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Title: Life Without and Life Within; or, Reviews, Narratives, Essays, and
Poems.

Author: Margaret Fuller

Editor: Arthur B. Fuller

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIFE WITHOUT
AND LIFE WITHIN; OR, REVIEWS, NARRATIVES, ESSAYS, AND
POEMS. ***

LIFE WITHOUT
AND
LIFE WITHIN;
OR,
REVIEWS, NARRATIVES, ESSAYS, AND
POEMS.
BY
MARGARET FULLER OSSOLI,
AUTHOR OF "WOMAN IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY," "AT HOME AND ABROAD,"
"ART, LITERATURE, AND THE DRAMA," ETC.

EDITED BY HER BROTHER, ARTHUR B. FULLER.

BOSTON:
ROBERTS BROTHERS.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1859, by
ARTHUR B. FULLER,
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts

Cambridge:
Presswork by John Wilson and Son.

PREFACE.
EVERY person, who can be said to really live at all, leads two lives during
this period of mortal existence. The one life is outward; it is passed in
reading the thoughts of others; in contemplating the struggles, the defeats,
the victories, the virtues, the sins, in fine, all things which make the history
of those who surround us; and in gazing upon the structures which Art has
reared, or paintings which she hath inscribed on the canvas; or looking upon
the grand temple of the material universe, and beholding scenes painted by
a hand more skilled, more wondrous, in its creative power, than ever can be
human hand. The life passed in examining what other minds have produced,
or living other men's lives by looking at their deeds, or in any way
discerning what addresses the bodily eye or the physical ear,—this is often
wise and well; essential, indeed, to any inner life; but it is outward, not self-
centred, not the product of our own individual natures.
But the thought of others suggests or develops thought of our own—the
history of other men, as it is writing itself imperishably every day upon
their souls, or already has written itself in letters of living light or lines of
gloomy blackness—gives rise to internal sympathy or abhorrence on the
part of us who look on and read what is thus writing and written. Our own
spirits are stirred within us: our passions, which have been sleeping lions,
our affections and aspirations, before angels with folded wings,—these are
awakened by what others are doing, and then we struggle with the bad or
yield to it; we obey or disobey the good, and our internal moral life begins;
the outward universe or the Great Spirit in our hearts speaks to our souls,
leading first to inward dissatisfaction, then to aspiration for and attainment
of holiness, and now the inner spiritual life, which shall transfigure all
outward life, and throw its own light and give its own hue to all the outward
universe, has begun. These two lives are parallel streams; often they mingle
their waters, and each imparts its own hue and characteristic to the other.
Sometimes the outer life is the main stream; men live only in other men's
thoughts and deeds—look only upon the material universe, and retire but
seldom within: the inner life is but a silver thread—a little rill, scarce
discoverable save by the eye of God. Again, with many the outer life is but
little; the passing scene, the din of the battle which humanity is ever

waging, the one scarce is gazed upon or the other heard by those who retire
much from the outward world, and live almost exclusively upon their own
thoughts, and in an ideal realm of fancy, or a real one of internal conflict,
which is hidden from the outer vision. Better is it when the stream of
outward and inner life are both full and broad—when the glories of the
material universe attract the gaze, the realm of literature and learning invite
the willing feet to wander in paths where poetry has planted many flowers,
philosophy many a sturdy oak of truth, which centuries cannot overthrow—
and when, on the other hand, men do not forget to retire often within, and
find their own minds kingdoms, where many a noble thought spontaneously
grows; their own souls heavens, where, the busy world withdrawn, they
commune much with their own aspirations, fight many a noble battle with
whatever hinders their spiritual peace, and where they commune yet more
with that Comforter, the Divine Spirit, and Christ, that Friend and Helper of
all who are seeking to make the life of thought and desire, as well as
outward word and deed, high and holy.
It is not a brother's part to pass critical judgment upon a sister's literary
attainments, or mental and spiritual gifts, nor is it needful in reference to
Madame Ossoli. The world never has questioned her great learning or rich
and varied culture; these have been uniformly acknowledged. As a keen and
sagacious critic of literature, as an admirer of whatever was noble, an
abhorrer of all low and mean, this she was early, and is, so far as we know,
without any question regarded. That her judgments have always been
acquiesced in is far from true; but the public has ever believed them alike
sincere and fearless. The life without,—that of culture and intelligent,
careful observation,—all know that stream to have been full to overflowing.
More and more, too, every year, the public are beginning to recognize and
appreciate the richness and the beauty of her inner life. The very keenness
of her critical acumen,—the very boldness of her rebuke of all she deemed
petty and base—the very truthfulness of her conformity to her own standard
—her very abhorrence of all cant and mere conformity, long prevented, and
even yet somewhat hinder, many from adequately recognizing the loving
spirit, the sympathetic nature, the Christian faith, and spiritual devoutness
which made her domestic and social life, her action amid her own kindred
and nation, and in Rome, for those not allied to her by birth and lineage, at
once kindly, noble, and full of holy self-sacrifice. Yet continually the world
is learning these things: the history of her life, as her memoirs reveal it, the

testimony of so many witnesses here and in other lands, a more careful
study and a wider reading of her works, are leading, perhaps rapidly
enough, to a true appreciation of the spiritual beauty of her soul, and men
see that the waters of her inner life form a stream at once clear and pure,
deep and broad.
In presenting to the public the last volume of Margaret Fuller's works, the
Editor is encouraged to hope for them a candid, cordial reception. It has
been a work of love on his part, for which he has ever felt inadequate, and
from it for a time shrunk. But each volume has had a wider and more
cordial welcome than its predecessor, and works received by the great
public almost with coldness when first published, have, when republished,
had a large and cheering circulation, and, what is far better, a kindly
appreciation not only by the few, but even by the many. This is evidence
enough that the progress of time has brought the public and my sister into
closer sympathy and agreement, and a better understanding on its part of
her true views and character.
The present volume is less than any of its predecessors a republication.
Only one of its articles has ever appeared before in book form. As a book, it
is, then, essentially new, though some of its reviews and essays have
appeared in the columns of the Tribune and Dial. A large portion of it has
never appeared at all in print, especially its poetical portions. The work of
collecting these essays, reviews, and poems has been a difficult one, much
more than attended the preparation of the previous volumes. Unable, of
course, to consult their author as to any of them, the revision I have given is
doubtless very imperfect, and requires large allowance. It is even possible
that among the poems one or more written by friends and sent her, or copied
from some other author, may have crept in unawares; but this all possible
pains have been taken to prevent. Such as it is, the volume is now before the
public; it truly reveals her inner and outer life, and is doubtless the last of
the volumes containing the writings of MARGARET FULLER OSSOLI.

CONTENTS.
PART I.—REVIEWS.
PAGE.
Menzel's View of Gœthe 13
Gœthe 23
Thomas Hood 61
Letters From a Landscape Painter 69
Beethoven 71
Brown's Novels 83
Edgar A. Poe 87
Alfieri and Cellini 93
Italy.—Cary's Dante 102
American Facts 108
Napoleon and His Marshals 110
Physical Education 116
Frederick Douglass 121
Philip van Artevelde 127
United States Exploring Expedition 141
Story Books for the Hot Weather 143
Shelley's Poems 149
Festus 153
French Novelists of the Day 158
The New Science, or the Philosophy of Mesmerism or Animal
Magnetism 168
Deutsche Schnellpost 174
Oliver Cromwell 179
Emerson's Essays 191
Capital Punishment 199
PART II.—MISCELLANEOUS.
First of January 207
New Year's Day 219

St. Valentine's Day 226
Fourth of July 232
First of August 236
Thanksgiving 243
Christmas 250
Mariana 258
Sunday Meditations on Various Texts.—First 277
" " " Second 280
Appeal for an Asylum for Discharged Female Convicts 283
The Rich Man.—an Ideal Sketch 287
The Poor Man.—an Ideal Sketch 297
The Celestial Empire 304
Klopstock and Meta 308
What fits a Man to be a Voter.—A Fable 314
Discoveries 319
Politeness too great a Luxury to be given to the Poor 322
Cassius M. Clay 326
The Magnolia of Lake Pontchartrain 330
Consecration of Grace Church 337
Late Aspirations 344
Fragmentary Thoughts, From Margaret Fuller's Journal 348
Farewell To New York 354
PART III.—POEMS.
Freedom and Truth 357
Description of a Portion of the Journey to Trenton Falls 357
Journey to Trenton Falls 361
Sue Rosa Crux 365
The Dahlia, the Rose, and the Heliotrope 367
To my Friends, (translation.) 368
Stanzas Written at the Age of Seventeen 370
Flaxman 371
Thoughts on Sunday Morning, when Prevented by a Snowstorm from
going to Church 371
To a Golden Heart Worn Round the Neck 374

Lines accompanying a Bouquet of wild Columbine 375
Dissatisfaction, (translation.) 377
My Seal-ring 378
The Consolers, (translation.) 379
Absence of Love 380
Meditations 381
Richter 383
The Thankful and the Thankless 384
Prophecy and Fulfilment 385
Verses given to W. C., with a Blank Book 385
Eagles and Doves, (translation.) 387
To a Friend, with Heartsease 388
Aspiration 389
The One in All 390
A Greeting 393
Lines to Edith, on her Birthday 394
Lines written in her Brother R.F.F.'s Journal 395
On a Picture representing the Descent from the Cross 396
The Captured Wild Horse 397
Epilogue to the Tragedy of Essex, (translation.) 400
Hymn written for a Sunday School 404
Desertion, (translation.) 405
Song written for a May-day Festival 406
Caradori Singing 409
Lines in Answer to Stanzas containing several Passages of
distinguished Beauty 409
Influence of the Outward 410
To Miss R.B. 411
Sistrum 413
Imperfect Thoughts 414
Sadness 414
Lines written in an Album 416
To S.C. 417
Lines written in Boston on a beautiful Autumnal Day 420

To E.C., with Herbert's Poems 422

Life without and Life within.

PART I.
REVIEWS.

MENZEL'S VIEW OF GŒTHE.
MENZEL'S view of Gœthe is that of a Philistine, in the least opprobrious
sense of the term. It is one which has long been applied in Germany to petty
cavillers and incompetent critics. I do not wish to convey a sense so
disrespectful in speaking of Menzel. He has a vigorous and brilliant mind,
and a wide, though imperfect, culture. He is a man of talent, but talent
cannot comprehend genius. He judges of Gœthe as a Philistine, inasmuch as
he does not enter into Canaan, and read the prophet by the light of his own
law, but looks at him from without, and tries him by a rule beneath which
he never lived. That there was something Menzel saw; what that something
was not he saw, but what it was he could not see; none could see; it was
something to be felt and known at the time of its apparition, but the clear
sight of it was reserved to a day far enough removed from its sphere to get a
commanding point of view. Has that day come? A little while ago it seemed
so; certain features of Gœthe's personality, certain results of his tendency,
had become so manifest. But as the plants he planted mature, they shed a
new seed for a yet more noble growth. A wider experience, a deeper insight,
make rejected words come true, and bring a more refined perception of
meaning already discerned. Like all his elder brothers of the elect band, the
forlorn hope of humanity, he obliges us to live and grow, that we may walk
by his side; vainly we strive to leave him behind in some niche of the hall
of our ancestors; a few steps onward and we find him again, of yet serener
eye and more towering mien than on his other pedestal. Former
measurements of his size have, like the girdle bound by the nymphs round
the infant Apollo, only served to make him outgrow the unworthy compass.
The still rising sun, with its broader light, shows us it is not yet noon. In
him is soon perceived a prophet of our own age, as well as a representative
of his own; and we doubt whether the revolutions of the century be not
required to interpret the quiet depths of his Saga.
Sure it is that none has yet found Gœthe's place, as sure that none can
claim to be his peer, who has not some time, ay, and for a long time, been
his pupil!
Yet much truth has been spoken of him in detail, some by Menzel, but in
so superficial a spirit, and with so narrow a view of its bearings, as to have

all the effect of falsehood. Such denials of the crown can only fix it more
firmly on the head of the "Old Heathen." To such the best answer may be
given in the words of Bettina Brentan: "The others criticise thy works; I
only know that they lead us on and on till we live in them." And thus will
all criticism end in making more men and women read these works, and "on
and on," till they forget whether the author be a patriot or a moralist, in the
deep humanity of the thought, the breathing nature of the scene. While
words they have accepted with immediate approval fade from memory,
these oft-denied words of keen, cold truth return with ever new force and
significance.
Men should be true, wise, beautiful, pure, and aspiring. This man was true
and wise, capable of all things. Because he did not in one short life
complete his circle, can we afford to lose him out of sight? Can we, in a
world where so few men have in any degree redeemed their inheritance,
neglect a nature so rich and so manifestly progressive?
Historically considered, Gœthe needs no apology. His so-called faults
fitted him all the better for the part he had to play. In cool possession of his
wide-ranging genius, he taught the imagination of Germany, that the highest
flight should be associated with the steady sweep and undazzled eye of the
eagle. Was he too much the connoisseur, did he attach too great an
importance to the cultivation of taste, where just then German literature so
much needed to be refined, polished, and harmonized? Was he too sceptical,
too much an experimentalist,—how else could he have formed himself to
be the keenest, and, at the same time, most nearly universal of observers,
teaching theologians, philosophers, and patriots that nature comprehends
them all, commands them all, and that no one development of life must
exclude the rest? Do you talk, in the easy cant of the day, of German
obscurity, extravagance, pedantry, and bad taste,—and will you blame this
man, whose Greek, English, Italian, German mind steered so clear of these
rocks and shoals, clearing, adjusting, and calming on each side, wherever he
turned his prow? Was he not just enough of an idealist, just enough of a
realist, for his peculiar task? If you want a moral enthusiast, is not there
Schiller? If piety, of purest, mystic sweetness, who but Novalis? Exuberant
sentiment, that treasures each withered leaf in a tender breast, look to your
Richter. Would you have men to find plausible meaning for the deepest
enigma, or to hang up each map of literature, well painted and dotted on its
proper roller,—there are the Schlegels. Men of ideas were numerous as

migratory crows in autumn, and Jacobi wrote the heart into philosophy, as
well as he could. Who could fill Gœthe's place to Germany, and to the
world, of which she is now the teacher? His much-reviled aristocratic turn
was at that time a reconciling element. It is plain why he was what he was,
for his country and his age.
Whoever looks into the history of his youth, will be struck by a peculiar
force with which all things worked together to prepare him for his office of
artist-critic to the then chaotic world of thought in his country. What an
unusually varied scene of childhood and of youth! What endless change and
contrast of circumstances and influences! Father and mother, life and
literature, world and nature,—playing into one another's hands, always by
antagonism! Never was a child so carefully guarded by fate against
prejudice, against undue bias, against any engrossing sentiment. Nature
having given him power of poetical sympathy to know every situation,
would not permit him to make himself at home in any. And how early what
was most peculiar in his character manifested itself, may be seen in these
anecdotes related by his mother to Bettina.
Of Gœthe's childhood.—"He was not willing to play with other little
children, unless they were very fair. In a circle he began suddenly to weep,
screaming, 'Take away the black, ugly child; I cannot bear to have it here.'
He could not be pacified; they were obliged to take him home, and there the
mother could hardly console him for the child's ugliness. He was then only
three years old."
"His mother was surprised, that when his brother Jacob died, who had
been his playmate, he shed no tear, but rather seemed annoyed by the
lamentations of those around him. But afterwards, when his mother asked
whether he had not loved his brother, he ran into his room and brought from
under his bed a bundle of papers, all written over, and said he had done all
this for Jacob."
Even so in later years, had he been asked if he had not loved his country
and his fellow-men, he would not have answered by tears and vows, but
pointed to his works.
In the first anecdote is observable that love of symmetry in external
relations which, in manhood, made him give up the woman he loved,
because she would not have been in place among the old-fashioned
furniture of his father's house; and dictated the course which, at the crisis of

his life, led him to choose an outward peace rather than an inward joy. In
the second, he displays, at the earliest age, a sense of his vocation as a
recorder, the same which drew him afterwards to write his life into verse,
rather than clothe it in action. His indirectness, his aversion to the frankness
of heroic meetings, is repulsive and suspicious to generous and flowing
natures; yet many of the more delicate products of the mind seem to need
these sheaths, lest bird and insect rifle them in the bud.
And if this subtlety, isolation, and distance be the dictate of nature, we
submit, even as we are not vexed that the wild bee should hide its honey in
some old moss-grown tree, rather than in the glass hives of our gardens. We
believe it will repay the pains we take in seeking for it, by some peculiar
flavor from unknown flowers. Was Gœthe the wild bee? We see that even in
his boyhood he showed himself a very Egyptian, in his love for disguises;
forever expressing his thought in roundabout ways, which seem idle
mummery to a mind of Spartan or Roman mould. Had he some simple thing
to tell his friend, he read it from the newspaper, or wrote it into a parable.
Did he make a visit, he put on the hat or wig of some other man, and made
his bow as Schmidt or Schlosser, that they might stare, when he spoke as
Gœthe. He gives as the highest instance of passionate grief, that he gave up
for one day watching the tedious ceremonies of the imperial coronation. In
daily life many of these carefully recorded passages have an air of platitude,
at which no wonder the Edinburgh Review laughed. Yet, on examination,
they are full of meaning. And when we see the same propensity writing
itself into Ganymede, Mahomet's song, the Bayadere, and Faust, telling all
Gœthe's religion in Mignon and Makana, all his wisdom in the Western-
Eastern Divan, we respect it, accept, all but love it.
This theme is for a volume, and I must quit it now. A brief summary of
what Gœthe was suffices to vindicate his existence, as an agent in history
and a part of nature, but will not meet the objections of those who measure
him, as they have a right to do, by the standard of ideal manhood.
Most men, in judging another man, ask, Did he live up to our standard?
But to me it seems desirable to ask rather, Did he live up to his own?
So possible is it that our consciences may be more enlightened than that of
the Gentile under consideration. And if we can find out how much was
given him, we are told, in a pure evangelium, to judge thereby how much
shall be required.

Now, Gœthe has given us both his own standard and the way to apply it.
"To appreciate any man, learn first what object he proposed to himself;
next, what degree of earnestness he showed with regard to attaining that
object."
And this is part of his hymn for man made in the divine image, "THE
GODLIKE."
"Hail to the Unknown, the
Higher Being
Felt within us!

"Unfeeling
As nature,
Still shineth the sun
Over good and evil;
And on the sinner,
Smile as on the best,
Moon and stars.
Fate too, &c.

"There can none but man
Perform the Impossible.
He understandeth,
Chooseth, and judgeth;
He can impart to the
Moment duration.

"He alone may
The good reward,
The guilty punish,
Mend and deliver;
All the wayward, anomalous
Bind in the useful.

"And the Immortals,
Them we reverence
As if they were men, and

Did, on a grand scale,
What the best man in little
Does, or fain would do.

"Let noble man
Be helpful and good;
Ever creating
The Right and the Useful;
Type of those loftier
Beings of whom the heart whispers."
This standard is high enough. It is what every man should express in
action, the poet in music!
And this office of a judge, who is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity,
and of a sacred oracle, to whom other men may go to ask when they should
choose a friend, when face a foe, this great genius does not adequately
fulfil. Too often has the priest left the shrine to go and gather simples by the
aid of spells whose might no pure power needs. Glimpses are found in his
works of the highest spirituality, but it is blue sky seen through chinks in a
roof which should never have been builded. He has used life to excess. He
is too rich for his nobleness, too judicious for his inspiration, too humanly
wise for his divine mission. He might have been a priest; he is only a sage.
An Epicurean sage, say the multitude. This seems to me unjust. He is also
called a debauchee. There may be reason for such terms, but it is partial,
and received, as they will be, by the unthinking, they are as false as
Menzel's abuse, in the impression they convey. Did Gœthe value the present
too much? It was not for the Epicurean aim of pleasure, but for use. He, in
this, was but an instance of reaction, in an age of painful doubt and restless
striving as to the future. Was his private life stained by profligacy? That far
largest portion of his life, which is ours, and which is expressed in his
works, is an unbroken series of efforts to develop the higher elements of our
being. I cannot speak to private gossip on this subject, nor even to well-
authenticated versions of his private life. Here are sixty volumes, by himself
and others, which contain sufficient evidence of a life of severe labor,
steadfast forbearance, and an intellectual growth almost unparalleled. That
he has failed of the highest fulfilment of his high vocation is certain, but he
was neither Epicurean nor sensualist, if we consider his life as a whole.

Yet he had failed to reach his highest development; and how was it that he
was so content with this incompleteness, nay, the serenest of men? His
serenity alone, in such a time of scepticism and sorrowful seeking, gives
him a claim to all our study. See how he rides at anchor, lordly, rich in
freight, every white sail ready to be unfurled at a moment's warning! And it
must be a very slight survey which can confound this calm self-trust with
selfish indifference of temperament. Indeed, he, in various ways, lets us see
how little he was helped in this respect by temperament. But we need not
his declaration,—the case speaks for itself. Of all that perpetual
accomplishment, that unwearied constructiveness, the basis must be sunk
deeper than in temperament. He never halts, never repines, never is puzzled,
like other men; that tranquillity, full of life, that ceaseless but graceful
motion, "without haste, without rest," for which we all are striving, he has
attained. And is not his love of the noblest kind? Reverence the highest,
have patience with the lowest. Let this day's performance of the meanest
duty be thy religion. Are the stars too distant, pick up that pebble that lies at
thy foot, and from it learn the all. Go out like Saul, the son of Kish, look
earnestly after the meanest of thy father's goods, and a kingdom shall be
brought thee. The least act of pure self-renunciation hallows, for the
moment, all within its sphere. The philosopher may mislead, the devil
tempt, yet innocence, though wounded and bleeding as it goes, must reach
at last the holy city. The power of sustaining himself and guiding others
rewards man sufficiently for the longest apprenticeship. Is not this lore the
noblest?
Yes, yes, but still I doubt. 'Tis true, he says all this in a thousand beautiful
forms, but he does not warm, he does not inspire me. In his certainty is no
bliss, in his hope no love, in his faith no glow. How is this?
A friend, of a delicate penetration, observed, "His atmosphere was so
calm, so full of light, that I hoped he would teach me his secret of
cheerfulness. But I found, after long search, that he had no better way, if he
wished to check emotion or clear thought, than to go to work. As his mother
tells us, 'My son, if he had a grief, made it into a poem, and so got rid of it.'
This mode is founded in truth, but does not involve the whole truth. I want
the method which is indicated by the phrase, 'Perseverance of the saints.'"
This touched the very point. Gœthe attained only the perseverance of a
man. He was true, for he knew that nothing can be false to him who is true,
and that to genius nature has pledged her protection. Had he but seen a little

farther, he would have given this covenant a higher expression, and been
more deeply true to a diviner nature.
In another article on Gœthe, I shall give some account of that period,
when a too determined action of the intellect limited and blinded him for
the rest of his life; I mean only in comparison with what he should have
been. Had it been otherwise, what would he not have attained, who, even
thus self-enchained, rose to Ulyssean stature. Connected with this is the
fact, of which he spoke with such sarcastic solemnity to Eckermann—"My
works will never be popular."
I wish, also, to consider the Faust, Elective Affinities, Apprenticeship and
Pilgrimages of Wilhelm Meister, and Iphigenia, as affording indications of
the progress of his genius here, of its wants and prospects in future spheres
of activity. For the present I bid him farewell, as his friends always have
done, in hope and trust of a better meeting.

GŒTHE.
"Nemo contra Deum nisi Deus ipse."
"Wer Grosses will muss sich zusammen raffen;
In der Beschrankung zeigt sich erst der Meister,
Und der Gesetz nur Kann uns Freikeit geben."[1]
The first of these mottoes is that prefixed by Gœthe to the last books of
"Dichtung und Wahrheit." These books record the hour of turning tide in his
life, the time when he was called on for a choice at the "Parting of the
Ways." From these months, which gave the sun of his youth, the crisis of
his manhood, date the birth of Egmont, and of Faust too, though the latter
was not published so early. They saw the rise and decline of his love for
Lili, apparently the truest love he ever knew. That he was not himself
dissatisfied with the results to which the decisions of this era led him, we
may infer from his choice of a motto, and from the calm beauty with which
he has invested the record.
The Parting of the Ways! The way he took led to court-favor, wealth,
celebrity, and an independence of celebrity. It led to large performance, and
a wonderful economical management of intellect. It led Faust, the Seeker,
from the heights of his own mind to the trodden ways of the world. There,
indeed, he did not lose sight of the mountains, but he never breathed their
keen air again.
After this period we find in him rather a wide and deep Wisdom, than the
inspiration of Genius. His faith, that all must issue well, wants the
sweetness of piety, and the God he manifests to us is one of law or
necessity, rather than of intelligent love. As this God makes because he
must, so Gœthe, his instrument, observes and re-creates because he must,
observing with minutest fidelity the outward exposition of Nature; never
blinded by a sham, or detained by a fear, he yet makes us feel that he wants
insight to her sacred secret. The calmest of writers does not give us repose,
because it is too difficult to find his centre. Those flame-like natures, which
he undervalues, give us more peace and hope, through their restless
aspirations, than he with his hearth-enclosed fires of steady fulfilment. For,

true as it is, that God is every where, we must not only see him, but see him
acknowledged. Through the consciousness of man, "shall not Nature
interpret God?" We wander in diversity, and with each new turning of the
path, long anew to be referred to the One.
Of Gœthe, as of other natures, where the intellect is too much developed
in proportion to the moral nature, it is difficult to speak without seeming
narrow, blind, and impertinent. For such men see all that others live, and, if
you feel a want of a faculty in them, it is hard to say they have it not, lest,
next moment, they puzzle you by giving some indication of it. Yet they are
not, nay, know not; they only discern. The difference is that between sight
and life, prescience and being, wisdom and love. Thus with Gœthe.
Naturally of a deep mind and shallow heart, he felt the sway of the
affections enough to appreciate their workings in other men, but never
enough to receive their inmost regenerating influence.
How this might have been had he ever once abandoned himself entirely to
a sentiment, it is impossible to say. But the education of his youth seconded,
rather than balanced, his natural tendency. His father was a gentlemanly
martinet; dull, sour, well-informed, and of great ambition as to externals.
His influence on the son was wholly artificial. He was always turning his
powerful mind from side to side in search of information, for the attainment
of what are called accomplishments. The mother was a delightful person in
her way; open, genial, playful, full of lively talent, but without earnestness
of soul. She was one of those charming, but not noble persons, who take the
day and the man as they find them, seeing the best that is there already, but
never making the better grow in its stead. His sister, though of graver kind,
was social and intellectual, not religious or tender. The mortifying repulse
of his early love checked the few pale buds of faith and tenderness that his
heart put forth. His friends were friends of the intellect merely; altogether,
he seemed led by destiny to the place he was to fill.
Pardon him, World, that he was too worldly. Do not wonder, Heart, that he
was so heartless. Believe, Soul, that one so true, as far as he went, must yet
be initiated into the deeper mysteries of Soul. Perhaps even now he sees
that we must accept limitations only to transcend them; work in processes
only to detect the organizing power which supersedes them; and that
Sphinxes of fifty-five volumes might well be cast into the abyss before the
single word that solves them all.

Now, when I think of Gœthe, I seem to see his soul, all the variegated
plumes of knowledge, artistic form "und so weiter," burnt from it by the
fires of divine love, wingless, motionless, unable to hide from itself in any
subterfuge of labor, saying again and again, the simple words which he
would never distinctly say on earth—God beyond Nature—Faith beyond
Sight—the Seeker nobler than the Meister.
For this mastery that Gœthe prizes seems to consist rather in the skilful
use of means than in the clear manifestation of ends. His Master, indeed,
makes acknowledgment of a divine order, but the temporal uses are always
uppermost in the mind of the reader. But of this, more at large in reference
to his works.
Apart from this want felt in his works, there is a littleness in his aspect as
a character. Why waste his time in Weimar court entertainments? His duties
as minister were not unworthy of him, though it would have been, perhaps,
finer, if he had not spent so large a portion of that prime of intellectual life,
from five and twenty to forty, upon them.
But granted that the exercise these gave his faculties, the various lore they
brought, and the good they did to the community, made them worth his
doing,—why that perpetual dangling after the royal family? Why all that
verse-making for the albums of serene highnesses, and those pretty poetical
entertainments for the young princesses, and that cold setting himself apart
from his true peers, the real sovereigns of Weimar—Herder, Wieland, and
the others? The excuse must be found in circumstances of his time and
temperament, which made the character of man of the world and man of
affairs more attractive to him than the children of nature can conceive it to
be in the eyes of one who is capable of being a consecrated bard.
The man of genius feels that literature has become too much a craft by
itself. No man should live by or for his pen. Writing is worthless except as
the record of life; and no great man ever was satisfied thus to express all his
being. His book should be only an indication of himself. The obelisk should
point to a scene of conquest. In the present state of division of labor, the
literary man finds himself condemned to be nothing else. Does he write a
good book? it is not received as evidence of his ability to live and act, but
rather the reverse. Men do not offer him the care of embassies, as an earlier
age did to Petrarca; they would be surprised if he left his study to go forth
to battle like Cervantes. We have the swordsman, and statesman, and

penman, but it is not considered that the same mind which can rule the
destiny of a poem, may as well that of an army or an empire.[2] Yet surely it
should be so. The scientific man may need seclusion from the common
affairs of life, for he has his materials before him; but the man of letters
must seek them in life, and he who cannot act will but imperfectly
appreciate action.
The literary man is impatient at being set apart. He feels that monks and
troubadours, though in a similar position, were brought into more healthy
connection with man and nature, than he who is supposed to look at them
merely to write them down. So he rebels; and Sir Walter Scott is prouder of
being a good sheriff and farmer, than of his reputation as the Great
Unknown. Byron piques himself on his skill in shooting and swimming. Sir
H. Davy and Schlegel would be admired as dandies, and Gœthe, who had
received an order from a publisher "for a dozen more dramas in the same
style as Gœtz von Berlichingen," and though (in sadder sooth) he had
already Faust in his head asking to be written out, thought it no degradation
to become premier in the little Duchy of Weimar.
"Straws show which way the wind blows," and a comment may be drawn
from the popular novels, where the literary man is obliged to wash off the
ink in a violet bath, attest his courage in the duel, and hide his idealism
beneath the vulgar nonchalance and coxcombry of the man of fashion.
If this tendency of his time had some influence in making Gœthe find
pleasure in tangible power and decided relations with society, there were
other causes which worked deeper. The growth of genius in its relations to
men around must always be attended with daily pain. The enchanted eye
turns from the far-off star it has detected to the short-sighted bystander, and
the seer is mocked for pretending to see what others cannot. The large and
generalizing mind infers the whole from a single circumstance, and is
reproved by all around for its presumptuous judgment. Its Ithuriel temper
pierces shams, creeds, covenants, and chases the phantoms which others
embrace, till the lovers of the false Florimels hurl the true knight to the
ground. Little men are indignant that Hercules, yet an infant, declares he
has strangled the serpent; they demand a proof; they send him out into
scenes of labor to bring thence the voucher that his father is a god. What the
ancients meant to express by Apollo's continual disappointment in his loves,
is felt daily in the youth of genius. The sympathy he seeks flies his touch,
the objects of his affection sneer at his sublime credulity, his self-reliance is

arrogance, his far sight infatuation, and his ready detection of fallacy
fickleness and inconsistency. Such is the youth of genius, before the soul
has given that sign of itself which an unbelieving generation cannot
controvert. Even then he is little benefited by the transformation of the
mockers into worshippers. For the soul seeks not adorers, but peers; not
blind worship, but intelligent sympathy. The best consolation even then is
that which Gœthe puts into the mouth of Tasso: "To me gave a God to tell
what I suffer." In "Tasso" Gœthe has described the position of the poetical
mind in its prose relations with equal depth and fulness. We see what he felt
must be the result of entire abandonment to the highest nature. We see why
he valued himself on being able to understand the Alphonsos, and meet as
an equal the Antonios of every-day life.
But, you say, there is no likeness between Gœthe and Tasso. Never believe
it; such pictures are not painted from observation merely. That deep
coloring which fills them with light and life is given by dipping the brush in
one's own life-blood. Gœthe had not from nature that character of self-
reliance and self-control in which he so long appeared to the world. It was
wholly acquired, and so highly valued because he was conscious of the
opposite tendency. He was by nature as impetuous, though not as tender, as
Tasso, and the disadvantage at which this constantly placed him was keenly
felt by a mind made to appreciate the subtlest harmonies in all relations.
Therefore was it that when he at last cast anchor, he was so reluctant again
to trust himself to wave and breeze.
I have before spoken of the antagonistic influences under which he was
educated. He was driven from the severity of study into the world, and then
again drawn back, many times in the course of his crowded youth. Both the
world and the study he used with unceasing ardor, but not with the
sweetness of a peaceful hope. Most of the traits which are considered to
mark his character at a later period were wanting to him in youth. He was
very social, and continually perturbed by his social sympathies. He was
deficient both in outward self-possession and mental self-trust. "I was
always," he says, "either too volatile or too infatuated, so that those who
looked kindly on me did by no means always honor me with their esteem."
He wrote much and with great freedom. The pen came naturally to his hand,
but he had no confidence in the merit of what he wrote, and much inferior
persons to Merck and Herder might have induced him to throw aside as
worthless what it had given him sincere pleasure to compose. It was hard

for him to isolate himself, to console himself, and, though his mind was
always busy with important thoughts, they did not free him from the
pressure of other minds. His youth was as sympathetic and impetuous as
any on record.
The effect of all this outward pressure on the poet is recorded in Werther
—a production that he afterwards under-valued, and to which he even felt
positive aversion. It was natural that this should be. In the calm air of the
cultivated plain he attained, the remembrance of the miasma of
sentimentality was odious to him. Yet sentimentality is but sentiment
diseased, which to be cured must be patiently observed by the wise
physician; so are the morbid desire and despair of Werther, the sickness of a
soul aspiring to a purer, freer state, but mistaking the way.
The best or the worst occasion in man's life is precisely that misused in
Werther, when he longs for more love, more freedom, and a larger
development of genius than the limitations of this terrene sphere permit.
Sad is it indeed if, persisting to grasp too much at once, he lose all, as
Werther did. He must accept limitation, must consent to do his work in
time, must let his affections be baffled by the barriers of convention.
Tantalus-like, he makes this world a Tartarus, or, like Hercules, rises in fires
to heaven, according as he knows how to interpret his lot. But he must only
use, not adopt it. The boundaries of the man must never be confounded with
the destiny of the soul. If he does not decline his destiny, as Werther did, it
is his honor to have felt its unfitness for his eternal scope. He was born for
wings; he is held to walk in leading-strings; nothing lower than faith must
make him resigned, and only in hope should he find content—a hope not of
some slight improvement in his own condition or that of other men, but a
hope justified by the divine justice, which is bound in due time to satisfy
every want of his nature.
Schiller's great command is, "Keep true to the dream of thy youth." The
great problem is how to make the dream real, through the exercise of the
waking will.
This was not exactly the problem Gœthe tried to solve. To do somewhat,
became too important, as is indicated both by the second motto to this
essay, and by his maxim, "It is not the knowledge of what might be, but
what is, that forms us."

Werther, like his early essays now republished from the Frankfort Journal,
is characterized by a fervid eloquence of Italian glow, which betrays a part
of his character almost lost sight of in the quiet transparency of his later
productions, and may give us some idea of the mental conflicts through
which he passed to manhood.
The acting out the mystery into life, the calmness of survey, and the
passionateness of feeling, above all the ironical baffling at the end, and
want of point to a tale got up with such an eye to effect as he goes along,
mark well the man that was to be. Even so did he demand in Werther; even
so resolutely open the door in the first part of Faust; even so seem to play
with himself and his contemporaries in the second part of Faust and
Wilhelm Meister.
Yet was he deeply earnest in his play, not for men, but for himself. To
himself as a part of nature it was important to grow, to lift his head to the
light. In nature he had all confidence; for man, as a part of nature, infinite
hope; but in him as an individual will, seemingly, not much trust at the
earliest age.
The history of his intimacies marks his course; they were entered into with
passionate eagerness, but always ended in an observation of the intellect,
and he left them on his road, as the snake leaves his skin. The first man he
met of sufficient force to command a large share of his attention was
Herder, and the benefit of this intercourse was critical, not genial. Of the
good Lavater he soon perceived the weakness. Merck, again, commanded
his respect; but the force of Merck also was cold.
But in the Grand Duke of Weimar he seems to have met a character strong
enough to exercise a decisive influence upon his own. Gœthe was not so
politic and worldly that a little man could ever have become his Mæcenas.
In the Duchess Amelia and her son he found that practical sagacity, large
knowledge of things as they are, active force, and genial feeling, which he
had never before seen combined.
The wise mind of the duchess gave the first impulse to the noble course of
Weimar. But that her son should have availed himself of the foundation she
laid is praise enough, in a world where there is such a rebound from
parental influence that it generally seems that the child makes use of the
directions given by the parent only to avoid the prescribed path. The duke
availed himself of guidance, though with a perfect independence in action.

The duchess had the unusual wisdom to know the right time for giving up
the reins, and thus maintained her authority as far as the weight of her
character was calculated to give it.
Of her Gœthe was thinking when he wrote, "The admirable woman is she,
who, if the husband dies, can be a father to the children."
The duke seems to have been one of those characters which are best
known by the impression their personal presence makes on us, resembling
an elemental and pervasive force, rather than wearing the features of an
individuality. Gœthe describes him as "Dämonische," that is, gifted with an
instinctive, spontaneous force, which at once, without calculation or
foresight, chooses the right means to an end. As these beings do not
calculate, so is their influence incalculable. Their repose has as much
influence over other beings as their action, even as the thunder cloud, lying
black and distant in the summer sky, is not less imposing than when it
bursts and gives forth its quick lightnings. Such men were Mirabeau and
Swift. They had also distinct talents, but their influence was from a
perception in the minds of men of this spontaneous energy in their natures.
Sometimes, though rarely, we see such a man in an obscure position;
circumstances have not led him to a large sphere; he may not have
expressed in words a single thought worth recording; but by his eye and
voice he rules all around him.
He stands upon his feet with a firmness and calm security which make
other men seem to halt and totter in their gait. In his deep eye is seen an
infinite comprehension, an infinite reserve of power. No accent of his
sonorous voice is lost on any ear within hearing; and, when he speaks, men
hate or fear perhaps the disturbing power they feel, but never dream of
disobeying. But hear Gœthe himself.
"The boy believed in nature, in the animate and inanimate the intelligent
and unconscious, to discover somewhat which manifested itself only
through contradiction, and therefore could not be comprehended by any
conception, much less defined by a word. It was not divine, for it seemed
without reason; not human, because without understanding; not devilish,
because it worked to good; not angelic, because it often betrayed a petulant
love of mischief. It was like chance, in that it proved no sequence; it
suggested the thought of Providence, because it indicated connection. To
this all our limitations seem penetrable; it seemed to play at will with all the

elements of our being; it compressed time and dilated space. Only in the
impossible did it seem to delight, and to cast the possible aside with disdain.
"This existence which seemed to mingle with others, sometimes to
separate, sometimes to unite, I called the Dämonische, after the example of
the ancients, and others who have observed somewhat similar."—Dichtung
und Wahrheit.
"The Dämonische is that which cannot be explained by reason or
understanding; it lies not in my nature, but I am subject to it.
"Napoleon was a being of this class, and in so high a degree that scarce
any one is to be compared with him. Also our late grand duke was such a
nature, full of unlimited power of action and unrest, so that his own
dominion was too little for him, and the greatest would have been too little.
Demoniac beings of this sort the Greeks reckoned among their
demigods."—Conversations with Eckermann.[3]
This great force of will, this instinctive directness of action, gave the duke
an immediate ascendency over Gœthe which no other person had ever
possessed. It was by no means mere sycophancy that made him give up the
next ten years, the prime of his manhood, to accompanying the grand duke
in his revels, or aiding him in his schemes of practical utility, or to
contriving elegant amusements for the ladies of the court. It was a real
admiration for the character of the genial man of the world and its
environment.
Whoever is turned from his natural path may, if he will, gain in largeness
and depth what he loses in simple beauty; and so it was with Gœthe. Faust
became a wiser if not a nobler being. Werther, who must die because life
was not wide enough and rich enough in love for him, ends as the Meister
of the Wanderjahre, well content to be one never inadequate to the occasion,
"help-full, comfort-full."
A great change was, during these years, perceptible to his friends in the
character of Gœthe. From being always "either too volatile or infatuated,"
he retreated into a self-collected state, which seemed at first even icy to
those around him. No longer he darted about him the lightnings of his
genius, but sat Jove-like and calm, with the thunderbolts grasped in his
hand, and the eagle gathered to his feet. His freakish wit was subdued into a
calm and even cold irony; his multiplied relations no longer permitted him
to abandon himself to any; the minister and courtier could not expatiate in

the free regions of invention, and bring upon paper the signs of his higher
life, without subjecting himself to an artificial process of isolation. Obliged
to economy of time and means, he made of his intimates not objects of
devout tenderness, of disinterested care, but the crammers and feeders of his
intellect. The world was to him an arena or a studio, but not a temple.
"Ye cannot serve God and Mammon."
Had Gœthe entered upon practical life from the dictate of his spirit, which
bade him not be a mere author, but a living, loving man, that had all been
well. But he must also be a man of the world, and nothing can be more
unfavorable to true manhood than this ambition. The citizen, the hero, the
general, the poet, all these are in true relations; but what is called being a
man of the world is to truckle to it, not truly to serve it.
Thus fettered in false relations, detained from retirement upon the centre
of his being, yet so relieved from the early pressure of his great thoughts as
to pity more pious souls for being restless seekers, no wonder that he wrote,
—
"Es ist dafür gesorgt dass die Bäume nicht in den Himmel wachsen."
"Care is taken that the trees grow not up into the heavens." Ay, Goethe, but
in proportion to their force of aspiration is their height.
Yet never let him be confounded with those who sell all their birthright.
He became blind to the more generous virtues, the nobler impulses, but ever
in self-respect was busy to develop his nature. He was kind, industrious,
wise, gentlemanly, if not manly. If his genius lost sight of the highest aim,
he is the best instructor in the use of means; ceasing to be a prophet poet, he
was still a poetic artist. From this time forward he seems a listener to
nature, but not himself the highest product of nature,—a priest to the soul of
nature. His works grow out of life, but are not instinct with the peculiar life
of human resolve, as are Shakspeare's or Dante's.
Faust contains the great idea of his life, as indeed there is but one great
poetic idea possible to man—the progress of a soul through the various
forms of existence.
All his other works, whatever their miraculous beauty of execution, are
mere chapters to this poem, illustrative of particular points. Faust, had it
been completed in the spirit in which it was begun, would have been the
Divina Commedia of its age.

But nothing can better show the difference of result between a stern and
earnest life, and one of partial accommodation, than a comparison between
the Paridiso and that of the second part of Faust. In both a soul, gradually
educated and led back to God, is received at last not through merit, but
grace. But O the difference between the grandly humble reliance of old
Catholicism, and the loophole redemption of modern sagacity! Dante was a
man, of vehement passions, many prejudices, bitter as much as sweet. His
knowledge was scanty, his sphere of observation narrow, the objects of his
active life petty, compared with those of Gœthe. But, constantly retiring to
his deepest self, clearsighted to the limitations of man, but no less so to the
illimitable energy of the soul, the sharpest details in his work convey a
largest sense, as his strongest and steadiest flights only direct the eye to
heavens yet beyond.
Yet perhaps he had not so hard a battle to wage, as this other great poet.
The fiercest passions are not so dangerous foes to the soul as the cold
scepticism of the understanding. The Jewish demon assailed the man of Uz
with physical ills, the Lucifer of the middle ages tempted his passions; but
the Mephistopheles of the eighteenth century bade the finite strive to
compass the infinite, and the intellect attempt to solve all the problems of
the soul.
This path Faust had taken: it is that of modern necromancy. Not willing to
grow into God by the steady worship of a life, men would enforce his
presence by a spell; not willing to learn his existence by the slow processes
of their own, they strive to bind it in a word, that they may wear it about the
neck as a talisman.
Faust, bent upon reaching the centre of the universe through the intellect
alone, naturally, after a length of trial, which has prevented the harmonious
unfolding of his nature, falls into despair. He has striven for one object, and
that object eludes him. Returning upon himself, he finds large tracts of his
nature lying waste and cheerless. He is too noble for apathy, too wise for
vulgar content with the animal enjoyments of life. Yet the thirst he has been
so many years increasing is not to be borne. Give me, he cries, but a drop of
water to cool my burning tongue. Yet, in casting himself with a wild
recklessness upon the impulses of his nature yet untried, there is a disbelief
that any thing short of the All can satisfy the immortal spirit. His first
attempt was noble, though mistaken, and under the saving influence of it, he
makes the compact, whose condition cheats the fiend at last.

Kannst du mich schmeichelnd je belügen
Dass ich mir selbst gefallen mag,
Kannst du mich mit Genuss betrügen:
Das sey für mich der letzte Tag.

Werd ich zum Augenblicke sagen:
Verweile doch! du bist so schön!
Dann magst du mich in Fesseln schlagen,
Dann will ich gern zu Grunde gehen.

Canst thou by falsehood or by flattery
Make me one moment with myself at peace,
Cheat me into tranquillity? Come then
And welcome, life's last day.
Make me but to the moment say,
O fly not yet, thou art so fair,
Then let me perish, &c.
But this condition is never fulfilled. Faust cannot be content with
sensuality, with the charlatanry of ambition, nor with riches. His heart never
becomes callous, nor his moral and intellectual perceptions obtuse. He is
saved at last.
With the progress of an individual soul is shadowed forth that of the soul
of the age; beginning in intellectual scepticism; sinking into license;
cheating itself with dreams of perfect bliss, to be at once attained by means
no surer than a spurious paper currency; longing itself back from conflict
between the spirit and the flesh, induced by Christianity, to the Greek era
with its harmonious development of body and mind; striving to reëmbody
the loved phantom of classical beauty in the heroism of the middle age;
flying from the Byron despair of those who die because they cannot soar
without wings, to schemes however narrow, of practical utility,—redeemed
at last through mercy alone.
The second part of Faust is full of meaning, resplendent with beauty; but it
is rather an appendix to the first part than a fulfilment of its promise. The
world, remembering the powerful stamp of individual feeling, universal
indeed in its application, but individual in its life, which had conquered all
its scruples in the first part, was vexed to find, instead of the man Faust, the

spirit of the age,—discontented with the shadowy manifestation of truths it
longed to embrace, and, above all, disappointed that the author no longer
met us face to face, or riveted the ear by his deep tones of grief and resolve.
When the world shall have got rid of the still overpowering influence of
the first part, it will be seen that the fundamental idea is never lost sight of
in the second. The change is that Gœthe, though the same thinker, is no
longer the same person.
The continuation of Faust in the practical sense of the education of a man
is to be found in Wilhelm Meister. Here we see the change by strongest
contrast. The mainspring of action is no longer the impassioned and noble
seeker, but a disciple of circumstance, whose most marked characteristic is
a taste for virtue and knowledge. Wilhelm certainly prefers these conditions
of existence to their opposites, but there is nothing so decided in his
character as to prevent his turning a clear eye on every part of that
variegated world-scene which the writer wished to place before us.
To see all till he knows all sufficiently to put objects into their relations,
then to concentrate his powers and use his knowledge under recognized
conditions,—such is the progress of man from Apprentice to Master.
'Tis pity that the volumes of the Wanderjahre have not been translated
entire, as well as those of the Lehrjahre, for many, who have read the latter
only, fancy that Wilhelm becomes a master in that work. Far from it; he has
but just become conscious of the higher powers that have ceaselessly been
weaving his fate. Far from being as yet a Master, he but now begins to be a
Knower. In the Wanderjahre we find him gradually learning the duties of
citizenship, and hardening into manhood, by applying what he has learned
for himself to the education of his child. He converses on equal terms with
the wise and beneficent; he is no longer duped and played with for his good,
but met directly mind to mind.
Wilhelm is a master when he can command his actions, yet keep his mind
always open to new means of knowledge; when he has looked at various
ways of living, various forms of religion and of character, till he has learned
to be tolerant of all, discerning of good in all; when the astronomer imparts
to his equal ear his highest thoughts, and the poor cottager seeks his aid as a
patron and counsellor.
To be capable of all duties, limited by none, with an open eye, a skilful
and ready hand, an assured step, a mind deep, calm, foreseeing without

anxiety, hopeful without the aid of illusion,—such is the ripe state of
manhood. This attained, the great soul should still seek and labor, but strive
and battle never more.
The reason for Gœthe's choosing so negative a character as Wilhelm, and
leading him through scenes of vulgarity and low vice, would be obvious
enough to a person of any depth of thought, even if he himself had not
announced it. He thus obtained room to paint life as it really is, and bring
forward those slides in the magic lantern which are always known to exist,
though they may not be spoken of to ears polite.
Wilhelm cannot abide in tradition, nor do as his fathers did before him,
merely for the sake of money or a standing in society. The stage, here an
emblem of the ideal life as it gleams before unpractised eyes, offers, he
fancies, opportunity for a life of thought as distinguished from one of
routine. Here, no longer the simple citizen, but Man, all Men, he will rightly
take upon himself the different aspects of life, till poet-wise, he shall have
learned them all.
No doubt the attraction of the stage to young persons of a vulgar character
is merely the brilliancy of its trappings; but to Wilhelm, as to Gœthe, it was
this poetic freedom and daily suggestion which seemed likely to offer such
an agreeable studio in the greenroom.
But the ideal must be rooted in the real, else the poet's life degenerates
into buffoonery or vice. Wilhelm finds the characters formed by this would-
be ideal existence more despicable than those which grew up on the track,
dusty and bustling and dull as it had seemed, of common life. He is
prepared by disappointment for a higher ambition.
In the house of the count he finds genuine elegance, genuine sentiment,
but not sustained by wisdom, or a devotion to important objects. This love,
this life, is also inadequate.
Now, with Teresa he sees the blessings of domestic peace. He sees a mind
sufficient for itself, finding employment and education in the perfect
economy of a little world. The lesson is pertinent to the state of mind in
which his former experiences have left him, as indeed our deepest lore is
won from reaction. But a sudden change of scene introduces him to the
society of the sage and learned uncle, the sage and beneficent Natalia. Here
he finds the same virtues as with Teresa, and enlightened by a larger
wisdom.

A friend of mine says that his ideal of a friend is a worthy aunt, one who
has the tenderness without the blindness of a mother, and takes the same
charge of the child's mind as the mother of its body. I don't know but this
may have a foundation in truth, though, if so, auntism, like other grand
professions, has sadly degenerated. At any rate, Gœthe seems to be
possessed with a similar feeling. The Count de Thorane, a man of powerful
character, who made a deep impression on his childhood, was, he says,
"reverenced by me as an uncle." And the ideal wise man of this common
life epic stands before us as "The Uncle."
After seeing the working of just views in the establishment of the uncle,
learning piety from the Confessions of a Beautiful Soul, and religious
beneficence from the beautiful life of Natalia, Wilhelm is deemed worthy of
admission to the society of the Illuminati, that is, those who have pierced
the secret of life, and know what it is to be and to do.
Here he finds the scroll of his life "drawn with large, sharp strokes," that
is, these truly wise read his character for him, and "mind and destiny are but
two names for one idea."
He now knows enough to enter on the Wanderjahre.
Gœthe always represents the highest principle in the feminine form.
Woman is the Minerva, man the Mars. As in the Faust, the purity of
Gretchen, resisting the demon always, even after all her faults, is announced
to have saved her soul to heaven; and in the second part she appears, not
only redeemed herself, but by her innocence and forgiving tenderness
hallowed to redeem the being who had injured her.
So in the Meister, these women hover around the narrative, each
embodying the spirit of the scene. The frail Philina, graceful though
contemptible, represents the degradation incident to an attempt at leading an
exclusively poetic life. Mignon, gift divine as ever the Muse bestowed on
the passionate heart of man, with her soft, mysterious inspiration, her pining
for perpetual youth, represents the high desire that leads to this mistake, as
Aurelia, the desire for excitement; Teresa, practical wisdom, gentle
tranquillity, which seem most desirable after the Aurelia glare. Of the
beautiful soul and Natalia we have already spoken. The former embodies
what was suggested to Gœthe by the most spiritual person he knew in youth
—Mademoiselle von Klettenberg, over whom, as he said, in her invalid
loneliness the Holy Ghost brooded like a dove.

Entering on the Wanderjahre, Wilhelm becomes acquainted with another
woman, who seems the complement of all the former, and represents the
idea which is to guide and mould him in the realization of all the past
experience.
This person, long before we see her, is announced in various ways as a
ruling power. She is the last hope in cases of difficulty, and, though an
invalid, and living in absolute retirement, is consulted by her connections
and acquaintance as an unerring judge in all their affairs.
All things tend towards her as a centre; she knows all, governs all, but
never goes forth from herself.
Wilhelm at last visits her. He finds her infirm in body, but equal to all she
has to do. Charity and counsel to men who need her are her business,
astronomy her pleasure.
After a while, Wilhelm ascertains from the Astronomer, her companion,
what he had before suspected, that she really belongs to the solar system,
and only appears on earth to give men a feeling of the planetary harmony.
From her youth up, says the Astronomer, till she knew me, though all
recognized in her an unfolding of the highest moral and intellectual
qualities, she was supposed to be sick at her times of clear vision. When her
thoughts were not in the heavens, she returned and acted in obedience to
them on earth; she was then said to be well.
When the Astronomer had observed her long enough, he confirmed her
inward consciousness of a separate existence and peculiar union with the
heavenly bodies.
Her picture is painted with many delicate traits, and a gradual preparation
leads the reader to acknowledge the truth; but, even in the slight indication
here given, who does not recognize thee, divine Philosophy, sure as the
planetary orbits, and inexhaustible as the fountain of light, crowning the
faithful Seeker at last with the privilege to possess his own soul.
In all that is said of Macaria,[4] we recognize that no thought is too
religious for the mind of Gœthe. It was indeed so; you can deny him
nothing, but only feel that his works are not instinct and glowing with the
central fire, and, after catching a glimpse pf the highest truth, are forced
again to find him too much afraid of losing sight of the limitations of nature
to overflow you or himself with the creative spirit.

While the apparition of the celestial Macaria seems to announce the
ultimate destiny of the soul of man, the practical application of all Wilhelm
has thus painfully acquired is not of pure Delphian strain. Gœthe draws, as
he passes, a dart from the quiver of Phœbus, but ends as Æsculapius or
Mercury. Wilhelm, at the school of the Three Reverences, thinks out what
can be done for man in his temporal relations. He learns to practise
moderation, and even painful renunciation. The book ends, simply
indicating what the course of his life will be, by making him perform an act
of kindness, with good judgment and at the right moment.
Surely the simple soberness of Gœthe should please at least those who
style themselves, preëminently, people of common sense.
The following remarks are by the celebrated Rahel von Ense, whose
discernment as to his works was highly prized by Gœthe.
"Don Quixote and Wilhelm Meister!
"Embrace one another, Cervantes and Gœthe!
"Both, using their own clear eyes, vindicated human nature. They saw the
champions through their errors and follies, looking down into the deepest
soul, seeing there the true form. Respectable people call the Don as well as
Meister a fool, wandering hither and thither, transacting no business of real
life, bringing nothing to pass, scarce even knowing what he ought to think
on any subject, very unfit for the hero of a romance. Yet has our sage
known how to paint the good and honest mind in perpetual toil and conflict
with the world, as it is embodied; never sharing one moment the impure
confusion; always striving to find fault with and improve itself, always so
innocent as to see others far better than they are, and generally preferring
them to itself, learning from all, indulging all except the manifestly base;
the more you understand, the more you respect and love this character.
Cervantes has painted the knight, Gœthe the culture of the entire man,—
both their own time."
But those who demand from him a life-long continuance of the early ardor
of Faust, who wish to see, throughout his works, not only such manifold
beauty and subtle wisdom, but the clear assurance of divinity, the pure
white light of Macaria, wish that he had not so variously unfolded his
nature, and concentred it more. They would see him slaying the serpent
with the divine wrath of Apollo, rather than taming it to his service, like

Æsculapius. They wish that he had never gone to Weimar, had never
become a universal connoisseur and dilettante in science, and courtier as
"graceful as a born nobleman," but had endured the burden of life with the
suffering crowd, and deepened his nature in loneliness and privation, till
Faust had conquered, rather than cheated the devil, and the music of
heavenly faith superseded the grave and mild eloquence of human wisdom.
The expansive genius which moved so gracefully in its self imposed
fetters, is constantly surprising us by its content with a choice low, in so far
as it was not the highest of which the mind was capable. The secret may be
found in the second motto of this slight essay.
"He who would do great things must quickly draw together his forces. The
master can only show himself such through limitation, and the law alone
can give us freedom."
But there is a higher spiritual law always ready to supersede the temporal
laws at the call of the human soul. The soul that is too content with usual
limitations will never call forth this unusual manifestation.
If there be a tide in the affairs of men, which must be taken at the right
moment to lead on to fortune, it is the same with inward as with outward
life. He who, in the crisis hour of youth, has stopped short of himself, is not
likely to find again what he has missed in one life, for there are a great
number of blanks to a prize in each lottery.
But the pang we feel that "those who are so much are not more," seems to
promise new spheres, new ages, new crises to enable these beings to
complete their circle.
Perhaps Gœthe is even now sensible that he should not have stopped at
Weimar as his home, but made it one station on the way to Paradise; not
stopped at humanity, but regarded it as symbolical of the divine, and given
to others to feel more distinctly the centre of the universe, as well as the
harmony in its parts. It is great to be an Artist, a Master, greater still to be a
Seeker till the Man has found all himself.
What Gœthe meant by self-collection was a collection of means for work,
rather than to divine the deepest truths of being. Thus are these truths
always indicated, never declared; and the religious hope awakened by his
subtle discernment of the workings of nature never gratified, except through
the intellect.

He whose prayer is only work will not leave his treasure in the secret
shrine.
One is ashamed when finding any fault with one like Gœthe, who is so
great. It seems the only criticism should be to do all he omitted to do, and
that none who cannot is entitled to say a word. Let that one speak who was
all Gœthe was not,—noble, true, virtuous, but neither wise nor subtle in his
generation, a divine ministrant, a baffled man, ruled and imposed on by the
pygmies whom he spurned, an heroic artist, a democrat to the tune of
Burns:
"The rank is but the guinea's stamp;
The man's the gowd for a' that."
Hear Beethoven speak of Gœthe on an occasion which brought out the
two characters in strong contrast.
Extract from a letter of Beethoven to Bettina Brentano Töplitz, 1812.
"Kings and princes can indeed make professors and privy councillors, and
hang upon them titles; but great men they cannot make; souls that rise
above the mud of the world, these they must let be made by other means
than theirs, and should therefore show them respect. When two such as I
and Gœthe come together, then must great lords observe what is esteemed
great by one of us. Coming home yesterday we met the whole imperial
family. We saw them coming, and Gœthe left me and insisted on standing
one side; let me say what I would, I could not make him come on one step. I
pressed my hat upon my head, buttoned my surtout, and passed on through
the thickest crowd. Princes and parasites made way; the Archduke Rudolph
took off his hat; the empress greeted me first. Their highnesses KNOW ME.
I was well amused to see the crowd pass by Gœthe. At the side stood he, hat
in hand, low bowed in reverence till all had gone by. Then I scolded him
well; I gave no pardon, but reproached him with all his sins, most of all
those towards you, dearest Bettina; we had just been talking of you."
If Beethoven appears, in this scene, somewhat arrogant and bearish, yet
how noble his extreme compared with the opposite! Gœthe's friendship
with the grand duke we respect, for Karl August was a strong man. But we
regret to see at the command of any and all members of the ducal family,
and their connections, who had nothing but rank to recommend them, his
time and thoughts, of which he was so chary to private friends. Beethoven

could not endure to teach the Archduke Rudolph, who had the soul duly to
revere his genius, because he felt it to be "hofdíenst," court service. He
received with perfect nonchalance the homage of the sovereigns of Europe.
Only the Empress of Russia and the Archduke Karl, whom he esteemed as
individuals, had power to gratify him by their attentions. Compare with,
Gœthe's obsequious pleasure at being able gracefully to compliment such
high personages, Beethoven's conduct with regard to the famous Heroic
Symphony. This was composed at the suggestion of Bernadotte, while
Napoleon was still in his first glory. He was then the hero of Beethoven's
imagination, who hoped from him the liberation of Europe. With delight the
great artist expressed in his eternal harmonies the progress of the Hero's
soul. The symphony was finished, and even dedicated to Bonaparte, when
the news came of his declaring himself Emperor of the French. The first act
of the indignant artist was to tear off his dedication and trample it under
foot; nor could he endure again even the mention of Napoleon until the time
of his fall.
Admit that Gœthe had a natural taste for the trappings of rank and wealth,
from which the musician was quite free, yet we cannot doubt that both saw
through these externals to man as a nature; there can be no doubt on whose
side was the simple greatness, the noble truth. We pardon thee, Gœthe,—but
thee, Beethoven, we revere, for thou hast maintained the worship of the
Manly, the Permanent, the True!
The clear perception which was in Gœthe's better nature of the beauty of
that steadfastness, of that singleness and simple melody of soul, which he
too much sacrificed to become "the many-sided One," is shown most
distinctly in his two surpassingly beautiful works, The Elective Affinities
and Iphigenia.
Not Werther, not the Nouvelle Héloise, have been assailed with such a
storm of indignation as the first-named of these works, on the score of gross
immorality.
The reason probably is the subject; any discussion of the validity of the
marriage vow making society tremble to its foundation; and, secondly, the
cold manner in which it is done. All that is in the book would be bearable to
most minds if the writer had had less the air of a spectator, and had larded
his work here and there with ejaculations of horror and surprise.

These declarations of sentiment on the part of the author seem to be
required by the majority of readers, in order to an interpretation of his
purpose, as sixthly, seventhly, and eighthly were, in an old-fashioned
sermon, to rouse the audience to a perception of the method made use of by
the preacher.
But it has always seemed to me that those who need not such helps to their
discriminating faculties, but read a work so thoroughly as to apprehend its
whole scope and tendency, rather than hear what the author says it means,
will regard the Elective Affinities as a work especially what is called moral
in its outward effect, and religious even to piety in its spirit. The mental
aberrations of the consorts from their plighted faith, though in the one case
never indulged, and though in the other no veil of sophistry is cast over the
weakness of passion, but all that is felt expressed with the openness of one
who desires to legitimate what he feels, are punished by terrible griefs and a
fatal catastrophe. Ottilia, that being of exquisite purity, with intellect and
character so harmonized in feminine beauty, as they never before were
found in any portrait of woman painted by the hand of man, perishes, on
finding she has been breathed on by unhallowed passion, and led to err even
by her ignorant wishes against what is held sacred. The only personage
whom we do not pity is Edward, for he is the only one who stifles the voice
of conscience.
There is indeed a sadness, as of an irresistible fatality, brooding over the
whole. It seems as if only a ray of angelic truth could have enabled these
men to walk wisely in this twilight, at first so soft and alluring, then
deepening into blind horror.
But if no such ray came to prevent their earthly errors, it seems to point
heavenward in the saintly sweetness of Ottilia. Her nature, too fair for vice,
too finely wrought even for error, comes lonely, intense, and pale, like the
evening star on the cold, wintry night. It tells of other worlds, where the
meaning of such strange passages as this must be read to those faithful and
pure like her, victims perishing in the green garlands of a spotless youth to
atone for the unworthiness of others.
An unspeakable pathos is felt from the minutest trait of this character, and
deepens with every new study of it. Not even in Shakspeare have I so felt
the organizing power of genius. Through dead words I find the least
gestures of this person, stamping themselves on my memory, betraying to

the heart the secret of her life, which she herself, like all these divine
beings, knew not. I feel myself familiarized with all beings of her order. I
see not only what she was, but what she might have been, and live with her
in yet untrodden realms.
Here is the glorious privilege of a form known only in the world of genius.
There is on it no stain of usage or calculation to dull our sense of its
immeasurable life. What in our daily walk, mid common faces and common
places, fleets across us at moments from glances of the eye, or tones of the
voice, is felt from the whole being of one of these children of genius.
This precious gem is set in a ring complete in its enamel. I cannot hope to
express my sense of the beauty of this book as a work of art. I would not
attempt it if I had elsewhere met any testimony to the same. The perfect
picture, always before the mind, of the chateau, the moss hut, the park, the
garden, the lake, with its boat and the landing beneath the platan trees; the
gradual manner in which both localities and persons grow upon us, more
living than life, inasmuch as we are, unconsciously, kept at our best
temperature by the atmosphere of genius, and thereby more delicate in our
perceptions than amid our customary fogs; the gentle unfolding of the
central thought, as a flower in the morning sun; then the conclusion, rising
like a cloud, first soft and white, but darkening as it comes, till with a
sudden wind it bursts above our heads; the ease with which we every where
find points of view all different, yet all bearing on the same circle, for,
though we feel every hour new worlds, still before our eye lie the same
objects, new, yet the same, unchangeable, yet always changing their aspects
as we proceed, till at last we find we ourselves have traversed the circle,
and know all we overlooked at first,—these things are worthy of our highest
admiration.
For myself, I never felt so completely that very thing which genius should
always make us feel—that I was in its circle, and could not get out till its
spell was done, and its last spirit permitted to depart. I was not carried
away, instructed, delighted more than by other works, but I was there, living
there, whether as the platan tree, or the architect, or any other observing
part of the scene. The personages live too intensely to let us live in them;
they draw around themselves circles within the circle; we can only see them
close, not be themselves.

Others, it would seem, on closing the book, exclaim, "What an immoral
book!" I well remember my own thought, "It is a work of art!" At last I
understood that world within a world, that ripest fruit of human nature,
which is called art. With each perusal of the book my surprise and delight at
this wonderful fulfilment of design grew. I understood why Gœthe was well
content to be called Artist, and his works, works of Art, rather than
revelations. At this moment, remembering what I then felt, I am inclined to
class all my negations just written on this paper as stuff, and to look upon
myself, for thinking them, with as much contempt as Mr. Carlyle, or Mrs.
Austin, or Mrs. Jameson might do, to say nothing of the German Gœtheans.
Yet that they were not without foundation I feel again when I turn to the
Iphigenia—a work beyond the possibility of negation; a work where a
religious meaning not only pierces but enfolds the whole; a work as
admirable in art, still higher in significance, more single in expression.
There is an English translation (I know not how good) of Gœthe's
Iphigenia. But as it may not be generally known, I will give a sketch of the
drama. Iphigenia, saved, at the moment of the sacrifice made by
Agamemnon in behalf of the Greeks, by the goddess, and transferred to the
temple at Tauris, appears alone in the consecrated grove. Many years have
passed since she was severed from the home of such a tragic fate, the palace
of Mycenæ. Troy had fallen, Agamemnon been murdered, Orestes had
grown up to avenge his death. All these events were unknown to the exiled
Iphigenia. The priestess of Diana in a barbarous land, she had passed the
years in the duties of the sanctuary, and in acts of beneficence. She had
acquired great power over the mind of Thoas, king of Tauris, and used it to
protect strangers, whom it had previously been the custom of the country to
sacrifice to the goddess.
She salutes us with a soliloquy, of which I give a rude translation:—
Beneath your shade, living summits
Of this ancient, holy, thick-leaved grove,
As in the silent sanctuary of the Goddess,
Still I walk with those same shuddering feelings,
As when I trod these walks for the first time.
My spirit cannot accustom itself to these places;
Many years now has kept me here concealed
A higher will, to which I am submissive;

Yet ever am I, as at first, the stranger;
For ah! the sea divides me from my beloved ones,
And on the shore whole days I stand,
Seeking with my soul the land of the Greeks,
And to my sighs brings the rushing wave only
Its hollow tones in answer.
Woe to him who, far from parents, and brothers, and
sisters,
Drags on a lonely life. Grief consumes
The nearest happiness away from his lips;
His thoughts crowd downwards—
Seeking the hall of his fathers, where the Sun
First opened heaven to him, and kindred-born
In their first plays knit daily firmer and firmer
The bond from heart to heart—I question not the Gods,
Only the lot of woman is one of sorrow;
In the house and in the war man rules,
Knows how to help himself in foreign lands,
Possessions gladden and victory crowns him,
And an honorable death stands ready to end his days.
Within what narrow limits is bounded the luck of
woman!
To obey a rude husband even is duty and comfort; how
sad
When, instead, a hostile fate drives her out of her sphere!
So holds me Thoas, indeed a noble man, fast
In solemn, sacred, but slavish bonds.
O, with shame I confess that with secret reluctance
I serve thee, Goddess, thee, my deliverer.
My life should freely have been dedicate to thee,
But I have always been hoping in thee, O Diana,
Who didst take in thy soft arms me, the rejected
daughter
Of the greatest king! Yes, daughter of Zeus,
I thought if thou gavest such anguish to him, the high
hero,
The godlike Agamemnon;

Since he brought his dearest, a victim, to thy altar,
That, when he should return, crowned with glory, from
Ilium,
At the same time thou would'st give to his arms his other
treasures,
His spouse, Electra, and the princely son;
Me also, thou would'st restore to mine own,
Saving a second time me, whom from death thou didst
save,
From this worse death,—the life of exile here.
These are the words and thoughts; but how give an idea of the sweet
simplicity of expression in the original, where every word has the grace and
softness of a flower petal?
She is interrupted by a messenger from the king, who prepares her for a
visit from himself of a sort she has dreaded. Thoas, who has always loved
her, now left childless by the calamities of war, can no longer resist his
desire to reanimate by her presence his desert house. He begins by urging
her to tell him the story of her race, which she does in a way that makes us
feel as if that most famous tragedy had never before found a voice, so
simple, so fresh in its naïveté is the recital.
Thoas urges his suit undismayed by the fate that hangs over the race of
Tantalus.
Thoas.

Was it the same Tantalus,
Whom Jupiter called to his council and banquets,
In whose talk so deeply experienced, full of various
learning,
The Gods delighted as in the speech of oracles?

Iphigenia.

It is the same, but the Gods should not
Converse with men, as with their equals.
The mortal race is much too weak
Not to turn giddy on unaccustomed heights.

He was not ignoble, neither a traitor,
But for a servant too great, and as a companion
Of the great Thunderer only a man. So was
His fault also that of a man, its penalty
Severe, and poets sing—Presumption
And faithlessness cast him down from the throne of
Jove,
Into the anguish of ancient Tartarus;
Ah, and all his race bore their hate.

Thoas.

Bore it the blame of the ancestor, or its own?

Iphigenia.

Truly the vehement breast and powerful life of the Titan
Were the assured inheritance of son and grandchild;
But the Gods bound their brows with a brazen band,
Moderation, counsel, wisdom, and patience
Were hid from their wild, gloomy glance,
Each desire grew to fury,
And limitless ranged their passionate thoughts.
Iphigenia refuses with gentle firmness to give to gratitude what was not
due. Thoas leaves her in anger, and, to make her feel it, orders that the old,
barbarous custom be renewed, and two strangers just arrived be immolated
at Diana's altar.
Iphigenia, though distressed, is not shaken by this piece of tyranny. She
trusts her heavenly protectress will find some way for her to save these
unfortunates without violating her truth.
The strangers are Orestes and Pylades, sent thither by the oracle of Apollo,
who bade them go to Tauris and bring back "The Sister;" thus shall the
heaven-ordained parricide of Orestes be expiated, and the Furies cease to
pursue him.
The Sister they interpret to be Dian, Apollo's sister; but Iphigenia, sister to
Orestes, is really meant.

The next act contains scenes of most delicate workmanship, first between
the light-hearted Pylades, full of worldly resource and ready tenderness, and
the suffering Orestes, of far nobler, indeed heroic nature, but less fit for the
day and more for the ages. In the first scene the characters of both are
brought out with great skill, and the nature of the bond between "the
butterfly and the dark flower," distinctly shown in few words.
The next scene is between Iphigenia and Pylades. Pylades, though he truly
answers the questions of the priestess about the fate of Troy and the house
of Agamemnon, does not hesitate to conceal from her who Orestes really is,
and manufactures a tissue of useless falsehoods with the same readiness that
the wise Ulysses showed in exercising his ingenuity on similar occasions.
It is said, I know not how truly, that the modern Greeks are Ulyssean in
this respect, never telling straightforward truth, when deceit will answer the
purpose; and if they tell any truth, practising the economy of the King of
Ithaca, in always reserving a part for their own use. The character which
this denotes is admirably hit off with few strokes in Pylades, the fair side of
whom Iphigenia thus paints in a later scene.
Bless, ye Gods, our Pylades,
And whatever he may undertake;
He is the arm of the youth in battle,
The light-giving eye of the aged man in the council.
For his soul is still; it preserves
The holy possession of Repose unexhausted,
And from its depths still reaches
Help and advice to those tossed to and fro.
Iphigenia leaves him in sudden agitation, when informed of the death of
Agamemnon. Returning, she finds in his place Orestes, whom she had not
before seen, and draws from him by her artless questions the sequel to this
terrible drama wrought by his hand. After he has concluded his narrative, in
the deep tones of cold anguish, she cries,—
Immortals, you who through your bright days
Live in bliss, throned on clouds ever renewed,
Only for this have you all these years
Kept me separate from men, and so near yourselves,
Given me the child-like employment to cherish the fires

on your altars,
That my soul might, in like pious clearness,
Be ever aspiring towards your abodes,
That only later and deeper I might feel
The anguish and horror that have darkened my house.
O Stranger,
Speak to me of the unhappy one, tell me of Orestes.

Orestes.

O, might I speak of his death!
Vehement flew up from the reeking blood
His Mother's Soul!
And called to the ancient daughters of Night,
Let not the parricide escape;
Pursue that man of crime; he is yours!
They obey, their hollow eyes
Darting about with vulture eagerness;
They stir themselves in their black dens,
From corners their companions
Doubt and Remorse steal out to join them.
Before them roll the mists of Acheron;
In its cloudy volumes rolls
The eternal contemplation of the irrevocable
Permitted now in their love of ruin they tread
The beautiful fields of a God-planted earth,
From which they had long been banished by an early
curse,
Their swift feet follow the fugitive,
They pause never except to gather more power to
dismay.

Iphigenia.

Unhappy man, thou art in like manner tortured,
And feelest truly what he, the poor fugitive, suffers!

Orestes.

What sayest thou? what meanest by "like manner"?

Iphigenia.

Thee, too, the weight of a fratricide crushes to earth; the
tale
I had from thy younger brother.

Orestes.

I cannot suffer that thou, great soul,
Shouldst be deceived by a false tale;
A web of lies let stranger weave for stranger
Subtle with many thoughts, accustomed to craft,
Guarding his feet against a trap.
But between us
Be Truth;—
I am Orestes,—and this guilty head
Bent downward to the grave seeks death;
In any shape were he welcome.
Whoever thou art, I wish thou mightst be saved,
Thou and my friend; for myself I wish it not.
Thou seem'st against thy will here to remain;
Invent a way to fly and leave me here.
Like all pure productions of genius, this may be injured by the slightest
change, and I dare not flatter myself that the English words give an idea of
the heroic dignity expressed in the cadence of the original, by the words
"Twischen uns
Seg Wahrheit!
Ich bin Orest!"
where the Greek seems to fold his robe around him in the full strength of
classic manhood, prepared for worst and best, not like a cold Stoic, but a
hero, who can feel all, know all, and endure all. The name of two syllables

in the German is much more forcible for the pause, than the three-syllable
Orestes.
"Between us
Be Truth,"
is fine to my ear, on which our word Truth also pauses with a large dignity.
The scenes go on more and more full of breathing beauty. The lovely joy
of Iphigenia, the meditative softness with which the religiously educated
mind perpetually draws the inference from the most agitating events,
impress us more and more. At last the hour of trial comes. She is to keep off
Thoas by a cunningly devised tale, while her brother and Pylades contrive
their escape. Orestes has received to his heart the sister long lost, divinely
restored, and in the embrace the curse falls from him, he is well, and
Pylades more than happy. The ship waits to carry her to the palace home
she is to free from a century's weight of pollution; and already the blue
heavens of her adored Greece gleam before her fancy.
But, O, the step before all this can be obtained;—to deceive Thoas, a
savage and a tyrant indeed, but long her protector,—in his barbarous
fashion, her benefactor! How can she buy life, happiness, or even the safety
of those dear ones at such a price?
"Woe,
O Woe upon the lie! It frees not the breast,
Like the true-spoken word; it comforts not, but tortures
Him who devised it, and returns,
An arrow once let fly, God-repelled, back,
On the bosom of the Archer!"

O, must I then resign the silent hope
Which gave a beauty to my loneliness?
Must the curse dwell forever, and our race
Never be raised to life by a new blessing?
All things decay, the fairest bliss is transient,
The powers most full of life grow faint at last;
And shall a curse alone boast an incessant life?

Then have I idly hoped that here kept pure,
So strangely severed from my kindred's lot,
I was designed to come at the right moment,
And with pure hand and heart to expiate
The many sins that stain my native home.
To lie, to steal the sacred image!
Olympians, let not these vulture talons
Seize on the tender breast. O, save me,
And save your image in my soul!

Within my ears resounds the ancient lay,—
I had forgotten it, and would so gladly,—
The lay of the Parcæ, which they awful sung;
As Tantalus fell from his golden seat
They suffered with the noble friend. Wrathful
Was their heart, and fearful was the song.
In our childhood the nurse was wont to sing it
To me, and my brother and sister. I marked it well.
Then follows the sublime song of the Parcæ, well known through
translations.
But Iphigenia is not a victim of fate, for she listens steadfastly to the god
in her breast. Her lips are incapable of subterfuge. She obeys her own heart,
tells all to the king, calls up his better nature, wins, hallows, and purifies all
around her, till the heaven-prepared way is cleared by the obedient child of
heaven, and the great trespass of Tantalus cancelled by a woman's reliance
on the voice of her innocent soul.
If it be not possible to enhance the beauty with which such ideal figures as
the Iphigenia and the Antigone appeared to the Greek mind, yet Gœthe has
unfolded a part of the life of this being, unknown elsewhere in the records
of literature. The character of the priestess, the full beauty of virgin
womanhood, solitary, but tender, wise and innocent, sensitive and self-
collected, sweet as spring, dignified as becomes the chosen servant of God,
each gesture and word of deep and delicate significance,—where else is
such a picture to be found?

It was not the courtier, nor the man of the world, nor the connoisseur, nor
the friend of Mephistopheles, nor Wilhelm the Master, nor Egmont the
generous, free liver, that saw Iphigenia in the world of spirits, but Gœthe, in
his first-born glory; G[o]ethe, the poet; Gœthe, designed to be the brightest
star in a new constellation. Let us not, in surveying his works and life, abide
with him too much in the suburbs and outskirts of himself. Let us enter into
his higher tendency, thank him for such angels as Iphigenia, whose simple
truth mocks at all his wise "Beschrankungen," and hope the hour when, girt
about with many such, he will confess, contrary to his opinion, given in his
latest days, that it is well worth while to live seventy years, if only to find
that they are nothing in the sight of God.

THOMAS HOOD.
NOW almost the last light has gone out of the galaxy that made the first
thirty years of this age so bright. And the dynasty that now reigns over the
world of wit and poetry is poor and pale, indeed, in comparison.
We are anxious to pour due libations to the departed; we need not
economize our wine; it will not be so often needed now.
Hood has closed the most fatiguing career in the world—that of a
professed wit; and we may say with deeper feeling than of others who
shuffle off the load of care, May he rest in peace! The fatigues of a
conqueror, a missionary preacher, even of an active philanthropist, like
Howard, are nothing to those of a professed wit. Bad enough is it when he
is only a man of society, by whom every one expects to be enlivened and
relieved; who can never talk gravely in a corner, without those around
observing that he must have heard some bad news to be so out of spirits;
who can never make a simple remark, while eating a peaceful dinner,
without the table being set in a roar of laughter, as when Sheridan, on such
an occasion, opened his lips for the first time to say that "he liked currant
jelly." For these unhappy men there are no intervals of social repose, no
long silences fed by the mere feeling of sympathy or gently entertained by
observation, no warm quietude in the mild liveries of green or brown, for
the world has made up its mind that motley is their only wear, and teases
them to jingle their bells forever.
But far worse is it when the professed wit is also by profession a writer,
and finds himself obliged to coin for bread those jokes which, in the frolic
exuberance of youth, he so easily coined for fun. We can conceive of no
existence more cruel, so tormenting, and at the same time so dull. We hear
that Hood was forever behindhand with his promises to publishers; no
wonder! But when we hear that he, in consequence, lost a great part of the
gains of his hard life, and was, as a result, harassed by other cares, we
cannot mourn to lose him, if,
"After life's fitful fever, he sleeps well;"
or if, as our deeper knowledge leads us to hope, he is now engaged in a
better life, where his fancies shall take their natural place, and flicker like

light on the surface of a profound and full stream flowing betwixt rich and
peaceful shores, such as, no less than the drawbacks upon his earthly
existence, are indicated in the following
SONNET.
The curse of Adam, the old curse of all,
Though I inherit in this feverish life
Of worldly toil, vain wishes, and hard strife,
And fruitless thought in care's eternal thrall,
Yet more sweet honey than of bitter gall
I taste through thee, my Eva, my sweet wife.
Then what was Man's lost Paradise? how rife
Of bliss, since love is with him in his fall!
Such as our own pure passion still might frame
Of this fair earth and its delightful bowers,
If no fell sorrow, like the serpent, came
To trail its venom o'er the sweetest flowers;
But, O! as many and such tears are ours
As only should be shed for guilt and shame.
In Hood, as in all true wits, the smile lightens on the verge of a tear. True
wit and humor show that exquisite sensibility to the relations of life, that
fine perception as to slight tokens of its fearful, hopeless mysteries, which
imply pathos to a still higher degree than mirth.
Hood knew and welcomed the dower which nature gave him at his birth,
when he wrote thus:—
All things are touched with melancholy
Born of the secret soul's mistrust,
To feel her fair ethereal wings
Weighed down with vile, degraded dust.
Even the bright extremes of joy
Bring on conclusions of disgust,
Like the sweet blossoms of the May,
Whose fragrance ends in must.
O, give her, then, her tribute just,
Her sighs and tears and musings holy;
There is no music in the life

That sounds with idiot laughter solely;
There's not a string attuned to mirth,
But has its chord in melancholy.
Hood was true to this vow of acceptance. He vowed to accept willingly
the pains as well as joys of life for what they could teach. Therefore, years
expanded and enlarged his sympathies, and gave to his lightest jokes an
obvious harmony with a great moral design, not obtrusively obvious, but
enough so to give a sweetness and permanent complacency to our laughter.
Indeed, what is written in his gayer mood has affected us more, as
spontaneous productions always do, than what he has written of late with
grave design, and which has been so much lauded by men too obtuse to
discern a latent meaning, or to believe in a good purpose unless they are
formally told that it exists.
The later serious poems of Hood are well known; so are his jest books and
novel. We have now in view to speak rather of a little volume of poems
published by him, some years since, republished here, but never widely
circulated.
When a book or a person comes to us in the best possible circumstances,
we judge—not too favorably, for all that the book or person can suggest is a
part of its fate, and what is not seen under the most favorable circumstances
is never quite truly seen either as to promise or performance—but we form
a judgment above what can be the average sense of the world in general as
to its merits, which may be esteemed, after time enough has elapsed, a
tolerably fair estimate of performance, though not of promise or suggestion.
We became acquainted with these poems in one of those country towns
which would be called, abroad, the most provincial of the province. The
inhabitants had lost the simplicity of farmers' habits, without gaining in its
place the refinement, the variety, the enlargement of civic life. Their
industry had received little impulse from thought; their amusement was
gossip. All men find amusement from gossip—literary, artistic, or social;
but the degrees in it are almost infinite. They were at the bottom of the
scale; they scrutinized their neighbors' characters and affairs incessantly,
impertinently, and with minds unpurified by higher knowledge;
consequently the bitter fruits of envy and calumny abounded.
In this atmosphere I was detained two months, and among people very
uncongenial both to my tastes and notions of right. But I had a retreat of

great beauty. The town lay on the bank of a noble river; behind it towered a
high and rocky hill. Thither every afternoon went the lonely stranger, to
await the fall of the sunset light on the opposite bank of the full and rapid
stream. It fell like a smile of heavenly joy; the white sails on the stream
glided along like angel thoughts; the town itself looked like a fair nest,
whence virtue and happiness might soar with sweetest song. So looked the
scene from above; and that hill was the scene of many an aspiration and
many an effort to attain as high a point of view for the mental prospect, in
the hope that little discrepancies, or what seemed so when on a level with
them, might also, from above, be softened into beauty and found
subservient to a noble design on the whole.
This town boasted few books, and the accident which threw Hood's poems
in the way of the watcher from the hill, was a very fortunate one. They
afforded a true companionship to hours which knew no other, and, perhaps,
have since been overrated from association with what they answered to or
suggested.
Yet there are surely passages in them which ought to be generally known
and highly prized. And if their highest value be for a few individuals with
whom they are especially in concord, unlike the really great poems which
bring something to all, yet those whom they please will be very much
pleased.
Hood never became corrupted into a hack writer. This shows great
strength under his circumstances. Dickens has fallen, and Sue is falling; for
few men can sell themselves by inches without losing a cubit from their
stature. But Hood resisted the danger. He never wrote when he had nothing
to say, he stopped when he had done, and never hashed for a second meal
old thoughts which had been drained of their choicest juices. His heart is
truly human, tender, and brave. From the absurdities of human nature he
argues the possibility of its perfection. His black is admirably contrasted
with his white, but his love has no converse of hate. His descriptions of
nature, if not accurately or profoundly evidencing insight, are unstudied,
fond, and reverential. They are fine reveries about nature.
He has tried his powers on themes where he had great rivals—in the "Plea
of the Midsummer Fairies," and "Hero and Leander." The latter is one of the
finest subjects in the world, and one, too, which can never wear out as long
as each mind shall have its separate ideal of what a meeting would be

between two perfect lovers, in the full bloom of beauty and youth, under
circumstances the most exalting to passion, because the most trying, and
with the most romantic accompaniments of scenery. There is room here for
the finest expression of love and grief, for the wildest remonstrance against
fate. Why are they made so lovely and so beloved? Why was a flower
brought to such perfection, and then culled for no use? One of the older
English writers has written an exquisite poem on this subject, painting a
youthful pair, fitted to be not only a heaven but a world to one another.
Hood had not power to paint or conceive such fulness of character; but, in a
lesser style, he has written a fine poem. The best part of it, however, is the
innocent cruelty and grief of the Sea Siren.
"Lycus the Centaur" is also a poem once read never to be forgotten. The
hasty trot of the versification, unfit for any other theme, on this betokens
well the frightened horse. Its mazy and bewildered imagery, with its
countless glancings and glimpses, expressed powerfully the working of the
Circean spell, while the note of human sadness, a yearning and condemned
human love, thrills through the whole and gives it unity.
The Sonnets, "It is not death," &c., and that on Silence, are equally
admirable. Whoever reads these poems will regard Hood as something
more than a great wit,—as a great poet also.
To express this is our present aim, and therefore we shall leave to others,
or another time, the retrospect of his comic writings. But having, on the late
promptings of love for the departed, looked over these, we have been
especially amused with the "Schoolmistress Abroad," which was new to us.
Miss Crane, a "she Mentor, stiff as starch, formal as a Dutch ledge,
sensitive as a daguerreotype, and so tall, thin, and upright, that supposing
the Tree of Knowledge to have been a poplar, she was the very Dryad to
have fitted it," was left, with a sister little better endowed with the pliancy
and power of adaptation which the exigencies of this varied world-scene
demand, in attendance upon a sick father, in a foreign inn, where she cannot
make herself understood, because her French is not "French French, but
English French," and no two things in nature or art can be more unlike.
Now look at the position of the sisters.
"The younger, Miss Ruth, was somewhat less disconcerted. She had by
her position the greater share in the active duties of Lebanon House, and
under ordinary circumstances would not have been utterly at a loss what to

do for the comfort or relief of her parent. But in every direction in which
her instinct and habits would have prompted her to look, the materials she
sought were deficient. There was no easy chair—no fire to wheel it to—no
cushion to shake up—no cupboard to go to—no female friend to consult—
no Miss Parfitt—no cook—no John to send for the doctor—no English—no
French—nothing but that dreadful 'Gefullig,' or 'Ja Wohl,' and the equally
incomprehensible 'Gnadige Frau!'
"'Der herr,' said the German coachman, 'ist sehr krank,' (the gentleman is
very sick.)
"The last word had occurred so frequently on the organ of the
Schoolmistress, that it had acquired in her mind some important
significance.
"'Ruth, what is krank?'
"'How should I know?' retorted Ruth, with an asperity apt to accompany
intense excitement and perplexity. 'In English, it's a thing that helps to pull
the bell. But look at papa—do help to support him—you're good for
nothing.'
"'I am, indeed,' murmured poor Miss Priscilla, with a gentle shake of her
head, and a low, slow sigh of acquiescence. Alas! as she ran over the
catalogue of her accomplishments, the more she remembered what she
could do for her sick parent, the more helpless and useless she appeared.
For instance, she could have embroidered him a night-cap—or knitted him
a silk purse—or plaited him a guard-chain—or cut him out a watch-paper—
or ornamented his braces with bead-work—or embroidered his waistcoat—
or worked him a pair of slippers—or openworked his pocket handkerchief.
She could even, if such an operation would have been comforting or
salutary, have roughcasted him with shell-work—or coated him with red or
black seals—or encrusted him with blue alum—or stuck him all over with
colored wafers—or festooned him.
"But alas! what would it have availed her poor dear papa in the
spasmodics, if she had even festooned him, from top to toe, with little rice-
paper roses?"
The comments of the female chorus, as the author reads aloud the sorrows
of Miss Crane, are droll as Hood's drollest. Who can say more?
So farewell, gentle, generous, inventive, genial, and most amusing friend.
We thank thee for both tears and laughter; tears which were not heart-

breaking, laughter which was never frivolous or unkind. In thy satire was
no gall, in the sting of thy winged wit no venom, in the pathos of thy sorrow
no enfeebling touch! Thou hadst faults as a writer, we know not whether as
a man; but who cares to name or even to note them? Surely there is enough
on the sunny side of the peach to feed us and make us bless the tree from
which it fell.

LETTERS FROM A LANDSCAPE PAINTER.[5]
THIS is a very pleasing book, and if the "Essays of Summer Hours"
resemble it, we are not surprised at the favor with which they have been
received, not only in this country, but in England.
The writer is, we believe, very young, and as these Essays have awakened
in us a friendly expectation which he has time and talent to fulfil, we will, at
this early hour, proffer our counsel on two points.
First. Avoid details, so directly personal, of emotion. A young and
generous mind, seeing the deceit and cold reserve which so often palsy men
who write, no less than those who act, may run into the opposite extreme.
But frankness must be tempered by delicacy, or elevated into the region of
poetry. You may tell the world at large what you please, if you make it of
universal importance by transporting it into the field of general human
interest. But your private griefs, merely as yours, belong to yourself, your
nearest friends, to Heaven and to nature. There is a limit set by good taste,
or the sense of beauty, on such subjects, which each, who seeks, may find
for himself.
Second. Be more sparing of your praise: above all, of its highest terms.
We should have a sense of mental as well as moral honor, which, while it
makes us feel the baseness of uttering merely hasty and ignorant censure,
will also forbid that hasty and extravagant praise which strict truth will not
justify. A man of honor wishes to utter no word to which he cannot adhere.
The offices of Poet—of Hero-worship—are sacred, and he who has a heart
to appreciate the excellent should call nothing excellent which falls short of
being so. Leave yourself some incense worthy of the best; do not lavish it
on the merely good. It is better to be too cool than extravagant in praise;
and though mediocrity may be elated if it can draw to itself undue honors,
true greatness shrinks from the least exaggeration of its claims. The truly
great are too well aware how difficult is the attainment of excellence, what
labors and sacrifices it requires, even from genius, either to flatter
themselves as to their works, or to be otherwise than grieved at idolatry
from others; and so, with best wishes, and a hope to meet again, we bid
farewell to the "Landscape Painter."

BEETHOVEN.[6]
THIS book bears on its outside the title, "Life of Beethoven, by
Moscheles." It is really only a translation of Schindler, and it seems quite
unfair to bring Moscheles so much into the foreground, merely because his
name is celebrated in England. He has only contributed a few notes and a
short introduction, giving a most pleasing account of his own devotion to
the Master. Schindler was the trusty friend of Beethoven, and one whom he
himself elected to write his biography. Inadequate as it is, there is that
fidelity in the collection of materials which makes it serviceable to our
knowledge of Beethoven, and we wish it might be reprinted in America.
Though there is little knowledge of music here, yet so far as any exists in
company with a free development of mind, the music of Beethoven is the
music which delights, which awakens, which inspires, an infinite hope.
This influence of these most profound, bold, original and singular
compositions, even upon the uninitiated, above those of a simpler
construction and more obvious charms, we have observed with great
pleasure. For we think its cause lies deep, far beneath fancy, taste, fashion,
or any accidental cause.
It is because there is a real and steady unfolding of certain thoughts which
pervade the civilized world. They strike their roots through to us beneath
the broad Atlantic; and these roots shoot stems upward to the light wherever
the soil allows them free course.
Our era, which permits of freer inquiry, of bolder experiment, than ever
before, and a firmer, broader, basis, may also, we sincerely trust, be
depended on for nobler discovery and a grander scope of thought.
Although we sympathize with the sadness of those who lament the decay
of forms and methods round which so many associations have wound their
tendrils, and understand the sufferings which gentle, tender natures undergo
from the forlorn homelessness of a period of doubt, speculation,
reconstruction in every way, yet we cannot disjoin ourselves, by one
moment's fear or regret, from the advance corps. That body, leagued by an
invisible tie, has received too deep an assurance that the spirit is not dead

nor sleeping, to look back to the past, even if they must advance uniformly
through scenes of decay and the rubbish of falling edifices.
But how far it is from being so! How many developments, in various
ways, of truth! How manifold the aspirations of love! In the church the
attempt is now to reconstruct on the basis proposed by its founder—"Love
one another;" in the philosophy of mind, if completeness of system is, as
yet, far from being attained, yet mistakes and vain dogmas are set aside, and
examinations conducted with intelligence and an enlarged discernment of
what is due both to God and man. Science advances, in some route with
colossal strides; new glimpses are daily gained into the arcana of natural
history, and the mysteries attendant on the modes of growth, are laid open
to our observation; while in chemistry, electricity, magnetism, we seem to
be getting nearer to the law of life which governs them, and in astronomy
"fathoming the heavens," to use the sublime expression of Herschel, daily
to greater depths, we find ourselves admitted to a perception of the
universal laws and causes, where harmony, permanence and perfection
leave us no excuse for a moment of despondency, while under the guidance
of a Power who has ordered all so well.
Then, if the other arts suffer a temporary paralysis, and notwithstanding
the many proofs of talent and genius, we consider that is the case with
architecture, painting, and sculpture, music is not only thoroughly vital, but
in a state of rapid development. The last hundred years have witnessed a
succession of triumphs in this art, the removal of obstructions, the
transcending of limits, and the opening new realms of thought, to an extent
that makes the infinity of promise and hope very present with us. And take
notice that the prominent means of excellence now are not in those ways
which give form to thought already existent, but which open new realms to
thought. Those who live most with the life of their age, feel that it is one not
only beautiful, positive, full of suggestion, but vast, flowing, of infinite
promise. It is dynamics that interest us now, and from electricity and music
we borrow the best illustrations of what we know.
Let no one doubt that these grand efforts at synthesis are capable of as
strict analysis. Indeed, it is wonderful with what celerity and precision the
one process follows up the other.
Of this great life which has risen from the stalk and the leaf into bud, and
will in the course of this age be in full flower, Beethoven is the last and

greatest exponent. His music is felt, by every soul whom it affects, to be the
explanation of the past and the prophecy of the future. It contains the
thoughts of the time. A dynasty of great men preceded him, each of whom
made conquests and accumulated treasures which prepared the way for his
successor. Bach, Handel, Hadyn, Mozart, were corner-stones of the glorious
temple. Who shall succeed Beethoven? A host of musicians, full of talent,
even of genius, live now he is dead; but the greatest among them is
confessed by all men to be but of Lilliputian size compared with this
demigod. Indeed, it should be so! As copious draughts of soul have been
given to the earth, as she can quaff for a century or more. Disciples and
critics must follow, to gather up the gleanings of the golden grain.
It is observable as an earnest of the great Future which opens for this
country, that such a genius is so easily and so much appreciated here, by
those who have not gone through the steps that prepared the way for him in
Europe. He is felt, because he expresses, in full tones, the thoughts that lie
at the heart of our own existence, though we have not found means to
stammer them as yet. To those who have obtained some clew to all this,—
and their number is daily on the increase,—this biography of Beethoven
will be very interesting. They will here find a picture of the great man, as he
looked and moved in actual life, though imperfectly painted,—as by one
who saw the figure from too low a stand-point.
It will require the united labors of a constellation of minds to paint the
portrait of Beethoven. That of his face, as seen in life, prefixed to these
volumes, is better than any we have seen. It bears tokens of the force, the
grandeur, the grotesqueness of his genius, and at the same time shows the
melancholy that came to him from the great misfortune of his life—his
deafness; and the affectionateness of his deep heart.
Moscheles thus gives a very pleasing account of his first cognizance of
Beethoven:—
"I had been placed under the guidance and tuition of Dionysius Weber, the
founder and present director of the Prague Musical Conservatory; and he,
fearing that in my eagerness to read new music, I might injure the
systematic development of my piano-forte playing, prohibited the library, a
circulating musical library, and in a plan for my musical education which he
laid before my parents, made it an express condition that for three years I
should study no other authors but Mozart, Clemente, and S. Bach. I must

confess, however, that in spite of such prohibition, I visited the library,
gaining access to it through my pocket money. It was about this time that I
learned from some schoolfellows that a young composer had appeared in
Vienna, who wrote the oddest stuff possible, such as no one could either
play or understand—crazy music, in opposition to all rule; and that this
composer's name was Beethoven. On repairing to the library to satisfy my
curiosity as to this so-called eccentric genius, I found there Beethoven's
'Sonate Pathetique.' This was in the year 1804. My pocket money would not
suffice for the purchase of it, so I secretly copied it. The novelty of its style
was so attractive to me, and I became so enthusiastic in my admiration of it,
that I forgot myself so far as to mention my new acquisition to my master,
who reminded me of his injunction, and warned me not to play or study any
eccentric productions until I had based my style upon more solid models.
Without, however, minding his injunction, I seized upon the piano-forte
works of Beethoven as they successively appeared, and in them found a
solace and delight such as no other composer afforded me.
"In the year 1809, my studies with my master, Weber, closed; and being
then also fatherless, I chose Vienna for my residence, to work out my future
musical career. Above all, I longed to see and become acquainted with that
man who had exercised so powerful an influence over my whole being;
whom, though I scarcely understood, I blindly worshipped. I learned that
Beethoven was most difficult of access, and would admit no pupil but Ries;
and for a long time my anxiety to see him remained ungratified. In the year
1810, however, the longed-for opportunity presented itself. I happened to be
one morning in the music shop of Domenico Artaria, who had just been
publishing some of my early attempts at composition, when a man entered
with short and hasty steps, and gliding through the circle of ladies and
professors assembled on business, or talking over musical matters, without
looking up, as though he wished to pass unnoticed, made his way direct for
Artaria's private office at the bottom of the shop. Presently Artaria called
me in, and said, 'This is Beethoven,'—and to the composer, 'This is the
youth of whom I have been speaking to you.' Beethoven gave me a friendly
nod, and said he had just been hearing a favorable account of me. To some
modest and humble expressions which I stammered forth he made no reply,
and seemed to wish to break off the conversation. I stole away with a
greater longing for that which I had sought, than before this meeting,
thinking to myself, 'Am I then, indeed, such a nobody that he could not put

one musical question to me? nor express one wish to know who had been
my master, or whether I had any acquaintance with his works?' My only
satisfactory mode of explaining the matter, and comforting myself for the
omission, was in Beethoven's tendency to deafness; for I had seen Artaria
speaking close to his ear. But I made up my mind that the more I was
excluded from the private intercourse which I so earnestly coveted, the
closer I would follow Beethoven in all the productions of his mind."
If Moscheles had never seen more of Beethoven, how rejoiced he would
have been on reading his pathetic expressions recorded in those volumes, as
to the misconstructions he knew his fellow-men must put on conduct caused
by his calamity, at having detected the true cause of coldness in his own
instance, and that no mean suggestions of offended vanity made him false
to the genius, because repelled by the man!
Moscheles did see him further, and learned a great deal from this
intercourse, though it never became intimate. He closes with these excellent
remarks:—
"My feelings with respect to Beethoven's music have undergone no
variation, save to become warmer. In my first half score of years of
acquaintance with his works, he was repulsive to me, as well as attractive.
In each of them, while I felt my mind fascinated by the prominent idea, and
my enthusiasm kindled by the flashes of his genius, his unlooked-for
episodes, shrill dissonances, and bold modulations gave me an unpleasant
sensation. But how soon did I become reconciled to them! all that had
appeared hard I soon found indispensable. The gnome-like pleasantries,
which at first appeared too distorted, the stormy masses of sound which I
found too chaotic, I have in after times learned to love. But while retracting
my early critical exceptions, I must still maintain as my creed that
eccentricities like those of Beethoven are reconcilable with his works alone,
and are dangerous models to other composers, many of whom have been
wrecked in their attempts at imitation."
No doubt the peculiarities of Beethoven are inimitable, though as great
would be as welcome in a mind of equal greatness. The natural office of
such a genius is to rouse others to a use and knowledge of their own
faculties; never to induce imitation of its own individuality.
As an instance of the justice and undoubting clearness of such a mind, as
to its own methods, take the following anecdote from Beethoven's "Pupil

Ries":—
"All the initiated must be interested in the striking fact which occurred
respecting one of Beethoven's last solo sonatas, (in B major, with the great
fugue, Op. 106,) a sonata which has forty-one pages of print. Beethoven
had sent it to me, to London, for sale, that it might appear there at the same
time as in Germany. The engraving was completed, and I in daily
expectation of the letter naming the day of publication. This arrived at last,
but with this extraordinary request: 'Prefix the following two notes, as a first
bar, to the beginning of the adagio.' This adagio has from nine to ten pages
of print. I own the thought struck me involuntarily that all might not be
right with my dear old master, a rumor to that effect having often been
spread. What! add two notes to a composition already worked out and out,
and completed months ago? But my astonishment was yet to be heightened
by the effect of these two notes. Never could such be found again—so
striking—so important; no, not even if contemplated at the very beginning
of the composition. I would advise every true lover of the art to play this
adagio first without, and then with these two notes which now form the first
bar, and I have no doubt he will share in my opinion."
No instance could more forcibly show how in the case of Beethoven, as in
that of other transcendent geniuses, the cry of insanity is raised by vulgar
minds on witnessing extraordinary manifestations of power. Such geniuses
perceive results so remote, are alive to combinations so subtle, that common
men cannot rise high enough to see why they think or do as they do, and
settle the matter easily to their own satisfaction, crying, "He is mad"—"He
hath a devil." Genius perceives the efficacy of slight signs of thought, and
loves best the simplest symbols; coarser minds demand coarse work, long
preparations, long explanations.
But genius heeds them not, but fills the atmosphere with irresistible purity,
till they also are pervaded by the delicate influence, which, too subtile for
their ears and eyes, enters with the air they breathe, or through the pores of
the skin.
The life of a Beethoven is written in his works; and all that can be told of
his life beside, is but as marginal notes on that broad page. Yet since we
have these notes, it is pleasant to have them in harmony with the page. The
acts and words of Beethoven are what we should expect,—noble, leonine,
impetuous,—yet tender. His faults are the faults of one so great that he

found few paths wide enough for his tread, and knew not how to moderate
it. They are not faults in themselves, but only in relation to the men who
surrounded him. Among his peers he would not have had faults. As it is,
they hardly deserve the name. His acts were generally great and benignant;
only in transports of sudden passion at what he thought base did he ever
injure any one. If he found himself mistaken, he could not humble himself
enough,—but far outwent, in his contrition, what was due to those whom he
had offended. So it is apt to be with magnanimous and tender natures; they
will humble themselves in a way that those of a coarser or colder make
think shows weakness or want of pride. But they do so because a little
discord and a little wrong is as painful to them as a great deal to others.
In one of his letters to a young friend, Beethoven thus magnanimously
confesses his errors:—
"I could not converse with you and yours with that peace of mind which I
could have desired, for the late wretched altercation was hovering before
me, showing me my own despicable conduct. But so it was; and what
would I not give could I obliterate from the page of my life this last action,
so degrading to my character, and so unlike my usual proceedings!"
It seems this action of his was not of importance in the eyes of others. Of
the causes which acted upon him at such times he gives intimations in
another letter.
"I had been wrought into this burst of passion by many an unpleasant
circumstance of an earlier date. I have the gift of concealing and restraining
my irritability on many subjects; but if I happen to be touched at any time
when I am more than usually susceptible of anger, I burst forth more
violently than any one else. B. has doubtless most excellent qualities, but he
thinks himself utterly without faults, and yet is most open to blame for
those for which he censures others. He has a littleness of mind which I have
held in contempt since my infancy."
As a correspondent example of the manner in which true greatness
apologizes for its errors, we must quote a letter, lately made public, from Sir
Isaac Newton to Mr. Locke.

"Sir: Being of opinion that you endeavored to embroil me with women,
and by other means, I was so much affected with it as that, when one told
me you were sickly, and would not live, I answered, ''Twere better if you
were dead.' I desire you to forgive me this uncharitableness, for I am now
satisfied that what you have done is just, and I beg your pardon for having
had hard thoughts of you for it, and for representing that you struck at the
root of morality in a principle you laid down in your book of ideas, and
designed to pursue in another book, and that I took you for a Hobbist. I beg
your pardon also for saying or thinking that there was a design to sell me an
office, or to embroil me.
"I am your most humble and unfortunate servant,
"ISAAC NEWTON."
And this letter, observe, was quoted as proof of insanity in Newton.
Locke, however, shows by his reply that he did not think the power of full
sincerity and elevation above self-love proved a man to be insane.
At a happy period Beethoven thus unveils the generous sympathies of his
heart.
"My compositions are well paid, and I may say I have more orders than I
can well execute; six or seven publishers, and more, being ready to take any
of my works. I need no longer submit to being bargained with; I ask my
terms, and am paid. You see this is an excellent thing; as, for instance, I see
a friend in want, and my purse does not at the moment permit me to assist
him; I have but to sit down and write, and my friend is no longer in need."
Some additional particulars are given, in the letters collected by
Moscheles, of the struggles of his mind during the coming on of deafness.
This calamity, falling upon the greatest genius of his time, in the prime of
manhood,—a calamity which threatened to destroy not only all enjoyment
of life, but the power of using the vast treasure with which he had been
endowed for the use of all men,—casts common ills so into the shade that
they can scarcely be seen. Who dares complain, since Beethoven could
resign himself, to such an ill at such a time as this?
"This beautiful country of mine, what was my lot in it? The hope of a
happy futurity. This might now be realized if I were freed from my
affliction. O, freed from that, I should compass the world! I feel it—my
youth is but beginning; have I not been hitherto but a sickly creature? My

physical powers have for some time been materially increasing—those of
my mind likewise. I feel myself nearer and nearer the mark; I feel but
cannot describe it; this alone is the vital principle of your Beethoven. No
rest for me: I know of none but in sleep, and I grieve at having to sacrifice
to that more time than I have hitherto deemed necessary. Take but one half
of my disease from me, and I will return to you a matured and
accomplished man, renewing the ties of our friendship; for you shall see me
as happy as I may be in this sublunary world; not as a sufferer; no, that
would be more than I could bear; I will blunt the sword of fate; it shall not
utterly destroy me. How beautiful it is to live a thousand lives in one! No; I
am not made for a retired life—I feel it."
He did blunt the sword of fate; he did live a thousand lives in one; but that
sword had power to inflict a deep and poisoned wound; those thousand
lives cost him the pangs of a thousand deaths. He, born for perpetual
conquest, was condemned through life to "resignation." Let any man,
disposed to complain of his own ills, read the "Will" of Beethoven; and see
if he dares speak of himself above a whisper, after.
The matter of interest new to us in this English book is in notes and
appendix. Schindler's biography, whose plain and naïve style is fit for the
subject, is ironed out and plaited afresh to suit the "genteel" English, in this
translation. Elsewhere we have given in brief the strong lineaments and
piquant anecdotes from this biography;[7] here there is not room: smooth
and shorn as it is, we wish the translation might be reprinted here.
We may give, at parting, two directions for the study of Beethoven's
genius and the perusal of his biography in two sayings of his own. For the
biography, "The limits have never yet been discovered which genius and
industry could not transcend." For the music, "From the depths of the soul
brought forth, she (Poesy) can only by the depths of the soul be received or
understood."

BROWN'S NOVELS.[8]
WE rejoice to see these reprints of Brown's novels, as we have long been
ashamed that one who ought to be the pride of the country, and who is, in
the higher qualities of the mind, so far in advance of our other novelists,
should have become almost inaccessible to the public.
It has been the custom to liken Brown to Godwin. But there was no
imitation, no second hand in the matter. They were congenial natures, and
whichever had come first might have lent an impulse to the other. Either
mind might have been conscious of the possession of that peculiar vein of
ore, without thinking of working it for the mint of the world, till the other,
led by accident, or overflow of feeling, showed him how easy it was to put
the reveries of his solitary hours into words, and upon paper, for the benefit
of his fellow-men.
"My mind to me a kingdom is."
Such a man as Brown or Godwin has a right to say that. Their mind is no
scanty, turbid rill, rejoicing to be daily fed from a thousand others, or from
the clouds. Its plenteous source rushes from a high mountain between
bulwarks of stone. Its course, even and full, keeps ever green its banks, and
affords the means of life and joy to a million gliding shapes, that fill its
deep waters, and twinkle above its golden sands.
Life and Joy! Yes, Joy! These two have been called the dark Masters,
because they disclose the twilight recesses of the human heart. Yet the
gravest page in the history of such men is joy, compared with the mixed,
shallow, uncertain pleasures of vulgar minds. Joy! because they were all
alive, and fulfilled the purposes of being. No sham, no imitation, no
convention deformed or veiled their native lineaments, or checked the use
of their natural force. All alive themselves, they understood that there is no
happiness without truth, no perception of it without real life. Unlike most
men, existence was to them not a tissue of words and seemings, but a
substantial possession.
Born Hegelians, without the pretensions of science, they sought God in
their own consciousness, and found him. The heart, because it saw itself so
fearfully and wonderfully made, did not disown its Maker. With the highest

idea of the dignity, power, and beauty of which human nature is capable,
they had courage to see by what an oblique course it proceeds, yet never
lose faith that it would reach its destined aim. Thus their darkest disclosures
are not hobgoblin shows, but precious revelations.
Brown is great as ever human writer was in showing the self-sustaining
force of which a lonely mind is capable. He takes one person, makes him
brood like the bee, and extract from the common life before him all its
sweetness, its bitterness, and its nourishment.
We say makes him, but it increases our own interest in Brown, that, a
prophet in this respect of a better era, he has usually placed this thinking,
royal mind in the body of a woman. This personage, too, is always
feminine, both in her character and circumstances, but a conclusive proof
that the term feminine is not a synonyme for weak. Constantia, Clara
Wieland, have loving hearts, graceful and plastic natures, but they have also
noble, thinking minds, full of resource, constancy, courage. The Marguerite
of Godwin, no less, is all refinement and the purest tenderness; but she is
also the soul of honor, capable of deep discernment, and of acting in
conformity with the inferences she draws. The Man of Brown and Godwin
has not eaten of the fruit of the tree of knowledge, and been driven to
sustain himself by the sweat of his brow for nothing, but has learned the
structure and laws of things, and become a being, natural, benignant,
various, and desirous of supplying the loss of innocence by the attainment
of virtue. So his Woman need not be quite so weak as Eve, the slave of
feeling or of flattery; she also has learned to guide her helm amid the storm
across the troubled waters.
The horrors which mysteriously beset these persons, and against which, so
far as outward facts go, they often strive in vain, are but a representation of
those powers permitted to work in the same way throughout the affairs of
this world. Their demoniacal attributes only represent a morbid state of the
intellect, gone to excess from want of balance with the other powers. There
is an intellectual as well as a physical drunkenness, and which, no less,
impels to crime. Carwin, urged on to use his ventriloquism till the presence
of such a strange agent wakened the seeds of fanaticism in the breast of
Wieland, is in a state no more foreign to nature than that of the wretch
executed last week, who felt himself drawn as by a spell to murder his
victim, because he had thought of her money and the pleasures it might
bring him, till the feeling possessed his brain that hurls the gamester to ruin.

The victims of such agency are like the soldier of the Rio Grande, who,
both legs shot off, and his life-blood rushing out with every pulse, replied
serenely to his pitying comrades, that "he had now that for which the soldier
enlisted." The end of the drama is not in this world, and the fiction which
rounds off the whole to harmony and felicity before the curtain falls, sins
against truth, and deludes the reader. The Nelsons of the human race are all
the more exposed to the assaults of Fate, that they are decorated with the
badges of well-earned glory. Who but feels as they fall in death, or rise
again to a mutilated existence, that the end is not yet? Who, that thinks, but
must feel that the recompense is, where Brown places it, in the
accumulation of mental treasure, in the severe assay by fire that leaves the
gold pure to be used some time—somewhere?
Brown,—man of the brooding eye, the teeming brain, the deep and fervent
heart,—if thy country prize thee not, and had almost lost thee out of sight, it
is because her heart is made shallow and cold, her eye dim, by the pomp of
circumstance, the love of gross outward gain. She cannot long continue
thus, for it takes a great deal of soul to keep a huge body from disease and
dissolution. As there is more soul, thou wilt be more sought; and many will
yet sit down with thy Constantia to the meal and water on which she
sustained her full and thoughtful existence, who could not endure the ennui
of aldermanic dinners, or find any relish in the imitation of French cookery.
To-day many will read the words, and some have a cup large enough to
receive the spirit, before it is lost in the sand on which their feet are planted.
Brown's high standard of the delights of intellectual communion and of
friendship, correspond with the fondest hopes of early days. But in the
relations of real life, at present, there is rarely more than one of the parties
ready for such intercourse as he describes. On the one side there will be
dryness, want of perception, or variety, a stupidity unable to appreciate life's
richest boon when offered to its grasp; and the finer nature is doomed to
retrace its steps, unhappy as those who, having force to raise a spirit, cannot
retain or make it substantial, and stretch out their arms only to bring them
back empty to the breast.
We were glad to see these reprints, but sorry to see them so carelessly
done. Under the cheap system, the carelessness in printing and translating
grows to a greater excess day by day. Please, Public, to remonstrate; else
very soon all your books will be offered for two shillings apiece, and none
of them in a fit state to be read.

EDGAR A. POE.[9]
MR. POE throws down the gauntlet in his preface by what he says of "the
paltry compensations, or more paltry commendations, of mankind." Some
champion might be expected to start up from the "somewhat sizable" class
embraced, or, more properly speaking, boxed on the ear, by this defiance,
who might try whether the sting of Criticism was as indifferent to this
knight of the pen as he professes its honey to be.
Were there such a champion, gifted with acumen to dissect, and a swift-
glancing wit to enliven the operation, he could find no more legitimate
subject, no fairer game, than Mr. Poe, who has wielded the weapons of
criticism without relenting, whether with the dagger he rent and tore the
garment in which some favored Joseph had pranked himself, secure of
honor in the sight of all men, or whether with uplifted tomahawk he rushed
upon the new-born children of some hapless genius, who had fancied, and
persuaded his friends to fancy, that they were beautiful, and worthy a long
and honored life. A large band of these offended dignitaries and aggrieved
parents must be on the watch for a volume of "Poems by Edgar A. Poe,"
ready to cut, rend, and slash in turn, and hoping to see his own Raven left
alone to prey upon the slaughter of which it is the herald.
Such joust and tournament we look to see, and, indeed, have some stake in
the matter, so far as we have friends whose wrongs cry aloud for the
avenger. Natheless we could not take part in the mêlée, except to join the
crowd of lookers-on in the cry "heaven speed the right!"
Early we read that fable of Apollo who rewarded the critic, who had
painfully winnowed the wheat,—with the chaff for his pains. We joined the
gentle Affirmative School, and have confidence that if we indulge ourselves
chiefly with the appreciation of good qualities, Time will take care of the
faults. For Time holds a strainer like that used in the diamond mines—have
but patience and the water and gravel will all pass through, and only the
precious stones be left. Yet we are not blind to the uses of severe criticism,
and of just censure, especially in a time and place so degraded by venal and
indiscriminate praise as the present. That unholy alliance; that shameless
sham, whose motto is,

"Caw me
And I'll caw thee;"
that system of mutual adulation and organized puff which was carried to
such perfection in the time, and may be seen drawn to the life in the
correspondence, of Miss Hannah More, is fully represented in our day and
generation. We see that it meets a counter-agency, from the league of Truth-
tellers, few, but each of them mighty as Fingal or any other hero of the sort.
Let such tell the whole truth, as well as nothing but the truth, but let their
sternness be in the spirit of Love. Let them seek to understand the purpose
and scope of an author, his capacity as well as his fulfilments, and how his
faults are made to grow by the same sunshine that acts upon his virtues, for
this is the case with talents no less than with character. The rich field
requires frequent and careful weeding; frequent, lest the weeds exhaust the
soil; careful, lest the flowers and grain be pulled up along with the weeds.
It has often been our lot to share the mistake of Gil Blas with regard to the
Archbishop. We have taken people at their word, and while rejoicing that
women could bear neglect without feeling mean pique, and that authors,
rising above self-love, could show candor about their works, and
magnanimously meet both justice and injustice, we have been rudely
awakened from our dream, and found that chanticleer, who crowed so
bravely, showed himself at last but a dunghill fowl. Yet Heaven grant we
never become too worldly-wise thus to trust a generous word, and we surely
are not so yet, for we believe Mr. Poe to be sincere when he says,—
"In defence of my own taste, it is incumbent upon me to say that I think
nothing in this volume of much value to the public or very creditable to
myself. Events not to be controlled have prevented me from making, at any
time, any serious effort, in what, under happier circumstances, would have
been the field of my choice."
We believe Mr. Poe to be sincere in this declaration; if he is, we respect
him; if otherwise, we do not. Such things should never be said unless in
hearty earnest. If in earnest, they are honorable pledges; if not, a pitiful
fence and foil of vanity. Earnest or not, the words are thus far true; the
productions in this volume indicate a power to do something far better. With
the exception of the Raven, which seems intended chiefly to show the
writer's artistic skill, and is in its way a rare and finished specimen, they are

all fragments—fyttes upon the lyre, almost all of which leave a something
to desire or demand. This is not the case, however, with these lines:—
To One in Paradise.

Thou wast all that to me, love,
For which my soul did pine—
A green isle in the sea, love,
A fountain and a shrine,
All wreathed with fairy fruits and flowers,
And all the flowers were mine.

Ah, dream too bright to last!
Ah, starry Hope! that didst arise
But to be overcast!
A voice from out the Future cries,
"On! on!"—but o'er the Past
(Dim gulf!) my spirit hovering lies
Mute, motionless, aghast!

For, alas! alas! with me
The light of life is o'er!
No more—no more—no more
(Such language holds the solemn sea
To the sands upon the shore)
Shall bloom the thunder-blasted tree,
Or the stricken eagle soar!

And all my days are trances,
And all my nightly dreams
Are where thy dark eye glances,
And where thy footstep gleams—
In what ethereal dances,
By what eternal streams.
The poems breathe a passionate sadness, relieved sometimes by touches
very lovely and tender:—

"Amid the earnest woes
That crowd around my earthly path
(Drear path, alas! where grows
Not even one lonely rose.") * * *
****
>"For her, the fair and debonair, that now so lowly lies,
The life upon her yellow hair, but not within her eyes—
The life still there, upon her hair—the death upon her
eyes."
This kind of beauty is especially conspicuous, even rising into dignity, in
the poem called the Haunted Palace.
The imagination of this writer rarely expresses itself in pronounced forms,
but rather in a sweep of images, thronging and distant like a procession of
moonlight clouds on the horizon, but like them characteristic and
harmonious one with another, according to their office.
The descriptive power is greatest when it takes a shape not unlike an
incantation, as in the first part of the Sleeper, where
"I stand beneath the mystic moon;
An opiate vapor, dewy, dim,
Exhales from out a golden rim,
And, softly dripping, drop by drop,
Upon the quiet mountain top,
Steals drowsily and musically
Into the universal valley."
Why universal?—"resolve me that, Master Moth."
And farther on, "the lily lolls upon the wave."
This word lolls, often made use of in these poems, presents a vulgar image
to our thought; we know not how it is to that of others.
The lines which follow, about the open window, are highly poetical. So is
the Bridal Ballad in its power of suggesting a whole tribe and train of
thoughts and pictures, by few and simple touches.
The poems written in youth, written, indeed, we understand, in childhood,
before the author was ten years old, are a great psychological curiosity. Is it
the delirium of a prematurely excited brain that causes such a rapture of

words? What is to be gathered from seeing the future so fully anticipated in
the germ? The passions are not unfrequently felt in their full shock, if not in
their intensity, at eight or nine years old, but here they are reflected upon:—
"Sweet was their death—with them to die was rife
With the last ecstasy of satiate life."
The scenes from Politian are done with clear, sharp strokes; the power is
rather metaphysical than dramatic. We must repeat what we have heretofore
said, that we could wish to see Mr. Poe engaged in a metaphysical romance.
He needs a sustained flight and far range to show what his powers really
are. Let us have from him the analysis of the Passions, with their
appropriate Fates; let us have his speculations clarified; let him intersperse
dialogue or poem, as the occasion prompts, and give us something really
good and strong, firmly wrought, and fairly blazoned.

ALFIERI AND CELLINI.[10]
THESE two publications have come to hand during the last month—a
cheering gleam upon the winter of our discontent, as we saw the flood of
bad translations of worse books which swelled upon the country.
We love our country well. The many false deeds and low thoughts; the
devotion to interest; the forgetfulness of principle; the indifference to high
and noble sentiment, which have, in so many ways, darkened her history for
some years back, have not made us despair of her yet fulfilling the great
destiny whose promise rose, like a star, only some half a century ago upon
the hopes of the world.
Should that star be forsaken by its angel, and those hopes set finally in
clouds of shame, the church which we had built out of the ruins of the
ancient time must fall to the ground. This church seemed a model of divine
art. It contained a labyrinth which, when threaded by aid of the clew of
Faith, presented, re-viewed from its centre, the most admirable harmony
and depth of meaning in its design, and comprised in its decorations all the
symbols of permanent interest of which the mind of man has made use for
the benefit of man. Such was to be our church, a church not made with
hands, catholic, universal, all whose stones should be living stones, its
officials the cherubim of Love and Knowledge, its worship wiser and purer
action than has before been known to men. To such a church men do indeed
constitute the state, and men indeed we hoped from the American church
and state, men so truly human that they could not live while those made in
their own likeness were bound down to the condition of brutes.
Should such hopes be baffled, should such a church fall in the building,
such a state find no realization except to the eye of the poet, God would still
be in the world, and surely guide each bird, that can be patient, on the wing
to its home at last. But expectations so noble, which find so broad a basis in
the past, which link it so harmoniously with the future, cannot lightly be
abandoned. The same Power leads by a pillar of cloud as by a pillar of fire
—the Power that deemed even Moses worthy only of a distant view of the
Promised Land.

And to those who cherish such expectations rational education, considered
in various ways and bearings, must be the one great topic of interest; an
enterprise in which the humblest service is precious and honorable to any
who can inspire its soul. Our thoughts anticipate with eager foresight the
race that may grow up from this amalgamation of all races of the world
which our situation induces. It was the pride and greatness of ancient
nations to keep their blood unmixed; but it must be ours to be willing to
mingle, to accept in a generous spirit what each clime and race has to offer
us.
It is, indeed, the case that much diseased substance is offered to form this
new body; and if there be not in ourselves a nucleus, a heart of force and
purity to assimilate these strange and various materials into a very high
form of organic life, they must needs induce one distorted, corrupt, and
degraded beyond the example of other times and places. There will be no
medium about it. Our grand scene of action demands grandeur and purity;
lacking these, one must suffer from so base failure in proportion to the
success that should have been.
It would be the worthiest occupation of mind to ascertain the conditions
propitious for this meeting of the nations in their new home, and to provide
preventions for obvious dangers that attend it. It would be occupation for
which the broadest and deepest knowledge of human nature in its mental,
moral, and bodily relations, the noblest freedom from prejudice, with the
finest discrimination as to differences and relations, directed and
enlightened by a prophetic sense as to what Man is designed by God to
become, would all be needed to fit the thinker. Yet some portion of these
qualities, or of some of these qualities, if accompanied by earnestness and
aspiration, may enable any one to offer useful suggestions. The mass of
ignorance and selfishness is such, that no grain of leaven must be despised.
And as the men of all countries come hither to find a home, and become
parts of a new life, so do the books of all countries gravitate towards this
new centre. Copious infusions from all quarters mingle daily with the new
thought which is to grow into American mind, and develop American
literature.
As every ship brings us foreign teachers, a knowledge of living
contemporary tongues must in the course of fifty years become the
commonest attainment. There exists no doubt in the minds of those who can

judge, that the German, French, Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese tongues
might, by familiar instruction and an intelligent method, be taught with
perfect ease during the years of childhood, so that the child would have as
distinct a sense of their several natures, and nearly as much expertness in
their use, as in his own. The higher uses of such knowledge can, of course,
be expected only in a more advanced state of the faculties; but it is pity that
the acquaintance with the medium of thought should be deferred to a period
when the mind is sufficiently grown to bend its chief attention on the
thoughts themselves. Much of the most precious part of short human lives is
now wasted from an ignorance of what might easily be done for children,
and without taking from them the time they need for common life, play, and
bodily growth, more than at present.
Meanwhile the English begins to vie with the German and French
literature in the number, though not in the goodness, of the translations from
other languages. The indefatigable Germans can translate, and do other
things too; so that geniuses often there apply themselves to the work as an
amusement: even the all-employed Gœthe has translated one of the books
before us, (Memoirs of Cellini.) But in English we know but of one,
Coleridge's Wallenstein, where the reader will feel the electric current
undiminished by the medium through which it comes to him. And then the
profligate abuse of the power of translation has been unparalleled, whether
in the choice of books or the carelessness in disguising those that were good
in a hideous mask. No falsehood can be worse than this of deforming the
expression of a great man's thoughts, of corrupting that form which he has
watched, and toiled and suffered to make beautiful and true. We know no
falsehood that should call a more painful blush to the cheek of one engaged
in it.
We have no narrowness in our view of the contents of such books. We are
not afraid of new standards and new examples. Only give enough of them,
variety enough, and from well-intentioned, generous minds. America can
choose what she wants, if she has sufficient range of choice; and if there is
any real reason, any deep root in the tastes and opinions she holds at
present, she will not lightly yield them. Only give her what is good of its
kind. Her hope is not in ignorance, but in knowledge. We are, indeed, very
fond of range, and if there is check, there should be countercheck; and in
this view we are delighted to see these great Italians domesticated here. We
have had somewhat too much of the French and Germans of late. We value

unchangeably our sparkling and rapid French friend; still more the
searching, honest, and, in highest sense, visionary German genius. But there
is not on earth, and, we dare to say it, will not be again, genius like that of
Italy, or that can compare with it, in its own way.
Italy and Greece were alike in this; those sunny skies ripened their fruits
perfectly. The oil and honey of Greece, the wine of Italy, not only suggest,
but satisfy. There we find fulfilment, elsewhere great achievement only.
O, acute, cautious, calculating Yankee; O, graceful, witty, hot-blooded,
flimsy Southron; and thou, man of the West, going ahead too fast to pick up
a thought or leave a flower upon thy path,—look at these men with their
great fiery passions, but will and intellect still greater and stronger, perfectly
sincere, from a contempt of falsehood. If they had acted wrong, they said
and felt that they had, and that it was base and hateful in them. They were
sagacious, as children are, not from calculation, but because the fine
instincts of nature were unspoiled in them. I speak now of Alfieri and
Cellini. Dante had all their instinctive greatness and deep-seated fire, with
the reflective and creative faculties besides, to an extent of which they
never dreamed.
He who reads these biographies may take them from several points of
view. As pictures of manners, as sincere transcripts of the men and their
times, they are not and could not be surpassed. That truth which Rousseau
sought so painfully and vainly by self-brooding, subtle analysis, they
attained without an effort. Why they felt they cared little, but what they felt
they surely knew; and where a fly or worm has injured the peach, its
passage is exactly marked, so that you are sure the rest is fair and sound.
Both as physiological and psychical histories, they are full of instruction. In
Alfieri, especially, the nervous disease generated in the frame by any
uncongenial tension of the brain, the periodical crises in his health, the
manner in which his accesses of passion came upon him, afford infinite
suggestion to one who has an eye for the circumstances which fashion the
destiny of man. Let the physician compare the furies of Alfieri with the
silent rages of Byron, and give the mother and pedagogue the light in which
they are now wholly wanting, showing how to treat such noble plants in the
early stages of growth. We think the "hated cap" would not be put a second
time on the head so easily diseased.

The biography of Cellini, it is commonly said, is more interesting than any
romance. It is a romance, with the character of the hero fully brought out.
Cellini lived in all the fulness of inward vigor, all the variety of outward
adventure, and passed through all the signs of the Zodiac, in his circling
course, occasionally raising a little vapor from the art magic. He was really
the Orlando Furioso turned Goldsmith, and Angelicas and all the Peers of
France joined in the show. However, he never lived deeply; he had not time;
the creative energy turned outward too easily, and took those forms that still
enchant the mind of Europe. Alfieri was very different in this. He was like
the root of some splendid southern plant, buried beneath a heap of rubbish.
Above him was a glorious sky, fit to develop his form and excite his colors;
but he was compelled to a long and terrible struggle to get up where he
could be free to receive its influence. Institutions, language, family, modes
of education,—all were unfit for him; and perhaps no man was ever called
to such efforts, after he had reached manly age, to unmake and remake
himself before he could become what his inward aspiration craved. All this
deepened his nature, and it was deep. It is his great force of will and the
compression of Nature within its iron grasp, where Nature was so powerful
and impulsive, that constitutes the charm of his writings. It is the man
Alfieri who moves, nay, overpowers us, and not his writings, which have no
flow nor plastic beauty. But we feel the vital dynamics, and imagine it all.
By us Americans, if ever such we really are to be, Alfieri should be held
sacred as a godfather and holy light. He was a harbinger of what most gives
this time its character and value. He was the friend of liberty, the friend of
man, in the sense that Burns was—of the native nobleness of man. Soiled
and degraded men he hated. He was, indeed, a man of pitiless hatred as of
boundless love, and he had bitter prejudices too, but they were from
antipathies too strongly intertwined with his sympathies for any hand less
powerful than that of Death to rend them away.
But our space does not permit us to do any justice to such a life as
Alfieri's. Let others read it, not from their habitual, but an eternal point of
view, and they cannot mistake its purport. Some will be most touched by
the storms of his youth, others by the exploits and conquests of his later
years; but all will find him, in the words of his friend Casella, "sculptured
just as he was, lofty, strange, and extreme, not only in his natural
characteristics, but in every work that did not seem to him unworthy of his

generous affections. And where he went too far, it is easy to perceive his
excesses always flowed from some praiseworthy sentiment."
Among a crowd of thoughts suggested to the mind by reperusal of this
book, to us a friend of many years standing, we hastily note the following:
—
Alfieri knew how to be a friend, and had friends such as his masculine and
uncompromising temper fitted him to endure and keep. He had even two or
three of those noble friends. He was a perfect lover in delicacy of sentiment,
in devotion, in a desire for constancy, in a high ideal, growing always
higher, and he was, at last, happy in love. Many geniuses have spoken
worthily of women in their works, but he speaks of woman as she wishes to
be spoken of, and declares that he met the desire of his soul realized in life.
This, almost alone, is an instance where a great nature was permanently
satisfied, and the claims of man and woman equally met, where one of the
parties had the impatient fire of genius. His testimony on this subject is of
so rare a sort, we must copy it:—
"My fourth and last passion, fortunately for me, showed itself by
symptoms entirely different from the three first. In the former, my intellect
had felt little of the fires of passion; but now my heart and my genius were
both equally kindled, and if my passion was less impetuous, it became more
profound and lasting. Such was the flame which by degrees absorbed every
affection and thought of my being, and it will never fade away except with
my life. Two months satisfied me that I had now found the true woman; for,
instead of encountering in her, as in all common women, an obstacle to
literary glory, a hinderance to useful occupations, and a damper to thought,
she proved a high stimulus, a pure solace, and an alluring example to every
beautiful work. Prizing a treasure so rare, I gave myself away to her
irrevocably. And I certainly erred not. More than twelve years have passed,
and while I am writing this chit-chat, having reached that calm season when
passion loses its blandishments, I cherish her more tenderly than ever; and I
love her just in proportion as glide from her in the lapse of time those little-
esteemed toll-gatherers of departing beauty. In her my soul is exalted,
softened, and made better day by day; and I will dare to say and believe she
has found in me support and consolation."
We have spoken of the peculiarities in Alfieri's physical condition. These
naturally led him to seek solace in violent exercise; and as in the case of

Beckford and Byron, horses were his best friends in the hour of danger.
This sort of man is the modern Achilles, "the tamer of horses." In what
degree the health of Alfieri was improved, and his sympathies awakened by
the society and care of these noble animals, is very evident. Almost all
persons, perhaps all that are in a natural state, need to stand in patriarchal
relations with the animals most correspondent with their character. We have
the highest respect for this instinct and sincere belief in the good it brings; if
understood, it would be cherished, not ridiculed.

ITALY.—CARY'S DANTE.
TRANSLATING Dante is indeed a labor of love. It is one in which even a
moderate degree of success is impossible. No great Poet can be well
translated. The form of his thought is inseparable from his thought. The
births of his genius are perfect beings: body and soul are in such perfect
harmony that you cannot at all alter the one without veiling the other. The
variation in cadence and modulation, even where the words are exactly
rendered, takes not only from the form of the thought, but from the thought
itself, its most delicate charm. Translations come to us as a message to the
lover from the lady of his love through the lips of a confidante or menial—
we are obliged to imagine what was most vital in the utterance.
These difficulties, always insuperable, are accumulated a hundred-fold in
the case of Dante, both by the extraordinary depth and subtlety of his
thought, and his no less extraordinary power of concentrating its
expression, till every verse is like a blade of thoroughly tempered steel. You
might as well attempt to translate a glance of fire from the human eye into
any other language—even music cannot do that.
We think, then, that the use of Cary's translation, or any other, can never
be to diffuse a knowledge of Dante. This is not in its nature diffusible; he is
one of those to whom others must draw near; he cannot be brought to them.
He has no superficial charm to cheat the reader into a belief that he knows
him, without entrance into the same sphere.
These translations can be of use only to the translators, as a means of
deliberate study of the original, or to others who are studying the original,
and wish to compare their own version of doubtful passages with that of an
older disciple, highly qualified, both by devotion and mental development,
for the study.
We must say a few words as to the pedantic folly with which this study
has been prosecuted in this country, and, we believe, in England. Not only
the tragedies of Alfieri and the Faust of Goethe, but the Divina Commedia
of Dante,—a work which it is not probable there are upon earth, at any one
time, a hundred minds able to appreciate,—are turned into school books for
little girls who have just left their hoops and dolls, and boys whose highest

ambition it is to ride a horse that will run away, and brave the tutor in a
college frolic.
This is done from the idea that, in order to get acquainted with a foreign
language, the student must read books that have attained the dignity of
classics, and also which are "hard." Hard indeed it must be for the Muses to
see their lyres turned into gridirons for the preparation of a school-girl's
lunch; harder still for the younglings to be called to chew and digest
thunderbolts, in lieu of their natural bread and butter.
Are there not "classics" enough which would not suffer by being put to
such uses? In Greek, Homer is a book for a boy; must you give him Plato
because it is harder? Is there no choice among the Latins? Are all who
wrote in the Latin tongue equally fit for the appreciation of sixteen Yankee
years? In Italian, have you not Tasso, Ariosto, and other writers who have
really a great deal that the immature mind can enjoy, without choking it
with the stern politics of Alfieri, or piling upon a brain still soft the
mountainous meanings of Dante? Indeed, they are saved from suffering by
the perfect ignorance of all meaning in which they leave these great authors,
fancying, to their life-long misfortune, that they have read them. I have
been reminded, by the remarks of my young friends on these subjects, of
the Irish peasant, who, having been educated on a book prepared for his
use, called "Reading made easy," blesses through life the kindness that
taught him his "Radamadasy;" and of the child who, hearing her father
quote Horace, observed she "thought Latin was even sillier than French."
No less pedantic is the style in which the grown-up, in stature at least,
undertakes to become acquainted with Dante. They get the best Italian
Dictionary, all the notes they can find, amounting in themselves to a library,
for his countrymen have not been less external and benighted in their way
of regarding him. Painfully they study through the book, seeking with
anxious attention to know who Signor This is, and who was the cousin of
Signora That, and whether any deep papal or anti-papal meaning was
couched by Dante under the remark that Such-a-one wore a great-coat. A
mind, whose small chambers look yet smaller by being crowded with
furniture from all parts of the world, bought by labor, not received from
inheritance or won by love, asserts that he must understand Dante well,
better than any other person probably, because he has studied him through
in this way thirty or forty times. As well declare you have a better
appreciation of Shakspeare than any one else because you have identified

the birthplace of Dame Quickly, or ascertained the churchyard where the
ghost of the royal Dane hid from the sight of that far more celestial spirit,
his son.
O, painstaking friends! Shut your books, clear your minds from artificial
nonsense, and feel that only by spirit can spirit be discerned. Dante, like
each other great one, took the stuff that lay around him, and wove it into a
garment of light. It is not by ravelling that you will best appreciate its tissue
or design. It is not by studying out the petty strifes or external relations of
his time, that you can become acquainted with the thought of Dante. To him
these things were only soil in which to plant himself—figures by which to
dramatize and evolve his ideas. Would you learn him, go listen in the forest
of human passions to all the terrible voices he heard with a tormented but
never-to-be-deafened ear; go down into the hells, where each excess that
mars the harmony of nature is punished by the sinner finding no food
except from his own harvest; pass through the purgatories of speculation, of
struggling hope, and faith, never quite quenched, but smouldering often and
long beneath the ashes. Soar if thou canst, but if thou canst not, clear thine
eye to see this great eagle soar into the higher region where forms arrange
themselves for stellar dance and spheral melody,—and thought, with costly-
accelerated motion, raises itself a spiral which can only end in the heart of
the Supreme.
He who finds in himself no fitness to study Dante in this way, should
regard himself as in the position of a candidate for the ancient mysteries,
when rejected as unfit for initiation. He should seek in other ways to purify,
expand, and strengthen his being, and, when he feels that he is nobler and
stronger, return and try again whether he is "grown up to it," as the
Germans say.
"The difficulty is in the thoughts;" and this cannot be obviated by the most
minute acquaintance with the history of the times. Comparison of one
edition with another is of use, as a guard against obstructions through
mistake. Still more useful will be the method recommended by Mr. Cary, of
comparing the Poet with himself; this belongs to the intellectual method,
and is the way in which to study our intellectual friend.
The versions of Cary and Lyell will be found of use to the student, if he
wants to compare his ideas with those of accomplished fellow-students. The
poems in the London book would aid much in a full appreciation of the

comedy; they ought to be read in the original, but copies are not easily to be
met here, unless in the great libraries. The Vita Nuova is the noblest
expression extant of the inward life of Love, the best preface and comment
to every thing else that Dante did.
'Tis pity that the designs of Flaxman are so poorly reproduced in this
American book. It would have been far better to have had it a little dearer,
and thus better done. The designs of Flaxman were really a noble comment
upon Dante, and might help to interpret him; and we are sorry that those
who can see only a few of them should see them so imperfectly. But in
some, as in that of the meeting with Farinata, the expression cannot be
destroyed while one line of the original remained. The "lost portrait" we do
not like as preface to "La Divina Comedia." To that belongs our accustomed
object of reverence, the head of Dante, such as the Florentine women saw
him, when they thought his hair and beard were still singed, his face dark
and sublime with what he had seen below.
Prefixed to the other book is a head "from a cast taken after death at
Ravenna, A. D. 1321." It has the grandeur which death sometimes puts on;
the fulness of past life is there, but made sacred in Eternity. It is also the
only front view of Dante we have seen. It is not unworthy to mark the point
"When vigor failed the towering fantasy,
But yet the will rolled onward, like a wheel
In even motion by the love impelled
That moves the sun in heaven, and all the stars."
We ought to say, in behalf of this publication, that whosoever wants Cary's
version will rejoice, at last, as do we, to possess it in so fair and legible
guise.
Before leaving the Italians, we must mourn over the misprints of our
homages to the great tragedian in the preceding review. Our manuscripts
being as illegible as if we were a great genius, we never complain of these
errata, except when we are made to reverse our meaning on some vital
point. We did not say that Alfieri was perfect in person, nor sundry other
things that are there; but we do mourn at seeming to say of our friends,
"Why they felt they care little, but what they felt they scarcely knew," when
in fact we asserted, "what they felt they surely knew."

In the article on the Celestial Empire we had made this assertion of the
Chinese music: "Like their poetry, the music is of the narrowest monotony;"
in place of which stands this assertion: "Like true poetry, their music is of
the narrowest monotony." But we trust the most careless reader would not
think the merely human mind capable of so original a remark, and will put
this blasphemy to account of that little demon who has so much to answer
for in the sufferings of poor writers before they can get their thoughts to the
eyes of their fellow-creatures, in print, that there seems scarcely a chance of
his being redeemed as long as there is one author in existence to accuse
him.[11]

AMERICAN FACTS.
SUCH is the title of a volume just issued from the press; a grand title,
which suggests the epic poet or the philosopher. The purpose of the work,
however, is modest. It is merely a compilation, from which those who have
lived at some distance from the great highway may get answers to their
questions, as to events and circumstances which may have escaped them. It
is one of those books which will be valued in the backwoods.
It would be a great book indeed, and one that would require the eye and
heart of a great man,—great as a judge, great as a seer, and great as a
prophet,—that should select for us and present in harmonious outline the
true American facts. To choose the right point of view supposes command
of the field.
Such a man must be attentive, a quiet observer of the slighter signs of
growth. But he must not be one to dwell superstitiously on details, nor one
to hasten to conclusions. He must have the eye of the eagle, the courage of
the lion, the patience of the worm, and faith such as is the prerogative of
man alone, and of man in the highest phase of his culture.
We doubt not the destiny of our country—that she is to accomplish great
things for human nature, and be the mother of a nobler race than the world
has yet known. But she has been so false to the scheme made out at her
nativity, that it is now hard to say which way that destiny points. We can
hardly exhibit the true American facts without some idea of the real
character of America. Only one thing seems clear—that the energy here at
work is very great, though the men employed in carrying out its purposes
may have generally no more individual ambition to understand those
purposes, or cherish noble ones of their own, than the coral insect through
whose restless working new continents are upheaved from ocean's breast.
Such a man, passing in a boat from one extremity of the Mississippi to
another, and observing every object on the shore as he passed, would yet
learn nothing of universal or general value, because he has no principles,
even in hope, by which to classify them. American facts! Why, what has
been done that marks individuality? Among men there is Franklin. He is a
fact, and an American fact. Niagara is another, in a different style. The way

in which newspapers and other periodicals are managed is American; a go-
ahead, fearless adroitness is American; so is not, exclusively, the want of
strict honor. But we look about in vain for traits as characteristic of what
may be individually the character of the nation, as we can find at a glance in
reference to Spain, England, France, or Turkey. America is as yet but a
European babe; some new ways and motions she has, consequent on a new
position; but that soul that may shape her mature life scarce begins to know
itself yet. One thing is certain; we live in a large place, no less morally than
physically: woe to him who lives meanly here, and knows the exhibitions of
selfishness and vanity as the only American facts.

NAPOLEON AND HIS MARSHALS.[12]
AS we pass the old Brick Chapel our eye is sometimes arrested by
placards that hang side by side. On one is advertised "the Lives of the
Apostles," on the other "Napoleon and his Marshals."
Surely it is the most monstrous thing the world ever saw, that eighteen
hundred years' profound devotion to a religious teacher should not preclude
flagrant and all but universal violation of his most obvious precepts; that
Napoleon and his Marshals should be some of the best ripened fruit of our
time; that our own people, so unwearied in building up temples of wood
and stone to the Prince of Peace, should be at this era mad with boyish
exultation at the winning of battles, and in a bad cause too.
In view of such facts we cannot wonder that Dr. Channing, the editor of
the Tribune, and others who make Christianity their standard, should find
little savor in glowing expositions of the great French drama, and be
disgusted at words of defence, still more of admiration, spoken in behalf of
its leading actor.
We can easily admit at once that the whole French drama was anti-
Christian, just as the political conduct of every nation of Christendom has
been thus far, with rare and brief exceptions. Something different might
have been expected from our own, because the world has now attained a
clearer consciousness of right, and in our case our position would have
made obedience easy. We have not been led into temptation; we sought it. It
is greed, and not want, that has impelled this nation to wrong. The paths of
peace would have been for her also the paths of wisdom and of
pleasantness, but she would not, and has preferred the path of the beast of
prey in the uncertain forest, to the green pastures where "walks the good
Shepherd, his meek temples crowned with roses red and white."
Since the state of things is such, we see no extremity of censure that
should fall upon the great French leader, except that he was like the
majority. He was ruthless and selfish on a larger scale than most monarchs;
but we see no difference in grain, nor in principles of action.
Admit, then, that he was not a good man, and never for one moment acted
disinterestedly. But do not refuse to do homage to his genius. It is well

worth your while to learn to appreciate that, if you wish to understand the
work that the spirit of the time did, and is still doing, through him; for his
mind is still upon the earth, working here through the tributary minds it fed.
We must say, for our own part, we cannot admit the right of men severely to
criticise Napoleon, till they are able to appreciate what he was, as well as
see what he was not. And we see no mind of sufficient grasp, or high-placed
enough to take this estimate duly, nor do we believe this age will furnish
one. Many problems will have to be worked out first.
We reject the exclusively moral no less than the exclusively intellectual
view, and find most satisfaction in those who, aiming neither at apology nor
attack, make their observations upon the great phenomenon as partial, and
to be received as partial.
Mr. Headley, in his first surprise at finding how falsely John Bull, rarely
liberal enough to be fully trusted in evidence on any topic, has spoken of
the acts of a hated and dreaded foe, does indeed rush too much on the other
side. He mistakes the touches of sentiment in Napoleon for genuine feeling.
Now we know that Napoleon loved to read Ossian, and could appreciate the
beauty of tenderness: but we do not believe that he had one particle of what
is properly termed heart;—that is, he could always silence sentiment at once
when his projects demanded it. Then Mr. Headley finds apologies for acts
where apology is out of place. They characterize the ruthless nature of the
man, and that is all that can be said of them. He moved on, like the
Juggernaut car, to his end, and spilled the blood that was needed for this,
whether that blood were "ditch-water" or otherwise. Neither is this
supposing him to be a monster. The human heart is very capable of such
uncontrolled selfishness, just as it is of angelic love. "'Tis but the first step
that costs"—much. Yet some compassionate hand strewed flowers on Nero's
grave, and the whole world cried shame when Bonaparte's Mameluke
forsook his master.
Mr. Headley does not seem to be aware that there is no trust to be put in
Napoleon's own account of his actions. He seems to have been almost
incapable of speaking sincerely to those about him. We doubt whether he
could have forgotten with the woman he loved, that she might become his
historiographer.
But granting the worst that can be said of ruthless acts in the stern
Corsican, are we to reserve our anathema for him alone? He is no worse

than the other crowned ones, against whom he felt himself continually in
the balance. He has shed a greater quantity of blood, and done mightier
wrongs, because he had more power, and followed with more fervor a more
dazzling lure. We see no other difference between his conduct and that of
the great Frederic of Prussia. He never did any thing so meanly wicked as
has just been done in stirring up the Polish peasants to assassinate the
nobles. He never did any thing so atrocious as has been done by Nicholas of
Russia, who, just after his hypocritical intercourse with that "venerable
man," the Pope, when he so zealously defended himself against the charge
of scourging nuns to convert them to the Greek church, administers the
knout to a noble and beautiful lady because she had given shelter for an
hour to the patriot Dembinski. Why then so zealous against Napoleon only?
He is but a specimen of what man must become when he will be king over
the bodies, where he cannot over the souls, of his fellow-men. We doubt if it
is any worse in the sight of God to drain France of her best blood by the
conscription, than to tear the flower of Genius from the breast of Italy to
perish in a dungeon, leaving her overwhelmed and broken-hearted. Leaving
all this aside, and granting that Napoleon might have done more and better,
had his heart been pure from ambition, which gave it such electric power to
animate a vast field of being, there is no reason why we should not prize
what he did do. And here we think Mr. Headley's style the only one in
place. We honor him for the power he shows of admiring the genius which,
in ploughing its gigantic furrow, broke up every artificial barrier that hid the
nations of Europe one from the other—that has left the "career open to
talent," by a gap so broad that no "Chinese alliance" can ever close it again,
and in its vast plans of civic improvement half-anticipated Fourier. With
him all thoughts became things; it has been spoken in blame, it has been
spoken in praise; for ourselves we see not how this most practical age and
country can refuse to apprehend the designs, and study the instincts of this
wonderful practical genius.
The characters of the marshals are kept up with the greatest spirit, and that
power of seizing leading traits that gives these sketches the greatness of
dramatic poetry. The marshals are majestic figures; men vulgar and
undeveloped on many sides, but always clear and strong in their own way.
One mind animates them, and of that mind Napoleon is the culminating
point. He did not choose them; they were a part of himself, a part of the
same thought of which he was the most forcible expression. If sometimes

inclined to disparage them, it was as a man might disparage his hand by
saying it was not his head. He truly felt that he was the central force, though
some of them were greater in the details of action than himself. Attempts
have often been made to darken even the military fame of Napoleon and his
generals—attempts disgraceful enough from a foe whom they so long held
in terror. But to any unprejudiced mind there is evident in the conduct of
their battles, the development of the instincts of genius in mighty force, and
to inevitable results.
With all the haste of hand and inequality of touch they show, these
sketches are full of strength and brilliancy, an honor to the country that
produced them. There is no got-up harmony, no attempt at originality or
acuteness; all is living,—the overflow of the mind; we like Mr. Headley;
even in his faults he is a most agreeable contrast to the made men of the
day.
In the sketches of the Marshals we have the men before us, a living reality.
Massena, at the siege of Genoa, is represented with a great deal of simple
force. The whole personality of Murat, with his "Oriental nature" and
Oriental dress, is admirably depicted. Why had nobody ever before had the
clearness of perception to see just this, and no more, in the "theatrical"
Murat? Of his darling hero, Ney, the writer has implied so much all along,
that he lays less stress on what he says of him directly. He thinks it is all
understood, and it is.
Take this book for just what it is; do not look for cool discussion, impartial
criticism, but take it as a vivacious and feeling representation of events and
actors in a great era: you will find it full of truth, such as only sympathy
could teach, and will derive from it a pleasure and profit lively and genuine
as itself. As to denying or correcting its statements, it is very desirable that
those who are able should do that part of the work; but, in doing it, let them
be grateful for what is done, and what they could not do; grateful for
reproduction such as he who throws himself into the genius and the persons
of the time may hope for; but he never can who keeps himself composed in
critical distance and self-possession. You cannot have all excellences
combined in one person; let us then cheerfully work together to complete
the beautiful whole,—beautiful in its unity,—no less beautiful in its variety.

PHYSICAL EDUCATION.[13]
THIS lecture of Dr. Warren is printed in a form suitable for popular
distribution, while the high reputation of its author insures it respect.
Readers will expect to find here those rules for daily practice taught by that
plain common-sense which men possess from nature, but strangely lose
sight of, amid their many inventions, and are obliged to rediscover by aid of
experience and science.
Here will be found those general statements as to modes of exercise, care
of the skin, choice of food, and time, and circumstances required for its
digestion, which might furnish the ounce of prevention that is worth so
many pounds of cure. And how much are these needed in this country,
where the most barbarous ignorance prevails on the subject of cleanliness,
sleeping accommodations, &c.! On these subjects improvement would be
easy; that of diet is far more complicated, and is, unfortunately, one which
requires great knowledge of the ways in which the human frame is affected
by the changes of climate and various other influences, even wisely to
discuss. If it is difficult where a race, mostly indigenous to the soil, feed
upon what Mother Nature has prepared expressly for their use, and where
excess or want of judgment in its use produces disease, it must be far more
so where men come from all latitudes to live under new circumstances, and
need a judicious adaptation of the old to the new. The dogmatism and
proscription that prevail on this topic amuse the observer and distress the
patient. "Touch no meat for your life," says one. "It is not meat, but sugar,
that is your ruin," cries another. "No, salt is the destruction of the world,"
sadly and gravely declares a third. Milk, which once conciliated all regards,
has its denunciators. "Water," say some, "is the bliss that shall dissolve all
bane. Drink; wash—take to yourself all the water you can get." "That is
madness—is far worse than useless," cry others, "unless the water be pure.
You must touch none that has not been tested by a chemist." "Yes, you may
at any rate drink it," say others, "and in large quantities, for the power of
water to aid digestion is obvious to every observer."
"No," says Dr. Warren, "animals do not drink at the time they eat, but
some hours after; and they generally take very small quantities of liquid,

compared with that which is used by man. The savage, in his native wilds,
takes his solid food, when he can obtain it, to satiety, reposes afterwards,
and then resuming his chase through the forest, stops at the rivulet to allay
his thirst. The disadvantage of taking a large quantity of liquid must be
obvious to all those who consider that the digesting liquid is diluted and
weakened in proportion to the quantity of drink."
What wonder is it, if even the well-disposed among the multitude, seeing
such dissension among the counsellors, gathering just enough from their
disputes to infer that they have no true philosophical basis for their
opinions, and seeing those who would set the example in practice of this art
without science of dietetics generally among the most morbid and ill-
developed specimens of humanity, just throw aside all rule upon the subject,
partake of what is set before them, trust to air, exercise, and good intentions
to ward off the worst effects of the promiscuous fare?
Yet, while hopeless at present of selecting the right articles, and building
up, so far as hereditary taint will permit, a pure and healthful body from
feeding on congenial substances, we know at least this much, that
stimulants and over-eating—not food—are injurious, and may take care
enough of ourselves to avoid these.
The other branches we can really act wisely in, Dr. Warren, after giving
the usual directions (rarely followed as yet) for airing beds, and sleeping-
rooms, adds,—
"The manner in which children sleep will readily be acknowledged to be
important; yet very little attention is paid to this matter. Children are
crowded together in small, unventilated rooms, often two or three in a bed,
and on beds composed of half prepared feathers, from which issues a
noxious effluvia, infecting the child at a period when he is least able to
resist its influence; so that in the morning, instead of feeling the full
refreshment and vigor natural to his age, he is pale, languid, and for some
time indisposed to exertion.
"The rooms in which children are brought up should be well aired, by
having a fireplace, which should be kept open the greater part of the year.
There never should be more than one in the same bed; and this remark may
be applied with equal propriety to adults. The substance on which they lie
should be hair, thoroughly prepared, so that it should have no bad smell. In
winter it may be of cotton, or of hair and cotton. It would be very desirable,

however, to place children in separate apartments, as well as in separate
beds.
"It has been justly said that adults as well as children had better employ
single instead of double beds; this remark is intended to apply universally.
The use of double beds has been very generally adopted in this country,
perhaps in part as a matter of economy; but this practice is objectionable,
for more reasons than can be stated here."
On the subject of exercise, he mentions particularly the triangle, and we
copy what he says, because of the perfect ease and convenience with which
one could be put up and used in every bed-chamber.
"The exercising the upper limbs is too much neglected; and it is important
to provide the means of bringing them into action, as well to develop their
powers as to enlarge and invigorate the chest, with which they are
connected, and which they powerfully influence. The best I know of is the
use of the triangle. This admirably exerts the upper limbs and the muscles
of the chest, and, indeed, when adroitly employed, those of the whole body.
The triangle is made of a stick of walnut wood, four feet long, and an inch
and a half in diameter. To each end is connected a rope, the opposite
extremities of which being confined together at such height as to allow the
motion of swinging by the hands."
We have ourselves derived the greatest benefit from this simple means.
Gymnastic exercises, and if possible in the open air, are needed by every
one who is not otherwise led to exercise all parts of the body by various
kinds of labor. Some, though only partial provision, is made for boys by
gymnasia and riding-schools. In wiser nations, such have been the care of
the state. And in despotic governments, the jealousy of a tyrant was never
more justly awakened than when the youth of the land, by a devotion to
gymnastic exercises, showed their aspiration to reach the healthful stature
of manhood. For every one who possesses a strong mind in a sane body is
heir presumptive to the kingdom of this world; he needs no external
credentials, but has only to appear and make clear his title. But for such a
princely form the eye searches the street, the mart, and the council-chamber,
in vain.
Those who feel that the game of life is so nearly up with them that they
cannot devote much of the time that is left to the care of wise living in their
own persons, should, at least, be unwilling to injure the next generation by

the same ignorance which has blighted so many of us in our earliest year.
Such should attend to the work of Mr. Combe,[14] among other good books.
Mr. Combe has done much good already in this country, and this book
should be circulated every where, for many of its suggestions are too
obviously just not to be adopted as soon as read.
Dr. Warren bears his testimony against the pernicious effects that follow
upon the use of tobacco, and we cannot but hope that what he says of its
tendency to create cancer will have weight with some who are given to the
detestable habit of chewing. This practice is so odious to women, that we
must regard its prevalence here as a token of the very light regard in which
they are held, and the consequent want of refinement among men. Dr.
Warren seems to favor the practice of hydropathy to some extent, but must
needs bear his testimony in full against homœopathy. No matter; the little
doses will insinuate their way, and cure the ills that flesh is heir to,
"For a' that, and a' that,
And mickle mair for a' that."

FREDERICK DOUGLASS.[15]
FREDERICK DOUGLASS has been for some time a prominent member of the
abolition party. He is said to be an excellent speaker—can speak from a
thorough personal experience—and has upon the audience, besides, the
influence of a strong character and uncommon talents. In the book before us
he has put into the story of his life the thoughts, the feelings, and the
adventures that have been so affecting through the living voice; nor are they
less so from the printed page. He has had the courage to name persons,
times, and places, thus exposing himself to obvious danger, and setting the
seal on his deep convictions as to the religious need of speaking the whole
truth. Considered merely as a narrative, we have never read one more
simple, true, coherent, and warm with genuine feeling. It is an excellent
piece of writing, and on that score to be prized as a specimen of the powers
of the black race, which prejudice persists in disputing. We prize highly all
evidence of this kind, and it is becoming more abundant. The cross of the
Legion of Honor has just been conferred in France on Dumas and Souliè,
both celebrated in the paths of light literature. Dumas, whose father was a
general in the French army, is a mulatto; Souliè, a quadroon. He went from
New Orleans, where, though to the eye a white man, yet, as known to have
African blood in his veins, he could never have enjoyed the privileges due
to a human being. Leaving the land of freedom, he found himself free to
develop the powers that God had given.
Two wise and candid thinkers—the Scotchman Kinmont, prematurely lost
to this country, of which he was so faithful and generous a student, and the
late Dr. Channing,—both thought that the African race had in them a
peculiar element, which, if it could be assimilated with those imported
among us from Europe, would give to genius a development, and to the
energies of character a balance and harmony, beyond what has been seen
heretofore in the history of the world. Such an element is indicated in their
lowest estate by a talent for melody, a ready skill at imitation and
adaptation, an almost indestructible elasticity of nature. It is to be remarked
in the writings both of Souliè and Dumas, full of faults, but glowing with
plastic life and fertile in invention. The same torrid energy and saccharine
fulness may be felt in the writings of this Douglass, though his life, being

one of action or resistance, has been less favorable to such powers than one
of a more joyous flow might have been.
The book is prefaced by two communications—one from Garrison, and
one from Wendell Phillips. That from the former is in his usual over-
emphatic style. His motives and his course have been noble and generous;
we look upon him with high respect; but he has indulged in violent
invective and denunciation till he has spoiled the temper of his mind. Like a
man who has been in the habit of screaming himself hoarse to make the
deaf hear, he can no longer pitch his voice on a key agreeable to common
ears. Mr. Phillips's remarks are equally decided, without this exaggeration
in the tone. Douglass himself seems very just and temperate. We feel that
his view, even of those who have injured him most, may be relied upon. He
knows how to allow for motives and influences. Upon the subject of
religion, he speaks with great force, and not more than our own sympathies
can respond to. The inconsistencies of slaveholding professors of religion
cry to Heaven. We are not disposed to detest, or refuse communion with
them. Their blindness is but one form of that prevalent fallacy which
substitutes a creed for a faith, a ritual for a life. We have seen too much of
this system of atonement not to know that those who adopt it often began
with good intentions, and are, at any rate, in their mistakes worthy of the
deepest pity. But that is no reason why the truth should not be uttered,
trumpet-tongued, about the thing. "Bring no more vain oblations;" sermons
must daily be preached anew on that text. Kings, five hundred years ago,
built churches with the spoils of war; clergymen to-day command slaves to
obey a gospel which they will not allow them to read, and call themselves
Christians amid the curses of their fellow-men. The world ought to get on a
little faster than this, if there be really any principle of improvement in it.
The kingdom of heaven may not at the beginning have dropped seed larger
than a mustard-seed, but even from that we had a right to expect a fuller
growth than we can believe to exist, when we read such a book as this of
Douglass. Unspeakably affecting is the fact that he never saw his mother at
all by daylight.
"I do not recollect of ever seeing my mother by the light of day. She was
with me in the night. She would lie down with me, and get me to sleep, but
long before I waked she was gone."
The following extract presents a suitable answer to the hackneyed
argument drawn by the defender of slavery from the songs of the slave, and

is also a good specimen of the powers of observation and manly heart of the
writer. We wish that every one may read his book, and see what a mind
might have been stifled in bondage—what a man may be subjected to the
insults of spendthrift dandies, or the blows of mercenary brutes, in whom
there is no whiteness except of the skin, no humanity except in the outward
form, and of whom the Avenger will not fail yet to demand, "Where is thy
brother?"
"The Home Plantation of Colonel Lloyd wore the appeaance of a country
village. All the mechanical operations for all the farms were performed
here. The shoemaking and mending, the blacksmithing, cartwrighting,
coopering, weaving, and grain-grinding, were all performed by the slaves
on the Home Plantation. The whole place wore a business-like aspect very
unlike the neighboring farms. The number of houses, too, conspired to give
it advantage over the neighboring farms. It was called by the slaves the
Great House Farm. Few privileges were esteemed higher, by the slaves of
the out-farms, than that of being selected to do errands at the Great House
Farm. It was associated in their minds with greatness. A representative
could not be prouder of his election to a seat in the American Congress,
than a slave on one of the out-farms would be of his election to do errands
at the Great House Farm. They regarded it as evidence of great confidence
reposed in them by their overseers; and it was on this account, as well as a
constant desire to be out of the field, from under the driver's lash, that they
esteemed it a high privilege, one worth careful living for. He was called the
smartest and most trusty fellow who had this honor conferred upon him the
most frequently. The competitors for this office sought as diligently to
please their overseers as the office-seekers in the political parties seek to
please and deceive the people. The same traits of character might be seen in
Colonel Lloyd's slaves, as are seen in the slaves of the political parties.
"The slaves selected to go to the Great House Farm, for the monthly
allowance for themselves and their fellow-slaves, were peculiarly
enthusiastic. While on their way, they would make the dense old woods, for
miles around, reverberate with their wild songs, revealing at once the
highest joy and the deepest sadness. They would compose and sing as they
went along, consulting neither time nor tune. The thought that came up
came out,—if not in the word, in the sound,—and as frequently in the one
as in the other. They would sometimes sing the most pathetic sentiment in
the most rapturous tone, and the most rapturous sentiment in the most

pathetic tone. Into all their songs they would manage to weave something of
the Great House Farm. Especially would they do this when leaving home.
They would then sing most exultingly the following words:—
'I am going away to the Great House Farm!
O, yea! O, yea! O!'
This they would sing as a chorus to words which to many would seem
unmeaning jargon, but which, nevertheless, were full of meaning to
themselves. I have sometimes thought that the mere hearing of those songs
would do more to impress some minds with the horrible character of
slavery, than the reading of whole volumes of philosophy on the subject
could do.
"I did not, when a slave, understand the deep meaning of those rude and
apparently incoherent songs. I was myself within the circle; so that I neither
saw nor heard as those without might see and hear. They told a tale of woe
which was then altogether beyond my feeble comprehension; they were
tones loud, long, and deep; they breathed the prayer and complaint of souls
boiling over with the bitterest anguish. Every tone was a testimony against
slavery, and a prayer to God for deliverance from chains. The hearing of
those wild notes always depressed my spirit, and filled me with ineffable
sadness. I have frequently found myself in tears while hearing them. The
mere recurrence to those songs, even now, afflicts me; and while I am
writing these lines, an expression of feeling has already found its way down
my cheek. To those songs I trace my first glimmering conception of the
dehumanizing character of slavery. I can never get rid of that conception.
Those songs still follow me, to deepen my hatred of slavery, and quicken
my sympathies for my brethren in bonds. If any one wishes to be impressed
with the soul-killing effects of slavery, let him go to Colonel Lloyd's
plantation, and, on allowance day, place himself in the deep pine woods,
and there let him, in silence, analyze the sounds that shall pass through the
chambers of his soul; and if he is not thus impressed, it will only be because
'there is no flesh in his obdurate heart.'
"I have often been utterly astonished, since I came to the north, to find
persons who could speak of the singing among slaves as evidence of their
contentment and happiness. It is impossible to conceive of a greater
mistake. Slaves sing most when they are most unhappy. The songs of the
slave represent the sorrows of his heart; and he is relieved by them only as

an aching heart is relieved by its tears. At least, such is my experience. I
have often sung to drown my sorrow, but seldom to express my happiness.
Crying for joy and singing for joy were alike uncommon to me while in the
jaws of slavery. The singing of a man cast away upon a desolate island
might be as appropriately considered as evidence of contentment and
happiness, as the singing of a slave; the songs of the one and of the other
are prompted by the same emotion."

PHILIP VAN ARTEVELDE.[16]
THESE volumes have met with as warm a reception "as ever unripe
author's quick conceit," to use Mr. Taylor's own language, could hope or
wish; and so deservedly, that the critic's happy task, in examining them, is
to point out, not what is most to be blamed, but what is most to be praised.
With joy we hail a new poet. Star after star has been withdrawn from our
firmament, and when that of Coleridge set, we seemed in danger of being
left, at best, to a gray and confounding twilight; but, lo! a "ray of pure white
light" darts across the obscured depths of ether, and allures our eyes and
hearts towards the rising orb from which it emanates. Let us tremble no
more lest our summer pass away without its roses, but receive our present
visitor as the harbinger of a harvest of delights.
The natural process of the mind in forming a judgment is comparison. The
office of sound criticism is to teach that this comparison should be made,
not between the productions of differently-constituted minds, but between
any one of these and a fixed standard of perfection. Nevertheless it is not
contrary to the canon to take a survey of the labors of many artists with
reference to one, if we value them, not according to the degree of pleasure
we have experienced from them, which must always depend upon our then
age, the state of the passions and relations with life, but according to the
success of the artist in attaining the object he himself had in view. To
illustrate: In the same room hang two pictures, Raphael's Madonna and
Martin's Destruction of Nineveh. A person enters, capable of admiring both,
but young, excitable; he is delighted with the Madonna, but probably far
more so with the other, because his imagination is at that time more
developed than the pure love for beauty which is the characteristic of a taste
in a higher state of cultivation. He prefers the Martin, because it excites in
his mind a thousand images of sublimity and terror, recalls the brilliancy of
Oriental history, and the stern pomp of the old prophetic day, and rouses his
mind to a high state of action, then as congenial with its wants as at a later
day would be the feeling of contented absorption, of perfect satisfaction
with a production of the human soul, which one of Raphael's calmly
beautiful creations is fitted to cause. Now, it would be very unfair for this

person to pronounce the Martin superior to the Raphael, because it then
gave him more pleasure. But if he said, the one is intended to excite the
imagination, the other to gratify the taste, that which fulfils its object most
completely must be the best, whether it give me most pleasure or no; he
would be on the right ground, and might consider the two pictures relatively
to one another, without danger of straying very far from the truth.
This is the ground we would assume in a hasty sketch, which will not, we
hope, be deemed irrelevant, of the most prominent essays to which the last
sixty years have given rise in the department of the work now before us,
previous to stating our opinion of its merits. Many, we are aware, ridicule
the idea of filling reviews with long dissertations, and say they only want
brief accounts of such books as are coming out, by way of saving time.
With such we cannot agree. We think the office of the reviewer is, indeed,
in part, to point out to the public attention deserving works, which might
otherwise slumber too long unknown on the bookseller's shelves, but still
more to present to the reader as large a cluster of objects round one point as
possible, thus, by suggestion, stimulating him to take a broader or more
careful view of the subject than his indolence or his business would have
permitted.
The terms Classical and Romantic, which have so long divided European
critics, and exercised so powerful an influence upon their decisions, are not
much known or heeded among us,—as, indeed, belles-lettres cannot,
generally, in our busy state of things, be important or influential, as among
a less free and more luxurious people, to whom the more important truths
are proffered through those indirect but alluring mediums. Here, where
every thing may be spoken or written, and the powers that be, abused
without ceremony on the very highway, the Muse has nothing to do with
dagger or bowl; hardly is the censor's wand permitted to her hand. Yet is her
lyre by no means unheeded, and if it is rather by refining our tastes than by
modelling our opinions that she influences us, yet is that influence far from
unimportant. And the time is coming, perhaps in our day, we may (if war do
not untimely check the national progress) even see and temper its
beginning, when the broad West shall swarm with an active, happy, and
cultivated population; when the South, freed from the incubus which now
oppresses her best energies, shall be able to do justice to the resources of
her soil and of her mind; when the East, gathering from every breeze the
riches of the old world, shall be the unwearied and loving agent to those

regions which lie far away from the great deep, our bulwark and our
minister. Then will the division of labor be more complete; then will a
surplus of talent be spared from the mart, the forum, and the pulpit; then
will the fine arts assume their proper dignity, as the expression of what is
highest and most ethereal in the mind of a people. Then will our quarries be
thoroughly explored, and furnish materials for stately fabrics to adorn the
face of all the land, while our ports shall be crowded with foreign artists
flocking to take lessons in the school of American architecture. Then will
our floral treasures be arranged into harmonious gardens, which, environing
tasteful homes, shall dimple all the landscape. Then will our Allstons and
our Greenoughs preside over great academies, and be raised far above any
need, except of giving outward form to the beautiful ideas which animate
them; and ornament from the exhaustless stores of genius the marble halls
where the people meet to rejoice, or to mourn, or where dwell those wise
and good whom the people delight to honor. Then shall music answer to and
exalt the national spirit, and the poet's brows shall be graced with the civic
as well as the myrtle crown. Then shall we have an American mind, as well
as an American system, and, no longer under the sad necessity of
exchanging money for thoughts, traffic on perfectly equal terms with the
other hemisphere. Then—ah, not yet!—shall our literature make its own
laws, and give its own watchwords; till then we must learn and borrow from
that of nations who possess a higher degree of cultivation though a much
lower one of happiness.
The term Classical, used in its narrow sense, implies a servile adherence
to the Unities, but in its wide and best sense, it means such a simplicity of
plan, selection of actors and events, such judicious limitations on time and
range of subject, as may concentrate the interest, perfect the illusion, and
make the impression most distinct and forcible. Although no advocates for
the old French school, with its slavish obedience to rule, which introduces
follies greater than those it would guard against, we lay the blame, not on
their view of the drama, but on the then bigoted nationality of the French
mind, which converted the Mussulman prophet into a De Retz, the Roman
princess into a French grisette, and infected the clear and buoyant
atmosphere of Greece with the vapors of the Seine. We speak of the old
French Drama: with the modern we do not profess to be acquainted, having
met with scarcely any specimens in our own bookstores or libraries; but if it

has been revolutionized with the rest of their literature, it is probably as
unlike as possible to the former models.
We shall speak of productions in the classical spirit first; because Mr.
Taylor is a disciple of the other school, though otherwise we should have
adopted a contrary course.
The most perfect specimens of this style with which we are acquainted are
the Filippo, the Saul, and the Myrrha of Alfieri; the Wallenstein of Schiller;
the Tasso and the Iphigenia of Gœthe. England furnishes nothing of the sort.
She is thoroughly Shakspearian.
There is no higher pleasure than to see a genius of a wild, impassioned,
many-sided eagerness, restraining its exuberance by its sense of fitness,
taming its extravagance beneath the rule its taste approves, exhibiting the
soul within soul, and the force of the will over all that we inherit. The
abandon of genius has its beauty—far more beautiful its voluntary
submission to wise law. A picture, a description, has beauty, the beauty of
life; these pictures, these descriptions, arranged upon a plan, made
subservient to a purpose, have a higher beauty—that of the mind of man
acting upon life. Art is nature, but nature new-modelled, condensed, and
harmonized. We are not merely like mirrors, to reflect our own times to
those more distant. The mind has a light of its own, and by it illumines what
it re-creates.
This is the ground of our preference for the classical school, and for
Alfieri beyond all pupils of that school. We hold that if a vagrant bud of
poesy here and there be blighted by conforming to its rules, our loss is more
than made up to us by our enjoyment of plan, of symmetry, of the triumph
of genius over multiplied obstacles.
It has been often said that the dramas of Alfieri contrast directly with his
character. This is, perhaps, not true; we do but see the depths of that
volcano which in early days boiled over so fiercely. The wild, infatuated
youth often becomes the stern, pitiless old man. Alfieri did but bend his
surplus strength upon literature, and became a despot to his own haughty
spirit, instead of domineering over those of others.
We have selected his three masterpieces, though he, to himself an
inexorable critic, has shown no indulgence to his own works, and the least
successful of those which remain to us, Maria Stuarda, is marked by great
excellence.

Filippo has been so ably depicted in a work now well known, "Carlyle's
Life of Schiller," that we need not dwell upon it. All the light of the picture,
the softer feelings of the hapless Carlos and Elizabeth, is so cast, as to make
more visible the awing darkness of the tyrant's perverted mind, deadened to
all virtue by a false religion, cold and hopeless as the dungeons of his own
Inquisition, and relentless as death. Forced by the magic wand of genius
into the stifling precincts of this mind, horror-struck that we must
sympathize with such a state as possible to humanity, we rush from the
contemplation of the picture, and would gladly curtain it over in our hall of
imagery forever. Yet stigmatize not our poet as a dark master, courting the
shade, and hating the glad lights which love and hope cast upon human
nature. The drama has a holy meaning, a patriot moral, and we, above all,
should reverence him, the aristocrat by birth, by education, and by tastes,
whose love of liberty could lead him to such conclusions.
In "Saul," a bright rainbow rises, by the aid of the Sun of Righteousness,
above the commotion of the tempest. David, the faithful, the hopeful,
combining the æsthetic culture, the winged inspiration of the poet with the
noble pride of Israel's chosen warrior, contrasts finely with the unfortunate
Saul, his mind darkened and convulsed by jealousy, vain regrets, and fear of
the God he has forgotten how to love. The other three actors shade in the
picture without attracting our attention from the two principal personages.
The Hebrew spirit breathes through the whole. The beauty of the lyric
effusions is so generally felt, that encomium is needless; we shall only
observe that in them Alfieri's style, usually so severe, becomes flexible,
melodious, and glowing; thus we may easily perceive what he might have
done, had not the simplicity of his genius disdained the foreign aid of
ornament upon its Doric proportions.
Myrrha is, however, the highest exertion of his genius. The remoteness of
time and manners, the subject, at once so hackneyed and so revolting, these
great obstacles he seizes with giant grasp, and moulds them to his purpose.
Our souls are shaken to the foundation; all every-day barriers fall with the
great convulsion of passion. We sorrow, we sicken, we die with the
miserable girl, so pure under her involuntary crime of feeling, pursued by a
malignant deity in her soul's most sacred recesses, torn from all communion
with humanity, and the virtue she was framed to adore. The perfection of
plan, the matchless skill with which every circumstance is brought out! The
agonizing rapidity with which her misery "va camminando al fine"! No!

never was higher tragic power exhibited; never were love, terror, pity, fused
into a more penetrating draught! Myrrha is a favorite acting-play in Italy—a
fact inconceivable to an English or American mind; for (to say nothing of
other objections) we should think such excess of emotion unbearable. But
in those meridian climes they drink deep draughts of passion too frequently
to taste them as we do.
We pass to works of far inferior power, but of greater beauty. We have
selected Iphigenia and Tasso as the most finished results of their author's
mature views of art. On his plays in the Romantic style, we shall touch in
another place. If any one ask why we do not class Faust with either, we
reply, that is a work without a parallel; one of those few originals which
have their laws within themselves, and should always be discussed singly.
The unity of plan in Iphigenia is perfect. There is one pervading idea. The
purity of Iphigenia's mind must be kept unsullied, that she may be a fit
intercessor to the gods in behalf of her polluted family. Gœthe, in his travels
through Italy, saw a picture of a youthful Christian saint—Agatha, we think;
struck by the radiant purity of her expression, he resolved his heathen
priestess should not have one thought which could revolt the saint of the
true religion. This idea is wonderfully preserved throughout a drama so
classic in its coloring and manners. The happiest development of character,
an interest in the denouement which is only so far tempered by our trust in
the lovely heroine, as to permit us to enjoy all the minuter beauties on our
way, (this the breathless interest of Alfieri's dramas hardly allows, on a
fourth or fifth reading,) exquisite descriptive touches, and expressions of
sentiment, unequalled softness and harmony of style, distinguish a drama
not to be surpassed in its own department. Torquato Tasso[17] is of inferior
general, but greater particular beauty. The two worldly, the two higher
characters, with that of Alphonso halting between, are shaded with equal
delicacy and distinctness. The inward-turning imagination of the ill-fated
bard, and the fantastic tricks it plays with life, are painted as only a poet's
soul of equal depth, of greater versatility, could have painted them. In
analysis of the passions, and eloquent descriptions of their more hidden
workings, some parts may vie with Rousseau; while several effusions of
feeling are worthy of Tasso's own lyre, with its "breaking heartstring's
tone." The conduct of the piece being in perfect accordance with the plan,
gives the satisfaction we have mentioned in speaking of Raphael's
Madonna.

Schiller's Wallenstein does not strictly belong to this class, yet we are
disposed to claim it as observing the unities of time and interest; the latter
especially is entire, notwithstanding the many actors and side-scenes which
are introduced. Numberless touches of nature arrest our attention, bright
lights are flashed across many characters, but our interest, momently
increasing, is for Wallenstein—for the perversion, the danger, the ruin of
that monarch soul, that falling son of the morning. Even that we feel in
Max, with his celestial bloom of heart, in Thekla's sweet trustfulness, is
subsidiary. This work, generally known to the reader through Mr.
Coleridge's translation, affords an imperfect illustration of our meaning.
Miss Baillie's plays on the passions hold a middle place. Unity of purpose
there is—no unity of plan or conduct. Bold, fine outline—very bad
coloring. Profound, beautifully-expressed reflections on the passions—utter
want of skill in showing them out; a thorough feeling, indeed, of the
elements of tragedy,—had but the vitalizing energy been added. Her plays
are failures; but since she has given us nothing else, we cannot but rejoice
in having these. 'Tis great pity that the authoress of De Montfort and Basil
should not have attempted a narrative poem.
Coleridge and Byron are signal instances how peculiar is the kind of talent
required for the drama; one a philosopher, both men of great genius and
uncommon mastery over language, both conversant with each side of
human nature, both considering the drama in its true light as one of the
highest departments of literature, both utterly wanting in simplicity, pathos,
truth of passion and liveliness of action—in that thrilling utterance of heart
to heart, whose absence here, no other excellence can atone for. Of Maturin
and Knowles we do not speak, because theirs, though very good acting
plays, are not, like Mr. Taylor's, written for the closet; of Milman, because
not sufficiently acquainted with his plays. We would here pay a tribute to
our countryman Hillhouse, whose Hadad, read at a very early age, we
remember with much delight. Probably our judgment now might be
different; but a work which could make so deep an impression on any age,
must have genius. We are sorry we have never since met it in any library or
parlor, and are not competent to speak of it more particularly.
It will be seen that Mr. Taylor has not attempted the sort of dramatic
poetry which we consider the highest, but has labored in that which the
great wizard of Avon adopted, because it lay nearest at hand to clothe his
spells withal, and consecrated it, with his world-embracing genius, to the

(in our judgment) no small detriment of his country's taste. Having thus
declared that we cannot grant him our very highest meed of admiration,
(though we will not say that he might not win it if he made the essay,) we
hasten to meet him on his own ground. "Dramatica Poesis est veluti
Historia spectabilis," is his motto, taken from Bacon, who formed his taste
on Shakspeare. We would here mention that Gœthe's earlier works, Gœtz
von Berlichingen and Egmont are of this school—brilliant fragments of past
days, ballads acted out, historical scenes and personages clustered round a
hero; and we have seen that his ripened taste preferred the form of Iphigenia
and Tasso.
We cannot too strongly express our approbation of the opinions
maintained in his short preface to this work. We rejoice to see a leader
coming forward who is likely to un-Hemansize and un-Cornwallize
literature. We too have been sick, we too have been intoxicated with words
till we could hardly appreciate thoughts; perhaps our present writing shows
traces of this Lower-Empire taste; but we have sense enough left to
welcome the English Phocion, who would regenerate public feeling. The
candor and modest dignity with which these opinions are offered charm us.
The remarks upon Shelley, whom we have loved, and do still love passing
well, brought truth home to us in a definite shape. With regard to the
lowness of Lord Byron's standard of character, every thing indeed has been
said which could be but not as Mr. Taylor has said it; and we opine that his
refined and gentle remarks will find their way to ears which have always
been deaf to the harsh sarcasms unseasoned by wit, which have been
current on this topic.
Our author too, notwithstanding his modest caveat, has acted upon his
principles, and furnished a forcible illustration of their justice. For dignity
of sentiment, for simplicity of manner, for truth to life, never infringing
upon respect for the ideal, we look to such a critic, and we are not
disappointed.
The scene is laid in Ghent, in the fourteenth century. The Flemish
mobocracy are brought before us with a fidelity and animation surpassing
those displayed in Egmont. Their barbarism, and the dissimilar, but not
inferior barbarism of their would-be lords, the bold, bad men, the shameless
crime and brainless tumult of those days, live before us. Amid these
clashing elements moves Philip Van Artevelde, with the presence, not of a
god, but of a great man, too superior to be shaken, too wise to be shocked

by their rude jarrings. He becomes the leader of his people, and despite
pestilence, famine, and their own untutored passions, he leads them on to
victory and power.
In the second part we follow Van Artevelde from his zenith of glory to his
decline. The tarnishing influence of prosperity on his spirit, and its clear
radiance again in adversity, are managed as the noble and well-defined
conception of the character deserves.
The boy king and his courtly, intriguing counsellors are as happily
portrayed as Vauclaire and the fierce commonalty he ruled, or resisted with
rope or sword, as the case might demand.
The two loves of Van Artevelde are finely imagined, as types of the two
states of his character. Both are lovely; the one how elevated! the other how
pity-moving in her loveliness! On the interlude of Elena we must be
allowed to linger fondly, though the author's self condemn our taste.
We are no longer partial to the machinery of portents and presentiments.
Wallenstein's were the last we liked, but Van Artevelde's make good poetry,
and have historical vouchers. They remind us of those of Fergus Mac Ivor.
We shall extract a speech of Van Artevelde's, in which a leading idea of
the work is expressed.
Father,—

So! with the chivalry of Christendom
I wage my war,—no nation for my friend,
Yet in each nation having hosts of friends.
The bondsmen of the world, that to their lords
Are bound with chains of iron, unto me
Are knit by their affections. Be it so.
From kings and nobles will I seek no more
Aid, friendship, or alliance. With the poor
I make my treaty; and the heart of man
Sets the broad seal of its allegiance there,
And ratifies the compact. Vassals, serfs,
Ye that are bent with unrequited toil,
Ye that have whitened in the dungeon's darkness,

Through years that know not change of night nor day,
Tatterdemalions, lodgers in the hedge,
Lean beggars with raw backs, and rumbling maws,
Whose poverty was whipped for starving you,—
I hail you my auxiliars and allies,
The only potentates whose help I crave!
Richard of England, thou hast slain Jack Straw,
But thou hast left unquenched the vital spark
That set Jack Straw on fire. The spirit lives;
And as when he of Canterbury fell,
His seat was filled by some no better clerk,
So shall John Ball, that slew him, be replaced.
Fain would we extract Van Artevelde's reply to the French envoy—the
oration of the dying Van den Bosch in the market-place of Ypres, the last
scene between the hero and the double-dyed dastard and traitor, Sir Heurant
of Heurlée, and many, many more, had we but space enough.
We have purposely avoided telling the story, as is usual in an article of this
kind, because we wish that every one should buy and read Van Artevelde,
instead of resting content with the canvas side of the carpet.
A few words more, and we shall conclude these, we fear, already too
prolonged remarks. We would compare Mr. Taylor with the most applauded
of living dramatists, the Italian Alessandro Manzoni.
To wide and accurate historical knowledge, to purity of taste, to the
greatest elevation of sentiment, Manzoni unites uncommon lyric power, and
a beautiful style in the most beautiful language of the modern world. The
conception of both his plays is striking, the detached beauties of thought
and imagery are many; but where are the life, the glow, the exciting march
of action, the thorough display of character which charm us in Van
Artevelde? We live at Ghent and Senlis; we think of Italy. Van Artevelde
dies,—and our hearts die with him. When Elena says, "The body,—O!" we
could echo that "long, funereal note," and weep as if the sun of heroic
nobleness were quenched from our own horizon. "Carmagnola, Adelchis
die,"—we calmly shut the book, and think how much we have enjoyed it.
Manzoni can deeply feel goodness and greatness, but he cannot localize

them in the contours of life before our eyes. His are capital sketches, poems
of a deep meaning,—but this, yes! this is a drama.
We cannot conclude more fitly, nor inculcate a precept on the reader more
forcibly, than in Mr. Taylor's own words, with a slight alteration: "To say
that I admire him is to admit that I owe him much; for admiration is never
thrown away upon the mind of him who feels it, except when it is
misdirected or blindly indulged. There is perhaps nothing which more
enlarges or enriches the mind than the disposition to lay it genially open to
impressions of pleasure, from the exercise of every species of talent;
nothing by which it is more impoverished than the habit of undue
depreciation. What is puerile, pusillanimous, or wicked, it can do us no
good to admire; but let us admire all that can be admired without debasing
the dispositions or stultifying the understanding."

UNITED STATES EXPLORING EXPEDITION.
SLIGHT as the intercourse held by the Voyager with the South Sea Islands
is, his narrative is always more prized by us than those of the missionary
and traders, who, though they have better opportunity for full and candid
observation, rarely use it so well, because their minds are biased towards
their special objects. It is deeply interesting to us to know how much and
how little God has accomplished for the various nations of the larger
portion of the earth, before they are brought into contact with the
civilization of Europe and the Christian religion. To suppose it so little as
most people do, is to impugn the justice of Providence. We see not how any
one can contentedly think that such vast multitudes of living souls have
been left for thousands of years without manifold and great means of
instruction and happiness. To appreciate justly how much these have
availed them, to know how far they are competent to receive new benefits,
is essential to the philanthropist as a means of aiding them, no less than it is
important to one philosopher who wishes to see the universe as God made
it, not as some men think he ought to have made it.
The want of correct knowledge, and a fair appreciation of the uncultivated
man as he stands, is a cause why even the good and generous fail to aid
him, and contact with Europe has proved so generally more of a curse than
a blessing. It is easy enough to see why our red man, to whom the white
extends the Bible or crucifix with one hand, and the rum-bottle with the
other, should look upon Jesus as only one more Manitou, and learn nothing
from his precepts or the civilization connected with them. The Hindoo, the
South American Indian, who knew their teachers first as powerful robbers,
and found themselves called upon to yield to violence not only their
property, personal freedom, and peace, but also the convictions and ideas
that had been rooted and growing in their race for ages, could not be
otherwise than degraded and stupefied by a change effected through such
violence and convulsion. But not only those who came with fire and sword,
crying, "Believe or die;" "Understand or we will scourge you;" "Understand
and we will only plunder and tyrannize over you,"—not only these ignorant
despots, self-deceiving robbers, have failed to benefit the people they dared
esteem more savage than themselves, but the worthy and generous have

failed from want of patience and an expanded intelligence. Would you
speak to a man? first learn his language. Would you have the tree grow?
learn the nature of the soil and climate in which you plant it. Better days are
coming, we do hope, as to these matters—days in which the new shall be
harmonized with the old, rather than violently rent asunder from it; when
progress shall be accomplished by gentle evolution, as the stem of the plant
grows up, rather than by the blasting of rocks, and blindness or death of the
miners.
The knowledge which can lead to such results must be collected, as all
true knowledge is, from the love of it. In the healthy state of the mind, the
state of elastic youth, which would be perpetual in the mind if it were nobly
disciplined and animated by immortal hopes, it likes to learn just how the
facts are, seeking truth for its own sake, not doubting that the design and
cause will be made clear in time. A mind in such a state will find many facts
ready for its use in these volumes relative to the South Sea Islanders, and
other objects of interest.

STORY-BOOKS FOR THE HOT WEATHER.
DOES any shame still haunt the age of bronze—a shame, the lingering
blush of an heroic age, at being caught in doing any thing merely for
amusement? Is there a public still extant which needs to excuse its
delinquencies by the story of a man who liked to lie on the sofa all day and
read novels, though he could, at time of need, write the gravest didactics?
Live they still, those reverend seigniors, the object of secret smiles to our
childish years, who were obliged to apologize for midnight oil spent in
conning story-books by the "historic bearing" of the novel, or the "correct
and admirable descriptions of certain countries, with climate, scenery, and
manners therein contained," wheat, for which they, industrious students,
were willing to winnow bushels of frivolous love-adventures? We know
not, but incline to think the world is now given over to frivolity so far as to
replace by the novel the minstrel's ballad, the drama, and even those games
of agility and strength in which it once sought pastime. For, indeed, mere
pass-time is sometimes needed; the nursery legend comprised a primitive
truth of the understanding and the wisdom of nations in the lines,—
"All play and no work makes Jack a mere toy,
But all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy."
We have reversed the order of arrangement to suit our present purpose.
For we, O useful reader! being ourselves so far of the useful class as to be
always wanted somewhere, have also to fight a good fight for our
amusements, either with the foils of excuse, like the reverend seigniors
above mentioned, or with the sharp weapons of argument, or maintenance
of a view of our own without argument, which we take to be the sharpest
weapon of all.
Thus far do we defer to the claims of the human race, with its myriad of
useful errands to be done, that we read most of our novels in the long sunny
days, which call all beings to chirp and nestle, or fly abroad as the birds do,
and permit the very oxen to ruminate gently in the just-mown fields.
On such days it was well, we think, to read "Sybil, or the Two Worlds."
We have always felt great interest in D'Israeli. He is one of the many who

share the difficulty of our era, which Carlyle says, quoting, we believe,
from his Master, consists in unlearning the false in order to arrive at the
true. We think these men, when they have once taken their degree, can be of
far greater use to their brethren than those who have always kept their
instincts unperverted.
In "Vivian Grey," the young D'Israeli, an educated Englishman, but with
the blood of sunnier climes glowing and careering in his veins, gave us the
very flower and essence of factitious life. That book sparkled and frothed
like champagne; like that, too, it produced no dull and imbecile state by its
intoxication, but one witty, genial, spiritual even. A deep, soft melancholy
thrilled through its gay mockeries; the eyes of nature glimmered through the
painted mask, and a nobler ambition was felt beneath the follies of petty
success and petty vengeance. Still, the chief merit of the book, as a book,
was the light and decided touch with which its author took up the follies
and poesies of the day, and brought them all before us. The excellence of
the foreign part, with its popular superstitions, its deep passages in the
glades of the summer woods, and above all, the capital sketch of the prime
minister with his original whims and secret history of romantic sorrows,
were beyond the appreciation of most readers.
Since then, D'Israeli has never written any thing to be compared with this
first jet of the fountain of his mind in the sunlight of morning. The "Young
Duke" was full of brilliant sketches, and showed a soul struggling, blinded
by the gaudy mists of fashion, for realities. The "Wondrous Tale of Alroy"
showed great power of conception, though in execution it is a failure.
"Henrietta Temple" Mr. Willis, with his usual justness of perception, has
praised, as containing a collection of the best love-letters ever written; and
which show that excellence, signal and singular among the literary tribe, of
which D'Israeli never fails, of daring to write a thing down exactly as it
rises in his mind.
Now he has come to be a leader of Young England, and a rooted plant
upon her soil. If the performance of his prime do not entirely correspond
with the brilliant lights of its dawn, it is yet aspiring, and with a large kernel
of healthy nobleness in it. D'Israeli shows now not only the heart, but the
soul of a man. He cares for all men; he wishes to care wisely for all.
"Coningsby" was full of talent, yet its chief interest lay in this aspiration
after reality, and the rich materials taken from contemporary life. There is

nothing in it good after the original manner of D'Israeli, except the sketches
of Eton, and above all, the noble schoolboy's letter. The picture of the Jew,
so elaborately limned, is chiefly valuable as affording keys to so many
interesting facts.
"Sybil" is an attempt to do justice to the claims of the laboring classes, and
investigate the duties of those in whose hands the money is at present,
towards the rest. It comes to no result: it only exhibits some truths in a more
striking light than heretofore. D'Israeli shows the taint of old prejudice in
the necessity he felt to marry the daughter of the people to one not of the
people. Those worthy to be distinguished must still have good blood, or
rather old blood, for what is called good needs now to be renovated from a
homelier source. But his leaders must have old blood; the fresh ichor, the
direct flow from heaven, is not enough to animate their lives to the deeds
now needed.
D'Israeli is another of those who give testimony in behalf of our favorite
idea that a leading feature of the new era will be in new and higher
developments of the feminine character. He looks at women as a man does
who is truly in love. He does not paint them well, that is, not with profound
fidelity to nature. But, ideally, he sees them well, for they are to him the
inspirers and representatives of what is holy, tender, and simply great.
There are good sketches of the manufacturers at home, not the overseers,
but the real makers.
Sue is a congenial activity with D'Israeli, but with clearer notions of what
he wants. His "De Rohan" is a poor book, though it contains some things
excellent. But it is faulty,—even more so than is usual with him, in heavy
exaggerations, and is less redeemed by brilliant effects, good schemes, and
lively strains of feeling. The wish to unmask Louis XIV. is defeated by the
hatred with which the character inspired him, the liberal of the nineteenth
century. The Grand Monarque was really brutally selfish and ignorant, as
Sue represents him; but then there was a native greatness, which justified,
in some degree, the illusion he diffused, and which falsifies all Sue's
representation. It is not by an inventory of facts or traits that what is most
vital in character, and which makes its due impression on contemporaries,
can be apprehended or depicted. "De Rohan" is worth reading for
particulars of an interesting period, put together with accuracy and with a

sense of physiological effects, if not of the spiritual realities that they
represented.
"Self, by the Author of Cecil," is one of the worst of a paltry class of
novels—those which aim at representing the very dregs in a social life, now
at its lowest ebb. If it has produced a sensation, that only shows the poverty
of life among those who can be interested in it. I have known more life
lived in a day among factory girls, or in a village school, than informs these
volumes, with all their great pretension and affected vivacity. It is not worth
our while to read this class of English novels; they are far worse than the
French, morally as well as mentally. This has no merits as to the
development of character or exposition of motives; it is a poor, external,
lifeless thing.
"Dashes at Life," by N. P. Willis. The life of Mr. Willis is too European for
him to have a general or permanent fame in America. We need a life of our
own, and a literature of our own. Those writers who are dearest to us, and
really most interesting, are those who are at least rooted to the soil. If they
are not great enough to be the prophets of the new era, they at least exhibit
the features of their native clime, and the complexion given by its native air.
But Mr. Willis is a son of Europe, and his writings can interest only the
fashionable world of this country, which, by imitating Europe, fails entirely
of a genius, grace, and invention of its own. Still, in their way, they are
excellent. They are most lively pictures, showing the fine natural
organization of the writer, on whom none, the slightest symptom of what he
is looking for, is thrown away; sparkling with bold, light wit, succinct, and
colored with glow, and for a full light. Some of them were new to us, and
we read them through, missing none of the words, and laughed with a full
heart, and without one grain of complaisance, which is much, very much, to
say in these days. We said these sketches would not have a permanent fame,
and yet we may be wrong. The new, full, original, radiant, American life
may receive them as an heirloom from this transition state we are in now,
and future generations may stare at the mongrel products of Saratoga, and
maidens still laugh till they cry at the "Letter of Jane S. to her Spirit-
Bridegroom."
All these story-books show, even to the languor of the hottest day, the
solemn signs of revolution. Life has become too factitious; it has no longer
a leg left to stand upon, and cannot be carried much farther in this way.
England—ah! who can resist visions of phalansteries in every park, and the

treasures of art turned into public galleries for the use of the artificers who
will no longer be unwashed, but raised and educated by the refinements of
sufficient leisure, and the instructions of genius. England must glide, or
totter, or fall into revolution; there is not room for such selfish elves, and
unique young dukes, in a country so crowded with men, and with those who
ought to be women, and are turned into work-tools. There are very
impressive hints on this last topic in "Sybil, or the Two Worlds," (of the rich
and poor.) God has time to remember the design with which he made this
world also.

SHELLEY'S POEMS[18]
WE are very glad to see this handsome copy of Shelley ready for those
who have long been vainly inquiring at all the bookstores for such a one.
In Europe the fame of Shelley has risen superior to the clouds that
darkened its earlier days, hiding his true image from his fellow-men, and
from his own sad eyes oftentimes the common light of day. As a thinker,
men have learned to pardon what they consider errors in opinion for the
sake of singular nobleness, purity, and love in his main tendency or spirit.
As a poet, the many faults of his works having been acknowledged, there
are room and place to admire his far more numerous and exquisite beauties.
The heart of the man, few, who have hearts of their own, refuse to
reverence, and many, even of devoutest Christians, would not refuse the
book which contains Queen Mab as a Christmas gift. For it has been
recognized that the founder of the Christian church would have suffered one
to come unto him, who was in faith and love so truly what he sought in a
disciple, without regard to the form his doctrine assumed.
The qualities of his poetry have often been analyzed, and the severer
critics, impatient of his exuberance, or unable to use their accustomed
spectacles in the golden mist that broods over all he has done, deny him
high honors; but the soul of aspiring youth, untrammelled by the canons of
taste, and untamed by scholarly discipline, swells into rapture at his lyric
sweetness, finds ambrosial refreshment from his plenteous fancies, catches
fire at his daring thought, and melts into boundless weeping at his tender
sadness—the sadness of a soul betrothed to an ideal unattainable in this
present sphere.
For ourselves, we dispute not with the doctrinaires or the critics. We
cannot speak dispassionately of an influence that has been so dear to us.
Nearer than the nearest companions of life actual has Shelley been to us.
Many other great ones have shone upon us, and all who ever did so shine
are still resplendent in our firmament, for our mental life has not been
broken and contradictory, but thus far we "see what we foresaw." But
Shelley seemed to us an incarnation of what was sought in the sympathies

and desires of instinctive life, a light of dawn, and a foreshowing of the
weather of this day.
When still in childish years, the "Hymn to Intellectual Beauty" fell in our
way. In a green meadow, skirted by a rich wood, watered by a lovely
rivulet, made picturesque by a mill a little farther down, sat a party of
young persons gayer than, and almost as inventive, as those that told the
tales recorded by Boccaccio. They were passing a few days in a scene of
deep seclusion, there uncared for by tutor or duenna, and with no bar of
routine to check the pranks of their gay, childish fancies. Every day they
assumed parts which through the waking hours must be acted out. One day
it was the characters in one of Richardson's novels; and most solemnly we
"my deared" each other with richest brocade of affability, and interchanged
in long, stiff phrase our sentimental secrets and prim opinions. But to-day
we sought relief in personating birds or insects; and now it was the
Libellula who, tired of wild flitting and darting, rested on the grassy bank
and read aloud the "Hymn to Intellectual Beauty," torn by chance from the
leaf of a foreign magazine.
It was one of those chances which we ever remember as the interposition
of some good angel in our fate. Solemn tears marked the change of mood in
our little party and with the words
"Have I not kept my vow?"
began a chain of thoughts whose golden links still bind the years together.
Two or three years passed. The frosty Christmas season came; the trees
cracked with their splendid burden of ice, the old wooden country house
was banked up with high drifts of the beautiful snow, and the Libellula
became the owner of Shelley's Poems. It was her Christmas gift, and for
three days and three nights she ceased not to extract its sweets; and how
familiar still in memory every object seen from the chair in which she sat
enchanted during those three days, memorable to her as those of July to the
French nation! The fire, the position of the lamp, the variegated shadows of
that alcoved room, the bright stars up to which she looked with such a
feeling of congeniality from the contemplation of this starry soul,—O,
could but a De Quincey describe those days in which the bridge between
the real and ideal rose unbroken! He would not do it, though, as Suspiria de
Profundis, but as sighs of joy upon the mountain height.

The poems we read then are what every one still reads, the "Julian and
Maddalo," with its profound revelations of the inward life; "Alastor," the
soul sweeping like a breeze through nature; and some of the minor poems.
"Queen Mab," the "Prometheus," and other more formal works we have not
been able to read much. It was not when he tried to express opinions which
the wrongs of the world had put into his head, but when he abandoned
himself to the feelings which nature had implanted in his own breast, that
Shelley seemed to us so full of inspiration, and it is so still.
In reply to all that can be urged against him by people of whom we do not
wish to speak ill,—for surely "they know not what they do,"—we are wont
simply to refer to the fact that he was the only man who redeemed the
human race from suspicion to the embittered soul of Byron. "Why," said
Byron, "he is a man who would willingly die for others. I am sure of it."
Yes! balance that against all the ill you can think of him that he was a man
able to live wretched for the sake of speaking sincerely what he supposed to
be truth, willing to die for the good of his fellows!
Mr. Foster has spoken well of him as a man: "Of Shelley's personal
character it is enough to say that it was wholly pervaded by the same
unbounded and unquestioning love for his fellow-men—the same holy and
fervid hope in their ultimate virtue and happiness—the same scorn of
baseness and hatred of oppression—which beam forth in all his writings
with a pure and constant light. The theory which he wrote was the practice
which his whole life exemplified. Noble, kind, generous, passionate, tender,
with a courage greater than the courage of the chief of warriors, for it could
endure—these were the qualities in which his life was embalmed."

FESTUS.[19]
WE are right glad to see this beloved stranger domesticated among us. Yet
there are queer little circumstances that herald the introduction. The poet is
a barrister at law!—well! it is always worthy of note when a man is not
hindered by study of human law from knowledge of divine; which last is all
that concerns the poet. Then the preface to the American edition closes with
this discreet remark: "It is perfectly SAFE to pronounce it (the poem) one
of the most powerful and splendid productions of the age." Dear New
England! how purely that was worthy thee, region where the tyranny of
public opinion is carried to a perfection of minute scrutiny beyond what it
ever was before in any age or place, though the ostracism be administered
with the mildness and refinement fit for this age. Dear New England! yes! it
is safe to say that the poem is good; whatever Mrs. Grundy may think, she
will not have it burned by the hangman if it is not. But it may not be
discreet, because she can, if she sees fit, exile its presence from bookstores,
libraries, centre tables, and all mention of its existence from lips polite, and
of thine also, who hast dared to praise it, on peril of turning all surrounding
eyes to lead by its utterance. This kind of gentle excommunication thou
mayst not be prepared to endure, O preface-writer! And we should greatly
fear that thou wert deceived in thy fond security, for "Festus" is a bold book
—in respect of freedom of words, a boldest book—also it reveals the
solitudes of hearts with unexampled sincerity, and remorselessly lays bare
human nature in its naked truth—but for the theology of the book. That may
save it, and none the less for all it shows of the depravity of human nature.
It is through many pages and leaves what is technically praised as "a serious
book." A friend went into a bookstore to select presents for persons with
whom she was about to part, and among other things requested the shopman
to "show her some serious books in handsome binding." He looked into
several, and then, struck by passages here and there, offered her the "Letters
of Lady M. W. Montague." She assuring him that it would not be safe to
make use of this work, he offered her a miniature edition of Shakspeare, as
"a book containing many excellent things, though you had to wade through
a great deal of rubbish to get at them."

We fear the reader will have to wade through a great deal of "rubbish" in
"Festus" before he gets at the theology. However, there it is, in sufficient
quantities to give dignity to any book. In seriousness, it may compete with
Pollok's "Course of Time." In "splendor and power," we feel ourselves safe
in saying that, as sure as the sun shines, it cannot be outdone in the English
tongue, thus far, short of Milton. So there is something for all classes of
readers, and we hope it will get to their eyes, albeit Boston books are not
likely to be detected by all eyes to which they belong.
To ourselves the theology of this writer, and the conscious design of the
poem, have little interest. They seem to us, like the color of his skin and
hair, the result of the circumstances under which he was born. Certain
opinions came in his way early, and became part of the body of his thought.
But what interests us is not these, but what is deepest, universal—the soul
of that body. To us the poem is
"... full of great dark meanings like the sea:"
and it is these, the deep experiences and inspirations of the immortal man,
that engage us.
Even the poem shows how large is his nature—its most careless utterance
full of grandeur, its tamest of bold nobleness. This, that truly engages us, he
spoke of more forcibly when the book first went forth to the world:—
"Read this, world. He who writes is dead to thee,
But still lives in these leaves. He spake inspired;
Night and day, thought came unhelped, undesired,
Like blood to his heart. The course of study he
Went through was of the soul-rack. The degree
He took was high; it was wise wretchedness.
He suffered perfectly, and gained no less
A prize than, in his own torn heart, to see
A few bright seeds; he sowed them, hoped them truth.
The autumn of that seed is in these pages."
Such is, in our belief, the true theologian, the learner of God, who does
not presumptuously expect at this period of growth to bind down all that is
to be known of divine things in a system, a set of words, but considers that
he is only spelling the first lines of a work, whose perusal shall last him
through eternity. Such a one is not in a hurry to declare that the riddles of

Fate and of Time are solved, for he knows it is not calling them so that will
make them so. His soul does not decline the great and persevering labors
that are to develop its energies. He has faith to study day by day. Such is the
practice of the author of Festus, whenever he is truly great. When he shows
to us the end and plan of all things, we feel that he only hides them from us.
He speaks only his wishes. But when he tells us of what he does really
know, the moods and aspirations of fiery youth to which all things are made
present in foresight and foretaste,—when he shows us the temptations of
the lonely soul pining for knowledge, but unable to feel the love that alone
can bestow it,—then he is truly great, and the strings of life thrill oftentimes
to their sublimest, sweetest music.
We admire in this author the unsurpassed force and distinctness with
which he casts out single thoughts and images. Each is thrown before us
fresh, deep in its impress as if just snatched from the forge. We admire not
less his vast flow, his sustained flight. His is a rich and spacious genius; it
gives us room; it is a palace home; we need not economize our joys; blessed
be the royalty that welcomes us so freely.
In simple transposition of the thought from the mind to the paper, that
wonder, even rarer than perfect,—that is, simple expression, through the
motions of the body, of the motions of the soul,—we dare to say no writer
excels him. Words are no veil between us and him, but a luminous cloud
that upbears us both together.
So in touches of nature, in the tones of passion; he is absolute. There is
nothing better, where it is good; we have the very thing itself.
We are told by the critics that he has no ear, and, indeed, when we listen
for such, we perceive blemishes enough in the movement of his line. But
we did not perceive it before, more than, when the Æolian was telling the
secrets of that most spirit-like minister of Nature that bloweth where it
listeth, and no man can trace it, we should attempt to divide the tones and
pauses into regular bars, and be disturbed when we could not make a tune.
England has only two poets now that can be named near him: these two
are Tennyson and the author of "Philip Van Artevelde." Tennyson is all that
Bailey is not in melody and voluntary finish, having no less than a Greek
moderation in declining all undertakings he is not sure of completing.
Taylor, noble, an earnest seer, a faithful narrator of what he sees, firm and
sure, sometimes deep and exquisite, but in energy and grandeur no more

than Tennyson to be named beside the author of Festus. In inspiration, in
prophecy, in those flashes of the sacred fire which reveal the secret places
where Time is elaborating the marvels of Nature, he stands alone. It is just
true what Ebenezer Elliott says, that "Festus contains poetry enough to set
up fifty poets,"—ay! even such poets, so far as richness of thought and
imagery are concerned, as the two noble bards we have named.
But we need call none less to make him greater, whose liberal soul is alive
to every shade of beauty, every token of greatness, and whose main stress is
to seek a soul of goodness in things evil. The book is a precious, even a
sacred book, and we could say more of it, had we not years ago vented our
enthusiasm when it was in first full flow.

FRENCH NOVELISTS OF THE DAY.[20]
WE hear much lamentation among good people at the introduction of so
many French novels among us, corrupting, they say, our youth by pictures
of decrepit vice and prurient crime, such as would never, otherwise, be
dreamed of here, and corrupting it the more that such knowledge is so
precocious—for the same reason that a boy may be more deeply injured by
initiation into wickedness than a man, for he is not only robbed of his
virtue, but prevented from developing the strength that might restore it. But
it is useless to bewail what is the inevitable result of the movement of our
time. Europe must pour her corruptions, no less than her riches, on our
shores, both in the form of books and of living men. She cannot, if she
would, check the tide which bears them hitherward; no defences are
possible, on our vast extent of shore, that can preclude their ingress. We
have exulted in premature and hasty growth; we must brace ourselves to
bear the evils that ensue. Our only hope lies in rousing, in our own
community, a soul of goodness, a wise aspiration, that shall give us strength
to assimilate this unwholesome food to better substance, or cast off its
contaminations. A mighty sea of life swells within our nation, and, if there
be salt enough, foreign bodies shall not have power to breed infection there.
We have had some opportunity to observe that the worst works offered are
rejected. On the steamboats we have seen translations of vile books, bought
by those who did not know from the names of their authors what to expect,
torn, after a cursory glance at their contents, and scattered to the winds. Not
even the all but all-powerful desire to get one's money's worth, since it had
once been paid, could contend against the blush of shame that rose on the
cheek of the reader.
It would be desirable for our people to know something of these writers,
and of the position they occupy abroad; for the nature of their circulation,
rather than its extent, might be the guide both to translator and buyer. The
object of the first is generally money; of the last, amusement. But the
merest mercenary might prefer to pass his time in translating a good book,
and our imitation of Europe does not yet go so far that the American

milliner can be depended on to copy any thing from the Parisian grisette,
except her cap.
We have just been reading "Le Père Goriot," Balzac's most celebrated
work; a remarkable production, to which Paris alone, at the present day,
could have given birth.
In other of his works, I have admired his skill in giving the minute traits of
passion, and his intrepidity, not inferior to that of Le Sage and Cervantes, in
facing the dark side of human nature. He reminds one of the Spanish
romancers in the fearlessness with which he takes mud into his hands, and
dips his foot in slime. We cannot endure this when done, as by most
Frenchmen, with an air of recklessness and gayety; but Balzac does it with
the stern manliness of a Spaniard.
But the conception of this work is so sublime, that, though the details are
even more revolting than in his others, you can bear it, and would not have
missed your walk through the Catacombs, though the light of day seems
stained afterwards with the mould of horror and dismay.
Balzac, we understand, is one of that wretched class of writers who live by
the pen. In Paris they count now by thousands, and their leaves fall from the
press thick-rustling like the November forest. I had heard of this class not
without envy, for I had been told pretty tales of the gay poverty of the
Frenchman—how he will live in garrets, on dry bread, salad, and some
wine, and spend all his money on a single good suit of clothes, in which,
when the daily labor of copying music, correcting the press, or writing
poems or novels, is over, he sallies forth to enjoy the theatre, the social
soirée, or the humors of the streets and cafés, as gay, as keenly alive to
observation and enjoyment, as if he were to return to a well-stocked table
and a cheerful hearth, encompassed by happy faces.
I thought the intellectual Frenchman, in the extreme of want, never sunk
into the inert reverie of the lazzaroni, nor hid the vulture of famine beneath
the mantle of pride with the bitter mood of a Spaniard. But Balzac evidently
is familiar with that which makes the agony of poverty—its vulgarity.
Dirt, confusion, shabby expedients, living to live,—these are what make
poverty terrible and odious, and in these Balzac would seem to have been
steeped to the very lips.
These French writers possess the art of plunging at once in medias res,
and Balzac places you, in the twinkling of an eye, in one of the lowest

boarding-houses of Paris. At first all is dirt, hubbub, and unsavory odors;
but from the vapors of the caldron evolves a web of many-colored life, of
terrible pathos, and original humor, not unenlivened by pale golden threads
of beauty, which had better never been.
All the characters are excellently drawn: the harpy mistress of the house;
Mlle. Michonnet the spy, and her imbecile lover; Mme. Coutuner, with her
purblind strivings after virtue, and her real, though meagre respectability;
Vautrim, the disguised galley-slave, with his cynical philosophy and
Bonaparte character; and the young students of medicine, cheering the
dense fog with the scintillations of their wit, and the joyousness and
petulance with which their age meets the most adverse circumstances, at
least in France!
The connection between this abject poverty and the highest luxury of
Parisian life is made naturally by Eugene, connected to his misfortune with
a noble family, of which his own is a poor and young branch, studying a
profession and sighing to live like a duke, and Le Père Goriot, who has
stripped himself of all his wealth for his daughters, who are more naturally
unnatural than those of Lear. The transitions are made with as much
swiftness as a curtain is drawn upon the stage, yet with no feeling of
abruptness, so skilfully are the incidents woven into one another.
And be it recorded to the credit of Balzac, that, much as he appears to
have suffered from the want of wealth, the vices which pollute it are
represented with as terrible force as those of poverty.
The book affords play for similar powers, and brings a similar range of
motives into action with Scott's "Fortunes of Nigel." If less rich than that
work, it is more original, and has a force of pencil all its own.
Insight and a master's hand are admirable throughout; but the product of
genius is Le Père Goriot. And, wonderful to relate, this character is as much
ennobled, made as poetical by abandonment to a single instinct, as others
by the force of will. Prometheus, chained on his rock, and giving his heart
to the birds of prey for aims so majestic, is scarcely a more affecting, a
more reverent object, than the rich confectioner whose intellect has never
been awakened at all, except in the way of buying and selling, and who
gives up his acuteness even there, and commits such unspeakable follies
through paternal love; a blind love too, nowise superior to that of the
pelican!

Analyze it as you will, see the difference between this and the instinct of
the artist or the philanthropist, and it produces on your mind the same
impression of a present divinity. And scarce any tears could be more sacred
than those which choke the breath at the death-bed of this man, who forgot
that he was a man, to be wholly a father, this poor, mad, stupid, father
Goriot. I know nothing in fiction to surpass the terrible, unpretending
pathos of this scene, nor the power with which the mistaken benediction
given to the two medical students whom he takes for his daughters, is
redeemed from burlesque.
The scepticism as to virtue in this book is fearful, but the love for
innocence and beautiful instincts casts a softening tint over the gloom. We
never saw any thing sweeter or more natural than the letters of the mother
and sisters of Eugene, when they so delightfully sent him the money of
which he had been wicked enough to plunder them. These traits of domestic
life are given with much grace and delicacy of sentiment.
How few writers can paint abandon, without running into exaggeration!
and here the task was one of peculiar difficulty. It seemed as if the writer
were conscious enough of his power to propose to himself the most difficult
task he could undertake.
A respectable reviewer in "Les Deux Mondes" would wish us to think that
there is no life in Paris like what Balzac paints; but we can never believe
that: evidently it is "too true," though we doubt not there is more
redemption than he sees.
But this book was too much for our nerves, and would be, probably, for
those of most people accustomed to breathe a healthier atmosphere.
Balzac has been a very fruitful writer, and, as he is fond of jugglers' tricks
of every description, and holds nothing earnest or sacred, he is vain of the
wonderful celerity with which some of his works, and those quite as good
as any, have been written. They seem to have been conceived, composed,
and written down with that degree of speed with which it is possible to lay
pen to paper. Indeed, we think he cannot be surpassed in the ready and
sustained command of his resources. His almost unequalled quickness and
fidelity of eye, both as to the disposition of external objects, and the
symptoms of human passion, combined with a strong memory, have filled
his mind with materials, and we doubt not that if his thoughts could be put

into writing with the swiftness of thought, he would give us one of his
novels every week in the year.
Here end our praises of Balzac; what he is, as a man, in daily life, we
know not. He must originally have had a heart, or he could not read so well
the hearts of others; perhaps there are still private ties that touch him. But as
a writer, never was the modern Mephistopheles, "the spirit that denieth,"
more worthily represented than by Balzac.
He combines the spirit of the man of science with that of the amateur
collector. He delights to analyze, to classify; there is no anomaly too
monstrous, no specimen too revolting, to insure his ardent but passionless
scrutiny. But then he has taste and judgment to know what is fair, rare, and
exquisite. He takes up such an object carefully, and puts it in a good light.
But he has no hatred for what is loathsome, no contempt for what is base,
no love for what is lovely, no faith in what is noble. To him there is no
virtue and no vice; men and women are more or less finely organized; noble
and tender conduct is more agreeable than the reverse, because it argues
better health; that is all.
Nor is this from an intellectual calmness, nor from an unusual power of
analyzing motives, and penetrating delusions merely; neither is it mere
indifference. There is a touch of the demon, also, in Balzac, the cold but
gayly familiar demon; and the smile of the amateur yields easily to a sneer,
as he delights to show you on what foul juices the fair flower was fed. He is
a thorough and willing materialist. The trance of religion is congestion of
the brain; the joy of the poet the thrilling of the blood in the rapture of
sense; and every good not only rises from, but hastens back into, the jaws of
death and nothingness; a rainbow arch above a pestilential chaos!
Thus Balzac, with all his force and fulness of talent, never rises one
moment into the region of genius. For genius is, in its nature, positive and
creative, and cannot exist where there is no heart to believe in realities.
Neither can he have a permanent influence on a nature which is not
thoroughly corrupt. He might for a while stagger an ingenuous mind which
had not yet thought for itself. But this could not last. His unbelief makes his
thought too shallow. He has not that power which a mind, only in part
sophisticated, may retain, where the heart still beats warmly, though it
sometimes beats amiss. Write, paint, argue, as you will, where there is a
sound spot in any human being, he cannot be made to believe that this

present bodily frame is more than a temporary condition of his being,
though one to which he may have become shamefully enslaved by fault of
inheritance, education, or his own carelessness.
Taken in his own way, we know no modern tragedies more powerful than
Balzac's "Eugenie Grandet," "Sweet Pea," "Search after the Absolute,"
"Father Goriot." See there goodness, aspiration, the loveliest instincts,
stifled, strangled by fate, in the form of our own brute nature. The fate of
the ancient Prometheus was happiness to that of these, who must pay, for
ever having believed there was divine fire in heaven, by agonies of despair,
and conscious degradation, unknown to those who began by believing man
to be the most richly endowed of brutes—no more!
Balzac is admirable in his description of look, tone, gesture. He has a keen
sense of whatever is peculiar to the individual. Nothing in modern romance
surpasses the death-scene of Father Goriot, the Parisian Lear, in the almost
immortal life with which the parental instincts are displayed. And with
equal precision and delicacy of shading he will paint the slightest by-play in
the manners of some young girl.
"Seraphitus" is merely a specimen of his great powers of intellectual
transposition. Amid his delight at the botanical riches of the new and
elevated region in which he is travelling, we catch, if only by echo, the hem
and chuckle of the French materialist.
No more of him!—We leave him to his suicidal work.
It is cheering to know how great is the influence such a writer as Sue
exerts, from his energy of feeling on some subjects of moral interest. It is
true that he has also much talent and a various experience of life; but
writers who far surpass him here, as we think Balzac does, wanting this
heart of faith, have no influence, except merely on the tastes of their
readers.
We observe, in a late notice of Sue, that he began to write at quite mature
age, at the suggestion of a friend. We should think it was so; that he was by
nature intended for a practical man, rather than a writer. He paints all his
characters from the practical point of view.
As an observer, when free from exaggeration, he has as good an eye as
Balzac, but he is far more rarely thus free, for, in temperament, he is
unequal and sometimes muddy. But then he has the heart and faith that
Balzac wants, yet is less enslaved by emotion than Sand; therefore he has

made more impression on his time and place than either. We refer now to
his later works; though his earlier show much talent, yet his progress, both
as a writer and thinker, has been so considerable that those of the last few
years entirely eclipse his earlier essays.
These latter works are the "Mysteries of Paris," "Matilda," and the
"Wandering Jew," which is now in course of publication. In these, he has
begun, and is continuing, a crusade against the evils of a corrupt civilization
which are inflicting such woes and wrongs upon his contemporaries.
Sue, however, does not merely assail, but would build up. His anatomy is
not intended to injure the corpse, or, like that of Balzac, to entertain the
intellectual merely. Earnestly he hopes to learn from it the remedies for
disease and the conditions of health. Sue is a Socialist. He believes he sees
the means by which the heart of mankind may be made to beat with one
great hope, one love; and instinct with this thought, his tales of horror are
not tragedies.
This is the secret of the deep interest he has awakened in this country, that
he shares a hope which is, half unconsciously to herself, stirring all her
veins. It is not so warmly outspoken as in other lands, both because no such
pervasive ills as yet call loudly for redress, and because private
conservatism is here great, in proportion to the absence of authorized
despotism. We are not disposed to quarrel with this; it is well for the value
of new thoughts to be tested by a good deal of resistance. Opposition, if it
does not preclude free discussion, is of use in educating men to know what
they want. Only by intelligent men, exercised by thought and tried in virtue,
can such measures as Sue proposes be carried out; and when such
associates present themselves in sufficient numbers, we have no fear but the
cause of association, in its grander forms, will have fair play in America.
As a writer, Sue shows his want of a high kind of imagination by his
unshrinking portraiture of physical horrors. We do not believe any man
could look upon some things he describes and live. He is very powerful in
his description of the workings of animal nature; especially when he speaks
of them in animals merely, they have the simplicity of the lower kind with
the more full expression of human nature. His pictures of women are of rare
excellence, and it is observable that the more simple and pure the character
is, the more justice he does to it. This shows that, whatever his career may
have been, his heart is uncontaminated. Men he does not describe so well,

and fails entirely when he aims at one grand and simple enough for a great
moral agent. His conceptions are strong, but in execution he is too
melodramatic. Just compare his "Wandering Jew" with that of Beranger.
The latter is as diamond compared with charcoal. Then, like all those
writers who write in numbers that come out weekly or monthly, he abuses
himself and his subject; he often must; the arrangement is false and
mechanical.
The attitude of Sue is at this moment imposing, as he stands, pen in hand,
—this his only weapon against an innumerable host of foes,—the champion
of poverty, innocence, and humanity, against superstition, selfishness, and
prejudice. When his works are forgotten,—and for all their strong points
and brilliant decorations, they may ere long be forgotten,—still the writer's
name shall be held in imperishable honor as the teacher of the ignorant, the
guardian of the weak, a true tribune for the people of his own time.
One of the most unexceptionable and attractive writers of modern France
is De Vigny. His life has been passed in the army; but many years of peace
have given him time for literary culture, while his acquaintance with the
traditions of the army, from the days of its dramatic achievements under
Bonaparte, supply the finest materials both for narrative and reflection. His
tales are written with infinite grace, refined sensibility, and a dignified view.
His treatment of a subject shows that closeness of grasp and clearness of
sight which are rarely attained by one who is not at home in active as well
as thoughtful life. He has much penetration, too, and has touched some of
the most delicate springs of human action. His works have been written in
hours of leisure; this has diminished their number, but given him many
advantages over the thousands of professional writers that fill the coffee-
houses of Paris by day, and its garrets by night. We wish he were more read
here in the original; with him would be found good French, and the
manners, thoughts, and feelings of a cosmopolitan gentleman.
To sum up this imperfect account of the merits of these Novelists: I see De
Vigny, a retiring figure, the gentleman, the solitary thinker, but, in his way,
the efficient foe of false honor and superstitious prejudice; Balzac is the
heartless surgeon, probing the wounds and describing the delirium of
suffering men for the amusement of his students; Sue, a bold and glittering
crusader, with endless ballads jingling in the silence of the night before the
battle. They are all much right and a good deal wrong; for instance, all who
would lay down their lives for the sake of truth, yet let their virtuous

characters practise stratagems, falsehood, and violence; in fact, do evil for
the sake of good. They still show this taint of the old régime, and no
wonder! La belle France has worn rouge so long that the purest mountain
air will not, at once, or soon, restore the natural hues to her complexion. But
they are fine figures, and all ruled by the onward spirit of the time. Led by
that spirit, I see them moving on the troubled waters; they do not sink, and I
trust they will find their way to the coasts where the new era will introduce
new methods, in a spirit of nobler activity, wiser patience, and holier faith,
than the world has yet seen.
Will Balzac also see that shore, or has he only broken away the bars that
hindered others from setting sail? We do not know. When we read an
expression of such lovely innocence as the letter of the little country
maidens to their Parisian brother, (in Father Goriot,) we hope; but presently
we see him sneering behind the mask, and we fear. Let Frenchmen speak to
this question. They know best what disadvantages a Frenchman suffers
under, and whether it is possible Balzac be still alive, except in his eyes.
Those, we know, are quite alive.
To read these, or any foreign works fairly, the reader must understand the
national circumstances under which they were written. To use them
worthily, he must know how to interpret them for the use of the universe.

THE NEW SCIENCE, OR THE PHILOSOPHY OF
MESMERISM OR ANIMAL MAGNETISM.[21]
MAN is always trying to get charts and directions for the super-sensual
element in which he finds himself involuntarily moving. Sometimes,
indeed, for long periods, a life of continual activity in supplying bodily
wants or warding off bodily dangers will make him inattentive to the
circumstances of this other life. Then, in an interval of leisure, he will start
to find himself pervaded by the power of this more subtle and searching
energy, and will turn his thoughts, with new force, to scrutinize its nature
and its promises.
At such times a corps is formed of workmen, furnished with various
implements for the work. Some collect facts from which they hope to build
up a theory; others propose theories by whose light they hope to detect
valuable facts; a large number are engaged in circulating reports of these
labors; a larger in attempting to prove them invalid and absurd. These last
are of some use by shaking the canker-worms from the trees; all are of use
in elucidating truth.
Such a course of study has the civilized world been engaged in for some
years back with regard to what is called Animal Magnetism. We say the
civilized world, because, though a large portion of the learned and
intellectual, to say nothing of the thoughtless and the prejudiced, view such
researches as folly, yet we believe that those prescient souls, those minds
more deeply alive, which are the life of this and the parents of the next era,
all, more or less, consciously or unconsciously, share the belief in such an
agent as is understood by the largest definition of animal magnetism; that is,
a means by which influence and thought may be communicated from one
being to another, independent of the usual organs, and with a completeness
and precision rarely attained through these.
For ourselves, since we became conscious at all of our connection with the
two forms of being called the spiritual and material, we have perceived the
existence of such an agent, and should have no doubts on the subject, if we
had never heard one human voice in correspondent testimony with our
perceptions. The reality of this agent we know, have tested some of its

phenomena, but of its law and its analysis find ourselves nearly as ignorant
as in earliest childhood. And we must confess that the best writers we have
read seem to us about equally ignorant. We derive pleasure and profit in
very unequal degrees from their statements, in proportion to their candor,
clearness of perception, severity of judgment, and largeness of view. If they
possess these elements of wisdom, their statements are valuable as
affording materials for the true theory; but theories proposed by them affect
us, as yet, only as partially sustained hypotheses. Too many among them are
stained by faults which must prevent their coming to any valuable results,
sanguine haste, jealous vanity, a lack of that profound devotion which alone
can win Truth from her cold well, careless classification, abrupt
generalizations. We see, as yet, no writer great enough for the patient
investigation, in a spirit liberal yet severely true, which the subject
demands. We see no man of Shakspearian, Newtonian incapability of
deceiving himself or others.
However, no such man is needed, and we believe that it is pure democracy
to rejoice that, in this department as in others, it is no longer some one great
genius that concentrates within himself the vital energy of his time. It is
many working together who do the work. The waters spring up in every
direction, as little rills, each of which performs its part. We see a movement
corresponding with this in the region of exact science, and we have no
doubt that in the course of fifty years a new spiritual circulation will be
comprehended as clearly as the circulation of the blood is now.
In metaphysics, in phrenology, in animal magnetism, in electricity, in
chemistry, the tendency is the same, even when conclusions seem most
dissonant. The mind presses nearer home to the seat of consciousness the
more intimate law and rule of life, and old limits, become fluid beneath the
fire of thought. We are learning much, and it will be a grand music, that
shall be played on this organ of many pipes.
With regard to Mr. Grimes's book, in the first place, we do not possess
sufficient knowledge of the subject to criticise it thoroughly; and secondly,
if we did, it could not be done in narrow limits. To us his classification is
unsatisfactory, his theory inadequate, his point of view uncongenial. We
disapprove of the spirit in which he criticises other disciples in this science,
who have, we believe, made some good observations, with many failures,
though, like himself, they do not hold themselves sufficiently lowly as
disciples. For we do not believe there is any man, yet, who is entitled to

give himself the air of having taken a degree on this subject. We do not
want the tone of qualification or mincing apology. We want no mock
modesty, but its reality, which is the almost sure attendant on greatness.
What a lesson it would be for this country if a body of men could be at
work together in that harmony which would not fail to ensue on a
disinterested love of discovering truth, and with that patience and exactness
in experiment without which no machine was ever invented worthy a
patent! The most superficial, go-ahead, hit-or-miss American knows that no
machine was ever perfected without this patience and exactness; and let no
one hope to achieve victories in the realm of mind at a cheaper rate than in
that of matter.
In speaking thus of Mr. Grimes's book, we can still cordially recommend
it to the perusal of our readers. Its statements are full and sincere. The writer
has abilities which only need to be used with more thoroughness and a
higher aim to guide him to valuable attainments.
In this connection we will relate a passage from personal experience, to us
powerfully expressive of the nature of this higher agent in the intercourse of
minds.
Some years ago I went, unexpectedly, into a house where a blind girl,
thought at that time to have attained an extraordinary degree of
clairvoyance, lay in a trance of somnambulism. I was not invited there, nor
known to the party, but accompanied a gentleman who was.
The somnambulist was in a very happy state. On her lips was the satisfied
smile, and her features expressed the gentle elevation incident to the state.
At that time I had never seen any one in it, and had formed no image or
opinion on the subject. I was agreeably impressed by the somnambulist, but
on listening to the details of her observations on a distant place, I thought
she had really no vision, but was merely led or impressed by the mind of
the person who held her hand.
After a while I was beckoned forward, and my hand given to the blind
girl. The latter instantly dropped it with an expression of pain, and
complained that she should have been brought in contact with a person so
sick, and suffering at that moment under violent nervous headache. This
really was the case, but no one present could have been aware of it.
After a while the somnambulist seemed penitent and troubled. She asked
again for my hand which she had rejected, and, while holding it, attempted

to magnetize the sufferer. She seemed touched by profound pity, spoke most
intelligently of the disorder of health and its causes, and gave advice,
which, if followed at that time, I have every reason to believe would have
remedied the ill.
Not only the persons present, but the person advised also, had no adequate
idea then of the extent to which health was affected, nor saw fully, till some
time after, the justice of what was said by the somnambulist. There is every
reason to believe that neither she, nor the persons who had the care of her,
knew even the name of the person whom she so affectionately wished to
help.
Several years after, in visiting an asylum for the blind, I saw this same girl
seated there. She was no longer a somnambulist, though, from a nervous
disease, very susceptible to magnetic influences. I went to her among a
crowd of strangers, and shook hands with her as several others had done. I
then asked, "Do you not not know me?" She answered, "No." "Do you not
remember ever to have met me?" She tried to recollect, but still said, "No."
I then addressed a few remarks to her about her situation there, but she
seemed preoccupied, and, while I turned to speak with some one else, wrote
with a pencil these words, which she gave me at parting:—
"The ills that Heaven decrees
The brave with courage bear."
Others may explain this as they will; to me it was a token that the same
affinity that had acted before, gave the same knowledge; for the writer was
at the time ill in the same way as before. It also seemed to indicate that the
somnambulic trance was only a form of the higher development, the
sensibility to more subtle influences—in the terms of Mr. Grimes, a
susceptibility to etherium. The blind girl perhaps never knew who I was, but
saw my true state more clearly than any other person did, and I have kept
those pencilled lines, written in the stiff, round character proper to the blind,
as a talisman of "Credenciveness," as the book before me styles it. Credulity
as the world at large does, and, to my own mind, as one of the clews
granted, during this earthly life, to the mysteries of future states of being,
and more rapid and complete modes of intercourse between mind and mind.

DEUTSCHE SCHNELLPOST.[22]
THE publishers of this interesting and spirited journal have, this year,
begun to issue a weekly paper in addition to their former arrangement. We
regret not to have been able earlier to take some notice of their prospectus,
but an outline of it will be new to most of our readers.
Their journal has hitherto been intended for German readers in this
country, and has been devoted to topics of European interest, but by the
addition of the Weekly, it hopes to discuss with some fulness those of
American interest also; thus becoming "an organ of communication
between Germans of the old and new home, as to their wants, interests, and
thoughts." These judicious remarks follow:—
"The editors do not coincide with those who believe it the vocation of the
immigrant German, by systematic separation from the people who offer him
a new home, by voluntary withdrawal from the unaccustomed, and,
perhaps, for him too vehement stream of their life, in a word, by obstinate
adhesion to the old, to keep inviolate the stamp of his nationality.
"Rather is it their faith that it should be the most earnest desire of the
immigrant, not merely to appropriate in form, but to deserve the rights of a
citizen here—rights which we confide in the healthy mind of the nation to
sustain him in, all fanatical opposition to the contrary notwithstanding. And
he must deserve them by becoming an American, not merely in name, but in
deed, not merely by assuming claims, but by appreciating duties.
"But while we renounce this narrow and one-sided isolation, desiring to
integrate ourselves, fairly and truly, with the great family that receives us to
its hospitality, we will hold so much the more firmly to the higher traits of
our own race. We hold to the noble jewel of our native tongue; the
memories of our nation's ancient glory; the sympathy with its future, as yet
only glimmering in the dusk; our old, true, domestic manners; dear
inherited customs, that give to the tranquillities of home their sanctity—to
the intercourse between men a fresh, glad life.
"So much for our position in general."
They promise, as to American affairs, "to be just as far as in them lies, and
independent, certainly."

We think the tone of these remarks truly honorable and right-minded. It is
such a tone that each division of our adopted citizens needs to hear from
those of their compatriots able to guide and enlighten them. We do want
that each nation should preserve what is valuable in its parent stock. We
want all the elements for the new people of the new world. We want the
prudence, the honor, the practical skill of the English; the fun, the
affectionateness, the generosity of the Irish; the vivacity, the grace, the
quick intelligence of the French; the thorough honesty, the capacity for
philosophic view, and deep enthusiasm of the German Biedermann; the
shrewdness and romance of the Scotch,—but we want none of their
prejudices. We want the healthy seed to develop itself into a different plant
in the new climate. We have reason to hope a new and generous race, where
the Italian meets the German, the Swede, the Jew. Let nothing be
obliterated, but all be regenerated; let each leader say in like manner to his
band. Apply the old loyalty to a study of new duties. Examine yourself
whether you are worthy of the new rights so freely bestowed upon you, and
recognize that only intelligent action, and not mere bodily presence, can
make you really a citizen on any soil. It is a glorious boon offered you to be
a founder of the new dynasty in the new world; but it would have been
better for you to have died a thousand deaths beneath the factory wheels of
England, or in the prisons of Russia, than to sell this great privilege for
selfish or servile ends. Here each man has before him the choice of Esau—
each may defraud a long succession of souls of their princely inheritance.
Do those whose bodies were born upon this soil reject you, and claim for
themselves the name of natives? You may be natives, in another sort, for the
soul may be re-born here. Cast for yourselves a new nativity, and invoke the
starry influences that do not fail to shine into the life of a good man, whose
heart is kept open daily to truth in every new form, whose heart is
strengthened by a desire to do his duty valiantly to every brother of the
human family. Offer upon the soil a libation of worthy feelings in gratitude
for the bread it so willingly yields you, and it is true that the "healthy mind
of the nation" cannot long fail to greet you with joy, and hail your
endowment with civic rights.
We must think there is a deep root, in fact, for the late bitter expressions of
prejudice, however unworthy the mode of exhibiting them, against the
foreign element in our population. We want all this new blood, but we want
it purified, assimilated, or it will take all form of comeliness from the

growing nation. Our country is a willing foster mother, but her children
need wise tutors to prevent them from playing, willingly or unwillingly, the
viper's part.
There is a little poem in the Schnellpost, by Moritz Hartmann, called the
"Three,"—which would be a forcible appeal, if any were needed, in behalf
of all who are exiled from their native soil. We translate it into prose, and
this will not spoil it, as its poetry lies in the situation.
"In a tavern of Hungary are sitting together Three who have taken refuge
there from storm and darkness—in Hungary, where the wind of chance
drives together the children of many a land.
"Their eyes glow with fires of various light; their locks are unlike in their
flow; but their hearts—their wounded hearts—are urns filled with the tears
of a common grief.
"One cries, 'Silent companions! Shall we have no toast to cheer our
meeting? I offer you one which you cannot fail to pledge—Freedom and
greatness to the Fatherland!
"'To the fatherland! But I am one that knows not where is his; I am a
Gypsy; my fatherland lies in the realm of tradition—in the mournful tone of
the violin swelled by grief and storm.
"'I pass musing over heath and moor, and think of my painful losses. Yet
long since was I weaned from desire of a home, and think of Egypt but as
the cymbal sounds.'
"The second says, 'This toast of fatherland I will not drink; mine own
shame should I pledge. For the seed of Jacob flies like the dried leaf, and
takes no root in the dust of slavery.'
"The lips of the third seem frozen at the edge of his goblet. He asks
himself in silence, 'Shall I drink to the fatherland? Lives Poland yet, or is all
life departed, and am I, like these, a motherless son?'"
To those and others who, if they still had homes, could not live there,
without starving body and soul, may our land be a fatherland; and may they
seek and learn to act as children in a father's house!
A foreign correspondent of the Schnellpost, having, it seems, been
reproved by some friends on the safe side of the water for the violence of
his attack on crowned heads, and other dilettanti, defends himself with great
spirit, and argues his case well from his own point of view. We do not agree

with him as to the use of methods, but cannot fail to sympathize in his
feeling.
Anecdotes of Russian proceedings towards delinquents are well associated
with one anecdote quoted of Peter, who yet was truly the Great. In a foreign
city, seeing the gallows, he asked the use of that three-cornered thing. Being
told, to hang people on, he requested that one might be hung for him,
directly. Being told this, unfortunately, could not be done, as there was no
criminal under sentence, he desired that one of his own retinue might be
made use of. Probably he did this with no further thought than the Empress
Catharine bestowed, on having a ship of the line blown up, as a model for
the painter who was to adorn her palace with pictures of naval battles.
Disregard for human life and human happiness is not confined to the
Russian snows, or the eastern hemisphere; it may be found on every side,
though, indeed, not on a scale so imperial.

OLIVER CROMWELL.[23]
A long expectation is rewarded at last by the appearance of this book. We
cannot wonder that it should have been long, when Mr. Carlyle shows us
what a world of ill-arranged and almost worthless materials he has had to
wade through before achieving any possibility of order and harmony for his
narrative.
The method which he has chosen of letting the letters and speeches of
Cromwell tell the story when possible, only himself doing what is needful
to throw light where it is most wanted and fill up gaps, is an excellent one.
Mr. Carlyle, indeed, is a most peremptory showman, and with each slide of
his magic lantern informs us not only of what is necessary to enable us to
understand it, but how we must look at it, under peril of being ranked as
"imbeciles," "canting sceptics," "disgusting rose-water philanthropists," and
the like. And aware of his power of tacking a nickname or ludicrous picture
to any one who refuses to obey, we might perhaps feel ourselves, if in his
neighborhood, under such constraint and fear of deadly laughter, as to lose
the benefit of having under our eye to form our judgment upon the same
materials on which he formed his.
But the ocean separates us, and the showman has his own audience of
despised victims, or scarce less despised pupils; and we need not fear to be
handed down to posterity as "a little gentleman in a gray coat" "shrieking"
unutterable "imbecilities," or with the like damnatory affixes, when we
profess that, having read the book, and read the letters and speeches thus
far, we cannot submit to the showman's explanation of the lantern, but must,
more than ever, stick to the old "Philistine," "Dilettante," "Imbecile," and
what not view of the character of Cromwell.
We all know that to Mr. Carlyle greatness is well nigh synonymous with
virtue, and that he has shown himself a firm believer in Providence by
receiving the men of destiny as always entitled to reverence. Sometimes a
great success has followed the portraits painted by him in the light of such
faith, as with regard to Mahomet, for instance. The natural autocrat is his
delight, and in such pictures as that of the monk in "Past and Present,"

where the geniuses of artist and subject coincide, the result is no less
delightful for us.
But Mr. Carlyle reminds us of the man in a certain parish who had always
looked up to one of its squires as a secure and blameless idol, and one day
in church, when the minister asked "all who felt in concern for their souls to
rise," looked to the idol and seeing him retain his seat, (asleep perchance!)
sat still also. One of his friends asking him afterwards how he could refuse
to answer such an appeal, he replied, "he thought it safest to stay with the
squire."
Mr. Carlyle's squires are all Heaven's justices of peace or war, (usually the
latter;) they are beings of true energy and genius, and so far, as he describes
them, "genuine men." But in doubtful cases, where the doubt is between
them and principles, he will insist that the men must be in the right. On such
occasions he favors us with such doctrine as the following, which we
confess we had the weakness to read with "sibylline execration" and
extreme disgust.
Speaking of Cromwell's course in Ireland:—
"Oliver's proceedings here have been the theme of much loud criticism,
sibylline execration, into which it is not our plan to enter at present. We
shall give these fifteen letters of his in a mass, and without any commentary
whatever. To those who think that a land overrun with sanguinary quacks
can be healed by sprinkling it with rose-water, these letters must be very
horrible. Terrible surgery this; but is it surgery and judgment, or atrocious
murder merely? This is a question which should be asked; and answered.
Oliver Cromwell did believe in God's judgments; and did not believe in the
rose-water plan of surgery,—which, in fact, is this editor's case too! Every
idle lie and piece of empty bluster this editor hears, he too, like Oliver, has
to shudder at it; has to think, 'Thou, idle bluster, not true, thou also art
shutting men's minds against God's fact; thou wilt issue as a cleft crown to
some poor man some day; thou also wilt have to take shelter in bogs,
whither cavalry cannot follow!' But in Oliver's time, as I say, there was still
belief in the judgments of God; in Oliver's time, there was yet no distracted
jargon of 'abolishing capital punishments,' of Jean-Jacques philanthropy,
and universal rose-water in this world still so full of sin. Men's notion was,
not for abolishing punishments, but for making laws just. God the Maker's
laws, they considered, had not yet got the punishment abolished from them!

Men had a notion that the difference between good and evil was still
considerable—equal to the difference between heaven and hell. It was a true
notion, which all men yet saw, and felt, in all fibres of their existence, to be
true. Only in late decadent generations, fast hastening toward radical
change or final perdition, can such indiscriminate mashing up of good and
evil into one universal patent treacle, and most unmedical electuary, of
Rousseau sentimentalism, universal pardon and benevolence, with dinner
and drink and one cheer more, take effect in our earth. Electuary very
poisonous, as sweet as it is, and very nauseous; of which Oliver, happier
than we, had not yet heard the slightest intimation even in dreams.
* * *
"In fact, Oliver's dialect is rude and obsolete; the phrases of Oliver, to him
solemn on the perilous battle field as voices of God, have become to us
most mournful when spouted as frothy cant from Exeter Hall. The reader
has, all along, to make steady allowance for that. And on the whole, clear
recognition will be difficult for him. To a poor slumberous canting age,
mumbling to itself every where, Peace, peace, when there is no peace,—
such a phenomena as Oliver, in Ireland or elsewhere, is not the most
recognizable in all its meanings. But it waits there for recognition, and can
wait an age or two. The memory of Oliver Cromwell, as I count, has a good
many centuries in it yet; and ages of very varied complexion to apply to,
before all end. My reader, in this passage and others, shall make of it what
he can.
"But certainly, at lowest, here is a set of military despatches of the most
unexampled nature! Most rough, unkempt; shaggy as the Numidian lion. A
style rugged as crags; coarse, drossy: yet with a meaning in it, an energy, a
depth; pouring on like a fire torrent; perennial fire of it visible athwart all
drosses and defacements; not uninteresting to see! This man has come into
distracted Ireland with a God's truth in the heart of him, though an
unexpected one; the first such man they have seen for a great while indeed.
He carries acts of Parliament, laws of earth and heaven, in one hand; drawn
sword in the other. He addresses the bewildered Irish populations, the black
ravening coil of sanguinary blustering individuals at Tredah and elsewhere:
'Sanguinary, blustering individuals, whose word is grown worthless as the
barking of dogs; whose very thought is false, representing no fact, but the
contrary of fact—behold, I am come to speak and to do the truth among
you. Here are acts in Parliament, methods of regulation and veracity,

emblems the nearest we poor Puritans could make them of God's law-book,
to which it is and shall be our perpetual effort to make them correspond
nearer and nearer. Obey them, help us to perfect them, be peaceable and
true under them, it shall be well with you. Refuse to obey them, I will not
let you continue living! As articulate speaking veracious orderly men, not as
a blustering, murderous kennel of dogs run rabid, shall you continue in this
earth. Choose!' They chose to disbelieve him; could not understand that he,
more than the others, meant any truth or justice to them. They rejected his
summons and terms at Tredah; he stormed the place; and, according to his
promise, put every man of the garrison to death. His own soldiers are
forbidden to plunder, by paper proclamation; and in ropes of authentic
hemp, they are hanged when they do it. To Wexford garrison, the like terms
as at Tredah; and, failing these, the like storm. Here is a man whose word
represents a thing! Not bluster this, and false jargon scattering itself to the
winds; what this man speaks out of him comes to pass as a fact; speech with
this man is accurately prophetic of deed. This is the first king's face poor
Ireland ever saw; the first friend's face, little as it recognizes him—poor
Ireland!"
Yes, Cromwell had force and sagacity to get that done which he had
resolved to get done; and this is the whole truth about your admiration, Mr.
Carlyle. Accordingly, at Drogheda quoth Cromwell,—
"I believe we put to sword the whole number of the defendants. * *
Indeed, being in the heat of action, I forbade them to spare any that were in
arms in the town; and I think that night they put to the sword about two
thousand men, divers of the officers and soldiers being fled over the bridge
into the other part of the town; and where about one hundred of them
possessed St. Peter's Church, steeple, &c. These, being summoned to yield
to mercy, refused. Whereupon I ordered the steeple of St. Peter's Church to
be fired; when one of them was heard to say, in the midst of the flames,
'God confound me! I burn, I burn!'
"I am persuaded that this is a righteous judgment of God upon these
barbarous wretches who have imbrued their hands in so much innocent
blood; and that it will tend to prevent the effusion of blood for the future.
Which are the satisfactory grounds to such actions, which otherwise cannot
but work remorse and regret. * * This hath been an exceeding great mercy."

Certainly one not of the rose-water or treacle kind. Mr. Carlyle says such
measures "cut to the heart of the war," and brought peace. Was there then no
crying of Peace, Peace, when there was no peace? Ask the Irish peasantry
why they mark that period with the solemn phrase of "Cromwell's Curse!"
For ourselves, though aware of the mistakes and errors in particulars that
must occur, we believe the summing up of a man's character in the verdict
of his time, is likely to be correct. We believe that Cromwell was "a curse,"
as much as a blessing, in these acts of his. We believe him ruthless,
ambitious, half a hypocrite, (few men have courage or want of soul to bear
being wholly so,) and we think it is rather too bad to rave at us in our time
for canting, and then hold up the prince of canters for our reverence in his
"dimly seen nobleness." Dimly, indeed, despite the rhetoric and satire of
Mr. Carlyle!
In previous instances where Mr. Carlyle has acted out his
predeterminations as to the study of a character, we have seen
circumstances favor him, at least sometimes. There were fine moments, fine
lights upon the character that he would seize upon. But here the facts look
just as they always have. He indeed ascertains that the Cromwell family
were not mere brewers or plebeians, but "substantial gentry," and that there
is not the least ground for the common notion that Cromwell lived at any
time a dissolute life. But with the exception of these emendations, still the
history looks as of old. We see a man of strong and wise mind, educated by
the pressure of great occasions to station of command; we see him wearing
the religious garb which was the custom of the times, and even preaching to
himself as well as to others—for well can we imagine that his courage and
his pride would have fallen without keeping up the illusion; but we never
see Heaven answering his invocations in any way that can interfere with the
rise of his fortunes or the accomplishment of his plans. To ourselves, the
tone of these religious holdings-forth is sufficiently expressive; they all ring
hollow; we have never read any thing of the sort more repulsive to us than
the letter to Mr. Hammond, which Mr. Carlyle thinks such a noble contrast
to the impiety of the present time. Indeed, we cannot recover from our
surprise at Mr. Carlyle's liking these letters; his predetermination must have
been strong indeed. Again, we see Cromwell ruling with the strong arm, and
carrying the spirit of monarchy to an excess which no Stuart could surpass.
Cromwell, indeed, is wise, and the king he had punished with death is
foolish; Charles is faithless, and Cromwell crafty; we see no other

difference. Cromwell does not, in power, abide by the principles that led
him to it; and we can't help—so rose-water imbecile are we!—admiring
those who do: one Lafayette, for instance—poor chevalier so despised by
Mr. Carlyle—for abiding by his principles, though impracticable, more than
Louis Philippe, who laid them aside, so far as necessary, "to secure peace to
the kingdom;" and to us it looks black for one who kills kings to grow to be
more kingly than a king.
The death of Charles I. was a boon to the world, for it marked the dawn of
a new era, when kings, in common with other men, are to be held
accountable by God and mankind for what they do. Many who took part in
this act which did require a courage and faith almost unparalleled, were, no
doubt, moved by the noblest sense of duty. We doubt not this had its share
in the bosom counsels of Cromwell. But we cannot sympathize with the
apparent satisfaction of Mr. Carlyle in seeing him engaged, two days after
the execution, in marriage treaty for his son. This seems more ruthlessness
than calmness. One who devoted so many days to public fasting and prayer,
on less occasions, might well make solemn pause on this. Mr. Carlyle thinks
much of some pleasant domestic letters from Cromwell. What brigand,
what pirate, fails to have some such soft and light feelings?
In short, we have no time to say all we think; but we stick to the received
notions of Old Noll, with his great, red nose, hard heart, long head, and
crafty ambiguities. Nobody ever doubted his great abilities and force of
will; neither doubt we that he was made an "instrument" just as he
professeth. But as to looking on him through Mr. Carlyle's glasses, we shall
not be sneered or stormed into it, unless he has other proof to offer than is
shown yet. And we resent the violence he offers both to our prejudices and
our perceptions. If he has become interested in Oliver, or any other pet
hyena, by studying his habits, is that any reason we should admit him to our
Pantheon? No! our imbecility shall keep fast the door against any thing
short of proofs that in the hyena a god is incarnated. Mr. Carlyle declares
that he sees it, but we really cannot. The hyena is surely not out of the
kingdom of God, but as to being the finest emblem of what is divine—no,
no!
In short, we can sympathize with the words of John Maidstone:—
"He [Cromwell] was a strong man in the dark perils of war; in the high
places of the field, hope shone in him like a pillar of fire, when it had gone

out in the others"—a poetic and sufficient account of the secret of his
power.
But Mr. Carlyle goes on to gild the refined gold thus:—
"A genuine king among men, Mr. Maidstone! The divinest sight this world
sees, when it is privileged to see such, and not be sickened with the unholy
apery of such."
We know you do with all your soul love kings and heroes, Mr. Carlyle, but
we are not sure you would always know the Sauls from the Davids. We fear,
if you had the disposal of the holy oil, you would be tempted to pour it on
the head of him who is taller by the head than all his brethren, without
sufficient care as to purity of inward testimony.
Such is the impression left on us by the book thus far, as to the view of its
hero; but as to what difficulties attended the writing the history of
Cromwell, the reader will like to see what Mr. Carlyle himself says:—
"These authentic utterances of the man Oliver himself—I have gathered
them from far and near; fished them up from the foul Lethean quagmires
where they lay buried; I have washed, or endeavored to wash, them clean
from foreign stupidities, (such a job of buck-washing as I do not long to
repeat;) and the world shall now see them in their own shape."
For the rest, this book is of course entertaining, witty, dramatic,
picturesque; all traits that are piquant, many that have profound interest, are
brought out better than new. The "letters and speeches" are put into readable
state, and this alone is a great benefit. They are a relief after Mr. Carlyle's
high-seasoned writing; and this again is a relief after their long-winded
dimnesses. Most of the heroic anecdotes of the time had been used up
before, but they lose nothing in the hands of Carlyle; and pictures of the
scenes, such as of Naseby fight, for instance, it was left to him to give. We
have passed over the hackneyed ground attended by a torch-bearer, who has
given a new animation to the procession of events, and cast a ruddy glow on
many a striking physiognomy. That any truth of high value has been
brought to light, we do not perceive—certainly nothing has been added to
our own sense of the greatness of the times, nor any new view presented
that we can adopt, as to the position and character of the agents.
We close with the only one of Cromwell's letters that we really like. Here
his religious words and his temper seem quite sincere.

"To my loving Brother, Colonel Valentine Walton: These.
July, 1644.
"Dear Sir: It's our duty to sympathize in all mercies; and to praise the
Lord together in chastisements or trials, so that we may sorrow together.
"Truly England and the church of God hath had a great favor from the
Lord, in this great victory given unto us, such as the like never was since
this war began. It had all the evidences of an absolute victory obtained by
the Lord's blessing upon the godly party principally. We never charged but
we routed the enemy. The left wing, which I commanded, being our own
horse, saving a few Scots in our rear, beat all the prince's horse. God make
them as stubble to our swords. We charged their regiments of foot with our
horse, and routed all we charged. The particulars I cannot relate now; but I
believe, of twenty thousand, the prince hath not four thousand left. Give
glory, all the glory, to God.
"Sir, God hath taken away your eldest son by a cannon-shot. It brake his
leg. We were necessitated to have it cut off, whereof he died.
"Sir, you know my own trials this way;[24] but the Lord supported me with
this, that the Lord took him into the happiness we all pant for and live for.
There is your precious child, full of glory, never to know sin or sorrow any
more. He was a gallant young man, exceedingly gracious. God give you his
comfort. Before his death he was so full of comfort, that to Frank Russel
and myself he could not express it, 'it was so great above his pain.' This he
said to us. Indeed it was admirable. A little after, he said one thing lay upon
his spirit. I asked him what that was. He told me it was, that God had not
suffered him to be any more the executioner of his enemies. At his fall, his
horse being killed with the bullet, and, as I am informed, three horses more,
I am told he bid them open to the right and left, that he might see the rogues
run. Truly he was exceedingly beloved in the army, of all that knew him.
But few knew him; for he was a precious young man, fit for God. You have
cause to bless the Lord. He is a glorious saint in heaven; wherein you ought
exceedingly to rejoice. Let this drink up your sorrow: seeing these are not
feigned words to comfort you, but the thing is so real and undoubted a truth.
You may do all things by the strength of Christ. Seek that, and you shall
easily bear your trial. Let this public mercy to the church of God make you
to forget your private sorrow. The Lord be your strength; so prays

"Your truly faithful and loving brother,
"OLIVER CROMWELL."
And add this noble passage, in which Carlyle speaks of the morbid
affection of Cromwell's mind:—
"In those years it must be that Dr. Simcott, physician in Huntingdon, had
to do with Oliver's hypochondriac maladies. He told Sir Philip Warwick,
unluckily specifying no date, or none that has survived, 'he had often been
sent for at midnight;' Mr. Cromwell for many years was very 'splenetic,'
(spleen-struck,) often thought he was just about to die, and also 'had fancies
about the Town Cross.'[25] Brief intimation, of which the reflective reader
may make a great deal. Samuel Johnson too had hypochondrias; all great
souls are apt to have; and to be in thick darkness generally, till the eternal
ways and the celestial guiding stars disclose themselves, and the vague
abyss of life knit itself up into firmaments for them. The temptations in the
wilderness, choices of Hercules, and the like, in succinct or loose form, are
appointed for every man that will assert a soul in himself and be a man. Let
Oliver take comfort in his dark sorrows and melancholies. The quantity of
sorrow he has, does it not mean withal the quantity of sympathy he has, the
quantity of faculty and victory he shall yet have? 'Our sorrow is the inverted
image of our nobleness.' The depth of our despair measures what capability,
and height of claim, we have to hope. Black smoke as of Tophet filling all
your universe, it can yet by true heart-energy become flame, and brilliancy
of heaven. Courage!"
Were the flame but a pure as well as a bright flame! Sometimes we know
the black phantoms change to white angel forms; the vulture is
metamorphosed into a dove. Was it so in this instance? Unlike Mr. Carlyle,
we are willing to let each reader judge for himself; but perhaps we should
not be so generous if we had studied ourselves sick in wading through all
that mass of papers, and had nothing to defend us against the bitterness of
biliousness, except a growing enthusiasm about our hero.

EMERSON'S ESSAYS[26]
AT the distance of three years this volume follows the first series of
Essays, which have already made to themselves a circle of readers,
attentive, thoughtful, more and more intelligent; and this circle is a large
one if we consider the circumstances of this country, and of England also, at
this time.
In England it would seem there are a larger number of persons waiting for
an invitation to calm thought and sincere intercourse than among ourselves.
Copies of Mr. Emerson's first published little volume called "Nature," have
there been sold by thousands in a short time, while one edition has needed
seven years to get circulated here. Several of his orations and essays from
the "Dial" have also been republished there, and met with a reverent and
earnest response.
We suppose that while in England the want of such a voice is as great as
here, a larger number are at leisure to recognize that want; a far larger
number have set foot in the speculative region, and have ears refined to
appreciate these melodious accents.
Our people, heated by a partisan spirit, necessarily occupied in these first
stages by bringing out the material resources of the land, not generally
prepared by early training for the enjoyment of books that require attention
and reflection, are still more injured by a large majority of writers and
speakers, who lend all their efforts to flatter corrupt tastes and mental
indolence, instead of feeling it their prerogative and their duty to admonish
the community of the danger and arouse it to nobler energy. The plan of the
popular writer or lecturer is not to say the best he knows in as few and well-
chosen words as he can, making it his first aim to do justice to the subject.
Rather he seeks to beat out a thought as thin as possible, and to consider
what the audience will be most willing to receive.
The result of such a course is inevitable. Literature and art must become
daily more degraded; philosophy cannot exist. A man who feels within his
mind some spark of genius, or a capacity for the exercises of talent, should
consider himself as endowed with a sacred commission. He is the natural
priest, the shepherd of the people. He must raise his mind as high as he can

towards the heaven of truth, and try to draw up with him those less gifted
by nature with ethereal lightness. If he does not so, but rather employs his
powers to flatter them in their poverty, and to hinder aspiration by useless
words, and a mere seeming of activity, his sin is great; he is false to God,
and false to man.
Much of this sin indeed is done ignorantly. The idea that literature calls
men to the genuine hierarchy is almost forgotten. One, who finds himself
able, uses his pen, as he might a trowel, solely to procure himself bread,
without having reflected on the position in which he thereby places himself.
Apart from the troop of mercenaries, there is one, still larger, of those who
use their powers merely for local and temporary ends, aiming at no
excellence other than may conduce to these. Among these rank persons of
honor and the best intentions; but they neglect the lasting for the transient,
as a man neglects to furnish his mind that he may provide the better for the
house in which his body is to dwell for a few years.
At a period when these sins and errors are prevalent, and threaten to
become more so, how can we sufficiently prize and honor a mind which is
quite pure from such? When, as in the present case, we find a man whose
only aim is the discernment and interpretation of the spiritual laws by which
we live, and move, and have our being, all whose objects are permanent,
and whose every word stands for a fact.
If only as a representative of the claims of individual culture in a nation
which is prone to lay such stress on artificial organization and external
results, Mr. Emerson would be invaluable here. History will inscribe his
name as a father of his country, for he is one who pleads her cause against
herself.
If New England may be regarded as a chief mental focus to the New
World,—and many symptoms seem to give her this place,—as to other
centres belong the characteristics of heart and lungs to the body politic; if
we may believe, as we do believe, that what is to be acted out, in the
country at large, is, most frequently, first indicated there, as all the
phenomena of the nervous system are in the fantasies of the brain, we may
hail as an auspicious omen the influence Mr. Emerson has there obtained,
which is deep-rooted, increasing, and, over the younger portion of the
community, far greater than that of any other person.

His books are received there with a more ready intelligence than
elsewhere, partly because his range of personal experience and illustration
applies to that region; partly because he has prepared the way for his books
to be read by his great powers as a speaker.
The audience that waited for years upon the lectures, a part of which is
incorporated into these volumes of Essays, was never large, but it was
select, and it was constant. Among the hearers were some, who, though,
attracted by the beauty of character and manner, they were willing to hear
the speaker through, yet always went away discontented. They were
accustomed to an artificial method, whose scaffolding could easily be
retraced, and desired an obvious sequence of logical inferences. They
insisted there was nothing in what they had heard, because they could not
give a clear account of its course and purport. They did not see that Pindar's
odes might be very well arranged for their own purpose, and yet not bear
translating into the methods of Mr. Locke.
Others were content to be benefited by a good influence, without a strict
analysis of its means. "My wife says it is about the elevation of human
nature, and so it seems to me," was a fit reply to some of the critics. Many
were satisfied to find themselves excited to congenial thought and nobler
life, without an exact catalogue of the thoughts of the speaker.
Those who believed no truth could exist, unless encased by the burrs of
opinion, went away utterly baffled. Sometimes they thought he was on their
side; then presently would come something on the other. He really seemed
to believe there were two sides to every subject, and even to intimate higher
ground, from which each might be seen to have an infinite number of sides
or bearings, an impertinence not to be endured! The partisan heard but once,
and returned no more.
But some there were,—simple souls,—whose life had been, perhaps,
without clear light, yet still a-search after truth for its own sake, who were
able to receive what followed on the suggestion of a subject in a natural
manner, as a stream of thought. These recognized, beneath the veil of
words, the still small voice of conscience, the vestal fires of lone religious
hours, and the mild teachings of the summer woods.
The charm of the elocution, too, was great. His general manner was that of
the reader, occasionally rising into direct address or invocation in passages
where tenderness or majesty demanded more energy. At such times both eye

and voice called on a remote future to give a worthy reply,—a future which
shall manifest more largely the universal soul as it was then manifest to this
soul. The tone of the voice was a grave body tone, full and sweet rather than
sonorous, yet flexible, and haunted by many modulations, as even
instruments of wood and brass seem to become after they have been long
played on with skill and taste; how much more so the human voice! In the
more expressive passages it uttered notes of silvery clearness, winning, yet
still more commanding. The words uttered in those tones floated a while
above us, then took root in the memory like winged seed.
In the union of an even rustic plainness with lyric inspirations, religious
dignity with philosophic calmness, keen sagacity in details with boldness of
view, we saw what brought to mind the early poets and legislators of
Greece—men who taught their fellows to plough and avoid moral evil, sing
hymns to the gods, and watch the metamorphoses of nature. Here in civic
Boston was such a man—one who could see man in his original grandeur
and his original childishness, rooted in simple nature, raising to the heavens
the brow and eyes of a poet.
And these lectures seemed not so much lectures as grave didactic poems,
theogonies, perhaps, adorned by odes when some power was in question
whom the poet had best learned to serve, and with eclogues wisely
portraying in familiar tongue the duties of man to man and "harmless
animals."
Such was the attitude in which the speaker appeared to that portion of the
audience who have remained permanently attached to him. They value his
words as the signets of reality; receive his influence as a help and incentive
to a nobler discipline than the age, in its general aspect, appears to require;
and do not fear to anticipate the verdict of posterity in claiming for him the
honors of greatness, and, in some respects, of a master.
In New England Mr. Emerson thus formed for himself a class of readers
who rejoice to study in his books what they already know by heart. For,
though the thought has become familiar, its beautiful garb is always fresh
and bright in hue.
A similar circle of "like-minded" persons the books must and do form for
themselves, though with a movement less directly powerful, as more distant
from its source.

The Essays have also been obnoxious to many charges; to that of
obscurity, or want of perfect articulation; of "euphuism," as an excess of
fancy in proportion to imagination; and an inclination, at times, to subtlety
at the expense of strength, have been styled. The human heart complains of
inadequacy, either in the nature or experience of the writer, to represent its
full vocation and its deeper needs. Sometimes it speaks of this want as
"under development," or a want of expansion which may yet be remedied;
sometimes doubts whether "in this mansion there be either hall or portal to
receive the loftier of the passions." Sometimes the soul is deified at the
expense of nature, then again nature at that of man; and we are not quite
sure that we can make a true harmony by balance of the statements. This
writer has never written one good work, if such a work be one where the
whole commands more attention than the parts, or if such a one be
produced only where, after an accumulation of materials, fire enough be
applied to fuse the whole into one new substance. This second series is
superior in this respect to the former; yet in no one essay is the main stress
so obvious as to produce on the mind the harmonious effect of a noble river
or a tree in full leaf. Single passages and sentences engage our attention too
much in proportion. These Essays, it has been justly said, tire like a string
of mosaics or a house built of medals. We miss what we expect in the work
of the great poet, or the great philosopher—the liberal air of all the zones;
the glow, uniform yet various in tint, which is given to a body by free
circulation of the heart's blood from the hour of birth. Here is, undoubtedly,
the man of ideas; but we want the ideal man also—want the heart and
genius of human life to interpret it; and here our satisfaction is not so
perfect. We doubt this friend raised himself too early to the perpendicular,
and did not lie along the ground long enough to hear the secret whispers of
our parent life. We could wish he might be thrown by conflicts on the lap of
mother earth, to see if he would not rise again with added powers.
All this we may say, but it cannot excuse us from benefiting by the great
gifts that have been given, and assigning them their due place.
Some painters paint on a red ground. And this color may be supposed to
represent the groundwork most immediately congenial to most men, as it is
the color of blood, and represents human vitality. The figures traced upon it
are instinct with life in its fulness and depth.
But other painters paint on a gold ground. And a very different, but no less
natural, because also a celestial beauty, is given to their works who choose

for their foundation the color of the sunbeam, which Nature has preferred
for her most precious product, and that which will best bear the test of
purification—gold.
If another simile may be allowed, another no less apt is at hand. Wine is
the most brilliant and intense expression of the powers of earth. It is her
potable fire, her answer to the sun. It exhilarates, it inspires, but then it is
liable to fever and intoxicate, too, the careless partaker.
Mead was the chosen drink of the northern gods. And this essence of the
honey of the mountain bee was not thought unworthy to revive the souls of
the valiant who had left their bodies on the fields of strife below.
Nectar should combine the virtues of the ruby wine, the golden mead,
without their defects or dangers.
Two high claims on the attention of his contemporaries our writer can
vindicate. One from his sincerity. You have his thought just as it found
place in the life of his own soul. Thus, however near or relatively distant its
approximation to absolute truth, its action on you cannot fail to be healthful.
It is a part of the free air.
Emerson belongs to that band of whom there may be found a few in every
age, and who now in known human history may be counted by hundreds,
who worship the one God only, the God of Truth. They worship, not saints,
nor creeds, nor churches, nor reliques, nor idols in any form. The mind is
kept open to truth, and life only valued as a tendency towards it. This must
be illustrated by acts and words of love, purity and intelligence. Such are
the salt of the earth; let the minutest crystal of that salt be willingly by us
held in solution.
The other claim is derived from that part of his life, which, if sometimes
obstructed or chilled by the critical intellect, is yet the prevalent and the
main source of his power. It is that by which he imprisons his hearer only to
free him again as a "liberating God," (to use his own words.) But, indeed,
let us use them altogether, for none other, ancient or modern, can more
worthily express how, making present to us the courses and destinies of
nature, he invests himself with her serenity and animates us with her joy.
"Poetry was all written before time was; and whenever we are so finely
organized that we can penetrate into that region where the air is music, we
hear those primal warblings, and attempt to write them down, but we lose
ever and anon a word or a verse, and substitute something of our own, and

thus miswrite the poem. The men of more delicate ear write down these
cadences more faithfully, and these transcripts, though imperfect, become
the songs of the nations."
Thus have we, in a brief and unworthy manner, indicated some views of
these books. The only true criticism of these or any good books may be
gained by making them the companions of our lives. Does every accession
of knowledge or a juster sense of beauty make us prize them more? Then
they are good, indeed, and more immortal than mortal. Let that test be
applied to these Essays which will lead to great and complete poems—
somewhere.

CAPITAL PUNISHMENT.[27]
WE have had this book before us for several weeks, but the task of reading
it has been so repulsive that we have been obliged to get through it by short
stages, with long intervals of rest and refreshment between, and have only
just reached the end. We believe, however, we are now possessed of its
substance, so far as it is possible to admit into any mind matter wholly
uncongenial with its structure, its faith, and its hope.
Meanwhile others have shown themselves more energetic in the task, and
notices have appeared that express, in part, our own views. Among others
an able critic has thus summed up his impressions:—
"Of the whole we will say briefly, that its premises are monstrous, its
reasoning sophistical, its conclusions absurd, and its spirit diabolic."
We know not that we can find a better scheme of arrangement for what we
have to say than by dividing it into sections under these four heads:—
1st. The premises are monstrous. Here we must add the qualification, they
are monstrous to us. The God of these writers is not the God we recognize;
the views they have of human nature are antipodal to ours. We believe in a
Creative Spirit, the essense of whose being is Love. He has created men in
the spirit of love, intending to develop them to perfect harmony with
himself. He has permitted the temporary existence of evil as a condition
necessary to bring out in them free agency and individuality of character.
Punishment is the necessary result of a bad choice in them; it is not meant
by him as vengeance, but as an admonition to choose better. Man is not
born totally evil; he is born capable both of good and evil, and the Holy
Spirit in working on him only quickens the soul already there to know its
Father. To one who takes such views the address of Jesus becomes
intelligible—"Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful."
"For with the same measure that ye mete withal, it shall be measured to you
again."
Those who take these views of the relation between God and man must
naturally tend to have punishment consist as much as possible in the inward
spiritual results of faults, rather than a violent outward enforcement of
penalty. They must, so far as possible, seek to revere God by showing

themselves brotherly to man; and if they wish to obey Christ, will not forget
that he came especially to call sinners to repentance.
The views of these writers are the opposite of all this. We need not state
them; they are sufficiently indicated in each page of their own. Their
conclusions are the natural result of such premises. We could say nothing
about either, except to express dissent from beginning to end. Yet would it
be sweet and noble, and worthy of this late period of human progress, if
their position had been stated in a spirit of religious, of manly courtesy; if
they had had the soul to say, "We differ from you, but we know that so wide
and full a stream of thought and emotion as you are moved by could not,
under the providential rule in which we believe, have arisen in vain. The
object of every such manifestation of life must be to bring out truth; come,
let us seek it together. Let us show you our view, compare it with yours, and
let us see which is the better. If, as we think, the truth lie with us, what joy
will it be for us to cast the clear light on the object of your aspirations!"
Of this degree of liberality we have known some, even, who served the
same creed as these writers to be capable. There is, indeed, a higher spirit,
which, believing all forms of opinion which we hold in the present stage of
our growth can be but approximations to truth, and that God has permitted
to the multitude of men a multitude of ways by which they may approach
one common goal, looks with reverence on all modes of faith sincerely held
and acted upon, and while it rejoices in those souls which have reached the
higher stages of spiritual growth, has no despair as to those which still
grope in a narrow path and by a glimmering light. Such liberality is, of
course, out of the question with such writers as the present. Their faith
binds them to believe that they have absolute truth, and that all who do not
believe as they do are wretched heretics. Those whose creed is of narrower
scope are to them hateful bigots; but also those with whom it is of wider are
latitudinarians or infidels. The spot of earth on which they stand is the only
one safe from the conflagration, and only through spectacles and spyglasses
such as are used by them can the sun and stars be seen. Yet, as we said
before, some such, though incapacitated for an intellectual, are not so for a
spiritual tolerance. With them the heart, more Christ-like than the creed,
urges to a spirit of love and reverence even towards convictions opposed to
their own. The sincere man is always respectable in their eyes, and they
cannot help feeling that, wherever there is a desire for truth, there is the
spirit of God, and his true priests will approach with gentleness, and do

their ministry with holy care. Unhappily, it is very different with the persons
before us.
We let go the first two counts of the indictment. Their premises are, as we
have said, such as we totally dissent from, and their conclusions such as
naturally flow from those premises. Yet they are those of a large body of
men, and there must, no doubt, be temporary good in this state of things, or
it would not be permitted. When these writers say, that to them moral and
penal are coincident terms, they display a state of mind which prefers
basing virtue on the fear of punishment, rather than the love of right. If this
be sincerely their state, if the idea of morality is with them entirely
dependent on the retributions upon vice, rather than the loveliness and joys
of goodness, it is impossible for those who are in a different state of mind to
say what they do need. It may seem to us, indeed, that, if the strait jacket
was taken off, they might recover the natural energy of their frames, and do
far better without it; or that, if no longer hurried along the road by the
impending lash behind, they might uplift their eyes, and find sufficient
cause for speed in the glory visible before, though at a distance; however, it
is not for us to say what their wants are. Let them choose their own
principles of action, and if they lead to purity of life, and benevolence, and
humanity of heart, we will not say a word against them.
But in the instance before us, they do not produce these good fruits, but
the contrary; and therefore we have something to say on the other part of
the criticism, to wit: that "the reasoning is sophistical, and the spirit
diabolic;" for, indeed, in the sense of pride by which the angels fell,
arrogance of judgment, malice, and all uncharitableness, we have never
looked on printed pages more deeply sinful. We love an honest lover; but
next best, we, with Dr. Johnson, know how to respect an honest hater. But
even he would scarce endure so bitter and ardent haters as these, and with
so many and inconsistent objects of hatred—who hate Catholics and
thorough Protestants, hate materialists, and hate spiritualists. Their list is
really too large for human sympathy.
We wish, however, to make all due allowance for incapacity in these
writers to do better; and their disqualifications for their task, apart from a
form of belief which inclines them rather to cling to the past, than to seek
progress for the future, seem to be many.

The "reasoning is sophistical," and it would need the patience of a
Socrates to unravel the weary web, and convince these sophists, against
their will, that they are exactly in the opposite region to what they suppose.
For the task we have not space, skill, or patience; but we can give some
hints by which readers may be led to examine whether it is so or not.
These writers profess to occupy the position of defence; surely never was
one sustained so in the spirit of offence.
1st. They appeal either to the natural or regenerate man, as suits their
purpose. Sometimes all traditions and their literal interpretations are right;
sometimes it is impossible to interpret them aright, unless according to
some peculiar doctrine, and the natural inference of the common mind
would be an error.
2d. They strain, but vainly, to show the New Testament no improvement
on the Old, and themselves in harmonious relations to both. On this subject
we would confidently leave the arbitration to a mind—could such a one be
found—sufficiently disciplined to examine the subject, and new both to the
New Testament and this volume, as that of Rammohun Roy might have
been, whether its views are not of the same strain that Jesus sought to
correct and enlighten among the Jews, and whether the writers do not treat
the teachings of the new dispensation most unfairly, in their desire to wrest
them into the service of the old.
3d. Wherever there is a weak place in the argument, it is filled up by abuse
of the opposite party. The words "absurd," "infidel," "blasphemous,"
"shallow philosophy," "sickly sentimentalism," and the like, are among the
favorite missiles of these defenders of the truth. They are of a sort whose
frequent use is generally supposed to argue the want of a shield of reason
and a heart of faith.
And this brings us to a more close consideration of the spirit of this book,
characterized by our contemporary as "diabolic." And we, also, cannot
excuse ourselves from marking it as, in this respect, one of the worst books
we have ever seen.
It is not merely bitter intolerance, arrogance, and want of spiritual
perception, which we have to condemn in these writers. It is a want of
fairness and honor, of which we think they must be conscious. We fear they
are of those who hold the opinion that the end sanctifies the means, and
who, by pretending to serve the God of truth by other means than strict

truth, have drawn upon the "ministers of religion" the frequent obloquy of
"priestcraft." How else are we to construe the artful use of the words
"dishonest" and "infidel," wherever they are likely to awaken the fears and
prejudices of the ignorant?
Of as bad a stamp as any is the part of this book headed "Spurious Public
Opinion." Here, as in the insinuations against Charles Burleigh, we are
unable to believe the writers to be sincere. Where we think they are,
however poor and narrow we may esteem their statement, we can respect it,
but here we cannot.
Who can believe that such passages as the following stand for any thing
real in the mind of the writer?
"Indeed, there is nothing that can possibly check the spirit of murder, but
the fear of death. That was all that Cain feared; he did not say, People will
put me in prison, but, They will put me to death; and how many other
murders he may have committed, when released from that fear, the sacred
writer does not tell us!"
Why does not the writer of this passage draw the inference, and accuse
God of mistake, as he says his opponents accuse Him, whenever they
attempt to get beyond the Jewish ideas of vengeance. He plainly thinks
death was the only safe penalty in this case of Cain.
"The reasoning from these drivellings of depravity in malefactors is to the
last degree wretched and absurd. Hard pushed indeed must he be in
argument who can consent to dive down into the polluted heart of a
Newgate criminal, in order to fish up, from the confessions of his
monstrous, unnatural obduracy, an argument in that very obduracy against
the fit punishment of his own crimes."
We can only wish for such a man, that the vicissitudes of life may break
through the crust of theological arrogance and Phariseeism, and force him
to "dive down" into the depths of his own nature. We should see afterwards
whether he would be so forward to throw stones at malefactors, so eager to
hurry souls to what he regards as a final account.
But we have said enough as to the spirit and tendency of this book. We
shall only add a few words as to the unworthy use of the word "infidel," in
the attempt to fix a stigma upon opponents. We feel still more contempt
than indignation at the desire to work in this way on the unthinking and
ignorant.

We ourselves are of the number stigmatized by these persons as sharing an
infidel tendency, as are all not enlisted under their own sectarian banner.
They, on their side, seem to us unbelievers in all that is most pure and holy,
and in the saving grace of love. They do not believe in God, as we believe;
they seem to us utterly deficient in the spirit of Christ, and to be of the
number of those who are always calling, "Lord, Lord," yet never have
known him. We find throughout these pages the temper of "Lord, I thank
thee that I am not as other men are"—hatred of those whom they deem
Gentiles, and a merciless spirit towards the sinner; yet we do not take upon
ourselves to give them the name of infidels, and we solemnly call them to
trial before the bar of the Only Wise and Pure, the Searcher of hearts, to
render an account of this daring assumption. We ask them in that presence,
if they are not of the class threatened with "retribution" for saying to their
brother, "Thou fool;" and that not merely in the heat of anger, but coolly,
pertinaciously, and in a thousand ways.
We call to sit in council the spirits of our Puritan fathers, and ask if such
was the right of individual judgment, of private conscience, they came here
to vindicate. And we solicit the verdict of posterity as to whether the spirit
of mercy or of vengeance be the more divine, and whether the denunciatory
and personal mode chosen by these writers for carrying on this inquiry be
the true one.
We wish most sincerely this book had been a wise and noble one. To
ascertain just principles, it is necessary that the discussion should be full
and fair, and both sides ably argued. After this has been done, the sense of
the world can decide. It would be a happiness for which it might seem that
man at this time of day is ripe, that the opposing parties should meet in
open lists as brothers, believing each that the other desired only that the
truth should triumph, and able to clasp hands as men of different structure
and ways of thinking, but fellow-students of the divine will. O, had we but
found such an adversary, above the use of artful abuse, or the feints of
sophistry, able to believe in the noble intention, of a foe as of a friend, how
cheerily would the trumpets ring out while the assembled world echoed the
signal words, "God speed the Right!" The tide of progress rolls onward,
swelling more and more with the lives of those who would fain see all men
called to repentance. It must be a strong arm, indeed, that can build a dam
to stay it even for a moment. None such do we see yet; but we should

rejoice in a noble and strong opponent, putting forth all his power for
conscience's sake. God speed the Right!

PART II.

MISCELLANIES.
FIRST OF JANUARY

THE new year dawns, and its appearance is hailed by a flutter of festivity.
Men and women run from house to house, scattering gifts, smiles, and
congratulations. It is a custom that seems borrowed from a better day,
unless indeed it be a prophecy that such must come.
For why so much congratulation? A year has passed; we are nearer by a
twelvemonth to the term of this earthly probation. It is a solemn thought;
and though the consciousness of having hallowed the days by our best
endeavor, and of having much occasion to look to the Ruling Power of all
with grateful benediction, must, in cases where such feelings are unalloyed,
bring joy, one would think it must even then be a grave joy, and one that
would disincline to this loud gayety in welcoming a new year; another year
—in which we may, indeed, strive forward in a good spirit, and find our
strivings blest, but must surely expect trials, temptations, and
disappointments from without; frailty, short-coming, or convulsion in
ourselves.
If it be appropriate to a reflective habit of mind to ask with each night-fall
the Pythagorean questions, how much more so at the close of the year!
"What hast thou done that's worth the doing?
And what pursued that's worth pursuing?
What sought thou knewest thou shouldst shun?
What done thou shouldst have left undone?"
The intellectual man will also ask, What new truths have been opened to
me, or what facts presented that will lead to the discovery of truths? The
poet and the lover,—What new forms of beauty have been presented for my
delight, and as memorable illustrations of the divine presence—unceasing,
but oftentimes unfelt by our sluggish natures.

Are there many men who fail sometimes to ask themselves questions to
this depth? who do not care to know whether they have done right, or
forborne to do wrong; whether their spirits have been enlightened by truth,
or kindled by beauty?
Yes, strange to say, there are many who, despite the natural aspirations of
the soul and the revelations showered upon the world, think only whether
they have made money; whether the world thinks more highly of them than
it did in bygone years; whether wife and children have been in good bodily
health, and what those who call to pay their respects and drink the new
year's coffee, will think of their carpets, new also.
How often is it that the rich man thinks even of that proposed by Dickens
as the noblest employment of the season, making the poor happy in the way
he likes best for himself, by distribution of turkey and plum-pudding!
Some, indeed, adorn the day with this much grace, though we doubt
whether it be oftenest those who could each, with ease, make that one day a
glimpse of comfort to a thousand who pass the other winter days in
shivering poverty. But some such there are who go about to the dark and
frosty dwellings, giving the "mite" where and when it is most needed. We
knew a lady, all whose riches consisted in her good head and two hands.
Widow of an eminent lawyer, but keeping boarders for a livelihood;
engaged in that hardest of occupations, with her house full and her hands
full, she yet found time to make and bake for new year's day a hundred pies
—and not the pie from which, being cut, issued the famous four-and-twenty
blackbirds, gave more cause for merriment, or was a fitter "dish to set
before the king."
God bless his majesty, the good king, who on such a day cares for the least
as much as the greatest; and like Henry IV., proposes it as a worthy aim of
his endeavor that "every poor man shall have his chicken in the pot." This
does not seem, on superficial survey, such a wonderful boon to crave for
creatures made in God's own likeness, yet is it one that no king could ever
yet bestow on his subjects, if we except the king of Cockaigne. Our maker
of the hundred pies is the best prophet we have seen, as yet, of such a
blissful state.
But mostly to him who hath is given in material as well as in spiritual
things, and we fear the pleasures of this day are arranged almost wholly in
reference to the beautiful, the healthy, the wealthy, the witty, and that but

few banquets are prepared for the halt, the blind, and the sorrowful. But
where they are, of a surety water turns to wine by inevitable Christ-power;
no aid of miracle need be invoked. As for thoughts which should make an
epoch of the period, we suppose the number of these to be in about the
same proportion to the number of minds capable of thought, that the pearls
now existent bear to the oysters still subsistent.
Can we make pearls from our oyster-bed? At least, let us open some of the
shells and try.
Dear public and friends! we wish you a happy new year. We trust that the
year past has given earnest of such a one in so far as having taught you
somewhat how to deserve and to appreciate it.
For ourselves, the months have brought much, though, perhaps, superficial
instruction. Its scope has been chiefly love and hope for all human beings,
and among others for thyself.
We have seen many fair poesies of human life, in which, however, the
tragic thread has not been wanting. We have beheld the exquisite
developments of childhood, and sunned the heart in its smiles. But also
have we discerned the evil star looming up that threatened cloud and wreck
to its future years. We have seen beings of some precious gifts lost
irrecoverably, as regards this present life, from inheritance of a bad
organization and unfortunate circumstances of early years. The victims of
vice we have observed lying in the gutter, companied by vermin, trampled
upon by sensuality and ignorance, and saw those who wished not to rise,
and those who strove so to do, but fell back through weakness. Sadder and
more ominous still, we have seen the good man—in many impulses and
acts of most pure, most liberal, and undoubted goodness—yet have we
noted a spot of base indulgence, a fibre of brutality canker in a vital part
this fine plant, and, while we could not withdraw love and esteem for the
good we could not doubt, have wept secretly in the heart for the ill we could
not deny. We have observed two deaths; one of the sinner, early cut down;
one of the just, full of years and honor—both were calm; both professed
their reliance on the wisdom of a heavenly Father. We have looked upon the
beauteous shows of nature in undisturbed succession, holy moonlight on the
snows, loving moonlight on the summer fields, the stars which disappoint
never and bless ever, the flowing waters which soothe and stimulate, a
garden of roses calling for queens among women, poets and heroes among

men. We have marked a desire to answer to this call, and genius brought
rich wine, but spilt it on the way, from her careless, fickle gait; and virtue
tainted with a touch of the peacock; and philosophy, never enjoying, always
seeking, had got together all the materials for the crowning experiment, but
there was no love to kindle the fire under the furnace, and the precious
secret is not precipitated yet, for the pot will not boil to make the gold
through your
"Double, double,
Toil and trouble,"
if love do not fan the fire.
We have seen the decay of friendships unable to endure the light of an
ideal hope—have seen, too, their resurrection in a faith and hope beyond
the tomb, where the form lies we once so fondly cherished. It is not dead,
but sleepeth; and we watch, but must weep, too, sometimes, for the night is
cold and lonely in the place of tombs.
Nature has appeared dressed in her veil of snowy flowers for the bridal.
We have seen her brooding over her joys, a young mother in the pride and
fulness of beauty, and then bearing her offspring to their richly ornamented
sepulchre, and lately observed her as if kneeling with folded hands in the
stillness of prayer, while the bare trees and frozen streams bore witness to
her patience.
O, much, much have we seen, and a little learned. Such is the record of the
private mind; and yet, as the bright snake-skin is cast, many sigh and cry,—
"The wiser mind
Mourns less for what Time takes away
Than what he leaves behind."
But for ourselves, we find there is kernel in the nut, though its ripening be
deferred till the late frosty weather, and it prove a hard nut to crack even
then. Looking at the individual, we see a degree of growth, or the promise
of such. In the child there is a force which will outlast the wreck, and reach
at last the promised shore. The good man, once roused from his moral
lethargy, shall make atonement for his fault, and endure a penance that will
deepen and purify his whole nature. The poor lost ones claim a new trial in

a new life, and will there, we trust, seize firmer hold on the good for the
experience they have had of the bad.
"We never see the stars
Till we can see nought else."
The seeming losses are, in truth, but as pruning of the vine to make the
grapes swell more richly.
But how is it with those larger individuals, the nations, and that congress
of such, the world? We must take a broad and superficial view of these, as
we have of private life; and in neither case can more be done. The secrets of
the confessional, or rather of the shrine, do not come on paper, unless in
poetic form.
So we will not try to search and mine, but only to look over the world
from an ideal point of view.
Here we find the same phenomena repeated; the good nation is yet
somehow so sick at heart that you are not sure its goodness will ever
produce a harmony of life; over the young nation, (our own,) rich in energy
and full of glee, brood terrible omens; others, as Poland and Italy, seem
irrecoverably lost. They may revive, but we feel as if it must be under new
forms.
Forms come and go, but principles are developed and displayed more and
more. The caldron simmers, and so great is the fire that we expect it soon to
boil over, and new fates appear for Europe.
Spain is dying by inches; England shows symptoms of having passed her
meridian; Austria has taken opium, but she must awake ere long; France is
in an uneasy dream—she knows she has been very sick, has had terrible
remedies administered, and ought to be getting thoroughly well, which she
is not. Louis Philippe watches by her pillow, doses and bleeds her, so that
she cannot fairly try her strength, and find whether something or nothing
has been done. But Louis Philippe and Metternich must soon, in the course
of nature, leave this scene; and then there will be none to keep out air and
light from the chamber, and the patients will be roused and ascertain their
true condition.
No power is in the ascending course except the Russian; and that has such
a condensation of brute force, animated by despotic will, that it seems
sometimes as if it might by and by stride over Europe and face us across the

water. Then would be opposed to one another the two extremes of
Autocracy and Democracy, and a trial of strength would ensue between the
two principles more grand and full than any ever seen on this planet, and of
which the result must be to bind mankind by one chain of convictions.
Should, indeed, Despotism and Democracy meet as the two slaveholding
powers of the world, the result can hardly be predicted. But there is room in
the intervening age for many changes, and the czars profess to wish to free
their serfs, as our planters do to free their slaves, and we suppose with equal
sincerity; but the need of sometimes professing such desires is a deference
to the progress of principles which bid fair to have their era yet.
We hope such an era steadfastly, notwithstanding the deeds of darkness
that have made this year forever memorable in our annals. Our nation has
indeed shown that the lust of gain is at present her ruling passion. She is not
only resolute, but shameless, about it, and has no doubt or scruple as to
laying aside the glorious office, assigned her by fate, of herald of freedom,
light, and peace to the civilized world.
Yet we must not despair. Even so the Jewish king, crowned with all gifts
that Heaven could bestow, was intoxicated by their plenitude, and went
astray after the most worthless idols. But he was not permitted to forfeit
finally the position designed for him: he was drawn or dragged back to it;
and so shall it be with this nation. There are trials in store which shall
amend us.
We must believe that the pure blood shown in the time of our revolution
still glows in the heart; but the body of our nation is full of foreign
elements. A large proportion of our citizens, or their parents, came here for
worldly advantage, and have never raised their minds to any idea of destiny
or duty. More money—more land! are all the watchwords they know. They
have received the inheritance earned by the fathers of the revolution,
without their wisdom and virtue to use it. But this cannot last. The vision of
those prophetic souls must be realized, else the nation could not exist; every
body must at least "have soul enough to save the expense of salt," or it
cannot be preserved alive.
What a year it has been with us! Texas annexed, and more annexations in
store; slavery perpetuated, as the most striking new feature of these
movements. Such are the fruits of American love of liberty! Mormons
murdered and driven out, as an expression of American freedom of

conscience; Cassius Clay's paper expelled from Kentucky; that is American
freedom of the press. And all these deeds defended on the true Russian
grounds, "We (the stronger) know what you (the weaker) ought to do and
be, and it shall be so."
Thus the principles which it was supposed, some ten years back, had
begun to regenerate the world, are left without a trophy for this past year,
except in the spread of Rongé's movement in Germany, and that of
associative and communist principles both here and in Europe, which, let
the worldling deem as he will about their practicability, he cannot deny to
be animated by faith in God and a desire for the good of man. We must add
to these the important symptoms of the spread of peace principles.
Meanwhile, if the more valuable springs of action seem to lie dormant for
a time, there is a constant invention and perfection of the means of action
and communication which seems to say, "Do but wait patiently; there is
something of universal importance to be done by and by, and all is
preparing for it to be universally known and used at once." Else what avail
magnetic telegraphs, steamers, and rail-cars traversing every rood of land
and ocean, phonography and the mingling of all literatures, till North
embraces South and Denmark lays her head upon the lap of Italy? Surely
there would not be all this pomp of preparation as to the means of
communion, unless there were like to be something worthy to be
communicated.
Amid the signs of the breaking down of barriers, we may mention the
Emperor Nicholas letting his daughter pass from the Greek to the Roman
church, for the sake of marrying her to the Austrian prince. Again, similarity
between him and us: he, too, is shameless; for while he signs this marriage
contract with one hand, he holds the knout in the other to drive the Roman
Catholic Poles into the Greek church. But it is a fatal sign for his empire.
'Tis but the first step that costs, and the Russians may look back to the
marriage of the Grand Duchess Olga, as the Chinese will to the
cannonading of the English, as the first sign of dissolution in the present
form of national life.
A similar token is given by the violation of etiquette of which Mr. Polk is
accused in his message. He, at the head of a government, speaks of
governments and their doings straightforward, as he would of persons, and

the tower, stronghold of the idea of a former age, now propped up by
etiquettes and civilities only, trembles to its foundation.
Another sign of the times is the general panic which the decay of the
potato causes. We believe this is not without a providential meaning, and
will call attention still more to the wants of the people at large. New and
more provident regulations must be brought out, that they may not again be
left with only a potato between them and starvation. By another of these
whimsical coincidences between the histories of Aristocracy and
Democracy, the supply of truffles is also failing. The land is losing the "nice
things" that the queen (truly a young queen) thought might be eaten in place
of bread. Does not this indicate a period in which it will be felt that there
must be provision for all—the rich shall not have their truffles if the poor
are driven to eat nettles, as the French and Irish have in bygone ages?
The poem of which we here give a prose translation lately appeared in
Germany. It is written by Moritz Hartmann, and contains the gist of the
matter.
MISTRESS POTATO.
There was a great stately house full of people, who have been running in
and out of its lofty gates ever since the gray times of Olympus. There they
wept, laughed, shouted, mourned, and, like day and night, came the usual
changes of joys with plagues and sorrows. Haunting that great house up and
down, making, baking, and roasting, covering and waiting on the table, has
there lived a vast number of years a loyal serving maid of the olden time—
her name was Mrs. Potato. She was a still, little, old mother, who wore no
bawbles or laces, but always had to be satisfied with her plain, every-day
clothes; and unheeded, unhonored, oftentimes jeered at and forgotten, she
served all day at the kitchen fire, and slept at night in the worst room. When
she brought the dishes to table she got rarely a thankful glance; only at
times some very poor man would in secret shake kindly her hand.
Generation after generation passed by, as the trees blossom, bear fruit, and
wither; but faithful remained the old housemaid, always the servant of the
last heir.
But one morning—hear what happened. All the people came to table, and
lo! there was nothing to eat, for our good old Mistress Potato had not been
able to rise from her bed. She felt sharp pains creeping through her poor old
bones. No wonder she was worn out at last! She had not in all her life dared

take a day's rest, lest so the poor should starve. Indeed, it is wonderful that
her good will should have kept her up so long. She must have had a great
constitution to begin with.
The guests had to go away without breakfast. They were a little troubled,
but hoped to make up for it at dinner time. But dinner time came, and the
table was empty; and then, indeed, they began to inquire about the welfare
of Cookmaid Potato. And up into her dark chamber, where she lay on her
poor bed, came great and little, young and old, to ask after the good
creature. "What can be done for her?" "Bring warm clothes, medicine, a
better bed." "Lay aside your work to help her." "If she dies we shall never
again be able to fill the table;" and now, indeed, they sang her praises.
O, what a fuss about the sick bed in that moist and mouldy chamber! and
out doors it was just the same—priests with their masses, processions, and
prayers, and all the world ready to walk to penance, if Mistress Potato could
but be saved. And the doctors in their wigs, and counsellors in masks of
gravity, sat there to devise some remedy to avert this terrible ill.
As when a most illustrious dame is recovering from birth of a son, so now
bulletins inform the world of the health of Mistress Potato, and, not content
with what they thus learn, couriers and lackeys besiege the door; nay, the
king's coach is stopping there. Yes! yes! the humble poor maid, 'tis about
her they are all so frightened! Who would ever have believed it in days
when the table was nicely covered?
The gentlemen of pens and books, priests, kings, lords, and ministers, all
have senses to scent our famine. Natheless Mistress Potato gets no better.
May God help her for the sake, not of such people, but of the poor. For the
great it is a token they should note, that all must crumble and fall to ruin, if
they will work and weary to death the poor maid who cooks in the kitchen.
She lived for you in the dirt and ashes, provided daily for poor and rich;
you ought to humble yourselves for her sake. Ah, could we hope that you
would take a hint, and next time pay some heed to the housemaid before she
is worn and wearied to death!

So sighs, rather than hopes, Moritz Hartmann. The wise ministers of
England, indeed, seem much more composed than he supposes them. They
are like the old man who, when he saw the avalanche coming down upon
his village, said, "It is coming, but I shall have time to fill my pipe once

more." He went in to do so, and was buried beneath the ruins. But Sir
Robert Peel, who is so deliberate, has, doubtless, manna in store for those
who have lost their customary food.
Another sign of the times is, that there are left on the earth none of the last
dynasty of geniuses, rich in so many imperial heads. The world is full of
talent, but it flows downward to water the plain. There are no towering
heights, no Mont Blancs now. We cannot recall one great genius at this day
living. The time of prophets is over, and the era they prophesied must be at
hand; in its couduct a larger proportion of the human race shall take part
than ever before. As prime ministers have succeeded kings in the
substantiate of monarchy, so now shall a house of representatives succeed
prime ministers.
Altogether, it looks as if a great time was coming, and that time one of
democracy. Our country will play a ruling part. Her eagle will lead the van;
but whether to soar upward to the sun or to stoop for helpless prey, who
now dares promise? At present she has scarce achieved a Roman nobleness,
a Roman liberty; and whether her eagle is less like the vulture, and more
like the Phœix, than was the fierce Roman bird, we dare not say. May the
new year give hopes of the latter, even if the bird need first to be purified by
fire.
Jan. 1, 1846.

NEW YEAR'S DAY.
IT was a beautiful custom among some of the Indian tribes, once a year, to
extinguish all the fires, and, by a day of fasting and profound devotion, to
propitiate the Great Spirit for the coming year. They then produced sparks
by friction, and lighted up afresh the altar and the hearth with the new fire.
And this fire was considered as the most precious and sacred gift from one
person to another, binding them in bonds of inviolate friendship for that
year, certainly; with a hope that the same might endure through life. From
the young to the old, it was a token of the highest respect; from the old to
the young, of a great expectation.
To us would that it might be granted to solemnize the new year by the
mental renovation of which this ceremony was the eloquent symbol. Would
that we might extinguish, if only for a day, those fires where an uninformed
religious ardor has led to human sacrifices; which have warmed the
household, but, also, prepared pernicious, more than wholesome, viands for
their use.
The Indian produced the new spark by friction. It would be a still more
beautiful emblem, and expressive of the more extended powers of civilized
men, if we should draw the spark from the centre of our system and the
source of light, by means of the burning glass.
Where, then, is to be found the new knowledge, the new thought, the new
hope, that shall begin a new year in a spirit not discordant with "the
acceptable year of the Lord"? Surely there must be such existing, if latent—
some sparks of new fire, pure from ashes and from smoke, worthy to be
offered as a new year's gift. Let us look at the signs of the times, to see in
what spot this fire shall be sought—on what fuel it may be fed. The ancients
poured out libations of the choicest juices of earth, to express their gratitude
to the Power that had enabled them to be sustained from her bosom. They
enfranchised slaves, to show that devotion to the gods induced a sympathy
with men.
Let us look about us to see with what rites, what acts of devotion, this
modern Christian nation greets the approach of the new year; by what signs

she denotes the clear morning of a better day, such as may be expected
when the eagle has entered into covenant with the dove.
This last week brings tidings that a portion of the inhabitants of Illinois,
the rich and blooming region on which every gift of nature has been
lavished, to encourage the industry and brighten the hopes of man, not only
refuses a libation to the Power that has so blessed their fields, but declares
that the dew is theirs, and the sunlight is theirs—that they live from and for
themselves, acknowledging no obligation and no duty to God or to man.[28]
One man has freed a slave; but a great part of the nation is now busy in
contriving measures that may best rivet the fetters on those now chained,
and forge them strongest for millions yet unborn.
Selfishness and tyranny no longer wear the mask; they walk haughtily
abroad, affronting with their hard-hearted boasts and brazen resolves the
patience of the sweet heavens. National honor is trodden under foot for a
national bribe, and neither sex nor age defends the redresser of injuries from
the rage of the injurer.
Yet, amid these reports which come flying on the paperwings of every
day, the scornful laugh of the gnomes, who begin to believe they can buy all
souls with their gold, was checked a moment when the aged knight[29] of
the better cause answered the challenge—truly in keeping with the
"chivalry" of the time—"You are in the wrong, and I will kick you," by
holding the hands of the chevalier till those around secured him. We think
the man of old must have held him with his eye, as physicians of moral
power can insane patients. Great as are his exploits for his age, he cannot
have much bodily strength, unless by miracle.
The treatment of Mr. Adams and Mr. Hoar seems to show that we are not
fitted to emulate the savages in preparation for the new fire. The Indians
knew how to reverence the old and the wise.
Among the manifestos of the day, it is impossible not to respect that of the
Mexican minister for the manly indignation with which he has uttered
truths, however deep our mortification at hearing them. It has been
observed for the last fifty years, that the tone of diplomatic correspondence
was much improved, as to simplicity and directness. Once, diplomacy was
another name for intrigue, and a paper of this sort was expected to be a
mesh of artful phrases, through which the true meaning might be detected,
but never actually grasped. Now, here is one where an occasion being

afforded by the unutterable folly of the corresponding party, a minister
speaks the truth as it lies in his mind, directly and plainly, as man speaks to
man. His statement will command the sympathy of the civilized world.
As to the state papers that have followed, they are of a nature to make the
Austrian despot sneer, as he counts in his oratory the woollen stockings he
has got knit by imprisoning all the free geniuses in his dominions. He, at
least, only appeals to the legitimacy of blood; these dare appeal to
legitimacy, as seen from a moral point of view. History will class such
claims with the brags of sharpers, who bully their victims about their honor,
while they stretch forth their hands for the gold they have won with loaded
dice. "Do you dare to say the dice are loaded? Prove it; and I will shoot you
for injuring my honor."
The Mexican makes his gloss on the page of American honor;[30] the
girl[31] in the Kentucky prison on that of her freedom; the delegate of
Massachusetts,[32] on that of her union. Ye stars, whose image America has
placed upon her banner, answer us! Are not your unions of a different sort?
Do they not work to other results?
Yet we cannot lightly be discouraged, or alarmed, as to the destiny of our
country. The whole history of its discovery and early progress indicates too
clearly the purposes of Heaven with regard to it. Could we relinquish the
thought that it was destined for the scene of a new and illustrious act in the
great drama, the past would be inexplicable, no less than the future without
hope.
Last week, which brought us so many unpleasant notices of home affairs,
brought also an account of the magnificent telescope lately perfected by the
Earl of Rosse. With means of observation now almost divine, we perceive
that some of the brightest stars, of which Sirius is one, have dark
companions, whose presence is, by earthly spectators, only to be detected
from the inequalities they cause in the motions of their radiant companions.
It was a new and most imposing illustration how, in carrying out the divine
scheme, of which we have as yet only spelled out the few first lines, the
dark is made to wait upon, and, in the full result, harmonize with, the bright.
The sense of such pervasive analogies should enlarge patience and animate
hope.
Yet, if offences must come, woe be to those by whom they come; and that
of men, who sin against a heritage like ours, is as that of the backsliders

among the chosen people of the elder day. We, too, have been chosen, and
plain indications been given, by a wonderful conjunction of auspicious
influences, that the ark of human hopes has been placed for the present in
our charge. Woe be to those who betray this trust! On their heads are to be
heaped the curses of unnumbered ages!
Can he sleep, who in this past year has wickedly or lightly committed acts
calculated to injure the few or many; who has poisoned the ears and the
hearts he might have rightly informed; who has steeped in tears the cup of
thousands; who has put back, as far as in him lay, the accomplishment of
general good and happiness for the sake of his selfish aggrandizement or
selfish luxury; who has sold to a party what was meant for mankind? If
such sleep, dreadful shall be the waking.
"Deliver us from evil." In public or in private, it is easy to give pain—hard
to give pure pleasure; easy to do evil—hard to do good. God does his good
in the whole, despite of bad men; but only from a very pure mind will he
permit original good to proceed in the day. Happy those who can feel that
during the past year, they have, to the best of their knowledge, refrained
from evil. Happy those who determine to proceed in this by the light of
conscience. It is but a spark; yet from that spark may be drawn fire-light
enough for worlds and systems of worlds—and that light is ever new.
And with this thought rises again the memory of the fair lines that light
has brought to view in the histories of some men. If the nation tends to
wrong, there are yet present the ten just men. The hands and lips of this
great form may be impure, but pure blood flows yet within her veins—the
blood of the noble bands who first sought these shores from the British isles
and France, for conscience sake. Too many have come since, for bread
alone. We cannot blame—we must not reject them; but let us teach them, in
giving them bread, to prize that salt, too, without which all on earth must
lose its savor. Yes! let us teach them, not rail at their inevitable ignorance
and unenlightened action, but teach them and their children as our own; if
we do so, their children and ours may yet act as one body obedient to one
soul; and if we act rightly now, that soul a pure soul.
And ye, sable bands, forced hither against your will, kept down here now
by a force hateful to nature, a will alien from God! It does sometimes seem
as if the avenging angel wore your hue, and would place in your hands the
sword to punish the cruel injustice of our fathers, the selfish perversity of

the sons. Yet are there no means of atonement? Must the innocent suffer
with the guilty? Teach us, O All-Wise, the clew out of this labyrinth; and if
we faithfully encounter its darkness and dread, and emerge into clear light,
wilt thou not bid us "go and sin no more"?
Meanwhile, let us proceed as we can, picking our steps along the slippery
road. If we keep the right direction, what matters it that we must pass
through so much mud? The promise is sure:—
Angels shall free the feet from stain, to their own hue of
snow,
If, undismayed, we reach the hills where the true olives
grow.
The olive groves, which we must seek in cold and
damp,
Alone can yield us oil for a perpetual lamp.
Then sound again the golden horn with promise ever
new;
The princely deer will ne'er be caught by those that slack
pursue;
Let the "White Doe" of angel hopes be always kept in
view.

Yes! sound again the horn—of hope the golden horn!
Answer it, flutes and pipes, from valleys still and lorn;
Warders, from your high towers, with trumps of silver
scorn,
And harps in maidens' bowers, with strings from deep
hearts torn,—
All answer to the horn—of hope the golden horn!
There is still hope, there is still an America, while private lives are ruled
by the Puritan, by the Huguenot conscientiousness, and while there are
some who can repudiate, not their debts, but the supposition that they will
not strive to pay their debts to their age, and to Heaven, who gave them a
share in its great promise.

ST. VALENTINES DAY.
THIS merry season of light jokes and lighter love-tokens, in which Cupid
presents the feathered end of the dart, as if he meant to tickle before he
wounded the captive, has always had a great charm for me. When but a
child, I saw Allston's picture of the "Lady reading a Valentine," and the mild
womanliness of the picture, so remote from passion no less than vanity, so
capable of tenderness, so chastely timid in its self-possession, has given a
color to the gayest thoughts connected with the day. From the ruff of
Allston's Lady, whose clear starch is made to express all rosebud thoughts
of girlish retirement, the soft unfledged hopes which never yet were
tempted from the nest, to Sam Weller's Valentine, is indeed a broad step, but
one which we can take without material change of mood.
But of all the thoughts and pictures associated with the day, none can
surpass in interest those furnished by the way in which we celebrated it last
week.
The Bloomingdale Asylum for the Insane is conducted on the most wise
and liberal plan known at the present day. Its superintendent, Dr. Earle, has
had ample opportunity to observe the best modes of managing this class of
diseases both here and in Europe, and he is one able, by refined sympathies
and intellectual discernment, to apply the best that is known and to discover
more.
Under his care the beautifully situated establishment at Bloomingdale
loses every sign of the hospital and the prison, not long since thought to be
inseparable from such a place. It is a house of refuge, where those too
deeply wounded or disturbed in body or spirit to keep up that semblance or
degree of sanity which the conduct of affairs in the world at large demands,
may be soothed by gentle care, intelligent sympathy, and a judicious
attention to their physical welfare, into health, or, at least, into tranquillity.
Dr. Earle, in addition to modes of turning the attention from causes of
morbid irritation, and promoting brighter and juster thoughts, which he uses
in common with other institutions, has this winter delivered a course of
lectures to the patients. We were present at one of these some weeks since.
The subjects touched upon were, often, of a nature to demand as close

attention as an audience of regular students (not college students, but real
students) can be induced to give. The large assembly present were almost
uniformly silent, to appearance interested, and showed a power of decorum
and self-government often wanting among those who esteem themselves in
healthful mastery of their morals and manners. We saw, with great
satisfaction, generous thoughts and solid pursuits offered, as well as light
amusements, for the choice of the sick in mind. For it is our experience that
such sickness arises as often from want of concentration as any other cause.
One of the noblest youths that ever trod this soil was wont to say, "he was
never tired, if he could only see far enough." He is now gone where his
view may be less bounded; but we, who stay behind, may take the hint that
mania, no less than the commonest forms of prejudice, bespeaks a mind
which does not see far enough to correct partial impressions. No doubt, in
many cases, dissipation of thought, after attention is once distorted into
some morbid direction, may be the first method of cure; but we are glad to
see others provided for those who are ready for them.
St. Valentine's Eve had been appointed for one of the dancing parties at
the institution, and a few friends from "the world's people" invited to be
present.
At an early hour the company assembled in the well-lighted hall, still
gracefully wreathed with its Christmas evergreens; the music struck up and
the company entered.
And these are the people who, half a century ago, would have been
chained in solitary cells, screaming out their anguish till silenced by threats
or blows, lost, forsaken, hopeless, a blight to earth, a libel upon heaven!
Now, they are many of them happy, all interested. Even those who are
troublesome and subject to violent excitement in every-day scenes, show
here that the power of self-control is not lost, only lessened. Give them an
impulse strong enough, favorable circumstances, and they will begin to use
it again. They regulate their steps to music; they restrain their impatient
impulses from respect to themselves and to others. The Power which shall
yet shape order from all disorder, and turn ashes to beauty, as violets spring
up from green graves, hath them also in its keeping.
The party were well dressed, with care and taste. The dancing was better
than usual, because there was less of affectation and ennui. The party was

more entertaining, because native traits came out more clear from the
disguises of vanity and tact.
There was the blue-stocking lady, a mature belle and bel-esprit. Her
condescending graces, her rounded compliments, her girlish, yet "highly
intellectual" vivacity, expressed no less in her head-dress than her manner,
were just that touch above the common with which the illustrator of
Dickens has thought fit to heighten the charms of Mrs. Leo Hunter.
There was the travelled Englishman, au fait to every thing beneath the
moon and beyond. With his clipped and glib phrases, his bundle of
conventionalities carried so neatly under his arm, and his "My dear sir," in
the perfection of cockney dignity, what better could the most select dinner
party furnish us in the way of distinguished strangerhood?
There was the hoidenish young girl, and the decorous, elegant lady
smoothing down "the wild little thing." There was the sarcastic observer on
the folly of the rest; in that, the greatest fool of all, unbeloved and unloving.
In contrast to this were characters altogether lovely, full of all sweet
affections, whose bells, if jangled out of tune, still retained their true tone.
One of the best things of the evening was a dance improvised by two
elderly women. They asked the privilege of the floor, and, a suitable
measure being played, performed this dance in a style lively, characteristic,
yet moderate enough. It was true dancing, like peasant dancing.
An old man sang comic songs in the style of various nations and
characters, with a dramatic expression that would have commanded
applause "on any stage."
And all was done decently and in order, each biding his time. Slight
symptoms of impatience here and there were easily soothed by the approach
of this, truly "good physician," the touch of whose hand seemed to possess
a talismanic power to soothe. We doubt not that all went to their beds
exhilarated, free from irritation, and more attuned to concord than before.
Good bishop Valentine! thy feast was well kept, and not without the usual
jokes and flings at old bachelors, the exchange of sugar-plums, mottoes, and
repartees.
This is the second festival I have kept with those whom society has
placed, not outside her pale, indeed, but outside the hearing of her benison.
Christmas I passed in a prison! There, too, I saw marks of the miraculous
power of love, when guided by a pure faith in the goodness of its source,

and intelligence as to the design of the creative intelligence. I saw enough
of its power, impeded as it was by the ignorance of those who, eighteen
hundred years after the coming of Christ, still believe more in fear and
force: I saw enough, I say, of this power to convince me, if I needed
conviction, that love is indeed omnipotent, as He said it was.
A companion, of that delicate nature by which a scar is felt as a wound,
was saddened by the thought how very little our partialities, undue
emotions, and manias need to be exaggerated to entitle us to rank among
madmen. I cannot view it so. Rather let the sense that, with all our faults
and follies, there is still a sound spot, a presentiment of eventual health in
the inmost nature, embolden us to hope, to know it is the same with all. A
great thinker has spoken of the Greek, in highest praise, as "a self-
renovating character." But we are all Greeks, if we will but think so. For the
mentally or morally insane, there is no irreparable ill if the principle of life
can but be aroused. And it can never be finally benumbed, except by our
own will.
One of the famous pictures at Munich is of a madhouse. The painter has
represented the moral obliquities of society exaggerated into madness; that
is to say, self-indulgence has, in each instance, destroyed the power to
forbear the ill or to discern the good. A celebrated writer has added a little
book, to be used while looking at the picture, and drawn inferences of
universal interest.
Such would we draw; such as this! Let no one dare to call another mad
who is not himself willing to rank in the same class for every perversion
and fault of judgment. Let no one dare aid in punishing another as criminal
who is not willing to suffer the penalty due to his own offences.
Yet, while owning that we are all mad, all criminal, let us not despair, but
rather believe that the Ruler of all never could permit such wide-spread ill
but to good ends. It is permitted to give us a field to redeem it—
"to transmute, bereave
Of an ill influence, and a good receive."
It flows inevitably from the emancipation of our wills, the development of
individuality in us. These aims accomplished, all shall yet be well; and it is
ours to learn how that good time may be hastened.

We know no sign of the times more encouraging than the increasing
nobleness and wisdom of view as to the government of asylums for the
insane and of prisons. Whatever is learned as to these forms of society is
learned for all. There is nothing that can be said of such government that
must not be said, also, of the government of families, schools, and states.
But we have much to say on this subject, and shall revert to it again, and
often, though, perhaps, not with so pleasing a theme as this of St.
Valentine's Eve.

FOURTH OF JULY.
THE bells ring; the cannon rouse the echoes along the river shore; the boys
sally forth with shouts and little flags, and crackers enough to frighten all
the people they meet from sunrise to sunset. The orator is conning for the
last time the speech in which he has vainly attempted to season with some
new spice the yearly panegyric upon our country; its happiness and glory;
the audience is putting on its best bib and tucker, and its blandest expression
to listen.
And yet, no heart, we think, can beat to-day with one pulse of genuine,
noble joy. Those who have obtained their selfish objects will not take
especial pleasure in thinking of them to-day, while to unbiassed minds must
come sad thoughts of national honor soiled in the eyes of other nations, of a
great inheritance risked, if not forfeited.
Much has been achieved in this country since the Declaration of
Independence. America is rich and strong; she has shown great talent and
energy; vast prospects of aggrandizement open before her. But the noble
sentiment which she expressed in her early youth is tarnished; she has
shown that righteousness is not her chief desire, and her name is no longer a
watchword for the highest hopes to the rest of the world. She knows this,
but takes it very easily; she feels that she is growing richer and more
powerful, and that seems to suffice her.
These facts are deeply saddening to those who can pronounce the words
"my country" with pride and peace only so far as steadfast virtues, generous
impulses, find their home in that country. They cannot be satisfied with
superficial benefits, with luxuries and the means of obtaining knowledge
which are multiplied for them. They could rejoice in full hands and a busy
brain, if the soul were expanding and the heart pure; but, the higher
conditions being violated, what is done cannot be done for good.
Such thoughts fill patriot minds as the cannon-peal bursts upon the ear.
This year, which declares that the people at large consent to cherish and
extend slavery as one of our "domestic institutions," takes from the patriot
his home. This year, which attests their insatiate love of wealth and power,
quenches the flame upon the altar.

Yet there remains that good part which cannot be taken away. If nations go
astray, the narrow path may always be found and followed by the individual
man. It is hard, hard indeed, when politics and trade are mixed up with evils
so mighty that he scarcely dares touch them for fear of being defiled. He
finds his activity checked in great natural outlets by the scruples of
conscience. He cannot enjoy the free use of his limbs, glowing upon a
favorable tide; but struggling, panting, must fix his eyes upon his aim, and
fight against the current to reach it. It is not easy, it is very hard just now, to
realize the blessings of independence.
For what is independence if it do not lead to freedom?—freedom from
fraud and meanness, from selfishness, from public opinion so far as it does
not agree with the still, small voice of one's better self?
Yet there remains a great and worthy part to play. This country presents
great temptations to ill, but also great inducements to good. Her health and
strength are so remarkable, her youth so full of life, that disease cannot yet
have taken deep hold of her. It has bewildered her brain, made her steps
totter, fevered, but not yet tainted, her blood. Things are still in that state
when ten just men may save the city. A few men are wanted, able to think
and act upon principles of an eternal value. The safety of the country must
lie in a few such men; men who have achieved the genuine independence,
independence of wrong, of violence, of falsehood.
We want individuals to whom all eyes may turn as examples of the
practicability of virtue. We want shining examples. We want deeply-rooted
characters, who cannot be moved by flattery, by fear, even by hope, for they
work in faith. The opportunity for such men is great; they will not be
burned at the stake in their prime for bearing witness to the truth, yet they
will be tested most severely in their adherence to it. There is nothing to
hinder them from learning what is true and best; no physical tortures will be
inflicted on them for expressing it. Let men feel that in private lives, more
than in public measures, must the salvation of the country lie. If that
country has so widely veered from the course she prescribed to herself, and
that the hope of the world prescribed to her, it must be because she had not
men ripened and confirmed for better things. They leaned too carelessly on
one another; they had not deepened and purified the private lives from
which the public vitality must spring, as the verdure of the plain from the
fountains of the hills.

What a vast influence is given by sincerity alone. The bier of General
Jackson has lately passed, upbearing a golden urn. The men who placed it
there lament his departure, and esteem the measures which have led this
country to her present position wise and good. The other side esteem them
unwise, unjust, and disastrous in their consequences. But both respect him
thus far, that his conduct was boldly sincere. The sage of Quincy! Men
differ in their estimate of his abilities. None, probably, esteem his mind as
one of the first magnitude. But both sides, all men, are influenced by the
bold integrity of his character. Mr. Calhoun speaks straight out what he
thinks. So far as this straightforwardness goes, he confers the benefits of
virtue. If a character be uncorrupted, whatever bias it takes, it thus far is
good and does good. It may help others to a higher, wiser, larger
independence than its own.
We know not where to look for an example of all or many of the virtues
we would seek from the man who is to begin the new dynasty that is needed
of fathers of the country. The country needs to be born again; she is polluted
with the lust of power, the lust of gain. She needs fathers good enough to be
godfathers—men who will stand sponsors at the baptism with all they
possess, with all the goodness they can cherish, and all the wisdom they can
win, to lead this child the way she should go, and never one step in another.
Are there not in schools and colleges the boys who will become such men?
Are there not those on the threshold of manhood who have not yet chosen
the broad way into which the multitude rushes, led by the banner on which,
strange to say, the royal Eagle is blazoned, together with the word
Expediency? Let them decline that road, and take the narrow, thorny path
where Integrity leads, though with no prouder emblem than the Dove. They
may there find the needed remedy, which, like the white root, detected by
the patient and resolved Odysseus, shall have power to restore the herd of
men, disguised by the enchantress to whom they had willingly yielded in
the forms of brutes, to the stature and beauty of men.

FIRST OF AUGUST.
AMONG the holidays of the year, some portion of our people borrow one
from another land. They borrow what they fain would own, since their
doing so would increase, not lessen, the joy and prosperity of the present
owner. It is a holiday not to be celebrated, as others are, with boast, and
shout, and gay procession, but solemnly, yet hopefully; in prayer and
humiliation for much ill now existing; in faith that the God of good will not
permit such ill to exist always; in aspiration to become his instruments for
removal.
We borrow this holiday from England. We know not that she could lend us
another such. Her career has been one of selfish aggrandizement. To carry
her flag wherever the waters flow; to leave a strong mark of her footprint on
every shore, that she might return and claim its spoils; to maintain in every
way her own advantage,—is and has been her object, as much as that of any
nation upon earth. The plundered Hindoo, the wronged Irish,—for ourselves
we must add the outraged Chinese, (for we look on all that has been written
about the right of that war as mere sophistry,)—no less than Napoleon,
walking up and down, in his "tarred great-coat," in the unwholesome lodge
at St. Helena,—all can tell whether she be righteous or generous in her
conquests. Nay, let myriads of her own children say whether she will
abstain from sacrificing, mercilessly, human freedom, happiness, and the
education of immortal souls, for the sake of gains of money! We speak of
Napoleon, for we must ever despise, with most profound contempt, the use
she made of her power on that occasion. She had been the chief means of
liberating Europe from his tyranny, and, though it was for her own sake, we
must commend and admire her conduct and resolution thus far. But the
unhandsome, base treatment of her captive, has never been enough
contemned. Any private gentleman, in chaining up the foe that had put
himself in his power, would at least have given him lodging, food, and
clothes to his liking; and a civil turnkey—and a great nation could fail in
this! O, it was shameful, if only for the vulgarity of feeling evinced! All this
we say, because we are sometimes impatient of England's brag on the
subject of slavery. Freedom! Because she has done one good act, is she
entitled to the angelic privilege of being the champion of freedom?

And yet it is true that once she nobly awoke to a sense of what was right
and wise. It is true that she also acted out that sense—acted fully, decidedly.
She was willing to make sacrifices, even of the loved money. She has not
let go the truth she then laid to heart, and continues the resolute foe of man's
traffic in men. We must bend low to her as we borrow this holiday—the
anniversary of the emancipation of slaves in the West Indies. We do not feel
that the extent of her practice justifies the extent of her preaching; yet we
must feel her to be, in this matter, an elder sister, entitled to cry shame to us.
And if her feelings be those of a sister indeed, how must she mourn to see
her next of kin pushing back, as far as in her lies, the advance of this good
cause, binding those whom the old world had awakened from its sins
enough to loose! But courage, sister! All is not yet lost! There is here a
faithful band, determined to expiate the crimes that have been committed in
the name of liberty. On this day they meet and vow themselves to the
service; and, as they look in one another's glowing eyes, they read there
assurance that the end is not yet, and that they, forced as they are
"To keep in company with Pain,
And Fear, and Falsehood, miserable train,"

"Turn that necessity to glorious gain,"

"Transmute them and subdue."
Indeed, we do not see that they "bate a jot of heart or hope," and it is
because they feel that the power of the Great Spirit, and its peculiar
workings in the spirit of this age, are with them. There is action and reaction
all the time; and though the main current is obvious, there are many little
eddies and counter-currents. Mrs. Norton writes a poem on the sufferings of
the poor, and in it she, as episode, tunefully laments the sufferings of the
Emperor of all the Russias for the death of a beloved daughter. And it was a
deep grief; yet it did not soften his heart, or make it feel for man. The first
signs of his recovered spirits are in new efforts to crush out the heart of
Poland, and to make the Jews lay aside the hereditary marks of their
national existence—to them a sacrifice far worse than death. But then,—
Count Apraxin is burned alive by his infuriate serfs, and the life of a serf is
far more dog-like, or rather machine-like, than that of our slaves. Still the

serf can rise in vengeance—can admonish the autocrat that humanity may
yet turn again and rend him.
So with us. The most shameful deed has been done that ever disgraced a
nation, because the most contrary to consciousness of right. Other nations
have done wickedly, but we have surpassed them all in trampling under foot
the principles that had been assumed as the basis of our national existence,
and shown a willingness to forfeit our honor in the face of the world.
The following stanzas, written by a friend some time since, on the fourth
of July, exhibit these contrasts so forcibly, that we cannot do better than
insert them here:—
Loud peal of bells and beat of drums
Salute approaching dawn;
And the deep cannon's fearful bursts
Announce a nation's morn.

Imposing ranks of freemen stand
And claim their proud birthright;
Impostors, rather! thus to brand
A name they hold so bright.

Let the day see the pageant show;
Float, banners, to the breeze!
Shout Liberty's great name throughout
Columbia's lands and seas!

Give open sunlight to the free;
But for Truth's equal sake,
When night sinks down upon the land,
Proclaim dead Freedom's wake!

Beat, muffled drums! Toll, funeral bell
Nail every flag half-mast;
For though we fought the battle well,
We're traitors at the last.

Let the whole nation join in one

Procession to appear;
We and our sons lead on the front,
Our slaves bring up the rear.

America is rocked within
Thy cradle, Liberty,
By Africa's poor, palsied hand—
Strange inconsistency!

We've dug one grave as deep as Death,
For Tyranny's black sin;
And dug another at its side
To thrust our brother in.

We challenge all the world aloud,—
"Lo, Tyranny's deep grave!"
And all the world points back and cries,
"Thou fool! Behold thy slave!"

Yes, rally, brave America,
Thy noble hearts and free
Around the Eagle, as he soars
Upward in majesty.

One half thy emblem is the bird,
Out-facing thus the day;
But wouldst thou make him wholly thine,—
Give him a helpless prey!
This should be sung in Charleston at nine o'clock in the evening, when the
drums are heard proclaiming "dead Freedom's wake," as they summon to
their homes, or to the custody of the police, every human being with a black
skin who is found walking without a pass from a white. Or it might have
been sung to advantage the night after Charleston had shown her
independence and care of domestic institutions by expulsion of the
venerable envoy of Massachusetts! Its expression would seem even more
forcible than now, when sung so near the facts, when the eagle soars so
close above his prey.

How deep the shadow! yet cleft by light. There is a counter-current that
sets towards the deep. We are inclined to weigh as of almost equal weight
with all we have had to trouble us as to the prolongation of slavery, the
hopes that may be gathered from the course of such a man as Cassius M.
Clay,—a man open to none of the accusations brought to diminish the
influence of abolitionists in general, for he has eaten the bread wrought
from slavery, and has shared the education that excuses the blindness of the
slaveholder. He speaks as one having authority; no one can deny that he
knows where he is. In the prime of manhood, of talent, and the energy of a
fine enthusiasm, he comes forward with deed and word to do his devoir in
this cause, never to leave the field till he can take with him the wronged
wretches rescued by his devotion.
Now he has made this last sacrifice of the prejudices of "southern
chivalry," more persons than ever will be ready to join the herald's cry,
"God speed the right!" And we cannot but believe his noble example will be
followed by many young men in the slaveholding ranks, brothers in a new,
sacred band, vowed to the duty, not merely of defending, but far more
sacred, of purifying their homes.
The event of which this day is the anniversary, affords a sufficient
guarantee of the safety and practicability of strong measures for this
purification. Various accounts are given to the public, of the state of the
British West Indies, and the foes of emancipation are of course constantly
on the alert to detect any unfavorable result which may aid them in
opposing the good work elsewhere. But through all statements these facts
shine clear as the sun at noonday, that the measure was there carried into
effect with an ease and success, and has shown in the African race a degree
of goodness, docility, capacity for industry and self-culture entirely beyond
or opposed to the predictions which darkened so many minds with fears.
Those fears can never again be entertained or uttered with the same excuse.
One great example of the safety of doing right exists; true, there is but one
of the sort, but volumes may be preached from such a text.
We, however, preach not; there are too many preachers already in the
field, abler, more deeply devoted to the cause. Endless are the sermons of
these modern crusaders, these ardent "sons of thunder," who have pledged
themselves never to stop or falter till this one black spot be purged away
from the land which gave them birth. They cry aloud and spare not; they
spare not others, but then, neither do they spare themselves; and such are

ever the harbingers of a new advent of the Holy Spirit. Our venerated
friend, Dr. Channing, sainted in more memories than any man who has left
us in this nineteenth century, uttered the last of his tones of soft, solemn,
convincing, persuasive eloquence, on this day and this occasion. The hills
of Lenox laughed and were glad as they heard him who showed in that last
address (an address not only to the men of Lenox, but to all men, for he was
in the highest sense the friend of man) the unsullied purity of infancy, the
indignation of youth at vice and wrong, informed and tempered by the mild
wisdom of age. It is a beautiful fact that this should have been the last
public occasion of his life.
Last year a noble address was delivered by R. W. Emerson, in which he
broadly showed the juste milieu views upon this subject in the holy light of
a high ideal day. The truest man grew more true as he listened; for the
speech, though it had the force of fact and the lustre of thought, was chiefly
remarkable as sharing the penetrating quality of the "still small voice," most
often heard when no man speaks. Now it spoke through a man; and no
personalities, or prejudices, or passions could be perceived to veil or disturb
its silver sound.
These speeches are on record; little can be said that is not contained in
them. But we can add evermore our aspirations for thee, O our country! that
thou mayst not long need to borrow a holy day; not long have all thy
festivals blackened by falsehood, tyranny, and a crime for which neither
man below nor God above can much longer pardon thee. For ignorance may
excuse error; but thine—it is vain to deny it—is conscious wrong, and vows
thee to the Mammon whose wages are endless remorse or final death.

THANKSGIVING.
"Canst thou give thanks for aught that has been given
Except by making earth more worthy heaven?
Just stewardship the Master hoped from thee;
Harvests from time to bless eternity."
THANKSGIVING is peculiarly the festival day of New England. Elsewhere,
other celebrations rival its attractions, but in that region where the Puritans
first returned thanks that some among them had been sustained by a great
hope and earnest resolve amid the perils of the ocean, wild beasts, and
famine, the old spirit which hallowed the day still lingers, and forbids that it
should be entirely devoted to play and plum-pudding.
And yet, as there is always this tendency; as the twelfth-night cake is
baked by many a hostess who would be puzzled if you asked her, "Twelfth
night after or before what?" and the Christmas cake by many who know no
other Christmas service, so it requires very serious assertion and proof from
the minister to convince his parishioners that the turkey and plum-pudding,
which are presently to occupy his place in their attention, should not be the
chief objects of the day.
And in other regions, where the occasion is observed, it is still more as
one for a meeting of families and friends to the enjoyment of a good dinner,
than for any higher purpose.
This, indeed, is one which we want not to depreciate. If this manner of
keeping the day be likely to persuade the juniors of the party that the
celebrated Jack Horner is the prime model for brave boys, and that
grandparents are chiefly to be respected as the givers of grand feasts yet a
meeting in the spirit of kindness, however dull and blind, is not wholly
without use in healing differences and promoting good intentions. The
instinct of family love, intended by Heaven to make those of one blood the
various and harmonious organs of one mind, is never wholly without good
influence. Family love, I say, for family pride is never without bad
influence, and it too often takes the place of its mild and healthy sister.

Yet where society is at all simple, it is cheering to see the family circle
thus assembled, if only because its patriarchal form is in itself so excellent.
The presence of the children animates the old people, while the respect and
attention they demand refine the gayety of the young. Yes, it is cheering to
see, in some large room, the elders talking near the bright fire, while the
cousins of all ages are amusing themselves in knots. Here is almost all the
good, and very little of the ill, that can be found in society, got together
merely for amusement.
Yet how much nobler, more exhilarating, and purer would be the
atmosphere of that circle if the design of its pious founders were
remembered by those who partake this festival! if they dared not attend the
public jubilee till private retrospect of the past year had been taken in the
spirit of the old rhyme, which we all bear in mind if not in heart,—
"What hast thou done that's worth the doing,
And what pursued that's worth pursuing?
What sought thou knew'st that thou shouldst shun,
What done thou shouldst have left undone?"
A crusade needs also to be made this day into the wild places of each
heart, taking for its device, "Lord, cleanse thou me from secret faults; keep
back thy servant also from presumptuous sins." Would not that circle be
happy as if music, from invisible agents, floated through it if each member
of it considered every other member as a bequest from heaven; if he
supposed that the appointed nearness in blood or lot was a sign to him that
he must exercise his gifts of every kind as given peculiarly in their behalf;
that if richer in temper, in talents, in knowledge, or in worldly goods, here
was the innermost circle of his poor; that he must clothe these naked,
whether in body or mind, soothing the perverse, casting light into the
narrow chamber, or, most welcome task of all! extending a hand at the right
moment to one uncertain of his way? It is this spirit that makes the old man
to be revered as a Nestor, rather than put aside like a worn-out garment. It is
such a spirit that sometimes has given to the young child a ministry as of a
parent in the house.
But, if charity begin at home, it must not end there; and, while purifying
the innermost circle, let us not forget that it depends upon the great circle,
and that again on it; that no home can be healthful in which are not

cherished seeds of good for the world at large. Thy child, thy brother, are
given to thee only as an example of what is due from thee to all men. It is
true that, if you, in anger, call your brother fool, no deeds of so-called
philanthropy shall save you from the punishment; for your philanthropy
must be from the love of excitement, not the love of man, or of goodness.
But then you must visit the Gentiles also, and take time for knowing what
aid the woman of Samaria may need.
A noble Catholic writer, in the true sense as well as by name a Catholic,
describes a tailor as giving a dinner on an occasion which had brought
honor to his house, which, though a humble, was not a poor house. In his
glee, the tailor was boasting a little of the favors and blessings of his lot,
when suddenly a thought stung him. He stopped, and cutting away half the
fowl that lay before him, sent it in a dish with the best knives, bread, and
napkin, and a brotherly message that was better still, to a widow near, who
must, he knew, be sitting in sadness and poverty among her children. His
little daughter was the messenger. If parents followed up the indulgences
heaped upon their children at Thanksgiving dinners with similar messages,
there would not be danger that children should think enjoyment of sensual
pleasures the only occasion that demands Thanksgiving.
And suppose, while the children were absent on their errands of justice, as
they could not fail to think them, if they compared the hovels they must
visit with their own comfortable homes, their elders, touched by a sense of
right, should be led from discussion of the rivalries of trade or fashion to
inquiry whether they could not impart of all that was theirs, not merely one
poor dinner once a year, but all their mental and material wealth for the
benefit of all men. If they do not sell it all at once, as the rich young man
was bid to do as a test of his sincerity, they may find some way in which it
could be invested so as to show enough obedience to the law and the
prophets to love our neighbor as ourselves.
And he who once gives himself to such thoughts will find it is not merely
moral gain for which he shall return thanks another year with the return of
this day. In the present complex state of human affairs, you cannot be kind
unless you are wise. Thoughts of amaranthine bloom will spring up in the
fields ploughed to give food to suffering men. It would, indeed, seem to be
a simple matter at first glance. "Lovest thou me?"—"Feed my lambs." But
now we have not only to find pasture, but to detect the lambs under the

disguise of wolves, and restore them by a spell, like that the shepherd used,
to their natural form and whiteness.
And for this present day appointed for Thanksgiving, we may say that if
we know of so many wrongs, woes, and errors in the world yet unredressed;
if in this nation recent decisions have shown a want of moral discrimination
in important subjects, that make us pause and doubt whether we can join in
the formal congratulations that we are still bodily alive, unassailed by the
ruder modes of warfare, and enriched with the fatness of the land; yet, on
the other side, we know of causes not so loudly proclaimed why we should
give thanks. Abundantly and humbly we must render them for the
movement, now sensible in the heart of the civilized world, although it has
not pervaded the entire frame—for that movement of contrition and love
which forbids men of earnest thought to eat, drink, or be merry while other
men are steeped in ignorance, corruption, and woe; which calls the king
from his throne of gold, and the poet from his throne of mind, to lie with the
beggar in the kennel, or raise him from it; which says to the poet, "You
must reform rather than create a world," and to him of the golden crown,
"You cannot long remain a king unless you are also a man."
Wherever this impulse of social or political reform darts up its rill through
the crusts of selfishness, scoff and dread also arise, and hang like a heavy
mist above it. But the voice of the rill penetrates far enough for those who
have ears to hear. And sometimes it is the case that "those who came to
scoff remain to pray." In two articles of reviews, one foreign and one
domestic, which have come under our eye within the last fortnight, the
writers who began by jeering at the visionaries, seemed, as they wrote, to be
touched by a sense that without a high and pure faith none can have the
only true vision of the intention of God as to the destiny of man.
We recognized as a happy omen that there is cause for thanksgiving, and
that our people may be better than they seem, the recent meeting to organize
an association for the benefit of prisoners. We are not, then, wholly
Pharisees. We shall not ask the blessing of this day in the mood of, "Lord, I
thank thee that I, and my son, and my brother, are not as other men are,—
not as those publicans imprisoned there," while the still small voice cannot
make us hear its evidence that, but for instruction, example, and the
"preventing God," every sin that can be named might riot in our hearts. The
prisoner, too, may become a man. Neither his open nor our secret fault must
utterly dismay us. We will treat him as if he had a soul. We will not dare to

hunt him into a beast of prey, or trample him into a serpent. We will give
him some crumbs from the table which grace from above and parental love
below have spread for us, and perhaps he will recover from these ghastly
ulcers that deform him now.
We were much pleased with the spirit of the meeting for the benefit of
prisoners, to which we have just alluded. It was simple, business-like, in a
serious, affectionate temper. The speakers did not make phrases or
compliments—did not slur over the truth. The audience showed a ready
vibration to the touch of just and tender feeling. The time was evidently ripe
for this movement. We doubt not that many now darkened souls will give
thanks for the ray of light that will have been let in by this time next year. It
is but a grain of mustard seed, but the promised tree will grow swiftly if
tended in a pure spirit; and the influence of good measures in any one place
will be immediate in this province, as has been the case with every attempt
in behalf of another sorrowing class, the insane.
While reading a notice of a successful attempt to have musical
performances carried through in concert by the insane at Rouen, we were
forcibly reminded of a similar performance we heard a few weeks ago at
Sing Sing. There the female prisoners joined in singing a hymn, or rather
choral, which describes the last thoughts of a spirit about to be enfranchised
from the body; each stanza of which ends with the words, "All is well;" and
they sang it—those suffering, degraded children of society—with as gentle
and resigned an expression as if they were sure of going to sleep in the arms
of a pure mother. The good spirit that dwelt in the music made them its
own. And shall not the good spirit of religious sympathy make them its own
also, and more permanently? We shall see. Should the morally insane, by
wise and gentle care, be won back to health, as the wretched bedlamites
have been, will not the angels themselves give thanks? And will any man
dare take the risk of opposing plans that afford even a chance of such a
result?
Apart also from good that is public and many-voiced, does not each of us
know, in private experience, much to be thankful for? Not only the innocent
and daily pleasures that we have prized according to our wisdom; of the sun
and starry skies, the fields of green, or snow scarcely less beautiful, the loaf
eaten with an appetite, the glow of labor, the gentle signs of common
affection; but have not some, have not many of us, cause to be thankful for
enfranchisement from error or infatuation; a growth in knowledge of

outward things, and instruction within the soul from a higher source. Have
we not acquired a sense of more refined enjoyments; clear convictions;
sometimes a serenity in which, as in the first days of June, all things grow,
and the blossom gives place to fruit? Have we not been weaned from what
was unfit for us, or unworthy our care? and have not those ties been drawn
more close, and are not those objects seen more distinctly, which shall
forever be worthy the purest desires of our souls? Have we learned to do
any thing, the humblest, in the service and by the spirit of the power which
meaneth all things well? If so, we may give thanks, and, perhaps, venture to
offer our solicitations in behalf of those as yet less favored by
circumstances. When even a few shall dare do so with the whole heart—for
only a pure heart, can "avail much" in such prayers—then ALL shall soon
be well.

CHRISTMAS.
OUR festivals come rather too near together, since we have so few of
them; thanksgiving, Christmas, new year's day,—and then none again till
July. We know not but these four, with the addition of "a day set apart for
fasting and prayer," might answer the purposes of rest and edification, as
well as a calendar full of saints' days, if they were observed in a better
spirit. But thanksgiving is devoted to good dinners; Christmas and new
year's days, to making presents and compliments; fast day, to playing at
cricket and other games; and the fourth of July, to boasting of the past,
rather than to plans how to deserve its benefits and secure its fruits.
We value means of marking time by appointed days, because man, on one
side of his nature so ardent and aspiring, is on the other so slippery and
indolent a being, that he needs incessant admonitions to redeem the time.
Time flows on steadily, whether he regards it or not; yet unless he keep
time, there is no music in that flow. The sands drop with inevitable speed,
yet each waits long enough to receive, if it be ready, the intellectual touch
that should turn it to a sand of gold.
Time, says the Grecian fable, is the parent of Power; Power is the father of
Genius and Wisdom; Time, then, is grandfather of the noblest of the human
family, and we must respect the aged sire whom we see on the frontispiece
of the almanacs, and believe his scythe was meant to mow down harvests
ripened for an immortal use.
Yet the best provision made by the mind of society, at large, for these
admonitions, soon loses its efficacy, and requires that individual
earnestness, individual piety, should continually reanimate the most
beautiful form. The world has never seen arrangements which might more
naturally offer good suggestions, than those of the church of Rome. The
founders of that church stood very near a history, radiant at every page with
divine light. All their rites and ceremonial days illustrate facts of a universal
interest. But the life with which piety, first, and afterwards the genius of
great artists, invested these symbols, waned at last, except to a thoughtful
few. Reverence was forgotten in the multitude of genuflections; the rosary
became a string of beads, rather than a series of religious meditations, and
"the glorious company of saints and martyrs" were not so much regarded as

the teachers of heavenly truth, as intercessors to obtain for their votaries the
temporal gifts they craved.
Yet we regret that some of these symbols had not been more reverenced
by Protestants, as the possible occasion of good thoughts. And among
others we regret that the day set apart to commemorate the birth of Jesus
should have been stripped, even by those who observe it, of many
impressive and touching accessories.
If ever there was an occasion on which the arts could become all but
omnipotent in the service of a holy thought, it is this of the birth of the child
Jesus. In the palmy days of the Catholic religion, they may be said to have
wrought miracles in its behalf; and, in our colder time, when we rather
reflect that light from a different point of view, than transport ourselves into
it,—who, that has an eye and ear faithful to the soul, is not conscious of
inexhaustible benefits from some of the works by which sublime geniuses
have expressed their ideas in the adorations of the Magi and the Shepherds,
in the Virgin with the infant Jesus, or that work which expresses what
Christendom at large has not even begun to realize,—that work which
makes us conscious, as we listen, why the soul of man was thought worthy
and able to upbear a cross of such dreadful weight—the Messiah of Handel.
Christmas would seem to be the day peculiarly sacred to children, and
something of this feeling here shows itself among us, though rather from
German influence than of native growth. The evergreen tree is often reared
for the children on Christmas evening, and its branches cluster with little
tokens that may, at least, give them a sense that the world is rich, and that
there are some in it who care to bless them. It is a charming sight to see
their glittering eyes, and well worth much trouble in preparing the
Christmas tree.
Yet, on this occasion as on all others, we could wish to see pleasure
offered them in a form less selfish than it is. When shall we read of
banquets prepared for the halt, the lame, and the blind, on the day that is
said to have brought their Friend into the world? When will the children be
taught to ask all the cold and ragged little ones, whom they have seen
during the day wistfully gazing at the displays in the shop-windows, to
share the joys of Christmas eve?
We borrow the Christmas tree from Germany. Would that we might but
borrow with it that feeling which pervades all their stories about the

influence of the Christ child; and has, I doubt not,—for the spirit of
literature is always, though refined, the essence of popular life,—pervaded
the conduct of children there!
We will mention two of these as happily expressive of different sides of
the desirable character. One is a legend of the Saint Hermann Joseph. The
legend runs, that this saint, when a little boy, passed daily by a niche where
was an image of the Virgin and Child, and delighted there to pay his
devotions. His heart was so drawn towards the holy child, that, one day,
having received what seemed to him a gift truly precious,—to wit, a
beautiful red and yellow apple,—he ventured to offer it, with his prayer. To
his unspeakable delight, the child put forth its hand and took the apple.
After that day, never was a gift bestowed upon the little Hermann that was
not carried to the same place. He needed nothing for himself, but dedicated
all his childish goods to the altar.
After a while, grief comes. His father, who was a poor man, finds it
necessary to take him from school and bind him to a trade. He
communicates his woes to his friends of the niche, and the Virgin comforts
him, like a mother, and bestows on him money, by means of which he rises,
(not to ride in a gilt coach like Lord Mayor Whittington,) but to be a learned
and tender shepherd of men.
Another still more touching story is that of the holy Rupert. Rupert was
the only child of a princely house, and had something to give besides
apples. But his generosity and human love were such, that, as a child, he
could never see poor children suffering without despoiling himself of all he
had with him in their behalf. His mother was, at first, displeased at this; but
when he replied, "They are thy children too," her reproofs yielded to tears.
One time, when he had given away his coat to a poor child, he got wearied
and belated on his homeward way. He lay down a while, and fell asleep.
Then he dreamed that he was on a river shore, and saw a mild and noble old
man bathing many children. After he had plunged them into the water, he
would place them on a beautiful island, where they looked white and
glorious as little angels. Rupert was seized with strong desire to join them,
and begged the old man to bathe him, also, in the stream. But he was
answered, "It is not yet time." Just then a rainbow spanned the island, and
on its arch was enthroned the child Jesus, dressed in a coat that Rupert
knew to be his own. And the child said to the others, "See this coat; it is one

my brother Rupert has just sent to me. He has given us many gifts from his
love; shall we not ask him to join us here?" And they shouted a musical
"yes;" and the child started from his dream. But he had lain too long on the
damp bank of the river, without his coat. A cold, and fever soon sent him to
join the band of his brothers in their home.
These are legends, superstitions, will you say? But, in casting aside the
shell, have we retained the kernel? The image of the child Jesus is not seen
in the open street; does his spirit find other means to express itself there?
Protestantism did not mean, we suppose, to deaden the spirit in excluding
the form?
The thought of Jesus, as a child, has great weight with children who have
learned to think of him at all. In thinking of him, they form an image of all
that the morning of a pure and fervent life should be and bring. In former
days I knew a boy artist, whose genius, at that time, showed high promise.
He was not more than fourteen years old; a slight, pale boy, with a beaming
eye. The hopes and sympathy of friends, gained by his talent, had furnished
him with a studio and orders for some pictures. He had picked up from the
streets a boy still younger and poorer than himself, to take care of the room
and prepare his colors; and the two boys were as content in their relation as
Michael Angelo with his Urbino. If you went there you found exposed to
view many pretty pictures: a Girl with a Dove, the Guitar Player and such
subjects as are commonly supposed to interest at his age. But, hid in a
corner, and never, shown, unless to the beggar page, or some most
confidential friend, was the real object of his love and pride, the slowly
growing work of secret hours. The subject of this picture was Christ
teaching the doctors. And in those doctors he had expressed all he had
already observed of the pedantry and shallow conceit of those in whom
mature years have not unfolded the soul; and in the child, all he felt that
early youth should be and seek, though, alas! his own feet failed him on the
difficult road. This one record of the youth of Jesus had, at least, been much
to his mind.
In earlier days, the little saints thought they best imitated the Emanuel by
giving apples and coats; but we know not why, in our age, that esteems
itself so enlightened, they should not become also the givers of spiritual
gifts. We see in them, continually, impulses that only require a good
direction to effect infinite good. See the little girls at work for foreign
missions; that is not useless. They devote the time to a purpose that is not

selfish; the horizon of their thoughts is extended. But they are perfectly
capable of becoming home missionaries as well. The principle of
stewardship would make them so.
I have seen a little girl of thirteen,—who had much service, too, to
perform, for a hard-working mother,—in the midst of a circle of poor
children whom she gathered daily to a morning school. She took them from
the door-steps and the ditches; she washed their hands and faces; she taught
them to read and to sew; and she told them stories that had delighted her
own infancy. In her face, though in feature and complexion plain, was
something, already, of a Madonna sweetness, and it had no way eclipsed the
gayety of childhood.
I have seen a boy scarce older, brought up for some time with the sons of
laborers, who, so soon as he found himself possessed of superior
advantages, thought not of surpassing others, but of excelling, and then
imparting—and he was able to do it. If the other boys had less leisure, and
could pay for less instruction, they did not suffer for it. He could not be
happy unless they also could enjoy Milton, and pass from nature to natural
philosophy. He performed, though in a childish way, and in no Grecian
garb, the part of Apollo amid the herdsmen of Admetus.
The cause of education would be indefinitely furthered, if, in addition to
formal means, there were but this principle awakened in the hearts of the
young, that what they have they must bestow. All are not natural instructors,
but a large proportion are; and those who do possess such a talent are the
best possible teachers to those a little younger than themselves. Many have
more patience with the difficulties they have lately left behind, and enjoy
their power of assisting more than those farther removed in age and
knowledge do.
Then the intercourse may be far more congenial and profitable than where
the teacher receives for hire all sorts of pupils, as they are sent him by their
guardians. Here he need only choose those who have a predisposition for
what he is best able to teach. And, as I would have the so-called higher
instruction as much diffused in this way as the lower, there would be a
chance of awakening all the power that now lies latent.
If a girl, for instance, who has only a passable talent for music, but who,
from the advantage of social position, has been able to gain thorough

instruction, felt it her duty to teach whomsoever she knew that had such a
talent, without money to cultivate it, the good is obvious.
Those who are learning receive an immediate benefit by an effort to
rearrange and interpret what they learn; so the use of this justice would be
twofold.
Some efforts are made here and there; nay, sometimes there are those who
can say they have returned usury for every gift of fate. And, would others
make the same experiments, they might find Utopia not so far off as the
children of this world, wise in securing their own selfish ease, would
persuade us it must always be.
We have hinted what sort of Christmas box we would wish for the
children. It would be one full, as that of the child Christ must be, of the
pieces of silver that were lost and are found. But Christmas, with its
peculiar associations, has deep interest for men, and women too, no less. It
has so in their mutual relations. At the time thus celebrated, a pure woman
saw in her child what the Son of man should be as a child of God. She
anticipated for him a life of glory to God, peace and good will to man. In
every young mother's heart, who has any purity of heart, the same feelings
arise. But most of these mothers let them go without obeying their
instructions. If they did not, we should see other children—other men than
now throng our streets. The boy could not invariably disappoint the mother,
the man the wife, who steadily demanded of him such a career.
And man looks upon woman, in this relation, always as he should. Does
he see in her a holy mother worthy to guard the infancy of an immortal
soul? Then she assumes in his eyes those traits which the Romish church
loved to revere in Mary. Frivolity, base appetite, contempt are exorcised;
and man and woman appear again in unprofaned connection, as brother and
sister, the children and the servants of the one Divine Love, and pilgrims to
a common aim.
Were all this right in the private sphere, the public would soon right itself
also, and the nations of Christendom might join in a celebration, such as
"kings and prophets waited for," and so many martyrs died to achieve, of
Christ-Mass.

MARIANA[33]
AMONG those whom I met in a recent visit at Chicago was Mrs. Z., the
aunt of an old schoolmate, to whom I impatiently hastened, to demand news
of Mariana. The answer startled me. Mariana, so full of life, was dead. That
form, the most rich in energy and coloring of any I had ever seen, had faded
from the earth. The circle of youthful associations had given way in the part
that seemed the strongest. What I now learned of the story of this life, and
what was by myself remembered, may be bound together in this slight
sketch.
At the boarding school to which I was too early sent, a fond, a proud, and
timid child, I saw among the ranks of the gay and graceful, bright or earnest
girls, only one who interested my fancy or touched my young heart; and
this was Mariana. She was, on the father's side, of Spanish Creole blood,
but had been sent to the Atlantic coast, to receive a school education under
the care of her aunt, Mrs. Z.
This lady had kept her mostly at home with herself, and Mariana had gone
from her house to a day school; but the aunt being absent for a time in
Europe, she had now been unfortunately committed for some time to the
mercies of a boarding school.
A strange bird she proved there—a lonely one, that could not make for
itself a summer. At first, her schoolmates were captivated with her ways,
her love of wild dances and sudden song, her freaks of passion and of wit.
She was always new, always surprising, and, for a time, charming.
But, after a while, they tired of her. She could never be depended on to
join in their plans, yet she expected them to follow out hers with their whole
strength. She was very loving, even infatuated in her own affections, and
exacted from those who had professed any love for her, the devotion she
was willing to bestow.
Yet there was a vein of haughty caprice in her character; a love of solitude,
which made her at times wish to retire entirely; and at these times she
would expect to be thoroughly understood, and let alone, yet to be
welcomed back when she returned. She did not thwart others in their
humors, but she never doubted of great indulgence from them.

Some singular ways she had, which, when new, charmed, but, after
acquaintance, displeased her companions. She had by nature the same habit
and power of excitement that is described in the spinning dervishes of the
East. Like them, she would spin until all around her were giddy, while her
own brain, instead of being disturbed, was excited to great action. Pausing,
she would declaim verse of others or her own; perform many parts, with
strange catch-words and burdens that seemed to act with mystical power on
her own fancy, sometimes stimulating her to convulse the hearer with
laughter, sometimes to melt him to tears. When her power began to
languish, she would spin again till fired to recommence her singular drama,
into which she wove figures from the scenes of her earlier childhood, her
companions, and the dignitaries she sometimes saw, with fantasies
unknown to life, unknown to heaven or earth.
This excitement, as may be supposed, was not good for her. It oftenest
came on in the evening, and spoiled her sleep. She would wake in the night,
and cheat her restlessness by inventions that teased, while they sometimes
diverted her companions.
She was also a sleep-walker; and this one trait of her case did somewhat
alarm her guardians, who, otherwise, showed the same profound stupidity,
as to this peculiar being, usual in the overseers of the young. They
consulted a physician, who said she would outgrow it, and prescribed a
milk diet.
Meantime, the fever of this ardent and too early stimulated nature was
constantly increased by the restraints and narrow routine of the boarding
school. She was always devising means to break in upon it. She had a taste,
which would have seemed ludicrous to her mates, if they had not felt some
awe of her, from a touch of genius and power, that never left her, for
costume and fancy dresses; always some sash twisted about her, some
drapery, something odd in the arrangement of her hair and dress; so that the
methodical preceptress dared not let her go out without a careful scrutiny
and remodelling, whose soberizing effects generally disappeared the
moment she was in the free air.
At last, a vent for her was found in private theatricals. Play followed play,
and in these and the rehearsals she found entertainment congenial with her.
The principal parts, as a matter of course, fell to her lot; most of the good

suggestions and arrangements came from her, and for a time she ruled
masterly and shone triumphant.
During these performances the girls had heightened their natural bloom
with artificial red; this was delightful to them—it was something so out of
the way. But Mariana, after the plays were over, kept her carmine saucer on
the dressing table, and put on her blushes regularly as the morning.
When stared and jeered at, she at first said she did it because she thought
it made her look prettier; but, after a while, she became quite petulant about
it—would make no reply to any joke, but merely kept on doing it.
This irritated the girls, as all eccentricity does the world in general, more
than vice or malignity. They talked it over among themselves, till they got
wrought up to a desire of punishing, once for all, this sometimes amusing,
but so often provoking nonconformist.
Having obtained the leave of the mistress, they laid, with great glee, a plan
one evening, which was to be carried into execution next day at dinner.
Among Mariana's irregularities was a great aversion to the meal-time
ceremonial. So long, so tiresome she found it, to be seated at a certain
moment, to wait while each one was served at so large a table, and one
where there was scarcely any conversation; from day to day it became more
heavy to her to sit there, or go there at all. Often as possible she excused
herself on the ever-convenient plea of headache, and was hardly ever ready
when the dinner bell rang.
To-day it found her on the balcony, lost in gazing on the beautiful
prospect. I have heard her say, afterwards, she had rarely in her life been so
happy—and she was one with whom happiness was a still rapture. It was
one of the most blessed summer days; the shadows of great white clouds
empurpled the distant hills for a few moments only to leave them more
golden; the tall grass of the wide fields waved in the softest breeze. Pure
blue were the heavens, and the same hue of pure contentment was in the
heart of Mariana.
Suddenly on her bright mood jarred the dinner bell. At first rose her usual
thought, I will not, cannot go; and then the must, which daily life can
always enforce, even upon the butterflies and birds, came, and she walked
reluctantly to her room. She merely changed her dress, and never thought of
adding the artificial rose to her cheek.

When she took her seat in the dining hall, and was asked if she would be
helped, raising her eyes, she saw the person who asked her was deeply
rouged, with a bright, glaring spot, perfectly round, in either cheek. She
looked at the next—the same apparition! She then slowly passed her eyes
down the whole line, and saw the same, with a suppressed smile distorting
every countenance. Catching the design at once she deliberately looked
along her own side of the table, at every schoolmate in turn; every one had
joined in the trick. The teachers strove to be grave, but she saw they
enjoyed the joke. The servants could not suppress a titter.
When Warren Hastings stood at the bar of Westminster Hall; when the
Methodist preacher walked through a line of men, each of whom greeted
him with a brickbat or a rotten egg,—they had some preparation for the
crisis, and it might not be very difficult to meet it with an impassive brow.
Our little girl was quite unprepared to find herself in the midst of a world
which despised her, and triumphed in her disgrace.
She had ruled like a queen in the midst of her companions; she had shed
her animation through their lives, and loaded them with prodigal favors, nor
once suspected that a powerful favorite might not be loved. Now, she felt
that she had been but a dangerous plaything in the hands of those whose
hearts she never had doubted.
Yet the occasion found her equal to it; for Mariana had the kind of spirit,
which, in a better cause, had made the Roman matron truly say of her death
wound, "It is not painful, Pœtus." She did not blench—she did not change
countenance. She swallowed her dinner with apparent composure. She
made remarks to those near her as if she had no eyes.
The wrath of the foe of course rose higher, and the moment they were
freed from the restraints of the dining room, they all ran off, gayly calling,
and sarcastically laughing, with backward glances, at Mariana, left alone.
She went alone to her room, locked the door, and threw herself on the
floor in strong convulsions. These had sometimes threatened her life, as a
child, but of later years she had outgrown them. School hours came, and she
was not there. A little girl, sent to her door, could get no answer. The
teachers became alarmed, and broke it open. Bitter was their penitence and
that of her companions at the state in which they found her. For some hours
terrible anxiety was felt; but at last, Nature, exhausted, relieved herself by a
deep slumber.

From this Mariana rose an altered being. She made no reply to the
expressions of sorrow from her companions, none to the grave and kind, but
undiscerning comments of her teacher. She did not name the source of her
anguish, and its poisoned dart sunk deeply in. It was this thought which
stung her so.—"What, not one, not a single one, in the hour of trial, to take
my part! not one who refused to take part against me!" Past words of love,
and caresses little heeded at the time, rose to her memory, and gave fuel to
her distempered thoughts. Beyond the sense of universal perfidy, of burning
resentment, she could not get. And Mariana, born for love, now hated all the
world.
The change, however, which these feelings made in her conduct and
appearance bore no such construction to the careless observer. Her gay
freaks were quite gone, her wildness, her invention. Her dress was uniform,
her manner much subdued. Her chief interest seemed now to lie in her
studies and in music. Her companions she never sought; but they, partly
from uneasy, remorseful feelings, partly that they really liked her much
better now that she did not oppress and puzzle them, sought her continually.
And here the black shadow comes upon her life—the only stain upon the
history of Mariana.
They talked to her as girls, having few topics, naturally do of one another.
And the demon rose within her, and spontaneously, without design,
generally without words of positive falsehood, she became a genius of
discord among them. She fanned those flames of envy and jealousy which a
wise, true word from a third person will often quench forever; by a glance,
or a seemingly light reply, she planted the seeds of dissension, till there was
scarce a peaceful affection or sincere intimacy in the circle where she lived,
and could not but rule, for she was one whose nature was to that of the
others as fire to clay.
It was at this time that I came to the school, and first saw Mariana. Me she
charmed at once, for I was a sentimental child, who, in my early ill health,
had been indulged in reading novels till I had no eyes for the common
greens and browns of life. The heroine of one of these, "the Bandit's Bride,"
I immediately saw in Mariana. Surely the Bandit's Bride had just such hair,
and such strange, lively ways, and such a sudden flash of the eye. The
Bandit's Bride, too, was born to be "misunderstood" by all but her lover.
But Mariana, I was determined, should be more fortunate; for, until her

lover appeared, I myself would be the wise and delicate being who could
understand her.
It was not, however, easy to approach her for this purpose. Did I offer to
run and fetch her handkerchief, she was obliged to go to her room, and
would rather do it herself. She did not like to have people turn over for her
the leaves of the music book as she played. Did I approach my stool to her
feet, she moved away, as if to give me room. The bunch of wild flowers
which I timidly laid beside her plate was left there.
After some weeks my desire to attract her notice really preyed upon me,
and one day, meeting her alone in the entry, I fell upon my knees, and
kissing her hand, cried, "O Mariana, do let me love you, and try to love me
a little." But my idol snatched away her hand, and, laughing more wildly
than the Bandit's Bride was ever described to have done, ran into her room.
After that day her manner to me was not only cold, but repulsive; I felt
myself scorned, and became very unhappy.
Perhaps four months had passed thus, when, one afternoon, it became
obvious that something more than common was brewing. Dismay and
mystery were written in many faces of the older girls; much whispering was
going on in corners.
In the evening, after prayers, the principal bade us stay; and, in a grave,
sad voice, summoned forth Mariana to answer charges to be made against
her.
Mariana came forward, and leaned against the chimney-piece. Eight of the
older girls came forward, and preferred against her charges—alas! too well
founded—of calumny and falsehood.
My heart sank within me, as one after the other brought up their proofs,
and I saw they were too strong to be resisted. I could not bear the thought of
this second disgrace of my shining favorite. The first had been whispered to
me, though the girls did not like to talk about it. I must confess, such is the
charm of strength to softer natures, that neither of these crises could deprive
Mariana of hers in my eyes.
At first, she defended herself with self-possession and eloquence. But
when she found she could no more resist the truth, she suddenly threw
herself down, dashing her head, with all her force, against the iron hearth,
on which a fire was burning, and was taken up senseless.

The affright of those present was great. Now that they had perhaps killed
her, they reflected it would have been as well if they had taken warning
from the former occasion, and approached very carefully a nature so
capable of any extreme. After a while she revived, with a faint groan, amid
the sobs of her companions. I was on my knees by the bed, and held her
cold hand. One of those most aggrieved took it from me to beg her pardon,
and say it was impossible not to love her. She made no reply.
Neither that night, nor for several days, could a word be obtained from
her, nor would she touch food; but, when it was presented to her, or any one
drew near for any cause, she merely turned away her head, and gave no
sign. The teacher saw that some terrible nervous affection had fallen upon
her—that she grew more and more feverish. She knew not what to do.
Meanwhile, a new revolution had taken place in the mind of the
passionate but nobly-tempered child. All these months nothing but the sense
of injury had rankled in her heart. She had gone on in one mood, doing
what the demon prompted, without scruple and without fear.
But at the moment of detection, the tide ebbed, and the bottom of her soul
lay revealed to her eye. How black, how stained and sad! Strange, strange
that she had not seen before the baseness and cruelty of falsehood, the
loveliness of truth. Now, amid the wreck, uprose the moral nature which
never before had attained the ascendant. "But," she thought, "too late sin is
revealed to me in all its deformity, and sin-defiled, I will not, cannot live.
The mainspring of life is broken."
And thus passed slowly by her hours in that black despair of which only
youth is capable. In older years men suffer more dull pain, as each sorrow
that comes drops its leaden weight into the past, and, similar features of
character bringing similar results, draws up the heavy burden buried in
those depths. But only youth has energy, with fixed, unwinking gaze, to
contemplate grief, to hold it in the arms and to the heart, like a child which
makes it wretched, yet is indubitably its own.
The lady who took charge of this sad child had never well understood her
before, but had always looked on her with great tenderness. And now love
seemed—when all around were in greatest distress, fearing to call in
medical aid, fearing to do without it—to teach her where the only balm was
to be found that could have healed this wounded spirit.

One night she came in, bringing a calming draught. Mariana was sitting,
as usual, her hair loose, her dress the same robe they had put on her at first,
her eyes fixed vacantly upon the whited wall. To the proffers and entreaties
of her nurse she made no reply.
The lady burst into tears, but Mariana did not seem even to observe it.
The lady then said, "O my child, do not despair; do not think that one
great fault can mar a whole life. Let me trust you, let me tell you the griefs
of my sad life. I will tell to you, Mariana, what I never expected to impart to
any one."
And so she told her tale: it was one of pain, of shame, borne, not for
herself, but for one near and dear as herself. Mariana knew the lady—knew
the pride and reserve of her nature. She had often admired to see how the
cheek, lovely, but no longer young, mantled with the deepest blush of
youth, and the blue eyes were cast down at any little emotion: she had
understood the proud sensibility of the character. She fixed her eyes on
those now raised to hers, bright with fast-falling tears. She heard the story
to the end, and then, without saying a word, stretched out her hand for the
cup.
She returned to life, but it was as one who has passed through the valley
of death. The heart of stone was quite broken in her, the fiery life fallen
from flame to coal. When her strength was a little restored, she had all her
companions summoned, and said to them, "I deserved to die, but a generous
trust has called me back to life. I will be worthy of it, nor ever betray the
truth, or resent injury more. Can you forgive the past?"
And they not only forgave, but, with love and earnest tears, clasped in
their arms the returning sister. They vied with one another in offices of
humble love to the humbled one; and let it be recorded as an instance of the
pure honor of which young hearts are capable, that these facts, known to
forty persons, never, so far as I know, transpired beyond those walls.
It was not long after this that Mariana was summoned home. She went
thither a wonderfully instructed being, though in ways that those who had
sent her forth to learn little dreamed of.
Never was forgotten the vow of the returning prodigal. Mariana could not
resent, could not play false. The terrible crisis which she so early passed
through probably prevented the world from hearing much of her. A wild fire

was tamed in that hour of penitence at the boarding school such as has
oftentimes wrapped court and camp in its destructive glow.
But great were the perils she had yet to undergo, for she was one of those
barks which easily get beyond soundings, and ride not lightly on the
plunging billow.
Her return to her native climate seconded the effects of inward
revolutions. The cool airs of the north had exasperated nerves too
susceptible for their tension. Those of the south restored her to a more soft
and indolent state. Energy gave place to feeling—turbulence to intensity of
character.
At this time, love was the natural guest; and he came to her under a form
that might have deluded one less ready for delusion.
Sylvain was a person well proportioned to her lot in years, family, and
fortune. His personal beauty was not great, but of a noble description.
Repose marked his slow gesture, and the steady gaze of his large brown
eye; but it was a repose that would give way to a blaze of energy, when the
occasion called. In his stature, expression, and heavy coloring, he might not
unfitly be represented by the great magnolias that inhabit the forests of that
climate. His voice, like every thing about him, was rich and soft, rather than
sweet or delicate.
Mariana no sooner knew him than she loved; and her love, lovely as she
was, soon excited his. But O, it is a curse to woman to love first, or most! In
so doing she reverses the natural relations; and her heart can never, never be
satisfied with what ensues.
Mariana loved first, and loved most, for she had most force and variety to
love with. Sylvain seemed, at first, to take her to himself, as the deep
southern night might some fair star; but it proved not so.
Mariana was a very intellectual being, and she needed companionship.
This she could only have with Sylvain, in the paths of passion and action.
Thoughts he had none, and little delicacy of sentiment. The gifts she loved
to prepare of such for him he took with a sweet but indolent smile; he held
them lightly, and soon they fell from his grasp. He loved to have her near
him, to feel the glow and fragrance of her nature, but cared not to explore
the little secret paths whence that fragrance was collected.
Mariana knew not this for a long time. Loving so much, she imagined all
the rest; and, where she felt a blank, always hoped that further communion

would fill it up. When she found this could never be,—that there was
absolutely a whole province of her being to which nothing in his answered,
—she was too deeply in love to leave him. Often, after passing hours
together beneath the southern moon, when, amid the sweet intoxication of
mutual love, she still felt the desolation of solitude, and a repression of her
finer powers, she had asked herself, Can I give him up? But the heart
always passionately answered, No! I may be wretched with him, but I
cannot live without him.
And the last miserable feeling of these conflicts was, that if the lover—
soon to be the bosom friend—could have dreamed of these conflicts, he
would have laughed, or else been angry, even enough to give her up.
Ah, weakness of the strong! of those strong only where strength is
weakness! Like others, she had the decisions of life to make before she had
light by which to make them. Let none condemn her. Those who have not
erred as fatally should thank the guardian angel who gave them more time
to prepare for judgment, but blame no children who thought at arm's length
to find the moon. Mariana, with a heart capable of highest Eros, gave it to
one who knew love only as a flower or plaything, and bound her
heartstrings to one who parted his as lightly as the ripe fruit leaves the
bough. The sequel could not fail. Many console themselves for the one
great mistake with their children, with the world. This was not possible to
Mariana. A few months of domestic life she still was almost happy. But
Sylvain then grew tired. He wanted business and the world: of these she had
no knowledge, for them no faculties. He wanted in her the head of his
house; she to make her heart his home. No compromise was possible
between natures of such unequal poise, and which had met only on one or
two points. Through all its stages she
"felt
The agonizing sense
Of seeing love from passion melt
Into indifference;
The fearful shame, that, day by day,
Burns onward, still to burn,
To have thrown her precious heart away,
And met this black return,"

till death at last closed the scene. Not that she died of one downright blow
on the heart. That is not the way such cases proceed. I cannot detail all the
symptoms, for I was not there to watch them, and aunt Z., who described
them, was neither so faithful an observer or narrator as I have shown myself
in the school-day passages; but, generally, they were as follows.
Sylvain wanted to go into the world, or let it into his house. Mariana
consented; but, with an unsatisfied heart, and no lightness of character, she
played her part ill there. The sort of talent and facility she had displayed in
early days were not the least like what is called out in the social world by
the desire to please and to shine. Her excitement had been muse-like—that
of the improvisatrice, whose kindling fancy seeks to create an atmosphere
round it, and makes the chain through which to set free its electric sparks.
That had been a time of wild and exuberant life. After her character became
more tender and concentrated, strong affection or a pure enthusiasm might
still have called out beautiful talents in her. But in the first she was utterly
disappointed. The second was not roused within her mind. She did not
expand into various life, and remained unequal; sometimes too passive,
sometimes too ardent, and not sufficiently occupied with what occupied
those around her to come on the same level with them and embellish their
hours.
Thus she lost ground daily with her husband, who, comparing her with the
careless shining dames of society, wondered why he had found her so
charming in solitude.
At intervals, when they were left alone, Mariana wanted to open her heart,
to tell the thoughts of her mind. She was so conscious of secret riches
within herself, that sometimes it seemed, could she but reveal a glimpse of
them to the eye of Sylvain, he would be attracted near her again, and take a
path where they could walk hand in hand. Sylvain, in these intervals,
wanted an indolent repose. His home was his castle. He wanted no scenes
too exciting there. Light jousts and plays were well enough, but no grave
encounters. He liked to lounge, to sing, to read, to sleep. In fine, Sylvain
became the kind but preoccupied husband, Mariana the solitary and
wretched wife. He was off, continually, with his male companions, on
excursions or affairs of pleasure. At home Mariana found that neither her
books nor music would console her.

She was of too strong a nature to yield without a struggle to so dull a fiend
as despair. She looked into other hearts, seeking whether she could there
find such home as an orphan asylum may afford. This she did rather
because the chance came to her, and it seemed unfit not to seize the
proffered plank, than in hope; for she was not one to double her stakes, but
rather with Cassandra power to discern early the sure course of the game.
And Cassandra whispered that she was one of those
"Whom men love not, but yet regret;"
and so it proved. Just as in her childish days, though in a different form, it
happened betwixt her and these companions. She could not be content to
receive them quietly, but was stimulated to throw herself too much into the
tie, into the hour, till she filled it too full for them. Like Fortunio, who
sought to do homage to his friends by building a fire of cinnamon, not
knowing that its perfume would be too strong for their endurance, so did
Mariana. What she wanted to tell they did not wish to hear; a little had
pleased, so much overpowered, and they preferred the free air of the street,
even, to the cinnamon perfume of her palace.
However, this did not signify; had they staid, it would not have availed
her. It was a nobler road, a higher aim, she needed now; this did not become
clear to her.
She lost her appetite, she fell sick, had fever. Sylvain was alarmed, nursed
her tenderly; she grew better. Then his care ceased; he saw not the mind's
disease, but left her to rise into health, and recover the tone of her spirits, as
she might. More solitary than ever, she tried to raise herself; but she knew
not yet enough. The weight laid upon her young life was a little too heavy
for it. One long day she passed alone, and the thoughts and presages came
too thick for her strength. She knew not what to do with them, relapsed into
fever, and died.
Notwithstanding this weakness, I must ever think of her as a fine sample
of womanhood, born to shed light and life on some palace home. Had she
known more of God and the universe, she would not have given way where
so many have conquered. But peace be with her; she now, perhaps, has
entered into a larger freedom, which is knowledge. With her died a great
interest in life to me. Since her I have never seen a Bandit's Bride. She,
indeed, turned out to be only a merchant's. Sylvain is married again to a fair

and laughing girl, who will not die, probably, till their marriage grows a
"golden marriage."
Aunt Z. had with her some papers of Mariana's, which faintly shadow
forth the thoughts that engaged her in the last days. One of these seems to
have been written when some faint gleam had been thrown across the path
only to make its darkness more visible. It seems to have been suggested by
remembrance of the beautiful ballad, Helen of Kirconnel Lee, which once
she loved to recite, and in tones that would not have sent a chill to the heart
from which it came.
"Death
Opens her sweet white arms, and whispers, Peace;
Come, say thy sorrows in this bosom! This
Will never close against thee, and my heart,
Though cold, cannot be colder much than man's."
DISAPPOINTMENT.

"I wish I were where Helen lies."
A lover in the times of old,
Thus vents his grief in lonely sighs,
And hot tears from a bosom cold.

But, mourner for thy martyred love,
Couldst thou but know what hearts must feel.
Where no sweet recollections move,
Whose tears a desert fount reveal!

When "in thy arms bird Helen fell,"
She died, sad man, she died for thee;
Nor could the films of death dispel
Her loving eye's sweet radiancy.

Thou wert beloved, and she had loved,
Till death alone the whole could tell;
Death every shade of doubt removed,
And steeped the star in its cold well.

On some fond breast the parting soul
Relies—earth has no more to give;
Who wholly loves has known the whole;
The wholly loved doth truly live.

But some, sad outcasts from this prize,
Do wither to a lonely grave;
All hearts their hidden love despise,
And leave them to the whelming wave.

They heart to heart have never pressed,
Nor hands in holy pledge have given,
By father's love were ne'er caressed,
Nor in a mother's eye saw heaven.

A flowerless and fruitless tree,
A dried-up stream, a mateless bird,
They live, yet never living be,
They die, their music all unheard.

I wish I were where Helen lies,
For there I could not be alone;
But now, when this dull body dies,
The spirit still will make its moan.

Love passed me by, nor touched my brow;
Life would not yield one perfect boon;
And all too late it calls me now—
O, all too late, and all too soon.

If thou couldst the dark riddle read
Which leaves this dart within my breast,
Then might I think thou lov'st indeed,
Then were the whole to thee confest.

Father, they will not take me home;

To the poor child no heart is free;
In sleet and snow all night I roam;
Father, was this decreed by thee?

I will not try another door,
To seek what I have never found;
Now, till the very last is o'er,
Upon the earth I'll wander round.

I will not hear the treacherous call
That bids me stay and rest a while,
For I have found that, one and all,
They seek me for a prey and spoil.

They are not bad; I know it well;
I know they know not what they do;
They are the tools of the dread spell
Which the lost lover must pursue.

In temples sometimes she may rest,
In lonely groves, away from men,
There bend the head, by heats distressed,
Nor be by blows awoke again.

Nature is kind, and God is kind;
And, if she had not had a heart,
Only that great discerning mind,
She might have acted well her part.

But O this thirst, that nought can fill,
Save those unfounden waters free!
The angel of my life must still
And soothe me in eternity!
It marks the defect in the position of woman that one like Mariana should
have found reason to write thus. To a man of equal power, equal sincerity,
no more!—many resources would have presented themselves. He would not
have needed to seek, he would have been called by life, and not permitted

to be quite wrecked through the affections only. But such women as
Mariana are often lost, unless they meet some man of sufficiently great soul
to prize them.
Van Artevelde's Elena, though in her individual nature unlike my Mariana,
is like her in a mind whose large impulses are disproportioned to the
persons and occasions she meets, and which carry her beyond those
reserves which mark the appointed lot of woman. But, when she met Van
Artevelde, he was too great not to revere her rare nature, without regard to
the stains and errors of its past history; great enough to receive her entirely,
and make a new life for her; man enough to be a lover! But as such men
come not so often as once an age, their presence should not be absolutely
needed to sustain life.

SUNDAY MEDITATIONS ON VARIOUS TEXTS.
Meditation First.
"And Jesus, answering, said unto them, Have faith in God."—Mark xi. 22.
O, DIRECTION most difficult to follow! O, counsel most mighty of import!
Beauteous harmony to the purified soul! Mysterious, confounding as an
incantation to those yet groping and staggering amid the night, the fog, the
chaos of their own inventions!
Yes, this is indeed the beginning and the end of all knowledge and virtue;
the way and the goal; the enigma and its solution. The soul cannot prove to
herself the existence of a God; she cannot prove her own immortality; she
cannot prove the beauty of virtue, or the deformity of vice; her own
consciousness, the first ground of this belief, cannot be compassed by the
reason, that inferior faculty which the Deity gave for practical, temporal
purposes only. This consciousness is divine; it is part of the Deity; through
this alone we sympathize with the imperishable, the infinite, the nature of
things. Were reason commensurate with this part of our intellectual life,
what should we do with the things of time? The leaves and buds of earth
would wither beneath the sun of our intelligence; its crags and precipices
would be levelled before the mighty torrent of our will; all its dross would
crumble to ashes under the fire of our philosophy.
God willed it otherwise; WHY, who can guess? Why this planet, with its
tormenting limitations of space and time, was ever created,—why the soul
was cased in this clogging, stifling integument, (which, while it conveys to
the soul, in a roundabout way, knowledge which she might obviously
acquire much better without its aid, tempts constantly to vice and indolence,
suggesting sordid wants, and hampering or hindering thought,)—I pretend
not to say. Let others toil to stifle sad distrust a thousand ways. Let them
satisfy themselves by reasonings on the nature of free agency; let them
imagine it was impossible men should be purified to angels, except by
resisting the temptations of guilt and crime; let them be reasonably content
to feel that
"Faith conquers in no easy war;
By toil alone the prize is won;

The grape dissolves not in the cup—
Wine from the crushing press must run;
And would a spirit heavenward go,
A heart must break in death below."
Why an omnipotent Deity should permit evil, either as necessary to
produce good, or incident to laws framed for its production, must remain a
mystery to me. True, we cannot conceive how the world could have been
ordered differently, and because we,—beings half of clay; beings bred amid,
and nurtured upon imperfection and decay; beings who must not only sleep
and eat, but pass the greater part of their temporal day in procuring the
means to do so,—because WE, creatures so limited and blind, so weak of
thought and dull of hearing, cannot conceive how evil could have been
dispensed with, those among us who are styled wise and learned have
thought fit to assume that the Infinite, the Omnipotent, could not have
found a way! "Could not," "evil must be incident"—terms invented to
express the thoughts or deeds of the children of dust. Shall they be applied
to the Omnipotent? Is a confidence in the goodness of God more trying to
faith, than the belief that a God exists, to whom these words, transcending
our powers of conception, apply? O, no, no! "Have faith in God!" Strive to
expand thy soul to the feeling of wisdom, of beauty, of goodness; live, and
act as if these were the necessary elements of things; "live for thy faith, and
thou shalt behold it living." In another world God will repay thy trust, and
"reveal to thee the first causes of things which Leibnitz could not," as the
queen of Prussia said, when she was dying. Socrates has declared that the
belief in the soul's immortality is so delightful, so elevating, so purifying,
that even were it not the truth, "we should daily strive to enchant ourselves
with it." And thus with faith in wisdom and goodness,—that is to say, in
God,—the earthquake-defying, rock-foundation of our hopes is laid; the
sun-greeting dome which crowns the most superb palace of our knowledge
is builded. A noble and accomplished man, of a later day, has said, "To
credit ordinary and visible objects is not faith, but persuasion. I bless
myself, and am thankful, that I lived not in the days of miracles, that I never
saw Christ, nor his disciples; then had my faith been thrust upon me, nor
could I enjoy that greater blessing pronounced upon those who believe yet
saw not."

I cannot speak thus proudly and heartily. I find the world of sense strong
enough against the intellectual and celestial world. It is easy to believe in
our passionless moments, or in those when earth would seem too dark
without the guiding star of faith; but to live in faith, not sometimes to feel,
but always to have it, is difficult. Were faith ever with us, how steady would
be our energy, how equal our ambition, how calmly bright our hopes! The
darts of envy would be blunted, the cup of disappointment lose its
bitterness, the impassioned eagerness of the heart be stilled, tears would fall
like holy dew, and blossoms fragrant with celestial May ensue.
But the prayer of most of us must be, "Lord, we believe—help thou our
unbelief!" These are to me the most significant words of Holy Writ. I will to
believe; O, guide, support, strengthen, and soothe me to do so! Lord, grant
me to believe firmly, and to act nobly. Let me not be tempted to waste my
time, and weaken my powers, by attempts to soar on feeble pinions "where
angels bashful look." In faith let me interpret the universe!
Meditation Second.
"Why is light given to a man whose way is hid, and whom God hath hedged
in?"—Job iii. 23.
This pathetic inquiry rises from all parts of the globe, from millions of
human souls, to that heaven from whence the light proceeds. From the
young, full of eager aspirations after virtue and glory; with the glance of the
falcon to descry the high-placed aim,—but ah! the wing of the wren to
reach it! The young enthusiast must often weep. His heart glows, his eye
sparkles as he reads of the youthful triumphs of a Pompey, the sublime
devotion of an Agis;[34] he shuts the book, he looks around him for a theatre
whereon to do likewise—petty pursuits, mean feelings, and trifling
pleasures meet his eye; the cold breeze of selfishness has nipped every
flower; the dull glow of prosaic life overpowers the beauties of the
landscape. He plunges into the unloved pursuit, or some despised
amusement, to soothe that day's impatience, and wakes on the morrow,
crying, "I have lost a day; and where, where shall I now turn my steps to
find the destined path?" The gilded image of some petty victory holds forth
a talisman which seems to promise him sure tokens. He rushes forward; the
swords of foes and rivals bar the way; the ground trembles and gives way
beneath his feet; rapid streams, unseen at a distance, roll between him and
the object of his pursuit; faint, giddy and exhausted by the loss of his best

blood, he reaches the goal, seizes the talisman; his eyes devour the
inscription—alas! the characters are unknown to him. He looks back for
some friend who might aid him,—his friends are whelmed beneath the
torrent, or have turned back disheartened. He must struggle onward alone
and ignorant as before; yet in his wishes there is light.
Another is attracted by a lovely phantom; with airy step she precedes him,
holding, as he thinks, in her upward-pointing hand the faithful needle which
might point him to the pole-star of his wishes. Unwearied he follows,
imploring her in most moving terms to pause but a moment and let him take
her hand. Heedless she flits onward to some hopeless desert, where she
pauses only to turn to her unfortunate captive the malicious face of a very
Morgana.
The old,—O their sighs are deeper still! They have wandered far, toiled
much; the true light is now shown them. Ah, why was it reflected so falsely
through "life's many-colored dome of painted glass" upon their youthful,
anxious gaze? And now the path they came by is hedged in by new
circumstances against the feet of others, and its devious course vainly
mapped in their memories; should the light of their example lead others into
the same track, these unlucky followers will vainly seek an issue. They
attempt to unroll their charts for the use of their children, and their
children's children. They feed the dark lantern of wisdom with the oil of
experience, and hold it aloft over the declivity up which these youth are
blundering, in vain; some fall, misled by the flickering light; others seek by-
paths, along which they hope to be guided by suns or moons of their own.
All meet at last, only to bemoan or sneer together. How many strive with
feverish zeal to paint on the clouds of outward life the hues of their own
souls; what do not these suffer? What baffling,—what change in the
atmosphere on which they depend,—yet not in vain! Something they
realize, something they grasp, something (O, how unlike the theme of their
hope!) they have created. A transient glow, a deceitful thrill,—these be the
blisses of mortals. Yet have these given birth to noble deeds, and thoughts
worthy to be recorded by the pens of angels on the tablets of immortality.
And this, O man! is thy only solace in those paroxysms of despair which
must result to the yet eager heart from the vast disproportion between our
perceptions and our exhibition of those perceptions. Seize on all the twigs
that may help thee in thine ascent, though the thorns upon them rend thee.
Toil ceaselessly towards the Source of light, and remember that he who thus

eloquently lamented found that, although far worse than his dark
presentiments had pictured came upon him, though vainly he feared and
trembled, and there was no safety for him, yet his sighings came before his
meat, and, happy in their recollection, he found at last that danger and
imprisonment are but for a season, and that God is good, as he is great.

APPEAL FOR AN ASYLUM FOR DISCHARGED FEMALE
CONVICTS.
THE ladies of the Prison Association have been from time to time engaged
in the endeavor to procure funds for establishing this asylum.[35] They have
met, thus far, with little success; but touched by the position of several
women, who, on receiving their discharge, were anxiously waiting in hope
there would be means provided to save them from return to their former
suffering and polluted life, they have taken a house, and begun their good
work, in faith that Heaven must take heed that such an enterprise may not
fail, and touch the hearts of men to aid it.
They have taken a house, and secured the superintendence of an excellent
matron. There are already six women under her care. But this house is
unprovided with furniture, or the means of securing food for body and mind
to these unfortunates, during the brief novitiate which gives them so much
to learn and unlearn.
The object is to lend a helping hand to the many who show a desire of
reformation, but have hitherto been inevitably repelled into infamy by the
lack of friends to find them honest employment, and a temporary refuge till
it can be procured. Efforts will be made to instruct them how to break up
bad habits, and begin a healthy course for body and mind.
The house has in it scarcely any thing. It is a true Lazarus establishment,
asking for the crumbs that fall from the rich man's table. Old furniture
would be acceptable, clothes, books that are no longer needed by their
owners.
This statement we make in appealing to the poor, though they are, usually,
the most generous. Not that they are, originally, better than the rich, but
circumstances have fitted them to appreciate the misfortunes, the trials, the
wrongs that beset those a little lower than themselves. But we have seen too
many instances where those who were educated in luxury would cast aside
sloth and selfishness with eagerness when once awakened to better things,
not to hope in appealing to the rich also.
And to all we appeal: to the poor, who will know how to sympathize with
those who are not only poor but degraded, diseased, likely to be hurried

onward to a shameful, hopeless death; to the rich, to equalize the
advantages of which they have received more than their share; to men, to
atone for wrongs inflicted by men on that "weaker sex," who should, they
say, be soft, confiding, dependent on them for protection; to women, to feel
for those who have not been guarded either by social influence or inward
strength from that first mistake which the opinion of the world makes
irrevocable for women alone. Since their danger is so great, their fall so
remediless, let mercies be multiplied when there is a chance of that partial
restoration which society at present permits.
In New York we have come little into contact with that class of society
which has a surplus of leisure at command; but in other cities we have,
found in their ranks many—some men, more women—who wanted only a
decided object and clear light to fill the noble office of disinterested
educators and guardians to their less fortunate fellows. It has been our
happiness, in not a few instances, by merely apprising such persons of what
was to be done, to rouse that generous spirit which relieved them from
ennui and a gradual ossification of the whole system, and transferred them
into a thoughtful, sympathetic, and beneficent existence. Such, no doubt,
are near us here, if we could but know it. A poet writes thus of the cities:—
Cities of proud hotels,
Houses of rich and great,
A stack of smoking chimneys,
A roof of frozen slate!
It cannot conquer folly,
Time, and space, conquering steam,
And the light, outspeeding telegraph,
Bears nothing on its beam.

The politics are base,
The letters do not cheer,
And 'tis far in the deeps of history,
The voice that speaketh clear.
Trade and the streets insnare us,
Our bodies are weak and worn,
We plot and corrupt each other,
And we despoil the unborn.

Yet there in the parlor sits
Some figure of noble guise,
Our angel in a stranger's form,
Or woman's pleading eyes.
Or only a flashing sunbeam
In at the window pane,
Or music pours on mortals
Its beautiful disdain.
These "pleading eyes," these "angels in strangers' forms," we meet, or
seem to meet, as we pass through the thoroughfares of this great city. We do
not know their names or homes. We cannot go to those still and sheltered
abodes and tell them the tales that would be sure to awaken the heart to a
deep and active interest in this matter. But should these words meet their
eyes, we would say, "Have you entertained your leisure hours with the
Mysteries of Paris, or the pathetic story of Violet Woodville?" Then you
have some idea how innocence, worthy of the brightest planet, may be
betrayed by want, or by the most generous tenderness; how the energies of a
noble reformation may lie hidden beneath the ashes of a long burning, as in
the case of "La Louve." You must have felt that yourselves are not better,
only more protected children of God than these. Do you want to link these
fictions, which have made you weep, with facts around you where your pity
might be of use? Go to the Penitentiary at Blackwell's Island. You may be
repelled by seeing those who are in health while at work together, keeping
up one another's careless spirit and effrontery by bad association. But see
them in the Hospital,—where the worn features of the sick show the sad
ruins of past loveliness, past gentleness. See in the eyes of the nurses the
woman's spirit still, so kindly, so inspiring. See those little girls huddled in a
corner, their neglected dress and hair contrasting with some ribbon of
cherished finery held fast in a childish hand. Think what "sweet seventeen"
was to you, and what it is to them, and see if you do not wish to aid in any
enterprise that gives them a chance of better days. We assume no higher
claim for this enterprise. The dreadful social malady which creates the need
of it, is one that imperatively demands deep-searching, preventive
measures; it is beyond cure. But, here and there, some precious soul may be
saved from unwilling sin, unutterable woe. Is not the hope to save here and
there one worthy of great and persistent sacrifice?

THE RICH MAN.

An Ideal Sketch.
IN my walks through this city, the sight of spacious and expensive
dwelling-houses now in process of building, has called up the following
reverie.
All benevolent persons, whether deeply-thinking on, or deeply-feeling, the
woes, difficulties, and dangers of our present social system, are agreed that
either great improvements are needed, or a thorough reform.
Those who desire the latter include the majority of thinkers. And we
ourselves, both from personal observation and the testimony of others, are
convinced that a radical reform is needed; not a reform that rejects the
instruction of the past, or asserts that God and man have made mistakes till
now. We believe that all past developments have taken place under natural
and necessary laws, and that the Paternal Spirit has at no period forgotten
his children, but granted to all generations and all ages their chances of
good to balance inevitable ills. We prize the past; we recognize it as our
parent, our nurse, and our teacher; and we know that for a time the new
wine required the old bottles, to prevent its being spilled upon the ground.
Still we feel that the time is come which not only permits, but demands, a
wider statement and a nobler action. The aspect of society presents mighty
problems, which must be solved by the soul of man "divinely-intending"
itself to the task, or all will become worse instead of better, and ere long the
social fabric totter to decay.
Yet while the new measures are ripening, and the new men educating,
there is still room on the old platform for some worthy action. It is possible
for a man of piety, resolution, and good sense, to lead a life which, if not
expansive, generous, graceful, and pure from suspicion and contempt, is yet
not entirely unworthy of his position as the child of God, and ruler of a
planet.
Let us take, then, some men just where they find themselves, in a mixed
state of society, where, in quantity, we are free to say the bad preponderates,