Ralph Waldo Emerson - The Complete Works, Vol. IV, Representative Men, 1896 by gnosisclassics

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l!li"ber^jDc <iEiiition

REPRESENTATIVE MEN BEING VOLUME

IV.

EMERSON'S COMPLETE WORKS

REPRESENTATIVE MEN

SEVEN LECTURES

RALPH WALDO EMERSON

Be'a ana Ufoisfa (S,mian

BOSTONHOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY New

York: 11 East Seventeenth Street

1896

I\.\

073^^

By RALPH

WALDO BMEKSON.

The Riverside Press, Ca-mbridgef Mass., Electrotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton

IT.

S. A.

& Company.

CONTENTS. ?ASZ

Uses op Geeat

Men

11 Plato; or, The Philosophbe

Plato

New EEADiNoa

III.

Swedenborg

;

IV.

Montaigne

or,

;

ok,

V. Shakspeare; or. VI. VII.

Napoleon;

Goethe

....

;

or.

or,

The Mystic

The Skeptic The Poet

The Man op the World

The Writer

.141

179

,211 247

USES OF GEEAT MEN.

;

USES OF GKEAT MEN.

natural to believe in great men.

If the

companions of our cMldliood should turn out to be heroes,

and

their condition regal,

the circumstance

genius

would not

sur-

All mythology opens with demigods, and

prise us.

high and poetic

paramount.

tama, the

first

men

;

that

is,

their

In the legends of the Gau-

ate the earth

and found

it deli-

ciously sweet.

The

Nature seems to exist for the excellent. upheld by the veracity of good

world

make

the earth wholesome.

them found and

life

They who

glad and nutritious.

men

they

lived with

Life

sweet

tolerable only in our belief in such society

and, actually or ideally, superiors.

we manage

to live with

We call our children

their names.

and our lands by Their names are wrought into the

verbs of language, their works and ef&gies are in

our houses, and every circumstance of the day recalls

an anecdote of them.

The search

after the great

man

the dream of

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.

youth and the most serious occupation of manhood. travel into foreign parts to find his works,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

But we are if possible, to get a glimpse of him. put off with fortune instead. You say, the English are practical

;

the

Valencia the climate

Germans are hospitable in and in the hills delicious ;

;

of the Sacramento there

gold for the gathering.

Yes, but I do not travel to find comfortable, rich

and hospitable people, or cost too

But

much.

clear sky, or ingots that

there were any

magnet that

would point to the countries and houses where are the persons ful,

who

I would seU

are intrinsically rich all

and buy

it,

and power-

and put myself on

the road to-day.

The

on their

race goes with us

knowledge that in the city

the railroad, raises the credit of

But enormous populations, disgusting, like

of fleas,

Our I

moving

aU the

The

invented citizens.

they be beggars, are

cheese, like hiUs of ants or

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; the more, the worse.

religion is the love

patrons.

credit.

man who

The gods

ments of great men. one mould.

Our

and cherishing of these

of fable are the shining

We run

mo-

our vessels into

colossal theologies

Christism, Buddhism,

of Judaism,

Mahometism, are the neces-

sary and structural action

The student

all

of history

like a

the

man

warehouse to buy cloths or carpets.

human mind. going into a

fancies he

USES OF GREAT MEN. has a

new article. If he go to the factory, he shall new stuff stiU repeats the scrolls and

find that his

which are found on the interior walls of

rosettes

Our theism is the purifihuman mind. Man can paint, or

the pyramids of Thebes. cation of the

make, or think, nothing but man.

believes

that the great material elements had their origin

from

his thought.

And

our philosophy finds one

essence collected or distributed.

now we proceed to inquire into the kinds service we derive from others, let us be warned If

the danger of

enough.

of of

modern studies, and begin low must not contend against love, or

deny the substantial existence of other people.

know not what woidd happen to us. We have social strengths. Our affection towards others crea sort of vantage or purchase which nothing

ates

win supply.

I can do that by another which I canI can say to you what I cannot

not do alone. say to myself.

first

Other men are lenses through

Each man seeks and such

which we read our own minds.

those of different quality from his own, as are

good of their kind

;

pure.

it is

is,

A little genius let us leave men

nature,

Let us have the quality

reactive.

difference betwixt

he seeks other

The stronger the

men, and the otherest. the

that

is,

alone.

A main

whether they attend theii

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.

own

Man

affair or not.

that noble endogenous

plant which grows, like the palm, from within out-

ward.

His own

affair,

though impossible to others,

he can open with celerity and in sport. to sugar to

be sweet and

It is easy

to nitre to be salt.

take a great deal of pains to waylay and entrap

our hands.

that which of itself will fall into

count him a great

man who

inhabits a higher

sphere of thought, into which other

men

with

rise

labor and difficulty ; he has but to open his eyes to see things in a true light

whilst they

and

in large relations,

must make painful corrections and

keep a vigilant eye on

many

sources of error.^ His

service to us is of like sort.

It costs a beautiful

person no exertion to paint her image on our eyes yet

how

splendid

that benefit

It costs

for a wise soid to convey his quality to other

And

every one can do his best thing easiest.

de moyens, beaucoup d'effSt." is

what he

;

no more men. ''Peu

great

who

from nature, and who never remiads

us of others.

But he must be related to us, and our life receive from him some promise of explanation. I cannot teU what I would know but I have observed there ;

are persons who, in their character

swer questions which I have not

man

and

actions, an-

skill to put.

One

answers some question which none of his contemporaries put, and is isolated. The past and

USES OF GREAT MEN.

passing religions and phUosophies answer some

sibilities,

times,

men

Certain

other question.

affect us as rich pos-

but helpless to themselves and to their

— the

some

instinct that

— they do not speak

to our want.

sport perhaps of

rules in the air

;

But the_great are near we know them

at sight.

;

They satisfy is

good

effective, generative

room, food and seed,

What

expectatiou-and faU into place.

allies.

— a hybrid does

not.

makes

;

for itself

sound apple produces Is a

man

in his place,

constructive, fertile, magnetic, inundating ar-

mies with his purpose, which

thus executed.

makes its own shores, and each legitimate idea makes its own channels and welcome,

The

river

—

harvests for food, institutions for expression, weap-

ons to fight with and disciples to explain true artist has the planet for his pedestal

it. ;

The

the ad-

venturer, after years of strife, has nothing broader

own shoes. Our common discourse

than his

respects

use or service from superior men. is

agreeable to the early belief of

two kinds of Direct giving

men;

direct

giving of material or metaphysical aid, as of health, eternal youth, fine senses, arts of healing, magical

power and prophecy. a teacher who can

sell

The boy believes there is Churches him wisdom.

believe in imputed merit.

are not

much

But, in strictness,

cognizant of direct serving.

Man

REPRESENTATIVE

endogenous, and education aid

we have from

others

MlUN.

The

unfolding.

mechanical compared

What

with the discoveries of nature in us.

thus

and the effect learned is remains. Eight ethics are central and go from the Gift is contrary to the law of the soul outward. Serving others is serving us. I must universe. delightful in the doing,

absolve spirit

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

to myself.

Mind thy

with other people

skies, or

says the

affair,'

coxcomb, would you meddle with the ?

Indirect service

Men have a pictorial or representative quality,

left.

and serve us

Behmen and Sweden-

in the intellect.

Men

borg saw that things were representative. are also representative j

and

sec-

into food

for

first, .of _ihings,

ondly, of ideas.

plants convert the minerals

man converts some raw material human use. The inventors of fire,

animals, so each in nature to electricity,

cotton

magnetism, iron, lead, glass, linen, sUk,

the makers of tools

;

mal notation

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

musician,

;

the geometer

severally

the inventor of decithe engineer

;

make an

easy

way

through unknown and impossible confusions.

man

of nature,

Linnseus, lichens

forms

;

secret liking connected with

some

whose agent and interpreter he of

plants

Van Mons,

Huber, of bees

;

of pears

Euclid, of lines

;

the

;

for

all,

Each district is

;

Fries, of

Dalton, of atomic

Newton, of fluxions-

USES OF GREAT MEN.

A man is a centre for nature, running out threads of

and

relation through every thing, fluid

The earth

material and elemental.

rolls

clod and stone comes to the meridian

solid,

every

;

so every

organ, function, acid, crystal, grain of dust, has its It waits long,

relation to the brain.

Each plant has

comes.

ated thing

its

lover

and

of qualities are

would seem as

tant.

and

enchanted princess in fairy

human

ere-

arts

still

coal, to

but

;

how

The mass

hid and expec-

each waited, like the tales, for

a destined

Each must be disenchanted and

deliverer.

walk forth

wood, to

and cotton

few materials are yet used by our of creatures

turn

Justice has already

iron, to

loadstone, to iodine, to corn

its

and each

its parasite,

poet.

been done to steam, to

but

to the

day in human shape.

In the

history of discovery, the ripe and latent truth seems to have fashioned a brain for itself.

must be made man

its

magnet

some Gilbert, or Swedenborg,

or Oersted, before the general entertain

mind can come

powers.

limit ourselves to the first advantages,

a sober grace adheres to the mineral and botanic

kingdoms, which, in the highest moments, comes

as the

charm

of nature,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; the

glitter of the

spar, the sureness of affinity, the veracity of angles.

Light and darkness, heat and cold, hunger and food, sweet

and

sour, solid, liquid

and

gas, circle

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.

round in a -wreath of pleasures, and, by theil

agreeable quarrel, begaile the day of

eye repeats every day the "

He saw

to find

;

Something

and

little

also to higher advantages. it

There are advancements to mun-

anatomy, architecture, astronomy, first,

when, by union with

win, they ascend into the conversation, character

But

has been

table of logarithms is one thing,

play in botany, music, optics and archi-

tecture, another.

pected at

all

experience of the pretending

wanting to science untU

The

its vital

bers,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

know where

and these performers are relished

We are entitled

humanized.

The

life.

eulogy on things,

that they were good."

them

the more, after a races.

first

comes

this

and

life

sus-

and

and reappear in

polities.

later.

little

intellect

speak now only of

our acquaintance with them in their

own sphere

and the way in which they seem and draw to them some genius who occupies himself to fascinate

with one thing,

all his

life long.

The

possibility

of interpretation lies in the identity of the observer

Each material thing has

with the observed. celestial side

;

has

into the spiritual

its

translation, through humanity,

and necessary sphere where

And

plays a part as indestructible as any other.

to these, their ends, all things continually ascend.

The

gases gather to the

solid

firmament

the

chemic lump arrives at the plant, and grows?

USES OF GREAT MEN. arrives at the quadruped,

the man, and thinks. /

and walks

But

arrives at

;

also the constituency

determines the vote of the representative.

oniynBe'known by about them

The reason why he knows them he has just come

like.

that he

Like can

not only representative, but participant.

;

out of nature, or from being a part of that thing.

Animated chlorine knows zinc, of zinc.

of chlorine,

and incarnate

Their quality makes his career

;

and

he can variously publish their virtues, because they

compose him.

Man, made of the dust of the world,

does not forget his origin

;

and

all that is

imate wUl one day speak and reason. nature will have

its

whole secret

yet inan-

Unpublished

told.

Shall

say that quartz mountains will pulverize into innu-

merable Werners,

Von Buchs and Beaumonts, and

the laboratory of the atmosphere holds in solution

know not what Berzeliuses and Davys ? Thus we sit by the fire and take hold on

poles of the earth.

the

This quasi omnipresence sup-

plies the imbecility of

our condition.

In one of

when heaven and earth meet and adorn each other, it seems a poverty that we can only spend it once we wish for a thousand heads, a thousand bodies, that we might celebrate its immense beauty in many ways and places. Is this fancy ? Well, in good faith, we are multiplied by our proxies. How easily we adopt their labors I those celestial days

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.

Erery ship that comes to America got

Every novel is Every carpenter who shaves with a

from Columbus. mer.

chart

its

a debtor to Hofore-

plane borrows the genius of a forgotten inventor. Life is girt aU round with a zodiac of sciences, the perished to add

men who have

contributions of

Engineer, broker,

their point of light to our sky. jurist,

physician, moralist, theologian,

man, inasmuch

and map-maker our condition.

he has any science,

a definer

and longitudes of These road-makers on every hand of the latitudes

We must

enrich us.

and every

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

extend the area of

multiply our relations.

are as

life

much

and

gainers

by finding a new property ia the old earth as by acquiring a

new

planet.

We are too passive in the and stomachs. ter served

reception of these

ma-

We must not be sacks

terial or semi-material aids.

To ascend one

step,

through our sympathy.

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; we are bet-

Activity

con-

Looking where others look, and conversing with the same things, we catch the charm which lured them. Napoleon said, " You must not fight tagious.

too often with one enemy, or

your art of war." vigorous mind, and

Men

will teach

we acquire very

of looking at things in the

occurrence

you

Talk much with any

same

him

all

man

fast the habit

light,

and on each

anticipate his thought.

are helpful through the inteUect and the

USES OF GREAT MEN. Other help I find a

afiectii^is.

If you affect to give

false appearance.

me bread and

I perceive

fire,

the fuU price, and at last

that I

pay for

all

mental and moral force

leaves

found me, neither better nor worse is

but

a positive good.

goes out from you, whether you will or not, and profits

me whom you

never thought

I cannot

of.

even hear of personal vigor of any kind, great

power of performance, without fresh

are emulous of all that

man can

toil terribly,"

Clarendon's portraits, of

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

that he

So are Hampden, " who was

electric touch.

an industry and vigilance not

wearied by

Cecil's

"I know

saying of Sir Walter Ealeigh,

can

resolution. do.

the most laborious,

be tired out or

and of parts not

be imposed on by the most subtle and sharp, and of a personal courage equal to his best parts of Falkland, " truth, that

who was

he could as easily have given himself

cannot read

Plutarch without a tingling of the blood

;

accept the saying of the Chinese Mencius

the instructor of a hundred ages.

manners of Loo are heard

of,

This

the moral of biography; yet

men

and I

A sage

it is

to touch the quick like our

companions, whose names

the

the stupid become in-

and the wavering, determined."

for departed

When

telligent, is

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

severe an adorer of

leave to steal, as to dissemble."

;

may

hard

own

not last as long.

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.

What

whom

I never think of?

Whilst

every solitude are those who succor our genius and There is a stimulate us in wonderful manners.

power in love to divine another's destiny better than that other can, and, by heroic encouragements,

What

hold him to his task. nal as

its

in us ?

has friendship so

sig-

sublime attraction to whatever virtue

We will

selves, or of life.

never more think cheaply of ourWe are piqued to some purpose,

and the industry of the diggers on the railroad

will

not again shame us. falls

that homage, very pure

as I think, which all ranks

pay to the hero of the

Under

this

head too

day, from Coriolanus and Gracchus

down

to Pitt,

Hear The people cannot see him in a man. Here is a head

Lafayette, Wellington, Webster, Lamartine. the shouts in the street!

enough.

They

and a trunk

delight

What

a front

what eyes

Atlan-

tean shoulders, and the whole carriage heroic, with

equal inward force to guide the great machine

This pleasure of f uU expression to that which, in their private experience

obstructed, runs also

much

usually higher,

cramped and

and

cret of the reader's joy in literary genius. is

kept back.

mountain of

There ore.

may be conveyed

fire

the se-

Nothing

enough to fuse the

Shakspeare's

principal merit

in saying that he of all

men

best

understands the English language, and can say

;

USES OF GREAT MEN. what

Yet these tmchoked channels and

lie will.

floodgates of expression are only health or fortu-

Shakspeare's

nate constitution.

name

suggests

other and purely intellectual benefits.

Senatesand sovereigns have nocomplixnent, with

and armorial ^oatSj_like the addressing to a human being thoughts out of a

their medals, swords

certain^^^ei^S^

anJ presupposing

This honor, which

his intelligence.

possible in personal intercourse

a lifetime, genius ^perpetually

scarcely^ twice in

paysj contenlMTr~novrandthen in a century the proffer

accepted.

The indicators of the

values of

matter are degraded to a sort of cooks and confectioners,

on the appearance of the indicators of

Genius

ideas.

the naturalist or geographer of

the supersensible regions, and draws their

and,

by acquainting us with new

cools our affection for the old.

These are at once

accepted as the reality, of which the world

conversed with

map

fields of activity,

we have

the show.

go to the gymnasium and the swimmings

school to see the

power and beauty of the body

there is the like pleasure

and a higher

benefit

witnessing intellectual feats of all kinds of memory,

of mathematical

;

from

as feats

combination, great

power of abstraction, the transmutings of the imagination,

even versatility and concentration,

these acts expose the invisible organs

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; as

and members

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.

member

of the mind, which respond,

member,

for

For we thus enter a new choose men by their truest

to the parts of the body.

gymnasium, and learn to

marks, taught, with Plato, " to choose those who

from the eyes or any other sense, proceed to truth and to being." Foremost among these activities are the summersaults, speUs and can, without aid

resurrections wrought this wakes, a

When

by the imagination.

man seems

to multiply ten times or

a thousand times his force.

It opens the delicious

sense of indeterminate size

and

cious mental habit. of gunpowder,

We are

and a sentence

inspires

word

in a book, or a

sets free

dropped in conversation,

an audar

as elastic as the gas

our fancy, and

instantly our heads are bathed with galaxies,

our feet tread the floor of the Pit. fit is

real because

And

and

this bene-

are entitled to these enlarge-

ments, and once having passed the bounds shall

never again be quite the miserable pedants we were.

The high

functions of the intellect are so allied

that some imaginative all

power usually appears

eminent minds, even in arithmeticians of the

first class,

but especially in meditative

intuitive habit of thought.

men

This class serve

that they have the perception of identity

perception of reaction.

The

us, so

and the

eyes of Plato, Shak-

speare, Swedenborg, Goethe, never shut of these laws.

of an

The perception

on either

of these laws

USES OF GREAT MEN. kind of metre of the mind.

Little

minds are

little

through failure to see them.

Even

these feasts have their surfeit.

light in reason

Our

de-

degenerates into idolatry of the

when a mind of powerful method has instructed men, we find the examples of oppression. The dominion of Aristotle, the Especially

herald.

Ptolemaic astronomy, the credit of Luther, of Bacon, of

Locke

;

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; in

rarchies, of saints,

name

the

every is

religion the history of hie-

and the

sects

which have taken

of each founder, are in point.

man

such a victim.

The

Alas

imbecility of

always inviting the impudence of power.

men It is

the delight of vulgar talent to dazzle and to blind

But true genius seeks

the beholder.

from

True genius

itself.

will liberate,

to defend us

will not impoverish, but

and add new

senses.

If a wise

man

should appear in our village he would create, in those

who conversed with him, a new

of wealth,

by opening

consciousness

their eyes to vmobserved ad-

vantages ; he would establish a sense of immovable equality,

calm us with assurances that we could not

be cheated

;

as every one

would discern the checks

and guaranties of condition. their mistakes

and

The

rich would see

and poverty, the poor

their escapes

their resources.

But nature brings Rotation

all this

her remedy.

The

about in due time. soul

impatient of

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.

Housekeepers say " She had valuable, been of a domestic who has masters and eager for change.

lived with

"We are

long enough."

many

touch and go, and sip the foam of tation

When

the law of nature.

of us complete.

and none

or rather, symptoms,

tendencies,

Eo-

lives.

nature removes

a great man, people explore the horizon for a successor is

;

but none comes, and none

extinguished with him.

different field the next

His

will.

class

In some other and quite

man

will

appear

now a

ferson, not Franklin, but

not Jef-

;

great salesman,

then a road-contractor, then a student of

fishes,

then a buffalo-hunting explorer, or a semi-savage

Western

Thus we make a stand against

general.

our rougher masters

;

but against the best there

a finer remedy. v_The power which they communicate

which

When we

not theirs.

we do not owe also Plato

ideas,

but to the idea, to

was debtor. )

I must not forget that to a

are exalted

this to Plato,

we have a

special debt/

Life

a scale of degrees.

Between rank and rank

our great

single class.

wide intervals.

Mankind have

themselves to a few persons

men

are

in all ages attached

who

either

by the

embodied or by the largeness of their reception were entitled to the position of leaders and law-givers. These teach us the quality of that idea they

qualities of

primary nature,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; admit us to the

cÂŤn-

USES OF GREAT MEN.

"We swim, day by day, on a river of delusions and are effectually amused with houses and towns in the air, of which the men Rtitution of things.

But

about us are dupes.

lucid intervals

opened for

say,'

into realities

cap too long.'

"We

economies and

politics.

will

life is

a sincerity.

'Xet there be an entrance ;

I have worn the

know

fool's

the meaning of our

Give us the cipher, and

persons and things are scores of a celestial music,

let

us read off the strains.

of our reason

We have

been cheated

yet there have been sane men,

;

What

enjoyed a rich and related existence.

know, they know for

us.

With

each

who they

new mind,

a new secret of nature transpires; nor can the

man is born. men correct the delirium of the animal spirits, make us considerate and engage us to Bible be closed imtil the last great

These

new aims and powers.

The veneration

kind selects these for the highest place. the multitude of statues, pictures

which

recall

their

house and ship

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

man-

Witness

and memorials

genius in every

city, village,

" Ever their phantoms arise before us,

Our loftier brothers, but one in blood; At bed and table they lord it o'er us

With

How

looks of beauty and words of good."

to illustrate the distinctive benefit of ideas,

the service rendered

by those who introduce moral

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.

mind ?

truths into the general in all

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;I

plagued,

living, with a perpetual tariff of prices.

work in my garden and prune an apple-tree, I am weU enough entertained, and could continue But it comes indefinitely in the like occupation. If I

mind

that a day

gone, and I have got this

York and run up and down on my are sped, but so

the day.

affairs: they

vexed by the

have paid for a

recollection of this price I

trifling

I remember the peau d^dne on which

advantage.

whoso

New

I go to Boston or

precious nothing done.

have his

sat should

but a piece of

desire,

I go to a con-

the skin was gone for every wish. vention of philanthropists.

cannot keep

what I can, I

But

eyes off the clock.

there

should appear in the company some gentle soul

who knows poses the

little

of persons or parties, of Caro-

Cuba, but who announces a law that

lina or

and

these particulars,

certifies

equity which checkmates every false player,

bankrupts every self-seeker, and apprises

dis-

me me

independence on any conditions of country,

or time, or

human

body,

1 forget the clock. to persons.

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; that

man

liberates

;

I pass out of the sore relation healed of

hurts.

made immortal by apprehending my possession of incorruptible goods. Here is great competition of rich

and poor.

live in

a market, where

USES OF GREAT MEN.

only so

I have so

much

much wheat, or wool, or land and much more, every other must have

less.

;

seem

good

have no

Nobody

breach of good manners.

the Saxon race

without

glad in the

gladness of another, and our system

Every

war, of an injurious superiority.

educated to wish to be

one of child of

first.

and a man comes to measure his by the regrets, envies and hatreds of his competitors. But in these new fields there is room

our system

;

greatness

here are no self-esteems, no exclusions. I admire great

men

classes, those

stand for facts, and for thoughts

;

who

I Kke rough and

smooth, " Scourges of God," and " Darlings of the

human

race."

v., of Spain;

I like the first Caesar

;

and Charles

and Charles XII., of Sweden; Rich-

ard Plantagenet; and Bonaparte, in France.

applaud a sufficient man, an office

;

officer

captains, ministers, senators.

equal to his

I like a master

standing firm on legs of iron, weU-bom, rich, handsome, eloquent, loaded with advantages, drawing all

men by

fascination into tributaries

of his power.

Sword and

staff,

and supporters

or talents sword-

on the work of the world. him greater when he can abolish himself and all heroes, by letting in this element of reason, irrespective of persons, this subtUizer and irresistible upward force, into our thought, destroying in-

like or stafE-like, carry

But I

find

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.

28 dividualism is

;

the power so great that the potentate is a monarch who gives a con-

Then he

nothing.

a pontiEE who preaches the equality of souls and releases his servants from their barbarous homages; an emperor who can stitution to his people

;

spare his .empire.

But I intended ness,

specify, with

two or three points of

little

minute-

Nature never

service.

opium or nepenthe, but wherever she mars her creature with some deformity or defect, lays her poppies plentifully on the bruise, and the spares the

sufferer goes joyfully

through

life,

ruin and incapable of seeing

world point their finger at worthless and offensive existence

ill-used

every day.

The

of society,

whose

people alive, and never get

over their astonishment at selfishness

members

though aU the

a social pest, invariably think them-

most

selves the

it,

ignorant of the

their

the

and

ingratitude

contemporaries.

Our

globe

discovers its hidden virtues, not only in heroes 'and

archangels, but in gossips

and nurses.

not

a rare contrivance that lodged the due inertia in every creature, the conserving, resisting energy, the anger at being

waked or changed ?

Altogether

independent of the intellectual force in each

we are grandame, not a mowing

the

pride of opinion, the security that

right.

Not the

idiot^

feeblest

USES OF GREAT MEN.

but uses what spark of perception and faculty is left, to chuckle and triumph in his or her opinion

Difference

over the absurdities of all the rest.

from

the measure of absurdity.

Was

has a misgiving of being wrong. bright thought that

made

this

chuckle of

not a

things cohere with this

But, in the midst

bitumen, fastest of cements? of

Not one

self-gratulation,

some figure

goes by which Thersites too can love and admire.

This

he that should marshal! us the way we There

were going.

no end to

we should almost

out Plato

of a reasonable book.

possibility

want but

his aid.

we want

one, but

With-

lose our faith in the

one.

We We

seem to love to

associate with heroic persons, since our receptivity is

unlimited; and, with the great, our thoughts)

and manners

easily

become

great.

We_areâ&#x20AC;&#x17E;3ll

wise in capacity, though so few in energy.

needs but one wise

man

in a

There

company and aU are

wise, so rapid is the contagion.

Great

men

are thus a collyrium

to.

clear our eyes

from egotism and enable us to

see other people and But there are vices and follies incident to whole populations and ages. Men resemble their contemporaries even more than their protheir works.

genitors.

It is observed in old couples, or in per-

who have been housemates for a course of years, that they grow like, and if they should live sons

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.

know them

long enough we should not be able to apart.

Nature abhors these complaisances which

threaten to melt the world into a lump, and hastens to break

up such maudlin

on between men

like assimilation goes

The

agglutinations.

of one sect, of one political party

;

the time are in the air, and infect

of one town,

and the ideas

aU who breathe

Viewed from any high point, this city of New York, yonder city of London, the Western civilizait.

would seem a bundle of

tion,

insanities.

keep

each other in coimtenance and exasperate by emulation the frenzy of the time.

the stingings of conscience

The

the universal practice,

Again,

or our contemporaries.

shield against

it is

very easy to

be as wise and good as your companions. learn of our contemporaries

out

effort,

skin.

catch

by sympathy, or as a wife

rives at the intellectual

husband.

what they know^ with-

and almost through the pores of the ar-

and moral elevations of her

But we stop where they

hardly can we take another step.

stop.

The

Very

great, or

such as hold of nature and transcend fashions by their fidelity to universal ideas, are

these federal errors,

temporaries.

They

saviors from and defend us from our con-

are the exceptions which

want, where aU grows

like.

A foreign

greatness

the antidote for cabalism.

Thus we feed on

genius,

and refresh ourselves

USES OF GREAT MEN.

from too much conversation with our mates, and exdepth of nature in that direction in which

ult in the

What

he leads us.

man

indemnification

for populations of pigmies

one great

Every mother

wishes one son a genius, though all the rest should

But a new danger appears in the exman. His attractions

be mediocre.

cess of influence of the great

warp us from our and

lings

horizon ties,

place.

We have

intellectual suicides.

our help

;

become under!

yonder in the

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; other great men, new

quali-

counterweights and checks on each other.

Ev-

cloy of the honey of each peculiar greatness.

ery hero becomes a bore at

Perhaps Voltaire

last.

was not bad-hearted, yet he said of the good Jesus, even, " I pray you, let

name

again."

Washington,

never hear that man's

They cry up the

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; "Damn

virtues of George George Washington " is !

the poor Jacobin's whole speech

But

The

human

nature's indispensable defence.

eentripetence

balance one

augments

man

heroes.

the

on the see-saw.

however a speedy limit to the use of

Every_geajua

Ja^jjeffindfid. Jrom-approach

by quantities of unavailableness. attractive,

centrifugence.

with his opposite, and the

health of the state depends

There

and confutation.

and seem

are hindered on

all

They

a distance our own sides

are very :

more we are drawn, the more we are

we The

but

from approach.

repelled.

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.

There

done for

makes his

sometHng not solid in the good that is The best discovery the discoverer us. It has something unreal for

for himself.

companion until he too has substantiated

Itâ&#x20AC;&#x17E;S6effls-aa,ifthe_Peiiy-dcessed each soul

it.

which he

sends into natujceJa^eertain virtues~and powers not

communicable to other men, and s^ndlng~it to perform:

wrote

ona .more turn through the carcle~of beings, '^

Not transferable'" and

Good for this

only" on these garments of the

trip

There

soul.

somewhat deceptive about the intercourse of minds.

The boundaries are crossed.

There

invisible,

but they are never

such good will to impart, and

such good wiU to receive, that each threatens to

become the other

;

but the law of individuality

lects its secret strength

you are you, and I

col-

and so we remain.

For nature wishes eveiy thing to remain itself and whilst every individual strives to grow and ex;

clude and to exclude and grow, to the extremities of the universe,

and

impose the law of

its

being

on every other creature. Nature steadily aims to

Each is selfmore marked than the power by which individuals are guarded from indi-

protect each against every other.

defended.

Nothing

viduals, in a world

where every benefactor becomes

so easily a malefactor only activity into places

where

by continuation

it is

not due

;

of his

where

chil-

USES OF GREAT MEN.

much

dren seem so parents,

and

at the

and where almost

interfering.

iiy

from infusions of beauty

their foolish

are too social

How

superior in their se-

from vulgarThey shed their own

evil persons,

and second thought

abimdant

men

rightly speak of the guar-

dian angels of children. curity

mercy of all

the

objects

they behold.

Therefore they are not at the mercy of such poor educators as

adults.

they soon come not to mind

ance

;

and

hujBE

we indulge them

and chide them

and get a

self-reli-

to foUy, they learn

the limitation elsewhere.

We need not generous trust

permitted.

Stick at no humiliation.^ canst

render.

Who cares for that, ?

devotion

Serve

Grudge no

the limb of

breath of their mouth.

nobler

their

the great. office

may

easily

;

so thou gain aught wider

and :

the

be greater than the wretched

guarding

its

own

skirts. ;

and forever onward! wheel-insect

itself

;

not

In vain, the wheels of

tendency will not stop, nor wiU or of love

an-

not a soul, but

not a naturalist, but a Cartesian

a poet, but a Shaksperian.

ertia, fear,

the

Compromise thy egotism.

other : not thyself, but a Platonist

a Christian

thou

body,

Never mind the taunt of BosweUism

pride which

monad or

fear excessive influence. is

all

the forces of in-

hold thee there.

On,

The microscope observes a among the infusories circu-

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.

Presently a dot appears on the

lating in water.

wMch

animal,

enlarges to a

two perfect animals.

ment appears not

less

and

slit,

becomes

The ever-proceeding in aU thought and in

detachsociety.

Children think they cannot live without their parBut, long before they are aware of it, the ents. black dot has appeared and the detachment taken

Any

place.

now

accident will

reveal to

them

their

independence.

But great men there caste

? is

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; the word

there fate

promise to virtue

some,' he says,

your hero

poor Paddy, whose country

Generous and handbut look at yonder

;

his

wheelbarrow

look at his whole nation of Paddies.' the masses, from the for knives

Why

;

are

dawn of history down, food The idea dignifies a few

and powder ?

leaders,

who have

votion

and they make war and death sacred

;

injurious.

becomes of the

The thoughtful youth laments

the superfoetation of nature. '

What

sentiment, opinion, love, self-de;

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

whom they hire and man is every day's trag-

but what for the wretches

The cheapness

kUl? edy.

as real a loss that others should be

low as that we should be low

;

for

we must have

society.

Is is

a reply to these suggestions to say. Society

a Pestalozzian school

all

are teachers

and pu-

pils in

USES OF GREAT MEN.

We are equally served

by receiving

turn ?

and by imparting.

Men who know

are not long the

best

But bring

and

it is

you

now

himself.

to each

paint out his thought to

very

pass

a mechan-

It seems

advantage, and great benefit

speaker, as he can

water from a

let off

lake by cutting a lower basin. ical

the same things for each other.

each an intelligent person of another

experience,

company

fast,

personal

our

And

moods, from dignity to dependence.

any

appear never to assume the chair, but always to stand and serve,

company

because

we do

not see the

in a sufficiently long period for the whole

rotation of parts to

come about.

what we

caU the masses, and c ommon men, -4 there are no co mmon men. true

art

All

menare

at last of a size ;)and

only pbssible on the conviction that

every talent has

its

a^xjtheosis

somewhere.

Fair

play and an open field and freshest laurels to all

who have won them

But^ie aven reserves an

equal scope for every creature. until

Each

imeasv

he has produced his_private ray unto

t^S^ico'ni

cave sphere and beheld his talent also in nobility

The heroes

of the hour are relatively great

a faster growth

moment

its last

and exaltation.

;

or they are such in

of success, a quality is ripe

in request,

whom, which

Other days wiU demand other

;

at the

then quali-

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.

Some

ties.

want a

rays escape the

finely

adapted eye.

common

/Ask

tlie

observer, and

man

great

be none greater. His companions are ; and not the less great but the more that society cannot tliere

man

Nature never sends a great

see them.

ijito

the planet without confiding the secret to another soul.

]

One

gracious fact emerges from these studies,

that there

true ascension in our love.

The

utations of the nineteenth century will one

quoted to prove

manity

barbarism.

its

ten in our annals.

many chasms

ply

the universe

cal. is

must infer much, and sup-

in the record.

symptomatic, and

The

history of

life is

mnemoni-

reason or illumination or that essence

new

of huis writ-

man, in all the procession of famous men,

looking for of

day be

The genius

the real subject whose biography

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

rep-

;

but

we were

an exhibition, in some quarter,

possibilities.

Could we one day complete

the immense figure which these flagrant points com-

pose

The study

many

individuals leads us to

an elemental region wherein the individual or wherein all touch

their summits.

is lost,

Thought

and feeling that break out there cannot be im-

pounded by any fence of key

to the

personality.

power of the greatest men,

diffuses itself.

A new qiiality of

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

mind

This

the

their spirit travels

night and by day, in concentric circles from

its ori-

;

USES OF GREAT MEN. and publishes

gin,

union of

all

itself

by unknown methods the ; what gets ad:

minds appears intimate

mission to one, cannot be kept out of any other; the smallest acquisition of truth or of energy, in quarter, is so

the individuals are seen in the duration

when

which

commonwealth

to the

If the disparities of talent and position van-

souls.

ish

much good

any

necessary to complete the career of each,

even more swiftly the seeming injustice disappears

when we ascend to the central^dentity of aU the individuals, and know that they are made of the substance which ordaineth and doeth. The genius of humanity is the right point of view of history. The qualities abide; the men who exhibit them have now more, now less, and pass

away

the qualities remain on another brow.

;

experience

phoenixes

familiar.

they are gone

The

fore disenchanted.

;

the world

vessels

but the sense of the pictures still

world.

not there-

on which you read

sacred emblems turn out to be

may

Once you saw

common sacred,

pottery

and you

read them transferred to the walls of the

For^a time our teachers serve us personally,

as metres or milestones of progress.

Once they

were angels of knowledge and their figures touched

Then we drew near, saw their means, limits and they yielded their place other geniuses. Happy, if a few names remain

the sky. culture to

and

;

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.

SO high that

we have not been

able to read

them

nearer, and age and comparison have not robbed them of a ray. But at last we shaU cease to look in

men

for completeness,

with their social

respects the individual tive, like the

shall content ourselves

and

and delegated

quality.

All that

temporary and prospec-Âťo

individual himself,

who

ascending

out of his limits into a catholic existence.

"We

have never come

at the true and best benefit of any

genius so long as

him an

believe

original force.

In the moment when he ceases to help us as a cause, he begins to help us

he appears as an exponent of will.

The opaque

self

Then a vaster mind and

more as an

effect.

becomes transparent with

the light of the First Cause.

human men exist

Yet, within the limits of

education and

that there may we may say great The destiny of organized nature i*' amelioration, and who can tell its limits ? It is

agency,

be greater men. is

for

man

tame the chaos

lives, to scatter

;

on every

the seeds of science

may be milder, benefit may be multi,

that climate, corn, animals, men,

and the germs of plied.

love and

side, whilst

and of song,

PLATO

OK,

THE PHILOSOPHER.

;

II.

PLATO; OK, THE PHILOSOPHER.

Among

secular books, Plato only

entitled to

Omar's fanatical compliment to the Koran, when he

said, "

Burn the

of nations

libraries

;

for their value is in

These sentences contain the culture

this book."

these are the comer-stone of schools

;

these are the foimtain-head of literatures. cipline

dis-

in logic, arithmetic, taste, symmetry,

poetry, language, rhetoric, ontology, morals or practical

wisdom.

There was never such range of spec-

Out of Plato come all things that are stiU written and debated among men of thought. Great havoc makes he among our originalities. We have reached the mountain from which aU these The Bible of the drift boulders were detached. ulation.

learned for twenty-two hundred years, every brisk

young man who says in succession each reluctant generation,

Erasmus, Bruno, Locke, Rousseau, ridge,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

fine things to

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Boethius,

Rabelais,

Alfieri,

Cole-

some reader of Plato, translating into

the vernacular, wittily, his good things.

Even

the

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.

men

some deduction

of grander proportion suffer

from the misfortune (shall I say?) of coming this exhausting generalizer.

Augustine, Coper-

St.

Newton, Behmen, Swedenborg, Goethe, are

nicus,

likewise his debtors it is

after

and must say

For

after him.

fair to credit the broadest generalizer with

all

the particulars deducible from his thesis.

Plato

philosophy, and philosophy, Plato,

—

once the glory and the shame of mankind, since jaeither

Saxon nor Roman have availed

idea to his categories.

and the thinkers

wife,

and are tinged with

great

men Nature

ans,

he,

of all civilized nations are his pos-

terity

his mind.

How many

incessantly sending

men,

night, to be Azs

add any

no children had

— Platonists!

up out

the Alexandri-

a constellation of genius; the Elizabethans,

Thomas More, Henry More, John Lord Bacon, Jeremy Taylor, Ralph Cudworth, Sydenham, Thomas Taylor Marnot less; Sir

Hales, John Smith,

;

cilius

Ficinus and Picus Mirandola.

in his Phsedo

ism draws morals, the

Christianity

all its

philosophy, in

Akhlak y -

cism finds in Plato

town in Greece

—

Jalaly,

it.

its

how Teutonic man and how Greek '

' !

Mahometanhand-book

Mysti-

This citizen of a

no villager nor says,

Calvinism

from him.

all its texts.

Englishman reads and man,

patriot.

how English

—

a Ger-

how Ro-

Italian,

they say that Helen

PLATO; of

THE PHILOSOPHER.

OR,

Argos had that universal beauty that every body

felt related to her, so

Plato seems to a reader in

New England an American humanity transcends

His broad

genius.

all sectional lines.

This range of Plato instructs us what to think of the vexed question concerning his reputed works,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; what are lar that

genuine, what spurious.

man

wherever we find a

head than any of his contemporaries,

come into doubt what are

singu-

higher by a whole it is

his real works.

sure to

Thus

Homer, Plato,

Raffaelle,

men magnetise

their contemporaries, so that their

Shakspeare.

For these

companions can do for them what they can never do for themselves

several bodies,

hands

what is

;

and

and the great man does thus

;

and

after

write, or paint or act,

some time

work

the authentic

live in

by many

not easy to say

of the master

and what

only of his school. Plato, too, like every great

own

times.

affinities,

What

who

a great

;

his

but one of great

takes up into himself all arts,

ences, all knowables, as his

nothing

man, consumed

man

food?

sci-

can spare

What

he can dispose of every thing.

Hence his contemporaries tax him with plagiarism. But the inventor only knows how to borrow and sonot good for virtue,

good for knowledge.

;

ciety is glad

to forget the innumerable laborers

who ministered

to this architect,

and reserves aU

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.

When we

gratitude for him.

its

Plato,

Solon and Sophron and Philolaus.

book

are praising

seems we are praising quotations from

a quotation ; and every house

Every

it so.

a quotation

out of all forests and mines and stone quarries ; and

every

And

man

a quotation from

all his ancestors.

this grasping inventor puts all nations imder

contribution.

Plato absorbed the learning of his times, lolaus, Timseus, Heraclitus, else

;

then his master, Socrates

self stni

to gain

;

since,

— he

— beyond aU

travelled into Italy,

what Pythagoras had for him; then

Egypt, and perhaps

still

Phi-

and finding him-

capable of a larger synthesis,

example then or

—

Parmenides, and what

into

farther East, to import the

other element, which Europe wanted, into the Euro-

This breadth entitles him to stand as

pean mind.

the representative of philosophy.

says, in the

Sepublic, " Such a genius as philosophers must of necessity have, is to

meet

in one

ally spring

wont but seldom in

man, but

its different

in different persons."

all its parts

parts gener-

Every man

who would do anything weU, must come a higher ground. a philosopher.

from

A philosopher must be more than

Plato

clothed with the powers of

a poet, stands upon the highest place of the poet,

and (though I doubt he wanted the decisive lyric expression),

mainly

gift of

not a poet because he

chose to use the poetic gift to an ulterior purpose.

PLATO;

THE PEILOSOPHER.

OR.

Great geniuses haTe the shortest biographies. Their cousins can

They and

you nothing about them.

tell

lived in their writings,

was

street life

trivial

so their house

and

and commonplace.

you would know their tastes and complexions, the most admiring of their readers most resembles them. If he

Plato especially has no external biography.

had

lover, wife, or children,

of them.

ground them

good chimney burns

its

we hear nothing As a

all into paint.

smoke, so a philosopher

converts the value of all his fortunes into his intellectual performances.

He was

born 427, A. C, about the time of the

death of Pericles his times

and

;

city,

was of patrician connection in and is said to have had an early

for war,

inclination

but,

his twentieth year,

meeting with Socrates, was easily dissuaded from this pursuit

until

the

and remained for ten years

death of Socrates.

his scholar,

then went to

Megara, accepted the invitations of Dion and of Dionysius to the court of Sicily, and went thither three times, though very capriciously treated.

travelled into Italy

;

then into Egypt, where he

stayed a long time

;

some say

thirteen years.

Babylonia: this

It is

uncertain.

he gave lessons in the

fame drew itj

thither

said he

;

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; some

say

farther, into

Returning to Athens,

Academy

and

three,

went

to those

died, as

whom

we have

his

received

in the act of writing, at eighty-one years.

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.

But the biography of Plato

interior.

are to account for the supreme elevation of this

man it

— how-

in the intellectual history of our race,

happens that in proportion to the culture of they become his scholars that, as our Jewish

men

;

Bible has implanted

household

life

man and woman

every

in the table-talk and

itself

European and American

in the

nations, so the writings of

Plato have preoccupied every school of learning, every lover of thought, every church, every poet,

— making

impossible to think, on certain levels,

except through him.

stands between the truth

and every man's mind, and has almost impressed language and the primary forms of thought with

name and

his

seal.

struck, in reading him,

with the extreme modernness of his style and

Here in

the

germ

of that

Europe we know

long history of arts and arms

its

its traits,

already discernible in the

— and

none before him.

since into a

new

element.

hundred

;

spirit.

so weU,

here are aU

mind

of Plato,

It has spread itseK

histories,

but has added no

This perpetual modernness

the

measure of merit in every work of art; siuce the author of

was not misled by any thing

lived or local, but abode

How

and abiding

traits.

Plato came thus to be Europe, and philoso-

phy, and almost literature, solve.

real

short-

the problem for us to

PLATO;

OR,

THE PHILOSOPHER.

This eotild not have happened without a sound, sincere

and catholic man, able to honor,

same time, the

ideal, or

or the order of nature.

laws of the mind, and fate,

The

an individual,

tion, as of

the

first

period of a na-

the period of uncon-

Children cry, scream and stamp

scious strength.

with fury, unable to express their desires. soon as they can speak and the reason of

tell their

they become gentle.

it,

whilst the perceptions are obtuse, tallt

In adult

life,

men and women

vehemently and superlatively, blunder and

quarrel

manners are

their

fuU of

their speech is ture, things

their

soon

little,

as,

with

cul-

and they

see

lumps and masses but accurately

distributed, they desist

and explain

desperation

full of

oaths.

have cleared up a

them no longer

from that weak vehemence

meaning in

had not been framed for still

want and

be a beast in the

detail.

If the

articulation,

tongue

man would

The same weakness

forest.

and want, on a higher plane, occurs daily in the

men and women.

education of ardent young

you don't understand

any one who comprehends

;

weep, write verses and walk

power

and they sigh and alone,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

fault

express their precise meaning.

month or two, through the favor ius,

I have never met with

In a

of their good gen-

they meet some one so related as to assist their

volcanic

estate,

and,

good communication being

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.

once established, they are thenceforward good citiThe progress is to aecuzens. It is ever thus.

from blind

racy, to skill, to truth,

There tion,

moment

force.

in the history of every na-

when, proceeding out of this brute youth, the

perceptive powers reach their ripeness and have

not yet become microscopic

so that

man,

at that

instant, extends across the entire scale, and, with

his

stUl planted

feet

night, converses

and

on the immense forces

his eyes

That

stellar creation.

and brain with

the

moment

solar

of adult

health, the culmination of power.

Such

the history of Europe, in

such in philosophy.

all points

and

;

Its early records, almost per-

from Asia, bringing

ished, are of the immigrations

with them the dreams of barbarians ; a confusion of crude notions of morals

and

of natural philos-

ophy, gradually subsiding through the partial

in-

sight of single teachers.

Before Pericles came the Seven Wise Masters, and we have the beginnings of geometry, metar physics

and

ethics

then the

partialists,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; deduc-

ing the origin of things from flux or water, or from air,

or from

fire,

or from mind.

these causes mythologic pictures. Plato, the distributor,

who needs no

or tattoo, or whooping

;

leaves with Asia the vast

All mix with

comes

last

barbaric paint,

for he can define.

and

superlative

;

He he

;

PLATO:

and

intelligence.

account which the

Philosophy

philosophy.

human mind

forever at the base

Unity, or Identity

;

the

cardinal facts

the one, and the two.

and,

;

gives to itself of

Two

the constitution of the world.

define."

This defining

lie

be as a god to me, who can rightly divide

shall

and

THE PHILOSOPHER.

of accuracy

arrival

the

OR.

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

We imite

Variety.

by perceiving the law which pervades by perceiving the superficial differences and But every mental the profound resemblances. all

things

them act,

;

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

this very perception of identity or oneness,

Oneness and

recognizes the difference of things.

It is impossible to speak or to think

otherness.

without embracing both.

The mind effects

;

urged to ask for one cause of

then for the cause of that

cause, diving stUl into the

that one,

shall arrive at

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; a one that

the sun truth,

and

shall

;

many

and again the

profound

self-assured

an absolute and

sufficient

" In the midst of

be aU.

the light, in the midst of the light

in the midst of truth

All philosophy, of East

being," say the Vedas.

and West, has the same centripetence. an opposite

necessity, the

one to that which

from cause to

effect

mind

Urged by

returns from the

not one, but other or ;

the imperishable

many

and affirms the necessary

existence of variety, the self-existence of both, as

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.

50 each

and

separate

Their existence

to reconcile.

and

exclusive

fast slides into the other that

what

one,

and what

strictly-

the problem of thought to

tually contradictory

These

other.

the

involved

blended elements

it is

not.

;

mu-

and each

we can never say The Proteus is as

nimble in the highest as in the lowest grounds;

when we contemplate

the one, the true, the good,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

as in the surfaces and extremities of matter.

In aU nations there are minds which

incline to

dwell in the conception of the fundamental Unity.

The all

raptures of prayer and ecstasy of devotion lose

being in one Being.

highest expression

This tendency finds

the

religious

writings

its

the East, and chiefly in the Indian Scriptures, in the Vedas, the Bhagavat Geeta, and the Vishnu

Purana.

Those writings contain

this idea,

and they

in celebrating

The Same, stuff

;

rise to

little

else than

pure and sublime

strains

it.

the

Same

friend and foe are of one

the ploughman, the plough and the furrow

are of one stuff

;

and the

stuff is

such and so much

that the variations of form are unimportant.

" You

are fit" (says the supreme Krishna to a sage) "to

apprehend that you are not

which I am, thou with

its

art,

distinct

and that

from me.

That

also is this world,

gods and heroes and mankind.

Men

con-

template distinctions, because they are stupefied

;

PLATO;

OR,

with ignorance."

now

The words

What

tute ignorance. shall

THE PHILOSOPHER. and mine

the great end of

learn from me.

It is soul,

consti-

all,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; one

you

pervading, uniform, perfect, preeminent

bodies,

over nature, exempt from birth, growth and decay,

made up

omnipresent,

and the

species

come.

of true knowledge, indepen-

with unrealities, with name,

unconnected

dent,

rest, in

time past, present and to

The knowledge

that this spirit, which is

own and in aU other who knows the unity

essentially one, is in one's

bodies, is the

wisdom

of things.

of one

one diffusive

the perforations of a flute,

passing through

air,

distinguished as the

notes of a scale, so the nature of the Great Spirit is

though

single,

its

forms be manifold, arising

from the consequences of

When

acts.

the differ-

ence of the investing form, as that of god or the destroyed, there

rest, is

whole world is

distinction."

but a manifestation of Vishnu,

identical with

and

things,

is to

The who

be regarded

by the wise as not differing from, but as the same as themselves.

nor

thou

;

nor are others, others

he had

Vishnu ings;

I neither

said, ;

All

;

nor

nor art thou, I, I."

and the soul

if is

stars are transient paint-

light is whitewash;

and form

;

for the soul,

and animals and

and

deceptive

going nor coming

dwelling in any one place

and durations are

imprisonment ; and heaven

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.

52 itself

That wMcli the soul seeks

a decoy.'

reso

lution into being above form, out of Tartarus and

out of heaven,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; liberation from nature.

If speculation tends thus to a terrific unity, in

which aU things are absorbed, action tends backwards to

mind

or gravitation of

Nature

of nature. absorbs,

The

diversity.

the power

The

the manifold.

directly

the course

the second

;

and melts or reduces.

unity

Nature opens and

These two priuciples reappear and

creates.

penetrate

aU thought;

things,

all

One

many.

being

;

strength

one, ;

power

one, earnestness ;

culture

;

the

one

one, rest; the other,

one,

one, consciousness

the other, knowledge

;

one,

;

one, genius ; the other, talent

the other, trade one, king

inter-

the other, distribution

the other, pleasure

the other, definition

session

;

the

the other, intellect

necessity; the other, freedom

motion

first

one, caste

;

one, pos-

the other,

the other, democracy

and,

we dare carry these generalizations a step higher, and name the last tendency of both, we might say, that the ization, is

end of the one

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; pure

science

escape from organ-

and the end

;

of the other

the highest instriunentality, or use of means, or

executive deity.

Each student

adheres,

by temperament and by

habit, to the first or to the second of these gods of

the mind.

religion,

he tends to unity

;

in-

;

PLATO;

by the

tellect,

OR,

THE PHILOSOPHER.

the many.

senses, to

53 too

rapid unification, and an excessive appliance to parts

particulars, are the twin dangers of spec-

and

ulation.

this partiality the history of nations corre-

The country

sponded.

stractions, of

men

Asia and ;

Europe

culture

its

;

land of

active

and in prac-

realizes this faith in the social

the other side, the genius

and creative

infinity,

the

West

freedom.

caste

it resists

philosophy was a discipline

arts, inventions, trade,

East loved

insti-

a deaf, unimplorable, immense

institution of caste.

immovable

faithful in doctrine

tice to the idea of

fate, is

of unity, of

a philosophy delighting in ab-

tutions, the seat of

;

If the

delighted in bounda-

ries.

European

civility is the triimaph of

talent, the

extension of system, the sharpened understanding,

adaptive

skill,

delight in forms, delight in manifes-

tation, in comprehensible results.

Pericles, Athens,

Greece, had been working in this element with the

by any foresight of They saw before them

joy of genius not yet chilled the detriment of an excess.

sinister political

classes,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

economy no ominous Malthus ;

London no pitiless subdivision the doom of~the pin-makers, the doom

no Paris or

;

of of

the weavers, of dressers, of stockingers, of carders, of

spinners, of

colliers

;

no Ireland

;

no Indian

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.

54 caste,

superinduced by the efEorts of Europe to

throw

it off.

The understanding was Art was

and prime.

They and

its

splendid

cut the Pentelican marble as

their perfect

in its health novelty.

were snow,

if it

works in architecture and

lure seemed things of course, not more

scidp-

difficult

than the completion of a new ship at the Medford yards, or

new miUs

in course,

and may be taken

man

at Lowell.

These things are

for granted.

The Eo-

legion, Byzantine legislation, English trade,

the saloons of Versailles, the cafds of Paris, the

steam-miU, steamboat, steam-coach, in perspective

may

all

be seen

the town-meeting, the ballol>box,

;

the newspaper and cheap press.

Meantime, Plato, in Egypt and in Eastern

pil-

grimages, imbibed the idea of one Deity, in which

aU things are absorbed. the detail of soul

and the

Europe

;

The unity

of Asia and

the infinitude of the Asiatic

defining, result-loving, machine-mak-

ing, surface-seeking, opera-going Europe,

came

to join, and,

ergy of each.

The

are in his brain.

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Plato

contact, to enhance the en-

excellence of

Europe and Asia

Metaphysics and natural

ophy expressed the genius of Europe

;

philos-

he substructs

the religion of Asia, as the base. \

short,

a balanced soul was born, perceptive of

the two elements.

be small.

It is as easy to

be great as

The reason why we do not

at once be<

;

PLATO; lieve in

OR,

THE PHILOSOPHER.

admirable souls

because they are not in

In actual

our experience. to be incredible

;

life,

they are so rare as

but primarily there

not only no

presiunption against them, but the strongest pre-

smnption whether

favor of

But

appearance.

their

were heard in the sky, or not

voices

whether his mother or his father dreamed that the infant man-child was the son of Apollo ; whether a swarm of bees settled on his

man who

or not

lips,

;

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;a

could see two sides of a thing was born.

The wonderful synthesis so familiar in nature the upper and the under side of the medal of Jove, ;

the union

of impossibilities,

every object

now

;

its

real

and

its

which reappears in ideal power,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; was

also transferred entire to the consciousness of

a man.

The balanced truth,

soul came.

If he loved abstract

he saved himself by propounding the most

popular of

all principles,

rules rulers,

the absolute good, which

and judges the judge.

If he

made

transcendental distinctions, he fortified himself by

drawing aU his

by orators and puppies

and

;

illustrations

polite conversers

;

from mares and

from pitchers and soup-ladles

criers

;

the

shops of potters,

butchers and fishmongers. himself a partiality, poles of

from sources disdained

but

;

from cooks

horse-doctors,

cannot forgive in

resolved that the two

thought shall appear in his statement.

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.

His argument and his sentence are self-poised and The two poles appear; yes, and bespherical. come two hands, to grasp and appropriate their own.

Every great artist has been such by synthesis. Our strength is transitional, alternating or, shall The sea-shore, sea I say, a thread of two strands. ;

seen from shore, shore seen from sea; the taste of

two metals in contact

;

and our enlarged powers

the approach and at the departure of a friend

experience of

poetic

which

creativeness,

found in staying at home, nor yet in

;

the

not

travelling, but

in transitions from one to the other, which must

therefore be adroitly

managed

transitional surface as possible

much command of

to present as ;

this

two elements must explain the power and

the

Art expresses the one or the different. Thought seeks to know same by the unity in unity poetry to show it by variety that charm

Plato.

;

is,

always by an object or symbol.

two

vases, one of aether

side,

and one

and invariably uses both.

Plato keeps the

of pigment, at his

Things added

things, as statistics, civil history, are inventories.

Things used as language are inexhaustibly tive.

reverse of the

attrac-

Plato turns incessantly the obverse and the

medal of Jove.

take an example

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; The

physical philoso-

phers had sketched each his theory of the world;

PLATO;

THE PHILOSOPHER.

OR,

the theory of atoms, of fire, of flux, of spirit ories mechanical and

;

the-

chemical in their genius.

Plato, a master of mathematics, studious of all nat-

and causes,

ural laws to be

and

feels these, as

second causes,

no theories of the world but bare inventories

lists.

prefixes the

the study of nature he therefore

dogma,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; " Let

us declare the cause

which led the Supreme Ordainer to produce and

compose the universe. is

and he who Exempt from envy, should be as much as

was good

;

good has no kind of envy.

he wished that

all

things

possible like himself.

Whosoever, taught by wise

men, shall admit this as the prime cause of the origin

and foundation of the world,

AU things

will

be in the

truth."

and

the cause of every thing beautiful."

it is

are for the sake of the good,

This

dogma animates and impersonates his philosophy. The synthesis which makes the character of his mind appears in all his talents. Where there is great compass of wit,

usually find excellencies

that combine easily in the liAdng scription

appear incompatible.

man, but

The mind

in de-

of Plato

by a Chinese catalogue, but is to be apprehended by an original mind in the exercise of its original power. In him the freest is

not to be exhibited

abandonment geometer.

united with the precision of a

His daring imagination gives him the

solid grasp of facts

;

as the birds of highest

;

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.

have the strongest alar bones. His patrician polish, his intrinsic elegance, edged by an irony flight

so subtle that

stings

and paralyzes, adorn

soundest health and strength of frame. to the old sentence,

the

According

"If Jove should descend

the earth, he would speak in the style of Plato."

With aim

this

palatial air there

of several of his

the tenor of

them

all,

is,

works and running through a certain earnestness, which

mounts, in the Republic and in the Phsedo, piety.

)

for the direct

has been charged with feigning sickness

But the aneccome down from the times attest

at the time of the death of Socrates.

dotes that have his

manly interference before the people

in his

master's behalf, since even the savage cry of the

assembly to Plato

preserved; and the indigna-

tion towards popular government, in pieces, expresses

many

a probity, a native reverence for justice and

and a humanity which makes him tender superstitions of the people. lieves that poetry,

Add

of his

a personal exasperation.

has

honor,

for the

to this, he be-

prophecy and the high insight

are from a wisdom of which

man

not master

that the gods never philosophize, but by a celestial

mania these miracles are accomplished. on these winged visits

steeds,

he sweeps the dim

worlds which flesh cannot enter

souls in pain, he hears the

doom

;

Horsed regions,

he saw the

of the judge, he

PLATO;

OR,

TEE PHILOSOPHER.

beholds the penal metempsychosis, the Fates, with

and

the rock

hum

shears,

and hears the intoxicating

of their spindle.

But

One

his circumspection never forsook him.

would say he had read the inscription on the gates " Be bold ; " and on the second of Busyrane,

—

gate,

— "Be bold, be bold, and evermore be bold; "

and then again had paused well at the third gate,

— " Be

momentum

of a falling planet,

the return of its due lent

His strength

not too bold."

his

is like

the

his discretion

and perfect curve,

Greek love

in definition.

and

—

so excel-

boundary and

his skUl

In reading logarithms one

more secure than in following Plato in his

not

flights.

Nothing can be colder than his head, when the lightnings of his imagination are playing in the sky.

brings

prises of

before he

has finished his thinking

to the reader,

and he abounds in the

a literary master.

sur-

has that opulence

which furnishes, at every turn, the precise weapon he needs.

the rich

man

wears no more gar-

ments, drives no more horses,

sits

chambers than the poor, — but has or equipage, or instrument, which

no more

that one dress, is

restricted,

but has the

fit

word.

for the

fit

hour and the need; so Plato, in his plenty,

There

never

indeed

no weapon in aU the armory of wit which he did not possess and use,

—

epic, analysis,

mania,

intui-

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.

tion, music, satire

ary and

polite.

jests illustrations.

art

and irony, down to the customillustrations are poetry and his

His

Socrates' profession of obstetric

good philosophy

;

and

his finding that word

" cookery," and " adulatory art," for rhetoric, in

Gorgias, does us a substantial service

the

orator can measure in effect with

still.

him who can

give good nicknames.

What

moderation and understatement and check-

ing his thunder in mid volley

has good-na-

turedly furnished the courtier and citizen with that can be said against the schools.

ophy

an elegant thing, if any one modestly medbut

becoming,

corrupts the man."

dles with

than

all

" For philos-

;

conversant with

well afford to be generous,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

he,

could

who from

the

sunlike centrality and reach of his vision, had a faith without cloud. his speech

most of

Such

as his perception, was

he plays with the doubt and makes the

he paints and quibbles

;

and by and by

comes a sentence that moves the sea and

The admirable

land.

earnest comes not only at intervals,

in the perfect yes

bursts of light.

and no

the dialogue, but in

"I, therefore, CaUicles,

per-

suaded by these accounts, and consider how I may exhibit dition.

soul before the judge ia a healthy con-

Wherefore, disregarding the honors

most men

value,

and looking

that

to the truth, I shall

PLATO;

OR,

THE PHILOSOPHER.

endeavor in reality to live as virtuously as I can

and when I

die, to die so.

men,

utmost of

to the

And

power

all contests

He is

and you too I

;

which, I

turn invite to this contest,

surpasses (

;

I invite all other

affirm,

here."

a great average

man

;

one who, to the best

thinking, adds a proportion and equality in his faculties, so that

they are.

and

men

made

glimpses

see in

available

him

own dreams and

their

and made to pass for what

great common-sense

qualification to

his warrant

be the world's interpreter.

has reason, as aU the philosophic and poetic class

have

but he has also what they have not,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

this

strong solving sense to reconcile his poetry with the

appearances of the world, and build a bridge from

the streets of cities to the Atlantis. this

graduation,

omits never

but slopes his thought, however

picturesque the precipice on one side, to an access

from the

plain.

catches us

never writes in ecstacy, or

into poetic raptures.

Plato apprehended the cardinal facts. prostrate himself on the earth

and cover

could

his eyes

whUst he adored that which cannot be numbered, or gauged, or known, or

every thing

"which

named

can be affirmed

entity

super-essential.

and

that of which

and denied: that

nonentity."

called

even stood ready, as in the

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.

Parmenides, to demonstrate that

was

so,

—

that

exceeded the limits of intellect.

this

Being

man

ever more fully acknowledged the Ineffable.

Having paid

homage, as for the human

his

he then stood

to the Illimitable,

hviman race affirmed, able

— that

And

erect,

— the

heartily honored,

race,

for the

yet things are know-

the Asia in his

is,

and

mind was

first

ocean of love and power,

before form, before will, before knowledge, the

Same, the Good, the One

empowered by

;

and now, refreshed and

worship, the instinct of Eu-

this

rope, namely, culture, returns

things are knowable

and he

;

They

Yet

are knowable, be-

cause being from one, things correspond. is

cries,

There

a scale; and the correspondence of heaven

earth, of matter to mind, of the part to the whole, is

our guide.

called astronomy;

a science of

stars,

a science of quantities,

called

there

mathematics; a science of istry; so it

there

Dialectic,

qualities, called chem-

a science of sciences,

— which

It rests

vation of identity and diversity; to unite to

The

on the

obser-

for to judge

an object the notion which belongs

sciences,

astronomy,

call

the Intellect discriminat-

iag the false and the true.

it.

—I

— are

even the best,

— mathematics and

like sportsmen,

who

seize what-

ever prey offers, even without being able to make

any use of

it.

Dialectic

must teach the

use oi

them.

man

THE PniLOSOPHER.

PLATO;

OR,

" This

of that

will enter

rank that no intellectual

on any study for

its

own

sake, but

only with a view to advance himself in that one

which embraces

sole science

The

all."

essence or peculiarity of

man

com-

prehend a whole; or that which in the diversity of sensations can be comprised under a rational

"The

unity."

which has never perceived

soul

human form."

the truth, cannot pass into the

men

announce to

I announce the

the Intellect.

good of being interpenetrated by the mind that

made nature understand

Nature giver

good, but intellect

men

better

that truth

man

to be

reality;

and

this science else

altogether whole-

man

reality

all virtue

which

;

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; to

the

;

and :

;

but the su-

supreme beauty

all felicity

for courage

depend on is

nothing

the fairest fortune that can

be guided by his daemon to that

truly his own.

of justice,

mis-

baulked of the sight of essence

of the real

The

self of everything.

than knowledge

befall

as the law-

I give you joy,

and to be stuffed with conjectures preme good

can

hope to search out what

some; that we have

might be the very

made and maketh.

before the law-receiver.

sons of

ery of

namely, that

benefit,

this

nature, which

This also

attend every one his

the notion of virtue

the essence

own

nay,

not to be arrived at except

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.

through direct contemplation of the divine essence.

Courage then

for " the persuasion that

we do not know,

search that which

we must render

will

us, beyond comparison, better, braver and more if we thought it impossible we do not know, and useless

than

industrious

discover what

search for

it."

commanded, by

to to

secures a position not to be

his

passion

philosophy only as

for reality; valuing

the pleasure of conversing

it is

with real being.

Thus,

full of the genius of

Europe, he

said. Cul-

ture.

and

recog-

nized,

more genially one would say than any

since,

saw the

institutions of Sparta

the hope of education.

delighted in every ac-

complishment, in every graceful and useful and truthful performance

and

genius

whole of

life,

above aU in the splendors

;

intellectual

" The

achievement.

Socrates," said Glauco, "

with

is,

the wise, the measure of hearing such discourses as

What

these." ent,

a price he sets on the feats of

tal-

on the powers of Pericles, of Isocrates, of Par-

menides

themselves

What price He called

above price on the talents the several faculties, gods,

in his beautiful personation.

What value

to the art of gymnastic in education

ometry

;

what

music

;

what

;

he gives

what

to ge-

to astronomy, whose

appeasing and medicinal power he celebrates

the Timseus he indicates the highest employment

PLATO; "

of the eyes.

THE PniLOSOPHER.

OR,

asserted that

it is

God

in-

vented and bestowed sight on us for this purpose,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; that on

surveying the circles of intelligence in

the heavens,

we might properly employ those of our

own minds, which, though disturbed when compared with the others that are uniform, are stiU

and that having thus

allied to their circulations;

learned,

and being naturally possessed of a correct

we might, by imitating the uniof divinity, set right our own wan-

reasoning faculty,

form revolutions

And

derings and blunders."

in the Republic,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

each of these disciplines a certain organ of

the sold

both purified and reanimated which

blinded and buried by studies of another kind

;

organ better worth saving than ten thousand eyes, since truth is perceived

said.

Culture

;

this alone."

but he

first

and gave immeasurably the

admitted

first

His patrician

tages of nature.

the distinctions of birth.

tastes laid stress on In the doctrine of the

organic character and disposition caste.

" Such as were

fit

the military, silver ; iron

the origin of

mingled gold

and brass

for

;

cominto

husbandmen

The East confirms itself, in all The Koran is explicit on this faith.

artificers."

ages, in this

point of caste.

and

to govern, into their

position the informing Deity

and

its basis,

place to advan-

silver.

VOL. IV.

Men

have their metal, as of gold

Those of you who were the worthy g

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.

ones in the state of ignorance, will be the worthy ones in the state of faith, as soon as you embrace " Of the five orders Plato was not less firm.

it."

of things, only four can be taught to the generality of

In the Republic he

men."

peraments of the youth, as

A happier

insists

first of

example of the

the

on the temfirst.

stress laid

on nature

young Theages, who

is in the dialogue with the

wishes to receive lessons from Socrates.

ciating

simply, whilst they were with

not because of him

way

" It

it.

;

asso;

him they grew

but,

wise,

he pretends not to know the

adverse to many, nor can those

be benefited by associating with

mon

Socrates

some have grown wise by with him, no thanks are due to him

declares that

me whom

the Dae-

me to With many however he does not prevent me from conversing, who yet are not at all live

opposes

so that

;

not possible for

it is

with these.

benefited by associating with me. ages,

the association with

the God, you will

ciency

you

whether

make

will not, if

it is

;

Such,

The-

for, if it pleases

great and rapid profi-

Judge

he does not please.

not safer to be instructed by some

one of those who have power over the benefit which they impart to men, than by me, just as

may happen." As

no system. will be

who

benefit or not,

he had

I have

I cannot be answerable for you.

You

what you must.

If there

said,

love between

;

PLATO;

THE PHILOSOPHER.

OR,

us, inconceivably delicious

intercourse be will only

;

profitable will our

and

your time

if not,

beyond the will of you or me, All

I educate, not

and you

lost

I shall seem, to you stupid,

annoy me.

Quite above us,

and the reputation I have, false.

or repulsion laid.

lessons,

secret affinity

is this

good

magnetic, and

but by going about

business.'

Culture

said,

not to add,

;

There

Nature

said.

and he failed

There

also the divine.'

no thought in any mind but convert

;

quickly tends to

a power and organizes a huge

itself into

instrumentality of means.

Plato, lover of limits,

loved the illimitable, saw the enlargement and no-

which come from truth

bility

and attempted as tellect,

once for aU to do

homage

fit

for the

Our

faculties

turn to us thence.

but here

run out into

;

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

and yet

said

and

infinity,

re-

and, begin where

and

AH things

is suicide.

will,

All things are symbolical

call results

in-

We can define but a little way

;

ascend

and what

are beginnings.'

A key to the method is

itself,

a fact which will not be skipped,

are in a scale

to receive,

intellect to render.

which to shut our eyes upon

and ascend.

and good

adequate homage,

immense soul

homage becoming the then

itself

on the part of the human

and completeness

his twice bisected line.

of Plato

After he has illustrated

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.

the relation between the absolute good and true of the intelligible world, he says

and the forms

" Let there be a line cut in two unequal

Cut again each

of these two

main

parts,

—

parts.

— one

representing the visible, the other the intelligible world,

— and

two new sections represent

let these

the bright part and the dark part of each of these

You

worlds.

will have, for

one of the sections

the visible world, images, that reflections

;

—

both shadows and

for the other section, the objects of

these images, that of art

is,

plants, animals,

Then

and nature.

world in like manner

and the works

divide the intelligible

the one section will be of

;

opinions and hypotheses, and the other section of

truths."

these four sections, the four opera-

tions of the soul correspond,

understanding, reason.

—

conjecture, faith,

every pool

reflects the

image of the sun, so every thought and thing Good.

re-

an image and creature of the supreme

stores us

The universe

perforated by a million

chahnels for his activity.

All things mount and

mount. All his thought has this ascension teaching that beauty

things, exciting hilarity

confidence ters,

and

—but

the

;

in Phasdrus,

most lovely

and shedding

of all

desire and

through the universe wherever enters in

that there

some degree into aU another, which

en-

things:

much

PLATO;

THE PHILOSOPHER.

OR,

beauty

more beautiful than chaos

;

beauty

namely, wisdom, which our wonderful organ

of sight cannot reach unto, but which, could seen,

than

would ravish us with

has the same regard to

in the fabrication of

as the source of excel-

When

lence in works of art.

perfect reality.

its

he says,

artificer,

any work, looks to that which

always subsists according to the same; and, emits

idea and

must foUow that

his pro-

ploying a model of this kind, expresses

power in

his work,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

duction should be beautiful. that which is born

and

But when he beholds

dies, it will

be far from

beautiful.

Thus ever same

spirit,

the Banquet

familiar

now

a teaching in the to

the sermons of the world, that the love of the

all

sexes

initial,

and symbolizes at a distance the

passion of the soul for that

immense lake of beauty

This faith in the Divinity

exists to seek.

aU the poetry and

never out of mind, and constitutes the ground of all

his

God

dogmas.

only.

Body cannot teach wisdom

;

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

In the same mind he constantly afBrms

that virtue cannot be taught

; that it is not a scian inspiration-, that the greatest goods are produced to us through uj^jiia and are as-

ence, but

signed to us

by a divine

This leads has

established

gift.

to that central figure

his

Academy

which he

the

organ

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.

70 througli

wMch

every considered opinion shall be

announced, and whose biography he has likewise

labored that the historic facts are lost in the light Socrates and Plato are the dou-

of Plato's mind.

ble star which the most powerful instruments will

not entirely separate.

Socrates again, in his

traits

and genius, is the best example of that synthesis which constitutes Plato's extraordinary power. Socrates, a man of humble stem, but honest enough

;

of the

commonest history

;

of a personal

homeliness so remarkable as to be a cause of wit in others

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; the rather that

and exquisite

taste for

which was sure

his

broad good nature

a joke invited the

be paid.

The

sally,

players person-

ated him on the stage ; the potters copied his ugly

face on their stone jugs.

was a

cool fellow,

adding to his humor a perfect temper and a knowledge of his man, be he who he might talked with, which laid the tain defeat in

any debate,

whom

companion open

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; and

to cer-

in debate he im-

The young men are prodighim and invite him to their feasts,

moderately delighted. iously fond of

whither he goes for conversation. too

;

has the strongest head in Athens

can drink, ;

and

after

leaving the whole party under the table, goes away as

nothing had happened, to begin new dialogues

somebody that is what our country-people with

In short, he was an old one.

sober. call

PLATO;

THE PHILOSOPHER.

OR,

good many

affected a

citizen-like tastes,

was

never

monstrously fond of Athens, hated trees, willingly went beyond the walls, knew the old characters, valued the bores

every thing in Athens a in

any other place.

and

little

better than anything

was plain as a Quaker in

habit and speech, affected low phrases, tions

from cocks and

offices,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

farriers,

illustra-

and

syca-

and unnameable

especially if he talked with

He had

and

quails, soup-pans

more-spoons, grooms and

person.

thought

philistines,

any superfine

Thus

a Franklin-like wisdom.

he showed one who was afraid to go on foot to

Olympia, that within doors,

was no more than

his daily

walk

continuously extended, would easily

reach.

Plain old uncle as he was, with his great ears,

an immense talker,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; the

or two occasions, in the

rumor ran that on one

war with

Boeotia, he

shown a determination which had covered the treat of a troop

under cover of

;

had re-

and there was some story that

folly,

he had, in the city govern-

ment, when one day he chanced to hold a seat evinced a courage in opposing singly the

there,

popular voice, which had weU-nigh ruined him.

very poor

and can

live

est sense,

tained

;

but then he

on a few olives

;

hardy as a

soldier,

usually, in the strict-

on bread and water, except when enterhis

friends.

His necessary expenses

;

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.

were exceedingly small, and no one could live as lie He wore no under garment his upper gar-

did.

;

ment was the same for summer and winter, and he went barefooted and it is said that to procure the pleasure, which he loves, of talking at his ease all day with the most elegant and cultivated young ;

men, he

now and then

will

return to his shop and

However that

carve statues, good or bad, for sale. be, it is certain that

he had grown to delight

Nothing else than this conversation

and

;

that, un-

der his hypocritical pretence of knowing nothing,

he attacks and brings down all the fine

or strangers from Asia

Nobody can est

all

the fine speakers,

philosophers of Athens, whether natives

Minor and the

refuse to talk with him, he

and reaUy curious

wilKngly confuted

know

;

was

false

;

and not

pened to

men

;

he did not speak the

less

of such a

who knows

when confuted

magnitude as

and

unjust.

nothiug,

;

any

than

evil hap-

false opinion

pitiless

dis-

but the bounds of

whose conquering intelligence no reached

was

truth,

assertiug what

for he thought not

respecting the just putant,

pleased

hon-

is so

man who

and who willingly confuted others

when confuting

islands.

man had

whose temper was imperturbable

;

ever

whose

dreadful logic was always leisurely and sportive so careless and ignorant as to disarm the wariest and draw them, in the pleasantest manner, iato

PLATO;

No by

the

TEE PHILOSOPEER.

But he

always

and confusion.

horrible doubts

knew

OR,

way out

knew

;

it,

yet would not teU

it.

he drives them to terrible choices dilemmas, and tosses the Hippiases and

escape; his

(lorgiases with their

grand reputations, as a bey,

The tyrannous

tosses his balls.

realist

!— Meno

virhas discoursed a thousand times, at length, on it apas weU, very and companies, tue, before many

peared to him

teU what

;

it is,

but at this moment he cannot even this cramp-fish of a Socrates has

—

so bewitched him.

This hard-headed humorist, whose strange con-

droUery and honhommie diverted the young

ceits,

patricians, whilst the

rumor of

quibbles gets abroad every day, sequel, to

and

his

sayings and

— turns

out, in the

have a probity as invincible as his

to be either insane, or at least,

logic,

under cover

of this play, enthusiastic in his religion.

"When

accused before the judges of subverting the popular creed,

he affirms the immortality of the

the future reward

and punishment

;

to recant, in a caprice of the popular

was condemned

die,

sotd,

and refusing government

and sent to the prison.

Socrates entered the prison and

took away

all

ignominy from the place, which could not be a prison whilst he was there. jailer

ery.

;

Crito bribed

the

but Socrates would not go out by treach» Whatever inconvenience ensue, nothing

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.

These things

to be preferred before justice.

hear like pipes and drums, whose sound makes me deaf to every thing you say." The fame of this prison, the

fame

of the discourses there

and

the

drinking of the hemlock are one of the most precious passages in the history of the world.

The droll

rare coincidence, in one ugly body, of the

and the martyr, the keen

debater with the sweetest saint tory at that time,

had

and market

street

known

forcibly struck the

Plato, so capacious of these contrasts

any

his-

mind

and the

;

fig-

ure of Socrates by a necessity placed

itself in the

foreground of the scene, as the

dispenser of

fittest

the iutellectual treasures he had to communicate. It was a rare fortune that this

and

this

^sop

of the

mob

robed scholar should meet, to make each

other immortal

in their

strange synthesis

the

mutual

The

faculty.

character of

Socrates

capped the synthesis in the mind of Plato.

More-

over by this means he was able, in the direct way

and without envy

to avail himself of the

and

Afnt

weight of Socrates, to which unquestionably

own debt was

great

;

and these derived again

his

their

principal advantage from the perfect art of Plato. It remains to say that the defect of Plato in

power

only that which

his quality.

resiilts

inevitably from ;

and

Mounting

into

intellectual in his

therefore, in expression, literary.

aim

PLATO;

OR,

TEE PHILOSOPHER.

the laws heaven, diving into the pit, expounding the remorse of of the state, the passion of love,

hope of the parting

crime, the

It is

and never otherwise.

ary,

soul,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; he

is liter-

almost the sole de-

writings duction from the merit of Plato that his â&#x20AC;&#x201D;what is no doubt incident to this reg-

have not,

intellect in his

nancy of

work,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; the

vital author-

ity which the screams of prophets and the sermons

Arabs and Jews

of unlettered

an interval I know

;

and

to cohesion, contact is necessary.

we have come

nature of things

an oak

qualities of sugar

with

not what can be said in reply to this

criticism but that

salt

There

possess.

to a fact in the

The

not an orange.

remain with sugar, and those of

salt.

The

In the second place, he has not a system. dearest defenders

and

disciples are at fault.

attempted a theory of the universe, and his theory is

One man

not complete or self-evident.

he means

this,

and another that

thing in one place,

place.

the transition

;

thinks

he has said one

and the reverse of

in another

make

charged with having failed to

from ideas

to matter.

Here

the

world, sound as a nut, perfect, not the smallest piece of chaos left, never

mark

stitch

nor an end, not a

of haste, or botching, or second thought

;

but

the theory of the world is a thing of shreds

and

patches.

The

longest

wave

quickly lost in the sea.

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.

Plato would willingly have a Platonism, a known

and accurate expression for be accurate. the

mind

world, and

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; nothing

of Plato,

relation or quality

you knew

should

Every atom

less.

And you

art.

deed overran, with of the planet

;

before,

now

again and find here, but

shaU

ordered

feel that

men and

you

horses,

;

of planet

and

not nature,

some

in-

countries

but countries, and things of which itself,

laws

of men, have passed through this

and become no

as bread into his body,

bread, but body

become

Plato.

world.

This

know

shall

Alexander

countries are made, elements, planet

man

have the Platonic tinge; every atom, every

shall

but

tlie

be the world passed through

It shall

mammoth

so all this

longer

morsel has

has clapped copyright on the

the ambition of individualism. But

the mouthful proves too large.

has good wOl to eat

it,

abroad in the attempt

but he

and

;

Boa

constrictor

foUed.

falls

biting, gets strangled

the bitten world holds the biter fast by his own

There he perishes

teeth. lives

must

on and forgets him. it

German, the

fares with

be philosophical

ture, Plato turns out to

acutest

unconquered nature

In view of eternal

fare with Plato.

tions.

na-

exereita-

argues on this side and on that.

The

lovingest disciple, could never

teU what Platonism was

; indeed, admirable texts can be quoted on both sides of every great ques. tion from him.

PLATOi

THE PHILOSOPHER.

OR,

These things we are forced to say

of.

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; which

will not be disposed

power of genius has ever yet had the

The

smallest success in explaining existence.

But there

enigma remains.

fect

assuming

we must

any philosopher

consider the effort of Plato or of to dispose of nature,

this

per-

an injustice in

Let us not

ambition for Plato.

seem to treat with flippancy his venerable name.

Men,

in proportion to their intellect, have admitted

The way

his transcendent claims.

know him

compare him, not with nature, but with other

How many

men.

ages have gone by, and he re-

mains unapproached wit,

the Etrurian remains,

human seen

A chief structure of human

Kke Karnac, or the mediaeval cathedrals, or faculty to

know

requires it.

aU the breath

I think

when seen with the most

respect.

His sense

When

deepens, his merits multiply, with study.

say.

praise the style, or the

Here

a fine collection of fables

we speak as boys,

metic,

it is trueliest

when common sense, or arithand much of our im;

patient criticism of the dialectic, I suspect, is

better.

The

criticism is like our impatience of miles,

when we

are in a hurry; but it is still best that should have seventeen hundred and sixty yards. The great -eyed Plato proportioned the

mUe

lights

and shades after the genius of our

life.

NEW

PLATO:

The

publication, ia

EEADINGS.

Mr. Bohn's "Serial LibraÂŤ

ry," of the excellent translations of Plato, which

we esteem one

of the chief benefits the cheap press

has yielded, gives us an occasion to take hastily a

few more notes

of the elevation

this fixed star

or to add a bulletin, like the jour-

nals, of

Modern tion,

;

Plato at the

science,

and bearings

latest dates.

by the extent

of its generaliza-

has learned to indemnify the student of man

for the defects of individuals

and ascent

in races

feeling

;

by tracing growth

and, by the simple expedient

up the vast backgroimd, generates

of lighting

complacency and hope.

arts

and

The human

being has the saurian and the plant in his

His

rear.

sciences, the easy issue of his brain,

look glorious when prospectively beheld from the distant brain of ox, crocodile as

her,

and

fish.

It seems

nature, in regarding the geologic night behind

when, in

five or six

out five or six men, as

millenniums, she had turned

Homer, Phidias, Menu an^

PLATO;

NEW

READINGS.

Columbus, was no wise discontented with the re-

These samples attested the virtue of the tree.

sult.

These were a clear amelioration of trilobite and saurus,

With is

and a good basis for further proceeding.

this artist,

insensible to

tion.

time and space are cheap, and she

what you say of tedious prepara-

She waited tranquilly the flowing periods of

when man

paleontology, for the hour to be struck

Then

should arrive.

periods must pass before the

motion of the earth can be suspected the

map

of the instincts

But

can be drawn.

men

of individual

;

then before

and the cultivable powers

as of races, so the succession

is fatal

and

beautiful,

and Plato

has the fortune in the history of mankind to

mark

an epoch. Plato's

fame does not stand on a syllogism, or

on any masterpieces of the Socratie reasoning, or on any thesis, as for example the immortality of the soul.

message.

more than an expert, or a schoolman, or a geometer, or the prophet of a peculiar tellect,

represents the privilege of

the power, namely, of

fact to successive

every fact a are in the

germ

the in-

carrying up every

platforms and so disclosing in of expansion.

These expansions

essence of thought.

The

naturalist

would never help us to them by any discoveries of the extent of the universe,

but

as poor

cataloguing the resolved nebula of Orion, as

when when

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.

measuring the angles of an lic

of Plato,

require

by these expansions, may be

and

does not create what

The mind any more than

are organic.

perceives,

the eye creates the rose.

said to

astronomy

the

anticipate

The expansions

Laplace.

But the Eepub-

acre.

In ascribing

merit of announcing them,

we only

to Plato the

say.

Here was

a more complete man, who could apply to natm'e the whole scale of the senses, the understanding

and the

reason.

These expansions or extensions

consist in continuing the spiritual sight where the

horizon falls on our natural vision, and by

this

second sight discovering the long

law

which shoot in every

lines

Everywhere he

direction.

stands on a path which has no end, but runs continuously round the universe.

Therefore every

word becomes an exponent of nature. Whatever he looks upon discloses a second sense, and ulterior senses.

His perception of the generation

traries, of

that law

death out of

by which,

life

and

life

of con-

out of death,

in nature, decomposition

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

is re-

composition, and putrefaction and cholera are only signals of a little

new

creation

the large and

;

his discernment of the

the large in the small;

studying the state in the citizen and the in the state

;

and leaving

citizen

doubtful whether he

exhibited the Republic as an aUegory on the education of the private soul

;

his beautiful definitions

PLATO;

NEW

READINGS.

of the line, of ideas, of time, of form, of figure,

sometimes typothetically given, as

defining of

temperance;

virtue, courage, justice,

the apologue, and

love of

apologues themselves

the ring of

Gyges

the

;

the char-

Trophomus ; and two horses ; the golden, silver, brass and iron temperaments ; Theuth and Thamns ; and the

cave of

;

ioteer

visions of

Hades Mid the Fates,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

wMch

fables

human memory Ms soliform eye and

have imprinted themselves in the like the signs of the zodiac

Ms boniform soul; Ms

;

doctrine of assimilation

doctrine of reminiscence

;

his

his clear vision of the

laws of return, or reaction,

wMch

secure instant

justice tMoughout the universe, instanced every-

where, but specially in the doctrine, " what comes

from

God

to us, returns

from us to God,'' and in

Socrates' belief that the laws

below are

sisters of

the laws above.

striking examples are his

and virtue virtue,

was

;

"for vice

can never know

but virtue knows both itself

The eye it

attested that justice

profitable

tMoughout

;

was

and

vice.

long as

though the

from gods and men

the sinner ought to covet

and

it is profitable

is intrinsic,

better to suffer injustice than to

VOL. IV.

itself

best, as

Plato affirms that

that the profit

just conceal his justice it is

moral conclu-

Plato afi&rms the coincidence of science

sions.

;

that

;

that

punishment; that the

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.

82 lie

was more hurtful than homicide; and that lie, was more calami-

ignorance, or the involuntary

tous than involuntary homicide

;

that the soul

unwillingly deprived of true opinions,

man

sins willingly

;

that no

that the order or proceeding

was from the mind

of nature

and

to the hody, and,

though a sound body cannot restore an unsound mind, yet a good soul can, by

body the

best possible.

its virtue,

The

render the

intelligent

have a

right over the ignorant, namely, the right of structing them. of tune is to

The right punishment of one out make him play in tune the fine ;

which the good, refusing is,

to be governed

structed that there will

to govern, ought to pay,

by a worse man that ;

and

shall not handle gold

which

in-

silver,

his guards

but shaU be

gold and sUver in their

make men

willing to give

in-

souls,

them

every

thing which they need. stress laid on

This second sight explains the geometry.

saw that the globe

not more lawful and

precise than

of earth was

was the

super-

sensible;

that a celestial geometry was in place

there, as

a logic of lines and angles here below;

that the world was throughout mathematical

proportions are constant of oxygen, azote and there

just so

much water and

slate

;

the

lime;

and magnesia;

not less are the proportions constant of the moral elements.

PLATO;

NEW

READINGS.

This eldest Goethe, hating varnish and falsehood, delighted in revealing the real at the base of the accidental tinuity lation

;

in discovering connection, con-

;

and representation everywhere, hating insu-

and appears

like the

god of wealth among

the cabins of vagabonds, opening

power and capa-

everything he touches.

Ethical science

bility in

was new and vacant when Plato could write thus

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; " Of

aU whose arguments are

of the present time, injustice, or

self,

;

men

the

praised justice, otherwise than as re-

spects the repute,

therefrom

left to

no one has ever yet condemned

honors and emoliunents arising

while, as respects either of

and subsisting by

of the possessor,

own power

its

them

it-

in the soul

and concealed both from gods

and men, no one has yet

sufficiently investigated,

either in poetry or prose writings,

that injustice is the greatest of

the soul has within

it,

and

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; how, namely,

aU the

evils

that

the greatest

justice

good."

His

definition

ideas,

what

simple,

permanent, uniform and self-existent, forever discriminating standing,

them from the notions

of the under-

marks an era in the world.

born to behold the self-evolving power of endless, generator of

new ends

;

a power which

the key at once to

the centrality

nescence of things.

Plato

is so

was

spirit, is

and the eva-

centred that he

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.

Thus the

fact of

knowledge and ideas reveals to him the

fact of

can well spare

dogmas.

all his

and the doctrine

eternity;

reminiscence

most probable particular

offers as the

Call that fanciful,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

matters not: the connec-

between our knowledge and

tion

being

still

real,

explication.

the abyss of

and the explication must be

not less magnificent.

has indicated every eminent point in

ulation.

itself,

tablet.

wrote on the scale of

spec-

mind

the

that all things have symmetry in his

put in aU the

past, without weariness,

and

descended into detail with a courage Hke

that

he witnessed

that his forerunners

or a district or

One would

in nature.

say

had mapped out each a farm

island, in intellectual geog-

raphy, but that Plato

first

drew the

domesticates the soul in nature

man

sphere. is

the micro-

cosm.

All the circles of the visible heaven

repre-

sent as

many

There

no lawless

circles in the rational soul.

particle,

in the action of the

things,

things.

too,

and there

human mind.

are fatal,

following

nothing casual

The names the nature

All the gods of the Pantheon

are,

their names, significant of a profound sense.

gods are the ideas. tion

;

soul;

Pan

passion.

The

speech, or manifesta-

Saturn, the contemplative

and Mars,

;

Venus

Jove, the regal is

proportion;

PLATO;

NEW

READINGS.

CaUiope, the soul of the world

Aglaia, inteUec-

;

tual illustration.

had ap-

light,

These thoughts, in sparkles of

pious and to poetic souls but

peared often to

this

;

Greek

well-bred, all-knowing

command, gathers them

all

geometer conies with

into

rank and grar

Euclid of holiness, and marries the two parts of nature. Before aU men, he saw the dation, the

describes his

that

ideal,

when he

paints, in Ti-

god leading things from disorder into

mseus, a

order.

own

the moral sentiment.

intellectual values of

kindled a

fire so

truly in the centre

see the sphere illuminated,

tinguish

poles,

equator

and node

every arc

and

lines

and can of

dis-

latitude,

a theory so averaged,

modulated, that you would say the winds of ages

had swept through this rhythmic structure, and not that

was the brief extempore blotting of

one short-lived scribe. that a very

those

who

weU-marked

it,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; are said is

has happened

souls,

namely

end which

to Platonize.

when he writes,â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

yet legitimate

Thus, Michael An-

a Platonist in his sonnets

a Platonist

is,

expression to every truth,

exhibiting an ulterior

gelo

class

delight in giving a spiritual, that

ethico-inteUectual

Hence

Shakspeare

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.

" Nature is made better by no mean, But nature makes that mean,"

or,â&#x20AC;&#x201D; " He, that can endure

follow with allegiance a fallen lord.

Does conquer him that did

And

Hamlet

his

master conquer,

earns a place in the story."

a pure Platonist, and

the magnitude

'tis

only of Shakspeare's proper genius that hinders

him from being this

poem

school.

classed as the most eminent of

Swedenborg, throughout

of " Conjugal Love,"

His subtlety commended him

The

men

secret of his popular success

of thought.

the moral aim

" Intellect," he

which endeared him to mankind. said, "

prose

his

a Platonist.

;

king of heaven and of earth " but

Plato, intellect

always moral.

His

have also the sempiternal youth of poetry. their arguments,

writings

For

most of them, might have been

couched in sonnets

and poetry has never soared As

higher than in the Timseus and the Phsedrus. the poet, too, he

not, like Pythagoras,

tution.

break himself with an

times in violent colors, his thought.

out, some-

You

cannot

without peril of charlatanism.

was a high scheme,

for the

did

insti-

All his painting in the Republic must be

esteemed mythical, with intent to bring

institute,

only contemplative.

best

(which, to

his

make

absolute privilege

emphatic, he

ea?

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; PLATO; pressed by

NEW

set

on grandeur.

be exempts of two kinds

;

those

first,

themselves

have put

outlaws

community of women), as the premium

which he would

merit

READINGS.

There shall

who by

de-

below protection,

and secondly, those who by eminence of

nature and desert are out of the reach of your rewards. the law.

Let such be free of the city and above

them

confide

them do with us as they wiU. to

themselves;

let

Let none presume

measure the irregularities of Michael Angelo

and Socrates by village

scales.

In his eighth book of the Republic, he throws a Uttle

mathematical dust in our eyes.

to see him, after

sorry

such noble superiorities, permit-

ting the lie to governors.

Plato plays Providence

a httle with the baser sort, as people allow themselves with their

dogs and

cats.

SWEDENBOEG;

OR,

THE MYSTIC.

in.

SWEDENBOEG;

Among

THE MYSTIC.

eminent persons, those who are most

men

dear to

OE,

are not of the class which the econo-

mist calls producers

they have nothing in their

made

hands; they have not cultivated corn, nor

bread

;

they have not led out a colony, nor invented

higher class, in the estimation

and

love of this city-buUding market-going race of

man-

a loom.

kind, are

the poets,

who, from the intellectual

kingdom, feed the thought and imagination with

and pictures which

ideas

raise

men

out of the

world of corn and money, and console them for the short-comings df the day and the meanness of labor

and

traffic.

Then,

also,

the philosopher has his

who flatters the intellect of this laborer by engaging him with subtleties which instruct him in new faculties. Others may build cities he is to understand them and keep them in awe. But there the is a class who lead us into another region, value,

;

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

world of morals or of this region of

thought

will. is its

What

claim.

singular about

Wherever the

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.

sentiment of right comes every thing of

in, it

takes precedence of

For other things, I make poetry

else.

them ; but the moral sentiment makes poetry

me. I have sometimes thought that he would render

the

service

greatest

modern

criticism,

who

should draw the line of relation that subsists be-

tween Shakspeare and Swedenborg.

The hmnan demanding intel-

mind stands ever in perplexity, lect, demanding sanctity, impatient equally of each without the other. The reconciler has not yet appeared. If we tire of the saints, Shakspeare is our city of refuge. Yet the instincts presently teach that the problem of essence must take pre-

cedence of

all

others

;

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; the questions

What? and Whither? and must be in a

life,

and not

Whence

the solution of these

in a book.

drama

poem is a proximate or oblique reply but Moses, Menu, Jesus, work directly on this problem. The ;

atmosphere of moral sentiment

a region of grand-

eur which reduces aU material magnificence to toys, yet

opens to every wretch that has reason the

doors of the universe. it

lays its empire

the Koran, "

Almost with a

on the man.

God

said, the

fierce haste

In the language heaven and the

aU that is between them, think ye that we created them in jest, and that ye shall not reearth and

turn to us

It is the

kingdom

of the

Aiidll,

and

SWEDENBORG; by inspiring the

which

the seat of personal-

seems to convert the universe into a per.

ity,

son

will,

THE MYSTIC.

OR,

—

;

" The realms of being to no other bow, Not only all are thine, but all are Thou."

All

men

commanded by

are

Koran makes a

The by

the saint.

distinct class of those

who

are

nature good, and whose goodness has an influence

on others, and pronounces this class to be the aim of creation

the other classes are admitted to the

feast of being, only as following in the train of this.

this

And

boldly forth, and feast on being's banquet;

Thou

The

the Persian poet exclaims to a soul of

kind, —

art the called,

privilege

secrets

— the

rest admitted with thee."

of this caste

what one man

In common parlance,

by experience, a man

said to learn

of extraordinary to divine.

sagacity

said, without

The Arabians

Khaia, the mystic, and opher,

to the

and structure of nature by some higher

method than by experience.

rience,

an access

Abu

conferred together

;

say, that

expe-

Abul

Ali Seena, the philosand, on parting,

philosopher said, " All that he sees, I

the

and

the mystic said, " All that he knows, I see."

know

;

one shoidd ask the reason of this intuition, the solution

would lead us into that property which

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.

Plato denoted as Reminiscence, and which plied

by the Bramins in the tenet

tion.

The

Hindoos

im-

of Transmigra-

soul having been often born, or, as the

say, " travelling

the path of existence

through thousands of births," having beheld the things which are here, those which are ia heaven

and those which are beneath, there

nothing of

which she has not gained the knowledge no won:

der that she

able to recoUect, in regard to any

one thing, what formerly she knew.

"For, aU

things in nature being linked and related, and the soul ha-\ang heretofore

known

all,

nothing hinders

man who has recalled to mind, or acthe common phrase has learned, one

but that any cording to

thing only, should of himself recover aU his ancient

knowledge, and find out again

all

the

rest, if

have but courage and faint not in the midst researches.

For inquiry and learning

cence

How much

all."

more,

be a holy and godlike soul! similated to the original soul,

whom

all

of his

is reminis-

he that inquires

For by being asby whom and after

things subsist, the soul of

man

does then

aU things, and all things flow into it they mix and he is present and sympathetic with their structure and law. This path is difficult, secret and beset with tereasily flow into ;

ror."

The

ancients called

ecstacy or absence,

a getting out of their bodies to think.

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

AU relig-

SWEDENBORG;

THE MYSTIC.

OR,

ious history contains traces of the trance of saints,

—a

even sad

solitary,

called

it,

the eyes,

;

ear-

" the flight," Plotinus

;

" of the alone to the alone ; "

closing of

The

any sign of joy

beatitude, but without

nest,

— whence

Mur/o-is,

the

our word. Mystic.

trances of Socrates, Plotinus, Porphyry, Beh-

men, Bunyan, Fox, Pascal, Guyon, Swedenborg, will readily

come

comes to mind

But Tfhat as readily

to mind.

accompaniment of

the

disease.

This beatitude comes in terror, and with shocks to the

mind

of the receiver. " It o'erinf orms the tenement of clay,"

and drives the man lent bias

which

mad

taints his

or gives a certain vio-

;

In the chief

judgment.

examples of religious illumination somewhat morbid has mingled, in spite of the imquestionable in-

Must

crease of mental power.

drag after credits

it ?

—

the highest good

a quality which neutralizes and

" Indeed,

From The

we much

meter, to

takes

our achievements, when performed at height,

pith

Shall so

dis-

and marrow of our

attribute."

say, that the economical

earth and

much

make a man, and

weight though a nation Therefore the

men

God

mother disburses

fire,

by weight and

will not

add a penny-

perishing for a leader ?

purchased their science

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.

folly or pain.

carbuncle, or diamond, to ent, the

will

have pure carbon,

make

the brain transpar-

you

trunk and organs shall be so much the instead of

grosser:

earth, clay, or

porcelain they are potter's

mud.

In modern times no such remarkable example this introverted

mind has occurred

as in

Swedenborg, born in Stockholm, in 1688.

man, who appeared

Emanuel This

to his contemporaries a vision-

ary and elixir of moonbeams, no doubt led the most real life of

when

any man then in the world

and now,

the royal and ducal Frederics, Christians and

Brunswicks of that day have

slid into oblivion,

begins to spread himself into the minds of thour sands.

As happens

in great

men, he seemed, by

the variety and amount of his powers, to be a composition of several persons,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

like the giant fruits

which are matured in gardens by the union or five single blossoms. scale

and

His frame

possesses the advantages of

is easier to see

of four

on a larger

size.

the reflection of the great sphere

in large globes, though defaced by some crack or

blemish, than in drops of water, so calibre,

men

of large

though with some eccentricity or madness,

like Pascal or

Newton, help us more than balanced

mediocre minds.

His youth and training could not traordinary.

fail to

Such a boy could not

ex-

whistle or

THE MYSTIC.

dance, but goes grubbing into mines and

moun-

SWEDENBOEG;

tains,

OR,

prying into chemistry and optics, physiology,

mathematics and astronomy, to find images the measure of his versatile

He was at

for

a scholar from a child, and was educated

Upsala.

made Assessor XII.

fit

and capacious brain.

the age of twenty-eight he was

of the

In 1716, he the

visited

Board of Mines by Charles

home

left

universities

France and Germany.

for four years

England,

and

HoUand,

performed a notable

feat of engineering in 1718, at the siege of Fred-

erikshald, sloop,

by hauling two

galleys, five boats

and a

some fourteen English miles overland, for In 1721 he journeyed over Eu-

the royal service.

rope to examine mines and smelting works.

published in 1716 his Daedalus Hyperboreus, and

from

next thirty years was em-

this time for the

ployed in the composition and publication of his scientific

works.

With

himself into theology. four years old, gan.

what

the like force he threw

In 1713, when he was

fifty-

called his illumination be-

All his metallurgy and transportation of

ships overland

was absorbed

ceased to publish any

into this ecstasy.

scientific books, with-

drew from his practical labors and devoted himself to the writing

and publication

expense, or at that of the vot. iv-

of his voluminous

which were printed

theological works,

Duke

at his

own

Brunswick or

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.

Am=

other prince, at Dresden, Leipsic, London, or

Later, he resigned his

sterdam.

Assessor

office of

the salary attached to this office continued to be

paid to him during his

His

life.

had

duties

brought him into intimate acquaintance with King Charles XII., by

The

honored.

says, the

from

At most

was continued

him by

the Diet of 1751, Count Hopsolid

memorials on finance were

In Sweden he appears to have atmarked regard. His rare science and skiU, and the added fame of second sight

his pen.

tracted a practical

and extraordinary drew

he was much consulted and

like favor

his successor.

ken

whom

knowledge and

religious

him queens,

gifts,

nobles, clergy, shipmasters

aad people about the ports through which he was wont

to pass in his

many

voyages.

The

terfered a little with the importation

clergy in-

and

publica-

tion of his religious works, but he seems to have

kept the friendship of never married. ness of bearing.

men

His habits were simple

on bread, milk and vegetables situated in a large garden to

power.

had great modesty and

;

was

gentle-

he lived

he lived in a house

he went several times

England, where he does not seem to have

tracted any attention whatever

or the eminent; and died at London,

March

1772, of apoplexy, in his eighty-fifth year. described,

when

at-

from the learned

London, as a

man

29,

of a quietj

SWEDENBORG; clerical habit,

kind to

wore a sword when in

whenever he walked There

a gold-headed cane.

him

in antique coat

wandering or vacant

common

portrait

and wig, but the face has a

air.

;

the bounds of space

and

to establish

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; began

forges, ia the

ship-yards

and time, venture

and attempt

ion in the world,

full

out, carried

The genius which was to penetrate the of the age with a far more subtle science spirit-realm,

not averse to tea and coffee, and

cliildren.

velvet dress, and,

THE MYSTIC.

OR,

its

science to pass

iato the

a new

dim

relig-

lessons iu quarries

smelting-pot and crucible,

and dissecting-rooms.

one

man

in is

perhaps able to judge of the merits of his works on so

many

One

subjects.

glad to learn that his

books on mines and metals are held in the highest esteem by those

who imderstand

seems that he anticipated teenth century

;

much

these matters.

science of the nine-

anticipated, in astronomy, the dis-

covery of the seventh planet, also of the eighth

;

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

but, unhappily, not

anticipated the views of

mod-

ern astronomy ia regard to the generation of earths

by the sun

;

in magnetism,

some important experi-

ments and conclusions of later students try, the

;

in chemis-

atomic theory ; in anatomy, the discoveries

of Schlichting,

Monro and WUson

monstrated the

office of

the lungs.

;

and

first

de-

His excellent

English editor magnanimously lays no stress on his

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.

100

he was too great to care to be

discoveries, since

original;

and we are

spare, of

what remains.

A colossal soul,

lies

vast abroad on his times,

uncomprehended by them, and be seen

cal distance to

by what he can

to judge,

;

requires a long fo-

suggests, as Aristotle, Ba-

Humboldt, that a certain vastness

con, Selden,

learning, or quasi omnipresence of the in nature, is possible.

losing sight of the texture

own

arts,

and sequence man.

tal merit of his self -equality.

Over and above

flute

cannot exhibit a as of

strength of a host, as well as of a hero

;

modem One

mass.

literature,

who

books will most admire the merit

and mastodons

not to be measured by whole

flutter the

gowns of an

university. ;

Our

their sen-

tences are honmots, and not parts of natural ;

col-

His stalwart presence

books are false by being fragmentary

course

;

are best acquainted

of the missouriums

leges of ordinary scholars.

would

the capi-

beauty of a concert, as well

and, in Swedenborg, those

with

A drop of water has

properties of the sea, but

There

of things,

picture, in the " Principia,"

of the original integrity of

storm.

without ever

the merit of his particular discoveries,

the

soul

His superb speculation,

from a tower, over nature and almost realizes his

human

dis-

childish expressions of surprise or pleasure

in nature

or, worse,

owing a brief notoriety

SWEDENBORG;

their petulance, or aversion

ture

;

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; being some

not in

THE MYSTIC.

OB,

101

from the order of na-

curiosity or oddity, designedly

harmony with nature and purposely framed do by concealing means. But Swedenborg is systematic and

excite surprise, as jugglers

their

respective of the world in every sentence

means are orderly given

;

his faculties

;

all

the

work with

astronomic punctuality, and this admirable writing is

pure from aU pertness or egotism.

Swedenborg was born into an atmosphere of great ideas.

hard to say what was his own

It is

universe. its

The robust

by noblest

pictures of the

Aristotelian

method, with

yet his life was dignified

breadth and adequateness, shaming our sterile

and linear logic by

its

genial radiation, conversant

with series and degree, with effects and ends, ful to discriminate

accident, nition,

and opening, by

its

terminology and

defi-

high roads into nature, had trained a race of

Harvey had shown the

athletic philosophers.

culation of the blood

earth was a

magnet

magnet, with filled

skil-

power from form, essence from

its

;

cir-

Gilbert had shown that the

Descartes, taught

vortex, spiral

and

Gilbert's

polarity,

Europe with the leading thought of

motion, as the secret of nature.

had

vortical

Newton, in the

year in which Swedenborg was born, published the " Prineipia,"

and established the universal gravity.

Malpighi, following the high doctrines of Hippo-

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.

102

Leucippus and Lucretius, had given emphasis to the dogma that nature works in leasts, crates,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;"

Unrivalled

tota in minimis existit natura."

dissectors,

Swammerdam, Leuwenhoek,

"Winslow,

Eustachius, Heister, Vesalius, Boerhaave, had

nothing for scalpel or microscope to reveal in or comparative anatomy rary,

was affirming,

"Nature

left

human

Linnaeus, his contempo-

in his beautiful science, that

always like herself:" and,

lastly, the

nobility of method, the largest application of principles,

had been exhibited by Leibnitz and Chriswhilst Locke and Gro-

tian Wolff, in cosmology tius

;

What

had drawn the moral argument.

left for

was

a genius of the largest calibre but to go

over their ground and verify and unite?

It is easy

to see, in these minds, the origin of Swedenborg's studies,

and the suggestion

had a capacity of thought.

to entertain

of his problems.

Yet the proximity

one or other of

whom had

and vivify these volumes of these geniuses,

introduced

all his lead-

ing ideas, makes Swedenborg another example of the difficulty, even in a highly fertile genius, of

proving originality, the

first

birth and annunciation

of one of the laws of nature.

He named

his favorite views

the

doctrine of

Forms, the doctrine of Series and Degrees, the doctrine of Influx, the doctrine of Correspondence.

His statement

of these doctrLues deserves to be

;

SWEDENBORG; Btudied in his books.

THE MYSTIC.

OR,

103

Not every man can read him who can. His

them, but they will reward theologio

works are valuable

His writings would be a lonely of the

and

student

athletic

Animal Kingdom "

these.

illustrate

sufficient

library to a

and the " Economy

;

one of those books

which, by the sustained dignity of thinking,

He had

honor to the

human

and metals

some purpose.

race.

His varied and

knowledge makes his style lustrous with

and shooting

spiculse of thought,

one of those winter mornings

solid

points

air sparkles

of the topics

the grandeur of the style.

and resembling

when the

The grandeur

with crystals.

studied spars

makes

was apt for cosmol-

ogy, because of that native perception of identity

which made mere

size of

no account to him.

the atom of magnetic iron he

saw the quality which

would generate the spiral motion of sun and planet.

The thoughts sality of

in which he lived were, the univer-

each law in nature

of the scale or degrees of each into other, all

the parts

large,

and

;

the Platonic doctrine

the version or conversion so the correspondence of

the fine secret that

;

large, little;

nature,

and the connection that

out

things

all

explains

man

subsists through-

he saw that the human body was

strictly universal,

the soul feeds

little

the centrality of

or an instrtmient through which

and

fpd hy the whole of matter

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; REPRESENTATIVE MEN.

104 SO that

he held, in exact antagonism to the

man

that " the wiser a

is,

the

shipper of the Deity."

in the Identity-philosophy,

skeptics,

will he be a wor-

he was a believer

short,

which he held not

idly,

as the dreamers of Berlin or Boston, but which he

experimented with and established through years of labor, with the heart

and strength of the rudest

Viking that his rough Sweden ever sent

to battle.

This theory dates from the oldest philosophers,

and derives perhaps newest.

its

It is this, that

best illustration from the

Nature

iterates her

means

In the old aphor-

perpetually on successive planes.

ism, nature is always self-similar.

In the plant,

the eye or germinative point opens to a leaf, then to

another

leaf,

with a power of transforming the leaf

into radicle, stamen, pistil, petal, bract, sepal, or seed.

The whole

art of the plant

leaf without end, the

is still

more or

to repeat leaf

less of heat, light,

moisture and food determining the form

shall

assume. In the animal, nature makes a vertebra, or

a spine of vertebrae, and helps herself spine, with a limited

power

still

of modifying its form,

spine on spine, to the end of the world. anatomist, in our

being a horizontal line,

own line,

find their place

A poetic

day, teaches that a snake,

and man, being an

constitute a right angle

lines of this mystical

by a new

quadrant

;

and between

all

erect

the

animated beings

and he assumes the hair-worm,

SWEDENBORG;

THE MYSTIC.

OR,

105

the span-worm, or the snake, as the type or predicManifestly, at the end of the

tion of the spine.

Nature puts out smaller spines, as arms

spine.

the end of the arms,

new

spines, as

hands

;

at the

Â°,

other end, she repeats the process, as legs and feet.

the top of the column she puts out another

spine,

which doubles or loops

worm,

into a ball,

again

ities

a span-

itself over, as

and forms the skull, with extremthe hands being now the upper jaw,

the feet the lower jaw, the fingers and toes being

represented this time by upper and lower teeth.

This new spine

new man on most shed

its

it,

Platonic

idea

on a higher plane,

the trunk repeats

body, and resumes

its

live alone, ac-

the

all that

Nature

itself.

once more in a higher mood.

It is

It can al-

last.

trunk and manage to

cording to the

Within

destined to high uses.

the shoulders of the

Timseus.

was done in

recites her lesson

The mind

a finer

functions of feeding, digest-

and generating, Here in the brain

new

ing, absorbing, excluding

in a

and ethereal element.

is all

the

process of alimentation repeated, in the acquiring,

comparing, digesting and assimilating of experi-

Here again

ence.

peated. ties

;

the mystery of generation re-

In the brain are male and female facul-

here

marriage, here

is fruit.

And

there

but series on

no limit to this ascending Every thing, at the end of one ries. scale,

se-

use, is taken

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.

106

up into the next, each

series punctually repeating

every organ and process of the

adapted to

infinity.

love nothing which ends

;

last.

are

are hard to please, and

and in nature

but every thing at the end of one use

no end,

into

is lifted

a superior, and the ascent of these things climbs into daemonic

and

celestial natures.

Creative force,

a musical composer, goes on unweariedly

peating a simple air or theme,

now

high,

now

re-

low,

in solo, in chorus, ten thousand times reverberated, till it fills

earth and heaven with the chant.

Gravitation, as explained

by Newton,

good,

but grander when we find chemistry only an extension of the law of masses into particles,

and that

the atomic theory shows the action of chemistry to

be mechanical

also.

Metaphysics shows us a

sort

of gravitation operative also in the mental phenom-

ena

;

tists

and the

French

terrible tabulation of the

brings every piece of

whim and humor

reducible also to exact numerical ratios.

man

sta-

to be

If one

in twenty thousand, or in thirty thousand, eats

shoes or marries his grandmother, then in every

twenty thousand or thirty thousand

man who eats What we caU

found one

shoes or marries his grandmother. gravitation,

and fancy

ultimate,

one fork of a mightier stream for which we have yet no name.

come up

Astronomy

into life to

have

excellent ; but

its full

value,

must

and not

re"

SWEDENBORG main there

;

OR,

and

in globes

blood gyrates around

THE MYSTIC.

spaces.

own

its

veins, as the planet in the

sky

The globule

and the

intellect relate to those of the heavens.

human

axis in the ;

107

circles of

Each law

of nature has the like universality ; eating, sleep or

hybernation, rotation, generation, metamorphosis.j vortical motion,

which

seen in eggs as in planets.

These grand rhymes or returns in nature,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; the

dear, best-known face startling us at every turn,

imder a mask so unexpected that we think

the

face of a stranger,

and carrying up the semblance

into divine forms,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; delighted the projDhetic eye of

Swedenborg

;

and he must be reckoned a leader in

that revolution, which,

by giving

to science

idea,

has given to an aimless accumulation of experiments, guidance and form and a beating heart. I

own with some

amount

regret that his printed works

to about fifty stout octavos, his scientific

works being about half of the whole number it

appears that a mass of manuscript

still

works have

just

now been

and

unedited

remains in the royal library at Stockholm. scientific

;

The

translated into

English, in an excellent edition.

Swedenborg printed these

scientific

ten years from 1734 to 1744,

from that time neglected century in

;

books in the

and they remained

and now, after their

complete, he has at last found a pupil

Mr. Wilkinson, in London, a philosophic

critic,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; REPRESENTATIVE MEN.

108

with a coequal vigor of understanding and imagination comparable only to

Lord Bacon's, who

hag

restored his master's buried books to the day, and

transferred them, with every advantage, from their

forgotten Latin into English, to go round the world in our commercial

and conquering tongue.

startling reappearance of

dred years, in his pupU, fact in his history.

This

Swedenborg, after a hunnot the least remarkable

Aided

it is

said

by the

munifi-

cence of Mr. Clissold, and also by his literary this piece of poetic justice is done.

skill,

The admirable

preliminary discourses with which Mr. Wilkinson

has enriched these volumes, throw

all

the contem-

porary philosophy of England into shade, and leave

nothing to say on their proper grounds.

The

Animal Kingdom "

ful merits.

and the

to put science

soul,

each other, at one again.

human

account of the of poetry.

a book of wonder-

long estranged from

was an anatomist's

body, in the highest style

Nothing can exceed the bold and

iant treatment repulsive.

was written with the highest end,

an everlasting

brill-

a subject usually so dry and saw nature " wreathing through

spiral,

with wheels that never dry,

on axles that never creak, " and sometimes sought " to uncover those secret recesses where Nature sitting at the fires in the depths

her labora.

tory;" whilst the picture comes recommended by

;

SWEDENBORG;

the hard fidelity with which

anatomy.

It is

THE MYSTIC.

OR,

it is

remarkable that

109

based on practical

this

sublime genius

decides peremptorily for the analytic, against the synthetic

method

;

and, in a book whose genius

a daring poetic synthesis, claims to confine himself to a rigid experience.

knows,

he only, the flowing of nature, and

how wise was that old answer of Amasis to him " Yes, willingly, who bade him drink up the sea, Few if you wiU stop the rivers that flow in." manmuch about nature and subtle knew as her He ners, or expressed more subtly her goings. thought as large a demand is made on our faith by

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

nature, as

miracles.

proceeding from

first

subordinations, there

was no

she did not pass, as

things."

For

upward from

noted that ia her

principles through her several state

as often as she

visible

through which

her path lay through

phenomena,

or, in

other words,

withdraws herself inward, she instantly as disappears, while

all

betakes herself

were

no one knows what has become

of her, or whither she is

gone so that :

it is

necessary

to take science as a guide in pursuing her steps."

The pursuing the inquiry under the final cause

sort of

personality to

book

light of

gives wonderful animation, a

end or

the whole writing.

announces his favorite dogmas.

The

doctrine of Hippocrates, that the brain

This ancient

a gland

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.

110 and

atom may be known by macrocosm by the

of Leucippus, that the

the mass

or,

;

microcosm

Plato, the

and, in the verses of Lucretius,

;

Ossa videlicet Ossibus

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

atque minutis

e pauxillis

de pauxillis atque miimtis

sic et

Visceribus visous gigni, sangueuque creari

Sanguinis inter se multis coeuntibus guttis

;

aurique putat micis consistere posse

Aurum,

et de terris

Ignibus ex igneis,

terram concrescere parvis

humorem humoribus

;

esse.

Lib. "

The principle of all Of smallest entrails ;

things, entrails

bone, of smallest bone

;

earth, of small sands

Small drops to water, sparks to

fire

that " nature exists entire in leasts,"

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

" It

;

compacted

contracted

and which Malpighi had summed thought of Swedenborg.

835.

;

Blood, of small sanguine drops reduced to one Gold, of small grains

made

his is

;

" :

maxim

a favorite

a constant law of

the organic body that large, compound, or visible

forms exist and subsist from smaller, simpler and ultimately from invisible forms, which act similarly to the larger ones, but

universally

;

and the

least

perfectly

and more

forms so perfectly and

universally as to involve an idea representative of their entire universe."

are so

many

compoiind

little

the

The

unities of each organ

organs, homogeneous with their

unities

of the

tongues; those of the stomach,

tongue are little

little

stomachs;

SWEDENBORG; those of the heart are

idea furnishes a

key

OR,

TEE MYSTIC.

little

aggregates

There "

what was too

;

What was

was read by the

by the

large,

units.

no end to his application of the thought.

Hunger

an aggregate of very many

gers, or losses of

the body." is

This fruitful

hearts.

to every secret.

too small for the eye to detect

Ill

key

It is a

hun-

little

veins

aU over

to his theology also.

" Man

blood by the

little

a kind of very minute heaven, corresponding to

Every

the world of spirits and to heaven. ular idea of

man, and every

smallest part of his affection,

ef&gy of him.

a single thought.

spirit

God

partic-

affection, yea,

every

an image and

may be known from

only

the grand man."

The hardihood and thoroughness

of his study of "

nature required a theory of forms also.

Forms

ascend in order from the lowest to the highest.

The lowest form is angular, or the terrestrial and The second and next higher form is

corporeal.

the circular, which

also called the

perpetual-

angular, because the circumference of a circle is

a perpetual angle. spiral,

The form above

this is the

parent and measure of circular forms

its

diameters are not rectilinear, but variously circular,

and have a spherical surface for centre it is

called the perpetual-circular.

this is the vortical, or perpetual-spiral

perpetual-vortical, or celestial celestial, or spiritual."

;

therefore

The form above

last,

next, the

the perpetual-

;

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.

112

Was

strange that a genius so bold should take

the last step also, should conceive that he might attain the science of

meaning of the world "

all ?

unlock the

sciences, to

In the

first

volume of the

Animal Kingdom," he broaches the

remarkable note

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;" In our doctrine

subject in a

of Representa-

and Correspondences we shall treat of both these symbolical and typical resemblances, and of

tions

the astonishing things which occur, I in the living

body

wiU not say

only, but throughout nature,

which correspond so entirely to supreme and

and

spirit-

ual things that one would swear that the physical

world was purely symbolical of the spiritual world;

insomuch that

truth in physical

we choose and

to express

any natural

definite vocal terms,

and to

convert these terms only into the corresponding

and

spiritual terms,

shall

the physical truth or precept woxd-d have predicted that

this

means

elicit

dogma, in place

spiritual truth or theological

although no mortal

any thing

of the kind

could possibly arise by bare literal transposition

inasmuch as the one precept, considered separately

from the relation to

other, it.

appears to have absolutely no

I intend hereafter to communicate

a number of examples of such correspondences, together with a vocabulary containing the terms of spiritual things, as well as of the physical things

for

which they are to be substituted.

bolism pervades the living body."

This sym.

SWEDENBORG; The

THE MYSTIC.

OR,

113

fact thus explicitly stated is implied in all

poetry, in allegory, in fable, in the use of

emblems

and

knew

in the structure of language.

sixth

Plato

it,

evident from his twice bisected line in the

book

Lord Bacon had

of the Republic.

found that truth and nature differed only as seal

and print sitions,

and he instanced some physical propo-

;

with their translation into a moral or po-

Behmen, and

litical sense.

all mystics,

law in their dark riddle-writing. far as they are poets, use

them only toy.

and

as the

;

The

but

magnet was known

Swedenborg

first

we explained

and

exactly

tallies

iteration,

known

for ages, as a

because

was habitually

present to him, and never not seen.

identity

this

put the fact into a detached

scientific statement,

volved, as

imply

poets, in as

was

in-

already, in the doctrine of

because the mental series

with the material

series.

re-

quired an insight that could rank things in order

and

series

;

or rather

required such rightness of

position that the poles of the eye should coincide

with the axis of the world.

The earth had fed

its

ma,nkind through five or six millenniums, and they

had

sciences, religions, philosophies,

failed to see the correspondence of

and yet had meaning be-

tween every part and every other part. And, down to this hour, literature has no book in which the

symbolism of things

scientifically opened.

One

MEN

REPRESENTATIVE

114

would say that as soon as men had the

— animal,

that every sensible object,

— nay, space and time, subsists

•

not for

air,

nor

itself,

but as a picture-language

finally to a material end,

and

to teU another story of beings

duties, other

would be put by, and a science of such

science

grand presage would absorb

man would

Why does and

hint

first

rock, river,

all faculties

that each

ask of aU objects what they mean

the horizon hold

fast,

Why

grief, in this centre ?

with

joy

hear I the same

sense from countless differing voices, and read one

never quite expressed fact in endless picture-lan-

Yet whether

guage ?

be that these things wUl

not be intellectually learned, or that ries

must elaborate and compose

lent a soul, sil,

fish,

itself,

fiers

— there

many

so rare

centu-

and opu-

no comet, rock-stratum,

quadruped, spider, or fungus,

fos-

that, for

does not interest more scholars and

classi-

than the meaning and upshot of the frame of

things.

But Swedenborg was not content with the nary use of the world. these thoughts held

mind admitted the

him

In his fast,

whom was itself

his

profound

was an abnormal

per-

granted the privilege of convers-

ing with angels and spirits nected

and

perilous opinion, too frequent

in religious history, that he son, to

culi-

fifty-fourth year

with just this

;

and

this ecstasy con-

office of

explaining the

SWEDENBORG;

THE MYSTIC.

OR,

To a

moral import of the sensible world. perception, at once broad

right

and minute, of the order

he added the comprehension of the

nature,

115

moral laws in their widest social aspects ; but what" ever he saw, through some excessive determination to

form in

but in pictures, heard it

saw not

his constitution, he it

"When he attempted

in events.

abstractly,

in dialogues, constructed to

announce the

law most sanely, he was forced to couch

in para-

ble.

Modern psychology a deranged balance.

offers

The

no similar example of

principal powers contin-

ued to maintain a healthy action, and to a reader

who can make due allowance

in the report for the

reporter's peculiarities, the results are stUl instructive,

and a more striking testimony to the sublime

laws he announced than any that balanced dulness

could afford. of the

modus

attempts to give some account

of the

new

state,

af&rming that " his

presence in the spiritual world

attended with a

certain separation, but only as to the intellectual

part of his mind, not as to the will part

;

" and he

affirms that " he sees, with the internal sight, the

things that are in another

life,

clearly than

he sees the things which are here in the world."

Having adopted the the

Old and

New

belief that certain

Testaments were exact

or written in the angelic

and

ecstatic

books of

allegories,

mode, he em-

â&#x20AC;˘

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.

116

ployed his remaining years in extricating from the the universal sense. He had borrowed from Plato the fine fable of " a most ancient people, men

literal,

better than

we and dwelling nigher

to the gods

;

and Swedenborg added that they used the earth symbolically

;

that these,

when they saw

terrestrial

objects, did not think at all about them, but only

about those which they signified.

The correspond-

ence between thoughts and things henceforward oc" The very organic form resembles cupied him. the end inscribed on in particular

A man is in general and

it."

an organized

mony he assigned why all and single

justice or injustice, sel-

And

fishness or gratitude.

in the

the cause of this har-

Arcana

The reason and on

things, in the heavens

earth, are representative, is because they exist

an influx of the Lord, through heaven."

from

This de-

sign of exhibiting such correspondences, which,

poem

adequately executed, would be the

of the

world, in which aU history and science would play

an essential

part,

was narrowed and defeated by

the exclusively theologic direction which his inquiries took.

man and

He tion

His perception

and Hebraic.

fastens each natural object to a theologic no;

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; a horse

tree, perception

this

of nature is not hu-

universal, but is mystical

signifies carnal ;

the

an ostrich that

;

understanding

moon, faith

an artichoke

;

a cat means this other

;

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

SWEDENBORG;

OR,

THE MYSTIC.

and poorly tethers every symbol

The

clesiastic sense.

117

to a several ec-

slippery Proteus

not so

In nature, each individual symbol

easily caught.

plays innumerable parts, as each particle of matter

The

through c/ery system.

circulates in turn

any one symbol

tral identity enables

cessively all the qualities

cen=

to express suc=

and shades of

real being.

In the transmission of the heavenly waters, every hose

Nature avenges herself

every hydrant.

fits

speedily on the hard pedantry that

She

waves.

literalist.

would chain her

Every thing must be

taken genially, and we must be at the top of our condition to understand any thing rightly.

His theological bias thus fatally narrowed his interpretation of nature, bols

yet to be

written.

whom mankind must decessor

and the dictionary of sym-

still

But the interpreter

expect, will find

who has approached

no pre-

so near to the true

problem.

Swedenborg his books, "

styles himself in the title-page of

Servant of the Lord Jesus Christ

and by force of last

intellect,

and in

Father in the Church, and

a successor.

No wonder

effect,

the

not likely to have

that his depth of ethical

wisdom should give him influence as a

" ;

teacher,-

the withered traditional church, yielding dry

catechisms, he let in nature again, and the worshipper, escaping

from the vestry of verbs and

texts, is

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.

118

surprised to find himself a party to the whole of

His religion thinks for him and

his religion.

universal application. it

every part of

fits

him

on every side

and

interprets

life,

;

dignifies

Instead of a religion which

every circumstance. visited

turns

diplomatically three or four times,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

when he was born, when he married, when he fell sick and when he died, and, for the rest, never interfered with him,

accompanied him sleep

into

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; here

was a teaching which

day, accompanied

all

and dreams

into

;

his

him even

thinking, and

showed him through what a long ancestry thoughts descend

what

afiinities

counterparts their origin

;

into society,

;

he was girt to his equals and his natural objects,

into

and meaning, what are

what are hurtful

;

and showed friendly,

and

and opened the future world

by indicating the continuity His

his

and showed by

the same laws.

disciples allege that their intellect

invigor-

ated by the study of his books.

There

no such problem for criticism as

theological writings, their merits are so ing, yet

such grave

like the last deliration.

atory,

and

his feeling

strangely exaggerated.

command-

deductions must be made.

Their immense and sandy diffuseness prairie or the desert,

his

and

is like

the

their incongruities

are

He is of

superfluously explan-

the ignorance of men,

Men

take truths of this

SWEDENBORO; nature very is

OR,

THE MYSTIC.

Yet he abounds

fast.

a rich discoverer,

in assertions, he

and of things which most im-

His thought dwells in

port us to know.

119

essential

resemblances, like the resemblance of a house to

man who

the

built

it.

saw things in their law,

There

in likeness of function, not of structure.

an invariable method and order in his delivery of his truth, the habitual proceeding of the

What

inmost to outmost. iness,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

his eye never roving, without

vanity, or one look to self in literary pride

whom no

one swell of

any common form of

a theoretic or speculative man, but

practical

Plato

scorn.

mind from

earnestness and weight-

man is

in the universe could affect

a gownsman

his garment,

;

though of purple, and almost sky-woven, academic robe and hinders action with nous

But

folds.

this

mystic

its

volumi-

awful to Csesar.

Lycurgus himself would bow.

The moral of popular

insight of Swedenborg, the correction

errors, the

him out modern writer and laws, take

for

some

That slow

announcement of

of comparison with

ethical

any other

entitle him to a place, vacant among the lawgivers of mankind. but commanding influence which he has

ages,

acquired, like that of other religious geniuses,

be excessive also, and have sides into

real

its tides,

a permanent amount.

before

must sub-

course what

and universal cannot be confined

to the circle

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.

120

who sympathize

of those

strictly

with his genius,

common

but will pass forth into the

stock of wise

and just thinking. The world has a sure chemistry, by which it extracts what is excellent in its children and lets fall the infirmities and limitations of the grandest mind.

That metempsychosis which

familiar

in the

old mythology of the Greeks, collected in

Ovid

and

there

alien

and

in the Indian Transmigration,

objective, or really takes place in bodies will,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

Swedenborg's mind has a more philo-

sophic character.

depends

subjective,

upon the thought

entirely

All

the person.

things in the universe arrange themselves to each ji-erson is

Man Man is

anew, according to his ruling love.

such as his affection and thought are.

man by

by virtue

virtue of willing, not

ing and understanding.

The marriages

sees.

of the world are broken up.

In-

What-

teriors associate all in the spiritual world.

ever the angels looked upon was to them

Each Satan appears as

bad

as he,

know-

is,

a comely

man

;

Nothing can

heap of carrion. thing gravitates

man

himself a

wiU

to the

into a world

thing

as I am.

which

every

what we

call

We have

a living poem.

Bird and beast

those

purified, a

resist states

to like

poetic justice takes effect on the spot.

come

celestial.

;

Every

not bird and

SWEDENBORG; and

THE MYSTIC.

121

but emanation and effluvia of the minds

beast,

his

OR,

wills of

men

Every one makes

there present.

own house and

state.

The

ghosts are tor-

mented with the fear of death and cannot remember that they have died.

and falsehood are afraid of

They who

are in evil

Such as

all others.

have deprived themselves of charity, wander and the societies which they approach discover

flee:

their quality

and drive them away.

The

ous seem to themselves to be abiding

where their money

deposited,

and these

They who

with mice.

infested

covet-

place

cells

good works seem to themselves to cut wood. asked such,

they were not wearied?

merit in

They

re-

they have not yet done work enough

plied, that

to merit heaven."

delivers golden sayings

singular

beauty the ethical

uttered that

famed

which express with laws

sentence, that "

;

when he

In heaven the

are advancing continually to the

angels

spring-

time of their youth, so that the oldest angel ap"

The more angels, the more room " " The perfection of man is the love

pears

youngest "

the

of use

" "

What

Man,

in his perfect form, is heaven

Him " And descends."

from Him,

ascend as nature

" :

Ends always

the truly poetic

account of the writing in the inmost heaven, which, as

consists of

inflexions according to the

form

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.

122

of heaven, can

almost

be read without instruction.

his claim to preternatural vision,

justifies

by strange insights of the structure of the human "It is never permitted to any body and mind. one, in heaven, to stand behind another at the is

back of his head

from the Lord articiilation

from the sense

for then the influx which

;

The angels, from know a man's love from

disturbed."

the sound of the voice,

the

and look

;

wisdom

the sound, his

;

and

of the words, his science.

In the "Conjugal Love," he has unfolded the

science of marriage.

this

book one would say

that with the highest elements

came near

success.

has faUed of

to be the

Hymn

of Love,

which Plato attempted in the " Banquet " the ;

love, which,

Dante

angels in Paradise brated, in its

says, ;

CaseUa sang among the

and which,

genesis, fruition

well entrance the souls, as

and

rightly celeeffect,

might

would lay open the

aU institutions, customs and manners. The book had been grand if the Hebraism had been omitted and the law stated without Gothicism, as ethics, and with that scope for ascension

genesis of

of state is

which the nature of things

requires.

a fine Platonic development of the science of

marriage

;

not local; organ,

act,

teaching virility in

that sex

universal,

and

the male qualifying every

and thought

;

and

the feminine in

SWEDENBORG; woman. sant and

total

universal

virtue

much

123

Therefore in the real or spiritual world

nuptial union

the

THE MYSTIC.

OTt,

not momentary, but inces-

and chastity not a

;

local,

but a

unchastity being discovered as

;

in the trading, or planting, or speaking, or

philosophizing, as in generation

and

;

that,

though

the virgins he saw in heaven were beautiful, the

wives were incomparably more beautiful, and went

on increasing in beauty evermore.

Yet Swedenborg,

after

circumstance of marriage false

mode, pinned his

his

theory to a temporary form.

exaggerates the

and though he

;

finds

marriages on earth, fancies a wiser choice in

But

heaven.

of progressive souls, all loves

momentary.

are

friendships

you

means.

Do you

happy with the same happiness

are

see the

same truth?

love

;

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; we

but pres-

know how

deli-

I existing for you,

you

ture can hold us to each other.

cup of

existing for

toy tial

;

love,

but

;

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

it is

which

our

The Eden

;

a child's clinging to his

an attempt to eternize the

chamber

fireside

and nup-

keep the picture-alphabet through

first

God

lessons is

are

prettily

bare and grand

conveyed.

like the out-

door landscape remembered from the evening side, it

new

and no tension in nar

are divorced,

cious is this

If you do,

ently one of us passes into the perception of

truth

and

fire-

seems cold and desolate whilst you cowei

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.

124

over the coals, but once abroad again,

who can

those for

and

candle-light

Perhaps

cards.

subject of the " Conjugal

Love "

whose laws are profoundly if literally

pity

forego the magnificence of nature the

It is false,

set forth.

For God

applied to marriage.

true

Conversation,

the

Heaven is not communion of all souls.

bride or bridegroom of the soul. the pairing of two, but the

meet, and dwell an instant under the temple

and

of one thought,

part, as

not, to join another thought

So far from there being anything divine

of joy.

in the low

mef

though we parted

in other fellowships

and proprietary sense of only

when you

and

leave

casting yourself on a sentiment which

than both of at your side

eye on

us, that I ;

and I

me and demand

repelled

love.

love the worth in it

;

then I

me by higher

find myself

you

fix

your

fact, in the spir-

world we change sexes every moment.

itual

but

draw near and

you love

lose

You

your husband

not me, but the worth, that fixes the

and that worth is a drop of the ocean of worth that is beyond me. Meantime I adore the greater worth in another, and so become his wife. love

;

aspires to a higher worth in another

and

spirit,

wife or receiver of that influence.

Whether from a

self-inquisitorial habit that

SWEDENBORG;

OR,

THE MYSTIC.

grew into from jealousy of the of thought are liable,

125

men

sins to wliich

he has acquired, in disentan-

gling and demonstrating that particular form of

moral disease, an acumen which no conscience can I refer to his feeling of the profanation of

resist.

thinking to what

reason about faith,

good, " from scientifics." " is

and deny."

to doubt

was painfully alive to the difference between knowing and doing, and this sensibility

Philosophers

expressed.

are,

incessantly

therefore,

and flying

cockatrices, asps, hemorrhoids, presters,

serpents; literary

men

are conjurors

vipers,

and charla-

tans.

But here

this topic suggests

a sad afterthought, that

find the seat of his

own

pain.

Possibly

Swedenborg paid the penalty of introverted ulties.

fac-

Success, or a fortunate genius, seems to

depend on a happy adjustment of heart and brain on a due proportion, hard to

;

of moral and

hit,

mental power, which perhaps obeys the law of those chemical ratios

which make a proportion in

volumes necessary to combination, as when gases will rate.

combine in certain fixed It is

profusely into

rates,

hard to carry a fuU cup

endowed

in heart

but not at any ;

and

this

man,

and mind, early

dangerous discord with himself.

fell

In his Ani-

mal Kingdom he surprised us by declaring that he loved analysis, and

noi*;

synthesis

;

and now,

after

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.

126

his fiftieth year, lect

nor

falls into jealousy of his Intel-

and though aware that truth

;

goodness

solitary,

not solitary

but both must ever mix

and marry, he makes war on

his mind, takes the

part of the conscience against

it,

and blasphemes

sions, traduces is

Beauty

instantly avenged.

when

unlovely,

denied, as

when a

violencp

bitterness in

men

and destroys the judgment.

own

wise, but wise in his

The

disgraced, love

truth, the half part of heaven,

much

of talent leads to satire

and, on all occait.

There

despite.

and the sound

of wailing all

over and through this lurid imiverse.

A vampyre

air of infinite grief

sits

the

the prophet and turns with

seat of

gloomy appetite

to the

images of pain.

bird does not more readily weave

mole bore into the ground, than a

substructs

souls

new heU and

abominable than the of offenders.

He was

last,

let

that seemed of brass, but spirits,

its

this pit,

Indeed, a nest, or

seer of the

each more

round every new crew down through a column

was formed of angelic

that he might descend safely amongst the

unhappy, and witness the vastation of souls and hear there, for a long continuance, their lamentar tions

strain

he saw their tormentors, who increase and

pangs

jugglers, the lascivious

;

to infinity

heU

the

;

he saw the hell of the

of the assassins, the

heU

of robbers,

who

heU

kill

of the

and

boil

;

SWEDENBORG men

;

OR,

THE MYSTIC.

the infernal tun of the deceitful

mentitious hells faces

;

127

the excre-

;

the hell of the revengeful, whose

resembled a round, broad cake, and their

arms rotate

a wheel.

Dean Swift nobody

ever

Except Rabelais and

had such

science of filth

and corruption. These books should be used with caution.

It is

dangerous to sculpture these evanescing images of thought. fixed.

True

in transition, they

false if

But when

most a genius equal to his own. visions

become

It requires, for his just apprehension, al-

his

become the stereotyped language of multi-

tudes of persons of all degrees of age

they are perverted.

The wise people

and

most

race were accustomed to lead the

capacity,

of the

Greek

intelligent

and virtuous young men, as part of their education, through the Eleusinian mysteries, wherein, with

much pomp and graduation, the highest truths known to ancient wisdom were taught. An ardent and contemplative young man, at eighteen or

twenty years, might

read once these books

Swedenborg, these mysteries of love and conscience,

and then throw them aside for ever haunted

ever.

similar dreams,

and the heavens are opened

it.

when But

tures are to be held as mystical, that

is,

Grenius

these picas

a quite

arbitrary and accidental picture of the truth, as the truth.

then this

Any

the heUs

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; not

other symbol would be as good

is safely seen.

;

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.

128

Swedenborg's system of the world wants central spontaneity

;

The

it.

dynamic, not

power to generate

There

life.

universe

atoms and laminae

a gigantic

lie

and lacks

vital,

no individual in

aU whose

crystal,

and

in uninterrupted order

with unbroken unity, but cold and

seems an individual and a

will, is

stiU.

What

There

none.

an immense chain of intermediation, extending from centre to extremes, which bereaves every agency of

an freedom and

poem,

suffers

The

under a magnetic

mind

the

flects

character.

universe, in his

and only

sleep,

re-

Every thought

of the magnetizer.

comes into each mind by influence from a society of spirits that surround

it,

higher society, and so on.

same few

and

into these

from a

mean

his types

the

All his figures speak one speech-

things.

All his interlocutors Swedenborgize.

who

they

they may, to this complexion must they come at

This Charon ferries them

last.

all

over in his boat

kings, counsellors, cavaliers, doctors, Sir Isaac ton, Sir

Hans

Sloane,

or whomsoever, and

and

style.

King George

all

II.,

New-

Mahomet,

gather one grimness of hue

Only when Cicero comes

by, our gentle

seer sticks a little at saying he talked with Cicero,

and with a touch

whom

when

the

was given

Rome and

so*

human relenting remarks,

disant

Cicero "

to believe

was

Roman

opens

eloquence have ebbed away,

his

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

" one ;

and

mouth,

it is

plain

8WEDENB0RO; theologic

and

Swedenborg

hells are dull

;

THE MYSTIC.

OR,

His heavens

like the rest.

fault of

want

129

of individualism.

The thousand - fold relation of men is not there. The interest that attaches in nature to each man, because he is right by his wrong, and wrong by his right because he defies aU dogmatizing and classi;

fication, so

many

allowances and contingences and

futurities are to be

taken into account ; strong by

his vices, often paralyzed

into entire

sympathy with

his virtues

reacts to the' centre of the system.

agency of " the Lord "

by name,

never becomes

in that eye which gazes

;

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; sinks

This want

his society.

Though the

in every line referred to alive.

There

lustre

from the centre and which

should vivify the immense dependency of beings.

The

vice of Swedenborg's

determination.

of right

is its

theologie liberal-

wisdom, but we are always in a

ity of universal

church.

mind

Nothing with him has the

That Hebrew muse, which taught the and wrong

influence for

him

lore

men, had the same excess of

has had for the nations.

The

mode, as well as the essence, was sacred. Palestiae is ever the more valuable as a chapter in universal-

and ever the less an available element The genius of Swedenborg, largest education. Vistory,

aU modern wasted serve

in of

souls in this department of thought,

itself in

the endeavor to reanimate and con-

what had already arrived

at its natural term,

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.

130

and, in the great secular Providence, was retiring

from

its

prominence, before Western modes of

Swedenborg and Behmen

thought and expression.

both failed by attaching themselves to the Christian symbol, instead of to the moral sentiment, which carries innumerable Christianities, humanities, divinities, in its

The

bosom.

excess of influence shows itself in the incon-

gruous importation of a foreign rhetoric.

have I to do

asks the impatient reader,

What

with

jas-

per and sardonyx, beryl and chalcedony ; what with arks and passovers, ephahs and ephods lepers

and emerods

;

what with

what with heave-offerings and

unleavened bread, chariots of

fire,

dragons crowned

Good for The more learning you bring to explain them, the more glaring the impertinence. The more coherent and elaboand horned, behemoth and unicorn? Orientals, these are nothing to me.

rate the system, the less I like

Spartan, "

Why

which

pose, of that

nothing to the purpose?"

learning

and

habit, in the delight

God gave me

such as

not of another man's.

substitute

can and stork, trees

and study

birth

eyes and

all absurdities, this of

to take

;

and shittim - wood, instead

hickory,

away my rhetoric his own, and amuse me with peliinstead of thrush and robin palm-

some foreigner proposing and

I say, with the

it.

do you speak so much to the pur-

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; seems the most

of sassafras and

needless.'

SWEDENBORG; Locke

said, "

THE MYSTIC.

131

God, when he makes the prophet,

unmake

does not

OR,

the man."

Swedenborg's

The parish

points the remark.

history-

disputes in the

Swedish church between the friends and foes of Luther and Melancthon, concerning " faith alone " and " works alone," intrude themselves into his speculations

upon the economy

son, for

whom

sees with eyes

of the universe,

The Lutheran

of the celestial societies.

and

bishop's

the heavens are opened, so that he

and

in the richest symbolic forms

the awful truth of things,

and

utters again in his

books, as under a heavenly mandate, the indispiitable secrets of

moral nature,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; with

all these

grand-

eurs resting upon him, remains the Lutheran bishop's son

;

his

judgments are those of a Swedish

polemic, and his vast enlargements purchased by

adamantine limitations. sial

memory with him

is like

carries his controver-

in his visits to the souls.

Michael Angelo, who, in his

cardinal

who had

mountain of devils

offended ;

him

still

put the

under a

to roast

or like Dante,

vindictive melodies, all his private

haps

frescoes,

who avenged, wrongs

;

or per-

like Montaigne's parish priest,

who,

a hail-storm passes over the village, thinks the

day of doom

come, and the cannibals already

have got the pip.

Swedenborg confounds us not

less with the pains of Melancthon and Luther and

Wolfius, and his

among

the angels.

own

books, which he advertises

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.

132

Under

tlie

same theolog^c cramp, many

dogmas are bound. morals

His

cardinal

of his

position

should be shimned as

is that evils

sins.

But he does not know what evil is, or what good is, who thinks any ground remains to be occupied, shunned as

after saying that evil is to be

evil.

doubt not he was led by the desire to insert the

But nothing

element of personality of Deity.

—

One man, you say, dreads erysipelas, show him that this dread is evil or, one dreads heU, show him that dread is evil. He who added.

—

angels, reveres reverence

loves goodness, harbors

and

lives

The

with God.

No man

our sins the better. his

moments

bondage

that

;

all

That is

knowledge, which

other duty

do with

can afford to waste

compunctions.

say the Hindoos, " which

duty,"

eration

we have

less

active

not for our for our lib-

good only unto weari-

ness."

Another dogma, growing out theologic limitation,

has is

devils.

That pure malignity can

extreme proposition of unbelief.

rightly said,

—

;

Swedenborg

according to old philosophers,

not to be entertained

atheism

of this pernicious

his Inferno.

good in the making.

exist is the is

Evil,

the

by a

rational agent

He who imputes

ill

it is

Euripides

last profanation.

" Goodness and being in the gods are one

;

them makes them none."

SWEDENBORG; To what a

had Gothic theology Swedenborg admitted no conversion

for evil spirits

But the divine

effort is

never

the carrion in the sun will convert itself

;

to grass

and flowers

or on gibbets,

jails,

133

painful perversion

arrived, that

relaxed

THE MYSTIC.

OR,

good and

;

and man, though in is

his

way

brothels,

to all that is

Burns, with the wild humor of his

true.

apostrophe to poor " auld Nickie Ben," "

O wad

mend

ye tak a thought, and

" !

has the advantage of the vindictive theologian.

Every thing is superficial and perishes but love and truth only. The largest is always the truest sentiment, and we feel the more generous spirit of the Indian Vishnu, "I am the same to all

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

There

mankind.

love or hatred. tion,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;I

They who

in them,

;

worthy of

me with

serve

evil serve

as respectable as the just

well employed

and they in me.

whose ways are altogether is

who

not one

man

;

adoraIf

my one

alone, he

altogether

he soon becometh of a virtuous

and obtaineth eternal happiness."

spirit

For the anomalous pretension of Revelations only his probity and genius of the other world,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

can entitle

any serious regard. His by running into

tions destroy their credit

If a

him

man

reveladetail.

say that the Holy Ghost has informed

that the Last

Judgment (or the

last of the

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.

134 judgments),

1757

took place in

or that the

;

Dutch, in the other world, live in a heaven by themselves, and the English in a heaven selves

I reply that the

;

The

hy them-

holy

in laws.

The rumors

and hobgoblins gossip and

tell fortunes.

reserved, taciturn,

of ghosts

which

Spirit

and deals

teachings of the high Spirit are abstemious,

and, in regard to particulars, negative.

Socrates's

Genius did not advise him to act or to

but

he purposed to do somewhat not advantageous,

"What God

dissuaded him.

is,"

find,

said,

"I know

The Hindoos have what he is not, I know." denominated the Supreme Being, the " Internal not

;

The illuminated Quakers explained

Check."

their

Light, not as somewhat which leads to any action,

but

But

appears as an obstruction to any thing

the right examples are

which are absolutely at one on

private

this point.

speaking, Swedenborg's revelation of planes, gorist.

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;a

This

unfit.

experiences, Strictly

a confounding

capital offence in so learned a cate-

to carry the law of surface into

the plane of substance, to carry individualism and fopperies into the realm of essences

its

erals,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; which

The

secret of

dislocation

heaven

and

and gen-

chaos.

kept from age to age.

imprudent, no sociable angel ever dropt an

early syllable to answer the longings of saints, the fears of mortals.

should have listened on

SWEDENBORO;

THE MYSTIC.

OR,

185

knees to any favorite, who, by stricter obedience,

had brought

his thoughts into parallelism with the

and could hint

celestial currents

human

ears the

scenery and circumstance of the newly parted soul.

But

certain that

it is

in nature.

must not be

known works

already

must

tally with

what

best

inferior in tone to the

of the artist

who

sculptures

the globes of the firmament and writes the moral law.

must be fresher than rainbows,

stabler

than mountains, agreeing with flowers, with tides

and the

and

rising

setting

autumnal

stars.

Melodious poets shall be hoarse as street ballads

when once

the penetrating key-note of nature and

sounded,

spirit is

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; the

earth-beat, sea-beat, heart-

which makes the tune to which the sun roUs,

beat,

and the globule of blood, and the sap In

this

mood we hear

has arrived, and his tale beauty, no heaven

muse

loves night

ferno

same relation zant, as

His

spiritual

to the generosities

human

But there

is told.

for angels, goblins.

and death and the

mesmeric.

of which

of trees.

the rumor that the seer

souls

pit.

His In-

world bears the

and joys of truth

have already made us cogni-

a man's bad dreams bear to his ideal

indeed very

pictures,

nightly turns

the

The sad

like, in its endless

phenomena

many an

power

life.

of lurid

of dreaming, wliich

honest gentleman, benevo-

lent but dyspeptic, into a wretch,

skuUdng

like a

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.

136

dog about the outer yards and kennels of

When its

creation.

he mounts into the heaven, I do not hear

language.

has walked

man

among

less majestic

the angels

eloquence makes

;

his proof

that he

that his

Shall the archangels be

one.

and sweet than the

actually walked the

should not teU

earth?

figures that

have

These angels that

Swedenborg paints give us no very high idea

and culture

their discipline

parsons

heaven

their

they are

fHe

all

country

champitre, an

evangelical picnic, or French distribution of prizes j

Strange, scholastic, didactic,

to virtuous peasants.

man, who denotes

passionless, bloodless

souls as a botanist disposes of a carex,

classes of

and

visits

doleful hells as a stratum of chalk or hornblende

world of

down the men, a modern Rhadamanthus in gold-

has no sympathy.

goes up and

headed cane and peruke, and with nonchalance

and the

a referee, distributes souls.

air of

The

warm, many-weathered, passionate-peopled world is to

atic

him a grammar freemason's

Jacob Behmen

procession.

listens awe-struck,

an emblem-

of hieroglyphs, or

How

different

with the gentlest humanity, to

the Teacher whose lessons he conveys;' and

he asserts that, " in some sort, love

God,"

tremulous vsdth emotion and

greater than

his heart beats so high that the

against his leathern coat

when

thumping

audible across the cen>

SWEDENBORG; 'T

turies. ily

a great difference. Behmen

and beautifully

tical

THE MYSTIC.

OR,

-wise,

health-

notwithstanding the mys-

narrowness and incommunicableness.

enborg

mulated

disagreeably wise, and with

gifts,

Swed-

paralyzes and repels. it

Swedenborg

landscapes, invites us onward. trospective, nor

opeB3

morning

a foreground, and, like the breath of

and shroud.

accu-

all his

It is the best sign of a great nature that

re-

can we divest him of his mattock

Some minds

from descending

are for ever restrained

into nature

;

many men, he

are

others

prevented from ascending out of of

137

for ever

With a

it.

force

could never break the umbilical

cord which held him to nature, and he did not rise to the platform of

pure genius.

remarkable that this man, who, by his per-

ception of symbols, saw the poetic construction of things and the primary relation of

mind

to matter,

remained entirely devoid of the whole apparatus of poetic expression, which that perception

He knew

grammar and rudiments Mother-Tongue, how could he not read the

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

strain into music ?

"Was he

creates.

the

off

one

Saadi, who, in

his vision, designed to fiU his lap with the celestial flowers, as presents for his friends

;

but the

fra-

grance of the roses so intoxicated him that the skirt

dropped from

his

hands

reporting a

breach of the mannei'S of that heavenly society

;

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.

138 or was

that he

saw the vision

and

intellectually,

hence that chiding of the intellectual that pervades

his books ?

may,

books have no

his

melody, no emotion, no humor, no

dead prosaic

imagery

no pleasure, for there

wander forlorn in a

bird ever sang in

no beauty.

these gardens of the dead.

all

a beautiful person,

think, sometimes, he

great

the

lack-lustre landscape.

The entire want of poetry in mind betokens the disease, and in

relief

In his profuse and accurate

level.

so transcendent a like a hoarse voice

a kind of warning.

wiU not be read

name wiU turn a

become a monument.

His

longer.

sentence.

His books have

His laurel

so largely

mixed

with cypress, a chamel-breath so mingles with the

temple incense, that boys and maids wiU shun the spot.

Yet

in this immolation of genius

the shrine of conscience,

praise.

and fame

a merit sublime beyond

lived to purpose

he gave a verdict.

elected goodness as the clue to which the soid

must cling in opinions

all this

labyrinth of nature.

conflict as to

the true

centre.

Many In the

shipwreck, some cling to running rigging, some to

cask and barrel, some to spars, some to mast pilot chooses all will

sails

with science,

sink before this

with me."

on compassion to

;

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; I plant

;

the

myself here

" he comes to land

who

Do' not rely on heavenly favor, or folly, or

on prudence, on common

;

SWEDENBORG;

mirable intellect

THE MYSTIC.

and main chance

sense, the old usage

ing can keep you,

OR,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; not

fate,

men

139 :

noth-

nor health, nor ad-

none can keep you, but rectitude

;

and ever! And with a aU his studies, in-

only, rectitude for ever

tenacity that never swerved in

ventions, dreams, he adheres to this brave choice.

him

I think of

as of

some transmigrating votary of

Indian legend, who says 'Though I be dog, or jackal, or pismire, in the last rudiments of nature,

under what integument or

ferocity, I

right, as the sure ladder that leads

cleave

man and

to God.'

Swedenborg has rendered a double mankind, which

now only beginning

service to

be known.

the science of experiment and use, he

first

steps

nature

just degrees

summits and causes, he was

at the harmonies he felt,

his joy

made

his

he observed and published the laws of

and ascending by

;

to their

and worship.

from events

fired with piety

and abandoned himself

This was his

first service.

the glory was too bright for his eyes to bear,

staggered under the trance of delight, the more excellent is the spectacle he saw, the realities of being

which beam and blaze through him, and which no firmities of the

and he renders a second passive not less than the of being,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; and,

in-

prophet are suffered to obscure

first,

service to

men,

perhaps, in the great circle

in the retributions of spiritual na-

ture, not less glorious or less beautiful to himself.

MONTAIGNE; OR, THE SKEPTIC,

;;

IV.

MONTAIGNE

EvEET

THE SKEPTIC.

OR,

;

fact is related

on one side to sensation,

The game

and on the other to morals. is,

of thought

on the appearance of one of these two

find the other

Nothing so thin but has these two

side.

when

sides, to

given the upper, to find the under faces,

and

the observer has seen the obverse, he turns

over to see the reverse.

penny,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; heads

Life

or taUs.

game, because there

a pitching of this

never

tire

of this

stiU a slight shudder of as-

tonishment at the exhibition of the other face, at the contrast of the two faces.

A man

flushed

with success, and bethinks himself what this good luck

but

signifies.

drives his bargain in the street

occurs that he also

sees the beauty of a

human

bought and face,

sold.

and searches the

cause of that beauty, which must be more beautiful.

builds his fortunes, maintains the laws,

cherishes his children

and whereto ? in the

;

but he asks himself,

This head and this

tail

Why ?

are called,

language of philosophy. Infinite and Finite

;

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.

144

Relative and Absolutg

jnany

Apparent* and

;

fleal

and

;

fine nanies beside.

man

Eacli

born\with a predisposition to one

or the other of these \sides of nature

and

;

will

happen that men wiU be found devoted

easily

one or the other. difference, faces, cities

and

Another

men

Each

/ is

One

class has the perception of

conversant with facts and sur-

and persons, and the bringing certain

things to pass

are

class

— the

;

men

and

of talent

action.

have ^he perception—of identitvJ and

of faith

and philosophy, men of genius. Plotinus

of these riders drives too fast.

believes only in philosophers

Pindar and Byron, in

poets.

;

Fenelon, in saints

Read

the haughty

language in which Plato and the Platonists speak of all

men who

own

are not devoted to their

ing abstractions

other

men

are rats

shin-

and mice.

The literary class is usually proud and exclusive. The correspondence of Pope and Swift describes mankind around them as monsters and that of Goethe and Schiller, in our own time, is scarcely ;

more kind. It

genius object.

easy to see is

how

The

this arrogance comes.

a genius by the

first

Is his eye creative ?

look he casts on any

Does he not

rest in

angles and colors, but beholds the design?

— he

presently undervalue the actual object.

In power-

ful

moments,

his thought has dissolved the

will

works

MONTAIGNE; of art

and nature

OR,

THE SKEPTIC.

145

into their causes, so that the

works appear heavy and

faulty.

has a concep-

tion of beauty which the sculptor cannot

embody.

Picture, statue, temple, railroad, steam-engine, existed first in

artist's

mind, without flaw, mistake,

or friction, which impair the executed models.

did the Church, the State, college, court, social cle,

and aU the

institutions.

these men, remembering

hoped of

It is not strange that

what they have seen and -

ideas, should affirm disdainfully the supe-

Having

riority of ideas.

the happy soul will carry say,

cir-

Why cumber

some time seen that

aU the

arts in power, they

ourselves with superfluous reali-

zations? and like dreaming beggars they assume to

speak and act as

these values were already sub-

stantiated.

On and

the other part, the luxury, â&#x20AC;&#x201D; the

men

of toil

animal world, including

animal in the philosopher and poet

also,

practical world, including the painful

which are never excused

any more than other side.

to the

The

rest,

wool and

no, but

drudgeries

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; weigh heavily on

poet the

traders

nothing of

the

and a trading

sticks to cotton, sugar,

The ward meetings, on election by any misgiving of the

salt.

days^ are not softened VOL. IV.

the

trade in our streets believes in

necessitated

planet to exist

and the

to philosopher or

metaphysical causes, thinks

force which

and trade

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.

146

Hot

value of these ballotings.

in a single direction.

animal strength and

to the

practical power, whilst

of this world,

the

spirits, to

immersed in

of ideas appears out of

streamirg

life is

men

the

it,

men of man

the

They alone

reason.

have reason.

Things always bring their own philosophy with them, that

prudence.

is,

No man

erty without acquiring with

acquires prop-

In England, the richest country that ever

also.

compared with

existed, property stands for more,

personal ability, than in any other.

man

believes

only

science

foUies of tion of

After dinner,

are

disturbing,

society

and a man comes

and animal

the

incendiary,

young men, repudiated by the

his athletic

have

verities

After dinner, arithmetic

ideas

less, "denies

some charm.

lost

arithmetic

little

solid por-

to be valued

qualities.

Spence

re-

Mr. Pope was with Sir Godfrey KneUer one day, when his nephew, a Guinea trader, came lates that

in.

"Nephew,"

honor of

" I don't

world."

be," said the looks.

said Sir Godfrey,

seeing

know how

great

I have often bought a

Thus

all tlie

the

men in the men you may

Guinea man, " but I don't

than both of you, guineas."

"you have

the two greatest

man much

your

better

muscles and bones, for ten

men

the senses revenge

themselves on the professors and repay scorn for

MONTAIGNE The

scorn.

OR,

;

THE SKEPTIC.

had leaped

first

say more than

yet ripe, and

make themselves merry with

man by

weigh

to conclusions not

true

the others

;

the philosopher, and

They

the pound.

147

believe that mus-

tard bites the tongue, that pepper

hot, friction-

matches incendiary, revolvers are to be avoided,

and suspenders hold up pantaloons; that there is much Sentiment in a chest of tea and a man will be eloquent, if you give him good wine. Are you ;

tender and scrupulous,

They hold

pie.

when, he

—

said, "

Wer Der

— you must

nicht liebt Wein, Weiber, Gesang, bleibt ein

fore-ordination

drunk.

The

the man."

more mince-

had milk in him

that Luther

Narr

sein

Leben lang

and when he advised a young with

eat

and

" ;

—

scholar, perplexed

free-will,

get

well

nerves," says Cabanis, " they are

neighbor, a joUy farmer, in the

tavern bar-room, thinks that the use of money sure

and speedy spending.

For

The inconvenience gust.

this

way

Life

eating us up.

Keep

cool

dred years hence.

Life's

shall be glad to get out of

be glad to have us.

will

Why

shall all

be fables

and they

should

dis-

one a hun-

well enough, but it,

it.

thinking

runs into indifferentism and then into

presently.

his part, he says,

he puts his down his neck and gets the good of

that

will fret

we aU and

;

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.

148 drudge did

Our meat

" Ah," said

it.

to-morrow as

taste

and we may

yesterday,

enough

will

at Oxford, "there's nothing

have had

last

languid gentleman

new

or true,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; and no

(matter."

With a our of

little

life is like

the

bundle of

trouble in

into

BoUngbroke, " and so

this

he sees nothing

it,

all."

much Lord

as well 'tis

hardly philoso-

kidney who was accustomed briefly

sum up " Mankind

human nature in damned rascal " and

his experience of

ing,

natural corollary

pretty sure to follow,

Lworld r

The

lives

knew a

that

said

much more,

worth while to be here at pher of

;

the world,"

meanness, in going out of

market by a bimdle " There

hay.

coming

moans

bitterness, the cynic

ass led to

hay being carried before him

but '

more an

by humbug, and

abstractionist

and the

wiU

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

the

The

I.'

mu-

materialist thus

each other, and

tually exasperating

say-

the

scoffer

expressing the worst of materialism, there arises I

a third party to occupy the middle ground be-

tween these two, the skeptic, namely. both wrong by being in extremes. plant his feet, to be the

will

not go beyond his card.

one-sidedness of these (

beam

not be a Gibeonite

;

men

finds

labors to

the balance.

of the street

sees ;

the

he wiU

he stands for the intellectual

;

MONTAIGNE; faculties, a cool

cool

;

says.

You

— You are

that will have

we uncover the

edge, you are

Am I

solid,

and a world

You

be-

and grounded on adamant

lieve yourselves rooted yet, if

keep

both in extremes, he

of pig-lead, deceive yourselves grossly.

and

no unrewarded

industry,

loss of the brains iu toil.

ox, or a dray

149

head and whatever serves

no unadvised

self-devotion,

THE SKEPTIC.

OR,

our knowl-

last facts of

spinning like bubbles in a river,

you know not whither or whence, and you are bottomed and capped and wrapped in delusions. Neither will he be betrayed to a book and wrapped

The

in a gown.

tims

studious class are their

own

vic-

they are thin and pale, their feet are cold,

;

heads are hot, the night

without sleep,

the day a fear of interruption,

—

pallor, squalor,

their

hunger and egotism., see

what conceits they

and spend

stractionists,

dreaming some dream of society to

you come near them and

;

entertain,

their days

but destitute of proportion in justness in its application,

But

know

and

embody and

its

are ab-

and nights in

in expecting the

some precious scheme,

in the schemer to

— they

homage

on a truth,

built

presentment, of

aU energy

vitalize

wiU

it.

I see plainly, he says, that I cannot see.

that

human

strength

in avoiding extremes.

weakness

philosophizing

not in extremes, but least,

wiU shun the

beyond

depth.

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.

150

What

not ?

What

we have

the use of pretending to powers is

not, respecting the other life ?

aggerate the power of virtue before your time?

These

strings,

and no evidence, why not say are conflicting evidences,

Why ex-

be an angel

wound up

mind, yea or nay,

judgment

too

If there

just that ?

why

not state them

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; why not

make

not ground for a candid thinker to

his

Why

If there is a wish for immortality,

high, will snap.

there

we have

the use of pretending to assurances

suspend the

weary of these dogmatizers.

I tire

of these hacks of routine,

who deny

I neither affirm nor deny.

I stand here to try the

how

case.

what use

theories of

know

here to consider,

it is.

wiU try

(jKoirfw,

the dogmas.

to consider

keep the balance

true.

take the chair and glibly rattle off society, religion

and nature, when I

that practical objections lie in the way, in-

surmountable by

me and by my mates ?

Why

when each of my neighbors can pin me to my seat by arguments I cannot refute ? Why pretend that life is so simple a game, when we know how subtle and elusive the Ptoteijs is? Why think to shut up all things in your narrow coop, when we know there are not one or two only, talkative in public,

but ten, twenty, a thousand things, and unlike

Why

fancy that you have

j^keeping

There

much

all

to say

the truth in youi

all sides.

MONTAIGNE;

Who there

THE SKEPTIC.

OB,

151

shall forbid a wise skepticism, seeing that

no practical question on which any thing

more than an approximate

solution can be

not marriage an open question,

from the beginning

when

it is

alleged,

And

and such

as are

the reply of Socrates, to

him who asked whether he should choose a still

the State a question

All society

great numbers dislike

tious scruples to allegiance set up, is the fear of

and

it ;

young man aim in trade ?

Or, to put any

mankind

nearest,

coincident with what

him

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

at a leading part in law,

wiQ not be pretended

that a success in either of these kinds

mind.

loves

suffer conscien-

and the only defence

of the questions which touch

in politics,

divided in

doing worse in disorganizing.

otherwise with the Church

shall the

Is not

it." is

Nobody

opinion on the subject of the State. ;

wife,

remains reasonable, that " whether he shoidd

choose one or not, he would repent

of the world, that such as are

in the institution wish to get out,

out wish to get in

had?

best

quite

and inmost in

his

Shall he then, cutting the stays that hold

fast to the social state, put out to sea with

guidance but his genius?

There

much

to say

no on

Remember

the open question between " the present order of competition " and the friends

both

sides.

of " attractive

and associated labor."

The

gener-

ous minds embrace the proposition of labor shared

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.

152

all

;

it is

the only honesty

nothing else

;

is safe.

from the poor man's hut alone that strength

It is

and virtue come

and

yet,

on the other

side, it is

alleged that labor impairs the form and breaks the spirit of

'We sable

man, and the laborers cry unanimously,

have no thoughts.'

how

Culture,

I cannot forgive you the want of accom-

plishments

;

and yet culture

will instantly impair

that chiefest beauty of spontaneousness. is

indispen-

culture for a savage

the book, and he

;

let

him read

no longer able not to think of In

Plutarch's heroes.

but once

Excellent

short, since true fortitude

of understanding consists " in not letting what we

know be embarrassed by what we do not know," we ought to secure those advantages which we can command, and not airy

them by clutching

risk

Come, no chimeras

and unattainable.

us go abroad

let

;

mix

in affairs

and get and have and climb.

moving

;

Men

let

Let

us learn

are a sort of

plants, and, like trees, receive a great part

of their nourishment

too

after the

much

robust,

manly

certain

;

from the

home, they life

;

let

what we have,

able and our own.

two in the bush.

air.

If they keep

Let us have a

pine.-"

know what we know,

be solid and season-

let it

A world

for

in the

Let us have

hand

worth

do with real men

iand women, and not with skipping ghosts. f

This then

the right ground of the skeptic,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

MONTAIGNE

;

THE SKEPTIC.

OR,

this of consideration, of self-containing

of unbelief of

;

not at

doubting,

universal

doubts ing at

;

all

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; doubting

even that he

and

profligate jeer-

These are no

moods than are those

all

and good.

least of all of scoffing

losophy.

not at

of universal denying, nor

all that is stable

his

;

153

of religion

and

phi-

the considerer, the prudent, taking

in saU, counting stock, husbanding his means, believing that a

man

has too

many enemies than that that we cannot

he can afford to be his own foe give ourselves too

with

conflict,

;

many advantages

ranged on one

and

side,

able popinjay that a

in this unequal

and

powers so vast

unweariable

this little conceited vulner-

man

is,

bobbing up and down

into every danger, on the other.

It is a position

taken up for better defence, as of more safety, and one that can be maintained

;

opportunity and range^: as,

when we

the rule

to set

and

not too high

it is

one of more

build a house,

no'r too low,

under

the wind, but out of the dirt.

The philosophy we want is one of fluxions and mobility. The Spartan and Stoic schemes are too stark

and

for our occasion.

stiff

A theory of Saint

John, and of nonresistance, seems, on the other hand, too thin and

woven

want some coat

of elastic steel, stout as the first

as the second.

aerial.

inhabit.

We want

and limber

a ship in these billows

angular, dogmatic house would (

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.

154

be rent to chips and splinters in tHs storm of elements. of

man,

No,

must be

to live at all

;

and

tight,

fit

must

as a shell

many

to the

form

dictate the

The

architecture of a house founded on the sea. soul of

man must

as the

body of

dweUing-house liarity of

be the type of our scheme, just

man

human

the type after which a

Adaptiveness

is built.

nature.

the pecu-

are golden averages,

volitant stabilities, compensated or periodic errors,

The wise skeptic the best game and

houses founded on the sea. wishes to have a near view of the chief players

what

;

best in the planet

and nature, places and events

Every thing that of grace, an

arm

art

;

but mainly men.

;

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; a form persuasion, a brain play and win, â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

excellent in mankind,

of iron, lips of

of resources, every one skilful to

Lhe will see and judge^ '

The terms

of admission to

that he have a certain solid living of his

own

;

inevitable needs of

played with

skill

human

life

and success

entitle

among him to

of life are not ness. ',

Men

;

proof that he has

that he has evinced

;

and

shown except

way

of answering the

range of qualities

his contemporaries

fellowship

spectacle are,

intelligible

some method

the temper, stoutness and the

which,

this

and

and countrymen,

trust.

For the

secrets

sympathy and

like-

do not confide themselves to boys, or

coxcombs, or pedants, but to their peers.

Som*

MONTAIGNE wise

THE SKEPTIC.

OR,

;

modern phrase

limitation, as the

condition between the extremes, and having, positive quality ; is

some stark and

sufficient

155

some

;

itself,

man, who

not salt or sugar, but'~sufficiently related to the

world to do justice to Paris or London, and, at the

whom

same time, a vigorous and original thinker, cities iit

can not overawe, but who uses them, â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

the

person to occupy this ground of speculation.

These taigne.

qualities

And

meet in the character of Mon-

may

I entertain for Montaigne will,

under the shield of

offer, as

this

be unduly great, I prince of egotists,

an apology for electing him as the repre-

sentative of skepticism, a

how my

which

yet, since the personal regard

love began

word or two

and grew for

this

to explain

admirable

gossip.

A single

odd volume of Cotton's translation of

the Essays remained to

me from my

father's

li-

when a boy. It lay long neglected, until, many years, when I wasjgwly escaped-Jrom

brary, after

coUege, I read the book, and procured the remain-

ing volumes.

I remember the delight and wonder

in which I lived with

it.

It seemed to

had myself written the book, so sincerely It

spoke to

as if I

some former

life,

thought and experience.

happened, when in Paris, in 1833, that, in the

cemetery of P^re Lachaise, I came to a tomb of

Auguste CoUignon, who died in 1830, aged

sixty-

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.

156

eight years, and who, said the to do right,

monument, "lived

and had formed himself

Some

the Essays of Montaigne."

to virtue

years later, I

became acquainted with an accomplished English

John

poet,

Sterling

;

and, in prosecuting

Mon-

respondence, I found that, from a love of taigne, he still

ter

had made a pilgrimage

cor-

to his chateau,

standing near Castellan, in Perigord, and,

two hundred and

fifty years,

af-

had copied from

Mon-

the walls of his library the inscriptions which taigne had written there.

That Journal

Sterling's, published in the

Westminster Review,

Mr. Hazlitt has reprinted

in the

his edition of the Essays.

Prolegomena

lation of Montaigne.

certainly

know

autographs of

a copy of Florio's trans-

book which we

It is the only

have been in the poet's

And, oddly enough, the duplicate copy which the British

Museum

I heard with pleasure

that one of the newly-discovered

WUliam Shakspeare was in

Mr.

library.

of Florio,

purchased with a

viev/

of protecting the Shakspeare autograph, (as I

was

informed in the Museum,) turned out to have the

autograph of Ben Jonson in the

Hunt

relates of

Lord Byron,

fly-leaf.

that

Montaigne was

the only^great writer of past times

with avowed satisfaction.

whom hejead

Other coincidences, not

needful to be mentioned here, concurred to this old

Gascon

still

Leigh

new and immortal

make

for me.

;

MONTAIGNE In

IS'^l,

;

THE SKEPTIC.

OR,

157

on the death of his father, Montaigne,

then thirty-eight years old, retired from the practice of

law at Bordeaux, and

settled himself

Though he had been a man

estate.

his

of pleasure

and sometimes a courtier, his studious habits now grew on him, and he loved the compass, staidness

and independence

of the country gentleman's

life.

took up his economy in good earnest, and made

Downright and

his farms yield the most.

dealing, ceive,

and abhorring

plain-

to be deceived or to de-

he was esteemed in the country for his sense

and probity.

In the

civil

wars of the League,

which converted every house into a

fort,

Montaigne

kept his gates open and his house without defence.

AH parties

freely

came and went,

his courage

honor being universally esteemed.

and

The neighbor-

ing lords and gentry brought jewels and papers to

him

for safe

keeping.

bigoted times, but two

Gibbon reckons,

men

in these

of liberality in France,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Henry IV. and Montaigne. Montaigne writers.

the frankest and honestest of aU.

His French freedom runs into grossness

but he has anticipated his

own

confessions.

all

censure by the bounty of

In his times, books were

written to one sex only, and almost ten in Latin

;

all

were writ-

so that in a humorist a certain na-

kedness of statement was permitted, which our

manners, of a literature addressed equally to both

;

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.

158 sexes,

But though a

do not allow.

biblical plain-

ness coupled with a most uncanonical levity

shut his pages to offence

him than he it

;

and,

parades

does.

he makes

pretends to most of the

there be any virtue in him, he says,

There

no man, in his opin-

ion, who has not deserved hanging

and he pretends no exception

five or six times

own

in his

six as ridiculous stories," too,

" can be told of me, as of any

with

it:

nobody can think or say worse of

got in by stealth.

"Five or

may

sensitive readers, yet the

superficial.

the most of

vices

many

all this really

man

behalf.

says,

But,

living."

superfluous frankness, the opin-

ion of an invincible probity grows iuto every reader' s

mind.

" When I the most strictly and relig-

iously confess myself, I find that the best virtue I

have has in

as sincere

some tincture

of vice

and perfect a lover

stamp as any other whatever, in his purest virtue,

;

and

who

of virtue of that

afraid that Plato,

he had listened and laid his

ear close to himself, would have heard some jarring

sound of human mixture; but faint and remote

and only

to be perceived

by himself."

Here is an impatience and or pretence of any kind.

fastidiousness at color

has been in courts so

long as to have conceived a furious disgust at ap-

pearances;

he will indidge himself with a

little

cursing and swearing; he will talk with sailors and

MONTAIGNE gipsies, use flash

in-doors air,

till

though

and

OR,

;

THE SKEPTIC.

street tallads

deadly sick

;

rain bullets.

;

159

he has stayed

he will to the open has seen too

much

of gentlemen of the long robe, until he wishes for

cannibals

;

and

so nervous,

factitious life, that

man is, the You may read

he thinks the more barbarous

is.

likes his saddle.

better he

theology,

and grammar, and metaphysics elsewhere.

What-

ever you get here shall smack of the earth and of real

life,

He makes

sweet, or smart, or stinging.

no hesitation to entertain you with the records of his disease,

and

that matter.

his journey to Italy is quite full of

'He took and kept

this position of

name he drew an emblemequilibrium. Over atic pair of scales, and wrote Que sgais je ? under it. As I look at his effigy opposite the title-page, I seem to hear him say, You may play old Poz, if you wiU you may rail and exaggerate, I stand here for truth, and will not, for aU the states and his

—

;

churches and revenues and personal reputations of Europe, overstate the dry fact, as I see it; I will rather

mumble and

prose about what I cer-

know, — my

house and barns my father, my wife and my tenants my old lean bald pate my knives and forks what meats I eat and what tainly

;

drinks I prefer, and a hundred straws just as ridiculous,

— than

I wiU write, with a fine crow-quill,

a fine romance.

I like gray days, and

autumn and

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.

160

winter weather.

gray and autumnal myself,

and think an undress and old shoes that do not pinch

strain

me, and plain topics where I do not need to

and old friends who do not

feet,

strain myself

and pump

brains, the

most

con-

suit-

Our condition as men is risky and ticklish enough. One cannot be sure of himself and his

able.

fortune an hour, but he. may be whisked off into

some

Why

pitiable or ridiculous plight.

should I

vapor and play the philosopher, instead of ing, the best I can, this

dancing balloon

ballast-

So, at

I live within compass, keep myself ready for

least,

action,

and can shoot the gulf

If there be

blame

any thing

not mine

at last with decency.

farcical in such a

let it lie at fate's

life,

the

and nature's

door.'

The Essays,

therefore, are

quy on every random head

;

treating

an entertaining

solilo-

comes into his

topic that

every thing without ceremony, yet

with masculine sense.

There have been men with

deeper insight; but, one would say, never a

with such abundance of thoughts

never

man dull,

never insincere, and has the genius to make the reader care for

The

sincerity

his sentences.

seems

all that

he cares

and marrow I

know

less written.

for.

of the

man

reaches to

not anywhere the book that

It is the

tion transferred to a book.

language of conversa-

Cut these words, and

;

MONTAIGNE; they would bleed

;

THE SKEPTIC.

OR,

they are vascular and

has the same pleasure in

men

about their work,

when any unusual circumstance

For blacksmiths and

importance to the dialogue.

selves

momentary

gives

teamsters do not trip in their speech It is

One

that he feels in listening

to the necessary speech of

of buUets.

alive.

161

it is

;

a shower

Cambridge men who correct them-

and begin again

at every half sentence, and,

moreover, will pun, and

too much,

refine

swerve from the matter to the expression. taigne talks with shrewdness,

and

Mon-

knows the world and

books and himself, and uses the positive degree never shrieks, or protests, or prays convulsion, no superlative

no weakness, no

does not wish to

jump

out of his skin, or play any antics, or annihilate

space or time, but

stout

and

solid

tastes every

;

moment of the day; likes pain because it makes him feel himself and realize things as we pinch ourselves to know that we are awake. He keeps ;

the plain solid

he rarely mounts or sinks

;

Kkes to feel

ground and the stones underneath.

ing has no enthusiasms, no aspiration self-respecting

There

;

His writcontented,

and keeping the middle of the road.

but one exception,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; in his love for Soc-

rates.

In speaking of him, for once his cheek

flushes

and

his style rises to passion.

Montaigne died in 1592. VOL. IV.

of a quinsy, at the age of sixty,

When he came 11

to die he caused the

mass

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.

162 to

be celebrated in his chamber.

might I have had

my own

the age of

" But," he says,

he had been married.

thirty-three,

will, I

would not have

Wisdom herself, if she would have had me but 't is to much purpose to evade it, the common custom and use of life wiU have it so. married :

Most

choice."

by example, not

actions are guided

In the hour of death, he gave the same

Que

weight to custom.

spais

What

je?

do I

know? This book of Montaigne the world has endorsed

by translating

circulation

and printing

into all tongues

enty-five editions of

Europe

;

and

somewhat chosen, namely among

iers, soldiers, princes,

men

of the world

sev-

that, too, a

court-

and men of

wit and generosity.

Shall

say that Montaigne has spoken wisely,

and given the right and permanent expression the

human mind, on

the conduct of life

We are natural believers. tion

between cause and

Truth, or the connec-

effect,

alone interests us.

We are

persuaded that a thread runs through aU

things

all

worlds are strung on

men, and events, and life, come

as beads

;

and

to us only because

they pass and repass only that we

of that thread

may know the

direction

A book or

it,

and continuity

of that line.

statement which goes to show that there

MONTAIGNE; is

THE SKEPTIC.

OR,

but random and chaos, a calamity out of

line,

nothing, a prosperity and no account of

born from a

fool,

a fool from a hero,

Seen or unseen, we believe the

makes

counterfeit ties

We hearken to the We

he uncovers.

One man

;

and

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

a hero

it,

dispirits us.

tie exists.

Talent

genius finds the real ones.

;

man

we anphenomena which

of science, because

ticipate the sequence in natural

preserves

163

love whatever affirms, connects,

dislike

what

scatters or pulls

appears whose nature

conserving and constructive

down.

to all men's eyes

his presence supposes

a weU-ordered society, agriculture, trade, large institutions

and empire.

would begin

to exist

fore he cheers

If these did not exist, they

through his endeavors. There-

and comforts men, who

feel all this

him very readily. The nonconformist and the rebel say aU manner of unanswerable things against the existing republic, but discover to our sense no in

plan of house or state of their own.

though the town and

state

and way

Therefore,

of living,

which

our counsellor contemplated, might be a very modest or

musty prosperity, yet men rightly go for

him, and reject the reformer so long as he comes only with axe and crowbar.

But though we are natural conservers and ationists,

and

reject a sour,

skeptical class, which

reason,

and every man,

dumpish

caus-

unbelief, the

Montaigne represents, have at

some time, belongs to

it.

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.

164

Every superior mind of equilibration,

how

and formalism

Skepticism

this

know

and balances

weapon against the exaggeraof bigots

and blockheads.

by the

the attitude assumed

domain

rather say, will

to avail himself of the checks

nature, as a natural tion

through

will pass

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; I should

stu-

dent in relation to the particulars which society adores, but which he sees to be reverend only in

and

their tendency

by the skeptic

The ground occupied

spirit.

the vestibule of the temple.

Soci-

ety does not like to have any breath of question

blown on the existing in the

interroga-

an inevitable stage

growth of every superior mind, and

evidence of

its

which remains

The

But the

order.

tion of custom at all points

the

perception of the flowing power

changes.

itself in all

mind

superior

find

will

equally at

itself

odds with the evils of society and with the projects that are offered to relieve them. is

a bad citizen

;

fishness of property tions.

The wise

no conservative, he

But neither

and the drowsiness of

cratic party that ever

fit

skeptic

sees the selinstitu-

work with any demo-

was constituted

;

for parties

wish every one committed, and he penetrates the popular patriotism.

His

" Soul's Errand "

of Sir

politics are those of the

Walter Raleigh

Krishna, in the Bhagavat, " There

worthy of

love or hatred

;

or of

none who

" whUst he sentences

MONTAIGNE; a reformer

;

THE SKEPTIC.

165

commerce and custom.

law, physic, divinity, is

OR,

yet he

no better member of the

philanthropic association.

It turns out that

not the champion of the operative, the pauper, the prisoner, the slave.

in this world

life

tion as churches

It stands in his

mind

that our

not of quite so easy interpreta-

and school-books

say.

does

not wish to take ground against these benevolences, to play the part

of devil's attorney, and blazon

every doubt and sneer that darkens the sun for

But he says,irhere are doubts.

him.

mean

to use the

occasion,

and celebrate the

calendar-day of our Saint Michel de Montaigne, by

counting and describing these doubts or negations. I wish to ferret them out of their holes and sun

them a

little.

We must do

with them as the police

do with old rogues, who are shown up to the pub-

They will never be so when once they have been identified and registered. But I mean honestly by them,

lic

at the marshal's office.

formidable

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

that justice shall be done to their terrors.

not take Sunday objections,

be put down.

I shall

made up on purpose

I shall take the worst I can find,

whether I can dispose of them or they of me. I do not press the skepticism of the materialist. I

know

The

the quadruped opinion will not prevail.

no importance what bats and oxen think.

first

dangerous symptom I report

is,

the levity

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.

166 of intellect

;

know much.

How

light mockers.

every platform

were fatal to earnestness to

is the knowing that we The duU pray; the geniuses are

can not know.

Carlo,

Knowledge

subtle

respectable

but intellect

earnestness on

kills

and admirable

it.

Nay, San

friend, one of the

most penetrating of men, finds that

all direct as-

cension, even of lofty piety, leads to this ghastly insight

and sends back the votary orphaned.

San Carlo thought the lawgivers and saints infected. They found the ark empty saw, and would not tell and tried to choke off their approaching followers, by saying, Action, action, my dear fellows, is for you Bad as was to me this detection by San Carlo, this frost in July, this blow from a bride, there was stiU a worse, namely In the mount of the cloy or satiety of the saints. astonishing

;

they have yet risen from their knees,

vision, ere

they say, beatitude

discover that this our

partial

and deformed

for relief to the suspected

the

and reviled

Understanding, the

gymnastics of

This

homage and we must fly Intellect, to

Mephistopheles, to the

talent.'

hobgoblin the

first

and, though

;

has

been the subject of much elegy in our nineteenth century, from Byron, Goethe less

fame, not to mention

vate observers,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; I confess

and other poets

many it is

distinguished

pri-

not very afEecting

MONTAIGNE;

imagination

shattering

What

for

;

baby

flutters the

OR,

THE SKEPTIC. it

hoixses

Church

167

seems to concern the

and crockery - shops.

Eome, or

may

or of Geneva, or of Boston,

from touching any principle of

of England,

yet be very far

I think that

faith.

the intellect and moral sentiment are unanimous

and that though philosophy extirpates bugbears, yet it

supplies the natural checks of vice,

I think that the wiser a

the soul.

and polarity to

man

is,

the

stupendous he finds the natural and moral econ-

omy, and

There nought

There

lifts

all

himself to a more absolute reliance.

the power of moods, each setting at

but

its

own

tissue of facts

and

beliefs.

the power of complexions, obviously modi-

fying the dispositions and sentiments.

The

and unbeliefs appear

and as soon

as each

man

be structural

attains the poise

;

beliefs

and vivacity which

allow the whole machinery to play, he will not

need extreme examples, but will rapidly alternate

aU opinions

in his

own

life.

Our

life

weather, savage and serene in one hour.

March

forth austere, dedicated, believing in the iron links

of Destiny, and

our

life

wiU not turn on our heel

to save

but a book, or a bust, or only the sound

and

of a name, shoots a spark through the nerves,

be the seal of Solomon is

wiU

suddenly believe in

finger-ring shall

for imbeciles

possible to the resolved mind.

Presently a

;

fate

;

all

new

;

REPEESENTAl'IVE MEN.

168

experience gives a

new turn

mon

its

sense resumes

army, after poetry

to our thoughts

tyranny

;

say,

com-

Well, the

the gate to fame, manners and

all, is

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; on

and, look you,

the whole, selfishness

makes the best commerce Are the opinions of a man

plants best, prunes best,

and the best

citizen.'

on right and wrong, on

mercy of a broken

fate

sleep or

belief in

God and Duty no

evidence

And what

and causation,

an indigestion

guaranty for the permanence

a new Church and State once a week. the second negation

it will.

and I

;

far as

own remedy,

namely in the record

of larger periods.

many

suggests

states

;

its

What

of all the states ?

Does

the general voice of ages affirm any principle, or

no community

for

asserts rotation of states

mean

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

This

shall let it pass

of mind, I suppose

the

Is his

deeper than a stomach

I like not the French celerity,

of his opinions ?

what

at the

of sentiment discoverable in distant

times and places

And when

shows the power

of self-interest, I accept that as part of the divine

law and must reconcile

with aspiration the best

I can.

The word

Fate, or Destiny, expresses the sense

of mankind, in all ages, that the laws of the world

do not always befriend, but often hurt and crush us.

Fate, in the shape of Kinde, or nature, grows

over us like grass.

We paint

Time with a

scythe

;

MONTAIGNE; Love and Fortune, have too

blind

and Destiny,

;

169

What

deaf.

power of resistance against

which champs us up.

rocity

make

little

THE SKEPTIC.

OR,

this fe-

front can

against these unavoidable, victorious, malefi-

cent forces

of Race, in

What can I do against the influence my history ? What can I do against

hereditary and constitutional habits

;

against scrof-

lymph, impotence? against climate, against

ula,

barbarism, in

country?

deny every thing, except he must and

I can reason

down

this perpetual Belly

and I cannot make him

will,

feed

respect-

able.

But the main

resistance

which the affirmative

impulse finds, and one including aU others, the doctrine of the Illusionists.

rumor

ful

tised

and

upon

in circulation that in

aU the

There

we have been

prac-

principal performances of

free agency is the emptiest name.

been sopped and drugged with the

air,

a pain-

life,

have

with food,

with woman, with children, with sciences, with events,

which leave us exactly where they found

The mathematics,

us.

mind where they do

all

find

'tis :

all

complained, leave the

so do all sciences

events and actions.

passed through

find a

;

and so

man who

has

the sciences, the churl he was

and, through aU the cial,

offices,

can detect the child.

learned, civil and so-

are not the

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.

170

In fact we

necessitated to dedicate life to them.

may come

to accept

as the fixed rule

God

of our state of education, that

and theory

a substance,

and his method is illusion. The eastern sages owned the goddess Yoganidra, the great illusory energy of Vishnu, by whom, as utter ignorance, the whole world

Or shaU of life

beguiled.

I state

— The

thus ?

astonishment

the absence of any appearance of recon-

ciliation

between the theory and practice of

Reason, the prized

now and

Law,

reality, the

life.

apprehended,

and profound moment

then, for a serene

amidst the hubbub of cares and works which have

no direct bearing on

;

—

then lost for months

or years, and again found for an interval, to be

we compute

in time,

we may,

lost again.

fifty years,

have half a dozen reasonable hours.

But what are these cares and works the better? A method in the world we do not see, but this parallelism of great

and

little,

which never react on

each other, nor discover the smallest tendency to converge. ings,

Experiences, fortimes, governings, read-

writings,

are nothing to the

when a man comes

purpose

;

room it does not apwhether he has been fed on yams or buffalo, pear he has contrived to get so much bone and fibre into the

—

as he wants, out of rice or out of snow.

So vast

the disproportion between the sky of law and the

MONTAIGNE;

THE SKEPTIC.

OR,

pismire of performance under

man

of worth or a sot

171

that whether he

it,

not so great a matter

Shall I add, as one juggle of this en-

say.

chantment, the stunning non-intercourse law which

makes

co-operation impossible ?

But

pants to enter society.

and greatness lead

all

The young

did not expect a sym-

pathy with his thought from the to the chosen

found no entertainment for

it,

hension, distaste and scoffing.

mistimed and misapplied each

to solitary imprisonment.

has been often baulked.

went with

spirit

the ways of culture

;

village,

and

but he

intelligent,

and

but mere misappre-

Men

are strangely

and the excellence of

an inflamed individualism which separates

him more. There are

these,

and more than these

diseases of

thought, which our ordinary teachers do not at-

Now

tempt to remove.

shall we, because a

good

nature inclines us to virtue's side, say. There are

no doubts,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; and

lie

for the right ?

led in a brave or in a cowardly

life to

manner ? and

pot the satisfaction of the doubts essential to

manliness ? to that

man

Is the

which

of earnest

good in

tea,

name

virtue ?

all

of virtue to be a barrier

Can you

not believe that

and burly habit may

essays

find small

and catechism, and want a

rougher instruction, want men, labor, trade, farming, war, hunger, plenty, love, hatred,

doubt and

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.

172

make

terror to

things plain to him; and has he

not a right to insist on being convinced in

When

way ?

Ms own

convinced, he will be worth the

pains.

Belief consists in accepting the affirmations of

the soul

Some minds The doubts they pro-

unbelief, in denying them.

;

are incapable of skepticism.

accommo-

fess to entertain are rather a civility or

dation to the

They may

common

discourse of their company.

well give themselves leave to speculate,

Once admitted

for they are secure of a return.

the heaven of thought, they see no relapse into night, but infinite invitation

Heaven

on the other

they are encompassed with divinities. are to

whom

the heaven

temperament, or of more or

The

parasite faith stinctive

last class ;

Others there it

shuts

on the

down

It is a question of less

immersion in

must needs have a

not a sight of

reliance

and

brass,

to the surface of the earth.

nature.

side.

within heaven, and sky over sky, and

realities,

seers

reflex or

but an

in-

and believers of

The manners and thoughts of believers astonish them and convince them that these have seen something which is hid from themselves. But

realities.

their sensual habit

woidd

fix the believer to his last

position, whilst he as inevitably advances

;

and

pres-

ently the unbeliever, for love of belief, burns the believer.

MONTAIGNE;

THE SKEPTIC.

OR,

Great believers are always reckoned

and

practicable, fantastic, atheistic,

The

no account. to

173 im-

infidels,

really

men

spiritualist finds himself driven

express his faith by a series of

skepticisms.

Charitable souls come with their projects and ask

How

his co-operation.

can he hesitate

It is the

rule of mere comity and courtesy to agree where

you can, and auspicious, is

to turn

your sentence with something

and not freezing and

forced to say,

But he

sinister.

O, these things

wiU be as they

must be what can you do ? These particular griefs and crimes are the foliage and fruit of such :

trees as

bad.

just as

The

down.'

It is vain to complain of

see growing.

the leaf or the berry

;

cut

it off, it

You must generosities

begin your cure lower of

intractable element for him. tions are not his

;

their

will bear another

The

people's ques-

methods are not his

against aU the dictates of good nature he to say

;

and

driven

he has no pleasure in them.

Even

the doctrines dear to the hope of man, of

the divine Providence soul, his

and of the immortality of the

neighbors can not put the statement so

that he shall afiirm faith,

the day prove

and not

less.

it.

But he denies out

denies out of honesty.

had rather stand charged with the imbecility skepticism, than with untruth. in the

I believe, he says,

moral design of the universe

;

it exists

hos-

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.

174

pitably for the weal of souls

seem

caricatures

why

but your dogmas

;

make

should I

believe

them? WiU any say, This is cold and infidel? The wise and magnanimous wUl not say so. They will

exult

in his far-sighted good-will that can

abandon to the adversary all the ground of tion and common belief, without losing a It sees to the

strength.

George Fox saw ness

and death

end of

that there was

;

all transgression.

"an ocean

of dark-

but withal an infinite ocean of

and love which flowed over that

light

tradijot of

dark-

nesso"

The

which skepticism

final solution in

in the

moral sentiment, which never

supremacy.

All moods

may

sentiment as easily outweighs them is

ficial

the moral

all,

facts,

views which we caU skepticism

;

but I

and

;

know

in that order

which makes skepticism impossible. thought must feel the thought that the universe

man

parent of

that the masses of nature do undu-

flow.

This faith avails to the whole emergency of

and

one.

I play

and take those super-

that they will presently appear to

late

any

the drop which balances the sea.

with the miscellany of

its

be safely tried, and

their weight allowed to all objections

This

is lost, is

forfeits

objects.

and with law.

The world

life

saturated with deity

content with just and unjust,

MONTAIGNE;

OR,

TEE SKEPTIC.

175

with sots and fools, with the triumph of folly and

fraud.

can behold with serenity the yawning

gulf between the ambition of

man and

his

power

demand and supply power, which makes the tragedy of aU souls. of performance, between the

Charles Fourier announced that " the attractions of

man

;

are proportioned to his destinies " in other

words, that every desire predicts

Yet

tion.

this

;

the incompetency of power

grief of

own

its

satisfac-

experience exhibits the reverse of

all

the universal

They accuse

yoimg and ardent minds.

the divine providence of a certain parsimony.

has shown the heaven and earth to every child

and

filled

him with a

desire for the whole

;

a desire

a hunger, as of space to be filled

raging, infinite

;

with planets

a cry of famine, as of devils for

souls.

Then

;

for the satisfaction,

—

to each

administered- a single drop, a bead of

power, per day,

life in it.

solar system like

a cake

passion without bounds

morning

the

star

;

prove his strength,

and

he could lay his hand on

;

but, on the first

— hands,

and would not serve him.

deserted

eat the

spirit for action

he could try conclusions with

gravitation or chemistry

way

space, and one Each man woke in

morning with an appetite that could

the

man

of vital

— a cup as large as

drop of the water of

dew

his states,

and

motion

feet, senses,

gave

was an emperor

left to whistle

by him.

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; REPRESENTATIVE MEN.

176 self,

ling :

mob

or thrust into a

and

of emperors, all whist-

stUl the sirens sang, "

The

In every house,

proportioned to the destinies." in the heart of each

attractions are

maiden and of each boy, in the

soul of the soaring saint, this

chasm

found,

between the largest promise of ideal power, and the shabby experience.

The expansive nature cor, elastic, not to self is

by larger

of truth

generalizations.

practically to generalize

;

comes to our suc-

Man

be surrounded.

The

helps him-

lesson of life

to believe

what the

years and the centuries say, against the hours resist the

to their catholic sense.

thing,

moral

and say the ;

;

usurpation of particulars; to penetrate

the result

downward, to

Things seem to say one

The appearance

reverse. is

despondency, to

justify

rogues, to defeat the just

martyrs the just cause

im-

Things seem to tend

moral.

promote

and by knaves as by

;

carried forward.

though knaves win in every

Al-

political struggle, al-

though society seems to be delivered over from the

hands of one

set of criminals into the

hands of an-

other set of criminals, as fast as the government is

changed, and the march of civilization

of felonies,

swered.

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

yet, general see,

a train

ends are somehow an-

now, events forced on which

seem to retard or retrograde the

But the world-spirit

civility of ages.

a good swimmer, and storms

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

MONTAIGNE;

THE SKEPTIC.

OR,

177

and waves cannot drown Mm. He snaps his finger at laws and so, tliroughout liistory, heaven seems :

to affect low

and the

and poor means.

centuries, through

Through the years

evil

agents, through

toys and atoms, a great and beneficent tendency

irresistibly streams.

Let a man learn

to look for the

the mutable and fleeting;

let

him

permanent in

learn to bear the

disappearance of things he was wont to reverence

without losing his reverence is

here, not to

that,

work but

;

let

to be

him

learn that he

worked upon

;

and

though abyss open under abyss, and opinion

displace opinion,

Eternal Cause " If VOL. TV.

aU are

at last contained in the -

my bark 12

sink,

't is

to another sea."

SHAKSPEAEE; OR, THE POET.

;

SHAKSPEARE;

Great men

are

and extent than by originality

OR,

THE POET.

more distinguished by range originality^

require the

which consists in weaving, like a

spi-

web from their own bowels in finding clay and making bricks and building the house no great men are original. Nor does valuable originality consist in unlikeness to other men. The hero is in the press of knights and the thick of events and seeing what men want and sharing their desire, he adds the needful length of sight and of arm, to come at the desired point. The greatest genius is the most indebted man. A poet is no der, their

;

rattle-brain, saying

what comes uppermost, and, be-

cause he says every thing, saying at last something

good; but a heart in unison with his time and country.

There

nothing whimsical and fantas-

tic in his production,

but sweet and sad earnest,

freighted with the weightiest convictions and point-

ed with the most determined aim which any or class

knows

of in his times.

man

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.

182

The Genius and

of our life

There

through the general.

A great

ius.

morning and sea

and

man say,

square the circle a

new food

for

no choice to gengo to

full of life, I will :

to-day I will

I will ransack botany and find

man

new architecture in new mechanic power no,

I have a

I foresee a

does not wake up on some fine

an Antarctic continent

find

my mind

jealous of individuals,

have any individual great, except

will not

but (he finds himself in the river of the thoughts

and

events, forced

sities of his

contemporaries.

men

the eyes of

onward by the ideas and )

neces-

stands where all

look one way, and their hands

Church has reared him amidst and he

carries out the advice

rites

all

The

point in the direction in which he should go.

and pomps,

which her music gave

him, and builds a cathedral needed by her chants

and

processions.

cates him,

by trumpet,

the instruction.

bring coal, or

finds

a war raging

in barracks,

finds

and he

edu-

betters

two counties groping to

flour, or fish,

from the place

of pro-

duction to the place of consumption, and he hits on

a railroad. collected,

his

Every master has found his materials his power lay in his sympathy with

and

people and in his love of the materials he

wrought

in.

What

an economy of power

what a compensation for the shortness of All

done to his hand.

and life.'

The world has brought

SHAKSPEARE; him thus

far

THE POET.

OR,

The human

his way.

gone out before him, sunk the

artisans,

women,

race has

hills, filled

Men,

lows and bridged the rivers.

183

the hol-

nations, poets,

have worked for him, and he

all

enters into their labors.

Choose any other thing,

out of the line of tendency, out of the national feel-

ing and history, and he would have himself

all to

do for

powers would be expended in the

his

first

preparations. j^Great genial power, one would al-

most

say, consists in not

being altogether receptive aU,

and

being original at

;

suffering the spirit of the hour to pass un-

obstructed through the mind.

Shakspeare's youth lish people

fell in

a time when the Eng-

were importunate for dramatic enter-

The

tainments.

cal allusions

The

all

in letting the world do

;

court took offence easily at politi-

and

attempted to suppress

them.

Puritans, a growing and energetic party,

and

among the Anglican church, would suppress them. But the people wanted them. the religious

Inn-yards, houses without roofs, and extempora-

neous enclosures at country fairs were the ready theatres

strolling

new

tasted this

joy

;

suppress newspapers now, est party,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; neither

The people had we coidd not hope to no, not by the strong-

players.

and, as

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

then could king, prelate, or

puritan, alone or united, suppress an organ which

Was ballad,

epic,

newspaper, caucus, lecture, Punch

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.

184

and

and puritan,

Probably king,

found their own account in

all

had become, by

it.

est,

the same time.

library, at

prelate

all causes,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; by no means conspicuous,

a national inter-

so that

some great

scholar would have thought of treating

English history, because

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; but not a whit

was cheap and of no account,

The

baker's-shop.

best proof of

less considerable

like a

the

its vitality is

crowd of writers which suddenly broke into

this

Kyd, Mario w, Greene, Jonson, Chapman, Dekker, Webster, Heywood, Middleton, Peele,

field;

Ford, Massinger, Beaumont and Fletcher.

The lic

secure possession,

mind,

works for

Here

of the

it.

by the

no time in

loses

idle experiments.

audience and expectation prepared.

much more.

the case of Shakspeare there

the time

pub-

stage, of the

importance to the poet who

first

when he

left

Stratford and went

London, a great body of stage-plays of

all

dates

and writers existed in manuscript and were in turn produced on the boards. Here is the Tale of Troy, which the audience will bear hearing some part

of,

every week

and other tire of

;

the Death of Julius Caesar,

stories out of Plutarch,

shelf full of

chronicles of Brut

Henries, which

and Arthur, down to the royal

men

doleful tragedies,

which they never

English history, from the

hear eagerly

merry Italian

;

and a string of and Spanish

tales

SHAKSPEARE;

OR,

THE POET.

London

voyages, which all the

185 know.

'prentices

All the mass has been treated, with more or

less

by every playwright, and the prompter has the soiled and tattered manuscripts. It is now no skill,

longer possible to say

who wrote them

have been the property of the Theatre so so

many

They long, and

first.

rising -geniuses have enlarged or altered

them, inserting a speech or a whole scene, or adding a song, that no

man

can any longer claim copy-

work of numbers. Happily, no man They are not yet desired in that way. We have few readers, many spectators and hearers. They had best lie where they are. right in this

wishes

to.

Shakspeare, in

common with

his comrades, es-

teemed the mass of old plays waste

any experiment could be

stock, in

freely tried.

which

Had

the

modem

tragedy ex-

isted,

nothing could have been done.

The rude

warm

blood of the living England circulated in the

play,

prestige which hedges about a

street-ballads,

and gave body which

he wanted to his airy and majestic fancy.

The

poet needs a ground in popular tradition on which

may

work, and which, again,

art within the due temperance.

may

restrain his

It holds

him

the people, supplies a foundation for his edifice,

and

in furnishing so

leaves

him

at leisure

much work done and

to his hand,

in full strength for the

audacities of his imagination

In short, the poet

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.

186

owes to

legend what sculpture owed to the tem-

Sculpture in Egypt and in Greece grew up

ple.

in subordination to architecture.

ment

of the

temple wall

first

was the ornaa rude

relief

carved on pediments, then the relief became bolder

and a head or arm was projected from the wall the groups being

arranged with reference to

still

the building, which serves also as a frame to hold the figures of style

;

and when

at last the greatest

freedom

and treatment was reached, the prevailing

genius of architecture stUl enforced a certain calmness and continence in the statue. statue

was begun for

itself,

began to decline

This balance-wheel, which

the sculptor found in architecture, the perilous

Itability of poetic talent

irri-

found in the accumulated

[dramatic materials to which the people were

ready wonted, and which had

which

single

and exhibition took the place

of the old temperance. I

soon as the

and with no reference

to the temple or palace, the art

freak, extravagance

al-

a certain excellence

genius, however

extraordinary,

could hope to create.

In point of fact

owe debts

appears that Shakspeare did

in all directions,

and was able

to use

whatever he found; and the amount of indebtedness

may be

inferred from Malone's laborious com-

putations in regard to the First, Second and Third parts of

Henry

VI., in which, " out of 6,043 lines,

SHAKSPEARE;

THE POET.

OR,

187

1,771 were written by some author preceding Shak-

by him, on the foundation laid by his predecessors, and 1,899 were entirely his own." speare, 2,373

And

the proceeding investigation hardly leaves a

single

drama

sentence

Malone's

of his absolute invention.

an important piece of external history.

In Henry VIII. I think I see plainly the cropping

own

out of the original rock on which his

stratum was

laid.

The

his lines,

finer

play was written by a

man, with a vicious

superior, thoughtful

mark

first

and know weU

I can

ear.

See

their cadence.

Wolsey's soliloquy, and the following scene with Cromwell, where instead of the metre of Shakspeare,

whose secret

that the thought constructs the tune,

so that reading for the sense will best bring out

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; here the

the rhythm,

lines are constructed

on a

given tune, and the verse has even a trace of pulpit

But the play contains through aU

eloquence.

its

length unmistakable traits of Shakspeare's hand,

and some passages, as the account

What

are like autographs. to

Queen Elizabeth Shakspeare knew

iu the bad rhythm.

that tradition supplies a better

fable than any invention can. of design,

the

lost

any

credit

he augmented his resources; and, at

that day, our petulant

not so

of the coronation,

odd, the compliment

much

million.

pressed.

The

demand

for originality

There was no

was

literature for

universal reading, the

cheap

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.

188

were unknown.

press,

great poet

who appears

in illiterate times, absorbs into his sphere all the

which

light

Every

any where radiating.

lectual jewel, every flower of sentiment office to

his

bring to his people

memory

therefore

and he comes

;

equally with

it is

his invention.

intel-

his fine

to value

whence his thoughts have

little solicitous

been derived; whether through translation, whether through tradition, whether by travel in distant coun-

whether by inspiration

tries,

;

from whatever source,

they are equally welcome to his uncritical audience.

Nay, he borrows very near home.

Other men say

wise things as well as he; only they say a good

many

and do not know when they

foolish things,

He knows

have spoken wisely. true stone, finds

haps

was

it. ;

and puts

Such

in high place,

wherever he

the happy position of

They

of Chaucer, of Saadi.

And

their wit.

the sparkle of the

Homer

felt that all

per-

wit

they are librarians and his-

toriographers, as well as poets.

Each romancer was

heir and dispenser of all the hundred tales of the

world,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

" Presenting Thebes' and Pelops' line

And

The

the tale of

influence of

early literature

;

Troy

Chaucer

divine."

conspicuous in

all

our

and more recently not only Pope

and Dryden have been beholden

to him, but, in the

whole society of English writers, a large unacknowl

SEAKSPEARE; edged debt

easily traced.

the opulence which feeds so

Chaucer

drew

from Guido

Chaucer,

seems,

Lydgate and Caxton,

whose Latin romance of

di Colonna,

war was

189

One is charmed with many pensioners. But

a huge borrower.

continually, through

the Trojan

THE POET.

OR,

from Then Petrarch,

in turn a compilation

Dares Phrygius, Ovid and

Statins.

Boccaccio and the Proven9al poets are his benefac-

Eomaunt

tors: the

translation

Meimg

Rose

of the

only judicious

from William of Lorris and John of

Troilus and Creseide, from LoUius of Ur-

The Cock and the Fox, from the Lais of The House of Fame, from the French or Italian and poor Gower he uses as if he were only bino

Marie

a brick-kiln or stone-quarry out of which to build his house.

steals

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; that what

this apology,

he takes has no worth where he finds greatest where he leaves

It has

it.

and the

come

practically a sort of rule in literature, that

man

having once shown himself capable of original writing, is entitled thenceforth to steal

ings of others at discretion. ty of

him who can

adequately place

entertain

it.

from the writ-

Thought it

the proper.

and of him who can

A certain awkwardness marks

the use of borrowed thoughts

;

but as soon as we

have learned what to do with them they become our own.

Thus aU

originality

is relative.

Every thinker

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.

190

retrospective. ture, at

The learned member

Westminster or

of the legisla-

Washington, speaks and

Show us the constituency, and now invisible channels by which the senator is made aware of their wishes the crowd of practical votes for thousands.

the

;

and knowing men, who, by correspondence or con-

him with

versation, are feeding

and

evidence, anecdotes

and and

estimates,

Sir Robert Peel

and Mr. Webster

Locke and Rousseau

think, for thousands

will bereave his fine attitude

resistance of something of their impressiveness.

there were fountains

vote, so ;

and

aU around Homer, Menu,

Saadi, or Milton, from which they drew; friends, lovers, books, traditions, proverbs,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; which, Did

seen,

would go

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

all

perished

to reduce the wonder.

the bard speak with authority ?

Did he

The

himself overmatched by any companion ? peal

to the consciousness of the writer.

at last in his breast

ap-

Is there

a Delphi whereof to ask con-

cerning any thought or thing, whether so,

feel

be verily

yea or nay ? and to have answer, and to rely on

that ?

All the debts which such a

tract to other wit

of other

could con-

would never disturb his conscious-

ness of originality

and

man

;

for the ministrations of books

minds are a whiff of smoke

to that

most private reality with which he has conversed. It is easy to see that

what

best written oi

done by genius in the world, was no man's work,

SHAKSPEARE;

OR,

THE -P^Hk

191

but came by wide social labor, when a ti^sand

wrought

Our

same impulse.

like one, sharing the

English Bible

specimen of the

a wonderful

But

strength and music of the English language. it

was not made by one man, or and churches brought

centuries

at one time ; but it

to perfection.

There never was a time when there was not some

The Liturgy, admired

translation existing.

energy and, pathos,

for its

an anthology of the piety of

ages and nations, a translation of the prayers and

forms of the Catholic church, too, in

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; these

collected,

long periods, from the prayers and medita-

tions of every saint

and sacred writer

all

over the

Grotius makes the like remark in respect

world.

to the Lord's Prayer, that the single clauses of

which

composed were already in use

in the

time of Christ, in the Eabbinical forms.

picked out the grains of gold.

guage of the

Common Law,

of our courts

The nervous

lan-

the impressive forms

and the precision and substantial

truth of the legal distinction;?, are the contribution of all the sharp-sighted, stro.ag-miaded

men who

have lived in the countries where these laws govern.

The

lence

by being translation on

translation of Plutarch gets its exceltranslation.

never was a time when there was none.

the

and national phrases are kept, and others successively picked out and thrown away.

truly idiomatic all

There

MjmEPRESENTATIVE MEN.

192

mOMV Som^Bfflng like the same process had gone on, long before, with the

world takes

world -books.

liberties with

The

these books.

originals

Vedas,

^sop's Fables, Pilpay, Arabian Nights, Cid, ad,

Ili-

Kobin Hood, Scottish Minstrelsy, are not the

work

In the composition of such

of single men.

works the time thinks, the market thinks, the mason, the carpenter, the merchant, the farmer, the

Every book supplies

fop, all think for us.

with one good word

;

trade, every f oUy of the olic

genius

who

its

time

every municipal law, every

day

;

and the generic

cath-

not afraid or ashamed to owe his

originality to the originality of

all,

stands with the

next age as the recorder and embodiment of his

own.

We have to thank the

researches of antiquaries,

and the Shakspeare Society, for ascertaining the steps of the English drama,

from the Mysteries

by churchmen, and the final detachment from the church, and the completion of secular plays, from Ferrex and Porrex, and celebrated in churches and

Gammer

Gurton's Needle,

down

to the possession

by the very pieces which Shakspeare altered, remodelled and finally made his own. Elated with success and piqued by the growing interest of the problem, they have left no bookstall unsearched, no chest in a garret unopened, of the stage

file

of old yellow

accoimts to decompose in

;

SHAKSPEARE; damp and worms,

THE P^T.

OR,

193

keen was the hope to

dis-

cover whether the boy Shakspeare poached or not,

whether he held horses at the theatre door, whether he kept school, and why he second-best bed to

There

left in his will

Ann Hathaway,

only his

his wife.

somewhat touching in the madness with

which the passing age mischooses the object on which aU candles shine and the care with which

all eyes

are turned

registers every trifle touch-

ing Queen Elizabeth and

King James, and

the

Essexes, Leicesters, Burleighs and Buckinghams;

and

lets

pass without a single valuable note the

founder of another dynasty, which alone will cause the Tudor dynasty to be remembered,

who tion

carries the

Saxon race

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; the

him by the

man

inspira-

which feeds him, and on whose thoughts the

foremost people of the world are to be nourished,

and minds

another bias.

popular player

pected he was the poet of the secret

was kept

men Bacon, who

lectual

now for some

to receive this

as faithfuUy

;

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; nobody

human

ages

and not sus-

race ; and the

from poets and

intel-

from courtiers and frivolous people.

took the inventory of the ,

human

un-

derstanding for his times, never mentioned his

name.

Ben Jonson, though we have

strained his

few words of regard and panegyric, had no cion of the elastic fame whose

was attempting. VOL. IV.

first

suspi-

vibrations he

no doubt thought the praise

^^.JtEPRESENTATIVE MEN.

194

he has conceded to him generous, and esteemed himself, out of all question, the better poet of the

two. If

need wit to know wit, according to the prov-

erb, Shakspeare's time should

nizing

after Shakspeare,

him

;

and I

be capable of recog-

Henry Wotton was born four years

Sir

it.

and died twenty-three years

among

find,

acquaintances, the following persons

Beza, Isaac

after

and

his correspondents

Casaubon, Sir

Philip

Theodore

Sidney, the

Earl of Essex, Lord Bacon, Sir Walter Raleigh,

John Milton,

Henry

Sir

Donne, Abraham

Va,ne, Isaac

Cowley,

Walton, Dr.

Bellarmine,

Charles

John Pym, John Hales, Kepler, Vieta, Alwith all bericus Gentilis, Paul Sarpi, Arminius of whom exists some token of his having commuCotton,

;

whom

enumerating many others

nicated, without

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Shakspeare,

doubtless he saw,

Spenser, Jonson,

Beaumont, Massinger, the two Herberts, Marlow,

Chapman and the rest. Since the constellation great men who appeared in Greece in the time Pericles, there

was never any such

their genius failed

in the universe. ble.

You

Our

society

make

had passed,

;

poet's

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; yet

to find out the best

head

mask was impenetra-

cannot see the mountain near.

a century to centuries

them

suspected

;

and not

after his death, did

It took

imtil

any

two

criti-

cism which we think adequate begin to appear.

SHAKSPEARE was not possible

now

till

;

for he

;

OR,

TEE POET.

195

to write the history of Shakspeare

the father of Grerman literature

was with the introduction of Shakspeare

into

German, by Lessing, and the translation of his works by Wieland and Schlegel, that the rapid burst of

German

connected. tury,

literature

was most intimately

was not until the nineteenth cen-

whose speculative genius

a sort of living

Hamlet, that the tragedy of Hamlet could find such wondering readers.

Now,

literature, philoso-

phy and thought, are Shakspear zed^ His mind i

we do

the horizon beyond which, at present,

not

Our

see.

Coleridge and Goethe are the only

rhythm. ics

who have expressed our

adequate

minds a

ears are educated to music

fidelity

but there

convictions with any is

in all cidtivated

silent appreciation of his superlative

and beauty, which,

his

crit-

power

like Christianity, qualifies the

period.

The Shakspeare Society have inquired

in all di-

rections, advertised the missing facts, offered for

any information that

with what result ?

will lead to proof,

Beside some important

tion of the history of the

have

adverted,

money

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; and

illustra-

English stage, to which I

they have gleaned a few facts

touching the property, and dealings in regard to property, of the poet. to year

It appears that

from year

he owned a larger share in the Blackfriars'

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.

196 Theatre:

were his

its :

wardrobe and other appurtenances

that he bought an estate in his native

vil-

lage with his earnings as writer and shareholder that he lived in the best house in Stratford

intrusted in

;

was

his neighbors with their commissions

London, as of borrowing money, and the

;

About the time

that he was a veritable farmer.

when he was writing Macbeth, he ers, in

;

sues Philip Rog-

the borough-court of Stratford, for thirty-

five shillings, ten pence, for

at different times

;

corn delivered to him

and in aU respects appears

good husband, with no reputation for or excess.

He was

a good-natured sort of man,

an actor and shareholder in the striking

theatre, not in

manner distinguished from other

and managers. formation.

as a

eccentricity

any

actors

I admit the importance of this in-

was well worth the pains that have

been taken to procure

it.

But whatever scraps of information concerning his condition these researches

may have

rescued,

they can shed no light upon that infinite invention

which MS.

the concealed magnet of his attraction for

We are very clumsy writers

of history.

tell the chronicle of parentage, birth, birth-place,

schooling, school-mates, earning of

money,

riage, publication of books, celebrity,

when we have come

death

mar^;

and

to an end of this gossip, no

ray of relation appears between

and the goddess-

SHAKSPEARE; born

;

and

into the "

seems as

Modern

life there, it

if,

OR,

THE

197

POET.

had we dipped

random

Plutarch," and read any other

would have

fitted

the

poems as

well.

It -is the essence of poetry to spring, like the rain-

bow daughter

Wonder, from the

and refuse aU

abolish the past

invisible, to

Malone,

history.

Warburton, Dyce and CoUier, have wasted

their

oil.

The famed theatres, Covent Garden, Drury Lane, the Park and Tremont have vainly assisted. Betterton, Garrick, Kemble, Kean and Macready dedicate their lives to this genius him they crown, elucidate, obey and express. The genius knows them not. The recitation begins one golden word ;

;

leaps out immortal from all this painted pedantry

and sweetly torments us with

Hamlet

the tragedian

famed performer, the pride of and aU I then heard and aU I

of a

the English stage

now remember

;

of the tragedian

had no part

tion to the ghost

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

;

was that in which

simply Hamlet's ques-

" What

That thou, dead

may

this

That imagination which

moon

dilates the closet

in to the world's dimension, crowds

and

mean,

corse, again in complete steel

Revisit'st thus the glimpses of the

in rank

own

I remember I went once to

inaccessible homes. see the

invitations to its

he Writes

with agents

order, as quickly reduces the big real-

ity to be^ the glimpses of the

moon.

These tricks

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.

198 magic

of his

spoil for us the illusions of the green-

Can any biography shed light on the localities into which the Midsummer Night's Dream admits me ? Did Shakspeare confide to any notary room.

or parish recorder, sacristan, or surrogate in Strat-

The

ford, the genesis of that delicate creation ?

forest of

Arden, the nimble air of Scone Castle,

the moonlight of Portia's

and desarts is

villa,

" the antres vast

idle " of Othello's captivity,

— where

the third cousin, or grand-nephew, the chancel-

lor's

file

accounts, or private letter, that has

kept one word of those transcendent secrets fine, in this

drama, as in

great works of art,

all

in the Cyclopsean architecture of

Egypt and

—

India,

in the Phidian sculpture, the Gothic minsterrs, the

Italian painting, the Ballads of Spain land,

— the Genius draws up the ladder

when the creative age goes up way to a new age, which sees

to heaven,

and Scotafter him,

and gives

the works and asks

in vain for a history.

[Shakspeare speare

;

the only biographer of

and even he can

Shakspeare in us, that sive o£E

and sympathetic his tripod

is,

Shak-

nothing, except to the

to our

hourTl

and give

Read

tell

most apprehen-

cannot step from

us" anecdotes of his inspi-

the antique documents extricated, and compared by the assiduous Dyce and CoUier, and now read one of these skyey

rations.

analyzed

SHAKSPEARE;

—

sentences,

aerolites,

OR,

THE POET.

— which, seem

199

to have fallen

out of heaven, and which not your experience but the

man

of fate,

within the breast has accepted as words

and

tell

they match ;

the former

account in any manner for the latter; or which gives the most historical insight into the '

iHence, though our external history yet,

with Shakspeare

so meagre,

biographer, instead of

for

Aubrey and Rowe, we have which

man.

really the information

material; that which describes character

and

fortune, that which, if

the

man and

us to know.

we were about

meet

deal with him, would most import

have his recorded convictions

on those questions which knock for answer at every heart,

— on

life

and death, on

poverty, on the prizes of

life

love,

on wealth and

and the ways whereby \

we come

them

;

on the characters of men, and

the influences, occult and open, which affect their

fortunes

;

and on those mysterious and demoniacal

powers which defy our science and which yet

in-

terweave their malice and their gift in our brightest

hours.

Who

ever read the volume of the

Sonnets without finding that the poet had there revealed, under Intelligent,

masks that are no masks

to the

the lore of friendship and of love

;

the

confusion of sentiments in the most susceptible, and, at the same time, the most intellectual of

men ?

What

trait

his

private

mind has be

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.

200

hidden in his dramas?

One can

discern, in his

the gentleman and the king,

ample what forms and humanities pleased him pictures of

;

his de-

light in troops of friends, in large hospitality, in

Let Timon,

cheerful giving.

let

Warwick,

let

Antonio the merchant answer for his great heart.

far

from Shakspeare's being the

modern

the one person, in all

What

us.

conduct of

known,

known

point of morals, of manners, of

economy, of philosophy, of the

least

history,

life,

religion,

of taste, of

has he not settled?

What

mystery has he not signified his knowledge of?

What

office,

function,

or district

work, has he not remembered

What

man's

king has

Talma taught Napoleon ? What maiden has not found him finer than her

he not taught delicacy

What

state, as

What

lover

has he

sage has he not outseen ?

outloved

not

What

gentleman

has he not instructed in the rudeness of his be-

bayior?

j_Some able and appreciating criticism rest

purely on the

falsely

critics

dramatic merit; that he

judged as poet and philosopher.

as highly as

think no

Shakspeare valuable that does not is

I think

these critics of his dramatic merit,

think

but

still

who

liked to talk

secondary.

it ;

was a fuU man,

a brain exhaling thoughts and

images, which, seeking vent, found the

drama next

; :

SHAKSPEARE;

Had

at hand.J

he been

how

to consider

But

world.

say

we should have had how good

less,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; and

turns out

the best in the

that what

history

he has

some attention

of that weight as to withdraw

from the vehicle

201

weU. he filled his place,

a dramatist he was, 1

THE POET.

OR,

and he

;

be rendered into

some

saint

whose

languages, into

all

verse and prose, into songs and pictures, and cut

into proverbs

of a conversation, or

a prayer, or of a code of laws,

compared with the universality of

life.

music of

wrote the airs for

all

he wrote the text of modern

manners

he drew the

Europe; the father of the

man man

immaterial

its application.

fares with the wise Shakspeare

which gave

so that the occasion

;

meaning the form

the saint's

of in

and

book

his

our modern life

;

the text

England and America; he

drew the man, and described the day, and what done in

he read the hearts of

their probity,

and

their second thought

the wiles of innocence, and

which virtues and vices

men and women, and wiles

the transitions by

slide into their contraries

he could divide the mother's part from the father's part in the face of the child, or

draw the

demarcations of freedom and of fate: he the laws of repression which

nature

human

and

all

make

fine

knew

the police of

the sweets and all the terrors of

lot lay in his

mind

as truly but as softly

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.

202

And

as the landscape lies on the eye.

tance of this wisdom of

Drama

the impor-

sinks the form, as of

life

or Epic, out of notice.

T is

making

a question concerning the paper on which a king's message

written.

Shakspeare

much

eminent authors, as he is

inconceivably wise

;

good reader can, in a

out of the category of

the others, conceivably.

;

out of doors.

For executive

He was

better.

power.

lyric

With

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; the

just within the posthis

wisdom

clothed the

creatures

legend with form and sentiments as

of life

his

they were

who had lived under his roof and few men have left such distinct characters as these

people real

;

And

fictions.

self,

equal endowment of imaginative and of

the

can

the farthest reach of

and only

sibility of authorship.

faculty,

No man

subtlety compatible with an individual subtilest of authors,

brain

but not into Shakspeare's.

for creation, Shakspeare is unique.

imagine

out of the crowd.

sort, nestle into Plato's

ahd think from thence

We are stiU.

was

fit.

they spoke in language as sweet

Yet

his talents never seduced

him

into an ostentation, nor did he harp on one string.

omnipresent humanity co-ordinates

ulties.

Give a

man

of talents a story to

his partiality will presently appear.

tain

observations,

all his fac-

opinions,

topics,

tell,

and

has cer-

which have

SEAKSPEARE;

THE POET.

OR,

203

some accidental prominence, and which he

poses all to exhibit.

crams

dis-

part and

this

starves that other part, consulting not the fitness

and

of the thing, but his fitness

Shakspeare has no topic

;

veins,

curiosi-

no manner-

bird-fancier,

he has no discoverable egotism

great he tells greatly

no importunate

peculiarity,

duly given

no cow-painter, no

ties; ist

but aU

;

wise without emphasis or assertion

mountain slopes without

the

small subordinately.

the

strong, as nature is strong,

But

strength.

who

effort

;

the land into

lifts

and by the same

rule as she fioats a bubble in the air,

and

likes as

This makes that

well to do the one as the other.

equality of power in farce, tragedy, narrative and love-songs is

;

a merit so incessant that each reader

incredulous of the perception of other readers.

This power of expression, or of transferring the inmost truth of things into music and verse, makes

him the type

of the poet

problem to metaphysics. jfiim

and has added a new

This

into natural history, as a

the globe, and as announcing rations.

that which throws

main production

new

eras

Things were mirrored in his poetry with-

out loss or blur cision, the great

he could paint the

fine

with pre-

with compass, the tragic and ihe

comic indifferently and without any distortion favor.

and amelio-

carried

his

ca?

powerful execution inta

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.

204 minute

a hair point

details, to

;

finishes

an eyelash

or a dimple as firmly as he draws a mountain ; and

yet these, like nature's, will bear the scrutiny of

the solar microscope.

In short, he

more or is

the chief example to prove that

less of production,

a thing indifferent.

more or fewer

He had

Daguerre learned how

flower etch

image on

to let one

his plate of iodine,

then proceeds at leisure to etch a million. are always objects

;

Here is

now

the world of figures

perfect representation, at last ; and sit

recipe can be given for the

peare

;

The

for their portraits.

making

of a Shaks-

but the possibility of the translation of

things into song

His

and

There

but there was never represen-

tation. let

make

the power to

one picture. its

pictures,

lyric

power

demonstrated. lies in

the genius of the piece.

sonnets, though their excellence

is lost

in the

splendor of the dramas, are as iaimitable as they;

and

it is

the piece

not a merit of lines, but a total merit of ;

like the tone of voice of

parable person, so

is this

some incom-

a speech of poetic beings,

and any clause as improducible now as a whole poem.

Though linos,

the speeches in the plays, and single

have a beauty which tempts the ear to pause

on them for their euphuism, yet the sentence 60

loaded with meaning and so linked with

its

;

SHAKSPEARE;

THE POET.

OR,

205

foregoers and followers, that the logician

satis-

His means are as admirable as his ends

fied.

every subordinate invention, by which he helps himself to connect some irreconcilable opposites, is

poem

too.

walk because in

not reduced to dismount and

his horses are running off with

some distant direction

The

finest poetry

was

he always

first

experience

but the

;

thought has suffered a transformation since

an experience. degree of

Cultivated

skill in

men

him

rides.

was

often attain a good

writing verses

;

but

it is

easy to

read, through their poems, their personal history

any one acquainted with the parties can name every figure

;

this is

Andrew and

that

sense thus remains prosaic.

with wings, and not yet a butterfly.

mind the

fact has

The

Rachel.

It is a caterpillar

In the poet's

gone quite over into the new

element of thought, and has lost

all that is exuvial.

This generosity abides with Shakspeare.

from the truth and closeness of

knows the lesson by

heart.

We say,

his pictures, that he

Yet there

not a

trace of egotism.

[One more royal poet.

man

mean

trait

properly belongs to thei

his cheerfulness, vdthout

can be a poet,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

for beauty

which no|

his aim.

loves virtue, not for its obligation but for its grace :

he delights in the world, in man, in woman, for the lovely light that sparkles

from them.

Beauty, the

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.

206

spirit of joy

and

hilarity,

he sheds over the uni-

Epicurus relates that poetry hath such

verse.

charms that a lover might forsake his mistress to partake of them.

And

the true bards have been

Homer

noted for their firm and cheerful temper. lies \

in sunshine ; Chaucer

glad and erect ; and

Saadi says, " It was rumored abroad that I was penitent

;

but what had I to do with repentance

Not ;

less sovereign

ereign and cheerful,

cheerful,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; much more

the tone of

sov-

Shakspeare.

His name suggests joy and emancipation to the heart of men.

and

pany

human

troop

any com-

If he should appear in souls,

who would

not march in his

touches nothing that does not borrow

health and longevity from his festal style. |

And this

now, how stands the account of

bard and benefactor, when, in

man

with

solitude, shut-

ting our ears to the reverberations of his fame,

seek to strike the balance lessons

;

poets; and

â&#x20AC;˘

Solitude has austere

can teach us to spare both heroes and it

weighs Shakspeare

to share the halfness

also,

and finds him

and imperfection

of humanity.

Shakspeare, Homer, Dante, Chaucer, saw the splendor of meaning that plays over the visible

world

;

apples,

knew

had another use than for and corn another than for meal, and the that a tree

ball of the earth,

than for

tillage

and roads

that

SHAKSPEARE;

and

these things bore a second

mind, being emblems of ing in

commentary on human

them

finer harvest to the

thoughts, and convey-

mute

^Shakspeare employed

life.

compose

as colors to

in their beauty

its

207

natural history a certain

their

all

THE POET.

OR,

his picture.

rested

and never took the step which

;

seemed inevitable to such genius, namely to explore the virtue which resides in these symbols and imparts this power

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; what

say?

selves

that which they them-

converted the elements which

waited on his command, into entertainments.

was master of the if

revels to

mankindr^ Is

not as

one should have, through majestic powers of

science, the comets given into

planets

from

and

his

hand, or the

and should draw them

their moons,

their orbits to glare with the municipal fire-

works on a holiday night, and advertise in towns, "

Very

Are the agents

all

superior pyrotechny this evening " ?

and the power to under-

of nature,

stand them, worth no more than a street serenade,

One remembers again " The heavens Koran,

or the breath of a cigar ? the trumpet:text ia the

and the earth and

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

all that is

between them, think

ye we have created them in jest?" question of

men

question aries,

of talent

has not his equal to show. is,

how

to life

long as the

and mental power, the world

and

its

does he profit

But when the

materials and

me ?

What

its auxili-

does

sig.

;

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.

208

It is but a Twelfth Night, or

nify ?

Midsummer-

Night's Dream, or "Winter Evening's Tale nifies

another picture more or less

verdict of the Shakspeare Societies

that he was a jovial actor

marry

and manager.

sort of keeping with their

have led

lives in

thought

but this man, in wide contrast.

been

;

I can not

Other admirable men

this fact to his verse.

some

what sig-

The Egyptian comes to mind

Had

had he reached only the common measure

less,

of great authors, of Bacon, Milton, Tasso, Cervantes,

we might fate

leave the fact in the twilight of

but that this

science of

man

human

men, he who gave to the

mind a new and

larger subject than had

ever existed, and planted the standard of humanity

some furlongs forward

into Chaos,

not be wise for himself

;

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; that he should

must even go

into the

world's history that the best poet led an obscure

and profane

life,

using his genius for the public

amusement. Well, other men, priest and prophet,

German and Swede, beheld also

Israelite,

the same objects

they

saw through them that which was contained.

And

vanished

what purpose? ;

mountainous duty piled

The beauty straightway

they read commandments, all-excluding

mountains,

;

an obligation, a sadness, as of

fell

on them, and

life

became

ghastly, joyless, a pilgrim's progress, a probation,

beleaguered round with doleful histories of Adam's

SHAKSPEARE fall

;

OR,

THE POET.

209

and curse behind us ; with doomsdays and pur-

and penal

gatorial

of the seer

fires

before us

and the heart of the

;

and the heart

listener

sank in

them. It

must be conceded that these are half-views of

half-men. reconciler,

The world still wants its poet-priest, a who shall not trifle, with Shakspeare the

player, nor shall grope in graves, with

the mourner ; but

who

shall see, speak,

equal inspiration.

For knowledge

the simshine

affection

;

and

right love

wisdom. VOL. IV.

Swedenborg and

act,

with

will brighten

more beautiful than private

compatible with universal

NAPOLEON; OR, THE MAN OF THE WORLD.

VI.

NAPOLEON;

Among

THE MAN OF THE WORLD.

OR,

the eminent persons of the nineteenth

century, Bonaparte

most powerful; and

far the best

known and

the

predominance to

owes his

the fidelity with which he expresses the tone of

thought and active

the aims of the masses of

belief,

and cultivated men.

theory that every organ ous particles

every whole

;

made

made up

is is

Swedenborg's

of similars

;

that

is,

are composed of infinitely small lungs of infinitely

kidneys, &c. is

found to

;

the lungs the liver,

small livers; the kidney, of

little

FoUowing this analogy, if any man carry with him the power and affec-

tions of vast numbers, if

Napoleon

homogene-

sometimes expressed,

Europe,

he sways are

little

it is

the

classes;

between

France,

because the people

whom

Napoleons.

In our society there between

Napoleon

a standing antagonism

conservative those

and

the

democratic

who have made

their

214

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.

and the young and the poor who have fortunes to make ; between the interests of dead labor, that is, the labor of hands long ago still

fortunes,

—

in the grave, which labor

money

stocks, or in land

idle capitalists,

— and the

which seeks to possess

and money ish,

stocks.

illiberal,

interests of living labor,

land and buildings

first class is

timid, self-

hating innovation, and continually

numbers by death.

losing

The second

class is

selfish also, encroaching, bold, self-relying,

and buildings owned by

itself of

The

now entombed

always

outnumbering the other and recruiting

its

num-

bers every hour by births.

keep

It desires

open every avenue to the competition of aU, and to multiply avenues

the class of business

men

America, in England, in France and throughout

Europe leon

the class of industry and

;

its

tive, brave,

representative.

The

Napo-

skill.

instinct

able men, throughout the middle class

every where, has pointed out (Napoleon as the

—1

carnate Democrat. vices

;

above

tendency cess

all,

He had

he had

their virtues

to that end;

and

their spirit or aim.

material, pointing at

and employing the

means

ac-

richest

in-

their

That

a sensual suc-

and most various

conversant with mechanical

powers, highly intellectual, widely ajid accurately learned and skilful, but subordinating lectual

and

spiritual forces into

means

all

intel-

to a mate«

NAPOLEON; rial

OR,

To be

success.

"God

THE MAN OF THE WORLD. the

rich

man,

'21b

the end.

has granted," says the Koran, "to every

Paris and its own tongue." London and New York, the spirit of commerce, of money and material power, were also to have their prophet and Bonaparte was qualified and sent.

people a prophet in

;

â&#x20AC;˘Every one of the miUion readers of anecdotes or memoirs or lives of Napoleon, delights in the

page, because he studies in

Napoleon

his

own

history.

thoroughly modern, and, at the high-

est point of his fortunes,

the newspapers.

has the very

saint,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

spirit of

use his

own word, " no capuchin," and he is no hero, in the high sense. The man in the street finds in him the qualities and powers of other men in the street. He finds him, like himself, by birth a citizen, who, by very intelligible merits, arrived at such a commanding position that he could indulge aU those tastes which the common man possesses

good j

but

society,

obliged

good books,

conceal and

fast

dinners, servants without number, personal weight,

the execution of his ideas, the '

deny:

travelling, dress,

standing in the

attitude of a benefactor to all persons about him,

the refined enjoyments of pictures, statues, music, palaces and conventional honors, is

agreeable to the heart of every

teenth century, this powerful

man

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

precisely

man

what

in the nine-

possessed.

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.

216 It

true that a

adaptation to the

man

mind

Napoleon's truth of

of the masses around him,

^â&#x20AC;˘becomes not merely representative but actually a

Thus

monopolizer and usurper of other miuds.

Mirabeau plagiarized every good thought, every good word that was spoken in France.

he sat in the gallery of the Conven-

relates that

tion

Dumont

Mirabeau make a speech.

and heard

struck

Dumont

ration,

which he wrote in pencil immediately, and

showed

that he could

fit

with a pero-

Lord Elgin, who sat by him. Lord it, and Dumont, in the evening,

Elgin approved

showed nounced

corporate

it,

pro-

admirable, and declared he would into his

Assembly.

Mirabeau read

Mirabeau.

" It

unfortunately, I

harangue to-morrow, to the

Dumont, " as, Lord Elgin." Lord Elgin and to fifty

impossible," said

have shown

" If you have shown

persons beside, I shall stUl speak

and he did speak day's session.

in-

it,

much

with

to-morrow

effect, at

the next

For Mirabeau, with his overpower-

ing personality, felt that these things which his

presence inspired were as

much

had said them, and that gave them their weight. centralizing larity

his

Much more

was the successor Indeed, a

man

own

absolute and

to Mirabeau's popu-

and to much more than

in France.

his

adoption of them

his predominance

of Napoleon's stamp

NAPOLEON;

THE MAN OF THE WORLD.

OR,

217

almost ceases to have a private speech and opin-

ion.

and

so largely receptive,

so placed,

that he comes to be a bureau for all the intelligence, wit and power of the age

gains the battle

;

the system of weights and measures

Alps

he builds the road.

;

and country.

he makes the code

;

he makes

he levels the

;

All distinguished en-

gineers, savans, statists, report to

him

so likewise

do aU good heads in every kind: he adopts the best measures, sets his

stamp on them, and not

happy and memorable Every sentence spoken by Napoleon

these alone, but on every expression.

and every as

it is

line of

his writing, deserves reading,

the sense of France.

Bonaparte was the idol of common men because lie

had in transcendent degree the

common men. coming down for we get rid

powers of

There

qualities

a certain

faction in

to the lowest

politics,

of cant

and satis-

ground of

and hypocrisy.

Bonaparte wrought, in common with that great class

he represented, for power and wealth,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; but

Bonaparte, specially, without any scruple as to the

means.

AU the

sentiments which embarrass men's

The

pursuit of these objects, he set aside.

ments were for women and children. 1804, expressed Napoleon's

own

desire of perfection

Fontanes, in

sense,

half of the Senate he addressed him,

senti-

when

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;"

in be-

Sire, the

the worst disease that ever

218

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.

afflicted the

human mind."

The advocates

erty and of progress are " ideologists of contempt often in his

mouth

ideologist " " Lafayette

Italian

that "

good."

" ;

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; " Necker

;

lib-

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; a word is

ideologist."

proverb, too well known, declares

you would succeed, you must not be too

It is

an advantage, within certain

limits, to

have renounced the dominion of the sentiments of piety, gratitude

and generosity

impassable bar to us, and

still is

since

a convenient weapon for our purposes river

which was a formidable

what was an

to others, ;

becomes

just as the

barrier, wiater trans-

forms into the smoothest of roads.

Napoleon renounced, once for affections,

and

his head.

magic.

all,

sentiments and

and would help himself with

With him

his

hands

no miracle and no

a worker in brass, ia

in earth, ia roads, in buildings, in

iron, in

wood,

money and

troops, and a very consistent and wise master-woxk-

man.

never weak and literary, but acts with

the solidity and the precision of natural agents.

has not lost his native sense and sympathy with

things.

Men

give

way before such a man, as beTo be sure there are men

fore natural events.

enough who are immersed

in things, as farmers,

smiths, sailors

and mechanics generally; and we

know how

and

real

solid such

men

appear in the

presence of scholars and grammarians: but these

NAPOLEON; men

OR,

THE MAN OF THE WORLD.

ordinarily lack the power of arrangement,

this

and

But Bonaparte

are like hands without a head.

peradded to

219

su-

mineral and animal force, insight

snd generalization,

so that

men saw

him com-

bined the natural and the intellectual power, as the sea and land had taken flesh and begun to

Therefore the land and sea seem to presup-

pher.

He came

pose him.

unto his own and they re-

This ciphering operative knows what

ceived him.

if ci-

working with and what

the product.

linew the properties of gold and iron, of wheels and ships, of troops

and

each should do after /

The

art of

diplomatists, its

and required that

kind.

war was the game in which he exerted

his arithmetic.

It consisted, according to him, in

having always more forces than the enemy, on the point where the

tacks

and

his

enemy

attacked, or where he at-

whole talent

strained

by endless

manoeuvre and evolution, to march always on the

enemy

an angle, and destroy

his forces in detail.

It is obvious that a very small force, skilfully

and

rapidly manoeuvring so as always to bring two

men

against one at the point of engagement, will be an

overmatch for a much larger body of men.

The

times, his constitution

and

his early circum-

stances combined to develop this pattern democrat.

had the

virtues of his class

for their activity.

and the conditions

That common-sense which no

REPRESENTATIVE

220

sooner respects any end than '

effect it

MEKt.

means

finds the

the delight in the use of means

;

choice, simplification

directness

and combining

and thoroughness of

dence with which

all

his

means

work

;

t(Âť

in the

;

the

the pru-

was seen and the energy with

was done, make him the natural organ and head of what I may almost call, from its ex-

which

all

modern

tent, the

party.

Nature must have far the greatest share in every success,

and

Such a man was wanted,

so in his.

and such a man was

bom

;

man

of stone

iron, capable of sitting

on horseback sixteen or

enteen hours, of going

many days

rest or food except

and spring

and sev-

together without

by snatches, and with the speed

of a tiger in action

;

man

not embar-

by any scruples compact, instant, selfish, prudent, and of a perception which did not suffer itself to be baulked or misled by any pretences of rassed

;

others, or

any superstition or any heat or haste

his own.

"My hand

the extremity of fiected with 'of

of iron" he said,

arm,

head."

"was not

was immediately con-

respected the power

nature and fortune, and ascribed to

his su-

periority, instead of valuing himself, like inferior

men, on his opinionativeness, and waging war with nature. star

;

His favorite rhetoric lay in allusion

and he pleased himself,

when he

styled himself the

to his

as well as the people,

"Child of Destiny."

NAPOLEON; "

OR,

THE MAN OF TEE WORLD.

They charge me," he crimes

of great

men

crime

was owing

the

stamp do not commit

in vain to ascribe it to intrigne or

't is

;

with the commission

Nothing has been more simple than

crimes.

elevation,

and

said, "

221

to the peculiarity of the times

to my reputation of having fought well against enemies of my country. I have always ma "hed

with the opinion of great masses and with events.

Of what he

said,

place

use then would crimes be to

speaking of his son, "

I could not replace myself.

;

Again

son can not re-

the

creature of circumstances." ;

He had

a directness of action never before com-

bined with so ist, terrific

much comprehension.

to all talkers

ing persons.

sees

a real-

and confused truth-obscurwhere the matter hinges,

throws himself on the precise point of resistance,

and

slights all other considerations.

in the right

manner, namely by insight.

strong

never

blundered into victory, but won his battles in his

head before he won them on the cipal

means are in himself.

other.

In 1796 he writes

field.

His prin-

asks counsel of no

to the Directory:

have conducted the campaign without consulting

any one. I should have done no good

I had been

under the necessity of conforming to the notions of another person.

I have gained some advantages

over superior forces and when totally destitute of

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.

222

every thing, because, in the persuasion that your confidence was reposed in me,

prompt

History

persons

to this day, of the imbecil-

They are a class of know not what

to be pitied, for they

The weavers

they should do. the king

down

and governors.

much and

actions were as

thoughts."

is full,

ity of kings

his ministers,

strike for bread,

and

knowing not what

meet them with bayonets.

do,

derstood his business.

But Napoleon unHere was a man who in

each moment and emergency knew what to do next. It is

an imniense comfort and refreshment not only of kings, but of

spirits,

men have any

to the

Few

citizens.

they live from hand to mouth,

;

without plan, and are ever at the end of their

and

abroad. world, is,

Napoleon had been the his ends

line,

an impulse from

after each action wait for

first

had been purely

man

public.

of the

As he

he inspires confidence and vigor by the extraor-

dinary unity of his action.

is firm,

sure, self-

denying, self-postponing, sacrificing every thing,

money, troops, generals, and his own safety to his

aim

;

his

also,

common

adventurers,

own means.

" Incidents

not misled, like

by the splendor

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

ought not to govern policy," he said, " but policy, incidents." is

tories

have no

To be

hurried away by every event

political

were only so

many

system at aU." doors,

His

vic-

and he never for

NAPOLEON; moment zle

OR,

THE MAN OF THE WORLD. way onward,

lost sight of his

and uproar

knew what

223

in the daz-

He He

of the present circumstance.

to do,

and he flew

would shorten a straight Horrible anecdotes

line to

to his mark.

come

may no doubt be

at his object.

collected

from

which he bought his suc-

his history, of the price at

but he must not therefore be set down as

cesses

;

cruel,

but only as one who knew no impediment to

his will

not bloodthirsty, not cruel,

;

— but woe

way

Not bloodthirsty, but not sparing of blood, and pitiless. He saw only the object the obstacle must give what thing or person stood in

his

—

" Sire, General Clarke can not combine with

way.

fire of the Aushim carry the battery."

General Jimot, for the dreadful trian

—"

battery."

— "Let

Sire, every regiment that approaches the

heavy

—

" For-

artUlery

is sacrificed

ward, forward " !

gives, in

Sire,

what

orders ? "

Seruzier, a colonel of artillery,

his " Military

Memoirs," the following

sketch of a scene after the battle of Austerlitz. "

the

making

moment

its retreat,

—

which the Russian army was

painfully, but in

the ice of the lake, the

good order, on

Emperor Napoleon came

"You

riding at full speed toward the artUlery.

are losing time," he cried; "fire upon those masses;

they must be engulfed

fire

upon the

ice

order remained unexecuted for ten minutes.

The In

vain several officers and myself were placed on the

;

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.

224

slope of a hill to produce the effect

mine rolled upon the

breaking

ice without

and

their balls

up.

Seeing that, I tried a simple method of elevating light howitzers.

The almost perpendicular faU

the heavy projectiles produced the desired effect.

method was immediately followed by the

joining batteries, and in less than no time ied "

some

ad-

bur-

" thousands of Russians and Austrians

under the waters of the lake." In the plenitude of his resources, every obstacle " There shall be no Alps," he to vanish.

seemed said

and he

;

built his perfect roads, climbing

graded galleries their steepest precipices, until Italy

was

open to Paris as any town in Fraiice.

laid his bones to,

and wrought for

his crown.

He Hav-

ing decided what was to be done, he did that with

might and main.

put out

all his strength.

risked every thing and spared nothing, neither am-

munition, nor money, nor troops, nor generals, nor himself.

like to see every thing

kind, whether

and

fighting

Its

office after its

be a milch-cow or a rattle-snake be the best mode of adjusting

/national differences, (as large majorities of

seem

to agree, ) certainly

making 1

thorough.

As I quote

The grand

at second hand,

men

Bonaparte was right in priaciple of war,

and cannot procure

I dare not adopt the high figure I

find.

Seruzieij

NAPOLEON; he

said,

THE MAN OF THE WORLD.

was that an army ought always

V by day and

OR,

by night and

the resistance

it is

225

to be ready,

make

at all hours, to

capable of making.

all

never

economized his ammunition, but, on a hostUe position,

rained a torrent of iron,

shot,

— to

—

shells, balls,

annihilate all defence.

of resistance

grape-

any point

he concentrated squadron on squad-

ron in overwhelming numbers until

To a regiment

out of existence.

was swept

of horse-chas-

seurs at Lobenstein, two days before the battle of

Jena, Napoleon said, "

death

;

when

My lads,

you must not fear

soldiers brave death, they drive

into the jpnemy's ranks."

In the fury of

he no more spared himself. of his possibility.

what he could, and

went to the edge

It is plain that in Italy

he did

came,

all

that he could.

several times, within an inch of ruin

person was aU but

marsh and o£E

his troops, in the melee, efforts.

fought sixty battles.

Each /'

and

his

own

flung into the

and he was brought

At Lonato, and

at other

he was on the point of being taken prisoner. victory was

ments.

He had

a new weapon.

would faU, were I not

He was

lost.

;

The Austrians were between him

at Areola.

with desperate

places,

him

assault,

to support it

Conquest has made

conquest must maintain me." wise man, that as VOL. IV.

much

life is

never enough.

"My

power

by new achieve-

me what He felt,

I am, and with every

needed for conserva*

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.

226 as for

tion

creation.

are always in peril,

always in a bad plight, just on the edge of destruction

and only to be saved by invention and courage.

This vigor was guarded and tempered by the coldest prudence

A thunderbolt

and punctuality.

in the attack, he was found invulnerable in his

His very attack was never the

intrenchments.

in-

spiration of courage, but the result of calculation.

His idea of the best defence the attacking party.

"was

great, but

consists in being

still

ambition," he says,

was of a cold nature."

of his conversations with

In one

Las Casas, he remarked,

moral courage, I have rarely met with the

two-o'clock-in-the-morning

pared courage

;

kind

mean unpre-

that which is necessary

on an un-

expected occasion, and which, in spite of the most unforeseen events, leaves full freedom of judgment

and decision

and he did not

that he was himself eminently

two-o'clock-in-the-morning

hesitate to declare

endowed with

courage,

had met with few persons equal

and

this

that he

to himself in this

respect.

Every thing depended on the nicety binations,

and the

stars

than his arithmetic.

His personal attention

scended to the smallest particulars. bello, I

of his com-

were not more punctual "

de-

At Monte-

ordered Kellermanu to attack with eight

hundred horse, and with these he separated the

THE MAN OF THE WORLD.

227

thousand Hungarian grenadiers, before the

very-

NAPOLEON; six

OR,

This cavalry was

eyes of the Austrian cavalry. half a league

off

and required a quarter

hour to arrive on the observed that

it is

that decide the

field of action,

and I have

always these quarters of an hour

fate

of a battle."

fought a battle, Bonaparte thought

what he should do in case of

" Before he little

success, but

about

a great

deal about what he should do in case of a reverse of fortune."

The same prudence and good

mark

behavior.

all

his

sense

His instructions to his

secretary at the Tuileries are worth remembering.

" During the night, enter possible.

not awake

chamber as seldom as

me when you have any

/good news to communicate /

; with that there is no But when you bring bad news, rouse me instantly, for then there is not a moment to be lost." It was a whimsical economy of the same kind which dictated his practice, when general in

hurry.

Italy, in

regard to his burdensome correspondence.

He directed Bourrienne to leave for three weeks,

tion

how

large a part of the correspondence

thus disposed of answer.

all letters unopened and then observed with satisfac-

itself

had

and no longer required an

His achievement of business was immense,

and enlarges the known powers of man. There have been many working kings, from Ulysses to William of Orange, but none who accomplished a tithe of this

man's performance.

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.

228

these gifts of nature, Napoleon added the ad-

vantage of having been born to a private and humble fortune.

of wishing to

add

his later days

he had the weakness

to his crowns

scription of aristocracy

;

and badges the

pre-

but he knew his debt to

and made no secret of his contempt for the born kings, and for " the heredihis austere education,

tary asses," as he coarsely styled the Bourbons.

said that " in their exile they

and forgot nothing."

ing,

through

was

all

had learned noth-

Bonaparte had passed

the degrees of military service, but also

citizen before

he was emperor, and so has

the key to citizenship.

His remarks and estimates

discover the information and justness of measure-

ment

Those who had

of the middle class.

to deal

with him found that he was not to be imposed upon, but could cipher as well as another man.

This appears in aU parts of his Memoirs, dictated at St. Helena.

When

the expenses of the empress,

of his household, of his palaces,

had accumulated

great debts. Napoleon examined the biUs of the creditors himself, detected overcharges

and

errors,

and reduced the claims by considerable sums. His grand weapon, namely the millions whom he directed,

he owed to the representative character

which clothed him. for France tain

and

for

and king only

interests us as

Europe

;

and he

he stands

exists as cap-

as far as the Revolution, or the

NAPOLEON;

OR,

THE MAN OF TEE WORLD.

interest of the industrious masses,

and a leader in him.

knew .^

found an organ

In the social

interests,

the meaning and value of labor, and threw

^mself naturally on that

side.

I like an incident

mentioned by one of his biographers at

When

lena.

St.

He-

walking with Mrs. Balcombe, some

heavy boxes, passed by on the

servants, carrying

road,

229

and Mrs. Balcombe desired them, in rather

an angry saying

tone, to keep back. Napoleon interfered, Respect the burden, Madam.' " In the

time of the empire he directed attention to the im-

provement and embellishment of the markets of the capital.

Louvre

" The market-place," he the

common

The

people."

works that have survived him are

said, " is the

principal

his magnificent

roads.

sort of

freedom and companionship grew up be-

filled

the troops with his spirit, and a

tween him and them, which the forms of his court officers and himself. They performed, under his eye, that which no others could do. The best document of his relation

never permitted between the

to his troops is the order of the

day on the morn-

ing of the battle of Austerlitz, in which Napoleon

promises the troops that he will keep his person out of reach of

fire.

This declaration, which

reverse of that ordinarily

made by

the

generals and

sovereigns on the eve of a battle, sufficiently explains the devotion of the

army

to their leader.

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.

230

But though there

in particulars this identity

between Napoleon and the mass of the people,

was

real strength lay in their conviction that he ''their representative in his

his

genius and aims, not only

when he courted, but when he controlled, and even when he decimated them by his conscriptions. He knew, as well as any Jacobin in France, how to philosophize on liberty and equality and when allusion was made to the precious blood of centuries, which was spilled by the killing of the Due d'Enghien, ;

he suggested, " Neither

The people

felt that

my blood

cupied and the land sucked" of

a small

ditch-water."

no longer the throne was its

oc-

nourishment, by

class of legitimates, secluded

from

all

com-

munity with the children of the

soil,

the ideas and superstitions of

a long-forgotten

state of society.

and holding

Instead of that vampyre, a

man

of themselves held, in the Tuileries, knowledge and ideas like their own, opening of course to their children

day

aU places

power and

them and

trust.

The

of sleepy, selfish policy, ever narrowing the

means and opportunities of young men, was ended, and a day of expansion and demand was come. A market for

all

was opened of youth

;

and

the powers and productions of

talent.

The

old, iron-bound, feudal

France was changed into a young Ohio or

York and ;

man

brilliant prizes glittered in the eyes

those

who smarted under

New

the immediate

;

THE MAN OF THE WORLD.

NAPOLEON;

OR,

rigors of the

new monarch, pardoned them

231

as the

necessary severities of the military system which

had driven out the oppressor. And even when the majority of the people had begun to ask whether they had really gained any thing under the exhausting levies of

men and money

of the

new

master,

and

the whole talent of the country, in every rank

kindred, took his part and defended ural patron.

him

as its nat-

In 1814, when advised to rely on the

higher classes. Napoleon said to those around him,

" Gentlemen, in the situation in which I stand,

/only nobility

the rabble of the Faubourgs."

Napoleon met

this

The

natural expectation.

necessity of his position required a hospitality to

every sort of talent, and

its

appointment to trusts

and his feeling went along with

this policy.

every superior person, he undoubtedly felt a desire for

men and

compeers, and a wish to measure his

power with other masters, and an impatience of fools

and underlings.

and found none. rare

men

are!

Italy,

men "how

he sought for

"Good God!"

said,

There are eighteen millions in

^Maly, and I have with difficulty found two,

jDandolo and Melzi."

In later years, with larger

experience, his respect for creased.

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

mankind was not

in-

In a moment of bitterness he said to

one of his oldest friends, "

Men

tempt with which they inspire me.

deserve the conI have only to

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.

232

put some gold-lace on the coat of

virtuous re-

publicans and tbey immediately become just what

This impatience at levity was, how-

I wish them." ever,

an oblique tribute of respect to those able

persons

who commanded

his regard not only

when

he found them friends and coadjutors but also

when they resisted his wiQ. He could not confoimd Fox and Pitt, Carnot, Lafayette and Bema'

dotte, with the danglers of his court

;

and

in spite

of the detraction which his systematic egotism dic-

tated toward the great captains

who conquered

with and for him, ample acknowledgments

made by him '

are

to Lannes, Duroc, Kleber, Dessaix,

Massena, Murat, Ney and Augereau.

If he felt

himself their patron and the founder of their fortunes, as

mud,"

when he

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; he could

ceiving from

said " I

made my

generals out of

not hide his satisfaction in re-

them a seconding and support com-

mensurate with the grandeur of his enterprise. the Russian campaign he was so

much impressed

In bj

the courage and resources of Marshal Ney, that he said, " I

have two hundred millions in

and I would give them ters

all for

Ney."

coffers,

The

charac-

which he has drawn of several of his marshals

are discriminating, and though they did not content the insatiable vanity of

doubt substantially of merit

just.

French

And

officers,

are no

in fact every species

was sought and advanced under his gov-

;

NAPOLEON;

THE MAN OF THE WORLD.

OR,

"I know"

eminent.

233

"the depth and

said,

draught of water of every one of

generals."

Natural power was sure to be well received at his

Seventeen

court.

common

duke, or general

men

;

in his time

were raised from

the rank of king,

soldiers

and the crosses of

his

Honor were given

to personal valor,

family connexion.

When

soldiers

my When a

every body

and not

have been bap-

tized in the fire of a battle-field, they

rank in

marshal,

Legion of

have

all

one

eyes."

natural king becomes a titular king,

pleased and

satisfied.

The RevoluFaubourg

tion entitled the strong populace of the St.

Antoine, and every horse

monkey

in the army, to look

of his flesh

there

which

boy and powder-

on Napoleon as

and the creature of his party

flesh

but

something in the success of grand talent

enlists

an universal sympathy.

For

in the

prevalence of sense and spirit over stupidity and malversation, all reasonable

men have an

interest

we feel the air purified by the electric shock, when material force is overthrown by intellectual energies. As soon as we are removed out of the reach of local and accidenand as

intellectual beings

tal partialities,

him

;

Man

feels that

Napoleon

fights for

these are honest victories; this strong steam-

engine does our work.

Whatever appeals

to the

imagination, by transcending the ordinary limits of

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.

234

human

wonderfully encourages and liber-

ability,

This capacious head, revolving a,nd

ates us.

affairs,

such multitudes of agents

this eye,

through Europe

;

haustible resource pictures

this :

;

which looked

prompt invention

— what events

what strange situations

— when

the Alps, by a sunset in the Sicilian sea

army

his

and saying

this inex-

;

what romantic

dis-

and animating

posing sovereignly trains of

;

spying

drawing

for battle in sight of the Pyramids,

to his troops, "

From

the tops of those ;

pyramids, forty centuries look down on you " ford-

Eed Sea

ing the

mus

of Suez.

;

wading

in the gidf of the Isth-

the shore of Ptolemais, gigantic "

projects agitated him.

Had Acre

fallen, I should

have changed the face of the world."

His army,

on the night of the battle of Austerlitz, which was the anniversary of

inauguration as Emperor,

presented him with a bouquet of forty standards

taken in the the

fight.

Perhaps

it is

little puerile,

he took in making these contrasts when he pleased himself with making

pleasure

glaring

;

kings wait in his antechambers, at TUsit, at Paris

and

at Erfurt.

cannot, in the universal imbecility, indecis-

ion and indolence of men, sufficiently congratulate

who took and showed us how much

ourselves on this strong and ready actor,

occasion

may be

by the beard,

accomplished by the mere force of such

vir«

NAPOLEON; /tues as all

men

punctuality,

235

possess in less degrees; namely,

by personal

thoroughness.

know

TEE MAN OF THE WORLD.

OR,

The Austrians

" he said, " do not

I should cite him, in his

the value of time."

earlier years, as

by courage and

attention,

His power

a model of prudence.

does not consist in any wild or extravagant force in

any enthusiasm

power of persuasion

;

Mahomet's, or singular

but in the exercise of com-

;

mon-sense on each emergency, instead of abiding

The

and customs.

rules

lesson he teaches is

that which vigor always teaches

always room for doubts

appeared

was the

lief

men

taken in

life

new

war

to-day that nothing

politics, or in

;

and

;

When

it is

men

it is

that

the be-

new can be under-

church, or in letters, or in

trade, or in farming, or in our social

customs

of cowardly

an answer.

belief of aU. military

there coidd be nothing

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; that there

To what heaps

it.

not that man's

;

manners and

at all times the belief of so-

ciety that the world is

used up.

But Bonaparte

knew better than society and moreover knew that he knew better. I think all men know better than they do know that the institutions we so volubly ;

;

^mmend

are go-carts

and baubles

not trust their presentiments. his

own

people's.

sense,

;

but they dare

Bonaparte relied on

and did not care a bean for other

The world

treated his novelties just as

treats everybody's novelties,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; made

infinite objec-

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.

236

mustered

tion,

the impediments

all

his finger at their objections.

but

;

What

lie

he remarks, " in the profession of the

difficulty "

land -commander,

many men and

the

necessity of feeding

expeditions will fail."

common-sense

after the

The

other,

all

and

stir,

example of

what he says of the passage

Alps in winter, which

If he allows himself to be

animals.

guided by the commissaries he will never all his

snapped

creates great

his

of the

writers, one repeating

had described as impracticable.

winter," says Napoleon, "

not the most

unfavorable season for the passage of lofty mountains.

The snow

and there real

then firm, the weather settled,

nothing to fear from avalanches, the

and only danger

Alps.

be apprehended in the

those high mountains there are often

very fine days in December, of a dry cold, with ex-

treme calmness in the

air."

Read

his account, too,

way in which battles are gained. " In all battles a moment occurs when the bravest troops, after having made the greatest efforts, feel inclined of the

to run.

That terror proceeds from a want of con-

fidence in their

own

slight opportunity,

to them.

The

art

courage,

and

only requires a

a pretence, to restore confidence is,

to give rise to the opportu-

nity and to invent the pretence.

At Areola

the battle with twenty-five horsemen.

moment

of lassitude, gave every

won

I seized that

man a

trumpet,

NAPOLEON;

OR,

THE MAN OF THE WORLD. 237

and gained the day with

You

this handful.

deavor to frighten each other ; a /bccurs,

vj tage.

of panic

and that moment must be turned

to advan-

When

many

man

has been present in

he distinguishes that moment without

tions,

culty

moment

see

and en-

that two armies are two bodies which meet

it is

ac-

diffi-

up an addition."

as easy as casting

This deputy of the nineteenth century added to his gifts a capacity for speculation ,'topics.

delighted

running

on general

through the

y range of practical, of literary and of abstract quesHis opinion is always original and to the tions. purpose.

the voyage to

after dinner, to fix

liked,

on three or four persons to

support a proposition, and as

Egypt he

many

to oppose

it.

gave a subject, and the discussions turned on

questions of religion, the different kinds of gov-

ernment and the art of war.

One day he asked

whether the planets were inhabited ?

what was the age of the world?

another,

Then he

pro-

posed to consider the probability of the destruction of the globe, either

by water or by

fire

at an-

other time, the truth or fallacy of presentiments,

and the interpretation of dreams. fond of talking of religion.

He was

very

In 1806 he conversed

with Fournier, bishop of MontpeUier, on matters of theology.

There were two points on which they

could not agree, viz. that of heU, and that of salva*

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.

238

The Emperor

tion out of the pale of the church.

told Josephine that he disputed like a devil on

these two points, on which the bishop was inexora-

ble.

the philosophers he readily yielded all

that was proved against religion as the

men and time, but he would not hear ism. One fine night, on deck, amid

work

of material-

a clatter of

materialism, Bonaparte pointed to the stars, and said, "

You may

tlemen, but

who made

in the conversation of

all

he slighted

phrases." ing,

;

esteemed,

;

but the

dehghted

men

was fond of

too he

of its practitioners

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; with last,

these remedies

life is

talk-

whom

Corvisart at Paris,

"we had

he said to the

of let-

" manufacturers of

with Antonomarchi at St. Helena.

please, gen-

of science, particularly

they were

Of medicine

and with those

most

that

men

Monge and BerthoUet

ters

you

talk as long as

and

" Believe me,"

better leave off all

a fortress which neither you

know anything about. Why throw obstain the way of its defence? Its own means

nor I cles

are superior to all the apparatus of your labora^ tories.

Corvisart candidly agreed with

your

filthy

cine

that

mixtures are good for nothing.

Medi-

a collection of uncertain prescriptions, the

results of which, taken collectively, are

than useful to mankind.

Water,

ness are the chief articles in

air

more and

fatal

cleanli-

pharmacopoeia."

NAPOLEON;

OR,

THE MAN OF THE WORLD.

239

His memoirs, dictated to Count Montholon and General Gourgaud at

St.

Helena, have great value,

after all the deduction that it

seems

is to

be made

from them on account of his known disingenuousness.

has the good-nature of strength and

conscious superiority.

I admire his simple, clear

narrative of his battles

;

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; good

as Caesar's

;

his

good-natured and sufficiently respectful account of

Marshal Wurmser and

his other antagonists

;

and

own equality as a writer to his varying subject. The most agreeable portion is the Campaign

his

in Egypt.

had hours

and wisdom.

of thought

tervals of leisure, either in the

Napoleon appears as a

man

camp

in-

or the palace.

of genius directing

on abstract questions the native appetite for truth

and the impatience

in war.

words he was wont to show

could enjoy every play of invention,

a romance, a hon mot, as well as a stratagem in a campaign.

and her

ladies,

delighted to fascinate Josephine in

a dim-lighted apartment, by

the terrors of a fiction to which his voice

and

dramatic power lent every addition. I call Napoleon the agent or attorney of the middle class of

modern

society

;

of the throng

who

fill

the markets, shops, counting-houses, manufactories, ships, of the

was the

modern world, aiming

to be rich.

agitator, the destroyer of prescription, the

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.

240

internal improver, the liberal, the radical, the in-

ventor of means, the opener of doors and markets,

course

the rich and aristocratic did not like him.

Eng-

the subverter of monopoly and abuse.

land, the centre of capital,

centres of tradition

The

and Rome and Austria,

and genealogy, opposed him. of the

consternation

and conservative

dull

men and

classes, the terror of the foolish old

women

of the

Roman

spair took hold of

red-hot iron,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

conclave,

and

him and the ;

active

men

of the emperor of Austria

instinct of the young, ardent

every where, which pointed him

of the masses of his constituents

make

He had

tory bright and commanding.

reverse.

sorry that the brilliant picture has

But that

and

his his-

the virtues

he had also their

the fatal quality which

discover in our pursuit of wealth, that erous,

attempts of statists to

out as the giant of the middle class,

vices.

old

in their de-

any thing, and would cling

the vain

amuse and deceive him, to bribe

who

its

treach-

bought by the breaking or weakening

of the sentiments;

and

inevitable

that

should find the same fact in the history of this

champion, who proposed to himself simply a iant career, without

any

brill-

stipulation or scruple con-

cerning the means.

Bonaparte was singularly destitute of generous sentiments.

The

highest-placed individual in the

;

NAPOLEON;

OR,

THE MAN OF THE WORLD.

241

most cultivated age and population of the world, has not the merit of

lie

common

unjust to his generals

meanly

olizing;

truth and honesty.

and monop-

egotistic

;

stealing the credit of their great

from Kellermann, from Bernadotte

actions

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

;

in-

triguing to involve his faithful Junot in hopeless

bankruptcy, in order to drive him to a distance

from Paris, because the familiarity ners offends the

boundless

and

liar.

new The

pride of his throne. official

man-

of his

what

bulletins, are proverbs for saying

all his

he wished to be believed

;

paper, his " Moniteur,"

and worse,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; he

sat, in

his premature old age, in his lonely island, coldly falsifying facts

and dates and

characters,

ing to history a theatrical 4clat.

men he

has a passion for stage

His

star, his love

and

giv-

French-

Every acpoisoned by this

effect.

tion that breathes of generosity is calcidation.

all

of glory, his doc-

trine of the immortality of the soul, are all French.

" I must dazzle and astonish. the liberty of the press,

To make a

three days."

design.

power could not

great noise

A great reputation

more there Laws,

If I were to give

last

his favorite

a great noise

made, the farther

institutions,

off it is

monuments, nations,

the

heard.

all fall

but the noise continues, and resounds in after ages."

His doctrine of immortality theory of influence VOL. IV.

simply fame.

not flattering.

His

" There are

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.

242

two levers for moving men,

Love ship

silly infatuation,

but a name.

love

brothers

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

interest

depend upon

and

it.

fear.

Friend-

I do not even

I love nobody.

perhaps Joseph a

little,

from

and because he is my elder and Duroc, I him too but why ? because his character pleases me he is stern and resolute, and I believe the fellow never shed a tear. For my part I know habit,

;

love

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

;

As long as may have as many

very well that I have no true friends. I continue to be what I am, I

pretended friends as I please. to

women

;

but

men

Leave sensibUity

should be firm in heart and

purpose, or they should have nothing to do with

war and government." and

He was

thoroughly unscru-

tie would steal, slander, assassinate,

j)ulous.

generosity, but

mere vulgar hatred

;

drown

He had no

poison, as his interest dictated.

he was

in-

tensely selfish; he was perfidious; he cheated at

cards ters,

he was a prodigious gossip, and opened

;

and delighted in

his

infamous

police,

let-

and

rubbed his hands with joy when he had intercepted

some morsel of

women thing of the

;

about him, boasting that " he "

and interfered

women

;

men and knew every

intelligence concerning the

and

vsdth the cutting the dresses

listened after the hurrahs

the compliments of the street, incognito. ners were familiarity.

coarse.

He had

treated

women

and

His manwith low

the habit of pulling their ears

NAPOLEON;

THE MAN OF THE WORLD.

OR,

and pinching

when he was

their cheeks

243

in good

humor, and of pulling the ears and whiskers of

men, and of striking and horse-play with them, to It does not

his last days.

appear that he listened

was caught

it.

when you have penetrated through

all

the

at key-holes, or at least that he

short,

circles of

power and splendor, you were not

deal-

ing with a gentleman, at last ; but with an impostor

and a rogue

and he

;

fully deserves the epithet of

Jupiter Scapin, or a sort of

Scamp

Jupiter.

In describiag the two parties into which modern society divides itself, servative,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;I

said,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; the democrat

Bonaparte represents the Dem^

ocrat, or the party of

men

of business, against the

I omitted then

stationary or conservative party. to say,

what

material to the statement, namely

that these two parties differ only as

The democrat 'vative

young and

a young conservative

an old democrat.

The

democrat ripe and gone to seed parties stand

and the con-

;

old.

the conser-

aristocrat is the ;

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; because

both

on the one ground of the supreme

value of property, which one endeavors to get, and the other to keep.

Bonaparte

may be

resent the whole history of this party, its

age

;

yes,

and with poetic

own.

The

still

waits for

said to rep-

its

youth and

justice its fate, in his

counter-revolution, the counter-party, its

organ and representative, in a

;

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.

244 lover

and a man

and universal

of truly public

aims.

Here was an experiment, under the most

favora-

ble conditions, of the powers of intellect without

Never was such a leader

conscience.

endowed

and so weaponed; never leader found such aids

and followers. And what was the result of this vast talent and power, of these immense armies, burned cities,

squandered treasures, immolated millions of demoralized Europe ?

came

men, of

this

result.

All passed away like the smoke of his

ar-

tillery,

and

left

trace.

left

France smaller,

poorer, feebler, than he found it; and the whole contest for freedom was to be

him with

life

could identify

saw that

and limb and

France served

its

destruction of armies,

who had

;

but when

was another war

new

conscriptions

toiled so desperately

the reward,

long as

estate, as

interest with him

after victory

The

begun again.

attempt was in principle suicidal.

;

men

after the

and they

were never nearer to

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; they could not spend what they had

earned, nor repose on their down-beds, nor strut in their chateaux,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; they deserted

him.

Men

that his absorbing egotism was deadly to

men.

It resembled the torpedo,

succession of shocks on any one it,

which

who

all

found other

inflicts

takes hold of

producing spasms which contract the muscles of

the hand, so that the

man

can not open his fingers

NAPOLEON;

OR,

THE MAN OF THE WORLD.

245

and the animal inflicts new and more violent shocks,

and

until he paralyzes

kills his victim.

orbitant egotist narrowed, impoverished

sorbed the power and existence of those

him

;

and the universal cry

rope in 1814 was, "

who served

France and of Eu-

Enough

this ex-

and ab-

him

;

" " Assez de

Bonaparte.^''

was not Bonaparte's

him lay It

ple.

to live

was the nature

man and

him

;

the same.

The

result, in

all that

princi-

and ruined

a million experiments, will

Every experiment, by multitudes or by

essentially

and

selfish

aim, will

Fourier will be as inefficient as

pacific

J the pernicious Napoleon. pion

did

of things, the eternal law

ndividuals, that has a sensual fail.

of the world which baulked

and the

J)e

fault.

and thrive without moral

long as our

civiliza-

one of property, of fences, of ex-

'clusiveness, it will

be mocked by delusions.

riches will leaye us sick

;

there

wiU be

Our

bitterness in

our laughter, and our wine will burn our mouth.

Only that good profits which we can taste with doors open, and which serves aU men.

all

GOETHE;

OE,

THE WEITER

VII.

GOETHE; OE, THE WRITER.

I FIND

a provision in the constitution of the

world for the writer, or secretary, who the doings of the miracidous spirit of

where throbs and works.

His

of the facts into the mind,

that every-

a reception

office is

and then a

to report

life

selection of

the eminent and characteristic experiences.

Nature wiU be reported. in writing their history.

goes attended by leaves

its

soil;

the animal

The

falling drop

snow or along the ground, but less lasting,

act of the

man

his fellows

and in

ground

rolling rock

the river

;

its

makes

Not a

the sand or the stone.

air

The

shadow.

its

bones in the

the fern and leaf their modest epitaph in

;

the coal.

more or

planet, the pebble,

scratches on the mountain

channel in the stratum

All things are engaged

The

his

sculpture in

foot steps into the prints, in characters

of its march.

inscribes itself in the

;

The

face.

the sky, of tokens

memoranda and

Every

memories of

own manners and

fuU of sounds is all

map

its

signatures,

;

the

and every

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.

250

object covered over with hints which speak to the intelligent.

In nature,

the print of the seal.

upward and, thing more than print strives

;

form of the

that which

ory

man, the report

The record

new and

is alive,

a kind of looking-glass, which, having received

and disposes them

do not

lie

shine

so that soon

;

inert

;

in a

new

operates.

which

for

it is

loves

him

we have a new

facts

picture,

com-

The man

communicate

to say lies as

;

co-

and that

a load on his heart

But, besides the universal

delivered.

men

are born with exalted

powers for this second creation.

The gardener

The

but some subside and others

joy of conversation, some

write.

touched with

order.

posed of the eminent experiences.

until

some-

In man, the mem-

is alive.

the images of surrounding objects, life,

It is a

of the seal.

original.

recorded

It neither

But nature

exceeds nor comes short of the fact.

finer

and

this self-registration is incessant,

the narrative

Men

saves every slip

peach-stone: his vocation

are born to

and seed and

be a planter of

Not less does the writer attend his affair. Whatever he beholds or experiences, comes to him He counts as a model and sits for its picture.

plants.

it all

nonsense that they say, that some things are

undescribable.

believes that all that can be

thought can be written,

first

or last

;

and he would

GOETHE; report the

THE WRITER.

OR,

Holy Ghost,

or attempt

so broad, so subtle, or so dear, but

commended universe

and he

to his pen,

man

eyes, a

251 Nothing

it.

comes therefore

will write.

In his

the faculty of reporting, and the

the possibility of being reported.

new

conversation, in calamity, he finds

materials

German poet said, " Some god gave me the pamt what I suffer." He draws his rents

as our

power

By acting

from rage and pain.

power of talking wisely. of passion only writes, "

When

preach well

fill

his sail

" and,

rashly, he buys the

Vexations and a tempest ;

as the

good Luther

angry, I can pray well and

we knew the

genesis of fine

strokes of eloquence, they might recall the complai-

sance of Sultan Amurath,

who

struck off some

Persian heads, that his physician, Vesalius, might see the

His

spasms in the muscles of the neck.

failures are the preparation of his victories.

new thought

that all that he has yet learned oteric,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

fact.

What

;

and written

ex-

not the fact, but some rumor of the

then?

Does he throw away the pen

he begins again to describe in the new light

which has shined on him,

may

or a crisis of passion apprises ^n^m

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

if,

yet save some true word.

by some means, he Nature conspires.

Whatever can be thought can be spoken, and still though to rude and stammering

rises for utterance,

organs.

If they cannot compass

it,

waits and

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.

252

works, until at last will

and

moulds them

to its perfect

articulated.

This striving after imitative expression, which

one meets every where, nature, but degrees, for those

significant of the

aim

There are higher

mere stenography.

and nature has more splendid endowments

whom

she elects to a superior office

the class of scholars or writers,

who

;

for

see connection

where the midtitude see fragments, and who are impelled to exhibit the facts in order, and so to

supply the axis on which the frame of things turns.

Nature has dearly at heart the formation of the speculative man, or scholar. sight of,

and

things.

is is

It is

an end never

lost

prepared in the original casting of

no permissive or accidental appear-

ance, but an organic agent, one of the estates of

the realm, provided

from

and prepared from

everlasting, in the

of things.

There

knitting and

Presentiments, impulses,

mine.

whether

rank, it is

down

the

into the shaft of

Every thought which dawns on the

mind, in the moment of

own

cheer him.

primary truth, which

shining of the spiritual sun

its

contexture

a certaiu heat in the breast which attends

the perception of

the

and

of old

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; whether

its it

emergence announces is

some whimsy, or

a power.

If he have his incitements, there side, invitation

and need enough of

is,

on the other

his gift.

Soci

;

GOETHE;

OR,

TBE WRITER.

253

ety has, at all times, the same want, namely of one

man

sane

with adequate powers of expression to

hold up each object of monomania in

The ambitious and mercenary bring their

tions. last

new mumbo-jumbo, whether

road,

rail-

;

ceed in making

mad

about

its relations, easily

seen in a glare

;

and they are not

it,

this particular insanity

But

another crotchet.

let

suc-

and a multitude

or cured by the opposite multitude

from

Texas,

tariff,

Romanism, mesmerism, or California and, by

detaching the object from

right rela-

its

be reproved

who

are kept

by an equal frenzy on

one

man have

the com-

prehensive eye that can replace this isolated prodigy in ito right neighborhood sion vanishes,

and bearings,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; the

illu-

and the returning reason of the com-

munity thanks the reason of the monitor.

The

scholar

man of the ages, but he must men to stand well with his conBut there is a certain ridicule, among is

the

also wish with other

temporaries.

superficial people,

which

thrown on the scholars or

and the

opinion

it.

emphasis of conversation and

this country, the

of public

clerisy,

no import unless the scholar heed

commends the practical man community is named

solid portion of the

with significant respect in every

circle.

Our

peo-

ple are of Bonaparte's opinion concerning ideologists.

Ideas are subversive of social order and

comfort, and at last

make a

fool of the possessor^

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.

254 It

from

believed, the ordering a cargo of goods

New York down

Smyrna, or the running up and

to procure a

company

of subscribers to set

a-going five or ten thousand spindles, or the negotiations of a caucus

and the practising on the

prejudices and facility of country-people to secure their votes in

November,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

and com-

practical

mendable. If I were to compare action of a

much

higher

strain with a life of contemplation, I should not

much confidence in faMankind have such a deep inward illumination, that there is much to

venture to pronounce with

vor of the former. stake in

be said by the hermit or life of

monk

in defence of his

certain partiality,

thought and prayer.

a headiness and loss of balance, all action

must pay.

at your peril.

for them.

Show me

Act,

the tax which

you

like,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; but you

Men's actions are too strong a

man who

has acted and

who

has not been the victim and slave of his action.

What

they have done commits and enforces them to

do the same again.

The

first act,

which was

an experiment, becomes a sacrament.

The

former embodies his aspiration in some enant,

and he and his friends cleave

lose the aspiration.

rite or cov-

to the

The Quaker has

fiery re-

form and

established

Quakerism, the Shaker has established his monastery

and

his dance;

and although each prates

GOETHE; spirit,

there

spirit,

255

but repetition,

But where are

anti-spiritual.

day ?

THE WRITER.

OR,

his

In actions of enthusiasm

wHch

new things

this

of to-

drawback ap-

pears, but in those lower activities, which have

higher aim than to

more cowardly steal

and

lie,

;

make us more comfortable and

in actions of cunning, actions that

actions that divorce the speculative

from the practical faculty and put a ban on reason

and sentiment, there

nothing else but drawback

The Bindoos

and negation.

write in their sacred

books, " Children only, and not the learned, speak of the speculative

They are but

and the practical

one, for both

end, and the place which of the one is gained

That man

seetb,

who

gained by the followers

by the

followers of the other.

seeth that the speculative

of action

The

spiritual nature.

The measure

the sentiment from which

greatest action

may

easily

and

For great action

the practical doctrines are one."

must draw on the

faculties as two.

obtain the selfsame

proceeds.

be one of the most

private circumstance.

This disparagement wUl not come from the leaders,

but from inferior persons.

men who

The robust

gentle-

stand at the head of the practical class,

much

share the ideas of the time, and have too

sympathy with the speculative from men excellent

ment of any other

is to

class.

not

any kind that disparagebe looked

for.

With

such,

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.

256

Talleyrand's question

he rich ?

ever the main one

he committed

he this or that faculty ?

? is is

he of the establishment ?

That

is all

State-street, aU. that the

asks.

real

man

likes a master,

He must

be good

that Talleyrand,

aU that

common-sense of mankind

and admirable, not as we know, but so only that he

is able,

any hody

but, Is he

Able men do not care

you know.

not, is

he of the movement ?

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

does he stand for something of his kind.

;

he well-meaning ? has

and does not

stipulate

what kind

able.

master

whether

orator, artist, craftsman, or king.

Society has really no graver interest than the

And

well-being of the literary class.

be denied that

and welcome

men

it is

of intellectual accomplishments.

the writer does not stand with us on any

ing ground.

I think this to be his

pound passes

for a pound.

when he was a the

first

not to

are cordial in their recognition

own

Still

commandfault.

There have been times

sacred person

hymns, the codes, the

he wrote Bibles,

epics, tragic songs.

Sibylline verses, Chaldean oracles, Laconian sentences, inscribed on temple walls. true,

and woke the nations

"Every word was

new

life.

wrote

Every word the earth and the

without levity and without choice.

was carved before

his eyes into

and the sun and stars were only letters of the same purport and of no more necessity. But how

sky

;

;;

GOETHE;

OR,

THE WRITER.

257

can he be honored when he does not honor himself

when he

loses himself in the

crowd

;

when he

longer the lawgiver, but the sycophant, ducking to

when he

the giddy opinion of a reckless public;

must sustain with shameless advocacy some bad government, or must bark, aU the year round, in opposition

;

or write conventional criticism, or prof-

ligate novels

;

or at any rate write without thought,

and without recurrence by day and by night sources of inspiration

Some

may be furnished men of literary gen-

reply to these questions

by looking over the ius in our age.

name

to the

list

Among

these no

instructive

occurs than that of Goethe to represent the

powers and duties of the scholar or writer. I described Bonaparte as a representative of the popular external century.

life

and aims of the nineteenth

Its other half, its poet, is Goethe,

quite domesticated in the century, breathing

enjoying

its fruits,

impossible at any earlier time,

and taking away, by

his colossal parts, the reproach

of weakness which but for intellectual

him would

works of the period.

lie

has smoothed down

all

on the

appears at a

time when a general culture has spread

itself

sharp individual

when, in the absence of heroic characters, a comfort and co-operation have come

no poet, but scores of poetic writers VOL. IV

man

its air,

and

traits

social

in.

There

;

no Colum-

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.

258

bus, but hundreds of post-captains, with transit-

barometer and concentrated soup and pemmican no Demosthenes, no Chatham, but any number of clever parliamentary and forensic detelescope,

;

baters ity

;

no prophet or

saint,

but colleges of divin-

no learned man, but learned

press, reading-rooms

ber.

societies,

There was never such a miscellany of

The world extends itself like American conceive Greek or Roman Ufe, life in modern

life to

facts.

trade.

Ages, to be a simple and comprehensible

a cheap

and book-clubs without num-

the Middle affair

;

but

respect a multitude of things, which

distracting.

Goethe was the philosopher of

this multiplicity

;

hundred-handed, Argus-eyed, able and happy to cope with this rolling miscellany of facts and ences,

and by

with ease

;

his

own

versatility to dispose of

sci-

them

a manly mind, unembarrassed by the

variety of coats of convention with which life

had

got encrusted, easily able by his subtlety to pierce these

and

draw

which he lived

his strength

full

from nature, with

What

communion.

strange too, he lived in a small town, in a petty state, in

many

a defeated

state,

and

\n a tim.e

when Ger-

played no such leading part in the world's

affairs as to swell the

bosom

of her sons with

any

metropolitan pride, such as might have cheered a

French, or English, or once, a

Roman

or Attio

GOETHE; genius.

Yet there

tion in his muse.

OR,

THE WRITER.

259

no trace of provincial

He is

limita-

not a debtor to his position,

but was born with a free and controlling genius.

The Helena,

or the second part of Faust,

philosophy of literature set in poetry

one who found himself the master of thologies, philosophies, sciences tures, in the encyclopsedical

ern erudition, with

its

;

the

histories,

and national

manner

work of

in which

my-

litera^

mod-

international intercourse of

the whole earth's population, researches into Indian, Etruscan

and aU Cyclopean

chemistry, astronomy

;

and

arts

;

geology,

every one of these king-

doms assuming a certain aerial and poetic character, by reason of the multitude. One looks at a king with reverence

;

but

one should chance to

be at a congress of kings, the eye would take liberties

with the peculiarities of each.

These are not

wild miraculous songs, but elaborate forms to which the poet has confided the results of eighty years of observation.

This reflective and

makes the poem more It dates

itself.

critical

wisdom

truly the flower of this time.

StiU he

a poet,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; poet

of a

prouder laurel than any contemporary, and, under this

plague of microscopes (for he seems to see out

of every pore of his skin), strikes the harp with a hero's strength

The wonder gence.

and grace. of the

book

In the Menstruum of

its

this

superior intelli-

man's

wit, the

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.

260

and the present

past

and

ages,

their religions, pol-

and modes of thinking, are dissolved

itics

What new

archetypes and ideas.

through his head

The Greeks

der went as far as Chaos other day, as far

;

and one

;

into

mythologies saU

said that Alexan-

Goethe went, only the

step farther he hazarded,

and brought himself safe back. There

a heart-cheering freedom in his specula-

The immense horizon which journeys with

tion.

us lends

majesty to

its

trifles

and

to matters of

convenience and necessity, as to solemn and festal performances. that

was the soul

of his century.

was learned, and had become, by population,

compact organization and driU of

one great

parts,

Exploring Expedition, accumulating a glut of facts

and frmts too to classify,

—

any hitherto-existing savans

fast for this

man's mind had ample chambers

for the distribution of

all.

He had

a power to

unite the detached atoms again by their

own

law.

He has clothed our modern existence with poetry. Amid littleness and detail, he detected the Genius of

life,

the old cunning Proteus, nestling close

beside us, and showed that the dulness and prose

ascribe

masks

—

to the

age was only another of his

" His very flight

— that he had put

off

presence in disguise

" :

a gay uniform for a fatigue

;;

GOETHE; dress,

and was not a whit

tioeh.

streets, in

boulevards and hotels of routine

this,

senses,

he showed

that, in actions of

;

mythology and fable spins

routine, a thread of

and

An-

and, in the solid-

;

and the

the lurking daemonic power

Rome

sought him in public squares and main

kingdom

self

261

less vivacious or rich

Hague than once

Liverpool or the

est

TEE WRITER.

OR,

it-

tracing the pedigree of every

usage and practice, every institution, utensil and means, home to

He had an of rhetoric. if

man

its

origin in the structure of

extreme impatience of conjecture and

my own down only what

" I have guesses enough of

write a book, let

he knows."

man.

tone, omitting

him

set

writes in the plainest

and lowest

a great deal more than he writes,

and putting ever a thing

for a word.

has ex-

plained the distinction between the antique and the modern spirit and art. scope and laws.

has defined

art, its

has said the best things about

nature that ever were said.

treats nature as

the old philosophers, as the seven wise masters did,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; and, and

with whatever loss of French tabulation

dissection, poetry

and humanity remain

and they have some doctoral

skiU.

to us

Eyes are

bet-

ter

on the whole than telescopes or microscopeSo

has contributed a key to

many

parts of nature,

through the rare turn for unity and simplicity in his mind.

Thus Goethe suggested the leading idea

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.

262 of

modern botany, that a

the unit of botany, and that every part of the

plant

dition

;

new

con-

conditions, a leaf

may

only a transformed leaf to meet a and,

a leaf

leaf or the eye of

by varying the

be converted into any other organ, and any other organ into a

leaf.

manner, in osteology, he

assumed that one vertebra of the spiae might be considered as the unit of the skeleton

was only the uppermost

the head

transformed.

vertebrae

" The plant goes from knot to knot, closing at last

with the flower and the seed.

So the tape-worm,

the caterpillar, goes from knot to knot

Man

with the head.

up through the

built

and

closes

and the higher animals are powers being

vertebrae, the

concentrated in the head."

In optics again he

re-

jected the artificial theory of seven colors,

and con-

was the mixture

of light

sidered that every color

and darkness very

little

new

sees at every pore,

tion towards truth.

proportions.

It is really of

consequence what topic he writes upon.

and has a

certain gravita-

will realize

what you

made

hates to be trifled with and to be

say.

to say

over again some old wife's fable that has had possession of men's faith these thousand years.

sifts

may it.

as well see if I

here, he

it is

judge of these things.

on trust

And

true as another.

would

say, to

be the measure and

Why should

therefore

I take

what he says

them

of religion,

;

GOETHE;

OR,

THE WRITER.

manners, of property,

of passion, of marriage, of

paper-money, of periods of

263

omens, of

belief, of

luck, or whatever else, refuses to be forgotten.

Take the most remarkable example

that could

occur of this tendency to verify every term in pop-

The Devil had played an important part Goethe would have no does not cover a thing. The same meas-

ular use.

in mythology in all times.

word that ure will

still

serve

" I have never heard of

So he

crime which I might not have committed." flies at

the throat of this imp.

shall

any

be real

he shall be modern ; he shall be European ; he shall dress like a gentleman, and accept the manners,

and walk ia the life of

streets,

Vienna and

shall not exist.

and be well

initiated in the

of Heidelberg in 1820,

— or he

Accordingly, he stripped him of

mythologic gear, of horns, cloven foot, harpoon tail,

brimstone and

in books

and

blue-fire",

and instead of looking

him

pictures, looked for

in his

own

mind, in every shade of coldness, selfishness and unbelief that, in crowds or in solitude, darkens over

the

human

thought,

— and found

that -the portrait

gained reality and terror by every thing he added

and by every thing he took away.

found that

the essence of this hobgoblin which had hovered in

shadow about the habitations

men

ever since

there were men, was pure iatellect, applied,

always there

a tendency,

—

to the

— as

service of

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.

264 tte senses

and he flung

Me-

into literature, in his

phistopheles, the first organic figure that has been

added for some ages, and which

will

remain as long

as the Prometheus.

I have no design to enter into any analysis of his

numerous works.

criticism,

They

of poems, literary journals

guished men. "

first

els,

and

of its kind, called

delineation of

and

portraits of distin-

Yet I cannot omit

Wilhelm Meister." " Wilhelm Meister "

the

consist of translations,

dramas, lyric and every other description

modern

to specify the

a novel in every sense,

its

society,

admirers the only

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; as

other nov-

those of Scott for example, dealt with costume condition, this with the spirit of

book over which some

veil is still

life.

drawn.

a is

read by very intelligent persons with wonder and delight.

as a

by some such to Hamlet, I suppose no book of this

It is preferred

work

of genius.

century can compare with ness, so new, so it

with so

many and

sights into life

many good unexpected

sweet-

its delicious

provoking to the mind, gratifying so solid thoughts, just

and manners and characters;

hints for the conduct of

life,

in-

many

glimpses into a higher sphere, and

never a trace of rhetoric or dulness.

provoking book to the curiosity of young genius, but a very unsatisfactory one.

very

men

Lovers of

;

GOETHE;

OR,

THE WRITER.

Kgbt reading, those who look in

265

for the enter-

tainment they find ia a romance, are disappointed.

the other hand, those

higher hope to read in genius,

and the

and

toils

award of the laurel

to its

embody

here, not long ago,

the hope of a

new age and

the pohtical hope of the party called

to unfold

Young

with the

a worthy history

had an English romance

of virtue

have also reason to complain.

denials,

professing to

just

who begin

England,' is

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

in which

only reward

the

a seat in Parliament and a peerage.

Goethe's romance has a conclusion as lame and

immoral.

George Sand, in Consuelo and

tinuation, has sketched a truer picture.

and more

In the progress of the

its

con-

dignified

story, the char-

acters of the hero and heroine expand at a rate

that shivers the porcelain chess-table of aristocratic

convention

they quit the society and habits of

rank, they lose their wealth, they become

their

the servants of great ideas and of the most gen-

erous social ends

;

until at last

the hero,

who

the centre and fountain of an association for the

rendering of the noblest benefits to the race, no longer answers to his it

own

titled

sounds foreign and remote in his ear.

human name "I

only man," he says ; " I breathe and work for

man

;

" and this in poverty and extreme sacrifices.

Goethe's hero, on the contrary, has so

many weak-

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.

266

and impurities and keeps such bad com-

nesses

pany, that the sober English public, when the

book was is

translated,

And

were disgusted.

yet

crammed with wisdom, with knowledge

the world and with knowledge of laws; the per= sons so truly and subtly drawn, and with such few strokes,

and not a word too much,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; the

book

re-

mains ever so new and unexhausted, that we must even

let it

its

good from

begun

its

office

way and be

what

willing to get

can, assured

that

has only

and has millions of readers yet

serve.

The argument

the passage of a democrat to

aristocracy, using

the

And

sense.

both words in their best '

this passage is not

made

any mean

Na-

or creeping way, but through the hall door.

made

ture and character assist, and the rank

by sense and probity in the nobles. erous youth can escape this charm of

real

the book, so that lect

it is

highly stimulating to intel-

and courage.

The ardent and holy NovaHs book

as " thoroughly

mantic

;

the wonderful.

only of the ordinary affairs of icized civic it

characterized the

modern and prosaic

completely levelled in

etry of nature

gen-

reality in

and domestic

story.

;

the ro-

;

the po-

The book

men

treats

a poet-

The wonderful

expressly treated as fiction and

enthusi-

GOETHE; astic

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; and

dreaming "

THE WRITER. what

yet,

267

also charac-

soon returned to this book, and

Novalis

teristic,

OR,

remained his favorite reading to the end of his

life.

What English

with his nation,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; a habitual reference

respect for talent

;

and,

any ascertained or

to interior

America there

In France there

these countries, It is

talent.

enough

men if

many

hours, filled

The German

way.

sprightliness, the

is satis-

even a greater delight its

own

sake.

of talent write

the understanding

cupied, the taste propitiated, so

intelligible interest or party,

in intellectual brilliancy for in

exerted in support

if it is

or in regular opposition to any, the public fied.

and

French

a property which he shares

In England and

truth.

Goethe for

distinguishes

readers

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

in a lively intellect

many

And from is

oc-

columns,

and creditable

wants the French

fine practical

understanding of

the English, and the American adventure

;

but

has a certain probity, which never rests in a superficial performance,

end?

sincerity. is it

for ?

whence

all

German Here

What

but asks steadily. To what

public asks for a controlling

does the

man mean ?

these thoughts ?

Talent alone can not

must be a

what Whence,

activity of thought; but

man behind

make a

writer.

There

the book; a personality

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.

268

which by birth and quality trines there set forth,

pledged to the doc-

and which

exists to see

and

and not otherwise ; holding things

state things so,

If he cannot rightly

because they are things.

express himself to-day, the same things subsist

and win open themselves to-morrow. the burden on his

be declared,

— more or

constitutes his business

known. mers his

;

What

his tropes

;

lies

truth

understood

calling

and

in the world

and to make them

signifies that

that his voice

method or

less

and

through,

those facts

see

There

mind, — the burden

and stam-

trips

harsh or hissing

that

;

That

are inadequate?

message wiU find method and imagery, articulation

Though he were dumb

and melody. speak. in the

how It

—

If not,

man,

— what care we how

brilliant

would

there be no such God's adroit,

how

word

fluent,

is ?

makes a great

any

difference to the force of

sentence whether there be a

man

In the learned journal, in the paper, I discern no form

;

behind

or no.

influential news-

only some irresponsi-

moneyed corporation, or some dangler who hopes, in the mask and robes of But through his paragraph, to pass for somebody. every clause and part of speech of a right book I meet the eyes of the most determined of men his force and terror inundate every word; the commas ble

shadow

;

oftener some

;

GOETHE; and dashes are

alive

THE WRITER.

269

so that the writing

is athletic

OR, ;

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; can go far and

and nimble,

live long.

In England and America, one may be an adept in the writings of a

any poetic

Greek or Latin

poet, without

That a man has spent

taste or fire.

years on Plato and Proclus, does not afford a pre-

sumption that he holds heroic opinions, or under-

But the German

values the fashions of his town.

nation have the most ridiculous good faith on these subjects

the student, out of the lecture-room,

broods on the lessons

;

still

and the professor can not

divest himself of the fancy that the truths of phi-

losophy have some application to Berlin and

This earnestness

nich.

men

much more

Mu-

them to outsee Hence almost all the

enables

talent.

valuable distinctions which are current in higher conversation have been derived to us from Ger-

many.

But

learning, in

and

whilst

men

distinguished for wit and

England and France, adopt their study and are not

their side with a certain levity,

understood

very

deeply

engaged,

from

grounds of character, to the topic or the part they espouse,

man

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Goethe, the head and body from

nation, does not speak

truth" shines through

awakens

is,

but the

very wise, though his

talent often veils his wisdom. his sentence

of the Ger-

talent,

However

excellent

he has somewhat better in view.

curiosity.

has the formidable

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.

270

independence whicli converse with truth gives hear you, or forbear, his fact abides

and your

;

terest in the writer is not confined to his story

in-

and

memory when he has performed a baker when he has left his The loaf but his work is the least part of him. old Eternal Genius who built the world has confided himself more to this man than to any other. he dismissed from

his task creditably, as ;

I dare not say that est

Goethe ascended

to the high-

grounds from which genius has spoken.

has not worshipped the highest unity

;

He inca-

pable of a self-surrender to the moral sentiment.

There are nobler strains in poetry than any he has There are writers poorer in

sounded. tone

talent,

purer and more touches the heart.

His

can never be dear to men. devotion to pure truth

culture.

;

whose

Goethe

not even the

but to truth for the sake of

has no aims less large than the con-

quest of universal nature, of universal truth, to be his" portion

nor overawed denial,

He and

of a stoical self-command

test for all

men,

and

self-

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; What

All possessions are valued by

for that only

Beiag

not to be bribed, nor deceived,

and having one

can you teach

him

;

man

;

rank, privileges, health, time,

itself. is

the type of culture, the amateur of all arts

sciences

spiritual,

and events

but not

;

artistic,

spiritualist.

but not artist

There

â&#x20AC;˘

nothing ha

GOETHE; had not right

know

THE WRITER.

OR,

there

271

no weapon in the

armory of universal genius he did not take into his hand, but with

not be for a

peremptory heed that he should

moment

prejudiced by his instrimients.

under every

lays a ray of light

and be-

fact,

From

tween himself and his dearest property.

him nothing was the dsemons

form.

The who saw

hid, nothing withholden.

lurking dsemons sat to him, and the saint

and the metaphysical elements took

;

" Piety itself

no aim, but only a means

whereby through purest inward peace we may

And

tain to highest culture."

every secret of the fine arts will

His

statuesque.

men employed by him you may

make Goethe

be,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

still

affections help him, like wo-

Cicero to

worm

out the secret of

Enemy

Enmities he has none.

conspirators.

at-

his penetration of

you

shall teach

which your good-will cannot, were

him aught

only what ex-

perience will accrue from your ruin.

Enemy and

welcome, but enemy on high terms. hate any body

;

his time is

may be who fight

peramental antagonisms feuds of emperors,

worth too much.

cannot

Tem-

suffered, but like

dignifiedly across

kingdoms.

His autobiography, under the

and Truth out of the idea,

Life,"

title

the expression of

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; now familiar to the world

German mind, but a

of " Poetry

through the

novelty to England,

Old and

;•

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.

272

—

that a man exNew, when that book appeared, ists for culture not for what he can accomplish, ;

The

but for what can be accomplished in him. reaction of things on the

worthy

result.

intellectual

a third person

self as

lusions

interest

man

;

the only note-

man

him equally with

Though he wishes to know the wETsf the clouds

can see him-

and de-

therefore his faults

his successes.

to prosper in affairs, he wishes

history

and destiny

man

;

him

of egotists drifting about

are only interested in a low success.

Wahr-

This idea reigns in the "Dichtung tmd

and

heit "

directs the selection of the

and nowise the external importance

incidents

of events, the

rank of the personages, or the bulk of incomes.

course the book affords slender materials for what

would be reckoned with us a " Life of Goethe " ;

few

dates,

no correspondence, no

—

details of offices

or employments, no light on his marriage

and a

;

period of ten years, that should be the most active in his

life,

in silence.

Meantime

sunk

certain love-affairs that

came

to nothing, as people say,

tance

invention,

ble

have the

he crowds us with details

sical opinions,

Weimar,

after his settlement at

strajigest

—

certain

impor-

whim-

cosmogonies and religions of his own

and especially

minds and

his relations to

remarka-

to critical epochs of thought

diese he magnifies.

—

His " Daily and Yearly Jour.

GOETHE; nal,"

his

" Italian

THE WRITER.

OR,

Travels,"

his "

273

Campaign

France " and the historical part of his " Theory of Colors," have the same interest.

In the

ton, Voltaire, &o.

and the charm

;

last,

rapidly notices Kepler, Roger Bacon, Galileo,

New-

of this portion of

the book consists in the simplest statement of the relation betwixt these grandees of tific

history

and himself

from Goethe

lines

from Goethe

to Kepler,

con,

from Goethe to Newton.

line

is,

for the time

European

scien-

the mere drawing of the

;

to Ba^

The drawing

of the

and person, a solution of the

formidable problem, and gives pleasure when Iph-

and Faust do

igenia

not, without

any

tion comparable to that of Iphigenia

This lawgiver of art

knew

that he

seeing of the whole of occasional

hundred

rate

collects sides,

this

leaves

deal

sits

and

fragmentary

down

to write

that

a writer

into the

body

great deal refuses to incorpoletters of the parties,

wiU not

find

any

great

This

place.

hence, notwithstanding the looseness of 18

sen-

from a

sorts his observations

the bookbinder alone can give any cohesion to

VOL. IV.

a drama or a

their journals, or the like.

still is left

;

an encyclopaedia of

he adds loosely as

from

Was

was micro-

just perspective, the

and combines them

as he can.

fitly

poems and

When

tences.

and Faust.

artist.

too much, that his sight

and interfered with the

scopic

tale,

not an

cost of inven-

;

many of

and his

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.

274 works,

we have volumes

of detached paragraphs,

aphorisms, IKenien, &c. I suppose the worldly tone of his tales of the calculations of self-culture.

an admirable

firmity of

world out of gratitude

;

scholar,

sure,

was the

who loved

who knew where

galleries, architecture, laboratories,

grew out

libraries,

savans and

Athens

rates loved

dame de

Montaigne, Paris

;

Soc-

and Ma-

Stael said she was only vulnerable on that It has its favorable as-

side (namely, of Paris).

the geniuses are usually so iU-assorted

and sickly that one else.

lei-

were to be had, and who did not quite trust

the compensations of poverty and nakedness.

pect.

in-

the

ever wishing them somewhere

seldom see any body who

or afraid to

live.

on the cheek

There

not uneasy

a slight blush of shame

good men and aspiring men, and a

But

spice of caricature.

this

man was

entirely at

home and happy in his century and the world. None was so fit to live, or more heartily enjoyed the game.

aim

this

genius of his works,

of culture,

is their

which

The

power.

absolute, eternal truth, without reference

own enlargement by

it, is

higher.

to the torrent of poetic inspiration

the

idea of to

The surrender is

higher

;

but

compared with any motives on which books are written in

England and America,

and has the power to

inspire

this is

very truth,

which belongs to

truth,

GOETHE; Thus

lias

THE WRITER.

OR,

275

he brought back to a book some of

its

ancient might and dignity.

Goethe, coming into an over-civilized time and country,

when

original talent was oppressed imder

the load of books

and mechanical

the distracting variety of claims, taught

men how

mountainous miscellany and make

to dispose of this it

and

auxiliaries

I join Napoleon with him, as being

subservient.

both representatives of the impatience and reaction of nature against the

morgue

of conventions,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; two

stern realists, who, with their scholars, have severally set the axe at the root of the tree of cant

seeming, for this time and for ful laborer, with

drawing

and

This cheer-

all time.

no external popularity or provocahis

own

breast, tasked himself with stints for a giant,

and

tion,

without relaxation or his pursuits,

and

his motive

rest,

his plan

from

except by alternating

worked on for eighty years with the

steadiness of his first zeal. It is the last lesson of

modern

highest simplicity of structure

science that the

produced, not by

few elements, but by the highest complexity. is

the most composite of all creatures

insect,

volvox globator,

shall learn to

;

Man

the wheel-

at the other extreme.

draw rents and revenues from

the immense patrimony of the old and the recent ages.

Goethe teaches courage, and the equivalence

of all times

;

that the disadvantages of any epoch

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.

276 exist

only to the

Genius hovers

faint-hearted.

with his sunshine and music close by the darkest

and deafest hold on

eras.

men

former great

mortgage, no attainder, will

or hours.

men

The world

young

the

call to us affectionately.

too must write Bibles, to unite again the heavens

and the earthly world. suffer

we know

The

fiction to exist for ;

secret of genius is to ;

to realize all that

in the high refinement of

in arts, in sciences, in books, in faith, reality

and a purpose

and without end,

;

modern

life,

men, to exact good

and

midst

first, last,

to honor every truth

use.