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SOCIETY AND SOLITUDE
TWELVE CHAPTERS
RALPH WALDO EMERSON
Beta anJ EeDwel ©Bttton
BOSTON HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY New
York: II East Seventeenth Street
(StiE
Bibet^tie
^tzi^ 1894
^Tamliriboe
^•l07'^^^
Copyright, 1870,
By RALPH WALDO EMERSOM. Copyright, 1883,
Bl
EDWARD
W. EMERSON.
All rights reserved.
The Riverside Press^ Cambridge^ JWiws., U. S. A. Company. Blectrotyped and Priated by II. 0. Houghton
&
CONTENTS. PAGE
Society and Solitode *
7
Civilization
21
Akt
S9
Eloquence
61
Domestic Life
\r
99
Faeming
131
Works and Days
149
Books
179
Clubs
.
211
COUKAGB
237
Success
265
Old Age
.
295
SOCIETY AND SOLITUDE.
SOCIETY
AJSTD
SOLITUDE.
my
I FELL in with a humorist on
had in dusa,
his
chamber a
cast of the
travels,
who
Rondanini Me-
and who assured me that the name which
that fine
work
of art bore in the catalogues
was
a misnomer, as he was convinced that the sculptor
who carved
it
intended
mother of the Muses.
it
for
Memory, the
In the conversation that
my new friend made some extraordinary " Do you not see," he said, " the confessions.
followed,
penalty of learning, and that each of these scholars
whom you
to be the last
have met at S
man, would,
,
though he were
like the executioner in
but one ? "
He
Hood's poem, guillotine the
last
added many
but his evident ear-
lively remarks,
nestness engaged that followed
had good
my
attention,
we became
abilities,
his wiU, such that
in the
better acquainted.
weeks
He
a genial temper, and no vices
but he had one defect, tone of the people.
and
— he could not speak
in the
There was some paralysis on
when he met men on common
terms he spoke weakly and from the point, like a
SOCIETY AND SOLITUDE.
10
His consciousness of the fault made
flighty girl.
He
worse. in the
He
tavern their manly speech.
it
lumberman
envied every drover and
coveted
Mirabeau's don terrible de lafamiliaritS, believing that he whose sympathy goes lowest
from self
whom
is
the
man
For him-
kings have the most to fear.
he declared that he could not get enough alone
He
to write a letter to a friend.
The
hid himself in pastures. not solitary enough
When
out.
the sun and
he bought a house, the
did was to plant ceal himself.
;
left the city
He
trees.
trees behind trees; above all, all
was
moon put him first
thing he
could not enough con-
Set a hedge here
they wUl keep a secret
he
;
solitary river
;
set
oaks there,
—
set evergreens, for
the year round.
The
most agreeable compliment you could pay him was to imply that
you had not observed him in a house
or a street where you had
met him. Whilst he
suf-
fered at being seen where he was, he consoled himself
with the delicious thought of the inconceivable
number
of places
of his tailor
where he was
was
not.
All he wished
to provide that sober
mean
of
and cut which would never detain the eye a moment. He went to Vienna, to Smyrna, to
color for
London. val,
In
all
the variety of costumes, a carni-
a kaleidoscope of clothes, to his horror he
coidd never discover a
man
anything like his own dress.
in the street
He would
who wore
have given
SOCIETY AND SOLITUDE. his soul for the ring of visibility
had blunted the said, " I
you think," he being shot,
my
—
I,
am
wear out ages in
itself, if it
away
?
into
"
Do
the back
of the solar system
solitude,
be possible
"
waiting to shuffle off
me and aU
between
at his
in such great terror of
who am only
and put diameters
sidereal orbits
His dismay
fears of mortality.
corporeal jacket to slip
stars,
to
Gyges.
11
souls,
and
— there
and forget memory
He had
a remorse run-
ning to despair of his social gaucheries, and walked miles and miles to get the tvfitchings out of his face, the starts and shrugs out of his arms and shoulders.
God may
forgive sins, he said, but awkwardness
has no forgiveness in heaven or earth. in
Newton not
so
much
his theory of the
name with
my
moon
as
the solution of the problem in
the " Philosophical Transactions "
haps increase
admired
which he forbade him to
his letter to Collins, in insert his
He
:
" It would per-
acquaintance, the thing which I
chiefly study to decline."
These conversations led
me somewhat
the knowledge of similar cases,
and
to
later to
the dis-
covery that they are not of very infrequent occurrence.
Few substances
are found pure in nature.
Those constitutions which can bear in open day the rough dealing of the world must be of that
mean and average atmospheric
air,
structure such as iron
and water.
and
But there are
salt,
metals,
SOCIETY AND SOLITUDE.
12
and sodium, which,
like potassium
to
be kept pure,
must be kept under naphtha. Such are the talents determined on some specialty, which a culminating civilization fosters in the heart of great cities and in royal chambers.
To
Nature protects her own work.
the culture of the world an Archimedes, a
New-
ton is indispensable ; so she guards them by a certain aridity. If these had been good fellows, fond of dancing, port, and clubs, we should have had no
"Theory of the Sphere" and no " Principia." They had that necessity of isolation which genius feels. Each must stand on his glass tripod if he Even Swedenborg, would keep his electricity. whose theory of the universe
and who reprobates
is
based on affection,
danger and
to weariness the
make an exalso angels who
vice of pure intellect, is constrained to
traordinary exception
do not house
;
live
:
" There are
consociated, but separate, house
and
these dwell in the midst of heaven, because
they are the best of angels."
We
have known
many
fine geniuses
with that
imperfection that they cannot do anything useful, not so
much
as write
one clean sentence.
worse, and tragic, that no
who has
fine traits.
At a
man
and one by an
by
fit
distance he
but bring him hand to hand, he protects himself
is
solitude,
acid, worldly
is
'Tis
for society is
admired,
a cripple.
One
and one by courtesy, manner,
— each
con-
SOCIETY AND SOLITUDE. Dealing
how he can
the thinness of his skin and his
But there
incapacity for strict association.
remedy
13
is
no
that can reach the heart of the disease but
either habits of self-reliance that should go in practice to
making the man independent
race, or else
human
of the
Now
a religion of love.
he hardly
seems entitled to marry; for how can he protect a woman,
We
who cannot
protect
Heaven takes
if
there
is
any-
Dante was very bad company,
and was never invited
Michel Angelo
to dinner.
sad, sour time of
The
it.
are rarely beautiful in coaches
ministers of beauty
and
Colum-
saloons.
key
so lonely as himself.
of these potentates
saw well the reason
bus discovered no
Yet each
?
But the wary
care you shall not be,
thing good in you.
had a
himseK
pray to be conventional.
isle or
Solitary was he ?
of his exclusion.
Why,
yes
;
but his society was limited only by the amount of brain Nature appropriated in that age to carry on the government of the world.
" If I stay," said
Dante, when there was question of going to Rome, "
who
will
go
?
and
if
But the necessity have
said,
and
is
I go,
of solitude
organic.
philosopher whose world
He
one person. but we are
still
and needs
to
who wiU
is
affects to
is
stay ?
"
deeper than we
I have seen
many a
large enough for only
be a good companion
surprising his secret, that he
impose his system on
all
means
the rest
SOCIETY AND SOLITUDE.
14
The determination
of eacli is
like that of each tree
up
from
the others,
all
'T is no
into free space.
wonder, when each has his whole head, our societies Like President Tyler, our should be so small. party
from us every day, and we must ride
falls
Dear heart take
in a sulky at last. to thee,
— there
friendships,
is
and
!
our youth
is
sadly
a reconnoitering
and recruiting of the holy fraternity they
But
bine for the salvation of men. stars
seem a nebula of united
The
co-operation
is
so the remoter
part of his prerogative.
we the
sit
;
who
is
no
and the
by impassable
involuntary, and
us by the Genius of Life,
com-
shall
light, yet there is
group which a telescope will not resolve dearest friends are separated
home
We begin with
no co-operation.
all
it
gulfs.
put upon
reserves this as a
'Tis fine for us to talk
and muse and are serene and complete
;
but
moment we meet with anybody, each becomes
a fraction.
Though
the stuff of tragedy and of romances
a moral union of two superior persons whose
is
in
confi-
dence in each other for long years, out of sight and in sight, tified
by
and against
all
appearances,
is at last jus-
victorious proof of probity to gods
and
—
men, causing joyful emotions, tears and glory, though there be for heroes this moral union, yet
they too are as far off as ever from an intellectual union, and the moral union
is
for comparatively
SOCIETY AND SOLITUDE.
15
low and external purposes, like the co-operation of a ship's company or of a lar
and pathetically
know other
But how
fire-club.
insu-
we
solitary are all the people
Nor dare they teU what they think of each when they meet in the street. We have a !
men
be sure, to taunt
fine right, to
of the world
with superficial and treacherous courtesies
Such
!
the tragic necessity which strict science
is
and neighborly
finds underneath our domestic irresistibly driving
into the desert,
life,
each adult soul as with whips
and making our warm covenants
sentimental and momentary.
We must
the ends of thought were peremptory,
such ruinous
to be secured at
cost.
if
infer that
they were
They are
deeper than can be told, and belong to the imnien-
and
sities
eternities.
depth where society pears
;
where the question
men ? where But
They reach down to that itself originates and disap-
this
is.
the individual
is first,
man or
in his source.
banishment to the rocks and echoes no
metaphysics can
make
right or
result is so against nature, it
Which
is lost
tolerable.
This
such a half -view, that
must be corrected by a common sense and expe-
rience.
"
and there
A man is born by the side of his father, he remains." A man must be clothed
with society, or
and poverty, member.
He
we
shall feel
a certain bareness
as of a displaced is to
and unfiirnished
be dressed in arts and institu
SOCIETY AND SOLITUDE.
16
a
man
exquisitely
but coop up most
Now
body-garments.
tions, as well as in
made can
and then and must
live alone,
men and you undo
"
them.
The
king lived and ate in his haU with men, and under-
When a young barrister Mr. Mason, " I keep my chamber
stood men," said Selden. said to the late to read law,"
— " Eead law
"'tis in the court-room
!
" replied the veteran,
you must read law." Nor is If you would
the rule otherwise for literature.
learn to write, 'tis in the street you must learti
Both
for the vehicle
and
The
you must frequent the public square.
and not the coUege, is
is
win
his rents,
charm the disguised soul that
to
under
this
and
Never his lands or
light.
bearded and that rosy visage
ration.
people,
A scholar
the writer's home.
a candle which the love and desire of
power
it.
for the aims of fine asts
all
but the
sits is
men
veiled
his rent
His products are as needful as those
of the baker or the weaver.
without cultivated men.
As
Society cannot do
soon as the
are satisfied, the higher wants
first wants become imperative.
'Tis hard to mesmerize ourselves, to whip our
own
top
;
but through sympathy we are capable of
energy and endurance.
Concert
fires
people to a
certain fury of performance they can rarely reach alone.
Here
is
the use of society:
with the great to be great
an existing standard
;
;
it
so easy to
— as easy as
it is
is
so easy
come up
to
to the lover
SOCIETY AND SOLITUDE. swim to The fore. to
liis
maiden through waves
so
grim be-
immense; and
benefits of affection are
the one event which never loses
17
romance
its
is
the
encounter with superior persons on terms allowing the happiest intercourse. It
by no means follows that we are not
A
soirSe finds us tedious.
had been
fit
for
and because the
society, because soirees are tedious
backwoodsman, who
sent to the university, told
me
that
when
he_heard the best-bred ypungjnenat the Jaw-school talk together, he reckoned himself a boor
;
but
whenever he caught them apart, and had one to himself alone, then they were the boors and he the betterjman.
And
we encountered
if
we
ourselves,
and then
That was
society,
when we then found
recall the rare hours
the best persons, first
society
seemed
to exist.
though in the transom of a brig
or on the Florida Keys.
A
cold sluggish blood thinks
it
has not facts
enough to the purpose, and must decline the conversation.
more,
— have
less.
its
turn in
But they who speak have no 'T
is
not
new
facts that avail,
but the heat to dissolve everybody's
facts.
Heat
puts you in right relation with magazines of facts.
The
capital defect of cold, arid natures is the
want
They seem a power incredible, as if God should raise the dead. The recluse witnesses what others perform by their aid, with a of animal spirits.
SOCIETY AND SOLITUDE.
18 kind of
fear.
much
It is as
out of his possibility
as the prowess of Coeur-de-Lion, or an Irishman's
day's-work on the railroad.
'T is said the present
and the future are always rivals. Animal spirits constitute the power of the present, and their feats are like the structure of a pyramid. is
a lord, a general, or a boon companion.
Before
Memory
with his
these
what a base mendicant
leathern badge
!
constitutions,
all
But
To
obtain them,
is
this genial heat is latent in
and
friction of society.
"
Their result
is
disengaged only by the
As Bacon it
said of manners,
only needs not to despise
them," so we say of animal
spirits that
they are
the spontaneous product of health and of a social habit.
" For behavior,
diseases,
But the people are doses.
In
men
learn
it,
as they take
one of another."
If sohtude
society,
is
to be taken in very
proud, so
high advantages are
dividual as disqualifications.
is society
set
We
down
smaU
vulgar.
to the in-
sink as easily as
we rise, through sympathy. So many men whom I know are degraded by their sympathies their na;
tive
aims being high enough, but their relation
too tender to the gross people about them.
all
Men
cannot afford to live together on their merits, and they adjust themselves by their demerits,
mal good-nature. brave aspirant.
—
by by sheer tolerance and aniThey untune and dissipate the
their love of gossip, or
SOCIETY AND SOLITUDE. The remedy from the if
to reinforce each of these
is
moods
Conversation will not corrupt us
other.
we come
19
to the assembly in our
own garb and
speech and with the energy of health to select what is
Ours and reject what
have
;
but
let it
is
we must
Society
not.
be society, and not exchanging
news or eating from the same
dish.
to sit in one of your chairs ?
I cannot go to the
houses of
my
it
society
nearest relatives, because I do not
wish to be alone. ity,
Is
Society exists by chemical affin-
and not otherwise.
Put any company
dom
of people together with free-
for conversation,
and a rapid
self-distribution
The best are acwould be more true to
takes place into sets and pairs.
cused of exclusiveness. say they separate as
It
oil
from water, as children
from old people, without love or hatred in the matter, each seeking his like
with the
affinities
suffocation.
iment.
I
;
and any interference
would produce constraint and
All conversation
is
a magnetic exper-
know that my friend can
you know that he cannot
talk eloquently
articulate a sentence
have seen him in different compan3^
make them aU
Aunt Miriam,
Assort your
Sing built in a parlor.
into pairs,
and you
'T is an extempore Sing-
wretched.
own mates, and they
we
Put Stubbs and Coleridge,
party, or invite none.
Quintilian and
:
Leave them
will
to seek their
be as merry as sparrows,
SOCIETY AND SOLITUDE.
20
A higher
our customs
civility will re-establish in
a certain reverence which we have
What
lost.
to
do with these brisk young men who break through aU fences, and make themselves at home in every house
I find out in an instant
?
if
my
companion
does not want me, and ropes cannot hold
me when
my welcome is gone. One wordd think that the affinities would pronounce themselves with a surer reciprocity.
again, as so often. Nature delights to put
Here
us between extreme antagonisms, and our safety in the skUl with
Solitude
is
which we keep the diagonal
impracticable,
and
society fatal.
is
line.
We
must keep our head in the one and our hands in the other.
The
conditions are met,
if
we keep our These
independence, yet do not lose our sympathy. wonderftd. horses need to be driven
We require revelations
aces
fine hands.
such a solitude as shall hold us to
when we
for most
;
by
men
are in the street are
cowed
and
in society,
its
in pal-
and say
good things to you in private, but will not stand to
them
in public.
words.
But
let
us not be the victims of
Society and solitude are deceptive names.
It is not the circumstance of seeing
more or fewer
people, but the readiness of sympathy, that imports
and a sound mind wiU derive insight,
its
principles
;
from
with ever a purer ascent to the sufficient
and absolute
right,
and
will accept society as the
natural element in which they are to be applied.
CIVILIZATION.
CIVILIZATION.
A
CERTAIN degree of progress from the rudest
state in
— a dweller — a cannibal, and —a worms, and
man
which
found,
is
in caves,
or on trees, like an ape,
pounded
snails,
gree of progress from this extreme It is
ilization.
eater of
certain de-
offal,
is
called Civ-
a vague, complex name, of many-
Mr.
Nobody has attempted a definition.
degrees.
Guizot, writing a book on the subject, does not. implies the evolution of a highly organized
It
man,
brought to supreme delicacy of sentiment, as in practical power, religion, liberty, sense of
and
we
taste.
honor,
In the hesitation to define what
usually suggest
by negations.
it
A nation
it is,
that
has no clothing, no iron, no alphabet, no marriage,
no arts of peace, no abstract thought, we caU barbarous.
And
ported, as it
is
after
among
often a
many
arts are invented or im-
the Turks and Moorish nations,
little
complaisant to call them
civil-
ized.
Each nation grows a civilization of
its
own genius, and has The Chinese and Japan-
after its
own.
CIVILIZATION.
24 ese,
though each complete in his way,
New
from the man of Madrid or the man of
The term imports a mysterious brutes is none and in mankind ;
The Indians
to-day the savage
is
is
teeth,"
civil-
;
and in Africa the negro of In other races
the negro of Herodotus.
the growth that
than
of this country have not learned
the white man's work to-day
York.
In the
progress.
tribes are gradually extinguished rather ized.
different
is
is
not arrested, but the like progress
made by a boy " when he cuts his eyechildish illusions passing daily as we say,
—
away and he seeing things reaUy and comprehensively, It is the learning the is made by tribes.
—
secret of cumulative power, of advancing self.
It implies
a
facility of association,
compare, the ceasing from fixed ideas. is
on one's
power to
The Indian
gloomy and distressed when urged to depart from
his habits
and
traditions.
He
is
overpowered by
The
the gaze of the white, and his eye sinks. casion of one of these starts of growth
is
oc-
always
some novelty that astounds the mind and provokes it
to dare to change.
Pytheas, a
Manco
—
Thus
there
is
a Cadmus, a
Capac at the beginning of each
some superior foreigner importing new and wonderful arts, and teaching them. Of course he must not know too much, but must have the sympathy, language, and gods of those he would inform. But chiefly the sea-shore has been improvement,
25
CIVILIZATION.
the point of departure, to knowledge, as to com-
The most advanced who navigate the most.
merce. those
nations are always
The power which man of him
the sea requires in the sailor makes a
very
fast,
clears his
Where
and the change
of shores
head of much nonsense of
we begin
shall
and
feats of liberty
wit,
or stone house
is
or end the
immense on the
and refinement of the
his
wigwam.
list
of those
each of which feats
Thus the
an epoch of history ?
and population
builder.
effect of
made
a framed
tranquillity, power,
A man
in a cave
or in a camp, a nomad, will die with no more estate
than the wolf or the horse leaves.
But
so simple
a labor as a house being achieved, his chief enemies
He
are kept at bay.
is
safe
from the teeth of wild
animals, from frost, sun-stroke, and weather fine faculties
begin to yield their fine harvest.
;
and In-
vention and art are born, manners and social beauty
and
delight.
'T
is
gets into a log-hut
think they found
it
how soon a piano You would under a pine-stump. With it wonderful
on the
comes a Latin grammar,
frontier.
— and one
of those tow-
head boys has written a hymn on Sunday. let colleges,
now
let senates
take heed
!
Now
for here
is
one who opening these fine tastes on the basis of the pioneer's iron constitution, will gather all their laurels in his strong hands.
When
the Indian trail gets widened, graded and
civilization:
26
bridged to a good road, there is
is
a benefactor, there
a missionary, a pacificator, a wealth-bringer, a
"maker
Another
of markets, a vent for industry.
step in civility
is
the change from war, hunting, and
pasturage, to agriculture.
Our Scandinavian
fore-
fathers have left us a significant legend to convey
" There
their sense of the importance of this step.
was once a giantess who had a daughter, and the saw a husbandman ploughing in the
child
field.
him up with her finger and thumb, and put him and his plough and his oxen into her apron, and carried them to her mother, and
Then
said,
she ran and picked
'
Mother, what sort of a beetle
fovmd wriggling in the sand said,
'
Put
it
away,
my
child
;
is this
that I
But the mother we must begone out
?
'
of this land, for these people will dwell in
Another success
is
the post-office, with
its
" it.'
educating
energy augmented by cheapness and guarded by a certain religious sentiment in
mankind
;
so that the
power of a wafer or a drop of wax or gluten guard a
letter,
comes to
its
brought
it,
as
it files
address as
if
to
over sea over land and
a battalion of artillery
I look upon as a fine meter of civiliza-
tion.
The
division of labor, the multiplication of the
arts of peace,
ance to each his faculty,
which
man
—
is
nothing but a large allow-
to choose his
to live
by
work according
his better hand,
—
fills
to
the
CIVILIZATION. State with useful and
demand by
creating
and
they,
the very temptation of
their
happy laborers
sale
:
;
and surely rewarded by
productions, are rapidly
good
2T
and what a police and ten command-
ments their work thus becomes. Johnson's remark that " nocently employed
men
So true
Dr.
is
more
are seldom
in-
than when they are making
money."
The
skilful
combinations of
civil
government,
though they usually follow natural leadings, as the lines of race, language, religion,
wisdom and conduct
require
and
territory, yet
in the rulers,
and in
We
see in-
their result delight the imagination.
"
surmountable multitudes obeying, in opposition to their strongest passions, the restraints of a
power
which they scarcely perceive, and the crimes of a single individual
marked and punished
tance of half the earth."
Eight position of
at the dis-
^
woman
in the State
another
is
Poverty and industry with a healthy mind
index.
read very easily the laws of humanity, and love
them
:
place the sexes in right relations of mutual
respect,
charm poetic,
and a severe morality gives that
to
woman which
and
self
-
sacrificing
learning, conversation so that I
educates all that
and
have thought a
breeds courtesy and
wit, in her
sufficient
ization is the influence of 1
;
essential
is delicate,
rough mate
measure of
good women.
Dr. Thomas Brown.
;
civil-
CIVILIZATION.
28
Another measure of culture knowledge, overrunning
all
by the cheap
caste, and,
is
the diffusion of of
the old barriers
press, bringing the uni-
versity to every poor man's door in the newsboy's
Scraps of science, of thought, of poetry are
basket.
in the coarsest sheet, so that in every house itate to
we
hes-
burn a newspaper until we have looked
it
through.
The
complete equipment,
ship, in its latest
abridgment and compend of a nation's arts
is :
an
the
ship steered by compass and chart, longitude reck-
oned by lunar observation and by chronometer, driven by steam
;
and in wildest sea-mountains, at
vast distances from home, "
The pulses
Go
No
of her iron heart
beating through the storm."
use can lessen the wonder of this control by so
weak a creature
of forces so prodigious.
I remem-
ber I watched, in crossing the sea, the beautiful skill
whereby the engine in
was made
to produce
water out of plying
The skin
man to
aU
salt water,
all the ship's
its
constant working
two hundred gallons of fresh every hour,
— thereby sup-
want.
that pervades complex details
;
the
that maintains himself; the chimney taught
bum
its
that
is
own smoke
;
consumed on
the farm it; the
made
to
produce
very prison com-
CIVILIZATION.
and
pelled to maintain itself better
tory of
made
made a reform honest men out of
still,
fresh water out of
29
yield a revenue, and,
school and a manufacrogues, as the steamer
salt,
—
these are ex-
all
amples of that tendency to combine antagonisms
and
utilize evil
which
the index of high civiliza-
is
tion.
Civilization ization.
is
the result of highly complex organ-
In the snake,
no hands, no
no
feet,
all
the organs are sheathed
fins,
man
In
action.
they are
With
all
In bird and
no wings.
beast the organs are released
and begin
unbound and
to play.
full of joyful
unswaddling he receives the
this
absolute illumination
we
call
Reason, and thereby
true liberty.
Climate has
much
to do with this melioration.
The highest civility has never loved the hot zones. Wherever snow falls there is usually civD. freedom.
Where the banana grows lent
and pampered
the
man
is
the animal system
at the cost of liigher qualities
sensual and cruel.
not invariable.
indo-
is
High degrees
But
this scale is
of moral sentiment
control the unfavorable influences of climate
and some of our grandest examples of men and of races come from the equatorial regions, as the genius ;
—
of Egypt, of India,
and
of Arabia.
These feats are measures or
and temperate climate
is
traits of civility;
an important
influence,
CIVILIZATION.
30
though not quite indispensable, for there have been learning, philosophy
and
art in Iceland,
But one condition
tropics.
is
and in the
essential to the social
There can
education of man, namely, morality.
be no high civUity without a deep morality, though may not always call itself by that name, but
it
sometimes the point of honor, as in the institution of chivalry
Eoman
or patriotism, as in the Spartan and
;
republics
ious sect
;
or the enthusiasm of some relig-
which imputes
its
virtue to
its
dogma
;
or
the cabalism or esprit de corps of a masonic or other association of friends.
The
evolution of a highly-destined society
be moral
;
it
tial wheels. is
moral
?
must
must run in the grooves of the celesIt
must be catholic
ia aims.
What
It is the respecting in action catholic
Hear the definition which Kant gives of moral conduct " Act always so that the immediate motive of thy will may become a unior universal ends.
:
versal rule for all intelligent beiugs."
Civilization depends
on morality.
good in man leans on what holds in small as in great.
and success
in the
work
is
Everything
higher.
Thus
of our
all
This rule
our strength
hands depend on
our borrowing the aid of the elements.
You have
seen a carpenter on a ladder with a broad-axe chop-
ping upward chips from a beam. at
what disadvantage he works
!
How awkward But
see
!
him on
CIVILIZATION.
31
Now,
the ground, dressing his timber under him.
not his feeble muscles but the force of gravity
down
brings
the axe
that
;
to say, the planet
is
The farmer had much illtemper, laziness and shirking to endure from his hand-sawyers, until one day he bethought him to put his saw-mill on the edge of a waterfall and itself splits his
stick.
;
the river never tires of turning his wheel ; the river is
good natured, and never hints an objection.
We fast
had
go
letters to send: couriers could not
enough nor far enough
foundered their horses
;
;
broke their wagons,
bad roads in spring, snow-
drifts in winter, heats in
the horses out of a walk.
summer; could not get But we found out that
the air and earth were full of Electricity, and
ways going our way,
Would
send. as not
;
objection, ets,
just the
do
al-
way we wanted
he take a message f
had nothing
no time.
—
Just as
to
lief
would carry it in Only one doubt occurred, one staggering he had no carpet-bag, no visible pockelse to
;
—
no hands, not so much as a mouth, to carry a
much thought and many experiments we managed to meet the conditions, and to letter.
fold
But
up the
after
letter in
such invisible compact form as
he could carry in those invisible pockets of never wrought by needle and thread, like a
— and
it
went
more than the saw-mill the
skill
charm.
I admire
still
his,
_
CIVILIZATION.
82
which, on the sea-shore, makes the tides drive the
wheels and grind corn, and which thus engages the assistance of the
moon,
like a hired hand, to grind,
and wind, and pump, and saw, and roU
split stone,
and
iron.
Now
that
is
the wisdom of a man, in every in-
stance of his labor, to hitch his
wagon
to a star,
and see his chore done by the gods themselves.
That
is
the
way we
are strong,
might of the elements. ity,
The
by borrowing the
forces of steam, grav-
galvanism, light, magnets, wind,
day by day and
serve us
fire,
cost us nothing.
Our astronomy
is
full of
examples of calling in Thus, on a
the aid of these magnificent helpers.
planet so small as ours, the want of an adequate
base for astronomical measurements
is
early
felt, as,
for example, in detecting the parallax of a star.
But the astronomer, having by an observation fixed the place of a star, by so simple an expedient as waiting six months and then repeating his obser-
—
vation, contrived to put the diameter of the earth's orbit, say
two hxmdred millions of miles, between
his first observation
afforded
him a
and
his second,
and
this line
respectable base for his triangle.
All our arts aim to win this vantage. not bring the heavenly powers to us, but
We if
can-
we wiU
only choose our jobs in directions in which they travel,
they wiU undertake them with the greatest
CIVILIZATION. pleasure.
It is
a peremptory rule with them that
We
they never go out of their road. little
foreordained
;
aU our
that
way
but they swerve never from their
paths,
— neither
moon, nor a bubble of
And
are dapper
way and
husybodies and run this
superserviceably
33
air,
the
nor the
sun,
nor a mote
of-
dust.
as our handiworks borrow the elements, so social
and
on princi-
political action leans
To accomplish anything
excellent the
wiU
must work for catholic and universal ends.
A
ples.
puny
on every
creature, walled in
wrote,
—
side, as
Daniel
" Unless above himself he can
Erect himself,
how poor a
thing
is
man
!
but when his wiU leans on a principle, when he
is
the vehicle of ideas, he borrows their omnipotence.
Gibraltar
may be strong,
but ideas are impregnable,
and bestow on the hero their was a great instruction,"
" It
invincibility.
said a saint in Cromwell's
war, " that the best courages are but beams of the
Almighty."
Hitch your wagon to a
star.
Let us
not fag in paltry works which serve our pot and
bag
alone.
help.
way,
We
Let us not
— Charles's
Hercules
:
lie
and
shall find all their
steal.
No god
will
teams going the other
Wain, Great Bear, Orion, Leo,
every god will leave us.
Work
rather
for those interests which the divinities honor
and
CnnLIZATION.
34 promote,
—
freedom, knowledge,
justice, love,
util-
ity.
If
we can thus
ride in
Olympian
chariots
by put-
ting our works in the path of the celestial circuits,
we can harness ness,
also evil agents, the
to serve against their will the
and force them
Thus a wise govern-
ends of wisdom and virtue.
ment puts
What
fines
and penalties on pleasant
vices.
a benefit would the American government,
not yet relieved of self
powers of dark-
and
its
extreme need, render to
and hamlet
to every city, village,
States, if
it-
in the
would tax whiskey and rum almost to
it
the point of prohibition
Was
!
said that he found vices very
it
Bonaparte who
good patriots ?
— "he
got five millions from the love of brandy, and he
should be glad to
know which
pay him as much."
would
of the virtues
Tobacco and opium have
broad backs, and will cheerfully carry the load of armies, if
you choose
to
make them pay high for harm as they do.
such joy as they give and such
^
These are
traits
and measures and modes
the true test of civilization the size of of
man
cities,
nor the crops,
the country turns out.
;
and
not the census, nor
is,
—
no, but the kind
I see the vast ad-
vantages of this country, spanning the breadth of the temperate zone. prosperity,
I see the immense materia]
— towns on towns,
states
on
states,
wealth piled in the massive architecture of
and
cities
j
35
CIVILIZATION.
dumped down
California quartz-mountains
in
New
York to be repiled architecturally along-shore from Canada to Cuba, and thence westward to California again. But it is not New York streets, built by the confluence of workmen and wealth of all nations, though stretching out towards Philadelphia until they touch
it,
until they touch
and northward
New
Haven, Hartford, Springfield, Worcester, and Boston,
— not
these that
make
the real estimation.
But when I look over this constellation of cities which animate and illustrate the land, and see how the government has to do with their daily
little life,
are,
how
self-helped
— knots of men
self-directed all families
kindred blood, of habitual hos-
cieties of trade, of pitality,
and
in purely natural societies, so-
man
house and house,
acting on
man by
weight of opinion, of longer or better-directed
in-
dustry ; the refining influence of women, the invitation to
which experience and permanent causes open
youth and labor
:
— when I
virtuous and gifted person,
see
whom
how much each all
men
consider,
lives affectionately with scores of excellent
who
are
not known
far
people
from home, and perhaps
with great reason reckons these people his superiors in virtue
their qualities,
has,
and
and
—I
in the
see
symmetry and force of
what cubic values America
in these a better certificate of civilization
than great
cities or
enormous wealth.
CIVILIZATION.
86
In
moral
strictness, the vital refinements are the
The appearance of the intellectual steps. Hebrew Moses, of the Indian Buddh in Greece, of the Seven Wise Masters, of the acute and upand
;
right Socrates,
and
of the
Zeno
stoic
;
in Judaea,
modern Christendom, Huss, Savonarola, and Luther,
the advent of Jesus, and, in of
the realists
—
are causal facts which carry forward races to convictions
and elevate the rule of
presence of these agencies
it is
new
In the
Hfe.
frivolous to insist
on the invention of printing or gunpowder, of steam-power or gas-light, percussion-caps and rubber-shoes,
are toys thrown off from
which
security, freedom,
These
morality creates in society. fort
that
and exhilaration which a healthy
and smoothness
to house
and
arts
add a com-
street life
but a
;
purer morality, which kindles genius, civilizes lization, casts
backward
all
that
we held sacred
civi-
into
the profane, as the flame of oil throws a shadow
when shined upon by Not the
less the
the flame of the Bude-light.
popular measures of progress will
ever be the arts and the laws.
But
if
be a country which cannot stand
there
any one of these
tests,
— a country
where knowl-
edge cannot be diffused without perils of mob-law
and statute-law
;
the post-office
is
letters
where speech
is
not free
;
where
violated, mail-bags opened,
and tampered with ; where public debts and pri
CIVILIZATION. rate debts outside of
where liberty
is
the State are repudiated;
attacked in the primary institu-
is
tion of social life
woman
37
where the position of the white
;
injuriously affected by the outlawry of
woman
the black
;
where the
arts,
such as they
have, are all imported, having no indigenous life
where the laborer his
is
not secured in the earnings of
own hands where suffrage ;
— that country barbarous
is,
is
not free or equal
in all these respects, not civil, but
and no advantages of
;
soil,
climate, or
coast can resist these suicidal mischiefs.
Morality and essential liberty.
;
all
the incidents of morality are
as, justice to
the citizen, and personal
Montesquieu says
:
" Countries are well
cultivated, not as they are fertile,
free
;
"
but as they are
and the remark holds not
less
but more
true of the culture of men, than of the tillage of land.
And
the highest proof of civility
whole public action of the State
is
is
that the
directed on se-
curing the greatest good of the greatest number.
ART„
AET.
All Trade,
seem
departments of
to feel,
and
the present day,
life at
—
Science, or Religion,
Politics, Letters,
to labor to express, the identity
They are rays of one sun they translate each into a new language the sense of the other. They are sublime when seen as emanations of their law.
;
of a Necessity contradistinguished from the vulgar
Fate by being instant and
man
alive,
This influence ciples
On
is
and history
conspicuously visible in the prinof Art.
one side in primary communication with
absolute truth through thought
human mind on
and
instinct, the
the other side tends, by an equal
necessity, to the publication its
and dissolving
as well as his works in its flowing beneficence.
and embodiment
thought, modified and dwarfed
and untruth which in
all
of
by the impurity
our experience injure the
individuality through which
not only suffers, but cries
;
it
passes.
The
child
not only hungers, but
The man not only thinks, but speaks and acts. Every thought that arises in the mind, in its rising aims to pass out of the mind into act", eats.
ART.
42
just as every plant, in the
up
struggles
tion; hut action
much
as
is
moment
Thought
to light.
of germination,
is
its
the seed of ac-
second form as
end The more profound the thought, the more burdensome. Always in proportion to the depth of its sense does it knock thought
that
it
It rises in thought, to the
is its first.
may be
uttered and acted.
importunately at the gates of the soul, to be spoken, to
be done.
the birth.
What Speech
great pleasure
is in, is
will out.
It struggles to
a great pleasure, and action a
they cannot be foreborne.
;
The utterance
and emotion in speech
of thought
and action may be conscious or unconscious. sucking child
an unconscious actor.
is
an ecstasy of fear or anger
A
is
The
The man
an unconscious
in
actor.
large part of our habitual actions are vmcon-
and most
sciously done,
of our
necessary words
are unconsciously said.
The
conscious utterance of thought,
or action, to any end, tative
quence to the
Art.
From
by speech
the
first
imi-
babble of a child to the despotism of
elo-
;
from
is
his first pile of toys or chip bridge
masonry of Minot Rock Lighthouse or the from the tattooing of the Owhy-
Pacific Railroad
;
hees to the Vatican Gallery
;
from the simplest ex-
pedient of private prudence to the American Constitution spirit's
;
from
its first
to its last works.
Art
is
the
voluntary use and combination of things to
ART.
The Will
serve its end.
bird, the beaver,
have no art
they do instinctively
;
it
as spirit-
:
what they do
for
;
but relatively to the Supreme
;
And
Being, they have.
unconscious action stinct
distinguishes
Relatively to themselves, the bee, the
ual action.
same
the
is
true of all
relatively to the doer, it is in-
relatively to the First Cause,
sense, recognizing
this
43
it is
In
Art.
which informs
Spirit
the
Nature, Plato rightly said, " Those things which are said to be done
Divine Art." It
tive.
by Nature are indeed done by
Art, universally,
is
the spirit crea-
was defined by Aristotle, "
The reason
of
the thing, without the matter."
we foUow
If
the popular distinction of works
according to their aim,
we should
say, the Spirit,
in its creation, aims at use or at beauty,
Art divides
The lie
itself into
and hence
the Useful and the Fine Arts.
useful arts comprehend not only those that
next to instinct, as agriculture, building, weav-
ing, &c.,
but also navigation, practical chemistry,
and the construction of
all
the grand and delicate
and instruments by which man serves himself
tools
as language, the watch, the ship, the decimal
pher
;
made
and
also the sciences,
ci-
so far as they are
serviceable to political economy.
When we
reflect
on the pleasure we receive from
a ship, a railroad, a dry-dock
;
or from a picture, a
dramatic representation, a statue, a poem,
— we
find
ART.
44
that these have not a quite simple, but a blended
We find
origin.
leads us directly to
And
What
that the question,
another, — Who
the solution of this
is
is
is
Art ?
the Artist
?
the key to the history of
Art. I hasten to state the principle which prescribes,
through different means,
its
firm law to the useful
The
uni-
versal soul is the alone creator of the useful
and
and the beautiful the beautiful
The law
arts.
make anything
therefore to
;
beautiful, the individual
is this.
usefid or
must be submitted
to the
universal mind.
In the
first
place let us consider this in reference
Here the omnipotent agent
to the useful arts.
Nature;
Nature
all is
human
the representative of the universal mind,
and the law becomes complement said, in
is
acts are satellites to her orb.
— that Art must be
this,
to nature, strictly subsidiary.
allusion
to
the great
structures
It
a
was
of the
ancient Romans, the aqueducts and bridges, that
"their Art was a Nature working to municipal ends."
That
is
of useful art.
a true account of
Smeaton
built
all
just
works
Eddystone Light-
house on the model of an oak-tree, as being the
form in nature best designed to
resist
a constant
DoUond formed his achromatic on the model of the human eye. Duhamel
assailing force.
telescope
buUt a bridge by letting in a piece of stronger tim<
45
ART.
ber for the middle of the under surface, getting his
from the structure
hint
The
first
and
of the shin-bone.
last lesson of the useful arts is that
They must be
Nature tyrannizes over our works. conformed to her law, or they
powder by her omnipresent
nothing whimsical will endure.
You
terfering with Art.
be ground to
will
Nothing
activity.
Nature
is
cannot build your house
There
or pagoda as you will, but as you must.
a quick bound
tower can only lean so
goda roof can curve
The
slope of your roof
of snow.
It
is
is
determined by the weight
architect
wind, sun, rain, the size of
such
like,
or pa-
certain point.
only within narrow limits that the
the
discretion of
The verandah
far.
upward only to a
may range gravity, men and animals, and :
It is the law
have more to say than he.
of fluids that prescribes the shape of the boat,
and bows,
keel, rudder,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; and,
above, the form and tackle of the to
have no option about his
if
he were
fitting
life
seems insignificant.
so minutely
but merely the
what
will
what
He
fit
best,
Beneath a
is artificial
in man's
seems to take his task
from intimations of Nature, that
works become as free.
Man seems
a screw or a door.
necessity thus almighty,
it
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
in the finer fluid sails.
tools,
necessity to learn from Nature as
is
The leaning
your caprice.
set to
droll,
ever in-
were hers, and he
is
his
no longer
ART.
46
But all
if
we work within
AU
her strength.
is
performed
forces of nature to bear
by bringing the objects.
this limit, she yields us
powerful action
We do not grind
corn or
lift
upon our
the loom
our own strength, but we build a mill in position as to set the north
wind
to play
by
stich
upon our
instrument, or the elastic force of steam, or the ebb
and flow of the
So in our handiwork, we do
sea.
few things by muscular
but
force,
we
place our-
selves in such attitudes as to bring the force of
gravity, that
is,
the weight of the planet, to bear
upon the spade or the axe we all
In short, in
wield.
our operations we seek not to use our own, but
to bring a quite infinite force to bear.
Let us now consider
this
law as
it
affects the
works that have beauty for their end, that
is,
the
Here again the prominent fact is subordination of man. His' art is the least part of his work of art. A great deduction is to be made before we can know his proper productions of the Fine Arts.
contribution to
it.
Music, Eloquence, Poetry, Painting, Sculpture, Architecture.
Fine Arts.
This
is
a rough enumeration of the
I omit Rhetoric, which only respects
the form of eloquence and poetry.
and eloquence are mixed
arts,
Architecture
whose end
is
some-
times beauty and sometimes use. It will be seen that in each of these arts there
is
much which basis,
in
and
is
ART.
47
not spiritual.
Each has a material
in each the creating intellect
some degree by the
The
basis of poetry
only on one side.
is
stufE
language, which
It is a demi-god.
applied primarily to the
man,
common
crippled
is
on which
it
works.
material
is
But being
necessities
of
not new-created by the poet for his
own
basis of music is the qualities of the air
and
it is
ends.
The
the vibrations of sonorous bodies.
The
pulsation
of a stretched string or wire gives the ear the pleas-
ure of sweet sound, before yet the musician has
enhanced
by concords and combina-
this pleasure
tions.
Eloquence, as far as
how much by tor,
it is
a fine
art, is
modified
the material organization of the ora-
the tone of the voice, the physical strength, the
play of the eye and countenance.
All this
is
so
much
deduction from the purely spiritual pleasure,
as so
much
is
deduction from the merit of Art, and
the attribute of Nature.
In paiatiag, bright colors stimulate the eye before yet they are harmonized into a landscape.
sculpture
and
in architecture the material, as
ble or granite,
In mar-
and in architecture the mass, are
sources of great pleasure quite independent of the artificial
arrangement.
model, in the plan
;
for
The it is
art
resides
in
the
on that the genius of
ART.
48 the artist ple.
is
expended, not on the statue or the tem-
much
Just as
better as
is
the polished statue
of dazzling marble than the clay model, or as
more impressive
as
is
amid than the ground-plan or
them on
profile of
much more beauty owe they
paper, so
much
the granite cathedral or pyr-
to
Nature
than to Art.
There
a
is
still
larger deduction to be
made from
the genius of the artist in favor of Nature than I
have yet
specified.
A jumble of in
musical sounds on a viol or a
which the rhythm of the tune
is
flute,
played without
one of the notes being right, gives pleasure to the unskilful ear.
man form on
A very coarse canvas, or in
imitation of the hu-
wax - work
;
a coarse
sketch in colors of a landscape, in which imitation is all
that
is
attempted,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; these
things give to un-
who do not ask much pleasure as
practised eyes, to the uncultured, fine spiritual delight, almost as
statue of
Canova or a picture
the statu.e of
of Titian.
Canova or the picture
And
;
they are the
basis
on which the
light,
but to which these are indispensable.
fine spirit rears
a higher de-
Another deduction from the genius of the
what
much
is
artist
conventional in his art, of which there
is
Thus how much
is
in every
there that
a
in
of Titian, these
give the great part of the pleasiu-e
is
a
is
work
of art.
not original in every particular build
49
ART.
poem,
ing, in every statue, in every tune, painting,
or harangue
!
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; whatever
the usage of building
form of a
is
national or usual
aU Koman churches
;
as
in the
cross, the prescribed distribution of parts
of a theatre, the custom of draping a statue in
Yet who
costume.
classical
will
deny that the
merely conventional part of the performance contributes
One
much
to its effect ?
more exhausts I believe
consideration
all
the deductions from the genius of the artist in any
This
given work.
is
Thus the
the adventitious.
pleasure that a noble temple gives us
part owing to the temple.
is
only in
by the
It is exalted
beauty of sunlight, the play of the clouds, the landscape around
it, its
and towers in quence
is
grouping with the houses,
The pleasure
its vicinity.
trees,
of elo-
in greatest part owing often to the stim-
ulus of the occasion which produces
it,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
to the
magic of sympathy, which exalts the feeling of each by radiating on him the feeling of
The
effect of
place, as the church, or the
the
company
;
all.
music belongs how much to the
or, if
on the
moonlight walk stage, to
fore in the play, or to the expectation of
come
;
or to
what went bewhat
shall
after.
In poetry, " It
is
tradition
more than invention
that helps the poet to a good fable." titious
beauty of poetry
may
be
The adven-
felt in the
greater
ART.
50
wMch a verse
delight
gives in
happy quotation than
in the poem.
a curious proof of our conviction that the
It is artist
does not feel himself to be the parent of his
work, and that
is
we are
as
much
surprised at the effect as we,
so unwilling to impute our best sense of
any work of art
to the author.
we can
attribute to
builder,
is,
any
The highest
that he actually possessed the thought
or feeling with which he has inspired us. itate
praise
writer, painter, sculptor,
at doing Spenser so great
We hes-
an honor as to
we human
think that he intended by his allegory the sense affix to
We grudge
it.
to
Homer
the wide
circumspection his commentators ascribe to him.
Even Shakspeare, of whom we can believe every we think indebted to Goethe and to Coleridge for the wisdom they detect in his Hamlet and Antony. Especially have we this infirmity of faith
thing,
contemporary genius. We fear that AUston and Greenough did not foresee and design all the in
effect they hits.
produce on
us.
Our
arts are
happy
We are like the musician on the lake, whose
melody
is
sweeter than he knows, or like a trav-
by a moimtain echo, whose word returns to him in romantic thunders.
eller surprised
In view of these
facts, I
trivial
say that the power of
Nature predominates over the human will in aU works of even the fine arts, in all that respects
51
ART. their material
and external circumstances.
Nature
paints the best part of the picture, carves the best
part of the statue, builds the best part of the house,
and speaks the best part of the oration. For all the advantages to which I have adverted are such
He
re-
he put himself in the way to
re-
as the artist did not consciously produce.
Hed on
their aid,
from some of them
ceive aid
but he saw that his
;
planting and his watering waited for the sunlight of Nature, or were vain.
Let us proceed
to the consideration of the
stated in the beginning of this essay, as
the purely spiritual part of a work of
As, in useful
art, so far as
must be
strictly
so as to
become a
it is
art.
useful, the
work
subordinated to the laws of Nature, sort of continuation
wise a contradiction of Nature at beauty
law
it affects
;
and in no
so in art that aims
must the parts be subordinated
to Ideal
Nature, and everything individual abstracted, so that
it shall
soul.
The
is
to
be the production of the universal
artist
who
is
to
produce a work which
be admired, not by his friends or his towns-
people or his contemporaries but by
which
is
to be
more beautiful
tion to its culture,
and be a man
of
men, and
must disindividualize himself,
no party and no manner and no
age, but one through culates as the
all
to the eye in propor-
whom
common
air
the soul of
all
men
through his lungs.
cir-
He
ART.
52
must work
which we conceive a
in the spirit in
prophet to speak, or an angel of the Lord to act that
is,
he
is
own works, to be
own
not to speak his or think his
own
words, or do his
thoughts, but he
is
an organ through which the universal mind
acts.
In speaking of the useful fact that
we do not
arts, I
pointed to the
dig, or grind, or
hew, by our
muscular strength, but by bringing the weight of the planet to bear on the spade, axe, or bar.
Pre-
cisely analogous to this, in the fine arts, is the
ner of our intellectual work.
We
our individuality from acting.
So much
man-
aim to hinder as
we can
shove aside our egotism, our prejudice and
and bring the omniscience
of reason
will,
upon the sub-
The won-
ject before us, so perfect is the work.
ders of Shakspeare are things which he saw whilst
he stood aside, and then returned to record them.
The poet aims
at getting observations without
aim
;
to subject to thought things seen without (volun-
tary) thought.
In eloquence, the great triumphs of the art are
when
the orator
sciously he
is lifted
above himself
;
when
makes himself the mere tongue
con-
of the
occasion and the hour, and says what cannot but
be
said.
Hence the term abandonment, to describe Not his wiU, but
the self-surrender of the orator. the principle on which he
is
horsed, the great con-
ART.
and
ftection
crisis of events,
53 thunder in the ear of
the crowd.
In poetry, where every word is
is
otherwise
hear
it, it
sounds rather as
every word
not have been
time you
first
copied out of some
if
mind, than as
invisible tablet in the Eternal bitrarily
free,
Good poetry could written than it is. The
necessary.
composed by the poet.
The
if ar-
feeling of all
this. They found The muse brought it to
gTeat poets has accorded with
made
the verse, not
it.
them.
In sculpture, did ever anybody fancy piece
Or
?
be made different ?
mind a
call the
say of the Laocoon
how
ApoUo a it
might
A masterpiece of art has in the
fixed place in the chain of being, as
much
as a plant or a crystal.
The whole language
of men, especially of artists,
in reference to this subject, points at the belief
that every
work
of art, in proportion to its excel-
lence, partakes of the precision of fate
was there for
moment
The
no play for fancy
or in the successive
form was closed,
choice,
;
:
no room
for in the
moments when
seen, the iron lids of
that
Reason were un-
which ordinarily are heavy with slumber.
mind became mind of humanity.
individual
vent of the
There
is
the world
but one Reason. is
for the
moment
The mind
that
not one mind, but the mind.
the
made
And
ART.
54 every work of art tion of the same. clusion,
which I
a more or less pure manifesta-
is
Therefore
we
arrive at this con-
whole
offer as a confirmation of the
view, that the delight which a
work
of art affords,
seems to arise from our recognizing in
it
the
mind It
that formed Nature, again in active operation. differs
from the works of Nature in
spiritually
it is prolific
by
its
they
this, that
This
are organically reproductive.
is
not,
but
powerful action on
the intellects of men.
Hence
it
follows that a study of admirable works
of art sharpens our perceptions of the beauty of
Nature; that a certain analogy reigns throughout the wonders of both
work which
that the contemplation of a
;
mind
of great art draws us into a state of
may be
aU exalted
It conspires with
called religious.
sentiments.
Proceeding from absolute mind, whose nature goodness as
much
as truth, the great
always attuned to moral nature. sea conspire with virtue
masterpieces of art.
The
ture in Naples and
Rome
tion into the
If the earth
more than
vice,
is
works are
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
so
and
do the
galleries of ancient sculp-
strike
no deeper convic-
mind than the contrast
of the purity,
the severity expressed in these fine old heads, with the frivolity and grossness of the
and the mob that gazes
mob
at them.
countenances of the first-born,
that exhibits
These are the
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; the
face of
man
55
ART. in the
No mark
morning of the world.
is
on these
lofty features of sloth, or luxury, or meanness,
and
they surprise you with a moral admonition, as they
speak of nothing around you, but remind you of the fragrant thoughts
and the purest
resolutions of
your youth.
Herein
is
the explanation of the analogies which
They are the reappearance of one mind, working in many materials to many temporary ends. Raphael paints wisdom, Handel sings
exist in all the arts.
it,
Phidias carves
builds
Columbus
it,
Washington arms
Shakspeare writes
it,
it,
sails
it.
Wren
Luther preaches
it,
Watt mechanizes
it.
itÂť
Paint-
ing was called " silent poetry," and poetry "speak-
The laws
ing painting."
of each art are convert-
ible into the laws of every other.
Herein we have an explanation of the necessity that reigns in
aU the kingdom
of eternal Reason, one
and
of Art.
Arising out
perfect, whatever is
beautiftd rests on the foimdation of the necessary.
Nothing
is
arbitrary, nothing
It depends forever
The plumage insect,
is
of the bird, the
has a reason for
tution of the animal.
its
mimic plumage
The most
far beautiful.
perfect
of the
rich colors in the consti-
Fitness
accompaniment of beauty, that it.
insulated in beauty.
on the necessary and the useful.
form
to
is so it
inseparable an
has been taken for
answer an end
is
so
We feel, in seeing a noble building,
ART.
56
which rhymes song, that
it is
well, as
we do
in hearing a perfect
spiritually organic
necessity, in nature, for being
;
that
had a
was one of the pos-
;
forms in the Divine mind, and
sible
is,
is
now only
discovered and executed by the artist, not arbitrarily composed by him. And so every genuine wort of art has as much reason for being as the earth and the sun. The
gayest charm of beauty has a root in the constitution of things.
The
Iliad of
Homer, the songs of
David, the odes of Pindar, the tragedies of ^schylus,
the Doric temples, the Gothic cathedrals, the
plays of Shakspeare,
all
and each were made not
for sport but in grave earnest, in tears of suffering
Viewed from comes
this point the history of
intelligible,
agreeable studies.
and moreover one
We see from
took
form from the broad hint
known
wise
is
of the
most of art
necessity, and, moreover,
irresistibly
tiful in this
Art be-
how each work
sprang its
and smiles
and loving men.
of Nature.
Beau-
the obvious origin of all the
orders of architecture
;
namely, that they
were the idealizing of the primitive abodes of each people.
There was no wilfulness in the savages in
this perpetuating of their first first
form in which they
first
form of
their public
rude abodes.
built a house
and
The
would be the
religious edifice also.
This form becomes immediately sacred in the eyes
.
57
ART. of their children,
round
it,
and as more
imitated with
is
traditions cluster
in each
more splendor
succeeding generation.
In like manner
it
has been remarked by Goethe
that the granite breaks into paraUelopipeds, which
broken in two, one part would be an obelisk
;
that
Upper Egypt the inhabitants would naturally mark a memorable spot by setting up so conspicuous a stone. Again, he suggested, we may see in
ia
any stone
wall,
on a fragment of rock, the
project-
ing veins of harder stone which have resisted the action of frost
the
and water which has decomposed
This appearance certainly gave the hint
rest.
of the hieroglyphics inscribed
on
their obelisk.
amphitheatre of the old Romans, see its origin
who
— any
one
The
may
looks at the crowd running to-
gether to see any fight, sickness, or odd appearance
The
in the street. circle,
first
comers gather round in a
those behind stand on tiptoe, and farther
back they climb on fences or window-sills, and so
make a cup
of
which the object of attention occu-
pies the hollow area. in this,
The
architect put benches
and enclosed the cup with a wall,
— and
be-
hold a Coliseum It
would be easy to show of many
the world,
—
fine things in
in the customs of nations, the etiquette
of courts, the constitution of governments,
origin in quite simple local necessities.
— the
Heraldry
ART.
58 for example,
and the ceremonies of a coronation, are
a dignified repetition of the occurrences that might
dragoon and his footboy.
befall a
The College
of Cardinals were originally the parish priests of
Rome.
The leaning towers
originated from the
which induced every lord
civil discords
tower.
Then
p,nd for
more pride the novelty
was
This
strict
dependence of Art upon material and
it,
made
has
all its
past and
It never
future history.
ftny
of a leaning tower
Nature, this adamantine necessity which un-
derlies
was
may
in the
foreshow
power of
man
being. to
became a point of family pride,
it
a
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
built.
Ideal
its
to build
or any community to call the arts into They come to serve his actual wants, never
These arts have their origin
please his fancy.
always in some enthusiasm, as or religion.
Who
carved marble
love, patriotism, ?
The
believing
man, who wished to symbolize their gods to the waiting Greeks.
The Gothic
cathedrals
and the
were
built
when
the
and the people were overpowered by their faith. Love and fear laid every stone. The Madonnas of Raphael and Titian were made to be worshipped. Tragedy was instituted builder
priest
for the like purpose,
and the miracles of music
:
all
sprang out of some genuine enthusiasm, and never out of dilettanteism and holidays.
Now
they
Ian-
ART.
59
guish, because their purpose
Who
is
merely exhibition.
who knows what works of art our government have ordered to be made for the Capitol ? They are a mere flourish to please the eye of persons who have associations with books and galleries. But in Greece, the Demos of Athens divided cares,
into political factions
In
religion arts,
upon the merits
of Phidias.
than
this country, at this time, other interests
and patriotism are predominant, and the
the daughters of enthusiasm, do not flourish.
The genuine behold.
offspring of
Popular
ing-room,
our ruling passions we
institutions, the school, the read-
the telegraph,
the post-office,
the ex-
change, the insurance-company, and the immense harvest of economical inventions, are the fruit of the equality and the boundless liberty of lucrative caUiQgs.
These are superficial wants
fruits are these superficial institutions.
and
;
their
But, as far
as they accelerate the end of political freedom
and
national education, they are preparing the soil of
man
for fairer flowers
For beauty,
truth,
and
fruits in another age.
and goodness are not obsolete
they spring eternal in the breast of
man
as indigenous in Massachusetts as in
the Isles of Greece. triple face
and
;
they are
Tuscany or
that Eternal Spirit whose
they are, moulds from them forever, for
his mortal child, finite
And
;
Fair.
images to remind him of the In-
[
ELOQUENCE,
ELOQUENCE.
It
the doctrine of the popular music-masters
is
So probably Our temor, we boU at
that whoever can speak can sing.
every
man
eloquent once in his
is
life.
peraments differ in capacity of heat, different degrees.
The
parlor.
He
One man
by the excitement
ing-point
is
brought to the
waters, of course, are not very deep.
has a two-inch enthusiasm, a patty-pan
Another requires the additional
tion.
boil-
of conversation in the
ebulli-
caloric of
a multitude and a public debate
;
a third needs an
antagonist, or a hot indignation
;
a fourth needs a
devolution exir
;
and a fifth, nothing
less
than the grand-
of absolute ideas, the splendors
and shades of
Heaven and HeU. But, because every soever he
men
is
so
man
is
orator,
how long
may have been a mute, an assembly of much more susceptible. The eloquence
of one stimulates all the rest, ing-point
an
and
all
some up
to the speak-
others to a degree that
them good receivers and
conductors,
makes
and they
avenge themselves for their enforced silence by creased loquacity on their return to the fireside.
in-
ELOQUENCE.
64
The
plight of these phlegmatic brains
than that of those
who prematurely
boil,
is
better
and who
impatiently break silence before their time.
Our
county conventions often exhibit a small-pot-soonhot style of eloquence.
We are too much reminded
of a medical experiment
where a
are taking nitrous-oxide gas. exhibits similar symptoms,
series of patients
Each
patient in turn
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; redness
in the face,
volubility, violent gesticulation, delirious attitudes,
occasional stamping, an alarming loss of perception
of the passage of time, a selfish enjoyment of his
and
sensations,
loss of perception of the sufferings
of the audience.
Plato says that the punishment which the wise suffer is,
who
refuse to take part in the government,
to live under the
and the
government of worse men
like regret is suggested to all the auditors,
as the penalty of abstaining to speak,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; that they
shaU hear worse orators than themselves.
But
this lust to
speak marks the universal
feel-
ing of the energy of the engine, and the curiosity
men
feel to
touch the springs.
instruments on which
men
Of aU
the musical
play, a popular assembly
I
is
that which has the largest compass and variety,
and out
of which,
wonderful
effects
by genius and can be drawn.
study, the most
An
audience
is
not a simple addition of the individuals that compose
it.
Their sympathy gives them a certain
so"
ELOQUENCE. cial
organism, which
degree,
battery battery.
and most is
fills
each member, in his
aU the
of
65
own
orator, as a jar in a
charged with the whole electricity of the
No
one can survey the face of an excited
assembly, without being apprised of nity for pa,inting in
fire
How many
agitated to agitate.
there below
They come
!
Demosthenes has begun to say, "
orators sit
mute
Chatham and no
satisfy.
Many are
Who
the golden tongue."
opportu-
to get justice done to
that ear and intuition which no
The Welsh Triads
new
himian thought, and being
the friends of
can wonder at the
at-
tractiveness of Parliament, or of Congress, or the bar, for our ambitious
young men, when the highest
bribes of society are at the feet of the successful
orator?
He
has his audience at his devotion.
other fames must hush before his. potentate ; for they are not kings
but they who
know how
of eloquence describe
is
All/
the true
who sit on thrones, The definitions
to govern.
its
young men.
attraction for
Antiphon the Ehamnusian, one orators, advertised in
He
of Plutarch's ten
Athens " that he would cure
distempers of the miad with words."
No man
has
a prosperity so high or firm but two or three words \ can dishearten right words
it.
There
wiU not begin
is
no calamity which
to redress.
Isocrates
described his art as " the power of magnifying
what was small and diminishing what was great,"
ELOQUENCE.
66
— an
Among
acute but partial definition.
tlie
Spartans, the art assumed a Spartan shape, namely, of the sharpest weapon. ^
Socrates says
:
" If any
one wishes to converse with the meanest of the first find him despicar when a proper opportunity
Lacedaemonians, he wUl at ble in conversation, but
same person, like a skUful jaculator, wiU hurl a sentence worthy of attention, short and contorted, so that he who converses with him will offers, this
appear to be in no respect superior to a boy." is, " the art of ruling
Plato's definition of rhetoric
the miuds of men."
may change not
?
—
but a
its place,
his disposition it
The Koran
;
" yet the
says, "
man
will not
end of eloquence
change is,
—
is
to alter in a pair of hours, perhaps in a
half -hour's discourse, the convictions
Young men,
years.
A mountain
too, are
sense of added power and
The
existence.
and habits of
eager to enjoy this
enlarged sympathetic
orator sees himself the organ of
a multitude, and concentrating their valors and powers "
:
—
But now the blood Blushed in
my
of twenty thousand
men
face."
That which he wishes, that which eloquence ought to reach, is not a particular skill in telling a story,
or neatly
summing up
evidence, or arguing logically,
or dexterously addressing the prejudice of the com-
pany,
—
no, but a taking sovereign possession of
ELOQUENCE.
Him we
the audience.
keys of the piano,
—
an
call
men
play on an assemhly of
artist
who shaU
as a master
on the
who, seeing the people furious,
and compose them,
shall soften
67
shall
draw them,
Bring him who they may,
wiU, to laughter and to tears.
when he
to his audience,
and, be they
—
coarse or refined, pleased or displeased, sulky or savage, with their opinions in the keeping of a con-
with their opinions in their bank-safes,
fessor, or
— he
have them pleased and humored as he
will
chooses
and they
;
shall
carry and execute that
which he bids them. This
i?
which poets have
that despotism
cele-
brated in the " Pied Piper of Hamelin," whose
music drew like the power of gravitation, soldiers
and
and boys,
priests, traders
rats
and mice
;
and
feasters,
— drew women
or that of the minstrel of
Meudon, who made the pall-bearers dance around the bier. This is a power of many degrees and requiring in the orator a great range of faculty and experience, requiring a large composite as Nature rarely organizes
ence
we
;
are forced to gather
man, such
so that in our experi-
up the
figure in frag-
ments, here one talent and there another.
The
audience
There are
many
is
a constant meter of th e orator.
audiences in every public assembly,
each one of which rules in turn.
and coarse
is
If anything comic
spoken, you shall see the emergence
ELOQUENCE.
68
and rowdies, so loud and vivacious that
of the boys
you might think the house was If
new
roisters recede
with them.
filled
topics are started, graver
and higher, these
a more chaste and wise attention
;
You would think the boys slept, and men have any degree of profoundness. If
takes place. that the
the speaker utter a noble sentiment, the attention deepens, a
new and
and the audiences of the fun and of the understanding are all
There ence,
be
is
orator,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; and are
so just
for every line he can
mount
so
!
listens,
facts
and
and awed.
in every audi-
They are ready
of virtu e.
They Imow
of
silenced
also something excellent
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; the capacity
beatified^
now
highest audience
much more than
There
inscribe,
is
a tablet there
though he should
Humble
to the highest leyels.
conscious of ;new illumination
;
pand with enlarged
;
afEeetions
to
the
persons are
narrow brows ex-
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
delicate spirits,
long unknown to themselves, masked and muffled in coarsest fortunes,
language for the
who now hear
first
time,
their
and leap
own
native
to hear
it.
But aU these several audiences, each above each, which successively appear to greet the variety of style
and
topic,
same persons
;
are really composed out of
will take active part in
This range of speaker, and of
the
nay, sometimes the same individual
them
all, in
turn.
many powers in the consummate many audiences in one assembly,
leads us to consider the successive stages of oratory.
ELOQUENCE. Perhaps
occasions, of chief im-
certain robust
When
and radiant physical
— great volumes
shall I say?
health; or, heat.
many
on so
it is,
—a ^
portance,
the lowest of the qualities of an
is
it
orator, but
69
of animal
each auditor feels himself to
too large a part of the assembly,
make
and shudders with
and
cold at the thinness of the morning audience,
with fear
lest
aU
through one bad
will heavily fail
mere energy and mellowness are then
speech,
in-
"Wisdom and learning would be harsh
estimable.
and unwelcome, compared with a substantial cordial man, made of milk as we
who
say,
is
a house-
warmer, with his obvious honesty and good meaning,
and a hue-and-cry
style of
harangue, which
inundates the assembly with a flood of animal spirits,
and makes aU
and every
sort of
warmed the best,
;
and
before
—
as
we must be
once
fed and
well,
first
much
to
— even
necessity in a cold house.
do with
it,
—
climate
and
^gt-a New-Englander to describe any acci-
dent which happened in his presence. tation
at
so is this semi-animal exuberance, like
Climate has
^race.
yet,
we can do any work
a good stove, of the
/
and secure, so that any
I do not rate this animal eloquence
practicable.
very highly
safe
good speaking becomes
and reserve in
difficulty
some
his narrative
particulars,
!
and gets
What He tells
hesi-
with
as fast as
he
can to the result, and, though he cannot describe,
ELOQUENCE.
70
-i-
hopes to suggest the whole scene.
Now
listen to
a poor Irishwoman recounting some experience of
Her speech
hers.
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
flows like a river,
so uncon-
done
sidered, so humorous, so pathetic, such justice !
to all the parts
'
It is a true transubstantiation,
the fact converted into speech, all
and the that
Our Southern
alive, as it fell out.
almost
't
is
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
colored
people are
-
and Have every advantage over
all speakers,
New England
warm and
people,
whose climate
is
so cold
we do not like to open our mouths But neither can the Southerner in the
said
very wide.
compare with the
United States, nor the
Trish,
lively inhabitant of
south of Europe.
traveller in
the
Sicily needs
The
no gayer melodramatic
exhibition than the table d^hdte of his inn will af-
ford him in the conversation of the joyous guests.
They mimic the they describe
and scream
;
voice
and manner
they crow, squeal,
like
mad, and, were
it
of the person
hiss, cackle,
bark,
only by the phys-
ical strength exerted in telling the story,
keep the
table in
unbounded excitement.
stitution
some large degree of animal vigor
But
in every conis
neces-
sary as material foundation for the higher qualities of the art.
But eloquence must be
j
The
attractive, or
virtue of books is to be readable,
tors to
be interesting
;
and
tbis is
it
is
none
and of
ora-
a gift of Nature ;
as Demosthenes, the most laborious student in that
'
ELOQUENCE. Mnd,
71
signified his sense of this necessity
wrote, "
Good Fortune^"
as his motto
when he
on his
shield.
(As we know, the power of discourse of certain dividuals
amounts
have no lasting
to fascination,
Some
efifect. )
The
must intermingle. It
it
in-
may
portion of this sugar
right eloquence needs
bell to call the people together,
keep them.
though
and no constable
no to
draws the children from their play,
the old from their arm-chairs, the invalid from his
warm chamber away
:
it
holds the hearer fast
his feet, that he shall not depart
ory, that affairs
;
;
his
steals
mem-
he shall not remember the most pressing his
belief,
that he shall not admit any
opposing considerations. it
;
in semi-barbarous ages,
The pictures we have of when it has some advan-
tages in the simpler habit of the people, show what it
aims
ers in
at.
It
is
said that the
Ispahan and other
Khans
or story-tell-
cities of the East, attain
a controlling power over their audience, keeping
them for many hours ful
attentive to the most fanci-
and extravagant adventures.
knows pretty well the
The whole world
style of these improvisators,
and how fascinating they
are, in
our translations of
the " Arabian Nights."
S cheherez ade tells these stories to save her life, and the delight of young Europe and young America in them proves that she fairly earned it. And who does not remember in childhood
some white or black or yellow
Sche^.
ELOQUENCE.
72
by that talent of telling endless feats and magicians and kings and queens, was
herezade, who, of fairies
more dear and wonderful
to
a circle of children
than any orator in England or America
is
now?
The more indolent and imaginative complexion of the Eastern nations makes them much more impressible by these appeals to the fancy. These legends are only exaggerations of real
and every
currences,
oc-
literature contains these high
compliments to the art of the orator and the bard,
from the Hebrew and the Greek down tish Glenkindie,
to the Scot-
who
" harpit a fish out o' saut-water,
Or water out of a stone, Or milk out of a maiden's breast
Who bairn had never none."
Homer figure.
specially delighted in
For what
is
drawing the same
the Odyssey but a history
of the orator, in the largest style, carried through
a series of adventures furnishing brilliant opportunities to
See with what care and
his talent ?
pleasure the poet brings is
him on
the stage.
Helen
pointing out to Priam, from a tower, the different
Grecian
chiefs.
" The old
man asked
:
'
Tell me,
who is that man, shorter by a head than Agamemnon, yet he looks broader in his shoulders dear child,
and
breast.
His arms
lie
on the ground, but he,
like a leader, walks about the bands of the men.
He
seems to
me
ELOQUENCE.
73
like a stately
ram, who goes as
a master of the
Him
flock.'
daughter of Jove, 'This of Laertes,
who was reared
knowing
Ithaca,
wiles
all
answered Helen,
the wise Ulysses , son
is
in the state of craggy
and wise
you have spoken
truly.
To
counsels.'
her the prudent Antenor replied again
:
'
O
woman,
For once the wise Ulysses
came hither on an embassy, with Menelaus, beloved by Mars. I received them and entertained them at
my
house.
I became acquainted with the genius
When
and the prudent judgments of both. mixed with the assembled
Trojans,
and
they
stood,
the broad shoulders of Menalaus rose above
other
;
When
but, both sitting, Ulysses
the
was more majestic.
they conversed, and interweaved stories and
opinions with
all,
Menelaus spoke
succinctly,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; few
but very sweet words, since he was not talkative
nor superfluous in speech, and was the younger.
But when the wise Ulysses arose and stood and looked down, fixing his eyes on the ground, and neither
moved
but held say
it
it still,
his sceptre like
backward nor forward,
an awkward person, you woidd
was some angry or
foolish
man
;
but when he
sent his great voice forth out of his breast,
and
his
words feU like the winter snows, not then would
any mortal contend with Ulysses ing,
;
and we, behold-
wondered not afterwards so much at his
pect.' "
1
Thus he does not 1
fail to
lUad, III. 191.
arm Ulysses
as-
at
ELOQUENCE.
74 first
with this power of overcoming
opposition
all
by the blandishments of speech. Plutersb-iells us that Thucydides, when Archidamus, king of Sparta, asked him which was the best wrestler, Pericles or he, replied, " When I throw him, he says he
was never down, and he persuades the very spectators to believe him."
Philip of
Macedon
said of
Demosthenes, on hearing the report of one of his
Had
orations, "
me
suaded
I been there, he would have per-
to take
up arms against myself ; " and
Warren Hastings said of Burke's speech on impeachment, " As I listened to the orator, I for
more than half an hour
as if I
his felt
were the most
culpable being on earth."
In these examples, higher qualities have already entered, but the
power of detaining the ear by
pleasing speech, and addressing the fancy and im-
Thus
agination, often exists without higher merits.
separated, as this fascination of discourse aims only at
amusement, though
tary effect,
power.
It is
through the
is
it
it
be decisive in
its
heard like a band of music passing
streets,
gers into poets, but
which converts
all
the passen-
forgotten as soon as
is
turned the next corner
;
and unless
this oiled
could, in Oriental phrase, lick the sun
away,
it
brandy.
must I
momen-
yet a juggle, and of no lasting
take
its
it
and moon
place with opium
know no remedy
against
it
has
tongue
but
and
cotton-
ELOQUENCE. wool, or the
wax which Ulysses
75 into the
stuffed
ears of his sailors to pass the Sirens safely.
There are
all
degrees of power, and the least
are interesting, hut they must not be confounded.
There
is
the glib toogue
and cool
self-possession of
the salesman in a large shop, which, as
weU
is
known, overpower the prudence and resolution of There
housekeepers of both sexes. yer's fluency,
him who so
many
is
which
is
a petty law-
is
sufficiently impressive
devoid of that talent, though
cases,
to
be, in
it
nothing more than a facUity of ex-
pressing with accuracy and speed what everybody thinks and says more slowly
;
tion, or precision of thought,
neither less nor more.
without
new informa-
but the same thing,
It requires
no special
whoever can say
off currently, sentence
by
sentence,
matter neither better nor worse than what printed,
wiU be very impressive
pleased population.
who
to
our
there
is
easily
These talkers are of that
class
prosper, like the celebrated schoolmaster,
being only one lesson ahead of the pupU. little
in-
Yet
sight to edit one of our country newspapers.
by
Add
a
sarcasm and prompt allusion to passing oc-
currences,
and you have the mischievous member
of Congress.
A spice
his rhetoric, will
of malice, a ruffian touch in
do him no harm with his audience.
These accomplishments are of the same kind, and only a degree higher than the coaxing of the auc-
ELOQUENCE.
76
tioneer, or the vituperative style well described in
These kinds of public
the street-word "jawing."
and private speaking have ience to the practitioners
;
and conven-
their use
but
we may
collectively that the habit of oratory
them
qualify
One
is
apt to dis-
for eloquence.
of our statesmen said, "
country
say of such
is
eloquent men."
And
The
curse of this
one cannot wonder
at the uneasiness sometimes manifested
by trained
statesmen, with large experience of public affairs,
when they observe
the disproportionate advantage
suddenly given to oratory over the most solid and
accumulated public
service.
In a Senate or other
business committee, the solid result depends on a
few men with working-talent.
They know how
to
deal with the facts before them, to put things into
a practical shape, and they value
men
only as they
But a new man comes there who has no capacity for helping them at all, is insignificant, and nobody in the committee, but has a talent for speaking. In the debate with open doors, this precious person makes a speech which is printed and read all over the Union, and he at once becomes famous, and takes the lead in the public mind over all these executive men, who, of can forward the work.
course, are
no
fuU of indignation
tact or skill
them by means despise.
to find one v/ho has
and knows he has none, put over of this talking-power
which they
ELOQUENCE.
77
Leaving behind us these pretensions, better or worse, to
come a
quence
attractive as
is
personal a scendenc y, rare,
because
nearer to the verify,
little
—
qjiotal
elo-
and resultant power,
a rich
requires
it
—
an example of the magic of
coincidence of
powers, intellect, will, ^ymp§thyi organs, andLoycr all,
We
goodTortune_in_the_cau;se.
belief that the person is
possible
poise all other persons.
We
may
be a
man who
is
being dashed are broken,
believe that there
— one
who can
What we
beat you.
counter-
a match for events, one who
never formd his match, against
personal resources,
have a half-
who can
whom
give you any odds
really wish for
equal to any exigency.
You
district, or in the city, in
men
other
of inexhaustible
and
a mind
is
are safe in your rural
broad daylight, amidst
the police, and under the eyes of a hundred thou-
But how
sand people. storm,
is
it
on the Atlantic, in a
— do you understand how
son into
men
self off safe
to infuse
your rea-
disabled by terror, and to bring your-
then ?
— how among
thieves, or
an infuriated populace, or among cannibals
?
among Face
highwayman who has every tempta^ tion and opportunity for violence and plunder, can you bring yourself off safe by your wit exercised to face with a
through speech ?
arrives, the
— a problem
easy enough to Cae-
Whenever a man of that stamp highwayman has found a master. What
sar or Napoleon.
ELOQUENCE.
78
a difference between
man
men
in
power of face
A
!
succeeds because he has more power of eye
than another, and so coaxes or confounds him.
The newspapers, every week, report the adventures some impudent swindler, who, by steadiness of carriage, duped those wlio should have known better. Yet any swindlers we have known are novices and bunglers, as is attested by their iU name. A of
greater power of face would accomplish anything,
and, with the rest of their takings, take
A greater power of carrying the
bad name. loftily
away the thing
and with perfect assurance, would confound
merchant, banker, judge,
men
influence
of
and
power, poet and president, and might head any party, unseat any sovereign,
a
man
and abrogate any con-
Europe and America.
stitution in
It
was said that
has at one step attained vast power,
who
has renounced his moral sentiment, and settled
it
with himself that he will no longer stick at any-
was said
It
thing.
of the worthies of
of Sir
New
WUliam
England,
Pepperel, one
that, "
put him
where you might, he commanded, and saw what he
come to pass." Julius Caesar said to Metelwhen that tribune interfered to hinder him
willed lus,
from entering the it is
easier for
that I
wUl
days, he
;
"
me
Roman to put
treasury, "
you
Young man,
to death than to say
and the youth yielded.
was taken by
pirates.
What
In earlier then
?
Ha
ELOQUENCE. ship, established the
threw himself into their
them
extraordinary intimacies, told
claimed to them speeches,
he
if
;
who cannot be
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; and, A
on board.
of all
disconcerted,
and
so
his last card, but has a reserve of
With a
has hit his mark.
What
a kingdom. it
affects
is
lavish,
histories,
men
so.
man
this is
can never play
power when he
him
miraculous
is
men
;
in
him
of the world,
and
confidence of
poems, and new philosophies arise to ac-
count for him.
is
told of
is
The
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
in a short
serene face, he subverts
and he changes the face
his passions
ruling
de-
stories,
them with hanging,
threatened
was master
most
they did not applaud his
which he performed afterwards, time,
7P
and
A
supreme commander over
affections
;
higher than that.
all
but the secret of his It is the
ture running without impediment
power
of
Na-
from the brain
Men and women are his Where they are, he cannot be without re"Whoso can speak well," said Luther, source. " is a man." It was men of this stamp that the
and
will into the hands.
game.
Grecian States used to ask of Sparta for generals.
They did not send
to
Lacedsemon for
they said, " Send us a nias,
troops, but
;
commander " and Pausa-
or Gylippus, or Brasidas, or Agis, was de-
spatched by the Ephors. It is easy to illustrate this ality
by these examples
overpowering person-
of soldiers
and kings
;
but
ELOQUENCE.
80
men
there are
of the
peaceful principle,
most peaceful way of
who
who,
and
are felt wherever they go,
as sensibly as a July sun or a
men
life
December
frost,
—
they speak, are heard, though they
if
speak in a whisper,
— who, when
they
act,
act ei-
and these
f ectually,
and what they do
is
examples
may be found on
very humble platforms
as well as
on high ones.
imitated
;
In old coimtries a high money-value
is
set
on
men who have achieved a personal He who has points to carry must hire,
the services of distinction.
not a skilful attorney, but a commanding person. barrister in
England
is
reputed to have
or forty thousand pounds per
annum
made
A
thirty
in represent-
ing the claims of railroad companies before commit-
Commons. His clients pay not manly accomplishments, for courage, conduct, and a commanding social position, which enable him to make their claims heard tees of the
much
so
House
of
—
for legal as for
and respected. I
know very
well that
among our
culating people, where every
cool
and
cal-
man mounts guard
over himself, where heats and panics and abandon-
ments are quite out of the system, there deal of skepticism
To
talk of an overpowering
jealousy
is
a good
as to extraordinary influence.
mind
rouses the same
and defiance which one may observe roimd
a table where anybody is recounting the marvellous
ELOQUENCE.
Each auditor puts a final by exclaiming, " Can he
anecdotes of mesmerism. stroke to the discourse
me f "
mesmerize
81
So each man
Ms
orator can change
inquires
if
any
convictions.
But does any one suppose himself to be quite impregnable ? Does he think that not possibly a
man may come most
of his
good sedate him,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
him who
to
shall persuade
settled determination ?
make a
fanatic of
penurious, to squander
money for
citizen as
or, if
he
is
him out
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; for example,
some purpose he now
he
to
is,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
least thinks of,
or, if
he
is
a prudent, industrious person, to forsake his work,
and give days and weeks
to a
he defies any one, every one. of resistance,
But what
mind
and
new
Ah
interest ? !
of a different turn
he
is
thinking
from
his own.
one should come of the same turn of
if
as his own,
and who
A
own way than he?
much farther on his man who has tastes like sees
mine, but in greater power, wiU rule
and make
Thus
No,
me
love
my
me any
day,
ruler.
we primarily word eloquence, but the power that being present, gives them their perfection, and being absent, leaves them a merely superficial it is
not powers of speech that
consider under this
value.
^
Eloquenc e
is
the app ropriate organ of the
highest personal energy.
Personal ascendency
may
exist with or without adequate talent for its expression.
It is as surely felt as a
mountain or a planet;
ELOQUENCE.
82 but when
seems
it is
first to
weaponed with a power of speech, it become truly human, works actively
in all directions,
and supplies the imagination with
fine materials.
This circumstance enters into every consideration of the
is
the key to all
In the assembly, you
shall find the
power of
their effects.
orators,
and
orator and the audience in perpetual balance the predominance choice of topic.
of
either
indicated
is
and
;
by the
If the talents for speaking exist,
but not the strong personality, then there are good speakers
who
perfectly receive
of the audience, flattered
and express the
will
and the commonest populace
is
low mind returned to
it
by hearing
its
with every ornament which happy talent can add.
\But â&#x20AC;˘of
if
there be personality in the orator, the face
things changes.
The audience
is
thrown into
the attitude of pupil, follows like a child ceptor, if,
and hears what he has
to say.
its
It
preis
as
amidst the king's council at Madrid, Ximenes
urged that an advantage might be gained of France,
and Mendoza that Flanders might be kept down,
and Columbus, being introduced, was interrogated whether his geographical knowledge could aid the cabinet
;
and he can say nothing
the other, but he can show
how
to one party or to
Europe can be diminished and reduced under the king, by annexall
ing to Spain a continent as large as six or seven
Europes.
_
ELOQUENCE.
83
This balance between the orator and the audience
is
expressed in what
There
of the speaker.
is
is
called the pertinence
always a rivalry between
demands
the orator and the occasion, between the of the hour
and the prepossession of the individual.
The emergency which has convened the meeting is usually of more importance than anything the debaters have in their minds, and therefore becomes But if one of them have any^ imperative to them. thing of commanding necessity in his heart, how speedily he wiU find vent for it, and with the applause of the assembly
\
This balance
in the privatest intercourse.
the time
when
Poor
is
observed
Tom never knew
the present occurrence was so trivial
that he could tell what was passing in his
mind
without being checked for unseasonable speech ; but let
Bacon speak and wise men would rather
though the revolution of kingdoms was on I have heard
whose voice
is
it
listen foot.
reported of an eloquent preacher,
not yet forgotten in this
city, that,
on occasions of death or tragic disaster which overspread the congregation with gloom, he ascended the pulpit with more than his usual alacrity, and
turning to his favorite lessons of devout and jubilant thankfulness,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
" Let us praise the Lord,"
carried audience, mourners,
and mourning along
with him, and swept away
all
the impertinence
of private sorrow with his hosannas
and songs of
ELOQUENCE.
84
" he
Lord Clarendon (with whom love ") on his return from a con-
lEggjs says of
praise.
mad
is
in
ference, " I did never observe
man
how much
easier a
do speak when he knows aU the company to
be below him, than in him
;
for,
though he spoke
indeed excellent well, yet his manner and freedom of doing
it,
ing only pretty."
as if he played with
all the rest of
and was inform-
it,
the company, was mighty
i
This rivalry between the orator and the occasion is
inevitable,
and the occasion always yields
eminence of the speaker greatest of occasions.
for a great
;
Of
when
his
influence is
then only they are well pleased. consults his power
to the is
the
course the interest of the
audience and of the orator conspire. with them only
man
\
by making instead
It is
well
complete
Especially he of taking his
If he should attempt to instruct the people
theme. in that
which they already know, he would
fail
but by making them wise in that which he knows,
he has the advantage of the assembly every moment.
Napoleon's tactics of marching on the angle
of an army,
numbers,
The
is
and always presenting a superiority of the orator's secret also.
several talents which the orator employs, the
splendid weapons which went to the equipment of
Demosthenes, of JEschines, of Demades the natural 1
Diary,
I.
169.
ELOQUENCE.
85
Fox, of Pitt, of Patrick Henry, of Adams,
orator, of
We
of Mirabeau, deserve a special enumeration.
must not quite omit to
The
orator, as
we have Then,
tial personality.
the principal pieces.
must be a substan-
seen,
first,
he must have power
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
must have the fact, and know how^ In any knot of men conversing on any the person who knows most about it wiU
of statement, to tell
name
it.
subject,
have the ear of the company
he wishes
if
distinction other in
men
th^re present
any public assembly, him who
may have
is
otherwise ignorant, though he
ungraceful, though he stutters
In a court of
and
is
to,
and
and
though
hoarse and
and screams.
justice the audience are impartial
they really wish to
what the truth
;
has the facts
can and wUl state them, people wiU listen
he
it,
what genius or
lead the cony^sation, no matter
is.
sift
And
the statements
and know
in the examination of wit-
nesses there usually leap out, quite unexpectedly,
three or four stubborn words or phrases which are the pith
and
the ear of the cause.
fate of the business,
all parties,
and
All the rest
which sink into
stick there, is
and determine
repetition
and
qualify-
ing ; and the court and the county have really come together to arrive at these three or four memorable expressions which betrayed the of
mind and meaning
somebody.
In every company the man with the
fact is like
ELOQUENCE.
86
the guide you hire to lead your party
through a
tain, or
up a moun-
He may
difficult country.
not
compare with any of the party in mind, or breeding,
or courage, or possessions, but he
much
is
more important to the present need than any of them. I That
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; the
is
what we go
to the court-house for,
statement of the fact, and of a general fact,
the real relation of all the parties
;
and
any
certainty with which, indifferently in
that
is
the
is
it
affair
well handled, the truth stares us in the face
through
all
the disguises that are put upon
piece of the well-known
human
life,
it,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; that
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;a
makes
the interest of a court-room to the intelligent spectator.
remember long ago being attracted, by the distinction of the counsel and the local importance I
The
of the cause, into the court-room.
prisoner's
counsel were the strongest and cunningest lawyers in the
They drove
Commonwealth.
for the State
from corner
the attorney
to corner, taking his rea-
sons from under him, and reducing
When
him
to silence,
hard pressed, he
re-
venged himself, in his turn, on the judge, by
re-
but not to submission.
quiring the court to define what salvage was. court, thus pushed, tried words,
could think of to
thing
it
cases,
and describing duties of
pilots,
and miscellaneous
fill
The
and said every
the time, supposing insurers, captains,
sea-officers
that are or
ELOQUENCE. might
be,
—
87
a schoolmaster puzzled by a hard
like
sum, who reads the context with emphasis.
But
not serving the cuttle-fish to get away
all this flood
the horrible shark of the district-attorney being
in,
"
there, grimly awaiting with his
still
must
define,"
ority.
The
for this, of the
— the
The
poor court pleaded
court
its inferi-
superior court must establish the law
and
it
read away piteously the decisions
Supreme Court, but read
to those
who had
The judge was forced at last to rule something, and the lawyers saved their rogue under the fog of a definition. The parts were so well cast and discriminated that it was an interesting game to watch. The government was well enough represented. It was stupid, bub it had a strong wUl and possession, and stood on that to the last. The no
pity.
judge had a task beyond his preparation, yet his position remained real
great reality,
— the
:
he was there to represent a
justice of states,
which we could
well enough see beetling over his head, and which his trifling talk nowise affected,
and did not im-
pede, since he was entirely well-meaning.
The statement
of the fact, however, sinks before
the statement of the law, which requires immeasur-
ably higher powers, and
aU
is
a rarest
gift,
being in
great masters one and the same thing,
— in
lawyers nothing technical, but always some piece of common-sense,
alike
interesting to
laymen
as
ELOQUENCE.
88
Lord Mansfield's merit is the merit of common-sense. It is the same quality we admire in Aristotle, Montaigne, Cervantes, or in Samuel to clerks.
Franklin.
Johnson, or
seems quite accidental.
application
Its
Each
law
to
of Mansfield's far
mous
decisions contains a level sentence or
which
hit the
two
His sentences are not always
mark.
finished to the eye, but are finished to the mind.
The
sentences are involved, but a solid proposition
is set forth,
a true distinction
from and they go
to the
drawn. They come
is
sound human understand-
ing; and I read without surprise that the black-
lawyers of the day sneered at his " equitable
letter
were not also learned.
decisions," as if they
indeed,
ment
is
what speech
and aU that
;
of little use for the
is
is for,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
to
make
This,
the state-
me
called eloquence seems to
most part
to those
who have
it,
but inestimable to such as have something to say.
Next (
knowledge of the fact and
to the
its
law
is
method, which constitutes the genius and efficiency of all remarkable
Faneuil Hall
;
men.
they are
A crowd of men go up to all
pretty well acquaiuted
with the object of the meeting
;
they have
the facts in the same newspapers. sesses
The
all
read
orator pos-
no information which his hearers have not,
yet he teaches them to see the thing with his eyes.
By
the
solidity
new
placing, the circumstances acquire
and worth.
Every
new
fact gains consequence
ELOQUENCE.
89
naming
it,
and
His expressions
fix
themselves in men's memories,
by
his
from mouth
and
fly
new
principle of order.
become important.
trifles
His mind has some
mouth.
to
Where he
looks, all things
What wiU he say next ? Let and this man only. By applying
fly into their places.
this
man
speak,
the habits of a higher style of thought to the com-
mon
affairs of this world,
he introduces beauty and
Such a power was
magnificence wherever he goes.
Burke's, and of this genius we have had some brilliant examples in our
Imagery. tent,
a poet.
own
political
The
orator must be, to a certain ex-
We
are such imaginative creatures
that nothing so works on the
rous or
as a trope.
civil,
and legal men.
human mind,
barba-
Condense some daily ex-
perience into a glowing symbol, and an audience electrified.
They
is
feel as if they already possessed
some new right and power over a
fact
which they
can detach, and so completely master in thought.
memory, which
It is a wonderful aid to the
away the image and never
loses
carries
A popular as-
it.
sembly, like the House of Commons, or the French
Chamber, or the American Congress,
by these two powers, of statement.
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
solid as
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; some
is
fact,
commanded
then by
skill
into a concrete
hard phrase, round
a baU, which they can see and handle
and carry home with them, won.
by a
Put the argument
shape, into an image,
and
first
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; and the cause
is
half
ELOQUENCE.
90 '
of
Statement, method, imagery, selection, tenacity
memory, power of dealing with
facts, of illumi-
nating them, of sinking them by ridicule or by diversion of the mind, rapid generali^iation, humor, pathos, are keys which the orator holds
and yet
;
these fine gifts are not eloquence, and do often hin-
der a man's attainment of
And
it.
the heart of the mystery, perhaps that the truly eloquent
power
man give
to
communicate
man
if we come to we should say
man
a sane
is
If
his sanity.
with
you arm the
with the extraordinary weapons of this
him a grasp
art,
of facts, learning, quick fancy, sar-
casm, splendid allusion, interminable illustration, all these talents,
so potent
and charming, have an
equal power to insnare and mislead the audience
and the
orator.
his horses run
His talents are too much for him,
away with him
;
and people always
perceive whether you drive or whether the horses
But these
take the bits in their teeth and run. ents are quite something else
dinated and serve him
;
when they
and we go
to
tal-
are sabor-
Washington,
or to "Westminster HaU., or might well go round the world, to see a
away
with,
signs, has
man who
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; a man who,
drives,
and
is
not run
in prosecuting great de-
an absolute command of the means of
representing his ideas, and uses them only to express these
;
placing facts, placing
inconceivable levity of
human
men
;
amid the
beings, never foi
ELOQUENCE. an instant warped from for every
man
which he
is
ment
most unwilling to receive,
possible, so
or die of
There
his erectness.
is
a statement possible of that truth
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;a
state-
broad and so pungent that he
cannot get away from it
91
it,
but must either bend to
Else there would be no such word
it.
as eloquence, which
means
this.
The
listener can-
not hide from himself that something has been
shown him and the whole world which he did not wish to see
and
;
The
poses of him. fairs in
as he cannot dispose of
America
it, it
men and
history of public
will readily furnish tragic
dis-
af-
exam-
ples of this fatal force.
For the triumphs of the
art
somewhat more must
be required, namely a reinforcing of
still
man from
events, so as to give the double force of reason
some the
and
In transcendent eloquence, there was ever
destiny.
such as could deeply engage
crisis in affairs,
man
to the cause he pleads, and
wide power to a point. eruptions, there
draw
all this
For the explosions and
must be accumulations of heat
somewhere, beds of ignited anthracite at the centre.
And
in cases
where profound conviction has been
wrought, the eloquent ful speaker, but
tain belief.
who
man
It agitates
is
he who
is
no beauti-
inwardly drunk with a cer-
is
and
tears him,
and perhaps
almost bereaves him of the power of articulation.
Then
it
rushes from
him
as in short, abrupt screams,
ELOQUENCE.
92
in torrents of meaning.
has of his mind
is
The possession
the subject
so entire that it insures
of expression which
an order
the order of Nature
is
itself,
and so the order of greatest force, and inimitable art. And the main distinction between him and other well-graced actors is the conviction, communicated by every word, that his mind is contemplating a whole, and inflamed by the contemplation of the whole, and that the words and sen-
by any
tences uttered
him
which he see.
by him, however admirable,
fall
from
as unregarded parts of that terrible whole sees
Add
and which he means that you
shall
to this concentration a certain regnant
aU the tumult, never
calmness, which, in
a premature
utters
but keeps the secret of
syllable,
its
means and method; and the orator stands before the people as a demoniacal power to whose miracles they have no key.
This terrible earnestness makes
good the ancient superstition of the hunter, that the bullet will hit
its
mark, which
is first
dipped in
the marksman's blood.
Eloquence must be grounded on the plainest Afterwards,
narrative.
it
may warm
itself until it
exhales symbols of every kind and color, speaks
only through the most poetic forms last, it
of fact.
must
still
The
;
but, first
and
be at bottom a biblical statement
orator
is
keeps his feet ever on a
thereby an orator, that he fact.
Thus only
is
he
in-
ELOQUENCE.
No
Vincible.
gifts,
no graces, no power of wit or
learning or illustration will
want of
Fame
93
make any amends
for
All audiences are just to this point.
this.
of voice or of rhetoric will carry people a
few times to ask, "
but they soon begin he driving at ? " and if this man
to hear a speaker
What
is
;
does not stand for anything, he wiU be deserted.
A good upholder of
anything which they believe, a
any kind, they
fact-speaker of
will long follow
i
own character is very properly a loss of attraction. The preacher enumerates his classes of men and I do not find my but a pause in the speaker's
place therein
Everything
;
is
I suspect then that
my
cousin
things, I feel that he tions,
and I
am
is
;
no
man
touching some of
uneasy
;
does.
and whilst he speaks
my rela-
but whilst he deals in
words we are released from attention.
you
If
me you must be on higher ground. If you would liberate me you must be free. If you would
lift
would correct
me
my
false
view of
facts,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; hold up
the same facts in the true order of thought,
I cannot go back from the
The power
of
new
Chatham, of
to
and
conviction. Pericles, of Luther,
rested on this strength of character, which, because it
did not and could not fear anybody,
made
noth-
ing of their antagonists, and became sometimes exquisitely provoking these.
and
sometimes
terrific
to
ELOQUENCE.
94
We
are slenderly furnished with anecdotes of
men, nor can we help ourselves by those
these
heavy books in which their discourses are reported.
them were writers, like Burke but most of them were not, and no record at all adequate Besides, what is best is to their fame remains. But the conthe fiery life of the moment. lost,
Some
of
;
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
ditions for eloquence always exist.
It is always
dying out of famous places and appearing in cor-
Wherever the
ners.
polarities meet,
wherever the
fresh moral sentiment, the instinct of freedom i
duty,
come
and
in direct opposition to fossil conserva-
tism and the thirst of gain, the spark wiU pass.
The
resistance to slavery in this country has been
a fruitful nursery of orators. tion
by which
it
drew
The natural connec-
to itself a train of
moral
re-
forms, and the slight yet sufficient party organization
it
offered, reiuforced the city
from the woods and mountains. Baptists,
with new blood
Wild men, John
Hermit Peters, John Knoxes,
utter the
savage sentiment of Nature in the heart of commercial capitals.
They send us every year some
piece
of aboriginal strength, some tough oak-stick of a
man who
is
not to be silenced or insulted or intimi-
dated by a mob, because he
-â&#x20AC;&#x201D; one who mobs the mob,
man, on
whom
is
more mob than
they,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; some sturdy country-
neither money, nor politeness, nor
hard words, nor eggs, nor blows, nor brickbats,
ELOQUENCE. make any impression. room wits and bullies self,
He ;
he
and something more
is fit to
is
:
95
meet the bar-
a wit and a bully him-
he
is
a graduate of the
plough, and the stub-hoe, and the bushwhacker;
knows aU the
secrets of
swamp and snow-bank, and
has nothing to learn of labor or poverty or the
rough of farming.
His hard head went through,
in childhood, the driU of Calvinism, with text
and
New EngNew England than
mortification, so that he stands in the
land assembly a purer bit of
any, and flings his sarcasms right and
has not only the documents
aU
cavils
and
man
This
fully renounces your civil organizations,
or city, or governor, or
He
school.
Yet,
a
army
;
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
his
own navy
has learned his lessons in a bitter if
the pupil be of a texture to bear
the best university that can be
man
is
scorn-
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; county,
judge and jury, legislature and exec-
artillery,
utive.
it,
answer
to prove all his positions, but he has
the eternal reason in his head.
and
He
left.
his pocket to
in.
recommended
to
of ideas is the gauntlet of the mobs.
He who
will train himself to
science of persuasion ucation, not insight.
mastery in this
must lay the emphasis of ed-
on popular
arts,
but on character and
Let him see that his speech
is
not differ-
enced from action ; that when he has spoken he has not done nothing, nor done wrong, but has cleared his
own
skirts,
has engaged himself to wholesome
ELOQUENCE.
96 exertion.
He
nity. is
Let him look on opposition as opportuThere
cannot be defeated or put down.
a principle of resurrection in him, an immortality
Men
of purpose.
are averse
value to their suffrages.
It
is
and
hostile, to give
not the people that
are in fault for not being convinced, but he that
He
cannot conArince them.
armed
as he
with the reason and love which are
is
He
also the core of their nature. ize their opposition,
fiery apostles
The
but he
is
and publishers
not to neutral-
is
to convert
of the
It
is
what
and has the property
is
into
is
the moral
called affirmative truth,
of invigorating the hearer;
conveys a hint of our eternity, when he
it
on grounds which will
feels himself addressed
main when everything else
is
taken,
hostile is stricken ;
down
re-
and which have
no trace of time or place or party. timents
them
same wisdom.
highest platform of eloquence
sentiment.
and
should mould them,
Everything
in the presence of the sen-
their majesty is felt
by the most obdurate.
It is observable that as soon as one acts for large
masses, the moral element for, will
and must work
;
wiU and must be allowed and the men least accus-
tomed to appeal to these sentiments invariably
them when they address nations. even, must accept and use it as he can. call
It
is
re-
Napoleon,
only to these simple strokes that the highest
power belongs,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; when a weak human hand
touches,
ELOQUENCE. by
point
beams and rafters on of Nature and society is
point, the eternal
which the whole structure
In this tossing sea of delusion we feel with
laid.
our feet the adamant
we
97
;
in this dominion of chance
For I do not
find a principle of permanence.
accept that definition
make
his art is to
great
;
when
of Tsocfates, that the
the great small and the smaU.
but I esteem this to be
the orator sees through all
nal scale of
trujih, .in
before the eyes of
men
ish
and
AU
to reform
perfection,
masks
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
to the eter-
the fact ^fif^tctdaj^ steadily
making the great
which
small,
its
such sort that he can holiiip
to that standard, thereby
and the small
office of
is
the true
great,
way to. aston-
mankind.
the chief orators of the world have been
the philosophers of Demosthenes's
One thought own time found
running through aU his orations,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
grave men, relying on this reality.
that " virtue secures
its
on one's own
Heeren
feet "
own
namely,
this
"
success."
To
stand
finds the key-note to
the discourses of Demosthenes, as of Chatham.
Eloquence, like every other
most exact and determinate. of the best soul. of all that it
is
It
art, rests
It
is
may well stand
on laws the
the best speech as the exponent
grand and immortal in the mind.
If
do not so become an instrument, but aspires to be
somewhat false
of itself,
and weak.
In
and its
to glitter for show,
right exercise,
it is
an
it
is
elas-
ELOQUENCE.
98 tic,
— who has sounded, who — expanding with the expansion
unexhausted power,
has estimated
it ?
of our interests
and
affections.
whilst they valued every help to
\
Its great masters, its
attainment, and
thought no pains too great which contributed ia
any manner
to further
warrior of fame, his belt,
— resembling the Arabian
who wore
seventeen weapons in
and in personal combat used them
casionally,
— yet
subordinated
permitted any talent etic
it,
— neither —
power, anecdote, sarcasm
all
means
voice,
;
all oc-
never
rhythm, po-
to appear for
show
but were grave men, who preferred their integrity to their talent,
and esteemed that object for which
they toiled, whether the prosperity of their country, or the laws, or a reformation, or liberty of speech or of the press, or letters, or morals, as above the
whole world, and themselves
also.
DOMESTIC LIFK
DOMESTIC LIFE.
The is easily
perfection of the providence for childhood
The
acknowledged.
care which covers the
seed of the tree under tough husks and stony cases
provides for the
human
plant the mother's breast
and the father's house. The size of the nestler is comic, and its tiny beseeching weakness is compen-
by the happy patronizing look of who is a sort of high reposing Providence toward it. Welcome to the parents the puny sated perfectly
the mother,
struggler, strong in his weakness, his little
more
irresistible
than the
soldier's, his lips
arms
touched
with persuasion which Chatham and Pericles in
manhood had not. His imaffected lamentations when he lifts up his voice on high, or, more beautiful,
the sobbing child,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; the face
all liquid grief,
as he tries to swallow his vexation,
hearts to pity, and to mirthful
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; soften
all
and clamorous com-
The small despot asks so little that all reason and all nature are on his side. His ignorance is more charming than all knowledge, and his little sins more bewitching than any virtue. His passion.
DOMESTIC
102
LIFE.
"Infancy," said
flesh is angels' flesh, all aHve.
Coleridge, " presents
body
is
body and
aU animated."
spirit in
unity
:
the
All day, between his three
or four sleeps, he coos like a pigeon-house, sputters
and spurs and puts on his faces of importance; and when he fasts, the little Pharisee fails not to
By
sound his trumpet before him.
delights in shadows on the wall;
yeUow and
scarlet.
lamplight he
by
daylight, in
Carry him out of doors,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; he
is
overpowered by the light and by the extent of natural objects, and
is
his use of his fingers,
and he
son of his race.
First
in
tastes.
architectural
spools, cards,
it
presently begins
studies power, the les-
appears in no great harm,
Out
of
and checkers, he
mid with the gravity tic
Then
silent.
blocks,
thread-
will build his pyra-
of Palladio.
With an
acous-
apparatus of whistle and rattle he explores the
laws of sound.
But
chiefly, like his senior country-
men, the young American studies new and speedier
modes
of transportation.
Mistrusting the cunning
of his small legs, he wishes to ride on the necks
and shoulders
of all flesh.
The small enchanter
nothing can withstand,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; no
gravity of character;
uncles,
grandams, body,
all
fall
an easy prey
conform to him
;
seniority of age,
:
aunts,
he conforms to noall
mouths and babble and chirrup strongest shoulders he rides, laurelled heads.
no
grandsires,
and
caper and to him.
make
On
the
pulls the hair of
DOMESTIC " as
The
LIFE.
childliood," said Milton, " shows the
The
morning shows the day."
man
every
103
own
his
man,
child realizes to
remembrance, and so
earliest
supplies a defect in our education, or enables us to live over the unconscious history with a
sympathy
so tender as to be almost personal experience.
Fast
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; almost too
fast for the wistful curiosity of
the parents, studious of the witchcraft of curls and
dimples and broken words to a boy.
He
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; the
little
talker grows
walks daily among wonders
moon, the
light, darkness, the
stars,
fire,
:
the furniture of
the house, the red tin horse, the domestics,
who
like
rude foster-mothers befriend and feed him, the faces that claim his kisses, are all in turn absorbing
warm,
cheerful,
sovereign subdues
new knowledge
is
them without knowing taken up into the
and becomes the means rose
is
Eden ice,
a
new
event
of
holiday
is
the
make epochs first
it
life of
yet
little ;
the
to-day
The blowing
more.
the garden full of flowers
;
over again to the small
the frost,
;
and with good appetite the
snow
in
Adam
ia his
;
is
the rain, the
life.
What
a
which Twoshoes can be
trusted abroad
What life
art can paint or gild
any object
in after-
with the glow which Nature gives to the
baubles of childhood
!
St. Peter's
first
can not have the
magical power over us that the red and gold covers of our first picture-book possessed.
How
the im-
DOMESTIC
104
warm
agination cleaves to the
even now
What
!
bright and is
their
;
poetry.
He
make every dayThe street
freshman
!
the persons aU have their sacred-
His imaginative best.
glories of that tinsel
entertainments
short for the fine
old as Nature
ness.
LIFE.
life
dresses all things in
His fears adorn the dark parts with has heard of wild horses and of bad
boys, and with a pleasing terror he watches at his
gate for the passing of those varieties of each species.
The
ride into the country, the first bath
first
in running water, the first time the skates are put on, the first
game out
of doors in moonlight, the
books of the nursery, are new chapters of joy. The " Arabian Nights' Entertainments," the " Seven of Christendom," "Robinson Crusoe," what mines of and the " Pilgrim's Progress,"
Champions
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
thought and emotion, what a wardrobe to dress the
whole world withal, are in this encyclopaedia of
young thinking
And
!
so
by beautiful
traits,
which
without art yet seem the masterpiece of wisdom,
provoking the love that watches and educates him, the
little
pilgrim prosecutes the journey through
nature which he has thus gaily begun.
up the ornament and joy to his glee, to rosy
The household as of the child.
more near and
of the house,
He
grows
which rings
boyhood. is
the
The
home
of the
man, as well
events that occur therein are
affecting to us than
those which
DOMESTIC are
souglit in senates
may
or
Domestic
and academies.
events are certainly our afPair. public events
105
LIFE.
may
What
are called
not be ours.
If
a
man
wishes to acquaint himself with the real history of the world, with the spirit of the age, he
go
first to
subtle spirit of life It
what
is
temperament, in the personal
better than fiction,
is
Do
The
facts nearer.
has the profoundest interest for us.
history, that
fact.
must be sought in
done and suffered in the house, in the
is
constitution, in the
Fact
must not
the state-house or the court-room.
if
only we could get pure
you think any rhetoric or any romance
would get your ear from the wise gypsy who could on the real fortunes of the
tell straight
man
;
who
could reconcile your moral character and your natural history
;
who could
explain your misfortunes,
your fevers, your debts, your temperament, your habits of thought, your tastes, and, in every explanation, not sever to
Is
it ?
it
you from the whole, but unite you
not plain that not in senates, or courts,
or chambers of commerce, but in the dwelling-house
must the true character and hope of the time be consulted read.
?
These facts
are, to
be sure, harder to
It is easier to count the census, or
compute
the square extent of a territory, to criticise ity,
books, art, than to
dwellings of
hope in
their
come
to the
its pol-
persons and
men and read their character and way of life. Yet we are always hov.
DOMESTIC
106
LIFE.
In one form or
ering round this better divination.
another we are always returning to it. The physiognomy and phrenology of to-day are rash and mechanical systems enough, but they rest on everlast-
We are sure that the sacred form
ing foundations. of
man
sinister
is
not seen in these whimsical, pitiful, and
masks (masks which we wear and which
we meet),
these bloated
and
shrivelled bodies, bald
heads, bead eyes, short winds, healths,
and early deaths.
puny and precarious
We
amidst
live ruins
The great facts are the near ones. The account of the body is to be sought in the mind. ruins.
The
history of your fortunes
is
written
first
in your
life.
Let us come then out
of the public square
enter the domestic precinct.
Let us go
and
to the
sit-
ting-room, the table-talk and the expenditure of our
contemporaries. soul, if it
you
An
increased consciousness of the
say, characterizes the period.
Let us see
has not only arranged the atoms at the circum-
Does the house-
ference, but the atoms at the core.
hold obey an idea
?
Do you
form, genius, and aspiration,
see the
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; in
his
man,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
economy?
his
Is
There should
that translucent, thorough-lighted?
be nothing confounding and conventional in econ-
omy, but the genius and love of the uously marked in
man
all his estate that
knew him should read
so conspic-
the eye that
his character in his property,
DOMESTIC
107
LIFE.
in
Ms
A
man's money should not follow the direction of
grounds, in his ornaments, in every expense.
his neighbor's
money, but should represent to him
the things he would willingliest do with
not one thing and
expenditure
is
stalls,
it.
expenditure another.
I
am
My
That our expenditure and our
me.
character are twain,
We
my is
the vice of society.
ask the price of
many things in shops and man buys without hes-
but some things each
itation
;
if it
were only
veyance in carriages
letters at the post-office, con-
and
boats, tools for his work,
books that are written to his condition,
him never buy anything
else
etc.
Let
than what he wants,
never subscribe at others' instance, never give unwillingly.
AU
Thus, a scholar
is
a literary foundation.
his expense is for Aristotle, Fabricius, Eras-
mus, and Petrarch. his savings
Do
not ask
him
young drapers or grocers
to help with
to stock their
shops, or eager agents to lobby in legislatures, or join a
company
to build a factory or a fishing-craft.
These things are also to be done, but not by such as he.
How
could such a book as Plato's Dia-
logues have
come down, but
of scholars
and
for the sacred savings
their fantastic
appropriation of
them? Another man
is
a mechanical genius, an inventor
of looms, a builder of ships,
dation,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; a ship-building
and could achieve nothing
if
he should
foundissi-
DOMESTIC
108
LIFE.
Another
pate himself on books or on horses.
farmer, an agricultural foundation
another
;
and the same rule holds
chemist,
for
all.
is is
a a
We
must not make believe with our money, but spend heartily,
I
am
and buy up and not down.
afraid that, so considered, our houses will
not be found to have unity and to express the best
The household,
thought.
ships, of the
citizen are
the calling, the friend-
His
not homogeneous.
house ought to show us his honest opinion of what
makes
his well-being
and forgets
dred,
even exertion of
when he
all afEecfcation, will.
He
among
rests
his kin-
compliance, and
brings
home whatever
commodities and ornaments have for years allured his pursuit,
and
his character
But what idea predominates first,
must be seen
the roofs, from street to street, and
The
Thrift
in our houses ?
then convenience and pleasure.
find the temple of
in them.
we
Take
off all
shall
seldom
any higher god than Prudence.
progress of domestic living has been in clean-
liness,
in ventilation, in health, in
countless
means and
aU They
decorum, in
arts of comfort, in the concen-
tration of
the utilities of every clime in each
house.
are arranged for low benefits.
The we
houses of the rich are confectioners' shops, where get sweetmeats
and wine
;
the houses of the poor
are imitations of these to the extent of their ability.
With
these ends housekeeping
is
not beautiful
;
it
DOMESTIC
109
LIFE.
eteers and raises neither the hushand, the wife, nor the child presses
dence
;
neither the host nor the guest
is
we look
dangerous.
;
is
op-
it
a house kept to the
impossible to all but a few
is
their success
If
;
kept to the end of pru-
laborious without joy
end of display
and
A house
women.
women,
dearly bought.
at this matter curiously, it
becomes
We need all the force of an idea to lift
this load, for the
wealth and multiplication of con-
veniences embarrass us, especially in northern
The
mates. this
rugged climate appaUs us by the multitude of
things not easy to be done.
And
the multitude of particulars, one
housekeeping
is
impossible
thing to dwell with lies
cli-
shortest enumeration of our wants in
where there
is
;
if
would say
order
is
men and women. is
:
at
Good
too precious a
both substance and
expense any favorite punctuality
you look
See, in famitaste, at
what
maintained.
If
the children, for example, are considered, dressed, dieted, attended, kept in proper
and
at
home
fostered
company, schooled,
by the parents,
the hospitality of the house suffer
;
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; then
does
friends are less
carefully bestowed, the daily table less catered.
If
the hours of meals are punctual, the apartments are slovenly. fine
If the linens
and hangings are clean and
and the furniture good, the yard, the garden,
the fences are neglected.
If all are well attended,
then must the master and mistress be studious
ol
DOMESTIC
110
LIFE.
particulars at the cost of their
ments and growth;
or persons
own
accomplish-
are treated
as
things.
The
admitted to
be overcome must be freely
difficulties to ;
many and
they are
great.
Nor
are they
be disposed of by any criticism or amendment of
by the
particulars taken one at a time, but only
arrangement of the household to a higher end than
and
those to which our dweUings are usually buUt
And
furnished.
there any calamity
is
more grave,
or that more invokes the best good-will to remove it,
than this ?
and aim
to
no beauty
see
to hear
;
—
compelled to
be disgusted
;
go from chamber to chamber to find in the housemates
an endless chatter and blast criticise
;
;
to be
to hear only to dissent
and to
to find no invitation to what
:
lodging, of
is
good
—
this and no receptacle for what is wise a great price to pay for sweet bread and warm
in us, is
no
;
— being defrauded
genial culture,
of affinity, of repose,
and the inmost presence
of
beauty. It
is
a sufficient accusation of our ways of living,
and certainly ought to open our ear to every goodminded reformer, that our idea of domestic wellbeing now needs wealth to execute it. Give me the means, says the wife, and your house shall not an-
noy your this
taste nor waste your time.
we understand how
these
On
hearing
Means have come
to
DOMESTIC
Ill
LIFE.
And
be so omnipotent on earth.
indeed the love of
wealth seems to grow chiefly out of the root of the
The
love of the Beautiful.
and and
desire of gold
We
benefit.
scorn shifts
gance of munificence stint or limit
pendents
;
we
means of freedom
It is the
household-stuff.
;
we
not for
is
much wheat and wool
It is not the love of
gold.
we
;
desire the ele-
desire at least to put
on our parents,
no
relatives, guests or de-
desire to play the benefactor
and the
prince with our townsmen, with the stranger at the
man
gate, with the bard or the beauty, with the
woman
who
of worth
can we do
this, if
or
How
alights at our door.
the wants of each day imprison
us in lucrative labors, and constraiu us to a continual vigilance lest
we be betrayed
into expense ?
Give us wealth, and the home shall that
exist.
the problem, and therefore no solution.
You
wealthr
Men
and
man
in getting wealth the
and often
wealth at
answer is
a
;
last.
is
sacrificed
The wise man
and with no meaner
is
generally sacri-
without
acquiring
bait.
money
to wealth.
Wealth
angles with himself only,
Our whole
needs revision and reform. consist ia giving
wealth,
are not born rich
Besides, that cannot be the right
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; there are objections
shift.
" Give us
Few have
ask too much.
but aU must have a home.
ficed,
But
a very imperfect and inglorious solution of
is
use of wealth
Generosity does not
or money's worth.
These
DOMESTIC
112
To
goods are only the shadow of good.
so-called
money
give
LIFE.
to a sufferer is only a come-off.
It is
only a postponement of the real payment, a bribe paid for silence, a credit-system in which a paper
promise to pay answers for the time instead of
and
liqui-
We owe to man higher succors than food We owe to man man. If he is sick, is
dation. fire.
unable,
is
mean-spirited and odious,
it
is
there
so
much
is
unlawfully
is
of his nature
withholden from him.
He
which
because
should be visited in this
his prison with rebuke to the evil demons, with
manly encouragement, with no mean-spirited of condolence because offer of
money
offer
you have not money, or mean
as the utmost benefit, but
bring with you that spirit which
To
is
by your
You
heroism, your purity, and your faith.
are to
understanding,
him money in lieu of these is to do him the same wrong as when the bridegroom offers his betrothed virgin a sum of money to release him from his engagements. The health and self-help.
offer
great depend on their heart, not on their purse.
Genius and virtue, set,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
in history
captains rates,
like
diamonds, are best plain-
set in lead, set in poverty.
was the
and sages
poorest.
How
of Greece
with Epaminondas
?
The
greatest
was
it
man
with the
and Rome, with SocAristides
was made
general receiver of Greece, to collect the tribute
which each state was to furnish against the barba-
DOMESTIC
" Poor," says Plutarch, "
rlan,
when he had
poorer
it,
113
LIFE.
when he
with -^milius and Cato
about
set
How
finished it."
was
it
"What kind of a house
?
was kept by Paul and John, by Milton and Mar-
by Samuel Johnson, by Samuel Adams in
veil,
Boston, and Jean Paul Richter at Baireuth ? I think
and
ages,
plain that this voice of communities
it '
Give us wealth, and the good household
shall exist,' is vicious,
and leaves the whole
culty untouched.
is better,
form,
It
Give us your
'
I see not
gins.'
and every day,
and the household be-
labor,
how
is to
diffi-
certainly, in this
serious labor, the labor of all
be avoided
;
and many things
betoken a revolution of opinion and practice in
may go far Another age may
regard to manual labor that
to aid our
practical inquiry.
divide the
manual labor
members
of the world
of society,
and
more equally on aU the so
make
the labors of a
few hours avail to the wants and add to the vigor
man.
of the
But the reform that
the household must not be partial.
applies itself to It
must correct
the whole system of our social living.
It
with plain living and high thinking
it
up
caste,
dation.
;
must come
must break
and put domestic service on another founIt
must come in connection with a true
acceptance by each
man
of
his
vocation,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; not
chosen by his parents or friends, but by his genius, with earnestness and love.
VOU
VII.
8
DOMESTIC
114
Nor
is this
tainly, if
LIFE.
redress so hopeless as
it
Cer-
seems.
particulars of our
we begin by reforming
present system, correcting a few evils and letting
the rest stand,
we
For our
social
forms are very far
equity.
But the way
the tree
is
shall soon give
up in despair. from truth and
to set the axe at the root of
Let us understand
to raise our aim.
then that a house should bear witness in
economy that human culture is
built
and garnished.
is
sleep
:
it
less
noble
It is not for festivity, it is not for
but the pine and the oak shall gladly descend
from the mountains as faithful
to
uphold the roof of
and necessary as themselves
;
to
which shines with
sincerity,
men
be the
open to good and true persons ;
shelter always
hall
its
under the
It stands there
sun and moon to ends analogous, and not than theirs.
all
the end to which
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;a
brows ever tran-
and a demeanor impossible to disconcert whose iomates know what they want who do not quil,
;
ask your house
how
theirs should
have aims they cannot pause for ;
of the house does not create
its
trifles.
order, but knowl-
edge, character, action, absorb so yield so
much
much
life
and
entertainment that the refectory has
ceased to be so curiously studied. of
They The diet
be kept.
aim has followed a change
With a change
of the whole scale
by
which men and things were wont to be measured,
Wealth and poverty are seen for what they
are,
DOMESTIC
115
LIFE. **
•"•"•it.-
It begins to be seen that tbe poor are only they
who The
feel poor, rich, as
very
rich,
and poverty
—
in a true scale
the
would be found very
The great make us
indigent and ragged. first of all,
consists in feeling poor.
we reckon them, and among them
They
the iadifference of circumstances.
and sub-
call into activity the higher perceptions
due the low habits of comfort and luxury
feel,
;
but the
higher perceptions find their objects everywhere
only the low habits need palaces and banquets.
Let a man, then,
My
say.
house
here in the
is
county, for the culture of the county
;
— an
house and sleeping-house for travellers but
it
shall
be much more.
I pray you,
and me
lent wife, not to ciunber yourself
rich dinner for this
man
eatiag-
shall be,
O
excel-
to get a
woman who
or this
alighted at our gate, nor a bedchamber at too great a cost.
it
These things,
has
made ready
they are curi-
if
ous in them, they can get for a doUar at any lage.
But
looks, in
and
let
he
this stranger, if
will, in
Aril-
your
your accent and behavior, read your heart
earnestness, your thought
and wiU, which he
cannot buy at any price, in any village or city
and which he may well
travel fifty miles,
and dine
sparely and sleep hard in order to behold. tainly, let the
board be spread and
dressed for the traveller
;
but
let
let
Cer-
the bed be
not the emphasis
of hospitality lie in these things.
Honor
to the
DOMESTIC
116
LIFE.
house where they are simple to the verge of hardship, so that there the intellect is
awake and reads
the laws of the universe, the soul worships truth
and
love,
honor and courtesy flow into aU deeds.
There was never a country in the world which coidd so easily exhibit this heroism as ours
any where the State has made such
;
never
efficient provis-
ion for popular education, where intellectual enter-
tainment
is
so within reach of youthful ambition.
The poor man's son is educated. There is many a humble house in every city, in every town, where talent and taste and sometimes genius dwell with poverty and labor. Who has not seen, and who can see
immoved, under a low
roof, the eager,
blushing
boys discharging as they can their household chores,
and hastening
into the sitting-room to the study of
to-morrow's merciless lesson, yet stealing time to
read one chapter more of the novel hardly smuggled into the tolerance of father
for the
smith
;
and mother,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; atoning
same by some pages of Plutarch or Goldthe
warm sympathy
with which they kindle
each other in sohool-yard or in barn or wood-shed
with scraps of poetry or song, with phrases of the last oration, or
mimicry of the orator
the youthful
;
on Sunday, of the sermons
criticism,
;
the school
declamation faithfully rehearsed at home, sometimes to the fatigue, sometimes to the admiration of sisters
;
the
first solitary
joys of literary vanity.
DOMESTIC when the
317
LIFE.
theme has been com-
translation or the
pleted, sitting alone near the top of the house
;
the
cautious comparison of the attractive advertisement
Kemble, or weU-known speaker, with the
of the arrival of Macready, Booth, or of the discourse of a
expense of the entertainment light with
;
the affectionate de-
which they greet the return of each one
after the early separations
require
;
which school or business
the foresight with which,
during such
absences, they hive the honey which opportunity offers, for
the ear and imagination of the others
and the unrestrained glee with which they disburden themselves of
their early mental treasures
the holidays bring
them again together ?
the hoop that holds
them stanch ?
when
What
is
It is the iron
band of poverty, of necessity, of austerity, which, excludiug them from the sensual enjoyments which
make
other boys too early old, has directed their
activity in safe
and
right channels,
and made them,
despite themselves, reverers of the grand, the beautiful,
they
Ah
and the good.
of books, of Nature,
know
dom from
!
short-sighted
and of man
their advantages.
!
They pine
that mild parental yoke
;
and
Woe
if
to
them
dissipation,
their wishes
angels that dwell with
for free-
they sigh for
fine clothes, for rides, for the theatre,
ture freedom
students
too happy, could
and prema-
which others were crowned
possess. !
them and are weaving
The lau-
DOMESTIC
118
rels of life for their
LIFE.
youthful brows, are Toil and
Want, and Truth, and Mutual Faith. In many parts of true economy a cheering lesson may be learned from the mode of life and manners of the later
Komans,
as described to us in the letters
of the younger Pliny.
Nor can
tation of quoting so trite
I resist the temp-
an instance as the noble
housekeeping of Lord Falkland in Clarendon " His :
house being within
little
more than ten miles from
Oxford, he contracted familiarity and friendship with the most polite and accurate versity,
men
of that Uni-
who found such an immenseness of wit and
such a solidity of judgment in him, so infinite a fancy,
bound
in
by a most logical
ratiocination, such
a vast knowledge that he was not ignorant in anything, yet such
known
an excessive humility, as
if
he had
nothing, that they frequently resorted
and
dwelt with him, as ia a college situated in a purer air; so that his house
was a university in a
volume, whither they came, not so as study,
and
to
examiue and
propositions which laziness
much
less
for repose
refine those grosser
and consent made
cur-
rent in vulgar conversation."
I honor that
man whose
ambition
it is,
not to win
laurels in the state or the army, not to be a jurist
or a naturalist, not to be a poet or a commander,
but to be a master of living well, and to administer the offices of master or servant, of husband, father,
DOMESTIC and
But
friend.
power for the same. it
of
—
as
the reason for the failure
is
I think the vice of our housekeeping
is
this as for those other functions,
much, or more, that
much breadth
requires as
it
119
LIFE.
— and
does not hold
man
The
sacred.
vice of gov-
ernment, the vice of education, the vice of religion, is
one with that of private
In the old
fables
life.
we used
brought from fairy-land as a
to read of a cloak
gift for the fairest
purest in Prince Arthur's court. prize
whom
try
on, but
it
it
would
it
fit.
would
fit
It
was
and
to be her
Every one was eager to nobody
a world too wide, for the next ground, and for the third
it
it
for one
:
it
was
dragged on the
shrunk to a
scarf.
They, of course, said that the devil was in the mantle,
for really the truth
was in the mantle, and was
exposing the ugliness which each would fain conceal.
All drew back with terror from the garment.
The innocent Genelas
alone could wear
it.
In like
man is provided in his thought with man which he applies to every passenUnhappily, not one in many thousands comes
manner, every a measure of ger.
up
and proportions
to the stature
of the model.
Neither does the measurer himself; neither do the people in the street uals
whom
When he their
;
neither do the select individ-
he admires,
inspects
them
— the heroes
critically,
of
the race.
he discovers that
aims are low, that they are too quickly satis
DOMESTIC
120
He
fied.
LIFE.
observes the swiftness
with which
life
culminates, and the humility of the expectations of
To each occurs,
the greatest part of men.
soon after
the age of puberty, some event or society or of living,
which becomes the
chief fact in their history.
marriage (which
is
life
In woman,
it is
more reasonable)
and measure
pitiful to date
crisis of
;
way
and the love
and yet
and it is
the facts and sequel
all
and gen-
of an unfolding life from such a youthful
erally inconsiderate period as the age of courtship
In men,
and marriage.
it is
their place of educa-
an employment, settlement in a town,
tion, choice of
or removal to the East or to the West, or some other magnified
trifle
moment, and aU the
which makes the meridian
after years
and actions only
derive interest from their relation to that. it
Hence
comes that we soon catch the trick of each man's
conversation,
and knowing
facts, anticipate
that rises.
It
two or three main
his
what he thinks of each new topic
is
scarcely less perceivable in edu-
cated men, so called, than in the uneducated.
have seen finely endowed ten,
men
twenty years after they had
turning, as
away. tickled
;
thither
masks
left the
seemed, the same boys
haUs, re-
who went
The same jokes pleased, the same straws the manhood and offices they brought at
;
it
I
at college festivals,
this
return seemed
mere ornamental
underneath they were boys
yet.
"We nevei
DOMESTIC come
to
gers,
who think
is
a
121
LIFE.
be citizens of the world, but are
little
that every thing in their petty
town
same thing anywhere
else.
superior to the
In each the circumstance signalized each
made
is
it
In one,
tism.
still villa-
it
differs,
but in
the coals of an ever-burning ego-
was
his going to sea
;
in a second,
the difficulties he combated in going to coUege
;
in
a third, his journey to the West, or his voyage to
Canton
;
in a fourth, his
Society
;
in a fifth, his
sixth, his
tions is
a
;
coming out of the Quaker
new
diet
and regimen
;
in a
coming forth from the abolition organiza-
and in a seventh,
life of
toys
and
his going into them.
trinkets.
We
It
are too easily
pleased.
I think this sad result appears in the manners.
The men we
see in each other do not give us the
image and likeness of man. are whipped through the world
The men we ;
see
they are harried,
wrinkled, anxious ; they all seem the hacks of some invisible riders.
quUlity
not
!
know
How
We have
seldom do we behold tran-
never yet seen a man.
We do
the majestic manners that belong to him,
which appease and exalt the beholder. no divine persons with
us,
hasten to be divine.
And
yet
we hold
our lives long, a faith in a better
men, in clean and noble
There are
and the multitude do not
life,
fast, all
in better
relations, notwithstanding
our total inexperience of a true society.
Certainly
DOMESTIC
122 this
with
LIFE.
was not the intention of nature, to produce, all this
immense expenditure
of
power, so cheap and humble a result. tions in the heart after the better,
means and
The
aspira-
good and true teach us
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; nay, the men themselves suggest a better
life.
Every individual nature has
One
its
own
beauty.
struck in every company, at every fireside,
is
with the riches of nature, when he hears so
new
many
tones, all musical, sees in each person original
manners, which have a proper and peculiar charm,
and reads new expressions of
face.
He
perceives
that nature has laid for each the foundations of
a divine building,
There
is
no
face,
if
the soul wiU build thereon.
no form, which one cannot in
fancy associate with great power of intellect or
In our experience, to be
with generosity of soul. sure,
of
beauty
man and
Beauty
is,
is
of
not, as it
woman
ought to be, the dower
as invariably as sensation.
even in the beautiful, occasional,
as one has said, culminating
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
or,
and perfect only a
moment, before which
it is unripe, and after But beauty is never quite absent from our eyes. Every face, every figure, suggests its own right and sound estate. Our
single
which
it is
on the wane.
friends are not their
own
highest form.
But
let
the hearts they have agitated witness what power
has lurked in the traits of these structures of clay
DOMESTIC and repass us
that pass
!
123
LIFE.
The
power of form
secret
over the imagination and affections transcends
The
our philosophy. isfy us that
than
its
matter
is
first
glance
we meet may
all
sat-
the vehicle of higher powers
own, and that no laws of line or surface
can ever account for the inexhaustible expressive-
"We
ness of form.
see heads that turn
on the pivot
of the spine,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; no
seem
on a pivot as deep as the axle of the
to turn
world,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
We see
so slow,
on the
more
and
lip of
;
and we
lazily,
and
see heads that
great, they move.
our companion the presence
or absence of the great masters of thought and
We read in his brow, on
poetry to his mind. ing him after
many
him, or that he has
years, that he is
made
meet-
where we
left
great strides.
Whilst thus nature and the hints we draw from
man
suggest a true and lofty
to the
we
life,
a household equal
beauty and grandeur of this world, especially
learn the same lesson from those best relations
to individual
men which the heart is always promptHappy will that house be in which
ing us to form.
the relations are formed from character highest, in
and not
after the lowest order
;
;
after the
the house
which character marries, and not confusion and
a miscellany of unavowable motives.
Then
shall
marriage be a covenant to secure to either party the sweetness and honor of being a calm, continuing, inevitable benefactor to the other.
Yes, and
DOMESTIC
124
LIFE.
the sufficient reply to the skeptic
who doubts the
man
to be elevated is
competence of in that desire
to elevate
and power
and
to stand in joyful
and
en-
nobling intercourse with individuals, which makes the faith and the practice of
The ornament quent
There
it.
appearance of
of a house is
all is
reasonable men.
the friends
no event greater in
new persons about our
life
who
fre-
than the
hearth, except
be the progress of the character which draws
it
added by Landor to his man, " It is he who can call
It has been finely
them.
definition of the great
together the most select
A
him."
company when it pleases Greek Menander re-
verse of the old
mains, which rtms in translation
:
—
" Not on the store of sprightly wiue.
Nor plenty of delicious meats, Though generous Nature did design To court us with perpetual treats, 'T
is
not on these
So much It
is
we
as on the
—
for content depend,
shadow of a Friend."
the happiness which, where
known, postpones aU other
it
is
truly
and makes
satisfactions,
and commerce and churches cheap. For do we not ? that when men shall meet as they should, as states meet,
politics
we
figure to ourselves,
—
—
each a benefactor, a shower of falling with deeds, with thoughts, with so ment,
—
it
shall
—
stars, so rich
much
accomplish-
be the festival of nature, which
al]
DOMESTIC things symbolize
125
LIFE.
and perhaps Love
;
seem symbols of
is
only the
aU other things
highest symbol of Friendship, as
In the progress of each
love.
man's character, his relations to the best men, which
seem only the romances of youth, acquire a
at first
graver importance lesson of life
who
;
and he
is skilful
will
have learned the
in the ethics of friend-
ship.
Beyond its primary ends of the conjugal, parenand amicable relations, the household should
tal,
cherish the beautiful arts and the sentiment of veneration.
1.
Whatever brings the dweUer
what educates his purifies
And
yet let
and seek
him not think
is
life,
whatever
and enlarges him, may well find place
ful objects
let
into a finer
eye, or ear, or hand,
there.
that a property in beauti-
necessary to his apprehension of them,
to turn his house into a
museum.
Rather
the noble practice of the Greeks find place in
our society, and
let
the creations of the plastic arts
be collected with care in galleries by the piety and taste of the people, light to aU. artists
and yielded as freely
Meantime, be
ourselves,
it
as the sun-
remembered, we are
and competitors, each
one, with
Phidias and Raphael in the production of what graceful or grand. heart,
The
fountain of beauty
and every generous thought
is
is
the
illustrates the
DOMESTIC
126
LIFE.
Why
walls of your chamber.
we owe
should
power of attracting our friends
to pictures
Why
cameos and architecture?
vases, to
out
and
should
showmen and appendages If by to our fine houses and our works of art? love and nobleness we take up into ourselves the beauty we admire, we shall spend it again on all around us. The man, the woman, needs not the we convert ourselves
into
embellishment of canvas and marble, whose every act is a subject for the sculptor,
and
to
whose eye
the gods
and nymphs never appear
know by
heart the whole instinct of majesty.
ancient, for they
I do not undervalue the fine instruction which statues
and pictures
museum
But
give.
town
in each
private house of this charge of
ing them.
I go to
I think the public
will one
Rome and
day
see
exhibit-
on the walls of
by Ra-
the Vatican the Transfiguration, painted
phael, reckoned the first picture in the world in the Sistine
Chapel I see the grand
prophets, painted in fresco
the
relieve
owning and
sibyls
;
or
and
by Michel Angelo,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
which have every day now for three hundred years inflamed the imagination and exalted the piety of
what vast multitudes of men of to bring
home
to
all
nations
!
my children and my friends
of these admirable forms,
shops of the engravers ation of owning them.
;
I wish copies
which I can find in the
but I do not wish the vexI wish to find in
my own
DOMESTIC
127
LIFE.
town a library and museum which where I can deposit
of the town, ure,
where I and
to time,
my
the property
children can see
it
from time
among such donations from other citizens who
and where
hundreds of
is
this precious treas-
it
has
its
proper place
have brought thither whatever
articles
they have
judged to be in their nature rather a public than a private property.
A collection
of this kind, the property of each
town, would dignify the town, and
we should
love
and respect our neighbors more. Obviously, it would be easy for every town to discharge this truly municipal duty. Every one of us would gladly contribute his share
and the more gladly,
;
the more considerable the institution had become.
2. Certainly,
not
from
aloof
homage
this
to
beauty, but in strict connection therewith, the house
wiU come guage
to
be esteemed a Sanctuary.
of a ruder age has given to
maxim
that every man's house
progress of truth will
to
him ?
is to
Will he not
accident, that
Law
the
see,
own unsounded
and
:
shrine.
see
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; how near
how it is
through aU he miscalls
prevails for ever
his private being is a part of it
in his
the
his eyes
the soul of Nature,
lan-
his castle
is
make every house a
Will not man one day open dear he
The
common law
heart
;
;
and ever
that
its
;
that
home
is
that his economy, his
DOMESTIC
128 labor, his
LIFE.
good and bad fortune, his health and
manners are all a curious and exact demonstration
in
miniature of the Genius of the Eternal Providence ?
When
he perceives the Law, he ceases to despond.
Whilst he sees
it,
every thought and act
is raised,
act of religion. Does the consecraSunday confess the desecration of the entire Does the consecration of the church con-
and becomes an tion of
week ?
house?
fess the profanation of the
the incantation backward.
Let the man stand on
Let religion cease
his feet.
Let us read
to be occasional
;
and
the pulses of thought that go to the borders of the universe, let
them proceed from the bosom
of the
Household.
These are the consolations, to
which the household
is
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; these are the ends
instituted
and the rooftree
If these are sought
and in any good degree
attained, can the State, can
commerce, can climate,
stands.
can the labor of
many for one,
or half as good?
weak and
yield anything better,
Beside these aims. Society
the State an intrusion.
is
I think that the
heroism which at this day would make on us the impression of Epaminondas and Phocion must be that of a domestic conqueror.
and gracefully subdue
He who
and Fashion, and show men how handsome, and heroic
ments of our
cities
and
shall bravely
this Grorgon of
life
Convention
to lead
a clean,
amid the beggarly
villages
;
whoso
ele-
shall teach
DOMESTIC me how
to eat
my meat
LIFE.
and take
129
my
repose and
deal with, men, without any shame following, will restore the life of
own name dear VOL. vu.
man
to splendor,
to all history. s
and make
his
FAKMING
FAKMING.
The
glory of the farmer
of labors, last
it is
on his primitive
nature
;
is that,
He
activity.
in the division
All trade rests at
his part to create.
stands close to
he obtains from the earth the bread and
toric
The food which was not, he causes to The first farmer was the first man, and all hisnobility rests on possession and use of land.
Men
do not like hard work, but every
the meat. be.
man
has an
exceptional respect for tillage, and a feeHng that this is the original calling of his race, that self is
only excused from
it
which made him delegate hands.
If he have not
mends him
to the farmer,
the farmer will give
he him-
by some circumstance for a time to other
it
some
skill
which recom-
some product for which
him corn, he must himself reamong the planters. And
turn into his due place
the profession has in all eyes
standing nearest to God, the
Then
its
first
ancient charm, as cause.
the beauty of nature, the tranquillity
and
innocence of the countryman, his independence, and his pleasing arts,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; the care of
bees, of poultry, of
FARMING.
134
sheep, of cows, the dairy, the care of hay, of fruits,
and the reaction of these on
of orchards and forests,
him a strength and plain
the workman, in giving
dignity like the face and manners of nature,
men
men keep
All
acknowledge.
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
all
the farm in
reserve as an asylum where, in case of mischance, to hide their poverty,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; or
a solitude,
glances of remorse are turned this
bankrupts of
and
courts
trade,
senates, or
and pleasure?
way from
the
from mortified pleaders in
from the victims of
Poisoned by town
vices, the sufferer resolves
whom
they do
if
And who knows how many
not succeed in society.
:
'
my
Well,
idleness
and town
life
children,
I have injured, shall go back to the land, to
be recruited and cured by that which should have
been
my
The
nursery,
and now
farmer's office
you must not try
to paint
cannot
make
tation,
whose minister he
necessities.
be their hospital.'
shall
precise
is
and important, but
him
in rose-color
pretty compliments to fate is.
He
makes
you
represents the
It is the beauty of the great
of the world that
;
and gravi-
his comeliness.
economy
He
bends
to the order of the seasons, the weather, the soUs
and
He out,
crops, as the sails of a ship
bend
to the wind.
represents continuous hard labor, year in, year
and small
to nature,
gains.
and not to
He is
a slow person, timed
city watches.
He
pace of seasons, plants, and chemistry.
takes the
Nature
FARMING. never hurries
atom by atom,
:
achieves her work.
The
135 little
by
little,
ing, yachting, hunting, or planting, is the
of Nature; patience with the delays of sun, delays of the seasons,
lack of water, feet,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; patience
she
lesson one learns in fish-
manners
wind and
bad weather, excess or
with the slowness of our
with the parsimony of our strength, with the
we must
traverse, etc.
to Nature,
and acquires
largeness of sea and land
The farmer times himself
that livelong patience which belongs to her.
narrow man,
his rule is that the earth shall feed
and clothe him
;
and he must wait
His entertainments, his
grow.
spending must be on a farmer's merchant's.
Slow,
It
were as
for his crop to
liberties scale,
false for
and
his
and not on a
farmers to use a
wholesale and massy expense, as for states to use a
minute economy.
But
if
thus pinched on one side,
he has compensatory advantages.
He is
clings to his land as the rocks do.
where I
live,
;
and most
still
of
the
(in 1635), should they reappear on
the farms to-day, would find their
names
In the town
farms remain in the same families for
seven and eight generations first settlers
permanent,
in possession.
And
own blood and
the like fact holds
in the surrounding towns.
This hard work wiU always be done by one kind of
man
diers,
;
not by scheming speculators, nor by
nor professors, nor readers of Tennyson
;
sol-
but
FARMING.
136
by men of endurance
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; deep-chested,
long-winded,
The farmer has
tough, slow and sure, and timely.
a great health, and the appetite of health, and
means
wood
end
to his
;
he has broad lands for his home,
burn great
to
milk at least
is
fires,
plenty of plaiu food
unwatered ; and for
cheaper and better and more of
He
it
sleep,
than
;
his
he has
citizens.
has grave trusts confided to him.
In the
great household of Nature, the farmer stands at
the door of the bread-room, and weighs to each his loaf.
It is for
marry or
not.
him
to say
of births are indissolubly connected with of food
mouth."
;
or, as
is
is
said, "
Burke
Then he
The farmer farm
men
whether
shall
Early marriages and the number
is
Man
abundance
breeds at the
the Board of Quarantine.
a hoarded capital of health, as the
the capital of wealth
;
and
that the health and power, moral of the cities came.
from the country.
it
and
is
from him
intellectual,
The city is always recruited The men in cities who are the
centres of energy, the driving-wheels of trade, politics,
or practical arts, and the
women
of beauty
and genius, are the children or grandchildren
of
farmers, and are spending the energies which their fathers' hardy, silent life
accumulated in frosty fur-
rows, in poverty, necessity, and darkness.
He
is
the continuous benefactor.
He who
digs
a well, constructs a stone fountain, plants a grove
FARMING.
137
by the roadside, plants an orchard, builds a durable house, reclaims a swamp, or so much as puts a stone seat by the wayside, makes the land of trees
so far lovely
and
desirable,
makes a fortune which
he cannot carry away with him, but which to his
is
useful
The man
country long afterwards.
that
works at home helps society
at large with some-
what more
he who devotes him-
of certainty than
self to charities.
If
ical
be true that, not by votes
it
by the eternal laws
of political parties but
of polit-
economy, slaves are driven out of a slave State
as fast as
it is
surrounded by free States, then the
true abolitionist
is
the farmer, who, heedless of
laws and constitutions, stands
day in the
all
investing his labor in the land, and
field,
making a prod-
uct with which no forced labor can compete.
We
commonly say
that the rich
man can speak
the truth, can afford honesty, can afford indepen-
dence of opinion and action ory of nobility.
But
it
is
;
the rich
sense, that is to say, not the
and large expenditure, but outlay
is less
tie
factories, the
the thread
dicate that a thread
And
man
is
man
is
the the-
in a true
of large income
solely the
than his income and
In English loom, to
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; and that
is
man whose
steadUy kept
so.
boy that watches the
when the wheel broken,
is
stops to in-
called a minder.
in this great factory of our Copernican globe,
shifting its slides, rotating its constellations, times,
FARMING.
138
and
tides,
bringing
now
the day of planting, then
of watering, then of weeding, then of reaping, then of curing
and
His machine
storing,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; the farmer arms
eter of the water-wheel, the
power of the battery, are out of ure
and
;
and
it
takes
him long This
working.
its
screws are never loose
gear
wear
and
the vat
;
out,
Who nor the
the minder.
is
of colossal proportions
is
;
the diam-
of the levers, the
all
mechanic meas-
to understand its parts
pump this
;
never " sucks ; " these
machine
is
and
piston, wheels
never out of tires,
never
Not the
Irish,
but are self-repairing.
are the farmer's servants ? coolies,
quarry of the
but Geology and Chemistry, the
air,
the water of the brook, the light-
ning of the cloud, the castings of the worm, the
plough of the
frost.
Long
before he was
bom,
the
sun of ages decomposed the rocks, mellowed his land, soaked
it
with light and heat, covered
it
with
vegetable film, then with forests, and accumulated the
sphagnum whose decays made the peat
of his
meadow. Science has shown the great circles in which
nature works
;
the manner in which marine plants
balance the marine animals, as the land plants supply the oxygen which the animals consume, and the animals the carbon which the plants absorb.
These
activities are incessant.
a method of all for each
Nature works on
and each for
all.
The
FARMING. strain that is
made on one
139
point bears on every
arch and foundation of the structure.
You
perfect solidarity.
from ity,
its
There
is
a
cannot detach an atom
holdings, or strip off from
the electric-
it
gravitation, chemic affinity, or the relation to
light
and
heat,
brings with
and leave the atom
it its
universal
bare.
No,
it
ties.
ties up her estate aU on one generation, but has
Nature, like a cautious testator, so as not to bestow
it
a forelooking tenderness and equal regard to the next and the next, and the fourth and the fortieth
There
age.
lie
eternal rocks, as
we caU them, have held
gen or lime undiminished, particle of
The
the inexhaustible magazines.
their oxy-
No
entire, as it was.
oxygen can rust or wear, but has the
same energy
as
on the
first
the sacred power as
we
failed of our trust,
and now,
mense day the hour
is
received
at last
we have hoarded, mingle
it
The good
morning.
rocks, those patient waiters, say to
'
We have
We
have not
him
it.
:
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; when our imstruck â&#x20AC;&#x201D; take the gas in
with water, and
let it
be free to grow in plants and animals and obey the thought of man.'
The
earth works for
him the earth ;
which jdelds almost gratuitous service plication of intellect.
turer of
ment
soil.
begins.
Every plant
is
is
a machine
to every ap-
a manufac-
In the stomach of the plant develop-
The
tree can
draw on the whole
air,
FARMING.
140
The plant
the whole earth, on all the rolling main. is
aU
suction-pipe,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
from the
its root,
imbibing from the ground by
by
air
its
leaves, with
aU
its
might.
The
air
works for him. The atmosphere, a sharp
and
solvent, drinks the essence
on the globe, mountains into
As
the sea
is
the air
is
spring,
and
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;a
spirit of
every solid
menstruum which melts the is matter subdued by heat.
Air
it.
the grand receptacle of all rivers, so
from which
the receptacle into
which they
takes form and
ible
and creeping
Our
senses are skeptics,
air
all
things
The
all return.
invis-
solid mass.
and believe only the im-
and do not believe the
pression of the moment,
chemical fact that these huge mountain-chains are
made up
and
of gases
as subtle as she
day by day
;
But Nature
She turns her
AU things
immovable.
passing into smoke. rials
rolling wind.
strong.
is
capital
deals never with dead, but ever with
quick subjects. that seem
is
The
are flowing, even those
The adamant
is
always
plants imbibe the mate-
which they want from the
air
and the ground.
They bum, that is, exhale and decompose their own bodies into the air and earth again. The animal burns, or undergoes the like perpetual consumption.
The earth bums,
and decompose,
the mountains burn
slower, but incessantly.
It is
most inevitable to push the generalization up
al-
into
FARMING.
141
higher parts of nature, rank over rank into sen-
Nations burn with internal
tient beings.
thought and affection, which wastes while
We shall find finer combustion a
tellect is
fire
:
rash and pitiless
derful bone-house which even, as
it is
Whilst
all
and
is
the greatest good,
thus bums,
it
called is
it
of
fire
works.
finer fuel.
In-
melts this won-
man.
Genius
the greatest harm.
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; the universe a blaze â&#x20AC;&#x201D; needs a the in
kindled from the torch of
sun,
per-
it
petual tempering, a phlegm, a sleep, atmospheres of azote, deluges of water, to check the fury of the
conflagration; a hoarding to check the spending,
a centripetenee equal to the centrifugence
;
and
this is invariably supplied.
The there
railroad dirt-cars are good excavators, but
is
no porter like Gravitation, who will bring
down any weights which man cannot if
he wants
laborers.
aid,
knows where
Water works
in masses,
and
transports vast boulders of rock in
thousand miles.
But
on
becoming
talent of
and
feUow
sets its ir-
your mills or your ships, or
resistible shoulder to
its
carry,
to find his
its
smallest holes and pores.
far greater little,
By
its
iceberg a
power depends
and entering the
this agency, carrying
in solution elements needful to every plant, the
vegetable world exists.
But
as I said,
rose -color.
we must not paint the farmer
in
Whilst these grand energies have
FARMING.
142
wrought for him and made is
habitually engaged in small economies,
and
the force of a few simple arrangements
stance, the powers of a fence.
On
At
for in-
the prairie you
wander a hundred miles and hardly a stone.
;
is
Great
taught the power that lurks in petty things. is
he
his task possible,
find a stick or
rare intervals a thin oak-opening has
been spared, and every such section has been long
But the farmer manages
occupied.
from
far,
sprout and the oaks
and
by the roadside, and
allowed to ripen.
and for
fifty
was only browsing
Draw
Plant
fruit-
wiU never be
their fruit
a pine fence about them,
There
is
a great deal of enchant-
in a chestnut rail or picketed pine boards.
Nature
suggests
every
somewhere on a great
and
wood
years they mature for the owner their
delicate fruit.
ment
It
rise.
which had kept them down.
fire
trees
to procure
puts up a rail-fence, and at once the seeds
it
economical
scale.
expedient
Set out a pine-tree,
dies in the first year, or lives a poor spindle.
But Nature drops a pine-cone in Mariposa, and it lives fifteen centuries, grows three or four hundred feet high,
and
thirty in diameter,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; grows
grove of giants, like a colonnade of Thebes. the tree
how
it
was done.
ridge, but in a basin,
where
It did not it
self
;
Ask
grow on a
found deep
enough and dry enough for the pine
in a
soil,
cold
defended
it-
from the sun by growing in groves, and from
FARMING. the
wind by the walls
143
The
of the moxmtain.
roots
that shot deepest, and the stems of happiest expos-
drew the nourishment from the rest, until the and manured the soil for the stronger, and the mammoth Sequoias rose to their
ure,
less thrifty perished
enormous proportions. The
remembered
his orchard at
who saw them
traveller
home, where every year,
in the destroying wind, his forlorn trees pined like
suffering virtue. In September, when the pears hang heaviest and are taking from the sun their
gay
colors,
comes usually a gusty day which shakes
down
the whole garden and throws fruit in bruised heaps.
the heaviest
The planter took the
of the Sequoias, buUt a high wall, or
—
hint
better
—
surrounded the orchard with a nursery of birches
Thus he had the mountain basin
and evergreens. in miniature
and
;
his pears
grew
to the size of
melons, and the vines beneath them ran an eighth of a
But
mUe.
The wall
this shelter creates
that keeps off the strong
a new climate.
wind keeps
off
the cold wind.
The high
back on the
gives that acre a quadruple share
of sunshine,
soil
—
wall reflecting the heat
" Enclosing in the garden square
A dead and standing pool of air," and makes a out
is
little
Cuba within
it,
whilst all with-
Labrador.
The chemist comes
to his aid every year
by
fol-
FARMING.
144
lowing out some new hint drawn from nature, and
now
by
affirms that this dreary space occupied
farmer
is
needless ; he
wiU
the
concentrate his kitchen-
garden into a box of one or two rods square, will take the roots into his laboratory; the vines and stalks
and stems may go sprawling about in the
fields outside,
he will attend to the roots in his tub,
gorge them with food that
is
the larger the crop.
The
good for them.
smaller his garden, the better he can feed
As he nursed
it,
and
Thanksgiv-
his
ing turkeys on bread and milk, so he will pamper his peaches
and grapes on the viands they
If they have
an appetite for potash, or
or ground bones, or even
well,
now and then They keep
win indulge them. and never teU on your
hog, he
their sunset
table
like best.
salt,
or iron,
for a dead
the secret
whence they drew
complexion or their delicate
flavors.
See what the farmer accomplishes by a cartload of tiles
he alters the climate by letting
:
off
water
which kept the land cold through constant evaporar tion,
and allows the warm rain
to bring
down
into
the roots the temperature of the air and of the surface-soil
;
and he deepens the
soil,
since the dis-
charge of this standing water allows the roots of his plants to penetrate
below the surface to the sub-
and accelerates the ripening of the crop. The town of Concord is one of the oldest towns in this soil,
country, far on
now
in its third century.
The
se-
FARMING. lectmen have once in every
145
five years
perambulated
the boundaries, and yet, in this very year, a large
quantity of land has been discovered and added to
murmur of complaint from any we went down to a subsoil
the town without a
By
quarter.
drainage
we did not know, and have found
there
cord under old Concord, which we are the best crops from
sex
and, in
;
ment
story
Massachusetts has a base-
more valuable and that promises all
the superstructure.
Malthus and Ricardo
;
interest.
many Young
they are so era,
pay
confuters of
political economists,
Americans announcing a better
to
But these
have acquired by association a new
These tUes are
a Congetting
a Middlesex under Middle-
fine, that
a better rent than tiles
;
is
now
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; more bread.
They drain the land, make it sweet and friable have made English Chat Moss a garden, and will now do as much for the Dismal Swamp. But beyond
this benefit they are
the text of better opin-
ions and better auguries for mankind.
There has been a nightmare bred in England of
among landlords and loomdogma that men breed too fast
indigestion and spleen lords,
namely, the
men
for the powers of the soil
;
a geometrical
corn multiplies only in
ratio, whilst
an arithmetical
;
and hence
ous we are, the faster limits:
that
that, the
we approach
nay, the plight of every
VOL. vu.
10
multiply in
more prosper-
these frightful
new generation
FARMING.
146 is
worse than of the foregoing, because the
comers take up the best lands
ond best is
first
the next, the sec-
;
and each succeeding wave of population
;
driven to poorer, so that the land
is
ever yield-
Henry
ing less returns to enlarging hosts of eaters.
Carey of Philadelphia replied
"
:
Not
so,
Mr. Mal-
thus, but just the opposite of so is the fact."
The
planter, the savage, without helpers,
first
without
enemy,
tools,
looking chiefly to safety from his
— man or
beast,
— takes
not clear
which he can-
they need drainage, which he cannot
;
He cannot plough, or fell trees, or swamp. He is a poor creature he
tempt. rich
;
with a sharp
and
trail
when he
He
cannot.
he coughs, he has a stitch in his
and kill
chills;
and
when he
eat a bear,
the bear eats him. plants at
all,
is
falls,
side,
himself,
;
he
on roots is
lame
;
he has a fever
is
of war,
— sometimes
long before he digs or
is
— works
Later he
better than hunting;
that the earth works faster for for
and
and then only a patch.
learns that his planting
work
kill one,
hungry, he cannot always
— chances 'T
scratches
moose or bear
of the
on their flesh when he can fruits
at-
drain the
a cave or a hutch, has
stick, lives in
no road but the lives
.The
poor land.
better lands are loaded with timber,
for
him than he can him when he is
when heat overcomes him. The sunstroke which knocks him down brings his
asleep,
when
it
rains,
FARMING.
As Hs
corn up.
147
family thrive, and other planters
come up around him, he begins to fell trees and clear good land: and when, by and by, there is
more
skill,
and
tions are strong
the soil,
and roads, the new genera-
tools
enough to open the lowlands, where
wash of mountains has accumulated the best which yield a hundred-fold the former crops.
The last lands are the best lands. It needs science and great numbers to cultivate the best lands, and in the best manner. Thus true political economy is
not mean, but liberal, and on the pattern of the
sun and sky. morality
Population increases in the ratio of
credit exists in the ratio of morality.
;
Meantime we cannot enumerate the and agents
of the
incidents
farm without reverting
influence on the farmer.
He
to their
carries out this cu-
mulative preparation of means to their last
This crust of
soil
fines again for the feeding of a civil
people.
effect.
which ages have refined he
re-
and instructed
The great elements with which he
deals
cannot leave him unaffected, or unconscious of his ministry; but their influence somewhat resembles that which the
same Nature has on the chUd,
subduing and silencing him.
We
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
of
see the farmer
with pleasure and respect when ers
and
utilities
are so
every secret of labor landscape.
;
we think what powmeekly worn. He knows
he changes the face of the
Put him on a new planet and he would
FARMING.
148
know where
to begin
yet there
;
is
no arrogance in
The farmer
his bearing, but a perfect gentleness.
stands well on the world.
Plain in manners as in
dress,
he would not shine in palaces
lutely
unknown and
;
he
inadmissible therein
dying, he never shall be heard of in
is
them
abso-
living or
;
;
yet the
drawing-room heroes put down beside him would shrivel in his presence
;
he solid and unexpressive,
they expressed to gold-leaf. the world,
— as
Adam
But he stands well on
did, as
an Indian does, as
Homer's heroes, Agamemnon or Achilles, is
a person
whom
a poet of any clime
— would
Firdusi, or Cervantes
He
do.
— Milton,
appreciate as being
really a piece of the old Nature, comparable to sun
and moon, rainbow and flood
;
because he
is,
as all
natural persons are, representative of Nature as
much
as these.
That uncorrupted behavior which we admire in animals and in young children belongs to him, to the hunter, the sailor,
presence of Nature.
men
talkative
them
artificial.
— the man
Cities force
who
lives in the
growth and make
and entertaining, but they make
What
possesses interest for us
is
the natural of each, his constitutional excellence.
This
is
forever a surprise, engagiug and lovely
cannot be satiated with knowing
and
it
is
cherishes
this
it,
;
and about
we it;
which the conversation with Nature
and guards.
WOEKS AND DAYS.
WORKS AND
OuE
nineteentli century
grow out
of our structure.
all things," said Aristotle
ment
;
is
DAYS.
Man
is
" the hand
the meter of is
the instru-
and the mind is the form of The human body is the magazine of inven-
of iastruments,
forms."
tions, the patent office,
where are the models from
which every hint was taken.
All the tools and
engines on earth are only extensions of
and
They
the age of tools.
"
senses.
One
definition of
gence served by organs."
man
limbs
its
" an
is
intelli-
Machines can only
ond, not supply, his unaided senses.
sec-
The body
is
The eye appreciates finer differences than The apprentice clings to his footart can expose. rule; a practised mechanic wiU measure by his thumb and his arm with equal precision and a good surveyor will pace sixteen rods more accurately than another man can measure them by tape. The sympathy of eye and hand by which an Indian or a practised slinger hits his mark with a stone, or a a meter.
;
wood-chopper or a carpenter swings his axe to a hair-line
on his
log, are
examples
;
and there
is
no
WORKS AND DAYS.
152 sense or organ
wMch
is
not capable of exquisite ''
performance.
Men
love to wonder,
and that
is
the seed of our
and such is the mechanical determination and so recent are our best contrivances, that use has not duUed our joy and pride in them and we pity our fathers for dying before steam and science
;
of our age,
;
galvanism, sulphuric ether and ocean telegraphs,
photograph and spectroscope arrived, as cheated out of half their
human
These arts open
estate.
great gates of a future, promising to
world plastic and to
lift
human
make
out of
life
its
the beg-
gary to a god-like ease and power.
Our
century to be sure had inherited a tolerable
We
apparatus. press,
had the compass, the printing-
watches, the spiral
spring, the barometer,
many
the telescope.
Yet
added that
seems almost made over
life
as Leibnitz said of
aU
that
so
inventions have been
new and Newton, that " if he reckoned ;
had been done by mathematicians from the
beginning of the world down to Newton, and what
had been done by him, half," so one
his
would be the better
might say that the inventions of the
last fifty years counterpoise those of the fifty cen-
turies before them.
For the vast production and
manifold application of iron
mon and are
new
;
is
new
;
and our com-
indispensable utensils of house and farm
the sewing-machine, the power-loom, the
WORKS AND DAYS. McCormick
153
reaper, the mowing-machines, gas-light,
lucifer matches,
and the immense productions of new in this century, and one
the laboratory, are
worth of coal does the work of a laborer
franc's
for twenty days.
Why need
enemy
I speak of steam, the
and time, with
its
which
applicability,
bowl of gruel
of space
enormous strength and delicate is
made
to a sick
in hospitals to bring a
man's bed, and can twist
and
beams
of iron like candy-braids,
forces
which upheaved and doubled over the geo-
Steam
logic strata?
is
shouldered fellow, but
work.
and
It already
will
crops,
our
vies with the
an apt scholar and a strongit
has not yet done
walks about the
field like
do anything required of
must drive our gigs
;
a man,
It irrigates
it.
and drags away a mountain.
shirts, it
all its
It
must sew
taught by Mr.
it must calculate interest and logarithms. Lord Chancellor Thurlow thought it might be made to draw bills and answers in chancery. If that
Babbage,
were
satire, it is
yet coming to render
many
services of a mechanico-intellectual kind,
higher
and
will
leave the satire short of the fact.
How
excellent are the mechanical aids
applied to the
human
we have
body, as in dentistry, in vac-
cination, in the rhinoplastic treatment
;
in the beau-
tiful aid of ether, like
;
and in the
boldest promiser of
all,
a finer sleep
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; the
transfusion of the
WORKS AND DAYS.
154 blood,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; which, in
Paris,
it
was claimed, enables a
man to change his blood as often as his linen What of this dapper caoutchouc and gutta-per!
which make water-pipes and stomach-pumps,
cha,
belting for mill-wheels,
proof coats for
and diving
all climates,
bells,
and
rain-
which teach us to defy
and put every man on a footing with the beaver and the crocodile? What of the grand tools the wet,
we
with which ers,
engineer, like kobolds and enchant-
American
tunnelling Alps, canaUing the
mus, piercing the Arabian desert
we
setts
fight the sea successfully
Isth-
In Massachu-
?
with beach-grass
and broom, and the blowing sand-barrens with pine plantations.
The
soil of
populous in Europe,
now,
is
it
said,
and planted
The of
man
fell for
sea.
three thousand years,
thanks Mehemet Ali's irrigations
forests
Hebrew
old
below the level of the
is
Egypt, where no rain
Holland, once the most
for late
to praise him."
-
returning showers.
He makes
king said, "
And
there
is
the wrath
no argument
of theism better than the grandeur of ends brought
about by paltry means. railroads cities
from Chicago
and
The chain
of
Western
to the Pacific has planted
civilization in less
time than
it
costs to
bring an orchard into bearing.
What
shall
we say
of the ocean telegraph, that
extension of the eye and ear, whose sudden per-
formance astonished mankind as
if
the intellect
WORKS AND DAYS. were taking the brute earth shooting the
first thrills
the unwilling brain
155
itself into training,
and
and thought through
of life
?
There does not seem any limit
new
to these
infor-
mations of the same Spirit that made the elements
Art
and now, through man, works them.
at first,
and power
go on as they have done,
will
make day out
of night, time out of space,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
will
and space
out of time.
No
Invention breeds invention.
very material is
sooner
is
the
telegraph devised than guttar-percha, the
electric
requires,
it
is
The aeronaut
found.
provided with gun-cotton, the very fuel he wants
for
When
his balloon.
larged, California
When
needs.
Europe
and Australia crave chance
out, every
the lock,
is
is
is
vastly en-
is
over-populated,
to be peopled
timed, as
knew where
Another which
commerce
and Australia expose the gold
if
;
and
it
America
so through-
Nature,
who made
to find the key.
result of our arts is the
surprising us with
new
new
intercourse
solutions of
the
The intercourse new. Our selfishness
embarrassing political problems. is
not new, but the scale
is
would have held slaves or would have excluded from a quarter of the planet
on the gusting
soil of that quarter. ;
all
that are not born
Our
politics are dis-
but what can they help or hinder when
from time
to
time the primal instincts are im-
WORKS AND DAYS.
156
pressed on masses of mankind, are in exodus and flux
when the
nations
Nature loves to cross her
?
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; and
German, Chinese, Turk, Euss, and
Kanaka were
putting out to sea, and intermarry-
stocks,
ing race with race
and
and commerce took the
;
ships were built capacious
hint,
enough to carry the
people of a county.
This thousand-handed art has introduced a
element into the
The
state.
forced to remember the power of science. tion
new
power
science of
is
Civiliza-
Malthus, when he stated
mounts and climbs.
that the mouths went on multiplying geometrically
and the food only arithmetically, forgot to say that human mind was also a factor in political econ-
the
omy, and that the augmenting wants of society
would be met by an augmenting power of invention.
Yes, we have a pretty artillery of tools
our fathers did
plant, tUl,
;
in
we
ride four times as fast
travel,
griud, weave, forge,
our social arrangements as
now
:
and excavate
We
better.
have new
and gimlets we have the calwe have the newspaper, which does its best to make every square acre of land and sea give an account of itself at your breakfast-table we have money, and paper money we have language, shoes, gloves, glasses,
culus
;
;
;
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
;
the finest tool of
Much
will
all,
have more.
and nearest to the mind.
Man
flatters
himself that
WORKS AND DAYS. his
command
We
yet,
and the next war
We
may
are to have the balloon
will be fought in the air.
yet find a rose-water that
He
negro white.
changing from
American Tantalus,
Things
over nature must increase.
begin to obey him.
of
157
sees the
wOl wash the
skuU of the English race
Saxon type under the exigencies
its
life.
who
in old times
was seen vainly
try-
ing to quench his thirst with a flowing stream which
ebbed whenever he approached again
He
lately.
Boston.
He
is
shall reach it yet It is
is
now
in
it,
Paris, in
in great
has been seen
New
spirits
York, in thinks he
;
thinks he shall bottle the wave.
;
however getting a
have an ugly look
stiU.
No
Things
doubtful.
little
matter
how many new man
centuries of culture have preceded, the
always finds himself standing on the brink of chaos,
Can anybody remember when the times were not hard, and money not scarce? Can anybody remember when sensible men, and the always in a
crisis.
right sort of
men, and the right sort of women,
were plentiful
?
Tantalus begins to think steam
a delusion, and galvanism no better than
it
should
be.
Many
facts concur to
show that we must look
deeper for our salvation than to steam, photographs, balloons
or
astronomy.
questionable properties.
These
They
tools
have some
are reagents.
Ma<
WORKS AND DAYS.
158 cMiiery
The weaver becomes a web,
aggressive.
is
the machiaist a machine.
life
:
;
A
and dangerous.
edge-tools,
house
man
he
to furnish, watch,
is
and
is
no longer
A man makes
free,
show
A
it,
man
and keep
it
hx
has a reputar-
but must respect that.
a picture or a book, and,
if
suc-
it
I saw a brave
ceeds, 't is often the worse for him.
man
builds a fine
and now he has a master, and a task for
repair, the rest of his days. tion,
you do not use the
If
All tools are in one sense
tools, they use you.
the other day, hitherto as free as the
hawk
or
the fox of the wilderness, constructing his cabinet of drawers for shells, eggs, minerals, It
birds.
himself
was easy
to see that
and mounted
he was amusing
with making pretty links for his
own
limbs.
Then the political economist thinks " 't is doubtful if aU the mechanical inventions that ever existed one
have lightened the day's
toil of
The machine unmakes
the man.
machine
is
Every new
so
perfect,
the
Once
Now
engineer
is
being."
that the
nobody.
step in improving the engine restricts
one more act of the engineer, it
human
took Archimedes;
fireman, and a
the handles or
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; unteaches
now
it
him.
only needs a
boy to know the coppers, to pull up mind the water-tank. But wheii
the engine breaks, they can do nothing.
What
sickening details in the daily journals
!
I
WORKS AND DAYS.
159
'
believe they have ceased to publish the "
Calendar "
Newgate
Own Book" since the the " New York Trib-
and the "Pirate's
family newspapers, namely une " and the " London Times " have quite super-
seded them in the freshness as well as the horror of their records of crime.
corrupt and brutal
;
Politics
were never more
and Trade, that pride and dar-
ling of our ocean, that educator of nations, that benefactor ia spite of
Of arts
itself,
we
course
resort to the enumeration of his
and inventions
But
man.
ends in shameful default-
and bankruptcy, aU over the world.
ing, bubble,
if,
with
as a
measure of the worth of is
a felon,
we
skill or
chemical
re-
aU. his arts,
cannot assume the mechanical
he
Let us try another
sources as the measure of worth.
gauge.
What
have these
the worth of
arts
done for the character, for
Are men
mankind ?
'T
better ?
is
sometimes questioned whether morals have not de-
Here are great
clined as the arts have ascended. arts
and
little
paltriness.
men.
We
Here
greatness begotten of
is
cannot trace the triumphs of
we
ization to such benefactors as est meliorator of the
is
The
wish.
selfish,
to
man
the worth of his nature.
Each has
his
own knack
to recom-
But now
Look up
one wonders who did aU this good. inventors.
great-
huckstering
Every victory over matter ought
Trade.
mend
world
civil-
;
the
his genius is
WORKS AND DAYS.
160 in veins
and
spots.
But
tlie
great, equal, sym-
metrical brain, fed from a great heart, you shall not
Every one has more
find.
show, or
to hide than he has to
lamed by his excellence.
is
'T
is
too
plain that with the material power the moral progress has not kept pace.
not
made a
were offered
us,
origin of the old
Zeu
we have
Works and days
and we took works.
The new study Zeus,
It appears that
judicious investment.
of the Sanskrit has
names
pater, Jupiter,
of
shown us the
God, — Dyaus,
— names of •
Deus,
the sun, stiU
recognizable through the modifications of our ver-
nacular words, importing that the vine
Power and Manifestation, and
Day
those ancient men, in their attempts the
Supreme Power
Day, and that
this
the Di-
is
indicating that
express
to
him the name was accepted by all the
of the universe, called
tribes.
Hesiod wrote a poem which he called " Works
and Days,"
Greek
in
which he marked the changes of the
year, instructing the
husbandman
at the ris-
ing of what constellation he might safely sow,
when
to reap, when to gather wood, when the
sailor
might launch
his boat in security
what admonitions is
full of
of the planets
from storms, and
he must heed.
economies for Grecian
life,
It
noting the
proper age for marriage, the rules of household thrift,
and
of hospitality.
The poem
is full
of piety
WORKS AND DAYS. as well as prudence, and ians
by adding the
is
161
adapted to
ethics of
all
into such
But he has not pushed his study of days inquiry and analysis as they invite. ,
A
farmer said " he should like to have
land that joined his own."
same
merid-
works and of days.
Bonaparte,
all
the
who had
the
endeavored to make the Mediter-
appetite,
Czar Alexander was more
ranean a French lake.
expansive, and wished to call the Pacific mi/ ocean ;
and the Americans were obliged tempts to make
a close
it
to resist his at-
But
sea.
if
he had the
earth for his pasture and the sea for his pond he
would be a pauper There
the day.
demon who
still.
is
He
only
is
rich
who owns
no king, rich man,
possesses such
are ever divine as to the of the least pretension
power first
as that.
Aryans.
fairy, or
The days They are
and of the greatest capacity
of anything that exists.
They come and go
like
muffled and veiled figures, sent from a distant friendly party
;
but they say nothing, and
if
we do
not use the gifts they bring, they carry them as silently
away.
How round
Any wear
it
the day
fits
itself to
the mind, winds itself
like a fine drapery, clothing all its fancies
holiday communicates to us its
member
its
color.
We
cockade and favors in our humor. Rewhat boys think in the morning of " Elec-
tion day," of the VOL. vn.
Fourth of July, of Thanksgiving 11
WORKS AND DAYS.
162
The very
Christmas.
or
wink and
to
them
of nuts
okl school-house and jack-knives, where
its
still
descry the
porch, somewhat hacked
by
you spun tops and- snapped mar-
and do you not
;
cakes, bonbons, presents,
Cannot memory
fire-works.
bles
and
in their courses
stars
was then
recall that life
endared by moments, threw
cal-
nervous
into
itself
knots of glittering hours, even as now, and not spread
abroad an equable
itself
ate,
when
In college
felicity ?
terms, and in years that followed, the
young gradu-
Commencement anniversary
the
returned,
though he were in a swamp, would see a festive
and find the
light
air faintly echoing with plausive
academic thunders. try,
In solitude and in the coun-
what dignity distinguishes the holy time
The
!
old Sabbath, or Seventh Day, white with the religions of
unknown thousands
of years,
lowed hour dawns out of the deep,
when
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;a
this hal-
clean page,
which the wise may inscribe with truth, whilst the savage scrawls sic of
it
with fetishes,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; the cathedral mu-
history breathes through
it
a psalm to oxa
solitude.
So, in the
weathers able
fit
wind
and each
is
common his
experience of the scholar, the
moods.
A
thousand tunes the vari-
plays, a thousand spectacles it brings,
the frame or dwelling of a
I used formerly to choose
my time
for each favorite book.
One
new
spirit.
with some nicety
author
is
good
for
WORKS AND DAYS.
At
morning
last the elect
— a few
scholar
for the right hour for Plato's Ti-
must look long dawn,
The
and one for the dog-days.
winter,
maeus.
163
arrives, the early
lights conspicuous in the heaven, as
of a world just created in its wide leisures
we
and
— and
becoming,
still
dare open that book.
There are days when the great are near us, when there
even
no frown on their brow, no condescension
is
the hand, and
when they take us by
;
The
nival of the year.
angels assume flesh, and
The imagination
repeatedly become visible. is
excited
share
There are days which are the car-
their thought.
gods
we
and rushes on every
of the
side into forms.
Yesterday not a bird peeped ; the world was barren, peaked, and pining ulous
;
creation
The days
are
:
to-day
't is
inconceivably pop-
swarms and meliorates.
made on a loom whereof
and woof are past and future time. majestically dressed, as
if
thread to the skyey web.
the warp They are
every god brought a 'Tis pitiful the things
—
a matter by which we are rich or poor, coats, and carpets, a little more or less
of coins, stone, or
wood, or paint, the fashion of a cloak or hat the luck of naked Indians, of in the possession of a glass
and the
whom
one
is
like
bead or a red feather,
rest miserable in the
want of
it.
But the
treasures which Nature spent itself to amass, secular, refined, composite
;
proud
— the
anatomy of man, which
WORKS AND DAYS.
164
go to form,
all strata
wMch
tte prior races, from
infusory and saurian, existed to ripen
rounding plastic natures
the intellectual, temperamenting air its
invitations
;
;
the sur-
;
the earth with
;
its
foods
;
the sea with
the heaven deep with worlds
;
and
the answering brain and nervous structure replying to these
the eye that looketh into the deeps, which
;
again look back to the eye, abyss to abyss
;
—
these,
not like a glass bead, or the coins or carpets, are
given immeasurably to
This miracle
The blue sky
is
is
all.
hurled into every beggar's hands.
a covering for a market and for
The sky
the cherubim and seraphim.
the var-
is
nish or glory with which the Artist has washed the
whole work, spirit.
— the verge
or confines of matter
Nature could no farther go.
happiest dream come to pass in solid fact,
— could
a power open our eyes to behold " millions of ual creatures walk the earth," find that mid-plain
and
Could our
spirit-
— I believe I should
on which they moved floored
beneath and arched above with the same web of blue depth which weaves
trudge the streets on It is singular
my
itself
over
me
now, as I
affairs.
that our rich English language
should have no word to denote the face of the world.
Kinde was
however,
filled
word, with
the old English term, which,
only half the range of our fine Latin
its delicate
future tense,
— natura, about
WORKS AND DAYS. to he horn, or
a hecoming.
165
what German philosophy denotes as But nothing expresses that power
The Greek
which seems to work for beauty alone.
Kosmos
did
Humboldt
;
and
therefore, with great propriety,
entitles his book,
results of science,
Such are the days, sky
is
which
which recounts the
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; the
the cover, of the
earth
is
the cup, the
immense bounty
offered us for our daily aliment
is
a force of illusion begins life with us
We
us to the end!
of nature
but what
;
and attends
are coaxed, flattered, and
duped, from morn to eve, from birth to death
where
last
Cosmos.
;
and
the old eye that ever saw through the
is
The Hindoos
deception ?
represent Maia, the
illu-
sory energy of Vishnu, as one of his principal attri-
As
butes.
which
man
life as
to the
if,
life is, it
in this
of warring elements to bind souls to hu-
mariners in a tempest lash themselves
mast and bulwarks of a
employed certain a
gale
was necessary
rattle,
ship,
illusions as her ties
a doll, an apple, for a child
;
and Nature
and
straps,
a boat, a horse, a gun, for the growing boy will not begin to
name
mask
that aU.
many
falls
is
one
and the pupil stuff,
;
and I
those of the youth and
adult, for they are numberless.
the
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
skates, a river,
Seldom and slowly is
permitted to see
cooked and painted under
counterfeit appearances.
Hume's
doctrine
was that the circimistances vary, the amount
of
WORKS AND DAYS.
166
happiness does not
ing by ball,
that the beggar cracking fleas
;
imder a hedge, and the duke
in the sunshine
in his chariot
;
the girl
equipped for her
rollfirst
and the orator returning triumphant from the
had
debate,
different means, but the
same quantity
of pleasant excitement.
This element of illusion lends the values of present time.
all its force to
Who
is
hide
he that does
not always find himself doing something less than
nothing or
task
best
his
so,
will
;
are you doing ? "
" O,
I have been doing thus, or I shall do so
but
now
you never
juggler,
What
"
?
am
I slip
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; never
only
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
out of the
"
Ah!
web
poor dupe,
of the master
learn that as soon as the irrecov-
erable years have
woven
their blue glory
between
to-day and us these passing hours shall glitter and
draw us as the wildest romance and the homes of How difficult to deal erect beauty and poetry? The events they bring, their trade, with them! entertainments, and gossip, their urgent work, all
throw dust in the eyes and distract attention. is
a strong
man who
He
can look them in the eye, see
through this juggle, feel their identity, and keep his
own who can know ;
surely that one will be like
another to the end of the world, nor permit love, or death, or politics, or money, war, or pleasure, to
draw him from
The world
is
his task.
always equal to
itself,
and every
WORKS AND DAYS man lie is
in
moments
of deeper thought is apprised tliat
repeating the experiences of the people in the
streets of
Now
167
An
Thebes or Byzantium.
everlasting
reigns in nature, which hangs the
on our bushes which charmed the
same
Chaldsean in their hanging gardens. end, then,' he asks,
'
'
should I study languages, and
History of ancient
beautiful,
and
art,
excavated
inscriptions,
—
works were
measurements,
Troy and Nimroud town
— !
much
age to Dante costs you so
— Me-
to identify the
And
your hom-
sailing
and to
;
ascertain the discoverers of
America needs
voyaging as the discovery
cost.
flexile clay of
and
;
claims of the old
settle the
What journeys and
buhr and Miiller and Layard, plain of
recovery
cities,
yes, the
'
?
and the history worth knowing
academies convene to schools.
the
To what
traverse countries, to learn so simple truths
of books
roses
Eoman and
as
Poor child
much !
that
which these old brothers moulded
their admirable symbols
was not Persian, nor Mem-
phian, nor Teutonic, nor local at aU, but was com-
mon
lime and silex and water and sunlight, the heat
of the blood
and the heaving
of the lungs
that clay which thou heldest but
now
;
it
was
in thy foolish
hands, and threwest away to go and seek in vain in sepulchres, mummy-pits,
and old book-shops of
Asia Minor, Egypt, and England. deep to-day which
all
men
scorn
;
It
was the
the rich poverty
WORKS AND BAYS.
168
which men hate
;
the populous, all-loving solitude
which men quit for the he hides,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; he
power.
One
hour
is
who
not the
success,
the illusions
of
No man
is
and
joy,
that the present
Write
hour.
it
on
the best day in the
has learned anything rightly until
he knows that every day
is
Doomsday.
old secret of the gods that they guises.
reality,
is
critical, decisive
your heart that every day year.
He lurks,
tattle of towns.
is
'Tis the vulgar great
with gold and jewels.
come
'T
is
the
in low dis-
who come dizened
Real kings hide away their
crowns in their wardrobes, and affect a plain and poor exterior.
In the Norse legend of our an-
Odin dwells in a fisher's hut and patches a boat. In the Hindoo legends, Hari dwells a among peasants. In the Greek legend, peasant cestors,
Apollo lodges with the shepherds of Admetus, and
Jove liked
to rusticate
among
So, in our history, Jesus
is
twelve peers are fishermen.
the poor Ethiopians.
born in a barn, and his 'T is the very principle
of science that Nature shows herself best in leasts it
in
was the maxim of Aristotle and Lucretius
modern
mann.
times,
of Swedenborg and
The order
mines the age of
of
;
and,
Hahne-
of changes in the egg deter-
fossil strata.
So
it
was the rule
of our poets, in the legends of fairy lore, that the fairies largest in
power were the
least in size.
the Christian graces, humility stands highest of
In all.
WORKS AND DAYS. in the
form of the Madonna
We
the secret of the wise.
169
and in
;
owe
life, this
is
to genius always
the same debt, of lifting the curtain from the com-
mon, and showing us that
divinities are sitting dis-
guised in the seeming gang of gypsies and pedlers.
In daily
life,
what distinguishes the master
is
the
using those materials he has, instead of looking
about for what are more renowned, or what others
A
general," said Bonaparte, have used well. " " always has troops enough, iÂŁ he only knows how
employ those he
to
Do
has,
and bivouacs with them."
not refuse the employment which the hour
brings you, for one more ambitious.
heaven of wisdom
alike near
is
and thou must find
it, if
at
all,
The
highest
from every
point,
by methods native
to thyself alone.
That work
is
ever the more pleasant to the imagi-
not now required. How wistfully, when we have promised to attend the working committee, we look at the distant hills and their nation which
is
seductions
The use hour and to
me my
terials,
of history
its
my
duty.
country,
is
to give value to the present
That
my
associates.
is
good which commends
climate,
I
my means
knew a man
and ma-
in a certain
who " thought it an honor to own face." He seemed to me more sane than those who hold themselves cheap.
religious exaltation
wash
his
WORKS AND DAYS.
170
may deny that
Zoologists
horse-hairs in the water
change to worms, but I find that whatever
and the past turns
corrupts,
ence for the deeds of our ancestors
old,
old
rever-
a treacherous
Their merit was not to reverence the
sentiment.
moment
but to honor the present
falsely
is
is
The
to snakes.
make them
;
and we
excuses of the very habit which
they hated and defied.
Another
illusion is that there is not
Yet we might
for our work.
many
time enough
reflect that
though
creatures eat from one dish, each, according
to its constitution, assimilates
what belongs
to
it,
whether time, or space, or
light,
A snake converts whatever prey
or water, or food.
meadow
from the elements
him into snake; a fox, iato fox; and Peter and John are working up all existence into Peter and John. A poor Indian chief of the Six Nations of New York made a wiser reply than
the
yields
any philosopher, to some one complaining that he
had not enough time. " Well," said Red Jacket, " I suppose you have aU there is."
A third
illusion
haunts us, that a long duration,
as a year, a decade, a century,
an old French sentence ments,"
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;"
ask for long
-ÂŁVi life,
but
't is
deep
valuable.
God works
peu d'heure Dieu
ments, that signify. spiritual,
is
says, "
laieure."
life,
But
in mo-
We
or grand mo-
Let the measure of time be
not mechanical.
Life
is
unnecessarily
WORKS AND DAYS. Moments
long.
tion, a smile,
of insight, of fine personal rela-
a glance,
eternity they are trates
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; what ample borrowers of
Life culminates and concen-
!
and Homer
;
171
said, "
The gods ever give
to
mortals their apportioned share of reason only on
one day."
am
I
of the opinion of the poet
that " there intellect
is
and
that " whilst
virtue."
we
I
am
opinion of Glauco, Socrates,
is,
who
but in
life
of the opinion of Pliny,
are musing on these things,
adding to the length of our
O
Wordsworth,
no real happiness in this
I
lives."
said, "
we
am
The measure
are
of the of
life,
with the wise, the speaking and
hearing such discourses as yours."
He only can enrich me who can recommend to me the space between sun and sun. 'T is the measure of a man,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
his apprehension of a day.
we do not listen with the best regard of a man who is only a poet, nor to if
he
is
only an algebraist
;
but
if
a
For
to the verses his problems
man
is
at once
acquainted with the geometric foundations of things
and with and
their festal splendor, his poetry is exact
And him I reckon the who can unearth for me
his arithmetic musical.
most learned
scholar, not
the buried dynasties of Sesostris and Ptolemy, the
Sothiae era, the Olympiads and considships, but
who can unfold the theory of this particular Wednesday. Can he uncover the ligaments concealed
WORKS AND DAYS.
172
from
all
things
but piety, which attach the dull
we know
to the First
men
ing fifteen minutes, nity
ory
;
I
are low that
is,
Cause ?
think, are time, not eter-
and subaltern, are but hope or memthe
but not welfare.
way to or the way from welfare, Can he show their tie ? That
interpreter shall guide us
from a menial and
mosynary existence
into riches
dignifies the place
where he
America,
men and
These pass-
and
is.
elee-
He
stability.
This mendicant
this curious, peering, itinerant, imitative
America, studious of Greece and Rome, of England and Germany, wiU take
off its
dusty shoes,
will take off its glazed traveller's - cap
home with
repose and deep joy on
world has no such landscape, the
and
its face.
sit
at
The
aeons of history
no such hour, the future no equal second opportu-
Now let poets sing now let arts unfold One more view remains. But life is good only when it is magical and musical, a perfect timing and consent, and when we do not anatomize it. You must treat the days respectfully, you must be pity.
!
!
a day yourself, and not interrogate
said,
like a college
it
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; everything â&#x20AC;&#x201D; and must
The world is enigmatical, and everything known or done,
professor.
not be taken
literally,
but genially.
We must be
at the top of our condition to understand anything rightly.
You must
attempting to render
hear the bird's song without it
into
nouns and verbs.
Can
WORKS AND DAYS. not not
we be a little abstemious and we let the morning be ?
173
obedient
Can-
?
Everything in the universe goes by indirection. lines. I remember well the who made a week of my youth " The savages in the islands," visit.
There are no straight foreign scholar
happy by
his
coming in
he said, " delight to play with the surf,
on the top of the roUers, then swimming out again, and repeat the delicious manoeuvre for hours. Well, human
life is
made up
such transits.
of
There can be no greatness without abandonment.
But here your very astronomy
is
stars,
moon and
my
tasks, to
ask
lines or pages are finished since I
saw
but they seem to measure
how many
I
an espionage.
dare not go out of doors and see the
Not
them
last.
isle.
The days
you, was
so, as I told
it
in
BeUe-
at Belleisle were all different,
and
only joined by a perfect love of the same object. Just to
fill
the hour,
— that
is
happiness.
Fill
my
hour, ye gods, so that I shall not say, whilst I have
done gone,'
this,
'Behold, also, an hour of
— but
We do not
rather,
want
'
my
I have lived an hour.'
factitious
men, who can do any
literary or professional feat, as, to write
poems, or
advocate a cause, or carry a measure, for or turn their ability indifferently in
direction
by the strong
life is
"
effort of will.
has been best done in the world,
money
any particular
— the
No, what
works of
WORKS AND DAYS.
174 genius,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
cost nothing.
but
is
the spontaneous flowing of the thought.
it
There
is
no painful
effort,
Shakspeare made his Hamlet as a bird weaves
Poems have been written between nest. and waking, irresponsibly. Fancy defines
its
sleeping herself
:
" Forms that naen spy
With
the half-shut eye
am
In the beams of the setting sun,
I."
The masters painted virtue
for joy, and knew not that had gone out of them. They could not paint
the like in cold blood.
The masters
lyric wrote their songs so.
cence of fine powers of the
Frenchwoman,
;
It
was said of the
as
never the poorer for his song. unless the circumstance
is
singer sing from a sense of of escape, I
of English
fine efflores-
letters
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; " the charming accident Then
more charming existence."
their
way
was a
A song
free
and
the poet
of is
is
no song
fine.
If the
duty or from seeing no
had rather have none. Those only
can sleep who do not care to sleep write or speak best
who do not
;
and those only
much
too
respect
the writing or the speaking.
The same
rule holds in science.
often an amateur. to the
legs
he
;
is
Academy on
The savant is is a memoir
His performance
fish-worms, tadpoles, or spiders'
he observes as other academicians observe
on
finished
stilts at
a microscope, and his
and read and printed, he
memoir
retreats
into
WORKS AND DAYS. routmary existence, which
his
from his
But
scientific.
as easy as breathing
the
moon
separate
quite
is
in Newton, science
he used the same wit to
that he used to buckle his shoes
was simple,
his life
;
175
;
in Archimedes,
and
wise,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; always
was
weigh
and
;
all
So was
majestic.
it
self-same, like the sky.
In Linnaeus, in Franklin, the like sweetness and
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; no
equality,
stilts,
no tiptoe
and
;
their results
are wholesome and memorable to all men.
In stripping time of find
what
is
its illusions,
the heart of the day,
in seeking to
we come
to the
quality of the moment, and drop the duration altoIt is the
gether.
depth at which we
live
aU the surface extension that imports. which time
to the eternity, of
face
at
the flitting sur-
and, really, the least acceleration of thought
;
and the life to it
is
and not
We pierce
time
least increase of
power of thought, make
We
seem and to be of vast duration. ;
call
but when that acceleration and that deep-
ening take
effect, it
acquires another and a higher
name.
There are people who do not need much experimenting; who, after years of
knew aU
this before;
hate at
first
sions
who do not
;
sight
;
who
activity,
discern the affinities
care so
say.
much
and
reptil-
for conditions as
others, for they are always in one condition
enjoy themselves;
who
We
love at first sight and
dictate to others
and
and are
176
WORKS AND DAYS.
not dictated to
;
who
iu their consciousness of de-
serving success constantly slight the ordinary means
who have
of attaining it;
who
self-existence
help
;
who
are great in the present
or care not to have them,
who have no
;
name
at
how the hero
What
is.
is
was
character, the
which philosophy has arrived.
'T is not important
but what he
talents,
and of which
it,
seems only a tool: this
highest
self-
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; being that which
before talent, and shall be after talent
and
are suffered to be themselves in society
gesture and syllable.
he
In
does this or this,
is will
this
way
appear in every the
moment and
the character are one. It is a fine fable for the
advantage of character
over talent, the Greek legend of the strife of Jove
Phoebus challenged the gods, and
and Phoebus. said, "
Zeus
Who
will outshoot the far-darting
said, " I will."
stretched his
treme west.
Mars shook
ApoUo
helmet, and that of
bow Then Zeus
the lots in his
leaped out
prize
is
arose,
no space
was adjudged
And
first.
and with one
to
left."
shall
him who drew no bow.
this is the progress of every earnest
hands to a delight in the to the
stride
Where
So the bowman's
from the works of man and the from a respect
Apollo
and shot his arrow into the ex-
cleared the whole distance, and said, "
I shoot? there
Apollo ? "
faculties
mind
;
activity of the
which rule them
works to a wise wonder at
;
this
WORKS AND DAYS. mystic element of time in
from the
wHch
he
177 is
amount of production per hour
economy which respects the quality
we have
done, and the right fidelity
to the
conditioned
and the economy which reckons
local skills
with which
it
fiows
depth of thought
it
to
of
the finer
what
is
to the work, or the
from ourselves; then betrays, looking to its
universality, or that its roots are in eternity, not in
time.
Then
fiows
it
from character, that sublime
health which values one
makes us great definition VOL. VII.
moment
in all conditions,
we have X3
of freedom
as another,
and
and as the only
and power.
BOOKS.
BOOKS.
It
is
easily
easy to accuse books, and bad ones are
found
and the best are but records, and
;
not the things recorded
;
and certainly there
is
di-
lettanteism enough, and books that are merely neutral
and do nothing for
Socrates says
:
garb near the
In Plato's Gorgias,
us.
" The shipmaster walks in a modest sea, after
bringing his passengers
from ^gina or from Pontus
;
not thinking he has
done anything extraordinary, and certainly knowing that his passengers are the same and in no respect better than
So
is it
no redemption in tainly
know
:
that his customers are in no respect
better for the
wares.
when he took them on board." they work us. The bookseller might cer-
with books, for the most part
purchase and consumption of his
The volume
is
dear at a dollar, and after
reading to weariness the lettered backs,
we
leave
the shop with a sigh, and learn, as I did without surprise of a surly
bank
director, that in
bank
parlors they estimate all stocks of this kind as
rubbish.
BOOKS.
182
But
it is
not less true that there are books which
are of that importance in a man's private experi-
ence as to verify for him the fables of Cornelius
Agrippa, of Michael Scott, or of the old Orpheus of Thrace,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; books which
take rank in our
life
with
parents and lovers and passionate experiences, so medicinal, so stringent, so revolutionary, so authoritative,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; books which
are the
work and the proof
of faculties so comprehensive, so nearly equal to
the world which they paint, that though one shuts
them with meaner
ones, he feels his exclusion
them
way
to accuse his
from
of living.
Consider what you have in the smallest chosen library.
A company of the
wisest and wittiest
that could be picked out of
thousand years have their learning
and wisdom.
were hid and inaccessible, interruption, fenced
aU
set in best
by
men
civil countries in
a
order the results of
The men themselves impatient of
solitary,
etiquette
;
but the thought
which they did not uncover to their bosom friend is
here written out in transparent words to us, the
strangers of another age.
We
owe
to
books those general benefits which
come from high
intellectual action.
we
them the perception
often
ity.
owe
to
Thus, I think, of immortal-
They impart sympathetic activity to the moral Go with mean people and you think life
power. is
mean.
Then read Plutarch, and the world
is
a
183
BOOKS.
proud place, peopled with men of positive quality, with heroes and demigods standing around us,
Then, they address the imag-
will not let us sleep.
ination
:
They become
only poetry inspires poetry.
College education
the organic cidture of the time. is
the reading of certain books which the
sense of
aU
who
common
scholars agrees will represent the sci-
ence already accumulated. for instance in geometry,
If if
you know
that,
you have read Euclid
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
your opinion has some value if and Laplace, you do not know these, you are not entitled to give any opinion on the subject. Whenever any skep;
or bigot claims to be heard on the questions of
tic
intellect
and morals, we ask
if
he
is
familiar with
the books of Plato, where all his pert objections
have once for
all
been disposed
no right to our time.
If not,
of.
Let him go and
he has
find himself
answered there.
Meantime the with
libraries, furnish
are
no professor of books
is
in these paper us,
and
so
by an enchanter
friends, but they are imprisoned
know
;
much wanted. In a library surrounded by many hundreds of dear
I think no chair
we
they provide us
colleges, whilst
and leathern boxes and though they ;
and have been waiting two,
centuries for us, to give us a sign
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; some
of them,
ten, or
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; and
twenty
are eager
and unbosom themselves,
it is
the
law of their limbo that they must not speak until
BOOKS.
184 spoken to
;
and as
tlie
enchanter has dressed them,
like battalions of infantry, in coat
one cut,
and jacket
of
by the thousand and ten thousand, your
chance of hitting on the right one
is
com-
to be
puted by the arithmetical rule of Permutation and Combination,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; not
a choice out of three caskets,
But
but out of half a million caskets,
all alike.
happens in our experience that in
this lottery there
it
are at least fifty or a hundred blanks to a prize. It seems then as if
some charitable
soul, after losing
a great deal of time among the false books and alighting
upon a few true ones which made him wise, would do a right act in naming
happy and
those which have been bridges or ships to carry
him
safely over
dark morasses and barren oceans,
into the heart of
temples.
sacred
cities,
into palaces
and
This would be best done by those great
masters of books
who from time
to time appear,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
the Fabricii, the Seldens, Magliabecchis, Scaligers,
Mirandolas, Bayles, Johnsons, whose eyes sweep the whole horizon of learning.
But
private readers,
reading purely for love of the book, would serve
us by leaving each the shortest note of what he found.
There are books; and
it is
practicable to read
them, because they are so few.
We look over with
a sigh the monumental libraries of Paris, of the Vatican, and the British
Museum.
In 1858, the
185
BOOKS.
number
of printed books in the Imperial Library
at Paris
was estimated
at eight
hundred thousand
volumes, with an annual increase of twelve thou-
sand volumes
;
so that the
may
extant to-day
easy to count the
man
number of printed books
easily exceed a million.
number
It is
which a diligent
of pages
can read in a day, and the number of years
which human to reading
;
life
and
in favorable circumstances allows to demonstrate that
should read from dawn
he must die in the
till
though he
dark, for sixty years,
But nothing can
first alcoves.
be more deceptive than this arithmetic, where none but a natural method occasionally the
is
really pertinent.
I visit
Cambridge Library, and I can
seldom go there without renewing the conviction that the best of
walls of
my
it all
catalogue brings
me
standard writers
who
and
is
already within the four
study at home.
The
inspection of the
continually back to the few are on every private
to these it can afford only the
most
sheK
slight
and
The crowds and centuries of only commentary and elucidation, echoes
casual additions.
books are
and weakeners
The
of these
few great voices of time.
best rule of reading will be a
method from
nature,
and not a mechanical one
pages.
It holds each studen/- to a pursuit of his
of hours
native aim, instead of a desultory miscellany.
him read what
is
and Let
proper to him, and not waste his
BOOKS.
186
memory on a crowd
As whole
of mediocrities.
nations have derived their culture from a single
book,
—
Bible has been the literature as
as the
well as the religion of large portions of
Europe
;
as
Hafiz was the eminent genius of the Persians, Confucius of the Chinese, Cervantes of the Spaniards
perhaps, the
so,
human mind would be a
;
gainer
—
aU the secondary writers were lost, say, in England, aU but Shakspeare, Milton, and Bacon, through the profounder study so drawn to those if
—
With
wonderful minds.
this pilot of
genius, let the student read one, or let
many, he wiU read advantageously. said
:
*'
own him read his
Dr. Johnson
Whilst you stand deliberating which book another boy has read both:
your son shall read
first,
read anything
hours a day, and you will soon
five
be learned."
Nature is
is
much our friend
in this matter.
always clarifying her water and her wine.
filtration
can be so perfect.
No
She does the same
thing by books as by her gases and plants. is
Nature
There
always a selection in writers, and then a selection
from the
selection.
In the
first place,
aU books
that get fairly into the vital air of the world were
written by the successful class, by the affirming and
advancing feel
class,
who
utter
though they cannot
what tens of thousands
say.
There has already
been a scrutiny and choice from many hundreds of
BOOKS.
187
young pens before the pamphlet or
political chapter
which you read in a fugitive journal comes
to
your
All these are young adventurers, who pro-
eye.
duce their performance to the wise ear of Time,
who
sits
and weighs, and, ten years hence, out of a
Again
million of pages reprints one.
winnowed by
it is
what it
all
terrific selection
has not passed on
can be reprinted after twenty years
printed after a century
!
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
is
it
as
Rhadamanthus had indorsed the therefore an
books. ;
good tial,
'
economy
judged,
it is
the winds of opinion, and it
;
re-
Minos and
if
'Tis
writing.
of time to read old
and famed
Nothing can be preserved which
and I
before
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; and
is
not
i
know beforehand that Pindar, Mar-
Terence, Galen, Kepler, GalUeo, Bacon, Eras-
mus, More, will be superior to the average
In contemporaries,
it is
intellect.
not so easy to distinguish
betwixt notoriety and fame.
Be
sure then to read no
mean
spawn of the press on the gossip
Shun
books.
the
i
Do
of the hour.
not read what you shall learn, without asking, in the street and the train.
Dr. Johnson said " he
always went into stately shops lers stop at the best hotels
more, they do not cost
;
;
"
and good
travel-
for though they cost
much more, and
there
good company and the best information.
is
the
In like [
manner the
scholar
contain, first
and
knows that the famed books
last,
the best thoughts and facts^
188
BOOKS.
Now and Street is
tlien,
the
is
by
rarest luck, in
gem we
the best information.
amount
But
want. If
some
foolish
Grub
in the best circles
you should transfer the
day by day from the news-
of your reading
paper to the standard authors
But who dare
speak of such a thing ?
The
three practical rules, then, which I have to
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
Never read any book that is not a Never read any but famed books. Never read any but what you like or, in Shak-
oifer, are,
year old. 3.
1.
2.
speare's phrase, "
No In
;
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
profit goes brief, sir,
Montaigne
says,
where
is
no pleasure ta'en
:
study what you most aifeet."
"Books are a languid pleasure;
but I find certain books vital and spermatic, not leaving the reader what he was
a richer man.
:
he shuts the book
I would never willingly read any
others than such.
And
I will venture, at the risk
of inditing a list of old primers
and gTammars,
to
count the few books which a superficial reader must thankfully use.
Of
the old
Greek books, I think there are
which we cannot spare
Pope and
all
:
1.
Homer, who
five
in spite of
the learned uproar of centuries, has
really the true fire
and
the true and adequate
is
good for simple minds,
is
germ of Greece, and occupies
that place as history which nothing can supply.
It
189
BOOKS.
holds through all literature that our best history poetry.
still
in Greek.
It
is
so in
Hebrew, in Sanskrit, and is best known through
English history
Shakspeare;
how much through
Hood, and the Scottish ballads through the Nibeluugenlied the Cid.
is
;
!
Merlin, Kobin
— the
though the most
the best of
all.
2.
German,
— the Spanish, through
Of Homer, George Chapman's
roic translation,
sion
literal
is
the he-
prose ver-
Herodotus, whose history
contains inestimable anecdotes, which brought
with the learned into a sort of disesteem these days,
is
when
found that what
it is
orable of history
is
is
;
it
but in
most mem-
a few anecdotes, and that we
need not be alarmed though we should find dull, it is regaining credit.
3.
it
not
^schylus, the grand-
who has given us under a thin veil the first plantation of Europe. The " Prometheus " is a poem of the like dignity and scope as the Book of Job, or the Norse Edda. 4. Of Plato I hesitate to speak, lest there should be no end. You find in him that which you have already found in Homer, now ripened to thought, est of the three tragedians,
— the poet converted to a philosopher, with
.
strains of musical
loftier
wisdom than Homer reached
;
as
Homer were the youth and Plato the finished man yet with no less security of bold and perfect if
;
song,
when he
strings fetched
cares to use
it,
and with some harp-
from a higher heaven.
He contains
BOOKS.
190
the future, as he came out of the past.
In Plato
you explore modern Europe in its causes and seed, all that in thought, which the history of Europe
—
embodies or has yet to embody.
man
finds himself
him
too.
The well-informed
anticipated.
Plato
up with
is
Every new
Nothing has escaped him.
crop in the fertile harvest of reform, every fresh suggestion of modern humanity,
If the
is there.
student wish to see both sides, and justice done to the ants,
man
of the world, pitiless exposure of ped-
and the supremacy of truth and the
sentiment, he shall be contented also.
not young
would
men
suffice for the tuition of
is
Why should
be educated on this book?
their understanding,
Here
religious
that which
and is
the race
It
to test
;
to express their reason.
so attractive to all
men,
—
— the
the literature of aristocracy shall I call
it ?
picture of the best persons, sentiments,
and man-
ners,
by the
first
master, in the best times ; portraits
of Pericles, Alcibiades, Crito, Prodicus, Protagoras,
Anaxagoras, and Socrates, with the lovely back-
ground of the Athenian and suburban landscape.
Or who can
overestimate the images with which
Plato has enriched the minds of men, and which pass like bullion in the currency of all nations
Read
?
the " Phajdo," the " Protagoras," the " Phse-
drus," the " Timaeus," the
" Apology of Socrates."
" Eepublic," and the 5.
Plutarch cannot be
191
BOOKS. spared from the smallest library is
so
medicinal
because he
first
;
much then that he is and invigorating. The lives of Cimon,
readable, which
is
;
Lycurgus, Alexander, Demosthenes, Phocion, Marcellus,
But
and the
what history has of
rest, are
book has taken care
this
opinion of the world
of
expressed in the innumer-
is
able cheap editions, which
make
I
am
writing to can^ as
He
" Lives."
is less
Yet such a reader
known, and seldom reprinted. as
as accessible as
it
But Plutarch's " Morals "
a newspaper.
best.
and the
itself,
spare
ill
it
will read in it the essays "
as the
On
the
Progress in Virtue,"
On On "On Garrulity," "On Love;"
and thank anew the
art of printing
Daemon
of Socrates," "
domain
ful
by the
and the cheer-
Plutarch charms
of ancient thinking.
facility of his associations
fies little
at the
Isis and Osiris," "
;
so that
it
signi-
where you open his book, you find yourself
Olympian
tables.
His memory
is like
the
Isthmian Games, where aU that was exceEent in
Greece was assembled recruited
by lyric
and you are stimulated and
;
verses,
by philosophic sentiments,
by the forms and behavior of ship of the gods, ley
heroes,
and by the passing of
and laurel wreaths,
by the worfillets,
pars-
chariots, armor, sacred cups,
An inestimable trilogy of " ancient social pictures are the three " Banquets and
utensils of sacrifice.
respectively of Plato,
Xenophon, and Plutarch.
BOOKS.
192
Plutarch's has the least approach to historical accu-
racy is
;
but the meeting of the Seven "Wise Masters
a charming portraiture of ancient manners and
discourse,
and
is
as clear as the voice of a
entertaining as a French novel. lineation of Athenian Plato,
and supplies
manners
the
wisdom
than Aristophanes ; and,
in
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; being
all
;
whilst Plato's
a repertory of ;
wits, not less descriptive lastly,
containing that iron-
eulogy of Socrates which
which
de-
an accessory to
of the ancients on the subject of love
a picture of a feast of
ical
and
Xenophon's
is
traits of Socrates
has merits of every kind,
fife,
is
the source from
the portraits of that philosopher current
Europe have been drawn.
Of
course a certain outline should be obtained of
Greek history, in which the important moments and persons can be rightly set down but the shortest is the best, and if one lacks stomach for Mr. ;
Grote's voluminous annals, the old slight and popular sumimary of Goldsmith or of Gillies
The valuable
part
is
wiU
serve.
the age of Pericles and the
And here we must read the " Clouds " of Aristophanes, and what more of that
next generation.
master we gain appetite
for, to
the streets of Athens, and to of Aristophanes, requiring
learn our
know
in
more genius and some-
times not less cruelty than belonged to the
commanders.
way
the tyranny
Aristophanes
is
now very
official
accessible,
193
BOOKS. with mucli valuable commentary, through the
An
bors of Mitchell and Cartwright.
popular book
is
J.
A.
St.
la-
excellent
John's "Ancient Greece;"
the " Life and Letters "
more
of Niebuhr, even
than his Lectures, furnish leading views
;
and
Winckelmann, a Greek born out of due time, has become essential to an intimate knowledge of the
The
Attic genius.
German and to
Wolff and
Greek
secret of the recent histories in
in English later to
the discovery,
is
owed
history of that period
must be drawn from
Demosthenes, especially from the business tions
If
;
and from the comic
we come down a
first
Boeckh, that the sincere
ora-
poets.
little
by natural
steps
from
the master to the disciples, we have, six or seven centuries later, the Platonists,
skipped,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
Jamblichus.
Of JambUchus
said that " he
was posterior
in genius."
who
also cannot
be
Plotinus, Porphyry, Proclus, Synesius,
Of
Plotinus,
the
Emperor Julian
to Plato in time, not
we have
eulogies
by Por-
phyry and Longinus, and the favor of the Emperor Gallienus, indicating the respect he inspired If
his contemporaries. interest the " Isis
among
any one who had read with
and Osiris " of Plutarch should
then read a chapter caUed " Providence," by Synesius, translated into
he will find
it
liter-
walking in the noblest of
tern-
ature, and, like one VOL. ni.
English by Thomas Taylor,
one of the majestic remains of
13
BOOKS.
194
new
pies, will conceive
and a new estimate native scholar
wiU
like these writers.
Fields
gratitude to his fellow-men,
of their nobility.
find
The
few stimulants to
He
imagi-
his brain
has entered the Elysian
and the grand and pleasing figures of gods
;
and daemons and dsemoniacal men, of the " azonic "
and the " aquatic gods," dsemons with fulgid eyes, and all the rest of the Platonic rhetoric, exalted a under the African sun,
little
The at
Delphi
sail
before his eyes.
mounted the tripod over the cave
acolyte has
his heart dances, his sight is quickened.
;
These guides speak of the gods with such depth
and with such
pictorial details, as if they
had been
The reader makes new acquaintance with his
bodily present at the Olympian feasts. of these books
own mind
;
Jamblichus's directly
ras
new
regions of thought are opened.
" Life of Pythagoras "
on the will than the others
;
works more
since Pythago-
was eminently a practical person, the founder
of a school of ascetics colonies,
and
socialists,
and nowise a man
of
a planter of
abstract
studies
alone.
The
respectable and sometimes excellent transla-
tions of Bohn's Library
have done for literature
what railroads have done for internal
intercourse.
I do not hesitate to read aU the books I have
named, and is really
all
good books, in translations.
best in
any book
is translatable,
What
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; any
195
BOOKS. real insight or broad
human
observe that, in our Bible, and
moral tone,
Nay, I
sentiment.
other books of lofty
seems easy and inevitable to render
it
the rhythm and music of the original into phrases of equal melody. translators,
—
i
The
have a
Italians
fling at
traditori traduttori ; but I thank
them.
I rarely read any Latin, Greek, German,
Italian,
sometimes not a French book, in the
nal,
which I can procure in a good version.
origi-
I like
to be beholden to the great metropolitan English
speech,
the sea which receives tributaries from
I shoidd as soon think
every region under heaven. of
swimming
across Charles River
go to Boston, as of reading aU
my
when I have them rendered
nals
when I wish
to
books in origifor
me
in
my
mother-tongue.
For history there
is
great
choice of ways to
bring the student through early Rome.
read Livy, he has a good book
;
If he can
but one of the
short English compends, some Goldsmith or Ferguson, should
be used, that will place in the cycle the
The poet Horace
bright stars of Plutarch.
eye of the Augustan age historians ners,
;
— and
and Martial
him Roman man-
—
in the early
but Martial must be read,
if
own tongue. These will bring Gibbon, who will take him in charge and
read at aU, in his to
:
the
Tacitus, the wisest of
will give
some very bad ones,
days of the Empire
him
;
is
BOOKS.
196
convey him with abundant entertaimnent down with notice of
all
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
remarkable objects on the way
He
through fourteen hundred years of time.
can-
not spare Gibbon, with his vast reading, with such wit and continuity of mind, that, though never profound, his book zation, like the
is
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; and, I think, "
his
Memoirs
my
from
one of the conveniences of
new
will
be sure to send the reader to
Himself,"
of
and the " Extracts
my
Journal," and " Abstracts of
which will spur the
ings,"
civili-
railroad from ocean to ocean,
laziest scholar to
Reademula-
tion of his prodigious performance.
Now
having our idler safe down as far as the Constantinople in 1453, he
fall of
courses
The
;
is
in very
good
for here are trusty hands waiting for him.
cardinal facts of European history are soon
learned.
There
Dante's poem, to open the Ital-
is
ian Republics of the Middle
Age
;
Dante's " Vita
Nuova," to explain Dante and Beatrice caccio's " Life of
Dante," a
gi'eat
man
;
and Boc-
to describe
To help us, perhaps a volume or two Sismondi's " Italian Republics " will be as
a greater. of
M.
good as the entire
sixteen.
When we
come
to
Michael Angelo, his Sonnets and Letters must be
by Vasari, or, in our day, by For the Church and the Feudal
read, with his Life
Herman Grimm. Institution,
Mr. Hallam's "Middle Ages"
nish, if superficial, yet readable outlines.
will fur-
and conceivable
197
BOOKS.
The " Life
of the
useful Eobertson,
Emperor Charles V.," by the
is still
the key of the following
Ximenes, Columbus, Loyola, Luther, Eras-
age.
mus, Melanchthon, Francis beth,
and Henry IV.
I.,
It is a time of seeds
poraries.
whereof our recent civilization If
now
Eliza-
is
and expansions,
the fruit.
the relations of England to European af-
him
fairs bring
the very
Henry VIIL,
of France, are his contem-
to British ground, he is arrived at
moment when modern
history takes
new
He can look back for the legends and mythology to the " Younger Edda " and the proportions.
" Heimskringla " of Snorro Sturleson, to Mallet's " Northern Antiquities," to EUis's " Metrical Romances," to Asser's " Life of Alfred " and Venerable Bede,
and
to the researches of
Hume
and Palgrave.
will serve
Sharon Turner
him
for an intelli-
gent guide, and in the Elizabethan era he
is
at the
richest period of the English mind, with the chief
men
of action
and
of thought
which that nation has
produced, and with a pregnant future before him.
Here he has Shakspeare, Spenser, Sidney, Raleigh, Bacon, Chapman, Jonson, Ford, Beaumont and Fletcher, Herbert,
Donne, Herrick
MarveU, and Dryden, not long In reading history, he individuals.
He
to Bacon, â&#x20AC;&#x201D; not
is
;
and Milton,
after.
to prefer the history of
will not repent the time if
he read the "
he gives
Advancement
of
BOOKS.
198
Learning," the " Essays," the " Novum Organum," the " History of Henry VII.," and then all the " Letters " (especially those to the Earl of Devonshire, explaining the
his "
Essex business), and
but
all
Apophthegms."
The task
aided by the strong mutual light
is
which these men shed on each other.
works of Ben Jonson are a these fine persons together,
He
they belong.
hoop to bind
to the land to
and the
" Discoveries," and
;
and what with
of his time,
if
all
many
portrait sketches in his
the gossiping record of his
Drummond
opinions in his conversations with
Hawthomden, he has
so
all
which
has written verses to or on
his notable contemporaries
occasional poems,
sort of
and
Thus, the
really illustrated the
not to the same extent yet
of
England
much
in
the same way, as Walter Scott has celebrated the
persons and places of Scotland.
Walton, Chap-
man, Herrick, and Sir Henry Wotton write
also
to the times.
Among phies
the best books are certain Autobiogra-
Augustine's Confessions
; as, St.
Cellini's Life
of Cherbury's
;
Montaigne's Essays
Memoirs
;
Memoirs
;
;
Benvenuto
Lord Herbert
of the Cardinal
de Retz; Rousseau's Confessions; Linnseus's Diary; Gibbon's, Hume's, Franklin's, Burns's, Alfieri's,
Goethe's,
Another
and Haydon's Autobiographies.
class of
books closely allied to these, and
199
BOOKS. like interest, are those
of
which may be called
Table- Talhs: of which the test are Saadi's
Spence's anecdotes;
Gu-
Lives;
Aubrey's
Table -Talk;
Luther's
listan;
Selden's Table -Talk;
Bos-
well's Life of Johnson; Eckermann's Conversations with Goethe; Coleridge's Table -Talk; and
Hazlitt's Life of Northcote.
There
is
a class whose value I should designate
Favorites
as
such
:
as
Froissart's
Southey's Chronicle of the Cid
;
Chronicles
Cervantes ; Sul-
Memoirs; Eabelais; Montaigne; Izaak WalSir Thomas Browne ; Aubrey ton Evelyn Sterne Horace Walpole Lord Clarendon ; Doctor ly's
;
;
;
;
Johnson; Burke, shedding floods of light on his times
;
Lamb Landor and De Quincey ;
;
of course, that
may
easily
on individual caprice.
and
;
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;a
list,
be swelled, as dependent
Many men
are as tender
irritable as lovers iu reference to these predilec-
tions.
Indeed, a man's library
is
a sort of harem,
and I observe that tender readers have a great pudency in showing their books to a stranger.
The annals
of bibliography afford
of the delirious extent to
when the
many examples
which book-fancying can
legitimate delight in a
book
is
trans-
ferred to a rare edition or to a manuscript.
This
go,
mania reached
its
present century.
one hundred and
height about the beginning of the
For an autograph fifty-five
of Shakspeare
guineas were given.
Id
BOOKS.
200
May, 1812, the was sold. The
Duke
library of the
sale lasted forty
curiosities
by Valdarfer, copy of
was a copy
this edition.
Among
company which attended the of
Devonshire,
Roxburgh
— we
two days,
of Boccaccio published
1471
at Venice, in
of
— aud among the
abridge the story from Dibdin,
many
-
;
the only perfect
the distinguished
sale
Duke Duke of
were the
Earl Spencer, and the
The
Marlborough, then Marquis of Blandford. bid stood at five hundred guineas. guineas," said Earl Spencer the Marquis.
now least
now made a
ate a biscuit,
A
thousand
added
ten,"
pin drop. All eyes
Now
were bent on the bidders.
And
"
:
You might hear a
"
they talked apart,
bet,
but without the
thought of yielding one to the other.
some
to pass over
details,
said, "
untU the Marquis
— the Two
But
contest proceeded
thousand pounds."
Earl Spencer bethought him like a prudent general of useless bloodshed
and waste
of powder,
and had
paused a qiiarter of a minute, when Lord Althorp with long steps came to his
side, as if to
bring his
father a fresh lance to renew the fight.
and son whispered claimed,
"Two
pounds "
An
assembly.
"
!
fall,
and Earl Spencer
thousand two hundred and electric
And
There ended the
together,
Father
shock went through the
ten," quietly
strife.
ex-
fifty
added the Marquis.
Ere Evans
let
the
hammer
he paused; the ivory instrument swept the
BOOKS. air
;
the spectators stood
The
fell.
stroke of
201
dumb, when the hammer
its fall
sounded on the farthest
The tap of that hammer was libraries of Rome, Milan, and Venice.
shores of Italy.
heard in the
Boccaccio stirred in his sleep of five hundred years,
and M. Van Praet groped
in vain
among
alcoves in Paris, to detect a copy of the
the royal
famed Val-
darfer Boccaccio.
Another laries.
class I distinguish
book of great
how many
is
an inventory to remind us
and
species of facts exist, and,
'T
in a dictionary. classes
in observing into
what strange and multiplex by-
ways learning has strayed, Neither is
is
no cant in
poems and
to infer our optilence.
a dictionary a bad book to read. it,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; the
histories.
tle shuffling,
There
no excess of explanation, and
full of suggestion,
of a
by the term Vocdbu-
Anatomy of Melancholy " is a learning. To read it is like reading
Burton's "
Nothing
is
wanting but a
and
sorting, ligature,
cartilage.
hundred examples, Cornelius Agrippa "
Vanity of Arts and Sciences " scribatiousness which
it
is
raw material of possible
grew
is
to
gluttonous readers of his time.
lit-
Out
On the
a specimen of that
be the habit of the
Like the modern
Germans, they read a literature while other mortals read a few books. They read voraciously, and must disburden themselves topic, as
;
so they take
any general
Melancholy, or Praise of Science, or Praise
BOOKS.
202 of Folly,
and write and quote without method
Now and
end.
or
then out of that affluence of their
learning comes a fine sentence from Theophrastus, or Seneca, or Boethius, but no high method, no in-
But one cannot afford
spiring efflux.
to read for
a
few sentences they are good only as strings of sug;
gestive words.
There
another class, more needful to the pres-
is
ent age, because the currents of custom run
now
in
another direction and leave us dry on this side;
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;I
mean
the Imaginative.
A
right metaphysics
should do justice to the co-ordinate powers of Imagination, Insight, Understandiag,
with
aids of
its
and WUl.
Poetry,
Mythology and Eomance, must be
Men
well allowed for an imaginative creature. are
ever
lapsing into
everything that
is
a beggarly habit, wherein
not ciphering, that
not serve the tyrannical animal, sight.
Our
poverty,
orators
and
which does
and writers are of the same
awakening power, nor the Morals,
creative of genius
and of men, are addressed.
though orator and poet be of the capacities remaia.
We
The
story,
child asks
meaning.
is,
hustled out of
in this rag-fair neither the Imagina-
tion, the great
the poorest.
is
you for a
It is not
this
But
hunger party,
must have symbols.
and
is
thankful for
poor to him, but radiant with
The man asks
for a novel,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; that
is,
and
to
asks leave for a few hours to be a poet,
BOOKS.
203
The youth asks The very dunces wish to go to the What private heavens can we not open,
paint things as they ought to be. for a poem. theatre.
We by yielding to all the suggestion of rich music must have idolatries, mythologies, some swing !
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
and verge for the cramped
creative
power lying coiled and
here, driving ardent natures to insanity
and crime
if it
Without the
do not find vent.
great arts which speak to the sense of beauty, a
man
me
seems to
ture.
a poor, naked, shivering crea-
These are his becoming draperies, which
warm and adorn
him.
Whilst the prudential and
economical tone of society starves the imagination, affronted Nature gets such indemnity as she may.
The novel
is
tion finds.
that allowance and frolic the imagina-
Everything
flee for redress to
else pins it
down, and
Byron, Scott, Disraeli, Dumas,
and Reade.
Sand, Balzac, Dickens, Thackeray, Their education library
and the
men
neglected
is
;
but the circulating-
theatre, as well as the trout-fishing,
the Notch Mountains, the Adirondack country, the
tour to
Ghauts,
Mont make
Blanc, to the
The imagination intoxication.
of our
sic,
infuses a certain volatility
It has a flute
frame in a dance,
liberated, the
White HUls and the
such amends as they can.
whole
which
sets the
like planets
man
reeling
;
and
atoms
and once so
drunk
to the
they never quite subside to their old stony
mu-
state-
BOOKS.
204
But what is the imagination? Only an arm or weapon of the interior energy only the precursor ;
And
of the reason.
books that treat the old ped-
antries of the world, our times, places, professions,
customs, opinions, histories, with a certain freedom,
and ica
distribute things, not after the usages of
and Europe but
and with
Amer-
after the laws of right reason,
as daring a freedom as
we
use in dreams,
put us on our feet again, enable us to form an
judgment of our
original
duties,
and suggest new
thoughts for to-morrow.
"Lucrezia Floriani,"
"Le P^ch^ de M.
Antoiue,"
" Jeanne," and " Consuelo," of George Sand, are great steps from
which we off
from
stiU is
know
all
lies
about us
dumb
;
has not yet found a tongue.
it,
Yet how far
and manners and motives the novel
life
Life
!
the novel of one termination,
read twenty years ago.
are to the plots of real life
what the
we
the day, as
These
stories
figures in "
La
Belle Assemblde," which represent the fashion of
the month, are to portraits.
way
find the
to our interiors
But the novel
will
one day, and will not
always be the novel of costume merely.
I do not
So much novel-reading cannot leave the young men and maidens imtouched and doubtless it gives some ideal dignity to the day. The young study noble behavior and think
inoperative now.
it
;
;
as the player in " Consuelo " insists that
he and his
205
BOOKS.
colleagues on the boards have taught princes the fine etiquette
and strokes of grace and dignity which
they practise with so
and among
and
brilliancy of clerks.
effect in their villas
French novel in the courtesy
of the Scotch or the
and
much
their dependents, so I often see traces
young midshipmen,
Indeed,
when one
observes
collegians,
how
ugly people make their loves and quarrels, they should not read novels a
little
the fine generosities and the
ill
't is
and pity
more, to import
clear, firm conduct,
which are as becoming in the unions and separations
which love
palaces and
under shingle roofs as in
effects
among
illustrious personages.
In novels the most serious questions are beginning to be discussed. of "
What made
the popularity
Jane Eyre," but that a central question was
answered in some sort?
The question
there an-
swered in regard to a vicious marriage will always
A
be treated according to the habit of the party.
person of commanding individualism wiU answer it
George Sand a
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Cleopatra, as Milton, as â&#x20AC;&#x201D; magnifying the exception
as Rochester does,
rule,
do,
as
person of less courage, that will
into
is
of less constitution,
answer as the heroine does,
fate, to
A
dwarfing the world into an exception.
conventionalism, to the
doings of
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; giving way actual
state
to
and
men and women.
For the most
part, our novel-reading is
a passion
BOOKS.
206
We admire
for results. ties,
and the homage
of
and high-born beaudrawing-rooms and parliaparks,
They make us skeptical, by giving prominence to wealth and social position. I remember when some peering eyes of boys disments.
covered that the oranges hanging on the boughs of an orange-tree in a gay piazza were tied to the
twigs by thread.
the
't is
so with the novelist's
Nature has a magic by which she
prosperities. fits
I fear
man
by making them the But the novelist plucks this
to his fortunes,
fruit of his character.
event here and that fortune there, and
ties
them
rashly to his figures, to tickle the fancy of his readers vdth a cloying success or scare them with
And
shocks of tragedy.
so,
on the whole,
'tis
a
juggle.
We
by
which only oddly combine acts that we
feats
are cheated into laughter or
There
do every day. no furtherance. raising of
new
inventions.
Money, and
is
wonder
no new element, no power,
'Tis only confectionery, not the
Great
corn.
is
the poverty of their
She was heautiful mid he/ell in killing,
love.
and the Wandering Jew, and
persuading the lover that his mistress
but no new qualities in
is
betrothed
new names, the men and women. Hence
to another, these are the main-springs
;
the vain endeavor to keep any bit of this fairy gold
which has rolled
like a
brook through our hands.
thousand thoughts awoke
;
A
great rainbows seemed
BOOKS.
207
span the sky, a morning among the mountains
to
but we close the book and not a ray remains in the
memory and
But
of evening.
us, in
tains
and
romance,
show how much we need
this disappointment,
and pure poetry that which shall morning and night, in stars and moun-
real elevations
show
this passion for
in
:
all
the plight and circumstance of
men, the analogous of our own thoughts, and a like impression
made by a
just
book and by the face of
Nature.
we must cheer us with books of rich and believing men who had atmosphere and amplitude about them. Every If our times are sterile in genius,
good
fable, every
mythology, every biography from
a religious age, every passage of love, and even philosophy and science,
when they proceed from
an
and are not detached and
intellectual integrity
have the imaginative element.
critical,
fables, the Persian history (Firdusi), the
Edda"
The Greek " Younger
of the Scandinavians, the " Chronicle of the
Cid," the
poem
of Dante, the Sonnets of
Michel
Angelo, the English drama of Shakspeare, Beau-
mont and Fletcher, and Ford, and even the prose of Bacon and Milton, in our time the Ode of Wordsworth, and the poems and the prose of Goethe, have this enlargement, and inspire hope
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
and generous attempts. There
is
no room
left,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; and yet I might
as well
BOOKS.
208
not have begun as to leave out a class of books
which are the best
:
mean
I
the Bibles of the world,
or the sacred books of each nation, which express for
each the supreme result of their experience.
After the Hebrew and Greek Scriptures, which constitute the sacred books of Christendom, these are, the
Desatir of the Persians, and the Zoroas-
trian Oracles
;
the
Vedas and Laws
Menu
of
the Upanishads, the Vishnu Purana, the Bhagvat
Geeta, of the Hindoos
;
the books of the Buddhists
the " Chinese Classic," of four books, containing the
wisdom
of Confucius
and Mencius.
Also such
other books as have acquired a semi-canonical authority in the world, as expressing the highest sen-
timent and hope of nations.
Such are the
mes Trismegistus," pretending mains
;
to be
Egyptian
the " Sentences " of Epictetus
Antoninus
;
the " Vishnu
Sarma
" Her-
of
;
re-
Marcus
" of the Hindoos
the " Gulistan" of Saadi; the "Imitation of Christ," of
Thomas a Kempis
and the " Thoughts
;
"
of
Pascal.
All these books are the majestic expressions of the universal conscience,
and are more
to our daily
purpose than this year's almanac or this day's newspaper.
But they are
on the bended knee.
for the closet,
and
to
be read
Their communications are
not to be given or taken with the lips and the end of the tongue,
but out of the glow of the cheek, and
209
BOOKS.
Friendship should give
with the throbbing heart.
and take,
solitude
and time brood and
They
absorb and enact them.
by
on a page, but are living charac-
letters printed
every tongue and form of
ters translatable into
I read them on lichens and bark
waves on the beach in
worms
;
;
I detect
and eye-sparkles
ripen, heroes
are not to be held
of
they
they creep
fly in birds,
them
life.
I watch them on
;
in laughter
and blushes
men and women.
These are
weU
Scriptures which the missionary might
carry
over prairie, desert, and ocean, to Siberia, Japan,
Timbuctoo. is
in
Yet he
them journeys
on his
arrival,
there, or he goes in vain.
"We
in these things?
by
carried
call
them
;
it,
and
find
it
any geography
Is there
them primeval but perhaps that is
and greets him
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; was there already long before him.
The missionary must be
Nature
which
will find that the spirit
faster than he,
Asiatic,
is
we caU
only optical, for
always equal to herself, and there are as
good eyes and ears now in the planet as ever were.
Only
these ejaculations of the soul are uttered one
or a few at a time, at long intervals, and
it
takes
millenniums to make a Bible.
These are a few of the books which the old and the later times have yielded us, which will reward the time spent on them.
In comparing the numlife, many we had good
ber of good books with the shortness of
might well be read by proxy, VOL. vu.
14
if
BOOKS.
210 proxies
men
;
and
it
would be well for sincere young
to borrow a hint from tbe French Institute
and the British Association, and
as they divide the
whole body into sections, each of which
and reports of certain matters confided
to
sits
upon
it,
so let
each scholar associate himself to such persons as he
can rely on, in a literary club, in which each shall undertake a single work or series for which he
For example, how
qualified.
whole literature of the "
attractive
Roman
is
is
the
de la Eose," the
" Fabliaux," and the gaie science of the French
Troubadours! that
?
shall
But one
Yet who in Boston has time
for
company shaU undertake study and master it, and shall report on it of our
it,
as
under oath
;
lies in his
mind, adding nothing, keeping nothing
back.
shall give us the sincere result as it
Another member meantime shaU
search,
sift,
and as truly
report,
as honestly
on British mythol-
Round Table, the histories of Brut, Merlin, and Welsh poetry a third on the Saxon Chroniogy, the
;
cles,
Robert of Gloucester, and William of Malmes-
bury a fourth, on Mysteries, Early Drama, " Gesta ;
Romanorum," Collier, and Dyce, and the Camden Society. Each shall give us his grains of gold, after the
washing
cide whether this also.
;
and every other is
shall then de-
a book indispensable to
hinj
CLUBS.
CLUBS.
We are delicate macMnes, and require nice treatment
to get
from us the maximum
pleasiire.
We
that cost
little
need
tonics,
of
power and
but must have those
or no reaction.
The flame
of life
burns too fast in pure oxygen, and nature has tem-
So thought
pered the air with nitrogen. tive air of the
mixed
mind, yet pure
constitution,
it is
is
the nar
a poison to our
and soon burns up the bone-
house of man, unless tempered with affection and coarse practice in the material world. climates, beautiful objects,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; and
Varied foods,
especially the al-
ternation of a large variety of objects,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; are
necessity of this exigent system of ours. tonics, our luxuries, are
known
But our
force-pumps which exhaust
the strength they pretend to supply cordials
the
;
and
to us, the best, safest,
of all the
and most
exhilarating, with the least harm, is society;
and
every healthy and efficient mind passes a large part of
We
life
in the
company most easy
to him.
seek society with very different aims, and
the staple of conversation
is
widely unlike in
its
CLUBS.
214
Sometimes
circles.
— running from those — of
it is facts,
science,
of daily necessity, to the last results
and has aU degrees of importance ; sometimes it is and makes the balm of our early and of our
love,
latest
son
days
who
is
sometimes
;
a mind only
the heart poured out
thought, as from a per-
it is ;
sometimes a singing, as
aU
like a bird
With some men
experience.
if
sometimes
a debate; at
is
it
;
Hke
the approach of a dispute they neigh
horses.
Unless there be an argument, they think nothing is
Some
doing.
talkers excel in the precision with
which they formulate their thoughts, so that you get from
them somewhat
criticism asleep
to
remember
by a charm.
use words that are not words,
women
— as steps in a dance
are not steps,
— but reproduce
they speak of
as the sound of
;
others lay
;
Especially
the genius of that
some
bells
makes us
think of the beU merely, whilst the church-chimes in the distance bring the church and
memories before people,
us.
— have a poverty-stricken
air.
companion enough
speaker
from
is
;
dogma
is
a
but opinion native to the
sweet and refreshing, and inseparable
his image.
ways go
serious
A man valu-
ing himself as the organ of this or that dull
its
Opinions are accidental in
Neither do
we by any means
to people for conversation.
say nothing,
— and
yet
must go
;
How
al-
often to
as a child will
long for his companions, but among them plays by
CLUBS. only presence
himself.
'T
one thing
is certain,
is
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
at
215 wliicli
some
But we
we want.
rate, intercourse
The experience of retired men is poswe lose our days and are barren of thought for want of some person to talk with. The understanding can no more empty itself by its own must have. itive,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; that
action than can a deal box.
The clergyman walks from house all the
to house all
day
year to give people the comfort of good talk.
The physician helps them mainly in the same way, by healthy talk giving a right tone to the patient's mind. The dinner, the walk, the fireside, all have that for their
main end.
See how Nature has of knowledge.
more burn
bums
secured the communication
'Tis certain that
money does not
in a boy's pocket than a piece of
in our
higher activity of
news
we can tell it. And mind, every new perception
memory
until
in is
attended with a thrill of pleasure, and the imparting of
it
Thought is
to others is also attended with pleasure. is
the child of the intellect, and this child
conceived with joy and born with joy.
Conversation the
student.
The wish sists
is
the laboratory and workshop of
The
affection
to speak to the
to clear your own.
us which
we
in all
or
sympathy
helps.
want of another mind
A certain truth
ways
strive to utter.
time we say a thing in conversation,
we
as-
possesses
Every
get a me.
CLUBS.
216
chanical advantage iu detaching
To
pulley and lever and screw. the mass, and send der,
it
well and deliv-
I prize the mechanics of conversation.
erly.
— a block
it
'T
is
fairly disengage
jingling down, a good boul-
of quartz
and
gold, to be
at leisure in the useful arts of life,
—
worked up
is
a wonder-
ful relief.
memory? Those in which we met a companion who was truly such. How sweet those hours when the day was not long
What
are the best days
in
enough to communicate and compare our ual jewels,
— the
intellect-
favorite passages of each book,
the proud anecdotes of our heroes, the delicious verses
we had hoarded
our solitary days friend
still left
!
How
!
some
What
a motive had then
the countenance of our
light after
he had gone
remember the time when the best of fortune
was to
fall in witli
in a ship's cabin, or
gift
!
We
we could ask
a valuable companion
on a long journey in the old
stage-coach, where, each passenger being forced to
know every
other,
and other employments being
out of question, conversation naturally flowed, people became rapidly acquainted, and,
if
more intimate in a day than
they had been
if
well adapted,
neighbors for years.
In youth, in the fury of curiosity and acquisition, the
day
is
thoughts,
too short for books and the crowd of and we are impatient of interruption.
CLUBS.
217
Later,
when books tire, thought has a more languid
flow
and the days come when we are alarmed, and
;
say there are no thoughts. pate
mine
is
!
'
What
the student says
'
learn whether I have lost
my
;
a barren-witted I wiU go and
'
He
reason.'
whether more wise or
intelligent persons,
seeks
less wise
than he, who give him provocation, and at once and easily the old motion begins in his brain
humors flow
fancies,
broadens; and the again shown him.
be observed.
the cloud
infinite
But
lifts
:
thoughts,
the horizon
;
opulence of things
is
the right conditions must
Mainly he must have leave to be
Sancho Panza blessed the
himself.
invented sleep.
man who
So I prize the good invention
whereby everybody is
;
is
provided with somebody
who
glad to see him. If
men
alone,
are less
when together than they are
they are also in some respects enlarged.
They kindle each other ; and such
the power of
is
suggestion that each sprightly story calls out more
and sometimes a recesses of
daylight,
fact that
memory
had long
hears the voice,
is
and proves of rare value.
slept in the
welcomed to Every meta-
physician must have observed, not only that no
thought
is
alone, but that thoughts
commonly go
in
pairs; though the related thoughts first appeared in his
mind
in pairs
:
Things are
at long distances of time.
a natural fact has only half
its
value until
CLUBS.
218
a fact in moral nature,
Then is
its
counterpart,
is stated.
they confirm and adorn each other ; a story
matched by another
the reason why,
And
story.
may be
that
when a gentleman has
told a
good
thing, he immediately tells it again.
Nothing seems so cheap as the benefit of conversation
nothing
;
is
more
you are balked and telligence, reading,
'T
rare.
baffled.
is
There
wonderful how is
plenty of in-
but serious, happy
curiosity;
discourse, avoiding personalities, dealing with results, is rare
and I seldom meet with a reading
:
and thoughtful person but he
me, as
tells
his exceptional mishap, that he has
if it
were
no companion.
Suppose such a one to go out exploring different circles in search of this wise
part,
tion in society is found to be as
to
exclude
Amidst fane rates
are
and genial counter-
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; he might inquire far and wide. all
itself
on a platform so low
the saint, and the poet.
science,
the gay banter, sentiment cannot pro-
and venture
out.
The
comes so often to mind,
now seasonable
which I can say
who can
it
resist the
letters loves
Conversar
I cannot say
not
is
charm
power
too.
now
reply of old Isoc-
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; " The things which ;
and for the things
the time."
of talent ?
Among
the
The
Besides,
lover of
men
of wit
and learning, he could not withhold his homage from the gayety, grasp of memory, luck, splendor,
and speed j such
exploits of discourse, such feats of
219
CLUBS.
Boeiety What new powers, what mines of wealth But when he came home, his brave sequins were !
dry leaves.
He
found either that the fact they
had thus dizened and adorned was that he already told him. so
much
He
knew
of
no value, or
and more than aU they had
all
could not find that he was helped by
as one thought or principle, one solid fact,
one commanding impiUse: great was the dazzle,
He
but the gain was small.
uses his occasions
he seeks the company of those who have convivial
But the moment they meet,
talent.
to
be sure
they begin to be something else than they were they play pranks, dance pun,
tell stories,
try
jigs,
many
run on each other,
fantastic tricks,
under
some superstition that there must be excitement
and elevation I
once.
know
;
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; and
they
kill
conversation
at
well the rusticity of the shy hermit.
No doubt he does not make allowance enough for men of more active blood and habit. But it is only on natural ground that conversation can be
must not begin with uproar and
rich.
It
Let
keep the ground,
it
with the battery.
let it feel
Men must
violence.
the connection
not be off their
centres.
Some men love only to talk where they are masters. They like to go to school-girls, or to boys, or into the shops
where the sauntering people gladly
lend an ear to any one.
On
these terms they give
CLUBS.
220
information and please themselves by sallies and chat which are admired by the idlers ; and tha talker is at his ease
when he
without ceremony to their equals,
and joUy,
for he can
They go rarely own con-
pleases.
and then as
walk oul
for their
much new whim
venience simply, making too
haste to intro-
duce and impart their
or discovery;
listen
badly or do not listen to the comment or to
by which
the thought
them
company strive to repay own speech is done,
the
rather, as soon as their
;
Then
they take their hats. tors, to
whom
on which
side,
heady men, the
there are the gladiar 't is
no matter
they fight for victory;
then the
always a battle
it is
egotists, the
;
monotones, the sterUes,
and the impracticables. It does not help that
man
than yourself,
The
you.
if
who
ple, if
is
not timed and fitted to
greatest sufferers are often those
have the most to say, thy,
you find as good or a better
he
are
dumb
they do not
in
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; men
who
of a delicate sympa-
mixed company.
Able peo-
know how to make allowance for One of those conceited prigs
them, paralyze them.
who value nature only as is
it
feeds and exhibits
equally a pest with the roysterers.
be large reception as well as giving.
them
There must
How delight-
ful after these disturbers is the radiant, playful wit
of
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; one whom
I need not name,
society there is his representative.
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; for
in every
Good-nature
ia
221
CLUBS. His conversation
stronger than tomahawks. pictures
he
tells
the best story in the county, and
genial temper that he disposes to
aU others
good-humor and discourse.
He
"
Abb^
Galiani
and
the cabinet-makers
if
:
we
lesson
of such
is
irresistibly
Diderot said of the
was a treasure
body would have one
One
is all
he can reproduce whatever he has seen
:
in.
made such
rainy days
things, every-
in the country."
learn early,
— that
in spite of
seeming difference,
men
are all of one pattern.
We
this
with our mates, and are
assume
readih''
disappointed and angry
if
we
find that
we
are pre-
mature, and that their watches are slower than
In fact the only sin which we never forgive
ours.
in each other
is
difference of opinion.
beforehand that yonder
eat,
me
from
dissent
conclusion of love.
is
—
is
the ground of our iudigaation
opinion, as the cross
to
?
This
the veriest affectation.
practises on himself.
But
?
feet,
bleed,
conviction that his dissent
and hides
know we do.
and
at once the logic of persecution
And
and we look
We
think as
— two — hair and naUs — laugh, — cry His
Has he not two hands, Does he not
man must
He
come a
gay that there
from little
may
our
some wilfulness he
checks the flow of his
cow holds up her milk.
into his eye,
his eye
is
is
and
see that he
Yes,
knows
it
ours.
nearer to
easily
my
mark, I
am
to
be obstacles in the way
CLUBS.
222
of finding the pure article
when we its
find
it it is
we
are in search
but
comfort as medicine and cordial, once in the
right company,
appear.
new and
All that
man
found in that market. this
Our
game.
vast values do not fail to
can do for
man
a
man who
cannot.
Is
curiosity
it
be
fortunes in the world are as our
Yonder
is.
can answer the questions which I so ?
know
to
is to
There are great prizes ia
mental equipment for this competition is
of,
worth the pursuit, for beside
Hence comes his
to
me
boundless
experiences and his wit.
Hence competition for the stakes dearest to man. What is a match at whist, or draughts, or billiards, or chess, to a match of mother-wit, of knowledge, and of resources? However courteously we conceal it, it is social rank and spiritual power that are compared
;
whether in the parlor, the courts,
the caucus, the senate, or the chamber of science,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; which
are only less or larger theatres for this
competition.
He
that can define, he that can answer a ques-
tion so as to
best man.
the Sphinx.
admit of no further answer,
is
the
This was the meaning of the story of
In the old time conundrums were sent
from king to king by ambassadors. The seven wise masters at Periander's banquet spent their time in
answering them.
The
pounding and a solution
life
of Socrates
of these.
is
a pro-
So, in the hagi
223
CLUBS.
ology of each nation, the lawgiver was in each, case
some man
of
eloquent tongue, whose sympathy
brought him face to face with the extremes of ety.
Menu, the
Jesus,
soci-
Buddhist, Mahomet,
first
Zertusht, Pythagoras, are examples.
Jesus spent his people on
life
life in
humble
discoursing with
and duty,
in giving wise answers,
showing that he saw at a larger angle of
and
enough life so
"
Luther spent his
to accept his thoughts.
and
;
it is
Commentary on
not his
—
theologic works,
his
the Galatians," and the rest, but
his " Table-Talk,"
which
Johnson was a man
is still
read by men.
of no profound mind,
of English limitations, English
Church, Oxford philosophy heart, mother-wit,
vision,
who were not generous
at least silencing those
;
politics,
yet,
Dr.
—
full
English
having a large
and good sense which impatiently
overleaped his customary bounds, his conversation as reported
versation
thought
;
by BosweU has a
is
Con-
lasting charm.
the vent of character as well as of
and Dr. Johnson impresses
his
company,
not only by the point of the remark, but also, the point
fails,
because he makes
it.
when
His obvious
religion or superstition, his deep wish that they
should think so or is
so,
weighs with them,
—
so rare
depth of feeling, or a constitutional value for a
thought or opinion,
among
the light-minded
and women who make up society
;
men
and though they
CLUBS.
224
know that
there
is
in the speaker a degree of short-
coming, of insincerity,
and
of talking for victory,
and habitual
rever-
ence for principles over talent or leamiag,
is felt
yet the existence of character,
by the
One master the
frivolous.
of the best records of the great
who towered
iirst
over
all his
German
contemporaries in
thirty years of this century, is his con-
versations as recorded
by Eckermann
" Table-Talk " of Coleridge
is
;
and the
one of the best
re-
mains of his genius.
In the Norse legends, the gods of Valhalla, when they meet the Jotuns, converse on the perilous
terms that he who cannot answer the other's questions forfeits
his
own
Odin comes
life.
to the
threshold of the Jotun Waftrhudnir in disguise, calling
and
himseK Gangrader ;
told that
is
invited into the haU,
he cannot go out thence unless he
can answer every question Wafthrudnir shall put.
Wafthrudnir asks him the name of the god of the sun,
and
of the
god who brings the night
river separates the
giants
from those
what
;
dweUiags of the sons of the
of the gods
;
what plain
lies be-
tween the gods and Surtur, their adversary, all
which the disguised Odin answers
Then
it is
his turn to interrogate,
etc.
satisfactorily.
and he
swered well for a time by the Jotun.
At
is
an-
last
he
puts a question which none but himseK could an.
CLUBS. "
225
What
did Odin whisper in the ear of his when Balder mounted the funeral pile ? " The startled giant replies "None of the gods knows what in the old time thotj saidst in the ear' of thy son with death on my mouth have
swer
:
son Balder,
:
:
I spoken the fate-words of the generation of the
^sir
with Odin contended I in wise words.
;
Thou
must ever the wisest be."
And still
still
the gods and giants are so known, and
they play the same game in aU the million
mansions of heaven and of earth; at aU clubs,
tables,
and tSte-d-tStes, the lawyers in the court-
house, the senators in the capitol, the doctors in the
academy, the wits in the
hotel.
Best
is
he who
gives an answer that cannot be answered again.
Omnis
and only wit has The same thing took place when Leibnitz came to visit Newton when Schiller came to Goethe; when France, in the person of Madame de Stael visited Goethe and Schiller when Hegel was the guest of Victor Cousia in Paris; when definitio periculosa est,
the secret.
;
;
Linnaeus was the guest of Jussieu.
many
It
happened
years ago that an American chemist carried
a letter of introduction to Dr. Dalton of Manchester,-
England, the author of the theory of atomic
proportions, and was cooUy enough received
by the
Doctor in the laboratory where he was engaged.
Only Dr. Dalton scratched a formula on a scrap VOL. vn.
If
CLUBS.
226 of paper
and pusted
seen that ? "
he
towards the guest,
it
The
— " Had
visitor scratched on another
paper a formula describing some results of his own with sulphuric acid, and pushed
—
"
Had
he seen that
?
"
across the table,
it
The
attention of the
English chemist was instantly arrested, and they
became rapidly acquainted.
To answer a is
question so as to admit of no reply,
the test of a man,
—
to touch
bottom every time.
Hyde, Earl of Eochester, asked Lord-Keeper Guilford, "
Do you
not think I could understand any
business in England in a
month?"
"Yes,
my
lord," replied the other, " but I think you would
understand
ward
I.
it
better in two months."
When
Ed-
claimed to be acknowledged by the Scotch
(1292) as lord paramount, the nobles of Scotland replied, "
No
vacant."
is
answer can be made while the throne
When Henry
ress against his people
III.
(1217) plead du-
demanding confirmation and
execution of the Charter, the reply was
were admitted,
civil
:
" If this
wars could never close but by
the extirpation of one of the contending parties."
What dents?
No
can you do with one of these sharp respon-
What
can you do with an eloquent
rules of debate,
sions,
no contempt of
court,
man?
no exclu-
no gag-laws can be contrived that his
syllable will not set aside or overstep
You can
shut out the light,
it
may
first
and annul.
be, but can
you
CLUBS. shut out gravitation
227
You may condemn
?
but can you fight against his thought
his book,
That
?
is
always too nimble for you, anticipates you, and
Can
breaks out -victorious in some other quarter.
you stop the motions of good sense
What
?
can
you do with Beaumarchais, who converts the censor
whom
the court has appointed to
an ardent advocate
who
censor,
The
?
shall crush
it
persuades him to defend
stifle
Beaumarchais
this time.
it.
his play into
court appoints another
The
court successively
appoints three more severe inquisitors
them
chais converts of the play
Who
which
all into is to
Beaumar-
bring in the Revolution.
can stop the mouth of Luther,
— of Franklin, —
;
triumphant vindicators
of Mirabeau,
— of
Newton ?
— of Talleyrand
?
These masters can make good their own place,
and need no patron.
Every variety
of gift
—
sci-
ence, religion, politics, letters, art, prudence, war,
or love tion.
— has
its
vent and exchange in conversa^-
Conversation
is
the Olympic games whither
every superior gift resorts to assert and approve itself,
ful
— and,
of course, the inspirations of power-
and public men, with the
this class,
whom
rest.
But
it is
not
the splendor of their accomplish-
ment almost inevitably guides into the vortex of ambition, makes them chancellors and commanders of council fatalists,
and
of action,
and makes them at
— not these whom we now consider.
last
We
CLUBS.
228
consider those wlio are interested in thouglits, their
own and other men's, and who delight in comparing them; who think it the highest compliment they can pay a man to deal with him as an intellect, to expose to him the grand and cheerful secrets perhaps never opened to their daily companions, to share with
him the sphere
of freedom
and the sim-
plicity of truth.
But the
best conversation is rare.
to have agreed to treat
and
and the simple lover
of truth,
on very high grounds, as a
religious
realities as fictions
especially if
Society seems
fictions as realities,
;
or intellectual seeker, finds himself a stranger and alien.
It is possible that the best conversation is be-
tween two persons who can talk only to each other.
Even Montesquieu if
confessed that in conversation,
he perceived he was listened to by a third
person,
it
seemed to him from that moment the
whole question vanished from his mind.
known persons pany
how
to
to
good
social
draw out others
of retiring habit; and,
moreover, were heavy to intellectual to
have known them.
that seen,
we perhaps
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
scale of
I have
who were heavy commen who knew well enough
of rare ability
live
And
does
men who ought it
never occur
with people too superior to be
as there are musical notes too high for the
most ears ?
There are men who are great
229
CLUBS.
only to one or two companions of more opportunity,
more adapted.
or
It
was
to
meet these wants that in
have been made to organize conver-
tions attempts
sation
by bringing together
cultivated people under
the most favorable conditions.
was
liberal
na-
all civil
'Tis certain there
and refined conversation in the Greek,
Roman, and in the Middle Age. There was a time when in France a revolution occurred in domestic architecture when the houses of the nobUity, which, up to that time, had been constructed the on feudal necessities, in a hoUow square,
in the
;
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
ground-floor being resigned to offices and stables,
and the
floors
ing-rooms,
above to rooms of state and to lodg-
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; were
rebuilt with new purpose.
the Marchioness of
RambouOlet who
first
horses out of and the scholars into the
It
was
got the palaces,
having constructed her hdtel with a view to society, with superb suites of drawing-rooms on the same floor,
by
and broke through the morgue
inviting to her house
as well as
men
of rank,
men
of wit
of etiquette
and learning
and piqued the emulation
of Cardinal Richelieu to rival assemblies, to the
founding of the French Academy.
and so
The
his-
and its brilliant cirmakes an important date in French civilization. And a history of clubs from early antiquity,
tory of the H6tel Rambouillet cles
tracing the efforts to secure liberal and refined con-
CLUBS.
230
Greek and Roman
versation, througli tte
to the
Middle Age, and thence down English, and German memoirs, tracing the clubs and coteries in each country, would be an importhrough French,
We
tant chapter in history.
know
well the Mer-
maid Club, in London, of Shakspeare, Ben Jonson, Chapman, Herrick, Selden, Beaumont and Eletcher its " Rules " are preserved, and many ;
allusions
to
Herrick,
and
many
their
suppers are found in Jonson,
Anthony
in Aubrey.
details of Harrington's Club.
Wood
Club held Newton, Wren, Evelyn, and Locke
we owe
to
BosweU our knowledge
has
Dr. Bentley's
and
;
of the club of
Dr. Johnson, Goldsmith, Burke, Gibbon, Reynolds, Garriek, Beauclerk and Percy.
And we
have
rec-
ords of the brilliant society that Edinburgh boasted
Such
in the first decade of this century.
are possible only in great
pensation which these can for depriving
Nature.
them
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
â&#x20AC;˘
if
make
societies
and are the comto their dwellers
of the free intercourse with
Every scholar
men than he
cities,
is
surrounded by wiser
they cannot write as well.
Can-
not they meet and exchange results to their mutual benefit
and delight ?
when a
genial and accomplished person said to me,
was a pathetic experience
It
looking from his country
home
New
a town of two hundred
England, " There
is
to the capital of
thousand people, and not a chair in
it
for me."
If
231
CLUBS.
he were sure to find at No. 2000 Tremont Street
what scholars were abroad ies
morning
stud-
were ended, Boston would shine as the
New
after the
Jerusalem to his eyes.
Now
want of adapted
this
The man
mutual.
society is
man
of thought, the
man
of letters, the
of science, the administrator skilful in affairs, the
man
manners and
of
wish to
find,
Each wishes
whom you
culture,
— each of these
is
so
much
wishing to be found.
open his thought, his knowledge,
to
company and affection, and to exchange his gifts for yours and the first hint of a select and intelligent company is
his social skill to the daylight in your
;
welcome.
But the club must be
self-protecting,
There are people who
stacles arise at the outset.
cannot
weU be
down and
cultivated
qidet
if
you
;
can.
have the instinct of a bat to candle and put
it
out,
—
whom you must
to hear
:
a club would be,
keep
There are those who against any lighted
fly
marplots and contradictors. talk,
and those who
A
right rule for
There are those who go only to
go only
and ob-
both are bad.
— Admit no man whose presence
excludes any one topic.
It requires people
who
are
who do and let do and and know solid values, and
not surprised and shocked,
who who take a
let be,
It
is
sink
trifles
great deal for granted.
always a practical difficulty with clubs to
CLUBS.
232
laws of election so as to exclude per-
regiolate the
Nobody
emptorily every social nuisance.
The poet Marvell was wont
to say that
not drink wine with any one with
not trust his
he " would
whom
But neither can we
life."
A man of
superfine.
wishes
We must have loyalty and character.
bad manners.
he could
afford to be
irreproachable behavior and
excellent sense preferred on his travels taking his
chance at a hotel for company, to the charging himself with too
He fact
many
select letters of introduction.
confessed he liked low company.
was incontestable that the
was more
said the
The
girl
the boy, for
tlie
attractive than that of bishops.
deserts the parlor for the kitchen
wharf.
He
society of gypsies
;
Tutors and parents cannot interest him like
the uproarious conversation he finds in the market
or the dock. in camps, tell
who
I
knew a
scholar, of
some experience
said that he Hked, in a bar-room, to
a few coon stories and put himself on a good
company
footing with the silent as
he chose.
then he could be as
A scholar
always pumping his brains black-coats are good
;
;
does not wish to be
he wants gossips.
company only
The
for black-coats
but when the manufacturers, merchants, and ship-
how much they have to say, and They have come how long the conversation lasts from many zones they have traversed wide countries they know each his own arts, and the cunning
masters meet, see
!
;
;
233
CLUBS. artisans of his craft
they have seen the best and
;
Their knowledge contradicts
the worst of men.
own on many
the popular opinion and your
points.
Things which you fancy wrong they know to be
and
right
profitable
;
which you reckon
things
know
They have found virtue in the strangest homes; and in the rich store of their adventures are instances and examples which you have been seeking in vain for years, and which they suddenly and unwittingly superstitious
they
be
to
true.
offer you.
I remember a social experiment in this direc-
wherein
tion,
it
appeared that each of the members
fancied he was in need of society, but himself unpresentable.
On
trial
they
aU.
found that they
could be tolerated by, and could tolerate, each other.
Nay, the tendency to extreme
which hesitated idly
down
to join iu a club
to abject admiration of each other,
the club was broken up by
The
;
new
when
combinations.
use of the hospitality of the club hardly
needs explanation. table
self-respect
was running rap-
Men are
and I remember
a Southern
city,
that
it
it
unbent and
was explained
was impossible
social at
to
me, in
to set
any
public charity on foot unless through a tavern dinner.
I do not think our metropolitan charities
would plead the same necessity for conversation a supper
is
;
but to a club met
a good
basis, as it dis-
CLUBS.
234
arms
all parties
and puts pedantry and business
All are in good humor and at
the door.
which are the
conditions of discourse
first
to
leisure, ;
the or-
experienced
men
meet with the freedom of boys, and, sooner or
later,
dinary reserves are thrown
impart
The
No
all
that
off,
singular in their experience.
is
hospitalities of clubs are easily exaggerated.
doubt the suppers of wits and philosophers
quire
much
lustre
by time and renown.
ac-
Plutarch,
Xenophon, and Plato, who have celebrated each a banquet of their of the viands
;
set,
and
have given us next to no data to be believed that
it is
drfferent tavern dinner
relished
:
each verse of thine
Outdid the meat, outdid the
Such friends make the it
Ben Jonson
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
When we such clusters had As made us nobly wild, not mad; And yet,
that
ia-
better one in
Herrick's verses to
no doubt paint the fact
an
such society was more
by the convives than a much
worse company.
"
in,
frolic wine."
feast satisfying
;
and I notice
was when thiags went prosperously, and the
company was
full of honor, at the
banquet of the
Cid, that " the guests all were joyful, and agreed in one thing,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; that
they had not eaten better for
three years."
I need only hint the value of the club for bring, ing masters in their several arts to compare and
eas
CLUBS.
pand
their views, to
come
235
on
to a-n understanding
these points,
and
have
influence on public questions of edu-
its just
cation
and
so that their united opinion shall
politics.
It is agreed that in the sec-
tions of the British Association
more information
is
mutually and effectually communicated, in a few
many months
hours, than in
of
ordinary corre-
spondence and the printing and transmission of
ponderous reports. lettres is
a
little
We
know
that
Vhomme de
wary, and not fond of giving away
his seed-corn but there is an infallible way to draw him out, namely, by having as good as he. If you have Tuscaroora and he Canada, he may ex;
change kernel for kernel. curable,
wUl yet
tell
men
principal purpose also
club, as
is in-
of fairy gold, he
what new books he has found, what old
ones recovered, what
A
If his discretion
and he dare not speak
write and read abroad. is
the hospitality of the
a means of receiving a worthy foreigner
with mutual advantage.
Every man brings
into
thought and local culture. alternation of topics likes in a
umph
society
We
some partial
need range and
One
and variety of minds.
companion a phlegm which
to disturb, and, not less, to
make
it is
a
tri'
in an old
acquaintance unexpected discoveries of scope and
power through the advantage of an inspiring subject.
Wisdom
is like electricity.
There is no per-
CLUBS.
236
manently wise man, but
men
capable of wisdom,
who, being put into certain company, or other favorable conditions, become wise for a short time,
rubbed acquire
power for a while. But wMle we look complacently at these obvious pleasures and values of good companions, I do not as glasses
forget that Nature
and that her great
When we
stem.
is
electric
always very
gifts
much
in earnest,
have something serious and
look for the highest benefits of
conversation, the Spartan rule of one to one
usually enforced.
and searches
mood
Discourse,
deepest,
when
when it
it rises
lifts
is
highest
us into that
out of which thoughts come that remain as
stars in
our firmament,
is
between two.
COURAGEo
COUKAGE.
I OBSERVE that there are three qualities which conspicuously attract the wonder and reverence of
mankind 1.
:
—
Disinterestedness, as
shown
in iadifference to
the ordinary bribes and influences of conduct,
purpose so sincere and generous that
it
—a
cannot be
tempted aside by any prospects of wealth or other private advantage.
Self-love
is,
in almost all
men,
such an over-weight, that they are incredulous of a
man's habitual preference of the general good to his
own
;
but when they see
of ease, wealth, rank,
no
and
it
of the saints of the
This has made the
East and West, who
have led the religion of great nations. is
sacrifices
of life itself, there is
limit to their admiration.
power
proved by
Self-sacrifice
the real miracle out of which all the reported
miracles grew.
This makes the renown of the he-
—
roes of Greece
and Eome,
and Phocion
of Quintus Curtius, Cato,
ulus
;
of
;
Hatem
Tai's
of Socrates, Aristides,
hospitality
;
of
and EegChatham,
whose scornful magnanimity gave him immense
COURAGE.
240 popularity
of
;
Washington, giving his service to
the public without salary or reward.
Men
Practical power.
2.
admire the
man who
can organize their wishes and thoughts in stone and
wood and the boat,
steel
and
who has
brass,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; the man who can build make the rivers who can lead his tele-
the impiety to
run the way he wants them
;
graph through the ocean from shore to shore sitting in his closet,
;
who,
can lay out the plans of a cam-
paign, sea-war and land-war, such that the best
generals and admirals,
when
all is
they must tiiank him for success ter combination
whether
more
it
and
foresight,
only plays a
loftily,
game
;
done, see that
the power of bet-
however exhibited,
of chess, or whether,
a cunning mathematician, penetrating
the cubic weights of stars, predicts the planet which eyes had never seen;
or whether, exploring the
chemical elements whereof we and the world are
made, and seeing tbeir the lightning in his
here
how
Franklin draws
hand ; suggesting
a wiser geology shaU less
secret,
make
is
that one day
the earthquake harm-
and the volcano an agricultural to
off
resource.
Or
one who, seeing the wishes of men, knows
come
at their
end
;
whispers to this friend,
down that adversary, moulds society to his purpose, and looks at all men as wax for his hands takes command of them as the wind does of clouds, argues
as the mother does of the child, or the
man
that
COURAGE.
241
knows more does of the man that knows less, and leads them in glad surprise to the very point where they would be
man
this
:
followed with acclama^
is
tion. 3.
The
third exeeUenee
courage, the perfect
is
wiU, which no terrors can shake, which
is
attracted
by frowns or threats or hostile armies, nay, needs these to awake and fan its reserved energies into a pure flame, and
ard
is
all its
extreme
is ;
never quite
then
There
powers play well.
Achilles, a
the haz-
is
a Hercules, an
Eustem, an Arthur or a Cid in the
mythology of every nation tory,
itself until
serene and fertile, and
it is
;
and in authentic
his-
a Leonidas, a Scipio, a Caesar, a Eichard
Coeur de Lion, a Cromwell, a Nelson, a Great
Cond^, a Bertrand du Guesclin, a Doge Dandolo, a Napoleon, a Massena, and Ney. is
'T is said courage
common, but the immense esteem in which it is Animal resistance, the it to be rare.
held proves
instinct of the
doubt common
male animal when cornered, ;
but the pure
article,
is
no
courage with
eyes, courage with conduct, self-possession at the
cannon's mouth, cheerfulness in lonely adherence
endowment
to the right, is the ters.
I need not show
for the people give
everything to
it.
of elevated charac-
how much
it is
esteemed,
They forgive What an ado we make through it
the
first
rank.
two thousand years about Thermopylae and SalaVOL. vu.
16
COURAGE.
242 mis
!
What
a
memory
of Poitiers
and Crecy, and
And Bunker Hill, and "Washington's endurance any man who puts his life in peril in a cause which The is esteemed becomes the darling of aU men. !
very nursery-books, the ballads which delight boys, the romances which delight men, the favorite topics of eloquence, the
thunderous emphasis which
orators give to every martial defiance of arms,
and which the people
How short
weary of the theme
testify.
!
We
field,
and was nevei
have had examples of
for showing effective courage on a single
occasion, have tions,
may
to hear the traits of courage of
sons and brothers in the
men who,
and passage
a time since this whole nation rose every
morning to read or its
greet,
become a
favorite spectacle to na-
and must be brought in
chariots to every
mass meeting.
Men
are so charmed with valor that they have
pleased themselves with being called lions, leop-
and dragons, from the animals contemporary with us in the geologic formations. But ards, eagles,
the animals have great advantage of us in precoc-
Touch the snapping-turtle with a stick, and he seizes it with his teeth. Cut off his head, and the teeth will not let go the stick. Break the egg ity.
of the young,
and the
little
eyes are open, bites fiercely tures
contriving, â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
shall
embryo, before yet the ;
these vivacious crea-
we say ?
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; not
only to
COURAGE.
243
but also to bite before
bite after they are dead,
they are born.
But man begins
moment
paroxysms of fear the
and
alone,
it
The babe
life helpless.
comes so slowly
to
its
is
nurse leaves
any power of
in it
self-
protection that mothers say the salvation of the life
and health
of a
young child
is
a perpetual miracle.
The
terrors of the child are quite reasonable,
and
add
to his loveliness
for his utter ignorance
and
;
weakness, and his enchanting indignation on such
a small basis of capital compel every by-stander to take his part.
awake he and
feet,
gers,
But
Every moment as long as he
studies the use of his eyes, ears, hands,
learning
how
to
meet and avoid his dan-
and thus every hour
loses
one terror more.
this education stops too soon.
ity of
men
of safe industry, never
ences that
A large major-
being bred in families and beginning
early to be occupied day
make
by day with some routine
come
to the
rough experi-
the Indian, the soldier, or the
frontiersman self-subsistent and fearless.
Hence
the high price of courage indicates the general
"Mankind,"
midity.
tardly
is
said
when they meet with
Franklin,
ti-
"are das-
opposition."
In war
even generals are seldom found eager to give bat-
Lord Wellington said, " Uniforms were often masks " and again, " When my journal appears, many statues must come down." The Norse Sagas tle.
;
COURAGE.
244 relate that
when Bishop Magne reproved King
Sigurd for his wicked divorce, the priest who
at-
tended the bishop, expecting every moment when the savage king would hurst with rage and slay his superior, said that he "
And
Irish girls
by a
saw the sky no bigger than
when a pair of who had been run away with in a wagon
a calf-skin."
I remember
when he began
skittish horse, said that
rear, they
to
were so frightened that they could not
see the horse.
Cowardice shuts the eyes larger than a calf-skin
;
tiU.
the
sky
not
is
shuts the eyes so that
cannot see the horse that
is
we
running away with us
mind and chiUs the The political cruel and mean. have been reigns of madness and
worse, shuts the eyes of the
Fear
heart.
is
reigns of terror malignity, is
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;a
total perversion of opinion
upside down, and
bad to
Then
live.
its
best
men
;
society
are thought too
the protection wbich a house, a
and property, even the
family, neighborhood
first
accumulation of savings gives, go in aU times to generate this
Those
taint
respectable
classes.
which gather-in the
well-dis-
of
political parties
the
posed portion of the community, ignoble
!
what white
defensive, as nals,
if
lips
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; how infirm and
they have
!
always on the
the lead were intrusted to the jour,
often written in great part
by women and
boys, who, without strength, wish to keep
up the ap
COURAGE. They can do the
pearance of strength. placarding, the flags, fair
will
day
;
245
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; and
hurras, the
the voting,
if it
a
is
men who
but the aggressive attitude of
have right done, wUl no longer be bothered
with burglars and ruffians in the streets, counterfeiters in public offices,
and thieves on the bench
that part, the part of the leader vigilance committee,
and soul
;
of the
must be taken by stout and
men who are really angry and determined. In ordinary, we have a snappish criticism which
sincere
We
watches and contradicts the opposite party.
want the
we it
will
which advances and
When
dictates.
get an advantage, as in Congress the other day, is
because our adversary has committed a fault,
not that we have taken the initiative and given the
Nature has made up her mind that what can-
law.
not defend
itself shall
not be defended.
ing never so loud and with never so of
no
ties
use.
One heard much
Complain-
much
reason
is
cant of peace-par-
long ago in Kansas and elsewhere, that their
strength lay in the greatness of their wrongs, and
dissuading all resistance, as
if to
make
this strength
But were their wrongs greater than the And what kind of strength did they ever give him? It was always invitation to the tyrant, and bred disgust in those who would progreater.
negro's ?
tect the victim.
What
cannot stand must faU
the measure of our sincerity
and therefore
;
and
of the
COURAGE.
246 respect of men,
we
old farmer,
ask him "
No
;
is
the amount of health and wealth
hazard in the defence of our
will
if
't is
my
he
neighbor across the fence, when I
is
not going to town.meeting, says
no use baUoting, for
it
has charged every one with his
own
support,
your help
is
means I possess
by
and the only
when
;
Nature
so."
own
defence as with
title
I can have to
I have manfully put forth
to keep me,
:
wiU not stay but
what you do with the gun wiU stay his
An
right.
all
the
and being overborne
odds, the by-standers have a natural wish to in-
terfere
and see
fair play.
But with this pacific education we have no readi^ ness for
bad
a lively action.
am much
I
times.
man who went
mistaken
every
if
army ia the late war had not curiosity to know how he should behave in Tender, amiable boys, who had never ento the
countered any rougher play than a base-ball match or a fishing excursion, were suddenly drawn up to face a bayonet charge or capture a battery.
Of
course they must each go into that action with a Each whispers to himself " certain despair. :
exertions must be
only will the benignant Heaven save gracing myself and
O
yes, I
My
of small account to the result
my friends
can well die
;
and
me from
my
State.
dis-
Die!
but I cannot afford to mis-
behave; and I do not know how I shall feel." So great a soldier as the old French Marshal Montlue
COURAGE.
247
acknowledges that he has often trembled with
and recovered courage when he had
fear,
said a prayer
knew a young soldier who died in the early campaign, who confided to his sister that he had made up his mind to volunteer I
the occasion.
for
" I have not," he said, " any proper
for the war.
courage, but I shall never let any one find
And
it
out."
he had accustomed himself always to go into
whatever place of danger, and do whatever he was afraid to do, setting a dogged resolution to resist this
natural infirmity.
an anecdote of an
Coleridge has preserved
officer iu the British
Navy who
him that when he, in his first boat expedition, a midshipman in his fourteenth year, accompanied Sir Alexander Ball, " as we were rowing up to the vessel we were to attack, amid a discharge of mus-
told
ketry, I
was overpowered with
and I was ready
fear,
my knees
shook
Lieutenant Ball
to faiat away.
seeing me, placed himself close beside me, took hold of
my hand
you
and whispered,
will recover in a
same when I if
first
Courage,
went out in
an angel spoke to me.
as fearless
'
minute or so
my dear boy
I was just the
this way.'
From
and as forward
;
It
was as
moment I was
that
as the oldest of the
But I dare not think what would have become of me, if, at that moment, he had scoffed and exposed me." Knowledge is the antidote to fear, Knowledge,
boat's crew.
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
248
COURAGE.
Use, and Eeason, with is
much
as
its
higher aids.
The
child
in danger from a staircase, or the
fire-
grate, or a bath-tub, or a cat, as the soldier from a
cannon or an ambush.
Each surmounts
the fear
as fast as he precisely understands the peril and
means
learns the
panic, which
Each
of resistance. exactly, the
is,
is
liable to
terror of ignorance
surrendered to the imagination.
Knowledge
is
the
eneourager, knowledge that takes fear out of the heart,
knowledge and
use,
which
knowledge in
is
They can conquer who believe they can. he who has done the deed once who does not
practice.
It
is
shrink from attempting
who knows ride him.
it
again.
It
is
groom safely
is
the veteran soldier, who, seeing the
flash of the cannon, can step aside
the ball.
the
who can
It
the jumping horse well
Use makes a
from the path of
better soldier than the most
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; familiarity
with
danger enabling him to estimate the danger.
He
urgent considerations of duty,
sees
how much
is
the risk, and
â&#x20AC;˘
is
not afflicted with
imagination ; knows practically Marshal Saxe's that every soldier kiUed costs the
enemy
rule,
his weight
in lead.
The
mand
sailor loses fear as fast as
of sails
man, when he has a perfect a sure aim.
he acquires com-
and spars and steam
To
rifle
;
the frontiers-
and has acquired
the sailor's experience every new
circumstance suggests what he must do.
The
ter-
COURAGE. rific
chances which
make
249
the hours and the minutes
long to the passenger, he whiles away by incessant application of expedients
and
repairs.
leak, a hurricane, or a water-spout is so
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; no more.
The hunter
is
To him a much work,
not alarmed by bears,
catamounts, or wolves, nor the grazier by his buU,
nor the dog-breeder by his bloodhound, nor an Arab
by the simoon, nor a farmer by a fire in the woods. The forest on fire looks discouraging enough to a The citizen the farmer is skilful to fight it. :
neighbors run together
mop
with pine boughs they can
;
out the flame, and by raking with the hoe a
long but
trench, confine to a patch the fire
little
which would easily spread over a hundred In
lem before his tutor
The
us.
school-boy
by a question
command
does not yet
once seen, he
or in action
agents with
daunted before
of arithmetic, because
he
him has mastered. These and cheerily
as cool as Archimedes,
is
Courage
proceeds a step farther.
problem, in
is
the simple steps of the solu-
tion which the boy beside
is
equality to the
affairs, in science, in trade, in council, ;
consists in the
whom
conviction that the
you contend are not superior in
strength of resources or spirit to you.
must stimulate the mind of his Knowledge, yes
;
The general
soldiers to the per-
ception that they are men, and the
more.
acres.
short, courage consists in equality to the prob-
enemy
is
no
for the danger of dangers
COURAGE.
250 is illusion.
The eye
drums,
shining helmets, beard, and moustache
flags,
is
easily
of the soldier have conquered
daunted
;
and the
you long before
his
sword or bayonet reaches you.
But we do not exhaust the subject in the slight we must not forget the variety of tem-
analysis
;
peraments, each of which qualifies this power of It is observed that
sistance.
men
nation are less fearful ; they wait whilst others of
more
that the beholders suffer
Bodily pain
is
it,
and
pang more acutely than stroke,
re-
imagi-
they feel paia,
'T is certain that the threat
more formidable than the tims.
till
little
sensibility anticipate
suffer in the fear of the
the pang.
with
is
and
in
sometimes
't is
more keenly than
possible the vic-
superficial, seated usually in
the skin and the extremities, for the sake of giving
us warning to put us on our guard
;
not ia the
vitals, where the rupture that produces death
perhaps not
felt,
hurt him.
Pain
is
and the victim never knew what is
superficial,
and therefore fear
The torments of martyrdoms are probably most keenly felt by the by-standers. The torments are The first suffering is the last suffering, iUusory. Our afthe later hurts being lost on insensibility. is.
fections
and wishes for the external welfare
of the
hero tumultuously rush to expression in tears and outcries
and
;
but we, like him, subside into indifferency
when we perceive how short is the arm of malice, how serene is the sufferer.
defiance
longest
COURAGE. It is plain tiiat there is
251
no separate essence called
courage, no cup or cell in
brain, no vessel in
tlie
make
the heart containing drops or atoms that
give this virtue of every
bvit it is
;
man, when he
or
the right or healthy state
is
free to do that which is It is directness,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; the
instant performing of that which he ought.
The
him
constitutional to
thoughtful
man
says,
to do.
You
differ
from
me in opinion
and methods, but do you not
see that I cannot think
or act otherwise than I do
that
is
organic
And
?
?
my way
to be really strong
On
adhere to our own means.
of living
we must
organic action
all
Hear what women say of doing a task by sheer force of will it costs them a fit of sickness. Plutarch relates that the Pythoness who tried to prophesy without command in the Temple strength depends.
:
at Delphi,
though she performed the usual
and inhaled the
air of the
tripod, fell into convulsions
there
is
rites,
cavern standing on the
and
died.
Undoubtedly
a temperamental courage, a warlike blood,
which loves a
fight,
does not feel
itself
except in a
quarrel, as one sees in wasps, or ants, or cocks, or cats.
and
The
like vein appears in certain races of
in individuals of every race.
there are certain fighting boys ;
contradicting
men
bidlies, better or
of the cock-pit
;
in
men
In every school
m every society, the
every town, bravoes and
worse dressed, fancy-men, patrons
and the
ring.
Courage
is
temper-
COURAGE.
252 amental,
record of his king
not
Swedenborg has left this " Charles XII. of Sweden did
scientific, ideal. :
know what that was which others
called fear, nor
what that spurious valor and daring that
by
excited
is
inebriating draughts, for he never tasted
liquid but pure water.
he led a
life
Of him we may
more remote from death, and
lived more, than any other man."
was
It
any
say that in fact told of
the Prince of Cond(5 that " there not being a more
man
furious
turbs
in the world, danger in fight never dis-
him more than
command
just to
make him
and men, and without any the his
judgment or
as his
civil,
and to
in words of great obligation to his officers
own
spirit."
talent
;
least disturbance to
Each has
his
own courage,
but the courage of the tiger
is
The dog that scorns one, and of the horse another. The Uama that to fight, will fight for his master. will carry a load if
you caress him,
die
and
of calm endurance another.
if
he
scourged.
will refuse food
The fury of
and
is
onset
There
is
is
one,
a courage
of the cabinet as well as a courage of the field
;
a
courage of manners in private assemblies, and another in public assemblies ; a courage which enables
one
man
to
speak masterly to a hostile company,
whilst another
man who
can easily face a cannon's
mouth dares not open his own. There
is
his trade,
a courage of a merchant in dealing with
by which dangerous turns
of affairs are
COURAGE. met and prevailed
much
253
Merchants recognize as
over.
gallantry, well judged too, in the conduct
of a wise
and upright man
of business in difficult
times, as soldiers in a soldier.
There
a courage in the treatment of every art
is
by a master
in architecture, in sculpture, in paint-
ing, or in poetry,
each cheering the mind of the
by true
spectator or receiver as
strokes of genius,
which yet nowise implies the presence of physical valor in the artist.
A
in every kind.
This
is
certain
the courage of genius,
quantity of power be-
The beau-
longs to a certain quantity of faculty.
church goes sounding on, and covers
tiful voice at
up
in its volume, as in a cloak, all the defects of
The
the choir.
and
singers, I observe,
so the fair singer indulges
dares,
and
knows she
dares, because she
It gives the cutting edge to
The judge puts
his
mind
aU
yield to
it,
her instinct, and can.
every profession.
to the tangle of contradic-
and by not being afraid of it, by dealing with it as business which must be disposed of, he sees presently tions in the case, squarely accosts the question,
that
common
ply to this peculiarity,
arithmetic and
affair.
and ranges
other business. chess
:
common methods
Perseverance strips it
it
ap-
of all
on the same ground as
Morphy played a daring game
in
the daring was only an illusion of the spec-
tator, for the player sees his
move
to be well forti-
COURAGE.
254 fied
and
You may
safe.
criticism
takes itself
knows what
to say of
The
ceived.
same dealing
see the
in
new book astonishes for a few days, out of common jurisdiction, and nobody
a
;
it
:
but the scholar
is
not de-
old principles which books exist to
express are more beautiful than any book ; and out
an expert judge how far
of love of the reality he is
the book has approached
In
short.
all
it
and where
applications it
the habit of reference to one's
home
and
of all truth
counsel,
dispose of any book because
without
all
books.
When
has come
own mind,
it
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
as the
and which can
easily
can very well do
man comes
a confident
company magnifying
into a
it
the same power,
is
this or that author
he
has freshly read, the company grow silent and
ashamed
But I remember the mind engraved every word he spoke on the memory of the class, when we asked if he had read this or that shining novof their ignorance.
old professor, whose searching
elty,
" No, I have never read that book
;
" instantly
the book lost credit, and was not to be heard of again.
Every creature has a courage fit
for his duties
:
of his constitution
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Archimedes, the
courage of a
geometer to stick to his diagram, heedless of the siege
and sack
of the city
his faculty to strike at
;
and the Roman
Archimedes. Each
relying on his own, and each
is
is
soldier
strong,
betrayed when he
seeks in himself the courage of others.
COURAGE.
255
Captain John Brown, the hero of Kansas, said to
me
new
in conversation, that " for a settler in a
country, one good, believing, strong-minded
man
is
worth a hundred, nay, a thousand men without character
;
and that the right men wiH give a per-
manent direction usually
made
As
to the fortunes of a state.
for the bullying drunkards of
which armies are
up, he thought cholera, small-pox,
and consumption
as valuable recruits."
He
held
the belief that courage and chastity are silent con-
He
cerning themselves.
my men
one of
on such a man, I
much
'11
'
said, "
Ah,
let
As soon as I hear me only get my eye
briag him down,' I don't expect
aid in the fight from that talker.
quiet, peaceable
make
say,
men, the
men
'T
is
the
of principle, that
the best soldiers."
" 'T is
Who
still
observed those
True courage to iaspire terror
cowards.
men most
are most modest ere they
Why
is
valiant are
came
not ostentatious
;
to war."
men who wish
seem thereby to confess themselves do they rely on
it,
but because
know how potent it is with themselves ? The true temper has genial influences. It makes a bond of union between enemies. Governor Wise
they
of Virginia, in the record of his first interviews
with his prisoner, appeared to great advantage.
Governor Wise
is
If
a superior man, or inasmuch as
COURAGE.
256 he
is
As
a superior man, he distinguishes John Brovm.
they confer, they understand each other swiftly
each respects the other.
If opportunity allowed,
they would prefer each other's society and desert
Enemies would become
their former companions.
Hector and Achilles, Eichard and
affectionate.
Daumas
Saladin, Wellington and Soult, General
and Abdel Kader, become aware that they are nearer and more alike than any other two, and, their nation apart,
would run into each other's arms.
See too what good contagion belongs to
erywhere
it
finds its
Courage of the
man.
own with magnetic
soldier
Ev-
it.
affinity.
awakes the courage of wo-
Florence Nightingale brings liut and the
blessing of her shadow.
Heroic
women
of Virginian infantry that
the prison of John respects to the
had marched
Brown ask
prisoner.
feels the
them-
to
guard
leave to pay their
Poetry and eloquence
unknown
be-
new breath except
the
catch the hint, and soar to a pitch
Everything
offer
The troop
selves as nurses of the brave veteran.
fore.
if
and circumstance did not keep them
old doting nigh-dead politicians, whose heart the
trumpet of resurrection could not wake.
The charm
of the best courages
is
that they are
inventions, inspirations, flashes of genius.
The hero
could not have done the feat at another hour, in a
lower mood.
The
best act of the marvellous genius
COURAGE.Greece was
of
act
its first
257
not in the statue or the
;
Parthenon, but in the instinct which, at Thermopheld Asia at bay, kept Asia out of Europe,
ylae,
Asia with
its
antiquities
and organic
slavery,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
from corrupting the hope and new morning of the
The
West.
and
statue, the architecture,
of this
moment
of history,
were the later
same genius.
inferior creation of the
we
prophetic instinct, better than wisdom. said well, "
my
My hand is
until
it
timent. as
is
Napoleon
immediately connected with
;
head " but the sacred courage
The head
with the heart.
In view
recognize a certain
a
is
is
half,
connected
a fraction,
enlarged and inspired by the moral sen-
For
it is
not the means on which we draw,
health or wealth, practical skill or dexterous
talent, or multitudes of followers, that count,
the aims only.
A
The aim
great aim aggrandizes the means.
and water that are the commissariat hope that stake their
lives to
The meal
of the Jhrlorn
defend the pass are
sacred as the Holy Grail, or as see in chemistry the fuel that
but
back on the means.
reacts
is
if
one had eyes to
rushing to feed the
sun.
There he
is
is
a persuasion in the soul of
here for cause, that he was put
place by the Creator to do the inspires him, that thus he is
work
man
down
for which he
an overmatch for
antagonists that could combine against him. VOL.
VII.
17
that
iu this
all
The
COURAGE.
258
pious Mrs. Hutchinson says of some passages in the defence of
Nottingham against the Cavaliers,
" It was a great instruction that the best and high-
beams
est courages are
firmed, as
it
adequately af-
is
must be with dazzling courage.
it
And
of the Ahnighty."
whenever the religious sentiment
As long
cowardly insinuated, as with the wish to
is
succor some partial and temporary interest, or to
make
it
affirm
some pragmatical tenet which our
parish church receives to-day,
and cannot leads
with
and it.
men who,
For
inspire or create.
surprises,
not imparted,
it is
always new,
it is
and practice never comes up
There are ever appearing in the world almost as soon as they are born, take a
bee-line to the rack of the inquisitor, the axe of
the
tyrant,
Giordano Bruno, Vanini, Huss,
like
Look
Paul, Jesus, and Socrates.
at Fox's Lives
of the Martyrs, Sewel's History of the Quakers,
Southey's
Book
of the Church, at the folios of the
Brothers BoUandi, ty-five
who
collected the lives of twen-
thousand martyrs, confessors,
There
self-tormentors.
broad basis of
fact.
is
much
shrink from bayonets, the timid scared by fagots
;
rope ignominious. sons, at the stake, fire
of
The tender
the rack
is
ascetics,
fable,
and
but a
skin does not
woman
is
not
not frightful, nor the
The poor Puritan, Antony Partied straw on his head when the
approached him, and
said, "
This
is
God's hat."
COURAGE.
259
Sacred courage indicates that a
man
better than all things in the world
loves
an idea
that he
;
is
aim-
ing neither at pelf or comfort, but wiU venture all to
put in act the invisible thought in his mind.
He
everywhere a liberator, but of a freedom that
is
is
ideal
;
money
not seeking to have land or
or
conveniences, but to have no other limitation than that which his
own
free to speak truth
He
constitution imposes. ;
he
is
not free to
wishes to break every yoke
is
He
lie.
aU over the world
which hinders his brother from acting after his thought.
There are degrees of courage, and each step upward makes us acquainted with a higher virtue.
Let us say then frankly that the education of the will is the object of our existence.
prison, the rack, the
fire,
Poverty, the
the hatred and execra-
beyond the
tions of our fellow-men, appear trials
endurance' of
whose
common humanity
intellect is
;
but to the hero
aggrandized by the
soul,
and so
measures these penalties against the good which his thought surveys, these terrors vanish as dark-
ness at sunrise.
We have little
right in piping times of peace to
pronounce on these rare heights of character there
vate
is
no assurance of
life, difficult
duty
security.
is
;
but
In the most
pri-
never far
we must think with courage.
ofE.
Therefore
Scholars and think-
COURAGE.
260
an effeminate habit, and shrink
ers are prone to if
a coarser shout comes up from the
brutal act
is
up
in its
museum
its
a
The Med-
recorded in the journals.
ical College piles
sters of
street, or
grim mon-
morbid anatomy, and there are melancholy
skeptics with a
taste for
sitions, St.
who
carrion
the hideous facts in history,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
batten on
persecutions, inqui-
Bartholomew massacres, devilish
Nero, Caesar, Borgia, Marat, Lopez
;
men
in
lives,
whom
every ray of humanity was extinguished, parricides, matricides,
and whatever moral monsters.
These
are not cheerful facts, but they do not disturb a
healthy mind ; they require of us a patience as ro-
bust as the energy that attacks us, and an imrest-
ing exploration of final causes.
Wolf, snake, and
crocodile are not inharmonious in nature, but are
made useful as checks, scavengers, and pioneers and we must have a scope as large as Nature's to deal with beast-like men, detect what scullion function
assigned them, and foresee in the secular
is
melioration of the planet
how
these wiU.
become
unnecessary and will die out.
He
has not learned the lesson of
not every day surmount a fear.
put myself or any or urge
Have There
him
man
life
who does
I do not wish to
into a theatrical position,
to ape the courage of his comrade.
the courage not to adopt another's courage. is
scope and cause and resistance enough for
COURAGE. us in there
oiir is
261
proper work and circumstance.
And
no creed of an honest man, be he Chris-
Turk, or Gentoo, which does not equally
tian,
preach
it.
If
you have no
power above you, but
faith
is
beneficent
and man, then
coiling its folds about nature
that the best use of fate
in.
an adamantine fate
see only
reflert
to teach us courage,
it
only because baseness cannot change the appointed event.
If
you accept your thoughts as inspirations
from the Supreme they prescribe
obey them when
Intelligence,
because they come
difficult duties,
only so long as they are used
;
or, if
your skepti-
cism reaches to the last verge, and you have no confidence in any foreign mind, then be brave, beeaiise there is
one good opinion which must always
be of consequence to you, namely, your own.
I
an
am
permitted to enrich
anecdote of pure courage
my
rated in a baUad by a lady to ulars of the fact are exactly
chapter
from
real life, as nar-
whom
all
known.
GEORGE NIDIVER. Men have done brave deeds, And tards have sung tkem I of good George Nidiver
Now the
tale will teU.
by adding
well:
the partic-
COURAGE.
262
In Califomian mountains
A hunter bold was lie
:
Keen his eye and sure his aim As any you should see.
A little
Indian boy
Followed him everywhere,
Eager
to share the hunter's joy,
The
hunter's
And when
meal
to share.
the bird or deer
Fell by the hunter's skUl,
The boy was always near To help with right good-will.
One day
as through the cleft
Between two mountains Shut ia both right and Their questing
steep,
left,
way they
keep,
They see two grizzly bears With hunger fierce and fell
Rush
at
them unawares
Right down the narrow deU.
The boy turned round with screams.
And One
ran with terror wild
;
of the pair of savage beasts
Pursued the shrieking
The hunter He knew
child.
raised his gun,
one charge was
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; all,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
And through the boy's pursuing He sent his only ball.
foe
COURAGE. The
263
other on George Nidiver
Came on
with dreadful pace:
The hunter stood unarmed, And met him face to face. I say unarmed he stood. Against those frightful pawa
The
rifle
butt, or club of
wood,
Could stand no more than straws.
George Nidiver stood still And looked bim in the face
;
The wild beast stopped amazed, Then came with slackening pace. Still
firm the hunter stood,
Although
his heart beat
high
;
Again the creature stopped,
And gazed
with wondering eye.
The hunter met his gaze, Nor yet an inch gave way; The bear turned slowly round, And slowly moved away.
What It
thoughts were in his mind
would be hard to
What
spell
:
thoughts were in George Nidiver
I rather guess than
But sure
that
rifle's
tell.
aim.
Swift choice of generous part,
Showed ill its passing gleam The depths of a brave heart.
SUCCESS.
SUCCESS.
OuE American
people
cannot be taxed with
slowness in performance or in praising their per-
The
formance.
earth
shaken by our engineries.
is
We are feeling our youth and nerve and bone. We have the power of territory and of sea-coast, and know the use of these. We count our census,
we read our growing
valuations,
we survey Our
our map, which becomes old in a year or two.
eyes run approvingly along the lengthened lines of
We have gone nearest
and telegraph.
railroad
We have
the Pole.
to
discovered the Antartic conti-
We interfere ia Central and South America,
nent.
at Canton,
and
in
Japan
we are adding to an alOur political constituworld, and we value our;
ready enormous territory. tion
'T
the hope of the
is
selves
on
is
all these feats.
the
way
of the world
;
youth, and of unfolding strength.
each
with
some triumphant
't is
the law
Men
are
superiority,
of
made
which,
through some adaptation of fingers or ear or eye or ciphering or pugilistic or musical or literary
SUCCESS.
268 craft, enriches the
not only we, but these certificates. cle
:
Erwin
community with a new
men
all
European
of
art
and
;
stock, value
Giotto could draw a perfect
cir-
of Steinbach could build a minster
Olaf, king of
Norway, could run round
his galley
on the blades of the oars of the rowers when the ship was in motion
;
Ojeda could run out swiftly
on a plank projected from the top of a tower, turn round swiftly and come back
Rome
:
;
Evelyn writes from
" Bernini, the Florentine sculptor, architect,
and poet, a little before my coming to Eome, gave a public opera, wherein he painted the
painter
scenes, cut the statues, invented the engines,
comedy and
posed the music, writ the
com-
built the
theatre."
"There
is
nothing
" which I cannot do by
war,"
in
my own
said
hands.
Napoleon, If there is
make gunpowder, I can manufacture it. know how to construct. If it is necessary to make cannons at the forge, I can make them. The details of working them in batnobody
The
to
gun-carriages I
tle, if it is
necessary to teach, I shall teach them.
In administration,
it is
I alone
who have arranged
the finances, as you know."
among many proofs of when the timber in the
It is recorded of Linnaeus, his beneficent skiU, that
ship-yards of
Sweden was ruined by
was desired by the government
rot,
to find
Linnaeus
a remedy.
269
SUCCESS.
He studied
the insects that infested the timber, and
foiind that they laid their eggs in the logs within
certain days in April,
and he directed that during
ten days at that season the logs should be immersed
under water in the docks
which being done, the
;
timber was found to be uninjured.
Columbus
Veragua found plenty
at
of gold
;
but
leaving the coast, the ship full of one hundred and fifty skilful
much
with too
ery to him, record
seamen,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; some
them old
of
pilots,
and
experience of their craft and treach-
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; the
of his
wise admiral kept his private
homeward
path.
And when
he
reached Spain he told the King and Queen that " they
may ask
where
is
they
all
the pUots
Veragua.
who came with him
Let them answer and say
know where Veragua
lies.
if
I assert that they
can give no other account than that they went to lands where there was abundance of gold, but they
do not know the way to return thither, but would be obliged to go on a voyage of discovery as much as
if
they had never been there before.
mode
There
is
a
of reckoning," he proudly adds, " derived
from astronomy, which
who imder stands
is
sure and safe to any one
it."
Hippocrates in Greece
knew how
to stay the de-
vouring plague which ravaged Athens in his time,
and
his skill died with him.
Dr. Benjamin Rush,
in Philadelphia, carried that city heroically through
SUCCESS.
270 the yellow fever of
tlie
Levemer
year 1793.
car-
ried the Copernican system in his head,
and knew
We
have seen
where to look for the new planet.
an American woman write a novel of which a ion copies were sold, in
all
mill-
languages, and which
had one merit, of speaking to the universal heart, and was read with equal interest to three audiences, namely, in the parlor, in the kitchen, and in the nursery of every house.
We have seen women
who
We
could institute hospitals and schools in armies.
woman who by
have seen a
pure song could melt
And
the souls of whole populations. limit to these varieties of talent.
These are arts to he thankful it is
a
new
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; each
no
is
one as
human power. We cannot them. Our civilization is made
direction of
choose but respect
up of a million contributions cess, to
for,
there
be sure we esteem
since
we do
selves
more
if
first
it
of this kind.
We
in ourselves.
we have
For
suc-
a test in other people,
succeeded.
respect our-
we
Neither do
grudge to each of these benefactors the praise or the profit which accrues from his industry.
Here are already
quite diiferent degrees of moral
merit in these examples.
I don't
know but we and
our race elsewhere set a higher value on wealth, victory,
and coarse superiority of
other men,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; have
easily contented.
all kinds,
less tranquillity of
The Saxon
is
than
mind, are
less
taught from his
in-
SUCCESS. fancy to wish to be
first.
Tlie
Norseman was a
The
rider, fighter, freebooter.
less
baUads describe him as
afflicted
:
rest-
ancient Norse
with this inextin-
The mother says to her
guishable thirst of victory.
son
271
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
" Success shall be in thy courser Success in thyself, which
is
tall,
best of
all.
Success in thy hand, success in thy foot.
In struggle with man, in battle with brute ^. :
The holy God and
Saint Drothin dear
Shall never shut eyes on thy career
Look
out, look out,
;
Svend Vonved
" !
These feats that we extol do not signify so much as
we
origin.
really
These boasted
say.
They add
are local
arts are of very recent
conveniences, but do not
to our stature.
The
greatest
men
world have managed not to want them.
was a great man, without telegraph, or
of the
Newton gas, or
steam-coach, or rubber shoes, or lucifer-matches, or ether for his pain
and
and
Scipio,
iences, but
;
so
was Shakspeare, and Alfred,
Socrates.
These are local conven-
how easy to go now
to parts of the
world
where not only all these arts are wanting, but where they are despised.
The Arabian
sheiks, the
dignified people in the planet, do not
yet have as
much
most
want them
self-respect as the English,
and
are easily able to impress the Frenchman or the American who visits them with the respect due to
a brave and sufficient man.
SUCCESS.
272
These feats have to be sure great difference of
and some of them involve power of a high kind. But the public values the invention more merit,
The inventor knows
than the inventor does.
much more and The public sees in
where
better
is
it
this
there
came from.
Men
a lucrative secret.
see
the reward which the inventor enjoys, and they think,
are a
'
How
little
short or
by
we win how
shall
tedious false
;
that
?
'
Cause and
We
means ?
Eob Roy
rule, after the
be the strongest to-day,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; the
rands, prudent people, whose
to the cause
Napoleon
way
rule, to
of the Talley-
watches go faster
than their neighbors', and who detect the
ment
by
are not scrupulous.
What we ask is victory, without regard after the
effect
to leap to the result
first
mo-
and throw themselves on the instant
of decline
on the winning
side.
I have heard that Nelson
used to say, "Never mind the justice or the impudence, only let
me
succeed."
gle duty of counsel
Fuller says
't is
a
once worn cleareth
Hien ne
is,
Lord Brougham's
maxim
of lawyers that
all defects of
Americans are tainted with
Our
success takes
by
exclusion, grasping,
from
all
And we
this insanity, as our
bankruptcies and our reckless politics are great
"a crown
the wearer thereof."
reussit niieux que le succes.
We
sin-
" to get the prisoner clear."
what
it
may
show.
and egotism. gives to one.
'Tis a haggard, malignant, careworn running for luck.
SUCCESS. Egotism
is
2T3
a kind of buckram that gives momen-
tary strength and concentration to men, and seems
much used
to be
in nature for fabrics in
and spasmodic energy
men
required.
is
which local
I could point to
in this country, of indispensable importance to
the carrying on of
whom we could a national
loss.
ill
American
spare
But
it
;
life,
of this humor,
any one of them would be
They
spoils conversation.
They are ever
win not try conclusions with you.
thrusting this pampered self between you and them. It
is
plain they have a long education to undergo
to reach
simplicity
and plain - dealing, which are
what a wise man mainly cares for in Nature knows how to convert
show-men,
utilizes misers, fanatics,
complish her ends
;
but
of the foible for that. success
is
his companion.
evil to
good
;
Nature
egotists, to ac-
we must not think better The passion for sudden
rude and puerile, just as war, cannons,
and executions are used
to clear the
ground of bad,
lumpish, irreclaimable savages, but always to the
damage
of the conquerors.
I hate this shallow Americanism which hopes to
knowledge by raps on
get rich
by
midnight
tables, to learn the
credit, to get
by phrenology, or
skill
economy
of the
mind
without study, or mastery
without apprenticeship, or the sale of goods through
pretending that they
sell,
or power through
making
believe you are powerful, or through a packed jury VOL.
VII.
18
SUCCESS.
274
or caucus, bribery and "repeating" votes, or wealth
by fraud.
They think they have got
have got something
else,
it,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; a crime which
but they calls for
another crime, and another devil behind that ; these are steps to suicide, infamy, and the harming of
mankind.
We
countenance each other in this
life
show, puffing, advertisement, and manufacture
of
of public opinion
and excellence
;
sight of
is lost
in the hunger for sudden performance and praise.
There was a wise man, an Italian Angelo, who writes thus of himself
whom
the Cardinal IppoUto, in
all
artist,
Michel
" Meanwhile
:
my
best hopes
were placed, being dead, I began to understand that the promises of this world are for the most part
vain phantoms, and that to confide in one's
self,
become something of worth and value,
the best
is
and
and safest course." Now, though I am by no means sure that the reader will assent to all my propositions, yet I think
rale for success,
we
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; that we
my
shall agree in
shall
first
drop the brag and
the advertisement, and take Michel Angelo's course,
" to confide in one's
self,
and be something
of worth
and value."
Each man has an your work. says all
it
oftener.
with one's
buUd
his
aptitude
bom
with him.
Do
I have to say this often, but nature
'T
is
clownish to insist on doing
own hands,
own clumsy
as
if
every
house, forge his
man
should
hammer, and
275
SUCCESS. bake his dough can do best
;
but he
is
to dare to
do what he
not help others as they would direct
;
To
him, but as he knows his helpful power to be.
do otherwise
is to
aU those extraordinaryamong men. Yet whilst
neutralize
special talents distributed
this self-truth is essential to the exhibition of the
world and to the growth and glory of each mind,
it
man who believes his own thought who speaks that which he was created to say. As nothing astonishes men so much as common-sense is
rare to find a
or
and plain dealiag,
man
so nothing is
more rare
Any work
than an act of his own.
any
looks won^
derful to him, except that which he can do.
own thought
in
We do
we must serve somesomebody we dote on the old body we must quote and the distant we are tickled by great names we import the religion of other nations we quote their opinions The gravest and we cite their laws. not believe our
;
;
;
;
;
;
;
learnedest courts ia this country shudder to face a
new
question,
and
will wait
months and years for a
case to occur that can be tortured into a precedent,
and thus throw on a bolder party
the onus of
an
Thus we do not carry a counsel in our or do not know it; and because we can-
initiative.
breasts,
not shake off from our shoes this dust of Europe
and Asia, the world seems is
under a
mimic,
spell,
every
life is theatrical
to
man and
be born
is
old, society
a borrower and a
literature a quotation
SUCCESS.
276
and hence that depression of spirits, that furrow care, said to mark every American brow.
of
Self-trust is the first secret of success, the belief
that
if
you are here the authorities of the universe
put you here, and for cause, or with some task appointed you in your constitution, and so
strictly
long as you work at that you are well and successful.
by no means
It
turely to a
showy
enough
It is
satisfy spectators.
right direction.
consists in rushing
prema-
feat that shall catch the eye
So
ing the real success,
if
and
you work in the
far
from the performance
be-
it is
clear that the success
was
much earlier than that, namely, when all the feats that make our civility were the thoughts of good heads. The fame of each discovery rightly attaches to the mind that made the formula which contains all the details, and not to the manufacturers who now make their gain by it although the mob uni;
formly cheers the publisher, and not the inventor. It
is
the dulness of the multitude that they cannot
see the house in the ground-plan
the model of the projector.
though
were a new
it
fuel, or
creation of agriculture,
mera
;
but when
it is
a
it is
fact,
;
Whilst
the working, in it is
a thought,
a new food, or the
cried down,
and comes
it is
a chi-
in the shape
of eight per cent, ten per cent, a hundred per cent,
they cry,
'
It is the voice of God.'
ough the sculptor said
to
me
Horatio Green,
of Robert Fulton'a
277
SUCCESS. visit to
Paris
"Fulton knocked
:
lived long enough to
know
Na-
at the door of
poleon with steam, and was rejected that he
and Napoleon
;
had excluded a
greater power than his own."
no loving of knowledge, and of
Is there
and
art,
Cannot we please
of our design, for itself alone ?
ourselves with performing our work, or gaining truth and power, without being praised for
my
gain
it ?
I
point, I gain all points, if I can reach
my
companion with any statement which teaches him his
own
time
is
The sum
worth.
never lost that
good workman never but,
'
There, that
work on
says,
:
try
wisdom
his
'
own
it,
design,
and come again,
it signifies little
man happy who
acquired the willingly
skill
when
The
There, that wiU do
is
wiU
weU
that he
content with having
which he had aimed
the occasion of
ated shall arrive, knowing
it is
;
I pronounce
does not yet find orders or customers. that young
that the
is,
If the artist, in whatever art,
last always.'
at
is it
of
devoted to work.
is
weU
that
and waits
at,
making it
it
appreci-
will not loi-
The time your rival spends in dressing up his work for effect, hastily, and for the market, you
ter.
spend in study and experiments towards real knowl-
edge and
efficiency.
ture or machine, or
pointment
;
He won
has thereby sold his picthe prize, or got the ap-
but you have raised yourself into a
higher school of
art,
and a few years
will
show the
SUCCESS.
278
advantage of the real master over the short popularity of the
showman.
know
I
a nice point
it is
to discrimiaate this self-trust, which
is
of all mental vigor and performance,
from the
ease to which
it is allied,
But
it is
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; the exaggeration â&#x20AC;&#x201D; yet they are two
we can play sanity to know
part which
;
the pledge dis-
of the
things.
my
that, over
talent or
kuack, and a million times better than any talent, is
the central inteUigenee which subordinates and
uses
aU
talents
and
;
it is
only as a door into this,
that any talent or the knowledge value.
He
ligence, in be,
comes into
is
of
is
that in the scale of powers
but the central
How
all.
gives
self-possession.
point
not talent but sensibility which
confines,
it
iuto this central intel-
which no egotism or exaggeration can
My next is
who comes
only
often
it
life
is
best
:
it
talent
puts us in relation to
seems the chief good to be
bom
with a cheerful temper and well adjusted to the tone of the
human
in harmony,
race.
Such a man
and conscious by
infinite strength.
an
Like Alfred, " good fortune ac-
companies him like a
gift of
God."
and be not daunted by things.
man
feels himself
his receptivity of
'T
Feel yourself, is
the fulness of
and makes his Homers so great. The his own ideas to fill their
that runs over into objects,
Bibles and Shakspeares and joyful reader borrows of faulty outline, gives.
and knows not that he borrows and
279
SUCCESS. There
We
is
something of poverty in our criticism.
assume that there are few great men,
rest are little
;
that there
all
the
but one Homer, but
is
one Shakspeare, one Newton, one Socrates.
But
the soul in her beaming hour does not acknowledge these usurpations.
We
should
know how
to praise
Socrates, or Plato, or Saint John, without impov-
erishing us.
speare or
In good hours we do not find Shak-
Homer
over -great, only to have been
happy present, and every man and woman divine possibilities. 'Tis the good reader that makes the good book; a good head cantranslators of the
not read amiss, in every book he finds passages
which seem confidences or asides hidden from else
and unmistakably meant
The
light
by which we
all
for his ear.
see in this
world comes
Wherever any made the faces and
out from the soul of the observer.
noble sentiment
dwelt,
houses around to shine.
it
Nay, the powers of this
busy brain are miraculous and are the rules
illimitable.
Therein
and formulas by which the whole em-
pire of matter is worked.
There
no prosperity,
is
trade, art, city, or great material wealth of
kind, but if you trace in a thought of
it
home you will
any
find it rooted
some individual man.
Is all life a surface affair?
'Tis curious, but
our difference of wit appears to be only a differ-
ence of impressionability, or power to appreciate
SUCCESS.
280 faint, fainter,
When
ions.
and
infinitely faintest voices
the scholar or the writer has
his brain for thoughts
and
verses,
and
vis-
pumped
and then comes
abroad into Nature, has he never found that there is
a better poetry hinted in a boy's whistle of a
tune, or in the piping of a sparrow, than in all
We call
his literary results ?
it
What
health.
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; with his
so admirable as the health of youth?
long days because his eyes are good, and brisk
him warm
culations keep
is
in cold rooms,
loves books that speak to the imagination
;
cir-
and he and he
can read Plato, covered to his chin with a cloak in
a cold upper chamber, though he should associate the Dialogues ever after with a wooUen smell. the bane of
crowded
life
out,
'Tis
that natural effects are continually
and
artificial
arrangements substi-
We
remember when in early youth the earth spoke and the heavens glowed when an evening, any evening, grim and wintry, sleet and tuted.
;
snow, was enough for us air.
and
Now
lights to
What and
it
is it
costs
;
the houses were in the
a rare combination of clouds
overcome the common and mean.
we look
for in the landscape, in sunsets
sunrises, in the sea
and the firmament ? what
but a compensation for the cramp and pettiness of
human performances?
We
bask in the day, and
the mind finds somewhat as great as ture
aU
is
large massive repose.
itself.
In Na-
Remember what
SUCCESS.
281
a city boy wlio goes for the
befalls
He
the October woods.
first
time iato
suddenly initiated into
is
a pomp and glory that brings to pass for him the
He
dreams of romance. he was
is
the king he dreamed
he walks through tents of gold, through
;
bowers of crimson, porphyry and topaz, pavilion
on
pavilion, garlanded with vines, flowers
beams, with incense and music, with so to his astonished senses;
pique and
flatter
and sun-
many
hints
the leaves twinkle and
him, and his eye and step are
tempted on by what hazy distances to happier
The owner
perception.
of the wood-lot finds only
a number of discolored ought to come down ter
;
soli-
All this happiness he owes only to his finer
tudes.
;
trees,
and
says,
'
They
they are n't growing any bet-
they should be cut and corded before spring.'
"Wordsworth writes of the delights of the boy in
Nature
:
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
" For never will come tack the hour
Of
splendor in the grass, of glory in the flower."
But I have spoke for
of,
just seen a
who
him; that
told
man, well knowing what he
me
his eyes
that the verse
was not true
opened as he grew older,
and that every spring was more beautiful than the
"We
to
him
last.
live
among gods
of our
own
creation.
that deep-toned beU, which has shortened
Does
many a
night of iU nerves, render to you nothing but acous-
SUCCESS.
282
Is the old church
tic vibrations ?
the
first
lessons of religious
life,
or the college where you
school,
which gave you or the village first
knew
the
dreams of fancy and joys of thought, only boards or brick and mortar ?
Is the house in
which you
were born, or the house in which your dearest friend lived, only a piece of real estate whose value is
You walk
covered by the Hartford insurance ?
on the beach and enjoy the animation of the Scoop up a
ture.
pahn, take up a handful of shore sand
What
are the elements.
sand ? what
a
little
is
pic-
water in the hollow of your
little
is
well, these
;
the beach but acres of
the ocean but cubic miles of water ?
more or
less signifies
that this brute matter brute.
It is that the
gravity,
and bent
to
is
sand
No,
nothing.
it
is
part of somewhat not floor is held
by spheral
be a part of the round globe,
under the optical sky,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; part
of the astonishing as-
tronomy, and existing at last to moral ends and
from moral
causes.
The world that
is,
is
only half
not ;
made up to the eye of figures, How also made of color.
it is
that element washes the universe with
its
enchant-
The sculptor had ended his work, and behold a new world of dream-like glory. 'T is the ing waves
!
last stroke of
Nature
In like manner,
;
life is
only, but of love also.
beyond color she cannot
made
go.
up, not of knowledge
If thought is form, senti-
SUCCESS.
283
is color.
It clothes the skeleton world with
space, variety,
and glow. The hues of sunset make
ment life
great
so the affections
;
and
of cottage
The fundamental
little
web
populous, important, and
fireside
main space
filling the
make some
in our history.
fact in our metaphysic consti-
tution is the correspondence of
man
to the world,
so that every change iu that writes a record in the
mind.
The mind
sympathetically to the
yields
tendencies or law which stream through things and
make
the order of nature; and in the perfection
of this correspondence or expressiveness, the health
and
force of
man
If
consist.
into our intellectual education, is
we follow this hint we shall find that it
new dogmas and a
not propositions, not
exposition of the world that are our
logical
first
need
but to watch and tenderly cherish the iuteUeetual
and moral
sensibilities,
thought, and
home with
woo them
to stay
and make
Whilst they abide with us we
us.
not think amiss. talent.
those fountains of right
Our
their shall
perception far outruns our
We bring a welcome
to the highest lessons
of religion and of poetry out of
aU proportion be-
And,
further, the great
yond our skUl
to teach.
hearing and sympathy of wise than their speakiag
sympathy
mind
;
is
men is
is
wont
more true and to be.
A
deep
what we require for any student of the
for the chief difference between
man and
SUCCESS.
284
man
is
a difference of impressionability.
Aristotle
Bacon or Kant propound some maxim
or
whicli is
But
the key-note of philosophy thenceforward.
am more
interested to
know
when
that
have hurled out their grand word, familiar experience of every it
be not,
Ab
in the
and
if
!
it
will never be
it is
only some
in the street.
If
heard of again.
one could keep this
happy
its
man
I
at last they
and
live
find the
day
sensibility,
and
sufficing present,
cheap means contenting, which only ask
receptivity in you,
and no strained exertion and
cankering ambition, overstimulating to be at the
head of your to
class
and the head
of society,
and
have distinction and laurels and consumption!
We are not strong
by our power
to penetrate, but
The world is enlarged for us, by not by new objects, but by finding more affinities and potencies iu those we have. This sensibility appears in the homage to beauty our relatedness.
which exalts the
faculties of
youth
;
which form and color exert upon the soul
we
see eyes that are a
which I have them,
:
;
when
compliment to the human
race, features that explain the
Fontenelle said
power
in the
Phidian sculpture.
" There are three things about
curiosity,
though I know nothing of
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; music, poetry, and
love."
tors of this science are the greatest
The men,
great doc-
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Dante,
Petrarch, Michel Angelo and Shakspeare.
The
SUCCESS. wise
marked
"I
more
skilled
in this confident
hard to
manner
Who is old age, bilities
manner
detect, so
measured by
relating
its skill
than any one
man
They may weU speak their knowledge, and
of the past or present time." in this uncertain
trifle
yet in that kind of learning I
;
lay claim to being
it is
mere
say, nothing but a
to matters of love
is
expressions.
always," he says, " asserting that I happen to
know, I may
of
with a certain
Socrates treats this matter
archness, yet with very
am
285
of
of their will, for the secret
deep
it is
;
and yet genius
in this science.
he iu youth or ui maturity or even in
who
does not like to hear of those sensi-
which turn curled heads round at church,
and send wonderful eye-beams across assemblies,
from one
to one, never missiag
The keen
crowd? hundreds
;
man
interested ia every
is
slipper that comes into the assembly. alike everywhere, creeps
The
passion,
under the snows of Scan-
dinavia, under the fires of the equator, in the seas of Polynesia. divinity in the Norse
thickest
reckons by tens and
statist
the genial
in the
Lofn
Edda
as
is
and swims
as puissant a
Camadeva
in the
red vault of India, Eros in the Greek, or Cupid in the Latin heaven. that
is
ity
the lover has
it is
others; his eye
is
specially true of
a state of extreme impressionabil-
love ;
And what
more
senses
and
finer senses
than
and ear are telegraphs; he reads
SUCCESS.
286
omens on the and
flower,
and
and
cloud,
face,
and form,
and reads them aright. In his surthe sudden and entire understanding that
gesture,
prise at is
between him and the beloved person,
to
him that they might somehow meet indepen-
dently of time and place.
How
it
occurs
delicious the belief
that he could elude all guards, precautions, cere-
monies, means, and delays, and hold instant and
In
sempiternal communication!
solitude, in ban-
ishment, the hope returned, and the experiment
was eagerly
take his part. uttered
met,
by
by
What was
on his
When
his friend.
to
lips to say is
he went abroad, he
wonderftil casualties, the one person he If in his
sought.
The supernal powers seem
tried.
his friend
walk he chanced to look back,
And
was walking behind him.
happened that the
artist
it
has
has often drawn in his
pictures the face of the future wife
whom
he had
not yet seen.
But
also in complacencies nowise so strict as this
of the passion, the
man
of sensibility counts
it
a
delight only to hear a child's voice fully addressed to him, or to see the
youth of either sex. remote,
how
manners of the
beautiful
When
insignificant
the event
the
is
greatest
with the piquancy of the present
!
past and
compared
To-day at the
school examination the professor interrogates Syl-
vina in the history class about Odoacer and Alario.
SUCCESS.
287
Sylvina can't remember, but suggests that Odoa> cer
was defeated
and tbe professor tartly replies, But 't is plain to
;
" No, he defeated the Eomans." the visitor that
Odoacer and
and
Sylvina,
'tis
of no importance at all about
a great deal of importance about
'tis
she says he was defeated,
if
why he
had better a great deal have been defeated than Odoacer, if there was give her a moment's annoy. a particle of the gentleman in him, would have said.
Let
And gives a
me
be defeated a thousand times.
as our tenderness for youth
new and
and beauty
just importance to their fresh
and
manifold claims, so the like sensibOity gives wel-
come
to all excellence, has eyes
merit in comers. acter
and
talent,
An
and
hospitality for
marked charwho had brought with him hither Englishman
of
one or two friends and a library of mystics, assured
me
that nobody and nothing of possible interest
was
left in
alive away.
to
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; he had brought
England,
I was forced to reply
you probably, on the other
in the
:
all
that was
" No, next door
side of the partition
man than any you Every man has a history worth know-
same house, was a greater
had seen."
we could draw it from own magnet-
ing, if
he could teU
him.
Character and wit have their
ism.
Send a deep man
find another deep his neighbors.
it,
man
That
is
or
if
into
any town, and he wUl
there,
unknown
hitherto to
the great happiness of Hfe,
SUCCESS.
288
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; to
add to our
'
The very
high, acquaintances.
law of averages might have assured you that there will
be in every hundred heads, say ten or
five
good
Morals are generated as the atmosphere
heads.
is.
'Tis a secret, the genesis of either; but the springs of justice and courage do not fail any salt or
more than
sulphur springs.
The world
always opulent, the oracles are
is
never silent; but the receiver must by a happy
temperance be brought to that top of condition, that frolic healthj that he can easily take
these fine communications. of wisdom,
and the sign
is
Health
is
and give
the condition
cheerfulness,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; an open
There was never poet who had
and noble temper.
The
not the heart in the right place.
Pons CapdueU, wrote, â&#x20AC;&#x201D; " Oft have I heard, and
old trouveur,
deem the witness tinie, God delights in too."
Whom man delights in,
All beauty warms the heart, prosperity,
lasting
is
a sign of health,
and the favor of God.
and
marked with
fit
for
this
men
stamp.
Everything
the Divine
What
Power has
delights,
emancipates, not what scares and pains us
and good in speech and in the
arts.
is
what wise
For, truly, the
heart at the centre of the universe with every throb hurls the flood of happiness into every artery, vein,
and
veinlet, so that the
whole system
is
inundated
SUCCESS. with the tides of place
too great
is
is
The plenty
joy.
of the poorest
the harvest cannot be gathered.
:
Every sound ends surface
289
The edge
in music.
One more
The good mind
trait of true success.
chooses what
is positive,
what
is
advancing,
Our system
braces the affirmative.
is
are or shall be inspired.
is
— not
but one that
aU
But we must begin by
af-
Shakspeare, one Homer, one Jesus,
firming.
— em-
one of pov-
'Tis presumed, as I said, there
erty.
of every
tinged with prismatic rays.
Truth and goodness subsist forevermore.
and good, night and day The day is great and
It is true there is evil
but these are not equal.
The night
final.
is
for the day, but the
What
for the night.
is this
day
not
is
immortal demand for
more, which belongs to our constitution ? this enor-
mous ideal?
There
is
No
as this terrible Soul. to content us. tice,
no such
We know the
the sufficiency of truth.
its
ity,
— what
mind he tant
or
;
The new pretender
victorious tone.
ply to every
me
We know the answer We know the Spirit searching tests to apare
amount and
in ?
is
Your theory
qual-
the state of is
unimpor-
but what new stock you can add to humanity,
how high you can
only as he makes VOL.
satisfactoriness of jus-
does he add ? and what
leaves
and beggar
historical person begins
that leaves nothing to ask.
by
critic
VII.
life 19
carry
life ?
A man
and nature happier
is
a
man
to us.
SUCCESS.
290
I fear the popular notion of success stands in direct opposition in all points to the real
some
One
success.
and whole-
adores public opinion, the other
one fame, the other desert
private opinion
;
feats, the other
humility
;
one
;
one lucre, the other love
;
one monopoly, and the other hospitality of mind.
We may apply this manners, to
art, to
affirmative
law to
letters, to
the decorations of our houses,
I do not find executions or tortures or lazar-
etc.
houses, or grisly photographs of the field on the
day
after the battle, fit subjects for cabinet pictures. I think that some so-called " sacred subjects " must
be treated with more genius than I have seen in the masters of Italian or Spanish art to be right pictures for houses
and churches. Nature does not
of each creature accurately, sternly
then veils
functions;
carefully she covers
not see
it
;
it
fit
for all his
See
how
The eye
shall
scrupulously.
up the
skeleton.
the sun shall not shine on
weaves her tissues and integuments of skin it,
in-
Nature lays the ground-plan
vite such exhibition.
and hair and beautiful
colors of the
it.
She
flesh
and
day over
and forces death down underground, and makes
haste to cover
it
up with
leaves
and
wipes carefully out every trace by
Who
vines,
new
and
creation.
and what are you that would lay the ghastly
anatomy bare
?
Don't hang a dismal picture on the wall, and do
SUCCESS.
291
not daub with sables and glooms in your conversa-
Don't be a cynic and disconsolate preacher.
tion.
Omit
Don't bewail and bemoan. propositions.
the negative
Nerve us with incessant
Don't waste yourself in
rejection,
affirmatives.
nor bark against
When
the bad, but chant the beauty of the good. that
spoken which has a right to be spoken,
is
the chatter and the criticism will stop.
nothing that will not help somebody
;
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
down
Set
" For every gift of noble origin Is breathed
The
affirmative of affirmatives
love, so is
upon by Hope's perpetual breath." is love.
much perception. As mind so it enlarges, and
As much
caloric to matter, so
love to
;
so
it
empowers
Good-will makes insight, as one finds his
it.
to the sea
by embarking on a
scores of people
who ties
shall
and
who can
make me
way
I have seen
river.
silence me, but I seek
one
forget or overcome the frigidi-
imbecilities into
which I
fall.
The
painter
Giotto, Vasari tells us, renewed art because he put
more goodness and
into his heads.
To awake
in
man
to raise the sense of worth, to educate his feel-
ing and judgment so that he shall scorn himself for a
bad
action, that is
the only aim.
'Tis cheap and easy to destroy.
a joyful boy or an innocent
girl
There
is
not
buoyant with
fine
purposes of duty, in aU the street full of eager
and rosy
faces,
but a cynic can
chill
and
dis-
SUCCESS.
292
hearten with a single word.
Despondency comes
The
readily enough to the most sanguine.
cynic
has only to follow their hint with his bitter con-
and they check that eager courageous pace and go home with heavier step and premaThey will themselves quickly enough ture age. firmation,
Which
give the hint he wants to the cold wretch. of
them
has not failed to please
where they most
wished it? or blundered where they were most ambitious of success
? or
found themselves awkward
or tedious or incapable of study, thought, or hero-
and only hoped by good sense and do what they could and pass unblamed ? ism,
makes
witty malefactor satire
soul,
Yes, this
add energy,
by firm
is
And less
;
hope and blow the coals
to
redeem defeat by new
action, that is not easy, that is the
of divine men.
We live on different planes or platforms. is
this
with
easy ; but to help the young
inspire
a useful flame
thought,
work
hope
and skepticism, and slackens the springs of
endeavor.
.into
their little
fidelity to
an external
life,
which
is
There
educated at school,
taught to read, write, cipher, and trade
;
taught to
him to put himself forward, to make himself useful and agreeable in the world, to ride, run, argue and contend, unfold his talents, shine, conquer and possess. But the ioner life sits at home, and does not grasp
all
the boy can get, urging
SUCCESS.
293
learn to do things, nor value these feats at aU.
'Tis a quiet, wise perception. cause
it is itself
ing else
our
first
;
but
;
it
It loves truth, be-
loves right,
makes no progress
memory of
in maturity
We
it
real
it
as
now
and hereafter in
;
it
knows noth-
was
;
is just
age, it
as wise in
the same
now
was in youth.
have grown to manhood and womanhood
;
we
have powers, connection, children, reputations, professions
:
this
makes no account of them all. It it makes the present
lives in the great present
great.
soul
is
it lies
;
This tranquil, well-founded, wide -seeing
no express-rider, no attorney, no magistrate: in the sun
and broods on the world.
son of this temper once said to a tivity,
man
of
A permuch
ac-
" I will pardon you that you do so much,
and you me that I do nothing." says that
And
Euripides
"Zeus hates busybodies and those who
do too much."
OLD AGE.
OLD AGE.
On
the anniversary of the Phi Beta
ciety at
Cambridge
dent Quincy, senior as senior
Kappa
So-
in 1861, the venerable Presi-
member
of the Society, as wel]
alumnus of the University, was received
at the dianer with pecidiar demonstrations of respect.
He replied
to these compliments ia a speech,
and, gracefully claiming the privileges of a hterary society, entered at
some length
into
an Apology for
Old Age, and, aiding himself by notes in his hand, made a sort of rimning commentary on Cicero's The character of tha chapter "De Senectute." speaker, the transparent good faith of his praise and blame, and the naivete of his eager preference of Cicero's opinions to King David's, gave unusual in» It was a discourse terest to the CoUege festival. full of dignity, honoring him who spoke and those who heard. The speech led me to look over at home an Cicero's famous essay, charming by its easy task
—
—
uniform rhetorical merit cepts,
with a
Roman
;
heroic with Stoical pre-
eye to the claims of the State;
OLD AGE.
298
happiest perhaps in his praise of
and
on the farm
life
But
rising at the conclusion to a lofty strain.
he does not exhaust the subject
;
rather invites the
attempt to add traits to the picture from our broader
modem
life.
Cicero makes no reference to the illusions which cling to the element of time, and in which Nature
WeUington, in speaking
delights.
"What masks
said,
cowards
!
"
of military
wadded
pelisse, wig, spec-
and padded chair of Age.
ness, cracked voice,
These
wears them.
Nature lends
and adds dim
herself to these niusions,
sleep.
hide
I have often detected the like decep-
tion in the cloth shoe, tacles
men,
are these uniforms to
snowy
hair, short
also are masks,
WhUst we
and .all
is
sight, deaf-
memory and not Age that
yet call ourselves
young
and our mates are yet youths with even boyish
re-
mains, one good fellow in the set prematurely sports
a gray or a bald head, which does not impose on us
who know how innocent he
is,
who
of sanctity or of
Platonism
but does deceive his juniors and the public,
presently distinguish
respect
:
and
him with a most amusing
this lets us into the secret that the
venerable forms that so awed our childhood were just such imposters.
now
Nature
is full
of freaks,
and
puts an old head on young shoulders, and then
a young heart beating under fourscore winters.
For
if
the essence of age
is
not present, these
OLD AGE. signs, -whether of
and
ridiculous
Wherever
:
299
Art or Nature, are counterfeit
and the essence of age
that appears,
we
into the eyes of the youngest person
discover that here
that in
is
around him
him which
which
:
say, "
when they
And
;
Vedas express is
the
our old British
in
Round
Table, his friend
counsellor. Merlin the Wise, is a babe found
exposed in a basket by the
river-side, and,
an infant of only a few days, speaks those
who
is
a thousand years
Time :
is
there
is
Don't be
age.
I
curls.
tell
you that
old.
indeed the theatre and seat of
nothing
stretches
history,
foretells the fate of the by-standers.
Wherever there is power, deceived by dimples and babe
though
articulately to
name and
discover him, teUs his
and presently
to
him
to teach
that can discriminate
legends of Arthur and the
sion
we sometimes
the ancestor of all
is
fact the Indian
He
father of his father."
and
we look
one who knows already what
is
you would go about with much pains there
is intellect.
If
call it old.
is so
ductile
and
elastic.
an hour to a century and dwarfs an age
an hour.
Saadi foimd in a mosque at Damascus
an old Persian of a hundred and fifty years,
was dying, and was saying coming into the world by self for
illu-
The mind
a few moments.'
to himself,
birth,
Alas
!
'
"I
who said,
I wiU. enjoy my-
at the variegated
table of life I partook of a few mouthfuls,
and the
OLD AGE.
300 Fates said,
decay
is
'
Enough /
so central
long as one
is
'
"
Tliat
which does not
and controlling
alone by himself, he
If,
not sensible
which always begin at the
of the inroads of time,
surf ace - edges.
in us, that, as is
on a winter day, you should
stand within a beU-glass, the face and color of the afternoon clouds would not indicate whether
June or January
were
it
we did not
find the reflec-
tion of ourselves in the eyes of the
young people,
;
and
we could not know
if
had
that the century-clock
struck seventy instead of twenty.
How many men
habitually believe that each chance passenger with
whom
they converse
ently find
whom
they
But not
it
was
knew
is
of their
his father
own
age,
and not
and
pres-
his brother
!
hard on these deceits and which are inseparable from
to press too
illusions of Nature,
our condition, and looking at age under an aspect
more conformed
to the common-sense, if the ques-
tion be the felicity of age, I fear the first popular
judgments wiU be unfavorable.
From
the point
of sensuous experience, seen from the streets
and
markets and the haunts of pleasure and gain, the estimate of age is low, melancholy and skeptical.
Frankly face the
and
facts,
see the result.
To-
bacco, coffee, alcohol, hashish, prussic acid, strychnine, are
weak
dilutions
:
the surest poison
This cup which Nature puts to our
lips,
is
time.
has a won-
OLD AGE.
301
derf ul virtue, surpassing that of any other draught. It opens the senses,
adds power,
alted dreams, which
we
science
us with ex-
fills
call hope, love, ambition,
especially, it creates a craving for larger
:
draughts of
itself.
But they who take the larger
draughts are drunk with
and
strength, beauty,
We postpone
delirium.
have more ripeness and
day discover that our effervescence which
it,
senses,
their
lose
stature,
and end in foUy and
our literary work until skill to write,
was a youthful
literary talent
we have now
we
and we one
lost.
We had a
judge in Massachusetts who at sixty proposed to resign, alleging that he perceived a certain decay
in his faculties
he was dissuaded by his friends,
;
on accoimt of the public convenience at that time.
At
seventy
retire
;
it
was hinted
but he
judgment
now
as robust
and
But
ever they were.
to
him
that
it
was time
to
replied that he thought his all his faculties as
good as
besides the self-deception, the
work Youth is woman, requires
strong and hasty laborers of the street do not well with the chronic valetudinarian.
everywhere in place. fit
surroundings.
Age
Age, is
like
comely in coaches, in
churches, in chairs of state and ceremony, in council-chambers, in courts of justice cieties.
Age
is
becoming
and
historical so-
in the country.
the rush and uproar of Broadway, the faces of the passengers there
is
if
But
in
you look into
dejection or in-
OLD AGE.
302
dignation in the seniors, a certain concealed sense
and the
of injury,
lip
mination not to mind tion enjoyed
by the
made up with a
Few envy
it.
heroic deter-
the considera-
We
oldest inhabitant.
do not
count a man's years, until he has nothing else to
The
count. tality
was
vast inconvenience of animal immor-
the creed of the street ful,
is,
Old Age
enough, but we shall
This
all
short,
not disgrace-
is
but immensely disadvantageous.
and they
In
told in the fable of Tithonus.
Life
is
well
be glad to get out of
it,
will all be glad to have us.
is
odious on the face of
victions are not to be shaken
Universal con-
it.
by the whimseys
of
overfed butchers and firemen, or by the sentimental
who would keep the infantile bloom We know the value of experiLife and art are cmnulative and he who
fears of girls
on their cheeks. ence.
;
has accomplished something in any department alone deserves to be heard on that subject.
A man
employments and excellent performance
of great
used to assure
me
that he did not think a
worth anything until he was sixty
;
man
although this
smacks a little of the resolution of a certain " Yoimg
Men's Kepublican Club," that held eligible
all
men
who were under seventy.
should be
But
in
aU
governments, the councils of power were held by the old
;
and patricians or patres, senate or
seigneurs
or
seniors,
gerousia,
the
senes,
senate
of
OZD AGE.
803
Sparta, the presbytery of the Church, and the like, all signify
simply old men.
cynical creed or lampoon of the market is
The
refuted by the universal prayer for long is
the verdict of Nature and justified by all history.
We
have,
it
is
true,
pace by which young as
which
life,
examples of an accelerated
men
achieved grand works
the Macedonian Alexander,
in
Shakspeare, Pascal, Burns, and Byron
but these
;
Nature, in the main, vindi-
are rare exceptions. cates her law.
Raffaelle,
in
Skill to
do comes of doing
;
knowl-
edge comes by eyes always open, and working hands and there is no knowledge that is not ;
power. B^ranger said, " Almost
men live we have
long."
quite
And
if
the
life
all
another sort of seniors than the
frowzy, timorous, peevish dotards old,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; namely, the
whom
cities
the good workÂŤ
be true and noble,
stand
men who ;
who
are falsely
fear no city, but
who appearing
in
any
by
street,
the people empty their houses to gaze at and obey
them
:
Toledo
as at " ;
My
Cid, with the fleecy beard,"
or Bruce, as Barbour reports
blind old Dandolo, elected
Doge
him
as
and
and elected at the
age of ninety-six to the throne of the Eastern pire,
in
at eighty -four
years, storming Constantinople at ninety-four, after the revolt again victorious
;
Em-
which he declined, and died Doge at ninety-
seven.
We stiU feel the force of Socrates,
"
whom
OLD AGE.
304
well-advised the oracle pronounced wisest of
men
;
of Archimedes, holding Syracuse against the Ro-
mans by nation
;
his wit,
and himself better than
all their
of Michel Angelo, wearing the four crowns
of architecture, sculpture, painting,
and poetry
Castelli said, "
whose blindness
blest eye is
darkened that Nature ever made,
eye that hath seen more than
all
;
The
Galileo, of
of
no-
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; an
that went before
him, and hath opened the eyes of all that shall come after him ; " of Newton, who made an important discovery for every one of his eighty-five years of Bacon,
who " took
all
knowledge to be
his prov-
" of Fontenelle, " that precious porcelain vase
ince
;
laid
up in the centre of France to be guarded vnth ;
the utmost care for a hundred years " of Franklin,
Jefferson,
statesmen
;
of
and Adams, the wise and heroic Washington, the perfect
Wellington, the all-knowing poet
perfect ;
of
soldier
;
of
citizen
;
of
Goethe, the
Humboldt, the encyclopaedia
of science.
Under the general assertion of the well-being of age, we can easily count particular benefits of that has weathered the perilous capes
condition.
It
and shoals
in the sea
whereon we
grounds of
fear.
a
man
and the
in removing the
The insurance
of a ship expires
home.
It were strange
as she enters the harbor at if
sail,
away
chief evil of life is taken
should turn his sixtieth year without a
OLD AGE. feeling of
immense
relief
cancerous,'
is
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; he
replies,
drank a pot
add a pang
to be shot, to assure
yielding to a
it
him
who
thief
blew
off the
was unhealthy
to the prisoner
threatens mortification.
monia
am
I
of beer at the gallows
froth because he had heard will not
'
The humorous
surer decomposition.'
it
the old wife says,
care of that tumor in your shoulder, perhaps
Take
it
from the number of dan-
When
gers he has escaped. '
305
but
;
marched out
that the pain in his knee
When
the pleuro-pneu-
of the cows raged, the butchers said that
though the acute degree was novel, there never was a time when
AU men
did not occur
among
the affirmative force of the constitution
you are enfeebled by any cause, some ing seeds start and open.
we
At
lose a foe.
;
;
such
but
if
of these sleep-
Meantime, at every stage
fifty years,
'tis said,
citizens lose their sick-headaches.
gira
cattle.
carry seeds of aU distempers through life
and we die without developing them
latent, is
this disease
afSieted
I hope this he-
not as movable a feast as that one I an-
is
nually look for,
when
the horticulturists assure
me
that the rose-bugs in our gardens disappear on the
tenth of July
But be
it
as
;
it
they stay a fortnight later in mine.
may
with the sick-headache,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
't is
and heart-aches are we come up with certain goals
certain that graver headaches lulled once for all as
of time. VOL.
VII-
The
passions have answered their pur20
OLD AGE.
306 pose
that slight but dread overweight with which
:
in each instance Nature secures the execution of
her aim, drops
off.
To keep man
she impresses the terror of death.
in the planet,
To
perfect the
commissariat, she implants in each a certain rapacity to get the supply,
To
his wants.
and a
little
oversupply, of
insure the existence of the race, she
reinforces the sexual instinct, at the risk of disorder, grief,
and pain.
hunger and
cruel
their office,
and
To
secure strength, she plants
which so easily overdo
thirst,
invite disease.
But these tempo-
rary stays and shifts for the protection of the young
animal are shed as fast as they can be replaced by
We
nobler resources.
live in
youth amidst this
rabble of passions, quite too tender, quite too hun-
gry and
irritable.
Later, the interiors of
heart open, and supply grander motives.
mind and
We learn
the fatal compensations that wait on every act.
Then, one after another,
this riotous time-destroy-
ing crew disappear. I count
it
another capital advantage of age,
this,
that a success more or less signifies nothing. tle
by
that
it
it will.
little it
has amassed such a fund of merit
can very weU. afford to go on
When
its
credit
when
I chanced to meet the poet Words-
worth, then sixty-three years old, he told
" he had just had a his
Lit-
fall
and
lost
me
that
a tooth, and when
companions were much concerned for the mis.
OLD AGE. chance,
had replied that he was glad
lie
we
shall not lose our organs forty years
A
too soon.
had not
it
Well, Nature takes
happened forty years before." care that
307
lawyer argued a cause yesterday in
the Supreme Court, and I was struck with a certain air of levity
and defiance which vastly became him.
Thirty years ago
was a serious concern
it
whether his pleading was good and it is
him
to
Now
effective.
of importance to his client, but of none to It has been long already fixed
himself.
what he
can do and cannot do, and his reputation does not gain or suffer from one or a dozen new performances.
If he should
beyond
his
on a new occasion
mark and
rise
quite
achieve somewhat great and
extraordinary, that, of course, would instantly tell
but he
may go below
people will say, his sleep for
'
two
mark with impunity, and
his
O, he had headache,' or nights.'
What
'
He
lost
a lust of appear-
ance, what a load of anxieties that once degraded
him he
thus rid of
is
Every one
!
is
this cumulative advantage in living.
sensible of
All the good
days behind him are sponsors, who speak for him
when he
is
silent,
pay
for
him when he has no letters, and
money, introduce him where he has no
work
for
him when he
A third pression.
sleeps.
has found ex-
felicity of
age
The youth
suffers not only
ficd desires,
is
that
it
from imgrati-
but from powers untried, and from a
OLD AGE.
308
Ms mind of He
picture in
outward of
a career wHcli has as yet no
reality.
is
tormented
want
witli tlie
correspondence between things and thoughts.
Michel Angelo's head gigantic figures as
and gods walking, which make him is
full
of masculine
savage until his furious chisel can render them into
marble
;
and
of architectural dreams, until a hun-
dred stone-masons can lay them in courses of travertine.
There
is
the like tempest in every good
head in which some great benefit for the world
The
planted.
throes
continue until the child
is is
Every faculty new to each man thus goads him and drives him out into doleful deserts until it born.
finds proper vent.
duty
friends,
human
and lash him forward, bemoaning
irritate
and chiding,
All the functions of
until they are performed.
He
wants
employment, knowledge, power, house and
land, wife
and children, honor and fame
;
he has
religious wants, aesthetic wants, domestic, civil, hu-
mane
wants.
One by
one,
day
to coin his wishes into facts.
after day,
He
he learns
has his calling,
homestead, social connection and personal power,
and
thus, at the
end of
fifty years, his soul is ap-
peased by seeing some sort of correspondence be-
tween his wish and
his possession.
the value of age, the satisfaction
every craving.
He
is
serene
it
who
This makes
slowly offers to
does not feel
himself pinched and wronged, but whose condition,
OLD AGE. in particular
of
Ms
and in general, allows the utterance In old persons, when thus fully ex-
mind.
pressed,
we
often observe a fair, plump, perennial,
waxen complexion, which ment
S09
indicates that all the fer-
of earlier days has subsided into serenity of
thought and behavior.
The compensations
of Nature play in age as in
In a world so charged and sparkling with
youth.
power, a
man
does not live long and actively with-
out costly additions of experience, which, though
What to the
not spoken, are recorded in his mind.
youth
is
only a guess or a hope,
digested statute.
He
is
beholds the feats of the jun-
with complacency, but as one
iors
in the veteran a
who having long
ago known these games, has refined them into re-
and morals. The Indian Red Jacket, when the young braves were boasting their deeds, said, sults
" But the
sixties
have
all
the twenties and forties
in them."
For a fourth and
benefit,
finishes its works,
supreme pleasure. ity,
We
age sets
its
which to every
Youth has an excess
artist is
a
of sensibil-
before which every object glitters and attracts. leave one pursuit for another, and the
man's year
is
a heap of beginnings.
of a twelvemonth, he has nothing to
not one completed work.
Our
house in order,
But the time
instincts drove us to hive
At
show is
young
the end
for
not
it,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
lost.
innumerable expert
OLD AGE.
310
ences, that are yet of
we may keep
visible value,
and wMch
for twice seven years before they
The best things are of secular The instinct of classifying marks the wise
be wanted.
shall
growth.
and healthy mind. and
no
Linnaeus projects his system,
lays out his twenty-four classes of plants, be-
fore yet he has found in Nature a single plant to
His seventh
justify certain of his classes.
In process of time, he
has not one.
class
finds with de-
light the little white Trientalis, the only plant with
seven petals and sometimes seven stamens, which constitutes a seventh class in conformity with his
system.
The
conchologist builds his cabinet whilst
He
as yet he has few shells. classes, cells for species
:
all
labels shelves for
but a few are empty.
But every year fills some blanks, and with accelerating speed as he becomes knowing and known. An old scholar finds keen delight in verifying the impressive anecdotes and citations he has
met with in
miscellaneous reading and hearing, in all the years
We
of youth. dotes,
and have
carry in lost
memory important
aU clew
to the author
anec-
from
whom we had them. We have a heroic speech from Rome or Greece, but cannot fix it on the man who said
it.
We
have an admirable line worthy of
Horace, ever and anon resounding in our mind's ear,
but have searched aU probable and improbable
books for
it
in vain.
We
consult the reading men;
OLD AGE. but, strangely enough, they
know
not
this.
But
311
who know everything we have a certain
especially
insulated thought, which haunts us, but remains insulated and barren. this
Well, there
but patience and time.
is
nothing for
Time, yes, that
all
the
is
finder, the unweariable explorer, not subject to cas= ualties,
omniscient at
The day comes when ; when the straight to the hero who said last.
the hidden author of our story is found
brave speech returns it
;
when
whom
it
poet to
the admirable verse finds the
belongs
and best of
;
when the
all,
lonely
thought, which seemed so wise, yet half-wise, half-
thought, because
it
cast
no
matched in our mind by
light abroad, is suddenly
its
twin,
by
its
or next related analogy, which gives
it
sequence, instantly
radiating power, and justifies the superstitious instinct
with which we have hoarded
member our
old
Greek Professor
an ancient bachelor, amid this
at
it.
We
re-
Cambridge,
his folios, possessed
by
hope of completing a task, with nothing to
break his leisure after the three hours of his daily classes, yet ever restlessly stroking his leg
and
as-
suring himself " he should retire from the University
and read the authors."
In Groethe's Romance,
Makaria, the central figure for wisdom and ence, pleases herself
with withdrawing into
influsoli-
tude to astronomy and epistolary correspondence.
Goethe himself carried
this completion of studies
OLD AGE.
812
Many
to the highest point.
the easel in every
from youth
month
to age,
or year.
A
of his works hung on and received a stroke literary astrologer,
he
never applied himself to any task but at the happy
moment when aU
the stars consented.
thought himself likely to live tiU fourscore,
enough
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
to read everything that
magna mei sub
''Et tunc
Much
vdder
Bentley
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; long
was worth reading, terris
Hit imago."
men
spread the pleasure which old
is
take in completing their secular
affairs,
the in-
ventor his inventions, the agriculturist his experiments, and
old
all
rounding their
men
in finishing their houses,
estates, clearing their titles, reduc-
ing tangled interests to order, reconciling enmities,
and leaving It
all
in the best posture for the future.
must be believed that there is a proportion beman and the length of his
tween the designs of a life
:
there
is
a calendar of his years, so of his per-
formances.
America full of
yet
is
the country of
work hitherto
we have had
of dignity
young men, and too and tranquillity
for leisure
robust centenarians, and examples
and wisdom.
I have lately foimd in an
old note-book a record of a visit to ex-President
John Adams,
in 1825, soon after the election of his
son to the Presidency.
It is but
a sketch, and
nothing important passed in the conversation it
reports a
moment
;
but
in the life of a heroic person,
OLD AGE.
313
who, in extreme old age, appeared stiU erect and wortliy of his fame.
,
my brother, by The
To-day at Quincy, with
Feb., 1825.
invitation of
Mr. Adams's
family.
old President sat in a large stuffed arm-chair,
dressed in a blue coat, black smaU-clothes, white stockings
|
a cotton cap covered his bald head.
We made our
compliment, told him he must let us
join our congratulations to those of the nation
He
the happiness of his house. said
:
am
"I
thanked
us,
rejoiced, because the nation is happy.
The time of gratulation and congratulations nearly over with lived to see
now
on
and
me
;
I
am
and know of
nearly a century
lowing October
;
]
;
is
astonished that I have
this event.
I have lived
[he was ninety in the
a long, harassed,
and
fol-
distracted
I said, "
The world thinks a good deal of " The world does joy has been mixed with it." not know," he replied, " how much toil, anxiety, life."
and sorrow I have Adams's
he
effect
;
said,
asked
if
Mr.
had been read to him. and added, " My son has more
prudence than any
has existed in
guard
suffered."
letter of acceptance
— " Yes," political
— —I
my time
;
man
and I hope he wiU continue such
age
his mind,
know who
that I
he never was put :
off his
but what
may work in diminishing the power of I do not know it has been very much ;
OLD AGE.
314
on the stretch, ever since he was born. He has always been laborious, child and man, from infancy." When Mr. J. Q. Adams's age was mentioned,
—
said, "
He
;
now fifty-eight, or will be in July and remarked that " aU the Presidents were of the
he
same age eight,
is
General Washington was about
:
and I was about
fiLEty-eight,
and Mr.
fifty-
Jeffer-
—
and Mr. Madison, and Mr. Monroe." We inquired when he expected to see Mr. Adams. son,
He
said
" Never
:
Quincy but
to
satisfaction to
to
Mr. Adams
:
my me
funeral.
will not
to see him, but I don't wish
my account." He spoke whom he " weU remembered
come down
daily, at
ment."
him
of
Mr. Lech-
to
have seen
And
I wish I could walk
He
was Collector of th§ Cusmany years under the Royal Govern-
as he did.
toms for
to
a great age, to walk in the old
town-house," adding, "
weU
come
would be a great
come on
mere,
as
It
—
— E.
said
:
" I suppose,
sir,
you would not
have taken his place, even to walk as well as he." " No, " he replied, " that was not what I wanted."
— He talked
of Whitefield,
and remembered when
he was a Freshman in College to have come into
town
to the
Old South church,
[I think, J to hear
—
him, but could not get into the house ; "I how" ever, saw him," he said, through a window, and distinctly
heard
all.
He had a voice He cast it
never heard before or since.
such as I out so that
OLD AGE. you might hear
It
315
at the meeting-house," [pointing
towards the Quincy meeting-house,] " and he had the grace of a dancing-master, of an actor of plays.
His voice and manner helped him more than his sermons.
I went with Jonathan Sewall."
you
was delighted beyond measure."
— " And
— — We asked
" Pleased
were pleased with him, sir ? "
!
if
I at
Whitefield's return the same popularity continued.
— " Not the
same fury," he
said, "
not the same
wild enthusiasm as before, but a greater esteem, as
he became more known.
He
did not terrify, but
was admired."
We spent about an hour in his room. He speaks very distinctly for so old a man, enters bravely into long sentences, which are interrupted by want of breath, but carries
them invariably
to
a conclusion,
without correcting a word.
He
spoke of the new novels of Cooper, and
" Peep at the Pilgrims," praise,
and " Saratoga," with
and named with accuracy the characters
in them.
He
likes to
have a person always read-
ing to him, or company talking in his room, and better the next
day
chamber from morning to
He tion,
is
after having visitors in his
night.
received a premature report of his son's elec-
on Sunday afternoon, without any
excite-
ment, and told the reporter he had been hoaxed, for
it
was not yet time for any news
to arrive.
The
OLD AGE.
316 informer, something
on repairing it
damped
in his heart, insisted
and proclaimed
to the meeting-house,
aloud to the congregation,
who were
joyed that they rose in their seats
so over-
and cheered
The Reverend Mr. Whitney dismissed them immediately. thrice.
When what
it
life
has been well spent, age
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; muscular
can well spare,
is
a
loss of
strength, or-
ganic instincts, gross bulk, and works that belong
But the central wisdom, which was old in infancy, is young in fourscore years, and, dropping off obstructions, leaves in happy subjects the mind purified and wise. I have heard that whoever loves is in no condition old. I have heard that whenever the name of man is spoken, the docto these.
trine of immortality is
constitution.
announced
The mode
of
it
it
;
baffles
cleaves to his
our wit, and
no whisper comes to us froA the other
side.
But
the inference from the working of intellect, hiving
knowledge, hiving
ready to fection
skill,
be bom, â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
at the
end of
life just
affirms the inspirations of af-
and of the moral sentiment.