain +still soft the mountainous meanings of Dante? Indeed, they are saved +from suffering by the perfect ignorance of all meaning in which they +leave these great authors, fancying, to their life-long misfortune, that +they have read them. I have been reminded, by the remarks of my young +friends on these subjects, of the Irish peasant, who, having been +educated on a book prepared for his use, called "Reading made easy," +blesses through life the kindness that taught him his "Radamadasy;" and +of the child who, hearing her father quote Horace, observed _she_ +"thought Latin was even sillier than French." + +No less pedantic is the style in which the grown-up, in stature at +least, undertakes to become acquainted with Dante. They get the best +Italian Dictionary, all the notes they can find, amounting in themselves +to a library, for his countrymen have not been less external and +benighted in their way of regarding him. Painfully they study through +the book, seeking with anxious attention to know who Signor This is, and +who was the cousin of Signora That, and whether any deep papal or +anti-papal meaning was couched by Dante under the remark that Such-a-one +wore a great-coat. A mind, whose small chambers look yet smaller by +being crowded with furniture from all parts of the world, bought by +labor, not received from inheritance or won by love, asserts that he +must understand Dante well, better than any other person probably, +because he has studied him through in this way thirty or forty times. As +well declare you have a better appreciation of Shakspeare than any one +else because you have identified the birthplace of Dame Quickly, or +ascertained the churchyard where the ghost of the royal Dane hid from +the sight of that far more celestial spirit, his son. + +O, painstaking friends! Shut your books, clear your minds from +artificial nonsense, and feel that only by spirit can spirit be +discerned. Dante, like each other great one, took the stuff that lay +around him, and wove it into a garment of light. It is not by ravelling +that you will best appreciate its tissue or design. It is not by +studying out the petty strifes or external relations of his time, that +you can become acquainted with the thought of Dante. To him these things +were only soil in which to plant himself--figures by which to dramatize +and evolve his ideas. Would you learn him, go listen in the forest of +human passions to all the terrible voices he heard with a tormented but +never-to-be-deafened ear; go down into the hells, where each excess that +mars the harmony of nature is punished by the sinner finding no food +except from his own harvest; pass through the purgatories of +speculation, of struggling hope, and faith, never quite quenched, but +smouldering often and long beneath the ashes. Soar if thou canst, but if +thou canst not, clear thine eye to see this great eagle soar into the +higher region where forms arrange themselves for stellar dance and +spheral melody,--and thought, with costly-accelerated motion, raises +itself a spiral which can only end in the heart of the Supreme. + +He who finds in himself no fitness to study Dante in this way, should +regard himself as in the position of a candidate for the ancient +mysteries, when rejected as unfit for initiation. He should seek in +other ways to purify, expand, and strengthen his being, and, when he +feels that he is nobler and stronger, return and try again whether he is +"grown up to it," as the Germans say. + +"The difficulty is in the thoughts;" and this cannot be obviated by the +most minute acquaintance with the history of the times. Comparison of +one edition with another is of use, as a guard against obstructions +through mistake. Still more useful will be the method recommended by Mr. +Cary, of comparing the Poet with himself; this belongs to the +intellectual method, and is the way in which to study our intellectual +friend. + +The versions of Cary and Lyell will be found of use to the student, if +he wants to compare his ideas with those of accomplished +fellow-students. The poems in the London book would aid much in a full +appreciation of the comedy; they ought to be read in the original, but +copies are not easily to be met here, unless in the great libraries. The +Vita Nuova is the noblest expression extant of the inward life of Love, +the best preface and comment to every thing else that Dante did. + +'Tis pity that the designs of Flaxman are so poorly reproduced in this +American book. It would have been far better to have had it a little +dearer, and thus better done. The designs of Flaxman were really a noble +comment upon Dante, and might help to interpret him; and we are sorry +that those who can see only a few of them should see them so +imperfectly. But in some, as in that of the meeting with Farinata, the +expression cannot be destroyed while one line of the original remained. +The "lost portrait" we do not like as preface to "La Divina Comedia." To +that belongs our accustomed object of reverence, the head of Dante, such +as the Florentine women saw him, when they thought his hair and beard +were still singed, his face dark and sublime with what he had seen +_below_. + +Prefixed to the other book is a head "from a cast taken after death at +Ravenna, A. D. 1321." It has the grandeur which death sometimes puts on; +the fulness of past life is there, but made sacred in Eternity. It is +also the only front view of Dante we have seen. It is not unworthy to +mark the point + + "When vigor failed the towering fantasy, + But yet the will rolled onward, like a wheel + In even motion by the love impelled + That moves the sun in heaven, and all the stars." + +We ought to say, in behalf of this publication, that whosoever wants +Cary's version will rejoice, at last, as do we, to possess it in so fair +and legible guise. + +Before leaving the Italians, we must mourn over the misprints of our +homages to the great tragedian in the preceding review. Our manuscripts +being as illegible as if we were a great genius, we never complain of +these errata, except when we are made to reverse our meaning on some +vital point. We did not say that Alfieri was perfect _in person_, nor +sundry other things that are there; but we do mourn at seeming to say of +our friends, "_Why_ they felt they care little, but _what_ they felt +they _scarcely_ knew," when in fact we asserted, "what they felt they +_surely_ knew." + +In the article on the Celestial Empire we had made this assertion of the +Chinese music: "Like _their_ poetry, the music is of the narrowest +monotony;" in place of which stands this assertion: "Like _true_ poetry, +their music is of the narrowest monotony." But we trust the most +careless reader would not think the merely human mind capable of so +original a remark, and will put this blasphemy to account of that little +demon who has so much to answer for in the sufferings of poor writers +before they can get their thoughts to the eyes of their +fellow-creatures, in print, that there seems scarcely a chance of his +being redeemed as long as there is one author in existence to accuse +him.[11] + + + + +AMERICAN FACTS. + + +Such is the title of a volume just issued from the press; a grand title, +which suggests the epic poet or the philosopher. The purpose of the +work, however, is modest. It is merely a compilation, from which those +who have lived at some distance from the great highway may get answers +to their questions, as to events and circumstances which may have +escaped them. It is one of those books which will be valued in the +backwoods. + +It would be a great book indeed, and one that would require the eye and +heart of a great man,--great as a judge, great as a seer, and great as a +prophet,--that should select for us and present in harmonious outline +the true American facts. To choose the right point of view supposes +command of the field. + +Such a man must be attentive, a quiet observer of the slighter signs of +growth. But he must not be one to dwell superstitiously on details, nor +one to hasten to conclusions. He must have the eye of the eagle, the +courage of the lion, the patience of the worm, and faith such as is the +prerogative of man alone, and of man in the highest phase of his +culture. + +We doubt not the destiny of our country--that she is to accomplish great +things for human nature, and be the mother of a nobler race than the +world has yet known. But she has been so false to the scheme made out at +her nativity, that it is now hard to say which way that destiny points. +We can hardly exhibit the true American facts without some idea of the +real character of America. Only one thing seems clear--that the energy +here at work is very great, though the men employed in carrying out its +purposes may have generally no more individual ambition to understand +those purposes, or cherish noble ones of their own, than the coral +insect through whose restless working new continents are upheaved from +ocean's breast. + +Such a man, passing in a boat from one extremity of the Mississippi to +another, and observing every object on the shore as he passed, would yet +learn nothing of universal or general value, because he has no +principles, even in hope, by which to classify them. American facts! +Why, what has been done that marks individuality? Among men there is +Franklin. He is a fact, and an American fact. Niagara is another, in a +different style. The way in which newspapers and other periodicals are +managed is American; a go-ahead, fearless adroitness is American; so is +_not_, exclusively, the want of strict honor. But we look about in vain +for traits as characteristic of what may be individually the character +of the nation, as we can find at a glance in reference to Spain, +England, France, or Turkey. America is as yet but a European babe; some +new ways and motions she has, consequent on a new position; but that +soul that may shape her mature life scarce begins to know itself yet. +One thing is certain; we live in a large place, no less morally than +physically: woe to him who lives meanly here, and knows the exhibitions +of selfishness and vanity as the only American facts. + + + + +NAPOLEON AND HIS MARSHALS.[12] + + +As we pass the old Brick Chapel our eye is sometimes arrested by +placards that hang side by side. On one is advertised "the Lives of the +Apostles," on the other "Napoleon and his Marshals." + +Surely it is the most monstrous thing the world ever saw, that eighteen +hundred years' profound devotion to a religious teacher should not +preclude flagrant and all but universal violation of his most obvious +precepts; that Napoleon and his Marshals should be some of the best +ripened fruit of our time; that our own people, so unwearied in building +up temples of wood and stone to the Prince of Peace, should be at this +era mad with boyish exultation at the winning of battles, and in a bad +cause too. + +In view of such facts we cannot wonder that Dr. Channing, the editor of +the Tribune, and others who make Christianity their standard, should +find little savor in glowing expositions of the great French drama, and +be disgusted at words of defence, still more of admiration, spoken in +behalf of its leading actor. + +We can easily admit at once that the whole French drama was +anti-Christian, just as the political conduct of every nation of +Christendom has been thus far, with rare and brief exceptions. Something +different might have been expected from our own, because the world has +now attained a clearer consciousness of right, and in our case our +position would have made obedience easy. We have not been led into +temptation; we sought it. It is greed, and not want, that has impelled +this nation to wrong. The paths of peace would have been for her also +the paths of wisdom and of pleasantness, but she would not, and has +preferred the path of the beast of prey in the uncertain forest, to the +green pastures where "walks the good Shepherd, his meek temples crowned +with roses red and white." + +Since the state of things is such, we see no extremity of censure that +should fall upon the great French leader, except that he was like the +majority. He was ruthless and selfish on a larger scale than most +monarchs; but we see no difference in grain, nor in principles of +action. + +Admit, then, that he was not a good man, and never for one moment acted +disinterestedly. But do not refuse to do homage to his genius. It is +well worth your while to learn to appreciate _that_, if you wish to +understand the work that the spirit of the time did, and is still doing, +through him; for his mind is still upon the earth, working here through +the tributary minds it fed. We must say, for our own part, we cannot +admit the right of men severely to criticise Napoleon, till they are +able to appreciate what he was, as well as see what he was not. And we +see no mind of sufficient grasp, or high-placed enough to take this +estimate duly, nor do we believe this age will furnish one. Many +problems will have to be worked out first. + +We reject the exclusively moral no less than the exclusively +intellectual view, and find most satisfaction in those who, aiming +neither at apology nor attack, make their observations upon the great +phenomenon as partial, and to be received as partial. + +Mr. Headley, in his first surprise at finding how falsely John Bull, +rarely liberal enough to be fully trusted in evidence on any topic, has +spoken of the acts of a hated and dreaded foe, does indeed rush too much +on the other side. He mistakes the touches of sentiment in Napoleon for +genuine feeling. Now we know that Napoleon loved to read Ossian, and +could appreciate the beauty of tenderness: but we do not believe that he +had one particle of what is properly termed heart;--that is, he could +always silence sentiment at once when his projects demanded it. Then Mr. +Headley finds apologies for acts where apology is out of place. They +characterize the ruthless nature of the man, and that is all that can be +said of them. He moved on, like the Juggernaut car, to his end, and +spilled the blood that was needed for this, whether that blood were +"ditch-water" or otherwise. Neither is this supposing him to be a +monster. The human heart is very capable of such uncontrolled +selfishness, just as it is of angelic love. "'Tis but the first step +that costs"--_much_. Yet some compassionate hand strewed flowers on +Nero's grave, and the whole world cried shame when Bonaparte's Mameluke +forsook his master. + +Mr. Headley does not seem to be aware that there is no trust to be put +in Napoleon's own account of his actions. He seems to have been almost +incapable of speaking sincerely to those about him. We doubt whether he +could have forgotten with the woman he loved, that she might become his +historiographer. + +But granting the worst that can be said of ruthless acts in the stern +Corsican, are we to reserve our anathema for him alone? He is no worse +than the other crowned ones, against whom he felt himself continually in +the balance. He has shed a greater quantity of blood, and done mightier +wrongs, because he had more power, and followed with more fervor a more +dazzling lure. We see no other difference between his conduct and that +of the great Frederic of Prussia. He never did any thing so meanly +wicked as has just been done in stirring up the Polish peasants to +assassinate the nobles. He never did any thing so atrocious as has been +done by Nicholas of Russia, who, just after his hypocritical intercourse +with that "venerable man," the Pope, when he so zealously defended +himself against the charge of scourging nuns to convert them to the +Greek church, administers the knout to a noble and beautiful lady +because she had given shelter for an hour to the patriot Dembinski. Why +then so zealous against Napoleon only? He is but a specimen of what man +must become when he _will_ be king over the bodies, where he cannot over +the souls, of his fellow-men. We doubt if it is any worse in the sight +of God to drain France of her best blood by the conscription, than to +tear the flower of Genius from the breast of Italy to perish in a +dungeon, leaving her overwhelmed and broken-hearted. Leaving all this +aside, and granting that Napoleon might have done more and better, had +his heart been pure from ambition, which gave it such electric power to +animate a vast field of being, there is no reason why we should not +prize what he did do. And here we think Mr. Headley's style the only one +in place. We honor him for the power he shows of admiring the genius +which, in ploughing its gigantic furrow, broke up every artificial +barrier that hid the nations of Europe one from the other--that has left +the "career open to talent," by a gap so broad that no "Chinese +alliance" can ever close it again, and in its vast plans of civic +improvement half-anticipated Fourier. With him all _thoughts_ became +_things_; it has been spoken in blame, it has been spoken in praise; for +ourselves we see not how this most practical age and country can refuse +to apprehend the designs, and study the instincts of this wonderful +practical genius. + +The characters of the marshals are kept up with the greatest spirit, and +that power of seizing leading traits that gives these sketches the +greatness of dramatic poetry. The marshals are majestic figures; men +vulgar and undeveloped on many sides, but always clear and strong in +their own way. One mind animates them, and of that mind Napoleon is the +culminating point. He did not choose them; they were a part of himself, +a part of the same thought of which he was the most forcible +expression. If sometimes inclined to disparage them, it was as a man +might disparage his hand by saying it was not his head. He truly felt +that he was the central force, though some of them were greater in the +details of action than himself. Attempts have often been made to darken +even the military fame of Napoleon and his generals--attempts +disgraceful enough from a foe whom they so long held in terror. But to +any unprejudiced mind there is evident in the conduct of their battles, +the development of the instincts of genius in mighty force, and to +inevitable results. + +With all the haste of hand and inequality of touch they show, these +sketches are full of strength and brilliancy, an honor to the country +that produced them. There is no got-up harmony, no attempt at +originality or acuteness; all is living,--the overflow of the mind; we +like Mr. Headley; even in his faults he is a most agreeable contrast to +the made men of the day. + +In the sketches of the Marshals we have the men before us, a living +reality. Massena, at the siege of Genoa, is represented with a great +deal of simple force. The whole personality of Murat, with his "Oriental +nature" and Oriental dress, is admirably depicted. Why had nobody ever +before had the clearness of perception to see just this, _and no more_, +in the "theatrical" Murat? Of his darling hero, Ney, the writer has +implied so much all along, that he lays less stress on what he says of +him directly. He thinks it is all understood, and it is. + +Take this book for just what it is; do not look for cool discussion, +impartial criticism, but take it as a vivacious and feeling +representation of events and actors in a great era: you will find it +full of truth, such as only sympathy could teach, and will derive from +it a pleasure and profit lively and genuine as itself. As to denying or +correcting its statements, it is very desirable that those who are able +should do that part of the work; but, in doing it, let them be grateful +for what _is_ done, and what _they_ could not do; grateful for +reproduction such as he who throws himself into the genius and the +persons of the time may hope for; but he never can who keeps himself +composed in critical distance and self-possession. You cannot have all +excellences combined in one person; let us then cheerfully work together +to complete the beautiful whole,--beautiful in its unity,--no less +beautiful in its variety. + + + + +PHYSICAL EDUCATION.[13] + + +This lecture of Dr. Warren is printed in a form suitable for popular +distribution, while the high reputation of its author insures it +respect. Readers will expect to find here those rules for daily practice +taught by that plain common-sense which men possess from nature, but +strangely lose sight of, amid their many inventions, and are obliged to +rediscover by aid of experience and science. + +Here will be found those general statements as to modes of exercise, +care of the skin, choice of food, and time, and circumstances required +for its digestion, which might furnish the ounce of prevention that is +worth so many pounds of cure. And how much are these needed in this +country, where the most barbarous ignorance prevails on the subject of +cleanliness, sleeping accommodations, &c.! On these subjects improvement +would be easy; that of diet is far more complicated, and is, +unfortunately, one which requires great knowledge of the ways in which +the human frame is affected by the changes of climate and various other +influences, even wisely to discuss. If it is difficult where a race, +mostly indigenous to the soil, feed upon what Mother Nature has prepared +expressly for their use, and where excess or want of judgment in its use +produces disease, it must be far more so where men come from all +latitudes to live under new circumstances, and need a judicious +adaptation of the old to the new. The dogmatism and proscription that +prevail on this topic amuse the observer and distress the patient. +"Touch no meat for your life," says one. "It is not meat, but sugar, +that is your ruin," cries another. "No, salt is the destruction of the +world," sadly and gravely declares a third. Milk, which once conciliated +all regards, has its denunciators. "Water," say some, "is the bliss that +shall dissolve all bane. Drink; wash--take to yourself all the water you +can get." "That is madness--is far worse than useless," cry others, +"unless the water be pure. You must touch none that has not been tested +by a chemist." "Yes, you may at any rate drink it," say others, "and in +large quantities, for the power of water to aid digestion is obvious to +every observer." + +"No," says Dr. Warren, "animals do not drink at the time they eat, but +some hours after; and they generally take very small quantities of +liquid, compared with that which is used by man. The savage, in his +native wilds, takes his solid food, when he can obtain it, to satiety, +reposes afterwards, and then resuming his chase through the forest, +stops at the rivulet to allay his thirst. The disadvantage of taking a +large quantity of liquid must be obvious to all those who consider that +the digesting liquid is diluted and weakened in proportion to the +quantity of drink." + +What wonder is it, if even the well-disposed among the multitude, seeing +such dissension among the counsellors, gathering just enough from their +disputes to infer that they have no true philosophical basis for their +opinions, and seeing those who would set the example in practice of this +art without science of dietetics generally among the most morbid and +ill-developed specimens of humanity, just throw aside all rule upon the +subject, partake of what is set before them, trust to air, exercise, and +good intentions to ward off the worst effects of the promiscuous fare? + +Yet, while hopeless at present of selecting the right articles, and +building up, so far as hereditary taint will permit, a pure and +healthful body from feeding on congenial substances, we know at least +this much, that stimulants and over-eating--not food--are injurious, and +may take care enough of ourselves to avoid these. + +The other branches we can really act wisely in, Dr. Warren, after giving +the usual directions (rarely followed as yet) for airing beds, and +sleeping-rooms, adds,-- + +"The manner in which children sleep will readily be acknowledged to be +important; yet very little attention is paid to this matter. Children +are crowded together in small, unventilated rooms, often two or three in +a bed, and on beds composed of half prepared feathers, from which issues +a noxious effluvia, infecting the child at a period when he is least +able to resist its influence; so that in the morning, instead of feeling +the full refreshment and vigor natural to his age, he is pale, languid, +and for some time indisposed to exertion. + +"The rooms in which children are brought up should be well aired, by +having a fireplace, which should be kept open the greater part of the +year. There never should be more than one in the same bed; and this +remark may be applied with equal propriety to adults. The substance on +which they lie should be hair, thoroughly prepared, so that it should +have no bad smell. In winter it may be of cotton, or of hair and cotton. +It would be very desirable, however, to place children in separate +apartments, as well as in separate beds. + +"It has been justly said that adults as well as children had better +employ single instead of double beds; this remark is intended to apply +universally. The use of double beds has been very generally adopted in +this country, perhaps in part as a matter of economy; but this practice +is objectionable, for more reasons than can be stated here." + +On the subject of exercise, he mentions particularly the triangle, and +we copy what he says, because of the perfect ease and convenience with +which one could be put up and used in every bed-chamber. + +"The exercising the upper limbs is too much neglected; and it is +important to provide the means of bringing them into action, as well to +develop their powers as to enlarge and invigorate the chest, with which +they are connected, and which they powerfully influence. The best I know +of is the use of the triangle. This admirably exerts the upper limbs and +the muscles of the chest, and, indeed, when adroitly employed, those of +the whole body. The triangle is made of a stick of walnut wood, four +feet long, and an inch and a half in diameter. To each end is connected +a rope, the opposite extremities of which being confined together at +such height as to allow the motion of swinging by the hands." + +We have ourselves derived the greatest benefit from this simple means. +Gymnastic exercises, and if possible in the open air, are needed by +every one who is not otherwise led to exercise all parts of the body by +various kinds of labor. Some, though only partial provision, is made for +boys by gymnasia and riding-schools. In wiser nations, such have been +the care of the state. And in despotic governments, the jealousy of a +tyrant was never more justly awakened than when the youth of the land, +by a devotion to gymnastic exercises, showed their aspiration to reach +the healthful stature of manhood. For every one who possesses a strong +mind in a sane body is heir presumptive to the kingdom of this world; he +needs no external credentials, but has only to appear and make clear his +title. But for such a princely form the eye searches the street, the +mart, and the council-chamber, in vain. + +Those who feel that the game of life is so nearly up with them that they +cannot devote much of the time that is left to the care of wise living +in their own persons, should, at least, be unwilling to injure the next +generation by the same ignorance which has blighted so many of us in our +earliest year. Such should attend to the work of Mr. Combe,[14] among +other good books. Mr. Combe has done much good already in this country, +and this book should be circulated every where, for many of its +suggestions are too obviously just not to be adopted as soon as read. + +Dr. Warren bears his testimony against the pernicious effects that +follow upon the use of tobacco, and we cannot but hope that what he says +of its tendency to create cancer will have weight with some who are +given to the detestable habit of chewing. This practice is so odious to +women, that we must regard its prevalence here as a token of the very +light regard in which they are held, and the consequent want of +refinement among men. Dr. Warren seems to favor the practice of +hydropathy to some extent, but must needs bear his testimony in full +against homoeopathy. No matter; the little doses will insinuate their +way, and cure the ills that flesh is heir to, + + "For a' that, and a' that, + And mickle mair for a' that." + + + + +FREDERICK DOUGLASS.[15] + + +Frederick Douglass has been for some time a prominent member of the +abolition party. He is said to be an excellent speaker--can speak from a +thorough personal experience--and has upon the audience, besides, the +influence of a strong character and uncommon talents. In the book before +us he has put into the story of his life the thoughts, the feelings, and +the adventures that have been so affecting through the living voice; nor +are they less so from the printed page. He has had the courage to name +persons, times, and places, thus exposing himself to obvious danger, and +setting the seal on his deep convictions as to the religious need of +speaking the whole truth. Considered merely as a narrative, we have +never read one more simple, true, coherent, and warm with genuine +feeling. It is an excellent piece of writing, and on that score to be +prized as a specimen of the powers of the black race, which prejudice +persists in disputing. We prize highly all evidence of this kind, and it +is becoming more abundant. The cross of the Legion of Honor has just +been conferred in France on Dumas and Souliè, both celebrated in the +paths of light literature. Dumas, whose father was a general in the +French army, is a mulatto; Souliè, a quadroon. He went from New Orleans, +where, though to the eye a white man, yet, as known to have African +blood in his veins, he could never have enjoyed the privileges due to a +human being. Leaving the land of freedom, he found himself free to +develop the powers that God had given. + +Two wise and candid thinkers--the Scotchman Kinmont, prematurely lost to +this country, of which he was so faithful and generous a student, and +the late Dr. Channing,--both thought that the African race had in them a +peculiar element, which, if it could be assimilated with those imported +among us from Europe, would give to genius a development, and to the +energies of character a balance and harmony, beyond what has been seen +heretofore in the history of the world. Such an element is indicated in +their lowest estate by a talent for melody, a ready skill at imitation +and adaptation, an almost indestructible elasticity of nature. It is to +be remarked in the writings both of Souliè and Dumas, full of faults, +but glowing with plastic life and fertile in invention. The same torrid +energy and saccharine fulness may be felt in the writings of this +Douglass, though his life, being one of action or resistance, has been +less favorable to _such_ powers than one of a more joyous flow might +have been. + +The book is prefaced by two communications--one from Garrison, and one +from Wendell Phillips. That from the former is in his usual +over-emphatic style. His motives and his course have been noble and +generous; we look upon him with high respect; but he has indulged in +violent invective and denunciation till he has spoiled the temper of his +mind. Like a man who has been in the habit of screaming himself hoarse +to make the deaf hear, he can no longer pitch his voice on a key +agreeable to common ears. Mr. Phillips's remarks are equally decided, +without this exaggeration in the tone. Douglass himself seems very just +and temperate. We feel that his view, even of those who have injured him +most, may be relied upon. He knows how to allow for motives and +influences. Upon the subject of religion, he speaks with great force, +and not more than our own sympathies can respond to. The inconsistencies +of slaveholding professors of religion cry to Heaven. We are not +disposed to detest, or refuse communion with them. Their blindness is +but one form of that prevalent fallacy which substitutes a creed for a +faith, a ritual for a life. We have seen too much of this system of +atonement not to know that those who adopt it often began with good +intentions, and are, at any rate, in their mistakes worthy of the +deepest pity. But that is no reason why the truth should not be uttered, +trumpet-tongued, about the thing. "Bring no more vain oblations;" +sermons must daily be preached anew on that text. Kings, five hundred +years ago, built churches with the spoils of war; clergymen to-day +command slaves to obey a gospel which they will not allow them to read, +and call themselves Christians amid the curses of their fellow-men. The +world ought to get on a little faster than this, if there be really any +principle of improvement in it. The kingdom of heaven may not at the +beginning have dropped seed larger than a mustard-seed, but even from +that we had a right to expect a fuller growth than we can believe to +exist, when we read such a book as this of Douglass. Unspeakably +affecting is the fact that he never saw his mother at all by daylight. + +"I do not recollect of ever seeing my mother by the light of day. She +was with me in the night. She would lie down with me, and get me to +sleep, but long before I waked she was gone." + +The following extract presents a suitable answer to the hackneyed +argument drawn by the defender of slavery from the songs of the slave, +and is also a good specimen of the powers of observation and manly heart +of the writer. We wish that every one may read his book, and see what a +mind might have been stifled in bondage--what a man may be subjected to +the insults of spendthrift dandies, or the blows of mercenary brutes, in +whom there is no whiteness except of the skin, no humanity except in the +outward form, and of whom the Avenger will not fail yet to demand, +"Where is thy brother?" + +"The Home Plantation of Colonel Lloyd wore the appeaance of a country +village. All the mechanical operations for all the farms were performed +here. The shoemaking and mending, the blacksmithing, cartwrighting, +coopering, weaving, and grain-grinding, were all performed by the slaves +on the Home Plantation. The whole place wore a business-like aspect very +unlike the neighboring farms. The number of houses, too, conspired to +give it advantage over the neighboring farms. It was called by the +slaves the _Great House Farm_. Few privileges were esteemed higher, by +the slaves of the out-farms, than that of being selected to do errands +at the Great House Farm. It was associated in their minds with +greatness. A representative could not be prouder of his election to a +seat in the American Congress, than a slave on one of the out-farms +would be of his election to do errands at the Great House Farm. They +regarded it as evidence of great confidence reposed in them by their +overseers; and it was on this account, as well as a constant desire to +be out of the field, from under the driver's lash, that they esteemed it +a high privilege, one worth careful living for. He was called the +smartest and most trusty fellow who had this honor conferred upon him +the most frequently. The competitors for this office sought as +diligently to please their overseers as the office-seekers in the +political parties seek to please and deceive the people. The same traits +of character might be seen in Colonel Lloyd's slaves, as are seen in the +slaves of the political parties. + +"The slaves selected to go to the Great House Farm, for the monthly +allowance for themselves and their fellow-slaves, were peculiarly +enthusiastic. While on their way, they would make the dense old woods, +for miles around, reverberate with their wild songs, revealing at once +the highest joy and the deepest sadness. They would compose and sing as +they went along, consulting neither time nor tune. The thought that came +up came out,--if not in the word, in the sound,--and as frequently in +the one as in the other. They would sometimes sing the most pathetic +sentiment in the most rapturous tone, and the most rapturous sentiment +in the most pathetic tone. Into all their songs they would manage to +weave something of the Great House Farm. Especially would they do this +when leaving home. They would then sing most exultingly the following +words:-- + + 'I am going away to the Great House Farm! + O, yea! O, yea! O!' + +This they would sing as a chorus to words which to many would seem +unmeaning jargon, but which, nevertheless, were full of meaning to +themselves. I have sometimes thought that the mere hearing of those +songs would do more to impress some minds with the horrible character of +slavery, than the reading of whole volumes of philosophy on the subject +could do. + +"I did not, when a slave, understand the deep meaning of those rude and +apparently incoherent songs. I was myself within the circle; so that I +neither saw nor heard as those without might see and hear. They told a +tale of woe which was then altogether beyond my feeble comprehension; +they were tones loud, long, and deep; they breathed the prayer and +complaint of souls boiling over with the bitterest anguish. Every tone +was a testimony against slavery, and a prayer to God for deliverance +from chains. The hearing of those wild notes always depressed my spirit, +and filled me with ineffable sadness. I have frequently found myself in +tears while hearing them. The mere recurrence to those songs, even now, +afflicts me; and while I am writing these lines, an expression of +feeling has already found its way down my cheek. To those songs I trace +my first glimmering conception of the dehumanizing character of slavery. +I can never get rid of that conception. Those songs still follow me, to +deepen my hatred of slavery, and quicken my sympathies for my brethren +in bonds. If any one wishes to be impressed with the soul-killing +effects of slavery, let him go to Colonel Lloyd's plantation, and, on +allowance day, place himself in the deep pine woods, and there let him, +in silence, analyze the sounds that shall pass through the chambers of +his soul; and if he is not thus impressed, it will only be because +'there is no flesh in his obdurate heart.' + +"I have often been utterly astonished, since I came to the north, to +find persons who could speak of the singing among slaves as evidence of +their contentment and happiness. It is impossible to conceive of a +greater mistake. Slaves sing most when they are most unhappy. The songs +of the slave represent the sorrows of his heart; and he is relieved by +them only as an aching heart is relieved by its tears. At least, such is +my experience. I have often sung to drown my sorrow, but seldom to +express my happiness. Crying for joy and singing for joy were alike +uncommon to me while in the jaws of slavery. The singing of a man cast +away upon a desolate island might be as appropriately considered as +evidence of contentment and happiness, as the singing of a slave; the +songs of the one and of the other are prompted by the same emotion." + + + + +PHILIP VAN ARTEVELDE.[16] + + +These volumes have met with as warm a reception "as ever unripe author's +quick conceit," to use Mr. Taylor's own language, could hope or wish; +and so deservedly, that the critic's happy task, in examining them, is +to point out, not what is most to be blamed, but what is most to be +praised. + +With joy we hail a new poet. Star after star has been withdrawn from our +firmament, and when that of Coleridge set, we seemed in danger of being +left, at best, to a gray and confounding twilight; but, lo! a "ray of +pure white light" darts across the obscured depths of ether, and allures +our eyes and hearts towards the rising orb from which it emanates. Let +us tremble no more lest our summer pass away without its roses, but +receive our present visitor as the harbinger of a harvest of delights. + +The natural process of the mind in forming a judgment is comparison. The +office of sound criticism is to teach that this comparison should be +made, not between the productions of differently-constituted minds, but +between any one of these and a fixed standard of perfection. +Nevertheless it is not contrary to the canon to take a survey of the +labors of many artists with reference to one, if we value them, not +according to the degree of pleasure we have experienced from them, which +must always depend upon our then age, the state of the passions and +relations with life, but according to the success of the artist in +attaining the object he himself had in view. To illustrate: In the same +room hang two pictures, Raphael's Madonna and Martin's Destruction of +Nineveh. A person enters, capable of admiring both, but young, +excitable; he is delighted with the Madonna, but probably far more so +with the other, because his imagination is at that time more developed +than the pure love for beauty which is the characteristic of a taste in +a higher state of cultivation. He prefers the Martin, because it excites +in his mind a thousand images of sublimity and terror, recalls the +brilliancy of Oriental history, and the stern pomp of the old prophetic +day, and rouses his mind to a high state of action, _then_ as congenial +with its wants as at a later day would be the feeling of contented +absorption, of perfect satisfaction with a production of the human soul, +which one of Raphael's calmly beautiful creations is fitted to cause. +Now, it would be very unfair for this person to pronounce the Martin +superior to the Raphael, because it then gave him more pleasure. But if +he said, the one is intended to excite the imagination, the other to +gratify the taste, that which fulfils its object most completely must be +the best, whether it give me most pleasure or no; he would be on the +right ground, and might consider the two pictures relatively to one +another, without danger of straying very far from the truth. + +_This_ is the ground we would assume in a hasty sketch, which will not, +we hope, be deemed irrelevant, of the most prominent essays to which the +last sixty years have given rise in the department of the work now +before us, previous to stating our opinion of its merits. Many, we are +aware, ridicule the idea of filling reviews with long dissertations, and +say they only want brief accounts of such books as are coming out, by +way of saving time. With such we cannot agree. We think the office of +the reviewer is, indeed, in part, to point out to the public attention +deserving works, which might otherwise slumber too long unknown on the +bookseller's shelves, but still more to present to the reader as large a +cluster of objects round one point as possible, thus, by suggestion, +stimulating him to take a broader or more careful view of the subject +than his indolence or his business would have permitted. + +The terms Classical and Romantic, which have so long divided European +critics, and exercised so powerful an influence upon their decisions, +are not much known or heeded among us,--as, indeed, _belles-lettres_ +cannot, generally, in our busy state of things, be important or +influential, as among a less free and more luxurious people, to whom the +more important truths are proffered through those indirect but alluring +mediums. Here, where every thing may be spoken or written, and the +powers that be, abused without ceremony on the very highway, the Muse +has nothing to do with dagger or bowl; hardly is the censor's wand +permitted to her hand. Yet is her lyre by no means unheeded, and if it +is rather by refining our tastes than by modelling our opinions that she +influences us, yet is that influence far from unimportant. And the time +is coming, perhaps in our day, we may (if war do not untimely check the +national progress) even see and temper its beginning, when the broad +West shall swarm with an active, happy, and cultivated population; when +the South, freed from the incubus which now oppresses her best energies, +shall be able to do justice to the resources of her soil and of her +mind; when the East, gathering from every breeze the riches of the old +world, shall be the unwearied and loving agent to those regions which +lie far away from the great deep, our bulwark and our minister. Then +will the division of labor be more complete; then will a surplus of +talent be spared from the mart, the forum, and the pulpit; then will the +fine arts assume their proper dignity, as the expression of what is +highest and most ethereal in the mind of a people. Then will our +quarries be thoroughly explored, and furnish materials for stately +fabrics to adorn the face of all the land, while our ports shall be +crowded with foreign artists flocking to take lessons in the school of +American architecture. Then will our floral treasures be arranged into +harmonious gardens, which, environing tasteful homes, shall dimple all +the landscape. Then will our Allstons and our Greenoughs preside over +great academies, and be raised far above any need, except of giving +outward form to the beautiful ideas which animate them; and ornament +from the exhaustless stores of genius the marble halls where the people +meet to rejoice, or to mourn, or where dwell those wise and good whom +the people delight to honor. Then shall music answer to and exalt the +national spirit, and the poet's brows shall be graced with the civic as +well as the myrtle crown. Then shall we have an American mind, as well +as an American system, and, no longer under the sad necessity of +exchanging money for thoughts, traffic on perfectly equal terms with the +other hemisphere. Then--ah, not yet!--shall our literature make its own +laws, and give its own watchwords; till then we must learn and borrow +from that of nations who possess a higher degree of cultivation though a +much lower one of happiness. + +The term Classical, used in its narrow sense, implies a servile +adherence to the Unities, but in its wide and best sense, it means such +a simplicity of plan, selection of actors and events, such judicious +limitations on time and range of subject, as may concentrate the +interest, perfect the illusion, and make the impression most distinct +and forcible. Although no advocates for the old French school, with its +slavish obedience to rule, which introduces follies greater than those +it would guard against, we lay the blame, not on their view of the +drama, but on the then bigoted nationality of the French mind, which +converted the Mussulman prophet into a De Retz, the Roman princess into +a French grisette, and infected the clear and buoyant atmosphere of +Greece with the vapors of the Seine. We speak of the old French Drama: +with the modern we do not profess to be acquainted, having met with +scarcely any specimens in our own bookstores or libraries; but if it +has been revolutionized with the rest of their literature, it is +probably as unlike as possible to the former models. + +We shall speak of productions in the classical spirit first; because Mr. +Taylor is a disciple of the other school, though otherwise we should +have adopted a contrary course. + +The most perfect specimens of this style with which we are acquainted +are the Filippo, the Saul, and the Myrrha of Alfieri; the Wallenstein of +Schiller; the Tasso and the Iphigenia of Goethe. England furnishes +nothing of the sort. She is thoroughly Shakspearian. + +There is no higher pleasure than to see a genius of a wild, impassioned, +many-sided eagerness, restraining its exuberance by its sense of +fitness, taming its extravagance beneath the rule its taste approves, +exhibiting the soul within soul, and the force of the will over all that +we inherit. The _abandon_ of genius has its beauty--far more beautiful +its voluntary submission to wise law. A picture, a description, has +beauty, the beauty of life; these pictures, these descriptions, arranged +upon a plan, made subservient to a purpose, have a higher beauty--that +of the mind of man acting upon life. Art is nature, but nature +new-modelled, condensed, and harmonized. We are not merely like mirrors, +to reflect our own times to those more distant. The mind has a light of +its own, and by it illumines what it re-creates. + +This is the ground of our preference for the classical school, and for +Alfieri beyond all pupils of that school. We hold that if a vagrant bud +of poesy here and there be blighted by conforming to its rules, our loss +is more than made up to us by our enjoyment of plan, of symmetry, of the +triumph of genius over multiplied obstacles. + +It has been often said that the dramas of Alfieri contrast directly with +his character. This is, perhaps, not true; we do but see the depths of +that volcano which in early days boiled over so fiercely. The wild, +infatuated youth often becomes the stern, pitiless old man. Alfieri did +but bend his surplus strength upon literature, and became a despot to +his own haughty spirit, instead of domineering over those of others. + +We have selected his three masterpieces, though he, to himself an +inexorable critic, has shown no indulgence to his own works, and the +least successful of those which remain to us, Maria Stuarda, is marked +by great excellence. + +Filippo has been so ably depicted in a work now well known, "Carlyle's +Life of Schiller," that we need not dwell upon it. All the light of the +picture, the softer feelings of the hapless Carlos and Elizabeth, is so +cast, as to make more visible the awing darkness of the tyrant's +perverted mind, deadened to all virtue by a false religion, cold and +hopeless as the dungeons of his own Inquisition, and relentless as +death. Forced by the magic wand of genius into the stifling precincts of +this mind, horror-struck that we must sympathize with such a state as +possible to humanity, we rush from the contemplation of the picture, and +would gladly curtain it over in our hall of imagery forever. Yet +stigmatize not our poet as a dark master, courting the shade, and hating +the glad lights which love and hope cast upon human nature. The drama +has a holy meaning, a patriot moral, and we, above all, should reverence +him, the aristocrat by birth, by education, and by tastes, whose love of +liberty could lead him to such conclusions. + +In "Saul," a bright rainbow rises, by the aid of the Sun of +Righteousness, above the commotion of the tempest. David, the faithful, +the hopeful, combining the æsthetic culture, the winged inspiration of +the poet with the noble pride of Israel's chosen warrior, contrasts +finely with the unfortunate Saul, his mind darkened and convulsed by +jealousy, vain regrets, and fear of the God he has forgotten how to +love. The other three actors shade in the picture without attracting our +attention from the two principal personages. The Hebrew spirit breathes +through the whole. The beauty of the lyric effusions is so generally +felt, that encomium is needless; we shall only observe that in them +Alfieri's style, usually so severe, becomes flexible, melodious, and +glowing; thus we may easily perceive what he might have done, had not +the simplicity of his genius disdained the foreign aid of ornament upon +its Doric proportions. + +Myrrha is, however, the highest exertion of his genius. The remoteness +of time and manners, the subject, at once so hackneyed and so revolting, +these great obstacles he seizes with giant grasp, and moulds them to his +purpose. Our souls are shaken to the foundation; all every-day barriers +fall with the great convulsion of passion. We sorrow, we sicken, we die +with the miserable girl, so pure under her involuntary crime of feeling, +pursued by a malignant deity in her soul's most sacred recesses, torn +from all communion with humanity, and the virtue she was framed to +adore. The perfection of plan, the matchless skill with which every +circumstance is brought out! The agonizing rapidity with which her +misery "va camminando al fine"! No! never was higher tragic power +exhibited; never were love, terror, pity, fused into a more penetrating +draught! Myrrha is a favorite acting-play in Italy--a fact inconceivable +to an English or American mind; for (to say nothing of other objections) +we should think such excess of emotion unbearable. But in those meridian +climes they drink deep draughts of passion too frequently to taste them +as we do. + +We pass to works of far inferior power, but of greater beauty. We have +selected Iphigenia and Tasso as the most finished results of their +author's mature views of art. On his plays in the Romantic style, we +shall touch in another place. If any one ask why we do not class Faust +with either, we reply, that is a work without a parallel; one of those +few originals which have their laws within themselves, and should always +be discussed singly. + +The unity of plan in Iphigenia is perfect. There is one pervading idea. +The purity of Iphigenia's mind must be kept unsullied, that she may be a +fit intercessor to the gods in behalf of her polluted family. Goethe, +in his travels through Italy, saw a picture of a youthful Christian +saint--Agatha, we think; struck by the radiant purity of her expression, +he resolved his heathen priestess should not have one thought which +could revolt the saint of the true religion. This idea is wonderfully +preserved throughout a drama so classic in its coloring and manners. The +happiest development of character, an interest in the denouement which +is only so far tempered by our trust in the lovely heroine, as to permit +us to enjoy all the minuter beauties on our way, (this the breathless +interest of Alfieri's dramas hardly allows, on a fourth or fifth +reading,) exquisite descriptive touches, and expressions of sentiment, +unequalled softness and harmony of style, distinguish a drama not to be +surpassed in its own department. Torquato Tasso[17] is of inferior +general, but greater particular beauty. The two worldly, the two higher +characters, with that of Alphonso halting between, are shaded with equal +delicacy and distinctness. The inward-turning imagination of the +ill-fated bard, and the fantastic tricks it plays with life, are painted +as only a poet's soul of equal depth, of greater versatility, could have +painted them. In analysis of the passions, and eloquent descriptions of +their more hidden workings, some parts may vie with Rousseau; while +several effusions of feeling are worthy of Tasso's own lyre, with its +"breaking heartstring's tone." The conduct of the piece being in perfect +accordance with the plan, gives the satisfaction we have mentioned in +speaking of Raphael's Madonna. + +Schiller's Wallenstein does not strictly belong to this class, yet we +are disposed to claim it as observing the unities of time and interest; +the latter especially is entire, notwithstanding the many actors and +side-scenes which are introduced. Numberless touches of nature arrest +our attention, bright lights are flashed across many characters, but our +interest, momently increasing, is for Wallenstein--for the perversion, +the danger, the ruin of that monarch soul, that falling son of the +morning. Even that we feel in Max, with his celestial bloom of heart, in +Thekla's sweet trustfulness, is subsidiary. This work, generally known +to the reader through Mr. Coleridge's translation, affords an imperfect +illustration of our meaning. Miss Baillie's plays on the passions hold a +middle place. Unity of purpose there is--no unity of plan or conduct. +Bold, fine outline--very bad coloring. Profound, beautifully-expressed +reflections on the passions--utter want of skill in showing them out; a +thorough feeling, indeed, of the elements of tragedy,--had but the +vitalizing energy been added. Her plays are failures; but since she has +given us nothing else, we cannot but rejoice in having these. 'Tis great +pity that the authoress of De Montfort and Basil should not have +attempted a narrative poem. + +Coleridge and Byron are signal instances how peculiar is the kind of +talent required for the drama; one a philosopher, both men of great +genius and uncommon mastery over language, both conversant with each +side of human nature, both considering the drama in its true light as +one of the highest departments of literature, both utterly wanting in +simplicity, pathos, truth of passion and liveliness of action--in that +thrilling utterance of heart to heart, whose absence _here_, no other +excellence can atone for. Of Maturin and Knowles we do not speak, +because theirs, though very good acting plays, are not, like Mr. +Taylor's, written for the closet; of Milman, because not sufficiently +acquainted with his plays. We would here pay a tribute to our countryman +Hillhouse, whose Hadad, read at a very early age, we remember with much +delight. Probably our judgment now might be different; but a work which +could make so deep an impression on any age, must have genius. We are +sorry we have never since met it in any library or parlor, and are not +competent to speak of it more particularly. + +It will be seen that Mr. Taylor has not attempted the sort of dramatic +poetry which we consider the highest, but has labored in that which the +great wizard of Avon adopted, because it lay nearest at hand to clothe +his spells withal, and consecrated it, with his world-embracing genius, +to the (in our judgment) no small detriment of his country's taste. +Having thus declared that we cannot grant him our very highest meed of +admiration, (though we will not say that he might not win it if he made +the essay,) we hasten to meet him on his own ground. "Dramatica Poesis +est veluti Historia spectabilis," is his motto, taken from Bacon, who +formed his taste on Shakspeare. We would here mention that Goethe's +earlier works, Goetz von Berlichingen and Egmont are of this +school--brilliant fragments of past days, ballads acted out, historical +scenes and personages clustered round a hero; and we have seen that his +ripened taste preferred the form of Iphigenia and Tasso. + +We cannot too strongly express our approbation of the opinions +maintained in his short preface to this work. We rejoice to see a leader +coming forward who is likely to un-Hemansize and un-Cornwallize +literature. We too have been sick, we too have been intoxicated with +_words_ till we could hardly appreciate thoughts; perhaps our present +writing shows traces of this Lower-Empire taste; but we have sense +enough left to welcome the English Phocion, who would regenerate public +feeling. The candor and modest dignity with which these opinions are +offered charm us. The remarks upon Shelley, whom we have loved, and do +still love passing well, brought truth home to us in a definite shape. +With regard to the lowness of Lord Byron's standard of character, every +thing indeed has been said which could be but not as Mr. Taylor has +said it; and we opine that his refined and gentle remarks will find +their way to ears which have always been deaf to the harsh sarcasms +unseasoned by wit, which have been current on this topic. + +Our author too, notwithstanding his modest caveat, has acted upon his +principles, and furnished a forcible illustration of their justice. For +dignity of sentiment, for simplicity of manner, for truth to life, never +infringing upon respect for the ideal, we look to such a critic, and we +are not disappointed. + +The scene is laid in Ghent, in the fourteenth century. The Flemish +mobocracy are brought before us with a fidelity and animation surpassing +those displayed in Egmont. Their barbarism, and the dissimilar, but not +inferior barbarism of their would-be lords, the bold, bad men, the +shameless crime and brainless tumult of those days, live before us. Amid +these clashing elements moves Philip Van Artevelde, with the presence, +not of a god, but of a great man, too superior to be shaken, too wise to +be shocked by their rude jarrings. He becomes the leader of his people, +and despite pestilence, famine, and their own untutored passions, he +leads them on to victory and power. + +In the second part we follow Van Artevelde from his zenith of glory to +his decline. The tarnishing influence of prosperity on his spirit, and +its clear radiance again in adversity, are managed as the noble and +well-defined conception of the character deserves. + +The boy king and his courtly, intriguing counsellors are as happily +portrayed as Vauclaire and the fierce commonalty he ruled, or resisted +with rope or sword, as the case might demand. + +The two loves of Van Artevelde are finely imagined, as types of the two +states of his character. Both are lovely; the one how elevated! the +other how pity-moving in her loveliness! On the interlude of Elena we +must be allowed to linger fondly, though the author's self condemn our +taste. + +We are no longer partial to the machinery of portents and presentiments. +Wallenstein's were the last we liked, but Van Artevelde's make good +poetry, and have historical vouchers. They remind us of those of Fergus +Mac Ivor. + +We shall extract a speech of Van Artevelde's, in which a leading idea of +the work is expressed. + + Father,-- + + So! with the chivalry of Christendom + I wage my war,--no nation for my friend, + Yet in each nation having hosts of friends. + The bondsmen of the world, that to their lords + Are bound with chains of iron, unto me + Are knit by their affections. Be it so. + From kings and nobles will I seek no more + Aid, friendship, or alliance. With the poor + I make my treaty; and the heart of man + Sets the broad seal of its allegiance there, + And ratifies the compact. Vassals, serfs, + Ye that are bent with unrequited toil, + Ye that have whitened in the dungeon's darkness, + Through years that know not change of night nor day, + Tatterdemalions, lodgers in the hedge, + Lean beggars with raw backs, and rumbling maws, + Whose poverty was whipped for starving you,-- + I hail you my auxiliars and allies, + The only potentates whose help I crave! + Richard of England, thou hast slain Jack Straw, + But thou hast left unquenched the vital spark + That set Jack Straw on fire. The spirit lives; + And as when he of Canterbury fell, + His seat was filled by some no better clerk, + So shall John Ball, that slew him, be replaced. + +Fain would we extract Van Artevelde's reply to the French envoy--the +oration of the dying Van den Bosch in the market-place of Ypres, the +last scene between the hero and the double-dyed dastard and traitor, Sir +Heurant of Heurlée, and many, many more, had we but space enough. + +We have purposely avoided telling the story, as is usual in an article +of this kind, because we wish that every one should buy and read Van +Artevelde, instead of resting content with the canvas side of the +carpet. + +A few words more, and we shall conclude these, we fear, already too +prolonged remarks. We would compare Mr. Taylor with the most applauded +of living dramatists, the Italian Alessandro Manzoni. + +To wide and accurate historical knowledge, to purity of taste, to the +greatest elevation of sentiment, Manzoni unites uncommon lyric power, +and a beautiful style in the most beautiful language of the modern +world. The conception of both his plays is striking, the detached +beauties of thought and imagery are many; but where are the life, the +glow, the exciting march of action, the thorough display of character +which charm us in Van Artevelde? We _live_ at Ghent and Senlis; we +_think_ of Italy. Van Artevelde dies,--and our hearts die with him. When +Elena says, "The body,--O!" we could echo that "long, funereal note," +and weep as if the sun of heroic nobleness were quenched from our own +horizon. "Carmagnola, Adelchis die,"--we calmly shut the book, and think +how much we have enjoyed it. Manzoni can deeply feel goodness and +greatness, but he cannot localize them in the contours of life before +our eyes. His are capital sketches, poems of a deep meaning,--but this, +yes! this _is_ a drama. + +We cannot conclude more fitly, nor inculcate a precept on the reader +more forcibly, than in Mr. Taylor's own words, with a slight alteration: +"To say that I admire him is to admit that I owe him much; for +admiration is never thrown away upon the mind of him who feels it, +except when it is misdirected or blindly indulged. There is perhaps +nothing which more enlarges or enriches the mind than the disposition to +lay it genially open to impressions of pleasure, from the exercise of +every species of talent; nothing by which it is more impoverished than +the habit of undue depreciation. What is puerile, pusillanimous, or +wicked, it can do us no good to admire; but let us admire all that can +be admired without debasing the dispositions or stultifying the +understanding." + + + + +UNITED STATES EXPLORING EXPEDITION. + + +Slight as the intercourse held by the Voyager with the South Sea Islands +is, his narrative is always more prized by us than those of the +missionary and traders, who, though they have better opportunity for +full and candid observation, rarely use it so well, because their minds +are biased towards their special objects. It is deeply interesting to us +to know how much and how little God has accomplished for the various +nations of the larger portion of the earth, before they are brought into +contact with the civilization of Europe and the Christian religion. To +suppose it so little as most people do, is to impugn the justice of +Providence. We see not how any one can contentedly think that such vast +multitudes of living souls have been left for thousands of years without +manifold and great means of instruction and happiness. To appreciate +justly how much these have availed them, to know how far they are +competent to receive new benefits, is essential to the philanthropist as +a means of aiding them, no less than it is important to one philosopher +who wishes to see the universe as God made it, not as some men think he +OUGHT TO have made it. + +The want of correct knowledge, and a fair appreciation of the +uncultivated man as he stands, is a cause why even the good and generous +fail to aid him, and contact with Europe has proved so generally more of +a curse than a blessing. It is easy enough to see why our red man, to +whom the white extends the Bible or crucifix with one hand, and the +rum-bottle with the other, should look upon Jesus as only one more +Manitou, and learn nothing from his precepts or the civilization +connected with them. The Hindoo, the South American Indian, who knew +their teachers first as powerful robbers, and found themselves called +upon to yield to violence not only their property, personal freedom, and +peace, but also the convictions and ideas that had been rooted and +growing in their race for ages, could not be otherwise than degraded and +stupefied by a change effected through such violence and convulsion. But +not only those who came with fire and sword, crying, "Believe or die;" +"Understand or we will scourge you;" "Understand _and_ we will only +plunder and tyrannize over you,"--not only these ignorant despots, +self-deceiving robbers, have failed to benefit the people they dared +esteem more savage than themselves, but the worthy and generous have +failed from want of patience and an expanded intelligence. Would you +speak to a man? first learn his language. Would you have the tree grow? +learn the nature of the soil and climate in which you plant it. Better +days are coming, we do hope, as to these matters--days in which the new +shall be harmonized with the old, rather than violently rent asunder +from it; when progress shall be accomplished by gentle evolution, as the +stem of the plant grows up, rather than by the blasting of rocks, and +blindness or death of the miners. + +The knowledge which can lead to such results must be collected, as all +true knowledge is, from the love of it. In the healthy state of the +mind, the state of elastic youth, which would be perpetual in the mind +if it were nobly disciplined and animated by immortal hopes, it likes to +learn just how the facts are, seeking truth for its own sake, not +doubting that the design and cause will be made clear in time. A mind in +such a state will find many facts ready for its use in these volumes +relative to the South Sea Islanders, and other objects of interest. + + + + +STORY-BOOKS FOR THE HOT WEATHER. + + +Does any shame still haunt the age of bronze--a shame, the lingering +blush of an heroic age, at being caught in doing any thing merely for +amusement? Is there a public still extant which needs to excuse its +delinquencies by the story of a man who liked to lie on the sofa all day +and read novels, though he could, at time of need, write the gravest +didactics? Live they still, those reverend seigniors, the object of +secret smiles to our childish years, who were obliged to apologize for +midnight oil spent in conning story-books by the "historic bearing" of +the novel, or the "correct and admirable descriptions of certain +countries, with climate, scenery, and manners therein contained," wheat, +for which they, industrious students, were willing to winnow bushels of +frivolous love-adventures? We know not, but incline to think the world +is now given over to frivolity so far as to replace by the novel the +minstrel's ballad, the drama, and even those games of agility and +strength in which it once sought pastime. For, indeed, _mere_ pass-time +is sometimes needed; the nursery legend comprised a primitive truth of +the understanding and the wisdom of nations in the lines,-- + + "All play and no work makes Jack a mere toy, + But all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy." + +We have reversed the order of arrangement to suit our present purpose. +For we, O useful reader! being ourselves so far of the useful class as +to be always wanted somewhere, have also to fight a good fight for our +amusements, either with the foils of excuse, like the reverend seigniors +above mentioned, or with the sharp weapons of argument, or maintenance +of a view of our own without argument, which we take to be the sharpest +weapon of all. + +Thus far do we defer to the claims of the human race, with its myriad of +useful errands to be done, that we read most of our novels in the long +sunny days, which call all beings to chirp and nestle, or fly abroad as +the birds do, and permit the very oxen to ruminate gently in the +just-mown fields. + +On such days it was well, we think, to read "Sybil, or the Two Worlds." +We have always felt great interest in D'Israeli. He is one of the many +who share the difficulty of our era, which Carlyle says, quoting, we +believe, from his Master, consists in unlearning the false in order to +arrive at the true. We think these men, when they have once taken their +degree, can be of far greater use to their brethren than those who have +always kept their instincts unperverted. + +In "Vivian Grey," the young D'Israeli, an educated Englishman, but with +the blood of sunnier climes glowing and careering in his veins, gave us +the very flower and essence of factitious life. That book sparkled and +frothed like champagne; like that, too, it produced no dull and imbecile +state by its intoxication, but one witty, genial, spiritual even. A +deep, soft melancholy thrilled through its gay mockeries; the eyes of +nature glimmered through the painted mask, and a nobler ambition was +felt beneath the follies of petty success and petty vengeance. Still, +the chief merit of the book, as a book, was the light and decided touch +with which its author took up the follies and poesies of the day, and +brought them all before us. The excellence of the foreign part, with its +popular superstitions, its deep passages in the glades of the summer +woods, and above all, the capital sketch of the prime minister with his +original whims and secret history of romantic sorrows, were beyond the +appreciation of most readers. + +Since then, D'Israeli has never written any thing to be compared with +this first jet of the fountain of his mind in the sunlight of morning. +The "Young Duke" was full of brilliant sketches, and showed a soul +struggling, blinded by the gaudy mists of fashion, for realities. The +"Wondrous Tale of Alroy" showed great power of conception, though in +execution it is a failure. "Henrietta Temple" Mr. Willis, with his usual +justness of perception, has praised, as containing a collection of the +best love-letters ever written; and which show that excellence, signal +and singular among the literary tribe, of which D'Israeli never fails, +of daring to write a thing down exactly as it rises in his mind. + +Now he has come to be a leader of Young England, and a rooted plant upon +her soil. If the performance of his prime do not entirely correspond +with the brilliant lights of its dawn, it is yet aspiring, and with a +large kernel of healthy nobleness in it. D'Israeli shows now not only +the heart, but the soul of a man. He cares for all men; he wishes to +care wisely for all. + +"Coningsby" was full of talent, yet its chief interest lay in this +aspiration after reality, and the rich materials taken from contemporary +life. There is nothing in it good after the original manner of +D'Israeli, except the sketches of Eton, and above all, the noble +schoolboy's letter. The picture of the Jew, so elaborately limned, is +chiefly valuable as affording keys to so many interesting facts. + +"Sybil" is an attempt to do justice to the claims of the laboring +classes, and investigate the duties of those in whose hands the money is +at present, towards the rest. It comes to no result: it only exhibits +some truths in a more striking light than heretofore. D'Israeli shows +the taint of old prejudice in the necessity he felt to marry the +daughter of the people to one _not_ of the people. Those worthy to be +distinguished must still have good blood, or rather old blood, for what +is called good needs now to be renovated from a homelier source. But his +leaders must have _old_ blood; the fresh ichor, the direct flow from +heaven, is not enough to animate their lives to the deeds now needed. + +D'Israeli is another of those who give testimony in behalf of our +favorite idea that a leading feature of the new era will be in new and +higher developments of the feminine character. He looks at women as a +man does who is truly in love. He does not paint them well, that is, not +with profound fidelity to nature. But, ideally, he sees them well, for +they are to him the inspirers and representatives of what is holy, +tender, and simply great. + +There are good sketches of the manufacturers at home, not the overseers, +but the real makers. + +Sue is a congenial activity with D'Israeli, but with clearer notions of +what he wants. His "De Rohan" is a poor book, though it contains some +things excellent. But it is faulty,--even more so than is usual with +him, in heavy exaggerations, and is less redeemed by brilliant effects, +good schemes, and lively strains of feeling. The wish to unmask Louis +XIV. is defeated by the hatred with which the character inspired him, +the liberal of the nineteenth century. The Grand Monarque was really +brutally selfish and ignorant, as Sue represents him; but then there +_was_ a native greatness, which justified, in some degree, the illusion +he diffused, and which falsifies all Sue's representation. It is not by +an inventory of facts or traits that what is most vital in character, +and which makes its due impression on contemporaries, can be apprehended +or depicted. "De Rohan" is worth reading for particulars of an +interesting period, put together with accuracy and with a sense of +physiological effects, if not of the spiritual realities that they +represented. + +"Self, by the Author of Cecil," is one of the worst of a paltry class of +novels--those which aim at representing the very dregs in a social life, +now at its lowest ebb. If it has produced a sensation, that only shows +the poverty of life among those who can be interested in it. I have +known more life lived in a day among factory girls, or in a village +school, than informs these volumes, with all their great pretension and +affected vivacity. It is not worth our while to read this class of +English novels; they are far worse than the French, morally as well as +mentally. This has no merits as to the development of character or +exposition of motives; it is a poor, external, lifeless thing. + +"Dashes at Life," by N. P. Willis. The life of Mr. Willis is too +European for him to have a general or permanent fame in America. We need +a life of our own, and a literature of our own. Those writers who are +dearest to us, and really most interesting, are those who are at least +rooted to the soil. If they are not great enough to be the prophets of +the new era, they at least exhibit the features of their native clime, +and the complexion given by its native air. But Mr. Willis is a son of +Europe, and his writings can interest only the fashionable world of this +country, which, by imitating Europe, fails entirely of a genius, grace, +and invention of its own. Still, in their way, they are excellent. They +are most lively pictures, showing the fine natural organization of the +writer, on whom none, the slightest symptom of what he is looking for, +is thrown away; sparkling with bold, light wit, succinct, and colored +with glow, and for a full light. Some of them were new to us, and we +read them through, missing none of the words, and laughed with a full +heart, and without one grain of complaisance, which is much, very much, +to say in these days. We said these sketches would not have a permanent +fame, and yet we may be wrong. The new, full, original, radiant, +American life may receive them as an heirloom from this transition state +we are in now, and future generations may stare at the mongrel products +of Saratoga, and maidens still laugh till they cry at the "Letter of +Jane S. to her Spirit-Bridegroom." + +All these story-books show, even to the languor of the hottest day, the +solemn signs of revolution. Life has become too factitious; it has no +longer a leg left to stand upon, and cannot be carried much farther in +this way. England--ah! who can resist visions of phalansteries in every +park, and the treasures of art turned into public galleries for the use +of the artificers who will no longer be unwashed, but raised and +educated by the refinements of sufficient leisure, and the instructions +of genius. England must glide, or totter, or fall into revolution; there +is not room for such selfish elves, and unique young dukes, in a country +so crowded with men, and with those who ought to be women, and are +turned into work-tools. There are very impressive hints on this last +topic in "Sybil, or the Two Worlds," (of the rich and poor.) God has +time to remember the design with which he made this world also. + + + + +SHELLEY'S POEMS[18] + + +We are very glad to see this handsome copy of Shelley ready for those +who have long been vainly inquiring at all the bookstores for such a +one. + +In Europe the fame of Shelley has risen superior to the clouds that +darkened its earlier days, hiding his true image from his fellow-men, +and from his own sad eyes oftentimes the common light of day. As a +thinker, men have learned to pardon what they consider errors in opinion +for the sake of singular nobleness, purity, and love in his main +tendency or spirit. As a poet, the many faults of his works having been +acknowledged, there are room and place to admire his far more numerous +and exquisite beauties. + +The heart of the man, few, who have hearts of their own, refuse to +reverence, and many, even of devoutest Christians, would not refuse the +book which contains Queen Mab as a Christmas gift. For it has been +recognized that the founder of the Christian church would have suffered +one to come unto him, who was in faith and love so truly what he sought +in a disciple, without regard to the form his doctrine assumed. + +The qualities of his poetry have often been analyzed, and the severer +critics, impatient of his exuberance, or unable to use their accustomed +spectacles in the golden mist that broods over all he has done, deny him +high honors; but the soul of aspiring youth, untrammelled by the canons +of taste, and untamed by scholarly discipline, swells into rapture at +his lyric sweetness, finds ambrosial refreshment from his plenteous +fancies, catches fire at his daring thought, and melts into boundless +weeping at his tender sadness--the sadness of a soul betrothed to an +ideal unattainable in this present sphere. + +For ourselves, we dispute not with the _doctrinaires_ or the critics. We +cannot speak dispassionately of an influence that has been so dear to +us. Nearer than the nearest companions of life actual has Shelley been +to us. Many other great ones have shone upon us, and all who ever did so +shine are still resplendent in our firmament, for our mental life has +not been broken and contradictory, but thus far we "see what we +foresaw." But Shelley seemed to us an incarnation of what was sought in +the sympathies and desires of instinctive life, a light of dawn, and a +foreshowing of the weather of this day. + +When still in childish years, the "Hymn to Intellectual Beauty" fell in +our way. In a green meadow, skirted by a rich wood, watered by a lovely +rivulet, made picturesque by a mill a little farther down, sat a party +of young persons gayer than, and almost as inventive, as those that told +the tales recorded by Boccaccio. They were passing a few days in a scene +of deep seclusion, there uncared for by tutor or duenna, and with no bar +of routine to check the pranks of their gay, childish fancies. Every day +they assumed parts which through the waking hours must be acted out. One +day it was the characters in one of Richardson's novels; and most +solemnly we "my deared" each other with richest brocade of affability, +and interchanged in long, stiff phrase our sentimental secrets and prim +opinions. But to-day we sought relief in personating birds or insects; +and now it was the Libellula who, tired of wild flitting and darting, +rested on the grassy bank and read aloud the "Hymn to Intellectual +Beauty," torn by chance from the leaf of a foreign magazine. + +It was one of those chances which we ever remember as the interposition +of some good angel in our fate. Solemn tears marked the change of mood +in our little party and with the words + + "Have I not kept my vow?" + +began a chain of thoughts whose golden links still bind the years +together. + +Two or three years passed. The frosty Christmas season came; the trees +cracked with their splendid burden of ice, the old wooden country house +was banked up with high drifts of the beautiful snow, and the Libellula +became the owner of Shelley's Poems. It was her Christmas gift, and for +three days and three nights she ceased not to extract its sweets; and +how familiar still in memory every object seen from the chair in which +she sat enchanted during those three days, memorable to her as those of +July to the French nation! The fire, the position of the lamp, the +variegated shadows of that alcoved room, the bright stars up to which +she looked with such a feeling of congeniality from the contemplation of +this starry soul,--O, could but a De Quincey describe those days in +which the bridge between the real and ideal rose unbroken! He would not +do it, though, as _Suspiria de Profundis_, but as sighs of joy upon the +mountain height. + +The poems we read then are what every one still reads, the "Julian and +Maddalo," with its profound revelations of the inward life; "Alastor," +the soul sweeping like a breeze through nature; and some of the minor +poems. "Queen Mab," the "Prometheus," and other more formal works we +have not been able to read much. It was not when he tried to express +opinions which the wrongs of the world had put into his head, but when +he abandoned himself to the feelings which nature had implanted in his +own breast, that Shelley seemed to us so full of inspiration, and it is +so still. + +In reply to all that can be urged against him by people of whom we do +not wish to speak ill,--for surely "they know not what they do,"--we are +wont simply to refer to the fact that he was the only man who redeemed +the human race from suspicion to the embittered soul of Byron. "Why," +said Byron, "he is a man who would willingly die for others. _I am sure +of it._" + +Yes! balance that against all the ill you can think of him that he was +a man able to live wretched for the sake of speaking sincerely what he +supposed to be truth, willing to die for the good of his fellows! + +Mr. Foster has spoken well of him as a man: "Of Shelley's personal +character it is enough to say that it was wholly pervaded by the same +unbounded and unquestioning love for his fellow-men--the same holy and +fervid hope in their ultimate virtue and happiness--the same scorn of +baseness and hatred of oppression--which beam forth in all his writings +with a pure and constant light. The theory which he wrote was the +practice which his whole life exemplified. Noble, kind, generous, +passionate, tender, with a courage greater than the courage of the chief +of warriors, for it could _endure_--these were the qualities in which +his life was embalmed." + + + + +FESTUS.[19] + + +We are right glad to see this beloved stranger domesticated among us. +Yet there are queer little circumstances that herald the introduction. +The poet is a barrister at law!--well! it is always worthy of note when +a man is not hindered by study of human law from knowledge of divine; +which last is all that concerns the poet. Then the preface to the +American edition closes with this discreet remark: "It is perfectly SAFE +to pronounce it (the poem) one of the most powerful and splendid +productions of the age." Dear New England! how purely that was worthy +thee, region where the tyranny of public opinion is carried to a +perfection of minute scrutiny beyond what it ever was before in any age +or place, though the ostracism be administered with the mildness and +refinement fit for this age. Dear New England! yes! it is _safe_ to say +that the poem is good; whatever Mrs. Grundy may think, she will not have +it burned by the hangman if it is not. But it may not be _discreet_, +because she can, if she sees fit, exile its presence from bookstores, +libraries, centre tables, and all mention of its existence from lips +polite, and of thine also, who hast dared to praise it, on peril of +turning all surrounding eyes to lead by its utterance. This kind of +gentle excommunication thou mayst not be prepared to endure, O +preface-writer! And we should greatly fear that thou wert deceived in +thy fond security, for "Festus" is a bold book--in respect of freedom of +words, a boldest book--also it reveals the solitudes of hearts with +unexampled sincerity, and remorselessly lays bare human nature in its +naked truth--but for the theology of the book. That may save it, and +none the less for all it shows of the depravity of human nature. It is +through many pages and leaves what is technically praised as "a serious +book." A friend went into a bookstore to select presents for persons +with whom she was about to part, and among other things requested the +shopman to "show her some serious books in handsome binding." He looked +into several, and then, struck by passages here and there, offered her +the "Letters of Lady M. W. Montague." She assuring him that it would not +be safe to make use of this work, he offered her a miniature edition of +Shakspeare, as "a book containing many excellent things, though you had +to wade through a great deal of rubbish to get at them." + +We fear the reader will have to wade through a great deal of "rubbish" +in "Festus" before he gets at the theology. However, there it is, in +sufficient quantities to give dignity to any book. In seriousness, it +may compete with Pollok's "Course of Time." In "splendor and power," we +feel ourselves safe in saying that, as sure as the sun shines, it cannot +be outdone in the English tongue, thus far, short of Milton. So there is +something for all classes of readers, and we hope it will get to their +eyes, albeit Boston books are not likely to be detected by all eyes to +which they belong. + +To ourselves the theology of this writer, and the conscious design of +the poem, have little interest. They seem to us, like the color of his +skin and hair, the result of the circumstances under which he was born. +Certain opinions came in his way early, and became part of the body of +his thought. But what interests us is not these, but what is deepest, +universal--the soul of that body. To us the poem is + + "... full of great dark meanings like the sea:" + +and it is these, the deep experiences and inspirations of the immortal +man, that engage us. + +Even the poem shows how large is his nature--its most careless utterance +full of grandeur, its tamest of bold nobleness. This, that truly engages +us, he spoke of more forcibly when the book first went forth to the +world:-- + + "Read this, world. He who writes is dead to thee, + But still lives in these leaves. He spake inspired; + Night and day, thought came unhelped, undesired, + Like blood to his heart. The course of study he + Went through was of the soul-rack. The degree + He took was high; it was wise wretchedness. + He suffered perfectly, and gained no less + A prize than, in his own torn heart, to see + A few bright seeds; he sowed them, hoped them truth. + The autumn of that seed is in these pages." + +Such is, in our belief, the true theologian, the learner of God, who +does not presumptuously expect at this period of growth to bind down all +that is to be known of divine things in a system, a set of words, but +considers that he is only spelling the first lines of a work, whose +perusal shall last him through eternity. Such a one is not in a hurry to +declare that the riddles of Fate and of Time are solved, for he knows it +is not calling them so that will make them so. His soul does not decline +the great and persevering labors that are to develop its energies. He +has faith to study day by day. Such is the practice of the author of +Festus, whenever he is truly great. When he shows to us the end and plan +of all things, we feel that he only hides them from us. He speaks only +his wishes. But when he tells us of what he does really know, the moods +and aspirations of fiery youth to which all things are made present in +foresight and foretaste,--when he shows us the temptations of the lonely +soul pining for knowledge, but unable to feel the love that alone can +bestow it,--then he is truly great, and the strings of life thrill +oftentimes to their sublimest, sweetest music. + +We admire in this author the unsurpassed force and distinctness with +which he casts out single thoughts and images. Each is thrown before us +fresh, deep in its impress as if just snatched from the forge. We admire +not less his vast flow, his sustained flight. His is a rich and spacious +genius; it gives us room; it is a palace home; we need not economize our +joys; blessed be the royalty that welcomes us so freely. + +In simple transposition of the thought from the mind to the paper, that +wonder, even rarer than perfect,--that is, simple expression, through +the motions of the body, of the motions of the soul,--we dare to say +_no_ writer excels him. Words are no veil between us and him, but a +luminous cloud that upbears us both together. + +So in touches of nature, in the tones of passion; he is absolute. There +is nothing better, where it is good; we have the very thing itself. + +We are told by the critics that he has no ear, and, indeed, when we +listen for such, we perceive blemishes enough in the movement of his +line. But we did not perceive it before, more than, when the Æolian was +telling the secrets of that most spirit-like minister of Nature that +bloweth where it listeth, and no man can trace it, we should attempt to +divide the tones and pauses into regular bars, and be disturbed when we +could not make a tune. + +England has only two poets now that can be named near him: these two are +Tennyson and the author of "Philip Van Artevelde." Tennyson is all that +Bailey is not in melody and voluntary finish, having no less than a +Greek moderation in declining all undertakings he is not sure of +completing. Taylor, noble, an earnest seer, a faithful narrator of what +he sees, firm and sure, sometimes deep and exquisite, but in energy and +grandeur no more than Tennyson to be named beside the author of Festus. +In inspiration, in prophecy, in those flashes of the sacred fire which +reveal the secret places where Time is elaborating the marvels of +Nature, he stands alone. It is just true what Ebenezer Elliott says, +that "Festus contains poetry enough to set up fifty poets,"--ay! even +such poets, so far as richness of thought and imagery are concerned, as +the two noble bards we have named. + +But we need call none less to make him greater, whose liberal soul is +alive to every shade of beauty, every token of greatness, and whose main +stress is to seek a soul of goodness in things evil. The book is a +precious, even a sacred book, and we could say more of it, had we not +years ago vented our enthusiasm when it was in first full flow. + + + + +FRENCH NOVELISTS OF THE DAY.[20] + + +WE hear much lamentation among good people at the introduction of so +many French novels among us, corrupting, they say, our youth by pictures +of decrepit vice and prurient crime, such as would never, otherwise, be +dreamed of here, and corrupting it the more that such knowledge is so +precocious--for the same reason that a boy may be more deeply injured by +initiation into wickedness than a man, for he is not only robbed of his +virtue, but prevented from developing the strength that might restore +it. But it is useless to bewail what is the inevitable result of the +movement of our time. Europe must pour her corruptions, no less than her +riches, on our shores, both in the form of books and of living men. She +cannot, if she would, check the tide which bears them hitherward; no +defences are possible, on our vast extent of shore, that can preclude +their ingress. We have exulted in premature and hasty growth; we must +brace ourselves to bear the evils that ensue. Our only hope lies in +rousing, in our own community, a soul of goodness, a wise aspiration, +that shall give us strength to assimilate this unwholesome food to +better substance, or cast off its contaminations. A mighty sea of life +swells within our nation, and, if there be salt enough, foreign bodies +shall not have power to breed infection there. + +We have had some opportunity to observe that the worst works offered are +rejected. On the steamboats we have seen translations of vile books, +bought by those who did not know from the names of their authors what +to expect, torn, after a cursory glance at their contents, and scattered +to the winds. Not even the all but all-powerful desire to get one's +money's worth, since it had once been paid, could contend against the +blush of shame that rose on the cheek of the reader. + +It would be desirable for our people to know something of these writers, +and of the position they occupy abroad; for the nature of their +circulation, rather than its extent, might be the guide both to +translator and buyer. The object of the first is generally money; of the +last, amusement. But the merest mercenary might prefer to pass his time +in translating a good book, and our imitation of Europe does not yet go +so far that the American milliner can be depended on to copy any thing +from the Parisian grisette, except her cap. + +We have just been reading "Le Père Goriot," Balzac's most celebrated +work; a remarkable production, to which Paris alone, at the present day, +could have given birth. + +In other of his works, I have admired his skill in giving the minute +traits of passion, and his intrepidity, not inferior to that of Le Sage +and Cervantes, in facing the dark side of human nature. He reminds one +of the Spanish romancers in the fearlessness with which he takes mud +into his hands, and dips his foot in slime. We cannot endure this when +done, as by most Frenchmen, with an air of recklessness and gayety; but +Balzac does it with the stern manliness of a Spaniard. + +But the conception of this work is so sublime, that, though the details +are even more revolting than in his others, you can bear it, and would +not have missed your walk through the Catacombs, though the light of day +seems stained afterwards with the mould of horror and dismay. + +Balzac, we understand, is one of that wretched class of writers who live +by the pen. In Paris they count now by thousands, and their leaves fall +from the press thick-rustling like the November forest. I had heard of +this class not without envy, for I had been told pretty tales of the gay +poverty of the Frenchman--how he will live in garrets, on dry bread, +salad, and some wine, and spend all his money on a single good suit of +clothes, in which, when the daily labor of copying music, correcting the +press, or writing poems or novels, is over, he sallies forth to enjoy +the theatre, the social soirée, or the humors of the streets and cafés, +as gay, as keenly alive to observation and enjoyment, as if he were to +return to a well-stocked table and a cheerful hearth, encompassed by +happy faces. + +I thought the intellectual Frenchman, in the extreme of want, never sunk +into the inert reverie of the lazzaroni, nor hid the vulture of famine +beneath the mantle of pride with the bitter mood of a Spaniard. But +Balzac evidently is familiar with that which makes the agony of +poverty--its vulgarity. + +Dirt, confusion, shabby expedients, living to live,--these are what make +poverty terrible and odious, and in these Balzac would seem to have been +steeped to the very lips. + +These French writers possess the art of plunging at once _in medias +res_, and Balzac places you, in the twinkling of an eye, in one of the +lowest boarding-houses of Paris. At first all is dirt, hubbub, and +unsavory odors; but from the vapors of the caldron evolves a web of +many-colored life, of terrible pathos, and original humor, not +unenlivened by pale golden threads of beauty, which had better never +been. + +All the characters are excellently drawn: the harpy mistress of the +house; Mlle. Michonnet the spy, and her imbecile lover; Mme. Coutuner, +with her purblind strivings after virtue, and her real, though meagre +respectability; Vautrim, the disguised galley-slave, with his cynical +philosophy and Bonaparte character; and the young students of medicine, +cheering the dense fog with the scintillations of their wit, and the +joyousness and petulance with which their age meets the most adverse +circumstances, at least in France! + +The connection between this abject poverty and the highest luxury of +Parisian life is made naturally by Eugene, connected to his misfortune +with a noble family, of which his own is a poor and young branch, +studying a profession and sighing to live like a duke, and _Le Père +Goriot_, who has stripped himself of all his wealth for his daughters, +who are more naturally unnatural than those of Lear. The transitions are +made with as much swiftness as a curtain is drawn upon the stage, yet +with no feeling of abruptness, so skilfully are the incidents woven into +one another. + +And be it recorded to the credit of Balzac, that, much as he appears to +have suffered from the want of wealth, the vices which pollute it are +represented with as terrible force as those of poverty. + +The book affords play for similar powers, and brings a similar range of +motives into action with Scott's "Fortunes of Nigel." If less rich than +that work, it is more original, and has a force of pencil all its own. + +Insight and a master's hand are admirable throughout; but the product of +genius is _Le Père Goriot_. And, wonderful to relate, this character is +as much ennobled, made as poetical by abandonment to a single instinct, +as others by the force of will. Prometheus, chained on his rock, and +giving his heart to the birds of prey for aims so majestic, is scarcely +a more affecting, a more reverent object, than the rich confectioner +whose intellect has never been awakened at all, except in the way of +buying and selling, and who gives up his acuteness even there, and +commits such unspeakable follies through paternal love; a _blind_ love +too, nowise superior to that of the pelican! + +Analyze it as you will, see the difference between this and the instinct +of the artist or the philanthropist, and it produces on your mind the +same impression of a present divinity. And scarce any tears could be +more sacred than those which choke the breath at the death-bed of this +man, who forgot that he was a man, to be wholly a father, this poor, +mad, stupid, father Goriot. I know nothing in fiction to surpass the +terrible, unpretending pathos of this scene, nor the power with which +the mistaken benediction given to the two medical students whom he takes +for his daughters, is redeemed from burlesque. + +The scepticism as to _virtue_ in this book is fearful, but the love for +innocence and beautiful instincts casts a softening tint over the gloom. +We never saw any thing sweeter or more natural than the letters of the +mother and sisters of Eugene, when they so delightfully sent him the +money of which he had been wicked enough to plunder them. These traits +of domestic life are given with much grace and delicacy of sentiment. + +How few writers can paint _abandon_, without running into exaggeration! +and here the task was one of peculiar difficulty. It seemed as if the +writer were conscious enough of his power to propose to himself the most +difficult task he could undertake. + +A respectable reviewer in "Les Deux Mondes" would wish us to think that +there is no life in Paris like what Balzac paints; but we can never +believe that: evidently it is "too true," though we doubt not there is +more redemption than he sees. + +But this book was too much for our nerves, and would be, probably, for +those of most people accustomed to breathe a healthier atmosphere. + +Balzac has been a very fruitful writer, and, as he is fond of jugglers' +tricks of every description, and holds nothing earnest or sacred, he is +vain of the wonderful celerity with which some of his works, and those +quite as good as any, have been written. They seem to have been +conceived, composed, and written down with that degree of speed with +which it is possible to lay pen to paper. Indeed, we think he cannot be +surpassed in the ready and sustained command of his resources. His +almost unequalled quickness and fidelity of eye, both as to the +disposition of external objects, and the symptoms of human passion, +combined with a strong memory, have filled his mind with materials, and +we doubt not that if his thoughts could be put into writing with the +swiftness of thought, he would give us one of his novels every week in +the year. + +Here end our praises of Balzac; what he is, as a man, in daily life, we +know not. He must originally have had a heart, or he could not read so +well the hearts of others; perhaps there are still private ties that +touch him. But as a writer, never was the modern Mephistopheles, "the +spirit that denieth," more worthily represented than by Balzac. + +He combines the spirit of the man of science with that of the amateur +collector. He delights to analyze, to classify; there is no anomaly too +monstrous, no specimen too revolting, to insure his ardent but +passionless scrutiny. But then he has taste and judgment to know what is +fair, rare, and exquisite. He takes up such an object carefully, and +puts it in a good light. But he has no hatred for what is loathsome, no +contempt for what is base, no love for what is lovely, no faith in what +is noble. To him there is no virtue and no vice; men and women are more +or less finely organized; noble and tender conduct is more agreeable +than the reverse, because it argues better health; that is all. + +Nor is this from an intellectual calmness, nor from an unusual power of +analyzing motives, and penetrating delusions merely; neither is it mere +indifference. There is a touch of the demon, also, in Balzac, the cold +but gayly familiar demon; and the smile of the amateur yields easily to +a sneer, as he delights to show you on what foul juices the fair flower +was fed. He is a thorough and willing materialist. The trance of +religion is congestion of the brain; the joy of the poet the thrilling +of the blood in the rapture of sense; and every good not only rises +from, but hastens back into, the jaws of death and nothingness; a +rainbow arch above a pestilential chaos! + +Thus Balzac, with all his force and fulness of talent, never rises one +moment into the region of genius. For genius is, in its nature, positive +and creative, and cannot exist where there is no heart to believe in +realities. Neither can he have a permanent influence on a nature which +is not thoroughly corrupt. He might for a while stagger an ingenuous +mind which had not yet thought for itself. But this could not last. His +unbelief makes his thought too shallow. He has not that power which a +mind, only in part sophisticated, may retain, where the heart still +beats warmly, though it sometimes beats amiss. Write, paint, argue, as +you will, where there is a sound spot in any human being, he cannot be +made to believe that this present bodily frame is more than a temporary +condition of his being, though one to which he may have become +shamefully enslaved by fault of inheritance, education, or his own +carelessness. + +Taken in his own way, we know no modern tragedies more powerful than +Balzac's "Eugenie Grandet," "Sweet Pea," "Search after the Absolute," +"Father Goriot." See there goodness, aspiration, the loveliest +instincts, stifled, strangled by fate, in the form of our own brute +nature. The fate of the ancient Prometheus was happiness to that of +these, who must pay, for ever having believed there was divine fire in +heaven, by agonies of despair, and conscious degradation, unknown to +those who began by believing man to be the most richly endowed of +brutes--no more! + +Balzac is admirable in his description of look, tone, gesture. He has a +keen sense of whatever is peculiar to the individual. Nothing in modern +romance surpasses the death-scene of Father Goriot, the Parisian Lear, +in the almost immortal life with which the parental instincts are +displayed. And with equal precision and delicacy of shading he will +paint the slightest by-play in the manners of some young girl. + +"Seraphitus" is merely a specimen of his great powers of intellectual +transposition. Amid his delight at the botanical riches of the new and +elevated region in which he is travelling, we catch, if only by echo, +the hem and chuckle of the French materialist. + +No more of him!--We leave him to his suicidal work. + +It is cheering to know how great is the influence such a writer as Sue +exerts, from his energy of feeling on some subjects of moral interest. +It is true that he has also much talent and a various experience of +life; but writers who far surpass him here, as we think Balzac does, +wanting this heart of faith, have no influence, except merely on the +tastes of their readers. + +We observe, in a late notice of Sue, that he began to write at quite +mature age, at the suggestion of a friend. We should think it was so; +that he was by nature intended for a practical man, rather than a +writer. He paints all his characters from the practical point of view. + +As an observer, when free from exaggeration, he has as good an eye as +Balzac, but he is far more rarely thus free, for, in temperament, he is +unequal and sometimes muddy. But then he has the heart and faith that +Balzac wants, yet is less enslaved by emotion than Sand; therefore he +has made more impression on his time and place than either. We refer now +to his later works; though his earlier show much talent, yet his +progress, both as a writer and thinker, has been so considerable that +those of the last few years entirely eclipse his earlier essays. + +These latter works are the "Mysteries of Paris," "Matilda," and the +"Wandering Jew," which is now in course of publication. In these, he has +begun, and is continuing, a crusade against the evils of a corrupt +civilization which are inflicting such woes and wrongs upon his +contemporaries. + +Sue, however, does not merely assail, but would build up. His anatomy is +not intended to injure the corpse, or, like that of Balzac, to +entertain the intellectual merely. Earnestly he hopes to learn from it +the remedies for disease and the conditions of health. Sue is a +Socialist. He believes he sees the means by which the heart of mankind +may be made to beat with one great hope, one love; and instinct with +this thought, his tales of horror are not tragedies. + +This is the secret of the deep interest he has awakened in this country, +that he shares a hope which is, half unconsciously to herself, stirring +all her veins. It is not so warmly outspoken as in other lands, both +because no such pervasive ills as yet call loudly for redress, and +because private conservatism is here great, in proportion to the absence +of authorized despotism. We are not disposed to quarrel with this; it is +well for the value of new thoughts to be tested by a good deal of +resistance. Opposition, if it does not preclude free discussion, is of +use in educating men to know what they want. Only by intelligent men, +exercised by thought and tried in virtue, can such measures as Sue +proposes be carried out; and when such associates present themselves in +sufficient numbers, we have no fear but the cause of association, in its +grander forms, will have fair play in America. + +As a writer, Sue shows his want of a high kind of imagination by his +unshrinking portraiture of physical horrors. We do not believe any man +could look upon some things he describes and live. He is very powerful +in his description of the workings of animal nature; especially when he +speaks of them in animals merely, they have the simplicity of the lower +kind with the more full expression of human nature. His pictures of +women are of rare excellence, and it is observable that the more simple +and pure the character is, the more justice he does to it. This shows +that, whatever his career may have been, his heart is uncontaminated. +Men he does not describe so well, and fails entirely when he aims at one +grand and simple enough for a great moral agent. His conceptions are +strong, but in execution he is too melodramatic. Just compare _his_ +"Wandering Jew" with that of Beranger. The latter is as diamond compared +with charcoal. Then, like all those writers who write in numbers that +come out weekly or monthly, he abuses himself and his subject; he often +_must_; the arrangement is false and mechanical. + +The attitude of Sue is at this moment imposing, as he stands, pen in +hand,--this his only weapon against an innumerable host of foes,--the +champion of poverty, innocence, and humanity, against superstition, +selfishness, and prejudice. When his works are forgotten,--and for all +their strong points and brilliant decorations, they may ere long be +forgotten,--still the writer's name shall be held in imperishable honor +as the teacher of the ignorant, the guardian of the weak, a true tribune +for the people of his own time. + +One of the most unexceptionable and attractive writers of modern France +is De Vigny. His life has been passed in the army; but many years of +peace have given him time for literary culture, while his acquaintance +with the traditions of the army, from the days of its dramatic +achievements under Bonaparte, supply the finest materials both for +narrative and reflection. His tales are written with infinite grace, +refined sensibility, and a dignified view. His treatment of a subject +shows that closeness of grasp and clearness of sight which are rarely +attained by one who is not at home in active as well as thoughtful life. +He has much penetration, too, and has touched some of the most delicate +springs of human action. His works have been written in hours of +leisure; this has diminished their number, but given him many advantages +over the thousands of professional writers that fill the coffee-houses +of Paris by day, and its garrets by night. We wish he were more read +here in the original; with him would be found good French, and the +manners, thoughts, and feelings of a cosmopolitan gentleman. + +To sum up this imperfect account of the merits of these Novelists: I see +De Vigny, a retiring figure, the gentleman, the solitary thinker, but, +in his way, the efficient foe of false honor and superstitious +prejudice; Balzac is the heartless surgeon, probing the wounds and +describing the delirium of suffering men for the amusement of his +students; Sue, a bold and glittering crusader, with endless ballads +jingling in the silence of the night before the battle. They are all +much right and a good deal wrong; for instance, all who would lay down +their lives for the sake of truth, yet let their virtuous characters +practise stratagems, falsehood, and violence; in fact, do evil for the +sake of good. They still show this taint of the old régime, and no +wonder! La belle France has worn rouge so long that the purest mountain +air will not, at once, or soon, restore the natural hues to her +complexion. But they are fine figures, and all ruled by the onward +spirit of the time. Led by that spirit, I see them moving on the +troubled waters; they do not sink, and I trust they will find their way +to the coasts where the new era will introduce new methods, in a spirit +of nobler activity, wiser patience, and holier faith, than the world has +yet seen. + +Will Balzac also see that shore, or has he only broken away the bars +that hindered others from setting sail? We do not know. When we read an +expression of such lovely innocence as the letter of the little country +maidens to their Parisian brother, (in Father Goriot,) we hope; but +presently we see him sneering behind the mask, and we fear. Let +Frenchmen speak to this question. They know best what disadvantages a +Frenchman suffers under, and whether it is possible Balzac be still +alive, except in his eyes. Those, we know, are quite alive. + +To read these, or any foreign works fairly, the reader must understand +the national circumstances under which they were written. To use them +worthily, he must know how to interpret them for the use of the +universe. + + + + +THE NEW SCIENCE, OR THE PHILOSOPHY OF MESMERISM OR ANIMAL MAGNETISM.[21] + + +Man is always trying to get charts and directions for the super-sensual +element in which he finds himself involuntarily moving. Sometimes, +indeed, for long periods, a life of continual activity in supplying +bodily wants or warding off bodily dangers will make him inattentive to +the circumstances of this other life. Then, in an interval of leisure, +he will start to find himself pervaded by the power of this more subtle +and searching energy, and will turn his thoughts, with new force, to +scrutinize its nature and its promises. + +At such times a corps is formed of workmen, furnished with various +implements for the work. Some collect facts from which they hope to +build up a theory; others propose theories by whose light they hope to +detect valuable facts; a large number are engaged in circulating reports +of these labors; a larger in attempting to prove them invalid and +absurd. These last are of some use by shaking the canker-worms from the +trees; all are of use in elucidating truth. + +Such a course of study has the civilized world been engaged in for some +years back with regard to what is called Animal Magnetism. We say the +civilized world, because, though a large portion of the learned and +intellectual, to say nothing of the thoughtless and the prejudiced, view +such researches as folly, yet we believe that those prescient souls, +those minds more deeply alive, which are the life of this and the +parents of the next era, all, more or less, consciously or +unconsciously, share the belief in such an agent as is understood by the +largest definition of animal magnetism; that is, a means by which +influence and thought may be communicated from one being to another, +independent of the usual organs, and with a completeness and precision +rarely attained through these. + +For ourselves, since we became conscious at all of our connection with +the two forms of being called the spiritual and material, we have +perceived the existence of such an agent, and should have no doubts on +the subject, if we had never heard one human voice in correspondent +testimony with our perceptions. The reality of this agent we know, have +tested some of its phenomena, but of its law and its analysis find +ourselves nearly as ignorant as in earliest childhood. And we must +confess that the best writers we have read seem to us about equally +ignorant. We derive pleasure and profit in very unequal degrees from +their statements, in proportion to their candor, clearness of +perception, severity of judgment, and largeness of view. If they possess +these elements of wisdom, their statements are valuable as affording +materials for the true theory; but theories proposed by them affect us, +as yet, only as partially sustained hypotheses. Too many among them are +stained by faults which must prevent their coming to any valuable +results, sanguine haste, jealous vanity, a lack of that profound +devotion which alone can win Truth from her cold well, careless +classification, abrupt generalizations. We see, as yet, no writer great +enough for the patient investigation, in a spirit liberal yet severely +true, which the subject demands. We see no man of Shakspearian, +Newtonian incapability of deceiving himself or others. + +However, no such man is needed, and we believe that it is pure democracy +to rejoice that, in this department as in others, it is no longer some +one great genius that concentrates within himself the vital energy of +his time. It is many working together who do the work. The waters +spring up in every direction, as little rills, each of which performs +its part. We see a movement corresponding with this in the region of +exact science, and we have no doubt that in the course of fifty years a +new spiritual circulation will be comprehended as clearly as the +circulation of the blood is now. + +In metaphysics, in phrenology, in animal magnetism, in electricity, in +chemistry, the tendency is the same, even when conclusions seem most +dissonant. The mind presses nearer home to the seat of consciousness the +more intimate law and rule of life, and old limits, become fluid beneath +the fire of thought. We are learning much, and it will be a grand music, +that shall be played on this organ of many pipes. + +With regard to Mr. Grimes's book, in the first place, we do not possess +sufficient knowledge of the subject to criticise it thoroughly; and +secondly, if we did, it could not be done in narrow limits. To us his +classification is unsatisfactory, his theory inadequate, his point of +view uncongenial. We disapprove of the spirit in which he criticises +other disciples in this science, who have, we believe, made some good +observations, with many failures, though, like himself, they do not hold +themselves sufficiently lowly as disciples. For we do not believe there +is any man, _yet_, who is entitled to give himself the air of having +taken a degree on this subject. We do not want the tone of qualification +or mincing apology. We want no mock modesty, but its reality, which is +the almost sure attendant on greatness. What a lesson it would be for +this country if a body of men could be at work together in that harmony +which would not fail to ensue on a _disinterested_ love of discovering +truth, and with that patience and exactness in experiment without which +no machine was ever invented worthy a patent! The most superficial, +go-ahead, hit-or-miss American knows that no machine was ever perfected +without this patience and exactness; and let no one hope to achieve +victories in the realm of mind at a cheaper rate than in that of +matter. + +In speaking thus of Mr. Grimes's book, we can still cordially recommend +it to the perusal of our readers. Its statements are full and sincere. +The writer has abilities which only need to be used with more +thoroughness and a higher aim to guide him to valuable attainments. + +In this connection we will relate a passage from personal experience, to +us powerfully expressive of the nature of this higher agent in the +intercourse of minds. + +Some years ago I went, unexpectedly, into a house where a blind girl, +thought at that time to have attained an extraordinary degree of +clairvoyance, lay in a trance of somnambulism. I was not invited there, +nor known to the party, but accompanied a gentleman who was. + +The somnambulist was in a very happy state. On her lips was the +satisfied smile, and her features expressed the gentle elevation +incident to the state. At that time I had never seen any one in it, and +had formed no image or opinion on the subject. I was agreeably impressed +by the somnambulist, but on listening to the details of her observations +on a distant place, I thought she had really no vision, but was merely +led or impressed by the mind of the person who held her hand. + +After a while I was beckoned forward, and my hand given to the blind +girl. The latter instantly dropped it with an expression of pain, and +complained that she should have been brought in contact with a person so +sick, and suffering at that moment under violent nervous headache. This +really was the case, but no one present could have been aware of it. + +After a while the somnambulist seemed penitent and troubled. She asked +again for my hand which she had rejected, and, while holding it, +attempted to magnetize the sufferer. She seemed touched by profound +pity, spoke most intelligently of the disorder of health and its causes, +and gave advice, which, if followed at that time, I have every reason to +believe would have remedied the ill. + +Not only the persons present, but the person advised also, had no +adequate idea then of the extent to which health was affected, nor saw +fully, till some time after, the justice of what was said by the +somnambulist. There is every reason to believe that neither she, nor the +persons who had the care of her, knew even the name of the person whom +she so affectionately wished to help. + +Several years after, in visiting an asylum for the blind, I saw this +same girl seated there. She was no longer a somnambulist, though, from a +nervous disease, very susceptible to magnetic influences. I went to her +among a crowd of strangers, and shook hands with her as several others +had done. I then asked, "Do you not not know me?" She answered, "No." +"Do you not remember ever to have met me?" She tried to recollect, but +still said, "No." I then addressed a few remarks to her about her +situation there, but she seemed preoccupied, and, while I turned to +speak with some one else, wrote with a pencil these words, which she +gave me at parting:-- + + "The ills that Heaven decrees + The brave with courage bear." + +Others may explain this as they will; to me it was a token that the same +affinity that had acted before, gave the same knowledge; for the writer +was at the time ill in the same way as before. It also seemed to +indicate that the somnambulic trance was only a form of the higher +development, the sensibility to more subtle influences--in the terms of +Mr. Grimes, a susceptibility to etherium. The blind girl perhaps never +knew who I was, but saw my true state more clearly than any other person +did, and I have kept those pencilled lines, written in the stiff, round +character proper to the blind, as a talisman of "Credenciveness," as the +book before me styles it. Credulity as the world at large does, and, to +my own mind, as one of the clews granted, during this earthly life, to +the mysteries of future states of being, and more rapid and complete +modes of intercourse between mind and mind. + + + + +DEUTSCHE SCHNELLPOST.[22] + + +The publishers of this interesting and spirited journal have, this year, +begun to issue a weekly paper in addition to their former arrangement. +We regret not to have been able earlier to take some notice of their +prospectus, but an outline of it will be new to most of our readers. + +Their journal has hitherto been intended for German readers in this +country, and has been devoted to topics of European interest, but by the +addition of the Weekly, it hopes to discuss with some fulness those of +American interest also; thus becoming "an organ of communication between +Germans of the old and new home, as to their wants, interests, and +thoughts." These judicious remarks follow:-- + +"The editors do not coincide with those who believe it the vocation of +the immigrant German, by systematic separation from the people who offer +him a new home, by voluntary withdrawal from the unaccustomed, and, +perhaps, for him too vehement stream of their life, in a word, by +obstinate adhesion to the old, to keep inviolate the stamp of his +nationality. + +"Rather is it their faith that it should be the most earnest desire of +the immigrant, not merely to appropriate in form, but to _deserve_ the +rights of a citizen here--rights which we confide in the healthy mind of +the nation to sustain him in, all fanatical opposition to the contrary +notwithstanding. And he must deserve them by becoming an American, not +merely in name, but in deed, not merely by assuming claims, but by +appreciating duties. + +"But while we renounce this narrow and one-sided isolation, desiring to +integrate ourselves, fairly and truly, with the great family that +receives us to its hospitality, we will hold so much the more firmly to +the higher traits of our own race. We hold to the noble jewel of our +native tongue; the memories of our nation's ancient glory; the sympathy +with its future, as yet only glimmering in the dusk; our old, true, +domestic manners; dear inherited customs, that give to the +tranquillities of home their sanctity--to the intercourse between men a +fresh, glad life. + +"So much for our position in general." + +They promise, as to American affairs, "to be just as far as in them +lies, and independent, certainly." + +We think the tone of these remarks truly honorable and right-minded. It +is such a tone that each division of our adopted citizens needs to hear +from those of their compatriots able to guide and enlighten them. We do +want that each nation should preserve what is valuable in its parent +stock. We want all the elements for the new people of the new world. We +want the prudence, the honor, the practical skill of the English; the +fun, the affectionateness, the generosity of the Irish; the vivacity, +the grace, the quick intelligence of the French; the thorough honesty, +the capacity for philosophic view, and deep enthusiasm of the German +Biedermann; the shrewdness and romance of the Scotch,--but we want none +of their prejudices. We want the healthy seed to develop itself into a +different plant in the new climate. We have reason to hope a new and +generous race, where the Italian meets the German, the Swede, the Jew. +Let nothing be obliterated, but all be regenerated; let each leader say +in like manner to his band. Apply the old loyalty to a study of new +duties. Examine yourself whether you are worthy of the new rights so +freely bestowed upon you, and recognize that only intelligent action, +and not mere bodily presence, can make you really a citizen on any soil. +It is a glorious boon offered you to be a founder of the new dynasty in +the new world; but it would have been better for you to have died a +thousand deaths beneath the factory wheels of England, or in the prisons +of Russia, than to sell this great privilege for selfish or servile +ends. Here each man has before him the choice of Esau--each may defraud +a long succession of souls of their princely inheritance. + +Do those whose bodies were born upon this soil reject you, and claim for +themselves the name of natives? You may be natives, in another sort, for +the soul may be re-born here. Cast for yourselves a new nativity, and +invoke the starry influences that do not fail to shine into the life of +a good man, whose heart is kept open daily to truth in every new form, +whose heart is strengthened by a desire to do his duty valiantly to +every brother of the human family. Offer upon the soil a libation of +worthy feelings in gratitude for the bread it so willingly yields you, +and it is true that the "healthy mind of the nation" cannot long fail to +greet you with joy, and hail your endowment with civic rights. + +We must think there is a deep root, in fact, for the late bitter +expressions of prejudice, however unworthy the mode of exhibiting them, +against the foreign element in our population. We want all this new +blood, but we want it purified, assimilated, or it will take all form of +comeliness from the growing nation. Our country is a willing foster +mother, but her children need wise tutors to prevent them from playing, +willingly or unwillingly, the viper's part. + +There is a little poem in the Schnellpost, by Moritz Hartmann, called +the "Three,"--which would be a forcible appeal, if any were needed, in +behalf of all who are exiled from their native soil. We translate it +into prose, and this will not spoil it, as its poetry lies in the +situation. + +"In a tavern of Hungary are sitting together Three who have taken +refuge there from storm and darkness--in Hungary, where the wind of +chance drives together the children of many a land. + +"Their eyes glow with fires of various light; their locks are unlike in +their flow; but their hearts--their wounded hearts--are urns filled with +the tears of a common grief. + +"One cries, 'Silent companions! Shall we have no toast to cheer our +meeting? I offer you one which you cannot fail to pledge--Freedom and +greatness to the Fatherland! + +"'To the fatherland! But I am one that knows not where is his; I am a +Gypsy; my fatherland lies in the realm of tradition--in the mournful +tone of the violin swelled by grief and storm. + +"'I pass musing over heath and moor, and think of my painful losses. Yet +long since was I weaned from desire of a home, and think of Egypt but as +the cymbal sounds.' + +"The second says, 'This toast of fatherland I will not drink; mine own +shame should I pledge. For the seed of Jacob flies like the dried leaf, +and takes no root in the dust of slavery.' + +"The lips of the third seem frozen at the edge of his goblet. He asks +himself in silence, 'Shall _I_ drink to the fatherland? Lives Poland +yet, or is all life departed, and am I, like these, a motherless son?'" + +To those and others who, if they still had homes, could not live there, +without starving body and soul, may our land be a fatherland; and may +they seek and learn to act as children in a father's house! + +A foreign correspondent of the Schnellpost, having, it seems, been +reproved by some friends on the safe side of the water for the violence +of his attack on crowned heads, and other dilettanti, defends himself +with great spirit, and argues his case well from his own point of view. +We do not agree with him as to the use of methods, but cannot fail to +sympathize in his feeling. + +Anecdotes of Russian proceedings towards delinquents are well associated +with one anecdote quoted of Peter, who yet was truly the Great. In a +foreign city, seeing the gallows, he asked the use of that +three-cornered thing. Being told, to hang people on, he requested that +one might be hung for him, directly. Being told this, unfortunately, +could not be done, as there was no criminal under sentence, he desired +that one of his own retinue might be made use of. Probably he did this +with no further thought than the Empress Catharine bestowed, on having a +ship of the line blown up, as a model for the painter who was to adorn +her palace with pictures of naval battles. Disregard for human life and +human happiness is not confined to the Russian snows, or the eastern +hemisphere; it may be found on every side, though, indeed, not on a +scale so imperial. + + + + +OLIVER CROMWELL.[23] + + +A long expectation is rewarded at last by the appearance of this book. +We cannot wonder that it should have been long, when Mr. Carlyle shows +us what a world of ill-arranged and almost worthless materials he has +had to wade through before achieving any possibility of order and +harmony for his narrative. + +The method which he has chosen of letting the letters and speeches of +Cromwell tell the story when possible, only himself doing what is +needful to throw light where it is most wanted and fill up gaps, is an +excellent one. Mr. Carlyle, indeed, is a most peremptory showman, and +with each slide of his magic lantern informs us not only of what is +necessary to enable us to understand it, but _how_ we must look at it, +under peril of being ranked as "imbeciles," "canting sceptics," +"disgusting rose-water philanthropists," and the like. And aware of his +power of tacking a nickname or ludicrous picture to any one who refuses +to obey, we might perhaps feel ourselves, if in his neighborhood, under +such constraint and fear of deadly laughter, as to lose the benefit of +having under our eye to form our judgment upon the same materials on +which he formed his. + +But the ocean separates us, and the showman has his own audience of +despised victims, or scarce less despised pupils; and we need not fear +to be handed down to posterity as "a little gentleman in a gray coat" +"shrieking" unutterable "imbecilities," or with the like damnatory +affixes, when we profess that, having read the book, and read the +letters and speeches thus far, we cannot submit to the showman's +explanation of the lantern, but must, more than ever, stick to the old +"Philistine," "Dilettante," "Imbecile," and what not view of the +character of Cromwell. + +We all know that to Mr. Carlyle greatness is well nigh synonymous with +virtue, and that he has shown himself a firm believer in Providence by +receiving the men of destiny as always entitled to reverence. Sometimes +a great success has followed the portraits painted by him in the light +of such faith, as with regard to Mahomet, for instance. The natural +autocrat is his delight, and in such pictures as that of the monk in +"Past and Present," where the geniuses of artist and subject coincide, +the result is no less delightful for us. + +But Mr. Carlyle reminds us of the man in a certain parish who had always +looked up to one of its squires as a secure and blameless idol, and one +day in church, when the minister asked "all who felt in concern for +their souls to rise," looked to the idol and seeing him retain his seat, +(asleep perchance!) sat still also. One of his friends asking him +afterwards how he could refuse to answer such an appeal, he replied, "he +thought it safest to stay with the squire." + +Mr. Carlyle's squires are all Heaven's justices of peace or war, +(usually the latter;) they are beings of true energy and genius, and so +far, as he describes them, "genuine men." But in doubtful cases, where +the doubt is between them and principles, he will insist that the men +must be in the right. On such occasions he favors us with such doctrine +as the following, which we confess we had the weakness to read with +"sibylline execration" and extreme disgust. + +Speaking of Cromwell's course in Ireland:-- + +"Oliver's proceedings here have been the theme of much loud criticism, +sibylline execration, into which it is not our plan to enter at present. +We shall give these fifteen letters of his in a mass, and without any +commentary whatever. To those who think that a land overrun with +sanguinary quacks can be healed by sprinkling it with rose-water, these +letters must be very horrible. Terrible surgery this; but _is_ it +surgery and judgment, or atrocious murder merely? This is a question +which should be asked; and answered. Oliver Cromwell did believe in +God's judgments; and did not believe in the rose-water plan of +surgery,--which, in fact, is this editor's case too! Every idle lie and +piece of empty bluster this editor hears, he too, like Oliver, has to +shudder at it; has to think, 'Thou, idle bluster, not true, thou also +art shutting men's minds against God's fact; thou wilt issue as a cleft +crown to some poor man some day; thou also wilt have to take shelter in +bogs, whither cavalry cannot follow!' But in Oliver's time, as I say, +there was still belief in the judgments of God; in Oliver's time, there +was yet no distracted jargon of 'abolishing capital punishments,' of +Jean-Jacques philanthropy, and universal rose-water in this world still +so full of sin. Men's notion was, not for abolishing punishments, but +for making laws just. God the Maker's laws, they considered, had not yet +got the punishment abolished from them! Men had a notion that the +difference between good and evil was still considerable--equal to the +difference between heaven and hell. It was a true notion, which all men +yet saw, and felt, in all fibres of their existence, to be true. Only in +late decadent generations, fast hastening toward radical change or final +perdition, can such indiscriminate mashing up of good and evil into one +universal patent treacle, and most unmedical electuary, of Rousseau +sentimentalism, universal pardon and benevolence, with dinner and drink +and one cheer more, take effect in our earth. Electuary very poisonous, +as sweet as it is, and very nauseous; of which Oliver, happier than we, +had not yet heard the slightest intimation even in dreams. + + * * * * * + +"In fact, Oliver's dialect is rude and obsolete; the phrases of Oliver, +to him solemn on the perilous battle field as voices of God, have become +to us most mournful when spouted as frothy cant from Exeter Hall. The +reader has, all along, to make steady allowance for that. And on the +whole, clear recognition will be difficult for him. To a poor slumberous +canting age, mumbling to itself every where, Peace, peace, when there is +no peace,--such a phenomena as Oliver, in Ireland or elsewhere, is not +the most recognizable in all its meanings. But it waits there for +recognition, and can wait an age or two. The memory of Oliver Cromwell, +as I count, has a good many centuries in it yet; and ages of very varied +complexion to apply to, before all end. My reader, in this passage and +others, shall make of it what he can. + +"But certainly, at lowest, here is a set of military despatches of the +most unexampled nature! Most rough, unkempt; shaggy as the Numidian +lion. A style rugged as crags; coarse, drossy: yet with a meaning in it, +an energy, a depth; pouring on like a fire torrent; perennial _fire_ of +it visible athwart all drosses and defacements; not uninteresting to +see! This man has come into distracted Ireland with a God's truth in the +heart of him, though an unexpected one; the first such man they have +seen for a great while indeed. He carries acts of Parliament, laws of +earth and heaven, in one hand; drawn sword in the other. He addresses +the bewildered Irish populations, the black ravening coil of sanguinary +blustering individuals at Tredah and elsewhere: 'Sanguinary, blustering +individuals, whose word is grown worthless as the barking of dogs; whose +very thought is false, representing no fact, but the contrary of +fact--behold, I am come to speak and to do the truth among you. Here are +acts in Parliament, methods of regulation and veracity, emblems the +nearest we poor Puritans could make them of God's law-book, to which it +is and shall be our perpetual effort to make them correspond nearer and +nearer. Obey them, help us to perfect them, be peaceable and true under +them, it shall be well with you. Refuse to obey them, I will not let +you continue living! As articulate speaking veracious orderly men, not +as a blustering, murderous kennel of dogs run rabid, shall you continue +in this earth. Choose!' They chose to disbelieve him; could not +understand that he, more than the others, meant any truth or justice to +them. They rejected his summons and terms at Tredah; he stormed the +place; and, according to his promise, put every man of the garrison to +death. His own soldiers are forbidden to plunder, by paper proclamation; +and in ropes of authentic hemp, they are hanged when they do it. To +Wexford garrison, the like terms as at Tredah; and, failing these, the +like storm. Here is a man whose word represents a thing! Not bluster +this, and false jargon scattering itself to the winds; what this man +speaks out of him comes to pass as a fact; speech with this man is +accurately prophetic of deed. This is the first king's face poor Ireland +ever saw; the first friend's face, _little as it recognizes him_--poor +Ireland!" + +Yes, Cromwell had force and sagacity to get that done which he had +resolved to get done; and this is the whole truth about your admiration, +Mr. Carlyle. Accordingly, at Drogheda quoth Cromwell,-- + +"I believe we put to sword the whole number of the defendants. * * +Indeed, being in the heat of action, I forbade them to spare any that +were in arms in the town; and I think that night they put to the sword +about two thousand men, divers of the officers and soldiers being fled +over the bridge into the other part of the town; and where about one +hundred of them possessed St. Peter's Church, steeple, &c. These, being +summoned to yield to mercy, refused. Whereupon I ordered the steeple of +St. Peter's Church to be fired; when one of them was heard to say, in +the midst of the flames, 'God confound me! I burn, I burn!' + +"I am persuaded that this is a righteous judgment of God upon these +barbarous wretches who have imbrued their hands in so much innocent +blood; and that it will tend to prevent the effusion of blood for the +future. Which are the satisfactory grounds to such actions, which +otherwise cannot but work remorse and regret. * * This hath been an +exceeding great mercy." + +Certainly one not of the rose-water or treacle kind. Mr. Carlyle says +such measures "cut to the heart of the war," and brought peace. Was +there _then_ no crying of Peace, Peace, when there was no peace? Ask the +Irish peasantry why they mark that period with the solemn phrase of +"Cromwell's Curse!" + +For ourselves, though aware of the mistakes and errors in particulars +that must occur, we believe the summing up of a man's character in the +verdict of his time, is likely to be correct. We believe that Cromwell +was "a curse," as much as a blessing, in these acts of his. We believe +him ruthless, ambitious, half a hypocrite, (few men have courage or want +of soul to bear being wholly so,) and we think it is rather too bad to +rave at us in our time for canting, and then hold up the prince of +canters for our reverence in his "dimly seen nobleness." Dimly, indeed, +despite the rhetoric and satire of Mr. Carlyle! + +In previous instances where Mr. Carlyle has acted out his +predeterminations as to the study of a character, we have seen +circumstances favor him, at least sometimes. There were fine moments, +fine lights upon the character that he would seize upon. But here the +facts look just as they always have. He indeed ascertains that the +Cromwell family were not mere brewers or plebeians, but "substantial +gentry," and that there is not the least ground for the common notion +that Cromwell lived at any time a dissolute life. But with the exception +of these emendations, still the history looks as of old. We see a man of +strong and wise mind, educated by the pressure of great occasions to +station of command; we see him wearing the religious garb which was the +custom of the times, and even preaching to himself as well as to +others--for well can we imagine that his courage and his pride would +have fallen without keeping up the illusion; but we never see Heaven +answering his invocations in any way that can interfere with the rise of +his fortunes or the accomplishment of his plans. To ourselves, the tone +of these religious holdings-forth is sufficiently expressive; they all +ring hollow; we have never read any thing of the sort more repulsive to +us than the letter to Mr. Hammond, which Mr. Carlyle thinks such a noble +contrast to the impiety of the present time. Indeed, we cannot recover +from our surprise at Mr. Carlyle's liking these letters; his +predetermination must have been strong indeed. Again, we see Cromwell +ruling with the strong arm, and carrying the spirit of monarchy to an +excess which no Stuart could surpass. Cromwell, indeed, is wise, and the +king he had punished with death is foolish; Charles is faithless, and +Cromwell crafty; we see no other difference. Cromwell does not, in +power, abide by the principles that led him to it; and we can't help--so +rose-water imbecile are we!--admiring those who do: one Lafayette, for +instance--poor chevalier so despised by Mr. Carlyle--for abiding by his +principles, though impracticable, more than Louis Philippe, who laid +them aside, so far as necessary, "to secure peace to the kingdom;" and +to us it looks black for one who kills kings to grow to be more kingly +than a king. + +The death of Charles I. was a boon to the world, for it marked the dawn +of a new era, when kings, in common with other men, are to be held +accountable by God and mankind for what they do. Many who took part in +this act which _did_ require a courage and faith almost unparalleled, +were, no doubt, moved by the noblest sense of duty. We doubt not this +had its share in the bosom counsels of Cromwell. But we cannot +sympathize with the apparent satisfaction of Mr. Carlyle in seeing him +engaged, two days after the execution, in marriage treaty for his son. +This seems more ruthlessness than calmness. One who devoted so many days +to public fasting and prayer, on less occasions, might well make solemn +pause on this. Mr. Carlyle thinks much of some pleasant domestic letters +from Cromwell. What brigand, what pirate, fails to have some such soft +and light feelings? + +In short, we have no time to say all we think; but we stick to the +received notions of Old Noll, with his great, red nose, hard heart, long +head, and crafty ambiguities. Nobody ever doubted his great abilities +and force of will; neither doubt we that he was made an "instrument" +just as he professeth. But as to looking on him through Mr. Carlyle's +glasses, we shall not be sneered or stormed into it, unless he has other +proof to offer than is shown yet. And we resent the violence he offers +both to our prejudices and our perceptions. If he has become interested +in Oliver, or any other pet hyena, by studying his habits, is that any +reason we should admit him to our Pantheon? No! our imbecility shall +keep fast the door against any thing short of proofs that in the hyena a +god is incarnated. Mr. Carlyle declares that he sees it, but we really +cannot. The hyena is surely not out of the kingdom of God, but as to +being the finest emblem of what is divine--no, no! + +In short, we can sympathize with the words of John Maidstone:-- + +"He [Cromwell] was a strong man in the dark perils of war; in the high +places of the field, hope shone in him like a pillar of fire, when it +had gone out in the others"--a poetic and sufficient account of the +secret of his power. + +But Mr. Carlyle goes on to gild the refined gold thus:-- + +"A genuine king among men, Mr. Maidstone! The divinest sight this world +sees, when it is privileged to see such, and not be sickened with the +unholy apery of such." + +We know you do with all your soul love kings and heroes, Mr. Carlyle, +but we are not sure you would always know the Sauls from the Davids. We +fear, if you had the disposal of the holy oil, you would be tempted to +pour it on the head of him who is taller by the head than all his +brethren, without sufficient care as to purity of inward testimony. + +Such is the impression left on us by the book thus far, as to the view +of its hero; but as to what difficulties attended the writing the +history of Cromwell, the reader will like to see what Mr. Carlyle +himself says:-- + +"These authentic utterances of the man Oliver himself--I have gathered +them from far and near; fished them up from the foul Lethean quagmires +where they lay buried; I have washed, or endeavored to wash, them clean +from foreign stupidities, (such a job of buck-washing as I do not long +to repeat;) and the world shall now see them in their own shape." + +For the rest, this book is of course entertaining, witty, dramatic, +picturesque; all traits that are piquant, many that have profound +interest, are brought out better than new. The "letters and speeches" +are put into readable state, and this alone is a great benefit. They are +a relief after Mr. Carlyle's high-seasoned writing; and this again is a +relief after their long-winded dimnesses. Most of the heroic anecdotes +of the time had been used up before, but they lose nothing in the hands +of Carlyle; and pictures of the scenes, such as of Naseby fight, for +instance, it was left to him to give. We have passed over the hackneyed +ground attended by a torch-bearer, who has given a new animation to the +procession of events, and cast a ruddy glow on many a striking +physiognomy. That any truth of high value has been brought to light, we +do not perceive--certainly nothing has been added to our own sense of +the greatness of the times, nor any new view presented that we can +adopt, as to the position and character of the agents. + +We close with the only one of Cromwell's letters that we really like. +Here his religious words and his temper seem quite sincere. + + "_To my loving Brother, Colonel Valentine Walton: These._ + + July, 1644. + + "DEAR SIR: It's our duty to sympathize in all mercies; and to + praise the Lord together in chastisements or trials, so that we may + sorrow together. + + "Truly England and the church of God hath had a great favor from + the Lord, in this great victory given unto us, such as the like + never was since this war began. It had all the evidences of an + absolute victory obtained by the Lord's blessing upon the godly + party principally. We never charged but we routed the enemy. The + left wing, which I commanded, being our own horse, saving a few + Scots in our rear, beat all the prince's horse. God make them as + stubble to our swords. We charged their regiments of foot with our + horse, and routed all we charged. The particulars I cannot relate + now; but I believe, of twenty thousand, the prince hath not four + thousand left. Give glory, all the glory, to God. + + "Sir, God hath taken away your eldest son by a cannon-shot. It + brake his leg. We were necessitated to have it cut off, whereof he + died. + + "Sir, you know my own trials this way;[24] but the Lord supported + me with this, that the Lord took him into the happiness we all pant + for and live for. There is your precious child, full of glory, + never to know sin or sorrow any more. He was a gallant young man, + exceedingly gracious. God give you his comfort. Before his death he + was so full of comfort, that to Frank Russel and myself he could + not express it, 'it was so great above his pain.' This he said to + us. Indeed it was admirable. A little after, he said one thing lay + upon his spirit. I asked him what that was. He told me it was, that + God had not suffered him to be any more the executioner of his + enemies. At his fall, his horse being killed with the bullet, and, + as I am informed, three horses more, I am told he bid them open to + the right and left, that he might see the rogues run. Truly he was + exceedingly beloved in the army, of all that knew him. But few knew + him; for he was a precious young man, fit for God. You have cause + to bless the Lord. He is a glorious saint in heaven; wherein you + ought exceedingly to rejoice. Let this drink up your sorrow: seeing + these are not feigned words to comfort you, but the thing is so + real and undoubted a truth. You may do all things by the strength + of Christ. Seek that, and you shall easily bear your trial. Let + this public mercy to the church of God make you to forget your + private sorrow. The Lord be your strength; so prays + + "Your truly faithful and loving brother, + "OLIVER CROMWELL." + + + +And add this noble passage, in which Carlyle speaks of the morbid +affection of Cromwell's mind:-- + +"In those years it must be that Dr. Simcott, physician in Huntingdon, +had to do with Oliver's hypochondriac maladies. He told Sir Philip +Warwick, unluckily specifying no date, or none that has survived, 'he +had often been sent for at midnight;' Mr. Cromwell for many years was +very 'splenetic,' (spleen-struck,) often thought he was just about to +die, and also 'had fancies about the Town Cross.'[25] Brief intimation, +of which the reflective reader may make a great deal. Samuel Johnson too +had hypochondrias; all great souls are apt to have; and to be in thick +darkness generally, till the eternal ways and the celestial guiding +stars disclose themselves, and the vague abyss of life knit itself up +into firmaments for them. The temptations in the wilderness, choices of +Hercules, and the like, in succinct or loose form, are appointed for +every man that will assert a soul in himself and be a man. Let Oliver +take comfort in his dark sorrows and melancholies. The quantity of +sorrow he has, does it not mean withal the quantity of _sympathy_ he +has, the quantity of faculty and victory he shall yet have? 'Our sorrow +is the inverted image of our nobleness.' The depth of our despair +measures what capability, and height of claim, we have to hope. Black +smoke as of Tophet filling all your universe, it can yet by true +heart-energy become _flame_, and brilliancy of heaven. Courage!" + +Were the flame but a pure as well as a bright flame! Sometimes we know +the black phantoms change to white angel forms; the vulture is +metamorphosed into a dove. Was it so in this instance? Unlike Mr. +Carlyle, we are willing to let each reader judge for himself; but +perhaps we should not be so generous if we had studied ourselves sick in +wading through all that mass of papers, and had nothing to defend us +against the bitterness of biliousness, except a growing enthusiasm about +our hero. + + + + +EMERSON'S ESSAYS[26] + + +At the distance of three years this volume follows the first series of +Essays, which have already made to themselves a circle of readers, +attentive, thoughtful, more and more intelligent; and this circle is a +large one if we consider the circumstances of this country, and of +England also, at this time. + +In England it would seem there are a larger number of persons waiting +for an invitation to calm thought and sincere intercourse than among +ourselves. Copies of Mr. Emerson's first published little volume called +"Nature," have there been sold by thousands in a short time, while one +edition has needed seven years to get circulated here. Several of his +orations and essays from the "Dial" have also been republished there, +and met with a reverent and earnest response. + +We suppose that while in England the want of such a voice is as great as +here, a larger number are at leisure to recognize that want; a far +larger number have set foot in the speculative region, and have ears +refined to appreciate these melodious accents. + +Our people, heated by a partisan spirit, necessarily occupied in these +first stages by bringing out the material resources of the land, not +generally prepared by early training for the enjoyment of books that +require attention and reflection, are still more injured by a large +majority of writers and speakers, who lend all their efforts to flatter +corrupt tastes and mental indolence, instead of feeling it their +prerogative and their duty to admonish the community of the danger and +arouse it to nobler energy. The plan of the popular writer or lecturer +is not to say the best he knows in as few and well-chosen words as he +can, making it his first aim to do justice to the subject. Rather he +seeks to beat out a thought as thin as possible, and to consider what +the audience will be most willing to receive. + +The result of such a course is inevitable. Literature and art must +become daily more degraded; philosophy cannot exist. A man who feels +within his mind some spark of genius, or a capacity for the exercises of +talent, should consider himself as endowed with a sacred commission. He +is the natural priest, the shepherd of the people. He must raise his +mind as high as he can towards the heaven of truth, and try to draw up +with him those less gifted by nature with ethereal lightness. If he does +not so, but rather employs his powers to flatter them in their poverty, +and to hinder aspiration by useless words, and a mere seeming of +activity, his sin is great; he is false to God, and false to man. + +Much of this sin indeed is done ignorantly. The idea that literature +calls men to the genuine hierarchy is almost forgotten. One, who finds +himself able, uses his pen, as he might a trowel, solely to procure +himself bread, without having reflected on the position in which he +thereby places himself. + +Apart from the troop of mercenaries, there is one, still larger, of +those who use their powers merely for local and temporary ends, aiming +at no excellence other than may conduce to these. Among these rank +persons of honor and the best intentions; but they neglect the lasting +for the transient, as a man neglects to furnish his mind that he may +provide the better for the house in which his body is to dwell for a few +years. + +At a period when these sins and errors are prevalent, and threaten to +become more so, how can we sufficiently prize and honor a mind which is +quite pure from such? When, as in the present case, we find a man whose +only aim is the discernment and interpretation of the spiritual laws by +which we live, and move, and have our being, all whose objects are +permanent, and whose every word stands for a fact. + +If only as a representative of the claims of individual culture in a +nation which is prone to lay such stress on artificial organization and +external results, Mr. Emerson would be invaluable here. History will +inscribe his name as a father of his country, for he is one who pleads +her cause against herself. + +If New England may be regarded as a chief mental focus to the New +World,--and many symptoms seem to give her this place,--as to other +centres belong the characteristics of heart and lungs to the body +politic; if we may believe, as we do believe, that what is to be acted +out, in the country at large, is, most frequently, first indicated +there, as all the phenomena of the nervous system are in the fantasies +of the brain, we may hail as an auspicious omen the influence Mr. +Emerson has there obtained, which is deep-rooted, increasing, and, over +the younger portion of the community, far greater than that of any other +person. + +His books are received there with a more ready intelligence than +elsewhere, partly because his range of personal experience and +illustration applies to that region; partly because he has prepared the +way for his books to be read by his great powers as a speaker. + +The audience that waited for years upon the lectures, a part of which is +incorporated into these volumes of Essays, was never large, but it was +select, and it was constant. Among the hearers were some, who, though, +attracted by the beauty of character and manner, they were willing to +hear the speaker through, yet always went away discontented. They were +accustomed to an artificial method, whose scaffolding could easily be +retraced, and desired an obvious sequence of logical inferences. They +insisted there was nothing in what they had heard, because they could +not give a clear account of its course and purport. They did not see +that Pindar's odes might be very well arranged for their own purpose, +and yet not bear translating into the methods of Mr. Locke. + +Others were content to be benefited by a good influence, without a +strict analysis of its means. "My wife says it is about the elevation of +human nature, and so it seems to me," was a fit reply to some of the +critics. Many were satisfied to find themselves excited to congenial +thought and nobler life, without an exact catalogue of the thoughts of +the speaker. + +Those who believed no truth could exist, unless encased by the burrs of +opinion, went away utterly baffled. Sometimes they thought he was on +their side; then presently would come something on the other. He really +seemed to believe there were two sides to every subject, and even to +intimate higher ground, from which each might be seen to have an +infinite number of sides or bearings, an impertinence not to be endured! +The partisan heard but once, and returned no more. + +But some there were,--simple souls,--whose life had been, perhaps, +without clear light, yet still a-search after truth for its own sake, +who were able to receive what followed on the suggestion of a subject in +a natural manner, as a stream of thought. These recognized, beneath the +veil of words, the still small voice of conscience, the vestal fires of +lone religious hours, and the mild teachings of the summer woods. + +The charm of the elocution, too, was great. His general manner was that +of the reader, occasionally rising into direct address or invocation in +passages where tenderness or majesty demanded more energy. At such times +both eye and voice called on a remote future to give a worthy reply,--a +future which shall manifest more largely the universal soul as it was +then manifest to this soul. The tone of the voice was a grave body tone, +full and sweet rather than sonorous, yet flexible, and haunted by many +modulations, as even instruments of wood and brass seem to become after +they have been long played on with skill and taste; how much more so the +human voice! In the more expressive passages it uttered notes of +silvery clearness, winning, yet still more commanding. The words uttered +in those tones floated a while above us, then took root in the memory +like winged seed. + +In the union of an even rustic plainness with lyric inspirations, +religious dignity with philosophic calmness, keen sagacity in details +with boldness of view, we saw what brought to mind the early poets and +legislators of Greece--men who taught their fellows to plough and avoid +moral evil, sing hymns to the gods, and watch the metamorphoses of +nature. Here in civic Boston was such a man--one who could see man in +his original grandeur and his original childishness, rooted in simple +nature, raising to the heavens the brow and eyes of a poet. + +And these lectures seemed not so much lectures as grave didactic poems, +theogonies, perhaps, adorned by odes when some power was in question +whom the poet had best learned to serve, and with eclogues wisely +portraying in familiar tongue the duties of man to man and "harmless +animals." + +Such was the attitude in which the speaker appeared to that portion of +the audience who have remained permanently attached to him. They value +his words as the signets of reality; receive his influence as a help and +incentive to a nobler discipline than the age, in its general aspect, +appears to require; and do not fear to anticipate the verdict of +posterity in claiming for him the honors of greatness, and, in some +respects, of a master. + +In New England Mr. Emerson thus formed for himself a class of readers +who rejoice to study in his books what they already know by heart. For, +though the thought has become familiar, its beautiful garb is always +fresh and bright in hue. + +A similar circle of "like-minded" persons the books must and do form for +themselves, though with a movement less directly powerful, as more +distant from its source. + +The Essays have also been obnoxious to many charges; to that of +obscurity, or want of perfect articulation; of "euphuism," as an excess +of fancy in proportion to imagination; and an inclination, at times, to +subtlety at the expense of strength, have been styled. The human heart +complains of inadequacy, either in the nature or experience of the +writer, to represent its full vocation and its deeper needs. Sometimes +it speaks of this want as "under development," or a want of expansion +which may yet be remedied; sometimes doubts whether "in this mansion +there be either hall or portal to receive the loftier of the passions." +Sometimes the soul is deified at the expense of nature, then again +nature at that of man; and we are not quite sure that we can make a true +harmony by balance of the statements. This writer has never written one +good work, if such a work be one where the whole commands more attention +than the parts, or if such a one be produced only where, after an +accumulation of materials, fire enough be applied to fuse the whole into +one new substance. This second series is superior in this respect to the +former; yet in no one essay is the main stress so obvious as to produce +on the mind the harmonious effect of a noble river or a tree in full +leaf. Single passages and sentences engage our attention too much in +proportion. These Essays, it has been justly said, tire like a string of +mosaics or a house built of medals. We miss what we expect in the work +of the great poet, or the great philosopher--the liberal air of all the +zones; the glow, uniform yet various in tint, which is given to a body +by free circulation of the heart's blood from the hour of birth. Here +is, undoubtedly, the man of ideas; but we want the ideal man also--want +the heart and genius of human life to interpret it; and here our +satisfaction is not so perfect. We doubt this friend raised himself too +early to the perpendicular, and did not lie along the ground long enough +to hear the secret whispers of our parent life. We could wish he might +be thrown by conflicts on the lap of mother earth, to see if he would +not rise again with added powers. + +All this we may say, but it cannot excuse us from benefiting by the +great gifts that have been given, and assigning them their due place. + +Some painters paint on a red ground. And this color may be supposed to +represent the groundwork most immediately congenial to most men, as it +is the color of blood, and represents human vitality. The figures traced +upon it are instinct with life in its fulness and depth. + +But other painters paint on a gold ground. And a very different, but no +less natural, because also a celestial beauty, is given to their works +who choose for their foundation the color of the sunbeam, which Nature +has preferred for her most precious product, and that which will best +bear the test of purification--gold. + +If another simile may be allowed, another no less apt is at hand. Wine +is the most brilliant and intense expression of the powers of earth. It +is her potable fire, her answer to the sun. It exhilarates, it inspires, +but then it is liable to fever and intoxicate, too, the careless +partaker. + +Mead was the chosen drink of the northern gods. And this essence of the +honey of the mountain bee was not thought unworthy to revive the souls +of the valiant who had left their bodies on the fields of strife below. + +Nectar should combine the virtues of the ruby wine, the golden mead, +without their defects or dangers. + +Two high claims on the attention of his contemporaries our writer can +vindicate. One from his sincerity. You have his thought just as it found +place in the life of his own soul. Thus, however near or relatively +distant its approximation to absolute truth, its action on you cannot +fail to be healthful. It is a part of the free air. + +Emerson belongs to that band of whom there may be found a few in every +age, and who now in known human history may be counted by hundreds, who +worship the one God only, the God of Truth. They worship, not saints, +nor creeds, nor churches, nor reliques, nor idols in any form. The mind +is kept open to truth, and life only valued as a tendency towards it. +This must be illustrated by acts and words of love, purity and +intelligence. Such are the salt of the earth; let the minutest crystal +of that salt be willingly by us held in solution. + +The other claim is derived from that part of his life, which, if +sometimes obstructed or chilled by the critical intellect, is yet the +prevalent and the main source of his power. It is that by which he +imprisons his hearer only to free him again as a "liberating God," (to +use his own words.) But, indeed, let us use them altogether, for none +other, ancient or modern, can more worthily express how, making present +to us the courses and destinies of nature, he invests himself with her +serenity and animates us with her joy. + +"Poetry was all written before time was; and whenever we are so finely +organized that we can penetrate into that region where the air is music, +we hear those primal warblings, and attempt to write them down, but we +lose ever and anon a word or a verse, and substitute something of our +own, and thus miswrite the poem. The men of more delicate ear write down +these cadences more faithfully, and these transcripts, though imperfect, +become the songs of the nations." + +Thus have we, in a brief and unworthy manner, indicated some views of +these books. The only true criticism of these or any good books may be +gained by making them the companions of our lives. Does every accession +of knowledge or a juster sense of beauty make us prize them more? Then +they are good, indeed, and more immortal than mortal. Let that test be +applied to these Essays which will lead to great and complete +poems--somewhere. + + + + +CAPITAL PUNISHMENT.[27] + + +We have had this book before us for several weeks, but the task of +reading it has been so repulsive that we have been obliged to get +through it by short stages, with long intervals of rest and refreshment +between, and have only just reached the end. We believe, however, we are +now possessed of its substance, so far as it is possible to admit into +any mind matter wholly uncongenial with its structure, its faith, and +its hope. + +Meanwhile others have shown themselves more energetic in the task, and +notices have appeared that express, in part, our own views. Among others +an able critic has thus summed up his impressions:-- + +"Of the whole we will say briefly, that its premises are monstrous, its +reasoning sophistical, its conclusions absurd, and its spirit diabolic." + +We know not that we can find a better scheme of arrangement for what we +have to say than by dividing it into sections under these four heads:-- + +1st. The premises are monstrous. Here we must add the qualification, +they are monstrous _to us_. The God of these writers is not the God we +recognize; the views they have of human nature are antipodal to ours. We +believe in a Creative Spirit, the essense of whose being is Love. He has +created men in the spirit of love, intending to develop them to perfect +harmony with himself. He has permitted the temporary existence of evil +as a condition necessary to bring out in them free agency and +individuality of character. Punishment is the necessary result of a bad +choice in them; it is not meant by him as vengeance, but as an +admonition to choose better. Man is not born totally evil; he is born +capable both of good and evil, and the Holy Spirit in working on him +only quickens the soul already there to know its Father. To one who +takes such views the address of Jesus becomes intelligible--"Be ye +therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful." "For with the same +measure that ye mete withal, it shall be measured to you again." + +Those who take these views of the relation between God and man must +naturally tend to have punishment consist as much as possible in the +inward spiritual results of faults, rather than a violent outward +enforcement of penalty. They must, so far as possible, seek to revere +God by showing themselves brotherly to man; and if they wish to obey +Christ, will not forget that he came especially to call _sinners_ to +repentance. + +The views of these writers are the opposite of all this. We need not +state them; they are sufficiently indicated in each page of their own. +Their conclusions are the natural result of such premises. We could say +nothing about either, except to express dissent from beginning to end. +Yet would it be sweet and noble, and worthy of this late period of human +progress, if their position had been stated in a spirit of religious, of +manly courtesy; if they had had the soul to say, "We differ from you, +but we know that so wide and full a stream of thought and emotion as you +are moved by could not, under the providential rule in which we believe, +have arisen in vain. The object of every such manifestation of life must +be to bring out truth; come, let us seek it together. Let us show you +our view, compare it with yours, and let us see which is the better. If, +as we think, the truth lie with us, what joy will it be for us to cast +the clear light on the object of your aspirations!" + +Of this degree of liberality we have known some, even, who served the +same creed as these writers to be capable. There is, indeed, a higher +spirit, which, believing all forms of opinion which we hold in the +present stage of our growth can be but approximations to truth, and that +God has permitted to the multitude of men a multitude of ways by which +they may approach one common goal, looks with reverence on all modes of +faith sincerely held and acted upon, and while it rejoices in those +souls which have reached the higher stages of spiritual growth, has no +despair as to those which still grope in a narrow path and by a +glimmering light. Such liberality is, of course, out of the question +with such writers as the present. Their faith binds them to believe that +they have absolute truth, and that all who do not believe as they do are +wretched heretics. Those whose creed is of narrower scope are to them +hateful bigots; but also those with whom it is of wider are +latitudinarians or infidels. The spot of earth on which they stand is +the only one safe from the conflagration, and only through spectacles +and spyglasses such as are used by them can the sun and stars be seen. +Yet, as we said before, some such, though incapacitated for an +intellectual, are not so for a spiritual tolerance. With them the heart, +more Christ-like than the creed, urges to a spirit of love and reverence +even towards convictions opposed to their own. The sincere man is always +respectable in their eyes, and they cannot help feeling that, wherever +there is a desire for truth, there is the spirit of God, and his true +priests will approach with gentleness, and do their ministry with holy +care. Unhappily, it is very different with the persons before us. + +We let go the first two counts of the indictment. Their premises are, as +we have said, such as we totally dissent from, and their conclusions +such as naturally flow from those premises. Yet they are those of a +large body of men, and there must, no doubt, be temporary good in this +state of things, or it would not be permitted. When these writers say, +that to them moral and penal are coincident terms, they display a state +of mind which prefers basing virtue on the fear of punishment, rather +than the love of right. If this be sincerely their state, if the idea of +morality is with them entirely dependent on the retributions upon vice, +rather than the loveliness and joys of goodness, it is impossible for +those who are in a different state of mind to say what they _do_ need. +It may seem to us, indeed, that, if the strait jacket was taken off, +they might recover the natural energy of their frames, and do far better +without it; or that, if no longer hurried along the road by the +impending lash behind, they might uplift their eyes, and find sufficient +cause for speed in the glory visible before, though at a distance; +however, it is not for us to say what their wants are. Let them choose +their own principles of action, and if they lead to purity of life, and +benevolence, and humanity of heart, we will not say a word against them. + +But in the instance before us, they do not produce these good fruits, +but the contrary; and therefore we have something to say on the other +part of the criticism, to wit: that "the reasoning is sophistical, and +the spirit diabolic;" for, indeed, in the sense of pride by which the +angels fell, arrogance of judgment, malice, and all uncharitableness, we +have never looked on printed pages more deeply sinful. We love an honest +lover; but next best, we, with Dr. Johnson, know how to respect an +honest hater. But even he would scarce endure so bitter and ardent +haters as these, and with so many and inconsistent objects of +hatred--who hate Catholics and thorough Protestants, hate materialists, +and hate spiritualists. Their list is really too large for _human_ +sympathy. + +We wish, however, to make all due allowance for incapacity in these +writers to do better; and their disqualifications for their task, apart +from a form of belief which inclines them rather to cling to the past, +than to seek progress for the future, seem to be many. + +The "reasoning is sophistical," and it would need the patience of a +Socrates to unravel the weary web, and convince these sophists, against +their will, that they are exactly in the opposite region to what they +suppose. For the task we have not space, skill, or patience; but we can +give some hints by which readers may be led to examine whether it is so +or not. + +These writers profess to occupy the position of defence; surely never +was one sustained so in the spirit of offence. + +1st. They appeal either to the natural or regenerate man, as suits their +purpose. Sometimes all traditions and their literal interpretations are +right; sometimes it is impossible to interpret them aright, unless +according to some peculiar doctrine, and the natural inference of the +common mind would be an error. + +2d. They strain, but vainly, to show the New Testament no improvement on +the Old, and themselves in harmonious relations to both. On this subject +we would confidently leave the arbitration to a mind--could such a one +be found--sufficiently disciplined to examine the subject, and new both +to the New Testament and this volume, as that of Rammohun Roy might have +been, whether its views are not of the same strain that Jesus sought to +correct and enlighten among the Jews, and whether the writers do not +treat the teachings of the new dispensation most unfairly, in their +desire to wrest them into the service of the old. + +3d. Wherever there is a weak place in the argument, it is filled up by +abuse of the opposite party. The words "absurd," "infidel," +"blasphemous," "shallow philosophy," "sickly sentimentalism," and the +like, are among the favorite missiles of these _defenders_ of the truth. +They are of a sort whose frequent use is generally supposed to argue the +want of a shield of reason and a heart of faith. + +And this brings us to a more close consideration of the spirit of this +book, characterized by our contemporary as "diabolic." And we, also, +cannot excuse ourselves from marking it as, in this respect, one of the +worst books we have ever seen. + +It is not merely bitter intolerance, arrogance, and want of spiritual +perception, which we have to condemn in these writers. It is a want of +fairness and honor, of which we think they must be conscious. We fear +they are of those who hold the opinion that the end sanctifies the +means, and who, by pretending to serve the God of truth by other means +than strict truth, have drawn upon the "ministers of religion" the +frequent obloquy of "priestcraft." How else are we to construe the +artful use of the words "dishonest" and "infidel," wherever they are +likely to awaken the fears and prejudices of the ignorant? + +Of as bad a stamp as any is the part of this book headed "Spurious +Public Opinion." Here, as in the insinuations against Charles Burleigh, +we are unable to believe the writers to be sincere. Where we think they +are, however poor and narrow we may esteem their statement, we can +respect it, but here we cannot. + +Who can believe that such passages as the following stand for any thing +real in the mind of the writer? + +"Indeed, there is nothing that can possibly check the spirit of murder, +but the fear of death. That was all that Cain feared; he did not say, +People will put me in prison, but, They will put me to death; _and how +many other murders he may have committed, when released from that fear, +the sacred writer does not tell us_!" + +Why does not the writer of this passage draw the inference, and accuse +God of mistake, as he says his opponents accuse Him, whenever they +attempt to get beyond the Jewish ideas of vengeance. He plainly thinks +death was the only safe penalty in this case of Cain. + +"The reasoning from these drivellings of depravity in malefactors is to +the last degree wretched and absurd. Hard pushed indeed must he be in +argument who can consent to dive down into the polluted heart of a +Newgate criminal, in order to fish up, from the confessions of his +monstrous, unnatural obduracy, an argument in that very obduracy against +the fit punishment of his own crimes." + +We can only wish for such a man, that the vicissitudes of life may break +through the crust of theological arrogance and Phariseeism, and force +him to "dive down" into the depths of his own nature. We should see +afterwards whether he would be so forward to throw stones at +malefactors, so eager to hurry souls to what he regards as a final +account. + +But we have said enough as to the spirit and tendency of this book. We +shall only add a few words as to the unworthy use of the word "infidel," +in the attempt to fix a stigma upon opponents. We feel still more +contempt than indignation at the desire to work in this way on the +unthinking and ignorant. + +We ourselves are of the number stigmatized by these persons as sharing +an infidel tendency, as are all not enlisted under their own sectarian +banner. They, on their side, seem to us unbelievers in all that is most +pure and holy, and in the saving grace of love. They do not believe in +God, as we believe; they seem to us utterly deficient in the spirit of +Christ, and to be of the number of those who are always calling, "Lord, +Lord," yet never have known him. We find throughout these pages the +temper of "Lord, I thank thee that I am not as other men are"--hatred of +those whom they deem Gentiles, and a merciless spirit towards the +sinner; yet we do not take upon ourselves to give them the name of +infidels, and we solemnly call them to trial before the bar of the Only +Wise and Pure, the Searcher of hearts, to render an account of this +daring assumption. We ask them in that presence, if they are not of the +class threatened with "retribution" for saying to their brother, "Thou +fool;" and that not merely in the heat of anger, but coolly, +pertinaciously, and in a thousand ways. + +We call to sit in council the spirits of our Puritan fathers, and ask if +such was the right of individual judgment, of private conscience, they +came here to vindicate. And we solicit the verdict of posterity as to +whether the spirit of mercy or of vengeance be the more divine, and +whether the denunciatory and personal mode chosen by these writers for +carrying on this inquiry be the true one. + +We wish most sincerely this book had been a wise and noble one. To +ascertain just principles, it is necessary that the discussion should be +full and fair, and both sides ably argued. After this has been done, the +sense of the world can decide. It would be a happiness for which it +might seem that man at this time of day is ripe, that the opposing +parties should meet in open lists as brothers, believing each that the +other desired only that the truth should triumph, and able to clasp +hands as men of different structure and ways of thinking, but +fellow-students of the divine will. O, had we but found such an +adversary, above the use of artful abuse, or the feints of sophistry, +able to believe in the noble intention, of a foe as of a friend, how +cheerily would the trumpets ring out while the assembled world echoed +the signal words, "GOD SPEED THE RIGHT!" The tide of progress rolls +onward, swelling more and more with the lives of those who would fain +see all men called to repentance. It must be a strong arm, indeed, that +can build a dam to stay it even for a moment. None such do we see yet; +but we should rejoice in a noble and strong opponent, putting forth all +his power for conscience's sake. God speed the Right! + + + + +PART II. + +MISCELLANIES. + + + + +FIRST OF JANUARY + + +The new year dawns, and its appearance is hailed by a flutter of +festivity. Men and women run from house to house, scattering gifts, +smiles, and congratulations. It is a custom that seems borrowed from a +better day, unless indeed it be a prophecy that such must come. + +For why so much congratulation? A year has passed; we are nearer by a +twelvemonth to the term of this earthly probation. It is a solemn +thought; and though the consciousness of having hallowed the days by our +best endeavor, and of having much occasion to look to the Ruling Power +of all with grateful benediction, must, in cases where such feelings are +unalloyed, bring joy, one would think it must even then be a grave joy, +and one that would disincline to this loud gayety in welcoming a new +year; another year--in which we may, indeed, strive forward in a good +spirit, and find our strivings blest, but must surely expect trials, +temptations, and disappointments from without; frailty, short-coming, or +convulsion in ourselves. + +If it be appropriate to a reflective habit of mind to ask with each +night-fall the Pythagorean questions, how much more so at the close of +the year! + + "What hast thou done that's worth the doing? + And what pursued that's worth pursuing? + What sought thou knewest thou shouldst shun? + What done thou shouldst have left undone?" + +The intellectual man will also ask, What new truths have been opened to +me, or what facts presented that will lead to the discovery of truths? +The poet and the lover,--What new forms of beauty have been presented +for my delight, and as memorable illustrations of the divine +presence--unceasing, but oftentimes unfelt by our sluggish natures. + +Are there many men who fail sometimes to ask themselves questions to +this depth? who do not care to know whether they have done right, or +forborne to do wrong; whether their spirits have been enlightened by +truth, or kindled by beauty? + +Yes, strange to say, there are many who, despite the natural aspirations +of the soul and the revelations showered upon the world, think only +whether they have made money; whether the world thinks more highly of +them than it did in bygone years; whether wife and children have been in +good bodily health, and what those who call to pay their respects and +drink the new year's coffee, will think of their carpets, new also. + +How often is it that the rich man thinks even of that proposed by +Dickens as the noblest employment of the season, making the poor happy +in the way he likes best for himself, by distribution of turkey and +plum-pudding! Some, indeed, adorn the day with this much grace, though +we doubt whether it be oftenest those who could each, with ease, make +that one day a glimpse of comfort to a thousand who pass the other +winter days in shivering poverty. But some such there are who go about +to the dark and frosty dwellings, giving the "mite" where and when it is +most needed. We knew a lady, all whose riches consisted in her good head +and two hands. Widow of an eminent lawyer, but keeping boarders for a +livelihood; engaged in that hardest of occupations, with her house full +and her hands full, she yet found time to make and bake for new year's +day a hundred pies--and not the pie from which, being cut, issued the +famous four-and-twenty blackbirds, gave more cause for merriment, or was +a fitter "dish to set before the king." + +God bless his majesty, the _good_ king, who on such a day cares for the +least as much as the greatest; and like Henry IV., proposes it as a +worthy aim of his endeavor that "every poor man shall have his chicken +in the pot." This does not seem, on superficial survey, such a wonderful +boon to crave for creatures made in God's own likeness, yet is it one +that no king could ever yet bestow on his subjects, if we except the +king of Cockaigne. Our maker of the hundred pies is the best prophet we +have seen, as yet, of such a blissful state. + +But mostly to him who hath is given in material as well as in spiritual +things, and we fear the pleasures of this day are arranged almost wholly +in reference to the beautiful, the healthy, the wealthy, the witty, and +that but few banquets are prepared for the halt, the blind, and the +sorrowful. But where they are, of a surety water turns to wine by +inevitable Christ-power; no aid of miracle need be invoked. As for +thoughts which should make an epoch of the period, we suppose the number +of these to be in about the same proportion to the number of minds +capable of thought, that the pearls now existent bear to the oysters +still subsistent. + +Can we make pearls from our oyster-bed? At least, let us open some of +the shells and try. + +Dear public and friends! we wish you a happy new year. We trust that the +year past has given earnest of such a one in so far as having taught +you somewhat how to deserve and to appreciate it. + +For ourselves, the months have brought much, though, perhaps, +superficial instruction. Its scope has been chiefly love and hope for +all human beings, and among others for thyself. + +We have seen many fair poesies of human life, in which, however, the +tragic thread has not been wanting. We have beheld the exquisite +developments of childhood, and sunned the heart in its smiles. But also +have we discerned the evil star looming up that threatened cloud and +wreck to its future years. We have seen beings of some precious gifts +lost irrecoverably, as regards this present life, from inheritance of a +bad organization and unfortunate circumstances of early years. The +victims of vice we have observed lying in the gutter, companied by +vermin, trampled upon by sensuality and ignorance, and saw those who +wished not to rise, and those who strove so to do, but fell back through +weakness. Sadder and more ominous still, we have seen the good man--in +many impulses and acts of most pure, most liberal, and undoubted +goodness--yet have we noted a spot of base indulgence, a fibre of +brutality canker in a vital part this fine plant, and, while we could +not withdraw love and esteem for the good we could not doubt, have wept +secretly in the heart for the ill we could not deny. We have observed +two deaths; one of the sinner, early cut down; one of the just, full of +years and honor--_both_ were calm; both professed their reliance on the +wisdom of a heavenly Father. We have looked upon the beauteous shows of +nature in undisturbed succession, holy moonlight on the snows, loving +moonlight on the summer fields, the stars which disappoint never and +bless ever, the flowing waters which soothe and stimulate, a garden of +roses calling for queens among women, poets and heroes among men. We +have marked a desire to answer to this call, and genius brought rich +wine, but spilt it on the way, from her careless, fickle gait; and +virtue tainted with a touch of the peacock; and philosophy, never +enjoying, always seeking, had got together all the materials for the +crowning experiment, but there was no love to kindle the fire under the +furnace, and the precious secret is not precipitated yet, for the pot +will not boil to make the gold through your + + "Double, double, + Toil and trouble," + +if love do not fan the fire. + +We have seen the decay of friendships unable to endure the light of an +ideal hope--have seen, too, their resurrection in a faith and hope +beyond the tomb, where the form lies we once so fondly cherished. It is +not dead, but sleepeth; and we watch, but must weep, too, sometimes, for +the night is cold and lonely in the place of tombs. + +Nature has appeared dressed in her veil of snowy flowers for the bridal. +We have seen her brooding over her joys, a young mother in the pride and +fulness of beauty, and then bearing her offspring to their richly +ornamented sepulchre, and lately observed her as if kneeling with folded +hands in the stillness of prayer, while the bare trees and frozen +streams bore witness to her patience. + +O, much, much have we seen, and a little learned. Such is the record of +the private mind; and yet, as the bright snake-skin is cast, many sigh +and cry,-- + + "The wiser mind + Mourns less for what Time takes away + Than what he leaves behind." + +But for ourselves, we find there is kernel in the nut, though its +ripening be deferred till the late frosty weather, and it prove a hard +nut to crack even then. Looking at the individual, we see a degree of +growth, or the promise of such. In the child there is a force which will +outlast the wreck, and reach at last the promised shore. The good man, +once roused from his moral lethargy, shall make atonement for his fault, +and endure a penance that will deepen and purify his whole nature. The +poor lost ones claim a new trial in a new life, and will there, we +trust, seize firmer hold on the good for the experience they have had of +the bad. + + "We never see the stars + Till we can see nought else." + +The seeming losses are, in truth, but as pruning of the vine to make the +grapes swell more richly. + +But how is it with those larger individuals, the nations, and that +congress of such, the world? We must take a broad and superficial view +of these, as we have of private life; and in neither case can more be +done. The secrets of the confessional, or rather of the shrine, do not +come on paper, unless in poetic form. + +So we will not try to search and mine, but only to look over the world +from an ideal point of view. + +Here we find the same phenomena repeated; the good nation is yet somehow +so sick at heart that you are not sure its goodness will ever produce a +harmony of life; over the young nation, (our own,) rich in energy and +full of glee, brood terrible omens; others, as Poland and Italy, seem +irrecoverably lost. They may revive, but we feel as if it must be under +new forms. + +Forms come and go, but principles are developed and displayed more and +more. The caldron simmers, and so great is the fire that we expect it +soon to boil over, and new fates appear for Europe. + +Spain is dying by inches; England shows symptoms of having passed her +meridian; Austria has taken opium, but she must awake ere long; France +is in an uneasy dream--she knows she has been very sick, has had +terrible remedies administered, and ought to be getting thoroughly well, +which she is not. Louis Philippe watches by her pillow, doses and +bleeds her, so that she cannot fairly try her strength, and find whether +something or nothing has been done. But Louis Philippe and Metternich +must soon, in the course of nature, leave this scene; and then there +will be none to keep out air and light from the chamber, and the +patients will be roused and ascertain their true condition. + +No power is in the ascending course except the Russian; and that has +such a condensation of brute force, animated by despotic will, that it +seems sometimes as if it might by and by stride over Europe and face us +across the water. Then would be opposed to one another the two extremes +of Autocracy and Democracy, and a trial of strength would ensue between +the two principles more grand and full than any ever seen on this +planet, and of which the result must be to bind mankind by one chain of +convictions. Should, indeed, Despotism and Democracy meet as the two +slaveholding powers of the world, the result can hardly be predicted. +But there is room in the intervening age for many changes, and the czars +profess to wish to free their serfs, as our planters do to free their +slaves, and we suppose with equal sincerity; but the need of sometimes +professing such desires is a deference to the progress of principles +which bid fair to have their era yet. + +We hope such an era steadfastly, notwithstanding the deeds of darkness +that have made this year forever memorable in our annals. Our nation has +indeed shown that the lust of gain is at present her ruling passion. She +is not only resolute, but shameless, about it, and has no doubt or +scruple as to laying aside the glorious office, assigned her by fate, of +herald of freedom, light, and peace to the civilized world. + +Yet we must not despair. Even so the Jewish king, crowned with all gifts +that Heaven could bestow, was intoxicated by their plenitude, and went +astray after the most worthless idols. But he was not permitted to +forfeit finally the position designed for him: he was drawn or dragged +back to it; and so shall it be with this nation. There are trials in +store which shall amend us. + +We must believe that the pure blood shown in the time of our revolution +still glows in the heart; but the body of our nation is full of foreign +elements. A large proportion of our citizens, or their parents, came +here for worldly advantage, and have never raised their minds to any +idea of destiny or duty. More money--more land! are all the watchwords +they know. They have received the inheritance earned by the fathers of +the revolution, without their wisdom and virtue to use it. But this +cannot last. The vision of those prophetic souls must be realized, else +the nation could not exist; every body must at least "have soul enough +to save the expense of salt," or it cannot be preserved alive. + +What a year it has been with us! Texas annexed, and more annexations in +store; slavery perpetuated, as the most striking new feature of these +movements. Such are the fruits of American love of liberty! Mormons +murdered and driven out, as an expression of American freedom of +conscience; Cassius Clay's paper expelled from Kentucky; that is +American freedom of the press. And all these deeds defended on the true +Russian grounds, "We (the stronger) know what you (the weaker) ought to +do and be, and it _shall_ be so." + +Thus the principles which it was supposed, some ten years back, had +begun to regenerate the world, are left without a trophy for this past +year, except in the spread of Rongé's movement in Germany, and that of +associative and communist principles both here and in Europe, which, let +the worldling deem as he will about their practicability, he cannot deny +to be animated by faith in God and a desire for the good of man. We must +add to these the important symptoms of the spread of peace principles. + +Meanwhile, if the more valuable springs of action seem to lie dormant +for a time, there is a constant invention and perfection of the means of +action and communication which seems to say, "Do but wait patiently; +there is something of universal importance to be done by and by, and all +is preparing for it to be universally known and used at once." Else what +avail magnetic telegraphs, steamers, and rail-cars traversing every rood +of land and ocean, phonography and the mingling of all literatures, till +North embraces South and Denmark lays her head upon the lap of Italy? +Surely there would not be all this pomp of preparation as to the means +of communion, unless there were like to be something worthy to be +communicated. + +Amid the signs of the breaking down of barriers, we may mention the +Emperor Nicholas letting his daughter pass from the Greek to the Roman +church, for the sake of marrying her to the Austrian prince. Again, +similarity between him and us: he, too, is shameless; for while he signs +this marriage contract with one hand, he holds the knout in the other to +drive the Roman Catholic Poles into the Greek church. But it is a fatal +sign for his empire. 'Tis but the first step that costs, and the +Russians may look back to the marriage of the Grand Duchess Olga, as the +Chinese will to the cannonading of the English, as the first sign of +dissolution in the present form of national life. + +A similar token is given by the violation of etiquette of which Mr. Polk +is accused in his message. He, at the head of a government, speaks of +governments and their doings straightforward, as he would of persons, +and the tower, stronghold of the idea of a former age, now propped up by +etiquettes and civilities only, trembles to its foundation. + +Another sign of the times is the general panic which the decay of the +potato causes. We believe this is not without a providential meaning, +and will call attention still more to the wants of the people at large. +New and more provident regulations must be brought out, that they may +not again be left with only a potato between them and starvation. By +another of these whimsical coincidences between the histories of +Aristocracy and Democracy, the supply of _truffles_ is also failing. +The land is losing the "nice things" that the queen (truly a young +queen) thought might be eaten in place of bread. Does not this indicate +a period in which it will be felt that there must be provision for +all--the rich shall not have their truffles if the poor are driven to +eat nettles, as the French and Irish have in bygone ages? + +The poem of which we here give a prose translation lately appeared in +Germany. It is written by Moritz Hartmann, and contains the _gist_ of +the matter. + + +MISTRESS POTATO. + +There was a great stately house full of people, who have been running in +and out of its lofty gates ever since the gray times of Olympus. There +they wept, laughed, shouted, mourned, and, like day and night, came the +usual changes of joys with plagues and sorrows. Haunting that great +house up and down, making, baking, and roasting, covering and waiting on +the table, has there lived a vast number of years a loyal serving maid +of the olden time--her name was Mrs. Potato. She was a still, little, +old mother, who wore no bawbles or laces, but always had to be satisfied +with her plain, every-day clothes; and unheeded, unhonored, oftentimes +jeered at and forgotten, she served all day at the kitchen fire, and +slept at night in the worst room. When she brought the dishes to table +she got rarely a thankful glance; only at times some very poor man would +in secret shake kindly her hand. + +Generation after generation passed by, as the trees blossom, bear fruit, +and wither; but faithful remained the old housemaid, always the servant +of the last heir. + +But one morning--hear what happened. All the people came to table, and +lo! there was nothing to eat, for our good old Mistress Potato had not +been able to rise from her bed. She felt sharp pains creeping through +her poor old bones. No wonder she was worn out at last! She had not in +all her life dared take a day's rest, lest so the poor should starve. +Indeed, it is wonderful that her good will should have kept her up so +long. She must have had a great constitution to begin with. + +The guests had to go away without breakfast. They were a little +troubled, but hoped to make up for it at dinner time. But dinner time +came, and the table was empty; and then, indeed, they began to inquire +about the welfare of Cookmaid Potato. And up into her dark chamber, +where she lay on her poor bed, came great and little, young and old, to +ask after the good creature. "What can be done for her?" "Bring warm +clothes, medicine, a better bed." "Lay aside your work to help her." "If +she dies we shall never again be able to fill the table;" and now, +indeed, they sang her praises. + +O, what a fuss about the sick bed in that moist and mouldy chamber! and +out doors it was just the same--priests with their masses, processions, +and prayers, and all the world ready to walk to penance, if Mistress +Potato could but be saved. And the doctors in their wigs, and +counsellors in masks of gravity, sat there to devise some remedy to +avert this terrible ill. + +As when a most illustrious dame is recovering from birth of a son, so +now bulletins inform the world of the health of Mistress Potato, and, +not content with what they thus learn, couriers and lackeys besiege the +door; nay, the king's coach is stopping there. Yes! yes! the humble poor +maid, 'tis about her they are all so frightened! Who would ever have +believed it in days when the table was nicely covered? + +The gentlemen of pens and books, priests, kings, lords, and ministers, +all have senses to scent our famine. Natheless Mistress Potato gets no +better. May God help her for the sake, not of such people, but of the +poor. For the great it is a token they should note, that all must +crumble and fall to ruin, if they will work and weary to death the poor +maid who cooks in the kitchen. + +She lived for you in the dirt and ashes, provided daily for poor and +rich; you ought to humble yourselves for her sake. Ah, could we hope +that you would take a hint, and _next time_ pay some heed to the +housemaid before she is worn and wearied to death! + + * * * * * + +So sighs, rather than hopes, Moritz Hartmann. The wise ministers of +England, indeed, seem much more composed than he supposes them. They are +like the old man who, when he saw the avalanche coming down upon his +village, said, "It is coming, but I shall have time to fill my pipe once +more." _He_ went in to do so, and was buried beneath the ruins. But Sir +Robert Peel, who is so deliberate, has, doubtless, manna in store for +those who have lost their customary food. + +Another sign of the times is, that there are left on the earth none of +the last dynasty of geniuses, rich in so many imperial heads. The world +is full of talent, but it flows downward to water the plain. There are +no towering heights, no Mont Blancs now. We cannot recall one great +genius at this day living. The time of prophets is over, and the era +they prophesied must be at hand; in its couduct a larger proportion of +the human race shall take part than ever before. As prime ministers have +succeeded kings in the substantiate of monarchy, so now shall a house of +representatives succeed prime ministers. + +Altogether, it looks as if a great time was coming, and that time one of +democracy. Our country will play a ruling part. Her eagle will lead the +van; but whether to soar upward to the sun or to stoop for helpless +prey, who now dares promise? At present she has scarce achieved a Roman +nobleness, a Roman liberty; and whether her eagle is less like the +vulture, and more like the Phoeix, than was the fierce Roman bird, we +dare not say. May the new year give hopes of the latter, even if the +bird need first to be purified by fire. + +_Jan. 1, 1846._ + + + + +NEW YEAR'S DAY. + + +It was a beautiful custom among some of the Indian tribes, once a year, +to extinguish all the fires, and, by a day of fasting and profound +devotion, to propitiate the Great Spirit for the coming year. They then +produced sparks by friction, and lighted up afresh the altar and the +hearth with the new fire. + +And this fire was considered as the most precious and sacred gift from +one person to another, binding them in bonds of inviolate friendship for +that year, certainly; with a hope that the same might endure through +life. From the young to the old, it was a token of the highest respect; +from the old to the young, of a great expectation. + +To us would that it might be granted to solemnize the new year by the +mental renovation of which this ceremony was the eloquent symbol. Would +that we might extinguish, if only for a day, those fires where an +uninformed religious ardor has led to human sacrifices; which have +warmed the household, but, also, prepared pernicious, more than +wholesome, viands for their use. + +The Indian produced the new spark by friction. It would be a still more +beautiful emblem, and expressive of the more extended powers of +civilized men, if we should draw the spark from the centre of our system +and the source of light, by means of the burning glass. + +Where, then, is to be found the new knowledge, the new thought, the new +hope, that shall begin a new year in a spirit not discordant with "the +acceptable year of the Lord"? Surely there must be such existing, if +latent--some sparks of new fire, pure from ashes and from smoke, worthy +to be offered as a new year's gift. Let us look at the signs of the +times, to see in what spot this fire shall be sought--on what fuel it +may be fed. The ancients poured out libations of the choicest juices of +earth, to express their gratitude to the Power that had enabled them to +be sustained from her bosom. They enfranchised slaves, to show that +devotion to the gods induced a sympathy with men. + +Let us look about us to see with what rites, what acts of devotion, this +modern Christian nation greets the approach of the new year; by what +signs she denotes the clear morning of a better day, such as may be +expected when the eagle has entered into covenant with the dove. + +This last week brings tidings that a portion of the inhabitants of +Illinois, the rich and blooming region on which every gift of nature has +been lavished, to encourage the industry and brighten the hopes of man, +not only refuses a libation to the Power that has so blessed their +fields, but declares that the dew is theirs, and the sunlight is +theirs--that they live from and for themselves, acknowledging no +obligation and no duty to God or to man.[28] + +One man has freed a slave; but a great part of the nation is now busy in +contriving measures that may best rivet the fetters on those now +chained, and forge them strongest for millions yet unborn. + +Selfishness and tyranny no longer wear the mask; they walk haughtily +abroad, affronting with their hard-hearted boasts and brazen resolves +the patience of the sweet heavens. National honor is trodden under foot +for a national bribe, and neither sex nor age defends the redresser of +injuries from the rage of the injurer. + +Yet, amid these reports which come flying on the paperwings of every +day, the scornful laugh of the gnomes, who begin to believe they can +buy all souls with their gold, was checked a moment when the aged +knight[29] of the better cause answered the challenge--truly in keeping +with the "chivalry" of the time--"You are in the wrong, and I will kick +you," by holding the hands of the chevalier till those around secured +him. We think the man of old must have held him with his eye, as +physicians of moral power can insane patients. Great as are his exploits +for his age, he cannot have much bodily strength, unless by miracle. + +The treatment of Mr. Adams and Mr. Hoar seems to show that we are not +fitted to emulate the savages in preparation for the new fire. The +Indians knew how to reverence the old and the wise. + +Among the manifestos of the day, it is impossible not to respect that of +the Mexican minister for the manly indignation with which he has uttered +truths, however deep our mortification at hearing them. It has been +observed for the last fifty years, that the tone of diplomatic +correspondence was much improved, as to simplicity and directness. Once, +diplomacy was another name for intrigue, and a paper of this sort was +expected to be a mesh of artful phrases, through which the true meaning +might be detected, but never actually grasped. Now, here is one where an +occasion being afforded by the unutterable folly of the corresponding +party, a minister speaks the truth as it lies in his mind, directly and +plainly, as man speaks to man. His statement will command the sympathy +of the civilized world. + +As to the state papers that have followed, they are of a nature to make +the Austrian despot sneer, as he counts in his oratory the woollen +stockings he has got knit by imprisoning all the free geniuses in his +dominions. He, at least, only appeals to the legitimacy of blood; these +dare appeal to legitimacy, as seen from a moral point of view. History +will class such claims with the brags of sharpers, who bully their +victims about their honor, while they stretch forth their hands for the +gold they have won with loaded dice. "Do you dare to say the dice are +loaded? Prove it; _and_ I will shoot you for injuring my honor." + +The Mexican makes his gloss on the page of American honor;[30] the +girl[31] in the Kentucky prison on that of her freedom; the delegate of +Massachusetts,[32] on that of her union. Ye stars, whose image America +has placed upon her banner, answer us! Are not your unions of a +different sort? Do they not work to other results? + +Yet we cannot lightly be discouraged, or alarmed, as to the destiny of +our country. The whole history of its discovery and early progress +indicates too clearly the purposes of Heaven with regard to it. Could we +relinquish the thought that it was destined for the scene of a new and +illustrious act in the great drama, the past would be inexplicable, no +less than the future without hope. + +Last week, which brought us so many unpleasant notices of home affairs, +brought also an account of the magnificent telescope lately perfected by +the Earl of Rosse. With means of observation now almost divine, we +perceive that some of the brightest stars, of which Sirius is one, have +dark companions, whose presence is, by earthly spectators, only to be +detected from the inequalities they cause in the motions of their +radiant companions. It was a new and most imposing illustration how, in +carrying out the divine scheme, of which we have as yet only spelled out +the few first lines, the dark is made to wait upon, and, in the full +result, harmonize with, the bright. The sense of such pervasive +analogies should enlarge patience and animate hope. + +Yet, if offences must come, woe be to those by whom they come; and that +of men, who sin against a heritage like ours, is as that of the +backsliders among the chosen people of the elder day. We, too, have been +chosen, and plain indications been given, by a wonderful conjunction of +auspicious influences, that the ark of human hopes has been placed for +the present in our charge. Woe be to those who betray this trust! On +their heads are to be heaped the curses of unnumbered ages! + +Can he sleep, who in this past year has wickedly or lightly committed +acts calculated to injure the few or many; who has poisoned the ears and +the hearts he might have rightly informed; who has steeped in tears the +cup of thousands; who has put back, as far as in him lay, the +accomplishment of general good and happiness for the sake of his selfish +aggrandizement or selfish luxury; who has sold to a party what was meant +for mankind? If such sleep, dreadful shall be the waking. + +"Deliver us from evil." In public or in private, it is easy to give +pain--hard to give pure pleasure; easy to do evil--hard to do good. God +does his good in the whole, despite of bad men; but only from a very +pure mind will he permit original good to proceed in the day. Happy +those who can feel that during the past year, they have, to the best of +their knowledge, refrained from evil. Happy those who determine to +proceed in this by the light of conscience. It is but a spark; yet from +that spark may be drawn fire-light enough for worlds and systems of +worlds--and that light is ever new. + +And with this thought rises again the memory of the fair lines that +light has brought to view in the histories of some men. If the nation +tends to wrong, there are yet present the ten just men. The hands and +lips of this great form may be impure, but pure blood flows yet within +her veins--the blood of the noble bands who first sought these shores +from the British isles and France, for conscience sake. Too many have +come since, for bread alone. We cannot blame--we must not reject them; +but let us teach them, in giving them bread, to prize that salt, too, +without which all on earth must lose its savor. Yes! let us teach them, +not rail at their inevitable ignorance and unenlightened action, but +teach them and their children as our own; if we do so, their children +and ours may yet act as one body obedient to one soul; and if we act +rightly now, that soul a pure soul. + +And ye, sable bands, forced hither against your will, kept down here now +by a force hateful to nature, a will alien from God! It does sometimes +seem as if the avenging angel wore your hue, and would place in your +hands the sword to punish the cruel injustice of our fathers, the +selfish perversity of the sons. Yet are there no means of atonement? +Must the innocent suffer with the guilty? Teach us, O All-Wise, the clew +out of this labyrinth; and if we faithfully encounter its darkness and +dread, and emerge into clear light, wilt thou not bid us "go and sin no +more"? + +Meanwhile, let us proceed as we can, _picking our steps_ along the +slippery road. If we keep the right direction, what matters it that we +must pass through so much mud? The promise is sure:-- + + Angels shall free the feet from stain, to their own hue of snow, + If, undismayed, we reach the hills where the true olives grow. + The olive groves, which we must seek in cold and damp, + Alone can yield us oil for a perpetual lamp. + Then sound again the golden horn with promise ever new; + The princely deer will ne'er be caught by those that slack pursue; + Let the "White Doe" of angel hopes be always kept in view. + + Yes! sound again the horn--of hope the golden horn! + Answer it, flutes and pipes, from valleys still and lorn; + Warders, from your high towers, with trumps of silver scorn, + And harps in maidens' bowers, with strings from deep hearts torn,-- + All answer to the horn--of hope the golden horn! + +There is still hope, there is still an America, while private lives are +ruled by the Puritan, by the Huguenot conscientiousness, and while there +are some who can repudiate, not their debts, but the supposition that +they will not strive to pay their debts to their age, and to Heaven, who +gave them a share in its great promise. + + + + +ST. VALENTINES DAY. + + +This merry season of light jokes and lighter love-tokens, in which Cupid +presents the feathered end of the dart, as if he meant to tickle before +he wounded the captive, has always had a great charm for me. When but a +child, I saw Allston's picture of the "Lady reading a Valentine," and +the mild womanliness of the picture, so remote from passion no less than +vanity, so capable of tenderness, so chastely timid in its +self-possession, has given a color to the gayest thoughts connected with +the day. From the ruff of Allston's Lady, whose clear starch is made to +express all rosebud thoughts of girlish retirement, the soft unfledged +hopes which never yet were tempted from the nest, to Sam Weller's +Valentine, is indeed a broad step, but one which we can take without +material change of mood. + +But of all the thoughts and pictures associated with the day, none can +surpass in interest those furnished by the way in which we celebrated it +last week. + +The Bloomingdale Asylum for the Insane is conducted on the most wise and +liberal plan known at the present day. Its superintendent, Dr. Earle, +has had ample opportunity to observe the best modes of managing this +class of diseases both here and in Europe, and he is one able, by +refined sympathies and intellectual discernment, to apply the best that +is known and to discover more. + +Under his care the beautifully situated establishment at Bloomingdale +loses every sign of the hospital and the prison, not long since thought +to be inseparable from such a place. It is a house of refuge, where +those too deeply wounded or disturbed in body or spirit to keep up that +semblance or degree of sanity which the conduct of affairs in the world +at large demands, may be soothed by gentle care, intelligent sympathy, +and a judicious attention to their physical welfare, into health, or, at +least, into tranquillity. + +Dr. Earle, in addition to modes of turning the attention from causes of +morbid irritation, and promoting brighter and juster thoughts, which he +uses in common with other institutions, has this winter delivered a +course of lectures to the patients. We were present at one of these some +weeks since. The subjects touched upon were, often, of a nature to +demand as close attention as an audience of regular students (not +college students, but real students) can be induced to give. The large +assembly present were almost uniformly silent, to appearance interested, +and showed a power of decorum and self-government often wanting among +those who esteem themselves in healthful mastery of their morals and +manners. We saw, with great satisfaction, generous thoughts and solid +pursuits offered, as well as light amusements, for the choice of the +sick in mind. For it is our experience that such sickness arises as +often from want of concentration as any other cause. One of the noblest +youths that ever trod this soil was wont to say, "he was never tired, if +he could only see far enough." He is now gone where his view may be less +bounded; but we, who stay behind, may take the hint that mania, no less +than the commonest forms of prejudice, bespeaks a mind which does not +see far enough to correct partial impressions. No doubt, in many cases, +dissipation of thought, after attention is once distorted into some +morbid direction, may be the first method of cure; but we are glad to +see others provided for those who are ready for them. + +St. Valentine's Eve had been appointed for one of the dancing parties at +the institution, and a few friends from "the world's people" invited to +be present. + +At an early hour the company assembled in the well-lighted hall, still +gracefully wreathed with its Christmas evergreens; the music struck up +and the company entered. + +And these are the people who, half a century ago, would have been +chained in solitary cells, screaming out their anguish till silenced by +threats or blows, lost, forsaken, hopeless, a blight to earth, a libel +upon heaven! + +Now, they are many of them happy, all interested. Even those who are +troublesome and subject to violent excitement in every-day scenes, show +here that the power of self-control is not lost, only lessened. Give +them an impulse strong enough, favorable circumstances, and they will +begin to use it again. They regulate their steps to music; they restrain +their impatient impulses from respect to themselves and to others. The +Power which shall yet shape order from all disorder, and turn ashes to +beauty, as violets spring up from green graves, hath them also in its +keeping. + +The party were well dressed, with care and taste. The dancing was better +than usual, because there was less of affectation and ennui. The party +was more entertaining, because native traits came out more clear from +the disguises of vanity and tact. + +There was the blue-stocking lady, a mature belle and bel-esprit. Her +condescending graces, her rounded compliments, her girlish, yet "highly +intellectual" vivacity, expressed no less in her head-dress than her +manner, were just that touch above the common with which the illustrator +of Dickens has thought fit to heighten the charms of Mrs. Leo Hunter. + +There was the travelled Englishman, _au fait_ to every thing beneath the +moon and beyond. With his clipped and glib phrases, his bundle of +conventionalities carried so neatly under his arm, and his "My dear +sir," in the perfection of cockney dignity, what better could the most +select dinner party furnish us in the way of distinguished strangerhood? + +There was the hoidenish young girl, and the decorous, elegant lady +smoothing down "the wild little thing." There was the sarcastic observer +on the folly of the rest; in that, the greatest fool of all, unbeloved +and unloving. In contrast to this were characters altogether lovely, +full of all sweet affections, whose bells, if jangled out of tune, still +retained their true tone. + +One of the best things of the evening was a dance improvised by two +elderly women. They asked the privilege of the floor, and, a suitable +measure being played, performed this dance in a style lively, +characteristic, yet moderate enough. It was true dancing, like peasant +dancing. + +An old man sang comic songs in the style of various nations and +characters, with a dramatic expression that would have commanded +applause "on any stage." + +And all was done decently and in order, each biding his time. Slight +symptoms of impatience here and there were easily soothed by the +approach of this, truly "good physician," the touch of whose hand seemed +to possess a talismanic power to soothe. We doubt not that all went to +their beds exhilarated, free from irritation, and more attuned to +concord than before. Good bishop Valentine! thy feast was well kept, and +not without the usual jokes and flings at old bachelors, the exchange of +sugar-plums, mottoes, and repartees. + +This is the second festival I have kept with those whom society has +placed, not outside her pale, indeed, but outside the hearing of her +benison. Christmas I passed in a prison! There, too, I saw marks of the +miraculous power of love, when guided by a pure faith in the goodness of +its source, and intelligence as to the design of the creative +intelligence. I saw enough of its power, impeded as it was by the +ignorance of those who, eighteen hundred years after the coming of +Christ, still believe more in fear and force: I saw enough, I say, of +this power to convince me, if I needed conviction, that love is indeed +omnipotent, as He said it was. + +A companion, of that delicate nature by which a scar is felt as a +wound, was saddened by the thought how very little our partialities, +undue emotions, and manias need to be exaggerated to entitle us to rank +among madmen. I cannot view it so. Rather let the sense that, with all +our faults and follies, there is still a sound spot, a presentiment of +eventual health in the inmost nature, embolden us to hope, to _know_ it +is the same with all. A great thinker has spoken of the Greek, in +highest praise, as "a self-renovating character." But we are all Greeks, +if we will but think so. For the mentally or morally insane, there is no +irreparable ill if the principle of life can but be aroused. And it can +never be finally benumbed, except by our own will. + +One of the famous pictures at Munich is of a madhouse. The painter has +represented the moral obliquities of society exaggerated into madness; +that is to say, self-indulgence has, in each instance, destroyed the +power to forbear the ill or to discern the good. A celebrated writer has +added a little book, to be used while looking at the picture, and drawn +inferences of universal interest. + +Such would we draw; such as this! Let no one dare to call another mad +who is not himself willing to rank in the same class for every +perversion and fault of judgment. Let no one dare aid in punishing +another as criminal who is not willing to suffer the penalty due to his +own offences. + +Yet, while owning that we are all mad, all criminal, let us not despair, +but rather believe that the Ruler of all never could permit such +wide-spread ill but to good ends. It is permitted to give us a field to +redeem it-- + + "to transmute, bereave + Of an ill influence, and a good receive." + +It flows inevitably from the emancipation of our wills, the development +of individuality in us. These aims accomplished, all shall yet be well; +and it is ours to learn _how_ that good time may be hastened. + +We know no sign of the times more encouraging than the increasing +nobleness and wisdom of view as to the government of asylums for the +insane and of prisons. Whatever is learned as to these forms of society +is learned for all. There is nothing that can be said of such government +that must not be said, also, of the government of families, schools, and +states. But we have much to say on this subject, and shall revert to it +again, and often, though, perhaps, not with so pleasing a theme as this +of St. Valentine's Eve. + + + + +FOURTH OF JULY. + + +The bells ring; the cannon rouse the echoes along the river shore; the +boys sally forth with shouts and little flags, and crackers enough to +frighten all the people they meet from sunrise to sunset. The orator is +conning for the last time the speech in which he has vainly attempted to +season with some new spice the yearly panegyric upon our country; its +happiness and glory; the audience is putting on its best bib and tucker, +and its blandest expression to listen. + +And yet, no heart, we think, can beat to-day with one pulse of genuine, +noble joy. Those who have obtained their selfish objects will not take +especial pleasure in thinking of them to-day, while to unbiassed minds +must come sad thoughts of national honor soiled in the eyes of other +nations, of a great inheritance risked, if not forfeited. + +Much has been achieved in this country since the Declaration of +Independence. America is rich and strong; she has shown great talent and +energy; vast prospects of aggrandizement open before her. But the noble +sentiment which she expressed in her early youth is tarnished; she has +shown that righteousness is not her chief desire, and her name is no +longer a watchword for the highest hopes to the rest of the world. She +knows this, but takes it very easily; she feels that she is growing +richer and more powerful, and that seems to suffice her. + +These facts are deeply saddening to those who can pronounce the words +"my country" with pride and peace only so far as steadfast virtues, +generous impulses, find their home in that country. They cannot be +satisfied with superficial benefits, with luxuries and the means of +obtaining knowledge which are multiplied for them. They could rejoice in +full hands and a busy brain, if the soul were expanding and the heart +pure; but, the higher conditions being violated, what is done cannot be +done for good. + +Such thoughts fill patriot minds as the cannon-peal bursts upon the ear. +This year, which declares that the people at large consent to cherish +and extend slavery as one of our "domestic institutions," takes from the +patriot his home. This year, which attests their insatiate love of +wealth and power, quenches the flame upon the altar. + +Yet there remains that good part which cannot be taken away. If nations +go astray, the narrow path may always be found and followed by the +individual man. It is hard, hard indeed, when politics and trade are +mixed up with evils so mighty that he scarcely dares touch them for fear +of being defiled. He finds his activity checked in great natural outlets +by the scruples of conscience. He cannot enjoy the free use of his +limbs, glowing upon a favorable tide; but struggling, panting, must fix +his eyes upon his aim, and fight against the current to reach it. It is +not easy, it is very hard just now, to realize the blessings of +independence. + +For what _is_ independence if it do not lead to freedom?--freedom from +fraud and meanness, from selfishness, from public opinion so far as it +does not agree with the still, small voice of one's better self? + +Yet there remains a great and worthy part to play. This country presents +great temptations to ill, but also great inducements to good. Her health +and strength are so remarkable, her youth so full of life, that disease +cannot yet have taken deep hold of her. It has bewildered her brain, +made her steps totter, fevered, but not yet tainted, her blood. Things +are still in that state when ten just men may save the city. A few men +are wanted, able to think and act upon principles of an eternal value. +The safety of the country must lie in a few such men; men who have +achieved the genuine independence, independence of wrong, of violence, +of falsehood. + +We want individuals to whom all eyes may turn as examples of the +practicability of virtue. We want shining examples. We want +deeply-rooted characters, who cannot be moved by flattery, by fear, even +by hope, for they work in faith. The opportunity for such men is great; +they will not be burned at the stake in their prime for bearing witness +to the truth, yet they will be tested most severely in their adherence +to it. There is nothing to hinder them from learning what is true and +best; no physical tortures will be inflicted on them for expressing it. +Let men feel that in private lives, more than in public measures, must +the salvation of the country lie. If that country has so widely veered +from the course she prescribed to herself, and that the hope of the +world prescribed to her, it must be because she had not men ripened and +confirmed for better things. They leaned too carelessly on one another; +they had not deepened and purified the private lives from which the +public vitality must spring, as the verdure of the plain from the +fountains of the hills. + +What a vast influence is given by sincerity alone. The bier of General +Jackson has lately passed, upbearing a golden urn. The men who placed it +there lament his departure, and esteem the measures which have led this +country to her present position wise and good. The other side esteem +them unwise, unjust, and disastrous in their consequences. But both +respect him thus far, that his conduct was boldly sincere. The sage of +Quincy! Men differ in their estimate of his abilities. None, probably, +esteem his mind as one of the first magnitude. But both sides, all men, +are influenced by the bold integrity of his character. Mr. Calhoun +speaks straight out what he thinks. So far as this straightforwardness +goes, he confers the benefits of virtue. If a character be uncorrupted, +whatever bias it takes, it thus far is good and does good. It may help +others to a higher, wiser, larger independence than its own. + +We know not where to look for an example of all or many of the virtues +we would seek from the man who is to begin the new dynasty that is +needed of fathers of the country. The country needs to be born again; +she is polluted with the lust of power, the lust of gain. She needs +fathers good enough to be godfathers--men who will stand sponsors at the +baptism with _all_ they possess, with all the goodness they can cherish, +and all the wisdom they can win, to lead this child the way she should +go, and never one step in another. Are there not in schools and colleges +the boys who will become such men? Are there not those on the threshold +of manhood who have not yet chosen the broad way into which the +multitude rushes, led by the banner on which, strange to say, the royal +Eagle is blazoned, together with the word Expediency? Let them decline +that road, and take the narrow, thorny path where Integrity leads, +though with no prouder emblem than the Dove. They may there find the +needed remedy, which, like the white root, detected by the patient and +resolved Odysseus, shall have power to restore the herd of men, +disguised by the enchantress to whom they had willingly yielded in the +forms of brutes, to the stature and beauty of men. + + + + +FIRST OF AUGUST. + + +Among the holidays of the year, some portion of our people borrow one +from another land. They borrow what they fain would own, since their +doing so would increase, not lessen, the joy and prosperity of the +present owner. It is a holiday not to be celebrated, as others are, with +boast, and shout, and gay procession, but solemnly, yet hopefully; in +prayer and humiliation for much ill now existing; in faith that the God +of good will not permit such ill to exist always; in aspiration to +become his instruments for removal. + +We borrow this holiday from England. We know not that she could lend us +another such. Her career has been one of selfish aggrandizement. To +carry her flag wherever the waters flow; to leave a strong mark of her +footprint on every shore, that she might return and claim its spoils; to +maintain in every way her own advantage,--is and has been her object, as +much as that of any nation upon earth. The plundered Hindoo, the wronged +Irish,--for ourselves we must add the outraged Chinese, (for we look on +all that has been written about the right of that war as mere +sophistry,)--no less than Napoleon, walking up and down, in his "tarred +great-coat," in the unwholesome lodge at St. Helena,--all can tell +whether she be righteous or generous in her conquests. Nay, let myriads +of her own children say whether she will abstain from sacrificing, +mercilessly, human freedom, happiness, and the education of immortal +souls, for the sake of gains of money! We speak of Napoleon, for we +must ever despise, with most profound contempt, the use she made of her +power on that occasion. She had been the chief means of liberating +Europe from his tyranny, and, though it was for her own sake, we must +commend and admire her conduct and resolution thus far. But the +unhandsome, base treatment of her captive, has never been enough +contemned. Any private gentleman, in chaining up the foe that had put +himself in his power, would at least have given him lodging, food, and +clothes to his liking; and a civil turnkey--and a great nation could +fail in this! O, it was shameful, if only for the vulgarity of feeling +evinced! All this we say, because we are sometimes impatient of +England's brag on the subject of slavery. Freedom! Because she has done +one good act, is she entitled to the angelic privilege of being the +champion of freedom? + +And yet it is true that once she nobly awoke to a sense of what was +right and wise. It is true that she also acted out that sense--acted +fully, decidedly. She was willing to make sacrifices, even of the loved +money. She has not let go the truth she then laid to heart, and +continues the resolute foe of man's traffic in men. We must bend low to +her as we borrow this holiday--the anniversary of the emancipation of +slaves in the West Indies. We do not feel that the extent of her +practice justifies the extent of her preaching; yet we must feel her to +be, in this matter, an elder sister, entitled to cry shame to us. And if +her feelings be those of a sister indeed, how must she mourn to see her +next of kin pushing back, as far as in her lies, the advance of this +good cause, binding those whom the old world had awakened from its sins +enough to loose! But courage, sister! All is not yet lost! There is here +a faithful band, determined to expiate the crimes that have been +committed in the name of liberty. On this day they meet and vow +themselves to the service; and, as they look in one another's glowing +eyes, they read there assurance that the end is not yet, and that they, +forced as they are + + "To keep in company with Pain, + And Fear, and Falsehood, miserable train," + + "Turn that necessity to glorious gain," + + "Transmute them and subdue." + +Indeed, we do not see that they "bate a jot of heart or hope," and it is +because they feel that the power of the Great Spirit, and its peculiar +workings in the spirit of this age, are with them. There is action and +reaction all the time; and though the main current is obvious, there are +many little eddies and counter-currents. Mrs. Norton writes a poem on +the sufferings of the poor, and in it she, as episode, tunefully laments +the sufferings of the Emperor of all the Russias for the death of a +beloved daughter. And it _was_ a deep grief; yet it did not soften his +heart, or make it feel for man. The first signs of his recovered spirits +are in new efforts to crush out the heart of Poland, and to make the +Jews lay aside the hereditary marks of their national existence--to them +a sacrifice far worse than death. But then,--Count Apraxin is burned +alive by his infuriate serfs, and the life of a serf is far more +dog-like, or rather machine-like, than that of _our_ slaves. Still the +serf can rise in vengeance--can admonish the autocrat that humanity may +yet turn again and rend him. + +So with us. The most shameful deed has been done that ever disgraced a +nation, because the most contrary to consciousness of right. Other +nations have done wickedly, but we have surpassed them all in trampling +under foot the principles that had been assumed as the basis of our +national existence, and shown a willingness to forfeit our honor in the +face of the world. + +The following stanzas, written by a friend some time since, on the +fourth of July, exhibit these contrasts so forcibly, that we cannot do +better than insert them here:-- + + Loud peal of bells and beat of drums + Salute approaching dawn; + And the deep cannon's fearful bursts + Announce a nation's morn. + + Imposing ranks of freemen stand + And claim their proud birthright; + Impostors, rather! thus to brand + A name they hold so bright. + + Let the day see the pageant show; + Float, banners, to the breeze! + Shout Liberty's great name throughout + Columbia's lands and seas! + + Give open sunlight to the free; + But for Truth's equal sake, + When night sinks down upon the land, + Proclaim dead Freedom's wake! + + Beat, muffled drums! Toll, funeral bell + Nail every flag half-mast; + For though we fought the battle well, + We're traitors at the last. + + Let the whole nation join in one + Procession to appear; + We and our sons lead on the front, + Our slaves bring up the rear. + + America is rocked within + Thy cradle, Liberty, + By Africa's poor, palsied hand-- + Strange inconsistency! + + We've dug one grave as deep as Death, + For Tyranny's black sin; + And dug another at its side + To thrust our brother in. + + We challenge all the world aloud,-- + "Lo, Tyranny's deep grave!" + And all the world points back and cries, + "Thou fool! Behold thy slave!" + + Yes, rally, brave America, + Thy noble hearts and free + Around the Eagle, as he soars + Upward in majesty. + + One half thy emblem is the bird, + Out-facing thus the day; + But wouldst thou make him wholly thine,-- + _Give him a helpless prey!_ + +This should be sung in Charleston at nine o'clock in the evening, when +the drums are heard proclaiming "dead Freedom's wake," as they summon to +their homes, or to the custody of the police, every human being with a +black skin who is found walking without a pass from a white. Or it might +have been sung to advantage the night after Charleston had shown her +independence and care of domestic institutions by expulsion of the +venerable envoy of Massachusetts! Its expression would seem even more +forcible than now, when sung so near the facts, when the eagle soars so +close above his prey. + +How deep the shadow! yet cleft by light. There is a counter-current that +sets towards the deep. We are inclined to weigh as of almost equal +weight with all we have had to trouble us as to the prolongation of +slavery, the hopes that may be gathered from the course of such a man as +Cassius M. Clay,--a man open to none of the accusations brought to +diminish the influence of abolitionists in general, for he has eaten the +bread wrought from slavery, and has shared the education that excuses +the blindness of the slaveholder. He speaks as one having authority; no +one can deny that he knows where he is. In the prime of manhood, of +talent, and the energy of a fine enthusiasm, he comes forward with deed +and word to do his devoir in this cause, never to leave the field till +he can take with him the wronged wretches rescued by his devotion. + +Now he has made this last sacrifice of the prejudices of "southern +chivalry," more persons than ever will be ready to join the herald's +cry, "God speed the right!" And we cannot but believe his noble example +will be followed by many young men in the slaveholding ranks, brothers +in a new, sacred band, vowed to the duty, not merely of defending, but +far more sacred, of purifying their homes. + +The event of which this day is the anniversary, affords a sufficient +guarantee of the safety and practicability of strong measures for this +purification. Various accounts are given to the public, of the state of +the British West Indies, and the foes of emancipation are of course +constantly on the alert to detect any unfavorable result which may aid +them in opposing the good work elsewhere. But through all statements +these facts shine clear as the sun at noonday, that the measure was +there carried into effect with an ease and success, and has shown in the +African race a degree of goodness, docility, capacity for industry and +self-culture entirely beyond or opposed to the predictions which +darkened so many minds with fears. Those fears can never again be +entertained or uttered with the same excuse. One great example of the +_safety of doing right_ exists; true, there is but one of the sort, but +volumes may be preached from such a text. + +We, however, preach not; there are too many preachers already in the +field, abler, more deeply devoted to the cause. Endless are the sermons +of these modern crusaders, these ardent "sons of thunder," who have +pledged themselves never to stop or falter till this one black spot be +purged away from the land which gave them birth. They cry aloud and +spare not; they spare not others, but then, neither do they spare +themselves; and such are ever the harbingers of a new advent of the Holy +Spirit. Our venerated friend, Dr. Channing, sainted in more memories +than any man who has left us in this nineteenth century, uttered the +last of his tones of soft, solemn, convincing, persuasive eloquence, on +this day and this occasion. The hills of Lenox laughed and were glad as +they heard him who showed in that last address (an address not only to +the men of Lenox, but to all men, for he was in the highest sense the +friend of man) the unsullied purity of infancy, the indignation of youth +at vice and wrong, informed and tempered by the mild wisdom of age. It +is a beautiful fact that this should have been the last public occasion +of his life. + +Last year a noble address was delivered by R. W. Emerson, in which he +broadly showed the _juste milieu_ views upon this subject in the holy +light of a high ideal day. The truest man grew more true as he listened; +for the speech, though it had the force of fact and the lustre of +thought, was chiefly remarkable as sharing the penetrating quality of +the "still small voice," most often heard when no man speaks. Now it +spoke _through_ a man; and no personalities, or prejudices, or passions +could be perceived to veil or disturb its silver sound. + +These speeches are on record; little can be said that is not contained +in them. But we can add evermore our aspirations for thee, O our +country! that thou mayst not long need to borrow a _holy_ day; not long +have all thy festivals blackened by falsehood, tyranny, and a crime for +which neither man below nor God above can much longer pardon thee. For +ignorance may excuse error; but thine--it is vain to deny it--is +conscious wrong, and vows thee to the Mammon whose wages are endless +remorse or final death. + + + + +THANKSGIVING. + + "Canst thou give thanks for aught that has been given + Except by making earth more worthy heaven? + Just stewardship the Master hoped from thee; + Harvests from time to bless eternity." + + +Thanksgiving is peculiarly the festival day of New England. Elsewhere, +other celebrations rival its attractions, but in that region where the +Puritans first returned thanks that some among them had been sustained +by a great hope and earnest resolve amid the perils of the ocean, wild +beasts, and famine, the old spirit which hallowed the day still lingers, +and forbids that it should be entirely devoted to play and plum-pudding. + +And yet, as there is always this tendency; as the twelfth-night cake is +baked by many a hostess who would be puzzled if you asked her, "Twelfth +night after or before what?" and the Christmas cake by many who know no +other Christmas service, so it requires very serious assertion and proof +from the minister to convince his parishioners that the turkey and +plum-pudding, which are presently to occupy his place in their +attention, should not be the chief objects of the day. + +And in other regions, where the occasion is observed, it is still more +as one for a meeting of families and friends to the enjoyment of a good +dinner, than for any higher purpose. + +This, indeed, is one which we want not to depreciate. If this manner of +keeping the day be likely to persuade the juniors of the party that the +celebrated Jack Horner is the prime model for brave boys, and that +grandparents are chiefly to be respected as the givers of grand feasts +yet a meeting in the spirit of kindness, however dull and blind, is not +wholly without use in healing differences and promoting good intentions. +The instinct of family love, intended by Heaven to make those of one +blood the various and harmonious organs of one mind, is never wholly +without good influence. Family love, I say, for family pride is never +without bad influence, and it too often takes the place of its mild and +healthy sister. + +Yet where society is at all simple, it is cheering to see the family +circle thus assembled, if only because its patriarchal form is in itself +so excellent. The presence of the children animates the old people, +while the respect and attention they demand refine the gayety of the +young. Yes, it is cheering to see, in some large room, the elders +talking near the bright fire, while the cousins of all ages are amusing +themselves in knots. Here is almost all the good, and very little of the +ill, that can be found in society, got together merely for amusement. + +Yet how much nobler, more exhilarating, and purer would be the +atmosphere of that circle if the design of its pious founders were +remembered by those who partake this festival! if they dared not attend +the public jubilee till private retrospect of the past year had been +taken in the spirit of the old rhyme, which we all bear in mind if not +in heart,-- + + "What hast thou done that's worth the doing, + And what pursued that's worth pursuing? + What sought thou knew'st that thou shouldst shun, + What done thou shouldst have left undone?" + +A crusade needs also to be made this day into the wild places of each +heart, taking for its device, "Lord, cleanse thou me from secret faults; +keep back thy servant also from presumptuous sins." Would not that +circle be happy as if music, from invisible agents, floated through it +if each member of it considered every other member as a bequest from +heaven; if he supposed that the appointed nearness in blood or lot was +a sign to him that he must exercise his gifts of every kind as given +peculiarly in their behalf; that if richer in temper, in talents, in +knowledge, or in worldly goods, here was the innermost circle of his +poor; that he must clothe these naked, whether in body or mind, soothing +the perverse, casting light into the narrow chamber, or, most welcome +task of all! extending a hand at the right moment to one uncertain of +his way? It is this spirit that makes the old man to be revered as a +Nestor, rather than put aside like a worn-out garment. It is such a +spirit that sometimes has given to the young child a ministry as of a +parent in the house. + +But, if charity begin at home, it must not end there; and, while +purifying the innermost circle, let us not forget that it depends upon +the great circle, and that again on it; that no home can be healthful in +which are not cherished seeds of good for the world at large. Thy child, +thy brother, are given to thee only as an example of what is due from +thee to all men. It is true that, if you, in anger, call your brother +fool, no deeds of so-called philanthropy shall save you from the +punishment; for your philanthropy must be from the love of excitement, +not the love of man, or of goodness. But then you must visit the +Gentiles also, and take time for knowing what aid the woman of Samaria +may need. + +A noble Catholic writer, in the true sense as well as by name a +Catholic, describes a tailor as giving a dinner on an occasion which had +brought honor to his house, which, though a humble, was not a poor +house. In his glee, the tailor was boasting a little of the favors and +blessings of his lot, when suddenly a thought stung him. He stopped, and +cutting away half the fowl that lay before him, sent it in a dish with +the best knives, bread, and napkin, and a brotherly message that was +better still, to a widow near, who must, he knew, be sitting in sadness +and poverty among her children. His little daughter was the messenger. +If parents followed up the indulgences heaped upon their children at +Thanksgiving dinners with similar messages, there would not be danger +that children should think enjoyment of sensual pleasures the only +occasion that demands Thanksgiving. + +And suppose, while the children were absent on their errands of justice, +as they could not fail to think them, if they compared the hovels they +must visit with their own comfortable homes, their elders, touched by a +sense of right, should be led from discussion of the rivalries of trade +or fashion to inquiry whether they could not impart of all that was +theirs, not merely one poor dinner once a year, but all their mental and +material wealth for the benefit of all men. If they do not sell it _all_ +at once, as the rich young man was bid to do as a test of his sincerity, +they may find some way in which it could be invested so as to show +enough obedience to the law and the prophets to love our neighbor as +ourselves. + +And he who once gives himself to such thoughts will find it is not +merely moral gain for which he shall return thanks another year with the +return of this day. In the present complex state of human affairs, you +cannot be kind unless you are wise. Thoughts of amaranthine bloom will +spring up in the fields ploughed to give food to suffering men. It +would, indeed, seem to be a simple matter at first glance. "Lovest thou +me?"--"Feed my lambs." But now we have not only to find pasture, but to +detect the lambs under the disguise of wolves, and restore them by a +spell, like that the shepherd used, to their natural form and whiteness. + +And for this present day appointed for Thanksgiving, we may say that if +we know of so many wrongs, woes, and errors in the world yet +unredressed; if in this nation recent decisions have shown a want of +moral discrimination in important subjects, that make us pause and doubt +whether we can join in the formal congratulations that we are still +bodily alive, unassailed by the ruder modes of warfare, and enriched +with the fatness of the land; yet, on the other side, we know of causes +not so loudly proclaimed why we should give thanks. Abundantly and +humbly we must render them for the movement, now sensible in the heart +of the civilized world, although it has not pervaded the entire +frame--for that movement of contrition and love which forbids men of +earnest thought to eat, drink, or be merry while other men are steeped +in ignorance, corruption, and woe; which calls the king from his throne +of gold, and the poet from his throne of mind, to lie with the beggar in +the kennel, or raise him from it; which says to the poet, "You must +reform rather than create a world," and to him of the golden crown, "You +cannot long remain a king unless you are also a man." + +Wherever this impulse of social or political reform darts up its rill +through the crusts of selfishness, scoff and dread also arise, and hang +like a heavy mist above it. But the voice of the rill penetrates far +enough for those who have ears to hear. And sometimes it is the case +that "those who came to scoff remain to pray." In two articles of +reviews, one foreign and one domestic, which have come under our eye +within the last fortnight, the writers who began by jeering at the +visionaries, seemed, as they wrote, to be touched by a sense that +without a high and pure faith none can have the only true vision of the +intention of God as to the destiny of man. + +We recognized as a happy omen that there is cause for thanksgiving, and +that our people may be better than they seem, the recent meeting to +organize an association for the benefit of prisoners. We are not, then, +wholly Pharisees. We shall not ask the blessing of this day in the mood +of, "Lord, I thank thee that I, and my son, and my brother, are not as +other men are,--not as those publicans imprisoned there," while the +still small voice cannot make us hear its evidence that, but for +instruction, example, and the "preventing God," every sin that can be +named might riot in our hearts. The prisoner, too, may become a man. +Neither his open nor our secret fault must utterly dismay us. We will +treat him as if he had a soul. We will not dare to hunt him into a +beast of prey, or trample him into a serpent. We will give him some +crumbs from the table which grace from above and parental love below +have spread for us, and perhaps he will recover from these ghastly +ulcers that deform him now. + +We were much pleased with the spirit of the meeting for the benefit of +prisoners, to which we have just alluded. It was simple, business-like, +in a serious, affectionate temper. The speakers did not make phrases or +compliments--did not slur over the truth. The audience showed a ready +vibration to the touch of just and tender feeling. The time was +evidently ripe for this movement. We doubt not that many now darkened +souls will give thanks for the ray of light that will have been let in +by this time next year. It is but a grain of mustard seed, but the +promised tree will grow swiftly if tended in a pure spirit; and the +influence of good measures in any one place will be immediate in this +province, as has been the case with every attempt in behalf of another +sorrowing class, the insane. + +While reading a notice of a successful attempt to have musical +performances carried through in concert by the insane at Rouen, we were +forcibly reminded of a similar performance we heard a few weeks ago at +Sing Sing. There the female prisoners joined in singing a hymn, or +rather choral, which describes the last thoughts of a spirit about to be +enfranchised from the body; each stanza of which ends with the words, +"All is well;" and they sang it--those suffering, degraded children of +society--with as gentle and resigned an expression as if they were sure +of going to sleep in the arms of a pure mother. The good spirit that +dwelt in the music made them its own. And shall not the good spirit of +religious sympathy make them its own also, and more permanently? We +shall see. Should the _morally_ insane, by wise and gentle care, be won +back to health, as the wretched bedlamites have been, will not the +angels themselves give thanks? And will any man dare take the risk of +opposing plans that afford even a chance of such a result? + +Apart also from good that is public and many-voiced, does not each of us +know, in private experience, much to be thankful for? Not only the +innocent and daily pleasures that we have prized according to our +wisdom; of the sun and starry skies, the fields of green, or snow +scarcely less beautiful, the loaf eaten with an appetite, the glow of +labor, the gentle signs of common affection; but have not some, have not +many of us, cause to be thankful for enfranchisement from error or +infatuation; a growth in knowledge of outward things, and instruction +within the soul from a higher source. Have we not acquired a sense of +more refined enjoyments; clear convictions; sometimes a serenity in +which, as in the first days of June, all things grow, and the blossom +gives place to fruit? Have we not been weaned from what was unfit for +us, or unworthy our care? and have not those ties been drawn more close, +and are not those objects seen more distinctly, which shall forever be +worthy the purest desires of our souls? Have we learned to do any thing, +the humblest, in the service and by the spirit of the power which +meaneth all things well? If so, we may give thanks, and, perhaps, +venture to offer our solicitations in behalf of those as yet less +favored by circumstances. When even a few shall dare do so with the +whole heart--for only a pure heart, can "avail much" in such +prayers--then ALL shall soon be well. + + + + +CHRISTMAS. + + +Our festivals come rather too near together, since we have so few of +them; thanksgiving, Christmas, new year's day,--and then none again till +July. We know not but these four, with the addition of "a day set apart +for fasting and prayer," might answer the purposes of rest and +edification, as well as a calendar full of saints' days, if they were +observed in a better spirit. But thanksgiving is devoted to good +dinners; Christmas and new year's days, to making presents and +compliments; fast day, to playing at cricket and other games; and the +fourth of July, to boasting of the past, rather than to plans how to +deserve its benefits and secure its fruits. + +We value means of marking time by appointed days, because man, on one +side of his nature so ardent and aspiring, is on the other so slippery +and indolent a being, that he needs incessant admonitions to redeem the +time. Time flows on steadily, whether he regards it or not; yet unless +_he keep time_, there is no music in that flow. The sands drop with +inevitable speed, yet each waits long enough to receive, if it be ready, +the intellectual touch that should turn it to a sand of gold. + +Time, says the Grecian fable, is the parent of Power; Power is the +father of Genius and Wisdom; Time, then, is grandfather of the noblest +of the human family, and we must respect the aged sire whom we see on +the frontispiece of the almanacs, and believe his scythe was meant to +mow down harvests ripened for an immortal use. + +Yet the best provision made by the mind of society, at large, for these +admonitions, soon loses its efficacy, and requires that individual +earnestness, individual piety, should continually reanimate the most +beautiful form. The world has never seen arrangements which might more +naturally offer good suggestions, than those of the church of Rome. The +founders of that church stood very near a history, radiant at every page +with divine light. All their rites and ceremonial days illustrate facts +of a universal interest. But the life with which piety, first, and +afterwards the genius of great artists, invested these symbols, waned at +last, except to a thoughtful few. Reverence was forgotten in the +multitude of genuflections; the rosary became a string of beads, rather +than a series of religious meditations, and "the glorious company of +saints and martyrs" were not so much regarded as the teachers of +heavenly truth, as intercessors to obtain for their votaries the +temporal gifts they craved. + +Yet we regret that some of these symbols had not been more reverenced by +Protestants, as the possible occasion of good thoughts. And among others +we regret that the day set apart to commemorate the birth of Jesus +should have been stripped, even by those who observe it, of many +impressive and touching accessories. + +If ever there was an occasion on which the arts could become all but +omnipotent in the service of a holy thought, it is this of the birth of +the child Jesus. In the palmy days of the Catholic religion, they may be +said to have wrought miracles in its behalf; and, in our colder time, +when we rather reflect that light from a different point of view, than +transport ourselves into it,--who, that has an eye and ear faithful to +the soul, is not conscious of inexhaustible benefits from some of the +works by which sublime geniuses have expressed their ideas in the +adorations of the Magi and the Shepherds, in the Virgin with the infant +Jesus, or that work which expresses what Christendom at large has not +even begun to realize,--that work which makes us conscious, as we +listen, why the soul of man was thought worthy and able to upbear a +cross of such dreadful weight--the Messiah of Handel. + +Christmas would seem to be the day peculiarly sacred to children, and +something of this feeling here shows itself among us, though rather from +German influence than of native growth. The evergreen tree is often +reared for the children on Christmas evening, and its branches cluster +with little tokens that may, at least, give them a sense that the world +is rich, and that there are some in it who care to bless them. It is a +charming sight to see their glittering eyes, and well worth much trouble +in preparing the Christmas tree. + +Yet, on this occasion as on all others, we could wish to see pleasure +offered them in a form less selfish than it is. When shall we read of +banquets prepared for the halt, the lame, and the blind, on the day that +is said to have brought _their_ Friend into the world? When will the +children be taught to ask all the cold and ragged little ones, whom they +have seen during the day wistfully gazing at the displays in the +shop-windows, to share the joys of Christmas eve? + +We borrow the Christmas tree from Germany. Would that we might but +borrow with it that feeling which pervades all their stories about the +influence of the Christ child; and has, I doubt not,--for the spirit of +literature is always, though refined, the essence of popular +life,--pervaded the conduct of children there! + +We will mention two of these as happily expressive of different sides of +the desirable character. One is a legend of the Saint Hermann Joseph. +The legend runs, that this saint, when a little boy, passed daily by a +niche where was an image of the Virgin and Child, and delighted there to +pay his devotions. His heart was so drawn towards the holy child, that, +one day, having received what seemed to him a gift truly precious,--to +wit, a beautiful red and yellow apple,--he ventured to offer it, with +his prayer. To his unspeakable delight, the child put forth its hand +and took the apple. After that day, never was a gift bestowed upon the +little Hermann that was not carried to the same place. He needed nothing +for himself, but dedicated all his childish goods to the altar. + +After a while, grief comes. His father, who was a poor man, finds it +necessary to take him from school and bind him to a trade. He +communicates his woes to his friends of the niche, and the Virgin +comforts him, like a mother, and bestows on him money, by means of which +he rises, (not to ride in a gilt coach like Lord Mayor Whittington,) but +to be a learned and tender shepherd of men. + +Another still more touching story is that of the holy Rupert. Rupert was +the only child of a princely house, and had something to give besides +apples. But his generosity and human love were such, that, as a child, +he could never see poor children suffering without despoiling himself of +all he had with him in their behalf. His mother was, at first, +displeased at this; but when he replied, "They are thy children too," +her reproofs yielded to tears. + +One time, when he had given away his coat to a poor child, he got +wearied and belated on his homeward way. He lay down a while, and fell +asleep. Then he dreamed that he was on a river shore, and saw a mild and +noble old man bathing many children. After he had plunged them into the +water, he would place them on a beautiful island, where they looked +white and glorious as little angels. Rupert was seized with strong +desire to join them, and begged the old man to bathe him, also, in the +stream. But he was answered, "It is not yet time." Just then a rainbow +spanned the island, and on its arch was enthroned the child Jesus, +dressed in a coat that Rupert knew to be his own. And the child said to +the others, "See this coat; it is one my brother Rupert has just sent to +me. He has given us many gifts from his love; shall we not ask him to +join us here?" And they shouted a musical "yes;" and the child started +from his dream. But he had lain too long on the damp bank of the river, +without his coat. A cold, and fever soon sent him to join the band of +his brothers in their home. + +These are legends, superstitions, will you say? But, in casting aside +the shell, have we retained the kernel? The image of the child Jesus is +not seen in the open street; does his spirit find other means to express +itself there? Protestantism did not mean, we suppose, to deaden the +spirit in excluding the form? + +The thought of Jesus, as a child, has great weight with children who +have learned to think of him at all. In thinking of him, they form an +image of all that the morning of a pure and fervent life should be and +bring. In former days I knew a boy artist, whose genius, at that time, +showed high promise. He was not more than fourteen years old; a slight, +pale boy, with a beaming eye. The hopes and sympathy of friends, gained +by his talent, had furnished him with a studio and orders for some +pictures. He had picked up from the streets a boy still younger and +poorer than himself, to take care of the room and prepare his colors; +and the two boys were as content in their relation as Michael Angelo +with his Urbino. If you went there you found exposed to view many pretty +pictures: a Girl with a Dove, the Guitar Player and such subjects as are +commonly supposed to interest at his age. But, hid in a corner, and +never, shown, unless to the beggar page, or some most confidential +friend, was the real object of his love and pride, the slowly growing +work of secret hours. The subject of this picture was Christ teaching +the doctors. And in those doctors he had expressed all he had already +observed of the pedantry and shallow conceit of those in whom mature +years have not unfolded the soul; and in the child, all he felt that +early youth should be and seek, though, alas! his own feet failed him on +the difficult road. This one record of the youth of Jesus had, at +least, been much to his mind. + +In earlier days, the little saints thought they best imitated the +Emanuel by giving apples and coats; but we know not why, in our age, +that esteems itself so enlightened, they should not become also the +givers of spiritual gifts. We see in them, continually, impulses that +only require a good direction to effect infinite good. See the little +girls at work for foreign missions; that is not useless. They devote the +time to a purpose that is not selfish; the horizon of their thoughts is +extended. But they are perfectly capable of becoming home missionaries +as well. The principle of stewardship would make them so. + +I have seen a little girl of thirteen,--who had much service, too, to +perform, for a hard-working mother,--in the midst of a circle of poor +children whom she gathered daily to a morning school. She took them from +the door-steps and the ditches; she washed their hands and faces; she +taught them to read and to sew; and she told them stories that had +delighted her own infancy. In her face, though in feature and complexion +plain, was something, already, of a Madonna sweetness, and it had no way +eclipsed the gayety of childhood. + +I have seen a boy scarce older, brought up for some time with the sons +of laborers, who, so soon as he found himself possessed of superior +advantages, thought not of surpassing others, but of excelling, and then +imparting--and he was able to do it. If the other boys had less leisure, +and could pay for less instruction, they did not suffer for it. He could +not be happy unless they also could enjoy Milton, and pass from nature +to natural philosophy. He performed, though in a childish way, and in no +Grecian garb, the part of Apollo amid the herdsmen of Admetus. + +The cause of education would be indefinitely furthered, if, in addition +to formal means, there were but this principle awakened in the hearts of +the young, that what they have they must bestow. All are not natural +instructors, but a large proportion are; and those who do possess such a +talent are the best possible teachers to those a little younger than +themselves. Many have more patience with the difficulties they have +lately left behind, and enjoy their power of assisting more than those +farther removed in age and knowledge do. + +Then the intercourse may be far more congenial and profitable than where +the teacher receives for hire all sorts of pupils, as they are sent him +by their guardians. Here he need only choose those who have a +predisposition for what he is best able to teach. And, as I would have +the so-called higher instruction as much diffused in this way as the +lower, there would be a chance of awakening all the power that now lies +latent. + +If a girl, for instance, who has only a passable talent for music, but +who, from the advantage of social position, has been able to gain +thorough instruction, felt it her duty to teach whomsoever she knew that +had such a talent, without money to cultivate it, the good is obvious. + +Those who are learning receive an immediate benefit by an effort to +rearrange and interpret what they learn; so the use of this justice +would be twofold. + +Some efforts are made here and there; nay, sometimes there are those who +can say they have returned usury for every gift of fate. And, would +others make the same experiments, they might find Utopia not so far off +as the children of this world, wise in securing their own selfish ease, +would persuade us it must always be. + +We have hinted what sort of Christmas box we would wish for the +children. It would be one full, as that of the child Christ must be, of +the pieces of silver that were lost and are found. But Christmas, with +its peculiar associations, has deep interest for men, and women too, no +less. It has so in their mutual relations. At the time thus celebrated, +a pure woman saw in her child what the Son of man should be as a child +of God. She anticipated for him a life of glory to God, peace and good +will to man. In every young mother's heart, who has any purity of heart, +the same feelings arise. But most of these mothers let them go without +obeying their instructions. If they did not, we should see other +children--other men than now throng our streets. The boy could not +invariably disappoint the mother, the man the wife, who steadily +demanded of him such a career. + +And man looks upon woman, in this relation, always as he should. Does he +see in her a holy mother worthy to guard the infancy of an immortal +soul? Then she assumes in his eyes those traits which the Romish church +loved to revere in Mary. Frivolity, base appetite, contempt are +exorcised; and man and woman appear again in unprofaned connection, as +brother and sister, the children and the servants of the one Divine +Love, and pilgrims to a common aim. + +Were all this right in the private sphere, the public would soon right +itself also, and the nations of Christendom might join in a celebration, +such as "kings and prophets waited for," and so many martyrs died to +achieve, of Christ-Mass. + + + + +MARIANA[33] + + +Among those whom I met in a recent visit at Chicago was Mrs. Z., the +aunt of an old schoolmate, to whom I impatiently hastened, to demand +news of Mariana. The answer startled me. Mariana, so full of life, was +dead. That form, the most rich in energy and coloring of any I had ever +seen, had faded from the earth. The circle of youthful associations had +given way in the part that seemed the strongest. What I now learned of +the story of this life, and what was by myself remembered, may be bound +together in this slight sketch. + +At the boarding school to which I was too early sent, a fond, a proud, +and timid child, I saw among the ranks of the gay and graceful, bright +or earnest girls, only one who interested my fancy or touched my young +heart; and this was Mariana. She was, on the father's side, of Spanish +Creole blood, but had been sent to the Atlantic coast, to receive a +school education under the care of her aunt, Mrs. Z. + +This lady had kept her mostly at home with herself, and Mariana had gone +from her house to a day school; but the aunt being absent for a time in +Europe, she had now been unfortunately committed for some time to the +mercies of a boarding school. + +A strange bird she proved there--a lonely one, that could not make for +itself a summer. At first, her schoolmates were captivated with her +ways, her love of wild dances and sudden song, her freaks of passion +and of wit. She was always new, always surprising, and, for a time, +charming. + +But, after a while, they tired of her. She could never be depended on to +join in their plans, yet she expected them to follow out hers with their +whole strength. She was very loving, even infatuated in her own +affections, and exacted from those who had professed any love for her, +the devotion she was willing to bestow. + +Yet there was a vein of haughty caprice in her character; a love of +solitude, which made her at times wish to retire entirely; and at these +times she would expect to be thoroughly understood, and let alone, yet +to be welcomed back when she returned. She did not thwart others in +their humors, but she never doubted of great indulgence from them. + +Some singular ways she had, which, when new, charmed, but, after +acquaintance, displeased her companions. She had by nature the same +habit and power of excitement that is described in the spinning +dervishes of the East. Like them, she would spin until all around her +were giddy, while her own brain, instead of being disturbed, was excited +to great action. Pausing, she would declaim verse of others or her own; +perform many parts, with strange catch-words and burdens that seemed to +act with mystical power on her own fancy, sometimes stimulating her to +convulse the hearer with laughter, sometimes to melt him to tears. When +her power began to languish, she would spin again till fired to +recommence her singular drama, into which she wove figures from the +scenes of her earlier childhood, her companions, and the dignitaries she +sometimes saw, with fantasies unknown to life, unknown to heaven or +earth. + +This excitement, as may be supposed, was not good for her. It oftenest +came on in the evening, and spoiled her sleep. She would wake in the +night, and cheat her restlessness by inventions that teased, while they +sometimes diverted her companions. + +She was also a sleep-walker; and this one trait of her case did somewhat +alarm her guardians, who, otherwise, showed the same profound stupidity, +as to this peculiar being, usual in the overseers of the young. They +consulted a physician, who said she would outgrow it, and prescribed a +milk diet. + +Meantime, the fever of this ardent and too early stimulated nature was +constantly increased by the restraints and narrow routine of the +boarding school. She was always devising means to break in upon it. She +had a taste, which would have seemed ludicrous to her mates, if they had +not felt some awe of her, from a touch of genius and power, that never +left her, for costume and fancy dresses; always some sash twisted about +her, some drapery, something odd in the arrangement of her hair and +dress; so that the methodical preceptress dared not let her go out +without a careful scrutiny and remodelling, whose soberizing effects +generally disappeared the moment she was in the free air. + +At last, a vent for her was found in private theatricals. Play followed +play, and in these and the rehearsals she found entertainment congenial +with her. The principal parts, as a matter of course, fell to her lot; +most of the good suggestions and arrangements came from her, and for a +time she ruled masterly and shone triumphant. + +During these performances the girls had heightened their natural bloom +with artificial red; this was delightful to them--it was something so +out of the way. But Mariana, after the plays were over, kept her carmine +saucer on the dressing table, and put on her blushes regularly as the +morning. + +When stared and jeered at, she at first said she did it because she +thought it made her look prettier; but, after a while, she became quite +petulant about it--would make no reply to any joke, but merely kept on +doing it. + +This irritated the girls, as all eccentricity does the world in general, +more than vice or malignity. They talked it over among themselves, till +they got wrought up to a desire of punishing, once for all, this +sometimes amusing, but so often provoking nonconformist. + +Having obtained the leave of the mistress, they laid, with great glee, a +plan one evening, which was to be carried into execution next day at +dinner. + +Among Mariana's irregularities was a great aversion to the meal-time +ceremonial. So long, so tiresome she found it, to be seated at a certain +moment, to wait while each one was served at so large a table, and one +where there was scarcely any conversation; from day to day it became +more heavy to her to sit there, or go there at all. Often as possible +she excused herself on the ever-convenient plea of headache, and was +hardly ever ready when the dinner bell rang. + +To-day it found her on the balcony, lost in gazing on the beautiful +prospect. I have heard her say, afterwards, she had rarely in her life +been so happy--and she was one with whom happiness was a still rapture. +It was one of the most blessed summer days; the shadows of great white +clouds empurpled the distant hills for a few moments only to leave them +more golden; the tall grass of the wide fields waved in the softest +breeze. Pure blue were the heavens, and the same hue of pure contentment +was in the heart of Mariana. + +Suddenly on her bright mood jarred the dinner bell. At first rose her +usual thought, I will not, cannot go; and then the _must_, which daily +life can always enforce, even upon the butterflies and birds, came, and +she walked reluctantly to her room. She merely changed her dress, and +never thought of adding the artificial rose to her cheek. + +When she took her seat in the dining hall, and was asked if she would be +helped, raising her eyes, she saw the person who asked her was deeply +rouged, with a bright, glaring spot, perfectly round, in either cheek. +She looked at the next--the same apparition! She then slowly passed her +eyes down the whole line, and saw the same, with a suppressed smile +distorting every countenance. Catching the design at once she +deliberately looked along her own side of the table, at every schoolmate +in turn; every one had joined in the trick. The teachers strove to be +grave, but she saw they enjoyed the joke. The servants could not +suppress a titter. + +When Warren Hastings stood at the bar of Westminster Hall; when the +Methodist preacher walked through a line of men, each of whom greeted +him with a brickbat or a rotten egg,--they had some preparation for the +crisis, and it might not be very difficult to meet it with an impassive +brow. Our little girl was quite unprepared to find herself in the midst +of a world which despised her, and triumphed in her disgrace. + +She had ruled like a queen in the midst of her companions; she had shed +her animation through their lives, and loaded them with prodigal favors, +nor once suspected that a powerful favorite might not be loved. Now, she +felt that she had been but a dangerous plaything in the hands of those +whose hearts she never had doubted. + +Yet the occasion found her equal to it; for Mariana had the kind of +spirit, which, in a better cause, had made the Roman matron truly say of +her death wound, "It is not painful, Poetus." She did not blench--she +did not change countenance. She swallowed her dinner with apparent +composure. She made remarks to those near her as if she had no eyes. + +The wrath of the foe of course rose higher, and the moment they were +freed from the restraints of the dining room, they all ran off, gayly +calling, and sarcastically laughing, with backward glances, at Mariana, +left alone. + +She went alone to her room, locked the door, and threw herself on the +floor in strong convulsions. These had sometimes threatened her life, as +a child, but of later years she had outgrown them. School hours came, +and she was not there. A little girl, sent to her door, could get no +answer. The teachers became alarmed, and broke it open. Bitter was their +penitence and that of her companions at the state in which they found +her. For some hours terrible anxiety was felt; but at last, Nature, +exhausted, relieved herself by a deep slumber. + +From this Mariana rose an altered being. She made no reply to the +expressions of sorrow from her companions, none to the grave and kind, +but undiscerning comments of her teacher. She did not name the source of +her anguish, and its poisoned dart sunk deeply in. It was this thought +which stung her so.--"What, not one, not a single one, in the hour of +trial, to take my part! not one who refused to take part against me!" +Past words of love, and caresses little heeded at the time, rose to her +memory, and gave fuel to her distempered thoughts. Beyond the sense of +universal perfidy, of burning resentment, she could not get. And +Mariana, born for love, now hated all the world. + +The change, however, which these feelings made in her conduct and +appearance bore no such construction to the careless observer. Her gay +freaks were quite gone, her wildness, her invention. Her dress was +uniform, her manner much subdued. Her chief interest seemed now to lie +in her studies and in music. Her companions she never sought; but they, +partly from uneasy, remorseful feelings, partly that they really liked +her much better now that she did not oppress and puzzle them, sought her +continually. And here the black shadow comes upon her life--the only +stain upon the history of Mariana. + +They talked to her as girls, having few topics, naturally do of one +another. And the demon rose within her, and spontaneously, without +design, generally without words of positive falsehood, she became a +genius of discord among them. She fanned those flames of envy and +jealousy which a wise, true word from a third person will often quench +forever; by a glance, or a seemingly light reply, she planted the seeds +of dissension, till there was scarce a peaceful affection or sincere +intimacy in the circle where she lived, and could not but rule, for she +was one whose nature was to that of the others as fire to clay. + +It was at this time that I came to the school, and first saw Mariana. Me +she charmed at once, for I was a sentimental child, who, in my early ill +health, had been indulged in reading novels till I had no eyes for the +common greens and browns of life. The heroine of one of these, "the +Bandit's Bride," I immediately saw in Mariana. Surely the Bandit's Bride +had just such hair, and such strange, lively ways, and such a sudden +flash of the eye. The Bandit's Bride, too, was born to be +"misunderstood" by all but her lover. But Mariana, I was determined, +should be more fortunate; for, until her lover appeared, I myself would +be the wise and delicate being who could understand her. + +It was not, however, easy to approach her for this purpose. Did I offer +to run and fetch her handkerchief, she was obliged to go to her room, +and would rather do it herself. She did not like to have people turn +over for her the leaves of the music book as she played. Did I approach +my stool to her feet, she moved away, as if to give me room. The bunch +of wild flowers which I timidly laid beside her plate was left there. + +After some weeks my desire to attract her notice really preyed upon me, +and one day, meeting her alone in the entry, I fell upon my knees, and +kissing her hand, cried, "O Mariana, do let me love you, and try to love +me a little." But my idol snatched away her hand, and, laughing more +wildly than the Bandit's Bride was ever described to have done, ran into +her room. After that day her manner to me was not only cold, but +repulsive; I felt myself scorned, and became very unhappy. + +Perhaps four months had passed thus, when, one afternoon, it became +obvious that something more than common was brewing. Dismay and mystery +were written in many faces of the older girls; much whispering was going +on in corners. + +In the evening, after prayers, the principal bade us stay; and, in a +grave, sad voice, summoned forth Mariana to answer charges to be made +against her. + +Mariana came forward, and leaned against the chimney-piece. Eight of the +older girls came forward, and preferred against her charges--alas! too +well founded--of calumny and falsehood. + +My heart sank within me, as one after the other brought up their proofs, +and I saw they were too strong to be resisted. I could not bear the +thought of this second disgrace of my shining favorite. The first had +been whispered to me, though the girls did not like to talk about it. I +must confess, such is the charm of strength to softer natures, that +neither of these crises could deprive Mariana of hers in my eyes. + +At first, she defended herself with self-possession and eloquence. But +when she found she could no more resist the truth, she suddenly threw +herself down, dashing her head, with all her force, against the iron +hearth, on which a fire was burning, and was taken up senseless. + +The affright of those present was great. Now that they had perhaps +killed her, they reflected it would have been as well if they had taken +warning from the former occasion, and approached very carefully a nature +so capable of any extreme. After a while she revived, with a faint +groan, amid the sobs of her companions. I was on my knees by the bed, +and held her cold hand. One of those most aggrieved took it from me to +beg her pardon, and say it was impossible not to love her. She made no +reply. + +Neither that night, nor for several days, could a word be obtained from +her, nor would she touch food; but, when it was presented to her, or any +one drew near for any cause, she merely turned away her head, and gave +no sign. The teacher saw that some terrible nervous affection had fallen +upon her--that she grew more and more feverish. She knew not what to +do. + +Meanwhile, a new revolution had taken place in the mind of the +passionate but nobly-tempered child. All these months nothing but the +sense of injury had rankled in her heart. She had gone on in one mood, +doing what the demon prompted, without scruple and without fear. + +But at the moment of detection, the tide ebbed, and the bottom of her +soul lay revealed to her eye. How black, how stained and sad! Strange, +strange that she had not seen before the baseness and cruelty of +falsehood, the loveliness of truth. Now, amid the wreck, uprose the +moral nature which never before had attained the ascendant. "But," she +thought, "too late sin is revealed to me in all its deformity, and +sin-defiled, I will not, cannot live. The mainspring of life is broken." + +And thus passed slowly by her hours in that black despair of which only +youth is capable. In older years men suffer more dull pain, as each +sorrow that comes drops its leaden weight into the past, and, similar +features of character bringing similar results, draws up the heavy +burden buried in those depths. But only youth has energy, with fixed, +unwinking gaze, to contemplate grief, to hold it in the arms and to the +heart, like a child which makes it wretched, yet is indubitably its own. + +The lady who took charge of this sad child had never well understood her +before, but had always looked on her with great tenderness. And now love +seemed--when all around were in greatest distress, fearing to call in +medical aid, fearing to do without it--to teach her where the only balm +was to be found that could have healed this wounded spirit. + +One night she came in, bringing a calming draught. Mariana was sitting, +as usual, her hair loose, her dress the same robe they had put on her at +first, her eyes fixed vacantly upon the whited wall. To the proffers and +entreaties of her nurse she made no reply. + +The lady burst into tears, but Mariana did not seem even to observe it. + +The lady then said, "O my child, do not despair; do not think that one +great fault can mar a whole life. Let me trust you, let me tell you the +griefs of my sad life. I will tell to you, Mariana, what I never +expected to impart to any one." + +And so she told her tale: it was one of pain, of shame, borne, not for +herself, but for one near and dear as herself. Mariana knew the +lady--knew the pride and reserve of her nature. She had often admired to +see how the cheek, lovely, but no longer young, mantled with the deepest +blush of youth, and the blue eyes were cast down at any little emotion: +she had understood the proud sensibility of the character. She fixed her +eyes on those now raised to hers, bright with fast-falling tears. She +heard the story to the end, and then, without saying a word, stretched +out her hand for the cup. + +She returned to life, but it was as one who has passed through the +valley of death. The heart of stone was quite broken in her, the fiery +life fallen from flame to coal. When her strength was a little restored, +she had all her companions summoned, and said to them, "I deserved to +die, but a generous trust has called me back to life. I will be worthy +of it, nor ever betray the truth, or resent injury more. Can you forgive +the past?" + +And they not only forgave, but, with love and earnest tears, clasped in +their arms the returning sister. They vied with one another in offices +of humble love to the humbled one; and let it be recorded as an instance +of the pure honor of which young hearts are capable, that these facts, +known to forty persons, never, so far as I know, transpired beyond those +walls. + +It was not long after this that Mariana was summoned home. She went +thither a wonderfully instructed being, though in ways that those who +had sent her forth to learn little dreamed of. + +Never was forgotten the vow of the returning prodigal. Mariana could not +resent, could not play false. The terrible crisis which she so early +passed through probably prevented the world from hearing much of her. A +wild fire was tamed in that hour of penitence at the boarding school +such as has oftentimes wrapped court and camp in its destructive glow. + +But great were the perils she had yet to undergo, for she was one of +those barks which easily get beyond soundings, and ride not lightly on +the plunging billow. + +Her return to her native climate seconded the effects of inward +revolutions. The cool airs of the north had exasperated nerves too +susceptible for their tension. Those of the south restored her to a more +soft and indolent state. Energy gave place to feeling--turbulence to +intensity of character. + +At this time, love was the natural guest; and he came to her under a +form that might have deluded one less ready for delusion. + +Sylvain was a person well proportioned to her lot in years, family, and +fortune. His personal beauty was not great, but of a noble description. +Repose marked his slow gesture, and the steady gaze of his large brown +eye; but it was a repose that would give way to a blaze of energy, when +the occasion called. In his stature, expression, and heavy coloring, he +might not unfitly be represented by the great magnolias that inhabit the +forests of that climate. His voice, like every thing about him, was rich +and soft, rather than sweet or delicate. + +Mariana no sooner knew him than she loved; and her love, lovely as she +was, soon excited his. But O, it is a curse to woman to love first, or +most! In so doing she reverses the natural relations; and her heart can +never, never be satisfied with what ensues. + +Mariana loved first, and loved most, for she had most force and variety +to love with. Sylvain seemed, at first, to take her to himself, as the +deep southern night might some fair star; but it proved not so. + +Mariana was a very intellectual being, and she needed companionship. +This she could only have with Sylvain, in the paths of passion and +action. Thoughts he had none, and little delicacy of sentiment. The +gifts she loved to prepare of such for him he took with a sweet but +indolent smile; he held them lightly, and soon they fell from his grasp. +He loved to have her near him, to feel the glow and fragrance of her +nature, but cared not to explore the little secret paths whence that +fragrance was collected. + +Mariana knew not this for a long time. Loving so much, she imagined all +the rest; and, where she felt a blank, always hoped that further +communion would fill it up. When she found this could never be,--that +there was absolutely a whole province of her being to which nothing in +his answered,--she was too deeply in love to leave him. Often, after +passing hours together beneath the southern moon, when, amid the sweet +intoxication of mutual love, she still felt the desolation of solitude, +and a repression of her finer powers, she had asked herself, Can I give +him up? But the heart always passionately answered, No! I may be +wretched with him, but I cannot live without him. + +And the last miserable feeling of these conflicts was, that if the +lover--soon to be the bosom friend--could have dreamed of these +conflicts, he would have laughed, or else been angry, even enough to +give her up. + +Ah, weakness of the strong! of those strong only where strength is +weakness! Like others, she had the decisions of life to make before she +had light by which to make them. Let none condemn her. Those who have +not erred as fatally should thank the guardian angel who gave them more +time to prepare for judgment, but blame no children who thought at arm's +length to find the moon. Mariana, with a heart capable of highest Eros, +gave it to one who knew love only as a flower or plaything, and bound +her heartstrings to one who parted his as lightly as the ripe fruit +leaves the bough. The sequel could not fail. Many console themselves for +the one great mistake with their children, with the world. This was not +possible to Mariana. A few months of domestic life she still was almost +happy. But Sylvain then grew tired. He wanted business and the world: of +these she had no knowledge, for them no faculties. He wanted in her the +head of his house; she to make her heart his home. No compromise was +possible between natures of such unequal poise, and which had met only +on one or two points. Through all its stages she + + "felt + The agonizing sense + Of seeing love from passion melt + Into indifference; + The fearful shame, that, day by day, + Burns onward, still to burn, + To have thrown her precious heart away, + And met this black return," + +till death at last closed the scene. Not that she died of one downright +blow on the heart. That is not the way such cases proceed. I cannot +detail all the symptoms, for I was not there to watch them, and aunt Z., +who described them, was neither so faithful an observer or narrator as I +have shown myself in the school-day passages; but, generally, they were +as follows. + +Sylvain wanted to go into the world, or let it into his house. Mariana +consented; but, with an unsatisfied heart, and no lightness of +character, she played her part ill there. The sort of talent and +facility she had displayed in early days were not the least like what is +called out in the social world by the desire to please and to shine. Her +excitement had been muse-like--that of the improvisatrice, whose +kindling fancy seeks to create an atmosphere round it, and makes the +chain through which to set free its electric sparks. That had been a +time of wild and exuberant life. After her character became more tender +and concentrated, strong affection or a pure enthusiasm might still have +called out beautiful talents in her. But in the first she was utterly +disappointed. The second was not roused within her mind. She did not +expand into various life, and remained unequal; sometimes too passive, +sometimes too ardent, and not sufficiently occupied with what occupied +those around her to come on the same level with them and embellish their +hours. + +Thus she lost ground daily with her husband, who, comparing her with the +careless shining dames of society, wondered why he had found her so +charming in solitude. + +At intervals, when they were left alone, Mariana wanted to open her +heart, to tell the thoughts of her mind. She was so conscious of secret +riches within herself, that sometimes it seemed, could she but reveal a +glimpse of them to the eye of Sylvain, he would be attracted near her +again, and take a path where they could walk hand in hand. Sylvain, in +these intervals, wanted an indolent repose. His home was his castle. He +wanted no scenes too exciting there. Light jousts and plays were well +enough, but no grave encounters. He liked to lounge, to sing, to read, +to sleep. In fine, Sylvain became the kind but preoccupied husband, +Mariana the solitary and wretched wife. He was off, continually, with +his male companions, on excursions or affairs of pleasure. At home +Mariana found that neither her books nor music would console her. + +She was of too strong a nature to yield without a struggle to so dull a +fiend as despair. She looked into other hearts, seeking whether she +could there find such home as an orphan asylum may afford. This she did +rather because the chance came to her, and it seemed unfit not to seize +the proffered plank, than in hope; for she was not one to double her +stakes, but rather with Cassandra power to discern early the sure course +of the game. And Cassandra whispered that she was one of those + + "Whom men love not, but yet regret;" + +and so it proved. Just as in her childish days, though in a different +form, it happened betwixt her and these companions. She could not be +content to receive them quietly, but was stimulated to throw herself too +much into the tie, into the hour, till she filled it too full for them. +Like Fortunio, who sought to do homage to his friends by building a fire +of cinnamon, not knowing that its perfume would be too strong for their +endurance, so did Mariana. What she wanted to tell they did not wish to +hear; a little had pleased, so much overpowered, and they preferred the +free air of the street, even, to the cinnamon perfume of her palace. + +However, this did not signify; had they staid, it would not have availed +her. It was a nobler road, a higher aim, she needed now; this did not +become clear to her. + +She lost her appetite, she fell sick, had fever. Sylvain was alarmed, +nursed her tenderly; she grew better. Then his care ceased; he saw not +the mind's disease, but left her to rise into health, and recover the +tone of her spirits, as she might. More solitary than ever, she tried to +raise herself; but she knew not yet enough. The weight laid upon her +young life was a little too heavy for it. One long day she passed alone, +and the thoughts and presages came too thick for her strength. She knew +not what to do with them, relapsed into fever, and died. + +Notwithstanding this weakness, I must ever think of her as a fine sample +of womanhood, born to shed light and life on some palace home. Had she +known more of God and the universe, she would not have given way where +so many have conquered. But peace be with her; she now, perhaps, has +entered into a larger freedom, which is knowledge. With her died a great +interest in life to me. Since her I have never seen a Bandit's Bride. +She, indeed, turned out to be only a merchant's. Sylvain is married +again to a fair and laughing girl, who will not die, probably, till +their marriage grows a "golden marriage." + +Aunt Z. had with her some papers of Mariana's, which faintly shadow +forth the thoughts that engaged her in the last days. One of these seems +to have been written when some faint gleam had been thrown across the +path only to make its darkness more visible. It seems to have been +suggested by remembrance of the beautiful ballad, _Helen of Kirconnel +Lee_, which once she loved to recite, and in tones that would not have +sent a chill to the heart from which it came. + + "Death + Opens her sweet white arms, and whispers, Peace; + Come, say thy sorrows in this bosom! This + Will never close against thee, and my heart, + Though cold, cannot be colder much than man's." + +DISAPPOINTMENT. + + "I wish I were where Helen lies." + A lover in the times of old, + Thus vents his grief in lonely sighs, + And hot tears from a bosom cold. + + But, mourner for thy martyred love, + Couldst thou but know what hearts must feel. + Where no sweet recollections move, + Whose tears a desert fount reveal! + + When "in thy arms bird Helen fell," + She died, sad man, she died for thee; + Nor could the films of death dispel + Her loving eye's sweet radiancy. + + Thou wert beloved, and she had loved, + Till death alone the whole could tell; + Death every shade of doubt removed, + And steeped the star in its cold well. + + On some fond breast the parting soul + Relies--earth has no more to give; + Who wholly loves has known the whole; + The wholly loved doth truly live. + + But some, sad outcasts from this prize, + Do wither to a lonely grave; + All hearts their hidden love despise, + And leave them to the whelming wave. + + They heart to heart have never pressed, + Nor hands in holy pledge have given, + By father's love were ne'er caressed, + Nor in a mother's eye saw heaven. + + A flowerless and fruitless tree, + A dried-up stream, a mateless bird, + They live, yet never living be, + They die, their music all unheard. + + I wish I were where Helen lies, + For there I could not be alone; + But now, when this dull body dies, + The spirit still will make its moan. + + Love passed me by, nor touched my brow; + Life would not yield one perfect boon; + And all too late it calls me now-- + O, all too late, and all too soon. + + If thou couldst the dark riddle read + Which leaves this dart within my breast, + Then might I think thou lov'st indeed, + Then were the whole to thee confest. + + Father, they will not take me home; + To the poor child no heart is free; + In sleet and snow all night I roam; + Father, was this decreed by thee? + + I will not try another door, + To seek what I have never found; + Now, till the very last is o'er, + Upon the earth I'll wander round. + + I will not hear the treacherous call + That bids me stay and rest a while, + For I have found that, one and all, + They seek me for a prey and spoil. + + They are not bad; I know it well; + I know they know not what they do; + They are the tools of the dread spell + Which the lost lover must pursue. + + In temples sometimes she may rest, + In lonely groves, away from men, + There bend the head, by heats distressed, + Nor be by blows awoke again. + + Nature is kind, and God is kind; + And, if she had not had a heart, + Only that great discerning mind, + She might have acted well her part. + + But O this thirst, that nought can fill, + Save those unfounden waters free! + The angel of my life must still + And soothe me in eternity! + +It marks the defect in the position of woman that one like Mariana +should have found reason to write thus. To a man of equal power, equal +sincerity, no more!--many resources would have presented themselves. He +would not have needed to seek, he would have been called by life, and +not permitted to be quite wrecked through the affections only. But such +women as Mariana are often lost, unless they meet some man of +sufficiently great soul to prize them. + +Van Artevelde's Elena, though in her individual nature unlike my +Mariana, is like her in a mind whose large impulses are disproportioned +to the persons and occasions she meets, and which carry her beyond those +reserves which mark the appointed lot of woman. But, when she met Van +Artevelde, he was too great not to revere her rare nature, without +regard to the stains and errors of its past history; great enough to +receive her entirely, and make a new life for her; man enough to be a +lover! But as such men come not so often as once an age, their presence +should not be absolutely needed to sustain life. + + + + +SUNDAY MEDITATIONS ON VARIOUS TEXTS. + + +MEDITATION FIRST. + + "And Jesus, answering, said unto them, Have faith in God."--_Mark_ + xi. 22. + +O, direction most difficult to follow! O, counsel most mighty of import! +Beauteous harmony to the purified soul! Mysterious, confounding as an +incantation to those yet groping and staggering amid the night, the fog, +the chaos of their own inventions! + +Yes, this is indeed the beginning and the end of all knowledge and +virtue; the way and the goal; the enigma and its solution. The soul +cannot prove to herself the existence of a God; she cannot prove her own +immortality; she cannot prove the beauty of virtue, or the deformity of +vice; her own consciousness, the first ground of this belief, cannot be +compassed by the reason, that inferior faculty which the Deity gave for +practical, temporal purposes only. This consciousness is divine; it is +part of the Deity; through this alone we sympathize with the +imperishable, the infinite, the nature of things. Were reason +commensurate with this part of our intellectual life, what should we do +with the things of time? The leaves and buds of earth would wither +beneath the sun of our intelligence; its crags and precipices would be +levelled before the mighty torrent of our will; all its dross would +crumble to ashes under the fire of our philosophy. + +God willed it otherwise; WHY, who can guess? Why this planet, with its +tormenting limitations of space and time, was ever created,--why the +soul was cased in this clogging, stifling integument, (which, while it +conveys to the soul, in a roundabout way, knowledge which she might +obviously acquire much better without its aid, tempts constantly to vice +and indolence, suggesting sordid wants, and hampering or hindering +thought,)--I pretend not to say. Let others toil to stifle sad distrust +a thousand ways. Let them satisfy themselves by reasonings on the nature +of free agency; let them imagine it was impossible men should be +purified to angels, except by resisting the temptations of guilt and +crime; let them be _reasonably_ content to feel that + + "Faith conquers in no easy war; + By toil alone the prize is won; + The grape dissolves not in the cup-- + Wine from the crushing press must run; + And would a spirit heavenward go, + A heart must break in death below." + +Why an _omnipotent_ Deity should permit evil, either as necessary to +produce good, or incident to laws framed for its production, must remain +a mystery to me. True, _we_ cannot conceive how the world could have +been ordered differently, and because _we_,--beings half of clay; beings +bred amid, and nurtured upon imperfection and decay; beings who must not +only sleep and eat, but pass the greater part of their temporal day in +procuring the means to do so,--because WE, creatures so limited and +blind, so weak of thought and dull of hearing, cannot conceive how evil +could have been dispensed with, those among us who are styled _wise_ and +_learned_ have thought fit to assume that the Infinite, the Omnipotent, +could not have found a way! "Could not," "evil must be incident"--terms +invented to express the thoughts or deeds of the children of dust. Shall +they be applied to the Omnipotent? Is a confidence in the goodness of +God more trying to faith, than the belief that a God exists, to whom +these words, transcending our powers of conception, apply? O, no, no! +"_Have faith in God!_" Strive to expand thy soul to the feeling of +wisdom, of beauty, of goodness; live, and act as if these were the +necessary elements of things; "live for thy faith, and thou shalt behold +it living." In another world God will repay thy trust, and "reveal to +thee the first causes of things which Leibnitz could not," as the queen +of Prussia said, when she was dying. Socrates has declared that the +belief in the soul's immortality is so delightful, so elevating, so +purifying, that even were it not the truth, "we should daily strive to +enchant ourselves with it." And thus with faith in wisdom and +goodness,--that is to say, in God,--the earthquake-defying, +rock-foundation of our hopes is laid; the sun-greeting dome which crowns +the most superb palace of our knowledge is builded. A noble and +accomplished man, of a later day, has said, "To credit ordinary and +visible objects is not faith, but persuasion. I bless myself, and am +thankful, that I lived not in the days of miracles, that I never saw +Christ, nor his disciples; then had my faith been thrust upon me, nor +could I enjoy that greater blessing pronounced upon those who believe +yet saw not." + +I cannot speak thus proudly and heartily. I find the world of sense +strong enough against the intellectual and celestial world. It is easy +to believe in our passionless moments, or in those when earth would seem +too dark without the guiding star of faith; but to _live_ in faith, not +sometimes to feel, but always to have it, is difficult. Were faith ever +with us, how steady would be our energy, how equal our ambition, how +calmly bright our hopes! The darts of envy would be blunted, the cup of +disappointment lose its bitterness, the impassioned eagerness of the +heart be stilled, tears would fall like holy dew, and blossoms fragrant +with celestial May ensue. + +But the prayer of most of us must be, "Lord, we believe--help thou our +unbelief!" These are to me the most significant words of Holy Writ. I +_will_ to believe; O, guide, support, strengthen, and soothe me to do +so! Lord, grant me to believe firmly, and to act nobly. Let me not be +tempted to waste my time, and weaken my powers, by attempts to soar on +feeble pinions "where angels bashful look." In _faith_ let me interpret +the universe! + + +MEDITATION SECOND. + + "Why is light given to a man whose way is hid, and whom God hath + hedged in?"--_Job_ iii. 23. + +This pathetic inquiry rises from all parts of the globe, from millions +of human souls, to that heaven from whence the light proceeds. From the +young, full of eager aspirations after virtue and glory; with the glance +of the falcon to descry the high-placed aim,--but ah! the wing of the +wren to reach it! The young enthusiast must often weep. His heart glows, +his eye sparkles as he reads of the youthful triumphs of a Pompey, the +sublime devotion of an Agis;[34] he shuts the book, he looks around him +for a theatre whereon to do likewise--petty pursuits, mean feelings, and +trifling pleasures meet his eye; the cold breeze of selfishness has +nipped every flower; the dull glow of prosaic life overpowers the +beauties of the landscape. He plunges into the unloved pursuit, or some +despised amusement, to soothe that day's impatience, and wakes on the +morrow, crying, "I have lost a day; and where, where shall I now turn my +steps to find the destined path?" The gilded image of some petty victory +holds forth a talisman which seems to promise him sure tokens. He rushes +forward; the swords of foes and rivals bar the way; the ground trembles +and gives way beneath his feet; rapid streams, unseen at a distance, +roll between him and the object of his pursuit; faint, giddy and +exhausted by the loss of his best blood, he reaches the goal, seizes the +talisman; his eyes devour the inscription--alas! the characters are +unknown to him. He looks back for some friend who might aid him,--his +friends are whelmed beneath the torrent, or have turned back +disheartened. He must struggle onward alone and ignorant as before; yet +in his wishes there is light. + +Another is attracted by a lovely phantom; with airy step she precedes +him, holding, as he thinks, in her upward-pointing hand the faithful +needle which might point him to the pole-star of his wishes. Unwearied +he follows, imploring her in most moving terms to pause but a moment and +let him take her hand. Heedless she flits onward to some hopeless +desert, where she pauses only to turn to her unfortunate captive the +malicious face of a very Morgana. + +The old,--O their sighs are deeper still! They have wandered far, toiled +much; the true light is now shown them. Ah, why was it reflected so +falsely through "life's many-colored dome of painted glass" upon their +youthful, anxious gaze? And now the path they came by is hedged in by +new circumstances against the feet of others, and its devious course +vainly mapped in their memories; should the light of their example lead +others into the same track, these unlucky followers will vainly seek an +issue. They attempt to unroll their charts for the use of their +children, and their children's children. They feed the dark lantern of +wisdom with the oil of experience, and hold it aloft over the declivity +up which these youth are blundering, in vain; some fall, misled by the +flickering light; others seek by-paths, along which they hope to be +guided by suns or moons of their own. All meet at last, only to bemoan +or sneer together. How many strive with feverish zeal to paint on the +clouds of outward life the hues of their own souls; what do not these +suffer? What baffling,--what change in the atmosphere on which they +depend,--yet _not_ in vain! Something they realize, something they +grasp, something (O, how unlike the theme of their hope!) they have +created. A transient glow, a deceitful thrill,--these be the blisses of +mortals. Yet have these given birth to noble deeds, and thoughts worthy +to be recorded by the pens of angels on the tablets of immortality. + +And this, O man! is thy only solace in those paroxysms of despair which +must result to the yet eager heart from the vast disproportion between +our perceptions and our exhibition of those perceptions. Seize on all +the twigs that may help thee in thine ascent, though the thorns upon +them rend thee. Toil ceaselessly towards the Source of light, and +remember that he who thus eloquently lamented found that, although far +worse than his dark presentiments had pictured came upon him, though +vainly he feared and trembled, and there was no safety for him, yet his +sighings came before his meat, and, happy in their recollection, he +found at last that danger and imprisonment are but for a season, and +that God is _good_, as he is great. + + + + +APPEAL FOR AN ASYLUM FOR DISCHARGED FEMALE CONVICTS. + + +The ladies of the Prison Association have been from time to time engaged +in the endeavor to procure funds for establishing this asylum.[35] They +have met, thus far, with little success; but touched by the position of +several women, who, on receiving their discharge, were anxiously waiting +in hope there would be means provided to save them from return to their +former suffering and polluted life, they have taken a house, and begun +their good work, in faith that Heaven must take heed that such an +enterprise may not fail, and touch the hearts of men to aid it. + +They have taken a house, and secured the superintendence of an excellent +matron. There are already six women under her care. But this house is +unprovided with furniture, or the means of securing food for body and +mind to these unfortunates, during the brief novitiate which gives them +so much to learn and unlearn. + +The object is to lend a helping hand to the many who show a desire of +reformation, but have hitherto been inevitably repelled into infamy by +the lack of friends to find them honest employment, and a temporary +refuge till it can be procured. Efforts will be made to instruct them +how to break up bad habits, and begin a healthy course for body and +mind. + +The house has in it scarcely any thing. It is a true Lazarus +establishment, asking for the crumbs that fall from the rich man's +table. Old furniture would be acceptable, clothes, books that are no +longer needed by their owners. + +This statement we make in appealing to the poor, though they are, +usually, the most generous. Not that they are, originally, better than +the rich, but circumstances have fitted them to appreciate the +misfortunes, the trials, the wrongs that beset those a little lower than +themselves. But we have seen too many instances where those who were +educated in luxury would cast aside sloth and selfishness with eagerness +when once awakened to better things, not to hope in appealing to the +rich also. + +And to all we appeal: to the poor, who will know how to sympathize with +those who are not only poor but degraded, diseased, likely to be hurried +onward to a shameful, hopeless death; to the rich, to equalize the +advantages of which they have received more than their share; to men, to +atone for wrongs inflicted by men on that "weaker sex," who should, they +say, be soft, confiding, dependent on them for protection; to women, to +feel for those who have not been guarded either by social influence or +inward strength from that first mistake which the opinion of the world +makes irrevocable for women alone. Since their danger is so great, their +fall so remediless, let mercies be multiplied when there is a chance of +that partial restoration which society at present permits. + +In New York we have come little into contact with that class of society +which has a surplus of leisure at command; but in other cities we have, +found in their ranks many--some men, more women--who wanted only a +decided object and clear light to fill the noble office of disinterested +educators and guardians to their less fortunate fellows. It has been our +happiness, in not a few instances, by merely apprising such persons of +what was to be done, to rouse that generous spirit which relieved them +from ennui and a gradual ossification of the whole system, and +transferred them into a thoughtful, sympathetic, and beneficent +existence. Such, no doubt, are near us here, if we could but know it. A +poet writes thus of the cities:-- + + Cities of proud hotels, + Houses of rich and great, + A stack of smoking chimneys, + A roof of frozen slate! + It cannot conquer folly, + Time, and space, conquering steam, + And the light, outspeeding telegraph, + Bears nothing on its beam. + + The politics are base, + The letters do not cheer, + And 'tis far in the deeps of history, + The voice that speaketh clear. + Trade and the streets insnare us, + Our bodies are weak and worn, + We plot and corrupt each other, + And we despoil the unborn. + + Yet there in the parlor sits + Some figure of noble guise, + Our angel in a stranger's form, + Or woman's pleading eyes. + Or only a flashing sunbeam + In at the window pane, + Or music pours on mortals + Its beautiful disdain. + +These "pleading eyes," these "angels in strangers' forms," we meet, or +seem to meet, as we pass through the thoroughfares of this great city. +We do not know their names or homes. We cannot go to those still and +sheltered abodes and tell them the tales that would be sure to awaken +the heart to a deep and active interest in this matter. But should these +words meet their eyes, we would say, "Have you entertained your leisure +hours with the Mysteries of Paris, or the pathetic story of Violet +Woodville?" Then you have some idea how innocence, worthy of the +brightest planet, may be betrayed by want, or by the most generous +tenderness; how the energies of a noble reformation may lie hidden +beneath the ashes of a long burning, as in the case of "La Louve." You +must have felt that yourselves are not better, only more protected +children of God than these. Do you want to link these fictions, which +have made you weep, with facts around you where your pity might be of +use? Go to the Penitentiary at Blackwell's Island. You may be repelled +by seeing those who are in health while at work together, keeping up one +another's careless spirit and effrontery by bad association. But see +them in the Hospital,--where the worn features of the sick show the sad +ruins of past loveliness, past gentleness. See in the eyes of the nurses +the woman's spirit still, so kindly, so inspiring. See those little +girls huddled in a corner, their neglected dress and hair contrasting +with some ribbon of cherished finery held fast in a childish hand. Think +what "sweet seventeen" was to you, and what it is to them, and see if +you do not wish to aid in any enterprise that gives them a chance of +better days. We assume no higher claim for this enterprise. The dreadful +social malady which creates the need of it, is one that imperatively +demands deep-searching, preventive measures; it is beyond cure. But, +here and there, some precious soul may be saved from unwilling sin, +unutterable woe. Is not the hope to save here and there _one_ worthy of +great and persistent sacrifice? + + + + +THE RICH MAN. + +AN IDEAL SKETCH. + + +In my walks through this city, the sight of spacious and expensive +dwelling-houses now in process of building, has called up the following +reverie. + +All benevolent persons, whether deeply-thinking on, or deeply-feeling, +the woes, difficulties, and dangers of our present social system, are +agreed that either great improvements are needed, or a thorough reform. + +Those who desire the latter include the majority of thinkers. And we +ourselves, both from personal observation and the testimony of others, +are convinced that a radical reform is needed; not a reform that rejects +the instruction of the past, or asserts that God and man have made +mistakes till now. We believe that all past developments have taken +place under natural and necessary laws, and that the Paternal Spirit has +at no period forgotten his children, but granted to all generations and +all ages their chances of good to balance inevitable ills. We prize the +past; we recognize it as our parent, our nurse, and our teacher; and we +know that for a time the new wine required the old bottles, to prevent +its being spilled upon the ground. + +Still we feel that the time is come which not only permits, but demands, +a wider statement and a nobler action. The aspect of society presents +mighty problems, which must be solved by the soul of man +"divinely-intending" itself to the task, or all will become worse +instead of better, and ere long the social fabric totter to decay. + +Yet while the new measures are ripening, and the new men educating, +there is still room on the old platform for some worthy action. It is +possible for a man of piety, resolution, and good sense, to lead a life +which, if not expansive, generous, graceful, and pure from suspicion and +contempt, is yet not entirely unworthy of his position as the child of +God, and ruler of a planet. + +Let us take, then, some men just where they find themselves, in a mixed +state of society, where, in quantity, we are free to say the bad +preponderates, though the good, from its superior energy in quality, may +finally redeem and efface its plague-spots. + +Our society is ostensibly under the rule of the precepts of Jesus. We +will then suppose a youth sufficiently imbued with these, to understand +what is conveyed under the parables of the unjust steward, and the +prodigal son, as well as the denunciations of the opulent Jews. He +understands that it is needful to preserve purity and teachableness, +since of those most like little children is the kingdom of heaven; mercy +for the sinner, since there is peculiar joy in heaven at the salvation +of such; perpetual care for the unfortunate, since only to the just +steward shall his possessions be pardoned. Imbued with such love, the +young man joins the active,--we will say, in choosing an +instance,--joins the commercial world. + +His views of his profession are not those which make of the many a herd, +not superior, except in the far reach of their selfish interests, to the +animals; mere calculating, money-making machines. + +He sees in commerce a representation of most important interests, a +grand school that may teach the heart and soul of the civilized world to +a willing, thinking mind. He plays his part in the game, but not for +himself alone; he sees the interests of all mankind engaged with his, +and remembers them while he furthers his own. His intellectual +discernment, no less than his moral, thus teaching the undesirableness +of lying and stealing, he does not practise or connive at the falsities +and meannesses so frequent among his fellows; he suffers many turns of +the wheel of fortune to pass unused, since he cannot avail himself of +them and keep clean his hands. What he gains is by superior assiduity, +skill in combination and calculation, and quickness of sight. His gains +are legitimate, so far as the present state of things permits any gains +to be. + +Nor is this honorable man denied his due rank in the most corrupt state +of society. Here, happily, we draw from life, and speak of what we know. +Honesty is, indeed, the best policy, only it is so in the long run, and +therefore a policy which a selfish man has not faith and patience to +pursue. The influence of the honest man is in the end predominant, and +the rogues who sneer because he will not shuffle the cards in _their_ +way, are forced to bow to it at last. + +But while thus conscientious and mentally-progressive, he does not +forget to live. The sharp and care-worn faces, the joyless lives that +throng the busy street, do not make him forget his need of tender +affections, of the practices of bounty and love. His family, his +acquaintance, especially those who are struggling with the difficulties +of life, are not obliged to wait till he has accumulated a certain sum. +He is sunlight and dew to them now, day by day. No less do all in his +employment prize and bless the just, the brotherly man. He dares not, +would not, climb to power upon their necks. He requites their toil +handsomely, always; if his success be unusual, they share the benefit. +Their comfort is cared for in all the arrangements for their work. He +takes care, too, to be personally acquainted with those he employs, +regarding them, not as mere tools of his purpose, but as human beings +also; he keeps them in his eye, and if it be in his power to supply +their need of consolation, instruction, or even pleasure, they find they +have a friend. + +"Nonsense!" exclaims our sharp-eyed, thin-lipped antagonist. "Such a man +would never get rich,--or even _get along_!" + +You are mistaken, Mr. Stockjobber. Thus far many lines of our sketch are +drawn from real life; though for the second part, which follows, we +want, as yet, a worthy model. + +We must imagine, then, our ideal merchant to have grown rich in some +forty years of toil passed in the way we have indicated. His hair is +touched with white, but his form is vigorous yet. Neither _gourmandise_ +nor the fever of gain has destroyed his complexion, quenched the light +of his eye, or substituted sneers for smiles. He is an upright, strong, +sagacious, generous-looking man; and if his movements be abrupt, and his +language concise, somewhat beyond the standard of beauty, he is still +the gentleman; mercantile, but a mercantile nobleman. + +Our nation is not silly in striving for an aristocracy. Humanity longs +for its upper classes. But the silliness consists in making them out of +clothes, equipage, and a servile imitation of foreign manners, instead +of the genuine elegance and distinction that can only be produced by +genuine culture. Shame upon the stupidity which, when all circumstances +leave us free for the introduction of a real aristocracy such as the +world never saw, bases its pretensions on, or makes its bow to the +footman behind, the coach, instead of the person within it. + +But our merchant shall be a real nobleman, whose noble manners spring +from a noble mind, whose fashions from a sincere, intelligent love of +the beautiful. + +We will also indulge the fancy of giving him a wife and children worthy +of himself. Having lived in sympathy with him, they have acquired no +taste for luxury; they do not think that the best use for wealth and +power is in self-indulgence, but, on the contrary, that "it is more +blessed to give than to receive." + +He is now having one of those fine houses built, and, as in other +things, proceeds on a few simple principles. It is substantial, for he +wishes to give no countenance to the paper buildings that correspond +with other worthless paper currency of a credit system. It is thoroughly +finished and furnished, for he has a conscience about his house, as +about the neatness of his person. All must be of a piece. Harmony and a +wise utility are consulted, without regard to show. Still, as a rich +man, we allow him reception-rooms, lofty, large, adorned with good +copies of ancient works of art, and fine specimens of modern. + +I admit, in this instance, the propriety of my nobleman often choosing +by advice of friends, who may have had more leisure and opportunity to +acquire a sure appreciation of merit in these walks. His character being +simple, he will, no doubt, appreciate a great part of what is truly +grand and beautiful. But also, from imperfect culture, he might often +reject what in the end he would have found most valuable to himself and +others. For he has not done learning, but only acquired the privilege of +helping to open a domestic school, in which he will find himself a pupil +as well as a master. So he may well make use, in furnishing himself with +the school apparatus, of the best counsel. The same applies to making +his library a good one. Only there must be no sham; no pluming himself +on possessions that represent his wealth, but the taste of others. Our +nobleman is incapable of pretension, or the airs of connoisseurship; his +object is to furnish a home with those testimonies of a higher life in +man, that may best aid to cultivate the same in himself and those +assembled round him. + +He shall also have a fine garden and greenhouses. But the flowers shall +not be used only to decorate his apartments, or the hair of his +daughters, but shall often bless, by their soft and exquisite eloquence, +the poor invalid, or others whose sorrowful hearts find in their society +a consolation and a hope which nothing else bestows. For flowers, the +highest expression of the bounty of nature, declare that for all men, +not merely labor, or luxury, but gentle, buoyant, ever-energetic joy, +was intended, and bid us hope that we shall not forever be kept back +from our inheritance. + +All the persons who have aided in building up this domestic temple, from +the artist who painted the ceilings to the poorest hodman, shall be well +paid and cared for during its erection; for it is a necessary part of +the happiness of our nobleman, to feel that all concerned in creating +his home are the happier for it. + +We have said nothing about the architecture of the house, and yet this +is only for want of room. We do consider it one grand duty of every +person able to build a good house, also to aim at building a beautiful +one. We do not want imitations of what was used in other ages, nations, +and climates, but what is simple, noble, and in conformity with the +wants of our own. Room enough, simplicity of design, and judicious +adjustment of the parts to their uses and to the whole, are the first +requisites; the ornaments are merely the finish on these. We hope to see +a good style of civic architecture long before any material improvement +in the country edifices, for reasons that would be tedious to enumerate +here. Suffice it to say that we are far more anxious to see an American +architecture than an American literature; for we are sure there is here +already something individual to express. + +Well, suppose the house built and equipped with man and horse. You may +be sure my nobleman gives his "hired help" good accommodations for their +sleeping and waking hours,--baths, books, and some leisure to use them. +Nay, I assure you--and this assurance also is drawn from life--that it +is possible, even in our present social relations, for the man who does +common justice, in these respects, to his fellows, and shows a friendly +heart, that thoroughly feels service to be no degradation, but an honor, +who believes + + "A man's a MAN for a' that;"-- + "Honor in the king the wisdom of his service, + Honor in the serf the fidelity of his service,"-- + +to have around him those who do their work in serenity of mind, neither +deceiving nor envying him whom circumstances have enabled to command +their service. As to the carriage, that is used for the purpose of going +to and fro in bad weather, or ill health, or haste, or for drives to +enjoy the country. But my nobleman and his family are too well born and +bred not to prefer employing their own feet when possible. And their +carriage is much appropriated to the use of poor invalids, even among +the abhorred class of poor relations, so that often they have not room +in it for themselves, much less for flaunting dames and lazy dandies. + +We need hardly add that, their attendants wear no liveries. They are +aware that, in a society where none of the causes exist that justify +this habit abroad, the practice would have no other result than to call +up a sneer to the lips of the most complaisant "milor," when "Mrs. +Higginbottom's carriage stops the way," with its tawdry, ill-fancied +accompaniments. _Will_ none of their "governors" tell our cits the +Æsopian fable of the donkey that tried to imitate the gambols of the +little dog? + +The wife of my nobleman is so well matched with him that she has no need +to be the better half. She is his almoner, his counsellor, and the +priestess who keeps burning on the domestic hearth a fire from the fuel +he collects in his out-door work, whose genial heart and aspiring flame +comfort and animate all who come within its range. + +His children are his ministers, whose leisure and various qualifications +enable them to carry out his good thoughts. They hold all that they +possess--time, money, talents, acquirements--on the principle of +stewardship. They wake up the seeds of virtue and genius in all the +young persons of their acquaintance; but the poorer classes are +especially their care. Among them they seek for those who are threatened +with dying--"mute, inglorious" Hampdens and Miltons--but for their +scrutiny and care; of these they become the teachers and patrons to the +extent of their power. Such knowledge of the arts, sciences, and just +principles of action as they have been favored with, they communicate, +and thereby form novices worthy to fill up the ranks of the true +American aristocracy. + +And the house--it is a large one; a simple family does not fill its +chambers. Some of them are devoted to the use of men of genius, who need +a serene home, free from care, while they pursue their labors for the +good of the world. Thus, as in the palaces of the little princes of +Italy in a better day, these chambers become hallowed by the nativities +of great thoughts; and the horoscopes of the human births that may take +place there, are likely to read the better for it. Suffering virtue +sometimes finds herself taken home here, instead of being sent to the +almshouse, or presented with half a dollar and a ticket for coal, and +finds upon my nobleman's mattresses (for the wealth of Croesus would +not lure him or his to sleep upon down) dreams of angelic protection +which enable her to rise refreshed for the struggle of the morrow. + +The uses of hospitality are very little understood among us, so that we +fear generally there is a small chance of entertaining gods and angels +unawares, as the Greeks and Hebrews did in the generous time of +hospitality, when every man had a claim on the roof of fellow-man. Now, +none is received to a bed and breakfast unless he come as "bearer of +despatches" from His Excellency So-and-so. + +But let us not be supposed to advocate the system of all work and no +play, or to delight exclusively in the pedagogic and Goody-Two-Shoes +vein. Reader, if any such accompany me to this scene of my vision, cheer +up; I hear the sound of music in full band, and see the banquet +prepared. Perhaps they are even dancing the polka and redowa in those +airy, well-lighted rooms. In another they find in the acting of +extempore dramas, arrangement of tableaux, little concerts or +recitations, intermingled with beautiful national or fancy dances, some +portion of the enchanting, refining, and ennobling influence of the +arts. The finest engravings on all subjects attend such as like to +employ themselves more quietly, while those who can find a companion or +congenial group to converse with, find also plenty of recesses and still +rooms, with softened light, provided for their pleasure. + +There is not on this side of the Atlantic--we dare our glove upon it--a +more devout believer than ourselves in the worship of the Muses and +Graces, both for itself, and its importance no less to the moral than to +the intellectual life of a nation. Perhaps there is not one who has _so_ +deep a feeling, or so many suggestions ready, in the fulness of time, to +be hazarded on the subject. + +But in order to such worship, what standard is there as to admission to +the service? Talents of gold, or Delphian talents? fashion or elegance? +"standing" or the power to move gracefully from one position to another? + +Our nobleman did not hesitate; the handle to his door bell was not of +gold, but mother-of-pearl, pure and prismatic. + +If he did not go into the alleys to pick up the poor, they were not +excluded, if qualified by intrinsic qualities to adorn the scene. +Neither were wealth or fashion a cause of exclusion, more than of +admission. All depended on the person; yet he did not _seek_ his guests +among the slaves of fashion, for he knew that persons highly endowed +rarely had patience with the frivolities of that class, but retired, and +left it to be peopled mostly by weak and plebeian natures. Yet all +depended on the individual. Was the person fair, noble, wise, brilliant, +or even only youthfully innocent and gay, or venerable in a good old +age, he or she was welcome. Still, as simplicity of character and some +qualification positively good, healthy, and natural, was requisite for +admission, we must say the company was select. Our nobleman and his +family had weeded their "circle" carefully, year by year. + +Some valued acquaintances they had made in ball-rooms and boudoirs, and +kept; but far more had been made through the daily wants of life, and +shoemakers, seamstresses, and graziers mingled happily with artists and +statesmen, to the benefit of both. (N.B.--None used the poisonous weed, +in or out of our domestic temple.) + +I cannot tell you what infinite good our nobleman and his family were +doing by creation of this true social centre, where the legitimate +aristocracy of the land assembled, not to be dazzled by expensive +furniture, (our nobleman bought what was good in texture and beautiful +in form, but not _because_ it was expensive,) not to be feasted on rare +wines and highly-seasoned dainties, though they found simple +refreshments well prepared, as indeed it was a matter of duty and +conscience in that house that the least office should be well fulfilled, +but to enjoy the generous confluence of mind with mind and heart with +heart, the pastimes that are not waste-times of taste and inventive +fancy, the cordial union of beings from all points and places in noble +human sympathy. New York was beginning to be truly American, or rather +Columbian, and money stood for something in the records of history. It +had brought opportunity to genius and aid to virtue. But just at this +moment, the jostling showed me that I had reached the corner of Wall +Street. I looked earnestly at the omnibuses discharging their eager +freight, as if I hoped to see my merchant. "Perhaps he has gone to the +post office to take out letters from his friends in Utopia," thought I. +"Please give me a penny," screamed a half-starved ragged little +street-sweep, and the fancied cradle of the American Utopia receded, or +rather proceeded, fifty years, at least, into the future. + + + + +THE POOR MAN. + +AN IDEAL SKETCH. + + +The foregoing sketch of the Rich Man, seems to require this +companion-piece; and we shall make the attempt, though the subject is +far more difficult than the former was. + +In the first place, we must state what we mean by a poor man, for it is +a term of wide range in its relative applications. A painstaking +artisan, trained to self-denial, and a strict adaptation, not of his +means to his wants, but of his wants to his means, finds himself rich +and grateful, if some unexpected fortune enables him to give his wife a +new gown, his children cheap holiday joys, and his starving neighbor a +decent meal; while George IV., when heir apparent to the throne of Great +Britain, considered himself driven by the pressure of poverty to become +a debtor, a beggar, a swindler, and, by the aid of perjury, the husband +of two wives at the same time, neither of whom he treated well. Since +poverty is made an excuse for such depravity in conduct, it would be +well to mark the limits within which self-control and resistance to +temptation may be expected. + +When he of the olden time prayed, "Give me neither poverty nor riches," +we presume he meant that proportion of means to the average wants of a +human being which secures freedom from pecuniary cares, freedom of +motion, and a moderate enjoyment of the common blessings offered by +earth, air, water, the natural relations, and the subjects for thought +which every day presents. We shall certainly not look above this point +for our poor man. A prince may be poor, if he has not means to relieve +the sufferings of his subjects, or secure to them needed benefits. Or he +may make himself so, just as a well-paid laborer by drinking brings +poverty to his roof. So may the prince, by the mental gin of +horse-racing or gambling, grow a beggar. But we shall not consider these +cases. + +Our subject will be taken between the medium we have spoken of as answer +to the wise man's prayer, and that destitution which we must style +infamous, either to the individual or to the society whose vices have +caused that stage of poverty, in which there is no certainty, and often +no probability, of work or bread from day to day,--in which cleanliness +and all the decencies of life are impossible, and the natural human +feelings are turned to gall because the man finds himself on this earth +in a far worse situation than the brute. In this stage there is no +ideal, and from its abyss, if the unfortunates look up to Heaven, or the +state of things as they ought to be, it is with suffocating gasps which +demand relief or death. This degree of poverty is common, as we all +know; but we who do not share it have no right to address those who do +from our own standard, till we have placed their feet on our own level. +Accursed is he who does not long to have this so--to take out at least +the physical hell from this world! Unblest is he who is not seeking, +either by thought or act, to effect this poor degree of amelioration in +the circumstances of his race. + +We take the subject of our sketch, then, somewhere between the abjectly +poor and those in moderate circumstances. What we have to say may apply +to either sex, and to any grade in this division of the human family, +from the hodman and washerwoman up to the hard-working, poorly-paid +lawyer clerk, schoolmaster, or scribe. + +The advantages of such a position are many. In the first place, you +belong, inevitably, to the active and suffering part of the world. You +know the ills that try men's souls and bodies. You cannot creep into a +safe retreat, arrogantly to judge, or heartlessly to forget, the others. +They are always before you; you see the path stained by their bleeding +feet; stupid and flinty, indeed, must you be, if you can hastily wound, +or indolently forbear to aid them. Then, as to yourself, you know what +your resources are; what you can do, what bear; there is small chance +for you to escape a well-tempered modesty. Then again, if you find power +in yourself to endure the trial, there is reason and reality in some +degree of self-reliance. The moral advantages of such training can +scarcely fail to amount to something; and as to the mental, that most +important chapter, how the lives of men are fashioned and transfused by +the experience of passion and the development of thought, presents new +sections at every turn, such as the distant dilettante's opera-glasses +will never detect,--to say nothing of the exercise of mere faculty, +which, though insensible in its daily course, leads to results of +immense importance. + +But the evils, the disadvantages, the dangers, how many, how imminent! +True, indeed, they are so. There is the early bending of the mind to the +production of marketable results, which must hinder all this free play +of intelligence, and deaden the powers that craved instruction. There is +the callousness produced by the sight of more misery than it is possible +to relieve; the heart, at first so sensitive, taking refuge in a stolid +indifference against the pangs of sympathetic pain, it had not force to +bear. There is the perverting influence of uncongenial employments, +undertaken without or against choice, continued at unfit hours and +seasons, till the man loses his natural relations with summer and +winter, day and night, and has no sense more for natural beauty and joy. +There is the mean providence, the perpetual caution to guard against +ill, instead of the generous freedom of a mind which expects good to +ensue from all good actions. There is the sad doubt whether it will +_do_ to indulge the kindly impulse, the calculation of dangerous +chances, and the cost between the loving impulse and its fulfilment. +Yes; there is bitter chance of narrowness, meanness, and dulness on this +path, and it requires great natural force, a wise and large view of life +taken at an early age, or fervent trust in God, to evade them. + +It is astonishing to see the poor, no less than the rich, the slaves of +externals. One would think that, where the rich man once became aware of +the worthlessness of the mere trappings of life from the weariness of a +spirit that found itself entirely dissatisfied after pomp and +self-indulgence, the poor man would learn this a hundred times from the +experience how entirely independent of them is all that is intrinsically +valuable in our life. But, no! The poor man wants dignity, wants +elevation of spirit. It is his own servility that forges the fetters +that enslave him. Whether he cringe to, or rudely defy, the man in the +coach and handsome coat, the cause and effect are the same. He is +influenced by a costume and a position. He is not firmly rooted in the +truth that only in so far as outward beauty and grandeur are +representative of the mind of the possessor, can they count for any +thing at all. O, poor man! you are poor indeed, if you feel yourself so; +poor if you do not feel that a soul born of God, a mind capable of +scanning the wondrous works of time and space, and a flexible body for +its service, are the essential riches of a man, and all he needs to make +him the equal of any other man. You are mean, if the possession of money +or other external advantages can make you envy or shrink from a being +mean enough to value himself upon such. Stand where you may, O man, you +cannot be noble and rich if your brow be not broad and steadfast, if +your eye beam not with a consciousness of inward worth, of eternal +claims and hopes which such trifles cannot at all affect. A man without +this majesty is ridiculous amid the flourish and decorations procured +by money, pitiable in the faded habiliments of poverty. But a man who is +a man, a woman who is a woman, can never feel lessened or embarrassed +because others look ignorantly on such matters. If they regret the want +of these temporary means of power, it must be solely because it fetters +their motions, deprives them of leisure and desired means of +improvement, or of benefiting those they love or pity. + +I have heard those possessed of rhetoric and imaginative tendency +declare that they should have been outwardly great and inwardly free, +victorious poets and heroes, if fate had allowed them a certain quantity +of dollars. I have found it impossible to believe them. In early youth, +penury may have power to freeze the genial current of the soul, and +prevent it, during one short life, from becoming sensible of its true +vocation and destiny. But if it _has_ become conscious of these, and yet +there is not advance in any and all circumstances, no change would +avail. + +No, our poor man must begin higher! He must, in the first place, really +believe there is a God who ruleth--a fact to which few men vitally bear +witness, though most are ready to affirm it with the lips. + +2. He must sincerely believe that rank and wealth + + "are but the guinea's stamp; + The man's the gold;"-- + +take his stand on his claims as a human being, made in God's own +likeness, urge them when the occasion permits, but never be so false to +them as to feel put down or injured by the want of mere external +advantages. + +3. He must accept his lot, while he is in it. If he can change it for +the better, let his energies be exerted to do so. But if he cannot, +there is none that will not yield an opening to Eden, to the glories of +Zion, and even to the subterranean enchantments of our strange estate. +There is none that may not be used with nobleness. + + "Who sweeps a room, as for Thy sake + Makes that and th' action clean." + +4. Let him examine the subject enough to be convinced that there is not +that vast difference between the employments that is supposed, in the +means of expansion and refinement. All depends on the spirit as to the +use that is made of an occupation. Mahomet was not a wealthy merchant, +and profound philosophers have ripened on the benches, not of the +lawyers, but the shoemakers. It did not hurt Milton to be a poor +schoolmaster, nor Shakspeare to do the errands of a London play-house. +Yes, "the mind is its own place," and if it will keep that place, all +doors will be opened from it. Upon this subject we hope to offer some +hints at a future day, in speaking of the different trades, professions, +and modes of labor. + +5. Let him remember that from no man can the chief wealth be kept. On +all men the sun and stars shine; for all the oceans swell and rivers +flow. All men may be brothers, lovers, fathers, friends; before all lie +the mysteries of birth and death. If these wondrous means of wealth and +blessing be likely to remain misused or unused, there are quite as many +disadvantages in the way of the man of money as of the man who has none. +Few who drain the choicest grape know the ecstasy of bliss and knowledge +that follows a full draught of the wine of life. That has mostly been +reserved for those on whose thoughts society, as a public, makes but a +moderate claim. And if bitterness followed on the joy, if your fountain +was frozen after its first gush by the cold winds of the world, yet, +moneyless men, ye are at least not wholly ignorant of what a human being +has force to know. You have not skimmed over surfaces, and been dozing +on beds of down, during the rare and stealthy visits of Love and the +Muses. Remember this, and, looking round on the arrangements of the +lottery, see if you did not draw a prize in your turn. + +It will be seen that our ideal poor man needs to be religious, wise, +dignified, and humble, grasping at nothing, claiming all; willing to +wait, never willing to give up; servile to none, the servant of all, and +esteeming it the glory of a man to serve. The character is rare, but not +unattainable. We have, however, found an approach to it more frequent in +woman than in man. + + + + +THE CELESTIAL EMPIRE. + + +During a late visit to Boston, I visited with great pleasure the Chinese +Museum, which has been opened there. + +There was much satisfaction in surveying its rich contents, if merely on +account of their splendor and elegance, which, though fantastic to our +tastes, presented an obvious standard of its own by which to prize it. +The rich dresses of the imperial court, the magnificent jars, (the +largest worth three hundred dollars, and looking as if it was worth much +more,) the present-boxes and ivory work, the elegant interiors of the +home and counting-room,--all these gave pleasure by their perfection, +each in its kind. + +But the chief impression was of that unity of existence, so opposite to +the European, and, for a change, so pleasant, from its repose and gilded +lightness. Their imperial majesties do really seem so "perfectly +serene," that we fancy we might become so under their sway, if not +"thoroughly virtuous," as they profess to be. Entirely a new mood would +be ours, as we should sup in one of those pleasure boats, by the light +of fanciful lanterns, or listen to the tinkling of pagoda bells. + +The highest conventional refinement, of a certain kind, is apparent in +all that belongs to the Chinese. The inviolability of custom has not +made their life heavy, but shaped it to the utmost adroitness for their +own purposes. We are now somewhat familiar with their literature, and we +see pervading it a poetry subtle and aromatic, like the odors of their +appropriate beverage. Like that, too, it is all domestic,--never wild. +The social genius, fluttering on the wings of compliment, pervades every +thing Chinese. Society has moulded them, body and soul; the youngest +children are more social and Chinese than human; and we doubt not the +infant, with its first cry, shows its capacity for self-command and +obedience to superiors. + +Their great man, Confucius, expresses this social genius in its most +perfect state and highest form. His golden wisdom is the quintescence of +social justice. He never forgets conditions and limits; he is admirably +wise, pure, and religious, but never towers above humanity--never soars +into solitude. There is no token of the forest or cave in Confucius. Few +men could understand him, because his nature was so thoroughly balanced, +and his rectitude so pure; not because his thoughts were too deep, or +too high for them. In him should be sought the best genius of the +Chinese, with that perfect practical good sense whose uses are +universal. + +At one time I used to change from reading Confucius to one of the great +religious books of another Eastern nation; and it was always like +leaving the street and the palace for the blossoming forest of the East, +where in earlier times we are told the angels walked with men and +talked, not of earth, but of heaven. + +As we looked at the forms moving about in the Museum, we could not +wonder that the Chinese consider us, who call ourselves the civilized +world, barbarians, so deficient were those forms in the sort of +refinement that the Chinese prize above all. And our people deserve it +for their senselessness in viewing _them_ as barbarians, instead of +seeing how perfectly they represent their own idea. They are inferior to +us in important developments, but, on the whole, approach far nearer +their own standard than we do ours. And it is wonderful that an +enlightened European can fail to prize the sort of beauty they do +develop. Sets of engravings we have seen representing the culture of the +tea plant, have brought to us images of an entirely original idyllic +loveliness. One long resident in China has observed that nothing can be +more enchanting than the smile of love on the regular, but otherwise +expressionless face of a Chinese woman. It has the simplicity and +abandonment of infantine, with the fulness of mature feeling. It never +varies, but it does not tire. + +The same sweetness and elegance stereotyped now, but having originally a +deep root in their life as a race, may be seen in their poetry and +music. The last we have heard, both from the voice and several +instruments, at this Museum, for the first time, and were at first +tempted to laugh, when something deeper forbade. Like their poetry, the +music is of the narrowest monotony, a kind of rosary, a repetition of +phrases, and, in its enthusiasm and conventional excitement, like +nothing else in the heavens and on the earth. Yet both the poetry and +music have in them an expression of birds, roses, and moonlight; indeed, +they suggest that state where "moonlight, and music, and feeling are +one," though the soul seems to twitter, rather than sing of it. + +It is wonderful with how little practical insight travellers in China +look on what they see. They seem to be struck by points of repulsion at +once, and neither see nor tell us what could give any real clew to their +facts. I do not speak now of the recent lecturers in this city, for I +have not heard them; but of the many, many books into which I have +earlier looked with eager curiosity,--in vain,--I always found the same +external facts, and the same prejudices which disabled the observer from +piercing beneath them. I feel that I know something of the Chinese when +reading Confucius, or looking at the figures on their tea-cups, or +drinking a cup of _genuine_ tea--rather an unusual felicity, it is said, +in this ingenious city, which shares with the Chinese one trait at +least. But the travellers rather take from than add to this knowledge; +and a visit to this Museum would give more clear views than all the +books I ever read yet. + +The juggling was well done, and so solemnly, with the same concentrated +look as the music! I saw the juggler afterwards at Ole Bull's concert, +and he moved not a muscle while the nightingale was pouring forth its +sweetest descant. Probably the avenues wanted for these strains to enter +his heart had been closed by the imperial edict long ago. The +resemblance borne by this juggler to our Indians is even greater than we +have seen in any other case. His brotherhood does not, to us, seem +surprising. Our Indians, too, are stereotyped, though in a different +way; they are of a mould capable of retaining the impression through +ages; and many of the traits of the two races, or two branches of a +race, may seem to be identical, though so widely modified by +circumstances. They are all opposite to us, who have made ships, and +balloons, and magnetic telegraphs, as symbolic expressions of our wants, +and the means of gratifying them. We must console ourselves with these, +and our organs and pianos, for our want of perfect good breeding, +serenity, and "thorough virtue." + + + + +KLOPSTOCK AND META.[36] + + +The poet had retired from the social circle. Its mirth was to his +sickened soul a noisy discord, its sentiment a hollow mockery. With +grief he felt that the recital of a generous action, the vivid +expression of a noble thought, could only graze the surface of his mind. +The desolate stillness of death lay brooding on its depths. The friendly +smiles, the tender attentions which seemed so sweet in those hours when +Meta was "crown of his cup and garnish of his dish," could give the +present but a ghastly similitude to those blessed days. While his +attention, disobedient to his wishes, kept turning painfully inward, the +voice of the singer suddenly startled it back. A lovely maid, with +moist, clear eye, and pleadi ng, earnest voice, was seated at the +harpsichord. She sang a sad, and yet not hopeless, strain, like that of +a lover who pines in absence, yet hopes again to meet his loved one. + +The heart of Klopstock rose to his lips, and natural tears suffused his +eyes. She paused. Some youth of untouched heart, shallow, as yet, in all +things, asked for a lively song, the expression of animal enjoyment. She +hesitated, and cast a sidelong glance at the mourner. Heedlessly the +request was urged: she wafted over the keys an airy prelude. A cold rush +of anguish came over the awakened heart; Klopstock rose, and hastily +left the room. + +He entered his apartment, and threw himself upon the bed. The moon was +nearly at the full: a tree near the large window obscured its radiance, +and cast into the room a flickering shadow, as its leaves kept swaying +to and fro with the breeze. + +Vainly Klopstock sought for soothing influences in the contemplation of +the soft and varying light. Sadness is always deepest at this hour of +celestial calmness. The soul realizes its wants, and longs to be in +harmony with itself far more in such an hour than when any outward ill +is arousing or oppressing it. + +"Weak, fond wretch that I am!" cried he. "I, the bard of the Messiah! To +what purpose have I nurtured my soul on the virtues of that sublime +model, for whom no renunciation was too hard? Four years an angel +sojourned with me: her presence vivified my soul into purity and +benevolence like her own. Happy was I as the saints who rest after their +long struggles in the bosom of perfect love. I thought myself good +because I sinned not against a bounteous God, because my heart could +spare some drops of its overflowing oil and balm for the wounds of +others: now what am I? My angel leaves me, but she leaves with me the +memory of blissful years and our perfect communion as an earnest of that +happy meeting which awaits us, if I prove faithful to my own words of +faith, to those strains of religious confidence which are even now +cheering onward many an inexperienced youth. And what are my deeds and +feelings? The springs of life and love frozen, here I lie, sunk in +grief, as if I knew no world beyond the grave. The joy of others seems +an insult, their grief a dead letter, compared with my own. Meta! Meta! +couldst thou see me in my hour of trial, thou wouldst disdain thy chosen +one!" + +A strain of sweet and solemn music swelled on his ear--one of those +majestic harmonies which, were there no other proof of the soul's +immortality, must suggest the image of an intellectual paradise. It +closed, and Meta stood before him. A long veil of silvery whiteness fell +over her, through which might be seen the fixed but nobly-serene +expression of the large blue eyes, and a holy, seraphic dignity of mien. +Klopstock knelt before her: his soul was awed to earth. "Hast thou +come, my adored!" said he, "from thy home of bliss, to tell me that thou +no longer lovest thy unworthy friend?" + +"O, speak not thus!" replied the softest and most penetrating of voices. +"God wills not that his purified creatures should look in contempt or +anger on those suffering the ills from which they are set free. O, no, +my love! my husband! I come to speak consolation to thy sinking spirit. +When you left me to breathe my last sigh in the arms of a sister, who, +however dear, was nothing to my heart in comparison with you, I closed +my eyes, wishing that the light of day might depart with thee. The +thought of what thou must suffer convulsed my heart with one last pang. +Once more I murmured the wish I had so often expressed, that the sorrows +of the survivor might have fallen to my lot rather than to thine. In +that pang my soul extricated itself from the body; a sensation like that +from exquisite fragrance came over me, and with breezy lightness I rose +into the pure serene. It was a moment of feeling almost wild,--so free, +so unobscured. I had not yet passed the verge of comparison; I could not +yet embrace the Infinite: therefore my joy was like those of +earth--intoxicating. + +"Words cannot paint, even to thy eager soul, my friend, the winged +swiftness, the onward, glowing hopefulness of my path through the fields +of azure. I paused, at length, in a region of keen, pure, bluish light, +such as beams from Jupiter to thy planet on a lovely October evening. + +"Here an immediate conviction pervaded me that this was home--was my +appointed resting place; a full tide of hope and satisfaction similar to +the emotion excited on my first acquaintance with thy poem flowed over +this hour; a joyous confidence in the existence of Goodness and Beauty +supplied for a season, the want of thy society. The delicious clearness +of every emotion exalted my soul into a realm full of life. Some time +elapsed in this state. The whole of my temporal existence passed in +review before me. My thoughts, my actions, were placed in full relief +before the cleared eye of my spirit. Beloved, thou wilt rejoice to know +that thy Meta could then feel that her worst faults sprung from +ignorance. As I was striving to connect my present state with my past, +and, as it were, poising myself on the brink of space and time, the +breath of another presence came across me, and, gradually evolving from +the bosom of light, a figure rose before me, in grace, in sweetness, how +excelling! Fixing her eyes on mine with the full gaze of love, she said, +in flute-like tones, 'Dost thou know me, my sister?' + +"'Art thou not,' I replied, 'the love of Petrarch? I have seen the +portraiture of thy mortal lineaments, and now recognize that perfect +beauty, the full violet flower which thy lover's genius was able to +anticipate.' + +"'Yes,' she said, 'I am Laura--on earth most happy, yet most sad; most +rich, and yet most poor. I come to greet her whom I recognize as the +inheritress of all that was lovely in my earthly being, more happy than +I in her temporal state. I have sympathized, O wife of Klopstock! in thy +transitory happiness. Thy lover was thy priest and thy poet; thy model +and oracle was thy bosom friend. All that earth could give was thine; +and I joyed to think on thy rewarded love, thy freedom of soul, and +unchecked faith. Follow me now: we are to dwell in the same circle, and +I am appointed to show thee thine abiding place.' + +"She guided me towards the source of that light which I have described +to thee. We paused before a structure of dazzling whiteness, which stood +on a slope, and overlooked a valley of exceeding beauty. It was shaded +by trees which had that peculiar calmness that the shadows of trees have +below in the high noon of summer moonlight-- + + '... trees which are still + As the shades of trees below, + When they sleep on the lonely hill, + In the summer moonlight glow.' + +It was decked with majestic sculptures, of which I may speak in some +future interview. Before it rose a fountain, from which the stream of +light flowed down the valley, dividing it into two unequal parts. The +larger and farther from us seemed, when I first looked on it, populous +with shapes, beauteous as that of my guide. But, when I looked more +fixedly, I saw only the valley, carpeted with large blue and white +flowers, which emitted a hyacinthine odor. Here, Laura, turning round, +asked, 'Is not this a poetic home, Meta?' + +"I paused a moment ere I replied, 'It is indeed a place of beauty, but +more like the Greek elysium than the home Klopstock and I were wont to +picture to ourselves beyond the gates of Death.' + +"'Thou sayest well,' she said; 'nor is this thy final home; thou wilt +but wait here a season, till Klopstock comes.' + +"'What' said I, 'alone! alone in Eden?' + +"'Has not Meta, then, collected aught on which she might meditate? Hast +thou never read, "While I was musing, the fire burned"?' + +"'Laura,' said I, 'spare the reproach. The love of Petrach, whose soul +grew up in golden fetters, whose strongest emotions, whose most natural +actions were, through a long life, constantly repressed by the dictates +of duty and honor, she content might pass long years in that +contemplation which was on earth her only solace. But I, whose life has +all been breathed out in love and ministry, can I endure that my +existence be reversed? Can I live without utterance of spirit? or would +such be a stage of that progressive happiness we are promised?' + +"'True, little one!' said she, with her first heavenly smile; 'nor shall +it be thus with thee. A ministry is appointed thee--the same which I +exercised while waiting here for that friend whom below I was forbidden +to call my own.' + +"She touched me, and from my shoulders sprung a pair of wings, white and +azure, wide and glistering. + +"'Meta!' she resumed, 'spirit of love! be this thine office. Wherever a +soul pines in absence from all companionship, breathe sweet thoughts of +sympathy to be had in another life, if deserved by virtuous exertions +and mental progress. Bind up the wounds of hearts torn by bereavement; +teach them where healing is to be found. Revive in the betrayed and +forsaken heart that belief in virtue and nobleness, without which life +is an odious, disconnected dream. Fan every flame of generous +enthusiasm, and on the altars where it is kindled strew thou the incense +of wisdom. In such a ministry thou couldst never be alone, since hope +must dwell with thee. But I shall often come and discourse to thee of +the future glories of thy destiny. Yet more: Seest thou that marble +tablet? Retire here when thy pinions are wearied. Give up thy soul to +faith. Fix thine eyes on the tablet, and the deeds and thoughts which +fill the days of Klopstock shall he traced on it. Thus shall ye not be +for a day divided. Hast thou, Meta, aught more to ask?" + +"'Messenger of peace and bliss!' said I, 'dare I frame another request? +Is it too presumptuous to ask that Klopstock may be one of those to whom +I minister, and that he may know it is Meta who consoles him?' + +"'Even this, to a certain extent, I have power to grant. Most pure, most +holy was thy life with Klopstock; ye taught one another only good +things, and peculiarly are ye rewarded. Thou mayst occasionally manifest +thyself to him, and answer his prayers with words,--so long,' she +continued, looking fixedly at me, 'as he continues true to himself and +thee!' + +"O, my beloved, why tell thee what were my emotions at such a promise? +Ah! I must now leave thee, for dawn is bringing back the world's doings. +Soon I shall visit thee again. Farewell! Remember that thy every thought +and deed will be known to me, and be happy!" + +She vanished. + + + + +WHAT FITS A MAN TO BE A VOTER? + +A FABLE. + + +The country had been denuded of its forests, and men cried, "Come! we +must plant anew, or there will be no shade for the homes of our +children, or fuel for their hearths. Let us find the best kernels for a +new growth." And a basket of butternuts was offered. + +But the planters rejected it with disgust. "What a black, rough coat it +has!" said they; "it is entirely unfit for the dishes on a nobleman's +table, nor have we ever seen it in such places. It must have a greasy, +offensive kernel; nor can fine trees grow up from such a nut." + +"Friends," said one of the planters, "this decision may be rash. The +chestnut has not a handsome outside; it is long encased in troublesome +burs, and, when disengaged, is almost as black as these nuts you +despise. Yet from it grow trees of lofty stature, graceful form, and +long life. Its kernel is white, and has furnished food to the most +poetic and splendid nations of the older world." + +"Don't tell me," says another; "brown is entirely different from black. +I like brown very well; there is Oriental precedent for its +respectability. Perhaps we will use some of your chestnuts, if we can +get fine samples. But for the present, I think we should use only +English walnuts, such as our forefathers delighted to honor. Here are +many basketsful of them, quite enough for the present. We will plant +them with a sprinkling between of the chestnut and acorn." + +"But," rejoined the other, "many butternuts are beneath the sod, and +you cannot help a mixture of them being in your wood, at any rate." + +"Well, we will grub them up and cut them down whenever we find them. We +can use the young shrubs for kindlings." + +At that moment two persons entered the council of a darker complexion +than most of those present, as if born beneath the glow of a more +scorching sun. First came a woman, beautiful in the mild, pure grandeur +of her look; in whose large dark eye a prophetic intelligence was +mingled with infinite sweetness. She looked at the assembly with an air +of surprise, as if its aspect was strange to her. She threw quite back +her veil, and stepping aside, made room for her companion. His form was +youthful, about the age of one we have seen in many a picture produced +by the thought of eighteen centuries, as of one "instructing the +doctors." I need not describe the features; all minds have their own +impressions of such an image, + + "Severe in youthful beauty." + +In his hand he bore a white banner, on which was embroidered, "PEACE AND +GOOD WILL TO MEN." And the words seemed to glitter and give out sparks, +as he paused in the assembly. + +"I came hither," said he, "an uninvited guest, because I read sculptured +above the door 'All men born free and equal,' and in this dwelling hoped +to find myself at home. What is the matter in dispute?" + +Then they whispered one to another, and murmurs were heard--"He is a +mere boy; young people are always foolish and extravagant;" or, "He +looks like a fanatic." But others said, "He looks like one whom we have +been taught to honor. It will be best to tell him the matter in +dispute." + +When he heard it, he smiled, and said, "It will be needful first to +ascertain which of the nuts is soundest _within_." And with a hammer he +broke one, two, and more of the English walnuts, and they were mouldy. +Then he tried the other nuts, but found most of them fresh within and +_white_, for they were fresh from the bosom of the earth, while the +others had been kept in a damp cellar. + +And he said, "You had better plant them together, lest none, or few, of +the walnuts be sound. And why are you so reluctant? Has not Heaven +permitted them both to grow on the same soil? and does not that show +what is intended about it?" + +And they said, "But they are black and ugly to look upon." He replied, +"They do not seem so to me. What my Father has fashioned in such guise +offends not mine eye." + +And they said, "But from one of these trees flew a bird of prey, who has +done great wrong. We meant, therefore, to suffer no such tree among us." + +And he replied, "Amid the band of my countrymen and friends there was +one guilty of the blackest crime--that of selling for a price the life +of his dearest friend; yet all the others of his blood were not put +under ban because of his guilt." + +Then they said, "But in the Holy Book our teachers tell us, we are bid +to keep in exile or distress whatsoever is black and unseemly in our +eyes." + +Then he put his hand to his brow, and cried in a voice of the most +penetrating pathos, "Have I been so long among you, and ye have not +known me?" And the woman turned from them the majestic hope of her +glance, and both forms suddenly vanished; but the banner was left +trailing in the dust. + +The men stood gazing at one another. After which one mounted on high, +and said, "Perhaps, my friends, we carry too far this aversion to +objects merely because they are black. I heard, the other day, a wise +man say that black was the color of evil--marked as such by God, and +that whenever a white man struck a black man he did an act of worship +to God.[37] I could not quite believe him. I hope, in what I am about to +add, I shall not be misunderstood. I am no abolitionist. I respect above +all things, divine or human, the constitution framed by our forefathers, +and the peculiar institutions hallowed by the usage of their sons. I +have no sympathy with the black race in this country. I wish it to be +understood that I feel towards negroes the purest personal antipathy. It +is a family trait with us. My little son, scarce able to speak, will cry +out, 'Nigger! Nigger!' whenever he sees one, and try to throw things at +them. He made a whole omnibus load laugh the other day by his cunning +way of doing this.[38] The child of my political antagonist, on the +other hand, says 'he likes _tullared_ children the best.'[39] You see he +is tainted in his cradle by the loose principles of his parents, even +before he can say nigger, or pronounce the more refined appellation. But +that is no matter. I merely mention this by the way; not to prejudice +you against Mr.----, but that you may appreciate the very different +state of things in my family, and not misinterpret what I have to say. I +was lately in one of our prisons where a somewhat injudicious indulgence +had extended to one of the condemned felons, a lost and wretched outcast +from society, the use of materials for painting, that having been his +profession. He had completed at his leisure a picture of the Lord's +Supper. Most of the figures were well enough, but Judas he had +represented as a black.[40] Now, gentlemen, I am of opinion that this is +an unwarrantable liberty taken with the Holy Scriptures, and shows _too +much_ prejudice in the community. It is my wish to be moderate and fair, +and preserve a medium, neither, on the one hand, yielding the wholesome +antipathies planted in our breasts as a safeguard against degradation, +and our constitutional obligations, which, as I have before observed, +are, with me, more binding than any other; nor, on the other hand, +forgetting that liberality and wisdom which are the prerogative of every +citizen of this free commonwealth. I agree, then, with our young +visitor. I hardly know, indeed, why a stranger, and one so young, was +permitted to mingle in this council; but it was certainly thoughtful in +him to crack and examine the nuts. I agree that it may be well to plant +some of the black nuts among the others, so that, if many of the walnuts +fail, we may make use of this inferior tree." + +At this moment arose a hubbub, and such a clamor of "dangerous +innovation," "political capital," "low-minded demagogue," "infidel who +denies the Bible," "lower link in the chain of creation," &c., that it +is impossible to say what was the decision. + + + + +DISCOVERIES. + + +Sometimes, as we meet people in the street, we catch a sentence from +their lips that affords a clew to their history and habits of mind, and +puts our own minds on quite a new course. + +Yesterday two female figures drew nigh upon the street, in whom we had +only observed their tawdry, showy style of dress, when, as they passed, +one remarked to the other, in the tone of a person who has just made a +discovery, "_I_ think there is something very handsome in a fine child." + +Poor woman! that seemed to have been the first time in her life that she +had made the observation. The charms of the human being, in that fresh +and flower-like age which is intended perpetually to refresh us in our +riper, renovate us in our declining years, had never touched her heart, +nor awakened for her the myriad thoughts and fancies that as naturally +attend the sight of childhood as bees swarm to the blossoming bough. +Instead of being to her the little angels and fairies, the embodied +poems which may ennoble the humblest lot, they had been to her mere +"torments," who "could never be kept still, or their faces clean." + +How piteous is the loss of those who do not contemplate childhood in a +spirit of holiness! The heavenly influence on their own minds, of +attention to cultivate each germ of great and good qualities, of +avoiding the least act likely to injure, is lost--a loss dreary and +piteous! for which no gain can compensate. But how unspeakably +deplorable the petrifaction of those who look upon their little friends +without any sympathy even, whose hearts are, by selfishness, +worldliness, and vanity, seared from all gentle instincts, who can no +longer appreciate their spontaneous grace and glee, that eloquence in +every look, motion, and stammered word, those lively and incessant +charms, over which the action of the lower motives with which the social +system is rife, may so soon draw a veil! + +We can no longer speak thus of _all_ children. On some, especially in +cities, the inheritance of sin and deformity from bad parents falls too +heavily, and incases at once the spark of soul which God still doth not +refuse in such instances, in a careful, knowing, sensual mask. Such are +never, in fact, children at all. But the rudest little cubs that are +free from taint, and show the affinities with nature and the soul, are +still young and flexible, and rich in gleams of the loveliness to be +hoped from perfected human nature. + +It is sad that all men do not feel these things. It is sad that they +wilfully renounce so large a part of their heritage, and go forth to buy +filtered water, while the fountain is gushing freshly beside the door of +their own huts. As with the charms of children, so with other things. +They do not know that the sunset is worth seeing every night, and the +shows of the forest better than those of the theatre, and the work of +bees and beetles more instructive, if scanned with care, than the lyceum +lecture. The cheap knowledge, the cheap pleasures, that are spread +before every one, they cast aside in search of an uncertain and feverish +joy. We did, indeed, hear one man say that he could not possibly be +deprived of his pleasures, since he could always, even were his abode in +the narrowest lane, have a blanket of sky above his head, where he could +see the clouds pass, and the stars glitter. But men in general remain +unaware that + + "Life's best joys are nearest us, + Lie close about our feet." + +For them the light dresses all objects in endless novelty, the rose +glows, domestic love smiles, and childhood gives out with sportive +freedom its oracles--in vain. That woman had seen beauty in gay shawls, +in teacups, in carpets; but only of late had she discovered that "there +was something beautiful in a fine child." Poor human nature! Thou must +have been changed at nurse by a bad demon at some time, and strangely +maltreated,--to have such blind and rickety intervals as come upon thee +now and then! + + + + +POLITENESS TOO GREAT A LUXURY TO BE GIVEN TO THE POOR. + + +A few days ago, a lady, crossing in one of the ferry boats that ply from +this city, saw a young boy, poorly dressed, sitting with an infant in +his arms on one of the benches. She observed that the child looked +sickly and coughed. This, as the day was raw, made her anxious in its +behalf, and she went to the boy and asked whether he was alone there +with the baby, and if he did not think the cold breeze dangerous for it. +He replied that he was sent out with the child to take care of it, and +that his father said the fresh air from the water would do it good. + +While he made this simple answer, a number of persons had collected +around to listen, and one of them, a well-dressed woman, addressed the +boy in a string of such questions and remarks as these:-- + +"What is your name? Where do you live? Are you telling us the truth? +It's a shame to have that baby out in such weather; you'll be the death +of it. (To the bystanders:) I would go and see his mother, and tell her +about it, if I was sure he had told us the truth about where he lived. +How do you expect to get back? Here, (in the rudest voice,) somebody +says you have not told the truth as to where you live." + +The child, whose only offence consisted in taking care of the little one +in public, and answering when he was spoken to, began to shed tears at +the accusations thus grossly preferred against him. The bystanders +stared at both; but among them all there was not one with sufficiently +clear notions of propriety and moral energy to say to this impudent +questioner "Woman, do you suppose, because you wear a handsome shawl, +and that boy a patched jacket, that you have any right to speak to him +at all, unless he wishes it--far less to prefer against him these rude +accusations? Your vulgarity is unendurable; leave the place or alter +your manner." + +Many such instances have we seen of insolent rudeness, or more insolent +affability, founded on no apparent grounds, except an apparent +difference in pecuniary position; for no one can suppose, in such cases, +the offending party has really enjoyed the benefit of refined education +and society, but all present let them pass as matters of course. It was +sad to see how the poor would endure--mortifying to see how the +purse-proud dared offend. An excellent man, who was, in his early years, +a missionary to the poor, used to speak afterwards with great shame of +the manner in which he had conducted himself towards them. "When I +recollect," said he, "the freedom with which I entered their houses, +inquired into all their affairs, commented on their conduct, and +disputed their statements, I wonder I was never horsewhipped, and feel +that I ought to have been; it would have done me good, for I needed as +severe a lesson on the universal obligations of politeness in its only +genuine form of respect for man as man, and delicate sympathy with each +in his peculiar position." + +Charles Lamb, who was indeed worthy to be called a human being because +of those refined sympathies, said, "You call him a gentleman: does his +washerwoman find him so?" We may say, if she did, she found him a _man_, +neither treating her with vulgar abruptness, nor giving himself airs of +condescending liveliness, but treating her with that genuine respect +which a feeling of equality inspires. + +To doubt the veracity of another is an insult which in most _civilized_ +communities must in the so-called higher classes be atoned for by blood, +but, in those same communities, the same men will, with the utmost +lightness, doubt the truth of one who wears a ragged coat, and thus do +all they can to injure and degrade him by assailing his self-respect, +and breaking the feeling of personal honor--a wound to which hurts a man +as a wound to its bark does a tree. + +Then how rudely are favors conferred, just as a bone is thrown to a dog! +A gentleman, indeed, will not do _that_ without accompanying signs of +sympathy and regard. Just as this woman said, "If you have told the +truth I will go and see your mother," are many acts performed on which +the actors pride themselves as kind and charitable. + +All men might learn from the French in these matters. That people, +whatever be their faults, are really well bred, and many acts might be +quoted from their romantic annals, where gifts were given from rich to +poor with a graceful courtesy, equally honorable and delightful to the +giver and the receiver. + +In Catholic countries there is more courtesy, for charity is there a +duty, and must be done for God's sake; there is less room for a man to +give himself the pharisaical tone about it. A rich man is not so +surprised to find himself in contact with a poor one; nor is the custom +of kneeling on the open pavement, the silk robe close to the beggar's +rags, without profit. The separation by pews, even on the day when all +meet nearest, is as bad for the manners as the soul. + +Blessed be he, or she, who has passed through this world, not only with +an open purse and willingness to render the aid of mere outward +benefits, but with an open eye and open heart, ready to cheer the +downcast, and enlighten the dull by words of comfort and looks of love. +The wayside charities are the most valuable both as to sustaining hope +and diffusing knowledge, and none can render them who has not an +expansive nature, a heart alive to affection, and some true notion, +however imperfectly developed, of the meaning of human brotherhood. + +Such a one can never sauce the given meat with taunts, freeze the viand +by a cold glance of doubt, or plunge the man, who asked for his hand, +deeper back into the mud by any kind of rudeness. + +In the little instance with which we began, no help _was_ asked, unless +by the sight of the timid little boy's old jacket. But the license which +this seemed to the well-clothed woman to give to rudeness, was so +characteristic of a deep fault now existing, that a volume of comments +might follow and a host of anecdotes be drawn from almost any one's +experience in exposition of it. These few words, perhaps, may awaken +thought in those who have drawn tears from other's eyes through an +ignorance brutal, but not hopelessly so, if they are willing to rise +above it. + + + + +CASSIUS M. CLAY. + + +The meeting on Monday night at the Tabernacle was to us an occasion of +deep and peculiar interest. It was deep, for the feelings there +expressed and answered bore witness to the truth of our belief, that the +sense of right is not dead, but only sleepeth in this nation. A man who +is manly enough to appeal to it, will be answered, in feeling at least, +if not in action, and while there is life there is hope. Those who so +rapturously welcomed one who had sealed his faith by deeds of devotion, +must yet acknowledge in their breasts the germs of like nobleness. + +It was an occasion of peculiar interest, such as we have not had +occasion to feel since, in childish years, we saw Lafayette welcomed by +a grateful people. Even childhood well understood that the gratitude +then expressed was not so much for the aid which had been received as +for the motives and feelings with which it was given. The nation rushed +out as one man to thank Lafayette, that he had been able, amid the +prejudices and indulgences of high rank in the old _régime_ of society, +to understand the great principles which were about to create a new +form, and answer, manlike, with love, service, and contempt of selfish +interests to the voice of humanity demanding its rights. Our freedom +would have been achieved without Lafayette; but it was a happiness and a +blessing to number the young French nobleman as the champion of American +independence, and to know that he had given the prime of his life to our +cause, because it was the cause of justice. With similar feelings of +joy, pride, and hope, we welcome Cassius M. Clay, a man who has, in like +manner, freed himself from the prejudices of his position, disregarded +selfish considerations, and quitting the easy path in which he might +have walked to station in the sight of men, and such external +distinctions as his State and nation readily confer on men so born and +bred, and with such abilities, chose rather an interest in their souls, +and the honors history will not fail to award to the man who enrolls his +name and elevates his life for the cause of right and those universal +principles whose recognition can alone secure to man the destiny without +which he cannot be happy, but which he is continually sacrificing for +the impure worship of idols. Yea, in this country, more than in the old +Palestine, do they give their children to the fire in honor of Moloch, +and sell the ark confided to them by the Most High for shekels of gold +and of silver. Partly it was the sense of this position which Mr. Clay +holds, as a man who esteems his own individual convictions of right more +than local interests or partial, political schemes, that gave him such +an enthusiastic welcome on Monday night from the very hearts of the +audience, but still more that his honor is at this moment identified +with the liberty of the press, which has been insulted and infringed in +him. About this there can be in fact but one opinion. In vain Kentucky +calls meetings, states reasons, gives names of her own to what has been +done.[41] The rest of the world knows very well what the action is, and +will call it by but one name. Regardless of this ostrich mode of +defence, the world has laughed and scoffed at the act of a people +professing to be free and defenders of freedom, and the recording angel +has written down the deed as a lawless act of violence and tyranny, from +which the man is happy who can call himself pure. + +With the usual rhetoric of the wrong side, the apologists for this mob +violence have wished to injure Mr. Clay by the epithets of "hot-headed," +"visionary," "fanatical." But, if any have believed that such could +apply to a man so clear-sighted as to his objects and the way of +achieving them, the mistake must have been corrected on Monday night. +Whoever saw Mr. Clay that night, saw in him a man of deep and strong +nature, thoroughly in earnest, who had well considered his ground, and +saw that though open, as the truly _noble_ must be, to new views and +convictions, yet his direction is taken, and the improvement to be made +will not be to turn aside, but to expedite and widen his course in that +direction. Mr. Clay is young, young enough, thank Heaven! to promise a +long career of great thoughts and honorable deeds. But still, to those +who esteem youth an unpardonable fault, and one that renders incapable +of counsel, we would say that he is at the age when a man is capable of +great thoughts and great deeds, if ever. His is not a character that +will ever grow old; it is not capable of a petty and short-sighted +prudence, but can only be guided by a large wisdom which is more young +than old, for it has within itself the springs of perpetual youth, and +which, being far-sighted and prophetical, joins ever with the progress +party without waiting till it be obviously in the ascendant. + +Mr. Clay has eloquence, but only from the soul. He does not possess the +art of oratory, as an art. Before he gets warmed he is too slow, and +breaks his sentences too much. His transitions are not made with skill, +nor is the structure of his speech, as a whole, symmetrical; yet, +throughout, his grasp is firm upon his subject, and all the words are +laden with the electricity of a strong mind and generous nature. When he +begins to glow, and his deep mellow eye fills with light, the speech +melts and glows too, and he is able to impress upon the hearer the full +effect of firm conviction, conceived with impassioned energy. His often +rugged and harsh emphasis flashes and sparkles then, and we feel that +there is in the furnace a stream of iron: iron, fortress of the nations +and victor of the seas, worth far more, in stress of storm, than all the +gold and gems of rhetoric. + +The great principle that he who wrongs one wrongs all, and that no part +can be wounded without endangering the whole, was the healthy root of +Mr. Clay's speech. The report does not do justice to the turn of +expression in some parts which were most characteristic. These, indeed, +depended much on the tones and looks of the speaker. We should speak of +them as full of a robust and homely sincerity, dignified by the heart of +the gentleman, a heart too secure of its respect for the rights of +others to need any of the usual interpositions. His good-humored +sarcasm, on occasion of several vulgar interruptions, was very pleasant, +and easily at those times might be recognized in him the man of heroical +nature, who can only show himself adequately in time of interruption and +of obstacle. If that be all that is wanted, we shall surely see him +wholly; there will be no lack of American occasions to call out the +Greek fire. We want them all--the Grecian men, who feel a godlike thirst +for immortal glory, and to develop the peculiar powers with which the +gods have gifted them. We want them all--the poet, the thinker, the +hero. Whether our heroes need _swords_, is a more doubtful point, we +think, than Mr. Clay believes. Neither do we believe in some of the +means he proposes to further his aims. God uses all kinds of means, but +men, his priests, must keep their hands pure. Nobody that needs a bribe +shall be asked to further our schemes for emancipation. But there is +room enough and time enough to think out these points till all is in +harmony. For the good that has been done and the truth that has been +spoken, for the love of such that has been seen in this great city +struggling up through the love of money, we should to-day be +thankful--and we are so. + + + + +THE MAGNOLIA OF LAKE PONTCHARTRAIN. + + +The stars tell all their secrets to the flowers, and, if we only knew +how to look around us, we should not need to look above. But man is a +plant of slow growth, and great heat is required to bring out his +leaves. He must be promised a boundless futurity, to induce him to use +aright the present hour. In youth, fixing his eyes on those distant +worlds of light, he promises himself to attain them, and there find the +answer to all his wishes. His eye grows keener as he gazes, a voice from +the earth calls it downward, and he finds all at his feet. + +I was riding on the shore of Lake Pontchartrain, musing on an old +English expression, which I had only lately learned to interpret. "He +was fulfilled of all nobleness." Words so significant charm us like a +spell, long before we know their meaning. This I had now learned to +interpret. Life had ripened from the green bud, and I had seen the +difference, wide as from earth to heaven, between nobleness and the +_fulfilment_ of nobleness. + +A fragrance beyond any thing I had ever known came suddenly upon the +air, and interrupted my meditation. I looked around me, but saw no +flower from which it could proceed. There is no word for it; _exquisite_ +and _delicious_ have lost all meaning now. It was of a full and +penetrating sweetness, too keen and delicate to be cloying. Unable to +trace it, I rode on, but the remembrance of it pursued me. I had a +feeling that I must forever regret my loss, my want, if I did not return +and find the poet of the lake, whose voice was such perfume. In earlier +days, I might have disregarded such a feeling; but now I have learned +to prize the monitions of my nature as they deserve, and learn sometimes +what is not for sale in the market place. So I turned back, and rode to +and fro, at the risk of abandoning the object of my ride. + +I found her at last, the queen of the south, singing to herself in her +lonely bower. Such should a sovereign be, most regal when alone; for +then there is no disturbance to prevent the full consciousness of power. +All occasions limit; a kingdom is but an occasion; and no sun ever saw +itself adequately reflected on sea or land. + +Nothing at the south had affected me like the magnolia. Sickness and +sorrow, which have separated me from my kind, have requited my loss by +making known to me the loveliest dialect of the divine language. +"Flowers," it has been truly said, "are the only positive present made +us by nature." Man has not been ungrateful, but consecrated the gift to +adorn the darkest and brightest hours. If it is ever perverted, it is to +be used as a medicine; and even this vexes me. But no matter for that. +We have pure intercourse with these purest creations; we love them for +their own sake, for their beauty's sake. As we grow beautiful and pure, +we understand them better. With me knowledge of them is a circumstance, +a habit of my life, rather than a merit. I have lived with them, and +with them almost alone, till I have learned to interpret the slightest +signs by which they manifest their fair thoughts. There is not a flower +in my native region which has not for me a tale, to which every year is +adding new incidents; yet the growths of this new climate brought me new +and sweet emotions, and, above all others, was the magnolia a +revelation. When I first beheld her, a stately tower of verdure, each +cup, an imperial vestal, full-displayed to the eye of day, yet guarded +from the too hasty touch even of the wind by its graceful decorums of +firm, glistening, broad, green leaves, I stood astonished, as might a +lover of music, who, after hearing in all his youth only the harp or +the bugle, should be saluted, on entering some vast cathedral, by the +full peal of its organ. + +After I had recovered from my first surprise, I became acquainted with +the flower, and found all its life in harmony. Its fragrance, less +enchanting than that of the rose, excited a pleasure more full of life, +and which could longer be enjoyed without satiety. Its blossoms, if +plucked from their home, refused to retain their dazzling hue, but +drooped and grew sallow, like princesses captive in the prison of a +barbarous foe. + +But there was something quite peculiar in the fragrance of this tree; so +much so, that I had not at first recognized the magnolia. Thinking it +must be of a species I had never yet seen, I alighted, and leaving my +horse, drew near to question it with eyes of reverent love. + +"Be not surprised," replied those lips of untouched purity, "stranger, +who alone hast known to hear in my voice a tone more deep and full than +that of my beautiful sisters. Sit down, and listen to my tale, nor fear +that I will overpower thee by too much sweetness. I am, indeed, of the +race you love, but in it I stand alone. In my family I have no sister of +the heart, and though my root is the same as that of the other virgins +of our royal house, I bear not the same blossom, nor can I unite my +voice with theirs in the forest choir. Therefore I dwell here alone, nor +did I ever expect to tell the secret of my loneliness. But to all that +ask there is an answer, and I speak to thee. + +"Indeed, we have met before, as that secret feeling of home, which makes +delight so tender, must inform thee. The spirit that I utter once +inhabited the glory of the most glorious climates. I dwelt once in the +orange tree." + +"Ah?" said I; "then I did not mistake. It is the same voice I heard in +the saddest season of my youth. I stood one evening on a high terrace in +another land, the land where 'the plant man has grown to greatest size.' +It was an evening whose unrivalled splendor demanded perfection in +man--answering to that he found in nature--a sky 'black-blue' deep as +eternity, stars of holiest hope, a breeze promising rapture in every +breath. I could not longer endure this discord between myself and such +beauty; I retired within my window, and lit the lamp. Its rays fell on +an orange tree, full clad in its golden fruit and bridal blossoms. How +did we talk together then, fairest friend! Thou didst tell me all; and +yet thou knowest, that even then, had I asked any part of thy dower, it +would have been to bear the sweet fruit, rather than the sweeter +blossoms. My wish had been expressed by another. + + 'O, that I were an orange tree, + That busy plant! + Then should I ever laden he, + And never want + Some fruit for him that dresseth me.' + +Thou didst seem to me the happiest of all spirits in wealth of nature, +in fulness of utterance. How is it that I find thee now in another +habitation?" + +"How is it, man, that thou art now content that thy life bears no golden +fruit?" + +"It is," I replied, "that I have at last, through privation, been +initiated into the secret of peace. Blighted without, unable to find +myself in other forms of nature, I was driven back upon the centre of my +being, and there found all being. For the wise, the obedient child from +one point can draw all lines, and in one germ read all the possible +disclosures of successive life." + +"Even so," replied the flower, "and ever for that reason am I trying to +simplify my being. How happy I was in the 'spirit's dower when first it +was wed,' I told thee in that earlier day. But after a while I grew +weary of that fulness of speech; I felt a shame at telling all I knew, +and challenging all sympathies; I was never silent, I was never alone; +I had a voice for every season, for day and night; on me the merchant +counted, the bride looked to me for her garland, the nobleman for the +chief ornament of his princely hair, and the poor man for his wealth; +all sang my praises, all extolled my beauty, all blessed my beneficence; +and, for a while, my heart swelled with pride and pleasure. But, as +years passed, my mood changed. The lonely moon rebuked me, as she hid +from the wishes of man, nor would return till her due change was passed. +The inaccessible sun looked on me with the same ray as on all others; my +endless profusion could not bribe him to one smile sacred to me alone. +The mysterious wind passed me by to tell its secret to the solemn pine, +and the nightingale sang to the rose rather than me, though she was +often silent, and buried herself yearly in the dark earth. + +"I knew no mine or thine: I belonged to all. I could never rest: I was +never at one. Painfully I felt this want, and from every blossom sighed +entreaties for some being to come and satisfy it. With every bud I +implored an answer, but each bud only produced an orange. + +"At last this feeling grew more painful, and thrilled my very root. The +earth trembled at the touch with a pulse so sympathetic that ever and +anon it seemed, could I but retire and hide in that silent bosom for one +calm winter, all would be told me, and tranquillity, deep as my desire, +be mine. But the law of my being was on me, and man and nature seconded +it. Ceaselessly they called on me for my beautiful gifts; they decked +themselves with them, nor cared to know the saddened heart of the giver. +O, how cruel they seemed at last, as they visited and despoiled me, yet +never sought to aid me, or even paused to think that I might need their +aid! yet I would not hate them. I saw it was my seeming riches that +bereft me of sympathy. I saw they could not know what was hid beneath +the perpetual veil of glowing life. I ceased to expect aught from them, +and turned my eyes to the distant stars. I thought, could I but hoard +from the daily expenditure of my juices till I grew tall enough, I might +reach those distant spheres, which looked so silent and consecrated, +and there pause a while from these weary joys of endless life, and in +the lap of winter find my spring. + +"But not so was my hope to be fulfilled. One starlight night I was +looking, hoping, when a sudden breeze came up. It touched me, I thought, +as if it were a cold, white beam from those stranger worlds. The cold +gained upon my heart; every blossom trembled, every leaf grew brittle, +and the fruit began to seem unconnected with the stem; soon I lost all +feeling; and morning found the pride of the garden black, stiff, and +powerless. + +"As the rays of the morning sun touched me, consciousness returned, and +I strove to speak, but in vain. Sealed were my fountains, and all my +heartbeats still. I felt that I had been that beauteous tree, but now +only was--what--I knew not; yet I was, and the voices of men said, It is +dead; cast it forth, and plant another in the costly vase. A mystic +shudder of pale joy then separated me wholly from my former abode. + +"A moment more, and I was before the queen and guardian of the flowers. +Of this being I cannot speak to thee in any language now possible +betwixt us; for this is a being of another order from thee, an order +whose presence thou mayst feel, nay, approach step by step, but which +cannot be known till thou art of it, nor seen nor spoken of till thou +hast passed through it. + +"Suffice it to say, that it is not such a being as men love to paint; a +fairy, like them, only lesser and more exquisite than they; a goddess, +larger and of statelier proportion; an angel, like still, only with an +added power. Man never creates; he only recombines the lines and colors +of his own existence: only a deific fancy could evolve from the elements +the form that took me home. + +"Secret, radiant, profound ever, and never to be known, was she; many +forms indicate, and none declare her. Like all such beings, she was +feminine. All the secret powers are "mothers." There is but one paternal +power. + +"She had heard my wish while I looked at the stars, and in the silence +of fate prepared its fulfilment. 'Child of my most communicative hour,' +said she, 'the full pause must not follow such a burst of melody. Obey +the gradations of nature, nor seek to retire at once into her utmost +purity of silence. The vehemence of thy desire at once promises and +forbids its gratification. Thou wert the keystone of the arch, and bound +together the circling year: thou canst not at once become the base of +the arch, the centre of the circle. Take a step inward, forget a voice, +lose a power; no longer a bounteous sovereign, become a vestal +priestess, and bide thy time in the magnolia.' + +"Such is my history, friend of my earlier day. Others of my family, that +you have met, were formerly the religious lily, the lonely dahlia, +fearless decking the cold autumn, and answering the shortest visits of +the sun with the brightest hues; the narcissus, so rapt in +self-contemplation that it could not abide the usual changes of a life. +Some of these have perfume, others not, according to the habit of their +earlier state; for, as spirits change, they still bear some trace, a +faint reminder, of their latest step upwards or inwards. I still speak +with somewhat of my former exuberance and over-ready tenderness to the +dwellers on this shore; but each star sees me purer, of deeper thought, +and more capable of retirement into my own heart. Nor shall I again +detain a wanderer, luring him from afar; nor shall I again subject +myself to be questioned by an alien spirit, to tell the tale of my being +in words that divide it from itself. Farewell, stranger! and believe +that nothing strange can meet me more. I have atoned by confession; +further penance needs not; and I feel the Infinite possess me more and +more. Farewell! to meet again in prayer, in destiny, in harmony, in +elemental power." + +The magnolia left me; I left not her, but must abide forever in the +thought to which the clew was found in the margin of that lake of the +South. + + + + +CONSECRATION OF GRACE CHURCH. + + +Whoever passes up Broadway finds his attention arrested by three fine +structures--Trinity Church, that of the Messiah, and Grace Church. + +His impressions are, probably, at first, of a pleasant character. He +looks upon these edifices as expressions, which, however inferior in +grandeur to the poems in stone which adorn the older world, surely +indicate that man cannot rest content with his short earthly span, but +prizes relations to eternity. The house in which he pays deference to +claims which death will not cancel seems to be no less important in his +eyes than those in which the affairs which press nearest are attended +to. + +So far, so good! That is expressed which gives man his superiority over +the other orders of the natural world, that consciousness of spiritual +affinities of which we see no unequivocal signs elsewhere. + +But, if this be something great when compared with the rest of the +animal creation, yet how little seems it when compared with the ideal +that has been offered to him, as to the means of signifying such +feelings! These temples! how far do they correspond with the idea of +that religious sentiment from which they originally sprung? In the old +world the history of such edifices, though not without its shadow, had +many bright lines. Kings and emperors paid oftentimes for the materials +and labor a price of blood and plunder, and many a wretched sinner +sought by contributions of stone for their walls to roll off the burden +he had laid on his conscience. Still the community amid which they rose +knew little of these drawbacks. Pious legends attest the purity of +feeling associated with each circumstance of their building. Mysterious +orders, of which we know only that they were consecrated to brotherly +love and the development of mind, produced the genius which animated the +architecture; but the casting of the bells and suspending them in the +tower was an act in which all orders of the community took part; for +when those cathedrals were consecrated, it was for the use of all. Rich +and poor knelt together upon their marble pavements, and the imperial +altar welcomed the obscurest artisan. + +This grace our churches want--the grace which belongs to all religions, +but is peculiarly and solemnly enforced upon the followers of Jesus. The +poor to whom he came to preach can have no share in the grace of Grace +Church. In St. Peter's, if only as an empty form, the soiled feet of +travel-worn disciples are washed; but such feet can never intrude on the +fane of the holy Trinity here in republican America, and the Messiah may +be supposed still to give as excuse for delay, "The poor you always have +with you." + +We must confess this circumstance is to us quite destructive of +reverence and value for these buildings. + +We are told, that at the late consecration, the claims of the poor were +eloquently urged; and that an effort is to be made, by giving a side +chapel, to atone for the luxury which shuts them out from the reflection +of sunshine through those brilliant windows. It is certainly better that +they should be offered the crumbs from the rich man's table than nothing +at all, yet it is surely not _the_ way that Jesus would have taught to +provide for the poor. + +Would we not then have these splendid edifices erected? We certainly +feel that the educational influence of good specimens of architecture +(and we know no other argument in their favor) is far from being a +counterpoise to the abstraction of so much money from purposes that +would be more in fulfilment of that Christian idea which these assume to +represent Were the rich to build such a church, and, dispensing with +pews and all exclusive advantages, invite all who would to come in to +the banquet, that were, indeed, noble and Christian. And, though we +believe more, for our nation and time, in intellectual monuments than +those of wood and stone, and, in opposition even to our admired Powers, +think that Michael Angelo himself could have advised no more suitable +monument to Washington than a house devoted to the instruction of the +people, and think that great master, and the Greeks no less, would agree +with us if they lived now to survey all the bearings of the subject, yet +we would not object to these splendid churches, if the idea of Him they +call Master were represented in them. But till it is, they can do no +good, for the means are not in harmony with the end. The rich man sits +in state while "near two hundred thousand" Lazaruses linger, unprovided +for, without the gate. While this is so, they must not talk much, +within, of Jesus of Nazareth, who called to him fishermen, laborers, and +artisans, for his companions and disciples. + +We find some excellent remarks on this subject from Rev. Stephen Olin, +president of the Wesleyan University. They are appended as a note to a +discourse addressed to young men, on the text, "Put ye on the Lord Jesus +Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts +thereof." + +This discourse, though it discloses formal and external views of +religions ties and obligations, is dignified by a fervent, generous love +for men, and a more than commonly catholic liberality; and though these +remarks are made and meant to bear upon the interests of his own sect, +yet they are anti-sectarian in their tendency, and worthy the +consideration of all anxious to understand the call of duty in these +matters. Earnest attention of this sort will better avail than fifteen +hundred dollars, or more, paid for a post of exhibition in a fashionable +church, where, if piety be provided with one chance, worldliness has +twenty to stare it out of countenance. + +"The strong tendency in our religious operations to gather the rich and +the poor into separate folds, and so to generate and establish in the +church distinctions utterly at variance with the spirit of our political +institutions, is the very worst result of the multiplication of sects +among us; and I fear it must be admitted that the evil is greatly +aggravated by the otherwise benignant working of the voluntary system. +Without insisting further upon the probable or possible injury which may +befall our free country from this conflict of agencies, ever the most +powerful in the formation of national and individual character, no one, +I am sure, can fail to recognize in this development an influence +utterly and irreconcilably hostile to the genius and cherished objects +of Christianity. It is the peculiar glory of the gospel that, even under +the most arbitrary governments, it has usually been able to vindicate +and practically exemplify the essential equality of man. It has had one +doctrine and one hope for all its children; and the highest and the +lowest have been constrained to acknowledge one holy law of brotherhood +in the common faith of which they are made partakers. Nowhere else, I +believe, but in the United States--certainly nowhere else to the same +extent--does this anti-Christian separation of classes prevail in the +Christian church. The beggar in his tattered vestments walks the +splendid courts of St. Peter's, and kneels at its costly altars by the +side of dukes and cardinals. The peasant in his wooden shoes is welcomed +in the gorgeous churches of Notre Dame and the Madeleine; and even in +England, where political and social distinctions are more rigorously +enforced than in any other country on earth, the lord and the peasant, +the richest and the poorest, are usually occupants of the same church, +and partakers of the same communion. That the reverse of all this is +true in many parts of this country, every observing man knows full well; +and what is yet more deplorable, while the lines of demarcation between +the different classes have already become sufficiently distinct, the +tendency is receiving new strength and development in a rapidly +augmenting ratio. Even in country places, where the population is +sparse, and the artificial distinctions of society are little known, the +working of this strange element is, in many instances, made manifest, +and a petty coterie of village magnates may be found worshipping God +apart from the body of the people. But the evil is much more apparent, +as well as more deeply seated, in our populous towns, where the causes +which produce it have been longer in operation, and have more fully +enjoyed the favor of circumstances. In these great centres of wealth, +intelligence, and influence, the separation between the classes is, in +many instances, complete, and in many more the process is rapidly +progressive. + +"There are crowded religious congregations composed so exclusively of +the wealthy as scarcely to embrace an indigent family or individual; and +the number of such churches, where the gospel is never preached to the +poor, is constantly increasing. Rich men, instead of associating +themselves with their more humble fellow-Christians, where their money +as well as their influence and counsels are so much needed, usually +combine to erect magnificent churches, in which sittings are too +expensive for any but people of fortune, and from which their +less-favored brethren are as effectually and peremptorily excluded as if +there were dishonor or contagion in their presence. A congregation is +thus constituted, able, without the slightest inconvenience, to bear the +pecuniary burdens of twenty churches, monopolizing and consigning to +comparative inactivity intellectual, moral, and material resources, for +want of which so many other congregations are doomed to struggle with +the most embarrassing difficulties. Can it for a moment be thought that +such a state of things is desirable, or in harmony with the spirit and +design of the gospel? + +"A more difficult question arises when we inquire after a remedy for +evils too glaring to be overlooked, and too grave to be tolerated, +without an effort to palliate, if not to remove them. The most obvious +palliative, and one which has already been tried to some extent by +wealthy churches or individuals, is the erection of free places of +worship for the poor. Such a provision for this class of persons would +be more effectual in any other part of the world than in the United +States. Whether it arises from the operation of our political system, or +from the easy attainment of at least the prime necessaries of life, the +poorer classes here are characterized by a proud spirit, which will not +submit to receive even the highest benefits in any form that implies +inferiority or dependence. This strong and prevalent feeling must +continue to interpose serious obstacles in the way of these laudable +attempts. If in a few instances churches for the poor have succeeded in +our large cities, where the theory of social equality is so imperfectly +realized in the actual condition of the people, and where the presence +of a multitude of indigent foreigners tends to lower the sentiment of +independence so strong in native-born Americans, the system is yet +manifestly incapable of general application to the religious wants of +our population. The same difficulty usually occurs in all attempts to +induce the humbler classes to worship with the rich in sumptuous +churches, by reserving for their benefit a portion of the sittings free, +or at a nominal rent. A few only can be found who are willing to be +recognized and provided for as beneficiaries and paupers, while the +multitude will always prefer to make great sacrifices in order to +provide for themselves in some humbler fane. It must be admitted that +this subject is beset with practical difficulties, which are not likely +to be removed speedily, or without some great and improbable revolution +in our religious affairs. Yet if the respectable Christian denominations +most concerned in the subject shall pursue a wise and liberal policy for +the future, something may be done to check the evil. They may retard its +rapid growth, perhaps, though it will most likely be found impossible to +eradicate it altogether. It ought to be well understood, that the +multiplication of magnificent churches is daily making the line of +demarcation between the rich and the poor more and more palpable and +impassable. There are many good reasons for the erection of such +edifices. Increasing wealth and civilization seem to call for a liberal +and tasteful outlay in behalf of religion; yet is it the dictate of +prudence no less than of duty to balance carefully the good and the evil +of every enterprise. It should ever be kept in mind, that such a church +virtually writes above its sculptured portals an irrevocable prohibition +to the poor--'_Procul, O procul este profani_.'" + + + + +LATE ASPIRATIONS. + +LETTER TO H----. + + +You have put to me that case which puzzles more than almost any in this +strange world--the case of a man of good intentions, with natural powers +sufficient to carry them out, who, after having through great part of a +life lived the best he knew, and, in the world's eye, lived admirably +well, suddenly wakes to a consciousness of the soul's true aims. He +finds that he has been a good son, husband, and father, an adroit man of +business, respected by all around him, without ever having advanced one +step in the life of the soul. His object has not been the development of +his immortal being, nor has this been developed; all he has done bears +upon the present life only, and even that in a way poor and limited, +since no deep fountain of intellect or feeling has ever been unsealed +for him. Now that his eyes are opened, he sees what communion is +possible; what incorruptible riches may be accumulated by the man of +true wisdom. But why is the hour of clear vision so late deferred? He +cannot blame himself for his previous blindness. His eyes were holden +that he saw not. He lived as well as he knew how. + +And now that he would fain give himself up to the new oracle in his +bosom, and to the inspirations of nature, all his old habits, all his +previous connections, are unpropitious. He is bound by a thousand chains +which press on him so as to leave no moment free. And perhaps it seems +to him that, were he free, he should but feel the more forlorn. He sees +the charm and nobleness of this new life, but knows not how to live it. +It is an element to which his mental frame has not been trained. He +knows not what to do to-day or to-morrow; how to stay by himself, or how +to meet others; how to act, or how to rest. Looking on others who chose +the path which now invites him at an age when their characters were yet +plastic, and the world more freely opened before them, he deems them +favored children, and cries in almost despairing sadness, Why, O Father +of Spirits, didst thou not earlier enlighten me also? Why was I not led +gently by the hand in the days of my youth? "And what," you ask, "could +I reply?" + +Much, much, dear H----, were this a friend whom I could see so often +that his circumstances would be my text. For no subject has more engaged +my thoughts, no difficulty is more frequently met. But now on this poor +sheet I can only give you the clew to what I should say. + +In the first place, the depth of the despair must be caused by the +mistaken idea that this our present life is all the time allotted to man +for the education of his nature for that state of consummation which is +called heaven. Were it seen that this present is only one little link in +the long chain of probations; were it felt that the Divine Justice is +pledged to give the aspirations of the soul all the time they require +for their fulfilment; were it recognized that disease, old age, and +death are circumstances which can never touch the eternal youth of the +spirit; that though the "plant man" grows more or less fair in hue and +stature, according to the soil in which it is planted, yet the +principle, which is the life of the plant, will not be defeated, but +must scatter its seeds again and again, till it does at last come to +perfect flower,--then would he, who is pausing to despair, realize that +a new choice can never be too late, that false steps made in ignorance +can never be counted by the All-Wise, and that, though a moment's delay +against conviction is of incalculable weight the mistakes of forty +years are but as dust on the balance held by an unerring hand. Despair +is for time, hope for eternity. + +Then he who looks at all at the working of the grand principle of +compensation which holds all nature in equipoise, cannot long remain a +stranger to the meaning of the beautiful parable of the prodigal son, +and the joy over finding the one lost piece of silver. It is no +arbitrary kindness, no generosity of the ruling powers, which causes +that there be more joy in heaven over the one that returns, than over +ninety and nine that never strayed. It is the inevitable working of a +spiritual law that he who has been groping in darkness must feel the +light most keenly, best know how to prize it--he who has long been +exiled from the truth seize it with the most earnest grasp, live in it +with the deepest joy. It was after descending to the very pit of sorrow, +that our Elder Brother was permitted to ascend to the Father, who +perchance said to the angels who had dwelt always about the throne, Ye +are always with me, and all that I have is yours; but this is my Son; he +has been into a far country, but could not there abide, and has +returned. But if any one say, "I know not how to return," I should still +use words from the same record: "Let him arise and go to his Father." +Let him put his soul into that state of simple, fervent desire for truth +alone, truth for its own sake, which is prayer, and not only the sight +of truth, but the way to make it living, shall be shown. Obstacles, +insuperable to the intellect of any adviser, shall melt away like +frostwork before a ray from the celestial sun. The Father may hide his +face for a time, till the earnestness of the suppliant child be proved; +but he is not far from any that seek, and when he does resolve to make a +revelation, will show not only the _what_, but the _how_; and none else +can advise or aid the seeking soul, except by just observation on some +matter of detail. + +In this path, as in the downward one, must there be the first step that +decides the whole--one sacrifice of the temporal for the eternal day is +the grain of mustard seed which may give birth to a tree large enough to +make a home for the sweetest singing birds. One moment of deep truth in +life, of choosing not merely honesty, but purity, may leaven the whole +mass. + + + + +FRAGMENTARY THOUGHTS FROM MARGARET FULLER'S JOURNAL. + + I gave the world the fruit of earlier hours: + O Solitude! reward me with some flowers; + Or if their odorous bloom thou dost deny, + Rain down some meteors from the winter sky! + + +_Poesy._--The expression of the sublime and beautiful, whether in +measured words or in the fine arts. The human mind, apprehending the +harmony of the universe, and making new combinations by its laws. + + * * * * * + +_Poetry._--The sublime and beautiful expressed in measured language. It +is closely allied with the fine arts. It should sing to the ear, paint +to the eye, and exhibit the symmetry of architecture. If perfect, it +will satisfy the intellectual and moral faculties no less than the heart +and the senses. It works chiefly by simile and melody. It is to prose as +the garden to the house. Pleasure is the object of the one, convenience +of the other. The flowers and fruits may be copied on the furniture of +the house, but if their beauty be not subordinated to utility, they lose +the charm of beauty, and degenerate into finery. The reverse is the case +in the garden. + + * * * * * + +_Nature._--I would praise alike the soft gray and brown which soothed my +eye erewhile, and the snowy fretwork which now decks the forest aisles. +Every ripple in the snowy fields, every grass and fern which raises its +petrified delicacy above them, seems to me to claim a voice. A voice! +Canst thou not silently adore, but must needs be doing? Art thou too +good to wait as a beggar at the door of the great temple? + +_Woman--Man._--Woman is the flower, man the bee. She sighs out melodious +fragrance, and invites the winged laborer. He drains her cup, and +carries off the honey. She dies on the stalk; he returns to the hive, +well fed, and praised as an active member of the community. + + * * * * * + +_Action symbolical of what is within._--Goethe says, "I have learned +to consider all I do as symbolical,--so that it now matters little to me +whether I make plates or dishes." And further, he says, "All manly +effort goes from within outwards." + + * * * * * + +_Opportunity fleeting._--I held in my hand the cup. It was full of hot +liquid. The air was cold; I delayed to drink, and its vital heat, its +soul, curled upwards in delicatest wreaths. I looked delighted on their +beauty; but while I waited, the essence of the draught was wasted on the +cold air: it would not wait for me; it longed too much to utter itself: +and when my lip was ready, only a flat, worthless sediment remained of +what had been. + + * * * * * + +_Mingling of the heavenly with the earthly._--The son of the gods has +sold his birthright. He has received in exchange one, not merely the +fairest, but the sweetest and holiest of earth's daughters. Yet is it +not a fit exchange. His pinions droop powerless; he must no longer soar +amid the golden stars. No matter, he thinks; "I will take her to some +green and flowery isle; I will pay the penalty of Adam for the sake of +the daughter of Eve; I will make the earth fruitful by the sweat of my +brow. No longer my hands shall bear the coal to the lips of the inspired +singer--no longer my voice modulate its tones to the accompaniment of +spheral harmonies. My hands now lift the clod of the valley which dares +cling to them with brotherly familiarity. And for my soiling, dreary +task-work all the day, I receive--food. + +"But the smile with which she receives me at set of sun, is it not worth +all that sun has seen me endure? Can angelic delights surpass those +which I possess, when, facing the shore with her, watched by the quiet +moon, we listen to the tide of the world surging up impatiently against +the Eden it cannot conquer? Truly the joys of heaven were gregarious and +low in comparison. This, this alone, is exquisite, because exclusive and +peculiar." + +Ah, seraph! but the winter's frost must nip thy vine; a viper lurks +beneath the flowers to sting the foot of thy child, and pale decay must +steal over the cheek thou dost adore. In the realm of ideas all was +imperishable. Be blest while thou canst. I love thee, fallen seraph, but +thou shouldst not have sold thy birthright. + +"All for love and the world well lost." That sounds so true! But genius, +when it sells itself, gives up, not only the world, but the universe. + +Yet does not love comprehend the universe? The universe is love. Why +should I weary my eye with scanning the parts, when I can clasp the +whole this moment to my beating heart? + +But if the intellect be repressed, the idea will never be brought out +from the feeling. The amaranth wreath will in thy grasp be changed to +one of roses, more fragrant indeed, but withering with a single sun! + + * * * * * + +_The Crisis with Goethe._--I have thought much whether Goethe did +well in giving up Lili. That was the crisis in his existence. From that +era dates his being as a "Weltweise;" the heroic element vanished +irrecoverably from his character; he became an Epicurean and a Realist; +plucking flowers and hammering stones instead of looking at the stars. +How could he look through the blinds, and see her sitting alone in her +beauty, yet give her up for so slight reasons? He was right as a genius, +but wrong as a character. + + * * * * * + +_The Flower and the Pearl._---- has written wonders about the mystery of +personality. Why do we love it? In the first place, each wishes to +embrace a whole, and this seems the readiest way. The intellect soars, +the heart clasps; from putting "a girdle round about the earth in forty +minutes," thou wouldst return to thy own little green isle of emotion, +and be the loving and playful fay, rather than the delicate Ariel. + +Then most persons are plants, organic. We can predict their growth +according to their own law. From the young girl we can predict the +lustre, the fragrance of the future flower. It waves gracefully to the +breeze, the dew rests upon its petals, the bee busies himself in them, +and flies away after a brief rapture, richly laden. + +When it fades, its leaves fall softly on the bosom of Mother Earth, to +all whose feelings it has so closely conformed. It has lived as a part +of nature; its life was music, and we open our hearts to the melody. + +But characters like thine and mine are mineral. We are the bone and +sinew, these the smiles and glances, of earth. We lie nearer the mighty +heart, and boast an existence more enduring than they. The sod lies +heavy on us, or, if we show ourselves, the melancholy moss clings to us. +If we are to be made into palaces and temples, we must be hewn and +chiselled by instruments of unsparing sharpness. The process is +mechanical and unpleasing; the noises which accompany it, discordant and +obtrusive; the artist is surrounded with rubbish. Yet we may be polished +to marble smoothness. In our veins may lie the diamond, the ruby, +perhaps the emblematic carbuncle. + +The flower is pressed to the bosom with intense emotion, but in the home +of love it withers and is cast away. + +The gem is worn with less love, but with more pride; if we enjoy its +sparkle, the joy is partly from calculation of its value; but if it be +lost, we regret it long. + +For myself, my name is Pearl.[42] That lies at the beginning, amid slime +and foul prodigies from which only its unsightly shell protects. It is +cradled and brought to its noblest state amid disease and decay. Only +the experienced diver could have known that it was there, and brought it +to the strand, where it is valued as pure, round, and, if less brilliant +than the diamond, yet an ornament for a kingly head. Were it again +immersed in the element where first it dwelt, now that it is stripped of +the protecting shell, soon would it blacken into deformity. So what is +noblest in my soul has sprung from disease, present defeat, +disappointment, and untoward outward circumstance. + +For you, I presume, from your want of steady light and brilliancy of +sparks which are occasionally struck from you, that you are either a +flint or a rough diamond. If the former, I hope you will find a home in +some friendly tinder-box, instead of lying in the highway to answer the +hasty hoof of the trampling steed. If a diamond, I hope to meet you in +some imperishable crown, where we may long remain together; you lighting +up my pallid orb, I tempering your blaze. + +_Dried Ferns about my Lamp-shade._--"What pleasure do you, who have +exiled those paper tissue covers, take in that bouquet of dried ferns? +Their colors are less bright, and their shapes less graceful, than those +of your shades." + +I answer, "They grew beneath the solemn pines. They opened their hearts +to the smile of summer, and answered to the sigh of autumn. _They_ +remind me of the wealth of nature; the tissues, of the poverty of man. +They were gathered by a cherished friend who worships in the woods, and +behind them lurks a deep, enthusiastic eye. So my pleasure in seeing +them is 'denkende' and 'menschliche.'" + +"They are of no use." + +"Good! I like useless things: they are to me the vouchers of a different +state of existence." + + * * * * * + +_Light._--My lamp says to me, "Why do you disdain me, and use that +candle, which you have the trouble of snuffing every five minutes, and +which ever again grows dim, ungrateful for your care? I would burn +steadily from sunset to midnight, and be your faithful, vigilant friend, +yet never interrupt you an instant." + +I reply, "But your steady light is also dull,--while his, at its best, +is both brilliant and mellow. Besides, I love him for the trouble he +gives; he calls on my sympathy, and admonishes me constantly to use my +life, which likewise flickers as if near the socket." + + * * * * * + +_Wit and Satire._--I cannot endure people who do not distinguish between +wit and satire; who think you, of course, laugh at people when you laugh +_about_ them; and who have no perception of the peculiar pleasure +derived from toying with lovely or tragic figures. + + + + +FAREWELL.[43] + + +Farewell to New York city, where twenty months have presented me with a +richer and more varied exercise for thought and life, than twenty years +could in any other part of these United States. + +It is the common remark about New York, that it has at least nothing +petty or provincial in its methods and habits. The place is large +enough: there is room enough, and occupation enough, for men to have no +need or excuse for small cavils or scrutinies. A person who is +independent, and knows what he wants, may lead his proper life here, +unimpeded by others. + +Vice and crime, if flagrant and frequent, are less thickly coated by +hypocrisy than elsewhere. The air comes sometimes to the most infected +subjects. + +New York is the focus, the point where American and European interests +converge. There is no topic of general interest to men, that will not +betimes be brought before the thinker by the quick turning of the wheel. + +_Too_ quick that revolution,--some object. Life rushes wide and free, +but _too fast_. Yet it is in the power of every one to avert from +himself the evil that accompanies the good. He must build for his study, +as did the German poet, a house beneath the bridge; and then all that +passes above and by him will be heard and seen, but he will not be +carried away with it. + +Earlier views have been confirmed, and many new ones opened. On two +great leadings, the superlative importance of promoting national +education by heightening and deepening the cultivation of individual +minds, and the part which is assigned to woman in the next stage of +human progress in this country, where most important achievements are to +be effected, I have received much encouragement, much instruction, and +the fairest hopes of more. + +On various subjects of minor importance, no less than these, I hope for +good results, from observation, with my own eyes, of life in the old +world, and to bring home some packages of seed for life in the new. + +These words I address to my friends, for I feel that I have some. The +degree of sympathetic response to the thoughts and suggestions I have +offered through the columns of the Tribune, has indeed surprised me, +conscious as I am of a natural and acquired aloofness from many, if not +most popular tendencies of my time and place. It has greatly encouraged +me, for none can sympathize with thoughts like mine, who are permanently +insnared in the meshes of sect or party; none who prefer the formation +and advancement of mere opinions to the free pursuit of truth. I see, +surely, that the topmost bubble or sparkle of the cup is no voucher for +the nature of its contents throughout, and shall, in future, feel that +in our age, nobler in that respect than most of the preceding ages, each +sincere and fervent act or word is secure, not only of a final, but of a +speedy response. + +I go to behold the wonders of art, and the temples of old religion. But +I shall see no forms of beauty and majesty beyond what my country is +capable of producing in myriad variety, if she has but the soul to will +it; no temple to compare with what she might erect in the ages, if the +catchword of the time, a sense of _divine order_, should become no more +a mere word of form, but a deeply-rooted and pregnant idea in her life. +Beneath the light of a hope that this may be, I say to my friends once +more a kind farewell! + + + + +PART III. + +POEMS. + + + + +FREEDOM AND TRUTH. + +TO A FRIEND. + + + The shrine is vowed to freedom, but, my friend, + Freedom is but a means to gain an end. + Freedom should build the temple, but the shrine + Be consecrate to thought still more divine. + The human bliss which angel hopes foresaw + Is liberty to comprehend the law. + Give, then, thy book a larger scope and frame, + Comprising means and end in Truth's great name. + + + + +DESCRIPTION OF A PORTION OF THE JOURNEY TO TRENTON FALLS. + + + The long-anticipated morning dawns, + Clear, hopeful, joyous-eyed, and pure of breath. + The dogstar is exhausted of its rage, + And copious showers have cooled the feverish air, + The mighty engine pants--away, away! + + And, see! they come! a motley, smiling group-- + The stately matron with her tempered grace, + Her earnest eye, and kind though meaning smile, + Her words of wisdom and her words of mirth. + Her counsel firm and generous sympathy; + The happy pair whose hearts so full, yet ever + Dilating to the scene, refuse that bliss + Which excludes the whole or blunts the sense of beauty. + + Next two fair maidens in gradation meet, + The one of gentle mien and soft dove-eyes; + Like water she, that yielding and combining, + Yet most pure element in the social cup: + The other with bright glance and damask cheek, + You need not deem concealment there was preying + To mar the healthful promise of the spring. + + Another dame was there, of graver look, + And heart of slower beat; yet in its depths + Not irresponsive to the soul of things, + Nor cold when charmed by those who knew its pass-word. + + These ladies had a knight from foreign clime, + Who from the banks of the dark-rolling Danube, + Or somewhere thereabouts, had come, a pilgrim, + To worship at the shrine of Liberty, + And after, made his home in her loved realm, + Content to call it fatherland where'er + The streams bear freemen and the skies smile on them; + A courteous knight he was, of merry mood, + Expert to wing the lagging hour with jest, + Or tale of strange romance or comic song. + + And there was one I must not call a page, + Although too young yet to have won his spurs; + Yet there was promise in his laughing eye, + That in due time he'd prove no carpet knight; + Now, bright companion on a summer sea, + With wingéd words of gay or tasteful thought, + He was fit clasp to this our social chain. + + And now, the swift car loosened on its way, + O'er hill and dale we fly with rapid lightness, + While each tongue celebrates the power of steam; + O, how delightful 'tis to go so fast! + No time to muse, no chance to gaze on nature! + 'Tis bliss indeed if "to think be to groan!" + + The genius of the time soon shifts the scene: + No longer whirled over our kindred clods, + We, with as strong an impulse, cleave the waters. + Now doth our chain a while untwine its links, + And some rebound from a three hours' communion + To mingle with less favored fellow-men; + One careless turns the leaves of some new volume; + The leaves of Nature's book are too gigantic, + Too vast the characters for patient study, + Till sunset lures us with majestic power + To cast one look of love on that bright eye, + Which, for so many hours, has beamed on us. + The silver lamp is lit in the blue dome, + Nature begins her hymn of evening breezes, + And myriad sparks, thronging to kiss the wave, + Touch even the steamboat's clumsy hulk with beauty. + Then, once more drawn together, cheerful talk + Casts to the hours a store of gentle gifts, + Which memory receives from these bright minds + And careful garners them for duller days. + + The morning greets us not with her late smile; + Now chilling damp falls heavy on our hopes, + And leaden hues tarnish each sighed-for scene. + Yet not on coloring, majestic Hudson, + Depends the genius of thy stream, whose wand + Has piled thy banks on high, and given them forms + Which have for taste an impulse yet unknown. + Though Beauty dwells here, she reigns not a queen, + An humble handmaid now to the Sublime. + The mind dilates to receive the idea of strength, + And tasks its elements for congenial forms + To create anew within those mighty piles, + Those "bulwarks of the world," which, time-defying + And thunder-mocking, lift their lofty brows. + + Now at the river's bend we pause a while, + And sun and cloud combine their wealth to greet us. + Oft shall the fair scenes of West Point return + Upon the mind, in its still picture-hours, + Its cloud-capped mountains with their varying hues, + The soft seclusion of its wooded paths, + And the alluring hopefulness of view + Along the river from its crisis-point. + Unlike the currents of our human lives + When they approach their long-sought ocean-mother,-- + This stream is noblest onward to its close, + More tame and grave when near its inland founts. + Now onward, onward, till the whole be known; + The heart, though swollen with these new sensations, + With no less vital throb beats on for more, + And rather we'd shake hands with disappointment + Than wait and lean on sober expectation. + + The Highlands now are passed, and Hyde Park flies,-- + Catskill salutes us--a far fairy-land. + O mountains, how do ye delude our hearts! + Let but the eye look down upon a valley, + We feel our limitations, and are calm; + But place blue mountains in the distant view, + And the soul labors with the Titan hope + To ascend the shrouded tops, and scale the heavens. + + O, pause not in the murky, old Dutch city, + But, hasting onward with a renewed steam power, + Bestow your hours upon the beauteous Mohawk; + And here we grieve to lose our courteous knight, + Just at the opening of so rich a page. + + How shall I praise thee, Mohawk? How portray + The love, the joyousness, felt in thy presence? + When each new step along the silvery tide + Added new gems of beauty to our thought, + And lapped the soul in an Elysium + Of verdure and of grace, fed by thy sweetness. + O, how gay Fancy smiled, and deemed it home! + This is, thought she, the river of my garden; + These are the graceful trees that form its bowers, + And these the meads where I have sighed to roam. + I now may fold my wearied wings in peace. + + + + +JOURNEY TO TRENTON FALLS. + + + I. + + TO MY FRIENDS AND COMPANIONS. + + If this faint reflex from those days so bright + May aught of sympathy among you gain, + I shall not think these verses penned in vain; + Though they tell nothing of the fancies light, + The kindly deeds, rich thoughts, and various grace + With which you knew to make the hours so fair, + That neither grief nor sickness could efface + From memory's tablet what you printed there. + Could I have breathed your spirit through these lines, + They might have charms to win a critic's smile, + Or the cold worldling of a sigh beguile. + I could but from my being bring one tone; + May it arouse the sweetness of your own. + + + II. + + THE HIGHLANDS. + + I saw ye first, arrayed in mist and cloud; + No cheerful lights softened your aspect bold; + A sullen gray, or green, more grave and cold, + The varied beauties of the scene enshroud. + Yet not the less, O Hudson! calm and proud, + Did I receive the impress of that hour + Which showed thee to me, emblem of that power + Of high resolve, to which even rocks have bowed; + Thou wouldst not deign thy course to turn aside, + And seek some smiling valley's welcome warm, + But through the mountain's very heart, thy pride + Has been, thy channel and thy banks to form. + Not even the "bulwarks of the world" could bar + The inland fount from joining ocean's war! + + + III. + + CATSKILL. + + How fair at distance shone yon silvery blue, + O stately mountain-tops, charming the mind + To dream of pleasures which she there may find, + Where from the eagle's height she earth can view! + Nor are those disappointments which ensue; + For though, while eyeing what beneath us lay, + Almost we shunned to think of yesterday, + As wonderingly our looks its course pursue. + Dwarfed to a point the joys of many hours, + The river on whose bosom we were borne + Seems but a thread, of pride and beauty shorn; + Its banks, its shadowy groves, like beds of flowers, + Wave their diminished heads;--yet would we sigh, + Since all this loss shows us more near the sky? + + + IV. + + VALLEY OF THE MOHAWK. + + Could I my words with gentlest grace imbue, + Which the flute's breath, or harp's clear tones, can bless, + I then might hope the feelings to express, + And with new life the happy day endue, + Thou gav'st, O vale, than Tempe's self more fair! + With thy romantic stream and emerald isles, + Touched by an April mood of tears and smiles + Which stole on matron August unaware; + The meads with all the spring's first freshness green, + The trees with summer's thickest garlands crowned, + And each so elegant, that fairy queen + All day might wander ere she chose her round; + No blemish on the sense of beauty broke, + But the whole scene one ecstasy awoke. + + + V. + + TRENTON FALLS, EARLY IN THE MORNING. + + The sun, impatient, o'er the lofty trees + Struggles to illume as fair a sight as lies + Beneath the light of his joy-loving eyes, + Which all the forms of energy must please; + A solemn shadow falls in pillared form, + Made by yon ledge, which noontide scarcely shows, + Upon the amber radiance, soft and warm, + Where through the cleft the eager torrent flows. + Would you the genius of the place enjoy, + In all the charms contrast and color give? + Your eye and taste you now may best employ, + For this the hour when minor beauties live; + Scan ye the details as the sun rides high, + For with the morn these sparkling glories fly. + + + VI. + + TRENTON FALLS, (AFTERNOON.) + + A calmer grace o'er these still hours presides; + Now is the time to see the might of form; + The heavy masses of the buttressed sides, + The stately steps o'er which the waters storm; + Where, 'neath the mill, the stream so gently glides, + You feel the deep seclusion of the scene, + And now begin to comprehend what mean + The beauty and the power this chasm hides. + From the green forest's depths the portent springs, + But from those quiet shades bounding away, + Lays bare its being to the light of day, + Though on the rock's cold breast its love it flings. + Yet can all sympathy such courage miss? + Answer, ye trees! who bend the waves to kiss. + + + VII. + + TRENTON FALLS BY MOONLIGHT. + + I deemed the inmost sense my soul had blessed + Which in the poem of thy being dwells, + And gives such store for thought's most sacred cells; + And yet a higher joy was now confessed. + With what a holiness did night invest + The eager impulse of impetuous life, + And hymn-like meanings clothed the waters' strife! + With what a solemn peace the moon did rest + Upon the white crest of the waterfall; + The haughty guardian banks, by the deep shade, + In almost double height are now displayed. + Depth, height, speak things which awe, but not appall. + From elemental powers this voice has come, + And God's love answers from the azure dome. + + + + +SUB ROSA, CRUX. + + + In times of old, as we are told, + When men more child-like at the feet + Of Jesus sat, than now, + A chivalry was known more bold + Than ours, and yet of stricter vow, + Of worship more complete. + + Knights of the Rosy Cross, they bore + Its weight within the heart, but wore + Without, devotion's sign in glistening ruby bright; + The gall and vinegar they drank alone, + But to the world at large would only own + The wine of faith, sparkling with rosy light. + + They knew the secret of the sacred oil + Which, poured upon the prophet's head, + Could keep him wise and pure for aye. + Apart from all that might distract or soil, + With this their lamps they fed. + Which burn in their sepulchral shrines unfading night and day. + + The pass-word now is lost, + To that initiation full and free; + Daily we pay the cost + Of our slow schooling for divine degree. + We know no means to feed an undying lamp; + Our lights go out in every wind or damp. + + We wear the cross of ebony and gold, + Upon a dark background a form of light, + A heavenly hope upon a bosom cold, + A starry promise in a frequent night; + The dying lamp must often trim again, + For we are conscious, thoughtful, striving men. + + Yet be we faithful to this present trust, + Clasp to a heart resigned the fatal must; + Though deepest dark our efforts should enfold, + Unwearied mine to find the vein of gold; + Forget not oft to lift the hope on high; + The rosy dawn again shall fill the sky. + + And by that lovely light, all truth-revealed, + The cherished forms which sad distrust concealed, + Transfigured, yet the same, will round us stand, + The kindred angels of a faithful band; + Ruby and ebon cross both cast aside, + No lamp is needed, for the night has died. + + Happy be those who seek that distant day, + With feet that from the appointed way + Could never stray; + Yet happy too be those who more and more, + As gleams the beacon of that only shore, + Strive at the laboring oar. + + Be to the best thou knowest ever true, + Is all the creed; + Then, be thy talisman of rosy hue, + Or fenced with thorns that wearing thou must bleed, + Or gentle pledge of Love's prophetic view, + The faithful steps it will securely lead. + + Happy are all who reach that shore, + And bathe in heavenly day, + Happiest are those who high the banner bore, + To marshal others on the way; + Or waited for them, fainting and way-worn, + By burdens overborne. + + + + +THE DAHLIA, THE ROSE, AND THE HELIOTROPE. + + + In a fair garden of a distant land, + Where autumn skies the softest blue outspread, + A lovely crimson dahlia reared her head, + To drink the lustre of the season's prime; + And drink she did, until her cup o'erflowed + With ruby redder than the sunset cloud. + + Near to her root she saw the fairest rose + That ever oped her soul to sun and wind. + And still the more her sweets she did disclose, + The more her queenly heart of sweets did find, + Not only for her worshipper the wind, + But for bee, nightingale, and butterfly, + Who would with ceaseless wing about her ply, + Nor ever cease to seek what found they still would find. + + Upon the other side, nearer the ground, + A paler floweret on a slender stem, + That cast so exquisite a fragrance round, + As seemed the minute blossom to contemn, + Seeking an ampler urn to hold its sweetness, + And in a statelier shape to find completeness. + + Who could refuse to hear that keenest voice, + Although it did not bid the heart rejoice, + And though the nightingale had just begun + His hymn; the evening breeze begun to woo, + When through the charming of the evening dew, + The floweret did its secret soul disclose? + By that revealing touched, the queenly rose + Forgot them both, a deeper joy to hope + And heed the love-note of the heliotrope. + + + + +TO MY FRIENDS. + +TRANSLATED FROM SCHILLER. + + + Beloved friends! Earth hath known brighter days + Than ours; we vainly strive to hide this truth; + Would history be silent in their praise, + The very stones tell of man's glorious youth, + In heavenly forms on which we crowd to gaze; + But that high-favored race hath sunk in night; + The day is ours--the living still have sight. + + Friends of my youth! In happier climes than ours, + As some far-wandering countrymen declare, + The air is perfume; at each step spring flowers. + Nature has not been bounteous to our prayer; + But art dwells here, with her creative powers, + Laurel and myrtle shun our winter snows, + But with the cheerful vine we wreathe our brows. + + Though of more pomp and wealth the Briton boast, + Who holds four worlds in tribute to his pride,-- + Although from farthest India's glowing coast + Come gems of gold to burden Thames' dull tide, + And _bring_ each luxury that Heaven denied,-- + Not in the torrent, but the still, calm brook, + Delights Apollo at himself to look. + + More nobly lodged than we in northern halls, + At Angelo's gate the Roman beggar dwells; + Girt by the Eternal City's honored walls, + Each column some soul-stiring story tells; + While on the earth a second heaven dwells, + Where Michael's spirit to St. Peter calls; + Yet all this splendor only decks a tomb; + For us fresh flowers from every green hour bloom + + And while we live obscure, may others' names + Through Rumor's trump be given to the wind; + New forms of ancient glories, ancient shames, + For nothing new the searching sun can find, + As pass the motley groups of human kind; + All other living things grow old and die-- + Fancy alone has immortality. + + + + +STANZAS. + +WRITTEN AT THE AGE OF SEVENTEEN. + + + I. + + Come, breath of dawn! and o'er my temples play; + Rouse to the draught of life the wearied sense; + Fly, sleep! with thy sad phantoms, far away; + Let the glad light scare those pale troublous shadows hence! + + + II. + + I rise, and leaning from my casement high, + Feel from the morning twilight a delight; + Once more youth's portion, hope, lights up my eye, + And for a moment I forget the sorrows of the night. + + + III. + + O glorious morn! how great is yet thy power! + Yet how unlike to that which once I knew, + When, plumed with glittering thoughts, my soul would soar, + And pleasures visited my heart like daily dew! + + + IV. + + Gone is life's primal freshness all too soon; + For me the dream is vanished ere my time; + I feel the heat and weariness of noon, + And long in night's cool shadows to recline. + + + + +FLAXMAN. + + + We deemed the secret lost, the spirit gone, + Which spake in Greek simplicity of thought, + And in the forms of gods and heroes wrought + Eternal beauty from the sculptured stone-- + A higher charm than modern culture won, + With all the wealth of metaphysic lore, + Gifted to analyze, dissect, explore. + A many-colored light flows from our sun; + Art, 'neath its beams, a motley thread has spun; + The prison modifies the perfect day; + But thou hast known such mediums to shun, + And cast once more on life a pure white ray. + Absorbed in the creations of thy mind, + Forgetting daily self, my truest self I find. + + + + +THOUGHTS + +ON SUNDAY MORNING, WHEN PREVENTED BY A SNOW STORM FROM GOING TO CHURCH. + + + Hark! the church-going bell! But through the air + The feathery missiles of old Winter hurled, + Offend the brow of mild-approaching Spring; + She shuts her soft blue eyes, and turns away. + Sweet is the time passed in the house of prayer, + When, met with many of this fire-fraught clay, + We, on this day,--the tribe of ills forgot, + Wherewith, ungentle, we afflict each other,-- + Assemble in the temple of our God, + And use our breath to worship Him who gave it. + What though no gorgeous relics of old days, + The gifts of humbled kings and suppliant warriors, + Deck the fair shrine, or cluster round the pillars; + No stately windows decked with various hues, + No blazon of dead saints repel the sun; + Though no cloud-courting dome or sculptured frieze + Excite the fancy and allure the taste, + No fragrant censor steep the sense in luxury, + No lofty chant swell on the vanquished soul. + + Ours is the faith of Reason; to the earth + We leave the senses who interpret her; + The heaven-born only should commune with Heaven, + The immaterial with the infinite. + Calmly we wait in solemn expectation. + He rises in the desk--that earnest man; + No priestly terrors flashing from his eye, + No mitre towers above the throne of thought, + No pomp and circumstance wait on his breath. + He speaks--we hear; and man to man we judge. + Has he the spell to touch the founts of feeling, + To kindle in the mind a pure ambition, + Or soothe the aching heart with heavenly balm, + To guide the timid and refresh the weary, + Appall the wicked and abash the proud? + He is the man of God. Our hearts confess him. + He needs no homage paid in servile forms, + No worldly state, to give him dignity: + To his own heart the blessing will return, + And all his days blossom with love divine. + + There is a blessing in the Sabbath woods, + There is a holiness in the blue skies; + The summer-murmurs to those calm blue skies + Preach ceaselessly. The universe is love-- + And this disjointed fragment of a world + Must, by its spirit, man, be harmonized, + Tuned to concordance with the spheral strain, + Till thought be like those skies, deeds like those breezes, + As clear, as bright, as pure, as musical, + And all things have one text of truth and beauty. + + There is a blessing in a day like this, + When sky and earth are talking busily; + The clouds give back the riches they received, + And for their graceful shapes return they fulness; + While in the inmost shrine, the life of life, + The soul within the soul, the consciousness + Whom I can only _name_, counting her wealth, + Still makes it more, still fills the golden bowl + Which never shall be broken, strengthens still + The silver cord which binds the whole to Heaven. + + O that such hours must pass away! yet oft + Such will recur, and memories of this + Come to enhance their sweetness. And again + I say, great is the blessing of that hour + When the soul, turning from without, begins + To register her treasures, the bright thoughts, + The lovely hopes, the ethereal desires, + Which she has garnered in past Sabbath hours. + Within her halls the preacher's voice still sounds, + Though he be dead or distant far. The band + Of friends who with us listened to his word, + With throngs around of linked associations, + Are there; the little stream, long left behind, + Is murmuring still; the woods as musical; + The skies how blue, the whole how eloquent + With "life of life and life's most secret joy"! + + + + +TO A GOLDEN HEART WORN ROUND THE NECK.[44] + + + Remembrancer of joys long passed away, + Relic from which, as yet, I cannot part, + O, hast thou power to lengthen love's short day? + Stronger thy chain than that which bound the heart? + + Lili, I fly--yet still thy fetters press me + In distant valley, or far lonely wood; + Still will a struggling sigh of pain confess thee + The mistress of my soul in every mood. + + The bird may burst the silken chain which bound him, + Flying to the green home, which fits him best; + But, O, he bears the prisoner's badge around him, + Still by the piece about his neck distressed. + He ne'er can breathe his free, wild notes again; + They're stifled by the pressure of his chain. + + + + +LINES + +ACCOMPANYING A BOUQUET OF WILD COLUMBINE, WHICH BLOOMED LATE IN THE +SEASON. + + + These pallid blossoms thou wilt not disdain, + The harbingers of thy approach to me, + Which grew and bloomed despite the cold and rain, + To tell of summer and futurity. + + It was not given them to tell the soul, + And lure the nightingale by fragrant breath: + These slender stems and roots brook no control, + And in the garden life would find but death. + The rock which is their cradle and their home + Must also be their monument and tomb; + Yet has my floweret's life a charm more rare + Than those admiring crowds esteem so fair, + Self-nurtured, self-sustaining, self-approved: + Not even by the forest trees beloved, + As are her sisters of the Spring, she dies,-- + Nor to the guardian stars lifts up her eyes, + But droops her graceful head upon her breast, + Nor asks the wild bird's requiem for her rest, + By her own heart upheld, by her own soul possessed. + + Learn of the clematis domestic love, + Religious beauty in the lily see; + Learn from the rose how rapture's pulses move, + Learn from the heliotrope fidelity. + From autumn flowers let hope and faith be known; + Learn from the columbine to live alone, + To deck whatever spot the Fates provide + With graces worthy of the garden's pride, + And to deserve each gift that is denied. + + These are the shades of the departed flowers, + My lines faint shadows of some beauteous hours, + Whereto the soul the highest thoughts have spoken, + And brightest hopes from frequent twilight broken. + Preserve them for my sake. In other years, + When life has answered to your hopes or fears, + When the web is well woven, and you try + Your wings, whether as moth or butterfly, + If, as I pray, the fairest lot be thine, + Yet value still the faded columbine. + But look not on her if thy earnest eye, + Be filled by works of art or poesy; + Bring not the hermit where, in long array, + Triumphs of genius gild the purple day; + Let her not hear the lyre's proud voice arise, + To tell, "still lives the song though Regnor dies;" + Let her not hear the lute's soft-rising swell + Declare she never lived who lived so well; + But from the anvil's clang, and joiner's screw, + The busy streets where men dull crafts pursue, + From weary cares and from tumultuous joys, + From aimless bustle and from voiceless noise, + If there thy plans should be, turn here thine eye,-- + Open the casket of thy memory; + Give to thy friend the gentlest, holiest sigh. + + + + +DISSATISFACTION. + +TRANSLATED FROM THEODORE KÖRNER. + +"Composed as I stood sentinel on the banks of the Elbe." + + + Fatherland! Thou call'st the singer + In the blissful glow of day; + He no more can musing linger, + While thou dost mourn a tyrant's sway. + Love and poesy forsaking, + From friendship's magic circle breaking, + The keenest pangs he could endure + Thy peace to insure. + + Yet sometimes tears must dim his eyes, + As, on the melodious bridge of song, + The shadows of past joys arise, + And in mild beauty round him throng. + In vain, o'er life, that early beam + Such radiance shed;--the impetuous stream + Of strife has seized him, onward borne, + While left behind his loved ones mourn. + + Here in the crowd must he complain, + Nor find a fit employ? + Give him poetic place again, + Or the quick throb of warlike joy. + The wonted inspiration give; + Thus languidly he cannot live; + Love's accents are no longer near; + Let him the trumpet hear. + + Where is the cannon's thunder? + The clashing cymbals, where? + While foreign foes our cities plunder, + Can we not hasten there? + I can no longer watch this stream; + _In prose_ I die! O source of flame! + O poesy! for which I glow,-- + A nobler death thou shouldst bestow! + + + + +MY SEAL-RING. + + + Mercury has cast aside + The signs of intellectual pride, + Freely offers thee the soul: + Art thou noble to receive? + Canst thou give or take the whole, + Nobly promise, and believe? + Then thou wholly human art, + A spotless, radiant, ruby heart, + And the golden chain of love + Has bound thee to the realm above. + If there be one small, mean doubt, + One serpent thought that fled not out, + Take instead the serpent-rod; + Thou art neither man nor God. + Guard thee from the powers of evil; + Who cannot trust, vows to the devil. + Walk thy slow and spell-bound way; + Keep on thy mask, or shun the day-- + Let go my hand upon the way. + + + + +THE CONSOLERS. + +TRANSLATED FROM GOETHE. + + + "Why wilt thou not thy griefs forget? + Why must thine eyes with tears be wet? + When all things round thee sweetly smile, + Canst thou not, too, be glad a while?" + + "Hither I come to weep alone; + The grief I feel is all mine own; + Dearer than smiles these tears to me; + Smile you--I ask no sympathy!" + + "Repel not thus affection's voice! + While thou art sad, can we rejoice? + To friendly hearts impart thy woe; + Perhaps we may some healing know." + + "Too gay your hearts to feel like mine, + Or such a sorrow to divine; + Nought have I lost I e'er possessed; + I mourn that I cannot be blessed." + + "What idle, morbid feelings these! + Can you not win what prize you please? + Youth, with a genius rich as yours, + All bliss the world can give insures." + + "Ah, too high-placed is my desire! + The star to which my hopes aspire + Shines all too far--I sigh in vain, + Yet cannot stoop to earth again." + + "Waste not so foolishly thy prime; + If to the stars thou canst not climb, + Their gentle beams thy loving eye + Every clear night will gratify." + + "Do I not know it? Even now + I wait the sun's departing glow, + That I may watch them. Meanwhile ye + Enjoy the day--'tis nought to me!" + + + + +ABSENCE OF LOVE. + + + Though many at my feet have bowed, + And asked my love through pain and pleasure, + Fate never yet the youth has showed + Meet to receive so great a treasure. + + Although sometimes my heart, deceived, + Would love because it sighed _to feel_, + Yet soon I changed, and sometimes grieved + Because my fancied wound would heal. + + + + +MEDITATIONS. + + SUNDAY, _May 12, 1833_. + + + The clouds are marshalling across the sky, + Leaving their deepest tints upon yon range + Of soul-alluring hills. The breeze comes softly, + Laden with tribute that a hundred orchards + Now in their fullest blossom send, in thanks + For this refreshing shower. The birds pour forth + In heightened melody the notes of praise + They had suspended while God's voice was speaking, + And his eye flashing down upon his world. + I sigh, half-charmed, half-pained. My sense is living, + And, taking in this freshened beauty, tells + Its pleasure to the mind. The mind replies, + And strives to wake the heart in turn, repeating + Poetic sentiments from many a record + Which other souls have left, when stirred and satisfied + By scenes as fair, as fragrant. But the heart + Sends back a hollow echo to the call + Of outward things,--and its once bright companion, + Who erst would have been answered by a stream + Of life-fraught treasures, thankful to be summoned,-- + Can now rouse nothing better than this echo; + Unmeaning voice, which mocks their softened accents. + Content thee, beautiful world! and hush, still busy mind! + My heart hath sealed its fountains. To the things + Of Time they shall be oped no more. Too long, + Too often were they poured forth: part have sunk + Into the desert; part profaned and swollen + By bitter waters, mixed by those who feigned + They asked them for refreshment, which, turned back, + Have broken and o'erflowed their former urns. + + So when ye talk of _pleasure_, lonely world, + And busy mind, ye ne'er again shall move me + To answer ye, though still your calls have power + To jar me through, and cause dull aching _here_. + + Not so the voice which hailed me from the depths + Of yon dark-bosomed cloud, now vanishing + Before the sun ye greet. It touched my centre, + The voice of the Eternal, calling me + To feel his other worlds; to feel that if + I could deserve a home, I still might find it + In other spheres,--and bade me not despair, + Though "want of harmony" and "aching void" + Are terms invented by the men of this, + Which I may not forget. + + In former times + I loved to see the lightnings flash athwart + The stooping heavens; I loved to hear the thunder + Call to the seas and mountains; for I thought + 'Tis thus man's flashing fancy doth enkindle + The firmament of mind; 'tis thus his eloquence + Calls unto the soul's depths and heights; and still + I deified the creature, nor remembered + The Creator in his works. + + Ah now how different! + The proud delight of that keen sympathy + Is gone; no longer riding on the wave, + But whelmed beneath it: my own plans and works, + Or, as the Scriptures phrase it, my "_inventions_" + No longer interpose 'twixt me and Heaven. + + To-day, for the first time, I felt the Deity, + And uttered prayer on hearing thunder. This + Must be thy will,--for finer, higher spirits + Have gone through this same process,--yet I think + There was religion in that strong delight, + Those sounds, those thoughts of power imparted. True, + I did not say, "He is the Lord thy God," + But I had feeling of his essence. But + "'Twas pride by which the angels fell." So be it! + But O, might I but see a little onward! + Father, I cannot be a spirit of power; + May I be active as a spirit of love, + Since thou hast ta'en me from that path which Nature + Seemed to appoint, O, deign to ope another, + Where I may walk with thought and hope assured; + "Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief!" + Had I but faith like that which fired Novalis, + I too could bear that the heart "fall in ashes," + While the freed spirit rises from beneath them, + With heavenward-look, and Phoenix-plumes upsoaring! + + + + +RICHTER. + + + Poet of Nature, gentlest of the wise, + Most airy of the fanciful, most keen + Of satirists, thy thoughts, like butterflies, + Still near the sweetest scented flowers have been: + With Titian's colors, thou canst sunset paint; + With Raphael's dignity, celestial love; + With Hogarth's pencil, each deceit and feint + Of meanness and hypocrisy reprove; + Canst to Devotion's highest flight sublime + Exalt the mind; by tenderest pathos' art + Dissolve in purifying tears the heart, + Or bid it, shuddering, recoil at crime; + The fond illusions of the youth and maid, + At which so many world-formed sages sneer, + When by thy altar-lighted torch displayed, + Our natural religion must appear. + All things in thee tend to one polar star; + Magnetic all thy influences are; + A labyrinth; a flowery wilderness. + Some in thy "slip-boxes" and honeymoons + Complain of--want of order, I confess, + But not of system in its highest sense. + Who asks a guiding clew through this wide mind, + In love of nature such will surely find, + In tropic climes, live like the tropic bird, + Whene'er a spice-fraught grove may tempt thy stray; + Nor be by cares of colder climes disturbed: + No frost the summer's bloom shall drive away; + Nature's wide temple and the azure dome + Have plan enough for the free spirit's home. + + + + +THE THANKFUL AND THE THANKLESS. + + + With equal sweetness the commissioned hours + Shed light and dew upon both weeds and flowers. + The weeds unthankful raise their vile heads high, + Flaunting back insult to the gracious sky; + While the dear flowers, with fond humility, + Uplift the eyelids of a starry eye + In speechless homage, and, from grateful hearts, + Perfume that homage all around imparts. + + + + +PROPHECY AND FULFILMENT. + + + When leaves were falling thickly in the pale November day, + A bird dropped here this feather upon her pensive way. + Another bird has found it in the snow-chilled April day; + It brings to him the music of all her summer's lay. + Thus sweet birds, though unmated, do never sing in vain; + The lonely notes they utter to free them from their pain, + Caught up by the echoes, ring through the blue dome, + And by good spirits guided pierce to some gentle home. + + The pencil moved prophetic: together now men read + In the fair book of nature, and find the hope they need. + The wreath woven by the river is by the seaside worn, + And one of fate's best arrows to its due mark is borne. + + + + +VERSES + +GIVEN TO W. C. WITH A BLANK BOOK, MARCH, 1844. + + + Thy other book to fill, more than eight years + Have paid chance tribute of their smiles and tears; + Many bright strokes portray the varied scene-- + Wild sports, sweet ties the days of toil between; + And those related both in mind and blood, + The wise, the true, the lovely, and the good, + Have left their impress here; nor such alone, + But those chance toys that lively feelings own + Weave their gay flourishes 'mid lines sincere, + As 'mid the shadowy thickets bound the deer + Accept a volume where the coming time + Will join, I hope, much reason with the rhyme, + And that the stair his steady feet ascend + May prove a Jacob's ladder to my friend, + Peopled with angel-shapes of promise bright, + And ending only in the realms of light. + + May purity be stamped upon his brow, + Yet leave the manly footsteps free as now; + May generous love glow in his inmost heart, + Truth to its utterance lend the only art; + While more a man, may he be more the child; + More thoughtful be, but the more sweet and mild; + May growing wisdom, mixed with sprightly cheer, + Bless his own breast and those which hold him dear; + Each act be worthy of his worthiest aim, + And love of goodness keep him free from blame, + Without a need straight rules for life to frame. + + Good Spirit, teach him what he ought to be, + Best to fulfil his proper destiny, + To serve himself, his fellow-men, and thee. + These pages then will show how Nature wild + Accepts her Master, cherishes her child; + And many flowers, ere eight years more are done, + Shall bless and blossom in the western sun. + + + + +EAGLES AND DOVES. + +GOETHE. + + + A new-fledged eaglet spread his wings + To seek for prey; + Then flew the huntsman's dart and cut + The right wing's sinewy strength away. + Headlong he falls into a myrtle grove; + There three days long devoured his grief, + And writhed in pain + Three long, long nights, three days as weary. + At length he feels + The all-healing power + Of Nature's balsam. + Forth from the shady bush he creeps, + And tries his wing; but, ah! + The power to soar is gone! + He scarce can lift himself + Along the ground + In search of food to keep mere life awake; + Then rests, deep mourning, + On a low rock by the brook; + He looks up to the oak tree's top, + Far up to heaven, + And a tear glistens in his haughty eye. + + Just then come by a pair of fondling doves, + Playfully rustling through the grove. + Cooing and toying, they go tripping + Over golden sand and brook; + And, turning here and there, + Their rose-tinged eyes descry + The inly-mourning bird. + The dove, with friendly curiosity, + Flutters to the next bush, and looks + With tender sweetness on the wounded king. + "Ah, why so sad?" he cooes; + "Be of good cheer, my friend! + Hast thou not all the means of tranquil bliss + Around thee here? + Canst thou not meet with swelling breast + The last rays of the setting sun + On the brook's mossy brink? + Canst wander 'mid the dewy flowers, + And, from the superfluous wealth + Of the wood-bushes, pluck at will + Wholesome and delicate food, + And at the silvery fountain quench thy thirst? + O friend! the spirit of content + Gives all that we can know of bliss; + And this sweet spirit of content + Finds every where its food." + "O, wise one!" said the eagle, deeper still + Into himself retiring; + "O wisdom, thou speakest as a dove!" + + + + +TO A FRIEND, WITH HEARTSEASE. + + + Content in purple lustre clad, + Kingly serene, and golden glad; + No demi hues of sad contrition, + No pallors of enforced submission; + Give me such content as this, + And keep a while the rosy bliss. + + + + +ASPIRATION. + +LINES WRITTEN IN THE JOURNAL OF HER BROTHER R. F. F. + + + Foreseen, forespoken not foredone,-- + Ere the race be well begun, + The prescient soul is at the goal, + One little moment binds the whole; + Happy they themselves who call + To risk much, and to conquer all; + Happy are they who many losses, + Sore defeat or frequent crosses, + Though these may the heart dismay, + Cannot the sure faith betray; + Who in beauty bless the Giver; + Seek ocean on the loveliest river; + Or on desert island tossed, + Seeing Heaven, think nought lost. + May thy genius bring to thee + Of this life experience free, + And the earth vine's mysterious cup, + Sweet and bitter yield thee up. + But should the now sparkling bowl + Chance to slip from thy control, + And much of the enchanted wine + Be spilt in sand, as 'twas with mine, + Let blessings lost being consecration, + Change the pledge to a libation. + For the Power to whom we bow + Has given his pledge, that, if not now, + They of pure and steadfast mind, + By faith exalted, truth refined, + Shall hear all music, loud and clear, + Whose first notes they ventured here. + Then fear not thou to wind the horn + Though elf and gnome thy courage scorn; + Ask for the castle's king and queen, + Though rabble rout may come between, + Beat thee, senseless, to the ground, + In the dark beset thee round; + Persist to ask, and they will come. + Seek not for rest a humbler home, + And thou wilt see what few have seen, + The palace home of king and queen. + + + + +THE ONE IN ALL. + + + There are who separate the eternal light + In forms of man and woman, day and night; + They cannot bear that God be essence quite. + + Existence is as deep a verity: + Without the dual, where is unity? + And the "I am" cannot forbear to be; + + But from its primal nature forced to frame + Mysteries, destinies of various name, + Is forced to give what it has taught to claim. + + Thus love must answer to its own unrest; + The bad commands us to expect the best, + And hope of its own prospects is the test. + + And dost thou seek to find the one in two? + Only upon the old can build the new; + The symbol which you seek is found in you. + + The heart and mind, the wisdom and the will, + The man and woman, must be severed still, + And Christ must reconcile the good and ill. + + There are to whom each symbol is a mask; + The life of love is a mysterious task; + They want no answer, for they would not ask. + + A single thought transfuses every form; + The sunny day is changed into the storm, + For light is dark, hard soft, and cold is warm. + + One presence fills and floods the whole serene; + Nothing can be, nothing has ever been, + Except the one truth that creates the scene. + + Does the heart beat,--that is a seeming only; + You cannot be alone, though you are lonely; + The All is neutralized in the One only. + + You ask _a_ faith,--they are content with faith; + You ask to have,--but they reply, "IT hath." + There is no end, and there need be no path. + + The day wears heavily,--why, then, ignore it; + Peace is the soul's desire,--such thoughts restore it; + The truth thou art,--it needs not to implore it. + + _The Presence_ all thy fancies supersedes, + All that is done which thou wouldst seek in deeds, + _The_ wealth obliterates all seeming needs. + + Both these are true, and if they are at strife, + The mystery bears the one name of _Life_, + That, slowly spelled, will yet compose the strife. + + The men of old say, "Live twelve thousand years, + And see the end of all that here appears, + And Moxen[45] shall absorb thy smiles and tears." + + These later men say, "Live this little day. + Believe that human nature is the way, + And know both Son and Father while you pray; + + And one in two, in three, and none alone, + Letting you know even as you are known, + Shall make the you and me eternal parts of one." + + To me, our destinies seem flower and fruit + Born of an ever-generating root; + The other statement I cannot dispute. + + But say that Love and Life eternal seem, + And if eternal ties be but a dream, + What is the meaning of that self-same _seem_? + + Your nature craves Eternity for Truth; + Eternity of Love is prayer of youth; + How, without love, would have gone forth your truth? + + I do not think we are deceived to grow, + But that the crudest fancy, slightest show, + Covers some separate truth that we may know. + + In the one Truth, each separate fact is true; + Eternally in one I many view, + And destinies through destiny pursue. + + This is _my_ tendency; but can I say + That this my thought leads the true, only way? + I only know it constant leads, and I obey. + + I only know one prayer--"Give me the truth, + Give me that colored whiteness, ancient youth, + Complex and simple, seen in joy and ruth. + + Let me not by vain wishes bar my claim, + Nor soothe my hunger by an empty name, + Nor crucify the Son of man by hasty blame. + + But in the earth and fire, water and air, + Live earnestly by turns without despair, + Nor seek a home till home be every where!" + + + + +A GREETING. + + + Thoughts which come at a call + Are no better than if they came not at all; + Neither flower nor fruit, + Yielding no root + For plant, shrub, or tree. + Thus I have not for thee + One good word to say, + To-day, + Except that I prize thy gentle heart, + Free from ambition, falsehood, or art, + And thy good mind, + Daily refined, + By pure desire + To fan the heaven-seeking fire: + May it rise higher and higher; + Till in thee + Gentleness finds its dignity, + Life flowing tranquil, pure and free, + A mild, unbroken harmony. + + + + +LINES TO EDITH, ON HER BIRTHDAY. + + + If the same star our fates together bind, + Why are we thus divided, mind from mind? + If the same law one grief to both impart, + How couldst thou grieve a trusting mother's heart? + + Our aspiration seeks a common aim; + Why were we tempered of such differing frame? + But 'tis too late to turn this wrong to right; + Too cold, too damp, too deep, has fallen the night. + + And yet, the angel of my life replies, + Upon that night a morning star shall rise, + Fairer than that which ruled thy temporal birth, + Undimmed by vapors of the dreamy earth. + + It says, that, where a heart thy claim denies, + Genius shall read its secret ere it flies; + The earthly form may vanish from thy side, + Pure love will make thee still the spirit's bride. + + And thou, ungentle, yet much loving child, + Whose heart still shows the "untamed haggard wild," + A heart which justly makes the highest claim, + Too easily is checked by transient blame. + + Ere such an orb can ascertain its sphere, + The ordeal must be various and severe; + My prayer attend thee, though the feet may fly; + I hear thy music in the silent sky. + + + + +LINES + +WRITTEN IN HER BROTHER R. F. F.'S JOURNAL. + + "Mark the perfect man, and behold the upright, for the end of that + man is peace."--_Psalms_ xxxvii. 37. + + + The man of heart and words sincere, + Who truth and justice follows still, + Pursues his way with conscience clear, + Unharmed by earthly care and ill. + His promises he never breaks, + But sacredly to each adheres; + Honor's straight path he ne'er forsakes, + Though danger in the way appears. + He never boasts, will ne'er deceive, + For vanity nor yet for gain; + All that he says you may believe; + For worlds he would not conscience stain. + If he desires what others do, + And they deserve it more than he, + He gives to them what is their due, + Happy in his humility. + Not to his friends alone he's kind, + But his foes too with candor sees; + Not to their good intentions blind, + Though hopeless their dislike t' appease. + His eyes are clear, his hands are pure, + To God it is his constant prayer + That, be he rich or be he poor, + He never may wrong actions dare. + If rich, he to the suffering gives + All he can spare, and thinks it just, + That, since he by God's bounty lives, + He should as steward hold his trust. + If poor, he envies not; he knows + How covetousness corrupts the heart, + Whatever a just God bestows + Receiving as his proper part. + O Father, such a man I'd be; + Like him would act, like him would pray: + Lead me in truth and purity + To win thy peace and see thy day. + + + + +ON A PICTURE REPRESENTING THE DESCENT FROM THE CROSS. + +BY RAPHAEL. + + + Virgin Mother, Mary mild! + It was thine to see the child, + Gift of the Messiah dove, + Pure blossom of ideal love, + Break, upon the "guilty cross," + The seeming promise of his life; + Of faith, of hope, of love, a loss, + Deepened all thy, bosom's strife, + Brow down-bent, and heart-strings torn, + Fainting, by frail arms upborne. + + All those startled figures show, + That they did not apprehend + The thought of Him who there lies low, + On whom those sorrowing eyes they bend. + They do not feel this holiest hour; + Their hearts soar not to read the power, + Which this deepest of distress + Alone could give to save and bless. + + Soul of that fair, now ruined form, + Thou who hadst force to bide the storm, + Must again descend to tell + Of thy life the hidden spell; + Though their hearts within them burned, + The flame rose not till he returned. + + Just so all our dead ones lie; + Just so call our thoughts on high; + Thus we linger on the earth, + And dully miss death's heavenly birth. + + + + +THE CAPTURED WILD HORSE.[46] + + + On the boundless plain careering, + By an unseen compass steering, + Wildly flying, reappearing,-- + With untamed fire their broad eyes glowing, + In every step a grand pride showing, + Of no servile moment knowing,-- + + Happy as the trees and flowers, + In their instinct cradled hours, + Happier in fuller powers,-- + + See the wild herd nobly ranging, + Nature varying, not changing, + Lawful in their lawless ranging. + + But hark! what boding crouches near? + On the horizon now appear + Centaur-forms of force and fear. + + On their enslaved brethren borne, + With bit and whip of tyrant scorn, + To make new captives, as forlorn. + + Wildly snort the astonished throng, + Stamp, and wheel, and fly along, + Those centaur-powers they know are strong. + + But the lasso, skilful cast, + Holds one only captive fast, + Youngest, weakest--left the last. + + How thou trembledst then, Konick! + Thy full breath came short and thick, + Thy heart to bursting beat so quick; + + Thy strange brethren peering round, + By those tyrants held and bound, + Tyrants fell,--whom falls confound! + + With rage and pity fill thy heart; + Death shall be thy chosen part, + Ere such slavery tame thy heart. + + But strange, unexpected joy! + They seem to mean thee no annoy-- + Gallop off both man and boy. + + Let the wild horse freely go! + Almost he shames it should be so; + So lightly prized himself to know. + + All deception 'tis, O steed! + Ne'er again upon the mead + Shalt thou a free wild horse feed. + + The mark of man doth blot thy side, + The fear of man doth dull thy pride, + Thy master soon shall on thee ride. + + Thy brethren of the free plain, + Joyful speeding back again, + With proud career and flowing mane, + + Find thee branded, left alone, + And their hearts are turned to stone-- + They keep thee in their midst alone. + + Cruel the intervening years, + Seeming freedom stained by fears, + Till the captor reappears; + + Finds thee with thy broken pride. + Amid thy peers still left aside, + Unbeloved and unallied; + Finds thee ready for thy fate; + For joy and hope 'tis all too late-- + Thou'rt wedded to thy sad estate. + + * * * * * + + Wouldst have the princely spirit bowed? + Whisper only, speak not loud, + Mark and leave him in the crowd. + + Thou need'st not spies nor jailers have; + The free will serve thee like the slave, + Coward shrinking from the brave. + + And thy cohorts, when they come + To take the weary captive home, + Need only beat the retreating drum. + + + + +EPILOGUE TO THE TRAGEDY OF ESSEX. + +SPOKEN IN THE CHARACTER OF THE QUEEN.--TRANSLATED FROM GOETHE. + + + No Essex here!--unblest--they give no sign. + And shall such live, while earth's best nobleness + Departs and leaves her barren? Now too late + Weakness and cunning both are exorcised. + How could I trust thee whom I knew so well? + + Am I not like the fool of fable? He + Who in his bosom warmed the frozen viper, + And fancied man might hope for gratitude + From the betrayer's seed? Away! begone! + No breath, no sound shall here insult my anguish. + Essex is dumb, and they shall all be so; + No human presence shall control my mood. + Begone, I say! The queen would be alone! + + (_They all go out._) + + Alone and still! This day the cup of woe + Is full; and while I drain its bitter dregs, + Calm, queenlike, stern, I would review the past. + Well it becomes the favorite of fortune, + The royal arbitress of others' weal, + The world's desire, and England's deity, + Self-poised, self-governed, clear and firm to gaze + Where others close their aching eyes, to _dream_. + + Who feels imperial courage glow within + Fears not the mines which lie beneath his throne; + Bold he ascends, though knowing well his peril-- + Majestical and fearless holds the sceptre. + The golden circlet of enormous weight + He wears with brow serene and smiling air, + As though a myrtle chaplet graced his temples. + And thus didst _thou_. The far removed thy power + Attracted and subjected to thy will, + The hates and fears which oft beset thy way + Were seen, were met, and conquered by thy courage. + Thy tyrant father's wrath, thy mother's hopeless fate, + Thy sister's harshness,--all were cast behind; + And to a soul like thine, bonds and harsh usage + Taught fortitude, prudence, and self-command, + To act, or to endure. Fate did the rest. + + One brilliant day thou heard'st, "Long live the Queen!" + A queen thou wert; and in the heart's despite, + Despite the foes without, within, who ceaseless + Have threatened war and death,--a queen thou _art_, + And wilt be, while a spark of life remains. + But this last deadly blow--I feel it here! + Yet the low, prying world shall ne'er perceive it. + "Actress" they call me,--'tis a queen's vocation! + The people stare and whisper--what would they + But acting, to amuse them? Is deceit + Unknown, except in regal palaces? + The child at play already is an actor. + + Still to thyself, let weal or woe betide, + Elizabeth! be true and steadfast ever! + Maintain thy fixed reserve: 'tis just; what heart + Can sympathize with a queen's agony? + The false, false world,--it wooes me for my treasures, + My favors, and the place my smile confers; + And if for love I offer mutual love, + My minion, not content, must have the crown. + 'Twas thus with Essex; yet to thee, O heart! + I dare to say it, thy all died with him! + + Man must experience--be he who he may-- + Of bliss a last, irrevocable day. + Each owns this true, but cannot bear to live + And feel the last has come, the last has gone; + That never eye again in earnest tenderness + Shall turn to him,--no heart shall thickly beat + When his footfall is heard,--no speaking blush + Tell the soul's wild delight at meeting,--never + Rapture in presence, hope in absence more, + Be his,--no sun of love illume his landscape! + Yet thus it is with me. Throughout this heart + Deep night, without a star! What all the host + To me,--my Essex fallen from the heavens! + To me he was the centre of the world, + The ornament of time. Wood, lawn, or hall, + The busy mart, the verdant solitude, + To me were but the fame of one bright image; + That face is dust,--those lustrous eyes are closed, + And the frame mocks me with its empty centre. + + How nobly free, how gallantly he bore him, + The charms of youth combined with manhood's vigor! + How sage his counsel, and how warm his valor,-- + The glowing fire and the aspiring flame! + Even in his presumption he was kingly! + + But ah! does memory cheat me? What was all, + Since Truth was wanting, and the man I loved + Could court his death to vent his anger on me, + And I must punish him, or live degraded. + I chose the first; but in his death I died. + Land, sea, church, people, throne,--all, all are nought, + I live a living death, and call it royalty. + Yet, wretched ruler o'er these empty gauds, + A part remains to play, and I will play it. + A purple mantle hides my empty heart, + The kingly crown adorns my aching brow, + And pride conceals my anguish from the world. + + But in the still and ghostly midnight hour, + From each intruding eye and ear set free, + I still may shed the bitter, hopeless tear, + Nor fear the babbling of the earless walls. + I to myself may say, "I die! I die! + Elizabeth, unfriended and alone, + So die as thou hast lived,--alone, but queenlike!" + + + + +HYMN WRITTEN FOR A SUNDAY SCHOOL. + + "And his mother said unto him, Son, why hast thou thus dealt with us? + Behold, thy father and I have sought thee sorrowing. + "And he said unto them, How is it that ye sought me? Wist ye not + that I must be about my Father's business? "--_Luke_ ii. 48, 49 + + + I. + + Thus early was Christ's course begun, + Thus radiant dawned celestial day; + And those who such a race would run, + As early should be on the way. + + + II. + + His Father's business was his care, + Yet in man's favor still he grew: + O, might we learn, by thought and prayer, + Like him a work of love to do! + + + III. + + Wisdom and virtue still he sought, + Nor ignorant nor vile despised: + True was each action, pure each thought, + And each pure hope he realized. + + + IV. + + The empires of this world, in vain, + Offered their sceptres to his hand; + Fearless he trod the stormy main, + Fearless 'mid throngs of foes could stand. + + + V. + + Yet with his courage and his power + Combined such sweetness and such love, + He could revere the simplest flower, + The vilest sinners firm reprove. + + + VI. + + For all mankind he came, nor yet + An infant's visit would deny; + Nor friend nor mother did forget + In his last hour of agony. + + + VII. + + O, children, ask him to impart + That spirit clear and temper mild, + Which made the mother in her heart + Keep all the sayings of her child. + + + VIII. + + Bless him who said, of such as you + His Father's kingdom is, and still, + His yoke to bear, his work to do, + Study his life to learn his will. + + + + +DESERTION. + +TRANSLATION OF ONE OF GARCILASO'S ECLOGUES. + + + With my lamenting touched, the lofty trees + Incline their graceful heads without a breeze; + The listening birds forego their joyous song, + For soft and mournful strains, which echoes faint prolong. + + Lions and bears resign the charms of sleep + To hear my lonely plaint, and see me weep; + At my approaching death e'en stones relent. + Yet though yourself the fatal cause you know, + Not once on me those lovely eyes are bent: + Flow freely, tears! 'tis meet that you should flow! + + Although for my relief thou wilt not come, + Leave not the place where once thou loved'st to roam! + Here thou mayst rove secure from meeting me; + With a torn heart forever hence I flee. + Come, if 'twere this alone thy footsteps stayed, + Here the soft meadow, the delightful shade, + The roses now in flower, the waters clear, + Invite thee to the valley once so dear. + + Come, and bring with thee thy late-chosen love; + Each object shall thy perfidy reprove; + Since to another thou hast given thy heart, + From this sweet scene forever I depart. + And soon kind Death my sorrows shall remove, + The bitter ending of my faithful love. + + + + +SONG WRITTEN FOR A MAY DAY FESTIVAL. + +TO BE SUNG TO THE TUNE OF "THE BONNY BOAT." + + + I. + + O, blesséd be this sweet May day, + The fairest of the year; + The birds are heard from every spray, + And the blue sky shines so clear! + White blossoms deck the apple tree, + Blue violets the plain; + Their fragrance tells the wand'ring bee + That Spring is come again. + We'll cull the blossoms from the bough + Where robins gayly sing, + We'll wreathe them for our queen's pure brow, + We'll wreathe them for our king. + + + II. + + The winter wind is bleak and sad, + And chill the winter rain; + But these May gales blow warm and glad, + And charm the heart from pain. + The sick, the poor rejoice once more, + Pale cheeks resume their glow, + And those who thought their day was o'er + New life to May suns owe. + And we, in youth and health so gay, + Sheltered by love and care, + How should we joy in blooming May, + And bless its balmy air! + + + III. + + We are the children of the Spring; + Our home is always green; + Green be the garland of our king, + The livery of our queen. + The gardener's care the seed has strown, + To deck our home with flowers; + Our Father's love from high has shone, + And sent the needed showers. + Barren indeed the plants must be, + If they should not disclose, + Tended and cherished with such toil, + The lily and the rose. + + + IV. + + Meanwhile through the wild wood we'll rove, + Where earliest flowerets grow, + And greet each simple bud with love, + Which tells us what to do-- + That, though untended, we may bloom + And smile on all around, + And one day rise from earth's low tomb, + To live where light is found. + A modest violet be our queen, + Still fragrant, though alone, + Our king a laurel--evergreen-- + To which no blight is known. + + + V. + + So let us bless the sweet May day, + And pray the coming year + May see us walk the upward way-- + Minds earnest, conscience clear; + That fruit Spring's amplest hope may crown, + And every wingéd day + Make to our hearts more dear, more known, + The hope, the peace of May! + So cull the blossoms from the bough + Where birds so gayly sing; + We'll wreathe them for our queen's pure brow, + We'll wreathe them for our king. + + + + +CARADORI SINGING. + + + Let not the heart o'erladen hither fly, + Hoping in tears to vent its misery: + She soars not like the lark with eager cry, + Not hers the robin's notes of love and joy; + Nor, like the nightingale's love-descant, tells + Her song the truths of the heart's hidden wells. + Come, if thy soul be tranquil, and her voice + Shall bid the tranquil lake laugh and rejoice; + Shall lightly warble, flutter, hover, dance, + And charm thee by its sportive elegance. + A finished style the highest art has given, + And a fine organ she received from heaven: + But genius casts not here one living ray; + Thou shalt approve, admire, not weep, to-day. + + + + +LINES + +IN ANSWER TO STANZAS CONTAINING SEVERAL PASSAGES OF DISTINGUISHED +BEAUTY, ADDRESSED TO ME BY----. + + + As by the wayside the worn traveller lies, + And finds no pillow for his aching brow, + Except the pack beneath whose weight he dies,-- + If loving breezes from the far west blow, + Laden with perfume from those blissful bowers + Where gentle youth and hope once gilded all his hours, + As fans that loving breeze, tears spring again, + And cool the fever of his wearied brain. + + Even so to me the soft romantic dream + Of one who still may sit at fancy's feet, + Where love and beauty yet are all the theme, + Where spheral concords find an echo meet. + To the ideal my vexed spirit turns, + But often for communion vainly burns. + Blest is that hour when breeze of poesy + From far the ancient fragrance wafts to me; + _This time_ thrice blest, because it came unsought, + "Sweet suppliance," and _dear_, because _unbought_. + + + + +INFLUENCE OF THE OUTWARD. + + + The sun, the moon, the waters, and the air, + The hopeful, holy, terrible, and fair; + Flower-alphabets, love-letters from the wave, + All mysteries which flutter, blow, skim, lave; + All that is ever-speaking, never spoken, + Spells that are ever breaking, never broken,-- + Have played upon my soul, and every string + Confessed the touch which once could make it sing + Triumphal notes; and still, though changed the tone, + Though damp and jarring fall the lyre hath known, + It would, if fitly played, and all its deep notes wove + Into one tissue of belief and love, + Yield melodies for angel-audience meet, + And pæans fit creative power to greet. + + O, injured lyre! thy golden frame is marred; + No garlands deck thee; no libations poured + Tell to the earth the triumphs of thy song; + No princely halls echo thy strains along; + But still the strings are there; and if at last they break, + Even in death some melody will make. + Mightst thou once more be strung, might yet the power be given, + To tell in numbers all thou hast of heaven! + But no! thy fragments scattered by the way, + To children given, help the childish play. + Be it thy pride to feel thy latest sigh + Could not forget the law of harmony, + Thou couldst not live for bliss--but thou for truth couldst die! + + + + +TO MISS R. B.[47] + + + A graceful fiction of the olden day + Tells us that, by a mighty master's sway, + A city rose, obedient to the lyre; + That his sweet strains rude matter could inspire + With zeal his harmony to emulate; + Thus to the spot where that sweet singer sat + The rocks advanced, in symmetry combined, + To form the palace and the temple joined. + The arts are sisters, and united all, + So architecture answered music's call. + + In modern days such feats no more we see, + And matter dares 'gainst mind a rebel be; + The faith is gone such miracles which wrought; + Masons and carpenters must aid our thought; + The harp and voice in vain would try their skill + To raise a city on our hard-bound soil; + The rocks have lain asleep so many a year, + Nothing but gunpowder will make them stir; + I doubt if even for your voice would come + The smallest pebble from its sandy home; + But, if the minstrel can no more create, + For _building_, if he live a little late, + He wields a power of not inferior kind, + No longer rules o'er matter, but o'er mind. + And when a voice like yours its song doth pour, + If it can raise palace and tower no more, + It can each ugly fabric melt away, + Bidding the fancy fairer scenes portray; + Its soft and brilliant tones our thoughts can wing + To climes whence they congenial magic bring; + As by the sweet Italian voice is given + Dream of the radiance of Italia's heaven. + + Whether in round, low notes the strain may swell, + As if some tale of woe or wrong to tell, + Or swift and light the upward notes are heard, + With the full carolling clearness of a bird, + The stream of sound untroubled flows along, + And no obstruction mars your finished song. + No stifled notes, no gasp, no ill-taught graces, + No vulgar trills in worst-selected places, + None of the miseries which haunt a land + Where all would learn what so few understand, + Afflict in hearing you; in you we find + The finest organ, and informed by mind. + + And as, in that same fable I have quoted, + It is of that town-making artist noted, + That, where he leaned his lyre upon a stone, + The stone stole somewhat of that lovely tone, + And afterwards each untaught passer-by, + By touching it, could rouse the melody,-- + Even thus a heart once by your music thrilled, + An ear which your delightful voice has filled, + In memory a talisman have found + To repel many a dull, harsh, after-sound; + And, as the music lingered in the stone, + After the minstrel and the lyre were gone, + Even so my thoughts and wishes, turned to sweetness, + Lend to the heavy hours unwonted fleetness; + And common objects, calling up the tone, + I caught from you, wake beauty not their own. + + + + +SISTRUM.[48] + + + Triune, shaping, restless power, + Life-flow from life's natal hour, + No music chords are in thy sound; + By some thou'rt but a rattle found; + Yet, without thy ceaseless motion, + To ice would turn their dead devotion. + Life-flow of my natal hour, + I will not weary of thy power, + Till in the changes of thy sound + A chord's three parts distinct are found. + I will faithful move with thee, + God-ordered, self-fed energy. + Nature in eternity. + + + + +IMPERFECT THOUGHTS. + + + The peasant boy watches the midnight sky; + He sees the meteor dropping from on high; + He hastens whither the bright guest hath flown, + And finds--a mass of black, unseemly stone. + Disdainful, disappointed, turns he home. + If a philosopher that way had come, + He would have seized the waif with great delight, + And honored it as an aerolite. + But truly it would need a Cuvier's mind + High meaning in _my_ meteors to find. + Well, in my museum there is room to spare-- + I'll let them stay till Cuvier goes there! + + + + +SADNESS. + + + Lonely lady, tell me why + That abandonment of eye? + Life is full, and nature fair; + How canst thou dream of dull despair? + + Life is full and nature fair; + A dull folly is despair; + But the heart lies still and tame + For want of what it may not claim. + + Lady, chide that foolish heart, + And bid it act a nobler part; + The love thou couldst be bid resign + Never could be worthy thine. + + O, I know, and knew it well, + How unworthy was the spell + In its silken band to bind + My heaven-born, heaven-seeking mind. + + Thou lonely moon, thou knowest well + Why I yielded to the spell; + Just so thou didst condescend + Thy own precept to offend. + + When wondering nymphs thee questioned why + That abandonment of eye, + Crying, "Dian,[49] heaven's queen, + What can that trembling eyelash mean?" + + Waning, over ocean's breast, + Thou didst strive to hide unrest + From the question of their eyes, + Unseeing in their dull surprise. + + Thy Endymion had grown old; + Thy only love was marred with cold; + No longer to the secret cave + Thy ray could pierce, and answer have. + + No more to thee, no more, no more, + Till thy circling life be o'er, + A mutual heart shall be a home, + Of weary wishes happy tomb. + + No more, no more--O words which sever + Hearts from their hopes, to part forever! + They can believe it never! + + + + +LINES WRITTEN IN AN ALBUM.[50] + + + Some names there are at sight of which will rise + Visions of triumph to the dullest eyes; + They breathe of garlands from a grateful race, + They tell of victory o'er all that's base; + To write them eagles might their plumage give, + And granite rocks should yield, that they may live. + + Others there are at sight of which will rise + Visions of beauty to all loving eyes, + Of radiant sweetness, or of gentle grace, + The poesy of manner or of face, + Spell of intense, if not of widest power; + The strong the ages rule; the fair, the hour. + + And there are names at sight of which will rise + Visions of goodness to the mourner's eyes; + They tell of generosity untired, + Which gave to others all the heart desired; + Of Virtue's _uncomplaining_ sacrifice, + And holy hopes which sought their native skies. + + If I could hope that at my name would rise + Visions like these, before those gentle eyes, + How gladly would I place it in the shrine + Where many honored names are linked with thine, + And know, if lone and far my pathway lies, + My name is living 'mid the good and wise. + + It must not be, for now I know too well + That those to whom my name has aught to tell + O'er baffled efforts would lament or blame. + Who heeds a breaking reed?--a sinking flame? + Best wishes and kind thoughts I give to thee, + But mine, indeed, an _empty name_ would be. + + + + +TO S. C. + + + Our friend has likened thee to the sweet fern, + Which with no flower salutes the ardent day, + Yet, as the wanderer pursues his way, + While the dews fall, and hues of sunset burn, + Sheds forth a fragrance from the deep green brake, + Sweeter than the rich scents that gardens make. + Like thee, the fern loves well the hallowed shade + Of trees that quietly aspire on high; + Amid such groves was consecration made + Of vestals, tranquil as the vestal sky. + + Like thee, the fern doth better love to hide + Beneath the leaf the treasure of its seed, + Than to display it, with an idle pride, + To any but the careful gatherer's heed-- + A treasure known to philosophic ken, + Garnered in nature, asking nought of men; + Nay, can invisible the wearer make, + Who would unnoted in life's game partake. + But I will liken thee to the sweet bay, + Which I first learned, in the Cohasset woods, + To name upon a sweet and pensive day + Passed in their ministering solitudes. + + I had grown weary of the anthem high + Of the full waves, cheering the patient rocks; + I had grown weary of the sob and sigh + Of the dull ebb, after emotion's shocks; + My eye was weary of the glittering blue + And the unbroken horizontal line; + My mind was weary, tempted to pursue + The circling waters in their wide design, + Like snowy sea-gulls stooping to the wave, + Or rising buoyant to the utmost air, + To dart, to circle, airily to lave, + Or wave-like float in foam-born lightness fair: + I had swept onward like the wave so full, + Like sea weed now left on the shore so dull. + + I turned my steps to the retreating hills, + Rejected sand from that great haughty sea, + Watered by nature with consoling rills, + And gradual dressed with grass, and shrub, and tree; + They seemed to welcome me with timid smile, + That said, "We'd like to soothe you for a while; + You seem to have been treated by the sea + In the same way that long ago were we." + + They had not much to boast, those gentle slopes, + For the wild gambols of the sea-sent breeze + Had mocked at many of their quiet hopes, + And bent and dwarfed their fondly cherished trees; + Yet even in those marks of by-past wind, + There was a tender stilling for my mind. + + Hiding within a small but thick-set wood, + I soon forgot the haughty, chiding flood. + The sheep bell's tinkle on the drowsy ear, + With the bird's chirp, so short, and light, and clear, + Composed a melody that filled my heart + With flower-like growths of childish, artless art, + And of the tender, tranquil life I lived apart. + + It was an hour of pure tranquillity, + Like to the autumn sweetness of thine eye, + Which pries not, seeks not, and yet clearly sees-- + Which wooes not, beams not, yet is sure to please. + Hours passed, and sunset called me to return + Where its sad glories on the cold wave burn. + + Rising from my kind bed of thick-strewn leaves, + A fragrance the astonished sense receives, + Ambrosial, searching, yet retiring, mild: + Of that soft scene the soul was it? or child? + 'Twas the sweet bay I had unwitting spread, + A pillow for my senseless, throbbing head, + And which, like all the sweetest things, demands, + To make it speak, the grasp of alien hands. + + All that this scene did in that moment tell, + I since have read, O wise, mild friend! in thee. + Pardon the rude grasp, its sincerity, + And feel that I, at least, have known thee well. + Grudge not the green leaves ravished from thy stem, + Their music, should I live, muse-like to tell; + Thou wilt, in fresher green forgetting them, + Send others to console me for farewell. + Thou wilt see why the dim word of regret + Was made the one to rhyme with Margaret. + + But to the Oriental parent tongue, + Sunrise of Nature, does my chosen name, + My name of Leila, as a spell, belong, + Teaching the meaning of each temporal blame; + I chose it by the sound, not knowing why; + But since I know that Leila stands for night, + I own that sable mantle of the sky, + Through which pierce, gem-like, points of distant light; + As sorrow truths, so night brings out her stars; + O, add not, bard! that those stars shine too late! + While earth grows green amid the ocean jars, + And trumpets yet shall wake the slain of her long century-wars. + + + + +LINES WRITTEN IN BOSTON ON A BEAUTIFUL AUTUMNAL DAY. + + + As late we lived upon the gentle stream, + Nature refused us smiles and kindly airs; + The sun but rarely deigned a pallid gleam; + Then clouds came instantly, like glooms and tears, + Upon the timid flickerings of our hope; + The moon, amid the thick mists of the night, + Had scarcely power her gentle eye to ope, + And climb the heavenly steeps. A moment bright + Shimmered the hectic leaves, then rudely torn + By winds that sobbed to see the wreck they made, + Upon the amber waves were thickly borne + Adonis' gardens for the realms of shade, + While thoughts of beauty past all wish for livelier life forbade. + + So sped the many days of tranquil life, + And on the stream, or by the mill's bright fire, + The wailing winds had told of distant strife, + Still bade us for the moment yield desire + To think, to feel, the moment gave,--we needed not aspire! + + Returning here, no harvest fields I see, + Nor russet beauty of the thoughtful year. + Where is the honey of the city bee? + No leaves upon this muddy stream appear. + The housekeeper is getting in his coal, + The lecturer his showiest thoughts is selling; + I hear of Major Somebody, the Pole, + And Mr. Lyell, how rocks grow, is telling; + But not a breath of thoughtful poesy + Does any social impulse bring to me; + But many cares, sad thoughts of men unwise, + Base yieldings, and unransomed destinies, + Hopes uninstructed, and unhallowed ties. + + Yet here the sun smiles sweet as heavenly love, + Upon the eve of earthly severance; + The youthfulest tender clouds float all above, + And earth lies steeped in odors like a trance. + The moon looks down as though she ne'er could leave us, + And these last trembling leaves sigh, "Must they too deceive us?" + Surely some life is living in this light, + Truer than mine some soul received last night; + I cannot freely greet this beauteous day, + But does not _thy_ heart swell to hail the genial ray? + I would not nature these last loving words in vain should say. + + + + +TO E. C. + +WITH HERBERT'S POEMS. + + + Dost thou remember that fair summer's day, + As, sick and weary on my couch I lay, + Thou broughtst this little book, and didst diffuse + O'er my dark hour the light of Herbert's muse? + The "Elixir," and "True Hymn," were then thy choice, + And the high strain gained sweetness from thy voice. + The book, before that day to me unknown, + I took to heart at once, and made my own. + + Three winters and three summers since have passed, + And bitter griefs the hearts of both have tried; + Thy sympathy is lost to me at last; + A dearer love has torn thee from my side; + Scenes, friends, to me unknown, now claim thy care; + No more thy joys or griefs I soothe or share; + No more thy lovely form my eye shall bless; + The gentle smile, the timid, mute caress, + No more shall break the icy chains which may my heart oppress. + + New duties claim us both; indulgent Heaven + Ten years of mutual love to us had given; + The plants from early youth together grew, + Together all youth's sun and tempests knew. + At age mature arrived, thou, graceful vine! + Didst seek a sheltering tree round which to twine; + While I, like northern fir, must be content + To clasp the rock which gave my youth its scanty nourishment. + + The world for which we sighed is with us now; + No longer musing on the _why_ or _how_, + _What_ really does exist we now must meet; + Life's dusty highway is beneath our feet; + Life's fainting pilgrims claim our ministry, + And the whole scene speaks stern _reality_. + + Say, in the tasks reality has brought, + Keepst _thou_ the plan that pleased thy childish thought? + Does Herbert's "Hymn" in thy heart echo now? + Herbert's "Elixir" in thy bosom glow? + In Herbert's "Temper" dost thou strive to be? + Does Herbert's "Pearl" seem the true pearl to thee? + O, if 'tis so, I have not prayed in vain!-- + My friend, my sister, we shall meet again. + + I dare not say that _I_ am always true + To the vocation which my young thought knew; + But the Great Spirit blesses me, and still, + Though clouds may darken o'er the heavenly will, + Upon the hidden sun my thoughts can rest, + And oft the rainbow glitters in the west. + This earth no more seems all the world to me; + Before me shines a far eternity, + Whose laws to me, when thought is calmly poised, + Suffice, as they to angels have sufficed. + I know the thunder has not ceased to roll, + Not all the iron yet has pierced my soul; + I know no earthly honors wait for me, + No earthly love my heart shall satisfy. + Tears, of these eyes still oft the guests must be, + Long hours be borne, of chilling apathy; + Still harder teachings come to make me wise, + And life's best blood must seal the sacrifice. + + But He who still seems nearer and more bright, + Nor from my _seeking_ eye withholds his light, + Will not forsake me, for his pledge is given; + Virtue shall teach the soul its way to heaven. + + O, pray for me, and I for thee will pray; + And more than loving words we used to say + Shall this avail. But little more we meet + In life--ah, how the years begin to fleet! + Ask--pray that I may seek beauty and truth, + In their high sphere we shall renew our youth. + On wings of _steadfast faith_ there mayst _thou_ soar, + And _my_ soul fret at barriers no more! + + * * * * * + + +MARGARET FULLER'S WORKS AND MEMOIRS. + +WOMAN IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY, and kindred papers relating to the +Sphere, Condition, and Duties of Woman. Edited by her brother, ARTHUR B. +FULLER, with an Introduction by HORACE GREELEY. In 1 vol. 16mo. $1.50. + +ART, LITERATURE, AND THE DRAMA. 1 vol. 16mo. $1.50. + +LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN; or, Reviews, Narratives, Essays, and +Poems. 1 vol. 16mo. $1.50. + +AT HOME AND ABROAD; or, Things and Thoughts in America and Europe. 1 +vol. 16mo. $1.50. + +MEMOIRS OF MARGARET FULLER OSSOLI. By RALPH WALDO EMERSON, WILLIAM HENRY +CHANNING, and JAMES FREEMAN CLARKE. With Portrait and Appendix. 2 vols. +16mo. $3.00. Cheap edition. Two vols. in one. $1.50. + +MARGARET FULLER will be remembered as one of the "Great Conversers," the +"Prophet of the Woman Movement" in this country, and her Memoirs will be +read with delight as among the tenderest specimens of biographical +writing in our language. She was never an extremist. She considered +woman neither man's rival nor his foe, but his complement. As she +herself said, she believed that the development of one could not be +affected without that of the other. Her words, so noble in tone, so +moderate in spirit, so eloquent in utterance, should not be forgotten by +her sisters. Horace Greeley, in his introduction to her "Woman in the +Nineteenth Century," says: "She was one of the earliest, as well as +ablest, among American women to demand for her sex equality before the +law with her titular lord and master. Her writings on this subject have +the force that springs from the ripening of profound reflection into +assured conviction. It is due to her memory, as well as to the great and +living cause of which she was so eminent and so fearless an advocate, +that what she thought and said with regard to the position of her sex +and its limitations should be fully and fairly placed before the +public." No woman who wishes to understand the full scope of what is +called the woman's movement should fail to read these pages, and see in +them how one woman proved her right to a position in literature hitherto +occupied by men, by filling it nobly. + +The Story of this rich, sad, striving, unsatisfied life, with its depths +of emotion and its surface sparkling and glowing, is told tenderly and +reverently by her biographers. Their praise is eulogy, and their words +often seem extravagant, but they knew her well, they spoke as they felt. +The character that could awaken such interest and love surely is a rare +one. + +==>The above are uniformly bound in cloth, and sold separately or in +sets. + +Sold everywhere. Mailed, post-paid, by the Publishers, ROBERTS BROTHERS, +BOSTON. + + +_Messrs. Roberts Brothers' Publications._ + +Famous Women Series. + +MARGARET FULLER. + +BY JULIA WARD HOWE. + +One volume. 16mo. Cloth. Price $1.00. + +"A memoir of the woman who first in New England took a position of moral +and intellectual leadership, by the woman who wrote the Battle Hymn of +the Republic, is a literary event of no common or transient interest. +The Famous Women Series will have no worthier subject and no more +illustrious biographer. Nor will the reader be disappointed,--for the +narrative is deeply interesting and full of inspiration."--_Woman's +Journal._ + +"Mrs. Julia Ward Howe's biography of _Margaret Fuller_, in the Famous +Women Series of Messrs. Roberts Brothers, is a work which has been +looked for with curiosity. It will not disappoint expectation. She has +made a brilliant and an interesting book. Her study of Margaret Fuller's +character is thoroughly sympathetic; her relation of her life is done in +a graphic and at times a fascinating manner. It is the case of one woman +of strong individuality depicting the points which made another one of +the most marked characters of her day. It is always agreeable to follow +Mrs. Howe in this; for while we see marks of her own mind constantly, +there is no inartistic protrusion of her personality. The book is always +readable, and the relation of the death-scene is thrillingly +impressive."--_Saturday Gazette._ + +"Mrs. Julia Ward Howe has retold the story of Margaret Fuller's life and +career in a very interesting manner. This remarkable woman was happy in +having James Freeman Clarke, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and William Henry +Channing, all of whom had been intimate with her and had felt the spell +of her extraordinary personal influence, for her biographers. It is +needless to say, of course, that nothing could be better than these +reminiscences in their way."--_New York World._ + +"The selection of Mrs. Howe as the writer of this biography was a happy +thought on the part of the editor of the series; for, aside from the +natural appreciation she would have for Margaret Fuller, comes her +knowledge of all the influences that had their effect on Margaret +Fuller's life. She tells the story of Margaret Fuller's interesting life +from all sources and from her own knowledge, not hesitating to use +plenty of quotations when she felt that others, or even Margaret Fuller +herself, had done the work better."--_Miss Gilder, in Philadelphia +Press._ + + +HARRIET MARTINEAU. + +BY MRS. F. FENWICK MILLER. + +16mo. Cloth. Price $1.00. + +"The almost uniform excellence of the 'Famous Women' series is well +sustained in Mrs. Fenwick Miller's life of Harriet Martineau, the latest +addition to this little library of biography. Indeed, we are disposed to +rank it as the best of the lot. The subject is an entertaining one, and +Mrs. Miller has done her work admirably. Miss Martineau was a remarkable +woman, in a century that has not been deficient in notable characters. +Her native genius, and her perseverance in developing it; her trials and +afflictions, and the determination with which she rose superior to them; +her conscientious adherence to principle, and the important place which +her writings hold in the political and educational literature of her +day,--all combine to make the story of her life one of exceptional +interest.... With the exception, possibly, of George Eliot, Harriet +Martineau was the greatest of English women. She was a poet and a +novelist, but not as such did she make good her title to distinction. +Much more noteworthy were her achievements in other lines of thought, +not usually essayed by women. She was eminent as a political economist, +a theologian, a journalist, and a historian.... But to attempt a mere +outline of her life and works is put of the question in our limited +space. Her biography should be read by all in search of +entertainment."--_Professor Woods in Saturday Mirror._ + +"The present volume has already shared the fate of several of the recent +biographies of the distinguished dead, and has been well advertised by +the public contradiction of more or less important points in the +relation by the living friends of the dead genius. One of Mrs. Miller's +chief concerns in writing this life seems to have been to redeem the +character of Harriet Martineau from the appearance of hardness and +unamiability with which her own autobiography impresses the reader.... +Mrs Miller, however, succeeds in this volume in showing us an altogether +different side to her character,--a home-loving, neighborly, +bright-natured, tender-hearted, witty, lovable, and altogether womanly +woman, as well as the clear thinker, the philosophical reasoner, and +comprehensive writer whom we already knew."--_The Index._ + +"Already ten volumes in this library are published; namely, George +Eliot, Emily Brontë, George Sand, Mary Lamb, Margaret Fuller, Maria +Edgeworth, Elizabeth Fry, The Countess of Albany, Mary Wollstonecraft, +and the present volume. Surely a galaxy of wit and wealth of no mean +order! Miss M. will rank with any of them in womanliness or gifts or +grace. At home or abroad, in public or private. She was noble and true, +and her life stands confessed a success. True, she was literary, but she +was a home lover and home builder. She never lost the higher aims and +ends of life, no matter how flattering her success. This whole series +ought to be read by the young ladies of to-day. More of such biography +would prove highly beneficial."--_Troy Telegram._ + +_Our publications are for sale by all booksellers, or will be mailed, +post-paid, on receipt of price._ + +MARY LAMB. + +BY ANNE GILCHRIST. + +One volume. 16mo. Cloth. Price, $1.00. + +"The story of Mary Lamb has long been familiar to the readers of Elia, +but never in its entirety as in the monograph which Mrs. Anne Gilchrist +has just contributed to the Famous Women Series. Darkly hinted at by +Talfourd in his Final Memorials of Charles Lamb, it became better known +as the years went on and that imperfect work was followed by fuller and +franker biographies,--became so well known, in fact, that no one could +recall the memory of Lamb without recalling at the same time the memory +of his sister."--_New York Mail and Express._ + +"A biography of Mary Lamb must inevitably be also, almost more, a +biography of Charles Lamb, so completely was the life of the sister +encompassed by that of her brother; and it must be allowed that Mrs. +Anne Gilchrist has performed a difficult biographical task with taste +and ability.... The reader is at least likely to lay down the book with +the feeling that if Mary Lamb is not famous she certainly deserves to +be, and that a debt of gratitude is due Mrs. Gilchrist for this +well-considered record of her life."--_Boston Courier._ + +"Mary Lamb, who was the embodiment of everything that is tenderest in +woman, combined with this a heroism which bore her on for a while +through the terrors of insanity. Think of a highly intellectual woman +struggling year after year with madness, triumphant over it for a +season, and then at last succumbing to it. The saddest lines that ever +were written are those descriptive of this brother and sister just +before Mary, on some return of insanity, was to leave Charles Lamb. 'On +one occasion Mr. Charles Lloyd met them slowly pacing together a little +foot-path in Hoxton Fields, both weeping bitterly, and found, on joining +them, that they were taking their solemn way to the accustomed asylum.' +What pathos is there not here?"--_New York Times._ + +"This life was worth writing, for all records of weakness conquered, of +pain patiently borne, of success won from difficulty, of cheerfulness in +sorrow and affliction, make the world better. Mrs. Gilchrist's biography +is unaffected and simple. She has told the sweet and melancholy story +with judicious sympathy, showing always the light shining through +darkness."--_Philadelphia Press._ + +Sold by all Booksellers. Mailed, post-paid, on receipt of the price, by +the Publishers, + +ROBERTS BROTHERS, BOSTON. + + * * * * * + +The following typographical errors were corrected by the etext +transcriber: + +No less pedantic is the style in which the grown-up, in stature at +least, undertake to become acquainted with Dante.=> No less pedantic is +the style in which the grown-up, in stature at least, undertakes to +become acquainted with Dante. + +Even the proem shows how large is his nature=>Even the poem shows how +large is his nature + +There is a little poem in the Schnellpost, by Mority Hartmann=>There is +a little poem in the Schnellpost, by Moritz Hartmann + +If a character be uncorrrpted=>If a character be uncorrupted + +of a noble dscription=>of a noble description + +law with her titluar lord and master=>law with her titular lord and +master + + * * * * * + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] "He who would do great things must quickly draw together his forces. +The master can only show himself such through limitation, and the law +alone can give us freedom." + +[2] Except in "La belle France." + +[3] Eckermann's Conversations with Goethe, translated from the German +by my sister, form one volume of the "Specimens of Foreign Literature," +edited by Rev. George Ripley, and published in 1839. This volume has +been republished by James Munroe & Co., Boston, within a few years.--ED. + +[4] The name of Macaria is one of noblest association. It is that of the +daughter of Hercules, who devoted herself a voluntary sacrifice for her +country. She was adored by the Greeks as the true Felicity. + +[5] "By the Author of Essays of Summer Hours." + +[6] The Life of Beethoven, including his Correspondence with his +Friends, numerous characteristic Traits, and Remarks on his Musical +Works. Edited by Ignace Moscheles, Pianist to His Royal Highness Prince +Albert. + +[7] See article on Beethoven, in Margaret's volume, entitled "Art, +Literature, and the Drama."--ED. + +[8] Ormond, or the Secret Witness; Wieland, or the Transformation; by +Charles Brockden Brown. + +[9] The Raven and other Poems, by Edgar A. Poe, 1845. + +[10] The Autobiography of Alfieri, translated by C. E. Lester. Memoirs +of Benvenuto Cellini, translated by Roscoe. + +[11] Although the errors here specially referred to by my sister have +been corrected in this volume, I let her statement remain as explanation +of any other errors which may possibly have crept into type, in this +volume, through the illegibility of some of her manuscripts from which I +have been compelled to copy for this work.--ED. + +[12] Napoleon and his Marshals, by J. T. Headley. + +[13] Physical Education and the Preservation of Health, by John C. +Warren. + +[14] Physiological and Moral Management of Infancy, by Andrew Combe, M. +D. + +[15] Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, +written by himself. + +[16] Philip van Artevelde, A Dramatic Romance, by Henry Taylor. + +[17] For a translation by my sister of this Drama, see Part III. of her +"Art, Literature, and the Drama," where it is now, for the first time, +published, simultaneously with the appearance of this volume.--ED. + +[18] The Poetical Works of Percy Bysche Shelley. First American edition +(complete.) With a Biographical and Critical Notice, by G. G. Foster. + +[19] Festus: A Poem, by Philip James Bailey. First American edition, +Boston. + +[20] Balzac, Eugene Sue, De Vigny. + +[21] Etherology, or the Philosophy of Mesmerism and Phrenology: +Including a New Philosophy of Sleep and of Consciousness, with a Review +of the Pretensions of Neurology and Phreno-Magnetism. By J. Stanley +Grimes. + +[22] A German newspaper. + +[23] Letters and Speeches of Oliver Cromwell, by Thomas Carlyle. + +[24] I conclude the poor boy Oliver has already fallen in these wars; +none of us knows where, though his father well knew. + +[25] Sir Philip Warwick's Memoirs, (London, 1701,) p. 249. + +[26] Essays, Second Series, by Ralph Waldo Emerson. + +[27] A Defence of Capital Punishment, and an Essay on the Ground and +Reason of Punishment, with Special Reference to the Penalty of Death New +York, 1846. + +[28] [In refusing to repeal what are technically and significantly +termed her "Black Laws," relating to the settlement of colored men, and +their rights within that state.--ED.] + +[29] John Quincy Adams. + +[30] For her treatment of a sister republic in our late war with Mexico. + +[31] Miss Delia Webster. + +[32] Hon. Samuel Hoar, sent to Charleston, S. C., to test in the courts +her laws, and driven thence with his daughter by a mob. + +[33] It is well known that in this sketch my sister gives an account of +an incident in the history of her own school-girl life. I need scarcely +say that only so far as this incident is concerned is the story of +Mariana in any sense autobiographical.--ED. + +[34][Agis, king of Sparta, the fourth of that name. "One of the most +beautiful characters of antiquity."--ED.] + +[35] [In New York.--ED.] + +[36] Meta, the wife of Klopstock, one of Germany's most celebrated +poets, is doubtless well known to many of our readers through the +beautiful letters to Samuel Richardson, the novelist, or through Mrs. +Jameson's work, entitled the Loves of the Poets. It is said that +Klopstock wrote continually to her even after her death. + +[37] Fact, that this is affirmed. + +[38] Facts. + +[39] Facts. + +[40] Facts. + +[41] The destruction of Mr. Clay's press by a mob.--ED. + +[42] _Margaret_ means _Pearl_.--ED. + +[43] Published in the New York Tribune, Aug. 1, 1846, just previous to +sailing for Europe.--ED. + +[44] Goethe says, "A little golden heart, which I had received from +Lili in those fairy hours, still hung by the same little chain to which +she had fastened it, love-warmed, about my neck. I seized hold of +it--kissed it." This was the occasion of these lines. The poet now was +separated from Lili, and striving to forget her in journeying +about.--ED. + +[45] Buddhist term for absorption into the divine mind. + +[46] This horse, Konick, was caught early, marked, and then let loose +again, for a time, among the herd. He still retains a wild freedom and +beauty in his movements. + +[47] A sweet and beautiful singer.--ED. + +[48] A musical instrument of the ancients, employed by the Egyptians in +the worship of Isis. It was to be kept in constant motion, and, +according to Plutarch, was intended to indicate the necessity of +constant motion on the part of men--the need of being often shaken by +fierce trials and agitations when they become morbid or indolent.--ED. + +[49] Diana is represented as driving the chariot of the moon, as Apollo +that of the sun. Mythology states that while enlightening the earth as +Luna, the moon, she beheld the hunter Endymion sleeping in the forest. +With her rays she kissed the lips of the hunter--a favor she had never +before bestowed on god or man.--ED. + +[50] These lines were written without her signature attached.--ED. + + + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Life Without and Life Within, by Margaret Fuller + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN *** + +***** This file should be named 39037-8.txt or 39037-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/9/0/3/39037/ + +Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images available at The Internet Archive) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Life Without and Life Within + or, Reviews, Narratives, Essays, and poems. + +Author: Margaret Fuller + +Release Date: March 3, 2012 [EBook #39037] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN *** + + + + +Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images available at The Internet Archive) + + + + + + +</pre> + +<hr class="full" /> + +<p class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/cover.jpg" width="357" height="550" alt="image of the book's cover" title="image of the book's cover" /> +</p> + +<p><a name="page_001" id="page_001"></a></p> + +<h1>LIFE WITHOUT<br /> +<small>AND</small><br /> +LIFE WITHIN;<br /> +<small>OR,</small><br /> +<small>REVIEWS, NARRATIVES, ESSAYS, AND<br /> +POEMS.</small></h1> + +<p class="cb">BY<br /> +MARGARET FULLER OSSOLI,<br /> +<small>AUTHOR OF "WOMAN IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY," "AT HOME AND +ABROAD," "ART, LITERATURE, AND THE DRAMA," ETC.</small></p> + +<p> </p> + +<p class="cb">EDITED BY HER BROTHER, +ARTHUR B. FULLER.<br /><br /><br /> +BOSTON:<br /> +ROBERTS BROTHERS.<a name="page_002" id="page_002"></a></p> + +<p class="c">Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1859, by<br /> +<small>ARTHUR B. FULLER,</small><br /> +In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts</p> + +<p class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/colophon.png" width="129" height="118" alt="colophon" title="colophon" /> +</p> + +<p class="c"><i>Cambridge:<br /> +Presswork by John Wilson and Son.</i></p> + +<p><a name="page_003" id="page_003"></a></p> + +<h2><a name="PREFACE" id="PREFACE"></a>PREFACE.</h2> + +<p>E<small>VERY</small> person, who can be said to really live at all, leads two lives +during this period of mortal existence. The one life is outward; it is +passed in reading the thoughts of others; in contemplating the +struggles, the defeats, the victories, the virtues, the sins, in fine, +all things which make the history of those who surround us; and in +gazing upon the structures which Art has reared, or paintings which she +hath inscribed on the canvas; or looking upon the grand temple of the +material universe, and beholding scenes painted by a hand more skilled, +more wondrous, in its creative power, than ever can be human hand. The +life passed in examining what other minds have produced, or living other +men's lives by looking at their deeds, or in any way discerning what +addresses the bodily eye or the physical ear,—this is often wise and +well; essential, indeed, to any inner life; but it is outward, not +self-centred, not the product of our own individual natures.</p> + +<p>But the thought of others suggests or develops<a name="page_004" id="page_004"></a> thought of our own—the +history of other men, as it is writing itself imperishably every day +upon their souls, or already has written itself in letters of living +light or lines of gloomy blackness—gives rise to internal sympathy or +abhorrence on the part of us who look on and read what is thus writing +and written. Our own spirits are stirred within us: our passions, which +have been sleeping lions, our affections and aspirations, before angels +with folded wings,—these are awakened by what others are doing, and +then we struggle with the bad or yield to it; we obey or disobey the +good, and our internal moral life begins; the outward universe or the +Great Spirit in our hearts speaks to our souls, leading first to inward +dissatisfaction, then to aspiration for and attainment of holiness, and +now the inner spiritual life, which shall transfigure all outward life, +and throw its own light and give its own hue to all the outward +universe, has begun. These two lives are parallel streams; often they +mingle their waters, and each imparts its own hue and characteristic to +the other. Sometimes the outer life is the main stream; men live only in +other men's thoughts and deeds—look only upon the material universe, +and retire but seldom within: the inner life is but a silver thread—a +little rill, scarce discoverable save by the eye of God. Again, with +many the outer life is but little; the passing scene, the din of the +battle which humanity is ever waging, the one scarce is gazed upon or +the other heard<a name="page_005" id="page_005"></a> by those who retire much from the outward world, and +live almost exclusively upon their own thoughts, and in an ideal realm +of fancy, or a real one of internal conflict, which is hidden from the +outer vision. Better is it when the stream of outward and inner life are +both full and broad—when the glories of the material universe attract +the gaze, the realm of literature and learning invite the willing feet +to wander in paths where poetry has planted many flowers, philosophy +many a sturdy oak of truth, which centuries cannot overthrow—and when, +on the other hand, men do not forget to retire often within, and find +their own minds kingdoms, where many a noble thought spontaneously +grows; their own souls heavens, where, the busy world withdrawn, they +commune much with their own aspirations, fight many a noble battle with +whatever hinders their spiritual peace, and where they commune yet more +with that Comforter, the Divine Spirit, and Christ, that Friend and +Helper of all who are seeking to make the life of thought and desire, as +well as outward word and deed, high and holy.</p> + +<p>It is not a brother's part to pass critical judgment upon a sister's +literary attainments, or mental and spiritual gifts, nor is it needful +in reference to Madame Ossoli. The world never has questioned her great +learning or rich and varied culture; these have been uniformly +acknowledged. As a keen and sagacious critic of literature, as an +admirer of whatever was noble, an<a name="page_006" id="page_006"></a> abhorrer of all low and mean, this +she was early, and is, so far as we know, without any question regarded. +That her judgments have always been acquiesced in is far from true; but +the public has ever believed them alike sincere and fearless. The life +without,—that of culture and intelligent, careful observation,—all +know <i>that</i> stream to have been full to overflowing.</p> + +<p>More and more, too, every year, the public are beginning to recognize +and appreciate the richness and the beauty of her inner life. The very +keenness of her critical acumen,—the very boldness of her rebuke of all +she deemed petty and base—the very truthfulness of her conformity to +her own standard—her very abhorrence of all cant and mere conformity, +long prevented, and even yet somewhat hinder, many from adequately +recognizing the loving spirit, the sympathetic nature, the Christian +faith, and spiritual devoutness which made her domestic and social life, +her action amid her own kindred and nation, and in Rome, for those not +allied to her by birth and lineage, at once kindly, noble, and full of +holy self-sacrifice. Yet continually the world is learning these things: +the history of her life, as her memoirs reveal it, the testimony of so +many witnesses here and in other lands, a more careful study and a wider +reading of her works, are leading, perhaps rapidly enough, to a true +appreciation of the spiritual beauty of her soul, and men see that the +waters of<a name="page_007" id="page_007"></a> her inner life form a stream at once clear and pure, deep and +broad.</p> + +<p>In presenting to the public the last volume of Margaret Fuller's works, +the Editor is encouraged to hope for them a candid, cordial reception. +It has been a work of love on his part, for which he has ever felt +inadequate, and from it for a time shrunk. But each volume has had a +wider and more cordial welcome than its predecessor, and works received +by the great public almost with coldness when first published, have, +when republished, had a large and cheering circulation, and, what is far +better, a kindly appreciation not only by the few, but even by the many. +This is evidence enough that the progress of time has brought the public +and my sister into closer sympathy and agreement, and a better +understanding on its part of her true views and character.</p> + +<p>The present volume is less than any of its predecessors a republication. +<i>Only one of its articles has ever appeared before in book form.</i> As a +book, it is, then, essentially new, though some of its reviews and +essays have appeared in the columns of the Tribune and Dial. A large +portion of it has never appeared at all in print, especially its +poetical portions. The work of collecting these essays, reviews, and +poems has been a difficult one, much more than attended the preparation +of the previous volumes. Unable, of course, to consult<a name="page_008" id="page_008"></a> their author as +to any of them, the revision I have given is doubtless very imperfect, +and requires large allowance. It is even possible that among the poems +one or more written by friends and sent her, or copied from some other +author, may have crept in unawares; but this all possible pains have +been taken to prevent. Such as it is, the volume is now before the +public; it truly reveals her inner and outer life, and is doubtless the +last of the volumes containing the writings of M<small>ARGARET</small> F<small>ULLER</small> O<small>SSOLI</small>.<a name="page_009" id="page_009"></a></p> + +<h2>CONTENTS.</h2> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="CONTENTS"> + +<tr><th colspan="2" align="center"><a href="#PART_I">PART I.—REVIEWS.</a></th></tr> + +<tr><td colspan="2" align="right"><small>PAGE</small>.</td></tr> + +<tr><td><span class="smcap">Menzel's View of Gœthe</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_013">13</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td><span class="smcap">Gœthe</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_023">23</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td><span class="smcap">Thomas Hood</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_061">61</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td><span class="smcap">Letters From a Landscape Painter</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_069">69</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td><span class="smcap">Beethoven</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_071">71</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td><span class="smcap">Brown's Novels</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_083">83</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td><span class="smcap">Edgar A. Poe</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_087">87</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td><span class="smcap">Alfieri and Cellini</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_093">93</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td><span class="smcap">Italy.—Cary's Dante</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_102">102</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td><span class="smcap">American Facts</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_108">108</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td><span class="smcap">Napoleon and His Marshals</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_110">110</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td><span class="smcap">Physical Education</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_116">116</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td><span class="smcap">Frederick Douglass</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_121">121</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td><span class="smcap">Philip van Artevelde</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_127">127</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td><span class="smcap">United States Exploring Expedition</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_141">141</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td><span class="smcap">Story Books for the Hot Weather</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_143">143</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td><span class="smcap">Shelley's Poems</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_149">149</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td><span class="smcap">Festus</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_153">153</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td><span class="smcap">French Novelists of the Day</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_158">158</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td><span class="smcap">The New Science, or the Philosophy of Mesmerism or Animal Magnetism</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_168">168</a><a name="page_010" id="page_010"></a></td></tr> + +<tr><td><span class="smcap">Deutsche Schnellpost</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_174">174</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td><span class="smcap">Oliver Cromwell</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_179">179</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td><span class="smcap">Emerson's Essays</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_191">191</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td><span class="smcap">Capital Punishment</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_199">199</a></td></tr> + +<tr><th colspan="2" align="center"><a href="#PART_II">PART II.—MISCELLANEOUS.</a></th></tr> + +<tr><td><span class="smcap">First of January</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_207">207</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td><span class="smcap">New Year's Day</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_219">219</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td><span class="smcap">St. Valentine's Day</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_226">226</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td><span class="smcap">Fourth of July</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_232">232</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td><span class="smcap">First of August</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_236">236</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td><span class="smcap">Thanksgiving</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_243">243</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td><span class="smcap">Christmas</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_250">250</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td><span class="smcap">Mariana</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_258">258</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td><span class="smcap">Sunday Meditations on Various Texts.</span>—<span class="smcap">First</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_277">277</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 2em;">"</span> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">"</span> +<span style="margin-left: 6em;">"</span><span style="margin-left: 6em;"><span class="smcap">Second</span></span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_280">280</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td><span class="smcap">Appeal for an Asylum for Discharged Female Convicts</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_283">283</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td><span class="smcap">The Rich Man.—an Ideal Sketch</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_287">287</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td><span class="smcap">The Poor Man.—an Ideal Sketch</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_297">297</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td><span class="smcap">The Celestial Empire</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_304">304</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td><span class="smcap">Klopstock and Meta</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_308">308</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td><span class="smcap">What fits a Man to be a Voter.—A Fable</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_314">314</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td><span class="smcap">Discoveries</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_319">319</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td><span class="smcap">Politeness too great a Luxury to be given to the Poor</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_322">322</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td><span class="smcap">Cassius M. Clay</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_326">326</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td><span class="smcap">The Magnolia of Lake Pontchartrain</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_330">330</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td><span class="smcap">Consecration of Grace Church</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_337">337</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td><span class="smcap">Late Aspirations</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_344">344</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td><span class="smcap">Fragmentary Thoughts, From Margaret Fuller's Journal</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_348">348</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td><span class="smcap">Farewell To New York</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_354">354</a><a name="page_011" id="page_011"></a></td></tr> + +<tr><th colspan="2" align="center"><a href="#PART_III">PART III.—POEMS.</a></th></tr> + +<tr><td><span class="smcap">Freedom and Truth</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_357">357</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td><span class="smcap">Description of a Portion of the Journey to Trenton Falls</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_357">357</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td><span class="smcap">Journey to Trenton Falls</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_361">361</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td><span class="smcap">Sue Rosa Crux</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_365">365</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td><span class="smcap">The Dahlia, the Rose, and the Heliotrope</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_367">367</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td><span class="smcap">To my Friends, (translation.)</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_368">368</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td><span class="smcap">Stanzas Written at the Age of Seventeen</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_370">370</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td><span class="smcap">Flaxman</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_371">371</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td><span class="smcap">Thoughts on Sunday Morning, when Prevented by a Snowstorm from going to Church</span> </td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_371">371</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td><span class="smcap">To a Golden Heart Worn Round the Neck</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_374">374</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td><span class="smcap">Lines accompanying a Bouquet of wild Columbine</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_375">375</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td><span class="smcap">Dissatisfaction, (translation.)</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_377">377</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td><span class="smcap">My Seal-ring</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_378">378</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td><span class="smcap">The Consolers, (translation.)</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_379">379</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td><span class="smcap">Absence of Love</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_380">380</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td><span class="smcap">Meditations</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_381">381</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td><span class="smcap">Richter</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_383">383</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td><span class="smcap">The Thankful and the Thankless</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_384">384</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td><span class="smcap">Prophecy and Fulfilment</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_385">385</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td><span class="smcap">Verses given to W. C., with a Blank Book</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_385">385</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td><span class="smcap">Eagles and Doves, (translation.)</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_387">387</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td><span class="smcap">To a Friend, with Heartsease</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_388">388</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td><span class="smcap">Aspiration</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_389">389</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td><span class="smcap">The One in All</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_390">390</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td><span class="smcap">A Greeting</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_393">393</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td><span class="smcap">Lines to Edith, on her Birthday</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_394">394</a><a name="page_012" id="page_012"></a></td></tr> + +<tr><td><span class="smcap">Lines written in her Brother R.F.F.'s Journal</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_395">395</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td><span class="smcap">On a Picture representing the Descent from the Cross</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_396">396</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td><span class="smcap">The Captured Wild Horse</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_397">397</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td><span class="smcap">Epilogue to the Tragedy of Essex, (translation.)</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_400">400</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td><span class="smcap">Hymn written for a Sunday School</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_404">404</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td><span class="smcap">Desertion, (translation.)</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_405">405</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td><span class="smcap">Song written for a May-day Festival</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_406">406</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td><span class="smcap">Caradori Singing</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_409">409</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td><span class="smcap">Lines in Answer to Stanzas containing several Passages of distinguished Beauty</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_409">409</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td><span class="smcap">Influence of the Outward</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_410">410</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td><span class="smcap">To Miss R.B.</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_411">411</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td><span class="smcap">Sistrum</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_413">413</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td><span class="smcap">Imperfect Thoughts</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_414">414</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td><span class="smcap">Sadness</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_414">414</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td><span class="smcap">Lines written in an Album</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_416">416</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td><span class="smcap">To S.C.</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_417">417</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td><span class="smcap">Lines written in Boston on a beautiful Autumnal Day</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_420">420</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td><span class="smcap">To E.C., with Herbert's Poems</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_422">422</a></td></tr> +</table> + +<p><a name="page_013" id="page_013"></a></p> + +<h1>Life without and Life within.</h1> + +<h2><a name="PART_I" id="PART_I"></a>PART I.<br /> +<big>REVIEWS.</big></h2> + +<h2><a name="MENZELS_VIEW_OF_GOETHE" id="MENZELS_VIEW_OF_GOETHE"></a>MENZEL'S VIEW OF GŒTHE.</h2> + +<p>M<small>ENZEL'S</small> view of Gœthe is that of a Philistine, in the least +opprobrious sense of the term. It is one which has long been applied in +Germany to petty cavillers and incompetent critics. I do not wish to +convey a sense so disrespectful in speaking of Menzel. He has a vigorous +and brilliant mind, and a wide, though imperfect, culture. He is a man +of talent, but talent cannot comprehend genius. He judges of Gœthe as +a Philistine, inasmuch as he does not enter into Canaan, and read the +prophet by the light of his own law, but looks at him from without, and +tries him by a rule beneath which he never lived. That there <i>was</i> +something Menzel saw; what that something was <i>not</i> he saw, but <i>what</i> +it <i>was</i> he could not see; none could <i>see</i>; it was something to be felt +and known at the time of its apparition, but the clear sight of it was +reserved to a day far enough removed from its sphere to get a commanding +point of view. Has that day come? A little while ago it seemed so; +certain features of Gœthe's personality,<a name="page_014" id="page_014"></a> certain results of his +tendency, had become so manifest. But as the plants he planted mature, +they shed a new seed for a yet more noble growth. A wider experience, a +deeper insight, make rejected words come true, and bring a more refined +perception of meaning already discerned. Like all his elder brothers of +the elect band, the forlorn hope of humanity, he obliges us to live and +grow, that we may walk by his side; vainly we strive to leave him behind +in some niche of the hall of our ancestors; a few steps onward and we +find him again, of yet serener eye and more towering mien than on his +other pedestal. Former measurements of his size have, like the girdle +bound by the nymphs round the infant Apollo, only served to make him +outgrow the unworthy compass. The still rising sun, with its broader +light, shows us it is not yet noon. In him is soon perceived a prophet +of our own age, as well as a representative of his own; and we doubt +whether the revolutions of the century be not required to interpret the +quiet depths of his <i>Saga</i>.</p> + +<p>Sure it is that none has yet found Gœthe's place, as sure that none +can claim to be his peer, who has not some time, ay, and for a long +time, been his pupil!</p> + +<p>Yet much truth has been spoken of him in detail, some by Menzel, but in +so superficial a spirit, and with so narrow a view of its bearings, as +to have all the effect of falsehood. Such denials of the crown can only +fix it more firmly on the head of the "Old Heathen." To such the best +answer may be given in the words of Bettina Brentan: "The others +criticise thy works; I only know that they lead us on and on till we +live in them." And thus will all criticism end in making more men and +women read these works, and "on and on," till they forget whether the +author be a patriot or a moralist, in the deep humanity of the thought, +the breathing nature of the scene. While words they have accepted with +immediate approval fade from memory, these oft-denied words of keen, +cold truth return with ever new force and significance.<a name="page_015" id="page_015"></a></p> + +<p>Men should be true, wise, beautiful, pure, and aspiring. This man was +true and wise, capable of all things. Because he did not in one short +life complete his circle, can we afford to lose him out of sight? Can +we, in a world where so few men have in any degree redeemed their +inheritance, neglect a nature so rich and so manifestly progressive?</p> + +<p>Historically considered, Gœthe needs no apology. His so-called faults +fitted him all the better for the part he had to play. In cool +possession of his wide-ranging genius, he taught the imagination of +Germany, that the highest flight should be associated with the steady +sweep and undazzled eye of the eagle. Was he too much the connoisseur, +did he attach too great an importance to the cultivation of taste, where +just then German literature so much needed to be refined, polished, and +harmonized? Was he too sceptical, too much an experimentalist,—how else +could he have formed himself to be the keenest, and, at the same time, +most nearly universal of observers, teaching theologians, philosophers, +and patriots that nature comprehends them all, commands them all, and +that no one development of life must exclude the rest? Do you talk, in +the easy cant of the day, of German obscurity, extravagance, pedantry, +and bad taste,—and will you blame this man, whose Greek, English, +Italian, German mind steered so clear of these rocks and shoals, +clearing, adjusting, and calming on each side, wherever he turned his +prow? Was he not just enough of an idealist, just enough of a realist, +for his peculiar task? If you want a moral enthusiast, is not there +Schiller? If piety, of purest, mystic sweetness, who but Novalis? +Exuberant sentiment, that treasures each withered leaf in a tender +breast, look to your Richter. Would you have men to find plausible +meaning for the deepest enigma, or to hang up each map of literature, +well painted and dotted on its proper roller,—there are the Schlegels. +Men of ideas were numerous as migratory crows in autumn, and Jacobi +wrote the heart into philosophy, as well as he could. Who<a name="page_016" id="page_016"></a> could fill +Gœthe's place to Germany, and to the world, of which she is now the +teacher? His much-reviled aristocratic turn was at that time a +reconciling element. It is plain why he was what he was, for his country +and his age.</p> + +<p>Whoever looks into the history of his youth, will be struck by a +peculiar force with which all things worked together to prepare him for +his office of artist-critic to the then chaotic world of thought in his +country. What an unusually varied scene of childhood and of youth! What +endless change and contrast of circumstances and influences! Father and +mother, life and literature, world and nature,—playing into one +another's hands, always by antagonism! Never was a child so carefully +guarded by fate against prejudice, against undue bias, against any +engrossing sentiment. Nature having given him power of poetical sympathy +to know every situation, would not permit him to make himself at home in +any. And how early what was most peculiar in his character manifested +itself, may be seen in these anecdotes related by his mother to Bettina.</p> + +<p>Of Gœthe's childhood.—"He was not willing to play with other little +children, unless they were very fair. In a circle he began suddenly to +weep, screaming, 'Take away the black, ugly child; I cannot bear to have +it here.' He could not be pacified; they were obliged to take him home, +and there the mother could hardly console him for the child's ugliness. +He was then only three years old."</p> + +<p>"His mother was surprised, that when his brother Jacob died, who had +been his playmate, he shed no tear, but rather seemed annoyed by the +lamentations of those around him. But afterwards, when his mother asked +whether he had not loved his brother, he ran into his room and brought +from under his bed a bundle of papers, all written over, and said he had +done all this for Jacob."</p> + +<p>Even so in later years, had he been asked if he had not<a name="page_017" id="page_017"></a> loved his +country and his fellow-men, he would not have answered by tears and +vows, but pointed to his works.</p> + +<p>In the first anecdote is observable that love of symmetry in external +relations which, in manhood, made him give up the woman he loved, +because she would not have been in place among the old-fashioned +furniture of his father's house; and dictated the course which, at the +crisis of his life, led him to choose an outward peace rather than an +inward joy. In the second, he displays, at the earliest age, a sense of +his vocation as a recorder, the same which drew him afterwards to write +his life into verse, rather than clothe it in action. His indirectness, +his aversion to the frankness of heroic meetings, is repulsive and +suspicious to generous and flowing natures; yet many of the more +delicate products of the mind seem to need these sheaths, lest bird and +insect rifle them in the bud.</p> + +<p>And if this subtlety, isolation, and distance be the dictate of nature, +we submit, even as we are not vexed that the wild bee should hide its +honey in some old moss-grown tree, rather than in the glass hives of our +gardens. We believe it will repay the pains we take in seeking for it, +by some peculiar flavor from unknown flowers. Was Gœthe the wild bee? +We see that even in his boyhood he showed himself a very Egyptian, in +his love for disguises; forever expressing his thought in roundabout +ways, which seem idle mummery to a mind of Spartan or Roman mould. Had +he some simple thing to tell his friend, he read it from the newspaper, +or wrote it into a parable. Did he make a visit, he put on the hat or +wig of some other man, and made his bow as Schmidt or Schlosser, that +they might stare, when he spoke as Gœthe. He gives as the highest +instance of passionate grief, that he gave up for one day watching the +tedious ceremonies of the imperial coronation. In daily life many of +these carefully recorded passages have an air of platitude, at which no +wonder the Edinburgh Review laughed. Yet, on examination, they are full +of meaning. And when we see the same propensity<a name="page_018" id="page_018"></a> writing itself into +Ganymede, Mahomet's song, the Bayadere, and Faust, telling all +Gœthe's religion in Mignon and Makana, all his wisdom in the +Western-Eastern Divan, we respect it, accept, all but love it.</p> + +<p>This theme is for a volume, and I must quit it now. A brief summary of +what Gœthe was suffices to vindicate his existence, as an agent in +history and a part of nature, but will not meet the objections of those +who measure him, as they have a right to do, by the standard of ideal +manhood.</p> + +<p>Most men, in judging another man, ask, Did he live up to our standard?</p> + +<p>But to me it seems desirable to ask rather, Did he live up to his own?</p> + +<p>So possible is it that our consciences may be more enlightened than that +of the Gentile under consideration. And if we can find out how much was +given him, we are told, in a pure evangelium, to judge thereby how much +shall be required.</p> + +<p>Now, Gœthe has given us both his own standard and the way to apply +it. "To appreciate any man, learn first what object he proposed to +himself; next, what degree of earnestness he showed with regard to +attaining that object."</p> + +<p>And this is part of his hymn for man made in the divine image, +"T<small>HE</small> G<small>ODLIKE.</small>"</p> + +<p class="poem"> +"Hail to the Unknown, the<br /> +Higher Being<br /> +Felt within us!<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 8em;">"Unfeeling</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 6em;">As nature,</span><br /> +Still shineth the sun<br /> +Over good and evil;<br /> +And on the sinner,<br /> +Smile as on the best,<a name="page_019" id="page_019"></a><br /> +Moon and stars.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Fate too, &c.</span><br /> +<br /> +"There can none but man<br /> +Perform the Impossible.<br /> +He understandeth,<br /> +Chooseth, and judgeth;<br /> +He can impart to the<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Moment duration.</span><br /> +<br /> +"He alone may<br /> +The good reward,<br /> +The guilty punish,<br /> +Mend and deliver;<br /> +All the wayward, anomalous<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Bind in the useful.</span><br /> +<br /> +"And the Immortals,<br /> +Them we reverence<br /> +As if they were men, and<br /> +Did, on a grand scale,<br /> +What the best man in little<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Does, or fain would do.</span><br /> +<br /> +"Let noble man<br /> +Be helpful and good;<br /> +Ever creating<br /> +The Right and the Useful;<br /> +Type of those loftier<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Beings of whom the heart whispers."</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>This standard is high enough. It is what every man should express in +action, the poet in music!</p> + +<p>And this office of a judge, who is of purer eyes than to behold +iniquity, and of a sacred oracle, to whom other men may<a name="page_020" id="page_020"></a> go to ask when +they should choose a friend, when face a foe, this great genius does not +adequately fulfil. Too often has the priest left the shrine to go and +gather simples by the aid of spells whose might no pure power needs. +Glimpses are found in his works of the highest spirituality, but it is +blue sky seen through chinks in a roof which should never have been +builded. He has used life to excess. He is too rich for his nobleness, +too judicious for his inspiration, too humanly wise for his divine +mission. He might have been a priest; he is only a sage.</p> + +<p>An Epicurean sage, say the multitude. This seems to me unjust. He is +also called a debauchee. There may be reason for such terms, but it is +partial, and received, as they will be, by the unthinking, they are as +false as Menzel's abuse, in the impression they convey. Did Gœthe +value the present too much? It was not for the Epicurean aim of +pleasure, but for use. He, in this, was but an instance of reaction, in +an age of painful doubt and restless striving as to the future. Was his +private life stained by profligacy? That far largest portion of his +life, which is ours, and which is expressed in his works, is an unbroken +series of efforts to develop the higher elements of our being. I cannot +speak to private gossip on this subject, nor even to well-authenticated +versions of his private life. Here are sixty volumes, by himself and +others, which contain sufficient evidence of a life of severe labor, +steadfast forbearance, and an intellectual growth almost unparalleled. +That he has failed of the highest fulfilment of his high vocation is +certain, but he was neither Epicurean nor sensualist, if we consider his +life as a whole.</p> + +<p>Yet he had failed to reach his highest development; and how was it that +he was so content with this incompleteness, nay, the serenest of men? +His serenity alone, in such a time of scepticism and sorrowful seeking, +gives him a claim to all our study. See how he rides at anchor, lordly, +rich in freight, every white sail ready to be unfurled at a moment's +warning!<a name="page_021" id="page_021"></a> And it must be a very slight survey which can confound this +calm self-trust with selfish indifference of temperament. Indeed, he, in +various ways, lets us see how little he was helped in this respect by +temperament. But we need not his declaration,—the case speaks for +itself. Of all that perpetual accomplishment, that unwearied +constructiveness, the basis must be sunk deeper than in temperament. He +never halts, never repines, never is puzzled, like other men; that +tranquillity, full of life, that ceaseless but graceful motion, "without +haste, without rest," for which we all are striving, he has attained. +And is not his love of the noblest kind? Reverence the highest, have +patience with the lowest. Let this day's performance of the meanest duty +be thy religion. Are the stars too distant, pick up that pebble that +lies at thy foot, and from it learn the all. Go out like Saul, the son +of Kish, look earnestly after the meanest of thy father's goods, and a +kingdom shall be brought thee. The least act of pure self-renunciation +hallows, for the moment, all within its sphere. The philosopher may +mislead, the devil tempt, yet innocence, though wounded and bleeding as +it goes, must reach at last the holy city. The power of sustaining +himself and guiding others rewards man sufficiently for the longest +apprenticeship. Is not this lore the noblest?</p> + +<p>Yes, yes, but still I doubt. 'Tis true, he says all this in a thousand +beautiful forms, but he does not warm, he does not inspire me. In his +certainty is no bliss, in his hope no love, in his faith no glow. How is +this?</p> + +<p>A friend, of a delicate penetration, observed, "His atmosphere was so +calm, so full of light, that I hoped he would teach me his secret of +cheerfulness. But I found, after long search, that he had no better way, +if he wished to check emotion or clear thought, than to go to work. As +his mother tells us, 'My son, if he had a grief, made it into a poem, +and so got rid of it.' This mode is founded in truth, but does not<a name="page_022" id="page_022"></a> +involve the whole truth. I want the method which is indicated by the +phrase, 'Perseverance of the saints.'"</p> + +<p>This touched the very point. Gœthe attained only the perseverance of +a man. He was true, for he knew that nothing can be false to him who is +true, and that to genius nature has pledged her protection. Had he but +seen a little farther, he would have given this covenant a higher +expression, and been more deeply true to a diviner nature.</p> + +<p>In another article on Gœthe, I shall give some account of that +period, when a too determined action of the intellect limited and +blinded him for the rest of his life; I mean only in comparison with +what he should have been. Had it been otherwise, what would he not have +attained, who, even thus self-enchained, rose to Ulyssean stature. +Connected with this is the fact, of which he spoke with such sarcastic +solemnity to Eckermann—"My works will never be popular."</p> + +<p>I wish, also, to consider the Faust, Elective Affinities, Apprenticeship +and Pilgrimages of Wilhelm Meister, and Iphigenia, as affording +indications of the progress of his genius here, of its wants and +prospects in future spheres of activity. For the present I bid him +farewell, as his friends always have done, in hope and trust of a better +meeting.<a name="page_023" id="page_023"></a></p> + +<h2><a name="GOETHE" id="GOETHE"></a>GŒTHE.</h2> + +<p class="c"> +"Nemo contra Deum nisi Deus ipse."<br /> +</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry"> +<tr><td align="left">"Wer Grosses will muss sich zusammen raffen;</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">In der Beschrankung zeigt sich erst der Meister,</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Und der Gesetz nur Kann uns Freikeit geben."<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a></td></tr> +</table> + +<p>The first of these mottoes is that prefixed by Gœthe to the last +books of "Dichtung und Wahrheit." These books record the hour of turning +tide in his life, the time when he was called on for a choice at the +"Parting of the Ways." From these months, which gave the sun of his +youth, the crisis of his manhood, date the birth of Egmont, and of Faust +too, though the latter was not published so early. They saw the rise and +decline of his love for Lili, apparently the truest love he ever knew. +That he was not himself dissatisfied with the results to which the +decisions of this era led him, we may infer from his choice of a motto, +and from the calm beauty with which he has invested the record.</p> + +<p>The Parting of the Ways! The way he took led to court-favor, wealth, +celebrity, and an independence of celebrity. It led to large +performance, and a wonderful economical management of intellect. It led +Faust, the Seeker, from the heights of his own mind to the trodden ways +of the world. There, indeed, he did not lose sight of the mountains, but +he never breathed their keen air again.<a name="page_024" id="page_024"></a></p> + +<p>After this period we find in him rather a wide and deep Wisdom, than the +inspiration of Genius. His faith, that all <i>must</i> issue well, wants the +sweetness of piety, and the God he manifests to us is one of law or +necessity, rather than of intelligent love. As this God makes because he +must, so Gœthe, his instrument, observes and re-creates because he +must, observing with minutest fidelity the outward exposition of Nature; +never blinded by a sham, or detained by a fear, he yet makes us feel +that he wants insight to her sacred secret. The calmest of writers does +not give us repose, because it is too difficult to find his centre. +Those flame-like natures, which he undervalues, give us more peace and +hope, through their restless aspirations, than he with his +hearth-enclosed fires of steady fulfilment. For, true as it is, that God +is every where, we must not only see him, but see him acknowledged. +Through the consciousness of man, "shall not Nature interpret God?" We +wander in diversity, and with each new turning of the path, long anew to +be referred to the One.</p> + +<p>Of Gœthe, as of other natures, where the intellect is too much +developed in proportion to the moral nature, it is difficult to speak +without seeming narrow, blind, and impertinent. For such men <i>see</i> all +that others <i>live</i>, and, if you feel a want of a faculty in them, it is +hard to say they have it not, lest, next moment, they puzzle you by +giving some indication of it. Yet they are not, nay, <i>know</i> not; they +only discern. The difference is that between sight and life, prescience +and being, wisdom and love. Thus with Gœthe. Naturally of a deep mind +and shallow heart, he felt the sway of the affections enough to +appreciate their workings in other men, but never enough to receive +their inmost regenerating influence.</p> + +<p>How this might have been had he ever once abandoned himself entirely to +a sentiment, it is impossible to say. But the education of his youth +seconded, rather than balanced, his natural tendency. His father was a +gentlemanly martinet; dull, sour, well-informed, and of great ambition +as to externals.<a name="page_025" id="page_025"></a> His influence on the son was wholly artificial. He was +always turning his powerful mind from side to side in search of +information, for the attainment of what are called accomplishments. The +mother was a delightful person in her way; open, genial, playful, full +of lively talent, but without earnestness of soul. She was one of those +charming, but not noble persons, who take the day and the man as they +find them, seeing the best that is there already, but never making the +better grow in its stead. His sister, though of graver kind, was social +and intellectual, not religious or tender. The mortifying repulse of his +early love checked the few pale buds of faith and tenderness that his +heart put forth. His friends were friends of the intellect merely; +altogether, he seemed led by destiny to the place he was to fill.</p> + +<p>Pardon him, World, that he was too worldly. Do not wonder, Heart, that +he was so heartless. Believe, Soul, that one so true, as far as he went, +must yet be initiated into the deeper mysteries of Soul. Perhaps even +now he sees that we must accept limitations only to transcend them; work +in processes only to detect the organizing power which supersedes them; +and that Sphinxes of fifty-five volumes might well be cast into the +abyss before the single word that solves them all.</p> + +<p>Now, when I think of Gœthe, I seem to see his soul, all the +variegated plumes of knowledge, artistic form "und so weiter," burnt +from it by the fires of divine love, wingless, motionless, unable to +hide from itself in any subterfuge of labor, saying again and again, the +simple words which he would never distinctly say on earth—God beyond +Nature—Faith beyond Sight—the Seeker nobler than the <i>Meister</i>.</p> + +<p>For this mastery that Gœthe prizes seems to consist rather in the +skilful use of means than in the clear manifestation of ends. His +Master, indeed, makes acknowledgment of a divine order, but the temporal +uses are always uppermost in<a name="page_026" id="page_026"></a> the mind of the reader. But of this, more +at large in reference to his works.</p> + +<p>Apart from this want felt in his works, there is a littleness in his +aspect as a character. Why waste his time in Weimar court +entertainments? His duties as minister were not unworthy of him, though +it would have been, perhaps, finer, if he had not spent so large a +portion of that prime of intellectual life, from five and twenty to +forty, upon them.</p> + +<p>But granted that the exercise these gave his faculties, the various lore +they brought, and the good they did to the community, made them worth +his doing,—why that perpetual dangling after the royal family? Why all +that verse-making for the albums of serene highnesses, and those pretty +poetical entertainments for the young princesses, and that cold setting +himself apart from his true peers, the real sovereigns of +Weimar—Herder, Wieland, and the others? The excuse must be found in +circumstances of his time and temperament, which made the character of +man of the world and man of affairs more attractive to him than the +children of nature can conceive it to be in the eyes of one who is +capable of being a consecrated bard.</p> + +<p>The man of genius feels that literature has become too much a craft by +itself. No man should live by or for his pen. Writing is worthless +except as the record of life; and no great man ever was satisfied thus +to express all his being. His book should be only an indication of +himself. The obelisk should point to a scene of conquest. In the present +state of division of labor, the literary man finds himself condemned to +be nothing else. Does he write a good book? it is not received as +evidence of his ability to live and act, but rather the reverse. Men do +not offer him the care of embassies, as an earlier age did to Petrarca; +they would be surprised if he left his study to go forth to battle like +Cervantes. We have the swordsman, and statesman, and penman, but it is +not considered that the same mind which can rule the destiny of a poem,<a name="page_027" id="page_027"></a> +may as well that of an army or an empire.<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> Yet surely it should be so. +The scientific man may need seclusion from the common affairs of life, +for he has his materials before him; but the man of letters must seek +them in life, and he who cannot act will but imperfectly appreciate +action.</p> + +<p>The literary man is impatient at being set apart. He feels that monks +and troubadours, though in a similar position, were brought into more +healthy connection with man and nature, than he who is supposed to look +at them merely to write them down. So he rebels; and Sir Walter Scott is +prouder of being a good sheriff and farmer, than of his reputation as +the Great Unknown. Byron piques himself on his skill in shooting and +swimming. Sir H. Davy and Schlegel would be admired as dandies, and +Gœthe, who had received an order from a publisher "for a dozen more +dramas in the same style as Gœtz von Berlichingen," and though (in +sadder sooth) he had already Faust in his head asking to be written out, +thought it no degradation to become premier in the little Duchy of +Weimar.</p> + +<p>"Straws show which way the wind blows," and a comment may be drawn from +the popular novels, where the literary man is obliged to wash off the +ink in a violet bath, attest his courage in the duel, and hide his +idealism beneath the vulgar nonchalance and coxcombry of the man of +fashion.</p> + +<p>If this tendency of his time had some influence in making Gœthe find +pleasure in tangible power and decided relations with society, there +were other causes which worked deeper. The growth of genius in its +relations to men around must always be attended with daily pain. The +enchanted eye turns from the far-off star it has detected to the +short-sighted bystander, and the seer is mocked for pretending to see +what others cannot. The large and generalizing mind infers the whole +from a single circumstance, and is reproved by all<a name="page_028" id="page_028"></a> around for its +presumptuous judgment. Its Ithuriel temper pierces shams, creeds, +covenants, and chases the phantoms which others embrace, till the lovers +of the false Florimels hurl the true knight to the ground. Little men +are indignant that Hercules, yet an infant, declares he has strangled +the serpent; they demand a proof; they send him out into scenes of labor +to bring thence the voucher that his father is a god. What the ancients +meant to express by Apollo's continual disappointment in his loves, is +felt daily in the youth of genius. The sympathy he seeks flies his +touch, the objects of his affection sneer at his sublime credulity, his +self-reliance is arrogance, his far sight infatuation, and his ready +detection of fallacy fickleness and inconsistency. Such is the youth of +genius, before the soul has given that sign of itself which an +unbelieving generation cannot controvert. Even then he is little +benefited by the transformation of the mockers into worshippers. For the +soul seeks not adorers, but peers; not blind worship, but intelligent +sympathy. The best consolation even then is that which Gœthe puts +into the mouth of Tasso: "To me gave a God to tell what I suffer." In +"Tasso" Gœthe has described the position of the poetical mind in its +prose relations with equal depth and fulness. We see what he felt must +be the result of entire abandonment to the highest nature. We see why he +valued himself on being able to understand the Alphonsos, and meet as an +equal the Antonios of every-day life.</p> + +<p>But, you say, there is no likeness between Gœthe and Tasso. Never +believe it; such pictures are not painted from observation merely. That +deep coloring which fills them with light and life is given by dipping +the brush in one's own life-blood. Gœthe had not from nature that +character of self-reliance and self-control in which he so long appeared +to the world. It was wholly acquired, and so highly valued because he +was conscious of the opposite tendency. He was by nature as impetuous, +though not as tender, as Tasso, and the<a name="page_029" id="page_029"></a> disadvantage at which this +constantly placed him was keenly felt by a mind made to appreciate the +subtlest harmonies in all relations. Therefore was it that when he at +last cast anchor, he was so reluctant again to trust himself to wave and +breeze.</p> + +<p>I have before spoken of the antagonistic influences under which he was +educated. He was driven from the severity of study into the world, and +then again drawn back, many times in the course of his crowded youth. +Both the world and the study he used with unceasing ardor, but not with +the sweetness of a peaceful hope. Most of the traits which are +considered to mark his character at a later period were wanting to him +in youth. He was very social, and continually perturbed by his social +sympathies. He was deficient both in outward self-possession and mental +self-trust. "I was always," he says, "either <i>too volatile or too +infatuated</i>, so that those who looked kindly on me did by no means +always honor me with their esteem." He wrote much and with great +freedom. The pen came naturally to his hand, but he had no confidence in +the merit of what he wrote, and much inferior persons to Merck and +Herder might have induced him to throw aside as worthless what it had +given him sincere pleasure to compose. It was hard for him to isolate +himself, to console himself, and, though his mind was always busy with +important thoughts, they did not free him from the pressure of other +minds. His youth was as sympathetic and impetuous as any on record.</p> + +<p>The effect of all this outward pressure on the poet is recorded in +Werther—a production that he afterwards under-valued, and to which he +even felt positive aversion. It was natural that this should be. In the +calm air of the cultivated plain he attained, the remembrance of the +miasma of sentimentality was odious to him. Yet sentimentality is but +sentiment diseased, which to be cured must be patiently observed by the +wise physician; so are the morbid desire and despair<a name="page_030" id="page_030"></a> of Werther, the +sickness of a soul aspiring to a purer, freer state, but mistaking the +way.</p> + +<p>The best or the worst occasion in man's life is precisely that misused +in Werther, when he longs for more love, more freedom, and a larger +development of genius than the limitations of this terrene sphere +permit. Sad is it indeed if, persisting to grasp too much at once, he +lose all, as Werther did. He must accept limitation, must consent to do +his work in time, must let his affections be baffled by the barriers of +convention. Tantalus-like, he makes this world a Tartarus, or, like +Hercules, rises in fires to heaven, according as he knows how to +interpret his lot. But he must only use, not adopt it. The boundaries of +the man must never be confounded with the destiny of the soul. If he +does not decline his destiny, as Werther did, it is his honor to have +felt its unfitness for his eternal scope. He was born for wings; he is +held to walk in leading-strings; nothing lower than faith must make him +resigned, and only in hope should he find content—a hope not of some +slight improvement in his own condition or that of other men, but a hope +justified by the divine justice, which is bound in due time to satisfy +every want of his nature.</p> + +<p>Schiller's great command is, "Keep true to the dream of thy youth." The +great problem is how to make the dream real, through the exercise of the +waking will.</p> + +<p>This was not exactly the problem Gœthe tried to solve. To <i>do</i> +somewhat, became too important, as is indicated both by the second motto +to this essay, and by his maxim, "It is not the knowledge of what <i>might +be</i>, but what <i>is</i>, that forms us."</p> + +<p>Werther, like his early essays now republished from the Frankfort +Journal, is characterized by a fervid eloquence of Italian glow, which +betrays a part of his character almost lost sight of in the quiet +transparency of his later productions, and may give us some idea of the +mental conflicts through which he passed to manhood.</p> + +<p>The acting out the mystery into life, the calmness of survey,<a name="page_031" id="page_031"></a> and the +passionateness of feeling, above all the ironical baffling at the end, +and want of point to a tale got up with such an eye to effect as he goes +along, mark well the man that was to be. Even so did he demand in +Werther; even so resolutely open the door in the first part of Faust; +even so seem to play with himself and his contemporaries in the second +part of Faust and Wilhelm Meister.</p> + +<p>Yet was he deeply earnest in his play, not for men, but for himself. To +himself as a part of nature it was important to grow, to lift his head +to the light. In nature he had all confidence; for man, as a part of +nature, infinite hope; but in him as an individual will, seemingly, not +much trust at the earliest age.</p> + +<p>The history of his intimacies marks his course; they were entered into +with passionate eagerness, but always ended in an observation of the +intellect, and he left them on his road, as the snake leaves his skin. +The first man he met of sufficient force to command a large share of his +attention was Herder, and the benefit of this intercourse was critical, +not genial. Of the good Lavater he soon perceived the weakness. Merck, +again, commanded his respect; but the force of Merck also was cold.</p> + +<p>But in the Grand Duke of Weimar he seems to have met a character strong +enough to exercise a decisive influence upon his own. Gœthe was not +so politic and worldly that a little man could ever have become his +Mæcenas. In the Duchess Amelia and her son he found that practical +sagacity, large knowledge of things as they are, active force, and +genial feeling, which he had never before seen combined.</p> + +<p>The wise mind of the duchess gave the first impulse to the noble course +of Weimar. But that her son should have availed himself of the +foundation she laid is praise enough, in a world where there is such a +rebound from parental influence that it generally seems that the child +makes use of the directions given by the parent only to avoid the +prescribed<a name="page_032" id="page_032"></a> path. The duke availed himself of guidance, though with a +perfect independence in action. The duchess had the unusual wisdom to +know the right time for giving up the reins, and thus maintained her +authority as far as the weight of her character was calculated to give +it.</p> + +<p>Of her Gœthe was thinking when he wrote, "The admirable woman is she, +who, if the husband dies, can be a father to the children."</p> + +<p>The duke seems to have been one of those characters which are best known +by the impression their personal presence makes on us, resembling an +elemental and pervasive force, rather than wearing the features of an +individuality. Gœthe describes him as "<i>Dämonische</i>," that is, gifted +with an instinctive, spontaneous force, which at once, without +calculation or foresight, chooses the right means to an end. As these +beings do not calculate, so is their influence incalculable. Their +repose has as much influence over other beings as their action, even as +the thunder cloud, lying black and distant in the summer sky, is not +less imposing than when it bursts and gives forth its quick lightnings. +Such men were Mirabeau and Swift. They had also distinct talents, but +their influence was from a perception in the minds of men of this +spontaneous energy in their natures. Sometimes, though rarely, we see +such a man in an obscure position; circumstances have not led him to a +large sphere; he may not have expressed in words a single thought worth +recording; but by his eye and voice he rules all around him.</p> + +<p>He stands upon his feet with a firmness and calm security which make +other men seem to halt and totter in their gait. In his deep eye is seen +an infinite comprehension, an infinite reserve of power. No accent of +his sonorous voice is lost on any ear within hearing; and, when he +speaks, men hate or fear perhaps the disturbing power they feel, but +never dream of disobeying. But hear Gœthe himself.</p> + +<p>"The boy believed in nature, in the animate and inanimate<a name="page_033" id="page_033"></a> the +intelligent and unconscious, to discover somewhat which manifested +itself only through contradiction, and therefore could not be +comprehended by any conception, much less defined by a word. It was not +divine, for it seemed without reason; not human, because without +understanding; not devilish, because it worked to good; not angelic, +because it often betrayed a petulant love of mischief. It was like +chance, in that it proved no sequence; it suggested the thought of +Providence, because it indicated connection. To this all our limitations +seem penetrable; it seemed to play at will with all the elements of our +being; it compressed time and dilated space. Only in the impossible did +it seem to delight, and to cast the possible aside with disdain.</p> + +<p>"This existence which seemed to mingle with others, sometimes to +separate, sometimes to unite, I called the Dämonische, after the example +of the ancients, and others who have observed somewhat +similar."—<i>Dichtung und Wahrheit.</i></p> + +<p>"The Dämonische is that which cannot be explained by reason or +understanding; it lies not in my nature, but I am subject to it.</p> + +<p>"Napoleon was a being of this class, and in so high a degree that scarce +any one is to be compared with him. Also our late grand duke was such a +nature, full of unlimited power of action and unrest, so that his own +dominion was too little for him, and the greatest would have been too +little. Demoniac beings of this sort the Greeks reckoned among their +demigods."—<i>Conversations with Eckermann.</i><a name="FNanchor_3_3" id="FNanchor_3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a></p> + +<p>This great force of will, this instinctive directness of action, gave +the duke an immediate ascendency over Gœthe which no other person had +ever possessed. It was by no means mere sycophancy that made him give up +the next ten years,<a name="page_034" id="page_034"></a> the prime of his manhood, to accompanying the grand +duke in his revels, or aiding him in his schemes of practical utility, +or to contriving elegant amusements for the ladies of the court. It was +a real admiration for the character of the genial man of the world and +its environment.</p> + +<p>Whoever is turned from his natural path may, if he will, gain in +largeness and depth what he loses in simple beauty; and so it was with +Gœthe. Faust became a wiser if not a nobler being. Werther, who must +die because life was not wide enough and rich enough in love for him, +ends as the Meister of the Wanderjahre, well content to be one never +inadequate to the occasion, "help-full, comfort-full."</p> + +<p>A great change was, during these years, perceptible to his friends in +the character of Gœthe. From being always "either too volatile or +infatuated," he retreated into a self-collected state, which seemed at +first even icy to those around him. No longer he darted about him the +lightnings of his genius, but sat Jove-like and calm, with the +thunderbolts grasped in his hand, and the eagle gathered to his feet. +His freakish wit was subdued into a calm and even cold irony; his +multiplied relations no longer permitted him to abandon himself to any; +the minister and courtier could not expatiate in the free regions of +invention, and bring upon paper the signs of his higher life, without +subjecting himself to an artificial process of isolation. Obliged to +economy of time and means, he made of his intimates not objects of +devout tenderness, of disinterested care, but the crammers and feeders +of his intellect. The world was to him an arena or a studio, but not a +temple.</p> + +<p>"Ye cannot serve God and Mammon."</p> + +<p>Had Gœthe entered upon practical life from the dictate of his spirit, +which bade him not be a mere author, but a living, loving man, that had +all been well. But he must also be a man of the world, and nothing can +be more unfavorable to true manhood than this ambition. The citizen, the +hero, the<a name="page_035" id="page_035"></a> general, the poet, all these are in true relations; but what +is called being a man of the world is to truckle to it, not truly to +serve it.</p> + +<p>Thus fettered in false relations, detained from retirement upon the +centre of his being, yet so relieved from the early pressure of his +great thoughts as to pity more pious souls for being restless seekers, +no wonder that he wrote,—</p> + +<p>"Es ist dafür gesorgt dass die Bäume nicht in den Himmel wachsen."</p> + +<p>"Care is taken that the trees grow not up into the heavens." Ay, Goethe, +but in proportion to their force of aspiration is their height.</p> + +<p>Yet never let him be confounded with those who sell all their +birthright. He became blind to the more generous virtues, the nobler +impulses, but ever in self-respect was busy to develop his nature. He +was kind, industrious, wise, gentlemanly, if not manly. If his genius +lost sight of the highest aim, he is the best instructor in the use of +means; ceasing to be a prophet poet, he was still a poetic artist. From +this time forward he seems a listener to nature, but not himself the +highest product of nature,—a priest to the soul of nature. His works +grow out of life, but are not instinct with the peculiar life of human +resolve, as are Shakspeare's or Dante's.</p> + +<p>Faust contains the great idea of his life, as indeed there is but one +great poetic idea possible to man—the progress of a soul through the +various forms of existence.</p> + +<p>All his other works, whatever their miraculous beauty of execution, are +mere chapters to this poem, illustrative of particular points. Faust, +had it been completed in the spirit in which it was begun, would have +been the Divina Commedia of its age.</p> + +<p>But nothing can better show the difference of result between a stern and +earnest life, and one of partial accommodation, than a comparison +between the Paridiso and that of the second<a name="page_036" id="page_036"></a> part of Faust. In both a +soul, gradually educated and led back to God, is received at last not +through merit, but grace. But O the difference between the grandly +humble reliance of old Catholicism, and the loophole redemption of +modern sagacity! Dante was a <i>man</i>, of vehement passions, many +prejudices, bitter as much as sweet. His knowledge was scanty, his +sphere of observation narrow, the objects of his active life petty, +compared with those of Gœthe. But, constantly retiring to his deepest +self, clearsighted to the limitations of man, but no less so to the +illimitable energy of the soul, the sharpest details in his work convey +a largest sense, as his strongest and steadiest flights only direct the +eye to heavens yet beyond.</p> + +<p>Yet perhaps he had not so hard a battle to wage, as this other great +poet. The fiercest passions are not so dangerous foes to the soul as the +cold scepticism of the understanding. The Jewish demon assailed the man +of Uz with physical ills, the Lucifer of the middle ages tempted his +passions; but the Mephistopheles of the eighteenth century bade the +finite strive to compass the infinite, and the intellect attempt to +solve all the problems of the soul.</p> + +<p>This path Faust had taken: it is that of modern necromancy. Not willing +to grow into God by the steady worship of a life, men would enforce his +presence by a spell; not willing to learn his existence by the slow +processes of their own, they strive to bind it in a word, that they may +wear it about the neck as a talisman.</p> + +<p>Faust, bent upon reaching the centre of the universe through the +intellect alone, naturally, after a length of trial, which has prevented +the harmonious unfolding of his nature, falls into despair. He has +striven for one object, and that object eludes him. Returning upon +himself, he finds large tracts of his nature lying waste and cheerless. +He is too noble for apathy, too wise for vulgar content with the animal +enjoyments of life. Yet the thirst he has been so many years increasing +is<a name="page_037" id="page_037"></a> not to be borne. Give me, he cries, but a drop of water to cool my +burning tongue. Yet, in casting himself with a wild recklessness upon +the impulses of his nature yet untried, there is a disbelief that any +thing short of the All can satisfy the immortal spirit. His first +attempt was noble, though mistaken, and under the saving influence of +it, he makes the compact, whose condition cheats the fiend at last.</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Kannst du mich schmeichelnd je belügen<br /> +Dass ich mir selbst gefallen mag,<br /> +Kannst du mich mit Genuss betrügen:<br /> +Das sey für mich der letzte Tag.<br /> +<br /> +Werd ich zum Augenblicke sagen:<br /> +Verweile doch! du bist so schön!<br /> +Dann magst du mich in Fesseln schlagen,<br /> +Dann will ich gern zu Grunde gehen.<br /> +<br /> +Canst thou by falsehood or by flattery<br /> +Make me one moment with myself at peace,<br /> +Cheat me into tranquillity? Come then<br /> +And welcome, life's last day.<br /> +Make me but to the moment say,<br /> +O fly not yet, thou art so fair,<br /> +Then let me perish, &c.<br /> +</p> + +<p>But this condition is never fulfilled. Faust cannot be content with +sensuality, with the charlatanry of ambition, nor with riches. His heart +never becomes callous, nor his moral and intellectual perceptions +obtuse. He is saved at last.</p> + +<p>With the progress of an individual soul is shadowed forth that of the +soul of the age; beginning in intellectual scepticism; sinking into +license; cheating itself with dreams of perfect bliss, to be at once +attained by means no surer than a spurious paper currency; longing +itself back from conflict between the<a name="page_038" id="page_038"></a> spirit and the flesh, induced by +Christianity, to the Greek era with its harmonious development of body +and mind; striving to reëmbody the loved phantom of classical beauty in +the heroism of the middle age; flying from the Byron despair of those +who die because they cannot soar without wings, to schemes however +narrow, of practical utility,—redeemed at last through mercy alone.</p> + +<p>The second part of Faust is full of meaning, resplendent with beauty; +but it is rather an appendix to the first part than a fulfilment of its +promise. The world, remembering the powerful stamp of individual +feeling, universal indeed in its application, but individual in its +life, which had conquered all its scruples in the first part, was vexed +to find, instead of the man Faust, the spirit of the age,—discontented +with the shadowy manifestation of truths it longed to embrace, and, +above all, disappointed that the author no longer met us face to face, +or riveted the ear by his deep tones of grief and resolve.</p> + +<p>When the world shall have got rid of the still overpowering influence of +the first part, it will be seen that the fundamental idea is never lost +sight of in the second. The change is that Gœthe, though the same +thinker, is no longer the same person.</p> + +<p>The continuation of Faust in the practical sense of the education of a +man is to be found in Wilhelm Meister. Here we see the change by +strongest contrast. The mainspring of action is no longer the +impassioned and noble seeker, but a disciple of circumstance, whose most +marked characteristic is a taste for virtue and knowledge. Wilhelm +certainly prefers these conditions of existence to their opposites, but +there is nothing so decided in his character as to prevent his turning a +clear eye on every part of that variegated world-scene which the writer +wished to place before us.</p> + +<p>To see all till he knows all sufficiently to put objects into their +relations, then to concentrate his powers and use his<a name="page_039" id="page_039"></a> knowledge under +recognized conditions,—such is the progress of man from Apprentice to +Master.</p> + +<p>'Tis pity that the volumes of the Wanderjahre have not been translated +entire, as well as those of the Lehrjahre, for many, who have read the +latter only, fancy that Wilhelm becomes a master in that work. Far from +it; he has but just become conscious of the higher powers that have +ceaselessly been weaving his fate. Far from being as yet a Master, he +but now begins to be a Knower. In the Wanderjahre we find him gradually +learning the duties of citizenship, and hardening into manhood, by +applying what he has learned for himself to the education of his child. +He converses on equal terms with the wise and beneficent; he is no +longer duped and played with for his good, but met directly mind to +mind.</p> + +<p>Wilhelm is a master when he can command his actions, yet keep his mind +always open to new means of knowledge; when he has looked at various +ways of living, various forms of religion and of character, till he has +learned to be tolerant of all, discerning of good in all; when the +astronomer imparts to his equal ear his highest thoughts, and the poor +cottager seeks his aid as a patron and counsellor.</p> + +<p>To be capable of all duties, limited by none, with an open eye, a +skilful and ready hand, an assured step, a mind deep, calm, foreseeing +without anxiety, hopeful without the aid of illusion,—such is the ripe +state of manhood. This attained, the great soul should still seek and +labor, but strive and battle never more.</p> + +<p>The reason for Gœthe's choosing so negative a character as Wilhelm, +and leading him through scenes of vulgarity and low vice, would be +obvious enough to a person of any depth of thought, even if he himself +had not announced it. He thus obtained room to paint life as it really +is, and bring forward those slides in the magic lantern which are always +known to exist, though they may not be spoken of to ears polite.<a name="page_040" id="page_040"></a></p> + +<p>Wilhelm cannot abide in tradition, nor do as his fathers did before him, +merely for the sake of money or a standing in society. The stage, here +an emblem of the ideal life as it gleams before unpractised eyes, +offers, he fancies, opportunity for a life of thought as distinguished +from one of routine. Here, no longer the simple citizen, but Man, all +Men, he will rightly take upon himself the different aspects of life, +till poet-wise, he shall have learned them all.</p> + +<p>No doubt the attraction of the stage to young persons of a vulgar +character is merely the brilliancy of its trappings; but to Wilhelm, as +to Gœthe, it was this poetic freedom and daily suggestion which +seemed likely to offer such an agreeable studio in the greenroom.</p> + +<p>But the ideal must be rooted in the real, else the poet's life +degenerates into buffoonery or vice. Wilhelm finds the characters formed +by this would-be ideal existence more despicable than those which grew +up on the track, dusty and bustling and dull as it had seemed, of common +life. He is prepared by disappointment for a higher ambition.</p> + +<p>In the house of the count he finds genuine elegance, genuine sentiment, +but not sustained by wisdom, or a devotion to important objects. This +love, this life, is also inadequate.</p> + +<p>Now, with Teresa he sees the blessings of domestic peace. He sees a mind +sufficient for itself, finding employment and education in the perfect +economy of a little world. The lesson is pertinent to the state of mind +in which his former experiences have left him, as indeed our deepest +lore is won from reaction. But a sudden change of scene introduces him +to the society of the sage and learned uncle, the sage and beneficent +Natalia. Here he finds the same virtues as with Teresa, and enlightened +by a larger wisdom.</p> + +<p>A friend of mine says that his ideal of a friend is a worthy aunt, one +who has the tenderness without the blindness of a mother, and takes the +same charge of the child's mind as the mother of its body. I don't know +but this may have a foundation<a name="page_041" id="page_041"></a> in truth, though, if so, auntism, like +other grand professions, has sadly degenerated. At any rate, Gœthe +seems to be possessed with a similar feeling. The Count de Thorane, a +man of powerful character, who made a deep impression on his childhood, +was, he says, "reverenced by me as an uncle." And the ideal wise man of +this common life epic stands before us as "The Uncle."</p> + +<p>After seeing the working of just views in the establishment of the +uncle, learning piety from the Confessions of a Beautiful Soul, and +religious beneficence from the beautiful life of Natalia, Wilhelm is +deemed worthy of admission to the society of the Illuminati, that is, +those who have pierced the secret of life, and know what it is to be and +to do.</p> + +<p>Here he finds the scroll of his life "drawn with large, sharp strokes," +that is, these truly wise read his character for him, and "mind and +destiny are but two names for one idea."</p> + +<p>He now knows enough to enter on the Wanderjahre.</p> + +<p>Gœthe always represents the highest principle in the feminine form. +Woman is the Minerva, man the Mars. As in the Faust, the purity of +Gretchen, resisting the demon always, even after all her faults, is +announced to have saved her soul to heaven; and in the second part she +appears, not only redeemed herself, but by her innocence and forgiving +tenderness hallowed to redeem the being who had injured her.</p> + +<p>So in the Meister, these women hover around the narrative, each +embodying the spirit of the scene. The frail Philina, graceful though +contemptible, represents the degradation incident to an attempt at +leading an exclusively poetic life. Mignon, gift divine as ever the Muse +bestowed on the passionate heart of man, with her soft, mysterious +inspiration, her pining for perpetual youth, represents the high desire +that leads to this mistake, as Aurelia, the desire for excitement; +Teresa, practical wisdom, gentle tranquillity, which seem most desirable +after the Aurelia glare. Of the beautiful soul and Natalia we have +already spoken. The former embodies<a name="page_042" id="page_042"></a> what was suggested to Gœthe by +the most spiritual person he knew in youth—Mademoiselle von +Klettenberg, over whom, as he said, in her invalid loneliness the Holy +Ghost brooded like a dove.</p> + +<p>Entering on the Wanderjahre, Wilhelm becomes acquainted with another +woman, who seems the complement of all the former, and represents the +idea which is to guide and mould him in the realization of all the past +experience.</p> + +<p>This person, long before we see her, is announced in various ways as a +ruling power. She is the last hope in cases of difficulty, and, though +an invalid, and living in absolute retirement, is consulted by her +connections and acquaintance as an unerring judge in all their affairs.</p> + +<p>All things tend towards her as a centre; she knows all, governs all, but +never goes forth from herself.</p> + +<p>Wilhelm at last visits her. He finds her infirm in body, but equal to +all she has to do. Charity and counsel to men who need her are her +business, astronomy her pleasure.</p> + +<p>After a while, Wilhelm ascertains from the Astronomer, her companion, +what he had before suspected, that she really belongs to the solar +system, and only appears on earth to give men a feeling of the planetary +harmony. From her youth up, says the Astronomer, till she knew me, +though all recognized in her an unfolding of the highest moral and +intellectual qualities, she was supposed to be sick at her times of +clear vision. When her thoughts were not in the heavens, she returned +and acted in obedience to them on earth; she was then said to be well.</p> + +<p>When the Astronomer had observed her long enough, he confirmed her +inward consciousness of a separate existence and peculiar union with the +heavenly bodies.</p> + +<p>Her picture is painted with many delicate traits, and a gradual +preparation leads the reader to acknowledge the truth; but, even in the +slight indication here given, who does not recognize thee, divine +Philosophy, sure as the planetary orbits, and<a name="page_043" id="page_043"></a> inexhaustible as the +fountain of light, crowning the faithful Seeker at last with the +privilege to possess his own soul.</p> + +<p>In all that is said of Macaria,<a name="FNanchor_4_4" id="FNanchor_4_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> we recognize that no thought is too +religious for the mind of Gœthe. It was indeed so; you can deny him +nothing, but only feel that his works are not instinct and glowing with +the central fire, and, after catching a glimpse pf the highest truth, +are forced again to find him too much afraid of losing sight of the +limitations of nature to overflow you or himself with the creative +spirit.</p> + +<p>While the apparition of the celestial Macaria seems to announce the +ultimate destiny of the soul of man, the practical application of all +Wilhelm has thus painfully acquired is not of pure Delphian strain. +Gœthe draws, as he passes, a dart from the quiver of Phœbus, but +ends as Æsculapius or Mercury. Wilhelm, at the school of the Three +Reverences, thinks out what can be done for man in his temporal +relations. He learns to practise moderation, and even painful +renunciation. The book ends, simply indicating what the course of his +life will be, by making him perform an act of kindness, with good +judgment and at the right moment.</p> + +<p>Surely the simple soberness of Gœthe should please at least those who +style themselves, preëminently, people of common sense.</p> + +<p>The following remarks are by the celebrated Rahel von Ense, whose +discernment as to his works was highly prized by Gœthe.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p class="c"> +"<i>Don Quixote and Wilhelm Meister</i>!<br /> +</p> + +<p>"Embrace one another, Cervantes and Gœthe!</p> + +<p>"Both, using their own clear eyes, vindicated human nature. They +saw the champions through their errors and follies, looking down +into the deepest soul, seeing there the<a name="page_044" id="page_044"></a> true form. <i>Respectable</i> +people call the Don as well as Meister a fool, wandering hither and +thither, transacting no business of real life, bringing nothing to +pass, scarce even knowing what he ought to think on any subject, +very unfit for the hero of a romance. Yet has our sage known how to +paint the good and honest mind in perpetual toil and conflict with +the world, as it is embodied; never sharing one moment the impure +confusion; always striving to find fault with and improve itself, +always so innocent as to see others far better than they are, and +generally preferring them to itself, learning from all, indulging +all except the manifestly base; the more you understand, the more +you respect and love this character. Cervantes has painted the +knight, Gœthe the culture of the entire man,—both their own +time."</p></div> + +<p>But those who demand from him a life-long continuance of the early ardor +of Faust, who wish to see, throughout his works, not only such manifold +beauty and subtle wisdom, but the clear assurance of divinity, the pure +white light of Macaria, wish that he had not so variously unfolded his +nature, and concentred it more. They would see him slaying the serpent +with the divine wrath of Apollo, rather than taming it to his service, +like Æsculapius. They wish that he had never gone to Weimar, had never +become a universal connoisseur and dilettante in science, and courtier +as "graceful as a born nobleman," but had endured the burden of life +with the suffering crowd, and deepened his nature in loneliness and +privation, till Faust had conquered, rather than cheated the devil, and +the music of heavenly faith superseded the grave and mild eloquence of +human wisdom.</p> + +<p>The expansive genius which moved so gracefully in its self imposed +fetters, is constantly surprising us by its content with a choice low, +in so far as it was not the highest of which the mind was capable. The +secret may be found in the second motto of this slight essay.<a name="page_045" id="page_045"></a></p> + +<p>"He who would do great things must quickly draw together his forces. The +master can only show himself such through limitation, and the law alone +can give us freedom."</p> + +<p>But there is a higher spiritual law always ready to supersede the +temporal laws at the call of the human soul. The soul that is too +content with usual limitations will never call forth this unusual +manifestation.</p> + +<p>If there be a tide in the affairs of men, which must be taken at the +right moment to lead on to fortune, it is the same with inward as with +outward life. He who, in the crisis hour of youth, has stopped short of +himself, is not likely to find again what he has missed in one life, for +there are a great number of blanks to a prize in each lottery.</p> + +<p>But the pang we feel that "those who are so much are not more," seems to +promise new spheres, new ages, new crises to enable these beings to +complete their circle.</p> + +<p>Perhaps Gœthe is even now sensible that he should not have stopped at +Weimar as his home, but made it one station on the way to Paradise; not +stopped at humanity, but regarded it as symbolical of the divine, and +given to others to feel more distinctly the centre of the universe, as +well as the harmony in its parts. It is great to be an Artist, a Master, +greater still to be a Seeker till the Man has found all himself.</p> + +<p>What Gœthe meant by self-collection was a collection of means for +work, rather than to divine the deepest truths of being. Thus are these +truths always indicated, never declared; and the religious hope awakened +by his subtle discernment of the workings of nature never gratified, +except through the intellect.</p> + +<p>He whose prayer is only work will not leave his treasure in the secret +shrine.</p> + +<p>One is ashamed when finding any fault with one like Gœthe, who is so +great. It seems the only criticism should be to do all he omitted to do, +and that none who cannot is entitled to say a word. Let that one speak +who was all Gœthe<a name="page_046" id="page_046"></a> was not,—noble, true, virtuous, but neither wise +nor subtle in his generation, a divine ministrant, a baffled man, ruled +and imposed on by the pygmies whom he spurned, an heroic artist, a +democrat to the tune of Burns:</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr><td align="left">"The rank is but the guinea's stamp;</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">The man's the gowd for a' that."</td></tr> +</table> + +<p>Hear Beethoven speak of Gœthe on an occasion which brought out the +two characters in strong contrast.</p> + +<p>Extract from a letter of Beethoven to Bettina Brentano Töplitz, 1812.</p> + +<p>"Kings and princes can indeed make professors and privy councillors, and +hang upon them titles; but great men they cannot make; souls that rise +above the mud of the world, these they must let be made by other means +than theirs, and should therefore show them respect. When two such as I +and Gœthe come together, then must great lords observe what is +esteemed great by one of us. Coming home yesterday we met the whole +imperial family. We saw them coming, and Gœthe left me and insisted +on standing one side; let me say what I would, I could not make him come +on one step. I pressed my hat upon my head, buttoned my surtout, and +passed on through the thickest crowd. Princes and parasites made way; +the Archduke Rudolph took off his hat; the empress greeted me first. +Their highnesses <span class="smcap">KNOW ME</span>. I was well amused to see the crowd pass by +Gœthe. At the side stood he, hat in hand, low bowed in reverence till +all had gone by. Then I scolded him well; I gave no pardon, but +reproached him with all his sins, most of all those towards you, dearest +Bettina; we had just been talking of you."</p> + +<p>If Beethoven appears, in this scene, somewhat arrogant and bearish, yet +how noble his extreme compared with the opposite! Gœthe's friendship +with the grand duke we respect, for Karl August was a strong man. But we +regret to see at<a name="page_047" id="page_047"></a> the command of any and all members of the ducal +family, and their connections, who had nothing but rank to recommend +them, his time and thoughts, of which he was so chary to private +friends. Beethoven could not endure to teach the Archduke Rudolph, who +had the soul duly to revere his genius, because he felt it to be +"hofdíenst," court service. He received with perfect nonchalance the +homage of the sovereigns of Europe. Only the Empress of Russia and the +Archduke Karl, whom he esteemed as individuals, had power to gratify him +by their attentions. Compare with, Gœthe's obsequious pleasure at +being able gracefully to compliment such high personages, Beethoven's +conduct with regard to the famous Heroic Symphony. This was composed at +the suggestion of Bernadotte, while Napoleon was still in his first +glory. He was then the hero of Beethoven's imagination, who hoped from +him the liberation of Europe. With delight the great artist expressed in +his eternal harmonies the progress of the Hero's soul. The symphony was +finished, and even dedicated to Bonaparte, when the news came of his +declaring himself Emperor of the French. The first act of the indignant +artist was to tear off his dedication and trample it under foot; nor +could he endure again even the mention of Napoleon until the time of his +fall.</p> + +<p>Admit that Gœthe had a natural taste for the trappings of rank and +wealth, from which the musician was quite free, yet we cannot doubt that +both saw through these externals to man as a nature; there can be no +doubt on whose side was the simple greatness, the noble truth. We pardon +thee, Gœthe,—but thee, Beethoven, we revere, for thou hast +maintained the worship of the Manly, the Permanent, the True!</p> + +<p>The clear perception which was in Gœthe's better nature of the beauty +of that steadfastness, of that singleness and simple melody of soul, +which he too much sacrificed to become "the many-sided One," is shown +most distinctly in his<a name="page_048" id="page_048"></a> two surpassingly beautiful works, The Elective +Affinities and Iphigenia.</p> + +<p>Not Werther, not the Nouvelle Héloise, have been assailed with such a +storm of indignation as the first-named of these works, on the score of +gross immorality.</p> + +<p>The reason probably is the subject; any discussion of the validity of +the marriage vow making society tremble to its foundation; and, +secondly, the cold manner in which it is done. All that is in the book +would be bearable to most minds if the writer had had less the air of a +spectator, and had larded his work here and there with ejaculations of +horror and surprise.</p> + +<p>These declarations of sentiment on the part of the author seem to be +required by the majority of readers, in order to an interpretation of +his purpose, as sixthly, seventhly, and eighthly were, in an +old-fashioned sermon, to rouse the audience to a perception of the +method made use of by the preacher.</p> + +<p>But it has always seemed to me that those who need not such helps to +their discriminating faculties, but read a work so thoroughly as to +apprehend its whole scope and tendency, rather than hear what the author +says it means, will regard the Elective Affinities as a work especially +what is called moral in its outward effect, and religious even to piety +in its spirit. The mental aberrations of the consorts from their +plighted faith, though in the one case never indulged, and though in the +other no veil of sophistry is cast over the weakness of passion, but all +that is felt expressed with the openness of one who desires to +legitimate what he feels, are punished by terrible griefs and a fatal +catastrophe. Ottilia, that being of exquisite purity, with intellect and +character so harmonized in feminine beauty, as they never before were +found in any portrait of woman painted by the hand of man, perishes, on +finding she has been breathed on by unhallowed passion, and led to err +even by her ignorant wishes against<a name="page_049" id="page_049"></a> what is held sacred. The only +personage whom we do not pity is Edward, for he is the only one who +stifles the voice of conscience.</p> + +<p>There is indeed a sadness, as of an irresistible fatality, brooding over +the whole. It seems as if only a ray of angelic truth could have enabled +these men to walk wisely in this twilight, at first so soft and +alluring, then deepening into blind horror.</p> + +<p>But if no such ray came to prevent their earthly errors, it seems to +point heavenward in the saintly sweetness of Ottilia. Her nature, too +fair for vice, too finely wrought even for error, comes lonely, intense, +and pale, like the evening star on the cold, wintry night. It tells of +other worlds, where the meaning of such strange passages as this must be +read to those faithful and pure like her, victims perishing in the green +garlands of a spotless youth to atone for the unworthiness of others.</p> + +<p>An unspeakable pathos is felt from the minutest trait of this character, +and deepens with every new study of it. Not even in Shakspeare have I so +felt the organizing power of genius. Through dead words I find the least +gestures of this person, stamping themselves on my memory, betraying to +the heart the secret of her life, which she herself, like all these +divine beings, knew not. I feel myself familiarized with all beings of +her order. I see not only what she was, but what she might have been, +and live with her in yet untrodden realms.</p> + +<p>Here is the glorious privilege of a form known only in the world of +genius. There is on it no stain of usage or calculation to dull our +sense of its immeasurable life. What in our daily walk, mid common faces +and common places, fleets across us at moments from glances of the eye, +or tones of the voice, is felt from the whole being of one of these +children of genius.</p> + +<p>This precious gem is set in a ring complete in its enamel. I cannot hope +to express my sense of the beauty of this book<a name="page_050" id="page_050"></a> as a work of art. I +would not attempt it if I had elsewhere met any testimony to the same. +The perfect picture, always before the mind, of the chateau, the moss +hut, the park, the garden, the lake, with its boat and the landing +beneath the platan trees; the gradual manner in which both localities +and persons grow upon us, more living than life, inasmuch as we are, +unconsciously, kept at our best temperature by the atmosphere of genius, +and thereby more delicate in our perceptions than amid our customary +fogs; the gentle unfolding of the central thought, as a flower in the +morning sun; then the conclusion, rising like a cloud, first soft and +white, but darkening as it comes, till with a sudden wind it bursts +above our heads; the ease with which we every where find points of view +all different, yet all bearing on the same circle, for, though we feel +every hour new worlds, still before our eye lie the same objects, new, +yet the same, unchangeable, yet always changing their aspects as we +proceed, till at last we find we ourselves have traversed the circle, +and know all we overlooked at first,—these things are worthy of our +highest admiration.</p> + +<p>For myself, I never felt so completely that very thing which genius +should always make us feel—that I was in its circle, and could not get +out till its spell was done, and its last spirit permitted to depart. I +was not carried away, instructed, delighted more than by other works, +but I was <i>there</i>, living there, whether as the platan tree, or the +architect, or any other observing part of the scene. The personages live +too intensely to let us live in them; they draw around themselves +circles within the circle; we can only see them close, not be +themselves.</p> + +<p>Others, it would seem, on closing the book, exclaim, "What an immoral +book!" I well remember my own thought, "It is a work of art!" At last I +understood that world within a world, that ripest fruit of human nature, +which is called art. With each perusal of the book my surprise and +delight at this<a name="page_051" id="page_051"></a> wonderful fulfilment of design grew. I understood why +Gœthe was well content to be called Artist, and his works, works of +Art, rather than revelations. At this moment, remembering what I then +felt, I am inclined to class all my negations just written on this paper +as stuff, and to look upon myself, for thinking them, with as much +contempt as Mr. Carlyle, or Mrs. Austin, or Mrs. Jameson might do, to +say nothing of the German Gœtheans.</p> + +<p>Yet that they were not without foundation I feel again when I turn to +the Iphigenia—a work beyond the possibility of negation; a work where a +religious meaning not only pierces but enfolds the whole; a work as +admirable in art, still higher in significance, more single in +expression.</p> + +<p>There is an English translation (I know not how good) of Gœthe's +Iphigenia. But as it may not be generally known, I will give a sketch of +the drama. Iphigenia, saved, at the moment of the sacrifice made by +Agamemnon in behalf of the Greeks, by the goddess, and transferred to +the temple at Tauris, appears alone in the consecrated grove. Many years +have passed since she was severed from the home of such a tragic fate, +the palace of Mycenæ. Troy had fallen, Agamemnon been murdered, Orestes +had grown up to avenge his death. All these events were unknown to the +exiled Iphigenia. The priestess of Diana in a barbarous land, she had +passed the years in the duties of the sanctuary, and in acts of +beneficence. She had acquired great power over the mind of Thoas, king +of Tauris, and used it to protect strangers, whom it had previously been +the custom of the country to sacrifice to the goddess.</p> + +<p>She salutes us with a soliloquy, of which I give a rude translation:—</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Beneath your shade, living summits<br /> +Of this ancient, holy, thick-leaved grove,<br /> +As in the silent sanctuary of the Goddess,<a name="page_052" id="page_052"></a><br /> +Still I walk with those same shuddering feelings,<br /> +As when I trod these walks for the first time.<br /> +My spirit cannot accustom itself to these places;<br /> +Many years now has kept me here concealed<br /> +A higher will, to which I am submissive;<br /> +Yet ever am I, as at first, the stranger;<br /> +For ah! the sea divides me from my beloved ones,<br /> +And on the shore whole days I stand,<br /> +Seeking with my soul the land of the Greeks,<br /> +And to my sighs brings the rushing wave only<br /> +Its hollow tones in answer.<br /> +Woe to him who, far from parents, and brothers, and sisters,<br /> +Drags on a lonely life. Grief consumes<br /> +The nearest happiness away from his lips;<br /> +His thoughts crowd downwards—<br /> +Seeking the hall of his fathers, where the Sun<br /> +First opened heaven to him, and kindred-born<br /> +In their first plays knit daily firmer and firmer<br /> +The bond from heart to heart—I question not the Gods,<br /> +Only the lot of woman is one of sorrow;<br /> +In the house and in the war man rules,<br /> +Knows how to help himself in foreign lands,<br /> +Possessions gladden and victory crowns him,<br /> +And an honorable death stands ready to end his days.<br /> +Within what narrow limits is bounded the luck of woman!<br /> +To obey a rude husband even is duty and comfort; how sad<br /> +When, instead, a hostile fate drives her out of her sphere!<br /> +So holds me Thoas, indeed a noble man, fast<br /> +In solemn, sacred, but slavish bonds.<br /> +O, with shame I confess that with secret reluctance<br /> +I serve thee, Goddess, thee, my deliverer.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">My life should freely have been dedicate to thee,</span><br /> +But I have always been hoping in thee, O Diana,<br /> +Who didst take in thy soft arms me, the rejected daughter<br /> +Of the greatest king! Yes, daughter of Zeus,<a name="page_053" id="page_053"></a><br /> +I thought if thou gavest such anguish to him, the high hero,<br /> +The godlike Agamemnon;<br /> +Since he brought his dearest, a victim, to thy altar,<br /> +That, when he should return, crowned with glory, from Ilium,<br /> +At the same time thou would'st give to his arms his other treasures,<br /> +His spouse, Electra, and the princely son;<br /> +Me also, thou would'st restore to mine own,<br /> +Saving a second time me, whom from death thou didst save,<br /> +From this worse death,—the life of exile here.<br /> +</p> + +<p>These are the words and thoughts; but how give an idea of the sweet +simplicity of expression in the original, where every word has the grace +and softness of a flower petal?</p> + +<p>She is interrupted by a messenger from the king, who prepares her for a +visit from himself of a sort she has dreaded. Thoas, who has always +loved her, now left childless by the calamities of war, can no longer +resist his desire to reanimate by her presence his desert house. He +begins by urging her to tell him the story of her race, which she does +in a way that makes us feel as if that most famous tragedy had never +before found a voice, so simple, so fresh in its naïveté is the recital.</p> + +<p>Thoas urges his suit undismayed by the fate that hangs over the race of +Tantalus.</p> + +<p class="poem"> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;"><span class="smcap">Thoas.</span></span><br /> +<br /> +Was it the same Tantalus,<br /> +Whom Jupiter called to his council and banquets,<br /> +In whose talk so deeply experienced, full of various learning,<br /> +The Gods delighted as in the speech of oracles?<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;"><span class="smcap">Iphigenia.</span></span><br /> +<br /> +It is the same, but the Gods should not<br /> +Converse with men, as with their equals.<br /> +The mortal race is much too weak<br /> +Not to turn giddy on unaccustomed heights.<a name="page_054" id="page_054"></a><br /> +He was not ignoble, neither a traitor,<br /> +But for a servant too great, and as a companion<br /> +Of the great Thunderer only a man. So was<br /> +His fault also that of a man, its penalty<br /> +Severe, and poets sing—Presumption<br /> +And faithlessness cast him down from the throne of Jove,<br /> +Into the anguish of ancient Tartarus;<br /> +Ah, and all his race bore their hate.<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;"><span class="smcap">Thoas.</span></span><br /> +<br /> +Bore it the blame of the ancestor, or its own?<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;"><span class="smcap">Iphigenia.</span></span><br /> +<br /> +Truly the vehement breast and powerful life of the Titan<br /> +Were the assured inheritance of son and grandchild;<br /> +But the Gods bound their brows with a brazen band,<br /> +Moderation, counsel, wisdom, and patience<br /> +Were hid from their wild, gloomy glance,<br /> +Each desire grew to fury,<br /> +And limitless ranged their passionate thoughts.<br /> +</p> + +<p>Iphigenia refuses with gentle firmness to give to gratitude what was not +due. Thoas leaves her in anger, and, to make her feel it, orders that +the old, barbarous custom be renewed, and two strangers just arrived be +immolated at Diana's altar.</p> + +<p>Iphigenia, though distressed, is not shaken by this piece of tyranny. +She trusts her heavenly protectress will find some way for her to save +these unfortunates without violating her truth.</p> + +<p>The strangers are Orestes and Pylades, sent thither by the oracle of +Apollo, who bade them go to Tauris and bring back "The Sister;" thus +shall the heaven-ordained parricide of Orestes be expiated, and the +Furies cease to pursue him.</p> + +<p>The Sister they interpret to be Dian, Apollo's sister; but Iphigenia, +sister to Orestes, is really meant.<a name="page_055" id="page_055"></a></p> + +<p>The next act contains scenes of most delicate workmanship, first between +the light-hearted Pylades, full of worldly resource and ready +tenderness, and the suffering Orestes, of far nobler, indeed heroic +nature, but less fit for the day and more for the ages. In the first +scene the characters of both are brought out with great skill, and the +nature of the bond between "the butterfly and the dark flower," +distinctly shown in few words.</p> + +<p>The next scene is between Iphigenia and Pylades. Pylades, though he +truly answers the questions of the priestess about the fate of Troy and +the house of Agamemnon, does not hesitate to conceal from her who +Orestes really is, and manufactures a tissue of useless falsehoods with +the same readiness that the wise Ulysses showed in exercising his +ingenuity on similar occasions.</p> + +<p>It is said, I know not how truly, that the modern Greeks are Ulyssean in +this respect, never telling straightforward truth, when deceit will +answer the purpose; and if they tell any truth, practising the economy +of the King of Ithaca, in always reserving a part for their own use. The +character which this denotes is admirably hit off with few strokes in +Pylades, the fair side of whom Iphigenia thus paints in a later scene.</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Bless, ye Gods, our Pylades,<br /> +And whatever he may undertake;<br /> +He is the arm of the youth in battle,<br /> +The light-giving eye of the aged man in the council.<br /> +For his soul is still; it preserves<br /> +The holy possession of Repose unexhausted,<br /> +And from its depths still reaches<br /> +Help and advice to those tossed to and fro.<br /> +</p> + +<p>Iphigenia leaves him in sudden agitation, when informed of the death of +Agamemnon. Returning, she finds in his place<a name="page_056" id="page_056"></a> Orestes, whom she had not +before seen, and draws from him by her artless questions the sequel to +this terrible drama wrought by his hand. After he has concluded his +narrative, in the deep tones of cold anguish, she cries,—</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Immortals, you who through your bright days<br /> +Live in bliss, throned on clouds ever renewed,<br /> +Only for this have you all these years<br /> +Kept me separate from men, and so near yourselves,<br /> +Given me the child-like employment to cherish the fires on your altars,<br /> +That my soul might, in like pious clearness,<br /> +Be ever aspiring towards your abodes,<br /> +That only later and deeper I might feel<br /> +The anguish and horror that have darkened my house.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 17em;">O Stranger,</span><br /> +Speak to me of the unhappy one, tell me of Orestes.<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;"><span class="smcap">Orestes.</span><br /></span> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 7em;">O, might I speak of his death!</span><br /> +Vehement flew up from the reeking blood<br /> +His Mother's Soul!<br /> +And called to the ancient daughters of Night,<br /> +Let not the parricide escape;<br /> +Pursue that man of crime; he is yours!<br /> +They obey, their hollow eyes<br /> +Darting about with vulture eagerness;<br /> +They stir themselves in their black dens,<br /> +From corners their companions<br /> +Doubt and Remorse steal out to join them.<br /> +Before them roll the mists of Acheron;<br /> +In its cloudy volumes rolls<br /> +The eternal contemplation of the irrevocable<br /> +Permitted now in their love of ruin they tread<br /> +The beautiful fields of a God-planted earth,<a name="page_057" id="page_057"></a><br /> +From which they had long been banished by an early curse,<br /> +Their swift feet follow the fugitive,<br /> +They pause never except to gather more power to dismay.<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;"><span class="smcap">Iphigenia.</span></span><br /> +<br /> +Unhappy man, thou art in like manner tortured,<br /> +And feelest truly what he, the poor fugitive, suffers!<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;"><span class="smcap">Orestes.</span><br /></span> +<br /> +What sayest thou? what meanest by "like manner"?<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;"><span class="smcap">Iphigenia.</span></span><br /> +<br /> +Thee, too, the weight of a fratricide crushes to earth; the tale<br /> +I had from thy younger brother.<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;"><span class="smcap">Orestes.</span><br /></span> +<br /> +I cannot suffer that thou, great soul,<br /> +Shouldst be deceived by a false tale;<br /> +A web of lies let stranger weave for stranger<br /> +Subtle with many thoughts, accustomed to craft,<br /> +Guarding his feet against a trap.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 15em;">But between us</span><br /> +Be Truth;—<br /> +I am Orestes,—and this guilty head<br /> +Bent downward to the grave seeks death;<br /> +In any shape were he welcome.<br /> +Whoever thou art, I wish thou mightst be saved,<br /> +Thou and my friend; for myself I wish it not.<br /> +Thou seem'st against thy will here to remain;<br /> +Invent a way to fly and leave me here.<br /> +</p> + +<p>Like all pure productions of genius, this may be injured by the +slightest change, and I dare not flatter myself that the English words +give an idea of the heroic dignity expressed in the cadence of the +original, by the words<a name="page_058" id="page_058"></a></p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry"> +<tr><td align="right">"Twischen uns</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Seg Wahrheit!</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Ich bin Orest!"</td></tr> +</table> + +<p class="nind">where the Greek seems to fold his robe around him in the full strength +of classic manhood, prepared for worst and best, not like a cold Stoic, +but a hero, who can feel all, know all, and endure all. The name of two +syllables in the German is much more forcible for the pause, than the +three-syllable Orestes.</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry"> +<tr><td align="right">"Between us</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Be Truth,"</td></tr> +</table> + +<p class="nind">is fine to my ear, on which our word Truth also pauses with a large +dignity.</p> + +<p>The scenes go on more and more full of breathing beauty. The lovely joy +of Iphigenia, the meditative softness with which the religiously +educated mind perpetually draws the inference from the most agitating +events, impress us more and more. At last the hour of trial comes. She +is to keep off Thoas by a cunningly devised tale, while her brother and +Pylades contrive their escape. Orestes has received to his heart the +sister long lost, divinely restored, and in the embrace the curse falls +from him, he is well, and Pylades more than happy. The ship waits to +carry her to the palace home she is to free from a century's weight of +pollution; and already the blue heavens of her adored Greece gleam +before her fancy.</p> + +<p>But, O, the step before all this can be obtained;—to deceive Thoas, a +savage and a tyrant indeed, but long her protector,—in his barbarous +fashion, her benefactor! How can she buy life, happiness, or even the +safety of those dear ones at such a price?</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry"> +<tr><td align="right">"Woe,</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">O Woe upon the lie! It frees not the breast,</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Like the true-spoken word; it comforts not, but tortures<a name="page_059" id="page_059"></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Him who devised it, and returns,</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">An arrow once let fly, God-repelled, back,</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">On the bosom of the Archer!"</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">O, must I then resign the silent hope</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Which gave a beauty to my loneliness?</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Must the curse dwell forever, and our race</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Never be raised to life by a new blessing?</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">All things decay, the fairest bliss is transient,</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">The powers most full of life grow faint at last;</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">And shall a curse alone boast an incessant life?</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Then have I idly hoped that here kept pure,</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">So strangely severed from my kindred's lot,</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">I was designed to come at the right moment,</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">And with pure hand and heart to expiate</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">The many sins that stain my native home.</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">To lie, to steal the sacred image!</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Olympians, let not these vulture talons</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Seize on the tender breast. O, save me,</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">And save your image in my soul!</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Within my ears resounds the ancient lay,—</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">I had forgotten it, and would so gladly,—</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">The lay of the Parcæ, which they awful sung;</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">As Tantalus fell from his golden seat</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">They suffered with the noble friend. Wrathful</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Was their heart, and fearful was the song.</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">In our childhood the nurse was wont to sing it</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">To me, and my brother and sister. I marked it well.</td></tr> +</table> + +<p class="nind">Then follows the sublime song of the Parcæ, well known through +translations.</p> + +<p>But Iphigenia is not a victim of fate, for she listens steadfastly to +the god in her breast. Her lips are incapable of subterfuge. She obeys +her own heart, tells all to the king,<a name="page_060" id="page_060"></a> calls up his better nature, wins, +hallows, and purifies all around her, till the heaven-prepared way is +cleared by the obedient child of heaven, and the great trespass of +Tantalus cancelled by a woman's reliance on the voice of her innocent +soul.</p> + +<p>If it be not possible to enhance the beauty with which such ideal +figures as the Iphigenia and the Antigone appeared to the Greek mind, +yet Gœthe has unfolded a part of the life of this being, unknown +elsewhere in the records of literature. The character of the priestess, +the full beauty of virgin womanhood, solitary, but tender, wise and +innocent, sensitive and self-collected, sweet as spring, dignified as +becomes the chosen servant of God, each gesture and word of deep and +delicate significance,—where else is such a picture to be found?</p> + +<p>It was not the courtier, nor the man of the world, nor the connoisseur, +nor the friend of Mephistopheles, nor Wilhelm the Master, nor Egmont the +generous, free liver, that saw Iphigenia in the world of spirits, but +Gœthe, in his first-born glory; G[o]ethe, the poet; Gœthe, +designed to be the brightest star in a new constellation. Let us not, in +surveying his works and life, abide with him too much in the suburbs and +outskirts of himself. Let us enter into his higher tendency, thank him +for such angels as Iphigenia, whose simple truth mocks at all his wise +"Beschrankungen," and hope the hour when, girt about with many such, he +will confess, contrary to his opinion, given in his latest days, that it +is well worth while to live seventy years, if only to find that they are +nothing in the sight of God.<a name="page_061" id="page_061"></a></p> + +<h2><a name="THOMAS_HOOD" id="THOMAS_HOOD"></a>THOMAS HOOD.</h2> + +<p>N<small>OW</small> almost the last light has gone out of the galaxy that made the first +thirty years of this age so bright. And the dynasty that now reigns over +the world of wit and poetry is poor and pale, indeed, in comparison.</p> + +<p>We are anxious to pour due libations to the departed; we need not +economize our wine; it will not be so often needed now.</p> + +<p>Hood has closed the most fatiguing career in the world—that of a +professed wit; and we may say with deeper feeling than of others who +shuffle off the load of care, May he rest in peace! The fatigues of a +conqueror, a missionary preacher, even of an active philanthropist, like +Howard, are nothing to those of a professed wit. Bad enough is it when +he is only a man of society, by whom every one expects to be enlivened +and relieved; who can never talk gravely in a corner, without those +around observing that he must have heard some bad news to be so out of +spirits; who can never make a simple remark, while eating a peaceful +dinner, without the table being set in a roar of laughter, as when +Sheridan, on such an occasion, opened his lips for the first time to say +that "he liked currant jelly." For these unhappy men there are no +intervals of social repose, no long silences fed by the mere feeling of +sympathy or gently entertained by observation, no warm quietude in the +mild liveries of green or brown, for the world has made up its mind that +motley is their only wear, and teases them to jingle their bells +forever.</p> + +<p>But far worse is it when the professed wit is also by profession a +writer, and finds himself obliged to coin for bread those<a name="page_062" id="page_062"></a> jokes which, +in the frolic exuberance of youth, he so easily coined for fun. We can +conceive of no existence more cruel, so tormenting, and at the same time +so dull. We hear that Hood was forever behindhand with his promises to +publishers; no wonder! But when we hear that he, in consequence, lost a +great part of the gains of his hard life, and was, as a result, harassed +by other cares, we cannot mourn to lose him, if,</p> + +<p class="c"> +"After life's fitful fever, he sleeps well;"<br /> +</p> + +<p class="nind">or if, as our deeper knowledge leads us to hope, he is now engaged in a +better life, where his fancies shall take their natural place, and +flicker like light on the surface of a profound and full stream flowing +betwixt rich and peaceful shores, such as, no less than the drawbacks +upon his earthly existence, are indicated in the following</p> + +<p class="poem"> + +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">SONNET.</span><br /> +The curse of Adam, the old curse of all,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Though I inherit in this feverish life</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Of worldly toil, vain wishes, and hard strife,</span><br /> +And fruitless thought in care's eternal thrall,<br /> +Yet more sweet honey than of bitter gall<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I taste through thee, my Eva, my sweet wife.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Then what was Man's lost Paradise? how rife</span><br /> +Of bliss, since love is with him in his fall!<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Such as our own pure passion still might frame</span><br /> +Of this fair earth and its delightful bowers,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">If no fell sorrow, like the serpent, came</span><br /> +To trail its venom o'er the sweetest flowers;<br /> +But, O! as many and such tears are ours<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">As only should be shed for guilt and shame.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>In Hood, as in all true wits, the smile lightens on the verge of a tear. +True wit and humor show that exquisite<a name="page_063" id="page_063"></a> sensibility to the relations of +life, that fine perception as to slight tokens of its fearful, hopeless +mysteries, which imply pathos to a still higher degree than mirth.</p> + +<p>Hood knew and welcomed the dower which nature gave him at his birth, +when he wrote thus:—</p> + +<p class="poem"> +All things are touched with melancholy<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Born of the secret soul's mistrust,</span><br /> +To feel her fair ethereal wings<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Weighed down with vile, degraded dust.</span><br /> +Even the bright extremes of joy<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Bring on conclusions of disgust,</span><br /> +Like the sweet blossoms of the May,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Whose fragrance ends in must.</span><br /> +O, give her, then, her tribute just,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Her sighs and tears and musings holy;</span><br /> +There is no music in the life<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">That sounds with idiot laughter solely;</span><br /> +There's not a string attuned to mirth,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">But has its chord in melancholy.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Hood was true to this vow of acceptance. He vowed to accept willingly +the pains as well as joys of life for what they could teach. Therefore, +years expanded and enlarged his sympathies, and gave to his lightest +jokes an obvious harmony with a great moral design, not obtrusively +obvious, but enough so to give a sweetness and permanent complacency to +our laughter. Indeed, what is written in his gayer mood has affected us +more, as spontaneous productions always do, than what he has written of +late with grave design, and which has been so much lauded by men too +obtuse to discern a latent meaning, or to believe in a good purpose +unless they are formally told that it exists.</p> + +<p>The later serious poems of Hood are well known; so are his jest books +and novel. We have now in view to speak<a name="page_064" id="page_064"></a> rather of a little volume of +poems published by him, some years since, republished here, but never +widely circulated.</p> + +<p>When a book or a person comes to us in the best possible circumstances, +we judge—not too favorably, for all that the book or person can suggest +is a part of its fate, and what is not seen under the most favorable +circumstances is never quite truly seen either as to promise or +performance—but we form a judgment above what can be the average sense +of the world in general as to its merits, which may be esteemed, after +time enough has elapsed, a tolerably fair estimate of performance, +though not of promise or suggestion.</p> + +<p>We became acquainted with these poems in one of those country towns +which would be called, abroad, the most provincial of the province. The +inhabitants had lost the simplicity of farmers' habits, without gaining +in its place the refinement, the variety, the enlargement of civic life. +Their industry had received little impulse from thought; their amusement +was gossip. All men find amusement from gossip—literary, artistic, or +social; but the degrees in it are almost infinite. They were at the +bottom of the scale; they scrutinized their neighbors' characters and +affairs incessantly, impertinently, and with minds unpurified by higher +knowledge; consequently the bitter fruits of envy and calumny abounded.</p> + +<p>In this atmosphere I was detained two months, and among people very +uncongenial both to my tastes and notions of right. But I had a retreat +of great beauty. The town lay on the bank of a noble river; behind it +towered a high and rocky hill. Thither every afternoon went the lonely +stranger, to await the fall of the sunset light on the opposite bank of +the full and rapid stream. It fell like a smile of heavenly joy; the +white sails on the stream glided along like angel thoughts; the town +itself looked like a fair nest, whence virtue and happiness might soar +with sweetest song. So looked the scene <i>from above</i>; and that hill was +the scene of many an aspiration and many an effort to attain as high a +point of view for<a name="page_065" id="page_065"></a> the mental prospect, in the hope that little +discrepancies, or what seemed so when on a level with them, might also, +from above, be softened into beauty and found subservient to a noble +design on the whole.</p> + +<p>This town boasted few books, and the accident which threw Hood's poems +in the way of the watcher from the hill, was a very fortunate one. They +afforded a true companionship to hours which knew no other, and, +perhaps, have since been overrated from association with what they +answered to or suggested.</p> + +<p>Yet there are surely passages in them which ought to be generally known +and highly prized. And if their highest value be for a few individuals +with whom they are especially in concord, unlike the really great poems +which bring something to all, yet those whom they please will be very +much pleased.</p> + +<p>Hood never became corrupted into a hack writer. This shows great +strength under his circumstances. Dickens has fallen, and Sue is +falling; for few men can sell themselves by inches without losing a +cubit from their stature. But Hood resisted the danger. He never wrote +when he had nothing to say, he stopped when he had done, and never +hashed for a second meal old thoughts which had been drained of their +choicest juices. His heart is truly human, tender, and brave. From the +absurdities of human nature he argues the possibility of its perfection. +His black is admirably contrasted with his white, but his love has no +converse of hate. His descriptions of nature, if not accurately or +profoundly evidencing insight, are unstudied, fond, and reverential. +They are fine reveries about nature.</p> + +<p>He has tried his powers on themes where he had great rivals—in the +"Plea of the Midsummer Fairies," and "Hero and Leander." The latter is +one of the finest subjects in the world, and one, too, which can never +wear out as long as each mind shall have its separate ideal of what a +meeting would be<a name="page_066" id="page_066"></a> between two perfect lovers, in the full bloom of +beauty and youth, under circumstances the most exalting to passion, +because the most trying, and with the most romantic accompaniments of +scenery. There is room here for the finest expression of love and grief, +for the wildest remonstrance against fate. Why are they made so lovely +and so beloved? Why was a flower brought to such perfection, and then +culled for no use? One of the older English writers has written an +exquisite poem on this subject, painting a youthful pair, fitted to be +not only a heaven but a world to one another. Hood had not power to +paint or conceive such fulness of character; but, in a lesser style, he +has written a fine poem. The best part of it, however, is the innocent +cruelty and grief of the Sea Siren.</p> + +<p>"Lycus the Centaur" is also a poem once read never to be forgotten. The +hasty trot of the versification, unfit for any other theme, on this +betokens well the frightened horse. Its mazy and bewildered imagery, +with its countless glancings and glimpses, expressed powerfully the +working of the Circean spell, while the note of human sadness, a +yearning and condemned human love, thrills through the whole and gives +it unity.</p> + +<p>The Sonnets, "It is not death," &c., and that on Silence, are equally +admirable. Whoever reads these poems will regard Hood as something more +than a great wit,—as a great poet also.</p> + +<p>To express this is our present aim, and therefore we shall leave to +others, or another time, the retrospect of his comic writings. But +having, on the late promptings of love for the departed, looked over +these, we have been especially amused with the "Schoolmistress Abroad," +which was new to us. Miss Crane, a "she Mentor, stiff as starch, formal +as a Dutch ledge, sensitive as a daguerreotype, and so tall, thin, and +upright, that supposing the Tree of Knowledge to have been a poplar, she +was the very Dryad to have fitted it," was left, with a sister<a name="page_067" id="page_067"></a> little +better endowed with the pliancy and power of adaptation which the +exigencies of this varied world-scene demand, in attendance upon a sick +father, in a foreign inn, where she cannot make herself understood, +because her French is not "French French, but English French," and no +two things in nature or art can be more unlike. Now look at the position +of the sisters.</p> + +<p>"The younger, Miss Ruth, was somewhat less disconcerted. She had by her +position the greater share in the active duties of Lebanon House, and +under ordinary circumstances would not have been utterly at a loss what +to do for the comfort or relief of her parent. But in every direction in +which her instinct and habits would have prompted her to look, the +<i>materials</i> she sought were deficient. There was no easy chair—no fire +to wheel it to—no cushion to shake up—no cupboard to go to—no female +friend to consult—no Miss Parfitt—no cook—no John to send for the +doctor—no English—no French—nothing but that dreadful 'Gefullig,' or +'Ja Wohl,' and the equally incomprehensible 'Gnadige Frau!'</p> + +<p>"'Der herr,' said the German coachman, 'ist sehr krank,' (the gentleman +is very sick.)</p> + +<p>"The last word had occurred so frequently on the organ of the +Schoolmistress, that it had acquired in her mind some important +significance.</p> + +<p>"'Ruth, what is krank?'</p> + +<p>"'How should I know?' retorted Ruth, with an asperity apt to accompany +intense excitement and perplexity. 'In English, it's a thing that helps +to pull the bell. But look at papa—do help to support him—you're good +for nothing.'</p> + +<p>"'I am, indeed,' murmured poor Miss Priscilla, with a gentle shake of +her head, and a low, slow sigh of acquiescence. Alas! as she ran over +the catalogue of her accomplishments, the more she remembered what she +<i>could</i> do for her sick parent, the more helpless and useless she +appeared. For<a name="page_068" id="page_068"></a> instance, she could have embroidered him a night-cap—or +knitted him a silk purse—or plaited him a guard-chain—or cut him out a +watch-paper—or ornamented his braces with bead-work—or embroidered his +waistcoat—or worked him a pair of slippers—or openworked his pocket +handkerchief. She could even, if such an operation would have been +comforting or salutary, have roughcasted him with shell-work—or coated +him with red or black seals—or encrusted him with blue alum—or stuck +him all over with colored wafers—or festooned him.</p> + +<p>"But alas! what would it have availed her poor dear papa in the +spasmodics, if she had even festooned him, from top to toe, with little +rice-paper roses?"</p> + +<p>The comments of the female chorus, as the author reads aloud the sorrows +of Miss Crane, are droll as Hood's drollest. Who can say more?</p> + +<p>So farewell, gentle, generous, inventive, genial, and most amusing +friend. We thank thee for both tears and laughter; tears which were not +heart-breaking, laughter which was never frivolous or unkind. In thy +satire was no gall, in the sting of thy winged wit no venom, in the +pathos of thy sorrow no enfeebling touch! Thou hadst faults as a writer, +we know not whether as a man; but who cares to name or even to note +them? Surely there is enough on the sunny side of the peach to feed us +and make us bless the tree from which it fell.<a name="page_069" id="page_069"></a></p> + +<h2><a name="LETTERS_FROM_A_LANDSCAPE_PAINTER5" id="LETTERS_FROM_A_LANDSCAPE_PAINTER5"></a>LETTERS FROM A LANDSCAPE PAINTER.<a name="FNanchor_5_5" id="FNanchor_5_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_5_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a></h2> + +<p>T<small>HIS</small> is a very pleasing book, and if the "Essays of Summer Hours" +resemble it, we are not surprised at the favor with which they have been +received, not only in this country, but in England.</p> + +<p>The writer is, we believe, very young, and as these Essays have awakened +in us a friendly expectation which he has time and talent to fulfil, we +will, at this early hour, proffer our counsel on two points.</p> + +<p>First. Avoid details, so directly personal, of emotion. A young and +generous mind, seeing the deceit and cold reserve which so often palsy +men who write, no less than those who act, may run into the opposite +extreme. But frankness must be tempered by delicacy, or elevated into +the region of poetry. You may tell the world at large what you please, +if you make it of universal importance by transporting it into the field +of general human interest. But your private griefs, merely <i>as</i> yours, +belong to yourself, your nearest friends, to Heaven and to nature. There +is a limit set by good taste, or the sense of beauty, on such subjects, +which each, who seeks, may find for himself.</p> + +<p>Second. Be more sparing of your praise: above all, of its highest terms. +We should have a sense of mental as well as moral honor, which, while it +makes us feel the baseness of uttering merely hasty and ignorant +censure, will also forbid that hasty and extravagant praise which strict +truth will not justify. A man of honor wishes to utter no word to which +he cannot adhere. The offices of Poet—of Hero-worship—are sacred,<a name="page_070" id="page_070"></a> and +he who has a heart to appreciate the excellent should call nothing +excellent which falls short of being so. Leave yourself some incense +worthy of the <i>best</i>; do not lavish it on the merely <i>good</i>. It is +better to be too cool than extravagant in praise; and though mediocrity +may be elated if it can draw to itself undue honors, true greatness +shrinks from the least exaggeration of its claims. The truly great are +too well aware how difficult is the attainment of excellence, what +labors and sacrifices it requires, even from genius, either to flatter +themselves as to their works, or to be otherwise than grieved at +idolatry from others; and so, with best wishes, and a hope to meet +again, we bid farewell to the "Landscape Painter."<a name="page_071" id="page_071"></a></p> + +<h2><a name="BEETHOVEN6" id="BEETHOVEN6"></a>BEETHOVEN.<a name="FNanchor_6_6" id="FNanchor_6_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_6_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a></h2> + +<p>T<small>HIS</small> book bears on its outside the title, "Life of Beethoven, by +Moscheles." It is really only a translation of Schindler, and it seems +quite unfair to bring Moscheles so much into the foreground, merely +because his name is celebrated in England. He has only contributed a few +notes and a short introduction, giving a most pleasing account of his +own devotion to the Master. Schindler was the trusty friend of +Beethoven, and one whom he himself elected to write his biography. +Inadequate as it is, there is that fidelity in the collection of +materials which makes it serviceable to our knowledge of Beethoven, and +we wish it might be reprinted in America. Though there is little +knowledge of music here, yet so far as any exists in company with a free +development of mind, the music of Beethoven is <i>the</i> music which +delights, which awakens, which inspires, an infinite hope.</p> + +<p>This influence of these most profound, bold, original and singular +compositions, even upon the uninitiated, above those of a simpler +construction and more obvious charms, we have observed with great +pleasure. For we think its cause lies deep, far beneath fancy, taste, +fashion, or any accidental cause.</p> + +<p>It is because there is a real and steady unfolding of certain thoughts +which pervade the civilized world. They strike their roots through to us +beneath the broad Atlantic; and these roots shoot stems upward to the +light wherever the soil allows them free course.<a name="page_072" id="page_072"></a></p> + +<p>Our era, which permits of freer inquiry, of bolder experiment, than ever +before, and a firmer, broader, basis, may also, we sincerely trust, be +depended on for nobler discovery and a grander scope of thought.</p> + +<p>Although we sympathize with the sadness of those who lament the decay of +forms and methods round which so many associations have wound their +tendrils, and understand the sufferings which gentle, tender natures +undergo from the forlorn homelessness of a period of doubt, speculation, +reconstruction in every way, yet we cannot disjoin ourselves, by one +moment's fear or regret, from the advance corps. That body, leagued by +an invisible tie, has received too deep an assurance that the spirit is +not dead nor sleeping, to look back to the past, even if they must +advance uniformly through scenes of decay and the rubbish of falling +edifices.</p> + +<p>But how far it is from being so! How many developments, in various ways, +of truth! How manifold the aspirations of love! In the church the +attempt is now to reconstruct on the basis proposed by its +founder—"Love one another;" in the philosophy of mind, if completeness +of system is, as yet, far from being attained, yet mistakes and vain +dogmas are set aside, and examinations conducted with intelligence and +an enlarged discernment of what is due both to God and man. Science +advances, in some route with colossal strides; new glimpses are daily +gained into the arcana of natural history, and the mysteries attendant +on the modes of growth, are laid open to our observation; while in +chemistry, electricity, magnetism, we seem to be getting nearer to the +law of life which governs them, and in astronomy "fathoming the +heavens," to use the sublime expression of Herschel, daily to greater +depths, we find ourselves admitted to a perception of the universal laws +and causes, where harmony, permanence and perfection leave us no excuse +for a moment of despondency, while under the guidance of a Power who has +ordered all so well.<a name="page_073" id="page_073"></a></p> + +<p>Then, if the other arts suffer a temporary paralysis, and +notwithstanding the many proofs of talent and genius, we consider that +is the case with architecture, painting, and sculpture, music is not +only thoroughly vital, but in a state of rapid development. The last +hundred years have witnessed a succession of triumphs in this art, the +removal of obstructions, the transcending of limits, and the opening new +realms of thought, to an extent that makes the infinity of promise and +hope very present with us. And take notice that the prominent means of +excellence now are not in those ways which give form to thought already +existent, but which open new realms to thought. Those who live most with +the life of their age, feel that it is one not only beautiful, positive, +full of suggestion, but vast, flowing, of infinite promise. It is +dynamics that interest us now, and from electricity and music we borrow +the best illustrations of what we know.</p> + +<p>Let no one doubt that these grand efforts at synthesis are capable of as +strict analysis. Indeed, it is wonderful with what celerity and +precision the one process follows up the other.</p> + +<p>Of this great life which has risen from the stalk and the leaf into bud, +and will in the course of this age be in full flower, Beethoven is the +last and greatest exponent. His music is felt, by every soul whom it +affects, to be the explanation of the past and the prophecy of the +future. It contains the thoughts of the time. A dynasty of great men +preceded him, each of whom made conquests and accumulated treasures +which prepared the way for his successor. Bach, Handel, Hadyn, Mozart, +were corner-stones of the glorious temple. Who shall succeed Beethoven? +A host of musicians, full of talent, even of genius, live now he is +dead; but the greatest among them is confessed by all men to be but of +Lilliputian size compared with this demigod. Indeed, it should be so! As +copious draughts of soul have been given to the earth, as she can quaff +for a century or more. Disciples<a name="page_074" id="page_074"></a> and critics must follow, to gather up +the gleanings of the golden grain.</p> + +<p>It is observable as an earnest of the great Future which opens for this +country, that such a genius is so easily and so much appreciated here, +by those who have not gone through the steps that prepared the way for +him in Europe. He is felt, because he expresses, in full tones, the +thoughts that lie at the heart of our own existence, though we have not +found means to stammer them as yet. To those who have obtained some clew +to all this,—and their number is daily on the increase,—this biography +of Beethoven will be very interesting. They will here find a picture of +the great man, as he looked and moved in actual life, though imperfectly +painted,—as by one who saw the figure from too low a stand-point.</p> + +<p>It will require the united labors of a constellation of minds to paint +the portrait of Beethoven. That of his face, as seen in life, prefixed +to these volumes, is better than any we have seen. It bears tokens of +the force, the grandeur, the grotesqueness of his genius, and at the +same time shows the melancholy that came to him from the great +misfortune of his life—his deafness; and the affectionateness of his +deep heart.</p> + +<p>Moscheles thus gives a very pleasing account of his first cognizance of +Beethoven:—</p> + +<p>"I had been placed under the guidance and tuition of Dionysius Weber, +the founder and present director of the Prague Musical Conservatory; and +he, fearing that in my eagerness to read new music, I might injure the +systematic development of my piano-forte playing, prohibited the +library, a circulating musical library, and in a plan for my musical +education which he laid before my parents, made it an express condition +that for three years I should study no other authors but Mozart, +Clemente, and S. Bach. I must confess, however, that in spite of such +prohibition, I visited the library, gaining access to it through my +pocket money. It was about<a name="page_075" id="page_075"></a> this time that I learned from some +schoolfellows that a young composer had appeared in Vienna, who wrote +the oddest stuff possible, such as no one could either play or +understand—crazy music, in opposition to all rule; and that this +composer's name was Beethoven. On repairing to the library to satisfy my +curiosity as to this so-called eccentric genius, I found there +Beethoven's 'Sonate Pathetique.' This was in the year 1804. My pocket +money would not suffice for the purchase of it, so I secretly copied it. +The novelty of its style was so attractive to me, and I became so +enthusiastic in my admiration of it, that I forgot myself so far as to +mention my new acquisition to my master, who reminded me of his +injunction, and warned me not to play or study any eccentric productions +until I had based my style upon more solid models. Without, however, +minding his injunction, I seized upon the piano-forte works of Beethoven +as they successively appeared, and in them found a solace and delight +such as no other composer afforded me.</p> + +<p>"In the year 1809, my studies with my master, Weber, closed; and being +then also fatherless, I chose Vienna for my residence, to work out my +future musical career. Above all, I longed to see and become acquainted +with that man who had exercised so powerful an influence over my whole +being; whom, though I scarcely understood, I blindly worshipped. I +learned that Beethoven was most difficult of access, and would admit no +pupil but Ries; and for a long time my anxiety to see him remained +ungratified. In the year 1810, however, the longed-for opportunity +presented itself. I happened to be one morning in the music shop of +Domenico Artaria, who had just been publishing some of my early attempts +at composition, when a man entered with short and hasty steps, and +gliding through the circle of ladies and professors assembled on +business, or talking over musical matters, without looking up, as though +he wished to pass unnoticed, made his way direct for Artaria's private +office at the bottom of the<a name="page_076" id="page_076"></a> shop. Presently Artaria called me in, and +said, 'This is Beethoven,'—and to the composer, 'This is the youth of +whom I have been speaking to you.' Beethoven gave me a friendly nod, and +said he had just been hearing a favorable account of me. To some modest +and humble expressions which I stammered forth he made no reply, and +seemed to wish to break off the conversation. I stole away with a +greater longing for that which I had sought, than before this meeting, +thinking to myself, 'Am I then, indeed, such a nobody that he could not +put one musical question to me? nor express one wish to know who had +been my master, or whether I had any acquaintance with his works?' My +only satisfactory mode of explaining the matter, and comforting myself +for the omission, was in Beethoven's tendency to deafness; for I had +seen Artaria speaking close to his ear. But I made up my mind that the +more I was excluded from the private intercourse which I so earnestly +coveted, the closer I would follow Beethoven in all the productions of +his mind."</p> + +<p>If Moscheles had never seen more of Beethoven, how rejoiced he would +have been on reading his pathetic expressions recorded in those volumes, +as to the misconstructions he knew his fellow-men must put on conduct +caused by his calamity, at having detected the true cause of coldness in +his own instance, and that no mean suggestions of offended vanity made +him false to the genius, because repelled by the man!</p> + +<p>Moscheles did see him further, and learned a great deal from this +intercourse, though it never became intimate. He closes with these +excellent remarks:—</p> + +<p>"My feelings with respect to Beethoven's music have undergone no +variation, save to become warmer. In my first half score of years of +acquaintance with his works, he was repulsive to me, as well as +attractive. In each of them, while I felt my mind fascinated by the +prominent idea, and my enthusiasm<a name="page_077" id="page_077"></a> kindled by the flashes of his genius, +his unlooked-for episodes, shrill dissonances, and bold modulations gave +me an unpleasant sensation. But how soon did I become reconciled to +them! all that had appeared hard I soon found indispensable. The +gnome-like pleasantries, which at first appeared too distorted, the +stormy masses of sound which I found too chaotic, I have in after times +learned to love. But while retracting my early critical exceptions, I +must still maintain as my creed that eccentricities like those of +Beethoven are reconcilable with his works alone, and are dangerous +models to other composers, many of whom have been wrecked in their +attempts at imitation."</p> + +<p>No doubt the peculiarities of Beethoven are inimitable, though as great +would be as welcome in a mind of equal greatness. The natural office of +such a genius is to rouse others to a use and knowledge of their own +faculties; never to induce imitation of its own individuality.</p> + +<p>As an instance of the justice and undoubting clearness of such a mind, +as to its own methods, take the following anecdote from Beethoven's +"Pupil Ries":—</p> + +<p>"All the initiated must be interested in the striking fact which +occurred respecting one of Beethoven's last solo sonatas, (in B major, +with the great fugue, Op. 106,) a sonata which has <i>forty-one pages of +print</i>. Beethoven had sent it to me, to London, for sale, that it might +appear there at the same time as in Germany. The engraving was +completed, and I in daily expectation of the letter naming the day of +publication. This arrived at last, but with this extraordinary request: +'Prefix the following two notes, as a first bar, to the beginning of the +adagio.' This adagio has from nine to ten pages of print. I own the +thought struck me involuntarily that all might not be right with my dear +old master, a rumor to that effect having often been spread. What! add +two notes to a composition already worked out and out, and completed +months ago? But my astonishment was yet to be heightened<a name="page_078" id="page_078"></a> by the +<i>effect</i> of these two notes. Never could such be found again—so +striking—so important; no, not even if contemplated at the very +beginning of the composition. I would advise every true lover of the art +to play this adagio first <i>without</i>, and then with these two notes which +now form the first bar, and I have no doubt he will share in my +opinion."</p> + +<p>No instance could more forcibly show how in the case of Beethoven, as in +that of other transcendent geniuses, the cry of insanity is raised by +vulgar minds on witnessing extraordinary manifestations of power. Such +geniuses perceive results so remote, are alive to combinations so +subtle, that common men cannot rise high enough to see why they think or +do as they do, and settle the matter easily to their own satisfaction, +crying, "He is mad"—"He hath a devil." Genius perceives the efficacy of +slight signs of thought, and loves best the simplest symbols; coarser +minds demand coarse work, long preparations, long explanations.</p> + +<p>But genius heeds them not, but fills the atmosphere with irresistible +purity, till they also are pervaded by the delicate influence, which, +too subtile for their ears and eyes, enters with the air they breathe, +or through the pores of the skin.</p> + +<p>The life of a Beethoven is written in his works; and all that can be +told of his life beside, is but as marginal notes on that broad page. +Yet since we have these notes, it is pleasant to have them in harmony +with the page. The acts and words of Beethoven are what we should +expect,—noble, leonine, impetuous,—yet tender. His faults are the +faults of one so great that he found few paths wide enough for his +tread, and knew not how to moderate it. They are not faults in +themselves, but only in relation to the men who surrounded him. Among +his peers he would not have had faults. As it is, they hardly deserve +the name. His acts were generally great and benignant; only in +transports of sudden passion at what he thought base did he ever injure +any one. If he<a name="page_079" id="page_079"></a> found himself mistaken, he could not humble himself +enough,—but far outwent, in his contrition, what was due to those whom +he had offended. So it is apt to be with magnanimous and tender natures; +they will humble themselves in a way that those of a coarser or colder +make think shows weakness or want of pride. But they do so because a +little discord and a little wrong is as painful to them as a great deal +to others.</p> + +<p>In one of his letters to a young friend, Beethoven thus magnanimously +confesses his errors:—</p> + +<p>"I could not converse with you and yours with that peace of mind which I +could have desired, for the late wretched altercation was hovering +before me, showing me my own despicable conduct. But so it was; and what +would I not give could I obliterate from the page of my life this last +action, so degrading to my character, and so unlike my usual +proceedings!"</p> + +<p>It seems this action of his was not of importance in the eyes of others. +Of the causes which acted upon him at such times he gives intimations in +another letter.</p> + +<p>"I had been wrought into this burst of passion by many an unpleasant +circumstance of an earlier date. I have the gift of concealing and +restraining my irritability on many subjects; but if I happen to be +touched at any time when I am more than usually susceptible of anger, I +burst forth more violently than any one else. B. has doubtless most +excellent qualities, but he thinks himself utterly without faults, and +yet is most open to blame for those for which he censures others. He has +a littleness of mind which I have held in contempt since my infancy."</p> + +<p>As a correspondent example of the manner in which true greatness +apologizes for its errors, we must quote a letter, lately made public, +from Sir Isaac Newton to Mr. Locke.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"Sir: Being of opinion that you endeavored to embroil me with +women, and by other means, I was so much affected<a name="page_080" id="page_080"></a> with it as that, +when one told me you were sickly, and would not live, I answered, +''Twere better if you were dead.' I desire you to forgive me this +uncharitableness, for I am now satisfied that what you have done is +just, and I beg your pardon for having had hard thoughts of you for +it, and for representing that you struck at the root of morality in +a principle you laid down in your book of ideas, and designed to +pursue in another book, and that I took you for a Hobbist. I beg +your pardon also for saying or thinking that there was a design to +sell me an office, or to embroil me.</p> + +<p>"I am your most humble and unfortunate servant,</p> + +<p class="r"> +"I<small>SAAC</small> N<small>EWTON</small>." +</p></div> + +<p>And this letter, observe, was quoted as proof of insanity in Newton. +Locke, however, shows by his reply that <i>he</i> did not think the power of +full sincerity and elevation above self-love proved a man to be insane.</p> + +<p>At a happy period Beethoven thus unveils the generous sympathies of his +heart.</p> + +<p>"My compositions are well paid, and I may say I have more orders than I +can well execute; six or seven publishers, and more, being ready to take +any of my works. I need no longer submit to being bargained with; I ask +my terms, and am paid. You see this is an excellent thing; as, for +instance, I see a friend in want, and my purse does not at the moment +permit me to assist him; I have but to sit down and write, and my friend +is no longer in need."</p> + +<p>Some additional particulars are given, in the letters collected by +Moscheles, of the struggles of his mind during the coming on of +deafness. This calamity, falling upon the greatest genius of his time, +in the prime of manhood,—a calamity which threatened to destroy not +only all enjoyment of life, but the power of using the vast treasure +with which he had been endowed for the use of all men,—casts common +ills so into the shade that they can scarcely be seen. Who dares<a name="page_081" id="page_081"></a> +complain, since Beethoven could resign himself, to such an ill at such a +time as this?</p> + +<p>"This beautiful country of mine, what was my lot in it? The hope of a +happy futurity. This might now be realized if I were freed from my +affliction. O, freed from that, I should compass the world! I feel +it—my youth is but beginning; have I not been hitherto but a sickly +creature? My physical powers have for some time been materially +increasing—those of my mind likewise. I feel myself nearer and nearer +the mark; I feel but cannot describe it; this alone is the vital +principle of your Beethoven. No rest for me: I know of none but in +sleep, and I grieve at having to sacrifice to that more time than I have +hitherto deemed necessary. Take but one half of my disease from me, and +I will return to you a matured and accomplished man, renewing the ties +of our friendship; for you shall see me as happy as I may be in this +sublunary world; not as a sufferer; no, that would be more than I could +bear; I will blunt the sword of fate; it shall not utterly destroy me. +How beautiful it is to live a thousand lives in one! No; I am not made +for a retired life—I feel it."</p> + +<p>He <i>did</i> blunt the sword of fate; he <i>did</i> live a thousand lives in one; +but that sword had power to inflict a deep and poisoned wound; those +thousand lives cost him the pangs of a thousand deaths. He, born for +perpetual conquest, was condemned through life to "resignation." Let any +man, disposed to complain of his own ills, read the "Will" of Beethoven; +and see if he dares speak of himself above a whisper, after.</p> + +<p>The matter of interest new to us in this English book is in notes and +appendix. Schindler's biography, whose plain and <i>naïve</i> style is fit +for the subject, is ironed out and plaited afresh to suit the "genteel" +English, in this translation. Elsewhere we have given in brief the +strong lineaments and<a name="page_082" id="page_082"></a> piquant anecdotes from this biography;<a name="FNanchor_7_7" id="FNanchor_7_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_7_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a> here +there is not room: smooth and shorn as it is, we wish the translation +might be reprinted here.</p> + +<p>We may give, at parting, two directions for the study of Beethoven's +genius and the perusal of his biography in two sayings of his own. For +the biography, "The limits have never yet been discovered which genius +and industry could not transcend." For the music, "From the depths of +the soul brought forth, she (Poesy) can only by the depths of the soul +be received or understood."<a name="page_083" id="page_083"></a></p> + +<h2><a name="BROWNS_NOVELS8" id="BROWNS_NOVELS8"></a>BROWN'S NOVELS.<a name="FNanchor_8_8" id="FNanchor_8_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_8_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a></h2> + +<p>W<small>E</small> rejoice to see these reprints of Brown's novels, as we have long been +ashamed that one who ought to be the pride of the country, and who is, +in the higher qualities of the mind, so far in advance of our other +novelists, should have become almost inaccessible to the public.</p> + +<p>It has been the custom to liken Brown to Godwin. But there was no +imitation, no second hand in the matter. They were congenial natures, +and whichever had come first might have lent an impulse to the other. +Either mind might have been conscious of the possession of that peculiar +vein of ore, without thinking of working it for the mint of the world, +till the other, led by accident, or overflow of feeling, showed him how +easy it was to put the reveries of his solitary hours into words, and +upon paper, for the benefit of his fellow-men.</p> + +<p class="c"> +"My mind to me a kingdom is."<br /> +</p> + +<p>Such a man as Brown or Godwin has a right to say that. Their mind is no +scanty, turbid rill, rejoicing to be daily fed from a thousand others, +or from the clouds. Its plenteous source rushes from a high mountain +between bulwarks of stone. Its course, even and full, keeps ever green +its banks, and affords the means of life and joy to a million gliding +shapes, that fill its deep waters, and twinkle above its golden sands.</p> + +<p>Life and Joy! Yes, Joy! These two have been called the dark Masters, +because they disclose the twilight recesses of<a name="page_084" id="page_084"></a> the human heart. Yet the +gravest page in the history of such men is joy, compared with the mixed, +shallow, uncertain pleasures of vulgar minds. Joy! because they were all +alive, and fulfilled the purposes of being. No sham, no imitation, no +convention deformed or veiled their native lineaments, or checked the +use of their natural force. All alive themselves, they understood that +there is no happiness without truth, no perception of it without real +life. Unlike most men, existence was to them not a tissue of words and +seemings, but a substantial possession.</p> + +<p>Born Hegelians, without the pretensions of science, they sought God in +their own consciousness, and found him. The heart, because it saw itself +so fearfully and wonderfully made, did not disown its Maker. With the +highest idea of the dignity, power, and beauty of which human nature is +capable, they had courage to see by what an oblique course it proceeds, +yet never lose faith that it would reach its destined aim. Thus their +darkest disclosures are not hobgoblin shows, but precious revelations.</p> + +<p>Brown is great as ever human writer was in showing the self-sustaining +force of which a lonely mind is capable. He takes one person, makes him +brood like the bee, and extract from the common life before him all its +sweetness, its bitterness, and its nourishment.</p> + +<p>We say makes <i>him</i>, but it increases our own interest in Brown, that, a +prophet in this respect of a better era, he has usually placed this +thinking, royal mind in the body of a woman. This personage, too, is +always feminine, both in her character and circumstances, but a +conclusive proof that the term <i>feminine</i> is not a synonyme for <i>weak</i>. +Constantia, Clara Wieland, have loving hearts, graceful and plastic +natures, but they have also noble, thinking minds, full of resource, +constancy, courage. The Marguerite of Godwin, no less, is all refinement +and the purest tenderness; but she is also the soul of honor, capable of +deep discernment, and of acting in conformity with the inferences she +draws. The Man of Brown<a name="page_085" id="page_085"></a> and Godwin has not eaten of the fruit of the +tree of knowledge, and been driven to sustain himself by the sweat of +his brow for nothing, but has learned the structure and laws of things, +and become a being, natural, benignant, various, and desirous of +supplying the loss of innocence by the attainment of virtue. So his +Woman need not be quite so weak as Eve, the slave of feeling or of +flattery; she also has learned to guide her helm amid the storm across +the troubled waters.</p> + +<p>The horrors which mysteriously beset these persons, and against which, +so far as outward facts go, they often strive in vain, are but a +representation of those powers permitted to work in the same way +throughout the affairs of this world. Their demoniacal attributes only +represent a morbid state of the intellect, gone to excess from want of +balance with the other powers. There is an intellectual as well as a +physical drunkenness, and which, no less, impels to crime. Carwin, urged +on to use his ventriloquism till the presence of such a strange agent +wakened the seeds of fanaticism in the breast of Wieland, is in a state +no more foreign to nature than that of the wretch executed last week, +who felt himself drawn as by a spell to murder his victim, because he +had thought of her money and the pleasures it might bring him, till the +feeling possessed his brain that hurls the gamester to ruin. The victims +of such agency are like the soldier of the Rio Grande, who, both legs +shot off, and his life-blood rushing out with every pulse, replied +serenely to his pitying comrades, that "he had now that for which the +soldier enlisted." The end of the drama is not in this world, and the +fiction which rounds off the whole to harmony and felicity before the +curtain falls, sins against truth, and deludes the reader. The Nelsons +of the human race are all the more exposed to the assaults of Fate, that +they are decorated with the badges of well-earned glory. Who but feels +as they fall in death, or rise again to a mutilated existence, that the +end is not yet? Who, that thinks, but must feel that the recompense is, +where Brown<a name="page_086" id="page_086"></a> places it, in the accumulation of mental treasure, in the +severe assay by fire that leaves the gold pure to be used some +time—somewhere?</p> + +<p>Brown,—man of the brooding eye, the teeming brain, the deep and fervent +heart,—if thy country prize thee not, and had almost lost thee out of +sight, it is because her heart is made shallow and cold, her eye dim, by +the pomp of circumstance, the love of gross outward gain. She cannot +long continue thus, for it takes a great deal of soul to keep a huge +body from disease and dissolution. As there is more soul, thou wilt be +more sought; and many will yet sit down with thy Constantia to the meal +and water on which she sustained her full and thoughtful existence, who +could not endure the ennui of aldermanic dinners, or find any relish in +the imitation of French cookery. To-day many will read the words, and +some have a cup large enough to receive the spirit, before it is lost in +the sand on which their feet are planted.</p> + +<p>Brown's high standard of the delights of intellectual communion and of +friendship, correspond with the fondest hopes of early days. But in the +relations of real life, at present, there is rarely more than one of the +parties ready for such intercourse as he describes. On the one side +there will be dryness, want of perception, or variety, a stupidity +unable to appreciate life's richest boon when offered to its grasp; and +the finer nature is doomed to retrace its steps, unhappy as those who, +having force to raise a spirit, cannot retain or make it substantial, +and stretch out their arms only to bring them back empty to the breast.</p> + +<p>We were glad to see these reprints, but sorry to see them so carelessly +done. Under the cheap system, the carelessness in printing and +translating grows to a greater excess day by day. Please, Public, to +remonstrate; else very soon all your books will be offered for two +shillings apiece, and none of them in a fit state to be read.<a name="page_087" id="page_087"></a></p> + +<h2><a name="EDGAR_A_POE9" id="EDGAR_A_POE9"></a>EDGAR A. POE.<a name="FNanchor_9_9" id="FNanchor_9_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_9_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a></h2> + +<p>M<small>R</small>. P<small>OE</small> throws down the gauntlet in his preface by what he says of "the +paltry compensations, or more paltry commendations, of mankind." Some +champion might be expected to start up from the "somewhat sizable" class +embraced, or, more properly speaking, boxed on the ear, by this +defiance, who might try whether the sting of Criticism was as +indifferent to this knight of the pen as he professes its honey to be.</p> + +<p>Were there such a champion, gifted with acumen to dissect, and a +swift-glancing wit to enliven the operation, he could find no more +legitimate subject, no fairer game, than Mr. Poe, who has wielded the +weapons of criticism without relenting, whether with the dagger he rent +and tore the garment in which some favored Joseph had pranked himself, +secure of honor in the sight of all men, or whether with uplifted +tomahawk he rushed upon the new-born children of some hapless genius, +who had fancied, and persuaded his friends to fancy, that they were +beautiful, and worthy a long and honored life. A large band of these +offended dignitaries and aggrieved parents must be on the watch for a +volume of "Poems by Edgar A. Poe," ready to cut, rend, and slash in +turn, and hoping to see his own Raven left alone to prey upon the +slaughter of which it is the herald.</p> + +<p>Such joust and tournament we look to see, and, indeed, have some stake +in the matter, so far as we have friends whose wrongs cry aloud for the +avenger. Natheless we could not<a name="page_088" id="page_088"></a> take part in the <i>mêlée</i>, except to +join the crowd of lookers-on in the cry "heaven speed the right!"</p> + +<p>Early we read that fable of Apollo who rewarded the critic, who had +painfully winnowed the wheat,—with the chaff for his pains. We joined +the gentle Affirmative School, and have confidence that if we indulge +ourselves chiefly with the appreciation of good qualities, Time will +take care of the faults. For Time holds a strainer like that used in the +diamond mines—have but patience and the water and gravel will all pass +through, and only the precious stones be left. Yet we are not blind to +the uses of severe criticism, and of just censure, especially in a time +and place so degraded by venal and indiscriminate praise as the present. +That unholy alliance; that shameless sham, whose motto is,</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry"> +<tr><td align="right">"Caw me</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">And I'll caw thee;"</td></tr> +</table> + +<p class="nind">that system of mutual adulation and organized puff which was carried to +such perfection in the time, and may be seen drawn to the life in the +correspondence, of Miss Hannah More, is fully represented in our day and +generation. We see that it meets a counter-agency, from the league of +Truth-tellers, few, but each of them mighty as Fingal or any other hero +of the sort. Let such tell the whole truth, as well as nothing but the +truth, but let their sternness be in the spirit of Love. Let them seek +to understand the purpose and scope of an author, his capacity as well +as his fulfilments, and how his faults are made to grow by the same +sunshine that acts upon his virtues, for this is the case with talents +no less than with character. The rich field requires frequent and +careful weeding; frequent, lest the weeds exhaust the soil; careful, +lest the flowers and grain be pulled up along with the weeds.</p> + +<p>It has often been our lot to share the mistake of Gil Blas with regard +to the Archbishop. We have taken people at their word, and while +rejoicing that women could bear<a name="page_089" id="page_089"></a> neglect without feeling mean pique, and +that authors, rising above self-love, could show candor about their +works, and magnanimously meet both justice and injustice, we have been +rudely awakened from our dream, and found that chanticleer, who crowed +so bravely, showed himself at last but a dunghill fowl. Yet Heaven grant +we never become too worldly-wise thus to trust a generous word, and we +surely are not so yet, for we believe Mr. Poe to be sincere when he +says,—</p> + +<p>"In defence of my own taste, it is incumbent upon me to say that I think +nothing in this volume of much value to the public or very creditable to +myself. Events not to be controlled have prevented me from making, at +any time, any serious effort, in what, under happier circumstances, +would have been the field of my choice."</p> + +<p>We believe Mr. Poe to be sincere in this declaration; if he is, we +respect him; if otherwise, we do not. Such things should never be said +unless in hearty earnest. If in earnest, they are honorable pledges; if +not, a pitiful fence and foil of vanity. Earnest or not, the words are +thus far true; the productions in this volume indicate a power to do +something far better. With the exception of the Raven, which seems +intended chiefly to show the writer's artistic skill, and is in its way +a rare and finished specimen, they are all fragments—<i>fyttes</i> upon the +lyre, almost all of which leave a something to desire or demand. This is +not the case, however, with these lines:—</p> + +<p class="poem"> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;"><span class="smcap">To One in Paradise</span></span>.<br /> +<br /> +Thou wast all that to me, love,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">For which my soul did pine—</span><br /> +A green isle in the sea, love,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">A fountain and a shrine,</span><br /> +All wreathed with fairy fruits and flowers,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And all the flowers were mine.<a name="page_090" id="page_090"></a></span><br /> +<br /> +Ah, dream too bright to last!<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Ah, starry Hope! that didst arise</span><br /> +But to be overcast!<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">A voice from out the Future cries,</span><br /> +"On! on!"—but o'er the Past<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">(Dim gulf!) my spirit hovering lies</span><br /> +Mute, motionless, aghast!<br /> +<br /> +For, alas! alas! with me<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The light of life is o'er!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">No more—no more—no more</span><br /> +(Such language holds the solemn sea<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">To the sands upon the shore)</span><br /> +Shall bloom the thunder-blasted tree,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Or the stricken eagle soar!</span><br /> +<br /> +And all my days are trances,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And all my nightly dreams</span><br /> +Are where thy dark eye glances,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And where thy footstep gleams—</span><br /> +In what ethereal dances,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">By what eternal streams.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>The poems breathe a passionate sadness, relieved sometimes by touches +very lovely and tender:—</p> + +<p class="poem"> +"Amid the earnest woes<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">That crowd around my earthly path</span><br /> +(Drear path, alas! where grows<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Not even one lonely rose.") * * *</span><br /> + +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">* * * *</span></p> + +<p class="poem">>"For her, the fair and debonair, that now so lowly lies,<br /> +The life upon her yellow hair, but not within her eyes—<br /> +The life still there, upon her hair—the death upon her eyes."<br /> +</p> + +<p><a name="page_091" id="page_091"></a></p> + +<p>This kind of beauty is especially conspicuous, even rising into dignity, +in the poem called the Haunted Palace.</p> + +<p>The imagination of this writer rarely expresses itself in pronounced +forms, but rather in a sweep of images, thronging and distant like a +procession of moonlight clouds on the horizon, but like them +characteristic and harmonious one with another, according to their +office.</p> + +<p>The descriptive power is greatest when it takes a shape not unlike an +incantation, as in the first part of the Sleeper, where</p> + +<p class="poem"> +"I stand beneath the mystic moon;<br /> +An opiate vapor, dewy, dim,<br /> +Exhales from out a golden rim,<br /> +And, softly dripping, drop by drop,<br /> +Upon the quiet mountain top,<br /> +Steals drowsily and musically<br /> +Into the universal valley."<br /> +</p> + +<p>Why <i>universal</i>?—"resolve me that, Master Moth."</p> + +<p>And farther on, "the lily <i>lolls</i> upon the wave."</p> + +<p>This word <i>lolls</i>, often made use of in these poems, presents a vulgar +image to our thought; we know not how it is to that of others.</p> + +<p>The lines which follow, about the open window, are highly poetical. So +is the Bridal Ballad in its power of suggesting a whole tribe and train +of thoughts and pictures, by few and simple touches.</p> + +<p>The poems written in youth, written, indeed, we understand, in +childhood, before the author was ten years old, are a great +psychological curiosity. Is it the delirium of a prematurely excited +brain that causes such a rapture of words? What is to be gathered from +seeing the future so fully anticipated in the germ? The passions are not +unfrequently <i>felt</i> in their full shock, if not in their intensity, at +eight or nine years old, but here they are <i>reflected upon</i>:—<a name="page_092" id="page_092"></a></p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr><td align="left">"Sweet was their death—with them to die was rife</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> With the last ecstasy of satiate life."</td></tr> +</table> +<p>The scenes from Politian are done with clear, sharp strokes; the power +is rather metaphysical than dramatic. We must repeat what we have +heretofore said, that we could wish to see Mr. Poe engaged in a +metaphysical romance. He needs a sustained flight and far range to show +what his powers really are. Let us have from him the analysis of the +Passions, with their appropriate Fates; let us have his speculations +clarified; let him intersperse dialogue or poem, as the occasion +prompts, and give us something really good and strong, firmly wrought, +and fairly blazoned.<a name="page_093" id="page_093"></a></p> + +<h2><a name="ALFIERI_AND_CELLINI10" id="ALFIERI_AND_CELLINI10"></a>ALFIERI AND CELLINI.<a name="FNanchor_10_10" id="FNanchor_10_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_10_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a></h2> + +<p>T<small>HESE</small> two publications have come to hand during the last month—a +cheering gleam upon the winter of our discontent, as we saw the flood of +bad translations of worse books which swelled upon the country.</p> + +<p>We love our country well. The many false deeds and low thoughts; the +devotion to interest; the forgetfulness of principle; the indifference +to high and noble sentiment, which have, in so many ways, darkened her +history for some years back, have not made us despair of her yet +fulfilling the great destiny whose promise rose, like a star, only some +half a century ago upon the hopes of the world.</p> + +<p>Should that star be forsaken by its angel, and those hopes set finally +in clouds of shame, the church which we had built out of the ruins of +the ancient time must fall to the ground. This church seemed a model of +divine art. It contained a labyrinth which, when threaded by aid of the +clew of Faith, presented, re-viewed from its centre, the most admirable +harmony and depth of meaning in its design, and comprised in its +decorations all the symbols of permanent interest of which the mind of +man has made use for the benefit of man. Such was to be our church, a +church not made with hands, catholic, universal, all whose stones should +be living stones, its officials the cherubim of Love and Knowledge, its +worship wiser and purer action than has before been known to men. To +such a church men do indeed constitute the state, and men indeed<a name="page_094" id="page_094"></a> we +hoped from the American church and state, men so truly human that they +could not live while those made in their own likeness were bound down to +the condition of brutes.</p> + +<p>Should such hopes be baffled, should such a church fall in the building, +such a state find no realization except to the eye of the poet, God +would still be in the world, and surely guide each bird, that can be +patient, on the wing to its home at last. But expectations so noble, +which find so broad a basis in the past, which link it so harmoniously +with the future, cannot lightly be abandoned. The same Power leads by a +pillar of cloud as by a pillar of fire—the Power that deemed even Moses +worthy only of a distant view of the Promised Land.</p> + +<p>And to those who cherish such expectations rational education, +considered in various ways and bearings, must be the one great topic of +interest; an enterprise in which the humblest service is precious and +honorable to any who can inspire its soul. Our thoughts anticipate with +eager foresight the race that may grow up from this amalgamation of all +races of the world which our situation induces. It was the pride and +greatness of ancient nations to keep their blood unmixed; but it must be +ours to be willing to mingle, to accept in a generous spirit what each +clime and race has to offer us.</p> + +<p>It is, indeed, the case that much diseased substance is offered to form +this new body; and if there be not in ourselves a nucleus, a heart of +force and purity to assimilate these strange and various materials into +a very high form of organic life, they must needs induce one distorted, +corrupt, and degraded beyond the example of other times and places. +There will be no medium about it. Our grand scene of action demands +grandeur and purity; lacking these, one must suffer from so base failure +in proportion to the success that should have been.</p> + +<p>It would be the worthiest occupation of mind to ascertain<a name="page_095" id="page_095"></a> the +conditions propitious for this meeting of the nations in their new home, +and to provide preventions for obvious dangers that attend it. It would +be occupation for which the broadest and deepest knowledge of human +nature in its mental, moral, and bodily relations, the noblest freedom +from prejudice, with the finest discrimination as to differences and +relations, directed and enlightened by a prophetic sense as to what Man +is designed by God to become, would all be needed to fit the thinker. +Yet some portion of these qualities, or of some of these qualities, if +accompanied by earnestness and aspiration, may enable any one to offer +useful suggestions. The mass of ignorance and selfishness is such, that +no grain of leaven must be despised.</p> + +<p>And as the men of all countries come hither to find a home, and become +parts of a new life, so do the books of all countries gravitate towards +this new centre. Copious infusions from all quarters mingle daily with +the new thought which is to grow into American mind, and develop +American literature.</p> + +<p>As every ship brings us foreign teachers, a knowledge of living +contemporary tongues must in the course of fifty years become the +commonest attainment. There exists no doubt in the minds of those who +can judge, that the German, French, Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese +tongues might, by familiar instruction and <i>an intelligent method</i>, be +taught with perfect ease during the years of childhood, so that the +child would have as distinct a sense of their several natures, and +nearly as much expertness in their use, as in his own. The higher uses +of such knowledge can, of course, be expected only in a more advanced +state of the faculties; but it is pity that the acquaintance with the +medium of thought should be deferred to a period when the mind is +sufficiently grown to bend its chief attention on the thoughts +themselves. Much of the most precious part of short human lives is now +wasted from an ignorance of what might easily be done for children,<a name="page_096" id="page_096"></a> and +without taking from them the time they need for common life, play, and +bodily growth, more than at present.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile the English begins to vie with the German and French +literature in the number, though not in the goodness, of the +translations from other languages. The indefatigable Germans can +translate, and do other things too; so that geniuses often there apply +themselves to the work as an amusement: even the all-employed Gœthe +has translated one of the books before us, (Memoirs of Cellini.) But in +English we know but of one, Coleridge's Wallenstein, where the reader +will feel the electric current undiminished by the medium through which +it comes to him. And then the profligate abuse of the power of +translation has been unparalleled, whether in the choice of books or the +carelessness in disguising those that were good in a hideous mask. No +falsehood can be worse than this of deforming the expression of a great +man's thoughts, of corrupting that form which he has watched, and toiled +and suffered to make beautiful and true. We know no falsehood that +should call a more painful blush to the cheek of one engaged in it.</p> + +<p>We have no narrowness in our view of the contents of such books. We are +not afraid of new standards and new examples. Only give enough of them, +variety enough, and from well-intentioned, generous minds. America can +choose what she wants, if she has sufficient range of choice; and if +there is any real reason, any deep root in the tastes and opinions she +holds at present, she will not lightly yield them. Only give her what is +good of its kind. Her hope is not in ignorance, but in knowledge. We +are, indeed, very fond of range, and if there is check, there should be +countercheck; and in this view we are delighted to see these great +Italians domesticated here. We have had somewhat too much of the French +and Germans of late. We value unchangeably our sparkling and rapid +French friend; still more the searching, honest, and, in highest sense, +visionary German genius. But<a name="page_097" id="page_097"></a> there is not on earth, and, we dare to say +it, will not be again, genius <i>like</i> that of Italy, or that can compare +with it, in its own way.</p> + +<p>Italy and Greece were alike in this; those sunny skies ripened their +fruits perfectly. The oil and honey of Greece, the wine of Italy, not +only suggest, but satisfy. <i>There</i> we find fulfilment, elsewhere great +achievement only.</p> + +<p>O, acute, cautious, calculating Yankee; O, graceful, witty, hot-blooded, +flimsy Southron; and thou, man of the West, going ahead too fast to pick +up a thought or leave a flower upon thy path,—look at these men with +their great fiery passions, but will and intellect still greater and +stronger, perfectly sincere, from a contempt of falsehood. If they had +acted wrong, they said and felt that they had, and that it was base and +hateful in them. They were sagacious, as children are, not from +calculation, but because the fine instincts of nature were unspoiled in +them. I speak now of Alfieri and Cellini. Dante had all their +instinctive greatness and deep-seated fire, with the reflective and +creative faculties besides, to an extent of which they never dreamed.</p> + +<p>He who reads these biographies may take them from several points of +view. As pictures of manners, as sincere transcripts of the men and +their times, they are not and could not be surpassed. That truth which +Rousseau sought so painfully and vainly by self-brooding, subtle +analysis, they attained without an effort. <i>Why</i> they felt they cared +little, but <i>what</i> they felt they surely knew; and where a fly or worm +has injured the peach, its passage is exactly marked, so that you are +sure the rest is fair and sound. Both as physiological and psychical +histories, they are full of instruction. In Alfieri, especially, the +nervous disease generated in the frame by any uncongenial tension of the +brain, the periodical crises in his health, the manner in which his +accesses of passion came upon him, afford infinite suggestion to one who +has an eye for the circumstances which fashion the destiny of man.<a name="page_098" id="page_098"></a> Let +the physician compare the furies of Alfieri with the silent rages of +Byron, and give the mother and pedagogue the light in which they are now +wholly wanting, showing how to treat such noble plants in the early +stages of growth. We think the "hated cap" would not be put a second +time on the head so easily diseased.</p> + +<p>The biography of Cellini, it is commonly said, is more interesting than +any romance. It <i>is</i> a romance, with the character of the hero fully +brought out. Cellini lived in all the fulness of inward vigor, all the +variety of outward adventure, and passed through all the signs of the +Zodiac, in his circling course, occasionally raising a little vapor from +the art magic. He was really the Orlando Furioso turned Goldsmith, and +Angelicas and all the Peers of France joined in the show. However, he +never lived deeply; he had not time; the creative energy turned outward +too easily, and took those forms that still enchant the mind of Europe. +Alfieri was very different in this. He was like the root of some +splendid southern plant, buried beneath a heap of rubbish. Above him was +a glorious sky, fit to develop his form and excite his colors; but he +was compelled to a long and terrible struggle to get up where he could +be free to receive its influence. Institutions, language, family, modes +of education,—all were unfit for him; and perhaps no man was ever +called to such efforts, after he had reached manly age, to unmake and +remake himself before he could become what his inward aspiration craved. +All this deepened his nature, and it <i>was</i> deep. It is his great force +of will and the compression of Nature within its iron grasp, where +Nature was so powerful and impulsive, that constitutes the charm of his +writings. It is the man Alfieri who moves, nay, overpowers us, and not +his writings, which have no flow nor plastic beauty. But we feel the +vital dynamics, and imagine it all.</p> + +<p>By us Americans, if ever such we really are to be, Alfieri<a name="page_099" id="page_099"></a> should be +held sacred as a godfather and holy light. He was a harbinger of what +most gives this time its character and value. He was the friend of +liberty, the friend of man, in the sense that Burns was—of the native +nobleness of man. Soiled and degraded men he hated. He was, indeed, a +man of pitiless hatred as of boundless love, and he had bitter +prejudices too, but they were from antipathies too strongly intertwined +with his sympathies for any hand less powerful than that of Death to +rend them away.</p> + +<p>But our space does not permit us to do any justice to such a life as +Alfieri's. Let others read it, not from their habitual, but an eternal +point of view, and they cannot mistake its purport. Some will be most +touched by the storms of his youth, others by the exploits and conquests +of his later years; but all will find him, in the words of his friend +Casella, "sculptured just as he was, lofty, strange, and extreme, not +only in his natural characteristics, but in every work that did not seem +to him unworthy of his generous affections. And where he went too far, +it is easy to perceive his excesses always flowed from some praiseworthy +sentiment."</p> + +<p>Among a crowd of thoughts suggested to the mind by reperusal of this +book, to us a friend of many years standing, we hastily note the +following:—</p> + +<p>Alfieri knew how to be a friend, and had friends such as his masculine +and uncompromising temper fitted him to endure and keep. He had even two +or three of those noble friends. He was a perfect lover in delicacy of +sentiment, in devotion, in a desire for constancy, in a high ideal, +growing always higher, and he was, at last, happy in love. Many geniuses +have spoken worthily of women in their works, but he speaks of woman as +she wishes to be spoken of, and declares that he met the desire of his +soul realized in life. This, almost alone, is an instance where a great +nature was permanently<a name="page_100" id="page_100"></a> satisfied, and the claims of man and woman +equally met, where one of the parties had the impatient fire of genius. +His testimony on this subject is of so rare a sort, we must copy it:—</p> + +<p>"My fourth and last passion, fortunately for me, showed itself by +symptoms entirely different from the three first. In the former, my +intellect had felt little of the fires of passion; but now my heart and +my genius were both equally kindled, and if my passion was less +impetuous, it became more profound and lasting. Such was the flame which +by degrees absorbed every affection and thought of my being, and it will +never fade away except with my life. Two months satisfied me that I had +now found the <i>true woman</i>; for, instead of encountering in her, as in +all common women, an obstacle to literary glory, a hinderance to useful +occupations, and a damper to thought, she proved a high stimulus, a pure +solace, and an alluring example to every beautiful work. Prizing a +treasure so rare, I gave myself away to her irrevocably. And I certainly +erred not. More than twelve years have passed, and while I am writing +this chit-chat, having reached that calm season when passion loses its +blandishments, I cherish her more tenderly than ever; and I love her +just in proportion as glide from her in the lapse of time those +little-esteemed toll-gatherers of departing beauty. In her my soul is +exalted, softened, and made better day by day; and I will dare to say +and believe she has found in me support and consolation."</p> + +<p>We have spoken of the peculiarities in Alfieri's physical condition. +These naturally led him to seek solace in violent exercise; and as in +the case of Beckford and Byron, horses were his best friends in the hour +of danger. This sort of man is the modern Achilles, "the tamer of +horses." In what degree the health of Alfieri was improved, and his +sympathies awakened by the society and care of these noble animals, is +very evident. Almost all persons, perhaps all that<a name="page_101" id="page_101"></a> are in a natural +state, need to stand in patriarchal relations with the animals most +correspondent with their character. We have the highest respect for this +instinct and sincere belief in the good it brings; if understood, it +would be cherished, not ridiculed.<a name="page_102" id="page_102"></a></p> + +<h2><a name="ITALY_CARYS_DANTE" id="ITALY_CARYS_DANTE"></a>ITALY.—CARY'S DANTE.</h2> + +<p>T<small>RANSLATING</small> Dante is indeed a labor of love. It is one in which even a +moderate degree of success is impossible. No great Poet can be well +translated. The form of his thought is inseparable from his thought. The +births of his genius are perfect beings: body and soul are in such +perfect harmony that you cannot at all alter the one without veiling the +other. The variation in cadence and modulation, even where the words are +exactly rendered, takes not only from the form of the thought, but from +the thought itself, its most delicate charm. Translations come to us as +a message to the lover from the lady of his love through the lips of a +confidante or menial—we are obliged to imagine what was most vital in +the utterance.</p> + +<p>These difficulties, always insuperable, are accumulated a hundred-fold +in the case of Dante, both by the extraordinary depth and subtlety of +his thought, and his no less extraordinary power of concentrating its +expression, till every verse is like a blade of thoroughly tempered +steel. You might as well attempt to translate a glance of fire from the +human eye into any other language—even music cannot do that.</p> + +<p>We think, then, that the use of Cary's translation, or any other, can +never be to diffuse a knowledge of Dante. This is not in its nature +diffusible; he is one of those to whom others must draw near; he cannot +be brought to them. He has no superficial charm to cheat the reader into +a belief that he knows him, without entrance into the same sphere.</p> + +<p>These translations can be of use only to the translators, as a means of +deliberate study of the original, or to others who<a name="page_103" id="page_103"></a> are studying the +original, and wish to compare their own version of doubtful passages +with that of an older disciple, highly qualified, both by devotion and +mental development, for the study.</p> + +<p>We must say a few words as to the pedantic folly with which this study +has been prosecuted in this country, and, we believe, in England. Not +only the tragedies of Alfieri and the Faust of Goethe, but the Divina +Commedia of Dante,—a work which it is not probable there are upon +earth, at any one time, a hundred minds able to appreciate,—are turned +into school books for little girls who have just left their hoops and +dolls, and boys whose highest ambition it is to ride a horse that will +run away, and brave the tutor in a college frolic.</p> + +<p>This is done from the idea that, in order to get acquainted with a +foreign language, the student must read books that have attained the +dignity of classics, and also which are "hard." Hard indeed it must be +for the Muses to see their lyres turned into gridirons for the +preparation of a school-girl's lunch; harder still for the younglings to +be called to chew and digest thunderbolts, in lieu of their natural +bread and butter.</p> + +<p>Are there not "classics" enough which would not suffer by being put to +such uses? In Greek, Homer is a book for a boy; must you give him Plato +because it is harder? Is there no choice among the Latins? Are all who +wrote in the Latin tongue equally fit for the appreciation of sixteen +Yankee years? In Italian, have you not Tasso, Ariosto, and other writers +who have really a great deal that the immature mind can enjoy, without +choking it with the stern politics of Alfieri, or piling upon a brain +still soft the mountainous meanings of Dante? Indeed, they are saved +from suffering by the perfect ignorance of all meaning in which they +leave these great authors, fancying, to their life-long misfortune, that +they have read them. I have been reminded, by the remarks of my young +friends on these subjects, of the Irish peasant, who, having been +educated on a book prepared for his use, called<a name="page_104" id="page_104"></a> "Reading made easy," +blesses through life the kindness that taught him his "Radamadasy;" and +of the child who, hearing her father quote Horace, observed <i>she</i> +"thought Latin was even sillier than French."</p> + +<p>No less pedantic is the style in which the grown-up, in stature at +least, undertakes to become acquainted with Dante. They get the best +Italian Dictionary, all the notes they can find, amounting in themselves +to a library, for his countrymen have not been less external and +benighted in their way of regarding him. Painfully they study through +the book, seeking with anxious attention to know who Signor This is, and +who was the cousin of Signora That, and whether any deep papal or +anti-papal meaning was couched by Dante under the remark that Such-a-one +wore a great-coat. A mind, whose small chambers look yet smaller by +being crowded with furniture from all parts of the world, bought by +labor, not received from inheritance or won by love, asserts that he +must understand Dante well, better than any other person probably, +because he has studied him through in this way thirty or forty times. As +well declare you have a better appreciation of Shakspeare than any one +else because you have identified the birthplace of Dame Quickly, or +ascertained the churchyard where the ghost of the royal Dane hid from +the sight of that far more celestial spirit, his son.</p> + +<p>O, painstaking friends! Shut your books, clear your minds from +artificial nonsense, and feel that only by spirit can spirit be +discerned. Dante, like each other great one, took the stuff that lay +around him, and wove it into a garment of light. It is not by ravelling +that you will best appreciate its tissue or design. It is not by +studying out the petty strifes or external relations of his time, that +you can become acquainted with the thought of Dante. To him these things +were only soil in which to plant himself—figures by which to dramatize +and evolve his ideas. Would you learn him, go listen in the forest of +human passions to all the terrible voices he<a name="page_105" id="page_105"></a> heard with a tormented but +never-to-be-deafened ear; go down into the hells, where each excess that +mars the harmony of nature is punished by the sinner finding no food +except from his own harvest; pass through the purgatories of +speculation, of struggling hope, and faith, never quite quenched, but +smouldering often and long beneath the ashes. Soar if thou canst, but if +thou canst not, clear thine eye to see this great eagle soar into the +higher region where forms arrange themselves for stellar dance and +spheral melody,—and thought, with costly-accelerated motion, raises +itself a spiral which can only end in the heart of the Supreme.</p> + +<p>He who finds in himself no fitness to study Dante in this way, should +regard himself as in the position of a candidate for the ancient +mysteries, when rejected as unfit for initiation. He should seek in +other ways to purify, expand, and strengthen his being, and, when he +feels that he is nobler and stronger, return and try again whether he is +"grown up to it," as the Germans say.</p> + +<p>"The difficulty is in the thoughts;" and this cannot be obviated by the +most minute acquaintance with the history of the times. Comparison of +one edition with another is of use, as a guard against obstructions +through mistake. Still more useful will be the method recommended by Mr. +Cary, of comparing the Poet with himself; this belongs to the +intellectual method, and is the way in which to study our intellectual +friend.</p> + +<p>The versions of Cary and Lyell will be found of use to the student, if +he wants to compare his ideas with those of accomplished +fellow-students. The poems in the London book would aid much in a full +appreciation of the comedy; they ought to be read in the original, but +copies are not easily to be met here, unless in the great libraries. The +Vita Nuova is the noblest expression extant of the inward life of Love, +the best preface and comment to every thing else that Dante did.<a name="page_106" id="page_106"></a></p> + +<p>'Tis pity that the designs of Flaxman are so poorly reproduced in this +American book. It would have been far better to have had it a little +dearer, and thus better done. The designs of Flaxman were really a noble +comment upon Dante, and might help to interpret him; and we are sorry +that those who can see only a few of them should see them so +imperfectly. But in some, as in that of the meeting with Farinata, the +expression cannot be destroyed while one line of the original remained. +The "lost portrait" we do not like as preface to "La Divina Comedia." To +that belongs our accustomed object of reverence, the head of Dante, such +as the Florentine women saw him, when they thought his hair and beard +were still singed, his face dark and sublime with what he had seen +<i>below</i>.</p> + +<p>Prefixed to the other book is a head "from a cast taken after death at +Ravenna, A. D. 1321." It has the grandeur which death sometimes puts on; +the fulness of past life is there, but made sacred in Eternity. It is +also the only front view of Dante we have seen. It is not unworthy to +mark the point</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr><td align="left">"When vigor failed the towering fantasy,</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> But yet the will rolled onward, like a wheel</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> In even motion by the love impelled</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> That moves the sun in heaven, and all the stars."</td></tr> +</table> + +<p>We ought to say, in behalf of this publication, that whosoever wants +Cary's version will rejoice, at last, as do we, to possess it in so fair +and legible guise.</p> + +<p>Before leaving the Italians, we must mourn over the misprints of our +homages to the great tragedian in the preceding review. Our manuscripts +being as illegible as if we were a great genius, we never complain of +these errata, except when we are made to reverse our meaning on some +vital point. We did not say that Alfieri was perfect <i>in person</i>,<a name="page_107" id="page_107"></a> nor +sundry other things that are there; but we do mourn at seeming to say of +our friends, "<i>Why</i> they felt they care little, but <i>what</i> they felt +they <i>scarcely</i> knew," when in fact we asserted, "what they felt they +<i>surely</i> knew."</p> + +<p>In the article on the Celestial Empire we had made this assertion of the +Chinese music: "Like <i>their</i> poetry, the music is of the narrowest +monotony;" in place of which stands this assertion: "Like <i>true</i> poetry, +their music is of the narrowest monotony." But we trust the most +careless reader would not think the merely human mind capable of so +original a remark, and will put this blasphemy to account of that little +demon who has so much to answer for in the sufferings of poor writers +before they can get their thoughts to the eyes of their +fellow-creatures, in print, that there seems scarcely a chance of his +being redeemed as long as there is one author in existence to accuse +him.<a name="FNanchor_11_11" id="FNanchor_11_11"></a><a href="#Footnote_11_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a><a name="page_108" id="page_108"></a></p> + +<h2><a name="AMERICAN_FACTS" id="AMERICAN_FACTS"></a>AMERICAN FACTS.</h2> + +<p>S<small>UCH</small> is the title of a volume just issued from the press; a grand title, +which suggests the epic poet or the philosopher. The purpose of the +work, however, is modest. It is merely a compilation, from which those +who have lived at some distance from the great highway may get answers +to their questions, as to events and circumstances which may have +escaped them. It is one of those books which will be valued in the +backwoods.</p> + +<p>It would be a great book indeed, and one that would require the eye and +heart of a great man,—great as a judge, great as a seer, and great as a +prophet,—that should select for us and present in harmonious outline +the true American facts. To choose the right point of view supposes +command of the field.</p> + +<p>Such a man must be attentive, a quiet observer of the slighter signs of +growth. But he must not be one to dwell superstitiously on details, nor +one to hasten to conclusions. He must have the eye of the eagle, the +courage of the lion, the patience of the worm, and faith such as is the +prerogative of man alone, and of man in the highest phase of his +culture.</p> + +<p>We doubt not the destiny of our country—that she is to accomplish great +things for human nature, and be the mother of a nobler race than the +world has yet known. But she has been so false to the scheme made out at +her nativity, that it is now hard to say which way that destiny points. +We can hardly exhibit the true American facts without some idea of the +real character of America. Only one thing seems clear—that the energy +here at work is very great, though the men employed in carrying out its +purposes may have generally no<a name="page_109" id="page_109"></a> more individual ambition to understand +those purposes, or cherish noble ones of their own, than the coral +insect through whose restless working new continents are upheaved from +ocean's breast.</p> + +<p>Such a man, passing in a boat from one extremity of the Mississippi to +another, and observing every object on the shore as he passed, would yet +learn nothing of universal or general value, because he has no +principles, even in hope, by which to classify them. American facts! +Why, what has been done that marks individuality? Among men there is +Franklin. He is a fact, and an American fact. Niagara is another, in a +different style. The way in which newspapers and other periodicals are +managed is American; a go-ahead, fearless adroitness is American; so is +<i>not</i>, exclusively, the want of strict honor. But we look about in vain +for traits as characteristic of what may be individually the character +of the nation, as we can find at a glance in reference to Spain, +England, France, or Turkey. America is as yet but a European babe; some +new ways and motions she has, consequent on a new position; but that +soul that may shape her mature life scarce begins to know itself yet. +One thing is certain; we live in a large place, no less morally than +physically: woe to him who lives meanly here, and knows the exhibitions +of selfishness and vanity as the only American facts.<a name="page_110" id="page_110"></a></p> + +<h2><a name="NAPOLEON_AND_HIS_MARSHALS12" id="NAPOLEON_AND_HIS_MARSHALS12"></a>NAPOLEON AND HIS MARSHALS.<a name="FNanchor_12_12" id="FNanchor_12_12"></a><a href="#Footnote_12_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a></h2> + +<p>A<small>S</small> we pass the old Brick Chapel our eye is sometimes arrested by +placards that hang side by side. On one is advertised "the Lives of the +Apostles," on the other "Napoleon and his Marshals."</p> + +<p>Surely it is the most monstrous thing the world ever saw, that eighteen +hundred years' profound devotion to a religious teacher should not +preclude flagrant and all but universal violation of his most obvious +precepts; that Napoleon and his Marshals should be some of the best +ripened fruit of our time; that our own people, so unwearied in building +up temples of wood and stone to the Prince of Peace, should be at this +era mad with boyish exultation at the winning of battles, and in a bad +cause too.</p> + +<p>In view of such facts we cannot wonder that Dr. Channing, the editor of +the Tribune, and others who make Christianity their standard, should +find little savor in glowing expositions of the great French drama, and +be disgusted at words of defence, still more of admiration, spoken in +behalf of its leading actor.</p> + +<p>We can easily admit at once that the whole French drama was +anti-Christian, just as the political conduct of every nation of +Christendom has been thus far, with rare and brief exceptions. Something +different might have been expected from our own, because the world has +now attained a clearer consciousness of right, and in our case our +position would have made obedience easy. We have not been led into<a name="page_111" id="page_111"></a> +temptation; we sought it. It is greed, and not want, that has impelled +this nation to wrong. The paths of peace would have been for her also +the paths of wisdom and of pleasantness, but she would not, and has +preferred the path of the beast of prey in the uncertain forest, to the +green pastures where "walks the good Shepherd, his meek temples crowned +with roses red and white."</p> + +<p>Since the state of things is such, we see no extremity of censure that +should fall upon the great French leader, except that he was like the +majority. He was ruthless and selfish on a larger scale than most +monarchs; but we see no difference in grain, nor in principles of +action.</p> + +<p>Admit, then, that he was not a good man, and never for one moment acted +disinterestedly. But do not refuse to do homage to his genius. It is +well worth your while to learn to appreciate <i>that</i>, if you wish to +understand the work that the spirit of the time did, and is still doing, +through him; for his mind is still upon the earth, working here through +the tributary minds it fed. We must say, for our own part, we cannot +admit the right of men severely to criticise Napoleon, till they are +able to appreciate what he was, as well as see what he was not. And we +see no mind of sufficient grasp, or high-placed enough to take this +estimate duly, nor do we believe this age will furnish one. Many +problems will have to be worked out first.</p> + +<p>We reject the exclusively moral no less than the exclusively +intellectual view, and find most satisfaction in those who, aiming +neither at apology nor attack, make their observations upon the great +phenomenon as partial, and to be received as partial.</p> + +<p>Mr. Headley, in his first surprise at finding how falsely John Bull, +rarely liberal enough to be fully trusted in evidence on any topic, has +spoken of the acts of a hated and dreaded foe, does indeed rush too much +on the other side. He mistakes the touches of sentiment in Napoleon for +genuine feeling.<a name="page_112" id="page_112"></a> Now we know that Napoleon loved to read Ossian, and +could appreciate the beauty of tenderness: but we do not believe that he +had one particle of what is properly termed heart;—that is, he could +always silence sentiment at once when his projects demanded it. Then Mr. +Headley finds apologies for acts where apology is out of place. They +characterize the ruthless nature of the man, and that is all that can be +said of them. He moved on, like the Juggernaut car, to his end, and +spilled the blood that was needed for this, whether that blood were +"ditch-water" or otherwise. Neither is this supposing him to be a +monster. The human heart is very capable of such uncontrolled +selfishness, just as it is of angelic love. "'Tis but the first step +that costs"—<i>much</i>. Yet some compassionate hand strewed flowers on +Nero's grave, and the whole world cried shame when Bonaparte's Mameluke +forsook his master.</p> + +<p>Mr. Headley does not seem to be aware that there is no trust to be put +in Napoleon's own account of his actions. He seems to have been almost +incapable of speaking sincerely to those about him. We doubt whether he +could have forgotten with the woman he loved, that she might become his +historiographer.</p> + +<p>But granting the worst that can be said of ruthless acts in the stern +Corsican, are we to reserve our anathema for him alone? He is no worse +than the other crowned ones, against whom he felt himself continually in +the balance. He has shed a greater quantity of blood, and done mightier +wrongs, because he had more power, and followed with more fervor a more +dazzling lure. We see no other difference between his conduct and that +of the great Frederic of Prussia. He never did any thing so meanly +wicked as has just been done in stirring up the Polish peasants to +assassinate the nobles. He never did any thing so atrocious as has been +done by Nicholas of Russia, who, just after his hypocritical intercourse +with that "venerable man," the Pope, when he so zealously defended<a name="page_113" id="page_113"></a> +himself against the charge of scourging nuns to convert them to the +Greek church, administers the knout to a noble and beautiful lady +because she had given shelter for an hour to the patriot Dembinski. Why +then so zealous against Napoleon only? He is but a specimen of what man +must become when he <i>will</i> be king over the bodies, where he cannot over +the souls, of his fellow-men. We doubt if it is any worse in the sight +of God to drain France of her best blood by the conscription, than to +tear the flower of Genius from the breast of Italy to perish in a +dungeon, leaving her overwhelmed and broken-hearted. Leaving all this +aside, and granting that Napoleon might have done more and better, had +his heart been pure from ambition, which gave it such electric power to +animate a vast field of being, there is no reason why we should not +prize what he did do. And here we think Mr. Headley's style the only one +in place. We honor him for the power he shows of admiring the genius +which, in ploughing its gigantic furrow, broke up every artificial +barrier that hid the nations of Europe one from the other—that has left +the "career open to talent," by a gap so broad that no "Chinese +alliance" can ever close it again, and in its vast plans of civic +improvement half-anticipated Fourier. With him all <i>thoughts</i> became +<i>things</i>; it has been spoken in blame, it has been spoken in praise; for +ourselves we see not how this most practical age and country can refuse +to apprehend the designs, and study the instincts of this wonderful +practical genius.</p> + +<p>The characters of the marshals are kept up with the greatest spirit, and +that power of seizing leading traits that gives these sketches the +greatness of dramatic poetry. The marshals are majestic figures; men +vulgar and undeveloped on many sides, but always clear and strong in +their own way. One mind animates them, and of that mind Napoleon is the +culminating point. He did not choose them; they were a part of himself, +a part of the same thought of which he was<a name="page_114" id="page_114"></a> the most forcible +expression. If sometimes inclined to disparage them, it was as a man +might disparage his hand by saying it was not his head. He truly felt +that he was the central force, though some of them were greater in the +details of action than himself. Attempts have often been made to darken +even the military fame of Napoleon and his generals—attempts +disgraceful enough from a foe whom they so long held in terror. But to +any unprejudiced mind there is evident in the conduct of their battles, +the development of the instincts of genius in mighty force, and to +inevitable results.</p> + +<p>With all the haste of hand and inequality of touch they show, these +sketches are full of strength and brilliancy, an honor to the country +that produced them. There is no got-up harmony, no attempt at +originality or acuteness; all is living,—the overflow of the mind; we +like Mr. Headley; even in his faults he is a most agreeable contrast to +the made men of the day.</p> + +<p>In the sketches of the Marshals we have the men before us, a living +reality. Massena, at the siege of Genoa, is represented with a great +deal of simple force. The whole personality of Murat, with his "Oriental +nature" and Oriental dress, is admirably depicted. Why had nobody ever +before had the clearness of perception to see just this, <i>and no more</i>, +in the "theatrical" Murat? Of his darling hero, Ney, the writer has +implied so much all along, that he lays less stress on what he says of +him directly. He thinks it is all understood, and it is.</p> + +<p>Take this book for just what it is; do not look for cool discussion, +impartial criticism, but take it as a vivacious and feeling +representation of events and actors in a great era: you will find it +full of truth, such as only sympathy could teach, and will derive from +it a pleasure and profit lively and genuine as itself. As to denying or +correcting its statements, it is very desirable that those who are able +should do that part of the work; but, in doing it, let them be grateful +for what <i>is</i><a name="page_115" id="page_115"></a> done, and what <i>they</i> could not do; grateful for +reproduction such as he who throws himself into the genius and the +persons of the time may hope for; but he never can who keeps himself +composed in critical distance and self-possession. You cannot have all +excellences combined in one person; let us then cheerfully work together +to complete the beautiful whole,—beautiful in its unity,—no less +beautiful in its variety.<a name="page_116" id="page_116"></a></p> + +<h2><a name="PHYSICAL_EDUCATION13" id="PHYSICAL_EDUCATION13"></a>PHYSICAL EDUCATION.<a name="FNanchor_13_13" id="FNanchor_13_13"></a><a href="#Footnote_13_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a></h2> + +<p>T<small>HIS</small> lecture of Dr. Warren is printed in a form suitable for popular +distribution, while the high reputation of its author insures it +respect. Readers will expect to find here those rules for daily practice +taught by that plain common-sense which men possess from nature, but +strangely lose sight of, amid their many inventions, and are obliged to +rediscover by aid of experience and science.</p> + +<p>Here will be found those general statements as to modes of exercise, +care of the skin, choice of food, and time, and circumstances required +for its digestion, which might furnish the ounce of prevention that is +worth so many pounds of cure. And how much are these needed in this +country, where the most barbarous ignorance prevails on the subject of +cleanliness, sleeping accommodations, &c.! On these subjects improvement +would be easy; that of diet is far more complicated, and is, +unfortunately, one which requires great knowledge of the ways in which +the human frame is affected by the changes of climate and various other +influences, even wisely to discuss. If it is difficult where a race, +mostly indigenous to the soil, feed upon what Mother Nature has prepared +expressly for their use, and where excess or want of judgment in its use +produces disease, it must be far more so where men come from all +latitudes to live under new circumstances, and need a judicious +adaptation of the old to the new. The dogmatism and proscription that +prevail on this topic amuse<a name="page_117" id="page_117"></a> the observer and distress the patient. +"Touch no meat for your life," says one. "It is not meat, but sugar, +that is your ruin," cries another. "No, salt is the destruction of the +world," sadly and gravely declares a third. Milk, which once conciliated +all regards, has its denunciators. "Water," say some, "is the bliss that +shall dissolve all bane. Drink; wash—take to yourself all the water you +can get." "That is madness—is far worse than useless," cry others, +"unless the water be pure. You must touch none that has not been tested +by a chemist." "Yes, you may at any rate drink it," say others, "and in +large quantities, for the power of water to aid digestion is obvious to +every observer."</p> + +<p>"No," says Dr. Warren, "animals do not drink at the time they eat, but +some hours after; and they generally take very small quantities of +liquid, compared with that which is used by man. The savage, in his +native wilds, takes his solid food, when he can obtain it, to satiety, +reposes afterwards, and then resuming his chase through the forest, +stops at the rivulet to allay his thirst. The disadvantage of taking a +large quantity of liquid must be obvious to all those who consider that +the digesting liquid is diluted and weakened in proportion to the +quantity of drink."</p> + +<p>What wonder is it, if even the well-disposed among the multitude, seeing +such dissension among the counsellors, gathering just enough from their +disputes to infer that they have no true philosophical basis for their +opinions, and seeing those who would set the example in practice of this +art without science of dietetics generally among the most morbid and +ill-developed specimens of humanity, just throw aside all rule upon the +subject, partake of what is set before them, trust to air, exercise, and +good intentions to ward off the worst effects of the promiscuous fare?</p> + +<p>Yet, while hopeless at present of selecting the right articles, and +building up, so far as hereditary taint will permit, a pure and +healthful body from feeding on congenial substances, we<a name="page_118" id="page_118"></a> know at least +this much, that stimulants and over-eating—not food—are injurious, and +may take care enough of ourselves to avoid these.</p> + +<p>The other branches we can really act wisely in, Dr. Warren, after giving +the usual directions (rarely followed as yet) for airing beds, and +sleeping-rooms, adds,—</p> + +<p>"The manner in which children sleep will readily be acknowledged to be +important; yet very little attention is paid to this matter. Children +are crowded together in small, unventilated rooms, often two or three in +a bed, and on beds composed of half prepared feathers, from which issues +a noxious effluvia, infecting the child at a period when he is least +able to resist its influence; so that in the morning, instead of feeling +the full refreshment and vigor natural to his age, he is pale, languid, +and for some time indisposed to exertion.</p> + +<p>"The rooms in which children are brought up should be well aired, by +having a fireplace, which should be kept open the greater part of the +year. There never should be more than one in the same bed; and this +remark may be applied with equal propriety to adults. The substance on +which they lie should be hair, thoroughly prepared, so that it should +have no bad smell. In winter it may be of cotton, or of hair and cotton. +It would be very desirable, however, to place children in separate +apartments, as well as in separate beds.</p> + +<p>"It has been justly said that adults as well as children had better +employ single instead of double beds; this remark is intended to apply +universally. The use of double beds has been very generally adopted in +this country, perhaps in part as a matter of economy; but this practice +is objectionable, for more reasons than can be stated here."</p> + +<p>On the subject of exercise, he mentions particularly the triangle, and +we copy what he says, because of the perfect ease and convenience with +which one could be put up and used in every bed-chamber.<a name="page_119" id="page_119"></a></p> + +<p>"The exercising the upper limbs is too much neglected; and it is +important to provide the means of bringing them into action, as well to +develop their powers as to enlarge and invigorate the chest, with which +they are connected, and which they powerfully influence. The best I know +of is the use of the triangle. This admirably exerts the upper limbs and +the muscles of the chest, and, indeed, when adroitly employed, those of +the whole body. The triangle is made of a stick of walnut wood, four +feet long, and an inch and a half in diameter. To each end is connected +a rope, the opposite extremities of which being confined together at +such height as to allow the motion of swinging by the hands."</p> + +<p>We have ourselves derived the greatest benefit from this simple means. +Gymnastic exercises, and if possible in the open air, are needed by +every one who is not otherwise led to exercise all parts of the body by +various kinds of labor. Some, though only partial provision, is made for +boys by gymnasia and riding-schools. In wiser nations, such have been +the care of the state. And in despotic governments, the jealousy of a +tyrant was never more justly awakened than when the youth of the land, +by a devotion to gymnastic exercises, showed their aspiration to reach +the healthful stature of manhood. For every one who possesses a strong +mind in a sane body is heir presumptive to the kingdom of this world; he +needs no external credentials, but has only to appear and make clear his +title. But for such a princely form the eye searches the street, the +mart, and the council-chamber, in vain.</p> + +<p>Those who feel that the game of life is so nearly up with them that they +cannot devote much of the time that is left to the care of wise living +in their own persons, should, at least, be unwilling to injure the next +generation by the same ignorance which has blighted so many of us in our +earliest year. Such should attend to the work of Mr. Combe,<a name="FNanchor_14_14" id="FNanchor_14_14"></a><a href="#Footnote_14_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a> among +other<a name="page_120" id="page_120"></a> good books. Mr. Combe has done much good already in this country, +and this book should be circulated every where, for many of its +suggestions are too obviously just not to be adopted as soon as read.</p> + +<p>Dr. Warren bears his testimony against the pernicious effects that +follow upon the use of tobacco, and we cannot but hope that what he says +of its tendency to create cancer will have weight with some who are +given to the detestable habit of chewing. This practice is so odious to +women, that we must regard its prevalence here as a token of the very +light regard in which they are held, and the consequent want of +refinement among men. Dr. Warren seems to favor the practice of +hydropathy to some extent, but must needs bear his testimony in full +against homœopathy. No matter; the little doses will insinuate their +way, and cure the ills that flesh is heir to,</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr><td align="left">"For a' that, and a' that,</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> And mickle mair for a' that."</td></tr> +</table> +<p><a name="page_121" id="page_121"></a></p> + +<h2><a name="FREDERICK_DOUGLASS15" id="FREDERICK_DOUGLASS15"></a>FREDERICK DOUGLASS.<a name="FNanchor_15_15" id="FNanchor_15_15"></a><a href="#Footnote_15_15" class="fnanchor">[15]</a></h2> + +<p>F<small>REDERICK</small> D<small>OUGLASS</small> has been for some time a prominent member of the +abolition party. He is said to be an excellent speaker—can speak from a +thorough personal experience—and has upon the audience, besides, the +influence of a strong character and uncommon talents. In the book before +us he has put into the story of his life the thoughts, the feelings, and +the adventures that have been so affecting through the living voice; nor +are they less so from the printed page. He has had the courage to name +persons, times, and places, thus exposing himself to obvious danger, and +setting the seal on his deep convictions as to the religious need of +speaking the whole truth. Considered merely as a narrative, we have +never read one more simple, true, coherent, and warm with genuine +feeling. It is an excellent piece of writing, and on that score to be +prized as a specimen of the powers of the black race, which prejudice +persists in disputing. We prize highly all evidence of this kind, and it +is becoming more abundant. The cross of the Legion of Honor has just +been conferred in France on Dumas and Souliè, both celebrated in the +paths of light literature. Dumas, whose father was a general in the +French army, is a mulatto; Souliè, a quadroon. He went from New Orleans, +where, though to the eye a white man, yet, as known to have African +blood in his veins, he could never have enjoyed the privileges due to a +human being. Leaving the land of freedom, he found himself free to +develop the powers that God had given.<a name="page_122" id="page_122"></a></p> + +<p>Two wise and candid thinkers—the Scotchman Kinmont, prematurely lost to +this country, of which he was so faithful and generous a student, and +the late Dr. Channing,—both thought that the African race had in them a +peculiar element, which, if it could be assimilated with those imported +among us from Europe, would give to genius a development, and to the +energies of character a balance and harmony, beyond what has been seen +heretofore in the history of the world. Such an element is indicated in +their lowest estate by a talent for melody, a ready skill at imitation +and adaptation, an almost indestructible elasticity of nature. It is to +be remarked in the writings both of Souliè and Dumas, full of faults, +but glowing with plastic life and fertile in invention. The same torrid +energy and saccharine fulness may be felt in the writings of this +Douglass, though his life, being one of action or resistance, has been +less favorable to <i>such</i> powers than one of a more joyous flow might +have been.</p> + +<p>The book is prefaced by two communications—one from Garrison, and one +from Wendell Phillips. That from the former is in his usual +over-emphatic style. His motives and his course have been noble and +generous; we look upon him with high respect; but he has indulged in +violent invective and denunciation till he has spoiled the temper of his +mind. Like a man who has been in the habit of screaming himself hoarse +to make the deaf hear, he can no longer pitch his voice on a key +agreeable to common ears. Mr. Phillips's remarks are equally decided, +without this exaggeration in the tone. Douglass himself seems very just +and temperate. We feel that his view, even of those who have injured him +most, may be relied upon. He knows how to allow for motives and +influences. Upon the subject of religion, he speaks with great force, +and not more than our own sympathies can respond to. The inconsistencies +of slaveholding professors of religion cry to Heaven. We are not +disposed to detest, or refuse communion with them. Their blindness is +but one<a name="page_123" id="page_123"></a> form of that prevalent fallacy which substitutes a creed for a +faith, a ritual for a life. We have seen too much of this system of +atonement not to know that those who adopt it often began with good +intentions, and are, at any rate, in their mistakes worthy of the +deepest pity. But that is no reason why the truth should not be uttered, +trumpet-tongued, about the thing. "Bring no more vain oblations;" +sermons must daily be preached anew on that text. Kings, five hundred +years ago, built churches with the spoils of war; clergymen to-day +command slaves to obey a gospel which they will not allow them to read, +and call themselves Christians amid the curses of their fellow-men. The +world ought to get on a little faster than this, if there be really any +principle of improvement in it. The kingdom of heaven may not at the +beginning have dropped seed larger than a mustard-seed, but even from +that we had a right to expect a fuller growth than we can believe to +exist, when we read such a book as this of Douglass. Unspeakably +affecting is the fact that he never saw his mother at all by daylight.</p> + +<p>"I do not recollect of ever seeing my mother by the light of day. She +was with me in the night. She would lie down with me, and get me to +sleep, but long before I waked she was gone."</p> + +<p>The following extract presents a suitable answer to the hackneyed +argument drawn by the defender of slavery from the songs of the slave, +and is also a good specimen of the powers of observation and manly heart +of the writer. We wish that every one may read his book, and see what a +mind might have been stifled in bondage—what a man may be subjected to +the insults of spendthrift dandies, or the blows of mercenary brutes, in +whom there is no whiteness except of the skin, no humanity except in the +outward form, and of whom the Avenger will not fail yet to demand, +"Where is thy brother?"</p> + +<p>"The Home Plantation of Colonel Lloyd wore the appeaance<a name="page_124" id="page_124"></a> of a country +village. All the mechanical operations for all the farms were performed +here. The shoemaking and mending, the blacksmithing, cartwrighting, +coopering, weaving, and grain-grinding, were all performed by the slaves +on the Home Plantation. The whole place wore a business-like aspect very +unlike the neighboring farms. The number of houses, too, conspired to +give it advantage over the neighboring farms. It was called by the +slaves the <i>Great House Farm</i>. Few privileges were esteemed higher, by +the slaves of the out-farms, than that of being selected to do errands +at the Great House Farm. It was associated in their minds with +greatness. A representative could not be prouder of his election to a +seat in the American Congress, than a slave on one of the out-farms +would be of his election to do errands at the Great House Farm. They +regarded it as evidence of great confidence reposed in them by their +overseers; and it was on this account, as well as a constant desire to +be out of the field, from under the driver's lash, that they esteemed it +a high privilege, one worth careful living for. He was called the +smartest and most trusty fellow who had this honor conferred upon him +the most frequently. The competitors for this office sought as +diligently to please their overseers as the office-seekers in the +political parties seek to please and deceive the people. The same traits +of character might be seen in Colonel Lloyd's slaves, as are seen in the +slaves of the political parties.</p> + +<p>"The slaves selected to go to the Great House Farm, for the monthly +allowance for themselves and their fellow-slaves, were peculiarly +enthusiastic. While on their way, they would make the dense old woods, +for miles around, reverberate with their wild songs, revealing at once +the highest joy and the deepest sadness. They would compose and sing as +they went along, consulting neither time nor tune. The thought that came +up came out,—if not in the word, in the sound,—and as frequently in +the one as in the other. They would sometimes<a name="page_125" id="page_125"></a> sing the most pathetic +sentiment in the most rapturous tone, and the most rapturous sentiment +in the most pathetic tone. Into all their songs they would manage to +weave something of the Great House Farm. Especially would they do this +when leaving home. They would then sing most exultingly the following +words:—</p> + +<p class="poem"> +'I am going away to the Great House Farm!<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">O, yea! O, yea! O!'</span><br /> +</p> + +<p class="nind">This they would sing as a chorus to words which to many would seem +unmeaning jargon, but which, nevertheless, were full of meaning to +themselves. I have sometimes thought that the mere hearing of those +songs would do more to impress some minds with the horrible character of +slavery, than the reading of whole volumes of philosophy on the subject +could do.</p> + +<p>"I did not, when a slave, understand the deep meaning of those rude and +apparently incoherent songs. I was myself within the circle; so that I +neither saw nor heard as those without might see and hear. They told a +tale of woe which was then altogether beyond my feeble comprehension; +they were tones loud, long, and deep; they breathed the prayer and +complaint of souls boiling over with the bitterest anguish. Every tone +was a testimony against slavery, and a prayer to God for deliverance +from chains. The hearing of those wild notes always depressed my spirit, +and filled me with ineffable sadness. I have frequently found myself in +tears while hearing them. The mere recurrence to those songs, even now, +afflicts me; and while I am writing these lines, an expression of +feeling has already found its way down my cheek. To those songs I trace +my first glimmering conception of the dehumanizing character of slavery. +I can never get rid of that conception. Those songs still follow me, to +deepen my hatred of slavery, and quicken my sympathies for my brethren +in bonds. If any one wishes to be impressed with the soul-killing<a name="page_126" id="page_126"></a> +effects of slavery, let him go to Colonel Lloyd's plantation, and, on +allowance day, place himself in the deep pine woods, and there let him, +in silence, analyze the sounds that shall pass through the chambers of +his soul; and if he is not thus impressed, it will only be because +'there is no flesh in his obdurate heart.'</p> + +<p>"I have often been utterly astonished, since I came to the north, to +find persons who could speak of the singing among slaves as evidence of +their contentment and happiness. It is impossible to conceive of a +greater mistake. Slaves sing most when they are most unhappy. The songs +of the slave represent the sorrows of his heart; and he is relieved by +them only as an aching heart is relieved by its tears. At least, such is +my experience. I have often sung to drown my sorrow, but seldom to +express my happiness. Crying for joy and singing for joy were alike +uncommon to me while in the jaws of slavery. The singing of a man cast +away upon a desolate island might be as appropriately considered as +evidence of contentment and happiness, as the singing of a slave; the +songs of the one and of the other are prompted by the same emotion."<a name="page_127" id="page_127"></a></p> + +<h2><a name="PHILIP_VAN_ARTEVELDE16" id="PHILIP_VAN_ARTEVELDE16"></a>PHILIP VAN ARTEVELDE.<a name="FNanchor_16_16" id="FNanchor_16_16"></a><a href="#Footnote_16_16" class="fnanchor">[16]</a></h2> + +<p>T<small>HESE</small> volumes have met with as warm a reception "as ever unripe author's +quick conceit," to use Mr. Taylor's own language, could hope or wish; +and so deservedly, that the critic's happy task, in examining them, is +to point out, not what is most to be blamed, but what is most to be +praised.</p> + +<p>With joy we hail a new poet. Star after star has been withdrawn from our +firmament, and when that of Coleridge set, we seemed in danger of being +left, at best, to a gray and confounding twilight; but, lo! a "ray of +pure white light" darts across the obscured depths of ether, and allures +our eyes and hearts towards the rising orb from which it emanates. Let +us tremble no more lest our summer pass away without its roses, but +receive our present visitor as the harbinger of a harvest of delights.</p> + +<p>The natural process of the mind in forming a judgment is comparison. The +office of sound criticism is to teach that this comparison should be +made, not between the productions of differently-constituted minds, but +between any one of these and a fixed standard of perfection. +Nevertheless it is not contrary to the canon to take a survey of the +labors of many artists with reference to one, if we value them, not +according to the degree of pleasure we have experienced from them, which +must always depend upon our then age, the state of the passions and +relations with life, but according to the success of the artist in +attaining the object he himself had in view. To illustrate: In the same +room hang two pictures, Raphael's<a name="page_128" id="page_128"></a> Madonna and Martin's Destruction of +Nineveh. A person enters, capable of admiring both, but young, +excitable; he is delighted with the Madonna, but probably far more so +with the other, because his imagination is at that time more developed +than the pure love for beauty which is the characteristic of a taste in +a higher state of cultivation. He prefers the Martin, because it excites +in his mind a thousand images of sublimity and terror, recalls the +brilliancy of Oriental history, and the stern pomp of the old prophetic +day, and rouses his mind to a high state of action, <i>then</i> as congenial +with its wants as at a later day would be the feeling of contented +absorption, of perfect satisfaction with a production of the human soul, +which one of Raphael's calmly beautiful creations is fitted to cause. +Now, it would be very unfair for this person to pronounce the Martin +superior to the Raphael, because it then gave him more pleasure. But if +he said, the one is intended to excite the imagination, the other to +gratify the taste, that which fulfils its object most completely must be +the best, whether it give me most pleasure or no; he would be on the +right ground, and might consider the two pictures relatively to one +another, without danger of straying very far from the truth.</p> + +<p><i>This</i> is the ground we would assume in a hasty sketch, which will not, +we hope, be deemed irrelevant, of the most prominent essays to which the +last sixty years have given rise in the department of the work now +before us, previous to stating our opinion of its merits. Many, we are +aware, ridicule the idea of filling reviews with long dissertations, and +say they only want brief accounts of such books as are coming out, by +way of saving time. With such we cannot agree. We think the office of +the reviewer is, indeed, in part, to point out to the public attention +deserving works, which might otherwise slumber too long unknown on the +bookseller's shelves, but still more to present to the reader as large a +cluster of objects round one point as possible, thus, by suggestion,<a name="page_129" id="page_129"></a> +stimulating him to take a broader or more careful view of the subject +than his indolence or his business would have permitted.</p> + +<p>The terms Classical and Romantic, which have so long divided European +critics, and exercised so powerful an influence upon their decisions, +are not much known or heeded among us,—as, indeed, <i>belles-lettres</i> +cannot, generally, in our busy state of things, be important or +influential, as among a less free and more luxurious people, to whom the +more important truths are proffered through those indirect but alluring +mediums. Here, where every thing may be spoken or written, and the +powers that be, abused without ceremony on the very highway, the Muse +has nothing to do with dagger or bowl; hardly is the censor's wand +permitted to her hand. Yet is her lyre by no means unheeded, and if it +is rather by refining our tastes than by modelling our opinions that she +influences us, yet is that influence far from unimportant. And the time +is coming, perhaps in our day, we may (if war do not untimely check the +national progress) even see and temper its beginning, when the broad +West shall swarm with an active, happy, and cultivated population; when +the South, freed from the incubus which now oppresses her best energies, +shall be able to do justice to the resources of her soil and of her +mind; when the East, gathering from every breeze the riches of the old +world, shall be the unwearied and loving agent to those regions which +lie far away from the great deep, our bulwark and our minister. Then +will the division of labor be more complete; then will a surplus of +talent be spared from the mart, the forum, and the pulpit; then will the +fine arts assume their proper dignity, as the expression of what is +highest and most ethereal in the mind of a people. Then will our +quarries be thoroughly explored, and furnish materials for stately +fabrics to adorn the face of all the land, while our ports shall be +crowded with foreign artists flocking to take lessons in the school of +American architecture.<a name="page_130" id="page_130"></a> Then will our floral treasures be arranged into +harmonious gardens, which, environing tasteful homes, shall dimple all +the landscape. Then will our Allstons and our Greenoughs preside over +great academies, and be raised far above any need, except of giving +outward form to the beautiful ideas which animate them; and ornament +from the exhaustless stores of genius the marble halls where the people +meet to rejoice, or to mourn, or where dwell those wise and good whom +the people delight to honor. Then shall music answer to and exalt the +national spirit, and the poet's brows shall be graced with the civic as +well as the myrtle crown. Then shall we have an American mind, as well +as an American system, and, no longer under the sad necessity of +exchanging money for thoughts, traffic on perfectly equal terms with the +other hemisphere. Then—ah, not yet!—shall our literature make its own +laws, and give its own watchwords; till then we must learn and borrow +from that of nations who possess a higher degree of cultivation though a +much lower one of happiness.</p> + +<p>The term Classical, used in its narrow sense, implies a servile +adherence to the Unities, but in its wide and best sense, it means such +a simplicity of plan, selection of actors and events, such judicious +limitations on time and range of subject, as may concentrate the +interest, perfect the illusion, and make the impression most distinct +and forcible. Although no advocates for the old French school, with its +slavish obedience to rule, which introduces follies greater than those +it would guard against, we lay the blame, not on their view of the +drama, but on the then bigoted nationality of the French mind, which +converted the Mussulman prophet into a De Retz, the Roman princess into +a French grisette, and infected the clear and buoyant atmosphere of +Greece with the vapors of the Seine. We speak of the old French Drama: +with the modern we do not profess to be acquainted, having met with +scarcely any specimens in our own bookstores or libraries; but if it +has<a name="page_131" id="page_131"></a> been revolutionized with the rest of their literature, it is +probably as unlike as possible to the former models.</p> + +<p>We shall speak of productions in the classical spirit first; because Mr. +Taylor is a disciple of the other school, though otherwise we should +have adopted a contrary course.</p> + +<p>The most perfect specimens of this style with which we are acquainted +are the Filippo, the Saul, and the Myrrha of Alfieri; the Wallenstein of +Schiller; the Tasso and the Iphigenia of Gœthe. England furnishes +nothing of the sort. She is thoroughly Shakspearian.</p> + +<p>There is no higher pleasure than to see a genius of a wild, impassioned, +many-sided eagerness, restraining its exuberance by its sense of +fitness, taming its extravagance beneath the rule its taste approves, +exhibiting the soul within soul, and the force of the will over all that +we inherit. The <i>abandon</i> of genius has its beauty—far more beautiful +its voluntary submission to wise law. A picture, a description, has +beauty, the beauty of life; these pictures, these descriptions, arranged +upon a plan, made subservient to a purpose, have a higher beauty—that +of the mind of man acting upon life. Art is nature, but nature +new-modelled, condensed, and harmonized. We are not merely like mirrors, +to reflect our own times to those more distant. The mind has a light of +its own, and by it illumines what it re-creates.</p> + +<p>This is the ground of our preference for the classical school, and for +Alfieri beyond all pupils of that school. We hold that if a vagrant bud +of poesy here and there be blighted by conforming to its rules, our loss +is more than made up to us by our enjoyment of plan, of symmetry, of the +triumph of genius over multiplied obstacles.</p> + +<p>It has been often said that the dramas of Alfieri contrast directly with +his character. This is, perhaps, not true; we do but see the depths of +that volcano which in early days boiled over so fiercely. The wild, +infatuated youth often becomes the stern, pitiless old man. Alfieri did +but bend<a name="page_132" id="page_132"></a> his surplus strength upon literature, and became a despot to +his own haughty spirit, instead of domineering over those of others.</p> + +<p>We have selected his three masterpieces, though he, to himself an +inexorable critic, has shown no indulgence to his own works, and the +least successful of those which remain to us, Maria Stuarda, is marked +by great excellence.</p> + +<p>Filippo has been so ably depicted in a work now well known, "Carlyle's +Life of Schiller," that we need not dwell upon it. All the light of the +picture, the softer feelings of the hapless Carlos and Elizabeth, is so +cast, as to make more visible the awing darkness of the tyrant's +perverted mind, deadened to all virtue by a false religion, cold and +hopeless as the dungeons of his own Inquisition, and relentless as +death. Forced by the magic wand of genius into the stifling precincts of +this mind, horror-struck that we must sympathize with such a state as +possible to humanity, we rush from the contemplation of the picture, and +would gladly curtain it over in our hall of imagery forever. Yet +stigmatize not our poet as a dark master, courting the shade, and hating +the glad lights which love and hope cast upon human nature. The drama +has a holy meaning, a patriot moral, and we, above all, should reverence +him, the aristocrat by birth, by education, and by tastes, whose love of +liberty could lead him to such conclusions.</p> + +<p>In "Saul," a bright rainbow rises, by the aid of the Sun of +Righteousness, above the commotion of the tempest. David, the faithful, +the hopeful, combining the æsthetic culture, the winged inspiration of +the poet with the noble pride of Israel's chosen warrior, contrasts +finely with the unfortunate Saul, his mind darkened and convulsed by +jealousy, vain regrets, and fear of the God he has forgotten how to +love. The other three actors shade in the picture without attracting our +attention from the two principal personages. The Hebrew spirit breathes +through the whole. The beauty of the lyric effusions<a name="page_133" id="page_133"></a> is so generally +felt, that encomium is needless; we shall only observe that in them +Alfieri's style, usually so severe, becomes flexible, melodious, and +glowing; thus we may easily perceive what he might have done, had not +the simplicity of his genius disdained the foreign aid of ornament upon +its Doric proportions.</p> + +<p>Myrrha is, however, the highest exertion of his genius. The remoteness +of time and manners, the subject, at once so hackneyed and so revolting, +these great obstacles he seizes with giant grasp, and moulds them to his +purpose. Our souls are shaken to the foundation; all every-day barriers +fall with the great convulsion of passion. We sorrow, we sicken, we die +with the miserable girl, so pure under her involuntary crime of feeling, +pursued by a malignant deity in her soul's most sacred recesses, torn +from all communion with humanity, and the virtue she was framed to +adore. The perfection of plan, the matchless skill with which every +circumstance is brought out! The agonizing rapidity with which her +misery "va camminando al fine"! No! never was higher tragic power +exhibited; never were love, terror, pity, fused into a more penetrating +draught! Myrrha is a favorite acting-play in Italy—a fact inconceivable +to an English or American mind; for (to say nothing of other objections) +we should think such excess of emotion unbearable. But in those meridian +climes they drink deep draughts of passion too frequently to taste them +as we do.</p> + +<p>We pass to works of far inferior power, but of greater beauty. We have +selected Iphigenia and Tasso as the most finished results of their +author's mature views of art. On his plays in the Romantic style, we +shall touch in another place. If any one ask why we do not class Faust +with either, we reply, that is a work without a parallel; one of those +few originals which have their laws within themselves, and should always +be discussed singly.</p> + +<p>The unity of plan in Iphigenia is perfect. There is one<a name="page_134" id="page_134"></a> pervading idea. +The purity of Iphigenia's mind must be kept unsullied, that she may be a +fit intercessor to the gods in behalf of her polluted family. Gœthe, +in his travels through Italy, saw a picture of a youthful Christian +saint—Agatha, we think; struck by the radiant purity of her expression, +he resolved his heathen priestess should not have one thought which +could revolt the saint of the true religion. This idea is wonderfully +preserved throughout a drama so classic in its coloring and manners. The +happiest development of character, an interest in the denouement which +is only so far tempered by our trust in the lovely heroine, as to permit +us to enjoy all the minuter beauties on our way, (this the breathless +interest of Alfieri's dramas hardly allows, on a fourth or fifth +reading,) exquisite descriptive touches, and expressions of sentiment, +unequalled softness and harmony of style, distinguish a drama not to be +surpassed in its own department. Torquato Tasso<a name="FNanchor_17_17" id="FNanchor_17_17"></a><a href="#Footnote_17_17" class="fnanchor">[17]</a> is of inferior +general, but greater particular beauty. The two worldly, the two higher +characters, with that of Alphonso halting between, are shaded with equal +delicacy and distinctness. The inward-turning imagination of the +ill-fated bard, and the fantastic tricks it plays with life, are painted +as only a poet's soul of equal depth, of greater versatility, could have +painted them. In analysis of the passions, and eloquent descriptions of +their more hidden workings, some parts may vie with Rousseau; while +several effusions of feeling are worthy of Tasso's own lyre, with its +"breaking heartstring's tone." The conduct of the piece being in perfect +accordance with the plan, gives the satisfaction we have mentioned in +speaking of Raphael's Madonna.</p> + +<p>Schiller's Wallenstein does not strictly belong to this class, yet we +are disposed to claim it as observing the unities of<a name="page_135" id="page_135"></a> time and interest; +the latter especially is entire, notwithstanding the many actors and +side-scenes which are introduced. Numberless touches of nature arrest +our attention, bright lights are flashed across many characters, but our +interest, momently increasing, is for Wallenstein—for the perversion, +the danger, the ruin of that monarch soul, that falling son of the +morning. Even that we feel in Max, with his celestial bloom of heart, in +Thekla's sweet trustfulness, is subsidiary. This work, generally known +to the reader through Mr. Coleridge's translation, affords an imperfect +illustration of our meaning. Miss Baillie's plays on the passions hold a +middle place. Unity of purpose there is—no unity of plan or conduct. +Bold, fine outline—very bad coloring. Profound, beautifully-expressed +reflections on the passions—utter want of skill in showing them out; a +thorough feeling, indeed, of the elements of tragedy,—had but the +vitalizing energy been added. Her plays are failures; but since she has +given us nothing else, we cannot but rejoice in having these. 'Tis great +pity that the authoress of De Montfort and Basil should not have +attempted a narrative poem.</p> + +<p>Coleridge and Byron are signal instances how peculiar is the kind of +talent required for the drama; one a philosopher, both men of great +genius and uncommon mastery over language, both conversant with each +side of human nature, both considering the drama in its true light as +one of the highest departments of literature, both utterly wanting in +simplicity, pathos, truth of passion and liveliness of action—in that +thrilling utterance of heart to heart, whose absence <i>here</i>, no other +excellence can atone for. Of Maturin and Knowles we do not speak, +because theirs, though very good acting plays, are not, like Mr. +Taylor's, written for the closet; of Milman, because not sufficiently +acquainted with his plays. We would here pay a tribute to our countryman +Hillhouse, whose Hadad, read at a very early age, we remember with much +delight. Probably our judgment now might be different;<a name="page_136" id="page_136"></a> but a work which +could make so deep an impression on any age, must have genius. We are +sorry we have never since met it in any library or parlor, and are not +competent to speak of it more particularly.</p> + +<p>It will be seen that Mr. Taylor has not attempted the sort of dramatic +poetry which we consider the highest, but has labored in that which the +great wizard of Avon adopted, because it lay nearest at hand to clothe +his spells withal, and consecrated it, with his world-embracing genius, +to the (in our judgment) no small detriment of his country's taste. +Having thus declared that we cannot grant him our very highest meed of +admiration, (though we will not say that he might not win it if he made +the essay,) we hasten to meet him on his own ground. "Dramatica Poesis +est veluti Historia spectabilis," is his motto, taken from Bacon, who +formed his taste on Shakspeare. We would here mention that Gœthe's +earlier works, Gœtz von Berlichingen and Egmont are of this +school—brilliant fragments of past days, ballads acted out, historical +scenes and personages clustered round a hero; and we have seen that his +ripened taste preferred the form of Iphigenia and Tasso.</p> + +<p>We cannot too strongly express our approbation of the opinions +maintained in his short preface to this work. We rejoice to see a leader +coming forward who is likely to un-Hemansize and un-Cornwallize +literature. We too have been sick, we too have been intoxicated with +<i>words</i> till we could hardly appreciate thoughts; perhaps our present +writing shows traces of this Lower-Empire taste; but we have sense +enough left to welcome the English Phocion, who would regenerate public +feeling. The candor and modest dignity with which these opinions are +offered charm us. The remarks upon Shelley, whom we have loved, and do +still love passing well, brought truth home to us in a definite shape. +With regard to the lowness of Lord Byron's standard of character, every +thing indeed has been said which could be<a name="page_137" id="page_137"></a> but not as Mr. Taylor has +said it; and we opine that his refined and gentle remarks will find +their way to ears which have always been deaf to the harsh sarcasms +unseasoned by wit, which have been current on this topic.</p> + +<p>Our author too, notwithstanding his modest caveat, has acted upon his +principles, and furnished a forcible illustration of their justice. For +dignity of sentiment, for simplicity of manner, for truth to life, never +infringing upon respect for the ideal, we look to such a critic, and we +are not disappointed.</p> + +<p>The scene is laid in Ghent, in the fourteenth century. The Flemish +mobocracy are brought before us with a fidelity and animation surpassing +those displayed in Egmont. Their barbarism, and the dissimilar, but not +inferior barbarism of their would-be lords, the bold, bad men, the +shameless crime and brainless tumult of those days, live before us. Amid +these clashing elements moves Philip Van Artevelde, with the presence, +not of a god, but of a great man, too superior to be shaken, too wise to +be shocked by their rude jarrings. He becomes the leader of his people, +and despite pestilence, famine, and their own untutored passions, he +leads them on to victory and power.</p> + +<p>In the second part we follow Van Artevelde from his zenith of glory to +his decline. The tarnishing influence of prosperity on his spirit, and +its clear radiance again in adversity, are managed as the noble and +well-defined conception of the character deserves.</p> + +<p>The boy king and his courtly, intriguing counsellors are as happily +portrayed as Vauclaire and the fierce commonalty he ruled, or resisted +with rope or sword, as the case might demand.</p> + +<p>The two loves of Van Artevelde are finely imagined, as types of the two +states of his character. Both are lovely; the one how elevated! the +other how pity-moving in her loveliness! On the interlude of Elena we +must be<a name="page_138" id="page_138"></a> allowed to linger fondly, though the author's self condemn our +taste.</p> + +<p>We are no longer partial to the machinery of portents and presentiments. +Wallenstein's were the last we liked, but Van Artevelde's make good +poetry, and have historical vouchers. They remind us of those of Fergus +Mac Ivor.</p> + +<p>We shall extract a speech of Van Artevelde's, in which a leading idea of +the work is expressed.</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry"> +<tr><td align="right">Father,—</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">So! with the chivalry of Christendom</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">I wage my war,—no nation for my friend,</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Yet in each nation having hosts of friends.</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">The bondsmen of the world, that to their lords</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Are bound with chains of iron, unto me</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Are knit by their affections. Be it so.</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">From kings and nobles will I seek no more</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Aid, friendship, or alliance. With the poor</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">I make my treaty; and the heart of man</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Sets the broad seal of its allegiance there,</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">And ratifies the compact. Vassals, serfs,</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Ye that are bent with unrequited toil,</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Ye that have whitened in the dungeon's darkness,</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Through years that know not change of night nor day,</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Tatterdemalions, lodgers in the hedge,</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Lean beggars with raw backs, and rumbling maws,</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Whose poverty was whipped for starving you,—</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">I hail you my auxiliars and allies,</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">The only potentates whose help I crave!</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Richard of England, thou hast slain Jack Straw,</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">But thou hast left unquenched the vital spark</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">That set Jack Straw on fire.</td><td align="left">The spirit lives;</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">And as when he of Canterbury fell,</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">His seat was filled by some no better clerk,</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">So shall John Ball, that slew him, be replaced.</td></tr> +</table> + +<p><a name="page_139" id="page_139"></a></p> + +<p>Fain would we extract Van Artevelde's reply to the French envoy—the +oration of the dying Van den Bosch in the market-place of Ypres, the +last scene between the hero and the double-dyed dastard and traitor, Sir +Heurant of Heurlée, and many, many more, had we but space enough.</p> + +<p>We have purposely avoided telling the story, as is usual in an article +of this kind, because we wish that every one should buy and read Van +Artevelde, instead of resting content with the canvas side of the +carpet.</p> + +<p>A few words more, and we shall conclude these, we fear, already too +prolonged remarks. We would compare Mr. Taylor with the most applauded +of living dramatists, the Italian Alessandro Manzoni.</p> + +<p>To wide and accurate historical knowledge, to purity of taste, to the +greatest elevation of sentiment, Manzoni unites uncommon lyric power, +and a beautiful style in the most beautiful language of the modern +world. The conception of both his plays is striking, the detached +beauties of thought and imagery are many; but where are the life, the +glow, the exciting march of action, the thorough display of character +which charm us in Van Artevelde? We <i>live</i> at Ghent and Senlis; we +<i>think</i> of Italy. Van Artevelde dies,—and our hearts die with him. When +Elena says, "The body,—O!" we could echo that "long, funereal note," +and weep as if the sun of heroic nobleness were quenched from our own +horizon. "Carmagnola, Adelchis die,"—we calmly shut the book, and think +how much we have enjoyed it. Manzoni can deeply feel goodness and +greatness, but he cannot localize them in the contours of life before +our eyes. His are capital sketches, poems of a deep meaning,—but this, +yes! this <i>is</i> a drama.</p> + +<p>We cannot conclude more fitly, nor inculcate a precept on the reader +more forcibly, than in Mr. Taylor's own words, with a slight alteration: +"To say that I admire him is to admit that I owe him much; for +admiration is never thrown away upon the mind of him who feels it, +except when it is<a name="page_140" id="page_140"></a> misdirected or blindly indulged. There is perhaps +nothing which more enlarges or enriches the mind than the disposition to +lay it genially open to impressions of pleasure, from the exercise of +every species of talent; nothing by which it is more impoverished than +the habit of undue depreciation. What is puerile, pusillanimous, or +wicked, it can do us no good to admire; but let us admire all that can +be admired without debasing the dispositions or stultifying the +understanding."<a name="page_141" id="page_141"></a></p> + +<h2><a name="UNITED_STATES_EXPLORING_EXPEDITION" id="UNITED_STATES_EXPLORING_EXPEDITION"></a>UNITED STATES EXPLORING EXPEDITION.</h2> + +<p>S<small>LIGHT</small> as the intercourse held by the Voyager with the South Sea Islands +is, his narrative is always more prized by us than those of the +missionary and traders, who, though they have better opportunity for +full and candid observation, rarely use it so well, because their minds +are biased towards their special objects. It is deeply interesting to us +to know how much and how little God has accomplished for the various +nations of the larger portion of the earth, before they are brought into +contact with the civilization of Europe and the Christian religion. To +suppose it so little as most people do, is to impugn the justice of +Providence. We see not how any one can contentedly think that such vast +multitudes of living souls have been left for thousands of years without +manifold and great means of instruction and happiness. To appreciate +justly how much these have availed them, to know how far they are +competent to receive new benefits, is essential to the philanthropist as +a means of aiding them, no less than it is important to one philosopher +who wishes to see the universe as God made it, not as some men think he +<span class="smcap">ought to</span> have made it.</p> + +<p>The want of correct knowledge, and a fair appreciation of the +uncultivated man as he stands, is a cause why even the good and generous +fail to aid him, and contact with Europe has proved so generally more of +a curse than a blessing. It is easy enough to see why our red man, to +whom the white extends the Bible or crucifix with one hand, and the +rum-bottle with the other, should look upon Jesus as only one more +Manitou, and learn nothing from his precepts or the<a name="page_142" id="page_142"></a> civilization +connected with them. The Hindoo, the South American Indian, who knew +their teachers first as powerful robbers, and found themselves called +upon to yield to violence not only their property, personal freedom, and +peace, but also the convictions and ideas that had been rooted and +growing in their race for ages, could not be otherwise than degraded and +stupefied by a change effected through such violence and convulsion. But +not only those who came with fire and sword, crying, "Believe or die;" +"Understand or we will scourge you;" "Understand <i>and</i> we will only +plunder and tyrannize over you,"—not only these ignorant despots, +self-deceiving robbers, have failed to benefit the people they dared +esteem more savage than themselves, but the worthy and generous have +failed from want of patience and an expanded intelligence. Would you +speak to a man? first learn his language. Would you have the tree grow? +learn the nature of the soil and climate in which you plant it. Better +days are coming, we do hope, as to these matters—days in which the new +shall be harmonized with the old, rather than violently rent asunder +from it; when progress shall be accomplished by gentle evolution, as the +stem of the plant grows up, rather than by the blasting of rocks, and +blindness or death of the miners.</p> + +<p>The knowledge which can lead to such results must be collected, as all +true knowledge is, from the love of it. In the healthy state of the +mind, the state of elastic youth, which would be perpetual in the mind +if it were nobly disciplined and animated by immortal hopes, it likes to +learn just how the facts are, seeking truth for its own sake, not +doubting that the design and cause will be made clear in time. A mind in +such a state will find many facts ready for its use in these volumes +relative to the South Sea Islanders, and other objects of interest.<a name="page_143" id="page_143"></a></p> + +<h2><a name="STORY-BOOKS_FOR_THE_HOT_WEATHER" id="STORY-BOOKS_FOR_THE_HOT_WEATHER"></a>STORY-BOOKS FOR THE HOT WEATHER.</h2> + +<p>D<small>OES</small> any shame still haunt the age of bronze—a shame, the lingering +blush of an heroic age, at being caught in doing any thing merely for +amusement? Is there a public still extant which needs to excuse its +delinquencies by the story of a man who liked to lie on the sofa all day +and read novels, though he could, at time of need, write the gravest +didactics? Live they still, those reverend seigniors, the object of +secret smiles to our childish years, who were obliged to apologize for +midnight oil spent in conning story-books by the "historic bearing" of +the novel, or the "correct and admirable descriptions of certain +countries, with climate, scenery, and manners therein contained," wheat, +for which they, industrious students, were willing to winnow bushels of +frivolous love-adventures? We know not, but incline to think the world +is now given over to frivolity so far as to replace by the novel the +minstrel's ballad, the drama, and even those games of agility and +strength in which it once sought pastime. For, indeed, <i>mere</i> pass-time +is sometimes needed; the nursery legend comprised a primitive truth of +the understanding and the wisdom of nations in the lines,—</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr><td align="left">"All play and no work makes Jack a mere toy,</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">But all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy."</td></tr> +</table> + +<p>We have reversed the order of arrangement to suit our present purpose. +For we, O useful reader! being ourselves so far of the useful class as +to be always wanted somewhere, have also to fight a good fight for our +amusements, either with the foils of excuse, like the reverend seigniors +above<a name="page_144" id="page_144"></a> mentioned, or with the sharp weapons of argument, or maintenance +of a view of our own without argument, which we take to be the sharpest +weapon of all.</p> + +<p>Thus far do we defer to the claims of the human race, with its myriad of +useful errands to be done, that we read most of our novels in the long +sunny days, which call all beings to chirp and nestle, or fly abroad as +the birds do, and permit the very oxen to ruminate gently in the +just-mown fields.</p> + +<p>On such days it was well, we think, to read "Sybil, or the Two Worlds." +We have always felt great interest in D'Israeli. He is one of the many +who share the difficulty of our era, which Carlyle says, quoting, we +believe, from his Master, consists in unlearning the false in order to +arrive at the true. We think these men, when they have once taken their +degree, can be of far greater use to their brethren than those who have +always kept their instincts unperverted.</p> + +<p>In "Vivian Grey," the young D'Israeli, an educated Englishman, but with +the blood of sunnier climes glowing and careering in his veins, gave us +the very flower and essence of factitious life. That book sparkled and +frothed like champagne; like that, too, it produced no dull and imbecile +state by its intoxication, but one witty, genial, spiritual even. A +deep, soft melancholy thrilled through its gay mockeries; the eyes of +nature glimmered through the painted mask, and a nobler ambition was +felt beneath the follies of petty success and petty vengeance. Still, +the chief merit of the book, as a book, was the light and decided touch +with which its author took up the follies and poesies of the day, and +brought them all before us. The excellence of the foreign part, with its +popular superstitions, its deep passages in the glades of the summer +woods, and above all, the capital sketch of the prime minister with his +original whims and secret history of romantic sorrows, were beyond the +appreciation of most readers.</p> + +<p>Since then, D'Israeli has never written any thing to be compared with +this first jet of the fountain of his mind in the<a name="page_145" id="page_145"></a> sunlight of morning. +The "Young Duke" was full of brilliant sketches, and showed a soul +struggling, blinded by the gaudy mists of fashion, for realities. The +"Wondrous Tale of Alroy" showed great power of conception, though in +execution it is a failure. "Henrietta Temple" Mr. Willis, with his usual +justness of perception, has praised, as containing a collection of the +best love-letters ever written; and which show that excellence, signal +and singular among the literary tribe, of which D'Israeli never fails, +of daring to write a thing down exactly as it rises in his mind.</p> + +<p>Now he has come to be a leader of Young England, and a rooted plant upon +her soil. If the performance of his prime do not entirely correspond +with the brilliant lights of its dawn, it is yet aspiring, and with a +large kernel of healthy nobleness in it. D'Israeli shows now not only +the heart, but the soul of a man. He cares for all men; he wishes to +care wisely for all.</p> + +<p>"Coningsby" was full of talent, yet its chief interest lay in this +aspiration after reality, and the rich materials taken from contemporary +life. There is nothing in it good after the original manner of +D'Israeli, except the sketches of Eton, and above all, the noble +schoolboy's letter. The picture of the Jew, so elaborately limned, is +chiefly valuable as affording keys to so many interesting facts.</p> + +<p>"Sybil" is an attempt to do justice to the claims of the laboring +classes, and investigate the duties of those in whose hands the money is +at present, towards the rest. It comes to no result: it only exhibits +some truths in a more striking light than heretofore. D'Israeli shows +the taint of old prejudice in the necessity he felt to marry the +daughter of the people to one <i>not</i> of the people. Those worthy to be +distinguished must still have good blood, or rather old blood, for what +is called good needs now to be renovated from a homelier source. But his +leaders must have <i>old</i> blood; the fresh ichor, the direct flow from +heaven, is not enough to animate their lives to the deeds now needed.<a name="page_146" id="page_146"></a></p> + +<p>D'Israeli is another of those who give testimony in behalf of our +favorite idea that a leading feature of the new era will be in new and +higher developments of the feminine character. He looks at women as a +man does who is truly in love. He does not paint them well, that is, not +with profound fidelity to nature. But, ideally, he sees them well, for +they are to him the inspirers and representatives of what is holy, +tender, and simply great.</p> + +<p>There are good sketches of the manufacturers at home, not the overseers, +but the real makers.</p> + +<p>Sue is a congenial activity with D'Israeli, but with clearer notions of +what he wants. His "De Rohan" is a poor book, though it contains some +things excellent. But it is faulty,—even more so than is usual with +him, in heavy exaggerations, and is less redeemed by brilliant effects, +good schemes, and lively strains of feeling. The wish to unmask Louis +XIV. is defeated by the hatred with which the character inspired him, +the liberal of the nineteenth century. The Grand Monarque was really +brutally selfish and ignorant, as Sue represents him; but then there +<i>was</i> a native greatness, which justified, in some degree, the illusion +he diffused, and which falsifies all Sue's representation. It is not by +an inventory of facts or traits that what is most vital in character, +and which makes its due impression on contemporaries, can be apprehended +or depicted. "De Rohan" is worth reading for particulars of an +interesting period, put together with accuracy and with a sense of +physiological effects, if not of the spiritual realities that they +represented.</p> + +<p>"Self, by the Author of Cecil," is one of the worst of a paltry class of +novels—those which aim at representing the very dregs in a social life, +now at its lowest ebb. If it has produced a sensation, that only shows +the poverty of life among those who can be interested in it. I have +known more life lived in a day among factory girls, or in a village +school, than informs these volumes, with all their great pretension<a name="page_147" id="page_147"></a> and +affected vivacity. It is not worth our while to read this class of +English novels; they are far worse than the French, morally as well as +mentally. This has no merits as to the development of character or +exposition of motives; it is a poor, external, lifeless thing.</p> + +<p>"Dashes at Life," by N. P. Willis. The life of Mr. Willis is too +European for him to have a general or permanent fame in America. We need +a life of our own, and a literature of our own. Those writers who are +dearest to us, and really most interesting, are those who are at least +rooted to the soil. If they are not great enough to be the prophets of +the new era, they at least exhibit the features of their native clime, +and the complexion given by its native air. But Mr. Willis is a son of +Europe, and his writings can interest only the fashionable world of this +country, which, by imitating Europe, fails entirely of a genius, grace, +and invention of its own. Still, in their way, they are excellent. They +are most lively pictures, showing the fine natural organization of the +writer, on whom none, the slightest symptom of what he is looking for, +is thrown away; sparkling with bold, light wit, succinct, and colored +with glow, and for a full light. Some of them were new to us, and we +read them through, missing none of the words, and laughed with a full +heart, and without one grain of complaisance, which is much, very much, +to say in these days. We said these sketches would not have a permanent +fame, and yet we may be wrong. The new, full, original, radiant, +American life may receive them as an heirloom from this transition state +we are in now, and future generations may stare at the mongrel products +of Saratoga, and maidens still laugh till they cry at the "Letter of +Jane S. to her Spirit-Bridegroom."</p> + +<p>All these story-books show, even to the languor of the hottest day, the +solemn signs of revolution. Life has become too factitious; it has no +longer a leg left to stand upon, and cannot be carried much farther in +this way. England—ah! who<a name="page_148" id="page_148"></a> can resist visions of phalansteries in every +park, and the treasures of art turned into public galleries for the use +of the artificers who will no longer be unwashed, but raised and +educated by the refinements of sufficient leisure, and the instructions +of genius. England must glide, or totter, or fall into revolution; there +is not room for such selfish elves, and unique young dukes, in a country +so crowded with men, and with those who ought to be women, and are +turned into work-tools. There are very impressive hints on this last +topic in "Sybil, or the Two Worlds," (of the rich and poor.) God has +time to remember the design with which he made this world also.<a name="page_149" id="page_149"></a></p> + +<h2><a name="SHELLEYS_POEMS18" id="SHELLEYS_POEMS18"></a>SHELLEY'S POEMS<a name="FNanchor_18_18" id="FNanchor_18_18"></a><a href="#Footnote_18_18" class="fnanchor">[18]</a></h2> + +<p>W<small>E</small> are very glad to see this handsome copy of Shelley ready for those +who have long been vainly inquiring at all the bookstores for such a +one.</p> + +<p>In Europe the fame of Shelley has risen superior to the clouds that +darkened its earlier days, hiding his true image from his fellow-men, +and from his own sad eyes oftentimes the common light of day. As a +thinker, men have learned to pardon what they consider errors in opinion +for the sake of singular nobleness, purity, and love in his main +tendency or spirit. As a poet, the many faults of his works having been +acknowledged, there are room and place to admire his far more numerous +and exquisite beauties.</p> + +<p>The heart of the man, few, who have hearts of their own, refuse to +reverence, and many, even of devoutest Christians, would not refuse the +book which contains Queen Mab as a Christmas gift. For it has been +recognized that the founder of the Christian church would have suffered +one to come unto him, who was in faith and love so truly what he sought +in a disciple, without regard to the form his doctrine assumed.</p> + +<p>The qualities of his poetry have often been analyzed, and the severer +critics, impatient of his exuberance, or unable to use their accustomed +spectacles in the golden mist that broods over all he has done, deny him +high honors; but the soul of aspiring youth, untrammelled by the canons +of taste, and untamed by scholarly discipline, swells into rapture at +his lyric sweetness, finds ambrosial refreshment from his plenteous<a name="page_150" id="page_150"></a> +fancies, catches fire at his daring thought, and melts into boundless +weeping at his tender sadness—the sadness of a soul betrothed to an +ideal unattainable in this present sphere.</p> + +<p>For ourselves, we dispute not with the <i>doctrinaires</i> or the critics. We +cannot speak dispassionately of an influence that has been so dear to +us. Nearer than the nearest companions of life actual has Shelley been +to us. Many other great ones have shone upon us, and all who ever did so +shine are still resplendent in our firmament, for our mental life has +not been broken and contradictory, but thus far we "see what we +foresaw." But Shelley seemed to us an incarnation of what was sought in +the sympathies and desires of instinctive life, a light of dawn, and a +foreshowing of the weather of this day.</p> + +<p>When still in childish years, the "Hymn to Intellectual Beauty" fell in +our way. In a green meadow, skirted by a rich wood, watered by a lovely +rivulet, made picturesque by a mill a little farther down, sat a party +of young persons gayer than, and almost as inventive, as those that told +the tales recorded by Boccaccio. They were passing a few days in a scene +of deep seclusion, there uncared for by tutor or duenna, and with no bar +of routine to check the pranks of their gay, childish fancies. Every day +they assumed parts which through the waking hours must be acted out. One +day it was the characters in one of Richardson's novels; and most +solemnly we "my deared" each other with richest brocade of affability, +and interchanged in long, stiff phrase our sentimental secrets and prim +opinions. But to-day we sought relief in personating birds or insects; +and now it was the Libellula who, tired of wild flitting and darting, +rested on the grassy bank and read aloud the "Hymn to Intellectual +Beauty," torn by chance from the leaf of a foreign magazine.</p> + +<p>It was one of those chances which we ever remember as the interposition +of some good angel in our fate. Solemn tears marked the change of mood +in our little party and with the words</p> + +<p> +"Have I not kept my vow?"<br /> +</p> + +<p><a name="page_151" id="page_151"></a></p> + +<p class="nind">began a chain of thoughts whose golden links still bind the years +together.</p> + +<p>Two or three years passed. The frosty Christmas season came; the trees +cracked with their splendid burden of ice, the old wooden country house +was banked up with high drifts of the beautiful snow, and the Libellula +became the owner of Shelley's Poems. It was her Christmas gift, and for +three days and three nights she ceased not to extract its sweets; and +how familiar still in memory every object seen from the chair in which +she sat enchanted during those three days, memorable to her as those of +July to the French nation! The fire, the position of the lamp, the +variegated shadows of that alcoved room, the bright stars up to which +she looked with such a feeling of congeniality from the contemplation of +this starry soul,—O, could but a De Quincey describe those days in +which the bridge between the real and ideal rose unbroken! He would not +do it, though, as <i>Suspiria de Profundis</i>, but as sighs of joy upon the +mountain height.</p> + +<p>The poems we read then are what every one still reads, the "Julian and +Maddalo," with its profound revelations of the inward life; "Alastor," +the soul sweeping like a breeze through nature; and some of the minor +poems. "Queen Mab," the "Prometheus," and other more formal works we +have not been able to read much. It was not when he tried to express +opinions which the wrongs of the world had put into his head, but when +he abandoned himself to the feelings which nature had implanted in his +own breast, that Shelley seemed to us so full of inspiration, and it is +so still.</p> + +<p>In reply to all that can be urged against him by people of whom we do +not wish to speak ill,—for surely "they know not what they do,"—we are +wont simply to refer to the fact that he was the only man who redeemed +the human race from suspicion to the embittered soul of Byron. "Why," +said Byron, "he is a man who would willingly die for others. <i>I am sure +of it.</i>"</p> + +<p>Yes! balance that against all the ill you can think of him<a name="page_152" id="page_152"></a> that he was +a man able to live wretched for the sake of speaking sincerely what he +supposed to be truth, willing to die for the good of his fellows!</p> + +<p>Mr. Foster has spoken well of him as a man: "Of Shelley's personal +character it is enough to say that it was wholly pervaded by the same +unbounded and unquestioning love for his fellow-men—the same holy and +fervid hope in their ultimate virtue and happiness—the same scorn of +baseness and hatred of oppression—which beam forth in all his writings +with a pure and constant light. The theory which he wrote was the +practice which his whole life exemplified. Noble, kind, generous, +passionate, tender, with a courage greater than the courage of the chief +of warriors, for it could <i>endure</i>—these were the qualities in which +his life was embalmed."<a name="page_153" id="page_153"></a></p> + +<h2><a name="FESTUS19" id="FESTUS19"></a>FESTUS.<a name="FNanchor_19_19" id="FNanchor_19_19"></a><a href="#Footnote_19_19" class="fnanchor">[19]</a></h2> + +<p>W<small>E</small> are right glad to see this beloved stranger domesticated among us. +Yet there are queer little circumstances that herald the introduction. +The poet is a barrister at law!—well! it is always worthy of note when +a man is not hindered by study of human law from knowledge of divine; +which last is all that concerns the poet. Then the preface to the +American edition closes with this discreet remark: "It is perfectly SAFE +to pronounce it (the poem) one of the most powerful and splendid +productions of the age." Dear New England! how purely that was worthy +thee, region where the tyranny of public opinion is carried to a +perfection of minute scrutiny beyond what it ever was before in any age +or place, though the ostracism be administered with the mildness and +refinement fit for this age. Dear New England! yes! it is <i>safe</i> to say +that the poem is good; whatever Mrs. Grundy may think, she will not have +it burned by the hangman if it is not. But it may not be <i>discreet</i>, +because she can, if she sees fit, exile its presence from bookstores, +libraries, centre tables, and all mention of its existence from lips +polite, and of thine also, who hast dared to praise it, on peril of +turning all surrounding eyes to lead by its utterance. This kind of +gentle excommunication thou mayst not be prepared to endure, O +preface-writer! And we should greatly fear that thou wert deceived in +thy fond security, for "Festus" is a bold book—in respect of freedom of +words, a boldest book—also it reveals the solitudes of hearts with +unexampled sincerity, and<a name="page_154" id="page_154"></a> remorselessly lays bare human nature in its +naked truth—but for the theology of the book. That may save it, and +none the less for all it shows of the depravity of human nature. It is +through many pages and leaves what is technically praised as "a serious +book." A friend went into a bookstore to select presents for persons +with whom she was about to part, and among other things requested the +shopman to "show her some serious books in handsome binding." He looked +into several, and then, struck by passages here and there, offered her +the "Letters of Lady M. W. Montague." She assuring him that it would not +be safe to make use of this work, he offered her a miniature edition of +Shakspeare, as "a book containing many excellent things, though you had +to wade through a great deal of rubbish to get at them."</p> + +<p>We fear the reader will have to wade through a great deal of "rubbish" +in "Festus" before he gets at the theology. However, there it is, in +sufficient quantities to give dignity to any book. In seriousness, it +may compete with Pollok's "Course of Time." In "splendor and power," we +feel ourselves safe in saying that, as sure as the sun shines, it cannot +be outdone in the English tongue, thus far, short of Milton. So there is +something for all classes of readers, and we hope it will get to their +eyes, albeit Boston books are not likely to be detected by all eyes to +which they belong.</p> + +<p>To ourselves the theology of this writer, and the conscious design of +the poem, have little interest. They seem to us, like the color of his +skin and hair, the result of the circumstances under which he was born. +Certain opinions came in his way early, and became part of the body of +his thought. But what interests us is not these, but what is deepest, +universal—the soul of that body. To us the poem is</p> + +<p class="c"> +"... full of great dark meanings like the sea:"<br /> +</p> + +<p><a name="page_155" id="page_155"></a></p> + +<p class="nind">and it is these, the deep experiences and inspirations of the immortal +man, that engage us.</p> + +<p>Even the poem shows how large is his nature—its most careless utterance +full of grandeur, its tamest of bold nobleness. This, that truly engages +us, he spoke of more forcibly when the book first went forth to the +world:—</p> + +<p class="poem"> +"Read this, world. He who writes is dead to thee,<br /> +But still lives in these leaves. He spake inspired;<br /> +Night and day, thought came unhelped, undesired,<br /> +Like blood to his heart. The course of study he<br /> +Went through was of the soul-rack. The degree<br /> +He took was high; it was wise wretchedness.<br /> +He suffered perfectly, and gained no less<br /> +A prize than, in his own torn heart, to see<br /> +A few bright seeds; he sowed them, hoped them truth.<br /> +The autumn of that seed is in these pages."<br /> +</p> + +<p>Such is, in our belief, the true theologian, the learner of God, who +does not presumptuously expect at this period of growth to bind down all +that is to be known of divine things in a system, a set of words, but +considers that he is only spelling the first lines of a work, whose +perusal shall last him through eternity. Such a one is not in a hurry to +declare that the riddles of Fate and of Time are solved, for he knows it +is not calling them so that will make them so. His soul does not decline +the great and persevering labors that are to develop its energies. He +has faith to study day by day. Such is the practice of the author of +Festus, whenever he is truly great. When he shows to us the end and plan +of all things, we feel that he only hides them from us. He speaks only +his wishes. But when he tells us of what he does really know, the moods +and aspirations of fiery youth to which all things are made present in +foresight and foretaste,—when he shows us the temptations of the lonely +soul pining for knowledge,<a name="page_156" id="page_156"></a> but unable to feel the love that alone can +bestow it,—then he is truly great, and the strings of life thrill +oftentimes to their sublimest, sweetest music.</p> + +<p>We admire in this author the unsurpassed force and distinctness with +which he casts out single thoughts and images. Each is thrown before us +fresh, deep in its impress as if just snatched from the forge. We admire +not less his vast flow, his sustained flight. His is a rich and spacious +genius; it gives us room; it is a palace home; we need not economize our +joys; blessed be the royalty that welcomes us so freely.</p> + +<p>In simple transposition of the thought from the mind to the paper, that +wonder, even rarer than perfect,—that is, simple expression, through +the motions of the body, of the motions of the soul,—we dare to say +<i>no</i> writer excels him. Words are no veil between us and him, but a +luminous cloud that upbears us both together.</p> + +<p>So in touches of nature, in the tones of passion; he is absolute. There +is nothing better, where it is good; we have the very thing itself.</p> + +<p>We are told by the critics that he has no ear, and, indeed, when we +listen for such, we perceive blemishes enough in the movement of his +line. But we did not perceive it before, more than, when the Æolian was +telling the secrets of that most spirit-like minister of Nature that +bloweth where it listeth, and no man can trace it, we should attempt to +divide the tones and pauses into regular bars, and be disturbed when we +could not make a tune.</p> + +<p>England has only two poets now that can be named near him: these two are +Tennyson and the author of "Philip Van Artevelde." Tennyson is all that +Bailey is not in melody and voluntary finish, having no less than a +Greek moderation in declining all undertakings he is not sure of +completing. Taylor, noble, an earnest seer, a faithful narrator of what +he sees, firm and sure, sometimes deep and exquisite, but in energy<a name="page_157" id="page_157"></a> and +grandeur no more than Tennyson to be named beside the author of Festus. +In inspiration, in prophecy, in those flashes of the sacred fire which +reveal the secret places where Time is elaborating the marvels of +Nature, he stands alone. It is just true what Ebenezer Elliott says, +that "Festus contains poetry enough to set up fifty poets,"—ay! even +such poets, so far as richness of thought and imagery are concerned, as +the two noble bards we have named.</p> + +<p>But we need call none less to make him greater, whose liberal soul is +alive to every shade of beauty, every token of greatness, and whose main +stress is to seek a soul of goodness in things evil. The book is a +precious, even a sacred book, and we could say more of it, had we not +years ago vented our enthusiasm when it was in first full flow.<a name="page_158" id="page_158"></a></p> + +<h2><a name="FRENCH_NOVELISTS_OF_THE_DAY20" id="FRENCH_NOVELISTS_OF_THE_DAY20"></a>FRENCH NOVELISTS OF THE DAY.<a name="FNanchor_20_20" id="FNanchor_20_20"></a><a href="#Footnote_20_20" class="fnanchor">[20]</a></h2> + +<p>W<small>E</small> hear much lamentation among good people at the introduction of so +many French novels among us, corrupting, they say, our youth by pictures +of decrepit vice and prurient crime, such as would never, otherwise, be +dreamed of here, and corrupting it the more that such knowledge is so +precocious—for the same reason that a boy may be more deeply injured by +initiation into wickedness than a man, for he is not only robbed of his +virtue, but prevented from developing the strength that might restore +it. But it is useless to bewail what is the inevitable result of the +movement of our time. Europe must pour her corruptions, no less than her +riches, on our shores, both in the form of books and of living men. She +cannot, if she would, check the tide which bears them hitherward; no +defences are possible, on our vast extent of shore, that can preclude +their ingress. We have exulted in premature and hasty growth; we must +brace ourselves to bear the evils that ensue. Our only hope lies in +rousing, in our own community, a soul of goodness, a wise aspiration, +that shall give us strength to assimilate this unwholesome food to +better substance, or cast off its contaminations. A mighty sea of life +swells within our nation, and, if there be salt enough, foreign bodies +shall not have power to breed infection there.</p> + +<p>We have had some opportunity to observe that the worst works offered are +rejected. On the steamboats we have seen translations of vile books, +bought by those who did not know<a name="page_159" id="page_159"></a> from the names of their authors what +to expect, torn, after a cursory glance at their contents, and scattered +to the winds. Not even the all but all-powerful desire to get one's +money's worth, since it had once been paid, could contend against the +blush of shame that rose on the cheek of the reader.</p> + +<p>It would be desirable for our people to know something of these writers, +and of the position they occupy abroad; for the nature of their +circulation, rather than its extent, might be the guide both to +translator and buyer. The object of the first is generally money; of the +last, amusement. But the merest mercenary might prefer to pass his time +in translating a good book, and our imitation of Europe does not yet go +so far that the American milliner can be depended on to copy any thing +from the Parisian grisette, except her cap.</p> + +<p>We have just been reading "Le Père Goriot," Balzac's most celebrated +work; a remarkable production, to which Paris alone, at the present day, +could have given birth.</p> + +<p>In other of his works, I have admired his skill in giving the minute +traits of passion, and his intrepidity, not inferior to that of Le Sage +and Cervantes, in facing the dark side of human nature. He reminds one +of the Spanish romancers in the fearlessness with which he takes mud +into his hands, and dips his foot in slime. We cannot endure this when +done, as by most Frenchmen, with an air of recklessness and gayety; but +Balzac does it with the stern manliness of a Spaniard.</p> + +<p>But the conception of this work is so sublime, that, though the details +are even more revolting than in his others, you can bear it, and would +not have missed your walk through the Catacombs, though the light of day +seems stained afterwards with the mould of horror and dismay.</p> + +<p>Balzac, we understand, is one of that wretched class of writers who live +by the pen. In Paris they count now by thousands, and their leaves fall +from the press thick-rustling<a name="page_160" id="page_160"></a> like the November forest. I had heard of +this class not without envy, for I had been told pretty tales of the gay +poverty of the Frenchman—how he will live in garrets, on dry bread, +salad, and some wine, and spend all his money on a single good suit of +clothes, in which, when the daily labor of copying music, correcting the +press, or writing poems or novels, is over, he sallies forth to enjoy +the theatre, the social soirée, or the humors of the streets and cafés, +as gay, as keenly alive to observation and enjoyment, as if he were to +return to a well-stocked table and a cheerful hearth, encompassed by +happy faces.</p> + +<p>I thought the intellectual Frenchman, in the extreme of want, never sunk +into the inert reverie of the lazzaroni, nor hid the vulture of famine +beneath the mantle of pride with the bitter mood of a Spaniard. But +Balzac evidently is familiar with that which makes the agony of +poverty—its vulgarity.</p> + +<p>Dirt, confusion, shabby expedients, living to live,—these are what make +poverty terrible and odious, and in these Balzac would seem to have been +steeped to the very lips.</p> + +<p>These French writers possess the art of plunging at once <i>in medias +res</i>, and Balzac places you, in the twinkling of an eye, in one of the +lowest boarding-houses of Paris. At first all is dirt, hubbub, and +unsavory odors; but from the vapors of the caldron evolves a web of +many-colored life, of terrible pathos, and original humor, not +unenlivened by pale golden threads of beauty, which had better never +been.</p> + +<p>All the characters are excellently drawn: the harpy mistress of the +house; Mlle. Michonnet the spy, and her imbecile lover; Mme. Coutuner, +with her purblind strivings after virtue, and her real, though meagre +respectability; Vautrim, the disguised galley-slave, with his cynical +philosophy and Bonaparte character; and the young students of medicine, +cheering the dense fog with the scintillations of their wit, and<a name="page_161" id="page_161"></a> the +joyousness and petulance with which their age meets the most adverse +circumstances, at least in France!</p> + +<p>The connection between this abject poverty and the highest luxury of +Parisian life is made naturally by Eugene, connected to his misfortune +with a noble family, of which his own is a poor and young branch, +studying a profession and sighing to live like a duke, and <i>Le Père +Goriot</i>, who has stripped himself of all his wealth for his daughters, +who are more naturally unnatural than those of Lear. The transitions are +made with as much swiftness as a curtain is drawn upon the stage, yet +with no feeling of abruptness, so skilfully are the incidents woven into +one another.</p> + +<p>And be it recorded to the credit of Balzac, that, much as he appears to +have suffered from the want of wealth, the vices which pollute it are +represented with as terrible force as those of poverty.</p> + +<p>The book affords play for similar powers, and brings a similar range of +motives into action with Scott's "Fortunes of Nigel." If less rich than +that work, it is more original, and has a force of pencil all its own.</p> + +<p>Insight and a master's hand are admirable throughout; but the product of +genius is <i>Le Père Goriot</i>. And, wonderful to relate, this character is +as much ennobled, made as poetical by abandonment to a single instinct, +as others by the force of will. Prometheus, chained on his rock, and +giving his heart to the birds of prey for aims so majestic, is scarcely +a more affecting, a more reverent object, than the rich confectioner +whose intellect has never been awakened at all, except in the way of +buying and selling, and who gives up his acuteness even there, and +commits such unspeakable follies through paternal love; a <i>blind</i> love +too, nowise superior to that of the pelican!</p> + +<p>Analyze it as you will, see the difference between this and the instinct +of the artist or the philanthropist, and it produces on your mind the +same impression of a present divinity. And<a name="page_162" id="page_162"></a> scarce any tears could be +more sacred than those which choke the breath at the death-bed of this +man, who forgot that he was a man, to be wholly a father, this poor, +mad, stupid, father Goriot. I know nothing in fiction to surpass the +terrible, unpretending pathos of this scene, nor the power with which +the mistaken benediction given to the two medical students whom he takes +for his daughters, is redeemed from burlesque.</p> + +<p>The scepticism as to <i>virtue</i> in this book is fearful, but the love for +innocence and beautiful instincts casts a softening tint over the gloom. +We never saw any thing sweeter or more natural than the letters of the +mother and sisters of Eugene, when they so delightfully sent him the +money of which he had been wicked enough to plunder them. These traits +of domestic life are given with much grace and delicacy of sentiment.</p> + +<p>How few writers can paint <i>abandon</i>, without running into exaggeration! +and here the task was one of peculiar difficulty. It seemed as if the +writer were conscious enough of his power to propose to himself the most +difficult task he could undertake.</p> + +<p>A respectable reviewer in "Les Deux Mondes" would wish us to think that +there is no life in Paris like what Balzac paints; but we can never +believe that: evidently it is "too true," though we doubt not there is +more redemption than he sees.</p> + +<p>But this book was too much for our nerves, and would be, probably, for +those of most people accustomed to breathe a healthier atmosphere.</p> + +<p>Balzac has been a very fruitful writer, and, as he is fond of jugglers' +tricks of every description, and holds nothing earnest or sacred, he is +vain of the wonderful celerity with which some of his works, and those +quite as good as any, have been written. They seem to have been +conceived, composed, and written down with that degree of speed with +which it is possible to lay pen to paper. Indeed, we think he cannot be<a name="page_163" id="page_163"></a> +surpassed in the ready and sustained command of his resources. His +almost unequalled quickness and fidelity of eye, both as to the +disposition of external objects, and the symptoms of human passion, +combined with a strong memory, have filled his mind with materials, and +we doubt not that if his thoughts could be put into writing with the +swiftness of thought, he would give us one of his novels every week in +the year.</p> + +<p>Here end our praises of Balzac; what he is, as a man, in daily life, we +know not. He must originally have had a heart, or he could not read so +well the hearts of others; perhaps there are still private ties that +touch him. But as a writer, never was the modern Mephistopheles, "the +spirit that denieth," more worthily represented than by Balzac.</p> + +<p>He combines the spirit of the man of science with that of the amateur +collector. He delights to analyze, to classify; there is no anomaly too +monstrous, no specimen too revolting, to insure his ardent but +passionless scrutiny. But then he has taste and judgment to know what is +fair, rare, and exquisite. He takes up such an object carefully, and +puts it in a good light. But he has no hatred for what is loathsome, no +contempt for what is base, no love for what is lovely, no faith in what +is noble. To him there is no virtue and no vice; men and women are more +or less finely organized; noble and tender conduct is more agreeable +than the reverse, because it argues better health; that is all.</p> + +<p>Nor is this from an intellectual calmness, nor from an unusual power of +analyzing motives, and penetrating delusions merely; neither is it mere +indifference. There is a touch of the demon, also, in Balzac, the cold +but gayly familiar demon; and the smile of the amateur yields easily to +a sneer, as he delights to show you on what foul juices the fair flower +was fed. He is a thorough and willing materialist. The trance of +religion is congestion of the brain; the joy of the poet the thrilling +of the blood in the rapture of sense; and every good not only rises +from, but hastens back into, the jaws of<a name="page_164" id="page_164"></a> death and nothingness; a +rainbow arch above a pestilential chaos!</p> + +<p>Thus Balzac, with all his force and fulness of talent, never rises one +moment into the region of genius. For genius is, in its nature, positive +and creative, and cannot exist where there is no heart to believe in +realities. Neither can he have a permanent influence on a nature which +is not thoroughly corrupt. He might for a while stagger an ingenuous +mind which had not yet thought for itself. But this could not last. His +unbelief makes his thought too shallow. He has not that power which a +mind, only in part sophisticated, may retain, where the heart still +beats warmly, though it sometimes beats amiss. Write, paint, argue, as +you will, where there is a sound spot in any human being, he cannot be +made to believe that this present bodily frame is more than a temporary +condition of his being, though one to which he may have become +shamefully enslaved by fault of inheritance, education, or his own +carelessness.</p> + +<p>Taken in his own way, we know no modern tragedies more powerful than +Balzac's "Eugenie Grandet," "Sweet Pea," "Search after the Absolute," +"Father Goriot." See there goodness, aspiration, the loveliest +instincts, stifled, strangled by fate, in the form of our own brute +nature. The fate of the ancient Prometheus was happiness to that of +these, who must pay, for ever having believed there was divine fire in +heaven, by agonies of despair, and conscious degradation, unknown to +those who began by believing man to be the most richly endowed of +brutes—no more!</p> + +<p>Balzac is admirable in his description of look, tone, gesture. He has a +keen sense of whatever is peculiar to the individual. Nothing in modern +romance surpasses the death-scene of Father Goriot, the Parisian Lear, +in the almost immortal life with which the parental instincts are +displayed. And with equal precision and delicacy of shading he will +paint the slightest by-play in the manners of some young girl.<a name="page_165" id="page_165"></a></p> + +<p>"Seraphitus" is merely a specimen of his great powers of intellectual +transposition. Amid his delight at the botanical riches of the new and +elevated region in which he is travelling, we catch, if only by echo, +the hem and chuckle of the French materialist.</p> + +<p>No more of him!—We leave him to his suicidal work.</p> + +<p>It is cheering to know how great is the influence such a writer as Sue +exerts, from his energy of feeling on some subjects of moral interest. +It is true that he has also much talent and a various experience of +life; but writers who far surpass him here, as we think Balzac does, +wanting this heart of faith, have no influence, except merely on the +tastes of their readers.</p> + +<p>We observe, in a late notice of Sue, that he began to write at quite +mature age, at the suggestion of a friend. We should think it was so; +that he was by nature intended for a practical man, rather than a +writer. He paints all his characters from the practical point of view.</p> + +<p>As an observer, when free from exaggeration, he has as good an eye as +Balzac, but he is far more rarely thus free, for, in temperament, he is +unequal and sometimes muddy. But then he has the heart and faith that +Balzac wants, yet is less enslaved by emotion than Sand; therefore he +has made more impression on his time and place than either. We refer now +to his later works; though his earlier show much talent, yet his +progress, both as a writer and thinker, has been so considerable that +those of the last few years entirely eclipse his earlier essays.</p> + +<p>These latter works are the "Mysteries of Paris," "Matilda," and the +"Wandering Jew," which is now in course of publication. In these, he has +begun, and is continuing, a crusade against the evils of a corrupt +civilization which are inflicting such woes and wrongs upon his +contemporaries.</p> + +<p>Sue, however, does not merely assail, but would build up. His anatomy is +not intended to injure the corpse, or, like that<a name="page_166" id="page_166"></a> of Balzac, to +entertain the intellectual merely. Earnestly he hopes to learn from it +the remedies for disease and the conditions of health. Sue is a +Socialist. He believes he sees the means by which the heart of mankind +may be made to beat with one great hope, one love; and instinct with +this thought, his tales of horror are not tragedies.</p> + +<p>This is the secret of the deep interest he has awakened in this country, +that he shares a hope which is, half unconsciously to herself, stirring +all her veins. It is not so warmly outspoken as in other lands, both +because no such pervasive ills as yet call loudly for redress, and +because private conservatism is here great, in proportion to the absence +of authorized despotism. We are not disposed to quarrel with this; it is +well for the value of new thoughts to be tested by a good deal of +resistance. Opposition, if it does not preclude free discussion, is of +use in educating men to know what they want. Only by intelligent men, +exercised by thought and tried in virtue, can such measures as Sue +proposes be carried out; and when such associates present themselves in +sufficient numbers, we have no fear but the cause of association, in its +grander forms, will have fair play in America.</p> + +<p>As a writer, Sue shows his want of a high kind of imagination by his +unshrinking portraiture of physical horrors. We do not believe any man +could look upon some things he describes and live. He is very powerful +in his description of the workings of animal nature; especially when he +speaks of them in animals merely, they have the simplicity of the lower +kind with the more full expression of human nature. His pictures of +women are of rare excellence, and it is observable that the more simple +and pure the character is, the more justice he does to it. This shows +that, whatever his career may have been, his heart is uncontaminated. +Men he does not describe so well, and fails entirely when he aims at one +grand and simple enough for a great moral agent. His conceptions are +strong, but in execution he is too melodramatic.<a name="page_167" id="page_167"></a> Just compare <i>his</i> +"Wandering Jew" with that of Beranger. The latter is as diamond compared +with charcoal. Then, like all those writers who write in numbers that +come out weekly or monthly, he abuses himself and his subject; he often +<i>must</i>; the arrangement is false and mechanical.</p> + +<p>The attitude of Sue is at this moment imposing, as he stands, pen in +hand,—this his only weapon against an innumerable host of foes,—the +champion of poverty, innocence, and humanity, against superstition, +selfishness, and prejudice. When his works are forgotten,—and for all +their strong points and brilliant decorations, they may ere long be +forgotten,—still the writer's name shall be held in imperishable honor +as the teacher of the ignorant, the guardian of the weak, a true tribune +for the people of his own time.</p> + +<p>One of the most unexceptionable and attractive writers of modern France +is De Vigny. His life has been passed in the army; but many years of +peace have given him time for literary culture, while his acquaintance +with the traditions of the army, from the days of its dramatic +achievements under Bonaparte, supply the finest materials both for +narrative and reflection. His tales are written with infinite grace, +refined sensibility, and a dignified view. His treatment of a subject +shows that closeness of grasp and clearness of sight which are rarely +attained by one who is not at home in active as well as thoughtful life. +He has much penetration, too, and has touched some of the most delicate +springs of human action. His works have been written in hours of +leisure; this has diminished their number, but given him many advantages +over the thousands of professional writers that fill the coffee-houses +of Paris by day, and its garrets by night. We wish he were more read +here in the original; with him would be found good French, and the +manners, thoughts, and feelings of a cosmopolitan gentleman.</p> + +<p>To sum up this imperfect account of the merits of these Novelists: I see +De Vigny, a retiring figure, the gentleman, the solitary<a name="page_168" id="page_168"></a> thinker, but, +in his way, the efficient foe of false honor and superstitious +prejudice; Balzac is the heartless surgeon, probing the wounds and +describing the delirium of suffering men for the amusement of his +students; Sue, a bold and glittering crusader, with endless ballads +jingling in the silence of the night before the battle. They are all +much right and a good deal wrong; for instance, all who would lay down +their lives for the sake of truth, yet let their virtuous characters +practise stratagems, falsehood, and violence; in fact, do evil for the +sake of good. They still show this taint of the old régime, and no +wonder! La belle France has worn rouge so long that the purest mountain +air will not, at once, or soon, restore the natural hues to her +complexion. But they are fine figures, and all ruled by the onward +spirit of the time. Led by that spirit, I see them moving on the +troubled waters; they do not sink, and I trust they will find their way +to the coasts where the new era will introduce new methods, in a spirit +of nobler activity, wiser patience, and holier faith, than the world has +yet seen.</p> + +<p>Will Balzac also see that shore, or has he only broken away the bars +that hindered others from setting sail? We do not know. When we read an +expression of such lovely innocence as the letter of the little country +maidens to their Parisian brother, (in Father Goriot,) we hope; but +presently we see him sneering behind the mask, and we fear. Let +Frenchmen speak to this question. They know best what disadvantages a +Frenchman suffers under, and whether it is possible Balzac be still +alive, except in his eyes. Those, we know, are quite alive.</p> + +<p>To read these, or any foreign works fairly, the reader must understand +the national circumstances under which they were written. To use them +worthily, he must know how to interpret them for the use of the +universe.<a name="page_169" id="page_169"></a></p> + +<h2><a name="THE_NEW_SCIENCE_OR_THE_PHILOSOPHY_OF_MESMERISM_OR_ANIMAL_MAGNETISM21" id="THE_NEW_SCIENCE_OR_THE_PHILOSOPHY_OF_MESMERISM_OR_ANIMAL_MAGNETISM21"></a>THE NEW SCIENCE, OR THE PHILOSOPHY OF MESMERISM OR ANIMAL MAGNETISM.<a name="FNanchor_21_21" id="FNanchor_21_21"></a><a href="#Footnote_21_21" class="fnanchor">[21]</a></h2> + +<p>M<small>AN</small> is always trying to get charts and directions for the super-sensual +element in which he finds himself involuntarily moving. Sometimes, +indeed, for long periods, a life of continual activity in supplying +bodily wants or warding off bodily dangers will make him inattentive to +the circumstances of this other life. Then, in an interval of leisure, +he will start to find himself pervaded by the power of this more subtle +and searching energy, and will turn his thoughts, with new force, to +scrutinize its nature and its promises.</p> + +<p>At such times a corps is formed of workmen, furnished with various +implements for the work. Some collect facts from which they hope to +build up a theory; others propose theories by whose light they hope to +detect valuable facts; a large number are engaged in circulating reports +of these labors; a larger in attempting to prove them invalid and +absurd. These last are of some use by shaking the canker-worms from the +trees; all are of use in elucidating truth.</p> + +<p>Such a course of study has the civilized world been engaged in for some +years back with regard to what is called Animal Magnetism. We say the +civilized world, because, though a large portion of the learned and +intellectual, to say nothing of the thoughtless and the prejudiced, view +such researches as folly, yet we believe that those prescient souls, +those minds more deeply alive, which are the life of this<a name="page_170" id="page_170"></a> and the +parents of the next era, all, more or less, consciously or +unconsciously, share the belief in such an agent as is understood by the +largest definition of animal magnetism; that is, a means by which +influence and thought may be communicated from one being to another, +independent of the usual organs, and with a completeness and precision +rarely attained through these.</p> + +<p>For ourselves, since we became conscious at all of our connection with +the two forms of being called the spiritual and material, we have +perceived the existence of such an agent, and should have no doubts on +the subject, if we had never heard one human voice in correspondent +testimony with our perceptions. The reality of this agent we know, have +tested some of its phenomena, but of its law and its analysis find +ourselves nearly as ignorant as in earliest childhood. And we must +confess that the best writers we have read seem to us about equally +ignorant. We derive pleasure and profit in very unequal degrees from +their statements, in proportion to their candor, clearness of +perception, severity of judgment, and largeness of view. If they possess +these elements of wisdom, their statements are valuable as affording +materials for the true theory; but theories proposed by them affect us, +as yet, only as partially sustained hypotheses. Too many among them are +stained by faults which must prevent their coming to any valuable +results, sanguine haste, jealous vanity, a lack of that profound +devotion which alone can win Truth from her cold well, careless +classification, abrupt generalizations. We see, as yet, no writer great +enough for the patient investigation, in a spirit liberal yet severely +true, which the subject demands. We see no man of Shakspearian, +Newtonian incapability of deceiving himself or others.</p> + +<p>However, no such man is needed, and we believe that it is pure democracy +to rejoice that, in this department as in others, it is no longer some +one great genius that concentrates within himself the vital energy of +his time. It is many working<a name="page_171" id="page_171"></a> together who do the work. The waters +spring up in every direction, as little rills, each of which performs +its part. We see a movement corresponding with this in the region of +exact science, and we have no doubt that in the course of fifty years a +new spiritual circulation will be comprehended as clearly as the +circulation of the blood is now.</p> + +<p>In metaphysics, in phrenology, in animal magnetism, in electricity, in +chemistry, the tendency is the same, even when conclusions seem most +dissonant. The mind presses nearer home to the seat of consciousness the +more intimate law and rule of life, and old limits, become fluid beneath +the fire of thought. We are learning much, and it will be a grand music, +that shall be played on this organ of many pipes.</p> + +<p>With regard to Mr. Grimes's book, in the first place, we do not possess +sufficient knowledge of the subject to criticise it thoroughly; and +secondly, if we did, it could not be done in narrow limits. To us his +classification is unsatisfactory, his theory inadequate, his point of +view uncongenial. We disapprove of the spirit in which he criticises +other disciples in this science, who have, we believe, made some good +observations, with many failures, though, like himself, they do not hold +themselves sufficiently lowly as disciples. For we do not believe there +is any man, <i>yet</i>, who is entitled to give himself the air of having +taken a degree on this subject. We do not want the tone of qualification +or mincing apology. We want no mock modesty, but its reality, which is +the almost sure attendant on greatness. What a lesson it would be for +this country if a body of men could be at work together in that harmony +which would not fail to ensue on a <i>disinterested</i> love of discovering +truth, and with that patience and exactness in experiment without which +no machine was ever invented worthy a patent! The most superficial, +go-ahead, hit-or-miss American knows that no machine was ever perfected +without this patience and exactness; and let no one hope to achieve +victories in the realm of mind at a cheaper rate than in that of +matter.<a name="page_172" id="page_172"></a></p> + +<p>In speaking thus of Mr. Grimes's book, we can still cordially recommend +it to the perusal of our readers. Its statements are full and sincere. +The writer has abilities which only need to be used with more +thoroughness and a higher aim to guide him to valuable attainments.</p> + +<p>In this connection we will relate a passage from personal experience, to +us powerfully expressive of the nature of this higher agent in the +intercourse of minds.</p> + +<p>Some years ago I went, unexpectedly, into a house where a blind girl, +thought at that time to have attained an extraordinary degree of +clairvoyance, lay in a trance of somnambulism. I was not invited there, +nor known to the party, but accompanied a gentleman who was.</p> + +<p>The somnambulist was in a very happy state. On her lips was the +satisfied smile, and her features expressed the gentle elevation +incident to the state. At that time I had never seen any one in it, and +had formed no image or opinion on the subject. I was agreeably impressed +by the somnambulist, but on listening to the details of her observations +on a distant place, I thought she had really no vision, but was merely +led or impressed by the mind of the person who held her hand.</p> + +<p>After a while I was beckoned forward, and my hand given to the blind +girl. The latter instantly dropped it with an expression of pain, and +complained that she should have been brought in contact with a person so +sick, and suffering at that moment under violent nervous headache. This +really was the case, but no one present could have been aware of it.</p> + +<p>After a while the somnambulist seemed penitent and troubled. She asked +again for my hand which she had rejected, and, while holding it, +attempted to magnetize the sufferer. She seemed touched by profound +pity, spoke most intelligently of the disorder of health and its causes, +and gave advice, which, if followed at that time, I have every reason to +believe would have remedied the ill.</p> + +<p>Not only the persons present, but the person advised also,<a name="page_173" id="page_173"></a> had no +adequate idea then of the extent to which health was affected, nor saw +fully, till some time after, the justice of what was said by the +somnambulist. There is every reason to believe that neither she, nor the +persons who had the care of her, knew even the name of the person whom +she so affectionately wished to help.</p> + +<p>Several years after, in visiting an asylum for the blind, I saw this +same girl seated there. She was no longer a somnambulist, though, from a +nervous disease, very susceptible to magnetic influences. I went to her +among a crowd of strangers, and shook hands with her as several others +had done. I then asked, "Do you not not know me?" She answered, "No." +"Do you not remember ever to have met me?" She tried to recollect, but +still said, "No." I then addressed a few remarks to her about her +situation there, but she seemed preoccupied, and, while I turned to +speak with some one else, wrote with a pencil these words, which she +gave me at parting:—</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr><td align="left">"The ills that Heaven decrees</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">The brave with courage bear."</td></tr> +</table> + +<p>Others may explain this as they will; to me it was a token that the same +affinity that had acted before, gave the same knowledge; for the writer +was at the time ill in the same way as before. It also seemed to +indicate that the somnambulic trance was only a form of the higher +development, the sensibility to more subtle influences—in the terms of +Mr. Grimes, a susceptibility to etherium. The blind girl perhaps never +knew who I was, but saw my true state more clearly than any other person +did, and I have kept those pencilled lines, written in the stiff, round +character proper to the blind, as a talisman of "Credenciveness," as the +book before me styles it. Credulity as the world at large does, and, to +my own mind, as one of the clews granted, during this earthly life, to +the mysteries of future states of being, and more rapid and complete +modes of intercourse between mind and mind.<a name="page_174" id="page_174"></a></p> + +<h2><a name="DEUTSCHE_SCHNELLPOST22" id="DEUTSCHE_SCHNELLPOST22"></a>DEUTSCHE SCHNELLPOST.<a name="FNanchor_22_22" id="FNanchor_22_22"></a><a href="#Footnote_22_22" class="fnanchor">[22]</a></h2> + +<p>T<small>HE</small> publishers of this interesting and spirited journal have, this year, +begun to issue a weekly paper in addition to their former arrangement. +We regret not to have been able earlier to take some notice of their +prospectus, but an outline of it will be new to most of our readers.</p> + +<p>Their journal has hitherto been intended for German readers in this +country, and has been devoted to topics of European interest, but by the +addition of the Weekly, it hopes to discuss with some fulness those of +American interest also; thus becoming "an organ of communication between +Germans of the old and new home, as to their wants, interests, and +thoughts." These judicious remarks follow:—</p> + +<p>"The editors do not coincide with those who believe it the vocation of +the immigrant German, by systematic separation from the people who offer +him a new home, by voluntary withdrawal from the unaccustomed, and, +perhaps, for him too vehement stream of their life, in a word, by +obstinate adhesion to the old, to keep inviolate the stamp of his +nationality.</p> + +<p>"Rather is it their faith that it should be the most earnest desire of +the immigrant, not merely to appropriate in form, but to <i>deserve</i> the +rights of a citizen here—rights which we confide in the healthy mind of +the nation to sustain him in, all fanatical opposition to the contrary +notwithstanding. And he must deserve them by becoming an American, not +merely<a name="page_175" id="page_175"></a> in name, but in deed, not merely by assuming claims, but by +appreciating duties.</p> + +<p>"But while we renounce this narrow and one-sided isolation, desiring to +integrate ourselves, fairly and truly, with the great family that +receives us to its hospitality, we will hold so much the more firmly to +the higher traits of our own race. We hold to the noble jewel of our +native tongue; the memories of our nation's ancient glory; the sympathy +with its future, as yet only glimmering in the dusk; our old, true, +domestic manners; dear inherited customs, that give to the +tranquillities of home their sanctity—to the intercourse between men a +fresh, glad life.</p> + +<p>"So much for our position in general."</p> + +<p>They promise, as to American affairs, "to be just as far as in them +lies, and independent, certainly."</p> + +<p>We think the tone of these remarks truly honorable and right-minded. It +is such a tone that each division of our adopted citizens needs to hear +from those of their compatriots able to guide and enlighten them. We do +want that each nation should preserve what is valuable in its parent +stock. We want all the elements for the new people of the new world. We +want the prudence, the honor, the practical skill of the English; the +fun, the affectionateness, the generosity of the Irish; the vivacity, +the grace, the quick intelligence of the French; the thorough honesty, +the capacity for philosophic view, and deep enthusiasm of the German +Biedermann; the shrewdness and romance of the Scotch,—but we want none +of their prejudices. We want the healthy seed to develop itself into a +different plant in the new climate. We have reason to hope a new and +generous race, where the Italian meets the German, the Swede, the Jew. +Let nothing be obliterated, but all be regenerated; let each leader say +in like manner to his band. Apply the old loyalty to a study of new +duties. Examine yourself whether you are worthy of the new rights so +freely bestowed upon you, and recognize<a name="page_176" id="page_176"></a> that only intelligent action, +and not mere bodily presence, can make you really a citizen on any soil. +It is a glorious boon offered you to be a founder of the new dynasty in +the new world; but it would have been better for you to have died a +thousand deaths beneath the factory wheels of England, or in the prisons +of Russia, than to sell this great privilege for selfish or servile +ends. Here each man has before him the choice of Esau—each may defraud +a long succession of souls of their princely inheritance.</p> + +<p>Do those whose bodies were born upon this soil reject you, and claim for +themselves the name of natives? You may be natives, in another sort, for +the soul may be re-born here. Cast for yourselves a new nativity, and +invoke the starry influences that do not fail to shine into the life of +a good man, whose heart is kept open daily to truth in every new form, +whose heart is strengthened by a desire to do his duty valiantly to +every brother of the human family. Offer upon the soil a libation of +worthy feelings in gratitude for the bread it so willingly yields you, +and it is true that the "healthy mind of the nation" cannot long fail to +greet you with joy, and hail your endowment with civic rights.</p> + +<p>We must think there is a deep root, in fact, for the late bitter +expressions of prejudice, however unworthy the mode of exhibiting them, +against the foreign element in our population. We want all this new +blood, but we want it purified, assimilated, or it will take all form of +comeliness from the growing nation. Our country is a willing foster +mother, but her children need wise tutors to prevent them from playing, +willingly or unwillingly, the viper's part.</p> + +<p>There is a little poem in the Schnellpost, by Moritz Hartmann, called +the "Three,"—which would be a forcible appeal, if any were needed, in +behalf of all who are exiled from their native soil. We translate it +into prose, and this will not spoil it, as its poetry lies in the +situation.</p> + +<p>"In a tavern of Hungary are sitting together Three who<a name="page_177" id="page_177"></a> have taken +refuge there from storm and darkness—in Hungary, where the wind of +chance drives together the children of many a land.</p> + +<p>"Their eyes glow with fires of various light; their locks are unlike in +their flow; but their hearts—their wounded hearts—are urns filled with +the tears of a common grief.</p> + +<p>"One cries, 'Silent companions! Shall we have no toast to cheer our +meeting? I offer you one which you cannot fail to pledge—Freedom and +greatness to the Fatherland!</p> + +<p>"'To the fatherland! But I am one that knows not where is his; I am a +Gypsy; my fatherland lies in the realm of tradition—in the mournful +tone of the violin swelled by grief and storm.</p> + +<p>"'I pass musing over heath and moor, and think of my painful losses. Yet +long since was I weaned from desire of a home, and think of Egypt but as +the cymbal sounds.'</p> + +<p>"The second says, 'This toast of fatherland I will not drink; mine own +shame should I pledge. For the seed of Jacob flies like the dried leaf, +and takes no root in the dust of slavery.'</p> + +<p>"The lips of the third seem frozen at the edge of his goblet. He asks +himself in silence, 'Shall <i>I</i> drink to the fatherland? Lives Poland +yet, or is all life departed, and am I, like these, a motherless son?'"</p> + +<p>To those and others who, if they still had homes, could not live there, +without starving body and soul, may our land be a fatherland; and may +they seek and learn to act as children in a father's house!</p> + +<p>A foreign correspondent of the Schnellpost, having, it seems, been +reproved by some friends on the safe side of the water for the violence +of his attack on crowned heads, and other dilettanti, defends himself +with great spirit, and argues his case well from his own point of view. +We do not<a name="page_178" id="page_178"></a> agree with him as to the use of methods, but cannot fail to +sympathize in his feeling.</p> + +<p>Anecdotes of Russian proceedings towards delinquents are well associated +with one anecdote quoted of Peter, who yet was truly the Great. In a +foreign city, seeing the gallows, he asked the use of that +three-cornered thing. Being told, to hang people on, he requested that +one might be hung for him, directly. Being told this, unfortunately, +could not be done, as there was no criminal under sentence, he desired +that one of his own retinue might be made use of. Probably he did this +with no further thought than the Empress Catharine bestowed, on having a +ship of the line blown up, as a model for the painter who was to adorn +her palace with pictures of naval battles. Disregard for human life and +human happiness is not confined to the Russian snows, or the eastern +hemisphere; it may be found on every side, though, indeed, not on a +scale so imperial.<a name="page_179" id="page_179"></a></p> + +<h2><a name="OLIVER_CROMWELL23" id="OLIVER_CROMWELL23"></a>OLIVER CROMWELL.<a name="FNanchor_23_23" id="FNanchor_23_23"></a><a href="#Footnote_23_23" class="fnanchor">[23]</a></h2> + +<p>A long expectation is rewarded at last by the appearance of this book. +We cannot wonder that it should have been long, when Mr. Carlyle shows +us what a world of ill-arranged and almost worthless materials he has +had to wade through before achieving any possibility of order and +harmony for his narrative.</p> + +<p>The method which he has chosen of letting the letters and speeches of +Cromwell tell the story when possible, only himself doing what is +needful to throw light where it is most wanted and fill up gaps, is an +excellent one. Mr. Carlyle, indeed, is a most peremptory showman, and +with each slide of his magic lantern informs us not only of what is +necessary to enable us to understand it, but <i>how</i> we must look at it, +under peril of being ranked as "imbeciles," "canting sceptics," +"disgusting rose-water philanthropists," and the like. And aware of his +power of tacking a nickname or ludicrous picture to any one who refuses +to obey, we might perhaps feel ourselves, if in his neighborhood, under +such constraint and fear of deadly laughter, as to lose the benefit of +having under our eye to form our judgment upon the same materials on +which he formed his.</p> + +<p>But the ocean separates us, and the showman has his own audience of +despised victims, or scarce less despised pupils; and we need not fear +to be handed down to posterity as "a little gentleman in a gray coat" +"shrieking" unutterable "imbecilities," or with the like damnatory +affixes, when we profess<a name="page_180" id="page_180"></a> that, having read the book, and read the +letters and speeches thus far, we cannot submit to the showman's +explanation of the lantern, but must, more than ever, stick to the old +"Philistine," "Dilettante," "Imbecile," and what not view of the +character of Cromwell.</p> + +<p>We all know that to Mr. Carlyle greatness is well nigh synonymous with +virtue, and that he has shown himself a firm believer in Providence by +receiving the men of destiny as always entitled to reverence. Sometimes +a great success has followed the portraits painted by him in the light +of such faith, as with regard to Mahomet, for instance. The natural +autocrat is his delight, and in such pictures as that of the monk in +"Past and Present," where the geniuses of artist and subject coincide, +the result is no less delightful for us.</p> + +<p>But Mr. Carlyle reminds us of the man in a certain parish who had always +looked up to one of its squires as a secure and blameless idol, and one +day in church, when the minister asked "all who felt in concern for +their souls to rise," looked to the idol and seeing him retain his seat, +(asleep perchance!) sat still also. One of his friends asking him +afterwards how he could refuse to answer such an appeal, he replied, "he +thought it safest to stay with the squire."</p> + +<p>Mr. Carlyle's squires are all Heaven's justices of peace or war, +(usually the latter;) they are beings of true energy and genius, and so +far, as he describes them, "genuine men." But in doubtful cases, where +the doubt is between them and principles, he will insist that the men +must be in the right. On such occasions he favors us with such doctrine +as the following, which we confess we had the weakness to read with +"sibylline execration" and extreme disgust.</p> + +<p>Speaking of Cromwell's course in Ireland:—</p> + +<p>"Oliver's proceedings here have been the theme of much loud criticism, +sibylline execration, into which it is not our plan to enter at present. +We shall give these fifteen letters of his in a mass, and without any +commentary whatever. To<a name="page_181" id="page_181"></a> those who think that a land overrun with +sanguinary quacks can be healed by sprinkling it with rose-water, these +letters must be very horrible. Terrible surgery this; but <i>is</i> it +surgery and judgment, or atrocious murder merely? This is a question +which should be asked; and answered. Oliver Cromwell did believe in +God's judgments; and did not believe in the rose-water plan of +surgery,—which, in fact, is this editor's case too! Every idle lie and +piece of empty bluster this editor hears, he too, like Oliver, has to +shudder at it; has to think, 'Thou, idle bluster, not true, thou also +art shutting men's minds against God's fact; thou wilt issue as a cleft +crown to some poor man some day; thou also wilt have to take shelter in +bogs, whither cavalry cannot follow!' But in Oliver's time, as I say, +there was still belief in the judgments of God; in Oliver's time, there +was yet no distracted jargon of 'abolishing capital punishments,' of +Jean-Jacques philanthropy, and universal rose-water in this world still +so full of sin. Men's notion was, not for abolishing punishments, but +for making laws just. God the Maker's laws, they considered, had not yet +got the punishment abolished from them! Men had a notion that the +difference between good and evil was still considerable—equal to the +difference between heaven and hell. It was a true notion, which all men +yet saw, and felt, in all fibres of their existence, to be true. Only in +late decadent generations, fast hastening toward radical change or final +perdition, can such indiscriminate mashing up of good and evil into one +universal patent treacle, and most unmedical electuary, of Rousseau +sentimentalism, universal pardon and benevolence, with dinner and drink +and one cheer more, take effect in our earth. Electuary very poisonous, +as sweet as it is, and very nauseous; of which Oliver, happier than we, +had not yet heard the slightest intimation even in dreams.</p> + +<p class="cb">* * *</p> + +<p>"In fact, Oliver's dialect is rude and obsolete; the phrases<a name="page_182" id="page_182"></a> of Oliver, +to him solemn on the perilous battle field as voices of God, have become +to us most mournful when spouted as frothy cant from Exeter Hall. The +reader has, all along, to make steady allowance for that. And on the +whole, clear recognition will be difficult for him. To a poor slumberous +canting age, mumbling to itself every where, Peace, peace, when there is +no peace,—such a phenomena as Oliver, in Ireland or elsewhere, is not +the most recognizable in all its meanings. But it waits there for +recognition, and can wait an age or two. The memory of Oliver Cromwell, +as I count, has a good many centuries in it yet; and ages of very varied +complexion to apply to, before all end. My reader, in this passage and +others, shall make of it what he can.</p> + +<p>"But certainly, at lowest, here is a set of military despatches of the +most unexampled nature! Most rough, unkempt; shaggy as the Numidian +lion. A style rugged as crags; coarse, drossy: yet with a meaning in it, +an energy, a depth; pouring on like a fire torrent; perennial <i>fire</i> of +it visible athwart all drosses and defacements; not uninteresting to +see! This man has come into distracted Ireland with a God's truth in the +heart of him, though an unexpected one; the first such man they have +seen for a great while indeed. He carries acts of Parliament, laws of +earth and heaven, in one hand; drawn sword in the other. He addresses +the bewildered Irish populations, the black ravening coil of sanguinary +blustering individuals at Tredah and elsewhere: 'Sanguinary, blustering +individuals, whose word is grown worthless as the barking of dogs; whose +very thought is false, representing no fact, but the contrary of +fact—behold, I am come to speak and to do the truth among you. Here are +acts in Parliament, methods of regulation and veracity, emblems the +nearest we poor Puritans could make them of God's law-book, to which it +is and shall be our perpetual effort to make them correspond nearer and +nearer. Obey them, help us to perfect them, be peaceable and true under +them, it shall be<a name="page_183" id="page_183"></a> well with you. Refuse to obey them, I will not let +you continue living! As articulate speaking veracious orderly men, not +as a blustering, murderous kennel of dogs run rabid, shall you continue +in this earth. Choose!' They chose to disbelieve him; could not +understand that he, more than the others, meant any truth or justice to +them. They rejected his summons and terms at Tredah; he stormed the +place; and, according to his promise, put every man of the garrison to +death. His own soldiers are forbidden to plunder, by paper proclamation; +and in ropes of authentic hemp, they are hanged when they do it. To +Wexford garrison, the like terms as at Tredah; and, failing these, the +like storm. Here is a man whose word represents a thing! Not bluster +this, and false jargon scattering itself to the winds; what this man +speaks out of him comes to pass as a fact; speech with this man is +accurately prophetic of deed. This is the first king's face poor Ireland +ever saw; the first friend's face, <i>little as it recognizes him</i>—poor +Ireland!"</p> + +<p>Yes, Cromwell had force and sagacity to get that done which he had +resolved to get done; and this is the whole truth about your admiration, +Mr. Carlyle. Accordingly, at Drogheda quoth Cromwell,—</p> + +<p>"I believe we put to sword the whole number of the defendants. * * +Indeed, being in the heat of action, I forbade them to spare any that +were in arms in the town; and I think that night they put to the sword +about two thousand men, divers of the officers and soldiers being fled +over the bridge into the other part of the town; and where about one +hundred of them possessed St. Peter's Church, steeple, &c. These, being +summoned to yield to mercy, refused. Whereupon I ordered the steeple of +St. Peter's Church to be fired; when one of them was heard to say, in +the midst of the flames, 'God confound me! I burn, I burn!'</p> + +<p>"I am persuaded that this is a righteous judgment of God<a name="page_184" id="page_184"></a> upon these +barbarous wretches who have imbrued their hands in so much innocent +blood; and that it will tend to prevent the effusion of blood for the +future. Which are the satisfactory grounds to such actions, which +otherwise cannot but work remorse and regret. * * This hath been an +exceeding great mercy."</p> + +<p>Certainly one not of the rose-water or treacle kind. Mr. Carlyle says +such measures "cut to the heart of the war," and brought peace. Was +there <i>then</i> no crying of Peace, Peace, when there was no peace? Ask the +Irish peasantry why they mark that period with the solemn phrase of +"Cromwell's Curse!"</p> + +<p>For ourselves, though aware of the mistakes and errors in particulars +that must occur, we believe the summing up of a man's character in the +verdict of his time, is likely to be correct. We believe that Cromwell +was "a curse," as much as a blessing, in these acts of his. We believe +him ruthless, ambitious, half a hypocrite, (few men have courage or want +of soul to bear being wholly so,) and we think it is rather too bad to +rave at us in our time for canting, and then hold up the prince of +canters for our reverence in his "dimly seen nobleness." Dimly, indeed, +despite the rhetoric and satire of Mr. Carlyle!</p> + +<p>In previous instances where Mr. Carlyle has acted out his +predeterminations as to the study of a character, we have seen +circumstances favor him, at least sometimes. There were fine moments, +fine lights upon the character that he would seize upon. But here the +facts look just as they always have. He indeed ascertains that the +Cromwell family were not mere brewers or plebeians, but "substantial +gentry," and that there is not the least ground for the common notion +that Cromwell lived at any time a dissolute life. But with the exception +of these emendations, still the history looks as of old. We see a man of +strong and wise mind, educated by the pressure<a name="page_185" id="page_185"></a> of great occasions to +station of command; we see him wearing the religious garb which was the +custom of the times, and even preaching to himself as well as to +others—for well can we imagine that his courage and his pride would +have fallen without keeping up the illusion; but we never see Heaven +answering his invocations in any way that can interfere with the rise of +his fortunes or the accomplishment of his plans. To ourselves, the tone +of these religious holdings-forth is sufficiently expressive; they all +ring hollow; we have never read any thing of the sort more repulsive to +us than the letter to Mr. Hammond, which Mr. Carlyle thinks such a noble +contrast to the impiety of the present time. Indeed, we cannot recover +from our surprise at Mr. Carlyle's liking these letters; his +predetermination must have been strong indeed. Again, we see Cromwell +ruling with the strong arm, and carrying the spirit of monarchy to an +excess which no Stuart could surpass. Cromwell, indeed, is wise, and the +king he had punished with death is foolish; Charles is faithless, and +Cromwell crafty; we see no other difference. Cromwell does not, in +power, abide by the principles that led him to it; and we can't help—so +rose-water imbecile are we!—admiring those who do: one Lafayette, for +instance—poor chevalier so despised by Mr. Carlyle—for abiding by his +principles, though impracticable, more than Louis Philippe, who laid +them aside, so far as necessary, "to secure peace to the kingdom;" and +to us it looks black for one who kills kings to grow to be more kingly +than a king.</p> + +<p>The death of Charles I. was a boon to the world, for it marked the dawn +of a new era, when kings, in common with other men, are to be held +accountable by God and mankind for what they do. Many who took part in +this act which <i>did</i> require a courage and faith almost unparalleled, +were, no doubt, moved by the noblest sense of duty. We doubt not this +had its share in the bosom counsels of Cromwell. But<a name="page_186" id="page_186"></a> we cannot +sympathize with the apparent satisfaction of Mr. Carlyle in seeing him +engaged, two days after the execution, in marriage treaty for his son. +This seems more ruthlessness than calmness. One who devoted so many days +to public fasting and prayer, on less occasions, might well make solemn +pause on this. Mr. Carlyle thinks much of some pleasant domestic letters +from Cromwell. What brigand, what pirate, fails to have some such soft +and light feelings?</p> + +<p>In short, we have no time to say all we think; but we stick to the +received notions of Old Noll, with his great, red nose, hard heart, long +head, and crafty ambiguities. Nobody ever doubted his great abilities +and force of will; neither doubt we that he was made an "instrument" +just as he professeth. But as to looking on him through Mr. Carlyle's +glasses, we shall not be sneered or stormed into it, unless he has other +proof to offer than is shown yet. And we resent the violence he offers +both to our prejudices and our perceptions. If he has become interested +in Oliver, or any other pet hyena, by studying his habits, is that any +reason we should admit him to our Pantheon? No! our imbecility shall +keep fast the door against any thing short of proofs that in the hyena a +god is incarnated. Mr. Carlyle declares that he sees it, but we really +cannot. The hyena is surely not out of the kingdom of God, but as to +being the finest emblem of what is divine—no, no!</p> + +<p>In short, we can sympathize with the words of John Maidstone:—</p> + +<p>"He [Cromwell] was a strong man in the dark perils of war; in the high +places of the field, hope shone in him like a pillar of fire, when it +had gone out in the others"—a poetic and sufficient account of the +secret of his power.</p> + +<p>But Mr. Carlyle goes on to gild the refined gold thus:—</p> + +<p>"A genuine king among men, Mr. Maidstone! The divinest<a name="page_187" id="page_187"></a> sight this world +sees, when it is privileged to see such, and not be sickened with the +unholy apery of such."</p> + +<p>We know you do with all your soul love kings and heroes, Mr. Carlyle, +but we are not sure you would always know the Sauls from the Davids. We +fear, if you had the disposal of the holy oil, you would be tempted to +pour it on the head of him who is taller by the head than all his +brethren, without sufficient care as to purity of inward testimony.</p> + +<p>Such is the impression left on us by the book thus far, as to the view +of its hero; but as to what difficulties attended the writing the +history of Cromwell, the reader will like to see what Mr. Carlyle +himself says:—</p> + +<p>"These authentic utterances of the man Oliver himself—I have gathered +them from far and near; fished them up from the foul Lethean quagmires +where they lay buried; I have washed, or endeavored to wash, them clean +from foreign stupidities, (such a job of buck-washing as I do not long +to repeat;) and the world shall now see them in their own shape."</p> + +<p>For the rest, this book is of course entertaining, witty, dramatic, +picturesque; all traits that are piquant, many that have profound +interest, are brought out better than new. The "letters and speeches" +are put into readable state, and this alone is a great benefit. They are +a relief after Mr. Carlyle's high-seasoned writing; and this again is a +relief after their long-winded dimnesses. Most of the heroic anecdotes +of the time had been used up before, but they lose nothing in the hands +of Carlyle; and pictures of the scenes, such as of Naseby fight, for +instance, it was left to him to give. We have passed over the hackneyed +ground attended by a torch-bearer, who has given a new animation to the +procession of events, and cast a ruddy glow on many a striking +physiognomy. That any truth of high value has been brought to light, we +do not perceive—certainly nothing has been added to our own sense of +the greatness of the times, nor any new view presented<a name="page_188" id="page_188"></a> that we can +adopt, as to the position and character of the agents.</p> + +<p>We close with the only one of Cromwell's letters that we really like. +Here his religious words and his temper seem quite sincere.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p class="c">"<i>To my loving Brother, Colonel Valentine Walton: These.</i></p> + +<p class="r">July, 1644.</p> + +<p>"<span class="smcap">Dear Sir</span>: It's our duty to sympathize in all mercies; and to praise the +Lord together in chastisements or trials, so that we may sorrow +together.</p> + +<p>"Truly England and the church of God hath had a great favor from the +Lord, in this great victory given unto us, such as the like never was +since this war began. It had all the evidences of an absolute victory +obtained by the Lord's blessing upon the godly party principally. We +never charged but we routed the enemy. The left wing, which I commanded, +being our own horse, saving a few Scots in our rear, beat all the +prince's horse. God make them as stubble to our swords. We charged their +regiments of foot with our horse, and routed all we charged. The +particulars I cannot relate now; but I believe, of twenty thousand, the +prince hath not four thousand left. Give glory, all the glory, to God.</p> + +<p>"Sir, God hath taken away your eldest son by a cannon-shot. It brake his +leg. We were necessitated to have it cut off, whereof he died.</p> + +<p>"Sir, you know my own trials this way;<a name="FNanchor_24_24" id="FNanchor_24_24"></a><a href="#Footnote_24_24" class="fnanchor">[24]</a> but the Lord supported me +with this, that the Lord took him into the happiness we all pant for and +live for. There is your precious child, full of glory, never to know sin +or sorrow any more. He was a gallant young man, exceedingly gracious. +God give you his comfort. Before his death he was so full of<a name="page_189" id="page_189"></a> comfort, +that to Frank Russel and myself he could not express it, 'it was so +great above his pain.' This he said to us. Indeed it was admirable. A +little after, he said one thing lay upon his spirit. I asked him what +that was. He told me it was, that God had not suffered him to be any +more the executioner of his enemies. At his fall, his horse being killed +with the bullet, and, as I am informed, three horses more, I am told he +bid them open to the right and left, that he might see the rogues run. +Truly he was exceedingly beloved in the army, of all that knew him. But +few knew him; for he was a precious young man, fit for God. You have +cause to bless the Lord. He is a glorious saint in heaven; wherein you +ought exceedingly to rejoice. Let this drink up your sorrow: seeing +these are not feigned words to comfort you, but the thing is so real and +undoubted a truth. You may do all things by the strength of Christ. Seek +that, and you shall easily bear your trial. Let this public mercy to the +church of God make you to forget your private sorrow. The Lord be your +strength; so prays</p> + +<p class="r"> +<span style="margin-right: 2em;">"Your truly faithful and loving brother,</span><br /> +"O<small>LIVER</small> C<small>ROMWELL</small>." +</p> +</div> + +<p>And add this noble passage, in which Carlyle speaks of the morbid +affection of Cromwell's mind:—</p> + +<p>"In those years it must be that Dr. Simcott, physician in Huntingdon, +had to do with Oliver's hypochondriac maladies. He told Sir Philip +Warwick, unluckily specifying no date, or none that has survived, 'he +had often been sent for at midnight;' Mr. Cromwell for many years was +very 'splenetic,' (spleen-struck,) often thought he was just about to +die, and also 'had fancies about the Town Cross.'<a name="FNanchor_25_25" id="FNanchor_25_25"></a><a href="#Footnote_25_25" class="fnanchor">[25]</a> Brief intimation, +of which the reflective reader may make a great deal. Samuel Johnson too +had hypochondrias; all great souls are apt to<a name="page_190" id="page_190"></a> have; and to be in thick +darkness generally, till the eternal ways and the celestial guiding +stars disclose themselves, and the vague abyss of life knit itself up +into firmaments for them. The temptations in the wilderness, choices of +Hercules, and the like, in succinct or loose form, are appointed for +every man that will assert a soul in himself and be a man. Let Oliver +take comfort in his dark sorrows and melancholies. The quantity of +sorrow he has, does it not mean withal the quantity of <i>sympathy</i> he +has, the quantity of faculty and victory he shall yet have? 'Our sorrow +is the inverted image of our nobleness.' The depth of our despair +measures what capability, and height of claim, we have to hope. Black +smoke as of Tophet filling all your universe, it can yet by true +heart-energy become <i>flame</i>, and brilliancy of heaven. Courage!"</p> + +<p>Were the flame but a pure as well as a bright flame! Sometimes we know +the black phantoms change to white angel forms; the vulture is +metamorphosed into a dove. Was it so in this instance? Unlike Mr. +Carlyle, we are willing to let each reader judge for himself; but +perhaps we should not be so generous if we had studied ourselves sick in +wading through all that mass of papers, and had nothing to defend us +against the bitterness of biliousness, except a growing enthusiasm about +our hero.<a name="page_191" id="page_191"></a></p> + +<h2><a name="EMERSONS_ESSAYS26" id="EMERSONS_ESSAYS26"></a>EMERSON'S ESSAYS<a name="FNanchor_26_26" id="FNanchor_26_26"></a><a href="#Footnote_26_26" class="fnanchor">[26]</a></h2> + +<p>A<small>T</small> the distance of three years this volume follows the first series of +Essays, which have already made to themselves a circle of readers, +attentive, thoughtful, more and more intelligent; and this circle is a +large one if we consider the circumstances of this country, and of +England also, at this time.</p> + +<p>In England it would seem there are a larger number of persons waiting +for an invitation to calm thought and sincere intercourse than among +ourselves. Copies of Mr. Emerson's first published little volume called +"Nature," have there been sold by thousands in a short time, while one +edition has needed seven years to get circulated here. Several of his +orations and essays from the "Dial" have also been republished there, +and met with a reverent and earnest response.</p> + +<p>We suppose that while in England the want of such a voice is as great as +here, a larger number are at leisure to recognize that want; a far +larger number have set foot in the speculative region, and have ears +refined to appreciate these melodious accents.</p> + +<p>Our people, heated by a partisan spirit, necessarily occupied in these +first stages by bringing out the material resources of the land, not +generally prepared by early training for the enjoyment of books that +require attention and reflection, are still more injured by a large +majority of writers and speakers, who lend all their efforts to flatter +corrupt tastes and mental indolence, instead of feeling it their +prerogative and their duty to admonish the community of the danger and<a name="page_192" id="page_192"></a> +arouse it to nobler energy. The plan of the popular writer or lecturer +is not to say the best he knows in as few and well-chosen words as he +can, making it his first aim to do justice to the subject. Rather he +seeks to beat out a thought as thin as possible, and to consider what +the audience will be most willing to receive.</p> + +<p>The result of such a course is inevitable. Literature and art must +become daily more degraded; philosophy cannot exist. A man who feels +within his mind some spark of genius, or a capacity for the exercises of +talent, should consider himself as endowed with a sacred commission. He +is the natural priest, the shepherd of the people. He must raise his +mind as high as he can towards the heaven of truth, and try to draw up +with him those less gifted by nature with ethereal lightness. If he does +not so, but rather employs his powers to flatter them in their poverty, +and to hinder aspiration by useless words, and a mere seeming of +activity, his sin is great; he is false to God, and false to man.</p> + +<p>Much of this sin indeed is done ignorantly. The idea that literature +calls men to the genuine hierarchy is almost forgotten. One, who finds +himself able, uses his pen, as he might a trowel, solely to procure +himself bread, without having reflected on the position in which he +thereby places himself.</p> + +<p>Apart from the troop of mercenaries, there is one, still larger, of +those who use their powers merely for local and temporary ends, aiming +at no excellence other than may conduce to these. Among these rank +persons of honor and the best intentions; but they neglect the lasting +for the transient, as a man neglects to furnish his mind that he may +provide the better for the house in which his body is to dwell for a few +years.</p> + +<p>At a period when these sins and errors are prevalent, and threaten to +become more so, how can we sufficiently prize and honor a mind which is +quite pure from such? When, as in the<a name="page_193" id="page_193"></a> present case, we find a man whose +only aim is the discernment and interpretation of the spiritual laws by +which we live, and move, and have our being, all whose objects are +permanent, and whose every word stands for a fact.</p> + +<p>If only as a representative of the claims of individual culture in a +nation which is prone to lay such stress on artificial organization and +external results, Mr. Emerson would be invaluable here. History will +inscribe his name as a father of his country, for he is one who pleads +her cause against herself.</p> + +<p>If New England may be regarded as a chief mental focus to the New +World,—and many symptoms seem to give her this place,—as to other +centres belong the characteristics of heart and lungs to the body +politic; if we may believe, as we do believe, that what is to be acted +out, in the country at large, is, most frequently, first indicated +there, as all the phenomena of the nervous system are in the fantasies +of the brain, we may hail as an auspicious omen the influence Mr. +Emerson has there obtained, which is deep-rooted, increasing, and, over +the younger portion of the community, far greater than that of any other +person.</p> + +<p>His books are received there with a more ready intelligence than +elsewhere, partly because his range of personal experience and +illustration applies to that region; partly because he has prepared the +way for his books to be read by his great powers as a speaker.</p> + +<p>The audience that waited for years upon the lectures, a part of which is +incorporated into these volumes of Essays, was never large, but it was +select, and it was constant. Among the hearers were some, who, though, +attracted by the beauty of character and manner, they were willing to +hear the speaker through, yet always went away discontented. They were +accustomed to an artificial method, whose scaffolding could easily be +retraced, and desired an obvious sequence of logical inferences. They +insisted there was nothing in what they had heard, because they could +not give a clear account of its<a name="page_194" id="page_194"></a> course and purport. They did not see +that Pindar's odes might be very well arranged for their own purpose, +and yet not bear translating into the methods of Mr. Locke.</p> + +<p>Others were content to be benefited by a good influence, without a +strict analysis of its means. "My wife says it is about the elevation of +human nature, and so it seems to me," was a fit reply to some of the +critics. Many were satisfied to find themselves excited to congenial +thought and nobler life, without an exact catalogue of the thoughts of +the speaker.</p> + +<p>Those who believed no truth could exist, unless encased by the burrs of +opinion, went away utterly baffled. Sometimes they thought he was on +their side; then presently would come something on the other. He really +seemed to believe there were two sides to every subject, and even to +intimate higher ground, from which each might be seen to have an +infinite number of sides or bearings, an impertinence not to be endured! +The partisan heard but once, and returned no more.</p> + +<p>But some there were,—simple souls,—whose life had been, perhaps, +without clear light, yet still a-search after truth for its own sake, +who were able to receive what followed on the suggestion of a subject in +a natural manner, as a stream of thought. These recognized, beneath the +veil of words, the still small voice of conscience, the vestal fires of +lone religious hours, and the mild teachings of the summer woods.</p> + +<p>The charm of the elocution, too, was great. His general manner was that +of the reader, occasionally rising into direct address or invocation in +passages where tenderness or majesty demanded more energy. At such times +both eye and voice called on a remote future to give a worthy reply,—a +future which shall manifest more largely the universal soul as it was +then manifest to this soul. The tone of the voice was a grave body tone, +full and sweet rather than sonorous, yet flexible, and haunted by many +modulations, as even instruments of wood and brass seem to become after +they have been long played on with skill and taste; how much more so the +human<a name="page_195" id="page_195"></a> voice! In the more expressive passages it uttered notes of +silvery clearness, winning, yet still more commanding. The words uttered +in those tones floated a while above us, then took root in the memory +like winged seed.</p> + +<p>In the union of an even rustic plainness with lyric inspirations, +religious dignity with philosophic calmness, keen sagacity in details +with boldness of view, we saw what brought to mind the early poets and +legislators of Greece—men who taught their fellows to plough and avoid +moral evil, sing hymns to the gods, and watch the metamorphoses of +nature. Here in civic Boston was such a man—one who could see man in +his original grandeur and his original childishness, rooted in simple +nature, raising to the heavens the brow and eyes of a poet.</p> + +<p>And these lectures seemed not so much lectures as grave didactic poems, +theogonies, perhaps, adorned by odes when some power was in question +whom the poet had best learned to serve, and with eclogues wisely +portraying in familiar tongue the duties of man to man and "harmless +animals."</p> + +<p>Such was the attitude in which the speaker appeared to that portion of +the audience who have remained permanently attached to him. They value +his words as the signets of reality; receive his influence as a help and +incentive to a nobler discipline than the age, in its general aspect, +appears to require; and do not fear to anticipate the verdict of +posterity in claiming for him the honors of greatness, and, in some +respects, of a master.</p> + +<p>In New England Mr. Emerson thus formed for himself a class of readers +who rejoice to study in his books what they already know by heart. For, +though the thought has become familiar, its beautiful garb is always +fresh and bright in hue.</p> + +<p>A similar circle of "like-minded" persons the books must and do form for +themselves, though with a movement less directly powerful, as more +distant from its source.</p> + +<p>The Essays have also been obnoxious to many charges;<a name="page_196" id="page_196"></a> to that of +obscurity, or want of perfect articulation; of "euphuism," as an excess +of fancy in proportion to imagination; and an inclination, at times, to +subtlety at the expense of strength, have been styled. The human heart +complains of inadequacy, either in the nature or experience of the +writer, to represent its full vocation and its deeper needs. Sometimes +it speaks of this want as "under development," or a want of expansion +which may yet be remedied; sometimes doubts whether "in this mansion +there be either hall or portal to receive the loftier of the passions." +Sometimes the soul is deified at the expense of nature, then again +nature at that of man; and we are not quite sure that we can make a true +harmony by balance of the statements. This writer has never written one +good work, if such a work be one where the whole commands more attention +than the parts, or if such a one be produced only where, after an +accumulation of materials, fire enough be applied to fuse the whole into +one new substance. This second series is superior in this respect to the +former; yet in no one essay is the main stress so obvious as to produce +on the mind the harmonious effect of a noble river or a tree in full +leaf. Single passages and sentences engage our attention too much in +proportion. These Essays, it has been justly said, tire like a string of +mosaics or a house built of medals. We miss what we expect in the work +of the great poet, or the great philosopher—the liberal air of all the +zones; the glow, uniform yet various in tint, which is given to a body +by free circulation of the heart's blood from the hour of birth. Here +is, undoubtedly, the man of ideas; but we want the ideal man also—want +the heart and genius of human life to interpret it; and here our +satisfaction is not so perfect. We doubt this friend raised himself too +early to the perpendicular, and did not lie along the ground long enough +to hear the secret whispers of our parent life. We could wish he might +be thrown by conflicts on the lap of mother earth, to see if he would +not rise again with added powers.<a name="page_197" id="page_197"></a></p> + +<p>All this we may say, but it cannot excuse us from benefiting by the +great gifts that have been given, and assigning them their due place.</p> + +<p>Some painters paint on a red ground. And this color may be supposed to +represent the groundwork most immediately congenial to most men, as it +is the color of blood, and represents human vitality. The figures traced +upon it are instinct with life in its fulness and depth.</p> + +<p>But other painters paint on a gold ground. And a very different, but no +less natural, because also a celestial beauty, is given to their works +who choose for their foundation the color of the sunbeam, which Nature +has preferred for her most precious product, and that which will best +bear the test of purification—gold.</p> + +<p>If another simile may be allowed, another no less apt is at hand. Wine +is the most brilliant and intense expression of the powers of earth. It +is her potable fire, her answer to the sun. It exhilarates, it inspires, +but then it is liable to fever and intoxicate, too, the careless +partaker.</p> + +<p>Mead was the chosen drink of the northern gods. And this essence of the +honey of the mountain bee was not thought unworthy to revive the souls +of the valiant who had left their bodies on the fields of strife below.</p> + +<p>Nectar should combine the virtues of the ruby wine, the golden mead, +without their defects or dangers.</p> + +<p>Two high claims on the attention of his contemporaries our writer can +vindicate. One from his sincerity. You have his thought just as it found +place in the life of his own soul. Thus, however near or relatively +distant its approximation to absolute truth, its action on you cannot +fail to be healthful. It is a part of the free air.</p> + +<p>Emerson belongs to that band of whom there may be found a few in every +age, and who now in known human history may be counted by hundreds, who +worship the one God only, the <a name="page_198" id="page_198"></a>God of Truth. They worship, not saints, +nor creeds, nor churches, nor reliques, nor idols in any form. The mind +is kept open to truth, and life only valued as a tendency towards it. +This must be illustrated by acts and words of love, purity and +intelligence. Such are the salt of the earth; let the minutest crystal +of that salt be willingly by us held in solution.</p> + +<p>The other claim is derived from that part of his life, which, if +sometimes obstructed or chilled by the critical intellect, is yet the +prevalent and the main source of his power. It is that by which he +imprisons his hearer only to free him again as a "liberating God," (to +use his own words.) But, indeed, let us use them altogether, for none +other, ancient or modern, can more worthily express how, making present +to us the courses and destinies of nature, he invests himself with her +serenity and animates us with her joy.</p> + +<p>"Poetry was all written before time was; and whenever we are so finely +organized that we can penetrate into that region where the air is music, +we hear those primal warblings, and attempt to write them down, but we +lose ever and anon a word or a verse, and substitute something of our +own, and thus miswrite the poem. The men of more delicate ear write down +these cadences more faithfully, and these transcripts, though imperfect, +become the songs of the nations."</p> + +<p>Thus have we, in a brief and unworthy manner, indicated some views of +these books. The only true criticism of these or any good books may be +gained by making them the companions of our lives. Does every accession +of knowledge or a juster sense of beauty make us prize them more? Then +they are good, indeed, and more immortal than mortal. Let that test be +applied to these Essays which will lead to great and complete +poems—somewhere.<a name="page_199" id="page_199"></a></p> + +<h2><a name="CAPITAL_PUNISHMENT27" id="CAPITAL_PUNISHMENT27"></a>CAPITAL PUNISHMENT.<a name="FNanchor_27_27" id="FNanchor_27_27"></a><a href="#Footnote_27_27" class="fnanchor">[27]</a></h2> + +<p>W<small>E</small> have had this book before us for several weeks, but the task of +reading it has been so repulsive that we have been obliged to get +through it by short stages, with long intervals of rest and refreshment +between, and have only just reached the end. We believe, however, we are +now possessed of its substance, so far as it is possible to admit into +any mind matter wholly uncongenial with its structure, its faith, and +its hope.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile others have shown themselves more energetic in the task, and +notices have appeared that express, in part, our own views. Among others +an able critic has thus summed up his impressions:—</p> + +<p>"Of the whole we will say briefly, that its premises are monstrous, its +reasoning sophistical, its conclusions absurd, and its spirit diabolic."</p> + +<p>We know not that we can find a better scheme of arrangement for what we +have to say than by dividing it into sections under these four heads:—</p> + +<p>1st. The premises are monstrous. Here we must add the qualification, +they are monstrous <i>to us</i>. The God of these writers is not the God we +recognize; the views they have of human nature are antipodal to ours. We +believe in a Creative Spirit, the essense of whose being is Love. He has +created men in the spirit of love, intending to develop them to<a name="page_200" id="page_200"></a> perfect +harmony with himself. He has permitted the temporary existence of evil +as a condition necessary to bring out in them free agency and +individuality of character. Punishment is the necessary result of a bad +choice in them; it is not meant by him as vengeance, but as an +admonition to choose better. Man is not born totally evil; he is born +capable both of good and evil, and the Holy Spirit in working on him +only quickens the soul already there to know its Father. To one who +takes such views the address of Jesus becomes intelligible—"Be ye +therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful." "For with the same +measure that ye mete withal, it shall be measured to you again."</p> + +<p>Those who take these views of the relation between God and man must +naturally tend to have punishment consist as much as possible in the +inward spiritual results of faults, rather than a violent outward +enforcement of penalty. They must, so far as possible, seek to revere +God by showing themselves brotherly to man; and if they wish to obey +Christ, will not forget that he came especially to call <i>sinners</i> to +repentance.</p> + +<p>The views of these writers are the opposite of all this. We need not +state them; they are sufficiently indicated in each page of their own. +Their conclusions are the natural result of such premises. We could say +nothing about either, except to express dissent from beginning to end. +Yet would it be sweet and noble, and worthy of this late period of human +progress, if their position had been stated in a spirit of religious, of +manly courtesy; if they had had the soul to say, "We differ from you, +but we know that so wide and full a stream of thought and emotion as you +are moved by could not, under the providential rule in which we believe, +have arisen in vain. The object of every such manifestation of life must +be to bring out truth; come, let us seek it together. Let us show you +our view, compare it with yours, and let us see which is the better. If, +as we think, the truth lie with us,<a name="page_201" id="page_201"></a> what joy will it be for us to cast +the clear light on the object of your aspirations!"</p> + +<p>Of this degree of liberality we have known some, even, who served the +same creed as these writers to be capable. There is, indeed, a higher +spirit, which, believing all forms of opinion which we hold in the +present stage of our growth can be but approximations to truth, and that +God has permitted to the multitude of men a multitude of ways by which +they may approach one common goal, looks with reverence on all modes of +faith sincerely held and acted upon, and while it rejoices in those +souls which have reached the higher stages of spiritual growth, has no +despair as to those which still grope in a narrow path and by a +glimmering light. Such liberality is, of course, out of the question +with such writers as the present. Their faith binds them to believe that +they have absolute truth, and that all who do not believe as they do are +wretched heretics. Those whose creed is of narrower scope are to them +hateful bigots; but also those with whom it is of wider are +latitudinarians or infidels. The spot of earth on which they stand is +the only one safe from the conflagration, and only through spectacles +and spyglasses such as are used by them can the sun and stars be seen. +Yet, as we said before, some such, though incapacitated for an +intellectual, are not so for a spiritual tolerance. With them the heart, +more Christ-like than the creed, urges to a spirit of love and reverence +even towards convictions opposed to their own. The sincere man is always +respectable in their eyes, and they cannot help feeling that, wherever +there is a desire for truth, there is the spirit of God, and his true +priests will approach with gentleness, and do their ministry with holy +care. Unhappily, it is very different with the persons before us.</p> + +<p>We let go the first two counts of the indictment. Their premises are, as +we have said, such as we totally dissent from, and their conclusions +such as naturally flow from those premises. Yet they are those of a +large body of men, and there<a name="page_202" id="page_202"></a> must, no doubt, be temporary good in this +state of things, or it would not be permitted. When these writers say, +that to them moral and penal are coincident terms, they display a state +of mind which prefers basing virtue on the fear of punishment, rather +than the love of right. If this be sincerely their state, if the idea of +morality is with them entirely dependent on the retributions upon vice, +rather than the loveliness and joys of goodness, it is impossible for +those who are in a different state of mind to say what they <i>do</i> need. +It may seem to us, indeed, that, if the strait jacket was taken off, +they might recover the natural energy of their frames, and do far better +without it; or that, if no longer hurried along the road by the +impending lash behind, they might uplift their eyes, and find sufficient +cause for speed in the glory visible before, though at a distance; +however, it is not for us to say what their wants are. Let them choose +their own principles of action, and if they lead to purity of life, and +benevolence, and humanity of heart, we will not say a word against them.</p> + +<p>But in the instance before us, they do not produce these good fruits, +but the contrary; and therefore we have something to say on the other +part of the criticism, to wit: that "the reasoning is sophistical, and +the spirit diabolic;" for, indeed, in the sense of pride by which the +angels fell, arrogance of judgment, malice, and all uncharitableness, we +have never looked on printed pages more deeply sinful. We love an honest +lover; but next best, we, with Dr. Johnson, know how to respect an +honest hater. But even he would scarce endure so bitter and ardent +haters as these, and with so many and inconsistent objects of +hatred—who hate Catholics and thorough Protestants, hate materialists, +and hate spiritualists. Their list is really too large for <i>human</i> +sympathy.</p> + +<p>We wish, however, to make all due allowance for incapacity in these +writers to do better; and their disqualifications for their task, apart +from a form of belief which inclines them<a name="page_203" id="page_203"></a> rather to cling to the past, +than to seek progress for the future, seem to be many.</p> + +<p>The "reasoning is sophistical," and it would need the patience of a +Socrates to unravel the weary web, and convince these sophists, against +their will, that they are exactly in the opposite region to what they +suppose. For the task we have not space, skill, or patience; but we can +give some hints by which readers may be led to examine whether it is so +or not.</p> + +<p>These writers profess to occupy the position of defence; surely never +was one sustained so in the spirit of offence.</p> + +<p>1st. They appeal either to the natural or regenerate man, as suits their +purpose. Sometimes all traditions and their literal interpretations are +right; sometimes it is impossible to interpret them aright, unless +according to some peculiar doctrine, and the natural inference of the +common mind would be an error.</p> + +<p>2d. They strain, but vainly, to show the New Testament no improvement on +the Old, and themselves in harmonious relations to both. On this subject +we would confidently leave the arbitration to a mind—could such a one +be found—sufficiently disciplined to examine the subject, and new both +to the New Testament and this volume, as that of Rammohun Roy might have +been, whether its views are not of the same strain that Jesus sought to +correct and enlighten among the Jews, and whether the writers do not +treat the teachings of the new dispensation most unfairly, in their +desire to wrest them into the service of the old.</p> + +<p>3d. Wherever there is a weak place in the argument, it is filled up by +abuse of the opposite party. The words "absurd," "infidel," +"blasphemous," "shallow philosophy," "sickly sentimentalism," and the +like, are among the favorite missiles of these <i>defenders</i> of the truth. +They are of a sort whose frequent use is generally supposed to argue the +want of a shield of reason and a heart of faith.<a name="page_204" id="page_204"></a></p> + +<p>And this brings us to a more close consideration of the spirit of this +book, characterized by our contemporary as "diabolic." And we, also, +cannot excuse ourselves from marking it as, in this respect, one of the +worst books we have ever seen.</p> + +<p>It is not merely bitter intolerance, arrogance, and want of spiritual +perception, which we have to condemn in these writers. It is a want of +fairness and honor, of which we think they must be conscious. We fear +they are of those who hold the opinion that the end sanctifies the +means, and who, by pretending to serve the God of truth by other means +than strict truth, have drawn upon the "ministers of religion" the +frequent obloquy of "priestcraft." How else are we to construe the +artful use of the words "dishonest" and "infidel," wherever they are +likely to awaken the fears and prejudices of the ignorant?</p> + +<p>Of as bad a stamp as any is the part of this book headed "Spurious +Public Opinion." Here, as in the insinuations against Charles Burleigh, +we are unable to believe the writers to be sincere. Where we think they +are, however poor and narrow we may esteem their statement, we can +respect it, but here we cannot.</p> + +<p>Who can believe that such passages as the following stand for any thing +real in the mind of the writer?</p> + +<p>"Indeed, there is nothing that can possibly check the spirit of murder, +but the fear of death. That was all that Cain feared; he did not say, +People will put me in prison, but, They will put me to death; <i>and how +many other murders he may have committed, when released from that fear, +the sacred writer does not tell us</i>!"</p> + +<p>Why does not the writer of this passage draw the inference, and accuse +God of mistake, as he says his opponents accuse Him, whenever they +attempt to get beyond the Jewish ideas of vengeance. He plainly thinks +death was the only safe penalty in this case of Cain.<a name="page_205" id="page_205"></a></p> + +<p>"The reasoning from these drivellings of depravity in malefactors is to +the last degree wretched and absurd. Hard pushed indeed must he be in +argument who can consent to dive down into the polluted heart of a +Newgate criminal, in order to fish up, from the confessions of his +monstrous, unnatural obduracy, an argument in that very obduracy against +the fit punishment of his own crimes."</p> + +<p>We can only wish for such a man, that the vicissitudes of life may break +through the crust of theological arrogance and Phariseeism, and force +him to "dive down" into the depths of his own nature. We should see +afterwards whether he would be so forward to throw stones at +malefactors, so eager to hurry souls to what he regards as a final +account.</p> + +<p>But we have said enough as to the spirit and tendency of this book. We +shall only add a few words as to the unworthy use of the word "infidel," +in the attempt to fix a stigma upon opponents. We feel still more +contempt than indignation at the desire to work in this way on the +unthinking and ignorant.</p> + +<p>We ourselves are of the number stigmatized by these persons as sharing +an infidel tendency, as are all not enlisted under their own sectarian +banner. They, on their side, seem to us unbelievers in all that is most +pure and holy, and in the saving grace of love. They do not believe in +God, as we believe; they seem to us utterly deficient in the spirit of +Christ, and to be of the number of those who are always calling, "Lord, +Lord," yet never have known him. We find throughout these pages the +temper of "Lord, I thank thee that I am not as other men are"—hatred of +those whom they deem Gentiles, and a merciless spirit towards the +sinner; yet we do not take upon ourselves to give them the name of +infidels, and we solemnly call them to trial before the bar of the Only +Wise and Pure, the Searcher of hearts, to render an account of this +daring assumption. We ask them in that presence, if they are not of the +class threatened with "retribution"<a name="page_206" id="page_206"></a> for saying to their brother, "Thou +fool;" and that not merely in the heat of anger, but coolly, +pertinaciously, and in a thousand ways.</p> + +<p>We call to sit in council the spirits of our Puritan fathers, and ask if +such was the right of individual judgment, of private conscience, they +came here to vindicate. And we solicit the verdict of posterity as to +whether the spirit of mercy or of vengeance be the more divine, and +whether the denunciatory and personal mode chosen by these writers for +carrying on this inquiry be the true one.</p> + +<p>We wish most sincerely this book had been a wise and noble one. To +ascertain just principles, it is necessary that the discussion should be +full and fair, and both sides ably argued. After this has been done, the +sense of the world can decide. It would be a happiness for which it +might seem that man at this time of day is ripe, that the opposing +parties should meet in open lists as brothers, believing each that the +other desired only that the truth should triumph, and able to clasp +hands as men of different structure and ways of thinking, but +fellow-students of the divine will. O, had we but found such an +adversary, above the use of artful abuse, or the feints of sophistry, +able to believe in the noble intention, of a foe as of a friend, how +cheerily would the trumpets ring out while the assembled world echoed +the signal words, "<span class="smcap">God speed the Right!</span>" The tide of progress rolls +onward, swelling more and more with the lives of those who would fain +see all men called to repentance. It must be a strong arm, indeed, that +can build a dam to stay it even for a moment. None such do we see yet; +but we should rejoice in a noble and strong opponent, putting forth all +his power for conscience's sake. God speed the Right!<a name="page_207" id="page_207"></a></p> + +<h2><a name="PART_II" id="PART_II"></a>PART II.<br /><br /> +<big>MISCELLANIES.</big></h2> + +<p class="cb">FIRST OF JANUARY</p> + +<p> </p> + +<p>T<small>HE</small> new year dawns, and its appearance is hailed by a flutter of +festivity. Men and women run from house to house, scattering gifts, +smiles, and congratulations. It is a custom that seems borrowed from a +better day, unless indeed it be a prophecy that such must come.</p> + +<p>For why so much congratulation? A year has passed; we are nearer by a +twelvemonth to the term of this earthly probation. It is a solemn +thought; and though the consciousness of having hallowed the days by our +best endeavor, and of having much occasion to look to the Ruling Power +of all with grateful benediction, must, in cases where such feelings are +unalloyed, bring joy, one would think it must even then be a grave joy, +and one that would disincline to this loud gayety in welcoming a new +year; another year—in which we may, indeed, strive forward in a good +spirit, and find our strivings blest, but must surely expect trials, +temptations, and disappointments from without; frailty, short-coming, or +convulsion in ourselves.</p> + +<p>If it be appropriate to a reflective habit of mind to ask with<a name="page_208" id="page_208"></a> each +night-fall the Pythagorean questions, how much more so at the close of +the year!</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr><td align="left">"What hast thou done that's worth the doing?</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">And what pursued that's worth pursuing?</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">What sought thou knewest thou shouldst shun?</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">What done thou shouldst have left undone?"</td></tr> +</table> + +<p>The intellectual man will also ask, What new truths have been opened to +me, or what facts presented that will lead to the discovery of truths? +The poet and the lover,—What new forms of beauty have been presented +for my delight, and as memorable illustrations of the divine +presence—unceasing, but oftentimes unfelt by our sluggish natures.</p> + +<p>Are there many men who fail sometimes to ask themselves questions to +this depth? who do not care to know whether they have done right, or +forborne to do wrong; whether their spirits have been enlightened by +truth, or kindled by beauty?</p> + +<p>Yes, strange to say, there are many who, despite the natural aspirations +of the soul and the revelations showered upon the world, think only +whether they have made money; whether the world thinks more highly of +them than it did in bygone years; whether wife and children have been in +good bodily health, and what those who call to pay their respects and +drink the new year's coffee, will think of their carpets, new also.</p> + +<p>How often is it that the rich man thinks even of that proposed by +Dickens as the noblest employment of the season, making the poor happy +in the way he likes best for himself, by distribution of turkey and +plum-pudding! Some, indeed, adorn the day with this much grace, though +we doubt whether it be oftenest those who could each, with ease, make +that one day a glimpse of comfort to a thousand who pass the other +winter days in shivering poverty. But some such there are<a name="page_209" id="page_209"></a> who go about +to the dark and frosty dwellings, giving the "mite" where and when it is +most needed. We knew a lady, all whose riches consisted in her good head +and two hands. Widow of an eminent lawyer, but keeping boarders for a +livelihood; engaged in that hardest of occupations, with her house full +and her hands full, she yet found time to make and bake for new year's +day a hundred pies—and not the pie from which, being cut, issued the +famous four-and-twenty blackbirds, gave more cause for merriment, or was +a fitter "dish to set before the king."</p> + +<p>God bless his majesty, the <i>good</i> king, who on such a day cares for the +least as much as the greatest; and like Henry IV., proposes it as a +worthy aim of his endeavor that "every poor man shall have his chicken +in the pot." This does not seem, on superficial survey, such a wonderful +boon to crave for creatures made in God's own likeness, yet is it one +that no king could ever yet bestow on his subjects, if we except the +king of Cockaigne. Our maker of the hundred pies is the best prophet we +have seen, as yet, of such a blissful state.</p> + +<p>But mostly to him who hath is given in material as well as in spiritual +things, and we fear the pleasures of this day are arranged almost wholly +in reference to the beautiful, the healthy, the wealthy, the witty, and +that but few banquets are prepared for the halt, the blind, and the +sorrowful. But where they are, of a surety water turns to wine by +inevitable Christ-power; no aid of miracle need be invoked. As for +thoughts which should make an epoch of the period, we suppose the number +of these to be in about the same proportion to the number of minds +capable of thought, that the pearls now existent bear to the oysters +still subsistent.</p> + +<p>Can we make pearls from our oyster-bed? At least, let us open some of +the shells and try.</p> + +<p>Dear public and friends! we wish you a happy new year. We trust that the +year past has given earnest of such a one<a name="page_210" id="page_210"></a> in so far as having taught +you somewhat how to deserve and to appreciate it.</p> + +<p>For ourselves, the months have brought much, though, perhaps, +superficial instruction. Its scope has been chiefly love and hope for +all human beings, and among others for thyself.</p> + +<p>We have seen many fair poesies of human life, in which, however, the +tragic thread has not been wanting. We have beheld the exquisite +developments of childhood, and sunned the heart in its smiles. But also +have we discerned the evil star looming up that threatened cloud and +wreck to its future years. We have seen beings of some precious gifts +lost irrecoverably, as regards this present life, from inheritance of a +bad organization and unfortunate circumstances of early years. The +victims of vice we have observed lying in the gutter, companied by +vermin, trampled upon by sensuality and ignorance, and saw those who +wished not to rise, and those who strove so to do, but fell back through +weakness. Sadder and more ominous still, we have seen the good man—in +many impulses and acts of most pure, most liberal, and undoubted +goodness—yet have we noted a spot of base indulgence, a fibre of +brutality canker in a vital part this fine plant, and, while we could +not withdraw love and esteem for the good we could not doubt, have wept +secretly in the heart for the ill we could not deny. We have observed +two deaths; one of the sinner, early cut down; one of the just, full of +years and honor—<i>both</i> were calm; both professed their reliance on the +wisdom of a heavenly Father. We have looked upon the beauteous shows of +nature in undisturbed succession, holy moonlight on the snows, loving +moonlight on the summer fields, the stars which disappoint never and +bless ever, the flowing waters which soothe and stimulate, a garden of +roses calling for queens among women, poets and heroes among men. We +have marked a desire to answer to this call, and genius brought rich +wine, but spilt it on the way, from her<a name="page_211" id="page_211"></a> careless, fickle gait; and +virtue tainted with a touch of the peacock; and philosophy, never +enjoying, always seeking, had got together all the materials for the +crowning experiment, but there was no love to kindle the fire under the +furnace, and the precious secret is not precipitated yet, for the pot +will not boil to make the gold through your</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr><td align="left">"Double, double,</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> Toil and trouble,"</td></tr> +</table> + +<p class="nind">if love do not fan the fire.</p> + +<p>We have seen the decay of friendships unable to endure the light of an +ideal hope—have seen, too, their resurrection in a faith and hope +beyond the tomb, where the form lies we once so fondly cherished. It is +not dead, but sleepeth; and we watch, but must weep, too, sometimes, for +the night is cold and lonely in the place of tombs.</p> + +<p>Nature has appeared dressed in her veil of snowy flowers for the bridal. +We have seen her brooding over her joys, a young mother in the pride and +fulness of beauty, and then bearing her offspring to their richly +ornamented sepulchre, and lately observed her as if kneeling with folded +hands in the stillness of prayer, while the bare trees and frozen +streams bore witness to her patience.</p> + +<p>O, much, much have we seen, and a little learned. Such is the record of +the private mind; and yet, as the bright snake-skin is cast, many sigh +and cry,—</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry"> +<tr><td align="right">"The wiser mind</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Mourns less for what Time takes away</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Than what he leaves behind."</td></tr> +</table> + +<p>But for ourselves, we find there is kernel in the nut, though its +ripening be deferred till the late frosty weather, and it prove a hard +nut to crack even then. Looking at the individual, we see a degree of +growth, or the promise of such. In the child there is a force which will +outlast the wreck, and<a name="page_212" id="page_212"></a> reach at last the promised shore. The good man, +once roused from his moral lethargy, shall make atonement for his fault, +and endure a penance that will deepen and purify his whole nature. The +poor lost ones claim a new trial in a new life, and will there, we +trust, seize firmer hold on the good for the experience they have had of +the bad.</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry"> +<tr><td align="right">"We never see the stars</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Till we can see nought else."</td></tr> +</table> + +<p>The seeming losses are, in truth, but as pruning of the vine to make the +grapes swell more richly.</p> + +<p>But how is it with those larger individuals, the nations, and that +congress of such, the world? We must take a broad and superficial view +of these, as we have of private life; and in neither case can more be +done. The secrets of the confessional, or rather of the shrine, do not +come on paper, unless in poetic form.</p> + +<p>So we will not try to search and mine, but only to look over the world +from an ideal point of view.</p> + +<p>Here we find the same phenomena repeated; the good nation is yet somehow +so sick at heart that you are not sure its goodness will ever produce a +harmony of life; over the young nation, (our own,) rich in energy and +full of glee, brood terrible omens; others, as Poland and Italy, seem +irrecoverably lost. They may revive, but we feel as if it must be under +new forms.</p> + +<p>Forms come and go, but principles are developed and displayed more and +more. The caldron simmers, and so great is the fire that we expect it +soon to boil over, and new fates appear for Europe.</p> + +<p>Spain is dying by inches; England shows symptoms of having passed her +meridian; Austria has taken opium, but she must awake ere long; France +is in an uneasy dream—she knows she has been very sick, has had +terrible remedies administered, and ought to be getting thoroughly well, +which<a name="page_213" id="page_213"></a> she is not. Louis Philippe watches by her pillow, doses and +bleeds her, so that she cannot fairly try her strength, and find whether +something or nothing has been done. But Louis Philippe and Metternich +must soon, in the course of nature, leave this scene; and then there +will be none to keep out air and light from the chamber, and the +patients will be roused and ascertain their true condition.</p> + +<p>No power is in the ascending course except the Russian; and that has +such a condensation of brute force, animated by despotic will, that it +seems sometimes as if it might by and by stride over Europe and face us +across the water. Then would be opposed to one another the two extremes +of Autocracy and Democracy, and a trial of strength would ensue between +the two principles more grand and full than any ever seen on this +planet, and of which the result must be to bind mankind by one chain of +convictions. Should, indeed, Despotism and Democracy meet as the two +slaveholding powers of the world, the result can hardly be predicted. +But there is room in the intervening age for many changes, and the czars +profess to wish to free their serfs, as our planters do to free their +slaves, and we suppose with equal sincerity; but the need of sometimes +professing such desires is a deference to the progress of principles +which bid fair to have their era yet.</p> + +<p>We hope such an era steadfastly, notwithstanding the deeds of darkness +that have made this year forever memorable in our annals. Our nation has +indeed shown that the lust of gain is at present her ruling passion. She +is not only resolute, but shameless, about it, and has no doubt or +scruple as to laying aside the glorious office, assigned her by fate, of +herald of freedom, light, and peace to the civilized world.</p> + +<p>Yet we must not despair. Even so the Jewish king, crowned with all gifts +that Heaven could bestow, was intoxicated by their plenitude, and went +astray after the most worthless idols. But he was not permitted to +forfeit finally the position designed for him: he was drawn or dragged +back<a name="page_214" id="page_214"></a> to it; and so shall it be with this nation. There are trials in +store which shall amend us.</p> + +<p>We must believe that the pure blood shown in the time of our revolution +still glows in the heart; but the body of our nation is full of foreign +elements. A large proportion of our citizens, or their parents, came +here for worldly advantage, and have never raised their minds to any +idea of destiny or duty. More money—more land! are all the watchwords +they know. They have received the inheritance earned by the fathers of +the revolution, without their wisdom and virtue to use it. But this +cannot last. The vision of those prophetic souls must be realized, else +the nation could not exist; every body must at least "have soul enough +to save the expense of salt," or it cannot be preserved alive.</p> + +<p>What a year it has been with us! Texas annexed, and more annexations in +store; slavery perpetuated, as the most striking new feature of these +movements. Such are the fruits of American love of liberty! Mormons +murdered and driven out, as an expression of American freedom of +conscience; Cassius Clay's paper expelled from Kentucky; that is +American freedom of the press. And all these deeds defended on the true +Russian grounds, "We (the stronger) know what you (the weaker) ought to +do and be, and it <i>shall</i> be so."</p> + +<p>Thus the principles which it was supposed, some ten years back, had +begun to regenerate the world, are left without a trophy for this past +year, except in the spread of Rongé's movement in Germany, and that of +associative and communist principles both here and in Europe, which, let +the worldling deem as he will about their practicability, he cannot deny +to be animated by faith in God and a desire for the good of man. We must +add to these the important symptoms of the spread of peace principles.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile, if the more valuable springs of action seem to lie dormant +for a time, there is a constant invention and perfection of the means of +action and communication which seems<a name="page_215" id="page_215"></a> to say, "Do but wait patiently; +there is something of universal importance to be done by and by, and all +is preparing for it to be universally known and used at once." Else what +avail magnetic telegraphs, steamers, and rail-cars traversing every rood +of land and ocean, phonography and the mingling of all literatures, till +North embraces South and Denmark lays her head upon the lap of Italy? +Surely there would not be all this pomp of preparation as to the means +of communion, unless there were like to be something worthy to be +communicated.</p> + +<p>Amid the signs of the breaking down of barriers, we may mention the +Emperor Nicholas letting his daughter pass from the Greek to the Roman +church, for the sake of marrying her to the Austrian prince. Again, +similarity between him and us: he, too, is shameless; for while he signs +this marriage contract with one hand, he holds the knout in the other to +drive the Roman Catholic Poles into the Greek church. But it is a fatal +sign for his empire. 'Tis but the first step that costs, and the +Russians may look back to the marriage of the Grand Duchess Olga, as the +Chinese will to the cannonading of the English, as the first sign of +dissolution in the present form of national life.</p> + +<p>A similar token is given by the violation of etiquette of which Mr. Polk +is accused in his message. He, at the head of a government, speaks of +governments and their doings straightforward, as he would of persons, +and the tower, stronghold of the idea of a former age, now propped up by +etiquettes and civilities only, trembles to its foundation.</p> + +<p>Another sign of the times is the general panic which the decay of the +potato causes. We believe this is not without a providential meaning, +and will call attention still more to the wants of the people at large. +New and more provident regulations must be brought out, that they may +not again be left with only a potato between them and starvation. By +another of these whimsical coincidences between the histories of +Aristocracy<a name="page_216" id="page_216"></a> and Democracy, the supply of <i>truffles</i> is also failing. +The land is losing the "nice things" that the queen (truly a young +queen) thought might be eaten in place of bread. Does not this indicate +a period in which it will be felt that there must be provision for +all—the rich shall not have their truffles if the poor are driven to +eat nettles, as the French and Irish have in bygone ages?</p> + +<p>The poem of which we here give a prose translation lately appeared in +Germany. It is written by Moritz Hartmann, and contains the <i>gist</i> of +the matter.</p> + +<p class="c">M<small>ISTRESS</small> P<small>OTATO</small>.</p> + +<p>There was a great stately house full of people, who have been running in +and out of its lofty gates ever since the gray times of Olympus. There +they wept, laughed, shouted, mourned, and, like day and night, came the +usual changes of joys with plagues and sorrows. Haunting that great +house up and down, making, baking, and roasting, covering and waiting on +the table, has there lived a vast number of years a loyal serving maid +of the olden time—her name was Mrs. Potato. She was a still, little, +old mother, who wore no bawbles or laces, but always had to be satisfied +with her plain, every-day clothes; and unheeded, unhonored, oftentimes +jeered at and forgotten, she served all day at the kitchen fire, and +slept at night in the worst room. When she brought the dishes to table +she got rarely a thankful glance; only at times some very poor man would +in secret shake kindly her hand.</p> + +<p>Generation after generation passed by, as the trees blossom, bear fruit, +and wither; but faithful remained the old housemaid, always the servant +of the last heir.</p> + +<p>But one morning—hear what happened. All the people came to table, and +lo! there was nothing to eat, for our good old Mistress Potato had not +been able to rise from her bed. She felt sharp pains creeping through +her poor old bones. No wonder she was worn out at last! She had not in +all her life dared take a day's rest, lest so the poor should starve.<a name="page_217" id="page_217"></a> +Indeed, it is wonderful that her good will should have kept her up so +long. She must have had a great constitution to begin with.</p> + +<p>The guests had to go away without breakfast. They were a little +troubled, but hoped to make up for it at dinner time. But dinner time +came, and the table was empty; and then, indeed, they began to inquire +about the welfare of Cookmaid Potato. And up into her dark chamber, +where she lay on her poor bed, came great and little, young and old, to +ask after the good creature. "What can be done for her?" "Bring warm +clothes, medicine, a better bed." "Lay aside your work to help her." "If +she dies we shall never again be able to fill the table;" and now, +indeed, they sang her praises.</p> + +<p>O, what a fuss about the sick bed in that moist and mouldy chamber! and +out doors it was just the same—priests with their masses, processions, +and prayers, and all the world ready to walk to penance, if Mistress +Potato could but be saved. And the doctors in their wigs, and +counsellors in masks of gravity, sat there to devise some remedy to +avert this terrible ill.</p> + +<p>As when a most illustrious dame is recovering from birth of a son, so +now bulletins inform the world of the health of Mistress Potato, and, +not content with what they thus learn, couriers and lackeys besiege the +door; nay, the king's coach is stopping there. Yes! yes! the humble poor +maid, 'tis about her they are all so frightened! Who would ever have +believed it in days when the table was nicely covered?</p> + +<p>The gentlemen of pens and books, priests, kings, lords, and ministers, +all have senses to scent our famine. Natheless Mistress Potato gets no +better. May God help her for the sake, not of such people, but of the +poor. For the great it is a token they should note, that all must +crumble and fall to ruin, if they will work and weary to death the poor +maid who cooks in the kitchen.<a name="page_218" id="page_218"></a></p> + +<p>She lived for you in the dirt and ashes, provided daily for poor and +rich; you ought to humble yourselves for her sake. Ah, could we hope +that you would take a hint, and <i>next time</i> pay some heed to the +housemaid before she is worn and wearied to death!</p> + +<p> </p> + +<p>So sighs, rather than hopes, Moritz Hartmann. The wise ministers of +England, indeed, seem much more composed than he supposes them. They are +like the old man who, when he saw the avalanche coming down upon his +village, said, "It is coming, but I shall have time to fill my pipe once +more." <i>He</i> went in to do so, and was buried beneath the ruins. But Sir +Robert Peel, who is so deliberate, has, doubtless, manna in store for +those who have lost their customary food.</p> + +<p>Another sign of the times is, that there are left on the earth none of +the last dynasty of geniuses, rich in so many imperial heads. The world +is full of talent, but it flows downward to water the plain. There are +no towering heights, no Mont Blancs now. We cannot recall one great +genius at this day living. The time of prophets is over, and the era +they prophesied must be at hand; in its couduct a larger proportion of +the human race shall take part than ever before. As prime ministers have +succeeded kings in the substantiate of monarchy, so now shall a house of +representatives succeed prime ministers.</p> + +<p>Altogether, it looks as if a great time was coming, and that time one of +democracy. Our country will play a ruling part. Her eagle will lead the +van; but whether to soar upward to the sun or to stoop for helpless +prey, who now dares promise? At present she has scarce achieved a Roman +nobleness, a Roman liberty; and whether her eagle is less like the +vulture, and more like the Phœix, than was the fierce Roman bird, we +dare not say. May the new year give hopes of the latter, even if the +bird need first to be purified by fire.</p> + +<p><i>Jan. 1, 1846.</i><a name="page_219" id="page_219"></a></p> + +<h2><a name="NEW_YEARS_DAY" id="NEW_YEARS_DAY"></a>NEW YEAR'S DAY.</h2> + +<p>I<small>T</small> was a beautiful custom among some of the Indian tribes, once a year, +to extinguish all the fires, and, by a day of fasting and profound +devotion, to propitiate the Great Spirit for the coming year. They then +produced sparks by friction, and lighted up afresh the altar and the +hearth with the new fire.</p> + +<p>And this fire was considered as the most precious and sacred gift from +one person to another, binding them in bonds of inviolate friendship for +that year, certainly; with a hope that the same might endure through +life. From the young to the old, it was a token of the highest respect; +from the old to the young, of a great expectation.</p> + +<p>To us would that it might be granted to solemnize the new year by the +mental renovation of which this ceremony was the eloquent symbol. Would +that we might extinguish, if only for a day, those fires where an +uninformed religious ardor has led to human sacrifices; which have +warmed the household, but, also, prepared pernicious, more than +wholesome, viands for their use.</p> + +<p>The Indian produced the new spark by friction. It would be a still more +beautiful emblem, and expressive of the more extended powers of +civilized men, if we should draw the spark from the centre of our system +and the source of light, by means of the burning glass.</p> + +<p>Where, then, is to be found the new knowledge, the new thought, the new +hope, that shall begin a new year in a spirit not discordant with "the +acceptable year of the Lord"? Surely there must be such existing, if +latent—some sparks of new fire, pure from ashes and from smoke, worthy +to be<a name="page_220" id="page_220"></a> offered as a new year's gift. Let us look at the signs of the +times, to see in what spot this fire shall be sought—on what fuel it +may be fed. The ancients poured out libations of the choicest juices of +earth, to express their gratitude to the Power that had enabled them to +be sustained from her bosom. They enfranchised slaves, to show that +devotion to the gods induced a sympathy with men.</p> + +<p>Let us look about us to see with what rites, what acts of devotion, this +modern Christian nation greets the approach of the new year; by what +signs she denotes the clear morning of a better day, such as may be +expected when the eagle has entered into covenant with the dove.</p> + +<p>This last week brings tidings that a portion of the inhabitants of +Illinois, the rich and blooming region on which every gift of nature has +been lavished, to encourage the industry and brighten the hopes of man, +not only refuses a libation to the Power that has so blessed their +fields, but declares that the dew is theirs, and the sunlight is +theirs—that they live from and for themselves, acknowledging no +obligation and no duty to God or to man.<a name="FNanchor_28_28" id="FNanchor_28_28"></a><a href="#Footnote_28_28" class="fnanchor">[28]</a></p> + +<p>One man has freed a slave; but a great part of the nation is now busy in +contriving measures that may best rivet the fetters on those now +chained, and forge them strongest for millions yet unborn.</p> + +<p>Selfishness and tyranny no longer wear the mask; they walk haughtily +abroad, affronting with their hard-hearted boasts and brazen resolves +the patience of the sweet heavens. National honor is trodden under foot +for a national bribe, and neither sex nor age defends the redresser of +injuries from the rage of the injurer.</p> + +<p>Yet, amid these reports which come flying on the paperwings of every +day, the scornful laugh of the gnomes, who<a name="page_221" id="page_221"></a> begin to believe they can +buy all souls with their gold, was checked a moment when the aged +knight<a name="FNanchor_29_29" id="FNanchor_29_29"></a><a href="#Footnote_29_29" class="fnanchor">[29]</a> of the better cause answered the challenge—truly in keeping +with the "chivalry" of the time—"You are in the wrong, and I will kick +you," by holding the hands of the chevalier till those around secured +him. We think the man of old must have held him with his eye, as +physicians of moral power can insane patients. Great as are his exploits +for his age, he cannot have much bodily strength, unless by miracle.</p> + +<p>The treatment of Mr. Adams and Mr. Hoar seems to show that we are not +fitted to emulate the savages in preparation for the new fire. The +Indians knew how to reverence the old and the wise.</p> + +<p>Among the manifestos of the day, it is impossible not to respect that of +the Mexican minister for the manly indignation with which he has uttered +truths, however deep our mortification at hearing them. It has been +observed for the last fifty years, that the tone of diplomatic +correspondence was much improved, as to simplicity and directness. Once, +diplomacy was another name for intrigue, and a paper of this sort was +expected to be a mesh of artful phrases, through which the true meaning +might be detected, but never actually grasped. Now, here is one where an +occasion being afforded by the unutterable folly of the corresponding +party, a minister speaks the truth as it lies in his mind, directly and +plainly, as man speaks to man. His statement will command the sympathy +of the civilized world.</p> + +<p>As to the state papers that have followed, they are of a nature to make +the Austrian despot sneer, as he counts in his oratory the woollen +stockings he has got knit by imprisoning all the free geniuses in his +dominions. He, at least, only appeals to the legitimacy of blood; these +dare appeal to legitimacy, as seen from a moral point of view. History +will class<a name="page_222" id="page_222"></a> such claims with the brags of sharpers, who bully their +victims about their honor, while they stretch forth their hands for the +gold they have won with loaded dice. "Do you dare to say the dice are +loaded? Prove it; <i>and</i> I will shoot you for injuring my honor."</p> + +<p>The Mexican makes his gloss on the page of American honor;<a name="FNanchor_30_30" id="FNanchor_30_30"></a><a href="#Footnote_30_30" class="fnanchor">[30]</a> the +girl<a name="FNanchor_31_31" id="FNanchor_31_31"></a><a href="#Footnote_31_31" class="fnanchor">[31]</a> in the Kentucky prison on that of her freedom; the delegate of +Massachusetts,<a name="FNanchor_32_32" id="FNanchor_32_32"></a><a href="#Footnote_32_32" class="fnanchor">[32]</a> on that of her union. Ye stars, whose image America +has placed upon her banner, answer us! Are not your unions of a +different sort? Do they not work to other results?</p> + +<p>Yet we cannot lightly be discouraged, or alarmed, as to the destiny of +our country. The whole history of its discovery and early progress +indicates too clearly the purposes of Heaven with regard to it. Could we +relinquish the thought that it was destined for the scene of a new and +illustrious act in the great drama, the past would be inexplicable, no +less than the future without hope.</p> + +<p>Last week, which brought us so many unpleasant notices of home affairs, +brought also an account of the magnificent telescope lately perfected by +the Earl of Rosse. With means of observation now almost divine, we +perceive that some of the brightest stars, of which Sirius is one, have +dark companions, whose presence is, by earthly spectators, only to be +detected from the inequalities they cause in the motions of their +radiant companions. It was a new and most imposing illustration how, in +carrying out the divine scheme, of which we have as yet only spelled out +the few first lines, the dark is made to wait upon, and, in the full +result, harmonize with, the bright. The sense of such pervasive +analogies should enlarge patience and animate hope.<a name="page_223" id="page_223"></a></p> + +<p>Yet, if offences must come, woe be to those by whom they come; and that +of men, who sin against a heritage like ours, is as that of the +backsliders among the chosen people of the elder day. We, too, have been +chosen, and plain indications been given, by a wonderful conjunction of +auspicious influences, that the ark of human hopes has been placed for +the present in our charge. Woe be to those who betray this trust! On +their heads are to be heaped the curses of unnumbered ages!</p> + +<p>Can he sleep, who in this past year has wickedly or lightly committed +acts calculated to injure the few or many; who has poisoned the ears and +the hearts he might have rightly informed; who has steeped in tears the +cup of thousands; who has put back, as far as in him lay, the +accomplishment of general good and happiness for the sake of his selfish +aggrandizement or selfish luxury; who has sold to a party what was meant +for mankind? If such sleep, dreadful shall be the waking.</p> + +<p>"Deliver us from evil." In public or in private, it is easy to give +pain—hard to give pure pleasure; easy to do evil—hard to do good. God +does his good in the whole, despite of bad men; but only from a very +pure mind will he permit original good to proceed in the day. Happy +those who can feel that during the past year, they have, to the best of +their knowledge, refrained from evil. Happy those who determine to +proceed in this by the light of conscience. It is but a spark; yet from +that spark may be drawn fire-light enough for worlds and systems of +worlds—and that light is ever new.</p> + +<p>And with this thought rises again the memory of the fair lines that +light has brought to view in the histories of some men. If the nation +tends to wrong, there are yet present the ten just men. The hands and +lips of this great form may be impure, but pure blood flows yet within +her veins—the blood of the noble bands who first sought these shores +from the<a name="page_224" id="page_224"></a> British isles and France, for conscience sake. Too many have +come since, for bread alone. We cannot blame—we must not reject them; +but let us teach them, in giving them bread, to prize that salt, too, +without which all on earth must lose its savor. Yes! let us teach them, +not rail at their inevitable ignorance and unenlightened action, but +teach them and their children as our own; if we do so, their children +and ours may yet act as one body obedient to one soul; and if we act +rightly now, that soul a pure soul.</p> + +<p>And ye, sable bands, forced hither against your will, kept down here now +by a force hateful to nature, a will alien from God! It does sometimes +seem as if the avenging angel wore your hue, and would place in your +hands the sword to punish the cruel injustice of our fathers, the +selfish perversity of the sons. Yet are there no means of atonement? +Must the innocent suffer with the guilty? Teach us, O All-Wise, the clew +out of this labyrinth; and if we faithfully encounter its darkness and +dread, and emerge into clear light, wilt thou not bid us "go and sin no +more"?</p> + +<p>Meanwhile, let us proceed as we can, <i>picking our steps</i> along the +slippery road. If we keep the right direction, what matters it that we +must pass through so much mud? The promise is sure:—</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Angels shall free the feet from stain, to their own hue of snow,<br /> +If, undismayed, we reach the hills where the true olives grow.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The olive groves, which we must seek in cold and damp,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Alone can yield us oil for a perpetual lamp.</span><br /> +Then sound again the golden horn with promise ever new;<br /> +The princely deer will ne'er be caught by those that slack pursue;<br /> +Let the "White Doe" of angel hopes be always kept in view.<a name="page_225" id="page_225"></a><br /> +<br /> +Yes! sound again the horn—of hope the golden horn!<br /> +Answer it, flutes and pipes, from valleys still and lorn;<br /> +Warders, from your high towers, with trumps of silver scorn,<br /> +And harps in maidens' bowers, with strings from deep hearts torn,—<br /> +All answer to the horn—of hope the golden horn!<br /> +</p> + +<p>There is still hope, there is still an America, while private lives are +ruled by the Puritan, by the Huguenot conscientiousness, and while there +are some who can repudiate, not their debts, but the supposition that +they will not strive to pay their debts to their age, and to Heaven, who +gave them a share in its great promise.<a name="page_226" id="page_226"></a></p> + +<h2><a name="ST_VALENTINES_DAY" id="ST_VALENTINES_DAY"></a>ST. VALENTINES DAY.</h2> + +<p>T<small>HIS</small> merry season of light jokes and lighter love-tokens, in which Cupid +presents the feathered end of the dart, as if he meant to tickle before +he wounded the captive, has always had a great charm for me. When but a +child, I saw Allston's picture of the "Lady reading a Valentine," and +the mild womanliness of the picture, so remote from passion no less than +vanity, so capable of tenderness, so chastely timid in its +self-possession, has given a color to the gayest thoughts connected with +the day. From the ruff of Allston's Lady, whose clear starch is made to +express all rosebud thoughts of girlish retirement, the soft unfledged +hopes which never yet were tempted from the nest, to Sam Weller's +Valentine, is indeed a broad step, but one which we can take without +material change of mood.</p> + +<p>But of all the thoughts and pictures associated with the day, none can +surpass in interest those furnished by the way in which we celebrated it +last week.</p> + +<p>The Bloomingdale Asylum for the Insane is conducted on the most wise and +liberal plan known at the present day. Its superintendent, Dr. Earle, +has had ample opportunity to observe the best modes of managing this +class of diseases both here and in Europe, and he is one able, by +refined sympathies and intellectual discernment, to apply the best that +is known and to discover more.</p> + +<p>Under his care the beautifully situated establishment at Bloomingdale +loses every sign of the hospital and the prison, not long since thought +to be inseparable from such a place.<a name="page_227" id="page_227"></a> It is a house of refuge, where +those too deeply wounded or disturbed in body or spirit to keep up that +semblance or degree of sanity which the conduct of affairs in the world +at large demands, may be soothed by gentle care, intelligent sympathy, +and a judicious attention to their physical welfare, into health, or, at +least, into tranquillity.</p> + +<p>Dr. Earle, in addition to modes of turning the attention from causes of +morbid irritation, and promoting brighter and juster thoughts, which he +uses in common with other institutions, has this winter delivered a +course of lectures to the patients. We were present at one of these some +weeks since. The subjects touched upon were, often, of a nature to +demand as close attention as an audience of regular students (not +college students, but real students) can be induced to give. The large +assembly present were almost uniformly silent, to appearance interested, +and showed a power of decorum and self-government often wanting among +those who esteem themselves in healthful mastery of their morals and +manners. We saw, with great satisfaction, generous thoughts and solid +pursuits offered, as well as light amusements, for the choice of the +sick in mind. For it is our experience that such sickness arises as +often from want of concentration as any other cause. One of the noblest +youths that ever trod this soil was wont to say, "he was never tired, if +he could only see far enough." He is now gone where his view may be less +bounded; but we, who stay behind, may take the hint that mania, no less +than the commonest forms of prejudice, bespeaks a mind which does not +see far enough to correct partial impressions. No doubt, in many cases, +dissipation of thought, after attention is once distorted into some +morbid direction, may be the first method of cure; but we are glad to +see others provided for those who are ready for them.</p> + +<p>St. Valentine's Eve had been appointed for one of the dancing parties at +the institution, and a few friends from "the world's people" invited to +be present.<a name="page_228" id="page_228"></a></p> + +<p>At an early hour the company assembled in the well-lighted hall, still +gracefully wreathed with its Christmas evergreens; the music struck up +and the company entered.</p> + +<p>And these are the people who, half a century ago, would have been +chained in solitary cells, screaming out their anguish till silenced by +threats or blows, lost, forsaken, hopeless, a blight to earth, a libel +upon heaven!</p> + +<p>Now, they are many of them happy, all interested. Even those who are +troublesome and subject to violent excitement in every-day scenes, show +here that the power of self-control is not lost, only lessened. Give +them an impulse strong enough, favorable circumstances, and they will +begin to use it again. They regulate their steps to music; they restrain +their impatient impulses from respect to themselves and to others. The +Power which shall yet shape order from all disorder, and turn ashes to +beauty, as violets spring up from green graves, hath them also in its +keeping.</p> + +<p>The party were well dressed, with care and taste. The dancing was better +than usual, because there was less of affectation and ennui. The party +was more entertaining, because native traits came out more clear from +the disguises of vanity and tact.</p> + +<p>There was the blue-stocking lady, a mature belle and bel-esprit. Her +condescending graces, her rounded compliments, her girlish, yet "highly +intellectual" vivacity, expressed no less in her head-dress than her +manner, were just that touch above the common with which the illustrator +of Dickens has thought fit to heighten the charms of Mrs. Leo Hunter.</p> + +<p>There was the travelled Englishman, <i>au fait</i> to every thing beneath the +moon and beyond. With his clipped and glib phrases, his bundle of +conventionalities carried so neatly under his arm, and his "My dear +sir," in the perfection of cockney dignity, what better could the most +select dinner party furnish us in the way of distinguished strangerhood?</p> + +<p>There was the hoidenish young girl, and the decorous,<a name="page_229" id="page_229"></a> elegant lady +smoothing down "the wild little thing." There was the sarcastic observer +on the folly of the rest; in that, the greatest fool of all, unbeloved +and unloving. In contrast to this were characters altogether lovely, +full of all sweet affections, whose bells, if jangled out of tune, still +retained their true tone.</p> + +<p>One of the best things of the evening was a dance improvised by two +elderly women. They asked the privilege of the floor, and, a suitable +measure being played, performed this dance in a style lively, +characteristic, yet moderate enough. It was true dancing, like peasant +dancing.</p> + +<p>An old man sang comic songs in the style of various nations and +characters, with a dramatic expression that would have commanded +applause "on any stage."</p> + +<p>And all was done decently and in order, each biding his time. Slight +symptoms of impatience here and there were easily soothed by the +approach of this, truly "good physician," the touch of whose hand seemed +to possess a talismanic power to soothe. We doubt not that all went to +their beds exhilarated, free from irritation, and more attuned to +concord than before. Good bishop Valentine! thy feast was well kept, and +not without the usual jokes and flings at old bachelors, the exchange of +sugar-plums, mottoes, and repartees.</p> + +<p>This is the second festival I have kept with those whom society has +placed, not outside her pale, indeed, but outside the hearing of her +benison. Christmas I passed in a prison! There, too, I saw marks of the +miraculous power of love, when guided by a pure faith in the goodness of +its source, and intelligence as to the design of the creative +intelligence. I saw enough of its power, impeded as it was by the +ignorance of those who, eighteen hundred years after the coming of +Christ, still believe more in fear and force: I saw enough, I say, of +this power to convince me, if I needed conviction, that love is indeed +omnipotent, as He said it was.</p> + +<p>A companion, of that delicate nature by which a scar is felt<a name="page_230" id="page_230"></a> as a +wound, was saddened by the thought how very little our partialities, +undue emotions, and manias need to be exaggerated to entitle us to rank +among madmen. I cannot view it so. Rather let the sense that, with all +our faults and follies, there is still a sound spot, a presentiment of +eventual health in the inmost nature, embolden us to hope, to <i>know</i> it +is the same with all. A great thinker has spoken of the Greek, in +highest praise, as "a self-renovating character." But we are all Greeks, +if we will but think so. For the mentally or morally insane, there is no +irreparable ill if the principle of life can but be aroused. And it can +never be finally benumbed, except by our own will.</p> + +<p>One of the famous pictures at Munich is of a madhouse. The painter has +represented the moral obliquities of society exaggerated into madness; +that is to say, self-indulgence has, in each instance, destroyed the +power to forbear the ill or to discern the good. A celebrated writer has +added a little book, to be used while looking at the picture, and drawn +inferences of universal interest.</p> + +<p>Such would we draw; such as this! Let no one dare to call another mad +who is not himself willing to rank in the same class for every +perversion and fault of judgment. Let no one dare aid in punishing +another as criminal who is not willing to suffer the penalty due to his +own offences.</p> + +<p>Yet, while owning that we are all mad, all criminal, let us not despair, +but rather believe that the Ruler of all never could permit such +wide-spread ill but to good ends. It is permitted to give us a field to +redeem it—</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry"> +<tr><td align="right">"to transmute, bereave</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Of an ill influence, and a good receive."</td></tr> +</table> + +<p>It flows inevitably from the emancipation of our wills, the development +of individuality in us. These aims accomplished, all shall yet be well; +and it is ours to learn <i>how</i> that good time may be hastened.<a name="page_231" id="page_231"></a></p> + +<p>We know no sign of the times more encouraging than the increasing +nobleness and wisdom of view as to the government of asylums for the +insane and of prisons. Whatever is learned as to these forms of society +is learned for all. There is nothing that can be said of such government +that must not be said, also, of the government of families, schools, and +states. But we have much to say on this subject, and shall revert to it +again, and often, though, perhaps, not with so pleasing a theme as this +of St. Valentine's Eve.<a name="page_232" id="page_232"></a></p> + +<h2><a name="FOURTH_OF_JULY" id="FOURTH_OF_JULY"></a>FOURTH OF JULY.</h2> + +<p>T<small>HE</small> bells ring; the cannon rouse the echoes along the river shore; the +boys sally forth with shouts and little flags, and crackers enough to +frighten all the people they meet from sunrise to sunset. The orator is +conning for the last time the speech in which he has vainly attempted to +season with some new spice the yearly panegyric upon our country; its +happiness and glory; the audience is putting on its best bib and tucker, +and its blandest expression to listen.</p> + +<p>And yet, no heart, we think, can beat to-day with one pulse of genuine, +noble joy. Those who have obtained their selfish objects will not take +especial pleasure in thinking of them to-day, while to unbiassed minds +must come sad thoughts of national honor soiled in the eyes of other +nations, of a great inheritance risked, if not forfeited.</p> + +<p>Much has been achieved in this country since the Declaration of +Independence. America is rich and strong; she has shown great talent and +energy; vast prospects of aggrandizement open before her. But the noble +sentiment which she expressed in her early youth is tarnished; she has +shown that righteousness is not her chief desire, and her name is no +longer a watchword for the highest hopes to the rest of the world. She +knows this, but takes it very easily; she feels that she is growing +richer and more powerful, and that seems to suffice her.</p> + +<p>These facts are deeply saddening to those who can pronounce the words +"my country" with pride and peace only so far as steadfast virtues, +generous impulses, find their home in that country. They cannot be +satisfied with superficial<a name="page_233" id="page_233"></a> benefits, with luxuries and the means of +obtaining knowledge which are multiplied for them. They could rejoice in +full hands and a busy brain, if the soul were expanding and the heart +pure; but, the higher conditions being violated, what is done cannot be +done for good.</p> + +<p>Such thoughts fill patriot minds as the cannon-peal bursts upon the ear. +This year, which declares that the people at large consent to cherish +and extend slavery as one of our "domestic institutions," takes from the +patriot his home. This year, which attests their insatiate love of +wealth and power, quenches the flame upon the altar.</p> + +<p>Yet there remains that good part which cannot be taken away. If nations +go astray, the narrow path may always be found and followed by the +individual man. It is hard, hard indeed, when politics and trade are +mixed up with evils so mighty that he scarcely dares touch them for fear +of being defiled. He finds his activity checked in great natural outlets +by the scruples of conscience. He cannot enjoy the free use of his +limbs, glowing upon a favorable tide; but struggling, panting, must fix +his eyes upon his aim, and fight against the current to reach it. It is +not easy, it is very hard just now, to realize the blessings of +independence.</p> + +<p>For what <i>is</i> independence if it do not lead to freedom?—freedom from +fraud and meanness, from selfishness, from public opinion so far as it +does not agree with the still, small voice of one's better self?</p> + +<p>Yet there remains a great and worthy part to play. This country presents +great temptations to ill, but also great inducements to good. Her health +and strength are so remarkable, her youth so full of life, that disease +cannot yet have taken deep hold of her. It has bewildered her brain, +made her steps totter, fevered, but not yet tainted, her blood. Things +are still in that state when ten just men may save the city. A few men +are wanted, able to think and act upon principles of an eternal value. +The safety of the country must lie in a<a name="page_234" id="page_234"></a> few such men; men who have +achieved the genuine independence, independence of wrong, of violence, +of falsehood.</p> + +<p>We want individuals to whom all eyes may turn as examples of the +practicability of virtue. We want shining examples. We want +deeply-rooted characters, who cannot be moved by flattery, by fear, even +by hope, for they work in faith. The opportunity for such men is great; +they will not be burned at the stake in their prime for bearing witness +to the truth, yet they will be tested most severely in their adherence +to it. There is nothing to hinder them from learning what is true and +best; no physical tortures will be inflicted on them for expressing it. +Let men feel that in private lives, more than in public measures, must +the salvation of the country lie. If that country has so widely veered +from the course she prescribed to herself, and that the hope of the +world prescribed to her, it must be because she had not men ripened and +confirmed for better things. They leaned too carelessly on one another; +they had not deepened and purified the private lives from which the +public vitality must spring, as the verdure of the plain from the +fountains of the hills.</p> + +<p>What a vast influence is given by sincerity alone. The bier of General +Jackson has lately passed, upbearing a golden urn. The men who placed it +there lament his departure, and esteem the measures which have led this +country to her present position wise and good. The other side esteem +them unwise, unjust, and disastrous in their consequences. But both +respect him thus far, that his conduct was boldly sincere. The sage of +Quincy! Men differ in their estimate of his abilities. None, probably, +esteem his mind as one of the first magnitude. But both sides, all men, +are influenced by the bold integrity of his character. Mr. Calhoun +speaks straight out what he thinks. So far as this straightforwardness +goes, he confers the benefits of virtue. If a character be uncorrupted, +whatever bias it takes, it thus far is good and does good. It may<a name="page_235" id="page_235"></a> help +others to a higher, wiser, larger independence than its own.</p> + +<p>We know not where to look for an example of all or many of the virtues +we would seek from the man who is to begin the new dynasty that is +needed of fathers of the country. The country needs to be born again; +she is polluted with the lust of power, the lust of gain. She needs +fathers good enough to be godfathers—men who will stand sponsors at the +baptism with <i>all</i> they possess, with all the goodness they can cherish, +and all the wisdom they can win, to lead this child the way she should +go, and never one step in another. Are there not in schools and colleges +the boys who will become such men? Are there not those on the threshold +of manhood who have not yet chosen the broad way into which the +multitude rushes, led by the banner on which, strange to say, the royal +Eagle is blazoned, together with the word Expediency? Let them decline +that road, and take the narrow, thorny path where Integrity leads, +though with no prouder emblem than the Dove. They may there find the +needed remedy, which, like the white root, detected by the patient and +resolved Odysseus, shall have power to restore the herd of men, +disguised by the enchantress to whom they had willingly yielded in the +forms of brutes, to the stature and beauty of men.<a name="page_236" id="page_236"></a></p> + +<h2><a name="FIRST_OF_AUGUST" id="FIRST_OF_AUGUST"></a>FIRST OF AUGUST.</h2> + +<p>A<small>MONG</small> the holidays of the year, some portion of our people borrow one +from another land. They borrow what they fain would own, since their +doing so would increase, not lessen, the joy and prosperity of the +present owner. It is a holiday not to be celebrated, as others are, with +boast, and shout, and gay procession, but solemnly, yet hopefully; in +prayer and humiliation for much ill now existing; in faith that the God +of good will not permit such ill to exist always; in aspiration to +become his instruments for removal.</p> + +<p>We borrow this holiday from England. We know not that she could lend us +another such. Her career has been one of selfish aggrandizement. To +carry her flag wherever the waters flow; to leave a strong mark of her +footprint on every shore, that she might return and claim its spoils; to +maintain in every way her own advantage,—is and has been her object, as +much as that of any nation upon earth. The plundered Hindoo, the wronged +Irish,—for ourselves we must add the outraged Chinese, (for we look on +all that has been written about the right of that war as mere +sophistry,)—no less than Napoleon, walking up and down, in his "tarred +great-coat," in the unwholesome lodge at St. Helena,—all can tell +whether she be righteous or generous in her conquests. Nay, let myriads +of her own children say whether she will abstain from sacrificing, +mercilessly, human freedom, happiness, and the education of immortal +souls, for the sake of gains of money! We speak of Napoleon, for we +must<a name="page_237" id="page_237"></a> ever despise, with most profound contempt, the use she made of her +power on that occasion. She had been the chief means of liberating +Europe from his tyranny, and, though it was for her own sake, we must +commend and admire her conduct and resolution thus far. But the +unhandsome, base treatment of her captive, has never been enough +contemned. Any private gentleman, in chaining up the foe that had put +himself in his power, would at least have given him lodging, food, and +clothes to his liking; and a civil turnkey—and a great nation could +fail in this! O, it was shameful, if only for the vulgarity of feeling +evinced! All this we say, because we are sometimes impatient of +England's brag on the subject of slavery. Freedom! Because she has done +one good act, is she entitled to the angelic privilege of being the +champion of freedom?</p> + +<p>And yet it is true that once she nobly awoke to a sense of what was +right and wise. It is true that she also acted out that sense—acted +fully, decidedly. She was willing to make sacrifices, even of the loved +money. She has not let go the truth she then laid to heart, and +continues the resolute foe of man's traffic in men. We must bend low to +her as we borrow this holiday—the anniversary of the emancipation of +slaves in the West Indies. We do not feel that the extent of her +practice justifies the extent of her preaching; yet we must feel her to +be, in this matter, an elder sister, entitled to cry shame to us. And if +her feelings be those of a sister indeed, how must she mourn to see her +next of kin pushing back, as far as in her lies, the advance of this +good cause, binding those whom the old world had awakened from its sins +enough to loose! But courage, sister! All is not yet lost! There is here +a faithful band, determined to expiate the crimes that have been +committed in the name of liberty. On this day they meet and vow +themselves to the service; and, as they look in one another's glowing +eyes, they read<a name="page_238" id="page_238"></a> there assurance that the end is not yet, and that they, +forced as they are</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry"> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">"To keep in company with Pain,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;"> And Fear, and Falsehood, miserable train,"</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">"Turn that necessity to glorious gain,"</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">"Transmute them and subdue."</span></td></tr> +</table> + +<p>Indeed, we do not see that they "bate a jot of heart or hope," and it is +because they feel that the power of the Great Spirit, and its peculiar +workings in the spirit of this age, are with them. There is action and +reaction all the time; and though the main current is obvious, there are +many little eddies and counter-currents. Mrs. Norton writes a poem on +the sufferings of the poor, and in it she, as episode, tunefully laments +the sufferings of the Emperor of all the Russias for the death of a +beloved daughter. And it <i>was</i> a deep grief; yet it did not soften his +heart, or make it feel for man. The first signs of his recovered spirits +are in new efforts to crush out the heart of Poland, and to make the +Jews lay aside the hereditary marks of their national existence—to them +a sacrifice far worse than death. But then,—Count Apraxin is burned +alive by his infuriate serfs, and the life of a serf is far more +dog-like, or rather machine-like, than that of <i>our</i> slaves. Still the +serf can rise in vengeance—can admonish the autocrat that humanity may +yet turn again and rend him.</p> + +<p>So with us. The most shameful deed has been done that ever disgraced a +nation, because the most contrary to consciousness of right. Other +nations have done wickedly, but we have surpassed them all in trampling +under foot the principles that had been assumed as the basis of our +national existence, and shown a willingness to forfeit our honor in the +face of the world.</p> + +<p>The following stanzas, written by a friend some time since,<a name="page_239" id="page_239"></a> on the +fourth of July, exhibit these contrasts so forcibly, that we cannot do +better than insert them here:—</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Loud peal of bells and beat of drums<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Salute approaching dawn;</span><br /> +And the deep cannon's fearful bursts<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Announce a nation's morn.</span><br /> +<br /> +Imposing ranks of freemen stand<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And claim their proud birthright;</span><br /> +Impostors, rather! thus to brand<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">A name they hold so bright.</span><br /> +<br /> +Let the day see the pageant show;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Float, banners, to the breeze!</span><br /> +Shout Liberty's great name throughout<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Columbia's lands and seas!</span><br /> +<br /> +Give open sunlight to the free;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">But for Truth's equal sake,</span><br /> +When night sinks down upon the land,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Proclaim dead Freedom's wake!</span><br /> +<br /> +Beat, muffled drums! Toll, funeral bell<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Nail every flag half-mast;</span><br /> +For though we fought the battle well,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">We're traitors at the last.</span><br /> +<br /> +Let the whole nation join in one<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Procession to appear;</span><br /> +We and our sons lead on the front,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Our slaves bring up the rear.</span><br /> +<br /> +America is rocked within<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Thy cradle, Liberty,</span><br /> +By Africa's poor, palsied hand—<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Strange inconsistency!<a name="page_240" id="page_240"></a></span><br /> +<br /> +We've dug one grave as deep as Death,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">For Tyranny's black sin;</span><br /> +And dug another at its side<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">To thrust our brother in.</span><br /> +<br /> +We challenge all the world aloud,—<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Lo, Tyranny's deep grave!"</span><br /> +And all the world points back and cries,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Thou fool! Behold thy slave!"</span><br /> +<br /> +Yes, rally, brave America,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Thy noble hearts and free</span><br /> +Around the Eagle, as he soars<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Upward in majesty.</span><br /> +<br /> +One half thy emblem is the bird,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Out-facing thus the day;</span><br /> +But wouldst thou make him wholly thine,—<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Give him a helpless prey!</i></span><br /> +</p> + +<p>This should be sung in Charleston at nine o'clock in the evening, when +the drums are heard proclaiming "dead Freedom's wake," as they summon to +their homes, or to the custody of the police, every human being with a +black skin who is found walking without a pass from a white. Or it might +have been sung to advantage the night after Charleston had shown her +independence and care of domestic institutions by expulsion of the +venerable envoy of Massachusetts! Its expression would seem even more +forcible than now, when sung so near the facts, when the eagle soars so +close above his prey.</p> + +<p>How deep the shadow! yet cleft by light. There is a counter-current that +sets towards the deep. We are inclined to weigh as of almost equal +weight with all we have had to trouble us as to the prolongation of +slavery, the hopes that may be gathered from the course of such a man as +Cassius<a name="page_241" id="page_241"></a> M. Clay,—a man open to none of the accusations brought to +diminish the influence of abolitionists in general, for he has eaten the +bread wrought from slavery, and has shared the education that excuses +the blindness of the slaveholder. He speaks as one having authority; no +one can deny that he knows where he is. In the prime of manhood, of +talent, and the energy of a fine enthusiasm, he comes forward with deed +and word to do his devoir in this cause, never to leave the field till +he can take with him the wronged wretches rescued by his devotion.</p> + +<p>Now he has made this last sacrifice of the prejudices of "southern +chivalry," more persons than ever will be ready to join the herald's +cry, "God speed the right!" And we cannot but believe his noble example +will be followed by many young men in the slaveholding ranks, brothers +in a new, sacred band, vowed to the duty, not merely of defending, but +far more sacred, of purifying their homes.</p> + +<p>The event of which this day is the anniversary, affords a sufficient +guarantee of the safety and practicability of strong measures for this +purification. Various accounts are given to the public, of the state of +the British West Indies, and the foes of emancipation are of course +constantly on the alert to detect any unfavorable result which may aid +them in opposing the good work elsewhere. But through all statements +these facts shine clear as the sun at noonday, that the measure was +there carried into effect with an ease and success, and has shown in the +African race a degree of goodness, docility, capacity for industry and +self-culture entirely beyond or opposed to the predictions which +darkened so many minds with fears. Those fears can never again be +entertained or uttered with the same excuse. One great example of the +<i>safety of doing right</i> exists; true, there is but one of the sort, but +volumes may be preached from such a text.</p> + +<p>We, however, preach not; there are too many preachers already in the +field, abler, more deeply devoted to the cause.<a name="page_242" id="page_242"></a> Endless are the sermons +of these modern crusaders, these ardent "sons of thunder," who have +pledged themselves never to stop or falter till this one black spot be +purged away from the land which gave them birth. They cry aloud and +spare not; they spare not others, but then, neither do they spare +themselves; and such are ever the harbingers of a new advent of the Holy +Spirit. Our venerated friend, Dr. Channing, sainted in more memories +than any man who has left us in this nineteenth century, uttered the +last of his tones of soft, solemn, convincing, persuasive eloquence, on +this day and this occasion. The hills of Lenox laughed and were glad as +they heard him who showed in that last address (an address not only to +the men of Lenox, but to all men, for he was in the highest sense the +friend of man) the unsullied purity of infancy, the indignation of youth +at vice and wrong, informed and tempered by the mild wisdom of age. It +is a beautiful fact that this should have been the last public occasion +of his life.</p> + +<p>Last year a noble address was delivered by R. W. Emerson, in which he +broadly showed the <i>juste milieu</i> views upon this subject in the holy +light of a high ideal day. The truest man grew more true as he listened; +for the speech, though it had the force of fact and the lustre of +thought, was chiefly remarkable as sharing the penetrating quality of +the "still small voice," most often heard when no man speaks. Now it +spoke <i>through</i> a man; and no personalities, or prejudices, or passions +could be perceived to veil or disturb its silver sound.</p> + +<p>These speeches are on record; little can be said that is not contained +in them. But we can add evermore our aspirations for thee, O our +country! that thou mayst not long need to borrow a <i>holy</i> day; not long +have all thy festivals blackened by falsehood, tyranny, and a crime for +which neither man below nor God above can much longer pardon thee. For +ignorance may excuse error; but thine—it is vain to deny it—is +conscious wrong, and vows thee to the Mammon whose wages are endless +remorse or final death.<a name="page_243" id="page_243"></a></p> + +<h2><a name="THANKSGIVING" id="THANKSGIVING"></a>THANKSGIVING.</h2> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry"> +<tr><td align="left">"Canst thou give thanks for aught that has been given</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Except by making earth more worthy heaven?</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Just stewardship the Master hoped from thee;</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Harvests from time to bless eternity."</td></tr> +</table> + +<p>T<small>HANKSGIVING</small> is peculiarly the festival day of New England. Elsewhere, +other celebrations rival its attractions, but in that region where the +Puritans first returned thanks that some among them had been sustained +by a great hope and earnest resolve amid the perils of the ocean, wild +beasts, and famine, the old spirit which hallowed the day still lingers, +and forbids that it should be entirely devoted to play and plum-pudding.</p> + +<p>And yet, as there is always this tendency; as the twelfth-night cake is +baked by many a hostess who would be puzzled if you asked her, "Twelfth +night after or before what?" and the Christmas cake by many who know no +other Christmas service, so it requires very serious assertion and proof +from the minister to convince his parishioners that the turkey and +plum-pudding, which are presently to occupy his place in their +attention, should not be the chief objects of the day.</p> + +<p>And in other regions, where the occasion is observed, it is still more +as one for a meeting of families and friends to the enjoyment of a good +dinner, than for any higher purpose.</p> + +<p>This, indeed, is one which we want not to depreciate. If this manner of +keeping the day be likely to persuade the juniors of the party that the +celebrated Jack Horner is the prime model for brave boys, and that +grandparents are chiefly to be respected as the givers of grand feasts +yet a<a name="page_244" id="page_244"></a> meeting in the spirit of kindness, however dull and blind, is not +wholly without use in healing differences and promoting good intentions. +The instinct of family love, intended by Heaven to make those of one +blood the various and harmonious organs of one mind, is never wholly +without good influence. Family love, I say, for family pride is never +without bad influence, and it too often takes the place of its mild and +healthy sister.</p> + +<p>Yet where society is at all simple, it is cheering to see the family +circle thus assembled, if only because its patriarchal form is in itself +so excellent. The presence of the children animates the old people, +while the respect and attention they demand refine the gayety of the +young. Yes, it is cheering to see, in some large room, the elders +talking near the bright fire, while the cousins of all ages are amusing +themselves in knots. Here is almost all the good, and very little of the +ill, that can be found in society, got together merely for amusement.</p> + +<p>Yet how much nobler, more exhilarating, and purer would be the +atmosphere of that circle if the design of its pious founders were +remembered by those who partake this festival! if they dared not attend +the public jubilee till private retrospect of the past year had been +taken in the spirit of the old rhyme, which we all bear in mind if not +in heart,—</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr><td align="left">"What hast thou done that's worth the doing,</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">And what pursued that's worth pursuing?</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">What sought thou knew'st that thou shouldst shun,</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">What done thou shouldst have left undone?"</td></tr> +</table> + +<p>A crusade needs also to be made this day into the wild places of each +heart, taking for its device, "Lord, cleanse thou me from secret faults; +keep back thy servant also from presumptuous sins." Would not that +circle be happy as if music, from invisible agents, floated through it +if each member of it considered every other member as a bequest from +heaven; if he supposed<a name="page_245" id="page_245"></a> that the appointed nearness in blood or lot was +a sign to him that he must exercise his gifts of every kind as given +peculiarly in their behalf; that if richer in temper, in talents, in +knowledge, or in worldly goods, here was the innermost circle of his +poor; that he must clothe these naked, whether in body or mind, soothing +the perverse, casting light into the narrow chamber, or, most welcome +task of all! extending a hand at the right moment to one uncertain of +his way? It is this spirit that makes the old man to be revered as a +Nestor, rather than put aside like a worn-out garment. It is such a +spirit that sometimes has given to the young child a ministry as of a +parent in the house.</p> + +<p>But, if charity begin at home, it must not end there; and, while +purifying the innermost circle, let us not forget that it depends upon +the great circle, and that again on it; that no home can be healthful in +which are not cherished seeds of good for the world at large. Thy child, +thy brother, are given to thee only as an example of what is due from +thee to all men. It is true that, if you, in anger, call your brother +fool, no deeds of so-called philanthropy shall save you from the +punishment; for your philanthropy must be from the love of excitement, +not the love of man, or of goodness. But then you must visit the +Gentiles also, and take time for knowing what aid the woman of Samaria +may need.</p> + +<p>A noble Catholic writer, in the true sense as well as by name a +Catholic, describes a tailor as giving a dinner on an occasion which had +brought honor to his house, which, though a humble, was not a poor +house. In his glee, the tailor was boasting a little of the favors and +blessings of his lot, when suddenly a thought stung him. He stopped, and +cutting away half the fowl that lay before him, sent it in a dish with +the best knives, bread, and napkin, and a brotherly message that was +better still, to a widow near, who must, he knew, be sitting in sadness +and poverty among her children. His little daughter was the messenger. +If parents followed up the<a name="page_246" id="page_246"></a> indulgences heaped upon their children at +Thanksgiving dinners with similar messages, there would not be danger +that children should think enjoyment of sensual pleasures the only +occasion that demands Thanksgiving.</p> + +<p>And suppose, while the children were absent on their errands of justice, +as they could not fail to think them, if they compared the hovels they +must visit with their own comfortable homes, their elders, touched by a +sense of right, should be led from discussion of the rivalries of trade +or fashion to inquiry whether they could not impart of all that was +theirs, not merely one poor dinner once a year, but all their mental and +material wealth for the benefit of all men. If they do not sell it <i>all</i> +at once, as the rich young man was bid to do as a test of his sincerity, +they may find some way in which it could be invested so as to show +enough obedience to the law and the prophets to love our neighbor as +ourselves.</p> + +<p>And he who once gives himself to such thoughts will find it is not +merely moral gain for which he shall return thanks another year with the +return of this day. In the present complex state of human affairs, you +cannot be kind unless you are wise. Thoughts of amaranthine bloom will +spring up in the fields ploughed to give food to suffering men. It +would, indeed, seem to be a simple matter at first glance. "Lovest thou +me?"—"Feed my lambs." But now we have not only to find pasture, but to +detect the lambs under the disguise of wolves, and restore them by a +spell, like that the shepherd used, to their natural form and whiteness.</p> + +<p>And for this present day appointed for Thanksgiving, we may say that if +we know of so many wrongs, woes, and errors in the world yet +unredressed; if in this nation recent decisions have shown a want of +moral discrimination in important subjects, that make us pause and doubt +whether we can join in the formal congratulations that we are still +bodily alive, unassailed by the ruder modes of warfare, and enriched +with the fatness of the land; yet, on the other side, we know of causes<a name="page_247" id="page_247"></a> +not so loudly proclaimed why we should give thanks. Abundantly and +humbly we must render them for the movement, now sensible in the heart +of the civilized world, although it has not pervaded the entire +frame—for that movement of contrition and love which forbids men of +earnest thought to eat, drink, or be merry while other men are steeped +in ignorance, corruption, and woe; which calls the king from his throne +of gold, and the poet from his throne of mind, to lie with the beggar in +the kennel, or raise him from it; which says to the poet, "You must +reform rather than create a world," and to him of the golden crown, "You +cannot long remain a king unless you are also a man."</p> + +<p>Wherever this impulse of social or political reform darts up its rill +through the crusts of selfishness, scoff and dread also arise, and hang +like a heavy mist above it. But the voice of the rill penetrates far +enough for those who have ears to hear. And sometimes it is the case +that "those who came to scoff remain to pray." In two articles of +reviews, one foreign and one domestic, which have come under our eye +within the last fortnight, the writers who began by jeering at the +visionaries, seemed, as they wrote, to be touched by a sense that +without a high and pure faith none can have the only true vision of the +intention of God as to the destiny of man.</p> + +<p>We recognized as a happy omen that there is cause for thanksgiving, and +that our people may be better than they seem, the recent meeting to +organize an association for the benefit of prisoners. We are not, then, +wholly Pharisees. We shall not ask the blessing of this day in the mood +of, "Lord, I thank thee that I, and my son, and my brother, are not as +other men are,—not as those publicans imprisoned there," while the +still small voice cannot make us hear its evidence that, but for +instruction, example, and the "preventing God," every sin that can be +named might riot in our hearts. The prisoner, too, may become a man. +Neither his open nor our secret fault must utterly dismay us. We will +treat him as if he had<a name="page_248" id="page_248"></a> a soul. We will not dare to hunt him into a +beast of prey, or trample him into a serpent. We will give him some +crumbs from the table which grace from above and parental love below +have spread for us, and perhaps he will recover from these ghastly +ulcers that deform him now.</p> + +<p>We were much pleased with the spirit of the meeting for the benefit of +prisoners, to which we have just alluded. It was simple, business-like, +in a serious, affectionate temper. The speakers did not make phrases or +compliments—did not slur over the truth. The audience showed a ready +vibration to the touch of just and tender feeling. The time was +evidently ripe for this movement. We doubt not that many now darkened +souls will give thanks for the ray of light that will have been let in +by this time next year. It is but a grain of mustard seed, but the +promised tree will grow swiftly if tended in a pure spirit; and the +influence of good measures in any one place will be immediate in this +province, as has been the case with every attempt in behalf of another +sorrowing class, the insane.</p> + +<p>While reading a notice of a successful attempt to have musical +performances carried through in concert by the insane at Rouen, we were +forcibly reminded of a similar performance we heard a few weeks ago at +Sing Sing. There the female prisoners joined in singing a hymn, or +rather choral, which describes the last thoughts of a spirit about to be +enfranchised from the body; each stanza of which ends with the words, +"All is well;" and they sang it—those suffering, degraded children of +society—with as gentle and resigned an expression as if they were sure +of going to sleep in the arms of a pure mother. The good spirit that +dwelt in the music made them its own. And shall not the good spirit of +religious sympathy make them its own also, and more permanently? We +shall see. Should the <i>morally</i> insane, by wise and gentle care, be won +back to health, as the wretched bedlamites have been, will not the +angels themselves give thanks? And will any<a name="page_249" id="page_249"></a> man dare take the risk of +opposing plans that afford even a chance of such a result?</p> + +<p>Apart also from good that is public and many-voiced, does not each of us +know, in private experience, much to be thankful for? Not only the +innocent and daily pleasures that we have prized according to our +wisdom; of the sun and starry skies, the fields of green, or snow +scarcely less beautiful, the loaf eaten with an appetite, the glow of +labor, the gentle signs of common affection; but have not some, have not +many of us, cause to be thankful for enfranchisement from error or +infatuation; a growth in knowledge of outward things, and instruction +within the soul from a higher source. Have we not acquired a sense of +more refined enjoyments; clear convictions; sometimes a serenity in +which, as in the first days of June, all things grow, and the blossom +gives place to fruit? Have we not been weaned from what was unfit for +us, or unworthy our care? and have not those ties been drawn more close, +and are not those objects seen more distinctly, which shall forever be +worthy the purest desires of our souls? Have we learned to do any thing, +the humblest, in the service and by the spirit of the power which +meaneth all things well? If so, we may give thanks, and, perhaps, +venture to offer our solicitations in behalf of those as yet less +favored by circumstances. When even a few shall dare do so with the +whole heart—for only a pure heart, can "avail much" in such +prayers—then <span class="smcap">ALL</span> shall soon be well.<a name="page_250" id="page_250"></a></p> + +<h2><a name="CHRISTMAS" id="CHRISTMAS"></a>CHRISTMAS.</h2> + +<p>O<small>UR</small> festivals come rather too near together, since we have so few of +them; thanksgiving, Christmas, new year's day,—and then none again till +July. We know not but these four, with the addition of "a day set apart +for fasting and prayer," might answer the purposes of rest and +edification, as well as a calendar full of saints' days, if they were +observed in a better spirit. But thanksgiving is devoted to good +dinners; Christmas and new year's days, to making presents and +compliments; fast day, to playing at cricket and other games; and the +fourth of July, to boasting of the past, rather than to plans how to +deserve its benefits and secure its fruits.</p> + +<p>We value means of marking time by appointed days, because man, on one +side of his nature so ardent and aspiring, is on the other so slippery +and indolent a being, that he needs incessant admonitions to redeem the +time. Time flows on steadily, whether he regards it or not; yet unless +<i>he keep time</i>, there is no music in that flow. The sands drop with +inevitable speed, yet each waits long enough to receive, if it be ready, +the intellectual touch that should turn it to a sand of gold.</p> + +<p>Time, says the Grecian fable, is the parent of Power; Power is the +father of Genius and Wisdom; Time, then, is grandfather of the noblest +of the human family, and we must respect the aged sire whom we see on +the frontispiece of the almanacs, and believe his scythe was meant to +mow down harvests ripened for an immortal use.</p> + +<p>Yet the best provision made by the mind of society, at large, for these +admonitions, soon loses its efficacy, and requires<a name="page_251" id="page_251"></a> that individual +earnestness, individual piety, should continually reanimate the most +beautiful form. The world has never seen arrangements which might more +naturally offer good suggestions, than those of the church of Rome. The +founders of that church stood very near a history, radiant at every page +with divine light. All their rites and ceremonial days illustrate facts +of a universal interest. But the life with which piety, first, and +afterwards the genius of great artists, invested these symbols, waned at +last, except to a thoughtful few. Reverence was forgotten in the +multitude of genuflections; the rosary became a string of beads, rather +than a series of religious meditations, and "the glorious company of +saints and martyrs" were not so much regarded as the teachers of +heavenly truth, as intercessors to obtain for their votaries the +temporal gifts they craved.</p> + +<p>Yet we regret that some of these symbols had not been more reverenced by +Protestants, as the possible occasion of good thoughts. And among others +we regret that the day set apart to commemorate the birth of Jesus +should have been stripped, even by those who observe it, of many +impressive and touching accessories.</p> + +<p>If ever there was an occasion on which the arts could become all but +omnipotent in the service of a holy thought, it is this of the birth of +the child Jesus. In the palmy days of the Catholic religion, they may be +said to have wrought miracles in its behalf; and, in our colder time, +when we rather reflect that light from a different point of view, than +transport ourselves into it,—who, that has an eye and ear faithful to +the soul, is not conscious of inexhaustible benefits from some of the +works by which sublime geniuses have expressed their ideas in the +adorations of the Magi and the Shepherds, in the Virgin with the infant +Jesus, or that work which expresses what Christendom at large has not +even begun to realize,—that work which makes us conscious, as we +listen, why the soul of man was thought worthy and able<a name="page_252" id="page_252"></a> to upbear a +cross of such dreadful weight—the Messiah of Handel.</p> + +<p>Christmas would seem to be the day peculiarly sacred to children, and +something of this feeling here shows itself among us, though rather from +German influence than of native growth. The evergreen tree is often +reared for the children on Christmas evening, and its branches cluster +with little tokens that may, at least, give them a sense that the world +is rich, and that there are some in it who care to bless them. It is a +charming sight to see their glittering eyes, and well worth much trouble +in preparing the Christmas tree.</p> + +<p>Yet, on this occasion as on all others, we could wish to see pleasure +offered them in a form less selfish than it is. When shall we read of +banquets prepared for the halt, the lame, and the blind, on the day that +is said to have brought <i>their</i> Friend into the world? When will the +children be taught to ask all the cold and ragged little ones, whom they +have seen during the day wistfully gazing at the displays in the +shop-windows, to share the joys of Christmas eve?</p> + +<p>We borrow the Christmas tree from Germany. Would that we might but +borrow with it that feeling which pervades all their stories about the +influence of the Christ child; and has, I doubt not,—for the spirit of +literature is always, though refined, the essence of popular +life,—pervaded the conduct of children there!</p> + +<p>We will mention two of these as happily expressive of different sides of +the desirable character. One is a legend of the Saint Hermann Joseph. +The legend runs, that this saint, when a little boy, passed daily by a +niche where was an image of the Virgin and Child, and delighted there to +pay his devotions. His heart was so drawn towards the holy child, that, +one day, having received what seemed to him a gift truly precious,—to +wit, a beautiful red and yellow apple,—he ventured to offer it, with +his prayer. To his unspeakable<a name="page_253" id="page_253"></a> delight, the child put forth its hand +and took the apple. After that day, never was a gift bestowed upon the +little Hermann that was not carried to the same place. He needed nothing +for himself, but dedicated all his childish goods to the altar.</p> + +<p>After a while, grief comes. His father, who was a poor man, finds it +necessary to take him from school and bind him to a trade. He +communicates his woes to his friends of the niche, and the Virgin +comforts him, like a mother, and bestows on him money, by means of which +he rises, (not to ride in a gilt coach like Lord Mayor Whittington,) but +to be a learned and tender shepherd of men.</p> + +<p>Another still more touching story is that of the holy Rupert. Rupert was +the only child of a princely house, and had something to give besides +apples. But his generosity and human love were such, that, as a child, +he could never see poor children suffering without despoiling himself of +all he had with him in their behalf. His mother was, at first, +displeased at this; but when he replied, "They are thy children too," +her reproofs yielded to tears.</p> + +<p>One time, when he had given away his coat to a poor child, he got +wearied and belated on his homeward way. He lay down a while, and fell +asleep. Then he dreamed that he was on a river shore, and saw a mild and +noble old man bathing many children. After he had plunged them into the +water, he would place them on a beautiful island, where they looked +white and glorious as little angels. Rupert was seized with strong +desire to join them, and begged the old man to bathe him, also, in the +stream. But he was answered, "It is not yet time." Just then a rainbow +spanned the island, and on its arch was enthroned the child Jesus, +dressed in a coat that Rupert knew to be his own. And the child said to +the others, "See this coat; it is one my brother Rupert has just sent to +me. He has given us many gifts from his love; shall<a name="page_254" id="page_254"></a> we not ask him to +join us here?" And they shouted a musical "yes;" and the child started +from his dream. But he had lain too long on the damp bank of the river, +without his coat. A cold, and fever soon sent him to join the band of +his brothers in their home.</p> + +<p>These are legends, superstitions, will you say? But, in casting aside +the shell, have we retained the kernel? The image of the child Jesus is +not seen in the open street; does his spirit find other means to express +itself there? Protestantism did not mean, we suppose, to deaden the +spirit in excluding the form?</p> + +<p>The thought of Jesus, as a child, has great weight with children who +have learned to think of him at all. In thinking of him, they form an +image of all that the morning of a pure and fervent life should be and +bring. In former days I knew a boy artist, whose genius, at that time, +showed high promise. He was not more than fourteen years old; a slight, +pale boy, with a beaming eye. The hopes and sympathy of friends, gained +by his talent, had furnished him with a studio and orders for some +pictures. He had picked up from the streets a boy still younger and +poorer than himself, to take care of the room and prepare his colors; +and the two boys were as content in their relation as Michael Angelo +with his Urbino. If you went there you found exposed to view many pretty +pictures: a Girl with a Dove, the Guitar Player and such subjects as are +commonly supposed to interest at his age. But, hid in a corner, and +never, shown, unless to the beggar page, or some most confidential +friend, was the real object of his love and pride, the slowly growing +work of secret hours. The subject of this picture was Christ teaching +the doctors. And in those doctors he had expressed all he had already +observed of the pedantry and shallow conceit of those in whom mature +years have not unfolded the soul; and in the child, all he felt that +early youth should be and seek, though, alas! his own feet failed him on +the difficult<a name="page_255" id="page_255"></a> road. This one record of the youth of Jesus had, at +least, been much to his mind.</p> + +<p>In earlier days, the little saints thought they best imitated the +Emanuel by giving apples and coats; but we know not why, in our age, +that esteems itself so enlightened, they should not become also the +givers of spiritual gifts. We see in them, continually, impulses that +only require a good direction to effect infinite good. See the little +girls at work for foreign missions; that is not useless. They devote the +time to a purpose that is not selfish; the horizon of their thoughts is +extended. But they are perfectly capable of becoming home missionaries +as well. The principle of stewardship would make them so.</p> + +<p>I have seen a little girl of thirteen,—who had much service, too, to +perform, for a hard-working mother,—in the midst of a circle of poor +children whom she gathered daily to a morning school. She took them from +the door-steps and the ditches; she washed their hands and faces; she +taught them to read and to sew; and she told them stories that had +delighted her own infancy. In her face, though in feature and complexion +plain, was something, already, of a Madonna sweetness, and it had no way +eclipsed the gayety of childhood.</p> + +<p>I have seen a boy scarce older, brought up for some time with the sons +of laborers, who, so soon as he found himself possessed of superior +advantages, thought not of surpassing others, but of excelling, and then +imparting—and he was able to do it. If the other boys had less leisure, +and could pay for less instruction, they did not suffer for it. He could +not be happy unless they also could enjoy Milton, and pass from nature +to natural philosophy. He performed, though in a childish way, and in no +Grecian garb, the part of Apollo amid the herdsmen of Admetus.</p> + +<p>The cause of education would be indefinitely furthered, if, in addition +to formal means, there were but this principle awakened in the hearts of +the young, that what they have<a name="page_256" id="page_256"></a> they must bestow. All are not natural +instructors, but a large proportion are; and those who do possess such a +talent are the best possible teachers to those a little younger than +themselves. Many have more patience with the difficulties they have +lately left behind, and enjoy their power of assisting more than those +farther removed in age and knowledge do.</p> + +<p>Then the intercourse may be far more congenial and profitable than where +the teacher receives for hire all sorts of pupils, as they are sent him +by their guardians. Here he need only choose those who have a +predisposition for what he is best able to teach. And, as I would have +the so-called higher instruction as much diffused in this way as the +lower, there would be a chance of awakening all the power that now lies +latent.</p> + +<p>If a girl, for instance, who has only a passable talent for music, but +who, from the advantage of social position, has been able to gain +thorough instruction, felt it her duty to teach whomsoever she knew that +had such a talent, without money to cultivate it, the good is obvious.</p> + +<p>Those who are learning receive an immediate benefit by an effort to +rearrange and interpret what they learn; so the use of this justice +would be twofold.</p> + +<p>Some efforts are made here and there; nay, sometimes there are those who +can say they have returned usury for every gift of fate. And, would +others make the same experiments, they might find Utopia not so far off +as the children of this world, wise in securing their own selfish ease, +would persuade us it must always be.</p> + +<p>We have hinted what sort of Christmas box we would wish for the +children. It would be one full, as that of the child Christ must be, of +the pieces of silver that were lost and are found. But Christmas, with +its peculiar associations, has deep interest for men, and women too, no +less. It has so in their mutual relations. At the time thus celebrated, +a pure woman saw in her child what the Son of man should be as a child +of God. She anticipated for him a life of glory to God, peace<a name="page_257" id="page_257"></a> and good +will to man. In every young mother's heart, who has any purity of heart, +the same feelings arise. But most of these mothers let them go without +obeying their instructions. If they did not, we should see other +children—other men than now throng our streets. The boy could not +invariably disappoint the mother, the man the wife, who steadily +demanded of him such a career.</p> + +<p>And man looks upon woman, in this relation, always as he should. Does he +see in her a holy mother worthy to guard the infancy of an immortal +soul? Then she assumes in his eyes those traits which the Romish church +loved to revere in Mary. Frivolity, base appetite, contempt are +exorcised; and man and woman appear again in unprofaned connection, as +brother and sister, the children and the servants of the one Divine +Love, and pilgrims to a common aim.</p> + +<p>Were all this right in the private sphere, the public would soon right +itself also, and the nations of Christendom might join in a celebration, +such as "kings and prophets waited for," and so many martyrs died to +achieve, of Christ-Mass.<a name="page_258" id="page_258"></a></p> + +<h2><a name="MARIANA33" id="MARIANA33"></a>MARIANA<a name="FNanchor_33_33" id="FNanchor_33_33"></a><a href="#Footnote_33_33" class="fnanchor">[33]</a></h2> + +<p>A<small>MONG</small> those whom I met in a recent visit at Chicago was Mrs. Z., the +aunt of an old schoolmate, to whom I impatiently hastened, to demand +news of Mariana. The answer startled me. Mariana, so full of life, was +dead. That form, the most rich in energy and coloring of any I had ever +seen, had faded from the earth. The circle of youthful associations had +given way in the part that seemed the strongest. What I now learned of +the story of this life, and what was by myself remembered, may be bound +together in this slight sketch.</p> + +<p>At the boarding school to which I was too early sent, a fond, a proud, +and timid child, I saw among the ranks of the gay and graceful, bright +or earnest girls, only one who interested my fancy or touched my young +heart; and this was Mariana. She was, on the father's side, of Spanish +Creole blood, but had been sent to the Atlantic coast, to receive a +school education under the care of her aunt, Mrs. Z.</p> + +<p>This lady had kept her mostly at home with herself, and Mariana had gone +from her house to a day school; but the aunt being absent for a time in +Europe, she had now been unfortunately committed for some time to the +mercies of a boarding school.</p> + +<p>A strange bird she proved there—a lonely one, that could not make for +itself a summer. At first, her schoolmates were captivated with her +ways, her love of wild dances and sudden<a name="page_259" id="page_259"></a> song, her freaks of passion +and of wit. She was always new, always surprising, and, for a time, +charming.</p> + +<p>But, after a while, they tired of her. She could never be depended on to +join in their plans, yet she expected them to follow out hers with their +whole strength. She was very loving, even infatuated in her own +affections, and exacted from those who had professed any love for her, +the devotion she was willing to bestow.</p> + +<p>Yet there was a vein of haughty caprice in her character; a love of +solitude, which made her at times wish to retire entirely; and at these +times she would expect to be thoroughly understood, and let alone, yet +to be welcomed back when she returned. She did not thwart others in +their humors, but she never doubted of great indulgence from them.</p> + +<p>Some singular ways she had, which, when new, charmed, but, after +acquaintance, displeased her companions. She had by nature the same +habit and power of excitement that is described in the spinning +dervishes of the East. Like them, she would spin until all around her +were giddy, while her own brain, instead of being disturbed, was excited +to great action. Pausing, she would declaim verse of others or her own; +perform many parts, with strange catch-words and burdens that seemed to +act with mystical power on her own fancy, sometimes stimulating her to +convulse the hearer with laughter, sometimes to melt him to tears. When +her power began to languish, she would spin again till fired to +recommence her singular drama, into which she wove figures from the +scenes of her earlier childhood, her companions, and the dignitaries she +sometimes saw, with fantasies unknown to life, unknown to heaven or +earth.</p> + +<p>This excitement, as may be supposed, was not good for her. It oftenest +came on in the evening, and spoiled her sleep. She would wake in the +night, and cheat her restlessness by inventions that teased, while they +sometimes diverted her companions.<a name="page_260" id="page_260"></a></p> + +<p>She was also a sleep-walker; and this one trait of her case did somewhat +alarm her guardians, who, otherwise, showed the same profound stupidity, +as to this peculiar being, usual in the overseers of the young. They +consulted a physician, who said she would outgrow it, and prescribed a +milk diet.</p> + +<p>Meantime, the fever of this ardent and too early stimulated nature was +constantly increased by the restraints and narrow routine of the +boarding school. She was always devising means to break in upon it. She +had a taste, which would have seemed ludicrous to her mates, if they had +not felt some awe of her, from a touch of genius and power, that never +left her, for costume and fancy dresses; always some sash twisted about +her, some drapery, something odd in the arrangement of her hair and +dress; so that the methodical preceptress dared not let her go out +without a careful scrutiny and remodelling, whose soberizing effects +generally disappeared the moment she was in the free air.</p> + +<p>At last, a vent for her was found in private theatricals. Play followed +play, and in these and the rehearsals she found entertainment congenial +with her. The principal parts, as a matter of course, fell to her lot; +most of the good suggestions and arrangements came from her, and for a +time she ruled masterly and shone triumphant.</p> + +<p>During these performances the girls had heightened their natural bloom +with artificial red; this was delightful to them—it was something so +out of the way. But Mariana, after the plays were over, kept her carmine +saucer on the dressing table, and put on her blushes regularly as the +morning.</p> + +<p>When stared and jeered at, she at first said she did it because she +thought it made her look prettier; but, after a while, she became quite +petulant about it—would make no reply to any joke, but merely kept on +doing it.</p> + +<p>This irritated the girls, as all eccentricity does the world in general, +more than vice or malignity. They talked it over among themselves, till +they got wrought up to a desire of<a name="page_261" id="page_261"></a> punishing, once for all, this +sometimes amusing, but so often provoking nonconformist.</p> + +<p>Having obtained the leave of the mistress, they laid, with great glee, a +plan one evening, which was to be carried into execution next day at +dinner.</p> + +<p>Among Mariana's irregularities was a great aversion to the meal-time +ceremonial. So long, so tiresome she found it, to be seated at a certain +moment, to wait while each one was served at so large a table, and one +where there was scarcely any conversation; from day to day it became +more heavy to her to sit there, or go there at all. Often as possible +she excused herself on the ever-convenient plea of headache, and was +hardly ever ready when the dinner bell rang.</p> + +<p>To-day it found her on the balcony, lost in gazing on the beautiful +prospect. I have heard her say, afterwards, she had rarely in her life +been so happy—and she was one with whom happiness was a still rapture. +It was one of the most blessed summer days; the shadows of great white +clouds empurpled the distant hills for a few moments only to leave them +more golden; the tall grass of the wide fields waved in the softest +breeze. Pure blue were the heavens, and the same hue of pure contentment +was in the heart of Mariana.</p> + +<p>Suddenly on her bright mood jarred the dinner bell. At first rose her +usual thought, I will not, cannot go; and then the <i>must</i>, which daily +life can always enforce, even upon the butterflies and birds, came, and +she walked reluctantly to her room. She merely changed her dress, and +never thought of adding the artificial rose to her cheek.</p> + +<p>When she took her seat in the dining hall, and was asked if she would be +helped, raising her eyes, she saw the person who asked her was deeply +rouged, with a bright, glaring spot, perfectly round, in either cheek. +She looked at the next—the same apparition! She then slowly passed her +eyes down the whole line, and saw the same, with a suppressed smile +distorting every countenance. Catching the design at once<a name="page_262" id="page_262"></a> she +deliberately looked along her own side of the table, at every schoolmate +in turn; every one had joined in the trick. The teachers strove to be +grave, but she saw they enjoyed the joke. The servants could not +suppress a titter.</p> + +<p>When Warren Hastings stood at the bar of Westminster Hall; when the +Methodist preacher walked through a line of men, each of whom greeted +him with a brickbat or a rotten egg,—they had some preparation for the +crisis, and it might not be very difficult to meet it with an impassive +brow. Our little girl was quite unprepared to find herself in the midst +of a world which despised her, and triumphed in her disgrace.</p> + +<p>She had ruled like a queen in the midst of her companions; she had shed +her animation through their lives, and loaded them with prodigal favors, +nor once suspected that a powerful favorite might not be loved. Now, she +felt that she had been but a dangerous plaything in the hands of those +whose hearts she never had doubted.</p> + +<p>Yet the occasion found her equal to it; for Mariana had the kind of +spirit, which, in a better cause, had made the Roman matron truly say of +her death wound, "It is not painful, Pœtus." She did not blench—she +did not change countenance. She swallowed her dinner with apparent +composure. She made remarks to those near her as if she had no eyes.</p> + +<p>The wrath of the foe of course rose higher, and the moment they were +freed from the restraints of the dining room, they all ran off, gayly +calling, and sarcastically laughing, with backward glances, at Mariana, +left alone.</p> + +<p>She went alone to her room, locked the door, and threw herself on the +floor in strong convulsions. These had sometimes threatened her life, as +a child, but of later years she had outgrown them. School hours came, +and she was not there. A little girl, sent to her door, could get no +answer. The teachers became alarmed, and broke it open. Bitter was their +penitence and that of her companions at the state in<a name="page_263" id="page_263"></a> which they found +her. For some hours terrible anxiety was felt; but at last, Nature, +exhausted, relieved herself by a deep slumber.</p> + +<p>From this Mariana rose an altered being. She made no reply to the +expressions of sorrow from her companions, none to the grave and kind, +but undiscerning comments of her teacher. She did not name the source of +her anguish, and its poisoned dart sunk deeply in. It was this thought +which stung her so.—"What, not one, not a single one, in the hour of +trial, to take my part! not one who refused to take part against me!" +Past words of love, and caresses little heeded at the time, rose to her +memory, and gave fuel to her distempered thoughts. Beyond the sense of +universal perfidy, of burning resentment, she could not get. And +Mariana, born for love, now hated all the world.</p> + +<p>The change, however, which these feelings made in her conduct and +appearance bore no such construction to the careless observer. Her gay +freaks were quite gone, her wildness, her invention. Her dress was +uniform, her manner much subdued. Her chief interest seemed now to lie +in her studies and in music. Her companions she never sought; but they, +partly from uneasy, remorseful feelings, partly that they really liked +her much better now that she did not oppress and puzzle them, sought her +continually. And here the black shadow comes upon her life—the only +stain upon the history of Mariana.</p> + +<p>They talked to her as girls, having few topics, naturally do of one +another. And the demon rose within her, and spontaneously, without +design, generally without words of positive falsehood, she became a +genius of discord among them. She fanned those flames of envy and +jealousy which a wise, true word from a third person will often quench +forever; by a glance, or a seemingly light reply, she planted the seeds +of dissension, till there was scarce a peaceful affection or sincere +intimacy in the circle where she lived, and could<a name="page_264" id="page_264"></a> not but rule, for she +was one whose nature was to that of the others as fire to clay.</p> + +<p>It was at this time that I came to the school, and first saw Mariana. Me +she charmed at once, for I was a sentimental child, who, in my early ill +health, had been indulged in reading novels till I had no eyes for the +common greens and browns of life. The heroine of one of these, "the +Bandit's Bride," I immediately saw in Mariana. Surely the Bandit's Bride +had just such hair, and such strange, lively ways, and such a sudden +flash of the eye. The Bandit's Bride, too, was born to be +"misunderstood" by all but her lover. But Mariana, I was determined, +should be more fortunate; for, until her lover appeared, I myself would +be the wise and delicate being who could understand her.</p> + +<p>It was not, however, easy to approach her for this purpose. Did I offer +to run and fetch her handkerchief, she was obliged to go to her room, +and would rather do it herself. She did not like to have people turn +over for her the leaves of the music book as she played. Did I approach +my stool to her feet, she moved away, as if to give me room. The bunch +of wild flowers which I timidly laid beside her plate was left there.</p> + +<p>After some weeks my desire to attract her notice really preyed upon me, +and one day, meeting her alone in the entry, I fell upon my knees, and +kissing her hand, cried, "O Mariana, do let me love you, and try to love +me a little." But my idol snatched away her hand, and, laughing more +wildly than the Bandit's Bride was ever described to have done, ran into +her room. After that day her manner to me was not only cold, but +repulsive; I felt myself scorned, and became very unhappy.</p> + +<p>Perhaps four months had passed thus, when, one afternoon, it became +obvious that something more than common was brewing. Dismay and mystery +were written in many faces of the older girls; much whispering was going +on in corners.<a name="page_265" id="page_265"></a></p> + +<p>In the evening, after prayers, the principal bade us stay; and, in a +grave, sad voice, summoned forth Mariana to answer charges to be made +against her.</p> + +<p>Mariana came forward, and leaned against the chimney-piece. Eight of the +older girls came forward, and preferred against her charges—alas! too +well founded—of calumny and falsehood.</p> + +<p>My heart sank within me, as one after the other brought up their proofs, +and I saw they were too strong to be resisted. I could not bear the +thought of this second disgrace of my shining favorite. The first had +been whispered to me, though the girls did not like to talk about it. I +must confess, such is the charm of strength to softer natures, that +neither of these crises could deprive Mariana of hers in my eyes.</p> + +<p>At first, she defended herself with self-possession and eloquence. But +when she found she could no more resist the truth, she suddenly threw +herself down, dashing her head, with all her force, against the iron +hearth, on which a fire was burning, and was taken up senseless.</p> + +<p>The affright of those present was great. Now that they had perhaps +killed her, they reflected it would have been as well if they had taken +warning from the former occasion, and approached very carefully a nature +so capable of any extreme. After a while she revived, with a faint +groan, amid the sobs of her companions. I was on my knees by the bed, +and held her cold hand. One of those most aggrieved took it from me to +beg her pardon, and say it was impossible not to love her. She made no +reply.</p> + +<p>Neither that night, nor for several days, could a word be obtained from +her, nor would she touch food; but, when it was presented to her, or any +one drew near for any cause, she merely turned away her head, and gave +no sign. The teacher saw that some terrible nervous affection had fallen +upon her—that she grew more and more feverish. She knew not what to +do.<a name="page_266" id="page_266"></a></p> + +<p>Meanwhile, a new revolution had taken place in the mind of the +passionate but nobly-tempered child. All these months nothing but the +sense of injury had rankled in her heart. She had gone on in one mood, +doing what the demon prompted, without scruple and without fear.</p> + +<p>But at the moment of detection, the tide ebbed, and the bottom of her +soul lay revealed to her eye. How black, how stained and sad! Strange, +strange that she had not seen before the baseness and cruelty of +falsehood, the loveliness of truth. Now, amid the wreck, uprose the +moral nature which never before had attained the ascendant. "But," she +thought, "too late sin is revealed to me in all its deformity, and +sin-defiled, I will not, cannot live. The mainspring of life is broken."</p> + +<p>And thus passed slowly by her hours in that black despair of which only +youth is capable. In older years men suffer more dull pain, as each +sorrow that comes drops its leaden weight into the past, and, similar +features of character bringing similar results, draws up the heavy +burden buried in those depths. But only youth has energy, with fixed, +unwinking gaze, to contemplate grief, to hold it in the arms and to the +heart, like a child which makes it wretched, yet is indubitably its own.</p> + +<p>The lady who took charge of this sad child had never well understood her +before, but had always looked on her with great tenderness. And now love +seemed—when all around were in greatest distress, fearing to call in +medical aid, fearing to do without it—to teach her where the only balm +was to be found that could have healed this wounded spirit.</p> + +<p>One night she came in, bringing a calming draught. Mariana was sitting, +as usual, her hair loose, her dress the same robe they had put on her at +first, her eyes fixed vacantly upon the whited wall. To the proffers and +entreaties of her nurse she made no reply.</p> + +<p>The lady burst into tears, but Mariana did not seem even to observe it.<a name="page_267" id="page_267"></a></p> + +<p>The lady then said, "O my child, do not despair; do not think that one +great fault can mar a whole life. Let me trust you, let me tell you the +griefs of my sad life. I will tell to you, Mariana, what I never +expected to impart to any one."</p> + +<p>And so she told her tale: it was one of pain, of shame, borne, not for +herself, but for one near and dear as herself. Mariana knew the +lady—knew the pride and reserve of her nature. She had often admired to +see how the cheek, lovely, but no longer young, mantled with the deepest +blush of youth, and the blue eyes were cast down at any little emotion: +she had understood the proud sensibility of the character. She fixed her +eyes on those now raised to hers, bright with fast-falling tears. She +heard the story to the end, and then, without saying a word, stretched +out her hand for the cup.</p> + +<p>She returned to life, but it was as one who has passed through the +valley of death. The heart of stone was quite broken in her, the fiery +life fallen from flame to coal. When her strength was a little restored, +she had all her companions summoned, and said to them, "I deserved to +die, but a generous trust has called me back to life. I will be worthy +of it, nor ever betray the truth, or resent injury more. Can you forgive +the past?"</p> + +<p>And they not only forgave, but, with love and earnest tears, clasped in +their arms the returning sister. They vied with one another in offices +of humble love to the humbled one; and let it be recorded as an instance +of the pure honor of which young hearts are capable, that these facts, +known to forty persons, never, so far as I know, transpired beyond those +walls.</p> + +<p>It was not long after this that Mariana was summoned home. She went +thither a wonderfully instructed being, though in ways that those who +had sent her forth to learn little dreamed of.</p> + +<p>Never was forgotten the vow of the returning prodigal. Mariana could not +resent, could not play false. The terrible<a name="page_268" id="page_268"></a> crisis which she so early +passed through probably prevented the world from hearing much of her. A +wild fire was tamed in that hour of penitence at the boarding school +such as has oftentimes wrapped court and camp in its destructive glow.</p> + +<p>But great were the perils she had yet to undergo, for she was one of +those barks which easily get beyond soundings, and ride not lightly on +the plunging billow.</p> + +<p>Her return to her native climate seconded the effects of inward +revolutions. The cool airs of the north had exasperated nerves too +susceptible for their tension. Those of the south restored her to a more +soft and indolent state. Energy gave place to feeling—turbulence to +intensity of character.</p> + +<p>At this time, love was the natural guest; and he came to her under a +form that might have deluded one less ready for delusion.</p> + +<p>Sylvain was a person well proportioned to her lot in years, family, and +fortune. His personal beauty was not great, but of a noble description. +Repose marked his slow gesture, and the steady gaze of his large brown +eye; but it was a repose that would give way to a blaze of energy, when +the occasion called. In his stature, expression, and heavy coloring, he +might not unfitly be represented by the great magnolias that inhabit the +forests of that climate. His voice, like every thing about him, was rich +and soft, rather than sweet or delicate.</p> + +<p>Mariana no sooner knew him than she loved; and her love, lovely as she +was, soon excited his. But O, it is a curse to woman to love first, or +most! In so doing she reverses the natural relations; and her heart can +never, never be satisfied with what ensues.</p> + +<p>Mariana loved first, and loved most, for she had most force and variety +to love with. Sylvain seemed, at first, to take her to himself, as the +deep southern night might some fair star; but it proved not so.</p> + +<p>Mariana was a very intellectual being, and she needed companionship.<a name="page_269" id="page_269"></a> +This she could only have with Sylvain, in the paths of passion and +action. Thoughts he had none, and little delicacy of sentiment. The +gifts she loved to prepare of such for him he took with a sweet but +indolent smile; he held them lightly, and soon they fell from his grasp. +He loved to have her near him, to feel the glow and fragrance of her +nature, but cared not to explore the little secret paths whence that +fragrance was collected.</p> + +<p>Mariana knew not this for a long time. Loving so much, she imagined all +the rest; and, where she felt a blank, always hoped that further +communion would fill it up. When she found this could never be,—that +there was absolutely a whole province of her being to which nothing in +his answered,—she was too deeply in love to leave him. Often, after +passing hours together beneath the southern moon, when, amid the sweet +intoxication of mutual love, she still felt the desolation of solitude, +and a repression of her finer powers, she had asked herself, Can I give +him up? But the heart always passionately answered, No! I may be +wretched with him, but I cannot live without him.</p> + +<p>And the last miserable feeling of these conflicts was, that if the +lover—soon to be the bosom friend—could have dreamed of these +conflicts, he would have laughed, or else been angry, even enough to +give her up.</p> + +<p>Ah, weakness of the strong! of those strong only where strength is +weakness! Like others, she had the decisions of life to make before she +had light by which to make them. Let none condemn her. Those who have +not erred as fatally should thank the guardian angel who gave them more +time to prepare for judgment, but blame no children who thought at arm's +length to find the moon. Mariana, with a heart capable of highest Eros, +gave it to one who knew love only as a flower or plaything, and bound +her heartstrings to one who parted his as lightly as the ripe fruit +leaves the bough. The sequel could not fail. Many console themselves for +the one<a name="page_270" id="page_270"></a> great mistake with their children, with the world. This was not +possible to Mariana. A few months of domestic life she still was almost +happy. But Sylvain then grew tired. He wanted business and the world: of +these she had no knowledge, for them no faculties. He wanted in her the +head of his house; she to make her heart his home. No compromise was +possible between natures of such unequal poise, and which had met only +on one or two points. Through all its stages she</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry"> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 6em;">"felt</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">The agonizing sense</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Of seeing love from passion melt</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Into indifference;</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">The fearful shame, that, day by day,</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Burns onward, still to burn,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">To have thrown her precious heart away,</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">And met this black return,"</span></td></tr> +</table> + +<p class="nind">till death at last closed the scene. Not that she died of one downright +blow on the heart. That is not the way such cases proceed. I cannot +detail all the symptoms, for I was not there to watch them, and aunt Z., +who described them, was neither so faithful an observer or narrator as I +have shown myself in the school-day passages; but, generally, they were +as follows.</p> + +<p>Sylvain wanted to go into the world, or let it into his house. Mariana +consented; but, with an unsatisfied heart, and no lightness of +character, she played her part ill there. The sort of talent and +facility she had displayed in early days were not the least like what is +called out in the social world by the desire to please and to shine. Her +excitement had been muse-like—that of the improvisatrice, whose +kindling fancy seeks to create an atmosphere round it, and makes the +chain through which to set free its electric sparks. That had been a +time of wild and exuberant life. After her character became<a name="page_271" id="page_271"></a> more tender +and concentrated, strong affection or a pure enthusiasm might still have +called out beautiful talents in her. But in the first she was utterly +disappointed. The second was not roused within her mind. She did not +expand into various life, and remained unequal; sometimes too passive, +sometimes too ardent, and not sufficiently occupied with what occupied +those around her to come on the same level with them and embellish their +hours.</p> + +<p>Thus she lost ground daily with her husband, who, comparing her with the +careless shining dames of society, wondered why he had found her so +charming in solitude.</p> + +<p>At intervals, when they were left alone, Mariana wanted to open her +heart, to tell the thoughts of her mind. She was so conscious of secret +riches within herself, that sometimes it seemed, could she but reveal a +glimpse of them to the eye of Sylvain, he would be attracted near her +again, and take a path where they could walk hand in hand. Sylvain, in +these intervals, wanted an indolent repose. His home was his castle. He +wanted no scenes too exciting there. Light jousts and plays were well +enough, but no grave encounters. He liked to lounge, to sing, to read, +to sleep. In fine, Sylvain became the kind but preoccupied husband, +Mariana the solitary and wretched wife. He was off, continually, with +his male companions, on excursions or affairs of pleasure. At home +Mariana found that neither her books nor music would console her.</p> + +<p>She was of too strong a nature to yield without a struggle to so dull a +fiend as despair. She looked into other hearts, seeking whether she +could there find such home as an orphan asylum may afford. This she did +rather because the chance came to her, and it seemed unfit not to seize +the proffered plank, than in hope; for she was not one to double her +stakes, but rather with Cassandra power to discern early the sure course +of the game. And Cassandra whispered that she was one of those</p> + +<p class="c">"Whom men love not, but yet regret;"</p> + +<p><a name="page_272" id="page_272"></a></p> + +<p class="nind">and so it proved. Just as in her childish days, though in a different +form, it happened betwixt her and these companions. She could not be +content to receive them quietly, but was stimulated to throw herself too +much into the tie, into the hour, till she filled it too full for them. +Like Fortunio, who sought to do homage to his friends by building a fire +of cinnamon, not knowing that its perfume would be too strong for their +endurance, so did Mariana. What she wanted to tell they did not wish to +hear; a little had pleased, so much overpowered, and they preferred the +free air of the street, even, to the cinnamon perfume of her palace.</p> + +<p>However, this did not signify; had they staid, it would not have availed +her. It was a nobler road, a higher aim, she needed now; this did not +become clear to her.</p> + +<p>She lost her appetite, she fell sick, had fever. Sylvain was alarmed, +nursed her tenderly; she grew better. Then his care ceased; he saw not +the mind's disease, but left her to rise into health, and recover the +tone of her spirits, as she might. More solitary than ever, she tried to +raise herself; but she knew not yet enough. The weight laid upon her +young life was a little too heavy for it. One long day she passed alone, +and the thoughts and presages came too thick for her strength. She knew +not what to do with them, relapsed into fever, and died.</p> + +<p>Notwithstanding this weakness, I must ever think of her as a fine sample +of womanhood, born to shed light and life on some palace home. Had she +known more of God and the universe, she would not have given way where +so many have conquered. But peace be with her; she now, perhaps, has +entered into a larger freedom, which is knowledge. With her died a great +interest in life to me. Since her I have never seen a Bandit's Bride. +She, indeed, turned out to be only a merchant's. Sylvain is married +again to a fair and laughing girl, who will not die, probably, till +their marriage grows a "golden marriage."<a name="page_273" id="page_273"></a></p> + +<p>Aunt Z. had with her some papers of Mariana's, which faintly shadow +forth the thoughts that engaged her in the last days. One of these seems +to have been written when some faint gleam had been thrown across the +path only to make its darkness more visible. It seems to have been +suggested by remembrance of the beautiful ballad, <i>Helen of Kirconnel +Lee</i>, which once she loved to recite, and in tones that would not have +sent a chill to the heart from which it came.</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry"> +<tr><td align="right">"Death</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Opens her sweet white arms, and whispers, Peace;</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Come, say thy sorrows in this bosom! This</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Will never close against thee, and my heart,</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Though cold, cannot be colder much than man's."</td></tr> +</table> + +<p class="poem"><span style="margin-left: 2em;">DISAPPOINTMENT</span>.<br /><br /> + +"I wish I were where Helen lies."<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">A lover in the times of old,</span><br /> +Thus vents his grief in lonely sighs,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And hot tears from a bosom cold.</span><br /> +<br /> +But, mourner for thy martyred love,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Couldst thou but know what hearts must feel.</span><br /> +Where no sweet recollections move,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Whose tears a desert fount reveal!</span><br /> +<br /> +When "in thy arms bird Helen fell,"<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">She died, sad man, she died for thee;</span><br /> +Nor could the films of death dispel<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Her loving eye's sweet radiancy.</span><br /> +<br /> +Thou wert beloved, and she had loved,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Till death alone the whole could tell;</span><br /> +Death every shade of doubt removed,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And steeped the star in its cold well.<a name="page_274" id="page_274"></a></span><br /> +<br /> +On some fond breast the parting soul<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Relies—earth has no more to give;</span><br /> +Who wholly loves has known the whole;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The wholly loved doth truly live.</span><br /> +<br /> +But some, sad outcasts from this prize,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Do wither to a lonely grave;</span><br /> +All hearts their hidden love despise,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And leave them to the whelming wave.</span><br /> +<br /> +They heart to heart have never pressed,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Nor hands in holy pledge have given,</span><br /> +By father's love were ne'er caressed,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Nor in a mother's eye saw heaven.</span><br /> +<br /> +A flowerless and fruitless tree,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">A dried-up stream, a mateless bird,</span><br /> +They live, yet never living be,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">They die, their music all unheard.</span><br /> +<br /> +I wish I were where Helen lies,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">For there I could not be alone;</span><br /> +But now, when this dull body dies,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The spirit still will make its moan.</span><br /> +<br /> +Love passed me by, nor touched my brow;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Life would not yield one perfect boon;</span><br /> +And all too late it calls me now—<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">O, all too late, and all too soon.</span><br /> +<br /> +If thou couldst the dark riddle read<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Which leaves this dart within my breast,</span><br /> +Then might I think thou lov'st indeed,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Then were the whole to thee confest.<a name="page_275" id="page_275"></a></span><br /> +<br /> +Father, they will not take me home;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">To the poor child no heart is free;</span><br /> +In sleet and snow all night I roam;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Father, was this decreed by thee?</span><br /> +<br /> +I will not try another door,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">To seek what I have never found;</span><br /> +Now, till the very last is o'er,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Upon the earth I'll wander round.</span><br /> +<br /> +I will not hear the treacherous call<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">That bids me stay and rest a while,</span><br /> +For I have found that, one and all,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">They seek me for a prey and spoil.</span><br /> +<br /> +They are not bad; I know it well;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">I know they know not what they do;</span><br /> +They are the tools of the dread spell<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Which the lost lover must pursue.</span><br /> +<br /> +In temples sometimes she may rest,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">In lonely groves, away from men,</span><br /> +There bend the head, by heats distressed,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Nor be by blows awoke again.</span><br /> +<br /> +Nature is kind, and God is kind;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And, if she had not had a heart,</span><br /> +Only that great discerning mind,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">She might have acted well her part.</span><br /> +<br /> +But O this thirst, that nought can fill,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Save those unfounden waters free!</span><br /> +The angel of my life must still<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And soothe me in eternity!</span><br /> +</p> + +<p><a name="page_276" id="page_276"></a></p> + +<p>It marks the defect in the position of woman that one like Mariana +should have found reason to write thus. To a man of equal power, equal +sincerity, no more!—many resources would have presented themselves. He +would not have needed to seek, he would have been called by life, and +not permitted to be quite wrecked through the affections only. But such +women as Mariana are often lost, unless they meet some man of +sufficiently great soul to prize them.</p> + +<p>Van Artevelde's Elena, though in her individual nature unlike my +Mariana, is like her in a mind whose large impulses are disproportioned +to the persons and occasions she meets, and which carry her beyond those +reserves which mark the appointed lot of woman. But, when she met Van +Artevelde, he was too great not to revere her rare nature, without +regard to the stains and errors of its past history; great enough to +receive her entirely, and make a new life for her; man enough to be a +lover! But as such men come not so often as once an age, their presence +should not be absolutely needed to sustain life.<a name="page_277" id="page_277"></a></p> + +<h2><a name="SUNDAY_MEDITATIONS_ON_VARIOUS_TEXTS" id="SUNDAY_MEDITATIONS_ON_VARIOUS_TEXTS"></a>SUNDAY MEDITATIONS ON VARIOUS TEXTS.</h2> + +<p class="c"><span class="smcap">Meditation First.</span></p> + +<p class="c">"And Jesus, answering, said unto them, Have faith in God."—<i>Mark</i> +xi. 22.</p> + +<p>O, <small>DIRECTION</small> most difficult to follow! O, counsel most mighty of import! +Beauteous harmony to the purified soul! Mysterious, confounding as an +incantation to those yet groping and staggering amid the night, the fog, +the chaos of their own inventions!</p> + +<p>Yes, this is indeed the beginning and the end of all knowledge and +virtue; the way and the goal; the enigma and its solution. The soul +cannot prove to herself the existence of a God; she cannot prove her own +immortality; she cannot prove the beauty of virtue, or the deformity of +vice; her own consciousness, the first ground of this belief, cannot be +compassed by the reason, that inferior faculty which the Deity gave for +practical, temporal purposes only. This consciousness is divine; it is +part of the Deity; through this alone we sympathize with the +imperishable, the infinite, the nature of things. Were reason +commensurate with this part of our intellectual life, what should we do +with the things of time? The leaves and buds of earth would wither +beneath the sun of our intelligence; its crags and precipices would be +levelled before the mighty torrent of our will; all its dross would +crumble to ashes under the fire of our philosophy.</p> + +<p>God willed it otherwise; <span class="smcap">WHY</span>, who can guess? Why this planet, with its +tormenting limitations of space and time, was<a name="page_278" id="page_278"></a> ever created,—why the +soul was cased in this clogging, stifling integument, (which, while it +conveys to the soul, in a roundabout way, knowledge which she might +obviously acquire much better without its aid, tempts constantly to vice +and indolence, suggesting sordid wants, and hampering or hindering +thought,)—I pretend not to say. Let others toil to stifle sad distrust +a thousand ways. Let them satisfy themselves by reasonings on the nature +of free agency; let them imagine it was impossible men should be +purified to angels, except by resisting the temptations of guilt and +crime; let them be <i>reasonably</i> content to feel that</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry"> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Faith conquers in no easy war;</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 2em;">By toil alone the prize is won;</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">The grape dissolves not in the cup—</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Wine from the crushing press must run;</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">And would a spirit heavenward go,</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">A heart must break in death below."</td></tr> +</table> + +<p>Why an <i>omnipotent</i> Deity should permit evil, either as necessary to +produce good, or incident to laws framed for its production, must remain +a mystery to me. True, <i>we</i> cannot conceive how the world could have +been ordered differently, and because <i>we</i>,—beings half of clay; beings +bred amid, and nurtured upon imperfection and decay; beings who must not +only sleep and eat, but pass the greater part of their temporal day in +procuring the means to do so,—because <span class="smcap">WE</span>, creatures so limited and +blind, so weak of thought and dull of hearing, cannot conceive how evil +could have been dispensed with, those among us who are styled <i>wise</i> and +<i>learned</i> have thought fit to assume that the Infinite, the Omnipotent, +could not have found a way! "Could not," "evil must be incident"—terms +invented to express the thoughts or deeds of the children of dust. Shall +they be applied to the Omnipotent? Is a confidence in the goodness of +God more trying to faith, than the belief that a God exists, to whom +these words, transcending our powers of conception, apply? O, no,<a name="page_279" id="page_279"></a> no! +"<i>Have faith in God!</i>" Strive to expand thy soul to the feeling of +wisdom, of beauty, of goodness; live, and act as if these were the +necessary elements of things; "live for thy faith, and thou shalt behold +it living." In another world God will repay thy trust, and "reveal to +thee the first causes of things which Leibnitz could not," as the queen +of Prussia said, when she was dying. Socrates has declared that the +belief in the soul's immortality is so delightful, so elevating, so +purifying, that even were it not the truth, "we should daily strive to +enchant ourselves with it." And thus with faith in wisdom and +goodness,—that is to say, in God,—the earthquake-defying, +rock-foundation of our hopes is laid; the sun-greeting dome which crowns +the most superb palace of our knowledge is builded. A noble and +accomplished man, of a later day, has said, "To credit ordinary and +visible objects is not faith, but persuasion. I bless myself, and am +thankful, that I lived not in the days of miracles, that I never saw +Christ, nor his disciples; then had my faith been thrust upon me, nor +could I enjoy that greater blessing pronounced upon those who believe +yet saw not."</p> + +<p>I cannot speak thus proudly and heartily. I find the world of sense +strong enough against the intellectual and celestial world. It is easy +to believe in our passionless moments, or in those when earth would seem +too dark without the guiding star of faith; but to <i>live</i> in faith, not +sometimes to feel, but always to have it, is difficult. Were faith ever +with us, how steady would be our energy, how equal our ambition, how +calmly bright our hopes! The darts of envy would be blunted, the cup of +disappointment lose its bitterness, the impassioned eagerness of the +heart be stilled, tears would fall like holy dew, and blossoms fragrant +with celestial May ensue.</p> + +<p>But the prayer of most of us must be, "Lord, we believe—help thou our +unbelief!" These are to me the most significant words of Holy Writ. I +<i>will</i> to believe; O, guide, support, strengthen, and soothe me to do +so! Lord, grant me<a name="page_280" id="page_280"></a> to believe firmly, and to act nobly. Let me not be +tempted to waste my time, and weaken my powers, by attempts to soar on +feeble pinions "where angels bashful look." In <i>faith</i> let me interpret +the universe!</p> + +<p class="c"><span class="smcap">Meditation Second.</span></p> + +<p class="c">"Why is light given to a man whose way is hid, and whom God hath +hedged in?"—<i>Job</i> iii. 23.</p> + +<p>This pathetic inquiry rises from all parts of the globe, from millions +of human souls, to that heaven from whence the light proceeds. From the +young, full of eager aspirations after virtue and glory; with the glance +of the falcon to descry the high-placed aim,—but ah! the wing of the +wren to reach it! The young enthusiast must often weep. His heart glows, +his eye sparkles as he reads of the youthful triumphs of a Pompey, the +sublime devotion of an Agis;<a name="FNanchor_34_34" id="FNanchor_34_34"></a><a href="#Footnote_34_34" class="fnanchor">[34]</a> he shuts the book, he looks around him +for a theatre whereon to do likewise—petty pursuits, mean feelings, and +trifling pleasures meet his eye; the cold breeze of selfishness has +nipped every flower; the dull glow of prosaic life overpowers the +beauties of the landscape. He plunges into the unloved pursuit, or some +despised amusement, to soothe that day's impatience, and wakes on the +morrow, crying, "I have lost a day; and where, where shall I now turn my +steps to find the destined path?" The gilded image of some petty victory +holds forth a talisman which seems to promise him sure tokens. He rushes +forward; the swords of foes and rivals bar the way; the ground trembles +and gives way beneath his feet; rapid streams, unseen at a distance, +roll between him and the object of his pursuit; faint, giddy and +exhausted by the loss of his best blood, he reaches the goal, seizes the +talisman; his eyes devour<a name="page_281" id="page_281"></a> the inscription—alas! the characters are +unknown to him. He looks back for some friend who might aid him,—his +friends are whelmed beneath the torrent, or have turned back +disheartened. He must struggle onward alone and ignorant as before; yet +in his wishes there is light.</p> + +<p>Another is attracted by a lovely phantom; with airy step she precedes +him, holding, as he thinks, in her upward-pointing hand the faithful +needle which might point him to the pole-star of his wishes. Unwearied +he follows, imploring her in most moving terms to pause but a moment and +let him take her hand. Heedless she flits onward to some hopeless +desert, where she pauses only to turn to her unfortunate captive the +malicious face of a very Morgana.</p> + +<p>The old,—O their sighs are deeper still! They have wandered far, toiled +much; the true light is now shown them. Ah, why was it reflected so +falsely through "life's many-colored dome of painted glass" upon their +youthful, anxious gaze? And now the path they came by is hedged in by +new circumstances against the feet of others, and its devious course +vainly mapped in their memories; should the light of their example lead +others into the same track, these unlucky followers will vainly seek an +issue. They attempt to unroll their charts for the use of their +children, and their children's children. They feed the dark lantern of +wisdom with the oil of experience, and hold it aloft over the declivity +up which these youth are blundering, in vain; some fall, misled by the +flickering light; others seek by-paths, along which they hope to be +guided by suns or moons of their own. All meet at last, only to bemoan +or sneer together. How many strive with feverish zeal to paint on the +clouds of outward life the hues of their own souls; what do not these +suffer? What baffling,—what change in the atmosphere on which they +depend,—yet <i>not</i> in vain! Something they realize, something they +grasp, something (O, how unlike the theme of their hope!) they have +created. A transient glow, a deceitful thrill,—these<a name="page_282" id="page_282"></a> be the blisses of +mortals. Yet have these given birth to noble deeds, and thoughts worthy +to be recorded by the pens of angels on the tablets of immortality.</p> + +<p>And this, O man! is thy only solace in those paroxysms of despair which +must result to the yet eager heart from the vast disproportion between +our perceptions and our exhibition of those perceptions. Seize on all +the twigs that may help thee in thine ascent, though the thorns upon +them rend thee. Toil ceaselessly towards the Source of light, and +remember that he who thus eloquently lamented found that, although far +worse than his dark presentiments had pictured came upon him, though +vainly he feared and trembled, and there was no safety for him, yet his +sighings came before his meat, and, happy in their recollection, he +found at last that danger and imprisonment are but for a season, and +that God is <i>good</i>, as he is great.<a name="page_283" id="page_283"></a></p> + +<h2><a name="APPEAL_FOR_AN_ASYLUM_FOR_DISCHARGED_FEMALE_CONVICTS" id="APPEAL_FOR_AN_ASYLUM_FOR_DISCHARGED_FEMALE_CONVICTS"></a>APPEAL FOR AN ASYLUM FOR DISCHARGED FEMALE CONVICTS.</h2> + +<p>T<small>HE</small> ladies of the Prison Association have been from time to time engaged +in the endeavor to procure funds for establishing this asylum.<a name="FNanchor_35_35" id="FNanchor_35_35"></a><a href="#Footnote_35_35" class="fnanchor">[35]</a> They +have met, thus far, with little success; but touched by the position of +several women, who, on receiving their discharge, were anxiously waiting +in hope there would be means provided to save them from return to their +former suffering and polluted life, they have taken a house, and begun +their good work, in faith that Heaven must take heed that such an +enterprise may not fail, and touch the hearts of men to aid it.</p> + +<p>They have taken a house, and secured the superintendence of an excellent +matron. There are already six women under her care. But this house is +unprovided with furniture, or the means of securing food for body and +mind to these unfortunates, during the brief novitiate which gives them +so much to learn and unlearn.</p> + +<p>The object is to lend a helping hand to the many who show a desire of +reformation, but have hitherto been inevitably repelled into infamy by +the lack of friends to find them honest employment, and a temporary +refuge till it can be procured. Efforts will be made to instruct them +how to break up bad habits, and begin a healthy course for body and +mind.</p> + +<p>The house has in it scarcely any thing. It is a true Lazarus +establishment, asking for the crumbs that fall from the rich man's +table. Old furniture would be acceptable, clothes, books that are no +longer needed by their owners.<a name="page_284" id="page_284"></a></p> + +<p>This statement we make in appealing to the poor, though they are, +usually, the most generous. Not that they are, originally, better than +the rich, but circumstances have fitted them to appreciate the +misfortunes, the trials, the wrongs that beset those a little lower than +themselves. But we have seen too many instances where those who were +educated in luxury would cast aside sloth and selfishness with eagerness +when once awakened to better things, not to hope in appealing to the +rich also.</p> + +<p>And to all we appeal: to the poor, who will know how to sympathize with +those who are not only poor but degraded, diseased, likely to be hurried +onward to a shameful, hopeless death; to the rich, to equalize the +advantages of which they have received more than their share; to men, to +atone for wrongs inflicted by men on that "weaker sex," who should, they +say, be soft, confiding, dependent on them for protection; to women, to +feel for those who have not been guarded either by social influence or +inward strength from that first mistake which the opinion of the world +makes irrevocable for women alone. Since their danger is so great, their +fall so remediless, let mercies be multiplied when there is a chance of +that partial restoration which society at present permits.</p> + +<p>In New York we have come little into contact with that class of society +which has a surplus of leisure at command; but in other cities we have, +found in their ranks many—some men, more women—who wanted only a +decided object and clear light to fill the noble office of disinterested +educators and guardians to their less fortunate fellows. It has been our +happiness, in not a few instances, by merely apprising such persons of +what was to be done, to rouse that generous spirit which relieved them +from ennui and a gradual ossification of the whole system, and +transferred them into a thoughtful, sympathetic, and beneficent +existence. Such, no doubt, are near us here, if we could but know it. A +poet writes thus of the cities:—<a name="page_285" id="page_285"></a></p> + +<p class="poem"> +Cities of proud hotels,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Houses of rich and great,</span><br /> +A stack of smoking chimneys,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">A roof of frozen slate!</span><br /> +It cannot conquer folly,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Time, and space, conquering steam,</span><br /> +And the light, outspeeding telegraph,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Bears nothing on its beam.</span><br /> +<br /> +The politics are base,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The letters do not cheer,</span><br /> +And 'tis far in the deeps of history,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The voice that speaketh clear.</span><br /> +Trade and the streets insnare us,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Our bodies are weak and worn,</span><br /> +We plot and corrupt each other,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And we despoil the unborn.</span><br /> +<br /> +Yet there in the parlor sits<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Some figure of noble guise,</span><br /> +Our angel in a stranger's form,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Or woman's pleading eyes.</span><br /> +Or only a flashing sunbeam<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">In at the window pane,</span><br /> +Or music pours on mortals<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Its beautiful disdain.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>These "pleading eyes," these "angels in strangers' forms," we meet, or +seem to meet, as we pass through the thoroughfares of this great city. +We do not know their names or homes. We cannot go to those still and +sheltered abodes and tell them the tales that would be sure to awaken +the heart to a deep and active interest in this matter. But should these +words meet their eyes, we would say, "Have you entertained your leisure +hours with the Mysteries of Paris, or the<a name="page_286" id="page_286"></a> pathetic story of Violet +Woodville?" Then you have some idea how innocence, worthy of the +brightest planet, may be betrayed by want, or by the most generous +tenderness; how the energies of a noble reformation may lie hidden +beneath the ashes of a long burning, as in the case of "La Louve." You +must have felt that yourselves are not better, only more protected +children of God than these. Do you want to link these fictions, which +have made you weep, with facts around you where your pity might be of +use? Go to the Penitentiary at Blackwell's Island. You may be repelled +by seeing those who are in health while at work together, keeping up one +another's careless spirit and effrontery by bad association. But see +them in the Hospital,—where the worn features of the sick show the sad +ruins of past loveliness, past gentleness. See in the eyes of the nurses +the woman's spirit still, so kindly, so inspiring. See those little +girls huddled in a corner, their neglected dress and hair contrasting +with some ribbon of cherished finery held fast in a childish hand. Think +what "sweet seventeen" was to you, and what it is to them, and see if +you do not wish to aid in any enterprise that gives them a chance of +better days. We assume no higher claim for this enterprise. The dreadful +social malady which creates the need of it, is one that imperatively +demands deep-searching, preventive measures; it is beyond cure. But, +here and there, some precious soul may be saved from unwilling sin, +unutterable woe. Is not the hope to save here and there <i>one</i> worthy of +great and persistent sacrifice?<a name="page_287" id="page_287"></a></p> + +<h2><a name="THE_RICH_MAN" id="THE_RICH_MAN"></a>THE RICH MAN.<br /><br /> +<span class="smcap">An Ideal Sketch.</span></h2> + +<p>I<small>N</small> my walks through this city, the sight of spacious and expensive +dwelling-houses now in process of building, has called up the following +reverie.</p> + +<p>All benevolent persons, whether deeply-thinking on, or deeply-feeling, +the woes, difficulties, and dangers of our present social system, are +agreed that either great improvements are needed, or a thorough reform.</p> + +<p>Those who desire the latter include the majority of thinkers. And we +ourselves, both from personal observation and the testimony of others, +are convinced that a radical reform is needed; not a reform that rejects +the instruction of the past, or asserts that God and man have made +mistakes till now. We believe that all past developments have taken +place under natural and necessary laws, and that the Paternal Spirit has +at no period forgotten his children, but granted to all generations and +all ages their chances of good to balance inevitable ills. We prize the +past; we recognize it as our parent, our nurse, and our teacher; and we +know that for a time the new wine required the old bottles, to prevent +its being spilled upon the ground.</p> + +<p>Still we feel that the time is come which not only permits, but demands, +a wider statement and a nobler action. The aspect of society presents +mighty problems, which must be solved by the soul of man +"divinely-intending" itself to the task, or all will become worse +instead of better, and ere long the social fabric totter to decay.<a name="page_288" id="page_288"></a></p> + +<p>Yet while the new measures are ripening, and the new men educating, +there is still room on the old platform for some worthy action. It is +possible for a man of piety, resolution, and good sense, to lead a life +which, if not expansive, generous, graceful, and pure from suspicion and +contempt, is yet not entirely unworthy of his position as the child of +God, and ruler of a planet.</p> + +<p>Let us take, then, some men just where they find themselves, in a mixed +state of society, where, in quantity, we are free to say the bad +preponderates, though the good, from its superior energy in quality, may +finally redeem and efface its plague-spots.</p> + +<p>Our society is ostensibly under the rule of the precepts of Jesus. We +will then suppose a youth sufficiently imbued with these, to understand +what is conveyed under the parables of the unjust steward, and the +prodigal son, as well as the denunciations of the opulent Jews. He +understands that it is needful to preserve purity and teachableness, +since of those most like little children is the kingdom of heaven; mercy +for the sinner, since there is peculiar joy in heaven at the salvation +of such; perpetual care for the unfortunate, since only to the just +steward shall his possessions be pardoned. Imbued with such love, the +young man joins the active,—we will say, in choosing an +instance,—joins the commercial world.</p> + +<p>His views of his profession are not those which make of the many a herd, +not superior, except in the far reach of their selfish interests, to the +animals; mere calculating, money-making machines.</p> + +<p>He sees in commerce a representation of most important interests, a +grand school that may teach the heart and soul of the civilized world to +a willing, thinking mind. He plays his part in the game, but not for +himself alone; he sees the interests of all mankind engaged with his, +and remembers them while he furthers his own. His intellectual +discernment,<a name="page_289" id="page_289"></a> no less than his moral, thus teaching the undesirableness +of lying and stealing, he does not practise or connive at the falsities +and meannesses so frequent among his fellows; he suffers many turns of +the wheel of fortune to pass unused, since he cannot avail himself of +them and keep clean his hands. What he gains is by superior assiduity, +skill in combination and calculation, and quickness of sight. His gains +are legitimate, so far as the present state of things permits any gains +to be.</p> + +<p>Nor is this honorable man denied his due rank in the most corrupt state +of society. Here, happily, we draw from life, and speak of what we know. +Honesty is, indeed, the best policy, only it is so in the long run, and +therefore a policy which a selfish man has not faith and patience to +pursue. The influence of the honest man is in the end predominant, and +the rogues who sneer because he will not shuffle the cards in <i>their</i> +way, are forced to bow to it at last.</p> + +<p>But while thus conscientious and mentally-progressive, he does not +forget to live. The sharp and care-worn faces, the joyless lives that +throng the busy street, do not make him forget his need of tender +affections, of the practices of bounty and love. His family, his +acquaintance, especially those who are struggling with the difficulties +of life, are not obliged to wait till he has accumulated a certain sum. +He is sunlight and dew to them now, day by day. No less do all in his +employment prize and bless the just, the brotherly man. He dares not, +would not, climb to power upon their necks. He requites their toil +handsomely, always; if his success be unusual, they share the benefit. +Their comfort is cared for in all the arrangements for their work. He +takes care, too, to be personally acquainted with those he employs, +regarding them, not as mere tools of his purpose, but as human beings +also; he keeps them in his eye, and if it be in his power to supply +their need of consolation, instruction, or even pleasure, they find they +have a friend.<a name="page_290" id="page_290"></a></p> + +<p>"Nonsense!" exclaims our sharp-eyed, thin-lipped antagonist. "Such a man +would never get rich,—or even <i>get along</i>!"</p> + +<p>You are mistaken, Mr. Stockjobber. Thus far many lines of our sketch are +drawn from real life; though for the second part, which follows, we +want, as yet, a worthy model.</p> + +<p>We must imagine, then, our ideal merchant to have grown rich in some +forty years of toil passed in the way we have indicated. His hair is +touched with white, but his form is vigorous yet. Neither <i>gourmandise</i> +nor the fever of gain has destroyed his complexion, quenched the light +of his eye, or substituted sneers for smiles. He is an upright, strong, +sagacious, generous-looking man; and if his movements be abrupt, and his +language concise, somewhat beyond the standard of beauty, he is still +the gentleman; mercantile, but a mercantile nobleman.</p> + +<p>Our nation is not silly in striving for an aristocracy. Humanity longs +for its upper classes. But the silliness consists in making them out of +clothes, equipage, and a servile imitation of foreign manners, instead +of the genuine elegance and distinction that can only be produced by +genuine culture. Shame upon the stupidity which, when all circumstances +leave us free for the introduction of a real aristocracy such as the +world never saw, bases its pretensions on, or makes its bow to the +footman behind, the coach, instead of the person within it.</p> + +<p>But our merchant shall be a real nobleman, whose noble manners spring +from a noble mind, whose fashions from a sincere, intelligent love of +the beautiful.</p> + +<p>We will also indulge the fancy of giving him a wife and children worthy +of himself. Having lived in sympathy with him, they have acquired no +taste for luxury; they do not think that the best use for wealth and +power is in self-indulgence, but, on the contrary, that "it is more +blessed to give than to receive."<a name="page_291" id="page_291"></a></p> + +<p>He is now having one of those fine houses built, and, as in other +things, proceeds on a few simple principles. It is substantial, for he +wishes to give no countenance to the paper buildings that correspond +with other worthless paper currency of a credit system. It is thoroughly +finished and furnished, for he has a conscience about his house, as +about the neatness of his person. All must be of a piece. Harmony and a +wise utility are consulted, without regard to show. Still, as a rich +man, we allow him reception-rooms, lofty, large, adorned with good +copies of ancient works of art, and fine specimens of modern.</p> + +<p>I admit, in this instance, the propriety of my nobleman often choosing +by advice of friends, who may have had more leisure and opportunity to +acquire a sure appreciation of merit in these walks. His character being +simple, he will, no doubt, appreciate a great part of what is truly +grand and beautiful. But also, from imperfect culture, he might often +reject what in the end he would have found most valuable to himself and +others. For he has not done learning, but only acquired the privilege of +helping to open a domestic school, in which he will find himself a pupil +as well as a master. So he may well make use, in furnishing himself with +the school apparatus, of the best counsel. The same applies to making +his library a good one. Only there must be no sham; no pluming himself +on possessions that represent his wealth, but the taste of others. Our +nobleman is incapable of pretension, or the airs of connoisseurship; his +object is to furnish a home with those testimonies of a higher life in +man, that may best aid to cultivate the same in himself and those +assembled round him.</p> + +<p>He shall also have a fine garden and greenhouses. But the flowers shall +not be used only to decorate his apartments, or the hair of his +daughters, but shall often bless, by their soft and exquisite eloquence, +the poor invalid, or others whose sorrowful hearts find in their society +a consolation and a hope which nothing else bestows. For flowers, the +highest expression<a name="page_292" id="page_292"></a> of the bounty of nature, declare that for all men, +not merely labor, or luxury, but gentle, buoyant, ever-energetic joy, +was intended, and bid us hope that we shall not forever be kept back +from our inheritance.</p> + +<p>All the persons who have aided in building up this domestic temple, from +the artist who painted the ceilings to the poorest hodman, shall be well +paid and cared for during its erection; for it is a necessary part of +the happiness of our nobleman, to feel that all concerned in creating +his home are the happier for it.</p> + +<p>We have said nothing about the architecture of the house, and yet this +is only for want of room. We do consider it one grand duty of every +person able to build a good house, also to aim at building a beautiful +one. We do not want imitations of what was used in other ages, nations, +and climates, but what is simple, noble, and in conformity with the +wants of our own. Room enough, simplicity of design, and judicious +adjustment of the parts to their uses and to the whole, are the first +requisites; the ornaments are merely the finish on these. We hope to see +a good style of civic architecture long before any material improvement +in the country edifices, for reasons that would be tedious to enumerate +here. Suffice it to say that we are far more anxious to see an American +architecture than an American literature; for we are sure there is here +already something individual to express.</p> + +<p>Well, suppose the house built and equipped with man and horse. You may +be sure my nobleman gives his "hired help" good accommodations for their +sleeping and waking hours,—baths, books, and some leisure to use them. +Nay, I assure you—and this assurance also is drawn from life—that it +is possible, even in our present social relations, for the man who does +common justice, in these respects, to his fellows, and shows a friendly +heart, that thoroughly feels service to be no degradation, but an honor, +who believes</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr><td align="left">"A man's a <span class="smcap">MAN</span> for a' that;"—</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">"Honor in the king the wisdom of his service,</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0.25em;">Honor in the serf the fidelity of his service,"—</span></td></tr> +</table> + +<p><a name="page_293" id="page_293"></a></p> + +<p class="nind">to have around him those who do their work in serenity of mind, neither +deceiving nor envying him whom circumstances have enabled to command +their service. As to the carriage, that is used for the purpose of going +to and fro in bad weather, or ill health, or haste, or for drives to +enjoy the country. But my nobleman and his family are too well born and +bred not to prefer employing their own feet when possible. And their +carriage is much appropriated to the use of poor invalids, even among +the abhorred class of poor relations, so that often they have not room +in it for themselves, much less for flaunting dames and lazy dandies.</p> + +<p>We need hardly add that, their attendants wear no liveries. They are +aware that, in a society where none of the causes exist that justify +this habit abroad, the practice would have no other result than to call +up a sneer to the lips of the most complaisant "milor," when "Mrs. +Higginbottom's carriage stops the way," with its tawdry, ill-fancied +accompaniments. <i>Will</i> none of their "governors" tell our cits the +Æsopian fable of the donkey that tried to imitate the gambols of the +little dog?</p> + +<p>The wife of my nobleman is so well matched with him that she has no need +to be the better half. She is his almoner, his counsellor, and the +priestess who keeps burning on the domestic hearth a fire from the fuel +he collects in his out-door work, whose genial heart and aspiring flame +comfort and animate all who come within its range.</p> + +<p>His children are his ministers, whose leisure and various qualifications +enable them to carry out his good thoughts. They hold all that they +possess—time, money, talents, acquirements—on the principle of +stewardship. They wake up the seeds of virtue and genius in all the +young persons of their acquaintance; but the poorer classes are +especially their care. Among them they seek for those who are threatened +with dying—"mute, inglorious" Hampdens and Miltons—but for their +scrutiny and care; of these they become the teachers and patrons<a name="page_294" id="page_294"></a> to the +extent of their power. Such knowledge of the arts, sciences, and just +principles of action as they have been favored with, they communicate, +and thereby form novices worthy to fill up the ranks of the true +American aristocracy.</p> + +<p>And the house—it is a large one; a simple family does not fill its +chambers. Some of them are devoted to the use of men of genius, who need +a serene home, free from care, while they pursue their labors for the +good of the world. Thus, as in the palaces of the little princes of +Italy in a better day, these chambers become hallowed by the nativities +of great thoughts; and the horoscopes of the human births that may take +place there, are likely to read the better for it. Suffering virtue +sometimes finds herself taken home here, instead of being sent to the +almshouse, or presented with half a dollar and a ticket for coal, and +finds upon my nobleman's mattresses (for the wealth of Crœsus would +not lure him or his to sleep upon down) dreams of angelic protection +which enable her to rise refreshed for the struggle of the morrow.</p> + +<p>The uses of hospitality are very little understood among us, so that we +fear generally there is a small chance of entertaining gods and angels +unawares, as the Greeks and Hebrews did in the generous time of +hospitality, when every man had a claim on the roof of fellow-man. Now, +none is received to a bed and breakfast unless he come as "bearer of +despatches" from His Excellency So-and-so.</p> + +<p>But let us not be supposed to advocate the system of all work and no +play, or to delight exclusively in the pedagogic and Goody-Two-Shoes +vein. Reader, if any such accompany me to this scene of my vision, cheer +up; I hear the sound of music in full band, and see the banquet +prepared. Perhaps they are even dancing the polka and redowa in those +airy, well-lighted rooms. In another they find in the acting of +extempore dramas, arrangement of tableaux, little concerts or +recitations, intermingled with beautiful national or fancy dances, some +portion of the enchanting, refining, and ennobling<a name="page_295" id="page_295"></a> influence of the +arts. The finest engravings on all subjects attend such as like to +employ themselves more quietly, while those who can find a companion or +congenial group to converse with, find also plenty of recesses and still +rooms, with softened light, provided for their pleasure.</p> + +<p>There is not on this side of the Atlantic—we dare our glove upon it—a +more devout believer than ourselves in the worship of the Muses and +Graces, both for itself, and its importance no less to the moral than to +the intellectual life of a nation. Perhaps there is not one who has <i>so</i> +deep a feeling, or so many suggestions ready, in the fulness of time, to +be hazarded on the subject.</p> + +<p>But in order to such worship, what standard is there as to admission to +the service? Talents of gold, or Delphian talents? fashion or elegance? +"standing" or the power to move gracefully from one position to another?</p> + +<p>Our nobleman did not hesitate; the handle to his door bell was not of +gold, but mother-of-pearl, pure and prismatic.</p> + +<p>If he did not go into the alleys to pick up the poor, they were not +excluded, if qualified by intrinsic qualities to adorn the scene. +Neither were wealth or fashion a cause of exclusion, more than of +admission. All depended on the person; yet he did not <i>seek</i> his guests +among the slaves of fashion, for he knew that persons highly endowed +rarely had patience with the frivolities of that class, but retired, and +left it to be peopled mostly by weak and plebeian natures. Yet all +depended on the individual. Was the person fair, noble, wise, brilliant, +or even only youthfully innocent and gay, or venerable in a good old +age, he or she was welcome. Still, as simplicity of character and some +qualification positively good, healthy, and natural, was requisite for +admission, we must say the company was select. Our nobleman and his +family had weeded their "circle" carefully, year by year.</p> + +<p>Some valued acquaintances they had made in ball-rooms and boudoirs, and +kept; but far more had been made through<a name="page_296" id="page_296"></a> the daily wants of life, and +shoemakers, seamstresses, and graziers mingled happily with artists and +statesmen, to the benefit of both. (N.B.—None used the poisonous weed, +in or out of our domestic temple.)</p> + +<p>I cannot tell you what infinite good our nobleman and his family were +doing by creation of this true social centre, where the legitimate +aristocracy of the land assembled, not to be dazzled by expensive +furniture, (our nobleman bought what was good in texture and beautiful +in form, but not <i>because</i> it was expensive,) not to be feasted on rare +wines and highly-seasoned dainties, though they found simple +refreshments well prepared, as indeed it was a matter of duty and +conscience in that house that the least office should be well fulfilled, +but to enjoy the generous confluence of mind with mind and heart with +heart, the pastimes that are not waste-times of taste and inventive +fancy, the cordial union of beings from all points and places in noble +human sympathy. New York was beginning to be truly American, or rather +Columbian, and money stood for something in the records of history. It +had brought opportunity to genius and aid to virtue. But just at this +moment, the jostling showed me that I had reached the corner of Wall +Street. I looked earnestly at the omnibuses discharging their eager +freight, as if I hoped to see my merchant. "Perhaps he has gone to the +post office to take out letters from his friends in Utopia," thought I. +"Please give me a penny," screamed a half-starved ragged little +street-sweep, and the fancied cradle of the American Utopia receded, or +rather proceeded, fifty years, at least, into the future.<a name="page_297" id="page_297"></a></p> + +<h2><a name="THE_POOR_MAN" id="THE_POOR_MAN"></a>THE POOR MAN.<br /><br /> +<span class="smcap">An Ideal Sketch.</span></h2> + +<p>T<small>HE</small> foregoing sketch of the Rich Man, seems to require this +companion-piece; and we shall make the attempt, though the subject is +far more difficult than the former was.</p> + +<p>In the first place, we must state what we mean by a poor man, for it is +a term of wide range in its relative applications. A painstaking +artisan, trained to self-denial, and a strict adaptation, not of his +means to his wants, but of his wants to his means, finds himself rich +and grateful, if some unexpected fortune enables him to give his wife a +new gown, his children cheap holiday joys, and his starving neighbor a +decent meal; while George IV., when heir apparent to the throne of Great +Britain, considered himself driven by the pressure of poverty to become +a debtor, a beggar, a swindler, and, by the aid of perjury, the husband +of two wives at the same time, neither of whom he treated well. Since +poverty is made an excuse for such depravity in conduct, it would be +well to mark the limits within which self-control and resistance to +temptation may be expected.</p> + +<p>When he of the olden time prayed, "Give me neither poverty nor riches," +we presume he meant that proportion of means to the average wants of a +human being which secures freedom from pecuniary cares, freedom of +motion, and a moderate enjoyment of the common blessings offered by +earth, air, water, the natural relations, and the subjects for thought +which every day presents. We shall certainly not look above<a name="page_298" id="page_298"></a> this point +for our poor man. A prince may be poor, if he has not means to relieve +the sufferings of his subjects, or secure to them needed benefits. Or he +may make himself so, just as a well-paid laborer by drinking brings +poverty to his roof. So may the prince, by the mental gin of +horse-racing or gambling, grow a beggar. But we shall not consider these +cases.</p> + +<p>Our subject will be taken between the medium we have spoken of as answer +to the wise man's prayer, and that destitution which we must style +infamous, either to the individual or to the society whose vices have +caused that stage of poverty, in which there is no certainty, and often +no probability, of work or bread from day to day,—in which cleanliness +and all the decencies of life are impossible, and the natural human +feelings are turned to gall because the man finds himself on this earth +in a far worse situation than the brute. In this stage there is no +ideal, and from its abyss, if the unfortunates look up to Heaven, or the +state of things as they ought to be, it is with suffocating gasps which +demand relief or death. This degree of poverty is common, as we all +know; but we who do not share it have no right to address those who do +from our own standard, till we have placed their feet on our own level. +Accursed is he who does not long to have this so—to take out at least +the physical hell from this world! Unblest is he who is not seeking, +either by thought or act, to effect this poor degree of amelioration in +the circumstances of his race.</p> + +<p>We take the subject of our sketch, then, somewhere between the abjectly +poor and those in moderate circumstances. What we have to say may apply +to either sex, and to any grade in this division of the human family, +from the hodman and washerwoman up to the hard-working, poorly-paid +lawyer clerk, schoolmaster, or scribe.</p> + +<p>The advantages of such a position are many. In the first place, you +belong, inevitably, to the active and suffering part<a name="page_299" id="page_299"></a> of the world. You +know the ills that try men's souls and bodies. You cannot creep into a +safe retreat, arrogantly to judge, or heartlessly to forget, the others. +They are always before you; you see the path stained by their bleeding +feet; stupid and flinty, indeed, must you be, if you can hastily wound, +or indolently forbear to aid them. Then, as to yourself, you know what +your resources are; what you can do, what bear; there is small chance +for you to escape a well-tempered modesty. Then again, if you find power +in yourself to endure the trial, there is reason and reality in some +degree of self-reliance. The moral advantages of such training can +scarcely fail to amount to something; and as to the mental, that most +important chapter, how the lives of men are fashioned and transfused by +the experience of passion and the development of thought, presents new +sections at every turn, such as the distant dilettante's opera-glasses +will never detect,—to say nothing of the exercise of mere faculty, +which, though insensible in its daily course, leads to results of +immense importance.</p> + +<p>But the evils, the disadvantages, the dangers, how many, how imminent! +True, indeed, they are so. There is the early bending of the mind to the +production of marketable results, which must hinder all this free play +of intelligence, and deaden the powers that craved instruction. There is +the callousness produced by the sight of more misery than it is possible +to relieve; the heart, at first so sensitive, taking refuge in a stolid +indifference against the pangs of sympathetic pain, it had not force to +bear. There is the perverting influence of uncongenial employments, +undertaken without or against choice, continued at unfit hours and +seasons, till the man loses his natural relations with summer and +winter, day and night, and has no sense more for natural beauty and joy. +There is the mean providence, the perpetual caution to guard against +ill, instead of the generous freedom of a mind which expects good to +ensue from all good actions. There is the<a name="page_300" id="page_300"></a> sad doubt whether it will +<i>do</i> to indulge the kindly impulse, the calculation of dangerous +chances, and the cost between the loving impulse and its fulfilment. +Yes; there is bitter chance of narrowness, meanness, and dulness on this +path, and it requires great natural force, a wise and large view of life +taken at an early age, or fervent trust in God, to evade them.</p> + +<p>It is astonishing to see the poor, no less than the rich, the slaves of +externals. One would think that, where the rich man once became aware of +the worthlessness of the mere trappings of life from the weariness of a +spirit that found itself entirely dissatisfied after pomp and +self-indulgence, the poor man would learn this a hundred times from the +experience how entirely independent of them is all that is intrinsically +valuable in our life. But, no! The poor man wants dignity, wants +elevation of spirit. It is his own servility that forges the fetters +that enslave him. Whether he cringe to, or rudely defy, the man in the +coach and handsome coat, the cause and effect are the same. He is +influenced by a costume and a position. He is not firmly rooted in the +truth that only in so far as outward beauty and grandeur are +representative of the mind of the possessor, can they count for any +thing at all. O, poor man! you are poor indeed, if you feel yourself so; +poor if you do not feel that a soul born of God, a mind capable of +scanning the wondrous works of time and space, and a flexible body for +its service, are the essential riches of a man, and all he needs to make +him the equal of any other man. You are mean, if the possession of money +or other external advantages can make you envy or shrink from a being +mean enough to value himself upon such. Stand where you may, O man, you +cannot be noble and rich if your brow be not broad and steadfast, if +your eye beam not with a consciousness of inward worth, of eternal +claims and hopes which such trifles cannot at all affect. A man without +this majesty is ridiculous amid the flourish and decorations<a name="page_301" id="page_301"></a> procured +by money, pitiable in the faded habiliments of poverty. But a man who is +a man, a woman who is a woman, can never feel lessened or embarrassed +because others look ignorantly on such matters. If they regret the want +of these temporary means of power, it must be solely because it fetters +their motions, deprives them of leisure and desired means of +improvement, or of benefiting those they love or pity.</p> + +<p>I have heard those possessed of rhetoric and imaginative tendency +declare that they should have been outwardly great and inwardly free, +victorious poets and heroes, if fate had allowed them a certain quantity +of dollars. I have found it impossible to believe them. In early youth, +penury may have power to freeze the genial current of the soul, and +prevent it, during one short life, from becoming sensible of its true +vocation and destiny. But if it <i>has</i> become conscious of these, and yet +there is not advance in any and all circumstances, no change would +avail.</p> + +<p>No, our poor man must begin higher! He must, in the first place, really +believe there is a God who ruleth—a fact to which few men vitally bear +witness, though most are ready to affirm it with the lips.</p> + +<p>2. He must sincerely believe that rank and wealth</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry"> +<tr><td align="right">"are but the guinea's stamp;</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">The man's the gold;"—</td></tr> +</table> + +<p class="nind">take his stand on his claims as a human being, made in God's own +likeness, urge them when the occasion permits, but never be so false to +them as to feel put down or injured by the want of mere external +advantages.</p> + +<p>3. He must accept his lot, while he is in it. If he can change it for +the better, let his energies be exerted to do so. But if he cannot, +there is none that will not yield an opening to Eden, to the glories of +Zion, and even to the subterranean<a name="page_302" id="page_302"></a> enchantments of our strange estate. +There is none that may not be used with nobleness.</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry"> +<tr><td align="left">"Who sweeps a room, as for Thy sake</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> Makes that and th' action clean."</td></tr> +</table> + +<p>4. Let him examine the subject enough to be convinced that there is not +that vast difference between the employments that is supposed, in the +means of expansion and refinement. All depends on the spirit as to the +use that is made of an occupation. Mahomet was not a wealthy merchant, +and profound philosophers have ripened on the benches, not of the +lawyers, but the shoemakers. It did not hurt Milton to be a poor +schoolmaster, nor Shakspeare to do the errands of a London play-house. +Yes, "the mind is its own place," and if it will keep that place, all +doors will be opened from it. Upon this subject we hope to offer some +hints at a future day, in speaking of the different trades, professions, +and modes of labor.</p> + +<p>5. Let him remember that from no man can the chief wealth be kept. On +all men the sun and stars shine; for all the oceans swell and rivers +flow. All men may be brothers, lovers, fathers, friends; before all lie +the mysteries of birth and death. If these wondrous means of wealth and +blessing be likely to remain misused or unused, there are quite as many +disadvantages in the way of the man of money as of the man who has none. +Few who drain the choicest grape know the ecstasy of bliss and knowledge +that follows a full draught of the wine of life. That has mostly been +reserved for those on whose thoughts society, as a public, makes but a +moderate claim. And if bitterness followed on the joy, if your fountain +was frozen after its first gush by the cold winds of the world, yet, +moneyless men, ye are at least not wholly ignorant of what a human being +has force to know. You have not skimmed over surfaces, and been dozing +on<a name="page_303" id="page_303"></a> beds of down, during the rare and stealthy visits of Love and the +Muses. Remember this, and, looking round on the arrangements of the +lottery, see if you did not draw a prize in your turn.</p> + +<p>It will be seen that our ideal poor man needs to be religious, wise, +dignified, and humble, grasping at nothing, claiming all; willing to +wait, never willing to give up; servile to none, the servant of all, and +esteeming it the glory of a man to serve. The character is rare, but not +unattainable. We have, however, found an approach to it more frequent in +woman than in man.<a name="page_304" id="page_304"></a></p> + +<h2><a name="THE_CELESTIAL_EMPIRE" id="THE_CELESTIAL_EMPIRE"></a>THE CELESTIAL EMPIRE.</h2> + +<p>D<small>URING</small> a late visit to Boston, I visited with great pleasure the Chinese +Museum, which has been opened there.</p> + +<p>There was much satisfaction in surveying its rich contents, if merely on +account of their splendor and elegance, which, though fantastic to our +tastes, presented an obvious standard of its own by which to prize it. +The rich dresses of the imperial court, the magnificent jars, (the +largest worth three hundred dollars, and looking as if it was worth much +more,) the present-boxes and ivory work, the elegant interiors of the +home and counting-room,—all these gave pleasure by their perfection, +each in its kind.</p> + +<p>But the chief impression was of that unity of existence, so opposite to +the European, and, for a change, so pleasant, from its repose and gilded +lightness. Their imperial majesties do really seem so "perfectly +serene," that we fancy we might become so under their sway, if not +"thoroughly virtuous," as they profess to be. Entirely a new mood would +be ours, as we should sup in one of those pleasure boats, by the light +of fanciful lanterns, or listen to the tinkling of pagoda bells.</p> + +<p>The highest conventional refinement, of a certain kind, is apparent in +all that belongs to the Chinese. The inviolability of custom has not +made their life heavy, but shaped it to the utmost adroitness for their +own purposes. We are now somewhat familiar with their literature, and we +see pervading it a poetry subtle and aromatic, like the odors of their +appropriate beverage. Like that, too, it is all domestic,—never wild. +The social genius, fluttering on the wings of compliment, pervades every +thing Chinese. Society has<a name="page_305" id="page_305"></a> moulded them, body and soul; the youngest +children are more social and Chinese than human; and we doubt not the +infant, with its first cry, shows its capacity for self-command and +obedience to superiors.</p> + +<p>Their great man, Confucius, expresses this social genius in its most +perfect state and highest form. His golden wisdom is the quintescence of +social justice. He never forgets conditions and limits; he is admirably +wise, pure, and religious, but never towers above humanity—never soars +into solitude. There is no token of the forest or cave in Confucius. Few +men could understand him, because his nature was so thoroughly balanced, +and his rectitude so pure; not because his thoughts were too deep, or +too high for them. In him should be sought the best genius of the +Chinese, with that perfect practical good sense whose uses are +universal.</p> + +<p>At one time I used to change from reading Confucius to one of the great +religious books of another Eastern nation; and it was always like +leaving the street and the palace for the blossoming forest of the East, +where in earlier times we are told the angels walked with men and +talked, not of earth, but of heaven.</p> + +<p>As we looked at the forms moving about in the Museum, we could not +wonder that the Chinese consider us, who call ourselves the civilized +world, barbarians, so deficient were those forms in the sort of +refinement that the Chinese prize above all. And our people deserve it +for their senselessness in viewing <i>them</i> as barbarians, instead of +seeing how perfectly they represent their own idea. They are inferior to +us in important developments, but, on the whole, approach far nearer +their own standard than we do ours. And it is wonderful that an +enlightened European can fail to prize the sort of beauty they do +develop. Sets of engravings we have seen representing the culture of the +tea plant, have brought to us images of an entirely original idyllic +loveliness. One long resident in China has observed that nothing can be<a name="page_306" id="page_306"></a> +more enchanting than the smile of love on the regular, but otherwise +expressionless face of a Chinese woman. It has the simplicity and +abandonment of infantine, with the fulness of mature feeling. It never +varies, but it does not tire.</p> + +<p>The same sweetness and elegance stereotyped now, but having originally a +deep root in their life as a race, may be seen in their poetry and +music. The last we have heard, both from the voice and several +instruments, at this Museum, for the first time, and were at first +tempted to laugh, when something deeper forbade. Like their poetry, the +music is of the narrowest monotony, a kind of rosary, a repetition of +phrases, and, in its enthusiasm and conventional excitement, like +nothing else in the heavens and on the earth. Yet both the poetry and +music have in them an expression of birds, roses, and moonlight; indeed, +they suggest that state where "moonlight, and music, and feeling are +one," though the soul seems to twitter, rather than sing of it.</p> + +<p>It is wonderful with how little practical insight travellers in China +look on what they see. They seem to be struck by points of repulsion at +once, and neither see nor tell us what could give any real clew to their +facts. I do not speak now of the recent lecturers in this city, for I +have not heard them; but of the many, many books into which I have +earlier looked with eager curiosity,—in vain,—I always found the same +external facts, and the same prejudices which disabled the observer from +piercing beneath them. I feel that I know something of the Chinese when +reading Confucius, or looking at the figures on their tea-cups, or +drinking a cup of <i>genuine</i> tea—rather an unusual felicity, it is said, +in this ingenious city, which shares with the Chinese one trait at +least. But the travellers rather take from than add to this knowledge; +and a visit to this Museum would give more clear views than all the +books I ever read yet.</p> + +<p>The juggling was well done, and so solemnly, with the same concentrated +look as the music! I saw the juggler<a name="page_307" id="page_307"></a> afterwards at Ole Bull's concert, +and he moved not a muscle while the nightingale was pouring forth its +sweetest descant. Probably the avenues wanted for these strains to enter +his heart had been closed by the imperial edict long ago. The +resemblance borne by this juggler to our Indians is even greater than we +have seen in any other case. His brotherhood does not, to us, seem +surprising. Our Indians, too, are stereotyped, though in a different +way; they are of a mould capable of retaining the impression through +ages; and many of the traits of the two races, or two branches of a +race, may seem to be identical, though so widely modified by +circumstances. They are all opposite to us, who have made ships, and +balloons, and magnetic telegraphs, as symbolic expressions of our wants, +and the means of gratifying them. We must console ourselves with these, +and our organs and pianos, for our want of perfect good breeding, +serenity, and "thorough virtue."<a name="page_308" id="page_308"></a></p> + +<h2><a name="KLOPSTOCK_AND_META36" id="KLOPSTOCK_AND_META36"></a>KLOPSTOCK AND META.<a name="FNanchor_36_36" id="FNanchor_36_36"></a><a href="#Footnote_36_36" class="fnanchor">[36]</a></h2> + +<p>T<small>HE</small> poet had retired from the social circle. Its mirth was to his +sickened soul a noisy discord, its sentiment a hollow mockery. With +grief he felt that the recital of a generous action, the vivid +expression of a noble thought, could only graze the surface of his mind. +The desolate stillness of death lay brooding on its depths. The friendly +smiles, the tender attentions which seemed so sweet in those hours when +Meta was "crown of his cup and garnish of his dish," could give the +present but a ghastly similitude to those blessed days. While his +attention, disobedient to his wishes, kept turning painfully inward, the +voice of the singer suddenly startled it back. A lovely maid, with +moist, clear eye, and pleadi ng, earnest voice, was seated at the +harpsichord. She sang a sad, and yet not hopeless, strain, like that of +a lover who pines in absence, yet hopes again to meet his loved one.</p> + +<p>The heart of Klopstock rose to his lips, and natural tears suffused his +eyes. She paused. Some youth of untouched heart, shallow, as yet, in all +things, asked for a lively song, the expression of animal enjoyment. She +hesitated, and cast a sidelong glance at the mourner. Heedlessly the +request was urged: she wafted over the keys an airy prelude. A cold rush +of anguish came over the awakened heart; Klopstock rose, and hastily +left the room.</p> + +<p>He entered his apartment, and threw himself upon the bed. The moon was +nearly at the full: a tree near the large window<a name="page_309" id="page_309"></a> obscured its radiance, +and cast into the room a flickering shadow, as its leaves kept swaying +to and fro with the breeze.</p> + +<p>Vainly Klopstock sought for soothing influences in the contemplation of +the soft and varying light. Sadness is always deepest at this hour of +celestial calmness. The soul realizes its wants, and longs to be in +harmony with itself far more in such an hour than when any outward ill +is arousing or oppressing it.</p> + +<p>"Weak, fond wretch that I am!" cried he. "I, the bard of the Messiah! To +what purpose have I nurtured my soul on the virtues of that sublime +model, for whom no renunciation was too hard? Four years an angel +sojourned with me: her presence vivified my soul into purity and +benevolence like her own. Happy was I as the saints who rest after their +long struggles in the bosom of perfect love. I thought myself good +because I sinned not against a bounteous God, because my heart could +spare some drops of its overflowing oil and balm for the wounds of +others: now what am I? My angel leaves me, but she leaves with me the +memory of blissful years and our perfect communion as an earnest of that +happy meeting which awaits us, if I prove faithful to my own words of +faith, to those strains of religious confidence which are even now +cheering onward many an inexperienced youth. And what are my deeds and +feelings? The springs of life and love frozen, here I lie, sunk in +grief, as if I knew no world beyond the grave. The joy of others seems +an insult, their grief a dead letter, compared with my own. Meta! Meta! +couldst thou see me in my hour of trial, thou wouldst disdain thy chosen +one!"</p> + +<p>A strain of sweet and solemn music swelled on his ear—one of those +majestic harmonies which, were there no other proof of the soul's +immortality, must suggest the image of an intellectual paradise. It +closed, and Meta stood before him. A long veil of silvery whiteness fell +over her, through which might be seen the fixed but nobly-serene +expression of the large blue eyes, and a holy, seraphic dignity of mien. +Klopstock<a name="page_310" id="page_310"></a> knelt before her: his soul was awed to earth. "Hast thou +come, my adored!" said he, "from thy home of bliss, to tell me that thou +no longer lovest thy unworthy friend?"</p> + +<p>"O, speak not thus!" replied the softest and most penetrating of voices. +"God wills not that his purified creatures should look in contempt or +anger on those suffering the ills from which they are set free. O, no, +my love! my husband! I come to speak consolation to thy sinking spirit. +When you left me to breathe my last sigh in the arms of a sister, who, +however dear, was nothing to my heart in comparison with you, I closed +my eyes, wishing that the light of day might depart with thee. The +thought of what thou must suffer convulsed my heart with one last pang. +Once more I murmured the wish I had so often expressed, that the sorrows +of the survivor might have fallen to my lot rather than to thine. In +that pang my soul extricated itself from the body; a sensation like that +from exquisite fragrance came over me, and with breezy lightness I rose +into the pure serene. It was a moment of feeling almost wild,—so free, +so unobscured. I had not yet passed the verge of comparison; I could not +yet embrace the Infinite: therefore my joy was like those of +earth—intoxicating.</p> + +<p>"Words cannot paint, even to thy eager soul, my friend, the winged +swiftness, the onward, glowing hopefulness of my path through the fields +of azure. I paused, at length, in a region of keen, pure, bluish light, +such as beams from Jupiter to thy planet on a lovely October evening.</p> + +<p>"Here an immediate conviction pervaded me that this was home—was my +appointed resting place; a full tide of hope and satisfaction similar to +the emotion excited on my first acquaintance with thy poem flowed over +this hour; a joyous confidence in the existence of Goodness and Beauty +supplied for a season, the want of thy society. The delicious clearness +of every emotion exalted my soul into a realm full of life. Some time +elapsed in this state. The whole of my temporal existence passed in +review before me. My thoughts, my<a name="page_311" id="page_311"></a> actions, were placed in full relief +before the cleared eye of my spirit. Beloved, thou wilt rejoice to know +that thy Meta could then feel that her worst faults sprung from +ignorance. As I was striving to connect my present state with my past, +and, as it were, poising myself on the brink of space and time, the +breath of another presence came across me, and, gradually evolving from +the bosom of light, a figure rose before me, in grace, in sweetness, how +excelling! Fixing her eyes on mine with the full gaze of love, she said, +in flute-like tones, 'Dost thou know me, my sister?'</p> + +<p>"'Art thou not,' I replied, 'the love of Petrarch? I have seen the +portraiture of thy mortal lineaments, and now recognize that perfect +beauty, the full violet flower which thy lover's genius was able to +anticipate.'</p> + +<p>"'Yes,' she said, 'I am Laura—on earth most happy, yet most sad; most +rich, and yet most poor. I come to greet her whom I recognize as the +inheritress of all that was lovely in my earthly being, more happy than +I in her temporal state. I have sympathized, O wife of Klopstock! in thy +transitory happiness. Thy lover was thy priest and thy poet; thy model +and oracle was thy bosom friend. All that earth could give was thine; +and I joyed to think on thy rewarded love, thy freedom of soul, and +unchecked faith. Follow me now: we are to dwell in the same circle, and +I am appointed to show thee thine abiding place.'</p> + +<p>"She guided me towards the source of that light which I have described +to thee. We paused before a structure of dazzling whiteness, which stood +on a slope, and overlooked a valley of exceeding beauty. It was shaded +by trees which had that peculiar calmness that the shadows of trees have +below in the high noon of summer moonlight—</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry"> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 6em;">'... trees which are still</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">As the shades of trees below,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">When they sleep on the lonely hill,</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">In the summer moonlight glow.'</span></td></tr> +</table> + +<p><a name="page_312" id="page_312"></a></p> + +<p>It was decked with majestic sculptures, of which I may speak in some +future interview. Before it rose a fountain, from which the stream of +light flowed down the valley, dividing it into two unequal parts. The +larger and farther from us seemed, when I first looked on it, populous +with shapes, beauteous as that of my guide. But, when I looked more +fixedly, I saw only the valley, carpeted with large blue and white +flowers, which emitted a hyacinthine odor. Here, Laura, turning round, +asked, 'Is not this a poetic home, Meta?'</p> + +<p>"I paused a moment ere I replied, 'It is indeed a place of beauty, but +more like the Greek elysium than the home Klopstock and I were wont to +picture to ourselves beyond the gates of Death.'</p> + +<p>"'Thou sayest well,' she said; 'nor is this thy final home; thou wilt +but wait here a season, till Klopstock comes.'</p> + +<p>"'What' said I, 'alone! alone in Eden?'</p> + +<p>"'Has not Meta, then, collected aught on which she might meditate? Hast +thou never read, "While I was musing, the fire burned"?'</p> + +<p>"'Laura,' said I, 'spare the reproach. The love of Petrach, whose soul +grew up in golden fetters, whose strongest emotions, whose most natural +actions were, through a long life, constantly repressed by the dictates +of duty and honor, she content might pass long years in that +contemplation which was on earth her only solace. But I, whose life has +all been breathed out in love and ministry, can I endure that my +existence be reversed? Can I live without utterance of spirit? or would +such be a stage of that progressive happiness we are promised?'</p> + +<p>"'True, little one!' said she, with her first heavenly smile; 'nor shall +it be thus with thee. A ministry is appointed thee—the same which I +exercised while waiting here for that friend whom below I was forbidden +to call my own.'</p> + +<p>"She touched me, and from my shoulders sprung a pair of wings, white and +azure, wide and glistering.<a name="page_313" id="page_313"></a></p> + +<p>"'Meta!' she resumed, 'spirit of love! be this thine office. Wherever a +soul pines in absence from all companionship, breathe sweet thoughts of +sympathy to be had in another life, if deserved by virtuous exertions +and mental progress. Bind up the wounds of hearts torn by bereavement; +teach them where healing is to be found. Revive in the betrayed and +forsaken heart that belief in virtue and nobleness, without which life +is an odious, disconnected dream. Fan every flame of generous +enthusiasm, and on the altars where it is kindled strew thou the incense +of wisdom. In such a ministry thou couldst never be alone, since hope +must dwell with thee. But I shall often come and discourse to thee of +the future glories of thy destiny. Yet more: Seest thou that marble +tablet? Retire here when thy pinions are wearied. Give up thy soul to +faith. Fix thine eyes on the tablet, and the deeds and thoughts which +fill the days of Klopstock shall he traced on it. Thus shall ye not be +for a day divided. Hast thou, Meta, aught more to ask?"</p> + +<p>"'Messenger of peace and bliss!' said I, 'dare I frame another request? +Is it too presumptuous to ask that Klopstock may be one of those to whom +I minister, and that he may know it is Meta who consoles him?'</p> + +<p>"'Even this, to a certain extent, I have power to grant. Most pure, most +holy was thy life with Klopstock; ye taught one another only good +things, and peculiarly are ye rewarded. Thou mayst occasionally manifest +thyself to him, and answer his prayers with words,—so long,' she +continued, looking fixedly at me, 'as he continues true to himself and +thee!'</p> + +<p>"O, my beloved, why tell thee what were my emotions at such a promise? +Ah! I must now leave thee, for dawn is bringing back the world's doings. +Soon I shall visit thee again. Farewell! Remember that thy every thought +and deed will be known to me, and be happy!"</p> + +<p>She vanished.<a name="page_314" id="page_314"></a></p> + +<h2><a name="WHAT_FITS_A_MAN_TO_BE_A_VOTER" id="WHAT_FITS_A_MAN_TO_BE_A_VOTER"></a>WHAT FITS A MAN TO BE A VOTER?<br /><br /> +<span class="smcap">A Fable.</span></h2> + +<p>T<small>HE</small> country had been denuded of its forests, and men cried, "Come! we +must plant anew, or there will be no shade for the homes of our +children, or fuel for their hearths. Let us find the best kernels for a +new growth." And a basket of butternuts was offered.</p> + +<p>But the planters rejected it with disgust. "What a black, rough coat it +has!" said they; "it is entirely unfit for the dishes on a nobleman's +table, nor have we ever seen it in such places. It must have a greasy, +offensive kernel; nor can fine trees grow up from such a nut."</p> + +<p>"Friends," said one of the planters, "this decision may be rash. The +chestnut has not a handsome outside; it is long encased in troublesome +burs, and, when disengaged, is almost as black as these nuts you +despise. Yet from it grow trees of lofty stature, graceful form, and +long life. Its kernel is white, and has furnished food to the most +poetic and splendid nations of the older world."</p> + +<p>"Don't tell me," says another; "brown is entirely different from black. +I like brown very well; there is Oriental precedent for its +respectability. Perhaps we will use some of your chestnuts, if we can +get fine samples. But for the present, I think we should use only +English walnuts, such as our forefathers delighted to honor. Here are +many basketsful of them, quite enough for the present. We will plant +them with a sprinkling between of the chestnut and acorn."</p> + +<p>"But," rejoined the other, "many butternuts are beneath<a name="page_315" id="page_315"></a> the sod, and +you cannot help a mixture of them being in your wood, at any rate."</p> + +<p>"Well, we will grub them up and cut them down whenever we find them. We +can use the young shrubs for kindlings."</p> + +<p>At that moment two persons entered the council of a darker complexion +than most of those present, as if born beneath the glow of a more +scorching sun. First came a woman, beautiful in the mild, pure grandeur +of her look; in whose large dark eye a prophetic intelligence was +mingled with infinite sweetness. She looked at the assembly with an air +of surprise, as if its aspect was strange to her. She threw quite back +her veil, and stepping aside, made room for her companion. His form was +youthful, about the age of one we have seen in many a picture produced +by the thought of eighteen centuries, as of one "instructing the +doctors." I need not describe the features; all minds have their own +impressions of such an image,</p> + +<p class="c">"Severe in youthful beauty."</p> + +<p class="nind">In his hand he bore a white banner, on which was embroidered, +"P<small>EACE AND</small> +G<small>OOD</small> W<small>ILL TO</small> M<small>EN</small>." +And the words seemed to glitter and give out sparks, +as he paused in the assembly.</p> + +<p>"I came hither," said he, "an uninvited guest, because I read sculptured +above the door 'All men born free and equal,' and in this dwelling hoped +to find myself at home. What is the matter in dispute?"</p> + +<p>Then they whispered one to another, and murmurs were heard—"He is a +mere boy; young people are always foolish and extravagant;" or, "He +looks like a fanatic." But others said, "He looks like one whom we have +been taught to honor. It will be best to tell him the matter in +dispute."</p> + +<p>When he heard it, he smiled, and said, "It will be needful first to +ascertain which of the nuts is soundest <i>within</i>." And<a name="page_316" id="page_316"></a> with a hammer he +broke one, two, and more of the English walnuts, and they were mouldy. +Then he tried the other nuts, but found most of them fresh within and +<i>white</i>, for they were fresh from the bosom of the earth, while the +others had been kept in a damp cellar.</p> + +<p>And he said, "You had better plant them together, lest none, or few, of +the walnuts be sound. And why are you so reluctant? Has not Heaven +permitted them both to grow on the same soil? and does not that show +what is intended about it?"</p> + +<p>And they said, "But they are black and ugly to look upon." He replied, +"They do not seem so to me. What my Father has fashioned in such guise +offends not mine eye."</p> + +<p>And they said, "But from one of these trees flew a bird of prey, who has +done great wrong. We meant, therefore, to suffer no such tree among us."</p> + +<p>And he replied, "Amid the band of my countrymen and friends there was +one guilty of the blackest crime—that of selling for a price the life +of his dearest friend; yet all the others of his blood were not put +under ban because of his guilt."</p> + +<p>Then they said, "But in the Holy Book our teachers tell us, we are bid +to keep in exile or distress whatsoever is black and unseemly in our +eyes."</p> + +<p>Then he put his hand to his brow, and cried in a voice of the most +penetrating pathos, "Have I been so long among you, and ye have not +known me?" And the woman turned from them the majestic hope of her +glance, and both forms suddenly vanished; but the banner was left +trailing in the dust.</p> + +<p>The men stood gazing at one another. After which one mounted on high, +and said, "Perhaps, my friends, we carry too far this aversion to +objects merely because they are black. I heard, the other day, a wise +man say that black was the color of evil—marked as such by God, and +that whenever a white man struck a black man he did an act of<a name="page_317" id="page_317"></a> worship +to God.<a name="FNanchor_37_37" id="FNanchor_37_37"></a><a href="#Footnote_37_37" class="fnanchor">[37]</a> I could not quite believe him. I hope, in what I am about to +add, I shall not be misunderstood. I am no abolitionist. I respect above +all things, divine or human, the constitution framed by our forefathers, +and the peculiar institutions hallowed by the usage of their sons. I +have no sympathy with the black race in this country. I wish it to be +understood that I feel towards negroes the purest personal antipathy. It +is a family trait with us. My little son, scarce able to speak, will cry +out, 'Nigger! Nigger!' whenever he sees one, and try to throw things at +them. He made a whole omnibus load laugh the other day by his cunning +way of doing this.<a name="FNanchor_38_38" id="FNanchor_38_38"></a><a href="#Footnote_38_38" class="fnanchor">[38]</a> The child of my political antagonist, on the +other hand, says 'he likes <i>tullared</i> children the best.'<a name="FNanchor_39_39" id="FNanchor_39_39"></a><a href="#Footnote_39_39" class="fnanchor">[39]</a> You see he +is tainted in his cradle by the loose principles of his parents, even +before he can say nigger, or pronounce the more refined appellation. But +that is no matter. I merely mention this by the way; not to prejudice +you against Mr.——, but that you may appreciate the very different +state of things in my family, and not misinterpret what I have to say. I +was lately in one of our prisons where a somewhat injudicious indulgence +had extended to one of the condemned felons, a lost and wretched outcast +from society, the use of materials for painting, that having been his +profession. He had completed at his leisure a picture of the Lord's +Supper. Most of the figures were well enough, but Judas he had +represented as a black.<a name="FNanchor_40_40" id="FNanchor_40_40"></a><a href="#Footnote_40_40" class="fnanchor">[40]</a> Now, gentlemen, I am of opinion that this is +an unwarrantable liberty taken with the Holy Scriptures, and shows <i>too +much</i> prejudice in the community. It is my wish to be moderate and fair, +and preserve a medium, neither, on the one hand, yielding the wholesome +antipathies planted in our breasts as a safeguard against degradation, +and our constitutional obligations, which, as I have before observed, +are, with me, more binding than any other; nor, on the other<a name="page_318" id="page_318"></a> hand, +forgetting that liberality and wisdom which are the prerogative of every +citizen of this free commonwealth. I agree, then, with our young +visitor. I hardly know, indeed, why a stranger, and one so young, was +permitted to mingle in this council; but it was certainly thoughtful in +him to crack and examine the nuts. I agree that it may be well to plant +some of the black nuts among the others, so that, if many of the walnuts +fail, we may make use of this inferior tree."</p> + +<p>At this moment arose a hubbub, and such a clamor of "dangerous +innovation," "political capital," "low-minded demagogue," "infidel who +denies the Bible," "lower link in the chain of creation," &c., that it +is impossible to say what was the decision.<a name="page_319" id="page_319"></a></p> + +<h2><a name="DISCOVERIES" id="DISCOVERIES"></a>DISCOVERIES.</h2> + +<p>S<small>OMETIMES</small>, as we meet people in the street, we catch a sentence from +their lips that affords a clew to their history and habits of mind, and +puts our own minds on quite a new course.</p> + +<p>Yesterday two female figures drew nigh upon the street, in whom we had +only observed their tawdry, showy style of dress, when, as they passed, +one remarked to the other, in the tone of a person who has just made a +discovery, "<i>I</i> think there is something very handsome in a fine child."</p> + +<p>Poor woman! that seemed to have been the first time in her life that she +had made the observation. The charms of the human being, in that fresh +and flower-like age which is intended perpetually to refresh us in our +riper, renovate us in our declining years, had never touched her heart, +nor awakened for her the myriad thoughts and fancies that as naturally +attend the sight of childhood as bees swarm to the blossoming bough. +Instead of being to her the little angels and fairies, the embodied +poems which may ennoble the humblest lot, they had been to her mere +"torments," who "could never be kept still, or their faces clean."</p> + +<p>How piteous is the loss of those who do not contemplate childhood in a +spirit of holiness! The heavenly influence on their own minds, of +attention to cultivate each germ of great and good qualities, of +avoiding the least act likely to injure, is lost—a loss dreary and +piteous! for which no gain can compensate. But how unspeakably +deplorable the petrifaction of those who look upon their little friends +without any sympathy even, whose hearts are, by selfishness, +worldliness, and vanity, seared from all gentle instincts, who can no +longer<a name="page_320" id="page_320"></a> appreciate their spontaneous grace and glee, that eloquence in +every look, motion, and stammered word, those lively and incessant +charms, over which the action of the lower motives with which the social +system is rife, may so soon draw a veil!</p> + +<p>We can no longer speak thus of <i>all</i> children. On some, especially in +cities, the inheritance of sin and deformity from bad parents falls too +heavily, and incases at once the spark of soul which God still doth not +refuse in such instances, in a careful, knowing, sensual mask. Such are +never, in fact, children at all. But the rudest little cubs that are +free from taint, and show the affinities with nature and the soul, are +still young and flexible, and rich in gleams of the loveliness to be +hoped from perfected human nature.</p> + +<p>It is sad that all men do not feel these things. It is sad that they +wilfully renounce so large a part of their heritage, and go forth to buy +filtered water, while the fountain is gushing freshly beside the door of +their own huts. As with the charms of children, so with other things. +They do not know that the sunset is worth seeing every night, and the +shows of the forest better than those of the theatre, and the work of +bees and beetles more instructive, if scanned with care, than the lyceum +lecture. The cheap knowledge, the cheap pleasures, that are spread +before every one, they cast aside in search of an uncertain and feverish +joy. We did, indeed, hear one man say that he could not possibly be +deprived of his pleasures, since he could always, even were his abode in +the narrowest lane, have a blanket of sky above his head, where he could +see the clouds pass, and the stars glitter. But men in general remain +unaware that</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr><td align="left">"Life's best joys are nearest us,</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Lie close about our feet."</td></tr> +</table> + +<p>For them the light dresses all objects in endless novelty, the rose +glows, domestic love smiles, and childhood gives out with sportive +freedom its oracles—in vain. That woman had<a name="page_321" id="page_321"></a> seen beauty in gay shawls, +in teacups, in carpets; but only of late had she discovered that "there +was something beautiful in a fine child." Poor human nature! Thou must +have been changed at nurse by a bad demon at some time, and strangely +maltreated,—to have such blind and rickety intervals as come upon thee +now and then!<a name="page_322" id="page_322"></a></p> + +<h2><a name="POLITENESS_TOO_GREAT_A_LUXURY_TO_BE_GIVEN_TO_THE_POOR" id="POLITENESS_TOO_GREAT_A_LUXURY_TO_BE_GIVEN_TO_THE_POOR"></a>POLITENESS TOO GREAT A LUXURY TO BE GIVEN TO THE POOR.</h2> + +<p>A few days ago, a lady, crossing in one of the ferry boats that ply from +this city, saw a young boy, poorly dressed, sitting with an infant in +his arms on one of the benches. She observed that the child looked +sickly and coughed. This, as the day was raw, made her anxious in its +behalf, and she went to the boy and asked whether he was alone there +with the baby, and if he did not think the cold breeze dangerous for it. +He replied that he was sent out with the child to take care of it, and +that his father said the fresh air from the water would do it good.</p> + +<p>While he made this simple answer, a number of persons had collected +around to listen, and one of them, a well-dressed woman, addressed the +boy in a string of such questions and remarks as these:—</p> + +<p>"What is your name? Where do you live? Are you telling us the truth? +It's a shame to have that baby out in such weather; you'll be the death +of it. (To the bystanders:) I would go and see his mother, and tell her +about it, if I was sure he had told us the truth about where he lived. +How do you expect to get back? Here, (in the rudest voice,) somebody +says you have not told the truth as to where you live."</p> + +<p>The child, whose only offence consisted in taking care of the little one +in public, and answering when he was spoken to, began to shed tears at +the accusations thus grossly preferred against him. The bystanders +stared at both; but among them all there was not one with sufficiently +clear notions of<a name="page_323" id="page_323"></a> propriety and moral energy to say to this impudent +questioner "Woman, do you suppose, because you wear a handsome shawl, +and that boy a patched jacket, that you have any right to speak to him +at all, unless he wishes it—far less to prefer against him these rude +accusations? Your vulgarity is unendurable; leave the place or alter +your manner."</p> + +<p>Many such instances have we seen of insolent rudeness, or more insolent +affability, founded on no apparent grounds, except an apparent +difference in pecuniary position; for no one can suppose, in such cases, +the offending party has really enjoyed the benefit of refined education +and society, but all present let them pass as matters of course. It was +sad to see how the poor would endure—mortifying to see how the +purse-proud dared offend. An excellent man, who was, in his early years, +a missionary to the poor, used to speak afterwards with great shame of +the manner in which he had conducted himself towards them. "When I +recollect," said he, "the freedom with which I entered their houses, +inquired into all their affairs, commented on their conduct, and +disputed their statements, I wonder I was never horsewhipped, and feel +that I ought to have been; it would have done me good, for I needed as +severe a lesson on the universal obligations of politeness in its only +genuine form of respect for man as man, and delicate sympathy with each +in his peculiar position."</p> + +<p>Charles Lamb, who was indeed worthy to be called a human being because +of those refined sympathies, said, "You call him a gentleman: does his +washerwoman find him so?" We may say, if she did, she found him a <i>man</i>, +neither treating her with vulgar abruptness, nor giving himself airs of +condescending liveliness, but treating her with that genuine respect +which a feeling of equality inspires.</p> + +<p>To doubt the veracity of another is an insult which in most <i>civilized</i> +communities must in the so-called higher classes be atoned for by blood, +but, in those same communities, the same men will, with the utmost +lightness, doubt the truth of one<a name="page_324" id="page_324"></a> who wears a ragged coat, and thus do +all they can to injure and degrade him by assailing his self-respect, +and breaking the feeling of personal honor—a wound to which hurts a man +as a wound to its bark does a tree.</p> + +<p>Then how rudely are favors conferred, just as a bone is thrown to a dog! +A gentleman, indeed, will not do <i>that</i> without accompanying signs of +sympathy and regard. Just as this woman said, "If you have told the +truth I will go and see your mother," are many acts performed on which +the actors pride themselves as kind and charitable.</p> + +<p>All men might learn from the French in these matters. That people, +whatever be their faults, are really well bred, and many acts might be +quoted from their romantic annals, where gifts were given from rich to +poor with a graceful courtesy, equally honorable and delightful to the +giver and the receiver.</p> + +<p>In Catholic countries there is more courtesy, for charity is there a +duty, and must be done for God's sake; there is less room for a man to +give himself the pharisaical tone about it. A rich man is not so +surprised to find himself in contact with a poor one; nor is the custom +of kneeling on the open pavement, the silk robe close to the beggar's +rags, without profit. The separation by pews, even on the day when all +meet nearest, is as bad for the manners as the soul.</p> + +<p>Blessed be he, or she, who has passed through this world, not only with +an open purse and willingness to render the aid of mere outward +benefits, but with an open eye and open heart, ready to cheer the +downcast, and enlighten the dull by words of comfort and looks of love. +The wayside charities are the most valuable both as to sustaining hope +and diffusing knowledge, and none can render them who has not an +expansive nature, a heart alive to affection, and some true notion, +however imperfectly developed, of the meaning of human brotherhood.</p> + +<p>Such a one can never sauce the given meat with taunts,<a name="page_325" id="page_325"></a> freeze the viand +by a cold glance of doubt, or plunge the man, who asked for his hand, +deeper back into the mud by any kind of rudeness.</p> + +<p>In the little instance with which we began, no help <i>was</i> asked, unless +by the sight of the timid little boy's old jacket. But the license which +this seemed to the well-clothed woman to give to rudeness, was so +characteristic of a deep fault now existing, that a volume of comments +might follow and a host of anecdotes be drawn from almost any one's +experience in exposition of it. These few words, perhaps, may awaken +thought in those who have drawn tears from other's eyes through an +ignorance brutal, but not hopelessly so, if they are willing to rise +above it.<a name="page_326" id="page_326"></a></p> + +<h2><a name="CASSIUS_M_CLAY" id="CASSIUS_M_CLAY"></a>CASSIUS M. CLAY.</h2> + +<p>T<small>HE</small> meeting on Monday night at the Tabernacle was to us an occasion of +deep and peculiar interest. It was deep, for the feelings there +expressed and answered bore witness to the truth of our belief, that the +sense of right is not dead, but only sleepeth in this nation. A man who +is manly enough to appeal to it, will be answered, in feeling at least, +if not in action, and while there is life there is hope. Those who so +rapturously welcomed one who had sealed his faith by deeds of devotion, +must yet acknowledge in their breasts the germs of like nobleness.</p> + +<p>It was an occasion of peculiar interest, such as we have not had +occasion to feel since, in childish years, we saw Lafayette welcomed by +a grateful people. Even childhood well understood that the gratitude +then expressed was not so much for the aid which had been received as +for the motives and feelings with which it was given. The nation rushed +out as one man to thank Lafayette, that he had been able, amid the +prejudices and indulgences of high rank in the old <i>régime</i> of society, +to understand the great principles which were about to create a new +form, and answer, manlike, with love, service, and contempt of selfish +interests to the voice of humanity demanding its rights. Our freedom +would have been achieved without Lafayette; but it was a happiness and a +blessing to number the young French nobleman as the champion of American +independence, and to know that he had given the prime of his life to our +cause, because it was the cause of justice. With similar feelings of +joy, pride, and hope, we welcome Cassius M. Clay, a man who has, in like +manner, freed<a name="page_327" id="page_327"></a> himself from the prejudices of his position, disregarded +selfish considerations, and quitting the easy path in which he might +have walked to station in the sight of men, and such external +distinctions as his State and nation readily confer on men so born and +bred, and with such abilities, chose rather an interest in their souls, +and the honors history will not fail to award to the man who enrolls his +name and elevates his life for the cause of right and those universal +principles whose recognition can alone secure to man the destiny without +which he cannot be happy, but which he is continually sacrificing for +the impure worship of idols. Yea, in this country, more than in the old +Palestine, do they give their children to the fire in honor of Moloch, +and sell the ark confided to them by the Most High for shekels of gold +and of silver. Partly it was the sense of this position which Mr. Clay +holds, as a man who esteems his own individual convictions of right more +than local interests or partial, political schemes, that gave him such +an enthusiastic welcome on Monday night from the very hearts of the +audience, but still more that his honor is at this moment identified +with the liberty of the press, which has been insulted and infringed in +him. About this there can be in fact but one opinion. In vain Kentucky +calls meetings, states reasons, gives names of her own to what has been +done.<a name="FNanchor_41_41" id="FNanchor_41_41"></a><a href="#Footnote_41_41" class="fnanchor">[41]</a> The rest of the world knows very well what the action is, and +will call it by but one name. Regardless of this ostrich mode of +defence, the world has laughed and scoffed at the act of a people +professing to be free and defenders of freedom, and the recording angel +has written down the deed as a lawless act of violence and tyranny, from +which the man is happy who can call himself pure.</p> + +<p>With the usual rhetoric of the wrong side, the apologists for this mob +violence have wished to injure Mr. Clay by the epithets of "hot-headed," +"visionary," "fanatical." But, if any have believed that such could +apply to a man so<a name="page_328" id="page_328"></a> clear-sighted as to his objects and the way of +achieving them, the mistake must have been corrected on Monday night. +Whoever saw Mr. Clay that night, saw in him a man of deep and strong +nature, thoroughly in earnest, who had well considered his ground, and +saw that though open, as the truly <i>noble</i> must be, to new views and +convictions, yet his direction is taken, and the improvement to be made +will not be to turn aside, but to expedite and widen his course in that +direction. Mr. Clay is young, young enough, thank Heaven! to promise a +long career of great thoughts and honorable deeds. But still, to those +who esteem youth an unpardonable fault, and one that renders incapable +of counsel, we would say that he is at the age when a man is capable of +great thoughts and great deeds, if ever. His is not a character that +will ever grow old; it is not capable of a petty and short-sighted +prudence, but can only be guided by a large wisdom which is more young +than old, for it has within itself the springs of perpetual youth, and +which, being far-sighted and prophetical, joins ever with the progress +party without waiting till it be obviously in the ascendant.</p> + +<p>Mr. Clay has eloquence, but only from the soul. He does not possess the +art of oratory, as an art. Before he gets warmed he is too slow, and +breaks his sentences too much. His transitions are not made with skill, +nor is the structure of his speech, as a whole, symmetrical; yet, +throughout, his grasp is firm upon his subject, and all the words are +laden with the electricity of a strong mind and generous nature. When he +begins to glow, and his deep mellow eye fills with light, the speech +melts and glows too, and he is able to impress upon the hearer the full +effect of firm conviction, conceived with impassioned energy. His often +rugged and harsh emphasis flashes and sparkles then, and we feel that +there is in the furnace a stream of iron: iron, fortress of the nations +and victor of the seas, worth far more, in stress of storm, than all the +gold and gems of rhetoric.<a name="page_329" id="page_329"></a></p> + +<p>The great principle that he who wrongs one wrongs all, and that no part +can be wounded without endangering the whole, was the healthy root of +Mr. Clay's speech. The report does not do justice to the turn of +expression in some parts which were most characteristic. These, indeed, +depended much on the tones and looks of the speaker. We should speak of +them as full of a robust and homely sincerity, dignified by the heart of +the gentleman, a heart too secure of its respect for the rights of +others to need any of the usual interpositions. His good-humored +sarcasm, on occasion of several vulgar interruptions, was very pleasant, +and easily at those times might be recognized in him the man of heroical +nature, who can only show himself adequately in time of interruption and +of obstacle. If that be all that is wanted, we shall surely see him +wholly; there will be no lack of American occasions to call out the +Greek fire. We want them all—the Grecian men, who feel a godlike thirst +for immortal glory, and to develop the peculiar powers with which the +gods have gifted them. We want them all—the poet, the thinker, the +hero. Whether our heroes need <i>swords</i>, is a more doubtful point, we +think, than Mr. Clay believes. Neither do we believe in some of the +means he proposes to further his aims. God uses all kinds of means, but +men, his priests, must keep their hands pure. Nobody that needs a bribe +shall be asked to further our schemes for emancipation. But there is +room enough and time enough to think out these points till all is in +harmony. For the good that has been done and the truth that has been +spoken, for the love of such that has been seen in this great city +struggling up through the love of money, we should to-day be +thankful—and we are so.<a name="page_330" id="page_330"></a></p> + +<h2><a name="THE_MAGNOLIA_OF_LAKE_PONTCHARTRAIN" id="THE_MAGNOLIA_OF_LAKE_PONTCHARTRAIN"></a>THE MAGNOLIA OF LAKE PONTCHARTRAIN.</h2> + +<p>T<small>HE</small> stars tell all their secrets to the flowers, and, if we only knew +how to look around us, we should not need to look above. But man is a +plant of slow growth, and great heat is required to bring out his +leaves. He must be promised a boundless futurity, to induce him to use +aright the present hour. In youth, fixing his eyes on those distant +worlds of light, he promises himself to attain them, and there find the +answer to all his wishes. His eye grows keener as he gazes, a voice from +the earth calls it downward, and he finds all at his feet.</p> + +<p>I was riding on the shore of Lake Pontchartrain, musing on an old +English expression, which I had only lately learned to interpret. "He +was fulfilled of all nobleness." Words so significant charm us like a +spell, long before we know their meaning. This I had now learned to +interpret. Life had ripened from the green bud, and I had seen the +difference, wide as from earth to heaven, between nobleness and the +<i>fulfilment</i> of nobleness.</p> + +<p>A fragrance beyond any thing I had ever known came suddenly upon the +air, and interrupted my meditation. I looked around me, but saw no +flower from which it could proceed. There is no word for it; <i>exquisite</i> +and <i>delicious</i> have lost all meaning now. It was of a full and +penetrating sweetness, too keen and delicate to be cloying. Unable to +trace it, I rode on, but the remembrance of it pursued me. I had a +feeling that I must forever regret my loss, my want, if I did not return +and find the poet of the lake, whose voice was such perfume. In earlier +days, I might have disregarded<a name="page_331" id="page_331"></a> such a feeling; but now I have learned +to prize the monitions of my nature as they deserve, and learn sometimes +what is not for sale in the market place. So I turned back, and rode to +and fro, at the risk of abandoning the object of my ride.</p> + +<p>I found her at last, the queen of the south, singing to herself in her +lonely bower. Such should a sovereign be, most regal when alone; for +then there is no disturbance to prevent the full consciousness of power. +All occasions limit; a kingdom is but an occasion; and no sun ever saw +itself adequately reflected on sea or land.</p> + +<p>Nothing at the south had affected me like the magnolia. Sickness and +sorrow, which have separated me from my kind, have requited my loss by +making known to me the loveliest dialect of the divine language. +"Flowers," it has been truly said, "are the only positive present made +us by nature." Man has not been ungrateful, but consecrated the gift to +adorn the darkest and brightest hours. If it is ever perverted, it is to +be used as a medicine; and even this vexes me. But no matter for that. +We have pure intercourse with these purest creations; we love them for +their own sake, for their beauty's sake. As we grow beautiful and pure, +we understand them better. With me knowledge of them is a circumstance, +a habit of my life, rather than a merit. I have lived with them, and +with them almost alone, till I have learned to interpret the slightest +signs by which they manifest their fair thoughts. There is not a flower +in my native region which has not for me a tale, to which every year is +adding new incidents; yet the growths of this new climate brought me new +and sweet emotions, and, above all others, was the magnolia a +revelation. When I first beheld her, a stately tower of verdure, each +cup, an imperial vestal, full-displayed to the eye of day, yet guarded +from the too hasty touch even of the wind by its graceful decorums of +firm, glistening, broad, green leaves, I stood astonished, as might a +lover of music, who, after<a name="page_332" id="page_332"></a> hearing in all his youth only the harp or +the bugle, should be saluted, on entering some vast cathedral, by the +full peal of its organ.</p> + +<p>After I had recovered from my first surprise, I became acquainted with +the flower, and found all its life in harmony. Its fragrance, less +enchanting than that of the rose, excited a pleasure more full of life, +and which could longer be enjoyed without satiety. Its blossoms, if +plucked from their home, refused to retain their dazzling hue, but +drooped and grew sallow, like princesses captive in the prison of a +barbarous foe.</p> + +<p>But there was something quite peculiar in the fragrance of this tree; so +much so, that I had not at first recognized the magnolia. Thinking it +must be of a species I had never yet seen, I alighted, and leaving my +horse, drew near to question it with eyes of reverent love.</p> + +<p>"Be not surprised," replied those lips of untouched purity, "stranger, +who alone hast known to hear in my voice a tone more deep and full than +that of my beautiful sisters. Sit down, and listen to my tale, nor fear +that I will overpower thee by too much sweetness. I am, indeed, of the +race you love, but in it I stand alone. In my family I have no sister of +the heart, and though my root is the same as that of the other virgins +of our royal house, I bear not the same blossom, nor can I unite my +voice with theirs in the forest choir. Therefore I dwell here alone, nor +did I ever expect to tell the secret of my loneliness. But to all that +ask there is an answer, and I speak to thee.</p> + +<p>"Indeed, we have met before, as that secret feeling of home, which makes +delight so tender, must inform thee. The spirit that I utter once +inhabited the glory of the most glorious climates. I dwelt once in the +orange tree."</p> + +<p>"Ah?" said I; "then I did not mistake. It is the same voice I heard in +the saddest season of my youth. I stood one evening on a high terrace in +another land, the land where 'the plant man has grown to greatest size.' +It was an<a name="page_333" id="page_333"></a> evening whose unrivalled splendor demanded perfection in +man—answering to that he found in nature—a sky 'black-blue' deep as +eternity, stars of holiest hope, a breeze promising rapture in every +breath. I could not longer endure this discord between myself and such +beauty; I retired within my window, and lit the lamp. Its rays fell on +an orange tree, full clad in its golden fruit and bridal blossoms. How +did we talk together then, fairest friend! Thou didst tell me all; and +yet thou knowest, that even then, had I asked any part of thy dower, it +would have been to bear the sweet fruit, rather than the sweeter +blossoms. My wish had been expressed by another.</p> + +<p class="poem"> +'O, that I were an orange tree,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">That busy plant!</span><br /> +Then should I ever laden he,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">And never want</span><br /> +Some fruit for him that dresseth me.'<br /> +</p> + +<p class="nind">Thou didst seem to me the happiest of all spirits in wealth of nature, +in fulness of utterance. How is it that I find thee now in another +habitation?"</p> + +<p>"How is it, man, that thou art now content that thy life bears no golden +fruit?"</p> + +<p>"It is," I replied, "that I have at last, through privation, been +initiated into the secret of peace. Blighted without, unable to find +myself in other forms of nature, I was driven back upon the centre of my +being, and there found all being. For the wise, the obedient child from +one point can draw all lines, and in one germ read all the possible +disclosures of successive life."</p> + +<p>"Even so," replied the flower, "and ever for that reason am I trying to +simplify my being. How happy I was in the 'spirit's dower when first it +was wed,' I told thee in that earlier day. But after a while I grew +weary of that fulness of speech; I felt a shame at telling all I knew, +and challenging all sympathies; I was never silent, I was never alone; +I<a name="page_334" id="page_334"></a> had a voice for every season, for day and night; on me the merchant +counted, the bride looked to me for her garland, the nobleman for the +chief ornament of his princely hair, and the poor man for his wealth; +all sang my praises, all extolled my beauty, all blessed my beneficence; +and, for a while, my heart swelled with pride and pleasure. But, as +years passed, my mood changed. The lonely moon rebuked me, as she hid +from the wishes of man, nor would return till her due change was passed. +The inaccessible sun looked on me with the same ray as on all others; my +endless profusion could not bribe him to one smile sacred to me alone. +The mysterious wind passed me by to tell its secret to the solemn pine, +and the nightingale sang to the rose rather than me, though she was +often silent, and buried herself yearly in the dark earth.</p> + +<p>"I knew no mine or thine: I belonged to all. I could never rest: I was +never at one. Painfully I felt this want, and from every blossom sighed +entreaties for some being to come and satisfy it. With every bud I +implored an answer, but each bud only produced an orange.</p> + +<p>"At last this feeling grew more painful, and thrilled my very root. The +earth trembled at the touch with a pulse so sympathetic that ever and +anon it seemed, could I but retire and hide in that silent bosom for one +calm winter, all would be told me, and tranquillity, deep as my desire, +be mine. But the law of my being was on me, and man and nature seconded +it. Ceaselessly they called on me for my beautiful gifts; they decked +themselves with them, nor cared to know the saddened heart of the giver. +O, how cruel they seemed at last, as they visited and despoiled me, yet +never sought to aid me, or even paused to think that I might need their +aid! yet I would not hate them. I saw it was my seeming riches that +bereft me of sympathy. I saw they could not know what was hid beneath +the perpetual veil of glowing life. I ceased to expect aught from them, +and turned my eyes to the distant stars. I thought, could I but hoard +from the daily expenditure of my juices till I grew tall enough, I might +reach those distant<a name="page_335" id="page_335"></a> spheres, which looked so silent and consecrated, +and there pause a while from these weary joys of endless life, and in +the lap of winter find my spring.</p> + +<p>"But not so was my hope to be fulfilled. One starlight night I was +looking, hoping, when a sudden breeze came up. It touched me, I thought, +as if it were a cold, white beam from those stranger worlds. The cold +gained upon my heart; every blossom trembled, every leaf grew brittle, +and the fruit began to seem unconnected with the stem; soon I lost all +feeling; and morning found the pride of the garden black, stiff, and +powerless.</p> + +<p>"As the rays of the morning sun touched me, consciousness returned, and +I strove to speak, but in vain. Sealed were my fountains, and all my +heartbeats still. I felt that I had been that beauteous tree, but now +only was—what—I knew not; yet I was, and the voices of men said, It is +dead; cast it forth, and plant another in the costly vase. A mystic +shudder of pale joy then separated me wholly from my former abode.</p> + +<p>"A moment more, and I was before the queen and guardian of the flowers. +Of this being I cannot speak to thee in any language now possible +betwixt us; for this is a being of another order from thee, an order +whose presence thou mayst feel, nay, approach step by step, but which +cannot be known till thou art of it, nor seen nor spoken of till thou +hast passed through it.</p> + +<p>"Suffice it to say, that it is not such a being as men love to paint; a +fairy, like them, only lesser and more exquisite than they; a goddess, +larger and of statelier proportion; an angel, like still, only with an +added power. Man never creates; he only recombines the lines and colors +of his own existence: only a deific fancy could evolve from the elements +the form that took me home.</p> + +<p>"Secret, radiant, profound ever, and never to be known, was she; many +forms indicate, and none declare her. Like all such beings, she was +feminine. All the secret powers are "mothers." There is but one paternal +power.<a name="page_336" id="page_336"></a></p> + +<p>"She had heard my wish while I looked at the stars, and in the silence +of fate prepared its fulfilment. 'Child of my most communicative hour,' +said she, 'the full pause must not follow such a burst of melody. Obey +the gradations of nature, nor seek to retire at once into her utmost +purity of silence. The vehemence of thy desire at once promises and +forbids its gratification. Thou wert the keystone of the arch, and bound +together the circling year: thou canst not at once become the base of +the arch, the centre of the circle. Take a step inward, forget a voice, +lose a power; no longer a bounteous sovereign, become a vestal +priestess, and bide thy time in the magnolia.'</p> + +<p>"Such is my history, friend of my earlier day. Others of my family, that +you have met, were formerly the religious lily, the lonely dahlia, +fearless decking the cold autumn, and answering the shortest visits of +the sun with the brightest hues; the narcissus, so rapt in +self-contemplation that it could not abide the usual changes of a life. +Some of these have perfume, others not, according to the habit of their +earlier state; for, as spirits change, they still bear some trace, a +faint reminder, of their latest step upwards or inwards. I still speak +with somewhat of my former exuberance and over-ready tenderness to the +dwellers on this shore; but each star sees me purer, of deeper thought, +and more capable of retirement into my own heart. Nor shall I again +detain a wanderer, luring him from afar; nor shall I again subject +myself to be questioned by an alien spirit, to tell the tale of my being +in words that divide it from itself. Farewell, stranger! and believe +that nothing strange can meet me more. I have atoned by confession; +further penance needs not; and I feel the Infinite possess me more and +more. Farewell! to meet again in prayer, in destiny, in harmony, in +elemental power."</p> + +<p>The magnolia left me; I left not her, but must abide forever in the +thought to which the clew was found in the margin of that lake of the +South.<a name="page_337" id="page_337"></a></p> + +<h2><a name="CONSECRATION_OF_GRACE_CHURCH" id="CONSECRATION_OF_GRACE_CHURCH"></a>CONSECRATION OF GRACE CHURCH.</h2> + +<p>W<small>HOEVER</small> passes up Broadway finds his attention arrested by three fine +structures—Trinity Church, that of the Messiah, and Grace Church.</p> + +<p>His impressions are, probably, at first, of a pleasant character. He +looks upon these edifices as expressions, which, however inferior in +grandeur to the poems in stone which adorn the older world, surely +indicate that man cannot rest content with his short earthly span, but +prizes relations to eternity. The house in which he pays deference to +claims which death will not cancel seems to be no less important in his +eyes than those in which the affairs which press nearest are attended +to.</p> + +<p>So far, so good! That is expressed which gives man his superiority over +the other orders of the natural world, that consciousness of spiritual +affinities of which we see no unequivocal signs elsewhere.</p> + +<p>But, if this be something great when compared with the rest of the +animal creation, yet how little seems it when compared with the ideal +that has been offered to him, as to the means of signifying such +feelings! These temples! how far do they correspond with the idea of +that religious sentiment from which they originally sprung? In the old +world the history of such edifices, though not without its shadow, had +many bright lines. Kings and emperors paid oftentimes for the materials +and labor a price of blood and plunder, and many a wretched sinner +sought by contributions of stone for their walls to roll off the burden +he had laid on his conscience. Still the community amid which they rose +knew little of these drawbacks.<a name="page_338" id="page_338"></a> Pious legends attest the purity of +feeling associated with each circumstance of their building. Mysterious +orders, of which we know only that they were consecrated to brotherly +love and the development of mind, produced the genius which animated the +architecture; but the casting of the bells and suspending them in the +tower was an act in which all orders of the community took part; for +when those cathedrals were consecrated, it was for the use of all. Rich +and poor knelt together upon their marble pavements, and the imperial +altar welcomed the obscurest artisan.</p> + +<p>This grace our churches want—the grace which belongs to all religions, +but is peculiarly and solemnly enforced upon the followers of Jesus. The +poor to whom he came to preach can have no share in the grace of Grace +Church. In St. Peter's, if only as an empty form, the soiled feet of +travel-worn disciples are washed; but such feet can never intrude on the +fane of the holy Trinity here in republican America, and the Messiah may +be supposed still to give as excuse for delay, "The poor you always have +with you."</p> + +<p>We must confess this circumstance is to us quite destructive of +reverence and value for these buildings.</p> + +<p>We are told, that at the late consecration, the claims of the poor were +eloquently urged; and that an effort is to be made, by giving a side +chapel, to atone for the luxury which shuts them out from the reflection +of sunshine through those brilliant windows. It is certainly better that +they should be offered the crumbs from the rich man's table than nothing +at all, yet it is surely not <i>the</i> way that Jesus would have taught to +provide for the poor.</p> + +<p>Would we not then have these splendid edifices erected? We certainly +feel that the educational influence of good specimens of architecture +(and we know no other argument in their favor) is far from being a +counterpoise to the abstraction of so much money from purposes that +would be more in fulfilment of that Christian idea which these assume to +represent<a name="page_339" id="page_339"></a> Were the rich to build such a church, and, dispensing with +pews and all exclusive advantages, invite all who would to come in to +the banquet, that were, indeed, noble and Christian. And, though we +believe more, for our nation and time, in intellectual monuments than +those of wood and stone, and, in opposition even to our admired Powers, +think that Michael Angelo himself could have advised no more suitable +monument to Washington than a house devoted to the instruction of the +people, and think that great master, and the Greeks no less, would agree +with us if they lived now to survey all the bearings of the subject, yet +we would not object to these splendid churches, if the idea of Him they +call Master were represented in them. But till it is, they can do no +good, for the means are not in harmony with the end. The rich man sits +in state while "near two hundred thousand" Lazaruses linger, unprovided +for, without the gate. While this is so, they must not talk much, +within, of Jesus of Nazareth, who called to him fishermen, laborers, and +artisans, for his companions and disciples.</p> + +<p>We find some excellent remarks on this subject from Rev. Stephen Olin, +president of the Wesleyan University. They are appended as a note to a +discourse addressed to young men, on the text, "Put ye on the Lord Jesus +Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts +thereof."</p> + +<p>This discourse, though it discloses formal and external views of +religions ties and obligations, is dignified by a fervent, generous love +for men, and a more than commonly catholic liberality; and though these +remarks are made and meant to bear upon the interests of his own sect, +yet they are anti-sectarian in their tendency, and worthy the +consideration of all anxious to understand the call of duty in these +matters. Earnest attention of this sort will better avail than fifteen +hundred dollars, or more, paid for a post of exhibition in a fashionable +church, where, if piety be provided with one chance, worldliness has +twenty to stare it out of countenance.<a name="page_340" id="page_340"></a></p> + +<p>"The strong tendency in our religious operations to gather the rich and +the poor into separate folds, and so to generate and establish in the +church distinctions utterly at variance with the spirit of our political +institutions, is the very worst result of the multiplication of sects +among us; and I fear it must be admitted that the evil is greatly +aggravated by the otherwise benignant working of the voluntary system. +Without insisting further upon the probable or possible injury which may +befall our free country from this conflict of agencies, ever the most +powerful in the formation of national and individual character, no one, +I am sure, can fail to recognize in this development an influence +utterly and irreconcilably hostile to the genius and cherished objects +of Christianity. It is the peculiar glory of the gospel that, even under +the most arbitrary governments, it has usually been able to vindicate +and practically exemplify the essential equality of man. It has had one +doctrine and one hope for all its children; and the highest and the +lowest have been constrained to acknowledge one holy law of brotherhood +in the common faith of which they are made partakers. Nowhere else, I +believe, but in the United States—certainly nowhere else to the same +extent—does this anti-Christian separation of classes prevail in the +Christian church. The beggar in his tattered vestments walks the +splendid courts of St. Peter's, and kneels at its costly altars by the +side of dukes and cardinals. The peasant in his wooden shoes is welcomed +in the gorgeous churches of Notre Dame and the Madeleine; and even in +England, where political and social distinctions are more rigorously +enforced than in any other country on earth, the lord and the peasant, +the richest and the poorest, are usually occupants of the same church, +and partakers of the same communion. That the reverse of all this is +true in many parts of this country, every observing man knows full well; +and what is yet more deplorable, while the lines of demarcation between +the different classes have already become sufficiently distinct, the +tendency is receiving new<a name="page_341" id="page_341"></a> strength and development in a rapidly +augmenting ratio. Even in country places, where the population is +sparse, and the artificial distinctions of society are little known, the +working of this strange element is, in many instances, made manifest, +and a petty coterie of village magnates may be found worshipping God +apart from the body of the people. But the evil is much more apparent, +as well as more deeply seated, in our populous towns, where the causes +which produce it have been longer in operation, and have more fully +enjoyed the favor of circumstances. In these great centres of wealth, +intelligence, and influence, the separation between the classes is, in +many instances, complete, and in many more the process is rapidly +progressive.</p> + +<p>"There are crowded religious congregations composed so exclusively of +the wealthy as scarcely to embrace an indigent family or individual; and +the number of such churches, where the gospel is never preached to the +poor, is constantly increasing. Rich men, instead of associating +themselves with their more humble fellow-Christians, where their money +as well as their influence and counsels are so much needed, usually +combine to erect magnificent churches, in which sittings are too +expensive for any but people of fortune, and from which their +less-favored brethren are as effectually and peremptorily excluded as if +there were dishonor or contagion in their presence. A congregation is +thus constituted, able, without the slightest inconvenience, to bear the +pecuniary burdens of twenty churches, monopolizing and consigning to +comparative inactivity intellectual, moral, and material resources, for +want of which so many other congregations are doomed to struggle with +the most embarrassing difficulties. Can it for a moment be thought that +such a state of things is desirable, or in harmony with the spirit and +design of the gospel?</p> + +<p>"A more difficult question arises when we inquire after a remedy for +evils too glaring to be overlooked, and too grave to be tolerated, +without an effort to palliate, if not to remove<a name="page_342" id="page_342"></a> them. The most obvious +palliative, and one which has already been tried to some extent by +wealthy churches or individuals, is the erection of free places of +worship for the poor. Such a provision for this class of persons would +be more effectual in any other part of the world than in the United +States. Whether it arises from the operation of our political system, or +from the easy attainment of at least the prime necessaries of life, the +poorer classes here are characterized by a proud spirit, which will not +submit to receive even the highest benefits in any form that implies +inferiority or dependence. This strong and prevalent feeling must +continue to interpose serious obstacles in the way of these laudable +attempts. If in a few instances churches for the poor have succeeded in +our large cities, where the theory of social equality is so imperfectly +realized in the actual condition of the people, and where the presence +of a multitude of indigent foreigners tends to lower the sentiment of +independence so strong in native-born Americans, the system is yet +manifestly incapable of general application to the religious wants of +our population. The same difficulty usually occurs in all attempts to +induce the humbler classes to worship with the rich in sumptuous +churches, by reserving for their benefit a portion of the sittings free, +or at a nominal rent. A few only can be found who are willing to be +recognized and provided for as beneficiaries and paupers, while the +multitude will always prefer to make great sacrifices in order to +provide for themselves in some humbler fane. It must be admitted that +this subject is beset with practical difficulties, which are not likely +to be removed speedily, or without some great and improbable revolution +in our religious affairs. Yet if the respectable Christian denominations +most concerned in the subject shall pursue a wise and liberal policy for +the future, something may be done to check the evil. They may retard its +rapid growth, perhaps, though it will most likely be found impossible to +eradicate it altogether. It ought to be well understood, that the +multiplication of magnificent<a name="page_343" id="page_343"></a> churches is daily making the line of +demarcation between the rich and the poor more and more palpable and +impassable. There are many good reasons for the erection of such +edifices. Increasing wealth and civilization seem to call for a liberal +and tasteful outlay in behalf of religion; yet is it the dictate of +prudence no less than of duty to balance carefully the good and the evil +of every enterprise. It should ever be kept in mind, that such a church +virtually writes above its sculptured portals an irrevocable prohibition +to the poor—'<i>Procul, O procul este profani</i>.'"<a name="page_344" id="page_344"></a></p> + +<h2><a name="LATE_ASPIRATIONS" id="LATE_ASPIRATIONS"></a>LATE ASPIRATIONS.<br /><br /> +<span class="smcap">Letter to H——.</span></h2> + +<p>Y<small>OU</small> have put to me that case which puzzles more than almost any in this +strange world—the case of a man of good intentions, with natural powers +sufficient to carry them out, who, after having through great part of a +life lived the best he knew, and, in the world's eye, lived admirably +well, suddenly wakes to a consciousness of the soul's true aims. He +finds that he has been a good son, husband, and father, an adroit man of +business, respected by all around him, without ever having advanced one +step in the life of the soul. His object has not been the development of +his immortal being, nor has this been developed; all he has done bears +upon the present life only, and even that in a way poor and limited, +since no deep fountain of intellect or feeling has ever been unsealed +for him. Now that his eyes are opened, he sees what communion is +possible; what incorruptible riches may be accumulated by the man of +true wisdom. But why is the hour of clear vision so late deferred? He +cannot blame himself for his previous blindness. His eyes were holden +that he saw not. He lived as well as he knew how.</p> + +<p>And now that he would fain give himself up to the new oracle in his +bosom, and to the inspirations of nature, all his old habits, all his +previous connections, are unpropitious. He is bound by a thousand chains +which press on him so as to leave no moment free. And perhaps it seems +to him that, were he free, he should but feel the more forlorn. He sees<a name="page_345" id="page_345"></a> +the charm and nobleness of this new life, but knows not how to live it. +It is an element to which his mental frame has not been trained. He +knows not what to do to-day or to-morrow; how to stay by himself, or how +to meet others; how to act, or how to rest. Looking on others who chose +the path which now invites him at an age when their characters were yet +plastic, and the world more freely opened before them, he deems them +favored children, and cries in almost despairing sadness, Why, O Father +of Spirits, didst thou not earlier enlighten me also? Why was I not led +gently by the hand in the days of my youth? "And what," you ask, "could +I reply?"</p> + +<p>Much, much, dear H——, were this a friend whom I could see so often +that his circumstances would be my text. For no subject has more engaged +my thoughts, no difficulty is more frequently met. But now on this poor +sheet I can only give you the clew to what I should say.</p> + +<p>In the first place, the depth of the despair must be caused by the +mistaken idea that this our present life is all the time allotted to man +for the education of his nature for that state of consummation which is +called heaven. Were it seen that this present is only one little link in +the long chain of probations; were it felt that the Divine Justice is +pledged to give the aspirations of the soul all the time they require +for their fulfilment; were it recognized that disease, old age, and +death are circumstances which can never touch the eternal youth of the +spirit; that though the "plant man" grows more or less fair in hue and +stature, according to the soil in which it is planted, yet the +principle, which is the life of the plant, will not be defeated, but +must scatter its seeds again and again, till it does at last come to +perfect flower,—then would he, who is pausing to despair, realize that +a new choice can never be too late, that false steps made in ignorance +can never be counted by the All-Wise, and that, though a moment's delay +against conviction is of incalculable weight<a name="page_346" id="page_346"></a> the mistakes of forty +years are but as dust on the balance held by an unerring hand. Despair +is for time, hope for eternity.</p> + +<p>Then he who looks at all at the working of the grand principle of +compensation which holds all nature in equipoise, cannot long remain a +stranger to the meaning of the beautiful parable of the prodigal son, +and the joy over finding the one lost piece of silver. It is no +arbitrary kindness, no generosity of the ruling powers, which causes +that there be more joy in heaven over the one that returns, than over +ninety and nine that never strayed. It is the inevitable working of a +spiritual law that he who has been groping in darkness must feel the +light most keenly, best know how to prize it—he who has long been +exiled from the truth seize it with the most earnest grasp, live in it +with the deepest joy. It was after descending to the very pit of sorrow, +that our Elder Brother was permitted to ascend to the Father, who +perchance said to the angels who had dwelt always about the throne, Ye +are always with me, and all that I have is yours; but this is my Son; he +has been into a far country, but could not there abide, and has +returned. But if any one say, "I know not how to return," I should still +use words from the same record: "Let him arise and go to his Father." +Let him put his soul into that state of simple, fervent desire for truth +alone, truth for its own sake, which is prayer, and not only the sight +of truth, but the way to make it living, shall be shown. Obstacles, +insuperable to the intellect of any adviser, shall melt away like +frostwork before a ray from the celestial sun. The Father may hide his +face for a time, till the earnestness of the suppliant child be proved; +but he is not far from any that seek, and when he does resolve to make a +revelation, will show not only the <i>what</i>, but the <i>how</i>; and none else +can advise or aid the seeking soul, except by just observation on some +matter of detail.<a name="page_347" id="page_347"></a></p> + +<p>In this path, as in the downward one, must there be the first step that +decides the whole—one sacrifice of the temporal for the eternal day is +the grain of mustard seed which may give birth to a tree large enough to +make a home for the sweetest singing birds. One moment of deep truth in +life, of choosing not merely honesty, but purity, may leaven the whole +mass.<a name="page_348" id="page_348"></a></p> + +<h2><a name="FRAGMENTARY_THOUGHTS_FROM_MARGARET_FULLERS_JOURNAL" id="FRAGMENTARY_THOUGHTS_FROM_MARGARET_FULLERS_JOURNAL"></a>FRAGMENTARY THOUGHTS FROM MARGARET FULLER'S JOURNAL.</h2> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry"> +<tr><td align="left">I gave the world the fruit of earlier hours:</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">O Solitude! reward me with some flowers;</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Or if their odorous bloom thou dost deny,</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Rain down some meteors from the winter sky!</td></tr> +</table> + +<p><i>Poesy.</i>—The expression of the sublime and beautiful, whether in +measured words or in the fine arts. The human mind, apprehending the +harmony of the universe, and making new combinations by its laws.</p> + +<p> </p> + +<p><i>Poetry.</i>—The sublime and beautiful expressed in measured language. It +is closely allied with the fine arts. It should sing to the ear, paint +to the eye, and exhibit the symmetry of architecture. If perfect, it +will satisfy the intellectual and moral faculties no less than the heart +and the senses. It works chiefly by simile and melody. It is to prose as +the garden to the house. Pleasure is the object of the one, convenience +of the other. The flowers and fruits may be copied on the furniture of +the house, but if their beauty be not subordinated to utility, they lose +the charm of beauty, and degenerate into finery. The reverse is the case +in the garden.</p> + +<p> </p> + +<p><i>Nature.</i>—I would praise alike the soft gray and brown which soothed my +eye erewhile, and the snowy fretwork which now decks the forest aisles. +Every ripple in the snowy fields, every grass and fern which raises its +petrified delicacy above them, seems to me to claim a voice. A voice! +Canst thou not silently adore, but must needs be doing? Art thou too +good to wait as a beggar at the door of the great temple?<a name="page_349" id="page_349"></a></p> + +<p><i>Woman—Man.</i>—Woman is the flower, man the bee. She sighs out melodious +fragrance, and invites the winged laborer. He drains her cup, and +carries off the honey. She dies on the stalk; he returns to the hive, +well fed, and praised as an active member of the community.</p> + +<p> </p> + +<p><i>Action symbolical of what is within.</i>—Gœthe says, "I have learned +to consider all I do as symbolical,—so that it now matters little to me +whether I make plates or dishes." And further, he says, "All manly +effort goes from within outwards."</p> + +<p> </p> + +<p><i>Opportunity fleeting.</i>—I held in my hand the cup. It was full of hot +liquid. The air was cold; I delayed to drink, and its vital heat, its +soul, curled upwards in delicatest wreaths. I looked delighted on their +beauty; but while I waited, the essence of the draught was wasted on the +cold air: it would not wait for me; it longed too much to utter itself: +and when my lip was ready, only a flat, worthless sediment remained of +what had been.</p> + +<p> </p> + +<p><i>Mingling of the heavenly with the earthly.</i>—The son of the gods has +sold his birthright. He has received in exchange one, not merely the +fairest, but the sweetest and holiest of earth's daughters. Yet is it +not a fit exchange. His pinions droop powerless; he must no longer soar +amid the golden stars. No matter, he thinks; "I will take her to some +green and flowery isle; I will pay the penalty of Adam for the sake of +the daughter of Eve; I will make the earth fruitful by the sweat of my +brow. No longer my hands shall bear the coal to the lips of the inspired +singer—no longer my voice modulate its tones to the accompaniment of +spheral harmonies. My hands now lift the clod of the valley which dares +cling to them with brotherly familiarity. And for my soiling, dreary +task-work all the day, I receive—food.<a name="page_350" id="page_350"></a></p> + +<p>"But the smile with which she receives me at set of sun, is it not worth +all that sun has seen me endure? Can angelic delights surpass those +which I possess, when, facing the shore with her, watched by the quiet +moon, we listen to the tide of the world surging up impatiently against +the Eden it cannot conquer? Truly the joys of heaven were gregarious and +low in comparison. This, this alone, is exquisite, because exclusive and +peculiar."</p> + +<p>Ah, seraph! but the winter's frost must nip thy vine; a viper lurks +beneath the flowers to sting the foot of thy child, and pale decay must +steal over the cheek thou dost adore. In the realm of ideas all was +imperishable. Be blest while thou canst. I love thee, fallen seraph, but +thou shouldst not have sold thy birthright.</p> + +<p>"All for love and the world well lost." That sounds so true! But genius, +when it sells itself, gives up, not only the world, but the universe.</p> + +<p>Yet does not love comprehend the universe? The universe is love. Why +should I weary my eye with scanning the parts, when I can clasp the +whole this moment to my beating heart?</p> + +<p>But if the intellect be repressed, the idea will never be brought out +from the feeling. The amaranth wreath will in thy grasp be changed to +one of roses, more fragrant indeed, but withering with a single sun!</p> + +<p> </p> + +<p><i>The Crisis with Gœthe.</i>—I have thought much whether Gœthe did +well in giving up Lili. That was the crisis in his existence. From that +era dates his being as a "Weltweise;" the heroic element vanished +irrecoverably from his character; he became an Epicurean and a Realist; +plucking flowers and hammering stones instead of looking at the stars. +How could he look through the blinds, and see her sitting alone in her +beauty, yet give her up for so slight reasons? He was right as a genius, +but wrong as a character.<a name="page_351" id="page_351"></a></p> + +<p> </p> + +<p><i>The Flower and the Pearl.</i>—— has written wonders about the mystery of +personality. Why do we love it? In the first place, each wishes to +embrace a whole, and this seems the readiest way. The intellect soars, +the heart clasps; from putting "a girdle round about the earth in forty +minutes," thou wouldst return to thy own little green isle of emotion, +and be the loving and playful fay, rather than the delicate Ariel.</p> + +<p>Then most persons are plants, organic. We can predict their growth +according to their own law. From the young girl we can predict the +lustre, the fragrance of the future flower. It waves gracefully to the +breeze, the dew rests upon its petals, the bee busies himself in them, +and flies away after a brief rapture, richly laden.</p> + +<p>When it fades, its leaves fall softly on the bosom of Mother Earth, to +all whose feelings it has so closely conformed. It has lived as a part +of nature; its life was music, and we open our hearts to the melody.</p> + +<p>But characters like thine and mine are mineral. We are the bone and +sinew, these the smiles and glances, of earth. We lie nearer the mighty +heart, and boast an existence more enduring than they. The sod lies +heavy on us, or, if we show ourselves, the melancholy moss clings to us. +If we are to be made into palaces and temples, we must be hewn and +chiselled by instruments of unsparing sharpness. The process is +mechanical and unpleasing; the noises which accompany it, discordant and +obtrusive; the artist is surrounded with rubbish. Yet we may be polished +to marble smoothness. In our veins may lie the diamond, the ruby, +perhaps the emblematic carbuncle.</p> + +<p>The flower is pressed to the bosom with intense emotion, but in the home +of love it withers and is cast away.</p> + +<p>The gem is worn with less love, but with more pride; if we enjoy its +sparkle, the joy is partly from calculation of its value; but if it be +lost, we regret it long.<a name="page_352" id="page_352"></a></p> + +<p>For myself, my name is Pearl.<a name="FNanchor_42_42" id="FNanchor_42_42"></a><a href="#Footnote_42_42" class="fnanchor">[42]</a> That lies at the beginning, amid slime +and foul prodigies from which only its unsightly shell protects. It is +cradled and brought to its noblest state amid disease and decay. Only +the experienced diver could have known that it was there, and brought it +to the strand, where it is valued as pure, round, and, if less brilliant +than the diamond, yet an ornament for a kingly head. Were it again +immersed in the element where first it dwelt, now that it is stripped of +the protecting shell, soon would it blacken into deformity. So what is +noblest in my soul has sprung from disease, present defeat, +disappointment, and untoward outward circumstance.</p> + +<p>For you, I presume, from your want of steady light and brilliancy of +sparks which are occasionally struck from you, that you are either a +flint or a rough diamond. If the former, I hope you will find a home in +some friendly tinder-box, instead of lying in the highway to answer the +hasty hoof of the trampling steed. If a diamond, I hope to meet you in +some imperishable crown, where we may long remain together; you lighting +up my pallid orb, I tempering your blaze.</p> + +<p><i>Dried Ferns about my Lamp-shade.</i>—"What pleasure do you, who have +exiled those paper tissue covers, take in that bouquet of dried ferns? +Their colors are less bright, and their shapes less graceful, than those +of your shades."</p> + +<p>I answer, "They grew beneath the solemn pines. They opened their hearts +to the smile of summer, and answered to the sigh of autumn. <i>They</i> +remind me of the wealth of nature; the tissues, of the poverty of man. +They were gathered by a cherished friend who worships in the woods, and +behind them lurks a deep, enthusiastic eye. So my pleasure in seeing +them is 'denkende' and 'menschliche.'"</p> + +<p>"They are of no use."</p> + +<p>"Good! I like useless things: they are to me the vouchers of a different +state of existence."<a name="page_353" id="page_353"></a></p> + +<p> </p> + +<p><i>Light.</i>—My lamp says to me, "Why do you disdain me, and use that +candle, which you have the trouble of snuffing every five minutes, and +which ever again grows dim, ungrateful for your care? I would burn +steadily from sunset to midnight, and be your faithful, vigilant friend, +yet never interrupt you an instant."</p> + +<p>I reply, "But your steady light is also dull,—while his, at its best, +is both brilliant and mellow. Besides, I love him for the trouble he +gives; he calls on my sympathy, and admonishes me constantly to use my +life, which likewise flickers as if near the socket."</p> + +<p> </p> + +<p><i>Wit and Satire.</i>—I cannot endure people who do not distinguish between +wit and satire; who think you, of course, laugh at people when you laugh +<i>about</i> them; and who have no perception of the peculiar pleasure +derived from toying with lovely or tragic figures.<a name="page_354" id="page_354"></a></p> + +<h2><a name="FAREWELL43" id="FAREWELL43"></a>FAREWELL.<a name="FNanchor_43_43" id="FNanchor_43_43"></a><a href="#Footnote_43_43" class="fnanchor">[43]</a></h2> + +<p>F<small>AREWELL</small> to New York city, where twenty months have presented me with a +richer and more varied exercise for thought and life, than twenty years +could in any other part of these United States.</p> + +<p>It is the common remark about New York, that it has at least nothing +petty or provincial in its methods and habits. The place is large +enough: there is room enough, and occupation enough, for men to have no +need or excuse for small cavils or scrutinies. A person who is +independent, and knows what he wants, may lead his proper life here, +unimpeded by others.</p> + +<p>Vice and crime, if flagrant and frequent, are less thickly coated by +hypocrisy than elsewhere. The air comes sometimes to the most infected +subjects.</p> + +<p>New York is the focus, the point where American and European interests +converge. There is no topic of general interest to men, that will not +betimes be brought before the thinker by the quick turning of the wheel.</p> + +<p><i>Too</i> quick that revolution,—some object. Life rushes wide and free, +but <i>too fast</i>. Yet it is in the power of every one to avert from +himself the evil that accompanies the good. He must build for his study, +as did the German poet, a house beneath the bridge; and then all that +passes above and by him will be heard and seen, but he will not be +carried away with it.</p> + +<p>Earlier views have been confirmed, and many new ones<a name="page_355" id="page_355"></a> opened. On two +great leadings, the superlative importance of promoting national +education by heightening and deepening the cultivation of individual +minds, and the part which is assigned to woman in the next stage of +human progress in this country, where most important achievements are to +be effected, I have received much encouragement, much instruction, and +the fairest hopes of more.</p> + +<p>On various subjects of minor importance, no less than these, I hope for +good results, from observation, with my own eyes, of life in the old +world, and to bring home some packages of seed for life in the new.</p> + +<p>These words I address to my friends, for I feel that I have some. The +degree of sympathetic response to the thoughts and suggestions I have +offered through the columns of the Tribune, has indeed surprised me, +conscious as I am of a natural and acquired aloofness from many, if not +most popular tendencies of my time and place. It has greatly encouraged +me, for none can sympathize with thoughts like mine, who are permanently +insnared in the meshes of sect or party; none who prefer the formation +and advancement of mere opinions to the free pursuit of truth. I see, +surely, that the topmost bubble or sparkle of the cup is no voucher for +the nature of its contents throughout, and shall, in future, feel that +in our age, nobler in that respect than most of the preceding ages, each +sincere and fervent act or word is secure, not only of a final, but of a +speedy response.</p> + +<p>I go to behold the wonders of art, and the temples of old religion. But +I shall see no forms of beauty and majesty beyond what my country is +capable of producing in myriad variety, if she has but the soul to will +it; no temple to compare with what she might erect in the ages, if the +catchword of the time, a sense of <i>divine order</i>, should become no more +a mere word of form, but a deeply-rooted and pregnant idea in her life. +Beneath the light of a hope that this may be, I say to my friends once +more a kind farewell!</p> + +<p><a name="page_356" id="page_356"></a></p> + +<p><a name="page_357" id="page_357"></a></p> + +<h2><a name="PART_III" id="PART_III"></a>PART III.<br /><br /> +<big>POEMS.</big></h2> + +<h2><a name="FREEDOM_AND_TRUTH" id="FREEDOM_AND_TRUTH"></a>FREEDOM AND TRUTH.<br /><br /> +<small>TO A FRIEND.</small></h2> + +<p class="poem"> +The shrine is vowed to freedom, but, my friend,<br /> +Freedom is but a means to gain an end.<br /> +Freedom should build the temple, but the shrine<br /> +Be consecrate to thought still more divine.<br /> +The human bliss which angel hopes foresaw<br /> +Is liberty to comprehend the law.<br /> +Give, then, thy book a larger scope and frame,<br /> +Comprising means and end in Truth's great name.<br /> +</p> + +<h2><a name="DESCRIPTION_OF_A_PORTION_OF_THE_JOURNEY_TO_TRENTON_FALLS" id="DESCRIPTION_OF_A_PORTION_OF_THE_JOURNEY_TO_TRENTON_FALLS"></a>DESCRIPTION OF A PORTION OF THE JOURNEY TO TRENTON FALLS.</h2> + +<p class="poem"> +The long-anticipated morning dawns,<br /> +Clear, hopeful, joyous-eyed, and pure of breath.<br /> +The dogstar is exhausted of its rage,<br /> +And copious showers have cooled the feverish air,<br /> +The mighty engine pants—away, away!<a name="page_358" id="page_358"></a><br /> +<br /> +And, see! they come! a motley, smiling group—<br /> +The stately matron with her tempered grace,<br /> +Her earnest eye, and kind though meaning smile,<br /> +Her words of wisdom and her words of mirth.<br /> +Her counsel firm and generous sympathy;<br /> +The happy pair whose hearts so full, yet ever<br /> +Dilating to the scene, refuse that bliss<br /> +Which excludes the whole or blunts the sense of beauty.<br /> +<br /> +Next two fair maidens in gradation meet,<br /> +The one of gentle mien and soft dove-eyes;<br /> +Like water she, that yielding and combining,<br /> +Yet most pure element in the social cup:<br /> +The other with bright glance and damask cheek,<br /> +You need not deem concealment there was preying<br /> +To mar the healthful promise of the spring.<br /> +<br /> +Another dame was there, of graver look,<br /> +And heart of slower beat; yet in its depths<br /> +Not irresponsive to the soul of things,<br /> +Nor cold when charmed by those who knew its pass-word.<br /> +<br /> +These ladies had a knight from foreign clime,<br /> +Who from the banks of the dark-rolling Danube,<br /> +Or somewhere thereabouts, had come, a pilgrim,<br /> +To worship at the shrine of Liberty,<br /> +And after, made his home in her loved realm,<br /> +Content to call it fatherland where'er<br /> +The streams bear freemen and the skies smile on them;<br /> +A courteous knight he was, of merry mood,<br /> +Expert to wing the lagging hour with jest,<br /> +Or tale of strange romance or comic song.<br /> +<br /> +And there was one I must not call a page,<br /> +Although too young yet to have won his spurs;<br /> +Yet there was promise in his laughing eye,<a name="page_359" id="page_359"></a><br /> +That in due time he'd prove no carpet knight;<br /> +Now, bright companion on a summer sea,<br /> +With wingéd words of gay or tasteful thought,<br /> +He was fit clasp to this our social chain.<br /> +<br /> +And now, the swift car loosened on its way,<br /> +O'er hill and dale we fly with rapid lightness,<br /> +While each tongue celebrates the power of steam;<br /> +O, how delightful 'tis to go so fast!<br /> +No time to muse, no chance to gaze on nature!<br /> +'Tis bliss indeed if "to think be to groan!"<br /> +<br /> +The genius of the time soon shifts the scene:<br /> +No longer whirled over our kindred clods,<br /> +We, with as strong an impulse, cleave the waters.<br /> +Now doth our chain a while untwine its links,<br /> +And some rebound from a three hours' communion<br /> +To mingle with less favored fellow-men;<br /> +One careless turns the leaves of some new volume;<br /> +The leaves of Nature's book are too gigantic,<br /> +Too vast the characters for patient study,<br /> +Till sunset lures us with majestic power<br /> +To cast one look of love on that bright eye,<br /> +Which, for so many hours, has beamed on us.<br /> +The silver lamp is lit in the blue dome,<br /> +Nature begins her hymn of evening breezes,<br /> +And myriad sparks, thronging to kiss the wave,<br /> +Touch even the steamboat's clumsy hulk with beauty.<br /> +Then, once more drawn together, cheerful talk<br /> +Casts to the hours a store of gentle gifts,<br /> +Which memory receives from these bright minds<br /> +And careful garners them for duller days.<br /> +<br /> +The morning greets us not with her late smile;<br /> +Now chilling damp falls heavy on our hopes,<a name="page_360" id="page_360"></a><br /> +And leaden hues tarnish each sighed-for scene.<br /> +Yet not on coloring, majestic Hudson,<br /> +Depends the genius of thy stream, whose wand<br /> +Has piled thy banks on high, and given them forms<br /> +Which have for taste an impulse yet unknown.<br /> +Though Beauty dwells here, she reigns not a queen,<br /> +An humble handmaid now to the Sublime.<br /> +The mind dilates to receive the idea of strength,<br /> +And tasks its elements for congenial forms<br /> +To create anew within those mighty piles,<br /> +Those "bulwarks of the world," which, time-defying<br /> +And thunder-mocking, lift their lofty brows.<br /> +<br /> +Now at the river's bend we pause a while,<br /> +And sun and cloud combine their wealth to greet us.<br /> +Oft shall the fair scenes of West Point return<br /> +Upon the mind, in its still picture-hours,<br /> +Its cloud-capped mountains with their varying hues,<br /> +The soft seclusion of its wooded paths,<br /> +And the alluring hopefulness of view<br /> +Along the river from its crisis-point.<br /> +Unlike the currents of our human lives<br /> +When they approach their long-sought ocean-mother,—<br /> +This stream is noblest onward to its close,<br /> +More tame and grave when near its inland founts.<br /> +Now onward, onward, till the whole be known;<br /> +The heart, though swollen with these new sensations,<br /> +With no less vital throb beats on for more,<br /> +And rather we'd shake hands with disappointment<br /> +Than wait and lean on sober expectation.<br /> +<br /> +The Highlands now are passed, and Hyde Park flies,—<br /> +Catskill salutes us—a far fairy-land.<br /> +O mountains, how do ye delude our hearts!<br /> +Let but the eye look down upon a valley,<a name="page_361" id="page_361"></a><br /> +We feel our limitations, and are calm;<br /> +But place blue mountains in the distant view,<br /> +And the soul labors with the Titan hope<br /> +To ascend the shrouded tops, and scale the heavens.<br /> +<br /> +O, pause not in the murky, old Dutch city,<br /> +But, hasting onward with a renewed steam power,<br /> +Bestow your hours upon the beauteous Mohawk;<br /> +And here we grieve to lose our courteous knight,<br /> +Just at the opening of so rich a page.<br /> +<br /> +How shall I praise thee, Mohawk? How portray<br /> +The love, the joyousness, felt in thy presence?<br /> +When each new step along the silvery tide<br /> +Added new gems of beauty to our thought,<br /> +And lapped the soul in an Elysium<br /> +Of verdure and of grace, fed by thy sweetness.<br /> +O, how gay Fancy smiled, and deemed it home!<br /> +This is, thought she, the river of my garden;<br /> +These are the graceful trees that form its bowers,<br /> +And these the meads where I have sighed to roam.<br /> +I now may fold my wearied wings in peace.<br /> +</p> + +<h2><a name="JOURNEY_TO_TRENTON_FALLS" id="JOURNEY_TO_TRENTON_FALLS"></a>JOURNEY TO TRENTON FALLS.</h2> + +<p class="poem"> +<span style="margin-left: 6.5em;">I.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">TO MY FRIENDS AND COMPANIONS.</span><br /> +<br /> +If this faint reflex from those days so bright<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">May aught of sympathy among you gain,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I shall not think these verses penned in vain;</span><br /> +Though they tell nothing of the fancies light,<a name="page_362" id="page_362"></a><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The kindly deeds, rich thoughts, and various grace</span><br /> +With which you knew to make the hours so fair,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">That neither grief nor sickness could efface</span><br /> +From memory's tablet what you printed there.<br /> +Could I have breathed your spirit through these lines,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">They might have charms to win a critic's smile,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Or the cold worldling of a sigh beguile.</span><br /> +I could but from my being bring one tone;<br /> +May it arouse the sweetness of your own.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 6em;">II.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">THE HIGHLANDS.</span><br /> +<br /> +I saw ye first, arrayed in mist and cloud;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">No cheerful lights softened your aspect bold;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">A sullen gray, or green, more grave and cold,</span><br /> +The varied beauties of the scene enshroud.<br /> +Yet not the less, O Hudson! calm and proud,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Did I receive the impress of that hour</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Which showed thee to me, emblem of that power</span><br /> +Of high resolve, to which even rocks have bowed;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Thou wouldst not deign thy course to turn aside,</span><br /> +And seek some smiling valley's welcome warm,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">But through the mountain's very heart, thy pride</span><br /> +Has been, thy channel and thy banks to form.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Not even the "bulwarks of the world" could bar</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The inland fount from joining ocean's war!</span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 6em;">III.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4.5em;">CATSKILL.</span><br /> +<br /> +How fair at distance shone yon silvery blue,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">O stately mountain-tops, charming the mind</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">To dream of pleasures which she there may find,</span><br /> +Where from the eagle's height she earth can view!<a name="page_363" id="page_363"></a><br /> +Nor are those disappointments which ensue;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">For though, while eyeing what beneath us lay,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Almost we shunned to think of yesterday,</span><br /> +As wonderingly our looks its course pursue.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Dwarfed to a point the joys of many hours,</span><br /> +The river on whose bosom we were borne<br /> +Seems but a thread, of pride and beauty shorn;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Its banks, its shadowy groves, like beds of flowers,</span><br /> +Wave their diminished heads;—yet would we sigh,<br /> +Since all this loss shows us more near the sky?<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 6em;">IV.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">VALLEY OF THE MOHAWK.</span><br /> +<br /> +Could I my words with gentlest grace imbue,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Which the flute's breath, or harp's clear tones, can bless,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I then might hope the feelings to express,</span><br /> +And with new life the happy day endue,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Thou gav'st, O vale, than Tempe's self more fair!</span><br /> +With thy romantic stream and emerald isles,<br /> +Touched by an April mood of tears and smiles<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Which stole on matron August unaware;</span><br /> +The meads with all the spring's first freshness green,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The trees with summer's thickest garlands crowned,</span><br /> +And each so elegant, that fairy queen<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">All day might wander ere she chose her round;</span><br /> +No blemish on the sense of beauty broke,<br /> +But the whole scene one ecstasy awoke.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 7em;">V.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">TRENTON FALLS, EARLY IN THE MORNING.</span><br /> +<br /> +The sun, impatient, o'er the lofty trees<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Struggles to illume as fair a sight as lies</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Beneath the light of his joy-loving eyes,</span><br /> +Which all the forms of energy must please;<a name="page_364" id="page_364"></a><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">A solemn shadow falls in pillared form,</span><br /> +Made by yon ledge, which noontide scarcely shows,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Upon the amber radiance, soft and warm,</span><br /> +Where through the cleft the eager torrent flows.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Would you the genius of the place enjoy,</span><br /> +In all the charms contrast and color give?<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Your eye and taste you now may best employ,</span><br /> +For this the hour when minor beauties live;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Scan ye the details as the sun rides high,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">For with the morn these sparkling glories fly.</span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 6em;">VI.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">TRENTON FALLS, (AFTERNOON.)</span><br /> +<br /> +A calmer grace o'er these still hours presides;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Now is the time to see the might of form;</span><br /> +The heavy masses of the buttressed sides,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The stately steps o'er which the waters storm;</span><br /> +Where, 'neath the mill, the stream so gently glides,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">You feel the deep seclusion of the scene,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And now begin to comprehend what mean</span><br /> +The beauty and the power this chasm hides.<br /> +From the green forest's depths the portent springs,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">But from those quiet shades bounding away,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Lays bare its being to the light of day,</span><br /> +Though on the rock's cold breast its love it flings.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Yet can all sympathy such courage miss?</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Answer, ye trees! who bend the waves to kiss.</span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 5.5em;">VII.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">TRENTON FALLS BY MOONLIGHT.</span><br /> +<br /> +I deemed the inmost sense my soul had blessed<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Which in the poem of thy being dwells,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And gives such store for thought's most sacred cells;</span><br /> +And yet a higher joy was now confessed.<a name="page_365" id="page_365"></a><br /> +With what a holiness did night invest<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The eager impulse of impetuous life,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And hymn-like meanings clothed the waters' strife!</span><br /> +With what a solemn peace the moon did rest<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Upon the white crest of the waterfall;</span><br /> +The haughty guardian banks, by the deep shade,<br /> +In almost double height are now displayed.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Depth, height, speak things which awe, but not appall.</span><br /> +From elemental powers this voice has come,<br /> +And God's love answers from the azure dome.<br /> +</p> + +<h2><a name="SUB_ROSA_CRUX" id="SUB_ROSA_CRUX"></a>SUB ROSA, CRUX.</h2> + +<p class="poem"> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">In times of old, as we are told,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">When men more child-like at the feet</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Of Jesus sat, than now,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">A chivalry was known more bold</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Than ours, and yet of stricter vow,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Of worship more complete.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Knights of the Rosy Cross, they bore</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Its weight within the heart, but wore</span><br /> +Without, devotion's sign in glistening ruby bright;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The gall and vinegar they drank alone,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">But to the world at large would only own</span><br /> +The wine of faith, sparkling with rosy light.<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">They knew the secret of the sacred oil</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Which, poured upon the prophet's head,</span><br /> +Could keep him wise and pure for aye.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Apart from all that might distract or soil,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">With this their lamps they fed.</span><br /> +Which burn in their sepulchral shrines unfading night and day.<a name="page_366" id="page_366"></a><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">The pass-word now is lost,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">To that initiation full and free;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Daily we pay the cost</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Of our slow schooling for divine degree.</span><br /> +We know no means to feed an undying lamp;<br /> +Our lights go out in every wind or damp.<br /> +<br /> +We wear the cross of ebony and gold,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Upon a dark background a form of light,</span><br /> +A heavenly hope upon a bosom cold,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">A starry promise in a frequent night;</span><br /> +The dying lamp must often trim again,<br /> +For we are conscious, thoughtful, striving men.<br /> +<br /> +Yet be we faithful to this present trust,<br /> +Clasp to a heart resigned the fatal must;<br /> +Though deepest dark our efforts should enfold,<br /> +Unwearied mine to find the vein of gold;<br /> +Forget not oft to lift the hope on high;<br /> +The rosy dawn again shall fill the sky.<br /> +<br /> +And by that lovely light, all truth-revealed,<br /> +The cherished forms which sad distrust concealed,<br /> +Transfigured, yet the same, will round us stand,<br /> +The kindred angels of a faithful band;<br /> +Ruby and ebon cross both cast aside,<br /> +No lamp is needed, for the night has died.<br /> +<br /> +Happy be those who seek that distant day,<br /> +With feet that from the appointed way<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Could never stray;</span><br /> +Yet happy too be those who more and more,<br /> +As gleams the beacon of that only shore,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Strive at the laboring oar.<a name="page_367" id="page_367"></a></span><br /> +<br /> +Be to the best thou knowest ever true,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Is all the creed;</span><br /> +Then, be thy talisman of rosy hue,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Or fenced with thorns that wearing thou must bleed,</span><br /> +Or gentle pledge of Love's prophetic view,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The faithful steps it will securely lead.</span><br /> +<br /> +Happy are all who reach that shore,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And bathe in heavenly day,</span><br /> +Happiest are those who high the banner bore,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">To marshal others on the way;</span><br /> +Or waited for them, fainting and way-worn,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 5em;">By burdens overborne.</span><br /> +</p> + +<h2><a name="THE_DAHLIA_THE_ROSE_AND_THE_HELIOTROPE" id="THE_DAHLIA_THE_ROSE_AND_THE_HELIOTROPE"></a>THE DAHLIA, THE ROSE, AND THE HELIOTROPE.</h2> + +<p class="poem"> +In a fair garden of a distant land,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Where autumn skies the softest blue outspread,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">A lovely crimson dahlia reared her head,</span><br /> +To drink the lustre of the season's prime;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And drink she did, until her cup o'erflowed</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">With ruby redder than the sunset cloud.</span><br /> +<br /> +Near to her root she saw the fairest rose<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">That ever oped her soul to sun and wind.</span><br /> +And still the more her sweets she did disclose,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The more her queenly heart of sweets did find,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Not only for her worshipper the wind,</span><br /> +But for bee, nightingale, and butterfly,<br /> +Who would with ceaseless wing about her ply,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Nor ever cease to seek what found they still would find.<a name="page_368" id="page_368"></a></span><br /> +<br /> +Upon the other side, nearer the ground,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">A paler floweret on a slender stem,</span><br /> +That cast so exquisite a fragrance round,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">As seemed the minute blossom to contemn,</span><br /> +Seeking an ampler urn to hold its sweetness,<br /> +And in a statelier shape to find completeness.<br /> +<br /> +Who could refuse to hear that keenest voice,<br /> +Although it did not bid the heart rejoice,<br /> +And though the nightingale had just begun<br /> +His hymn; the evening breeze begun to woo,<br /> +When through the charming of the evening dew,<br /> +The floweret did its secret soul disclose?<br /> +By that revealing touched, the queenly rose<br /> +Forgot them both, a deeper joy to hope<br /> +And heed the love-note of the heliotrope.<br /> +</p> + +<h2><a name="TO_MY_FRIENDS" id="TO_MY_FRIENDS"></a>TO MY FRIENDS.<br /><br /> +<small>TRANSLATED FROM SCHILLER.</small></h2> + +<p class="poem"> +Beloved friends! Earth hath known brighter days<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Than ours; we vainly strive to hide this truth;</span><br /> +Would history be silent in their praise,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The very stones tell of man's glorious youth,</span><br /> +In heavenly forms on which we crowd to gaze;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">But that high-favored race hath sunk in night;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The day is ours—the living still have sight.</span><br /> +<br /> +Friends of my youth! In happier climes than ours,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">As some far-wandering countrymen declare,</span><br /> +The air is perfume; at each step spring flowers.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Nature has not been bounteous to our prayer;<a name="page_369" id="page_369"></a></span><br /> +But art dwells here, with her creative powers,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Laurel and myrtle shun our winter snows,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">But with the cheerful vine we wreathe our brows.</span><br /> +<br /> +Though of more pomp and wealth the Briton boast,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Who holds four worlds in tribute to his pride,—</span><br /> +Although from farthest India's glowing coast<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Come gems of gold to burden Thames' dull tide,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And <i>bring</i> each luxury that Heaven denied,—</span><br /> +Not in the torrent, but the still, calm brook,<br /> +Delights Apollo at himself to look.<br /> +<br /> +More nobly lodged than we in northern halls,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">At Angelo's gate the Roman beggar dwells;</span><br /> +Girt by the Eternal City's honored walls,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Each column some soul-stiring story tells;</span><br /> +While on the earth a second heaven dwells,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Where Michael's spirit to St. Peter calls;</span><br /> +Yet all this splendor only decks a tomb;<br /> +For us fresh flowers from every green hour bloom<br /> +<br /> +And while we live obscure, may others' names<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Through Rumor's trump be given to the wind;</span><br /> +New forms of ancient glories, ancient shames,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">For nothing new the searching sun can find,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">As pass the motley groups of human kind;</span><br /> +All other living things grow old and die—<br /> +Fancy alone has immortality.<br /> +</p> + +<p><a name="page_370" id="page_370"></a></p> + +<h2><a name="STANZAS" id="STANZAS"></a>STANZAS.<br /><br /> +<small>WRITTEN AT THE AGE OF SEVENTEEN.</small></h2> + +<p class="poem"> +<span style="margin-left: 9em;">I.</span><br /> +<br /> +Come, breath of dawn! and o'er my temples play;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Rouse to the draught of life the wearied sense;</span><br /> +Fly, sleep! with thy sad phantoms, far away;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Let the glad light scare those pale troublous shadows hence!</span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 8.5em;">II.</span><br /> +<br /> +I rise, and leaning from my casement high,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Feel from the morning twilight a delight;</span><br /> +Once more youth's portion, hope, lights up my eye,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And for a moment I forget the sorrows of the night.</span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 8em;">III.</span><br /> +<br /> +O glorious morn! how great is yet thy power!<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Yet how unlike to that which once I knew,</span><br /> +When, plumed with glittering thoughts, my soul would soar,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And pleasures visited my heart like daily dew!</span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 8.5em;">IV.</span><br /> +<br /> +Gone is life's primal freshness all too soon;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">For me the dream is vanished ere my time;</span><br /> +I feel the heat and weariness of noon,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And long in night's cool shadows to recline.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p><a name="page_371" id="page_371"></a></p> + +<h2><a name="FLAXMAN" id="FLAXMAN"></a>FLAXMAN.</h2> + +<p class="poem"> +We deemed the secret lost, the spirit gone,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Which spake in Greek simplicity of thought,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And in the forms of gods and heroes wrought</span><br /> +Eternal beauty from the sculptured stone—<br /> +A higher charm than modern culture won,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">With all the wealth of metaphysic lore,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Gifted to analyze, dissect, explore.</span><br /> +A many-colored light flows from our sun;<br /> +Art, 'neath its beams, a motley thread has spun;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The prison modifies the perfect day;</span><br /> +But thou hast known such mediums to shun,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And cast once more on life a pure white ray.</span><br /> +Absorbed in the creations of thy mind,<br /> +Forgetting daily self, my truest self I find.<br /> +</p> + +<h2><a name="THOUGHTS" id="THOUGHTS"></a>THOUGHTS<br /><br /> +<small>ON SUNDAY MORNING, WHEN PREVENTED BY A SNOW STORM FROM GOING TO CHURCH.</small></h2> + +<p class="poem"> +Hark! the church-going bell! But through the air<br /> +The feathery missiles of old Winter hurled,<br /> +Offend the brow of mild-approaching Spring;<br /> +She shuts her soft blue eyes, and turns away.<br /> +Sweet is the time passed in the house of prayer,<br /> +When, met with many of this fire-fraught clay,<br /> +We, on this day,—the tribe of ills forgot,<a name="page_372" id="page_372"></a><br /> +Wherewith, ungentle, we afflict each other,—<br /> +Assemble in the temple of our God,<br /> +And use our breath to worship Him who gave it.<br /> +What though no gorgeous relics of old days,<br /> +The gifts of humbled kings and suppliant warriors,<br /> +Deck the fair shrine, or cluster round the pillars;<br /> +No stately windows decked with various hues,<br /> +No blazon of dead saints repel the sun;<br /> +Though no cloud-courting dome or sculptured frieze<br /> +Excite the fancy and allure the taste,<br /> +No fragrant censor steep the sense in luxury,<br /> +No lofty chant swell on the vanquished soul.<br /> +<br /> +Ours is the faith of Reason; to the earth<br /> +We leave the senses who interpret her;<br /> +The heaven-born only should commune with Heaven,<br /> +The immaterial with the infinite.<br /> +Calmly we wait in solemn expectation.<br /> +He rises in the desk—that earnest man;<br /> +No priestly terrors flashing from his eye,<br /> +No mitre towers above the throne of thought,<br /> +No pomp and circumstance wait on his breath.<br /> +He speaks—we hear; and man to man we judge.<br /> +Has he the spell to touch the founts of feeling,<br /> +To kindle in the mind a pure ambition,<br /> +Or soothe the aching heart with heavenly balm,<br /> +To guide the timid and refresh the weary,<br /> +Appall the wicked and abash the proud?<br /> +He is the man of God. Our hearts confess him.<br /> +He needs no homage paid in servile forms,<br /> +No worldly state, to give him dignity:<br /> +To his own heart the blessing will return,<br /> +And all his days blossom with love divine.<br /> +<br /> +There is a blessing in the Sabbath woods,<br /> +There is a holiness in the blue skies;<a name="page_373" id="page_373"></a><br /> +The summer-murmurs to those calm blue skies<br /> +Preach ceaselessly. The universe is love—<br /> +And this disjointed fragment of a world<br /> +Must, by its spirit, man, be harmonized,<br /> +Tuned to concordance with the spheral strain,<br /> +Till thought be like those skies, deeds like those breezes,<br /> +As clear, as bright, as pure, as musical,<br /> +And all things have one text of truth and beauty.<br /> +<br /> +There is a blessing in a day like this,<br /> +When sky and earth are talking busily;<br /> +The clouds give back the riches they received,<br /> +And for their graceful shapes return they fulness;<br /> +While in the inmost shrine, the life of life,<br /> +The soul within the soul, the consciousness<br /> +Whom I can only <i>name</i>, counting her wealth,<br /> +Still makes it more, still fills the golden bowl<br /> +Which never shall be broken, strengthens still<br /> +The silver cord which binds the whole to Heaven.<br /> +<br /> +O that such hours must pass away! yet oft<br /> +Such will recur, and memories of this<br /> +Come to enhance their sweetness. And again<br /> +I say, great is the blessing of that hour<br /> +When the soul, turning from without, begins<br /> +To register her treasures, the bright thoughts,<br /> +The lovely hopes, the ethereal desires,<br /> +Which she has garnered in past Sabbath hours.<br /> +Within her halls the preacher's voice still sounds,<br /> +Though he be dead or distant far. The band<br /> +Of friends who with us listened to his word,<br /> +With throngs around of linked associations,<br /> +Are there; the little stream, long left behind,<br /> +Is murmuring still; the woods as musical;<br /> +The skies how blue, the whole how eloquent<br /> +With "life of life and life's most secret joy"!<br /> +</p> + +<p><a name="page_374" id="page_374"></a></p> + +<h2><a name="TO_A_GOLDEN_HEART_WORN_ROUND_THE_NECK44" id="TO_A_GOLDEN_HEART_WORN_ROUND_THE_NECK44"></a>TO A GOLDEN HEART WORN ROUND THE NECK.<a name="FNanchor_44_44" id="FNanchor_44_44"></a><a href="#Footnote_44_44" class="fnanchor">[44]</a></h2> + +<p class="poem"> +Remembrancer of joys long passed away,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Relic from which, as yet, I cannot part,</span><br /> +O, hast thou power to lengthen love's short day?<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Stronger thy chain than that which bound the heart?</span><br /> +<br /> +Lili, I fly—yet still thy fetters press me<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">In distant valley, or far lonely wood;</span><br /> +Still will a struggling sigh of pain confess thee<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The mistress of my soul in every mood.</span><br /> +<br /> +The bird may burst the silken chain which bound him,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Flying to the green home, which fits him best;</span><br /> +But, O, he bears the prisoner's badge around him,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Still by the piece about his neck distressed.</span><br /> +He ne'er can breathe his free, wild notes again;<br /> +They're stifled by the pressure of his chain.<br /> +</p> + +<p><a name="page_375" id="page_375"></a></p> + +<h2>LINES<br /><br /> +<small>ACCOMPANYING A BOUQUET OF WILD COLUMBINE, WHICH BLOOMED LATE IN THE +SEASON.</small></h2> + +<p class="poem"> +These pallid blossoms thou wilt not disdain,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The harbingers of thy approach to me,</span><br /> +Which grew and bloomed despite the cold and rain,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">To tell of summer and futurity.</span><br /> +<br /> +It was not given them to tell the soul,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And lure the nightingale by fragrant breath:</span><br /> +These slender stems and roots brook no control,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And in the garden life would find but death.</span><br /> +The rock which is their cradle and their home<br /> +Must also be their monument and tomb;<br /> +Yet has my floweret's life a charm more rare<br /> +Than those admiring crowds esteem so fair,<br /> +Self-nurtured, self-sustaining, self-approved:<br /> +Not even by the forest trees beloved,<br /> +As are her sisters of the Spring, she dies,—<br /> +Nor to the guardian stars lifts up her eyes,<br /> +But droops her graceful head upon her breast,<br /> +Nor asks the wild bird's requiem for her rest,<br /> +By her own heart upheld, by her own soul possessed.<br /> +<br /> +Learn of the clematis domestic love,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Religious beauty in the lily see;</span><br /> +Learn from the rose how rapture's pulses move,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Learn from the heliotrope fidelity.</span><br /> +From autumn flowers let hope and faith be known;<br /> +Learn from the columbine to live alone,<a name="page_376" id="page_376"></a><br /> +To deck whatever spot the Fates provide<br /> +With graces worthy of the garden's pride,<br /> +And to deserve each gift that is denied.<br /> +<br /> +These are the shades of the departed flowers,<br /> +My lines faint shadows of some beauteous hours,<br /> +Whereto the soul the highest thoughts have spoken,<br /> +And brightest hopes from frequent twilight broken.<br /> +Preserve them for my sake. In other years,<br /> +When life has answered to your hopes or fears,<br /> +When the web is well woven, and you try<br /> +Your wings, whether as moth or butterfly,<br /> +If, as I pray, the fairest lot be thine,<br /> +Yet value still the faded columbine.<br /> +But look not on her if thy earnest eye,<br /> +Be filled by works of art or poesy;<br /> +Bring not the hermit where, in long array,<br /> +Triumphs of genius gild the purple day;<br /> +Let her not hear the lyre's proud voice arise,<br /> +To tell, "still lives the song though Regnor dies;"<br /> +Let her not hear the lute's soft-rising swell<br /> +Declare she never lived who lived so well;<br /> +But from the anvil's clang, and joiner's screw,<br /> +The busy streets where men dull crafts pursue,<br /> +From weary cares and from tumultuous joys,<br /> +From aimless bustle and from voiceless noise,<br /> +If there thy plans should be, turn here thine eye,—<br /> +Open the casket of thy memory;<br /> +Give to thy friend the gentlest, holiest sigh.<br /> +</p> + +<p><a name="page_377" id="page_377"></a></p> + +<h2><a name="DISSATISFACTION" id="DISSATISFACTION"></a>DISSATISFACTION.<br /><br /> +<small>TRANSLATED FROM THEODORE KÖRNER.</small></h2> + +<p class="c">"Composed as I stood sentinel on the banks of the Elbe."</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Fatherland! Thou call'st the singer<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">In the blissful glow of day;</span><br /> +He no more can musing linger,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">While thou dost mourn a tyrant's sway.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Love and poesy forsaking,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">From friendship's magic circle breaking,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The keenest pangs he could endure</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Thy peace to insure.</span><br /> +<br /> +Yet sometimes tears must dim his eyes,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">As, on the melodious bridge of song,</span><br /> +The shadows of past joys arise,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And in mild beauty round him throng.</span><br /> +In vain, o'er life, that early beam<br /> +Such radiance shed;—the impetuous stream<br /> +Of strife has seized him, onward borne,<br /> +While left behind his loved ones mourn.<br /> +<br /> +Here in the crowd must he complain,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Nor find a fit employ?</span><br /> +Give him poetic place again,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Or the quick throb of warlike joy.</span><br /> +The wonted inspiration give;<br /> +Thus languidly he cannot live;<br /> +Love's accents are no longer near;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Let him the trumpet hear.<a name="page_378" id="page_378"></a></span><br /> +<br /> +Where is the cannon's thunder?<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The clashing cymbals, where?</span><br /> +While foreign foes our cities plunder,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Can we not hasten there?</span><br /> +I can no longer watch this stream;<br /> +<i>In prose</i> I die! O source of flame!<br /> +O poesy! for which I glow,—<br /> +A nobler death thou shouldst bestow!<br /> +</p> + +<h2><a name="MY_SEAL-RING" id="MY_SEAL-RING"></a>MY SEAL-RING.</h2> + +<p class="poem"> +Mercury has cast aside<br /> +The signs of intellectual pride,<br /> +Freely offers thee the soul:<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Art thou noble to receive?</span><br /> +Canst thou give or take the whole,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Nobly promise, and believe?</span><br /> +Then thou wholly human art,<br /> +A spotless, radiant, ruby heart,<br /> +And the golden chain of love<br /> +Has bound thee to the realm above.<br /> +If there be one small, mean doubt,<br /> +One serpent thought that fled not out,<br /> +Take instead the serpent-rod;<br /> +Thou art neither man nor God.<br /> +Guard thee from the powers of evil;<br /> +Who cannot trust, vows to the devil.<br /> +Walk thy slow and spell-bound way;<br /> +Keep on thy mask, or shun the day—<br /> +Let go my hand upon the way.<br /> +</p> + +<p><a name="page_379" id="page_379"></a></p> + +<h2><a name="THE_CONSOLERS" id="THE_CONSOLERS"></a>THE CONSOLERS.<br /><br /> +<small>TRANSLATED FROM GŒTHE.</small></h2> + +<p class="poem"> +"Why wilt thou not thy griefs forget?<br /> +Why must thine eyes with tears be wet?<br /> +When all things round thee sweetly smile,<br /> +Canst thou not, too, be glad a while?"<br /> +<br /> +"Hither I come to weep alone;<br /> +The grief I feel is all mine own;<br /> +Dearer than smiles these tears to me;<br /> +Smile you—I ask no sympathy!"<br /> +<br /> +"Repel not thus affection's voice!<br /> +While thou art sad, can we rejoice?<br /> +To friendly hearts impart thy woe;<br /> +Perhaps we may some healing know."<br /> +<br /> +"Too gay your hearts to feel like mine,<br /> +Or such a sorrow to divine;<br /> +Nought have I lost I e'er possessed;<br /> +I mourn that I cannot be blessed."<br /> +<br /> +"What idle, morbid feelings these!<br /> +Can you not win what prize you please?<br /> +Youth, with a genius rich as yours,<br /> +All bliss the world can give insures."<br /> +<br /> +"Ah, too high-placed is my desire!<br /> +The star to which my hopes aspire<br /> +Shines all too far—I sigh in vain,<br /> +Yet cannot stoop to earth again."<a name="page_380" id="page_380"></a><br /> +<br /> +"Waste not so foolishly thy prime;<br /> +If to the stars thou canst not climb,<br /> +Their gentle beams thy loving eye<br /> +Every clear night will gratify."<br /> +<br /> +"Do I not know it? Even now<br /> +I wait the sun's departing glow,<br /> +That I may watch them. Meanwhile ye<br /> +Enjoy the day—'tis nought to me!"<br /> +</p> + +<h2><a name="ABSENCE_OF_LOVE" id="ABSENCE_OF_LOVE"></a>ABSENCE OF LOVE.</h2> + +<p class="poem"> +Though many at my feet have bowed,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And asked my love through pain and pleasure,</span><br /> +Fate never yet the youth has showed<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Meet to receive so great a treasure.</span><br /> +<br /> +Although sometimes my heart, deceived,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Would love because it sighed <i>to feel</i>,</span><br /> +Yet soon I changed, and sometimes grieved<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Because my fancied wound would heal.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p><a name="page_381" id="page_381"></a></p> + +<h2><a name="MEDITATIONS" id="MEDITATIONS"></a>MEDITATIONS.</h2> + +<p class="r"><span class="smcap">Sunday</span>, <i>May 12, 1833</i>.</p> + +<p class="poem"> +The clouds are marshalling across the sky,<br /> +Leaving their deepest tints upon yon range<br /> +Of soul-alluring hills. The breeze comes softly,<br /> +Laden with tribute that a hundred orchards<br /> +Now in their fullest blossom send, in thanks<br /> +For this refreshing shower. The birds pour forth<br /> +In heightened melody the notes of praise<br /> +They had suspended while God's voice was speaking,<br /> +And his eye flashing down upon his world.<br /> +I sigh, half-charmed, half-pained. My sense is living,<br /> +And, taking in this freshened beauty, tells<br /> +Its pleasure to the mind. The mind replies,<br /> +And strives to wake the heart in turn, repeating<br /> +Poetic sentiments from many a record<br /> +Which other souls have left, when stirred and satisfied<br /> +By scenes as fair, as fragrant. But the heart<br /> +Sends back a hollow echo to the call<br /> +Of outward things,—and its once bright companion,<br /> +Who erst would have been answered by a stream<br /> +Of life-fraught treasures, thankful to be summoned,—<br /> +Can now rouse nothing better than this echo;<br /> +Unmeaning voice, which mocks their softened accents.<br /> +Content thee, beautiful world! and hush, still busy mind!<br /> +My heart hath sealed its fountains. To the things<br /> +Of Time they shall be oped no more. Too long,<br /> +Too often were they poured forth: part have sunk<br /> +Into the desert; part profaned and swollen<br /> +By bitter waters, mixed by those who feigned<br /> +They asked them for refreshment, which, turned back,<br /> +Have broken and o'erflowed their former urns.<a name="page_382" id="page_382"></a><br /> +<br /> +So when ye talk of <i>pleasure</i>, lonely world,<br /> +And busy mind, ye ne'er again shall move me<br /> +To answer ye, though still your calls have power<br /> +To jar me through, and cause dull aching <i>here</i>.<br /> +<br /> +Not so the voice which hailed me from the depths<br /> +Of yon dark-bosomed cloud, now vanishing<br /> +Before the sun ye greet. It touched my centre,<br /> +The voice of the Eternal, calling me<br /> +To feel his other worlds; to feel that if<br /> +I could deserve a home, I still might find it<br /> +In other spheres,—and bade me not despair,<br /> +Though "want of harmony" and "aching void"<br /> +Are terms invented by the men of this,<br /> +Which I may not forget.<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 12em;">In former times</span><br /> +I loved to see the lightnings flash athwart<br /> +The stooping heavens; I loved to hear the thunder<br /> +Call to the seas and mountains; for I thought<br /> +'Tis thus man's flashing fancy doth enkindle<br /> +The firmament of mind; 'tis thus his eloquence<br /> +Calls unto the soul's depths and heights; and still<br /> +I deified the creature, nor remembered<br /> +The Creator in his works.<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 13em;">Ah now how different!</span><br /> +The proud delight of that keen sympathy<br /> +Is gone; no longer riding on the wave,<br /> +But whelmed beneath it: my own plans and works,<br /> +Or, as the Scriptures phrase it, my "<i>inventions</i>"<br /> +No longer interpose 'twixt me and Heaven.<br /> +<br /> +To-day, for the first time, I felt the Deity,<br /> +And uttered prayer on hearing thunder. This<br /> +Must be thy will,—for finer, higher spirits<br /> +Have gone through this same process,—yet I think<a name="page_383" id="page_383"></a><br /> +There was religion in that strong delight,<br /> +Those sounds, those thoughts of power imparted. True,<br /> +I did not say, "He is the Lord thy God,"<br /> +But I had feeling of his essence. But<br /> +"'Twas pride by which the angels fell." So be it!<br /> +But O, might I but see a little onward!<br /> +Father, I cannot be a spirit of power;<br /> +May I be active as a spirit of love,<br /> +Since thou hast ta'en me from that path which Nature<br /> +Seemed to appoint, O, deign to ope another,<br /> +Where I may walk with thought and hope assured;<br /> +"Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief!"<br /> +Had I but faith like that which fired Novalis,<br /> +I too could bear that the heart "fall in ashes,"<br /> +While the freed spirit rises from beneath them,<br /> +With heavenward-look, and Phœnix-plumes upsoaring!<br /> +</p> + +<h2><a name="RICHTER" id="RICHTER"></a>RICHTER.</h2> + +<p class="poem"> +Poet of Nature, gentlest of the wise,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Most airy of the fanciful, most keen</span><br /> +Of satirists, thy thoughts, like butterflies,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Still near the sweetest scented flowers have been:</span><br /> +With Titian's colors, thou canst sunset paint;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">With Raphael's dignity, celestial love;</span><br /> +With Hogarth's pencil, each deceit and feint<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Of meanness and hypocrisy reprove;</span><br /> +Canst to Devotion's highest flight sublime<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Exalt the mind; by tenderest pathos' art</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Dissolve in purifying tears the heart,</span><br /> +Or bid it, shuddering, recoil at crime;<a name="page_384" id="page_384"></a><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The fond illusions of the youth and maid,</span><br /> +At which so many world-formed sages sneer,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">When by thy altar-lighted torch displayed,</span><br /> +Our natural religion must appear.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">All things in thee tend to one polar star;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Magnetic all thy influences are;</span><br /> +A labyrinth; a flowery wilderness.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Some in thy "slip-boxes" and honeymoons</span><br /> +Complain of—want of order, I confess,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">But not of system in its highest sense.</span><br /> +Who asks a guiding clew through this wide mind,<br /> +In love of nature such will surely find,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">In tropic climes, live like the tropic bird,</span><br /> +Whene'er a spice-fraught grove may tempt thy stray;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Nor be by cares of colder climes disturbed:</span><br /> +No frost the summer's bloom shall drive away;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Nature's wide temple and the azure dome</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Have plan enough for the free spirit's home.</span><br /> +</p> + +<h2><a name="THE_THANKFUL_AND_THE_THANKLESS" id="THE_THANKFUL_AND_THE_THANKLESS"></a>THE THANKFUL AND THE THANKLESS.</h2> + +<p class="poem"> +With equal sweetness the commissioned hours<br /> +Shed light and dew upon both weeds and flowers.<br /> +The weeds unthankful raise their vile heads high,<br /> +Flaunting back insult to the gracious sky;<br /> +While the dear flowers, with fond humility,<br /> +Uplift the eyelids of a starry eye<br /> +In speechless homage, and, from grateful hearts,<br /> +Perfume that homage all around imparts.<br /> +</p> + +<p><a name="page_385" id="page_385"></a></p> + +<h2><a name="PROPHECY_AND_FULFILMENT" id="PROPHECY_AND_FULFILMENT"></a>PROPHECY AND FULFILMENT.</h2> + +<p class="poem"> +When leaves were falling thickly in the pale November day,<br /> +A bird dropped here this feather upon her pensive way.<br /> +Another bird has found it in the snow-chilled April day;<br /> +It brings to him the music of all her summer's lay.<br /> +Thus sweet birds, though unmated, do never sing in vain;<br /> +The lonely notes they utter to free them from their pain,<br /> +Caught up by the echoes, ring through the blue dome,<br /> +And by good spirits guided pierce to some gentle home.<br /> +<br /> +The pencil moved prophetic: together now men read<br /> +In the fair book of nature, and find the hope they need.<br /> +The wreath woven by the river is by the seaside worn,<br /> +And one of fate's best arrows to its due mark is borne.<br /> +</p> + +<h2><a name="VERSES" id="VERSES"></a>VERSES<br /><br /> +<small>GIVEN TO W. C. WITH A BLANK BOOK, MARCH, 1844.</small></h2> + +<p class="poem"> +Thy other book to fill, more than eight years<br /> +Have paid chance tribute of their smiles and tears;<br /> +Many bright strokes portray the varied scene—<br /> +Wild sports, sweet ties the days of toil between;<br /> +And those related both in mind and blood,<br /> +The wise, the true, the lovely, and the good,<br /> +Have left their impress here; nor such alone,<br /> +But those chance toys that lively feelings own<br /> +Weave their gay flourishes 'mid lines sincere,<br /> +As 'mid the shadowy thickets bound the deer<a name="page_386" id="page_386"></a><br /> +Accept a volume where the coming time<br /> +Will join, I hope, much reason with the rhyme,<br /> +And that the stair his steady feet ascend<br /> +May prove a Jacob's ladder to my friend,<br /> +Peopled with angel-shapes of promise bright,<br /> +And ending only in the realms of light.<br /> +<br /> +May purity be stamped upon his brow,<br /> +Yet leave the manly footsteps free as now;<br /> +May generous love glow in his inmost heart,<br /> +Truth to its utterance lend the only art;<br /> +While more a man, may he be more the child;<br /> +More thoughtful be, but the more sweet and mild;<br /> +May growing wisdom, mixed with sprightly cheer,<br /> +Bless his own breast and those which hold him dear;<br /> +Each act be worthy of his worthiest aim,<br /> +And love of goodness keep him free from blame,<br /> +Without a need straight rules for life to frame.<br /> +<br /> +Good Spirit, teach him what he ought to be,<br /> +Best to fulfil his proper destiny,<br /> +To serve himself, his fellow-men, and thee.<br /> +These pages then will show how Nature wild<br /> +Accepts her Master, cherishes her child;<br /> +And many flowers, ere eight years more are done,<br /> +Shall bless and blossom in the western sun.<br /> +</p> + +<p><a name="page_387" id="page_387"></a></p> + +<h2><a name="EAGLES_AND_DOVES" id="EAGLES_AND_DOVES"></a>EAGLES AND DOVES.<br /><br /> +<small>GŒTHE.</small></h2> + +<p class="poem"> +A new-fledged eaglet spread his wings<br /> +To seek for prey;<br /> +Then flew the huntsman's dart and cut<br /> +The right wing's sinewy strength away.<br /> +Headlong he falls into a myrtle grove;<br /> +There three days long devoured his grief,<br /> +And writhed in pain<br /> +Three long, long nights, three days as weary.<br /> +At length he feels<br /> +The all-healing power<br /> +Of Nature's balsam.<br /> +Forth from the shady bush he creeps,<br /> +And tries his wing; but, ah!<br /> +The power to soar is gone!<br /> +He scarce can lift himself<br /> +Along the ground<br /> +In search of food to keep mere life awake;<br /> +Then rests, deep mourning,<br /> +On a low rock by the brook;<br /> +He looks up to the oak tree's top,<br /> +Far up to heaven,<br /> +And a tear glistens in his haughty eye.<br /> +<br /> +Just then come by a pair of fondling doves,<br /> +Playfully rustling through the grove.<br /> +Cooing and toying, they go tripping<br /> +Over golden sand and brook;<br /> +And, turning here and there,<br /> +Their rose-tinged eyes descry<a name="page_388" id="page_388"></a><br /> +The inly-mourning bird.<br /> +The dove, with friendly curiosity,<br /> +Flutters to the next bush, and looks<br /> +With tender sweetness on the wounded king.<br /> +"Ah, why so sad?" he cooes;<br /> +"Be of good cheer, my friend!<br /> +Hast thou not all the means of tranquil bliss<br /> +Around thee here?<br /> +Canst thou not meet with swelling breast<br /> +The last rays of the setting sun<br /> +On the brook's mossy brink?<br /> +Canst wander 'mid the dewy flowers,<br /> +And, from the superfluous wealth<br /> +Of the wood-bushes, pluck at will<br /> +Wholesome and delicate food,<br /> +And at the silvery fountain quench thy thirst?<br /> +O friend! the spirit of content<br /> +Gives all that we can know of bliss;<br /> +And this sweet spirit of content<br /> +Finds every where its food."<br /> +"O, wise one!" said the eagle, deeper still<br /> +Into himself retiring;<br /> +"O wisdom, thou speakest as a dove!"<br /> +</p> + +<h2><a name="TO_A_FRIEND_WITH_HEARTSEASE" id="TO_A_FRIEND_WITH_HEARTSEASE"></a>TO A FRIEND, WITH HEARTSEASE.</h2> + +<p class="poem"> +Content in purple lustre clad,<br /> +Kingly serene, and golden glad;<br /> +No demi hues of sad contrition,<br /> +No pallors of enforced submission;<br /> +Give me such content as this,<br /> +And keep a while the rosy bliss.<br /> +</p> + +<p><a name="page_389" id="page_389"></a></p> + +<h2><a name="ASPIRATION" id="ASPIRATION"></a>ASPIRATION.<br /><br /> +<small>LINES WRITTEN IN THE JOURNAL OF HER BROTHER R. F. F.</small></h2> + +<p class="poem"> +Foreseen, forespoken not foredone,—<br /> +Ere the race be well begun,<br /> +The prescient soul is at the goal,<br /> +One little moment binds the whole;<br /> +Happy they themselves who call<br /> +To risk much, and to conquer all;<br /> +Happy are they who many losses,<br /> +Sore defeat or frequent crosses,<br /> +Though these may the heart dismay,<br /> +Cannot the sure faith betray;<br /> +Who in beauty bless the Giver;<br /> +Seek ocean on the loveliest river;<br /> +Or on desert island tossed,<br /> +Seeing Heaven, think nought lost.<br /> +May thy genius bring to thee<br /> +Of this life experience free,<br /> +And the earth vine's mysterious cup,<br /> +Sweet and bitter yield thee up.<br /> +But should the now sparkling bowl<br /> +Chance to slip from thy control,<br /> +And much of the enchanted wine<br /> +Be spilt in sand, as 'twas with mine,<br /> +Let blessings lost being consecration,<br /> +Change the pledge to a libation.<br /> +For the Power to whom we bow<br /> +Has given his pledge, that, if not now,<br /> +They of pure and steadfast mind,<br /> +By faith exalted, truth refined,<a name="page_390" id="page_390"></a><br /> +Shall hear all music, loud and clear,<br /> +Whose first notes they ventured here.<br /> +Then fear not thou to wind the horn<br /> +Though elf and gnome thy courage scorn;<br /> +Ask for the castle's king and queen,<br /> +Though rabble rout may come between,<br /> +Beat thee, senseless, to the ground,<br /> +In the dark beset thee round;<br /> +Persist to ask, and they will come.<br /> +Seek not for rest a humbler home,<br /> +And thou wilt see what few have seen,<br /> +The palace home of king and queen.<br /> +</p> + +<h2><a name="THE_ONE_IN_ALL" id="THE_ONE_IN_ALL"></a>THE ONE IN ALL.</h2> + +<p class="poem"> +There are who separate the eternal light<br /> +In forms of man and woman, day and night;<br /> +They cannot bear that God be essence quite.<br /> +<br /> +Existence is as deep a verity:<br /> +Without the dual, where is unity?<br /> +And the "I am" cannot forbear to be;<br /> +<br /> +But from its primal nature forced to frame<br /> +Mysteries, destinies of various name,<br /> +Is forced to give what it has taught to claim.<br /> +<br /> +Thus love must answer to its own unrest;<br /> +The bad commands us to expect the best,<br /> +And hope of its own prospects is the test.<a name="page_391" id="page_391"></a><br /> +<br /> +And dost thou seek to find the one in two?<br /> +Only upon the old can build the new;<br /> +The symbol which you seek is found in you.<br /> +<br /> +The heart and mind, the wisdom and the will,<br /> +The man and woman, must be severed still,<br /> +And Christ must reconcile the good and ill.<br /> +<br /> +There are to whom each symbol is a mask;<br /> +The life of love is a mysterious task;<br /> +They want no answer, for they would not ask.<br /> +<br /> +A single thought transfuses every form;<br /> +The sunny day is changed into the storm,<br /> +For light is dark, hard soft, and cold is warm.<br /> +<br /> +One presence fills and floods the whole serene;<br /> +Nothing can be, nothing has ever been,<br /> +Except the one truth that creates the scene.<br /> +<br /> +Does the heart beat,—that is a seeming only;<br /> +You cannot be alone, though you are lonely;<br /> +The All is neutralized in the One only.<br /> +<br /> +You ask <i>a</i> faith,—they are content with faith;<br /> +You ask to have,—but they reply, "<span class="smcap">It</span> hath."<br /> +There is no end, and there need be no path.<br /> +<br /> +The day wears heavily,—why, then, ignore it;<br /> +Peace is the soul's desire,—such thoughts restore it;<br /> +The truth thou art,—it needs not to implore it.<br /> +<br /> +<i>The Presence</i> all thy fancies supersedes,<br /> +All that is done which thou wouldst seek in deeds,<br /> +<i>The</i> wealth obliterates all seeming needs.<br /> +<br /> +Both these are true, and if they are at strife,<br /> +The mystery bears the one name of <i>Life</i>,<br /> +That, slowly spelled, will yet compose the strife.<a name="page_392" id="page_392"></a><br /> +<br /> +The men of old say, "Live twelve thousand years,<br /> +And see the end of all that here appears,<br /> +And Moxen<a name="FNanchor_45_45" id="FNanchor_45_45"></a><a href="#Footnote_45_45" class="fnanchor">[45]</a> shall absorb thy smiles and tears."<br /> +<br /> +These later men say, "Live this little day.<br /> +Believe that human nature is the way,<br /> +And know both Son and Father while you pray;<br /> +<br /> +And one in two, in three, and none alone,<br /> +Letting you know even as you are known,<br /> +Shall make the you and me eternal parts of one."<br /> +<br /> +To me, our destinies seem flower and fruit<br /> +Born of an ever-generating root;<br /> +The other statement I cannot dispute.<br /> +<br /> +But say that Love and Life eternal seem,<br /> +And if eternal ties be but a dream,<br /> +What is the meaning of that self-same <i>seem</i>?<br /> +<br /> +Your nature craves Eternity for Truth;<br /> +Eternity of Love is prayer of youth;<br /> +How, without love, would have gone forth your truth?<br /> +<br /> +I do not think we are deceived to grow,<br /> +But that the crudest fancy, slightest show,<br /> +Covers some separate truth that we may know.<br /> +<br /> +In the one Truth, each separate fact is true;<br /> +Eternally in one I many view,<br /> +And destinies through destiny pursue.<br /> +<br /> +This is <i>my</i> tendency; but can I say<br /> +That this my thought leads the true, only way?<br /> +I only know it constant leads, and I obey.<a name="page_393" id="page_393"></a><br /> +<br /> +I only know one prayer—"Give me the truth,<br /> +Give me that colored whiteness, ancient youth,<br /> +Complex and simple, seen in joy and ruth.<br /> +<br /> +Let me not by vain wishes bar my claim,<br /> +Nor soothe my hunger by an empty name,<br /> +Nor crucify the Son of man by hasty blame.<br /> +<br /> +But in the earth and fire, water and air,<br /> +Live earnestly by turns without despair,<br /> +Nor seek a home till home be every where!"<br /> +</p> + +<h2><a name="A_GREETING" id="A_GREETING"></a>A GREETING.</h2> + +<p class="poem"> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Thoughts which come at a call</span><br /> +Are no better than if they came not at all;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Neither flower nor fruit,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Yielding no root</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">For plant, shrub, or tree.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Thus I have not for thee</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">One good word to say,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">To-day,</span><br /> +Except that I prize thy gentle heart,<br /> +Free from ambition, falsehood, or art,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And thy good mind,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Daily refined,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">By pure desire</span><br /> +To fan the heaven-seeking fire:<br /> +May it rise higher and higher;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Till in thee</span><br /> +Gentleness finds its dignity,<br /> +Life flowing tranquil, pure and free,<br /> +A mild, unbroken harmony.<br /> +</p> + +<p><a name="page_394" id="page_394"></a></p> + +<h2><a name="LINES_TO_EDITH_ON_HER_BIRTHDAY" id="LINES_TO_EDITH_ON_HER_BIRTHDAY"></a>LINES TO EDITH, ON HER BIRTHDAY.</h2> + +<p class="poem"> +If the same star our fates together bind,<br /> +Why are we thus divided, mind from mind?<br /> +If the same law one grief to both impart,<br /> +How couldst thou grieve a trusting mother's heart?<br /> +<br /> +Our aspiration seeks a common aim;<br /> +Why were we tempered of such differing frame?<br /> +But 'tis too late to turn this wrong to right;<br /> +Too cold, too damp, too deep, has fallen the night.<br /> +<br /> +And yet, the angel of my life replies,<br /> +Upon that night a morning star shall rise,<br /> +Fairer than that which ruled thy temporal birth,<br /> +Undimmed by vapors of the dreamy earth.<br /> +<br /> +It says, that, where a heart thy claim denies,<br /> +Genius shall read its secret ere it flies;<br /> +The earthly form may vanish from thy side,<br /> +Pure love will make thee still the spirit's bride.<br /> +<br /> +And thou, ungentle, yet much loving child,<br /> +Whose heart still shows the "untamed haggard wild,"<br /> +A heart which justly makes the highest claim,<br /> +Too easily is checked by transient blame.<br /> +<br /> +Ere such an orb can ascertain its sphere,<br /> +The ordeal must be various and severe;<br /> +My prayer attend thee, though the feet may fly;<br /> +I hear thy music in the silent sky.<br /> +</p> + +<p><a name="page_395" id="page_395"></a></p> + +<h2>LINES<br /><br /> +<small>WRITTEN IN HER BROTHER R. F. F.'S JOURNAL.</small></h2> + +<p class="c">"Mark the perfect man, and behold the upright, for the end of that +man is peace."—<i>Psalms</i> xxxvii. 37.</p> + +<p class="poem"> +The man of heart and words sincere,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Who truth and justice follows still,</span><br /> +Pursues his way with conscience clear,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Unharmed by earthly care and ill.</span><br /> +His promises he never breaks,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">But sacredly to each adheres;</span><br /> +Honor's straight path he ne'er forsakes,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Though danger in the way appears.</span><br /> +He never boasts, will ne'er deceive,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">For vanity nor yet for gain;</span><br /> +All that he says you may believe;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">For worlds he would not conscience stain.</span><br /> +If he desires what others do,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And they deserve it more than he,</span><br /> +He gives to them what is their due,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Happy in his humility.</span><br /> +Not to his friends alone he's kind,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">But his foes too with candor sees;</span><br /> +Not to their good intentions blind,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Though hopeless their dislike t' appease.</span><br /> +His eyes are clear, his hands are pure,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">To God it is his constant prayer</span><br /> +That, be he rich or be he poor,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">He never may wrong actions dare.<a name="page_396" id="page_396"></a></span><br /> +If rich, he to the suffering gives<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">All he can spare, and thinks it just,</span><br /> +That, since he by God's bounty lives,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">He should as steward hold his trust.</span><br /> +If poor, he envies not; he knows<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">How covetousness corrupts the heart,</span><br /> +Whatever a just God bestows<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Receiving as his proper part.</span><br /> +O Father, such a man I'd be;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Like him would act, like him would pray:</span><br /> +Lead me in truth and purity<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">To win thy peace and see thy day.</span><br /> +</p> + +<h2><a name="ON_A_PICTURE_REPRESENTING_THE_DESCENT_FROM_THE_CROSS" id="ON_A_PICTURE_REPRESENTING_THE_DESCENT_FROM_THE_CROSS"></a>ON A PICTURE REPRESENTING THE DESCENT FROM THE CROSS.<br /><br /> +<small>BY RAPHAEL.</small></h2> + +<p class="poem"> +Virgin Mother, Mary mild!<br /> +It was thine to see the child,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Gift of the Messiah dove,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Pure blossom of ideal love,</span><br /> +Break, upon the "guilty cross,"<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The seeming promise of his life;</span><br /> +Of faith, of hope, of love, a loss,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Deepened all thy, bosom's strife,</span><br /> +Brow down-bent, and heart-strings torn,<br /> +Fainting, by frail arms upborne.<a name="page_397" id="page_397"></a><br /> +<br /> +All those startled figures show,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">That they did not apprehend</span><br /> +The thought of Him who there lies low,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">On whom those sorrowing eyes they bend.</span><br /> +They do not feel this holiest hour;<br /> +Their hearts soar not to read the power,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Which this deepest of distress</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Alone could give to save and bless.</span><br /> +<br /> +Soul of that fair, now ruined form,<br /> +Thou who hadst force to bide the storm,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Must again descend to tell</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Of thy life the hidden spell;</span><br /> +Though their hearts within them burned,<br /> +The flame rose not till he returned.<br /> +<br /> +Just so all our dead ones lie;<br /> +Just so call our thoughts on high;<br /> +Thus we linger on the earth,<br /> +And dully miss death's heavenly birth.<br /> +</p> + +<h2><a name="THE_CAPTURED_WILD_HORSE46" id="THE_CAPTURED_WILD_HORSE46"></a>THE CAPTURED WILD HORSE.<a name="FNanchor_46_46" id="FNanchor_46_46"></a><a href="#Footnote_46_46" class="fnanchor">[46]</a></h2> + +<p class="poem"> +On the boundless plain careering,<br /> +By an unseen compass steering,<br /> +Wildly flying, reappearing,—<a name="page_398" id="page_398"></a><br /> +With untamed fire their broad eyes glowing,<br /> +In every step a grand pride showing,<br /> +Of no servile moment knowing,—<br /> +<br /> +Happy as the trees and flowers,<br /> +In their instinct cradled hours,<br /> +Happier in fuller powers,—<br /> +<br /> +See the wild herd nobly ranging,<br /> +Nature varying, not changing,<br /> +Lawful in their lawless ranging.<br /> +<br /> +But hark! what boding crouches near?<br /> +On the horizon now appear<br /> +Centaur-forms of force and fear.<br /> +<br /> +On their enslaved brethren borne,<br /> +With bit and whip of tyrant scorn,<br /> +To make new captives, as forlorn.<br /> +<br /> +Wildly snort the astonished throng,<br /> +Stamp, and wheel, and fly along,<br /> +Those centaur-powers they know are strong.<br /> +<br /> +But the lasso, skilful cast,<br /> +Holds one only captive fast,<br /> +Youngest, weakest—left the last.<br /> +<br /> +How thou trembledst then, Konick!<br /> +Thy full breath came short and thick,<br /> +Thy heart to bursting beat so quick;<br /> +<br /> +Thy strange brethren peering round,<br /> +By those tyrants held and bound,<br /> +Tyrants fell,—whom falls confound!<a name="page_399" id="page_399"></a><br /> +<br /> +With rage and pity fill thy heart;<br /> +Death shall be thy chosen part,<br /> +Ere such slavery tame thy heart.<br /> +<br /> +But strange, unexpected joy!<br /> +They seem to mean thee no annoy—<br /> +Gallop off both man and boy.<br /> +<br /> +Let the wild horse freely go!<br /> +Almost he shames it should be so;<br /> +So lightly prized himself to know.<br /> +<br /> +All deception 'tis, O steed!<br /> +Ne'er again upon the mead<br /> +Shalt thou a free wild horse feed.<br /> +<br /> +The mark of man doth blot thy side,<br /> +The fear of man doth dull thy pride,<br /> +Thy master soon shall on thee ride.<br /> +<br /> +Thy brethren of the free plain,<br /> +Joyful speeding back again,<br /> +With proud career and flowing mane,<br /> +<br /> +Find thee branded, left alone,<br /> +And their hearts are turned to stone—<br /> +They keep thee in their midst alone.<br /> +<br /> +Cruel the intervening years,<br /> +Seeming freedom stained by fears,<br /> +Till the captor reappears;<br /> +<br /> +Finds thee with thy broken pride.<br /> +Amid thy peers still left aside,<br /> +Unbeloved and unallied;<a name="page_400" id="page_400"></a><br /> +Finds thee ready for thy fate;<br /> +For joy and hope 'tis all too late—<br /> +Thou'rt wedded to thy sad estate.<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">———</span><br /> +<br /> +Wouldst have the princely spirit bowed?<br /> +Whisper only, speak not loud,<br /> +Mark and leave him in the crowd.<br /> +<br /> +Thou need'st not spies nor jailers have;<br /> +The free will serve thee like the slave,<br /> +Coward shrinking from the brave.<br /> +<br /> +And thy cohorts, when they come<br /> +To take the weary captive home,<br /> +Need only beat the retreating drum.<br /> +</p> + +<h2><a name="EPILOGUE_TO_THE_TRAGEDY_OF_ESSEX" id="EPILOGUE_TO_THE_TRAGEDY_OF_ESSEX"></a>EPILOGUE TO THE TRAGEDY OF ESSEX.<br /><br /> +<small>SPOKEN IN THE CHARACTER OF THE QUEEN.—TRANSLATED FROM GŒTHE.</small></h2> + +<p class="poem"> +No Essex here!—unblest—they give no sign.<br /> +And shall such live, while earth's best nobleness<br /> +Departs and leaves her barren? Now too late<br /> +Weakness and cunning both are exorcised.<br /> +How could I trust thee whom I knew so well?<a name="page_401" id="page_401"></a><br /> +<br /> +Am I not like the fool of fable? He<br /> +Who in his bosom warmed the frozen viper,<br /> +And fancied man might hope for gratitude<br /> +From the betrayer's seed? Away! begone!<br /> +No breath, no sound shall here insult my anguish.<br /> +Essex is dumb, and they shall all be so;<br /> +No human presence shall control my mood.<br /> +Begone, I say! The queen would be alone!<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">(<i>They all go out.</i>)</span><br /> +<br /> +Alone and still! This day the cup of woe<br /> +Is full; and while I drain its bitter dregs,<br /> +Calm, queenlike, stern, I would review the past.<br /> +Well it becomes the favorite of fortune,<br /> +The royal arbitress of others' weal,<br /> +The world's desire, and England's deity,<br /> +Self-poised, self-governed, clear and firm to gaze<br /> +Where others close their aching eyes, to <i>dream</i>.<br /> +<br /> +Who feels imperial courage glow within<br /> +Fears not the mines which lie beneath his throne;<br /> +Bold he ascends, though knowing well his peril—<br /> +Majestical and fearless holds the sceptre.<br /> +The golden circlet of enormous weight<br /> +He wears with brow serene and smiling air,<br /> +As though a myrtle chaplet graced his temples.<br /> +And thus didst <i>thou</i>. The far removed thy power<br /> +Attracted and subjected to thy will,<br /> +The hates and fears which oft beset thy way<br /> +Were seen, were met, and conquered by thy courage.<br /> +Thy tyrant father's wrath, thy mother's hopeless fate,<br /> +Thy sister's harshness,—all were cast behind;<br /> +And to a soul like thine, bonds and harsh usage<br /> +Taught fortitude, prudence, and self-command,<br /> +To act, or to endure. Fate did the rest.<a name="page_402" id="page_402"></a><br /> +<br /> +One brilliant day thou heard'st, "Long live the Queen!"<br /> +A queen thou wert; and in the heart's despite,<br /> +Despite the foes without, within, who ceaseless<br /> +Have threatened war and death,—a queen thou <i>art</i>,<br /> +And wilt be, while a spark of life remains.<br /> +But this last deadly blow—I feel it here!<br /> +Yet the low, prying world shall ne'er perceive it.<br /> +"Actress" they call me,—'tis a queen's vocation!<br /> +The people stare and whisper—what would they<br /> +But acting, to amuse them? Is deceit<br /> +Unknown, except in regal palaces?<br /> +The child at play already is an actor.<br /> +<br /> +Still to thyself, let weal or woe betide,<br /> +Elizabeth! be true and steadfast ever!<br /> +Maintain thy fixed reserve: 'tis just; what heart<br /> +Can sympathize with a queen's agony?<br /> +The false, false world,—it wooes me for my treasures,<br /> +My favors, and the place my smile confers;<br /> +And if for love I offer mutual love,<br /> +My minion, not content, must have the crown.<br /> +'Twas thus with Essex; yet to thee, O heart!<br /> +I dare to say it, thy all died with him!<br /> +<br /> +Man must experience—be he who he may—<br /> +Of bliss a last, irrevocable day.<br /> +Each owns this true, but cannot bear to live<br /> +And feel the last has come, the last has gone;<br /> +That never eye again in earnest tenderness<br /> +Shall turn to him,—no heart shall thickly beat<br /> +When his footfall is heard,—no speaking blush<br /> +Tell the soul's wild delight at meeting,—never<br /> +Rapture in presence, hope in absence more,<br /> +Be his,—no sun of love illume his landscape!<br /> +Yet thus it is with me. Throughout this heart<a name="page_403" id="page_403"></a><br /> +Deep night, without a star! What all the host<br /> +To me,—my Essex fallen from the heavens!<br /> +To me he was the centre of the world,<br /> +The ornament of time. Wood, lawn, or hall,<br /> +The busy mart, the verdant solitude,<br /> +To me were but the fame of one bright image;<br /> +That face is dust,—those lustrous eyes are closed,<br /> +And the frame mocks me with its empty centre.<br /> +<br /> +How nobly free, how gallantly he bore him,<br /> +The charms of youth combined with manhood's vigor!<br /> +How sage his counsel, and how warm his valor,—<br /> +The glowing fire and the aspiring flame!<br /> +Even in his presumption he was kingly!<br /> +<br /> +But ah! does memory cheat me? What was all,<br /> +Since Truth was wanting, and the man I loved<br /> +Could court his death to vent his anger on me,<br /> +And I must punish him, or live degraded.<br /> +I chose the first; but in his death I died.<br /> +Land, sea, church, people, throne,—all, all are nought,<br /> +I live a living death, and call it royalty.<br /> +Yet, wretched ruler o'er these empty gauds,<br /> +A part remains to play, and I will play it.<br /> +A purple mantle hides my empty heart,<br /> +The kingly crown adorns my aching brow,<br /> +And pride conceals my anguish from the world.<br /> +<br /> +But in the still and ghostly midnight hour,<br /> +From each intruding eye and ear set free,<br /> +I still may shed the bitter, hopeless tear,<br /> +Nor fear the babbling of the earless walls.<br /> +I to myself may say, "I die! I die!<br /> +Elizabeth, unfriended and alone,<br /> +So die as thou hast lived,—alone, but queenlike!"<br /> +</p> + +<p><a name="page_404" id="page_404"></a></p> + +<h2><a name="HYMN_WRITTEN_FOR_A_SUNDAY_SCHOOL" id="HYMN_WRITTEN_FOR_A_SUNDAY_SCHOOL"></a>HYMN WRITTEN FOR A SUNDAY SCHOOL.</h2> + +<p class="poem"> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"And his mother said unto him, Son, why hast thou thus dealt with us?</span><br /> +Behold, thy father and I have sought thee sorrowing.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"And he said unto them, How is it that ye sought me? Wist ye not</span><br /> +that I must be about my Father's business? "—<i>Luke</i> ii. 48, 49<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 6.5em;">I.</span><br /> +<br /> +Thus early was Christ's course begun,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Thus radiant dawned celestial day;</span><br /> +And those who such a race would run,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">As early should be on the way.</span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 6em;">II.</span><br /> +<br /> +His Father's business was his care,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Yet in man's favor still he grew:</span><br /> +O, might we learn, by thought and prayer,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Like him a work of love to do!</span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 5.5em;">III.</span><br /> +<br /> +Wisdom and virtue still he sought,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Nor ignorant nor vile despised:</span><br /> +True was each action, pure each thought,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And each pure hope he realized.</span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 6em;">IV.</span><br /> +<br /> +The empires of this world, in vain,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Offered their sceptres to his hand;</span><br /> +Fearless he trod the stormy main,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Fearless 'mid throngs of foes could stand.</span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 6.5em;">V.</span><br /> +<br /> +Yet with his courage and his power<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Combined such sweetness and such love,<a name="page_405" id="page_405"></a></span><br /> +He could revere the simplest flower,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The vilest sinners firm reprove.</span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 6.5em;">VI.</span><br /> +<br /> +For all mankind he came, nor yet<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">An infant's visit would deny;</span><br /> +Nor friend nor mother did forget<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">In his last hour of agony.</span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 6em;">VII.</span><br /> +<br /> +O, children, ask him to impart<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">That spirit clear and temper mild,</span><br /> +Which made the mother in her heart<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Keep all the sayings of her child.</span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 6em;">VIII.</span><br /> +<br /> +Bless him who said, of such as you<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">His Father's kingdom is, and still,</span><br /> +His yoke to bear, his work to do,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Study his life to learn his will.</span><br /> +</p> + +<h2><a name="DESERTION" id="DESERTION"></a>DESERTION.<br /><br /> +<small>TRANSLATION OF ONE OF GARCILASO'S ECLOGUES.</small></h2> + +<p class="poem"> +With my lamenting touched, the lofty trees<br /> +Incline their graceful heads without a breeze;<br /> +The listening birds forego their joyous song,<br /> +For soft and mournful strains, which echoes faint prolong.<br /> +<br /> +Lions and bears resign the charms of sleep<br /> +To hear my lonely plaint, and see me weep;<a name="page_406" id="page_406"></a><br /> +At my approaching death e'en stones relent.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Yet though yourself the fatal cause you know,</span><br /> +Not once on me those lovely eyes are bent:<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Flow freely, tears! 'tis meet that you should flow!</span><br /> +<br /> +Although for my relief thou wilt not come,<br /> +Leave not the place where once thou loved'st to roam!<br /> +Here thou mayst rove secure from meeting me;<br /> +With a torn heart forever hence I flee.<br /> +Come, if 'twere this alone thy footsteps stayed,<br /> +Here the soft meadow, the delightful shade,<br /> +The roses now in flower, the waters clear,<br /> +Invite thee to the valley once so dear.<br /> +<br /> +Come, and bring with thee thy late-chosen love;<br /> +Each object shall thy perfidy reprove;<br /> +Since to another thou hast given thy heart,<br /> +From this sweet scene forever I depart.<br /> +And soon kind Death my sorrows shall remove,<br /> +The bitter ending of my faithful love.<br /> +</p> + +<h2><a name="SONG_WRITTEN_FOR_A_MAY_DAY_FESTIVAL" id="SONG_WRITTEN_FOR_A_MAY_DAY_FESTIVAL"></a>SONG WRITTEN FOR A MAY DAY FESTIVAL.<br /><br /> +<small>TO BE SUNG TO THE TUNE OF "THE BONNY BOAT."</small></h2> + +<p class="poem"> +<span style="margin-left: 7em;">I.</span><br /> +<br /> +O, blesséd be this sweet May day,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The fairest of the year;</span><br /> +The birds are heard from every spray,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And the blue sky shines so clear!</span><br /> +White blossoms deck the apple tree,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Blue violets the plain;<a name="page_407" id="page_407"></a></span><br /> +Their fragrance tells the wand'ring bee<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">That Spring is come again.</span><br /> +We'll cull the blossoms from the bough<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Where robins gayly sing,</span><br /> +We'll wreathe them for our queen's pure brow,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">We'll wreathe them for our king.</span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 6.5em;">II.</span><br /> +<br /> +The winter wind is bleak and sad,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And chill the winter rain;</span><br /> +But these May gales blow warm and glad,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And charm the heart from pain.</span><br /> +The sick, the poor rejoice once more,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Pale cheeks resume their glow,</span><br /> +And those who thought their day was o'er<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">New life to May suns owe.</span><br /> +And we, in youth and health so gay,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Sheltered by love and care,</span><br /> +How should we joy in blooming May,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And bless its balmy air!</span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 6em;">III.</span><br /> +<br /> +We are the children of the Spring;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Our home is always green;</span><br /> +Green be the garland of our king,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The livery of our queen.</span><br /> +The gardener's care the seed has strown,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">To deck our home with flowers;</span><br /> +Our Father's love from high has shone,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And sent the needed showers.</span><br /> +Barren indeed the plants must be,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">If they should not disclose,</span><br /> +Tended and cherished with such toil,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The lily and the rose.</span><br /> +<a name="page_408" id="page_408"></a><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 6em;">IV.</span><br /> +<br /> +Meanwhile through the wild wood we'll rove,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Where earliest flowerets grow,</span><br /> +And greet each simple bud with love,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Which tells us what to do—</span><br /> +That, though untended, we may bloom<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And smile on all around,</span><br /> +And one day rise from earth's low tomb,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">To live where light is found.</span><br /> +A modest violet be our queen,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Still fragrant, though alone,</span><br /> +Our king a laurel—evergreen—<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">To which no blight is known.</span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 6em;">V.</span><br /> +<br /> +So let us bless the sweet May day,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And pray the coming year</span><br /> +May see us walk the upward way—<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Minds earnest, conscience clear;</span><br /> +That fruit Spring's amplest hope may crown,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And every wingéd day</span><br /> +Make to our hearts more dear, more known,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The hope, the peace of May!</span><br /> +So cull the blossoms from the bough<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Where birds so gayly sing;</span><br /> +We'll wreathe them for our queen's pure brow,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">We'll wreathe them for our king.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p><a name="page_409" id="page_409"></a></p> + +<h2><a name="CARADORI_SINGING" id="CARADORI_SINGING"></a>CARADORI SINGING.</h2> + +<p class="poem"> +Let not the heart o'erladen hither fly,<br /> +Hoping in tears to vent its misery:<br /> +She soars not like the lark with eager cry,<br /> +Not hers the robin's notes of love and joy;<br /> +Nor, like the nightingale's love-descant, tells<br /> +Her song the truths of the heart's hidden wells.<br /> +Come, if thy soul be tranquil, and her voice<br /> +Shall bid the tranquil lake laugh and rejoice;<br /> +Shall lightly warble, flutter, hover, dance,<br /> +And charm thee by its sportive elegance.<br /> +A finished style the highest art has given,<br /> +And a fine organ she received from heaven:<br /> +But genius casts not here one living ray;<br /> +Thou shalt approve, admire, not weep, to-day.<br /> +</p> + +<h2>LINES</h2> + +<p class="c">IN ANSWER TO STANZAS CONTAINING SEVERAL PASSAGES OF DISTINGUISHED BEAUTY, ADDRESSED TO ME BY——.</p> + +<p class="poem"> +As by the wayside the worn traveller lies,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And finds no pillow for his aching brow,</span><br /> +Except the pack beneath whose weight he dies,—<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">If loving breezes from the far west blow,</span><br /> +Laden with perfume from those blissful bowers<br /> +Where gentle youth and hope once gilded all his hours,<br /> +As fans that loving breeze, tears spring again,<br /> +And cool the fever of his wearied brain.<a name="page_410" id="page_410"></a><br /> +<br /> +Even so to me the soft romantic dream<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Of one who still may sit at fancy's feet,</span><br /> +Where love and beauty yet are all the theme,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Where spheral concords find an echo meet.</span><br /> +To the ideal my vexed spirit turns,<br /> +But often for communion vainly burns.<br /> +Blest is that hour when breeze of poesy<br /> +From far the ancient fragrance wafts to me;<br /> +<i>This time</i> thrice blest, because it came unsought,<br /> +"Sweet suppliance," and <i>dear</i>, because <i>unbought</i>.<br /> +</p> + +<h2><a name="INFLUENCE_OF_THE_OUTWARD" id="INFLUENCE_OF_THE_OUTWARD"></a>INFLUENCE OF THE OUTWARD.</h2> + +<p class="poem"> +The sun, the moon, the waters, and the air,<br /> +The hopeful, holy, terrible, and fair;<br /> +Flower-alphabets, love-letters from the wave,<br /> +All mysteries which flutter, blow, skim, lave;<br /> +All that is ever-speaking, never spoken,<br /> +Spells that are ever breaking, never broken,—<br /> +Have played upon my soul, and every string<br /> +Confessed the touch which once could make it sing<br /> +Triumphal notes; and still, though changed the tone,<br /> +Though damp and jarring fall the lyre hath known,<br /> +It would, if fitly played, and all its deep notes wove<br /> +Into one tissue of belief and love,<br /> +Yield melodies for angel-audience meet,<br /> +And pæans fit creative power to greet.<br /> +<br /> +O, injured lyre! thy golden frame is marred;<br /> +No garlands deck thee; no libations poured<br /> +Tell to the earth the triumphs of thy song;<br /> +No princely halls echo thy strains along;<a name="page_411" id="page_411"></a><br /> +But still the strings are there; and if at last they break,<br /> +Even in death some melody will make.<br /> +Mightst thou once more be strung, might yet the power be given,<br /> +To tell in numbers all thou hast of heaven!<br /> +But no! thy fragments scattered by the way,<br /> +To children given, help the childish play.<br /> +Be it thy pride to feel thy latest sigh<br /> +Could not forget the law of harmony,<br /> +Thou couldst not live for bliss—but thou for truth couldst die!<br /> +</p> + +<h2><a name="TO_MISS_R_B47" id="TO_MISS_R_B47"></a>TO MISS R. B.<a name="FNanchor_47_47" id="FNanchor_47_47"></a><a href="#Footnote_47_47" class="fnanchor">[47]</a></h2> + +<p class="poem"> +A graceful fiction of the olden day<br /> +Tells us that, by a mighty master's sway,<br /> +A city rose, obedient to the lyre;<br /> +That his sweet strains rude matter could inspire<br /> +With zeal his harmony to emulate;<br /> +Thus to the spot where that sweet singer sat<br /> +The rocks advanced, in symmetry combined,<br /> +To form the palace and the temple joined.<br /> +The arts are sisters, and united all,<br /> +So architecture answered music's call.<br /> +<br /> +In modern days such feats no more we see,<br /> +And matter dares 'gainst mind a rebel be;<br /> +The faith is gone such miracles which wrought;<br /> +Masons and carpenters must aid our thought;<br /> +The harp and voice in vain would try their skill<br /> +To raise a city on our hard-bound soil;<a name="page_412" id="page_412"></a><br /> +The rocks have lain asleep so many a year,<br /> +Nothing but gunpowder will make them stir;<br /> +I doubt if even for your voice would come<br /> +The smallest pebble from its sandy home;<br /> +But, if the minstrel can no more create,<br /> +For <i>building</i>, if he live a little late,<br /> +He wields a power of not inferior kind,<br /> +No longer rules o'er matter, but o'er mind.<br /> +And when a voice like yours its song doth pour,<br /> +If it can raise palace and tower no more,<br /> +It can each ugly fabric melt away,<br /> +Bidding the fancy fairer scenes portray;<br /> +Its soft and brilliant tones our thoughts can wing<br /> +To climes whence they congenial magic bring;<br /> +As by the sweet Italian voice is given<br /> +Dream of the radiance of Italia's heaven.<br /> +<br /> +Whether in round, low notes the strain may swell,<br /> +As if some tale of woe or wrong to tell,<br /> +Or swift and light the upward notes are heard,<br /> +With the full carolling clearness of a bird,<br /> +The stream of sound untroubled flows along,<br /> +And no obstruction mars your finished song.<br /> +No stifled notes, no gasp, no ill-taught graces,<br /> +No vulgar trills in worst-selected places,<br /> +None of the miseries which haunt a land<br /> +Where all would learn what so few understand,<br /> +Afflict in hearing you; in you we find<br /> +The finest organ, and informed by mind.<br /> +<br /> +And as, in that same fable I have quoted,<br /> +It is of that town-making artist noted,<br /> +That, where he leaned his lyre upon a stone,<br /> +The stone stole somewhat of that lovely tone,<a name="page_413" id="page_413"></a><br /> +And afterwards each untaught passer-by,<br /> +By touching it, could rouse the melody,—<br /> +Even thus a heart once by your music thrilled,<br /> +An ear which your delightful voice has filled,<br /> +In memory a talisman have found<br /> +To repel many a dull, harsh, after-sound;<br /> +And, as the music lingered in the stone,<br /> +After the minstrel and the lyre were gone,<br /> +Even so my thoughts and wishes, turned to sweetness,<br /> +Lend to the heavy hours unwonted fleetness;<br /> +And common objects, calling up the tone,<br /> +I caught from you, wake beauty not their own.<br /> +</p> + +<h2><a name="SISTRUM48" id="SISTRUM48"></a>SISTRUM.<a name="FNanchor_48_48" id="FNanchor_48_48"></a><a href="#Footnote_48_48" class="fnanchor">[48]</a></h2> + +<p class="poem"> +Triune, shaping, restless power,<br /> +Life-flow from life's natal hour,<br /> +No music chords are in thy sound;<br /> +By some thou'rt but a rattle found;<br /> +Yet, without thy ceaseless motion,<br /> +To ice would turn their dead devotion.<br /> +Life-flow of my natal hour,<br /> +I will not weary of thy power,<br /> +Till in the changes of thy sound<br /> +A chord's three parts distinct are found.<br /> +I will faithful move with thee,<br /> +God-ordered, self-fed energy.<br /> +Nature in eternity.<br /> +</p> + +<p><a name="page_414" id="page_414"></a></p> + +<h2><a name="IMPERFECT_THOUGHTS" id="IMPERFECT_THOUGHTS"></a>IMPERFECT THOUGHTS.</h2> + +<p class="poem"> +The peasant boy watches the midnight sky;<br /> +He sees the meteor dropping from on high;<br /> +He hastens whither the bright guest hath flown,<br /> +And finds—a mass of black, unseemly stone.<br /> +Disdainful, disappointed, turns he home.<br /> +If a philosopher that way had come,<br /> +He would have seized the waif with great delight,<br /> +And honored it as an aerolite.<br /> +But truly it would need a Cuvier's mind<br /> +High meaning in <i>my</i> meteors to find.<br /> +Well, in my museum there is room to spare—<br /> +I'll let them stay till Cuvier goes there!<br /> +</p> + +<h2><a name="SADNESS" id="SADNESS"></a>SADNESS.</h2> + +<p class="poem"> +Lonely lady, tell me why<br /> +That abandonment of eye?<br /> +Life is full, and nature fair;<br /> +How canst thou dream of dull despair?<br /> +<br /> +Life is full and nature fair;<br /> +A dull folly is despair;<br /> +But the heart lies still and tame<br /> +For want of what it may not claim.<br /> +<br /> +Lady, chide that foolish heart,<br /> +And bid it act a nobler part;<br /> +The love thou couldst be bid resign<br /> +Never could be worthy thine.<a name="page_415" id="page_415"></a><br /> +<br /> +O, I know, and knew it well,<br /> +How unworthy was the spell<br /> +In its silken band to bind<br /> +My heaven-born, heaven-seeking mind.<br /> +<br /> +Thou lonely moon, thou knowest well<br /> +Why I yielded to the spell;<br /> +Just so thou didst condescend<br /> +Thy own precept to offend.<br /> +<br /> +When wondering nymphs thee questioned why<br /> +That abandonment of eye,<br /> +Crying, "Dian,<a name="FNanchor_49_49" id="FNanchor_49_49"></a><a href="#Footnote_49_49" class="fnanchor">[49]</a> heaven's queen,<br /> +What can that trembling eyelash mean?"<br /> +<br /> +Waning, over ocean's breast,<br /> +Thou didst strive to hide unrest<br /> +From the question of their eyes,<br /> +Unseeing in their dull surprise.<br /> +<br /> +Thy Endymion had grown old;<br /> +Thy only love was marred with cold;<br /> +No longer to the secret cave<br /> +Thy ray could pierce, and answer have.<br /> +<br /> +No more to thee, no more, no more,<br /> +Till thy circling life be o'er,<br /> +A mutual heart shall be a home,<br /> +Of weary wishes happy tomb.<a name="page_416" id="page_416"></a><br /> +<br /> +No more, no more—O words which sever<br /> +Hearts from their hopes, to part forever!<br /> +They can believe it never!<br /> +</p> + +<h2><a name="LINES_WRITTEN_IN_AN_ALBUM50" id="LINES_WRITTEN_IN_AN_ALBUM50"></a>LINES WRITTEN IN AN ALBUM.<a name="FNanchor_50_50" id="FNanchor_50_50"></a><a href="#Footnote_50_50" class="fnanchor">[50]</a></h2> + +<p class="poem"> +Some names there are at sight of which will rise<br /> +Visions of triumph to the dullest eyes;<br /> +They breathe of garlands from a grateful race,<br /> +They tell of victory o'er all that's base;<br /> +To write them eagles might their plumage give,<br /> +And granite rocks should yield, that they may live.<br /> +<br /> +Others there are at sight of which will rise<br /> +Visions of beauty to all loving eyes,<br /> +Of radiant sweetness, or of gentle grace,<br /> +The poesy of manner or of face,<br /> +Spell of intense, if not of widest power;<br /> +The strong the ages rule; the fair, the hour.<br /> +<br /> +And there are names at sight of which will rise<br /> +Visions of goodness to the mourner's eyes;<br /> +They tell of generosity untired,<br /> +Which gave to others all the heart desired;<br /> +Of Virtue's <i>uncomplaining</i> sacrifice,<br /> +And holy hopes which sought their native skies.<br /> +<br /> +If I could hope that at my name would rise<br /> +Visions like these, before those gentle eyes,<br /> +How gladly would I place it in the shrine<a name="page_417" id="page_417"></a><br /> +Where many honored names are linked with thine,<br /> +And know, if lone and far my pathway lies,<br /> +My name is living 'mid the good and wise.<br /> +<br /> +It must not be, for now I know too well<br /> +That those to whom my name has aught to tell<br /> +O'er baffled efforts would lament or blame.<br /> +Who heeds a breaking reed?—a sinking flame?<br /> +Best wishes and kind thoughts I give to thee,<br /> +But mine, indeed, an <i>empty name</i> would be.<br /> +</p> + +<h2><a name="TO_S_C" id="TO_S_C"></a>TO S. C.</h2> + +<p class="poem"> +Our friend has likened thee to the sweet fern,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Which with no flower salutes the ardent day,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Yet, as the wanderer pursues his way,</span><br /> +While the dews fall, and hues of sunset burn,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Sheds forth a fragrance from the deep green brake,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Sweeter than the rich scents that gardens make.</span><br /> +Like thee, the fern loves well the hallowed shade<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Of trees that quietly aspire on high;</span><br /> +Amid such groves was consecration made<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Of vestals, tranquil as the vestal sky.</span><br /> +<br /> +Like thee, the fern doth better love to hide<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Beneath the leaf the treasure of its seed,</span><br /> +Than to display it, with an idle pride,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">To any but the careful gatherer's heed—</span><br /> +A treasure known to philosophic ken,<br /> +Garnered in nature, asking nought of men;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Nay, can invisible the wearer make,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Who would unnoted in life's game partake.<a name="page_418" id="page_418"></a></span><br /> +But I will liken thee to the sweet bay,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Which I first learned, in the Cohasset woods,</span><br /> +To name upon a sweet and pensive day<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Passed in their ministering solitudes.</span><br /> +<br /> +I had grown weary of the anthem high<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Of the full waves, cheering the patient rocks;</span><br /> +I had grown weary of the sob and sigh<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Of the dull ebb, after emotion's shocks;</span><br /> +My eye was weary of the glittering blue<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And the unbroken horizontal line;</span><br /> +My mind was weary, tempted to pursue<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The circling waters in their wide design,</span><br /> +Like snowy sea-gulls stooping to the wave,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Or rising buoyant to the utmost air,</span><br /> +To dart, to circle, airily to lave,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Or wave-like float in foam-born lightness fair:</span><br /> +I had swept onward like the wave so full,<br /> +Like sea weed now left on the shore so dull.<br /> +<br /> +I turned my steps to the retreating hills,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Rejected sand from that great haughty sea,</span><br /> +Watered by nature with consoling rills,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And gradual dressed with grass, and shrub, and tree;</span><br /> +They seemed to welcome me with timid smile,<br /> +That said, "We'd like to soothe you for a while;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">You seem to have been treated by the sea</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">In the same way that long ago were we."</span><br /> +<br /> +They had not much to boast, those gentle slopes,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">For the wild gambols of the sea-sent breeze</span><br /> +Had mocked at many of their quiet hopes,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And bent and dwarfed their fondly cherished trees;</span><br /> +Yet even in those marks of by-past wind,<br /> +There was a tender stilling for my mind.<a name="page_419" id="page_419"></a><br /> +<br /> +Hiding within a small but thick-set wood,<br /> +I soon forgot the haughty, chiding flood.<br /> +The sheep bell's tinkle on the drowsy ear,<br /> +With the bird's chirp, so short, and light, and clear,<br /> +Composed a melody that filled my heart<br /> +With flower-like growths of childish, artless art,<br /> +And of the tender, tranquil life I lived apart.<br /> +<br /> +It was an hour of pure tranquillity,<br /> +Like to the autumn sweetness of thine eye,<br /> +Which pries not, seeks not, and yet clearly sees—<br /> +Which wooes not, beams not, yet is sure to please.<br /> +Hours passed, and sunset called me to return<br /> +Where its sad glories on the cold wave burn.<br /> +<br /> +Rising from my kind bed of thick-strewn leaves,<br /> +A fragrance the astonished sense receives,<br /> +Ambrosial, searching, yet retiring, mild:<br /> +Of that soft scene the soul was it? or child?<br /> +'Twas the sweet bay I had unwitting spread,<br /> +A pillow for my senseless, throbbing head,<br /> +And which, like all the sweetest things, demands,<br /> +To make it speak, the grasp of alien hands.<br /> +<br /> +All that this scene did in that moment tell,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I since have read, O wise, mild friend! in thee.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Pardon the rude grasp, its sincerity,</span><br /> +And feel that I, at least, have known thee well.<br /> +Grudge not the green leaves ravished from thy stem,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Their music, should I live, muse-like to tell;</span><br /> +Thou wilt, in fresher green forgetting them,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Send others to console me for farewell.</span><br /> +Thou wilt see why the dim word of regret<br /> +Was made the one to rhyme with Margaret.<a name="page_420" id="page_420"></a><br /> +<br /> +But to the Oriental parent tongue,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Sunrise of Nature, does my chosen name,</span><br /> +My name of Leila, as a spell, belong,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Teaching the meaning of each temporal blame;</span><br /> +I chose it by the sound, not knowing why;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">But since I know that Leila stands for night,</span><br /> +I own that sable mantle of the sky,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Through which pierce, gem-like, points of distant light;</span><br /> +As sorrow truths, so night brings out her stars;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">O, add not, bard! that those stars shine too late!</span><br /> +While earth grows green amid the ocean jars,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And trumpets yet shall wake the slain of her long century-wars.</span><br /> +</p> + +<h2><a name="LINES_WRITTEN_IN_BOSTON_ON_A_BEAUTIFUL_AUTUMNAL_DAY" id="LINES_WRITTEN_IN_BOSTON_ON_A_BEAUTIFUL_AUTUMNAL_DAY"></a>LINES WRITTEN IN BOSTON ON A BEAUTIFUL AUTUMNAL DAY.</h2> + +<p class="poem"> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">As late we lived upon the gentle stream,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Nature refused us smiles and kindly airs;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The sun but rarely deigned a pallid gleam;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Then clouds came instantly, like glooms and tears,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Upon the timid flickerings of our hope;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The moon, amid the thick mists of the night,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Had scarcely power her gentle eye to ope,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And climb the heavenly steeps. A moment bright</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Shimmered the hectic leaves, then rudely torn</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">By winds that sobbed to see the wreck they made,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Upon the amber waves were thickly borne</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Adonis' gardens for the realms of shade,</span><br /> +While thoughts of beauty past all wish for livelier life forbade.<a name="page_421" id="page_421"></a><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">So sped the many days of tranquil life,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And on the stream, or by the mill's bright fire,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The wailing winds had told of distant strife,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Still bade us for the moment yield desire</span><br /> +To think, to feel, the moment gave,—we needed not aspire!<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Returning here, no harvest fields I see,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Nor russet beauty of the thoughtful year.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Where is the honey of the city bee?</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">No leaves upon this muddy stream appear.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The housekeeper is getting in his coal,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The lecturer his showiest thoughts is selling;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I hear of Major Somebody, the Pole,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And Mr. Lyell, how rocks grow, is telling;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">But not a breath of thoughtful poesy</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Does any social impulse bring to me;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">But many cares, sad thoughts of men unwise,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Base yieldings, and unransomed destinies,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Hopes uninstructed, and unhallowed ties.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Yet here the sun smiles sweet as heavenly love,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Upon the eve of earthly severance;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The youthfulest tender clouds float all above,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And earth lies steeped in odors like a trance.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The moon looks down as though she ne'er could leave us,</span><br /> +And these last trembling leaves sigh, "Must they too deceive us?"<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Surely some life is living in this light,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Truer than mine some soul received last night;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I cannot freely greet this beauteous day,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">But does not <i>thy</i> heart swell to hail the genial ray?</span><br /> +I would not nature these last loving words in vain should say.<br /> +</p> + +<p><a name="page_422" id="page_422"></a></p> + +<h2><a name="TO_E_C" id="TO_E_C"></a>TO E. C.<br /><br /> +<small>WITH HERBERT'S POEMS.</small></h2> + +<p class="poem"> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Dost thou remember that fair summer's day,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">As, sick and weary on my couch I lay,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Thou broughtst this little book, and didst diffuse</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">O'er my dark hour the light of Herbert's muse?</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The "Elixir," and "True Hymn," were then thy choice,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And the high strain gained sweetness from thy voice.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The book, before that day to me unknown,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I took to heart at once, and made my own.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Three winters and three summers since have passed,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And bitter griefs the hearts of both have tried;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Thy sympathy is lost to me at last;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">A dearer love has torn thee from my side;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Scenes, friends, to me unknown, now claim thy care;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">No more thy joys or griefs I soothe or share;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">No more thy lovely form my eye shall bless;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The gentle smile, the timid, mute caress,</span><br /> +No more shall break the icy chains which may my heart oppress.<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">New duties claim us both; indulgent Heaven</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Ten years of mutual love to us had given;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The plants from early youth together grew,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Together all youth's sun and tempests knew.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">At age mature arrived, thou, graceful vine!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Didst seek a sheltering tree round which to twine;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">While I, like northern fir, must be content</span><br /> +To clasp the rock which gave my youth its scanty nourishment.<a name="page_423" id="page_423"></a><br /> +<br /> +The world for which we sighed is with us now;<br /> +No longer musing on the <i>why</i> or <i>how</i>,<br /> +<i>What</i> really does exist we now must meet;<br /> +Life's dusty highway is beneath our feet;<br /> +Life's fainting pilgrims claim our ministry,<br /> +And the whole scene speaks stern <i>reality</i>.<br /> +<br /> +Say, in the tasks reality has brought,<br /> +Keepst <i>thou</i> the plan that pleased thy childish thought?<br /> +Does Herbert's "Hymn" in thy heart echo now?<br /> +Herbert's "Elixir" in thy bosom glow?<br /> +In Herbert's "Temper" dost thou strive to be?<br /> +Does Herbert's "Pearl" seem the true pearl to thee?<br /> +O, if 'tis so, I have not prayed in vain!—<br /> +My friend, my sister, we shall meet again.<br /> +<br /> +I dare not say that <i>I</i> am always true<br /> +To the vocation which my young thought knew;<br /> +But the Great Spirit blesses me, and still,<br /> +Though clouds may darken o'er the heavenly will,<br /> +Upon the hidden sun my thoughts can rest,<br /> +And oft the rainbow glitters in the west.<br /> +This earth no more seems all the world to me;<br /> +Before me shines a far eternity,<br /> +Whose laws to me, when thought is calmly poised,<br /> +Suffice, as they to angels have sufficed.<br /> +I know the thunder has not ceased to roll,<br /> +Not all the iron yet has pierced my soul;<br /> +I know no earthly honors wait for me,<br /> +No earthly love my heart shall satisfy.<br /> +Tears, of these eyes still oft the guests must be,<br /> +Long hours be borne, of chilling apathy;<br /> +Still harder teachings come to make me wise,<br /> +And life's best blood must seal the sacrifice.<a name="page_424" id="page_424"></a><br /> +<br /> +But He who still seems nearer and more bright,<br /> +Nor from my <i>seeking</i> eye withholds his light,<br /> +Will not forsake me, for his pledge is given;<br /> +Virtue shall teach the soul its way to heaven.<br /> +<br /> +O, pray for me, and I for thee will pray;<br /> +And more than loving words we used to say<br /> +Shall this avail. But little more we meet<br /> +In life—ah, how the years begin to fleet!<br /> +Ask—pray that I may seek beauty and truth,<br /> +In their high sphere we shall renew our youth.<br /> +On wings of <i>steadfast faith</i> there mayst <i>thou</i> soar,<br /> +And <i>my</i> soul fret at barriers no more!<br /> +</p> + +<p><a name="page_425" id="page_425"></a></p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="cb">MARGARET FULLER'S WORKS AND MEMOIRS.</p> + +<p class="hang">WOMAN IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY, and kindred papers relating to the +Sphere, Condition, and Duties of Woman. Edited by her brother, <span class="smcap">Arthur B. +Fuller</span>, with an Introduction by <span class="smcap">Horace Greeley</span>. In 1 vol. 16mo. $1.50.</p> + +<p class="hang">ART, LITERATURE, AND THE DRAMA. 1 vol. 16mo. $1.50.</p> + +<p class="hang">LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN; or, Reviews, Narratives, Essays, and +Poems. 1 vol. 16mo. $1.50.</p> + +<p class="hang">AT HOME AND ABROAD; or, Things and Thoughts in America and Europe. 1 +vol. 16mo. $1.50.</p> + +<p class="hang">MEMOIRS OF MARGARET FULLER OSSOLI. By <span class="smcap">Ralph Waldo Emerson</span>, <span class="smcap">William Henry +Channing</span>, and <span class="smcap">James Freeman Clarke</span>. With Portrait and Appendix. 2 vols. +16mo. $3.00. Cheap edition. Two vols. in one. $1.50.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Margaret Fuller</span> will be remembered as one of the "Great Conversers," the +"Prophet of the Woman Movement" in this country, and her Memoirs will be +read with delight as among the tenderest specimens of biographical +writing in our language. She was never an extremist. She considered +woman neither man's rival nor his foe, but his complement. As she +herself said, she believed that the development of one could not be +affected without that of the other. Her words, so noble in tone, so +moderate in spirit, so eloquent in utterance, should not be forgotten by +her sisters. Horace Greeley, in his introduction to her "Woman in the +Nineteenth Century," says: "She was one of the earliest, as well as +ablest, among American women to demand for her sex equality before the +law with her titular lord and master. Her writings on this subject have +the force that springs from the ripening of profound reflection into +assured conviction. It is due to her memory, as well as to the great and +living cause of which she was so eminent and so fearless an advocate, +that what she thought and said with regard to the position of her sex +and its limitations should be fully and fairly placed before the +public." No woman who wishes to understand the full scope of what is +called the woman's movement should fail to read these pages, and see in +them how one woman proved her right to a position in literature hitherto +occupied by men, by filling it nobly.</p> + +<p>The Story of this rich, sad, striving, unsatisfied life, with its depths +of emotion and its surface sparkling and glowing, is told tenderly and +reverently by her biographers. Their praise is eulogy, and their words +often seem extravagant, but they knew her well, they spoke as they felt. +The character that could awaken such interest and love surely is a rare +one.</p> + +<p>==>The above are uniformly bound in cloth, and sold separately or in +sets.</p> + +<p class="c">Sold everywhere. Mailed, post-paid, by the Publishers, ROBERTS BROTHERS, +<span class="smcap">Boston</span>.<a name="page_426" id="page_426"></a></p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="c"><i>Messrs. Roberts Brothers' Publications.</i></p> + +<p class="c">Famous Women Series.</p> + +<p class="cb"><big><big>MARGARET FULLER.</big></big></p> + +<p class="c"><span class="smcap">By</span> JULIA WARD HOWE.</p> + +<p class="cb">One volume. 16mo. Cloth. Price $1.00.</p> + +<p>"A memoir of the woman who first in New England took a position of moral +and intellectual leadership, by the woman who wrote the Battle Hymn of +the Republic, is a literary event of no common or transient interest. +The Famous Women Series will have no worthier subject and no more +illustrious biographer. Nor will the reader be disappointed,—for the +narrative is deeply interesting and full of inspiration."—<i>Woman's +Journal.</i></p> + +<p>"Mrs. Julia Ward Howe's biography of <i>Margaret Fuller</i>, in the Famous +Women Series of Messrs. Roberts Brothers, is a work which has been +looked for with curiosity. It will not disappoint expectation. She has +made a brilliant and an interesting book. Her study of Margaret Fuller's +character is thoroughly sympathetic; her relation of her life is done in +a graphic and at times a fascinating manner. It is the case of one woman +of strong individuality depicting the points which made another one of +the most marked characters of her day. It is always agreeable to follow +Mrs. Howe in this; for while we see marks of her own mind constantly, +there is no inartistic protrusion of her personality. The book is always +readable, and the relation of the death-scene is thrillingly +impressive."—<i>Saturday Gazette.</i></p> + +<p>"Mrs. Julia Ward Howe has retold the story of Margaret Fuller's life and +career in a very interesting manner. This remarkable woman was happy in +having James Freeman Clarke, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and William Henry +Channing, all of whom had been intimate with her and had felt the spell +of her extraordinary personal influence, for her biographers. It is +needless to say, of course, that nothing could be better than these +reminiscences in their way."—<i>New York World.</i></p> + +<p>"The selection of Mrs. Howe as the writer of this biography was a happy +thought on the part of the editor of the series; for, aside from the +natural appreciation she would have for Margaret Fuller, comes her +knowledge of all the influences that had their effect on Margaret +Fuller's life. She tells the story of Margaret Fuller's interesting life +from all sources and from her own knowledge, not hesitating to use +plenty of quotations when she felt that others, or even Margaret Fuller +herself, had done the work better."—<i>Miss Gilder, in Philadelphia +Press.</i><a name="page_427" id="page_427"></a></p> + +<p> </p> + +<p class="cb"><big><big>HARRIET MARTINEAU.</big></big></p> + +<p class="c"><span class="smcap">By Mrs.</span> F. FENWICK MILLER.</p> + +<p class="c">16mo. Cloth. Price $1.00.</p> + +<p>"The almost uniform excellence of the 'Famous Women' series is well +sustained in Mrs. Fenwick Miller's life of Harriet Martineau, the latest +addition to this little library of biography. Indeed, we are disposed to +rank it as the best of the lot. The subject is an entertaining one, and +Mrs. Miller has done her work admirably. Miss Martineau was a remarkable +woman, in a century that has not been deficient in notable characters. +Her native genius, and her perseverance in developing it; her trials and +afflictions, and the determination with which she rose superior to them; +her conscientious adherence to principle, and the important place which +her writings hold in the political and educational literature of her +day,—all combine to make the story of her life one of exceptional +interest.... With the exception, possibly, of George Eliot, Harriet +Martineau was the greatest of English women. She was a poet and a +novelist, but not as such did she make good her title to distinction. +Much more noteworthy were her achievements in other lines of thought, +not usually essayed by women. She was eminent as a political economist, +a theologian, a journalist, and a historian.... But to attempt a mere +outline of her life and works is put of the question in our limited +space. Her biography should be read by all in search of +entertainment."—<i>Professor Woods in Saturday Mirror.</i></p> + +<p>"The present volume has already shared the fate of several of the recent +biographies of the distinguished dead, and has been well advertised by +the public contradiction of more or less important points in the +relation by the living friends of the dead genius. One of Mrs. Miller's +chief concerns in writing this life seems to have been to redeem the +character of Harriet Martineau from the appearance of hardness and +unamiability with which her own autobiography impresses the reader.... +Mrs Miller, however, succeeds in this volume in showing us an altogether +different side to her character,—a home-loving, neighborly, +bright-natured, tender-hearted, witty, lovable, and altogether womanly +woman, as well as the clear thinker, the philosophical reasoner, and +comprehensive writer whom we already knew."—<i>The Index.</i></p> + +<p>"Already ten volumes in this library are published; namely, George +Eliot, Emily Brontë, George Sand, Mary Lamb, Margaret Fuller, Maria +Edgeworth, Elizabeth Fry, The Countess of Albany, Mary Wollstonecraft, +and the present volume. Surely a galaxy of wit and wealth of no mean +order! Miss M. will rank with any of them in womanliness or gifts or +grace. At home or abroad, in public or private. She was noble and true, +and her life stands confessed a success. True, she was literary, but she +was a home lover and home builder. She never lost the higher aims and +ends of life, no matter how flattering her success. This whole series +ought to be read by the young ladies of to-day. More of such biography +would prove highly beneficial."—<i>Troy Telegram.</i></p> + +<p><i>Our publications are for sale by all booksellers, or will be mailed, +post-paid, on receipt of price.</i><a name="page_428" id="page_428"></a></p> + +<p> </p> + +<p class="cb"><big><big>MARY LAMB.</big></big></p> + +<p class="c">By ANNE GILCHRIST.</p> + +<p class="c">One volume. 16mo. Cloth. Price, $1.00.</p> + +<p>"The story of Mary Lamb has long been familiar to the readers of Elia, +but never in its entirety as in the monograph which Mrs. Anne Gilchrist +has just contributed to the Famous Women Series. Darkly hinted at by +Talfourd in his Final Memorials of Charles Lamb, it became better known +as the years went on and that imperfect work was followed by fuller and +franker biographies,—became so well known, in fact, that no one could +recall the memory of Lamb without recalling at the same time the memory +of his sister."—<i>New York Mail and Express.</i></p> + +<p>"A biography of Mary Lamb must inevitably be also, almost more, a +biography of Charles Lamb, so completely was the life of the sister +encompassed by that of her brother; and it must be allowed that Mrs. +Anne Gilchrist has performed a difficult biographical task with taste +and ability.... The reader is at least likely to lay down the book with +the feeling that if Mary Lamb is not famous she certainly deserves to +be, and that a debt of gratitude is due Mrs. Gilchrist for this +well-considered record of her life."—<i>Boston Courier.</i></p> + +<p>"Mary Lamb, who was the embodiment of everything that is tenderest in +woman, combined with this a heroism which bore her on for a while +through the terrors of insanity. Think of a highly intellectual woman +struggling year after year with madness, triumphant over it for a +season, and then at last succumbing to it. The saddest lines that ever +were written are those descriptive of this brother and sister just +before Mary, on some return of insanity, was to leave Charles Lamb. 'On +one occasion Mr. Charles Lloyd met them slowly pacing together a little +foot-path in Hoxton Fields, both weeping bitterly, and found, on joining +them, that they were taking their solemn way to the accustomed asylum.' +What pathos is there not here?"—<i>New York Times.</i></p> + +<p>"This life was worth writing, for all records of weakness conquered, of +pain patiently borne, of success won from difficulty, of cheerfulness in +sorrow and affliction, make the world better. Mrs. Gilchrist's biography +is unaffected and simple. She has told the sweet and melancholy story +with judicious sympathy, showing always the light shining through +darkness."—<i>Philadelphia Press.</i></p> + +<p>Sold by all Booksellers. Mailed, post-paid, on receipt of the price, by +the Publishers,</p> + +<p class="c">ROBERTS BROTHERS, <span class="smcap">Boston</span>.<a name="page_429" id="page_429"></a></p> + +<p class="cb">———</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="" +style="border:2px dotted black;padding:2%;"> + +<tr><th>The following typographical errors were corrected by the etext transcriber:</th></tr> + +<tr><td>No less pedantic is the style in which the grown-up, in stature at +least, undertake to become acquainted with Dante.=> No less pedantic is +the style in which the grown-up, in stature at least, undertakes to +become acquainted with Dante.</td></tr> + +<tr><td>Even the proem shows how large is his nature=>Even the poem shows how +large is his nature</td></tr> + +<tr><td>There is a little poem in the Schnellpost, by Mority Hartmann=>There is +a little poem in the Schnellpost, by Moritz Hartmann</td></tr> + +<tr><td>If a character be uncorrrpted=>If a character be uncorrupted</td></tr> + +<tr><td>of a noble dscription=>of a noble description</td></tr> + +<tr><td>law with her titluar lord and master=>law with her titular lord and master</td></tr> + +</table> + +<div class="footnotes"><h2>FOOTNOTES:</h2> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> "He who would do great things must quickly draw together +his forces. The master can only show himself such through limitation, +and the law alone can give us freedom."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> Except in "La belle France."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_3_3" id="Footnote_3_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> Eckermann's Conversations with Gœthe, translated from +the German by my sister, form one volume of the "Specimens of Foreign +Literature," edited by Rev. George Ripley, and published in 1839. This +volume has been republished by James Munroe & Co., Boston, within a few +years.—E<small>D</small>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_4_4" id="Footnote_4_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> The name of Macaria is one of noblest association. It is +that of the daughter of Hercules, who devoted herself a voluntary +sacrifice for her country. She was adored by the Greeks as the true +Felicity.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_5_5" id="Footnote_5_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> "By the Author of Essays of Summer Hours."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_6_6" id="Footnote_6_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6_6"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> The Life of Beethoven, including his Correspondence with +his Friends, numerous characteristic Traits, and Remarks on his Musical +Works. Edited by Ignace Moscheles, Pianist to His Royal Highness Prince +Albert.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_7_7" id="Footnote_7_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_7_7"><span class="label">[7]</span></a> See article on Beethoven, in Margaret's volume, entitled +"Art, Literature, and the Drama."—E<small>D</small>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_8_8" id="Footnote_8_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_8_8"><span class="label">[8]</span></a> Ormond, or the Secret Witness; Wieland, or the +Transformation; by Charles Brockden Brown.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_9_9" id="Footnote_9_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_9_9"><span class="label">[9]</span></a> The Raven and other Poems, by Edgar A. Poe, 1845.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_10_10" id="Footnote_10_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor_10_10"><span class="label">[10]</span></a> The Autobiography of Alfieri, translated by C. E. Lester. +Memoirs of Benvenuto Cellini, translated by Roscoe.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_11_11" id="Footnote_11_11"></a><a href="#FNanchor_11_11"><span class="label">[11]</span></a> Although the errors here specially referred to by my +sister have been corrected in this volume, I let her statement remain as +explanation of any other errors which may possibly have crept into type, +in this volume, through the illegibility of some of her manuscripts from +which I have been compelled to copy for this work.—E<small>D</small>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_12_12" id="Footnote_12_12"></a><a href="#FNanchor_12_12"><span class="label">[12]</span></a> Napoleon and his Marshals, by J. T. Headley.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_13_13" id="Footnote_13_13"></a><a href="#FNanchor_13_13"><span class="label">[13]</span></a> Physical Education and the Preservation of Health, by John +C. Warren.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_14_14" id="Footnote_14_14"></a><a href="#FNanchor_14_14"><span class="label">[14]</span></a> Physiological and Moral Management of Infancy, by Andrew +Combe, M. D.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_15_15" id="Footnote_15_15"></a><a href="#FNanchor_15_15"><span class="label">[15]</span></a> Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American +Slave, written by himself.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_16_16" id="Footnote_16_16"></a><a href="#FNanchor_16_16"><span class="label">[16]</span></a> Philip van Artevelde, A Dramatic Romance, by Henry +Taylor.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_17_17" id="Footnote_17_17"></a><a href="#FNanchor_17_17"><span class="label">[17]</span></a> For a translation by my sister of this Drama, see Part +III. of her "Art, Literature, and the Drama," where it is now, for the +first time, published, simultaneously with the appearance of this +volume.—E<small>D</small>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_18_18" id="Footnote_18_18"></a><a href="#FNanchor_18_18"><span class="label">[18]</span></a> The Poetical Works of Percy Bysche Shelley. First American +edition (complete.) With a Biographical and Critical Notice, by G. G. +Foster.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_19_19" id="Footnote_19_19"></a><a href="#FNanchor_19_19"><span class="label">[19]</span></a> Festus: A Poem, by Philip James Bailey. First American +edition, Boston.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_20_20" id="Footnote_20_20"></a><a href="#FNanchor_20_20"><span class="label">[20]</span></a> Balzac, Eugene Sue, De Vigny.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_21_21" id="Footnote_21_21"></a><a href="#FNanchor_21_21"><span class="label">[21]</span></a> Etherology, or the Philosophy of Mesmerism and Phrenology: +Including a New Philosophy of Sleep and of Consciousness, with a Review +of the Pretensions of Neurology and Phreno-Magnetism. By J. Stanley +Grimes.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_22_22" id="Footnote_22_22"></a><a href="#FNanchor_22_22"><span class="label">[22]</span></a> A German newspaper.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_23_23" id="Footnote_23_23"></a><a href="#FNanchor_23_23"><span class="label">[23]</span></a> Letters and Speeches of Oliver Cromwell, by Thomas +Carlyle.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_24_24" id="Footnote_24_24"></a><a href="#FNanchor_24_24"><span class="label">[24]</span></a> I conclude the poor boy Oliver has already fallen in these +wars; none of us knows where, though his father well knew.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_25_25" id="Footnote_25_25"></a><a href="#FNanchor_25_25"><span class="label">[25]</span></a> Sir Philip Warwick's Memoirs, (London, 1701,) p. 249.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_26_26" id="Footnote_26_26"></a><a href="#FNanchor_26_26"><span class="label">[26]</span></a> Essays, Second Series, by Ralph Waldo Emerson.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_27_27" id="Footnote_27_27"></a><a href="#FNanchor_27_27"><span class="label">[27]</span></a> A Defence of Capital Punishment, and an Essay on the +Ground and Reason of Punishment, with Special Reference to the Penalty +of Death New York, 1846.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_28_28" id="Footnote_28_28"></a><a href="#FNanchor_28_28"><span class="label">[28]</span></a> [In refusing to repeal what are technically and +significantly termed her "Black Laws," relating to the settlement of +colored men, and their rights within that state.—E<small>D</small>.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_29_29" id="Footnote_29_29"></a><a href="#FNanchor_29_29"><span class="label">[29]</span></a> John Quincy Adams.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_30_30" id="Footnote_30_30"></a><a href="#FNanchor_30_30"><span class="label">[30]</span></a> For her treatment of a sister republic in our late war +with Mexico.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_31_31" id="Footnote_31_31"></a><a href="#FNanchor_31_31"><span class="label">[31]</span></a> Miss Delia Webster.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_32_32" id="Footnote_32_32"></a><a href="#FNanchor_32_32"><span class="label">[32]</span></a> Hon. Samuel Hoar, sent to Charleston, S. C., to test in +the courts her laws, and driven thence with his daughter by a mob.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_33_33" id="Footnote_33_33"></a><a href="#FNanchor_33_33"><span class="label">[33]</span></a> It is well known that in this sketch my sister gives an +account of an incident in the history of her own school-girl life. I +need scarcely say that only so far as this incident is concerned is the +story of Mariana in any sense autobiographical.—E<small>D</small>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_34_34" id="Footnote_34_34"></a><a href="#FNanchor_34_34"><span class="label">[34]</span></a>[Agis, king of Sparta, the fourth of that name. "One of the +most beautiful characters of antiquity."—E<small>D</small>.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_35_35" id="Footnote_35_35"></a><a href="#FNanchor_35_35"><span class="label">[35]</span></a> [In New York.—E<small>D</small>.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_36_36" id="Footnote_36_36"></a><a href="#FNanchor_36_36"><span class="label">[36]</span></a> Meta, the wife of Klopstock, one of Germany's most +celebrated poets, is doubtless well known to many of our readers through +the beautiful letters to Samuel Richardson, the novelist, or through +Mrs. Jameson's work, entitled the Loves of the Poets. It is said that +Klopstock wrote continually to her even after her death.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_37_37" id="Footnote_37_37"></a><a href="#FNanchor_37_37"><span class="label">[37]</span></a> Fact, that this is affirmed.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_38_38" id="Footnote_38_38"></a><a href="#FNanchor_38_38"><span class="label">[38]</span></a> Facts.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_39_39" id="Footnote_39_39"></a><a href="#FNanchor_39_39"><span class="label">[39]</span></a> Facts.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_40_40" id="Footnote_40_40"></a><a href="#FNanchor_40_40"><span class="label">[40]</span></a> Facts.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_41_41" id="Footnote_41_41"></a><a href="#FNanchor_41_41"><span class="label">[41]</span></a> The destruction of Mr. Clay's press by a mob.—E<small>D</small>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_42_42" id="Footnote_42_42"></a><a href="#FNanchor_42_42"><span class="label">[42]</span></a> <i>Margaret</i> means <i>Pearl</i>.—E<small>D</small>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_43_43" id="Footnote_43_43"></a><a href="#FNanchor_43_43"><span class="label">[43]</span></a> Published in the New York Tribune, Aug. 1, 1846, just +previous to sailing for Europe.—E<small>D</small>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_44_44" id="Footnote_44_44"></a><a href="#FNanchor_44_44"><span class="label">[44]</span></a> Gœthe says, "A little golden heart, which I had +received from Lili in those fairy hours, still hung by the same little +chain to which she had fastened it, love-warmed, about my neck. I seized +hold of it—kissed it." This was the occasion of these lines. The poet +now was separated from Lili, and striving to forget her in journeying +about.—E<small>D</small>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_45_45" id="Footnote_45_45"></a><a href="#FNanchor_45_45"><span class="label">[45]</span></a> Buddhist term for absorption into the divine mind.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_46_46" id="Footnote_46_46"></a><a href="#FNanchor_46_46"><span class="label">[46]</span></a> This horse, Konick, was caught early, marked, and then let +loose again, for a time, among the herd. He still retains a wild freedom +and beauty in his movements.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_47_47" id="Footnote_47_47"></a><a href="#FNanchor_47_47"><span class="label">[47]</span></a> A sweet and beautiful singer.—E<small>D</small>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_48_48" id="Footnote_48_48"></a><a href="#FNanchor_48_48"><span class="label">[48]</span></a> A musical instrument of the ancients, employed by the +Egyptians in the worship of Isis. It was to be kept in constant motion, +and, according to Plutarch, was intended to indicate the necessity of +constant motion on the part of men—the need of being often shaken by +fierce trials and agitations when they become morbid or indolent.—E<small>D</small>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_49_49" id="Footnote_49_49"></a><a href="#FNanchor_49_49"><span class="label">[49]</span></a> Diana is represented as driving the chariot of the moon, +as Apollo that of the sun. Mythology states that while enlightening the +earth as Luna, the moon, she beheld the hunter Endymion sleeping in the +forest. With her rays she kissed the lips of the hunter—a favor she had +never before bestowed on god or man.—E<small>D</small>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_50_50" id="Footnote_50_50"></a><a href="#FNanchor_50_50"><span class="label">[50]</span></a> These lines were written without her signature +attached.—E<small>D</small>.</p></div> + +</div> +<hr class="full" /> + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Life Without and Life Within, by Margaret Fuller + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN *** + +***** This file should be named 39037-h.htm or 39037-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/9/0/3/39037/ + +Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images available at The Internet Archive) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Life Without and Life Within + or, Reviews, Narratives, Essays, and poems. + +Author: Margaret Fuller + +Release Date: March 3, 2012 [EBook #39037] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN *** + + + + +Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images available at The Internet Archive) + + + + + + + + +LIFE WITHOUT +AND +LIFE WITHIN; +OR, +REVIEWS, NARRATIVES, ESSAYS, AND +POEMS. + +BY +MARGARET FULLER OSSOLI, + +AUTHOR OF "WOMAN IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY," "AT HOME AND +ABROAD," "ART, LITERATURE, AND THE DRAMA," ETC. + +EDITED BY HER BROTHER, +ARTHUR B. FULLER. + +BOSTON: +ROBERTS BROTHERS. + +Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1859, by +ARTHUR B. FULLER, +In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts + +[Illustration: colophon] + +_Cambridge: +Presswork by John Wilson and Son._ + + + + +PREFACE. + + +Every person, who can be said to really live at all, leads two lives +during this period of mortal existence. The one life is outward; it is +passed in reading the thoughts of others; in contemplating the +struggles, the defeats, the victories, the virtues, the sins, in fine, +all things which make the history of those who surround us; and in +gazing upon the structures which Art has reared, or paintings which she +hath inscribed on the canvas; or looking upon the grand temple of the +material universe, and beholding scenes painted by a hand more skilled, +more wondrous, in its creative power, than ever can be human hand. The +life passed in examining what other minds have produced, or living other +men's lives by looking at their deeds, or in any way discerning what +addresses the bodily eye or the physical ear,--this is often wise and +well; essential, indeed, to any inner life; but it is outward, not +self-centred, not the product of our own individual natures. + +But the thought of others suggests or develops thought of our own--the +history of other men, as it is writing itself imperishably every day +upon their souls, or already has written itself in letters of living +light or lines of gloomy blackness--gives rise to internal sympathy or +abhorrence on the part of us who look on and read what is thus writing +and written. Our own spirits are stirred within us: our passions, which +have been sleeping lions, our affections and aspirations, before angels +with folded wings,--these are awakened by what others are doing, and +then we struggle with the bad or yield to it; we obey or disobey the +good, and our internal moral life begins; the outward universe or the +Great Spirit in our hearts speaks to our souls, leading first to inward +dissatisfaction, then to aspiration for and attainment of holiness, and +now the inner spiritual life, which shall transfigure all outward life, +and throw its own light and give its own hue to all the outward +universe, has begun. These two lives are parallel streams; often they +mingle their waters, and each imparts its own hue and characteristic to +the other. Sometimes the outer life is the main stream; men live only in +other men's thoughts and deeds--look only upon the material universe, +and retire but seldom within: the inner life is but a silver thread--a +little rill, scarce discoverable save by the eye of God. Again, with +many the outer life is but little; the passing scene, the din of the +battle which humanity is ever waging, the one scarce is gazed upon or +the other heard by those who retire much from the outward world, and +live almost exclusively upon their own thoughts, and in an ideal realm +of fancy, or a real one of internal conflict, which is hidden from the +outer vision. Better is it when the stream of outward and inner life are +both full and broad--when the glories of the material universe attract +the gaze, the realm of literature and learning invite the willing feet +to wander in paths where poetry has planted many flowers, philosophy +many a sturdy oak of truth, which centuries cannot overthrow--and when, +on the other hand, men do not forget to retire often within, and find +their own minds kingdoms, where many a noble thought spontaneously +grows; their own souls heavens, where, the busy world withdrawn, they +commune much with their own aspirations, fight many a noble battle with +whatever hinders their spiritual peace, and where they commune yet more +with that Comforter, the Divine Spirit, and Christ, that Friend and +Helper of all who are seeking to make the life of thought and desire, as +well as outward word and deed, high and holy. + +It is not a brother's part to pass critical judgment upon a sister's +literary attainments, or mental and spiritual gifts, nor is it needful +in reference to Madame Ossoli. The world never has questioned her great +learning or rich and varied culture; these have been uniformly +acknowledged. As a keen and sagacious critic of literature, as an +admirer of whatever was noble, an abhorrer of all low and mean, this +she was early, and is, so far as we know, without any question regarded. +That her judgments have always been acquiesced in is far from true; but +the public has ever believed them alike sincere and fearless. The life +without,--that of culture and intelligent, careful observation,--all +know _that_ stream to have been full to overflowing. + +More and more, too, every year, the public are beginning to recognize +and appreciate the richness and the beauty of her inner life. The very +keenness of her critical acumen,--the very boldness of her rebuke of all +she deemed petty and base--the very truthfulness of her conformity to +her own standard--her very abhorrence of all cant and mere conformity, +long prevented, and even yet somewhat hinder, many from adequately +recognizing the loving spirit, the sympathetic nature, the Christian +faith, and spiritual devoutness which made her domestic and social life, +her action amid her own kindred and nation, and in Rome, for those not +allied to her by birth and lineage, at once kindly, noble, and full of +holy self-sacrifice. Yet continually the world is learning these things: +the history of her life, as her memoirs reveal it, the testimony of so +many witnesses here and in other lands, a more careful study and a wider +reading of her works, are leading, perhaps rapidly enough, to a true +appreciation of the spiritual beauty of her soul, and men see that the +waters of her inner life form a stream at once clear and pure, deep and +broad. + +In presenting to the public the last volume of Margaret Fuller's works, +the Editor is encouraged to hope for them a candid, cordial reception. +It has been a work of love on his part, for which he has ever felt +inadequate, and from it for a time shrunk. But each volume has had a +wider and more cordial welcome than its predecessor, and works received +by the great public almost with coldness when first published, have, +when republished, had a large and cheering circulation, and, what is far +better, a kindly appreciation not only by the few, but even by the many. +This is evidence enough that the progress of time has brought the public +and my sister into closer sympathy and agreement, and a better +understanding on its part of her true views and character. + +The present volume is less than any of its predecessors a republication. +_Only one of its articles has ever appeared before in book form._ As a +book, it is, then, essentially new, though some of its reviews and +essays have appeared in the columns of the Tribune and Dial. A large +portion of it has never appeared at all in print, especially its +poetical portions. The work of collecting these essays, reviews, and +poems has been a difficult one, much more than attended the preparation +of the previous volumes. Unable, of course, to consult their author as +to any of them, the revision I have given is doubtless very imperfect, +and requires large allowance. It is even possible that among the poems +one or more written by friends and sent her, or copied from some other +author, may have crept in unawares; but this all possible pains have +been taken to prevent. Such as it is, the volume is now before the +public; it truly reveals her inner and outer life, and is doubtless the +last of the volumes containing the writings of MARGARET FULLER OSSOLI. + + + +CONTENTS. + + +PART I.--REVIEWS. + + Page. + +MENZEL'S VIEW OF GOETHE 13 + +GOETHE 23 + +THOMAS HOOD 61 + +LETTERS FROM A LANDSCAPE PAINTER 69 + +BEETHOVEN 71 + +BROWN'S NOVELS 83 + +EDGAR A. POE 87 + +ALFIERI AND CELLINI 93 + +ITALY.--CARY'S DANTE 102 + +AMERICAN FACTS 108 + +NAPOLEON AND HIS MARSHALS 110 + +PHYSICAL EDUCATION 116 + +FREDERICK DOUGLASS 121 + +PHILIP VAN ARTEVELDE 127 + +UNITED STATES EXPLORING EXPEDITION 141 + +STORY BOOKS FOR THE HOT WEATHER 143 + +SHELLEY'S POEMS 149 + +FESTUS 153 + +FRENCH NOVELISTS OF THE DAY 158 + +THE NEW SCIENCE, OR THE PHILOSOPHY OF MESMERISM OR ANIMAL MAGNETISM 168 + +DEUTSCHE SCHNELLPOST 174 + +OLIVER CROMWELL 179 + +EMERSON'S ESSAYS 191 + +CAPITAL PUNISHMENT 199 + + +PART II.--MISCELLANEOUS. + +FIRST OF JANUARY 207 + +NEW YEAR'S DAY 219 + +ST. VALENTINE'S DAY 226 + +FOURTH OF JULY 232 + +FIRST OF AUGUST 236 + +THANKSGIVING 243 + +CHRISTMAS 250 + +MARIANA 258 + +SUNDAY MEDITATIONS ON VARIOUS TEXTS.--FIRST 277 + +" " " SECOND 280 + +APPEAL FOR AN ASYLUM FOR DISCHARGED FEMALE CONVICTS 283 + +THE RICH MAN.--AN IDEAL SKETCH 287 + +THE POOR MAN.--AN IDEAL SKETCH 297 + +THE CELESTIAL EMPIRE 304 + +KLOPSTOCK AND META 308 + +WHAT FITS A MAN TO BE A VOTER.--A FABLE 314 + +DISCOVERIES 319 + +POLITENESS TOO GREAT A LUXURY TO BE GIVEN TO THE POOR 322 + +CASSIUS M. CLAY 326 + +THE MAGNOLIA OF LAKE PONTCHARTRAIN 330 + +CONSECRATION OF GRACE CHURCH 337 + +LATE ASPIRATIONS 344 + +FRAGMENTARY THOUGHTS, FROM MARGARET FULLER'S JOURNAL 348 + +FAREWELL TO NEW YORK 354 + + +PART III.--POEMS. + +FREEDOM AND TRUTH 357 + +DESCRIPTION OF A PORTION OF THE JOURNEY TO TRENTON FALLS 357 + +JOURNEY TO TRENTON FALLS 361 + +SUE ROSA CRUX 365 + +THE DAHLIA, THE ROSE, AND THE HELIOTROPE 367 + +TO MY FRIENDS, (TRANSLATION.) 368 + +STANZAS WRITTEN AT THE AGE OF SEVENTEEN 370 + +FLAXMAN 371 + +THOUGHTS ON SUNDAY MORNING, WHEN PREVENTED BY A SNOWSTORM +FROM GOING TO CHURCH 371 + +TO A GOLDEN HEART WORN ROUND THE NECK 374 + +LINES ACCOMPANYING A BOUQUET OF WILD COLUMBINE 375 + +DISSATISFACTION, (TRANSLATION.) 377 + +MY SEAL-RING 378 + +THE CONSOLERS, (TRANSLATION.) 379 + +ABSENCE OF LOVE 380 + +MEDITATIONS 381 + +RICHTER 383 + +THE THANKFUL AND THE THANKLESS 384 + +PROPHECY AND FULFILMENT 385 + +VERSES GIVEN TO W. C., WITH A BLANK BOOK 385 + +EAGLES AND DOVES, (TRANSLATION.) 387 + +TO A FRIEND, WITH HEARTSEASE 388 + +ASPIRATION 389 + +THE ONE IN ALL 390 + +A GREETING 393 + +LINES TO EDITH, ON HER BIRTHDAY 394 + +LINES WRITTEN IN HER BROTHER R.F.F.'S JOURNAL 395 + +ON A PICTURE REPRESENTING THE DESCENT FROM THE CROSS 396 + +THE CAPTURED WILD HORSE 397 + +EPILOGUE TO THE TRAGEDY OF ESSEX, (TRANSLATION.) 400 + +HYMN WRITTEN FOR A SUNDAY SCHOOL 404 + +DESERTION, (TRANSLATION.) 405 + +SONG WRITTEN FOR A MAY-DAY FESTIVAL 406 + +CARADORI SINGING 409 + +LINES IN ANSWER TO STANZAS CONTAINING SEVERAL PASSAGES OF +DISTINGUISHED BEAUTY 409 + +INFLUENCE OF THE OUTWARD 410 + +TO MISS R.B. 411 + +SISTRUM 413 + +IMPERFECT THOUGHTS 414 + +SADNESS 414 + +LINES WRITTEN IN AN ALBUM 416 + +TO S.C. 417 + +LINES WRITTEN IN BOSTON ON A BEAUTIFUL AUTUMNAL DAY 420 + +TO E.C., WITH HERBERT'S POEMS 422 + + + + +Life without and Life within. + +PART I. + +REVIEWS. + + + + +MENZEL'S VIEW OF GOETHE. + + +Menzel's view of Goethe is that of a Philistine, in the least +opprobrious sense of the term. It is one which has long been applied in +Germany to petty cavillers and incompetent critics. I do not wish to +convey a sense so disrespectful in speaking of Menzel. He has a vigorous +and brilliant mind, and a wide, though imperfect, culture. He is a man +of talent, but talent cannot comprehend genius. He judges of Goethe as +a Philistine, inasmuch as he does not enter into Canaan, and read the +prophet by the light of his own law, but looks at him from without, and +tries him by a rule beneath which he never lived. That there _was_ +something Menzel saw; what that something was _not_ he saw, but _what_ +it _was_ he could not see; none could _see_; it was something to be felt +and known at the time of its apparition, but the clear sight of it was +reserved to a day far enough removed from its sphere to get a commanding +point of view. Has that day come? A little while ago it seemed so; +certain features of Goethe's personality, certain results of his +tendency, had become so manifest. But as the plants he planted mature, +they shed a new seed for a yet more noble growth. A wider experience, a +deeper insight, make rejected words come true, and bring a more refined +perception of meaning already discerned. Like all his elder brothers of +the elect band, the forlorn hope of humanity, he obliges us to live and +grow, that we may walk by his side; vainly we strive to leave him behind +in some niche of the hall of our ancestors; a few steps onward and we +find him again, of yet serener eye and more towering mien than on his +other pedestal. Former measurements of his size have, like the girdle +bound by the nymphs round the infant Apollo, only served to make him +outgrow the unworthy compass. The still rising sun, with its broader +light, shows us it is not yet noon. In him is soon perceived a prophet +of our own age, as well as a representative of his own; and we doubt +whether the revolutions of the century be not required to interpret the +quiet depths of his _Saga_. + +Sure it is that none has yet found Goethe's place, as sure that none +can claim to be his peer, who has not some time, ay, and for a long +time, been his pupil! + +Yet much truth has been spoken of him in detail, some by Menzel, but in +so superficial a spirit, and with so narrow a view of its bearings, as +to have all the effect of falsehood. Such denials of the crown can only +fix it more firmly on the head of the "Old Heathen." To such the best +answer may be given in the words of Bettina Brentan: "The others +criticise thy works; I only know that they lead us on and on till we +live in them." And thus will all criticism end in making more men and +women read these works, and "on and on," till they forget whether the +author be a patriot or a moralist, in the deep humanity of the thought, +the breathing nature of the scene. While words they have accepted with +immediate approval fade from memory, these oft-denied words of keen, +cold truth return with ever new force and significance. + +Men should be true, wise, beautiful, pure, and aspiring. This man was +true and wise, capable of all things. Because he did not in one short +life complete his circle, can we afford to lose him out of sight? Can +we, in a world where so few men have in any degree redeemed their +inheritance, neglect a nature so rich and so manifestly progressive? + +Historically considered, Goethe needs no apology. His so-called faults +fitted him all the better for the part he had to play. In cool +possession of his wide-ranging genius, he taught the imagination of +Germany, that the highest flight should be associated with the steady +sweep and undazzled eye of the eagle. Was he too much the connoisseur, +did he attach too great an importance to the cultivation of taste, where +just then German literature so much needed to be refined, polished, and +harmonized? Was he too sceptical, too much an experimentalist,--how else +could he have formed himself to be the keenest, and, at the same time, +most nearly universal of observers, teaching theologians, philosophers, +and patriots that nature comprehends them all, commands them all, and +that no one development of life must exclude the rest? Do you talk, in +the easy cant of the day, of German obscurity, extravagance, pedantry, +and bad taste,--and will you blame this man, whose Greek, English, +Italian, German mind steered so clear of these rocks and shoals, +clearing, adjusting, and calming on each side, wherever he turned his +prow? Was he not just enough of an idealist, just enough of a realist, +for his peculiar task? If you want a moral enthusiast, is not there +Schiller? If piety, of purest, mystic sweetness, who but Novalis? +Exuberant sentiment, that treasures each withered leaf in a tender +breast, look to your Richter. Would you have men to find plausible +meaning for the deepest enigma, or to hang up each map of literature, +well painted and dotted on its proper roller,--there are the Schlegels. +Men of ideas were numerous as migratory crows in autumn, and Jacobi +wrote the heart into philosophy, as well as he could. Who could fill +Goethe's place to Germany, and to the world, of which she is now the +teacher? His much-reviled aristocratic turn was at that time a +reconciling element. It is plain why he was what he was, for his country +and his age. + +Whoever looks into the history of his youth, will be struck by a +peculiar force with which all things worked together to prepare him for +his office of artist-critic to the then chaotic world of thought in his +country. What an unusually varied scene of childhood and of youth! What +endless change and contrast of circumstances and influences! Father and +mother, life and literature, world and nature,--playing into one +another's hands, always by antagonism! Never was a child so carefully +guarded by fate against prejudice, against undue bias, against any +engrossing sentiment. Nature having given him power of poetical sympathy +to know every situation, would not permit him to make himself at home in +any. And how early what was most peculiar in his character manifested +itself, may be seen in these anecdotes related by his mother to Bettina. + +Of Goethe's childhood.--"He was not willing to play with other little +children, unless they were very fair. In a circle he began suddenly to +weep, screaming, 'Take away the black, ugly child; I cannot bear to have +it here.' He could not be pacified; they were obliged to take him home, +and there the mother could hardly console him for the child's ugliness. +He was then only three years old." + +"His mother was surprised, that when his brother Jacob died, who had +been his playmate, he shed no tear, but rather seemed annoyed by the +lamentations of those around him. But afterwards, when his mother asked +whether he had not loved his brother, he ran into his room and brought +from under his bed a bundle of papers, all written over, and said he had +done all this for Jacob." + +Even so in later years, had he been asked if he had not loved his +country and his fellow-men, he would not have answered by tears and +vows, but pointed to his works. + +In the first anecdote is observable that love of symmetry in external +relations which, in manhood, made him give up the woman he loved, +because she would not have been in place among the old-fashioned +furniture of his father's house; and dictated the course which, at the +crisis of his life, led him to choose an outward peace rather than an +inward joy. In the second, he displays, at the earliest age, a sense of +his vocation as a recorder, the same which drew him afterwards to write +his life into verse, rather than clothe it in action. His indirectness, +his aversion to the frankness of heroic meetings, is repulsive and +suspicious to generous and flowing natures; yet many of the more +delicate products of the mind seem to need these sheaths, lest bird and +insect rifle them in the bud. + +And if this subtlety, isolation, and distance be the dictate of nature, +we submit, even as we are not vexed that the wild bee should hide its +honey in some old moss-grown tree, rather than in the glass hives of our +gardens. We believe it will repay the pains we take in seeking for it, +by some peculiar flavor from unknown flowers. Was Goethe the wild bee? +We see that even in his boyhood he showed himself a very Egyptian, in +his love for disguises; forever expressing his thought in roundabout +ways, which seem idle mummery to a mind of Spartan or Roman mould. Had +he some simple thing to tell his friend, he read it from the newspaper, +or wrote it into a parable. Did he make a visit, he put on the hat or +wig of some other man, and made his bow as Schmidt or Schlosser, that +they might stare, when he spoke as Goethe. He gives as the highest +instance of passionate grief, that he gave up for one day watching the +tedious ceremonies of the imperial coronation. In daily life many of +these carefully recorded passages have an air of platitude, at which no +wonder the Edinburgh Review laughed. Yet, on examination, they are full +of meaning. And when we see the same propensity writing itself into +Ganymede, Mahomet's song, the Bayadere, and Faust, telling all +Goethe's religion in Mignon and Makana, all his wisdom in the +Western-Eastern Divan, we respect it, accept, all but love it. + +This theme is for a volume, and I must quit it now. A brief summary of +what Goethe was suffices to vindicate his existence, as an agent in +history and a part of nature, but will not meet the objections of those +who measure him, as they have a right to do, by the standard of ideal +manhood. + +Most men, in judging another man, ask, Did he live up to our standard? + +But to me it seems desirable to ask rather, Did he live up to his own? + +So possible is it that our consciences may be more enlightened than that +of the Gentile under consideration. And if we can find out how much was +given him, we are told, in a pure evangelium, to judge thereby how much +shall be required. + +Now, Goethe has given us both his own standard and the way to apply +it. "To appreciate any man, learn first what object he proposed to +himself; next, what degree of earnestness he showed with regard to +attaining that object." + +And this is part of his hymn for man made in the divine image, "THE +GODLIKE." + + "Hail to the Unknown, the + Higher Being + Felt within us! + + "Unfeeling + As nature, + Still shineth the sun + Over good and evil; + And on the sinner, + Smile as on the best, + Moon and stars. + Fate too, &c. + + "There can none but man + Perform the Impossible. + He understandeth, + Chooseth, and judgeth; + He can impart to the + Moment duration. + + "He alone may + The good reward, + The guilty punish, + Mend and deliver; + All the wayward, anomalous + Bind in the useful. + + "And the Immortals, + Them we reverence + As if they were men, and + Did, on a grand scale, + What the best man in little + Does, or fain would do. + + "Let noble man + Be helpful and good; + Ever creating + The Right and the Useful; + Type of those loftier + Beings of whom the heart whispers." + +This standard is high enough. It is what every man should express in +action, the poet in music! + +And this office of a judge, who is of purer eyes than to behold +iniquity, and of a sacred oracle, to whom other men may go to ask when +they should choose a friend, when face a foe, this great genius does not +adequately fulfil. Too often has the priest left the shrine to go and +gather simples by the aid of spells whose might no pure power needs. +Glimpses are found in his works of the highest spirituality, but it is +blue sky seen through chinks in a roof which should never have been +builded. He has used life to excess. He is too rich for his nobleness, +too judicious for his inspiration, too humanly wise for his divine +mission. He might have been a priest; he is only a sage. + +An Epicurean sage, say the multitude. This seems to me unjust. He is +also called a debauchee. There may be reason for such terms, but it is +partial, and received, as they will be, by the unthinking, they are as +false as Menzel's abuse, in the impression they convey. Did Goethe +value the present too much? It was not for the Epicurean aim of +pleasure, but for use. He, in this, was but an instance of reaction, in +an age of painful doubt and restless striving as to the future. Was his +private life stained by profligacy? That far largest portion of his +life, which is ours, and which is expressed in his works, is an unbroken +series of efforts to develop the higher elements of our being. I cannot +speak to private gossip on this subject, nor even to well-authenticated +versions of his private life. Here are sixty volumes, by himself and +others, which contain sufficient evidence of a life of severe labor, +steadfast forbearance, and an intellectual growth almost unparalleled. +That he has failed of the highest fulfilment of his high vocation is +certain, but he was neither Epicurean nor sensualist, if we consider his +life as a whole. + +Yet he had failed to reach his highest development; and how was it that +he was so content with this incompleteness, nay, the serenest of men? +His serenity alone, in such a time of scepticism and sorrowful seeking, +gives him a claim to all our study. See how he rides at anchor, lordly, +rich in freight, every white sail ready to be unfurled at a moment's +warning! And it must be a very slight survey which can confound this +calm self-trust with selfish indifference of temperament. Indeed, he, in +various ways, lets us see how little he was helped in this respect by +temperament. But we need not his declaration,--the case speaks for +itself. Of all that perpetual accomplishment, that unwearied +constructiveness, the basis must be sunk deeper than in temperament. He +never halts, never repines, never is puzzled, like other men; that +tranquillity, full of life, that ceaseless but graceful motion, "without +haste, without rest," for which we all are striving, he has attained. +And is not his love of the noblest kind? Reverence the highest, have +patience with the lowest. Let this day's performance of the meanest duty +be thy religion. Are the stars too distant, pick up that pebble that +lies at thy foot, and from it learn the all. Go out like Saul, the son +of Kish, look earnestly after the meanest of thy father's goods, and a +kingdom shall be brought thee. The least act of pure self-renunciation +hallows, for the moment, all within its sphere. The philosopher may +mislead, the devil tempt, yet innocence, though wounded and bleeding as +it goes, must reach at last the holy city. The power of sustaining +himself and guiding others rewards man sufficiently for the longest +apprenticeship. Is not this lore the noblest? + +Yes, yes, but still I doubt. 'Tis true, he says all this in a thousand +beautiful forms, but he does not warm, he does not inspire me. In his +certainty is no bliss, in his hope no love, in his faith no glow. How is +this? + +A friend, of a delicate penetration, observed, "His atmosphere was so +calm, so full of light, that I hoped he would teach me his secret of +cheerfulness. But I found, after long search, that he had no better way, +if he wished to check emotion or clear thought, than to go to work. As +his mother tells us, 'My son, if he had a grief, made it into a poem, +and so got rid of it.' This mode is founded in truth, but does not +involve the whole truth. I want the method which is indicated by the +phrase, 'Perseverance of the saints.'" + +This touched the very point. Goethe attained only the perseverance of +a man. He was true, for he knew that nothing can be false to him who is +true, and that to genius nature has pledged her protection. Had he but +seen a little farther, he would have given this covenant a higher +expression, and been more deeply true to a diviner nature. + +In another article on Goethe, I shall give some account of that +period, when a too determined action of the intellect limited and +blinded him for the rest of his life; I mean only in comparison with +what he should have been. Had it been otherwise, what would he not have +attained, who, even thus self-enchained, rose to Ulyssean stature. +Connected with this is the fact, of which he spoke with such sarcastic +solemnity to Eckermann--"My works will never be popular." + +I wish, also, to consider the Faust, Elective Affinities, Apprenticeship +and Pilgrimages of Wilhelm Meister, and Iphigenia, as affording +indications of the progress of his genius here, of its wants and +prospects in future spheres of activity. For the present I bid him +farewell, as his friends always have done, in hope and trust of a better +meeting. + + + + +GOETHE. + + "Nemo contra Deum nisi Deus ipse." + + "Wer Grosses will muss sich zusammen raffen; + In der Beschrankung zeigt sich erst der Meister, + Und der Gesetz nur Kann uns Freikeit geben."[1] + + +The first of these mottoes is that prefixed by Goethe to the last +books of "Dichtung und Wahrheit." These books record the hour of turning +tide in his life, the time when he was called on for a choice at the +"Parting of the Ways." From these months, which gave the sun of his +youth, the crisis of his manhood, date the birth of Egmont, and of Faust +too, though the latter was not published so early. They saw the rise and +decline of his love for Lili, apparently the truest love he ever knew. +That he was not himself dissatisfied with the results to which the +decisions of this era led him, we may infer from his choice of a motto, +and from the calm beauty with which he has invested the record. + +The Parting of the Ways! The way he took led to court-favor, wealth, +celebrity, and an independence of celebrity. It led to large +performance, and a wonderful economical management of intellect. It led +Faust, the Seeker, from the heights of his own mind to the trodden ways +of the world. There, indeed, he did not lose sight of the mountains, but +he never breathed their keen air again. + +After this period we find in him rather a wide and deep Wisdom, than the +inspiration of Genius. His faith, that all _must_ issue well, wants the +sweetness of piety, and the God he manifests to us is one of law or +necessity, rather than of intelligent love. As this God makes because he +must, so Goethe, his instrument, observes and re-creates because he +must, observing with minutest fidelity the outward exposition of Nature; +never blinded by a sham, or detained by a fear, he yet makes us feel +that he wants insight to her sacred secret. The calmest of writers does +not give us repose, because it is too difficult to find his centre. +Those flame-like natures, which he undervalues, give us more peace and +hope, through their restless aspirations, than he with his +hearth-enclosed fires of steady fulfilment. For, true as it is, that God +is every where, we must not only see him, but see him acknowledged. +Through the consciousness of man, "shall not Nature interpret God?" We +wander in diversity, and with each new turning of the path, long anew to +be referred to the One. + +Of Goethe, as of other natures, where the intellect is too much +developed in proportion to the moral nature, it is difficult to speak +without seeming narrow, blind, and impertinent. For such men _see_ all +that others _live_, and, if you feel a want of a faculty in them, it is +hard to say they have it not, lest, next moment, they puzzle you by +giving some indication of it. Yet they are not, nay, _know_ not; they +only discern. The difference is that between sight and life, prescience +and being, wisdom and love. Thus with Goethe. Naturally of a deep mind +and shallow heart, he felt the sway of the affections enough to +appreciate their workings in other men, but never enough to receive +their inmost regenerating influence. + +How this might have been had he ever once abandoned himself entirely to +a sentiment, it is impossible to say. But the education of his youth +seconded, rather than balanced, his natural tendency. His father was a +gentlemanly martinet; dull, sour, well-informed, and of great ambition +as to externals. His influence on the son was wholly artificial. He was +always turning his powerful mind from side to side in search of +information, for the attainment of what are called accomplishments. The +mother was a delightful person in her way; open, genial, playful, full +of lively talent, but without earnestness of soul. She was one of those +charming, but not noble persons, who take the day and the man as they +find them, seeing the best that is there already, but never making the +better grow in its stead. His sister, though of graver kind, was social +and intellectual, not religious or tender. The mortifying repulse of his +early love checked the few pale buds of faith and tenderness that his +heart put forth. His friends were friends of the intellect merely; +altogether, he seemed led by destiny to the place he was to fill. + +Pardon him, World, that he was too worldly. Do not wonder, Heart, that +he was so heartless. Believe, Soul, that one so true, as far as he went, +must yet be initiated into the deeper mysteries of Soul. Perhaps even +now he sees that we must accept limitations only to transcend them; work +in processes only to detect the organizing power which supersedes them; +and that Sphinxes of fifty-five volumes might well be cast into the +abyss before the single word that solves them all. + +Now, when I think of Goethe, I seem to see his soul, all the +variegated plumes of knowledge, artistic form "und so weiter," burnt +from it by the fires of divine love, wingless, motionless, unable to +hide from itself in any subterfuge of labor, saying again and again, the +simple words which he would never distinctly say on earth--God beyond +Nature--Faith beyond Sight--the Seeker nobler than the _Meister_. + +For this mastery that Goethe prizes seems to consist rather in the +skilful use of means than in the clear manifestation of ends. His +Master, indeed, makes acknowledgment of a divine order, but the temporal +uses are always uppermost in the mind of the reader. But of this, more +at large in reference to his works. + +Apart from this want felt in his works, there is a littleness in his +aspect as a character. Why waste his time in Weimar court +entertainments? His duties as minister were not unworthy of him, though +it would have been, perhaps, finer, if he had not spent so large a +portion of that prime of intellectual life, from five and twenty to +forty, upon them. + +But granted that the exercise these gave his faculties, the various lore +they brought, and the good they did to the community, made them worth +his doing,--why that perpetual dangling after the royal family? Why all +that verse-making for the albums of serene highnesses, and those pretty +poetical entertainments for the young princesses, and that cold setting +himself apart from his true peers, the real sovereigns of +Weimar--Herder, Wieland, and the others? The excuse must be found in +circumstances of his time and temperament, which made the character of +man of the world and man of affairs more attractive to him than the +children of nature can conceive it to be in the eyes of one who is +capable of being a consecrated bard. + +The man of genius feels that literature has become too much a craft by +itself. No man should live by or for his pen. Writing is worthless +except as the record of life; and no great man ever was satisfied thus +to express all his being. His book should be only an indication of +himself. The obelisk should point to a scene of conquest. In the present +state of division of labor, the literary man finds himself condemned to +be nothing else. Does he write a good book? it is not received as +evidence of his ability to live and act, but rather the reverse. Men do +not offer him the care of embassies, as an earlier age did to Petrarca; +they would be surprised if he left his study to go forth to battle like +Cervantes. We have the swordsman, and statesman, and penman, but it is +not considered that the same mind which can rule the destiny of a poem, +may as well that of an army or an empire.[2] Yet surely it should be so. +The scientific man may need seclusion from the common affairs of life, +for he has his materials before him; but the man of letters must seek +them in life, and he who cannot act will but imperfectly appreciate +action. + +The literary man is impatient at being set apart. He feels that monks +and troubadours, though in a similar position, were brought into more +healthy connection with man and nature, than he who is supposed to look +at them merely to write them down. So he rebels; and Sir Walter Scott is +prouder of being a good sheriff and farmer, than of his reputation as +the Great Unknown. Byron piques himself on his skill in shooting and +swimming. Sir H. Davy and Schlegel would be admired as dandies, and +Goethe, who had received an order from a publisher "for a dozen more +dramas in the same style as Goetz von Berlichingen," and though (in +sadder sooth) he had already Faust in his head asking to be written out, +thought it no degradation to become premier in the little Duchy of +Weimar. + +"Straws show which way the wind blows," and a comment may be drawn from +the popular novels, where the literary man is obliged to wash off the +ink in a violet bath, attest his courage in the duel, and hide his +idealism beneath the vulgar nonchalance and coxcombry of the man of +fashion. + +If this tendency of his time had some influence in making Goethe find +pleasure in tangible power and decided relations with society, there +were other causes which worked deeper. The growth of genius in its +relations to men around must always be attended with daily pain. The +enchanted eye turns from the far-off star it has detected to the +short-sighted bystander, and the seer is mocked for pretending to see +what others cannot. The large and generalizing mind infers the whole +from a single circumstance, and is reproved by all around for its +presumptuous judgment. Its Ithuriel temper pierces shams, creeds, +covenants, and chases the phantoms which others embrace, till the lovers +of the false Florimels hurl the true knight to the ground. Little men +are indignant that Hercules, yet an infant, declares he has strangled +the serpent; they demand a proof; they send him out into scenes of labor +to bring thence the voucher that his father is a god. What the ancients +meant to express by Apollo's continual disappointment in his loves, is +felt daily in the youth of genius. The sympathy he seeks flies his +touch, the objects of his affection sneer at his sublime credulity, his +self-reliance is arrogance, his far sight infatuation, and his ready +detection of fallacy fickleness and inconsistency. Such is the youth of +genius, before the soul has given that sign of itself which an +unbelieving generation cannot controvert. Even then he is little +benefited by the transformation of the mockers into worshippers. For the +soul seeks not adorers, but peers; not blind worship, but intelligent +sympathy. The best consolation even then is that which Goethe puts +into the mouth of Tasso: "To me gave a God to tell what I suffer." In +"Tasso" Goethe has described the position of the poetical mind in its +prose relations with equal depth and fulness. We see what he felt must +be the result of entire abandonment to the highest nature. We see why he +valued himself on being able to understand the Alphonsos, and meet as an +equal the Antonios of every-day life. + +But, you say, there is no likeness between Goethe and Tasso. Never +believe it; such pictures are not painted from observation merely. That +deep coloring which fills them with light and life is given by dipping +the brush in one's own life-blood. Goethe had not from nature that +character of self-reliance and self-control in which he so long appeared +to the world. It was wholly acquired, and so highly valued because he +was conscious of the opposite tendency. He was by nature as impetuous, +though not as tender, as Tasso, and the disadvantage at which this +constantly placed him was keenly felt by a mind made to appreciate the +subtlest harmonies in all relations. Therefore was it that when he at +last cast anchor, he was so reluctant again to trust himself to wave and +breeze. + +I have before spoken of the antagonistic influences under which he was +educated. He was driven from the severity of study into the world, and +then again drawn back, many times in the course of his crowded youth. +Both the world and the study he used with unceasing ardor, but not with +the sweetness of a peaceful hope. Most of the traits which are +considered to mark his character at a later period were wanting to him +in youth. He was very social, and continually perturbed by his social +sympathies. He was deficient both in outward self-possession and mental +self-trust. "I was always," he says, "either _too volatile or too +infatuated_, so that those who looked kindly on me did by no means +always honor me with their esteem." He wrote much and with great +freedom. The pen came naturally to his hand, but he had no confidence in +the merit of what he wrote, and much inferior persons to Merck and +Herder might have induced him to throw aside as worthless what it had +given him sincere pleasure to compose. It was hard for him to isolate +himself, to console himself, and, though his mind was always busy with +important thoughts, they did not free him from the pressure of other +minds. His youth was as sympathetic and impetuous as any on record. + +The effect of all this outward pressure on the poet is recorded in +Werther--a production that he afterwards under-valued, and to which he +even felt positive aversion. It was natural that this should be. In the +calm air of the cultivated plain he attained, the remembrance of the +miasma of sentimentality was odious to him. Yet sentimentality is but +sentiment diseased, which to be cured must be patiently observed by the +wise physician; so are the morbid desire and despair of Werther, the +sickness of a soul aspiring to a purer, freer state, but mistaking the +way. + +The best or the worst occasion in man's life is precisely that misused +in Werther, when he longs for more love, more freedom, and a larger +development of genius than the limitations of this terrene sphere +permit. Sad is it indeed if, persisting to grasp too much at once, he +lose all, as Werther did. He must accept limitation, must consent to do +his work in time, must let his affections be baffled by the barriers of +convention. Tantalus-like, he makes this world a Tartarus, or, like +Hercules, rises in fires to heaven, according as he knows how to +interpret his lot. But he must only use, not adopt it. The boundaries of +the man must never be confounded with the destiny of the soul. If he +does not decline his destiny, as Werther did, it is his honor to have +felt its unfitness for his eternal scope. He was born for wings; he is +held to walk in leading-strings; nothing lower than faith must make him +resigned, and only in hope should he find content--a hope not of some +slight improvement in his own condition or that of other men, but a hope +justified by the divine justice, which is bound in due time to satisfy +every want of his nature. + +Schiller's great command is, "Keep true to the dream of thy youth." The +great problem is how to make the dream real, through the exercise of the +waking will. + +This was not exactly the problem Goethe tried to solve. To _do_ +somewhat, became too important, as is indicated both by the second motto +to this essay, and by his maxim, "It is not the knowledge of what _might +be_, but what _is_, that forms us." + +Werther, like his early essays now republished from the Frankfort +Journal, is characterized by a fervid eloquence of Italian glow, which +betrays a part of his character almost lost sight of in the quiet +transparency of his later productions, and may give us some idea of the +mental conflicts through which he passed to manhood. + +The acting out the mystery into life, the calmness of survey, and the +passionateness of feeling, above all the ironical baffling at the end, +and want of point to a tale got up with such an eye to effect as he goes +along, mark well the man that was to be. Even so did he demand in +Werther; even so resolutely open the door in the first part of Faust; +even so seem to play with himself and his contemporaries in the second +part of Faust and Wilhelm Meister. + +Yet was he deeply earnest in his play, not for men, but for himself. To +himself as a part of nature it was important to grow, to lift his head +to the light. In nature he had all confidence; for man, as a part of +nature, infinite hope; but in him as an individual will, seemingly, not +much trust at the earliest age. + +The history of his intimacies marks his course; they were entered into +with passionate eagerness, but always ended in an observation of the +intellect, and he left them on his road, as the snake leaves his skin. +The first man he met of sufficient force to command a large share of his +attention was Herder, and the benefit of this intercourse was critical, +not genial. Of the good Lavater he soon perceived the weakness. Merck, +again, commanded his respect; but the force of Merck also was cold. + +But in the Grand Duke of Weimar he seems to have met a character strong +enough to exercise a decisive influence upon his own. Goethe was not +so politic and worldly that a little man could ever have become his +Maecenas. In the Duchess Amelia and her son he found that practical +sagacity, large knowledge of things as they are, active force, and +genial feeling, which he had never before seen combined. + +The wise mind of the duchess gave the first impulse to the noble course +of Weimar. But that her son should have availed himself of the +foundation she laid is praise enough, in a world where there is such a +rebound from parental influence that it generally seems that the child +makes use of the directions given by the parent only to avoid the +prescribed path. The duke availed himself of guidance, though with a +perfect independence in action. The duchess had the unusual wisdom to +know the right time for giving up the reins, and thus maintained her +authority as far as the weight of her character was calculated to give +it. + +Of her Goethe was thinking when he wrote, "The admirable woman is she, +who, if the husband dies, can be a father to the children." + +The duke seems to have been one of those characters which are best known +by the impression their personal presence makes on us, resembling an +elemental and pervasive force, rather than wearing the features of an +individuality. Goethe describes him as "_Daemonische_," that is, gifted +with an instinctive, spontaneous force, which at once, without +calculation or foresight, chooses the right means to an end. As these +beings do not calculate, so is their influence incalculable. Their +repose has as much influence over other beings as their action, even as +the thunder cloud, lying black and distant in the summer sky, is not +less imposing than when it bursts and gives forth its quick lightnings. +Such men were Mirabeau and Swift. They had also distinct talents, but +their influence was from a perception in the minds of men of this +spontaneous energy in their natures. Sometimes, though rarely, we see +such a man in an obscure position; circumstances have not led him to a +large sphere; he may not have expressed in words a single thought worth +recording; but by his eye and voice he rules all around him. + +He stands upon his feet with a firmness and calm security which make +other men seem to halt and totter in their gait. In his deep eye is seen +an infinite comprehension, an infinite reserve of power. No accent of +his sonorous voice is lost on any ear within hearing; and, when he +speaks, men hate or fear perhaps the disturbing power they feel, but +never dream of disobeying. But hear Goethe himself. + +"The boy believed in nature, in the animate and inanimate the +intelligent and unconscious, to discover somewhat which manifested +itself only through contradiction, and therefore could not be +comprehended by any conception, much less defined by a word. It was not +divine, for it seemed without reason; not human, because without +understanding; not devilish, because it worked to good; not angelic, +because it often betrayed a petulant love of mischief. It was like +chance, in that it proved no sequence; it suggested the thought of +Providence, because it indicated connection. To this all our limitations +seem penetrable; it seemed to play at will with all the elements of our +being; it compressed time and dilated space. Only in the impossible did +it seem to delight, and to cast the possible aside with disdain. + +"This existence which seemed to mingle with others, sometimes to +separate, sometimes to unite, I called the Daemonische, after the example +of the ancients, and others who have observed somewhat similar."--_Dichtung +und Wahrheit._ + +"The Daemonische is that which cannot be explained by reason or +understanding; it lies not in my nature, but I am subject to it. + +"Napoleon was a being of this class, and in so high a degree that scarce +any one is to be compared with him. Also our late grand duke was such a +nature, full of unlimited power of action and unrest, so that his own +dominion was too little for him, and the greatest would have been too +little. Demoniac beings of this sort the Greeks reckoned among their +demigods."--_Conversations with Eckermann._[3] + +This great force of will, this instinctive directness of action, gave +the duke an immediate ascendency over Goethe which no other person had +ever possessed. It was by no means mere sycophancy that made him give up +the next ten years, the prime of his manhood, to accompanying the grand +duke in his revels, or aiding him in his schemes of practical utility, +or to contriving elegant amusements for the ladies of the court. It was +a real admiration for the character of the genial man of the world and +its environment. + +Whoever is turned from his natural path may, if he will, gain in +largeness and depth what he loses in simple beauty; and so it was with +Goethe. Faust became a wiser if not a nobler being. Werther, who must +die because life was not wide enough and rich enough in love for him, +ends as the Meister of the Wanderjahre, well content to be one never +inadequate to the occasion, "help-full, comfort-full." + +A great change was, during these years, perceptible to his friends in +the character of Goethe. From being always "either too volatile or +infatuated," he retreated into a self-collected state, which seemed at +first even icy to those around him. No longer he darted about him the +lightnings of his genius, but sat Jove-like and calm, with the +thunderbolts grasped in his hand, and the eagle gathered to his feet. +His freakish wit was subdued into a calm and even cold irony; his +multiplied relations no longer permitted him to abandon himself to any; +the minister and courtier could not expatiate in the free regions of +invention, and bring upon paper the signs of his higher life, without +subjecting himself to an artificial process of isolation. Obliged to +economy of time and means, he made of his intimates not objects of +devout tenderness, of disinterested care, but the crammers and feeders +of his intellect. The world was to him an arena or a studio, but not a +temple. + +"Ye cannot serve God and Mammon." + +Had Goethe entered upon practical life from the dictate of his spirit, +which bade him not be a mere author, but a living, loving man, that had +all been well. But he must also be a man of the world, and nothing can +be more unfavorable to true manhood than this ambition. The citizen, the +hero, the general, the poet, all these are in true relations; but what +is called being a man of the world is to truckle to it, not truly to +serve it. + +Thus fettered in false relations, detained from retirement upon the +centre of his being, yet so relieved from the early pressure of his +great thoughts as to pity more pious souls for being restless seekers, +no wonder that he wrote,-- + +"Es ist dafuer gesorgt dass die Baeume nicht in den Himmel wachsen." + +"Care is taken that the trees grow not up into the heavens." Ay, Goethe, +but in proportion to their force of aspiration is their height. + +Yet never let him be confounded with those who sell all their +birthright. He became blind to the more generous virtues, the nobler +impulses, but ever in self-respect was busy to develop his nature. He +was kind, industrious, wise, gentlemanly, if not manly. If his genius +lost sight of the highest aim, he is the best instructor in the use of +means; ceasing to be a prophet poet, he was still a poetic artist. From +this time forward he seems a listener to nature, but not himself the +highest product of nature,--a priest to the soul of nature. His works +grow out of life, but are not instinct with the peculiar life of human +resolve, as are Shakspeare's or Dante's. + +Faust contains the great idea of his life, as indeed there is but one +great poetic idea possible to man--the progress of a soul through the +various forms of existence. + +All his other works, whatever their miraculous beauty of execution, are +mere chapters to this poem, illustrative of particular points. Faust, +had it been completed in the spirit in which it was begun, would have +been the Divina Commedia of its age. + +But nothing can better show the difference of result between a stern and +earnest life, and one of partial accommodation, than a comparison +between the Paridiso and that of the second part of Faust. In both a +soul, gradually educated and led back to God, is received at last not +through merit, but grace. But O the difference between the grandly +humble reliance of old Catholicism, and the loophole redemption of +modern sagacity! Dante was a _man_, of vehement passions, many +prejudices, bitter as much as sweet. His knowledge was scanty, his +sphere of observation narrow, the objects of his active life petty, +compared with those of Goethe. But, constantly retiring to his deepest +self, clearsighted to the limitations of man, but no less so to the +illimitable energy of the soul, the sharpest details in his work convey +a largest sense, as his strongest and steadiest flights only direct the +eye to heavens yet beyond. + +Yet perhaps he had not so hard a battle to wage, as this other great +poet. The fiercest passions are not so dangerous foes to the soul as the +cold scepticism of the understanding. The Jewish demon assailed the man +of Uz with physical ills, the Lucifer of the middle ages tempted his +passions; but the Mephistopheles of the eighteenth century bade the +finite strive to compass the infinite, and the intellect attempt to +solve all the problems of the soul. + +This path Faust had taken: it is that of modern necromancy. Not willing +to grow into God by the steady worship of a life, men would enforce his +presence by a spell; not willing to learn his existence by the slow +processes of their own, they strive to bind it in a word, that they may +wear it about the neck as a talisman. + +Faust, bent upon reaching the centre of the universe through the +intellect alone, naturally, after a length of trial, which has prevented +the harmonious unfolding of his nature, falls into despair. He has +striven for one object, and that object eludes him. Returning upon +himself, he finds large tracts of his nature lying waste and cheerless. +He is too noble for apathy, too wise for vulgar content with the animal +enjoyments of life. Yet the thirst he has been so many years increasing +is not to be borne. Give me, he cries, but a drop of water to cool my +burning tongue. Yet, in casting himself with a wild recklessness upon +the impulses of his nature yet untried, there is a disbelief that any +thing short of the All can satisfy the immortal spirit. His first +attempt was noble, though mistaken, and under the saving influence of +it, he makes the compact, whose condition cheats the fiend at last. + + Kannst du mich schmeichelnd je beluegen + Dass ich mir selbst gefallen mag, + Kannst du mich mit Genuss betruegen: + Das sey fuer mich der letzte Tag. + + Werd ich zum Augenblicke sagen: + Verweile doch! du bist so schoen! + Dann magst du mich in Fesseln schlagen, + Dann will ich gern zu Grunde gehen. + + Canst thou by falsehood or by flattery + Make me one moment with myself at peace, + Cheat me into tranquillity? Come then + And welcome, life's last day. + Make me but to the moment say, + O fly not yet, thou art so fair, + Then let me perish, &c. + +But this condition is never fulfilled. Faust cannot be content with +sensuality, with the charlatanry of ambition, nor with riches. His heart +never becomes callous, nor his moral and intellectual perceptions +obtuse. He is saved at last. + +With the progress of an individual soul is shadowed forth that of the +soul of the age; beginning in intellectual scepticism; sinking into +license; cheating itself with dreams of perfect bliss, to be at once +attained by means no surer than a spurious paper currency; longing +itself back from conflict between the spirit and the flesh, induced by +Christianity, to the Greek era with its harmonious development of body +and mind; striving to reembody the loved phantom of classical beauty in +the heroism of the middle age; flying from the Byron despair of those +who die because they cannot soar without wings, to schemes however +narrow, of practical utility,--redeemed at last through mercy alone. + +The second part of Faust is full of meaning, resplendent with beauty; +but it is rather an appendix to the first part than a fulfilment of its +promise. The world, remembering the powerful stamp of individual +feeling, universal indeed in its application, but individual in its +life, which had conquered all its scruples in the first part, was vexed +to find, instead of the man Faust, the spirit of the age,--discontented +with the shadowy manifestation of truths it longed to embrace, and, +above all, disappointed that the author no longer met us face to face, +or riveted the ear by his deep tones of grief and resolve. + +When the world shall have got rid of the still overpowering influence of +the first part, it will be seen that the fundamental idea is never lost +sight of in the second. The change is that Goethe, though the same +thinker, is no longer the same person. + +The continuation of Faust in the practical sense of the education of a +man is to be found in Wilhelm Meister. Here we see the change by +strongest contrast. The mainspring of action is no longer the +impassioned and noble seeker, but a disciple of circumstance, whose most +marked characteristic is a taste for virtue and knowledge. Wilhelm +certainly prefers these conditions of existence to their opposites, but +there is nothing so decided in his character as to prevent his turning a +clear eye on every part of that variegated world-scene which the writer +wished to place before us. + +To see all till he knows all sufficiently to put objects into their +relations, then to concentrate his powers and use his knowledge under +recognized conditions,--such is the progress of man from Apprentice to +Master. + +'Tis pity that the volumes of the Wanderjahre have not been translated +entire, as well as those of the Lehrjahre, for many, who have read the +latter only, fancy that Wilhelm becomes a master in that work. Far from +it; he has but just become conscious of the higher powers that have +ceaselessly been weaving his fate. Far from being as yet a Master, he +but now begins to be a Knower. In the Wanderjahre we find him gradually +learning the duties of citizenship, and hardening into manhood, by +applying what he has learned for himself to the education of his child. +He converses on equal terms with the wise and beneficent; he is no +longer duped and played with for his good, but met directly mind to +mind. + +Wilhelm is a master when he can command his actions, yet keep his mind +always open to new means of knowledge; when he has looked at various +ways of living, various forms of religion and of character, till he has +learned to be tolerant of all, discerning of good in all; when the +astronomer imparts to his equal ear his highest thoughts, and the poor +cottager seeks his aid as a patron and counsellor. + +To be capable of all duties, limited by none, with an open eye, a +skilful and ready hand, an assured step, a mind deep, calm, foreseeing +without anxiety, hopeful without the aid of illusion,--such is the ripe +state of manhood. This attained, the great soul should still seek and +labor, but strive and battle never more. + +The reason for Goethe's choosing so negative a character as Wilhelm, +and leading him through scenes of vulgarity and low vice, would be +obvious enough to a person of any depth of thought, even if he himself +had not announced it. He thus obtained room to paint life as it really +is, and bring forward those slides in the magic lantern which are always +known to exist, though they may not be spoken of to ears polite. + +Wilhelm cannot abide in tradition, nor do as his fathers did before him, +merely for the sake of money or a standing in society. The stage, here +an emblem of the ideal life as it gleams before unpractised eyes, +offers, he fancies, opportunity for a life of thought as distinguished +from one of routine. Here, no longer the simple citizen, but Man, all +Men, he will rightly take upon himself the different aspects of life, +till poet-wise, he shall have learned them all. + +No doubt the attraction of the stage to young persons of a vulgar +character is merely the brilliancy of its trappings; but to Wilhelm, as +to Goethe, it was this poetic freedom and daily suggestion which +seemed likely to offer such an agreeable studio in the greenroom. + +But the ideal must be rooted in the real, else the poet's life +degenerates into buffoonery or vice. Wilhelm finds the characters formed +by this would-be ideal existence more despicable than those which grew +up on the track, dusty and bustling and dull as it had seemed, of common +life. He is prepared by disappointment for a higher ambition. + +In the house of the count he finds genuine elegance, genuine sentiment, +but not sustained by wisdom, or a devotion to important objects. This +love, this life, is also inadequate. + +Now, with Teresa he sees the blessings of domestic peace. He sees a mind +sufficient for itself, finding employment and education in the perfect +economy of a little world. The lesson is pertinent to the state of mind +in which his former experiences have left him, as indeed our deepest +lore is won from reaction. But a sudden change of scene introduces him +to the society of the sage and learned uncle, the sage and beneficent +Natalia. Here he finds the same virtues as with Teresa, and enlightened +by a larger wisdom. + +A friend of mine says that his ideal of a friend is a worthy aunt, one +who has the tenderness without the blindness of a mother, and takes the +same charge of the child's mind as the mother of its body. I don't know +but this may have a foundation in truth, though, if so, auntism, like +other grand professions, has sadly degenerated. At any rate, Goethe +seems to be possessed with a similar feeling. The Count de Thorane, a +man of powerful character, who made a deep impression on his childhood, +was, he says, "reverenced by me as an uncle." And the ideal wise man of +this common life epic stands before us as "The Uncle." + +After seeing the working of just views in the establishment of the +uncle, learning piety from the Confessions of a Beautiful Soul, and +religious beneficence from the beautiful life of Natalia, Wilhelm is +deemed worthy of admission to the society of the Illuminati, that is, +those who have pierced the secret of life, and know what it is to be and +to do. + +Here he finds the scroll of his life "drawn with large, sharp strokes," +that is, these truly wise read his character for him, and "mind and +destiny are but two names for one idea." + +He now knows enough to enter on the Wanderjahre. + +Goethe always represents the highest principle in the feminine form. +Woman is the Minerva, man the Mars. As in the Faust, the purity of +Gretchen, resisting the demon always, even after all her faults, is +announced to have saved her soul to heaven; and in the second part she +appears, not only redeemed herself, but by her innocence and forgiving +tenderness hallowed to redeem the being who had injured her. + +So in the Meister, these women hover around the narrative, each +embodying the spirit of the scene. The frail Philina, graceful though +contemptible, represents the degradation incident to an attempt at +leading an exclusively poetic life. Mignon, gift divine as ever the Muse +bestowed on the passionate heart of man, with her soft, mysterious +inspiration, her pining for perpetual youth, represents the high desire +that leads to this mistake, as Aurelia, the desire for excitement; +Teresa, practical wisdom, gentle tranquillity, which seem most desirable +after the Aurelia glare. Of the beautiful soul and Natalia we have +already spoken. The former embodies what was suggested to Goethe by +the most spiritual person he knew in youth--Mademoiselle von +Klettenberg, over whom, as he said, in her invalid loneliness the Holy +Ghost brooded like a dove. + +Entering on the Wanderjahre, Wilhelm becomes acquainted with another +woman, who seems the complement of all the former, and represents the +idea which is to guide and mould him in the realization of all the past +experience. + +This person, long before we see her, is announced in various ways as a +ruling power. She is the last hope in cases of difficulty, and, though +an invalid, and living in absolute retirement, is consulted by her +connections and acquaintance as an unerring judge in all their affairs. + +All things tend towards her as a centre; she knows all, governs all, but +never goes forth from herself. + +Wilhelm at last visits her. He finds her infirm in body, but equal to +all she has to do. Charity and counsel to men who need her are her +business, astronomy her pleasure. + +After a while, Wilhelm ascertains from the Astronomer, her companion, +what he had before suspected, that she really belongs to the solar +system, and only appears on earth to give men a feeling of the planetary +harmony. From her youth up, says the Astronomer, till she knew me, +though all recognized in her an unfolding of the highest moral and +intellectual qualities, she was supposed to be sick at her times of +clear vision. When her thoughts were not in the heavens, she returned +and acted in obedience to them on earth; she was then said to be well. + +When the Astronomer had observed her long enough, he confirmed her +inward consciousness of a separate existence and peculiar union with the +heavenly bodies. + +Her picture is painted with many delicate traits, and a gradual +preparation leads the reader to acknowledge the truth; but, even in the +slight indication here given, who does not recognize thee, divine +Philosophy, sure as the planetary orbits, and inexhaustible as the +fountain of light, crowning the faithful Seeker at last with the +privilege to possess his own soul. + +In all that is said of Macaria,[4] we recognize that no thought is too +religious for the mind of Goethe. It was indeed so; you can deny him +nothing, but only feel that his works are not instinct and glowing with +the central fire, and, after catching a glimpse pf the highest truth, +are forced again to find him too much afraid of losing sight of the +limitations of nature to overflow you or himself with the creative +spirit. + +While the apparition of the celestial Macaria seems to announce the +ultimate destiny of the soul of man, the practical application of all +Wilhelm has thus painfully acquired is not of pure Delphian strain. +Goethe draws, as he passes, a dart from the quiver of Phoebus, but +ends as AEsculapius or Mercury. Wilhelm, at the school of the Three +Reverences, thinks out what can be done for man in his temporal +relations. He learns to practise moderation, and even painful +renunciation. The book ends, simply indicating what the course of his +life will be, by making him perform an act of kindness, with good +judgment and at the right moment. + +Surely the simple soberness of Goethe should please at least those who +style themselves, preeminently, people of common sense. + +The following remarks are by the celebrated Rahel von Ense, whose +discernment as to his works was highly prized by Goethe. + + + "_Don Quixote and Wilhelm Meister_! + + "Embrace one another, Cervantes and Goethe! + + "Both, using their own clear eyes, vindicated human nature. They + saw the champions through their errors and follies, looking down + into the deepest soul, seeing there the true form. _Respectable_ + people call the Don as well as Meister a fool, wandering hither and + thither, transacting no business of real life, bringing nothing to + pass, scarce even knowing what he ought to think on any subject, + very unfit for the hero of a romance. Yet has our sage known how to + paint the good and honest mind in perpetual toil and conflict with + the world, as it is embodied; never sharing one moment the impure + confusion; always striving to find fault with and improve itself, + always so innocent as to see others far better than they are, and + generally preferring them to itself, learning from all, indulging + all except the manifestly base; the more you understand, the more + you respect and love this character. Cervantes has painted the + knight, Goethe the culture of the entire man,--both their own + time." + +But those who demand from him a life-long continuance of the early ardor +of Faust, who wish to see, throughout his works, not only such manifold +beauty and subtle wisdom, but the clear assurance of divinity, the pure +white light of Macaria, wish that he had not so variously unfolded his +nature, and concentred it more. They would see him slaying the serpent +with the divine wrath of Apollo, rather than taming it to his service, +like AEsculapius. They wish that he had never gone to Weimar, had never +become a universal connoisseur and dilettante in science, and courtier +as "graceful as a born nobleman," but had endured the burden of life +with the suffering crowd, and deepened his nature in loneliness and +privation, till Faust had conquered, rather than cheated the devil, and +the music of heavenly faith superseded the grave and mild eloquence of +human wisdom. + +The expansive genius which moved so gracefully in its self imposed +fetters, is constantly surprising us by its content with a choice low, +in so far as it was not the highest of which the mind was capable. The +secret may be found in the second motto of this slight essay. + +"He who would do great things must quickly draw together his forces. The +master can only show himself such through limitation, and the law alone +can give us freedom." + +But there is a higher spiritual law always ready to supersede the +temporal laws at the call of the human soul. The soul that is too +content with usual limitations will never call forth this unusual +manifestation. + +If there be a tide in the affairs of men, which must be taken at the +right moment to lead on to fortune, it is the same with inward as with +outward life. He who, in the crisis hour of youth, has stopped short of +himself, is not likely to find again what he has missed in one life, for +there are a great number of blanks to a prize in each lottery. + +But the pang we feel that "those who are so much are not more," seems to +promise new spheres, new ages, new crises to enable these beings to +complete their circle. + +Perhaps Goethe is even now sensible that he should not have stopped at +Weimar as his home, but made it one station on the way to Paradise; not +stopped at humanity, but regarded it as symbolical of the divine, and +given to others to feel more distinctly the centre of the universe, as +well as the harmony in its parts. It is great to be an Artist, a Master, +greater still to be a Seeker till the Man has found all himself. + +What Goethe meant by self-collection was a collection of means for +work, rather than to divine the deepest truths of being. Thus are these +truths always indicated, never declared; and the religious hope awakened +by his subtle discernment of the workings of nature never gratified, +except through the intellect. + +He whose prayer is only work will not leave his treasure in the secret +shrine. + +One is ashamed when finding any fault with one like Goethe, who is so +great. It seems the only criticism should be to do all he omitted to do, +and that none who cannot is entitled to say a word. Let that one speak +who was all Goethe was not,--noble, true, virtuous, but neither wise +nor subtle in his generation, a divine ministrant, a baffled man, ruled +and imposed on by the pygmies whom he spurned, an heroic artist, a +democrat to the tune of Burns: + + "The rank is but the guinea's stamp; + The man's the gowd for a' that." + +Hear Beethoven speak of Goethe on an occasion which brought out the +two characters in strong contrast. + +Extract from a letter of Beethoven to Bettina Brentano Toeplitz, 1812. + +"Kings and princes can indeed make professors and privy councillors, and +hang upon them titles; but great men they cannot make; souls that rise +above the mud of the world, these they must let be made by other means +than theirs, and should therefore show them respect. When two such as I +and Goethe come together, then must great lords observe what is +esteemed great by one of us. Coming home yesterday we met the whole +imperial family. We saw them coming, and Goethe left me and insisted +on standing one side; let me say what I would, I could not make him come +on one step. I pressed my hat upon my head, buttoned my surtout, and +passed on through the thickest crowd. Princes and parasites made way; +the Archduke Rudolph took off his hat; the empress greeted me first. +Their highnesses KNOW ME. I was well amused to see the crowd pass by +Goethe. At the side stood he, hat in hand, low bowed in reverence till +all had gone by. Then I scolded him well; I gave no pardon, but +reproached him with all his sins, most of all those towards you, dearest +Bettina; we had just been talking of you." + +If Beethoven appears, in this scene, somewhat arrogant and bearish, yet +how noble his extreme compared with the opposite! Goethe's friendship +with the grand duke we respect, for Karl August was a strong man. But we +regret to see at the command of any and all members of the ducal +family, and their connections, who had nothing but rank to recommend +them, his time and thoughts, of which he was so chary to private +friends. Beethoven could not endure to teach the Archduke Rudolph, who +had the soul duly to revere his genius, because he felt it to be +"hofdienst," court service. He received with perfect nonchalance the +homage of the sovereigns of Europe. Only the Empress of Russia and the +Archduke Karl, whom he esteemed as individuals, had power to gratify him +by their attentions. Compare with, Goethe's obsequious pleasure at +being able gracefully to compliment such high personages, Beethoven's +conduct with regard to the famous Heroic Symphony. This was composed at +the suggestion of Bernadotte, while Napoleon was still in his first +glory. He was then the hero of Beethoven's imagination, who hoped from +him the liberation of Europe. With delight the great artist expressed in +his eternal harmonies the progress of the Hero's soul. The symphony was +finished, and even dedicated to Bonaparte, when the news came of his +declaring himself Emperor of the French. The first act of the indignant +artist was to tear off his dedication and trample it under foot; nor +could he endure again even the mention of Napoleon until the time of his +fall. + +Admit that Goethe had a natural taste for the trappings of rank and +wealth, from which the musician was quite free, yet we cannot doubt that +both saw through these externals to man as a nature; there can be no +doubt on whose side was the simple greatness, the noble truth. We pardon +thee, Goethe,--but thee, Beethoven, we revere, for thou hast +maintained the worship of the Manly, the Permanent, the True! + +The clear perception which was in Goethe's better nature of the beauty +of that steadfastness, of that singleness and simple melody of soul, +which he too much sacrificed to become "the many-sided One," is shown +most distinctly in his two surpassingly beautiful works, The Elective +Affinities and Iphigenia. + +Not Werther, not the Nouvelle Heloise, have been assailed with such a +storm of indignation as the first-named of these works, on the score of +gross immorality. + +The reason probably is the subject; any discussion of the validity of +the marriage vow making society tremble to its foundation; and, +secondly, the cold manner in which it is done. All that is in the book +would be bearable to most minds if the writer had had less the air of a +spectator, and had larded his work here and there with ejaculations of +horror and surprise. + +These declarations of sentiment on the part of the author seem to be +required by the majority of readers, in order to an interpretation of +his purpose, as sixthly, seventhly, and eighthly were, in an +old-fashioned sermon, to rouse the audience to a perception of the +method made use of by the preacher. + +But it has always seemed to me that those who need not such helps to +their discriminating faculties, but read a work so thoroughly as to +apprehend its whole scope and tendency, rather than hear what the author +says it means, will regard the Elective Affinities as a work especially +what is called moral in its outward effect, and religious even to piety +in its spirit. The mental aberrations of the consorts from their +plighted faith, though in the one case never indulged, and though in the +other no veil of sophistry is cast over the weakness of passion, but all +that is felt expressed with the openness of one who desires to +legitimate what he feels, are punished by terrible griefs and a fatal +catastrophe. Ottilia, that being of exquisite purity, with intellect and +character so harmonized in feminine beauty, as they never before were +found in any portrait of woman painted by the hand of man, perishes, on +finding she has been breathed on by unhallowed passion, and led to err +even by her ignorant wishes against what is held sacred. The only +personage whom we do not pity is Edward, for he is the only one who +stifles the voice of conscience. + +There is indeed a sadness, as of an irresistible fatality, brooding over +the whole. It seems as if only a ray of angelic truth could have enabled +these men to walk wisely in this twilight, at first so soft and +alluring, then deepening into blind horror. + +But if no such ray came to prevent their earthly errors, it seems to +point heavenward in the saintly sweetness of Ottilia. Her nature, too +fair for vice, too finely wrought even for error, comes lonely, intense, +and pale, like the evening star on the cold, wintry night. It tells of +other worlds, where the meaning of such strange passages as this must be +read to those faithful and pure like her, victims perishing in the green +garlands of a spotless youth to atone for the unworthiness of others. + +An unspeakable pathos is felt from the minutest trait of this character, +and deepens with every new study of it. Not even in Shakspeare have I so +felt the organizing power of genius. Through dead words I find the least +gestures of this person, stamping themselves on my memory, betraying to +the heart the secret of her life, which she herself, like all these +divine beings, knew not. I feel myself familiarized with all beings of +her order. I see not only what she was, but what she might have been, +and live with her in yet untrodden realms. + +Here is the glorious privilege of a form known only in the world of +genius. There is on it no stain of usage or calculation to dull our +sense of its immeasurable life. What in our daily walk, mid common faces +and common places, fleets across us at moments from glances of the eye, +or tones of the voice, is felt from the whole being of one of these +children of genius. + +This precious gem is set in a ring complete in its enamel. I cannot hope +to express my sense of the beauty of this book as a work of art. I +would not attempt it if I had elsewhere met any testimony to the same. +The perfect picture, always before the mind, of the chateau, the moss +hut, the park, the garden, the lake, with its boat and the landing +beneath the platan trees; the gradual manner in which both localities +and persons grow upon us, more living than life, inasmuch as we are, +unconsciously, kept at our best temperature by the atmosphere of genius, +and thereby more delicate in our perceptions than amid our customary +fogs; the gentle unfolding of the central thought, as a flower in the +morning sun; then the conclusion, rising like a cloud, first soft and +white, but darkening as it comes, till with a sudden wind it bursts +above our heads; the ease with which we every where find points of view +all different, yet all bearing on the same circle, for, though we feel +every hour new worlds, still before our eye lie the same objects, new, +yet the same, unchangeable, yet always changing their aspects as we +proceed, till at last we find we ourselves have traversed the circle, +and know all we overlooked at first,--these things are worthy of our +highest admiration. + +For myself, I never felt so completely that very thing which genius +should always make us feel--that I was in its circle, and could not get +out till its spell was done, and its last spirit permitted to depart. I +was not carried away, instructed, delighted more than by other works, +but I was _there_, living there, whether as the platan tree, or the +architect, or any other observing part of the scene. The personages live +too intensely to let us live in them; they draw around themselves +circles within the circle; we can only see them close, not be +themselves. + +Others, it would seem, on closing the book, exclaim, "What an immoral +book!" I well remember my own thought, "It is a work of art!" At last I +understood that world within a world, that ripest fruit of human nature, +which is called art. With each perusal of the book my surprise and +delight at this wonderful fulfilment of design grew. I understood why +Goethe was well content to be called Artist, and his works, works of +Art, rather than revelations. At this moment, remembering what I then +felt, I am inclined to class all my negations just written on this paper +as stuff, and to look upon myself, for thinking them, with as much +contempt as Mr. Carlyle, or Mrs. Austin, or Mrs. Jameson might do, to +say nothing of the German Goetheans. + +Yet that they were not without foundation I feel again when I turn to +the Iphigenia--a work beyond the possibility of negation; a work where a +religious meaning not only pierces but enfolds the whole; a work as +admirable in art, still higher in significance, more single in +expression. + +There is an English translation (I know not how good) of Goethe's +Iphigenia. But as it may not be generally known, I will give a sketch of +the drama. Iphigenia, saved, at the moment of the sacrifice made by +Agamemnon in behalf of the Greeks, by the goddess, and transferred to +the temple at Tauris, appears alone in the consecrated grove. Many years +have passed since she was severed from the home of such a tragic fate, +the palace of Mycenae. Troy had fallen, Agamemnon been murdered, Orestes +had grown up to avenge his death. All these events were unknown to the +exiled Iphigenia. The priestess of Diana in a barbarous land, she had +passed the years in the duties of the sanctuary, and in acts of +beneficence. She had acquired great power over the mind of Thoas, king +of Tauris, and used it to protect strangers, whom it had previously been +the custom of the country to sacrifice to the goddess. + +She salutes us with a soliloquy, of which I give a rude translation:-- + + Beneath your shade, living summits + Of this ancient, holy, thick-leaved grove, + As in the silent sanctuary of the Goddess, + Still I walk with those same shuddering feelings, + As when I trod these walks for the first time. + My spirit cannot accustom itself to these places; + Many years now has kept me here concealed + A higher will, to which I am submissive; + Yet ever am I, as at first, the stranger; + For ah! the sea divides me from my beloved ones, + And on the shore whole days I stand, + Seeking with my soul the land of the Greeks, + And to my sighs brings the rushing wave only + Its hollow tones in answer. + Woe to him who, far from parents, and brothers, and sisters, + Drags on a lonely life. Grief consumes + The nearest happiness away from his lips; + His thoughts crowd downwards-- + Seeking the hall of his fathers, where the Sun + First opened heaven to him, and kindred-born + In their first plays knit daily firmer and firmer + The bond from heart to heart--I question not the Gods, + Only the lot of woman is one of sorrow; + In the house and in the war man rules, + Knows how to help himself in foreign lands, + Possessions gladden and victory crowns him, + And an honorable death stands ready to end his days. + Within what narrow limits is bounded the luck of woman! + To obey a rude husband even is duty and comfort; how sad + When, instead, a hostile fate drives her out of her sphere! + So holds me Thoas, indeed a noble man, fast + In solemn, sacred, but slavish bonds. + O, with shame I confess that with secret reluctance + I serve thee, Goddess, thee, my deliverer. + My life should freely have been dedicate to thee, + But I have always been hoping in thee, O Diana, + Who didst take in thy soft arms me, the rejected daughter + Of the greatest king! Yes, daughter of Zeus, + I thought if thou gavest such anguish to him, the high hero, + The godlike Agamemnon; + Since he brought his dearest, a victim, to thy altar, + That, when he should return, crowned with glory, from Ilium, + At the same time thou would'st give to his arms his other treasures, + His spouse, Electra, and the princely son; + Me also, thou would'st restore to mine own, + Saving a second time me, whom from death thou didst save, + From this worse death,--the life of exile here. + +These are the words and thoughts; but how give an idea of the sweet +simplicity of expression in the original, where every word has the grace +and softness of a flower petal? + +She is interrupted by a messenger from the king, who prepares her for a +visit from himself of a sort she has dreaded. Thoas, who has always +loved her, now left childless by the calamities of war, can no longer +resist his desire to reanimate by her presence his desert house. He +begins by urging her to tell him the story of her race, which she does +in a way that makes us feel as if that most famous tragedy had never +before found a voice, so simple, so fresh in its naivete is the recital. + +Thoas urges his suit undismayed by the fate that hangs over the race of +Tantalus. + + THOAS. + + Was it the same Tantalus, + Whom Jupiter called to his council and banquets, + In whose talk so deeply experienced, full of various learning, + The Gods delighted as in the speech of oracles? + + IPHIGENIA. + + It is the same, but the Gods should not + Converse with men, as with their equals. + The mortal race is much too weak + Not to turn giddy on unaccustomed heights. + He was not ignoble, neither a traitor, + But for a servant too great, and as a companion + Of the great Thunderer only a man. So was + His fault also that of a man, its penalty + Severe, and poets sing--Presumption + And faithlessness cast him down from the throne of Jove, + Into the anguish of ancient Tartarus; + Ah, and all his race bore their hate. + + THOAS. + + Bore it the blame of the ancestor, or its own? + + IPHIGENIA. + + Truly the vehement breast and powerful life of the Titan + Were the assured inheritance of son and grandchild; + But the Gods bound their brows with a brazen band, + Moderation, counsel, wisdom, and patience + Were hid from their wild, gloomy glance, + Each desire grew to fury, + And limitless ranged their passionate thoughts. + +Iphigenia refuses with gentle firmness to give to gratitude what was not +due. Thoas leaves her in anger, and, to make her feel it, orders that +the old, barbarous custom be renewed, and two strangers just arrived be +immolated at Diana's altar. + +Iphigenia, though distressed, is not shaken by this piece of tyranny. +She trusts her heavenly protectress will find some way for her to save +these unfortunates without violating her truth. + +The strangers are Orestes and Pylades, sent thither by the oracle of +Apollo, who bade them go to Tauris and bring back "The Sister;" thus +shall the heaven-ordained parricide of Orestes be expiated, and the +Furies cease to pursue him. + +The Sister they interpret to be Dian, Apollo's sister; but Iphigenia, +sister to Orestes, is really meant. + +The next act contains scenes of most delicate workmanship, first between +the light-hearted Pylades, full of worldly resource and ready +tenderness, and the suffering Orestes, of far nobler, indeed heroic +nature, but less fit for the day and more for the ages. In the first +scene the characters of both are brought out with great skill, and the +nature of the bond between "the butterfly and the dark flower," +distinctly shown in few words. + +The next scene is between Iphigenia and Pylades. Pylades, though he +truly answers the questions of the priestess about the fate of Troy and +the house of Agamemnon, does not hesitate to conceal from her who +Orestes really is, and manufactures a tissue of useless falsehoods with +the same readiness that the wise Ulysses showed in exercising his +ingenuity on similar occasions. + +It is said, I know not how truly, that the modern Greeks are Ulyssean in +this respect, never telling straightforward truth, when deceit will +answer the purpose; and if they tell any truth, practising the economy +of the King of Ithaca, in always reserving a part for their own use. The +character which this denotes is admirably hit off with few strokes in +Pylades, the fair side of whom Iphigenia thus paints in a later scene. + + Bless, ye Gods, our Pylades, + And whatever he may undertake; + He is the arm of the youth in battle, + The light-giving eye of the aged man in the council. + For his soul is still; it preserves + The holy possession of Repose unexhausted, + And from its depths still reaches + Help and advice to those tossed to and fro. + +Iphigenia leaves him in sudden agitation, when informed of the death of +Agamemnon. Returning, she finds in his place Orestes, whom she had not +before seen, and draws from him by her artless questions the sequel to +this terrible drama wrought by his hand. After he has concluded his +narrative, in the deep tones of cold anguish, she cries,-- + + Immortals, you who through your bright days + Live in bliss, throned on clouds ever renewed, + Only for this have you all these years + Kept me separate from men, and so near yourselves, + Given me the child-like employment to cherish the fires on your altars, + That my soul might, in like pious clearness, + Be ever aspiring towards your abodes, + That only later and deeper I might feel + The anguish and horror that have darkened my house. + O Stranger, + Speak to me of the unhappy one, tell me of Orestes. + + ORESTES. + + O, might I speak of his death! + Vehement flew up from the reeking blood + His Mother's Soul! + And called to the ancient daughters of Night, + Let not the parricide escape; + Pursue that man of crime; he is yours! + They obey, their hollow eyes + Darting about with vulture eagerness; + They stir themselves in their black dens, + From corners their companions + Doubt and Remorse steal out to join them. + Before them roll the mists of Acheron; + In its cloudy volumes rolls + The eternal contemplation of the irrevocable + Permitted now in their love of ruin they tread + The beautiful fields of a God-planted earth, + From which they had long been banished by an early curse, + Their swift feet follow the fugitive, + They pause never except to gather more power to dismay. + + IPHIGENIA. + + Unhappy man, thou art in like manner tortured, + And feelest truly what he, the poor fugitive, suffers! + + ORESTES. + + What sayest thou? what meanest by "like manner"? + + IPHIGENIA. + + Thee, too, the weight of a fratricide crushes to earth; the tale + I had from thy younger brother. + + ORESTES. + + I cannot suffer that thou, great soul, + Shouldst be deceived by a false tale; + A web of lies let stranger weave for stranger + Subtle with many thoughts, accustomed to craft, + Guarding his feet against a trap. + But between us + Be Truth;-- + I am Orestes,--and this guilty head + Bent downward to the grave seeks death; + In any shape were he welcome. + Whoever thou art, I wish thou mightst be saved, + Thou and my friend; for myself I wish it not. + Thou seem'st against thy will here to remain; + Invent a way to fly and leave me here. + +Like all pure productions of genius, this may be injured by the +slightest change, and I dare not flatter myself that the English words +give an idea of the heroic dignity expressed in the cadence of the +original, by the words + + "Twischen uns + Seg Wahrheit! + Ich bin Orest!" + +where the Greek seems to fold his robe around him in the full strength +of classic manhood, prepared for worst and best, not like a cold Stoic, +but a hero, who can feel all, know all, and endure all. The name of two +syllables in the German is much more forcible for the pause, than the +three-syllable Orestes. + + "Between us + Be Truth," + +is fine to my ear, on which our word Truth also pauses with a large +dignity. + +The scenes go on more and more full of breathing beauty. The lovely joy +of Iphigenia, the meditative softness with which the religiously +educated mind perpetually draws the inference from the most agitating +events, impress us more and more. At last the hour of trial comes. She +is to keep off Thoas by a cunningly devised tale, while her brother and +Pylades contrive their escape. Orestes has received to his heart the +sister long lost, divinely restored, and in the embrace the curse falls +from him, he is well, and Pylades more than happy. The ship waits to +carry her to the palace home she is to free from a century's weight of +pollution; and already the blue heavens of her adored Greece gleam +before her fancy. + +But, O, the step before all this can be obtained;--to deceive Thoas, a +savage and a tyrant indeed, but long her protector,--in his barbarous +fashion, her benefactor! How can she buy life, happiness, or even the +safety of those dear ones at such a price? + + "Woe, + O Woe upon the lie! It frees not the breast, + Like the true-spoken word; it comforts not, but tortures + Him who devised it, and returns, + An arrow once let fly, God-repelled, back, + On the bosom of the Archer!" + + O, must I then resign the silent hope + Which gave a beauty to my loneliness? + Must the curse dwell forever, and our race + Never be raised to life by a new blessing? + All things decay, the fairest bliss is transient, + The powers most full of life grow faint at last; + And shall a curse alone boast an incessant life? + + Then have I idly hoped that here kept pure, + So strangely severed from my kindred's lot, + I was designed to come at the right moment, + And with pure hand and heart to expiate + The many sins that stain my native home. + To lie, to steal the sacred image! + Olympians, let not these vulture talons + Seize on the tender breast. O, save me, + And save your image in my soul! + + Within my ears resounds the ancient lay,-- + I had forgotten it, and would so gladly,-- + The lay of the Parcae, which they awful sung; + As Tantalus fell from his golden seat + They suffered with the noble friend. Wrathful + Was their heart, and fearful was the song. + In our childhood the nurse was wont to sing it + To me, and my brother and sister. I marked it well. + +Then follows the sublime song of the Parcae, well known through +translations. + +But Iphigenia is not a victim of fate, for she listens steadfastly to +the god in her breast. Her lips are incapable of subterfuge. She obeys +her own heart, tells all to the king, calls up his better nature, wins, +hallows, and purifies all around her, till the heaven-prepared way is +cleared by the obedient child of heaven, and the great trespass of +Tantalus cancelled by a woman's reliance on the voice of her innocent +soul. + +If it be not possible to enhance the beauty with which such ideal +figures as the Iphigenia and the Antigone appeared to the Greek mind, +yet Goethe has unfolded a part of the life of this being, unknown +elsewhere in the records of literature. The character of the priestess, +the full beauty of virgin womanhood, solitary, but tender, wise and +innocent, sensitive and self-collected, sweet as spring, dignified as +becomes the chosen servant of God, each gesture and word of deep and +delicate significance,--where else is such a picture to be found? + +It was not the courtier, nor the man of the world, nor the connoisseur, +nor the friend of Mephistopheles, nor Wilhelm the Master, nor Egmont the +generous, free liver, that saw Iphigenia in the world of spirits, but +Goethe, in his first-born glory; G[o]ethe, the poet; Goethe, +designed to be the brightest star in a new constellation. Let us not, in +surveying his works and life, abide with him too much in the suburbs and +outskirts of himself. Let us enter into his higher tendency, thank him +for such angels as Iphigenia, whose simple truth mocks at all his wise +"Beschrankungen," and hope the hour when, girt about with many such, he +will confess, contrary to his opinion, given in his latest days, that it +is well worth while to live seventy years, if only to find that they are +nothing in the sight of God. + + + + +THOMAS HOOD. + + +Now almost the last light has gone out of the galaxy that made the first +thirty years of this age so bright. And the dynasty that now reigns over +the world of wit and poetry is poor and pale, indeed, in comparison. + +We are anxious to pour due libations to the departed; we need not +economize our wine; it will not be so often needed now. + +Hood has closed the most fatiguing career in the world--that of a +professed wit; and we may say with deeper feeling than of others who +shuffle off the load of care, May he rest in peace! The fatigues of a +conqueror, a missionary preacher, even of an active philanthropist, like +Howard, are nothing to those of a professed wit. Bad enough is it when +he is only a man of society, by whom every one expects to be enlivened +and relieved; who can never talk gravely in a corner, without those +around observing that he must have heard some bad news to be so out of +spirits; who can never make a simple remark, while eating a peaceful +dinner, without the table being set in a roar of laughter, as when +Sheridan, on such an occasion, opened his lips for the first time to say +that "he liked currant jelly." For these unhappy men there are no +intervals of social repose, no long silences fed by the mere feeling of +sympathy or gently entertained by observation, no warm quietude in the +mild liveries of green or brown, for the world has made up its mind that +motley is their only wear, and teases them to jingle their bells +forever. + +But far worse is it when the professed wit is also by profession a +writer, and finds himself obliged to coin for bread those jokes which, +in the frolic exuberance of youth, he so easily coined for fun. We can +conceive of no existence more cruel, so tormenting, and at the same time +so dull. We hear that Hood was forever behindhand with his promises to +publishers; no wonder! But when we hear that he, in consequence, lost a +great part of the gains of his hard life, and was, as a result, harassed +by other cares, we cannot mourn to lose him, if, + + "After life's fitful fever, he sleeps well;" + +or if, as our deeper knowledge leads us to hope, he is now engaged in a +better life, where his fancies shall take their natural place, and +flicker like light on the surface of a profound and full stream flowing +betwixt rich and peaceful shores, such as, no less than the drawbacks +upon his earthly existence, are indicated in the following + +SONNET. + + The curse of Adam, the old curse of all, + Though I inherit in this feverish life + Of worldly toil, vain wishes, and hard strife, + And fruitless thought in care's eternal thrall, + Yet more sweet honey than of bitter gall + I taste through thee, my Eva, my sweet wife. + Then what was Man's lost Paradise? how rife + Of bliss, since love is with him in his fall! + Such as our own pure passion still might frame + Of this fair earth and its delightful bowers, + If no fell sorrow, like the serpent, came + To trail its venom o'er the sweetest flowers; + But, O! as many and such tears are ours + As only should be shed for guilt and shame. + +In Hood, as in all true wits, the smile lightens on the verge of a tear. +True wit and humor show that exquisite sensibility to the relations of +life, that fine perception as to slight tokens of its fearful, hopeless +mysteries, which imply pathos to a still higher degree than mirth. + +Hood knew and welcomed the dower which nature gave him at his birth, +when he wrote thus:-- + + All things are touched with melancholy + Born of the secret soul's mistrust, + To feel her fair ethereal wings + Weighed down with vile, degraded dust. + Even the bright extremes of joy + Bring on conclusions of disgust, + Like the sweet blossoms of the May, + Whose fragrance ends in must. + O, give her, then, her tribute just, + Her sighs and tears and musings holy; + There is no music in the life + That sounds with idiot laughter solely; + There's not a string attuned to mirth, + But has its chord in melancholy. + +Hood was true to this vow of acceptance. He vowed to accept willingly +the pains as well as joys of life for what they could teach. Therefore, +years expanded and enlarged his sympathies, and gave to his lightest +jokes an obvious harmony with a great moral design, not obtrusively +obvious, but enough so to give a sweetness and permanent complacency to +our laughter. Indeed, what is written in his gayer mood has affected us +more, as spontaneous productions always do, than what he has written of +late with grave design, and which has been so much lauded by men too +obtuse to discern a latent meaning, or to believe in a good purpose +unless they are formally told that it exists. + +The later serious poems of Hood are well known; so are his jest books +and novel. We have now in view to speak rather of a little volume of +poems published by him, some years since, republished here, but never +widely circulated. + +When a book or a person comes to us in the best possible circumstances, +we judge--not too favorably, for all that the book or person can suggest +is a part of its fate, and what is not seen under the most favorable +circumstances is never quite truly seen either as to promise or +performance--but we form a judgment above what can be the average sense +of the world in general as to its merits, which may be esteemed, after +time enough has elapsed, a tolerably fair estimate of performance, +though not of promise or suggestion. + +We became acquainted with these poems in one of those country towns +which would be called, abroad, the most provincial of the province. The +inhabitants had lost the simplicity of farmers' habits, without gaining +in its place the refinement, the variety, the enlargement of civic life. +Their industry had received little impulse from thought; their amusement +was gossip. All men find amusement from gossip--literary, artistic, or +social; but the degrees in it are almost infinite. They were at the +bottom of the scale; they scrutinized their neighbors' characters and +affairs incessantly, impertinently, and with minds unpurified by higher +knowledge; consequently the bitter fruits of envy and calumny abounded. + +In this atmosphere I was detained two months, and among people very +uncongenial both to my tastes and notions of right. But I had a retreat +of great beauty. The town lay on the bank of a noble river; behind it +towered a high and rocky hill. Thither every afternoon went the lonely +stranger, to await the fall of the sunset light on the opposite bank of +the full and rapid stream. It fell like a smile of heavenly joy; the +white sails on the stream glided along like angel thoughts; the town +itself looked like a fair nest, whence virtue and happiness might soar +with sweetest song. So looked the scene _from above_; and that hill was +the scene of many an aspiration and many an effort to attain as high a +point of view for the mental prospect, in the hope that little +discrepancies, or what seemed so when on a level with them, might also, +from above, be softened into beauty and found subservient to a noble +design on the whole. + +This town boasted few books, and the accident which threw Hood's poems +in the way of the watcher from the hill, was a very fortunate one. They +afforded a true companionship to hours which knew no other, and, +perhaps, have since been overrated from association with what they +answered to or suggested. + +Yet there are surely passages in them which ought to be generally known +and highly prized. And if their highest value be for a few individuals +with whom they are especially in concord, unlike the really great poems +which bring something to all, yet those whom they please will be very +much pleased. + +Hood never became corrupted into a hack writer. This shows great +strength under his circumstances. Dickens has fallen, and Sue is +falling; for few men can sell themselves by inches without losing a +cubit from their stature. But Hood resisted the danger. He never wrote +when he had nothing to say, he stopped when he had done, and never +hashed for a second meal old thoughts which had been drained of their +choicest juices. His heart is truly human, tender, and brave. From the +absurdities of human nature he argues the possibility of its perfection. +His black is admirably contrasted with his white, but his love has no +converse of hate. His descriptions of nature, if not accurately or +profoundly evidencing insight, are unstudied, fond, and reverential. +They are fine reveries about nature. + +He has tried his powers on themes where he had great rivals--in the +"Plea of the Midsummer Fairies," and "Hero and Leander." The latter is +one of the finest subjects in the world, and one, too, which can never +wear out as long as each mind shall have its separate ideal of what a +meeting would be between two perfect lovers, in the full bloom of +beauty and youth, under circumstances the most exalting to passion, +because the most trying, and with the most romantic accompaniments of +scenery. There is room here for the finest expression of love and grief, +for the wildest remonstrance against fate. Why are they made so lovely +and so beloved? Why was a flower brought to such perfection, and then +culled for no use? One of the older English writers has written an +exquisite poem on this subject, painting a youthful pair, fitted to be +not only a heaven but a world to one another. Hood had not power to +paint or conceive such fulness of character; but, in a lesser style, he +has written a fine poem. The best part of it, however, is the innocent +cruelty and grief of the Sea Siren. + +"Lycus the Centaur" is also a poem once read never to be forgotten. The +hasty trot of the versification, unfit for any other theme, on this +betokens well the frightened horse. Its mazy and bewildered imagery, +with its countless glancings and glimpses, expressed powerfully the +working of the Circean spell, while the note of human sadness, a +yearning and condemned human love, thrills through the whole and gives +it unity. + +The Sonnets, "It is not death," &c., and that on Silence, are equally +admirable. Whoever reads these poems will regard Hood as something more +than a great wit,--as a great poet also. + +To express this is our present aim, and therefore we shall leave to +others, or another time, the retrospect of his comic writings. But +having, on the late promptings of love for the departed, looked over +these, we have been especially amused with the "Schoolmistress Abroad," +which was new to us. Miss Crane, a "she Mentor, stiff as starch, formal +as a Dutch ledge, sensitive as a daguerreotype, and so tall, thin, and +upright, that supposing the Tree of Knowledge to have been a poplar, she +was the very Dryad to have fitted it," was left, with a sister little +better endowed with the pliancy and power of adaptation which the +exigencies of this varied world-scene demand, in attendance upon a sick +father, in a foreign inn, where she cannot make herself understood, +because her French is not "French French, but English French," and no +two things in nature or art can be more unlike. Now look at the position +of the sisters. + +"The younger, Miss Ruth, was somewhat less disconcerted. She had by her +position the greater share in the active duties of Lebanon House, and +under ordinary circumstances would not have been utterly at a loss what +to do for the comfort or relief of her parent. But in every direction in +which her instinct and habits would have prompted her to look, the +_materials_ she sought were deficient. There was no easy chair--no fire +to wheel it to--no cushion to shake up--no cupboard to go to--no female +friend to consult--no Miss Parfitt--no cook--no John to send for the +doctor--no English--no French--nothing but that dreadful 'Gefullig,' or +'Ja Wohl,' and the equally incomprehensible 'Gnadige Frau!' + +"'Der herr,' said the German coachman, 'ist sehr krank,' (the gentleman +is very sick.) + +"The last word had occurred so frequently on the organ of the +Schoolmistress, that it had acquired in her mind some important +significance. + +"'Ruth, what is krank?' + +"'How should I know?' retorted Ruth, with an asperity apt to accompany +intense excitement and perplexity. 'In English, it's a thing that helps +to pull the bell. But look at papa--do help to support him--you're good +for nothing.' + +"'I am, indeed,' murmured poor Miss Priscilla, with a gentle shake of +her head, and a low, slow sigh of acquiescence. Alas! as she ran over +the catalogue of her accomplishments, the more she remembered what she +_could_ do for her sick parent, the more helpless and useless she +appeared. For instance, she could have embroidered him a night-cap--or +knitted him a silk purse--or plaited him a guard-chain--or cut him out a +watch-paper--or ornamented his braces with bead-work--or embroidered his +waistcoat--or worked him a pair of slippers--or openworked his pocket +handkerchief. She could even, if such an operation would have been +comforting or salutary, have roughcasted him with shell-work--or coated +him with red or black seals--or encrusted him with blue alum--or stuck +him all over with colored wafers--or festooned him. + +"But alas! what would it have availed her poor dear papa in the +spasmodics, if she had even festooned him, from top to toe, with little +rice-paper roses?" + +The comments of the female chorus, as the author reads aloud the sorrows +of Miss Crane, are droll as Hood's drollest. Who can say more? + +So farewell, gentle, generous, inventive, genial, and most amusing +friend. We thank thee for both tears and laughter; tears which were not +heart-breaking, laughter which was never frivolous or unkind. In thy +satire was no gall, in the sting of thy winged wit no venom, in the +pathos of thy sorrow no enfeebling touch! Thou hadst faults as a writer, +we know not whether as a man; but who cares to name or even to note +them? Surely there is enough on the sunny side of the peach to feed us +and make us bless the tree from which it fell. + + + + +LETTERS FROM A LANDSCAPE PAINTER.[5] + + +This is a very pleasing book, and if the "Essays of Summer Hours" +resemble it, we are not surprised at the favor with which they have been +received, not only in this country, but in England. + +The writer is, we believe, very young, and as these Essays have awakened +in us a friendly expectation which he has time and talent to fulfil, we +will, at this early hour, proffer our counsel on two points. + +First. Avoid details, so directly personal, of emotion. A young and +generous mind, seeing the deceit and cold reserve which so often palsy +men who write, no less than those who act, may run into the opposite +extreme. But frankness must be tempered by delicacy, or elevated into +the region of poetry. You may tell the world at large what you please, +if you make it of universal importance by transporting it into the field +of general human interest. But your private griefs, merely _as_ yours, +belong to yourself, your nearest friends, to Heaven and to nature. There +is a limit set by good taste, or the sense of beauty, on such subjects, +which each, who seeks, may find for himself. + +Second. Be more sparing of your praise: above all, of its highest terms. +We should have a sense of mental as well as moral honor, which, while it +makes us feel the baseness of uttering merely hasty and ignorant +censure, will also forbid that hasty and extravagant praise which strict +truth will not justify. A man of honor wishes to utter no word to which +he cannot adhere. The offices of Poet--of Hero-worship--are sacred, and +he who has a heart to appreciate the excellent should call nothing +excellent which falls short of being so. Leave yourself some incense +worthy of the _best_; do not lavish it on the merely _good_. It is +better to be too cool than extravagant in praise; and though mediocrity +may be elated if it can draw to itself undue honors, true greatness +shrinks from the least exaggeration of its claims. The truly great are +too well aware how difficult is the attainment of excellence, what +labors and sacrifices it requires, even from genius, either to flatter +themselves as to their works, or to be otherwise than grieved at +idolatry from others; and so, with best wishes, and a hope to meet +again, we bid farewell to the "Landscape Painter." + + + + +BEETHOVEN.[6] + + +This book bears on its outside the title, "Life of Beethoven, by +Moscheles." It is really only a translation of Schindler, and it seems +quite unfair to bring Moscheles so much into the foreground, merely +because his name is celebrated in England. He has only contributed a few +notes and a short introduction, giving a most pleasing account of his +own devotion to the Master. Schindler was the trusty friend of +Beethoven, and one whom he himself elected to write his biography. +Inadequate as it is, there is that fidelity in the collection of +materials which makes it serviceable to our knowledge of Beethoven, and +we wish it might be reprinted in America. Though there is little +knowledge of music here, yet so far as any exists in company with a free +development of mind, the music of Beethoven is _the_ music which +delights, which awakens, which inspires, an infinite hope. + +This influence of these most profound, bold, original and singular +compositions, even upon the uninitiated, above those of a simpler +construction and more obvious charms, we have observed with great +pleasure. For we think its cause lies deep, far beneath fancy, taste, +fashion, or any accidental cause. + +It is because there is a real and steady unfolding of certain thoughts +which pervade the civilized world. They strike their roots through to us +beneath the broad Atlantic; and these roots shoot stems upward to the +light wherever the soil allows them free course. + +Our era, which permits of freer inquiry, of bolder experiment, than ever +before, and a firmer, broader, basis, may also, we sincerely trust, be +depended on for nobler discovery and a grander scope of thought. + +Although we sympathize with the sadness of those who lament the decay of +forms and methods round which so many associations have wound their +tendrils, and understand the sufferings which gentle, tender natures +undergo from the forlorn homelessness of a period of doubt, speculation, +reconstruction in every way, yet we cannot disjoin ourselves, by one +moment's fear or regret, from the advance corps. That body, leagued by +an invisible tie, has received too deep an assurance that the spirit is +not dead nor sleeping, to look back to the past, even if they must +advance uniformly through scenes of decay and the rubbish of falling +edifices. + +But how far it is from being so! How many developments, in various ways, +of truth! How manifold the aspirations of love! In the church the +attempt is now to reconstruct on the basis proposed by its +founder--"Love one another;" in the philosophy of mind, if completeness +of system is, as yet, far from being attained, yet mistakes and vain +dogmas are set aside, and examinations conducted with intelligence and +an enlarged discernment of what is due both to God and man. Science +advances, in some route with colossal strides; new glimpses are daily +gained into the arcana of natural history, and the mysteries attendant +on the modes of growth, are laid open to our observation; while in +chemistry, electricity, magnetism, we seem to be getting nearer to the +law of life which governs them, and in astronomy "fathoming the +heavens," to use the sublime expression of Herschel, daily to greater +depths, we find ourselves admitted to a perception of the universal laws +and causes, where harmony, permanence and perfection leave us no excuse +for a moment of despondency, while under the guidance of a Power who has +ordered all so well. + +Then, if the other arts suffer a temporary paralysis, and +notwithstanding the many proofs of talent and genius, we consider that +is the case with architecture, painting, and sculpture, music is not +only thoroughly vital, but in a state of rapid development. The last +hundred years have witnessed a succession of triumphs in this art, the +removal of obstructions, the transcending of limits, and the opening new +realms of thought, to an extent that makes the infinity of promise and +hope very present with us. And take notice that the prominent means of +excellence now are not in those ways which give form to thought already +existent, but which open new realms to thought. Those who live most with +the life of their age, feel that it is one not only beautiful, positive, +full of suggestion, but vast, flowing, of infinite promise. It is +dynamics that interest us now, and from electricity and music we borrow +the best illustrations of what we know. + +Let no one doubt that these grand efforts at synthesis are capable of as +strict analysis. Indeed, it is wonderful with what celerity and +precision the one process follows up the other. + +Of this great life which has risen from the stalk and the leaf into bud, +and will in the course of this age be in full flower, Beethoven is the +last and greatest exponent. His music is felt, by every soul whom it +affects, to be the explanation of the past and the prophecy of the +future. It contains the thoughts of the time. A dynasty of great men +preceded him, each of whom made conquests and accumulated treasures +which prepared the way for his successor. Bach, Handel, Hadyn, Mozart, +were corner-stones of the glorious temple. Who shall succeed Beethoven? +A host of musicians, full of talent, even of genius, live now he is +dead; but the greatest among them is confessed by all men to be but of +Lilliputian size compared with this demigod. Indeed, it should be so! As +copious draughts of soul have been given to the earth, as she can quaff +for a century or more. Disciples and critics must follow, to gather up +the gleanings of the golden grain. + +It is observable as an earnest of the great Future which opens for this +country, that such a genius is so easily and so much appreciated here, +by those who have not gone through the steps that prepared the way for +him in Europe. He is felt, because he expresses, in full tones, the +thoughts that lie at the heart of our own existence, though we have not +found means to stammer them as yet. To those who have obtained some clew +to all this,--and their number is daily on the increase,--this biography +of Beethoven will be very interesting. They will here find a picture of +the great man, as he looked and moved in actual life, though imperfectly +painted,--as by one who saw the figure from too low a stand-point. + +It will require the united labors of a constellation of minds to paint +the portrait of Beethoven. That of his face, as seen in life, prefixed +to these volumes, is better than any we have seen. It bears tokens of +the force, the grandeur, the grotesqueness of his genius, and at the +same time shows the melancholy that came to him from the great +misfortune of his life--his deafness; and the affectionateness of his +deep heart. + +Moscheles thus gives a very pleasing account of his first cognizance of +Beethoven:-- + +"I had been placed under the guidance and tuition of Dionysius Weber, +the founder and present director of the Prague Musical Conservatory; and +he, fearing that in my eagerness to read new music, I might injure the +systematic development of my piano-forte playing, prohibited the +library, a circulating musical library, and in a plan for my musical +education which he laid before my parents, made it an express condition +that for three years I should study no other authors but Mozart, +Clemente, and S. Bach. I must confess, however, that in spite of such +prohibition, I visited the library, gaining access to it through my +pocket money. It was about this time that I learned from some +schoolfellows that a young composer had appeared in Vienna, who wrote +the oddest stuff possible, such as no one could either play or +understand--crazy music, in opposition to all rule; and that this +composer's name was Beethoven. On repairing to the library to satisfy my +curiosity as to this so-called eccentric genius, I found there +Beethoven's 'Sonate Pathetique.' This was in the year 1804. My pocket +money would not suffice for the purchase of it, so I secretly copied it. +The novelty of its style was so attractive to me, and I became so +enthusiastic in my admiration of it, that I forgot myself so far as to +mention my new acquisition to my master, who reminded me of his +injunction, and warned me not to play or study any eccentric productions +until I had based my style upon more solid models. Without, however, +minding his injunction, I seized upon the piano-forte works of Beethoven +as they successively appeared, and in them found a solace and delight +such as no other composer afforded me. + +"In the year 1809, my studies with my master, Weber, closed; and being +then also fatherless, I chose Vienna for my residence, to work out my +future musical career. Above all, I longed to see and become acquainted +with that man who had exercised so powerful an influence over my whole +being; whom, though I scarcely understood, I blindly worshipped. I +learned that Beethoven was most difficult of access, and would admit no +pupil but Ries; and for a long time my anxiety to see him remained +ungratified. In the year 1810, however, the longed-for opportunity +presented itself. I happened to be one morning in the music shop of +Domenico Artaria, who had just been publishing some of my early attempts +at composition, when a man entered with short and hasty steps, and +gliding through the circle of ladies and professors assembled on +business, or talking over musical matters, without looking up, as though +he wished to pass unnoticed, made his way direct for Artaria's private +office at the bottom of the shop. Presently Artaria called me in, and +said, 'This is Beethoven,'--and to the composer, 'This is the youth of +whom I have been speaking to you.' Beethoven gave me a friendly nod, and +said he had just been hearing a favorable account of me. To some modest +and humble expressions which I stammered forth he made no reply, and +seemed to wish to break off the conversation. I stole away with a +greater longing for that which I had sought, than before this meeting, +thinking to myself, 'Am I then, indeed, such a nobody that he could not +put one musical question to me? nor express one wish to know who had +been my master, or whether I had any acquaintance with his works?' My +only satisfactory mode of explaining the matter, and comforting myself +for the omission, was in Beethoven's tendency to deafness; for I had +seen Artaria speaking close to his ear. But I made up my mind that the +more I was excluded from the private intercourse which I so earnestly +coveted, the closer I would follow Beethoven in all the productions of +his mind." + +If Moscheles had never seen more of Beethoven, how rejoiced he would +have been on reading his pathetic expressions recorded in those volumes, +as to the misconstructions he knew his fellow-men must put on conduct +caused by his calamity, at having detected the true cause of coldness in +his own instance, and that no mean suggestions of offended vanity made +him false to the genius, because repelled by the man! + +Moscheles did see him further, and learned a great deal from this +intercourse, though it never became intimate. He closes with these +excellent remarks:-- + +"My feelings with respect to Beethoven's music have undergone no +variation, save to become warmer. In my first half score of years of +acquaintance with his works, he was repulsive to me, as well as +attractive. In each of them, while I felt my mind fascinated by the +prominent idea, and my enthusiasm kindled by the flashes of his genius, +his unlooked-for episodes, shrill dissonances, and bold modulations gave +me an unpleasant sensation. But how soon did I become reconciled to +them! all that had appeared hard I soon found indispensable. The +gnome-like pleasantries, which at first appeared too distorted, the +stormy masses of sound which I found too chaotic, I have in after times +learned to love. But while retracting my early critical exceptions, I +must still maintain as my creed that eccentricities like those of +Beethoven are reconcilable with his works alone, and are dangerous +models to other composers, many of whom have been wrecked in their +attempts at imitation." + +No doubt the peculiarities of Beethoven are inimitable, though as great +would be as welcome in a mind of equal greatness. The natural office of +such a genius is to rouse others to a use and knowledge of their own +faculties; never to induce imitation of its own individuality. + +As an instance of the justice and undoubting clearness of such a mind, +as to its own methods, take the following anecdote from Beethoven's +"Pupil Ries":-- + +"All the initiated must be interested in the striking fact which +occurred respecting one of Beethoven's last solo sonatas, (in B major, +with the great fugue, Op. 106,) a sonata which has _forty-one pages of +print_. Beethoven had sent it to me, to London, for sale, that it might +appear there at the same time as in Germany. The engraving was +completed, and I in daily expectation of the letter naming the day of +publication. This arrived at last, but with this extraordinary request: +'Prefix the following two notes, as a first bar, to the beginning of the +adagio.' This adagio has from nine to ten pages of print. I own the +thought struck me involuntarily that all might not be right with my dear +old master, a rumor to that effect having often been spread. What! add +two notes to a composition already worked out and out, and completed +months ago? But my astonishment was yet to be heightened by the +_effect_ of these two notes. Never could such be found again--so +striking--so important; no, not even if contemplated at the very +beginning of the composition. I would advise every true lover of the art +to play this adagio first _without_, and then with these two notes which +now form the first bar, and I have no doubt he will share in my +opinion." + +No instance could more forcibly show how in the case of Beethoven, as in +that of other transcendent geniuses, the cry of insanity is raised by +vulgar minds on witnessing extraordinary manifestations of power. Such +geniuses perceive results so remote, are alive to combinations so +subtle, that common men cannot rise high enough to see why they think or +do as they do, and settle the matter easily to their own satisfaction, +crying, "He is mad"--"He hath a devil." Genius perceives the efficacy of +slight signs of thought, and loves best the simplest symbols; coarser +minds demand coarse work, long preparations, long explanations. + +But genius heeds them not, but fills the atmosphere with irresistible +purity, till they also are pervaded by the delicate influence, which, +too subtile for their ears and eyes, enters with the air they breathe, +or through the pores of the skin. + +The life of a Beethoven is written in his works; and all that can be +told of his life beside, is but as marginal notes on that broad page. +Yet since we have these notes, it is pleasant to have them in harmony +with the page. The acts and words of Beethoven are what we should +expect,--noble, leonine, impetuous,--yet tender. His faults are the +faults of one so great that he found few paths wide enough for his +tread, and knew not how to moderate it. They are not faults in +themselves, but only in relation to the men who surrounded him. Among +his peers he would not have had faults. As it is, they hardly deserve +the name. His acts were generally great and benignant; only in +transports of sudden passion at what he thought base did he ever injure +any one. If he found himself mistaken, he could not humble himself +enough,--but far outwent, in his contrition, what was due to those whom +he had offended. So it is apt to be with magnanimous and tender natures; +they will humble themselves in a way that those of a coarser or colder +make think shows weakness or want of pride. But they do so because a +little discord and a little wrong is as painful to them as a great deal +to others. + +In one of his letters to a young friend, Beethoven thus magnanimously +confesses his errors:-- + +"I could not converse with you and yours with that peace of mind which I +could have desired, for the late wretched altercation was hovering +before me, showing me my own despicable conduct. But so it was; and what +would I not give could I obliterate from the page of my life this last +action, so degrading to my character, and so unlike my usual +proceedings!" + +It seems this action of his was not of importance in the eyes of others. +Of the causes which acted upon him at such times he gives intimations in +another letter. + +"I had been wrought into this burst of passion by many an unpleasant +circumstance of an earlier date. I have the gift of concealing and +restraining my irritability on many subjects; but if I happen to be +touched at any time when I am more than usually susceptible of anger, I +burst forth more violently than any one else. B. has doubtless most +excellent qualities, but he thinks himself utterly without faults, and +yet is most open to blame for those for which he censures others. He has +a littleness of mind which I have held in contempt since my infancy." + +As a correspondent example of the manner in which true greatness +apologizes for its errors, we must quote a letter, lately made public, +from Sir Isaac Newton to Mr. Locke. + + "Sir: Being of opinion that you endeavored to embroil me with + women, and by other means, I was so much affected with it as that, + when one told me you were sickly, and would not live, I answered, + ''Twere better if you were dead.' I desire you to forgive me this + uncharitableness, for I am now satisfied that what you have done is + just, and I beg your pardon for having had hard thoughts of you for + it, and for representing that you struck at the root of morality in + a principle you laid down in your book of ideas, and designed to + pursue in another book, and that I took you for a Hobbist. I beg + your pardon also for saying or thinking that there was a design to + sell me an office, or to embroil me. + + "I am your most humble and unfortunate servant, + + "ISAAC NEWTON." + + + + +And this letter, observe, was quoted as proof of insanity in Newton. +Locke, however, shows by his reply that _he_ did not think the power of +full sincerity and elevation above self-love proved a man to be insane. + +At a happy period Beethoven thus unveils the generous sympathies of his +heart. + +"My compositions are well paid, and I may say I have more orders than I +can well execute; six or seven publishers, and more, being ready to take +any of my works. I need no longer submit to being bargained with; I ask +my terms, and am paid. You see this is an excellent thing; as, for +instance, I see a friend in want, and my purse does not at the moment +permit me to assist him; I have but to sit down and write, and my friend +is no longer in need." + +Some additional particulars are given, in the letters collected by +Moscheles, of the struggles of his mind during the coming on of +deafness. This calamity, falling upon the greatest genius of his time, +in the prime of manhood,--a calamity which threatened to destroy not +only all enjoyment of life, but the power of using the vast treasure +with which he had been endowed for the use of all men,--casts common +ills so into the shade that they can scarcely be seen. Who dares +complain, since Beethoven could resign himself, to such an ill at such a +time as this? + +"This beautiful country of mine, what was my lot in it? The hope of a +happy futurity. This might now be realized if I were freed from my +affliction. O, freed from that, I should compass the world! I feel +it--my youth is but beginning; have I not been hitherto but a sickly +creature? My physical powers have for some time been materially +increasing--those of my mind likewise. I feel myself nearer and nearer +the mark; I feel but cannot describe it; this alone is the vital +principle of your Beethoven. No rest for me: I know of none but in +sleep, and I grieve at having to sacrifice to that more time than I have +hitherto deemed necessary. Take but one half of my disease from me, and +I will return to you a matured and accomplished man, renewing the ties +of our friendship; for you shall see me as happy as I may be in this +sublunary world; not as a sufferer; no, that would be more than I could +bear; I will blunt the sword of fate; it shall not utterly destroy me. +How beautiful it is to live a thousand lives in one! No; I am not made +for a retired life--I feel it." + +He _did_ blunt the sword of fate; he _did_ live a thousand lives in one; +but that sword had power to inflict a deep and poisoned wound; those +thousand lives cost him the pangs of a thousand deaths. He, born for +perpetual conquest, was condemned through life to "resignation." Let any +man, disposed to complain of his own ills, read the "Will" of Beethoven; +and see if he dares speak of himself above a whisper, after. + +The matter of interest new to us in this English book is in notes and +appendix. Schindler's biography, whose plain and _naive_ style is fit +for the subject, is ironed out and plaited afresh to suit the "genteel" +English, in this translation. Elsewhere we have given in brief the +strong lineaments and piquant anecdotes from this biography;[7] here +there is not room: smooth and shorn as it is, we wish the translation +might be reprinted here. + +We may give, at parting, two directions for the study of Beethoven's +genius and the perusal of his biography in two sayings of his own. For +the biography, "The limits have never yet been discovered which genius +and industry could not transcend." For the music, "From the depths of +the soul brought forth, she (Poesy) can only by the depths of the soul +be received or understood." + + + + +BROWN'S NOVELS.[8] + + +We rejoice to see these reprints of Brown's novels, as we have long been +ashamed that one who ought to be the pride of the country, and who is, +in the higher qualities of the mind, so far in advance of our other +novelists, should have become almost inaccessible to the public. + +It has been the custom to liken Brown to Godwin. But there was no +imitation, no second hand in the matter. They were congenial natures, +and whichever had come first might have lent an impulse to the other. +Either mind might have been conscious of the possession of that peculiar +vein of ore, without thinking of working it for the mint of the world, +till the other, led by accident, or overflow of feeling, showed him how +easy it was to put the reveries of his solitary hours into words, and +upon paper, for the benefit of his fellow-men. + + "My mind to me a kingdom is." + +Such a man as Brown or Godwin has a right to say that. Their mind is no +scanty, turbid rill, rejoicing to be daily fed from a thousand others, +or from the clouds. Its plenteous source rushes from a high mountain +between bulwarks of stone. Its course, even and full, keeps ever green +its banks, and affords the means of life and joy to a million gliding +shapes, that fill its deep waters, and twinkle above its golden sands. + +Life and Joy! Yes, Joy! These two have been called the dark Masters, +because they disclose the twilight recesses of the human heart. Yet the +gravest page in the history of such men is joy, compared with the mixed, +shallow, uncertain pleasures of vulgar minds. Joy! because they were all +alive, and fulfilled the purposes of being. No sham, no imitation, no +convention deformed or veiled their native lineaments, or checked the +use of their natural force. All alive themselves, they understood that +there is no happiness without truth, no perception of it without real +life. Unlike most men, existence was to them not a tissue of words and +seemings, but a substantial possession. + +Born Hegelians, without the pretensions of science, they sought God in +their own consciousness, and found him. The heart, because it saw itself +so fearfully and wonderfully made, did not disown its Maker. With the +highest idea of the dignity, power, and beauty of which human nature is +capable, they had courage to see by what an oblique course it proceeds, +yet never lose faith that it would reach its destined aim. Thus their +darkest disclosures are not hobgoblin shows, but precious revelations. + +Brown is great as ever human writer was in showing the self-sustaining +force of which a lonely mind is capable. He takes one person, makes him +brood like the bee, and extract from the common life before him all its +sweetness, its bitterness, and its nourishment. + +We say makes _him_, but it increases our own interest in Brown, that, a +prophet in this respect of a better era, he has usually placed this +thinking, royal mind in the body of a woman. This personage, too, is +always feminine, both in her character and circumstances, but a +conclusive proof that the term _feminine_ is not a synonyme for _weak_. +Constantia, Clara Wieland, have loving hearts, graceful and plastic +natures, but they have also noble, thinking minds, full of resource, +constancy, courage. The Marguerite of Godwin, no less, is all refinement +and the purest tenderness; but she is also the soul of honor, capable of +deep discernment, and of acting in conformity with the inferences she +draws. The Man of Brown and Godwin has not eaten of the fruit of the +tree of knowledge, and been driven to sustain himself by the sweat of +his brow for nothing, but has learned the structure and laws of things, +and become a being, natural, benignant, various, and desirous of +supplying the loss of innocence by the attainment of virtue. So his +Woman need not be quite so weak as Eve, the slave of feeling or of +flattery; she also has learned to guide her helm amid the storm across +the troubled waters. + +The horrors which mysteriously beset these persons, and against which, +so far as outward facts go, they often strive in vain, are but a +representation of those powers permitted to work in the same way +throughout the affairs of this world. Their demoniacal attributes only +represent a morbid state of the intellect, gone to excess from want of +balance with the other powers. There is an intellectual as well as a +physical drunkenness, and which, no less, impels to crime. Carwin, urged +on to use his ventriloquism till the presence of such a strange agent +wakened the seeds of fanaticism in the breast of Wieland, is in a state +no more foreign to nature than that of the wretch executed last week, +who felt himself drawn as by a spell to murder his victim, because he +had thought of her money and the pleasures it might bring him, till the +feeling possessed his brain that hurls the gamester to ruin. The victims +of such agency are like the soldier of the Rio Grande, who, both legs +shot off, and his life-blood rushing out with every pulse, replied +serenely to his pitying comrades, that "he had now that for which the +soldier enlisted." The end of the drama is not in this world, and the +fiction which rounds off the whole to harmony and felicity before the +curtain falls, sins against truth, and deludes the reader. The Nelsons +of the human race are all the more exposed to the assaults of Fate, that +they are decorated with the badges of well-earned glory. Who but feels +as they fall in death, or rise again to a mutilated existence, that the +end is not yet? Who, that thinks, but must feel that the recompense is, +where Brown places it, in the accumulation of mental treasure, in the +severe assay by fire that leaves the gold pure to be used some +time--somewhere? + +Brown,--man of the brooding eye, the teeming brain, the deep and fervent +heart,--if thy country prize thee not, and had almost lost thee out of +sight, it is because her heart is made shallow and cold, her eye dim, by +the pomp of circumstance, the love of gross outward gain. She cannot +long continue thus, for it takes a great deal of soul to keep a huge +body from disease and dissolution. As there is more soul, thou wilt be +more sought; and many will yet sit down with thy Constantia to the meal +and water on which she sustained her full and thoughtful existence, who +could not endure the ennui of aldermanic dinners, or find any relish in +the imitation of French cookery. To-day many will read the words, and +some have a cup large enough to receive the spirit, before it is lost in +the sand on which their feet are planted. + +Brown's high standard of the delights of intellectual communion and of +friendship, correspond with the fondest hopes of early days. But in the +relations of real life, at present, there is rarely more than one of the +parties ready for such intercourse as he describes. On the one side +there will be dryness, want of perception, or variety, a stupidity +unable to appreciate life's richest boon when offered to its grasp; and +the finer nature is doomed to retrace its steps, unhappy as those who, +having force to raise a spirit, cannot retain or make it substantial, +and stretch out their arms only to bring them back empty to the breast. + +We were glad to see these reprints, but sorry to see them so carelessly +done. Under the cheap system, the carelessness in printing and +translating grows to a greater excess day by day. Please, Public, to +remonstrate; else very soon all your books will be offered for two +shillings apiece, and none of them in a fit state to be read. + + + + +EDGAR A. POE.[9] + + +Mr. Poe throws down the gauntlet in his preface by what he says of "the +paltry compensations, or more paltry commendations, of mankind." Some +champion might be expected to start up from the "somewhat sizable" class +embraced, or, more properly speaking, boxed on the ear, by this +defiance, who might try whether the sting of Criticism was as +indifferent to this knight of the pen as he professes its honey to be. + +Were there such a champion, gifted with acumen to dissect, and a +swift-glancing wit to enliven the operation, he could find no more +legitimate subject, no fairer game, than Mr. Poe, who has wielded the +weapons of criticism without relenting, whether with the dagger he rent +and tore the garment in which some favored Joseph had pranked himself, +secure of honor in the sight of all men, or whether with uplifted +tomahawk he rushed upon the new-born children of some hapless genius, +who had fancied, and persuaded his friends to fancy, that they were +beautiful, and worthy a long and honored life. A large band of these +offended dignitaries and aggrieved parents must be on the watch for a +volume of "Poems by Edgar A. Poe," ready to cut, rend, and slash in +turn, and hoping to see his own Raven left alone to prey upon the +slaughter of which it is the herald. + +Such joust and tournament we look to see, and, indeed, have some stake +in the matter, so far as we have friends whose wrongs cry aloud for the +avenger. Natheless we could not take part in the _melee_, except to +join the crowd of lookers-on in the cry "heaven speed the right!" + +Early we read that fable of Apollo who rewarded the critic, who had +painfully winnowed the wheat,--with the chaff for his pains. We joined +the gentle Affirmative School, and have confidence that if we indulge +ourselves chiefly with the appreciation of good qualities, Time will +take care of the faults. For Time holds a strainer like that used in the +diamond mines--have but patience and the water and gravel will all pass +through, and only the precious stones be left. Yet we are not blind to +the uses of severe criticism, and of just censure, especially in a time +and place so degraded by venal and indiscriminate praise as the present. +That unholy alliance; that shameless sham, whose motto is, + + "Caw me + And I'll caw thee;" + +that system of mutual adulation and organized puff which was carried to +such perfection in the time, and may be seen drawn to the life in the +correspondence, of Miss Hannah More, is fully represented in our day and +generation. We see that it meets a counter-agency, from the league of +Truth-tellers, few, but each of them mighty as Fingal or any other hero +of the sort. Let such tell the whole truth, as well as nothing but the +truth, but let their sternness be in the spirit of Love. Let them seek +to understand the purpose and scope of an author, his capacity as well +as his fulfilments, and how his faults are made to grow by the same +sunshine that acts upon his virtues, for this is the case with talents +no less than with character. The rich field requires frequent and +careful weeding; frequent, lest the weeds exhaust the soil; careful, +lest the flowers and grain be pulled up along with the weeds. + +It has often been our lot to share the mistake of Gil Blas with regard +to the Archbishop. We have taken people at their word, and while +rejoicing that women could bear neglect without feeling mean pique, and +that authors, rising above self-love, could show candor about their +works, and magnanimously meet both justice and injustice, we have been +rudely awakened from our dream, and found that chanticleer, who crowed +so bravely, showed himself at last but a dunghill fowl. Yet Heaven grant +we never become too worldly-wise thus to trust a generous word, and we +surely are not so yet, for we believe Mr. Poe to be sincere when he +says,-- + +"In defence of my own taste, it is incumbent upon me to say that I think +nothing in this volume of much value to the public or very creditable to +myself. Events not to be controlled have prevented me from making, at +any time, any serious effort, in what, under happier circumstances, +would have been the field of my choice." + +We believe Mr. Poe to be sincere in this declaration; if he is, we +respect him; if otherwise, we do not. Such things should never be said +unless in hearty earnest. If in earnest, they are honorable pledges; if +not, a pitiful fence and foil of vanity. Earnest or not, the words are +thus far true; the productions in this volume indicate a power to do +something far better. With the exception of the Raven, which seems +intended chiefly to show the writer's artistic skill, and is in its way +a rare and finished specimen, they are all fragments--_fyttes_ upon the +lyre, almost all of which leave a something to desire or demand. This is +not the case, however, with these lines:-- + + TO ONE IN PARADISE. + + Thou wast all that to me, love, + For which my soul did pine-- + A green isle in the sea, love, + A fountain and a shrine, + All wreathed with fairy fruits and flowers, + And all the flowers were mine. + + Ah, dream too bright to last! + Ah, starry Hope! that didst arise + But to be overcast! + A voice from out the Future cries, + "On! on!"--but o'er the Past + (Dim gulf!) my spirit hovering lies + Mute, motionless, aghast! + + For, alas! alas! with me + The light of life is o'er! + No more--no more--no more + (Such language holds the solemn sea + To the sands upon the shore) + Shall bloom the thunder-blasted tree, + Or the stricken eagle soar! + + And all my days are trances, + And all my nightly dreams + Are where thy dark eye glances, + And where thy footstep gleams-- + In what ethereal dances, + By what eternal streams. + +The poems breathe a passionate sadness, relieved sometimes by touches +very lovely and tender:-- + + "Amid the earnest woes + That crowd around my earthly path + (Drear path, alas! where grows + Not even one lonely rose.") * * * + + * * * * * + + "For her, the fair and debonair, that now so lowly lies, + The life upon her yellow hair, but not within her eyes-- + The life still there, upon her hair--the death upon her eyes." + +This kind of beauty is especially conspicuous, even rising into dignity, +in the poem called the Haunted Palace. + +The imagination of this writer rarely expresses itself in pronounced +forms, but rather in a sweep of images, thronging and distant like a +procession of moonlight clouds on the horizon, but like them +characteristic and harmonious one with another, according to their +office. + +The descriptive power is greatest when it takes a shape not unlike an +incantation, as in the first part of the Sleeper, where + + "I stand beneath the mystic moon; + An opiate vapor, dewy, dim, + Exhales from out a golden rim, + And, softly dripping, drop by drop, + Upon the quiet mountain top, + Steals drowsily and musically + Into the universal valley." + +Why _universal_?--"resolve me that, Master Moth." + +And farther on, "the lily _lolls_ upon the wave." + +This word _lolls_, often made use of in these poems, presents a vulgar +image to our thought; we know not how it is to that of others. + +The lines which follow, about the open window, are highly poetical. So +is the Bridal Ballad in its power of suggesting a whole tribe and train +of thoughts and pictures, by few and simple touches. + +The poems written in youth, written, indeed, we understand, in +childhood, before the author was ten years old, are a great +psychological curiosity. Is it the delirium of a prematurely excited +brain that causes such a rapture of words? What is to be gathered from +seeing the future so fully anticipated in the germ? The passions are not +unfrequently _felt_ in their full shock, if not in their intensity, at +eight or nine years old, but here they are _reflected upon_:-- + + "Sweet was their death--with them to die was rife + With the last ecstasy of satiate life." + +The scenes from Politian are done with clear, sharp strokes; the power +is rather metaphysical than dramatic. We must repeat what we have +heretofore said, that we could wish to see Mr. Poe engaged in a +metaphysical romance. He needs a sustained flight and far range to show +what his powers really are. Let us have from him the analysis of the +Passions, with their appropriate Fates; let us have his speculations +clarified; let him intersperse dialogue or poem, as the occasion +prompts, and give us something really good and strong, firmly wrought, +and fairly blazoned. + + + + +ALFIERI AND CELLINI.[10] + + +These two publications have come to hand during the last month--a +cheering gleam upon the winter of our discontent, as we saw the flood of +bad translations of worse books which swelled upon the country. + +We love our country well. The many false deeds and low thoughts; the +devotion to interest; the forgetfulness of principle; the indifference +to high and noble sentiment, which have, in so many ways, darkened her +history for some years back, have not made us despair of her yet +fulfilling the great destiny whose promise rose, like a star, only some +half a century ago upon the hopes of the world. + +Should that star be forsaken by its angel, and those hopes set finally +in clouds of shame, the church which we had built out of the ruins of +the ancient time must fall to the ground. This church seemed a model of +divine art. It contained a labyrinth which, when threaded by aid of the +clew of Faith, presented, re-viewed from its centre, the most admirable +harmony and depth of meaning in its design, and comprised in its +decorations all the symbols of permanent interest of which the mind of +man has made use for the benefit of man. Such was to be our church, a +church not made with hands, catholic, universal, all whose stones should +be living stones, its officials the cherubim of Love and Knowledge, its +worship wiser and purer action than has before been known to men. To +such a church men do indeed constitute the state, and men indeed we +hoped from the American church and state, men so truly human that they +could not live while those made in their own likeness were bound down to +the condition of brutes. + +Should such hopes be baffled, should such a church fall in the building, +such a state find no realization except to the eye of the poet, God +would still be in the world, and surely guide each bird, that can be +patient, on the wing to its home at last. But expectations so noble, +which find so broad a basis in the past, which link it so harmoniously +with the future, cannot lightly be abandoned. The same Power leads by a +pillar of cloud as by a pillar of fire--the Power that deemed even Moses +worthy only of a distant view of the Promised Land. + +And to those who cherish such expectations rational education, +considered in various ways and bearings, must be the one great topic of +interest; an enterprise in which the humblest service is precious and +honorable to any who can inspire its soul. Our thoughts anticipate with +eager foresight the race that may grow up from this amalgamation of all +races of the world which our situation induces. It was the pride and +greatness of ancient nations to keep their blood unmixed; but it must be +ours to be willing to mingle, to accept in a generous spirit what each +clime and race has to offer us. + +It is, indeed, the case that much diseased substance is offered to form +this new body; and if there be not in ourselves a nucleus, a heart of +force and purity to assimilate these strange and various materials into +a very high form of organic life, they must needs induce one distorted, +corrupt, and degraded beyond the example of other times and places. +There will be no medium about it. Our grand scene of action demands +grandeur and purity; lacking these, one must suffer from so base failure +in proportion to the success that should have been. + +It would be the worthiest occupation of mind to ascertain the +conditions propitious for this meeting of the nations in their new home, +and to provide preventions for obvious dangers that attend it. It would +be occupation for which the broadest and deepest knowledge of human +nature in its mental, moral, and bodily relations, the noblest freedom +from prejudice, with the finest discrimination as to differences and +relations, directed and enlightened by a prophetic sense as to what Man +is designed by God to become, would all be needed to fit the thinker. +Yet some portion of these qualities, or of some of these qualities, if +accompanied by earnestness and aspiration, may enable any one to offer +useful suggestions. The mass of ignorance and selfishness is such, that +no grain of leaven must be despised. + +And as the men of all countries come hither to find a home, and become +parts of a new life, so do the books of all countries gravitate towards +this new centre. Copious infusions from all quarters mingle daily with +the new thought which is to grow into American mind, and develop +American literature. + +As every ship brings us foreign teachers, a knowledge of living +contemporary tongues must in the course of fifty years become the +commonest attainment. There exists no doubt in the minds of those who +can judge, that the German, French, Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese +tongues might, by familiar instruction and _an intelligent method_, be +taught with perfect ease during the years of childhood, so that the +child would have as distinct a sense of their several natures, and +nearly as much expertness in their use, as in his own. The higher uses +of such knowledge can, of course, be expected only in a more advanced +state of the faculties; but it is pity that the acquaintance with the +medium of thought should be deferred to a period when the mind is +sufficiently grown to bend its chief attention on the thoughts +themselves. Much of the most precious part of short human lives is now +wasted from an ignorance of what might easily be done for children, and +without taking from them the time they need for common life, play, and +bodily growth, more than at present. + +Meanwhile the English begins to vie with the German and French +literature in the number, though not in the goodness, of the +translations from other languages. The indefatigable Germans can +translate, and do other things too; so that geniuses often there apply +themselves to the work as an amusement: even the all-employed Goethe +has translated one of the books before us, (Memoirs of Cellini.) But in +English we know but of one, Coleridge's Wallenstein, where the reader +will feel the electric current undiminished by the medium through which +it comes to him. And then the profligate abuse of the power of +translation has been unparalleled, whether in the choice of books or the +carelessness in disguising those that were good in a hideous mask. No +falsehood can be worse than this of deforming the expression of a great +man's thoughts, of corrupting that form which he has watched, and toiled +and suffered to make beautiful and true. We know no falsehood that +should call a more painful blush to the cheek of one engaged in it. + +We have no narrowness in our view of the contents of such books. We are +not afraid of new standards and new examples. Only give enough of them, +variety enough, and from well-intentioned, generous minds. America can +choose what she wants, if she has sufficient range of choice; and if +there is any real reason, any deep root in the tastes and opinions she +holds at present, she will not lightly yield them. Only give her what is +good of its kind. Her hope is not in ignorance, but in knowledge. We +are, indeed, very fond of range, and if there is check, there should be +countercheck; and in this view we are delighted to see these great +Italians domesticated here. We have had somewhat too much of the French +and Germans of late. We value unchangeably our sparkling and rapid +French friend; still more the searching, honest, and, in highest sense, +visionary German genius. But there is not on earth, and, we dare to say +it, will not be again, genius _like_ that of Italy, or that can compare +with it, in its own way. + +Italy and Greece were alike in this; those sunny skies ripened their +fruits perfectly. The oil and honey of Greece, the wine of Italy, not +only suggest, but satisfy. _There_ we find fulfilment, elsewhere great +achievement only. + +O, acute, cautious, calculating Yankee; O, graceful, witty, hot-blooded, +flimsy Southron; and thou, man of the West, going ahead too fast to pick +up a thought or leave a flower upon thy path,--look at these men with +their great fiery passions, but will and intellect still greater and +stronger, perfectly sincere, from a contempt of falsehood. If they had +acted wrong, they said and felt that they had, and that it was base and +hateful in them. They were sagacious, as children are, not from +calculation, but because the fine instincts of nature were unspoiled in +them. I speak now of Alfieri and Cellini. Dante had all their +instinctive greatness and deep-seated fire, with the reflective and +creative faculties besides, to an extent of which they never dreamed. + +He who reads these biographies may take them from several points of +view. As pictures of manners, as sincere transcripts of the men and +their times, they are not and could not be surpassed. That truth which +Rousseau sought so painfully and vainly by self-brooding, subtle +analysis, they attained without an effort. _Why_ they felt they cared +little, but _what_ they felt they surely knew; and where a fly or worm +has injured the peach, its passage is exactly marked, so that you are +sure the rest is fair and sound. Both as physiological and psychical +histories, they are full of instruction. In Alfieri, especially, the +nervous disease generated in the frame by any uncongenial tension of the +brain, the periodical crises in his health, the manner in which his +accesses of passion came upon him, afford infinite suggestion to one who +has an eye for the circumstances which fashion the destiny of man. Let +the physician compare the furies of Alfieri with the silent rages of +Byron, and give the mother and pedagogue the light in which they are now +wholly wanting, showing how to treat such noble plants in the early +stages of growth. We think the "hated cap" would not be put a second +time on the head so easily diseased. + +The biography of Cellini, it is commonly said, is more interesting than +any romance. It _is_ a romance, with the character of the hero fully +brought out. Cellini lived in all the fulness of inward vigor, all the +variety of outward adventure, and passed through all the signs of the +Zodiac, in his circling course, occasionally raising a little vapor from +the art magic. He was really the Orlando Furioso turned Goldsmith, and +Angelicas and all the Peers of France joined in the show. However, he +never lived deeply; he had not time; the creative energy turned outward +too easily, and took those forms that still enchant the mind of Europe. +Alfieri was very different in this. He was like the root of some +splendid southern plant, buried beneath a heap of rubbish. Above him was +a glorious sky, fit to develop his form and excite his colors; but he +was compelled to a long and terrible struggle to get up where he could +be free to receive its influence. Institutions, language, family, modes +of education,--all were unfit for him; and perhaps no man was ever +called to such efforts, after he had reached manly age, to unmake and +remake himself before he could become what his inward aspiration craved. +All this deepened his nature, and it _was_ deep. It is his great force +of will and the compression of Nature within its iron grasp, where +Nature was so powerful and impulsive, that constitutes the charm of his +writings. It is the man Alfieri who moves, nay, overpowers us, and not +his writings, which have no flow nor plastic beauty. But we feel the +vital dynamics, and imagine it all. + +By us Americans, if ever such we really are to be, Alfieri should be +held sacred as a godfather and holy light. He was a harbinger of what +most gives this time its character and value. He was the friend of +liberty, the friend of man, in the sense that Burns was--of the native +nobleness of man. Soiled and degraded men he hated. He was, indeed, a +man of pitiless hatred as of boundless love, and he had bitter +prejudices too, but they were from antipathies too strongly intertwined +with his sympathies for any hand less powerful than that of Death to +rend them away. + +But our space does not permit us to do any justice to such a life as +Alfieri's. Let others read it, not from their habitual, but an eternal +point of view, and they cannot mistake its purport. Some will be most +touched by the storms of his youth, others by the exploits and conquests +of his later years; but all will find him, in the words of his friend +Casella, "sculptured just as he was, lofty, strange, and extreme, not +only in his natural characteristics, but in every work that did not seem +to him unworthy of his generous affections. And where he went too far, +it is easy to perceive his excesses always flowed from some praiseworthy +sentiment." + +Among a crowd of thoughts suggested to the mind by reperusal of this +book, to us a friend of many years standing, we hastily note the +following:-- + +Alfieri knew how to be a friend, and had friends such as his masculine +and uncompromising temper fitted him to endure and keep. He had even two +or three of those noble friends. He was a perfect lover in delicacy of +sentiment, in devotion, in a desire for constancy, in a high ideal, +growing always higher, and he was, at last, happy in love. Many geniuses +have spoken worthily of women in their works, but he speaks of woman as +she wishes to be spoken of, and declares that he met the desire of his +soul realized in life. This, almost alone, is an instance where a great +nature was permanently satisfied, and the claims of man and woman +equally met, where one of the parties had the impatient fire of genius. +His testimony on this subject is of so rare a sort, we must copy it:-- + +"My fourth and last passion, fortunately for me, showed itself by +symptoms entirely different from the three first. In the former, my +intellect had felt little of the fires of passion; but now my heart and +my genius were both equally kindled, and if my passion was less +impetuous, it became more profound and lasting. Such was the flame which +by degrees absorbed every affection and thought of my being, and it will +never fade away except with my life. Two months satisfied me that I had +now found the _true woman_; for, instead of encountering in her, as in +all common women, an obstacle to literary glory, a hinderance to useful +occupations, and a damper to thought, she proved a high stimulus, a pure +solace, and an alluring example to every beautiful work. Prizing a +treasure so rare, I gave myself away to her irrevocably. And I certainly +erred not. More than twelve years have passed, and while I am writing +this chit-chat, having reached that calm season when passion loses its +blandishments, I cherish her more tenderly than ever; and I love her +just in proportion as glide from her in the lapse of time those +little-esteemed toll-gatherers of departing beauty. In her my soul is +exalted, softened, and made better day by day; and I will dare to say +and believe she has found in me support and consolation." + +We have spoken of the peculiarities in Alfieri's physical condition. +These naturally led him to seek solace in violent exercise; and as in +the case of Beckford and Byron, horses were his best friends in the hour +of danger. This sort of man is the modern Achilles, "the tamer of +horses." In what degree the health of Alfieri was improved, and his +sympathies awakened by the society and care of these noble animals, is +very evident. Almost all persons, perhaps all that are in a natural +state, need to stand in patriarchal relations with the animals most +correspondent with their character. We have the highest respect for this +instinct and sincere belief in the good it brings; if understood, it +would be cherished, not ridiculed. + + + + +ITALY.--CARY'S DANTE. + + +Translating Dante is indeed a labor of love. It is one in which even a +moderate degree of success is impossible. No great Poet can be well +translated. The form of his thought is inseparable from his thought. The +births of his genius are perfect beings: body and soul are in such +perfect harmony that you cannot at all alter the one without veiling the +other. The variation in cadence and modulation, even where the words are +exactly rendered, takes not only from the form of the thought, but from +the thought itself, its most delicate charm. Translations come to us as +a message to the lover from the lady of his love through the lips of a +confidante or menial--we are obliged to imagine what was most vital in +the utterance. + +These difficulties, always insuperable, are accumulated a hundred-fold +in the case of Dante, both by the extraordinary depth and subtlety of +his thought, and his no less extraordinary power of concentrating its +expression, till every verse is like a blade of thoroughly tempered +steel. You might as well attempt to translate a glance of fire from the +human eye into any other language--even music cannot do that. + +We think, then, that the use of Cary's translation, or any other, can +never be to diffuse a knowledge of Dante. This is not in its nature +diffusible; he is one of those to whom others must draw near; he cannot +be brought to them. He has no superficial charm to cheat the reader into +a belief that he knows him, without entrance into the same sphere. + +These translations can be of use only to the translators, as a means of +deliberate study of the original, or to others who are studying the +original, and wish to compare their own version of doubtful passages +with that of an older disciple, highly qualified, both by devotion and +mental development, for the study. + +We must say a few words as to the pedantic folly with which this study +has been prosecuted in this country, and, we believe, in England. Not +only the tragedies of Alfieri and the Faust of Goethe, but the Divina +Commedia of Dante,--a work which it is not probable there are upon +earth, at any one time, a hundred minds able to appreciate,--are turned +into school books for little girls who have just left their hoops and +dolls, and boys whose highest ambition it is to ride a horse that will +run away, and brave the tutor in a college frolic. + +This is done from the idea that, in order to get acquainted with a +foreign language, the student must read books that have attained the +dignity of classics, and also which are "hard." Hard indeed it must be +for the Muses to see their lyres turned into gridirons for the +preparation of a school-girl's lunch; harder still for the younglings to +be called to chew and digest thunderbolts, in lieu of their natural +bread and butter. + +Are there not "classics" enough which would not suffer by being put to +such uses? In Greek, Homer is a book for a boy; must you give him Plato +because it is harder? Is there no choice among the Latins? Are all who +wrote in the Latin tongue equally fit for the appreciation of sixteen +Yankee years? In Italian, have you not Tasso, Ariosto, and other writers +who have really a great deal that the immature mind can enjoy, without +choking it with the stern politics of Alfieri, or piling upon a brain +still soft the mountainous meanings of Dante? Indeed, they are saved +from suffering by the perfect ignorance of all meaning in which they +leave these great authors, fancying, to their life-long misfortune, that +they have read them. I have been reminded, by the remarks of my young +friends on these subjects, of the Irish peasant, who, having been +educated on a book prepared for his use, called "Reading made easy," +blesses through life the kindness that taught him his "Radamadasy;" and +of the child who, hearing her father quote Horace, observed _she_ +"thought Latin was even sillier than French." + +No less pedantic is the style in which the grown-up, in stature at +least, undertakes to become acquainted with Dante. They get the best +Italian Dictionary, all the notes they can find, amounting in themselves +to a library, for his countrymen have not been less external and +benighted in their way of regarding him. Painfully they study through +the book, seeking with anxious attention to know who Signor This is, and +who was the cousin of Signora That, and whether any deep papal or +anti-papal meaning was couched by Dante under the remark that Such-a-one +wore a great-coat. A mind, whose small chambers look yet smaller by +being crowded with furniture from all parts of the world, bought by +labor, not received from inheritance or won by love, asserts that he +must understand Dante well, better than any other person probably, +because he has studied him through in this way thirty or forty times. As +well declare you have a better appreciation of Shakspeare than any one +else because you have identified the birthplace of Dame Quickly, or +ascertained the churchyard where the ghost of the royal Dane hid from +the sight of that far more celestial spirit, his son. + +O, painstaking friends! Shut your books, clear your minds from +artificial nonsense, and feel that only by spirit can spirit be +discerned. Dante, like each other great one, took the stuff that lay +around him, and wove it into a garment of light. It is not by ravelling +that you will best appreciate its tissue or design. It is not by +studying out the petty strifes or external relations of his time, that +you can become acquainted with the thought of Dante. To him these things +were only soil in which to plant himself--figures by which to dramatize +and evolve his ideas. Would you learn him, go listen in the forest of +human passions to all the terrible voices he heard with a tormented but +never-to-be-deafened ear; go down into the hells, where each excess that +mars the harmony of nature is punished by the sinner finding no food +except from his own harvest; pass through the purgatories of +speculation, of struggling hope, and faith, never quite quenched, but +smouldering often and long beneath the ashes. Soar if thou canst, but if +thou canst not, clear thine eye to see this great eagle soar into the +higher region where forms arrange themselves for stellar dance and +spheral melody,--and thought, with costly-accelerated motion, raises +itself a spiral which can only end in the heart of the Supreme. + +He who finds in himself no fitness to study Dante in this way, should +regard himself as in the position of a candidate for the ancient +mysteries, when rejected as unfit for initiation. He should seek in +other ways to purify, expand, and strengthen his being, and, when he +feels that he is nobler and stronger, return and try again whether he is +"grown up to it," as the Germans say. + +"The difficulty is in the thoughts;" and this cannot be obviated by the +most minute acquaintance with the history of the times. Comparison of +one edition with another is of use, as a guard against obstructions +through mistake. Still more useful will be the method recommended by Mr. +Cary, of comparing the Poet with himself; this belongs to the +intellectual method, and is the way in which to study our intellectual +friend. + +The versions of Cary and Lyell will be found of use to the student, if +he wants to compare his ideas with those of accomplished +fellow-students. The poems in the London book would aid much in a full +appreciation of the comedy; they ought to be read in the original, but +copies are not easily to be met here, unless in the great libraries. The +Vita Nuova is the noblest expression extant of the inward life of Love, +the best preface and comment to every thing else that Dante did. + +'Tis pity that the designs of Flaxman are so poorly reproduced in this +American book. It would have been far better to have had it a little +dearer, and thus better done. The designs of Flaxman were really a noble +comment upon Dante, and might help to interpret him; and we are sorry +that those who can see only a few of them should see them so +imperfectly. But in some, as in that of the meeting with Farinata, the +expression cannot be destroyed while one line of the original remained. +The "lost portrait" we do not like as preface to "La Divina Comedia." To +that belongs our accustomed object of reverence, the head of Dante, such +as the Florentine women saw him, when they thought his hair and beard +were still singed, his face dark and sublime with what he had seen +_below_. + +Prefixed to the other book is a head "from a cast taken after death at +Ravenna, A. D. 1321." It has the grandeur which death sometimes puts on; +the fulness of past life is there, but made sacred in Eternity. It is +also the only front view of Dante we have seen. It is not unworthy to +mark the point + + "When vigor failed the towering fantasy, + But yet the will rolled onward, like a wheel + In even motion by the love impelled + That moves the sun in heaven, and all the stars." + +We ought to say, in behalf of this publication, that whosoever wants +Cary's version will rejoice, at last, as do we, to possess it in so fair +and legible guise. + +Before leaving the Italians, we must mourn over the misprints of our +homages to the great tragedian in the preceding review. Our manuscripts +being as illegible as if we were a great genius, we never complain of +these errata, except when we are made to reverse our meaning on some +vital point. We did not say that Alfieri was perfect _in person_, nor +sundry other things that are there; but we do mourn at seeming to say of +our friends, "_Why_ they felt they care little, but _what_ they felt +they _scarcely_ knew," when in fact we asserted, "what they felt they +_surely_ knew." + +In the article on the Celestial Empire we had made this assertion of the +Chinese music: "Like _their_ poetry, the music is of the narrowest +monotony;" in place of which stands this assertion: "Like _true_ poetry, +their music is of the narrowest monotony." But we trust the most +careless reader would not think the merely human mind capable of so +original a remark, and will put this blasphemy to account of that little +demon who has so much to answer for in the sufferings of poor writers +before they can get their thoughts to the eyes of their +fellow-creatures, in print, that there seems scarcely a chance of his +being redeemed as long as there is one author in existence to accuse +him.[11] + + + + +AMERICAN FACTS. + + +Such is the title of a volume just issued from the press; a grand title, +which suggests the epic poet or the philosopher. The purpose of the +work, however, is modest. It is merely a compilation, from which those +who have lived at some distance from the great highway may get answers +to their questions, as to events and circumstances which may have +escaped them. It is one of those books which will be valued in the +backwoods. + +It would be a great book indeed, and one that would require the eye and +heart of a great man,--great as a judge, great as a seer, and great as a +prophet,--that should select for us and present in harmonious outline +the true American facts. To choose the right point of view supposes +command of the field. + +Such a man must be attentive, a quiet observer of the slighter signs of +growth. But he must not be one to dwell superstitiously on details, nor +one to hasten to conclusions. He must have the eye of the eagle, the +courage of the lion, the patience of the worm, and faith such as is the +prerogative of man alone, and of man in the highest phase of his +culture. + +We doubt not the destiny of our country--that she is to accomplish great +things for human nature, and be the mother of a nobler race than the +world has yet known. But she has been so false to the scheme made out at +her nativity, that it is now hard to say which way that destiny points. +We can hardly exhibit the true American facts without some idea of the +real character of America. Only one thing seems clear--that the energy +here at work is very great, though the men employed in carrying out its +purposes may have generally no more individual ambition to understand +those purposes, or cherish noble ones of their own, than the coral +insect through whose restless working new continents are upheaved from +ocean's breast. + +Such a man, passing in a boat from one extremity of the Mississippi to +another, and observing every object on the shore as he passed, would yet +learn nothing of universal or general value, because he has no +principles, even in hope, by which to classify them. American facts! +Why, what has been done that marks individuality? Among men there is +Franklin. He is a fact, and an American fact. Niagara is another, in a +different style. The way in which newspapers and other periodicals are +managed is American; a go-ahead, fearless adroitness is American; so is +_not_, exclusively, the want of strict honor. But we look about in vain +for traits as characteristic of what may be individually the character +of the nation, as we can find at a glance in reference to Spain, +England, France, or Turkey. America is as yet but a European babe; some +new ways and motions she has, consequent on a new position; but that +soul that may shape her mature life scarce begins to know itself yet. +One thing is certain; we live in a large place, no less morally than +physically: woe to him who lives meanly here, and knows the exhibitions +of selfishness and vanity as the only American facts. + + + + +NAPOLEON AND HIS MARSHALS.[12] + + +As we pass the old Brick Chapel our eye is sometimes arrested by +placards that hang side by side. On one is advertised "the Lives of the +Apostles," on the other "Napoleon and his Marshals." + +Surely it is the most monstrous thing the world ever saw, that eighteen +hundred years' profound devotion to a religious teacher should not +preclude flagrant and all but universal violation of his most obvious +precepts; that Napoleon and his Marshals should be some of the best +ripened fruit of our time; that our own people, so unwearied in building +up temples of wood and stone to the Prince of Peace, should be at this +era mad with boyish exultation at the winning of battles, and in a bad +cause too. + +In view of such facts we cannot wonder that Dr. Channing, the editor of +the Tribune, and others who make Christianity their standard, should +find little savor in glowing expositions of the great French drama, and +be disgusted at words of defence, still more of admiration, spoken in +behalf of its leading actor. + +We can easily admit at once that the whole French drama was +anti-Christian, just as the political conduct of every nation of +Christendom has been thus far, with rare and brief exceptions. Something +different might have been expected from our own, because the world has +now attained a clearer consciousness of right, and in our case our +position would have made obedience easy. We have not been led into +temptation; we sought it. It is greed, and not want, that has impelled +this nation to wrong. The paths of peace would have been for her also +the paths of wisdom and of pleasantness, but she would not, and has +preferred the path of the beast of prey in the uncertain forest, to the +green pastures where "walks the good Shepherd, his meek temples crowned +with roses red and white." + +Since the state of things is such, we see no extremity of censure that +should fall upon the great French leader, except that he was like the +majority. He was ruthless and selfish on a larger scale than most +monarchs; but we see no difference in grain, nor in principles of +action. + +Admit, then, that he was not a good man, and never for one moment acted +disinterestedly. But do not refuse to do homage to his genius. It is +well worth your while to learn to appreciate _that_, if you wish to +understand the work that the spirit of the time did, and is still doing, +through him; for his mind is still upon the earth, working here through +the tributary minds it fed. We must say, for our own part, we cannot +admit the right of men severely to criticise Napoleon, till they are +able to appreciate what he was, as well as see what he was not. And we +see no mind of sufficient grasp, or high-placed enough to take this +estimate duly, nor do we believe this age will furnish one. Many +problems will have to be worked out first. + +We reject the exclusively moral no less than the exclusively +intellectual view, and find most satisfaction in those who, aiming +neither at apology nor attack, make their observations upon the great +phenomenon as partial, and to be received as partial. + +Mr. Headley, in his first surprise at finding how falsely John Bull, +rarely liberal enough to be fully trusted in evidence on any topic, has +spoken of the acts of a hated and dreaded foe, does indeed rush too much +on the other side. He mistakes the touches of sentiment in Napoleon for +genuine feeling. Now we know that Napoleon loved to read Ossian, and +could appreciate the beauty of tenderness: but we do not believe that he +had one particle of what is properly termed heart;--that is, he could +always silence sentiment at once when his projects demanded it. Then Mr. +Headley finds apologies for acts where apology is out of place. They +characterize the ruthless nature of the man, and that is all that can be +said of them. He moved on, like the Juggernaut car, to his end, and +spilled the blood that was needed for this, whether that blood were +"ditch-water" or otherwise. Neither is this supposing him to be a +monster. The human heart is very capable of such uncontrolled +selfishness, just as it is of angelic love. "'Tis but the first step +that costs"--_much_. Yet some compassionate hand strewed flowers on +Nero's grave, and the whole world cried shame when Bonaparte's Mameluke +forsook his master. + +Mr. Headley does not seem to be aware that there is no trust to be put +in Napoleon's own account of his actions. He seems to have been almost +incapable of speaking sincerely to those about him. We doubt whether he +could have forgotten with the woman he loved, that she might become his +historiographer. + +But granting the worst that can be said of ruthless acts in the stern +Corsican, are we to reserve our anathema for him alone? He is no worse +than the other crowned ones, against whom he felt himself continually in +the balance. He has shed a greater quantity of blood, and done mightier +wrongs, because he had more power, and followed with more fervor a more +dazzling lure. We see no other difference between his conduct and that +of the great Frederic of Prussia. He never did any thing so meanly +wicked as has just been done in stirring up the Polish peasants to +assassinate the nobles. He never did any thing so atrocious as has been +done by Nicholas of Russia, who, just after his hypocritical intercourse +with that "venerable man," the Pope, when he so zealously defended +himself against the charge of scourging nuns to convert them to the +Greek church, administers the knout to a noble and beautiful lady +because she had given shelter for an hour to the patriot Dembinski. Why +then so zealous against Napoleon only? He is but a specimen of what man +must become when he _will_ be king over the bodies, where he cannot over +the souls, of his fellow-men. We doubt if it is any worse in the sight +of God to drain France of her best blood by the conscription, than to +tear the flower of Genius from the breast of Italy to perish in a +dungeon, leaving her overwhelmed and broken-hearted. Leaving all this +aside, and granting that Napoleon might have done more and better, had +his heart been pure from ambition, which gave it such electric power to +animate a vast field of being, there is no reason why we should not +prize what he did do. And here we think Mr. Headley's style the only one +in place. We honor him for the power he shows of admiring the genius +which, in ploughing its gigantic furrow, broke up every artificial +barrier that hid the nations of Europe one from the other--that has left +the "career open to talent," by a gap so broad that no "Chinese +alliance" can ever close it again, and in its vast plans of civic +improvement half-anticipated Fourier. With him all _thoughts_ became +_things_; it has been spoken in blame, it has been spoken in praise; for +ourselves we see not how this most practical age and country can refuse +to apprehend the designs, and study the instincts of this wonderful +practical genius. + +The characters of the marshals are kept up with the greatest spirit, and +that power of seizing leading traits that gives these sketches the +greatness of dramatic poetry. The marshals are majestic figures; men +vulgar and undeveloped on many sides, but always clear and strong in +their own way. One mind animates them, and of that mind Napoleon is the +culminating point. He did not choose them; they were a part of himself, +a part of the same thought of which he was the most forcible +expression. If sometimes inclined to disparage them, it was as a man +might disparage his hand by saying it was not his head. He truly felt +that he was the central force, though some of them were greater in the +details of action than himself. Attempts have often been made to darken +even the military fame of Napoleon and his generals--attempts +disgraceful enough from a foe whom they so long held in terror. But to +any unprejudiced mind there is evident in the conduct of their battles, +the development of the instincts of genius in mighty force, and to +inevitable results. + +With all the haste of hand and inequality of touch they show, these +sketches are full of strength and brilliancy, an honor to the country +that produced them. There is no got-up harmony, no attempt at +originality or acuteness; all is living,--the overflow of the mind; we +like Mr. Headley; even in his faults he is a most agreeable contrast to +the made men of the day. + +In the sketches of the Marshals we have the men before us, a living +reality. Massena, at the siege of Genoa, is represented with a great +deal of simple force. The whole personality of Murat, with his "Oriental +nature" and Oriental dress, is admirably depicted. Why had nobody ever +before had the clearness of perception to see just this, _and no more_, +in the "theatrical" Murat? Of his darling hero, Ney, the writer has +implied so much all along, that he lays less stress on what he says of +him directly. He thinks it is all understood, and it is. + +Take this book for just what it is; do not look for cool discussion, +impartial criticism, but take it as a vivacious and feeling +representation of events and actors in a great era: you will find it +full of truth, such as only sympathy could teach, and will derive from +it a pleasure and profit lively and genuine as itself. As to denying or +correcting its statements, it is very desirable that those who are able +should do that part of the work; but, in doing it, let them be grateful +for what _is_ done, and what _they_ could not do; grateful for +reproduction such as he who throws himself into the genius and the +persons of the time may hope for; but he never can who keeps himself +composed in critical distance and self-possession. You cannot have all +excellences combined in one person; let us then cheerfully work together +to complete the beautiful whole,--beautiful in its unity,--no less +beautiful in its variety. + + + + +PHYSICAL EDUCATION.[13] + + +This lecture of Dr. Warren is printed in a form suitable for popular +distribution, while the high reputation of its author insures it +respect. Readers will expect to find here those rules for daily practice +taught by that plain common-sense which men possess from nature, but +strangely lose sight of, amid their many inventions, and are obliged to +rediscover by aid of experience and science. + +Here will be found those general statements as to modes of exercise, +care of the skin, choice of food, and time, and circumstances required +for its digestion, which might furnish the ounce of prevention that is +worth so many pounds of cure. And how much are these needed in this +country, where the most barbarous ignorance prevails on the subject of +cleanliness, sleeping accommodations, &c.! On these subjects improvement +would be easy; that of diet is far more complicated, and is, +unfortunately, one which requires great knowledge of the ways in which +the human frame is affected by the changes of climate and various other +influences, even wisely to discuss. If it is difficult where a race, +mostly indigenous to the soil, feed upon what Mother Nature has prepared +expressly for their use, and where excess or want of judgment in its use +produces disease, it must be far more so where men come from all +latitudes to live under new circumstances, and need a judicious +adaptation of the old to the new. The dogmatism and proscription that +prevail on this topic amuse the observer and distress the patient. +"Touch no meat for your life," says one. "It is not meat, but sugar, +that is your ruin," cries another. "No, salt is the destruction of the +world," sadly and gravely declares a third. Milk, which once conciliated +all regards, has its denunciators. "Water," say some, "is the bliss that +shall dissolve all bane. Drink; wash--take to yourself all the water you +can get." "That is madness--is far worse than useless," cry others, +"unless the water be pure. You must touch none that has not been tested +by a chemist." "Yes, you may at any rate drink it," say others, "and in +large quantities, for the power of water to aid digestion is obvious to +every observer." + +"No," says Dr. Warren, "animals do not drink at the time they eat, but +some hours after; and they generally take very small quantities of +liquid, compared with that which is used by man. The savage, in his +native wilds, takes his solid food, when he can obtain it, to satiety, +reposes afterwards, and then resuming his chase through the forest, +stops at the rivulet to allay his thirst. The disadvantage of taking a +large quantity of liquid must be obvious to all those who consider that +the digesting liquid is diluted and weakened in proportion to the +quantity of drink." + +What wonder is it, if even the well-disposed among the multitude, seeing +such dissension among the counsellors, gathering just enough from their +disputes to infer that they have no true philosophical basis for their +opinions, and seeing those who would set the example in practice of this +art without science of dietetics generally among the most morbid and +ill-developed specimens of humanity, just throw aside all rule upon the +subject, partake of what is set before them, trust to air, exercise, and +good intentions to ward off the worst effects of the promiscuous fare? + +Yet, while hopeless at present of selecting the right articles, and +building up, so far as hereditary taint will permit, a pure and +healthful body from feeding on congenial substances, we know at least +this much, that stimulants and over-eating--not food--are injurious, and +may take care enough of ourselves to avoid these. + +The other branches we can really act wisely in, Dr. Warren, after giving +the usual directions (rarely followed as yet) for airing beds, and +sleeping-rooms, adds,-- + +"The manner in which children sleep will readily be acknowledged to be +important; yet very little attention is paid to this matter. Children +are crowded together in small, unventilated rooms, often two or three in +a bed, and on beds composed of half prepared feathers, from which issues +a noxious effluvia, infecting the child at a period when he is least +able to resist its influence; so that in the morning, instead of feeling +the full refreshment and vigor natural to his age, he is pale, languid, +and for some time indisposed to exertion. + +"The rooms in which children are brought up should be well aired, by +having a fireplace, which should be kept open the greater part of the +year. There never should be more than one in the same bed; and this +remark may be applied with equal propriety to adults. The substance on +which they lie should be hair, thoroughly prepared, so that it should +have no bad smell. In winter it may be of cotton, or of hair and cotton. +It would be very desirable, however, to place children in separate +apartments, as well as in separate beds. + +"It has been justly said that adults as well as children had better +employ single instead of double beds; this remark is intended to apply +universally. The use of double beds has been very generally adopted in +this country, perhaps in part as a matter of economy; but this practice +is objectionable, for more reasons than can be stated here." + +On the subject of exercise, he mentions particularly the triangle, and +we copy what he says, because of the perfect ease and convenience with +which one could be put up and used in every bed-chamber. + +"The exercising the upper limbs is too much neglected; and it is +important to provide the means of bringing them into action, as well to +develop their powers as to enlarge and invigorate the chest, with which +they are connected, and which they powerfully influence. The best I know +of is the use of the triangle. This admirably exerts the upper limbs and +the muscles of the chest, and, indeed, when adroitly employed, those of +the whole body. The triangle is made of a stick of walnut wood, four +feet long, and an inch and a half in diameter. To each end is connected +a rope, the opposite extremities of which being confined together at +such height as to allow the motion of swinging by the hands." + +We have ourselves derived the greatest benefit from this simple means. +Gymnastic exercises, and if possible in the open air, are needed by +every one who is not otherwise led to exercise all parts of the body by +various kinds of labor. Some, though only partial provision, is made for +boys by gymnasia and riding-schools. In wiser nations, such have been +the care of the state. And in despotic governments, the jealousy of a +tyrant was never more justly awakened than when the youth of the land, +by a devotion to gymnastic exercises, showed their aspiration to reach +the healthful stature of manhood. For every one who possesses a strong +mind in a sane body is heir presumptive to the kingdom of this world; he +needs no external credentials, but has only to appear and make clear his +title. But for such a princely form the eye searches the street, the +mart, and the council-chamber, in vain. + +Those who feel that the game of life is so nearly up with them that they +cannot devote much of the time that is left to the care of wise living +in their own persons, should, at least, be unwilling to injure the next +generation by the same ignorance which has blighted so many of us in our +earliest year. Such should attend to the work of Mr. Combe,[14] among +other good books. Mr. Combe has done much good already in this country, +and this book should be circulated every where, for many of its +suggestions are too obviously just not to be adopted as soon as read. + +Dr. Warren bears his testimony against the pernicious effects that +follow upon the use of tobacco, and we cannot but hope that what he says +of its tendency to create cancer will have weight with some who are +given to the detestable habit of chewing. This practice is so odious to +women, that we must regard its prevalence here as a token of the very +light regard in which they are held, and the consequent want of +refinement among men. Dr. Warren seems to favor the practice of +hydropathy to some extent, but must needs bear his testimony in full +against homoeopathy. No matter; the little doses will insinuate their +way, and cure the ills that flesh is heir to, + + "For a' that, and a' that, + And mickle mair for a' that." + + + + +FREDERICK DOUGLASS.[15] + + +Frederick Douglass has been for some time a prominent member of the +abolition party. He is said to be an excellent speaker--can speak from a +thorough personal experience--and has upon the audience, besides, the +influence of a strong character and uncommon talents. In the book before +us he has put into the story of his life the thoughts, the feelings, and +the adventures that have been so affecting through the living voice; nor +are they less so from the printed page. He has had the courage to name +persons, times, and places, thus exposing himself to obvious danger, and +setting the seal on his deep convictions as to the religious need of +speaking the whole truth. Considered merely as a narrative, we have +never read one more simple, true, coherent, and warm with genuine +feeling. It is an excellent piece of writing, and on that score to be +prized as a specimen of the powers of the black race, which prejudice +persists in disputing. We prize highly all evidence of this kind, and it +is becoming more abundant. The cross of the Legion of Honor has just +been conferred in France on Dumas and Soulie, both celebrated in the +paths of light literature. Dumas, whose father was a general in the +French army, is a mulatto; Soulie, a quadroon. He went from New Orleans, +where, though to the eye a white man, yet, as known to have African +blood in his veins, he could never have enjoyed the privileges due to a +human being. Leaving the land of freedom, he found himself free to +develop the powers that God had given. + +Two wise and candid thinkers--the Scotchman Kinmont, prematurely lost to +this country, of which he was so faithful and generous a student, and +the late Dr. Channing,--both thought that the African race had in them a +peculiar element, which, if it could be assimilated with those imported +among us from Europe, would give to genius a development, and to the +energies of character a balance and harmony, beyond what has been seen +heretofore in the history of the world. Such an element is indicated in +their lowest estate by a talent for melody, a ready skill at imitation +and adaptation, an almost indestructible elasticity of nature. It is to +be remarked in the writings both of Soulie and Dumas, full of faults, +but glowing with plastic life and fertile in invention. The same torrid +energy and saccharine fulness may be felt in the writings of this +Douglass, though his life, being one of action or resistance, has been +less favorable to _such_ powers than one of a more joyous flow might +have been. + +The book is prefaced by two communications--one from Garrison, and one +from Wendell Phillips. That from the former is in his usual +over-emphatic style. His motives and his course have been noble and +generous; we look upon him with high respect; but he has indulged in +violent invective and denunciation till he has spoiled the temper of his +mind. Like a man who has been in the habit of screaming himself hoarse +to make the deaf hear, he can no longer pitch his voice on a key +agreeable to common ears. Mr. Phillips's remarks are equally decided, +without this exaggeration in the tone. Douglass himself seems very just +and temperate. We feel that his view, even of those who have injured him +most, may be relied upon. He knows how to allow for motives and +influences. Upon the subject of religion, he speaks with great force, +and not more than our own sympathies can respond to. The inconsistencies +of slaveholding professors of religion cry to Heaven. We are not +disposed to detest, or refuse communion with them. Their blindness is +but one form of that prevalent fallacy which substitutes a creed for a +faith, a ritual for a life. We have seen too much of this system of +atonement not to know that those who adopt it often began with good +intentions, and are, at any rate, in their mistakes worthy of the +deepest pity. But that is no reason why the truth should not be uttered, +trumpet-tongued, about the thing. "Bring no more vain oblations;" +sermons must daily be preached anew on that text. Kings, five hundred +years ago, built churches with the spoils of war; clergymen to-day +command slaves to obey a gospel which they will not allow them to read, +and call themselves Christians amid the curses of their fellow-men. The +world ought to get on a little faster than this, if there be really any +principle of improvement in it. The kingdom of heaven may not at the +beginning have dropped seed larger than a mustard-seed, but even from +that we had a right to expect a fuller growth than we can believe to +exist, when we read such a book as this of Douglass. Unspeakably +affecting is the fact that he never saw his mother at all by daylight. + +"I do not recollect of ever seeing my mother by the light of day. She +was with me in the night. She would lie down with me, and get me to +sleep, but long before I waked she was gone." + +The following extract presents a suitable answer to the hackneyed +argument drawn by the defender of slavery from the songs of the slave, +and is also a good specimen of the powers of observation and manly heart +of the writer. We wish that every one may read his book, and see what a +mind might have been stifled in bondage--what a man may be subjected to +the insults of spendthrift dandies, or the blows of mercenary brutes, in +whom there is no whiteness except of the skin, no humanity except in the +outward form, and of whom the Avenger will not fail yet to demand, +"Where is thy brother?" + +"The Home Plantation of Colonel Lloyd wore the appeaance of a country +village. All the mechanical operations for all the farms were performed +here. The shoemaking and mending, the blacksmithing, cartwrighting, +coopering, weaving, and grain-grinding, were all performed by the slaves +on the Home Plantation. The whole place wore a business-like aspect very +unlike the neighboring farms. The number of houses, too, conspired to +give it advantage over the neighboring farms. It was called by the +slaves the _Great House Farm_. Few privileges were esteemed higher, by +the slaves of the out-farms, than that of being selected to do errands +at the Great House Farm. It was associated in their minds with +greatness. A representative could not be prouder of his election to a +seat in the American Congress, than a slave on one of the out-farms +would be of his election to do errands at the Great House Farm. They +regarded it as evidence of great confidence reposed in them by their +overseers; and it was on this account, as well as a constant desire to +be out of the field, from under the driver's lash, that they esteemed it +a high privilege, one worth careful living for. He was called the +smartest and most trusty fellow who had this honor conferred upon him +the most frequently. The competitors for this office sought as +diligently to please their overseers as the office-seekers in the +political parties seek to please and deceive the people. The same traits +of character might be seen in Colonel Lloyd's slaves, as are seen in the +slaves of the political parties. + +"The slaves selected to go to the Great House Farm, for the monthly +allowance for themselves and their fellow-slaves, were peculiarly +enthusiastic. While on their way, they would make the dense old woods, +for miles around, reverberate with their wild songs, revealing at once +the highest joy and the deepest sadness. They would compose and sing as +they went along, consulting neither time nor tune. The thought that came +up came out,--if not in the word, in the sound,--and as frequently in +the one as in the other. They would sometimes sing the most pathetic +sentiment in the most rapturous tone, and the most rapturous sentiment +in the most pathetic tone. Into all their songs they would manage to +weave something of the Great House Farm. Especially would they do this +when leaving home. They would then sing most exultingly the following +words:-- + + 'I am going away to the Great House Farm! + O, yea! O, yea! O!' + +This they would sing as a chorus to words which to many would seem +unmeaning jargon, but which, nevertheless, were full of meaning to +themselves. I have sometimes thought that the mere hearing of those +songs would do more to impress some minds with the horrible character of +slavery, than the reading of whole volumes of philosophy on the subject +could do. + +"I did not, when a slave, understand the deep meaning of those rude and +apparently incoherent songs. I was myself within the circle; so that I +neither saw nor heard as those without might see and hear. They told a +tale of woe which was then altogether beyond my feeble comprehension; +they were tones loud, long, and deep; they breathed the prayer and +complaint of souls boiling over with the bitterest anguish. Every tone +was a testimony against slavery, and a prayer to God for deliverance +from chains. The hearing of those wild notes always depressed my spirit, +and filled me with ineffable sadness. I have frequently found myself in +tears while hearing them. The mere recurrence to those songs, even now, +afflicts me; and while I am writing these lines, an expression of +feeling has already found its way down my cheek. To those songs I trace +my first glimmering conception of the dehumanizing character of slavery. +I can never get rid of that conception. Those songs still follow me, to +deepen my hatred of slavery, and quicken my sympathies for my brethren +in bonds. If any one wishes to be impressed with the soul-killing +effects of slavery, let him go to Colonel Lloyd's plantation, and, on +allowance day, place himself in the deep pine woods, and there let him, +in silence, analyze the sounds that shall pass through the chambers of +his soul; and if he is not thus impressed, it will only be because +'there is no flesh in his obdurate heart.' + +"I have often been utterly astonished, since I came to the north, to +find persons who could speak of the singing among slaves as evidence of +their contentment and happiness. It is impossible to conceive of a +greater mistake. Slaves sing most when they are most unhappy. The songs +of the slave represent the sorrows of his heart; and he is relieved by +them only as an aching heart is relieved by its tears. At least, such is +my experience. I have often sung to drown my sorrow, but seldom to +express my happiness. Crying for joy and singing for joy were alike +uncommon to me while in the jaws of slavery. The singing of a man cast +away upon a desolate island might be as appropriately considered as +evidence of contentment and happiness, as the singing of a slave; the +songs of the one and of the other are prompted by the same emotion." + + + + +PHILIP VAN ARTEVELDE.[16] + + +These volumes have met with as warm a reception "as ever unripe author's +quick conceit," to use Mr. Taylor's own language, could hope or wish; +and so deservedly, that the critic's happy task, in examining them, is +to point out, not what is most to be blamed, but what is most to be +praised. + +With joy we hail a new poet. Star after star has been withdrawn from our +firmament, and when that of Coleridge set, we seemed in danger of being +left, at best, to a gray and confounding twilight; but, lo! a "ray of +pure white light" darts across the obscured depths of ether, and allures +our eyes and hearts towards the rising orb from which it emanates. Let +us tremble no more lest our summer pass away without its roses, but +receive our present visitor as the harbinger of a harvest of delights. + +The natural process of the mind in forming a judgment is comparison. The +office of sound criticism is to teach that this comparison should be +made, not between the productions of differently-constituted minds, but +between any one of these and a fixed standard of perfection. +Nevertheless it is not contrary to the canon to take a survey of the +labors of many artists with reference to one, if we value them, not +according to the degree of pleasure we have experienced from them, which +must always depend upon our then age, the state of the passions and +relations with life, but according to the success of the artist in +attaining the object he himself had in view. To illustrate: In the same +room hang two pictures, Raphael's Madonna and Martin's Destruction of +Nineveh. A person enters, capable of admiring both, but young, +excitable; he is delighted with the Madonna, but probably far more so +with the other, because his imagination is at that time more developed +than the pure love for beauty which is the characteristic of a taste in +a higher state of cultivation. He prefers the Martin, because it excites +in his mind a thousand images of sublimity and terror, recalls the +brilliancy of Oriental history, and the stern pomp of the old prophetic +day, and rouses his mind to a high state of action, _then_ as congenial +with its wants as at a later day would be the feeling of contented +absorption, of perfect satisfaction with a production of the human soul, +which one of Raphael's calmly beautiful creations is fitted to cause. +Now, it would be very unfair for this person to pronounce the Martin +superior to the Raphael, because it then gave him more pleasure. But if +he said, the one is intended to excite the imagination, the other to +gratify the taste, that which fulfils its object most completely must be +the best, whether it give me most pleasure or no; he would be on the +right ground, and might consider the two pictures relatively to one +another, without danger of straying very far from the truth. + +_This_ is the ground we would assume in a hasty sketch, which will not, +we hope, be deemed irrelevant, of the most prominent essays to which the +last sixty years have given rise in the department of the work now +before us, previous to stating our opinion of its merits. Many, we are +aware, ridicule the idea of filling reviews with long dissertations, and +say they only want brief accounts of such books as are coming out, by +way of saving time. With such we cannot agree. We think the office of +the reviewer is, indeed, in part, to point out to the public attention +deserving works, which might otherwise slumber too long unknown on the +bookseller's shelves, but still more to present to the reader as large a +cluster of objects round one point as possible, thus, by suggestion, +stimulating him to take a broader or more careful view of the subject +than his indolence or his business would have permitted. + +The terms Classical and Romantic, which have so long divided European +critics, and exercised so powerful an influence upon their decisions, +are not much known or heeded among us,--as, indeed, _belles-lettres_ +cannot, generally, in our busy state of things, be important or +influential, as among a less free and more luxurious people, to whom the +more important truths are proffered through those indirect but alluring +mediums. Here, where every thing may be spoken or written, and the +powers that be, abused without ceremony on the very highway, the Muse +has nothing to do with dagger or bowl; hardly is the censor's wand +permitted to her hand. Yet is her lyre by no means unheeded, and if it +is rather by refining our tastes than by modelling our opinions that she +influences us, yet is that influence far from unimportant. And the time +is coming, perhaps in our day, we may (if war do not untimely check the +national progress) even see and temper its beginning, when the broad +West shall swarm with an active, happy, and cultivated population; when +the South, freed from the incubus which now oppresses her best energies, +shall be able to do justice to the resources of her soil and of her +mind; when the East, gathering from every breeze the riches of the old +world, shall be the unwearied and loving agent to those regions which +lie far away from the great deep, our bulwark and our minister. Then +will the division of labor be more complete; then will a surplus of +talent be spared from the mart, the forum, and the pulpit; then will the +fine arts assume their proper dignity, as the expression of what is +highest and most ethereal in the mind of a people. Then will our +quarries be thoroughly explored, and furnish materials for stately +fabrics to adorn the face of all the land, while our ports shall be +crowded with foreign artists flocking to take lessons in the school of +American architecture. Then will our floral treasures be arranged into +harmonious gardens, which, environing tasteful homes, shall dimple all +the landscape. Then will our Allstons and our Greenoughs preside over +great academies, and be raised far above any need, except of giving +outward form to the beautiful ideas which animate them; and ornament +from the exhaustless stores of genius the marble halls where the people +meet to rejoice, or to mourn, or where dwell those wise and good whom +the people delight to honor. Then shall music answer to and exalt the +national spirit, and the poet's brows shall be graced with the civic as +well as the myrtle crown. Then shall we have an American mind, as well +as an American system, and, no longer under the sad necessity of +exchanging money for thoughts, traffic on perfectly equal terms with the +other hemisphere. Then--ah, not yet!--shall our literature make its own +laws, and give its own watchwords; till then we must learn and borrow +from that of nations who possess a higher degree of cultivation though a +much lower one of happiness. + +The term Classical, used in its narrow sense, implies a servile +adherence to the Unities, but in its wide and best sense, it means such +a simplicity of plan, selection of actors and events, such judicious +limitations on time and range of subject, as may concentrate the +interest, perfect the illusion, and make the impression most distinct +and forcible. Although no advocates for the old French school, with its +slavish obedience to rule, which introduces follies greater than those +it would guard against, we lay the blame, not on their view of the +drama, but on the then bigoted nationality of the French mind, which +converted the Mussulman prophet into a De Retz, the Roman princess into +a French grisette, and infected the clear and buoyant atmosphere of +Greece with the vapors of the Seine. We speak of the old French Drama: +with the modern we do not profess to be acquainted, having met with +scarcely any specimens in our own bookstores or libraries; but if it +has been revolutionized with the rest of their literature, it is +probably as unlike as possible to the former models. + +We shall speak of productions in the classical spirit first; because Mr. +Taylor is a disciple of the other school, though otherwise we should +have adopted a contrary course. + +The most perfect specimens of this style with which we are acquainted +are the Filippo, the Saul, and the Myrrha of Alfieri; the Wallenstein of +Schiller; the Tasso and the Iphigenia of Goethe. England furnishes +nothing of the sort. She is thoroughly Shakspearian. + +There is no higher pleasure than to see a genius of a wild, impassioned, +many-sided eagerness, restraining its exuberance by its sense of +fitness, taming its extravagance beneath the rule its taste approves, +exhibiting the soul within soul, and the force of the will over all that +we inherit. The _abandon_ of genius has its beauty--far more beautiful +its voluntary submission to wise law. A picture, a description, has +beauty, the beauty of life; these pictures, these descriptions, arranged +upon a plan, made subservient to a purpose, have a higher beauty--that +of the mind of man acting upon life. Art is nature, but nature +new-modelled, condensed, and harmonized. We are not merely like mirrors, +to reflect our own times to those more distant. The mind has a light of +its own, and by it illumines what it re-creates. + +This is the ground of our preference for the classical school, and for +Alfieri beyond all pupils of that school. We hold that if a vagrant bud +of poesy here and there be blighted by conforming to its rules, our loss +is more than made up to us by our enjoyment of plan, of symmetry, of the +triumph of genius over multiplied obstacles. + +It has been often said that the dramas of Alfieri contrast directly with +his character. This is, perhaps, not true; we do but see the depths of +that volcano which in early days boiled over so fiercely. The wild, +infatuated youth often becomes the stern, pitiless old man. Alfieri did +but bend his surplus strength upon literature, and became a despot to +his own haughty spirit, instead of domineering over those of others. + +We have selected his three masterpieces, though he, to himself an +inexorable critic, has shown no indulgence to his own works, and the +least successful of those which remain to us, Maria Stuarda, is marked +by great excellence. + +Filippo has been so ably depicted in a work now well known, "Carlyle's +Life of Schiller," that we need not dwell upon it. All the light of the +picture, the softer feelings of the hapless Carlos and Elizabeth, is so +cast, as to make more visible the awing darkness of the tyrant's +perverted mind, deadened to all virtue by a false religion, cold and +hopeless as the dungeons of his own Inquisition, and relentless as +death. Forced by the magic wand of genius into the stifling precincts of +this mind, horror-struck that we must sympathize with such a state as +possible to humanity, we rush from the contemplation of the picture, and +would gladly curtain it over in our hall of imagery forever. Yet +stigmatize not our poet as a dark master, courting the shade, and hating +the glad lights which love and hope cast upon human nature. The drama +has a holy meaning, a patriot moral, and we, above all, should reverence +him, the aristocrat by birth, by education, and by tastes, whose love of +liberty could lead him to such conclusions. + +In "Saul," a bright rainbow rises, by the aid of the Sun of +Righteousness, above the commotion of the tempest. David, the faithful, +the hopeful, combining the aesthetic culture, the winged inspiration of +the poet with the noble pride of Israel's chosen warrior, contrasts +finely with the unfortunate Saul, his mind darkened and convulsed by +jealousy, vain regrets, and fear of the God he has forgotten how to +love. The other three actors shade in the picture without attracting our +attention from the two principal personages. The Hebrew spirit breathes +through the whole. The beauty of the lyric effusions is so generally +felt, that encomium is needless; we shall only observe that in them +Alfieri's style, usually so severe, becomes flexible, melodious, and +glowing; thus we may easily perceive what he might have done, had not +the simplicity of his genius disdained the foreign aid of ornament upon +its Doric proportions. + +Myrrha is, however, the highest exertion of his genius. The remoteness +of time and manners, the subject, at once so hackneyed and so revolting, +these great obstacles he seizes with giant grasp, and moulds them to his +purpose. Our souls are shaken to the foundation; all every-day barriers +fall with the great convulsion of passion. We sorrow, we sicken, we die +with the miserable girl, so pure under her involuntary crime of feeling, +pursued by a malignant deity in her soul's most sacred recesses, torn +from all communion with humanity, and the virtue she was framed to +adore. The perfection of plan, the matchless skill with which every +circumstance is brought out! The agonizing rapidity with which her +misery "va camminando al fine"! No! never was higher tragic power +exhibited; never were love, terror, pity, fused into a more penetrating +draught! Myrrha is a favorite acting-play in Italy--a fact inconceivable +to an English or American mind; for (to say nothing of other objections) +we should think such excess of emotion unbearable. But in those meridian +climes they drink deep draughts of passion too frequently to taste them +as we do. + +We pass to works of far inferior power, but of greater beauty. We have +selected Iphigenia and Tasso as the most finished results of their +author's mature views of art. On his plays in the Romantic style, we +shall touch in another place. If any one ask why we do not class Faust +with either, we reply, that is a work without a parallel; one of those +few originals which have their laws within themselves, and should always +be discussed singly. + +The unity of plan in Iphigenia is perfect. There is one pervading idea. +The purity of Iphigenia's mind must be kept unsullied, that she may be a +fit intercessor to the gods in behalf of her polluted family. Goethe, +in his travels through Italy, saw a picture of a youthful Christian +saint--Agatha, we think; struck by the radiant purity of her expression, +he resolved his heathen priestess should not have one thought which +could revolt the saint of the true religion. This idea is wonderfully +preserved throughout a drama so classic in its coloring and manners. The +happiest development of character, an interest in the denouement which +is only so far tempered by our trust in the lovely heroine, as to permit +us to enjoy all the minuter beauties on our way, (this the breathless +interest of Alfieri's dramas hardly allows, on a fourth or fifth +reading,) exquisite descriptive touches, and expressions of sentiment, +unequalled softness and harmony of style, distinguish a drama not to be +surpassed in its own department. Torquato Tasso[17] is of inferior +general, but greater particular beauty. The two worldly, the two higher +characters, with that of Alphonso halting between, are shaded with equal +delicacy and distinctness. The inward-turning imagination of the +ill-fated bard, and the fantastic tricks it plays with life, are painted +as only a poet's soul of equal depth, of greater versatility, could have +painted them. In analysis of the passions, and eloquent descriptions of +their more hidden workings, some parts may vie with Rousseau; while +several effusions of feeling are worthy of Tasso's own lyre, with its +"breaking heartstring's tone." The conduct of the piece being in perfect +accordance with the plan, gives the satisfaction we have mentioned in +speaking of Raphael's Madonna. + +Schiller's Wallenstein does not strictly belong to this class, yet we +are disposed to claim it as observing the unities of time and interest; +the latter especially is entire, notwithstanding the many actors and +side-scenes which are introduced. Numberless touches of nature arrest +our attention, bright lights are flashed across many characters, but our +interest, momently increasing, is for Wallenstein--for the perversion, +the danger, the ruin of that monarch soul, that falling son of the +morning. Even that we feel in Max, with his celestial bloom of heart, in +Thekla's sweet trustfulness, is subsidiary. This work, generally known +to the reader through Mr. Coleridge's translation, affords an imperfect +illustration of our meaning. Miss Baillie's plays on the passions hold a +middle place. Unity of purpose there is--no unity of plan or conduct. +Bold, fine outline--very bad coloring. Profound, beautifully-expressed +reflections on the passions--utter want of skill in showing them out; a +thorough feeling, indeed, of the elements of tragedy,--had but the +vitalizing energy been added. Her plays are failures; but since she has +given us nothing else, we cannot but rejoice in having these. 'Tis great +pity that the authoress of De Montfort and Basil should not have +attempted a narrative poem. + +Coleridge and Byron are signal instances how peculiar is the kind of +talent required for the drama; one a philosopher, both men of great +genius and uncommon mastery over language, both conversant with each +side of human nature, both considering the drama in its true light as +one of the highest departments of literature, both utterly wanting in +simplicity, pathos, truth of passion and liveliness of action--in that +thrilling utterance of heart to heart, whose absence _here_, no other +excellence can atone for. Of Maturin and Knowles we do not speak, +because theirs, though very good acting plays, are not, like Mr. +Taylor's, written for the closet; of Milman, because not sufficiently +acquainted with his plays. We would here pay a tribute to our countryman +Hillhouse, whose Hadad, read at a very early age, we remember with much +delight. Probably our judgment now might be different; but a work which +could make so deep an impression on any age, must have genius. We are +sorry we have never since met it in any library or parlor, and are not +competent to speak of it more particularly. + +It will be seen that Mr. Taylor has not attempted the sort of dramatic +poetry which we consider the highest, but has labored in that which the +great wizard of Avon adopted, because it lay nearest at hand to clothe +his spells withal, and consecrated it, with his world-embracing genius, +to the (in our judgment) no small detriment of his country's taste. +Having thus declared that we cannot grant him our very highest meed of +admiration, (though we will not say that he might not win it if he made +the essay,) we hasten to meet him on his own ground. "Dramatica Poesis +est veluti Historia spectabilis," is his motto, taken from Bacon, who +formed his taste on Shakspeare. We would here mention that Goethe's +earlier works, Goetz von Berlichingen and Egmont are of this +school--brilliant fragments of past days, ballads acted out, historical +scenes and personages clustered round a hero; and we have seen that his +ripened taste preferred the form of Iphigenia and Tasso. + +We cannot too strongly express our approbation of the opinions +maintained in his short preface to this work. We rejoice to see a leader +coming forward who is likely to un-Hemansize and un-Cornwallize +literature. We too have been sick, we too have been intoxicated with +_words_ till we could hardly appreciate thoughts; perhaps our present +writing shows traces of this Lower-Empire taste; but we have sense +enough left to welcome the English Phocion, who would regenerate public +feeling. The candor and modest dignity with which these opinions are +offered charm us. The remarks upon Shelley, whom we have loved, and do +still love passing well, brought truth home to us in a definite shape. +With regard to the lowness of Lord Byron's standard of character, every +thing indeed has been said which could be but not as Mr. Taylor has +said it; and we opine that his refined and gentle remarks will find +their way to ears which have always been deaf to the harsh sarcasms +unseasoned by wit, which have been current on this topic. + +Our author too, notwithstanding his modest caveat, has acted upon his +principles, and furnished a forcible illustration of their justice. For +dignity of sentiment, for simplicity of manner, for truth to life, never +infringing upon respect for the ideal, we look to such a critic, and we +are not disappointed. + +The scene is laid in Ghent, in the fourteenth century. The Flemish +mobocracy are brought before us with a fidelity and animation surpassing +those displayed in Egmont. Their barbarism, and the dissimilar, but not +inferior barbarism of their would-be lords, the bold, bad men, the +shameless crime and brainless tumult of those days, live before us. Amid +these clashing elements moves Philip Van Artevelde, with the presence, +not of a god, but of a great man, too superior to be shaken, too wise to +be shocked by their rude jarrings. He becomes the leader of his people, +and despite pestilence, famine, and their own untutored passions, he +leads them on to victory and power. + +In the second part we follow Van Artevelde from his zenith of glory to +his decline. The tarnishing influence of prosperity on his spirit, and +its clear radiance again in adversity, are managed as the noble and +well-defined conception of the character deserves. + +The boy king and his courtly, intriguing counsellors are as happily +portrayed as Vauclaire and the fierce commonalty he ruled, or resisted +with rope or sword, as the case might demand. + +The two loves of Van Artevelde are finely imagined, as types of the two +states of his character. Both are lovely; the one how elevated! the +other how pity-moving in her loveliness! On the interlude of Elena we +must be allowed to linger fondly, though the author's self condemn our +taste. + +We are no longer partial to the machinery of portents and presentiments. +Wallenstein's were the last we liked, but Van Artevelde's make good +poetry, and have historical vouchers. They remind us of those of Fergus +Mac Ivor. + +We shall extract a speech of Van Artevelde's, in which a leading idea of +the work is expressed. + + Father,-- + + So! with the chivalry of Christendom + I wage my war,--no nation for my friend, + Yet in each nation having hosts of friends. + The bondsmen of the world, that to their lords + Are bound with chains of iron, unto me + Are knit by their affections. Be it so. + From kings and nobles will I seek no more + Aid, friendship, or alliance. With the poor + I make my treaty; and the heart of man + Sets the broad seal of its allegiance there, + And ratifies the compact. Vassals, serfs, + Ye that are bent with unrequited toil, + Ye that have whitened in the dungeon's darkness, + Through years that know not change of night nor day, + Tatterdemalions, lodgers in the hedge, + Lean beggars with raw backs, and rumbling maws, + Whose poverty was whipped for starving you,-- + I hail you my auxiliars and allies, + The only potentates whose help I crave! + Richard of England, thou hast slain Jack Straw, + But thou hast left unquenched the vital spark + That set Jack Straw on fire. The spirit lives; + And as when he of Canterbury fell, + His seat was filled by some no better clerk, + So shall John Ball, that slew him, be replaced. + +Fain would we extract Van Artevelde's reply to the French envoy--the +oration of the dying Van den Bosch in the market-place of Ypres, the +last scene between the hero and the double-dyed dastard and traitor, Sir +Heurant of Heurlee, and many, many more, had we but space enough. + +We have purposely avoided telling the story, as is usual in an article +of this kind, because we wish that every one should buy and read Van +Artevelde, instead of resting content with the canvas side of the +carpet. + +A few words more, and we shall conclude these, we fear, already too +prolonged remarks. We would compare Mr. Taylor with the most applauded +of living dramatists, the Italian Alessandro Manzoni. + +To wide and accurate historical knowledge, to purity of taste, to the +greatest elevation of sentiment, Manzoni unites uncommon lyric power, +and a beautiful style in the most beautiful language of the modern +world. The conception of both his plays is striking, the detached +beauties of thought and imagery are many; but where are the life, the +glow, the exciting march of action, the thorough display of character +which charm us in Van Artevelde? We _live_ at Ghent and Senlis; we +_think_ of Italy. Van Artevelde dies,--and our hearts die with him. When +Elena says, "The body,--O!" we could echo that "long, funereal note," +and weep as if the sun of heroic nobleness were quenched from our own +horizon. "Carmagnola, Adelchis die,"--we calmly shut the book, and think +how much we have enjoyed it. Manzoni can deeply feel goodness and +greatness, but he cannot localize them in the contours of life before +our eyes. His are capital sketches, poems of a deep meaning,--but this, +yes! this _is_ a drama. + +We cannot conclude more fitly, nor inculcate a precept on the reader +more forcibly, than in Mr. Taylor's own words, with a slight alteration: +"To say that I admire him is to admit that I owe him much; for +admiration is never thrown away upon the mind of him who feels it, +except when it is misdirected or blindly indulged. There is perhaps +nothing which more enlarges or enriches the mind than the disposition to +lay it genially open to impressions of pleasure, from the exercise of +every species of talent; nothing by which it is more impoverished than +the habit of undue depreciation. What is puerile, pusillanimous, or +wicked, it can do us no good to admire; but let us admire all that can +be admired without debasing the dispositions or stultifying the +understanding." + + + + +UNITED STATES EXPLORING EXPEDITION. + + +Slight as the intercourse held by the Voyager with the South Sea Islands +is, his narrative is always more prized by us than those of the +missionary and traders, who, though they have better opportunity for +full and candid observation, rarely use it so well, because their minds +are biased towards their special objects. It is deeply interesting to us +to know how much and how little God has accomplished for the various +nations of the larger portion of the earth, before they are brought into +contact with the civilization of Europe and the Christian religion. To +suppose it so little as most people do, is to impugn the justice of +Providence. We see not how any one can contentedly think that such vast +multitudes of living souls have been left for thousands of years without +manifold and great means of instruction and happiness. To appreciate +justly how much these have availed them, to know how far they are +competent to receive new benefits, is essential to the philanthropist as +a means of aiding them, no less than it is important to one philosopher +who wishes to see the universe as God made it, not as some men think he +OUGHT TO have made it. + +The want of correct knowledge, and a fair appreciation of the +uncultivated man as he stands, is a cause why even the good and generous +fail to aid him, and contact with Europe has proved so generally more of +a curse than a blessing. It is easy enough to see why our red man, to +whom the white extends the Bible or crucifix with one hand, and the +rum-bottle with the other, should look upon Jesus as only one more +Manitou, and learn nothing from his precepts or the civilization +connected with them. The Hindoo, the South American Indian, who knew +their teachers first as powerful robbers, and found themselves called +upon to yield to violence not only their property, personal freedom, and +peace, but also the convictions and ideas that had been rooted and +growing in their race for ages, could not be otherwise than degraded and +stupefied by a change effected through such violence and convulsion. But +not only those who came with fire and sword, crying, "Believe or die;" +"Understand or we will scourge you;" "Understand _and_ we will only +plunder and tyrannize over you,"--not only these ignorant despots, +self-deceiving robbers, have failed to benefit the people they dared +esteem more savage than themselves, but the worthy and generous have +failed from want of patience and an expanded intelligence. Would you +speak to a man? first learn his language. Would you have the tree grow? +learn the nature of the soil and climate in which you plant it. Better +days are coming, we do hope, as to these matters--days in which the new +shall be harmonized with the old, rather than violently rent asunder +from it; when progress shall be accomplished by gentle evolution, as the +stem of the plant grows up, rather than by the blasting of rocks, and +blindness or death of the miners. + +The knowledge which can lead to such results must be collected, as all +true knowledge is, from the love of it. In the healthy state of the +mind, the state of elastic youth, which would be perpetual in the mind +if it were nobly disciplined and animated by immortal hopes, it likes to +learn just how the facts are, seeking truth for its own sake, not +doubting that the design and cause will be made clear in time. A mind in +such a state will find many facts ready for its use in these volumes +relative to the South Sea Islanders, and other objects of interest. + + + + +STORY-BOOKS FOR THE HOT WEATHER. + + +Does any shame still haunt the age of bronze--a shame, the lingering +blush of an heroic age, at being caught in doing any thing merely for +amusement? Is there a public still extant which needs to excuse its +delinquencies by the story of a man who liked to lie on the sofa all day +and read novels, though he could, at time of need, write the gravest +didactics? Live they still, those reverend seigniors, the object of +secret smiles to our childish years, who were obliged to apologize for +midnight oil spent in conning story-books by the "historic bearing" of +the novel, or the "correct and admirable descriptions of certain +countries, with climate, scenery, and manners therein contained," wheat, +for which they, industrious students, were willing to winnow bushels of +frivolous love-adventures? We know not, but incline to think the world +is now given over to frivolity so far as to replace by the novel the +minstrel's ballad, the drama, and even those games of agility and +strength in which it once sought pastime. For, indeed, _mere_ pass-time +is sometimes needed; the nursery legend comprised a primitive truth of +the understanding and the wisdom of nations in the lines,-- + + "All play and no work makes Jack a mere toy, + But all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy." + +We have reversed the order of arrangement to suit our present purpose. +For we, O useful reader! being ourselves so far of the useful class as +to be always wanted somewhere, have also to fight a good fight for our +amusements, either with the foils of excuse, like the reverend seigniors +above mentioned, or with the sharp weapons of argument, or maintenance +of a view of our own without argument, which we take to be the sharpest +weapon of all. + +Thus far do we defer to the claims of the human race, with its myriad of +useful errands to be done, that we read most of our novels in the long +sunny days, which call all beings to chirp and nestle, or fly abroad as +the birds do, and permit the very oxen to ruminate gently in the +just-mown fields. + +On such days it was well, we think, to read "Sybil, or the Two Worlds." +We have always felt great interest in D'Israeli. He is one of the many +who share the difficulty of our era, which Carlyle says, quoting, we +believe, from his Master, consists in unlearning the false in order to +arrive at the true. We think these men, when they have once taken their +degree, can be of far greater use to their brethren than those who have +always kept their instincts unperverted. + +In "Vivian Grey," the young D'Israeli, an educated Englishman, but with +the blood of sunnier climes glowing and careering in his veins, gave us +the very flower and essence of factitious life. That book sparkled and +frothed like champagne; like that, too, it produced no dull and imbecile +state by its intoxication, but one witty, genial, spiritual even. A +deep, soft melancholy thrilled through its gay mockeries; the eyes of +nature glimmered through the painted mask, and a nobler ambition was +felt beneath the follies of petty success and petty vengeance. Still, +the chief merit of the book, as a book, was the light and decided touch +with which its author took up the follies and poesies of the day, and +brought them all before us. The excellence of the foreign part, with its +popular superstitions, its deep passages in the glades of the summer +woods, and above all, the capital sketch of the prime minister with his +original whims and secret history of romantic sorrows, were beyond the +appreciation of most readers. + +Since then, D'Israeli has never written any thing to be compared with +this first jet of the fountain of his mind in the sunlight of morning. +The "Young Duke" was full of brilliant sketches, and showed a soul +struggling, blinded by the gaudy mists of fashion, for realities. The +"Wondrous Tale of Alroy" showed great power of conception, though in +execution it is a failure. "Henrietta Temple" Mr. Willis, with his usual +justness of perception, has praised, as containing a collection of the +best love-letters ever written; and which show that excellence, signal +and singular among the literary tribe, of which D'Israeli never fails, +of daring to write a thing down exactly as it rises in his mind. + +Now he has come to be a leader of Young England, and a rooted plant upon +her soil. If the performance of his prime do not entirely correspond +with the brilliant lights of its dawn, it is yet aspiring, and with a +large kernel of healthy nobleness in it. D'Israeli shows now not only +the heart, but the soul of a man. He cares for all men; he wishes to +care wisely for all. + +"Coningsby" was full of talent, yet its chief interest lay in this +aspiration after reality, and the rich materials taken from contemporary +life. There is nothing in it good after the original manner of +D'Israeli, except the sketches of Eton, and above all, the noble +schoolboy's letter. The picture of the Jew, so elaborately limned, is +chiefly valuable as affording keys to so many interesting facts. + +"Sybil" is an attempt to do justice to the claims of the laboring +classes, and investigate the duties of those in whose hands the money is +at present, towards the rest. It comes to no result: it only exhibits +some truths in a more striking light than heretofore. D'Israeli shows +the taint of old prejudice in the necessity he felt to marry the +daughter of the people to one _not_ of the people. Those worthy to be +distinguished must still have good blood, or rather old blood, for what +is called good needs now to be renovated from a homelier source. But his +leaders must have _old_ blood; the fresh ichor, the direct flow from +heaven, is not enough to animate their lives to the deeds now needed. + +D'Israeli is another of those who give testimony in behalf of our +favorite idea that a leading feature of the new era will be in new and +higher developments of the feminine character. He looks at women as a +man does who is truly in love. He does not paint them well, that is, not +with profound fidelity to nature. But, ideally, he sees them well, for +they are to him the inspirers and representatives of what is holy, +tender, and simply great. + +There are good sketches of the manufacturers at home, not the overseers, +but the real makers. + +Sue is a congenial activity with D'Israeli, but with clearer notions of +what he wants. His "De Rohan" is a poor book, though it contains some +things excellent. But it is faulty,--even more so than is usual with +him, in heavy exaggerations, and is less redeemed by brilliant effects, +good schemes, and lively strains of feeling. The wish to unmask Louis +XIV. is defeated by the hatred with which the character inspired him, +the liberal of the nineteenth century. The Grand Monarque was really +brutally selfish and ignorant, as Sue represents him; but then there +_was_ a native greatness, which justified, in some degree, the illusion +he diffused, and which falsifies all Sue's representation. It is not by +an inventory of facts or traits that what is most vital in character, +and which makes its due impression on contemporaries, can be apprehended +or depicted. "De Rohan" is worth reading for particulars of an +interesting period, put together with accuracy and with a sense of +physiological effects, if not of the spiritual realities that they +represented. + +"Self, by the Author of Cecil," is one of the worst of a paltry class of +novels--those which aim at representing the very dregs in a social life, +now at its lowest ebb. If it has produced a sensation, that only shows +the poverty of life among those who can be interested in it. I have +known more life lived in a day among factory girls, or in a village +school, than informs these volumes, with all their great pretension and +affected vivacity. It is not worth our while to read this class of +English novels; they are far worse than the French, morally as well as +mentally. This has no merits as to the development of character or +exposition of motives; it is a poor, external, lifeless thing. + +"Dashes at Life," by N. P. Willis. The life of Mr. Willis is too +European for him to have a general or permanent fame in America. We need +a life of our own, and a literature of our own. Those writers who are +dearest to us, and really most interesting, are those who are at least +rooted to the soil. If they are not great enough to be the prophets of +the new era, they at least exhibit the features of their native clime, +and the complexion given by its native air. But Mr. Willis is a son of +Europe, and his writings can interest only the fashionable world of this +country, which, by imitating Europe, fails entirely of a genius, grace, +and invention of its own. Still, in their way, they are excellent. They +are most lively pictures, showing the fine natural organization of the +writer, on whom none, the slightest symptom of what he is looking for, +is thrown away; sparkling with bold, light wit, succinct, and colored +with glow, and for a full light. Some of them were new to us, and we +read them through, missing none of the words, and laughed with a full +heart, and without one grain of complaisance, which is much, very much, +to say in these days. We said these sketches would not have a permanent +fame, and yet we may be wrong. The new, full, original, radiant, +American life may receive them as an heirloom from this transition state +we are in now, and future generations may stare at the mongrel products +of Saratoga, and maidens still laugh till they cry at the "Letter of +Jane S. to her Spirit-Bridegroom." + +All these story-books show, even to the languor of the hottest day, the +solemn signs of revolution. Life has become too factitious; it has no +longer a leg left to stand upon, and cannot be carried much farther in +this way. England--ah! who can resist visions of phalansteries in every +park, and the treasures of art turned into public galleries for the use +of the artificers who will no longer be unwashed, but raised and +educated by the refinements of sufficient leisure, and the instructions +of genius. England must glide, or totter, or fall into revolution; there +is not room for such selfish elves, and unique young dukes, in a country +so crowded with men, and with those who ought to be women, and are +turned into work-tools. There are very impressive hints on this last +topic in "Sybil, or the Two Worlds," (of the rich and poor.) God has +time to remember the design with which he made this world also. + + + + +SHELLEY'S POEMS[18] + + +We are very glad to see this handsome copy of Shelley ready for those +who have long been vainly inquiring at all the bookstores for such a +one. + +In Europe the fame of Shelley has risen superior to the clouds that +darkened its earlier days, hiding his true image from his fellow-men, +and from his own sad eyes oftentimes the common light of day. As a +thinker, men have learned to pardon what they consider errors in opinion +for the sake of singular nobleness, purity, and love in his main +tendency or spirit. As a poet, the many faults of his works having been +acknowledged, there are room and place to admire his far more numerous +and exquisite beauties. + +The heart of the man, few, who have hearts of their own, refuse to +reverence, and many, even of devoutest Christians, would not refuse the +book which contains Queen Mab as a Christmas gift. For it has been +recognized that the founder of the Christian church would have suffered +one to come unto him, who was in faith and love so truly what he sought +in a disciple, without regard to the form his doctrine assumed. + +The qualities of his poetry have often been analyzed, and the severer +critics, impatient of his exuberance, or unable to use their accustomed +spectacles in the golden mist that broods over all he has done, deny him +high honors; but the soul of aspiring youth, untrammelled by the canons +of taste, and untamed by scholarly discipline, swells into rapture at +his lyric sweetness, finds ambrosial refreshment from his plenteous +fancies, catches fire at his daring thought, and melts into boundless +weeping at his tender sadness--the sadness of a soul betrothed to an +ideal unattainable in this present sphere. + +For ourselves, we dispute not with the _doctrinaires_ or the critics. We +cannot speak dispassionately of an influence that has been so dear to +us. Nearer than the nearest companions of life actual has Shelley been +to us. Many other great ones have shone upon us, and all who ever did so +shine are still resplendent in our firmament, for our mental life has +not been broken and contradictory, but thus far we "see what we +foresaw." But Shelley seemed to us an incarnation of what was sought in +the sympathies and desires of instinctive life, a light of dawn, and a +foreshowing of the weather of this day. + +When still in childish years, the "Hymn to Intellectual Beauty" fell in +our way. In a green meadow, skirted by a rich wood, watered by a lovely +rivulet, made picturesque by a mill a little farther down, sat a party +of young persons gayer than, and almost as inventive, as those that told +the tales recorded by Boccaccio. They were passing a few days in a scene +of deep seclusion, there uncared for by tutor or duenna, and with no bar +of routine to check the pranks of their gay, childish fancies. Every day +they assumed parts which through the waking hours must be acted out. One +day it was the characters in one of Richardson's novels; and most +solemnly we "my deared" each other with richest brocade of affability, +and interchanged in long, stiff phrase our sentimental secrets and prim +opinions. But to-day we sought relief in personating birds or insects; +and now it was the Libellula who, tired of wild flitting and darting, +rested on the grassy bank and read aloud the "Hymn to Intellectual +Beauty," torn by chance from the leaf of a foreign magazine. + +It was one of those chances which we ever remember as the interposition +of some good angel in our fate. Solemn tears marked the change of mood +in our little party and with the words + + "Have I not kept my vow?" + +began a chain of thoughts whose golden links still bind the years +together. + +Two or three years passed. The frosty Christmas season came; the trees +cracked with their splendid burden of ice, the old wooden country house +was banked up with high drifts of the beautiful snow, and the Libellula +became the owner of Shelley's Poems. It was her Christmas gift, and for +three days and three nights she ceased not to extract its sweets; and +how familiar still in memory every object seen from the chair in which +she sat enchanted during those three days, memorable to her as those of +July to the French nation! The fire, the position of the lamp, the +variegated shadows of that alcoved room, the bright stars up to which +she looked with such a feeling of congeniality from the contemplation of +this starry soul,--O, could but a De Quincey describe those days in +which the bridge between the real and ideal rose unbroken! He would not +do it, though, as _Suspiria de Profundis_, but as sighs of joy upon the +mountain height. + +The poems we read then are what every one still reads, the "Julian and +Maddalo," with its profound revelations of the inward life; "Alastor," +the soul sweeping like a breeze through nature; and some of the minor +poems. "Queen Mab," the "Prometheus," and other more formal works we +have not been able to read much. It was not when he tried to express +opinions which the wrongs of the world had put into his head, but when +he abandoned himself to the feelings which nature had implanted in his +own breast, that Shelley seemed to us so full of inspiration, and it is +so still. + +In reply to all that can be urged against him by people of whom we do +not wish to speak ill,--for surely "they know not what they do,"--we are +wont simply to refer to the fact that he was the only man who redeemed +the human race from suspicion to the embittered soul of Byron. "Why," +said Byron, "he is a man who would willingly die for others. _I am sure +of it._" + +Yes! balance that against all the ill you can think of him that he was +a man able to live wretched for the sake of speaking sincerely what he +supposed to be truth, willing to die for the good of his fellows! + +Mr. Foster has spoken well of him as a man: "Of Shelley's personal +character it is enough to say that it was wholly pervaded by the same +unbounded and unquestioning love for his fellow-men--the same holy and +fervid hope in their ultimate virtue and happiness--the same scorn of +baseness and hatred of oppression--which beam forth in all his writings +with a pure and constant light. The theory which he wrote was the +practice which his whole life exemplified. Noble, kind, generous, +passionate, tender, with a courage greater than the courage of the chief +of warriors, for it could _endure_--these were the qualities in which +his life was embalmed." + + + + +FESTUS.[19] + + +We are right glad to see this beloved stranger domesticated among us. +Yet there are queer little circumstances that herald the introduction. +The poet is a barrister at law!--well! it is always worthy of note when +a man is not hindered by study of human law from knowledge of divine; +which last is all that concerns the poet. Then the preface to the +American edition closes with this discreet remark: "It is perfectly SAFE +to pronounce it (the poem) one of the most powerful and splendid +productions of the age." Dear New England! how purely that was worthy +thee, region where the tyranny of public opinion is carried to a +perfection of minute scrutiny beyond what it ever was before in any age +or place, though the ostracism be administered with the mildness and +refinement fit for this age. Dear New England! yes! it is _safe_ to say +that the poem is good; whatever Mrs. Grundy may think, she will not have +it burned by the hangman if it is not. But it may not be _discreet_, +because she can, if she sees fit, exile its presence from bookstores, +libraries, centre tables, and all mention of its existence from lips +polite, and of thine also, who hast dared to praise it, on peril of +turning all surrounding eyes to lead by its utterance. This kind of +gentle excommunication thou mayst not be prepared to endure, O +preface-writer! And we should greatly fear that thou wert deceived in +thy fond security, for "Festus" is a bold book--in respect of freedom of +words, a boldest book--also it reveals the solitudes of hearts with +unexampled sincerity, and remorselessly lays bare human nature in its +naked truth--but for the theology of the book. That may save it, and +none the less for all it shows of the depravity of human nature. It is +through many pages and leaves what is technically praised as "a serious +book." A friend went into a bookstore to select presents for persons +with whom she was about to part, and among other things requested the +shopman to "show her some serious books in handsome binding." He looked +into several, and then, struck by passages here and there, offered her +the "Letters of Lady M. W. Montague." She assuring him that it would not +be safe to make use of this work, he offered her a miniature edition of +Shakspeare, as "a book containing many excellent things, though you had +to wade through a great deal of rubbish to get at them." + +We fear the reader will have to wade through a great deal of "rubbish" +in "Festus" before he gets at the theology. However, there it is, in +sufficient quantities to give dignity to any book. In seriousness, it +may compete with Pollok's "Course of Time." In "splendor and power," we +feel ourselves safe in saying that, as sure as the sun shines, it cannot +be outdone in the English tongue, thus far, short of Milton. So there is +something for all classes of readers, and we hope it will get to their +eyes, albeit Boston books are not likely to be detected by all eyes to +which they belong. + +To ourselves the theology of this writer, and the conscious design of +the poem, have little interest. They seem to us, like the color of his +skin and hair, the result of the circumstances under which he was born. +Certain opinions came in his way early, and became part of the body of +his thought. But what interests us is not these, but what is deepest, +universal--the soul of that body. To us the poem is + + "... full of great dark meanings like the sea:" + +and it is these, the deep experiences and inspirations of the immortal +man, that engage us. + +Even the poem shows how large is his nature--its most careless utterance +full of grandeur, its tamest of bold nobleness. This, that truly engages +us, he spoke of more forcibly when the book first went forth to the +world:-- + + "Read this, world. He who writes is dead to thee, + But still lives in these leaves. He spake inspired; + Night and day, thought came unhelped, undesired, + Like blood to his heart. The course of study he + Went through was of the soul-rack. The degree + He took was high; it was wise wretchedness. + He suffered perfectly, and gained no less + A prize than, in his own torn heart, to see + A few bright seeds; he sowed them, hoped them truth. + The autumn of that seed is in these pages." + +Such is, in our belief, the true theologian, the learner of God, who +does not presumptuously expect at this period of growth to bind down all +that is to be known of divine things in a system, a set of words, but +considers that he is only spelling the first lines of a work, whose +perusal shall last him through eternity. Such a one is not in a hurry to +declare that the riddles of Fate and of Time are solved, for he knows it +is not calling them so that will make them so. His soul does not decline +the great and persevering labors that are to develop its energies. He +has faith to study day by day. Such is the practice of the author of +Festus, whenever he is truly great. When he shows to us the end and plan +of all things, we feel that he only hides them from us. He speaks only +his wishes. But when he tells us of what he does really know, the moods +and aspirations of fiery youth to which all things are made present in +foresight and foretaste,--when he shows us the temptations of the lonely +soul pining for knowledge, but unable to feel the love that alone can +bestow it,--then he is truly great, and the strings of life thrill +oftentimes to their sublimest, sweetest music. + +We admire in this author the unsurpassed force and distinctness with +which he casts out single thoughts and images. Each is thrown before us +fresh, deep in its impress as if just snatched from the forge. We admire +not less his vast flow, his sustained flight. His is a rich and spacious +genius; it gives us room; it is a palace home; we need not economize our +joys; blessed be the royalty that welcomes us so freely. + +In simple transposition of the thought from the mind to the paper, that +wonder, even rarer than perfect,--that is, simple expression, through +the motions of the body, of the motions of the soul,--we dare to say +_no_ writer excels him. Words are no veil between us and him, but a +luminous cloud that upbears us both together. + +So in touches of nature, in the tones of passion; he is absolute. There +is nothing better, where it is good; we have the very thing itself. + +We are told by the critics that he has no ear, and, indeed, when we +listen for such, we perceive blemishes enough in the movement of his +line. But we did not perceive it before, more than, when the AEolian was +telling the secrets of that most spirit-like minister of Nature that +bloweth where it listeth, and no man can trace it, we should attempt to +divide the tones and pauses into regular bars, and be disturbed when we +could not make a tune. + +England has only two poets now that can be named near him: these two are +Tennyson and the author of "Philip Van Artevelde." Tennyson is all that +Bailey is not in melody and voluntary finish, having no less than a +Greek moderation in declining all undertakings he is not sure of +completing. Taylor, noble, an earnest seer, a faithful narrator of what +he sees, firm and sure, sometimes deep and exquisite, but in energy and +grandeur no more than Tennyson to be named beside the author of Festus. +In inspiration, in prophecy, in those flashes of the sacred fire which +reveal the secret places where Time is elaborating the marvels of +Nature, he stands alone. It is just true what Ebenezer Elliott says, +that "Festus contains poetry enough to set up fifty poets,"--ay! even +such poets, so far as richness of thought and imagery are concerned, as +the two noble bards we have named. + +But we need call none less to make him greater, whose liberal soul is +alive to every shade of beauty, every token of greatness, and whose main +stress is to seek a soul of goodness in things evil. The book is a +precious, even a sacred book, and we could say more of it, had we not +years ago vented our enthusiasm when it was in first full flow. + + + + +FRENCH NOVELISTS OF THE DAY.[20] + + +WE hear much lamentation among good people at the introduction of so +many French novels among us, corrupting, they say, our youth by pictures +of decrepit vice and prurient crime, such as would never, otherwise, be +dreamed of here, and corrupting it the more that such knowledge is so +precocious--for the same reason that a boy may be more deeply injured by +initiation into wickedness than a man, for he is not only robbed of his +virtue, but prevented from developing the strength that might restore +it. But it is useless to bewail what is the inevitable result of the +movement of our time. Europe must pour her corruptions, no less than her +riches, on our shores, both in the form of books and of living men. She +cannot, if she would, check the tide which bears them hitherward; no +defences are possible, on our vast extent of shore, that can preclude +their ingress. We have exulted in premature and hasty growth; we must +brace ourselves to bear the evils that ensue. Our only hope lies in +rousing, in our own community, a soul of goodness, a wise aspiration, +that shall give us strength to assimilate this unwholesome food to +better substance, or cast off its contaminations. A mighty sea of life +swells within our nation, and, if there be salt enough, foreign bodies +shall not have power to breed infection there. + +We have had some opportunity to observe that the worst works offered are +rejected. On the steamboats we have seen translations of vile books, +bought by those who did not know from the names of their authors what +to expect, torn, after a cursory glance at their contents, and scattered +to the winds. Not even the all but all-powerful desire to get one's +money's worth, since it had once been paid, could contend against the +blush of shame that rose on the cheek of the reader. + +It would be desirable for our people to know something of these writers, +and of the position they occupy abroad; for the nature of their +circulation, rather than its extent, might be the guide both to +translator and buyer. The object of the first is generally money; of the +last, amusement. But the merest mercenary might prefer to pass his time +in translating a good book, and our imitation of Europe does not yet go +so far that the American milliner can be depended on to copy any thing +from the Parisian grisette, except her cap. + +We have just been reading "Le Pere Goriot," Balzac's most celebrated +work; a remarkable production, to which Paris alone, at the present day, +could have given birth. + +In other of his works, I have admired his skill in giving the minute +traits of passion, and his intrepidity, not inferior to that of Le Sage +and Cervantes, in facing the dark side of human nature. He reminds one +of the Spanish romancers in the fearlessness with which he takes mud +into his hands, and dips his foot in slime. We cannot endure this when +done, as by most Frenchmen, with an air of recklessness and gayety; but +Balzac does it with the stern manliness of a Spaniard. + +But the conception of this work is so sublime, that, though the details +are even more revolting than in his others, you can bear it, and would +not have missed your walk through the Catacombs, though the light of day +seems stained afterwards with the mould of horror and dismay. + +Balzac, we understand, is one of that wretched class of writers who live +by the pen. In Paris they count now by thousands, and their leaves fall +from the press thick-rustling like the November forest. I had heard of +this class not without envy, for I had been told pretty tales of the gay +poverty of the Frenchman--how he will live in garrets, on dry bread, +salad, and some wine, and spend all his money on a single good suit of +clothes, in which, when the daily labor of copying music, correcting the +press, or writing poems or novels, is over, he sallies forth to enjoy +the theatre, the social soiree, or the humors of the streets and cafes, +as gay, as keenly alive to observation and enjoyment, as if he were to +return to a well-stocked table and a cheerful hearth, encompassed by +happy faces. + +I thought the intellectual Frenchman, in the extreme of want, never sunk +into the inert reverie of the lazzaroni, nor hid the vulture of famine +beneath the mantle of pride with the bitter mood of a Spaniard. But +Balzac evidently is familiar with that which makes the agony of +poverty--its vulgarity. + +Dirt, confusion, shabby expedients, living to live,--these are what make +poverty terrible and odious, and in these Balzac would seem to have been +steeped to the very lips. + +These French writers possess the art of plunging at once _in medias +res_, and Balzac places you, in the twinkling of an eye, in one of the +lowest boarding-houses of Paris. At first all is dirt, hubbub, and +unsavory odors; but from the vapors of the caldron evolves a web of +many-colored life, of terrible pathos, and original humor, not +unenlivened by pale golden threads of beauty, which had better never +been. + +All the characters are excellently drawn: the harpy mistress of the +house; Mlle. Michonnet the spy, and her imbecile lover; Mme. Coutuner, +with her purblind strivings after virtue, and her real, though meagre +respectability; Vautrim, the disguised galley-slave, with his cynical +philosophy and Bonaparte character; and the young students of medicine, +cheering the dense fog with the scintillations of their wit, and the +joyousness and petulance with which their age meets the most adverse +circumstances, at least in France! + +The connection between this abject poverty and the highest luxury of +Parisian life is made naturally by Eugene, connected to his misfortune +with a noble family, of which his own is a poor and young branch, +studying a profession and sighing to live like a duke, and _Le Pere +Goriot_, who has stripped himself of all his wealth for his daughters, +who are more naturally unnatural than those of Lear. The transitions are +made with as much swiftness as a curtain is drawn upon the stage, yet +with no feeling of abruptness, so skilfully are the incidents woven into +one another. + +And be it recorded to the credit of Balzac, that, much as he appears to +have suffered from the want of wealth, the vices which pollute it are +represented with as terrible force as those of poverty. + +The book affords play for similar powers, and brings a similar range of +motives into action with Scott's "Fortunes of Nigel." If less rich than +that work, it is more original, and has a force of pencil all its own. + +Insight and a master's hand are admirable throughout; but the product of +genius is _Le Pere Goriot_. And, wonderful to relate, this character is +as much ennobled, made as poetical by abandonment to a single instinct, +as others by the force of will. Prometheus, chained on his rock, and +giving his heart to the birds of prey for aims so majestic, is scarcely +a more affecting, a more reverent object, than the rich confectioner +whose intellect has never been awakened at all, except in the way of +buying and selling, and who gives up his acuteness even there, and +commits such unspeakable follies through paternal love; a _blind_ love +too, nowise superior to that of the pelican! + +Analyze it as you will, see the difference between this and the instinct +of the artist or the philanthropist, and it produces on your mind the +same impression of a present divinity. And scarce any tears could be +more sacred than those which choke the breath at the death-bed of this +man, who forgot that he was a man, to be wholly a father, this poor, +mad, stupid, father Goriot. I know nothing in fiction to surpass the +terrible, unpretending pathos of this scene, nor the power with which +the mistaken benediction given to the two medical students whom he takes +for his daughters, is redeemed from burlesque. + +The scepticism as to _virtue_ in this book is fearful, but the love for +innocence and beautiful instincts casts a softening tint over the gloom. +We never saw any thing sweeter or more natural than the letters of the +mother and sisters of Eugene, when they so delightfully sent him the +money of which he had been wicked enough to plunder them. These traits +of domestic life are given with much grace and delicacy of sentiment. + +How few writers can paint _abandon_, without running into exaggeration! +and here the task was one of peculiar difficulty. It seemed as if the +writer were conscious enough of his power to propose to himself the most +difficult task he could undertake. + +A respectable reviewer in "Les Deux Mondes" would wish us to think that +there is no life in Paris like what Balzac paints; but we can never +believe that: evidently it is "too true," though we doubt not there is +more redemption than he sees. + +But this book was too much for our nerves, and would be, probably, for +those of most people accustomed to breathe a healthier atmosphere. + +Balzac has been a very fruitful writer, and, as he is fond of jugglers' +tricks of every description, and holds nothing earnest or sacred, he is +vain of the wonderful celerity with which some of his works, and those +quite as good as any, have been written. They seem to have been +conceived, composed, and written down with that degree of speed with +which it is possible to lay pen to paper. Indeed, we think he cannot be +surpassed in the ready and sustained command of his resources. His +almost unequalled quickness and fidelity of eye, both as to the +disposition of external objects, and the symptoms of human passion, +combined with a strong memory, have filled his mind with materials, and +we doubt not that if his thoughts could be put into writing with the +swiftness of thought, he would give us one of his novels every week in +the year. + +Here end our praises of Balzac; what he is, as a man, in daily life, we +know not. He must originally have had a heart, or he could not read so +well the hearts of others; perhaps there are still private ties that +touch him. But as a writer, never was the modern Mephistopheles, "the +spirit that denieth," more worthily represented than by Balzac. + +He combines the spirit of the man of science with that of the amateur +collector. He delights to analyze, to classify; there is no anomaly too +monstrous, no specimen too revolting, to insure his ardent but +passionless scrutiny. But then he has taste and judgment to know what is +fair, rare, and exquisite. He takes up such an object carefully, and +puts it in a good light. But he has no hatred for what is loathsome, no +contempt for what is base, no love for what is lovely, no faith in what +is noble. To him there is no virtue and no vice; men and women are more +or less finely organized; noble and tender conduct is more agreeable +than the reverse, because it argues better health; that is all. + +Nor is this from an intellectual calmness, nor from an unusual power of +analyzing motives, and penetrating delusions merely; neither is it mere +indifference. There is a touch of the demon, also, in Balzac, the cold +but gayly familiar demon; and the smile of the amateur yields easily to +a sneer, as he delights to show you on what foul juices the fair flower +was fed. He is a thorough and willing materialist. The trance of +religion is congestion of the brain; the joy of the poet the thrilling +of the blood in the rapture of sense; and every good not only rises +from, but hastens back into, the jaws of death and nothingness; a +rainbow arch above a pestilential chaos! + +Thus Balzac, with all his force and fulness of talent, never rises one +moment into the region of genius. For genius is, in its nature, positive +and creative, and cannot exist where there is no heart to believe in +realities. Neither can he have a permanent influence on a nature which +is not thoroughly corrupt. He might for a while stagger an ingenuous +mind which had not yet thought for itself. But this could not last. His +unbelief makes his thought too shallow. He has not that power which a +mind, only in part sophisticated, may retain, where the heart still +beats warmly, though it sometimes beats amiss. Write, paint, argue, as +you will, where there is a sound spot in any human being, he cannot be +made to believe that this present bodily frame is more than a temporary +condition of his being, though one to which he may have become +shamefully enslaved by fault of inheritance, education, or his own +carelessness. + +Taken in his own way, we know no modern tragedies more powerful than +Balzac's "Eugenie Grandet," "Sweet Pea," "Search after the Absolute," +"Father Goriot." See there goodness, aspiration, the loveliest +instincts, stifled, strangled by fate, in the form of our own brute +nature. The fate of the ancient Prometheus was happiness to that of +these, who must pay, for ever having believed there was divine fire in +heaven, by agonies of despair, and conscious degradation, unknown to +those who began by believing man to be the most richly endowed of +brutes--no more! + +Balzac is admirable in his description of look, tone, gesture. He has a +keen sense of whatever is peculiar to the individual. Nothing in modern +romance surpasses the death-scene of Father Goriot, the Parisian Lear, +in the almost immortal life with which the parental instincts are +displayed. And with equal precision and delicacy of shading he will +paint the slightest by-play in the manners of some young girl. + +"Seraphitus" is merely a specimen of his great powers of intellectual +transposition. Amid his delight at the botanical riches of the new and +elevated region in which he is travelling, we catch, if only by echo, +the hem and chuckle of the French materialist. + +No more of him!--We leave him to his suicidal work. + +It is cheering to know how great is the influence such a writer as Sue +exerts, from his energy of feeling on some subjects of moral interest. +It is true that he has also much talent and a various experience of +life; but writers who far surpass him here, as we think Balzac does, +wanting this heart of faith, have no influence, except merely on the +tastes of their readers. + +We observe, in a late notice of Sue, that he began to write at quite +mature age, at the suggestion of a friend. We should think it was so; +that he was by nature intended for a practical man, rather than a +writer. He paints all his characters from the practical point of view. + +As an observer, when free from exaggeration, he has as good an eye as +Balzac, but he is far more rarely thus free, for, in temperament, he is +unequal and sometimes muddy. But then he has the heart and faith that +Balzac wants, yet is less enslaved by emotion than Sand; therefore he +has made more impression on his time and place than either. We refer now +to his later works; though his earlier show much talent, yet his +progress, both as a writer and thinker, has been so considerable that +those of the last few years entirely eclipse his earlier essays. + +These latter works are the "Mysteries of Paris," "Matilda," and the +"Wandering Jew," which is now in course of publication. In these, he has +begun, and is continuing, a crusade against the evils of a corrupt +civilization which are inflicting such woes and wrongs upon his +contemporaries. + +Sue, however, does not merely assail, but would build up. His anatomy is +not intended to injure the corpse, or, like that of Balzac, to +entertain the intellectual merely. Earnestly he hopes to learn from it +the remedies for disease and the conditions of health. Sue is a +Socialist. He believes he sees the means by which the heart of mankind +may be made to beat with one great hope, one love; and instinct with +this thought, his tales of horror are not tragedies. + +This is the secret of the deep interest he has awakened in this country, +that he shares a hope which is, half unconsciously to herself, stirring +all her veins. It is not so warmly outspoken as in other lands, both +because no such pervasive ills as yet call loudly for redress, and +because private conservatism is here great, in proportion to the absence +of authorized despotism. We are not disposed to quarrel with this; it is +well for the value of new thoughts to be tested by a good deal of +resistance. Opposition, if it does not preclude free discussion, is of +use in educating men to know what they want. Only by intelligent men, +exercised by thought and tried in virtue, can such measures as Sue +proposes be carried out; and when such associates present themselves in +sufficient numbers, we have no fear but the cause of association, in its +grander forms, will have fair play in America. + +As a writer, Sue shows his want of a high kind of imagination by his +unshrinking portraiture of physical horrors. We do not believe any man +could look upon some things he describes and live. He is very powerful +in his description of the workings of animal nature; especially when he +speaks of them in animals merely, they have the simplicity of the lower +kind with the more full expression of human nature. His pictures of +women are of rare excellence, and it is observable that the more simple +and pure the character is, the more justice he does to it. This shows +that, whatever his career may have been, his heart is uncontaminated. +Men he does not describe so well, and fails entirely when he aims at one +grand and simple enough for a great moral agent. His conceptions are +strong, but in execution he is too melodramatic. Just compare _his_ +"Wandering Jew" with that of Beranger. The latter is as diamond compared +with charcoal. Then, like all those writers who write in numbers that +come out weekly or monthly, he abuses himself and his subject; he often +_must_; the arrangement is false and mechanical. + +The attitude of Sue is at this moment imposing, as he stands, pen in +hand,--this his only weapon against an innumerable host of foes,--the +champion of poverty, innocence, and humanity, against superstition, +selfishness, and prejudice. When his works are forgotten,--and for all +their strong points and brilliant decorations, they may ere long be +forgotten,--still the writer's name shall be held in imperishable honor +as the teacher of the ignorant, the guardian of the weak, a true tribune +for the people of his own time. + +One of the most unexceptionable and attractive writers of modern France +is De Vigny. His life has been passed in the army; but many years of +peace have given him time for literary culture, while his acquaintance +with the traditions of the army, from the days of its dramatic +achievements under Bonaparte, supply the finest materials both for +narrative and reflection. His tales are written with infinite grace, +refined sensibility, and a dignified view. His treatment of a subject +shows that closeness of grasp and clearness of sight which are rarely +attained by one who is not at home in active as well as thoughtful life. +He has much penetration, too, and has touched some of the most delicate +springs of human action. His works have been written in hours of +leisure; this has diminished their number, but given him many advantages +over the thousands of professional writers that fill the coffee-houses +of Paris by day, and its garrets by night. We wish he were more read +here in the original; with him would be found good French, and the +manners, thoughts, and feelings of a cosmopolitan gentleman. + +To sum up this imperfect account of the merits of these Novelists: I see +De Vigny, a retiring figure, the gentleman, the solitary thinker, but, +in his way, the efficient foe of false honor and superstitious +prejudice; Balzac is the heartless surgeon, probing the wounds and +describing the delirium of suffering men for the amusement of his +students; Sue, a bold and glittering crusader, with endless ballads +jingling in the silence of the night before the battle. They are all +much right and a good deal wrong; for instance, all who would lay down +their lives for the sake of truth, yet let their virtuous characters +practise stratagems, falsehood, and violence; in fact, do evil for the +sake of good. They still show this taint of the old regime, and no +wonder! La belle France has worn rouge so long that the purest mountain +air will not, at once, or soon, restore the natural hues to her +complexion. But they are fine figures, and all ruled by the onward +spirit of the time. Led by that spirit, I see them moving on the +troubled waters; they do not sink, and I trust they will find their way +to the coasts where the new era will introduce new methods, in a spirit +of nobler activity, wiser patience, and holier faith, than the world has +yet seen. + +Will Balzac also see that shore, or has he only broken away the bars +that hindered others from setting sail? We do not know. When we read an +expression of such lovely innocence as the letter of the little country +maidens to their Parisian brother, (in Father Goriot,) we hope; but +presently we see him sneering behind the mask, and we fear. Let +Frenchmen speak to this question. They know best what disadvantages a +Frenchman suffers under, and whether it is possible Balzac be still +alive, except in his eyes. Those, we know, are quite alive. + +To read these, or any foreign works fairly, the reader must understand +the national circumstances under which they were written. To use them +worthily, he must know how to interpret them for the use of the +universe. + + + + +THE NEW SCIENCE, OR THE PHILOSOPHY OF MESMERISM OR ANIMAL MAGNETISM.[21] + + +Man is always trying to get charts and directions for the super-sensual +element in which he finds himself involuntarily moving. Sometimes, +indeed, for long periods, a life of continual activity in supplying +bodily wants or warding off bodily dangers will make him inattentive to +the circumstances of this other life. Then, in an interval of leisure, +he will start to find himself pervaded by the power of this more subtle +and searching energy, and will turn his thoughts, with new force, to +scrutinize its nature and its promises. + +At such times a corps is formed of workmen, furnished with various +implements for the work. Some collect facts from which they hope to +build up a theory; others propose theories by whose light they hope to +detect valuable facts; a large number are engaged in circulating reports +of these labors; a larger in attempting to prove them invalid and +absurd. These last are of some use by shaking the canker-worms from the +trees; all are of use in elucidating truth. + +Such a course of study has the civilized world been engaged in for some +years back with regard to what is called Animal Magnetism. We say the +civilized world, because, though a large portion of the learned and +intellectual, to say nothing of the thoughtless and the prejudiced, view +such researches as folly, yet we believe that those prescient souls, +those minds more deeply alive, which are the life of this and the +parents of the next era, all, more or less, consciously or +unconsciously, share the belief in such an agent as is understood by the +largest definition of animal magnetism; that is, a means by which +influence and thought may be communicated from one being to another, +independent of the usual organs, and with a completeness and precision +rarely attained through these. + +For ourselves, since we became conscious at all of our connection with +the two forms of being called the spiritual and material, we have +perceived the existence of such an agent, and should have no doubts on +the subject, if we had never heard one human voice in correspondent +testimony with our perceptions. The reality of this agent we know, have +tested some of its phenomena, but of its law and its analysis find +ourselves nearly as ignorant as in earliest childhood. And we must +confess that the best writers we have read seem to us about equally +ignorant. We derive pleasure and profit in very unequal degrees from +their statements, in proportion to their candor, clearness of +perception, severity of judgment, and largeness of view. If they possess +these elements of wisdom, their statements are valuable as affording +materials for the true theory; but theories proposed by them affect us, +as yet, only as partially sustained hypotheses. Too many among them are +stained by faults which must prevent their coming to any valuable +results, sanguine haste, jealous vanity, a lack of that profound +devotion which alone can win Truth from her cold well, careless +classification, abrupt generalizations. We see, as yet, no writer great +enough for the patient investigation, in a spirit liberal yet severely +true, which the subject demands. We see no man of Shakspearian, +Newtonian incapability of deceiving himself or others. + +However, no such man is needed, and we believe that it is pure democracy +to rejoice that, in this department as in others, it is no longer some +one great genius that concentrates within himself the vital energy of +his time. It is many working together who do the work. The waters +spring up in every direction, as little rills, each of which performs +its part. We see a movement corresponding with this in the region of +exact science, and we have no doubt that in the course of fifty years a +new spiritual circulation will be comprehended as clearly as the +circulation of the blood is now. + +In metaphysics, in phrenology, in animal magnetism, in electricity, in +chemistry, the tendency is the same, even when conclusions seem most +dissonant. The mind presses nearer home to the seat of consciousness the +more intimate law and rule of life, and old limits, become fluid beneath +the fire of thought. We are learning much, and it will be a grand music, +that shall be played on this organ of many pipes. + +With regard to Mr. Grimes's book, in the first place, we do not possess +sufficient knowledge of the subject to criticise it thoroughly; and +secondly, if we did, it could not be done in narrow limits. To us his +classification is unsatisfactory, his theory inadequate, his point of +view uncongenial. We disapprove of the spirit in which he criticises +other disciples in this science, who have, we believe, made some good +observations, with many failures, though, like himself, they do not hold +themselves sufficiently lowly as disciples. For we do not believe there +is any man, _yet_, who is entitled to give himself the air of having +taken a degree on this subject. We do not want the tone of qualification +or mincing apology. We want no mock modesty, but its reality, which is +the almost sure attendant on greatness. What a lesson it would be for +this country if a body of men could be at work together in that harmony +which would not fail to ensue on a _disinterested_ love of discovering +truth, and with that patience and exactness in experiment without which +no machine was ever invented worthy a patent! The most superficial, +go-ahead, hit-or-miss American knows that no machine was ever perfected +without this patience and exactness; and let no one hope to achieve +victories in the realm of mind at a cheaper rate than in that of +matter. + +In speaking thus of Mr. Grimes's book, we can still cordially recommend +it to the perusal of our readers. Its statements are full and sincere. +The writer has abilities which only need to be used with more +thoroughness and a higher aim to guide him to valuable attainments. + +In this connection we will relate a passage from personal experience, to +us powerfully expressive of the nature of this higher agent in the +intercourse of minds. + +Some years ago I went, unexpectedly, into a house where a blind girl, +thought at that time to have attained an extraordinary degree of +clairvoyance, lay in a trance of somnambulism. I was not invited there, +nor known to the party, but accompanied a gentleman who was. + +The somnambulist was in a very happy state. On her lips was the +satisfied smile, and her features expressed the gentle elevation +incident to the state. At that time I had never seen any one in it, and +had formed no image or opinion on the subject. I was agreeably impressed +by the somnambulist, but on listening to the details of her observations +on a distant place, I thought she had really no vision, but was merely +led or impressed by the mind of the person who held her hand. + +After a while I was beckoned forward, and my hand given to the blind +girl. The latter instantly dropped it with an expression of pain, and +complained that she should have been brought in contact with a person so +sick, and suffering at that moment under violent nervous headache. This +really was the case, but no one present could have been aware of it. + +After a while the somnambulist seemed penitent and troubled. She asked +again for my hand which she had rejected, and, while holding it, +attempted to magnetize the sufferer. She seemed touched by profound +pity, spoke most intelligently of the disorder of health and its causes, +and gave advice, which, if followed at that time, I have every reason to +believe would have remedied the ill. + +Not only the persons present, but the person advised also, had no +adequate idea then of the extent to which health was affected, nor saw +fully, till some time after, the justice of what was said by the +somnambulist. There is every reason to believe that neither she, nor the +persons who had the care of her, knew even the name of the person whom +she so affectionately wished to help. + +Several years after, in visiting an asylum for the blind, I saw this +same girl seated there. She was no longer a somnambulist, though, from a +nervous disease, very susceptible to magnetic influences. I went to her +among a crowd of strangers, and shook hands with her as several others +had done. I then asked, "Do you not not know me?" She answered, "No." +"Do you not remember ever to have met me?" She tried to recollect, but +still said, "No." I then addressed a few remarks to her about her +situation there, but she seemed preoccupied, and, while I turned to +speak with some one else, wrote with a pencil these words, which she +gave me at parting:-- + + "The ills that Heaven decrees + The brave with courage bear." + +Others may explain this as they will; to me it was a token that the same +affinity that had acted before, gave the same knowledge; for the writer +was at the time ill in the same way as before. It also seemed to +indicate that the somnambulic trance was only a form of the higher +development, the sensibility to more subtle influences--in the terms of +Mr. Grimes, a susceptibility to etherium. The blind girl perhaps never +knew who I was, but saw my true state more clearly than any other person +did, and I have kept those pencilled lines, written in the stiff, round +character proper to the blind, as a talisman of "Credenciveness," as the +book before me styles it. Credulity as the world at large does, and, to +my own mind, as one of the clews granted, during this earthly life, to +the mysteries of future states of being, and more rapid and complete +modes of intercourse between mind and mind. + + + + +DEUTSCHE SCHNELLPOST.[22] + + +The publishers of this interesting and spirited journal have, this year, +begun to issue a weekly paper in addition to their former arrangement. +We regret not to have been able earlier to take some notice of their +prospectus, but an outline of it will be new to most of our readers. + +Their journal has hitherto been intended for German readers in this +country, and has been devoted to topics of European interest, but by the +addition of the Weekly, it hopes to discuss with some fulness those of +American interest also; thus becoming "an organ of communication between +Germans of the old and new home, as to their wants, interests, and +thoughts." These judicious remarks follow:-- + +"The editors do not coincide with those who believe it the vocation of +the immigrant German, by systematic separation from the people who offer +him a new home, by voluntary withdrawal from the unaccustomed, and, +perhaps, for him too vehement stream of their life, in a word, by +obstinate adhesion to the old, to keep inviolate the stamp of his +nationality. + +"Rather is it their faith that it should be the most earnest desire of +the immigrant, not merely to appropriate in form, but to _deserve_ the +rights of a citizen here--rights which we confide in the healthy mind of +the nation to sustain him in, all fanatical opposition to the contrary +notwithstanding. And he must deserve them by becoming an American, not +merely in name, but in deed, not merely by assuming claims, but by +appreciating duties. + +"But while we renounce this narrow and one-sided isolation, desiring to +integrate ourselves, fairly and truly, with the great family that +receives us to its hospitality, we will hold so much the more firmly to +the higher traits of our own race. We hold to the noble jewel of our +native tongue; the memories of our nation's ancient glory; the sympathy +with its future, as yet only glimmering in the dusk; our old, true, +domestic manners; dear inherited customs, that give to the +tranquillities of home their sanctity--to the intercourse between men a +fresh, glad life. + +"So much for our position in general." + +They promise, as to American affairs, "to be just as far as in them +lies, and independent, certainly." + +We think the tone of these remarks truly honorable and right-minded. It +is such a tone that each division of our adopted citizens needs to hear +from those of their compatriots able to guide and enlighten them. We do +want that each nation should preserve what is valuable in its parent +stock. We want all the elements for the new people of the new world. We +want the prudence, the honor, the practical skill of the English; the +fun, the affectionateness, the generosity of the Irish; the vivacity, +the grace, the quick intelligence of the French; the thorough honesty, +the capacity for philosophic view, and deep enthusiasm of the German +Biedermann; the shrewdness and romance of the Scotch,--but we want none +of their prejudices. We want the healthy seed to develop itself into a +different plant in the new climate. We have reason to hope a new and +generous race, where the Italian meets the German, the Swede, the Jew. +Let nothing be obliterated, but all be regenerated; let each leader say +in like manner to his band. Apply the old loyalty to a study of new +duties. Examine yourself whether you are worthy of the new rights so +freely bestowed upon you, and recognize that only intelligent action, +and not mere bodily presence, can make you really a citizen on any soil. +It is a glorious boon offered you to be a founder of the new dynasty in +the new world; but it would have been better for you to have died a +thousand deaths beneath the factory wheels of England, or in the prisons +of Russia, than to sell this great privilege for selfish or servile +ends. Here each man has before him the choice of Esau--each may defraud +a long succession of souls of their princely inheritance. + +Do those whose bodies were born upon this soil reject you, and claim for +themselves the name of natives? You may be natives, in another sort, for +the soul may be re-born here. Cast for yourselves a new nativity, and +invoke the starry influences that do not fail to shine into the life of +a good man, whose heart is kept open daily to truth in every new form, +whose heart is strengthened by a desire to do his duty valiantly to +every brother of the human family. Offer upon the soil a libation of +worthy feelings in gratitude for the bread it so willingly yields you, +and it is true that the "healthy mind of the nation" cannot long fail to +greet you with joy, and hail your endowment with civic rights. + +We must think there is a deep root, in fact, for the late bitter +expressions of prejudice, however unworthy the mode of exhibiting them, +against the foreign element in our population. We want all this new +blood, but we want it purified, assimilated, or it will take all form of +comeliness from the growing nation. Our country is a willing foster +mother, but her children need wise tutors to prevent them from playing, +willingly or unwillingly, the viper's part. + +There is a little poem in the Schnellpost, by Moritz Hartmann, called +the "Three,"--which would be a forcible appeal, if any were needed, in +behalf of all who are exiled from their native soil. We translate it +into prose, and this will not spoil it, as its poetry lies in the +situation. + +"In a tavern of Hungary are sitting together Three who have taken +refuge there from storm and darkness--in Hungary, where the wind of +chance drives together the children of many a land. + +"Their eyes glow with fires of various light; their locks are unlike in +their flow; but their hearts--their wounded hearts--are urns filled with +the tears of a common grief. + +"One cries, 'Silent companions! Shall we have no toast to cheer our +meeting? I offer you one which you cannot fail to pledge--Freedom and +greatness to the Fatherland! + +"'To the fatherland! But I am one that knows not where is his; I am a +Gypsy; my fatherland lies in the realm of tradition--in the mournful +tone of the violin swelled by grief and storm. + +"'I pass musing over heath and moor, and think of my painful losses. Yet +long since was I weaned from desire of a home, and think of Egypt but as +the cymbal sounds.' + +"The second says, 'This toast of fatherland I will not drink; mine own +shame should I pledge. For the seed of Jacob flies like the dried leaf, +and takes no root in the dust of slavery.' + +"The lips of the third seem frozen at the edge of his goblet. He asks +himself in silence, 'Shall _I_ drink to the fatherland? Lives Poland +yet, or is all life departed, and am I, like these, a motherless son?'" + +To those and others who, if they still had homes, could not live there, +without starving body and soul, may our land be a fatherland; and may +they seek and learn to act as children in a father's house! + +A foreign correspondent of the Schnellpost, having, it seems, been +reproved by some friends on the safe side of the water for the violence +of his attack on crowned heads, and other dilettanti, defends himself +with great spirit, and argues his case well from his own point of view. +We do not agree with him as to the use of methods, but cannot fail to +sympathize in his feeling. + +Anecdotes of Russian proceedings towards delinquents are well associated +with one anecdote quoted of Peter, who yet was truly the Great. In a +foreign city, seeing the gallows, he asked the use of that +three-cornered thing. Being told, to hang people on, he requested that +one might be hung for him, directly. Being told this, unfortunately, +could not be done, as there was no criminal under sentence, he desired +that one of his own retinue might be made use of. Probably he did this +with no further thought than the Empress Catharine bestowed, on having a +ship of the line blown up, as a model for the painter who was to adorn +her palace with pictures of naval battles. Disregard for human life and +human happiness is not confined to the Russian snows, or the eastern +hemisphere; it may be found on every side, though, indeed, not on a +scale so imperial. + + + + +OLIVER CROMWELL.[23] + + +A long expectation is rewarded at last by the appearance of this book. +We cannot wonder that it should have been long, when Mr. Carlyle shows +us what a world of ill-arranged and almost worthless materials he has +had to wade through before achieving any possibility of order and +harmony for his narrative. + +The method which he has chosen of letting the letters and speeches of +Cromwell tell the story when possible, only himself doing what is +needful to throw light where it is most wanted and fill up gaps, is an +excellent one. Mr. Carlyle, indeed, is a most peremptory showman, and +with each slide of his magic lantern informs us not only of what is +necessary to enable us to understand it, but _how_ we must look at it, +under peril of being ranked as "imbeciles," "canting sceptics," +"disgusting rose-water philanthropists," and the like. And aware of his +power of tacking a nickname or ludicrous picture to any one who refuses +to obey, we might perhaps feel ourselves, if in his neighborhood, under +such constraint and fear of deadly laughter, as to lose the benefit of +having under our eye to form our judgment upon the same materials on +which he formed his. + +But the ocean separates us, and the showman has his own audience of +despised victims, or scarce less despised pupils; and we need not fear +to be handed down to posterity as "a little gentleman in a gray coat" +"shrieking" unutterable "imbecilities," or with the like damnatory +affixes, when we profess that, having read the book, and read the +letters and speeches thus far, we cannot submit to the showman's +explanation of the lantern, but must, more than ever, stick to the old +"Philistine," "Dilettante," "Imbecile," and what not view of the +character of Cromwell. + +We all know that to Mr. Carlyle greatness is well nigh synonymous with +virtue, and that he has shown himself a firm believer in Providence by +receiving the men of destiny as always entitled to reverence. Sometimes +a great success has followed the portraits painted by him in the light +of such faith, as with regard to Mahomet, for instance. The natural +autocrat is his delight, and in such pictures as that of the monk in +"Past and Present," where the geniuses of artist and subject coincide, +the result is no less delightful for us. + +But Mr. Carlyle reminds us of the man in a certain parish who had always +looked up to one of its squires as a secure and blameless idol, and one +day in church, when the minister asked "all who felt in concern for +their souls to rise," looked to the idol and seeing him retain his seat, +(asleep perchance!) sat still also. One of his friends asking him +afterwards how he could refuse to answer such an appeal, he replied, "he +thought it safest to stay with the squire." + +Mr. Carlyle's squires are all Heaven's justices of peace or war, +(usually the latter;) they are beings of true energy and genius, and so +far, as he describes them, "genuine men." But in doubtful cases, where +the doubt is between them and principles, he will insist that the men +must be in the right. On such occasions he favors us with such doctrine +as the following, which we confess we had the weakness to read with +"sibylline execration" and extreme disgust. + +Speaking of Cromwell's course in Ireland:-- + +"Oliver's proceedings here have been the theme of much loud criticism, +sibylline execration, into which it is not our plan to enter at present. +We shall give these fifteen letters of his in a mass, and without any +commentary whatever. To those who think that a land overrun with +sanguinary quacks can be healed by sprinkling it with rose-water, these +letters must be very horrible. Terrible surgery this; but _is_ it +surgery and judgment, or atrocious murder merely? This is a question +which should be asked; and answered. Oliver Cromwell did believe in +God's judgments; and did not believe in the rose-water plan of +surgery,--which, in fact, is this editor's case too! Every idle lie and +piece of empty bluster this editor hears, he too, like Oliver, has to +shudder at it; has to think, 'Thou, idle bluster, not true, thou also +art shutting men's minds against God's fact; thou wilt issue as a cleft +crown to some poor man some day; thou also wilt have to take shelter in +bogs, whither cavalry cannot follow!' But in Oliver's time, as I say, +there was still belief in the judgments of God; in Oliver's time, there +was yet no distracted jargon of 'abolishing capital punishments,' of +Jean-Jacques philanthropy, and universal rose-water in this world still +so full of sin. Men's notion was, not for abolishing punishments, but +for making laws just. God the Maker's laws, they considered, had not yet +got the punishment abolished from them! Men had a notion that the +difference between good and evil was still considerable--equal to the +difference between heaven and hell. It was a true notion, which all men +yet saw, and felt, in all fibres of their existence, to be true. Only in +late decadent generations, fast hastening toward radical change or final +perdition, can such indiscriminate mashing up of good and evil into one +universal patent treacle, and most unmedical electuary, of Rousseau +sentimentalism, universal pardon and benevolence, with dinner and drink +and one cheer more, take effect in our earth. Electuary very poisonous, +as sweet as it is, and very nauseous; of which Oliver, happier than we, +had not yet heard the slightest intimation even in dreams. + + * * * * * + +"In fact, Oliver's dialect is rude and obsolete; the phrases of Oliver, +to him solemn on the perilous battle field as voices of God, have become +to us most mournful when spouted as frothy cant from Exeter Hall. The +reader has, all along, to make steady allowance for that. And on the +whole, clear recognition will be difficult for him. To a poor slumberous +canting age, mumbling to itself every where, Peace, peace, when there is +no peace,--such a phenomena as Oliver, in Ireland or elsewhere, is not +the most recognizable in all its meanings. But it waits there for +recognition, and can wait an age or two. The memory of Oliver Cromwell, +as I count, has a good many centuries in it yet; and ages of very varied +complexion to apply to, before all end. My reader, in this passage and +others, shall make of it what he can. + +"But certainly, at lowest, here is a set of military despatches of the +most unexampled nature! Most rough, unkempt; shaggy as the Numidian +lion. A style rugged as crags; coarse, drossy: yet with a meaning in it, +an energy, a depth; pouring on like a fire torrent; perennial _fire_ of +it visible athwart all drosses and defacements; not uninteresting to +see! This man has come into distracted Ireland with a God's truth in the +heart of him, though an unexpected one; the first such man they have +seen for a great while indeed. He carries acts of Parliament, laws of +earth and heaven, in one hand; drawn sword in the other. He addresses +the bewildered Irish populations, the black ravening coil of sanguinary +blustering individuals at Tredah and elsewhere: 'Sanguinary, blustering +individuals, whose word is grown worthless as the barking of dogs; whose +very thought is false, representing no fact, but the contrary of +fact--behold, I am come to speak and to do the truth among you. Here are +acts in Parliament, methods of regulation and veracity, emblems the +nearest we poor Puritans could make them of God's law-book, to which it +is and shall be our perpetual effort to make them correspond nearer and +nearer. Obey them, help us to perfect them, be peaceable and true under +them, it shall be well with you. Refuse to obey them, I will not let +you continue living! As articulate speaking veracious orderly men, not +as a blustering, murderous kennel of dogs run rabid, shall you continue +in this earth. Choose!' They chose to disbelieve him; could not +understand that he, more than the others, meant any truth or justice to +them. They rejected his summons and terms at Tredah; he stormed the +place; and, according to his promise, put every man of the garrison to +death. His own soldiers are forbidden to plunder, by paper proclamation; +and in ropes of authentic hemp, they are hanged when they do it. To +Wexford garrison, the like terms as at Tredah; and, failing these, the +like storm. Here is a man whose word represents a thing! Not bluster +this, and false jargon scattering itself to the winds; what this man +speaks out of him comes to pass as a fact; speech with this man is +accurately prophetic of deed. This is the first king's face poor Ireland +ever saw; the first friend's face, _little as it recognizes him_--poor +Ireland!" + +Yes, Cromwell had force and sagacity to get that done which he had +resolved to get done; and this is the whole truth about your admiration, +Mr. Carlyle. Accordingly, at Drogheda quoth Cromwell,-- + +"I believe we put to sword the whole number of the defendants. * * +Indeed, being in the heat of action, I forbade them to spare any that +were in arms in the town; and I think that night they put to the sword +about two thousand men, divers of the officers and soldiers being fled +over the bridge into the other part of the town; and where about one +hundred of them possessed St. Peter's Church, steeple, &c. These, being +summoned to yield to mercy, refused. Whereupon I ordered the steeple of +St. Peter's Church to be fired; when one of them was heard to say, in +the midst of the flames, 'God confound me! I burn, I burn!' + +"I am persuaded that this is a righteous judgment of God upon these +barbarous wretches who have imbrued their hands in so much innocent +blood; and that it will tend to prevent the effusion of blood for the +future. Which are the satisfactory grounds to such actions, which +otherwise cannot but work remorse and regret. * * This hath been an +exceeding great mercy." + +Certainly one not of the rose-water or treacle kind. Mr. Carlyle says +such measures "cut to the heart of the war," and brought peace. Was +there _then_ no crying of Peace, Peace, when there was no peace? Ask the +Irish peasantry why they mark that period with the solemn phrase of +"Cromwell's Curse!" + +For ourselves, though aware of the mistakes and errors in particulars +that must occur, we believe the summing up of a man's character in the +verdict of his time, is likely to be correct. We believe that Cromwell +was "a curse," as much as a blessing, in these acts of his. We believe +him ruthless, ambitious, half a hypocrite, (few men have courage or want +of soul to bear being wholly so,) and we think it is rather too bad to +rave at us in our time for canting, and then hold up the prince of +canters for our reverence in his "dimly seen nobleness." Dimly, indeed, +despite the rhetoric and satire of Mr. Carlyle! + +In previous instances where Mr. Carlyle has acted out his +predeterminations as to the study of a character, we have seen +circumstances favor him, at least sometimes. There were fine moments, +fine lights upon the character that he would seize upon. But here the +facts look just as they always have. He indeed ascertains that the +Cromwell family were not mere brewers or plebeians, but "substantial +gentry," and that there is not the least ground for the common notion +that Cromwell lived at any time a dissolute life. But with the exception +of these emendations, still the history looks as of old. We see a man of +strong and wise mind, educated by the pressure of great occasions to +station of command; we see him wearing the religious garb which was the +custom of the times, and even preaching to himself as well as to +others--for well can we imagine that his courage and his pride would +have fallen without keeping up the illusion; but we never see Heaven +answering his invocations in any way that can interfere with the rise of +his fortunes or the accomplishment of his plans. To ourselves, the tone +of these religious holdings-forth is sufficiently expressive; they all +ring hollow; we have never read any thing of the sort more repulsive to +us than the letter to Mr. Hammond, which Mr. Carlyle thinks such a noble +contrast to the impiety of the present time. Indeed, we cannot recover +from our surprise at Mr. Carlyle's liking these letters; his +predetermination must have been strong indeed. Again, we see Cromwell +ruling with the strong arm, and carrying the spirit of monarchy to an +excess which no Stuart could surpass. Cromwell, indeed, is wise, and the +king he had punished with death is foolish; Charles is faithless, and +Cromwell crafty; we see no other difference. Cromwell does not, in +power, abide by the principles that led him to it; and we can't help--so +rose-water imbecile are we!--admiring those who do: one Lafayette, for +instance--poor chevalier so despised by Mr. Carlyle--for abiding by his +principles, though impracticable, more than Louis Philippe, who laid +them aside, so far as necessary, "to secure peace to the kingdom;" and +to us it looks black for one who kills kings to grow to be more kingly +than a king. + +The death of Charles I. was a boon to the world, for it marked the dawn +of a new era, when kings, in common with other men, are to be held +accountable by God and mankind for what they do. Many who took part in +this act which _did_ require a courage and faith almost unparalleled, +were, no doubt, moved by the noblest sense of duty. We doubt not this +had its share in the bosom counsels of Cromwell. But we cannot +sympathize with the apparent satisfaction of Mr. Carlyle in seeing him +engaged, two days after the execution, in marriage treaty for his son. +This seems more ruthlessness than calmness. One who devoted so many days +to public fasting and prayer, on less occasions, might well make solemn +pause on this. Mr. Carlyle thinks much of some pleasant domestic letters +from Cromwell. What brigand, what pirate, fails to have some such soft +and light feelings? + +In short, we have no time to say all we think; but we stick to the +received notions of Old Noll, with his great, red nose, hard heart, long +head, and crafty ambiguities. Nobody ever doubted his great abilities +and force of will; neither doubt we that he was made an "instrument" +just as he professeth. But as to looking on him through Mr. Carlyle's +glasses, we shall not be sneered or stormed into it, unless he has other +proof to offer than is shown yet. And we resent the violence he offers +both to our prejudices and our perceptions. If he has become interested +in Oliver, or any other pet hyena, by studying his habits, is that any +reason we should admit him to our Pantheon? No! our imbecility shall +keep fast the door against any thing short of proofs that in the hyena a +god is incarnated. Mr. Carlyle declares that he sees it, but we really +cannot. The hyena is surely not out of the kingdom of God, but as to +being the finest emblem of what is divine--no, no! + +In short, we can sympathize with the words of John Maidstone:-- + +"He [Cromwell] was a strong man in the dark perils of war; in the high +places of the field, hope shone in him like a pillar of fire, when it +had gone out in the others"--a poetic and sufficient account of the +secret of his power. + +But Mr. Carlyle goes on to gild the refined gold thus:-- + +"A genuine king among men, Mr. Maidstone! The divinest sight this world +sees, when it is privileged to see such, and not be sickened with the +unholy apery of such." + +We know you do with all your soul love kings and heroes, Mr. Carlyle, +but we are not sure you would always know the Sauls from the Davids. We +fear, if you had the disposal of the holy oil, you would be tempted to +pour it on the head of him who is taller by the head than all his +brethren, without sufficient care as to purity of inward testimony. + +Such is the impression left on us by the book thus far, as to the view +of its hero; but as to what difficulties attended the writing the +history of Cromwell, the reader will like to see what Mr. Carlyle +himself says:-- + +"These authentic utterances of the man Oliver himself--I have gathered +them from far and near; fished them up from the foul Lethean quagmires +where they lay buried; I have washed, or endeavored to wash, them clean +from foreign stupidities, (such a job of buck-washing as I do not long +to repeat;) and the world shall now see them in their own shape." + +For the rest, this book is of course entertaining, witty, dramatic, +picturesque; all traits that are piquant, many that have profound +interest, are brought out better than new. The "letters and speeches" +are put into readable state, and this alone is a great benefit. They are +a relief after Mr. Carlyle's high-seasoned writing; and this again is a +relief after their long-winded dimnesses. Most of the heroic anecdotes +of the time had been used up before, but they lose nothing in the hands +of Carlyle; and pictures of the scenes, such as of Naseby fight, for +instance, it was left to him to give. We have passed over the hackneyed +ground attended by a torch-bearer, who has given a new animation to the +procession of events, and cast a ruddy glow on many a striking +physiognomy. That any truth of high value has been brought to light, we +do not perceive--certainly nothing has been added to our own sense of +the greatness of the times, nor any new view presented that we can +adopt, as to the position and character of the agents. + +We close with the only one of Cromwell's letters that we really like. +Here his religious words and his temper seem quite sincere. + + "_To my loving Brother, Colonel Valentine Walton: These._ + + July, 1644. + + "DEAR SIR: It's our duty to sympathize in all mercies; and to + praise the Lord together in chastisements or trials, so that we may + sorrow together. + + "Truly England and the church of God hath had a great favor from + the Lord, in this great victory given unto us, such as the like + never was since this war began. It had all the evidences of an + absolute victory obtained by the Lord's blessing upon the godly + party principally. We never charged but we routed the enemy. The + left wing, which I commanded, being our own horse, saving a few + Scots in our rear, beat all the prince's horse. God make them as + stubble to our swords. We charged their regiments of foot with our + horse, and routed all we charged. The particulars I cannot relate + now; but I believe, of twenty thousand, the prince hath not four + thousand left. Give glory, all the glory, to God. + + "Sir, God hath taken away your eldest son by a cannon-shot. It + brake his leg. We were necessitated to have it cut off, whereof he + died. + + "Sir, you know my own trials this way;[24] but the Lord supported + me with this, that the Lord took him into the happiness we all pant + for and live for. There is your precious child, full of glory, + never to know sin or sorrow any more. He was a gallant young man, + exceedingly gracious. God give you his comfort. Before his death he + was so full of comfort, that to Frank Russel and myself he could + not express it, 'it was so great above his pain.' This he said to + us. Indeed it was admirable. A little after, he said one thing lay + upon his spirit. I asked him what that was. He told me it was, that + God had not suffered him to be any more the executioner of his + enemies. At his fall, his horse being killed with the bullet, and, + as I am informed, three horses more, I am told he bid them open to + the right and left, that he might see the rogues run. Truly he was + exceedingly beloved in the army, of all that knew him. But few knew + him; for he was a precious young man, fit for God. You have cause + to bless the Lord. He is a glorious saint in heaven; wherein you + ought exceedingly to rejoice. Let this drink up your sorrow: seeing + these are not feigned words to comfort you, but the thing is so + real and undoubted a truth. You may do all things by the strength + of Christ. Seek that, and you shall easily bear your trial. Let + this public mercy to the church of God make you to forget your + private sorrow. The Lord be your strength; so prays + + "Your truly faithful and loving brother, + "OLIVER CROMWELL." + + + +And add this noble passage, in which Carlyle speaks of the morbid +affection of Cromwell's mind:-- + +"In those years it must be that Dr. Simcott, physician in Huntingdon, +had to do with Oliver's hypochondriac maladies. He told Sir Philip +Warwick, unluckily specifying no date, or none that has survived, 'he +had often been sent for at midnight;' Mr. Cromwell for many years was +very 'splenetic,' (spleen-struck,) often thought he was just about to +die, and also 'had fancies about the Town Cross.'[25] Brief intimation, +of which the reflective reader may make a great deal. Samuel Johnson too +had hypochondrias; all great souls are apt to have; and to be in thick +darkness generally, till the eternal ways and the celestial guiding +stars disclose themselves, and the vague abyss of life knit itself up +into firmaments for them. The temptations in the wilderness, choices of +Hercules, and the like, in succinct or loose form, are appointed for +every man that will assert a soul in himself and be a man. Let Oliver +take comfort in his dark sorrows and melancholies. The quantity of +sorrow he has, does it not mean withal the quantity of _sympathy_ he +has, the quantity of faculty and victory he shall yet have? 'Our sorrow +is the inverted image of our nobleness.' The depth of our despair +measures what capability, and height of claim, we have to hope. Black +smoke as of Tophet filling all your universe, it can yet by true +heart-energy become _flame_, and brilliancy of heaven. Courage!" + +Were the flame but a pure as well as a bright flame! Sometimes we know +the black phantoms change to white angel forms; the vulture is +metamorphosed into a dove. Was it so in this instance? Unlike Mr. +Carlyle, we are willing to let each reader judge for himself; but +perhaps we should not be so generous if we had studied ourselves sick in +wading through all that mass of papers, and had nothing to defend us +against the bitterness of biliousness, except a growing enthusiasm about +our hero. + + + + +EMERSON'S ESSAYS[26] + + +At the distance of three years this volume follows the first series of +Essays, which have already made to themselves a circle of readers, +attentive, thoughtful, more and more intelligent; and this circle is a +large one if we consider the circumstances of this country, and of +England also, at this time. + +In England it would seem there are a larger number of persons waiting +for an invitation to calm thought and sincere intercourse than among +ourselves. Copies of Mr. Emerson's first published little volume called +"Nature," have there been sold by thousands in a short time, while one +edition has needed seven years to get circulated here. Several of his +orations and essays from the "Dial" have also been republished there, +and met with a reverent and earnest response. + +We suppose that while in England the want of such a voice is as great as +here, a larger number are at leisure to recognize that want; a far +larger number have set foot in the speculative region, and have ears +refined to appreciate these melodious accents. + +Our people, heated by a partisan spirit, necessarily occupied in these +first stages by bringing out the material resources of the land, not +generally prepared by early training for the enjoyment of books that +require attention and reflection, are still more injured by a large +majority of writers and speakers, who lend all their efforts to flatter +corrupt tastes and mental indolence, instead of feeling it their +prerogative and their duty to admonish the community of the danger and +arouse it to nobler energy. The plan of the popular writer or lecturer +is not to say the best he knows in as few and well-chosen words as he +can, making it his first aim to do justice to the subject. Rather he +seeks to beat out a thought as thin as possible, and to consider what +the audience will be most willing to receive. + +The result of such a course is inevitable. Literature and art must +become daily more degraded; philosophy cannot exist. A man who feels +within his mind some spark of genius, or a capacity for the exercises of +talent, should consider himself as endowed with a sacred commission. He +is the natural priest, the shepherd of the people. He must raise his +mind as high as he can towards the heaven of truth, and try to draw up +with him those less gifted by nature with ethereal lightness. If he does +not so, but rather employs his powers to flatter them in their poverty, +and to hinder aspiration by useless words, and a mere seeming of +activity, his sin is great; he is false to God, and false to man. + +Much of this sin indeed is done ignorantly. The idea that literature +calls men to the genuine hierarchy is almost forgotten. One, who finds +himself able, uses his pen, as he might a trowel, solely to procure +himself bread, without having reflected on the position in which he +thereby places himself. + +Apart from the troop of mercenaries, there is one, still larger, of +those who use their powers merely for local and temporary ends, aiming +at no excellence other than may conduce to these. Among these rank +persons of honor and the best intentions; but they neglect the lasting +for the transient, as a man neglects to furnish his mind that he may +provide the better for the house in which his body is to dwell for a few +years. + +At a period when these sins and errors are prevalent, and threaten to +become more so, how can we sufficiently prize and honor a mind which is +quite pure from such? When, as in the present case, we find a man whose +only aim is the discernment and interpretation of the spiritual laws by +which we live, and move, and have our being, all whose objects are +permanent, and whose every word stands for a fact. + +If only as a representative of the claims of individual culture in a +nation which is prone to lay such stress on artificial organization and +external results, Mr. Emerson would be invaluable here. History will +inscribe his name as a father of his country, for he is one who pleads +her cause against herself. + +If New England may be regarded as a chief mental focus to the New +World,--and many symptoms seem to give her this place,--as to other +centres belong the characteristics of heart and lungs to the body +politic; if we may believe, as we do believe, that what is to be acted +out, in the country at large, is, most frequently, first indicated +there, as all the phenomena of the nervous system are in the fantasies +of the brain, we may hail as an auspicious omen the influence Mr. +Emerson has there obtained, which is deep-rooted, increasing, and, over +the younger portion of the community, far greater than that of any other +person. + +His books are received there with a more ready intelligence than +elsewhere, partly because his range of personal experience and +illustration applies to that region; partly because he has prepared the +way for his books to be read by his great powers as a speaker. + +The audience that waited for years upon the lectures, a part of which is +incorporated into these volumes of Essays, was never large, but it was +select, and it was constant. Among the hearers were some, who, though, +attracted by the beauty of character and manner, they were willing to +hear the speaker through, yet always went away discontented. They were +accustomed to an artificial method, whose scaffolding could easily be +retraced, and desired an obvious sequence of logical inferences. They +insisted there was nothing in what they had heard, because they could +not give a clear account of its course and purport. They did not see +that Pindar's odes might be very well arranged for their own purpose, +and yet not bear translating into the methods of Mr. Locke. + +Others were content to be benefited by a good influence, without a +strict analysis of its means. "My wife says it is about the elevation of +human nature, and so it seems to me," was a fit reply to some of the +critics. Many were satisfied to find themselves excited to congenial +thought and nobler life, without an exact catalogue of the thoughts of +the speaker. + +Those who believed no truth could exist, unless encased by the burrs of +opinion, went away utterly baffled. Sometimes they thought he was on +their side; then presently would come something on the other. He really +seemed to believe there were two sides to every subject, and even to +intimate higher ground, from which each might be seen to have an +infinite number of sides or bearings, an impertinence not to be endured! +The partisan heard but once, and returned no more. + +But some there were,--simple souls,--whose life had been, perhaps, +without clear light, yet still a-search after truth for its own sake, +who were able to receive what followed on the suggestion of a subject in +a natural manner, as a stream of thought. These recognized, beneath the +veil of words, the still small voice of conscience, the vestal fires of +lone religious hours, and the mild teachings of the summer woods. + +The charm of the elocution, too, was great. His general manner was that +of the reader, occasionally rising into direct address or invocation in +passages where tenderness or majesty demanded more energy. At such times +both eye and voice called on a remote future to give a worthy reply,--a +future which shall manifest more largely the universal soul as it was +then manifest to this soul. The tone of the voice was a grave body tone, +full and sweet rather than sonorous, yet flexible, and haunted by many +modulations, as even instruments of wood and brass seem to become after +they have been long played on with skill and taste; how much more so the +human voice! In the more expressive passages it uttered notes of +silvery clearness, winning, yet still more commanding. The words uttered +in those tones floated a while above us, then took root in the memory +like winged seed. + +In the union of an even rustic plainness with lyric inspirations, +religious dignity with philosophic calmness, keen sagacity in details +with boldness of view, we saw what brought to mind the early poets and +legislators of Greece--men who taught their fellows to plough and avoid +moral evil, sing hymns to the gods, and watch the metamorphoses of +nature. Here in civic Boston was such a man--one who could see man in +his original grandeur and his original childishness, rooted in simple +nature, raising to the heavens the brow and eyes of a poet. + +And these lectures seemed not so much lectures as grave didactic poems, +theogonies, perhaps, adorned by odes when some power was in question +whom the poet had best learned to serve, and with eclogues wisely +portraying in familiar tongue the duties of man to man and "harmless +animals." + +Such was the attitude in which the speaker appeared to that portion of +the audience who have remained permanently attached to him. They value +his words as the signets of reality; receive his influence as a help and +incentive to a nobler discipline than the age, in its general aspect, +appears to require; and do not fear to anticipate the verdict of +posterity in claiming for him the honors of greatness, and, in some +respects, of a master. + +In New England Mr. Emerson thus formed for himself a class of readers +who rejoice to study in his books what they already know by heart. For, +though the thought has become familiar, its beautiful garb is always +fresh and bright in hue. + +A similar circle of "like-minded" persons the books must and do form for +themselves, though with a movement less directly powerful, as more +distant from its source. + +The Essays have also been obnoxious to many charges; to that of +obscurity, or want of perfect articulation; of "euphuism," as an excess +of fancy in proportion to imagination; and an inclination, at times, to +subtlety at the expense of strength, have been styled. The human heart +complains of inadequacy, either in the nature or experience of the +writer, to represent its full vocation and its deeper needs. Sometimes +it speaks of this want as "under development," or a want of expansion +which may yet be remedied; sometimes doubts whether "in this mansion +there be either hall or portal to receive the loftier of the passions." +Sometimes the soul is deified at the expense of nature, then again +nature at that of man; and we are not quite sure that we can make a true +harmony by balance of the statements. This writer has never written one +good work, if such a work be one where the whole commands more attention +than the parts, or if such a one be produced only where, after an +accumulation of materials, fire enough be applied to fuse the whole into +one new substance. This second series is superior in this respect to the +former; yet in no one essay is the main stress so obvious as to produce +on the mind the harmonious effect of a noble river or a tree in full +leaf. Single passages and sentences engage our attention too much in +proportion. These Essays, it has been justly said, tire like a string of +mosaics or a house built of medals. We miss what we expect in the work +of the great poet, or the great philosopher--the liberal air of all the +zones; the glow, uniform yet various in tint, which is given to a body +by free circulation of the heart's blood from the hour of birth. Here +is, undoubtedly, the man of ideas; but we want the ideal man also--want +the heart and genius of human life to interpret it; and here our +satisfaction is not so perfect. We doubt this friend raised himself too +early to the perpendicular, and did not lie along the ground long enough +to hear the secret whispers of our parent life. We could wish he might +be thrown by conflicts on the lap of mother earth, to see if he would +not rise again with added powers. + +All this we may say, but it cannot excuse us from benefiting by the +great gifts that have been given, and assigning them their due place. + +Some painters paint on a red ground. And this color may be supposed to +represent the groundwork most immediately congenial to most men, as it +is the color of blood, and represents human vitality. The figures traced +upon it are instinct with life in its fulness and depth. + +But other painters paint on a gold ground. And a very different, but no +less natural, because also a celestial beauty, is given to their works +who choose for their foundation the color of the sunbeam, which Nature +has preferred for her most precious product, and that which will best +bear the test of purification--gold. + +If another simile may be allowed, another no less apt is at hand. Wine +is the most brilliant and intense expression of the powers of earth. It +is her potable fire, her answer to the sun. It exhilarates, it inspires, +but then it is liable to fever and intoxicate, too, the careless +partaker. + +Mead was the chosen drink of the northern gods. And this essence of the +honey of the mountain bee was not thought unworthy to revive the souls +of the valiant who had left their bodies on the fields of strife below. + +Nectar should combine the virtues of the ruby wine, the golden mead, +without their defects or dangers. + +Two high claims on the attention of his contemporaries our writer can +vindicate. One from his sincerity. You have his thought just as it found +place in the life of his own soul. Thus, however near or relatively +distant its approximation to absolute truth, its action on you cannot +fail to be healthful. It is a part of the free air. + +Emerson belongs to that band of whom there may be found a few in every +age, and who now in known human history may be counted by hundreds, who +worship the one God only, the God of Truth. They worship, not saints, +nor creeds, nor churches, nor reliques, nor idols in any form. The mind +is kept open to truth, and life only valued as a tendency towards it. +This must be illustrated by acts and words of love, purity and +intelligence. Such are the salt of the earth; let the minutest crystal +of that salt be willingly by us held in solution. + +The other claim is derived from that part of his life, which, if +sometimes obstructed or chilled by the critical intellect, is yet the +prevalent and the main source of his power. It is that by which he +imprisons his hearer only to free him again as a "liberating God," (to +use his own words.) But, indeed, let us use them altogether, for none +other, ancient or modern, can more worthily express how, making present +to us the courses and destinies of nature, he invests himself with her +serenity and animates us with her joy. + +"Poetry was all written before time was; and whenever we are so finely +organized that we can penetrate into that region where the air is music, +we hear those primal warblings, and attempt to write them down, but we +lose ever and anon a word or a verse, and substitute something of our +own, and thus miswrite the poem. The men of more delicate ear write down +these cadences more faithfully, and these transcripts, though imperfect, +become the songs of the nations." + +Thus have we, in a brief and unworthy manner, indicated some views of +these books. The only true criticism of these or any good books may be +gained by making them the companions of our lives. Does every accession +of knowledge or a juster sense of beauty make us prize them more? Then +they are good, indeed, and more immortal than mortal. Let that test be +applied to these Essays which will lead to great and complete +poems--somewhere. + + + + +CAPITAL PUNISHMENT.[27] + + +We have had this book before us for several weeks, but the task of +reading it has been so repulsive that we have been obliged to get +through it by short stages, with long intervals of rest and refreshment +between, and have only just reached the end. We believe, however, we are +now possessed of its substance, so far as it is possible to admit into +any mind matter wholly uncongenial with its structure, its faith, and +its hope. + +Meanwhile others have shown themselves more energetic in the task, and +notices have appeared that express, in part, our own views. Among others +an able critic has thus summed up his impressions:-- + +"Of the whole we will say briefly, that its premises are monstrous, its +reasoning sophistical, its conclusions absurd, and its spirit diabolic." + +We know not that we can find a better scheme of arrangement for what we +have to say than by dividing it into sections under these four heads:-- + +1st. The premises are monstrous. Here we must add the qualification, +they are monstrous _to us_. The God of these writers is not the God we +recognize; the views they have of human nature are antipodal to ours. We +believe in a Creative Spirit, the essense of whose being is Love. He has +created men in the spirit of love, intending to develop them to perfect +harmony with himself. He has permitted the temporary existence of evil +as a condition necessary to bring out in them free agency and +individuality of character. Punishment is the necessary result of a bad +choice in them; it is not meant by him as vengeance, but as an +admonition to choose better. Man is not born totally evil; he is born +capable both of good and evil, and the Holy Spirit in working on him +only quickens the soul already there to know its Father. To one who +takes such views the address of Jesus becomes intelligible--"Be ye +therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful." "For with the same +measure that ye mete withal, it shall be measured to you again." + +Those who take these views of the relation between God and man must +naturally tend to have punishment consist as much as possible in the +inward spiritual results of faults, rather than a violent outward +enforcement of penalty. They must, so far as possible, seek to revere +God by showing themselves brotherly to man; and if they wish to obey +Christ, will not forget that he came especially to call _sinners_ to +repentance. + +The views of these writers are the opposite of all this. We need not +state them; they are sufficiently indicated in each page of their own. +Their conclusions are the natural result of such premises. We could say +nothing about either, except to express dissent from beginning to end. +Yet would it be sweet and noble, and worthy of this late period of human +progress, if their position had been stated in a spirit of religious, of +manly courtesy; if they had had the soul to say, "We differ from you, +but we know that so wide and full a stream of thought and emotion as you +are moved by could not, under the providential rule in which we believe, +have arisen in vain. The object of every such manifestation of life must +be to bring out truth; come, let us seek it together. Let us show you +our view, compare it with yours, and let us see which is the better. If, +as we think, the truth lie with us, what joy will it be for us to cast +the clear light on the object of your aspirations!" + +Of this degree of liberality we have known some, even, who served the +same creed as these writers to be capable. There is, indeed, a higher +spirit, which, believing all forms of opinion which we hold in the +present stage of our growth can be but approximations to truth, and that +God has permitted to the multitude of men a multitude of ways by which +they may approach one common goal, looks with reverence on all modes of +faith sincerely held and acted upon, and while it rejoices in those +souls which have reached the higher stages of spiritual growth, has no +despair as to those which still grope in a narrow path and by a +glimmering light. Such liberality is, of course, out of the question +with such writers as the present. Their faith binds them to believe that +they have absolute truth, and that all who do not believe as they do are +wretched heretics. Those whose creed is of narrower scope are to them +hateful bigots; but also those with whom it is of wider are +latitudinarians or infidels. The spot of earth on which they stand is +the only one safe from the conflagration, and only through spectacles +and spyglasses such as are used by them can the sun and stars be seen. +Yet, as we said before, some such, though incapacitated for an +intellectual, are not so for a spiritual tolerance. With them the heart, +more Christ-like than the creed, urges to a spirit of love and reverence +even towards convictions opposed to their own. The sincere man is always +respectable in their eyes, and they cannot help feeling that, wherever +there is a desire for truth, there is the spirit of God, and his true +priests will approach with gentleness, and do their ministry with holy +care. Unhappily, it is very different with the persons before us. + +We let go the first two counts of the indictment. Their premises are, as +we have said, such as we totally dissent from, and their conclusions +such as naturally flow from those premises. Yet they are those of a +large body of men, and there must, no doubt, be temporary good in this +state of things, or it would not be permitted. When these writers say, +that to them moral and penal are coincident terms, they display a state +of mind which prefers basing virtue on the fear of punishment, rather +than the love of right. If this be sincerely their state, if the idea of +morality is with them entirely dependent on the retributions upon vice, +rather than the loveliness and joys of goodness, it is impossible for +those who are in a different state of mind to say what they _do_ need. +It may seem to us, indeed, that, if the strait jacket was taken off, +they might recover the natural energy of their frames, and do far better +without it; or that, if no longer hurried along the road by the +impending lash behind, they might uplift their eyes, and find sufficient +cause for speed in the glory visible before, though at a distance; +however, it is not for us to say what their wants are. Let them choose +their own principles of action, and if they lead to purity of life, and +benevolence, and humanity of heart, we will not say a word against them. + +But in the instance before us, they do not produce these good fruits, +but the contrary; and therefore we have something to say on the other +part of the criticism, to wit: that "the reasoning is sophistical, and +the spirit diabolic;" for, indeed, in the sense of pride by which the +angels fell, arrogance of judgment, malice, and all uncharitableness, we +have never looked on printed pages more deeply sinful. We love an honest +lover; but next best, we, with Dr. Johnson, know how to respect an +honest hater. But even he would scarce endure so bitter and ardent +haters as these, and with so many and inconsistent objects of +hatred--who hate Catholics and thorough Protestants, hate materialists, +and hate spiritualists. Their list is really too large for _human_ +sympathy. + +We wish, however, to make all due allowance for incapacity in these +writers to do better; and their disqualifications for their task, apart +from a form of belief which inclines them rather to cling to the past, +than to seek progress for the future, seem to be many. + +The "reasoning is sophistical," and it would need the patience of a +Socrates to unravel the weary web, and convince these sophists, against +their will, that they are exactly in the opposite region to what they +suppose. For the task we have not space, skill, or patience; but we can +give some hints by which readers may be led to examine whether it is so +or not. + +These writers profess to occupy the position of defence; surely never +was one sustained so in the spirit of offence. + +1st. They appeal either to the natural or regenerate man, as suits their +purpose. Sometimes all traditions and their literal interpretations are +right; sometimes it is impossible to interpret them aright, unless +according to some peculiar doctrine, and the natural inference of the +common mind would be an error. + +2d. They strain, but vainly, to show the New Testament no improvement on +the Old, and themselves in harmonious relations to both. On this subject +we would confidently leave the arbitration to a mind--could such a one +be found--sufficiently disciplined to examine the subject, and new both +to the New Testament and this volume, as that of Rammohun Roy might have +been, whether its views are not of the same strain that Jesus sought to +correct and enlighten among the Jews, and whether the writers do not +treat the teachings of the new dispensation most unfairly, in their +desire to wrest them into the service of the old. + +3d. Wherever there is a weak place in the argument, it is filled up by +abuse of the opposite party. The words "absurd," "infidel," +"blasphemous," "shallow philosophy," "sickly sentimentalism," and the +like, are among the favorite missiles of these _defenders_ of the truth. +They are of a sort whose frequent use is generally supposed to argue the +want of a shield of reason and a heart of faith. + +And this brings us to a more close consideration of the spirit of this +book, characterized by our contemporary as "diabolic." And we, also, +cannot excuse ourselves from marking it as, in this respect, one of the +worst books we have ever seen. + +It is not merely bitter intolerance, arrogance, and want of spiritual +perception, which we have to condemn in these writers. It is a want of +fairness and honor, of which we think they must be conscious. We fear +they are of those who hold the opinion that the end sanctifies the +means, and who, by pretending to serve the God of truth by other means +than strict truth, have drawn upon the "ministers of religion" the +frequent obloquy of "priestcraft." How else are we to construe the +artful use of the words "dishonest" and "infidel," wherever they are +likely to awaken the fears and prejudices of the ignorant? + +Of as bad a stamp as any is the part of this book headed "Spurious +Public Opinion." Here, as in the insinuations against Charles Burleigh, +we are unable to believe the writers to be sincere. Where we think they +are, however poor and narrow we may esteem their statement, we can +respect it, but here we cannot. + +Who can believe that such passages as the following stand for any thing +real in the mind of the writer? + +"Indeed, there is nothing that can possibly check the spirit of murder, +but the fear of death. That was all that Cain feared; he did not say, +People will put me in prison, but, They will put me to death; _and how +many other murders he may have committed, when released from that fear, +the sacred writer does not tell us_!" + +Why does not the writer of this passage draw the inference, and accuse +God of mistake, as he says his opponents accuse Him, whenever they +attempt to get beyond the Jewish ideas of vengeance. He plainly thinks +death was the only safe penalty in this case of Cain. + +"The reasoning from these drivellings of depravity in malefactors is to +the last degree wretched and absurd. Hard pushed indeed must he be in +argument who can consent to dive down into the polluted heart of a +Newgate criminal, in order to fish up, from the confessions of his +monstrous, unnatural obduracy, an argument in that very obduracy against +the fit punishment of his own crimes." + +We can only wish for such a man, that the vicissitudes of life may break +through the crust of theological arrogance and Phariseeism, and force +him to "dive down" into the depths of his own nature. We should see +afterwards whether he would be so forward to throw stones at +malefactors, so eager to hurry souls to what he regards as a final +account. + +But we have said enough as to the spirit and tendency of this book. We +shall only add a few words as to the unworthy use of the word "infidel," +in the attempt to fix a stigma upon opponents. We feel still more +contempt than indignation at the desire to work in this way on the +unthinking and ignorant. + +We ourselves are of the number stigmatized by these persons as sharing +an infidel tendency, as are all not enlisted under their own sectarian +banner. They, on their side, seem to us unbelievers in all that is most +pure and holy, and in the saving grace of love. They do not believe in +God, as we believe; they seem to us utterly deficient in the spirit of +Christ, and to be of the number of those who are always calling, "Lord, +Lord," yet never have known him. We find throughout these pages the +temper of "Lord, I thank thee that I am not as other men are"--hatred of +those whom they deem Gentiles, and a merciless spirit towards the +sinner; yet we do not take upon ourselves to give them the name of +infidels, and we solemnly call them to trial before the bar of the Only +Wise and Pure, the Searcher of hearts, to render an account of this +daring assumption. We ask them in that presence, if they are not of the +class threatened with "retribution" for saying to their brother, "Thou +fool;" and that not merely in the heat of anger, but coolly, +pertinaciously, and in a thousand ways. + +We call to sit in council the spirits of our Puritan fathers, and ask if +such was the right of individual judgment, of private conscience, they +came here to vindicate. And we solicit the verdict of posterity as to +whether the spirit of mercy or of vengeance be the more divine, and +whether the denunciatory and personal mode chosen by these writers for +carrying on this inquiry be the true one. + +We wish most sincerely this book had been a wise and noble one. To +ascertain just principles, it is necessary that the discussion should be +full and fair, and both sides ably argued. After this has been done, the +sense of the world can decide. It would be a happiness for which it +might seem that man at this time of day is ripe, that the opposing +parties should meet in open lists as brothers, believing each that the +other desired only that the truth should triumph, and able to clasp +hands as men of different structure and ways of thinking, but +fellow-students of the divine will. O, had we but found such an +adversary, above the use of artful abuse, or the feints of sophistry, +able to believe in the noble intention, of a foe as of a friend, how +cheerily would the trumpets ring out while the assembled world echoed +the signal words, "GOD SPEED THE RIGHT!" The tide of progress rolls +onward, swelling more and more with the lives of those who would fain +see all men called to repentance. It must be a strong arm, indeed, that +can build a dam to stay it even for a moment. None such do we see yet; +but we should rejoice in a noble and strong opponent, putting forth all +his power for conscience's sake. God speed the Right! + + + + +PART II. + +MISCELLANIES. + + + + +FIRST OF JANUARY + + +The new year dawns, and its appearance is hailed by a flutter of +festivity. Men and women run from house to house, scattering gifts, +smiles, and congratulations. It is a custom that seems borrowed from a +better day, unless indeed it be a prophecy that such must come. + +For why so much congratulation? A year has passed; we are nearer by a +twelvemonth to the term of this earthly probation. It is a solemn +thought; and though the consciousness of having hallowed the days by our +best endeavor, and of having much occasion to look to the Ruling Power +of all with grateful benediction, must, in cases where such feelings are +unalloyed, bring joy, one would think it must even then be a grave joy, +and one that would disincline to this loud gayety in welcoming a new +year; another year--in which we may, indeed, strive forward in a good +spirit, and find our strivings blest, but must surely expect trials, +temptations, and disappointments from without; frailty, short-coming, or +convulsion in ourselves. + +If it be appropriate to a reflective habit of mind to ask with each +night-fall the Pythagorean questions, how much more so at the close of +the year! + + "What hast thou done that's worth the doing? + And what pursued that's worth pursuing? + What sought thou knewest thou shouldst shun? + What done thou shouldst have left undone?" + +The intellectual man will also ask, What new truths have been opened to +me, or what facts presented that will lead to the discovery of truths? +The poet and the lover,--What new forms of beauty have been presented +for my delight, and as memorable illustrations of the divine +presence--unceasing, but oftentimes unfelt by our sluggish natures. + +Are there many men who fail sometimes to ask themselves questions to +this depth? who do not care to know whether they have done right, or +forborne to do wrong; whether their spirits have been enlightened by +truth, or kindled by beauty? + +Yes, strange to say, there are many who, despite the natural aspirations +of the soul and the revelations showered upon the world, think only +whether they have made money; whether the world thinks more highly of +them than it did in bygone years; whether wife and children have been in +good bodily health, and what those who call to pay their respects and +drink the new year's coffee, will think of their carpets, new also. + +How often is it that the rich man thinks even of that proposed by +Dickens as the noblest employment of the season, making the poor happy +in the way he likes best for himself, by distribution of turkey and +plum-pudding! Some, indeed, adorn the day with this much grace, though +we doubt whether it be oftenest those who could each, with ease, make +that one day a glimpse of comfort to a thousand who pass the other +winter days in shivering poverty. But some such there are who go about +to the dark and frosty dwellings, giving the "mite" where and when it is +most needed. We knew a lady, all whose riches consisted in her good head +and two hands. Widow of an eminent lawyer, but keeping boarders for a +livelihood; engaged in that hardest of occupations, with her house full +and her hands full, she yet found time to make and bake for new year's +day a hundred pies--and not the pie from which, being cut, issued the +famous four-and-twenty blackbirds, gave more cause for merriment, or was +a fitter "dish to set before the king." + +God bless his majesty, the _good_ king, who on such a day cares for the +least as much as the greatest; and like Henry IV., proposes it as a +worthy aim of his endeavor that "every poor man shall have his chicken +in the pot." This does not seem, on superficial survey, such a wonderful +boon to crave for creatures made in God's own likeness, yet is it one +that no king could ever yet bestow on his subjects, if we except the +king of Cockaigne. Our maker of the hundred pies is the best prophet we +have seen, as yet, of such a blissful state. + +But mostly to him who hath is given in material as well as in spiritual +things, and we fear the pleasures of this day are arranged almost wholly +in reference to the beautiful, the healthy, the wealthy, the witty, and +that but few banquets are prepared for the halt, the blind, and the +sorrowful. But where they are, of a surety water turns to wine by +inevitable Christ-power; no aid of miracle need be invoked. As for +thoughts which should make an epoch of the period, we suppose the number +of these to be in about the same proportion to the number of minds +capable of thought, that the pearls now existent bear to the oysters +still subsistent. + +Can we make pearls from our oyster-bed? At least, let us open some of +the shells and try. + +Dear public and friends! we wish you a happy new year. We trust that the +year past has given earnest of such a one in so far as having taught +you somewhat how to deserve and to appreciate it. + +For ourselves, the months have brought much, though, perhaps, +superficial instruction. Its scope has been chiefly love and hope for +all human beings, and among others for thyself. + +We have seen many fair poesies of human life, in which, however, the +tragic thread has not been wanting. We have beheld the exquisite +developments of childhood, and sunned the heart in its smiles. But also +have we discerned the evil star looming up that threatened cloud and +wreck to its future years. We have seen beings of some precious gifts +lost irrecoverably, as regards this present life, from inheritance of a +bad organization and unfortunate circumstances of early years. The +victims of vice we have observed lying in the gutter, companied by +vermin, trampled upon by sensuality and ignorance, and saw those who +wished not to rise, and those who strove so to do, but fell back through +weakness. Sadder and more ominous still, we have seen the good man--in +many impulses and acts of most pure, most liberal, and undoubted +goodness--yet have we noted a spot of base indulgence, a fibre of +brutality canker in a vital part this fine plant, and, while we could +not withdraw love and esteem for the good we could not doubt, have wept +secretly in the heart for the ill we could not deny. We have observed +two deaths; one of the sinner, early cut down; one of the just, full of +years and honor--_both_ were calm; both professed their reliance on the +wisdom of a heavenly Father. We have looked upon the beauteous shows of +nature in undisturbed succession, holy moonlight on the snows, loving +moonlight on the summer fields, the stars which disappoint never and +bless ever, the flowing waters which soothe and stimulate, a garden of +roses calling for queens among women, poets and heroes among men. We +have marked a desire to answer to this call, and genius brought rich +wine, but spilt it on the way, from her careless, fickle gait; and +virtue tainted with a touch of the peacock; and philosophy, never +enjoying, always seeking, had got together all the materials for the +crowning experiment, but there was no love to kindle the fire under the +furnace, and the precious secret is not precipitated yet, for the pot +will not boil to make the gold through your + + "Double, double, + Toil and trouble," + +if love do not fan the fire. + +We have seen the decay of friendships unable to endure the light of an +ideal hope--have seen, too, their resurrection in a faith and hope +beyond the tomb, where the form lies we once so fondly cherished. It is +not dead, but sleepeth; and we watch, but must weep, too, sometimes, for +the night is cold and lonely in the place of tombs. + +Nature has appeared dressed in her veil of snowy flowers for the bridal. +We have seen her brooding over her joys, a young mother in the pride and +fulness of beauty, and then bearing her offspring to their richly +ornamented sepulchre, and lately observed her as if kneeling with folded +hands in the stillness of prayer, while the bare trees and frozen +streams bore witness to her patience. + +O, much, much have we seen, and a little learned. Such is the record of +the private mind; and yet, as the bright snake-skin is cast, many sigh +and cry,-- + + "The wiser mind + Mourns less for what Time takes away + Than what he leaves behind." + +But for ourselves, we find there is kernel in the nut, though its +ripening be deferred till the late frosty weather, and it prove a hard +nut to crack even then. Looking at the individual, we see a degree of +growth, or the promise of such. In the child there is a force which will +outlast the wreck, and reach at last the promised shore. The good man, +once roused from his moral lethargy, shall make atonement for his fault, +and endure a penance that will deepen and purify his whole nature. The +poor lost ones claim a new trial in a new life, and will there, we +trust, seize firmer hold on the good for the experience they have had of +the bad. + + "We never see the stars + Till we can see nought else." + +The seeming losses are, in truth, but as pruning of the vine to make the +grapes swell more richly. + +But how is it with those larger individuals, the nations, and that +congress of such, the world? We must take a broad and superficial view +of these, as we have of private life; and in neither case can more be +done. The secrets of the confessional, or rather of the shrine, do not +come on paper, unless in poetic form. + +So we will not try to search and mine, but only to look over the world +from an ideal point of view. + +Here we find the same phenomena repeated; the good nation is yet somehow +so sick at heart that you are not sure its goodness will ever produce a +harmony of life; over the young nation, (our own,) rich in energy and +full of glee, brood terrible omens; others, as Poland and Italy, seem +irrecoverably lost. They may revive, but we feel as if it must be under +new forms. + +Forms come and go, but principles are developed and displayed more and +more. The caldron simmers, and so great is the fire that we expect it +soon to boil over, and new fates appear for Europe. + +Spain is dying by inches; England shows symptoms of having passed her +meridian; Austria has taken opium, but she must awake ere long; France +is in an uneasy dream--she knows she has been very sick, has had +terrible remedies administered, and ought to be getting thoroughly well, +which she is not. Louis Philippe watches by her pillow, doses and +bleeds her, so that she cannot fairly try her strength, and find whether +something or nothing has been done. But Louis Philippe and Metternich +must soon, in the course of nature, leave this scene; and then there +will be none to keep out air and light from the chamber, and the +patients will be roused and ascertain their true condition. + +No power is in the ascending course except the Russian; and that has +such a condensation of brute force, animated by despotic will, that it +seems sometimes as if it might by and by stride over Europe and face us +across the water. Then would be opposed to one another the two extremes +of Autocracy and Democracy, and a trial of strength would ensue between +the two principles more grand and full than any ever seen on this +planet, and of which the result must be to bind mankind by one chain of +convictions. Should, indeed, Despotism and Democracy meet as the two +slaveholding powers of the world, the result can hardly be predicted. +But there is room in the intervening age for many changes, and the czars +profess to wish to free their serfs, as our planters do to free their +slaves, and we suppose with equal sincerity; but the need of sometimes +professing such desires is a deference to the progress of principles +which bid fair to have their era yet. + +We hope such an era steadfastly, notwithstanding the deeds of darkness +that have made this year forever memorable in our annals. Our nation has +indeed shown that the lust of gain is at present her ruling passion. She +is not only resolute, but shameless, about it, and has no doubt or +scruple as to laying aside the glorious office, assigned her by fate, of +herald of freedom, light, and peace to the civilized world. + +Yet we must not despair. Even so the Jewish king, crowned with all gifts +that Heaven could bestow, was intoxicated by their plenitude, and went +astray after the most worthless idols. But he was not permitted to +forfeit finally the position designed for him: he was drawn or dragged +back to it; and so shall it be with this nation. There are trials in +store which shall amend us. + +We must believe that the pure blood shown in the time of our revolution +still glows in the heart; but the body of our nation is full of foreign +elements. A large proportion of our citizens, or their parents, came +here for worldly advantage, and have never raised their minds to any +idea of destiny or duty. More money--more land! are all the watchwords +they know. They have received the inheritance earned by the fathers of +the revolution, without their wisdom and virtue to use it. But this +cannot last. The vision of those prophetic souls must be realized, else +the nation could not exist; every body must at least "have soul enough +to save the expense of salt," or it cannot be preserved alive. + +What a year it has been with us! Texas annexed, and more annexations in +store; slavery perpetuated, as the most striking new feature of these +movements. Such are the fruits of American love of liberty! Mormons +murdered and driven out, as an expression of American freedom of +conscience; Cassius Clay's paper expelled from Kentucky; that is +American freedom of the press. And all these deeds defended on the true +Russian grounds, "We (the stronger) know what you (the weaker) ought to +do and be, and it _shall_ be so." + +Thus the principles which it was supposed, some ten years back, had +begun to regenerate the world, are left without a trophy for this past +year, except in the spread of Ronge's movement in Germany, and that of +associative and communist principles both here and in Europe, which, let +the worldling deem as he will about their practicability, he cannot deny +to be animated by faith in God and a desire for the good of man. We must +add to these the important symptoms of the spread of peace principles. + +Meanwhile, if the more valuable springs of action seem to lie dormant +for a time, there is a constant invention and perfection of the means of +action and communication which seems to say, "Do but wait patiently; +there is something of universal importance to be done by and by, and all +is preparing for it to be universally known and used at once." Else what +avail magnetic telegraphs, steamers, and rail-cars traversing every rood +of land and ocean, phonography and the mingling of all literatures, till +North embraces South and Denmark lays her head upon the lap of Italy? +Surely there would not be all this pomp of preparation as to the means +of communion, unless there were like to be something worthy to be +communicated. + +Amid the signs of the breaking down of barriers, we may mention the +Emperor Nicholas letting his daughter pass from the Greek to the Roman +church, for the sake of marrying her to the Austrian prince. Again, +similarity between him and us: he, too, is shameless; for while he signs +this marriage contract with one hand, he holds the knout in the other to +drive the Roman Catholic Poles into the Greek church. But it is a fatal +sign for his empire. 'Tis but the first step that costs, and the +Russians may look back to the marriage of the Grand Duchess Olga, as the +Chinese will to the cannonading of the English, as the first sign of +dissolution in the present form of national life. + +A similar token is given by the violation of etiquette of which Mr. Polk +is accused in his message. He, at the head of a government, speaks of +governments and their doings straightforward, as he would of persons, +and the tower, stronghold of the idea of a former age, now propped up by +etiquettes and civilities only, trembles to its foundation. + +Another sign of the times is the general panic which the decay of the +potato causes. We believe this is not without a providential meaning, +and will call attention still more to the wants of the people at large. +New and more provident regulations must be brought out, that they may +not again be left with only a potato between them and starvation. By +another of these whimsical coincidences between the histories of +Aristocracy and Democracy, the supply of _truffles_ is also failing. +The land is losing the "nice things" that the queen (truly a young +queen) thought might be eaten in place of bread. Does not this indicate +a period in which it will be felt that there must be provision for +all--the rich shall not have their truffles if the poor are driven to +eat nettles, as the French and Irish have in bygone ages? + +The poem of which we here give a prose translation lately appeared in +Germany. It is written by Moritz Hartmann, and contains the _gist_ of +the matter. + + +MISTRESS POTATO. + +There was a great stately house full of people, who have been running in +and out of its lofty gates ever since the gray times of Olympus. There +they wept, laughed, shouted, mourned, and, like day and night, came the +usual changes of joys with plagues and sorrows. Haunting that great +house up and down, making, baking, and roasting, covering and waiting on +the table, has there lived a vast number of years a loyal serving maid +of the olden time--her name was Mrs. Potato. She was a still, little, +old mother, who wore no bawbles or laces, but always had to be satisfied +with her plain, every-day clothes; and unheeded, unhonored, oftentimes +jeered at and forgotten, she served all day at the kitchen fire, and +slept at night in the worst room. When she brought the dishes to table +she got rarely a thankful glance; only at times some very poor man would +in secret shake kindly her hand. + +Generation after generation passed by, as the trees blossom, bear fruit, +and wither; but faithful remained the old housemaid, always the servant +of the last heir. + +But one morning--hear what happened. All the people came to table, and +lo! there was nothing to eat, for our good old Mistress Potato had not +been able to rise from her bed. She felt sharp pains creeping through +her poor old bones. No wonder she was worn out at last! She had not in +all her life dared take a day's rest, lest so the poor should starve. +Indeed, it is wonderful that her good will should have kept her up so +long. She must have had a great constitution to begin with. + +The guests had to go away without breakfast. They were a little +troubled, but hoped to make up for it at dinner time. But dinner time +came, and the table was empty; and then, indeed, they began to inquire +about the welfare of Cookmaid Potato. And up into her dark chamber, +where she lay on her poor bed, came great and little, young and old, to +ask after the good creature. "What can be done for her?" "Bring warm +clothes, medicine, a better bed." "Lay aside your work to help her." "If +she dies we shall never again be able to fill the table;" and now, +indeed, they sang her praises. + +O, what a fuss about the sick bed in that moist and mouldy chamber! and +out doors it was just the same--priests with their masses, processions, +and prayers, and all the world ready to walk to penance, if Mistress +Potato could but be saved. And the doctors in their wigs, and +counsellors in masks of gravity, sat there to devise some remedy to +avert this terrible ill. + +As when a most illustrious dame is recovering from birth of a son, so +now bulletins inform the world of the health of Mistress Potato, and, +not content with what they thus learn, couriers and lackeys besiege the +door; nay, the king's coach is stopping there. Yes! yes! the humble poor +maid, 'tis about her they are all so frightened! Who would ever have +believed it in days when the table was nicely covered? + +The gentlemen of pens and books, priests, kings, lords, and ministers, +all have senses to scent our famine. Natheless Mistress Potato gets no +better. May God help her for the sake, not of such people, but of the +poor. For the great it is a token they should note, that all must +crumble and fall to ruin, if they will work and weary to death the poor +maid who cooks in the kitchen. + +She lived for you in the dirt and ashes, provided daily for poor and +rich; you ought to humble yourselves for her sake. Ah, could we hope +that you would take a hint, and _next time_ pay some heed to the +housemaid before she is worn and wearied to death! + + * * * * * + +So sighs, rather than hopes, Moritz Hartmann. The wise ministers of +England, indeed, seem much more composed than he supposes them. They are +like the old man who, when he saw the avalanche coming down upon his +village, said, "It is coming, but I shall have time to fill my pipe once +more." _He_ went in to do so, and was buried beneath the ruins. But Sir +Robert Peel, who is so deliberate, has, doubtless, manna in store for +those who have lost their customary food. + +Another sign of the times is, that there are left on the earth none of +the last dynasty of geniuses, rich in so many imperial heads. The world +is full of talent, but it flows downward to water the plain. There are +no towering heights, no Mont Blancs now. We cannot recall one great +genius at this day living. The time of prophets is over, and the era +they prophesied must be at hand; in its couduct a larger proportion of +the human race shall take part than ever before. As prime ministers have +succeeded kings in the substantiate of monarchy, so now shall a house of +representatives succeed prime ministers. + +Altogether, it looks as if a great time was coming, and that time one of +democracy. Our country will play a ruling part. Her eagle will lead the +van; but whether to soar upward to the sun or to stoop for helpless +prey, who now dares promise? At present she has scarce achieved a Roman +nobleness, a Roman liberty; and whether her eagle is less like the +vulture, and more like the Phoeix, than was the fierce Roman bird, we +dare not say. May the new year give hopes of the latter, even if the +bird need first to be purified by fire. + +_Jan. 1, 1846._ + + + + +NEW YEAR'S DAY. + + +It was a beautiful custom among some of the Indian tribes, once a year, +to extinguish all the fires, and, by a day of fasting and profound +devotion, to propitiate the Great Spirit for the coming year. They then +produced sparks by friction, and lighted up afresh the altar and the +hearth with the new fire. + +And this fire was considered as the most precious and sacred gift from +one person to another, binding them in bonds of inviolate friendship for +that year, certainly; with a hope that the same might endure through +life. From the young to the old, it was a token of the highest respect; +from the old to the young, of a great expectation. + +To us would that it might be granted to solemnize the new year by the +mental renovation of which this ceremony was the eloquent symbol. Would +that we might extinguish, if only for a day, those fires where an +uninformed religious ardor has led to human sacrifices; which have +warmed the household, but, also, prepared pernicious, more than +wholesome, viands for their use. + +The Indian produced the new spark by friction. It would be a still more +beautiful emblem, and expressive of the more extended powers of +civilized men, if we should draw the spark from the centre of our system +and the source of light, by means of the burning glass. + +Where, then, is to be found the new knowledge, the new thought, the new +hope, that shall begin a new year in a spirit not discordant with "the +acceptable year of the Lord"? Surely there must be such existing, if +latent--some sparks of new fire, pure from ashes and from smoke, worthy +to be offered as a new year's gift. Let us look at the signs of the +times, to see in what spot this fire shall be sought--on what fuel it +may be fed. The ancients poured out libations of the choicest juices of +earth, to express their gratitude to the Power that had enabled them to +be sustained from her bosom. They enfranchised slaves, to show that +devotion to the gods induced a sympathy with men. + +Let us look about us to see with what rites, what acts of devotion, this +modern Christian nation greets the approach of the new year; by what +signs she denotes the clear morning of a better day, such as may be +expected when the eagle has entered into covenant with the dove. + +This last week brings tidings that a portion of the inhabitants of +Illinois, the rich and blooming region on which every gift of nature has +been lavished, to encourage the industry and brighten the hopes of man, +not only refuses a libation to the Power that has so blessed their +fields, but declares that the dew is theirs, and the sunlight is +theirs--that they live from and for themselves, acknowledging no +obligation and no duty to God or to man.[28] + +One man has freed a slave; but a great part of the nation is now busy in +contriving measures that may best rivet the fetters on those now +chained, and forge them strongest for millions yet unborn. + +Selfishness and tyranny no longer wear the mask; they walk haughtily +abroad, affronting with their hard-hearted boasts and brazen resolves +the patience of the sweet heavens. National honor is trodden under foot +for a national bribe, and neither sex nor age defends the redresser of +injuries from the rage of the injurer. + +Yet, amid these reports which come flying on the paperwings of every +day, the scornful laugh of the gnomes, who begin to believe they can +buy all souls with their gold, was checked a moment when the aged +knight[29] of the better cause answered the challenge--truly in keeping +with the "chivalry" of the time--"You are in the wrong, and I will kick +you," by holding the hands of the chevalier till those around secured +him. We think the man of old must have held him with his eye, as +physicians of moral power can insane patients. Great as are his exploits +for his age, he cannot have much bodily strength, unless by miracle. + +The treatment of Mr. Adams and Mr. Hoar seems to show that we are not +fitted to emulate the savages in preparation for the new fire. The +Indians knew how to reverence the old and the wise. + +Among the manifestos of the day, it is impossible not to respect that of +the Mexican minister for the manly indignation with which he has uttered +truths, however deep our mortification at hearing them. It has been +observed for the last fifty years, that the tone of diplomatic +correspondence was much improved, as to simplicity and directness. Once, +diplomacy was another name for intrigue, and a paper of this sort was +expected to be a mesh of artful phrases, through which the true meaning +might be detected, but never actually grasped. Now, here is one where an +occasion being afforded by the unutterable folly of the corresponding +party, a minister speaks the truth as it lies in his mind, directly and +plainly, as man speaks to man. His statement will command the sympathy +of the civilized world. + +As to the state papers that have followed, they are of a nature to make +the Austrian despot sneer, as he counts in his oratory the woollen +stockings he has got knit by imprisoning all the free geniuses in his +dominions. He, at least, only appeals to the legitimacy of blood; these +dare appeal to legitimacy, as seen from a moral point of view. History +will class such claims with the brags of sharpers, who bully their +victims about their honor, while they stretch forth their hands for the +gold they have won with loaded dice. "Do you dare to say the dice are +loaded? Prove it; _and_ I will shoot you for injuring my honor." + +The Mexican makes his gloss on the page of American honor;[30] the +girl[31] in the Kentucky prison on that of her freedom; the delegate of +Massachusetts,[32] on that of her union. Ye stars, whose image America +has placed upon her banner, answer us! Are not your unions of a +different sort? Do they not work to other results? + +Yet we cannot lightly be discouraged, or alarmed, as to the destiny of +our country. The whole history of its discovery and early progress +indicates too clearly the purposes of Heaven with regard to it. Could we +relinquish the thought that it was destined for the scene of a new and +illustrious act in the great drama, the past would be inexplicable, no +less than the future without hope. + +Last week, which brought us so many unpleasant notices of home affairs, +brought also an account of the magnificent telescope lately perfected by +the Earl of Rosse. With means of observation now almost divine, we +perceive that some of the brightest stars, of which Sirius is one, have +dark companions, whose presence is, by earthly spectators, only to be +detected from the inequalities they cause in the motions of their +radiant companions. It was a new and most imposing illustration how, in +carrying out the divine scheme, of which we have as yet only spelled out +the few first lines, the dark is made to wait upon, and, in the full +result, harmonize with, the bright. The sense of such pervasive +analogies should enlarge patience and animate hope. + +Yet, if offences must come, woe be to those by whom they come; and that +of men, who sin against a heritage like ours, is as that of the +backsliders among the chosen people of the elder day. We, too, have been +chosen, and plain indications been given, by a wonderful conjunction of +auspicious influences, that the ark of human hopes has been placed for +the present in our charge. Woe be to those who betray this trust! On +their heads are to be heaped the curses of unnumbered ages! + +Can he sleep, who in this past year has wickedly or lightly committed +acts calculated to injure the few or many; who has poisoned the ears and +the hearts he might have rightly informed; who has steeped in tears the +cup of thousands; who has put back, as far as in him lay, the +accomplishment of general good and happiness for the sake of his selfish +aggrandizement or selfish luxury; who has sold to a party what was meant +for mankind? If such sleep, dreadful shall be the waking. + +"Deliver us from evil." In public or in private, it is easy to give +pain--hard to give pure pleasure; easy to do evil--hard to do good. God +does his good in the whole, despite of bad men; but only from a very +pure mind will he permit original good to proceed in the day. Happy +those who can feel that during the past year, they have, to the best of +their knowledge, refrained from evil. Happy those who determine to +proceed in this by the light of conscience. It is but a spark; yet from +that spark may be drawn fire-light enough for worlds and systems of +worlds--and that light is ever new. + +And with this thought rises again the memory of the fair lines that +light has brought to view in the histories of some men. If the nation +tends to wrong, there are yet present the ten just men. The hands and +lips of this great form may be impure, but pure blood flows yet within +her veins--the blood of the noble bands who first sought these shores +from the British isles and France, for conscience sake. Too many have +come since, for bread alone. We cannot blame--we must not reject them; +but let us teach them, in giving them bread, to prize that salt, too, +without which all on earth must lose its savor. Yes! let us teach them, +not rail at their inevitable ignorance and unenlightened action, but +teach them and their children as our own; if we do so, their children +and ours may yet act as one body obedient to one soul; and if we act +rightly now, that soul a pure soul. + +And ye, sable bands, forced hither against your will, kept down here now +by a force hateful to nature, a will alien from God! It does sometimes +seem as if the avenging angel wore your hue, and would place in your +hands the sword to punish the cruel injustice of our fathers, the +selfish perversity of the sons. Yet are there no means of atonement? +Must the innocent suffer with the guilty? Teach us, O All-Wise, the clew +out of this labyrinth; and if we faithfully encounter its darkness and +dread, and emerge into clear light, wilt thou not bid us "go and sin no +more"? + +Meanwhile, let us proceed as we can, _picking our steps_ along the +slippery road. If we keep the right direction, what matters it that we +must pass through so much mud? The promise is sure:-- + + Angels shall free the feet from stain, to their own hue of snow, + If, undismayed, we reach the hills where the true olives grow. + The olive groves, which we must seek in cold and damp, + Alone can yield us oil for a perpetual lamp. + Then sound again the golden horn with promise ever new; + The princely deer will ne'er be caught by those that slack pursue; + Let the "White Doe" of angel hopes be always kept in view. + + Yes! sound again the horn--of hope the golden horn! + Answer it, flutes and pipes, from valleys still and lorn; + Warders, from your high towers, with trumps of silver scorn, + And harps in maidens' bowers, with strings from deep hearts torn,-- + All answer to the horn--of hope the golden horn! + +There is still hope, there is still an America, while private lives are +ruled by the Puritan, by the Huguenot conscientiousness, and while there +are some who can repudiate, not their debts, but the supposition that +they will not strive to pay their debts to their age, and to Heaven, who +gave them a share in its great promise. + + + + +ST. VALENTINES DAY. + + +This merry season of light jokes and lighter love-tokens, in which Cupid +presents the feathered end of the dart, as if he meant to tickle before +he wounded the captive, has always had a great charm for me. When but a +child, I saw Allston's picture of the "Lady reading a Valentine," and +the mild womanliness of the picture, so remote from passion no less than +vanity, so capable of tenderness, so chastely timid in its +self-possession, has given a color to the gayest thoughts connected with +the day. From the ruff of Allston's Lady, whose clear starch is made to +express all rosebud thoughts of girlish retirement, the soft unfledged +hopes which never yet were tempted from the nest, to Sam Weller's +Valentine, is indeed a broad step, but one which we can take without +material change of mood. + +But of all the thoughts and pictures associated with the day, none can +surpass in interest those furnished by the way in which we celebrated it +last week. + +The Bloomingdale Asylum for the Insane is conducted on the most wise and +liberal plan known at the present day. Its superintendent, Dr. Earle, +has had ample opportunity to observe the best modes of managing this +class of diseases both here and in Europe, and he is one able, by +refined sympathies and intellectual discernment, to apply the best that +is known and to discover more. + +Under his care the beautifully situated establishment at Bloomingdale +loses every sign of the hospital and the prison, not long since thought +to be inseparable from such a place. It is a house of refuge, where +those too deeply wounded or disturbed in body or spirit to keep up that +semblance or degree of sanity which the conduct of affairs in the world +at large demands, may be soothed by gentle care, intelligent sympathy, +and a judicious attention to their physical welfare, into health, or, at +least, into tranquillity. + +Dr. Earle, in addition to modes of turning the attention from causes of +morbid irritation, and promoting brighter and juster thoughts, which he +uses in common with other institutions, has this winter delivered a +course of lectures to the patients. We were present at one of these some +weeks since. The subjects touched upon were, often, of a nature to +demand as close attention as an audience of regular students (not +college students, but real students) can be induced to give. The large +assembly present were almost uniformly silent, to appearance interested, +and showed a power of decorum and self-government often wanting among +those who esteem themselves in healthful mastery of their morals and +manners. We saw, with great satisfaction, generous thoughts and solid +pursuits offered, as well as light amusements, for the choice of the +sick in mind. For it is our experience that such sickness arises as +often from want of concentration as any other cause. One of the noblest +youths that ever trod this soil was wont to say, "he was never tired, if +he could only see far enough." He is now gone where his view may be less +bounded; but we, who stay behind, may take the hint that mania, no less +than the commonest forms of prejudice, bespeaks a mind which does not +see far enough to correct partial impressions. No doubt, in many cases, +dissipation of thought, after attention is once distorted into some +morbid direction, may be the first method of cure; but we are glad to +see others provided for those who are ready for them. + +St. Valentine's Eve had been appointed for one of the dancing parties at +the institution, and a few friends from "the world's people" invited to +be present. + +At an early hour the company assembled in the well-lighted hall, still +gracefully wreathed with its Christmas evergreens; the music struck up +and the company entered. + +And these are the people who, half a century ago, would have been +chained in solitary cells, screaming out their anguish till silenced by +threats or blows, lost, forsaken, hopeless, a blight to earth, a libel +upon heaven! + +Now, they are many of them happy, all interested. Even those who are +troublesome and subject to violent excitement in every-day scenes, show +here that the power of self-control is not lost, only lessened. Give +them an impulse strong enough, favorable circumstances, and they will +begin to use it again. They regulate their steps to music; they restrain +their impatient impulses from respect to themselves and to others. The +Power which shall yet shape order from all disorder, and turn ashes to +beauty, as violets spring up from green graves, hath them also in its +keeping. + +The party were well dressed, with care and taste. The dancing was better +than usual, because there was less of affectation and ennui. The party +was more entertaining, because native traits came out more clear from +the disguises of vanity and tact. + +There was the blue-stocking lady, a mature belle and bel-esprit. Her +condescending graces, her rounded compliments, her girlish, yet "highly +intellectual" vivacity, expressed no less in her head-dress than her +manner, were just that touch above the common with which the illustrator +of Dickens has thought fit to heighten the charms of Mrs. Leo Hunter. + +There was the travelled Englishman, _au fait_ to every thing beneath the +moon and beyond. With his clipped and glib phrases, his bundle of +conventionalities carried so neatly under his arm, and his "My dear +sir," in the perfection of cockney dignity, what better could the most +select dinner party furnish us in the way of distinguished strangerhood? + +There was the hoidenish young girl, and the decorous, elegant lady +smoothing down "the wild little thing." There was the sarcastic observer +on the folly of the rest; in that, the greatest fool of all, unbeloved +and unloving. In contrast to this were characters altogether lovely, +full of all sweet affections, whose bells, if jangled out of tune, still +retained their true tone. + +One of the best things of the evening was a dance improvised by two +elderly women. They asked the privilege of the floor, and, a suitable +measure being played, performed this dance in a style lively, +characteristic, yet moderate enough. It was true dancing, like peasant +dancing. + +An old man sang comic songs in the style of various nations and +characters, with a dramatic expression that would have commanded +applause "on any stage." + +And all was done decently and in order, each biding his time. Slight +symptoms of impatience here and there were easily soothed by the +approach of this, truly "good physician," the touch of whose hand seemed +to possess a talismanic power to soothe. We doubt not that all went to +their beds exhilarated, free from irritation, and more attuned to +concord than before. Good bishop Valentine! thy feast was well kept, and +not without the usual jokes and flings at old bachelors, the exchange of +sugar-plums, mottoes, and repartees. + +This is the second festival I have kept with those whom society has +placed, not outside her pale, indeed, but outside the hearing of her +benison. Christmas I passed in a prison! There, too, I saw marks of the +miraculous power of love, when guided by a pure faith in the goodness of +its source, and intelligence as to the design of the creative +intelligence. I saw enough of its power, impeded as it was by the +ignorance of those who, eighteen hundred years after the coming of +Christ, still believe more in fear and force: I saw enough, I say, of +this power to convince me, if I needed conviction, that love is indeed +omnipotent, as He said it was. + +A companion, of that delicate nature by which a scar is felt as a +wound, was saddened by the thought how very little our partialities, +undue emotions, and manias need to be exaggerated to entitle us to rank +among madmen. I cannot view it so. Rather let the sense that, with all +our faults and follies, there is still a sound spot, a presentiment of +eventual health in the inmost nature, embolden us to hope, to _know_ it +is the same with all. A great thinker has spoken of the Greek, in +highest praise, as "a self-renovating character." But we are all Greeks, +if we will but think so. For the mentally or morally insane, there is no +irreparable ill if the principle of life can but be aroused. And it can +never be finally benumbed, except by our own will. + +One of the famous pictures at Munich is of a madhouse. The painter has +represented the moral obliquities of society exaggerated into madness; +that is to say, self-indulgence has, in each instance, destroyed the +power to forbear the ill or to discern the good. A celebrated writer has +added a little book, to be used while looking at the picture, and drawn +inferences of universal interest. + +Such would we draw; such as this! Let no one dare to call another mad +who is not himself willing to rank in the same class for every +perversion and fault of judgment. Let no one dare aid in punishing +another as criminal who is not willing to suffer the penalty due to his +own offences. + +Yet, while owning that we are all mad, all criminal, let us not despair, +but rather believe that the Ruler of all never could permit such +wide-spread ill but to good ends. It is permitted to give us a field to +redeem it-- + + "to transmute, bereave + Of an ill influence, and a good receive." + +It flows inevitably from the emancipation of our wills, the development +of individuality in us. These aims accomplished, all shall yet be well; +and it is ours to learn _how_ that good time may be hastened. + +We know no sign of the times more encouraging than the increasing +nobleness and wisdom of view as to the government of asylums for the +insane and of prisons. Whatever is learned as to these forms of society +is learned for all. There is nothing that can be said of such government +that must not be said, also, of the government of families, schools, and +states. But we have much to say on this subject, and shall revert to it +again, and often, though, perhaps, not with so pleasing a theme as this +of St. Valentine's Eve. + + + + +FOURTH OF JULY. + + +The bells ring; the cannon rouse the echoes along the river shore; the +boys sally forth with shouts and little flags, and crackers enough to +frighten all the people they meet from sunrise to sunset. The orator is +conning for the last time the speech in which he has vainly attempted to +season with some new spice the yearly panegyric upon our country; its +happiness and glory; the audience is putting on its best bib and tucker, +and its blandest expression to listen. + +And yet, no heart, we think, can beat to-day with one pulse of genuine, +noble joy. Those who have obtained their selfish objects will not take +especial pleasure in thinking of them to-day, while to unbiassed minds +must come sad thoughts of national honor soiled in the eyes of other +nations, of a great inheritance risked, if not forfeited. + +Much has been achieved in this country since the Declaration of +Independence. America is rich and strong; she has shown great talent and +energy; vast prospects of aggrandizement open before her. But the noble +sentiment which she expressed in her early youth is tarnished; she has +shown that righteousness is not her chief desire, and her name is no +longer a watchword for the highest hopes to the rest of the world. She +knows this, but takes it very easily; she feels that she is growing +richer and more powerful, and that seems to suffice her. + +These facts are deeply saddening to those who can pronounce the words +"my country" with pride and peace only so far as steadfast virtues, +generous impulses, find their home in that country. They cannot be +satisfied with superficial benefits, with luxuries and the means of +obtaining knowledge which are multiplied for them. They could rejoice in +full hands and a busy brain, if the soul were expanding and the heart +pure; but, the higher conditions being violated, what is done cannot be +done for good. + +Such thoughts fill patriot minds as the cannon-peal bursts upon the ear. +This year, which declares that the people at large consent to cherish +and extend slavery as one of our "domestic institutions," takes from the +patriot his home. This year, which attests their insatiate love of +wealth and power, quenches the flame upon the altar. + +Yet there remains that good part which cannot be taken away. If nations +go astray, the narrow path may always be found and followed by the +individual man. It is hard, hard indeed, when politics and trade are +mixed up with evils so mighty that he scarcely dares touch them for fear +of being defiled. He finds his activity checked in great natural outlets +by the scruples of conscience. He cannot enjoy the free use of his +limbs, glowing upon a favorable tide; but struggling, panting, must fix +his eyes upon his aim, and fight against the current to reach it. It is +not easy, it is very hard just now, to realize the blessings of +independence. + +For what _is_ independence if it do not lead to freedom?--freedom from +fraud and meanness, from selfishness, from public opinion so far as it +does not agree with the still, small voice of one's better self? + +Yet there remains a great and worthy part to play. This country presents +great temptations to ill, but also great inducements to good. Her health +and strength are so remarkable, her youth so full of life, that disease +cannot yet have taken deep hold of her. It has bewildered her brain, +made her steps totter, fevered, but not yet tainted, her blood. Things +are still in that state when ten just men may save the city. A few men +are wanted, able to think and act upon principles of an eternal value. +The safety of the country must lie in a few such men; men who have +achieved the genuine independence, independence of wrong, of violence, +of falsehood. + +We want individuals to whom all eyes may turn as examples of the +practicability of virtue. We want shining examples. We want +deeply-rooted characters, who cannot be moved by flattery, by fear, even +by hope, for they work in faith. The opportunity for such men is great; +they will not be burned at the stake in their prime for bearing witness +to the truth, yet they will be tested most severely in their adherence +to it. There is nothing to hinder them from learning what is true and +best; no physical tortures will be inflicted on them for expressing it. +Let men feel that in private lives, more than in public measures, must +the salvation of the country lie. If that country has so widely veered +from the course she prescribed to herself, and that the hope of the +world prescribed to her, it must be because she had not men ripened and +confirmed for better things. They leaned too carelessly on one another; +they had not deepened and purified the private lives from which the +public vitality must spring, as the verdure of the plain from the +fountains of the hills. + +What a vast influence is given by sincerity alone. The bier of General +Jackson has lately passed, upbearing a golden urn. The men who placed it +there lament his departure, and esteem the measures which have led this +country to her present position wise and good. The other side esteem +them unwise, unjust, and disastrous in their consequences. But both +respect him thus far, that his conduct was boldly sincere. The sage of +Quincy! Men differ in their estimate of his abilities. None, probably, +esteem his mind as one of the first magnitude. But both sides, all men, +are influenced by the bold integrity of his character. Mr. Calhoun +speaks straight out what he thinks. So far as this straightforwardness +goes, he confers the benefits of virtue. If a character be uncorrupted, +whatever bias it takes, it thus far is good and does good. It may help +others to a higher, wiser, larger independence than its own. + +We know not where to look for an example of all or many of the virtues +we would seek from the man who is to begin the new dynasty that is +needed of fathers of the country. The country needs to be born again; +she is polluted with the lust of power, the lust of gain. She needs +fathers good enough to be godfathers--men who will stand sponsors at the +baptism with _all_ they possess, with all the goodness they can cherish, +and all the wisdom they can win, to lead this child the way she should +go, and never one step in another. Are there not in schools and colleges +the boys who will become such men? Are there not those on the threshold +of manhood who have not yet chosen the broad way into which the +multitude rushes, led by the banner on which, strange to say, the royal +Eagle is blazoned, together with the word Expediency? Let them decline +that road, and take the narrow, thorny path where Integrity leads, +though with no prouder emblem than the Dove. They may there find the +needed remedy, which, like the white root, detected by the patient and +resolved Odysseus, shall have power to restore the herd of men, +disguised by the enchantress to whom they had willingly yielded in the +forms of brutes, to the stature and beauty of men. + + + + +FIRST OF AUGUST. + + +Among the holidays of the year, some portion of our people borrow one +from another land. They borrow what they fain would own, since their +doing so would increase, not lessen, the joy and prosperity of the +present owner. It is a holiday not to be celebrated, as others are, with +boast, and shout, and gay procession, but solemnly, yet hopefully; in +prayer and humiliation for much ill now existing; in faith that the God +of good will not permit such ill to exist always; in aspiration to +become his instruments for removal. + +We borrow this holiday from England. We know not that she could lend us +another such. Her career has been one of selfish aggrandizement. To +carry her flag wherever the waters flow; to leave a strong mark of her +footprint on every shore, that she might return and claim its spoils; to +maintain in every way her own advantage,--is and has been her object, as +much as that of any nation upon earth. The plundered Hindoo, the wronged +Irish,--for ourselves we must add the outraged Chinese, (for we look on +all that has been written about the right of that war as mere +sophistry,)--no less than Napoleon, walking up and down, in his "tarred +great-coat," in the unwholesome lodge at St. Helena,--all can tell +whether she be righteous or generous in her conquests. Nay, let myriads +of her own children say whether she will abstain from sacrificing, +mercilessly, human freedom, happiness, and the education of immortal +souls, for the sake of gains of money! We speak of Napoleon, for we +must ever despise, with most profound contempt, the use she made of her +power on that occasion. She had been the chief means of liberating +Europe from his tyranny, and, though it was for her own sake, we must +commend and admire her conduct and resolution thus far. But the +unhandsome, base treatment of her captive, has never been enough +contemned. Any private gentleman, in chaining up the foe that had put +himself in his power, would at least have given him lodging, food, and +clothes to his liking; and a civil turnkey--and a great nation could +fail in this! O, it was shameful, if only for the vulgarity of feeling +evinced! All this we say, because we are sometimes impatient of +England's brag on the subject of slavery. Freedom! Because she has done +one good act, is she entitled to the angelic privilege of being the +champion of freedom? + +And yet it is true that once she nobly awoke to a sense of what was +right and wise. It is true that she also acted out that sense--acted +fully, decidedly. She was willing to make sacrifices, even of the loved +money. She has not let go the truth she then laid to heart, and +continues the resolute foe of man's traffic in men. We must bend low to +her as we borrow this holiday--the anniversary of the emancipation of +slaves in the West Indies. We do not feel that the extent of her +practice justifies the extent of her preaching; yet we must feel her to +be, in this matter, an elder sister, entitled to cry shame to us. And if +her feelings be those of a sister indeed, how must she mourn to see her +next of kin pushing back, as far as in her lies, the advance of this +good cause, binding those whom the old world had awakened from its sins +enough to loose! But courage, sister! All is not yet lost! There is here +a faithful band, determined to expiate the crimes that have been +committed in the name of liberty. On this day they meet and vow +themselves to the service; and, as they look in one another's glowing +eyes, they read there assurance that the end is not yet, and that they, +forced as they are + + "To keep in company with Pain, + And Fear, and Falsehood, miserable train," + + "Turn that necessity to glorious gain," + + "Transmute them and subdue." + +Indeed, we do not see that they "bate a jot of heart or hope," and it is +because they feel that the power of the Great Spirit, and its peculiar +workings in the spirit of this age, are with them. There is action and +reaction all the time; and though the main current is obvious, there are +many little eddies and counter-currents. Mrs. Norton writes a poem on +the sufferings of the poor, and in it she, as episode, tunefully laments +the sufferings of the Emperor of all the Russias for the death of a +beloved daughter. And it _was_ a deep grief; yet it did not soften his +heart, or make it feel for man. The first signs of his recovered spirits +are in new efforts to crush out the heart of Poland, and to make the +Jews lay aside the hereditary marks of their national existence--to them +a sacrifice far worse than death. But then,--Count Apraxin is burned +alive by his infuriate serfs, and the life of a serf is far more +dog-like, or rather machine-like, than that of _our_ slaves. Still the +serf can rise in vengeance--can admonish the autocrat that humanity may +yet turn again and rend him. + +So with us. The most shameful deed has been done that ever disgraced a +nation, because the most contrary to consciousness of right. Other +nations have done wickedly, but we have surpassed them all in trampling +under foot the principles that had been assumed as the basis of our +national existence, and shown a willingness to forfeit our honor in the +face of the world. + +The following stanzas, written by a friend some time since, on the +fourth of July, exhibit these contrasts so forcibly, that we cannot do +better than insert them here:-- + + Loud peal of bells and beat of drums + Salute approaching dawn; + And the deep cannon's fearful bursts + Announce a nation's morn. + + Imposing ranks of freemen stand + And claim their proud birthright; + Impostors, rather! thus to brand + A name they hold so bright. + + Let the day see the pageant show; + Float, banners, to the breeze! + Shout Liberty's great name throughout + Columbia's lands and seas! + + Give open sunlight to the free; + But for Truth's equal sake, + When night sinks down upon the land, + Proclaim dead Freedom's wake! + + Beat, muffled drums! Toll, funeral bell + Nail every flag half-mast; + For though we fought the battle well, + We're traitors at the last. + + Let the whole nation join in one + Procession to appear; + We and our sons lead on the front, + Our slaves bring up the rear. + + America is rocked within + Thy cradle, Liberty, + By Africa's poor, palsied hand-- + Strange inconsistency! + + We've dug one grave as deep as Death, + For Tyranny's black sin; + And dug another at its side + To thrust our brother in. + + We challenge all the world aloud,-- + "Lo, Tyranny's deep grave!" + And all the world points back and cries, + "Thou fool! Behold thy slave!" + + Yes, rally, brave America, + Thy noble hearts and free + Around the Eagle, as he soars + Upward in majesty. + + One half thy emblem is the bird, + Out-facing thus the day; + But wouldst thou make him wholly thine,-- + _Give him a helpless prey!_ + +This should be sung in Charleston at nine o'clock in the evening, when +the drums are heard proclaiming "dead Freedom's wake," as they summon to +their homes, or to the custody of the police, every human being with a +black skin who is found walking without a pass from a white. Or it might +have been sung to advantage the night after Charleston had shown her +independence and care of domestic institutions by expulsion of the +venerable envoy of Massachusetts! Its expression would seem even more +forcible than now, when sung so near the facts, when the eagle soars so +close above his prey. + +How deep the shadow! yet cleft by light. There is a counter-current that +sets towards the deep. We are inclined to weigh as of almost equal +weight with all we have had to trouble us as to the prolongation of +slavery, the hopes that may be gathered from the course of such a man as +Cassius M. Clay,--a man open to none of the accusations brought to +diminish the influence of abolitionists in general, for he has eaten the +bread wrought from slavery, and has shared the education that excuses +the blindness of the slaveholder. He speaks as one having authority; no +one can deny that he knows where he is. In the prime of manhood, of +talent, and the energy of a fine enthusiasm, he comes forward with deed +and word to do his devoir in this cause, never to leave the field till +he can take with him the wronged wretches rescued by his devotion. + +Now he has made this last sacrifice of the prejudices of "southern +chivalry," more persons than ever will be ready to join the herald's +cry, "God speed the right!" And we cannot but believe his noble example +will be followed by many young men in the slaveholding ranks, brothers +in a new, sacred band, vowed to the duty, not merely of defending, but +far more sacred, of purifying their homes. + +The event of which this day is the anniversary, affords a sufficient +guarantee of the safety and practicability of strong measures for this +purification. Various accounts are given to the public, of the state of +the British West Indies, and the foes of emancipation are of course +constantly on the alert to detect any unfavorable result which may aid +them in opposing the good work elsewhere. But through all statements +these facts shine clear as the sun at noonday, that the measure was +there carried into effect with an ease and success, and has shown in the +African race a degree of goodness, docility, capacity for industry and +self-culture entirely beyond or opposed to the predictions which +darkened so many minds with fears. Those fears can never again be +entertained or uttered with the same excuse. One great example of the +_safety of doing right_ exists; true, there is but one of the sort, but +volumes may be preached from such a text. + +We, however, preach not; there are too many preachers already in the +field, abler, more deeply devoted to the cause. Endless are the sermons +of these modern crusaders, these ardent "sons of thunder," who have +pledged themselves never to stop or falter till this one black spot be +purged away from the land which gave them birth. They cry aloud and +spare not; they spare not others, but then, neither do they spare +themselves; and such are ever the harbingers of a new advent of the Holy +Spirit. Our venerated friend, Dr. Channing, sainted in more memories +than any man who has left us in this nineteenth century, uttered the +last of his tones of soft, solemn, convincing, persuasive eloquence, on +this day and this occasion. The hills of Lenox laughed and were glad as +they heard him who showed in that last address (an address not only to +the men of Lenox, but to all men, for he was in the highest sense the +friend of man) the unsullied purity of infancy, the indignation of youth +at vice and wrong, informed and tempered by the mild wisdom of age. It +is a beautiful fact that this should have been the last public occasion +of his life. + +Last year a noble address was delivered by R. W. Emerson, in which he +broadly showed the _juste milieu_ views upon this subject in the holy +light of a high ideal day. The truest man grew more true as he listened; +for the speech, though it had the force of fact and the lustre of +thought, was chiefly remarkable as sharing the penetrating quality of +the "still small voice," most often heard when no man speaks. Now it +spoke _through_ a man; and no personalities, or prejudices, or passions +could be perceived to veil or disturb its silver sound. + +These speeches are on record; little can be said that is not contained +in them. But we can add evermore our aspirations for thee, O our +country! that thou mayst not long need to borrow a _holy_ day; not long +have all thy festivals blackened by falsehood, tyranny, and a crime for +which neither man below nor God above can much longer pardon thee. For +ignorance may excuse error; but thine--it is vain to deny it--is +conscious wrong, and vows thee to the Mammon whose wages are endless +remorse or final death. + + + + +THANKSGIVING. + + "Canst thou give thanks for aught that has been given + Except by making earth more worthy heaven? + Just stewardship the Master hoped from thee; + Harvests from time to bless eternity." + + +Thanksgiving is peculiarly the festival day of New England. Elsewhere, +other celebrations rival its attractions, but in that region where the +Puritans first returned thanks that some among them had been sustained +by a great hope and earnest resolve amid the perils of the ocean, wild +beasts, and famine, the old spirit which hallowed the day still lingers, +and forbids that it should be entirely devoted to play and plum-pudding. + +And yet, as there is always this tendency; as the twelfth-night cake is +baked by many a hostess who would be puzzled if you asked her, "Twelfth +night after or before what?" and the Christmas cake by many who know no +other Christmas service, so it requires very serious assertion and proof +from the minister to convince his parishioners that the turkey and +plum-pudding, which are presently to occupy his place in their +attention, should not be the chief objects of the day. + +And in other regions, where the occasion is observed, it is still more +as one for a meeting of families and friends to the enjoyment of a good +dinner, than for any higher purpose. + +This, indeed, is one which we want not to depreciate. If this manner of +keeping the day be likely to persuade the juniors of the party that the +celebrated Jack Horner is the prime model for brave boys, and that +grandparents are chiefly to be respected as the givers of grand feasts +yet a meeting in the spirit of kindness, however dull and blind, is not +wholly without use in healing differences and promoting good intentions. +The instinct of family love, intended by Heaven to make those of one +blood the various and harmonious organs of one mind, is never wholly +without good influence. Family love, I say, for family pride is never +without bad influence, and it too often takes the place of its mild and +healthy sister. + +Yet where society is at all simple, it is cheering to see the family +circle thus assembled, if only because its patriarchal form is in itself +so excellent. The presence of the children animates the old people, +while the respect and attention they demand refine the gayety of the +young. Yes, it is cheering to see, in some large room, the elders +talking near the bright fire, while the cousins of all ages are amusing +themselves in knots. Here is almost all the good, and very little of the +ill, that can be found in society, got together merely for amusement. + +Yet how much nobler, more exhilarating, and purer would be the +atmosphere of that circle if the design of its pious founders were +remembered by those who partake this festival! if they dared not attend +the public jubilee till private retrospect of the past year had been +taken in the spirit of the old rhyme, which we all bear in mind if not +in heart,-- + + "What hast thou done that's worth the doing, + And what pursued that's worth pursuing? + What sought thou knew'st that thou shouldst shun, + What done thou shouldst have left undone?" + +A crusade needs also to be made this day into the wild places of each +heart, taking for its device, "Lord, cleanse thou me from secret faults; +keep back thy servant also from presumptuous sins." Would not that +circle be happy as if music, from invisible agents, floated through it +if each member of it considered every other member as a bequest from +heaven; if he supposed that the appointed nearness in blood or lot was +a sign to him that he must exercise his gifts of every kind as given +peculiarly in their behalf; that if richer in temper, in talents, in +knowledge, or in worldly goods, here was the innermost circle of his +poor; that he must clothe these naked, whether in body or mind, soothing +the perverse, casting light into the narrow chamber, or, most welcome +task of all! extending a hand at the right moment to one uncertain of +his way? It is this spirit that makes the old man to be revered as a +Nestor, rather than put aside like a worn-out garment. It is such a +spirit that sometimes has given to the young child a ministry as of a +parent in the house. + +But, if charity begin at home, it must not end there; and, while +purifying the innermost circle, let us not forget that it depends upon +the great circle, and that again on it; that no home can be healthful in +which are not cherished seeds of good for the world at large. Thy child, +thy brother, are given to thee only as an example of what is due from +thee to all men. It is true that, if you, in anger, call your brother +fool, no deeds of so-called philanthropy shall save you from the +punishment; for your philanthropy must be from the love of excitement, +not the love of man, or of goodness. But then you must visit the +Gentiles also, and take time for knowing what aid the woman of Samaria +may need. + +A noble Catholic writer, in the true sense as well as by name a +Catholic, describes a tailor as giving a dinner on an occasion which had +brought honor to his house, which, though a humble, was not a poor +house. In his glee, the tailor was boasting a little of the favors and +blessings of his lot, when suddenly a thought stung him. He stopped, and +cutting away half the fowl that lay before him, sent it in a dish with +the best knives, bread, and napkin, and a brotherly message that was +better still, to a widow near, who must, he knew, be sitting in sadness +and poverty among her children. His little daughter was the messenger. +If parents followed up the indulgences heaped upon their children at +Thanksgiving dinners with similar messages, there would not be danger +that children should think enjoyment of sensual pleasures the only +occasion that demands Thanksgiving. + +And suppose, while the children were absent on their errands of justice, +as they could not fail to think them, if they compared the hovels they +must visit with their own comfortable homes, their elders, touched by a +sense of right, should be led from discussion of the rivalries of trade +or fashion to inquiry whether they could not impart of all that was +theirs, not merely one poor dinner once a year, but all their mental and +material wealth for the benefit of all men. If they do not sell it _all_ +at once, as the rich young man was bid to do as a test of his sincerity, +they may find some way in which it could be invested so as to show +enough obedience to the law and the prophets to love our neighbor as +ourselves. + +And he who once gives himself to such thoughts will find it is not +merely moral gain for which he shall return thanks another year with the +return of this day. In the present complex state of human affairs, you +cannot be kind unless you are wise. Thoughts of amaranthine bloom will +spring up in the fields ploughed to give food to suffering men. It +would, indeed, seem to be a simple matter at first glance. "Lovest thou +me?"--"Feed my lambs." But now we have not only to find pasture, but to +detect the lambs under the disguise of wolves, and restore them by a +spell, like that the shepherd used, to their natural form and whiteness. + +And for this present day appointed for Thanksgiving, we may say that if +we know of so many wrongs, woes, and errors in the world yet +unredressed; if in this nation recent decisions have shown a want of +moral discrimination in important subjects, that make us pause and doubt +whether we can join in the formal congratulations that we are still +bodily alive, unassailed by the ruder modes of warfare, and enriched +with the fatness of the land; yet, on the other side, we know of causes +not so loudly proclaimed why we should give thanks. Abundantly and +humbly we must render them for the movement, now sensible in the heart +of the civilized world, although it has not pervaded the entire +frame--for that movement of contrition and love which forbids men of +earnest thought to eat, drink, or be merry while other men are steeped +in ignorance, corruption, and woe; which calls the king from his throne +of gold, and the poet from his throne of mind, to lie with the beggar in +the kennel, or raise him from it; which says to the poet, "You must +reform rather than create a world," and to him of the golden crown, "You +cannot long remain a king unless you are also a man." + +Wherever this impulse of social or political reform darts up its rill +through the crusts of selfishness, scoff and dread also arise, and hang +like a heavy mist above it. But the voice of the rill penetrates far +enough for those who have ears to hear. And sometimes it is the case +that "those who came to scoff remain to pray." In two articles of +reviews, one foreign and one domestic, which have come under our eye +within the last fortnight, the writers who began by jeering at the +visionaries, seemed, as they wrote, to be touched by a sense that +without a high and pure faith none can have the only true vision of the +intention of God as to the destiny of man. + +We recognized as a happy omen that there is cause for thanksgiving, and +that our people may be better than they seem, the recent meeting to +organize an association for the benefit of prisoners. We are not, then, +wholly Pharisees. We shall not ask the blessing of this day in the mood +of, "Lord, I thank thee that I, and my son, and my brother, are not as +other men are,--not as those publicans imprisoned there," while the +still small voice cannot make us hear its evidence that, but for +instruction, example, and the "preventing God," every sin that can be +named might riot in our hearts. The prisoner, too, may become a man. +Neither his open nor our secret fault must utterly dismay us. We will +treat him as if he had a soul. We will not dare to hunt him into a +beast of prey, or trample him into a serpent. We will give him some +crumbs from the table which grace from above and parental love below +have spread for us, and perhaps he will recover from these ghastly +ulcers that deform him now. + +We were much pleased with the spirit of the meeting for the benefit of +prisoners, to which we have just alluded. It was simple, business-like, +in a serious, affectionate temper. The speakers did not make phrases or +compliments--did not slur over the truth. The audience showed a ready +vibration to the touch of just and tender feeling. The time was +evidently ripe for this movement. We doubt not that many now darkened +souls will give thanks for the ray of light that will have been let in +by this time next year. It is but a grain of mustard seed, but the +promised tree will grow swiftly if tended in a pure spirit; and the +influence of good measures in any one place will be immediate in this +province, as has been the case with every attempt in behalf of another +sorrowing class, the insane. + +While reading a notice of a successful attempt to have musical +performances carried through in concert by the insane at Rouen, we were +forcibly reminded of a similar performance we heard a few weeks ago at +Sing Sing. There the female prisoners joined in singing a hymn, or +rather choral, which describes the last thoughts of a spirit about to be +enfranchised from the body; each stanza of which ends with the words, +"All is well;" and they sang it--those suffering, degraded children of +society--with as gentle and resigned an expression as if they were sure +of going to sleep in the arms of a pure mother. The good spirit that +dwelt in the music made them its own. And shall not the good spirit of +religious sympathy make them its own also, and more permanently? We +shall see. Should the _morally_ insane, by wise and gentle care, be won +back to health, as the wretched bedlamites have been, will not the +angels themselves give thanks? And will any man dare take the risk of +opposing plans that afford even a chance of such a result? + +Apart also from good that is public and many-voiced, does not each of us +know, in private experience, much to be thankful for? Not only the +innocent and daily pleasures that we have prized according to our +wisdom; of the sun and starry skies, the fields of green, or snow +scarcely less beautiful, the loaf eaten with an appetite, the glow of +labor, the gentle signs of common affection; but have not some, have not +many of us, cause to be thankful for enfranchisement from error or +infatuation; a growth in knowledge of outward things, and instruction +within the soul from a higher source. Have we not acquired a sense of +more refined enjoyments; clear convictions; sometimes a serenity in +which, as in the first days of June, all things grow, and the blossom +gives place to fruit? Have we not been weaned from what was unfit for +us, or unworthy our care? and have not those ties been drawn more close, +and are not those objects seen more distinctly, which shall forever be +worthy the purest desires of our souls? Have we learned to do any thing, +the humblest, in the service and by the spirit of the power which +meaneth all things well? If so, we may give thanks, and, perhaps, +venture to offer our solicitations in behalf of those as yet less +favored by circumstances. When even a few shall dare do so with the +whole heart--for only a pure heart, can "avail much" in such +prayers--then ALL shall soon be well. + + + + +CHRISTMAS. + + +Our festivals come rather too near together, since we have so few of +them; thanksgiving, Christmas, new year's day,--and then none again till +July. We know not but these four, with the addition of "a day set apart +for fasting and prayer," might answer the purposes of rest and +edification, as well as a calendar full of saints' days, if they were +observed in a better spirit. But thanksgiving is devoted to good +dinners; Christmas and new year's days, to making presents and +compliments; fast day, to playing at cricket and other games; and the +fourth of July, to boasting of the past, rather than to plans how to +deserve its benefits and secure its fruits. + +We value means of marking time by appointed days, because man, on one +side of his nature so ardent and aspiring, is on the other so slippery +and indolent a being, that he needs incessant admonitions to redeem the +time. Time flows on steadily, whether he regards it or not; yet unless +_he keep time_, there is no music in that flow. The sands drop with +inevitable speed, yet each waits long enough to receive, if it be ready, +the intellectual touch that should turn it to a sand of gold. + +Time, says the Grecian fable, is the parent of Power; Power is the +father of Genius and Wisdom; Time, then, is grandfather of the noblest +of the human family, and we must respect the aged sire whom we see on +the frontispiece of the almanacs, and believe his scythe was meant to +mow down harvests ripened for an immortal use. + +Yet the best provision made by the mind of society, at large, for these +admonitions, soon loses its efficacy, and requires that individual +earnestness, individual piety, should continually reanimate the most +beautiful form. The world has never seen arrangements which might more +naturally offer good suggestions, than those of the church of Rome. The +founders of that church stood very near a history, radiant at every page +with divine light. All their rites and ceremonial days illustrate facts +of a universal interest. But the life with which piety, first, and +afterwards the genius of great artists, invested these symbols, waned at +last, except to a thoughtful few. Reverence was forgotten in the +multitude of genuflections; the rosary became a string of beads, rather +than a series of religious meditations, and "the glorious company of +saints and martyrs" were not so much regarded as the teachers of +heavenly truth, as intercessors to obtain for their votaries the +temporal gifts they craved. + +Yet we regret that some of these symbols had not been more reverenced by +Protestants, as the possible occasion of good thoughts. And among others +we regret that the day set apart to commemorate the birth of Jesus +should have been stripped, even by those who observe it, of many +impressive and touching accessories. + +If ever there was an occasion on which the arts could become all but +omnipotent in the service of a holy thought, it is this of the birth of +the child Jesus. In the palmy days of the Catholic religion, they may be +said to have wrought miracles in its behalf; and, in our colder time, +when we rather reflect that light from a different point of view, than +transport ourselves into it,--who, that has an eye and ear faithful to +the soul, is not conscious of inexhaustible benefits from some of the +works by which sublime geniuses have expressed their ideas in the +adorations of the Magi and the Shepherds, in the Virgin with the infant +Jesus, or that work which expresses what Christendom at large has not +even begun to realize,--that work which makes us conscious, as we +listen, why the soul of man was thought worthy and able to upbear a +cross of such dreadful weight--the Messiah of Handel. + +Christmas would seem to be the day peculiarly sacred to children, and +something of this feeling here shows itself among us, though rather from +German influence than of native growth. The evergreen tree is often +reared for the children on Christmas evening, and its branches cluster +with little tokens that may, at least, give them a sense that the world +is rich, and that there are some in it who care to bless them. It is a +charming sight to see their glittering eyes, and well worth much trouble +in preparing the Christmas tree. + +Yet, on this occasion as on all others, we could wish to see pleasure +offered them in a form less selfish than it is. When shall we read of +banquets prepared for the halt, the lame, and the blind, on the day that +is said to have brought _their_ Friend into the world? When will the +children be taught to ask all the cold and ragged little ones, whom they +have seen during the day wistfully gazing at the displays in the +shop-windows, to share the joys of Christmas eve? + +We borrow the Christmas tree from Germany. Would that we might but +borrow with it that feeling which pervades all their stories about the +influence of the Christ child; and has, I doubt not,--for the spirit of +literature is always, though refined, the essence of popular +life,--pervaded the conduct of children there! + +We will mention two of these as happily expressive of different sides of +the desirable character. One is a legend of the Saint Hermann Joseph. +The legend runs, that this saint, when a little boy, passed daily by a +niche where was an image of the Virgin and Child, and delighted there to +pay his devotions. His heart was so drawn towards the holy child, that, +one day, having received what seemed to him a gift truly precious,--to +wit, a beautiful red and yellow apple,--he ventured to offer it, with +his prayer. To his unspeakable delight, the child put forth its hand +and took the apple. After that day, never was a gift bestowed upon the +little Hermann that was not carried to the same place. He needed nothing +for himself, but dedicated all his childish goods to the altar. + +After a while, grief comes. His father, who was a poor man, finds it +necessary to take him from school and bind him to a trade. He +communicates his woes to his friends of the niche, and the Virgin +comforts him, like a mother, and bestows on him money, by means of which +he rises, (not to ride in a gilt coach like Lord Mayor Whittington,) but +to be a learned and tender shepherd of men. + +Another still more touching story is that of the holy Rupert. Rupert was +the only child of a princely house, and had something to give besides +apples. But his generosity and human love were such, that, as a child, +he could never see poor children suffering without despoiling himself of +all he had with him in their behalf. His mother was, at first, +displeased at this; but when he replied, "They are thy children too," +her reproofs yielded to tears. + +One time, when he had given away his coat to a poor child, he got +wearied and belated on his homeward way. He lay down a while, and fell +asleep. Then he dreamed that he was on a river shore, and saw a mild and +noble old man bathing many children. After he had plunged them into the +water, he would place them on a beautiful island, where they looked +white and glorious as little angels. Rupert was seized with strong +desire to join them, and begged the old man to bathe him, also, in the +stream. But he was answered, "It is not yet time." Just then a rainbow +spanned the island, and on its arch was enthroned the child Jesus, +dressed in a coat that Rupert knew to be his own. And the child said to +the others, "See this coat; it is one my brother Rupert has just sent to +me. He has given us many gifts from his love; shall we not ask him to +join us here?" And they shouted a musical "yes;" and the child started +from his dream. But he had lain too long on the damp bank of the river, +without his coat. A cold, and fever soon sent him to join the band of +his brothers in their home. + +These are legends, superstitions, will you say? But, in casting aside +the shell, have we retained the kernel? The image of the child Jesus is +not seen in the open street; does his spirit find other means to express +itself there? Protestantism did not mean, we suppose, to deaden the +spirit in excluding the form? + +The thought of Jesus, as a child, has great weight with children who +have learned to think of him at all. In thinking of him, they form an +image of all that the morning of a pure and fervent life should be and +bring. In former days I knew a boy artist, whose genius, at that time, +showed high promise. He was not more than fourteen years old; a slight, +pale boy, with a beaming eye. The hopes and sympathy of friends, gained +by his talent, had furnished him with a studio and orders for some +pictures. He had picked up from the streets a boy still younger and +poorer than himself, to take care of the room and prepare his colors; +and the two boys were as content in their relation as Michael Angelo +with his Urbino. If you went there you found exposed to view many pretty +pictures: a Girl with a Dove, the Guitar Player and such subjects as are +commonly supposed to interest at his age. But, hid in a corner, and +never, shown, unless to the beggar page, or some most confidential +friend, was the real object of his love and pride, the slowly growing +work of secret hours. The subject of this picture was Christ teaching +the doctors. And in those doctors he had expressed all he had already +observed of the pedantry and shallow conceit of those in whom mature +years have not unfolded the soul; and in the child, all he felt that +early youth should be and seek, though, alas! his own feet failed him on +the difficult road. This one record of the youth of Jesus had, at +least, been much to his mind. + +In earlier days, the little saints thought they best imitated the +Emanuel by giving apples and coats; but we know not why, in our age, +that esteems itself so enlightened, they should not become also the +givers of spiritual gifts. We see in them, continually, impulses that +only require a good direction to effect infinite good. See the little +girls at work for foreign missions; that is not useless. They devote the +time to a purpose that is not selfish; the horizon of their thoughts is +extended. But they are perfectly capable of becoming home missionaries +as well. The principle of stewardship would make them so. + +I have seen a little girl of thirteen,--who had much service, too, to +perform, for a hard-working mother,--in the midst of a circle of poor +children whom she gathered daily to a morning school. She took them from +the door-steps and the ditches; she washed their hands and faces; she +taught them to read and to sew; and she told them stories that had +delighted her own infancy. In her face, though in feature and complexion +plain, was something, already, of a Madonna sweetness, and it had no way +eclipsed the gayety of childhood. + +I have seen a boy scarce older, brought up for some time with the sons +of laborers, who, so soon as he found himself possessed of superior +advantages, thought not of surpassing others, but of excelling, and then +imparting--and he was able to do it. If the other boys had less leisure, +and could pay for less instruction, they did not suffer for it. He could +not be happy unless they also could enjoy Milton, and pass from nature +to natural philosophy. He performed, though in a childish way, and in no +Grecian garb, the part of Apollo amid the herdsmen of Admetus. + +The cause of education would be indefinitely furthered, if, in addition +to formal means, there were but this principle awakened in the hearts of +the young, that what they have they must bestow. All are not natural +instructors, but a large proportion are; and those who do possess such a +talent are the best possible teachers to those a little younger than +themselves. Many have more patience with the difficulties they have +lately left behind, and enjoy their power of assisting more than those +farther removed in age and knowledge do. + +Then the intercourse may be far more congenial and profitable than where +the teacher receives for hire all sorts of pupils, as they are sent him +by their guardians. Here he need only choose those who have a +predisposition for what he is best able to teach. And, as I would have +the so-called higher instruction as much diffused in this way as the +lower, there would be a chance of awakening all the power that now lies +latent. + +If a girl, for instance, who has only a passable talent for music, but +who, from the advantage of social position, has been able to gain +thorough instruction, felt it her duty to teach whomsoever she knew that +had such a talent, without money to cultivate it, the good is obvious. + +Those who are learning receive an immediate benefit by an effort to +rearrange and interpret what they learn; so the use of this justice +would be twofold. + +Some efforts are made here and there; nay, sometimes there are those who +can say they have returned usury for every gift of fate. And, would +others make the same experiments, they might find Utopia not so far off +as the children of this world, wise in securing their own selfish ease, +would persuade us it must always be. + +We have hinted what sort of Christmas box we would wish for the +children. It would be one full, as that of the child Christ must be, of +the pieces of silver that were lost and are found. But Christmas, with +its peculiar associations, has deep interest for men, and women too, no +less. It has so in their mutual relations. At the time thus celebrated, +a pure woman saw in her child what the Son of man should be as a child +of God. She anticipated for him a life of glory to God, peace and good +will to man. In every young mother's heart, who has any purity of heart, +the same feelings arise. But most of these mothers let them go without +obeying their instructions. If they did not, we should see other +children--other men than now throng our streets. The boy could not +invariably disappoint the mother, the man the wife, who steadily +demanded of him such a career. + +And man looks upon woman, in this relation, always as he should. Does he +see in her a holy mother worthy to guard the infancy of an immortal +soul? Then she assumes in his eyes those traits which the Romish church +loved to revere in Mary. Frivolity, base appetite, contempt are +exorcised; and man and woman appear again in unprofaned connection, as +brother and sister, the children and the servants of the one Divine +Love, and pilgrims to a common aim. + +Were all this right in the private sphere, the public would soon right +itself also, and the nations of Christendom might join in a celebration, +such as "kings and prophets waited for," and so many martyrs died to +achieve, of Christ-Mass. + + + + +MARIANA[33] + + +Among those whom I met in a recent visit at Chicago was Mrs. Z., the +aunt of an old schoolmate, to whom I impatiently hastened, to demand +news of Mariana. The answer startled me. Mariana, so full of life, was +dead. That form, the most rich in energy and coloring of any I had ever +seen, had faded from the earth. The circle of youthful associations had +given way in the part that seemed the strongest. What I now learned of +the story of this life, and what was by myself remembered, may be bound +together in this slight sketch. + +At the boarding school to which I was too early sent, a fond, a proud, +and timid child, I saw among the ranks of the gay and graceful, bright +or earnest girls, only one who interested my fancy or touched my young +heart; and this was Mariana. She was, on the father's side, of Spanish +Creole blood, but had been sent to the Atlantic coast, to receive a +school education under the care of her aunt, Mrs. Z. + +This lady had kept her mostly at home with herself, and Mariana had gone +from her house to a day school; but the aunt being absent for a time in +Europe, she had now been unfortunately committed for some time to the +mercies of a boarding school. + +A strange bird she proved there--a lonely one, that could not make for +itself a summer. At first, her schoolmates were captivated with her +ways, her love of wild dances and sudden song, her freaks of passion +and of wit. She was always new, always surprising, and, for a time, +charming. + +But, after a while, they tired of her. She could never be depended on to +join in their plans, yet she expected them to follow out hers with their +whole strength. She was very loving, even infatuated in her own +affections, and exacted from those who had professed any love for her, +the devotion she was willing to bestow. + +Yet there was a vein of haughty caprice in her character; a love of +solitude, which made her at times wish to retire entirely; and at these +times she would expect to be thoroughly understood, and let alone, yet +to be welcomed back when she returned. She did not thwart others in +their humors, but she never doubted of great indulgence from them. + +Some singular ways she had, which, when new, charmed, but, after +acquaintance, displeased her companions. She had by nature the same +habit and power of excitement that is described in the spinning +dervishes of the East. Like them, she would spin until all around her +were giddy, while her own brain, instead of being disturbed, was excited +to great action. Pausing, she would declaim verse of others or her own; +perform many parts, with strange catch-words and burdens that seemed to +act with mystical power on her own fancy, sometimes stimulating her to +convulse the hearer with laughter, sometimes to melt him to tears. When +her power began to languish, she would spin again till fired to +recommence her singular drama, into which she wove figures from the +scenes of her earlier childhood, her companions, and the dignitaries she +sometimes saw, with fantasies unknown to life, unknown to heaven or +earth. + +This excitement, as may be supposed, was not good for her. It oftenest +came on in the evening, and spoiled her sleep. She would wake in the +night, and cheat her restlessness by inventions that teased, while they +sometimes diverted her companions. + +She was also a sleep-walker; and this one trait of her case did somewhat +alarm her guardians, who, otherwise, showed the same profound stupidity, +as to this peculiar being, usual in the overseers of the young. They +consulted a physician, who said she would outgrow it, and prescribed a +milk diet. + +Meantime, the fever of this ardent and too early stimulated nature was +constantly increased by the restraints and narrow routine of the +boarding school. She was always devising means to break in upon it. She +had a taste, which would have seemed ludicrous to her mates, if they had +not felt some awe of her, from a touch of genius and power, that never +left her, for costume and fancy dresses; always some sash twisted about +her, some drapery, something odd in the arrangement of her hair and +dress; so that the methodical preceptress dared not let her go out +without a careful scrutiny and remodelling, whose soberizing effects +generally disappeared the moment she was in the free air. + +At last, a vent for her was found in private theatricals. Play followed +play, and in these and the rehearsals she found entertainment congenial +with her. The principal parts, as a matter of course, fell to her lot; +most of the good suggestions and arrangements came from her, and for a +time she ruled masterly and shone triumphant. + +During these performances the girls had heightened their natural bloom +with artificial red; this was delightful to them--it was something so +out of the way. But Mariana, after the plays were over, kept her carmine +saucer on the dressing table, and put on her blushes regularly as the +morning. + +When stared and jeered at, she at first said she did it because she +thought it made her look prettier; but, after a while, she became quite +petulant about it--would make no reply to any joke, but merely kept on +doing it. + +This irritated the girls, as all eccentricity does the world in general, +more than vice or malignity. They talked it over among themselves, till +they got wrought up to a desire of punishing, once for all, this +sometimes amusing, but so often provoking nonconformist. + +Having obtained the leave of the mistress, they laid, with great glee, a +plan one evening, which was to be carried into execution next day at +dinner. + +Among Mariana's irregularities was a great aversion to the meal-time +ceremonial. So long, so tiresome she found it, to be seated at a certain +moment, to wait while each one was served at so large a table, and one +where there was scarcely any conversation; from day to day it became +more heavy to her to sit there, or go there at all. Often as possible +she excused herself on the ever-convenient plea of headache, and was +hardly ever ready when the dinner bell rang. + +To-day it found her on the balcony, lost in gazing on the beautiful +prospect. I have heard her say, afterwards, she had rarely in her life +been so happy--and she was one with whom happiness was a still rapture. +It was one of the most blessed summer days; the shadows of great white +clouds empurpled the distant hills for a few moments only to leave them +more golden; the tall grass of the wide fields waved in the softest +breeze. Pure blue were the heavens, and the same hue of pure contentment +was in the heart of Mariana. + +Suddenly on her bright mood jarred the dinner bell. At first rose her +usual thought, I will not, cannot go; and then the _must_, which daily +life can always enforce, even upon the butterflies and birds, came, and +she walked reluctantly to her room. She merely changed her dress, and +never thought of adding the artificial rose to her cheek. + +When she took her seat in the dining hall, and was asked if she would be +helped, raising her eyes, she saw the person who asked her was deeply +rouged, with a bright, glaring spot, perfectly round, in either cheek. +She looked at the next--the same apparition! She then slowly passed her +eyes down the whole line, and saw the same, with a suppressed smile +distorting every countenance. Catching the design at once she +deliberately looked along her own side of the table, at every schoolmate +in turn; every one had joined in the trick. The teachers strove to be +grave, but she saw they enjoyed the joke. The servants could not +suppress a titter. + +When Warren Hastings stood at the bar of Westminster Hall; when the +Methodist preacher walked through a line of men, each of whom greeted +him with a brickbat or a rotten egg,--they had some preparation for the +crisis, and it might not be very difficult to meet it with an impassive +brow. Our little girl was quite unprepared to find herself in the midst +of a world which despised her, and triumphed in her disgrace. + +She had ruled like a queen in the midst of her companions; she had shed +her animation through their lives, and loaded them with prodigal favors, +nor once suspected that a powerful favorite might not be loved. Now, she +felt that she had been but a dangerous plaything in the hands of those +whose hearts she never had doubted. + +Yet the occasion found her equal to it; for Mariana had the kind of +spirit, which, in a better cause, had made the Roman matron truly say of +her death wound, "It is not painful, Poetus." She did not blench--she +did not change countenance. She swallowed her dinner with apparent +composure. She made remarks to those near her as if she had no eyes. + +The wrath of the foe of course rose higher, and the moment they were +freed from the restraints of the dining room, they all ran off, gayly +calling, and sarcastically laughing, with backward glances, at Mariana, +left alone. + +She went alone to her room, locked the door, and threw herself on the +floor in strong convulsions. These had sometimes threatened her life, as +a child, but of later years she had outgrown them. School hours came, +and she was not there. A little girl, sent to her door, could get no +answer. The teachers became alarmed, and broke it open. Bitter was their +penitence and that of her companions at the state in which they found +her. For some hours terrible anxiety was felt; but at last, Nature, +exhausted, relieved herself by a deep slumber. + +From this Mariana rose an altered being. She made no reply to the +expressions of sorrow from her companions, none to the grave and kind, +but undiscerning comments of her teacher. She did not name the source of +her anguish, and its poisoned dart sunk deeply in. It was this thought +which stung her so.--"What, not one, not a single one, in the hour of +trial, to take my part! not one who refused to take part against me!" +Past words of love, and caresses little heeded at the time, rose to her +memory, and gave fuel to her distempered thoughts. Beyond the sense of +universal perfidy, of burning resentment, she could not get. And +Mariana, born for love, now hated all the world. + +The change, however, which these feelings made in her conduct and +appearance bore no such construction to the careless observer. Her gay +freaks were quite gone, her wildness, her invention. Her dress was +uniform, her manner much subdued. Her chief interest seemed now to lie +in her studies and in music. Her companions she never sought; but they, +partly from uneasy, remorseful feelings, partly that they really liked +her much better now that she did not oppress and puzzle them, sought her +continually. And here the black shadow comes upon her life--the only +stain upon the history of Mariana. + +They talked to her as girls, having few topics, naturally do of one +another. And the demon rose within her, and spontaneously, without +design, generally without words of positive falsehood, she became a +genius of discord among them. She fanned those flames of envy and +jealousy which a wise, true word from a third person will often quench +forever; by a glance, or a seemingly light reply, she planted the seeds +of dissension, till there was scarce a peaceful affection or sincere +intimacy in the circle where she lived, and could not but rule, for she +was one whose nature was to that of the others as fire to clay. + +It was at this time that I came to the school, and first saw Mariana. Me +she charmed at once, for I was a sentimental child, who, in my early ill +health, had been indulged in reading novels till I had no eyes for the +common greens and browns of life. The heroine of one of these, "the +Bandit's Bride," I immediately saw in Mariana. Surely the Bandit's Bride +had just such hair, and such strange, lively ways, and such a sudden +flash of the eye. The Bandit's Bride, too, was born to be +"misunderstood" by all but her lover. But Mariana, I was determined, +should be more fortunate; for, until her lover appeared, I myself would +be the wise and delicate being who could understand her. + +It was not, however, easy to approach her for this purpose. Did I offer +to run and fetch her handkerchief, she was obliged to go to her room, +and would rather do it herself. She did not like to have people turn +over for her the leaves of the music book as she played. Did I approach +my stool to her feet, she moved away, as if to give me room. The bunch +of wild flowers which I timidly laid beside her plate was left there. + +After some weeks my desire to attract her notice really preyed upon me, +and one day, meeting her alone in the entry, I fell upon my knees, and +kissing her hand, cried, "O Mariana, do let me love you, and try to love +me a little." But my idol snatched away her hand, and, laughing more +wildly than the Bandit's Bride was ever described to have done, ran into +her room. After that day her manner to me was not only cold, but +repulsive; I felt myself scorned, and became very unhappy. + +Perhaps four months had passed thus, when, one afternoon, it became +obvious that something more than common was brewing. Dismay and mystery +were written in many faces of the older girls; much whispering was going +on in corners. + +In the evening, after prayers, the principal bade us stay; and, in a +grave, sad voice, summoned forth Mariana to answer charges to be made +against her. + +Mariana came forward, and leaned against the chimney-piece. Eight of the +older girls came forward, and preferred against her charges--alas! too +well founded--of calumny and falsehood. + +My heart sank within me, as one after the other brought up their proofs, +and I saw they were too strong to be resisted. I could not bear the +thought of this second disgrace of my shining favorite. The first had +been whispered to me, though the girls did not like to talk about it. I +must confess, such is the charm of strength to softer natures, that +neither of these crises could deprive Mariana of hers in my eyes. + +At first, she defended herself with self-possession and eloquence. But +when she found she could no more resist the truth, she suddenly threw +herself down, dashing her head, with all her force, against the iron +hearth, on which a fire was burning, and was taken up senseless. + +The affright of those present was great. Now that they had perhaps +killed her, they reflected it would have been as well if they had taken +warning from the former occasion, and approached very carefully a nature +so capable of any extreme. After a while she revived, with a faint +groan, amid the sobs of her companions. I was on my knees by the bed, +and held her cold hand. One of those most aggrieved took it from me to +beg her pardon, and say it was impossible not to love her. She made no +reply. + +Neither that night, nor for several days, could a word be obtained from +her, nor would she touch food; but, when it was presented to her, or any +one drew near for any cause, she merely turned away her head, and gave +no sign. The teacher saw that some terrible nervous affection had fallen +upon her--that she grew more and more feverish. She knew not what to +do. + +Meanwhile, a new revolution had taken place in the mind of the +passionate but nobly-tempered child. All these months nothing but the +sense of injury had rankled in her heart. She had gone on in one mood, +doing what the demon prompted, without scruple and without fear. + +But at the moment of detection, the tide ebbed, and the bottom of her +soul lay revealed to her eye. How black, how stained and sad! Strange, +strange that she had not seen before the baseness and cruelty of +falsehood, the loveliness of truth. Now, amid the wreck, uprose the +moral nature which never before had attained the ascendant. "But," she +thought, "too late sin is revealed to me in all its deformity, and +sin-defiled, I will not, cannot live. The mainspring of life is broken." + +And thus passed slowly by her hours in that black despair of which only +youth is capable. In older years men suffer more dull pain, as each +sorrow that comes drops its leaden weight into the past, and, similar +features of character bringing similar results, draws up the heavy +burden buried in those depths. But only youth has energy, with fixed, +unwinking gaze, to contemplate grief, to hold it in the arms and to the +heart, like a child which makes it wretched, yet is indubitably its own. + +The lady who took charge of this sad child had never well understood her +before, but had always looked on her with great tenderness. And now love +seemed--when all around were in greatest distress, fearing to call in +medical aid, fearing to do without it--to teach her where the only balm +was to be found that could have healed this wounded spirit. + +One night she came in, bringing a calming draught. Mariana was sitting, +as usual, her hair loose, her dress the same robe they had put on her at +first, her eyes fixed vacantly upon the whited wall. To the proffers and +entreaties of her nurse she made no reply. + +The lady burst into tears, but Mariana did not seem even to observe it. + +The lady then said, "O my child, do not despair; do not think that one +great fault can mar a whole life. Let me trust you, let me tell you the +griefs of my sad life. I will tell to you, Mariana, what I never +expected to impart to any one." + +And so she told her tale: it was one of pain, of shame, borne, not for +herself, but for one near and dear as herself. Mariana knew the +lady--knew the pride and reserve of her nature. She had often admired to +see how the cheek, lovely, but no longer young, mantled with the deepest +blush of youth, and the blue eyes were cast down at any little emotion: +she had understood the proud sensibility of the character. She fixed her +eyes on those now raised to hers, bright with fast-falling tears. She +heard the story to the end, and then, without saying a word, stretched +out her hand for the cup. + +She returned to life, but it was as one who has passed through the +valley of death. The heart of stone was quite broken in her, the fiery +life fallen from flame to coal. When her strength was a little restored, +she had all her companions summoned, and said to them, "I deserved to +die, but a generous trust has called me back to life. I will be worthy +of it, nor ever betray the truth, or resent injury more. Can you forgive +the past?" + +And they not only forgave, but, with love and earnest tears, clasped in +their arms the returning sister. They vied with one another in offices +of humble love to the humbled one; and let it be recorded as an instance +of the pure honor of which young hearts are capable, that these facts, +known to forty persons, never, so far as I know, transpired beyond those +walls. + +It was not long after this that Mariana was summoned home. She went +thither a wonderfully instructed being, though in ways that those who +had sent her forth to learn little dreamed of. + +Never was forgotten the vow of the returning prodigal. Mariana could not +resent, could not play false. The terrible crisis which she so early +passed through probably prevented the world from hearing much of her. A +wild fire was tamed in that hour of penitence at the boarding school +such as has oftentimes wrapped court and camp in its destructive glow. + +But great were the perils she had yet to undergo, for she was one of +those barks which easily get beyond soundings, and ride not lightly on +the plunging billow. + +Her return to her native climate seconded the effects of inward +revolutions. The cool airs of the north had exasperated nerves too +susceptible for their tension. Those of the south restored her to a more +soft and indolent state. Energy gave place to feeling--turbulence to +intensity of character. + +At this time, love was the natural guest; and he came to her under a +form that might have deluded one less ready for delusion. + +Sylvain was a person well proportioned to her lot in years, family, and +fortune. His personal beauty was not great, but of a noble description. +Repose marked his slow gesture, and the steady gaze of his large brown +eye; but it was a repose that would give way to a blaze of energy, when +the occasion called. In his stature, expression, and heavy coloring, he +might not unfitly be represented by the great magnolias that inhabit the +forests of that climate. His voice, like every thing about him, was rich +and soft, rather than sweet or delicate. + +Mariana no sooner knew him than she loved; and her love, lovely as she +was, soon excited his. But O, it is a curse to woman to love first, or +most! In so doing she reverses the natural relations; and her heart can +never, never be satisfied with what ensues. + +Mariana loved first, and loved most, for she had most force and variety +to love with. Sylvain seemed, at first, to take her to himself, as the +deep southern night might some fair star; but it proved not so. + +Mariana was a very intellectual being, and she needed companionship. +This she could only have with Sylvain, in the paths of passion and +action. Thoughts he had none, and little delicacy of sentiment. The +gifts she loved to prepare of such for him he took with a sweet but +indolent smile; he held them lightly, and soon they fell from his grasp. +He loved to have her near him, to feel the glow and fragrance of her +nature, but cared not to explore the little secret paths whence that +fragrance was collected. + +Mariana knew not this for a long time. Loving so much, she imagined all +the rest; and, where she felt a blank, always hoped that further +communion would fill it up. When she found this could never be,--that +there was absolutely a whole province of her being to which nothing in +his answered,--she was too deeply in love to leave him. Often, after +passing hours together beneath the southern moon, when, amid the sweet +intoxication of mutual love, she still felt the desolation of solitude, +and a repression of her finer powers, she had asked herself, Can I give +him up? But the heart always passionately answered, No! I may be +wretched with him, but I cannot live without him. + +And the last miserable feeling of these conflicts was, that if the +lover--soon to be the bosom friend--could have dreamed of these +conflicts, he would have laughed, or else been angry, even enough to +give her up. + +Ah, weakness of the strong! of those strong only where strength is +weakness! Like others, she had the decisions of life to make before she +had light by which to make them. Let none condemn her. Those who have +not erred as fatally should thank the guardian angel who gave them more +time to prepare for judgment, but blame no children who thought at arm's +length to find the moon. Mariana, with a heart capable of highest Eros, +gave it to one who knew love only as a flower or plaything, and bound +her heartstrings to one who parted his as lightly as the ripe fruit +leaves the bough. The sequel could not fail. Many console themselves for +the one great mistake with their children, with the world. This was not +possible to Mariana. A few months of domestic life she still was almost +happy. But Sylvain then grew tired. He wanted business and the world: of +these she had no knowledge, for them no faculties. He wanted in her the +head of his house; she to make her heart his home. No compromise was +possible between natures of such unequal poise, and which had met only +on one or two points. Through all its stages she + + "felt + The agonizing sense + Of seeing love from passion melt + Into indifference; + The fearful shame, that, day by day, + Burns onward, still to burn, + To have thrown her precious heart away, + And met this black return," + +till death at last closed the scene. Not that she died of one downright +blow on the heart. That is not the way such cases proceed. I cannot +detail all the symptoms, for I was not there to watch them, and aunt Z., +who described them, was neither so faithful an observer or narrator as I +have shown myself in the school-day passages; but, generally, they were +as follows. + +Sylvain wanted to go into the world, or let it into his house. Mariana +consented; but, with an unsatisfied heart, and no lightness of +character, she played her part ill there. The sort of talent and +facility she had displayed in early days were not the least like what is +called out in the social world by the desire to please and to shine. Her +excitement had been muse-like--that of the improvisatrice, whose +kindling fancy seeks to create an atmosphere round it, and makes the +chain through which to set free its electric sparks. That had been a +time of wild and exuberant life. After her character became more tender +and concentrated, strong affection or a pure enthusiasm might still have +called out beautiful talents in her. But in the first she was utterly +disappointed. The second was not roused within her mind. She did not +expand into various life, and remained unequal; sometimes too passive, +sometimes too ardent, and not sufficiently occupied with what occupied +those around her to come on the same level with them and embellish their +hours. + +Thus she lost ground daily with her husband, who, comparing her with the +careless shining dames of society, wondered why he had found her so +charming in solitude. + +At intervals, when they were left alone, Mariana wanted to open her +heart, to tell the thoughts of her mind. She was so conscious of secret +riches within herself, that sometimes it seemed, could she but reveal a +glimpse of them to the eye of Sylvain, he would be attracted near her +again, and take a path where they could walk hand in hand. Sylvain, in +these intervals, wanted an indolent repose. His home was his castle. He +wanted no scenes too exciting there. Light jousts and plays were well +enough, but no grave encounters. He liked to lounge, to sing, to read, +to sleep. In fine, Sylvain became the kind but preoccupied husband, +Mariana the solitary and wretched wife. He was off, continually, with +his male companions, on excursions or affairs of pleasure. At home +Mariana found that neither her books nor music would console her. + +She was of too strong a nature to yield without a struggle to so dull a +fiend as despair. She looked into other hearts, seeking whether she +could there find such home as an orphan asylum may afford. This she did +rather because the chance came to her, and it seemed unfit not to seize +the proffered plank, than in hope; for she was not one to double her +stakes, but rather with Cassandra power to discern early the sure course +of the game. And Cassandra whispered that she was one of those + + "Whom men love not, but yet regret;" + +and so it proved. Just as in her childish days, though in a different +form, it happened betwixt her and these companions. She could not be +content to receive them quietly, but was stimulated to throw herself too +much into the tie, into the hour, till she filled it too full for them. +Like Fortunio, who sought to do homage to his friends by building a fire +of cinnamon, not knowing that its perfume would be too strong for their +endurance, so did Mariana. What she wanted to tell they did not wish to +hear; a little had pleased, so much overpowered, and they preferred the +free air of the street, even, to the cinnamon perfume of her palace. + +However, this did not signify; had they staid, it would not have availed +her. It was a nobler road, a higher aim, she needed now; this did not +become clear to her. + +She lost her appetite, she fell sick, had fever. Sylvain was alarmed, +nursed her tenderly; she grew better. Then his care ceased; he saw not +the mind's disease, but left her to rise into health, and recover the +tone of her spirits, as she might. More solitary than ever, she tried to +raise herself; but she knew not yet enough. The weight laid upon her +young life was a little too heavy for it. One long day she passed alone, +and the thoughts and presages came too thick for her strength. She knew +not what to do with them, relapsed into fever, and died. + +Notwithstanding this weakness, I must ever think of her as a fine sample +of womanhood, born to shed light and life on some palace home. Had she +known more of God and the universe, she would not have given way where +so many have conquered. But peace be with her; she now, perhaps, has +entered into a larger freedom, which is knowledge. With her died a great +interest in life to me. Since her I have never seen a Bandit's Bride. +She, indeed, turned out to be only a merchant's. Sylvain is married +again to a fair and laughing girl, who will not die, probably, till +their marriage grows a "golden marriage." + +Aunt Z. had with her some papers of Mariana's, which faintly shadow +forth the thoughts that engaged her in the last days. One of these seems +to have been written when some faint gleam had been thrown across the +path only to make its darkness more visible. It seems to have been +suggested by remembrance of the beautiful ballad, _Helen of Kirconnel +Lee_, which once she loved to recite, and in tones that would not have +sent a chill to the heart from which it came. + + "Death + Opens her sweet white arms, and whispers, Peace; + Come, say thy sorrows in this bosom! This + Will never close against thee, and my heart, + Though cold, cannot be colder much than man's." + +DISAPPOINTMENT. + + "I wish I were where Helen lies." + A lover in the times of old, + Thus vents his grief in lonely sighs, + And hot tears from a bosom cold. + + But, mourner for thy martyred love, + Couldst thou but know what hearts must feel. + Where no sweet recollections move, + Whose tears a desert fount reveal! + + When "in thy arms bird Helen fell," + She died, sad man, she died for thee; + Nor could the films of death dispel + Her loving eye's sweet radiancy. + + Thou wert beloved, and she had loved, + Till death alone the whole could tell; + Death every shade of doubt removed, + And steeped the star in its cold well. + + On some fond breast the parting soul + Relies--earth has no more to give; + Who wholly loves has known the whole; + The wholly loved doth truly live. + + But some, sad outcasts from this prize, + Do wither to a lonely grave; + All hearts their hidden love despise, + And leave them to the whelming wave. + + They heart to heart have never pressed, + Nor hands in holy pledge have given, + By father's love were ne'er caressed, + Nor in a mother's eye saw heaven. + + A flowerless and fruitless tree, + A dried-up stream, a mateless bird, + They live, yet never living be, + They die, their music all unheard. + + I wish I were where Helen lies, + For there I could not be alone; + But now, when this dull body dies, + The spirit still will make its moan. + + Love passed me by, nor touched my brow; + Life would not yield one perfect boon; + And all too late it calls me now-- + O, all too late, and all too soon. + + If thou couldst the dark riddle read + Which leaves this dart within my breast, + Then might I think thou lov'st indeed, + Then were the whole to thee confest. + + Father, they will not take me home; + To the poor child no heart is free; + In sleet and snow all night I roam; + Father, was this decreed by thee? + + I will not try another door, + To seek what I have never found; + Now, till the very last is o'er, + Upon the earth I'll wander round. + + I will not hear the treacherous call + That bids me stay and rest a while, + For I have found that, one and all, + They seek me for a prey and spoil. + + They are not bad; I know it well; + I know they know not what they do; + They are the tools of the dread spell + Which the lost lover must pursue. + + In temples sometimes she may rest, + In lonely groves, away from men, + There bend the head, by heats distressed, + Nor be by blows awoke again. + + Nature is kind, and God is kind; + And, if she had not had a heart, + Only that great discerning mind, + She might have acted well her part. + + But O this thirst, that nought can fill, + Save those unfounden waters free! + The angel of my life must still + And soothe me in eternity! + +It marks the defect in the position of woman that one like Mariana +should have found reason to write thus. To a man of equal power, equal +sincerity, no more!--many resources would have presented themselves. He +would not have needed to seek, he would have been called by life, and +not permitted to be quite wrecked through the affections only. But such +women as Mariana are often lost, unless they meet some man of +sufficiently great soul to prize them. + +Van Artevelde's Elena, though in her individual nature unlike my +Mariana, is like her in a mind whose large impulses are disproportioned +to the persons and occasions she meets, and which carry her beyond those +reserves which mark the appointed lot of woman. But, when she met Van +Artevelde, he was too great not to revere her rare nature, without +regard to the stains and errors of its past history; great enough to +receive her entirely, and make a new life for her; man enough to be a +lover! But as such men come not so often as once an age, their presence +should not be absolutely needed to sustain life. + + + + +SUNDAY MEDITATIONS ON VARIOUS TEXTS. + + +MEDITATION FIRST. + + "And Jesus, answering, said unto them, Have faith in God."--_Mark_ + xi. 22. + +O, direction most difficult to follow! O, counsel most mighty of import! +Beauteous harmony to the purified soul! Mysterious, confounding as an +incantation to those yet groping and staggering amid the night, the fog, +the chaos of their own inventions! + +Yes, this is indeed the beginning and the end of all knowledge and +virtue; the way and the goal; the enigma and its solution. The soul +cannot prove to herself the existence of a God; she cannot prove her own +immortality; she cannot prove the beauty of virtue, or the deformity of +vice; her own consciousness, the first ground of this belief, cannot be +compassed by the reason, that inferior faculty which the Deity gave for +practical, temporal purposes only. This consciousness is divine; it is +part of the Deity; through this alone we sympathize with the +imperishable, the infinite, the nature of things. Were reason +commensurate with this part of our intellectual life, what should we do +with the things of time? The leaves and buds of earth would wither +beneath the sun of our intelligence; its crags and precipices would be +levelled before the mighty torrent of our will; all its dross would +crumble to ashes under the fire of our philosophy. + +God willed it otherwise; WHY, who can guess? Why this planet, with its +tormenting limitations of space and time, was ever created,--why the +soul was cased in this clogging, stifling integument, (which, while it +conveys to the soul, in a roundabout way, knowledge which she might +obviously acquire much better without its aid, tempts constantly to vice +and indolence, suggesting sordid wants, and hampering or hindering +thought,)--I pretend not to say. Let others toil to stifle sad distrust +a thousand ways. Let them satisfy themselves by reasonings on the nature +of free agency; let them imagine it was impossible men should be +purified to angels, except by resisting the temptations of guilt and +crime; let them be _reasonably_ content to feel that + + "Faith conquers in no easy war; + By toil alone the prize is won; + The grape dissolves not in the cup-- + Wine from the crushing press must run; + And would a spirit heavenward go, + A heart must break in death below." + +Why an _omnipotent_ Deity should permit evil, either as necessary to +produce good, or incident to laws framed for its production, must remain +a mystery to me. True, _we_ cannot conceive how the world could have +been ordered differently, and because _we_,--beings half of clay; beings +bred amid, and nurtured upon imperfection and decay; beings who must not +only sleep and eat, but pass the greater part of their temporal day in +procuring the means to do so,--because WE, creatures so limited and +blind, so weak of thought and dull of hearing, cannot conceive how evil +could have been dispensed with, those among us who are styled _wise_ and +_learned_ have thought fit to assume that the Infinite, the Omnipotent, +could not have found a way! "Could not," "evil must be incident"--terms +invented to express the thoughts or deeds of the children of dust. Shall +they be applied to the Omnipotent? Is a confidence in the goodness of +God more trying to faith, than the belief that a God exists, to whom +these words, transcending our powers of conception, apply? O, no, no! +"_Have faith in God!_" Strive to expand thy soul to the feeling of +wisdom, of beauty, of goodness; live, and act as if these were the +necessary elements of things; "live for thy faith, and thou shalt behold +it living." In another world God will repay thy trust, and "reveal to +thee the first causes of things which Leibnitz could not," as the queen +of Prussia said, when she was dying. Socrates has declared that the +belief in the soul's immortality is so delightful, so elevating, so +purifying, that even were it not the truth, "we should daily strive to +enchant ourselves with it." And thus with faith in wisdom and +goodness,--that is to say, in God,--the earthquake-defying, +rock-foundation of our hopes is laid; the sun-greeting dome which crowns +the most superb palace of our knowledge is builded. A noble and +accomplished man, of a later day, has said, "To credit ordinary and +visible objects is not faith, but persuasion. I bless myself, and am +thankful, that I lived not in the days of miracles, that I never saw +Christ, nor his disciples; then had my faith been thrust upon me, nor +could I enjoy that greater blessing pronounced upon those who believe +yet saw not." + +I cannot speak thus proudly and heartily. I find the world of sense +strong enough against the intellectual and celestial world. It is easy +to believe in our passionless moments, or in those when earth would seem +too dark without the guiding star of faith; but to _live_ in faith, not +sometimes to feel, but always to have it, is difficult. Were faith ever +with us, how steady would be our energy, how equal our ambition, how +calmly bright our hopes! The darts of envy would be blunted, the cup of +disappointment lose its bitterness, the impassioned eagerness of the +heart be stilled, tears would fall like holy dew, and blossoms fragrant +with celestial May ensue. + +But the prayer of most of us must be, "Lord, we believe--help thou our +unbelief!" These are to me the most significant words of Holy Writ. I +_will_ to believe; O, guide, support, strengthen, and soothe me to do +so! Lord, grant me to believe firmly, and to act nobly. Let me not be +tempted to waste my time, and weaken my powers, by attempts to soar on +feeble pinions "where angels bashful look." In _faith_ let me interpret +the universe! + + +MEDITATION SECOND. + + "Why is light given to a man whose way is hid, and whom God hath + hedged in?"--_Job_ iii. 23. + +This pathetic inquiry rises from all parts of the globe, from millions +of human souls, to that heaven from whence the light proceeds. From the +young, full of eager aspirations after virtue and glory; with the glance +of the falcon to descry the high-placed aim,--but ah! the wing of the +wren to reach it! The young enthusiast must often weep. His heart glows, +his eye sparkles as he reads of the youthful triumphs of a Pompey, the +sublime devotion of an Agis;[34] he shuts the book, he looks around him +for a theatre whereon to do likewise--petty pursuits, mean feelings, and +trifling pleasures meet his eye; the cold breeze of selfishness has +nipped every flower; the dull glow of prosaic life overpowers the +beauties of the landscape. He plunges into the unloved pursuit, or some +despised amusement, to soothe that day's impatience, and wakes on the +morrow, crying, "I have lost a day; and where, where shall I now turn my +steps to find the destined path?" The gilded image of some petty victory +holds forth a talisman which seems to promise him sure tokens. He rushes +forward; the swords of foes and rivals bar the way; the ground trembles +and gives way beneath his feet; rapid streams, unseen at a distance, +roll between him and the object of his pursuit; faint, giddy and +exhausted by the loss of his best blood, he reaches the goal, seizes the +talisman; his eyes devour the inscription--alas! the characters are +unknown to him. He looks back for some friend who might aid him,--his +friends are whelmed beneath the torrent, or have turned back +disheartened. He must struggle onward alone and ignorant as before; yet +in his wishes there is light. + +Another is attracted by a lovely phantom; with airy step she precedes +him, holding, as he thinks, in her upward-pointing hand the faithful +needle which might point him to the pole-star of his wishes. Unwearied +he follows, imploring her in most moving terms to pause but a moment and +let him take her hand. Heedless she flits onward to some hopeless +desert, where she pauses only to turn to her unfortunate captive the +malicious face of a very Morgana. + +The old,--O their sighs are deeper still! They have wandered far, toiled +much; the true light is now shown them. Ah, why was it reflected so +falsely through "life's many-colored dome of painted glass" upon their +youthful, anxious gaze? And now the path they came by is hedged in by +new circumstances against the feet of others, and its devious course +vainly mapped in their memories; should the light of their example lead +others into the same track, these unlucky followers will vainly seek an +issue. They attempt to unroll their charts for the use of their +children, and their children's children. They feed the dark lantern of +wisdom with the oil of experience, and hold it aloft over the declivity +up which these youth are blundering, in vain; some fall, misled by the +flickering light; others seek by-paths, along which they hope to be +guided by suns or moons of their own. All meet at last, only to bemoan +or sneer together. How many strive with feverish zeal to paint on the +clouds of outward life the hues of their own souls; what do not these +suffer? What baffling,--what change in the atmosphere on which they +depend,--yet _not_ in vain! Something they realize, something they +grasp, something (O, how unlike the theme of their hope!) they have +created. A transient glow, a deceitful thrill,--these be the blisses of +mortals. Yet have these given birth to noble deeds, and thoughts worthy +to be recorded by the pens of angels on the tablets of immortality. + +And this, O man! is thy only solace in those paroxysms of despair which +must result to the yet eager heart from the vast disproportion between +our perceptions and our exhibition of those perceptions. Seize on all +the twigs that may help thee in thine ascent, though the thorns upon +them rend thee. Toil ceaselessly towards the Source of light, and +remember that he who thus eloquently lamented found that, although far +worse than his dark presentiments had pictured came upon him, though +vainly he feared and trembled, and there was no safety for him, yet his +sighings came before his meat, and, happy in their recollection, he +found at last that danger and imprisonment are but for a season, and +that God is _good_, as he is great. + + + + +APPEAL FOR AN ASYLUM FOR DISCHARGED FEMALE CONVICTS. + + +The ladies of the Prison Association have been from time to time engaged +in the endeavor to procure funds for establishing this asylum.[35] They +have met, thus far, with little success; but touched by the position of +several women, who, on receiving their discharge, were anxiously waiting +in hope there would be means provided to save them from return to their +former suffering and polluted life, they have taken a house, and begun +their good work, in faith that Heaven must take heed that such an +enterprise may not fail, and touch the hearts of men to aid it. + +They have taken a house, and secured the superintendence of an excellent +matron. There are already six women under her care. But this house is +unprovided with furniture, or the means of securing food for body and +mind to these unfortunates, during the brief novitiate which gives them +so much to learn and unlearn. + +The object is to lend a helping hand to the many who show a desire of +reformation, but have hitherto been inevitably repelled into infamy by +the lack of friends to find them honest employment, and a temporary +refuge till it can be procured. Efforts will be made to instruct them +how to break up bad habits, and begin a healthy course for body and +mind. + +The house has in it scarcely any thing. It is a true Lazarus +establishment, asking for the crumbs that fall from the rich man's +table. Old furniture would be acceptable, clothes, books that are no +longer needed by their owners. + +This statement we make in appealing to the poor, though they are, +usually, the most generous. Not that they are, originally, better than +the rich, but circumstances have fitted them to appreciate the +misfortunes, the trials, the wrongs that beset those a little lower than +themselves. But we have seen too many instances where those who were +educated in luxury would cast aside sloth and selfishness with eagerness +when once awakened to better things, not to hope in appealing to the +rich also. + +And to all we appeal: to the poor, who will know how to sympathize with +those who are not only poor but degraded, diseased, likely to be hurried +onward to a shameful, hopeless death; to the rich, to equalize the +advantages of which they have received more than their share; to men, to +atone for wrongs inflicted by men on that "weaker sex," who should, they +say, be soft, confiding, dependent on them for protection; to women, to +feel for those who have not been guarded either by social influence or +inward strength from that first mistake which the opinion of the world +makes irrevocable for women alone. Since their danger is so great, their +fall so remediless, let mercies be multiplied when there is a chance of +that partial restoration which society at present permits. + +In New York we have come little into contact with that class of society +which has a surplus of leisure at command; but in other cities we have, +found in their ranks many--some men, more women--who wanted only a +decided object and clear light to fill the noble office of disinterested +educators and guardians to their less fortunate fellows. It has been our +happiness, in not a few instances, by merely apprising such persons of +what was to be done, to rouse that generous spirit which relieved them +from ennui and a gradual ossification of the whole system, and +transferred them into a thoughtful, sympathetic, and beneficent +existence. Such, no doubt, are near us here, if we could but know it. A +poet writes thus of the cities:-- + + Cities of proud hotels, + Houses of rich and great, + A stack of smoking chimneys, + A roof of frozen slate! + It cannot conquer folly, + Time, and space, conquering steam, + And the light, outspeeding telegraph, + Bears nothing on its beam. + + The politics are base, + The letters do not cheer, + And 'tis far in the deeps of history, + The voice that speaketh clear. + Trade and the streets insnare us, + Our bodies are weak and worn, + We plot and corrupt each other, + And we despoil the unborn. + + Yet there in the parlor sits + Some figure of noble guise, + Our angel in a stranger's form, + Or woman's pleading eyes. + Or only a flashing sunbeam + In at the window pane, + Or music pours on mortals + Its beautiful disdain. + +These "pleading eyes," these "angels in strangers' forms," we meet, or +seem to meet, as we pass through the thoroughfares of this great city. +We do not know their names or homes. We cannot go to those still and +sheltered abodes and tell them the tales that would be sure to awaken +the heart to a deep and active interest in this matter. But should these +words meet their eyes, we would say, "Have you entertained your leisure +hours with the Mysteries of Paris, or the pathetic story of Violet +Woodville?" Then you have some idea how innocence, worthy of the +brightest planet, may be betrayed by want, or by the most generous +tenderness; how the energies of a noble reformation may lie hidden +beneath the ashes of a long burning, as in the case of "La Louve." You +must have felt that yourselves are not better, only more protected +children of God than these. Do you want to link these fictions, which +have made you weep, with facts around you where your pity might be of +use? Go to the Penitentiary at Blackwell's Island. You may be repelled +by seeing those who are in health while at work together, keeping up one +another's careless spirit and effrontery by bad association. But see +them in the Hospital,--where the worn features of the sick show the sad +ruins of past loveliness, past gentleness. See in the eyes of the nurses +the woman's spirit still, so kindly, so inspiring. See those little +girls huddled in a corner, their neglected dress and hair contrasting +with some ribbon of cherished finery held fast in a childish hand. Think +what "sweet seventeen" was to you, and what it is to them, and see if +you do not wish to aid in any enterprise that gives them a chance of +better days. We assume no higher claim for this enterprise. The dreadful +social malady which creates the need of it, is one that imperatively +demands deep-searching, preventive measures; it is beyond cure. But, +here and there, some precious soul may be saved from unwilling sin, +unutterable woe. Is not the hope to save here and there _one_ worthy of +great and persistent sacrifice? + + + + +THE RICH MAN. + +AN IDEAL SKETCH. + + +In my walks through this city, the sight of spacious and expensive +dwelling-houses now in process of building, has called up the following +reverie. + +All benevolent persons, whether deeply-thinking on, or deeply-feeling, +the woes, difficulties, and dangers of our present social system, are +agreed that either great improvements are needed, or a thorough reform. + +Those who desire the latter include the majority of thinkers. And we +ourselves, both from personal observation and the testimony of others, +are convinced that a radical reform is needed; not a reform that rejects +the instruction of the past, or asserts that God and man have made +mistakes till now. We believe that all past developments have taken +place under natural and necessary laws, and that the Paternal Spirit has +at no period forgotten his children, but granted to all generations and +all ages their chances of good to balance inevitable ills. We prize the +past; we recognize it as our parent, our nurse, and our teacher; and we +know that for a time the new wine required the old bottles, to prevent +its being spilled upon the ground. + +Still we feel that the time is come which not only permits, but demands, +a wider statement and a nobler action. The aspect of society presents +mighty problems, which must be solved by the soul of man +"divinely-intending" itself to the task, or all will become worse +instead of better, and ere long the social fabric totter to decay. + +Yet while the new measures are ripening, and the new men educating, +there is still room on the old platform for some worthy action. It is +possible for a man of piety, resolution, and good sense, to lead a life +which, if not expansive, generous, graceful, and pure from suspicion and +contempt, is yet not entirely unworthy of his position as the child of +God, and ruler of a planet. + +Let us take, then, some men just where they find themselves, in a mixed +state of society, where, in quantity, we are free to say the bad +preponderates, though the good, from its superior energy in quality, may +finally redeem and efface its plague-spots. + +Our society is ostensibly under the rule of the precepts of Jesus. We +will then suppose a youth sufficiently imbued with these, to understand +what is conveyed under the parables of the unjust steward, and the +prodigal son, as well as the denunciations of the opulent Jews. He +understands that it is needful to preserve purity and teachableness, +since of those most like little children is the kingdom of heaven; mercy +for the sinner, since there is peculiar joy in heaven at the salvation +of such; perpetual care for the unfortunate, since only to the just +steward shall his possessions be pardoned. Imbued with such love, the +young man joins the active,--we will say, in choosing an +instance,--joins the commercial world. + +His views of his profession are not those which make of the many a herd, +not superior, except in the far reach of their selfish interests, to the +animals; mere calculating, money-making machines. + +He sees in commerce a representation of most important interests, a +grand school that may teach the heart and soul of the civilized world to +a willing, thinking mind. He plays his part in the game, but not for +himself alone; he sees the interests of all mankind engaged with his, +and remembers them while he furthers his own. His intellectual +discernment, no less than his moral, thus teaching the undesirableness +of lying and stealing, he does not practise or connive at the falsities +and meannesses so frequent among his fellows; he suffers many turns of +the wheel of fortune to pass unused, since he cannot avail himself of +them and keep clean his hands. What he gains is by superior assiduity, +skill in combination and calculation, and quickness of sight. His gains +are legitimate, so far as the present state of things permits any gains +to be. + +Nor is this honorable man denied his due rank in the most corrupt state +of society. Here, happily, we draw from life, and speak of what we know. +Honesty is, indeed, the best policy, only it is so in the long run, and +therefore a policy which a selfish man has not faith and patience to +pursue. The influence of the honest man is in the end predominant, and +the rogues who sneer because he will not shuffle the cards in _their_ +way, are forced to bow to it at last. + +But while thus conscientious and mentally-progressive, he does not +forget to live. The sharp and care-worn faces, the joyless lives that +throng the busy street, do not make him forget his need of tender +affections, of the practices of bounty and love. His family, his +acquaintance, especially those who are struggling with the difficulties +of life, are not obliged to wait till he has accumulated a certain sum. +He is sunlight and dew to them now, day by day. No less do all in his +employment prize and bless the just, the brotherly man. He dares not, +would not, climb to power upon their necks. He requites their toil +handsomely, always; if his success be unusual, they share the benefit. +Their comfort is cared for in all the arrangements for their work. He +takes care, too, to be personally acquainted with those he employs, +regarding them, not as mere tools of his purpose, but as human beings +also; he keeps them in his eye, and if it be in his power to supply +their need of consolation, instruction, or even pleasure, they find they +have a friend. + +"Nonsense!" exclaims our sharp-eyed, thin-lipped antagonist. "Such a man +would never get rich,--or even _get along_!" + +You are mistaken, Mr. Stockjobber. Thus far many lines of our sketch are +drawn from real life; though for the second part, which follows, we +want, as yet, a worthy model. + +We must imagine, then, our ideal merchant to have grown rich in some +forty years of toil passed in the way we have indicated. His hair is +touched with white, but his form is vigorous yet. Neither _gourmandise_ +nor the fever of gain has destroyed his complexion, quenched the light +of his eye, or substituted sneers for smiles. He is an upright, strong, +sagacious, generous-looking man; and if his movements be abrupt, and his +language concise, somewhat beyond the standard of beauty, he is still +the gentleman; mercantile, but a mercantile nobleman. + +Our nation is not silly in striving for an aristocracy. Humanity longs +for its upper classes. But the silliness consists in making them out of +clothes, equipage, and a servile imitation of foreign manners, instead +of the genuine elegance and distinction that can only be produced by +genuine culture. Shame upon the stupidity which, when all circumstances +leave us free for the introduction of a real aristocracy such as the +world never saw, bases its pretensions on, or makes its bow to the +footman behind, the coach, instead of the person within it. + +But our merchant shall be a real nobleman, whose noble manners spring +from a noble mind, whose fashions from a sincere, intelligent love of +the beautiful. + +We will also indulge the fancy of giving him a wife and children worthy +of himself. Having lived in sympathy with him, they have acquired no +taste for luxury; they do not think that the best use for wealth and +power is in self-indulgence, but, on the contrary, that "it is more +blessed to give than to receive." + +He is now having one of those fine houses built, and, as in other +things, proceeds on a few simple principles. It is substantial, for he +wishes to give no countenance to the paper buildings that correspond +with other worthless paper currency of a credit system. It is thoroughly +finished and furnished, for he has a conscience about his house, as +about the neatness of his person. All must be of a piece. Harmony and a +wise utility are consulted, without regard to show. Still, as a rich +man, we allow him reception-rooms, lofty, large, adorned with good +copies of ancient works of art, and fine specimens of modern. + +I admit, in this instance, the propriety of my nobleman often choosing +by advice of friends, who may have had more leisure and opportunity to +acquire a sure appreciation of merit in these walks. His character being +simple, he will, no doubt, appreciate a great part of what is truly +grand and beautiful. But also, from imperfect culture, he might often +reject what in the end he would have found most valuable to himself and +others. For he has not done learning, but only acquired the privilege of +helping to open a domestic school, in which he will find himself a pupil +as well as a master. So he may well make use, in furnishing himself with +the school apparatus, of the best counsel. The same applies to making +his library a good one. Only there must be no sham; no pluming himself +on possessions that represent his wealth, but the taste of others. Our +nobleman is incapable of pretension, or the airs of connoisseurship; his +object is to furnish a home with those testimonies of a higher life in +man, that may best aid to cultivate the same in himself and those +assembled round him. + +He shall also have a fine garden and greenhouses. But the flowers shall +not be used only to decorate his apartments, or the hair of his +daughters, but shall often bless, by their soft and exquisite eloquence, +the poor invalid, or others whose sorrowful hearts find in their society +a consolation and a hope which nothing else bestows. For flowers, the +highest expression of the bounty of nature, declare that for all men, +not merely labor, or luxury, but gentle, buoyant, ever-energetic joy, +was intended, and bid us hope that we shall not forever be kept back +from our inheritance. + +All the persons who have aided in building up this domestic temple, from +the artist who painted the ceilings to the poorest hodman, shall be well +paid and cared for during its erection; for it is a necessary part of +the happiness of our nobleman, to feel that all concerned in creating +his home are the happier for it. + +We have said nothing about the architecture of the house, and yet this +is only for want of room. We do consider it one grand duty of every +person able to build a good house, also to aim at building a beautiful +one. We do not want imitations of what was used in other ages, nations, +and climates, but what is simple, noble, and in conformity with the +wants of our own. Room enough, simplicity of design, and judicious +adjustment of the parts to their uses and to the whole, are the first +requisites; the ornaments are merely the finish on these. We hope to see +a good style of civic architecture long before any material improvement +in the country edifices, for reasons that would be tedious to enumerate +here. Suffice it to say that we are far more anxious to see an American +architecture than an American literature; for we are sure there is here +already something individual to express. + +Well, suppose the house built and equipped with man and horse. You may +be sure my nobleman gives his "hired help" good accommodations for their +sleeping and waking hours,--baths, books, and some leisure to use them. +Nay, I assure you--and this assurance also is drawn from life--that it +is possible, even in our present social relations, for the man who does +common justice, in these respects, to his fellows, and shows a friendly +heart, that thoroughly feels service to be no degradation, but an honor, +who believes + + "A man's a MAN for a' that;"-- + "Honor in the king the wisdom of his service, + Honor in the serf the fidelity of his service,"-- + +to have around him those who do their work in serenity of mind, neither +deceiving nor envying him whom circumstances have enabled to command +their service. As to the carriage, that is used for the purpose of going +to and fro in bad weather, or ill health, or haste, or for drives to +enjoy the country. But my nobleman and his family are too well born and +bred not to prefer employing their own feet when possible. And their +carriage is much appropriated to the use of poor invalids, even among +the abhorred class of poor relations, so that often they have not room +in it for themselves, much less for flaunting dames and lazy dandies. + +We need hardly add that, their attendants wear no liveries. They are +aware that, in a society where none of the causes exist that justify +this habit abroad, the practice would have no other result than to call +up a sneer to the lips of the most complaisant "milor," when "Mrs. +Higginbottom's carriage stops the way," with its tawdry, ill-fancied +accompaniments. _Will_ none of their "governors" tell our cits the +AEsopian fable of the donkey that tried to imitate the gambols of the +little dog? + +The wife of my nobleman is so well matched with him that she has no need +to be the better half. She is his almoner, his counsellor, and the +priestess who keeps burning on the domestic hearth a fire from the fuel +he collects in his out-door work, whose genial heart and aspiring flame +comfort and animate all who come within its range. + +His children are his ministers, whose leisure and various qualifications +enable them to carry out his good thoughts. They hold all that they +possess--time, money, talents, acquirements--on the principle of +stewardship. They wake up the seeds of virtue and genius in all the +young persons of their acquaintance; but the poorer classes are +especially their care. Among them they seek for those who are threatened +with dying--"mute, inglorious" Hampdens and Miltons--but for their +scrutiny and care; of these they become the teachers and patrons to the +extent of their power. Such knowledge of the arts, sciences, and just +principles of action as they have been favored with, they communicate, +and thereby form novices worthy to fill up the ranks of the true +American aristocracy. + +And the house--it is a large one; a simple family does not fill its +chambers. Some of them are devoted to the use of men of genius, who need +a serene home, free from care, while they pursue their labors for the +good of the world. Thus, as in the palaces of the little princes of +Italy in a better day, these chambers become hallowed by the nativities +of great thoughts; and the horoscopes of the human births that may take +place there, are likely to read the better for it. Suffering virtue +sometimes finds herself taken home here, instead of being sent to the +almshouse, or presented with half a dollar and a ticket for coal, and +finds upon my nobleman's mattresses (for the wealth of Croesus would +not lure him or his to sleep upon down) dreams of angelic protection +which enable her to rise refreshed for the struggle of the morrow. + +The uses of hospitality are very little understood among us, so that we +fear generally there is a small chance of entertaining gods and angels +unawares, as the Greeks and Hebrews did in the generous time of +hospitality, when every man had a claim on the roof of fellow-man. Now, +none is received to a bed and breakfast unless he come as "bearer of +despatches" from His Excellency So-and-so. + +But let us not be supposed to advocate the system of all work and no +play, or to delight exclusively in the pedagogic and Goody-Two-Shoes +vein. Reader, if any such accompany me to this scene of my vision, cheer +up; I hear the sound of music in full band, and see the banquet +prepared. Perhaps they are even dancing the polka and redowa in those +airy, well-lighted rooms. In another they find in the acting of +extempore dramas, arrangement of tableaux, little concerts or +recitations, intermingled with beautiful national or fancy dances, some +portion of the enchanting, refining, and ennobling influence of the +arts. The finest engravings on all subjects attend such as like to +employ themselves more quietly, while those who can find a companion or +congenial group to converse with, find also plenty of recesses and still +rooms, with softened light, provided for their pleasure. + +There is not on this side of the Atlantic--we dare our glove upon it--a +more devout believer than ourselves in the worship of the Muses and +Graces, both for itself, and its importance no less to the moral than to +the intellectual life of a nation. Perhaps there is not one who has _so_ +deep a feeling, or so many suggestions ready, in the fulness of time, to +be hazarded on the subject. + +But in order to such worship, what standard is there as to admission to +the service? Talents of gold, or Delphian talents? fashion or elegance? +"standing" or the power to move gracefully from one position to another? + +Our nobleman did not hesitate; the handle to his door bell was not of +gold, but mother-of-pearl, pure and prismatic. + +If he did not go into the alleys to pick up the poor, they were not +excluded, if qualified by intrinsic qualities to adorn the scene. +Neither were wealth or fashion a cause of exclusion, more than of +admission. All depended on the person; yet he did not _seek_ his guests +among the slaves of fashion, for he knew that persons highly endowed +rarely had patience with the frivolities of that class, but retired, and +left it to be peopled mostly by weak and plebeian natures. Yet all +depended on the individual. Was the person fair, noble, wise, brilliant, +or even only youthfully innocent and gay, or venerable in a good old +age, he or she was welcome. Still, as simplicity of character and some +qualification positively good, healthy, and natural, was requisite for +admission, we must say the company was select. Our nobleman and his +family had weeded their "circle" carefully, year by year. + +Some valued acquaintances they had made in ball-rooms and boudoirs, and +kept; but far more had been made through the daily wants of life, and +shoemakers, seamstresses, and graziers mingled happily with artists and +statesmen, to the benefit of both. (N.B.--None used the poisonous weed, +in or out of our domestic temple.) + +I cannot tell you what infinite good our nobleman and his family were +doing by creation of this true social centre, where the legitimate +aristocracy of the land assembled, not to be dazzled by expensive +furniture, (our nobleman bought what was good in texture and beautiful +in form, but not _because_ it was expensive,) not to be feasted on rare +wines and highly-seasoned dainties, though they found simple +refreshments well prepared, as indeed it was a matter of duty and +conscience in that house that the least office should be well fulfilled, +but to enjoy the generous confluence of mind with mind and heart with +heart, the pastimes that are not waste-times of taste and inventive +fancy, the cordial union of beings from all points and places in noble +human sympathy. New York was beginning to be truly American, or rather +Columbian, and money stood for something in the records of history. It +had brought opportunity to genius and aid to virtue. But just at this +moment, the jostling showed me that I had reached the corner of Wall +Street. I looked earnestly at the omnibuses discharging their eager +freight, as if I hoped to see my merchant. "Perhaps he has gone to the +post office to take out letters from his friends in Utopia," thought I. +"Please give me a penny," screamed a half-starved ragged little +street-sweep, and the fancied cradle of the American Utopia receded, or +rather proceeded, fifty years, at least, into the future. + + + + +THE POOR MAN. + +AN IDEAL SKETCH. + + +The foregoing sketch of the Rich Man, seems to require this +companion-piece; and we shall make the attempt, though the subject is +far more difficult than the former was. + +In the first place, we must state what we mean by a poor man, for it is +a term of wide range in its relative applications. A painstaking +artisan, trained to self-denial, and a strict adaptation, not of his +means to his wants, but of his wants to his means, finds himself rich +and grateful, if some unexpected fortune enables him to give his wife a +new gown, his children cheap holiday joys, and his starving neighbor a +decent meal; while George IV., when heir apparent to the throne of Great +Britain, considered himself driven by the pressure of poverty to become +a debtor, a beggar, a swindler, and, by the aid of perjury, the husband +of two wives at the same time, neither of whom he treated well. Since +poverty is made an excuse for such depravity in conduct, it would be +well to mark the limits within which self-control and resistance to +temptation may be expected. + +When he of the olden time prayed, "Give me neither poverty nor riches," +we presume he meant that proportion of means to the average wants of a +human being which secures freedom from pecuniary cares, freedom of +motion, and a moderate enjoyment of the common blessings offered by +earth, air, water, the natural relations, and the subjects for thought +which every day presents. We shall certainly not look above this point +for our poor man. A prince may be poor, if he has not means to relieve +the sufferings of his subjects, or secure to them needed benefits. Or he +may make himself so, just as a well-paid laborer by drinking brings +poverty to his roof. So may the prince, by the mental gin of +horse-racing or gambling, grow a beggar. But we shall not consider these +cases. + +Our subject will be taken between the medium we have spoken of as answer +to the wise man's prayer, and that destitution which we must style +infamous, either to the individual or to the society whose vices have +caused that stage of poverty, in which there is no certainty, and often +no probability, of work or bread from day to day,--in which cleanliness +and all the decencies of life are impossible, and the natural human +feelings are turned to gall because the man finds himself on this earth +in a far worse situation than the brute. In this stage there is no +ideal, and from its abyss, if the unfortunates look up to Heaven, or the +state of things as they ought to be, it is with suffocating gasps which +demand relief or death. This degree of poverty is common, as we all +know; but we who do not share it have no right to address those who do +from our own standard, till we have placed their feet on our own level. +Accursed is he who does not long to have this so--to take out at least +the physical hell from this world! Unblest is he who is not seeking, +either by thought or act, to effect this poor degree of amelioration in +the circumstances of his race. + +We take the subject of our sketch, then, somewhere between the abjectly +poor and those in moderate circumstances. What we have to say may apply +to either sex, and to any grade in this division of the human family, +from the hodman and washerwoman up to the hard-working, poorly-paid +lawyer clerk, schoolmaster, or scribe. + +The advantages of such a position are many. In the first place, you +belong, inevitably, to the active and suffering part of the world. You +know the ills that try men's souls and bodies. You cannot creep into a +safe retreat, arrogantly to judge, or heartlessly to forget, the others. +They are always before you; you see the path stained by their bleeding +feet; stupid and flinty, indeed, must you be, if you can hastily wound, +or indolently forbear to aid them. Then, as to yourself, you know what +your resources are; what you can do, what bear; there is small chance +for you to escape a well-tempered modesty. Then again, if you find power +in yourself to endure the trial, there is reason and reality in some +degree of self-reliance. The moral advantages of such training can +scarcely fail to amount to something; and as to the mental, that most +important chapter, how the lives of men are fashioned and transfused by +the experience of passion and the development of thought, presents new +sections at every turn, such as the distant dilettante's opera-glasses +will never detect,--to say nothing of the exercise of mere faculty, +which, though insensible in its daily course, leads to results of +immense importance. + +But the evils, the disadvantages, the dangers, how many, how imminent! +True, indeed, they are so. There is the early bending of the mind to the +production of marketable results, which must hinder all this free play +of intelligence, and deaden the powers that craved instruction. There is +the callousness produced by the sight of more misery than it is possible +to relieve; the heart, at first so sensitive, taking refuge in a stolid +indifference against the pangs of sympathetic pain, it had not force to +bear. There is the perverting influence of uncongenial employments, +undertaken without or against choice, continued at unfit hours and +seasons, till the man loses his natural relations with summer and +winter, day and night, and has no sense more for natural beauty and joy. +There is the mean providence, the perpetual caution to guard against +ill, instead of the generous freedom of a mind which expects good to +ensue from all good actions. There is the sad doubt whether it will +_do_ to indulge the kindly impulse, the calculation of dangerous +chances, and the cost between the loving impulse and its fulfilment. +Yes; there is bitter chance of narrowness, meanness, and dulness on this +path, and it requires great natural force, a wise and large view of life +taken at an early age, or fervent trust in God, to evade them. + +It is astonishing to see the poor, no less than the rich, the slaves of +externals. One would think that, where the rich man once became aware of +the worthlessness of the mere trappings of life from the weariness of a +spirit that found itself entirely dissatisfied after pomp and +self-indulgence, the poor man would learn this a hundred times from the +experience how entirely independent of them is all that is intrinsically +valuable in our life. But, no! The poor man wants dignity, wants +elevation of spirit. It is his own servility that forges the fetters +that enslave him. Whether he cringe to, or rudely defy, the man in the +coach and handsome coat, the cause and effect are the same. He is +influenced by a costume and a position. He is not firmly rooted in the +truth that only in so far as outward beauty and grandeur are +representative of the mind of the possessor, can they count for any +thing at all. O, poor man! you are poor indeed, if you feel yourself so; +poor if you do not feel that a soul born of God, a mind capable of +scanning the wondrous works of time and space, and a flexible body for +its service, are the essential riches of a man, and all he needs to make +him the equal of any other man. You are mean, if the possession of money +or other external advantages can make you envy or shrink from a being +mean enough to value himself upon such. Stand where you may, O man, you +cannot be noble and rich if your brow be not broad and steadfast, if +your eye beam not with a consciousness of inward worth, of eternal +claims and hopes which such trifles cannot at all affect. A man without +this majesty is ridiculous amid the flourish and decorations procured +by money, pitiable in the faded habiliments of poverty. But a man who is +a man, a woman who is a woman, can never feel lessened or embarrassed +because others look ignorantly on such matters. If they regret the want +of these temporary means of power, it must be solely because it fetters +their motions, deprives them of leisure and desired means of +improvement, or of benefiting those they love or pity. + +I have heard those possessed of rhetoric and imaginative tendency +declare that they should have been outwardly great and inwardly free, +victorious poets and heroes, if fate had allowed them a certain quantity +of dollars. I have found it impossible to believe them. In early youth, +penury may have power to freeze the genial current of the soul, and +prevent it, during one short life, from becoming sensible of its true +vocation and destiny. But if it _has_ become conscious of these, and yet +there is not advance in any and all circumstances, no change would +avail. + +No, our poor man must begin higher! He must, in the first place, really +believe there is a God who ruleth--a fact to which few men vitally bear +witness, though most are ready to affirm it with the lips. + +2. He must sincerely believe that rank and wealth + + "are but the guinea's stamp; + The man's the gold;"-- + +take his stand on his claims as a human being, made in God's own +likeness, urge them when the occasion permits, but never be so false to +them as to feel put down or injured by the want of mere external +advantages. + +3. He must accept his lot, while he is in it. If he can change it for +the better, let his energies be exerted to do so. But if he cannot, +there is none that will not yield an opening to Eden, to the glories of +Zion, and even to the subterranean enchantments of our strange estate. +There is none that may not be used with nobleness. + + "Who sweeps a room, as for Thy sake + Makes that and th' action clean." + +4. Let him examine the subject enough to be convinced that there is not +that vast difference between the employments that is supposed, in the +means of expansion and refinement. All depends on the spirit as to the +use that is made of an occupation. Mahomet was not a wealthy merchant, +and profound philosophers have ripened on the benches, not of the +lawyers, but the shoemakers. It did not hurt Milton to be a poor +schoolmaster, nor Shakspeare to do the errands of a London play-house. +Yes, "the mind is its own place," and if it will keep that place, all +doors will be opened from it. Upon this subject we hope to offer some +hints at a future day, in speaking of the different trades, professions, +and modes of labor. + +5. Let him remember that from no man can the chief wealth be kept. On +all men the sun and stars shine; for all the oceans swell and rivers +flow. All men may be brothers, lovers, fathers, friends; before all lie +the mysteries of birth and death. If these wondrous means of wealth and +blessing be likely to remain misused or unused, there are quite as many +disadvantages in the way of the man of money as of the man who has none. +Few who drain the choicest grape know the ecstasy of bliss and knowledge +that follows a full draught of the wine of life. That has mostly been +reserved for those on whose thoughts society, as a public, makes but a +moderate claim. And if bitterness followed on the joy, if your fountain +was frozen after its first gush by the cold winds of the world, yet, +moneyless men, ye are at least not wholly ignorant of what a human being +has force to know. You have not skimmed over surfaces, and been dozing +on beds of down, during the rare and stealthy visits of Love and the +Muses. Remember this, and, looking round on the arrangements of the +lottery, see if you did not draw a prize in your turn. + +It will be seen that our ideal poor man needs to be religious, wise, +dignified, and humble, grasping at nothing, claiming all; willing to +wait, never willing to give up; servile to none, the servant of all, and +esteeming it the glory of a man to serve. The character is rare, but not +unattainable. We have, however, found an approach to it more frequent in +woman than in man. + + + + +THE CELESTIAL EMPIRE. + + +During a late visit to Boston, I visited with great pleasure the Chinese +Museum, which has been opened there. + +There was much satisfaction in surveying its rich contents, if merely on +account of their splendor and elegance, which, though fantastic to our +tastes, presented an obvious standard of its own by which to prize it. +The rich dresses of the imperial court, the magnificent jars, (the +largest worth three hundred dollars, and looking as if it was worth much +more,) the present-boxes and ivory work, the elegant interiors of the +home and counting-room,--all these gave pleasure by their perfection, +each in its kind. + +But the chief impression was of that unity of existence, so opposite to +the European, and, for a change, so pleasant, from its repose and gilded +lightness. Their imperial majesties do really seem so "perfectly +serene," that we fancy we might become so under their sway, if not +"thoroughly virtuous," as they profess to be. Entirely a new mood would +be ours, as we should sup in one of those pleasure boats, by the light +of fanciful lanterns, or listen to the tinkling of pagoda bells. + +The highest conventional refinement, of a certain kind, is apparent in +all that belongs to the Chinese. The inviolability of custom has not +made their life heavy, but shaped it to the utmost adroitness for their +own purposes. We are now somewhat familiar with their literature, and we +see pervading it a poetry subtle and aromatic, like the odors of their +appropriate beverage. Like that, too, it is all domestic,--never wild. +The social genius, fluttering on the wings of compliment, pervades every +thing Chinese. Society has moulded them, body and soul; the youngest +children are more social and Chinese than human; and we doubt not the +infant, with its first cry, shows its capacity for self-command and +obedience to superiors. + +Their great man, Confucius, expresses this social genius in its most +perfect state and highest form. His golden wisdom is the quintescence of +social justice. He never forgets conditions and limits; he is admirably +wise, pure, and religious, but never towers above humanity--never soars +into solitude. There is no token of the forest or cave in Confucius. Few +men could understand him, because his nature was so thoroughly balanced, +and his rectitude so pure; not because his thoughts were too deep, or +too high for them. In him should be sought the best genius of the +Chinese, with that perfect practical good sense whose uses are +universal. + +At one time I used to change from reading Confucius to one of the great +religious books of another Eastern nation; and it was always like +leaving the street and the palace for the blossoming forest of the East, +where in earlier times we are told the angels walked with men and +talked, not of earth, but of heaven. + +As we looked at the forms moving about in the Museum, we could not +wonder that the Chinese consider us, who call ourselves the civilized +world, barbarians, so deficient were those forms in the sort of +refinement that the Chinese prize above all. And our people deserve it +for their senselessness in viewing _them_ as barbarians, instead of +seeing how perfectly they represent their own idea. They are inferior to +us in important developments, but, on the whole, approach far nearer +their own standard than we do ours. And it is wonderful that an +enlightened European can fail to prize the sort of beauty they do +develop. Sets of engravings we have seen representing the culture of the +tea plant, have brought to us images of an entirely original idyllic +loveliness. One long resident in China has observed that nothing can be +more enchanting than the smile of love on the regular, but otherwise +expressionless face of a Chinese woman. It has the simplicity and +abandonment of infantine, with the fulness of mature feeling. It never +varies, but it does not tire. + +The same sweetness and elegance stereotyped now, but having originally a +deep root in their life as a race, may be seen in their poetry and +music. The last we have heard, both from the voice and several +instruments, at this Museum, for the first time, and were at first +tempted to laugh, when something deeper forbade. Like their poetry, the +music is of the narrowest monotony, a kind of rosary, a repetition of +phrases, and, in its enthusiasm and conventional excitement, like +nothing else in the heavens and on the earth. Yet both the poetry and +music have in them an expression of birds, roses, and moonlight; indeed, +they suggest that state where "moonlight, and music, and feeling are +one," though the soul seems to twitter, rather than sing of it. + +It is wonderful with how little practical insight travellers in China +look on what they see. They seem to be struck by points of repulsion at +once, and neither see nor tell us what could give any real clew to their +facts. I do not speak now of the recent lecturers in this city, for I +have not heard them; but of the many, many books into which I have +earlier looked with eager curiosity,--in vain,--I always found the same +external facts, and the same prejudices which disabled the observer from +piercing beneath them. I feel that I know something of the Chinese when +reading Confucius, or looking at the figures on their tea-cups, or +drinking a cup of _genuine_ tea--rather an unusual felicity, it is said, +in this ingenious city, which shares with the Chinese one trait at +least. But the travellers rather take from than add to this knowledge; +and a visit to this Museum would give more clear views than all the +books I ever read yet. + +The juggling was well done, and so solemnly, with the same concentrated +look as the music! I saw the juggler afterwards at Ole Bull's concert, +and he moved not a muscle while the nightingale was pouring forth its +sweetest descant. Probably the avenues wanted for these strains to enter +his heart had been closed by the imperial edict long ago. The +resemblance borne by this juggler to our Indians is even greater than we +have seen in any other case. His brotherhood does not, to us, seem +surprising. Our Indians, too, are stereotyped, though in a different +way; they are of a mould capable of retaining the impression through +ages; and many of the traits of the two races, or two branches of a +race, may seem to be identical, though so widely modified by +circumstances. They are all opposite to us, who have made ships, and +balloons, and magnetic telegraphs, as symbolic expressions of our wants, +and the means of gratifying them. We must console ourselves with these, +and our organs and pianos, for our want of perfect good breeding, +serenity, and "thorough virtue." + + + + +KLOPSTOCK AND META.[36] + + +The poet had retired from the social circle. Its mirth was to his +sickened soul a noisy discord, its sentiment a hollow mockery. With +grief he felt that the recital of a generous action, the vivid +expression of a noble thought, could only graze the surface of his mind. +The desolate stillness of death lay brooding on its depths. The friendly +smiles, the tender attentions which seemed so sweet in those hours when +Meta was "crown of his cup and garnish of his dish," could give the +present but a ghastly similitude to those blessed days. While his +attention, disobedient to his wishes, kept turning painfully inward, the +voice of the singer suddenly startled it back. A lovely maid, with +moist, clear eye, and pleadi ng, earnest voice, was seated at the +harpsichord. She sang a sad, and yet not hopeless, strain, like that of +a lover who pines in absence, yet hopes again to meet his loved one. + +The heart of Klopstock rose to his lips, and natural tears suffused his +eyes. She paused. Some youth of untouched heart, shallow, as yet, in all +things, asked for a lively song, the expression of animal enjoyment. She +hesitated, and cast a sidelong glance at the mourner. Heedlessly the +request was urged: she wafted over the keys an airy prelude. A cold rush +of anguish came over the awakened heart; Klopstock rose, and hastily +left the room. + +He entered his apartment, and threw himself upon the bed. The moon was +nearly at the full: a tree near the large window obscured its radiance, +and cast into the room a flickering shadow, as its leaves kept swaying +to and fro with the breeze. + +Vainly Klopstock sought for soothing influences in the contemplation of +the soft and varying light. Sadness is always deepest at this hour of +celestial calmness. The soul realizes its wants, and longs to be in +harmony with itself far more in such an hour than when any outward ill +is arousing or oppressing it. + +"Weak, fond wretch that I am!" cried he. "I, the bard of the Messiah! To +what purpose have I nurtured my soul on the virtues of that sublime +model, for whom no renunciation was too hard? Four years an angel +sojourned with me: her presence vivified my soul into purity and +benevolence like her own. Happy was I as the saints who rest after their +long struggles in the bosom of perfect love. I thought myself good +because I sinned not against a bounteous God, because my heart could +spare some drops of its overflowing oil and balm for the wounds of +others: now what am I? My angel leaves me, but she leaves with me the +memory of blissful years and our perfect communion as an earnest of that +happy meeting which awaits us, if I prove faithful to my own words of +faith, to those strains of religious confidence which are even now +cheering onward many an inexperienced youth. And what are my deeds and +feelings? The springs of life and love frozen, here I lie, sunk in +grief, as if I knew no world beyond the grave. The joy of others seems +an insult, their grief a dead letter, compared with my own. Meta! Meta! +couldst thou see me in my hour of trial, thou wouldst disdain thy chosen +one!" + +A strain of sweet and solemn music swelled on his ear--one of those +majestic harmonies which, were there no other proof of the soul's +immortality, must suggest the image of an intellectual paradise. It +closed, and Meta stood before him. A long veil of silvery whiteness fell +over her, through which might be seen the fixed but nobly-serene +expression of the large blue eyes, and a holy, seraphic dignity of mien. +Klopstock knelt before her: his soul was awed to earth. "Hast thou +come, my adored!" said he, "from thy home of bliss, to tell me that thou +no longer lovest thy unworthy friend?" + +"O, speak not thus!" replied the softest and most penetrating of voices. +"God wills not that his purified creatures should look in contempt or +anger on those suffering the ills from which they are set free. O, no, +my love! my husband! I come to speak consolation to thy sinking spirit. +When you left me to breathe my last sigh in the arms of a sister, who, +however dear, was nothing to my heart in comparison with you, I closed +my eyes, wishing that the light of day might depart with thee. The +thought of what thou must suffer convulsed my heart with one last pang. +Once more I murmured the wish I had so often expressed, that the sorrows +of the survivor might have fallen to my lot rather than to thine. In +that pang my soul extricated itself from the body; a sensation like that +from exquisite fragrance came over me, and with breezy lightness I rose +into the pure serene. It was a moment of feeling almost wild,--so free, +so unobscured. I had not yet passed the verge of comparison; I could not +yet embrace the Infinite: therefore my joy was like those of +earth--intoxicating. + +"Words cannot paint, even to thy eager soul, my friend, the winged +swiftness, the onward, glowing hopefulness of my path through the fields +of azure. I paused, at length, in a region of keen, pure, bluish light, +such as beams from Jupiter to thy planet on a lovely October evening. + +"Here an immediate conviction pervaded me that this was home--was my +appointed resting place; a full tide of hope and satisfaction similar to +the emotion excited on my first acquaintance with thy poem flowed over +this hour; a joyous confidence in the existence of Goodness and Beauty +supplied for a season, the want of thy society. The delicious clearness +of every emotion exalted my soul into a realm full of life. Some time +elapsed in this state. The whole of my temporal existence passed in +review before me. My thoughts, my actions, were placed in full relief +before the cleared eye of my spirit. Beloved, thou wilt rejoice to know +that thy Meta could then feel that her worst faults sprung from +ignorance. As I was striving to connect my present state with my past, +and, as it were, poising myself on the brink of space and time, the +breath of another presence came across me, and, gradually evolving from +the bosom of light, a figure rose before me, in grace, in sweetness, how +excelling! Fixing her eyes on mine with the full gaze of love, she said, +in flute-like tones, 'Dost thou know me, my sister?' + +"'Art thou not,' I replied, 'the love of Petrarch? I have seen the +portraiture of thy mortal lineaments, and now recognize that perfect +beauty, the full violet flower which thy lover's genius was able to +anticipate.' + +"'Yes,' she said, 'I am Laura--on earth most happy, yet most sad; most +rich, and yet most poor. I come to greet her whom I recognize as the +inheritress of all that was lovely in my earthly being, more happy than +I in her temporal state. I have sympathized, O wife of Klopstock! in thy +transitory happiness. Thy lover was thy priest and thy poet; thy model +and oracle was thy bosom friend. All that earth could give was thine; +and I joyed to think on thy rewarded love, thy freedom of soul, and +unchecked faith. Follow me now: we are to dwell in the same circle, and +I am appointed to show thee thine abiding place.' + +"She guided me towards the source of that light which I have described +to thee. We paused before a structure of dazzling whiteness, which stood +on a slope, and overlooked a valley of exceeding beauty. It was shaded +by trees which had that peculiar calmness that the shadows of trees have +below in the high noon of summer moonlight-- + + '... trees which are still + As the shades of trees below, + When they sleep on the lonely hill, + In the summer moonlight glow.' + +It was decked with majestic sculptures, of which I may speak in some +future interview. Before it rose a fountain, from which the stream of +light flowed down the valley, dividing it into two unequal parts. The +larger and farther from us seemed, when I first looked on it, populous +with shapes, beauteous as that of my guide. But, when I looked more +fixedly, I saw only the valley, carpeted with large blue and white +flowers, which emitted a hyacinthine odor. Here, Laura, turning round, +asked, 'Is not this a poetic home, Meta?' + +"I paused a moment ere I replied, 'It is indeed a place of beauty, but +more like the Greek elysium than the home Klopstock and I were wont to +picture to ourselves beyond the gates of Death.' + +"'Thou sayest well,' she said; 'nor is this thy final home; thou wilt +but wait here a season, till Klopstock comes.' + +"'What' said I, 'alone! alone in Eden?' + +"'Has not Meta, then, collected aught on which she might meditate? Hast +thou never read, "While I was musing, the fire burned"?' + +"'Laura,' said I, 'spare the reproach. The love of Petrach, whose soul +grew up in golden fetters, whose strongest emotions, whose most natural +actions were, through a long life, constantly repressed by the dictates +of duty and honor, she content might pass long years in that +contemplation which was on earth her only solace. But I, whose life has +all been breathed out in love and ministry, can I endure that my +existence be reversed? Can I live without utterance of spirit? or would +such be a stage of that progressive happiness we are promised?' + +"'True, little one!' said she, with her first heavenly smile; 'nor shall +it be thus with thee. A ministry is appointed thee--the same which I +exercised while waiting here for that friend whom below I was forbidden +to call my own.' + +"She touched me, and from my shoulders sprung a pair of wings, white and +azure, wide and glistering. + +"'Meta!' she resumed, 'spirit of love! be this thine office. Wherever a +soul pines in absence from all companionship, breathe sweet thoughts of +sympathy to be had in another life, if deserved by virtuous exertions +and mental progress. Bind up the wounds of hearts torn by bereavement; +teach them where healing is to be found. Revive in the betrayed and +forsaken heart that belief in virtue and nobleness, without which life +is an odious, disconnected dream. Fan every flame of generous +enthusiasm, and on the altars where it is kindled strew thou the incense +of wisdom. In such a ministry thou couldst never be alone, since hope +must dwell with thee. But I shall often come and discourse to thee of +the future glories of thy destiny. Yet more: Seest thou that marble +tablet? Retire here when thy pinions are wearied. Give up thy soul to +faith. Fix thine eyes on the tablet, and the deeds and thoughts which +fill the days of Klopstock shall he traced on it. Thus shall ye not be +for a day divided. Hast thou, Meta, aught more to ask?" + +"'Messenger of peace and bliss!' said I, 'dare I frame another request? +Is it too presumptuous to ask that Klopstock may be one of those to whom +I minister, and that he may know it is Meta who consoles him?' + +"'Even this, to a certain extent, I have power to grant. Most pure, most +holy was thy life with Klopstock; ye taught one another only good +things, and peculiarly are ye rewarded. Thou mayst occasionally manifest +thyself to him, and answer his prayers with words,--so long,' she +continued, looking fixedly at me, 'as he continues true to himself and +thee!' + +"O, my beloved, why tell thee what were my emotions at such a promise? +Ah! I must now leave thee, for dawn is bringing back the world's doings. +Soon I shall visit thee again. Farewell! Remember that thy every thought +and deed will be known to me, and be happy!" + +She vanished. + + + + +WHAT FITS A MAN TO BE A VOTER? + +A FABLE. + + +The country had been denuded of its forests, and men cried, "Come! we +must plant anew, or there will be no shade for the homes of our +children, or fuel for their hearths. Let us find the best kernels for a +new growth." And a basket of butternuts was offered. + +But the planters rejected it with disgust. "What a black, rough coat it +has!" said they; "it is entirely unfit for the dishes on a nobleman's +table, nor have we ever seen it in such places. It must have a greasy, +offensive kernel; nor can fine trees grow up from such a nut." + +"Friends," said one of the planters, "this decision may be rash. The +chestnut has not a handsome outside; it is long encased in troublesome +burs, and, when disengaged, is almost as black as these nuts you +despise. Yet from it grow trees of lofty stature, graceful form, and +long life. Its kernel is white, and has furnished food to the most +poetic and splendid nations of the older world." + +"Don't tell me," says another; "brown is entirely different from black. +I like brown very well; there is Oriental precedent for its +respectability. Perhaps we will use some of your chestnuts, if we can +get fine samples. But for the present, I think we should use only +English walnuts, such as our forefathers delighted to honor. Here are +many basketsful of them, quite enough for the present. We will plant +them with a sprinkling between of the chestnut and acorn." + +"But," rejoined the other, "many butternuts are beneath the sod, and +you cannot help a mixture of them being in your wood, at any rate." + +"Well, we will grub them up and cut them down whenever we find them. We +can use the young shrubs for kindlings." + +At that moment two persons entered the council of a darker complexion +than most of those present, as if born beneath the glow of a more +scorching sun. First came a woman, beautiful in the mild, pure grandeur +of her look; in whose large dark eye a prophetic intelligence was +mingled with infinite sweetness. She looked at the assembly with an air +of surprise, as if its aspect was strange to her. She threw quite back +her veil, and stepping aside, made room for her companion. His form was +youthful, about the age of one we have seen in many a picture produced +by the thought of eighteen centuries, as of one "instructing the +doctors." I need not describe the features; all minds have their own +impressions of such an image, + + "Severe in youthful beauty." + +In his hand he bore a white banner, on which was embroidered, "PEACE AND +GOOD WILL TO MEN." And the words seemed to glitter and give out sparks, +as he paused in the assembly. + +"I came hither," said he, "an uninvited guest, because I read sculptured +above the door 'All men born free and equal,' and in this dwelling hoped +to find myself at home. What is the matter in dispute?" + +Then they whispered one to another, and murmurs were heard--"He is a +mere boy; young people are always foolish and extravagant;" or, "He +looks like a fanatic." But others said, "He looks like one whom we have +been taught to honor. It will be best to tell him the matter in +dispute." + +When he heard it, he smiled, and said, "It will be needful first to +ascertain which of the nuts is soundest _within_." And with a hammer he +broke one, two, and more of the English walnuts, and they were mouldy. +Then he tried the other nuts, but found most of them fresh within and +_white_, for they were fresh from the bosom of the earth, while the +others had been kept in a damp cellar. + +And he said, "You had better plant them together, lest none, or few, of +the walnuts be sound. And why are you so reluctant? Has not Heaven +permitted them both to grow on the same soil? and does not that show +what is intended about it?" + +And they said, "But they are black and ugly to look upon." He replied, +"They do not seem so to me. What my Father has fashioned in such guise +offends not mine eye." + +And they said, "But from one of these trees flew a bird of prey, who has +done great wrong. We meant, therefore, to suffer no such tree among us." + +And he replied, "Amid the band of my countrymen and friends there was +one guilty of the blackest crime--that of selling for a price the life +of his dearest friend; yet all the others of his blood were not put +under ban because of his guilt." + +Then they said, "But in the Holy Book our teachers tell us, we are bid +to keep in exile or distress whatsoever is black and unseemly in our +eyes." + +Then he put his hand to his brow, and cried in a voice of the most +penetrating pathos, "Have I been so long among you, and ye have not +known me?" And the woman turned from them the majestic hope of her +glance, and both forms suddenly vanished; but the banner was left +trailing in the dust. + +The men stood gazing at one another. After which one mounted on high, +and said, "Perhaps, my friends, we carry too far this aversion to +objects merely because they are black. I heard, the other day, a wise +man say that black was the color of evil--marked as such by God, and +that whenever a white man struck a black man he did an act of worship +to God.[37] I could not quite believe him. I hope, in what I am about to +add, I shall not be misunderstood. I am no abolitionist. I respect above +all things, divine or human, the constitution framed by our forefathers, +and the peculiar institutions hallowed by the usage of their sons. I +have no sympathy with the black race in this country. I wish it to be +understood that I feel towards negroes the purest personal antipathy. It +is a family trait with us. My little son, scarce able to speak, will cry +out, 'Nigger! Nigger!' whenever he sees one, and try to throw things at +them. He made a whole omnibus load laugh the other day by his cunning +way of doing this.[38] The child of my political antagonist, on the +other hand, says 'he likes _tullared_ children the best.'[39] You see he +is tainted in his cradle by the loose principles of his parents, even +before he can say nigger, or pronounce the more refined appellation. But +that is no matter. I merely mention this by the way; not to prejudice +you against Mr.----, but that you may appreciate the very different +state of things in my family, and not misinterpret what I have to say. I +was lately in one of our prisons where a somewhat injudicious indulgence +had extended to one of the condemned felons, a lost and wretched outcast +from society, the use of materials for painting, that having been his +profession. He had completed at his leisure a picture of the Lord's +Supper. Most of the figures were well enough, but Judas he had +represented as a black.[40] Now, gentlemen, I am of opinion that this is +an unwarrantable liberty taken with the Holy Scriptures, and shows _too +much_ prejudice in the community. It is my wish to be moderate and fair, +and preserve a medium, neither, on the one hand, yielding the wholesome +antipathies planted in our breasts as a safeguard against degradation, +and our constitutional obligations, which, as I have before observed, +are, with me, more binding than any other; nor, on the other hand, +forgetting that liberality and wisdom which are the prerogative of every +citizen of this free commonwealth. I agree, then, with our young +visitor. I hardly know, indeed, why a stranger, and one so young, was +permitted to mingle in this council; but it was certainly thoughtful in +him to crack and examine the nuts. I agree that it may be well to plant +some of the black nuts among the others, so that, if many of the walnuts +fail, we may make use of this inferior tree." + +At this moment arose a hubbub, and such a clamor of "dangerous +innovation," "political capital," "low-minded demagogue," "infidel who +denies the Bible," "lower link in the chain of creation," &c., that it +is impossible to say what was the decision. + + + + +DISCOVERIES. + + +Sometimes, as we meet people in the street, we catch a sentence from +their lips that affords a clew to their history and habits of mind, and +puts our own minds on quite a new course. + +Yesterday two female figures drew nigh upon the street, in whom we had +only observed their tawdry, showy style of dress, when, as they passed, +one remarked to the other, in the tone of a person who has just made a +discovery, "_I_ think there is something very handsome in a fine child." + +Poor woman! that seemed to have been the first time in her life that she +had made the observation. The charms of the human being, in that fresh +and flower-like age which is intended perpetually to refresh us in our +riper, renovate us in our declining years, had never touched her heart, +nor awakened for her the myriad thoughts and fancies that as naturally +attend the sight of childhood as bees swarm to the blossoming bough. +Instead of being to her the little angels and fairies, the embodied +poems which may ennoble the humblest lot, they had been to her mere +"torments," who "could never be kept still, or their faces clean." + +How piteous is the loss of those who do not contemplate childhood in a +spirit of holiness! The heavenly influence on their own minds, of +attention to cultivate each germ of great and good qualities, of +avoiding the least act likely to injure, is lost--a loss dreary and +piteous! for which no gain can compensate. But how unspeakably +deplorable the petrifaction of those who look upon their little friends +without any sympathy even, whose hearts are, by selfishness, +worldliness, and vanity, seared from all gentle instincts, who can no +longer appreciate their spontaneous grace and glee, that eloquence in +every look, motion, and stammered word, those lively and incessant +charms, over which the action of the lower motives with which the social +system is rife, may so soon draw a veil! + +We can no longer speak thus of _all_ children. On some, especially in +cities, the inheritance of sin and deformity from bad parents falls too +heavily, and incases at once the spark of soul which God still doth not +refuse in such instances, in a careful, knowing, sensual mask. Such are +never, in fact, children at all. But the rudest little cubs that are +free from taint, and show the affinities with nature and the soul, are +still young and flexible, and rich in gleams of the loveliness to be +hoped from perfected human nature. + +It is sad that all men do not feel these things. It is sad that they +wilfully renounce so large a part of their heritage, and go forth to buy +filtered water, while the fountain is gushing freshly beside the door of +their own huts. As with the charms of children, so with other things. +They do not know that the sunset is worth seeing every night, and the +shows of the forest better than those of the theatre, and the work of +bees and beetles more instructive, if scanned with care, than the lyceum +lecture. The cheap knowledge, the cheap pleasures, that are spread +before every one, they cast aside in search of an uncertain and feverish +joy. We did, indeed, hear one man say that he could not possibly be +deprived of his pleasures, since he could always, even were his abode in +the narrowest lane, have a blanket of sky above his head, where he could +see the clouds pass, and the stars glitter. But men in general remain +unaware that + + "Life's best joys are nearest us, + Lie close about our feet." + +For them the light dresses all objects in endless novelty, the rose +glows, domestic love smiles, and childhood gives out with sportive +freedom its oracles--in vain. That woman had seen beauty in gay shawls, +in teacups, in carpets; but only of late had she discovered that "there +was something beautiful in a fine child." Poor human nature! Thou must +have been changed at nurse by a bad demon at some time, and strangely +maltreated,--to have such blind and rickety intervals as come upon thee +now and then! + + + + +POLITENESS TOO GREAT A LUXURY TO BE GIVEN TO THE POOR. + + +A few days ago, a lady, crossing in one of the ferry boats that ply from +this city, saw a young boy, poorly dressed, sitting with an infant in +his arms on one of the benches. She observed that the child looked +sickly and coughed. This, as the day was raw, made her anxious in its +behalf, and she went to the boy and asked whether he was alone there +with the baby, and if he did not think the cold breeze dangerous for it. +He replied that he was sent out with the child to take care of it, and +that his father said the fresh air from the water would do it good. + +While he made this simple answer, a number of persons had collected +around to listen, and one of them, a well-dressed woman, addressed the +boy in a string of such questions and remarks as these:-- + +"What is your name? Where do you live? Are you telling us the truth? +It's a shame to have that baby out in such weather; you'll be the death +of it. (To the bystanders:) I would go and see his mother, and tell her +about it, if I was sure he had told us the truth about where he lived. +How do you expect to get back? Here, (in the rudest voice,) somebody +says you have not told the truth as to where you live." + +The child, whose only offence consisted in taking care of the little one +in public, and answering when he was spoken to, began to shed tears at +the accusations thus grossly preferred against him. The bystanders +stared at both; but among them all there was not one with sufficiently +clear notions of propriety and moral energy to say to this impudent +questioner "Woman, do you suppose, because you wear a handsome shawl, +and that boy a patched jacket, that you have any right to speak to him +at all, unless he wishes it--far less to prefer against him these rude +accusations? Your vulgarity is unendurable; leave the place or alter +your manner." + +Many such instances have we seen of insolent rudeness, or more insolent +affability, founded on no apparent grounds, except an apparent +difference in pecuniary position; for no one can suppose, in such cases, +the offending party has really enjoyed the benefit of refined education +and society, but all present let them pass as matters of course. It was +sad to see how the poor would endure--mortifying to see how the +purse-proud dared offend. An excellent man, who was, in his early years, +a missionary to the poor, used to speak afterwards with great shame of +the manner in which he had conducted himself towards them. "When I +recollect," said he, "the freedom with which I entered their houses, +inquired into all their affairs, commented on their conduct, and +disputed their statements, I wonder I was never horsewhipped, and feel +that I ought to have been; it would have done me good, for I needed as +severe a lesson on the universal obligations of politeness in its only +genuine form of respect for man as man, and delicate sympathy with each +in his peculiar position." + +Charles Lamb, who was indeed worthy to be called a human being because +of those refined sympathies, said, "You call him a gentleman: does his +washerwoman find him so?" We may say, if she did, she found him a _man_, +neither treating her with vulgar abruptness, nor giving himself airs of +condescending liveliness, but treating her with that genuine respect +which a feeling of equality inspires. + +To doubt the veracity of another is an insult which in most _civilized_ +communities must in the so-called higher classes be atoned for by blood, +but, in those same communities, the same men will, with the utmost +lightness, doubt the truth of one who wears a ragged coat, and thus do +all they can to injure and degrade him by assailing his self-respect, +and breaking the feeling of personal honor--a wound to which hurts a man +as a wound to its bark does a tree. + +Then how rudely are favors conferred, just as a bone is thrown to a dog! +A gentleman, indeed, will not do _that_ without accompanying signs of +sympathy and regard. Just as this woman said, "If you have told the +truth I will go and see your mother," are many acts performed on which +the actors pride themselves as kind and charitable. + +All men might learn from the French in these matters. That people, +whatever be their faults, are really well bred, and many acts might be +quoted from their romantic annals, where gifts were given from rich to +poor with a graceful courtesy, equally honorable and delightful to the +giver and the receiver. + +In Catholic countries there is more courtesy, for charity is there a +duty, and must be done for God's sake; there is less room for a man to +give himself the pharisaical tone about it. A rich man is not so +surprised to find himself in contact with a poor one; nor is the custom +of kneeling on the open pavement, the silk robe close to the beggar's +rags, without profit. The separation by pews, even on the day when all +meet nearest, is as bad for the manners as the soul. + +Blessed be he, or she, who has passed through this world, not only with +an open purse and willingness to render the aid of mere outward +benefits, but with an open eye and open heart, ready to cheer the +downcast, and enlighten the dull by words of comfort and looks of love. +The wayside charities are the most valuable both as to sustaining hope +and diffusing knowledge, and none can render them who has not an +expansive nature, a heart alive to affection, and some true notion, +however imperfectly developed, of the meaning of human brotherhood. + +Such a one can never sauce the given meat with taunts, freeze the viand +by a cold glance of doubt, or plunge the man, who asked for his hand, +deeper back into the mud by any kind of rudeness. + +In the little instance with which we began, no help _was_ asked, unless +by the sight of the timid little boy's old jacket. But the license which +this seemed to the well-clothed woman to give to rudeness, was so +characteristic of a deep fault now existing, that a volume of comments +might follow and a host of anecdotes be drawn from almost any one's +experience in exposition of it. These few words, perhaps, may awaken +thought in those who have drawn tears from other's eyes through an +ignorance brutal, but not hopelessly so, if they are willing to rise +above it. + + + + +CASSIUS M. CLAY. + + +The meeting on Monday night at the Tabernacle was to us an occasion of +deep and peculiar interest. It was deep, for the feelings there +expressed and answered bore witness to the truth of our belief, that the +sense of right is not dead, but only sleepeth in this nation. A man who +is manly enough to appeal to it, will be answered, in feeling at least, +if not in action, and while there is life there is hope. Those who so +rapturously welcomed one who had sealed his faith by deeds of devotion, +must yet acknowledge in their breasts the germs of like nobleness. + +It was an occasion of peculiar interest, such as we have not had +occasion to feel since, in childish years, we saw Lafayette welcomed by +a grateful people. Even childhood well understood that the gratitude +then expressed was not so much for the aid which had been received as +for the motives and feelings with which it was given. The nation rushed +out as one man to thank Lafayette, that he had been able, amid the +prejudices and indulgences of high rank in the old _regime_ of society, +to understand the great principles which were about to create a new +form, and answer, manlike, with love, service, and contempt of selfish +interests to the voice of humanity demanding its rights. Our freedom +would have been achieved without Lafayette; but it was a happiness and a +blessing to number the young French nobleman as the champion of American +independence, and to know that he had given the prime of his life to our +cause, because it was the cause of justice. With similar feelings of +joy, pride, and hope, we welcome Cassius M. Clay, a man who has, in like +manner, freed himself from the prejudices of his position, disregarded +selfish considerations, and quitting the easy path in which he might +have walked to station in the sight of men, and such external +distinctions as his State and nation readily confer on men so born and +bred, and with such abilities, chose rather an interest in their souls, +and the honors history will not fail to award to the man who enrolls his +name and elevates his life for the cause of right and those universal +principles whose recognition can alone secure to man the destiny without +which he cannot be happy, but which he is continually sacrificing for +the impure worship of idols. Yea, in this country, more than in the old +Palestine, do they give their children to the fire in honor of Moloch, +and sell the ark confided to them by the Most High for shekels of gold +and of silver. Partly it was the sense of this position which Mr. Clay +holds, as a man who esteems his own individual convictions of right more +than local interests or partial, political schemes, that gave him such +an enthusiastic welcome on Monday night from the very hearts of the +audience, but still more that his honor is at this moment identified +with the liberty of the press, which has been insulted and infringed in +him. About this there can be in fact but one opinion. In vain Kentucky +calls meetings, states reasons, gives names of her own to what has been +done.[41] The rest of the world knows very well what the action is, and +will call it by but one name. Regardless of this ostrich mode of +defence, the world has laughed and scoffed at the act of a people +professing to be free and defenders of freedom, and the recording angel +has written down the deed as a lawless act of violence and tyranny, from +which the man is happy who can call himself pure. + +With the usual rhetoric of the wrong side, the apologists for this mob +violence have wished to injure Mr. Clay by the epithets of "hot-headed," +"visionary," "fanatical." But, if any have believed that such could +apply to a man so clear-sighted as to his objects and the way of +achieving them, the mistake must have been corrected on Monday night. +Whoever saw Mr. Clay that night, saw in him a man of deep and strong +nature, thoroughly in earnest, who had well considered his ground, and +saw that though open, as the truly _noble_ must be, to new views and +convictions, yet his direction is taken, and the improvement to be made +will not be to turn aside, but to expedite and widen his course in that +direction. Mr. Clay is young, young enough, thank Heaven! to promise a +long career of great thoughts and honorable deeds. But still, to those +who esteem youth an unpardonable fault, and one that renders incapable +of counsel, we would say that he is at the age when a man is capable of +great thoughts and great deeds, if ever. His is not a character that +will ever grow old; it is not capable of a petty and short-sighted +prudence, but can only be guided by a large wisdom which is more young +than old, for it has within itself the springs of perpetual youth, and +which, being far-sighted and prophetical, joins ever with the progress +party without waiting till it be obviously in the ascendant. + +Mr. Clay has eloquence, but only from the soul. He does not possess the +art of oratory, as an art. Before he gets warmed he is too slow, and +breaks his sentences too much. His transitions are not made with skill, +nor is the structure of his speech, as a whole, symmetrical; yet, +throughout, his grasp is firm upon his subject, and all the words are +laden with the electricity of a strong mind and generous nature. When he +begins to glow, and his deep mellow eye fills with light, the speech +melts and glows too, and he is able to impress upon the hearer the full +effect of firm conviction, conceived with impassioned energy. His often +rugged and harsh emphasis flashes and sparkles then, and we feel that +there is in the furnace a stream of iron: iron, fortress of the nations +and victor of the seas, worth far more, in stress of storm, than all the +gold and gems of rhetoric. + +The great principle that he who wrongs one wrongs all, and that no part +can be wounded without endangering the whole, was the healthy root of +Mr. Clay's speech. The report does not do justice to the turn of +expression in some parts which were most characteristic. These, indeed, +depended much on the tones and looks of the speaker. We should speak of +them as full of a robust and homely sincerity, dignified by the heart of +the gentleman, a heart too secure of its respect for the rights of +others to need any of the usual interpositions. His good-humored +sarcasm, on occasion of several vulgar interruptions, was very pleasant, +and easily at those times might be recognized in him the man of heroical +nature, who can only show himself adequately in time of interruption and +of obstacle. If that be all that is wanted, we shall surely see him +wholly; there will be no lack of American occasions to call out the +Greek fire. We want them all--the Grecian men, who feel a godlike thirst +for immortal glory, and to develop the peculiar powers with which the +gods have gifted them. We want them all--the poet, the thinker, the +hero. Whether our heroes need _swords_, is a more doubtful point, we +think, than Mr. Clay believes. Neither do we believe in some of the +means he proposes to further his aims. God uses all kinds of means, but +men, his priests, must keep their hands pure. Nobody that needs a bribe +shall be asked to further our schemes for emancipation. But there is +room enough and time enough to think out these points till all is in +harmony. For the good that has been done and the truth that has been +spoken, for the love of such that has been seen in this great city +struggling up through the love of money, we should to-day be +thankful--and we are so. + + + + +THE MAGNOLIA OF LAKE PONTCHARTRAIN. + + +The stars tell all their secrets to the flowers, and, if we only knew +how to look around us, we should not need to look above. But man is a +plant of slow growth, and great heat is required to bring out his +leaves. He must be promised a boundless futurity, to induce him to use +aright the present hour. In youth, fixing his eyes on those distant +worlds of light, he promises himself to attain them, and there find the +answer to all his wishes. His eye grows keener as he gazes, a voice from +the earth calls it downward, and he finds all at his feet. + +I was riding on the shore of Lake Pontchartrain, musing on an old +English expression, which I had only lately learned to interpret. "He +was fulfilled of all nobleness." Words so significant charm us like a +spell, long before we know their meaning. This I had now learned to +interpret. Life had ripened from the green bud, and I had seen the +difference, wide as from earth to heaven, between nobleness and the +_fulfilment_ of nobleness. + +A fragrance beyond any thing I had ever known came suddenly upon the +air, and interrupted my meditation. I looked around me, but saw no +flower from which it could proceed. There is no word for it; _exquisite_ +and _delicious_ have lost all meaning now. It was of a full and +penetrating sweetness, too keen and delicate to be cloying. Unable to +trace it, I rode on, but the remembrance of it pursued me. I had a +feeling that I must forever regret my loss, my want, if I did not return +and find the poet of the lake, whose voice was such perfume. In earlier +days, I might have disregarded such a feeling; but now I have learned +to prize the monitions of my nature as they deserve, and learn sometimes +what is not for sale in the market place. So I turned back, and rode to +and fro, at the risk of abandoning the object of my ride. + +I found her at last, the queen of the south, singing to herself in her +lonely bower. Such should a sovereign be, most regal when alone; for +then there is no disturbance to prevent the full consciousness of power. +All occasions limit; a kingdom is but an occasion; and no sun ever saw +itself adequately reflected on sea or land. + +Nothing at the south had affected me like the magnolia. Sickness and +sorrow, which have separated me from my kind, have requited my loss by +making known to me the loveliest dialect of the divine language. +"Flowers," it has been truly said, "are the only positive present made +us by nature." Man has not been ungrateful, but consecrated the gift to +adorn the darkest and brightest hours. If it is ever perverted, it is to +be used as a medicine; and even this vexes me. But no matter for that. +We have pure intercourse with these purest creations; we love them for +their own sake, for their beauty's sake. As we grow beautiful and pure, +we understand them better. With me knowledge of them is a circumstance, +a habit of my life, rather than a merit. I have lived with them, and +with them almost alone, till I have learned to interpret the slightest +signs by which they manifest their fair thoughts. There is not a flower +in my native region which has not for me a tale, to which every year is +adding new incidents; yet the growths of this new climate brought me new +and sweet emotions, and, above all others, was the magnolia a +revelation. When I first beheld her, a stately tower of verdure, each +cup, an imperial vestal, full-displayed to the eye of day, yet guarded +from the too hasty touch even of the wind by its graceful decorums of +firm, glistening, broad, green leaves, I stood astonished, as might a +lover of music, who, after hearing in all his youth only the harp or +the bugle, should be saluted, on entering some vast cathedral, by the +full peal of its organ. + +After I had recovered from my first surprise, I became acquainted with +the flower, and found all its life in harmony. Its fragrance, less +enchanting than that of the rose, excited a pleasure more full of life, +and which could longer be enjoyed without satiety. Its blossoms, if +plucked from their home, refused to retain their dazzling hue, but +drooped and grew sallow, like princesses captive in the prison of a +barbarous foe. + +But there was something quite peculiar in the fragrance of this tree; so +much so, that I had not at first recognized the magnolia. Thinking it +must be of a species I had never yet seen, I alighted, and leaving my +horse, drew near to question it with eyes of reverent love. + +"Be not surprised," replied those lips of untouched purity, "stranger, +who alone hast known to hear in my voice a tone more deep and full than +that of my beautiful sisters. Sit down, and listen to my tale, nor fear +that I will overpower thee by too much sweetness. I am, indeed, of the +race you love, but in it I stand alone. In my family I have no sister of +the heart, and though my root is the same as that of the other virgins +of our royal house, I bear not the same blossom, nor can I unite my +voice with theirs in the forest choir. Therefore I dwell here alone, nor +did I ever expect to tell the secret of my loneliness. But to all that +ask there is an answer, and I speak to thee. + +"Indeed, we have met before, as that secret feeling of home, which makes +delight so tender, must inform thee. The spirit that I utter once +inhabited the glory of the most glorious climates. I dwelt once in the +orange tree." + +"Ah?" said I; "then I did not mistake. It is the same voice I heard in +the saddest season of my youth. I stood one evening on a high terrace in +another land, the land where 'the plant man has grown to greatest size.' +It was an evening whose unrivalled splendor demanded perfection in +man--answering to that he found in nature--a sky 'black-blue' deep as +eternity, stars of holiest hope, a breeze promising rapture in every +breath. I could not longer endure this discord between myself and such +beauty; I retired within my window, and lit the lamp. Its rays fell on +an orange tree, full clad in its golden fruit and bridal blossoms. How +did we talk together then, fairest friend! Thou didst tell me all; and +yet thou knowest, that even then, had I asked any part of thy dower, it +would have been to bear the sweet fruit, rather than the sweeter +blossoms. My wish had been expressed by another. + + 'O, that I were an orange tree, + That busy plant! + Then should I ever laden he, + And never want + Some fruit for him that dresseth me.' + +Thou didst seem to me the happiest of all spirits in wealth of nature, +in fulness of utterance. How is it that I find thee now in another +habitation?" + +"How is it, man, that thou art now content that thy life bears no golden +fruit?" + +"It is," I replied, "that I have at last, through privation, been +initiated into the secret of peace. Blighted without, unable to find +myself in other forms of nature, I was driven back upon the centre of my +being, and there found all being. For the wise, the obedient child from +one point can draw all lines, and in one germ read all the possible +disclosures of successive life." + +"Even so," replied the flower, "and ever for that reason am I trying to +simplify my being. How happy I was in the 'spirit's dower when first it +was wed,' I told thee in that earlier day. But after a while I grew +weary of that fulness of speech; I felt a shame at telling all I knew, +and challenging all sympathies; I was never silent, I was never alone; +I had a voice for every season, for day and night; on me the merchant +counted, the bride looked to me for her garland, the nobleman for the +chief ornament of his princely hair, and the poor man for his wealth; +all sang my praises, all extolled my beauty, all blessed my beneficence; +and, for a while, my heart swelled with pride and pleasure. But, as +years passed, my mood changed. The lonely moon rebuked me, as she hid +from the wishes of man, nor would return till her due change was passed. +The inaccessible sun looked on me with the same ray as on all others; my +endless profusion could not bribe him to one smile sacred to me alone. +The mysterious wind passed me by to tell its secret to the solemn pine, +and the nightingale sang to the rose rather than me, though she was +often silent, and buried herself yearly in the dark earth. + +"I knew no mine or thine: I belonged to all. I could never rest: I was +never at one. Painfully I felt this want, and from every blossom sighed +entreaties for some being to come and satisfy it. With every bud I +implored an answer, but each bud only produced an orange. + +"At last this feeling grew more painful, and thrilled my very root. The +earth trembled at the touch with a pulse so sympathetic that ever and +anon it seemed, could I but retire and hide in that silent bosom for one +calm winter, all would be told me, and tranquillity, deep as my desire, +be mine. But the law of my being was on me, and man and nature seconded +it. Ceaselessly they called on me for my beautiful gifts; they decked +themselves with them, nor cared to know the saddened heart of the giver. +O, how cruel they seemed at last, as they visited and despoiled me, yet +never sought to aid me, or even paused to think that I might need their +aid! yet I would not hate them. I saw it was my seeming riches that +bereft me of sympathy. I saw they could not know what was hid beneath +the perpetual veil of glowing life. I ceased to expect aught from them, +and turned my eyes to the distant stars. I thought, could I but hoard +from the daily expenditure of my juices till I grew tall enough, I might +reach those distant spheres, which looked so silent and consecrated, +and there pause a while from these weary joys of endless life, and in +the lap of winter find my spring. + +"But not so was my hope to be fulfilled. One starlight night I was +looking, hoping, when a sudden breeze came up. It touched me, I thought, +as if it were a cold, white beam from those stranger worlds. The cold +gained upon my heart; every blossom trembled, every leaf grew brittle, +and the fruit began to seem unconnected with the stem; soon I lost all +feeling; and morning found the pride of the garden black, stiff, and +powerless. + +"As the rays of the morning sun touched me, consciousness returned, and +I strove to speak, but in vain. Sealed were my fountains, and all my +heartbeats still. I felt that I had been that beauteous tree, but now +only was--what--I knew not; yet I was, and the voices of men said, It is +dead; cast it forth, and plant another in the costly vase. A mystic +shudder of pale joy then separated me wholly from my former abode. + +"A moment more, and I was before the queen and guardian of the flowers. +Of this being I cannot speak to thee in any language now possible +betwixt us; for this is a being of another order from thee, an order +whose presence thou mayst feel, nay, approach step by step, but which +cannot be known till thou art of it, nor seen nor spoken of till thou +hast passed through it. + +"Suffice it to say, that it is not such a being as men love to paint; a +fairy, like them, only lesser and more exquisite than they; a goddess, +larger and of statelier proportion; an angel, like still, only with an +added power. Man never creates; he only recombines the lines and colors +of his own existence: only a deific fancy could evolve from the elements +the form that took me home. + +"Secret, radiant, profound ever, and never to be known, was she; many +forms indicate, and none declare her. Like all such beings, she was +feminine. All the secret powers are "mothers." There is but one paternal +power. + +"She had heard my wish while I looked at the stars, and in the silence +of fate prepared its fulfilment. 'Child of my most communicative hour,' +said she, 'the full pause must not follow such a burst of melody. Obey +the gradations of nature, nor seek to retire at once into her utmost +purity of silence. The vehemence of thy desire at once promises and +forbids its gratification. Thou wert the keystone of the arch, and bound +together the circling year: thou canst not at once become the base of +the arch, the centre of the circle. Take a step inward, forget a voice, +lose a power; no longer a bounteous sovereign, become a vestal +priestess, and bide thy time in the magnolia.' + +"Such is my history, friend of my earlier day. Others of my family, that +you have met, were formerly the religious lily, the lonely dahlia, +fearless decking the cold autumn, and answering the shortest visits of +the sun with the brightest hues; the narcissus, so rapt in +self-contemplation that it could not abide the usual changes of a life. +Some of these have perfume, others not, according to the habit of their +earlier state; for, as spirits change, they still bear some trace, a +faint reminder, of their latest step upwards or inwards. I still speak +with somewhat of my former exuberance and over-ready tenderness to the +dwellers on this shore; but each star sees me purer, of deeper thought, +and more capable of retirement into my own heart. Nor shall I again +detain a wanderer, luring him from afar; nor shall I again subject +myself to be questioned by an alien spirit, to tell the tale of my being +in words that divide it from itself. Farewell, stranger! and believe +that nothing strange can meet me more. I have atoned by confession; +further penance needs not; and I feel the Infinite possess me more and +more. Farewell! to meet again in prayer, in destiny, in harmony, in +elemental power." + +The magnolia left me; I left not her, but must abide forever in the +thought to which the clew was found in the margin of that lake of the +South. + + + + +CONSECRATION OF GRACE CHURCH. + + +Whoever passes up Broadway finds his attention arrested by three fine +structures--Trinity Church, that of the Messiah, and Grace Church. + +His impressions are, probably, at first, of a pleasant character. He +looks upon these edifices as expressions, which, however inferior in +grandeur to the poems in stone which adorn the older world, surely +indicate that man cannot rest content with his short earthly span, but +prizes relations to eternity. The house in which he pays deference to +claims which death will not cancel seems to be no less important in his +eyes than those in which the affairs which press nearest are attended +to. + +So far, so good! That is expressed which gives man his superiority over +the other orders of the natural world, that consciousness of spiritual +affinities of which we see no unequivocal signs elsewhere. + +But, if this be something great when compared with the rest of the +animal creation, yet how little seems it when compared with the ideal +that has been offered to him, as to the means of signifying such +feelings! These temples! how far do they correspond with the idea of +that religious sentiment from which they originally sprung? In the old +world the history of such edifices, though not without its shadow, had +many bright lines. Kings and emperors paid oftentimes for the materials +and labor a price of blood and plunder, and many a wretched sinner +sought by contributions of stone for their walls to roll off the burden +he had laid on his conscience. Still the community amid which they rose +knew little of these drawbacks. Pious legends attest the purity of +feeling associated with each circumstance of their building. Mysterious +orders, of which we know only that they were consecrated to brotherly +love and the development of mind, produced the genius which animated the +architecture; but the casting of the bells and suspending them in the +tower was an act in which all orders of the community took part; for +when those cathedrals were consecrated, it was for the use of all. Rich +and poor knelt together upon their marble pavements, and the imperial +altar welcomed the obscurest artisan. + +This grace our churches want--the grace which belongs to all religions, +but is peculiarly and solemnly enforced upon the followers of Jesus. The +poor to whom he came to preach can have no share in the grace of Grace +Church. In St. Peter's, if only as an empty form, the soiled feet of +travel-worn disciples are washed; but such feet can never intrude on the +fane of the holy Trinity here in republican America, and the Messiah may +be supposed still to give as excuse for delay, "The poor you always have +with you." + +We must confess this circumstance is to us quite destructive of +reverence and value for these buildings. + +We are told, that at the late consecration, the claims of the poor were +eloquently urged; and that an effort is to be made, by giving a side +chapel, to atone for the luxury which shuts them out from the reflection +of sunshine through those brilliant windows. It is certainly better that +they should be offered the crumbs from the rich man's table than nothing +at all, yet it is surely not _the_ way that Jesus would have taught to +provide for the poor. + +Would we not then have these splendid edifices erected? We certainly +feel that the educational influence of good specimens of architecture +(and we know no other argument in their favor) is far from being a +counterpoise to the abstraction of so much money from purposes that +would be more in fulfilment of that Christian idea which these assume to +represent Were the rich to build such a church, and, dispensing with +pews and all exclusive advantages, invite all who would to come in to +the banquet, that were, indeed, noble and Christian. And, though we +believe more, for our nation and time, in intellectual monuments than +those of wood and stone, and, in opposition even to our admired Powers, +think that Michael Angelo himself could have advised no more suitable +monument to Washington than a house devoted to the instruction of the +people, and think that great master, and the Greeks no less, would agree +with us if they lived now to survey all the bearings of the subject, yet +we would not object to these splendid churches, if the idea of Him they +call Master were represented in them. But till it is, they can do no +good, for the means are not in harmony with the end. The rich man sits +in state while "near two hundred thousand" Lazaruses linger, unprovided +for, without the gate. While this is so, they must not talk much, +within, of Jesus of Nazareth, who called to him fishermen, laborers, and +artisans, for his companions and disciples. + +We find some excellent remarks on this subject from Rev. Stephen Olin, +president of the Wesleyan University. They are appended as a note to a +discourse addressed to young men, on the text, "Put ye on the Lord Jesus +Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts +thereof." + +This discourse, though it discloses formal and external views of +religions ties and obligations, is dignified by a fervent, generous love +for men, and a more than commonly catholic liberality; and though these +remarks are made and meant to bear upon the interests of his own sect, +yet they are anti-sectarian in their tendency, and worthy the +consideration of all anxious to understand the call of duty in these +matters. Earnest attention of this sort will better avail than fifteen +hundred dollars, or more, paid for a post of exhibition in a fashionable +church, where, if piety be provided with one chance, worldliness has +twenty to stare it out of countenance. + +"The strong tendency in our religious operations to gather the rich and +the poor into separate folds, and so to generate and establish in the +church distinctions utterly at variance with the spirit of our political +institutions, is the very worst result of the multiplication of sects +among us; and I fear it must be admitted that the evil is greatly +aggravated by the otherwise benignant working of the voluntary system. +Without insisting further upon the probable or possible injury which may +befall our free country from this conflict of agencies, ever the most +powerful in the formation of national and individual character, no one, +I am sure, can fail to recognize in this development an influence +utterly and irreconcilably hostile to the genius and cherished objects +of Christianity. It is the peculiar glory of the gospel that, even under +the most arbitrary governments, it has usually been able to vindicate +and practically exemplify the essential equality of man. It has had one +doctrine and one hope for all its children; and the highest and the +lowest have been constrained to acknowledge one holy law of brotherhood +in the common faith of which they are made partakers. Nowhere else, I +believe, but in the United States--certainly nowhere else to the same +extent--does this anti-Christian separation of classes prevail in the +Christian church. The beggar in his tattered vestments walks the +splendid courts of St. Peter's, and kneels at its costly altars by the +side of dukes and cardinals. The peasant in his wooden shoes is welcomed +in the gorgeous churches of Notre Dame and the Madeleine; and even in +England, where political and social distinctions are more rigorously +enforced than in any other country on earth, the lord and the peasant, +the richest and the poorest, are usually occupants of the same church, +and partakers of the same communion. That the reverse of all this is +true in many parts of this country, every observing man knows full well; +and what is yet more deplorable, while the lines of demarcation between +the different classes have already become sufficiently distinct, the +tendency is receiving new strength and development in a rapidly +augmenting ratio. Even in country places, where the population is +sparse, and the artificial distinctions of society are little known, the +working of this strange element is, in many instances, made manifest, +and a petty coterie of village magnates may be found worshipping God +apart from the body of the people. But the evil is much more apparent, +as well as more deeply seated, in our populous towns, where the causes +which produce it have been longer in operation, and have more fully +enjoyed the favor of circumstances. In these great centres of wealth, +intelligence, and influence, the separation between the classes is, in +many instances, complete, and in many more the process is rapidly +progressive. + +"There are crowded religious congregations composed so exclusively of +the wealthy as scarcely to embrace an indigent family or individual; and +the number of such churches, where the gospel is never preached to the +poor, is constantly increasing. Rich men, instead of associating +themselves with their more humble fellow-Christians, where their money +as well as their influence and counsels are so much needed, usually +combine to erect magnificent churches, in which sittings are too +expensive for any but people of fortune, and from which their +less-favored brethren are as effectually and peremptorily excluded as if +there were dishonor or contagion in their presence. A congregation is +thus constituted, able, without the slightest inconvenience, to bear the +pecuniary burdens of twenty churches, monopolizing and consigning to +comparative inactivity intellectual, moral, and material resources, for +want of which so many other congregations are doomed to struggle with +the most embarrassing difficulties. Can it for a moment be thought that +such a state of things is desirable, or in harmony with the spirit and +design of the gospel? + +"A more difficult question arises when we inquire after a remedy for +evils too glaring to be overlooked, and too grave to be tolerated, +without an effort to palliate, if not to remove them. The most obvious +palliative, and one which has already been tried to some extent by +wealthy churches or individuals, is the erection of free places of +worship for the poor. Such a provision for this class of persons would +be more effectual in any other part of the world than in the United +States. Whether it arises from the operation of our political system, or +from the easy attainment of at least the prime necessaries of life, the +poorer classes here are characterized by a proud spirit, which will not +submit to receive even the highest benefits in any form that implies +inferiority or dependence. This strong and prevalent feeling must +continue to interpose serious obstacles in the way of these laudable +attempts. If in a few instances churches for the poor have succeeded in +our large cities, where the theory of social equality is so imperfectly +realized in the actual condition of the people, and where the presence +of a multitude of indigent foreigners tends to lower the sentiment of +independence so strong in native-born Americans, the system is yet +manifestly incapable of general application to the religious wants of +our population. The same difficulty usually occurs in all attempts to +induce the humbler classes to worship with the rich in sumptuous +churches, by reserving for their benefit a portion of the sittings free, +or at a nominal rent. A few only can be found who are willing to be +recognized and provided for as beneficiaries and paupers, while the +multitude will always prefer to make great sacrifices in order to +provide for themselves in some humbler fane. It must be admitted that +this subject is beset with practical difficulties, which are not likely +to be removed speedily, or without some great and improbable revolution +in our religious affairs. Yet if the respectable Christian denominations +most concerned in the subject shall pursue a wise and liberal policy for +the future, something may be done to check the evil. They may retard its +rapid growth, perhaps, though it will most likely be found impossible to +eradicate it altogether. It ought to be well understood, that the +multiplication of magnificent churches is daily making the line of +demarcation between the rich and the poor more and more palpable and +impassable. There are many good reasons for the erection of such +edifices. Increasing wealth and civilization seem to call for a liberal +and tasteful outlay in behalf of religion; yet is it the dictate of +prudence no less than of duty to balance carefully the good and the evil +of every enterprise. It should ever be kept in mind, that such a church +virtually writes above its sculptured portals an irrevocable prohibition +to the poor--'_Procul, O procul este profani_.'" + + + + +LATE ASPIRATIONS. + +LETTER TO H----. + + +You have put to me that case which puzzles more than almost any in this +strange world--the case of a man of good intentions, with natural powers +sufficient to carry them out, who, after having through great part of a +life lived the best he knew, and, in the world's eye, lived admirably +well, suddenly wakes to a consciousness of the soul's true aims. He +finds that he has been a good son, husband, and father, an adroit man of +business, respected by all around him, without ever having advanced one +step in the life of the soul. His object has not been the development of +his immortal being, nor has this been developed; all he has done bears +upon the present life only, and even that in a way poor and limited, +since no deep fountain of intellect or feeling has ever been unsealed +for him. Now that his eyes are opened, he sees what communion is +possible; what incorruptible riches may be accumulated by the man of +true wisdom. But why is the hour of clear vision so late deferred? He +cannot blame himself for his previous blindness. His eyes were holden +that he saw not. He lived as well as he knew how. + +And now that he would fain give himself up to the new oracle in his +bosom, and to the inspirations of nature, all his old habits, all his +previous connections, are unpropitious. He is bound by a thousand chains +which press on him so as to leave no moment free. And perhaps it seems +to him that, were he free, he should but feel the more forlorn. He sees +the charm and nobleness of this new life, but knows not how to live it. +It is an element to which his mental frame has not been trained. He +knows not what to do to-day or to-morrow; how to stay by himself, or how +to meet others; how to act, or how to rest. Looking on others who chose +the path which now invites him at an age when their characters were yet +plastic, and the world more freely opened before them, he deems them +favored children, and cries in almost despairing sadness, Why, O Father +of Spirits, didst thou not earlier enlighten me also? Why was I not led +gently by the hand in the days of my youth? "And what," you ask, "could +I reply?" + +Much, much, dear H----, were this a friend whom I could see so often +that his circumstances would be my text. For no subject has more engaged +my thoughts, no difficulty is more frequently met. But now on this poor +sheet I can only give you the clew to what I should say. + +In the first place, the depth of the despair must be caused by the +mistaken idea that this our present life is all the time allotted to man +for the education of his nature for that state of consummation which is +called heaven. Were it seen that this present is only one little link in +the long chain of probations; were it felt that the Divine Justice is +pledged to give the aspirations of the soul all the time they require +for their fulfilment; were it recognized that disease, old age, and +death are circumstances which can never touch the eternal youth of the +spirit; that though the "plant man" grows more or less fair in hue and +stature, according to the soil in which it is planted, yet the +principle, which is the life of the plant, will not be defeated, but +must scatter its seeds again and again, till it does at last come to +perfect flower,--then would he, who is pausing to despair, realize that +a new choice can never be too late, that false steps made in ignorance +can never be counted by the All-Wise, and that, though a moment's delay +against conviction is of incalculable weight the mistakes of forty +years are but as dust on the balance held by an unerring hand. Despair +is for time, hope for eternity. + +Then he who looks at all at the working of the grand principle of +compensation which holds all nature in equipoise, cannot long remain a +stranger to the meaning of the beautiful parable of the prodigal son, +and the joy over finding the one lost piece of silver. It is no +arbitrary kindness, no generosity of the ruling powers, which causes +that there be more joy in heaven over the one that returns, than over +ninety and nine that never strayed. It is the inevitable working of a +spiritual law that he who has been groping in darkness must feel the +light most keenly, best know how to prize it--he who has long been +exiled from the truth seize it with the most earnest grasp, live in it +with the deepest joy. It was after descending to the very pit of sorrow, +that our Elder Brother was permitted to ascend to the Father, who +perchance said to the angels who had dwelt always about the throne, Ye +are always with me, and all that I have is yours; but this is my Son; he +has been into a far country, but could not there abide, and has +returned. But if any one say, "I know not how to return," I should still +use words from the same record: "Let him arise and go to his Father." +Let him put his soul into that state of simple, fervent desire for truth +alone, truth for its own sake, which is prayer, and not only the sight +of truth, but the way to make it living, shall be shown. Obstacles, +insuperable to the intellect of any adviser, shall melt away like +frostwork before a ray from the celestial sun. The Father may hide his +face for a time, till the earnestness of the suppliant child be proved; +but he is not far from any that seek, and when he does resolve to make a +revelation, will show not only the _what_, but the _how_; and none else +can advise or aid the seeking soul, except by just observation on some +matter of detail. + +In this path, as in the downward one, must there be the first step that +decides the whole--one sacrifice of the temporal for the eternal day is +the grain of mustard seed which may give birth to a tree large enough to +make a home for the sweetest singing birds. One moment of deep truth in +life, of choosing not merely honesty, but purity, may leaven the whole +mass. + + + + +FRAGMENTARY THOUGHTS FROM MARGARET FULLER'S JOURNAL. + + I gave the world the fruit of earlier hours: + O Solitude! reward me with some flowers; + Or if their odorous bloom thou dost deny, + Rain down some meteors from the winter sky! + + +_Poesy._--The expression of the sublime and beautiful, whether in +measured words or in the fine arts. The human mind, apprehending the +harmony of the universe, and making new combinations by its laws. + + * * * * * + +_Poetry._--The sublime and beautiful expressed in measured language. It +is closely allied with the fine arts. It should sing to the ear, paint +to the eye, and exhibit the symmetry of architecture. If perfect, it +will satisfy the intellectual and moral faculties no less than the heart +and the senses. It works chiefly by simile and melody. It is to prose as +the garden to the house. Pleasure is the object of the one, convenience +of the other. The flowers and fruits may be copied on the furniture of +the house, but if their beauty be not subordinated to utility, they lose +the charm of beauty, and degenerate into finery. The reverse is the case +in the garden. + + * * * * * + +_Nature._--I would praise alike the soft gray and brown which soothed my +eye erewhile, and the snowy fretwork which now decks the forest aisles. +Every ripple in the snowy fields, every grass and fern which raises its +petrified delicacy above them, seems to me to claim a voice. A voice! +Canst thou not silently adore, but must needs be doing? Art thou too +good to wait as a beggar at the door of the great temple? + +_Woman--Man._--Woman is the flower, man the bee. She sighs out melodious +fragrance, and invites the winged laborer. He drains her cup, and +carries off the honey. She dies on the stalk; he returns to the hive, +well fed, and praised as an active member of the community. + + * * * * * + +_Action symbolical of what is within._--Goethe says, "I have learned +to consider all I do as symbolical,--so that it now matters little to me +whether I make plates or dishes." And further, he says, "All manly +effort goes from within outwards." + + * * * * * + +_Opportunity fleeting._--I held in my hand the cup. It was full of hot +liquid. The air was cold; I delayed to drink, and its vital heat, its +soul, curled upwards in delicatest wreaths. I looked delighted on their +beauty; but while I waited, the essence of the draught was wasted on the +cold air: it would not wait for me; it longed too much to utter itself: +and when my lip was ready, only a flat, worthless sediment remained of +what had been. + + * * * * * + +_Mingling of the heavenly with the earthly._--The son of the gods has +sold his birthright. He has received in exchange one, not merely the +fairest, but the sweetest and holiest of earth's daughters. Yet is it +not a fit exchange. His pinions droop powerless; he must no longer soar +amid the golden stars. No matter, he thinks; "I will take her to some +green and flowery isle; I will pay the penalty of Adam for the sake of +the daughter of Eve; I will make the earth fruitful by the sweat of my +brow. No longer my hands shall bear the coal to the lips of the inspired +singer--no longer my voice modulate its tones to the accompaniment of +spheral harmonies. My hands now lift the clod of the valley which dares +cling to them with brotherly familiarity. And for my soiling, dreary +task-work all the day, I receive--food. + +"But the smile with which she receives me at set of sun, is it not worth +all that sun has seen me endure? Can angelic delights surpass those +which I possess, when, facing the shore with her, watched by the quiet +moon, we listen to the tide of the world surging up impatiently against +the Eden it cannot conquer? Truly the joys of heaven were gregarious and +low in comparison. This, this alone, is exquisite, because exclusive and +peculiar." + +Ah, seraph! but the winter's frost must nip thy vine; a viper lurks +beneath the flowers to sting the foot of thy child, and pale decay must +steal over the cheek thou dost adore. In the realm of ideas all was +imperishable. Be blest while thou canst. I love thee, fallen seraph, but +thou shouldst not have sold thy birthright. + +"All for love and the world well lost." That sounds so true! But genius, +when it sells itself, gives up, not only the world, but the universe. + +Yet does not love comprehend the universe? The universe is love. Why +should I weary my eye with scanning the parts, when I can clasp the +whole this moment to my beating heart? + +But if the intellect be repressed, the idea will never be brought out +from the feeling. The amaranth wreath will in thy grasp be changed to +one of roses, more fragrant indeed, but withering with a single sun! + + * * * * * + +_The Crisis with Goethe._--I have thought much whether Goethe did +well in giving up Lili. That was the crisis in his existence. From that +era dates his being as a "Weltweise;" the heroic element vanished +irrecoverably from his character; he became an Epicurean and a Realist; +plucking flowers and hammering stones instead of looking at the stars. +How could he look through the blinds, and see her sitting alone in her +beauty, yet give her up for so slight reasons? He was right as a genius, +but wrong as a character. + + * * * * * + +_The Flower and the Pearl._---- has written wonders about the mystery of +personality. Why do we love it? In the first place, each wishes to +embrace a whole, and this seems the readiest way. The intellect soars, +the heart clasps; from putting "a girdle round about the earth in forty +minutes," thou wouldst return to thy own little green isle of emotion, +and be the loving and playful fay, rather than the delicate Ariel. + +Then most persons are plants, organic. We can predict their growth +according to their own law. From the young girl we can predict the +lustre, the fragrance of the future flower. It waves gracefully to the +breeze, the dew rests upon its petals, the bee busies himself in them, +and flies away after a brief rapture, richly laden. + +When it fades, its leaves fall softly on the bosom of Mother Earth, to +all whose feelings it has so closely conformed. It has lived as a part +of nature; its life was music, and we open our hearts to the melody. + +But characters like thine and mine are mineral. We are the bone and +sinew, these the smiles and glances, of earth. We lie nearer the mighty +heart, and boast an existence more enduring than they. The sod lies +heavy on us, or, if we show ourselves, the melancholy moss clings to us. +If we are to be made into palaces and temples, we must be hewn and +chiselled by instruments of unsparing sharpness. The process is +mechanical and unpleasing; the noises which accompany it, discordant and +obtrusive; the artist is surrounded with rubbish. Yet we may be polished +to marble smoothness. In our veins may lie the diamond, the ruby, +perhaps the emblematic carbuncle. + +The flower is pressed to the bosom with intense emotion, but in the home +of love it withers and is cast away. + +The gem is worn with less love, but with more pride; if we enjoy its +sparkle, the joy is partly from calculation of its value; but if it be +lost, we regret it long. + +For myself, my name is Pearl.[42] That lies at the beginning, amid slime +and foul prodigies from which only its unsightly shell protects. It is +cradled and brought to its noblest state amid disease and decay. Only +the experienced diver could have known that it was there, and brought it +to the strand, where it is valued as pure, round, and, if less brilliant +than the diamond, yet an ornament for a kingly head. Were it again +immersed in the element where first it dwelt, now that it is stripped of +the protecting shell, soon would it blacken into deformity. So what is +noblest in my soul has sprung from disease, present defeat, +disappointment, and untoward outward circumstance. + +For you, I presume, from your want of steady light and brilliancy of +sparks which are occasionally struck from you, that you are either a +flint or a rough diamond. If the former, I hope you will find a home in +some friendly tinder-box, instead of lying in the highway to answer the +hasty hoof of the trampling steed. If a diamond, I hope to meet you in +some imperishable crown, where we may long remain together; you lighting +up my pallid orb, I tempering your blaze. + +_Dried Ferns about my Lamp-shade._--"What pleasure do you, who have +exiled those paper tissue covers, take in that bouquet of dried ferns? +Their colors are less bright, and their shapes less graceful, than those +of your shades." + +I answer, "They grew beneath the solemn pines. They opened their hearts +to the smile of summer, and answered to the sigh of autumn. _They_ +remind me of the wealth of nature; the tissues, of the poverty of man. +They were gathered by a cherished friend who worships in the woods, and +behind them lurks a deep, enthusiastic eye. So my pleasure in seeing +them is 'denkende' and 'menschliche.'" + +"They are of no use." + +"Good! I like useless things: they are to me the vouchers of a different +state of existence." + + * * * * * + +_Light._--My lamp says to me, "Why do you disdain me, and use that +candle, which you have the trouble of snuffing every five minutes, and +which ever again grows dim, ungrateful for your care? I would burn +steadily from sunset to midnight, and be your faithful, vigilant friend, +yet never interrupt you an instant." + +I reply, "But your steady light is also dull,--while his, at its best, +is both brilliant and mellow. Besides, I love him for the trouble he +gives; he calls on my sympathy, and admonishes me constantly to use my +life, which likewise flickers as if near the socket." + + * * * * * + +_Wit and Satire._--I cannot endure people who do not distinguish between +wit and satire; who think you, of course, laugh at people when you laugh +_about_ them; and who have no perception of the peculiar pleasure +derived from toying with lovely or tragic figures. + + + + +FAREWELL.[43] + + +Farewell to New York city, where twenty months have presented me with a +richer and more varied exercise for thought and life, than twenty years +could in any other part of these United States. + +It is the common remark about New York, that it has at least nothing +petty or provincial in its methods and habits. The place is large +enough: there is room enough, and occupation enough, for men to have no +need or excuse for small cavils or scrutinies. A person who is +independent, and knows what he wants, may lead his proper life here, +unimpeded by others. + +Vice and crime, if flagrant and frequent, are less thickly coated by +hypocrisy than elsewhere. The air comes sometimes to the most infected +subjects. + +New York is the focus, the point where American and European interests +converge. There is no topic of general interest to men, that will not +betimes be brought before the thinker by the quick turning of the wheel. + +_Too_ quick that revolution,--some object. Life rushes wide and free, +but _too fast_. Yet it is in the power of every one to avert from +himself the evil that accompanies the good. He must build for his study, +as did the German poet, a house beneath the bridge; and then all that +passes above and by him will be heard and seen, but he will not be +carried away with it. + +Earlier views have been confirmed, and many new ones opened. On two +great leadings, the superlative importance of promoting national +education by heightening and deepening the cultivation of individual +minds, and the part which is assigned to woman in the next stage of +human progress in this country, where most important achievements are to +be effected, I have received much encouragement, much instruction, and +the fairest hopes of more. + +On various subjects of minor importance, no less than these, I hope for +good results, from observation, with my own eyes, of life in the old +world, and to bring home some packages of seed for life in the new. + +These words I address to my friends, for I feel that I have some. The +degree of sympathetic response to the thoughts and suggestions I have +offered through the columns of the Tribune, has indeed surprised me, +conscious as I am of a natural and acquired aloofness from many, if not +most popular tendencies of my time and place. It has greatly encouraged +me, for none can sympathize with thoughts like mine, who are permanently +insnared in the meshes of sect or party; none who prefer the formation +and advancement of mere opinions to the free pursuit of truth. I see, +surely, that the topmost bubble or sparkle of the cup is no voucher for +the nature of its contents throughout, and shall, in future, feel that +in our age, nobler in that respect than most of the preceding ages, each +sincere and fervent act or word is secure, not only of a final, but of a +speedy response. + +I go to behold the wonders of art, and the temples of old religion. But +I shall see no forms of beauty and majesty beyond what my country is +capable of producing in myriad variety, if she has but the soul to will +it; no temple to compare with what she might erect in the ages, if the +catchword of the time, a sense of _divine order_, should become no more +a mere word of form, but a deeply-rooted and pregnant idea in her life. +Beneath the light of a hope that this may be, I say to my friends once +more a kind farewell! + + + + +PART III. + +POEMS. + + + + +FREEDOM AND TRUTH. + +TO A FRIEND. + + + The shrine is vowed to freedom, but, my friend, + Freedom is but a means to gain an end. + Freedom should build the temple, but the shrine + Be consecrate to thought still more divine. + The human bliss which angel hopes foresaw + Is liberty to comprehend the law. + Give, then, thy book a larger scope and frame, + Comprising means and end in Truth's great name. + + + + +DESCRIPTION OF A PORTION OF THE JOURNEY TO TRENTON FALLS. + + + The long-anticipated morning dawns, + Clear, hopeful, joyous-eyed, and pure of breath. + The dogstar is exhausted of its rage, + And copious showers have cooled the feverish air, + The mighty engine pants--away, away! + + And, see! they come! a motley, smiling group-- + The stately matron with her tempered grace, + Her earnest eye, and kind though meaning smile, + Her words of wisdom and her words of mirth. + Her counsel firm and generous sympathy; + The happy pair whose hearts so full, yet ever + Dilating to the scene, refuse that bliss + Which excludes the whole or blunts the sense of beauty. + + Next two fair maidens in gradation meet, + The one of gentle mien and soft dove-eyes; + Like water she, that yielding and combining, + Yet most pure element in the social cup: + The other with bright glance and damask cheek, + You need not deem concealment there was preying + To mar the healthful promise of the spring. + + Another dame was there, of graver look, + And heart of slower beat; yet in its depths + Not irresponsive to the soul of things, + Nor cold when charmed by those who knew its pass-word. + + These ladies had a knight from foreign clime, + Who from the banks of the dark-rolling Danube, + Or somewhere thereabouts, had come, a pilgrim, + To worship at the shrine of Liberty, + And after, made his home in her loved realm, + Content to call it fatherland where'er + The streams bear freemen and the skies smile on them; + A courteous knight he was, of merry mood, + Expert to wing the lagging hour with jest, + Or tale of strange romance or comic song. + + And there was one I must not call a page, + Although too young yet to have won his spurs; + Yet there was promise in his laughing eye, + That in due time he'd prove no carpet knight; + Now, bright companion on a summer sea, + With winged words of gay or tasteful thought, + He was fit clasp to this our social chain. + + And now, the swift car loosened on its way, + O'er hill and dale we fly with rapid lightness, + While each tongue celebrates the power of steam; + O, how delightful 'tis to go so fast! + No time to muse, no chance to gaze on nature! + 'Tis bliss indeed if "to think be to groan!" + + The genius of the time soon shifts the scene: + No longer whirled over our kindred clods, + We, with as strong an impulse, cleave the waters. + Now doth our chain a while untwine its links, + And some rebound from a three hours' communion + To mingle with less favored fellow-men; + One careless turns the leaves of some new volume; + The leaves of Nature's book are too gigantic, + Too vast the characters for patient study, + Till sunset lures us with majestic power + To cast one look of love on that bright eye, + Which, for so many hours, has beamed on us. + The silver lamp is lit in the blue dome, + Nature begins her hymn of evening breezes, + And myriad sparks, thronging to kiss the wave, + Touch even the steamboat's clumsy hulk with beauty. + Then, once more drawn together, cheerful talk + Casts to the hours a store of gentle gifts, + Which memory receives from these bright minds + And careful garners them for duller days. + + The morning greets us not with her late smile; + Now chilling damp falls heavy on our hopes, + And leaden hues tarnish each sighed-for scene. + Yet not on coloring, majestic Hudson, + Depends the genius of thy stream, whose wand + Has piled thy banks on high, and given them forms + Which have for taste an impulse yet unknown. + Though Beauty dwells here, she reigns not a queen, + An humble handmaid now to the Sublime. + The mind dilates to receive the idea of strength, + And tasks its elements for congenial forms + To create anew within those mighty piles, + Those "bulwarks of the world," which, time-defying + And thunder-mocking, lift their lofty brows. + + Now at the river's bend we pause a while, + And sun and cloud combine their wealth to greet us. + Oft shall the fair scenes of West Point return + Upon the mind, in its still picture-hours, + Its cloud-capped mountains with their varying hues, + The soft seclusion of its wooded paths, + And the alluring hopefulness of view + Along the river from its crisis-point. + Unlike the currents of our human lives + When they approach their long-sought ocean-mother,-- + This stream is noblest onward to its close, + More tame and grave when near its inland founts. + Now onward, onward, till the whole be known; + The heart, though swollen with these new sensations, + With no less vital throb beats on for more, + And rather we'd shake hands with disappointment + Than wait and lean on sober expectation. + + The Highlands now are passed, and Hyde Park flies,-- + Catskill salutes us--a far fairy-land. + O mountains, how do ye delude our hearts! + Let but the eye look down upon a valley, + We feel our limitations, and are calm; + But place blue mountains in the distant view, + And the soul labors with the Titan hope + To ascend the shrouded tops, and scale the heavens. + + O, pause not in the murky, old Dutch city, + But, hasting onward with a renewed steam power, + Bestow your hours upon the beauteous Mohawk; + And here we grieve to lose our courteous knight, + Just at the opening of so rich a page. + + How shall I praise thee, Mohawk? How portray + The love, the joyousness, felt in thy presence? + When each new step along the silvery tide + Added new gems of beauty to our thought, + And lapped the soul in an Elysium + Of verdure and of grace, fed by thy sweetness. + O, how gay Fancy smiled, and deemed it home! + This is, thought she, the river of my garden; + These are the graceful trees that form its bowers, + And these the meads where I have sighed to roam. + I now may fold my wearied wings in peace. + + + + +JOURNEY TO TRENTON FALLS. + + + I. + + TO MY FRIENDS AND COMPANIONS. + + If this faint reflex from those days so bright + May aught of sympathy among you gain, + I shall not think these verses penned in vain; + Though they tell nothing of the fancies light, + The kindly deeds, rich thoughts, and various grace + With which you knew to make the hours so fair, + That neither grief nor sickness could efface + From memory's tablet what you printed there. + Could I have breathed your spirit through these lines, + They might have charms to win a critic's smile, + Or the cold worldling of a sigh beguile. + I could but from my being bring one tone; + May it arouse the sweetness of your own. + + + II. + + THE HIGHLANDS. + + I saw ye first, arrayed in mist and cloud; + No cheerful lights softened your aspect bold; + A sullen gray, or green, more grave and cold, + The varied beauties of the scene enshroud. + Yet not the less, O Hudson! calm and proud, + Did I receive the impress of that hour + Which showed thee to me, emblem of that power + Of high resolve, to which even rocks have bowed; + Thou wouldst not deign thy course to turn aside, + And seek some smiling valley's welcome warm, + But through the mountain's very heart, thy pride + Has been, thy channel and thy banks to form. + Not even the "bulwarks of the world" could bar + The inland fount from joining ocean's war! + + + III. + + CATSKILL. + + How fair at distance shone yon silvery blue, + O stately mountain-tops, charming the mind + To dream of pleasures which she there may find, + Where from the eagle's height she earth can view! + Nor are those disappointments which ensue; + For though, while eyeing what beneath us lay, + Almost we shunned to think of yesterday, + As wonderingly our looks its course pursue. + Dwarfed to a point the joys of many hours, + The river on whose bosom we were borne + Seems but a thread, of pride and beauty shorn; + Its banks, its shadowy groves, like beds of flowers, + Wave their diminished heads;--yet would we sigh, + Since all this loss shows us more near the sky? + + + IV. + + VALLEY OF THE MOHAWK. + + Could I my words with gentlest grace imbue, + Which the flute's breath, or harp's clear tones, can bless, + I then might hope the feelings to express, + And with new life the happy day endue, + Thou gav'st, O vale, than Tempe's self more fair! + With thy romantic stream and emerald isles, + Touched by an April mood of tears and smiles + Which stole on matron August unaware; + The meads with all the spring's first freshness green, + The trees with summer's thickest garlands crowned, + And each so elegant, that fairy queen + All day might wander ere she chose her round; + No blemish on the sense of beauty broke, + But the whole scene one ecstasy awoke. + + + V. + + TRENTON FALLS, EARLY IN THE MORNING. + + The sun, impatient, o'er the lofty trees + Struggles to illume as fair a sight as lies + Beneath the light of his joy-loving eyes, + Which all the forms of energy must please; + A solemn shadow falls in pillared form, + Made by yon ledge, which noontide scarcely shows, + Upon the amber radiance, soft and warm, + Where through the cleft the eager torrent flows. + Would you the genius of the place enjoy, + In all the charms contrast and color give? + Your eye and taste you now may best employ, + For this the hour when minor beauties live; + Scan ye the details as the sun rides high, + For with the morn these sparkling glories fly. + + + VI. + + TRENTON FALLS, (AFTERNOON.) + + A calmer grace o'er these still hours presides; + Now is the time to see the might of form; + The heavy masses of the buttressed sides, + The stately steps o'er which the waters storm; + Where, 'neath the mill, the stream so gently glides, + You feel the deep seclusion of the scene, + And now begin to comprehend what mean + The beauty and the power this chasm hides. + From the green forest's depths the portent springs, + But from those quiet shades bounding away, + Lays bare its being to the light of day, + Though on the rock's cold breast its love it flings. + Yet can all sympathy such courage miss? + Answer, ye trees! who bend the waves to kiss. + + + VII. + + TRENTON FALLS BY MOONLIGHT. + + I deemed the inmost sense my soul had blessed + Which in the poem of thy being dwells, + And gives such store for thought's most sacred cells; + And yet a higher joy was now confessed. + With what a holiness did night invest + The eager impulse of impetuous life, + And hymn-like meanings clothed the waters' strife! + With what a solemn peace the moon did rest + Upon the white crest of the waterfall; + The haughty guardian banks, by the deep shade, + In almost double height are now displayed. + Depth, height, speak things which awe, but not appall. + From elemental powers this voice has come, + And God's love answers from the azure dome. + + + + +SUB ROSA, CRUX. + + + In times of old, as we are told, + When men more child-like at the feet + Of Jesus sat, than now, + A chivalry was known more bold + Than ours, and yet of stricter vow, + Of worship more complete. + + Knights of the Rosy Cross, they bore + Its weight within the heart, but wore + Without, devotion's sign in glistening ruby bright; + The gall and vinegar they drank alone, + But to the world at large would only own + The wine of faith, sparkling with rosy light. + + They knew the secret of the sacred oil + Which, poured upon the prophet's head, + Could keep him wise and pure for aye. + Apart from all that might distract or soil, + With this their lamps they fed. + Which burn in their sepulchral shrines unfading night and day. + + The pass-word now is lost, + To that initiation full and free; + Daily we pay the cost + Of our slow schooling for divine degree. + We know no means to feed an undying lamp; + Our lights go out in every wind or damp. + + We wear the cross of ebony and gold, + Upon a dark background a form of light, + A heavenly hope upon a bosom cold, + A starry promise in a frequent night; + The dying lamp must often trim again, + For we are conscious, thoughtful, striving men. + + Yet be we faithful to this present trust, + Clasp to a heart resigned the fatal must; + Though deepest dark our efforts should enfold, + Unwearied mine to find the vein of gold; + Forget not oft to lift the hope on high; + The rosy dawn again shall fill the sky. + + And by that lovely light, all truth-revealed, + The cherished forms which sad distrust concealed, + Transfigured, yet the same, will round us stand, + The kindred angels of a faithful band; + Ruby and ebon cross both cast aside, + No lamp is needed, for the night has died. + + Happy be those who seek that distant day, + With feet that from the appointed way + Could never stray; + Yet happy too be those who more and more, + As gleams the beacon of that only shore, + Strive at the laboring oar. + + Be to the best thou knowest ever true, + Is all the creed; + Then, be thy talisman of rosy hue, + Or fenced with thorns that wearing thou must bleed, + Or gentle pledge of Love's prophetic view, + The faithful steps it will securely lead. + + Happy are all who reach that shore, + And bathe in heavenly day, + Happiest are those who high the banner bore, + To marshal others on the way; + Or waited for them, fainting and way-worn, + By burdens overborne. + + + + +THE DAHLIA, THE ROSE, AND THE HELIOTROPE. + + + In a fair garden of a distant land, + Where autumn skies the softest blue outspread, + A lovely crimson dahlia reared her head, + To drink the lustre of the season's prime; + And drink she did, until her cup o'erflowed + With ruby redder than the sunset cloud. + + Near to her root she saw the fairest rose + That ever oped her soul to sun and wind. + And still the more her sweets she did disclose, + The more her queenly heart of sweets did find, + Not only for her worshipper the wind, + But for bee, nightingale, and butterfly, + Who would with ceaseless wing about her ply, + Nor ever cease to seek what found they still would find. + + Upon the other side, nearer the ground, + A paler floweret on a slender stem, + That cast so exquisite a fragrance round, + As seemed the minute blossom to contemn, + Seeking an ampler urn to hold its sweetness, + And in a statelier shape to find completeness. + + Who could refuse to hear that keenest voice, + Although it did not bid the heart rejoice, + And though the nightingale had just begun + His hymn; the evening breeze begun to woo, + When through the charming of the evening dew, + The floweret did its secret soul disclose? + By that revealing touched, the queenly rose + Forgot them both, a deeper joy to hope + And heed the love-note of the heliotrope. + + + + +TO MY FRIENDS. + +TRANSLATED FROM SCHILLER. + + + Beloved friends! Earth hath known brighter days + Than ours; we vainly strive to hide this truth; + Would history be silent in their praise, + The very stones tell of man's glorious youth, + In heavenly forms on which we crowd to gaze; + But that high-favored race hath sunk in night; + The day is ours--the living still have sight. + + Friends of my youth! In happier climes than ours, + As some far-wandering countrymen declare, + The air is perfume; at each step spring flowers. + Nature has not been bounteous to our prayer; + But art dwells here, with her creative powers, + Laurel and myrtle shun our winter snows, + But with the cheerful vine we wreathe our brows. + + Though of more pomp and wealth the Briton boast, + Who holds four worlds in tribute to his pride,-- + Although from farthest India's glowing coast + Come gems of gold to burden Thames' dull tide, + And _bring_ each luxury that Heaven denied,-- + Not in the torrent, but the still, calm brook, + Delights Apollo at himself to look. + + More nobly lodged than we in northern halls, + At Angelo's gate the Roman beggar dwells; + Girt by the Eternal City's honored walls, + Each column some soul-stiring story tells; + While on the earth a second heaven dwells, + Where Michael's spirit to St. Peter calls; + Yet all this splendor only decks a tomb; + For us fresh flowers from every green hour bloom + + And while we live obscure, may others' names + Through Rumor's trump be given to the wind; + New forms of ancient glories, ancient shames, + For nothing new the searching sun can find, + As pass the motley groups of human kind; + All other living things grow old and die-- + Fancy alone has immortality. + + + + +STANZAS. + +WRITTEN AT THE AGE OF SEVENTEEN. + + + I. + + Come, breath of dawn! and o'er my temples play; + Rouse to the draught of life the wearied sense; + Fly, sleep! with thy sad phantoms, far away; + Let the glad light scare those pale troublous shadows hence! + + + II. + + I rise, and leaning from my casement high, + Feel from the morning twilight a delight; + Once more youth's portion, hope, lights up my eye, + And for a moment I forget the sorrows of the night. + + + III. + + O glorious morn! how great is yet thy power! + Yet how unlike to that which once I knew, + When, plumed with glittering thoughts, my soul would soar, + And pleasures visited my heart like daily dew! + + + IV. + + Gone is life's primal freshness all too soon; + For me the dream is vanished ere my time; + I feel the heat and weariness of noon, + And long in night's cool shadows to recline. + + + + +FLAXMAN. + + + We deemed the secret lost, the spirit gone, + Which spake in Greek simplicity of thought, + And in the forms of gods and heroes wrought + Eternal beauty from the sculptured stone-- + A higher charm than modern culture won, + With all the wealth of metaphysic lore, + Gifted to analyze, dissect, explore. + A many-colored light flows from our sun; + Art, 'neath its beams, a motley thread has spun; + The prison modifies the perfect day; + But thou hast known such mediums to shun, + And cast once more on life a pure white ray. + Absorbed in the creations of thy mind, + Forgetting daily self, my truest self I find. + + + + +THOUGHTS + +ON SUNDAY MORNING, WHEN PREVENTED BY A SNOW STORM FROM GOING TO CHURCH. + + + Hark! the church-going bell! But through the air + The feathery missiles of old Winter hurled, + Offend the brow of mild-approaching Spring; + She shuts her soft blue eyes, and turns away. + Sweet is the time passed in the house of prayer, + When, met with many of this fire-fraught clay, + We, on this day,--the tribe of ills forgot, + Wherewith, ungentle, we afflict each other,-- + Assemble in the temple of our God, + And use our breath to worship Him who gave it. + What though no gorgeous relics of old days, + The gifts of humbled kings and suppliant warriors, + Deck the fair shrine, or cluster round the pillars; + No stately windows decked with various hues, + No blazon of dead saints repel the sun; + Though no cloud-courting dome or sculptured frieze + Excite the fancy and allure the taste, + No fragrant censor steep the sense in luxury, + No lofty chant swell on the vanquished soul. + + Ours is the faith of Reason; to the earth + We leave the senses who interpret her; + The heaven-born only should commune with Heaven, + The immaterial with the infinite. + Calmly we wait in solemn expectation. + He rises in the desk--that earnest man; + No priestly terrors flashing from his eye, + No mitre towers above the throne of thought, + No pomp and circumstance wait on his breath. + He speaks--we hear; and man to man we judge. + Has he the spell to touch the founts of feeling, + To kindle in the mind a pure ambition, + Or soothe the aching heart with heavenly balm, + To guide the timid and refresh the weary, + Appall the wicked and abash the proud? + He is the man of God. Our hearts confess him. + He needs no homage paid in servile forms, + No worldly state, to give him dignity: + To his own heart the blessing will return, + And all his days blossom with love divine. + + There is a blessing in the Sabbath woods, + There is a holiness in the blue skies; + The summer-murmurs to those calm blue skies + Preach ceaselessly. The universe is love-- + And this disjointed fragment of a world + Must, by its spirit, man, be harmonized, + Tuned to concordance with the spheral strain, + Till thought be like those skies, deeds like those breezes, + As clear, as bright, as pure, as musical, + And all things have one text of truth and beauty. + + There is a blessing in a day like this, + When sky and earth are talking busily; + The clouds give back the riches they received, + And for their graceful shapes return they fulness; + While in the inmost shrine, the life of life, + The soul within the soul, the consciousness + Whom I can only _name_, counting her wealth, + Still makes it more, still fills the golden bowl + Which never shall be broken, strengthens still + The silver cord which binds the whole to Heaven. + + O that such hours must pass away! yet oft + Such will recur, and memories of this + Come to enhance their sweetness. And again + I say, great is the blessing of that hour + When the soul, turning from without, begins + To register her treasures, the bright thoughts, + The lovely hopes, the ethereal desires, + Which she has garnered in past Sabbath hours. + Within her halls the preacher's voice still sounds, + Though he be dead or distant far. The band + Of friends who with us listened to his word, + With throngs around of linked associations, + Are there; the little stream, long left behind, + Is murmuring still; the woods as musical; + The skies how blue, the whole how eloquent + With "life of life and life's most secret joy"! + + + + +TO A GOLDEN HEART WORN ROUND THE NECK.[44] + + + Remembrancer of joys long passed away, + Relic from which, as yet, I cannot part, + O, hast thou power to lengthen love's short day? + Stronger thy chain than that which bound the heart? + + Lili, I fly--yet still thy fetters press me + In distant valley, or far lonely wood; + Still will a struggling sigh of pain confess thee + The mistress of my soul in every mood. + + The bird may burst the silken chain which bound him, + Flying to the green home, which fits him best; + But, O, he bears the prisoner's badge around him, + Still by the piece about his neck distressed. + He ne'er can breathe his free, wild notes again; + They're stifled by the pressure of his chain. + + + + +LINES + +ACCOMPANYING A BOUQUET OF WILD COLUMBINE, WHICH BLOOMED LATE IN THE +SEASON. + + + These pallid blossoms thou wilt not disdain, + The harbingers of thy approach to me, + Which grew and bloomed despite the cold and rain, + To tell of summer and futurity. + + It was not given them to tell the soul, + And lure the nightingale by fragrant breath: + These slender stems and roots brook no control, + And in the garden life would find but death. + The rock which is their cradle and their home + Must also be their monument and tomb; + Yet has my floweret's life a charm more rare + Than those admiring crowds esteem so fair, + Self-nurtured, self-sustaining, self-approved: + Not even by the forest trees beloved, + As are her sisters of the Spring, she dies,-- + Nor to the guardian stars lifts up her eyes, + But droops her graceful head upon her breast, + Nor asks the wild bird's requiem for her rest, + By her own heart upheld, by her own soul possessed. + + Learn of the clematis domestic love, + Religious beauty in the lily see; + Learn from the rose how rapture's pulses move, + Learn from the heliotrope fidelity. + From autumn flowers let hope and faith be known; + Learn from the columbine to live alone, + To deck whatever spot the Fates provide + With graces worthy of the garden's pride, + And to deserve each gift that is denied. + + These are the shades of the departed flowers, + My lines faint shadows of some beauteous hours, + Whereto the soul the highest thoughts have spoken, + And brightest hopes from frequent twilight broken. + Preserve them for my sake. In other years, + When life has answered to your hopes or fears, + When the web is well woven, and you try + Your wings, whether as moth or butterfly, + If, as I pray, the fairest lot be thine, + Yet value still the faded columbine. + But look not on her if thy earnest eye, + Be filled by works of art or poesy; + Bring not the hermit where, in long array, + Triumphs of genius gild the purple day; + Let her not hear the lyre's proud voice arise, + To tell, "still lives the song though Regnor dies;" + Let her not hear the lute's soft-rising swell + Declare she never lived who lived so well; + But from the anvil's clang, and joiner's screw, + The busy streets where men dull crafts pursue, + From weary cares and from tumultuous joys, + From aimless bustle and from voiceless noise, + If there thy plans should be, turn here thine eye,-- + Open the casket of thy memory; + Give to thy friend the gentlest, holiest sigh. + + + + +DISSATISFACTION. + +TRANSLATED FROM THEODORE KOeRNER. + +"Composed as I stood sentinel on the banks of the Elbe." + + + Fatherland! Thou call'st the singer + In the blissful glow of day; + He no more can musing linger, + While thou dost mourn a tyrant's sway. + Love and poesy forsaking, + From friendship's magic circle breaking, + The keenest pangs he could endure + Thy peace to insure. + + Yet sometimes tears must dim his eyes, + As, on the melodious bridge of song, + The shadows of past joys arise, + And in mild beauty round him throng. + In vain, o'er life, that early beam + Such radiance shed;--the impetuous stream + Of strife has seized him, onward borne, + While left behind his loved ones mourn. + + Here in the crowd must he complain, + Nor find a fit employ? + Give him poetic place again, + Or the quick throb of warlike joy. + The wonted inspiration give; + Thus languidly he cannot live; + Love's accents are no longer near; + Let him the trumpet hear. + + Where is the cannon's thunder? + The clashing cymbals, where? + While foreign foes our cities plunder, + Can we not hasten there? + I can no longer watch this stream; + _In prose_ I die! O source of flame! + O poesy! for which I glow,-- + A nobler death thou shouldst bestow! + + + + +MY SEAL-RING. + + + Mercury has cast aside + The signs of intellectual pride, + Freely offers thee the soul: + Art thou noble to receive? + Canst thou give or take the whole, + Nobly promise, and believe? + Then thou wholly human art, + A spotless, radiant, ruby heart, + And the golden chain of love + Has bound thee to the realm above. + If there be one small, mean doubt, + One serpent thought that fled not out, + Take instead the serpent-rod; + Thou art neither man nor God. + Guard thee from the powers of evil; + Who cannot trust, vows to the devil. + Walk thy slow and spell-bound way; + Keep on thy mask, or shun the day-- + Let go my hand upon the way. + + + + +THE CONSOLERS. + +TRANSLATED FROM GOETHE. + + + "Why wilt thou not thy griefs forget? + Why must thine eyes with tears be wet? + When all things round thee sweetly smile, + Canst thou not, too, be glad a while?" + + "Hither I come to weep alone; + The grief I feel is all mine own; + Dearer than smiles these tears to me; + Smile you--I ask no sympathy!" + + "Repel not thus affection's voice! + While thou art sad, can we rejoice? + To friendly hearts impart thy woe; + Perhaps we may some healing know." + + "Too gay your hearts to feel like mine, + Or such a sorrow to divine; + Nought have I lost I e'er possessed; + I mourn that I cannot be blessed." + + "What idle, morbid feelings these! + Can you not win what prize you please? + Youth, with a genius rich as yours, + All bliss the world can give insures." + + "Ah, too high-placed is my desire! + The star to which my hopes aspire + Shines all too far--I sigh in vain, + Yet cannot stoop to earth again." + + "Waste not so foolishly thy prime; + If to the stars thou canst not climb, + Their gentle beams thy loving eye + Every clear night will gratify." + + "Do I not know it? Even now + I wait the sun's departing glow, + That I may watch them. Meanwhile ye + Enjoy the day--'tis nought to me!" + + + + +ABSENCE OF LOVE. + + + Though many at my feet have bowed, + And asked my love through pain and pleasure, + Fate never yet the youth has showed + Meet to receive so great a treasure. + + Although sometimes my heart, deceived, + Would love because it sighed _to feel_, + Yet soon I changed, and sometimes grieved + Because my fancied wound would heal. + + + + +MEDITATIONS. + + SUNDAY, _May 12, 1833_. + + + The clouds are marshalling across the sky, + Leaving their deepest tints upon yon range + Of soul-alluring hills. The breeze comes softly, + Laden with tribute that a hundred orchards + Now in their fullest blossom send, in thanks + For this refreshing shower. The birds pour forth + In heightened melody the notes of praise + They had suspended while God's voice was speaking, + And his eye flashing down upon his world. + I sigh, half-charmed, half-pained. My sense is living, + And, taking in this freshened beauty, tells + Its pleasure to the mind. The mind replies, + And strives to wake the heart in turn, repeating + Poetic sentiments from many a record + Which other souls have left, when stirred and satisfied + By scenes as fair, as fragrant. But the heart + Sends back a hollow echo to the call + Of outward things,--and its once bright companion, + Who erst would have been answered by a stream + Of life-fraught treasures, thankful to be summoned,-- + Can now rouse nothing better than this echo; + Unmeaning voice, which mocks their softened accents. + Content thee, beautiful world! and hush, still busy mind! + My heart hath sealed its fountains. To the things + Of Time they shall be oped no more. Too long, + Too often were they poured forth: part have sunk + Into the desert; part profaned and swollen + By bitter waters, mixed by those who feigned + They asked them for refreshment, which, turned back, + Have broken and o'erflowed their former urns. + + So when ye talk of _pleasure_, lonely world, + And busy mind, ye ne'er again shall move me + To answer ye, though still your calls have power + To jar me through, and cause dull aching _here_. + + Not so the voice which hailed me from the depths + Of yon dark-bosomed cloud, now vanishing + Before the sun ye greet. It touched my centre, + The voice of the Eternal, calling me + To feel his other worlds; to feel that if + I could deserve a home, I still might find it + In other spheres,--and bade me not despair, + Though "want of harmony" and "aching void" + Are terms invented by the men of this, + Which I may not forget. + + In former times + I loved to see the lightnings flash athwart + The stooping heavens; I loved to hear the thunder + Call to the seas and mountains; for I thought + 'Tis thus man's flashing fancy doth enkindle + The firmament of mind; 'tis thus his eloquence + Calls unto the soul's depths and heights; and still + I deified the creature, nor remembered + The Creator in his works. + + Ah now how different! + The proud delight of that keen sympathy + Is gone; no longer riding on the wave, + But whelmed beneath it: my own plans and works, + Or, as the Scriptures phrase it, my "_inventions_" + No longer interpose 'twixt me and Heaven. + + To-day, for the first time, I felt the Deity, + And uttered prayer on hearing thunder. This + Must be thy will,--for finer, higher spirits + Have gone through this same process,--yet I think + There was religion in that strong delight, + Those sounds, those thoughts of power imparted. True, + I did not say, "He is the Lord thy God," + But I had feeling of his essence. But + "'Twas pride by which the angels fell." So be it! + But O, might I but see a little onward! + Father, I cannot be a spirit of power; + May I be active as a spirit of love, + Since thou hast ta'en me from that path which Nature + Seemed to appoint, O, deign to ope another, + Where I may walk with thought and hope assured; + "Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief!" + Had I but faith like that which fired Novalis, + I too could bear that the heart "fall in ashes," + While the freed spirit rises from beneath them, + With heavenward-look, and Phoenix-plumes upsoaring! + + + + +RICHTER. + + + Poet of Nature, gentlest of the wise, + Most airy of the fanciful, most keen + Of satirists, thy thoughts, like butterflies, + Still near the sweetest scented flowers have been: + With Titian's colors, thou canst sunset paint; + With Raphael's dignity, celestial love; + With Hogarth's pencil, each deceit and feint + Of meanness and hypocrisy reprove; + Canst to Devotion's highest flight sublime + Exalt the mind; by tenderest pathos' art + Dissolve in purifying tears the heart, + Or bid it, shuddering, recoil at crime; + The fond illusions of the youth and maid, + At which so many world-formed sages sneer, + When by thy altar-lighted torch displayed, + Our natural religion must appear. + All things in thee tend to one polar star; + Magnetic all thy influences are; + A labyrinth; a flowery wilderness. + Some in thy "slip-boxes" and honeymoons + Complain of--want of order, I confess, + But not of system in its highest sense. + Who asks a guiding clew through this wide mind, + In love of nature such will surely find, + In tropic climes, live like the tropic bird, + Whene'er a spice-fraught grove may tempt thy stray; + Nor be by cares of colder climes disturbed: + No frost the summer's bloom shall drive away; + Nature's wide temple and the azure dome + Have plan enough for the free spirit's home. + + + + +THE THANKFUL AND THE THANKLESS. + + + With equal sweetness the commissioned hours + Shed light and dew upon both weeds and flowers. + The weeds unthankful raise their vile heads high, + Flaunting back insult to the gracious sky; + While the dear flowers, with fond humility, + Uplift the eyelids of a starry eye + In speechless homage, and, from grateful hearts, + Perfume that homage all around imparts. + + + + +PROPHECY AND FULFILMENT. + + + When leaves were falling thickly in the pale November day, + A bird dropped here this feather upon her pensive way. + Another bird has found it in the snow-chilled April day; + It brings to him the music of all her summer's lay. + Thus sweet birds, though unmated, do never sing in vain; + The lonely notes they utter to free them from their pain, + Caught up by the echoes, ring through the blue dome, + And by good spirits guided pierce to some gentle home. + + The pencil moved prophetic: together now men read + In the fair book of nature, and find the hope they need. + The wreath woven by the river is by the seaside worn, + And one of fate's best arrows to its due mark is borne. + + + + +VERSES + +GIVEN TO W. C. WITH A BLANK BOOK, MARCH, 1844. + + + Thy other book to fill, more than eight years + Have paid chance tribute of their smiles and tears; + Many bright strokes portray the varied scene-- + Wild sports, sweet ties the days of toil between; + And those related both in mind and blood, + The wise, the true, the lovely, and the good, + Have left their impress here; nor such alone, + But those chance toys that lively feelings own + Weave their gay flourishes 'mid lines sincere, + As 'mid the shadowy thickets bound the deer + Accept a volume where the coming time + Will join, I hope, much reason with the rhyme, + And that the stair his steady feet ascend + May prove a Jacob's ladder to my friend, + Peopled with angel-shapes of promise bright, + And ending only in the realms of light. + + May purity be stamped upon his brow, + Yet leave the manly footsteps free as now; + May generous love glow in his inmost heart, + Truth to its utterance lend the only art; + While more a man, may he be more the child; + More thoughtful be, but the more sweet and mild; + May growing wisdom, mixed with sprightly cheer, + Bless his own breast and those which hold him dear; + Each act be worthy of his worthiest aim, + And love of goodness keep him free from blame, + Without a need straight rules for life to frame. + + Good Spirit, teach him what he ought to be, + Best to fulfil his proper destiny, + To serve himself, his fellow-men, and thee. + These pages then will show how Nature wild + Accepts her Master, cherishes her child; + And many flowers, ere eight years more are done, + Shall bless and blossom in the western sun. + + + + +EAGLES AND DOVES. + +GOETHE. + + + A new-fledged eaglet spread his wings + To seek for prey; + Then flew the huntsman's dart and cut + The right wing's sinewy strength away. + Headlong he falls into a myrtle grove; + There three days long devoured his grief, + And writhed in pain + Three long, long nights, three days as weary. + At length he feels + The all-healing power + Of Nature's balsam. + Forth from the shady bush he creeps, + And tries his wing; but, ah! + The power to soar is gone! + He scarce can lift himself + Along the ground + In search of food to keep mere life awake; + Then rests, deep mourning, + On a low rock by the brook; + He looks up to the oak tree's top, + Far up to heaven, + And a tear glistens in his haughty eye. + + Just then come by a pair of fondling doves, + Playfully rustling through the grove. + Cooing and toying, they go tripping + Over golden sand and brook; + And, turning here and there, + Their rose-tinged eyes descry + The inly-mourning bird. + The dove, with friendly curiosity, + Flutters to the next bush, and looks + With tender sweetness on the wounded king. + "Ah, why so sad?" he cooes; + "Be of good cheer, my friend! + Hast thou not all the means of tranquil bliss + Around thee here? + Canst thou not meet with swelling breast + The last rays of the setting sun + On the brook's mossy brink? + Canst wander 'mid the dewy flowers, + And, from the superfluous wealth + Of the wood-bushes, pluck at will + Wholesome and delicate food, + And at the silvery fountain quench thy thirst? + O friend! the spirit of content + Gives all that we can know of bliss; + And this sweet spirit of content + Finds every where its food." + "O, wise one!" said the eagle, deeper still + Into himself retiring; + "O wisdom, thou speakest as a dove!" + + + + +TO A FRIEND, WITH HEARTSEASE. + + + Content in purple lustre clad, + Kingly serene, and golden glad; + No demi hues of sad contrition, + No pallors of enforced submission; + Give me such content as this, + And keep a while the rosy bliss. + + + + +ASPIRATION. + +LINES WRITTEN IN THE JOURNAL OF HER BROTHER R. F. F. + + + Foreseen, forespoken not foredone,-- + Ere the race be well begun, + The prescient soul is at the goal, + One little moment binds the whole; + Happy they themselves who call + To risk much, and to conquer all; + Happy are they who many losses, + Sore defeat or frequent crosses, + Though these may the heart dismay, + Cannot the sure faith betray; + Who in beauty bless the Giver; + Seek ocean on the loveliest river; + Or on desert island tossed, + Seeing Heaven, think nought lost. + May thy genius bring to thee + Of this life experience free, + And the earth vine's mysterious cup, + Sweet and bitter yield thee up. + But should the now sparkling bowl + Chance to slip from thy control, + And much of the enchanted wine + Be spilt in sand, as 'twas with mine, + Let blessings lost being consecration, + Change the pledge to a libation. + For the Power to whom we bow + Has given his pledge, that, if not now, + They of pure and steadfast mind, + By faith exalted, truth refined, + Shall hear all music, loud and clear, + Whose first notes they ventured here. + Then fear not thou to wind the horn + Though elf and gnome thy courage scorn; + Ask for the castle's king and queen, + Though rabble rout may come between, + Beat thee, senseless, to the ground, + In the dark beset thee round; + Persist to ask, and they will come. + Seek not for rest a humbler home, + And thou wilt see what few have seen, + The palace home of king and queen. + + + + +THE ONE IN ALL. + + + There are who separate the eternal light + In forms of man and woman, day and night; + They cannot bear that God be essence quite. + + Existence is as deep a verity: + Without the dual, where is unity? + And the "I am" cannot forbear to be; + + But from its primal nature forced to frame + Mysteries, destinies of various name, + Is forced to give what it has taught to claim. + + Thus love must answer to its own unrest; + The bad commands us to expect the best, + And hope of its own prospects is the test. + + And dost thou seek to find the one in two? + Only upon the old can build the new; + The symbol which you seek is found in you. + + The heart and mind, the wisdom and the will, + The man and woman, must be severed still, + And Christ must reconcile the good and ill. + + There are to whom each symbol is a mask; + The life of love is a mysterious task; + They want no answer, for they would not ask. + + A single thought transfuses every form; + The sunny day is changed into the storm, + For light is dark, hard soft, and cold is warm. + + One presence fills and floods the whole serene; + Nothing can be, nothing has ever been, + Except the one truth that creates the scene. + + Does the heart beat,--that is a seeming only; + You cannot be alone, though you are lonely; + The All is neutralized in the One only. + + You ask _a_ faith,--they are content with faith; + You ask to have,--but they reply, "IT hath." + There is no end, and there need be no path. + + The day wears heavily,--why, then, ignore it; + Peace is the soul's desire,--such thoughts restore it; + The truth thou art,--it needs not to implore it. + + _The Presence_ all thy fancies supersedes, + All that is done which thou wouldst seek in deeds, + _The_ wealth obliterates all seeming needs. + + Both these are true, and if they are at strife, + The mystery bears the one name of _Life_, + That, slowly spelled, will yet compose the strife. + + The men of old say, "Live twelve thousand years, + And see the end of all that here appears, + And Moxen[45] shall absorb thy smiles and tears." + + These later men say, "Live this little day. + Believe that human nature is the way, + And know both Son and Father while you pray; + + And one in two, in three, and none alone, + Letting you know even as you are known, + Shall make the you and me eternal parts of one." + + To me, our destinies seem flower and fruit + Born of an ever-generating root; + The other statement I cannot dispute. + + But say that Love and Life eternal seem, + And if eternal ties be but a dream, + What is the meaning of that self-same _seem_? + + Your nature craves Eternity for Truth; + Eternity of Love is prayer of youth; + How, without love, would have gone forth your truth? + + I do not think we are deceived to grow, + But that the crudest fancy, slightest show, + Covers some separate truth that we may know. + + In the one Truth, each separate fact is true; + Eternally in one I many view, + And destinies through destiny pursue. + + This is _my_ tendency; but can I say + That this my thought leads the true, only way? + I only know it constant leads, and I obey. + + I only know one prayer--"Give me the truth, + Give me that colored whiteness, ancient youth, + Complex and simple, seen in joy and ruth. + + Let me not by vain wishes bar my claim, + Nor soothe my hunger by an empty name, + Nor crucify the Son of man by hasty blame. + + But in the earth and fire, water and air, + Live earnestly by turns without despair, + Nor seek a home till home be every where!" + + + + +A GREETING. + + + Thoughts which come at a call + Are no better than if they came not at all; + Neither flower nor fruit, + Yielding no root + For plant, shrub, or tree. + Thus I have not for thee + One good word to say, + To-day, + Except that I prize thy gentle heart, + Free from ambition, falsehood, or art, + And thy good mind, + Daily refined, + By pure desire + To fan the heaven-seeking fire: + May it rise higher and higher; + Till in thee + Gentleness finds its dignity, + Life flowing tranquil, pure and free, + A mild, unbroken harmony. + + + + +LINES TO EDITH, ON HER BIRTHDAY. + + + If the same star our fates together bind, + Why are we thus divided, mind from mind? + If the same law one grief to both impart, + How couldst thou grieve a trusting mother's heart? + + Our aspiration seeks a common aim; + Why were we tempered of such differing frame? + But 'tis too late to turn this wrong to right; + Too cold, too damp, too deep, has fallen the night. + + And yet, the angel of my life replies, + Upon that night a morning star shall rise, + Fairer than that which ruled thy temporal birth, + Undimmed by vapors of the dreamy earth. + + It says, that, where a heart thy claim denies, + Genius shall read its secret ere it flies; + The earthly form may vanish from thy side, + Pure love will make thee still the spirit's bride. + + And thou, ungentle, yet much loving child, + Whose heart still shows the "untamed haggard wild," + A heart which justly makes the highest claim, + Too easily is checked by transient blame. + + Ere such an orb can ascertain its sphere, + The ordeal must be various and severe; + My prayer attend thee, though the feet may fly; + I hear thy music in the silent sky. + + + + +LINES + +WRITTEN IN HER BROTHER R. F. F.'S JOURNAL. + + "Mark the perfect man, and behold the upright, for the end of that + man is peace."--_Psalms_ xxxvii. 37. + + + The man of heart and words sincere, + Who truth and justice follows still, + Pursues his way with conscience clear, + Unharmed by earthly care and ill. + His promises he never breaks, + But sacredly to each adheres; + Honor's straight path he ne'er forsakes, + Though danger in the way appears. + He never boasts, will ne'er deceive, + For vanity nor yet for gain; + All that he says you may believe; + For worlds he would not conscience stain. + If he desires what others do, + And they deserve it more than he, + He gives to them what is their due, + Happy in his humility. + Not to his friends alone he's kind, + But his foes too with candor sees; + Not to their good intentions blind, + Though hopeless their dislike t' appease. + His eyes are clear, his hands are pure, + To God it is his constant prayer + That, be he rich or be he poor, + He never may wrong actions dare. + If rich, he to the suffering gives + All he can spare, and thinks it just, + That, since he by God's bounty lives, + He should as steward hold his trust. + If poor, he envies not; he knows + How covetousness corrupts the heart, + Whatever a just God bestows + Receiving as his proper part. + O Father, such a man I'd be; + Like him would act, like him would pray: + Lead me in truth and purity + To win thy peace and see thy day. + + + + +ON A PICTURE REPRESENTING THE DESCENT FROM THE CROSS. + +BY RAPHAEL. + + + Virgin Mother, Mary mild! + It was thine to see the child, + Gift of the Messiah dove, + Pure blossom of ideal love, + Break, upon the "guilty cross," + The seeming promise of his life; + Of faith, of hope, of love, a loss, + Deepened all thy, bosom's strife, + Brow down-bent, and heart-strings torn, + Fainting, by frail arms upborne. + + All those startled figures show, + That they did not apprehend + The thought of Him who there lies low, + On whom those sorrowing eyes they bend. + They do not feel this holiest hour; + Their hearts soar not to read the power, + Which this deepest of distress + Alone could give to save and bless. + + Soul of that fair, now ruined form, + Thou who hadst force to bide the storm, + Must again descend to tell + Of thy life the hidden spell; + Though their hearts within them burned, + The flame rose not till he returned. + + Just so all our dead ones lie; + Just so call our thoughts on high; + Thus we linger on the earth, + And dully miss death's heavenly birth. + + + + +THE CAPTURED WILD HORSE.[46] + + + On the boundless plain careering, + By an unseen compass steering, + Wildly flying, reappearing,-- + With untamed fire their broad eyes glowing, + In every step a grand pride showing, + Of no servile moment knowing,-- + + Happy as the trees and flowers, + In their instinct cradled hours, + Happier in fuller powers,-- + + See the wild herd nobly ranging, + Nature varying, not changing, + Lawful in their lawless ranging. + + But hark! what boding crouches near? + On the horizon now appear + Centaur-forms of force and fear. + + On their enslaved brethren borne, + With bit and whip of tyrant scorn, + To make new captives, as forlorn. + + Wildly snort the astonished throng, + Stamp, and wheel, and fly along, + Those centaur-powers they know are strong. + + But the lasso, skilful cast, + Holds one only captive fast, + Youngest, weakest--left the last. + + How thou trembledst then, Konick! + Thy full breath came short and thick, + Thy heart to bursting beat so quick; + + Thy strange brethren peering round, + By those tyrants held and bound, + Tyrants fell,--whom falls confound! + + With rage and pity fill thy heart; + Death shall be thy chosen part, + Ere such slavery tame thy heart. + + But strange, unexpected joy! + They seem to mean thee no annoy-- + Gallop off both man and boy. + + Let the wild horse freely go! + Almost he shames it should be so; + So lightly prized himself to know. + + All deception 'tis, O steed! + Ne'er again upon the mead + Shalt thou a free wild horse feed. + + The mark of man doth blot thy side, + The fear of man doth dull thy pride, + Thy master soon shall on thee ride. + + Thy brethren of the free plain, + Joyful speeding back again, + With proud career and flowing mane, + + Find thee branded, left alone, + And their hearts are turned to stone-- + They keep thee in their midst alone. + + Cruel the intervening years, + Seeming freedom stained by fears, + Till the captor reappears; + + Finds thee with thy broken pride. + Amid thy peers still left aside, + Unbeloved and unallied; + Finds thee ready for thy fate; + For joy and hope 'tis all too late-- + Thou'rt wedded to thy sad estate. + + * * * * * + + Wouldst have the princely spirit bowed? + Whisper only, speak not loud, + Mark and leave him in the crowd. + + Thou need'st not spies nor jailers have; + The free will serve thee like the slave, + Coward shrinking from the brave. + + And thy cohorts, when they come + To take the weary captive home, + Need only beat the retreating drum. + + + + +EPILOGUE TO THE TRAGEDY OF ESSEX. + +SPOKEN IN THE CHARACTER OF THE QUEEN.--TRANSLATED FROM GOETHE. + + + No Essex here!--unblest--they give no sign. + And shall such live, while earth's best nobleness + Departs and leaves her barren? Now too late + Weakness and cunning both are exorcised. + How could I trust thee whom I knew so well? + + Am I not like the fool of fable? He + Who in his bosom warmed the frozen viper, + And fancied man might hope for gratitude + From the betrayer's seed? Away! begone! + No breath, no sound shall here insult my anguish. + Essex is dumb, and they shall all be so; + No human presence shall control my mood. + Begone, I say! The queen would be alone! + + (_They all go out._) + + Alone and still! This day the cup of woe + Is full; and while I drain its bitter dregs, + Calm, queenlike, stern, I would review the past. + Well it becomes the favorite of fortune, + The royal arbitress of others' weal, + The world's desire, and England's deity, + Self-poised, self-governed, clear and firm to gaze + Where others close their aching eyes, to _dream_. + + Who feels imperial courage glow within + Fears not the mines which lie beneath his throne; + Bold he ascends, though knowing well his peril-- + Majestical and fearless holds the sceptre. + The golden circlet of enormous weight + He wears with brow serene and smiling air, + As though a myrtle chaplet graced his temples. + And thus didst _thou_. The far removed thy power + Attracted and subjected to thy will, + The hates and fears which oft beset thy way + Were seen, were met, and conquered by thy courage. + Thy tyrant father's wrath, thy mother's hopeless fate, + Thy sister's harshness,--all were cast behind; + And to a soul like thine, bonds and harsh usage + Taught fortitude, prudence, and self-command, + To act, or to endure. Fate did the rest. + + One brilliant day thou heard'st, "Long live the Queen!" + A queen thou wert; and in the heart's despite, + Despite the foes without, within, who ceaseless + Have threatened war and death,--a queen thou _art_, + And wilt be, while a spark of life remains. + But this last deadly blow--I feel it here! + Yet the low, prying world shall ne'er perceive it. + "Actress" they call me,--'tis a queen's vocation! + The people stare and whisper--what would they + But acting, to amuse them? Is deceit + Unknown, except in regal palaces? + The child at play already is an actor. + + Still to thyself, let weal or woe betide, + Elizabeth! be true and steadfast ever! + Maintain thy fixed reserve: 'tis just; what heart + Can sympathize with a queen's agony? + The false, false world,--it wooes me for my treasures, + My favors, and the place my smile confers; + And if for love I offer mutual love, + My minion, not content, must have the crown. + 'Twas thus with Essex; yet to thee, O heart! + I dare to say it, thy all died with him! + + Man must experience--be he who he may-- + Of bliss a last, irrevocable day. + Each owns this true, but cannot bear to live + And feel the last has come, the last has gone; + That never eye again in earnest tenderness + Shall turn to him,--no heart shall thickly beat + When his footfall is heard,--no speaking blush + Tell the soul's wild delight at meeting,--never + Rapture in presence, hope in absence more, + Be his,--no sun of love illume his landscape! + Yet thus it is with me. Throughout this heart + Deep night, without a star! What all the host + To me,--my Essex fallen from the heavens! + To me he was the centre of the world, + The ornament of time. Wood, lawn, or hall, + The busy mart, the verdant solitude, + To me were but the fame of one bright image; + That face is dust,--those lustrous eyes are closed, + And the frame mocks me with its empty centre. + + How nobly free, how gallantly he bore him, + The charms of youth combined with manhood's vigor! + How sage his counsel, and how warm his valor,-- + The glowing fire and the aspiring flame! + Even in his presumption he was kingly! + + But ah! does memory cheat me? What was all, + Since Truth was wanting, and the man I loved + Could court his death to vent his anger on me, + And I must punish him, or live degraded. + I chose the first; but in his death I died. + Land, sea, church, people, throne,--all, all are nought, + I live a living death, and call it royalty. + Yet, wretched ruler o'er these empty gauds, + A part remains to play, and I will play it. + A purple mantle hides my empty heart, + The kingly crown adorns my aching brow, + And pride conceals my anguish from the world. + + But in the still and ghostly midnight hour, + From each intruding eye and ear set free, + I still may shed the bitter, hopeless tear, + Nor fear the babbling of the earless walls. + I to myself may say, "I die! I die! + Elizabeth, unfriended and alone, + So die as thou hast lived,--alone, but queenlike!" + + + + +HYMN WRITTEN FOR A SUNDAY SCHOOL. + + "And his mother said unto him, Son, why hast thou thus dealt with us? + Behold, thy father and I have sought thee sorrowing. + "And he said unto them, How is it that ye sought me? Wist ye not + that I must be about my Father's business? "--_Luke_ ii. 48, 49 + + + I. + + Thus early was Christ's course begun, + Thus radiant dawned celestial day; + And those who such a race would run, + As early should be on the way. + + + II. + + His Father's business was his care, + Yet in man's favor still he grew: + O, might we learn, by thought and prayer, + Like him a work of love to do! + + + III. + + Wisdom and virtue still he sought, + Nor ignorant nor vile despised: + True was each action, pure each thought, + And each pure hope he realized. + + + IV. + + The empires of this world, in vain, + Offered their sceptres to his hand; + Fearless he trod the stormy main, + Fearless 'mid throngs of foes could stand. + + + V. + + Yet with his courage and his power + Combined such sweetness and such love, + He could revere the simplest flower, + The vilest sinners firm reprove. + + + VI. + + For all mankind he came, nor yet + An infant's visit would deny; + Nor friend nor mother did forget + In his last hour of agony. + + + VII. + + O, children, ask him to impart + That spirit clear and temper mild, + Which made the mother in her heart + Keep all the sayings of her child. + + + VIII. + + Bless him who said, of such as you + His Father's kingdom is, and still, + His yoke to bear, his work to do, + Study his life to learn his will. + + + + +DESERTION. + +TRANSLATION OF ONE OF GARCILASO'S ECLOGUES. + + + With my lamenting touched, the lofty trees + Incline their graceful heads without a breeze; + The listening birds forego their joyous song, + For soft and mournful strains, which echoes faint prolong. + + Lions and bears resign the charms of sleep + To hear my lonely plaint, and see me weep; + At my approaching death e'en stones relent. + Yet though yourself the fatal cause you know, + Not once on me those lovely eyes are bent: + Flow freely, tears! 'tis meet that you should flow! + + Although for my relief thou wilt not come, + Leave not the place where once thou loved'st to roam! + Here thou mayst rove secure from meeting me; + With a torn heart forever hence I flee. + Come, if 'twere this alone thy footsteps stayed, + Here the soft meadow, the delightful shade, + The roses now in flower, the waters clear, + Invite thee to the valley once so dear. + + Come, and bring with thee thy late-chosen love; + Each object shall thy perfidy reprove; + Since to another thou hast given thy heart, + From this sweet scene forever I depart. + And soon kind Death my sorrows shall remove, + The bitter ending of my faithful love. + + + + +SONG WRITTEN FOR A MAY DAY FESTIVAL. + +TO BE SUNG TO THE TUNE OF "THE BONNY BOAT." + + + I. + + O, blessed be this sweet May day, + The fairest of the year; + The birds are heard from every spray, + And the blue sky shines so clear! + White blossoms deck the apple tree, + Blue violets the plain; + Their fragrance tells the wand'ring bee + That Spring is come again. + We'll cull the blossoms from the bough + Where robins gayly sing, + We'll wreathe them for our queen's pure brow, + We'll wreathe them for our king. + + + II. + + The winter wind is bleak and sad, + And chill the winter rain; + But these May gales blow warm and glad, + And charm the heart from pain. + The sick, the poor rejoice once more, + Pale cheeks resume their glow, + And those who thought their day was o'er + New life to May suns owe. + And we, in youth and health so gay, + Sheltered by love and care, + How should we joy in blooming May, + And bless its balmy air! + + + III. + + We are the children of the Spring; + Our home is always green; + Green be the garland of our king, + The livery of our queen. + The gardener's care the seed has strown, + To deck our home with flowers; + Our Father's love from high has shone, + And sent the needed showers. + Barren indeed the plants must be, + If they should not disclose, + Tended and cherished with such toil, + The lily and the rose. + + + IV. + + Meanwhile through the wild wood we'll rove, + Where earliest flowerets grow, + And greet each simple bud with love, + Which tells us what to do-- + That, though untended, we may bloom + And smile on all around, + And one day rise from earth's low tomb, + To live where light is found. + A modest violet be our queen, + Still fragrant, though alone, + Our king a laurel--evergreen-- + To which no blight is known. + + + V. + + So let us bless the sweet May day, + And pray the coming year + May see us walk the upward way-- + Minds earnest, conscience clear; + That fruit Spring's amplest hope may crown, + And every winged day + Make to our hearts more dear, more known, + The hope, the peace of May! + So cull the blossoms from the bough + Where birds so gayly sing; + We'll wreathe them for our queen's pure brow, + We'll wreathe them for our king. + + + + +CARADORI SINGING. + + + Let not the heart o'erladen hither fly, + Hoping in tears to vent its misery: + She soars not like the lark with eager cry, + Not hers the robin's notes of love and joy; + Nor, like the nightingale's love-descant, tells + Her song the truths of the heart's hidden wells. + Come, if thy soul be tranquil, and her voice + Shall bid the tranquil lake laugh and rejoice; + Shall lightly warble, flutter, hover, dance, + And charm thee by its sportive elegance. + A finished style the highest art has given, + And a fine organ she received from heaven: + But genius casts not here one living ray; + Thou shalt approve, admire, not weep, to-day. + + + + +LINES + +IN ANSWER TO STANZAS CONTAINING SEVERAL PASSAGES OF DISTINGUISHED +BEAUTY, ADDRESSED TO ME BY----. + + + As by the wayside the worn traveller lies, + And finds no pillow for his aching brow, + Except the pack beneath whose weight he dies,-- + If loving breezes from the far west blow, + Laden with perfume from those blissful bowers + Where gentle youth and hope once gilded all his hours, + As fans that loving breeze, tears spring again, + And cool the fever of his wearied brain. + + Even so to me the soft romantic dream + Of one who still may sit at fancy's feet, + Where love and beauty yet are all the theme, + Where spheral concords find an echo meet. + To the ideal my vexed spirit turns, + But often for communion vainly burns. + Blest is that hour when breeze of poesy + From far the ancient fragrance wafts to me; + _This time_ thrice blest, because it came unsought, + "Sweet suppliance," and _dear_, because _unbought_. + + + + +INFLUENCE OF THE OUTWARD. + + + The sun, the moon, the waters, and the air, + The hopeful, holy, terrible, and fair; + Flower-alphabets, love-letters from the wave, + All mysteries which flutter, blow, skim, lave; + All that is ever-speaking, never spoken, + Spells that are ever breaking, never broken,-- + Have played upon my soul, and every string + Confessed the touch which once could make it sing + Triumphal notes; and still, though changed the tone, + Though damp and jarring fall the lyre hath known, + It would, if fitly played, and all its deep notes wove + Into one tissue of belief and love, + Yield melodies for angel-audience meet, + And paeans fit creative power to greet. + + O, injured lyre! thy golden frame is marred; + No garlands deck thee; no libations poured + Tell to the earth the triumphs of thy song; + No princely halls echo thy strains along; + But still the strings are there; and if at last they break, + Even in death some melody will make. + Mightst thou once more be strung, might yet the power be given, + To tell in numbers all thou hast of heaven! + But no! thy fragments scattered by the way, + To children given, help the childish play. + Be it thy pride to feel thy latest sigh + Could not forget the law of harmony, + Thou couldst not live for bliss--but thou for truth couldst die! + + + + +TO MISS R. B.[47] + + + A graceful fiction of the olden day + Tells us that, by a mighty master's sway, + A city rose, obedient to the lyre; + That his sweet strains rude matter could inspire + With zeal his harmony to emulate; + Thus to the spot where that sweet singer sat + The rocks advanced, in symmetry combined, + To form the palace and the temple joined. + The arts are sisters, and united all, + So architecture answered music's call. + + In modern days such feats no more we see, + And matter dares 'gainst mind a rebel be; + The faith is gone such miracles which wrought; + Masons and carpenters must aid our thought; + The harp and voice in vain would try their skill + To raise a city on our hard-bound soil; + The rocks have lain asleep so many a year, + Nothing but gunpowder will make them stir; + I doubt if even for your voice would come + The smallest pebble from its sandy home; + But, if the minstrel can no more create, + For _building_, if he live a little late, + He wields a power of not inferior kind, + No longer rules o'er matter, but o'er mind. + And when a voice like yours its song doth pour, + If it can raise palace and tower no more, + It can each ugly fabric melt away, + Bidding the fancy fairer scenes portray; + Its soft and brilliant tones our thoughts can wing + To climes whence they congenial magic bring; + As by the sweet Italian voice is given + Dream of the radiance of Italia's heaven. + + Whether in round, low notes the strain may swell, + As if some tale of woe or wrong to tell, + Or swift and light the upward notes are heard, + With the full carolling clearness of a bird, + The stream of sound untroubled flows along, + And no obstruction mars your finished song. + No stifled notes, no gasp, no ill-taught graces, + No vulgar trills in worst-selected places, + None of the miseries which haunt a land + Where all would learn what so few understand, + Afflict in hearing you; in you we find + The finest organ, and informed by mind. + + And as, in that same fable I have quoted, + It is of that town-making artist noted, + That, where he leaned his lyre upon a stone, + The stone stole somewhat of that lovely tone, + And afterwards each untaught passer-by, + By touching it, could rouse the melody,-- + Even thus a heart once by your music thrilled, + An ear which your delightful voice has filled, + In memory a talisman have found + To repel many a dull, harsh, after-sound; + And, as the music lingered in the stone, + After the minstrel and the lyre were gone, + Even so my thoughts and wishes, turned to sweetness, + Lend to the heavy hours unwonted fleetness; + And common objects, calling up the tone, + I caught from you, wake beauty not their own. + + + + +SISTRUM.[48] + + + Triune, shaping, restless power, + Life-flow from life's natal hour, + No music chords are in thy sound; + By some thou'rt but a rattle found; + Yet, without thy ceaseless motion, + To ice would turn their dead devotion. + Life-flow of my natal hour, + I will not weary of thy power, + Till in the changes of thy sound + A chord's three parts distinct are found. + I will faithful move with thee, + God-ordered, self-fed energy. + Nature in eternity. + + + + +IMPERFECT THOUGHTS. + + + The peasant boy watches the midnight sky; + He sees the meteor dropping from on high; + He hastens whither the bright guest hath flown, + And finds--a mass of black, unseemly stone. + Disdainful, disappointed, turns he home. + If a philosopher that way had come, + He would have seized the waif with great delight, + And honored it as an aerolite. + But truly it would need a Cuvier's mind + High meaning in _my_ meteors to find. + Well, in my museum there is room to spare-- + I'll let them stay till Cuvier goes there! + + + + +SADNESS. + + + Lonely lady, tell me why + That abandonment of eye? + Life is full, and nature fair; + How canst thou dream of dull despair? + + Life is full and nature fair; + A dull folly is despair; + But the heart lies still and tame + For want of what it may not claim. + + Lady, chide that foolish heart, + And bid it act a nobler part; + The love thou couldst be bid resign + Never could be worthy thine. + + O, I know, and knew it well, + How unworthy was the spell + In its silken band to bind + My heaven-born, heaven-seeking mind. + + Thou lonely moon, thou knowest well + Why I yielded to the spell; + Just so thou didst condescend + Thy own precept to offend. + + When wondering nymphs thee questioned why + That abandonment of eye, + Crying, "Dian,[49] heaven's queen, + What can that trembling eyelash mean?" + + Waning, over ocean's breast, + Thou didst strive to hide unrest + From the question of their eyes, + Unseeing in their dull surprise. + + Thy Endymion had grown old; + Thy only love was marred with cold; + No longer to the secret cave + Thy ray could pierce, and answer have. + + No more to thee, no more, no more, + Till thy circling life be o'er, + A mutual heart shall be a home, + Of weary wishes happy tomb. + + No more, no more--O words which sever + Hearts from their hopes, to part forever! + They can believe it never! + + + + +LINES WRITTEN IN AN ALBUM.[50] + + + Some names there are at sight of which will rise + Visions of triumph to the dullest eyes; + They breathe of garlands from a grateful race, + They tell of victory o'er all that's base; + To write them eagles might their plumage give, + And granite rocks should yield, that they may live. + + Others there are at sight of which will rise + Visions of beauty to all loving eyes, + Of radiant sweetness, or of gentle grace, + The poesy of manner or of face, + Spell of intense, if not of widest power; + The strong the ages rule; the fair, the hour. + + And there are names at sight of which will rise + Visions of goodness to the mourner's eyes; + They tell of generosity untired, + Which gave to others all the heart desired; + Of Virtue's _uncomplaining_ sacrifice, + And holy hopes which sought their native skies. + + If I could hope that at my name would rise + Visions like these, before those gentle eyes, + How gladly would I place it in the shrine + Where many honored names are linked with thine, + And know, if lone and far my pathway lies, + My name is living 'mid the good and wise. + + It must not be, for now I know too well + That those to whom my name has aught to tell + O'er baffled efforts would lament or blame. + Who heeds a breaking reed?--a sinking flame? + Best wishes and kind thoughts I give to thee, + But mine, indeed, an _empty name_ would be. + + + + +TO S. C. + + + Our friend has likened thee to the sweet fern, + Which with no flower salutes the ardent day, + Yet, as the wanderer pursues his way, + While the dews fall, and hues of sunset burn, + Sheds forth a fragrance from the deep green brake, + Sweeter than the rich scents that gardens make. + Like thee, the fern loves well the hallowed shade + Of trees that quietly aspire on high; + Amid such groves was consecration made + Of vestals, tranquil as the vestal sky. + + Like thee, the fern doth better love to hide + Beneath the leaf the treasure of its seed, + Than to display it, with an idle pride, + To any but the careful gatherer's heed-- + A treasure known to philosophic ken, + Garnered in nature, asking nought of men; + Nay, can invisible the wearer make, + Who would unnoted in life's game partake. + But I will liken thee to the sweet bay, + Which I first learned, in the Cohasset woods, + To name upon a sweet and pensive day + Passed in their ministering solitudes. + + I had grown weary of the anthem high + Of the full waves, cheering the patient rocks; + I had grown weary of the sob and sigh + Of the dull ebb, after emotion's shocks; + My eye was weary of the glittering blue + And the unbroken horizontal line; + My mind was weary, tempted to pursue + The circling waters in their wide design, + Like snowy sea-gulls stooping to the wave, + Or rising buoyant to the utmost air, + To dart, to circle, airily to lave, + Or wave-like float in foam-born lightness fair: + I had swept onward like the wave so full, + Like sea weed now left on the shore so dull. + + I turned my steps to the retreating hills, + Rejected sand from that great haughty sea, + Watered by nature with consoling rills, + And gradual dressed with grass, and shrub, and tree; + They seemed to welcome me with timid smile, + That said, "We'd like to soothe you for a while; + You seem to have been treated by the sea + In the same way that long ago were we." + + They had not much to boast, those gentle slopes, + For the wild gambols of the sea-sent breeze + Had mocked at many of their quiet hopes, + And bent and dwarfed their fondly cherished trees; + Yet even in those marks of by-past wind, + There was a tender stilling for my mind. + + Hiding within a small but thick-set wood, + I soon forgot the haughty, chiding flood. + The sheep bell's tinkle on the drowsy ear, + With the bird's chirp, so short, and light, and clear, + Composed a melody that filled my heart + With flower-like growths of childish, artless art, + And of the tender, tranquil life I lived apart. + + It was an hour of pure tranquillity, + Like to the autumn sweetness of thine eye, + Which pries not, seeks not, and yet clearly sees-- + Which wooes not, beams not, yet is sure to please. + Hours passed, and sunset called me to return + Where its sad glories on the cold wave burn. + + Rising from my kind bed of thick-strewn leaves, + A fragrance the astonished sense receives, + Ambrosial, searching, yet retiring, mild: + Of that soft scene the soul was it? or child? + 'Twas the sweet bay I had unwitting spread, + A pillow for my senseless, throbbing head, + And which, like all the sweetest things, demands, + To make it speak, the grasp of alien hands. + + All that this scene did in that moment tell, + I since have read, O wise, mild friend! in thee. + Pardon the rude grasp, its sincerity, + And feel that I, at least, have known thee well. + Grudge not the green leaves ravished from thy stem, + Their music, should I live, muse-like to tell; + Thou wilt, in fresher green forgetting them, + Send others to console me for farewell. + Thou wilt see why the dim word of regret + Was made the one to rhyme with Margaret. + + But to the Oriental parent tongue, + Sunrise of Nature, does my chosen name, + My name of Leila, as a spell, belong, + Teaching the meaning of each temporal blame; + I chose it by the sound, not knowing why; + But since I know that Leila stands for night, + I own that sable mantle of the sky, + Through which pierce, gem-like, points of distant light; + As sorrow truths, so night brings out her stars; + O, add not, bard! that those stars shine too late! + While earth grows green amid the ocean jars, + And trumpets yet shall wake the slain of her long century-wars. + + + + +LINES WRITTEN IN BOSTON ON A BEAUTIFUL AUTUMNAL DAY. + + + As late we lived upon the gentle stream, + Nature refused us smiles and kindly airs; + The sun but rarely deigned a pallid gleam; + Then clouds came instantly, like glooms and tears, + Upon the timid flickerings of our hope; + The moon, amid the thick mists of the night, + Had scarcely power her gentle eye to ope, + And climb the heavenly steeps. A moment bright + Shimmered the hectic leaves, then rudely torn + By winds that sobbed to see the wreck they made, + Upon the amber waves were thickly borne + Adonis' gardens for the realms of shade, + While thoughts of beauty past all wish for livelier life forbade. + + So sped the many days of tranquil life, + And on the stream, or by the mill's bright fire, + The wailing winds had told of distant strife, + Still bade us for the moment yield desire + To think, to feel, the moment gave,--we needed not aspire! + + Returning here, no harvest fields I see, + Nor russet beauty of the thoughtful year. + Where is the honey of the city bee? + No leaves upon this muddy stream appear. + The housekeeper is getting in his coal, + The lecturer his showiest thoughts is selling; + I hear of Major Somebody, the Pole, + And Mr. Lyell, how rocks grow, is telling; + But not a breath of thoughtful poesy + Does any social impulse bring to me; + But many cares, sad thoughts of men unwise, + Base yieldings, and unransomed destinies, + Hopes uninstructed, and unhallowed ties. + + Yet here the sun smiles sweet as heavenly love, + Upon the eve of earthly severance; + The youthfulest tender clouds float all above, + And earth lies steeped in odors like a trance. + The moon looks down as though she ne'er could leave us, + And these last trembling leaves sigh, "Must they too deceive us?" + Surely some life is living in this light, + Truer than mine some soul received last night; + I cannot freely greet this beauteous day, + But does not _thy_ heart swell to hail the genial ray? + I would not nature these last loving words in vain should say. + + + + +TO E. C. + +WITH HERBERT'S POEMS. + + + Dost thou remember that fair summer's day, + As, sick and weary on my couch I lay, + Thou broughtst this little book, and didst diffuse + O'er my dark hour the light of Herbert's muse? + The "Elixir," and "True Hymn," were then thy choice, + And the high strain gained sweetness from thy voice. + The book, before that day to me unknown, + I took to heart at once, and made my own. + + Three winters and three summers since have passed, + And bitter griefs the hearts of both have tried; + Thy sympathy is lost to me at last; + A dearer love has torn thee from my side; + Scenes, friends, to me unknown, now claim thy care; + No more thy joys or griefs I soothe or share; + No more thy lovely form my eye shall bless; + The gentle smile, the timid, mute caress, + No more shall break the icy chains which may my heart oppress. + + New duties claim us both; indulgent Heaven + Ten years of mutual love to us had given; + The plants from early youth together grew, + Together all youth's sun and tempests knew. + At age mature arrived, thou, graceful vine! + Didst seek a sheltering tree round which to twine; + While I, like northern fir, must be content + To clasp the rock which gave my youth its scanty nourishment. + + The world for which we sighed is with us now; + No longer musing on the _why_ or _how_, + _What_ really does exist we now must meet; + Life's dusty highway is beneath our feet; + Life's fainting pilgrims claim our ministry, + And the whole scene speaks stern _reality_. + + Say, in the tasks reality has brought, + Keepst _thou_ the plan that pleased thy childish thought? + Does Herbert's "Hymn" in thy heart echo now? + Herbert's "Elixir" in thy bosom glow? + In Herbert's "Temper" dost thou strive to be? + Does Herbert's "Pearl" seem the true pearl to thee? + O, if 'tis so, I have not prayed in vain!-- + My friend, my sister, we shall meet again. + + I dare not say that _I_ am always true + To the vocation which my young thought knew; + But the Great Spirit blesses me, and still, + Though clouds may darken o'er the heavenly will, + Upon the hidden sun my thoughts can rest, + And oft the rainbow glitters in the west. + This earth no more seems all the world to me; + Before me shines a far eternity, + Whose laws to me, when thought is calmly poised, + Suffice, as they to angels have sufficed. + I know the thunder has not ceased to roll, + Not all the iron yet has pierced my soul; + I know no earthly honors wait for me, + No earthly love my heart shall satisfy. + Tears, of these eyes still oft the guests must be, + Long hours be borne, of chilling apathy; + Still harder teachings come to make me wise, + And life's best blood must seal the sacrifice. + + But He who still seems nearer and more bright, + Nor from my _seeking_ eye withholds his light, + Will not forsake me, for his pledge is given; + Virtue shall teach the soul its way to heaven. + + O, pray for me, and I for thee will pray; + And more than loving words we used to say + Shall this avail. But little more we meet + In life--ah, how the years begin to fleet! + Ask--pray that I may seek beauty and truth, + In their high sphere we shall renew our youth. + On wings of _steadfast faith_ there mayst _thou_ soar, + And _my_ soul fret at barriers no more! + + * * * * * + + +MARGARET FULLER'S WORKS AND MEMOIRS. + +WOMAN IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY, and kindred papers relating to the +Sphere, Condition, and Duties of Woman. Edited by her brother, ARTHUR B. +FULLER, with an Introduction by HORACE GREELEY. In 1 vol. 16mo. $1.50. + +ART, LITERATURE, AND THE DRAMA. 1 vol. 16mo. $1.50. + +LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN; or, Reviews, Narratives, Essays, and +Poems. 1 vol. 16mo. $1.50. + +AT HOME AND ABROAD; or, Things and Thoughts in America and Europe. 1 +vol. 16mo. $1.50. + +MEMOIRS OF MARGARET FULLER OSSOLI. By RALPH WALDO EMERSON, WILLIAM HENRY +CHANNING, and JAMES FREEMAN CLARKE. With Portrait and Appendix. 2 vols. +16mo. $3.00. Cheap edition. Two vols. in one. $1.50. + +MARGARET FULLER will be remembered as one of the "Great Conversers," the +"Prophet of the Woman Movement" in this country, and her Memoirs will be +read with delight as among the tenderest specimens of biographical +writing in our language. She was never an extremist. She considered +woman neither man's rival nor his foe, but his complement. As she +herself said, she believed that the development of one could not be +affected without that of the other. Her words, so noble in tone, so +moderate in spirit, so eloquent in utterance, should not be forgotten by +her sisters. Horace Greeley, in his introduction to her "Woman in the +Nineteenth Century," says: "She was one of the earliest, as well as +ablest, among American women to demand for her sex equality before the +law with her titular lord and master. Her writings on this subject have +the force that springs from the ripening of profound reflection into +assured conviction. It is due to her memory, as well as to the great and +living cause of which she was so eminent and so fearless an advocate, +that what she thought and said with regard to the position of her sex +and its limitations should be fully and fairly placed before the +public." No woman who wishes to understand the full scope of what is +called the woman's movement should fail to read these pages, and see in +them how one woman proved her right to a position in literature hitherto +occupied by men, by filling it nobly. + +The Story of this rich, sad, striving, unsatisfied life, with its depths +of emotion and its surface sparkling and glowing, is told tenderly and +reverently by her biographers. Their praise is eulogy, and their words +often seem extravagant, but they knew her well, they spoke as they felt. +The character that could awaken such interest and love surely is a rare +one. + +==>The above are uniformly bound in cloth, and sold separately or in +sets. + +Sold everywhere. Mailed, post-paid, by the Publishers, ROBERTS BROTHERS, +BOSTON. + + +_Messrs. Roberts Brothers' Publications._ + +Famous Women Series. + +MARGARET FULLER. + +BY JULIA WARD HOWE. + +One volume. 16mo. Cloth. Price $1.00. + +"A memoir of the woman who first in New England took a position of moral +and intellectual leadership, by the woman who wrote the Battle Hymn of +the Republic, is a literary event of no common or transient interest. +The Famous Women Series will have no worthier subject and no more +illustrious biographer. Nor will the reader be disappointed,--for the +narrative is deeply interesting and full of inspiration."--_Woman's +Journal._ + +"Mrs. Julia Ward Howe's biography of _Margaret Fuller_, in the Famous +Women Series of Messrs. Roberts Brothers, is a work which has been +looked for with curiosity. It will not disappoint expectation. She has +made a brilliant and an interesting book. Her study of Margaret Fuller's +character is thoroughly sympathetic; her relation of her life is done in +a graphic and at times a fascinating manner. It is the case of one woman +of strong individuality depicting the points which made another one of +the most marked characters of her day. It is always agreeable to follow +Mrs. Howe in this; for while we see marks of her own mind constantly, +there is no inartistic protrusion of her personality. The book is always +readable, and the relation of the death-scene is thrillingly +impressive."--_Saturday Gazette._ + +"Mrs. Julia Ward Howe has retold the story of Margaret Fuller's life and +career in a very interesting manner. This remarkable woman was happy in +having James Freeman Clarke, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and William Henry +Channing, all of whom had been intimate with her and had felt the spell +of her extraordinary personal influence, for her biographers. It is +needless to say, of course, that nothing could be better than these +reminiscences in their way."--_New York World._ + +"The selection of Mrs. Howe as the writer of this biography was a happy +thought on the part of the editor of the series; for, aside from the +natural appreciation she would have for Margaret Fuller, comes her +knowledge of all the influences that had their effect on Margaret +Fuller's life. She tells the story of Margaret Fuller's interesting life +from all sources and from her own knowledge, not hesitating to use +plenty of quotations when she felt that others, or even Margaret Fuller +herself, had done the work better."--_Miss Gilder, in Philadelphia +Press._ + + +HARRIET MARTINEAU. + +BY MRS. F. FENWICK MILLER. + +16mo. Cloth. Price $1.00. + +"The almost uniform excellence of the 'Famous Women' series is well +sustained in Mrs. Fenwick Miller's life of Harriet Martineau, the latest +addition to this little library of biography. Indeed, we are disposed to +rank it as the best of the lot. The subject is an entertaining one, and +Mrs. Miller has done her work admirably. Miss Martineau was a remarkable +woman, in a century that has not been deficient in notable characters. +Her native genius, and her perseverance in developing it; her trials and +afflictions, and the determination with which she rose superior to them; +her conscientious adherence to principle, and the important place which +her writings hold in the political and educational literature of her +day,--all combine to make the story of her life one of exceptional +interest.... With the exception, possibly, of George Eliot, Harriet +Martineau was the greatest of English women. She was a poet and a +novelist, but not as such did she make good her title to distinction. +Much more noteworthy were her achievements in other lines of thought, +not usually essayed by women. She was eminent as a political economist, +a theologian, a journalist, and a historian.... But to attempt a mere +outline of her life and works is put of the question in our limited +space. Her biography should be read by all in search of +entertainment."--_Professor Woods in Saturday Mirror._ + +"The present volume has already shared the fate of several of the recent +biographies of the distinguished dead, and has been well advertised by +the public contradiction of more or less important points in the +relation by the living friends of the dead genius. One of Mrs. Miller's +chief concerns in writing this life seems to have been to redeem the +character of Harriet Martineau from the appearance of hardness and +unamiability with which her own autobiography impresses the reader.... +Mrs Miller, however, succeeds in this volume in showing us an altogether +different side to her character,--a home-loving, neighborly, +bright-natured, tender-hearted, witty, lovable, and altogether womanly +woman, as well as the clear thinker, the philosophical reasoner, and +comprehensive writer whom we already knew."--_The Index._ + +"Already ten volumes in this library are published; namely, George +Eliot, Emily Bronte, George Sand, Mary Lamb, Margaret Fuller, Maria +Edgeworth, Elizabeth Fry, The Countess of Albany, Mary Wollstonecraft, +and the present volume. Surely a galaxy of wit and wealth of no mean +order! Miss M. will rank with any of them in womanliness or gifts or +grace. At home or abroad, in public or private. She was noble and true, +and her life stands confessed a success. True, she was literary, but she +was a home lover and home builder. She never lost the higher aims and +ends of life, no matter how flattering her success. This whole series +ought to be read by the young ladies of to-day. More of such biography +would prove highly beneficial."--_Troy Telegram._ + +_Our publications are for sale by all booksellers, or will be mailed, +post-paid, on receipt of price._ + +MARY LAMB. + +BY ANNE GILCHRIST. + +One volume. 16mo. Cloth. Price, $1.00. + +"The story of Mary Lamb has long been familiar to the readers of Elia, +but never in its entirety as in the monograph which Mrs. Anne Gilchrist +has just contributed to the Famous Women Series. Darkly hinted at by +Talfourd in his Final Memorials of Charles Lamb, it became better known +as the years went on and that imperfect work was followed by fuller and +franker biographies,--became so well known, in fact, that no one could +recall the memory of Lamb without recalling at the same time the memory +of his sister."--_New York Mail and Express._ + +"A biography of Mary Lamb must inevitably be also, almost more, a +biography of Charles Lamb, so completely was the life of the sister +encompassed by that of her brother; and it must be allowed that Mrs. +Anne Gilchrist has performed a difficult biographical task with taste +and ability.... The reader is at least likely to lay down the book with +the feeling that if Mary Lamb is not famous she certainly deserves to +be, and that a debt of gratitude is due Mrs. Gilchrist for this +well-considered record of her life."--_Boston Courier._ + +"Mary Lamb, who was the embodiment of everything that is tenderest in +woman, combined with this a heroism which bore her on for a while +through the terrors of insanity. Think of a highly intellectual woman +struggling year after year with madness, triumphant over it for a +season, and then at last succumbing to it. The saddest lines that ever +were written are those descriptive of this brother and sister just +before Mary, on some return of insanity, was to leave Charles Lamb. 'On +one occasion Mr. Charles Lloyd met them slowly pacing together a little +foot-path in Hoxton Fields, both weeping bitterly, and found, on joining +them, that they were taking their solemn way to the accustomed asylum.' +What pathos is there not here?"--_New York Times._ + +"This life was worth writing, for all records of weakness conquered, of +pain patiently borne, of success won from difficulty, of cheerfulness in +sorrow and affliction, make the world better. Mrs. Gilchrist's biography +is unaffected and simple. She has told the sweet and melancholy story +with judicious sympathy, showing always the light shining through +darkness."--_Philadelphia Press._ + +Sold by all Booksellers. Mailed, post-paid, on receipt of the price, by +the Publishers, + +ROBERTS BROTHERS, BOSTON. + + * * * * * + +The following typographical errors were corrected by the etext +transcriber: + +No less pedantic is the style in which the grown-up, in stature at +least, undertake to become acquainted with Dante.=> No less pedantic is +the style in which the grown-up, in stature at least, undertakes to +become acquainted with Dante. + +Even the proem shows how large is his nature=>Even the poem shows how +large is his nature + +There is a little poem in the Schnellpost, by Mority Hartmann=>There is +a little poem in the Schnellpost, by Moritz Hartmann + +If a character be uncorrrpted=>If a character be uncorrupted + +of a noble dscription=>of a noble description + +law with her titluar lord and master=>law with her titular lord and +master + + * * * * * + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] "He who would do great things must quickly draw together his forces. +The master can only show himself such through limitation, and the law +alone can give us freedom." + +[2] Except in "La belle France." + +[3] Eckermann's Conversations with Goethe, translated from the German +by my sister, form one volume of the "Specimens of Foreign Literature," +edited by Rev. George Ripley, and published in 1839. This volume has +been republished by James Munroe & Co., Boston, within a few years.--ED. + +[4] The name of Macaria is one of noblest association. It is that of the +daughter of Hercules, who devoted herself a voluntary sacrifice for her +country. She was adored by the Greeks as the true Felicity. + +[5] "By the Author of Essays of Summer Hours." + +[6] The Life of Beethoven, including his Correspondence with his +Friends, numerous characteristic Traits, and Remarks on his Musical +Works. Edited by Ignace Moscheles, Pianist to His Royal Highness Prince +Albert. + +[7] See article on Beethoven, in Margaret's volume, entitled "Art, +Literature, and the Drama."--ED. + +[8] Ormond, or the Secret Witness; Wieland, or the Transformation; by +Charles Brockden Brown. + +[9] The Raven and other Poems, by Edgar A. Poe, 1845. + +[10] The Autobiography of Alfieri, translated by C. E. Lester. Memoirs +of Benvenuto Cellini, translated by Roscoe. + +[11] Although the errors here specially referred to by my sister have +been corrected in this volume, I let her statement remain as explanation +of any other errors which may possibly have crept into type, in this +volume, through the illegibility of some of her manuscripts from which I +have been compelled to copy for this work.--ED. + +[12] Napoleon and his Marshals, by J. T. Headley. + +[13] Physical Education and the Preservation of Health, by John C. +Warren. + +[14] Physiological and Moral Management of Infancy, by Andrew Combe, M. +D. + +[15] Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, +written by himself. + +[16] Philip van Artevelde, A Dramatic Romance, by Henry Taylor. + +[17] For a translation by my sister of this Drama, see Part III. of her +"Art, Literature, and the Drama," where it is now, for the first time, +published, simultaneously with the appearance of this volume.--ED. + +[18] The Poetical Works of Percy Bysche Shelley. First American edition +(complete.) With a Biographical and Critical Notice, by G. G. Foster. + +[19] Festus: A Poem, by Philip James Bailey. First American edition, +Boston. + +[20] Balzac, Eugene Sue, De Vigny. + +[21] Etherology, or the Philosophy of Mesmerism and Phrenology: +Including a New Philosophy of Sleep and of Consciousness, with a Review +of the Pretensions of Neurology and Phreno-Magnetism. By J. Stanley +Grimes. + +[22] A German newspaper. + +[23] Letters and Speeches of Oliver Cromwell, by Thomas Carlyle. + +[24] I conclude the poor boy Oliver has already fallen in these wars; +none of us knows where, though his father well knew. + +[25] Sir Philip Warwick's Memoirs, (London, 1701,) p. 249. + +[26] Essays, Second Series, by Ralph Waldo Emerson. + +[27] A Defence of Capital Punishment, and an Essay on the Ground and +Reason of Punishment, with Special Reference to the Penalty of Death New +York, 1846. + +[28] [In refusing to repeal what are technically and significantly +termed her "Black Laws," relating to the settlement of colored men, and +their rights within that state.--ED.] + +[29] John Quincy Adams. + +[30] For her treatment of a sister republic in our late war with Mexico. + +[31] Miss Delia Webster. + +[32] Hon. Samuel Hoar, sent to Charleston, S. C., to test in the courts +her laws, and driven thence with his daughter by a mob. + +[33] It is well known that in this sketch my sister gives an account of +an incident in the history of her own school-girl life. I need scarcely +say that only so far as this incident is concerned is the story of +Mariana in any sense autobiographical.--ED. + +[34][Agis, king of Sparta, the fourth of that name. "One of the most +beautiful characters of antiquity."--ED.] + +[35] [In New York.--ED.] + +[36] Meta, the wife of Klopstock, one of Germany's most celebrated +poets, is doubtless well known to many of our readers through the +beautiful letters to Samuel Richardson, the novelist, or through Mrs. +Jameson's work, entitled the Loves of the Poets. It is said that +Klopstock wrote continually to her even after her death. + +[37] Fact, that this is affirmed. + +[38] Facts. + +[39] Facts. + +[40] Facts. + +[41] The destruction of Mr. Clay's press by a mob.--ED. + +[42] _Margaret_ means _Pearl_.--ED. + +[43] Published in the New York Tribune, Aug. 1, 1846, just previous to +sailing for Europe.--ED. + +[44] Goethe says, "A little golden heart, which I had received from +Lili in those fairy hours, still hung by the same little chain to which +she had fastened it, love-warmed, about my neck. I seized hold of +it--kissed it." This was the occasion of these lines. The poet now was +separated from Lili, and striving to forget her in journeying +about.--ED. + +[45] Buddhist term for absorption into the divine mind. + +[46] This horse, Konick, was caught early, marked, and then let loose +again, for a time, among the herd. He still retains a wild freedom and +beauty in his movements. + +[47] A sweet and beautiful singer.--ED. + +[48] A musical instrument of the ancients, employed by the Egyptians in +the worship of Isis. It was to be kept in constant motion, and, +according to Plutarch, was intended to indicate the necessity of +constant motion on the part of men--the need of being often shaken by +fierce trials and agitations when they become morbid or indolent.--ED. + +[49] Diana is represented as driving the chariot of the moon, as Apollo +that of the sun. Mythology states that while enlightening the earth as +Luna, the moon, she beheld the hunter Endymion sleeping in the forest. +With her rays she kissed the lips of the hunter--a favor she had never +before bestowed on god or man.--ED. + +[50] These lines were written without her signature attached.--ED. + + + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Life Without and Life Within, by Margaret Fuller + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN *** + +***** This file should be named 39037.txt or 39037.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/9/0/3/39037/ + +Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images available at The Internet Archive) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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