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LETTERS AND SOCIAL BEING VOLUME

AIMS

VIII.

EMERSON'S COMPLETE WORKS

LETTERS AND SOCIAL AIMS

RALPH WALDO EMERSON

Bfa

axCa Et'oiseti ^Iittton

BOSTON HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY New

York

II East Seventeenth Street

1897

/\-

oyst2.

CopyrigM, 1875,

Bt RALPH WALDO EMERSON. Copyright, 1883,

The Riverside FresSf Cambridge^ Mass., U. S. A. Electrotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton Company,

CONTENTS. PASB

pobtet and imagination

Social Aims

Eloquence

.....

107

Besoubces

131

The Comic

149

qnotation and originality

167

Pkogkess of Cultuee

195

Peesian Poetet

223

Inspieation

...

Geeatness Immoetalitt

253 283

.... .....

305

NOTE.

It seems proper to mention here the circmnstances under which this volume was put together, as they

may have some

bearing upon the estimate

Some time perhaps in 1870, Mr. Emerson learned that a London publisher was intending, without consulting him, to make up a upon

to be placed

it.

volume of his uncollected writings, from the "Dial"

and elsewhere. He was much disturbed by this intelligence, and wrote to his friend, Mr. Moncure Conway, to stop the publication if possible. In this Mr. Conway succeeded, but only upon the agree-

ment that Mr. Emerson would himself make such a collection, adding some new pieces, and would send advance-sheets to England, so that the book might appear simultaneously in both countries. This being

settled, the

American and the English

publishers began to urge speed, and Mr.

Emerson

applied himself to the task, though with heavy heart, partly

from a feeling of repugnance

at being

forced into an enterprise which he had not intended, but stiU more perhaps from a sense of ina-

NOTE.

bility,

real than

ning to make

he knew, which was begin-

felt.

itself

made, accordingly,

but slow progress, so that in the summer of 1872

he had got ready

little

more than the

first piece.

Poetry and Imagination, the proof-sheets of which

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; indeed had been for some time â&#x20AC;&#x201D; when on the 24th of July house

were in his hands, in his hands,

his

was burned and

all possibility of

to for the time, not merely

work put an end

by the confusion

of his

papers and the destruction of his wonted surroundings,

but yet more effectually by an

illness result-

ing from the shock.

The

proof-sheets

showed that already before

memory and to make it

accident his loss of

had gone

so far as

this

of mental grasp

imlikely that he

would in any case have been able to accomplish what he had undertaken.

Sentences, even whole

and there was a confusion of order beyond what even he would have tolerated.

pages, were repeated,

Now,

any

rate,

nothing was to be thought of but

and the attempt

mind by some diversion. The Nile-tour was suggested and made feasible by kind friends, and he wrote to England explaining the necessity for some delay. Soon after his return home he heard of the death of the English publisher, and supposed himself But in 1875 he was informed that the claim free. had passed on to the successors of the London firm, rest

to restore the tone of his

NOTE.

iii

and that they were asking what had become of their book. The old proof-sheets were again taken in hand, but again with a painful sense of incapac-

ity to deal with them.

degrees and with

much

reluctance he admitted the necessity of some assistance.

was known

make me

to his family that

his literary executor,

ceded to their asking

he intended

and he now

me to help him with the

ac-

book.

Before long he had committed the business of selection

and preparation

tirely to

me.

for the press, almost en-

course he was constantly con-

and he would sometimes, upon urging, supply a needed word or sentence, but he was quite sulted,

content to do as

little

leave everything in

as possible,

and desired

my hands.

This wiU appear to be of the more consequence in view of the fact that with the exception of four,

The Comic, Persian

Poetry, Quotation and and Progress of Culture, the essays contained in this volume, though written in great part long before, had never been published: and,

viz..

Originality,

further, of the state of the manuscripts,

which con-

sisted of loose sheets, laid together in parcels, each

marked on the cover with the title under which it was last read as a lecture, but often without any completely recoverable order or fixed limits. Mr. Emerson was in the habit of repeating, on different occasions, what was nominally the same lecture, in

NOTE.

iv reality often varied

some

dom

other, or of

of transition

by the introduction of part of

new

This, with his free-

matter.

and breadth of scope, which were

apt in any case to render the boundaries of the sub-

somewhat

ject

indistinct,

impossible for any to

made

often difficult or

one to determine with confidence

what particular lecture a given sheet or scrap

Nor indeed did I

originally belonged.

attempt, in

preparing the copy for the press, to adhere always to a single manuscript.

To have attempted

this

would have been contrary to Mr. Emerson's wishes.

What

he desired was simply to bring together un-

der the particular heading whatever could be found that seemed in place there, without regard to the

connection in which his

own

practice,

and

Most

to this effect.

was found.

all his

This had been

suggestions to

me were

of the time that he

(which was not very much)

spent

over the work, was

spent in searching his note-books,

new and

old, for

fresh matter that might be introduced with advan-

tage.

this

way

happened sometimes that

writing of very different dates was brought to-

gether

the essay on Immortality, which has

been cited as showing what were his latest opinions

on that

subject,

contains passages written

years apart from each other.

fifty

Then, as to the

se-

lection of the essays, there were, it is true, lists pre-

pared by Mr. Emerson with a view to future

vol.

NOTE. umes, but

him

many

of the papers

for years impublished,

had been lying by

and

it is

open to any

one to say that he never really decided upon publishing them, and, if he

had been

left to himself,

never would have published them.

There

nothing here that he did not write, and

he gave his fuU approval to whatever was done in the

way

of selection

and arrangement; but I can-

not say that he applied his the matter. that the

work should go

tion exactly

how

mind very

on, but

far he sanctioned

may be a

27, 1883.

ques-

it.

J. E.

Ava^st

closely to

was pleased, in a general way,

CABOT.

POETEY AND IMAGINATION.

The sense,

perception of matter

and for

cause.

human fire

common

;

in the order of nature.

first

Poverty, frost, famine,

disease, debt, are the beadles

and guardsmen that

The

hold us to common-sense. to

the

These are ends of necessity, and

plant, build.

made

This was the cradle, this the

child. We must learn the and water we must feed, wash,

go-cart, of the

homely laws of

itself,

intellect, yielded

cannot supersede this tyrannic neces-

sity.

The

mark

of all the valid minds,

restraining grace of common-sense

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; of JEsop,

the

Aristotle,

Alfred, Luther, Shakspeare, Cervantes, Franklin,

Napoleon.

The common-sense which does not med-

dle with the absolute, but takes things at their

word,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; things

as they appear,

existence of matter, not because

conceive of

it,

but because

and the universe does not

in the

we can touch

agrees with ourselves,

jest

earnest, is the house of health

of all the joys of poets

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; believes

with us, but

and

life.

and the joys of

spite

saints,

the most imaginative and abstracted person never

POETRY AND IMAGINATION.

makes ticular,

witli

imprmity the least mistake in this par-

— never

tries to

kindle his oven with water,

nor carries a torch into a powder-mill, nor seizes

by the tail. We should not pardon the hlimder in another, nor endure it in ourhis wild charger

selves.

But whUst we deal with this as finality, early we are not to stay here that a warning that we must be making ready to go ; this magnificent hotel and conveniency we call Nahints are given that

;

—

ture

not

nothing stands creation

something

First innuendoes, then broad

final.

smart taps are given, suggesting that

hints, then

still

in nature but death

on wheels, in else,

that matter

try can blow

that the

always passing into

streaming into something higher;

not what

transit,

;

appears

;

— that chemis-

Faraday, the most

all into gas.

exact of natural philosophers, taught that

when we

should arrive at the monads, or primordial elements

(the supposed

little

cubes or prisms of which

all

matter was built up), we should not find cubes, or prisms, or atoms, at aU, but spherules of force.

was whispered that the globes of the universe were precipitates of something

what was murmured tronomy into a toy

;

subtle; nay, some-

in our ear that dwindled as-

— that

too was no finality

only provisional, a makeshift ; that under chemistry

was power and purpose

power and purpose ride

INTRODUCTORY. on matter to the

atom.

last

was steeped in

thought, did everywhere express thought

;

that, as

great conquerors have burned their ships

when

once they were landed on the wished-for shore, so the noble house of Nature

rary uses, and

The ends

we can

of all are moral,

Thin or

nings are such.

inhabit has tempo-

afford to leave

one day.

and therefore the beginsolid,

everything

I believe this conviction makes the charm

flight.

of chemistry,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; that we have the same avoirdupois

matter in an alembic, without a vestige of the old

form

;

and in animal transformation not

grub and

fly,

in egg

and

bird, in

less,

as in

embryo and man

everything undressing and stealing away from

its

new form, and nothing fast but those incords which we call laws, on which all is Then we see that things wear different

old into visible

strung.

names and

but belong to one family; that

faces,

the secret cords or laws show their tue through every variety, be or planet, and the interest

from the forms

weU-known

vir-

animal, or plant,

gradually transferred

to the lurking method.

This hint, however conveyed, upsets our

politics,

trade, customs, marriages, nay, the common-sense

and

side of religion

on low nature, ical

mode

literature,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; on the

which are

clearest

all

founded

and most econom-

of administering the material world, con-

sidered as flual.

The

admission, never so covertly.

POETRY AND IMAGINATION.

12 that this

ferment

a makeshift,

our

little

sir,

sets the dullest brain in

from

his

first

tottering

soon as he can crow, does not like to be " practised upon, suspects that some one is " doing steps, as

him, and at this alarm everything

gunpowder

compromised

under every man's breakfast-

laid

table.

But

whilst

man

the

startled

this closer

inspection of the laws of matter, his attention called to the independent action of the

strange suggestions and laws

mind

;

is its

a certain tyranny

;

which springs up in his own thoughts, which have

an order, method, and different

beliefs of their

from the order which

this

own, very

common-sense

uses.

Suppose there were in the ocean certain strong currents which drove a ship, caught in them, with

a force that no

make any head

oars, or sails, or steam, coiJd

any more than against the Such currents, so tyrannical,

against,

current of Niagara. j

with the best wind,

skill of sailing

and no strength of

exist in thoughts, those finest

and

subtilest of all

waters, that as soon as once thought begins, fuses to

remember whose brain

country, tradition, or religion off

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; swim we merrily â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

by law

of thought

it ;

belongs to

;

re-

what

and goes whirling

in a direction self-chosen,

and not by law of kitchen clock

or county committee.

It has its

own

polarity.

One

INTRODUCTORY.

of these vortices or self-directions of thought is the

impulse to search resemblance, in all

its

rudest to

The

objects, its

most refined

electric

affinity, identity,

and hence our

science,

from

its

theories.

word pronounced by John Hunter a

hundred years ago, arrested and progressive development, indicating the way upward from the

invisi-

ble protoplasm to the highest organisms, gave the poetic

key

ries of

Geoffroy St. Hilaire, of Oken, of Goethe, of

to Natural Science, of

Agassiz and

Owen and Darwin

any, are the fruits,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;a

which the theo-

in zoology

and

hint whose power

bot-

not

yet exhausted, showing unity and perfect order in physics.

The hardest

chemist, the severest analyzer, scorn-

ful of all but dryest fact, is forced to keep the

poetic curve of nature,

myth

of Theocritus.

resolved into unity.

and

his result is like a

All mixltiplicity rushes to be

Anatomy,

osteology, exhibit

arrested or progressive ascent in each kind

;

the

lower pointing to the higher forms, the higher to the highest, from the fluid in an elastic sack, from radiate, mollusk, articulate, vertebrate,

terian

the whole animal world were only a

museum

exhibit

the

genesis

man Hunman-

kind.

Identity of law, perfect order in physics, perfect parallelism between the laws of Nature

and the

POETRY AND IMAGINATION.

laws of thought the poetic

exist.

In botany we have the

like,

perception of metamorphosis, â&#x20AC;&#x201D; that the

same vegetable point or eye which

the unit of

the plant can be transformed at pleasure into every part, as bract, leaf, petal, stamen, pistil, or seed.

In geology, what a useful hint was given to the early inquirers on seeing in the possession of Professor Playfair a

perfect

wood

at one

of a fossil tree

and out

which was

end and perfect mineral coal

Natural objects,

at the other.

scribed

bough

individually de-

of connection, are not yet

known,

since they are reaUy parts of a symmetrical universe, like

order

words of a sentence

;

and

their true

found, the poet can read their divine sig-

nificance orderly as in a Bible.

vegetable form remembers the

Each animal or next inferior and

predicts the next higher.

There

one force.

one animal, one plant, one matter, and

The laws

each other

late

color

;

and

;

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; so

of light

and

of heat trans-

do the laws of sound and of

so galvanism, electricity,

and magnetism

are varied forms of the selfsame energy.

While

the student ponders this immense unity, he observes that all things in Nature, the animals, the tain, the river, the seasons,

wood,

moun-

iron, stone, vapor,

have a mysterious relation to his thoughts and his life

;

their growths, decays, quality

riously resemble himself, in parts

and use

so cu-

and in wholes,

INTRODUCTORY. that he

compelled to speak by means of them.

His words and help.

his thoughts are

Every noun

an image.

framed by their Nature gives him,

sometimes in a flattered likeness, sometimes

in.

cari-

humor and shade in his The world is an immense picture-book of every passage in human life. Every object he beholds is the mask of a man. cature, a copy of every

character and mind.

" Tlie privates of man's heart

They speken and sound in his As tho' they loud winds were

ear "

;

for the universe

is full

of their echoes.

Every correspondence we observe in mind and matter suggests a substance older and deeper than either of these old nobilities.

see the law[

gleaming through, like the sense of a half-translated

The poet who plays with

ode of Hafiz.

most boldness best

justifies

found and most devout. a magnifying-glass.

himself;

with

most pro-

Passion adds eyes;

Sonnets of lovers are

mad

enough, but are valuable to the philosopher, as are prayers of saints, for their potent symbolism. Science was false by being unpoetical.

sumed it,

tile

a reptUe or moUusk, and isolated

to explain

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; which

It as-

hunting for

man

or mollusk or

life in

graveyards. Rep-

or angel only exists in sys-

tem, in relation.

The metaphysician,

sees each animal

form as an inevitable step in the

the poet, only

POETRY AND IMAGINATION.

The Indian,

path of the creating mind.

the hunter,

the boy with his pets, have sweeter knowledge of these than the savant.

We use semblances of logic

until experience puts us in possession of real logic.

The poet knows the missing link by the joy it gives. The poet gives us the eminent experiences only,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; a god

stepping from peak to peak,

nor

planting his foot but on a mountain.

know

Science does not

debt to imagination.

its

Goethe did not believe that a great naturalist could exist without this faculty.

scious of its help,

among

was himself con-

which made him a prophet

From

the doctors.

this

vision

brave hints to the zoologist, the botanist,

he gave

and the

optician.

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; The primary use of a fact

Poetry.

secondary use, as thought, its

low

the real worth.

First the fact

impression, or what I think of

it.

;

metals,

eye, but

ing charm.

only

diamonds and

Hence Nature the

Their value to the intellect appears

when I hear its

Seas,

fossils interest

only with some preparatory or predict-

their

meaning made plain in the

spiritual truth they cover.

with

second

was called " a kind of adulterated reason." forests,

the

;

a figure or illustration of

it is

sentiment or

ward on whatever

its

The mind, penetrated

thought, projects

beholds.

The

out-

lover sees re-

POETRY.

minders of his mistress in every beautiful object the saint, an argument for devotion in every natural process

;

and the

facility

with which Nature

lends itself to the thoughts of man, the aptness

with which a river, a flower, a bird,

day or

fire,

night, can express his fortunes, is as if the world

were only a disguised man, and, with a change of form, rendered to

him

all his experience.

cannot utter a sentence in sprightly conversation without a similitude. the word like, like

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Kke

Note our incessant use of

fire, like a rock, like thimder, a bee, " like a year without a spring." Con-

versation

not permitted without tropes

;

nothing

but great weight in things can afford a quite speech.

God

It is ever enlivened

literal

by inversion and trope.

himself does not speak prose, but communi-

cates with us

hints, omens, inference,

resemblances in objects lying

all

around

and dark

us.

Nothing so marks a man as imaginative expressions. is

A figurative statement arrests attention, and

remembered and repeated.

How

often has a

phrase of this kind made a reputation.

Pythago-

Golden Sayings were such, and Socrates's, and Mirabeau's, and Burke's, and Bonaparte's. Genius ras's

thus makes the transfer from one part of Nature to a remote

partj

and betrays the rhymes and

echoes that pole makes with pole.

minds cling

to their images,

Imaginative

and do not wish them

POETRY AND IMAGINATION.

rashly rendered into prose reality, as children re-

them that their doll Cinderella and my young is nothing but pine wood and rags scholar does not wish to know what the leopard, sent your showing

;

the wolf, or Lucia, signify in Dante's Inferno, but

Mark

prefers to keep their veils on. of an audience in an image.

truth or fact appears in a

on a

fine horse,

ballooniag wings, surprise

the delight

Wlien some familiar new dress, mounted as

equipped with a grand pair of

we cannot enough

and pleasure.

It is like the

shown in some imprized old property,

boy

finds that

filings

his pocket-knife will

attract steel

and take up a needle or when the old horse;

block in the yard

of the Phidian age.

foimd to be a Torso Hercules Vivacity of expression

no great scope, as when Michel Angelo, praising

the terra cottas, said, " If this earth were to

marble, woe to the antiques is

may

when the thought

indicate this high gift, even of

our

testify

new virtue as when a

happy symbol

a sort of evidence that your thought

had rather have a good symbol

a good analogy, than the suffrage of

you agree with me, or

become

is just.

thought, or

Kant

or Plato.

Locke or Montesquieu agree, I may yet be wrong but if the ebn-tree thinks the same thing, if running water, if burning If

;

coal, if crystals, if alkalies, in their several fashions

say what I say,

must be

true.

Thus a good sym-

POETRY. bol

the best argument, and

19 a missionary to

The Vedas,

persuade thousands.

the Edda, the

Koran, are each remembered by their happiest

There

ure.

a new symbol.

no more welcome

That

gift to

fig-

men than

satiates, transports, converts

They assimilate themselves to it, deal with it and it will last a hundred years. Then comes a new genius, and brings another. Thus the Greek mythology called the sea " the tear of Saturn." The return of the soul to God was described them.

in all ways,

as " a flask of water broken in the sea."

Saint

John gave us the Christian figure of " souls washed in the blood of Christ." The aged Michel Angelo indicates his perpetual study as in boyhood,

carry

satchel stOl."

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; "I

Machiavel described the

papacy as " a stone inserted in the body of Italy to keep the wound open." ing

how

to tax America,

the wolf."

the Parliament debat-

Burke exclaimed, " Shear

Our Kentuckian

orator said of his dis-

sent from his companion, " I showed of

my hand."

soldier reads

him the back

And our proverb of the courteous " An iron hand in a velvet glove."

This belief that the higher use of the material

world

to furnish us types or pictures to express

the thoughts of the mind,

carried to its logical

extreme by the Hindoos, who, following Buddha,

have made

that what

the central doctrine of their religion call

Nature, the external world, has

POETRY AND IMAGINATION.

real existence,

—

only phenomenal.

age,

property, condition,

even,

— are

successive

Youth,

persons, —

events,

self,

maias (deceptions) through

which Vishnu mocks and instructs the

soul.

think Hindoo books the best gymnastics for the

mind, as showing treatment. ries

All European

libra/-

might almost be read without the swing of this

gigantic

arm being

suspected.

But

these Orientals

deal with worlds and pebbles freely.

For the value one

of a trope is that the hearer is

and indeed Nature

itself is

a vast trope, and

all particular natures are tropes.

alights

again, so the thoughts of

ment

the bird

on the bough, then plunges into the air

any form.

God

pause but for a mo-

All thinking

analogizing,

and

The endnew forms, the in-

it is

the use of life to learn metonymy.

less

passing of one element into

cessant metamorphosis, explains the rank which the

imagination holds in our catalogue of mental powers. The imagination is the reader of these forms. The poet accounts all productions and changes of Nature as the nouns of language, uses them repre-

sentatively, too well pleased with their ulterior to

value

much

their primary meaning.

Every new

object so seen gives a shock of agreeable surprise.

The impressions on

the imagination

make

the great

the book, the landscape, or the per-

days of

life

sonality

which did not stay on the surface of the

POETRY.

eye or ear but penetrated to the inward sense, agitates us,

and

Walking, working,

not forgotten.

or talking, tke sole question vibrate on this mystic string,

drawn

ters are

quite through

how many

strokes

— how many diame-

from matter

to spirit

for whenever you enunciate a natural law you dis-

cover that you have enunciated a law of the mind.

Chemistry, geology, hydraulics, are secondary

cess

The atomic theory

sci-

only an interior pro-

produced, as geometers

say, or the effect of

ence.

Swedenborg saw

a foregone metaphysical theory.

gravity to be only an external of the irresistible

and

attractions of affection

oceans

faith.

we think we understand

;

—

Mountains and yes, so

long as

they are contented to be such, and are safe with the geologist,

— but when they are •

melted in Pro-

methean alembics and come out men, and then, melted again, come out words, without any abatement, but with an exaltation of power

In poetry we say we require the miracle. bee

flies

among

The

the flowers, and gets mint and mar-

joram, and generates a

new

product, which

mint and marjoram, but honey

;

not

the chemist mixes

hydrogen and oxygen to yield a new product, which is

not these, but water

versation

and beholds

back, not them, but a

Poetry

;

and the poet

listens to con-

all objects in nature, to

new and transcendent

give

whole.

the perpetual endeavor to express the

POETRY AND IMAGINATION.

search the life and reason which causes

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

body and

of the thing, to pass the brute

spirit

to exist

to see that the object is always flowing away,

whilst the spirit or necessity which causes Its essential

sists.

word

mark

that

instant activity of mind,

of every fact

It is

miraculous

shown

new

uses

and image, in preternatural quick-

ness or perception of relations.

poems.

sub-

betrays in every

AU its

words are

a presence of mind that gives a

command

of all

means

of uttering the

The poet

thought and feeling of the moment. squanders on the hour an amount of

would

that

life

more than furnish the seventy years

of the

man

that stands next him.

The term "

genius,"

implies imagination speech.

ultimate

A deep its

;

when used with emphasis, use of symbols, figurative

insight will always, like Nature,

thought in a thing.

soon as a

man

masters a principle and sees his facts in relation to it,

fields,

waters, skies, offer to clothe his thoughts

Then all men imderstand him ParMede, Chinese, Spaniard, and Indian hear own tongue. For he can now find symbols

in images. thian, their

of universal significance,

;

which are readily ren-

dered into any dialect; as a painter, a sculptor, a musician, can in their several ways express the

same sentiment of anger, or

love, or religion.

The thoughts are few, the forms many the ;

large

IMAGINATION.

vocabulary or many-colored coat of the indigent

The savans

unity.

them hard

come mute and what

are chatty and vain, but hold

to principle

and

What

near-sighted.

beauty ? what

and they be-

definition,

matter

motion?

what

life ?

Push them hard and they will not be loquacious. They wiU come to Plato, Proclus, and Swedenborg. The invisible and imponderable

what

force ?

the sole fact.

earth into

musk ?

Why

changes not the violet

What

flowing metamorphosis

the term of the ever-

do not know what

are the stoppages, but I see that a devouring unity

changes

The

all into

that which changes not.

act of imagination

ever attended

It infuses a certain volatility

delight.

It has a flute

eation into all nature.

the atoms of our frame in a dance.

minate

size is

the

air.

sets

indeter-

reveals to

The mountains begin to disHmn, and

us.

iatoxi-

which

Our

a delicious secret which

by pure

and

float in

In the presence and conversation of a true

poet, teeming with images to express his enlarging

thought, his person, his form, grows larger to our fascinated eyes.

which

all

And

thus begins that deification

nations have

every kind,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

saints,

made

of their heroes in

poets, lawgivers,

and war-

riors.

Imagination.

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Whilst

common-sense looks at

POETRY AND IMAGINATION.

things or visible nature as real and final facts, poetry, or the

ond

as types or

words for thoughts which they

of poetry

whim

and quite too refined?

as old as the

it, is

sec-

through these, and using them

is this belief a metaphysical

times, is

imagination which dictates

sight, looking

signify.

modern

the contrary,

Our

human mind.

best definition

one of the oldest sentences, and claims

come down to us from the Chaldaean Zoroaster, who wrote it thus " Poets are standing trans-

porters,

whose employment consists in speaking to

the Father and to matter imitations of unapparent

in producing apparent

;

natures,

and inscribing

things unapparent in the apparent fabrication

the world

thought

;

" in other words, the world exists for

it is

make appear

things which hide

mountains, crystals, plants, animals, are seen

which makes them

not seen:

;

that

these, then, are

" apparent copies of unapparent natures."

Bacon

expressed the same sense in his definition, " Poetry

accommodates the shows of things to the desires of the

" There

mind " and Swedenborg, when he ;

nothing existing in

human

said,

thought, even

though relating to the most mysterious tenet of faith,

but has combined with

suous image." tions,

who

and the

And

again

a natural and sen-

" Names, countries, na-

like are not at all

are in heaven

;

known

to those

they have no idea of such

IMAGINATION.

things, but of the realities signified thereby."

symbol always stimulates the is

intellect; therefore

The very design

poetry ever the best reading.

of imagination

is to

domesticate us in another, in a

celestial nature.

This power in nature. is

image because

in the

It so affects, because it so

wondrous in Swedenborg

mind.

The

Better than images

image

selection of the

;

AH that

— that

The world

see.

power

is.

he was the

realizes

seen through them.

no more arbitrary

than the power and significance of the image. selection

must foUow

the only verity ;

and not

fate.

Poetry,

the speech of

i£

man

shall

after the real,

we say that the imagination

plates the central identity,

way and

remotest thiags

;

exists

The poet contem-

sees

undtdate and

with divine flowings, through

that,

and, following

it,

can detect

sential resemblances in natures never before

pared.

The

perfected, is

after the apparent.

sharing the ethereal currents ?

roll this

not his invention,

but his extraordinary perception necessitated

this

es-

com-

can class them so audaciously because

he is sensible of the sweep of the celestial stream,

from which nothing fleeing apparition,

—

exempt.

His own body

his personality as fugitive as

the trope he employs.

In certain hours we can

almost pass our hand through our

own

body.

POETRY AND IMAGINATION.

think the use or value of poetry to be the suggestion

affords of the flux or fugaciousness of the

The mind

poet.

delights in measuring itself thus

with matter, with history, and flouting both.

thought, any thought, pressed, followed, opened,

dwarfs matter, custom, and

all

but

But

itself.

this second sight does not necessarily impair the

primary or common sense. yes,

aster,

may

logic,

though

observes higher laws than he

" Poetry must

of Zoro-

be parsed, though we do not parse

all

The poet has a

them.

Piudar, and Dante,

and the gray and time worn sentences

first

be subtile.

transgresses.

be good sense, though

it is

some-

thing better."

This union of to the

first

and second

sight reads nature

end of delight and of moral

use.

imaginative, but not overpowered by tent of confounding

nal facts.

"We

mix them. its

thought,

Genius

its

live in

Men

are

to the ex-

suggestions with

exter-

both spheres, and must not

certifies its entire

translating

perfectly represents

it,

and

possession of

into a

fact

which

hereby education.

Fox thought " Poetry the great rethe human mind, the only thing,

Charles James

freshment of

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

that men first found out they had minds, by making and tasting poetry." after all

Man

;

runs about restless and in pain when his

condition or the objects about

him do not

fully

IMAGINATION.

match

his thought.

old, to

be young, that things

the ocean, in

fire,

facts adequate

wishes to be rich, to be

may obey

him.

in the sky, in the forest, he finds

and as large

as he.

his thoughts

are deeper than he can fathom, so also are these. It

easier to read Sanscrit, to decipher the arrow-

head character, than to interpret these familiar It is even

sights.

much

name them.

Thus

Thomson's " Seasons " and the best parts of many old and many new poets are simply enumerations by a person who felt the beauty of the common sights and sounds, without any attempt to draw a

moral or

affix

The poet

a meaning.

discovers that

what men value as sub-

stances have a higher value as symbols

ture

the

action is

immense shadow

;

that Na-

man.

man's

only a picture-book of his creed.

does after what he believes.

employment,

Your

The world

the fable of you.

thoroughly anthropomorphized, as

condition, your

if it

had passed

through the body and mind of man, and taken his

mould and form. Indeed, good poetry is always personification, and heightens every species of force in nature

by giving

advertised that there

a human

nothing to which

related; that everything other.

The

of the sun.

staff in his

are

man is not

convertible into every

hand

The chemistry

volition.

the radius vector

of this

the chemistry

POETRY AND IMAGINATION.

Whatever one act we do, whatever one thing we learn, we are doing and learning all of that.

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; marching

things,

in the direction of universal

Every healthy mind

power.

a true Alexander

or Sesostris, building a universal monarchy.

The

senses imprison us,

metres as limitary, foot-rule

and a

and we help them with

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; with a pair

clock.

How

of scales

long

out what a day was, or what this sun, that

days

It cost thousands of years only to

and a

took to find

makes

make

the

by comparing thousands of observations, there dawned on some mind a theory of the sun, and we found the astronomical fact. But the astronomy is in the mind the senses affirm that the earth stands stUl and the sun moves. The senses collect the surface facts of matter. The intellect acts on these brute reports, and obtains from them results which are the essence or intellectual form of the experiences. It compares, distributes, generalizes and uplifts them into its own sphere. It knows that these motion of the earth suspected.

Slowly,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

transfigured results are not the brute experiences,

heaven are not the red bodies they

just as souls in

once animated. fallen them. nebulae,

Many

transfigurations have

The atoms

of the

be-

body were once

then rock, then loam, then corn, then

chyme, then chyle, then blood; and now the beholding and co-energizing mind sees the same

refin-

IMAGINATION.

iug and ascent to the third, the seventh, or the tenth power of the daily accidents which the senses report,

edge.

and which make the raw material It

of knowl-

was sensation when memory came, ;

was

experience when mind acted, it was knowledge when mind acted on it as knowledge, it was thought. ;

This metonymy, or seeing the same sense in

Every

things so diverse, gives a pure pleasure.

one of a million times we find a charm in the metar morphosis.

makes us dance and

are so far poets. relish poetry,

Poets, or I

When

tell

All

sing.

know

not what volumes of rhymed

But

has no charm, I

For they

^Esop, â&#x20AC;&#x201D; cannot forget him, or not use him Iliad,

and they

Cid, and that rings well cer,

;

quite

books only

this dislike of the

proves their liking of poetry.

them Homer's

men

they do not

and bring me Shelley, or Aikin's

English, to show that of their mind.

people

like that

;

relish ;

bring or the

read to them from Chau-

and they reckon him an honest

fellow.

Lear

and Macbeth and Richard III. they know pretty weU without guide. Give them Robin Hood's ballads or Griselda, or Sir

Andrew

Barton, or Sir Pat-

rick Spense, or Chevy Chase, or

and they

like these well enough.

statues

they like to

talk

;

name

Tam

O'Shanter,

They

the stars

;

like to see

they like to

and hear of Jove, Apollo, Minerva, Venus,

and the Nine.

See how tenacious we are of the

POETRY AND IMAGINATION.

They like poetry without knowing it They like to go to the theatre and be made to weep to Faneuil HaU, and be taught by Otis, Webster, or Kossuth, or PhiUips, what great hearts they have, what tears, what new possible enThey like to largements to their narrow horizons. old names. as such.

;

see sunsets on the hiUs or

Now

on a lake shore.

cow does not gaze at the rainbow, or show or affect any interest in the landscape, or a peacock, or the song of thrushes.

Nature best,

When

the true idealist.

she serves us

when, on rare days, she speaks to the imagi-

nation,

feel that the

huge heaven and earth are

but a web drawn around

us, that the light, skies,

and mountains are but the painted the soul.

Who

hymn

has heard our

without accepting the truth,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

" As o'er our heads the seasons

And

Of credit

vicissitudes of

in the churches

roll,

soothe with change of bliss the soul " ?

when we describe man him with the triumphs of the

course,

of the potential or ideal

man,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; not

as poet, and art,

we speak

found now in

You must go through a city or a nation, and find one faculty here, one there, to

any one person.

build the true poet withal. portrait

when

it is

Yet aU men know the

drawn, and

it is

to believe its possible incarnation.

part of religion

IMAGINATION.

the Kealthy, the wise, the fundamental, the

manly man,

seer of the secret

;

against all the ap-

pearance he sees and reports the truth, namely that the soul generates matter. verity,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; the expression of

after the ideal,

power

the only

mind speaking

As a

after the apparent.

and the treating them as representa-

as a talent

poetry

the perception of the symbolic charac-

ter of things, tive

and not

And

a soimd

a magnetic tenaciousness of

an image, and by the treatment demonstrating that this

pigment of thought

to the poet as is the

as palpable

and objective

ground on which he stands, or

And

the walls of houses about him.

appears in Dante and Shakspeare.

power

this

In some indi-

viduals this insight or second sight has an extraor-

dinary reach which compels our wonder, as in Beh-

men, Swedenborg, and William Blake the painter.

William Blake, whose abnormal genius, Wordsworth

said, interested

him more than the converByron, writes thus

sation of

Scott

who does

not imagine in stronger and better

or of

He lin-

eaments and in stronger and better light than his perishing

mortal eye can

see,

The

painter of this

work

all.

his imaginations appear to fect

him

does not imagine asserts that all

infinitely

per-

and more minutely organized than anything

seen by his mortal eye.

... I

assert for myself

that I do not behold the outward creation, and that

POETRY AND IMAGINATION.

would be a hindrance, and not

I question not

corporeal eye any

action.

more than

I would question a window concerning a sight. look through

it,

and not with

a problem of metaphysics to define the

The words

province of Fancy and Imagination. are often used,

agination respects the cause.

which

in all nature of that

as soon as this soul

and

It is the vision of

it is

But

driven to say.

released a

little

amusement, and not for

call its action

Fancy.

from

its

man who

pas-

and

moral end,

its

mad

Lear,

and affirmations

at leisure plays with the resemblances

types, for

Im-

and the things confounded.

inspired soul reading arguments

sion,

it."

with his af-

must have What, have his daughters brought him to this pass ? " But when, his attention being diverted, his mind rests from this thought, he becomes fanciful with Tom, playfliction,

thinks every

suffers

the like cause with his own.

ing with the superficial resemblances of objects.

Bunyan, in pain for Progress "

;

his

soul,

" Quarles, after he

wrote " Pilgrim's

was quite

cool,

wrote

Emblems." Imagination

central

relates to surface, in

The

;

fancy, superficial.

which a great part of

Fancy life lies.

lover is rightly said to fancy the hair, eyes,

complexion of the maid.

Fancy

a wilful, imag-

VERACITY. ination a spontaneous act dolls

fancy, a play as with

;

and puppets which we choose

to call

of a real relation between a thought

Fancy amuses

terial fact.

and

exalts us.

joins

and amuses the

surprises

and some ma-

imagination expands

;

Imagination uses an organic

Fancy

fication.

gregates

idle,

but

is silent

in the

Fancy

ag-

Fancy is related Fancy paints im-

imagination animates.

;

imagination, to form.

;

classi-

accidental resemblance,

presence of great passion and action.

to color

men and

imagination, a perception and affirming

women;

;

agination sculptures.

Veracity.

poet

— I do not wish,

therefore, to find that

not partaker of the feast he spreads, or

that he would kindle or

amuse me with that which

does not kindle or amuse him. in his

Homer, Milton,

poetry.

must believe

Hafiz, Herbert,

Swedenborg, Wordsworth, are heartily enamored Moreover, they know that

of their sweet thoughts. this

correspondence of things to thoughts

far

deeper than they can penetrate, — defying adequate expression things.

;

that

elemental, or in the core of

Veracity therefore

quire in poets,

— that

that which

they shall say

with them, and not what might be

how

said.

we it

And

re-

was the

fault of our popular poetry is that it is not sincere.

What news ? "

VOL. vni.

asks

man

everywhere.

POETRY AND IMAGINATION.

The only

news

teller of

When

the poet.

the world listens with the assurance that

sings,

now a

God

secret of

The

to be spoken.

right

makes a more complete sensithe outward fact to the meaning bility, piercing and the perof the fact shows a sharper insight

mood

poetic

;

ception creates the strong expression of

man who

sees his

way walks

It is a rule in eloquence, that the

command

orator loses

commands him. So him

to express

to respect the as

as the

moment

the

of his audience, the audience

in poetry, the master rushes to

and the words and images

deliver his thought, to

it,

it.

;

whilst colder

ways of saying

it,

fly

moods are forced

and

insinuate, or,

were, muffle the fact to suit the poverty or

caprice of their expression, so that they only hint

the matter, or allude to

mould

their

it,

being unable to fuse and

words and images to

fluid obedience.

See how Shakspeare grapples at once with the

main problem

of the tragedy, as in

and the opening

beth,

Lear and Mac-

Merchant

of the

of Venice.

All writings must be in a degree exoteric, written

human should or would,

to a is

this holds

writers.

instead of to the fatal

even of the bravest and sincerest

Every writer

a skater, and must go

partly where he would, and partly where the skatea

carry sails

him

;

or a sailor,

can be blown.

who can only land where

And

yet

it is

be added that

VERACITY. high poetry exceeds the

35 nature

fact, or

as skates allow the good skater far

would show, or

his best walking riding.

The poet

of his

his fingers

body

;

course one draws the

one speaks with his

lips

and the other

Talent amuses, but

verse has not a necessary

your

and autobiographic

though under whatever gay poetic

basis,

not

veils, it shall

my time.

For poetry virgin soil for virtue

it is

;

faith.

;

the poet the world

practicable

;

the

men

Adam

in the

are ready

always time to do right.

true re-commencer, or

more than

and the other with the strength

with a chest voice.

waste

sails

writes from a real experience,

the amateur feigns one.

bow with

just

itself,

more grace than

garden again.

affirms the applicability of the ideal law to this

moment and lawyers and

the present knot of affairs.

men

Parties,

of the world will invariably dis-

pute such an application, as romantic and dangerous

they admit the general truth, but they and

their affair always constitute a case in bar of the statute.

Free-trade, they concede,

very well as a

principle, but it is never quite the time for its adop-

tion without prejudicing actual interests. tity,

they admit,

very well,

of Mirabeau's passion

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; but

Chas-

then think

and temperament

Eternal

laws are very well, which admit no violation,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

but so extreme were the times and manners of

POETRY AND IMAGINATION.

mankind, that you must admit miracles, for the

times constituted a case.

what you

— but

say, that legends are

this

legend

course,

we know

found in

all tribes,

And

is different.

so throughout

the poet affirms the laws, prose busies itself with exceptions,

— with the

I require that the

and individual.

local

poem should impress me

that after I have shut the book

And

to itself, or that passages should. is

memory

the criticism of

impressions.

and

first

But

by new words

all this is easily

Later, the thought, the

which expressed

inestimable

which occupy the fancy

and deceive the judgment. forgotten.

as a corrective to first

are dazzled at

brilliancy of color,

shall recall

happy image

and which was a true experi-

ence of the poet, recurs to mind, and sends

back in search of the book.

And

I vdsh that the

poet should foresee this habit of readers, and omit all

but the important passages.l

Shakspeare

made up of important passages, like Damascus steel made up of old nails. Homer has his own,

—

" One

and again, "

They

omen

best, to flght for one's

country

" ;

—

heal their griefs, for curable are the hearts of the noble."

Write, that I as your eyes do.

may know

you.

Style betrays you,

We detect at once

whether

VERACITY.

the writer has a firm grasp on his fact or thought,

—

exists at the

moment

for that alone, or whether

he has one eye apologizing, deprecatory, turned

In proportion always to his posses-

his reader.

sion of his thought

There

his defiance of his readers.

no choice of words for him who clearly

That provides him with the best

sees the truth.

word.

Great design belongs to a poem, and than any it

poems

in the

the

Ode

design,

The

it.

work away

then

will,

it is,

grand or gay,

has a natural prominence

until

you come

though

to the heart

were a sparrow or a

spider-web, as fully represent the central law

draw

all tragic or joyful illustration, as if it

the book of Genesis or the book of subject

Any

want an

moment, you have not rightly

matter what

national or private,

do not appear to you the flower

of the world at this

Recluse.

and they bring us an upholsterer.

If your subject

to you,

I find

and do not forgive the bards

they have only the art of enamelling. architect,

better

and the plan

to Dion,

We want

chosen

— but how rare Wordsworth, — Laodamia, and

skill of execution,

— we

must so often say

—

Doom. is

and

were

The

indifferent.

word, every word in language, every circum-

stance,

becomes poetic in the hands of a higher

thought.

POETRY AND IMAGINATION.

The test

or measure of poetic genius

to read the poetry of affairs,

stance of to-day

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

the power

to fuse the circum-

not to use Scott's antique super-

;

Shakspeare's, but to convert those of

stitions, or

the nineteenth century and of the existing nations into universal symbols.

'Tis easy to repaint the

mythology of the Greeks, or of the Catholic Church, the feudal castle, the crusade, the martyrdoms of

mediaeval Europe

same

point out where the

but to

;

creative force

now working

houses and public assemblies

;

energies acting at this hour in

in our

own

to convert the vivid

New York and

Chi-

cago and San Francisco, into universal symbols,

commanding thought.

requires a subtile and

'Tis

boyish in Swedenborg to cumber himself with the

dead scurf of Hebrew antiquity, as creative energy

American

life

had fainted in

his

the Divine

own

storms about us daily, and

century. is

This contemporary insight

find a tongue.

slow to is

tran-

substantiation, the conversion of daily bread into

the holiest symbols

poet

and every man would be a

;

his intellectual digestion

test of the poet is the

day, with

its

news,

them, and hold sees it to

power

were perfect.

The

to take the passing

he shares

its

cares, its fears, as

to a divine reason,

till

have a purpose and beauty, and to be

related to astronomy

and history and the eternal

order of the world.

Then

in his hand.

the dry twig blossoms

calmed and elevated.

VERACITY. of " occasional

The use

poems "

Every one

to originality.

39 to give leave

delights in the felicity

frequently shown in our drawing-rooms.

game-party or picnic poem each writer

from the solemn rhythmic

and

poem

of the partners offers a hints at a

new

result is that one

in a

commonly

new

style that

Yet the writer holds

literature.

cheap, and could do the like all day.

the farce

In a

released

which alarm

traditions

and the

suffocate his fancy,

the stage,

far better given than the

tragedy, as the stock actors understand the farce,

and do not understand the tragedy.

The

writer in

the parlor has more presence of mind, more wit and fancy,

more play

of thought, on the incidents that

occur at table or about the house, than in the politics of

Germany

Eome. Many

of Herrick, Jonson,

and

of the fine

poems

their contemporaries

had

this casual origin.

know

there

ent in the

artist's

entertainment and room for

tal-

selection of ancient or remote

as when the poet goes to India, or to Rome, or Persia, for his fable. But I believe nobody knows better than he that herein he consults

subjects

;

his ease rather than his strength or his desire. is

very

life

weU convinced

that the great

are those in which his

own

moments

house, his

He of

own body,

the tritest and nearest ways and words and things

have been illuminated into prophets and teachers.

POETRY AND IMAGINATION.

What

else is it to

What What but

be a poet ?

land and singing-robes

are

gar-

a sensibility

keen that the scent of an elder-blow, or the

timber-yard and corjjoration-works of a nest of pismires

event enough for him,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

all

emblems and

personal appeals to him.

His wreath and robe

do what he enjoys

emancipation from other

;

men's questions, and glad study of his own

escape

;

from the gossip and routine of society, and the allowed right and practice of making better. He does not give his hand, but in sign of giving his heart

;

not affable with

all,

but

There

no subject that does not belong to him,

tics,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

poli-

economy, manufactures and stock-brokerage,

much

uncom-

silent,

mitted, or in love, as his heart leads him.

as sunsets

and

souls

;

only, these things,

placed in their true order, are poetry ; displaced, or

put in kitchen order, they are unpoetic. is

Malthus

the right organ of the English propf ietors

Burns or B^ranger or some poet songs,

and he

Poetrjr

the poet

;

but

understand political economy until

shall never

shall teach it in

will not teach Malthusianism.

the gai science.

The

critic destroys

trait

and

test of

affirms.

The

the poet says nothing but

what

that he builds, adds,

and

helps somebody; let others be distracted with cares,

pain.

exempt.

their pleasures are tinged vidth

All his pains are edged with pleasure.

The

VERACITY. gladness he imparts

As one

shares.

lie

of the old

Minnesingers sung, " Oft have I heard, and

now believe it true, God delights in too."

Whom man delights in, Poetry live

—

trivial lot,

in wants, pains, anxieties

stitions, in profligate politics, in ties,

They

the consolation of mortal men.

cabined, cribbed, confined in a narrow and

mean employments,

and the nobler powers comes who

lifts

the laws of the universe stance as illusion

;

— and victims of these

imtried,

the veil ;

A poet

unknown.

gives

;

and super-

personal animosi-

them glimpses of

shows them the circum-

shows that nature

only a

language to express the laws, which are grand and beautiful

;

— and

of the realities.

them, by his songs, into some

lets

Socrates, the Indian teachers of

the Maia, the Bibles of the nations, Shakspeare,

Milton, Hafiz, Ossian, the all

Welsh Bards

;

— these

deal with nature and history as means and sym-

bols,

and not

With such

as ends.

guides they be-

gin to see that what they had called pictures are realities, is

and the mean

life is pictures.

achieved by words

;

men

spoken by perceiving

which religions and said, "

form men

The

its

And

this

a few oracles

that are the texts on

states are founded.

perception has at once

Jonson

for

And

moral sequence.

principal end of poetry

in the just reason of living."

this

Ben

is to in-

POETRY AND IMAGINATION.

Creation.

— But there

a third step which po-

etry takes, and which seems higher than the others,

namely, creation, or ideas taking forms of their

— when

own,

the poet invents the fable, and in-

vents the language which his heroes speak.

man

reads in the word or action of the

His inspiration

told results.

power

yet un-

its

to carry out

and complete the metamorphosis, which,

in the im-

perfect kinds arrested for ages, in the perfeeter

proceeds rapidly in the same individual. etry

is science,

and the poet a truer

For po-

Men

logician.

in the courts or in the street think themselves log-

and the poet whimsical.

ical is

they think there

chance or wilfulness in what he sees and

be sure, we

himself, is

—

demand

tells ?

him what he demands of of all. But with that, he

veracity, first

the lawgiver, as being an exact reporter of the

He knows

essential law.

thought,

—

the sun and the stars. art

make his made him, and made

that he did not

no, his thought

Is the solar system

good

and architecture? the same wise achievement

in the

human

interference

brain also, can you only wile

and marring.

cannot look at

works of art but they teach us how near man creating.

Michel Angelo

Creator that

from

largely filled with tho

made and makes men.

How much

the original craft remains in him, and he a mortal

man

In him and the

like perfeeter brains the in-

CREATION. stinct is resistless,

and

ous,

knows the right way,

at all points divine.

melodi-

The reason we

set

so high a value on any poetry, â&#x20AC;&#x201D; as often on a or a phrase on a poem, â&#x20AC;&#x201D; that a new work line

of Nature, as a

and

man

is.

new

foam

But a new verse comes

as old as the rock.

once in a hundred years

it is

must be

;

therefore Pindar, Hafiz,

Dante, speak so proudly of what seems to the clown

jingle.

The from

writer, like the priest,

secular labor.

must be exempted

His work needs a frolic health

be must be at the top of his condition. prosperity he

In that

sometimes caught up into a per-

ception of means and materials, of feats and fine arts, of fairy

fer his

machineries and funds of power hith-

unknown

whereby he can

trans-

visions to mortal canvas, or reduce

them

erto utterly

to him,

into iambic or trochaic, into lyric or heroic rhyme.

These successes are not

less

admirable and aston-

ishing to the poet than they are to his audience.

has seen something which aU the mathematics

and the best industry could never bring him unto.

Now

at this rare elevation above his usual sphere,

he has come into new circulations, the marrow of the world

in his bones, the opulence of forms be-

gins to pour into his intellect, and he

permitted

to dip his brush into the old paint-pot with birds, flowers, the

human

which

cheek, the living rock,

POETRY AND IMAGINATION.

the broad landscape, the ocean

and the eternal sky

were painted.

These

fine fruits of

judgment, poesy, and

ment, when once their hour is

ripe for them,

know

struck,

senti-

and the world

as well as coarser

how

feed and replenish themselves, and maintain their stock

alive,

and multiply

renew their race

and

flights of

moths are as old as the AUeghanies. of the world

kept,

and

for roses

;

like oaks,

violets

painted

The balance

and dewdrop and haze and the

pencil of light are as long-lived as chaos and darkness.

Our

science is always abreast of our self-knowl-

all becomes poetry, when we look from the centre outward, and are using aU as if the mind made it. That only can we see which we are, and which we make. The weaver

edge.

sees

Poetry begins, or

gingham

;

politician, the

the broker sees the stock-list

ward and county votes

sees the horizon,

and the shores

the

;

the poet

of matter lying

the sky, the interaction of the elements, effect of laws

;

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; the large

which correspond to the inward laws

which he knows, and so are but a kind of extension of himself.

" The attractions are proportional to

the destinies."

Events or things are only the

filment of the prediction of the faculties.

men saw heavens and of noble souls.

earths

;

ful-

Better

saw noble instruments

see railroads, mills,

and banks,

CREATION. and we pity the poverty

these dreaming

Bud-

There was as much creative force then as

dhists.

now, but

made

globes and astronomic heavens,

instead of broadcloth and wine-glasses.

The poet

enamored of thoughts and

laws.

These know their way, and, guided by them, he is

ascending from an interest in visible things to interest in that

which they

and from

signify,

ihe part of a spectator to the part of a maker.

And

as everything streams

faculty

and every desire

perception hope.

and advances, as every

procreant,

a destiny, there

" Anything, child, that

from the milk

and every

limit

the

mind

covets,

his

a cocoa to the throne of the

three worlds, thou mayest obtain,

by keeping the

law of thy members and the law of thy mind." It suggests that there

higher poetry than

write or read.

Rightly, poetry

things

by words and

organic.

cannot

writing, but only

know

by taking

a central position in the universe and living in forms.

"We sink

to rise

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

its

" None any work can frame,

Unless himself become the same.

All the parts and forms of nature are the expression or production of divine faculties,

are in us. this

And

and the same

the fascination of genius for us

awful nearness to Nature's creations.

POETRY AND IMAGINATION.

Germans think the creator Trim and Uncle Toby, though he never wrote a

I have heard that the of

Cowper, and that Gold-

verse, a greater poet than

name

smith's title to the

not from his Deserted

from the Vicar of Wakefield.

Village, but derived

Better examples are Shakspeare's Ariel, his Cali-

Midsummer

ban, and his fairies in the

little

Night's

" There

Barthold Niebuhr said well,

Dream.

merit in inventing a happy idea or attractive

situation, so long as

which we hear. into life

by magic

it is

only the author's voice

a being

arts, as

whom we

soon as

acts independently of

existence

pulse, so the poet creates

have called

has received

the master's

his persons,

and then

watches and relates what they do and say. creation

im-

Such

poetry, in the literal sense of the term,

and its possibility is an unfathomable enigma. The gushing fulness of speech belongs to the poet,

and

from the

flows

lips

of each of his

magic beings in the thoughts and words peculiar to its nature."^

This force of representation so plants his ures

him them as

before

talks to

that if

he treats them as

they were bodily there

fig-

real ;

;

puts

words in their mouth such as they should have spoken, and

Vast

affected

by them

by persons.

the difference between writing clean verses *

Niebuhr,

Letters, etc., vol.

iii.

p. 196.

MELODY, RHYME, FORM. for magazines, situations,

and creating these new persons and

— new language

The humor

ality.

with emphasis and

re-

Macthoughts and

of Falstaff, the terror of

swarm of fit images, as if Shakspeare had known and reported the men, instead of inventing them at his desk.

beth, have each their

This power appears not only in the outline or portrait of his actors, but also in the bearing

behavior and style of each individual. son told

Drummond

decorum

Ben Jon-

that " Sidney did not keep a

making every one speak

and

as well as

himself."

We aU have one

key

to this miracle of the poet,

and the dunce has experiences that may explain Shakspeare to him,

— one

key, namely, dreams.

In dreams we are true poets; we create the persons of the ures,

drama ; we

faces,

organs,

costume

attitude,

;

give

manners

moreover they speak ;

Indeed, I doubt

any

fig-

—

they speak own characters, not ours and we listen with surprise to what they say.

after their

to us,

them appropriate

they are perfect in their

five-act

the best poet has yet written

play that can compare in thoroughness

of invention with this unwritten play in fifty acts,

composed by the duUest snorer on the

floor of the

watch-house.

Mdody, Rhyme, Form.

— Music and rhyme are

POETRY AND IMAGINATION.

among

the earliest pleasures of the child, and, in

the history of literature,

Every one may

see, as

poetry precedes prose.

he rides on the highway

through an uninteresting landscape, water instantly relieves the

what objects are near

it,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

eye,

by being

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; they

become rhyme to the rhyme to the ear.

It is

reflected.

and explains the charm of

Shadows please us

little

no matter

a gray rock, a grass-

patch, an alder-bush, or a stake, beautiful

how a

monotony

as stOl finer rhymes.

tecture gives the like pleasure

by the

Archi-

repetition of

equal parts in a colonnade, in a row of vdndows, or in wings

;

gardens by the symmetric contrasts of

the beds and walks.

In society you have this figure

in a bridal company, where a choir of white-robed

maidens give the charm of living statues

;

neral procession, where all wear black

in a regi-

ment of soldiers in uniform. The universality of this taste habit of casting our facts into

them

better, as so

many

in a fu-

proved by our

rhyme

proverbs

;

remember

Who

may show.

would hold the order of the almanac so

fast

but for

the ding-dong, " Thirty days hath September,"

etc.

or of the Zodiac, but for " The Earn, the Bull, the heavenly Twins,"

We are lovers

rhyme and

etc.

return, period

and

MELODY, RHYME, FORM.

The babe

is lulled to sleep by work better for their yo-heave-o. Soldiers can march better and fight better for the drum and trumpet. Metre begins with pulse-beat, and the length of lines in songs and poems is determiued by the inhalation and ex-

musical reflection. the nurse's song.

Sailors can

If you hum or whistle common English metres, of

halation of the lungs.

rhythm

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

of the

the the

decasyllabic quatrain, or the octosyUabie with al-

ternate sexisyUabic, or other rhythms,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; you can

easily believe these metres to be organic, derived

from the human

pulse,

and

be therefore not I think you

proper to one nation, but to mankind. will also find a

charm

heroic, plaintive, pathetic, in

these cadences, and be at once set on searching for

the words that can rightly

Young

fill

these vacant beats.

people like rhyme, drum-beat, tune, things

in pairs and alternatives

;

and, in higher degrees,

we know the

instant

peraments to

change our mood, and give us

and human

;^assion,

tunes, aims to

marry music all

fill

power

of music

seizing

upon our temits

own

these constitutional

them with appropriate

^words, or

believe of

to thought, believing, as

marriage, that matches are

made

in heaven, and melody or rhyme though the odds are immense against our

that for every thought its proper exists,

finding

banns.

it,

and only genius can rightly say the

POETRY AND IMAGINATION.

Another form of rhyme

is iterations

the record of the death of Sisera " At her feet

bowed, he

lie

feet he bowed, he

fell

fell,

—

of phrase, as

he lay down

at her

where he bowed, there he

fell

down dead."

The

fact is

made

this simple rhetoric

" They of

them

conspicuous, nay, colossal,

—

endure

shall perish, but thou shalt

shaJl

wax

old like a garment

;

and thy years

Though

fallen

days though

but thou

have no end."

shall

Milton delights in these iterations

evil

yea, all

as a vesture shalt

thou change them, and they shall be changed art the same,

—

evil days,

fallen,

and

evil tongues."

" Was I deceived, or did a sable cloud

Turn

forth

I did not

Turn

forth

lining on the night ?

its silver

err, there

does a sable cloud

its silver

lining on the night."

Comvs,

little

onward lend thy guiding hand,

these dark steps a little farther on."

Samson.

So used,

in our songs and ballads the refrain skilfully

and deriving some novelty or better sense

each of

many

verses

—

" Busk thee, busk thee,

Busk

thee,

busk

thee,

my bonny bonny bride, my winsome marrow." Hamilton.

MELODY, RHYME, FORM.

Of course rhyme soars and refines with the growth The boy

of the mind.

liked the drum, the people

Later they

liked an overpowering jewsharp tune. like to transfer that

rhyme

melody as prompt and perfect

Omen and

and

to detect

in their daily affairs.

hence the taste for signs, sortilege,

;

prophecy and fulfilment, anniversaries,

and by, when they apprehend

etc.

real rhymes, namely,

the correspondence of parts in nature,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; acid and

body and mind, man and maid, character

alkali,

and

coincidence show the rhythmical struc-

man

ture of

life,

history, action

and

reaction,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; they do

not

longer value rattles and ding-dongs, or barbaric

Astronomy, Botany, Chemistry, Hy-

word-jingle. draidics

and the elemental forces have

periods and returns, their

mony

own grand

their

own

strains of har-

not less exact, up to the primeval apothegm

that " there

nothing on earth which

not in the

heavens in a heavenly form, and nothing in the heavens which form."

and

not on the earth in an earthly

They furnish the poet with grander pairs and will require an equal expan-

alternations,

sion in his metres.

There

under the seeming poverty of metres an

infinite variety, as

(however nearly

every artist knows.

may

A right ode

adopt conventional metre,

as the Spenserian, or the heroic blank-verse, or one of the fixed lyric metres)

wiU by any

sprightlinesa

POETRY AND IMAGINATION.

be at once

lifted out of conventionality,

and wiD

Every good poem that I know rhythm also. Rhyme is a pretty

modify the metre. I recall by

its

good measure of the latitude and opulence of a writer.

If unskilfid, he

poverty of his chimes.

at once detected

by the

A small, well-worn, sprucely

brushed vocabulary serves him.

Now

try Spenser,

Marlow, Chapman, and see how wide they fly for

how

weapons, and

In their rhythm

and

rich

lavish their profusion.

no manufacture, but a vortex, or

musical tornado, which falling on words and the experience of a learned mind, whirls these materials into the

same grand order as planets and

moons obey, and

seasons,

There are also prose

and monsoons.

poets.

Thomas

Taylor, the

Platonist, for instance, is really a better

man

imagination, a better poet, or perhaps I should say

a better feeder to a poet, than any Milton and Wordsworth. to say, " If

magnanimity

man between

Thomas Moore had the

Burke and Bacon were not

poets (measured lines not being necessary to constitute one),

he did not know what poetry meant."

And every good

reader will easily recall expressions

or passages in works of pure science which have

given him the same pleasure which he seeks in pro-

Richard Owen, the eminent paleon-

fessed poets. tologist, said

"All

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

hitherto observed

causes

of extirpation point

MELODY, RHYME, FORM.

either to continuous slowly operating geologic changes,

or to no greater sudden cause than the, so to speak, spectral appearance of

mankind on a Umited

tract of

land not before inhabited." St.

Augustine complains to

offering

"And to

him

God

of his friends

the books of the philosophers

these

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

were the dishes in which they brought

me, being hungry, the Sun and the

Moon

instead of

Thee." It would not be easy to refuse to Sir Thomas Browne's " Fragment on Mummies " the claim of

poetry "

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

made

their living habitations they

little

conceiving of them but as hospitia, or inns,

account,

whUe they

adorned the sepulchres of the dead, and, planting there-

on lasting bases, defied the crumbling touches of time,

and the misty vaporousness but Babel vanities.

and

Time

now dominant and Memphis and

looketh unto

of oblivion.

Yet

sadly overcometh sitteth

all

were

all things,

upon a Sphinx, and

old Thebes, while his sister

Oblivion recHneth semi-somnous on a pyramid, gloriously

triumphing, making puzzles of Titanian erections, and turning old glories into dreams.

neath her cloud.

The

those deserts asketh of her,

she

History sinketh be-

traveller as

Who

mumbleth something, but what

Bhyme, being a kind

he paceth through

bmlded them? and it is

he heareth not."

of music, shares this advan-

POETRY AND IMAGINATION.

tage with music, that

has a privilege of speaking

truth which all PhUistia

Music

unable to challenge.

song,

With

the poor man's Parnassus.

note of the flute or horn, or the

on the sea of ideas and emotions on the prose you so magnify

The

scriptive right of poetry.

;

we pour contempt

like allowance is the pre-

You

shall not

speak ideal

may

in verse.

best thoughts run into the best words

native and metre.

first

yet the sturdiest

truth in prose uncontradicted': you

The

the

strain of a

common-sense and launch

quit the world of

Philistine is silent.

first

;

imagi-

affectionate thoughts into

music and

talk of our

ask for food and

fire,

work, our tools and material necessities, in prose that

is,

;

without any elevation or aim at beauty ; but

when we

rise into the

world of thought, and think

of these things only for refines into order

what they

and harmony.

signify, speech

know what you

say of mediaeval barbarism and sleighbell- rhyme,

but we have not done with music, no, nor with

rhyme, nor must console ourselves with prose poets so long as boys whistle

Let Poetry then

That

rhyme.

and

pass, if

girls sing; it will,

into music

and

the form which itself puts on.

do not enclose watches in wooden, but in crys-

tal cases,

and rhyme

the transparent frame that

allows almost the pure architecture of thought to

become

visible to the

mental eye.

Substance

MELODY, RHYME, FORM. much,

biit so are

The

mode and form much.

poet,

like a delighted boy, brings you heaps of rainbow

bubbles, opaline, air-borne, spherical as the world,

instead of a few drops of soap and water.

Hugo

says weU, "

An idea

suddenly more incisive and more brilliant

becomes

Lord Bacon, we

steel."

Victor

steeped in verse becomes :

the iron

are told, " loved

not to see poesy go on other feet than poetical dactyls and spondees

;

and Ben Jonson said that

" Donne, for not keeping of accent, deserved hanging."

Poetry being an attempt to express, not the common-sense,

— as the

structure in feet

soul in his aspect as

and

avoirdupois of the hero, or his

and

inches, it

— but the

shines to fancy

beauty and

and feeling

so of all other objects in nature

fable, personifies every fact

their hands,"

spoke."

— " the

This

hills

;

runs into

— " the clouds clapped skipped," — " the sky

the substance, and this treatment

always attempts a metrical grace. mu'sery the beginning of literature

Outside of the is

the prayers

of a people, and they are always hymns, poetic,

the

mind allowing

itself

range, and therewith

— is

ever a corresponding freedom in the style, which

becomes

lyrical.

The prayers

of nations are rhyth-

mic, have iterations and alliterations like the marriage-service

and burial-service

in our liturgies.

Poetry will never be a simple means, as when

POETRY AND IMAGINATION.^

history or philosopliy is rhymed, or laureate odes

state occasions are written.

own

end, or

it is

poetry and stock poetry the

rhythm

must be

Itself

The

nothing.

is this,

that in the latter

given and the sense adapted to

its

difference between

while in the former the sense dictates the rhythm. I might even say that the

rhyme

there in the

Ask

theme, thought, and image themselves.

For a verse

fact for the form.

carry a sentence as a jewel

carried in a case

verse must be alive, and inseparable from tents, as the sold of

body, and

we measure

tence drags drags.

up in

its

con-

directs the

sensitive as soon as

a sen-

as the thought mounts, the expression

cumulative also

of lines each of which its

and

the

but in poetry, as soon as one word

;

Ever

inspires

the inspiration by the music.

In reading prose, I

mounts.

man

the

not a vehicle to

turn, so that

fiU.

the

;

poem

made

the ear of the poet

mere synthesis produces a work

quite superhuman.

Indeed, the masters sometimes rise above themselves to strains

which charm their readers, and

which neither any competitor could outdo, nor the bard himself again equal.

mont and Fletcher " Hence,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

all

Try

this strain of

ye vain delights,

short as are the nights

In which you spend your

folly

Beau-

MELODY, RHYME, FORM. There If

naught in

men were

this life sweet,

wise to see

't,

But only melancholy.

sweetest melancholy

Welcome, folded arms and

fixed eyes,

A sigh that piercing mortifies, A look that fastened to the ground, A tongue chained up without a sound 's

;

Fountain-heads and pathless groves, Places which pale Passion loves,

Midnight walks, when

A midnight bell,

the fowls

all

Are warmly housed, save

bats and owls

;

a passing groan,

These are the sounds we feed upon,

Then

stretch our bones in a

still,

gloomy

valley.

Nothing 's so dainty sweet as lovely melancholy."

Keats disclosed by certain lines in his " Hyperion " this

inward

his love

skill

;

and Coleridge showed

and appetency for

Jonson's

songs,

beam upon you,"

it.

Ben The faery

It appears in

including certainly " etc.,

at least

"Waller's " Go, lovely rose

Herbert's " Virtue " and " Easter," and Lovelace's lines " To

Ode

Althea " and " To Lucasta," and CoUins's

to Evening," all but the last verse,

academical. is

Perhaps this dainty

which

style of poetry

not producible to-day, any more than a right

Gothic cathedral.

which

As but

belonged to a time and taste

not in the world.

the imagination

not a talent of some

the health of every man, so also

men

this joy

POETRY AND IMAGINATION.

of musical expression.

know

the pride of mathe-

maticians and materialists, but they cannot conceal

The critic, the philosGray avows that "he thinks

from me

their capital want.

opher,

a failed poet.

even a bad verse as good a thing or better than the best observation that was ever

honor the naturalist

;

made on

it."

I honor the geometer, but he

has before him higher power and happiness than he

Yet we will leave to the masters their own Newton may be permitted to call Terence a play-book, and to wonder at the frivolous taste for knows. forms.

he only predicts, one would say, a grander

rhymers

;

poetry

he only shows that he

that the poetry which satisfies is

not such to a mind like

harmonies ;

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

this

his,

not yet reached

more youthful

souls

accustomed to grander

being a child's whistle to his ear

that the music must rise to a loftier strain,

Handel, up to Beethoven, up to the thorough-base of the sea-shore, up to the largeness of astronomy last that great heart will

hear in the music beats like

own the waves of melody will wash and float him also, and set him into concert and harmony.

its

;

Bards and Trouveurs. primitive words

mains of the rude ages. tle talent to

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; The metallic force of

makes the

superiority of the re-

It costs the early

bard

chant more impressively than the

more cultivated

poets.

His advantage

lit-

later,

that his

BARDS AND TROUVEURS.

words are things, each the lucky sound which described the fact, and

listen to

him

we do

the Indian, or the hunter, or miner, each of

whom

represents his facts as accurately as the cry of the

wolf or the eagle

The

inhabit.

the forest or the air they

tells of

original force, the direct smell of the

earth or the sea,

in these

ancient poems, the

Sagas of the North, the Nibelungen Lied, the songs

and ballads

and Scotch.

of the English

I find or fancy more true poetry, the love of the vast and the ideal, in the

Welsh and

bardic frag-

ments of Taliessin and his successors, than in many

An intrepid

volumes of British Classics. quence appears in

all

the bards, as

magnilo-

—

" The whole ocean flamed as one wound."

King Regnar Lodbrok.

"God himself

cannot procure good for the wicked."

Welsh Triad.

A favoraljle of the

Wind "

specimen

" Discover thou what

Taliessin's " Invocation

it is,

Teganwy

flesh,

—

younger nor older than at the beginning

It has no fear, nor the rude wants of created things.

—

without bone, without head, without feet,

It will neither be

Great God

creature from before the flood,

The strong Without

at the door of Castle

how

the sea whitens

in the field, it is in the

Without hand, without

when

wood,

foot,

Without age, without season,

comes

POETRY AND IMAGINATION.

60 It

always of the same age with the ages of ages,

And

of equal breadth with the surface of the earth.

was not born,

And

It has no form,

For

not seen

void of

it is

sees not,

desired

;

bears no burden,

sin.

makes no perturbation

when

does not come

;

in the place

where God wiUs

it,

the sea, on the land."

In one of

his

poems he asks

—

" Is there but one course to the wind ?

But one

to the water of the sea ?

Is there but one spark in the Are of boundless energy ?

He "He

says of his hero, Cunedda,

will assimilate,

—

he will agree with the deep and tha

shallow."

another,

—

" When I lapse to a sinful word,

May neither

you, nor others hear."

Of an enemy,

—

of the sea

The cauldron

land, but

To an "

would not

exile

The heavy

was bordered round by

hia

boil the food of a coward."

on an island he

says,

—

blue chain of the sea didst thou,

just

man, endure."

Another bard in "I repeat

am ;

like tone says,

—

possessed of songs such as no son of

one of them

called the

Helper

thee at thy need in sickness, grief, and

I know a song which I need only

; '

man

can

will help

all adversities.

to sing

when men

BARDS AND TROUVEURS. have loaded fall in

pieces

with bonds

and I walk forth

when I

sing

it,

chains

at liberty."

The Norsemen have no less faith its power, when they describe it thus

ple-gods were called song-smiths.

—

" Odin spoke everything in rhyme.

and

in poetry

and

oould

lais

tem-

make

his

enemies in battle blind or deaf, and their weapons so blunt that they could no

Odin taught these

more cut than a

called incantations."

willow-twig.

or songs, which are

arts in runes *

The Crusades brought in the twelfth century,

out the genius of France,

when

Pierre d'Auvergne

said,

" I will sing a new song which resounds in

breast

never was a song good or beautiful which resembled any other."

And Pons

de Capdeuil declares,

—

" Since the air renews itself and softens, so must

heart renew outside of

There

itself,

and what buds

buds and grows

it."

in every

poem a

more than other

parts,

Thus, in " Morte

d' Arthur,"

so well as Sir

Ga wain's

wonderful prison

—

height which attracts

and

best remembered.

remember nothing

parley with Merlin in his

"After the disappearance of Merlin from King Ar>

Heimskringia, Vol.

I. p.

221.

POETRY AND IMAGINATION.

was

thur's court he

who pursued

wain,

Among

his search

He came

the court.

and many knights

seriously missed,

set out in search of him.

was Sir

others

was time

till it

Gai-

to return to

into the forest of Broceliande, la-

menting as he went along. Presently he heard the voice of one groaning on his right

hand

looking that way, he

;

could see nothing save a kind of smoke which seemed like air,

and through which he could not pass

and

this

so wrathful that it deprived

him

impediment made him

;

Presently he heard a voice which said,

of speech.

Ga-

wain, Gawain, be not out of heart, for everything which

must happen

will

come

replied, '

Who

How,' said the

You were wont

him by

his right

he heard

name, he

Sir

who hath spoken to me ? Gawain, know you me not ?

know me

well, but thus things are in-

can this be voice, to

And when

to pass.'

the voice which thus called

terwoven and thus the proverb says true, "Leave the court and the court will leave you." "Whilst I served

and by other barons, but because I have I

am known

no longer, and put

I ought not to be Sir

ought

may

with me.

left

know you

the court,

in forgetfulness,

faith reigned in the world.'

him

voice which spoke to

was Merlin, and he answered,

your words.

Gawain heard the

thought

is it

King Arthur, I was well known by you

well, for

many '

thus,

Sir, certes

times I have heard

I pray you appear before

be able to recognize you.'

which

When

Ah,

sir,'

so that I

said Merlin,

you wUl never see me more, and that grieves me, but

I cannot remedy

from

it,

and when you

this place, I shall

shall

have departed

nevermore speak to you nor to

BARDS AND TROUVEURS. my mistress

any other person, save only

;

for never other

person will be able to discover this place for anything

which may

befall

hence, for in the world there this

nor of else

wherein I ii'on,

confined

;

no such strong tower as

and

nor of stone, but of

neither of wood,

without anything

air,

and made by enchantment

;

from

neither shall I ever go out

;

so strong that

never be demolished while the world

lasts

;

can

neither can

in, save she who hath who keeps me company when it cometh when she Usteth, for her will

I go out, nor can any one come enclosed

pleaseth her is here.'

wain,

here and she

How, Merlin, my good

deliver yourself nor

can

Gar

friend,' said Sir

are you restrained so strongly that you cannot

this

make

yourself visible unto

me how man in ;

happen, seeing that you are the wisest

the world

for I well

knew

Rather,' said Merlin,

that all this

would

the greatest fool

befall

me, and I have

been fool enough to love another more than myself, for I taught Taj mistress that whereby she hath imprisoned

me in

such a manner that none can set

Merlin,' replied Sir Gawain, ful,

and

shall

me free.' Certes, am right sorrow'

of that I

King Arthur, my uncle, be, when he as one who is making search after you

so will

know

throughout

it,

all countries.'

Well,' said Merlin,

be borne, for never wiU he see me, nor I him will

any one speak with

vain to attempt

;

for

again after you,

;

would be

you yourself, when you have

turned away, will never be able to find the place salute for

and

tell

them

must

neither

hut

the king and the queen and all the barons, of

condition.

You wiU

find the king

POETRY AND IMAGINATION.

Wales

at Carduel in

;

and when you arrive there you companions who departed with

will find there all the

you, and

the

who

name

at this

day

who

of God,

Now

will return.

then go in

and save the King

will protect

Arthur, and the realm of Logres, and you best knights

who

also, as the

"With that Sir Ga-

are in the world.'

wain departed joyful and sorrowful

;

joyful because of

what Merlin had assured him should happen

and

to him,

sorrowful that Merlin had thus been lost."

Morals. is

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;We are sometimes apprised that there

a mental power and creation more excellent than

anything which literature

;

commonly

called philosophy

Homer, Mil-

that the high poets, that

do not fully content

ton, Shakspeare,

rarely they offer us the heavenly bread

How

us.

The most

to intoxicate us once and again They have touched this heaven and afterwards some sparkle of it they betray

they have done

with

its taste.

retain

There

their belief that such discourse is possible. is

and

something â&#x20AC;&#x201D; our brothers

the sea do not

know

this or that side of

own

scholars of England, historians

;

the eminent

and reviewers,

ro-

mancers and poets included, might deny and blas-

pheme

it,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; which

the whole world also,

poetry

shall sit

setting us

down and

statutes.

itself.

as the result

cation of the age in which lightly of histories

and them aside and

and planting

and

true

justifi-

appears, and think

None

of your par-

MORALS.

lor or piano verse, none of your carpet poets,

power,

etic gift

man,

the good which the soul seeks.

we want,

— not

who

Power, new

are content to amuse, will satisfy us.

The

po-

and supremacy of

as the health

rhymes and sonneteering, not book-

making and bookselling; surely not cold spying and authorship. Is not poetry the

where

little

chamber in the brain

generated the explosive force which, by

gentle shocks, sets in action the intellectual world

Bring us the bards who

shall sing all our old ideas

out of our heads, and

new ones

;

men-making

poets; poetry which, like the verses inscribed on

Balder's columns in Breidablik,

ing the dead to

life

— poetry

;

capable of restor-

like that verse of

Saadi, which the angels testified " met the approbation of

AUah

Heaven " ;

rhymes and cadences of nature, and

— poetry which finds

in the

the gift to

rhymes and

men of new images and

symbols, each the ensign and oracle of an age shall assimilate

men

it,

mould

and mythologies, and impart ries

;

it,

— poetry which

its

iterations

its

tastes the

;

that

itself into religions

quality to centu-

world and reports

upbuilding the world again in the thought ;

—

•

" Not with tickling rhymes,

But high and noble matter, such

From

as flies

brains entranced, and filled with ecstasies."

Poetry must be affirmative.

It is the piety of

POETRY AND IMAGINATION.

"Thus

the intellect.

The poet who

the song.

Lord," should hegin

saith the

shall use nature as his

hieroglyphic must have an adequate

message to

Therefore when we speak of the

convey thereby.

Poet in any high sense, we are driven to such exam pies as Zoroaster

and Plato,

John and Menu,

St.

The Muse

with their moral burdens.

shall

counterpart of Nature, and equally rich.

not often in books.

know Nature and

her exuberant, tranquil, magnificent in her coherent other.

so that every creation is

;

She

be the

I find her figure

fertility,

omen

of every

not proud of the sea, of the stars,

of space or time, or

man

woman.

All her kinds

But

share the attributes of the selectest extremes. in current literature I do not find her.

warps away from bind

it.

life,

though at

In the world of

Homer

Literature

seems to

first it

how few command-

letters

did what he could

Pindar,

ing oracles

-fEschylus,

and the Greek Gnomic poets and the

Dante was

tragedians.

away by

;

when not carried But in so many al-

faithful

his fierce hatreds.

coves of English poetry I can count only nine or ten authors

who are

still

inspirers

and lawgivers

to their race.

The supreme value height beyond the subduing

itself,

of poetry

or which

mankind

the true Orpheus

who

to order

to educate us to a ;

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

rarely reaches

and

virtue.

writes his ode, not with syl-

MORALS. lables,

" In poetry," said Goethe, " only

but men.

the really great and pure advances us, and this exists as

a second nature, either elevating us to

The poet must

or rejecting us."

Muse

with the

let

itself,

Humanity

sit

in his head, as the charioteer sits

with the hero in the Iliad. " Show me," said Sarona in the novel, " one wicked man who has writ-

wUl show you where his poetry is not poetry or rather, I wiU show you in his poe-

ten poetry, and I ;

try no poetry at all."

I have heard that there is a hope which precedes and must precede aU science of the visible or the invisible

world

;

and that science

of that hope in either region. of

the realization

I count the genius

Swedenborg and Wordsworth

as the agents of a

reform in philosophy, the bringing poetry back to nature,

—

marrying of nature and mind, un-

to the

doing the old divorce in which poetry had been famished and

trades,

and nature had been suspected

The philosophy which a

and pagan. ceives,

false,

rules

its

and whole

religion,

poetry,

history.

nation

polities,

good poem

re-

arts,

— say

Shakspeare's Macbeth, or Hamlet, or the Tempest

— goes about the world offering men, who read

with joy and carry

reasonable neighbors.

and generous 1

itself to

Thus

draws to

reasonable it

to their

the wise

souls, confirming their secret thoughts,

" Counterparts."

Vol.

I. p.

67.

POETRY AND IMAGINATION.

and, through their sympathy, really publishing seK.

It affects the characters of its readers

it-

for-

mulating their opinions and feelings, and inevitably

prompting their daily

action. If they build ships, " they write " Ariel " or " Prospero " or " Ophelia

on the

ship's stern,

and impart a tenderness and

mystery to matters of

rhymes to

The

fact.

mance work on the hearts

of boys,

recite the

and

their hoops or their skates if alone,

these heroic songs or lines are

many

termine

ballad and ro-

who

remembered and de-

practical choices

later.

Do you

on the

life of

which they make

think Burns has had no influence

men and women

in Scotland,

— has

opened no eyes and ears to the face of nature and

man and

the dignity of of

charm and excellence

woman ?

We are a little civil, and ^schylus,

them the

down

let will

must be owned,

Homer

Dante and Shakspeare, and give

benefit of the largest interpretation.

must be a sit

the

little strict also,

and ask whether,

home, and do not go to Hamlet,

come

to us? whether

tragedy written in

his,

disgraces, described

— our the

shall

Ham-

find

our

hopes, wants, pains, life,

— and the

way

opened to the paradise which ever in the best hour beckons us of

But our overpraise and

famous masters

not in

its

idealization

origin a poor Bos-

weUism, but an impatience of mediocrity.

The

MORALS.

we now give to our heroes we shall unsay when we make larger demands. How fast we outthen those that grow the books of the nursery, satisfied our youth. What we once admired as poetry has long since come to be a sound of tin pans and many of our later books we have outpraise

—

;

Homer and Milton

grown.

Perhaps

pans

Better not to be easily pleased.

yet.

should rejoice

song

;

be tin

will

The poet

he has taught us to despise his

he has so moved us as to Hft

us,

—

open

the eye of the intellect to see farther and better.

In proportion as a man's

life

comes into union

with truth, his thoughts approach to a parallelism

with the currents of natural laws, so that he easily expresses his meaning by natural symbols, or uses

the ecstatic or poetic speech. of

mind

successive states

the facts of nature are for the

all

interpreted.

In proportion as

this simplicity,

to find poets,

who

are

time

from

— by many

he uses circumlocution,

words hoping to suggest what he cannot atious

first

his life departs

Vex-

say.

by excellence the

thinking and feeling of the world, deficient in truth of intellect and of affection. imfaithful,

of Shakspeare, read Faust.

too

Then

conscience

and thought unwise. To know the merit

modern and

intelligible.

I find Faust a

a fabric at several miUs, though a

Faust abounds in the disagreeable.

little

can find such little

The

inferior.

vice is

POETRY AND IMAGINATION.

prurient, learned, Parisian.

may be

Jove, Priapus lie is

The

an equal hero.

The book

culated.

the presence of

allowed as an

offset,

but here

egotism, the wit,

is cal-

undeniably written by a

master, and stands unhappily related to the whole

modern world

;

but

ter of literature,

disagreeable,

a very disagreeable chap-

and accuses the author as weU as

had he In

attracted him.

Shakspeare could no doubt have been

the times.

genius has

short, our

made us

We, who speak

less genius,

mean

;

faith

and manners hold

held."

that ;

life

;

new image more that life should

should be an image in every

that the old forgotten splendors of

the universe should glow again for us

;

— that we And

should lose our wit, but gain our reason.

when

life is

—

the tongue

It is not style or rhymes, or a

not be

had

ugliness

English nature and

or less that imports, but sanity

part beautiful

the worst critics of Goethe,

That Shakspeare spake, the

Which MUtou

and

true to the poles of nature, the streams

of truth will roU through us in song.

Transcendency.

— In

a cotillon

some persons

dance and others await their turn when the music

and the there

figure

come

to them.

In the dance of

God

not one of the chorus but can and will

begin to spin, monumental as he

now

looks,

when»

TRANSCENDENCY.

ever the music and figure reach his place and duty.

O celestial

Bacchus

them mad,

drive

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

this multi-

tude of vagabonds, hungry for eloquence, hungry for poetry, starving for symbols, perishing for

much

of electricity to vitalize this too

want

pasture,

and

in the long delay indemnifying themselves with the false

wine of alcohol, of

/{Every man may lifted to

be,

politics, or of

and

money.

some time a

man

is,

a platform whence he looks beyond sense

moral and spiritual truth, and in that mood deals

sovereignly with matter, and strings worlds like

The

beads uj)on his thought.

which

success with

done can alone determine how genuine

this is

the inspiration.

The poet

rare because he must

be exquisitely vital and sympathetic, and, at the

same time, immovably centred. nay,

among

spoken in

In good

the angels in heaven,

fine parable,

befeU to the sense ?

and not is

not everything

so servilely as

symbolized.

not foreign, as they seem, but related. tle

and we

curve.

]

Facts are

Wait a

lit-

see the return of the remote hyperbolic

The

solid

men complain

leaves out the fundamental facts plains that the solid

men

that the idealist ;

the poet com-

leave out the sky.

every plant there are two powers as rootlet,

society,

and one upward

;

one shoots down

as tree.

have eyes of science to see in the seed

you must have the

You must its

nodes

vivacity of the poet to perceive

POETRY AND IMAGINATION.

The poet

in the thought its futurities. sentative,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; whole

him the world

bolizer,

emancipator

scribe's

hand and writes the adequate

nature of things

repre-

man, diamond-merchant, sym;

projects a

The The

genesis.

flowing, a metamorphosis.

sympathizes not only with the actual

free spirit

form, but with the power or possible forms

obvious municipal or

par^al

God

uses

us a bias or a reston ""to-day's forms.

shudder of joy with which in each clear recognize the metamorphosis, because

;

but for

has given

Hence the moment we it is

always

a conquest, a surprise from the heart of things. I

One would

say of the force in the works of nature,

all

depends on the battery.

shall

shocks, to the bird

give one shock,

;

three, to the

;

two

quadruped

;

Power of generalizing differences The number of successive saltations the nim-

four, to the

men.

get to the fish form, and stop

)

man.

ble thought can make, measures the difference be-

tween the highest and lowest of mankind.! habit of saliency, of not pausing but going on, sort of importation or domestication of the effort in a

man.

problem of the poet less the

you

is to

most powerful of

it.

The

unite freedom with pre-

to give the pleasure of color,

;

Divine

After the largest circle has been

drawn, a larger can be drawn around

cision

The

sculptors.

sufficient, or the subtle

and

and be not

Music seems

delicate scent of

TRANSCENDENCY.

lavender; but Dante was free imagination, wings,

— yet he wrote

—

And mark

like Euclid.

and

to the

grand and

or less skill in whistling

terrible.

those weary pentameter tales of

little

no account.

Dryden and

the

and

equality of Shakspeare to the comic, the tender sweet,

all

See others.

one thing and blue sky another.

Let

the poet, of all men, stop with his inspiration.

The

Turnpike

inexorable rule in the muses court, either inspiration or silence, compels the bard to report only his

supreme moments. of a

few words, and

It teaches the

enormous force

in proportion to the inspiration

Much that we call poetry is but The high poetry which shall thrill

checks loquacity./ polite verse.

and agitate mankind, restore youth and health, sipate the ger,

dreams under which men

and bring

in the

new

heroic aims of nations,

reel

and

dis-

stag-

thoughts, the sanity

and

deeper hid and longer

postponed than was America or Australia, or the finding of steam or of the galvanic battery.

must not conclude against poetry from the defects

They

of poets.

every degree of

our experience,

are, in

skill,

men

twice receivers of an inspiration, and presently

ing back on a low

— some of them only once or The drop

life.

fall-

of ichor that

tingles in their veins has not yet refined their blood

and cannot function

lift

the whole

of ichor,

man

— that

is,

to the digestion to

and

godlike nature.

POETRY AND IMAGINATION.

Time

be when ichor shall be their blood, when

will

what are now glimpses and aspirations

Yet even

routine of the day.

shall be the

partial ascents to

poetry and ideas are forerunners, and announce the

dawn.

In the mire of the sensual

life,

their relig-

and

poets, their admiration of heroes

ion, their

benefactors, even their novel

and newspaper, nay,

their superstitions also, are

hosts

of ideals,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;a

cordage of ropes that hold them up out of the

Poetry

slough.

inestimable as a lonely faith, a

lonely protest in the uproar of atheism.

But

many men

are iU-born or ill-bred,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; the

brains are so marred, so imperfectly formed, unhe-

men, that the

roically, brains of the sons of fallen

doctrine

One man

imperfectly received.

spark or shimmer of the truth and reports his saying

ages,

it,

and

becomes a legend or golden proverb for

and other men report

wholly and

Whenever

sees

well.'

^Poems

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; we

much, but none have no poem.

that angel shall be organized

and appear

on earth, the Iliad wiU be reckoned a poor ballad-

grindingy I doubt never the riches of nature, the gifts of the future, the

yes, poets

immense wealth

of the mind.

shall have, mythology, symbols,

We too

know how

religion, of our

own.

take up

industry and empire, this Western

all this

shall

civilization, into thought, as easily as

arts

were few ; but not by holding

men

did

when by

high, but

TRANSCENDENCY. holding

low.j

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; uses London "West, to is

its

The

intellect uses

The only heart

a counterpoise to society.

partiality

our

and meanness in us ?

life exists

and within our control.

in spite of us,

us, in

and

not used,

and Paris and Berlin, East and

end.

one that draws, not from our

itself,

what of us

Men

that can help us society,

"What

but from if

The grandeur

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; aU over and

inevitable

life is

under

and above

are facts as well as persons,

the involuntary part of their

find

and

much

mind and leave them no countenance to say aught of what is so trivial as their selfish thinking and doing. Sooner or later that which is now life shall be poetry, and every fair and manly trait to

fill

shall

the

add a richer

strain to the song.

SOCIAL AIMS.

Much

ill-natured criticism has

American manners. Rather,

sented.

Our

mend.

been directed on

I do not think

are wise,

critics will

it is

to be re-

shall listen

and

then be our best friends,

though they did not mean

But

it.

in every sense

the subject of manners has a constant interest to

Who

thoughtful persons.

manners

overstated.

can be

fulfilled.

picture to

does not delight in fine

Their charm cannot be predicted or perpetual promise of more than It is

many who do

tion of those arts.

music and sculpture and not pretend to appreeiar

It is even true that grace is

more beautiful than beauty.

Yet how impossible

to overcome the obstacle of

an unlucky tempera-

ment and acquire good manners, unless by living and this makes

with the well-bred from the start

;

the value of wise forethought to give ourselves and

our children as

much

as possible the habit of culti-

vated society. 'T is an inestimable hint that I owe to a few persons of fine manners, that they

very

first

sign of force,

make behavior the

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; behavior,

and not per-

SOCIAL AIMS.

formance, or talent,

much

or,

less,

Whilst

wealth.

almost everybody has a supplicating eye turned on events and things and other persons, a few natures are central

and forever unfold, and these alone

charm

us.

whose word or deed you cannot

who answers you without any supplication eye, who draws his determination from within,

predict,

in his

and draws

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; that man

instantly,

rules.

The staple figure in novels is the man who sits, among the young aspirants and quite sure

and compact, and, never sharing

affections or debilities, hurls his

when

occasion requires,

knows

word

their

like a bullet

his way,

and

carries

They may scream or applaud, he

his points.

Napoleon

never engaged or heated. this class in

poetry.

of aplomb,

desperates,

modern

But we

history

for the

into the charivari ;

;

the type of

Byron's heroes in

most part are

all

chide, lament, cavil,

drawn and re-

criminate.

I think cloth

Hans Andersen's

woven

so fine that

for the king's

garment,

story of the

was

invisible,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; must

mean manners,

which do reaUy clothe a princely nature. one can well go in a blanket,

gymnasium

But he who has not

of behavior

less of

he would.

Such a In the

or on the sea-beach his superiority does

not leave him.

ment

cobweb

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; woven

studious of dress,

this fine gar-

and then not

house and furniture and pictures and gar-

SOCIAL AIMS. dens, in all which he hopes to

]ie

perdu, and not

be exposed. " Manners are stronger than laws." convenience I must always admire. defence and isolation which they effect superable protection. wrestle with you, or

same chamber, thousand mUes

same

and can

Manners seem

with you.

and

Though the person so clothed swim with you, lodge in the

eat at the off,

I am

In the most

yet a

any moment

finish

table,

You

to say,

are you,

delicate natures, fine

temperament and culture build Balzac finely said

Their vast

The perfect makes an in-

this

impassable wall.

" Kings themselves cannot force

the exquisite politeness of distance to capitulate,

hid behind

its shield of

bronze."

Nature values manners pared for them.

See how she has pre-

Who teaches

manners of majesty,

of frankness, of grace, of humility,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; who but the

adoring aunts and cousias that surround a young

chUd

The babe meets such courting and flattery when adult and, trying ex-

as only kings receive

;

periments, and at perfect leisure with these posture-

masters and flatterers aU day, he throws himself

aU the attitudes that correspond to theirs. Are they humble? he is composed. Are they eager? Are they encroaching? he is he is nonchalant. into

dignified

and inexorable.

repeated in hovels as

weU

And

this scene is daily

as in high houses.

SOCIAL AIMS.

Nature

man

when

or agreeably amused.

and

their house-talk

The

or secondary.

Give

at work,

attitudes of children are their

games and in

in the street, before they

have

'Tis impossible but thought

learned to cringe. disposes the limbs

when hard

asleep, or

gentle, persuasive, royal, in

it.

An awkward

the best posture-master.

graceful

and the walk, and art can contravene

a thought, and

is it

masterly

or conceal

hands and legs

And we are awkward for want of thought. The inspiration is scanty, and does not arrive at the extremities. It is a commonplace of romances to show the ungainly manners of the pedant who has lived too and voice and face wUl aU go

long in college.

Intellectual

right.

men

and are timid and heavy with the

pass for vulgar,

'the

elegant.

But

elegant are, also intellectual, instantly the hesi-

tating scholar

inspired, transformed,

the best style of manners.

though of feeble

and exhibits

intellectual

spirit, is instantly

man,

reinforced

being put into the company of scholars, and, to the surprise of everybody, becomes a lawgiver.

think a that he ions,

man is

unable and desponding.

misplaced.

and they wiU

Put him with new compan-

find in

him

excellent qualities,

unsuspected accomplishments, and the joy of 'T is a great point in a gallery, tures

;

and not

It is only

less in society,

life.

how you hang pichow you seat your

SOCIAL AIMS. The circumstance

party.

and

placing.

When

mate, society begins, and

What form

of circumstance

man

iment

made

can,

man by

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; what

his

ties

they

manners pins

walk among the

stars.

his voice, lead the cheer of a reg-

another will have no following.

;

timing

life is delicious.

to the wall, with another I

One man

meets his accurate

happiness they give,

Whilst one

all intelligent of

Nature

these signs, for our safety

and our happiness. Whilst certain faces are illumined with intelligence, decorated with invitation, others are

marked with warnings

are hoarse and truculent bark.

There

;

certain voices

sometimes they even

the same diif erence between heavy

and genial manners

as between the perceptions of

octogenarians and those of

young

girls

who

see

everything in the twinkling of an eye.

Manners are the revealers of secrets, the betrayers of any disproportion or want of symmetry in mind and character. It is the law of our constitution that every change in our experience instantly indicates itself on our countenance

the lapse of time teUs

We may be too obtuse

itself

and

carriage, as

on the face of a

to read

it,

clock.

but the record

Some men may be obtuse to read it, but some men are not obtuse and do read it. In Borthere.

row's " Lavengro," the gypsy instantly detects, by his companion's face

and behavior, that some good

SOCIAL AIMS.

fortune has befallen him, and that he has money.

We say,

in these days, that credit

in trade:

When

it?

to be abolished

a stranger comes to buy

goods of you, do you not look in his face and an-

swer according to what you read there

be abolished ? ter, of

men first

Credit

Can't you abolish faces and charac-

which credit

the reflection ?

long as

are born babes they will live on credit for the

fourteen or eighteen years of their

man

innocent

life.

Every

has in his countenance a promise to

pay, and hence credit.

Less credit will there be ?

You are

mistaken.

more.

Character must be trusted

There will always be more and ;

and

just in

proportion to the morality of a people will be the

expansion of the credit system.

There

even a

little

rule of prudence for the

young experimenter which Dr. Franklin omitted to set down, yet which the youth may find useful,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

not go to ask your debtor the payment of a

debt on the day when you have no other resource.

wUl learn by your

air

and tone how

you, and will treat you as a beggar.

and

starve a little longer.

Wait

tiU your affairs

go better and you have other means at hand will then ask in a different tone,

with

it is

But work

and he wiU

;

you treat

your claim with entire respect.

Now we ourselves

all

wish to be graceful, and do justice to

by our manners

;

but youth in America

wont

to be poor

SOCIAL AIMS.

and hurried, not

at ease, or not in

society where high behavior could be taught.

But

the sentiment of honor and the wish to serve

make

our pains superfluous.

all

that there

Self-command

Life

the

not so short but

the wily old Talleyrand would

pas de

main elegance.

and you command everybody," messieurs,

always time enough for courtesy.

zele,

Keep

said St. Just still

— " Above

cool, ;

and

say, Surtout,

gentlemen,

all,

no heat."

Why have you you

that,

when

statues in your hall, but to teach

the door-bell rings, you shall

at the table of the king," said Confucius. excellent

custom of the Quakers,

school of manners,

— the

silent

It has the effect to stop

moment

sit

" Eat at your table as you would eat

like them.

of reflection.

It is

only for a

prayer before meals.

mirth, and introduce a

After the pause, aU resume

intercourse

from a vantage-ground.

their

usual

What

a check to the violent manners which some-

times come to the table, ing,

and heat

— of

wrath, and whin-

in trifles

a rule of manners to avoid exaggeration.

lady loses as soon as she admires too easily and too

much. lose

man

woman, the

face

and the person

power when they are on the strain

admiration. ors

heat.

man makes

to express

his inferiors his superi-

Why need you,

who

are not a gossip,

SOCIAL AIMS.

talk as a gossip, and tell eagerly what the neighbors

or the journals say

The

apology.

State your opinion without

main

attitude is the

your companion

that,

point, assuring

come good news or come bad,

you remain in good heart and good mind, which is

the best news you can possibly communicate.

Self-control

noisy, sensual savage,

and turn

You have

the rule.

all his

you there a

which you are to keep down,

strength to beauty.

what a seneschal and detective

For example, laughter

seems to require several generations of education to train a squeaking or

a shouting habit out of a

Sometimes, when in almost

man.

all

expressions

the Choctaw and the slave have been worked out of him, a coarse nature stUl betrays itself in his

contemptible squeals of joy.

It is necessary for the

purification of drawing-rooms that these entertain-

ing explosions should be under strict control. Chesterfield says, " I

reason, no

know

had early made

this discovery, for

sure that since I

human being

Lord

had the use

has ever heard

laugh,''

that there go two to this game, and, in the

presence of certain formidable wits, savage nature

must sometimes rush out

some

disorder.

pass to an allied topic, one word or two in

regard to dress, in which our civilization instantly

shows

itself.

sense than ours.

nation

And

dressed with more good

everybody sees certain moral

SOCIAL AIMS. benefit in after a

new

When

it.

the young European emigrant,

summer's labor, puts on for the

coat,

he puts on much more.

first

time a

His good and

becoming clothes put him on thinking that he must behave

and

like" people

who

are so dressed; and silently

steadily his behavior mends.

class of our

own youth

But

quite another

I should remind, of dress

in general, that some people need

need a

it and others Thus a king or a general does not need and a commanding person may save

not.

fine coat,

himself all solicitude on that point.

There are

ways slovens in State Street or Wall If a

are not less considered.

and It

talent he

only

may

when mind and

al-

who

man have manners

dress roughly

the dress can be seen.

Street,

and

carelessly.

character sliunber that

If the intellect were always

awake, and every noble sentiment, the

man might

go in huckaback or mats, and his dress would be

admired and imitated. bert's

be brave."

If,

and has keen

omy

Remember George Her-

maxim, "This coat with

mind, and

man

sensibility, it is

to go to a

proachably.

however, a

discretion

wiU

perhaps a wise econ-

good shop and dress himself

may

has not firm nerves

can then dismiss

easily find that

all care

irre-

from

his

performance an ad-

dition of confidence, a fortification that turns the scale in social encounters,

and allows him

gayly into conversations where else he had beea

SOCIAL AIMS.

dry and embarrassed. I

— I have

not ignorant,

heard with admiring submission the experience of

who declared weU- dressed

the lady perfectly

that " the sense of being gives a feeling of inward

tranquUlity which religion

powerless to bestow."

Thus much for manners but we are not content with pantomime we say, This is only for the eyes. We want real relations of the mind and the heart :

;

we want virtue

;

friendship ;

we want knowledge

;

we want

a more inward existence to read the history

Welfare requires one or two com-

of each other.

panions of intelligence, probity, and grace, to wear out

life with,

— persons with whom we can speak a

few reasonable words every day, by measure ourselves, and who

good sense and virtue search

of.

;

whom we

can

shall hold us fast to

and these we are always in

must be inestimable to us

whom

we can say what we cannot say to ourselves. Yet now and then we say things to our mates, or hear things from them, which seem to put

power of the

ther death or a friend,"

out of the

A few times

" Ei-

a Persian proverb.

suppose I give the experience of

my own.

parties to be strangers again.

many when

life it

I give

has happened

meet persons of so good a nature and so

good breeding that every topic was open and cussed without possibility of offence,

could not be shocked.

One

dis-

— persons who friends said in

SOCIAL AIMS.

speaking of certain associates, " There

not one of

them but I can offend at any moment." But to the company I am now considering, were no terrors,

no vulgarity.

life, love,

All topics were broached,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

marriage, sex, hatred, suicide, magic, the-

ism, art, poetry, religion, myself, thyself, all selves,

and whatever

else,

with a security and vivacity

which belonged to the nobility of the parties and

The

to their brave truth.

of these persons

life

was

conducted in the same calm and affirmative manLife with them was an ex-

ner as their discourse.

periment continually varied, fuU of

results, full of

grandeur, and by no means the hot and hurried business which passes in the world.

good company, in pure, brilliant,

The

social

delight in

atmosphere

the incomparable satisfaction of a society in which

everything can be safely said, in which every

mem-

ber returns a true echo, in which a wise freedom,

ideal republic of sense, simplicity, knowledge,

and thorough good-meaning value of

life.

abide,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; doubles

the

It is this that justifies to each the

jealousy with which the doors are kept.

not

look sourly at the set or the club which does not choose you.

Every highly-organized person knows

the value of the social barriers, since the best society has often been spoiled to of bad companions.

right of choice sacred,

him by the

of all

and

intrusion

men would keep

the

feel that the exclusions

SOCIAL AIMS.

are in the interest of the admissions, though they

happen at

this

The hunger

moment

to thwart his wishes.

company is keen, but it must be discriminating, and must be economized. 'Tis a de. feet in our manners that they have not yet reached for

the prescribing a limit to

That every

visits.

well-

dressed lady or gentleman should be at liberty to

exceed ten minutes in his or her call on serious

A universal

people, shows a civilization stiU rude. etiquette should fix

an iron limit

after

ment should not be allowed without

which a mo-

explicit leave

granted on request of either the giver or receiver of the visit.

There

inconvenience in such

ness, but vast inconvenience in the

trespass on a public servant nation's time.

Yet presidents

want of

strict-

it.

to trespass

To on a

of the United States

are afflicted by rude Western and Southern gossips

(I hope

it is

only by them) until the gossip's im-

measurable legs are tired of sitting out and the nation

It is very certain that sincere

sation doubles our powers

;

and surround

help and delight us.

then he strides

and happy conver-

that in the effort to un-

fold our thought to a friend ourselves,

;

relieved.

we make

clearer to

with illustrations that

may happen

that each hears

from the other a better wisdom than any one else will ever hear from either. But these ties are taken care of by Providence to each of us. A wise

SOCIAL AIMS.

man

once said to

met:

— meaning that he need whom

he knew,

not take pains to

he valued to each

they were sure to be drawn together as by

The

gravitation.

soul of a

The

vant of another.

man must be

life,

—

is it

us do what we can

And we

Our chief who can make

in us.

not somebody

the ser-

true friend must have an

attraction to whatever virtue

want

whom

" all

that

introduce the persons other

are easily great with

the loved and honored associate.

come out

our eggshell existence and see the great dome arching over us

under

;

us.

Speech

power

vert, to compel.

bad sense

speech

to persuade, to con-

It is to bring another out of his

into your

good

missionary and carrier of ble.

and the nadir

see the zenith above

You

sense.

all that is

are to be

good and no-

Virtues speak to virtues, vices to vices,

each to their own kind in the people with deal.

guard, so

you are suspiciously and dryly on your is

he or

she.

you

and generosity, they wiU respect In

—

whom we

this art of conversation.

queen and

victor, is

now

Woman,

the lawgiver.

recalled his experiences, he

the speech of superior

rise to it

frankness

or later. if

not the

If every one

might find the best in

women

;

— which was better

than song, and carried ingenuity, character, wise counsel and affection, as easily as the wit with

SOCIAL AIMS.

which

They

was adorned.

make

themselves, they

are not only wise

us wise.

one can be a

master in conversation who has not learned

from women

their presence

;

essential to its success.

much

and inspiration are

Steele said of his mistress,

that " to have loved her was a liberal education."

Shenstone gave no bad account of this influence in " There is a his description of the French woman :

quality in which no

pete with her, tation.

She

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

will

woman

it is

in the world can com-

the power of intellectual

draw wit out

with such address the chords of gives unexpected vigor electrifies

and

She

fool.

self-love, that

women

she

and

agility to fancy,

a body that appeared non-electric."

ridge esteems cultivated

irri-

strikes

Cole-

as the depositaries

and guardians of " English undefiled " and Lu;

ther

commends

that accomplishment of " pure Ger-

speech " of his wife.

man Madame all

de Stael, by the unanimous consent of

who knew

her,

was the most extraordinary

con-,

known in her time, and it was a eminent men and women she knew aU

verser that was

time full of

;

distinguished persons in letters or society in land,

Germany, and

though she

said,

Italy, as well as in

Eng-

France

with characteristic nationafity,

" Conversation, like talent, exists only in France."

Madame

When

de Stael valued nothing but conversation.

they showed her the beautiful

Lake Leman,

SOCIAL AIMS.

for the gutter of the Kue de she exclaimed, " " in Paris in which her house stood. Bae the street !

And

she said one day, seriously, to

M. Mol^,

" If

human opinions, I would not see the Bay of Naples for the

were not for respect

open

my window to

first

time, whilst I would go five hundred leagues

to talk with a

man

of genius

whom I had

not seen."

Sainte-Beuve teUs us of the privileged circle at

Coppet, that after making an excursion one day, the party returned in two coaches from

many

The

on the way to Coppet.

to Aix,

rueful accidents to relate,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;a

Chamb^ry coach had

terrific

thun-

and danger and gloom

der-storm, shocking roads,

The party

to the whole company.

first

in the second

coach, on arriving, heard this story with surprise

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

of thunder-storm, of steeps, of

they

knew nothing

;

no, they

and breathed a purer

Madame

tween

air

mud,

had forgotten

Madame R^camier !

they were

The intoxication conversation had made them insensible to a state of delight.

said, " If I

ame de

were Queen, I

Stael to talk to

fills

a good

of the all

no-

Madame de Tess6 should command Mad-

weather or rough roads.

tice of

tion

earth,

such a conversation be-

de Stael and

and Benjamin Constant and Schlegel all in

;

of danger,

every day."

Conversa-

gaps, supplies all deficiencies.

trait is that

recorded of

Madame

What

de Main-

tenon, that, during dinner, the servant slipped to

SOCIAL AIMS.

94 her

side,

there

" Please,

madame, one anecdote more,

foi

no roast to-day."

Politics, war, party, luxury, avarice, fashion, are

with loaded panniers to serve the kitchen

all asses

There

of Intellect, the king.

nothing that does

not pass into lever or weapon.

And

yet there are trials enough of nerve and

character, brave choices

enough of taking the part

of truth and of the oppressed against the oppressor, in privatest circles.

A right

speech

not well to

be distinguished from action. Courage to ask questions

gain ion,

;

courage to expose our ignorance.

is,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; then you

to find a to

tilt

learn nothing but conceit,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; but

companion who knows what you do not

with him and be overthrown, horse and foot,

with utter destruction of ing.

The great

not to shine, not to conquer your compan-

There

all

a defeat that

your logic and learnis

useful.

Then you

can see the real and the counterfeit, and will never

You will adopt the You will ride to

accept the counterfeit again. art of

war that has defeated you.

battle horsed resistible.

on the very

You

logic

stead of the solenm customary

all.

ir-

truth, in-

lie.

Let nature bear the expense. tone, is

which you found

wiU. accept the fertile

The

attitude, the

Let our eyes not look away, but meet.

Let us not look east and west for materials of conversation, but rest in presence

and

unity.

A just

SOCIAL AIMS.

enough supply fuel for discourse,

feeling will fast if

When

speaking be more grateful than silence.

people come to see us,

foolishly prattle, lest

But things

be inhospitable. are chalk eggs.

said for conversation

Don't say things.

What you

are

stands over you the while, and thunders so that I

cannot hear what you say to the contrary.

for

acquaintance said,

what they say

A lady

don't care so

much

as I

do for what makes them say

is to

throw yourself on the truth,

it."

The main and

point

Newton, " There

say, with

no contending

When Molyneux fancied

against facts."

that the

observations of the nutation of the earth's axis de-

stroyed Newton's theory of gravitation, he tried to

break it softly to Sir Isaac, who only answered, " It may be so, there 's no arguing against facts

and experiments."

But there are people who cannot be cultivated, people on whom speech makes no impression

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

swainish, morose people,

and quieted

tipsy; others,

prompt

who

little

are not only swainish, but are

to take oath that swainishness

the only

odd wit may have some for you, your friends would not relish it. Bolt

culture salt

who must be kept down

you would those who are a

;

and though

these out.

And

made me think

their

man of genius who men were like him eo-

I have seen a

that

other

SOCIAL AIMS.

Must we always

operation were impossible.

and never once for

for victory,

and joy ? Here

talk

truth, for comfort,

and penetration, strong

centrality

understanding, and the higher

gifts,

the insight of

the real, or from the real, and the moral rectitude

which belongs to sources of wit

but

all this

and invention are

and

lost to

all his re-

in every

experiment that I make to hold intercourse with

mind always some weary, captious paradox to fight you with, and the time and temper wasted. his

;

And

beware of jokes

be used

;

too

much temperance cannot

inestimable for sauce, but corrupting for

we go away hollow and ashamed. As soon as the company give ia to this enjoyment, we shall have no Olympus. True wit never made us laugh. Mahomet seems to have borrowed by anticipation of several centuries a leaf from the mind of Swedenborg, when he wrote in the Koran

food,

the day of resurrection, those

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

who have indulged

in ridicule will be called to the door of Paradise,

have

shut in their faces

when they reach

on their turning hack, they door,

them

and again, on reaching ;

and

so on,

will be it,

wiU

and

it.

Again,

called to

another

see

closed against

infinitum, without end."

Shun the negative

side.

Never worry people

with your contritions, nor with dismal views of politics or society. jrou

Never name sickness

even

could trust yourself on that perilous topic,

SOCIAL AIMS.

beware of unmuzzling a valetudinarian, who will soon give you your

The law

common

the is

fill

it.

of the table

Beauty,

unseasonable which

moment

Everything

private to two or three

or any portion of the company. lates for

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; a respect

soul of all the guests.

Tact never

vio-

law; never intrudes the

this

orders of the house, the vices of the absent, or a tariff of expenses, or professional privacies

say,

we never " talk shop

ers abstain

from caresses and haters from

whilst they

sit

in one parlor with

Stay at home in your mind. See how

people's opinions.

and want

there

if is

;

" before company.

no counsel,

common

Don't

lies

Lovinsults

friends.

recite other

there in you;

What we

offer none.

not your activity or interference with your

mind, but your content to be a vehicle of the simple truth.

The way to have

as in a political or social

habitual views.

large occasional views,

have large

crisis, is to

When men

consult you,

it is

not

pump your

that they wish you to stand tip toe and

brains, but to apply your habitual view, your wis-

dom, to the present question, forbearing tries

and the very name

argument

;

all

pedan-

for in

good

conversation parties don't speak to the words, but to the

meanings of each

Manners that as life VOL.

VIII.

first,

other.

then conversation.

Later,

was not in manners, so 7

it is

see

not in

SOCIAL AIMS.

Manners are external

talk.

;

talk is occasional

these require certain material conditions,

human

labor for food, clothes, house, tools, and, in short,

plenty and ease,

and

finest

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; since

only so can certain finer

powers appear and expand.

In a whole

nation of Hottentots there shall not be one valuable

man,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; valuable out of his

tribe.

In every million

of Europeans or of Americans there shall be thou-

who would be

sands

valuable on any spot on the

globe.

The is

consideration the rich possess in all societies

not without meaning or right.

given by the creating value sense of every this

It is the approval

human understanding by knowledge and

human

being that

to the act of It is the

labor.

man

should have

dominion of nature, should arm himself with

tools

and force the elements

give

him power.

his independence

drudge for him and

Every one must seek ;

to secure

but he need not be rich.

The

old Confucius in China admitted the benefit, but stated the limitation

" If the search for riches were

sure to be successful, though I should become a

groom with whip

the search

after that

may

hand

to get them, I

wiU do

so.

not be successful, I wUl foUow

which I love."

There

America a

general conviction in the minds of all mature men, that every

young man of good faculty and good

habits can

by perseverance

attain to

an adequate

SOCIAL AIMS. estate

;

he have a turn for business, and a quick

eye for the opportunities which are always offering

come

for investment, he can

to wealth,

and

good season as to enjoy as well as transmit

Every human

who

best class,

by a

shall be masters instructed in all life

;

shall

be wise, temperate,

brave, public men, adorned with dignity

plishments.

Every country wishes

has taken

own method

the state.

it.

society wants to be officered

the great arts of

its

in such

and accom-

this,

and each

to secure such service to

In Europe, ancient and modern,

has

been attempted to secure the existence of a superior class

by hereditary

nobility,

with estates transmitted

But in the last age, this system has been on its trial, and the verdict of mankind is pretty nearly pronounced. That method by primogeniture and

entail.

secured permanence of families, firmness of customs, a certain external culture and good taste;

names

gratified the ear with preserving historic

but the heroic father did not surely have heroic

and

surely heroic grandsons

;

wealth

In America, the necessity of clearing the

forest,

sons,

still less

and ease corrupted the

race.

laying out town and street, and building every

house and barn and fence, then church and townhouse,

exhausted such means

brought, and

and the

made

the whole

like necessity is still

the

Pilgrims

population poor;

found in each new

SOCIAL AIMS.

100

settlement in the Territories.

These needs gave

their character to the public debates in every vil-

lage and State.

I have been often impressed at

our country town-meetings with the accumulated virility, in

each village, of five or six or eight or ten

men, who speak so

well,

and

so easily handle the

I often hear the business of a

town.

affairs of the

town (with which I am most familiar)

little

dis-

cussed with a clearness and thoroughness, and with

a generosity

too, that

would have

me had sure am each I And experience. satisfied

been in one of the larger capitals.

one of

readers has a parallel

every one knows that in every town or city

always to be found a certain number of public-

men who

spirited

work

of hard

perform, unpaid, a great amoimt

in the interest of the churches, of

and

refine-

as in civil duties, so in social

power

schools, of public grounds,

And

ment.

and is,

Our gentlemen

duties.

of the school of

ilton,

works of

taste

of the old school, that

Washington, Adams, and Ham-

were bred after English types, and that

style

of breeding furnished fine examples in the last gen-

eration

;

but,

though some of us have seen such, I

doubt they are aU gone. to-day.

With

all

But nature

not poorer

our haste, and slipshod ways, and

flippant self-assertion, I

have seen examples of new

grace and power in address that honor the country. It

was

fortune not long ago, with

eyes

di-

SOCIAL AIMS.

101

reeled on this subject, to fall in with an

be proud

American

I said never was such force, good

of.

meaning, good sense, good action, combined with such domestic lovely behavior, such modesty and persistent preference for

moved he was

the benefactor.

he should ride well, shoot

also,

It is of course that

well, sail well,

well, administer affairs well talker,

keep house

but he was the best

;

company

in the

Wherever he

others.

what with a per-

petual practical wisdom, with an eye always to the

working of the thing, what with the multitude and distinction of his facts ally that

(and one detected continu-

he had a hand in everything that has

been done), and in the temperance with which he parried all offence and opened the eyes of the per-

son he talked with without contradicting him.

How

I said to myself. his

little this

sympathy for men and

and

scientific people, that

company, to meet a I think this

creature as he

That

fare of a people

any other people, pied in

its

Yet with

his respect for lettered

not likely, in any

superior to himself.

And

is.

America

men

thought of what

or doing.

suspects,

a good country that can bear such a

The young men little

man

own

at this

the point which decides the wel-

which way does

;

moment take

England are thinking

it is

looh ?

not well with them.

affairs

If to

If occu-

and thoughts and men, with

SOCIAL AIMS.

102

wMdi

a heat

sians,

excludes almost the notice of any

— as

other people,

the Jews, the Greeks, the Per-

the Romans, the Arabians, the French, the

— they are

English, at their best times have been,

subKme

;

and we know that'in

are executing excellent work. ties

this abstraction they

Amidst the calami-

which war has brought on our country this one

benefit has accrued,

— that our eyes are withdrawn

from England, withdrawn from France, and look

homeward.

have come to

feel that "

must be bought "

selves our safety

;

our-

know

the

vast resources of the continent, the good-will that is

in the people, their conviction of the great

moral

advantages of freedom, social equality, education

and

religious

hold these try

culture,

and

their determination to

and, by them, to hold fast the coim^-

fast,

and penetrate every square mile of

American

The

with this

civilization.

consolation

and happy moment

ing for all short-comings,

sentiment

;

life,

affection or delight in the heart, burning

denly for

object

its

for her child

boy for

;

up sud-

as the love of the

mate

;

mother

of the youth

of the scholar for his pursuit ; of the

or for painting, or in the passion

sea-life,

for his country

;

thropist to spend charity, as

—

of the child for its

;

for his friend

;

aton-

a flame of

or in the tender-hearted philan-

and be spent for some romantic

Howard for

the prisoner, or John

Brown

SOCIAL AIMS.

for the slave.

be good,

the heart

It reinforces

makes aU

its

Now

ing.

matter what the object

flame of desire makes

this

tolerable.

103

life

so it

sweet and

that feels

and words gracious and

acts

is,

it,

interest-

by persons

society in towns is infested

who, seeing that the sentiments please, counterfeit the expression of them. ists,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

These we

who mistake

talkers

They

thing, saying for having.

have, they teU you,

an intense love of nature poetry, poetry,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; and

;

roses,

call sentimental-

the description for the

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; O, they adore

and the moon, and the cavalry

regiment, and the governor

they love liberty, ; " dear liberty " they worship virtue, " dear vir!

tue

repute,

Yes, they adopt whatever merit

and almost make

praise.

feel

;

good

hateful with their

The warmer their expressions, the colder we shiver with cold. A little experience

acquaints us with the unconvertibility of the sentiis lost by mimicking soul. Cure the drunkard, heal the insane, moUify the

mentalist, the soul that

homicide, civilize the Pawnee, but what lessons can

be devised for the debauchee of sentiment ever one converted of the patient disease

phalanx of

the

Then

Was

The innocence and ignorance first difficulty

blooming health. realists

like proposing to

monds.

;

he believes his

A rough realist

or a

would be prescribed but that ;

mend your bad road with

dia-

poverty, famine, war, imprisonment,

SOCIAL AIMS.

104 might be fire

with

Another cure would be to

tried.

fight

match a sentimentalist with a

fire,

sen-

I think each might begin to suspect

timentalist.

that something was wrong.

Would we

codify the laws that should reign in

households, and whose daily transgression annoys

and mortifies us and degrades our household life, we must learn to adorn every day with sacrifices. Good manners are made up of petty sacrifices. Temperance, courage, jewels.

love, are

made up

of the

same

Listen to every prompting of honor.

"As

soon as sacrifice becomes a duty and necessity to the man, I see no limit to the horizon which opens

before me. "

Of course those people, and no others, interest us, who believe in their thought, who are absorbed, if you please to say so, in their own dream. They only can give the key and leading to better society those

who

delight in each other only because both

delight in the eternal laws

each other

;

who

forgive nothing to

who, by their joy and homage to these,

made incapable of conceit, which destroys most aU the fine wits. Any other affection are

tween the

men than

same thing,

this geometric

al-

be-

one of relation to

a mere mush of materialism.

These are the bases of

civil

and

polite society

namely, manners, conversation, lucrative labor, and 1

Ernest Kenan.

SOCIAL AIMS. public action

;

whether

political, or in the

of social institutions.

much

society

with

mend, in our

all liberal

;

leading

have much to regret, ;

but I believe that

and hopeful men there

faith in the beneficent results which

joy

105

a firm

really en-

manly enterprise, good educaand elegant manners have been

that intelligence,

tion, virtuous life

and are foimd eration will

here, and,

still

hope, in the next gen-

more abound.

ELOQUENCE.

know any kind

not

interest than to

wise think

of history, except the

which people

event of a battle, to

listen

better than a battle.

of pure power,

with more

any anecdote of eloquence

and

and the

;

a triumph

has a beautiful and prodigious

surprise in it. For aU can see and understand the means by which a battle is gained they count the :

armies, they see the cannon, the musketry, the cavalry,

and the character and advantages of the

ground, so that the result

often predicted

by the

observer with great certainty before the charge

Not so in a court of law, or in a legislaWho knows before the debate begins what

sounded. ture.

the preparation, or what the means are of the com-

The

batants? all,

facts, the reasons, the logic,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; above

the flame of passion and the continuous energy

of will which

presently to be let loose on this

bench of judges, or on gathered from the

unknown. which

Indeed,

this miscellaneous

streets,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; are

much power

aU is

assembly

invisible

and

to be exhibited

not yet called into existence, but

to be

ELOQUENCE.

110

suggested on the spot by the unexpected turn things

may

take,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

at the appearance of

by the exhibition

new

evidence, or

an unlooked-for bias in the It is eminently the art

judges or in the audience.

which only flourishes in free countries. proverb that " Every people has every class of the people has.

its

It is

an old

prophet ; " and

Our community runs

through a long scale of mental power, from the highest refinement to the borders of savage igno-

rance and rudeness.

There are not only the wants

of the intellectual and learned and poetic

women

to be

met, but also the vast

men and

interests of

property, public and private, of mining, of manufac-

These must have

tures, of trade, of railroads, etc.

improvement and each

their advocates of each

Then

terest.

millions, find or

habit

fit

form a

to discuss

and make them electors.

in-

the political questions, which agitate class of

men by

nature and

and deal with these measures,

intelligible

and acceptable

to the

of education, of art, of philanthropy.

Eloquence shows the power and possibility of

man.

There

one of

on a certain occasion

whom we

virtue never suspected,

took no note, but

appears that he has a secret

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; that he

can paint what

has occurred and what must occur, with such clearness to a company, as their eyes.

win, and can

they saw

done before

leading their thought he leads their

make them do

gladly what an hour

ELOQUENCE.

Ill

ago they would not believe that they could be led to do at all

he makes them glad or angry or peni-

tent at his pleasure

desponding

fills

;

makes

of enemies

and

friends,

After men with hope and joy. Warren Hastings,

Sheridan's speech in the trial of

Mr.

Pitt

moved an adjournment,

that the

might recover from the overpowering

Then

Sheridan's oratory.

sudden eloquence

gives,

moment is so rich. Whether he speaks is

orator

surprise is

lifts

on a

men above

cart,

The

whom every man is seeking when he goes

into the courts, into the conventions, into lar assembly,

any popu-

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; though often disappointed, yet never

giving over the hope. the Senate,

themselves,

creates a higher appetite than he satisfies.

orator

the

that

the physician.

in the Capitol or

the benefactor that

and

recall the delight that

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; the

The

House

effect

when

finds himself perhaps in

the forest has cast out some wild,

black-browed bantling to show the same energy in the crowd of officials which he had learned in

driving cattle to the

hills,

or in scrambling through

thickets in a winter forest, or through the river for his game.

and

In the

in the majesty of his mien, Nature has

son

;

and in that

place and

artificial

company

shall

swamp

folds of his brow,

marked her

and perhaps xmworthy

remind you of the lessons

taught him in earlier days by the torrent in the

gloom of the pine-woods, when he was the com-

ELOQUENCE.

112

panion of the mountain

and foxes, and a hunter of the bear. Or you may find him in some lowly Bethel, by the seaside, where a hardfeatured, scarred,

cattle, of jays

and wrinkled Methodist becomes

the poet of the sailor

and the fisherman, whilst

he pours out the abundant streams of his thought through a language ;

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;a

fiery

with

glass or the critic

spoil,

and

man who never knew the lookinga man whom coUege driU or never made, and whom praise cannot man who conquers his audience by in-

imagination

patronage

all glittering

;

fusing his soul into them, and speaks by the right of being the person in the assembly

and

to say,

little

and cowardly before

who has

the

makes all other speakers appear

most

his face.

For the time,

his exceeding life throws all other gifts into shade,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; philosophy speculating on and â&#x20AC;&#x201D; and yet

own breath, taste, how every listener

its

learning,

all,

gladly consents to be nothing in his presence, and to share this surprising emanation,

and be steeped

and ennobled in the new wine of

this eloquence

It instructs in the

man

a mover

;

power of man over men

that a

;

to the extent of his being, a

power j

and, in contrast with the efficiency he suggests, our actual life and society appears a dormitory.

can wonder at

minds

its

influence on

Uncommon

young and ardent

boys foUow uncommon

and I think every one

Who

of us can

men ,

remember when

ELOQUENCE. our

first

made

experiences

and worshipper

we happened

113

us for a time the victim

whom

of the first master of this art

to hear in the court-house or in the

caucus.

reckon the bar, the senate, journalism, and

the pulpit, peaceful professions

but you cannot

;

es-

cape the demand for courage in these, and ceris no true orator who is not a hero. His attitude in the rostrum, on the platform, re-

tainly there

quires that he counterbalance his auditory. challenger,

tor

and must answer aU comers.

must ever stand with forward

of the assembly, ahead of the whole

it is

His speech

superfiuous.

tinguished from action. tion.

mand

ahead

just

human

race,

not to be dis-

It is the electricity of ac-

It is action, as the general's

or chart of battle

ora-

foot, in the atti-

His speech must be

tude of advancing.

The

word

of com-

I must feel that

is action.

the speaker compromises himself to his auditory,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; â&#x20AC;&#x201D; or

comes for something, edge of the

fight,

it is

let

a cry on the perilous

him be

silent.

You go

to a town-meeting where the people are called to

some disagreeable duty, such

as, for

example, often

new They come unwillingly they have spent money once or twice very freely. They have

occurred during the war, at the occasion of a draft.

their

sent their best

;

men

of a martial temper,

;

the

young and ardent, those

went at the

first draftj

or the

ELOQUENCE.

114 second, and

not easy to see

spared or can be induced to go. coldness after the meeting

pose of

man

good

rises in the cold

why

;

silence

and

opened and the pur-

When

and malicious assembly,

would be more prudent to

sir, it

not

can be

else

stated, are not encouraging.

you think, Well, be silent

who The

rest, sir,

on your good record ?

Nobody doubts your talent and power, but for the present business, we know all about it, and are tired of being pushed into patriotism by people who But

stay at home.

he, taking

no counsel of past

things but only of the inspiration of his to-day's

them with

feeling, surprises

his tidings, with his

better knowledge, his larger view, his steady gaze

new and

at the

future event whereof they

thought, and they are interested like so dren,

and carried

had not

many

chil-

off out of all recollection of their

malignant considerations, and he gains his victory

by prophecy, where they expected

knew very

repetition.

well beforehand that they were looking

behind and that he was looking ahead, and therefore

and

was wise

What

he,

this

what a faculty

Waltham at the

to speak.

a godsend

Then

manner

the observer says. of

man

to a

town

put together like a

watch, or like a locomotive just finished

Tredegar works. act indicates

quence.

The

more universal health than

elo-

special ingredients of this force are

ELOQUENCE. clear perceptions logic

memory

;

115

power of statement

imagination, or the skill to clothe your

;

thought in natural images

passion,

;

heat; and then a grand will, which,

and abiding, we

hood.

man shows

the

legitimate

call character, the height of

soon as a

pression, like

which

when

man-

rare power of ex-

Chatham, Erskine, Patrick Henry,

Webster, or Phillips,

all

the great interests, whether

of state or of property,

crowd to him to be their

spokesman, so that he of men.

at once a potentate, a ruler

A worthy gentleman,

Mr. Alexander,

lis-

tening to the debates of the General Assembly of the Scottish Kirk in Edinburgh, and eager to speak to the questions but utterly failing in his endeavors,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;delighted with the Blair,

went

pounds

talent

him and

shown by Dr. Hugh

offered

him one thousand

he would teach him to speak

sterling if

with propriety in public.

If the

performance of

the advocate reaches any high success

England with

it is

dignities in the professions,

paid in

and

the State with seats in the cabinet, earldoms, and

woolsacks.

And

and daily growing

easy to see that the great

interests at stake in this country

must pay proportional prices and defenders.

to their

spokesmen

It does not surprise us then to

learn from Plutarch what great sums were paid at

Athens pils

to the teachers of rhetoric

;

and

the pu-

got what they paid for, the lessons were cheap.

ELOQUENCE.

Ll6

But

power which so fascinates and astonishes

this

and commands which

only the exaggeration of a talent

All

universal.

men

are competitors in

We have all attended meetings called for

this art.

some object in which no one had beforehand any

warm

Every speaker rose unwillingly,

interest.

and even

his speech

only the

first

was a bad excuse

plunge which

but

;

formidable

deep interest or sympathy thaws the

;

it is

and

loosens

ice,

the tongue, and will carry the cold and fearful presently into self-possession and possession of the au-

dience.

angry

Then

political it

an assembly well excited, some

into

meeting on the eve of a

appears that eloquence

swimming,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; an

art

though so few do.

which

be once well pushed

men might

all

crisis.

as natural as learn,

only needs that they should

off into the water,

without corks, and, after a find their poise

mad

overhead,

struggle or two they

and the use of

their arms,

and

henceforward they possess this new and wonderful element.

The most hard-fisted,

disagreeably

restless,

thought-paralyzing companion sometimes turns out in a public assembly to be a fluent, various, effective orator.

cess of

you

find

what

all

and

that ex-

power which so chafed and fretted you in a

tSte-d-tSte it is

Now

with him was

for.

What is peculiar man attains

a certain creative heat, which a

in to

ELOQUENCE. perhaps only once in his

— the great — banding mire

and moreover a

orators

117

Those

life.

whom we

ad-

— have some hahit of heat,

certain control of

it,

art of hus-

hand was on the organstop, and could now use it temperately, and now I let out all the length and breadth of the power. as

it,

their

remember that Jenny Lind, when complained of concert-rooms and

in this country,

town-halls, that

they did not give her room enough to unroll her voice,

and exulted

lq the opportunity given her in

the great halls she found sometimes bmlt over a

And

railroad depot.

mind

action of the

this is quite as true of the

itself,

that a

man

of this talent

sometimes finds himself cold and slow in private

company, and perhaps a heavy companion give

him a coramanding occasion and the

tion of a great multitude,

;

but

inspira-

and he surprises by new

and unlooked-for powers. Before, he was out of To be place, and unfitted as a cannon in a parlor. sure there are physical advantages,

nently leading to this art. JLiind's voice.

as in song

and

;

— some

I mentioned Jenny

A good voice has a charm in speech

sometimes of

itself

enchains attention,

indicates a rare sensibility, especially

trained to wield aU

its

powers.

face, betrays the nature

indicates

Many

what

emi-

and

The

when

voice, like the

disposition,

and soon

the range of the speaker's mind.

people have no ear for music, but every one

ELOQUENCE.

118

Every one

has an ear for skilful reading.

of us

has at some time been the victim of a well-toned

and cunning

voice,

and perhaps been repelled once

The

by a harsh, mechanical speaker.

for all

indeed,

voice,

a delicate index of the state of mind.

have heard an eminent preacher say that he learns

from the

tones of his voice on a

first

ing whether he singer cares

little

Sunday morn-

have a successful day.

words of the song

for the

win make any words

;

glorious.

I think the like

rule holds of the good reader.

In the church I

call

him only a good reader who can read

sense

any hymn in the hymn-book.

Plu-

and poetry

into

Greek

orators,

careful to mention their excellent voices,

and the

tarch, in his enumeration of the ten is

pains bestowed by some of

What voice

character,

what

sometimes

hammer

;

them

in training these.

infinite variety is

sometimes a

flute,

what range of force

belong to the

trip-

In moments of

clearer thought or deeper sympathy, the voice will attain a music

speaker as

of the higher

believe that closet

and penetration which surprises the

much

as the auditor

;

he also

wind that blows over

a sharer

his strings.

some orators go to the assembly as to a

where to find their best thoughts.

The Per-

sian poet Saadi tells us that a person with a disa-

greeable voice was reading the

Koran

aloud,

when

a holy man, passing by, asked what was his monthly

ELOQUENCE.

stipend.

why

119

answered, " Nothing at

plied, " I read for the sake of God."

rejoined, "

For God's

all."

trouble ? "

much

then do you take so

sake, do not read

;

But

re-

The other for if you

read the Koran in this manner you will destroy the

Then

splendor of Islamism."

there are persons of

natural fascination, with certain frankness, win-

ning manners, almost endearments in their style;

who could almost persuade you

like Bouillon,

a quartan ague was wholesome

whom Com mines

France,

managing of

his

all

minds by ;

speech

;

that

Louis XI. of

praises for "the gift of

his accent

and the caresses

Galiani, Voltaire, Robert

What

Burns, Barclay, Fox, and Henry Clay.

must have been the discourse

of St. Bernard,

when

mothers hid their sons, wives their husbands, companions their friends,

lest

they should be led by his

eloquence to join the monastery. It is said that one of the best readers in his time

was the

late

President John Quincy Adams.

have heard that no such powerful I never heard voice

man

effect.

could read the Bible with

I can easily believe

him speak

it,

though

in public until his fine

was much broken by age. But the wonders he

could achieve with that cracked and disobedient or-

gan showed what power might have belonged to it in early manhood. If " indignation makes verses," as

Horace

says, it is not less true that

a good indig-

ELOQUENCE.

120

nation makes an excellent speech.

In the early

Adams,

at that time a

years of this century, Mr.

member ton,

of the

United States Senate

Washing-

was elected Professor of Rhetoric and Oratory

Harvard

When

College.

he read his

first lec-

tures in 1806, not only the students heard him with

but the hall was crowded by the Professors

delight,

and by unusual

visitors.

I remember, when, long

after, I entered college,

hearing the story of the

numbers

of coaches in which his friends

Boston to hear him. to the Senate at

came from

his return in the winter

Washington, he took such ground

in the debates of the following session as to lose the

sympathy of many of

When, on his

his constituents in Boston.

return from Washington, he resumed

Cambridge, his

his lectures in

class attended,

but

the coaches from Boston did not come, and indeed

many of

his political friends deserted him.

In 1809

he was appointed Minister to Russia, and resigned

His

his chair in the University.

taking leave of his

last lecture, in

contained some nervous

class,

allusions to the treatment he

old friends, which showed

had received from

how much

his

had stung

him, and which made a profound impression on the class.

Here

the concluding paragraph, which

long resounded in Cambridge "

At no hour

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

of your life will the love of letters ever

oppress you as a burden, or

fail

you

as a resource.

ELOQUENCE.

121

the vain and foolish exultation of the heart, which the brighter prospects of

sometimes

life will

sive portress of Science shall call

ures of her holy

cell.

you

excite, the pen-

to the sober pleas-

In the mortifications of disap-

pointment, her soothing voice shall whisper serenity and

peace.

social converse

you

cient days,

will never

with the mighty dead of an-

smart under the galling sense

of dependence upon the mighty Uving of the present age.

And

in your struggles with the world, should a crisis

ever occur

when even friendship may deem it prudent when even your country may seem ready

to desert you,

abandon herself and you, when

and Levite

shall

come and look on you and pass by on the other

side,

priest

seek refuge,

shall find

in the friendship of Lselius

it,

MmfaUing friends, and be assured you

and

Scipio, in

the patriotism of Cicero, Demosthenes, and Burke, as well as in the precepts and example of is love,

and who taught us

remember

Him

whose law

injuries only to

forgive them."

The

orator

must command the whole

scale of the

language, from the most elegant to the most low and vile.

Every one has

felt

how

superior in force

the language of the street to that of the academy.

The

street

must be one

of his schools.

Ought not

the scholar to be able to convey his meaning in

terms as short and strong as the porter or truck-

man

uses to convey his

And Lord

Chesterfield

thought that " without being instructed in the diar lect of the

Holies no

man

could be a complete mas-

ELOQUENCE.

122

The speech of the man in the street mend it by mak-

ter of French." is

invariably strong, nor can you

ing

what you

parliamentary.

call

You

say, " If

;

he could only express himself " but he does ready, better than any one can for him,

al-

— can

al-

an audience to the exclusion of

ways get the ear

everybody

Well, this

an example in

point.

That something which each man was created

to say

and

else.

do, he only or he best can tell you,

right to supreme attention so far. their speech all

;

that

is,

and I believe

and has a

The power

perfectly understood by

to be true that

when any

orar

tor at the bar or in the Senate rises in his thought, he

descends in his language, to

— that

is,

when he

rises

any height of thought or of passion he comes

down

dience.

a language level with the ear of aU his auIt

the merit of

Abraham Lincoln Gettysburg

—

— one

in the

John Brown and

Charlestown, one at

two best specimens of

quence we have had in this country. that all poetry

English words.

And

elo-

observe

written in the oldest and simplest

Dr. Johnson said, " There

every nation a style which never becomes obsolete,

a certain mode of phraseology so consonant to the analogy and principles of

its

respective language

as to remain settled and unaltered.

common who speak only to be

be sought in the those

This style

intercourse of life

among

understood, without am-

ELOQUENCE. The

bition of elegance.

123

polite are always catcliing

modish innovations, and the learned forsake the vulgar,

when

the vulgar

right

;

but there

a con-

versation above grossness and below refinement,

where propriety resides."

But all

these are the gymnastics, the education of

eloquence, and not

itself.

They cannot be too much

considered and practised as preparation, but the

powers are those I the shortest

list

named.

first

If I should

make

of the qualifications of the orator, I

should begin with manliness

and perhaps

;

means

here presence of mind.

Men

differ so

trol of their faculties

You

can find in many, and

indeed in

all,

much

in con-

a certain fundamental equality. Fun-

damentally aU feel alike and think alike, and at a great heat they can all express themselves with an

almost equal force. able a heavy

a quick

Thus we have aU

sensibility.

men who

of us

known

lose their talents, their wit, their fancy, at

any sudden lapse,

man

But it costs a great heat to encome up with those who have

Some men, on such

call.

and cannot

in proper shape, ence, their

mind

boy would

tell

rally.

fit

pressure, col-

If they are to put a thing

for the occasion

a blank.

and the audi-

Something which any

with color and vivacity they can only

stammer out with hard

literalness,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; say

very words they heard, and no other. very incident to

men

of study,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; as

in the

This fault if

the more

ELOQUENCE.

124

they had read the less they knew.

Dr. Charles

Chauncy was, a hundred years ago, a man of marked ability among the clergy of New England. But when once going to preach the Thursday lecture in Boston (which in those days people walked

from Salem stairs

hear), on going

he was informed that a

up the pulpitboy had fallen

little

Frog Pond on the Common and was drowned,

into

and the doctor was requested occasion.

The doctor was much

improve the sad

proaches, he prayed for

make

—

to bless to

soft ap-

Harvard CoUege, he prayed Being "to

for the schools, he implored the Divine to

and

distressed,

his prayer he hesitated, he tried to

them aU the boy that was

ing drowned in Frog Pond."

Now

this

—

morn-

this is not

want

The doctor, and his theology, had

of talent or learning, but of manliness.

no doubt, shut up in lost

some natural

his closet

relation to

men, and quick applica-

tion of his thought to the course of events.

add what

told of

him, — that he

I should

so disliked the

" sensation " preaching of his time, that he had

once prayed that " he might never be eloquent ; " and,

appears, his prayer was granted.

other hand, ters

would be easy to point

whose readiness

sure

;

as the

the

many mas-

French say of

Guizot, that " what Guizot learned this morning he

has the air of having

This unmanliness

known from all eternity." common a result of our half-

ELOQUENCE. education,

and

sics

125

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; teaching a youth Latin

history,

from the games

to give

him the

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; allowing him

to skulk

and neglecting

rough training of a boy,

and metaphy-

and skates and coasting

of ball

down the hills on his sled, and whatever else would lead him and keep him on even terms with boys, so that he can meet turn,

them

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; that I wish

an equal, and lead

in his

his guardians to consider that

they are thus preparing him to play a contemptible part

when he

full-grown.

In England they send

the most delicate and protected child from his luxurious

home

to learn to

him no harm afraid.

rough

with boys in the

A few bruises and scratches wiU do

public schools. if

he has thereby learned not to be

It is this wise mixture of

Latin grammar with good

and wrestling, that

good driU in

drill in cricket, boating,

the boast of English educa-

and of high importance to the matter in hand. Lord Ashley, in 1666, while the biU for regulat-

tion,

ing

trials in

cases of high treason

was pending,

attempting to utter a premeditated speech in Parliament in favor of that clause of the biU which allowed the prisoner the benefit of counsel,

fell into

such a disorder that he was not able to proceed but, having recovered his spirits

of his faculties, he his

own

than

all

and the command

drew such an argument from

confusion as more advantaged his cause the powers of eloquence could have done.

ELOQUENCE.

126 " For," said he, "

if I,

who had no

personal con-

cern in the question, was so overpowered with

own apprehensions

that I could not find words to

express myself, what must be the case of one whose "

depended on his own

life

abilities to

defend

it ?

This happy turn did great service in promoting that excellent biU.

These are ascending

stairs,

— a good

voice, win-

ning manners, plain speech, chastened, however, by the schools into correctness

;

but we must come to

—

main matter, of power of statement, know your fact hug your fact. For the essential thing is heat, and heat comes of sincerity. Speak what the

;

you do know and believe

;

and are personally in

and are answerable for every word. the

power

to translate

person

whom you

would convince the worthy Mr. Dunder-

must be a master of ;

speah.

head of any truth which Dunderhead does not

mon

a truth into language per-

fectly intelligible to the

He who

Eloquence

his art.

Declamation

but such possession of thought as

see,

com-

here re-

quired, such practical chemistry as the conversion o£

a truth written in God's language into a truth in

Dunderhead's language, ful

one of the most beauti-

and cogent weapons that are forged in the shop

of the Divine Artificer. It

was said of Robespierre's audience, that though

they understood not the words, they understood a

ELOQUENCE.

127 This

fury in the words, and caught the contagion. leads us to the high class, the

who bring an overpowering

men

of character,

personality into court,

and the cause they maintain borrows importance from an illustrious advocate. Absoluteness is reIf the quired, and he must have it or simulate it. cause be unfashionable, he will able.

the best

man

he does not know your

do not

fight

many

so all eloquence

fashiona-

he will show that

it is

fact,

not worth the knowing.

make

in the best training.

Indeed, as great generals

but conquer by

battles,

a war of

the least part of the oration. taken, the unmistakable

What

posts.

tactics,

said is

It is the attitude

sign, never so

casually

given, ia tone of voice, or manner, or word, that a

greater spirit speaks from you than

spoken to in

him.

But I There

say,

provided your cause

is really honest.

always the previous question

you on that

side ?

Your argument

your language copious, your

How

illustrations brilliant,

but your major proposition palpably absurd.

you establish a

lie ?

You

came

ingenious,

WiU

are a very elegant writer,

but you can't write up what gravitates down.

ingenious metaphysical writer. Dr. Stirling,

of Edinburgh, has noted that intellectual works iu

any department breed each other, by what he zymosis,

fermentation

;

calls

thus in the Elizabethan

ELOQUENCE.

128

Age

when

there was a dramatic zymosis,

genius ran in that direction, until

Shakspeare

;

so in

all

the

culminated in

Germany we have

seen a meta-

physical zymosis culminating in Kant, Schelling,

Schleiermacher, Schopenhauer, Hegel, and so end-

ing.

this

we might add

of painters but of orators.

the great eras not only

The

historian Pater-

culus says of Cicero, that only in Cicero's lifetime

was any great eloquence that no

member

Rome

;

was said

of either house of the British Par-

among the orators, whom who did not see Lord should rather say that when a great

liament will be ranked

Lord North did not But I

North.

see, or

sentiment, as religion or liberty, felt in

itself

deeply

any age or country, then great orators ap-

pear.

makes

the

Andes and Alleghanies

indicate the

line of the fissure in the crust of the earth along

which they were

lifted, so

denly expand at some

the great ideas that sud-

moment

the

mind

man-

kind, indicate themselves by orators. If there ever

a power,

it is

was a country where eloquence was the United States.

for every degree of stages,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; that

it,

Here

on every one of

its

room

ascending

of useful speech, in our commercial,

manufacturing, railroad, and educational conventions

;

that of political advice

and persuasion on

the grandest theatre, reaching, as all good trust, into

men

a vast future, and so compelling the best

ELOQUENCE.

129

thought and noblest administrative ability that the

And

citizen can offer.

ence, the

demands

to be brought

of art,

home

millions of people.

here are the service of

and the lessons

sci-

of religion

to the instant practice of thirty Is

not worth the ambition

of every generous youth to train

and arm

his

mind

with aU the resources of knowledge, of method, of grace,

ency

and of character,

VOL. vin.

to serve such a constitu-

RESOURCES.

RESOUKCES.

Men in

of potencies. We are magnets We have keys to all doors. We

made up

are

an iron globe.

are all inventors, each sailing out on a voyage of discovery, guided each

there

no duplicate.

opportunities,

struck

most

;

strings

by a private chart, of which The world is all gates, all of

tension

waiting to be

the earth sensitive as iodine to light

plastic

and impressionable medium,

the

;

alive to

every touch, and, whether searched by the plough of

Adam,

the sword of Caesar, the boat of Colum-

bus, the telescope of Galileo, or the surveyor's chain of Picard, or the submarine telegraph,

one of these experiments sponse.

victory of is

makes a gracious

re-

am benefited by every observation of a man over nature by seeing that wisdom ;

better than strength

and

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; to every

resolute

man

into a confusion

;

by seeing that every healthy

an organizer, a method coming

and drawing order out of

it.

are touched and cheered by every such example.

We like to and the

see the inexhaustible riches of Nature,

access of every soul

her magazines-

RESOURCES.

134

These examples wake an

man

every

puts out the eyes

;

philosophy which

skepticism sees only

call

low, hopeless spirit

worst;

believes

which says

;

use, life is eating us up,

slow suicide.

the

neither in virtue nor in genius of

and

infinite hope,

to emulation.

't is

all

't is

only question

—

dispirits us the sky who shaU be last devoured, shuts down before us. A Schopenhauer, with logic

and learning and ing that this

wit, teaching pessimism,

the worst of

inferring that sleep

than sleep,

—

man

has done

always

man

to the energetic

;

new

But

can do

;

that

what

that this world belongs

there

that every

rightly

way

always

man

provided,

knows himself as

he has experimented on things,

— I am

put into genial and working temper

;

far as

invigorated,

the horizon

are full of good-wiU. and gratitude to

the Cause of Causes.

poor

you teU

the living

bias of his faculty, with a key to nature,

and that man only

opens, and

and death

instead of these

affirmatives

life for

that

everything desirable in the

worlds, and

all possible

better than waking,

odious.

negatives you give that there

— teach-

the talent in the world cannot save

all

him from being

;

I like the sentiment of the

woman who, coming from a

wretched garret

in an inland manufacturing town for the first time to the sea-shore, gazing at the ocean, said she

" glad for once in her there was enough of.

life to see

was

something which

RESOURCES.

Our Copernican globe of power, with

a great factory or shop

rotating constellations, times, and

its

The machine

tides.

of colossal size

arms

ter of the water-wheel, the

the volley of the battery out of

ure its

;

and

This

are never loose

;

pump never machine

this

The

vat, the piston, the wheels

out,

but are self-repairing.

water cannot

all

sucks

its ;

parts

and

these screws

never out of gear.

and

tires,

Is there

never wear

any load which

Is there

;

any exhausting

Measure by barrels the spending Nothing

of the brook that runs through your field. is

and

mechanic meas-

If there be, try steam

lift ?

not that, try electricity.

means ?

the diame-

;

of the levers

takes long to understand

workings.

of these

135

great but the inexhaustible wealth of Nature.

She shows us only

oms

What

deep.

surfaces, but she is million fath-

spaces

what durations

dealing

with races as merely preparations of somewhat to follow

or, in

;

coUect the is built',

and

humanity, millions of lives of

first

millions of lives to

guesses,

men

observations on which our astronomy

which at

last,

add only sentiments

gathered in by an ear of

make the furniture of the poet. See buUd up a language how every every laborer, every impatient boss who

sensibility,

how

children

traveller,

;

sharply shortens the phrase or the word to give his

order quicker, reducing terms,

and there

must

to the

stay,

lowest possible

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; improves

the na-

RESOURCES.

136

What power

tional tongue.

to her duration, of

does Nature not owe

amassing infinitesimals into

cos-

mical forces

The marked

events in history, as the emigration

of a colony to a

new and more

the building of a large ship

delightful coast;

the discovery of the

;

mariner's compass, which perhaps the Phoenicians

made

;

among an

the arrival

more instructed

of a

old stationary nation

race, with

new

arts

falls it

;

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; each be-

supples the tough barbarous sinew, and brings

into that state of sensibility

transition to civilization possible

machines

man

a shark

which

of these events electrifies the tribe to

see atoms

;

which makes the

and

sure.

his

can dive 'and remain under water can

fly like

like a gnat

;

hawk

in the air

;

can

can see the system of the

imiverse like Uriel, the angel of the sun

;

whatever loads a ton of coal can

can knock

down

cities

with his

the history of deluge,

fist

his race

and every

;

by the medals which the

creature, civil or savage or brute, its

vine the future possibility of

what a

so adaptive

his

and

di-

the planet and

its

existence

;

perception of laws of nature.

plastic little creature

his

;

gunpowder can recover

has involuntarily dropped of

inhabitants

lift

can carry

body a chest

of tools,

so shifty,

and he mak-

ing himself comfortable in every climate, in every condition.

RESOURCES. Here

America are

137

the wealth of

all

soil,

timber, of mines, and of the sea, put into the possession of a people

who

wield

these wonderful

machines, have the secret of steam, of electricity

and have the power and habit of invention in their brain. We Americans have got suppled into the state of

Life

melioration.

but what acceleration to

what

always rapid here,

pulse in ten years,

its

war

in the four years of the

We have

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

seen

the railroad and telegraph subdue our enormous

geography

;

we have seen the snowy

northwest, seats

promise.

When

deserts on the

Esquimaux, become lands of

our population, swarming west,

had reached the boundary to stimulate our energy,

of arable land,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

on the face of the

as if

sterile

waste beyond, the land was suddenly in parts found

covered with gold and

was thought a

fable,

silver, floored

with

what Guthrie, a

coal.

traveller in

Persia, told us, that " in Taurida, in any piece of

ground where springs obtain,

by merely

and applying a oil will

vast

burn

number

naphtha (or petroleum)

sticking an iron tube in the earth

upper end, the mineral

light to the

till

the tube

of years."

decomposed, or for a

But we have found the

Taiu'ida in Pennsylvania and Ohio.

If they have

not the lamp of Aladdin, they have the Aladdin oU.

Eesources of America

Simon's saying, "

why, one thinks of St.

The Golden Age

not behind,

RESOURCES.

138

Here

but before you."

Eden

man

in the

Garden of

here the Genesis and the Exodus,

;

have seen slavery disappear like a painted scene in a theatre

;

we have

seen the most healthful revolu-

tion in the politics of the nation,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; the Constitution new

not only amended, but construed in a

spirit.

have seen China opened to European and

American ambassadors and commerce

Japan

the like in

our arts and productions begin to penetrate

both.

;

the walls of a

modern house are

perfo-

rated with water-pipes, sound-pipes, gas-pipes, heatpipes,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

so geography

and geology are yielding

man's convenience, and we begin to perforate and

mould the old baU, as a carpenter does with wood. All is ductile and plastic. We are working the

new

Atlantic telegraph.

riding every venerable

American energy

maxim

America

azine of

power, that at her shores aU the

rules of

political

The

over-

such a garden of plenty, such a mag-

economy

utterly fail.

bread, and wealth, and power, and

every

political science.

man who

common Here

education for

has the heart to use his opportunity.

creation of

power had never any

parallel.

was thought that the immense production of gold would make gold cheap as pewter.

But the im-

mense expansion of trade has wanted every ounce of gold,

and

has not lost

its

value.

See how nations of customers are formed.

The

RESOURCES.

139

disgust of Califomia has not been able to drive nor

kick the Chinaman back to his home turns out that he has sent

home

;

and now

China American

food and tools and luxuries, until he has taught his people to use them, and a

our

for

commerce.

new market has grown The emancipation has

brought a whole nation of negroes as customers to

buy

all

the articles which once their few masters

bought, and every manufacturer and producer

in.

the North has an interest in protecting the negro as the consumer of his wares.

The whole history of our civil war is rich in a thousand anecdotes attesting the

fertility of resource,

the

presence of mind, the skilled labor of our people.

At Annapolis

a regiment, hastening to join the

army, found the locomotives broken, the railroad destroyed,

and no

The commander

rails.

called for

men in the ranks who could rebuild the road. Many men stepped forward, searched in the water, found the hidden

â&#x20AC;˘

rails, laid

the track, put the disabled

engine together and continued their journey.

world belongs to the energetic man.

him new

eyes.

where we saw none.

His

The

will gives

and means

sees

expedients

The

invalid sits shivering in

lamb's-wool and furs the woodsman knows how to make warm garments out of cold and wet themselves. The Indian, the sailor, the hunter, only these know ;

the power of the hands,

feet, teeth,

eyes and ears.

RESOURCES.

140 It

out of the obstacles to be encountered that

The the means of destroying them. by his boat and sail makes a ford out of deepest waters. The hunter, the soldier, rolls himself in his blanket, and the falling snow, which he did not they

make

sailor

have to bring in his knapsack,

which he sleeps warm herself gives the hint

wit to take

warm by

till

his eider-down, in

Nature

the morning.

and the example,

we have

See how Nature keeps the lakes

it.

tucking them up under a blanket of

ice,

and the ground under a cloak of snow. The old forester is never far from shelter no matter how ;

remote from camp or

A sudden

him.

to be dry

;

shower cannot wet him,

happy in

water,

clump of

which keep up the

with his comrade, and over,

lies

it.

a round stick

crawls under

The boat

Napoleon

fuU of ashore

was

says, the Corsicans at the

had time

of stone,

made

to cut

down the

use of the bodies

dead to form an intrenchment.

known for his

The fisherman looks about him, puts of wood underneath, and it roUs as on

wheels at once.

of their

over

there tiU the shower

his stout roof.

battle of Golo, not having

bridge, which

alders, with cat-

lee-side,

and resists aU your strength to drag

and empty

he cares

he draws his boat ashore, turns

in a twinkling against a briers

he carries Bangor with

city,

Malus,

discoveries in the polarization of light,

was captain of a corps

of engineers in Bonaparte's

RESOURCES.

141

Egyptian campaign, which was heinously unpro"

vided and exposed. attach

Wanting a

picket to which to

horse," he says, " I tied

him

leg.

I slept, and dreamed peaceably of the pleasures of

Europe."

among a

WiU

me ? Here

you scalp

founded them by

lifting

He then explained

icine-man, to

the In-

coming

wild party of Illinois, he overheard them

say that they would scalp him.

among

Tissenet had learned

to understand their language, and,

dians

He said my scalp,"

So he opened

and con-

periwig he wore.

little

them that he was a great med-

and that they did great wrong

harm him, who

to them,

carried

them

in wishing

all in his heart.

and showed

his shirt a little

to each

own eyewhich he had hung

of the savages in turn the reflection of his ball in a small pocket-mirror

next to his skin.

assured them that

they

should provoke him he would burn up their rivers

and

their forests

;

and taking from

his

portmanteau

a small phial of white brandy, he poured

cup, and lighting a straw at the

wigwam,

fire

in the

into a

he kindled the brandy (which they believed to be water), and burned

up before

their eyes.

Then

taking up a chip of dry pine, he drew a burningglass

from

What

his pocket

new

and

set the chip

fire.

face courage puts on everything!

determined man, by his very attitude and the

tone of his voice, puts a stop to defeat, and begins

RESOURCES.

142

" For they can conquer

to conquer.

voice.

man

eye

commands the end

ten

over masses of

When

;

that one

in view is

man

man whose

not only better than all

and the means.

see the issue

once possessed with fear," said

the old French Marshal Montluc,

judgment, as aU

men

what he

And

does.

and the means by

a hundred men, but victor over

mankind who do not "

men

can be attained,

men

believe

power

reveals to us the enormous

one

which

who

Every one hears gladly that cheerful

they can."

"and

in a fright do, it is

loses his

he knows not

the principal thing you

are to beg at the hands of Almighty God, to preserve your imderstanding entire

soever there to get off,

may

be, there

and perhaps

is still

for

what danger

one way or other

to your honor.

fear has once possessed you,

You

;

But when

God ye good

even!

think you are flying towards the poop

when

you are running towards the prow, and for one ene-

my think ards

who

you have ten before your

eyes, as

drunk-

see a thousand candles at once."

Against the terrors of the mob, which, intoxicated with passion, and once suffered to gain the ascendant, is diabolic

many arts tion

of prevention

and of

relief.

Disorganiza-

confronts with organization, with police, with

But in earlier stages of the disorder milder and nobler remedies. The natu-

military force. it

and chaos come again, good sense has

applies

RESOURCES.

143

And we

ral offset of terror is ridicule.

have noted

examples among our orators, who have on conspicuous occasions handled and controlled, and, best of all,

converted a malignant mob, by superior man-

hood, and by a wit which disconcerted and at last delighted the ringleaders.

man, who

What

hired to groan and to hiss, do,

orator shakes

him

still

when the

iato convulsions of laughter so

that he cannot throw his egg

not answer,

can a poor truck-

If a

good story will

milder remedies sometimes serve

Try sending round the

to disperse a

mob.

bution-box.

Mr. Marshall, the eminent manufac-

turer at Leeds, was

festival in that city; it

operatives,

contri-

preside at a Free-Trade

was threatened that the

who were

in bad humor, would break up by a mob. Mr. Marshall was a man he had the pipes laid from the water-

the meeting of peace

;

works of his

mill,

with a stop-cock by his chair from

which he could discharge a stream that would

knock down an

ox,

to his dinner, which

and

down very

sat

peacefully

was not disturbed.

See the dexterity of the good aunt in keeping the young people aU the weary holiday busy and diverted without knowing tures, the

stereoscope, the rabbits, the

corn,

The

the story, the pic-

baUad, the game, the cuckoo-clock, the

mino

bird, the pop-

and Christmas hemlock spurting children never suspect

in the fire.

how much design goes

RESOURCES.

144 to

and that

it,

this unfailing fertility

has been

re-

hearsed a hundred times, when the necessity came

Asmodeus a rope

of finding for the little

She

twist.

of sand to

on the same principle that makes

relies

the strength of Newton,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; alternation

of employ-

See how he refreshed himself, resting from

ment.

the profound researches of the calculus

omy

from astronomy by

;

chronology.

gas

optics

;

law of chemistry that every

It is a

a vacuum to every other gas

mind has exhausted

its

;

and when the

energies for one employ-

and capable of a

ment,

task.

We have not a toy or trinket for idle

astron-

from optics by

stiU fresh

ment but somewhere

it is

different

amuse-

the one thing needful,

for solid instruction or to save the ship or army.

In the

Mammoth Cave

in Kentucky, the torches

which each traveller carries make a dismal funeral procession,

ground. rises

and serve no purpose but

When now

high overhead and hides

lofty depths,

't is

guide kindled a

to see the

and then the vaulted roof all its possibilities in

Eoman

and there shooting

candle, fireballs

its

and held

and showing

plaything was good

Whether

here

successively into

each crypt of the groined roof, disclosing splendor,

But the

but gloom on gloom.

for the first time

its

starry

what that

for.

larger or less, these strokes and all ex-

ploits rest at last

on the wonderful structure of the

RESOURCES.

And we

nund.

145

learn that our doctrine of resources

must be carried

into higher application, namely, to

the intellectual sphere. speedily arrives at

its

But every power in energy and requires to be

limits,

husbanded the law of light, which Newton said proceeded by " fits of easy reflection and transmis:

sion

;

" the come-and-go of the pendulum,

law of mind

T should

alternation of labors

;

like to

have the

the

is its rest.

statistics of

bold ex-

perimenting on the husbandry of mental power.

In England men of

drink wine

letters

land, whiskey ; in France, light wines

;

ia Scot-

Germany,

In England everybody rides in the saddle

beer.

;

France the theatre and the baU occupy the night.

this

country

we have not learned how

the exhaustions of our climate.

necessary in

summer?

Games,

hunting, gymnastics, dancing, ful to

you

The chapter

was a pleasing

Makaria

retires

fishing,

of pastimes

trait in

bowling,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; are not these need-

There are better games than It

to repair

Is not the seaside

very long.

billiards

and

whist.

Goethe's romance, that

from society "to astronomy and

her correspondence." I do not rin

know

that the treatise of BriUat Sava-

on the Physiology of Taste deserves

know

its

repute,

France of France. exigent, that a voL.

vm.

and I have heard

But the

subject

its

fame.

called the

so large

and

few particulars, and those the pleas10

RESOURCES.

146

ures of the epicure, cannot satisfy.

men

of taste

would to

interest

know many

whose single opinions and practice

much

more.

be extended

It should

gardens and grounds, and mainly one thing

should be illustrated

wants

all

clothes, old shoes,

hold, but

that

fleet

the country

life

things on a low tone,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; wants

coarse

man

cannot

horse that a

an old horse that wUl stand tied in a pas-

ture half a day without risk, so allowing the picnic-

Natural

party the full freedom of the woods. tory

is,

in the country, most attractive

gant, immortal, always opening first

care of a

man

new

;

his-

at once ele-

resorts.

The

settling in the country shoidd

be to open the face of the earth to himself by a little

knowledge of nature, or a great

can

of birds, plants, rocks, astronomy

;

the art of taking a walk.

trees ill."

is,

;

in short,

This wiU draw the sting

November and March,

out of frost, dreariness out of

and the drowsiness out

deal, if

of August.

To know

the

as Spenser says of the ash, " for nothing

Shells, too

;

how hungry I found myself, the Museum, for their names

other day, at Agassiz's

But the uses of the woods are many, and some of them for the scholar high and peremptory. When his task requires the wiping out from memory "

all trivial

fond records

That youth and observation copied there,"

he must leave the house, the

streets,

and the

clul^

RESOURCES.

147

wooded uplands, to tlie clearing and Well for him if he can say with the brook. " minstrel, I know where to find a new song." and go

woods in winter, and

If I go into the

the old

am shown

the thirteen or fourteen species of willow that grow in Massachusetts, I learn that they quietly in the

warmer

days, or

when nobody

expand

looking at

them, and, though insignificant enough in the general bareness of the forest, yet a great change takes

place in them between faU and spring

March they

relentings of

anything

hasten,

in the first

and long before

hang out

else is ready, these osiers

their

You

aU the woods.

joyful flowers in contrast to

cannot teU when

;

they do bud and blossom, these

vivacious trees, so ancient, for they are almost the oldest of

Among

all.

fossil

and the pine appear with the day to every wind crush them

;

with his cane

;

They bend

the cart-wheel in the road

every passenger

;

remains, the willow

ferns.

may

all

may

strike off a twig

every boy cuts them for a whistle

the cow, the rabbit, the insect, bite the sweet and

tender bark

;

yet, in spite of accident

their gentle persistency lives

when

and enemy,

the oak

tered by storm, and grows in the night and

and

cold.

When

shat-

snow

I see in these brave plants this

vigor and immortality in weakness, I find a sudden relief

and pleasure

vegetation,

in observing the

and I think

mighty law of

more grateful and

health-

RESOURCES.

148

giving than any news I

likely to find of

man

the journals, and better than Washington politics.

easy to see that there

It is

chapter of Kesources.

no limit to the

I have not, in all these

rambling sketches, gone beyond the beginning of

Resources of Man,

list.

of the world, the roU of arts

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

it is

the inventory

and sciences

;

whole of memory, the whole of invention

;

it is

the

it is

the power of passion, the majesty of virtue, and the

omnipotence of

But

will.

the one fact that shines through all this

plenitude of powers the gift

;

is,

that as

the receiver, so

the good brain and brave heart

;

that the world be-

longs to the energetic, belongs to the wise.

vain to

that all these acquisitions are victories of

make a

It is in

paradise but for good men.

tropics are one vast garden

;

yet

man

The

more mis-

erably fed and conditioned there than in the cold

and stingy

zones.

The

healthy, the civil, the in-

dustrious, the learned, the

moral race,

herself only yields her secret to these.

resources of

mense only

America and

to wise

its

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Nature And

the

future will be im-

and virtuous men.

THE como.

THE COMIC.

TASTE for fun

species,

which

all

but universal in our

The

the only joker in nature.

rocks, the plants, the beasts, the birds, neither

anything ridiculous, nor betray a perception of any-

And

thing absurd done in their presence.

lower nature does not

jest,

as the

neither does the highest.

The Reason pronounces its omniscient yea and nay, but meddles never with degrees or fractions and ;

it is

in comparing fractions with essential integers

or wholes that laughter begins. Aristotle's definition of the ridiculous is

is,

out of time and place, without danger."

be pain and danger,

becomes tragic

;

" what

If there

if not,

comic.

I confess, this definition, though by an admirable definer, does not satisfy

me, does not say

all

know.

The

essence of all jokes, of

aU comedy, seems

be an honest or well-iatended halfness

formance of what

a non-per-

pretended to be performed, at

the same time that one

performance.

;

The balking

giving loud pledges of of the intellect, the

TEE

152

COMIC.

frustrated expectation, the break of continuity in

the intellect,

comedy

;

and

With

announces

physically in the pleasant spasms

itself

call laughter.

the trifling exception of the stratagems of

a few beasts and birds, there

no seeming, no

half.

ness in nature, until the appearance of man.

conscious creatures do the whole will of wisdons.

oak or a chestnut undertakes no function

not execute

which we

;

can-

there be phenomena in botany

call abortions,

the abortion

also

function of nature, and assumes to the intellect the like completeness with the further function to it had attained. The same rule holds true of the animals. Their activity is marked by unerring good-sense. But man,

which in different circumstances

through his access to Reason,

ception of a whole and a part.

and whatsoever of nature to the

not that

capable of the per-

Reason

;

but separate any part of nature

to look at

as a whole

humor

itself,

to look with considerate good-

nature at every object in existence, aloof, as a

might look at a mouse, comparing nal

Whole

;

enjoying the figure which each

and dismissing

man

with the eter-

satisfied particular creature cuts in the

All,

and

The perpetual

the feeling of the ridiculous begins. of

the whole,

The whole

agreeable to the whole of thought, or

and attempt

game

a part.

self-

unrespecting

with a benison.

Separate

TEE any

COMIC.

153

man, a horse, a

object, as a particular bodily

from the connec-

turnip, a flour-barrel, an umbrella, tion of things,

and contemplate

there in absolute nature,

alone, standing

becomes at once comic

no useful, no respectable qualities can rescue

from the

;

ludicrous.

In virtue of man's access to Reason, or the

Whole, the human form

a pledge of wholeness,

suggests to our imagination the perfection of truth or goodness, and exposes

or imperfection.

between perfectness and that occur

when

this anticipation

detected

by the

actual ;

contrast any halfness

have a primary association this form.

men

But the

enter do not

a discrepancy which

intellect,

facts

make good is

at once

and the outward sign

the muscular irritation of laughter.

Reason does not a prophet, in

joke,

whom

and men of reason do not

the moral sentiment predomi-

nates, or a philosopher, in

whom

the love of truth

predominates, these do not joke, but they bring the standard, the ideal whole, exposing aU actual defect

;

and hence the best

of all jokes is the

thetic contemplation of things

sympa-

by the understand-

ing from the philosopher's point of view.

There is no joke so true and deep in actual life as when some pure idealist goes up and down among the institutions of society, attended

by a man who Imows

the world, and who, sympathizing with the philoso-

THE

154

COMIC.

pher's scrutiny, sympathizes also with the confusion

and indignation

of the detected, skulking institu-

His perception of

tions.

disparity, his eye wander-

ing perpetually from the rule to the crooked, lying,

makes the eyes run over with laugh-

thieving fact, ter.

This ature.

truth

the radical joke of

life

and then of

liter-

The presence of the ideal of right and of in all action makes the yawning delinquen-

cies of practice remorsefid. to the conscience, tragic

to the interest, but tivity of

droU

our sympathies

The

to the intellect.

may

ac-

for a time hinder our

perceiving the fact intellectually, and so deriving

mirth from

but aU falsehoods,

;

sufficient distance, seen

moral sympathies do not crous.

The comedy

of discrepancy.

ludi-

in the intellect's perception

And

whilst the presence of the

comedy

en-

embodied

visibly in

Talstaff, in Shakspeare, is

a charac-

hanced whenever that ideal

Thus

become

interfere,

ideal discovers the difference, the

a man.

seen at

all vices

from the point where our

ter of the broadest comedy, giving himself unre-

servedly to his senses, coolly ignoring the Reason,

whUst he invokes

its

name, pretending to

ism and to parental

virtues, not with

deceive, but only to

make

patriot-

any intent to

the fun perfect

enjoy-

ing the confusion betwixt reason and the negation of reason,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

in other words, the rank rascaldom he

THE is

calling

COMIC.

Prince Hal stands by, as

name.

its

who

the acute understandiag,

sympathizes with

it,

155

and

sees the Right,

heyday of youth

in the

feels also the full attractions of pleasure,

and

thus eminently qualified to enjoy the joke.

same time he that

to that degree

does not amuse him as

the

under the Reason

much

amuses

another spectator. If the essence of the

the intellect

formance, there

have no deeper

in-

than our integrity, and that we should be

made aware by entertain. to

contrast in

good reason why we should be

by the exposure.

affected terest

Comic be the

between the idea and the false per-

joke and by stroke of any

Besides, a perception of the

be a balance-wheel

It appears to

Wherever

acter.

m our metaphysical structure.

the intellect

We feel

fect in the noblest

Comic seems

be an essential element in a

will be found.

lie

constructive, it

the absence of

and most oracular

perception of the Comic

tie of

fine char-

as a de-

soul.

The

sympathy with

other men, a pledge of sanity, and a protection

from those perverse tendencies and gloomy ties in

which

A rogue

selves.

vertible.

little

fine intellects

insani-

sometimes lose them-

alive to the ludicrous is still con-

If that sense is lost, his fellow-men can

for him.

true the sensibility to the ludicrous

may run

THE

156

Men

into excess.

and a

ness

COMIC.

celebrate their perception of half-

latent lie

by the

So painfully

laughter.

to these impressions, that

room where they

the

peculiar explosions of

some men

susceptible are if

are, it

man

of wit

come

into

seems to take them out

of themselves with violent convulsions of the face

and

sides,

How

and obstreperous roarings

often

of the throat.

and with what unfeigned compassion we

have seen such a person receiving like a willing

martyr the whispers into

The victim who has

his ear of a

man

of wit.

just received the discharge, if

in a solemn company, has the air very

much

of a

stout vessel which has just shipped a heavy sea

and though the

moment

ciety

does not split

it,

the poor bark

The peace

critically staggered.

and the decorum

of tables

seem

for

of so-

to require

that next to a notable wit should always be posted

a phlegmatic bolt-upright man, able to stand without movement of muscle whole broadsides of this

Greek

fire.

It is a true shaft of Apollo,

erses the universe,

and unless

and

trav-

encounter a mystic

or a dumpish soul, goes everywhere heralded and

harbingered by smiles and greetings. its

own welcome, and

dignity,

Wit makes No

levels all distinctions.

no learning, no force of character, can

make any stand

against good wit.

It is like ice,

on which no beauty of form, no majesty of carriage can plead any immunity,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; they

must walk

gin-

THE

COMIC.

157

gerly, according to the laws of ice, or

must

and

go, dignity

down they

" Dost thou think, be-

all.

cause thou art virtuous, there shall be no more

cakes and ale ? "

Plutarch happily expresses the

value of the jest as a legitimate weapon of the philosopher. less

"Men

cannot exercise their rhetoric un-

they speak, but their philosophy even whilst

they are silent or

merrily

jest

;

est degree of injustice not to so, so it is

wisdom

the top of

not appear to do

it,

and

for as

it is

the high-

be just and yet seem to philosophize yet

in mirth to

do the same

with those that are serious and seem in earnest for as in Euripides, the Bacchse, though unprovided of iron weapons,

and unarmed, wounded

their in-

vaders with the boughs of trees which they carried, thus the very jests and merry talk of true philoso-

phers move those that are not altogether insensible,

and unusually reform."

In aU the parts of is

Hfe, the occasion of laughter

some seeming, some keeping of the word

ear and eye, whilst

it is

broken to the

as the reKgious sentiment

lime of

all

soul.

to the

Thus,

the most vital and sub-

our sentiments, and capable of the most

prodigious effects, so

is it

abhorrent to our whole

nature, when, in the absence of the sentiment, the act or stead.

word or

officer volunteers

the sympathies this

casions grief.

But

to stand in its

shocking, and oc-

to the intellect the lack of the

THE

158

COMIC.

sentiment gives no pain

compares incessantly

;

the sublime idea with the bloated nothing which

pretends to be is

comedy.

it,

And

and the sense of the disproportion as the religious sentiment

the

most real and earnest thing in nature, being a mere

and excluding, when

rapture,

appears, all other

considerations, the vitiating this is the greatest

Therefore, the oldest gibe of literature cule of false religion.

This

But the

indifferent.

lie.

the ridi-

the joke of jokes.

religion, the sentiment is all

mony

the ritual or cere-

;

inertia of

men

inclines

them, when the sentiment sleeps, to imitate that thing

did ;

only the

will,

goes through the ceremony omitting

makes the mistake

head, the clothes for the man.

of the

The

wig for the

older the mis-

take and the more overgrown the particular form the more

ridiculous to the intellect.

Smith, the discoverer of

New

is,

Captain John

England, was not

The Society in London which their means to convert the savages,

wanting in humor.

had contributed

hoping doubtless to see the Keokuks, Black Hawks,

Roaring Thunders, and Tustanuggees of that day converted into church - wardens and deacons at least,

pestered the gallant rover with frequent so-

licitations out of

England touching the conversion

of the Indians, and the enlargement of the Church.

Smith, in his perplexity

how

to satisfy the Society,

sent out a party into the swamp, caught an Indian,

THE

COMIC.

and sent him home in the telling the Society they

159 ship to London,

first

might convert one them-

selves.

The

climax when the actual

satire reaches its

Church

is set

in direct contradiction to the dictates

of the religious sentiment, as in the sketch of our

Puritan politics in Hudibras " Our brethren of

New

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

England use

Choice malefactors to excuse,

And hang the guiltless in their stead, Of whom the churches have less need As lately happened, in a town Where lived a cobbler, and but That out

;

one.

of doctrine could cut use,

And mend

men's lives as well as shoes.

This precious brother having

slaia.

In times of peace, an Indian,

Not

out of malice, but mere zeal (Because he was an infidel).

The mighty Tottipottymoy Sent to our elders an envoy,

Complainiug loudly of the breach

Of league held

forth by Brother Patch,

Against the articles

va.

force

Between both churches, his and ours. For which he craved the saints to render Into his hands, or hang the offender

But

they, maturely having

;

weighed

They had no more but him o' th' trade (A man that served them in the double Capacity to teach and cobble).

THE

160

COMIC.

Resolved to spare him

yet to do

;

The Indian Hoghan Moghan

too

Impartial justice, in his stead did

Hang an

old weaver that was bedrid."

In science the

jest at

pedantry

analogous to

that in religion which lies against superstition. classification or

only as a

nomenclature used by the scholar

memorandum

of his last lesson in the

laws of nature, and confessedly a makeshift, a biv-

ouac for a night, and implying a march and a con-

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; becomes

quest to-morrow,

through indolence a

man

barrack and a prison, in which the

immovably, and wishes to detain others. siologist

Camper humorously

down The phy-

sits

confesses the effect of

his studies in dislocating his ordinary associations.

" I have been employed," he says, " six months on the Cetacea

;

I understand the osteology of the

made the comhuman head so weU that everybody now appears to me narwhale, porpoise, or marhead of

all these

monsters, and have

bination with the

souins.

whom

Women,

the prettiest in society, and those

I find less comely, they are

whales or porpoises to

eyes."

either nar-

I chanced the

other day to fall in with an odd illustration of the

remark I had heard, that the laws of disease are as beautiful as the laws of health visit

an old and honored

;

I was hastening to

friend,

who, I was

in.

formed, was in a dying condition, when I met his

THE physician,

who

COMIC.

accosted

joy sparkling in his eyes.

the reverend Doctor

him

morning

this

1 have ever seen stertorous, all

in great spirits, with

And how

friend,

" O, I saw

I inquired.

the most correct apoplexy

it is

;

161

face and hands livid, breathing

And he

the symptoms perfect."

rubbed his hands with

delight, for in the country

we cannot find every day a

case that agrees with the

diagnosis of the books.

I think there

in a very trifling story

I should not take any notice it

to contain

some

;

so on.

devil

" That

category.

of the

boy who was

letter is

A," said " That

" B," drawled the boy,

;

W, "

said the teacher.

" exclaimed the boy, "

The pedantry

my brothers

A," drawled the boy.

B," said the teacher

malice

did I not suspect

It is of a

"That

learning his alphabet. "

of,

upon

satire

Natural History Society.

the teacher

which goes about, and which

that

and

" The

same when the

of literature belongs to the

In both cases there

mind, seizing a classification to help

knowledge of the

fact, stops in

lie, it

to a sincerer

the classification

or learning languages and reading books to the end of a better acquaintance with man, stops in the

languages and books

be wise, and

The same

in both the learner seems to

is not.

falsehood, the

same confusion of the

sympathies because a pretension VOL.

VIII.

not

made good,

THE

162

COMIC.

points the perpetual satire against poverty, since,

according to Latin poetry and English doggerel, " Poverty does nothing worse

Than

make man

ridiculous."

this instance the halfness lies in the pretension

of the parties to some consideration on account of their condition.

If the

man

poverty, there

stands on his

manhood

poverty of the

joke.

not ashamed of his

The poorest man who jest. The

destroys the

saint, of the rapt philosopher, of the

naked Indian,

render of the

man

not comic.

The

lie is

to his appearance

in the suras

;

man

should neglect himself and treat his shadow on the wall with marks of infinite respect.

It affects us

oddly, as to see things turned upside down, or to see a

man

in a high

wind run

after his hat,

always droU. The relation of the parties

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; hat being

for the

cheering the hat.

which

inverted,

moment master, the by-standers The multiplication of artificial

wants and expenses in

civilized life,

and the exag-

geration of aU trifling forms, present innumerable occasions for this discrepancy to expose is

itself.

Such

the story told of the painter Astley, who, going

out of the

Rome

one day vnth a party for a ramble in

Campagna and

to take off his coat theirs,

the weather proving hot, refused

when

but sweltered on

;

his

companions threw

off

which, exciting remark, his

comrades playfully forced

off his coat,

and behold

THE

COMIC.

163

on tbe back of his waistcoat a gay cascade was

thundering down the rocks with foam and rainbow, very refreshing in so sultry a day his

;

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; a picture

own, with which the poor painter had been fain

The

to repair the shortcomings of his wardrobe.

same astonishment ance of the

man

tue should be is

out of nature, through some super-

house or equipage, as

stition of his

they wore,

of the intellect at the disappear-

bowed out

the secret of

of creation

truth and vir-

by the

clothes

the fun that circulates

all

concerning eminent fops and fashionists, and, in like

manner, of the gay

Rameau

believes in nothing but hunger,

of art, virtue,

and poetry

of Diderot,

and that the

is to

who

sole

end

put something for

mastication between the upper and lower mandibles.

Alike in aU these cases and in the instance of cowardice or fear of any

from the

sort,

to the loss of spoons, the majesty of

He whom

all

man

loss of life is

violated.

things should serve, serves some one

of his own tools. In fine pictures the head sheds on the limbs the expression of the face. In Raphael's Angel driving Heliodorus from the Temple, the crest of the

helmet

so remarkable, that

but for the extraordinary energy of the face,

would draw the eye too much

;

of the celestial messenger subordinates

see

not.

In poor

but the countenance

pic<-ures the

it,

and we

limbs and trunk

THE

164

COMIC.

So among the women

degrade the face.

in the

you shall see one whose bonnet and dress are

street,

one thing, and the lady herself quite another, wearing withal an expression of

bonnet and dress

;

meek submission

and heightens the expression

More food

to her

and another whose dress obeys

Comic

for the

of her form. is

afforded whenever

the personal appearance, the face, form, and manners, are subjects of thought with the

fashion

which

man

himself.

the best fashion for those matters

will take care of themselves.

This

the butt

of those jokes of the Paris drawing-rooms, which

Napoleon reckoned

so formidable,

and which are

copiously recounted in the French M^moires.

lady of high rank, but of lean figure, had given the

Le Grenadier

Countess Dulauloy the nickname of " tricolore," in allusion to her

tall figure, as

well as to

her republican opinions ; the Countess retaliated by calling

Madame

" the

Venus

of the Pdre-Lachaise,"

a compliment to her skeleton which did not "

circulate.

" O, he

Lord C,"

said the Countess of Gordon,

a perfect comb,

The Persians have a

fail to

all

teeth

and back."

pleasant story of Tamerlane

which relates to the same particulars

Timur was

man he had a blind eye and a lame foot. One day when Chodscha was with him, Timur an ugly

;

scratched his head, -since "t^ hiqiir-of tlie%arber'w

was come, and commanded that the barber should

THE

165

Whilst he was shaven, the barber gave

be called.

him a

COMIC.

Timur saw him-

looking-glass in his hand.

self in the

mirror and found his face quite too ugly.

Therefore he began to weep

;

Chodseha

also set him-

weep, and so they wept for two hours.

self to

some courtiers began to comfort Timur, and

this,

entertained

him with strange

stories in order to

Timur ceased weeping, but Chodseha ceased not, but began now first to weep amain, and in good earnest. At last said Timur to Chodseha, Hearken I have looked

make him

forget all about

it.

in the mirror, and seen myself ugly. grieved, because, although I also

much

wealth,

and many wives, yet

weepest thou without '

ceasing

still

But thou, why

so ugly; therefore have I wept.

swered,

Thereat I

Caliph, and have

Chodseha an-

If thou hast only seen thy face once,

and

at once seeing hast not been able to contain thyself,

but hast wept, what should we do, thy face every day and night ?

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; we

who see we weep not,

who should weep? Therefore have I wept.' Timur almost split his sides with laughing." Politics also furnish the same mark for satire.

What

nobler than the

patriotism, which

nation

end

expansive sentiment of

would find brothers in a whole

But when

this

enthusiasm

in the very intelligible

much

for so

much, the

maxims

intellect feels

perceived to of trade, so

again the halt

THE COMIC.

166

Or what

man.

is fitter

than that we should espouse

and carry a principle against

when

the

opposition

all

But

men appear who

ask our votes as repre-

are sadly out of counte-

sentatives of this ideal,

nance.

But there nothing that

no end to

is is

and love which man fect

and

ridiculous.

with any advantages. as well as by tears

quit our

All our plans, manage-

spontaneous sentiment. ments, houses, poems,

this analysis.

not laughable whenever

compared with the wisdom

represents, are equally imper-

But we cannot afford to part We must learn by laughter,

and

terrors

explore the whole

;

of nature, the farce and buffoonery in the yard below, as well as the lessons of poets and philosophers upstairs in the hall,

ment

and get the

also has its

own speedy

limits.

comes intemperate, and the inanition, as

death.

and refreshBut the Comic Mirth quickly berest

of the shaking of the sides.

man would

soon die of

some persons have been tickled

The same scourge whips

When

enjoyer of the joke.

the joker and the

Carlini was convulsing

Naples with laughter, a patient waited on a physi-

remedy

cian in that city, to obtain some sive melancholy, life.

The physician endeavored

and advised him lini.

for exces-

which was rapidly consuming his

to cheer his spirits,

go to the theatre and see Car-

replied, " I

CarlLui.

QUOTATION AND ORIGINALITY.

QUOTATION AND OEIGINALITY.

Whoever

looks at the

aphides, gnats, at the infant

insect

and innumerable

world, at

parasites,

flies,

and even

mammals, must have remarked the

ex-

treme content they take in suction, which constitutes the

main business

of their

life.

we go

into

a library or news-room, we see the same function on

a higher plane, performed with like ardor, with equal

impatience

interruption,

In the highest

sweetness of the act. the book

its

until another period. "

with the hours when

who preserved from harm

Like Plato's

has perceived a truth, " he

a large and powerful

gift ?

disciple

In every man's memory, life

culminated are usually

associated certain books which

has

satisfactions is provided with a re-

source against calamity.

What What

civilization

He who

stiU the highest delight.

once known

dence.

indicating the

class

met

his views.

we might ask with

the event they most desire

confi-

what

but the book that shall come, which

they have sought through aU

libraries,

through aU

languages, that shall be to their mature eyes what

QUOTATION AND ORIGINALITY.

170

many

a tinsel-covered toy pamphlet was to their

childhood, and

Our high enough

shall

speak to the

imagination?

man

respect for a weU-read

rare intellect,

We expect a great man to be

read.

And though

be the assimilating power.

and exacting

difficult

eager.

less

aid of an equal

the

said Burke,

such are a

they are not

class,

that borrows

understanding,"

a good reader

spontaneous power should

or in proportion to the

praise

we encountered a man of we should ask him what books he If

of literature.

" doubles his

he that uses that of a superior elevates his

own own to ;

the stature of that he contemplates."

We prize

who Our debt to tradition through

books, and they prize them most

are themselves wise.

reading and conversation

so massive, our protest

or private addition so rare and insignificant, this

hearing,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

that, in

there is no pure

a large sense, one would say

originality.

minds quote.

Old and new make the warp and woof ment.

There

no thread that

these two strands.

by delight, we aU and laws

;

nay,

chairs

piissioner

necessity,

quote.

and proverbs, but and

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; and

commonly on the ground of other reading or

of every

mo-

not a twist of proclivity,

and

We quote not only books

arts, sciences, religion,

customs,

quote temples and houses, tables

imitation.

The

Patent-Office

Com-

knows that aU machines in use have been

QUOTATION AND ORIGINALITY. invented and re-invented over and over

171 that the

;

mariner's compass, the boat, the pendulum, glass,

movable types, the kaleidoscope, the railway, the power-loom, lost,

from Egypt, China, and Pompeii down

we have

had

have been many times found and

etc.,

arts

Rome

which

which we have

arts

lost

yesterday of making wood

wanted, so also

;

and

Rome

that the invention of

;

indestructible

by means

of vapor of coal-oil or paraffine was suggested by

Egyptian

the

method which has preserved

mmnmy-cases four thousand

The

new philosophy comwith some prophetic maxim

highest statement of

caps

placently

itself

from the oldest learning.

There

tifying in this perpetual circle.

something mor-

This extreme econ-

omy argues

a very small capital of invention.

stream of

affection flows broad

practical activity

dearth of

How

The

and strong

a river of supply

;

the

but the

design accuses the penury of intellect.

few thoughts

men and

its

years.

In a hundred years, millions

not a hundred lines of poetry, not a

theory of philosophy that offers a solution of the great problems, not an art of education that

the

conditions.

thought

this

we must make

delay and vacancy of

the best amends

seeking the wisdom of others to If

see that

fill

immense

we can by

the time.

confine ourselves to literature,

the debt

fulfils

't is

easy to

past thought.

QUOTATION AND ORIGINALITY.

172

None There

escapes

The

it.

very archangels, first

originals are not original.

imitation, model,

and suggestion,

we knew

Read

book tyrannizes over the second.

and you think of Virgil

read

;

Virgil,

the

The

their history.

Tasso,

and you

Homer and Milton forces you to reflect how narrow are the limits of human invention. The " Paradise Lost " had never existed but for these precursors and if we find in India or Arabia think of

;

a book out of our horizon of thought and tradition,

by new researches

are soon taught

country to discover

its

real connection with our

Eead

in Plato

so,

Hegel

ical phrases.

own

and you

mas, and not only

and

foregoers,

in its native

its latent,

but

Bibles.

shall find Christian dog-

but stumble on our evangel-

pre-exists in Proclus, and, long

Heraclitus and Parmenides. Whoso knows Plutarch, Lucian, Rabelais, Montaigne and before, in

Bayle will have a key to many supposed ties.

Rabelais

story,

and

languages

;

and

should see the borg,

we knew

and

will

Sweden-

appear original to un-

to thoughtless persons

;

modern

Rabelais's reading

nality will disappear to such as

read or thoughtful

a proverb, all

of the Rabelais river.

rill

Behmen, Spinoza,

instructed

many

the source of

derived from him into

jest,

originali-

their origi-

are either well-

for scholars will recognize their

dogmas as reappearing

men

of a similar intet

QUOTATION AND ORIGINALITY. lectual elevation throughout history.

" wonderful

Albert, the

Buonaventura, the "

doctor," St.

raphic doctor,"

173

se-

Aquinas, the " angelic doc-

Thomas

tor " of the thirteenth century, whose books

made

the sufficient culture of these ages, Dante absorbed,

and he survives for

German poem

" Renard the Fox, " a

us.

of the thirteenth century, was long

supposed to be the original work, until

Grimm

found fragments of another original a century

M. Le Grand showed that

in the old

older.

Fabliaux were

the originals of the tales of Moli^re,

Fontaine,

Boccaccio, and of Voltaire.

Mythology

no man's work

;

but,

what we daily

observe in regard to the hon-mots that circulate in society,

peating

— that it,

every talker helps a story in re-

from the slenderest

until, at last,

fila-

—

ment of fact a good fable is constructed, the same growth befalls mythology the legend is :

tossed from believer to poet, from poet to believer,

everybody adding a grace or dropping a fault or

rounding the form, until

gets an ideal truth.

Religious literature, the psalms and liturgies of churches, are of course of this slow growth,

—a

fagot of selections gathered through ages, leaving

and saving the

the worse

the

work

of the whole

The Bible

itself is like

better, until it is at last

communion

of worshippers.

an old Cremona

;

has been

played upon by the devotion of thousands of years

QUOTATION AND ORIGINALITY.

174

word and

until every able.

And

particle is public

been claimed for

by the

spiration, the stronger is

tunÂŤ

have

prestige of philonic in-

tendency we are describing

What

likely to undo.

and

may

whatever undue reverence

divines

had assumed

the distinctive revelations of Christianity, theologic

matched by exact parallelisms from

criticism has

Rome. Later, when Confucius and the Indian scriptures were made known, no claim to monopoly of ethical wisthe Stoics and poets of Greece and

dom

could be thought of

sults

new

of the

;

and the surprising

re-

history of

into the

researches

Egypt have opened to us the deep debt of the Rome and England to the Egyptian

churches of hierology.

The borrowing is of

often honest enough,

magnanimity and

bravely, his

and

memory

stoutness.

draw on

will not

serves

he quotes, he

fills

him with a word as good. What own voice and humor, of his table-talk

ently believed to be his own.

when Mr. Webster

pres-

Thirty years ago,

at the bar or in the Senate

Mr. Webster's three

never to do to-day what he could defer ;

and minds of young men, you might

often hear cited as

row

when

his invention

with his

and the whole cyclopaedia

filled the eyes

and comes

A great man quotes

rules till

first,

to-mor-

secondly, never to do himself what he could

make another do

for

him

;

and, thirdly, never to

QUOTATION AND ORIGINALITY. pay any debt

Well, they are none the

to-day.

worse for being already of Sheridan

them from the witty D'Argen-

who, no doubt,

;

tell of

whom

college days

first

that,

we could

consult him, could

heard them

In our own

told.

we remember hearing

Mr. Webster's advice this

told, in the last generation,

and we find in Grimm's MSmoires

;

that Sheridan got

son

175

to students,

other pieces of

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; among

others,

when he opened a new book, he turned and sketched

to the table of contents, took a pen,

a sheet of matters and topics, what he knew and

what he thought, before he read the book. find in Southey's "

Commonplace Book "

said of the Earl of Strafford of him,"

this

" I learned one rule

says Sir G. Radcliffe,

" which I think

When

worthy to be remembered.

But

he met with a

well-penned oration or tract upon any subject, he

framed a speech upon the same argument, inventing and disposing what seemed

fit

that subject, before he read the ing,

his

compared

own

his

defects

all

anecdotes of the

;

then, read-

art

and fulness

;

that ran in the author more

and might better judge

of his

own wants

I remember to have heard Mr.

supply them."

Samuel Rogers,

be said upon

the author's, and noted

and the author's

whereby he drew strictly,

own with

book

London,

Duke

relate,

among othet

of Wellington, that a lady

having expressed in his presence a passionate wish

QUOTATION AND ORIGINALITY.

176

to witness a great victory, he replied

there

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; excepting

and

Brougham, "

know a

What

Madam,

he knows

little

Grimm.

Baron Alderson upon

a wonderful versatile mind has Greek, history,

politics,

he only knew a

;

this speech is

reported by

the sarcasm attributed to

Brougham

But

a great defeat."

also D'Argenson's,

ence

nothing so dreadful as a great victory,

of law, he

little

You may

of everything."

sci-

would

find the

original of this gibe in Grimm, who says that Louis XVI., going out of chapel after hearing a sermon from the Abb6 Maury, said, " Si VAhhi nous avait

parle un peu de religion,

newspapers a few years ties of

nous aurait parlS

A pleasantry which ran

de tout."

through

all

the

since, taxing the eccentrici-

a gifted family connection in

New

England,

was only a theft of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu's

mot

hundred years ago, that " the world was

of a

made up

Many

of the historical proverbs have a doubtful

paternity. leschi.

men and women and Herveys." Columbus's egg

claimed for Brunel-

Rabelais's dying words,

see the great

Perhaps"

repeats the "

IF "

temple at Delphi.

(le

going to

grand Peut-itre), only

inscribed on the portal of the

Goethe's favorite phrase, " the

open secret," translates Aristotle's answer to Alexander, lished."

"These books are published and not pub-

Madame

de Stael's " Architecture

is fro-

QUOTATION AND ORIGINALITY. zen music " sic,"

which

Ill

dumb mu-

borrowed from Goethe's "

Vitruvius's rule, that " the architect

must not only understand drawing, but music." Wordsworth's hero acting

"on

pleased his childish thought,"

him

to reverence the

the

plan which

Schiller's "

TeU

dreams of his youth," and

Bacon's " Consilia juventutis phis divird-

earlier.

tatis habent."

In romantic literature examples of

The fine verse in " The Drowned Lovers,"

abound. of

this

vamping

the old Scotch ballad

" Thou art roaring ower loud, Clyde water,

Thy streams are ower Strang Make me thy wrack when I come But spare me when I gang," ;

back,

a translation of Martial's epigram on Hero and

Leander, where the prayer of Leander

same

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

" Parcite

dum propero,

mergite

dum

the

redeo."

Hafiz furnished Burns with the song of " John Barleycorn,"

and furnished Moore with the original

the piece, "

When in

death I shall calm recline

Oh, bear

my heart

my mistress

dear," etc.

There are many fables which, as they are found in every language,

and betray no sign

of being

borrowed, are said to be agreeable to the VOL. vni.

human

QUOTATION AND ORIGINALITY.

178

Such are " The Seven Sleepers," " Gyges'a

mind.

The Travelling Cloak," " The Wandering Jew," "The Pied Piper," "Jack and his Beanstalk," the "Lady Diving in the Lake and Rising Eing," "

in the Cave,"

how

easily

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; whose omnipresence only

a good story crosses aU

popular incident of Baron Munchausen,

bugle up by the kitchen

thawed

out, is

fire

indicates

The who hung

frontiers.

and the frozen tune

found in Greece in Plato's time.

Antiphanes, one of Plato's friends, laughingly com-

pared his writings to a city where the words froze in the air as soon as they were pronounced,

the next

and

summer, when they were warmed and

melted by the sun, the people heard what had been

spoken in the winter.

It is only within this cen-

tury that England and America discovered that their nursery-tales were old

vian stories

;

and now

German and Scandina-

appears that they came

from India, and are the property of

all

the nations

descended from the Aryan race, and have been

warbled and babbled between nurses and children

unknown thousands of years. If we observe the tenacity with which

for

nations

cling to their first types of costume, of architecture, of tools

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

and methods in

learn

how

tillage,

and of decoration,

old are the patterns of oui

shawls, the capitals of our columns, the fret, the

beads,

and other ornaments on our

walls, the alten

QUOTATION AND ORIGINALITY.

179

nate lotus-bud and leaf -stem of our iron fences,

shall think very well of the first

the

latest.

Now

shall

say that only the

men, or

first

well alive, and the existing generation

and degenerate? and

all art

Chinese imitation ? our like

a hundred charities

men were invalided

life

a custom,

a beggar's dinner, from

subtle

and severe

might suggest that some dislocation has

criticism

befallen the race

;

men are off their men do not live with

that

that multitudes of

but behold

as exiles.

centre

Nature,

People go out to look at

and simsets who do not recognize

sunrises

own, quietly and happily, but know that eign to them.

Worse

their

it is

for-

they do by books, so they quote

the sunset and the star, and do not theirs.

literature eavesdropping,

and our body borrowed, ?

ID.

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

yet,

make them

they live as foreigners in the

world of truth, and quote thoughts, and thus

dis-

own them. Quotation confesses inferiority. In opening a new book we often discover, from the unguarded devotion with which the writer gives his text, all we have to expect from him. If Lord Bacon appears already in the preface, I go and read the " Instauration " instead of the new

motto or

book.

The mischief in particular.

is quickly punished in general and Admirable mimics have nothing of

QUOTATION AND ORIGINALITY.

180

In every kind of parasite, when Nature

their own.

has finished an aphis, a teredo, or a vampire bat,

—

an excellent sucking-pipe to tap another animal, or a mistletoe or dodder

among

plants,

— the

self-sup-

plying organs wither and dwindle, as being super-

In common prudence there

fluous.

limit to this leaning

quotation

than

my me

gives

cast, as

had better have gone

But

it is

literature,

whom

way, and, being better mounted

say

but

;

the gay equipage so well as to go out of I

an early

original.

good only when the writer

follow goes

on an

I like

road, "*

afoot.

necessary to remember there are certain

considerations which go far to qualify a reproach too grave.

This vast mental indebtedness has every

variety that pecuniary debt has, merit.

The

capitalist of either

to lend as the

action no

creetly it

;

hungry

and the

trans-

indicates intellectual turpitude in

volves bankruptcy.

number

able to both.

kind

consumer to borrow

the borrower than the

greater

— every variety of

simple fact of debt

of cases the transaction

Oan we

by the force

in-

the contrary, in far the is

honor-

not help ourselves as dis-

of two in literature ?

Certainly

only needs two well placed and well tempered

for co-operation, to get

any private enterprise spies?

Our very

somewhat far transcending !

Shall

we converse

abstaining to repeat and credit

QUOTATION AND OBIGINALITY. the fine remark of our friend

man

of thought

he, if they cannot write as well.

Cannot they sink

they combine ?

Each

is thievish.

surrounded by wiser

181

men than

Cannot he and their jealousies

poem Beaumont and Fletcher, or the Theban Phalanx's? The city will for nine days or nine years make differences and sinister comparisons there is a new and more exin God's love,

and caU

their

cellent public that will bless the friends. is

Nay,

an inevitable fruit of our social nature.

child quotes his friend.

father,

Each man

and the man quotes

The his

a hero and an oracle to some-

body, and to that person whatever he says has an

enhanced value.

Whatever we think and say

wonderfully better for our spirits and trust, in an-

There

other mouth.

none so eminent and wise

but he knows minds whose opinion confirms or qualifies his

own, and

men

of extraordinary genius

acquire an almost absolute ascendant over their nearest companions.

one day to

The Comte de CriUon

said

d'AUonville, with French vivacity,

" If the universe and I professed one opinion and

M. Necker

expressed a contrary one, I should be at

once convinced that the universe and I were mistaken."

Original power Bunilating power, cellent

usually accompanied with as-

and we value

in Coleridge his ex.

knowledge and quotations perhaps as much,

QUOTATION AND ORIGINALITY.

182

possibly more, than his original suggestions.

If an

author give us just distinctions, inspiring lessons, or imaginative poetry,

us whose they are.

these,

return to

may

not

it is

are fired and guided

important to

we know him as a benefactor, and shall him as long as he serves us so well. Wq well to know what is Plato's and what is

Montesquieu's or Goethe's part, and what thought

was always dear

to the writer himself

;

but the

v^rth of the sentences consists in their radiancy

and equal aptitude

They

to all intelligence.

our facts like a charm.

fit all

respect ourselves the

more that we know them. Next first

to the originator of a

quoter of

it.

Many wiU

good sentence

one thinks of quoting a passage. has done

this, that

Then

west.

Genius

line

nobly.

soon as he

wiU be quoted ways

there are great

borrows

the

read the book before

When

and

east

borrowing.

Shakspeare

charged with debts to his authors, Landor replies " Yet he was more original than his originals. He breathed upon dead bodies and brought them into life."

And we must

for the just remark, circle

but

aU that

little

grew."

thank Karl Ottfried MiiUer " Poesy, drawing within

glorious

and

concern as to where

inspiring, gave itself its

flowers originally

Voltaire usually imitated, but

such superiority that

Dubuc

its

said

with

like the

QUOTATION AND ORIGINALITY. false

183

AmphitryÂŤn; although the stranger,

always he who has the air of being master of the as soon as he heard a

Wordsworth,

house."

thing, caught

soon reproduced

up, meditated upon it

in his conversation

good

and very

it,

and writing.

De Quincey said, " That is what I told you," mine, and not he replied, " No that is mine, yours." On the whole, we like the valor of it. If

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

on Marmontel's principle, " I pounce on what

mine, wherever I find

broader rule, " I take

;

and on Bacon's

It betrays the consciousness that truth is

vince."

the property of no individual, but all

my pro-

knowledge to be

all

And

men.

the treasure of

inasmuch as any writer has ascended

to a just view of man's condition, he has adopted this tone.

In so far as the receiver's aim

and not on

literature, wiU.

source.

The

imports

the

on life,

be his indifference to the

nobler the truth or sentiment, the less question

authorship.

troubles the simple seeker from

whom

never

he derived

Whoever expresses

such or such a sentiment.

to us

a just thought makes ridiculous the pains of the critic

who should teU him where such a word had

been said before.

" It

Plato than according present

only needs to

mind's eye to read there

no more according to

me." lift

Truth

always

the iron lids of the

its oracles.

But the moment

the purpose of display, the fraud

exposed.

QUOTATION AND ORIGINALITY.

184 In

fact, it is as difficult to

of others, as transition,

appropriate the thoughts

Always some

to invent.

it is

some sudden

steep

alteration of temperature,

or of point of view, betrays the foreign interpolation.

There

is,

new charm

besides, a

in such intellec-

tual works as, passing through long time, have

man

that poetry which no

wrote,

than the genius of humanity

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; no poet â&#x20AC;&#x201D; which

itself,

be read in a mythology, in the

had

We admire

a multitude of authors and improvers.

effect of

less is

a fixed or

national style of pictures, of sculptures, or drama,

cities,

The

been used happily. it,

also is

Every word in the language has once

language.

retains

Such a poem

or sciences, on us.

and

it is

charm belonged

ear,

word and not

to the

thought which so enforced of course, kill

and

it,

caught by that

one finding

what

the

But a quick

avoided. it,

and

Then people quote only

to the life of

These profane uses,

it.

wit can at any time reinforce

vogue again.

felicity,

used again and again, as

comes into

so differently

gaudy and popular

another, the heart of the author, the report of his

and happiest hour and the reader sometimes

select

;

giving

Most

the citation than he owes to

it.

the classical citations you shall hear or

read in the current journals or speeches were not

drawn from the

originals, but

tations in English books

;

from previous quo-

and you can

easily pro*

QUOTATION AND ORIGINALITY.

185

nounce, from the use and relevancy of the sentence,

whether

had not done duty many times before,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

whether your jewel was got from the mine or from

an auctioneer.

originates.

and

fervent sense

poets, well

are

italics

The

ours."

;

recited,

from the rendering.

interest

"the

selects as

of a

by what he

read the quotation with his eyes,

new and

find a

from one of the

much informed

are as

by what he

writer's genius

as a passage

borrows new

the journals say, of books is

profit

The

according to the sensibility of the reader.

pro-

foundest thought or passion sleeps as in a mine until

an equal mind and heart finds and publishes

The passages

it.

Shakspeare that we most prize

were never quoted until within

this century;

and

Milton's prose, and Burke, even, have their best

fame within

friends

Every

it.

one, too,

remembers his

their favorite poetry or other reading.

Observe also that a writer appears to more advantage in the pages of another book than in his

In his own he waits as a candidate for your

own.

approbation

Then

;

in another's he

tage with us simply because

There

a lawgiver.

another's thoughts have a certain advan-

illusion in

new

they are phrase.

another's.

A man hears

a fine sentence out of Swedenborg, and wonders at the wisdom, and

now

very merry at heart that he has

got so fine a thing.

Translate

out of the

QUOTATION AND ORIGINALITY.

186

new words

into his

wonder again fine

at his

own usual phrase, and he will own simplicity, such tricks do

words play with

us.

curious what

acquires

new

an old author

interest

canonization in Tiraboschi, or

official

Dr. Johnson, or Von Hammer-Purgstall, or or other historian of literature.

HaUam,

Their registration

of his book, or citation of a passage, carries the senti-

mental value of a college diploma. Hallam, though never profound,

poetry tmless

becomes deep, being always blind

and deaf

a fair mind, able to appreciate

to imaginative

the Platonists,

and analogy-loving

Donne, Herbert, Crashaw, and Vaughan

lam

cites a sentence

;

and Hal-

from Bacon or Sidney, and

distinguishes a lyric of

straightway

souls,

Giordano Bruno, like

commends

Edwards or Vaux, and itself to

us as

if it

had

re-

ceived the Isthmian crown. It

a familiar expedient of brilliant writers, and

not less of witty talkers, the device of ascribing their

own

to give

dor,

sentence to an imaginary person, in order weight,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

as Cicero, Cowley, Swift,

and Carlyle have done.

at a critical

moment

And

Lan-

Cardinal de Eetz,

in the Parliament of Paris,

described himself in an extemporary Latin sentence,

which he pretended to quote from a

and which

told admirably well.

reflex effect of this

classic author,

a curious

enhancement of our thought by

QUOTATION AND ORIGINALITY. citing

187

from another, that many men can write

better under a

mask than

terton in archaic ballad,

for themselves ; as Chat-

Le Sage

in Spanish cos-

tume, Macpherson as " Ossian " and, I doubt not, ;

many a young barrister in chambers in London, who forges good thunder for the "Times," but never works as well under his own name. sort of dramatizing talent

;

it is

This

not rare to find

great powers of recitation, without the least original eloquence,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; or people who

copy drawings with

admirable skiU, but are incapable of any design.

In hours of high mental activity we sometimes do

much

the book too

honor, reading out of

things than the author wrote,

between the

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; reading,

You have had

lines.

ence in conversation

others.

better

say,

the like experi-

the wit was in what you heard,

not in what the speakers said.

came from

Our

best thought

We heard in their words a deeper

sense than the speakers put into them, and could

express ourselves in other people's phrases to finer

purpose than they knew.

HaUam

his friends

In Moore's Diary, Mr.

reported as mentioning at dinner one of

who had

a thing that

falls

said, " I don't flat

know how

is,

from me seems quite an

when given at second-hand by SherI never Kke my own hon-mots until he

excellent joke idan.

adopts them."

Dumont was

exalted by being used

by Mirabeau, by Bentham, and by Sir Philip Fran-

QUOTATION AND ORIGINALITY.

188 cis,

who, again, was

less

than his own " Junius

and James Hogg (except in and " The Witch author, owing his

of Fife ")

fame

but a third-rate

to his

effigy colossalized

through the lens of John Wilson, writes better under the

North " than

;

poems " Kilmeny "

his

domino

— who,

in his proper clothes.

again,

" Christopher

The bold theory

of Delia Bacon, that Shakspeare's plays were writ-

ten by a society of wits,

— by Sir Walter Raleigh,

Lord Bacon, and others around the Earl of Southampton, had plainly for her the charm of the superior meaning they would acquire when read

—

under this light

;

this idea of the authorship con-

trolling our appreciation of the

works themselves.

We once knew a man overjoyed at the notice pamphlet in a leading newspaper. gave his imagination it ?

Was

Who

he could detect in the it

range he

could have written

not Colonel Carbine, or Senator Toni-

trus, or, at the least. Professor

How

What

of his

Maximilian ?

Yes,

Roman

hand.

style that fine

seemed the very voice of the refined and

discerning public, inviting merit at last to consent to fame,

and come up and take place

served and authentic chairs

in the re-

carried the jour-

nal with haste to the sympathizing Cousin Matilda,

who is so proud of aU we do. But what dismay when the good Matilda, pleased with his pleasure, confessed she had written the criticism, and carried

QUOTATION AND ORIGINALITY.

189

" Mr. with her own hands to the post-office Wordsworth," said Charles Lamb, " allow me to it

introduce to you

only admirer."

Swedenborg threw a formidable theory

into the

world, that every soul existed in a society of souls,

from which aU

its

thoughts passed into

as the

it,

blood of the mother circulates in her unborn child

and he noticed sleeping

that,

when

and waldng,

—

in his bed, alternately

sleeping,

was

sur-

rounded by persons disputing and offering opinions

on the one tion

;

side

and on the other

side of a proposi-

waking, the like suggestions occurred for and

against the proposition as his

own thoughts

sleep-

;

ing again, he saw and heard the speakers as before

and

this as often as

he slept or waked.

expand the image, does

not look as

And if

if we we men

were thinking and talking out of an enormous antiquity, as if

stood, not in a coterie of

prompters

that filled a sitting-room, but in a circle of intelligences that reached through all thinkers, poets, inventors,

man, first

and

Celt,

wits,

men and women,

Aryan, Ninevite, Copt,

English, Ger-

— back

to the

geometer, bard, mason, carpenter, planter, shep-

herd,

— back

to the first negro,

who, with more

health or better perception, gave a shriUer sound or

name

for the thing he

benefactors are as

Our who in-

saw and dealt with ?

many

as the children

vented speech, word by word.

Language

a city

QUOTATION AND ORIGINALITY.

190

to the building of

a stone

;

yet he

which every human being brought

no more to be credited with the

grand result than the acaleph which adds a the coral reef which Ilai'Ta

all

things are in flux.

The

it.

old forest

new

the composition of the

inevitable

You are

that you are indebted to the past.

formed by

cell to

the basis of the continent.

fed and

decomposed for

The

forest.

mals have given their bodies to the earth

old ani-

to furnish

through chemistry the forming race, and every dividual

only a momentary fixation of what was

yesterday another's,

to-day

to a third to-morrow.

knowledge

in-

and wiU belong

his,

it is

in thought.

Our

the amassed thought and experience

of innumerable

minds

our language, our science,

our religion, our opinions, our fancies we inherited.

Our

country, customs, laws, our ambitions,

notions of

fit

and

fair,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

Every one of

me by

things

What would

remain

writings has been furnished

wise and foolish have brought me, without it,

the offering of their thoughts, facul-

and experience.

My work

an aggregation

of beings taken from the whole of nature

the

a thousand different persons, a thousand

suspecting ties,

;

art of appropriation were derogatory to gen-

if this

ius ?

said, "

we never made, we but quote them.

all these

we found them ready-made Goethe frankly

and our

name

of Goethe."

;

bears

QUOTATION- AND ORIGINALITY. But there remains the

191

indefeasible persistency of

One

the individual to be himself.

leaf,

one blade

of grass, one meridian, does not resemble another.

Every mind folded, the

different

and the more

;

more pronounced

must draw the elements they be granite and

by sun and

him

into

silex, will

un-

for food, and, if

them cooked

prefer

by time and

rain,

it is

that difference.

art, to his

hand.

But, however received, these elements pass into the substance of his constitution, will be assimilated,

and tend always

to form, not a partisan, but a pos-

sessor of truth.

that can be said of the pre-

all

ponderance of the Past, the single word Genius

The

sufficient reply.

The

divine resides in the new.

divine never quotes, but

is,

and

creates.

profound apprehension of the Present

which makes the Past forgotten.

;

for

knows that

mates, but that a state of everything.

being one's see

and

bility,

Genius believes

are.

And what self,

facts are not ulti-

mind

the ancestor of

Originality ?

It is being,

and reporting accurately what we

Genius

in the first instance, sensi-

the capacity of receiving just impressions

from the external world, and the power of nating these after the laws of thought.

WUl,

The

Genius,

presentiment against the testimony of

its faintest

all history

co-ordi-

It implies

or original force, for their right distribution

and expression.

If to this the sentiment of piety

QUOTATION AND ORIGINALITY.

192

be added,

strictly his

the thinker feels that the thought most

own

not his own, and recognizes the

perpetual suggestion of the oldest thoughts

Supreme

become new and

InteUeet, the

fertile whilst

speaks them.

There

Originals never lose their value.

ways in them a

and weight

style

of speech,

al-

which

the immanence of the oracle bestowed, and which

Hence the permanence and Plutarch manner in which Scripture is

cannot be counterfeited. of the high poets.

Plato, Cicero,

cite the poets in the

A phrase or a single word

quoted in our churches. is

adduced, with honoring emphasis, from Pindar,

Hesiod, or Euripides, as precluding

because thus had they said

all

argument,

importing that the

bard spoke not his own, but the words of some god.

True poets have always ascended

to this lofty plat-

form, and met this expectation.

Shakspeare, Mil-

ton,

Wordsworth, were very conscious of their

sponsibilities.

finds

When

man

no foot-track in the

spontaneous thought

Pindar uses

this

field

All

else.

haughty defiance, as

impossible to find his sources swift darts within

he traverses.

irrespective

they need interpreters.

who knoweth much by

" There are

were

many

which have a voice

quiver,

for those with understanding

re-

thinks happily, he

;

but to the crowd gifted with genius

natural talent."

QUOTATION AND ORIGINALITY. Our ject to

mind take the

pleasure in seeing each

which

has a proper right

fitness in time.

life,

seen in mere

The

first.

earliest describers

as Captain Cook's account of the So-

Alexander Henry's travels among

ciety Islands, or

our Indian

have a charm of truth and just Landsmen and sailors freshly come

tribes,

point of view.

and with no

false

no sentimentality yet about wild

life,

from the most expectation,

civilized countries,

healthily receive

and report what they saw,

ing what they must, and using no choice

man

sub-

that comes second must needs

quote him that comes of savage

193

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

see-

and no

;

suspects the superior merit of the description,

until Chateaubriand, or

Byron, or the

Moore, or Campbell, or

artists, arrive,

and mix

much

art

with their picture that the incomparable advantage

For the same reason

of the first narrative appears.

an antique

dislike that the poet should choose

or far-fetched subject for his muse, as

want of

insight.

nearest.

Only

can we pardon

The

as braveries of too prodigal it,

when

some old mummy, and, again here in the

the

the life of genius

power so re-

flings its fire into

walks and blushes

street.

cannot overstate our debt to the Past, but

moment has

for us

he avowed

great deal always with the

dundant that out of petulance

;

the supreme claim.

but the sole terms on which

VOL. VIII.

The Past

can become

194

QUOTATION AND ORIGINALITY.

ours are

its

subordination to the Present.

inventor knows

how

and every man

to borrow,

or should be an inventor.

with the organic motion of the

Only an

soul.

'T is certain

own proper motion, and

that thought has

its

hints which, flash

from

it,

must not tamper the

the words overheard at

unawares by the free mind, are trustworthy and fertile selfish terial.

when obeyed and not perverted to low and account. This vast memory is only raw maThe divine gift is ever the instant life,

which receives and uses and

creates,

and can well

bury the old in the onmipotency with which Nature decomposes

all

her harvest for recomposition.

PKOGEESS OF CULTUEE.

PROGRESS OF CULTURE. Address bead before the $ B

SociETsr

at Cam-

BRIDGB, JuiiT 18, 1867.

We meet

to-day under

happy omens

commonwealth of

cient society, to the

the country, and to mankind.

No good

to our anletters, to

citizen

shares the wonderful prosperity of the

The heart

Union.

of joy that trial

stUl beats with the public pulse

which threatened

this proof.

sisted is

rude

the country has withstood the its

existence,

and

thrills

the vast augmentation of strength which

from

but

Federal

with

draws

The storm which has been

re-

a crown of honor and a pledge of strength

to the ship.

fair inheritance.

may be weU

Was

contented with our

ever such coincidence of ad-

vantages in time and place as in America to-day

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; the

fusion of races and religions

cry for

nent

;

men which

;

the hungry

goes up from the wide conti-

the answering facility of immigration, per-

mitting every wanderer to choose his climate and

government.

Men come

hither

nations.

Sci-

ence surpasses the old miracles of mythology, to

198 fly

PROCfRESS OF CULTURE.

with them over the sea, and to send their mes-

under

sages

They come from crowded,

it.

anti-

quated kingdoms to the easy sharing of our simple

Land

forms.

without price

offered to the settler,

The temper

cheap education to his children.

our people delights in this whirl of

would

Who

life.

live in the stone age, or the bronze, or the

iron, or the lacustrine ?

age of

Who

does not prefer the

coal,

petroleum, cotton,

of gold, of

steel,

steam, electricity, and the spectroscope " Prisca juvent

alios,

ego

me nunc

denique natum

Gratulor."

All this activity has added to the value of to the scope of the intellect.

American

ment

institutions

and

life,

I will not say that

have given a new enlarge-

to our idea of a finished

added important features

man, but they have

to the sketch.

Observe the marked ethical quality of the innovations urged or adopted.

The new claim

to a political status is itself

the civilization

status

new

humanity

woman

which has given her a

in history.

an honorable testimony

Now

that

civil

by the increased

law she controls her property, she

in-

evitably takes the next step to her share in power.

The war gave us the cess of the Sanitary

men's Bureau. social science

;

abolition of slavery, the suc-

Commission and

Add

to these

the

of the Freed-

new scope

the abolition of capital punishment

PROGRESS OF CULTURE. and

of imprisonment for debt

prisons

the search for just rules affecting labor

;

the co-operative societies

limb

the insurance of life

;

the free-trade league

;

houses

the improvement of

the efforts for the suppression of intem-

;

perance

;

199

;

and

the unproved alms-

the enlarged scale of charities to relieve

;

local famine, or

Greeks

;

gresses

;

burned towns, or the suffering

the incipient series of international con-

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

all,

one

may

say, in

a high degree rev-

olutionary, teaching nations the taking of govern-

ment into their own hands, and superseding kings. The spirit is new. A silent revolution has impelled, step by step, aU this activity. A great many full-blown conceits have burst. The cox-

comb goes

to the wall.

found that

this country

and

most

liberal persuasion

scorn and sneers

this

he has

age belong to the

that the day of ruling

;

past

his astonishment

;

that good sense

now

power, and that resting on a vast constituency of intelligent labor, and, better yet,

and

less

now

dim

of laws the

on perceptions

less

Men

are

most sublime.

be astonished by seeing acts of good-nature,

conunon

civility,

statesmen,

and Christian charity proposed by

and executed by

by policemen and the

justices of the peace,

constable.

to cut the patriot in the street

mercy in the

Mark,

;

The fop

unable

nay, he lies at his

ballot of the club.

too, the large resources of

a statesman, of

PROGRESS OF CULTURE.

200 a

socialist, of

a scholar,

When

in this age.

classes

are exasperated against each other, the peace of the

world

always kept by striking a new note.

stantly the units part,

those

In-

and form in a new order, and

who were opposed

are

this country the prodigious

now

side

side.

mass of work that must

be done has either made new divisions of labor or

new

created

what variety

Consider, at this time,

of issues, of enterprises public

what genius of

private, tion,

professions.

science,

and

what of administra-

what of practical skUl, what masters, each in

his several province, the railroad, the telegraph, the

mines, the inland and marine explorations, the

novel and powerful philanthropies, as well as agrithe foreign trade

culture,

(whose

and the home trade

circuits in this country are as spacious as

the foreign), manufactures, the very inventions, all

on a national

scale too,

have evoked

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

all

imply-

ing the appearance of gifted men, the rapid addition to our society of a class of true nobles,

which the self-respect of each town and State

enriched.

Take

as a type the boundless freedom here in

Massachusetts.

People have in aU countries been

burned and stoned for saying things which are commonplaces at

all

our breakfast-tables.

Every

one who was in Italy thirty-five years ago will

member

re-

the caution with which his host or guest

PROGRESS OF CULTURE. any house looked around him,

Here the tongue

were broached.

hand if

;

and the freedom

201

a political topic is free,

and the

of action goes to the brink,

not over the brink, of license.

A controUrng influence of the times has been the wide

and successful study of Natural Science.

Steffens said, "

The

Great

their views of nature."

made

within

strides

The

correlation of forces

rest

have been

Geology, as-

century.

the present

tronomy, chemistry, optics, have results.

men

religious opinions of

grand

yielded

and the polarizar

tion of light have carried us to sublime generalizations,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; have

affected

an imaginative race like

We have been taught to tread

poetic inspirations.

familiarly on giddy heights of thought,

and to wont

The narrow

ourselves to daring conjectures.

tarian cannot read astronomy with impunity.

sec-

The

creeds of his church shrivel like dried leaves at the

door of the observatory, and a new and healthful air regenerates the

sympathetic

method.

human mind, and imparts a

enlargement

its

inventions

and

That cosmical west-wind which, meteo-

rologists tell us, constitutes,

globe, the upper current,

carry to every city and

by the revolution

of the

alone broad enough to

suburb, to the farmer's

house, the miner's shanty, and the fisher's boat, the inspirations of this

new hope

mankind.

Now,

any one say we have had enough of these boastful

PROGRESS OF CULTURE.

202

then I say,

recitals,

the land wherein ben-

have grown

these

efits

Happy

and common-

trite

place.

new and

Our towns

recent.

make-shifts of

tent-like

mental

solidity of

oldest

antiquity,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

the monu-

medieval and primeval remains

But geology has

summers, has had the

The

whole archi-

effaced these

Geology, a science of forty or

distinctions.

effect to

throw an

fifty

air

mushroom speed over entire history. empires, what we called venerable now that we have true measures of

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

duration, show like creations of yesterday.

yet quite too early to

The

the

rude,

still

when compared with

Europe and Asia.

novelty and

are

emigrants, and the

tecture

America everything looks

confess that in

draw sound

conclusions.

old six thousand years of chronology

become a

kitchen clock, no more a measure of time than an hour-glass or an egg-glass since the duration of geologic periods has is

come

into view.

Geology

itself

only chemistry with the element of time added

and the rocks

White and the

Nahant or the dikes

Hills disclose that the world soil of

the

a crystal,

the valleys and plains a continual

decomposition and recomposition.

Nothing

old

but the mind.

But I and old

find not only this equality between countries, as seen

by the eye

new

of science,

PROGRESS OF CULTURE.

203

but also a certain equivalence of the ages of history; and as the child is in his playthings working incessantly at problems of natural philosophy,

working as hard and as successfully as Newton, so

were ignorance not to see that each nation

and period has done existing

result of

its full

than

itself.

Homer, nor JEschylus,

men

The world

the

agreed to

show

always

drop

nor Plato, nor Aristotle,

Later,

after the breaking

romantic

all

cannot yet afford to

nor Archimedes.

its

make up

are

instant better

Plutarch's heroes.

equal

civility.

we have not on the

that

part to

European

each

of the

nation,

Roman Empire, had

and the productions of that era

era,

in each rose to about the

same height.

an example in literature the

Take

for

Romance of Arthur,

in Britain, or in the opposite province of Brittany

the

Chanson de Roland,

of the Cid, in Spain

;

in France

;

the Chronicle

the Niehelungen Lied, in

Germany the Norse Sagas, in Scandinavia and, I may add, the Arabian Nights, on the African ;

;

But if these works still survive and multiwhat shall we say of names more distant, or

coast.

ply,

hidden through their very superiority to their coevals,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; names

men who have

left

remains that

certify a height of genius in their several directions

not since surpassed, and which to their

wisdom

stiU cherish,

men

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

in proportion

as Zoroaster,

Con-

PROGRESS OF CULTURE.

204 fucius,

and

known

the grand scriptures,

only recently

Western nations, of the Indian Vedas, the Institutes of Menu, the Puranas, the poems of the Mahabarat and the Ramayana ? In modern Europe, the Middle Ages were called

Dark Ages. Who dares to caU. them so now ? They are seen to be the feet on which we walk, the

the eyes with which

see.

one of our

triumphs to have reinstated them.

Their Dante

and Alfred and Wickliffe and Abelard and Bacon

Magna

their

compass,

gunpowder,

glass,

chemistry, algebra, astronomy

and clocks

paper, ;

their Gothic archi-

tecture, their painting, are the delight

of ours.

;

Charta, decimal numbers, mariner's

and

tuition

Six hundred years ago Roger Bacon ex-

plained the precession of the equinoxes and the necessity of reform in the calendar

how many

New

;

looking over

horizons as far as into Liverpool and

York, he announced that machines can be

constructed to

drive

ships

more rapidly than a

whole galley of rowers could do, nor would they

need anything but a

move with mals

Even

and machines

;

pilot to steer

incredible

the races that

;

carriages,

speed, without aid of

ani-

to fly into the air like birds.

still call

savage or semi-

and which preserve their arts from immemorial traditions, vindicate their faculty by savage,

the skill with which they

make

their yam-cloths,

PROGBESS OF CULTURE. bows, boats, and carved

pipes,

war-proa of

the Malays

The

war-clubs.

waters

in the Japanese

Commodore Perry by

struck

205

its close

resemblance

to the yacht " America."

As we

find thus a

ages, there is

also

equivalence in the

certain

an equipoUence of individual

genius to the nation which

represents.

It is

a curious fact that a certain enormity of culture

makes a man is

invisible to his contemporaries.

If they

always hard to go beyond your public.

are satisfied with cheap performance, you will not arrive

easily

better.

good, and require

you achieve

until

history,

men

it, it.

you

they

will

are born a whole age too soon.

men and

The

inventors

shine afterwards as their gods, were probably

martyrs in their own time. writers

and

who they ogy

and burn

But, from time to time in

founders of nations, the wise

who

know what

aspire

;

All the transcendent

artists of the world,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

doubtful

were, they are lifted so fast into mythol-

Homer, Menu, Viasa, Daedalus, Hermes, Zoeven Swedenborg and Shakspeare. The

roaster,

early

names are too

man; Menu, cunning ably the

;

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Homer,

Viasa, compiler

Hermes, interpreter; and so

men were

recognition of to them.

man ;

typical,

And

;

or blind

Daedalus,

on.

Prob-

so great, so self-fed, that the

them by others was not necessary every one has heard the remark

PROGRESS OF CULTURE.

206

(too often, I fear, politely made), that the philoso-

pher was above his audience.

men who,

seen two or three great

think

I have

for that reason,

were of no account among scholars.

But Jove is in his reserves. The truth, the hope of any time, must always be sought in the minorities. Michel Angelo was the conscience of Italy. "We grow tal

now

;

free with his

name, and find

ornamen-

but in his own days his friends were few

and you would need

to hunt

him

in a conventicle

with the Methodists of the era, namely, Savonarola, Vittoria Colonna, Contarini, Pole, Occhino rior souls, the religious of that day,

drawn

;

supe-

to each

other and under some cloud with the rest of the

world

;

reformers, the radicals of the hour, banded

against the corruptions of as hated as

Rome, and

as lonely

and

Dante before them.

I find the single

mind

equipollent to a multitude

of minds, say to a nation of minds, as a drop of

water balances the

problem

its

;

and under

all

own powers

;

alty in a is

view the

which gives the mind possession as languages to the critic, tele-

scope to the astronomer. cal status of

this

culture assumes wonderful interest.

Culture implies of

seÂŁi

Culture alters the

an individual.

monarchy.

politi-

It raises a rival roy-

king against king.

ever the romance of history in all dynasties,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

the CO -presence of the revolutionary force in intel-

PROGRESS OF CULTURE. It creates a personal

lect.

independence which the

monarch cannot look down, and often succmnb.

man know

If a

207

which he must

the laws of nature

better than other men, his nation cannot spare him;

nor

he know the power of numbers, the secret of

geometry, of algebra

on which the computations

;

of astronomy, of navigation, of machinery, rest.

he can converse better than any other, he rules the

minds of men wherever he goes nation, he intoxicates men.

pers despotism by epigrams sentence, has played

;

he has imagi-

he has wit, he tema song, a satire, a

part in great events.

its

Elo-

quence a hundred times has turned the scale of war

and peace

at will.

The

history of Greece

time reduced to two persons, cessor of Philip,

on one

side,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

at one

Philip, or the suc-

and Demosthenes, a

private citizen, on the other.

If he has a military

genius, like Belisarius, or administrative faculty, like

Chatham

or Bismarck, he

the king's king.

If a theologian of deep convictions

and strong un-

derstanding carries his country with him, like Luther, the state

becomes Lutheran, in spite of the

Emperor

Thomas

;

English Henry.

Wit

a Becket overpowered the

has a great charter.

and kings and Councils their censorships

people.

and

Some Dante

Ten

Popes

are very sharp with

inquisitions,

but

it is

on dull

or Angelo, Rabelais, Hafiz,

Cervantes, Erasmus, B^ranger, Bettine von Arnim,

PROGRESS OF CULTURE.

208

or whatever genuine wit of the old inimitable class, is

alwaj's allowed.

Kings

feel that this

which they themselves represent

this is

;

that

no red-

kerchiefed, red-shirted rebel, but loyalty, kingship.

This

and

real kingship,

Even manners

their

own only titular. we some-

are a distinction which,

times see, are not to be overborne by rank or cial

offi-

power, or even by other eminent talents, since

they too proceed from a certain deep innate perception of

fit

and

fair.

a cultivated laborer

It is too plain that

many untaught

laborers

with instruments and steam,

dred men,

worth

that a scientific engineer,

;

many thousands

;

worth

many hun-

that Archimedes or

worth for labor a thousand thousands,

Napoleon

and that

in every wise

England, Greece,

and genial soul we have

Italy, walking,

and can dispense

with populations of navvies. Literary history and all history the power of minorities,

Every book

believes to exist in the million.

ways the masters in them.

one.

written with a constant secret refer-

ence to the few intelligent persons

flout

a record of

and of minorities of

his eye,

Michel Angelo

Vinci, and Raffaelle

Tennyson would give

whom

The

the writer

artist

though he is

has

al-

affect to

thinking of

thinking of Michel Angelo.

his

favor from Wordsworth.

fame for a verdict Agassiz and

in his

Owen

and

PROGRESS OF CULTURE. Huxley

209

American and Eng-

affect to address the

but are really writing to each other.

lish people,

McKay,

Everett dreamed of "Webster.

George Steers

builder, thinks of

;

the ship-

and

Steers, of

The names

Pook, the naval constructor.

of the

masters at the head of each department of science, art, or

function are often

known

little

to the world,

but are always known to the adepts

;

as Kobert

Brown in botany, and Gauss in mathematics. Often the master

student

a hidden man, but not to the true

aU the rest, resplendent to own work and culture form the eye master. In politics, mark the impor-

invisible to

;

AU his

him.

to see the

tance of minorities of one, as of Phocion, Cato, La^

The importance of the one person who have it not, is

Arago.

fayette,

who has

the truth over nations

because power obeys reality, and not appearance according to quality, and not quantity.

more are men than nations

How much

the wise and good

Greece and Rome, Socrates in

souls, the stoics in

Athens, the saints in Judea, Alfred the king, Shakspeare the poet, ceiver

Newton the

and obeyer

of truth,

sensual millions around them

man

a true

easy to

Then VOL.

lift

;

him

and

wherever

the only great event,

and

into a mythological personage.

the next step in the series

VIII.

foolish

that,

appears, everything usually reckoned

great dwarfs itself it is

philosopher, the per-

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; than the

the equivar

PROGRESS OF CULTURE.

210

I said that one of the

lence of the soul to nature.

distinctions of our century has

of cultivated

men

been the devotion

The

to natural science.

benefits

thence derived to the arts and to civilization are signal

They

and immense.

are felt in navigation,

in agriculture, in manufactures, in astronomy, in

But over aU

mining, and in war.

their utilities,

I must hold their chief value to be metaphysical.

The

chief value

tained, but the test

not the useful powers he obit

has been of the scholar.

has accosted this immeasurable nature, and got

clear answers.

understood what he read.

found agreement with himself. It taught him anew the reach of the

human mind, and

that

was

citi-

zen of the universe.

The

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; we

first

quality

we know in matter

is centrality,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; which holds

the universe

call it gravity,

together,

which remains pure and indestructible in

each mote as in masses and planets, and from each

atom rays out rial essence

illimitable influence.

this mate-

answers Truth, in the intellectual world,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Truth, whose

centre

everywhere and

its

cir-

cumference nowhere, whose existence we cannot disimagine

;

the soundness

and health

of things,

against which no blow can be struck but

on the

striker

heartily are.

;

And

its centrality, its

it.

recoils

we always measure of a mind is

Truth, on whose side the

first

capacity of truth, and

its

adhesion

PROGRESS OF CVLTURE.

When

the correlation of the sciences was an-

nounced by Oersted and surprise

The

211

we were found

;

his colleagues,

was no

already prepared for

it.

fact stated accorded with the auguries or divi-

nations of the

human mind.

analyze Newton's discovery,

Thus,

we should

we should say

that if ,

had not been anticipated by him,

have been found.

"We are

would not

told that in posting his

books, after the French had measured on the earth

a degree of the meridian, when he saw that his theoretic results were approximating that empirical

one, his

hand shook, the

so agitated that

figures danced,

he was forced to

to finish the computation.

because,

when he saw,

ground, the

fall of

and of aU suns

call in

Why

and he was an assistant

agitated?

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; but

in the fall of an apple to the

the earth to the sun, of the sun

to the centre, that perception

was

accompanied by the spasm of delight by which the intellect greets

a fact more immense

really universal,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; holding in

in morals as in intellect,

still,

a fact

intellect as in matter,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; that atom draws to atom

throughout nature, and truth to truth throughout spirit ?

His law was only a particular of the more

rmiversal law of centrality.

Every law in nature,

as gravity, centripetence, repulsion, polarity, undulation, has

above are

a counterpart ia the

sisters of the

intellect.

laws below.

Shall

the mathematics of the sphere, and not

The laws we study its

causal

PROGRESS OF CULTURE.

212 essence also

through

Nature

There

it.

a fable whose moral blazes

no use in Copernicus

the

robust periodicity of the solar system does not

show

its

equal perfection in the mental sphere, the

compensatory errors, the grand re-

periodicity, the

I shall never believe that centrifugence

actions.

and centripetence balance, unless mind heats and meliorates, as well as the surface and soil of the globe.

this power, this all-dissolving unity, the

phasis of heaven and earth

is laid.

but as this soul quickens

effect,

mind

ever as

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

Mind

the flowing cause.

our sensibility

plastic,

;

Nature

brute

Nature, always the Nature,

it is hostile

;

em-

find, is

to ignorance,

transparent, delightful, to knowledge.

carries

the law;

atomic imfolding.

history

the slow

tended sense, and the universe at last phetic, or, shall

terpretation

and

All things admit of this exis

only pro-

say, symptomatic, of vaster in-

Nature

results.

an enormous

system, but in mass and in particle curiously available to the humblest need of the that walks on the earth of Nature

little

creature

The immeasurableness

not more astounding than his power

to gather all her

omnipotence into a manageable

rod or wedge, bringing

to a hair-point for the eye

and hand of the philosopher.

Here

stretches out of sight, out of conception

PROGRESS OF CULTURE.

213

even, this vast Nature, daunting, bewildering, but all penetrable, all self-similar

and the mind

man

finds that the universe, as

at one cast

;

the mass

;

an unbroken unity,

a key to the whole.

Newton

said,

like the atom,

was " made

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; the

same chemistry, gravity and conditions. The asteroids are the chips of an old star, and a meteoric stone

The good

single observation,

tations,

and

and you

by a

its

and

law,

power

its limi-

the farmer

" State the sun,

footprint.

state the planets,

Whilst

wit finds the law

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; the

correspondences, â&#x20AC;&#x201D; as

its

finds his cattle

entire Nature, the play of all its

laws, in one atom.

from a

As language

a chip of an asteroid.

the alphabet, so

and conversely."

offered to his hand, its laws

to his science, not less its beauty speaks to his

and sentiment.

taste, imagination,

tive, refining, elevating.

How

Nature

sana^

cunningly she hides

every wrinkle of her inconceivable antiquity under roses

and

and morning dew

violets

of the mountains vulsions, yet the

scarred

Every inch by unimaginable conpurple with the bloom

new day is Look out

of youth and love.

and

into the July night

see the broad belt of silver flame

up the half

of heaven, fresh

bonfires of the meadow-flies.

numbers cannot compute as space

and

time,

its

and

which flashes

delicate as the

Yet the powers of

enormous age, lasting

embosomed

in time

and

space.

PROGRESS OF CULTURE.

214

And

time and space,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; what

we ponder

problems, which

are they ? all

and leave where we found them

Our

first

our lives through, ;

whose outrunning

immensity, the old Greeks believed, astonished the

gods themselves worlds of

God

;

of whose dizzy vastitudes all the

are a mere dot on the margin

possible to deny, impossible to believe.

moral element in

man

im-

counterpoises this dismaying

immensity and bereaves flight to

;

Yet the

which the muse

of terror.

The

highest

Horace ascended was

in that triplet of lines ia which he described the

which can calmly confront the sublimity of

soiJs

Nature

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

Huno solem, et Stellas, et decedentia certis Tempora momentis, sunt qui formidine nulla Lnbuti speotant."

The sublime a of

sufficient

point of experience

man.

Cube

this value

the value of

by the meeting

two such, of two or more such, who understand

and support each other, and you have organized victory. At any time, it only needs the contempoof a few superior and attractive appearance raneous

men

to give a

new and noble turn

to the public

mind.

The tional

benefactors

we have

indicated were excep-

men, and great because exceptional.

The

question which the present age urges with increas-

ing emphasis, day by day,

is,

whether the high

PROGRESS OF CULTURE. qualities

is,

which distinguished

them can asked, "

The poet Wordsworth

parted.

why may not

millions he ? "

edge exists to he imparted.

child to hear runs to

parent to explain.

he im-

What

Why not ?

Curiosity

The

wait for every secret.

215

one

Knowllying ia

inquisitiveness of the

meet the eagerness of the

The

air does not rush to

fill

vacuum with such speed as the mind to catch the expected fact. Every artist was first an amateur. The ear outgrows the tongue, is sooner ripe and perfect

;

hut the tongue

what the ear has taught

same

is it,

always learning to say

and the hand oheys the

lesson.

There

men pay

anything but humiliation in the homage

man

to a great

;

it is

sympathy, love of

the same things, effort to reach them, sion of their hope of

what they

shall

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; the expresbecome when

the obstructions of their mal-formation

not impoverish, but enrich us.

age goes on their credit

;

their wires are continued

signal things,

but

and mal-

Great men shall

education shall be trained away.

Great men,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; the

the rest,

when

all

and not

cut,

can do as

and in new parts of nature.

"No

angel in his heart acknowledges any one superior to himself but the

Lord

person here present to

alone."

There

whom omens

not a

that should

astonish have not predicted his future, have not

imcovered his past.

The dreams

of the night sup-

PROGRESS OF CULTURE.

216

plement by their divination the imperfect experi-

ments of the day.

Every

a hint of a coming

fact, as the air

hang

invisibly

soliciting instinct is only

But the

the oak and the animal.

high sources

solid in

recui-rence to

In our daily intercourse, we

rare.

go with the crowd, lend ourselves hopes,

and water that

around us hasten to become

become the victims

low fears and

own

of our

and im-

arts

plements, and disuse our resort to the Divine ora-

ourselves by so chineries.

many

What

men

feel in

ingenious crutches and ma-

the use of telegraphs

To know

of newspapers ?

own

What

how

in each social crisis

Kansas, in California, the wise

man

asks

waits for no mails, reads no telegrams. his

we help

It is only in the sleep of the soul that

cle.

heart.

If they are

breathe the like

air,

made

eat of the

they

is, if

same wheat, have

wives and children, he knows that their joy or

sentment

rises to the

same point

The

as his own.

inviolate soul is in perpetual telegraphic

re-

communi-

cation with the Source of events, has earlier infor-

mation, a private despatch, which relieves the terror which presses on the rest of the

him of commu-

nity.

The foundation last the

of culture, as of character,

moral sentiment.

power, preserves

its

This

the fountain of

eternal newness,

rent out of every novelty in science.

its

own

Science

cor.

draws

PROGRESS OF CULTURE. rects the old creeds

perception, our tates

217

sweeps away, with every

;

infantile catechisms,

and

new

necessi-

a faith commensurate with the grander orbits

and universal laws which

discloses.

The

Great love

older,

these larger insights.

wings by which the

affections are the

lect launches

does

That was

not surprise the moral sentiment.

and awaited expectant

Yet

on the void, and

intel-

borne across

it.

the inventor and expander of the

frozen powers, the feathers frozen to our sides.

was the conviction of Plato, of Van Hehnont, of Pascal, of Swedenborg, that piety

condition of science, that great thoughts

the heart.

essential

come from

happens sometimes that poets do not

own poetry they are so much the less poets. But great men are sincere. Great men are they who see that spiritual is stronger than any

believe their

;

material force, that thoughts rule the world.

hope so bright but

Every generalization

filment.

Men

own fulshows the way to

the beginning of

its

man

could impart his

talent, instead of his performance,

what mountains

a larger.

of guineas

say,

would be paid

Yes, but in the meas-

ure of his absolute veracity he does impart

When shine,

it.

he does not play a part, does not wish to

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; when he

talks to

men

with the unrestrained

frankness which children use with each other, he

communicates himself, and not his vanity.

PROGRESS OF CULTURE.

218 vigor

when we see creation we Depth of character, height

contagious, and

also begin to create.

of genius, can only find nourishment in this

The

convictions which refuse to be analyzed.

asm

soil.

miracles of genius always rest on profound

Enthusi-

the leaping lightning, not to be measured

Hope never

the horse-power of the understanding.

spreads her golden wings but on unfathomable seas.

The same law holds

for the intellect as for the wiU.

When

absolutely surrendered to the

the will

moral sentiment, that surrendered

virtue

when

;

the wit

to intellectual truth, that is genius.

Talent for talent's sake

a bauble and a show.

Talent working with joy in the cause of universal truth tor.

lifts

the possessor to

know

It is

as a benefac-

well to what assembly of educated, re-

flecting, successful

Yours

new power

and powerful persons I speak. who have received much.

the part of those

an old legend of

just

men, Nohlesse oblige

or, superior

advantages bind you to larger generos-

Now I

conceive that, in this economical world,

ity.

where every drop and every crumb

husbanded,

mind were not meant The Divine Nature carries on its administration by good men. Here you are set

the transcendent powers of to be misused.

down, scholars and

idealists, as in

a,midst insanity, to

calm and guide

and

blind, to see the right

done

a barbarous age it ;

;

amidst fools

among

violent

PROGRESS OF CULTURE.

219

proprietors, to check self-interest, stone-blind stone-deaf,

workman and

and

considerations of humanity to the

chUd

to his

;

amongst angry

politi-

cians swelling with self-esteem, pledged to parties,

pledged to

clients,

you are to make valid the large

considerations of equity and good sense

under bad

;

governments to force on them, by your persistence,

good laws.

Around

that immovable persistency of

yours, statesmen, legislatures,

must

revolve, deny-

ing you, but not less forced to obey.

We wish to put the ideal

rules into practice, to

liberty instead of chains,

offer

and

see whether

liberty will not disclose its proper checks

;

believ-

ing that a free press wiU prove safer than the censorship

;

will not

that

universal suffrage, believing to mobs, or

back to kings

I believe that the checks are as sure as the

springs.

sition,

;

win not carry us

again.

great

and believe that

to ordain free trade,

bankrupt us

It is thereby that

allies.

And who

apathy, slander,

exist to

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; even

be surmounted.

more complain

men

are great

The

and have

Rude oppo-

these.

Difficulties

are the allies

great heart will

of the obstructions that

cess hard, than of the iron walls of the

make

suc-

gun which

hinder the shot from scattering.

It was walled round with iron tube with that purpose, to give it irresistible

force in one direction.

soul hates cheap successes.

strenuous

It is the ardor of the

PROGRESS OF CULTURE.

220

makes the vigor of the defender. The great are not tender at being obscure, despised, insulted. Such only feel themselves in adverse assailant that

Strong

fortune.

men

times, which search

till

greet war, tempest,

hard

they find resistance and bot-

tom. They wish, as Pindar said, " to tread the floors of heU, with necessities as hard as iron." ity, reaction,

mind

are laws of

Bad kings and bad enough.

governors help us,

In England,

which exasperated the farmers Bill.

was what we

call

only they are

was the game laws

Reform

plantation manners

emancipation without phrase.

community of

to carry the

which drove peaceable forgiving

who were our best

Periodic-

as well as of matter.

New England

In the Rebellion,

Always the enemy. The

allies ?

do not know their own

scholars

power, and dishearten each other by tolerating political baseness in their

members.

Now

nobody

doubts the power of manners, or that wherever

high society exists pretenders. able,

The

very well able to exclude

intruder finds himself uncomfort-

and quickly departs

It has

to his

own

gang.

been our misfortune that the

America have been often immoral. worst effect on character.

politics of

It has

had the

are a complaisant,

forgiving people, presuming, perhaps, on a feeling of strength.

the public

But

it is

not by easy virtue, where

concerned, that heroic results are ob-

PROGRESS OF CULTURE. tained.

221

We have suffered our young men of ambi-

tion to play the

game

moral side without

But

without rebuke. does not leave a

of politics

loss of caste,

man

and take the im-

—

come and go

that kind of loose association his

own

master.

go from the good to the

evil at pleasure,

back again

There

to the good.

a text in Sweden-

borg which teUs in figure the plain truth. in vision the angels

and the

cannot

and then

devils

;

saw

but these two

companies stood not face to face and hand in hand, but foot to

foot,

— these

perpendicular up, and

those perpendicular down.

1 draw

Brothers,

new hope from

the atmos-

phere we breathe to-day, from the healthy senti-

ment

American people, and from the avowed

of the

aims and tendencies of the educated age has historic tion,

new

convictions.

class.

The

We know that in certain

periods there have been times of nega-

— a decay of

tional decline

;

thought, and a consequent na-

that in France, at one time, there

was almost a repudiation of the moral sentiment in what is called, by distinction, society, not a

—

believer within the Church, ist

out of

it.

and almost not a the-

In England the like spiritual

dis-

ease affected the upper class in the time of Charles II.,

and down into the reign of the Georges.

But

honorably distinguishes the educated class here, that they believe in the succor which the heart it

PROGRESS OF CULTURE.

222

yields to the intellect,

and draw greatness from

its

And when I say the educated class, know what a benignant breadth that word has, reaching millions instead new in the world, more, when I look around me, of hundreds. And inspirations.

—

and consider the sound material tivated class here

made

up,

which the

— what high

sonal worth, what love of men, what hope,

cul-

per-

joined

with rich information and practical power, and that the most distinguished

by genius and

culture

— I cannot

distrust

are in this class of benefactors, this great

knighthood of virtue, or doubt that the

interests of science, of letters, of politics

manity, are safe.

enough to hold up the EepubKc. ise of better

and hu-

I think their hands are strong I read the prom-

times and of greater men.

PEKSIAN POETET.

PEESIAN POETEY.

To Baron

Hammer

von

Purgstall,

who

died in

Vienna in 1856, we owe our best knowledge of the Persians. He has translated into German, besides the " Divan " of Hafiz, specimens of two hundred poets

who wrote during

centuries,

a period of five and a half

from a.d. 1050

The seven mas-

to 1600.

ters of the Persian Parnassus

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Firdusi,

Enweri,

Nisami, Jelaleddin, Saadi, Hafiz, and Jami ceased to be empty names

deddin Attar and in

Western

books exist

Many

and

others,

Omar Khayyam,

Feri-

promise to

communicated in these rich

qualities

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; have

Kke

rise

That for which mainly

estimation. is

;

extracts.

go to make a good telescope,

as the largeness of the field, facility of sweeping

the meridian, achromatic purity of lenses, and so forth

;

trating

but the one eminent value

power

;

but the essential value to

the space-pene-

the adding of knowledge

our stock by the record of new

by the record

and there are many virtues in books, facts, and, better,

of intuitions which distribute facts,

and are the formulas which supersede VOL. vin.

all histories.

PERSIAN POETRY.

226 Oriental

life

and

society, especially in the

South-

ern nations, stand in violent contrast with the multitudinous detail, the secular stability, and the vast

average of comfort of the Western nations.

Life

and

in ex-

in the East

short, hazardous,

fierce,

Its elements are

tremes.

hibiting the long range

few and simple, not ex-

and undulation of Euro-

pean existence, but rapidly reaching the best and

The

the worst.

rich feed

fruits

the genius of Oriental or his displeasure,

life.

The

prolific

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

Favor

of the Sidtan,

a question of Fate.

undertaken for an epigram or a for a duchy.

and game,

All or nothing

the poor, on a watermelon's peel.

A war

distich, as in

Europe

sun and the sudden and

rank plenty which his heat engenders, make subsistence easy.

the other side, the desert, the

simoon, the mirage, the lion and the plague endan-

ger

and

it,

of water

life

hangs on the contingency of a skin

more or

less.

The very geography

Persia showed these contrasts. pire," said

of old

My father's em-

Cyrus to Xenophon, " is so large that

people perish with cold at one extremity whilst they are suffocated with heat at the other."

perament of the people agrees with tremes. tion.

Religion and poetry are

The

religion teaches

It distinguishes only tory,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

The tem-

this life in ex-

all their civiliza-

an inexorable Destiny,

two days in each man's

his birthday, called the

Day of

his-

the Lot,

PERSIAN POETRY. and the Day

Courage and abso-

of Judgment.

lute submission to

what

227

appointed him are his

virtues.

The favor

of the

climate,

making

easy and encouraging an outdoor

life,

subsistence

allows to the

Eastern nations a highly intellectual organization,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; leaving out

of Ariew, at present, the genius of the

Hindoos (more Oriental in every sense),

The Persians and

ethical statement.

whom no

the grandeur of

people have surpassed in

their

the Arabs,

with great leisure and few books, are exquisitely sensible to the pleasures of poetry.

Layard has

given some details of the effect which the improvvisatori produced on the children of the desert.

When the

young

bard improvised an amatory

chief's excitement

ditty, the

was almost beyond

The other Bedouins were

scarcely less

control.

moved by

these rude measures, which have the same kind of effect

Such by

on the wild tribes of the Persian mountains. verses, chanted

the girls of their

their self-taught poets or

encampment, wiU drive war-

riors to the combat, fearless of death, or prove

ample reward on

their return

the ghazon, or the fight.

produce exceeds that of the

from the dangers of

The excitement they He who would grape.

understand the iofluence of the Homeric ballads in the heroic

ages should witness the

similar compositions have

effect

which

upon the wild nomads

PERSIAN POETRY.

228 the East."

Elsewhere he adds, " Poetry and flow-

ers are the wine is

and

spirits of the

Arab a

couplet

;

equal to a bottle, and a rose to a dram, without

the evil effect of either."

The Persian poetry

rests

on a mythology whose

few legends are connected with the Jewish history

The

and the anterior traditions of the Pentateuch.

principal figure in the allusions of Eastern poetry

Solomon.

Solomon had three talismans:

the signet-ring

by which he commanded the

first,

spirits,

on the stone of which was engraven the name of

God

;

second, the glass in which he saw the secrets

and the causes

of his enemies

of all things, figured

His

the third, the east-wind, which was his horse.

counsellor was Simorg, king of birds, the aU-wise

who had lived ever since the beginning of the now lives alone on the highest summit of Mount Kaf No fowler has taken him, and none now living has seen him. By him Solomon was

fowl

world, and

taught the language of birds, so secrets

that he

whenever he went into his gardens.

Solomon

travelled, his throne

heard

When

was placed on a

car-

pet of green sUk, of a length and breadth sufficient for

all his

army

stand upon,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; men

placing

themselves on his right hand, and the spirits on his

"When all were in order, the east-wind, at his command, took up the carpet and transported it with aU that were upon it, whither he pleased, -^

left.

PERSIAN POETRY. the

army

same time flying overhead

of birds at the

them from the sun. that when the Queen of Sheba came

and forming a canopy It

to visit Solomon, he

to shade

had

ming.

and

pavement was of

running water, in which

The Queen

marriage,

aU the

fish

glass,

were swim-

Sheba was deceived thereby, thinking

raised her robes,

On the

through the water.

her arrival, a

built, against

palace, of which the floor or laid over

229

she was to

pass

occasion of Solomon's

beasts, laden with presents, ap-

peared before his throne.

Behind them

the ant, with a blade of grass spise the gift of the ant.

all

came

Solomon did not

Asaph, the

de-

vizier, at

certain time, lost the seal of Solomon, which one of

the the

Dews or evil spirits found, and, governing name of Solomon, deceived the people.

Firdnsi, the Persian

Shah Nameh

kings of the country sus), the

Homer, has written

the annals of the fabulous :

Karun

in the

and heroic

( the Persian Croe-

immeasurably rich gold-maker, who, with

all his treasures, lies

buried not far from the Pyrar

mids, in the sea which bears his

name

the binder of demons, whose

reign lasted

;

of Jamschid,

seven

Kai Kaus, in whose palace, bmlt by demons on Alburz, gold and silver and precious hundred years

;

stones were used so lavishly that in the brilliancy

produced by their combined

appeared the same

;

effect,

night and day

of Afrasiyab, strong as

eloi

PERSIAN POETRY.

230 phant,

whose shadow extended for miles, whose

heart was

bounteous as the ocean and his hands

when rain falls to gladden the earth. The crocodile in the rolling stream had no safety from Afrasiyab. Yet when he came to fight against like the clouds

the generals of Kaus, he was but an insect in the

grasp of Rustem, who seized him by the girdle and

Eustem

dragged him from his horse.

such

felt

anger at the arrogance of the King of Mazinderan that every hair on his body started

The

gripe of his hand cracked the

like a spear.

sinews of an

enemy.

These legends, with Chiser, the fountain of Tuba, the tree of

life

;

life.

the romances of the loves of

Leila and Medschnun, of Chosru and Schirin, and those of the nightingale for the rose

and the

gems

virtues of

;

pearl-diving,

the cohol, a cosmetic

which pearls and eyebrows are indelibly stained black, the bladder in which

down

of the Hp, the

lilies, roses, tulips,

musk

brought, the

mole on the cheek, the eyelash

and jasmines,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; make the

staple

imagery of Persian odes.

The Persians have most

and

epics

Gnomic

tales, but, for

the

poems and epigrams.

part, they affect short verses, rules of life

conveyed in a lively

image, especially in an image addressed to the eye

and contained in a rent in the East

;

single stanza, were always cur-

and

the

poem

long,

it is

only

PERSIAN POETRY. a string of unconnected

verses.

secutiveness quite alarming to

231

They use an incon. Western logic, and

the connection between the stanzas of their longer

odes

much

like that

old English ballads,

—

between the refrain of our

" The sun shines fair on Carlisle wall,"

"The

and the main

rain

rajneth every day,"

story.

Take, as specimens of these gnomic verses, the following

—

" The secret that should not be blown

Not one of thy

You may padlock

nation must

know

But never the mouth of a foe or this of

Omar Klayyam

—

On earth's wide thoroughfares Two only men contented go

;

the gate of a town.

below

Who knows And

Here

Meru

what

he from

—

right

and what

whom is knowledge

forbid,

hid."

a poem on a melon, by Adsched of

" Color, taste, and smell, smaragdus, sugar, and musk,

Amber

for the tongue, for the eye a picture rare,

If you cut the fruit in If you leave

Hafiz

slices,

every

slice

whole, the full harvest

a crescent

moon is

fair.

there."

the prince of Persian poets, and ia his

extraordinary gifts adds to some of the attributes

PERSIAN POETRY.

232

of Pindar, Anacreon, Horace and Burns, the insight of a mystic, that sometimes affords a deeper glance

Nature than belongs to either of these bards.

accosts all topics with

only," he says, "is

fit

an easy audacity.

for company,

who knows how

to prize earthly happiness at the value of a night-

Our

cap.

father

nels of wheat

;

Adam

at one grapestone."

who

sold Paradise for two ker-

then blame

rulest after

not, if I hold it dear

says to the Shah, "

Thou

words and thoughts which no ear

has heard and no mind has thought, abide firm until

thy young destiny tears off his blue coat from the

old graybeard of the sky."

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

He says,

" I batter the wheel of heayen

When it rolls not rightly by; am not one of the snivellers

Who The us:

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

fall

rapidity of his

thereon and die."

turns

always surprising

" See how the roses burn Bring wine to quench the Alas

the flames

fire

come up with

U5,

We perish with desire." After the manner of his nation, he abounds in

pregnant sentences which might be engraved on a sword-blade and almost on a ring. " In honor dies he to wonderful."

whom

the great

seems ever

PERSIAN POETRY. " Here

the sum, that,

233

when one door

opens, another

shuts."

"On

every side

;

hence

it is

that the

horseman of

urges on his courser at headlong speed."

life

" •

an ambush laid by the robber-

troops of circumstance

The

earth

" Good straight

way

a host

who murders his

what goes on the road

guests."

the

the traveller never misses."

" Alas

till

now

I had not

known

My guide and Fortune's guide are "

of Nature.

The understanding's copper

one."

coin

Counts not with the gold of love." " 'Tis writ on Paradise's gate, '

Woe

to the

" The world

Who

dupe that yields to Fate

a bride superbly dressed

weds her for dowry must pay

" Loose the knots of the heart

No EucUd has

;

—

his soul."

never think on thy fate

yet disentangled that snarl."

" There resides in the grieving

A poison to kill Beware

go near them

'T is pestUent

still."

Harems and wine-shops only

give

him a new

ground of observation, whence to draw sometimes a deeper moral than regulated sober Hfe affords, and this is foreseen

—

PERSIAN POETRY.

234

" I will be drunk and down with wine Treasures

Riot, he thinks, can snatch lot the

veU that covers To be

;

find in a ruined house."

from the deeply hidden

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

wise the dull brain so earnestly throbs,

Bring bands of wine for the stupid head." " The BuUder of heaven

Hath sundered the

earth,

So that no footway Leads out of "

forth.

turnpikes of wonder

Wine

leads the

mind

Straight, sidewise,

forth,

and upward,

West, southward, and north. " Stands the vault adamantine Until the Doomsday The wine-cup shall ferry Thee o'er it away." ;

That hardihood and self-equality of every sound from the feeling that the spirit

nature, which result

him

title

entire

and as good as the world, which en-

the poet to speak with authority, and

him an

object of iaterest

and

syllable significant, are in Hafiz, fortify

and ennoble

His was the

and

feeling

and

and abundantly

his tone.

fluent

came

make

his every phrase

mind

which every thought

readily to the lips.

knots of the heart," he says.

" Loose the

We absorb elements

PERSIAN POETRY.

235

enough, but have not leaves and lungs for healthy perspiration and growth.

air of sterility, of in-

many

competence to their proper aims, belongs to

who have both

But a

experience and wisdom.

large utterance, a river that

makes

its

own

shores,

quick perception and corresponding expression, a constitution to which every

which

and

morrow

equal to the needs of

bold, with great arteries,

life,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

a new day,

at once tender

this generosity of

ebb and flow

satisfies, and we should be willing to when our time comes, having had our swing and gratification. The difference is not so much in the

die

quality of men's thoughts as in the power of utter-

What

ing them.

dumb

pent and smoiddered in the

actor, is not pent in the poet,

but passes over

new form, at once relief and creation. The other merit of Hafiz is his intellectual

into

erty,

which

lib-

a certificate of profound thought.

accept the religions and politics into which

faU, and

it is

only a few delicate spirits

who

we are

sufficient to see that the

whole web of convention

the imbecility of those

whom

the

mind

own. the use ble

entangles,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; that

no religion and no empire but

its

It indicates this respect to absolute truth

suffers

makes of the symbols that are most

and reverend, and therefore

always provok-

ing the accusation of irreligion.

Hypocrisy

sta-

the perpetual butt of his arrows

" Let us draw the cowl through the brook of

wine.''

PERSIAN POETRY.

236

tells his

mistress that not the dervish, or the

monk, but the

his heart the

lover, has in

which makes the

and the

ascetic

glances can impart to

him

cer-

is to

wrong

a nimble school-boy, "

temptation for a jump.

shall not be

A law or statute is to

to Hafiz for the name's sake.

fence

spirit

and

the fire and virtue need-

Wrong

ful for such self-denial.

him what a

;

and mummeries but her

cowls

tainly not their

saint

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;a

would do nothing

but good, else would shame come to us on the day

when the

soul

must hie hence and should they then ;

deny us Paradise, the Houris themselves would

for-

sake that and come out to us."

His complete

intellectual emancipation

municates to the reader.

There

no example of

such facility of allusion, such use of

Nothing

he com-

all materials.

too high, nothing too low for his occa-

Love is a leveller, and Allah becomes a groom, and heaven a closet, in his daring hymns to his mistress sion.

fears nothing, he stops for nothing.

or to his cupbearer.

This boundless charter

the

right of genius.

We do not wish to strew sugar on

bottled spiders,

make mystical divinity out of the Song of Solomon, much less out of the erotic and baccha-

or try to

nalian songs of Hafiz. to defy all such

tears off

Hafiz himself

determined

hypocritical mterpretation,

his turban and throws

at the

and

head of the

PERSIAN POETRY.

237

meddling dervish, and throws his glass after the

But the love or the wine

turban.

of Hafiz

be confounded with vulgar debauch. It in which the song

the topics.

not to

the spirit

written that imports, and not

Hafiz praises wine, roses, maidens, boys,

birds, mornings,

mense

and music,

to give vent to his im-

and sympathy with every form of

hilarity

beauty and joy ; and lays the emphasis on these to

mark

his scorn of sanctimony

and base prudence.

These are the natural topics and language of his

But

wit and perception.

it is

the joy of song that he loves

him

;

the play of wit

and

you mistake

for a low rioter, he turns short on

you with

verses which express the poverty of sensual joys,

and

to ejaculate with equal fire the

most unpal-

atable affirmations of heroic sentiment

Sometimes

tempt for the world.

from the height " Bring wine

of thought, as thus

And

man

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

and cona glance

for in the audience-hall of the sovd's

;

independence, what

wise

sentinel or Sultan ?

or the intoxicated

sometimes his

what

the

feast, feasters,

and world are

only one pebble more in the eternal vortex and revolution of Fate

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

" I

what I

My dust will be again."

A saint might lend an ear to the riotous fun of Fal-

PERSIAN POETRY.

238 staff

for

;

not created to excite the animal

appetites, but to vent the joy of a supernal intelli-

In aU poetry, Pindar's rule holds,

gence.

speaks to the intelligent

Tois (jxaveT, it is

;

—

<Tvve-

and Hafiz

a poet for poets, whether he write, as sometimes,

with a parrot's,

other times, with an eagle's

or, as at

quill.

Every song

of Hafiz affords

new proof

of the un-

importance of your subject to success, provided only

In general what

the treatment be cordial.

tedious than dedications or panegyrics addressed to

grandees

Divan " you would not muse seldom supports him bet-

in the "

Yet

skip them, since his ter "

What

Now

And "

again

Thy

lovelier

that the

forms things wear,

Shah comes back

—

foes to hunt, thy enviers to strike down,

Poises Arcturus aloft morning and evening his spear."

told of Hafiz, that,

when he had written a

compliment to a handsome youth, " Take

heart in thy hand,

—

beautiful boy of Shiraz

I would give for the mole on thy cheek Samaroand and Buohara

—

came to the ears of Timour in his palTimour taxed Hafiz with treating disrespecthis two cities, to raise and adorn which he

the verses ace.

fully

had conquered nations.

Hafiz replied, " Alas,

PERSIAN POETRY. lord, if I

so poor

had not been

so prodigal, I

The Persians had a mode

of establishing copy-

the most secure of any

right

239

which we are acquainted.

contrivance

The law

with

of the gTiaselle,

or shorter ode, requires that the poet insert his

name

in the last stanza.

eral hundreds of

Almost every one of

poems of Hafiz contains

his

sev-

name

thus interwoven more or less closely with the subject of the piece.

self-naming

It is itself a test of skill, as this

not quite easy.

remember but

two or three examples in English poetry Chaucer, in the "

taph on his son, "

Ben Jonson

and Cowley's, "

But

it is

House

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

Fame

;

that of

" Jonson's epi-

his best piece of poetry

;

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; The melancholy Cowley

easy to Hafiz.

lay."

It gives

him the oppor-

tunity of the most playful self-assertion, always gracefully, sometimes almost in the fun of FalstafE,

sometimes with feminine delicacy. "

The

teUs us,

angels in heaven were lately learning his last

pieces."

out of desire

says, "

The

fishes

shed their pearls,

and longing as soon as the ship of

Hafiz swims the deep." "

Out

of the East, and out of the West, no

man

understands

;

O, the happier

who

confide to none but the wind

PERSIAN POETRY.

240

how the lyre of the stars we heard from Haflz "

This morning heard I '

Sweeter tones have

Again,

resounded,

—

" I heard the harp of the planet Venus, and in the early morning,

voiced Hafiz

And "

said

the disciple of the sweet-

again,

When

Hafiz sings, the angels hearken, and Anaitis,

the leader of the starry host, calls even the Messiah in

heaven out "

to the dance."

one has unvailed thoughts like Hafiz, since the

locks of the World-hride

were

first

curled."

" Only he despises the verse of Hafiz who self

not him-

hy nature nohle."

But we must quire

some of these poetic

try to give

flourishes the metrical

—

form wMch they seem

"Fit for the Pleiads' azure chord

The songs I

Another

sung, the pearls I bored."

— " I have no hoarded treasure,

Yet have I rich content The first from Allah to the Shah, The last to Haflz went."

Another

—

High

heart,

Hafiz

though not thins

Fine gold and silver ore

;

to re-

PERSIAN POETRY. More worth

And

Again

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; speak not of thy need

Are not

Then

poets are agreed,

can

less repine."

says,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

man

bard and inspired

asserts his dignity as

of his people.

;

these verses thine ?

all the

No man

to thee the gift of song,

the clear insight more."

" O Hafiz

241

the vizier returning from

Mecca

" Boast not rashly, prince of pilgrims, of thy fortune.

Thou

hast indeed seen the temple

the temple.

Nor

has any

man

;

but

air

which I

the

Lord

inhaled from the musk-

bladder of the merchant or from the

wind that sweet

musky

moriting-

permitted to breathe

every hour of the day."

And with

still

" Oft have I I,

more vigor in the following

said,

I say

lines

once more,

a wanderer, do not stray from myself.

am a kind of parrot the mirror is holden to me What the Eternal says, I stammering say again. Give me what you will; I eat thistles as roses, And according to my food I grow and I give. Scorn me not, but know I have the pearl, And am only seeking one to receive it." I

And

;

his claim has

The muleteers and

been admitted from the camel-drivers,

their

;

first.

way

through the desert, sing snatches of his songs, not so

much VOL.

for the thought as for their joyful

VIII.

temper

PERSIAN POETRY.

242

and tone

and the cultivated Persians know

;

poems by have

set

his

Yet HafLz does not appear

heart.

any great value on

scholars collected

them

his songs, since

his

for the first time after his

death.

In the following poem the soul

figured as the

Phoenix alighting on Tuba, the Tree of Life

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

" My phoenix long ago secured

His nest in tte sky-vault's cope

In the body's cage immured,

He was

weary of

life's

hope.

" Round and round this heap of ashes

Now flies the bird amain, But

in that odorous niche of

heaven

Nestles the bird again.

" Once

flies

he upward, he will perch

Tuba's golden bough

His home

Which " If over

;

on that fruited arch

cools the blest below.

this

world of ours

my phcenix spread. How gracious falls on land and sea His wings

The *'

soul-refreshing shade

Either world inhabits he, Sees oft below him planets roll

His body

Here with

all

is all

;

of air compact.

Allah's love his soul."

an ode which

educated Persians

said to be a favorite

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

PERSIAN POETRY. "

Come

— the palace of heaven

Come, and bring

wine

;

rests

243

on aery

—

pillars,

our days are wind.

I declare myself the slave of that masculine soul ties and alliance on earth once forever renoimces. Told I thee yester-morn how the Iris of heaven

Which

Brought to

high-flying falcon

This nook of grief

Hearken

cup a gospel of joy ? the Tree of Life

fits

thee

ill

they call to thee

thy perch

;

for a nest.

down from the ramparts

heaven 1 cannot divine what holds thee here in a net.

have a counsel for thee

I, too,

;

mark

and keep

Since I received the same from the Master ahove

Seek not for faith or for truth

in a

it,

world of light-minded

girls

A thousand suitors reckons this Cumber

dangerous bride.

thee not for the world, and this

my precept

forget

not,

'T is but a toy that a vagabond sweetheart has

Accept whatever befalls

Never

;

left us.

uncover thy brow from thy locks;

nor to thee was option imparted

;

Neither endurance nor truth belongs to the laugh of the rose.

The loving

nightingale

mourns

;

— cause enow for mourn-

ing;—

Why

envies the bird the streaming verses of Haflz ?

Know

that a

The fig-tree,

den

god bestowed on him eloquent speech."

cedar, the cypress, the palm, the olive

flowers, are

verses,

and

the birds that inhabit them, and the gar-

never wanting in these

and are always named with

willows," he says, "

bow themselves

effect.

musky " The

to every

wind

PERSIAN POETRY.

244

out of shame for their unfruitfulness."

open anywhere on a

floral catalogue.

" By breath of beds of roses drawn, I found the grove

In the concert

in the

morning pure,

of the nightingales

My drunken brain to cure. "

With unrelated glance I looked the rose in the eye

The rose in the hour of gloaming Flamed like a lamp hard-by. " She was of her beauty proud,

And

prouder of her youth,

The while unto her flaming heart The bulbul gave his truth. " The sweet narcissus closed Its eye, with passion pressed

The

tulips out of

Moles

" The

;

envy burned

in their scarlet breast.

white prolonged

lilies

Their sworded tongue to the smell

The

clustering

anemones

Their pretty secrets

Presently

have,

tell."

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

" All day the rain

Bathed the dark hyacinths in vain. The flood may pour from morn till night

Nor wash

And

so onward,

the pretty Indians white."

through

many a

page.

may

PERSIAN POETRY. This picture of the

first

245

days of Spring, from

Enweri, seems to belong to Hafiz

—

" O'er the garden water goes the wind alone

To rasp and to polish the cheek of the wave The Are is quenched on the dear hearthstone, But it bums again on the tulips brave." Friendship poets,

;

a favorite topic of the Eastern

and they have matched on

this

head the ab-

soluteness of Montaigne.

Hafiz says,

—

" Thou learnest no secret until thou knowest friend-

unsound no heavenly knowledge en-

ship, since to the

ters."

Ibn Jemin writes thus

—

" Wliilst I disdain the populace, I find no peer in higher place.

Friend

Wisdom

a word of royal tone, a is

poem

all alone.

like the elephant,

Lofty and rare inhabitant

dwells in deserts or in courts

With

Jami "

says,

;

hucksters he has no resorts."

—

A friend is he, who, hunted as

a foe.

So much the kindlier shows him than before

Throw

;

stones at him, or ruder javelins throw,

He builds with stone

and

steel a firmer floor."

PERSIAN POETRY.

246

the amatory poetry of Hafiz

sparing in our citations, though

of the " Divan."

gamut ders,

we must be very forms the staple

has run through the whole

— from the

of passion,

sacred to the bor-

same confusion of high and low, the flight is

The

and over the borders, of the profane.

and

celerity of

which our colder muses forbid,

allusion

From

habitual to him.

the plain text,

—

" The chemist of love

Will

Were

this perishing

made

Transmute

mould,

out of mire, into gold,"

he proceeds to the celebration of his passion nothing in his religious or in his

;

and

scientific tradi-

tions is too sacred or too remote to afford a token

of his mistress.

own

orbit well

The Moon thought she knew her enough but when she saw the curve ;

on Zuleika's cheek, she was at a

loss

—

" And since round lines are drawn

My darling's

lips about,

The very Moon looks puzzled

And

on,

hesitates in doubt

If the sweet curve that rounds thy

not her true

way

His ingenuity never sleeps " Ah, could I hide

kiss thy lips

mouth

to the South." :

—

from which

and plays in a thousand pretty

song, it

flows

" !

courtesies

—

PERSIAN POETRY. " Fair

fall

thy soft heart

247

A good work wilt thou

do ?

O, pray for the dead

Whom thine

And what to take

eyelashes slew

" !

a nest has he found for his bonny bird

up her abode

—

" They strew in the path of kings and czars

Jewels and gems of price

But

for thy

And

head I

will pluck

down

" I have sought for thee a costlier

Than Mahmoud's

And

stars,

pave thy way with eyes.

dome

palace high,

thou, returning, find thy

home

In the apple of Love's eye."

Then we have ment

—

all

know

degrees of passionate abandon-

this perilous love-lane

whither the traveller leads,

Yet my fancy the sweet scent of Thy tangled tresses feeds. " In the midnight of thy locks, I renounce the day

In the ring of thy

;

rose-lips.

My heart forgets to pray."

And

sometimes his love

ment

—

rises to a religious sentf

" Plunge in yon angry waves,

Renouncing doubt and care

The flowing

;

of the seven broad seas

Shall never wet thy hair.

PERSIAN POETRY.

248

" Is Allah's face on

tliee

Bending with love benign,

And

thou not

less

fairest

turnest thine."

on Allah's eye

We add to these fragments mens from other

of Hafiz a

few

speci-

poets.

NISAMI. " While roses bloomed along the

The

plain,

nightingale to the falcon said,

Why, of all birds, must thou be dumb With closed mouth thou utterest. Though dying, no last word to man. Yet sitt'st thou on the hand of princes. '

And

feedest on the grouse's breast,

Whilst

Squander

who hundred thousand

dwelling

the thoriL'

falcon answered,

experienced in

See

jewels

in a single tone,

I feed myself with worms,

And my The

fifty things,

But thee

all

ear

affairs.

say never one

;

the people prizes not.

Who, doing nothing, say'st a thousand. To me, appointed to the chase, The king's hand gives the grouse's breast Whilst a chatterer like thee

Must gnaw worms

in the thorn.

The following passages

Farewell

" '

exhibit the strong ten-

dency of the Persian poets to contemplative and religious poetry

and

to allegory.

PERSIAN POETRY.

249

ENWERI. BODY AND *

SOUL.

painter in China once painted a hall

;

—

Such a web never hung on an emperor's wall

One

half

The

other he touched with a

So that

from

all

The same,

his

;

—

brush with rich colors did run,

beam

of the sun

which delighted the eye in one

;

side,

point for point, in the other replied.

In thee, friend, that Tyrian chamber

found

;

Thine the star-pointing-roof, and the base on the ground

Is one half depicted with colors less bright ?

Beware that the coimterpart blazes with

light

IBN JEMIN. " I read on the porch of a palace bold

In a purple tablet '

letters cast,

—

A house though a million winters old, A house of earth comes down at last

;

Then quarry thy stones from the crystal All, And build the dome that shall not fall.'"

What need," cries the mystic Feisi, " of palaces and tapestry ? What need even of a bed ? "

The

eternal Watcher,

who doth wake

All night in the body's earthen chest,

Will of

And Ferideddin

tliine

arms a pillow make.

a bolster of thy breast."

Attar wrote

the " Bird

Conversa-

tions," a mystical tale, in which the birds, coming

together to choose their king, resolve on a pilgrim-

age to

Mount Kaf,

pay

their

homage

to the

PERSIAN POETRY.

250 Simorg.

From

years ago,

ttis

cite the

poem, written

five

hundred

following passage, as a proof

of the identity of mysticism in all periods.

tone

quite modern.

In the

soon weary of the length and

and

fable, the birds

difficulties of

The were

the way,

Three only perse-

at last almost all gave out.

vered, aud arrived before the throne of the Simorg. "

The

bird-soul

was ashamed

;

Their body was quite annihilated

;

They had cleaned themselves from

the dust,

And were by the light ensouled. What was, and was not, the Past, Was wiped out from their breast.

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

The sun from near-by beamed Clearest light into their soul

The resplendence

of the

;

Simorg beamed

As one back from all three. They knew not, amazed, if they

Were

either this or that.

They saw themselves

all as

Simorg,

Themselves in the eternal Simorg.

When

to the Simorg up they looked. They beheld Viim among themselves And when they looked on each other, ;

They saw themselves

in the Simorg.

A single look grouped the two parties. The Simorg emerged,

the Simorg vanished^

This in that and that in

this,

the world has never heard.

So remained

they, sunk in wonder,

Thoughtless in deepest thinking.

PERSIAN POETRY. And

251

quite unconscious of themselves.

Speechless prayed they to the Highest

To open

And

this secret,

Thou and We.

to unlock

There came an answer without tongue. '

The Highest

Who

a sun-mirror

Him

comes to

sees himself therein.

Sees body and soul, and soul and body

When

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

;

you came to the Simorg,

Three therein appeared to you.

And, had

fifty of

you come,

So had you seen yourselves as many.

Him

has none of us yet seen.

Ants see not the Pleiades.

Can the gnat grasp with his The body of the elephant ?

What you What you

see

hear

teeth

He not He not. ;

The valleys which you traverse. The actions which you perform. They lie under our treatment And among our properties.

Tou

as three birds are amazed.

Impatient, heartless, confused

Far over you Since I

blot out

I raised.

in act Simorg.

my highest

That ye may

being.

find yourselves

throne

Forever ye blot out yourselves,

As shadows

in the sun.

Farewell

' I

;

INSPIRATION.

INSPIKATION.

It was "Watt who told King George III. that dealt in an article of which kings were said to

lie

be fond,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Power.

certain that the one thing

we wish to know is, where power is But we want a finer kind than that

be bought.

commerce

and every reasonable man would give any price of house and land and future provision, for condensation,

and the

concentration,

best.

is first best.

only a second

would jump to buy power with

intellectual perception

is,

recalling at will of

Our money

high mental energy.

it,

moving the wiU.

that

That

But we don't know where the shop is. tell us the number of There are times when the intellect is so

Watt knew, he forgot to

the street.

active that everything seems to run to

supplies are found without ies.

Knowledge runs

to knowledge.

meet

much thought

to the

man, and the

it.

Its

as to stud-

man

runs

In spring, when the snow melts,

the maple-trees flow with sugar, and you cannot get tubs fast enough

The hunter on

;

but

it is

only for a few days.

the prairie, at the right season, has

INSPIRATION.

256

no need of choosing river,

game.

his

ground

by the timber, he

;

east, west,

by the

everywhere near his

But the favorable conditions are rather the

exception than the rule.

The

aboriginal man, in geology and in the

lights of

Darwin's microscope,

figure.

and

snails

dim

not an engaging

are very glad that he ate his fishes

and marrow-bones out of our

sight

and

hearing, and that his doleful experiences were got

through with so very long ago.

mane, they pared his

on end, sent him

They combed

nails, cut off his tail, set

to school

and made him

pa}""

his

him

taxes,

before he could begin to write his sad story for the

compassion or the repudiation of his descendants,

who

are all but unanimous to disown him.

must take him

find

him, â&#x20AC;&#x201D; pretty well on in

our knowledge of him, an

his education, and, in all

interestiag creature, with a will,

an invention, an

imagination, a conscience and an iuextinguishable

hope.

The Hunterian law

of arrested development is

not confined to vegetable and animal structure, but reaches the

human

man, thought

intellect also.

infantile

;

In the savage

and, in the civilized,

unequal and ranging up and down a long

In the best races

moments

it is

rare

reinforced,

scale.

and imperfect. In happy

and

carries out

what were

rude suggestions to larger scope and to clear and

INSPIRATION.

257

The poet cannot phenomenon which does not express

grand conclusions.

see a natural

him a

respondent fact in his mental experience

made

cor-

;

aware of a power to carry on and complete

the metamorphosis of natural into spiritual facts.

Everything which we hear for the expected by the mind

;

In the mind we

expected.

first

time was

the newest discovery was

enlarged power

call this

I believe that nothing great and

Inspiration.

last-

ing can be done except by inspiration, by leaning

on the

The man's

secret augury.

are interrupted and occasional this or that

cheap task, at

not beyond.

fain to

by mechanical means. ulterior step is to

insight

he can see and do

;

will,

but

make

step

by what a poet

inspiration

;

will not so

Inspiration

;

real

called " lyrical glances,"

toil

by ig-

wUl only seem

be done.

like yeast.

no matter in

which of half a dozen ways you procure the tion

not

Every

and never by main strength and

Years of mechanic

norance.

That

It cannot so be done. also

him

steads

the ulterior step

through him, then by another man.

lyrical facility,

and power

infec-

you can apply one or the other equally well

to your purpose,

and get your loaf of bread.

And

every earnest workman, in whatever kind, knows

some favorable conditions for wish to write on VOL. vni.

any 17

topic,

his task.

't is

When

no consequence

INSPIRATION.

258

what kind of book or man gives me a tint or a monor

tion,

Power horse

how

the

but

;

far off that

first

from

my topic.

Rarey can tame a wild

good.

he could give speed to a duU horse,

were not that better

The

toper finds, without

asking, the road to the tavern, but the poet does

not

know

Every

the pitcher that holds his nectar.

youth should know the way to prophecy as surely

how

as the miller understands

to let

on the water

A rush of

or the engineer the steam.

thoughts

the only conceivable prosperity that can come to us.

Fine

clothes, equipages, villa, park, social con-

sideration, cannot cover nificance,

from

my own

real poverty

and

insig-

eyes or from others like

mine.

Thoughts

let

us into

realities.

Neither miracle

nor magic nor any religious tradition, not the immortality of the private soul

have experienced an

comes

incredible, after

insight, a thought.

some men but once

But what we want

in their life, sometimes

a religious impulse, sometimes an intellectual sight.

I think

consecutiveness.

in-

with us a flash of light, then a long darkness, then a flash again.

The

separation of our days

almost destroys identity. fugitive sparkles into

worlds

sleep

Could we but turn these

an astronomy of Copernican

With most men,

scarce a link of

holds yesterday and to-day together.

memory

Their house

INSPIRATION.

and trade and a coarse

them

as ropes to give

But they have forgotten the yesterday they say to-day what occurs

continuity.

thoughts of to them,

families serve

259

;

and something

This inse-

else to-morrow.

curity of possession, this quick ebb of power, if life

flash the horizon,

—

and then cannot

We cannot make

tantalizes us.

consecutive. its

—

were a thunder-storm wherein you can see by the inspiration

glimpse, a point of view that

brightness excludes the purview

no panorama.

see your hand,

granted, but

fuller inspiration should cause

the point to flow and become a line, should bend the line and complete the circle. tric

then presently the world

and again the

sea

;

a cat's back, all

searfire,

Some-

dumb aU day

in the win-

garrulous and teUs all the

secrets of the world.

with birds

all

elec-

wiU. pass

aglow to the horizon.

times the .^olian harp

dow, and again

Sometimes there

sparkle and shock.

and

To-day the

machine wiU not work, no spark

In June the morning

noisy

August they are already getting old

silent.

Hence arises the question, Are these moods in any degree within control? If we knew how to command them But where is the Franklin with !

draw

off

vey

into the arts of

electricity

—

a Franklin who can from Jove himself, and con-

kite or rod for this fluid ?

life,

inspire men, take

them

INSPIRATION.

260

withdraw them from the

off their feet,

life of trifles

and gain and comfort, and make the world

trans-

parent, so that they can read the symbols of na-

ture

What

metaphysician has

undertaken

ÂŤnmnerate the tonics of the torpid mind, the rules for the recovery of

modus

That

inspiration?

within control which

best

in them.

we have no knowledge. of meditative men there

of inspiration

in the experience

least

the

But is

certain agreement as to the conditions of recepPlato,

tion.

seventh

in his

the perception

Epistle, notes that

only accomplished by long famil-

iarity with the objects of intellect,

cording to the things themselves. as

leaping from a

enkindled in the

itself."

soul,

fire,

and

said again, "

will

and a

life ac-

" Then a light,

on a sudden be

will then itself nourish

The man who

is his

own

master knocks in vain at the doors of poetry."

The

artists

bees, they

must put

What

give.

siasm

must be

and what

ruin for

its

a is

object?

of the

to them.

their lives into the sting they

man good

for

without enthu-

enthusiasm but this daring of

There are thoughts beyond

we are not the less The moth flies into the flame

the reaches of our

drawn

sacrificed to their art.

souls;

lamp; and Swedenborg must solve the

problems that haunt him, though he be crazed ir killed.

INSPIRATION. There 'T

genius as well in virtue as in intellect.

The

rap-

goodness are as old as history and

new

the doctrine of faith over works.

tures of

with this morning's sun. Persia,

the

261

and India are

Socrates,

Christian.

tusht,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; we

The legends

recognize in

of Arabia,

same complexion as

of the

Menu, Confucius, ZeraU of them this ardor

to solve the hints of thought.

I hold that ecstasy wiU be found normal, or only an example on a higher plane of the same gentle gravitation

Experience

run.

you miraculous parallelisms,

were

stones fall

and

rivers

Shakspeare seems to

identifies.

but the wonderful juxtapositions,

;

transfers,

which his genius

effected,

him locked together as links of a and the mode precisely as conceivable and

all

chain,

by which

familiar to higher intelligence as the index-making

The

of the literary hack.

result of the

inconceivable to the type-setter

We must prize our own heat to

execute

knowledge,

the

who

youth.

our plans

the

hack

waits for

Later,

it.

we want

good-wiU,

the

whole armory of means are

all

present, but a certain heat that once used not to fail,

refuses

its office,

capricious fuel

heat; as

if tea,

and aU

supplied.

vain

until this

or wine, or sea-air, or mountains,

or a genial companion, or a gested in book

It seems a semi-animal

new thought

sug-

conversation could fire the

INSPIRATION.

262 train,

wake

fancy and the clear perception.

iJie

— where

Pit-coal,

find

that your engine

it?

made

no use

like a watch,

— that

you are a good workman, and know how to drive it,

there

some

tyrannous

shall

seize

which we

coal.

emerging out of

idea

and bereave us are

are waiting until

falling

we have

Well,

abroad.

the same hint or suggestion, day by day.

man,

not," says the

"_at the

heaven

of this liberty with

top of

condition

come when I when that will moment impossi-

to-day, but the favorable hoiu- will

can

command

all

njy powers, and

be easy to do which ble."

at this

See how the passions augment our force,

anger, love, ambition

— sometimes

the expectation of men.

—

sympathy, and

Garrick said that

the stage his great paroxysms surprised himself as

much

as his audience.

low plane,

it is

If this is true

true on the higher.

genius was the

perception

this

Swedenborg's

the doctrine that

"The Lord flows into the spirits of angels and of men " and aU poets have signalized their ;

consciousness superior to

rare

moments when they were

themselves, — when a

light,

a freedom,

a power came to them which lifted them

formances far better than other times;

that

they could

so that a religious

poet

to per-

reach at

once told

he valued his poems, not because they

INSPIRATION.

263

were Ms, but because they were not.

Jacob Behmen said

" Ajrt has not wrote here,

how

nor was there any time to consider it

thought

angels brought them to him.

the

down according

punctually

standing of the

letters,

but aU was ordered ac-

cording to the direction of the

went on

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

haste,

to set

to the right under-

spirit,

which often

penman's hand, by

so that the

reason

he was not accustomed to

shake.

And, though I could have written

more ing

accurate, fair,

fire

in a

and plain manner, the burnand the

directly after

comes and goes as a sudden shower.

quarter of if

did often

often forced forward with speed,

hand and pen must hasten it

it,

for

In one

an hour I saw and knew more than

many

I had been

years together at an univer-

sity."

The depth

of the notes

which we accidentally

sound on the strings of nature tion to our taught

out of all propor-

and ascertained

faculty,

might teach us what strangers and novices we

vagabond in

this universe of

we have only the " 'T

The

Herrick said

not every day that I

to prophesy

No, but when the

;

spirit fills

fantastic panicles,

Full of

fire,

are,

pure power, to which

smallest key.

Fitted

and

then I write

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

264

INSPIRATION. As

Godhead doth

the

Thus enraged, Like the

hurled,

through the world

Sibyl's,

Look how next

indite.

my lines are the holy

Either slakes, or doth retire

So the fancy That brave

cools,

spirit

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

till

comes

fire ;

when

again.''

" There is no man more pusillaniÂŤ mous than I, when I make a military plan. I magnify aU the dangers, and all the possible mischances. I am in an agitation utterly painful. That does not prevent me from appearing quite serene to the persons who surround me. I am like a woman with child, and when my resolution is taken, all is forgot except whatever can make it succeed."

Bonaparte said

There

are, to

be sure, certain risks in this presen-

timent of the decisive perception, as in the use of ether or alcohol

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

" Great wits to madness nearly are

Both serve Aristotle said

allied

make our poverty our

;

pride."

great genius was ever with-

out some mixture of madness, nor can anything

grand or superior

to the voice of

common

be spoken except by the agitated soul." say of these memorable

moments

were in them, not they in

us.

mortals

We might

of life that

We found ourselves

by happy fortune in an illuminated portion or meteorous zone, and passed out of it again, so aloof

265

INSPIRATION. was

from any

" It

will of ours.

a principle of

war," said Napoleon, " tHat when you can use the lightning

it is

better than cannon."

How many sources of inspiration can we count ? As many as our affinities. But to a practical purpose we may reckon a few of these. 1.

Health

the

muse, comprising the magi-

first

and bodily

cal benefits of air, landscape,

The Arabs say

on the mind. count from

the days spent* in the chase," that

life

those are thrown

is,

Plato thought " exercise

in.

Sydney

would almost cure a guilty conscience." Smith said speech

exercise,

that " AUah does not

You wiU never break down

on the day when you have walked twelve

miles."

I honor health as the

the sound health

first

muse, and sleep as

Sleep benefits mainly by

the condition of health.

produces

;

incidentally also

dreams, into whose farrago a divine lesson Life

times slipped.

wiU not

some-

in short cycles or periods

are quickly tired, but

man

we have

rapid

rallies.

;

spent by his work, starved, prostrate; he lift

think more.

his

hand

to save his life

;

he can never

sinks into deep sleep and wakes

with renewed youth, with hope, courage, resources,

and keen for daring adventure. " Sleep

like death,

and after sleep

The world seems new begun

fertile in

INSPIRATION.

266

White thoughts stand luminous and Like statues in the sun

firm.

;

Refreshed from supersensuous founts,

The

soul to clearer vision mounts."

A man must be able to escape from his cares and fears, as well as

so that

truth

from himger and want of sleep

another Arabian proverb has

" When the belly

Sing, fellow

The

mind and body

jBnds perfect obedience in the

no doubt, and

logs,

And

wine,

as of delicate fruits,

all fine food,

burns in the chimney

;

And

the

fire, too,

for I fancy that

which have grown so long in sun and wind

by Walden,

are a kind of muses.

Some

tonics.

and exercise and

particulars of health

and

when mind

when

;

body.

furnish some elemental wisdom. as

the

perfection of writing

are both in key

coarse

its

says to the head,

is full, it

people will

tell

fit

aU the

nutriment

you there

great deal of poetry and fine sentiment in a chest of tea. 2.

The

experience of writing letters

keys to the

modus

of inspiration.

one of the

When we

have

ceased for a long time to have any fulness of

thoughts that once

made a

diary a joy as well as

a necessity, and have come to believe that an image or a happy turn of expression

command, find that

no longer at our

in writing a letter to a friend

rise to

we may

thought and to a cordial power 1

AUing'ham.

INSPIRATION. of expression that costs

may be

us that this facility

The wealth

resmned. of seeing

is like

267 and

effort,

seems to

indefinitely applied

of the

mind

and

in this respect

that of a looking-glass, which is

never tired or worn by any multitude of objects

which world,

You may

it reflects.

carry

aU round the

ready and perfect as ever for new mil-

it is

lions. 3.

much

Another consideration, though interest

young men,

will cheer the heart of

older scholars, namely that there

secular rest. of

there

diurnal and

daily renovation

this

sometimes

sensibility, so it

will not so

rarely happens

that after a season of decay or eclipse, darkening

months or force.

years, the faculties revive to their fuUest

One

of the best facts I

know in metaphys-

Niebuhr's joyful record that after

ical science is

his genius for interpreting history

had

failed

him

for several years, this divination returned to him.

this rejoiced

Flower."

had

me, so does Herbert's poem " The

His health had broken down

lost his

early,

muse, and in this poem he says

" And

now

After so

in age I

many

bud

again,

deaths I live and write

I once more smell the dew and

And

relish versing

O my

rain,

only light,

It eamiot be

That I

On whom

am he

thy tempests

fell all night."

;

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

INSPIRATION.

268

His poem called " The Forerunners "

preme

interest.

also has su-

" I understand " The Harbingers

to refer to the signs of age

and decay which he

de-

tects in himseK, not only in his constitution, but in

his fancy

and he

and his

facility

and grace in writing verse

signalizes his delight in this skill,

and

his

pain that the Herricks, Lovelaces, and Marlows, or

whoever else, should use the to sensual purpose,

own

faith

like genius in language

and consoles himself that

and the divine

life in

his

him remain to him

unchanged, unharmed. 4. The power and what is will

gencies

of the will for, if it

sometimes sublime

cannot help us in emer-

Seneca says of an almost fatal sickness

that befell him, "

The thought

father,

could not have sustained such a blow as

who

death,

commanded myself to live." Goethe said to Eckermann, " I work more easily when the barometer is high than when it is low. Since I know this, I endeavor, when the barometer is low, to counteract the injurious effect by greater restrained

;

and my attempt is successful." " To the persevering mortal the blessed immortals

exertion,

are swift."

Yes, for they

know how

to give

you in

one moment the solution of the riddle you have " Had I not lived with pondered for months. Mirabeau," says Dumont, " I never should have

known

all

that can be done in one day, or, rather,

INSPIRATION. in

269

A day to him was

an interval of twelve hours.

more value than a week or a month to others. To-morrow to him was not the same impostor as to

most others." 5.

Plutarch affirms that " souls are naturally en-

dowed with the

faculty of prediction,

and the

cause that excites this faculty and virtue

and winds."

tain temperature of air

thought

chief

a cer-

My anchorite

" sad that atmospheric influences should

bring to our dust the communion of the soul with

But I am glad

the Infinite."

that the atmosphere

should be an excitant, glad to find the itself

to be

deluged with Deity,

Christian, poetic.

The

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

duU rock

to be theist,

fine influences of the

ing few can explain, but

all

wiU admit.

morn-

Goethe

acknowledges them in the poem in which he

dis-

lodges the nightingale from her place as Leader of the

Muses

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

MUSAGETES. " Often in deep midnights I called on the sweet muses.

No dawn shines, And no day will appear: But

at the right hour

The lamp brings me pious That it, instead of Aurora

May

enliven

But they

light,

or Phoebus,

my quiet industry.

left

lying in sleep

Dull, and not to be enlivened,

INSPIRATION.

270

And after

every late morning

Followed unprofitable days.

" When now the Spring

stirred,

I said to the nightingales: â&#x20AC;˘

Dear

nightingales, trill

Early, O, early before

Wake me Which

lattice,

out of the deep sleep

mightily chains the young mau.'

But the

love-flUed singers

Poured by night before Their sweet melodies,

Kept awake

my window

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

dear soul,

Koused tender new longings In

my lately

touched bosom,

And so the night passed. And Aurora found me sleeping; Yea, hardly did the sun wake me.

last it

And

has become summer.

at the first glimpse of

morning

The busy early fly stings me Out of my sweet slumber. Unmerciful she returns again:

When often the

half-awake -victim

Impatiently drives her

She

calls hither the

And from my

off.

vmscrnpulous

sisters^

eyelids

Sweet sleep must depart. Vigorous, I spring from

couch,

Seek the beloved Muses, Find them

in the beech grove,

Pleased to receive me;

And

I thank the annojdng insect

INSPIRATION.

271

For many a golden hour. Stand, then, for me, ye tormenting creatures,

Highly praised by the poet

The

the true Musagetes."

Frencli have a proverb to the effect that not

the day only, but all things have their morning,

" II rHy a que is

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

And

le matin en toutes choses."

a primal rule to defend your morning, to keep aU

its

dews

on,

any jangle

Which

and with fine foresight to of affairs

task?

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; even

relieve

from

from the question,

I remember a capital prudence of

old President Quincy,

who

told

that he never

went to bed at night imtil he had laid out the studies for the next morning.

I believe that in our

new thought

days a well-ordered mind has a ing

every morning.

And

hence,

good

await-

eminently

thoughtful men, from the time of Pythagoras down,

have insisted on an hour of solitude every day, -to

own mind and learn what oracle it has If a new view of life or mind gives us I don't know but joy, so does new arrangement. we take as much delight in finding the right place for an old observation, as in a new thought. meet

their

to impart.

Solitary converse with nature

ejaculated sweet in libraries.

;

for thence are

and dreadful words never uttered

Ah!

the spring days, the

dawns, the October woods

summer

I confide that

reader knows these delicious secrets, has perhaps

INSPIRATION.

272

" Slighted Minerva's learned tongue,

But leaped with joy when on the wind the

Are you

Impatient of trade, tired of

poetical,

labor and affairs ?

shell of Clio rung."

you want Monadnoc, Agio-

cochook, or Helvellyn, or Plinlimmon, dear to Engsong,

lish

in your closet

Ossian, and

CadwaUon?

across a board

and

set it in

have an instrument which no It needs it

Caerleon, Provence,

Tie a couple of strings

no instructed ear

;

your window, and you artist's if

harp can

you have

admits you to sacred interiors

;

rival.

sensibility

has the sad-

ness of nature, yet, at the changes, tones of triumph

and

festal notes ringing out

ness.

"Did you never

aU measures

of lofti-

observe," says Gray, "'while

rocking winds are piping loud,' that pause, as the gust

recollecting itself,

in a shrill j^jolian

and plaintive

harp

and

upon the ear

rising

note, like the swell of

I do assure you there

the world so like the voice of a spirit."

you can eye,

recall

a delight like

when you have

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

Perhaps

which spoke to the

stood by a lake in the woods in

summer, and saw where spots or patches of

it,

nothing in

still

little

fleets of ripples, it

was more

Aurora BoreaHs

at night

so sudden, so slight, so spiritual, that

like the rippling of the

wind whip

flaws of

water into

than any spectacle of day. 7.

But the

solitude of nature is not so essential

as solitude of habit.

I have found

advantage

INSPIRATION.

summer

in going in

273

a country inn, in winter to

a city hotel, with a task which would not prosper

home.

sion

for

;

who

it is

in the country a small farmer, to exclude in-

and even necessary

terruptions

all

though I

orders,

I can, and resolutely omit, to

constant damage, aU that can be omitted.

home, the day I

seclu-

almost impossible for a housekeeper

bar out by system

more absolute

I thus secured a

cut into short strips.

have no hours to keep, no

ceive,

member

all too

tion of

hotel,

make

or re-

and I command an astronomic

forget rain, wind, cold,

have

In the

visits to

and

At home,

heat.

I re-

library the wants of the farm,

much sympathy.

leisure.

and

I envy the abstrac-

some scholars I have known, who could

sit

on a curbstone iu State Street, put up their back,

and solve eyes.

their problem.

success, slight as that

womanly

I have more

All the conditions must be right for is.

What

what cripples or stuns me.

change of scene, refresh the

untunes Novelty,

artist,

The

sea-shore

my bad

siu-prise,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; " break

the tiresome old roof of heaven into as Hafiz said.

and the

up new forms," taste of

two

metals in contact, and our enlarged powers in the presence, or rather at the approach

and

parture of a friend, and the mixture of

at the de-

lie

in truth,

and the experience of poetic creativeness which not found in staying at TOL. VIII.

home nor

yet in travelling,

INSPIRATION.

274

but in transitions from one to the other, which must therefore be adroitly transitional

managed

much

to present as

surface as possible,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; these

types or conditions of this power.

are the

A ride

near

the sea, a sail near the shore," said the ancient.

So Montaigne

travelled with his books, but did not

read in them.

ia Nature

aime

croisements,"

les

says Fourier.

know

there

room

regard to some apparent

ment

as to

able delicacy that

Fire must lend

warm

there

time.

whims

its aid.

;

but in

great agree-

And

the machine

of such

an inconceiv-

their annoyance.

with which we are dealing

but

whims here

for

trifles

must be respected.

also

not only want time,

George Sand

says,

" I have no

enthusiasm for nature which the slightest chUl will not instantly destroy."

And I remember

reau, with his robust wiU, yet

that Tho-

found certain

trifles

disturbing the delicacy of that health which composition exacted,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; namely, the

slightest irregularity,

even to the drinking too much water on the preceding day.

some

writers.

Even a Some

steel

pen

of us

may remember,

a nuisance to years

ago, in the English journals, the petition, signed

Carlyle, Browning, Tennyson, Dickens

writers in grinders, to levy

London, against the

who

and other

license of the organ-

infested the streets near their houses,

on them blackmail.

INSPIRATION.

275

Certain localities, as mountain-tops, the sea-side, the shores of rivers and rapid brooks, natural parks of oak and pine, where the ground

smooth and

Every

unencumbered, are excitants of the muse.

knows

artist

And

well some favorite retirement.

yet the experience of some good artists has taught

them

and plainest chamber,

to prefer the smallest

with one chair and table and with no outlook, to

WiUiam Blake

these picturesque liberties.

said,

" Natural objects always did and do weaken, deaden,

and

obliterate imagination in

me."

And

Reynolds had no pleasure in Richmond say " the

human

face

was

;

Sir Joshua

he used to

These

his landscape."

indulgences are to be used with great caution. ston rarely left his studio

by day.

All-

old friend

took him, one fine afternoon, a spacious circuit into the country, and he painted two or three pictures as the fruits of that drive.

But he made

a rule

not to go to the city on two consecutive days.

was

rest

;

more was

lost time.

The times

One

of force

must be well husbanded, and the wise student will remember the prudence of Sir Tristam in Morte d' Arthur, who,

having received from the fairy an

enchantment of

six

hours of growing strength every

day, took care to fight in the hours

when

his

strength increased; since from noon to night his strength abated. artist,

What

prudence again does every

every scholar need in the security of his

INSPIRATION.

276 easel or his desk

work

feet that

These must be remote from the

of the house,

and from

come and go

therein.

had two or three rooms ton,

knowledge of the

all

Allston,

it is said,

in different parts of Bos-

where he could not be found.

For the

cate muses lose their head if their attention diverted.

talking

back

Perhaps

once

you were successful abroad in

and dealing with men, you would not come

to your book-shelf

spirit chooses

you for

commandment,

men

deli-

and your its

When

task.

scribe to publish

makes you odious

the

some

men and

odious to you, and you shall accept that loath-

The moth must

someness with joy.

fly

to the

lamp, and you must solve those questions though

you 8.

die.

when it is best, is a Not Aristotle, not Kant or

Conversation, which,

series of intoxications.

Hegel, but conversation, professor.

This

this the college

the right metaphysical

the true school of philosophy,

where you learn what thoughts

what powers lurk

in those fugitive gleams,

what becomes of them

A wise man goes to this

;

are,

and

how they make history. game to play upon others

and to be played upon, and

at least as curious to

know what can be drawn from be drawn from them.

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

himself as what can

For, in discourse with a

friend, our thought, hitherto

sciousness, detaches itself,

wrapped in our

and allows

con-

itself to

INSPIRATION.

277

new and

seen as a thought, in a manner as

taining to us as to our companions.

tion of thought,

Some

other.

enter-

For provoca-

use ourselves and use each

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; I think the best â&#x20AC;&#x201D; are

perceptions

granted to the single soul

they come from the

;

depth and go to the depth and are the permanent

and controlling ones.

Others

must be warmed by the

fire

takes two to find. of sympathy, to be

brought into the right conditions and angles of Conversation

vision.

companion to

it.

for intellectual activity is

;

We are emulous. K the

contagious. is

higher than ours,

tone of the

delight in rising

a historic observation that a writer

must find an audience up

to his thought, or

no longer care to impart

it,

Homer

level or be silent.

said,

When two come

together, one apprehends before the other is

because one thought

better

weU

he will

but will sink to their ;

" but

that the other thinks

and two men of good mind

will excite each

other's activity, each attempting still to cap the other's thought.

In enlarged conversation we have

suggestions that require

books,

new men, new

new ways

arts

and

of living,

sciences.

new sym-

pathy, each opens to the eloquence, and begins to see with the eyes of his mind.

thoughtless see

new

them

;

were aU lonely,

and now a principle appears

many

relations,

as they pass

;

truths

;

to all

every mind seizes

each catches by the mane one

INSPIRATION.

278

of these strong coursers like horses of the prairie,

and

up and down

rides

in the world of the intellect.

We live day by day under the illusion that it is the fact or event that imports, whilst really it is not

that which signifies, but the use

what we think of until

we put

We esteem nations important,

it.

discover that a few individuals

concern us

;

then, later, that

individuals, or

it to,

much more

not at last a few

any sacred heroes, but the lowliness,

the outpouring, the large equality to truth of single mind,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; as

in the

narrow walls

of a

human

heart the whole realm of truth, the world of morals, the tribunal by which the universe

room 9.

judged, found

to exist.

New

poetry

poetry that

;

new

by which

mean

chiefly,

old

I have heard

to the reader.

from persons who had practice in rhyming, that

was

sufficient to set

them on writing

What

any original poetry.

verses, to read

best in literature

the affirming, prophesying, spermatic words of men-

making

poets.

Only

that

in a

new

poetry which cleanses

and mans me. .

Words used

sense and figuratively,

dart a delightful lustre ; and every word admits a

new

use,

and hints

ulterior meanings.

not learned the law of

and domesticate

have

the mind, â&#x20AC;&#x201D; cannot control

at will the high states of contem-

plation and continuous thought.

" Neither by sea

INSPIRATION.

279

nor by land," said Pindar, " canst thou find the

way

;

Hyperboreans " neither by

to the

ing, nor

idle wish-

Yet I

rule of three or rule of thumb.

by providing always journeys, as Horace or Mar-

find a mitigation or solace

a good book for tial or

Goethe, — some book which

lifts

quite

out of prosaic surroundings, and from which I

draw some

lasting knowledge.

Greek epigram

out of the anthology, a verse of Herrick or Lovelace, are in

You

harmony both with sense and nor

shall not read newspapers,

novels, nor Montaigne, nor the newest

You may

spirit.

politics,

nor

French book.

read Plutarch, Plato, Plotinus, Hindoo

mythology and Shakspeare,

You may

ethics.

Ben Jonson,

Milton,

read Chaucer,

— and

prose as his verse ; read CoUins and

Hafiz and the Trouveurs

;

nay,

Milton's

Gray

Welsh and

read

;

British

mythology of Arthur, and (in your ear) Ossian fact-books,

and

which aU geniuses prize as raw material,

as antidote to verbiage

books,

and

Pact-

false poetry.

the facts be well and thoroughly told, are

much more

nearly allied to poetry than

books are that are written in rhyme.

many

Only our

newest knowledge works as a source of inspiration

and thought, as only the outmost layer of the tree.

Books of natural

written by the ancients,

liber

science, especially those

— geography, botany,

agri-

culture, explorations of the sea, of meteors, of as-

INSPIRATION.

280 tronomy,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

all

the better

aim or ambition.

written without literary

Every book

good

to read

The

which sets the reader in a working mood.

deep book, no matter how remote the subject, helps us best.

Neither are these all.

The

all

the sources, nor can I

The

receptivity is rare.

name

occasions or pre-

disposing circumstances I could never tabulate;

now another

but now one,

landscape, form, color,

or companion, or perhaps one kind of sounding

word or

syllable, " strikes the electric chain

which we are darkly bound," and to detect

and

it is

with

impossible

wilfully repeat the fine conditions to

which we have owed our happiest frames of mind.

The day

good in which we have had the most

The

perceptions.

the more difficult,

analysis is

because poppy-leaves are strewn when a generalization

made

;

for I can never

cumstances to which I owe

it,

remember the

experiment or put myself in the conditions " 'T

cir-

so as to repeat the :

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

the most difficult of tasks to keep

Heights which the soul

compstent to gain."

I value literary biography for the hiats nishes from so

many

scholars, in so

fur-

many countries,

of what hygiene, what ascetic, what gymnastic,

what

social

practices

and approved.

They

who needed only a

their experience suggested are, for the

little

wealth.

most

part,

Large

men

estates,

INSPIRATION.

281

political relations, great hospitalities,

would have ,

They are men whom a book could entertain, a new thought intoxicate and hold them prisoners for years perhaps. Aubrey and Burton and Wood tell me incidents which

been impediments to them.

I find not insignificant.

These are some hints towards what cation a chief necessity, or,

shall I not say ?

powers of the human

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; the

in all edu-

right government,

the right obedience to the soul.

Itself is the dictator

the

mind

all

our happiness consists in our reception of

hints,

itself

the awful oracle.

All our power, its

which ever become clearer and grander as

they are obeyed.

GREATNESS.

Theee

a prize whicli

are all aiming

the more power and goodness

at,

and

much

have, so

Every human being

more the energy

of that aim.

has a right to

and in the pursuit we do not stand

it,

For

in each other's way.

has a long scale of

and every

degrees, a wide variety of views, rant,

but helps his competitors. pleteness, but that is later,

ages.

I prefer to call

I might call

Greatness.

man

com-

It is the ful-

man.

It is the best tonic to the

fruitful study.

And

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; perhaps adjourned for

filment of a natural tendency in each

soul.

aspi-

his success in the pursuit, does not hinder

unrelated

;

therefore

It is a

young

ad-

mire eminent men, not for themselves, but as representatives.

to be

and

very certain that we ought not

shall not be contented with

have reached.

Our aim

less

that which invites aU, belongs to us

any goal we

than greatness all,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; to which

are all sometimes untrue, cowardly, faithless,

but of which we never quite despair, and which, in every sane moment,

resolve to

make our own.

GREATNESS.

286 It

on which

also the only platform

What

meet.

hear or read

anecdotes of any

Only the

best.

men can

all

man do we

wish to

Certainly not those

which he was degraded to the level of dulness

or vice, but those in which he rose above all competition

This

by obeying a

light that shone to

him

alone.

the worthiest history of the world.

Greatness,

— what

Is there not

is it ?

jury to us, some insult in the word ?

commonly

in-

only such in our bar-

call greatness is

barous or infant experience.

'Tis not the soldier,

not Alexander or Bonaparte or Count

who

some

What we

Moltke

represent the highest force of

man-

kind; not the strong hand, but wisdom and

civil-

surely,

ity,

the creation of laws, institutions, letters, and

These we

art.

these,

call

distinction the humanities ;

and not the strong arm and brave

heart,

which are also indispensable to their defence.

For

the scholars represent the intellect, by which

man

;

the intellect and the moral sentiment,

which in the

Who who for

last analysis

—

can never be separated.

can doubt the potency of an individual mind,

sees the shock given to torpid races

ages — by Mahomet

over Asia and Africa ?

Buddha ?

;

— torpid

a vibration propagated

What

of Shakspeare ? of

Menu ? what

Newton ?

of Franklin ?

There are certain points of identity in which these masters agree.

Self-respect

the early form

GREATNESS. in

which greatness appears.

287

The man

in the tav-

ern maintains his opiaion, though the whole crowd takes the other side

;

drawn

are at once

to him.

The porter or truckman refuses a reward for

find-

ing your purse, or for pulling you drowning out of the river.

a moral

man

will

Thereby, with the service, you have got

You

lift.

far,

the recognition of

him.

And what

new

person. That

see in his

manners that

say of some

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; for you him by

others

not necessary to

a bitter-sweet sensation when we

have gone to pour out our acknowledgment of a man's nobleness, and found him quite indifferent to our good opinion

They may well

fear Fate

who

have any infirmity of habit or aim; but he who rests

on what he

is,

has a destiny above destiny,

and can make mouths trality is

incomprehensible to us,

snub the sun.

There

If a man's cen-

at Fortune.

we may

as well

something in Archimedes

or in Luther or Samuel Johnson that needs no protection.

There

somewhat in the true scholar

which he cannot be laughed out or bought off from.

of,

Stick to your

nor be

terrified

own

don't in-

;

culpate yourself in the local, social, or national crime, but follow the path your genius traces like

the galaxy of heaven for you to walk in.

sensible person

will soon

see the folly

wickedness of thinking to please. are very rare.

sensible

man

Sensible

and

men

does not brag,

GREATNESS.

288

avoids introducing the names of

creditable

companions, omits himself as habitually' as another

man

obtrudes himself in the discourse, and

con-

tent with putting his fact or theme simply on

You

ground.

;

that your

commer-

your partners, or yourself are of impor-

cial house,

tance

shall not tell

its

you

shall not tell

know men

;

you

saying so unsays

shall

it.

You

brilliant acquaintances,

what books you have

you have learned

that

make me shall not

nor

feel that

;

your

enumerate your

me by their titles am to infer that you

tell

read.

keep good company by your better information and manners, and to infer your reading from the wealth

and accuracy

of your conversation.

Young men

think that the manly character re-

quires that they should go to California, or to

When

India, or into the army.

they have learned

that the parlor and the coUege and the counting-

room demand

much courage

as the sea or the

camp, they will be willing to consult their own strength and education in their choice of place.

There are to each function and department of nature supplementary out-of-doors

men

men, with a

geology,

taste for

rocks, a quick eye for differences

changes.

Give such,

and then a

geological survey.

first

sinewy,

mountains and

and

for chemical

a course in chemistry,

Others find a charm

and a profession in the natural history of man and

GREATNESS.

289

the maminalia or related animals thology, or fishes, or insects

;

others in orni-

;

others in plants

others in the elements of which the whole world

made.

These lately have stimulus to their study

through the extraordinary revelations of the spectroscope that the sun and the planets are

made

part or in whole of the same elements as the earth

Then

is.

there

the boy

for the sea,

and must go

away from

his father's

who

thither

born with a taste he has to run

house to the forecastle

another longs for travel in foreign lauds will be a lawyer

another, an astronomer

;

another,

painter, sculptor, architect, or engineer.

there

man

Thus

not a piece of nature in any kind but a

born, who, as his genius opens, aims slower

or faster to dedicate himself to that. is

another

;

Then there

the poet, the philosopher, the politician, the ora-

tor,

the clergyman, the physician.

man

to see this adaptation of

every part and particle of

eries,

when he was "

My best

and to

it.

Many readers remember that said,

'T is gratifying

to the world,

Sir

Humphry Davy

praised for his important discov-

discovery was Michael Faraday."

In 1848 I had the privilege of hearing Professor Faraday

deliver, in the

Eoyal Institution in Lon-

don, a lecture on what he caUed Diamagnetism,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

by which he meant cross-magnetism; and he showed us various experiments on certain gases, to prove VOL. vm. 19

GREATNESS.

290

that whilst ordinarily magnetism of steel

from

him

And

east to west.

I do not

polarity.

its

acts

substance

own, and a different,

know how

far his experiments

and others have been pushed in one fact

further experiments led

to the theory that every chemical

would be found to have

from

north to south, in other substances, gases,

this matter,

but

clear to me, that diamagnetism is a law

of the mind, to the full extent of Faraday's idea

namely, that every mind has a new compass, a north, a

new

;

new

direction of its own, differencing its

genius and aim from every other mind

;

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

as every

man, with whatever family resemblances, has a new countenance,

new manner, new

and new character.

voice,

new

thoughts,

Whilst he shares with

all

man-

kind the gift of reason and the moral sentiment, there

leading

a teaching for him from within which

him

in a

trusted, separates

new

and

path, and, the

signalizes him, while

call this specialty the bias of

it is

makes

to society.

each individual.

And

him more important and necessary none of us

wiU. ever accomplish

anything excellent

commanding except when he listens to this whisper which is heard by him alone. Swedenborg or

called

the proprium,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; not a thought shared with

others, but constitutional to the

this tenet that

man.

point of

much insist upon is every individual man has a bias

education that I can never too

GREATNESS. which he must obey, and that

and obeys

power

any other man's. himself;

keeps

more or

come

learns to be at

;

delicate

and

to him,

from

home with hints

and

to have the entire

And

own mind.

assurance of his

less variation

never happy nor strong

learns to watch the

insights that

mag-

It is his

in the world.

to his proper path, with

it,

only as he feels

points always in one direction

netic needle, which

until he finds

it is

he rightly develops and attains

this that

his legitimate

291

in this

self-

respect or hearkening to the privatest oracle, he

may

consults his ease I loss.

genius

In morals ;

in practice, talent

pass a particular

man

your own new way wit, eloquence.

mand.

say, or

need never be at a

this is conscience

;

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; not

;

in intellect,

to imitate or sur-

way, but to bring out

to each his

It is easy for a

own method, style, commander to com-

Clinging to Nature, or to that province of

nature which he knows, he makes no mistakes, but

works after her laws and at her own pace, so that his doing,

which

perfectly natural, appears mi-

raculous to dull people.

Montluc, the great Mar-

shal of France, says of the Genoese admiral,

drew Doria, " It seemed as of this

man."

" I feel that

describe

it."

the sea stood in

Anawe

And a kindred genius. Nelson, said, I am fitter to do the action than to Therefore I wUl say that another

trait of greatness is facUity.

GREATNESS.

292

This necessity of resting on the

real, of

speaking

your private thought and experience, few young

men apprehend. for one day,

Set ten

and nine

men to write

thought, or proper result, perience,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; and

their journal

them wiU leave out

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; that

their net ex-

is,

lose themselves in misreportiag the

Indeed I

supposed experience of other people. think

their

essential caution to

young

writers, that

they shall not in their discourse leave out the one thing which the discourse was written to say.

Let

that belief which you hold alone, have free course.

I have observed that in

all

public speaking, the

rule of the orator begins, not in the array of his

but when his deep conviction, and the right

facts,

and necessity he

feels to

convey that conviction to

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

when these shine and burn in his adwhen the thought which he stands for gives its own authority to him, adds to him a grander personality, gives him valor, breadth, and new in-

his audience,

dress

;

tellectual power, so that not he, but

to speak through his Ups. figuration

;

all

There

great orators have

wish to be orators simulate If

we should ask

spect, it

a certain trans-

and men who

it,

it.

ourselves

would carry us

mankind, seems

what

is this self-re-

to the highest problems.

It is our practical perception of the Deity in

It has its deep foundations in religion.

ever

known a good mind among

man.

you have

the Quakers, you

GREATNESS. have found that

will

they express

pretend to any

but

the element of their faith.

might be thus

it, it

commandment

" I do not

or large revelation,

any time I form some

i£

293

plan, propose a

journey or a course of conduct, I perhaps find a

my mind

silent obstacle in

Very

for.

well,

pass away, but

obey

You

it.

scribe

ask

it is

It is not

it.

;

let

that I cannot account

lie,

thinking

may

do not pass away I yield to

if it

dream, nor a law it is

—I

to describe

oracle,

it.

it,

I cannot de-

nor an angel, nor a

too simple to be described,

it is

but a grain of mustard-seed, but such as

something which the contradiction of

all

it is,

man-

kind could not shake, and which the consent of aU

mankind could not confirm."

You

are rightly fond of certain books or

men

that you have found to excite your reverence and

But none

emulation.

of these can

the greatness of that counsel which

happy

solitude.

mean

that there

following of an inward leader, tion that there

enjoins the

And

fit

compare with open to you ia is

for

you the

— a slow discrimina-

for each a Best Counsel which

word and the fit

act for every

moment.

the path of each, pursued, leads to greatness.

How grateful

to find in

man

woman a new em-

phasis of their own.

But

the

first

rule

accept that work

for

to obey your native bias, to

which you were inwardly

GREATNESS.

294 formed,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; the

doubles

second rale

Thus

its force.

concentration,

you are a

wMch be

scholar,

The same laws hold for you as for the laborer. The shoemaker makes a good shoe because he makes nothing else. Let the student mind his own charge sedulously wait every morning for that.

;

the news concerning the structure of the world

which the

spirit will give

No way

him.

has been found for making heroism easy,

even for the scholar.

The world was

Labor, iron labor,

created as an audience for

atoms of which

it is

made

for him.

him the ;

are opportunities.

Read

the performance of Bentley, of Gibbon, of Cuvier,

Geoffroy

St.

HUaire, Laplace.

bly," said Cecil of Sir

Walter Raleigh.

can

toil terri-

These few

words sting and bite and lash us when we are

friv-

Let us get out of the way of their blows by There is so much making them true of ourselves. olous.

to be

done that we ought to begin quickly to bestir

ourselves.

This day-labor of ours, we confess, has

hitherto a certain emblematic air, like the annual

ploughing and sowing of the Emperor of China.

Let us make

an honest sweat.

Let the scholar

measure his valor by his power to cope with lectual giants.

calculate stocks.

Leave others His courage

intel-

to count votes is to

and

weigh Plato,

judge Laplace, know Newton, Faraday, judge of

Darwin,

criticise

Kant and Swedenborg, and on

all

GREATNESS.

295

The

these arouse the central courage of insight.

scholar's courage should be as terrible as the Cid's,

though

brawn.

grow out

Nature,

of spiritual nature, not out of

when

she adds difficulty, adds

brain.

"With this respect to the bias of the

mind add, what

consistent with

it,

individual

the most catho-

receptivity for the genius of others. The day will come when no badge, uniform, or medal will be worn when the eye, which carries in it planetary influences from all the stars, will indicate rank fast enough by exerting power. For it is true that the

lic

;

geology

stratification of crusts in

cise

not more pre-

than the degrees of rank in minds.

man

win say I am born to this position I must take it, and neither you nor I can help or hinder me. :

;

Surely, then, I need not fret myself to guard

own dignity.'

The great man loves the conversation

or the book that convicts him, not that which

He makes

soothes or flatters him.

reputation; he conceals charity. itself

himself of no

his learning, conceals his

For the highest wisdom does not concern

with particular men, but with

man enamored Say with

with the law and the Eternal Source. Antoninus, " If the picture

made

it ?

What

matters

what matters who said

it?

who

cares

who

by whom the good

done, by yourself or another

good,

" If

If it

it is

was

the truth,

right,

what

GREATNESS.

296

who

signifies

did it?

greatness

your own

intellect, if greater

in degree,

Where were

more above than below.

and there

had not

lived ?

And

do you know what the right meaning of Fame It

that sympathy, rather that

fine

is ?

element by

which the good become partners of the greatness of their superiors.

Extremes meet, and there

no better example

No aristocrat, no

than the haughtiness of humility.

prince born to the purple, can begin to compare

with the self-respect of the

saint.

Why

he so

knows that he can well afford it, resting on the largeness of God in him ? I have read in an old book that Barcena the Jesuit conlowly, but that he

fessed to another of his order that

appeared to him in his

cell

when

the Devil

one night, out of his

profound humility he rose up to meet him, prayed him to

more worthy Shall I It is this

point,

wiU

and

sit

down

in his chair, for

and

he was

to sit there than himself.

tell

you the

secret of the true scholar?

Every man I meet

my master

in that I learn of him.

say, with

Home

in some

The popiUace

Tooke, " If you would be pow-

erful, pretend

to be powerful." I prefer to say, with the old Hebrew prophet, " Seekest thou great

things ?

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; seek them not

;

" or,

what was said of

the Spanish prince, " The more you took from him, the greater he appeared," JPlus on lui 6te, plus est

grand.

GREATNESS.

297

Scintillations of greatness appear here

men

and there

means

of unequal character, and are by no

confined to the cultivated and so-caUed moral class. It

easy to draw traits from Napoleon,

not generous nor

knew

Napoleon commands our

the law of things.

respect

his

ing with his

enormous

own

self-trust,

and

officer,

was a road, a cannon,

or a king,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; and by the speed

security of his action in the premises, always

new.

has left a library of manuscripts, a mul-

titude of sayings, every one of

the habit of see-

eyes, never the surface, but to the

heart of the matter, whether

a character, an

who was

but was intellectual and

just,

was a man who always

fell

widest application.

his feet.

one of his favorite schemes missed, he

ulty of taking

carrying

his genius, as he said,

somewhere

else.

When

had the

fac-

and of

" Whatever they

may

teU you, believe that one fights with cannon as with fists

;

when once

the fire

begun, the least want of

ammunition renders what you have done already useless."

I find

into all of mine,

more of the

easy to translate all his technics

and

Academy.

His advice

Joseph of Spain, was for you, lieves

his official advices are to

literary and philosophical than the memoirs

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Be

to his brother,

King

" I have only one counsel

Master."

Depth

of intellect re-

even the ink of crime with a fringe of light.

We perhaps look on

its

crimes as experiments of a

GREATNESS.

298 universal student

;

lie

may

read any book

who

reads aU books, and as the English judge in old

when learning was rare, forgave a who could read and write. It is difficult times,

Well, I please myself with

greatness pure. diffusion

;

to find a spark of true fire

corruption.

culprit

to find

It is

its

amid much

some guaranty, I hope, for the

health of the soul which has this generous blood.

How many

men, detested in contemporary

whom, now

history, of

hostile

that the mists have rolled

away, we have learned to correct our old estimates,

and

to see

them

as,

Diderot was no model, but unclean as

great benefit.

the society in which he lived

natured

man

whole, instruments of

the

in France,

at a pinch.

;

yet was he the best-

and would help any wretch

His humanity knew no bounds.

poor scribbler who had written a lampoon against

him and wished to dedicate it to a pious Due d'Orleans, came with it in his poverty to Diderot, and Diderot, pitying the creature, wrote the dedication for him,

and so raised five-and-twenty

his famishing

lampooner

Meantime we hate you

snivelling.

to surpass others in

or monkish way.

I do not wish

any narrow or professional

We like the natural greatness of

health and wild power.

much taken by

louis to save

alive.

I confess that I

in boys, and sometimes in people

not normal, nor educated, nor presentable, nor

GREATNESS. chureli-memters,

299

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; even in persons open

to the sus-

picion of irregular and immoral living, in Bohe-

mians,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

men

For we must

more orderly examples.

as in

remember

and

that in the lives of soldiers, sailors

of large adventure,

guards of our household

many life

the stays and

are wanting, and yet

the opportunities and incentives to sublime daring

and performance are often must have some charity

which admires natural power, and wUl virtuous

men who have

that natural

less.

reaUy allied to moral power, and

When

Intellect at least is not stupid,

the force of morals over men, obey.

Henry VII.

if it

lion against him,

in-

and will see

was brought

who was

itself

in rebel-

London, and

Ireland cannot govern this Earl."

It is noted of

may

own

does not

amined before the Privy Council, one all

its

England was a wise king.

Gerald, Earl of Kildare,

Earl govern

elect it over

It has this excuse,

always be expected to approach stincts.

at hand.

for the sense of the people,

said,

Then

ex-

"AH

let this

Ireland," replied the King.

some

scholars, like Swift

bon and Donne, that they pretended they had not, so

much

and Gib-

to vices

which

did they hate hypocrisy.

WUliam Blake the artist frankly says, "I never knew a bad man in whom there was not something very good."

Bret Harte has pleased himself with

noting and recording the sudden virtue blazing in

GREATNESS.

300

the wild reprobates of the ranches and mines of California.

Men

are ennobled

by morals and by intellect; know each other and always

but those two elements

beckon to each other, until

man,

at last they

be truly great.

meet in the

The man who

you a lamp shows you that the flame

oil,

sells

which

contented you before, casts a strong shade in the

path of the petroleum which he lights behind

and

this again casts

a shadow in the path of the

So does

electric light.

intellect

the presence of character light.

;

when brought

into

character puts out that

Goethe, in his correspondence with^ his

Weimar, does not shine. We can had the advantage of the Olympian genius. It is more plainly seen in the correspondence between Voltaire and Frederick of PrusVoltaire is brilliant, nimble, and various, but sia. Frederick has the superior tone. But it is curious that Byron writes down to Scott Scott writes up The Greeks surpass all men tiU they face to him. the Romans, when Roman character prevails over Greek genius. Whilst degrees of intellect interest only classes of men who pursue the same studies, as

Grand Duke

see that the Prince

;

chemists or astronomers, mathematicians or guists,

and have no

are always

lin-

attraction for the crowd, there

men who have a more

catholic genius,

are really great as men, and inspire universal en-

GREATNESS.

A great

thusiasm.

style of

aU the extremes

classes,

301

hero draws equally

of society, till

all

say the

very dogs believe in him.

amples in

Daniel Webster, Henry

this country, in

have had such ex-

Clay, and the seamen's preacher. Father Taylor in England, Charles ert

James Fox

;

in Scotland,

Burns ; and in France, though

Rob-

it is less intelli-

Abraham Lincoln is perhaps the most remarkable example of this class that we have seen, a man who was at home and welcome gible to us, Voltaire.

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

with the humblest, and with a

spirit

vein in the times of terror that

practical

the ad-

His heart was as great as

miration of the wisest.

the world, but there was no

memory

and a

commanded

room

to hold the

of a wrong.

These

may

serve as local examples to indicate a

magnetism which is probably known better and finer

Olympus of his own faand which makes him require geniality and

to each scholar in the little vorites,

humanity in his heroes.

What

are these but the

promise and the preparation of a day when the air of the world shall be purified

when the measure in the highest sense,

by nobler

society,

of greatness shall be usefulness

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; greatness consisting

in truth,

reverence, and good-will ?

Life is

made

of illusions,

and a very common one

the opinion you hear expressed in every village

yes, if I lived in

New York

or Philadelphia,

GREATNESS.

302

Cambridge or

New Haven

there might be

fit

society

;

or Boston or Andover,

but

happens that there

are no fine young men, no superior

You may

town.'

hear this every day

shallow remark.

women

the eye altering alters

;

but

it is

have you yet to learn that all that " the world is an ;

echo which returns to each of us what we say?

It is not examples of greatness, but sensibility to

The good

see them, that is wanting.

botanist will

find flowers between the street pavements,

man

filled

with an idea or a purpose will find ex-

amples and

illustrations

Wit

he goes.

and any

and coadjutors wherever

a magnet to find

wit,

and charac-

Do you not know that peothose with whom they converse ? And if

ter to find character.

ple are as all

or any are heavy to me, that fact accuses me.

Why complain,

a man's debt to his inferiors

were not at least equal to his debt to his superiors ? If

men were

equals, the waters

would not move

but the difference of level which makes Niagara a cataract,

him who

makes eloquence, finds there is

indignation, poetry, in

much to communicate. With

self-respect then there

must be

in the aspirant the

makes leader and

strong fellow-feeling, the himianity, which

men of

all classes

warm

him

as their

representative.

We are thus forced to express our instinct of thfe truth

by exposing the

failures of experience.

The

GREATNESS.

man whom we have self

not seen, in

whom

degraded the adorer of the laws,

erning himself governed others ner, but inexorable in act

his cause

who

303

;

whose aim

;

no regard o£

— who by gov-

sportive in

;

who

always distinct to him

suffered to be himself in society

ries fate ia his

eye;

— he

man-

sees longevity ia

it is

;

whom we

who

car-

seek, en-

couraged in every good hour that here or hereafter

shall

be found.

IMMOETALITT.

IMMORTALITY.

In the year 626

of our era,

when Edwin, the

Anglo-Saxon king, was deliberating on receiving the Christian missionaries, one of his nobles said to

him

" The present

life

of man,

king, com-

pared with that space of time beyond, of which we have no certaiaty, reminds ter feasts,

ministers.

where you

The hearth

grateful heat

of one of your win-

with your generals and

sit

blazes in the middle

spread around, while storms of rain

and snow are raging without. ing tempest, a flies

little

Whilst

the winter storm

;

Driven by the

till it

stays in oiu-

departs through the

mansion

it is

no more.

Such

not of

forced again into

the same dreary tempest from which

and we are

it feels

moment

but when this short

happiness has been enjoyed,

and we behold

chill-

sparrow enters at one door and

delighted around us

other.

and a

as ignorant of the state

had escaped,

the

life

man,

which preceded

our present existence as of that which wiU foUow it.

Things being

so,

I feel that

can give us more certainty, " ceived.

this

new

faith

deserves to be re-

IMMORTALITY.

308 In the

records of a nation in any degree

first

thoughtful and cultivated, some belief in the

beyond

life

Egyptian people furnish us the

earliest details of

and I read

established civilization, this

Egyptians are the

first of

firmed the immortality of

" The mankind who have afthe soul." Nor do I read :

less interest that the historian connects it

presently with the doctrine of metempsychosis

know

in the second

memorable sentence

book of Herodotus

it \vdth

life

The

would of course be suggested.

;

for

well that where this belief once existed

would necessarily take a base form for the savage

and a pure form

for the wise

;

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; so that I only look

on the counterfeit as a proof that the genuine faith

had been

there.

race or climate,

The credence of men, more than makes their manners and customs

and the history

may be

of religion

read in the

There never was a time when

forms of sepulture.

the doctrine of a future

life

was not

held.

Morals

must be enjoined, but among rude men moral judgments were rudely figured under the forms of dogs an easier and more plentiful

and whips, or

after death.

And

in his

mind the

life of

the soul from the body, he

took great care for his body. of

man

in the

life

as the savage could not detach

first

mined on death ; and,

Thus the whole

life

ages was ponderously deteras

we know,

the polity of the

Egyptians, the by-laws of towns, of

streets

and

IMMORTALITY. houses, respected burial.

309

made every man an

undertaker, and the priesthood a senate of sextons.

Every palace was a door rich

man was

pyramid

to a

The

a pyramidaire.

was spent on the excavation chief end of

man

a king or

labor of races

The

of catacombs.

being to be buried weU, the arts

most in request were masonry and embalming, to give imperishability to the corpse.

The Greek, with tions,

had quite another philosophy,

and delighted in beauty. like elastic gas,

and

lifted

and percep-

his perfect senses

set his wit

loved

and

life

taste,

under these mountains of stone,

them.

drove away the embalmers

;

he built no more of those doleful mountainous tombs.

adorned death, brought wreaths of

parsley and laurel strength and

skill,

made

;

and

bright with games of

chariot-races.

looked at

death only as the distributor of imperishable glory.

Nothing can excel the beauty of his sarcophagus.

Rome, and built his beautiful The poet Shelley says of these delicately carved white marble cells, " They seem not so much hiding places of that which must decarried his arts to

tombs at Pompeii.

cay, as voluptuous

In the same

chambers for immortal

spirit

songs, ask that they

the

modern Greeks,

may be

can see them, and that a

spirits."

their

buried where the sun

little

window may be cut

in the sepulchre, from which the swallow might be

seen

when

comes back in the spring.

IMMORTALITY.

310

Christianity brought a

new wisdom.

ing depends on the learner.

No more

But

learn-

truth can be

conveyed than the popular mind can bear, and the

who

barbarians

received the cross took the doctrine

of the resurrection as the Egyptians took

was an

affair of the

the fury of sect

;

so that grounds were sprinkled

with holy water to receive only orthodox dust to

keep the body

it.

body, and narrowed again by

still

more sacredly

and

;

safe for resur-

was put into the walls of the church and the churches of Europe are really sepulchres. rection, it

I read at Melrose ruined gate

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

Abbey

the

inscription

on the

" The Earth goes on the Earth glittering with gold

The Earth goes to the Earth sooner than it wold The Earth builds on the Earth castles and towers The Earth says to the Earth, AU this is ours. "

;

Meantime the true disciples saw, through the

;

letter,

the doctrine of eternity, which dissolved the poor corpse and nature also, and gave grandeur to the

passing hour.

The most remarkable

step in the re-

ligious history of recent ages is that

genius of Swedenborg, ulties

and

who described

affections of

made by

the

the moral fac-

man, with the hard realism

an astronomer describing the suns and planets

of our system, and explained his opinion of the his-

tory and destiny of souls in a narrative form, as of

one who had gone in a trance into the society of

IMMORTALITY.

311

Swedenborg described an

other worlds.

by continuing the

intelligi-

employments in

the like circumstances as those

we know; men

ble heaven,

in societies, in houses, towns,

ments

entertain-

trades,

continuations of our earthly experience.

;

shall pass to the future existence as

into

an agreeable dream.

enter

All nature wUl accom-

there. MUton anticipated the leading thought of Swedenborg, when he wrote, in " Para-

pany us

dise Lost,"

"What Be but Each

Earth

the shadow of Heaven, and things therein

to the other like

more than on earth

thought ? "

Swedenborg had a vast genius and announced

many

true and admirable, though always

things

clothed ia

somewhat

sad and

Stygian

colors.

These truths, passing out of his system into general

circulation,

now met with

are

and of men

aU aware ago,

the

no church.

every day,

aU churches And I think we are

qualifying the views and creeds

of a revolution in opinion.

Sixty years

the sermons

and prayers

books read,

heard, the habits of thought of religious persons,

were aU directed on death.

shadow

of Calvinism

were vmder the

and of the Roman Cath-

The emphasis of all the good books given to young people was on death. We were aU taught that we were olic purgatory,

and death was dreadfid.

IMMORTALITY.

312

and over

born to die;

added

that, all the

gloom.

the

to increase

terrors that

from savage nations were

gather

theology could

great change

Death is seen as a natural met with firmness. "A wise man

has occurred.

and

event,

in our

time caused to be written on his tomb, "Think

That inscription describes a progress

living."

iu opinion.

Cease from this antedating of your

experience.

Sufficient to to-day are the duties of

to-day.

Don't waste

life

in doubts

and fears;

spend yourself on the work before you, well sured that the right performance of this

win be the best preparation

duties

or ages that follow

as-

hour's

for the hours

it:

" The name of death was never terrible

To him

A live

;

man

that

knew

of thought

to live."

willing to die, willing to

I suppose because he has seen the thread

on which the beads are strung, and perceived that it

reaches up and down, existing quite indepen-

dently of the present illusions. is

afraid to die,

he has not

this vision,

who have moulded

man

of affairs

pestered with terrors, because

and

the

the victim of those

religious

doctrines

into

some neat and plausible system, as Calvinism,

Romanism, or Swedenborgism, for household It is

wings.

the fear of the

The

young bird

trust

use. its

experiences of the soul wiU fast out-

IMMORTALITY. grow

this

ninus

there

none."

The saying

alarm.

were hard to mend be gods, and think

all

sad

313 of

" It

Marcus Antois

well to die there be

to live if

sound minds rest on a

tain preliminary conviction, namely, that

cer-

best that conscious personal life shall continue, will continue

we,

not best, then

we saw the whole, should

that

;

was better

universal

must be

and

course see

SchiUer said, "

so.

as death,

will not

What

benefit."

friend

Michel Angelo saying to him that his con-

stant labor for art

with regret, life

must make him think of death

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; "By no

means," he said; "for

be a pleasure, yet since death also

sent

the hand of the same Master, neither should that displease

us."

faith that the doctrine of the

and that

one and the same basis.

Montesquieu were an

ist

" If

error,

;

know

not

the soul rest on

Hear the opinion

immortality of

the

I should be

I avow that I

it.

Divine Providence

the immortality of

a deep

Plutarch, in Greece, has

the

sorry not to

soul

believe

not so humble as the athe-

how they

think, but

for me, I

do not wish to exchange the idea of immortality one day.

I de-

immortal as

God

against that of the beatitude of light

believing myself

himself.

Independently of revealed ideas, meta-

physical

ideas

give

a vigorous hope of

IMMORTALITY.

314 eternal nounce.'

which

well-being,

would

never

who

I was lately told of young children certain

end. said

;

terror

What

" what

at !

the assurance of

wUl

never stop

never die

feel so tired."

pression of

And

an older

end

life.

I find that what life

child

makes

who once

said to

this frail being is

The healthy

What

the

only

never shelter

This disquietude only marks

God's presence."

love of

I have in mind the ex-

overwhelming that

the transition.

feel

without

life

never, never ?

believer,

me, "The thought that to

re-

is so is

state of

good, let

large affairs, in

merce, in the courts, in the

state,

the

and powerful

called great

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; the administration

mind

endure.

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

develop narrow and special talent

;

com-

prone to

but, unless

combined with a certain contemplative turn, a moral laws, does

taste for abstract truth, for the

not build up faith or lead to content.

a profound active

Many States

and powerful

seldom

talent,

years ago, there were two Senate,

I have seen ally

melancholy at the base of

knew.

both

whom

them both one Both were men ;

men

of of

men

suspected.

in the United

are

now

dead.

them I persondistinction

took an active part in the politics of 1

There

Pens^es Diverses, p. 223.

and

their day

IMMORTALITY.

315

They were men

and generation.

and

of intellect,

one of them, at a later period, gave to a friend this anecdote.

said that

when he entered

the

Senate he became in a short time intimate with

one of his

colleagnies, and,

though attentive enough

to the routine of public duty, they to each other,

daUy returned

and spent much time iu conversa-

on the immortality of the soul and other

tion

inteUectual

When my

questions,

and cared for

friend at last left Congress, they parted,

his colleague remaining there

;

and, as their homes

were widely distant from each other, that he never

years

else.

little

met him again

afterwards,

chanced

until, twenty-five

they saw each

through

other

open doors at a distance in a crowded reception at the President's house in Washington.

Slowly

they advanced towards each other as they could,

through the brilliant company, and at last met, said nothing, but shook hands long

last

his

friend

said,

Any " Any

and

light,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

cordially.

Albert

" " None, " replied Albert. light, Lewis ? " None, " replied he. They looked in each other's eyes

silently,

hand he

Now

gave one more shake each

the

and thus parted for the last time. I should say that the impulse which drew held,

these minds to this inquiry through so

many

was a better affirmative evidence than ure to find a confirmation was negative.

years

their fail-

I ought

IMMORTALITY.

816 to

add

men

though

that,

good minds, they were

both pretty strong materialists in their daily aims

and way

I admit that you shall find a

life.

good deal of skepticism in the

streets

and

hotels

But that

and places of coarse amusement.

only to say that the practical faculties are faster

developed than the pravity there

One argument

ing.

mind

of the

universe

us out

future life

in such company,

The

skeptical statement.

there

de-

the recoil

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; our pain

at every

skeptic affirms that the

a nest of boxes with nothing in the

last box.

Where

spiritual.

a slaughter-house style of think-

All laughter at

good

activity.

man is bitter, and puts When Bonaparte in-

sisted that the heart is one of the entrails, that

the

pit of

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; do

world,

struction ?

nature against a

The ground world

;

the

stomach that moves

the

we thank him for the gracious inOur disgust is the protest of human

which

lie.

of hope

in the infinity of the

infinity reappears in every particle,

the powers of aU society in every individual, and

mind

of all

in every mind.

know

against

ap-

pearances that the universe can receive no detri-

ment a

;

that there

a remedy for every wrong and

Here But whence came it ?

satisfaction for every soul.

ful thought.

the

mind?

was not

I, it

is this

Who

wonder-

put

was not you;

it is

IMMORTALITY.

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; belongs

317 virtue,

and

whenever we have either we see the beams of

this

elemental,

When

light.

to thought

and

the Master of the universe has points

to carry in his

government he impresses his

will

in the structure of minds.

But proceeding

to the enumeration of the

simple elements of the natural faith, the that strikes us

our delight in permanence.

great natures are

lovers of

belief

After science

wise, the secret

that

tasks

permanence must foUow in a

Things so

healthy mind.

and perma-

stability

nence, as the type of the Eternal. begins,

few

first fact

workman

successive

attractive,

designs so

so transcendently skilful

generations of observers

only to find out, part with part, the delicate contrivance its

and adjustment of a weed, of a moss, to

wants, growth, and perpetuation;

justments becoming study,

all

these ad-

perfectly intelligible

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; and the contriver

it all

to our

forever hidden!

To breathe, to sleep, is wonderful. But never to know the Cause, the Giver, and infer his character and will Of what import this vacant sky, these !

puffing elements, these insignificant lives full of self-

sh loves and quarrels and ennui ? prospective,

world

and man

to live hereafter.

for his education

of the enigma.

And

Everything

That the

the only sane solution

I think that the naturalist

works not for himself, but

f:)r

the believing mind.

IMMORTALITY.

318

which turns his discoveries to revelations, receives

them as

private tokens of the grand good-will of the

Creator.

The mind

immense time delights in mountain-chains, and in the evi-

delights in

rocks, in metals, in

;

dence of vast geologic periods which these give

;

the age of trees, say of the Sequoias, a few of which will span the whole history of

mankind

;

in the noble

toughness and imperishableness of the palm-tree,

which thrives under abuse

whose building Euskin, "

years old,"

;

delights in architecture,

lasts so long,

not in

its

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; "A house,"

prime untU.

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; and here

it is five

says

hundred

are the Pyramids, which

have as many thousands, and cromlechs and earth-

mounds much

older than these.

We delight in stability, in nothing that ends.

and

really are interested

What lasts a century pleases But a and

us in comparison with what lasts an hour. century,

when we have once made

compared recent

;

bers, if

and

familiar

with a true antiquity, looks dwarfish and it

does not help the matter adding num-

see that

has an end, which

reach just as surely as the shortest.

will

candle a

mile long or a hundred miles long does not help the

imagination; only a

self -feeding fire,

an inextin-

we But the

guishable lamp, like the sun and the star, that

have not yet found date and origin

for.

nebular theory threatens their duration also, be-

IMMORTALITY.

319

reaves them of this glory, and will

make a

shift to

eke out a sort of eternity by succession, as plants

and animals do. And what are these delights in the vast and permanent and strong, but approximations and resemblances of what is entire and sufficing, creative and For the Creator keeps

self-sustaining life ?

word with

us.

his

These long-lived or long-enduring

objects are to us, as

somewhat in us far

see them, only symbols of

Our

longer-lived.

passions, our

endeavors, have something ridiculous and mocking, if

we come

to so hasty

an end.

like the bells of a fool is the

ture does not, like the

If not to he,

trump

Empress Anne

fame

and

finish

Na-

of Russia, call

together all the architectural genius of the to build

how

Empire

and furnish a palace of snow, to

melt again to water in the

first

Will you,

thaw.

with vast cost and pains, educate your children to be adepts in their several

arts, and, as

soon as they

are ready to produce a masterpiece, call out a

them down ?

of soldiers to shoot

our destiny from the preparation.

instinct to hive

file

We must infer We are driven

innumerable experiences which

are of no visible value,

and we may revolve through

many

shall assimilate or exhaust

them.

lives before

Now

there

we is

nothing in nature capricious,

or whimsical, or accidental, or unsupported.

ture never moves

by jumps, but always

Nar

in steady

IMMORTALITY.

320

The implanting

and supported advances.

of a de-

sire indicates that the gratification of that desire is

in the constitution of the creature that feels

;

the

wish for food, the wish for motion, the wish for sleep, for society, for

knowledge, are not random

whims, but grounded in the structure of the creature,

and meant

sleep,

desire to

to be satisfied

society,

live,

by knowledge.

and

food,

by motion,

If there

in larger sphere, with

knowledge and power,

it is

because

edge and power are good for

us,

life

and knowl-

and we are the

ural depositaries of these gifts.

The

the

more nat-

love of life

out of aU proportion to the value set on a single day, and seems to indicate, like all our other experiences, a conviction of bilities

immense resources and

possi-

proper to us, on which we have never drawn.

All the comfort 1 have found teaches fide that I

shaU not have

that I do not yet know.

less in times

I have

to con-

and places

known admirable

persons, without feeling that they exhaust the possibilities of virtue

and

glories of climate, of ings, of fits

midnight sky this

all

talent.

I have seen what

summer mornings and ;

even-

I have enjoyed the bene-

complex machinery of arts and

results of comfort. The good Power can easily provide me millions more as good. ShaU I hold on with both hands to every paltry civilization,

possession

and

its

All I have seen teaches

to trust

IMMORTALITY.

321

Whateyer

be which the great Providence prepares for us,

the Creator for all I have not seen.

must be something large and generous, and in the great style of his works.

The

future must be

to the style of our faculties,

—

of imagination, of reason.

I have a house, a closet

which holds

all,

a reason for refusing the an-

— as

who beckons me away,

room or

skill

We wish to live warm

for

what

house,

orchard, or

wear out

live to

of years, it is

man

may rank

that

The

soul

life.

the borders of the

looks forward with equal elas-

mind, or hope

ticity of

my boots.

does not age with the body.

;

and why

on the verge of

still

not, after millions

newer existence ?

—

the nature of intelligent beings to be for-

new

ever

what

I do not

pictures.

a hint of endless being, we

grave, the wise

require?

great, not for

novelty which perpetually attends

for

may

enlarging wants

I do not wish to live for the sake of

wish to

there were no

elsewhere that could reproduce for

like or

mean.

of hope,

books, a table, a garden, a field

are these, any or gel

memory,

life.

Most men are

insolvent,

promise by their countenance and conversation and

their early endeavor

perform, out

;

— suggesting

man must have new

the

panions, voL.

much more than they ever a design

new

vm.

condition, 21

still

to be carried

motives,

new com-

and another term.

Frank-

IMMORTALITY.

322

lin said, " Life is rather a state of

ration for

embryo, a prepa.

A man is not completely born until

life.

he has passed through death."

Every

man, in whatever direction he work,

really able

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; a man

large affairs, an inventor, a statesman, an poet,

a painter,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

you talk sincerely with him,

considers his work, however short of

what

orator, a

should be.

much admired,

What

is this

as far

Better,

this flying Ideal, but the perpetual promise of his

Creator

Wandering Jew is agreeable to men, because they want more time and land in which to execute their thoughts: But a higher Take us poetic use must be made of the legend.

The

fable of the

we are, with our experience, and transfer us to a new planet, and let us digest for its inhabitants what we could of the wisdom of this. After we as

have found our depth there, and assimilated what

new experience, transfer us to a new scene. In each transfer we shall have acquired, by seeing them at a distance, a new mastery of the old thoughts, in which we were too much immersed.

could of the

short, all our intellectual action, not promises

but bestows a feeling of absolute existence. are taken out of time

know

not whence

longed

life,

and breathe a purer

we draw

air.

the assurance of pro-

of a life which shoots that gulf

death and takes hold of what

real

call

and abiding,

IMMORTALITY. by

many

Salt

323

claims as ÂŁrom our intellectual history.

a good preserver

;

cold

but a truth cures

the taint of mortality better, and " preserves from

harm

A sort of absoluteness

until another period."

attends

aU perception

of truth,

no hint of corruption.

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; no smeU of

age,

It is self-sufficing, sound,

entire.

Lord Bacon were

said : "

least divine

of the soul, yet

motions the

Some of

the philosophers

who

denied generally the immortality

came

to this point, that whatsoever

man

spirit of

could act and perform

without the organs of the body, might remain after

death; which were only those of the understanding,

and not of the

affections

;

And Van

to be."

and

so immortal

incorruptible a thing did knowledge seem to

them

Helmont, the philosopher of

Holland, drew his sufficient proof purely from the " It

action of the intellect.

said, " that it

greatest desire,"

might be granted unto atheists to

have tasted, at least but one only moment, what is intellectually to

understand ; whereby they

feel the immortality of the

touching."

driven by

his

has an end. is

mind, as

all

day, but

ends at night

;

is it

But, as far as the mechanic or farmer

also a scholar or thinker, his

may

were by

farmer, a laborer, a mechanic,

work

That which he has learned

be learned.

work has no end.

that there

The wiser he

is,

much

feels only

IMMORTALITY.

824

the more

years,

not

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

we do

not know."

The demands

suffice.

thousand

tenfold, a hundredfold his faculties,

would

of his task are such that

He studies in

becomes omnipresent.

"What we know

incompetence.

a point to what

his walking,

at his meals, in his amusements, even in his sleep.

Montesquieu

said, "

The

love of study

most the only eternal passion.

in us

al-

All the others quit

us in proportion as this miserable machine which holds them approaches

its

says the thinker, " and

worm

or a

,fly

which

ruin."

Art

life is short."

long,"

but as

to this mountain, this continent,

his thoughts inhabit.

that comes

by the

It is

a perception

activity of the intellect

the lazy or rusty mind.

never to

;

Courage comes naturally

who have the habit of facing labor and danger, and who therefore know the power of their

to those

arms and bodies

mind comes future

it.

and courage or confidence

soul

in the

wonder-

its

Belief in

returns.

who

use

said Goethe, " the eternal existence

proved from tiU

idea of activity.

my death, nature

another form of existence,

ent can no longer sustain is

use

a reward kept only for those

To me,"

work incessantly

give

who know by

and inspirations and

ful forces its

;

to those

when

bound

If to

the pres-

spirit."

a proverb of the world that good-will

intelligence, that goodness itself is

makes

an eye ; and the

IMMORTALITY. one doctrine in which

new

light is

God

religions agree is that

all

added to the mind in proportion as

uses that which of

325

has.

abideth forever."

that doeth the wOl

Ignorant people con-

found reverence for the intuitions with egotism.

There

no confusion in the things themselves.

The health of

the

mind

consists in the perception of

Its dignity consists in

law.

being under the law.

most generous extension of our

Its goodness is the

private interests to the dignity

Nothing seems

ideas.

the laws.

lief in

and generosity

so excellent as a be-

communicates nobleness, and,

were, an asylum in temples to the loyal soul.

confess that everything connected with our

personality

vidual cess

;

fails.

Nature never spares the

no prosperity

indi-

are always balked of a complete sucis

promised to our self-esteem.

have our indemnity only in the moral and

tellectual reality to

mortal, and lates for

which we

we only through

aspire. that.

That

The

in-

im-

soul stipu-

no private good. That which is private " If truth live, I live ; if

I see not to be good.

justice live, I live," said

one of the old

saints, "

and

these by any man's suffering are enlarged and en-

throned."

The moral sentiment measures

itself

sacrifice.

It risks or ruins property, health, life itself, without hesitation, for its thought,

and aU men

justify the

IMMORTALITY.

326

man by their the same

And Mahomet

praise for this act.

declared, "

mind

Not dead but living ye who are slain in the way of

are to account all those

God."

man

these grounds I think that wherever

ripens, this audacious belief presently appears,

in the savage, savagely

soon as thought

in the good, purely.

;

exercised, this belief is inevita-

ble; as soon as virtue glows, this belief confirms itself.

man.

It is a kind of It cannot rest

summary

or completion of

on a legend

quoted from one to another

;

cannot be

must have the

surance of a man's faculties that they can

and a longer term than nature here

larger theatre

Goethe said

allows him.

as-

fill

" It

to a thinking be-

ing quite impossible to think himself non-existent, ceasing to think and live

;

so far does every one

carry in himself the proof of immortality, and quite spontaneously. objective

But

and go out

so soon as the

man

will

of himself, so soon as he dog-

matically will grasp a personal duration to bolster

in cockney fashion that inward assurance, he

lost in contradiction."

mental, but forces

The

doctrine

grounded in the

possess.

necessities

and

Nothing wiU hold but that

which we must be and must do

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

" Man's heart the Almighty to the Future set

not senti-

secret but inviolable springs."

IMMORTALITY. The

revelation that

true

327

written on the palms

of the hands, the thought of our mind, the desire

of our heart, or nowhere.

that there

wholly

no melodrama in

Here

real.

and experience

this

;

idea of heaven at all

that

;

it is

the emphasis of conscience is

no speculation, but the

Do you

most practical of doctrines.

think that

the eternal chain of cause and effect which per-

vades nature, which threads the globes as beads on

string, leaves this out of its circuit,

God and men as

this desire of

common, and

altogether cheap and

reason or merit

We by

live

— leaves out

a waif and a caprice, falling without

desire to live

;

live

by choice

wiU, by thought, by virtue, by the vivacity of

the laws which life,

— or we

ing hold of

die

obey, and obeying share their sloth,

by disobedience, by

which ebbs out of

life,

us.

los-

But whilst

I find the signatures, the hints and suggestions, noble and wholesome,

ways ward,

— whilst

of virtuous living lead

— yet

not

all

the

duty to prove to myself

the immortality of the soul.

hidden very cunningly.

I find that

upward and not downThat knowledge

Perhaps the archangels

cannot find the secret of their existence, as the eye

cannot see itseK

;

—

but, ending or endless, to live

whilst I live.

There

a drawback to the value of

all

state-

IMMORTALITY.

828

ments of the doctrine, and I think that one ab-

from writing or printing on the immortality

stains

of the soul, because, his statement, the

wiU

when he comes

hungry eyes that run through

close disappointed

not here which

much wronged by feel themselves

that I

;

the listeners say. That

desire

— and

;

their hasty conclusions, as they

wronged by

I mean

omissions.

a better believer, and aU serious souls

give grounds for. is

tions,

best

higher than

The real evidence is too subtle, we can write down in proposi-

modern essay on the

an inference, a grand augury,

ing, but attempt to

form in the mind.

the

subject.

The

prove our faith by syllogisms.

argument refuses

all

we can

and therefore Wordsworth's "Ode"

We cannot sion,

I shall be as

are better believers in the immortality, than

end of

to the

ground

it,

vanishing and inadequate.

conclu-

ever hover-

and the reasons are

You

cannot make a

written theory or demonstration of this as you can

an orrery of the Coperniean astronomy. be sacredly treated. mount.

Not by

rare integrity,

Speak

of the

mount

literature or theology,

must

in the

but only by

by a man permeated and perfumed

— with manliest or womanliest — can the be a use

with airs of heaven,

enduring

love,

the most sublime.

vision

And

clear to

hence the fact that in the

minds of men the testimony of a few inspired

souls

IMMORTALITY.

329

has had such weight and penetration.

not say, "

O my bishop, O my pastor,

resurrection?

What

You

shall

there

do you think?

any

Did Dr.

Channing believe that we should know each other ? did

What

Wesley? did Butler? did F^nelon?"

questions are these

or any truly ideal poet. of the interior realities.

read Milton, Shakspeare,

Eead Plato, or any seer Read St. Augustine, Swe-

denborg, Immanuel Kant. recite to

Let any master simply

you the substantial laws of the

and in the presence

of the laws themselves

intellect,

you will

never ask such primary-school questions. Is immortality only shall I say, only

sive ? all

has

it,

intellectual quality, or,

an energy, there being no pas-

and he

alone,

who

gives life to

names, persons, things, where he comes.

religion, not the wildest

no art

is lost.

ture state

mythology dies for him

vivifies

what he touches.

Fu-

illusion for the ever-present state.

It is not length of life,

but depth of

life.

It is not

duration, but a taking of the soul out of time, as

mind does when we are living in the sentiments we ask no questions about time. The spiritual world takes place ; that which is always the same. But see how the sentiment is wise. Jesus explained nothing, but the influence of him took people out of time, and they felt eternal. A great integrity makes us immortal aU high action

of the

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

IMMORTALITY.

330

an admiration, a deep above

fear.

love,

a strong

makes a day memorable.

lived years in that hour.

Jesus

arms us

will,

say

strange that

esteemed by mankind the bringer of the

doctrine of immortality.

sentimental; he

never once weak or

very abstemious of explanation,

he never preaches the personal immortality

whilst

;

Plato and Cicero had both allowed themselves to overstep the stern limits of the

and gratify

spirit,

the people with that picture.

How

iU agrees this majestical immortality of our

religion vrith the frivolous population

build magnificently for mice

WOl

Will you

offer

you em-

pires to such as cannot set a house or private affairs

Here are people who cannot dispose

in order ?

a day

an hour hangs heavy on their hands

;

wiU you

offer

this

the

thought

them

rolling ages without

way we

rise.

a higher thought,

;

end?

and But

Within every man's

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; within the character

he exhibits to-day, a higher character. puts off the illusions of the child, the

The youth

man

puts off

the ignorance and tumultuous passions of youth,

proceeding thence puts off the egotism of manhood,

and becomes

realities

dying

at last a public

and universal

soul.

rising to greater heights, but also rising to ;

out,

the

outer relations and circumstances

he entering deeper into God,

him, until the last garment of egotism

God

falls,

into

and he

IMMORTALITY. is

with God,

— shares

331

the will and the immensity

of the First Cause. It is curious to find the selfsame feeling, that it

not immortality, but eternity,

— not

duration,

but a state of abandonment to the Highest, and so the sharing of His perfection, farthest east

and

— appearing in the

The human mind

west.

takes no

account of geography, language, or legends, but in the same instinct.

all utters

Yama,

the lord of Death, promised Nachiketas,

the son of Gautama, to grant

him three boons at own choice. Nachiketas, knowing that his father Gautama was offended with him, said, " O Death let Gautama be appeased in mind, and forhis

get his anger against

Yama

boon."

said, "

remember thee with

will

this I choose for the first

Through

favor,

also

boon,

allows,

and !

Nachiketas "

Some

this inquiry.

death of

man

;

says,

it is

ture.

;

which

Nachiketas said, there

say the soul exists after the

others say

the third of the boons.

for

by which

"Choose the third

Yama

was inquired of

This I

does not exist.

should like to know, instructed

question,

fire

gained be made known to him

Yama

For the

love as before."

second boon, Nachiketas asks that the

heaven

Gautama

old,

not easy to understand

Choose another boon,

it.

thee.

Such

said, " For this

even by the gods Subtle

is its

Nachiketas

na-

IMMORTALITY.

332

not compel

sayest, it,

there

There

no other speaker

;

Even

what thou

be found like thee.

Yama

like this."

who may

" Choose sons and grandsons

dred years

said,

as to

not easy to understand

it is

no other boon

And

inquired.

Death, that

NacMketas

to this."

by the gods was

choose herds of cattle

live

said,

a hun-

choose elephants

;

and gold and horses; choose the wide expanded earth,

Or,

and

live thyself as

many

years as thou listeth.

thou knowest a boon like

this,

choose

it,

life.

together with wealth and far-extending

a king,

make

Nachiketas

thee the en j oyer of

All those de-

all desires.

gain in the world of mor-

sires that are difficult to tals, all

the wide earth I will

those ask thou at thy pleasure

nymphs

;

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

those fair

of heaven with their chariots, with their

musical instruments

for the like of

;

by men.

to be gained

them are not

I will give them to thee,

but do not ask the question of the state of the soul Nachiketas said, "All those enjoy-

after death."

ments are of yesterday.

With

thee remain thy

horses and elephants, with thee the dance and song. If

we should obtain wealth, we live only as long as The boon which I choose I have

thou pleasest. said."

Yama

pleasant.

said,

Blessed

who chooses

One

thing

good, another

he who takes the good, but he

the pleasant loses the object of man.

But thou, considering the objects

of desire, hast

IMMORTALITY.

These two, ignorance (whose

abandoned them. object

what

object

what

der,

and

world is

exists,

subject to

know

one

wise,

pleasant) and knowledge (whose

good), are

known

and not the

not to be obtained by argument.

worldly happiness

transient, for that firm

not to be obtained by what

him whom

leaves both grief

and

I believe a house

whose door

;

The

it.

subtle, greater

goes far, sleeping

the soul as unbodUy

NachiketasI

open to Brahma.

bom

eternal, it is

among

man

great, sitting it

Thinking

bodies, firm

among

casts off all grief.

by knowledge, not by

obtained by the soul by which truths."

Nor

subtler than

;

understanding, not by manifold science.

own

does

slain

goes everywhere.

soul cannot be gained

veals its

;

Unborn, is

than what

fleeting things, the wise

with

knows him obtains

soid is not

not slain, though the body

The

was not produced from any one.

was any produced from

intellect

hard to behold,

Thee,

joy.

the supreme, whoever

whatever he wishes. not die

it is

The

not firm.

by means of the union of the

Brahma

youth

That knowledge for which

sway. is

be far asun-

Believing this

other, the careless

the soul, thinking

what

to lead to different goals.

thou hast asked I

333

it is

desired.

can be It re-

'^!!?rT^»p9P«''

JAN "23 1900

MAY 17

1900

JUN

m.~

FEB V.

26 VY

OCT

1912

IJt-

1903