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+This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements,
+metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be
+in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES.
+
+Procedures for determining public domain status are described in
+the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org.
+
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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #66935 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/66935)
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-The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Yale Literary Magazine (Vol. I, No. 6,
-August 1836), by Students of Yale
-
-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
-most other parts of the world 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. If you are not located in the United States, you
-will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before
-using this eBook.
-
-Title: The Yale Literary Magazine (Vol. I, No. 6, August 1836)
-
-Author: Students of Yale
-
-Release Date: December 12, 2021 [eBook #66935]
-
-Language: English
-
-Character set encoding: UTF-8
-
-Produced by: hekula03, sf2001, and the Online Distributed Proofreading
- Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This book was produced from
- images made available by the HathiTrust Digital Library.)
-
-*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE YALE LITERARY MAGAZINE (VOL.
-I, NO. 6, AUGUST 1836) ***
-
-
-
-
- THE YALE LITERARY MAGAZINE.
-
- CONDUCTED BY THE
- =STUDENTS OF YALE COLLEGE=.
-
- [Illustration: “Dum mens grata manet, nomen laudesque Yalenses
- Cantabunt Soboles, unanimique Patres.”]
-
- NO. VI.
-
- AUGUST, 1836.
-
- NEW HAVEN:
- HERRICK & NOYES.
-
- MDCCCXXXVI.
-
-
-
-
- Contents.
-
-
- Page.
- Turkey and Greece, 209
- Thoughts on the Death of an Aged Friend, 214
- The Omnibus, 216
- Epigram, 227
- The Coffee Club, No. IV, 228
- What is Bitter, 241
- The Reason of Animals not the Reason of Man, 242
- De Lopez, the Brave, 246
- Mr. Willis, 249
- Greek Anthology, No. VI, 252
- “Our Magazine,” 256
-
-
-
-
- THE
- YALE LITERARY MAGAZINE.
- VOL. I. AUGUST, 1836. NO. 6.
-
-
-
-
- TURKEY AND GREECE.
-
- “There is a connection [_verbindung_] among men, in
- which no one can work for himself without working for
- others.”--_Fichte._
-
- “The tie of mutual influence passes without a break from
- hand to hand, throughout the human family. There is no
- independence, no insulation, in the lot of man.”--_Natural
- History of Enthusiasm._
-
-
-There is a tendency to regard the commotions of society, which have
-taken place of late years, as the results of modern diplomacy, or of
-notions concerning human rights, which have received birth and risen to
-their present vigor within the last fifty years. Hence, it is argued,
-there is a liability to reaction. The bright lights may go out, and
-despotism triumph in the moral and political degeneracy. Yet this view
-of the matter is very superficial. It is regarding the trunk as the
-origin of the tree, overlooking the seed and the root. The truth is,
-the principles now developing have their origin with society. For,
-all sound political principles have a common foundation--the rights
-of man. His selfishness, especially his thirst for sway, aided by
-ignorance, has kept through force and fraud the true principles of
-human government from being understood and adopted. Still the ancient
-kingdoms, the world-empires and all, though now in their tombs, left
-inscriptions on their head-stones of diamond worth to the science of
-government. They are beacon-lights for the modern statesman. Their
-wisdom and their folly, both aid him to discover the true rules for
-human government, which have been buried up and concealed by folly
-and passion since the days of the Patriarchs, from whom all civil
-authority had its rise. Added to this light of experience, collected
-by by-gone nations, are other influences of a physical nature. The
-application of the magnet to purposes of navigation, was one of those
-master thoughts, which, from its vast importance, we are almost tempted
-to regard as an idea of directly divine origin. The influence of this
-on the whole family of man, can be best estimated by suffering one’s
-self to think what the state of the world would of necessity be, were
-it entirely unknown. Again, the application of steam to machinery, is
-not only changing the aspect of things in the New World and Europe,
-but this invention was a positive act for the moral and physical
-renovation of Asia and Africa--an act of such power as must hasten
-their new birth by centuries. British steamers are already on their
-way to explore the Niger. It is the operation and display of this vast
-physical force, which is to be a great means of starting into action
-the stagnated mind of this part of our race. These discoveries, it will
-readily be allowed, can never cease to operate. Entwined with political
-experience, they stand firm barriers to any relapse in the general well
-being of the human family; while, year after year, to these and others,
-which cannot be mentioned in the limits of a single article, are added
-the discoveries of physical and political science, as they occur, until
-their increasing light reveals to the common eye, one and another,
-and another, of the rights of man, which designing men, “tyrants, or
-tyrants’ slaves,” have striven to conceal. Almost every nation of the
-earth has had some of its dark places pierced by these accumulating
-rays. Despotic powers have been forced to yield up some part of the
-prerogatives of the crown, or to surround them with stronger guards.
-Constitutional governments have been compelled to adopt measures of
-reform, and to pursue a course of policy more uniformly liberal.
-
-Amid these commotions, no nations have more attracted the attention of
-all classes, than Turkey and Greece. The politician has watched with no
-little anxiety the rapid dismemberment of that power, which has so long
-stood the great barrier between the East and West. The scholar has felt
-a new hope that the mother-land of mental light may be herself again.
-While the Christian is assured that the Almighty is thus shaking the
-nations for the accomplishment of his own high ends. He is but making
-straight the path of his servants.
-
-The history of the Turks is remarkable and instructive--in the sudden
-rise of their empire--in its long continuance--and precipitate fall.
-The wild region of Mount Taurus and Imaus was their cradle. At once
-the most barbarous, the rudest, and the most enterprising of all the
-Saracen tribes, they penetrated to the banks of the Caspian Sea, and
-serving as mercenaries under the Caliphs, acquired great reputation
-for military prowess, and soon subjugated the contending Caliphats
-to their own sway. Palestine, with its capital Jerusalem, fell into
-their hands. Near the middle of the fourteenth century, they crossed
-into Europe, and possessed themselves of Adrianople. In a few years
-subsequent to this event, the city of Constantine, to adorn which
-he had lavished the treasures of his realm, was doomed to see their
-triumphant banner floating above her walls. Epirus soon suffered the
-fate of Constantinople; and the land of the orator and philosopher,
-which built a bulwark against Xerxes, received their chains. They
-marched victorious even to the walls of Vienna; but were finally driven
-back as far as Greece. European arms could avail no farther. In other
-directions this remarkable people were uniformly successful; until,
-in the sixteenth century, the Sultan was lord of thirty kingdoms,
-containing not less than eight thousand leagues of sea coast, and
-some of the fairest portions of the world. Not only those regions
-which have been rendered famous as the homes of the great masters of
-sculpture, song and philosophy, but the land of the Patriarchs, where
-were exhibited the thrilling scenes of the accomplishment of the
-covenant of God with man--Baghdad, the court of the science-loving
-Caliphs--Egypt--and the countries of Asia Minor, whose luxuriance not
-even Turkish thraldom and indolence has sufficed to destroy.
-
-But this great empire was in itself radically defective. The government
-depended on extortion for its revenue--on physical force or a degrading
-imposture for obedience; neither of which, whatever may have been
-the case in other days, could be safely trusted, in the light which
-is breaking over the human family, and over the Turks as a part of
-it. The present Sultan found himself in the dilemma between reform
-on the one hand, in accomplishing which his throne, and perhaps his
-life would be jeopardized, and certain destruction on the other. In
-choosing the least of these evils, Greece, Egypt, and Palestine, were
-severed from his empire. Mahomet Ali would have attacked him in his
-capital, but for the interposition of the Tzar, who was fearful of
-losing a prize which has ever been the object of Muscovite ambition,
-the throne of Constantine. But while the black Eagle of Russia spread
-his wings as a shelter for the Turk, he coolly seized in his talons the
-keys of the Dardanelles; thus rendering any further interposition on
-the part of England, who has so often balked the Tzar in his darling
-project, entirely futile. Since which event, the fall of Turkey has
-been pronounced as certain by all. What is to be its precise effect
-on the politics of Europe, is a question which only a Talleyrand or
-a Metternich could answer with any probability of truth. Yet the
-foregoing remarks exhibit facts from which consequences of high
-importance must follow.
-
-They exhibit the empire of the Ottomans as once occupying a proud
-station among the greater powers--as forming a boundary and preserving
-a balance between the East and West--as a firm check on Muscovite
-ambition--and as, from her consequence, possessing great weight in the
-councils of nations; and it is apparent that she cannot fall without
-important political consequences.
-
-They exhibit her with a religion, which has ever been a bane to all
-nobler sentiments or aspirations of the soul, brooding like night over
-some of the fairest portions of the earth, blasting by the baleful
-influence of her institutions the legitimate effect, both on mind
-and body, of her naturally fair plains, rich vallies, and brilliant
-skies, which, in other times, produced models for an Apollo Belvidere
-and a Venus de Medici, and nourished men who were masters of the earth
-and of mind; and it is evident that she cannot fall without important
-consequences to the beaux Arts and Literature.
-
-They exhibit her, as the main support and promoter of the debasing,
-sensual tenets of Mahomet, in countries where the Apostles, and even
-Christ, toiled and suffered. They exhibit her, as the systematic
-opposer of the message of the Prince of Peace, to her distracted
-provinces--the only balm for their wounds--the only physician for their
-souls; and the effect of her fall on the highest of interests cannot be
-unimportant.
-
-What then is to be the influence of the prostration of the Ottoman sway
-in these cradles of early knowledge, upon literature, science, and the
-beaux arts?
-
-Winklemann, in his history of sculpture, assigns as a principal reason
-of the superiority of the Greeks in that sublime art over other
-nations, the circumstance of their inhabiting a land so surpassingly
-endowed by nature; and with much truth. Their bodies, neither chilled
-nor contracted by the long winters of the north, nor softened into
-lassitude and effeminacy by the tropical sun, but continually moving
-and breathing in the purest air, under the mildest and most brilliant
-of skies, whose loveliness was constantly exciting in the mind the most
-agreeable trains of thought, attained, in their fair proportions, to a
-harmonious keeping with the beauty around.
-
-Close observation must convince every candid mind, that there is some
-truth in the grand outlines of Phrenology. Forms such as aided in the
-conception of those master pieces of ancient statuary, were never, and
-never will be, inhabited by inferior or grovelling spirits. Vitiated
-they may be by extraneous circumstances. Their noble faculties may be
-turned to unworthy purposes. Corrupted by long intercourse with the
-morally debased, they may, like the modern Greek, suffer the imputation
-of being worse than their examples. But this is the proof of the
-position. They are bad, but like Lucifer they are greatly so.
-
-How long is this to be the case with Greece? Emphatically no longer.
-Already by the aid of the missionary and foreign science, she is
-realizing the fable of the renascent phenix; already are those whose
-beauty of person long years of servitude have been unable to destroy,
-renewing the moral beauty of the spirit within; already are they
-turning those powers which made them remarkable in depravity to their
-proper channels. And he, whose love for the human family, or reverence
-for the classic scenes of Greece, has led him to peruse the late
-accounts from thence: if he has observed the avidity with which they
-seek instruction, when they once taste of its sweets: if he has noticed
-their teachable spirit, rapid improvement, exhibitions of ingenuity
-and taste: his bosom has exulted in the sober certainty that Greece
-will be herself again. But why has this fair morn at last dawned over
-this singularly illustrious land? The answer is plain. Mahometan
-despotism and ignorance no longer hold sway within her borders. If this
-be so, what is to be the effect of the removal of Turkish intolerance
-and misrule, and the establishment of an enlightened and responsible
-government over the shores of the Levant, in the same parallels of
-latitude? Are the fields of Anatolia less rich than those of Greece, or
-her harbors less promising for commerce? or are the Greeks, scattered
-through those regions, who at least double the number of those in their
-father-land, less capable of moral improvement? Is the conclusion drawn
-from unfair premises, that the day of the deliverance of this country
-is near--that the angel of knowledge will again spread his wings over
-Anatolia, Palestine, Arabia, Egypt, her ancient home? The conclusion is
-not, can not be false. The same physical influences operate now as in
-days of old, though the misrule of man may have marred their effects.
-The same high cast of mind is there which won immortality for their
-fathers: and why may not spring up in those regions, under a wiser
-government, and a purer religion, a people, in arts and science even
-superior to the ancients? Why may there not arise, under the auspices
-of virtue and wisdom, new models for a Venus or an Apollo? Why may not
-the Parian marble there rise into temples of as fair proportions as
-that of Olympus or of Minerva, reared for nobler purposes, dedicated to
-a far higher and holier worship?
-
-The influence of the subversion of the greatest rival of the Christian
-church, is a subject replete with interest. When the mere politician,
-unswayed by the fond hope which might influence the Christian’s
-decision, publishes to the world as certain the prostration of
-Turkey--when the disciple of Jesus may at length point the startled
-infidel to the tottering fabric of Mahometanism, which he has impiously
-dared to name as co-enduring and co-equal with the pure Christian
-faith, and bid him look on, as column after column is torn away from
-the crumbling structure, as Immanuel is triumphing where Mahomet
-ruled--when the finger of the Almighty is writing as palpably the
-sentence of this unparalleled imposture as when it traced on the wall
-the doom of Babylon--what heart does not glow with deeper gratitude,
-overflow with more fervent thanksgivings, and pray with strengthened
-faith?
-
-The time is to be when “nations shall be born in a day:” and from the
-ardent character of the east, it seems not improbable that it is to be
-witness of this latter as it was of the former triumphing of the cross.
-
-It is an especial appointment of providence, that nations more
-advanced in civilization must necessarily labor for the improvement of
-those which are less so. So the East once labored for the West. Now
-the nations of the west, with their Institutions of Learning--their
-Presses--their Forges--their Dock Yards--working together for the
-perfection of human knowledge, and for facilitating its diffusion--pour
-light of constantly increasing brightness over the East. Still greater
-commotions must soon follow in these early inhabited regions. Their
-renovation must advance rapidly and steadily. There may and doubtless
-will be times of apparent retrogradation, but it will be like the
-flood-tide waves, which roll back from the shore only to mount still
-higher on their return. It may be said that these things are uncertain,
-because they are future; but it is not necessarily so. The diffusion of
-sound political principles, and the rising of the Sun of Righteousness
-over these nations, seem as clearly heralded by these events, as is the
-coming of the material sun when morning is breaking in the east, the
-night-damps leaving the earth, the clouds decking themselves in gold
-and purple, and all nature waking for the duties of a new day.
-
-
-
-
- THOUGHTS ON THE DEATH OF AN AGED FRIEND.
-
-
- I stood beside his death-bed, and a smile,
- Like the last glance of the departing sun,
- Played on his features; life was ebbing fast,
- And death was creeping o’er him stealthily--
- And yet he smiled, as the last hour came on.
-
- We gathered round him, and his eye grew dim,
- And his voice faltered, and the shortening breath
- Came through his parted lips convulsively--
- The last faint accents of a murmured prayer:
- And then we turned us from his couch, and wept
- That the dear ties were severed, which had bound
- Our hearts in kindred intercourse:--We grieved
- That he whom we had loved so tenderly,
- Should pass away with the forgotten dead.
-
- Oh, there is something saddening in the thought
- Of death, whene’er it comes. To stand beside
- The death-bed of a dear and cherished one;
- To mark the tristful pangs, the hopes and fears,
- To see the perishing form of loveliness,
- And hear the last fond parting word--_farewell!_
- And then to gaze upon the lifeless form,
- To part the damp locks from the marble brow,
- And wipe the death-dews which have gather’d there;
- To lay the sleeper in his narrow house,
- And leave him with the cold and listless dead,--
- Oh, it is saddening!--and the tide of tears--
- The warm, warm tears, that gush from feeling hearts--
- Oh, they are holy!--And there is a bliss,
-
- When the heart swells with anguish, and when grief
- Chokes up the spirit in its agony--
- Oh, there is something--and ’tis like the dew
- Which evening sheds upon the summer flower,
- And weighs it down, until it bows itself,
- And pours the bright drops from its secret cell.
-
- Oh, holy is the fountain of those tears,
- And pure their gushing. ’Tis a holy thing
- To weep at such an hour. ’Tis manliness
- To yield the heart to feeling, and to loose
- The shackles that so cramp its energies,
- And bind it down to the unfeeling world.
-
- Yet why thus mourn for those who die, when age
- Has made existence but a weariness?
- Why grieve that they should cast aside the coil
- That binds them to the earth and wretchedness?
-
- We do not weep at Autumn; when the leaves
- Lie in the valleys--mortals never weep
- When the tree casts its fruitage, or when flowers,
- Blooming through the mild months, all fade away
- In their appointed season: Then why weep
- For those whose years have passed the destined bourne
- Of man’s existence.--Rather let us weep
- For the young flower that blossometh and dies,
- Ere it hath seen the noon-day. Rather mourn
- For those, the sweet and beautiful of earth,
- Who die in youth’s bright morning.
-
- Tears for the flowers, and the young buds of hope,
- That wreathe Death’s altar:--let us weep for them.
- But let us dash away the sorrowing tear,
- That falls upon the aged sleeper’s grave;
- And joy that he has left this sinful world,
- And sought a purer and a happier sphere,
- Where sorrow never comes, and where no care
- Blanches the cheek, and makes the spirit sad;
- Where sin hath never entered, to pollute
- The perfect sense of happiness; where all
- The great and good of earth for ever dwell,
- In the soft sun-shine of _Eternal youth_.
-
- H.
-
-
-
-
- “THE OMNIBUS.”[1]
-
-[1] An “Omnibus” (this explanation is one of pure politeness on our
-part, and for the sake of the uninitiated) is a substitute for an
-Album; in which, any thing, every thing, and nothing, are quartered
-heterogeneously, and made good friends--supposing all this time that
-the thing be kept within the pale of proprieties. They are with, or
-without covers--written in black or red ink--up or down--crossways or
-otherwise, just as it happens. They were first got up by a certain
-_coterie_ of ladies, who had sense enough to see that “Albums” are very
-sentimental and very ridiculous, owing to the extreme nicety with which
-a man must scribble for them; and that by introducing a little more
-latitude in this respect, the evil might in a measure be remedied. The
-result, ’tis thought, has shown their wisdom.
-
-
- I.
-
-“Come, write in my ‘Omnibus,’” said a sweet girl to me, with an eye
-that made one’s heart bump, and a lip that made him dream dreams. I
-looked into that eye, and at that lip--they almost unmanned me, yet I
-shook my head.
-
-She looked imploringly.
-
-“Can’t,” stammered I at last, though it choked me to say so.
-
-“Pray do,” and she laid her soft white hand on mine. Heavens and Earth!
-how the touch of that little hand thrilled through me--burnt along my
-arm--then down into my heart. Yet I remembered my resolution--I made
-it the day before--I swore by my happiness I’d never touch pen again.
-Still, there lay that hand--the long tapering fingers--I counted
-them one way, then t’other--how pretty they looked! I tried to look
-away--I looked at the four corners of heaven--some how or other, my
-eyes came right back again. Then I felt a soft pressure, those fingers
-contracted, they clasped--it was all over with me--the grasp of
-Hercules were nothing to it.
-
-The first thing I did was to kiss them--the next, find my senses. She
-blushed, I fidgeted.
-
-“Think out something”--the sound was like a brook in summer.
-
-So I thought, and thought, and thought--
-
-Thought I was by the ocean. Every body has stood by the ocean. Every
-body loves the ocean. They love it because ’tis beautiful. They love it
-because ’tis terrible. Who that could ever tell his passions, as he has
-seen the giant rouse himself--the black sky split by the thunder-bolt,
-and so brazen and fiery that it seemed crisping, and “about to roll
-away with a great noise”--the driving wind--the bellowing thunder--the
-crashing deck--the rattling cordage--the death shriek of the
-sea-shipped wretch as the wave went over him--the horror-like eye’s
-last glance upon you! But I don’t mean such an ocean. It wasn’t such an
-one that I was standing by. It was a pretty considerable, magnificent,
-almighty, great sheet of water as far as the eye went, with a sky above
-that made one’s heart leap to look at it--its depth of blue seeming
-to stretch away and away, field after field, without a mist or cloud
-in it to mar its beauty--one unbounded, unshadowed sweep of glory and
-magnificence. The winds, soft and balmy, went whirling and whimpering
-along its surface, curling and crinkling it into small white waves,
-that, racing and capering up the beach, sparkled and turned into
-bubbles, and were caught up by the sun beams. Here and there the waters
-break. The huge porpoise went plunging, and sousing, and weltering
-along his blue path, flapping his huge tail into the air, and grunting
-his happiness--the bright light refracted from his surface, came to
-the eye like a rainbow. Here and there the flying fish slipped from
-his element, and went careering away over the far waters, till with a
-light dash or slap, his white wings dipped again into the ocean. The
-distance had one sail, a single one, right on the horizon’s edge--type,
-methought, of a being shut from the world--a human heart cut loose from
-sympathy--on the black desert of man’s pilgrimage. Such was the scene.
-I felt it. I rose, and stood, and shouted, and--
-
-
- II.
-
-Thought I was down in the ocean--right on the bottom. Whew! what a
-place it was!--saw all sorts of things, living and dead--all colors,
-good and bad--all shapes, hateful and fascinating. Here I wandered
-through endless groves of coral. Aloft went the light shafts tapering
-away into the blue distance, then branching forth into a glorious
-canopy, through which came the broken light with a mellowed beauty,
-not unlike the sun’s beams through a polished fresco-worken slab
-of alabaster. The waves swung backwards and forwards through this
-submarine forest, and their rush made the tall shafts quiver like
-aspen boughs in the tempest wind; and the light coral twigs, here and
-there detached by the waters, fell thick and fast like star showers
-in wintry nights. Nor should I forget the sounds of those waters as
-they tossed up the shells which were scattered there, and witched from
-them a music, that tripped and tilted through the brain, like Mab
-and her melodies in moonlight vision. It changed! I was in a desert!
-Rocks and barren surfaces above, beneath, around me! Wild cliffs--rent
-fastnesses--deep chasms--yawning and gaping like the cleft jaws of
-Hell! They had wrecks, and ruins, and dead men, and skeletons, and
-skulls in them. Here were fragments of those mighty tenements, that
-once rode in triumph on the wave’s surface. There were those black
-engines, wont to belch forth “their devilish glut,” and flame, and
-thunder. Here were skeletons--some hugging in mortal conflict. They
-were grappled together, as when death overtook them--their jaws yet
-apart, as the last curse dwelt on them, the moment the bolt came.
-There were friends too, parent and child, husband and wife, lover and
-maiden--laid as they died, locked heart to heart, each on the other’s
-breast, the two a unity. I sickened, shuddered, gasped--
-
-
- III.
-
-Thought I was in a forest--a bright, a green, a glorious forest. My
-heart ached, and I had turned from the heated world and its miseries,
-and where the lofty branches had intertwined and woven a pleasant
-twilight dwelling place, I sat me down to meditate. Then I scribbled
-and scribbled--and thus, I scribbled--
-
- This is indeed a sacred solitude,
- And beautiful as sacred. Here no sound
- Save such as breathes a soft tranquillity,
- Falls on the ear; and all around, the eye
- Meets nought but hath a moral. These deep shades--
- With here and there an upright trunk of ash
- Or beech or nut, whose branches interlaced
- O’ercanopy us, and, shutting out the day,
- A twilight make--they press upon the heart
- With force amazing and unutterable.
- These trunks enormous, from the mountain side
- Ripp’d roots and all by whirlwinds--those vast pines
- Athwart the ravine’s melancholy gloom
- Transversely cast--these monarchs of the wood,
- Dark, gnarl’d, centennial oaks that throw their arms
- So proudly up--those monstrous ribs of rock
- That, shiver’d by the thunder-stroke, and hurl’d
- From yonder cliff, their bed for centuries,
- Here crush’d and wedged--all by their massiveness
- And silent strength, impress us with a sense
- Of Deity. And here are wanted not
- More delicate forms of beauty. Numerous tribes
- Of natural flowers do blossom in these shades,
- Meet for the scene alone. At ev’ry step,
- Some beauteous combination of soft hues,
- Less brilliant though than those which deck the fields,
- The eye attracts. Mosses of softest green,
- Creep round the trunks of the decayed trees;
- And mosses, hueless as the mountain snow,
- Inlay the turf. Here, softly peeping forth,
- The eye detects the little violet
- Such as the city boasts--of paler hue,
- But fragrant more. The simple forest flower,
- And that pale gem the wind flower, falsely named,
- Here greet the cautious search--less beautiful
- Than poets feign, though lovely to the eye.
- These with their modest forms so delicate,
- And breath of perfume, send th’ unwilling heart
- And all its aspirations, to the source
- Of Life and Light. Nor woodland sounds are wanting,
- Such as the mind to that soft melancholy
- The poet feels, lull soothingly. The winds
- Are playing with the forest tops in glee,
- And music make. Sweet rivulets
- Slip here and there from out the crevices
- Of rifled rocks, and, welling ’mid the roots
- Of prostrate trees or blocks transversely east,
- Form jets of driven snow. Soft symphonies
- Of birds unseen, on ev’ry side swell out,
- As if the spirit of the wood complain’d
- Harmonious, and most prodigal of sound;
- And these can woo the spirit with such power,
- And tune it to a mood so exquisite--
- That the enthusiast heart forgets the world,
- Its strifes, and follies--and seeks only here
- To satisfy its thirst for happiness.
-
-
- IV.
-
-Thought I was on an island--the brightest thing ever dancing in a
-poet’s vision, a perfect Eden-spot, an Elysium--
-
- Ye of the pure heart, come to me!
- List to a tale of Poesy;
- List--for, for it, ye may better be--
- So scorn not the minstrel’s minstrelsy.
- Ye with a brow like the broken wave’s drift,
- With an eye whose light is the first star of even,
- When it streameth afar through the sky’s red rift,
- The only and loveliest thing in heaven;--
- Ye with a cheek like the marble fair,
- Ye with a lip like the bright summer dew,
- Ye with a softness and loveliness there
- That Fancy never drew;--
- Whose hands and whose hearts have been ever lent,
- As spirits of mercy from Heaven sent:--
- Ye have the pure heart--come to me!
- List to a tale of poesy;
- Give me your ear--give me your smile--
- List to the lay of ‘The happy Isle.’
-
- That Isle--so beautiful to view!
- No poet’s fancy ever drew;
- He had not dreamed of such a thing,
- With all the beauty he could bring.
- It lay upon the open sea,
- It lay beneath the stars and sun--
- A thing, too beautiful to be,
- A jewel, cast that sea upon.
- The winds came upward to the beach--
- The waves came rolling up the sand--
- Then backward with a gentle reach,
- Now forward to the land,
- Sparkling and beautiful--tossing there,
- Then vanishing into the air.
- The winds came upward to the beach--
- The waves came upward in a curl--
- Then far along the shore’s slope reach,
- There ran a line of pearl.
- And shells were there of every hue--
- From snowy white, to burning gold--
- The jasper, and the Tyrian blue--
- The sardonyx and emerald;
- And o’er them as the soft winds crept,
- A melody from each was swept--
- For melody within each slept,
- Harmoniously blended;
- And never, till the winds gave out,
- And ceased the surf its tiny shout,
- That melody was ended:
- Morn, noon, and eve, was heard to be,
- The music of those shells and sea.
- The winds went upward from the deep--
- The winds went up across the sand--
- And never did the sea winds sweep
- Over a lovelier land.
- The northern seas, the southern shores,
- The eastern, and the western isles,
- Had rifled all their sweets and stores,
- To deck this lovely place with smiles:
- And mounts were here, and tipp’d with green,
- And kindled by the glowing sun;
- And vales were here, and stretch’d between,
- Where waters frolic’d in their fun:
- And goats were feeding in the light,
- And birds were in the green-wood halls;
- And, echoing o’er each hilly height,
- Was heard the dash of waterfalls:
- O! all was beauty, bliss, and sound;
- A Sabbath sweetness reigned around;
- All was delight--for every thing
- Was robed in loveliness and spring--
- Color, and fragrance, fruit, and flower,
- Were here within this Island bower.
-
- But purer, sweeter, brighter far--
- Brighter than Even’s earliest star,
- Was she, the spirit of the place,
- The mortal with an angel’s face.
- A form of youthful innocence,
- With love, and grace, and beauty rife--
- As erst, from ocean’s tossing foam,
- Fair Venus sparkled into life.
- Around her pale and placid brow,
- By long and auburn ringlets hid,
- A radiant flame ran circling,
- And o’er her face a lustre shed.
- Her eye, so full--a spirit nursed,
- So blue--it seem’d a part of heaven,
- So light--it was the sudden burst
- Of meteors mid the stars of even.
- A robe of azure pale she wore,
- Her matchless symmetry concealing;
- Save where her bodice oped before,
- Her soft and snowy breast revealing.
- And in her hand (her arms were free)
- She bore a reed from ocean’s side;
- Her feet were bare-- * * *
- * * * * * * *
-
-
- V.
-
-Thought I was in love. Heavens! what a creature she was! Her form
-was like a fairy’s; and her face, about which the flaxen ringlets
-fell long, and soft, and silky, was at once so arch and sweet, it
-witched the very soul out of me before I knew it. Her picture is
-before me.--Her head like Juno’s, when she walked before the Olympic
-Thunderer, and yet a woman’s; her brow, high, and white, and pure;
-eyes of heaven’s own coloring, and bright, and ustrous, and large,
-and full, in whose crystalline depths slept a soul such as--as--you
-must guess at, reader, I can’t think of a comparison; a cheek, the
-eloquent beauty of which melted away so gradually into the pure
-transparency of her temples, that the eye lost it, and was wandering
-away, up, and around them, before it became aware of its own vagaries;
-and her mouth--Heavens and Earth! it was altogether and absolutely,
-the sweetest, prettiest, pouting, come-kiss-me, little mouth, I ever
-looked at; and her voice--her voice--how clear and musical--there was
-nothing like her clear, happy laugh--it rung like an instrument--like
-the silvery bell in the Faery Tale; and when she prettily bade me sit
-at her feet, and look up into her clear bright eyes--pooh! I might as
-well have attempted to knock Destiny on the head at once, and steer
-the boat of life myself, as keep from doing her bidding; and her
-form, robed as she was in her white cymar, with a single rose in her
-hair--the neck--the full bust--the rounded arm--the graceful curvature
-and wavy sweep of her folded dress, as it swelled from her glittering
-zone and fell to her feet--dear me! dear me--I--but this will do for a
-description.
-
-Her name was Fan.
-
-One beautiful twilight--I shan’t forget it soon--one twilight, as the
-sun went, and right over his glorious resting place, the clouds of
-evening, like an enormous sweep of woven chrysolite, hung pinned by a
-single star to the blue wall of heaven--I sat and gazed at that star,
-then into her eyes; now into her eyes, and then at that star again;
-and--I grew silly.
-
-Says I, “Fan!”
-
-Says she, “Frank!”
-
-“You are very pretty,” says Frank.
-
-“You are very impudent,” says Fan.
-
-She shook her head at me, and drew her mouth into the queerest pucker
-imaginable.
-
-“Fanny,” said I seriously.
-
-She sobered.
-
-Some how or other, I got hold of her hand--’twas a pretty hand! I
-kissed it.
-
-“Don’t be silly;” and she gave me a cuff that made me see stars.
-
-“Fanny, I”--
-
-She looked softly at me.
-
-“Dearest Fanny, I”--
-
-She pouted.
-
-“I--I”--
-
-She blushed.
-
-“I--love you.”
-
-She sprang into my arms.
-
-Bending back her head, and shaking her long locks from her pretty brow,
-our lips--
-
-Hillo! reader, you are not getting sentimental, are you? Don’t now; for
-I’ve no sympathy with you--no more sentiment than a horse.
-
-But stop; here’s a bit, and written when things were tremendous. _Ecce
-signum!_
-
- O Fanny, sweet Fanny,
- I cannot tell why,
- But I live in the glance
- Of thy witching blue eye--
- In the light of the spirit
- And loveliness there:
- O! I cannot tell why
- I so love you, my fair!
-
- It is not--it is not
- Its mild beaming--far,
- Far excelling each lonely
- And dim gleaming star;
- It is not the beauty,
- The sweetness of face,
- The form of perfection,
- The movement of grace!
-
- It is not, thou lovest me--
- For ere I had heard
- Thy low sweet confession
- As murmur of bird;
- Ere thou told’st me, my beauty,
- Thy dreams were all mine;
- I cannot tell thee why--
- But I knew I was thine.
-
- A charm floats around,
- And I feel while with thee,
- Though a poor silly captive,
- No wish to be free;
- O! thus to be bound
- In a thraldom like this--
- Though a thraldom indeed,
- ’Tis the sweetest of bliss!
-
- I am thine, dearest Fanny,
- Yea, thine and forever--
- No dark storm of sorrow
- Our young hearts shall sever;
- We’ll live, dream, and sigh, love,
- Till time is no more;
- And when death comes, we’ll fly, love,
- To a sunnier shore!
-
-I suppose I felt considerably relieved after this Ætnæan effusion.
-’Twould have cooled the furnace where they put Shadrach, Meshach and
-Abednego. But hear the sequel! We pouted, quarreled, parted.
-
-After our first pout, I scribbled as follows--
-
- O! girls fantastic creatures are,
- Vexing us--teasing us;
- Now they’re here, now they’re there,
- Perplexing us--pleasing us;
- See you here a soft blue ee,
- O! beware--O! beware;
- For it melteth but to be
- For a snare--for a snare.
-
- I have loved a gentle girl;
- How I loved--how I loved--
- Witness it, my bosom’s whirl
- When she moved--when she moved;
- Life, soul, feeling, all sincere,
- Bound up in her--bound up in her;
- She has left me, and I’m here,
- A wound up sinner--a wound up sinner.
-
- Left me, and without a smile,
- Save a cold one--save a cold one;
- Not a word there fell the while,
- Save some old one--save some old one;
- My heart about to burst, and chain’d
- As by a spell--as by a spell;
- She could falter, unconstrained,
- Fare thee well--fare thee well.
-
- O! I loved her; (may I be
- For it forgiven--for it forgiven;)
- Rather, than a thing of clay,
- As a thing of Heaven--a thing of Heaven;
- Feelings, none I had but went
- Straightway there--straightway there;
- When I prayed, her image blent
- With my prayer--with my prayer.
-
- When she went, there was I,
- Like her shade--like her shade--
- When she call’d, I was by,
- And there I staid--there I staid;
- If her soft eye sadden’d seem’d,
- I could smile--I could smile--
- Till that soft eye gladden’d seemed,
- As erewhile--as erewhile.
-
- I presented her a ring,
- Which she took--which she took;
- And her words fell murmuring,
- Like a brook--like a brook;
- Soft her eye’s glance fell upon me,
- Even there--even there--
- When its gentle meanings won me
- Like a prayer--like a prayer.
-
- She has left me, and I’m here,
- Desolate--desolate;
- She has left me, nor a tear
- For my fate--for my fate:
- O! to be thus coldly parted,
- Nor relief--nor relief--
- And to be thus broken hearted,
- This is grief--this is grief.
-
- Yet, I love her--I confess it,
- More than ever--more than ever;
- Love’s a stream--you can’t repress it,
- Mine’s a river! mine’s a river!
- Life, soul, feeling, all are given,
- All my store--all my store;
- In her, round her--there’s my Heaven,
- I want no more--I want no more.
-
-
- VI.
-
-Thought I was with my mother. Mother! reader, hast thou a mother? not
-a mere nominal parent--one who brought thee into the world, and then
-left thee to struggle in’t--one who gave thee but a moiety of her
-tenderness? Nay, nay; I do not mean such. But I mean, one whose very
-life was wrapp’d up in thee, one whose eye moistened with thine, whose
-voice faltered with thine, whose heart reflected every shadow which
-passed over thy heart, even as a lake the summer clouds, that idle
-above its bosom. Such an one I mean--hadst ever such? I had--and how I
-loved her. Did I not?--the following verses prove it.
-
-
-
-
- MY MOTHER:
-
- (_In two Sonnets._)
-
-
- I.
-
- Dew to the thirsty flower, a rosy beam
- Of sunshine, or the melodies to Spring--
- Sounds to the sick man’s ear, a running stream,
- A humming-bird, a wild bee on the wing;
- Joy--to the earth-scorn’d soul, when all remote
- Is happiness and e’en Hope’s lamp is dim;
- Light--to the dungeon wretch, when the last note
- Comes through his grate of the sweet forest hymn;
- Her first-born’s breath that the young mother feels,
- When her dimm’d eye falls on her little one--
- A maiden’s priceless faith that love reveals,
- When heart meets heart in holy unison;--
- Than these--than all--O! sweeter far to me,
- Mother! are thoughts of home, of my sweet home, and thee.
-
-
- II.
-
- Virtue--with the first dawn of infant mind,
- Falling from lips that made it holier seem;
- Goodness--when deeds with precept were combined,
- To show the world--“religion is no dream;”
- Tears--when my heart was all too sad to weep them,
- Cares--when affliction press’d me bitterly,
- Watching--when none but love like thine could keep them,
- Rebukes--yet with a blessing in thine eye;
- An eye that watch’d me and would never sleep,
- A well-timed word to keep me in the way,
- A look, that made me go from thee and weep,
- A faith, that made thee watch, and kneel, and pray--
- These, these are thine--O! sweet are then to me,
- Mother! the thoughts of home, of my sweet home, and thee.
-
-Thus I valued her. But she’s in her grave now, and I often go there to
-watch and weep, and please myself with the vain fancy, that her spirit
-is bending over me. I always feel holier after it--as if I had come
-from another world--had been beyond the grave--had unravelled the great
-mysteries of life and death, and could now look upon life unsway’d by
-that natural Atheism which ever clings to humanity, and mingles in all
-our aspirations for the future. Watching and prayer ever better us. But
-by the grave of a loved one, there are still holier influences. We see
-them through the mirror of feeling. If they had faults, they have them
-no longer; and their virtues, we canonize them--they are relics--they
-are talismans which we lay on our hearts, and they are holier for the
-contact.
-
-Earth’s thoughts come not to the grave’s side. The idle, the giddy and
-gay, they do not jest here--the song of triumph ceases, the unfinished
-quip dies on the lip that made it. The famed, the haughty, the
-ambitious, they bring not their proud thoughts with them--they tread
-its holy precincts, and their schemes are forgotten. The school boy’s
-whistle is lower here, and the butterfly he chases so eagerly, scales
-the white palings and escapes--he will not follow him. The very flowers
-that bloom here, the osiers that swathe the grave of that little one
-and twine about the head stones--they teach us by their freshness, and
-our thoughts stir up the fountains in us, and the heart is hallowed by
-it.
-
-Come hither, thou parent--a father perhaps. This was thy heart’s pride
-and passion. Hope and promise were his. You had already marked his
-path. Here were the flowers--there the thorns. You saw him in fancy,
-out of his boyhood--the youth--the young man--his cheek glowing for the
-contest. Death came--and you laid him here.
-
-Come hither, thou parent--a mother perhaps. This was thy first born.
-You bore him on your heart; you nursed him; you hung over him; you wept
-and prayed for him as mothers only can do; and _you_ too, have laid
-him here. The little form you decked so--the locks that swung over a
-brow of silver--the face with its beauty, and light, and sweetness, and
-all the innocency of happy childhood--the clear silver shout of his
-joy--the step that ran to thee--the lip that pouted for the morning and
-evening kiss--aye! here they are--look at them.
-
-And who art thou, mourner?--thou that lookest not up to the glorious
-sky, or abroad on the fair face of the creation of God; but, wrapped in
-the selfishness and solitude of thy grief, standest here like a lone
-monument of dead men’s histories--who art thou? Thine eye is on that
-slab there; ’tis a maiden’s. Thou lovedst her perhaps; her heart beat
-to thee; her lip was free to thy wooing. She was decked for a bridal;
-the rite had sealed her thine; and death strewed thy bridal couch with
-rosemary, and rue, and the gloomy cypress.
-
-And what do these here? They come here to weep, for it sanctifies them.
-They come from the roar, and bustle, and heartlessness of life, and
-they would listen awhile to the eloquence of the shrouded dead. O!
-the dead are eloquent! The voice is low, yet louder than that of many
-waters! They tell us that our loved ones were not ours! They tell us
-that they were lent to us, and have now been reclaimed! They tell us,
-that though saddening, ’tis sweet to think of them, for they tie us and
-our souls to the purity of Heaven!
-
-Some men shudder as they look into a grave; and well they may, some of
-the world. But the heart is wrong which feels thus. Does the sight of
-land give pain to the shipwrecked? is the hope of freedom unwelcome
-at the dungeon? does the sound of waters please in the desert? does
-the thought of sleep annoy us when weary? does the hope of oblivion
-give pain when the heart aches? Why then should the thought of what
-is greater gain than all these come to our hearts, but to waken their
-holiest emotions?
-
- O! ’tis because there is a power within,
- Whisp’ring of good neglected--ill preferred--
- Duties cast off, and faculties misus’d!
- It is, because the mortal triumphs, while
- The purer passions, crushed or rooted out,
- Leave him to be enslaved,--and thus in moments
- When meditation, like a vestal waits
- Upon his heart, the buoyancy and peace
- Which should be his, give place to heaviness,
- And indefinable wretchedness of soul.
- O! could the heart be school’d--could it be made
- True to its nature--to the impress graved
- Upon it by the hand of Deity--
- Could it be made to balance good and ill,
- With purpose to be wise--could it but choose
- The pure, and love it for its purity--
- How blissful then, were thoughts of death and Heaven!
-
- * * * * *
-
-There--young lady! I’ve _thought_ for your “Omnibus,”--pray, what do
-you think?
-
- *
-
- * * * * *
-
-
- EPIGRAM,
-
- ON MR. ----, A BAD SINGER.
-
- The song of Orpheus and yours are one,
- Both caused mankind and beast to run,
- Only--_in different ways_;
- _To_ him they went like wild deer freed,
- _From_ you they go with equal speed,
- To shun your “awful lays.”
- Z.
-
-
-
-
- THE COFFEE CLUB.
-
- No. IV.
-
- “Authors who acquire a reputation by pilfering all their
- beauties from others, may be compared to Harlequin and his
- snuff, which he collected by borrowing a pinch out of every
- man’s box he could meet, and then retailed it under the
- pompous title of ‘_tabác de mille fleurs_.’”
-
- _Fitzosborne’s Letters._
-
- “If the work cannot boast of a regular plan, (in
- which respect, however, I do not think it altogether
- indefensible,) it may yet boast that the reflections are
- naturally suggested always by the preceding passage.”
-
- _Cowper’s Letters._
-
-
-_No est tan bravo il leon, como se pinta_--the lion is not so fierce
-as his picture--says the Spanish proverb, and such will doubtless be
-your exclamation, fair, gentle, indulgent, or judicious reader, (by
-whichever title you may please to be addressed,) when you discover that
-the heroes of the Coffee Club, invested by your scrutinizing sagacity
-with so many fictitious attributes, whether of honor or of dishonor,
-are in truth but cognate atoms with yourself in making up the mass of
-our small and secluded community. Nor will your self-satisfaction be at
-all enhanced, by the remembrance of the astute conjectures, ‘positive
-certainties,’ ‘perfect convictions,’ and ‘confidential informations,’
-which have afforded you matter of exultation for a season, but are, by
-the revealment of the truth, shown to be unfounded, and if cherished
-with vanity, ridiculous. Each, however, may soothe his chagrin, with
-the assurance that no one was wiser than himself, and that the secret,
-which baffled his endeavors, not even the talismanic power of woman’s
-curiosity could elicit.
-
-It is the eve of the farewell exercises of the class, and the last
-meeting of the Coffee Club. Tristo had thrown gloom upon our spirits,
-by a mournful _epitaph_ upon the pleasures and the duties, now buried
-in the past--but Pulito has reversed our feelings by a brilliant
-_epithalamium_, for our coming bridal day, on which we are to wed the
-_world_. So is it in life--we shed one tear over the past, and hasten
-on to catch the future.
-
- “Thrift, thrift, Horatio! the funeral baked meats
- Did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables.”
-
-In such a mood, the thoughts of all naturally reverted to the time when
-first we entered upon that stage in the journey of life, which we
-have now completed. As we traced our progress onward, and recalled our
-errors and our follies, our hopes and disappointments, our attainments
-and our short-comings, the desire of sympathy, of consolation, and
-encouragement, led to a full and free expression of our thoughts and
-feelings. Apple, however, as his cigar wreathed forth its exhalations,
-
- ‘Upward and downward, thwarting and convolved,’
-
-and puns and quips unceasing shot through their obscurity, like
-lightning through a cloud, seemed at first to be in no mood for the
-pathetic, or the serious. Pulito, too, after a brief and apparently
-regretful abstraction, broke forth in a strain half querulous, half
-laughing.
-
-_Pulito._ “Well, ‘gentlemen commoners,’ however discourteous the remark
-may appear to you and your society, I must ne’ertheless regret that I
-am not this evening where I might have been, in a certain far-famed
-street, and gazing upon a certain lovely face, whose owner’s name
-’twould be profanity to mention. I may say with the stricken Cowper,
-
- ‘Farewell to the _elm-tree_, farewell to the shade
- And the whispering sound of the cool colonnade.’”
-
-_Nescio_, (smiling.) “‘Lugete oh! Veneres Cupidinesque!’ As an old
-dramatist has it,
-
- ‘Your soul, retired within her inmost chamber,
- Like a fair mourner, sits in state with all
- The silent pomp of sorrow round about her.’”
-
-_Pulito._ “Yes, and to borrow from the same play, The Rival Ladies, I
-think,
-
- ‘Oh she is gone! methinks she should have left
- A track so bright, I might have followed her
- Like setting suns that vanish in a glory.’”
-
-_Nescio._ “For the sake of quoting beautifully, you quote without
-application.”
-
-_Apple_, (in a voice of thunder.) “Who in the name of heaven is it
-about whom you are making all this ‘tempest in a tea-pot?’ Girls,
-girls, girls, for ever and eternally! I wonder what you see in them!
-weak and shallow! It maddens me, Pulito, to see you, a fellow of some
-small sense, ‘bowing the knee in worship to an idol,’ a minion-queen, a
-painted doll--
-
- ‘A pagod thing of flirting sway,
- With front of brass, and feet of clay.’”
-
-_Pulito._ “Why, Apple, from your fierceness, I suspect you have lately
-met with a rebuff from some fair damsel.”
-
-_Apple._ “No, indeed I have not; I was afraid I should though, and
-did not give her a chance. I was acquainted with some of them once,
-and endeavored to patronize, instruct, and even please them. But they
-had neither the acuteness to perceive the point of my puns, nor the
-complaisance to laugh at them, even when I led the way. In fact--the
-fiends scorch their pictures!--I believe they laughed _at_ instead of
-_with_ me. ‘Flattery is nectar and ambrosia to them.’ They drink it in
-and enjoy it like an old woman sucking metheglin through a quill.”
-
-_Pulito._ “I allow that
-
- ----‘if ladies be but young and fair,
- They have the gift to know it.’
-
-But this is chargeable upon us, who are accustomed to lie to them about
-their charms, as a matter of course.”
-
-_Apple._ “Then, too, if beautiful, they can scarce be good. For,
-‘honesty coupled to beauty, is to have honey a sauce to sugar.’”
-
-_Pulito._ “How! Is what is fair at surface necessarily foul at heart?
-
- ‘Why what a world is this, where what is comely,
- Envenoms him that bears it.’”
-
-_Apple._ “And how wide is their information, scientific, literary,
-political, moral! Their wits ‘are dry as a remainder biscuit after a
-voyage.’”
-
-_Pulito._ “Well, Apple, I should think you had exhausted Shakspeare and
-yourself for terms of reproach: yet it still remains true, that they
-are the dearest, sweetest things ‘_in rerum naturâ_,’ and
-
- ‘Should fate command me to the farthest verge
- Of the green earth,’
-
-I shall still love them one and all.”
-
-_Nescio._ “Yes.
-
- ‘Dulcé ridentem Lalagen amabo
- Dulcé loquentem.’”
-
-_Tristo._ “I am no ladies’ man. I am too grave for their society. Yet
-I am willing to acknowledge that, together with their influence, they
-are half that makes life valuable. They are the purifying and refining
-ingredient in the seething caldron of society. Their perceptions
-are more rapid and acute than ours, and if deceitful, it is from
-_necessity_, which you know is the mother of _invention_.”
-
-_Pulito._ “For my part, the absence of those pretty faces, which I have
-been wont to see in my ‘walk and conversation,’ will greatly deepen my
-regret at leaving this delightful place.”
-
-_Apple._ “Pooh! couldn’t you sentimentalize a bit? ‘_Pone me pigris ubi
-nulla campis, Arbor æstivâ recreatur aurâ_,’ &c. Turn me adrift in New
-England, New Guinea, or New Zealand, and let me have good meats, good
-drinks, good _kapniphorous_ cigars and a dozen comedies, and I don’t
-care a rush.”
-
-_Pulito._ “Oh! what an _animal_! Why, Dumpling, do you suppose you have
-a _soul_, or are you a mere lump of flesh, a ‘congregation of skin,
-bone and spissitude,’ to use one of your own ridiculous phrases?”
-
-_Apple._ “Yes, Pully, I suspect I have such a thing as a soul
-somewhere--but I cannot determine its _locale_--neither do I fash my
-beard thereanent, since it is the only _immaterial_ thing about me, ha!
-ha!”
-
-_Nescio._ “That’s Apple, through and through, to circumvent truth by a
-quibble.”
-
-_Pulito._ “But have you no sympathy with this verdant city and its
-lovely scenes? Why, this very evening,
-
- ‘When the sweet wind doth gently kiss the trees.
- And they do make no noise,’
-
-is a copy of Paradise.”
-
-_Apple._ “Yes! the ‘Paradise of fools.’”
-
-_Pulito._
-
- “‘On such a night
- Stood Dido, with a willow in her hand,
- Upon the wild sea-banks, and waved her love
- To come again to Carthage.’”
-
-_Apple._
-
- “‘On such a night did young Pulito strive
- T’ unseal the fount of feeling in his heart,
- And be poetic--_but he could not do it_.’”
-
-_Pulito._ “The air is like the breath of birds.”
-
-_Apple._ “Such birds as caged pullets and mousing owls, probably, ha!
-ha!”
-
-_Pulito._ “And then the cemetery, and these streets high-overarched
-with their verdant walls of inwoven shade.”
-
-_Apple._ “Poetical, i’faith! _My_ only amusement in the
-_burying-ground_, as an unsophisticated gentleman like myself would
-call it, is to read the queer old epitaphs.”
-
-_Nescio._ “And mark how not even the ear of Death is secure from the
-poison of flattery.”
-
-_Apple._ “Pretty fair! I approve of that remark. As for these streets,
-strip them of their green guardians, and they would be dry enough to
-choke the wave-washed throat of Neptune himself. How can fellows walk
-over all creation for fine prospects--my best prospect, as a kindred
-spirit once said, is the prospect of a good dinner.”
-
-_Pulito._ “Surely, the view from East Rock is delightful.”
-
-_Apple._ “Undoubtedly, if there be two or three mountain nymphs hanging
-affectionately on your arm. Oh! triple horror! To toil through two long
-miles of dusty barrenness, and crawl _a la quadrupede_ up a mountain
-of shifting sand and triturated stones, to view a few houses included
-between shoal water and furze hills.”
-
-_Nescio._ “Methinks only a few weeks since, _you_ escorted thither some
-twelve or thirteen of these same mountain nymphs.”
-
-_Apple._ “To be sure I did, and therefore I can speak from experience.
-But it argues an unkind disposition in you, to fling a man’s errors
-and misfortunes in his teeth. I did perpetrate that act, and as I
-hope forgiveness, I am contrite therefor. We set off one morning,
-when it was so hot that the very clouds _smoked_, though _I_ could
-not--for what would Jonathan Oldbuck’s ‘_woman-kind_’ say? ‘The ladies
-be upon thee, Sampson,’ thought I. I could not laugh, though there
-was enough that was ridiculous, for I had corns. So I went sweating
-along under a load of milk-and-water refreshments, like a man carrying
-his own gibbet. I climbed up the hill like another Sisyphus, with a
-train of Sirens behind me. When there what saw we. Why, through a
-cracked spy-glass, I saw _Nescio Quod_ here, my own chum, coming out
-the bookstore--wonderful, thrilling, soul-stirring prospect! Then,
-lo! we had left the pine-apples a quarter of a mile from the foot of
-the mountain, where we had stopped to browse. Nothing would do--one
-lady was faint, and must have a little pine-apple juice--another
-sweet nymph, in an unguarded moment, said that her principal object
-in coming, was the pleasure of eating the pine-apples--and another
-rosy-cheeked, and not very sylph-like figure, remarked, that if Mr.
-Dumpling would be so good as to go after the basket, he should have the
-pleasure of her arm down the mountain. The devil of a pleasure, thought
-I; the sweet creature must have ‘gane daft, clean daft,’ or she would
-never have offered such an inducement--better for me ‘that a millstone
-were hanged about my neck,’ &c.--but down I must come, and down I came,
-and when I got down, I stayed down. I ate the pine-apples myself, and
-laid down under the shade till evening, when I slunk home, leaving
-the ladies to their other beaux. I had some excuse though, for, while
-‘midway between heaven and earth,’ I stumbled over a sweet-brier, and
-wrenched my ankle so excruciatingly, that Pope’s line occurred to my
-mind with some solemnity--
-
- ‘Die of a _rose_ in aromatic (_a rheumatic_) pain.’
-
-You take, do you? I managed, however, to reset the _luxed_ but by no
-means _luxurious_ joint, and grateful for my escape, I have forsworn
-the ladies, and pray for grace to keep my vow.”
-
-The laughter, long and loud, that succeeded the story of Apple’s
-tribulations, was a sort of clearing-up shower, and left the moral
-atmosphere in a temper more consonant with the seriousness of the hour.
-After a short breathing-space, the conversation broke forth anew, and
-in an entirely different channel. The sad peculiarity of our situation
-gave to our views, and possibly to our remarks, a tinge of bitterness
-and satire.
-
-_Pulito._ “Well, fellows, ‘our course is run, our errand done’ within
-these walls, and we are to leave them for ever--and why not bid
-farewell with a light heart and bounding hopes. To be sure, the vexings
-of the world will be rather uncomfortable. A gentlemanly air, and a
-languid intimacy with the ‘tricksy pomp’ of literature, will not make a
-man a President or a _millionaire_.”
-
-_Apple._ “The prospect is somewhat discouraging. I should have felt no
-misgivings at starting in the literary world a century ago, when the
-noble art of punning was duly appreciated and rewarded, as witness the
-celebrity of that great man, Dean Swift. Or I could have been content
-to have ruffled it with the quibbling, conceit-loving cavaliers, who
-basked in the smiles of Queen Bess. But now the principles of taste
-are sadly perverted, and this noble art, this sole distinctive mark of
-genius, has sought and found refuge only beneath the classic shades of
-College. It is truly sad to me, to think of leaving this last strong
-hold of wit and sentiment.”
-
-_Nescio._ “Why, Apple, your grief bewilders your mind. You began with
-talking about _punning_, and ended with wit and sentiment. Where is the
-connection?”
-
-_Apple._ “At least as close, Mr. Quod, as between your real and
-expressed opinion, when you speak so despitefully of this innocent and
-dignified amusement. But now we are on the subject, what is wit?”
-
-_Nescio._ “To which question I might reply, as Democritus did to him
-that asked the definition of a man--‘_tis that which we all see and
-know_.’ Such is the language of Barrow, the celebrated divine; I read
-it this very day. I however would admit no definition, that could
-possibly include a _pun_.”
-
-_Tristo._ “You go to an extreme there, Nescio. A mere play upon
-words, a mere coincidence of sounds, makes but a poor jest, and a
-ready facility in discovering and thrusting into conversation these
-‘imperfect sympathies,’ gives one but slight pretensions to the
-reputation of a wit. But there are some witticisms, which depend for
-their force upon a _pun_, but yet including also a racy humor, deserve
-the praise of true wit. I will read you an instance from Hazlitt:--“An
-idle fellow, who had only fourpence left in the world, which had been
-put by to pay for the baking of some meat for his dinner, went and
-laid it out to buy a new string for a guitar. An old acquaintance, on
-hearing this story, repeated these lines out of L’Allegro--
-
- ‘And ever against _eating_ cares
- Lap me in soft Lydian airs.’”
-
-Here the point of the jest lies in the pun upon _eating_, yet who does
-not acknowledge it as highly humorous. There are not many puns so
-refined and pure as this, but they sink in infinite and imperceptible
-gradations. You cannot draw a bold line between ‘the wit of words and
-wit of things.’ ‘For,’ as is said of Wit and Madness, ‘thin partitions
-do their bounds divide.’”
-
-_Pulito._ “Very true, and I detest that squeamishness, which would
-refuse the praise of wit to any thing approaching to a pun, and
-sympathize most heartily with poor Apple for his many rebuffs. But
-nevertheless, Apple, ‘a joke’s prosperity lies in the ear of the
-hearer,’ Shakspeare says, and one should not complain if his pet
-witticisms are not received with applause and answered with laughter.
-If the jest is worthless, he deserves ridicule--if it does contain the
-essence of wit he has only himself to blame for giving it an utterance,
-where it could not be appreciated. Think you that Addison would have
-displayed his delicate humor for the amusement of crabbed and adust
-bookworms, or Voltaire sported his sarcasms to tickle the ear of
-clowns? Let their example encourage and instruct you, my dear Apple,
-and if you cannot equal their fame, you may, at least, attain the
-celebrity of Joe Miller.”
-
-_Tristo._ “You will allow, however, Pulito, there is too often
-manifested a disposition to decry and disparage, when approbation would
-have been more natural. Censure is too often heard from lips, from
-which praise would have been more graceful, or silence more becoming.
-There are too many among us, who seek to rise upon the fall of their
-rivals--too many ‘frosty-spirited knaves,’ of whom it may be said, in
-bitterest truth, ‘not to admire is all the art they know.’”
-
-_Pulito._ “I have, however, been accustomed to regard such characters
-with more of pity than severity. I have regarded them as defrauded by
-nature of the just proportions of humanity. I have been vexed by their
-perversity, but no more inclined to resent it, than to chastise the
-ceaseless annoyances of a child or an idiot.”
-
-_Nescio._ “You underrate their _intellect_, that you may relieve
-their _heart_ from the imputation of baseness. True, he who is always
-searching for faults, without paying any attention to beauties, affords
-strong grounds for the conclusion, that he has no perception of the
-latter, and in his own experience is conversant only with the former:
-and he who is ever detecting plagiarisms, and starting resemblances,
-gives reason for the suspicion, that his acquaintance with the
-fountains of these stolen waters, is not so purely accidental, or
-so honorably gotten, as he would have us imagine. But deficiency of
-taste and weakness of mind are not the sole causes of such conduct.
-The _prompter_ of the whole is envy,--envy, the meanest passion of the
-human heart--the only one in which there is not some shade of honor,
-some trace of nobility. Ambition may be laudable--hate become a virtue
-from the loathsomeness of its object--covetousness acquire dignity from
-the excellence of the thing coveted--but the baseness of _envy_ is
-enhanced by the purity and splendor against which it is directed.”
-
-_Tristo._ “Not only is envy so mean a passion in itself, but it
-exerts a most debasing influence upon the intellect and whole
-character. Indeed, if we may believe Coleridge, the cherishing of it
-is incompatible with the existence of genius. His language is solemn;
-would that all the fosterers, or rather the _victims_, of this worst
-vice, to which we are by our situation exposed, might listen to his
-warning. ‘Genius may co-exist with wildness, idleness, folly, even with
-crime; but not long, believe me, with the indulgence of an envious
-disposition. Envy is both the worst and justest divinity, as I once saw
-it expressed somewhere in a page of Stobæus; it dwarfs and withers its
-worshippers.’”
-
-_Apple._ “To recall your attention, Tristo, to the subject from which
-we passed so suddenly to a more serious one, what think you of those
-who ‘wit-wanton it’ with things sacred, who at every breath break over
-the bounds of modesty, and outrage our sympathies with the true and
-the beautiful, for the sake of a momentary, and not unfrequently a
-shame-faced laugh?”
-
-_Tristo._ “Such persons do themselves and others more injury than
-they think. Their incessant insults to all refinement and delicacy
-of feeling, if unresented and unguarded against, at length deaden
-and efface these sentiments. Bulwer says well of such, ‘Their humor
-debauches the whole moral system--they are like the Sardinian
-herb--they make you laugh, it is true, but they _poison you in the
-act_.’”
-
-_Nescio._ “It is disgraceful that impurity should be an unequivocal
-characteristic of college wit. But it will be so, until some one shall
-demonstrate by his own example that there is no necessary connection,
-but rather an essential hostility between real humor and obscenity. But
-so long as it is easier to swim with the current than to buffet its
-dashings--so long as it is pleasanter to excite a hearty laugh, than
-encounter a cold sneer--so long as indolence and vacillation continue
-to be _descriptive marks_ of a student’s character--we need not hope
-for a change.”
-
-_Pulito._ “Whoever would attempt to effect one, should remember the
-aphorism, ‘He ought to be well mounted who is for leaping over the
-hedges of custom.’”
-
-_Tristo._ “If this license on the part of some deserves severe
-reprobation, the chilling churlishness of those, who can feel no
-sympathy with _pleasure_, be it ever so innocent--whose minds can
-admit but the single idea of the _useful_, and reject as trifling
-the elegant and refining--who, swallowed up in their admiration of
-moral beauty, lose sight of or depreciate intellectual symmetry,
-(forgetting that moral excellence, though it resemble in its value the
-priceless diamond, is not like it advantaged by a dull and roughened
-setting)--such, I say, must not pass without their share of censure,
-for they are in no slight degree the occasion, I will not say the
-cause, of the opposite vice in others.”
-
-_Pulito._ “Such illiberality frustrates the praise-worthy exertions
-of all who indulge in it. It places them out of the circle of
-influence--their efforts can no more reach those whom they desire
-to affect, than (to use a magniloquent simile) the perturbations of
-the moons of Uranus can sway the Earth’s satellite in its orbit.
-But beside the unfortunate reaction of such principles, is not this
-cutting off, ‘at one fell swoop,’ all amusements, this tying down
-to one staid rule of _formal observance_, youth of every variety of
-taste, talent and temperament, and brought up under every complexion of
-circumstances--this curbing of all tastes and inclinations, not within
-the _lawgiver’s_ capabilities--is it not based upon error of judgment,
-and directed by something of inquisitorial arrogance?”
-
-_Apple._ “I never listen to a specimen of such frosty philosophy,
-without recalling an anecdote, much to the point. It is found,
-originally, I believe, in one of Pope’s letters to Swift, though I read
-it somewhere else. ‘A courtier saw a sage picking out the best dishes
-at table. ‘How,’ said he, ‘are sages epicures?’ ‘Do you think, Sir,’
-said the wise man, reaching over the table to help himself, ‘do you
-think, Sir, that God Almighty made all the good things of this world
-for fools?’”
-
-_Tristo._ “The sage must have belonged to the sect _Deipnosophoi_, or
-‘Supper-wise,’ whom D’Israeli mentions. His principles, however, will
-apply in their full extent, I think, to the purer pleasures of taste
-and wit and literature.”
-
-_Pulito._ “Talk not to them of the ‘purer pleasures of taste, and
-wit, and literature,’ for these are their utter abomination--snares
-for the youthful mind--idle perversions of talent. Speak to them of
-the grand display of moral power in Shakspeare’s dramas, and for
-an unanswerable answer, they will point to a gross expression--and
-consistently enough too, for theirs is the morality of _words_. They
-cannot perceive that the _scope_ of all his principal plays is purely
-and symmetrically moral, or even religious--that they seldom violate
-the modesty of nature, though they may overstep the prudishness of an
-age when, ‘_La pudeur s’est enfuie des cœurs, et s’est refugiée sur
-les lévres._’--Modesty has fled from the heart, and taken refuge on
-the lips. They cannot admire the _overruling providence_, by which
-his untutored genius, apparently so wild and uncontrollable, has been
-unerringly directed to conformity with truth and virtue. In their
-esteem the pious Cowper would have been more worthy, had he devoted his
-talents to the _practical_ duties of ‘the clerk of the Commons,’ rather
-than have _wasted_ them in the unproductive pursuits of poetry.”
-
-_Nescio._ “Well, let them enjoy their opinions, provided they do not
-meddle with others in the gratification of their taste, or profess
-to judge in matters which they so virulently decry. The nightingale
-may not quarrel with the discordant braying of the ass, till the
-‘long-eared’ either attempt to ‘discourse sweet sounds’ himself, or
-criticise the melody of others.”
-
-_Pulito._ “‘Aye, there’s the rub!’ None are more prompt in criticising,
-none more forward to condemn, than these same individuals.”
-
-_Apple._ “Nothing ruffles the placidity of my temper so much, and so
-frequently, as the confidence with which some fellows, whose ignorance
-is absolute, pass judgment upon works of literature and taste. There
-are those, who cannot tell for their lives whether Walter Scott wrote
-Waverly or the Commentaries, or whether the author of Hudibras, the
-Reminiscences, and the Analogy, be not one and the same, who yet issue
-their unblushing firman upon any stray volume of poetry or romance,
-they may have chanced to pick up and gape through. I heard one, who
-could not count beyond ten, declare solemnly that he had no opinion
-of James, or Bulwer, and that J. K. Paulding could write better than
-either. Another, who had never seen a book, save the Family Bible,
-before he came to College, averred that Sterne, Smollett, Fielding, and
-Richardson united, never wrote any thing fit to be read by a man of
-good morals, or sound sense; and thought, moreover, that _Campbell’s_
-Thanatopsis was far inferior to _Bryant’s_ Pleasures of Hope! And still
-another affirmed that the plays of Shakspeare even, were ruinous to the
-interests of morality, and that all the other dramatists of England
-ought to be buried under the ruins of the stage they support. Upon
-sifting the fellow, however, I found he had never read a play, saving
-the Tempest, Comedy of Errors, and a couple of diluted operas in the
-London stage!”
-
-_Pulito._ “And yet these are they, who sit in daily judgment upon
-what they have neither the sense to comprehend, nor the delicacy to
-appreciate. These are they, who stigmatize every thing beautiful as a
-_rush_, and all that is novel to their narrow knowledge, as extravagant
-and wild. ’Tis a Bœotian criticising the dialect of Athens; a Scythian
-carping at the figures of Praxiteles. Shall the home-bred rustic, who
-thinks the middle of the sky directly above his head, and supposes that
-a walk of a day would bring his feet to the ‘blue concave,’ attempt to
-teach the life-long traveller the principles of society, and decide
-upon the manners and customs and wonders of the world? And yet it would
-be as reasonable to the full as the conduct of him, who, when his
-knowledge is confined to _particulars_, attempts to play the critic--a
-part, which, in its very nature, implies _generalization_ of the widest
-kind.”
-
-_Tristo._ “How can the poor catechumen, who has not yet donned the
-robes of his novitiate, nor raised his eyes to the vestibule, much
-less stood in his sacrificial garments by the High Altar in the
-Temple of the Muses, presume to decide upon the value and lustre of
-the treasures its _adyta_ conceal? It is as if the puny whipster, who
-fumes and gesticulates upon the academic stage, and whose thoughts and
-language are ‘a combination of disjointed things,’ should attempt to
-span or analyze the harmonious vastness and sweeping magnificence of an
-Edmund Burke.”
-
-_Pulito._ “There is likewise a species of grave wiseacres--sober fools,
-who are quite as senseless and less amusing than fools of the more
-fantastic turn. They think that wisdom dwells only upon sealed lips,
-and that strength of mind and sobriety of purpose, is _evidenced_ by
-nothing but a rueful face. These fellows (to use the old Greek phrase)
-‘lift the eyebrows’ with a dull forthshowing of meditative wisdom, and
-a countenance
-
- ----‘of such a vinegar aspect
- That they’ll not show their teeth in way of smile,
- Though Nestor swear the jest be laughable.’
-
-Oh rather give me a whole-hearted fool, with his eternal grin, than one
-of these sombre _unimpressible_ concretions of torpedo-stricken clay.”
-
-_Nescio._ “There are here, likewise, even as every where, many who
-can stop at no medium, but carry reasonable freedom to unwarrantable
-license. Because it is both pleasant and right to spend some time
-in general, and above all, in female society, some therefore, in
-their society fling away all their time, and, with their time, fling
-away character, and knowledge, and happiness, and worth. Because it
-is not well to be always bending over the learning of the present,
-and listening to the eloquence of the past, some therefore, double,
-wheel, march, and countermarch through these dusty streets during the
-long hours of a summer’s day, and when they catch a glimpse at the
-shadow of a female form, they experience a momentary heaven. Others,
-remembering that it is irrational to crucify the senses, and mortify
-the flesh, smoke, eat, and sleep, continually. Others, hearing that as
-well profit as delight may be reaped from the inspection of fancy’s
-fairy finger-work, are on the tiptoe of panting expectation for each
-miserable novel that falls lifeless from the press. And thus it was,
-thus it is, thus it will be.”
-
-_Pulito._ “But idleness--idleness is the student’s bane. It is
-astounding how we throw away our time, and our best time--our
-spring-hour of life. Time is the medium of acquisition, and, losing
-_that_, we lose all. I am no Utopian in theory, nor visionary in
-practice: neither am I free from the follies I deplore. But the strides
-which _might_ be made in our collegiate course, would be mighty and
-amazing.”
-
-_Nescio._ “I agree with you. Every ordinary mind, by more judicious
-application, might accomplish double what it does. I do not mean that
-just twice as much would be read, or acquired; but that the _mind_
-would be twice as far advanced. It would not only have received twice
-the strength, and twice the beauty, from the studies it had actually
-traversed, but would be doubly fitted to grasp, conquer, and improve
-whatever might afterwards occur. The progress of the mind is in
-geometrical ratio. Every new and liberal idea, that is gained by a boy
-of twelve, is a capital which will return with yearly and enormous
-interest. It is analogous to the gaining of worldly wealth, where you
-must _hew_ your slow and narrow path from nothing to competence; but
-from competence to opulence, the road is broad and easy.”
-
-_Pulito._ “I cannot divine the _modality_ (as the schoolmen might
-say) of some minds--the manner, in which they operate. For I know of
-those, who for four years have toiled with desperate firmness, and
-are what they were. They seem to have pursued a mill-horse track,
-without the remotest conception that there was aught else of value in
-the universe beside. Now I complain not of the rigor or of the nature
-of our course. Stern application is our only hope, and the course of
-authors we peruse, is perhaps as good as could be devised; but it is
-the _spirit_ with which they study. They consider what they here gain,
-not as a _mean_, but as an _end_. Every man, who would be ‘aut Cæsar,
-aut nullus,’ and whose eye goes forward to the ‘immensum infinitumque’
-of Tully, _must generalize_--_must_ view things _relatively_--_must_
-consider every thing, not as a whole, but as a part. If one possess
-this generalizing spirit, I care not how undivided be his attention
-to the college course; for I believe that there is in the books of
-the first three years, beauty and grandeur and weight, sufficient to
-justify, nay _demand_, almost _entire_ attention. For instance, to
-gain a perfect intimacy with Horace--not an intimacy with his words
-merely, and sentiments--but an intimacy with his beauties--with his
-_soul_--would require one month of the severest study; and yet such an
-intimacy is requisite to justify studying him at all: for if he is not
-to be appreciated--if that evaporating something, wherein he differs
-so widely from a dull Latin proser, is not to be seen and felt--you
-might as well have been reading Cato upon gardening, or Vitruvius upon
-architecture. But these fellows in studying a foreign tongue, give the
-general sense in hap-hazard English, without gaining any insight into
-the philosophy of mind, or the theory of language.”
-
-_Apple._ “I think, moreover, that we ought to be more conversant with
-the sciences. Some of the details may, perhaps, be superfluous; but
-surely no one can claim to be a liberally-educated _gentleman_, without
-a general acquaintance with all, and a perfect knowledge of some of
-those departments. Whatever may have been my former obliquities, or
-short-comings in these studies, I am determined to retrieve them all.
-I have begun with attempting to square the circle, upon which great
-problem I have employed two weeks.”
-
-_Nescio._ “Ha! Ha! do you approach the goal!”
-
-_Apple._ “I cannot say that I do very rapidly; but I feel increased
-acuteness of perception. I think I might discover this grand secret,
-could I hit upon some method of reducing the circle to linear
-measurement. My nearest approximation is to make a circle of a string,
-and then quadrate its sides by the introvention of a square surface
-of board. Of course, I have the perimeter and square contents of the
-board, and if I could fit the latter accurately to the string, the work
-is done, and I am Apple the Great. But ‘hic labor, hoc opus est.’”
-
-_Pulito._ “Ha! Ha! Be not wearied in well doing, Dumpling; you have
-opened on the right scent, (_erige aures, atque dirige gressus_.)”
-
-_Tristo._ “But there is a more serious view to be taken of this matter,
-and one to which we must all open our eyes sooner or later, and well
-will it be for us if we take counsel while the storm is yet lowering,
-rather than look back with despairing, remorseful eye when ruin is
-in the retrospect. The day will come when he, who has squandered his
-abilities, and perverted his passions, will ‘begin to be in want,’ when
-mortified pride and conscious inferiority will ‘bite like a serpent,
-and sting like an adder’--a day, when the busy idleness, the trifling
-engagements, and the languid excuses, which now lull all suspicion
-of an _actual waste_ of time, will be forgotten, and nothing but the
-results will be visible. Then, one hasty, reverted glance, without any
-minute calculation, will inform us, that by our thriftless expenditure,
-when we might have economized to some purpose, we are _compelled_ to be
-idle and insignificant; when we _feel_ idleness to be a _disgrace_, and
-insignificance a _torment_. And why are not we alive to all this? Why
-do we not feel it, and _show_ that we feel it, by our actions, when we
-can thus in theorizing, ‘put on the spectacles of age?’ The melancholy
-maxim of the ancients explains it--
-
- ‘Quem Deus perdere vult, prius _dementat_.’
-
-Who would have the punning epigram upon the Cardinal De Fleuri, true of
-him?
-
- ‘Floruit sine fructu,
- Defloruit sine luctu.’
-
-There is a merry jingling in the sound, but under it is conveyed a
-mournful meaning. Yet it shall be written of all, who, either trusting
-to their native genius, or destitute of honorable ambition, flutter
-away their existence in mimicry of the tiny circlets of the silly
-fly, instead of pluming their wings and nerving their energies, for
-a bold, a steady, and a deathless flight. Youth gives its stamp to
-life, and life to immortality--time is a type of eternity. I have
-somewhere seen the vastness of the latter illustrated by the image of
-a huge chronometer, of which the starry heavens were the dial-plate,
-its pendulum swinging in cycles of ten thousand years, and ringing to
-myriads of ages.”
-
-In such and similar discourse, did they consume the lagging hours of
-night: now changing ‘from grave to gay, from lively to severe,’ and
-glancing over all the subjects and circumstances in which a student
-might feel a personal or an associated interest. They talked of silly
-affection, and of scheming selfishness, and condemned alike that
-vanity, which could exult in a new pair of gloves, or be elated by that
-‘_shadow of a thing_,’ yclept a reputation; and having in view this
-one position, that what one _is_, and not what he _seems_, forms his
-character and moulds his destiny,
-
- ‘Still they were wise whatever way they went.’
-
-And now, Reader, we have done. If from this rude, incongruous heap,
-which, in the throwing together, has afforded us both pleasure and
-profit, you have been able to extricate any thing of either, we are
-satisfied. If by our unworthy portraiture of cheerful mirth without the
-taint of vicious excitement, a single heart, sick of the _hollowness_
-of dissipation, shall be seduced from its enticements--if one mind,
-till now swallowed in the vortex of current opinion, and dead to the
-merits of any save _fashionable_ authors, should be led to the study
-of chaster models, and the formation of a purer taste--if one soul,
-whose fountains have been sealed to the thousand springs of written
-or unwritten _poetry_, gushing up all around him, has been opened to
-their influences--or if any individuals of the various classes which
-we have ventured to describe, shall, by the image of their deformity,
-be frighted, ‘if not into greater goodness, at least into less
-badness’--_it is enough_.
-
- Ego.
-
-
-
-
- WHAT IS BITTER.
-
-
- ’Tis _bitter_ when beneath the midnight moon
- We wander near the graves of those we love;
- The lone heart sinks, and sighs for the bless’d boon
- Of rest above.
-
- When wearied age, with retrospective view,
- Sees in the record of departed years
- A tale of blighted hopes--he reads it through
- With _bitter_ tears.
-
- ’Tis _bitter_ when our days are almost done,
- To feel for wasted talents vain regret,
- And see, with guilty fear, our life’s last sun
- In sorrow set.
-
- ’Tis _bitter_ when revenge, with hellish art,
- Lights in the breast her ever-scorching flame,
- Stirs passion’s depths, and forms the tiger-heart,
- No power can tame.
-
- And _bitter_ is the heart, nay more, undone,
- That finds long-cherished hopes in ruin end,
- Crushed by the cruel treachery of one,
- It deemed _a friend_.
-
- Eta.
-
-
-
-
- THE REASON OF ANIMALS NOT THE REASON OF MAN.
-
-
-The organic kingdom seems to be little else than a system of means,
-resisting for a short period only the laws which govern inanimate
-matter, and then yielding to their power. Wherever the contemplative
-mind turns among the innumerable tribes of animals, which have been
-revealed by the scrutiny of man, it beholds them all struggling a
-little while for a sentient existence, and then sinking down, to form
-a part of that mingled mass, which has given them, and continues to
-give their successors, sustenance. It is not however animated matter
-only which thus for a moment attracts, and then passes from our
-observation. In each individual of all this numberless multitude, we
-behold the glimmering of intelligence, and in some species it seems
-to fall but little below the uncultivated reason of man; nay more, in
-their architecture, in their fabrics, in their modes of subsistence
-and defence, many are known to rival the utmost stretch of human
-ingenuity. This intelligence also, and this ingenuity, vanishes from
-before us. The theory has indeed been formed, that this appearance of
-reason, wherever found, or however feeble, is but the commencement of
-an immortal existence; but it is not thus that the mass of mankind view
-the subject. They are accustomed to look upon the whole animal kingdom
-as progressing to a period, when, not only the sensations of their
-bodies will cease, and their organs be left, without exception, to
-decay, but when all their intelligence and skill also will be swallowed
-up in annihilation. If then the reason of brutes is the reason of man,
-how strong, how complete the analogy, and how natural the conclusion,
-that the mind of man too, with the decease of his body ceases to exist!
-Living therefore as the most intelligent of these animals do, in the
-midst of us, and seeming to think and reason every day as really as
-ourselves, reason itself seems to be constantly persuading us that
-our end is the same. Indeed, if man differs from the brute only in
-the degree of intellect which he possesses, it is almost demonstrably
-certain, that annihilation or immortality alike await us. That animals
-are immortal, however, it is impossible to believe; for if this may be
-predicated of one individual, it may be predicated of every species in
-which animal life can be proved to exist. From the highest intelligence
-which exists among them, to the meanest insect that crawls in the dust,
-or the dullest inhabitant of a shell that clings to a rock, there
-is not a point where the line of separation can, with any degree of
-plausibility, be drawn, and we might almost extend the chain to the
-plant that shrinks from the touch, and the flower that follows the sun.
-This theory therefore we reject as unnatural and absurd. Hence we are
-reduced to the necessity of allowing, either that man is not immortal,
-or that his reason is different, not only in degree, but in its nature,
-from that of brutes. Although if the latter be true, it does not follow
-that the former is false, yet one of the most powerful arguments in
-support of it falls to the ground, and leaves other evidence to produce
-a conviction of the truth of its opposite. It is then an object of no
-little importance to discover, if possible, whether there is sufficient
-difference between the faculties of men and animals, to justify the
-conclusion that their destinies are so different.
-
-In endeavoring to accomplish this object, we propose to consider
-brutes, in the first place, as they exist in their natural state, and
-afterwards, as they are when trained by man. Let us go, then, to the
-forest where the bird sits upon her nest, and the beast rests in his
-lair in undisturbed repose--or rather, if you please, where air, earth
-and water, teem with countless multitudes, all alive with activity,
-and all closely devoted to the peculiar employments for which Nature
-has fitted them. Compare now this busy scene, with that where the
-same elements groan under the burden imposed upon them by man, in his
-highest state of cultivation. Mark the aerial artist as she proceeds in
-the construction of her edifice, which in its execution and adaptation
-to its situation, defies all imitation by man. Without a model, and
-without instruction or experience, she fabricates a nest, which, in
-materials and construction, as near as circumstances permit, resembles
-those of all her predecessors. Where there is no possibility of a
-communication, precisely the same process is followed, and the same
-result is produced in every instance. Neither does age, observation
-or experience, produce the least improvement, but it more frequently
-happens, that the first product of this instinctive skill excels all
-that succeed. The same appears to be true of every species of the
-brute creation as we find them in the wilds of nature. All come into
-existence endowed with a species of intellect; a practical ingenuity,
-apparently far superior to any thing which man possesses, previous to
-observation.
-
-If, therefore, the mental endowments of brutes are to be estimated by
-the readiness with which they arrive at certain practical results, man
-sinks below them. Among the whole human race, we find not a single
-instance of such instinctive knowledge. Man springs into existence
-of all animals the most helpless, and the most ignorant of the means
-of his support or his happiness. He is compelled to learn and direct
-every step of his course by observation and experience. He is left
-to deliberate and choose without any previous bias of the mind, and
-hence arises that vast diversity of manners and customs, scarcely
-greater between the most civilized and the most barbarous people,
-than between those who are buried in an equal depth of barbarism.
-On the other hand, throughout each particular species of the brute
-creation, all appear to be guided by one mind, and urged on by some
-irresistible power to the same definite ends. In the state in which we
-are now considering them, there is no variation in their habitudes,
-and seems to be no possibility of their choosing a different course
-from that so universally pursued. It is as natural to them as to live;
-as involuntary as their breath. This is instinct--a faculty to man
-denied--a pilot whose absence leaves him to the winds and waves of
-circumstances, while its presence impels as well as guides the animal
-creation in all their intricate manœvres.
-
-There are traits, however, in which man and the most intelligent of
-other animals closely resemble each other. Present, for instance,
-a pleasing object to the eye of man, and the countenance will
-involuntarily kindle into a smile. Present to the half-famished
-wanderer an article of food, and the flowing saliva and the beseeching
-look, will testify, in spite of him, his eagerness to receive it.
-Tear from the fond mother her darling offspring, and plunge into its
-unprotected breast the glittering steel, and an agony unutterable will
-give her wings to fly to its rescue, and a thousand tongues to call for
-aid, or drive her to madness with despair.
-
-This is a species of action, exhibited to an actual extent, perhaps,
-though in different ways, by both animals and men. It evinces a power
-which it is not in the nature of man wholly to resist, and under the
-full operation of which we use neither deliberation nor judgment. Such
-seems to be the power which gives rise to a large part of the actions
-of the most intelligent animals. It differs little in its nature from
-that instinct which guides them in their mechanical labors, and, in
-connection with it, is sufficient to account for all the phenomena
-which, as sentient beings, in their natural state, they exhibit to
-us. It is the influence of the passions--the feelings--the heart. In
-brutes, apart from instinct, (if this be not considered instinct,) it
-holds universal sway. The objects which excite the passions, and give
-rise to action, may not, indeed, in all cases be present. They may be
-called up by circumstances in all the vividness of reality, through
-the powerful memory with which brutes are endowed, yet the motives of
-the action are the same as if the real object supplied the place of
-the imaginary one. The principle is the same, and the result is still
-produced by the influence of the animal feelings, excited by sensible
-objects. But in man there is displayed a moving power which exists
-independently of instinct, of love, or hate, or hope, or fear, and
-which is capable of exercising a control over all, unless it be the
-very strongest of human passions. In the exercise of it, the passions
-are, as it were for the moment annihilated, and the intellect rises
-into a sphere where all tangible, sensible objects, vanish, and the
-mind converses with objects beyond the reach of mere animal perception.
-
-The question may now arise, how are we to account for all that variety
-of movement and action, which animals acquire under the instruction
-of man? If instinct and passion are the only influences to which
-they are subject, we should reasonably suppose that their actions
-would be as invariable as the motives from which they originate. Had
-they never been subject to a higher order of beings, this would be
-found universally true. But that class of animals which we denominate
-domestic, and indeed almost all upon which the hand of man has laid its
-controlling influence, exhibit a species of action, which indicates
-a capability of improvement, and for which it would be impossible
-to account upon the principles which have been considered. There is
-another principle which is seen alike in animals and man, and might
-with propriety be denominated an artificial instinct. It is habit--a
-state in which we are led to act with reference to definite ends, and
-yet act involuntarily. By a frequent repetition of some motion of the
-hand, the foot or the whole person, we come at last to do the same
-unconsciously, and it is by this means that we perform so readily
-many of the intricate processes which the arts require. It is this
-which explains the secret of attachment to places and things. Even the
-prisoner, after a long-continued confinement to a gloomy cell, finds,
-at his departure, a magic charm binding him to the dreary habitation.
-The tender threads of affection have become entwined around the objects
-so constantly before him, and he is obliged to summon his reason,
-to break through the silvery web that is formed around his heart.
-Observation teaches us that animals are subject to the same influence.
-After a period of confinement and familiarity with man, the door of
-their enclosure may be opened, and almost without exception, they will
-leave it, only to return again of their own accord--not because a
-judgment teaches them that such a condition is preferable, but because
-a new influence is thrown over them which they cannot shake off. It is
-obviously upon this principle that they perform all the manœvres, and
-answer all the purposes, which they are made to do by man.
-
-These three causes--instinct, passion, and habit, are believed to be
-sufficient to account for all the varieties of action exhibited by
-animals. We no where discover any of that power of origination, that
-freedom of thought and action, which renders man capable of endless
-improvement, and worthy of presiding over the brute creation. Nor any
-where do we find that power of abstraction, by which, from evidences of
-design which are displayed among terrestrial and celestial objects, we
-are able to reason our way up to an Infinite Being whom we have neither
-seen nor heard. These are the characteristics of man, which render him
-an accountable being--give him a conscience, and stamp him with the
-impress of immortality.
-
- S.
-
-
-
-
- DE LOPEZ THE BRAVE.
-
- “The age of chivalry is gone.”--_Burke._
-
-
- I.
-
- In days of yore, when minstrel song
- Ne’er swell’d ‘to please a peasant’s ear,’
- But ladye fair, and knightly throng,
- Were pleas’d his gentle harp to hear;
- There liv’d in Spain, a knight of fame--
- His deeds as gallant as his name--
- De Lopez--stainless arms he wore,
- Those arms his peerless fathers bore;
- And many a goodly rood of land,
- And castle fair were in his hand;
- And many a serf ‘with buckled brand,’
- Rode to the fight at his command.
- A braver knight ne’er strode a steed,
- Or couch’d a lance in rest;
- A stalwart knight was he at need,
- His war-spear was no coward’s reed;
- In mercy he was best.
- But he was now to bid adieu
- To scenes he lov’d full well;
- He had vow’d, as loyal lord and true,
- To follow his king the crusade through,
- To lands o’er which the simoom blew,
- Till the Moslem crescent fell.
- Now, in the castle hall he stood,
- His ladye on his arm--
- He waited there, before he rode,
- Trusting his lovely bride with God,
- To shield her from alarm.
- “Now bless thee, dearest,” cried the knight,
- “God keep thee safe and true;
- My life, my love, ah, cruel right!
- That blasts our day of love so bright
- And o’er it spreads the sable night,
- A night of deadly hue.”
- So spake De Lopez, gallant knight,
- On parting at the castle gate,
- He in his glittering arms bedight,
- She mourning o’er her hapless fate.
- And then she plac’d a bright red rose
- Among his waving plumes;
- Ah, hapless bride! she little knows
- What fearful fate it dooms.
-
-
- II.
-
- No more the charger paws the ground,
- Nor snuffs the fresh’ning air,
- No more the faithful vassals round,
- Impatient for the bugle sound,
- Await--their lord is there.
- He gave his pennon to the gale,
- His bugle echo’d far,
- O’er distant forest, plain and dale,
- The fearful notes of war.
- Then spurr’d their furious steeds amain,
- And soon they cross the lengthen’d plain.
- But, lo! from yonder lofty tower,
- The ladye keeps her lonely watch,
- And there has spent a long, long hour,
- Spying her lord thro’ plain and bower,
- Wherever she a sight can catch.
- And now, in the blue distance far,
- The pennon fades away;
- Or, like some ling’ring, morning star,
- That shines with doubtful ray,
- ’Tis now in view, now lost to sight,
- As slowly wanes the yielding night.
- Their gleaming helms and waving crests,
- Their spear-heads tipp’d with silv’ry light,
- Their flashing shields and steel-clad breasts,
- That sparkle with a sheen so bright,
- Grow faint and fainter to the sight.
-
-
- III.
-
- Why course the drops down Mena’s cheek?
- Why leaves she now the lonely height,
- The ladye of the heart so meek,
- The ladye of such gentle might?
- She sees no more her own brave knight,
- She hears no more his bugle-wail;
- The dark’ning shadows of the night,
- Shrouding the forest, plain and dale,
- Conceal him from her sight.
- And now she hastens to her bower,
- And now the chief pricks on his way;
- Behold, around him march the power,
- Of vassal bold in long array;
- For they are bound to Palestine,
- With shield, and spear, and sword,
- Their blessed Saviour’s tomb to win
- From ruthless Moslem horde.
-
-
- IV.
-
- Among the suitors of the land,
- That sought fair Mena’s lily hand,
- There was a dark-brown baron bold,
- That dwelt secure in massive hold;
- Men seldom cross’d his stone threshhold,
- For many a tale, the country round,
- Their feet and tongues in terror bound.
- ’Twas said he practic’d gramarye,
- And that in wild, tempestuous nights,
- The lurid lightning one might see,
- Flashing around his castle heights;
- While the deep-mouth’d bellowing thunder,
- Shaking the massive keep,
- Would seem its rocky walls to sunder,
- Then straightway forth would leap
- A dazzling, quiv’ring, noiseless flame,
- And the black pall of night again
- Enshroud the heaven’s starless steep.
- This baron hath sworn a fearful oath,
- ‘By heav’n and all its saints,’
- That be the ladye never so loth,
- Despite of love’s restraints,
- She yet shall deck his bed and board,
- And gladly own him her liege lord.
- Now, Holy Mother, shield her well,
- From all the fiendish plots of hell.
- For, well I ween, this baron bold,
- His mightiest spells will not withhold.
-
-
- V.
-
- What gleaming light,
- Shoots forth its beams,
- Through the deep night?
- Say, what this means?
- All else is still
- On the castle hill,
- Save the warder’s cry, and the deep clock’s chime,
- That warns the pale ghost of his passing time.
- That ray from the baron’s window gleams,
- And, as far down on the lake it streams,
- Three spirits cross its path.
- (God shield us from their wrath!)
- By blackest art they’ve laid to sleep
- The warder ’neath the deep black lake,
- There too they’ve made the ban-dog keep
- His lone watch, lest the warder wake;
- The smould’ring brands of the watch-fire bright,
- They plunge ’neath the wave, as well they might.
- For such foul arts of gramarye,
- No mortal eye may ever see.
- ’Tis not for such as me to tell,
- What did they in the baron’s cell.
- ’Tis said that voices loudly groan’d
- Around the turret’s height;
- And e’en the graves in churchyard moan’d,
- With many a restless sprite;
- That then in cloud of flame and smoke,
- These spirits their departure took.
-
-
- VI.
-
- Why swims pale Mena’s heavy eye?
- Why walks she with a falt’ring step?
- Why heaves she now the sudden sigh?
- Has not her gallant lover kept
- His knightly word? or, can it be
- That he has fall’n beyond the sea?
- She had last night a fearful dream,
- ‘A spirit woke her,’ (it did seem,)
- ‘And with a finger gory red,
- Pointed her to a bleeding head;
- Upon a city’s gate ’twas plac’d,
- With dust and clotted gore defac’d;’
- She shriek’d not--but her heart’s hot blood
- Mounted in gushes to her brain,
- This cannot be--oh, gracious God!
- Is this her luckless lover slain?
- But the foul spirit by his power,
- Sustain’d her through her trying hour.
- Yet once again
- The vision came.
- ‘She sees a gallant knight,
- And a ladye fair flit by;
- They move like forms of light,
- And stately onward hie;
- The knight--he was the baron bold!
- Herself the ladye fair!
- The hour of one the clock now told,
- The spirits melt in air.’
-
-
- VII.
-
- Now round the altar high they stand,
- In sooth, a gallant, goodly band;
- On high the torches flash and wave,
- Showing pillar and architrave,
- And arch and gothic window fair,
- And, hanging high in the cold night air,
- Pennon and ’scutcheon that glisten’d there.
- But who are these, at dead of night,
- That would perform this holy rite?
- Who, I pray, but the baron bold,
- And the fair Mena, deck’d in gold?
- For missals foully forg’d have said,
- (Rest him!) her gallant knight is dead!
- And then, her father’s stern command,
- And many a ghostly spirit band,
- Have sent her mad;--she cannot know
- The full extent of all her woe.
-
-
- VIII.
-
- The priest in robes of stainless white,
- Does now beside the altar stand,
- And now beneath the dazzling light,
- The baron takes the ladye’s hand.
- Jesu Maria! what muffled form,
- Breaks through the crowd like a mighty storm?
- His helm is gone, but a lifeless rose
- On his steel-clad bosom finds repose.
- ’Tis wither’d and faded quite away,
- Still lies it there; as, in former day,
- It shone a terror to his foes.
- The baron breathes convulsively,
- He knows the stranger knight
- That aims at him so manfully;
- Oh, shield the luckless wight!
- Now flash their falchions in mid air,
- May “God defend the right!”
- Oh, who had seen that man would swear
- His was no mortal might.
- But, ah! he’s down--it cannot be:
- His mighty soul for aye has sped!
- Draw near--oh, horrid sight to see
- De Lopez number’d with the dead!
- With idiot eye and childish stare,
- Poor Mena bends before him there,
- His bloody, wasted hand she takes;
- The flower her sad remembrance wakes.
- Her brain is fir’d; in vain she tries
- To shed a tear!--so soon, alas!
- The secret springs of feeling fail,
- When wrongs the anguish’d heart assail,
- And burning sorrows o’er it pass.
-
-
- IX.
-
- With mournful step and fun’ral wail,
- They bear the baron bold;
- No more he’ll need his war-proof mail,
- No more his massive hold.
- De Lopez did not fall in vain,
- For, as he fell, with might and main,
- While yet in death he fainter grew,
- He thrust the bloody baron through.
- They lay the baron by a running stream,
- Nor moon nor stars e’er shine upon the spot;
- But, it is said, a bluish, noiseless gleam
- Surrounds him; such, the dreaded wizard’s lot.
-
- A monument of marble pale,
- Marks where De Lopez fell;
- For him arose no kindred wail,
- He lies secure from fiendish spell.
- And they have carv’d a gallant knight,
- Stretch’d on that tomb so pale,
- Still in his stainless arms bedight,
- Still clad in marble mail.
- ’Tis said, when the moon, with palish ray,
- Shines on the spot where the brave knight lay,
- A saint-like spirit you may see,
- With marriage robe, and bended knee,
- Kneel o’er his lowly sepulchre.
- Awhile she’ll kiss the marble face,
- And shed a lonely tear,
- Then look to heav’n--to ask the grace
- That was denied him here.
-
- R.
-
-
-
-
- MR. WILLIS.
-
-
-When so many mouths are full of Mr. Willis, and pamphlets and
-periodicals are alternately lauding and lashing him--and, moreover,
-since he has so lately passed through this city, (the city of his
-Alma Mater,) and with him, his very lovely trans-Atlantic lady--it
-is certainly proper that this magazine (the deputed organ of Yale’s
-literary notions) break its dignified silence. Criticism, it is true,
-of right belongs to older heads--but since such numbers have apparently
-forgotten this in the community at large, we shield our presumption
-under their greater impertinence. Impertinence! That the thousand and
-one notions put forth here and there to the detriment of Willis, are
-impertinent, lies on the face of them. What right have they to find
-fault with his coat, or the fit of his breeches? “Ah! but he don’t pay
-for them!” Prove that, rascal--perhaps your prejudice then will be less
-apparent. But stop a moment.
-
-Of course--we are not seated to make out an analysis of Willis’
-mind--nor to criticise thoroughly his poetry--nor to meddle
-particularly with his morals--nor to read him furiously a
-Chesterfieldian lecture--nor to tell him whether he shall or shall
-not curl his hair--whether he shall or shall not have his carriage,
-his horses, his dogs, _et cetera, et cetera_. No! nothing of this,
-save incidentally--we leave this to others. Besides, ’tis too late for
-it--they have been treated on, and his new work has not yet come to us.
-But our purpose is, to scribble a rapid, running, off-hand article--to
-trouble, somewhat, some of the defamers of Willis--to give our own
-opinions as may be about this or that--to say just what we have a mind
-to--to say it how we have a mind to--and (of this, reader, be certain)
-to enjoy our own opinions.
-
-Whether we are capable of this, of advancing an opinion--of that,
-reader, you must judge. Thus much we _dare_ say--our prejudices will
-not trouble our judgment. We have alike objected to the indiscriminate
-laudatory efforts of the friends of Willis, and the pitiable swellings
-and puny malice of his enemies--we have made ourselves alike familiar
-with his prose and with his poetry--(what man of taste has not?)--we
-have never shut our eyes on his faults, or suffered a jaundiced vision
-to distort, discolor, or otherwise interfere with his excellencies--we
-have often censured and praised him--fought for him and against him--in
-short, been placed exactly in those circumstances, which are favorable
-to a proper appreciation of his merits--supposing all this time, that
-we possess a moderately good share of judgment in these matters. Thus
-much we dare say.
-
-The most troublesome things to be met with now-a-days, are your
-_echoing_ gentlemen.[2] Mr. Willis has done thus and so, says one--Mr.
-Willis has written thus and so, says another. Now we don’t say Mr.
-Willis has _not_ done or written thus and so--perhaps he has--nor would
-we be understood exactly in this free government, as interdicting
-the expression of opinions, even supposing these young gentlemen
-harmless, and as entirely innocent of a capability to judge as they
-really are--but we do say that, in this hot weather, and especially
-as dog days are coming on, every buzzing, barking, or otherwise
-troublesome creature, should be heard as little as possible, and that
-it is altogether too much of a tax upon the easiness of modest men,
-and too much of a tax on the patience of sensible ones, when with
-all their exertions and cooling appliances, (such as ventilating,
-dressing thin, and going under the College pump,) they can scarcely
-keep themselves comfortable. He’s a puppy, says one. What do you mean
-by “puppy,” say we. Why, he’s an exquisite--a dandy. Now, hang your
-ignorance! for your charge proves you a clown. _We_ have seen Mr.
-Willis (we have no acquaintance with him) sitting and standing--we
-have seen him in company and out of company--we have seen him hat on
-and hat off--we have seen him walking and talking--and _we_ declare,
-that there’s nothing about him but an air of high society, and a well
-bred gentleman. The charge of being a dandy, might be laid any where
-with equal propriety--the urbanity of his deportment, considering his
-publicity, is worthy of high praise.
-
-His publicity, his English reputation--this is another thing his
-enemies turn against him. Witness the slighting method of the
-Quarterly--witness the cool handling of the Edinburgh--witness his
-annihilation in the Metropolitan, say they. Annihilation! murder--what
-a term is this--here’s a tax--here’s a sweep--here’s a pull on our
-credulousness. Have these gentlemen forgotten the admitted principle in
-physics, that you cannot annihilate matter? But--’tis of a piece with
-the rest of their absurdities.
-
-As for the attacks of those great organs of English sentiment, the
-Edinburgh and Quarterly, it only needs a glance at the _acknowledged_
-reason of those attacks, to show it altogether complimentary to the
-_talents_ of Willis. His stories publishing successively in the London
-New Monthly--he was bowed through England with an assiduity and
-politeness well worthy the English nation, and of which any American
-might be proud. The first ranks welcomed him to their circles--their
-first literary men were pleased with his acquaintance, (aye! the very
-men who afterwards smote at him)--and the first critic of England,
-or of the world even (North, we mean,) has estimated his power,
-and written him--no common genius. This were praise enough, in all
-conscience. The indiscretions of Willis--and such he has, and we
-blame him--these it was called forth those harrowing, ripping, raking
-articles, so eagerly cited against him now; and with these _facts_
-before us--shall we take _their_ estimate of his intellect, and North
-on our side into the bargain? Out on him who does it! But the first
-men of the age have been placed precisely as Willis has--some of the
-Reviews one side, some on the other. Byron was thus placed. To the
-last day of his life he was horridly mauled by some of them, whenever
-that great lion turned flank and exposed himself to the enemy. He has
-been called ridiculous, affected, a narrow though great mind, and a
-plagiarist, by one of their first Reviews; and others of their great
-men have run the gauntlet, and after the same fashion. There’s nothing
-new in it--what, then, is the worth of the argument?
-
-Of the article in the Metropolitan, nothing need be said--’twas
-personal _pique_, as every one knows. The fact that a single sentence
-of Willis’ condemnatory of Marryatt called forth that article, is
-a high proof of the estimation in which he was held, and speaking
-in no ordinary tone. Policy should have kept Mr. Willis from saying
-it--this no one doubts, whether it was true or not. If true, however,
-he deserves less censure; and now we call upon every admirer of Capt.
-Marryatt, and demand if it is not true, that there are passages in most
-of his novels we read with disgust--that we would not read in good
-society, or before a sister--and if he has not come into a dangerous
-proximity with that point, where he deserves all that Willis says of
-him? _We_ assert that he has--let Capt. Marryatt’s admirers disprove
-it. And the Willis and Marryatt correspondence too! little need be
-said here, than that those letters went to show Marryatt a bullying
-blackguard, and Willis _the_ gentleman. These things we assert--and yet
-professing ourselves admirers of Marryatt. He is doubtless one of the
-geniuses of the age. But we will not let our admiration distort facts,
-when such distortion is injurious to one of our countrymen.
-
-These echoing gentlemen talk much of Mr. Willis’ ephemeral
-reputation--of his fame’s dying with him. Lo, and behold these Solomons
-in literature--witness these wise men of Gotham,--these “Daniels’ come
-to judgment!” Have these gentlemen to learn, that men never tolerate
-each other’s weaknesses?--have they to learn that Willis has been
-indiscreet?--have they to learn that such numbers of young and old,
-high and low, rich and poor, as have pitched upon him, have done so
-_for_ this--and that it follows necessarily, his genius is undervalued.
-Whether they have or not--men of sense admit it all over the world.
-Men’s follies die with them. We don’t bring hatred to the grave’s
-side--unless to throw it in there and bury it. The smouldering earth
-we lay over them hides their defects--we put their virtues in our
-hearts. So it is with men whose follies tarnish their genius. Genius
-is in itself, a living principle--you can’t annihilate it--you can’t
-lessen it--you can’t depress it. You _may_ undervalue it--you may rail
-at it--you may affect to despise it. But it never was heard and it
-never will be, that genius, however manifested, has not sooner or later
-regained its splendid birth-right. So will it be with Willis--would we
-admit what his enemies ask, that the community as a body are against
-him. He has genius--a noble, lofty, and original one--(we wish time
-permitted to show this by references)--his follies stand betwixt the
-light and his merits--let him die, his follies die, and the world at
-once acknowledges this merit. Such is the process--if we admit, as just
-mentioned, that the community are against him.
-
-We have already transcribed our limits--we therefore, pause. Before
-doing so, however, let us and the reader understand each other. Let us
-not be ranked with the mad admirers of Willis--we are none such--he
-has too many follies for that. But we cannot forget, either, how very
-very brilliant are many very many of his productions, and with what
-unmitigated pleasure we have always perused them. And, if our humble
-voice might be heard so far, we would counsel Mr. Willis that he no
-longer--if he has done so--discredit the fine genius that God has given
-him--that he tax well, and long, and arduously, that mind of his--that
-he by some noble effort so engrave his name on this age, that the rust
-of after years shall never eat it away.
-
-[2] By echoing gentlemen, we mean such as carry their chins high--walk
-with canes--retail opinions pilfered from English papers, and call them
-their own.
-
-
-
-
- GREEK ANTHOLOGY.--No. VI.
-
-
-Civilization, among all the changes it has effected in the character
-and habits of its subjects, has wrought none more remarkable than that
-in the condition of woman. In savage countries, the degraded slave
-of continual oppression--in barbarian nations, the dormant medium of
-sensual felicity--among the semi-civilized, the ignorant and secluded
-object of idol affection--it was reserved for the refinement of a purer
-age to reinstate her by the side, and in the heart of man. No longer
-his passive minister to pleasure, she has risen to share with him
-the rights and the enjoyments of rational existence. From the object
-of occasional devotion and general contempt, she has become, in the
-world where her claims are acknowledged, a guide-star of benign and
-sanctifying influence.----Pish! sentimentalizing, and on a subject
-trite as an almanac!----But why not? In my last number, as well my
-own assertions, as the _inconsecutive_ form of my conceptions, might
-have been proof convincing that the solstitial airs had pervaded mind
-and body with their enervating breath. Since then, and while the
-sun was riding in his more northern tropic, my energies fell before
-his potent presence with a still lowlier prostration. Yet, as utter
-oppression will drive even the weakest to resistance, so does trampled
-Nature rise rebellious against the tyrant, and stand upright even
-before his summer-throne. The cold airs of the morning send a vigorous
-life through the limbs, which the toils of yesterday exhausted; and a
-_post-prandial_ siesta followed by a light repast “of meats and drinks,
-nature’s refreshment sweet,” prepares the mind for an evening of quiet
-thought, or rational enjoyment.
-
-This morning is of the loveliest. Each gentle flower turns her fair
-face to the god of her idolatry, and, like a grateful bride, repays
-the warmth of his caresses with the perfume of her breath. It would
-seem as if the wing of relenting Time had dropt a freshening essence on
-his vassals, as he passed, and atoned, in the face of Nature and the
-hearts of her children, for the ravages of years. ’Tis not the sacred
-awe, that falls like a shadow from the stars of midnight, and wakes in
-the soul an unutterable yearning for a holier home--’tis not the sad
-solemnity of evening, that fuses into one pervading thought the hopes
-of the future, and the sorrows of the past, whilst our gaze follows
-far into his nightly pavilion the golden footsteps of the retreating
-Day--’tis the freshness, that dwells in the pinion of the eagle, when
-he springs from his dew-cold aerie in the mountains, and soars, with
-eye turned direct and unblenching on the morning sun. But to return to
-the women. It is a lamentable fact--‘horresco referens’--that the old
-heathen, and the Greeks among them, did not prize very highly these
-interesting objects. It is true that the exquisite delicacy of female
-beauty, excited in their breasts a natural thrill of pleasure, and
-now and then a Sappho or an Aspasia by the united power of wit and
-loveliness threw a spell of enchantment around the wisest, and bravest,
-and proudest of their time. But these were exceptions. There is many
-a smart bit of satire, and many a dull growl of defiance at the sex,
-scattered through the pages of the Anthology--and these I have hitherto
-neglected to translate, well knowing that the ladies are not so perfect
-as to bear sarcasm with patience, and that a portion of their anger
-might be diverted from the Greeks to me. Whether their being created
-second entitles them to be considered _second-best_, it is not my
-province to decide. At any rate I see not how we could _get along_
-without them, and I am perfectly willing to add my experience to that
-of Mungo Park, and testify that, where they are suffered to have their
-own way, I have found them uniformly generous and obliging.
-
-
- _A Paraphrase from Palladas the Alexandrian._
-
- Woman, thou busy, meddling, curious thing,
- What endless evils from thy presence spring!
- For thee, forth-sailing from the hills of Greece,
- Bold Jason wandered for the Golden Fleece.
- Thou, and thy paramour, the beauteous boy,
- Brought woe and ruin to the gates of Troy.
- Achilles’ anger for a while delay’d
- Th’ event occasion’d by the faithless maid;
- And then, when Ilion’s consecrated wall
- Had shook, and reel’d, and nodded to its fall,
- Who but a woman, on the foaming brine
- Held wise Ulysses, and transformed to swine
- His brave companions, and employ’d each wile
- To chain the hero to her magic isle?
- And is not woman’s love, or woman’s rage,
- Ground of each plot upon the tragic stage?
- Quick to perceive, and headlong to resent,
- Thy kindled anger never can relent.
- So mild in love, so terrible in hate,
- The soothing balm, and tri-thonged scourge of Fate;
- Thou sure wert born to trouble and perplex,
- Involve and puzzle the diviner sex!
- Have we a secret? Keep it, as we may,
- Full soon it passes from our grasp away.
- Has any thing occurred? “Who, which, what now?
- “Come, tell me quick, the why, when, where, and how!”
- Yet art thou lovely as the gentle light,
- That falleth dew-sprent from the orbs of night;
- And, wert thou fled, this world of ours would be
- Dark as the Fates, and barren as the sea.
- When wise, and kind, and generous, and mild,
- Thou rul’st us, as a mother rules her child.
- But when thy passions take their headlong way,
- We scorn thine empire, and defy thy sway.--
- Must, then, a pretty, peering, prying wife,
- Soothe, vex, enliven, and distract my life?
- I’ll cling to thee for better, and for worse,
- Our joy, our grief, our blessing, and our curse.
-
-Let those who are not satisfied with this mixture of compliment and
-sarcasm read the following, and see with what yearning anguish a Greek
-could mourn over the grave of a loved one, who had passed what was, to
-the ancients, with emphatic truth “the valley of the shadow of death.”
-It is by Meleager, one of the most delicate and affectingly simple of
-all the Greek poets.
-
- To thee, transported by that cruel Power,
- Who waves his sceptre over all that live,
- Tears wept in darkness at the midnight hour,
- Oh! Heliodora! bitterly I give.
- Thy home’s low roof with ceaseless tears I wet,
- In deep, and wild, and passionate regret.
-
- Oh! Heliodora! I have known thee long,
- And loved thee deeply, and bewailed thee well;
- But what avails the tear, the sigh, the song,
- To thee, thus sleeping in thy narrow cell?
- Alas! my lovely flower is senseless clay!
- My budding rose the Grave has torn away!
-
- To thee, oh earth! then let thy mourning son,
- O’er whose glad heaven this cloud hath early past,
- Whose day is darkened ere its morn be run,
- Lift one appeal--his strongest, and his last--
- Take her, oh! take her to thy gentle breast,
- And lull her softly to her evening rest!
-
-
- _To the Tettix._
-
- Thou noisy thing, intoxicate with dew,
- Thou desert-babbler, with thy rustic lay,
- Who sittest idly, where the green leaves through
- On thy _cranked_ limbs bright slants the solar ray,
- Whilst from thy little frame with hue of fire,
- Comes forth the mimic music of the lyre--
-
- Oh! friendly songster, to the Sylphid Maids
- ‘Discourse sweet music,’ with thy tiny tongue,
- And unto Pan, who habits in the shades,
- And roves the mountains and the fields among.
- Then, freed from love, my noontide sleep I’ll take,
- Beneath the shadow which the plane-trees make.
-
-And now, dear reader, thou hast gathered with me a few of the many
-wild-flowers, which bloom in the Anthology, but are known only to
-the student, and appreciated only by the scholar. If thou art not
-interested in them, it is either because thou art not gifted with a
-love for the simple and the beautiful, or else because that simplicity
-and beauty have perished in the medium through which thou hast seen
-them. I am no man-worshipper, and, I hope, no nation-worshipper. Yet I
-love, admire, and venerate the Greeks; and though I might in liberality
-allow that there have been minds more mighty than any of the Grecian
-race, yet it might be shown by the strongest of moral proof--the
-sentiments of nations, and the evidence of facts--that they were the
-brightest, simplest, and most _classic_ nation on the earth. I say, it
-might be shown, and should occasion serve, I will show it. Meanwhile
-I will content myself with the hope that you may be blessed with an
-_Attic reduplication_ of wit, a _temporal augment_ in the riches and
-honors of this world, and a _spiritual aspiration_ after all that is
-beautiful in knowledge, and all that is generous in deed.
-
- Hermeneutes.
-
-
-
-
- “OUR MAGAZINE,”
-
-
-Is doing very well--but might do better. It has hitherto
-had subscribers enough to support it--it has never lacked
-communications--it has never been so unfortunate as at one and the same
-time to displease _every body_--it has been constantly sustained by
-the countenance of able friends, and the attacks of weak enemies--its
-general character has been approved by the ‘leading prints’--many
-articles have been copied from it, not without the most gratifying
-compliments--even the editors have not lost their meed of praise.
-
-So much for the first part of our remark, that the Magazine is
-‘doing well’--now for the less pleasing adjunct, ‘that it might do
-better.’ We might have _more_ subscribers--and all our subscribers
-might pay as they engage to--our articles might be more varied and
-more excellent--and by an increase of patronage, we should be enabled
-to enlarge the size, and improve the mechanical appearance of the
-work--and, in a word, make it more worthy of the institution from which
-it takes its name, and which it is our especial delight to honor.
-
-All subscriptions were considered as made for one year, and will be so
-charged by the Publishers. Subscribers at a distance are reminded that
-their _money_ is due.
-
-
-
-
- TO CORRESPONDENTS.
-
-
-“On the study of human nature in the works of the imagination,” and
-“Honors to the illustrious Dead,” two essays, are accepted, and shall
-be inserted soon.
-
-“A curious incident” is under consideration.
-
-J. B.’s communication, resembles in its form and general character the
-Coffee Club too much to appear with advantage after that series.
-
-A patriotic poem, entitled “July 4, 1836,” was received too late for
-insertion in the last number, when only it would have been appropriate.
-
-“Fair Wishes,” and “The Spirit of the Winds,” are declined.
-
-“Amor non convinciabitur,” (we are not responsible for the Latin,)
-“Lines on a youthful Poet, laboring under disappointment,” and “The
-sailor’s lamentation for his departed loved one,” are rejected.
-
-“Morning at the mast-head,” possesses considerable poetic merit, but
-all the rules of metre are grossly violated.
-
-
-
-
- PROSPECTUS
- OF THE
- YALE LITERARY MAGAZINE.
- TO BE CONDUCTED BY THE STUDENTS OF YALE COLLEGE.
-
-
-An _apology_ for establishing a Literary Magazine, in an institution
-like Yale College, can hardly be deemed requisite by an enlightened
-public; yet a statement of the objects which are proposed in this
-Periodical, may not be out of place.
-
-To foster a literary spirit, and to furnish a medium for its exercise;
-to rescue from utter waste the many thoughts and musings of a student’s
-leisure hours; and to afford some opportunity to train ourselves
-for the strife and collision of mind which we must expect in after
-life;--such, and similar motives have urged us to this undertaking.
-
-So long as we confine ourselves to these simple objects, and do not
-forget the modesty becoming our years and station, we confidently
-hope for the approbation and support of all who wish well to this
-institution.
-
- * * * * *
-
-The work will be printed on fine paper and good type. Three numbers to
-be issued every term, each containing about 40 pages, 8vo.
-
-_Conditions_--$2,00 per annum, if paid in advance, or 75 cents at the
-commencement of each term.
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-Communications may be addressed through the Post Office, “To the
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-This No. contains 3 sheets. Postage, under 100 miles, 4-1/2 cents; over
-100 miles, 7-1/2 cents.
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-Transcriber’s Notes
-
-
-A number of typographical errors were corrected silently.
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-*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE YALE LITERARY MAGAZINE (VOL. I,
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-
-<div style='text-align:center; font-size:1.2em; font-weight:bold'>The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Yale Literary Magazine (Vol. I, No. 6, August 1836), by Students of Yale</div>
-
-<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
-most other parts of the world 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 <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you
-are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the
-country where you are located before using this eBook.
-</div>
-
-<p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: The Yale Literary Magazine (Vol. I, No. 6, August 1836)</p>
-
-<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: Students of Yale</div>
-
-<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: December 12, 2021 [eBook #66935]</div>
-
-<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</div>
-
-<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Character set encoding: UTF-8</div>
-
-<div style='display:block; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Produced by: hekula03, sf2001, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This book was produced from images made available by the HathiTrust Digital Library.)</div>
-
-<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE YALE LITERARY MAGAZINE (VOL. I, NO. 6, AUGUST 1836) ***</div>
-
- <div class="figcenter illowp100" id="i_cover" style="max-width: 20em;">
- <img class="w100" src="images/cover.jpg" alt="Cover" />
- </div>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_i">[Pg i]</span></p>
-
-<div class="titlepag" style="max-width: 30em;">
-<h1>
-<small>THE</small><br />
-YALE LITERARY MAGAZINE.
-</h1>
-
-<p class="h1sub">
-<small>CONDUCTED<br />
-<small>BY THE</small></small><br />
-<span class="gesperrt"><b>STUDENTS OF YALE COLLEGE</b>.</span>
-</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter illowp78" id="i_cover-illustration" style="max-width: 18em;">
- <img class="w100" src="images/i_cover-illustration.jpg" alt="" />
- <div class="caption"><p>
- “Dum mens grata manet, nomen laudesque <span class="smcap">Yalenses</span>
- Cantabunt <span class="smcap">Soboles</span>, unanimique <span class="smcap">Patres</span>.”
- </p>
- </div>
-</div>
-
-<hr class="r15" />
-<p class="center">NO. VI.</p>
-<hr class="r15" />
-
-<p class="center">AUGUST, 1836.</p>
-
-<hr class="double" />
-
-<p class="center">
-NEW HAVEN:<br />
-HERRICK &amp; NOYES.
-</p>
-
-<hr class="r5" />
-<p class="center">
-MDCCCXXXVI.
-</p>
-</div>
-
-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_ii">[Pg ii]</span></p>
-
-<h2 class="nobreak" id="Contents">Contents.</h2>
-</div>
-
-
-<table summary="Table of Contents">
-<tr><td /><td class="pageno">Page.</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="title"><a href="#TURKEY_AND_GREECE">Turkey and Greece,</a></td><td class="pageno">209</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="title"><a href="#THOUGHTS_ON_THE_DEATH_OF_AN_AGED_FRIEND">Thoughts on the Death of an Aged Friend,</a></td><td class="pageno">214</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="title"><a href="#THE_OMNIBUSA">The Omnibus,</a></td><td class="pageno">216</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="title"><a href="#MY_MOTHER">Epigram,</a></td><td class="pageno">227</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="title"><a href="#THE_COFFEE_CLUB">The Coffee Club, No. IV,</a></td><td class="pageno">228</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="title"><a href="#WHAT_IS_BITTER">What is Bitter,</a></td><td class="pageno">241</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="title"><a href="#THE_REASON_OF_ANIMALS_NOT_THE_REASON_OF_MAN">The Reason of Animals not the Reason of Man,</a></td><td class="pageno">242</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="title"><a href="#DE_LOPEZ_THE_BRAVE">De Lopez, the Brave,</a></td><td class="pageno">246</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="title"><a href="#MR_WILLIS">Mr. Willis,</a></td><td class="pageno">249</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="title"><a href="#GREEK_ANTHOLOGY_No_VI">Greek Anthology, No. VI,</a></td><td class="pageno">252</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="title"><a href="#OUR_MAGAZINE">“Our Magazine,”</a></td><td class="pageno">256</td></tr>
-</table>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</span></p>
-
-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
-
-<div class="chapter">
-
-<h2>
-<small>THE</small><br />
-YALE LITERARY MAGAZINE.
-</h2>
-</div>
-
-<table class="table1" summary="Volume Date Edition">
-<colgroup>
-<col style="width: 33%;" />
-<col style="width: 33%;" />
-<col style="width: 33%;" />
-</colgroup>
-<tbody>
-<tr>
-<td class="tdl bt bb"><small>VOL. I.</small></td>
-<td class="tdc bt bb">AUGUST, 1836.</td>
-<td class="tdr bt bb"><small>NO. 6.</small></td>
-</tr>
-</tbody>
-</table>
-
-<h2 class="nobreak" id="TURKEY_AND_GREECE">TURKEY AND GREECE.</h2>
-
-<div class="blockquot">
-
-<p>“There is a connection [<i>verbindung</i>] among men, in which no one can work
-for himself without working for others.”&mdash;<i>Fichte.</i></p>
-</div>
-
-<div class="blockquot">
-
-<p>“The tie of mutual influence passes without a break from hand to hand,
-throughout the human family. There is no independence, no insulation, in the
-lot of man.”&mdash;<i>Natural History of Enthusiasm.</i></p>
-</div>
-
-<p>There is a tendency to regard the commotions of society, which
-have taken place of late years, as the results of modern diplomacy,
-or of notions concerning human rights, which have received birth
-and risen to their present vigor within the last fifty years. Hence,
-it is argued, there is a liability to reaction. The bright lights may
-go out, and despotism triumph in the moral and political degeneracy.
-Yet this view of the matter is very superficial. It is regarding the
-trunk as the origin of the tree, overlooking the seed and the root.
-The truth is, the principles now developing have their origin with
-society. For, all sound political principles have a common foundation&mdash;the
-rights of man. His selfishness, especially his thirst for
-sway, aided by ignorance, has kept through force and fraud the true
-principles of human government from being understood and adopted.
-Still the ancient kingdoms, the world-empires and all, though now
-in their tombs, left inscriptions on their head-stones of diamond worth
-to the science of government. They are beacon-lights for the modern
-statesman. Their wisdom and their folly, both aid him to discover
-the true rules for human government, which have been buried
-up and concealed by folly and passion since the days of the Patriarchs,
-from whom all civil authority had its rise. Added to this
-light of experience, collected by by-gone nations, are other influences
-of a physical nature. The application of the magnet to purposes
-of navigation, was one of those master thoughts, which, from
-its vast importance, we are almost tempted to regard as an idea of
-directly divine origin. The influence of this on the whole family of
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</span>
-man, can be best estimated by suffering one’s self to think what the
-state of the world would of necessity be, were it entirely unknown.
-Again, the application of steam to machinery, is not only changing
-the aspect of things in the New World and Europe, but this invention
-was a positive act for the moral and physical renovation of Asia and
-Africa&mdash;an act of such power as must hasten their new birth by centuries.
-British steamers are already on their way to explore the Niger.
-It is the operation and display of this vast physical force, which
-is to be a great means of starting into action the stagnated mind of this
-part of our race. These discoveries, it will readily be allowed, can
-never cease to operate. Entwined with political experience, they
-stand firm barriers to any relapse in the general well being of the
-human family; while, year after year, to these and others, which
-cannot be mentioned in the limits of a single article, are added the
-discoveries of physical and political science, as they occur, until
-their increasing light reveals to the common eye, one and another,
-and another, of the rights of man, which designing men, “tyrants,
-or tyrants’ slaves,” have striven to conceal. Almost every nation
-of the earth has had some of its dark places pierced by these accumulating
-rays. Despotic powers have been forced to yield up some
-part of the prerogatives of the crown, or to surround them with
-stronger guards. Constitutional governments have been compelled
-to adopt measures of reform, and to pursue a course of policy more
-uniformly liberal.</p>
-
-<p>Amid these commotions, no nations have more attracted the attention
-of all classes, than Turkey and Greece. The politician
-has watched with no little anxiety the rapid dismemberment of that
-power, which has so long stood the great barrier between the East
-and West. The scholar has felt a new hope that the mother-land
-of mental light may be herself again. While the Christian is assured
-that the Almighty is thus shaking the nations for the accomplishment
-of his own high ends. He is but making straight the
-path of his servants.</p>
-
-<p>The history of the Turks is remarkable and instructive&mdash;in the
-sudden rise of their empire&mdash;in its long continuance&mdash;and precipitate
-fall. The wild region of Mount Taurus and Imaus was their
-cradle. At once the most barbarous, the rudest, and the most enterprising
-of all the Saracen tribes, they penetrated to the banks of
-the Caspian Sea, and serving as mercenaries under the Caliphs, acquired
-great reputation for military prowess, and soon subjugated the
-contending Caliphats to their own sway. Palestine, with its capital
-Jerusalem, fell into their hands. Near the middle of the fourteenth
-century, they crossed into Europe, and possessed themselves
-of Adrianople. In a few years subsequent to this event, the city
-of Constantine, to adorn which he had lavished the treasures of his
-realm, was doomed to see their triumphant banner floating above
-her walls. Epirus soon suffered the fate of Constantinople; and
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</span>
-the land of the orator and philosopher, which built a bulwark against
-Xerxes, received their chains. They marched victorious even to
-the walls of Vienna; but were finally driven back as far as Greece.
-European arms could avail no farther. In other directions this remarkable
-people were uniformly successful; until, in the sixteenth
-century, the Sultan was lord of thirty kingdoms, containing not less
-than eight thousand leagues of sea coast, and some of the fairest
-portions of the world. Not only those regions which have been
-rendered famous as the homes of the great masters of sculpture,
-song and philosophy, but the land of the Patriarchs, where were
-exhibited the thrilling scenes of the accomplishment of the covenant
-of God with man&mdash;Baghdad, the court of the science-loving
-Caliphs&mdash;Egypt&mdash;and the countries of Asia Minor, whose luxuriance
-not even Turkish thraldom and indolence has sufficed to destroy.</p>
-
-<p>But this great empire was in itself radically defective. The government
-depended on extortion for its revenue&mdash;on physical force
-or a degrading imposture for obedience; neither of which, whatever
-may have been the case in other days, could be safely trusted, in
-the light which is breaking over the human family, and over the
-Turks as a part of it. The present Sultan found himself in the dilemma
-between reform on the one hand, in accomplishing which his
-throne, and perhaps his life would be jeopardized, and certain destruction
-on the other. In choosing the least of these evils, Greece,
-Egypt, and Palestine, were severed from his empire. Mahomet
-Ali would have attacked him in his capital, but for the interposition
-of the Tzar, who was fearful of losing a prize which has ever been
-the object of Muscovite ambition, the throne of Constantine. But
-while the black Eagle of Russia spread his wings as a shelter for
-the Turk, he coolly seized in his talons the keys of the Dardanelles;
-thus rendering any further interposition on the part of England,
-who has so often balked the Tzar in his darling project, entirely
-futile. Since which event, the fall of Turkey has been pronounced
-as certain by all. What is to be its precise effect on the politics
-of Europe, is a question which only a Talleyrand or a Metternich
-could answer with any probability of truth. Yet the foregoing
-remarks exhibit facts from which consequences of high importance
-must follow.</p>
-
-<p>They exhibit the empire of the Ottomans as once occupying a
-proud station among the greater powers&mdash;as forming a boundary
-and preserving a balance between the East and West&mdash;as a firm
-check on Muscovite ambition&mdash;and as, from her consequence, possessing
-great weight in the councils of nations; and it is apparent
-that she cannot fall without important political consequences.</p>
-
-<p>They exhibit her with a religion, which has ever been a bane to
-all nobler sentiments or aspirations of the soul, brooding like night
-over some of the fairest portions of the earth, blasting by the baleful
-influence of her institutions the legitimate effect, both on mind
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</span>
-and body, of her naturally fair plains, rich vallies, and brilliant skies,
-which, in other times, produced models for an Apollo Belvidere
-and a Venus de Medici, and nourished men who were masters of
-the earth and of mind; and it is evident that she cannot fall without
-important consequences to the beaux Arts and Literature.</p>
-
-<p>They exhibit her, as the main support and promoter of the debasing,
-sensual tenets of Mahomet, in countries where the Apostles,
-and even Christ, toiled and suffered. They exhibit her, as the
-systematic opposer of the message of the Prince of Peace, to her
-distracted provinces&mdash;the only balm for their wounds&mdash;the only
-physician for their souls; and the effect of her fall on the highest
-of interests cannot be unimportant.</p>
-
-<p>What then is to be the influence of the prostration of the Ottoman
-sway in these cradles of early knowledge, upon literature, science,
-and the beaux arts?</p>
-
-<p>Winklemann, in his history of sculpture, assigns as a principal
-reason of the superiority of the Greeks in that sublime art over
-other nations, the circumstance of their inhabiting a land so surpassingly
-endowed by nature; and with much truth. Their bodies, neither
-chilled nor contracted by the long winters of the north, nor
-softened into lassitude and effeminacy by the tropical sun, but continually
-moving and breathing in the purest air, under the mildest
-and most brilliant of skies, whose loveliness was constantly exciting
-in the mind the most agreeable trains of thought, attained, in their
-fair proportions, to a harmonious keeping with the beauty around.</p>
-
-<p>Close observation must convince every candid mind, that there is
-some truth in the grand outlines of Phrenology. Forms such as
-aided in the conception of those master pieces of ancient statuary,
-were never, and never will be, inhabited by inferior or grovelling
-spirits. Vitiated they may be by extraneous circumstances. Their
-noble faculties may be turned to unworthy purposes. Corrupted by
-long intercourse with the morally debased, they may, like the modern
-Greek, suffer the imputation of being worse than their examples.
-But this is the proof of the position. They are bad, but
-like Lucifer they are greatly so.</p>
-
-<p>How long is this to be the case with Greece? Emphatically no
-longer. Already by the aid of the missionary and foreign science,
-she is realizing the fable of the renascent phenix; already are those
-whose beauty of person long years of servitude have been unable to
-destroy, renewing the moral beauty of the spirit within; already are
-they turning those powers which made them remarkable in depravity
-to their proper channels. And he, whose love for the human
-family, or reverence for the classic scenes of Greece, has led him to
-peruse the late accounts from thence: if he has observed the avidity
-with which they seek instruction, when they once taste of its sweets:
-if he has noticed their teachable spirit, rapid improvement, exhibitions
-of ingenuity and taste: his bosom has exulted in the sober certainty
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</span>
-that Greece will be herself again. But why has this fair morn
-at last dawned over this singularly illustrious land? The answer is
-plain. Mahometan despotism and ignorance no longer hold sway
-within her borders. If this be so, what is to be the effect of the removal
-of Turkish intolerance and misrule, and the establishment of
-an enlightened and responsible government over the shores of the
-Levant, in the same parallels of latitude? Are the fields of Anatolia
-less rich than those of Greece, or her harbors less promising for
-commerce? or are the Greeks, scattered through those regions, who
-at least double the number of those in their father-land, less capable
-of moral improvement? Is the conclusion drawn from unfair premises,
-that the day of the deliverance of this country is near&mdash;that the
-angel of knowledge will again spread his wings over Anatolia, Palestine,
-Arabia, Egypt, her ancient home? The conclusion is not, can
-not be false. The same physical influences operate now as in days
-of old, though the misrule of man may have marred their effects.
-The same high cast of mind is there which won immortality for their
-fathers: and why may not spring up in those regions, under a wiser
-government, and a purer religion, a people, in arts and science even
-superior to the ancients? Why may there not arise, under the auspices
-of virtue and wisdom, new models for a Venus or an Apollo?
-Why may not the Parian marble there rise into temples of as fair
-proportions as that of Olympus or of Minerva, reared for nobler purposes,
-dedicated to a far higher and holier worship?</p>
-
-<p>The influence of the subversion of the greatest rival of the Christian
-church, is a subject replete with interest. When the mere politician,
-unswayed by the fond hope which might influence the Christian’s
-decision, publishes to the world as certain the prostration of
-Turkey&mdash;when the disciple of Jesus may at length point the startled
-infidel to the tottering fabric of Mahometanism, which he has impiously
-dared to name as co-enduring and co-equal with the pure
-Christian faith, and bid him look on, as column after column is torn
-away from the crumbling structure, as Immanuel is triumphing
-where Mahomet ruled&mdash;when the finger of the Almighty is writing
-as palpably the sentence of this unparalleled imposture as when it
-traced on the wall the doom of Babylon&mdash;what heart does not glow
-with deeper gratitude, overflow with more fervent thanksgivings, and
-pray with strengthened faith?</p>
-
-<p>The time is to be when “nations shall be born in a day:” and
-from the ardent character of the east, it seems not improbable that
-it is to be witness of this latter as it was of the former triumphing of
-the cross.</p>
-
-<p>It is an especial appointment of providence, that nations more advanced
-in civilization must necessarily labor for the improvement of
-those which are less so. So the East once labored for the West.
-Now the nations of the west, with their Institutions of Learning&mdash;their
-Presses&mdash;their Forges&mdash;their Dock Yards&mdash;working together
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</span>
-for the perfection of human knowledge, and for facilitating its diffusion&mdash;pour
-light of constantly increasing brightness over the East.
-Still greater commotions must soon follow in these early inhabited
-regions. Their renovation must advance rapidly and steadily.
-There may and doubtless will be times of apparent retrogradation,
-but it will be like the flood-tide waves, which roll back from the
-shore only to mount still higher on their return. It may be said
-that these things are uncertain, because they are future; but it is
-not necessarily so. The diffusion of sound political principles, and
-the rising of the Sun of Righteousness over these nations, seem as
-clearly heralded by these events, as is the coming of the material
-sun when morning is breaking in the east, the night-damps leaving
-the earth, the clouds decking themselves in gold and purple, and all
-nature waking for the duties of a new day.</p>
-
-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<h2 class="nobreak" id="THOUGHTS_ON_THE_DEATH_OF_AN_AGED_FRIEND">THOUGHTS ON THE DEATH OF AN AGED FRIEND.</h2>
-</div>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
- <div class="stanza">
- <div class="verse indent0">I stood beside his death-bed, and a smile,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Like the last glance of the departing sun,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Played on his features; life was ebbing fast,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">And death was creeping o’er him stealthily&mdash;</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">And yet he smiled, as the last hour came on.</div>
- </div>
- <div class="stanza">
- <div class="verse indent2">We gathered round him, and his eye grew dim,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">And his voice faltered, and the shortening breath</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Came through his parted lips convulsively&mdash;</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">The last faint accents of a murmured prayer:</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">And then we turned us from his couch, and wept</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">That the dear ties were severed, which had bound</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Our hearts in kindred intercourse:&mdash;We grieved</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">That he whom we had loved so tenderly,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Should pass away with the forgotten dead.</div>
- </div>
- <div class="stanza">
- <div class="verse indent2">Oh, there is something saddening in the thought</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Of death, whene’er it comes. To stand beside</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">The death-bed of a dear and cherished one;</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">To mark the tristful pangs, the hopes and fears,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">To see the perishing form of loveliness,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">And hear the last fond parting word&mdash;<i>farewell!</i></div>
- <div class="verse indent0">And then to gaze upon the lifeless form,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">To part the damp locks from the marble brow,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">And wipe the death-dews which have gather’d there;</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">To lay the sleeper in his narrow house,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">And leave him with the cold and listless dead,&mdash;</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Oh, it is saddening!&mdash;and the tide of tears&mdash;</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">The warm, warm tears, that gush from feeling hearts&mdash;</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Oh, they are holy!&mdash;And there is a bliss,</div>
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</span></p> </div>
- <div class="stanza">
- <div class="verse indent0">When the heart swells with anguish, and when grief</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Chokes up the spirit in its agony&mdash;</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Oh, there is something&mdash;and ’tis like the dew</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Which evening sheds upon the summer flower,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">And weighs it down, until it bows itself,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">And pours the bright drops from its secret cell.</div>
- </div>
- <div class="stanza">
- <div class="verse indent2">Oh, holy is the fountain of those tears,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">And pure their gushing. &emsp;’Tis a holy thing</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">To weep at such an hour. &emsp;’Tis manliness</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">To yield the heart to feeling, and to loose</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">The shackles that so cramp its energies,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">And bind it down to the unfeeling world.</div>
- </div>
- <div class="stanza">
- <div class="verse indent2">Yet why thus mourn for those who die, when age</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Has made existence but a weariness?</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Why grieve that they should cast aside the coil</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">That binds them to the earth and wretchedness?</div>
- </div>
- <div class="stanza">
- <div class="verse indent2">We do not weep at Autumn; when the leaves</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Lie in the valleys&mdash;mortals never weep</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">When the tree casts its fruitage, or when flowers,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Blooming through the mild months, all fade away</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">In their appointed season: Then why weep</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">For those whose years have passed the destined bourne</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Of man’s existence.&mdash;Rather let us weep</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">For the young flower that blossometh and dies,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Ere it hath seen the noon-day. Rather mourn</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">For those, the sweet and beautiful of earth,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Who die in youth’s bright morning.</div>
- </div>
- <div class="stanza">
- <div class="verse indent2">Tears for the flowers, and the young buds of hope,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">That wreathe Death’s altar:&mdash;let us weep for them.</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">But let us dash away the sorrowing tear,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">That falls upon the aged sleeper’s grave;</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">And joy that he has left this sinful world,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">And sought a purer and a happier sphere,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Where sorrow never comes, and where no care</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Blanches the cheek, and makes the spirit sad;</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Where sin hath never entered, to pollute</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">The perfect sense of happiness; where all</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">The great and good of earth for ever dwell,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">In the soft sun-shine of <i>Eternal youth</i>.</div>
- </div>
- <div class="stanza">
- <div class="verse right">H.</div>
- </div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</span></p>
-
-<h2 class="nobreak" id="THE_OMNIBUSA">“THE OMNIBUS.”<a id="FNanchor_1" href="#Footnote_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a></h2>
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p><a id="Footnote_1" href="#FNanchor_1" class="label">[1]</a> An “Omnibus” (this explanation is one of pure politeness on our part, and for
-the sake of the uninitiated) is a substitute for an Album; in which, any thing, every
-thing, and nothing, are quartered heterogeneously, and made good friends&mdash;supposing
-all this time that the thing be kept within the pale of proprieties. They
-are with, or without covers&mdash;written in black or red ink&mdash;up or down&mdash;crossways
-or otherwise, just as it happens. They were first got up by a certain <i>coterie</i> of ladies,
-who had sense enough to see that “Albums” are very sentimental and very
-ridiculous, owing to the extreme nicety with which a man must scribble for them;
-and that by introducing a little more latitude in this respect, the evil might in a
-measure be remedied. The result, ’tis thought, has shown their wisdom.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<h3>I.</h3>
-
-<p>“Come, write in my ‘Omnibus,’” said a sweet girl to me, with an
-eye that made one’s heart bump, and a lip that made him dream
-dreams. I looked into that eye, and at that lip&mdash;they almost unmanned
-me, yet I shook my head.</p>
-
-<p>She looked imploringly.</p>
-
-<p>“Can’t,” stammered I at last, though it choked me to say so.</p>
-
-<p>“Pray do,” and she laid her soft white hand on mine. Heavens
-and Earth! how the touch of that little hand thrilled through me&mdash;burnt
-along my arm&mdash;then down into my heart. Yet I remembered
-my resolution&mdash;I made it the day before&mdash;I swore by my happiness
-I’d never touch pen again. Still, there lay that hand&mdash;the
-long tapering fingers&mdash;I counted them one way, then t’other&mdash;how
-pretty they looked! I tried to look away&mdash;I looked at the
-four corners of heaven&mdash;some how or other, my eyes came right
-back again. Then I felt a soft pressure, those fingers contracted,
-they clasped&mdash;it was all over with me&mdash;the grasp of Hercules were
-nothing to it.</p>
-
-<p>The first thing I did was to kiss them&mdash;the next, find my senses.
-She blushed, I fidgeted.</p>
-
-<p>“Think out something”&mdash;the sound was like a brook in summer.</p>
-
-<p>So I thought, and thought, and thought&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>Thought I was by the ocean. Every body has stood by the
-ocean. Every body loves the ocean. They love it because ’tis
-beautiful. They love it because ’tis terrible. Who that could
-ever tell his passions, as he has seen the giant rouse himself&mdash;the
-black sky split by the thunder-bolt, and so brazen and fiery that it
-seemed crisping, and “about to roll away with a great noise”&mdash;the
-driving wind&mdash;the bellowing thunder&mdash;the crashing deck&mdash;the rattling<span class="pagenum" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</span>
-cordage&mdash;the death shriek of the sea-shipped wretch as the
-wave went over him&mdash;the horror-like eye’s last glance upon you!
-But I don’t mean such an ocean. It wasn’t such an one that I was
-standing by. It was a pretty considerable, magnificent, almighty,
-great sheet of water as far as the eye went, with a sky above that
-made one’s heart leap to look at it&mdash;its depth of blue seeming to
-stretch away and away, field after field, without a mist or cloud in it
-to mar its beauty&mdash;one unbounded, unshadowed sweep of glory and
-magnificence. The winds, soft and balmy, went whirling and whimpering
-along its surface, curling and crinkling it into small white
-waves, that, racing and capering up the beach, sparkled and turned
-into bubbles, and were caught up by the sun beams. Here
-and there the waters break. The huge porpoise went plunging,
-and sousing, and weltering along his blue path, flapping his huge tail
-into the air, and grunting his happiness&mdash;the bright light refracted
-from his surface, came to the eye like a rainbow. Here and there
-the flying fish slipped from his element, and went careering away
-over the far waters, till with a light dash or slap, his white wings
-dipped again into the ocean. The distance had one sail, a single
-one, right on the horizon’s edge&mdash;type, methought, of a being shut
-from the world&mdash;a human heart cut loose from sympathy&mdash;on the
-black desert of man’s pilgrimage. Such was the scene. I felt it. I
-rose, and stood, and shouted, and&mdash;</p>
-
-<h3>II.</h3>
-
-<p>Thought I was down in the ocean&mdash;right on the bottom. Whew!
-what a place it was!&mdash;saw all sorts of things, living and dead&mdash;all
-colors, good and bad&mdash;all shapes, hateful and fascinating. Here I
-wandered through endless groves of coral. Aloft went the light
-shafts tapering away into the blue distance, then branching forth into
-a glorious canopy, through which came the broken light with a mellowed
-beauty, not unlike the sun’s beams through a polished fresco-worken
-slab of alabaster. The waves swung backwards and forwards
-through this submarine forest, and their rush made the tall
-shafts quiver like aspen boughs in the tempest wind; and the light
-coral twigs, here and there detached by the waters, fell thick and fast
-like star showers in wintry nights. Nor should I forget the sounds of
-those waters as they tossed up the shells which were scattered there,
-and witched from them a music, that tripped and tilted through the
-brain, like Mab and her melodies in moonlight vision. It changed!
-I was in a desert! Rocks and barren surfaces above, beneath, around
-me! Wild cliffs&mdash;rent fastnesses&mdash;deep chasms&mdash;yawning and gaping
-like the cleft jaws of Hell! They had wrecks, and ruins, and
-dead men, and skeletons, and skulls in them. Here were fragments
-of those mighty tenements, that once rode in triumph on the wave’s
-surface. There were those black engines, wont to belch forth<span class="pagenum" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</span>
-“their devilish glut,” and flame, and thunder. Here were skeletons&mdash;some
-hugging in mortal conflict. They were grappled together,
-as when death overtook them&mdash;their jaws yet apart, as the
-last curse dwelt on them, the moment the bolt came. There were
-friends too, parent and child, husband and wife, lover and maiden&mdash;laid
-as they died, locked heart to heart, each on the other’s breast,
-the two a unity. I sickened, shuddered, gasped&mdash;</p>
-
-<h3>III.</h3>
-
-<p>Thought I was in a forest&mdash;a bright, a green, a glorious forest.
-My heart ached, and I had turned from the heated world and its
-miseries, and where the lofty branches had intertwined and woven
-a pleasant twilight dwelling place, I sat me down to meditate. Then
-I scribbled and scribbled&mdash;and thus, I scribbled&mdash;</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
- <div class="stanza">
- <div class="verse indent2">This is indeed a sacred solitude,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">And beautiful as sacred. Here no sound</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Save such as breathes a soft tranquillity,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Falls on the ear; and all around, the eye</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Meets nought but hath a moral. These deep shades&mdash;</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">With here and there an upright trunk of ash</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Or beech or nut, whose branches interlaced</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">O’ercanopy us, and, shutting out the day,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">A twilight make&mdash;they press upon the heart</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">With force amazing and unutterable.</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">These trunks enormous, from the mountain side</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Ripp’d roots and all by whirlwinds&mdash;those vast pines</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Athwart the ravine’s melancholy gloom</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Transversely cast&mdash;these monarchs of the wood,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Dark, gnarl’d, centennial oaks that throw their arms</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">So proudly up&mdash;those monstrous ribs of rock</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">That, shiver’d by the thunder-stroke, and hurl’d</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">From yonder cliff, their bed for centuries,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Here crush’d and wedged&mdash;all by their massiveness</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">And silent strength, impress us with a sense</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Of Deity. And here are wanted not</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">More delicate forms of beauty. Numerous tribes</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Of natural flowers do blossom in these shades,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Meet for the scene alone. At ev’ry step,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Some beauteous combination of soft hues,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Less brilliant though than those which deck the fields,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">The eye attracts. Mosses of softest green,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Creep round the trunks of the decayed trees;</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">And mosses, hueless as the mountain snow,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Inlay the turf. Here, softly peeping forth,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">The eye detects the little violet</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Such as the city boasts&mdash;of paler hue,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">But fragrant more. The simple forest flower,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">And that pale gem the wind flower, falsely named,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Here greet the cautious search&mdash;less beautiful</div>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</span></p>
- <div class="verse indent0">Than poets feign, though lovely to the eye.</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">These with their modest forms so delicate,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">And breath of perfume, send th’ unwilling heart</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">And all its aspirations, to the source</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Of Life and Light. Nor woodland sounds are wanting,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Such as the mind to that soft melancholy</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">The poet feels, lull soothingly. The winds</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Are playing with the forest tops in glee,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">And music make. Sweet rivulets</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Slip here and there from out the crevices</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Of rifled rocks, and, welling ’mid the roots</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Of prostrate trees or blocks transversely east,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Form jets of driven snow. Soft symphonies</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Of birds unseen, on ev’ry side swell out,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">As if the spirit of the wood complain’d</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Harmonious, and most prodigal of sound;</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">And these can woo the spirit with such power,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">And tune it to a mood so exquisite&mdash;</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">That the enthusiast heart forgets the world,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Its strifes, and follies&mdash;and seeks only here</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">To satisfy its thirst for happiness.</div>
- </div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<h3>IV.</h3>
-
-<p>Thought I was on an island&mdash;the brightest thing ever dancing in
-a poet’s vision, a perfect Eden-spot, an Elysium&mdash;</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
- <div class="stanza">
- <div class="verse indent4">Ye of the pure heart, come to me!</div>
- <div class="verse indent4">List to a tale of Poesy;</div>
- <div class="verse indent4">List&mdash;for, for it, ye may better be&mdash;</div>
- <div class="verse indent4">So scorn not the minstrel’s minstrelsy.</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Ye with a brow like the broken wave’s drift,</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">With an eye whose light is the first star of even,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">When it streameth afar through the sky’s red rift,</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">The only and loveliest thing in heaven;&mdash;</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Ye with a cheek like the marble fair,</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">Ye with a lip like the bright summer dew,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Ye with a softness and loveliness there</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">That Fancy never drew;&mdash;</div>
- <div class="verse indent4">Whose hands and whose hearts have been ever lent,</div>
- <div class="verse indent4">As spirits of mercy from Heaven sent:&mdash;</div>
- <div class="verse indent4">Ye have the pure heart&mdash;come to me!</div>
- <div class="verse indent4">List to a tale of poesy;</div>
- <div class="verse indent4">Give me your ear&mdash;give me your smile&mdash;</div>
- <div class="verse indent4">List to the lay of ‘The happy Isle.’</div>
- </div>
- <div class="stanza">
- <div class="verse indent4">That Isle&mdash;so beautiful to view!</div>
- <div class="verse indent4">No poet’s fancy ever drew;</div>
- <div class="verse indent4">He had not dreamed of such a thing,</div>
- <div class="verse indent4">With all the beauty he could bring.</div><span class="pagenum" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</span>
- <div class="verse indent0">It lay upon the open sea,</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">It lay beneath the stars and sun&mdash;</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">A thing, too beautiful to be,</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">A jewel, cast that sea upon.</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">The winds came upward to the beach&mdash;</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">The waves came rolling up the sand&mdash;</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Then backward with a gentle reach,</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">Now forward to the land,</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">Sparkling and beautiful&mdash;tossing there,</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">Then vanishing into the air.</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">The winds came upward to the beach&mdash;</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">The waves came upward in a curl&mdash;</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Then far along the shore’s slope reach,</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">There ran a line of pearl.</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">And shells were there of every hue&mdash;</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">From snowy white, to burning gold&mdash;</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">The jasper, and the Tyrian blue&mdash;</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">The sardonyx and emerald;</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">And o’er them as the soft winds crept,</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">A melody from each was swept&mdash;</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">For melody within each slept,</div>
- <div class="verse indent4">Harmoniously blended;</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">And never, till the winds gave out,</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">And ceased the surf its tiny shout,</div>
- <div class="verse indent4">That melody was ended:</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">Morn, noon, and eve, was heard to be,</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">The music of those shells and sea.</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">The winds went upward from the deep&mdash;</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">The winds went up across the sand&mdash;</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">And never did the sea winds sweep</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">Over a lovelier land.</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">The northern seas, the southern shores,</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">The eastern, and the western isles,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Had rifled all their sweets and stores,</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">To deck this lovely place with smiles:</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">And mounts were here, and tipp’d with green,</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">And kindled by the glowing sun;</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">And vales were here, and stretch’d between,</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">Where waters frolic’d in their fun:</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">And goats were feeding in the light,</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">And birds were in the green-wood halls;</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">And, echoing o’er each hilly height,</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">Was heard the dash of waterfalls:</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">O! all was beauty, bliss, and sound;</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">A Sabbath sweetness reigned around;</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">All was delight&mdash;for every thing</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Was robed in loveliness and spring&mdash;</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Color, and fragrance, fruit, and flower,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Were here within this Island bower.</div>
- </div>
- <div class="stanza">
- <div class="verse indent0">But purer, sweeter, brighter far&mdash;</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Brighter than Even’s earliest star,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Was she, the spirit of the place,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">The mortal with an angel’s face.</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">A form of youthful innocence,</div>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</span></p>
- <div class="verse indent2">With love, and grace, and beauty rife&mdash;</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">As erst, from ocean’s tossing foam,</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">Fair Venus sparkled into life.</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Around her pale and placid brow,</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">By long and auburn ringlets hid,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">A radiant flame ran circling,</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">And o’er her face a lustre shed.</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Her eye, so full&mdash;a spirit nursed,</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">So blue&mdash;it seem’d a part of heaven,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">So light&mdash;it was the sudden burst</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">Of meteors mid the stars of even.</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">A robe of azure pale she wore,</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">Her matchless symmetry concealing;</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Save where her bodice oped before,</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">Her soft and snowy breast revealing.</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">And in her hand (her arms were free)</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">She bore a reed from ocean’s side;</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Her feet were bare&mdash; * * *</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">* * * * * * *</div>
- </div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<h3>V.</h3>
-
-<p>Thought I was in love. Heavens! what a creature she was!
-Her form was like a fairy’s; and her face, about which the flaxen
-ringlets fell long, and soft, and silky, was at once so arch and sweet,
-it witched the very soul out of me before I knew it. Her picture
-is before me.&mdash;Her head like Juno’s, when she walked before the
-Olympic Thunderer, and yet a woman’s; her brow, high, and white,
-and pure; eyes of heaven’s own coloring, and bright, and ustrous,
-and large, and full, in whose crystalline depths slept a soul such as&mdash;as&mdash;you
-must guess at, reader, I can’t think of a comparison; a
-cheek, the eloquent beauty of which melted away so gradually into
-the pure transparency of her temples, that the eye lost it, and was
-wandering away, up, and around them, before it became aware of its
-own vagaries; and her mouth&mdash;Heavens and Earth! it was altogether
-and absolutely, the sweetest, prettiest, pouting, come-kiss-me,
-little mouth, I ever looked at; and her voice&mdash;her voice&mdash;how clear
-and musical&mdash;there was nothing like her clear, happy laugh&mdash;it rung
-like an instrument&mdash;like the silvery bell in the Faery Tale; and
-when she prettily bade me sit at her feet, and look up into her clear
-bright eyes&mdash;pooh! I might as well have attempted to knock Destiny
-on the head at once, and steer the boat of life myself, as keep
-from doing her bidding; and her form, robed as she was in her white
-cymar, with a single rose in her hair&mdash;the neck&mdash;the full bust&mdash;the
-rounded arm&mdash;the graceful curvature and wavy sweep of her folded
-dress, as it swelled from her glittering zone and fell to her feet&mdash;dear
-me! dear me&mdash;I&mdash;but this will do for a description.</p>
-
-<p>Her name was Fan.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</span></p>
-
-<p>One beautiful twilight&mdash;I shan’t forget it soon&mdash;one twilight, as
-the sun went, and right over his glorious resting place, the clouds
-of evening, like an enormous sweep of woven chrysolite, hung pinned
-by a single star to the blue wall of heaven&mdash;I sat and gazed at
-that star, then into her eyes; now into her eyes, and then at that
-star again; and&mdash;I grew silly.</p>
-
-<p>Says I, “Fan!”</p>
-
-<p>Says she, “Frank!”</p>
-
-<p>“You are very pretty,” says Frank.</p>
-
-<p>“You are very impudent,” says Fan.</p>
-
-<p>She shook her head at me, and drew her mouth into the queerest
-pucker imaginable.</p>
-
-<p>“Fanny,” said I seriously.</p>
-
-<p>She sobered.</p>
-
-<p>Some how or other, I got hold of her hand&mdash;’twas a pretty hand!
-I kissed it.</p>
-
-<p>“Don’t be silly;” and she gave me a cuff that made me see stars.</p>
-
-<p>“Fanny, I”&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>She looked softly at me.</p>
-
-<p>“Dearest Fanny, I”&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>She pouted.</p>
-
-<p>“I&mdash;I”&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>She blushed.</p>
-
-<p>“I&mdash;love you.”</p>
-
-<p>She sprang into my arms.</p>
-
-<p>Bending back her head, and shaking her long locks from her
-pretty brow, our lips&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>Hillo! reader, you are not getting sentimental, are you? Don’t
-now; for I’ve no sympathy with you&mdash;no more sentiment than a horse.</p>
-
-<p>But stop; here’s a bit, and written when things were tremendous.
-<i>Ecce signum!</i></p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
- <div class="stanza">
- <div class="verse indent0">O Fanny, sweet Fanny,</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">I cannot tell why,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">But I live in the glance</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">Of thy witching blue eye&mdash;</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">In the light of the spirit</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">And loveliness there:</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">O! I cannot tell why</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">I so love you, my fair!</div>
- </div>
- <div class="stanza">
- <div class="verse indent0">It is not&mdash;it is not</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">Its mild beaming&mdash;far,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Far excelling each lonely</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">And dim gleaming star;</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">It is not the beauty,</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">The sweetness of face,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">The form of perfection,</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">The movement of grace!</div>
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</span></p> </div>
- <div class="stanza">
- <div class="verse indent0">It is not, thou lovest me&mdash;</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">For ere I had heard</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Thy low sweet confession</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">As murmur of bird;</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Ere thou told’st me, my beauty,</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">Thy dreams were all mine;</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">I cannot tell thee why&mdash;</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">But I knew I was thine.</div>
- </div>
- <div class="stanza">
- <div class="verse indent0">A charm floats around,</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">And I feel while with thee,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Though a poor silly captive,</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">No wish to be free;</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">O! thus to be bound</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">In a thraldom like this&mdash;</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Though a thraldom indeed,</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">’Tis the sweetest of bliss!</div>
- </div>
- <div class="stanza">
- <div class="verse indent0">I am thine, dearest Fanny,</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">Yea, thine and forever&mdash;</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">No dark storm of sorrow</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">Our young hearts shall sever;</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">We’ll live, dream, and sigh, love,</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">Till time is no more;</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">And when death comes, we’ll fly, love,</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">To a sunnier shore!</div>
- </div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>I suppose I felt considerably relieved after this Ætnæan effusion.
-’Twould have cooled the furnace where they put Shadrach, Meshach
-and Abednego. But hear the sequel! We pouted, quarreled,
-parted.</p>
-
-<p>After our first pout, I scribbled as follows&mdash;</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
- <div class="stanza">
- <div class="verse indent0">O! girls fantastic creatures are,</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">Vexing us&mdash;teasing us;</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Now they’re here, now they’re there,</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">Perplexing us&mdash;pleasing us;</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">See you here a soft blue ee,</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">O! beware&mdash;O! beware;</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">For it melteth but to be</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">For a snare&mdash;for a snare.</div>
- </div>
- <div class="stanza">
- <div class="verse indent0">I have loved a gentle girl;</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">How I loved&mdash;how I loved&mdash;</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Witness it, my bosom’s whirl</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">When she moved&mdash;when she moved;</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Life, soul, feeling, all sincere,</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">Bound up in her&mdash;bound up in her;</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">She has left me, and I’m here,</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">A wound up sinner&mdash;a wound up sinner.</div>
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</span></p> </div>
- <div class="stanza">
- <div class="verse indent0">Left me, and without a smile,</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">Save a cold one&mdash;save a cold one;</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Not a word there fell the while,</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">Save some old one&mdash;save some old one;</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">My heart about to burst, and chain’d</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">As by a spell&mdash;as by a spell;</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">She could falter, unconstrained,</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">Fare thee well&mdash;fare thee well.</div>
- </div>
- <div class="stanza">
- <div class="verse indent0">O! I loved her; (may I be</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">For it forgiven&mdash;for it forgiven;)</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Rather, than a thing of clay,</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">As a thing of Heaven&mdash;a thing of Heaven;</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Feelings, none I had but went</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">Straightway there&mdash;straightway there;</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">When I prayed, her image blent</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">With my prayer&mdash;with my prayer.</div>
- </div>
- <div class="stanza">
- <div class="verse indent0">When she went, there was I,</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">Like her shade&mdash;like her shade&mdash;</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">When she call’d, I was by,</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">And there I staid&mdash;there I staid;</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">If her soft eye sadden’d seem’d,</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">I could smile&mdash;I could smile&mdash;</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Till that soft eye gladden’d seemed,</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">As erewhile&mdash;as erewhile.</div>
- </div>
- <div class="stanza">
- <div class="verse indent0">I presented her a ring,</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">Which she took&mdash;which she took;</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">And her words fell murmuring,</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">Like a brook&mdash;like a brook;</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Soft her eye’s glance fell upon me,</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">Even there&mdash;even there&mdash;</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">When its gentle meanings won me</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">Like a prayer&mdash;like a prayer.</div>
- </div>
- <div class="stanza">
- <div class="verse indent0">She has left me, and I’m here,</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">Desolate&mdash;desolate;</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">She has left me, nor a tear</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">For my fate&mdash;for my fate:</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">O! to be thus coldly parted,</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">Nor relief&mdash;nor relief&mdash;</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">And to be thus broken hearted,</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">This is grief&mdash;this is grief.</div>
- </div>
- <div class="stanza">
- <div class="verse indent0">Yet, I love her&mdash;I confess it,</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">More than ever&mdash;more than ever;</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Love’s a stream&mdash;you can’t repress it,</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">Mine’s a river! mine’s a river!</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Life, soul, feeling, all are given,</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">All my store&mdash;all my store;</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">In her, round her&mdash;there’s my Heaven,</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">I want no more&mdash;I want no more.</div>
- </div>
-</div>
-</div>
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</span></p>
-
-<h3>VI.</h3>
-
-<p>Thought I was with my mother. Mother! reader, hast thou a
-mother? not a mere nominal parent&mdash;one who brought thee into
-the world, and then left thee to struggle in’t&mdash;one who gave thee
-but a moiety of her tenderness? Nay, nay; I do not mean such.
-But I mean, one whose very life was wrapp’d up in thee, one whose
-eye moistened with thine, whose voice faltered with thine, whose
-heart reflected every shadow which passed over thy heart, even as
-a lake the summer clouds, that idle above its bosom. Such an one
-I mean&mdash;hadst ever such? I had&mdash;and how I loved her. Did I
-not?&mdash;the following verses prove it.</p>
-
-<h4 id="MY_MOTHER">MY MOTHER:</h4>
-
-<p class="h4sub">(<i>In two Sonnets.</i>)</p>
-
-<h5>I.</h5>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
- <div class="stanza">
- <div class="verse indent0">Dew to the thirsty flower, a rosy beam</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">Of sunshine, or the melodies to Spring&mdash;</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Sounds to the sick man’s ear, a running stream,</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">A humming-bird, a wild bee on the wing;</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Joy&mdash;to the earth-scorn’d soul, when all remote</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">Is happiness and e’en Hope’s lamp is dim;</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Light&mdash;to the dungeon wretch, when the last note</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">Comes through his grate of the sweet forest hymn;</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Her first-born’s breath that the young mother feels,</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">When her dimm’d eye falls on her little one&mdash;</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">A maiden’s priceless faith that love reveals,</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">When heart meets heart in holy unison;&mdash;</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Than these&mdash;than all&mdash;O! sweeter far to me,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Mother! are thoughts of home, of my sweet home, and thee.</div>
- </div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<h5>II.</h5>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
- <div class="stanza">
- <div class="verse indent0">Virtue&mdash;with the first dawn of infant mind,</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">Falling from lips that made it holier seem;</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Goodness&mdash;when deeds with precept were combined,</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">To show the world&mdash;“religion is no dream;”</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Tears&mdash;when my heart was all too sad to weep them,</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">Cares&mdash;when affliction press’d me bitterly,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Watching&mdash;when none but love like thine could keep them,</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">Rebukes&mdash;yet with a blessing in thine eye;</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">An eye that watch’d me and would never sleep,</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">A well-timed word to keep me in the way,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">A look, that made me go from thee and weep,</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">A faith, that made thee watch, and kneel, and pray&mdash;</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">These, these are thine&mdash;O! sweet are then to me,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Mother! the thoughts of home, of my sweet home, and thee.</div>
- </div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>Thus I valued her. But she’s in her grave now, and I often go
-there to watch and weep, and please myself with the vain fancy,
-that her spirit is bending over me. I always feel holier after it&mdash;as<span class="pagenum" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</span>
-if I had come from another world&mdash;had been beyond the grave&mdash;had
-unravelled the great mysteries of life and death, and could now
-look upon life unsway’d by that natural Atheism which ever clings
-to humanity, and mingles in all our aspirations for the future.
-Watching and prayer ever better us. But by the grave of a loved
-one, there are still holier influences. We see them through the
-mirror of feeling. If they had faults, they have them no longer;
-and their virtues, we canonize them&mdash;they are relics&mdash;they are talismans
-which we lay on our hearts, and they are holier for the contact.</p>
-
-<p>Earth’s thoughts come not to the grave’s side. The idle, the
-giddy and gay, they do not jest here&mdash;the song of triumph ceases,
-the unfinished quip dies on the lip that made it. The famed, the
-haughty, the ambitious, they bring not their proud thoughts with
-them&mdash;they tread its holy precincts, and their schemes are forgotten.
-The school boy’s whistle is lower here, and the butterfly he
-chases so eagerly, scales the white palings and escapes&mdash;he will not
-follow him. The very flowers that bloom here, the osiers that
-swathe the grave of that little one and twine about the head stones&mdash;they
-teach us by their freshness, and our thoughts stir up the fountains
-in us, and the heart is hallowed by it.</p>
-
-<p>Come hither, thou parent&mdash;a father perhaps. This was thy
-heart’s pride and passion. Hope and promise were his. You had
-already marked his path. Here were the flowers&mdash;there the thorns.
-You saw him in fancy, out of his boyhood&mdash;the youth&mdash;the young
-man&mdash;his cheek glowing for the contest. Death came&mdash;and you
-laid him here.</p>
-
-<p>Come hither, thou parent&mdash;a mother perhaps. This was thy
-first born. You bore him on your heart; you nursed him; you
-hung over him; you wept and prayed for him as mothers only can
-do; and <i>you</i> too, have laid him here. The little form you decked
-so&mdash;the locks that swung over a brow of silver&mdash;the face with its
-beauty, and light, and sweetness, and all the innocency of happy
-childhood&mdash;the clear silver shout of his joy&mdash;the step that ran to
-thee&mdash;the lip that pouted for the morning and evening kiss&mdash;aye!
-here they are&mdash;look at them.</p>
-
-<p>And who art thou, mourner?&mdash;thou that lookest not up to the
-glorious sky, or abroad on the fair face of the creation of God; but,
-wrapped in the selfishness and solitude of thy grief, standest here
-like a lone monument of dead men’s histories&mdash;who art thou?
-Thine eye is on that slab there; ’tis a maiden’s. Thou lovedst her
-perhaps; her heart beat to thee; her lip was free to thy wooing.
-She was decked for a bridal; the rite had sealed her thine; and
-death strewed thy bridal couch with rosemary, and rue, and the
-gloomy cypress.</p>
-
-<p>And what do these here? They come here to weep, for it sanctifies
-them. They come from the roar, and bustle, and heartlessness
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</span>
-of life, and they would listen awhile to the eloquence of the
-shrouded dead. O! the dead are eloquent! The voice is low, yet
-louder than that of many waters! They tell us that our loved ones
-were not ours! They tell us that they were lent to us, and have now
-been reclaimed! They tell us, that though saddening, ’tis sweet
-to think of them, for they tie us and our souls to the purity of
-Heaven!</p>
-
-<p>Some men shudder as they look into a grave; and well they
-may, some of the world. But the heart is wrong which feels thus.
-Does the sight of land give pain to the shipwrecked? is the hope
-of freedom unwelcome at the dungeon? does the sound of waters
-please in the desert? does the thought of sleep annoy us when
-weary? does the hope of oblivion give pain when the heart aches?
-Why then should the thought of what is greater gain than all these
-come to our hearts, but to waken their holiest emotions?</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
- <div class="stanza">
- <div class="verse indent0">O! ’tis because there is a power within,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Whisp’ring of good neglected&mdash;ill preferred&mdash;</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Duties cast off, and faculties misus’d!</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">It is, because the mortal triumphs, while</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">The purer passions, crushed or rooted out,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Leave him to be enslaved,&mdash;and thus in moments</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">When meditation, like a vestal waits</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Upon his heart, the buoyancy and peace</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Which should be his, give place to heaviness,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">And indefinable wretchedness of soul.</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">O! could the heart be school’d&mdash;could it be made</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">True to its nature&mdash;to the impress graved</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Upon it by the hand of Deity&mdash;</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Could it be made to balance good and ill,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">With purpose to be wise&mdash;could it but choose</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">The pure, and love it for its purity&mdash;</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">How blissful then, were thoughts of death and Heaven!</div>
- </div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<hr class="tb" />
-
-<p>There&mdash;young lady! I’ve <i>thought</i> for your “Omnibus,”&mdash;pray,
-what do you think?</p>
-
-<p class="right">
-*
-</p>
-
-
-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
-
-<div class="chapter">
-
-<h2 id="EPIGRAM">EPIGRAM,<br />
-<small>ON MR. &mdash;&mdash;, A BAD SINGER.</small></h2>
-</div>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
- <div class="stanza">
- <div class="verse indent0">The song of Orpheus and yours are one,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Both caused mankind and beast to run,</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">Only&mdash;<i>in different ways</i>;</div>
- <div class="verse indent0"><i>To</i> him they went like wild deer freed,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0"><i>From</i> you they go with equal speed,</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">To shun your “awful lays.”</div>
- <div class="verse right">Z.</div>
- </div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</span></p>
-<h2 class="nobreak" id="THE_COFFEE_CLUB">THE COFFEE CLUB.</h2>
-</div>
-
-<p class="h2sub">No. IV.</p>
-
-<div class="blockquot">
-
-<p>“Authors who acquire a reputation by pilfering all their beauties from others,
-may be compared to Harlequin and his snuff, which he collected by borrowing a
-pinch out of every man’s box he could meet, and then retailed it under the pompous
-title of ‘<i>tabác de mille fleurs</i>.’”</p>
-
-<p class="right">
-<i>Fitzosborne’s Letters.</i>
-</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="blockquot">
-
-<p>“If the work cannot boast of a regular plan, (in which respect, however, I do
-not think it altogether indefensible,) it may yet boast that the reflections are naturally
-suggested always by the preceding passage.”</p>
-
-<p class="right">
-<i>Cowper’s Letters.</i>
-</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<p><i>No est tan bravo il leon, como se pinta</i>&mdash;the lion is not so fierce
-as his picture&mdash;says the Spanish proverb, and such will doubtless be
-your exclamation, fair, gentle, indulgent, or judicious reader, (by
-whichever title you may please to be addressed,) when you discover
-that the heroes of the Coffee Club, invested by your scrutinizing sagacity
-with so many fictitious attributes, whether of honor or of
-dishonor, are in truth but cognate atoms with yourself in making up
-the mass of our small and secluded community. Nor will your self-satisfaction
-be at all enhanced, by the remembrance of the astute
-conjectures, ‘positive certainties,’ ‘perfect convictions,’ and ‘confidential
-informations,’ which have afforded you matter of exultation
-for a season, but are, by the revealment of the truth, shown to be unfounded,
-and if cherished with vanity, ridiculous. Each, however,
-may soothe his chagrin, with the assurance that no one was wiser
-than himself, and that the secret, which baffled his endeavors, not
-even the talismanic power of woman’s curiosity could elicit.</p>
-
-<p>It is the eve of the farewell exercises of the class, and the last
-meeting of the Coffee Club. Tristo had thrown gloom upon our
-spirits, by a mournful <i>epitaph</i> upon the pleasures and the duties,
-now buried in the past&mdash;but Pulito has reversed our feelings by a
-brilliant <i>epithalamium</i>, for our coming bridal day, on which we are
-to wed the <i>world</i>. So is it in life&mdash;we shed one tear over the past,
-and hasten on to catch the future.</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
- <div class="stanza">
- <div class="verse indent0">“Thrift, thrift, Horatio! the funeral baked meats</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables.”</div>
- </div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>In such a mood, the thoughts of all naturally reverted to the time
-when first we entered upon that stage in the journey of life, which<span class="pagenum" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</span>
-we have now completed. As we traced our progress onward, and
-recalled our errors and our follies, our hopes and disappointments,
-our attainments and our short-comings, the desire of sympathy, of
-consolation, and encouragement, led to a full and free expression of
-our thoughts and feelings. Apple, however, as his cigar wreathed
-forth its exhalations,</p>
-
-<div class="blockquot">
-
-<p>‘Upward and downward, thwarting and convolved,’</p>
-</div>
-
-<p>and puns and quips unceasing shot through their obscurity, like
-lightning through a cloud, seemed at first to be in no mood for the
-pathetic, or the serious. Pulito, too, after a brief and apparently
-regretful abstraction, broke forth in a strain half querulous, half
-laughing.</p>
-
-<p><i>Pulito.</i> “Well, ‘gentlemen commoners,’ however discourteous
-the remark may appear to you and your society, I must ne’ertheless
-regret that I am not this evening where I might have been,
-in a certain far-famed street, and gazing upon a certain lovely face,
-whose owner’s name ’twould be profanity to mention. I may say
-with the stricken Cowper,</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
- <div class="stanza">
- <div class="verse indent0">‘Farewell to the <i>elm-tree</i>, farewell to the shade</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">And the whispering sound of the cool colonnade.’”</div>
- </div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<p><i>Nescio</i>, (smiling.) “‘Lugete oh! Veneres Cupidinesque!’ As an
-old dramatist has it,</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
- <div class="stanza">
- <div class="verse indent0">‘Your soul, retired within her inmost chamber,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Like a fair mourner, sits in state with all</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">The silent pomp of sorrow round about her.’”</div>
- </div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<p><i>Pulito.</i> “Yes, and to borrow from the same play, The Rival
-Ladies, I think,</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
- <div class="stanza">
- <div class="verse indent0">‘Oh she is gone! methinks she should have left</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">A track so bright, I might have followed her</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Like setting suns that vanish in a glory.’”</div>
- </div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<p><i>Nescio.</i> “For the sake of quoting beautifully, you quote without
-application.”</p>
-
-<p><i>Apple</i>, (in a voice of thunder.) “Who in the name of heaven is
-it about whom you are making all this ‘tempest in a tea-pot?’ Girls,
-girls, girls, for ever and eternally! I wonder what you see in them!
-weak and shallow! It maddens me, Pulito, to see you, a fellow of
-some small sense, ‘bowing the knee in worship to an idol,’ a
-minion-queen, a painted doll&mdash;</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
- <div class="stanza">
- <div class="verse indent0">‘A pagod thing of flirting sway,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">With front of brass, and feet of clay.’”</div>
- </div>
-</div>
-</div>
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</span></p>
-<p><i>Pulito.</i> “Why, Apple, from your fierceness, I suspect you have
-lately met with a rebuff from some fair damsel.”</p>
-
-<p><i>Apple.</i> “No, indeed I have not; I was afraid I should though,
-and did not give her a chance. I was acquainted with some of them
-once, and endeavored to patronize, instruct, and even please them.
-But they had neither the acuteness to perceive the point of my
-puns, nor the complaisance to laugh at them, even when I led the
-way. In fact&mdash;the fiends scorch their pictures!&mdash;I believe they
-laughed <i>at</i> instead of <i>with</i> me. ‘Flattery is nectar and ambrosia to
-them.’ They drink it in and enjoy it like an old woman sucking
-metheglin through a quill.”</p>
-
-<p><i>Pulito.</i> “I allow that</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
- <div class="stanza">
- <div class="verse indent0">&mdash;&mdash;‘if ladies be but young and fair,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">They have the gift to know it.’</div>
- </div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>But this is chargeable upon us, who are accustomed to lie to them
-about their charms, as a matter of course.”</p>
-
-<p><i>Apple.</i> “Then, too, if beautiful, they can scarce be good. For,
-‘honesty coupled to beauty, is to have honey a sauce to sugar.’”</p>
-
-<p><i>Pulito.</i> “How! Is what is fair at surface necessarily foul at
-heart?</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
- <div class="stanza">
- <div class="verse indent0">‘Why what a world is this, where what is comely,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Envenoms him that bears it.’”</div>
- </div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<p><i>Apple.</i> “And how wide is their information, scientific, literary,
-political, moral! Their wits ‘are dry as a remainder biscuit after a
-voyage.’”</p>
-
-<p><i>Pulito.</i> “Well, Apple, I should think you had exhausted Shakspeare
-and yourself for terms of reproach: yet it still remains true,
-that they are the dearest, sweetest things ‘<i>in rerum naturâ</i>,’ and</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
- <div class="stanza">
- <div class="verse indent0">‘Should fate command me to the farthest verge</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Of the green earth,’</div>
- </div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>I shall still love them one and all.”</p>
-
-<p><i>Nescio.</i> “Yes.</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
- <div class="stanza">
- <div class="verse indent0">‘Dulcé ridentem Lalagen amabo</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Dulcé loquentem.’”</div>
- </div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<p><i>Tristo.</i> “I am no ladies’ man. I am too grave for their society.
-Yet I am willing to acknowledge that, together with their influence,
-they are half that makes life valuable. They are the purifying and
-refining ingredient in the seething caldron of society. Their perceptions
-are more rapid and acute than ours, and if deceitful, it is
-from <i>necessity</i>, which you know is the mother of <i>invention</i>.”</p>
-
-<p><i>Pulito.</i> “For my part, the absence of those pretty faces, which
-I have been wont to see in my ‘walk and conversation,’ will greatly
-deepen my regret at leaving this delightful place.”</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</span></p>
-
-<p><i>Apple.</i> “Pooh! couldn’t you sentimentalize a bit? ‘<i>Pone me
-pigris ubi nulla campis, Arbor æstivâ recreatur aurâ</i>,’ &amp;c. Turn
-me adrift in New England, New Guinea, or New Zealand, and
-let me have good meats, good drinks, good <i>kapniphorous</i> cigars and
-a dozen comedies, and I don’t care a rush.”</p>
-
-<p><i>Pulito.</i> “Oh! what an <i>animal</i>! Why, Dumpling, do you suppose
-you have a <i>soul</i>, or are you a mere lump of flesh, a ‘congregation
-of skin, bone and spissitude,’ to use one of your own ridiculous
-phrases?”</p>
-
-<p><i>Apple.</i> “Yes, Pully, I suspect I have such a thing as a soul
-somewhere&mdash;but I cannot determine its <i>locale</i>&mdash;neither do I fash
-my beard thereanent, since it is the only <i>immaterial</i> thing about me,
-ha! ha!”</p>
-
-<p><i>Nescio.</i> “That’s Apple, through and through, to circumvent
-truth by a quibble.”</p>
-
-<p><i>Pulito.</i> “But have you no sympathy with this verdant city and
-its lovely scenes? Why, this very evening,</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
- <div class="stanza">
- <div class="verse indent0">‘When the sweet wind doth gently kiss the trees.</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">And they do make no noise,’</div>
- </div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>is a copy of Paradise.”</p>
-
-<p><i>Apple.</i> “Yes! the ‘Paradise of fools.’”</p>
-
-<p><i>Pulito.</i></p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
- <div class="stanza">
- <div class="verse indent0">“‘On such a night</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Stood Dido, with a willow in her hand,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Upon the wild sea-banks, and waved her love</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">To come again to Carthage.’”</div>
- </div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<p><i>Apple.</i></p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
- <div class="stanza">
- <div class="verse indent0">“‘On such a night did young Pulito strive</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">T’ unseal the fount of feeling in his heart,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">And be poetic&mdash;<i>but he could not do it</i>.’”</div>
- </div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<p><i>Pulito.</i> “The air is like the breath of birds.”</p>
-
-<p><i>Apple.</i> “Such birds as caged pullets and mousing owls, probably,
-ha! ha!”</p>
-
-<p><i>Pulito.</i> “And then the cemetery, and these streets high-overarched
-with their verdant walls of inwoven shade.”</p>
-
-<p><i>Apple.</i> “Poetical, i’faith! <i>My</i> only amusement in the <i>burying-ground</i>,
-as an unsophisticated gentleman like myself would call it,
-is to read the queer old epitaphs.”</p>
-
-<p><i>Nescio.</i> “And mark how not even the ear of Death is secure
-from the poison of flattery.”</p>
-
-<p><i>Apple.</i> “Pretty fair! I approve of that remark. As for these
-streets, strip them of their green guardians, and they would be dry
-enough to choke the wave-washed throat of Neptune himself. How<span class="pagenum" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</span>
-can fellows walk over all creation for fine prospects&mdash;my best prospect,
-as a kindred spirit once said, is the prospect of a good dinner.”</p>
-
-<p><i>Pulito.</i> “Surely, the view from East Rock is delightful.”</p>
-
-<p><i>Apple.</i> “Undoubtedly, if there be two or three mountain nymphs
-hanging affectionately on your arm. Oh! triple horror! To toil
-through two long miles of dusty barrenness, and crawl <i>a la quadrupede</i>
-up a mountain of shifting sand and triturated stones, to view a
-few houses included between shoal water and furze hills.”</p>
-
-<p><i>Nescio.</i> “Methinks only a few weeks since, <i>you</i> escorted thither
-some twelve or thirteen of these same mountain nymphs.”</p>
-
-<p><i>Apple.</i> “To be sure I did, and therefore I can speak from experience.
-But it argues an unkind disposition in you, to fling a man’s
-errors and misfortunes in his teeth. I did perpetrate that act, and
-as I hope forgiveness, I am contrite therefor. We set off one morning,
-when it was so hot that the very clouds <i>smoked</i>, though <i>I</i> could
-not&mdash;for what would Jonathan Oldbuck’s ‘<i>woman-kind</i>’ say? ‘The
-ladies be upon thee, Sampson,’ thought I. I could not laugh, though
-there was enough that was ridiculous, for I had corns. So I went
-sweating along under a load of milk-and-water refreshments, like a
-man carrying his own gibbet. I climbed up the hill like another
-Sisyphus, with a train of Sirens behind me. When there what saw
-we. Why, through a cracked spy-glass, I saw <i>Nescio Quod</i> here,
-my own chum, coming out the bookstore&mdash;wonderful, thrilling, soul-stirring
-prospect! Then, lo! we had left the pine-apples a quarter
-of a mile from the foot of the mountain, where we had stopped to
-browse. Nothing would do&mdash;one lady was faint, and must have a
-little pine-apple juice&mdash;another sweet nymph, in an unguarded moment,
-said that her principal object in coming, was the pleasure of
-eating the pine-apples&mdash;and another rosy-cheeked, and not very
-sylph-like figure, remarked, that if Mr. Dumpling would be so good
-as to go after the basket, he should have the pleasure of her arm
-down the mountain. The devil of a pleasure, thought I; the sweet
-creature must have ‘gane daft, clean daft,’ or she would never have
-offered such an inducement&mdash;better for me ‘that a millstone were
-hanged about my neck,’ &amp;c.&mdash;but down I must come, and down I
-came, and when I got down, I stayed down. I ate the pine-apples
-myself, and laid down under the shade till evening, when I slunk
-home, leaving the ladies to their other beaux. I had some excuse
-though, for, while ‘midway between heaven and earth,’ I stumbled
-over a sweet-brier, and wrenched my ankle so excruciatingly, that
-Pope’s line occurred to my mind with some solemnity&mdash;</p>
-
-<div class="blockquot">
-
-<p>‘Die of a <i>rose</i> in aromatic (<i>a rheumatic</i>) pain.’</p>
-</div>
-
-<p>You take, do you? I managed, however, to reset the <i>luxed</i> but by
-no means <i>luxurious</i> joint, and grateful for my escape, I have forsworn
-the ladies, and pray for grace to keep my vow.”</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</span></p>
-
-<p>The laughter, long and loud, that succeeded the story of Apple’s
-tribulations, was a sort of clearing-up shower, and left the moral atmosphere
-in a temper more consonant with the seriousness of the
-hour. After a short breathing-space, the conversation broke forth
-anew, and in an entirely different channel. The sad peculiarity of
-our situation gave to our views, and possibly to our remarks, a tinge
-of bitterness and satire.</p>
-
-<p><i>Pulito.</i> “Well, fellows, ‘our course is run, our errand done’
-within these walls, and we are to leave them for ever&mdash;and why not
-bid farewell with a light heart and bounding hopes. To be sure, the
-vexings of the world will be rather uncomfortable. A gentlemanly
-air, and a languid intimacy with the ‘tricksy pomp’ of literature, will
-not make a man a President or a <i>millionaire</i>.”</p>
-
-<p><i>Apple.</i> “The prospect is somewhat discouraging. I should have
-felt no misgivings at starting in the literary world a century ago,
-when the noble art of punning was duly appreciated and rewarded,
-as witness the celebrity of that great man, Dean Swift. Or I could
-have been content to have ruffled it with the quibbling, conceit-loving
-cavaliers, who basked in the smiles of Queen Bess. But
-now the principles of taste are sadly perverted, and this noble art,
-this sole distinctive mark of genius, has sought and found refuge
-only beneath the classic shades of College. It is truly sad to me,
-to think of leaving this last strong hold of wit and sentiment.”</p>
-
-<p><i>Nescio.</i> “Why, Apple, your grief bewilders your mind. You
-began with talking about <i>punning</i>, and ended with wit and sentiment.
-Where is the connection?”</p>
-
-<p><i>Apple.</i> “At least as close, Mr. Quod, as between your real and
-expressed opinion, when you speak so despitefully of this innocent
-and dignified amusement. But now we are on the subject, what is
-wit?”</p>
-
-<p><i>Nescio.</i> “To which question I might reply, as Democritus did to
-him that asked the definition of a man&mdash;‘<i>tis that which we all see
-and know</i>.’ Such is the language of Barrow, the celebrated divine;
-I read it this very day. I however would admit no definition, that
-could possibly include a <i>pun</i>.”</p>
-
-<p><i>Tristo.</i> “You go to an extreme there, Nescio. A mere play
-upon words, a mere coincidence of sounds, makes but a poor jest,
-and a ready facility in discovering and thrusting into conversation
-these ‘imperfect sympathies,’ gives one but slight pretensions to the
-reputation of a wit. But there are some witticisms, which depend
-for their force upon a <i>pun</i>, but yet including also a racy humor,
-deserve the praise of true wit. I will read you an instance from
-Hazlitt:&mdash;“An idle fellow, who had only fourpence left in the
-world, which had been put by to pay for the baking of some meat
-for his dinner, went and laid it out to buy a new string for a guitar.
-An old acquaintance, on hearing this story, repeated these lines out
-of L’Allegro&mdash;</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</span></p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
- <div class="stanza">
- <div class="verse indent0">‘And ever against <i>eating</i> cares</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Lap me in soft Lydian airs.’”</div>
- </div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>Here the point of the jest lies in the pun upon <i>eating</i>, yet who
-does not acknowledge it as highly humorous. There are not many
-puns so refined and pure as this, but they sink in infinite and imperceptible
-gradations. You cannot draw a bold line between ‘the wit
-of words and wit of things.’ ‘For,’ as is said of Wit and Madness,
-‘thin partitions do their bounds divide.’”</p>
-
-<p><i>Pulito.</i> “Very true, and I detest that squeamishness, which
-would refuse the praise of wit to any thing approaching to a pun,
-and sympathize most heartily with poor Apple for his many rebuffs.
-But nevertheless, Apple, ‘a joke’s prosperity lies in the ear of the
-hearer,’ Shakspeare says, and one should not complain if his pet
-witticisms are not received with applause and answered with laughter.
-If the jest is worthless, he deserves ridicule&mdash;if it does contain
-the essence of wit he has only himself to blame for giving it an
-utterance, where it could not be appreciated. Think you that Addison
-would have displayed his delicate humor for the amusement of
-crabbed and adust bookworms, or Voltaire sported his sarcasms to
-tickle the ear of clowns? Let their example encourage and instruct
-you, my dear Apple, and if you cannot equal their fame, you
-may, at least, attain the celebrity of Joe Miller.”</p>
-
-<p><i>Tristo.</i> “You will allow, however, Pulito, there is too often
-manifested a disposition to decry and disparage, when approbation
-would have been more natural. Censure is too often heard from
-lips, from which praise would have been more graceful, or silence
-more becoming. There are too many among us, who seek to rise
-upon the fall of their rivals&mdash;too many ‘frosty-spirited knaves,’ of
-whom it may be said, in bitterest truth, ‘not to admire is all the art
-they know.’”</p>
-
-<p><i>Pulito.</i> “I have, however, been accustomed to regard such characters
-with more of pity than severity. I have regarded them as
-defrauded by nature of the just proportions of humanity. I have
-been vexed by their perversity, but no more inclined to resent it,
-than to chastise the ceaseless annoyances of a child or an idiot.”</p>
-
-<p><i>Nescio.</i> “You underrate their <i>intellect</i>, that you may relieve
-their <i>heart</i> from the imputation of baseness. True, he who is always
-searching for faults, without paying any attention to beauties,
-affords strong grounds for the conclusion, that he has no perception
-of the latter, and in his own experience is conversant only with the
-former: and he who is ever detecting plagiarisms, and starting resemblances,
-gives reason for the suspicion, that his acquaintance
-with the fountains of these stolen waters, is not so purely accidental,
-or so honorably gotten, as he would have us imagine. But deficiency
-of taste and weakness of mind are not the sole causes of
-such conduct. The <i>prompter</i> of the whole is envy,&mdash;envy, the
-meanest passion of the human heart&mdash;the only one in which there<span class="pagenum" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</span>
-is not some shade of honor, some trace of nobility. Ambition may
-be laudable&mdash;hate become a virtue from the loathsomeness of its object&mdash;covetousness
-acquire dignity from the excellence of the thing
-coveted&mdash;but the baseness of <i>envy</i> is enhanced by the purity and
-splendor against which it is directed.”</p>
-
-<p><i>Tristo.</i> “Not only is envy so mean a passion in itself, but it exerts
-a most debasing influence upon the intellect and whole character.
-Indeed, if we may believe Coleridge, the cherishing of it is
-incompatible with the existence of genius. His language is solemn;
-would that all the fosterers, or rather the <i>victims</i>, of this worst vice,
-to which we are by our situation exposed, might listen to his warning.
-‘Genius may co-exist with wildness, idleness, folly, even with
-crime; but not long, believe me, with the indulgence of an envious
-disposition. Envy is both the worst and justest divinity, as I once
-saw it expressed somewhere in a page of Stobæus; it dwarfs and
-withers its worshippers.’”</p>
-
-<p><i>Apple.</i> “To recall your attention, Tristo, to the subject from
-which we passed so suddenly to a more serious one, what think you
-of those who ‘wit-wanton it’ with things sacred, who at every breath
-break over the bounds of modesty, and outrage our sympathies with
-the true and the beautiful, for the sake of a momentary, and not unfrequently
-a shame-faced laugh?”</p>
-
-<p><i>Tristo.</i> “Such persons do themselves and others more injury
-than they think. Their incessant insults to all refinement and delicacy
-of feeling, if unresented and unguarded against, at length deaden
-and efface these sentiments. Bulwer says well of such, ‘Their humor
-debauches the whole moral system&mdash;they are like the Sardinian
-herb&mdash;they make you laugh, it is true, but they <i>poison you in the
-act</i>.’”</p>
-
-<p><i>Nescio.</i> “It is disgraceful that impurity should be an unequivocal
-characteristic of college wit. But it will be so, until some one shall
-demonstrate by his own example that there is no necessary connection,
-but rather an essential hostility between real humor and obscenity.
-But so long as it is easier to swim with the current than to
-buffet its dashings&mdash;so long as it is pleasanter to excite a hearty
-laugh, than encounter a cold sneer&mdash;so long as indolence and vacillation
-continue to be <i>descriptive marks</i> of a student’s character&mdash;we
-need not hope for a change.”</p>
-
-<p><i>Pulito.</i> “Whoever would attempt to effect one, should remember
-the aphorism, ‘He ought to be well mounted who is for leaping
-over the hedges of custom.’”</p>
-
-<p><i>Tristo.</i> “If this license on the part of some deserves severe reprobation,
-the chilling churlishness of those, who can feel no sympathy
-with <i>pleasure</i>, be it ever so innocent&mdash;whose minds can admit
-but the single idea of the <i>useful</i>, and reject as trifling the elegant
-and refining&mdash;who, swallowed up in their admiration of moral beauty,
-lose sight of or depreciate intellectual symmetry, (forgetting that<span class="pagenum" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</span>
-moral excellence, though it resemble in its value the priceless diamond,
-is not like it advantaged by a dull and roughened setting)&mdash;such,
-I say, must not pass without their share of censure, for they
-are in no slight degree the occasion, I will not say the cause, of the
-opposite vice in others.”</p>
-
-<p><i>Pulito.</i> “Such illiberality frustrates the praise-worthy exertions
-of all who indulge in it. It places them out of the circle of influence&mdash;their
-efforts can no more reach those whom they desire to affect,
-than (to use a magniloquent simile) the perturbations of the
-moons of Uranus can sway the Earth’s satellite in its orbit. But
-beside the unfortunate reaction of such principles, is not this cutting
-off, ‘at one fell swoop,’ all amusements, this tying down to one
-staid rule of <i>formal observance</i>, youth of every variety of taste, talent
-and temperament, and brought up under every complexion of
-circumstances&mdash;this curbing of all tastes and inclinations, not within
-the <i>lawgiver’s</i> capabilities&mdash;is it not based upon error of judgment,
-and directed by something of inquisitorial arrogance?”</p>
-
-<p><i>Apple.</i> “I never listen to a specimen of such frosty philosophy,
-without recalling an anecdote, much to the point. It is found, originally,
-I believe, in one of Pope’s letters to Swift, though I read it
-somewhere else. ‘A courtier saw a sage picking out the best dishes
-at table. ‘How,’ said he, ‘are sages epicures?’ ‘Do you think,
-Sir,’ said the wise man, reaching over the table to help himself, ‘do
-you think, Sir, that God Almighty made all the good things of this
-world for fools?’”</p>
-
-<p><i>Tristo.</i> “The sage must have belonged to the sect <i>Deipnosophoi</i>,
-or ‘Supper-wise,’ whom D’Israeli mentions. His principles,
-however, will apply in their full extent, I think, to the purer pleasures
-of taste and wit and literature.”</p>
-
-<p><i>Pulito.</i> “Talk not to them of the ‘purer pleasures of taste, and
-wit, and literature,’ for these are their utter abomination&mdash;snares for
-the youthful mind&mdash;idle perversions of talent. Speak to them of
-the grand display of moral power in Shakspeare’s dramas, and for
-an unanswerable answer, they will point to a gross expression&mdash;and
-consistently enough too, for theirs is the morality of <i>words</i>. They
-cannot perceive that the <i>scope</i> of all his principal plays is purely
-and symmetrically moral, or even religious&mdash;that they seldom violate
-the modesty of nature, though they may overstep the prudishness
-of an age when, ‘<i>La pudeur s’est enfuie des cœurs, et s’est refugiée
-sur les lévres.</i>’&mdash;Modesty has fled from the heart, and taken
-refuge on the lips. They cannot admire the <i>overruling providence</i>,
-by which his untutored genius, apparently so wild and uncontrollable,
-has been unerringly directed to conformity with truth and virtue.
-In their esteem the pious Cowper would have been more
-worthy, had he devoted his talents to the <i>practical</i> duties of ‘the
-clerk of the Commons,’ rather than have <i>wasted</i> them in the unproductive
-pursuits of poetry.”</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</span></p>
-
-<p><i>Nescio.</i> “Well, let them enjoy their opinions, provided they do
-not meddle with others in the gratification of their taste, or profess
-to judge in matters which they so virulently decry. The nightingale
-may not quarrel with the discordant braying of the ass, till the
-‘long-eared’ either attempt to ‘discourse sweet sounds’ himself, or
-criticise the melody of others.”</p>
-
-<p><i>Pulito.</i> “‘Aye, there’s the rub!’ None are more prompt in criticising,
-none more forward to condemn, than these same individuals.”</p>
-
-<p><i>Apple.</i> “Nothing ruffles the placidity of my temper so much,
-and so frequently, as the confidence with which some fellows, whose
-ignorance is absolute, pass judgment upon works of literature and
-taste. There are those, who cannot tell for their lives whether
-Walter Scott wrote Waverly or the Commentaries, or whether the
-author of Hudibras, the Reminiscences, and the Analogy, be not
-one and the same, who yet issue their unblushing firman upon any
-stray volume of poetry or romance, they may have chanced to pick
-up and gape through. I heard one, who could not count beyond
-ten, declare solemnly that he had no opinion of James, or Bulwer,
-and that J. K. Paulding could write better than either. Another,
-who had never seen a book, save the Family Bible, before he came
-to College, averred that Sterne, Smollett, Fielding, and Richardson
-united, never wrote any thing fit to be read by a man of good morals,
-or sound sense; and thought, moreover, that <i>Campbell’s</i> Thanatopsis
-was far inferior to <i>Bryant’s</i> Pleasures of Hope! And still
-another affirmed that the plays of Shakspeare even, were ruinous to
-the interests of morality, and that all the other dramatists of England
-ought to be buried under the ruins of the stage they support.
-Upon sifting the fellow, however, I found he had never read a play,
-saving the Tempest, Comedy of Errors, and a couple of diluted operas
-in the London stage!”</p>
-
-<p><i>Pulito.</i> “And yet these are they, who sit in daily judgment upon
-what they have neither the sense to comprehend, nor the delicacy
-to appreciate. These are they, who stigmatize every thing beautiful
-as a <i>rush</i>, and all that is novel to their narrow knowledge, as extravagant
-and wild. ’Tis a Bœotian criticising the dialect of Athens;
-a Scythian carping at the figures of Praxiteles. Shall the home-bred
-rustic, who thinks the middle of the sky directly above his
-head, and supposes that a walk of a day would bring his feet to the
-‘blue concave,’ attempt to teach the life-long traveller the principles
-of society, and decide upon the manners and customs and wonders
-of the world? And yet it would be as reasonable to the full
-as the conduct of him, who, when his knowledge is confined to <i>particulars</i>,
-attempts to play the critic&mdash;a part, which, in its very nature,
-implies <i>generalization</i> of the widest kind.”</p>
-
-<p><i>Tristo.</i> “How can the poor catechumen, who has not yet donned
-the robes of his novitiate, nor raised his eyes to the vestibule,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</span>
-much less stood in his sacrificial garments by the High Altar in the
-Temple of the Muses, presume to decide upon the value and lustre
-of the treasures its <i>adyta</i> conceal? It is as if the puny whipster,
-who fumes and gesticulates upon the academic stage, and whose
-thoughts and language are ‘a combination of disjointed things,’
-should attempt to span or analyze the harmonious vastness and
-sweeping magnificence of an Edmund Burke.”</p>
-
-<p><i>Pulito.</i> “There is likewise a species of grave wiseacres&mdash;sober
-fools, who are quite as senseless and less amusing than fools of the
-more fantastic turn. They think that wisdom dwells only upon
-sealed lips, and that strength of mind and sobriety of purpose, is <i>evidenced</i>
-by nothing but a rueful face. These fellows (to use the
-old Greek phrase) ‘lift the eyebrows’ with a dull forthshowing of
-meditative wisdom, and a countenance</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
- <div class="stanza">
- <div class="verse indent15">&mdash;&mdash;‘of such a vinegar aspect</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">That they’ll not show their teeth in way of smile,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Though Nestor swear the jest be laughable.’</div>
- </div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>Oh rather give me a whole-hearted fool, with his eternal grin, than
-one of these sombre <i>unimpressible</i> concretions of torpedo-stricken
-clay.”</p>
-
-<p><i>Nescio.</i> “There are here, likewise, even as every where, many
-who can stop at no medium, but carry reasonable freedom to unwarrantable
-license. Because it is both pleasant and right to spend
-some time in general, and above all, in female society, some therefore,
-in their society fling away all their time, and, with their time,
-fling away character, and knowledge, and happiness, and worth.
-Because it is not well to be always bending over the learning of the
-present, and listening to the eloquence of the past, some therefore,
-double, wheel, march, and countermarch through these dusty
-streets during the long hours of a summer’s day, and when they
-catch a glimpse at the shadow of a female form, they experience a
-momentary heaven. Others, remembering that it is irrational to crucify
-the senses, and mortify the flesh, smoke, eat, and sleep, continually.
-Others, hearing that as well profit as delight may be reaped
-from the inspection of fancy’s fairy finger-work, are on the tiptoe of
-panting expectation for each miserable novel that falls lifeless from
-the press. And thus it was, thus it is, thus it will be.”</p>
-
-<p><i>Pulito.</i> “But idleness&mdash;idleness is the student’s bane. It is astounding
-how we throw away our time, and our best time&mdash;our
-spring-hour of life. Time is the medium of acquisition, and, losing
-<i>that</i>, we lose all. I am no Utopian in theory, nor visionary in practice:
-neither am I free from the follies I deplore. But the strides
-which <i>might</i> be made in our collegiate course, would be mighty and
-amazing.”</p>
-
-<p><i>Nescio.</i> “I agree with you. Every ordinary mind, by more judicious
-application, might accomplish double what it does. I do<span class="pagenum" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</span>
-not mean that just twice as much would be read, or acquired; but
-that the <i>mind</i> would be twice as far advanced. It would not only
-have received twice the strength, and twice the beauty, from the
-studies it had actually traversed, but would be doubly fitted to grasp,
-conquer, and improve whatever might afterwards occur. The progress
-of the mind is in geometrical ratio. Every new and liberal
-idea, that is gained by a boy of twelve, is a capital which will return
-with yearly and enormous interest. It is analogous to the gaining of
-worldly wealth, where you must <i>hew</i> your slow and narrow path
-from nothing to competence; but from competence to opulence, the
-road is broad and easy.”</p>
-
-<p><i>Pulito.</i> “I cannot divine the <i>modality</i> (as the schoolmen might
-say) of some minds&mdash;the manner, in which they operate. For I
-know of those, who for four years have toiled with desperate firmness,
-and are what they were. They seem to have pursued a mill-horse
-track, without the remotest conception that there was aught
-else of value in the universe beside. Now I complain not of the
-rigor or of the nature of our course. Stern application is our only
-hope, and the course of authors we peruse, is perhaps as good as
-could be devised; but it is the <i>spirit</i> with which they study. They
-consider what they here gain, not as a <i>mean</i>, but as an <i>end</i>. Every
-man, who would be ‘aut Cæsar, aut nullus,’ and whose eye goes
-forward to the ‘immensum infinitumque’ of Tully, <i>must generalize</i>&mdash;<i>must</i>
-view things <i>relatively</i>&mdash;<i>must</i> consider every thing, not as a
-whole, but as a part. If one possess this generalizing spirit, I care
-not how undivided be his attention to the college course; for I believe
-that there is in the books of the first three years, beauty and
-grandeur and weight, sufficient to justify, nay <i>demand</i>, almost <i>entire</i>
-attention. For instance, to gain a perfect intimacy with Horace&mdash;not
-an intimacy with his words merely, and sentiments&mdash;but an intimacy
-with his beauties&mdash;with his <i>soul</i>&mdash;would require one month of
-the severest study; and yet such an intimacy is requisite to justify
-studying him at all: for if he is not to be appreciated&mdash;if that evaporating
-something, wherein he differs so widely from a dull Latin
-proser, is not to be seen and felt&mdash;you might as well have been reading
-Cato upon gardening, or Vitruvius upon architecture. But
-these fellows in studying a foreign tongue, give the general sense in
-hap-hazard English, without gaining any insight into the philosophy
-of mind, or the theory of language.”</p>
-
-<p><i>Apple.</i> “I think, moreover, that we ought to be more conversant
-with the sciences. Some of the details may, perhaps, be superfluous;
-but surely no one can claim to be a liberally-educated <i>gentleman</i>,
-without a general acquaintance with all, and a perfect knowledge
-of some of those departments. Whatever may have been my
-former obliquities, or short-comings in these studies, I am determined
-to retrieve them all. I have begun with attempting to square the
-circle, upon which great problem I have employed two weeks.”</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</span></p>
-
-<p><i>Nescio.</i> “Ha! Ha! do you approach the goal!”</p>
-
-<p><i>Apple.</i> “I cannot say that I do very rapidly; but I feel increased
-acuteness of perception. I think I might discover this grand secret,
-could I hit upon some method of reducing the circle to linear measurement.
-My nearest approximation is to make a circle of a string,
-and then quadrate its sides by the introvention of a square surface
-of board. Of course, I have the perimeter and square contents of
-the board, and if I could fit the latter accurately to the string, the
-work is done, and I am Apple the Great. But ‘hic labor, hoc
-opus est.’”</p>
-
-<p><i>Pulito.</i> “Ha! Ha! Be not wearied in well doing, Dumpling;
-you have opened on the right scent, (<i>erige aures, atque dirige gressus</i>.)”</p>
-
-<p><i>Tristo.</i> “But there is a more serious view to be taken of this
-matter, and one to which we must all open our eyes sooner or later,
-and well will it be for us if we take counsel while the storm is yet
-lowering, rather than look back with despairing, remorseful eye when
-ruin is in the retrospect. The day will come when he, who has
-squandered his abilities, and perverted his passions, will ‘begin to
-be in want,’ when mortified pride and conscious inferiority will
-‘bite like a serpent, and sting like an adder’&mdash;a day, when the
-busy idleness, the trifling engagements, and the languid excuses,
-which now lull all suspicion of an <i>actual waste</i> of time, will be forgotten,
-and nothing but the results will be visible. Then, one hasty,
-reverted glance, without any minute calculation, will inform us, that
-by our thriftless expenditure, when we might have economized to
-some purpose, we are <i>compelled</i> to be idle and insignificant; when
-we <i>feel</i> idleness to be a <i>disgrace</i>, and insignificance a <i>torment</i>. And
-why are not we alive to all this? Why do we not feel it, and <i>show</i>
-that we feel it, by our actions, when we can thus in theorizing, ‘put
-on the spectacles of age?’ The melancholy maxim of the ancients
-explains it&mdash;</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
- <div class="stanza">
- <div class="verse indent0">‘Quem Deus perdere vult, prius <i>dementat</i>.’</div>
- </div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>Who would have the punning epigram upon the Cardinal De Fleuri,
-true of him?</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
- <div class="stanza">
- <div class="verse indent0">‘Floruit sine fructu,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Defloruit sine luctu.’</div>
- </div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>There is a merry jingling in the sound, but under it is conveyed a
-mournful meaning. Yet it shall be written of all, who, either trusting
-to their native genius, or destitute of honorable ambition, flutter
-away their existence in mimicry of the tiny circlets of the silly fly,
-instead of pluming their wings and nerving their energies, for a bold,
-a steady, and a deathless flight. Youth gives its stamp to life, and
-life to immortality&mdash;time is a type of eternity. I have somewhere
-seen the vastness of the latter illustrated by the image of a huge<span class="pagenum" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</span>
-chronometer, of which the starry heavens were the dial-plate, its
-pendulum swinging in cycles of ten thousand years, and ringing to
-myriads of ages.”</p>
-
-<p>In such and similar discourse, did they consume the lagging hours
-of night: now changing ‘from grave to gay, from lively to severe,’
-and glancing over all the subjects and circumstances in which a student
-might feel a personal or an associated interest. They talked
-of silly affection, and of scheming selfishness, and condemned alike
-that vanity, which could exult in a new pair of gloves, or be elated
-by that ‘<i>shadow of a thing</i>,’ yclept a reputation; and having in view
-this one position, that what one <i>is</i>, and not what he <i>seems</i>, forms his
-character and moulds his destiny,</p>
-
-<div class="blockquot">
-
-<p>‘Still they were wise whatever way they went.’</p>
-</div>
-
-<p>And now, Reader, we have done. If from this rude, incongruous
-heap, which, in the throwing together, has afforded us both
-pleasure and profit, you have been able to extricate any thing of either,
-we are satisfied. If by our unworthy portraiture of cheerful
-mirth without the taint of vicious excitement, a single heart, sick of
-the <i>hollowness</i> of dissipation, shall be seduced from its enticements&mdash;if
-one mind, till now swallowed in the vortex of current opinion, and
-dead to the merits of any save <i>fashionable</i> authors, should be led to
-the study of chaster models, and the formation of a purer taste&mdash;if
-one soul, whose fountains have been sealed to the thousand springs
-of written or unwritten <i>poetry</i>, gushing up all around him, has been
-opened to their influences&mdash;or if any individuals of the various classes
-which we have ventured to describe, shall, by the image of their
-deformity, be frighted, ‘if not into greater goodness, at least into
-less badness’&mdash;<i>it is enough</i>.</p>
-
-<p class="right">
-<span class="smcap">Ego.</span>
-</p>
-
-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<h2 class="nobreak" id="WHAT_IS_BITTER">WHAT IS BITTER.</h2>
-</div>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
- <div class="stanza">
- <div class="verse indent0">’Tis <i>bitter</i> when beneath the midnight moon</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">We wander near the graves of those we love;</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">The lone heart sinks, and sighs for the bless’d boon</div>
- <div class="verse indent6">Of rest above.</div>
- </div>
- <div class="stanza">
- <div class="verse indent0">When wearied age, with retrospective view,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Sees in the record of departed years</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">A tale of blighted hopes&mdash;he reads it through</div>
- <div class="verse indent6">With <i>bitter</i> tears.</div>
- </div>
- <div class="stanza">
- <div class="verse indent0">’Tis <i>bitter</i> when our days are almost done,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">To feel for wasted talents vain regret,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">And see, with guilty fear, our life’s last sun</div>
- <div class="verse indent6">In sorrow set.</div>
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</span></p> </div>
- <div class="stanza">
- <div class="verse indent0">’Tis <i>bitter</i> when revenge, with hellish art,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Lights in the breast her ever-scorching flame,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Stirs passion’s depths, and forms the tiger-heart,</div>
- <div class="verse indent6">No power can tame.</div>
- </div>
- <div class="stanza">
- <div class="verse indent0">And <i>bitter</i> is the heart, nay more, undone,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">That finds long-cherished hopes in ruin end,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Crushed by the cruel treachery of one,</div>
- <div class="verse indent6">It deemed <i>a friend</i>.</div>
- </div>
- <div class="stanza">
- <div class="verse indent46"><span class="smcap">Eta.</span></div>
- </div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<h2 class="nobreak" id="THE_REASON_OF_ANIMALS_NOT_THE_REASON_OF_MAN">THE REASON OF ANIMALS NOT THE REASON OF MAN.</h2>
-</div>
-
-<p>The organic kingdom seems to be little else than a system of
-means, resisting for a short period only the laws which govern inanimate
-matter, and then yielding to their power. Wherever the contemplative
-mind turns among the innumerable tribes of animals,
-which have been revealed by the scrutiny of man, it beholds them
-all struggling a little while for a sentient existence, and then sinking
-down, to form a part of that mingled mass, which has given them,
-and continues to give their successors, sustenance. It is not however
-animated matter only which thus for a moment attracts, and
-then passes from our observation. In each individual of all this
-numberless multitude, we behold the glimmering of intelligence, and
-in some species it seems to fall but little below the uncultivated reason
-of man; nay more, in their architecture, in their fabrics, in their
-modes of subsistence and defence, many are known to rival the utmost
-stretch of human ingenuity. This intelligence also, and this
-ingenuity, vanishes from before us. The theory has indeed been
-formed, that this appearance of reason, wherever found, or however
-feeble, is but the commencement of an immortal existence; but
-it is not thus that the mass of mankind view the subject. They are
-accustomed to look upon the whole animal kingdom as progressing
-to a period, when, not only the sensations of their bodies will cease,
-and their organs be left, without exception, to decay, but when all
-their intelligence and skill also will be swallowed up in annihilation.
-If then the reason of brutes is the reason of man, how strong, how
-complete the analogy, and how natural the conclusion, that the
-mind of man too, with the decease of his body ceases to exist! Living
-therefore as the most intelligent of these animals do, in the midst
-of us, and seeming to think and reason every day as really as ourselves,
-reason itself seems to be constantly persuading us that our
-end is the same. Indeed, if man differs from the brute only in the
-degree of intellect which he possesses, it is almost demonstrably certain,
-that annihilation or immortality alike await us. That animals
-are immortal, however, it is impossible to believe; for if this may
-be predicated of one individual, it may be predicated of every species<span class="pagenum" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</span>
-in which animal life can be proved to exist. From the highest
-intelligence which exists among them, to the meanest insect that
-crawls in the dust, or the dullest inhabitant of a shell that clings to a
-rock, there is not a point where the line of separation can, with any
-degree of plausibility, be drawn, and we might almost extend the
-chain to the plant that shrinks from the touch, and the flower that
-follows the sun. This theory therefore we reject as unnatural and
-absurd. Hence we are reduced to the necessity of allowing, either
-that man is not immortal, or that his reason is different, not only in
-degree, but in its nature, from that of brutes. Although if the latter
-be true, it does not follow that the former is false, yet one of the
-most powerful arguments in support of it falls to the ground, and
-leaves other evidence to produce a conviction of the truth of its opposite.
-It is then an object of no little importance to discover, if
-possible, whether there is sufficient difference between the faculties
-of men and animals, to justify the conclusion that their destinies are
-so different.</p>
-
-<p>In endeavoring to accomplish this object, we propose to consider
-brutes, in the first place, as they exist in their natural state, and afterwards,
-as they are when trained by man. Let us go, then, to the
-forest where the bird sits upon her nest, and the beast rests in his
-lair in undisturbed repose&mdash;or rather, if you please, where air, earth
-and water, teem with countless multitudes, all alive with activity,
-and all closely devoted to the peculiar employments for which Nature
-has fitted them. Compare now this busy scene, with that
-where the same elements groan under the burden imposed upon
-them by man, in his highest state of cultivation. Mark the aerial
-artist as she proceeds in the construction of her edifice, which in its
-execution and adaptation to its situation, defies all imitation by man.
-Without a model, and without instruction or experience, she fabricates
-a nest, which, in materials and construction, as near as circumstances
-permit, resembles those of all her predecessors. Where
-there is no possibility of a communication, precisely the same process
-is followed, and the same result is produced in every instance.
-Neither does age, observation or experience, produce the least improvement,
-but it more frequently happens, that the first product of
-this instinctive skill excels all that succeed. The same appears to
-be true of every species of the brute creation as we find them in the
-wilds of nature. All come into existence endowed with a species
-of intellect; a practical ingenuity, apparently far superior to any
-thing which man possesses, previous to observation.</p>
-
-<p>If, therefore, the mental endowments of brutes are to be estimated
-by the readiness with which they arrive at certain practical results,
-man sinks below them. Among the whole human race, we find not
-a single instance of such instinctive knowledge. Man springs into
-existence of all animals the most helpless, and the most ignorant of
-the means of his support or his happiness. He is compelled to
-learn and direct every step of his course by observation and experience.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</span>
-He is left to deliberate and choose without any previous bias
-of the mind, and hence arises that vast diversity of manners and customs,
-scarcely greater between the most civilized and the most barbarous
-people, than between those who are buried in an equal
-depth of barbarism. On the other hand, throughout each particular
-species of the brute creation, all appear to be guided by one mind,
-and urged on by some irresistible power to the same definite ends.
-In the state in which we are now considering them, there is no variation
-in their habitudes, and seems to be no possibility of their
-choosing a different course from that so universally pursued. It is
-as natural to them as to live; as involuntary as their breath. This
-is instinct&mdash;a faculty to man denied&mdash;a pilot whose absence leaves
-him to the winds and waves of circumstances, while its presence impels
-as well as guides the animal creation in all their intricate manœvres.</p>
-
-<p>There are traits, however, in which man and the most intelligent
-of other animals closely resemble each other. Present, for instance,
-a pleasing object to the eye of man, and the countenance will involuntarily
-kindle into a smile. Present to the half-famished wanderer
-an article of food, and the flowing saliva and the beseeching look,
-will testify, in spite of him, his eagerness to receive it. Tear from
-the fond mother her darling offspring, and plunge into its unprotected
-breast the glittering steel, and an agony unutterable will give her
-wings to fly to its rescue, and a thousand tongues to call for aid, or
-drive her to madness with despair.</p>
-
-<p>This is a species of action, exhibited to an actual extent, perhaps,
-though in different ways, by both animals and men. It evinces a
-power which it is not in the nature of man wholly to resist, and under
-the full operation of which we use neither deliberation nor judgment.
-Such seems to be the power which gives rise to a large part
-of the actions of the most intelligent animals. It differs little in its
-nature from that instinct which guides them in their mechanical labors,
-and, in connection with it, is sufficient to account for all the phenomena
-which, as sentient beings, in their natural state, they exhibit
-to us. It is the influence of the passions&mdash;the feelings&mdash;the heart.
-In brutes, apart from instinct, (if this be not considered instinct,) it
-holds universal sway. The objects which excite the passions, and
-give rise to action, may not, indeed, in all cases be present. They
-may be called up by circumstances in all the vividness of reality,
-through the powerful memory with which brutes are endowed, yet
-the motives of the action are the same as if the real object supplied
-the place of the imaginary one. The principle is the same, and the
-result is still produced by the influence of the animal feelings, excited
-by sensible objects. But in man there is displayed a moving
-power which exists independently of instinct, of love, or hate, or
-hope, or fear, and which is capable of exercising a control over all,
-unless it be the very strongest of human passions. In the exercise of
-it, the passions are, as it were for the moment annihilated, and the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</span>
-intellect rises into a sphere where all tangible, sensible objects, vanish,
-and the mind converses with objects beyond the reach of mere
-animal perception.</p>
-
-<p>The question may now arise, how are we to account for all that
-variety of movement and action, which animals acquire under the
-instruction of man? If instinct and passion are the only influences
-to which they are subject, we should reasonably suppose that their
-actions would be as invariable as the motives from which they originate.
-Had they never been subject to a higher order of beings,
-this would be found universally true. But that class of animals
-which we denominate domestic, and indeed almost all upon which
-the hand of man has laid its controlling influence, exhibit a species
-of action, which indicates a capability of improvement, and for which
-it would be impossible to account upon the principles which have
-been considered. There is another principle which is seen alike in
-animals and man, and might with propriety be denominated an artificial
-instinct. It is habit&mdash;a state in which we are led to act with
-reference to definite ends, and yet act involuntarily. By a frequent
-repetition of some motion of the hand, the foot or the whole person,
-we come at last to do the same unconsciously, and it is by this means
-that we perform so readily many of the intricate processes which
-the arts require. It is this which explains the secret of attachment
-to places and things. Even the prisoner, after a long-continued
-confinement to a gloomy cell, finds, at his departure, a magic
-charm binding him to the dreary habitation. The tender threads of
-affection have become entwined around the objects so constantly before
-him, and he is obliged to summon his reason, to break through
-the silvery web that is formed around his heart. Observation teaches
-us that animals are subject to the same influence. After a period
-of confinement and familiarity with man, the door of their enclosure
-may be opened, and almost without exception, they will leave it,
-only to return again of their own accord&mdash;not because a judgment
-teaches them that such a condition is preferable, but because a new
-influence is thrown over them which they cannot shake off. It is
-obviously upon this principle that they perform all the manœvres,
-and answer all the purposes, which they are made to do by man.</p>
-
-<p>These three causes&mdash;instinct, passion, and habit, are believed to
-be sufficient to account for all the varieties of action exhibited by
-animals. We no where discover any of that power of origination,
-that freedom of thought and action, which renders man capable of
-endless improvement, and worthy of presiding over the brute creation.
-Nor any where do we find that power of abstraction, by
-which, from evidences of design which are displayed among terrestrial
-and celestial objects, we are able to reason our way up to an
-Infinite Being whom we have neither seen nor heard. These are
-the characteristics of man, which render him an accountable being&mdash;give
-him a conscience, and stamp him with the impress of immortality.</p>
-
-<p class="right">
-S.
-</p>
-
-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</span></p>
-
-<h2 class="nobreak" id="DE_LOPEZ_THE_BRAVE">DE LOPEZ THE BRAVE.</h2>
-</div>
-
-<div class="blockquot">
-
-<p class="center">“The age of chivalry is gone.”&mdash;<i>Burke.</i></p>
-</div>
-
-<h3>I.</h3>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
- <div class="stanza">
- <div class="verse indent0">In days of yore, when minstrel song</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">Ne’er swell’d ‘to please a peasant’s ear,’</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">But ladye fair, and knightly throng,</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">Were pleas’d his gentle harp to hear;</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">There liv’d in Spain, a knight of fame&mdash;</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">His deeds as gallant as his name&mdash;</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">De Lopez&mdash;stainless arms he wore,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Those arms his peerless fathers bore;</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">And many a goodly rood of land,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">And castle fair were in his hand;</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">And many a serf ‘with buckled brand,’</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Rode to the fight at his command.</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">A braver knight ne’er strode a steed,</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">Or couch’d a lance in rest;</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">A stalwart knight was he at need,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">His war-spear was no coward’s reed;</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">In mercy he was best.</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">But he was now to bid adieu</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">To scenes he lov’d full well;</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">He had vow’d, as loyal lord and true,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">To follow his king the crusade through,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">To lands o’er which the simoom blew,</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">Till the Moslem crescent fell.</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Now, in the castle hall he stood,</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">His ladye on his arm&mdash;</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">He waited there, before he rode,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Trusting his lovely bride with God,</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">To shield her from alarm.</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">“Now bless thee, dearest,” cried the knight,</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">“God keep thee safe and true;</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">My life, my love, ah, cruel right!</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">That blasts our day of love so bright</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">And o’er it spreads the sable night,</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">A night of deadly hue.”</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">So spake De Lopez, gallant knight,</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">On parting at the castle gate,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">He in his glittering arms bedight,</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">She mourning o’er her hapless fate.</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">And then she plac’d a bright red rose</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">Among his waving plumes;</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Ah, hapless bride! she little knows</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">What fearful fate it dooms.</div>
- </div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<h3>II.</h3>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
- <div class="stanza">
- <div class="verse indent0">No more the charger paws the ground,</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">Nor snuffs the fresh’ning air,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">No more the faithful vassals round,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Impatient for the bugle sound,</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">Await&mdash;their lord is there.</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">He gave his pennon to the gale,</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">His bugle echo’d far,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">O’er distant forest, plain and dale,</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">The fearful notes of war.</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Then spurr’d their furious steeds amain,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">And soon they cross the lengthen’d plain.</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">But, lo! from yonder lofty tower,</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">The ladye keeps her lonely watch,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">And there has spent a long, long hour,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Spying her lord thro’ plain and bower,</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">Wherever she a sight can catch.</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">And now, in the blue distance far,</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">The pennon fades away;</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Or, like some ling’ring, morning star,</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">That shines with doubtful ray,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">’Tis now in view, now lost to sight,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">As slowly wanes the yielding night.</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Their gleaming helms and waving crests,</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">Their spear-heads tipp’d with silv’ry light,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Their flashing shields and steel-clad breasts,</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">That sparkle with a sheen so bright,</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">Grow faint and fainter to the sight.</div>
- </div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<h3>III.</h3>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
- <div class="stanza">
- <div class="verse indent0">Why course the drops down Mena’s cheek?</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">Why leaves she now the lonely height,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">The ladye of the heart so meek,</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">The ladye of such gentle might?</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">She sees no more her own brave knight,</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">She hears no more his bugle-wail;</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">The dark’ning shadows of the night,</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">Shrouding the forest, plain and dale,</div>
- <div class="verse indent4">Conceal him from her sight.</div><span class="pagenum" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</span>
- <div class="verse indent0">And now she hastens to her bower,</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">And now the chief pricks on his way;</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Behold, around him march the power,</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">Of vassal bold in long array;</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">For they are bound to Palestine,</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">With shield, and spear, and sword,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Their blessed Saviour’s tomb to win</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">From ruthless Moslem horde.</div>
- </div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<h3>IV.</h3>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
- <div class="stanza">
- <div class="verse indent0">Among the suitors of the land,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">That sought fair Mena’s lily hand,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">There was a dark-brown baron bold,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">That dwelt secure in massive hold;</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Men seldom cross’d his stone threshhold,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">For many a tale, the country round,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Their feet and tongues in terror bound.</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">’Twas said he practic’d gramarye,</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">And that in wild, tempestuous nights,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">The lurid lightning one might see,</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">Flashing around his castle heights;</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">While the deep-mouth’d bellowing thunder,</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">Shaking the massive keep,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Would seem its rocky walls to sunder,</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">Then straightway forth would leap</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">A dazzling, quiv’ring, noiseless flame,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">And the black pall of night again</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">Enshroud the heaven’s starless steep.</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">This baron hath sworn a fearful oath,</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">‘By heav’n and all its saints,’</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">That be the ladye never so loth,</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">Despite of love’s restraints,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">She yet shall deck his bed and board,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">And gladly own him her liege lord.</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Now, Holy Mother, shield her well,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">From all the fiendish plots of hell.</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">For, well I ween, this baron bold,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">His mightiest spells will not withhold.</div>
- </div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<h3>V.</h3>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
- <div class="stanza">
- <div class="verse indent6">What gleaming light,</div>
- <div class="verse indent8">Shoots forth its beams,</div>
- <div class="verse indent6">Through the deep night?</div>
- <div class="verse indent8">Say, what this means?</div>
- <div class="verse indent10">All else is still</div>
- <div class="verse indent10">On the castle hill,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Save the warder’s cry, and the deep clock’s chime,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">That warns the pale ghost of his passing time.</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">That ray from the baron’s window gleams,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">And, as far down on the lake it streams,</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">Three spirits cross its path.</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">(God shield us from their wrath!)</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">By blackest art they’ve laid to sleep</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">The warder ’neath the deep black lake,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">There too they’ve made the ban-dog keep</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">His lone watch, lest the warder wake;</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">The smould’ring brands of the watch-fire bright,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">They plunge ’neath the wave, as well they might.</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">For such foul arts of gramarye,</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">No mortal eye may ever see.</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">’Tis not for such as me to tell,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">What did they in the baron’s cell.</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">’Tis said that voices loudly groan’d</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">Around the turret’s height;</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">And e’en the graves in churchyard moan’d,</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">With many a restless sprite;</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">That then in cloud of flame and smoke,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">These spirits their departure took.</div>
- </div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<h3>VI.</h3>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
- <div class="stanza">
- <div class="verse indent0">Why swims pale Mena’s heavy eye?</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">Why walks she with a falt’ring step?</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Why heaves she now the sudden sigh?</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">Has not her gallant lover kept</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">His knightly word? or, can it be</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">That he has fall’n beyond the sea?</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">She had last night a fearful dream,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">‘A spirit woke her,’ (it did seem,)</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">‘And with a finger gory red,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Pointed her to a bleeding head;</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Upon a city’s gate ’twas plac’d,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">With dust and clotted gore defac’d;’</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">She shriek’d not&mdash;but her heart’s hot blood</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">Mounted in gushes to her brain,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">This cannot be&mdash;oh, gracious God!</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">Is this her luckless lover slain?</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">But the foul spirit by his power,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Sustain’d her through her trying hour.</div>
- <div class="verse indent6">Yet once again</div>
- <div class="verse indent6">The vision came.</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">‘She sees a gallant knight,</div>
- <div class="verse indent4">And a ladye fair flit by;</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">They move like forms of light,</div>
- <div class="verse indent4">And stately onward hie;</div><span class="pagenum" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</span>
- <div class="verse indent0">The knight&mdash;he was the baron bold!</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">Herself the ladye fair!</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">The hour of one the clock now told,</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">The spirits melt in air.’</div>
- </div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<h3>VII.</h3>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
- <div class="stanza">
- <div class="verse indent0">Now round the altar high they stand,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">In sooth, a gallant, goodly band;</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">On high the torches flash and wave,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Showing pillar and architrave,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">And arch and gothic window fair,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">And, hanging high in the cold night air,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Pennon and ’scutcheon that glisten’d there.</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">But who are these, at dead of night,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">That would perform this holy rite?</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Who, I pray, but the baron bold,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">And the fair Mena, deck’d in gold?</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">For missals foully forg’d have said,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">(Rest him!) her gallant knight is dead!</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">And then, her father’s stern command,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">And many a ghostly spirit band,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Have sent her mad;&mdash;she cannot know</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">The full extent of all her woe.</div>
- </div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<h3>VIII.</h3>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
- <div class="stanza">
- <div class="verse indent0">The priest in robes of stainless white,</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">Does now beside the altar stand,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">And now beneath the dazzling light,</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">The baron takes the ladye’s hand.</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Jesu Maria! what muffled form,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Breaks through the crowd like a mighty storm?</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">His helm is gone, but a lifeless rose</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">On his steel-clad bosom finds repose.</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">’Tis wither’d and faded quite away,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Still lies it there; as, in former day,</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">It shone a terror to his foes.</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">The baron breathes convulsively,</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">He knows the stranger knight</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">That aims at him so manfully;</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">Oh, shield the luckless wight!</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Now flash their falchions in mid air,</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">May “God defend the right!”</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Oh, who had seen that man would swear</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">His was no mortal might.</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">But, ah! he’s down&mdash;it cannot be:</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">His mighty soul for aye has sped!</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Draw near&mdash;oh, horrid sight to see</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">De Lopez number’d with the dead!</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">With idiot eye and childish stare,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Poor Mena bends before him there,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">His bloody, wasted hand she takes;</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">The flower her sad remembrance wakes.</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Her brain is fir’d; in vain she tries</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">To shed a tear!&mdash;so soon, alas!</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">The secret springs of feeling fail,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">When wrongs the anguish’d heart assail,</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">And burning sorrows o’er it pass.</div>
- </div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<h3>IX.</h3>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
- <div class="stanza">
- <div class="verse indent0">With mournful step and fun’ral wail,</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">They bear the baron bold;</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">No more he’ll need his war-proof mail,</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">No more his massive hold.</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">De Lopez did not fall in vain,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">For, as he fell, with might and main,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">While yet in death he fainter grew,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">He thrust the bloody baron through.</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">They lay the baron by a running stream,</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">Nor moon nor stars e’er shine upon the spot;</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">But, it is said, a bluish, noiseless gleam</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">Surrounds him; such, the dreaded wizard’s lot.</div>
- </div>
- <div class="stanza">
- <div class="verse indent0">A monument of marble pale,</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">Marks where De Lopez fell;</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">For him arose no kindred wail,</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">He lies secure from fiendish spell.</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">And they have carv’d a gallant knight,</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">Stretch’d on that tomb so pale,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Still in his stainless arms bedight,</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">Still clad in marble mail.</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">’Tis said, when the moon, with palish ray,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Shines on the spot where the brave knight lay,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">A saint-like spirit you may see,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">With marriage robe, and bended knee,</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">Kneel o’er his lowly sepulchre.</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Awhile she’ll kiss the marble face,</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">And shed a lonely tear,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Then look to heav’n&mdash;to ask the grace</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">That was denied him here.</div>
- </div>
- <div class="stanza">
- <div class="verse right">R.</div>
- </div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</span></p>
-
-<h2 class="nobreak" id="MR_WILLIS">MR. WILLIS.</h2>
-</div>
-
-<p>When so many mouths are full of Mr. Willis, and pamphlets and
-periodicals are alternately lauding and lashing him&mdash;and, moreover,
-since he has so lately passed through this city, (the city of his Alma
-Mater,) and with him, his very lovely trans-Atlantic lady&mdash;it is certainly
-proper that this magazine (the deputed organ of Yale’s literary
-notions) break its dignified silence. Criticism, it is true, of
-right belongs to older heads&mdash;but since such numbers have apparently
-forgotten this in the community at large, we shield our presumption
-under their greater impertinence. Impertinence! That
-the thousand and one notions put forth here and there to the detriment
-of Willis, are impertinent, lies on the face of them. What
-right have they to find fault with his coat, or the fit of his breeches?
-“Ah! but he don’t pay for them!” Prove that, rascal&mdash;perhaps
-your prejudice then will be less apparent. But stop a moment.</p>
-
-<p>Of course&mdash;we are not seated to make out an analysis of Willis’
-mind&mdash;nor to criticise thoroughly his poetry&mdash;nor to meddle particularly
-with his morals&mdash;nor to read him furiously a Chesterfieldian
-lecture&mdash;nor to tell him whether he shall or shall not curl his hair&mdash;whether
-he shall or shall not have his carriage, his horses, his dogs,
-<i>et cetera, et cetera</i>. No! nothing of this, save incidentally&mdash;we
-leave this to others. Besides, ’tis too late for it&mdash;they have been
-treated on, and his new work has not yet come to us. But our purpose
-is, to scribble a rapid, running, off-hand article&mdash;to trouble,
-somewhat, some of the defamers of Willis&mdash;to give our own opinions
-as may be about this or that&mdash;to say just what we have a mind
-to&mdash;to say it how we have a mind to&mdash;and (of this, reader, be certain)
-to enjoy our own opinions.</p>
-
-<p>Whether we are capable of this, of advancing an opinion&mdash;of that,
-reader, you must judge. Thus much we <i>dare</i> say&mdash;our prejudices
-will not trouble our judgment. We have alike objected to the indiscriminate
-laudatory efforts of the friends of Willis, and the pitiable
-swellings and puny malice of his enemies&mdash;we have made ourselves
-alike familiar with his prose and with his poetry&mdash;(what man of taste
-has not?)&mdash;we have never shut our eyes on his faults, or suffered a
-jaundiced vision to distort, discolor, or otherwise interfere with his excellencies&mdash;we
-have often censured and praised him&mdash;fought for
-him and against him&mdash;in short, been placed exactly in those circumstances,
-which are favorable to a proper appreciation of his
-merits&mdash;supposing all this time, that we possess a moderately good
-share of judgment in these matters. Thus much we dare say.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</span></p>
-
-<p>The most troublesome things to be met with now-a-days, are
-your <i>echoing</i> gentlemen.<a id="FNanchor_2" href="#Footnote_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> Mr. Willis has done thus and so, says
-one&mdash;Mr. Willis has written thus and so, says another. Now we
-don’t say Mr. Willis has <i>not</i> done or written thus and so&mdash;perhaps
-he has&mdash;nor would we be understood exactly in this free government,
-as interdicting the expression of opinions, even supposing
-these young gentlemen harmless, and as entirely innocent of a capability
-to judge as they really are&mdash;but we do say that, in this hot
-weather, and especially as dog days are coming on, every buzzing,
-barking, or otherwise troublesome creature, should be heard as little
-as possible, and that it is altogether too much of a tax upon the
-easiness of modest men, and too much of a tax on the patience of
-sensible ones, when with all their exertions and cooling appliances,
-(such as ventilating, dressing thin, and going under the College
-pump,) they can scarcely keep themselves comfortable. He’s a
-puppy, says one. What do you mean by “puppy,” say we. Why,
-he’s an exquisite&mdash;a dandy. Now, hang your ignorance! for your
-charge proves you a clown. <i>We</i> have seen Mr. Willis (we have no
-acquaintance with him) sitting and standing&mdash;we have seen him in
-company and out of company&mdash;we have seen him hat on and hat
-off&mdash;we have seen him walking and talking&mdash;and <i>we</i> declare, that
-there’s nothing about him but an air of high society, and a well bred
-gentleman. The charge of being a dandy, might be laid any where
-with equal propriety&mdash;the urbanity of his deportment, considering
-his publicity, is worthy of high praise.</p>
-
-<p>His publicity, his English reputation&mdash;this is another thing his
-enemies turn against him. Witness the slighting method of the
-Quarterly&mdash;witness the cool handling of the Edinburgh&mdash;witness
-his annihilation in the Metropolitan, say they. Annihilation! murder&mdash;what
-a term is this&mdash;here’s a tax&mdash;here’s a sweep&mdash;here’s a
-pull on our credulousness. Have these gentlemen forgotten the
-admitted principle in physics, that you cannot annihilate matter?
-But&mdash;’tis of a piece with the rest of their absurdities.</p>
-
-<p>As for the attacks of those great organs of English sentiment, the
-Edinburgh and Quarterly, it only needs a glance at the <i>acknowledged</i>
-reason of those attacks, to show it altogether complimentary
-to the <i>talents</i> of Willis. His stories publishing successively in the
-London New Monthly&mdash;he was bowed through England with an assiduity
-and politeness well worthy the English nation, and of which
-any American might be proud. The first ranks welcomed him to
-their circles&mdash;their first literary men were pleased with his acquaintance,
-(aye! the very men who afterwards smote at him)&mdash;and the
-first critic of England, or of the world even (North, we mean,) has
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</span>
-estimated his power, and written him&mdash;no common genius. This were
-praise enough, in all conscience. The indiscretions of Willis&mdash;and
-such he has, and we blame him&mdash;these it was called forth those
-harrowing, ripping, raking articles, so eagerly cited against him now;
-and with these <i>facts</i> before us&mdash;shall we take <i>their</i> estimate of his
-intellect, and North on our side into the bargain? Out on him who
-does it! But the first men of the age have been placed precisely
-as Willis has&mdash;some of the Reviews one side, some on the other.
-Byron was thus placed. To the last day of his life he was horridly
-mauled by some of them, whenever that great lion turned flank and
-exposed himself to the enemy. He has been called ridiculous, affected,
-a narrow though great mind, and a plagiarist, by one of
-their first Reviews; and others of their great men have run the gauntlet,
-and after the same fashion. There’s nothing new in it&mdash;what,
-then, is the worth of the argument?</p>
-
-<p>Of the article in the Metropolitan, nothing need be said&mdash;’twas
-personal <i>pique</i>, as every one knows. The fact that a single sentence
-of Willis’ condemnatory of Marryatt called forth that article, is
-a high proof of the estimation in which he was held, and speaking in
-no ordinary tone. Policy should have kept Mr. Willis from saying
-it&mdash;this no one doubts, whether it was true or not. If true, however,
-he deserves less censure; and now we call upon every admirer
-of Capt. Marryatt, and demand if it is not true, that there are passages
-in most of his novels we read with disgust&mdash;that we would not
-read in good society, or before a sister&mdash;and if he has not come into
-a dangerous proximity with that point, where he deserves all that
-Willis says of him? <i>We</i> assert that he has&mdash;let Capt. Marryatt’s
-admirers disprove it. And the Willis and Marryatt correspondence
-too! little need be said here, than that those letters went to show
-Marryatt a bullying blackguard, and Willis <i>the</i> gentleman. These
-things we assert&mdash;and yet professing ourselves admirers of Marryatt.
-He is doubtless one of the geniuses of the age. But we will not let
-our admiration distort facts, when such distortion is injurious to one
-of our countrymen.</p>
-
-<p>These echoing gentlemen talk much of Mr. Willis’ ephemeral
-reputation&mdash;of his fame’s dying with him. Lo, and behold these
-Solomons in literature&mdash;witness these wise men of Gotham,&mdash;these
-“Daniels’ come to judgment!” Have these gentlemen to learn,
-that men never tolerate each other’s weaknesses?&mdash;have they to
-learn that Willis has been indiscreet?&mdash;have they to learn that
-such numbers of young and old, high and low, rich and poor, as
-have pitched upon him, have done so <i>for</i> this&mdash;and that it follows
-necessarily, his genius is undervalued. Whether they have or not&mdash;men
-of sense admit it all over the world. Men’s follies die with
-them. We don’t bring hatred to the grave’s side&mdash;unless to throw
-it in there and bury it. The smouldering earth we lay over them
-hides their defects&mdash;we put their virtues in our hearts. So it is
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</span>
-with men whose follies tarnish their genius. Genius is in itself, a
-living principle&mdash;you can’t annihilate it&mdash;you can’t lessen it&mdash;you
-can’t depress it. You <i>may</i> undervalue it&mdash;you may rail at it&mdash;you
-may affect to despise it. But it never was heard and it never will
-be, that genius, however manifested, has not sooner or later regained
-its splendid birth-right. So will it be with Willis&mdash;would we admit
-what his enemies ask, that the community as a body are
-against him. He has genius&mdash;a noble, lofty, and original one&mdash;(we
-wish time permitted to show this by references)&mdash;his follies stand
-betwixt the light and his merits&mdash;let him die, his follies die, and the
-world at once acknowledges this merit. Such is the process&mdash;if we
-admit, as just mentioned, that the community are against him.</p>
-
-<p>We have already transcribed our limits&mdash;we therefore, pause.
-Before doing so, however, let us and the reader understand each
-other. Let us not be ranked with the mad admirers of Willis&mdash;we
-are none such&mdash;he has too many follies for that. But we cannot
-forget, either, how very very brilliant are many very many of his
-productions, and with what unmitigated pleasure we have always perused
-them. And, if our humble voice might be heard so far, we
-would counsel Mr. Willis that he no longer&mdash;if he has done so&mdash;discredit
-the fine genius that God has given him&mdash;that he tax well,
-and long, and arduously, that mind of his&mdash;that he by some noble
-effort so engrave his name on this age, that the rust of after years
-shall never eat it away.</p>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p><a id="Footnote_2" href="#FNanchor_2" class="label">[2]</a>
-By echoing gentlemen, we mean such as carry their chins high&mdash;walk with
-canes&mdash;retail opinions pilfered from English papers, and call them their own.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<h2 class="nobreak" id="GREEK_ANTHOLOGY_No_VI">GREEK ANTHOLOGY.&mdash;No. VI.</h2>
-</div>
-
-<p>Civilization, among all the changes it has effected in the character
-and habits of its subjects, has wrought none more remarkable
-than that in the condition of woman. In savage countries, the degraded
-slave of continual oppression&mdash;in barbarian nations, the dormant
-medium of sensual felicity&mdash;among the semi-civilized, the ignorant
-and secluded object of idol affection&mdash;it was reserved for the
-refinement of a purer age to reinstate her by the side, and in the
-heart of man. No longer his passive minister to pleasure, she has
-risen to share with him the rights and the enjoyments of rational
-existence. From the object of occasional devotion and general
-contempt, she has become, in the world where her claims are acknowledged,
-a guide-star of benign and sanctifying influence.&mdash;&mdash;Pish!
-sentimentalizing, and on a subject trite as an almanac!&mdash;&mdash;But
-why not? In my last number, as well my own assertions, as
-the <i>inconsecutive</i> form of my conceptions, might have been proof convincing
-that the solstitial airs had pervaded mind and body with their
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</span>
-enervating breath. Since then, and while the sun was riding in his
-more northern tropic, my energies fell before his potent presence
-with a still lowlier prostration. Yet, as utter oppression will drive
-even the weakest to resistance, so does trampled Nature rise rebellious
-against the tyrant, and stand upright even before his summer-throne.
-The cold airs of the morning send a vigorous life through
-the limbs, which the toils of yesterday exhausted; and a <i>post-prandial</i>
-siesta followed by a light repast “of meats and drinks, nature’s
-refreshment sweet,” prepares the mind for an evening of quiet thought,
-or rational enjoyment.</p>
-
-<p>This morning is of the loveliest. Each gentle flower turns her fair
-face to the god of her idolatry, and, like a grateful bride, repays the
-warmth of his caresses with the perfume of her breath. It would
-seem as if the wing of relenting Time had dropt a freshening essence
-on his vassals, as he passed, and atoned, in the face of Nature and the
-hearts of her children, for the ravages of years. ’Tis not the sacred
-awe, that falls like a shadow from the stars of midnight, and wakes in
-the soul an unutterable yearning for a holier home&mdash;’tis not the sad
-solemnity of evening, that fuses into one pervading thought the
-hopes of the future, and the sorrows of the past, whilst our gaze
-follows far into his nightly pavilion the golden footsteps of the retreating
-Day&mdash;’tis the freshness, that dwells in the pinion of the
-eagle, when he springs from his dew-cold aerie in the mountains,
-and soars, with eye turned direct and unblenching on the morning
-sun. But to return to the women. It is a lamentable fact&mdash;‘horresco
-referens’&mdash;that the old heathen, and the Greeks among them,
-did not prize very highly these interesting objects. It is true that
-the exquisite delicacy of female beauty, excited in their breasts a
-natural thrill of pleasure, and now and then a Sappho or an Aspasia
-by the united power of wit and loveliness threw a spell of enchantment
-around the wisest, and bravest, and proudest of their
-time. But these were exceptions. There is many a smart bit of
-satire, and many a dull growl of defiance at the sex, scattered
-through the pages of the Anthology&mdash;and these I have hitherto
-neglected to translate, well knowing that the ladies are not so perfect
-as to bear sarcasm with patience, and that a portion of their
-anger might be diverted from the Greeks to me. Whether their
-being created second entitles them to be considered <i>second-best</i>, it
-is not my province to decide. At any rate I see not how we could
-<i>get along</i> without them, and I am perfectly willing to add my experience
-to that of Mungo Park, and testify that, where they are
-suffered to have their own way, I have found them uniformly generous
-and obliging.</p>
-
-<h3><i>A Paraphrase from Palladas the Alexandrian.</i></h3>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
- <div class="stanza">
- <div class="verse indent0">Woman, thou busy, meddling, curious thing,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">What endless evils from thy presence spring!</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">For thee, forth-sailing from the hills of Greece,</div>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</span></p>
- <div class="verse indent0">Bold Jason wandered for the Golden Fleece.</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Thou, and thy paramour, the beauteous boy,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Brought woe and ruin to the gates of Troy.</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Achilles’ anger for a while delay’d</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Th’ event occasion’d by the faithless maid;</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">And then, when Ilion’s consecrated wall</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Had shook, and reel’d, and nodded to its fall,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Who but a woman, on the foaming brine</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Held wise Ulysses, and transformed to swine</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">His brave companions, and employ’d each wile</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">To chain the hero to her magic isle?</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">And is not woman’s love, or woman’s rage,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Ground of each plot upon the tragic stage?</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Quick to perceive, and headlong to resent,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Thy kindled anger never can relent.</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">So mild in love, so terrible in hate,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">The soothing balm, and tri-thonged scourge of Fate;</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Thou sure wert born to trouble and perplex,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Involve and puzzle the diviner sex!</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Have we a secret? Keep it, as we may,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Full soon it passes from our grasp away.</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Has any thing occurred? “Who, which, what now?</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">“Come, tell me quick, the why, when, where, and how!”</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Yet art thou lovely as the gentle light,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">That falleth dew-sprent from the orbs of night;</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">And, wert thou fled, this world of ours would be</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Dark as the Fates, and barren as the sea.</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">When wise, and kind, and generous, and mild,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Thou rul’st us, as a mother rules her child.</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">But when thy passions take their headlong way,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">We scorn thine empire, and defy thy sway.&mdash;</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Must, then, a pretty, peering, prying wife,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Soothe, vex, enliven, and distract my life?</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">I’ll cling to thee for better, and for worse,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Our joy, our grief, our blessing, and our curse.</div>
- </div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>Let those who are not satisfied with this mixture of compliment
-and sarcasm read the following, and see with what yearning anguish
-a Greek could mourn over the grave of a loved one, who had passed
-what was, to the ancients, with emphatic truth “the valley of the
-shadow of death.” It is by Meleager, one of the most delicate and
-affectingly simple of all the Greek poets.</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
- <div class="stanza">
- <div class="verse indent0">To thee, transported by that cruel Power,</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">Who waves his sceptre over all that live,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Tears wept in darkness at the midnight hour,</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">Oh! Heliodora! bitterly I give.</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Thy home’s low roof with ceaseless tears I wet,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">In deep, and wild, and passionate regret.</div>
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</span></p> </div>
- <div class="stanza">
- <div class="verse indent0">Oh! Heliodora! I have known thee long,</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">And loved thee deeply, and bewailed thee well;</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">But what avails the tear, the sigh, the song,</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">To thee, thus sleeping in thy narrow cell?</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Alas! my lovely flower is senseless clay!</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">My budding rose the Grave has torn away!</div>
- </div>
- <div class="stanza">
- <div class="verse indent0">To thee, oh earth! then let thy mourning son,</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">O’er whose glad heaven this cloud hath early past,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Whose day is darkened ere its morn be run,</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">Lift one appeal&mdash;his strongest, and his last&mdash;</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Take her, oh! take her to thy gentle breast,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">And lull her softly to her evening rest!</div>
- </div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<h3><i>To the Tettix.</i></h3>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
- <div class="stanza">
- <div class="verse indent0">Thou noisy thing, intoxicate with dew,</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">Thou desert-babbler, with thy rustic lay,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Who sittest idly, where the green leaves through</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">On thy <i>cranked</i> limbs bright slants the solar ray,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Whilst from thy little frame with hue of fire,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Comes forth the mimic music of the lyre&mdash;</div>
- </div>
- <div class="stanza">
- <div class="verse indent0">Oh! friendly songster, to the Sylphid Maids</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">‘Discourse sweet music,’ with thy tiny tongue,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">And unto Pan, who habits in the shades,</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">And roves the mountains and the fields among.</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Then, freed from love, my noontide sleep I’ll take,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Beneath the shadow which the plane-trees make.</div>
- </div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>And now, dear reader, thou hast gathered with me a few of the
-many wild-flowers, which bloom in the Anthology, but are known
-only to the student, and appreciated only by the scholar. If thou
-art not interested in them, it is either because thou art not gifted
-with a love for the simple and the beautiful, or else because that
-simplicity and beauty have perished in the medium through which
-thou hast seen them. I am no man-worshipper, and, I hope, no
-nation-worshipper. Yet I love, admire, and venerate the Greeks;
-and though I might in liberality allow that there have been minds
-more mighty than any of the Grecian race, yet it might be shown
-by the strongest of moral proof&mdash;the sentiments of nations, and the
-evidence of facts&mdash;that they were the brightest, simplest, and most
-<i>classic</i> nation on the earth. I say, it might be shown, and should
-occasion serve, I will show it. Meanwhile I will content myself
-with the hope that you may be blessed with an <i>Attic reduplication</i>
-of wit, a <i>temporal augment</i> in the riches and honors of this world,
-and a <i>spiritual aspiration</i> after all that is beautiful in knowledge,
-and all that is generous in deed.</p>
-
-<p class="right">
-<span class="smcap">Hermeneutes.</span>
-</p>
-
-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</span></p>
-
-<h2 class="nobreak" id="OUR_MAGAZINE">“OUR MAGAZINE,”</h2>
-</div>
-
-<p>Is doing very well&mdash;but might do better. It has hitherto had subscribers enough
-to support it&mdash;it has never lacked communications&mdash;it has never been so unfortunate
-as at one and the same time to displease <i>every body</i>&mdash;it has been constantly
-sustained by the countenance of able friends, and the attacks of weak enemies&mdash;its
-general character has been approved by the ‘leading prints’&mdash;many articles
-have been copied from it, not without the most gratifying compliments&mdash;even the
-editors have not lost their meed of praise.</p>
-
-<p>So much for the first part of our remark, that the Magazine is ‘doing well’&mdash;now
-for the less pleasing adjunct, ‘that it might do better.’ We might have <i>more</i>
-subscribers&mdash;and all our subscribers might pay as they engage to&mdash;our articles
-might be more varied and more excellent&mdash;and by an increase of patronage, we
-should be enabled to enlarge the size, and improve the mechanical appearance of
-the work&mdash;and, in a word, make it more worthy of the institution from which it
-takes its name, and which it is our especial delight to honor.</p>
-
-<p>All subscriptions were considered as made for one year, and will be so charged
-by the Publishers. Subscribers at a distance are reminded that their <i>money</i> is due.</p>
-
-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</span></p>
-
-<h2 class="nobreak" id="TO_CORRESPONDENTS">TO CORRESPONDENTS.</h2>
-</div>
-
-<hr class="r15" />
-
-<p>“On the study of human nature in the works of the imagination,”
-and “Honors to the illustrious Dead,” two essays, are accepted, and
-shall be inserted soon.</p>
-
-<p>“A curious incident” is under consideration.</p>
-
-<p>J. B.’s communication, resembles in its form and general character
-the Coffee Club too much to appear with advantage after that
-series.</p>
-
-<p>A patriotic poem, entitled “July 4, 1836,” was received too late
-for insertion in the last number, when only it would have been appropriate.</p>
-
-<p>“Fair Wishes,” and “The Spirit of the Winds,” are declined.</p>
-
-<p>“Amor non convinciabitur,” (we are not responsible for the
-Latin,) “Lines on a youthful Poet, laboring under disappointment,”
-and “The sailor’s lamentation for his departed loved one,” are rejected.</p>
-
-<p>“Morning at the mast-head,” possesses considerable poetic merit,
-but all the rules of metre are grossly violated.</p>
-
-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</span></p>
-
-<h2>
-PROSPECTUS<br />
-<small>OF THE</small><br />
-YALE LITERARY MAGAZINE.
-</h2>
-</div>
-
-<p class="h2sub">
-TO BE CONDUCTED BY THE STUDENTS OF YALE COLLEGE.
-</p>
-
-<hr class="tb" />
-
-<p>An <i>apology</i> for establishing a Literary Magazine, in an institution
-like Yale College, can hardly be deemed requisite by an enlightened
-public; yet a statement of the objects which are proposed
-in this Periodical, may not be out of place.</p>
-
-<p>To foster a literary spirit, and to furnish a medium for its exercise;
-to rescue from utter waste the many thoughts and musings of
-a student’s leisure hours; and to afford some opportunity to train
-ourselves for the strife and collision of mind which we must expect
-in after life;&mdash;such, and similar motives have urged us to this undertaking.</p>
-
-<p>So long as we confine ourselves to these simple objects, and do
-not forget the modesty becoming our years and station, we confidently
-hope for the approbation and support of all who wish well
-to this institution.</p>
-
-<hr class="tb" />
-
-<p>The work will be printed on fine paper and good type. Three
-numbers to be issued every term, each containing about 40 pages,
-8vo.</p>
-
-<p><i>Conditions</i>&mdash;$2,00 per annum, if paid in advance, or 75 cents
-at the commencement of each term.</p>
-
-<p>Communications may be addressed through the Post Office, “To
-the Editors of the Yale Literary Magazine.”</p>
-
-<hr class="tb" />
-
-<p>This No. contains 3 sheets. Postage, under 100 miles, 4&frac12;
-cents; over 100 miles, 7&frac12; cents.</p>
-
-<hr class="printed" />
-<div class="blockquot">
-<p>Printed by B. L. Hamlen.</p>
-</div>
-
-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
-<div class="chapter transnote">
-<h2 class="nobreak" id="Transcribers_Notes">
-Transcriber’s Notes
-</h2>
-
-<p>A number of typographical errors were corrected silently.</p>
-
-<p>Cover image is in the public domain.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE YALE LITERARY MAGAZINE (VOL. I, NO. 6, AUGUST 1836) ***</div>
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