{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_71558/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_71558","id":"gutenberg_71558","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/71558","summary":null,"tags":["American essays -- 19th century","Boston (Mass.)","Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Intellect","Memory","Michelangelo Buonarroti, 1475-1564","Milton, John, 1608-1674"],"text":"TRANSCRIBER\u2019S NOTE\n\nItalic text is denoted by _underscores_.\n\nFootnote anchors are denoted by [number], and the footnotes have been\nplaced at the end of the chapter.\n\nSome minor changes to the text are noted at the end of the book.\n\n\n\n\n                          NATURAL HISTORY OF\n                              INTELLECT\n\n                          _AND OTHER PAPERS_\n\n                                  BY\n\n                         RALPH WALDO EMERSON\n\n\n                [Illustration:  (Publisher colophon)]\n\n\n                         BOSTON AND NEW YORK\n                    HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY\n                    The Riverside Press, Cambridge\n                                 1893\n\n\n\n\n                           Copyright, 1893,\n                        BY EDWARD W. EMERSON.\n\n\n                        _All rights reserved._\n\n\n          _The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., U. S. A._\n         Electrotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton & Company\n\n\n\n\nPREFATORY NOTE.\n\n\nThe first two pieces in this volume are lectures from the \u201cUniversity\nCourses\u201d on philosophy, given at Harvard College in 1870 and 1871,\nby persons not members of the Faculty. \u201cThe Natural History of the\nIntellect\u201d was the subject which Emerson chose. He had from his\nearly youth cherished the project of a new method in metaphysics,\nproceeding by observation of the mental facts, without attempting an\nanalysis and co\u00f6rdination of them, which must, from the nature of the\ncase, be premature. With this view, he had, at intervals from 1848\nto 1866, announced courses on the \u201cNatural History of Intellect,\u201d\n\u201cThe Natural Method of Mental Philosophy,\u201d and \u201cPhilosophy for the\nPeople.\u201d He would, he said, give anecdotes of the spirit, a calendar\nof mental moods, without any pretense of system.\n\nNone of these attempts, however, disclosed any novelty of method,\nor, indeed, after the opening statement of his intention, any marked\ndifference from his ordinary lectures. He had always been writing\nanecdotes of the spirit, and those which he wrote under this heading\nwere used by him in subsequently published essays so largely that\nI find very little left for present publication. The lecture which\ngives its name to the volume was the first of the earliest course,\nand it seems to me to include all that distinctly belongs to the\nparticular subject.\n\nThe lecture on \u201cMemory\u201d is from the same course; that on \u201cBoston\u201d\nfrom the course on \u201cLife and Literature,\u201d in 1861. The other pieces\nare reprints from the \u201cNorth American Review\u201d and the \u201cDial.\u201d\n\n                                                          J. E. CABOT.\n\n  _September 9, 1893._\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS.\n\n\n                                                           PAGE\n\n  NATURAL HISTORY OF INTELLECT                                7\n\n  MEMORY                                                     55\n\n  BOSTON                                                     73\n\n  MICHAEL ANGELO                                             97\n\n  MILTON                                                    121\n\n  PAPERS FROM THE DIAL                                      147\n\n     I. THOUGHTS ON MODERN LITERATURE                       149\n\n    II. WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR                                168\n\n   III. PRAYERS                                             177\n\n    IV. AGRICULTURE OF MASSACHUSETTS                        183\n\n     V. EUROPE AND EUROPEAN BOOKS                           187\n\n    VI. PAST AND PRESENT                                    197\n\n   VII. A LETTER                                            206\n\n  VIII. THE TRAGIC                                          216\n\n\n\n\nNATURAL HISTORY OF INTELLECT.\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration: (decorative banner)]\n\nNATURAL HISTORY OF INTELLECT.\n\n\nI have used such opportunity as I have had, and lately[1] in London\nand Paris, to attend scientific lectures; and in listening to\nRichard Owen\u2019s masterly enumeration of the parts and laws of the\nhuman body, or Michael Faraday\u2019s explanation of magnetic powers,\nor the botanist\u2019s descriptions, one could not help admiring the\nirresponsible security and happiness of the attitude of the\nnaturalist; sure of admiration for his facts, sure of their\nsufficiency. They ought to interest you; if they do not, the fault\nlies with you.\n\nThen I thought\u2014could not a similar enumeration be made of the\nlaws and powers of the Intellect, and possess the same claims on\nthe student? Could we have, that is, the exhaustive accuracy of\ndistribution which chemists use in their nomenclature and anatomists\nin their descriptions, applied to a higher class of facts; to those\nlaws, namely, which are common to chemistry, anatomy, astronomy,\ngeometry, intellect, morals, and social life;\u2014laws of the world?\n\nWhy not? These powers and laws are also facts in a Natural History.\nThey also are objects of science, and may be numbered and recorded,\nlike stamens and vertebr\u00e6. At the same time they have a deeper\ninterest, as in the order of nature they lie higher and are nearer\nto the mysterious seat of power and creation.\n\nFor at last, it is only that exceeding and universal part which\ninterests us, when we shall read in a true history what befalls in\nthat kingdom where a thousand years is as one day, and see that what\nis set down is true through all the sciences; in the laws of thought\nas well as of chemistry.\n\nIn all sciences the student is discovering that nature, as he calls\nit, is always working, in wholes and in every detail, after the laws\nof the human mind. Every creation, in parts or in particles, is on\nthe method and by the means which our mind approves as soon as it is\nthoroughly acquainted with the facts; hence the delight. No matter\nhow far or how high science explores, it adopts the method of the\nuniverse as fast as it appears; and this discloses that the mind as\nit opens, the mind as it shall be, comprehends and works thus; that\nis to say, the Intellect builds the universe and is the key to all it\ncontains. It is not then cities or mountains, or animals, or globes\nthat any longer command us, but only man; not the fact, but so much\nof man as is in the fact.\n\nIn astronomy, vast distance, but we never go into a foreign\nsystem. In geology, vast duration, but we are never strangers. Our\nmetaphysic should be able to follow the flying force through all\ntransformations, and name the pair identical through all variety.\n\nI believe in the existence of the material world as the expression\nof the spiritual or the real, and in the impenetrable mystery which\nhides (and hides through absolute transparency) the mental nature,\nI await the insight which our advancing knowledge of material laws\nshall furnish.\n\nEvery object in nature is a word to signify some fact in the mind.\nBut when that fact is not yet put into English words, when I look\nat the tree or the river and have not yet definitely made out what\nthey would say to me, they are by no means unimpressive. I wait for\nthem, I enjoy them before they yet speak. I feel as if I stood by an\nambassador charged with the message of his king, which he does not\ndeliver because the hour when he should say it is not yet arrived.\n\nWhilst we converse with truths as thoughts, they exist also as\nplastic forces; as the soul of a man, the soul of a plant, the genius\nor constitution of any part of nature, which makes it what it is. The\nthought which was in the world, part and parcel of the world, has\ndisengaged itself and taken an independent existence.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nMy belief in the use of a course on philosophy is that the student\nshall learn to appreciate the miracle of the mind; shall learn its\nsubtle but immense power, or shall begin to learn it; shall come to\nknow that in seeing and in no tradition he must find what truth is;\nthat he shall see in it the source of all traditions, and shall see\neach one of them as better or worse statement of its revelations;\nshall come to trust it entirely, as the only true; to cleave to\nGod against the name of God. When he has once known the oracle he\nwill need no priest. And if he finds at first with some alarm how\nimpossible it is to accept many things which the hot or the mild\nsectarian may insist on his believing, he will be armed by his\ninsight and brave to meet all inconvenience and all resistance it may\ncost him. He from whose hand it came will guide and direct it.\n\nYet these questions which really interest men, how few can answer.\nHere are learned faculties of law and divinity, but would questions\nlike these come into mind when I see them? Here are learned academies\nand universities, yet they have not propounded these for any prize.\n\nSeek the literary circles, the stars of fame, the men of splendor,\nof bon-mots, will they afford me satisfaction? I think you could\nnot find a club of men acute and liberal enough in the world. Bring\nthe best wits together, and they are so impatient of each other,\nso vulgar, there is so much more than their wit,\u2014such follies,\ngluttonies, partialities, age, care, and sleep, that you shall have\nno academy.\n\nThere is really a grievous amount of unavailableness about men of\nwit. A plain man finds them so heavy, dull and oppressive, with bad\njokes and conceit and stupefying individualism, that he comes to\nwrite in his tablets, Avoid the great man as one who is privileged\nto be an unprofitable companion. For the course of things makes the\nscholars either egotists or worldly and jocose. In so many hundreds\nof superior men hardly ten or five or two from whom one can hope for\na reasonable word.\n\nGo into the scientific club and hearken. Each savant proves in his\nadmirable discourse that he and he only knows now or ever did know\nanything on the subject: \u201cDoes the gentleman speak of anatomy? Who\npeeped into a box at the Custom House and then published a drawing\nof my rat?\u201d Or is it pretended discoveries of new strata that are\nbefore the meeting? This professor hastens to inform us that he knew\nit all twenty years ago, and is ready to prove that he knew so much\nthen that all further investigation was quite superfluous;\u2014and poor\nnature and the sublime law, which is all that our student cares to\nhear of, are quite omitted in this triumphant vindication.\n\nWas it better when we came to the philosophers, who found everybody\nwrong; acute and ingenious to lampoon and degrade mankind? And then\nwas there ever prophet burdened with a message to his people who did\nnot cloud our gratitude by a strange confounding in his own mind of\nprivate folly with his public wisdom?\n\nBut if you like to run away from this besetting sin of sedentary men,\nyou can escape all this insane egotism by running into society, where\nthe manners and estimate of the world have corrected this folly, and\neffectually suppressed this overweening self-conceit. Here each is\nto make room for others, and the solidest merits must exist only for\nthe entertainment of all. We are not in the smallest degree helped.\nGreat is the dazzle, but the gain is small. Here they play the game\nof conversation, as they play billiards, for pastime and credit.\n\nYes, \u2019tis a great vice in all countries, the sacrifice of scholars to\nbe courtiers and diners-out, to talk for the amusement of those who\nwish to be amused, though the stars of heaven must be plucked down\nand packed into rockets to this end. What with egotism on one side\nand levity on the other we shall have no Olympus.\n\nBut there is still another hindrance, namely, practicality. We must\nhave a special talent, and bring something to pass. Ever since the\nNorse heaven made the stern terms of admission that a man must do\nsomething excellent with his hands or feet, or with his voice, eyes,\nears, or with his whole body, the same demand has been made in Norse\nearth.\n\nYet what we really want is not a haste to act, but a certain piety\ntoward the source of action and knowledge. In fact we have to say\nthat there is a certain beatitude\u2014I can call it nothing less\u2014to which\nall men are entitled, tasted by them in different degrees, which is\na perfection of their nature, and to which their entrance must be in\nevery way forwarded. Practical men, though they could lift the globe,\ncannot arrive at this. Something very different has to be done,\u2014the\navailing ourselves of every impulse of genius, an emanation of the\nheaven it tells of, and the resisting this conspiracy of men and\nmaterial things against the sanitary and legitimate inspirations of\nthe intellectual nature.\n\nWhat is life but the angle of vision? A man is measured by the angle\nat which he looks at objects. What is life but what a man is thinking\nof all day? This is his fate and his employer. Knowing is the measure\nof the man. By how much we know, so much we are.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe laws and powers of the Intellect have, however, a stupendous\npeculiarity, of being at once observers and observed. So that it is\ndifficult to hold them fast, as objects of examination, or hinder\nthem from turning the professor out of his chair. The wonder of the\nscience of Intellect is that the substance with which we deal is of\nthat subtle and active quality that it intoxicates all who approach\nit. Gloves on the hands, glass guards over the eyes, wire-gauze\nmasks over the face, volatile salts in the nostrils, are no defence\nagainst this virus, which comes in as secretly as gravitation into\nand through all barriers.\n\nLet me have your attention to this dangerous subject, which we will\ncautiously approach on different sides of this dim and perilous lake,\nso attractive, so delusive. We have had so many guides and so many\nfailures. And now the world is still uncertain whether the pool has\nbeen sounded or not.\n\nMy contribution will be simply historical. I write anecdotes of the\nintellect; a sort of Farmer\u2019s Almanac of mental moods. I confine my\nambition to true reporting of its play in natural action, though I\nshould get only one new fact in a year.\n\nI cannot myself use that systematic form which is reckoned essential\nin treating the science of the mind. But if one can say so without\narrogance, I might suggest that he who contents himself with dotting\na fragmentary curve, recording only what facts he has observed,\nwithout attempting to arrange them within one outline, follows a\nsystem also,\u2014a system as grand as any other, though he does not\ninterfere with its vast curves by prematurely forcing them into a\ncircle or ellipse, but only draws that arc which he clearly sees, or\nperhaps at a later observation a remote curve of the same orbit, and\nwaits for a new opportunity, well-assured that these observed arcs\nwill consist with each other.\n\nI confess to a little distrust of that completeness of system which\nmetaphysicians are apt to affect. \u2019Tis the gnat grasping the world.\nAll these exhaustive theories appear indeed a false and vain attempt\nto introvert and analyze the Primal Thought. That is upstream, and\nwhat a stream! Can you swim up Niagara Falls?\n\nWe have invincible repugnance to introversion, to study of the eyes\ninstead of that which the eyes see; and the belief of men is that\nthe attempt is unnatural and is punished by loss of faculty. I share\nthe belief that the natural direction of the intellectual powers is\nfrom within outward, and that just in proportion to the activity\nof thoughts on the study of outward objects, as architecture, or\nfarming, or natural history, ships, animals, chemistry,\u2014in that\nproportion the faculties of the mind had a healthy growth; but a\nstudy in the opposite direction had a damaging effect on the mind.\n\nMetaphysic is dangerous as a single pursuit. We should feel more\nconfidence in the same results from the mouth of a man of the\nworld. The inward analysis must be corrected by rough experience.\nMetaphysics must be perpetually reinforced by life; must be the\nobservations of a working-man on working-men; must be biography,\u2014the\nrecord of some law whose working was surprised by the observer in\nnatural action.\n\nI think metaphysics a grammar to which, once read, we seldom return.\n\u2019Tis a Manila full of pepper, and I want only a teaspoonful in a\nyear. I admire the Dutch, who burned half the harvest to enhance the\nprice of the remainder.\n\nI want not the logic but the power, if any, which it brings into\nscience and literature; the man who can humanize this logic, these\nsyllogisms, and give me the results. The adepts value only the pure\ngeometry, the aerial bridge ascending from earth to heaven with\narches and abutments of pure reason. I am fully contented if you tell\nme where are the two termini.\n\nMy metaphysics are to the end of use. I wish to know the laws of this\nwonderful power, that I may domesticate it. I observe with curiosity\nits risings and settings, illumination and eclipse; its obstructions\nand its provocations, that I may learn to live with it wisely, court\nits aid, catch sight of its splendor, feel its approach, hear and\nsave its oracles and obey them. But this watching of the mind, in\nseason and out of season, to see the mechanics of the thing, is a\nlittle of the detective. The analytic process is cold and bereaving\nand, shall I say it? somewhat mean, as spying. There is something\nsurgical in metaphysics as we treat it. Were not an ode a better\nform? The poet sees wholes and avoids analysis; the metaphysician,\ndealing as it were with the mathematics of the mind, puts himself out\nof the way of the inspiration; loses that which is the miracle and\ncreates the worship.\n\nI think that philosophy is still rude and elementary. It will one\nday be taught by poets. The poet is in the natural attitude; he is\nbelieving; the philosopher, after some struggle, having only reasons\nfor believing.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nWhat I am now to attempt is simply some sketches or studies for\nsuch a picture; _M\u00e9moires pour servir_ toward a Natural History of\nIntellect.\n\nFirst I wish to speak of the excellence of that element, and the\ngreat auguries that come from it, notwithstanding the impediments\nwhich our sensual civilization puts in the way.\n\nNext I treat of the identity of the thought with Nature; and I add a\nrude list of some by-laws of the mind.\n\nThirdly I proceed to the fountains of thought in Instinct and\nInspiration, and I also attempt to show the relation of men of\nthought to the existing religion and civility of the present time.\n\n\nI. We figure to ourselves Intellect as an ethereal sea, which ebbs\nand flows, which surges and washes hither and thither, carrying its\nwhole virtue into every creek and inlet which it bathes. To this sea\nevery human house has a water front. But this force, creating nature,\nvisiting whom it will and withdrawing from whom it will, making\nday where it comes and leaving night when it departs, is no fee or\nproperty of man or angel. It is as the light, public and entire to\neach, and on the same terms.\n\nWhat but thought deepens life, and makes us better than cow or cat?\nThe grandeur of the impression the stars and heavenly bodies make on\nus is surely more valuable than our exact perception of a tub or a\ntable on the ground.\n\nTo Be is the unsolved, unsolvable wonder. To Be, in its two\nconnections of inward and outward, the mind and nature. The wonder\nsubsists, and age, though of eternity, could not approach a solution.\nBut the suggestion is always returning, that hidden source publishing\nat once our being and that it is the source of outward nature. Who\nare we and what is Nature have one answer in the life that rushes\ninto us.\n\nIn my thought I seem to stand on the bank of a river and watch the\nendless flow of the stream, floating objects of all shapes, colors\nand natures; nor can I much detain them as they pass, except by\nrunning beside them a little way along the bank. But whence they come\nor whither they go is not told me. Only I have a suspicion that, as\ngeologists say every river makes its own valley, so does this mystic\nstream. It makes its valley, makes its banks and makes perhaps the\nobserver too. Who has found the boundaries of human intelligence?\nWho has made a chart of its channel or approached the fountain of\nthis wonderful Nile?\n\nI am of the oldest religion. Leaving aside the question which\nwas prior, egg or bird, I believe the mind is the creator of the\nworld, and is ever creating;\u2014that at last Matter is dead Mind; that\nmind makes the senses it sees with; that the genius of man is a\ncontinuation of the power that made him and that has not done making\nhim.\n\nI dare not deal with this element in its pure essence. It is too\nrare for the wings of words. Yet I see that Intellect is a science\nof degrees, and that as man is conscious of the law of vegetable and\nanimal nature, so he is aware of an Intellect which overhangs his\nconsciousness like a sky, of degree above degree, of heaven within\nheaven.\n\nEvery just thinker has attempted to indicate these degrees, these\nsteps on the heavenly stair, until he comes to light where language\nfails him. Above the thought is the higher truth,\u2014truth as yet\nundomesticated and therefore unformulated.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIt is a steep stair down from the essence of Intellect pure to\nthoughts and intellections. As the sun is conceived to have made our\nsystem by hurling out from itself the outer rings of diffuse ether\nwhich slowly condensed into earths and moons, by a higher force of\nthe same law the mind detaches minds, and a mind detaches thoughts or\nintellections. These again all mimic in their sphericity the first\nmind, and share its power.\n\nLife is incessant parturition. There are viviparous and oviparous\nminds; minds that produce their thoughts complete men, like armed\nsoldiers, ready and swift to go out to resist and conquer all the\narmies of error, and others that deposit their dangerous unripe\nthoughts here and there to lie still for a time and be brooded in\nother minds, and the shell not be broken until the next age, for them\nto begin, as new individuals, their career.\n\nThe perceptions of a soul, its wondrous progeny, are born by the\nconversation, the marriage of souls; so nourished, so enlarged.\nThey are detached from their parent, they pass into other minds;\nripened and unfolded by many they hasten to incarnate themselves\nin action, to take body, only to carry forward the will which sent\nthem out. They take to themselves wood and stone and iron; ships\nand cities and nations and armies of men and ages of duration; the\npomps of religion, the armaments of war, the codes and heraldry\nof states; agriculture, trade, commerce;\u2014these are the ponderous\ninstrumentalities into which the nimble thoughts pass, and which they\nanimate and alter, and presently, antagonized by other thoughts which\nthey first aroused, or by thoughts which are sons and daughters of\nthese, the thought buries itself in the new thought of larger scope,\nwhilst the old instrumentalities and incarnations are decomposed and\nrecomposed into new.\n\nOur eating, trading, marrying, and learning are mistaken by us for\nends and realities, whilst they are properly symbols only; when we\nhave come, by a divine leading, into the inner firmament, we are\napprised of the unreality or representative character of what we\nesteemed final.\n\nSo works the poor little blockhead manikin. He must arrange and\ndignify his shop or farm the best he can. At last he must be able\nto tell you it, or write it, translate it all clumsily enough into\nthe new sky-language he calls thought. He cannot help it, the\nirresistible meliorations bear him forward.\n\n\nII. Whilst we consider this appetite of the mind to arrange its\nphenomena, there is another fact which makes this useful. There is in\nnature a parallel unity which corresponds to the unity in the mind\nand makes it available. This methodizing mind meets no resistance in\nits attempts. The scattered blocks, with which it strives to form a\nsymmetrical structure, fit. This design following after finds with\njoy that like design went before. Not only man puts things in a row,\nbut things belong in a row.\n\nIt is certain that however we may conceive of the wonderful little\nbricks of which the world is builded, we must suppose a similarity\nand fitting and identity in their frame. It is necessary to suppose\nthat every hose in nature fits every hydrant; so only is combination,\nchemistry, vegetation, animation, intellection possible. Without\nidentity at base, chaos must be forever.\n\nAnd as mind, our mind or mind like ours reappears to us in our study\nof nature, nature being everywhere formed after a method which we can\nwell understand, and all the parts, to the most remote, allied or\nexplicable,\u2014therefore our own organization is a perpetual key, and a\nwell-ordered mind brings to the study of every new fact or class of\nfacts a certain divination of that which it shall find.\n\nThis reduction to a few laws, to one law, is not a choice of the\nindividual, it is the tyrannical instinct of the mind. There is\nno solitary flower and no solitary thought. It comes single like\na foreign traveller,\u2014but find out its name and it is related to a\npowerful and numerous family. Wonderful is their working and relation\neach to each. We hold them as lanterns to light each other and our\npresent design. Every new thought modifies, interprets old problems.\nThe retrospective value of each new thought is immense, like a torch\napplied to a long train of gunpowder. To be isolated is to be sick,\nand in so far, dead. The life of the All must stream through us to\nmake the man and the moment great.\n\nWell, having accepted this law of identity pervading the universe,\nwe next perceive that whilst every creature represents and obeys\nit, there is diversity, there is more or less of power; that the\nlowest only means incipient form, and over it is a higher class in\nwhich its rudiments are opened, raised to higher powers; that there\nis development from less to more, from lower to superior function,\nsteadily ascending to man.\n\nIf man has organs for breathing, for sight, for locomotion, for\ntaking food, for digesting, for protection by house-building, by\nattack and defence, for reproduction and love and care of his young,\nyou shall find all the same in the muskrat. There is a perfect\ncorrespondence; or \u2019tis only man modified to live in a mud-bank. A\nfish in like manner is man furnished to live in the sea; a thrush, to\nfly in the air; and a mollusk is a cheap edition with a suppression\nof the costlier illustrations, designed for dingy circulation, for\nshelving in an oyster-bank or among the sea-weed.\n\nIf we go through the British Museum or the Jardin des Plantes in\nParis, or any cabinet where is some representation of all the\nkingdoms of nature, we are surprised with occult sympathies; we\nfeel as if looking at our own bone and flesh through coloring and\ndistorting glasses. Is it not a little startling to see with what\ngenius some people take to hunting, with what genius some people\nfish,\u2014what knowledge they still have of the creature they hunt?\nThe robber, as the police-reports say, must have been intimately\nacquainted with the premises. How lately the hunter was the poor\ncreature\u2019s organic enemy; a presumption _inflamed_, as the lawyers\nsay, by observing how many faces in the street still remind us of\nvisages in the forest,\u2014the escape from the quadruped type not yet\nperfectly accomplished.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nFrom whatever side we look at Nature we seem to be exploring the\nfigure of a disguised man. How obvious is the momentum in our mental\nhistory! The momentum, which increases by exact laws in falling\nbodies, increases by the same rate in the intellectual action. Every\nscholar knows that he applies himself coldly and slowly at first to\nhis task, but, with the progress of the work, the mind itself becomes\nheated, and sees far and wide as it approaches the end, so that it is\nthe common remark of the student, Could I only have begun with the\nsame fire which I had on the last day, I should have done something.\n\nThe affinity of particles accurately translates the affinity of\nthoughts, and what a modern experimenter calls \u201cthe contagious\ninfluence of chemical action\u201d is so true of mind that I have only\nto read the law that its application may be evident: \u201cA body in\nthe act of combination or decomposition enables another body, with\nwhich it may be in contact, to enter into the same state.\u201d And if one\nremembers how contagious are the moral states of men, how much we are\nbraced by the presence and actions of any Spartan soul; it does not\nneed vigor of our own kind, but the spectacle of vigor of any kind,\nany prodigious power of performance wonderfully arms and recruits us.\nThere are those who disputing will make you dispute, and the nervous\nand hysterical and animalized will produce a like series of symptoms\nin you, though no other persons ever evoke the like phenomena, and\nthough you are conscious that they do not properly belong to you, but\nare a sort of extension of the diseases of this particular person\ninto you.\n\nThe idea of vegetation is irresistible in considering mental\nactivity. Man seems a higher plant. What happens here in mankind\nis matched by what happens out there in the history of grass and\nwheat. This curious resemblance repeats, in the mental function,\nthe germination, growth, state of melioration, crossings, blight,\nparasites, and in short all the accidents of the plant. Under every\nleaf is the bud of a new leaf, and not less under every thought is a\nnewer thought. The plant absorbs much nourishment from the ground in\norder to repair its own waste by exhalation, and keep itself good.\nIncrease its food and it becomes fertile. The mind is first only\nreceptive. Surcharge it with thoughts in which it delights and it\nbecomes active. The moment a man begins not to be convinced, that\nmoment he begins to convince.\n\nIn the orchard many trees send out a moderate shoot in the first\nsummer heat, and stop. They look all summer as if they would\npresently burst into bud again, but they do not. The fine tree\ncontinues to grow. The same thing happens in the man. Every man has\nmaterial enough in his experience to exhaust the sagacity of Newton\nin working it out. We have more than we use. I never hear a good\nspeech at caucus or at cattle-show but it helps me, not so much by\nadding to my knowledge as by apprising me of admirable uses to which\nwhat I know can be turned. The commonest remark, if the man could\nonly extend it a little, would make him a genius; but the thought is\nprematurely checked, and grows no more. All great masters are chiefly\ndistinguished by the power of adding a second, a third, and perhaps\na fourth step in a continuous line. Many a man had taken their first\nstep. With every additional step you enhance immensely the value of\nyour first.\n\nThe botanist discovered long ago that Nature loves mixtures, and that\nnothing grows well on the crab-stock, but the blood of two trees\nbeing mixed a new and excellent fruit is produced. And not less in\nhuman history aboriginal races are incapable of improvement; the\ndull, melancholy Pelasgi arrive at no civility until the Ph\u0153nicians\nand Ionians come in. The Briton, the Pict, is nothing until the\nRoman, the Saxon, the Norman, arrives.\n\nIt is observed that our mental processes go forward even when they\nseem suspended. Scholars say that if they return to the study of a\nnew language after some intermission, the intelligence of it is more\nand not less. A subject of thought to which we return from month to\nmonth, from year to year, has always some ripeness of which we can\ngive no account. We say the book grew in the author\u2019s mind.\n\nIn unfit company the finest powers are paralyzed. No ambition,\nno opposition, no friendly attention and fostering kindness,\nno wine, music or exhilarating aids, neither warm fireside nor\nfresh air, walking or riding, avail at all to resist the palsy of\nmis-association. Genius is mute, is dull; there is no genius. Ask of\nyour flowers to open when you have let in on them a freezing wind.\n\nThe mechanical laws might as easily be shown pervading the kingdom\nof mind as the vegetative. A man has been in Spain. The facts and\nthoughts which the traveller has found in that country gradually\nsettle themselves into a determinate heap of one size and form and\nnot another. That is what he knows and has to say of Spain; he cannot\nsay it truly until a sufficient time for the arrangement of the\nparticles has elapsed.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThese views of the source of thought and the mode of its\ncommunication lead us to a whole system of ethics, strict as any\ndepartment of human duty, and open to us the tendencies and duties of\nmen of thought in the present time.\n\nWisdom is like electricity. There is no permanent wise man, but\nmen capable of wisdom, who being put into certain company or other\nfavorable conditions become wise, as glasses rubbed acquire power for\na time.\n\nAn individual body is the momentary arrest or fixation of certain\natoms, which, after performing compulsory duty to this enchanted\nstatue, are released again to flow in the currents of the world.\nAn individual mind in like manner is a fixation or momentary eddy\nin which certain services and powers are taken up and minister in\npetty niches and localities, and then, being released, return to the\nunbounded soul of the world.\n\nIn this eternal resurrection and rehabilitation of transitory\npersons, who and what are they? \u2019Tis only the source that we can\nsee;\u2014the eternal mind, careless of its channels, omnipotent in\nitself, and continually ejaculating its torrent into every artery\nand vein and veinlet of humanity. Wherever there is health, that\nis, consent to the cause and constitution of the universe, there is\nperception and power.\n\nEach man is a new power in Nature. He holds the keys of the world\nin his hands. No quality in Nature\u2019s vast magazines he cannot\ntouch, no truth he cannot see. Silent, passive, even sulkily Nature\noffers every morning her wealth to man. She is immensely rich; he\nis welcome to her entire goods, but she speaks no word, will not so\nmuch as beckon or cough; only this, she is careful to leave all her\ndoors ajar,\u2014towers, hall, storeroom and cellar. If he takes her hint\nand uses her goods she speaks no word; if he blunders and starves\nshe says nothing. To the idle blockhead Nature is poor, sterile,\ninhospitable. To the gardener her loam is all strawberries, pears,\npineapples. To the miller her rivers whirl the wheel and weave\ncarpets and broadcloth. To the sculptor her stone is soft; to the\npainter her plumbago and marl are pencils and chromes. To the poet\nall sounds and words are melodies and rhythms. In her hundred-gated\nThebes every chamber is a new door.\n\nBut he enters the world by one key. Herein is the wealth of each.\nHis equipment, though new, is complete; his prudence is his own; his\ncourage, his charity, are his own. He has his own defences and his\nown fangs; his perception and his own mode of reply to sophistries.\nWhilst he draws on his own he cannot be overshadowed or supplanted.\n\nThere are two mischievous superstitions, I know not which does the\nmost harm, one, that \u201cI am wiser than you,\u201d and the other that \u201cYou\nare wiser than I.\u201d The truth is that every man is furnished, if he\nwill heed it, with wisdom necessary to steer his own boat,\u2014if he will\nnot look away from his own to see how his neighbor steers his.\n\nEvery man is a new method and distributes things anew. If he could\nattain full size he would take up, first or last, atom by atom, all\nthe world into a new form. And our deep conviction of the riches\nproper to every mind does not allow us to admit of much looking over\ninto one another\u2019s virtues. Let me whisper a secret; nobody ever\nforgives any admiration in you of them, any overestimate of what they\ndo or have. I acquiesce to be that I am, but I wish no one to be\ncivil to me.\n\nStrong men understand this very well. Power fraternizes with power,\nand wishes you not to be like him but like yourself. Echo the leaders\nand they will fast enough see that you have nothing for them. They\ncame to you for something they had not.\n\nThere is always a loss of truth and power when a man leaves working\nfor himself to work for another. Absolutely speaking I can only work\nfor myself. All my good is magnetic, and I educate not by lessons\nbut by going about my business. When, moved by love, a man teaches\nhis child or joins with his neighbor in any act of common benefit,\nor spends himself for his friend, or rushes at immense personal\nsacrifice on some public, self-immolating act, it is not done for\nothers, but to fulfil a high necessity of his proper character. The\nbenefit to others is contingent and not contemplated by the doer.\n\nThe one thing not to be forgiven to intellectual persons is that\nthey believe in the ideas of others. From this deference comes the\nimbecility and fatigue of their society, for of course they cannot\naffirm these from the deep life; they say what they would have you\nbelieve, but what they do not quite know. Profound sincerity is the\nonly basis of talent as of character. The temptation is to patronize\nProvidence, to fall into the accepted ways of talking and acting of\nthe good sort of people.\n\nEach has a certain aptitude for knowing or doing somewhat which, when\nit appears, is so adapted and aimed on that, that it seems a sort\nof obtuseness to everything else. Well, this aptitude, if he would\nobey it, would prove a telescope to bring under his clear vision what\nwas blur to everybody else. \u2019Tis a wonderful instrument, an organic\nsympathy with the whole frame of things. There is no property or\nrelation in that immense arsenal of forces which the earth is, but\nsome man is at last found who affects this, delights to unfold and\nwork it, as if he were the born publisher and demonstrator of it.\n\nAs a dog has a sense that you have not, to find the track of his\nmaster or of a fox, and as each tree can secrete from the soil the\nelements that form a peach, a lemon, or a cocoa-nut, according to its\nkind, so individual men have secret senses, each some incommunicable\nsagacity. And men are primary or secondary as their opinions and\nactions are organic or not.\n\nI know well what a sieve every ear is. Teach me never so much and I\nhear or retain only that which I wish to hear, what comports with\nmy experience and my desire. Many eyes go through the meadow, but\nfew see the flowers. A hunter finds plenty of game on the ground you\nhave sauntered over with idle gun. White huckleberries are so rare\nthat in miles of pasture you shall not find a dozen. But a girl who\nunderstands it will find you a pint in a quarter of an hour.\n\nThough the world is full of food we can take only the crumbs fit for\nus. The air rings with sounds, but only a few vibrations can reach\nour tympanum. Perhaps creatures live with us which we never see,\nbecause their motion is too swift for our vision. The sun may shine,\nor a galaxy of suns; you will get no more light than your eye will\nhold. What can Plato or Newton teach, if you are deaf or incapable?\nA mind does not receive truth as a chest receives jewels that are\nput into it, but as the stomach takes up food into the system. It is\nno longer food, but flesh, and is assimilated. The appetite and the\npower of digestion measure our right to knowledge. He has it who can\nuse it. As soon as our accumulation overruns our invention or power\nto use, the evils of intellectual gluttony begin,\u2014congestion of the\nbrain, apoplexy and strangulation.\n\n\nIII. In reckoning the sources of our mental power it were fatal\nto omit that one which pours all the others into its mould;\u2014that\nunknown country in which all the rivers of our knowledge have their\nfountains, and which, by its qualities and structure, determines\nboth the nature of the waters and the direction in which they flow.\n\nThe healthy mind lies parallel to the currents of nature and sees\nthings in place, or makes discoveries. Newton did not exercise more\ningenuity but less than another to see the world. Right thought comes\nspontaneously, comes like the morning wind; comes daily, like our\ndaily bread, to humble service; comes duly to those who look for\nit. It does not need to pump your brains and force thought to think\nrightly. O no, the ingenious person is warped by his ingenuity and\nmis-sees.\n\nInstinct is our name for the potential wit. Each man has a feeling\nthat what is done anywhere is done by the same wit as his. All men\nare his representatives, and he is glad to see that his wit can work\nat this or that problem as it ought to be done, and better than he\ncould do it. We feel as if one man wrote all the books, painted,\nbuilt, in dark ages; and we are sure that it can do more than ever\nwas done. It was the same mind that built the world. That is Instinct.\n\nAsk what the Instinct declares, and we have little to say. He is no\nnewsmonger, no disputant, no talker. \u2019Tis a taper, a spark in the\ngreat night. Yet a spark at which all the illuminations of human arts\nand sciences were kindled. This is that glimpse of inextinguishable\nlight by which men are guided; though it does not show objects, yet\nit shows the way. This is that sense by which men feel when they are\nwronged, though they do not see how. This is that source of thought\nand feeling which acts on masses of men, on all men at certain times,\nwith resistless power. Ever at intervals leaps a word or fact to\nlight which is no man\u2019s invention, but the common instinct, making\nthe revolutions that never go back.\n\nThis is Instinct, and Inspiration is only this power excited,\nbreaking its silence; the spark bursting into flame. Instinct is a\nshapeless giant in the cave, massive, without hands or fingers or\narticulating lips or teeth or tongue; Behemoth, disdaining speech,\ndisdaining particulars, lurking, surly, invincible, disdaining\nthoughts, always whole, never distributed, aboriginal, old as nature,\nand saying, like poor Topsy, \u201cnever was born, growed.\u201d Indifferent to\nthe dignity of its function, it plays the god in animal nature as in\nhuman or as in the angelic, and spends its omniscience on the lowest\nwants. The old Hindoo Gautama says, \u201cLike the approach of the iron to\nthe loadstone is the approach of the new-born child to the breast.\u201d\nThere is somewhat awful in that first approach.\n\nThe Instinct begins at this low point, at the surface of the earth,\nand works for the necessities of the human being; then ascends step\nby step to suggestions which are when expressed the intellectual and\nmoral laws.\n\nThe mythology cleaves close to nature; and what else was it they\nrepresented in Pan, god of shepherds, who was not yet completely\nfinished in godlike form, blocked rather, and wanting the\nextremities; had emblematic horns and feet? Pan, that is, All. His\nhabit was to dwell in mountains, lying on the ground, tooting like a\ncricket in the sun, refusing to speak, clinging to his behemoth ways.\nHe could intoxicate by the strain of his shepherd\u2019s pipe,\u2014silent yet\nto most, for his pipes make the music of the spheres, which because\nit sounds eternally is not heard at all by the dull, but only by the\nmind. He wears a coat of leopard spots or stars. He could terrify\nby earth-born fears called _panics_. Yet was he in the secret of\nnature and could look both before and after. He was only seen under\ndisguises, and was not represented by any outward image; a terror\nsometimes, at others a placid omnipotence.\n\nSuch homage did the Greek, delighting in accurate form, not fond of\nthe extravagant and unbounded, pay to the inscrutable force we call\nInstinct, or nature when it first becomes intelligent.\n\nThe action of the Instinct is for the most part negative, regulative,\nrather than initiative or impulsive. But it has a range as wide as\nhuman nature, running over all the ground of morals, of intellect,\nand of sense. In its lower function, when it deals with the apparent\nworld, it is common-sense. It requires the performance of all\nthat is needful to the animal life and health. Then it requires a\nproportion between a man\u2019s acts and his condition, requires all that\nis called humanity; that symmetry and connection which is imperative\nin all healthily constituted men, and the want of which the rare and\nbrilliant sallies of irregular genius cannot excuse.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIf we could retain our early innocence we might trust our feet\nuncommanded to take the right path to our friend in the woods. But we\nhave interfered too often; the feet have lost, by our distrust, their\nproper virtue, and we take the wrong path and miss him. \u2019Tis the\nbarbarian instinct within us which culture deadens.\n\nWe find ourselves expressed in nature, but we cannot translate it\ninto words. But Perception is the armed eye. A civilization has tamed\nand ripened this savage wit, and he is a Greek. His Aye and No have\nbecome nouns and verbs and adverbs. Perception differs from Instinct\nby adding the Will. Simple percipiency is the virtue of space, not of\nman.\n\nThe senses minister to a mind they do not know. At a moment in\nour history the mind\u2019s eye opens and we become aware of spiritual\nfacts, of rights, of duties, of thoughts,\u2014a thousand faces of one\nessence. We call the essence Truth; the particular aspects of it\nwe call thoughts. These facts, this essence, are not new; they are\nold and eternal, but our seeing of them is new. Having seen them\nwe are no longer brute lumps whirled by Fate, but we pass into the\ncouncil-chamber and government of nature. In so far as we see them we\nshare their life and sovereignty.\n\nThe point of interest is here, that these gates, once opened, never\nswing back. The observers may come at their leisure, and do at last\nsatisfy themselves of the fact. The thought, the doctrine, the\nright hitherto not affirmed is published in set propositions, in\nconversation of scholars and philosophers, of men of the world, and\nat last in the very choruses of songs. The young hear it, and as they\nhave never fought it, never known it otherwise, they accept it, vote\nfor it at the polls, embody it in the laws. And the perception thus\nsatisfied reacts on the senses, to clarify them, so that it becomes\nmore indisputable.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThis is the first property of the Intellect I am to point out; the\nmind detaches. A man is intellectual in proportion as he can make an\nobject of every sensation, perception and intuition; so long as he\nhas no engagement in any thought or feeling which can hinder him from\nlooking at it as somewhat foreign.\n\nA man of talent has only to name any form or fact with which we are\nmost familiar, and the strong light which he throws on it enhances it\nto all eyes. People wonder they never saw it before. The detachment\nconsists in seeing it under a new order, not under a personal but\nunder a universal light. To us it had economic, but to the universe\nit has poetic relations, and it is as good as sun and star now.\nIndeed this is the measure of all intellectual power among men, the\npower to complete this detachment, the power of genius to hurl a new\nindividual into the world.\n\nAn intellectual man has the power to go out of himself and see\nhimself as an object; therefore his defects and delusions interest\nhim as much as his successes. He not only wishes to succeed in life,\nbut he wishes in thought to know the history and destiny of a man;\nwhilst the cloud of egotists drifting about are only interested in a\nsuccess to their egotism.\n\nThe senses report the new fact or change; the mind discovers some\nessential copula binding this fact or change to a class of facts or\nchanges, and enjoys the discovery as if coming to its own again. A\nperception is always a generalization. It lifts the object, whether\nin material or moral nature, into a type. The animal, the low degrees\nof intellect, know only individuals. The philosopher knows only laws.\nThat is, he considers a purely mental fact, part of the soul itself.\nWe say with Kenelm Digby, \u201cAll things that she knoweth are herself,\nand she is all that she knoweth.\u201d Insight assimilates the thing\nseen. Is it only another way of affirming and illustrating this to\nsay that it sees nothing alone, but sees each particular object in\njust connections,\u2014sees all in God? In all healthy souls is an inborn\nnecessity of presupposing for each particular fact a prior Being\nwhich compels it to a harmony with all other natures. The game of\nIntellect is the perception that whatever befalls or can be stated\nis a universal proposition; and contrariwise, that every general\nstatement is poetical again by being particularized or impersonated.\n\nA single thought has no limit to its value; a thought, properly\nspeaking,\u2014that is a truth held not from any man\u2019s saying so, or\nany accidental benefit or recommendation it has in our trade or\ncircumstance, but because we have perceived it is a fact in the\nnature of things, and in all times and places will and must be\nthe same thing,\u2014is of inestimable value. Every new impression on\nthe mind is not to be derided, but is to be accounted for, and,\nuntil accounted for, registered as an indisputable addition to our\ncatalogue of natural facts.\n\nThe first fact is the fate in every mental perception,\u2014that my\nseeing this or that, and that I see it so or so, is as much a fact\nin the natural history of the world as is the freezing of water at\nthirty-two degrees of Fahrenheit. My percipiency affirms the presence\nand perfection of law, as much as all the martyrs. A perception, it\nis of a necessity older than the sun and moon, and the Father of\nthe Gods. It is there with all its destinies. It is its nature to\nrush to expression, to rush to embody itself. It is impatient to\nput on its sandals and be gone on its errand, which is to lead to a\nlarger perception, and so to new action. For thought exists to be\nexpressed. That which cannot externize itself is not thought.\n\nDo not trifle with your perceptions, or hold them cheap. They are\nyour door to the seven heavens, and if you pass it by you will miss\nyour way. Say, what impresses me ought to impress me. I am bewildered\nby the immense variety of attractions and cannot take a step; but\nthis one thread, fine as gossamer, is yet real; and I hear a whisper,\nwhich I dare trust, that it is the thread on which the earth and the\nheaven of heavens are strung.\n\nThe universe is traversed by paths or bridges or stepping-stones\nacross the gulfs of space in every direction. To every soul that\nis created is its path, invisible to all but itself. Each soul,\ntherefore, walking in its own path walks firmly; and to the\nastonishment of all other souls, who see not its path, it goes as\nsoftly and playfully on its way as if, instead of being a line,\nnarrow as the edge of a sword, over terrific pits right and left, it\nwere a wide prairie.\n\nGenius is a delicate sensibility to the laws of the world, adding the\npower to express them again in some new form. The highest measure of\npoetic power is such insight and faculty to fuse the circumstances of\nto-day as shall make transparent the whole web of circumstance and\nopinion in which the man finds himself, so that he releases himself\nfrom the traditions in which he grew,\u2014no longer looks back to Hebrew\nor Greek or English use or tradition in religion, laws, or life, but\nsees so truly the omnipresence of eternal cause that he can convert\nthe daily and hourly event of New York, of Boston, into universal\nsymbols. I owe to genius always the same debt, of lifting the curtain\nfrom the common and showing me that gods are sitting disguised in\nevery company.\n\nThe conduct of Intellect must respect nothing so much as preserving\nthe sensibility. My measure for all subjects of science as of events\nis their impression on the soul. That mind is best which is most\nimpressionable. There are times when the cawing of a crow, a weed, a\nsnow-flake, a boy\u2019s willow whistle, or a farmer planting in his field\nis more suggestive to the mind than the Yosemite gorge or the Vatican\nwould be in another hour. In like mood an old verse, or certain\nwords, gleam with rare significance.\n\nBut sensibility does not exhaust our idea of it. That is only half.\nGenius is not a lazy angel contemplating itself and things. It is\ninsatiable for expression. Thought must take the stupendous step\nof passing into realization. A master can formulate his thought.\nOur thoughts at first possess us. Later, if we have good heads, we\ncome to possess them. We believe that certain persons add to the\ncommon vision a certain degree of control over these states of mind;\nthat the true scholar is one who has the power to stand beside his\nthoughts or to hold off his thoughts at arm\u2019s length and give them\nperspective.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIt is not to be concealed that the gods have guarded this privilege\nwith costly penalty. This slight discontinuity which perception\neffects between the mind and the object paralyzes the will. If you\ncut or break in two a block or stone and press the two parts closely\ntogether, you can indeed bring the particles very near, but never\nagain so near that they shall attract each other so that you can take\nup the block as one. That indescribably small interval is as good as\na thousand miles, and has forever severed the practical unity. Such\nis the immense deduction from power by discontinuity.\n\nThe intellect that sees the interval partakes of it, and the fact of\nintellectual perception severs once for all the man from the things\nwith which he converses. Affection blends, intellect disjoins subject\nand object. For weal or woe we clear ourselves from the thing we\ncontemplate. We grieve but are not the grief; we love but are not\nlove. If we converse with low things, with crimes, with mischances,\nwe are not compromised. And if with high things, with heroic actions,\nwith virtues, the interval becomes a gulf and we cannot enter into\nthe highest good. Artist natures do not weep. Goethe, the surpassing\nintellect of modern times, apprehends the spiritual but is not\nspiritual.\n\nThere is indeed this vice about men of thought, that you cannot quite\ntrust them; not as much as other men of the same natural probity,\nwithout intellect; because they have a hankering to play Providence\nand make a distinction in favor of themselves from the rules they\napply to the human race.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe primary rule for the conduct of Intellect is to have control of\nthe thoughts without losing their natural attitudes and action. They\nare the oracle; we are not to poke and drill and force, but to follow\nthem. Yet the spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets.\nYou must formulate your thought or \u2019tis all sky and no stars. There\nare men of great apprehension, discursive minds, who easily entertain\nideas, but are not exact, severe with themselves, cannot connect or\narrange their thoughts so as effectively to report them. A blending\nof these two\u2014the intellectual perception of truth and the moral\nsentiment of right\u2014is wisdom. All thought is practical. Wishing is\none thing; will another. Wishing is castle-building; the dreaming\nabout things agreeable to the senses, but to which we have no right.\nWill is the advance to that which rightly belongs to us, to which\nthe inward magnet ever points, and which we dare to make ours. The\nrevelation of thought takes us out of servitude into freedom. So does\nthe sense of right.\n\nWill is the measure of power. To a great genius there must be a great\nwill. If the thought is not a lamp to the will, does not proceed to\nan act, the wise are imbecile. He alone is strong and happy who has a\nwill. The rest are herds. He uses; they are used. He is of the Maker;\nthey are of the Made.\n\nWill is always miraculous, being the presence of God to men. When\nit appears in a man he is a hero, and all metaphysics are at fault.\nHeaven is the exercise of the faculties, the added sense of power.\n\nAll men know the truth, but what of that? It is rare to find one who\nknows how to speak it. A man tries to speak it and his voice is like\nthe hiss of a snake, or rude and chiding. The truth is not spoken\nbut injured. The same thing happens in power to do the right. His\nrectitude is ridiculous. His organs do not play him true.\n\nThere is a meter which determines the constructive power of\nman,\u2014this, namely, the question whether the mind possesses the\ncontrol of its thoughts, or they of it. The new sect stands for\ncertain thoughts. We go to individual members for an exposition of\nthem. Vain expectation. They are possessed by the ideas but do not\npossess them. One meets contemplative men who dwell in a certain\nfeeling and delight which are intellectual but wholly above their\nexpression. They cannot formulate. They impress those who know\nthem by their loyalty to the truth they worship but cannot impart.\nSometimes the patience and love are rewarded by the chamber of power\nbeing at last opened; but sometimes they pass away dumb, to find it\nwhere all obstruction is removed.\n\nBy and by comes a facility; some one that can move the mountain\nand build of it a causeway through the Dismal Swamp, as easily as\nhe carries the hair on his head. Talent is habitual facility of\nexecution. We like people who can do things. The various talents are\norganic, or each related to that part of nature it is to explore and\nutilize. Somewhat is to come to the light, and one was created to\nfetch it,\u2014a vessel of honor or of dishonor. \u2019Tis of instant use in\nthe economy of the Cosmos, and the more armed and biassed for the\nwork the better.\n\nEach of these talents is born to be unfolded and set at work for the\nuse and delight of men, and, in the last result, the man with the\ntalent is the need of mankind; the whole ponderous machinery of the\nstate has really for its aim just to place this skill of each.\n\nBut idea and execution are not often entrusted to the same head.\nThere is some incompatibility of good speculation and practice, for\nexample, the failure of monasteries and Brook Farms. To hammer out\nphalanxes must be done by smiths; as soon as the scholar attempts it\nhe is half a charlatan.\n\nThe grasp is the main thing. Most men\u2019s minds do not grasp anything.\nAll slips through their fingers, like the paltry brass grooves that\nin most country houses are used to raise or drop the curtain, but are\nmade to sell, and will not hold any curtain but cobwebs. I have heard\nthat idiot children are known from their birth by the circumstance\nthat their hands do not close round anything. Webster naturally and\nalways grasps, and therefore retains something from every company and\ncircumstance.\n\nAs a talent Dante\u2019s imagination is the nearest to hands and feet\nthat we have seen. He clasps the thought as if it were a tree or a\nstone, and describes as mathematically. I once found Page the painter\nmodelling his figures in clay, Ruth and Naomi, before he painted them\non canvas. Dante, one would say, did the same thing before he wrote\nthe verses.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nI have spoken of Intellect constructive. But it is in degrees. How it\nmoves when its pace is accelerated! The pace of Nature is so slow.\nWhy not from strength to strength, from miracle to miracle, and not\nas now with this retardation\u2014as if Nature had sprained her foot\u2014and\nplenteous stopping at little stations?\n\nThe difference is obvious enough in Talent between the speed of one\nman\u2019s action above another\u2019s. In debate, in legislature, not less\nin action; in war or in affairs, alike daring and effective. But I\nspeak of it in quite another sense, namely, in the habitual speed of\ncombination of thought.\n\nThe same functions which are perfect in our quadrupeds are seen\nslower performed in pal\u00e6ontology. Many races it cost them to achieve\nthe completion that is now in the life of one. Life had not yet so\nfierce a glow.\n\nShakespeare astonishes by his equality in every play, act, scene or\nline. One would say he must have been a thousand years old when he\nwrote his first line, so thoroughly is his thought familiar to him,\nand has such scope and so solidly worded, as if it were already a\nproverb and not hereafter to become one. Well, that millennium in\neffect is really only a little acceleration in his process of thought.\n\nBut each power is commonly at the expense of some other. When pace is\nincreased it will happen that the control is in a degree lost. Reason\ndoes not keep her firm seat. The Delphian prophetess, when the spirit\npossesses her, is herself a victim. The excess of individualism, when\nit is not corrected or subordinated to the Supreme Reason, makes\nthat vice which we stigmatize as monotones, men of one idea, or, as\nthe French say, _enfant perdu d\u2019une conviction isol\u00e9e_, which give\nsuch a comic tinge to all society. Every man has his theory, true,\nbut ridiculously overstated. We are forced to treat a great part of\nmankind as if they were a little deranged. We detect their mania and\nhumor it, so that conversation soon becomes a tiresome effort.\n\nYou laugh at the monotones, at the men of one idea, but if we look\nnearly at heroes we may find the same poverty; and perhaps it is not\npoverty, but power. The secret of power, intellectual or physical, is\nconcentration, and all concentration involves of necessity a certain\nnarrowness. It is a law of nature that he who looks at one thing must\nturn his eyes from every other thing in the universe. The horse goes\nbetter with blinders, and the man for dedication to his task. If you\nask what compensation is made for the inevitable narrowness, why,\nthis, that in learning one thing well you learn all things.\n\nImmense is the patience of Nature. You say thought is a penurious\nrill. Well, we can wait. Nature is immortal, and can wait. Nature\nhaving for capital this rill, drop by drop, as it trickles from the\nrock of ages,\u2014this rill and her patience,\u2014she husbands and hives,\nshe forms reservoirs, were it only a phial or a hair-tube that\nwill hold as it were a drop of attar. Not having enough to support\nall the powers of a race, she thins her stock and raises a few\nindividuals, or only a pair. Not sufficing to feed all the faculties\nsynchronously, she feeds one faculty and starves all the rest. I am\nfamiliar with cases, we meet them daily, wherein the vital force\nbeing insufficient for the constitution, everything is neglected\nthat can be spared; some one power fed, all the rest pine. \u2019Tis like\na withered hand or leg on a Hercules. It makes inconvenience in\nsociety, for we presume symmetry, and because they know one thing we\ndefer to them in another, and find them really contemptible. We can\u2019t\nmake half a bow and say, I honor and despise you. But Nature can; she\nwhistles with all her winds, and does as she pleases.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIt is much to write sentences; it is more to add method and write\nout the spirit of your life symmetrically. But to arrange general\nreflections in their natural order, so that I shall have one\nhomogeneous piece,\u2014a Lycidas, an Allegro, a Hamlet, a Midsummer\nNight\u2019s Dream,\u2014this continuity is for the great. The wonderful men\nare wonderful hereby. Such concentration of experiences is in every\ngreat work, which, though successive in the mind of the master, were\nprimarily combined in his piece.\n\nBut what we want is consecutiveness. \u2019Tis with us a flash of light,\nthen a long darkness, then a flash again. Ah! could we turn these\nfugitive sparkles into an astronomy of Copernican worlds.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nI must think this keen sympathy, this thrill of awe with which we\nwatch the performance of genius, a sign of our own readiness to\nexert the like power. I must think we are entitled to powers far\ntranscending any that we possess; that we have in the race the sketch\nof a man which no individual comes up to.\n\nEvery sincere man is right, or, to make him right, only needs a\nlittle larger dose of his own personality. Excellent in his own way\nby means of not apprehending the gift of another. When he speaks out\nof another\u2019s mind, we detect it. He can\u2019t make any paint stick but\nhis own. No man passes for that with another which he passes for\nwith himself. The respect and the censure of his brother are alike\ninjurious and irrelevant. We see ourselves; we lack organs to see\nothers, and only squint at them.\n\nDon\u2019t fear to push these individualities to their farthest\ndivergence. Characters and talents are complemental and suppletory.\nThe world stands by balanced antagonisms. The more the peculiarities\nare pressed the better the result. The air would rot without\nlightning; and without the violence of direction that men have,\nwithout bigots, without men of fixed idea, no excitement, no\nefficiency.\n\nThe novelist should not make any character act absurdly, but only\nabsurdly as seen by others. For it is so in life. Nonsense will not\nkeep its unreason if you come into the humorist\u2019s point of view, but\nunhappily we find it is fast becoming sense, and we must flee again\ninto the distance if we would laugh.\n\nWhat strength belongs to every plant and animal in nature. The tree\nor the brook has no duplicity, no pretentiousness, no show. It is,\nwith all its might and main, what it is, and makes one and the same\nimpression and effect at all times. All the thoughts of a turtle are\nturtles, and of a rabbit, rabbits. But a man is broken and dissipated\nby the giddiness of his will; he does not throw himself into his\njudgments; his genius leads him one way but \u2019tis likely his trade or\npolitics in quite another. He rows with one hand and with the other\nbacks water, and does not give to any manner of life the strength\nof his constitution. Hence the perpetual loss of power and waste of\nhuman life.\n\nThe natural remedy against this miscellany of knowledge and aim, this\ndesultory universality of ours, this immense ground-juniper falling\nabroad and not gathered up into any columnar tree, is to substitute\nrealism for sentimentalism; a certain recognition of the simple and\nterrible laws which, seen or unseen, pervade and govern.\n\nYou will say this is quite axiomatic and a little too true. I do\nnot find it an agreed point. Literary men for the most part have a\nsettled despair as to the realization of ideas in their own time.\nThere is in all students a distrust of truth, a timidity about\naffirming it; a wish to patronize Providence.\n\nWe disown our debt to moral evil. To science there is no poison; to\nbotany no weed; to chemistry no dirt. The curses of malignity and\ndespair are important criticism, which must be heeded until he can\nexplain and rightly silence them.\n\n\u201c_Croyez moi, l\u2019erreur aussi a son m\u00e9rite_,\u201d said Voltaire. We see\nthose who surmount by dint of egotism or infatuation obstacles from\nwhich the prudent recoil. The right partisan is a heady man, who,\nbecause he does not see many things, sees some one thing with heat\nand exaggeration; and if he falls among other narrow men, or objects\nwhich have a brief importance, prefers it to the universe, and seems\ninspired and a godsend to those who wish to magnify the matter and\ncarry a point. \u2019Tis the difference between progress by railroad and\nby walking across the broken country. Immense speed, but only in one\ndirection.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThere are two theories of life; one for the demonstration of our\ntalent, the other for the education of the man. One is activity, the\nbusy-body, the following of that practical talent which we have,\nin the belief that what is so natural, easy and pleasant to us and\ndesirable to others will surely lead us out safely; in this direction\nlie usefulness, comfort, society, low power of all sorts. The other\nis trust, religion, consent to be nothing for eternity, entranced\nwaiting, the worship of ideas. This is solitary, grand, secular. They\nare in perpetual balance and strife. One is talent, the other genius.\nOne is skill, the other character.\n\nWe are continually tempted to sacrifice genius to talent, the hope\nand promise of insight to the lust of a freer demonstration of those\ngifts we have; and we buy this freedom to glitter by the loss of\ngeneral health.\n\nIt is the levity of this country to forgive everything to talent. If\na man show cleverness, rhetorical skill, bold front in the forum or\nthe senate, people clap their hands without asking more. We have a\njuvenile love of smartness, of showy speech. We like faculty that can\nrapidly be coined into money, and society seems to be in conspiracy\nto utilize every gift prematurely, and pull down genius to lucrative\ntalent. Every kind of meanness and mischief is forgiven to intellect.\nAll is condoned if I can write a good song or novel.\n\nWide is the gulf between genius and talent. The men we know, poets,\nwits, writers, deal with their thoughts as jewellers with jewels,\nwhich they sell but must not wear. Like the carpenter, who gives up\nthe key of the fine house he has built, and never enters it again.\n\nThere is a conflict between a man\u2019s private dexterity or talent and\nhis access to the free air and light which wisdom is; between wisdom\nand the habit and necessity of repeating itself which belongs to\nevery mind. Peter is the mould into which everything is poured like\nwarm wax, and be it astronomy or railroads or French revolution or\ntheology or botany, it comes out Peter. But there are quick limits\nto our interest in the personality of people. They are as much alike\nas their barns and pantries, and are as soon musty and dreary. They\nentertain us for a time, but at the second or third encounter we have\nnothing more to learn.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe daily history of the Intellect is this alternating of expansions\nand concentrations. The expansions are the invitations from heaven\nto try a larger sweep, a higher pitch than we have yet climbed, and\nto leave all our past for this enlarged scope. Present power, on the\nother hand, requires concentration on the moment and the thing to be\ndone.\n\nThe condition of sanity is to respect the order of the intellectual\nworld; to keep down talent in its place, to enthrone the instinct.\nThere must be perpetual rallying and self-recovery. Each talent is\nambitious and self-asserting; it works for show and for the shop, and\nthe greater it grows the more is the mischief and the misleading, so\nthat presently all is wrong.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nNo wonder the children love masks and costumes, and play horse, play\nsoldier, play school, play bear, and delight in theatricals. The\nchildren have only the instinct of the universe, in which becoming\nsomewhat else is the perpetual game of nature, and death the penalty\nof standing still. \u2019Tis not less in thought. I cannot conceive\nany good in a thought which confines and stagnates. The universe\nexists only in transit, or we behold it shooting the gulf from the\npast to the future. We are passing into new heavens in fact by the\nmovement of our solar system, and in thought by our better knowledge.\nTransition is the attitude of power. A fact is only a fulcrum of the\nspirit. It is the terminus of a past thought, but only a means now to\nnew sallies of the imagination and new progress of wisdom. The habit\nof saliency, of not pausing but proceeding, is a sort of importation\nand domestication of the divine effort into a man. Routine, the rut,\nis the path of indolence, of cows, of sluggish animal life; as near\ngravitation as it can go. But wit sees the short way, puts together\nwhat belongs together, custom or no custom; in that is organization.\n\nInspiration is the continuation of the divine effort that built the\nman. The same course continues itself in the mind which we have\nwitnessed in nature, namely, the carrying-on and completion of the\nmetamorphosis from grub to worm, from worm to fly. In human thought\nthis process is often arrested for years and ages. The history of\nmankind is the history of arrested growth. This premature stop, I\nknow not how, befalls most of us in early youth; as if the growth of\nhigh powers, the access to rare truths, closed at two or three years\nin the child, while all the pagan faculties went ripening on to sixty.\n\nSo long as you are capable of advance, so long you have not abdicated\nthe hope and future of a divine soul. That wonderful oracle will\nreply when it is consulted, and there is no history or tradition, no\nrule of life or art or science, on which it is not a competent and\nthe only competent judge.\n\nMan was made for conflict, not for rest. In action is his power;\nnot in his goals but in his transitions man is great. Instantly he\nis dwarfed by self-indulgence. The truest state of mind rested in\nbecomes false.\n\nThe spiritual power of man is twofold, mind and heart, Intellect and\nmorals; one respecting truth, the other the will. One is the man,\nthe other the woman in spiritual nature. One is power, the other is\nlove. These elements always coexist in every normal individual, but\none predominates. And as each is easily exalted in our thoughts till\nit serves to fill the universe and become the synonym of God, the\nsoul in which one predominates is ever watchful and jealous when such\nimmense claims are made for one as seem injurious to the other. Ideal\nand practical, like ecliptic and equator, are never parallel. Each\nhas its vices, its proper dangers, obvious enough when the opposite\nelement is deficient.\n\nIntellect is skeptical, runs down into talent, selfish working for\nprivate ends, conceited, ostentatious and malignant. On the other\nside the clear-headed thinker complains of souls led hither and\nthither by affections which, alone, are blind guides and thriftless\nworkmen, and in the confusion asks the polarity of intellect. But all\ngreat minds and all great hearts have mutually allowed the absolute\nnecessity of the twain.\n\nIf the first rule is to obey your genius, in the second place the\ngood mind is known by the choice of what is positive, of what is\nadvancing. We must embrace the affirmative. But the affirmative of\naffirmatives is love. _Quantus amor tantus animus._ Strength enters\nas the moral element enters. Lovers of men are as safe as the sun.\nGoodwill makes insight. Sensibility is the secret readiness to\nbelieve in all kinds of power, and the contempt of any experience we\nhave not is the opposite pole. The measure of mental health is the\ndisposition to find good everywhere, good and order, analogy, health\nand benefit,\u2014the love of truth, tendency to be in the right, no\nfighter for victory, no cockerel.\n\nWe have all of us by nature a certain divination and parturient\nvaticination in our minds of some higher good and perfection than\neither power or knowledge. Knowledge is plainly to be preferred\nbefore power, as being that which guides and directs its blind force\nand impetus; but Aristotle declares that the origin of reason is not\nreason but something better.\n\nThe height of culture, the highest behavior, consists in the\nidentification of the Ego with the universe; so that when a man says\nI hope, I find, I think, he might properly say, The human race thinks\nor finds or hopes. And meantime he shall be able continually to keep\nsight of his biographical Ego,\u2014I have a desk, I have an office, I am\nhungry, I had an ague,\u2014as rhetoric or offset to his grand spiritual\nEgo, without impertinence, or ever confounding them.\n\nI may well say this is divine, the continuation of the divine effort.\nAlas! it seems not to be ours, to be quite independent of us. Often\nthere is so little affinity between the man and his works that we\nthink the wind must have writ them. Also its communication from one\nto another follows its own law and refuses our intrusion. It is in\none, it belongs to all; yet how to impart it?\n\nWe need all our resources to live in the world which is to be used\nand decorated by us. Socrates kept all his virtues as well as his\nfaculties well in hand. He was sincerely humble, but he utilized his\nhumanity chiefly as a better eyeglass to penetrate the vapors that\nbaffled the vision of other men.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe superiority of the man is in the simplicity of his thought, that\nhe has no obstruction, but looks straight at the pure fact, with no\ncolor of option. Profound sincerity is the only basis of talent as of\ncharacter. The virtue of the Intellect is its own, its courage is of\nits own kind, and at last it will be justified, though for the moment\nit seem hostile to what it most reveres.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nWe wish to sum up the conflicting impressions by saying that all\npoint at last to a unity which inspires all. Our poetry, our religion\nare its skirts and penumbr\u00e6. Yet the charm of life is the hints we\nderive from this. They overcome us like perfumes from a far-off\nshore of sweetness, and their meaning is that no tongue shall\nsyllable it without leave; that only itself can name it; that by\ncasting ourselves on it and being its voice it rushes each moment to\npositive commands, creating men and methods, and ties the will of a\nchild to the love of the First Cause.\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[1] 1850\n\n\n\n\nMEMORY.\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration: (decorative banner)]\n\n\n\n\nMEMORY.\n\n\nMemory is a primary and fundamental faculty, without which none other\ncan work; the cement, the bitumen, the matrix in which the other\nfaculties are imbedded; or it is the thread on which the beads of man\nare strung, making the personal identity which is necessary to moral\naction. Without it all life and thought were an unrelated succession.\nAs gravity holds matter from flying off into space, so memory gives\nstability to knowledge; it is the cohesion which keeps things from\nfalling into a lump, or flowing in waves.\n\nWe like longevity, we like signs of riches and extent of nature in\nan individual. And most of all we like a great memory. The lowest\nlife remembers. The sparrow, the ant, the worm, have the same memory\nas we. If you bar their path, or offer them somewhat disagreeable\nto their senses, they make one or two trials, and then once for all\navoid it.\n\nEvery machine must be perfect of its sort. It is essential to a\nlocomotive that it can reverse its movement, and run backward and\nforward with equal celerity. The builder of the mind found it not\nless needful that it should have retroaction, and command its past\nact and deed. Perception, though it were immense and could pierce\nthrough the universe, was not sufficient.\n\nMemory performs the impossible for man by the strength of his divine\narms; holds together past and present, beholding both, existing in\nboth, abides in the flowing, and gives continuity and dignity to\nhuman life. It holds us to our family, to our friends. Hereby a home\nis possible; hereby only a new fact has value.\n\nOpportunities of investment are useful only to those who have\ncapital. Any piece of knowledge I acquire to-day, a fact that falls\nunder my eyes, a book I read, a piece of news I hear, has a value\nat this moment exactly proportioned to my skill to deal with it.\nTo-morrow, when I know more, I recall that piece of knowledge and use\nit better.\n\nThe Past has a new value every moment to the active mind, through\nthe incessant purification and better method of its memory. Once it\njoined its facts by color and form and sensuous relations. Some fact\nthat had a childish significance to your childhood and was a type\nin the nursery, when riper intelligence recalls it means more and\nserves you better as an illustration; and perhaps in your age has new\nmeaning. What was an isolated, unrelated belief or conjecture, our\nlater experience instructs us how to place in just connection with\nother views which confirm and expand it. The old whim or perception\nwas an augury of a broader insight, at which we arrive later with\nsecurer conviction. This is the companion, this the tutor, the poet,\nthe library, with which you travel. It does not lie, cannot be\ncorrupted, reports to you not what you wish but what really befel.\nYou say, \u201cI can never think of some act of neglect, of selfishness,\nor of passion without pain.\u201d Well, that is as it should he. That is\nthe police of the Universe: the angels are set to punish you, so long\nas you are capable of such crime. But in the history of character the\nday comes when you are incapable of such crime. Then you suffer no\nmore, you look on it as heaven looks on it, with wonder at the deed,\nand with applause at the pain it has cost you.\n\nMemory is not a pocket, but a living instructor, with a prophetic\nsense of the values which he guards; a guardian angel set there\nwithin you to record your life, and by recording to animate you to\nuplift it. It is a scripture written day by day from the birth of\nthe man; all its records full of meanings which open as he lives on,\nexplaining each other, explaining the world to him and expanding\ntheir sense as he advances, until it shall become the whole law of\nnature and life.\n\nAs every creature is furnished with teeth to seize and eat, and with\nstomach to digest its food, so the memory is furnished with a perfect\napparatus. There is no book like the memory, none with such a good\nindex, and that of every kind, alphabetic, systematic, arranged\nby names of persons, by colors, tastes, smells, shapes, likeness,\nunlikeness, by all sorts of mysterious hooks and eyes to catch and\nhold, and contrivances for giving a hint.\n\nThe memory collects and re-collects. We figure it as if the mind were\na kind of looking-glass, which being carried through the street of\ntime receives on its clear plate every image that passes; only with\nthis difference that our plate is iodized so that every image sinks\ninto it, and is held there. But in addition to this property it has\none more, this, namely, that of all the million images that are\nimprinted, the very one we want reappears in the centre of the plate\nin the moment when we want it.\n\nWe can tell much about it, but you must not ask us what it is. On\nseeing a face I am aware that I have seen it before, or that I have\nnot seen it before. On hearing a fact told I am aware that I knew it\nalready. You say the first words of the old song, and I finish the\nline and the stanza. But where I have them, or what becomes of them\nwhen I am not thinking of them for months and years, that they should\nlie so still, as if they did not exist, and yet so nigh that they\ncome on the instant when they are called for, never any man was so\nsharp-sighted, or could turn himself inside out quick enough to find.\n\n\u2019Tis because of the believed incompatibility of the affirmative and\nadvancing attitude of the mind with tenacious acts of recollection\nthat people are often reproached with living in their memory. Late\nin life we live by memory, and in our solstices or periods of\nstagnation; as the starved camel in the desert lives on his humps.\nMemory was called by the schoolmen _vespertina cognitio_, evening\nknowledge, in distinction from the command of the future which we\nhave by the knowledge of causes, and which they called _matutina\ncognitio_, or morning knowledge.\n\nAm I asked whether the thoughts clothe themselves in words? I answer,\nYes, always; but they are apt to be instantly forgotten. Never was\ntruer fable than that of the Sibyl\u2019s writing on leaves which the\nwind scatters. The difference between men is that in one the memory\nwith inconceivable swiftness flies after and re-collects the flying\nleaves,\u2014flies on wing as fast as that mysterious whirlwind, and the\nenvious Fate is baffled.\n\nThis command of old facts, the clear beholding at will of what is\nbest in our experience, is our splendid privilege. \u201cHe who calls\nwhat is vanished back again into being enjoys a bliss like that of\ncreating,\u201d says Niebuhr. The memory plays a great part in settling\nthe intellectual rank of men. We estimate a man by how much he\nremembers. A seneschal of Parnassus is Mnemosyne. This power will\nalone make a man remarkable; and it is found in all good wits.\nTherefore the poets represented the Muses as the daughters of Memory,\nfor the power exists in some marked and eminent degree in men of an\nideal determination. Quintilian reckoned it the measure of genius.\n\u201cTantum ingenii quantum memori\u00e6.\u201d\n\nWe are told that Boileau having recited to Daguesseau one day an\nepistle or satire he had just been composing, Daguesseau tranquilly\ntold him he knew it already, and in proof set himself to recite it\nfrom end to end. Boileau, astonished, was much distressed until he\nperceived that it was only a feat of memory.\n\nThe mind disposes all its experience after its affection and to its\nruling end; one man by puns and one by cause and effect, one to\nheroic benefit and one to wrath and animal desire. This is the high\ndifference, the quality of the association by which a man remembers.\nIn the minds of most men memory is nothing but a farm-book or a\npocket-diary. On such a day I paid my note; on the next day the cow\ncalved; on the next I cut my finger; on the next the banks suspended\npayment. But another man\u2019s memory is the history of science and art\nand civility and thought; and still another deals with laws and\nperceptions that are the theory of the world.\n\nThis thread or order of remembering, this classification, distributes\nmen, one remembering by shop-rule or interest; one by passion; one\nby trifling external marks, as dress or money. And one rarely takes\nan interest in how the facts really stand, in the order of cause and\neffect, without self-reference. This is an intellectual man. Nature\ninterests him; a plant, a fish, time, space, mind, being, in their\nown method and law. Napoleon was such, and that saves him.\n\nBut this mysterious power that binds our life together has its own\nvagaries and interruptions. It sometimes occurs that memory has a\npersonality of its own and volunteers or refuses its informations at\nits will, not at mine. One sometimes asks himself, Is it possible\nthat it is only a visitor, not a resident? Is it some old aunt who\ngoes in and out of the house, and occasionally recites anecdotes of\nold times and persons which I recognize as having heard before, and\nshe being gone again I search in vain for any trace of the anecdotes?\n\nWe can help ourselves to the _modus_ of mental processes only by\ncoarse material experiences. A knife with a good spring, a forceps\nwhose lips accurately meet and match, a steel-trap, a loom, a watch,\nthe teeth or jaws of which fit and play perfectly, as compared with\nthe same tools when badly put together, describe to us the difference\nbetween a person of quick and strong perception, like Franklin or\nSwift or Webster or Richard Owen, and a heavy man who witnesses\nthe same facts or shares experiences like theirs. \u2019Tis like the\nimpression made by the same stamp in sand or in wax. The way in\nwhich Burke or Sheridan or Webster or any orator surprises us is by\nhis always having a sharp tool that fits the present use. He has an\nold story, an odd circumstance, that illustrates the point he is now\nproving, and is better than an argument. The more he is heated, the\nwider he sees; he seems to remember all he ever knew; thus certifying\nus that he is in the habit of seeing better than other people; that\nwhat his mind grasps it does not let go. \u2019Tis the bull-dog bite; you\nmust cut off the head to loosen the teeth.\n\nWe hate this fatal shortness of Memory, these docked men whom\nwe behold. We gathered up what a rolling snow-ball as we came\nalong,\u2014much of it professedly for the future, as capital stock of\nknowledge. Where is it now? Look behind you. I cannot see that your\ntrain is any longer than it was in childhood. The facts of the last\ntwo or three days or weeks are all you have with you,\u2014the reading\nof the last month\u2019s books. Your conversation, action, your face and\nmanners report of no more, of no greater wealth of mind. Alas! you\nhave lost something for everything you have gained, and cannot grow.\nOnly so much iron will the loadstone draw; it gains new particles all\nthe way as you move it, but one falls off for every one that adheres.\n\nAs there is strength in the wild horse which is never regained when\nhe is once broken by training, and as there is a sound sleep of\nchildren and of savages, profound as the hibernation of bears, which\nnever visits the eyes of civil gentlemen and ladies, so there is a\nwild memory in children and youth which makes what is early learned\nimpossible to forget; and perhaps in the beginning of the world it\nhad most vigor. Plato deplores writing as a barbarous invention which\nwould weaken the memory by disuse. The Rhapsodists in Athens it seems\ncould recite at once any passage of Homer that was desired.\n\nIf writing weakens the memory, we may say as much and more of\nprinting. What is the newspaper but a sponge or invention for\noblivion? the rule being that for every fact added to the memory,\none is crowded out, and that only what the affection animates can be\nremembered.\n\nThe mind has a better secret in generalization than merely adding\nunits to its list of facts. The reason of the short memory is shallow\nthought. As deep as the thought, so great is the attraction. An act\nof the understanding will marshal and concatenate a few facts; a\nprinciple of the reason will thrill and magnetize and redistribute\nthe whole world.\n\nBut defect of memory is not always want of genius. By no means. It is\nsometimes owing to excellence of genius. Thus men of great presence\nof mind who are always equal to the occasion do not need to rely on\nwhat they have stored for use, but can think in this moment as well\nand deeply as in any past moment, and if they cannot remember the\nrule they can make one. Indeed it is remarked that inventive men have\nbad memories. Sir Isaac Newton was embarrassed when the conversation\nturned on his discoveries and results; he could not recall them; but\nif he was asked why things were so or so he could find the reason on\nthe spot.\n\nA man would think twice about learning a new science or reading a new\nparagraph, if he believed the magnetism was only a constant amount,\nand that he lost a word or a thought for every word he gained. But\nthe experience is not quite so bad. In reading a foreign language,\nevery new word mastered is a lamp lighting up related words and so\nassisting the memory. Apprehension of the whole sentence aids to fix\nthe precise meaning of a particular word, and what familiarity has\nbeen acquired with the genius of the language and the writer helps in\nfixing the exact meaning of the sentence. So is it with every fact\nin a new science: they are mutually explaining, and each one adds\ntransparency to the whole mass.\n\nThe damages of forgetting are more than compensated by the large\nvalues which new thoughts and knowledge give to what we already\nknow. If new impressions sometimes efface old ones, yet we steadily\ngain insight; and because all nature has one law and meaning,\u2014part\ncorresponding to part,\u2014all we have known aids us continually to the\nknowledge of the rest of nature. Thus, all the facts in this chest of\nmemory are property at interest. And who shall set a boundary to this\nmounting value? Shall we not on higher stages of being remember and\nunderstand our early history better?\n\nThey say in Architecture, \u201cAn arch never sleeps;\u201d I say, the Past\nwill not sleep, it works still. With every new fact a ray of light\nshoots up from the long buried years. Who can judge the new book?\nHe who has read many books. Who, the new assertion? He who has\nheard many the like. Who, the new man? He that has seen men. The\nexperienced and cultivated man is lodged in a hall hung with pictures\nwhich every new day retouches, and to which every step in the march\nof the soul adds a more sublime perspective.\n\nWe learn early that there is great disparity of value between our\nexperiences; some thoughts perish in the using. Some days are bright\nwith thought and sentiment, and we live a year in a day. Yet these\nbest days are not always those which memory can retain. This water\nonce spilled cannot be gathered. There are more inventions in the\nthoughts of one happy day than ages could execute, and I suppose I\nspeak the sense of most thoughtful men when I say, I would rather\nhave a perfect recollection of all I have thought and felt in a day\nor a week of high activity than read all the books that have been\npublished in a century.\n\nThe memory is one of the compensations which Nature grants to those\nwho have used their days well; when age and calamity have bereaved\nthem of their limbs or organs, then they retreat on mental faculty\nand concentrate on that. The poet, the philosopher, lamed, old,\nblind, sick, yet disputing the ground inch by inch against fortune,\nfinds a strength against the wrecks and decays sometimes more\ninvulnerable than the heyday of youth and talent.\n\nI value the praise of Memory. And how does Memory praise? By holding\nfast the best. A thought takes its true rank in the memory by\nsurviving other thoughts that were once preferred. Plato remembered\nAnaxagoras by one of his sayings. If we recall our own favorites we\nshall usually find that it is for one crowning act or thought that we\nhold them dear.\n\nHave you not found memory an apotheosis or deification? The poor,\nshort, lone fact dies at the birth. Memory catches it up into her\nheaven, and bathes it in immortal waters. Then a thousand times\nover it lives and acts again, each time transfigured, ennobled. In\nsolitude, in darkness, we tread over again the sunny walks of youth;\nconfined now in populous streets you behold again the green fields,\nthe shadows of the gray birches; by the solitary river hear again the\njoyful voices of early companions, and vibrate anew to the tenderness\nand dainty music of the poetry your boyhood fed upon. At this hour\nthe stream is still flowing, though you hear it not; the plants are\nstill drinking their accustomed life and repaying it with their\nbeautiful forms. But you need not wander thither. It flows for you,\nand they grow for you, in the returning images of former summers. In\nlow or bad company you fold yourself in your cloak, withdraw yourself\nentirely from all the doleful circumstance, recall and surround\nyourself with the best associates and the fairest hours of your life:\u2014\n\n      \u201cPassing sweet are the domains of tender memory.\u201d\n\nYou may perish out of your senses, but not out of your memory or\nimagination.\n\nThe memory has a fine art of sifting out the pain and keeping all the\njoy. The spring days when the bluebird arrives have usually only few\nhours of fine temperature, are sour and unlovely; but when late in\nautumn we hear rarely a bluebird\u2019s notes they are sweet by reminding\nus of the spring. Well, it is so with other tricks of memory. Of the\nmost romantic fact the memory is more romantic; and this power of\nsinking the pain of any experience and of recalling the saddest with\ntranquillity, and even with a wise pleasure, is familiar. The memory\nis as the affection. Sampson Reed says, \u201cThe true way to store the\nmemory is to develop the affections.\u201d A _souvenir_ is a token of\nlove. _Remember me_ means, Do not cease to love me. We remember those\nthings which we love and those things which we hate. The memory of\nall men is robust on the subject of a debt due to them, or of an\ninsult inflicted on them. \u201cThey can remember,\u201d as Johnson said, \u201cwho\nkicked them last.\u201d\n\nEvery artist is alive on the subject of his art. The Persians say, \u201cA\nreal singer will never forget the song he has once learned.\u201d Michael\nAngelo, after having once seen a work of any other artist, would\nremember it so perfectly that if it pleased him to make use of any\nportion thereof, he could do so, but in such a manner that none could\nperceive it.\n\nWe remember what we understand, and we understand best what we\nlike; for this doubles our power of attention, and makes it our\nown. Captain John Brown, of Ossawatomie, said he had in Ohio three\nthousand sheep on his farm, and could tell a strange sheep in his\nflock as soon as he saw its face. One of my neighbors, a grazier,\ntold me that he should know again every cow, ox, or steer that he\never saw. Abel Lawton knew every horse that went up and down through\nConcord to the towns in the county. And in higher examples each man\u2019s\nmemory is in the line of his action.\n\nNature trains us on to see illusions and prodigies with no more\nwonder than our toast and omelet at breakfast. Talk of memory and\ncite me these fine examples of Grotius and Daguesseau, and I think\nhow awful is that power and what privilege and tyranny it must\nconfer. Then I come to a bright school-girl who remembers all she\nhears, carries thousands of nursery rhymes and all the poetry in\nall the readers, hymn-books, and pictorial ballads in her mind; and\n\u2019tis a mere drug. She carries it so carelessly, it seems like the\nprofusion of hair on the shock heads of all the village boys and\nvillage dogs; it grows like grass. \u2019Tis a bushel-basket memory of all\nunchosen knowledge, heaped together in a huge hamper, without method,\nyet securely held, and ready to come at call; so that an old scholar,\nwho knows what to do with a memory, is full of wonder and pity that\nthis magical force should be squandered on such frippery.\n\nHe is a skilful doctor who can give me a recipe for the cure of a bad\nmemory. And yet we have some hints from experience on this subject.\nAnd first, _health_. It is found that we remember best when the\nhead is clear, when we are thoroughly awake. When the body is in a\nquiescent state in the absence of the passions, in the moderation\nof food, it yields itself a willing medium to the intellect. For\nthe true river Lethe is the body of man, with its belly and uproar\nof appetite and mountains of indigestion and bad humors and quality\nof darkness. And for this reason, and observing some mysterious\ncontinuity of mental operation during sleep or when our will is\nsuspended, \u2019tis an old rule of scholars, that which Fuller records,\n\u201c\u2019Tis best knocking in the nail overnight and clinching it next\nmorning.\u201d Only I should give extension to this rule and say Yes,\ndrive the nail this week and clinch it the next, and drive it this\nyear and clinch it the next.\n\nBut Fate also is an artist. We forget also according to beautiful\nlaws. Thoreau said, \u201cOf what significance are the things you can\nforget. A little thought is sexton to all the world.\u201d\n\nWe must be severe with ourselves, and what we wish to keep we must\nonce thoroughly possess. Then the thing seen will no longer be what\nit was, a mere sensuous object before the eye or ear, but a reminder\nof its law, a possession for the intellect. Then we relieve ourselves\nof all task in the matter, we put the _onus_ of being remembered\non the object, instead of on our will. We shall do as we do with\nall our studies, prize the fact or the name of the person by that\npredominance it takes in our mind after near acquaintance. I have\nseveral times forgotten the name of Flamsteed, never that of Newton;\nand can drop easily many poets out of the Elizabethan chronology, but\nnot Shakespeare.\n\nWe forget rapidly what should be forgotten. The _universal_ sense of\nfables and anecdotes is marked by our tendency to forget name and\ndate and geography. \u201cHow in the right are children,\u201d said Margaret\nFuller, \u201cto forget name and date and place.\u201d\n\nYou cannot overstate our debt to the past, but has the present no\nclaim? This past memory is the baggage, but where is the troop? The\ndivine gift is not the old but the new. The divine is the instant\nlife that receives and uses, the life that can well bury the old in\nthe omnipotency with which it makes all things new.\n\nThe acceleration of mental process is equivalent to the lengthening\nof life. If a great many thoughts pass through your mind you will\nbelieve a long time has elapsed, many hours or days. In dreams a rush\nof many thoughts, of seeming experiences, of spending hours and going\nthrough a great variety of actions and companies, and when we start\nup and look at the watch, instead of a long night we are surprised to\nfind it was a short nap. The opium-eater says, \u201cI sometimes seemed to\nhave lived seventy or a hundred years in one night.\u201d You know what\nis told of the experience of some persons who have been recovered\nfrom drowning. They relate that their whole life\u2019s history seemed to\npass before them in review. They remembered in a moment all that they\never did.\n\nIf we occupy ourselves long on this wonderful faculty, and see the\nnatural helps of it in the mind, and the way in which new knowledge\ncalls upon old knowledge\u2014new giving undreamed-of value to old;\neverywhere relation and suggestion, so that what one had painfully\nheld by strained attention and recapitulation now falls into place\nand is clamped and locked by inevitable connection as a planet in its\norbit (every other orb, or the law or system of which it is a part,\nbeing a perpetual reminder),\u2014we cannot fail to draw thence a sublime\nhint that thus there must be an endless increase in the power of\nmemory only through its use; that there must be a proportion between\nthe power of memory and the amount of knowables; and since the\nUniverse opens to us, the reach of the memory must be as large.\n\nWith every broader generalization which the mind makes, with every\ndeeper insight, its retrospect is also wider. With every new insight\ninto the duty or fact of to-day we come into new possession of the\npast.\n\nWhen we live by principles instead of traditions, by obedience to the\nlaw of the mind instead of by passion, the Great Mind will enter into\nus, not as now in fragments and detached thoughts, but the light of\nto-day will shine backward and forward.\n\nMemory is a presumption of a possession of the future. Now we are\nhalves, we see the past but not the future, but in that day will\nthe hemisphere complete itself and foresight be as perfect as\naftersight.\n\n\n\n\nBOSTON.\n\n\n\u201cWe are citizens of two fair cities,\u201d said the Genoese gentleman to\na Florentine artist, \u201cand if I were not a Genoese, I should wish\nto be Florentine.\u201d \u201cAnd I,\u201d replied the artist, \u201cif I were not\nFlorentine\u201d\u2014\u201cYou would wish to be Genoese,\u201d said the other. \u201cNo,\u201d\nreplied the artist, \u201cI should wish to be Florentine.\u201d\n\n\n      The rocky nook with hill-tops three\n        Looked eastward from the farms,\n      And twice each day the flowing sea\n        Took Boston in its arms.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n      The sea returning day by day\n        Restores the world-wide mart;\n      So let each dweller on the Bay\n        Fold Boston in his heart.\n\n      Let the blood of her hundred thousands\n        Throb in each manly vein,\n      And the wits of all her wisest\n        Make sunshine in her brain.\n\n      And each shall care for other,\n        And each to each shall bend,\n      To the poor a noble brother,\n        To the good an equal friend.\n\n      A blessing through the ages thus\n        Shield all thy roofs and towers!\n      GOD WITH THE FATHERS, SO WITH US,\n        Thou darling town of ours!\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration: (decorative banner)]\n\n\n\n\nBOSTON.\n\n\nThe old physiologists said, \u201cThere is in the air a hidden food of\nlife;\u201d and they watched the effect of different climates. They\nbelieved the air of mountains and the seashore a potent predisposer\nto rebellion. The air was a good republican, and it was remarked\nthat insulary people are versatile and addicted to change, both in\nreligious and secular affairs.\n\nThe air that we breathe is an exhalation of all the solid material\nglobe. An aerial fluid streams all day, all night, from every flower\nand leaf, from every water and soil, from every rock-ledge; and from\nevery stratum a different aroma and air according to its quality.\nAccording to quality and according to temperature, it must have\neffect on manners.\n\nThere is the climate of the Sahara: a climate where the sunbeams are\nvertical; where is day after day, sunstroke after sunstroke, with a\nfrosty shadow between. \u201cThere are countries,\u201d said Howell, \u201cwhere\nthe heaven is a fiery furnace, or a blowing bellows, or a dropping\nsponge, most parts of the year.\u201d Such is the assimilating force of\nthe Indian climate, that, Sir Erskine Perry says, \u201cthe usage and\nopinion of the Hindoos so invades men of all castes and colors who\ndeal with them that all take a Hindoo tint. Parsee, Mongol, Afghan,\nIsraelite, Christian, have all passed under this influence and\nexchanged a good part of their patrimony of ideas for the notions,\nmanner of seeing, and habitual tone of Indian society.\u201d He compares\nit to the geologic phenomenon which the black soil of the Dhakkan\noffers,\u2014the property, namely, of assimilating to itself every foreign\nsubstance introduced into its bosom.\n\nHow can we not believe in influences of climate and air, when, as\ntrue philosophers, we must believe that chemical atoms also have\ntheir spiritual cause why they are thus and not other; that carbon,\noxygen, alum and iron, each has its origin in spiritual nature?\n\nEven at this day men are to be found superstitious enough to believe\nthat to certain spots on the surface of the planet special powers\nattach, and an exalted influence on the genius of man. And it appears\nas if some localities of the earth, through wholesome springs, or\nas the _habitat_ of rare plants and minerals, or through ravishing\nbeauties of Nature, were preferred before others. There is great\ntestimony of discriminating persons to the effect that Rome is\nendowed with the enchanting property of inspiring a longing in men\nthere to live and there to die.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nWho lives one year in Boston ranges through all the climates of the\nglobe. And if the character of the people has a larger range and\ngreater versatility, causing them to exhibit equal dexterity in\nwhat are elsewhere reckoned incompatible works, perhaps they may\nthank their climate of extremes, which at one season gives them the\nsplendor of the equator and a touch of Syria, and then runs down to\na cold which approaches the temperature of the celestial spaces.\n\nIt is not a country of luxury or of pictures; of snows rather, of\neast-winds and changing skies; visited by icebergs, which, floating\nby, nip with their cool breath our blossoms. Not a luxurious climate,\nbut wisdom is not found with those who dwell at their ease. Give me a\nclimate where people think well and construct well,\u2014I will spend six\nmonths there, and you may have all the rest of my years.\n\nWhat Vasari says, three hundred years ago, of the republican city\nof Florence might be said of Boston; \u201cthat the desire for glory and\nhonor is powerfully generated by the air of that place, in the men\nof every profession; whereby all who possess talent are impelled to\nstruggle that they may not remain in the same grade with those whom\nthey perceive to be only men like themselves, even though they may\nacknowledge such indeed to be masters; but all labor by every means\nto be foremost.\u201d\n\nWe find no less stimulus in our native air; not less ambition in\nour blood, which Puritanism has not sufficiently chastised; and at\nleast an equal freedom in our laws and customs, with as many and as\ntempting rewards to toil; with so many philanthropies, humanities,\ncharities, soliciting us to be great and good.\n\nNew England is a sort of Scotland. \u2019Tis hard to say why. Climate is\nmuch; then, old accumulation of the means,\u2014books, schools, colleges,\nliterary society;\u2014as New Bedford is not nearer to the whales than New\nLondon or Portland, yet they have all the equipments for a whaler\nready, and they hug an oil-cask like a brother.\n\nI do not know that Charles River or Merrimac water is more clarifying\nto the brain than the Savannah or Alabama rivers, yet the men that\ndrink it get up earlier, and some of the morning light lasts through\nthe day. I notice that they who drink for some little time of the\nPotomac water lose their relish for the water of the Charles River,\nof the Merrimac and the Connecticut,\u2014even of the Hudson. I think the\nPotomac water is a little acrid, and should be corrected by copious\ninfusions of these provincial streams.\n\nOf great cities you cannot compute the influences. In New York,\nin Montreal, New Orleans and the farthest colonies,\u2014in Guiana, in\nGuadaloupe,\u2014a middle-aged gentleman is just embarking with all his\nproperty to fulfil the dream of his life and spend his old age in\nParis; so that a fortune falls into the massive wealth of that city\nevery day in the year. Astronomers come because there they can find\napparatus and companions. Chemist, geologist, artist, musician,\ndancer, because there only are grandees and their patronage,\nappreciators and patrons. Demand and supply run into every invisible\nand unnamed province of whim and passion.\n\nEach great city gathers these values and delights for mankind,\nand comes to be the brag of its age and population. The Greeks\nthought him unhappy who died without seeing the statue of Jove at\nOlympia. With still more reason, they praised Athens, the \u201cViolet\nCity.\u201d It was said of Rome in its proudest days, looking at the\nvast radiation of the privilege of Roman citizenship through the\nthen-known world,\u2014\u201cthe extent of the city and of the world is the\nsame\u201d (_spatium et urbis et orbis idem_). London now for a thousand\nyears has been in an affirmative or energizing mood; has not stopped\ngrowing. Linn\u00e6us, like a naturalist, esteeming the globe a big egg,\ncalled London the _punctum saliens_ in the yolk of the world.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThis town of Boston has a history. It is not an accident, not a\nwindmill, or a railroad station, or cross-roads tavern, or an\narmy-barracks grown up by time and luck to a place of wealth; but\na seat of humanity, of men of principle, obeying a sentiment and\nmarching loyally whither that should lead them; so that its annals\nare great historical lines, inextricably national; part of the\nhistory of political liberty. I do not speak with any fondness, but\nthe language of coldest history, when I say that Boston commands\nattention as the town which was appointed in the destiny of nations\nto lead the civilization of North America.\n\nA capital fact distinguishing this colony from all other colonies was\nthat the persons composing it consented to come on the one condition\nthat the charter should be transferred from the company in England to\nthemselves; and so they brought the government with them.\n\nOn the 3d of November, 1620, King James incorporated forty of his\nsubjects, Sir F. Gorges and others, the council established at\nPlymouth in the county of Devon for the planting, ruling, ordering\nand governing of New England in America. The territory\u2014conferred on\nthe patentees in absolute property, with unlimited jurisdiction, the\nsole power of legislation, the appointment of all officers and all\nforms of government\u2014extended from the 40th to the 48th degree of\nnorth latitude, and in length from the Atlantic to the Pacific.\n\nJohn Smith writes (1624): \u201cOf all the four parts of the world that\nI have yet seen not inhabited, could I but have means to transplant\na colony, I would rather live here than anywhere; and if it did not\nmaintain itself, were we but once indifferently well fitted, let us\nstarve. Here are many isles planted with corn, groves, mulberries,\nsalvage gardens and good harbours. The sea-coast as you pass shows\nyou all along large corn-fields and great troops of well-proportioned\npeople.\u201d Massachusetts in particular, he calls \u201cthe paradise of these\nparts,\u201d notices its high mountain, and its river, \u201cwhich doth pierce\nmany days\u2019 journey into the entrails of that country.\u201d Morton arrived\nin 1622, in June, beheld the country, and \u201cthe more he looked, the\nmore he liked it.\u201d\n\nIn sixty-eight years after the foundation of Boston, Dr. Mather\nwrites of it, \u201cThe town hath indeed three elder Sisters in this\ncolony, but it hath wonderfully outgrown them all, and her mother,\nOld Boston in England, also; yea, within a few years after the first\nsettlement it grew to be the metropolis of the whole English America.\u201d\n\nHow easy it is, after the city is built, to see where it ought to\nstand. In our beautiful bay, with its broad and deep waters covered\nwith sails from every port; with its islands hospitably shining in\nthe sun; with its waters bounded and marked by light-houses, buoys\nand sea-marks; every foot sounded and charted; with its shores\ntrending steadily from the two arms which the capes of Massachusetts\nstretch out to sea, down to the bottom of the bay where the city\ndomes and spires sparkle through the haze,\u2014a good boatman can easily\nfind his way for the first time to the State House, and wonder that\nGovernor Carver had not better eyes than to stop on the Plymouth\nSands.\n\nBut it took ten years to find this out. The colony of 1620 had landed\nat Plymouth. It was December, and the ground was covered with snow.\nSnow and moonlight make all places alike; and the weariness of the\nsea, the shrinking from cold weather and the pangs of hunger must\njustify them.\n\nBut the next colony planted itself at Salem, and the next at\nWeymouth; another at Medford; before these men, instead of jumping on\nto the first land that offered, wisely judged that the best point for\na city was at the bottom of a deep and islanded bay, where a copious\nriver entered it, and where a bold shore was bounded by a country of\nrich undulating woodland.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe planters of Massachusetts do not appear to have been hardy men,\nrather, comfortable citizens, not at all accustomed to the rough task\nof discoverers; and they exaggerated their troubles. Bears and wolves\nwere many; but early, they believed there were lions; Monadnoc was\nburned over to kill them. John Smith was stung near to death by the\nmost poisonous tail of a fish, called a sting-ray. In the journey of\nRev. Peter Bulkeley and his company through the forest from Boston to\nConcord they fainted from the powerful odor of the sweetfern in the\nsun;\u2014like what befell, still earlier, Biorn and Thorfinn, Northmen,\nin their expedition to the same coast; who ate so many grapes from\nthe wild vines that they were reeling drunk. The lions have never\nappeared since,\u2014nor before. Their crops suffered from pigeons and\nmice. Nature has never again indulged in these exasperations. It\nseems to have been the last outrage ever committed by the sting-rays\nor by the sweetfern, or by the fox-grapes; they have been of\npeaceable behavior ever since.\n\nAny geologist or engineer is accustomed to face more serious dangers\nthan any enumerated, excepting the hostile Indians. But the awe was\nreal and overpowering in the superstition with which every new object\nwas magnified. The superstition which hung over the new ocean had\nnot yet been scattered; the powers of the savage were not known; the\ndangers of the wilderness were unexplored; and, in that time, terrors\nof witchcraft, terrors of evil spirits, and a certain degree of\nterror still clouded the idea of God in the mind of the purest.\n\nThe divine will descends into the barbarous mind in some strange\ndisguise; its pure truth not to be guessed from the rude vizard under\nwhich it goes masquerading. The common eye cannot tell what the bird\nwill be, from the egg, nor the pure truth from the grotesque tenet\nwhich sheathes it. But by some secret tie it holds the poor savage\nto it, and he goes muttering his rude ritual or mythology, which yet\nconceals some grand commandment; as courage, veracity, honesty, or\nchastity and generosity.\n\nSo these English men, with the Middle Ages still obscuring their\nreason, were filled with Christian thought. They had a culture of\ntheir own. They read Milton, Thomas \u00e0 Kempis, Bunyan and Flavel with\nreligious awe and delight, not for entertainment. They were precisely\nthe idealists of England; the most religious in a religious era. An\nold lady who remembered these pious people said of them that \u201cthey\nhad to hold on hard to the huckleberry bushes to hinder themselves\nfrom being translated.\u201d\n\nIn our own age we are learning to look as on chivalry at the\nsweetness of that ancient piety which makes the genius of St.\nBernard, Latimer, Scougal, Jeremy Taylor, Herbert, and Leighton.\nWho can read the fiery ejaculations of St. Augustine, a man of as\nclear a sight as almost any other; of Thomas \u00e0 Kempis, of Milton, of\nBunyan even, without feeling how rich and expansive a culture\u2014not\nso much a culture as a higher life\u2014they owed to the promptings of\nthis sentiment; without contrasting their immortal heat with the\ncold complexion of our recent wits? Who can read the pious diaries\nof the Englishmen in the time of the Commonwealth and later, without\na sigh that we write no diaries to-day? Who shall restore to us the\nodoriferous Sabbaths which made the earth and the humble roof a\nsanctity?\n\nThis spirit, of course, involved that of Stoicism, as, in its turn,\nStoicism did this. Yet how much more attractive and true that this\npiety should be the central trait and the stern virtues follow, than\nthat Stoicism should face the gods and put Jove on his defence. That\npiety is a refutation of every skeptical doubt. These men are a\nbridge to us between the unparalleled piety of the Hebrew epoch and\nour own. These ancient men, like great gardens with great banks of\nflowers, send out their perfumed breath across the great tracts of\ntime. How needful is David, Paul, Leighton, F\u00e9nelon, to our devotion.\nOf these writers, of this spirit which deified them, I will say with\nConfucius, \u201cIf in the morning I hear of the right way, and in the\nevening die, I can be happy.\u201d\n\nI trace to this deep religious sentiment and to its culture great\nand salutary results to the people of New England; first, namely,\nthe culture of the intellect, which has always been found in the\nCalvinistic church. The colony was planted in 1620; in 1638 Harvard\nCollege was founded. The General Court of Massachusetts, in 1647,\n\u201cTo the end that learning may not be buried in the graves of the\nforefathers, ordered, that every township, after the Lord has\nincreased them to the number of fifty householders, shall appoint one\nto teach all children to write and read; and where any town shall\nincrease to the number of a hundred families, they shall set up a\nGrammar School, the Masters thereof being able to instruct youth so\nfar as they may be fitted for the University.\u201d\n\nMany and rich are the fruits of that simple statute. The universality\nof an elementary education in New England is her praise and her\npower in the whole world. To the schools succeeds the village\nLyceum,\u2014now very general throughout all the country towns of New\nEngland,\u2014where every week through the winter, lectures are read and\ndebates sustained which prove a college for the young rustic. Hence\nit happens that the young farmers and mechanics, who work all summer\nin the field or shop, in the winter often go into a neighboring town\nto teach the district school arithmetic and grammar. As you know too,\nNew England supplies annually a large detachment of preachers and\nschoolmasters and private tutors to the interior of the South and\nWest.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nNew England lies in the cold and hostile latitude which by shutting\nmen up in houses and tight and heated rooms a large part of the year,\nand then again shutting up the body in flannel and leather, defrauds\nthe human being in some degree of his relations to external nature;\ntakes from the muscles their suppleness, from the skin its exposure\nto the air; and the New Englander, like every other northerner, lacks\nthat beauty and grace which the habit of living much in the air, and\nthe activity of the limbs not in labor but in graceful exercise, tend\nto produce in climates nearer to the sun. Then the necessity, which\nalways presses the northerner, of providing fuel and many clothes\nand tight houses and much food against the long winter, makes him\nanxiously frugal, and generates in him that spirit of detail which is\nnot grand and enlarging, but goes rather to pinch the features and\ndegrade the character.\n\nAs an antidote to the spirit of commerce and of economy, the\nreligious spirit\u2014always enlarging, firing man, prompting the\npursuit of the vast, the beautiful, the unattainable\u2014was especially\nnecessary to the culture of New England. In the midst of her\nlaborious and economical and rude and awkward population, where is\nlittle elegance and no facility; with great accuracy in details,\nlittle spirit of society or knowledge of the world, you shall not\nunfrequently meet that refinement which no education and no habit\nof society can bestow; which makes the elegance of wealth look\nstupid, and unites itself by natural affinity to the highest minds\nof the world; nourishes itself on Plato and Dante, Michael Angelo\nand Milton; on whatever is pure and sublime in art,\u2014and, I may say,\ngave a hospitality in this country to the spirit of Coleridge and\nWordsworth, and to the music of Beethoven, before yet their genius\nhad found a hearty welcome in Great Britain.\n\nI do not look to find in England better manners than the best manners\nhere. We can show native examples, and I may almost say (travellers\nas we are) natives who never crossed the sea, who possess all the\nelements of noble behavior.\n\nIt is the property of the religious sentiment to be the most refining\nof all influences. No external advantages, no good birth or breeding,\nno culture of the taste, no habit of command, no association with the\nelegant,\u2014even no depth of affection that does not rise to a religious\nsentiment, can bestow that delicacy and grandeur of bearing which\nbelong only to a mind accustomed to celestial conversation. All else\nis coarse and external; all else is tailoring and cosmetics beside\nthis;[2] for thoughts are expressed in every look or gesture, and\nthese thoughts are as if angels had talked with the child.\n\nBy this instinct we are lifted to higher ground. The religious\nsentiment gave the iron purpose and arm. That colonizing was a great\nand generous scheme, manly meant and manly done. When one thinks of\nthe enterprises that are attempted in the heats of youth, the Zoars,\nNew-Harmonies and Brook-Farms, Oakdales and Phalansteries, which have\nbeen so profoundly ventilated, but end in a protracted picnic which\nafter a few weeks or months dismisses the partakers to their old\nhomes, we see with new increased respect the solid, well-calculated\nscheme of these emigrants, sitting down hard and fast where they\ncame, and building their empire by due degrees.\n\nJohn Smith says, \u201cThirty, forty, or fifty sail went yearly in America\nonly to trade and fish, but nothing would be done for a plantation,\ntill about some hundred of your Brownists of England, Amsterdam and\nLeyden went to New Plymouth; whose humorous ignorances caused them\nfor more than a year to endure a wonderful deal of misery, with an\ninfinite patience.\u201d\n\nWhat should hinder that this America, so long kept in reserve from\nthe intellectual races until they should grow to it, glimpses being\nafforded which spoke to the imagination, yet the firm shore hid until\nscience and art should be ripe to propose it as a fixed aim, and a\nman should be found who should sail steadily west sixty-eight days\nfrom the port of Palos to find it,\u2014what should hinder that this New\nAtlantis should have its happy ports, its mountains of security, its\ngardens fit for human abode where all elements were right for the\nhealth, power and virtue of man?\n\nAmerica is growing like a cloud, towns on towns, States on States;\nand wealth (always interesting, since from wealth power cannot be\ndivorced) is piled in every form invented for comfort or pride.\n\nIf John Bull interest you at home, come and see him under new\nconditions, come and see the Jonathanization of John.\n\nThere are always men ready for adventures,\u2014more in an over-governed,\nover-peopled country, where all the professions are crowded and all\ncharacter suppressed, than elsewhere. This thirst for adventure is\nthe vent which Destiny offers; a war, a crusade, a gold mine, a new\ncountry, speak to the imagination and offer swing and play to the\nconfined powers.\n\nThe American idea, Emancipation, appears in our freedom of\nintellection, in our reforms, and in our bad politics; it has, of\ncourse, its sinister side, which is most felt by the drilled and\nscholastic, but if followed it leads to heavenly places.\n\nEuropean and American are each ridiculous out of his sphere. There is\na Columbia of thought and art and character, which is the last and\nendless sequel of Columbus\u2019s adventure.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nEuropean critics regret the detachment of the Puritans to this\ncountry without aristocracy; which a little reminds one of the pity\nof the Swiss mountaineers when shown a handsome Englishman: \u201cWhat\na pity he has no goitre!\u201d The future historian will regard the\ndetachment of the Puritans without aristocracy the supreme fortune\nof the colony; as great a gain to mankind as the opening of this\ncontinent.\n\nThere is a little formula, couched in pure Saxon, which you may hear\nin the corners of streets and in the yard of the dame\u2019s school, from\nvery little republicans: \u201cI\u2019m as good as you be,\u201d which contains\nthe essence of the Massachusetts Bill of Rights and of the American\nDeclaration of Independence. And this was at the bottom of Plymouth\nRock and of Boston Stone; and this could be heard (by an acute ear)\nin the Petitions to the King, and the platforms of churches, and was\nsaid and sung in every tone of the psalmody of the Puritans; in every\nnote of Old Hundred and Hallelujah and Short Particular Metre.\n\nWhat is very conspicuous is the saucy independence which shines in\nall their eyes. They could say to themselves, Well, at least this\nyoke of man, of bishops, of courtiers, of dukes, is off my neck. We\nare a little too close to wolf and famine than that anybody should\ngive himself airs here in the swamp.\n\nLondon is a long way off, with beadles and pursuivants and\nhorse-guards. Here in the clam-banks and the beech and chestnut\nforest, I shall take leave to breathe and think freely. If you do\nnot like it, if you molest me, I can cross the brook and plant a new\nstate out of reach of anything but squirrels and wild pigeons.\n\nBonaparte sighed for his republicans of 1789. The soul of a political\nparty is by no means usually the officers and pets of the party, who\nwear the honors and fill the high seats and spend the salaries. No,\nbut the theorists and extremists, the men who are never contented\nand never to be contented with the work actually accomplished, but\nwho from conscience are engaged to what that party professes,\u2014these\nmen will work and watch and rally and never tire in carrying their\npoint. The theology and the instinct of freedom that grew here in\nthe dark in serious men furnished a certain rancor which consumed\nall opposition, fed the party and carried it, over every rampart and\nobstacle, to victory.\n\nBoston never wanted a good principle of rebellion in it, from\nthe planting until now; there is always a minority unconvinced,\nalways a heresiarch, whom the governor and deputies labor with but\ncannot silence. Some new light, some new doctrinaire who makes an\nunnecessary ado to establish his dogma; some Wheelwright or defender\nof Wheelwright; some protester against the cruelty of the magistrates\nto the Quakers; some tender minister hospitable to Whitefield against\nthe counsel of all the ministers; some John Adams and Josiah Quincy\nand Governor Andrew to undertake and carry the defence of patriots\nin the courts against the uproar of all the province; some defender\nof the slave against the politician and the merchant; some champion\nof first principles of humanity against the rich and luxurious; some\nadversary of the death penalty; some pleader for peace; some noble\nprotestant, who will not stoop to infamy when all are gone mad, but\nwill stand for liberty and justice, if alone, until all come back to\nhim.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nI confess I do not find in our people, with all their education, a\nfair share of originality of thought;\u2014not any remarkable book of\nwisdom; not any broad generalization, any equal power of imagination.\nNo Novum Organon; no M\u00e9canique C\u00e9leste; no Principia; no Paradise\nLost; no Hamlet; no Wealth of Nations; no National Anthem; have we\nyet contributed.\n\nNature is a frugal mother and never gives without measure. When she\nhas work to do she qualifies men for that and sends them equipped\nfor that. In Massachusetts she did not want epic poems and dramas\nyet, but first, planters of towns, fellers of the forest, builders of\nmills and forges, builders of roads, and farmers to till and harvest\ncorn for the world. Corn, yes, but honest corn; corn with thanks to\nthe Giver of corn; and the best thanks, namely, obedience to his law;\nthis was the office imposed on our Founders and people; liberty,\nclean and wise. It was to be built on Religion, the Emancipator;\nReligion which teaches equality of all men in view of the spirit\nwhich created man.\n\nThe seed of prosperity was planted. The people did not gather where\nthey had not sown. They did not try to unlock the treasure of the\nworld except by honest keys of labor and skill. They knew, as God\nknew, that command of nature comes by obedience to nature; that\nreward comes by faithful service; that the most noble motto was that\nof the Prince of Wales,\u2014\u201cI serve,\u201d\u2014and that he is greatest who serves\nbest. There was no secret of labor which they disdained.\n\nThey accepted the divine ordination that man is for use; that\nintelligent being exists to the utmost use; and that his ruin is\nto live for pleasure and for show. And when within our memory some\nflippant senator wished to taunt the people of this country by\ncalling them \u201cthe mudsills of society,\u201d he paid them ignorantly a\ntrue praise; for good men are as the green plain of the earth is, as\nthe rocks, and the beds of rivers are, the foundation and flooring\nand sills of the State.\n\nThe power of labor which belongs to the English race fell here into\na climate which befriended it, and into a maritime country made for\ntrade, where was no rival and no envious lawgiver. The sailor and the\nmerchant made the law to suit themselves, so that there was never,\nI suppose, a more rapid expansion in population, wealth and all the\nelements of power, and in the citizens, consciousness of power and\nsustained assertion of it, than was exhibited here.\n\nMoral values become also money values. When men saw that these\npeople, besides their industry and thrift, had a heart and soul and\nwould stand by each other at all hazards, they desired to come and\nlive here. A house in Boston was worth as much again as a house just\nas good in a town of timorous people, because here the neighbors\nwould defend each other against bad governors and against troops;\nquite naturally house-rents rose in Boston.\n\nBesides, youth and health like a stirring town, above a torpid place\nwhere nothing is doing. In Boston they were sure to see something\ngoing forward before the year was out. For here was the moving\nprinciple itself, the _primum mobile_, a living mind agitating the\nmass and always afflicting the conservative class with some odious\nnovelty or other; a new religious sect, a political point, a point of\nhonor, a reform in education, a philanthropy.\n\nFrom Roger Williams and Eliot and Robinson and the Quaker women who\nfor a testimony walked naked into the streets, and as the record\ntells us \u201cwere arrested and publicly whipped,\u2014the baggages that\nthey were;\u201d from Wheelwright the Antinomian and Ann Hutchinson and\nWhitefield and Mother Ann the first Shaker, down to Abner Kneeland\nand Father Lamson and William Garrison, there never was wanting some\nthorn of dissent and innovation and heresy to prick the sides of\nconservatism.\n\nWith all their love of his person, they took immense pleasure in\nturning out the governor and deputy and assistants, and contravening\nthe counsel of the clergy; as they had come so far for the sweet\nsatisfaction of resisting the Bishops and the King.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe Massachusetts colony grew and filled its own borders with a\ndenser population than any other American State (Kossuth called it\nthe City State), all the while sending out colonies to every part of\nNew England; then South and West, until it has infused all the Union\nwith its blood.\n\nWe are willing to see our sons emigrate, as to see our hives swarm.\nThat is what they were made to do, and what the land wants and\ninvites. The towns or countries in which the man lives and dies where\nhe was born, and his son and son\u2019s son live and die where he did, are\nof no great account.\n\nI know that this history contains many black lines of cruel\ninjustice; murder, persecution, and execution of women for witchcraft.\n\nI am afraid there are anecdotes of poverty and disease in Broad\nStreet that match the dismal statistics of New York and London. No\ndoubt all manner of vices can be found in this, as in every city;\ninfinite meanness, scarlet crime. Granted. But there is yet in\nevery city a certain permanent tone; a tendency to be in the right\nor in the wrong; audacity or slowness; labor or luxury; giving or\nparsimony; which side is it on? And I hold that a community, as a\nman, is entitled to be judged by his best.\n\nWe are often praised for what is least ours. Boston too is sometimes\npushed into a theatrical attitude of virtue, to which she is not\nentitled and which she cannot keep. But the genius of Boston is seen\nin her real independence, productive power and northern acuteness of\nmind,\u2014which is in nature hostile to oppression. It is a good city\nas cities go; Nature is good. The climate is electric, good for wit\nand good for character. What public souls have lived here, what\nsocial benefactors, what eloquent preachers, skilful workmen, stout\ncaptains, wise merchants; what fine artists, what gifted conversers,\nwhat mathematicians, what lawyers, what wits; and where is the middle\nclass so able, virtuous and instructed?\n\nAnd thus our little city thrives and enlarges, striking deep roots,\nand sending out boughs and buds, and propagating itself like a banyan\nover the continent. Greater cities there are that sprung from it,\nfull of its blood and names and traditions. It is very willing to\nbe outnumbered and outgrown, so long as they carry forward its life\nof civil and religious freedom, of education, of social order, and\nof loyalty to law. It is very willing to be outrun in numbers, and\nin wealth; but it is very jealous of any superiority in these, its\nnatural instinct and privilege. You cannot conquer it by numbers,\nor by square miles, or by counted millions of wealth. For it owes\nits existence and its power to principles not of yesterday, and\nthe deeper principle will always prevail over whatever material\naccumulations.\n\nAs long as she cleaves to her liberty, her education and to her\nspiritual faith as the foundation of these, she will teach the\nteachers and rule the rulers of America. Her mechanics, her farmers\nwill toil better; she will repair mischief; she will furnish what is\nwanted in the hour of need; her sailors will man the Constitution;\nher mechanics repair the broken rail; her troops will be the first in\nthe field to vindicate the majesty of a free nation, and remain last\non the field to secure it. Her genius will write the laws and her\nhistorians record the fate of nations.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIn an age of trade and material prosperity, we have stood a little\nstupefied by the elevation of our ancestors. We praised the Puritans\nbecause we did not find in ourselves the spirit to do the like.\nWe praised with a certain adulation the invariable valor of the\nold war-gods and war-councillors of the Revolution. Washington\nhas seemed an exceptional virtue. This praise was a concession of\nunworthiness in those who had so much to say of it. The heroes only\nshared this power of a sentiment, which, if it now breathes into us,\nwill make it easy to us to understand them, and we shall not longer\nflatter them. Let us shame the fathers, by superior virtue in the\nsons.\n\nIt is almost a proverb that a great man has not a great son. Bacon,\nNewton and Washington were childless. But, in Boston, Nature is\nmore indulgent, and has given good sons to good sires, or at least\ncontinued merit in the same blood. The elder President Adams has to\ndivide voices of fame with the younger President Adams. The elder\nOtis could hardly excel the popular eloquence of the younger Otis;\nand the Quincy of the Revolution seems compensated for the shortness\nof his bright career in the son who so long lingers among the last of\nthose bright clouds,\n\n      \u201cThat on the steady breeze of honor sail\n       In long succession calm and beautiful.\u201d\n\nHere stands to-day as of yore our little city of the rocks; here\nlet it stand forever, on the man-bearing granite of the North! Let\nher stand fast by herself! She has grown great. She is filled with\nstrangers, but she can only prosper by adhering to her faith. Let\nevery child that is born of her and every child of her adoption see\nto it to keep the name of Boston as clean as the sun; and in distant\nages her motto shall be the prayer of millions on all the hills\nthat gird the town, \u201cAs with our Fathers, so God be with us!\u201d SICUT\nPATRIBUS, SIT DEUS NOBIS!\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[2]\n\n      \u201cCome dal fuoco il caldo, esser diviso,\n       Non puo\u2019l bel dall\u2019 eterno.\u201d\n                      MICHEL ANGELO.\n\n[As from fire heat cannot be separated,\u2014neither can beauty from the\neternal.]\n\n\n\n\nMICHAEL ANGELO.\n\n\n      Never did sculptor\u2019s dream unfold\n      A form which marble doth not hold\n      In its white block; yet it therein shall find\n      Only the hand secure and bold\n      Which still obeys the mind.\n                    MICHAEL ANGELO\u2019S _Sonnets_.\n\n\n      Non ha l\u2019 ottimo artista alcun concetto,\n      Ch\u2019un marmo solo in s\u00e8 non circoscriva\n      Col suo soverchio, e solo a quello arriva\n      La man che obbedisce all\u2019 intelletto.\n                    M. ANGELO, _Sonnetto primo_.\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration: (decorative banner)]\n\n\n\n\nMICHAEL ANGELO.[3]\n\n\nFew lives of eminent men are harmonious; few that furnish, in all\nthe facts, an image corresponding with their fame. But all things\nrecorded of Michael Angelo Buonarotti agree together. He lived one\nlife; he pursued one career. He accomplished extraordinary works;\nhe uttered extraordinary words; and in this greatness was so little\neccentricity, so true was he to the laws of the human mind, that his\ncharacter and his works, like Sir Isaac Newton\u2019s, seem rather a part\nof nature than arbitrary productions of the human will. Especially we\nvenerate his moral fame. Whilst his name belongs to the highest class\nof genius, his life contains in it no injurious influence. Every\nline in his biography might be read to the human race with wholesome\neffect. The means, the materials of his activity, were coarse enough\nto be appreciated, being addressed for the most part to the eye; the\nresults, sublime and all innocent. A purity severe and even terrible\ngoes out from the lofty productions of his pencil and his chisel, and\nagain from the more perfect sculpture of his own life, which heals\nand exalts. \u201cHe nothing common did, or mean,\u201d and dying at the end\nof near ninety years, had not yet become old, but was engaged in\nexecuting his grand conceptions in the ineffaceable architecture of\nSt. Peter\u2019s.\n\nAbove all men whose history we know, Michael Angelo presents us with\nthe perfect image of the artist. He is an eminent master in the four\nfine arts, Painting, Sculpture, Architecture and Poetry. In three of\nthem by visible means, and in poetry by words, he strove to express\nthe Idea of Beauty. This idea possessed him and determined all his\nactivity. Beauty in the largest sense, beauty inward and outward,\ncomprehending grandeur as a part, and reaching to goodness as its\nsoul,\u2014this to receive and this to impart, was his genius.\n\nIt is a happiness to find, amid the falsehood and griefs of the\nhuman race, a soul at intervals born to behold and create only\nbeauty. So shall not the indescribable charm of the natural world,\nthe great spectacle of morn and evening which shut and open the most\ndisastrous day, want observers. The ancient Greeks called the world\n\u039a\u03cc\u03c3\u03bc\u03bf\u03c2, _Beauty_; a name which, in our artificial state of society,\nsounds fanciful and impertinent. Yet, in proportion as man rises\nabove the servitude to wealth and a pursuit of mean pleasures, he\nperceives that what is most real is most beautiful, and that, by the\ncontemplation of such objects, he is taught and exalted. This truth,\nthat perfect beauty and perfect goodness are one, was made known to\nMichael Angelo; and we shall endeavor by sketches from his life to\nshow the direction and limitations of his search after this element.\n\nIn considering a life dedicated to the study of Beauty, it is\nnatural to inquire, what is Beauty? Can this charming element be so\nabstracted by the human mind, as to become a distinct and permanent\nobject? Beauty cannot be defined. Like Truth, it is an ultimate\naim of the human being. It does not lie within the limits of the\nunderstanding. \u201cThe nature of the beautiful,\u201d\u2014we gladly borrow the\nlanguage of Moritz, a German critic,\u2014\u201cconsists herein, that because\nthe understanding in the presence of the beautiful cannot ask, \u2018Why\nis it beautiful?\u2019 for that reason is it so. There is no standard\nwhereby the understanding can determine whether objects are beautiful\nor otherwise. What other standard of the beautiful exists, than the\nentire circuit of all harmonious proportions of the great system of\nnature? All particular beauties scattered up and down in nature are\nonly so far beautiful, as they suggest more or less in themselves\nthis entire circuit of harmonious proportions.\u201d This great Whole, the\nunderstanding cannot embrace. Beauty may be felt. It may be produced.\nBut it cannot be defined.\n\nThe Italian artists sanction this view of beauty by describing it\nas _il pi\u00f9 nell\u2019 uno_, \u201cthe many in one,\u201d or multitude in unity,\nintimating that what is truly beautiful seems related to all nature.\nA beautiful person has a kind of universality, and appears to have\ntruer conformity to all pleasing objects in external nature than\nanother. Every great work of art seems to take up into itself the\nexcellencies of all works, and to present, as it were, a miniature of\nnature.\n\nIn relation to this element of Beauty, the minds of men divide\nthemselves into two classes. In the first place, all men have an\norganization corresponding more or less to the entire system of\nnature, and therefore a power of deriving pleasure from Beauty. This\nis Taste. In the second place, certain minds, more closely harmonized\nwith nature, possess the power of abstracting Beauty from things,\nand reproducing it in new forms, on any object to which accident may\ndetermine their activity; as stone, canvas, song, history. This is\nArt.\n\nSince Beauty is thus an abstraction of the harmony and proportion\nthat reigns in all nature, it is therefore studied in nature, and\nnot in what does not exist. Hence the celebrated French maxim of\nRhetoric, _Rien de beau que le vrai_; \u201cNothing is beautiful but\nwhat is true.\u201d It has a much wider application than to Rhetoric; as\nwide, namely, as the terms of the proposition admit. In art, Michael\nAngelo is himself but a document or verification of this maxim. He\nlabored to express the beautiful, in the entire conviction that it\nwas only to be attained unto by knowledge of the true. The common eye\nis satisfied with the surface on which it rests. The wise eye knows\nthat it is surface, and, if beautiful, only the result of interior\nharmonies, which, to him who knows them, compose the image of higher\nbeauty. Moreover, he knew well that only by an understanding of\nthe internal mechanism can the outside be faithfully delineated.\nThe walls of houses are transparent to the architect. The symptoms\ndisclose the constitution to the physician; and to the artist it\nbelongs by a better knowledge of anatomy, and, within anatomy, of\nlife and thought, to acquire the power of true drawing. \u201cThe human\nform,\u201d says Goethe, \u201ccannot be comprehended through seeing its\nsurface. It must be stripped of the muscles, its parts separated, its\njoints observed, its divisions marked, its action and counter action\nlearned; the hidden, the reposing, the foundation of the apparent,\nmust be searched, if one would really see and imitate what moves\nas a beautiful inseparable whole in living waves before the eye.\u201d\nMichael Angelo dedicated himself, from his childhood to his death,\nto a toilsome observation of nature. The first anecdote recorded of\nhim shows him to be already on the right road. Granacci, a painter\u2019s\napprentice, having lent him, when a boy, a print of St. Antony beaten\nby devils, together with some colors and pencils, he went to the\nfish-market to observe the form and color of fins and of the eyes of\nfish. Cardinal Farnese one day found him, when an old man, walking\nalone in the Coliseum, and expressed his surprise at finding him\nsolitary amidst the ruins; to which he replied, \u201cI go yet to school\nthat I may continue to learn.\u201d And one of the last drawings in his\nportfolio is a sublime hint of his own feeling; for it is a sketch of\nan old man with a long beard, in a go-cart, with an hour-glass before\nhim; and the motto, _Ancora imparo_, \u201cI still learn.\u201d\n\nIn this spirit he devoted himself to the study of anatomy for twelve\nyears; we ought to say rather, as long as he lived. The depth of his\nknowledge in anatomy has no parallel among the artists of modern\ntimes. Most of his designs, his contemporaries inform us, were made\nwith a pen, and in the style of an engraving on copper or wood; a\nmanner more expressive but not admitting of correction. When Michael\nAngelo would begin a statue, he made first on paper the _skeleton_;\nafterwards, upon another paper, the same figure clothed with muscles.\nThe studies of the statue of Christ in the Church of Minerva at Rome,\nmade in this manner, were long preserved.\n\nThose who have never given attention to the arts of design, are\nsurprised that the artist should find so much to study in a fabric of\nsuch limited parts and dimensions as the human body. But reflection\ndiscloses evermore a closer analogy between the finite form and\nthe infinite inhabitant. Man is the highest, and indeed the only\nproper object of plastic art. There needs no better proof of our\ninstinctive feeling of the immense expression of which the human\nfigure is capable, than the uniform tendency which the religion of\nevery country has betrayed towards Anthropomorphism, or attributing\nto the Deity the human form. And behold the effect of this familiar\nobject every day! No acquaintance with the secrets of its mechanism,\nno degrading views of human nature, not the most swinish compost of\nmud and blood that was ever misnamed philosophy, can avail to hinder\nus from doing involuntary reverence to any exhibition of majesty or\nsurpassing beauty in human clay.\n\nOur knowledge of its highest expression we owe to the Fine Arts. Not\neasily in this age will any man acquire by himself such perceptions\nof the dignity or grace of the human frame, as the student of\nart owes to the remains of Phidias, to the Apollo, the Jove, the\npaintings and statues of Michael Angelo, and the works of Canova.\nThere are now in Italy, both on canvas and in marble, forms and faces\nwhich the imagination is enriched by contemplating. Goethe says that\nhe is but half himself who has never seen the Juno in the Rondanini\npalace at Rome. Seeing these works true to human nature and yet\nsuperhuman, \u201cwe feel that we are greater than we know.\u201d Seeing these\nworks, we appreciate the taste which led Michael Angelo, against the\ntaste and against the admonition of his patrons, to cover the walls\nof churches with unclothed figures, \u201cimproper,\u201d says his biographer,\n\u201cfor the place, but proper for the exhibition of all the pomp of his\nprofound knowledge.\u201d\n\nThe love of beauty which never passes beyond outline and color, was\ntoo slight an object to occupy the powers of his genius. There is\na closer relation than is commonly thought between the fine arts\nand the useful arts; and it is an essential fact in the history of\nMichael Angelo, that his love of beauty is made solid and perfect\nby his deep understanding of the mechanic arts. Architecture is\nthe bond that unites the elegant and the economical arts, and his\nskill in this is a pledge of his capacity in both kinds. His Titanic\nhandwriting in marble and travertine is to be found in every part of\nRome and Florence; and even at Venice, on defective evidence, he is\nsaid to have given the plan of the bridge of the Rialto. Nor was his\na skill in ornament, or confined to the outline and designs of towers\nand fa\u00e7ades, but a thorough acquaintance with all the secrets of the\nart, with all the details of economy and strength.\n\nWhen the Florentines united themselves with Venice, England and\nFrance, to oppose the power of the Emperor Charles V., Michael\nAngelo was appointed Military Architect and Engineer, to superintend\nthe erection of the necessary works. He visited Bologna to inspect\nits celebrated fortifications, and, on his return, constructed a\nfortification on the heights of San Miniato, which commands the city\nand environs of Florence. On the 24th of October, 1529, the Prince\nof Orange, general of Charles V., encamped on the hills surrounding\nthe city, and his first operation was to throw up a rampart to\nstorm the bastion of San Miniato. His design was frustrated by the\nprovidence of Michael Angelo. Michael made such good resistance, that\nthe Prince directed the artillery to demolish the tower. The artist\nhung mattresses of wool on the side exposed to the attack, and by\nmeans of a bold projecting cornice, from which they were suspended,\na considerable space was left between them and the wall. This simple\nexpedient was sufficient, and the Prince was obliged to turn his\nsiege into a blockade.\n\nAfter an active and successful service to the city for six months,\nMichael Angelo was informed of a treachery that was ripening within\nthe walls. He communicated it to the government with his advice upon\nit; but was mortified by receiving from the government reproaches\nat his credulity and fear. He replied, \u201cthat it was useless for him\nto take care of the walls, if they were determined not to take care\nof themselves,\u201d and he withdrew privately from the city to Ferrara,\nand thence to Venice. The news of his departure occasioned a general\nconcern in Florence, and he was instantly followed with apologies\nand importunities to return. He did so, and resumed his office. On\nthe 21st of March, 1530, the Prince of Orange assaulted the city by\nstorm. Michael Angelo is represented as having ordered his defence so\nvigorously, that the Prince was compelled to retire. By the treachery\nhowever of the general of the Republic, Malatesta Baglioni, all his\nskill was rendered unavailing, and the city capitulated on the 9th\nof August. The excellence of the works constructed by our artist has\nbeen approved by Vauban, who visited them and took a plan of them.\n\nIn Rome, Michael Angelo was consulted by Pope Paul III. in building\nthe fortifications of San Borgo. He built the stairs of Ara Celi\nleading to the Church once the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus; he\narranged the piazza of the Capitol, and built its porticoes. He\nwas charged with rebuilding the Pons Palatinus over the Tiber. He\nprepared, accordingly, a large quantity of blocks of travertine,\nand was proceeding with the work, when, through the intervention of\nhis rivals, this work was taken from him and intrusted to Nanni di\nBacio Bigio, who plays but a pitiful part in Michael\u2019s history. Nanni\nsold the travertine, and filled up the piers with gravel at a small\nexpense. Michael Angelo made known his opinion, that the bridge could\nnot resist the force of the current; and, one day riding over it on\nhorseback, with his friend Vasari, he cried, \u201cGeorge, this bridge\ntrembles under us; let us ride faster lest it fall whilst we are upon\nit.\u201d It fell, five years after it was built, in 1557, and is still\ncalled the \u201cBroken Bridge.\u201d\n\nVersatility of talent in men of undoubted ability always awakens\nthe liveliest interest; and we observe with delight, that, besides\nthe sublimity and even extravagance of Michael Angelo, he possessed\nan unexpected dexterity in minute mechanical contrivances. When the\nSistine Chapel was prepared for him that he might paint the ceiling,\nhe found the platform on which he was to work, suspended by ropes\nwhich passed through the ceiling. Michael demanded of San Gallo, the\nPope\u2019s architect, how these holes were to be repaired in the picture?\nSan Gallo replied; \u201cThat was for him to consider, for the platform\ncould be constructed in no other way.\u201d Michael removed the whole,\nand constructed a movable platform to rest and roll upon the floor,\nwhich is believed to be the same simple contrivance which is used\nin Rome, at this day, to repair the walls of churches. He gave this\nmodel to a carpenter, who made it so profitable as to furnish a dowry\nfor his two daughters. He was so nice in tools, that he made with his\nown hand the wimbles, the files, the rasps, the chisels and all other\nirons and instruments which he needed in sculpture; and, in painting,\nhe not only mixed but ground his colors himself, trusting no one.\n\nAnd not only was this discoverer of Beauty, and its teacher among\nmen, rooted and grounded in those severe laws of practical skill,\nwhich genius can never teach, and which must be learned by practice\nalone, but he was one of the most industrious men that ever lived.\nHis diligence was so great that it is wonderful how he endured its\nfatigues. The midnight battles, the forced marches, the winter\ncampaigns of Julius C\u00e6sar or Charles XII. do not indicate greater\nstrength of body or of mind. He finished the gigantic painting of\nthe ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in twenty months, a fact which\nenlarges, it has been said, the known powers of man. Indeed he toiled\nso assiduously at this painful work, that, for a long time after,\nhe was unable to see any picture but by holding it over his head. A\nlittle bread and wine was all his nourishment; and he told Vasari\nthat he often slept in his clothes, both because he was too weary to\nundress, and because he would rise in the night and go immediately\nto work. \u201cI have found,\u201d says his friend, \u201csome of his designs in\nFlorence, where, whilst may be seen the greatness of his genius, it\nmay also be known that when he wished to take Minerva from the head\nof Jove, there needed the hammer of Vulcan.\u201d He used to make to a\nsingle figure nine, ten, or twelve heads before he could satisfy\nhimself, seeking that there should be in the composition a certain\nuniversal grace such as nature makes, saying, that \u201che needed to\nhave his compasses in his eye, and not in his hand, because the\nhands work whilst the eye judges.\u201d He was accustomed to say, \u201cThose\nfigures alone are good, from which the labor is scraped off, when the\nscaffolding is taken away.\u201d\n\nAt near eighty years, he began in marble a group of four figures for\na dead Christ; because, he said, to exercise himself with the mallet\nwas good for his health.\n\nAnd what did he accomplish? It does not fall within our design to\ngive an account of his works, yet for the sake of the completeness\nof our sketch we will name the principal ones. Sculpture he called\n_his_ art, and to it he regretted afterwards he had not singly\ngiven himself. The style of his paintings is monumental; and even\nhis poetry partakes of that character. In sculpture, his greatest\nwork is the statue of Moses in the Church of Pietro in Vincolo, in\nRome. It is a sitting statue of colossal size, and is designed to\nembody the Hebrew Law. The lawgiver is supposed to gaze upon the\nworshippers of the golden calf. The majestic wrath of the figure\ndaunts the beholder. In the Piazza del Gran Duca at Florence, stands,\nin the open air, his David, about to hurl the stone at Goliah. In\nthe Church called the Minerva, at Rome, is his Christ; an object of\nso much devotion to the people, that the right foot has been shod\nwith a brazen sandal to prevent it from being kissed away. In St.\nPeter\u2019s, is his Piet\u00e0, or dead Christ in the arms of his mother. In\nthe Mausoleum of the Medici at Florence, are the tombs of Lorenzo\nand Cosmo, with the grand statues of Night and Day, and Aurora and\nTwilight. Several statues of less fame, and bas-reliefs, are in Rome\nand Florence and Paris.\n\nHis Paintings are in the Sistine Chapel, of which he first\ncovered the ceiling with the story of the creation, in successive\ncompartments, with the great series of the Prophets and Sibyls in\nalternate tablets, and a series of greater and smaller fancy-pieces\nin the lunettes. This is his capital work painted in fresco. Every\none of these pieces, every figure, every hand and foot and finger,\nis a study of anatomy and design. Slighting the secondary arts of\ncoloring, and all the aids of graceful finish, he aimed exclusively,\nas a stern designer, to express the vigor and magnificence of his\nconceptions. Upon the wall, over the altar, is painted the Last\nJudgment.\n\nOf his designs, the most celebrated is the cartoon representing\nsoldiers coming out in the bath and arming themselves; an incident of\nthe war of Pisa. The wonderful merit of this drawing, which contrasts\nthe extremes of relaxation and vigor, is conspicuous even in the\ncoarsest prints.\n\nOf his genius for Architecture, it is sufficient to say that he\nbuilt St. Peter\u2019s, an ornament of the earth. He said he would hang\nthe Pantheon in the air; and he redeemed his pledge by suspending\nthat vast cupola, without offence to grace or to stability, over the\nastonished beholder. He did not live to complete the work; but is\nthere not something affecting in the spectacle of an old man, on the\nverge of ninety years, carrying steadily onward with the heat and\ndetermination of manhood, his poetic conceptions into progressive\nexecution, surmounting by the dignity of his purposes all obstacles\nand all enmities, and only hindered by the limits of life from\nfulfilling his designs? Very slowly came he, after months and years,\nto the dome. At last he began to model it very small in wax. When it\nwas finished, he had it copied larger in wood, and by this model it\nwas built. Long after it was completed, and often since, to this day,\nrumors are occasionally spread that it is giving way, and it is said\nto have been injured by unskilful attempts to repair it. Benedict\nXIV., during one of these panics, sent for the architect Marchese\nPolini, to come to Rome and examine it. Polini put an end to all the\nvarious projects of repairs, by the satisfying sentence; \u201cThe cupola\ndoes not start, and if it should start, nothing can be done but to\npull it down.\u201d\n\nThe impulse of his grand style was instantaneous upon his\ncontemporaries. Every stroke of his pencil moved the pencil in\nRaphael\u2019s hand. Raphael said, \u201cI bless God I live in the times of\nMichael Angelo.\u201d Sir Joshua Reynolds, two centuries later, declared\nto the British Institution, \u201cI feel a self-congratulation in knowing\nmyself capable of such sensations as he intended to excite.\u201d\n\nA man of such habits and such deeds, made good his pretensions to\na perception and to delineation of external beauty. But inimitable\nas his works are, his whole life confessed that his hand was all\ninadequate to express his thought. \u201cHe alone,\u201d he said, \u201cis an artist\nwhose hands can perfectly execute what his mind has conceived;\u201d and\nsuch was his own mastery, that men said, \u201cthe marble was flexible in\nhis hands.\u201d Yet, contemplating ever with love the idea of absolute\nbeauty, he was still dissatisfied with his own work. The things\nproposed to him in his imagination were such, that, for not being\nable with his hands to express so grand and terrible conceptions, he\noften abandoned his work. For this reason he often only blocked his\nstatue. A little before he died, he burned a great number of designs,\nsketches and cartoons made by him, being impatient of their defects.\nGrace in living forms, except in very rare instances, did not satisfy\nhim. He never made but one portrait (a cartoon of Messer Tommaso di\nCavalieri), because he abhorred to draw a likeness unless it were of\ninfinite beauty.\n\nSuch was his devotion to art. But let no man suppose that the images\nwhich his spirit worshipped were mere transcripts of external grace,\nor that this profound soul was taken or holden in the chains of\nsuperficial beauty. To him, of all men, it was transparent. Through\nit he beheld the eternal spiritual beauty which ever clothes itself\nwith grand and graceful outlines, as its appropriate form. He called\neternal grace \u201cthe frail and weary weed, in which God dresses the\nsoul which he has called into Time.\u201d \u201cAs from the fire, heat cannot\nbe divided, no more can beauty from the eternal.\u201d He was conscious\nin his efforts of higher aims than to address the eye. He sought,\nthrough the eye, to reach the soul. Therefore, as, in the first\nplace, he sought to approach the Beautiful by the study of the True,\nso he failed not to make the next step of progress, and to seek\nBeauty in its highest form, that of Goodness. The sublimity of his\nart is in his life. He did not only build a divine temple, and paint\nand carve saints and prophets. He lived out the same inspiration.\nThere is no spot upon his fame. The fire and sanctity of his pencil\nbreathe in his words. When he was informed that Paul IV. desired he\nshould paint again the side of the chapel where the Last Judgment\nwas painted, because of the indecorous nudity of the figures, he\nreplied, \u201cTell the Pope that this is easily done. Let him reform the\nworld and he will find the pictures will reform themselves.\u201d He saw\nclearly that if the corrupt and vulgar eyes, that could see nothing\nbut indecorum in his terrific prophets and angels, could be purified\nas his own were pure, they would only find occasion for devotion in\nthe same figures. As he refused to undo his work, Daniel di Volterra\nwas employed to clothe the figures; hence ludicrously called _Il\nBraghettone_. When the Pope suggested to him that the chapel would\nbe enriched if the figures were ornamented with gold, Michael Angelo\nreplied, \u201cIn those days, gold was not worn; and the characters I have\npainted were neither rich nor desirous of wealth, but holy men, with\nwhom gold was an object of contempt.\u201d\n\nNot until he was in the seventy-third year of his age, he undertook\nthe building of St. Peter\u2019s. On the death of San Gallo, the architect\nof the church, Paul III. first entreated, then commanded the aged\nartist, to assume the charge of this great work, which though\ncommenced forty years before, was only commenced by Bramante,\nand ill continued by San Gallo. Michael Angelo, who believed in\nhis own ability as a sculptor, but distrusted his capacity as an\narchitect, at first refused and then reluctantly complied. His heroic\nstipulation with the Pope was worthy of the man and the work. He\nrequired that he should be permitted to accept this work without any\nfee or reward, because he undertook it as a religious act; and,\nfurthermore, that he should be absolute master of the whole design,\nfree to depart from the plans of San Gallo and to alter what had been\nalready done.\n\nThis disinterestedness and spirit,\u2014no fee and no interference,\u2014reminds\none of the reward named by the ancient Persian. When importuned to\nclaim some compensation of the empire for the important services he\nhad rendered it, he demanded, \u201cthat he and his should neither command\nnor obey, but should be free.\u201d However, as it was undertaken, so was\nit performed. When the Pope, delighted with one of his chapels, sent\nhim one hundred crowns of gold, as one month\u2019s wages, Michael sent\nthem back. The Pope was angry, but the artist was immovable. Amidst\nendless annoyances from the envy and interest of the office-holders\nand agents in the work whom he had displaced, he steadily ripened\nand executed his vast ideas. The combined desire to fulfil, in\neverlasting stone, the conceptions of his mind, and to complete his\nworthy offering to Almighty God, sustained him through numberless\nvexations with unbroken spirit. In answer to the importunate\nsolicitations of the Duke of Tuscany that he would come to Florence,\nhe replies that \u201cto leave St. Peter\u2019s in the state in which it now\nwas, would be to ruin the structure, and thereby be guilty of a great\nsin;\u201d that he hoped he should shortly see the execution of his plans\nbrought to such a point that they could no longer be interfered with,\nand this was the capital object of his wishes, \u201cif,\u201d he adds, \u201cI do\nnot commit a great crime, by disappointing the cormorants who are\ndaily hoping to get rid of me.\u201d\n\nA natural fruit of the nobility of his spirit is his admiration of\nDante, to whom two of his sonnets are addressed. He shared Dante\u2019s\n\u201cdeep contempt of the vulgar, not of the simple inhabitants of lowly\nstreets or humble cottages, but of that sordid and abject crowd of\nall classes and all places who obscure, as much as in them lies,\nevery beam of beauty in the universe.\u201d In like manner, he possessed\nan intense love of solitude. He lived alone, and never or very rarely\ntook his meals with any person. As will be supposed, he had a passion\nfor the country, and in old age speaks with extreme pleasure of his\nresidence with the hermits in the mountains of Spoleto; so much so\nthat he says he is \u201conly half in Rome, since, truly, peace is only\nto be found in the woods.\u201d Traits of an almost savage independence\nmark all his history. Although he was rich, he lived like a poor man,\nand never would receive a present from any person; because it seemed\nto him that if a man gave him anything, he was always obligated to\nthat individual. His friend Vasari mentions one occasion on which\nhis scruples were overcome. It seems that Michael was accustomed\nto work at night with a pasteboard cap or helmet on his head, into\nwhich he stuck a candle, that his work might be lighted and his hands\nat liberty. Vasari observed that he did not use wax candles, but a\nbetter sort made of the tallow of goats. He therefore sent him four\nbundles of them, containing forty pounds. His servant brought them\nafter night-fall, and presented them to him. Michael Angelo refused\nto receive them. \u201cLook you, Messer Michael Angelo,\u201d replied the man,\n\u201cthese candles have well nigh broken my arm, and I will not carry\nthem back; but just here, before your door, is a spot of soft mud,\nand they will stand upright in it very well, and there I will light\nthem all.\u201d\u2014\u201cPut them down, then,\u201d returned Michael, \u201csince you shall\nnot make a bonfire at my gate.\u201d Meantime he was liberal to profusion\nto his old domestic Urbino, to whom he gave at one time two thousand\ncrowns, and made him rich in his service.\n\nMichael Angelo was of that class of men who are too superior to the\nmultitude around them to command a full and perfect sympathy. They\nstand in the attitude rather of appeal from their contemporaries to\ntheir race. It has been the defect of some great men, that they did\nnot duly appreciate or did not confess the talents and virtues of\nothers, and so lacked one of the richest sources of happiness and\none of the best elements of humanity. This apathy perhaps happens\nas often from preoccupied attention as from jealousy. It has been\nsupposed that artists more than others are liable to this defect.\nBut Michael Angelo\u2019s praise on many works is to this day the stamp\nof fame. Michael Angelo said of Masaccio\u2019s pictures that when\nthey were first painted they must have been alive. He said of his\npredecessor, the architect Bramante, that he laid the first stone of\nSt. Peter\u2019s, clear, insulated, luminous, with fit design for a vast\nstructure. He often expressed his admiration of Cellini\u2019s bust of\nAltoviti. He loved to express admiration of Titian, of Donatello, of\nGhiberti, of Brunelleschi. And it is said that when he left Florence\nto go to Rome, to build St. Peter\u2019s, he turned his horse\u2019s head on\nthe last hill from which the noble dome of the Cathedral (built by\nBrunelleschi) is visible, and said, \u201cLike you, I will not build;\nbetter than you I cannot.\u201d Indeed, as we have said, the reputation\nof many works of art now in Italy derives a sanction from the\ntradition of his praise. It is more commendation to say, \u201cThis was\nMichael Angelo\u2019s favorite,\u201d than to say, \u201cThis was carried to Paris\nby Napoleon.\u201d Michael, however, had the philosophy to say, \u201cOnly an\ninventor can use the inventions of others.\u201d\n\nThere is yet one more trait in Michael Angelo\u2019s history, which\nhumanizes his character without lessening its loftiness; this is his\nplatonic love. He was deeply enamored of the most accomplished lady\nof the time, Vittoria Colonna, the widow of the Marquis di Pescara,\nwho, after the death of her husband, devoted herself to letters, and\nto the writing of religious poetry. She was also an admirer of his\ngenius, and came to Rome repeatedly to see him. To her his sonnets\nare addressed; and they all breathe a chaste and divine regard,\nunparalleled in any amatory poetry except that of Dante and Petrarch.\nThey are founded on the thought that beauty is the virtue of the\nbody, as virtue is the beauty of the soul; that a beautiful person is\nsent into the world as an image of the divine beauty, not to provoke\nbut to purify the sensual into an intellectual and divine love.\nHe enthrones his mistress as a benignant angel, who is to refine\nand perfect his own character. Condivi, his friend, has left this\ntestimony; \u201cI have often heard Michael Angelo reason and discourse\nupon love, but never heard him speak otherwise than upon platonic\nlove. As for me, I am ignorant what Plato has said upon this subject;\nbut this I know very well, that, in a long intimacy, I never heard\nfrom his mouth a single word that was not perfectly decorous and\nhaving for its object to extinguish in youth every improper desire,\nand that his own nature is a stranger to depravity.\u201d The poems\nthemselves cannot be read without awakening sentiments of virtue.\nAn eloquent vindication of their philosophy may be found in a paper\nby Signor Radici in the London \u201cRetrospective Review,\u201d and, by the\nItalian scholar, in the Discourse of Benedetto Varchi upon one sonnet\nof Michael Angelo, contained in the volume of his poems published by\nBiagioli, from which, in substance, the views of Radici are taken.\n\nTowards his end, there seems to have grown in him an invincible\nappetite of dying, for he knew that his spirit could only enjoy\ncontentment after death. So vehement was this desire that, he says,\n\u201cmy soul can no longer be appeased by the wonted seductions of\npainting and sculpture.\u201d A fine melancholy, not unrelieved by his\nhabitual heroism, pervades his thoughts on this subject. At the age\nof eighty years, he wrote to Vasari, sending him various spiritual\nsonnets he had written, and tells him he \u201cis at the end of his life,\nthat he is careful where he bends his thoughts, that he sees it is\nalready twenty-four o\u2019clock, and no fancy arose in his mind but\nDEATH was sculptured on it.\u201d In conversing upon this subject with\none of his friends, that person remarked, that Michael might well\ngrieve that one who was incessant in his creative labors should have\nno restoration. \u201cNo,\u201d replied Michael, \u201cit is nothing; for, if life\npleases us, death, being a work of the same master, ought not to\ndisplease us.\u201d But a nobler sentiment, uttered by him, is contained\nin his reply to a letter of Vasari, who had informed him of the\nrejoicings made at the house of his nephew Lionardo, at Florence,\nover the birth of another Buonarotti. Michael admonishes him that\n\u201ca man ought not to smile, when all those around him weep; and that\nwe ought not to show that joy when a child is born, which should be\nreserved for the death of one who has lived well.\u201d\n\nAmidst all these witnesses to his independence, his generosity, his\npurity and his devotion, are we not authorized to say that this\nman was penetrated with the love of the highest beauty, that is,\ngoodness; that his was a soul so enamored of grace, that it could\nnot stoop to meanness or depravity; that art was to him no means of\nlivelihood or road to fame, but the end of living, as it was the\norgan through which he sought to suggest lessons of an unutterable\nwisdom; that here was a man who lived to demonstrate that to the\nhuman faculties, on every hand, worlds of grandeur and grace are\nopened, which no profane eye and no indolent eye can behold, but\nwhich to see and to enjoy, demands the severest discipline of all the\nphysical, intellectual and moral faculties of the individual?\n\nThe city of Florence, on the river Arno, still treasures the fame\nof this man. There, his picture hangs in every window; there, the\ntradition of his opinions meets the traveller in every spot. \u201cDo you\nsee that statue of St. George? Michael Angelo asked it why it did\nnot speak.\u201d\u2014\u201cDo you see this fine church of Santa Maria Novella? It\nis that which Michael Angelo called \u2018his bride.\u2019\u201d\u2014\u201cLook at these\nbronze gates of the Baptistery, with their high reliefs, cast by\nGhiberti five hundred years ago. Michael Angelo said, \u2018they were fit\nto be the gates of Paradise.\u2019\u201d\u2014Here is the church, the palace, the\nLaurentian library he built. Here is his own house. In the church of\nSanta Croce are his mortal remains. Whilst he was yet alive, he asked\nthat he might be buried in that church, in such a spot that the dome\nof the cathedral might be visible from his tomb when the doors of\nthe church stood open. And there and so is he laid. The innumerable\npilgrims whom the genius of Italy draws to the city, duly visit this\nchurch, which is to Florence what Westminster Abbey is to England.\nThere, near the tomb of Nicholas Machiavelli, the historian and\nphilosopher; of Galileo, the great-hearted astronomer; of Boccaccio,\nand of Alfieri, stands the monument of Michael Angelo Buonarotti.\nThree significant garlands are sculptured on the tomb; they should\nbe four, but that his countrymen feared their own partiality. The\nforehead of the bust, esteemed a faithful likeness, is furrowed with\neight deep wrinkles one above another. The traveller from a distant\ncontinent, who gazes on that marble brow, feels that he is not a\nstranger in the foreign church; for the great name of Michael Angelo\nsounds hospitably in his ear. He was not a citizen of any country; he\nbelonged to the human race; he was a brother and a friend to all who\nacknowledge the beauty that beams in universal nature, and who seek\nby labor and self-denial to approach its source in perfect goodness.\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[3] Reprinted from the _North American Review_, June, 1837.\n\n\n\n\nMILTON.\n\n\n      I framed his tongue to music,\n        I armed his hand with skill,\n      I moulded his face to beauty,\n        And his heart the throne of will.\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration: (decorative banner)]\n\n\n\n\nMILTON.[4]\n\n\nThe discovery of the lost work of Milton, the treatise \u201cOf the\nChristian Doctrine,\u201d in 1823, drew a sudden attention to his name.\nFor a short time the literary journals were filled with disquisitions\non his genius; new editions of his works, and new compilations of\nhis life, were published. But the new-found book having in itself\nless attraction than any other work of Milton, the curiosity of the\npublic as quickly subsided, and left the poet to the enjoyment of his\npermanent fame, or to such increase or abatement of it only as is\nincidental to a sublime genius, quite independent of the momentary\nchallenge of universal attention to his claims.\n\nBut if the new and temporary renown of the poet is silent again, it\nis nevertheless true that he has gained, in this age, some increase\nof permanent praise. The fame of a great man is not rigid and\nstony like his bust. It changes with time. It needs time to give\nit due perspective. It was very easy to remark an altered tone in\nthe criticism when Milton re-appeared as an author, fifteen years\nago, from any that had been bestowed on the same subject before.\nIt implied merit indisputable and illustrious; yet so near to\nthe modern mind as to be still alive and life-giving. The aspect\nof Milton, to this generation, will be part of the history of the\nnineteenth century. There is no name in English literature between\nhis age and ours that rises into any approach to his own. And as a\nman\u2019s fame, of course, characterizes those who give it, as much as\nhim who receives it, the new criticism indicated a change in the\npublic taste, and a change which the poet himself might claim to have\nwrought.\n\nThe reputation of Milton had already undergone one or two revolutions\nlong anterior to its recent aspects. In his lifetime, he was little\nor not at all known as a poet, but obtained great respect from\nhis contemporaries as an accomplished scholar and a formidable\npamphleteer. His poem fell unregarded among his countrymen. His\nprose writings, especially the \u201cDefence of the English People,\u201d\nseem to have been read with avidity. These tracts are remarkable\ncompositions. They are earnest, spiritual, rich with allusion,\nsparkling with innumerable ornaments; but, as writings designed to\ngain a practical point, they fail. They are not effective, like\nsimilar productions of Swift and Burke; or, like what became also\ncontroversial tracts, several masterly speeches in the history of the\nAmerican Congress. Milton seldom deigns a glance at the obstacles\nthat are to be overcome before that which he proposes can be done.\nThere is no attempt to conciliate,\u2014no mediate, no preparatory course\nsuggested,\u2014but, peremptory and impassioned, he demands, on the\ninstant, an ideal justice. Therein they are discriminated from modern\nwritings, in which a regard to the actual is all but universal.\n\nTheir rhetorical excellence must also suffer some deduction. They\nhave no perfectness. These writings are wonderful for the truth,\nthe learning, the subtilty and pomp of the language; but the whole\nis sacrificed to the particular. Eager to do fit justice to each\nthought, he does not subordinate it so as to project the main\nargument. He writes whilst he is heated; the piece shows all the\nrambles and resources of indignation, but he has never _integrated_\nthe parts of the argument in his mind. The reader is fatigued with\nadmiration, but is not yet master of the subject.\n\nTwo of his pieces may be excepted from this description, one for its\nfaults, the other for its excellence. The \u201cDefence of the People\nof England,\u201d on which his contemporary fame was founded, is, when\ndivested of its pure Latinity, the worst of his works. Only its\ngeneral aim, and a few elevated passages, can save it. We could be\nwell content, if the flames to which it was condemned at Paris, at\nToulouse, and at London, had utterly consumed it. The lover of his\ngenius will always regret that he should not have taken counsel of\nhis own lofty heart at this, as at other times, and have written from\nthe deep convictions of love and right, which are the foundations of\ncivil liberty. There is little poetry or prophecy in this mean and\nribald scolding. To insult Salmasius, not to acquit England, is the\nmain design. What under heaven had Madame de Saumaise, or the manner\nof living of Saumaise, or Salmasius, or his blunders of grammar,\nor his niceties of diction, to do with the solemn question whether\nCharles Stuart had been rightly slain? Though it evinces learning\nand critical skill, yet, as an historical argument, it cannot be\nvalued with similar disquisitions of Robertson and Hallam, and\neven less celebrated scholars. But, when he comes to speak of the\nreason of the thing, then he always recovers himself. The voice of\nthe mob is silent, and Milton speaks. And the peroration, in which\nhe implores his countrymen to refute this adversary by their great\ndeeds, is in a just spirit. The other piece is his \u201cAreopagitica,\u201d\nthe discourse, addressed to the Parliament, in favor of removing\nthe censorship of the press; the most splendid of his prose works.\nIt is, as Luther said of one of Melancthon\u2019s writings, \u201calive, hath\nhands and feet,\u2014and not like Erasmus\u2019s sentences, which were made,\nnot grown.\u201d The weight of the thought is equalled by the vivacity of\nthe expression, and it cheers as well as teaches. This tract is far\nthe best known and the most read of all, and is still a magazine of\nreasons for the freedom of the press. It is valuable in history as an\nargument addressed to a government to produce a practical end, and\nplainly presupposes a very peculiar state of society.\n\nBut deeply as that peculiar state of society, in which and for which\nMilton wrote, has engraved itself in the remembrance of the world,\nit shares the destiny which overtakes everything local and personal\nin nature; and the accidental facts on which a battle of principles\nwas fought have already passed, or are fast passing, into oblivion.\nWe have lost all interest in Milton as the redoubted disputant of a\nsect; but by his own innate worth this man has steadily risen in the\nworld\u2019s reverence, and occupies a more imposing place in the mind of\nmen at this hour than ever before.\n\nIt is the aspect which he presents to this generation, that alone\nconcerns us. Milton the polemic has lost his popularity long ago; and\nif we skip the pages of \u201cParadise Lost\u201d where \u201cGod the Father argues\nlike a school divine,\u201d so did the next age to his own. But, we are\npersuaded, he kindles a love and emulation in us which he did not\nin foregoing generations. We think we have seen and heard criticism\nupon the poems, which the bard himself would have more valued than\nthe recorded praise of Dryden, Addison and Johnson, because it came\nnearer to the mark; was finer and closer appreciation; the praise\nof intimate knowledge and delight; and, of course, more welcome to\nthe poet than the general and vague acknowledgment of his genius by\nthose able but unsympathizing critics. We think we have heard the\nrecitation of his verses by genius which found in them that which\nitself would say; recitation which told, in the diamond sharpness of\nevery articulation, that now first was such perception and enjoyment\npossible; the perception and enjoyment of all his varied rhythm,\nand his perfect fusion of the classic and the English styles. This\nis a poet\u2019s right; for every masterpiece of art goes on for some\nages reconciling the world unto itself, and despotically fashioning\nthe public ear. The opposition to it, always greatest at first,\ncontinually decreases and at last ends; and a new race grows up in\nthe taste and spirit of the work, with the utmost advantage for\nseeing intimately its power and beauty.\n\nBut it would be great injustice to Milton to consider him as enjoying\nmerely a critical reputation. It is the prerogative of this great man\nto stand at this hour foremost of all men in literary history, and\nso (shall we not say?) of all men, in the power _to inspire_. Virtue\ngoes out of him into others. Leaving out of view the pretensions of\nour contemporaries (always an incalculable influence), we think no\nman can be named whose mind still acts on the cultivated intellect\nof England and America with an energy comparable to that of Milton.\nAs a poet, Shakspeare undoubtedly transcends, and far surpasses him\nin his popularity with foreign nations; but Shakspeare is a voice\nmerely; who and what he was that sang, that sings, we know not.\nMilton stands erect, commanding, still visible as a man among men,\nand reads the laws of the moral sentiment to the new-born race. There\nis something pleasing in the affection with which we can regard a\nman who died a hundred and sixty years ago in the other hemisphere,\nwho, in respect to personal relations, is to us as the wind, yet by\nan influence purely spiritual makes us jealous for his fame as for\nthat of a near friend. He is identified in the mind with all select\nand holy images, with the supreme interests of the human race. If\nhereby we attain any more precision, we proceed to say that we think\nno man in these later ages, and few men ever, possessed so great\na conception of the manly character. Better than any other he has\ndischarged the office of every great man, namely, to raise the idea\nof Man in the minds of his contemporaries and of posterity,\u2014to draw\nafter nature a life of man, exhibiting such a composition of grace,\nof strength and of virtue, as poet had not described nor hero lived.\nHuman nature in these ages is indebted to him for its best portrait.\nMany philosophers in England, France and Germany, have formerly\ndedicated their study to this problem; and we think it impossible to\nrecall one in those countries who communicates the same vibration of\nhope, of self-reverence, of piety, of delight in beauty, which the\nname of Milton awakens. Lord Bacon, who has written much and with\nprodigious ability on this science, shrinks and falters before the\nabsolute and uncourtly Puritan. Bacon\u2019s Essays are the portrait of an\nambitious and profound calculator,\u2014a great man of the vulgar sort. Of\nthe upper world of man\u2019s being they speak few and faint words. The\nman of Locke is virtuous without enthusiasm and intelligent without\npoetry. Addison, Pope, Hume and Johnson, students, with very unlike\ntemper and success, of the same subject, cannot, taken together, make\nany pretension to the amount or the quality of Milton\u2019s inspirations.\nThe man of Lord Chesterfield is unworthy to touch his garment\u2019s\nhem. Franklin\u2019s man is a frugal, inoffensive, thrifty citizen, but\nsavors of nothing heroic. The genius of France has not, even in her\nbest days, yet culminated in any one head,\u2014not in Rousseau, not in\nPascal, not in F\u00e9nelon,\u2014into such perception of all the attributes of\nhumanity as to entitle it to any rivalry in these lists. In Germany,\nthe greatest writers are still too recent to institute a comparison;\nand yet we are tempted to say that art and not life seems to be the\nend of their effort. But the idea of a purer existence than any he\nsaw around him, to be realized in the life and conversation of men,\ninspired every act and every writing of John Milton. He defined the\nobject of education to be, \u201cto fit a man to perform justly, skilfully\nand magnanimously all the offices, both private and public, of\npeace and war.\u201d He declared that \u201che who would aspire to write well\nhereafter in laudable things, ought himself to be a true poem; that\nis, a composition and pattern of the best and honorablest things,\nnot presuming to sing high praises of heroic men or famous cities,\nunless he have in himself the experience and the practice of all\nthat which is praiseworthy.\u201d Nor is there in literature a more noble\noutline of a wise external education, than that which he drew up, at\nthe age of thirty-six, in his Letter to Samuel Hartlib. The muscles,\nthe nerves and the flesh with which this skeleton is to be filled up\nand covered, exist in his works and must be sought there.\n\nFor the delineation of this heroic image of man, Milton enjoyed\nsingular advantages. Perfections of body and of mind are attributed\nto him by his biographers, that, if the anecdotes had come down\nfrom a greater distance of time, or had not been in part furnished\nor corroborated by political enemies, would lead us to suspect the\nportraits were ideal, like the Cyrus of Xenophon, the Telemachus of\nF\u00e9nelon, or the popular traditions of Alfred the Great.\n\nHandsome to a proverb, he was called the lady of his college. Aubrey\nsays, \u201cThis harmonical and ingenuous soul dwelt in a beautiful and\nwell-proportioned body.\u201d His manners and his carriage did him no\ninjustice. Wood, his political opponent, relates that \u201chis deportment\nwas affable, his gait erect and manly, bespeaking courage and\nundauntedness.\u201d Aubrey adds a sharp trait, that \u201che pronounced the\nletter R very hard, a certain sign of satirical genius.\u201d He had\nthe senses of a Greek. His eye was quick, and he was accounted an\nexcellent master of his rapier. His ear for music was so acute, that\nhe was not only enthusiastic in his love, but a skilful performer\nhimself; and his voice, we are told, was delicately sweet and\nharmonious. He insists that music shall make a part of a generous\neducation.\n\nWith these keen perceptions, he naturally received a love of nature\nand a rare susceptibility to impressions from external beauty. In the\nmidst of London, he seems, like the creatures of the field and the\nforest, to have been tuned in concord with the order of the world;\nfor, he believed, his poetic vein only flowed from the autumnal\nto the vernal equinox; and, in his essay on Education, he doubts\nwhether, in the fine days of spring, any study can be accomplished by\nyoung men. \u201cIn those vernal seasons of the year when the air is calm\nand pleasant, it were an injury and sullenness against nature not to\ngo out and see her riches and partake in her rejoicing with heaven\nand earth.\u201d His sensibility to impressions from beauty needs no proof\nfrom his history; it shines through every page. The form and the\nvoice of Leonora Baroni seemed to have captivated him in Rome, and to\nher he addressed his Italian sonnets and Latin epigrams.\n\nTo these endowments it must be added that his address and his\nconversation were worthy of his fame. His house was resorted to\nby men of wit, and foreigners came to England, we are told, \u201cto\nsee the Lord Protector and Mr. Milton.\u201d In a letter to one of his\nforeign correspondents, Emeric Bigot, and in reply apparently to some\ncompliment on his powers of conversation, he writes: \u201cMany have been\ncelebrated for their compositions, whose common conversation and\nintercourse have betrayed no marks of sublimity or genius. But, as\nfar as possible, I aim to show myself equal in thought and speech to\nwhat I have written, if I have written anything well.\u201d\n\nThese endowments received the benefit of a careful and happy\ndiscipline. His father\u2019s care, seconded by his own endeavor,\nintroduced him to a profound skill in all the treasures of Latin,\nGreek, Hebrew and Italian tongues; and, to enlarge and enliven his\nelegant learning, he was sent into Italy, where he beheld the remains\nof ancient art, and the rival works of Raphael, Michael Angelo and\nCorreggio; where, also, he received social and academical honors\nfrom the learned and the great. In Paris, he became acquainted\nwith Grotius; in Florence or Rome, with Galileo; and probably no\ntraveller ever entered that country of history with better right to\nits hospitality, none upon whom its influences could have fallen more\ncongenially.\n\nAmong the advantages of his foreign travel, Milton certainly did\nnot count it the least that it contributed to forge and polish that\ngreat weapon of which he acquired such extraordinary mastery,\u2014his\npower of language. His lore of foreign tongues added daily to his\nconsummate skill in the use of his own. He was a benefactor of the\nEnglish tongue by showing its capabilities. Very early in life he\nbecame conscious that he had more to say to his fellow-men than they\nhad fit words to embody. At nineteen years, in a college exercise,\nhe addresses his native language, saying to it that it would be his\nchoice to leave trifles for a grave argument,\n\n      \u201cSuch as may make thee search thy coffers round,\n       Before thou clothe my fancy in fit sound;\n       Such where the deep transported mind may soar\n       Above the wheeling poles, and at Heaven\u2019s door\n       Look in, and see each blissful deity,\n       How he before the thunderous throne doth lie.\u201d\n\nMichael Angelo calls \u201chim alone an artist, whose hands can execute\nwhat his mind has conceived.\u201d The world, no doubt, contains many\nof that class of men whom Wordsworth denominates \u201c_silent poets_,\u201d\nwhose minds teem with images which they want words to clothe. But\nMilton\u2019s mind seems to have no thought or emotion which refused to be\nrecorded. His mastery of his native tongue was more than to use it as\nwell as any other; he cast it into new forms. He uttered in it things\nunheard before. Not imitating but rivalling Shakspeare, he scattered,\nin tones of prolonged and delicate melody, his pastoral and romantic\nfancies; then, soaring into unattempted strains, he made it capable\nof an unknown majesty, and bent it to express every trait of beauty,\nevery shade of thought; and searched the kennel and jakes as well as\nthe palaces of sound for the harsh discords of his polemic wrath. We\nmay even apply to his performance on the instrument of language, his\nown description of music:\n\n      \u201c\u2014Notes, with many a winding bout\n       Of link\u00ebd sweetness long drawn out,\n       With wanton heed and giddy cunning,\n       The melting voice through mazes running,\n       Untwisting all the chains that tie\n       The hidden soul of harmony.\u201d\n\nBut, whilst Milton was conscious of possessing this intellectual\nvoice, penetrating through ages and propelling its melodious\nundulations forward through the coming world, he knew that this\nmastery of language was a secondary power, and he respected the\nmysterious source whence it had its spring; namely, clear conceptions\nand a devoted heart. \u201cFor me,\u201d he said, in his \u201cApology for\nSmectymnuus,\u201d \u201calthough I cannot say that I am utterly untrained in\nthose rules which best rhetoricians have given, or unacquainted with\nthose examples which the prime authors of eloquence have written in\nany learned tongue, yet true eloquence I find to be none but the\nserious and hearty love of truth; and that whose mind soever is\nfully possessed with a fervent desire to know good things, and with\nthe dearest charity to infuse the knowledge of them into others,\nwhen such a man would speak, his words, by what I can express, like\nso many nimble and airy servitors, trip about him at command, and\nin well-ordered files, as he would wish, fall aptly into their own\nplaces.\u201d\n\nBut, as basis or fountain of his rare physical and intellectual\naccomplishments, the man Milton was just and devout. He is rightly\ndear to mankind, because in him, among so many perverse and partial\nmen of genius,\u2014in him humanity rights itself; the old eternal\ngoodness finds a home in his breast, and for once shows itself\nbeautiful. His gifts are subordinated to his moral sentiments. And\nhis virtues are so graceful that they seem rather talents than\nlabors. Among so many contrivances as the world has seen to make\nholiness ugly, in Milton at least it was so pure a flame, that the\nforemost impression his character makes is that of elegance. The\nvictories of the conscience in him are gained by the commanding\ncharm which all the severe and restrictive virtues have for him. His\nvirtues remind us of what Plutarch said of Timoleon\u2019s victories, that\nthey resembled Homer\u2019s verses, they ran so easy and natural. His\nhabits of living were austere. He was abstemious in diet, chaste,\nan early riser, and industrious. He tells us, in a Latin poem, that\nthe lyrist may indulge in wine and in a freer life; but that he\nwho would write an epic to the nations, must eat beans and drink\nwater. Yet in his severity is no grimace or effort. He serves from\nlove, not from fear. He is innocent and exact, because his taste\nwas so pure and delicate. He acknowledges to his friend Diodati, at\nthe age of twenty-one, that he is enamored, if ever any was, of\nmoral perfection: \u201cFor, whatever the Deity may have bestowed upon\nme in other respects, he has certainly inspired me, if any ever\nwere inspired, with a passion for the good and fair. Nor did Ceres,\naccording to the fable, ever seek her daughter Proserpine with such\nunceasing solicitude, as I have sought this \u03c4\u03bf\u1fe6 \u03ba\u03b1\u03bb\u03bf\u1fe6 \u1f30\u03b4\u03ad\u03b1\u03bd, this\nperfect model of the beautiful in all forms and appearances of\nthings.\u201d\n\nWhen he was charged with loose habits of living, he declares, that\n\u201ca certain niceness of nature, an honest haughtiness and self-esteem\neither of what I was or what I might be, and a modesty, kept me still\nabove those low descents of mind beneath which he must deject and\nplunge himself, that can agree\u201d to such degradation. \u201cHis mind gave\nhim,\u201d he said, \u201cthat every free and gentle spirit, without that oath\nof chastity, ought to be born a knight; nor needed to expect the gilt\nspur, or the laying of a sword upon his shoulder, to stir him up, by\nhis counsel and his arm, to secure and protect\u201d attempted innocence.\n\nHe states these things, he says, \u201cto show, that, though Christianity\nhad been but slightly taught him, yet a certain reservedness of\nnatural disposition and moral discipline, learned out of the\nnoblest philosophy, was enough to keep him in disdain of far less\nincontinences than these,\u201d that had been charged on him. In like\nspirit, he replies to the suspicious calumny respecting his morning\nhaunts. \u201cThose morning haunts are where they should be, at home; not\nsleeping, or concocting the surfeits of an irregular feast, but up\nand stirring, in winter, often ere the sound of any bell awake men\nto labor or devotion; in summer, as oft with the bird that first\nrouses, or not much tardier, to read good authors, or cause them to\nbe read, till the attention be weary, or memory have its perfect\nfraught; then with useful and generous labors preserving the body\u2019s\nhealth and hardiness, to render lightsome, clear, and not lumpish\nobedience to the mind, to the cause of religion and our country\u2019s\nliberty, when it shall require firm hearts in sound bodies to stand\nand cover their stations. These are the morning practices.\u201d This\nnative honor never forsook him. It is the spirit of \u201cComus,\u201d the\nloftiest song in the praise of chastity that is in any language.\nIt always sparkles in his eyes. It breathed itself over his decent\nform. It refined his amusements, which consisted in gardening, in\nexercise with the sword, and in playing on the organ. It engaged\nhis interest in chivalry, in courtesy, in whatsoever savored of\ngenerosity and nobleness. This magnanimity shines in all his life. He\naccepts a high impulse at every risk, and deliberately undertakes the\ndefence of the English people, when advised by his physicians that\nhe does it at the cost of sight. There is a forbearance even in his\npolemics. He opens the war and strikes the first blow. When he had\ncut down his opponents, he left the details of death and plunder to\nmeaner partisans. He said, \u201che had learned the prudence of the Roman\nsoldier, not to stand breaking of legs, when the breath was quite out\nof the body.\u201d\n\nTo this antique heroism, Milton added the genius of the Christian\nsanctity. Few men could be cited who have so well understood what\nis peculiar in the Christian ethics, and the precise aid it has\nbrought to men, in being an emphatic affirmation of the omnipotence\nof spiritual laws, and, by way of marking the contrast to vulgar\nopinions, laying its chief stress on humility. The indifferency of\na wise mind to what is called high and low, and the fact that true\ngreatness is a perfect humility, are revelations of Christianity\nwhich Milton well understood. They give an inexhaustible truth to\nall his compositions. His firm grasp of this truth is his weapon\nagainst the prelates. He celebrates in the martyrs \u201cthe unresistible\nmight of weakness.\u201d He told the bishops that \u201cinstead of showing the\nreason of their lowly condition from divine example and command,\nthey seek to prove their high pre\u00ebminence from human consent and\nauthority.\u201d He advises that in country places, rather than to trudge\nmany miles to a church, public worship be maintained nearer home, as\nin a house or barn. \u201cFor, notwithstanding the gaudy superstition of\nsome still devoted ignorantly to temples, we may be well assured,\nthat he who disdained not to be born in a manger, disdains not to\nbe preached in a barn.\u201d And the following passage, in the \u201cReason\nof Church Government,\u201d indicates his own perception of the doctrine\nof humility. \u201cAlbeit I must confess to be half in doubt whether I\nshould bring it forth or no, it being so contrary to the eye of the\nworld, that I shall endanger either not to be regarded, or not to\nbe understood. For who is there, almost, that measures wisdom by\nsimplicity, strength by suffering, dignity by lowliness?\u201d Obeying\nthis sentiment, Milton deserved the apostrophe of Wordsworth:\u2014\n\n      \u201cPure as the naked heavens, majestic, free,\n       So didst thou travel on life\u2019s common way\n       In cheerful godliness; and yet thy heart\n       The lowliest duties on itself did lay.\u201d\n\nHe laid on himself the lowliest duties. Johnson petulantly taunts\nMilton with \u201cgreat promise and small performance,\u201d in returning\nfrom Italy because his country was in danger, and then opening a\nprivate school. Milton, wiser, felt no absurdity in this conduct.\nHe returned into his revolutionized country, and assumed an honest\nand useful task, by which he might serve the state daily, whilst he\nlaunched from time to time his formidable bolts against the enemies\nof liberty. He felt the heats of that \u201clove\u201d which \u201cesteems no office\nmean.\u201d He compiled a logic for boys; he wrote a grammar; and devoted\nmuch of his time to the preparing of a Latin dictionary. But the\nreligious sentiment warmed his writings and conduct with the highest\naffection of faith. The memorable covenant, which in his youth, in\nthe second book of the \u201cReason of Church Government,\u201d he makes with\nGod and his reader, expressed the faith of his old age. For the first\ntime since many ages, the invocations of the Eternal Spirit in the\ncommencement of his books are not poetic forms, but are thoughts, and\nso are still read with delight. His views of choice of profession,\nand choice in marriage, equally expect a divine leading.\n\nThus chosen, by the felicity of his nature and of his breeding, for\nthe clear perception of all that is graceful and all that is great\nin man, Milton was not less happy in his times. His birth fell upon\nthe agitated years when the discontents of the English Puritans\nwere fast drawing to a head against the tyranny of the Stuarts. No\nperiod has surpassed that in the general activity of mind. It is said\nthat no opinion, no civil, religious, moral dogma can be produced,\nthat was not broached in the fertile brain of that age. Questions\nthat involve all social and personal rights were hasting to be\ndecided by the sword, and were searched by eyes to which the love of\nfreedom, civil and religious, lent new illumination. Milton, gentle,\nlearned, delicately bred in all the elegancy of art and learning,\nwas set down in England in the stern, almost fanatic society of the\nPuritans. The part he took, the zeal of his fellowship, make us\nacquainted with the greatness of his spirit as in tranquil times we\ncould not have known it. Susceptible as Burke to the attractions\nof historical prescription, of royalty, of chivalry, of an ancient\nchurch illustrated by old martyrdoms and installed in cathedrals,\u2014he\nthrew himself, the flower of elegancy, on the side of the reeking\nconventicle; the side of humanity, but unlearned and unadorned. His\nmuse was brave and humane, as well as sweet. He felt the dear love\nof native land and native language. The humanity which warms his\npages begins as it should, at home. He preferred his own English,\nso manlike he was, to the Latin, which contained all the treasures\nof his memory. \u201cMy mother bore me,\u201d he said, \u201ca speaker of what God\nmade mine own, and not a translator.\u201d He told the Parliament, that\n\u201cthe imprimaturs of Lambeth House had been writ in Latin; for that\nour English, the language of men ever famous and foremost in the\nachievements of liberty, will not easily find servile letters enow\nto spell such a dictatory presumption.\u201d At one time he meditated\nwriting a poem on the settlement of Britain, and a history of England\nwas one of the three main tasks which he proposed to himself. He\nproceeded in it no further than to the Conquest. He studied with\ncare the character of his countrymen, and once in the \u201cHistory,\u201d and\nonce again in the \u201cReason of Church Government,\u201d he has recorded his\njudgment of the English genius.\n\nThus drawn into the great controversies of the times, in them he is\nnever lost in a party. His private opinions and private conscience\nalways distinguish him. That which drew him to the party was his love\nof liberty, ideal liberty; this therefore he could not sacrifice to\nany party. Toland tells us, \u201cAs he looked upon true and absolute\nfreedom to be the greatest happiness of this life, whether to\nsocieties or single persons, so he thought constraint of any sort to\nbe the utmost misery; for which reason be used to tell those about\nhim the entire satisfaction of his mind, that he had constantly\nemployed his strength and faculties in the defence of liberty, and in\ndirect opposition to slavery.\u201d Truly he was an apostle of freedom;\nof freedom in the house, in the state, in the church; freedom of\nspeech, freedom of the press, yet in his own mind discriminated from\nsavage license, because that which he desired was the liberty of\nthe wise man, containing itself in the limits of virtue. He pushed,\nas far as any in that democratic age, his ideas of _civil_ liberty.\nHe proposed to establish a republic, of which the federal power was\nweak and loosely defined, and the substantial power should remain\nwith primary assemblies. He maintained, that a nation may try, judge,\nand slay their king, if he be a tyrant. He pushed as far his views\nof _ecclesiastical_ liberty. He taught the doctrine of unlimited\ntoleration. One of his tracts is writ to prove that no power on\nearth can compel in matters of religion. He maintained the doctrine\nof _literary_ liberty, denouncing the censorship of the press, and\ninsisting that a book shall come into the world as freely as a man,\nso only it bear the name of author or printer, and be responsible for\nitself like a man. He maintained the doctrine of _domestic_ liberty,\nor the liberty of divorce, on the ground that unfit disposition of\nmind was a better reason for the act of divorce than infirmity of\nbody, which was good ground in law. The tracts he wrote on these\ntopics are, for the most part, as fresh and pertinent to-day as they\nwere then. The events which produced them, the practical issues\nto which they tend, are mere occasions for this philanthropist to\nblow his trumpet for human rights. They are all varied applications\nof one principle, the liberty of the wise man. He sought absolute\ntruth, not accommodating truth. His opinions on all subjects are\nformed for man as he ought to be, for a nation of Miltons. He would\nbe divorced when he finds in his consort unfit disposition; knowing\nthat he should not abuse that liberty, because with his whole heart\nhe abhors licentiousness and loves chastity. He defends the slaying\nof the king, because a king is a king no longer than he governs\nby the laws; \u201cit would be right to kill Philip of Spain making an\ninroad into England, and what right the king of Spain hath to govern\nus at all, the same hath the king Charles to govern tyrannically.\u201d\nHe would remove hirelings out of the church, and support preachers\nby voluntary contributions; requiring that such only should preach\nas have faith enough to accept so self-denying and precarious a\nmode of life, scorning to take thought for the aspects of prudence\nand expediency. The most devout man of his time, he frequented no\nchurch; probably from a disgust at the fierce spirit of the pulpits.\nAnd so, throughout all his actions and opinions, is he a consistent\nspiritualist, or believer in the omnipotence of spiritual laws. He\nwished that his writings should be communicated only to those who\ndesired to see them. He thought nothing honest was low. He thought\nhe could be famous only in proportion as he enjoyed the approbation\nof the good. He admonished his friend \u201cnot to admire military\nprowess, or things in which force is of most avail. For it would not\nbe matter of rational wonder, if the wethers of our country should\nbe born with horns that could batter down cities and towns. Learn to\nestimate great characters, not by the amount of animal strength, but\nby the habitual justice and temperance of their conduct.\u201d\n\nWas there not a fitness in the undertaking of such a person to write\na poem on the subject of Adam, the first man? By his sympathy with\nall nature; by the proportion of his powers; by great knowledge, and\nby religion, he would reascend to the height from which our nature is\nsupposed to have descended. From a just knowledge of what man should\nbe, he described what he was. He beholds him as he walked in Eden:\u2014\n\n      \u201cHis fair large front and eye sublime declared\n       Absolute rule; and hyacinthine locks\n       Round from his parted forelock manly hung\n       Clustering, but not beneath his shoulders broad.\u201d\n\nAnd the soul of this divine creature is excellent as his form. The\ntone of his thought and passion is as healthful, as even, and as\nvigorous, as befits the new and perfect model of a race of gods.\n\nThe perception we have attributed to Milton, of a purer ideal of\nhumanity, modifies his poetic genius. The man is paramount to\nthe poet. His fancy is never transcendent, extravagant; but, as\nBacon\u2019s imagination was said to be \u201cthe noblest that ever contented\nitself to minister to the understanding,\u201d so Milton\u2019s ministers\nto the character. Milton\u2019s sublimest song, bursting into heaven\nwith its peals of melodious thunder, is the voice of Milton still.\nIndeed, throughout his poems, one may see under a thin veil, the\nopinions, the feelings, even the incidents of the poet\u2019s life, still\nreappearing. The sonnets are all occasional poems. \u201cL\u2019Allegro\u201d and\n\u201cIl Penseroso\u201d are but a finer autobiography of his youthful fancies\nat Harefield; the \u201cComus\u201d a transcript, in charming numbers, of that\nphilosophy of chastity, which, in the \u201cApology for Smectymnuus,\u201d and\nin the \u201cReason of Church Government,\u201d he declares to be his defence\nand religion. The \u201cSamson Agonistes\u201d is too broad an expression\nof his private griefs to be mistaken, and is a version of the\n\u201cDoctrine and Discipline of Divorce.\u201d The most affecting passages in\n\u201cParadise Lost\u201d are personal allusions; and, when we are fairly in\nEden, Adam and Milton are often difficult to be separated. Again,\nin \u201cParadise Regained,\u201d we have the most distinct marks of the\nprogress of the poet\u2019s mind, in the revision and enlargement of his\nreligious opinions. This may be thought to abridge his praise as a\npoet. It is true of Homer and Shakspeare that they do not appear\nin their poems; that those prodigious geniuses did cast themselves\nso totally into their song, that their individuality vanishes, and\nthe poet towers to the sky, whilst the man quite disappears. The\nfact is memorable. Shall we say that in our admiration and joy in\nthese wonderful poems we have even a feeling of regret that the men\nknew not what they did; that they were too passive in their great\nservice; were channels through which streams of thought flowed from\na higher source, which they did not appropriate, did not blend with\ntheir own being? Like prophets, they seem but imperfectly aware of\nthe import of their own utterances. We hesitate to say such things,\nand say them only to the unpleasing dualism, when the man and the\npoet show like a double consciousness. Perhaps we speak to no fact,\nbut to mere fables, of an idle mendicant Homer, and of a Shakspeare\ncontent with a mean and jocular way of life. Be it how it may, the\ngenius and office of Milton were different, namely, to ascend by\nthe aids of his learning and his religion,\u2014by an equal perception,\nthat is, of the past and the future,\u2014to a higher insight and more\nlively delineation of the heroic life of man. This was his poem;\nwhereof all his indignant pamphlets and all his soaring verses are\nonly single cantos or detached stanzas. It was plainly needful that\nhis poetry should be a version of his own life, in order to give\nweight and solemnity to his thoughts; by which they might penetrate\nand possess the imagination and the will of mankind. The creations\nof Shakspeare are cast into the world of thought to no further end\nthan to delight. Their intrinsic beauty is their excuse for being.\nMilton, fired \u201cwith dearest charity to infuse the knowledge of good\nthings into others,\u201d tasked his giant imagination and exhausted the\nstores of his intellect for an end beyond, namely, to teach. His\nown conviction it is which gives such authority to his strain. Its\nreality is its force. If out of the heart it came, to the heart it\nmust go. What schools and epochs of common rhymers would it need to\nmake a counterbalance to the severe oracles of his muse:\n\n      \u201cIn them is plainest taught and easiest learnt,\n       What makes a nation happy, and keeps it so.\u201d\n\nThe lover of Milton reads one sense in his prose and in his metrical\ncompositions; and sometimes the muse soars highest in the former,\nbecause the thought is more sincere. Of his prose in general, not\nthe style alone but the argument also is poetic; according to Lord\nBacon\u2019s definition of poetry, following that of Aristotle, \u201cPoetry,\nnot finding the actual world exactly conformed to its idea of good\nand fair, seeks to accommodate the shows of things to the desires\nof the mind, and to create an ideal world better than the world of\nexperience.\u201d Such certainly is the explanation of Milton\u2019s tracts.\nSuch is the apology to be entered for the plea for freedom of\ndivorce; an essay, which, from the first until now, has brought a\ndegree of obloquy on his name. It was a sally of the extravagant\nspirit of the time, overjoyed, as in the French Revolution, with the\nsudden victories it had gained, and eager to carry on the standard\nof truth to new heights. It is to be regarded as a poem on one of\nthe griefs of man\u2019s condition, namely, unfit marriage. And as many\npoems have been written upon unfit society, commending solitude, yet\nhave not been proceeded against, though their end was hostile to the\nstate; so should this receive that charity which an angelic soul,\nsuffering more keenly than others from the unavoidable evils of human\nlife, is entitled to.\n\nWe have offered no apology for expanding to such length our\ncommentary on the character of John Milton; who, in old age, in\nsolitude, in neglect, and blind, wrote the Paradise Lost; a man whom\nlabor or danger never deterred from whatever efforts a love of the\nsupreme interests of man prompted. For are we not the better; are\nnot all men fortified by the remembrance of the bravery, the purity,\nthe temperance, the toil, the independence and the angelic devotion\nof this man, who, in a revolutionary age, taking counsel only of\nhimself, endeavored, in his writings and in his life, to carry out\nthe life of man to new heights of spiritual grace and dignity,\nwithout any abatement of its strength?\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[4] Reprinted from the _North American Review_, July, 1838.\n\n\n\n\nPAPERS FROM THE DIAL.\n\n\n      The tongue is prone to lose the way;\n        Not so the pen, for in a letter\n      We have not better things to say,\n        But surely say them better.\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration: (decorative banner)]\n\n\n\n\nPAPERS FROM THE DIAL.\n\n\nI.\n\nTHOUGHTS ON MODERN LITERATURE.[5]\n\nIn our fidelity to the higher truth we need not disown our debt, in\nour actual state of culture, in the twilights of experience, to these\nrude helpers. They keep alive the memory and the hope of a better\nday. When we flout all particular books as initial merely, we truly\nexpress the privilege of spiritual nature, but alas, not the fact\nand fortune of this low Massachusetts and Boston, of these humble\nJunes and Decembers of mortal life. Our souls are not self-fed, but\ndo eat and drink of chemical water and wheat. Let us not forget the\ngenial miraculous force we have known to proceed from a book. We go\nmusing into the vault of day and night; no constellation shines, no\nmuse descends, the stars are white points, the roses brick-colored\nleaves, and frogs pipe, mice cheep, and wagons creak along the road.\nWe return to the house and take up Plutarch or Augustine, and read a\nfew sentences or pages, and lo! the air swims with life, secrets of\nmagnanimity and grandeur invite us on every hand, life is made up of\nthem. Such is our debt to a book. Observe moreover that we ought to\ncredit literature with much more than the bare word it gives us. I\nhave just been reading poems which now in memory shine with a certain\nsteady, warm, autumnal light. That is not in their grammatical\nconstruction which they give me. If I analyze the sentences it\neludes me, but is the genius and suggestion of the whole. Over every\ntrue poem lingers a certain wild beauty, immeasurable; a happiness\nlightsome and delicious fills the heart and brain, as they say\nevery man walks environed by his proper atmosphere, extending to\nsome distance around him. This beautiful result must be credited to\nliterature also in casting its account.\n\nIn looking at the library of the Present Age, we are first\nstruck with the fact of the immense miscellany. It can hardly be\ncharacterized by any species of book, for every opinion, old and new,\nevery hope and fear, every whim and folly has an organ. It exhibits\na vast carcass of tradition every year with as much solemnity as a\nnew revelation. Along with these it vents books that breathe of new\nmorning, that seem to heave with the life of millions, books for\nwhich men and women peak and pine; books which take the rose out of\nthe cheek of him that wrote them, and give him to the midnight a sad,\nsolitary, diseased man; which leave no man where they found him, but\nmake him better or worse; and which work dubiously on society and\nseem to inoculate it with a venom before any healthy result appears.\n\nIn order to any complete view of the literature of the present age,\nan inquiry should include what it quotes, what it writes and what it\nwishes to write. In our present attempt to enumerate some traits of\nthe recent literature, we shall have somewhat to offer on each of\nthese topics, but we cannot promise to set in very exact order what\nwe have to say.\n\nIn the first place it has all books. It reprints the wisdom of the\nworld. How can the age be a bad one which gives me Plato and Paul and\nPlutarch, St. Augustine, Spinoza, Chapman, Beaumont and Fletcher,\nDonne and Sir Thomas Browne, beside its own riches? Our presses groan\nevery year with new editions of all the select pieces of the first\nof mankind,\u2014meditations, history, classifications, opinions, epics,\nlyrics, which the age adopts by quoting them. If we should designate\nfavorite studies in which the age delights more than in the rest of\nthis great mass of the permanent literature of the human race, one\nor two instances would be conspicuous. First; the prodigious growth\nand influence of the genius of Shakspeare, in the last one hundred\nand fifty years, is itself a fact of the first importance. It almost\nalone has called out the genius of the German nation into an activity\nwhich spreading from the poetic into the scientific, religious and\nphilosophical domains, has made theirs now at last the paramount\nintellectual influence of the world, reacting with great energy on\nEngland and America. And thus, and not by mechanical diffusion, does\nan original genius work and spread himself.\n\nThe poetry and speculation of the age are marked by a certain\nphilosophic turn, which discriminates them from the works of earlier\ntimes. The poet is not content to see how \u201cFair hangs the apple\nfrom the rock,\u201d \u201cWhat music a sunbeam awoke in the groves,\u201d nor\nof Hardiknute, how \u201cStately steppes he east the way, and stately\nsteppes he west,\u201d but he now revolves, What is the apple to me? and\nwhat the birds to me? and what is Hardiknute to me? and what am I?\nAnd this is called subjectiveness, as the eye is withdrawn from the\nobject and fixed on the subject or mind.\n\nWe can easily concede that a steadfast tendency of this sort appears\nin modern literature. It is the new consciousness of the one mind,\nwhich predominates in criticism. It is the uprise of the soul, and\nnot the decline. It is founded on that insatiable demand for unity,\nthe need to recognize one nature in all the variety of objects, which\nalways characterizes a genius of the first order. Accustomed always\nto behold the presence of the universe in every part, the soul will\nnot condescend to look at any new part as a stranger, but saith,\u2014\u201cI\nknow all already, and what art thou? Show me thy relations to me, to\nall, and I will entertain thee also.\u201d\n\nThere is a pernicious ambiguity in the use of the term _subjective_.\nWe say, in accordance with the general view I have stated, that the\nsingle soul feels its right to be no longer confounded with numbers,\nbut itself to sit in judgment on history and literature, and to\nsummon all facts and parties before its tribunal. And in this sense\nthe age is subjective.\n\nBut, in all ages, and now more, the narrow-minded have no interest\nin anything but in its relation to their personality. What\nwill help them to be delivered from some burden, eased in some\ncircumstance, flattered or pardoned or enriched; what will help to\nmarry or to divorce them, to prolong or to sweeten life, is sure\nof their interest; and nothing else. Every form under the whole\nheaven they behold in this most partial light or darkness of\nintense selfishness, until we hate their being. And this habit of\nintellectual selfishness has acquired in our day the fine name of\nsubjectiveness.\n\nNor is the distinction between these two habits to be found in the\ncircumstance of using the first person singular, or reciting facts\nand feelings of personal history. A man may say I, and never refer\nto himself as an individual; and a man may recite passages of his\nlife with no feeling of egotism. Nor need a man have a vicious\nsubjectiveness because he deals in abstract propositions.\n\nBut the criterion which discriminates these two habits in the poet\u2019s\nmind is the tendency of his composition; namely, whether it leads\nus to nature, or to the person of the writer. The great always\nintroduce us to facts; small men introduce us always to themselves.\nThe great man, even whilst he relates a private fact personal to him,\nis really leading us away from him to an universal experience. His\nown affection is in nature, in _what is_, and, of course, all his\ncommunication leads outward to it, starting from whatsoever point.\nThe great never with their own consent become a load on the minds\nthey instruct. The more they draw us to them, the farther from them\nor more independent of them we are, because they have brought us to\nthe knowledge of somewhat deeper than both them and us. The great\nnever hinder us; for their activity is coincident with the sun and\nmoon, with the course of the rivers and of the winds, with the stream\nof laborers in the street and with all the activity and well-being of\nthe race. The great lead us to nature, and in our age to metaphysical\nnature, to the invisible awful facts, to moral abstractions, which\nare not less nature than is a river or a coal-mine,\u2014nay, they are\nfar more nature,\u2014but its essence and soul.\n\nBut the weak and wicked, led also to analyze, saw nothing in thought\nbut luxury. Thought for the selfish became selfish. They invited us\nto contemplate nature, and showed us an abominable self. Would you\nknow the genius of the writer? Do not enumerate his talents or his\nfeats, but ask thyself, What spirit is he of? Do gladness and hope\nand fortitude flow from his page into thy heart? Has he led thee to\nnature because his own soul was too happy in beholding her power and\nlove? Or is his passion for the wilderness only the sensibility of\nthe sick, the exhibition of a talent which only shines whilst you\npraise it; which has no root in the character, and can thus minister\nto the vanity but not to the happiness of the possessor; and which\nderives all its _\u00e9clat_ from our conventional education, but would\nnot make itself intelligible to the wise man of another age or\ncountry? The water we wash with never speaks of itself, nor does\nfire or wind or tree. Neither does the noble natural man: he yields\nhimself to your occasion and use, but his act expresses a reference\nto universal good.\n\nAnother element of the modern poetry akin to this subjective\ntendency, or rather the direction of that same on the question of\nresources, is the Feeling of the Infinite. Of the perception now fast\nbecoming a conscious fact,\u2014that there is One Mind, and that all the\npowers and privileges which lie in any, lie in all; that I as a man\nmay claim and appropriate whatever of true or fair or good or strong\nhas anywhere been exhibited; that Moses and Confucius, Montaigne and\nLeibnitz are not so much individuals as they are parts of man and\nparts of me, and my intelligence proves them my own,\u2014literature is\nfar the best expression. It is true, this is not the only nor the\nobvious lesson it teaches. A selfish commerce and government have\ncaught the eye and usurped the hand of the masses. It is not to be\ncontested that selfishness and the senses write the laws under which\nwe live, and that the street seems to be built and the men and women\nin it moving, not in reference to pure and grand ends, but rather to\nvery short and sordid ones. Perhaps no considerable minority, no one\nman, leads a quite clean and lofty life. What then? We concede in\nsadness the fact. But we say that these low customary ways are not\nall that survives in human beings. There is that in us which mutters,\nand that which groans, and that which triumphs, and that which\naspires. There are facts on which men of the world superciliously\nsmile, which are worth all their trade and politics; which drive\nyoung men into gardens and solitary places, and cause extravagant\ngestures, starts, distortions of the countenance, and passionate\nexclamations; sentiments, which find no aliment or language for\nthemselves on the wharves, in court, or market, but which are soothed\nby silence, by darkness, by the pale stars, and the presence of\nnature. All over the modern world the educated and susceptible have\nbetrayed their discontent with the limits of our municipal life,\nand with the poverty of our dogmas of religion and philosophy. They\nbetray this impatience by fleeing for resource to a conversation with\nnature, which is courted in a certain moody and exploring spirit,\nas if they anticipated a more intimate union of man with the world\nthan has been known in recent ages. Those who cannot tell what they\ndesire or expect, still sigh and struggle with indefinite thoughts\nand vast wishes. The very child in the nursery prattles mysticism,\nand doubts and philosophizes. A wild striving to express a more\ninward and infinite sense characterizes the works of every art. The\nmusic of Beethoven is said, by those who understand it, to labor with\nvaster conceptions and aspirations than music has attempted before.\nThis feeling of the Infinite has deeply colored the poetry of the\nperiod. This new love of the vast, always native in Germany, was\nimported into France by De Sta\u00ebl, appeared in England in Coleridge,\nWordsworth, Byron, Shelley, Felicia Hemans, and finds a most genial\nclimate in the American mind. Scott and Crabbe, who formed themselves\non the past, had none of this tendency; their poetry is objective. In\nByron, on the other hand, it predominates; but in Byron it is blind,\nit sees not its true end\u2014an infinite good, alive and beautiful, a\nlife nourished on absolute beatitudes, descending into nature to\nbehold itself reflected there. His will is perverted, he worships\nthe accidents of society, and his praise of nature is thieving and\nselfish.\n\nNothing certifies the prevalence of this taste in the people more\nthan the circulation of the poems,\u2014one would say most incongruously\nunited by some bookseller,\u2014of Coleridge, Shelley and Keats. The only\nunity is in the subjectiveness and the aspiration common to the three\nwriters. Shelley, though a poetic mind, is never a poet. His muse is\nuniformly imitative; all his poems composite. A good English scholar\nhe is, with ear, taste, and memory; much more, he is a character\nfull of noble and prophetic traits; but imagination, the original,\nauthentic fire of the bard, he has not. He is clearly modern, and\nshares with Richter, Chateaubriand, Manzoni and Wordsworth, the\nfeeling of the infinite, which so labors for expression in their\ndifferent genius. But all his lines are arbitrary, not necessary.\nWhen we read poetry, the mind asks,\u2014Was this verse one of twenty\nwhich the author might have written as well; or is this what that\nman was created to say? But, whilst every line of the true poet will\nbe genuine, he is in a boundless power and freedom to say a million\nthings. And the reason why he can say one thing well, is because his\nvision extends to the sight of all things, and so he describes each\nas one who knows many and all.\n\nThe fame of Wordsworth is a leading fact in modern literature, when\nit is considered how hostile his genius at first seemed to the\nreigning taste, and with what limited poetic talents his great and\nsteadily growing dominion has been established. More than any poet\nhis success has been not his own but that of the idea which he shared\nwith his coevals, and which he has rarely succeeded in adequately\nexpressing. The Excursion awakened in every lover of Nature the right\nfeeling. We saw stars shine, we felt the awe of mountains, we heard\nthe rustle of the wind in the grass, and knew again the ineffable\nsecret of solitude. It was a great joy. It was nearer to Nature than\nanything we had before. But the interest of the poem ended almost\nwith the narrative of the influences of Nature on the mind of the\nBoy, in the First Book. Obviously for that passage the poem was\nwritten, and with the exception of this and of a few strains of the\nlike character in the sequel, the whole poem was dull. Here was no\npoem, but here was poetry, and a sure index where the subtle muse was\nabout to pitch her tent and find the argument of her song. It was\nthe human soul in these last ages striving for a just publication of\nitself. Add to this, however, the great praise of Wordsworth, that\nmore than any other contemporary bard he is pervaded with a reverence\nof somewhat higher than (conscious) thought. There is in him that\nproperty common to all great poets, a wisdom of humanity, which is\nsuperior to any talents which they exert. It is the wisest part of\nShakspeare and of Milton. For they are poets by the free course\nwhich they allow to the informing soul, which through their eyes\nbeholdeth again and blesseth the things which it hath made. The soul\nis superior to its knowledge, wiser than any of its works.\n\nWith the name of Wordsworth rises to our recollection the name of\nhis contemporary and friend, Walter Savage Landor\u2014a man working\nin a very different and peculiar spirit, yet one whose genius and\naccomplishments deserve a wiser criticism than we have yet seen\napplied to them, and the rather that his name does not readily\nassociate itself with any school of writers. Of Thomas Carlyle, also,\nwe shall say nothing at this time, since the quality and energy of\nhis influence on the youth of this country will require at our hands,\nerelong, a distinct and faithful acknowledgment.\n\nBut of all men he who has united in himself, and that in the most\nextraordinary degree, the tendencies of the era, is the German poet,\nnaturalist and philosopher, Goethe. Whatever the age inherited\nor invented, he made his own. He has owed to Commerce and to the\nvictories of the Understanding, all their spoils. Such was his\ncapacity, that the magazines of the world\u2019s ancient or modern\nwealth, which arts and intercourse and skepticism could command,\u2014he\nwanted them all. Had there been twice so much, he could have used\nit as well. Geologist, mechanic, merchant, chemist, king, radical,\npainter, composer,\u2014all worked for him, and a thousand men seemed to\nlook through his eyes. He learned as readily as other men breathe.\nOf all the men of this time, not one has seemed so much at home in\nit as he. He was not afraid to live. And in him this encyclop\u00e6dia of\nfacts, which it has been the boast of the age to compile, wrought\nan equal effect. He was knowing; he was brave; he was clean from\nall narrowness; he has a perfect propriety and taste,\u2014a quality by\nno means common to the German writers. Nay, since the earth as we\nsaid had become a reading-room, the new opportunities seem to have\naided him to be that resolute realist he is, and seconded his sturdy\ndetermination to see things for what they are. To look at him one\nwould say there was never an observer before. What sagacity, what\nindustry of observation. To read his record is a frugality of time,\nfor you shall find no word that does not stand for a thing, and he is\nof that comprehension which can see the value of truth. His love of\nNature has seemed to give a new meaning to that word. There was never\nman more domesticated in this world than he. And he is an apology for\nthe analytic spirit of the period, because, of his analysis, always\nwholes were the result. All conventions, all traditions he rejected.\nAnd yet he felt his entire right and duty to stand before and try\nand judge every fact in nature. He thought it necessary to dot round\nwith his own pen the entire sphere of knowables; and for many of his\nstories, this seems the only reason: Here is a piece of humanity I\nhad hitherto omitted to sketch;\u2014take this. He does not say so in\nsyllables,\u2014yet a sort of conscientious feeling he had to be _up_ to\nthe universe, is the best account and apology for many of them. He\nshared also the subjectiveness of the age, and that too in both the\nsenses I have discriminated. With the sharpest eye for form, color,\nbotany, engraving, medals, persons and manners, he never stopped at\nsurface, but pierced the purpose of a thing and studied to reconcile\nthat purpose with his own being. What he could so reconcile was good;\nwhat he could not, was false. Hence a certain greatness encircles\nevery fact he treats; for to him it has a soul, an eternal reason\nwhy it was so, and not otherwise. This is the secret of that deep\nrealism, which went about among all objects he beheld, to find the\ncause why they must be what they are. It was with him a favorite\ntask to find a theory of every institution, custom, art, work of\nart, which he observed. Witness his explanation of the Italian mode\nof reckoning the hours of the day, as growing out of the Italian\nclimate; of the obelisk of Egypt, as growing out of a common natural\nfracture in the granite parallelopiped in Upper Egypt; of the Doric\narchitecture, and the Gothic; of the Venetian music of the gondolier,\noriginating in the habit of the fishers\u2019 wives of the Lido singing\non shore to their husbands on the sea; of the amphitheatre, which\nis the enclosure of the natural cup of heads that arranges itself\nround every spectacle in the street; of the coloring of Titian and\nPaul Veronese, which one may verify in common daylight in Venice\nevery afternoon; of the Carnival at Rome; of the domestic rural\narchitecture in Italy; and many the like examples.\n\nBut also that other vicious subjectiveness, that vice of the\ntime, infected him also. We are provoked with his Olympian\nself-complacency, the patronizing air with which he vouchsafes to\ntolerate the genius and performances of other mortals, \u201cthe good\nHiller,\u201d \u201cour excellent Kant,\u201d \u201cthe friendly Wieland,\u201d &c. &c. There\nis a good letter from Wieland to Merck, in which Wieland relates that\nGoethe read to a select party his journal of a tour in Switzerland\nwith the Grand Duke, and their passage through the Vallais and over\nthe St. Gothard. \u201cIt was,\u201d says Wieland, \u201cas good as Xenophon\u2019s\nAnabasis. The piece is one of his most masterly productions, and is\nthought and written with the greatness peculiar to him. The fair\nhearers were enthusiastic at the nature in this piece; I liked the\nsly art in the composition, whereof they saw nothing, still better.\nIt is a true poem, so concealed is the art too. But what most\nremarkably in this, as in all his other works, distinguishes him from\nHomer and Shakspeare, is, that the Me, the _Ille ego_, everywhere\nglimmers through, although without any boasting and with an infinite\nfineness.\u201d This subtle element of egotism in Goethe certainly does\nnot seem to deform his compositions, but to lower the moral influence\nof the man. He differs from all the great in the total want of\nfrankness. Who saw Milton, who saw Shakspeare, saw them do their\nbest, and utter their whole heart manlike among their brethren. No\nman was permitted to call Goethe brother. He hid himself, and worked\nalways to astonish, which is egotism, and therefore little.\n\nIf we try Goethe by the ordinary canons of criticism, we should\nsay that his thinking is of great altitude, and all level; not a\nsuccession of summits, but a high Asiatic table-land. Dramatic power,\nthe rarest talent in literature, he has very little. He has an eye\nconstant to the fact of life and that never pauses in its advance.\nBut the great felicities, the miracles of poetry, he has never. It\nis all design with him, just thought and instructed expression,\nanalogies, allusion, illustration, which knowledge and correct\nthinking supply; but of Shakspeare and the transcendent muse, no\nsyllable. Yet in the court and law to which we ordinarily speak,\nand without adverting to absolute standards, we claim for him the\npraise of truth, of fidelity to his intellectual nature. He is the\nking of all scholars. In these days and in this country, where the\nscholars are few and idle, where men read easy books and sleep after\ndinner, it seems as if no book could so safely be put in the hands\nof young men as the letters of Goethe, which attest the incessant\nactivity of this man, to eighty years, in an endless variety of\nstudies, with uniform cheerfulness and greatness of mind. They cannot\nbe read without shaming us into an emulating industry. Let him have\nthe praise of the love of truth. We think, when we contemplate the\nstupendous glory of the world, that it were life enough for one man\nmerely to lift his hands and cry with St. Augustine, \u201cWrangle who\npleases, I will wonder.\u201d Well, this he did. Here was a man who, in\nthe feeling that the thing itself was so admirable as to leave all\ncomment behind, went up and down, from object to object, lifting\nthe veil from every one, and did no more. What he said of Lavater,\nmay trulier be said of him, that \u201cit was fearful to stand in the\npresence of one before whom all the boundaries within which Nature\nhas circumscribed our being were laid flat.\u201d His are the bright and\nterrible eyes which meet the modern student in every sacred chapel of\nthought, in every public enclosure.\n\nBut now, that we may not seem to dodge the question which all men\nask, nor pay a great man so ill a compliment as to praise him only\nin the conventional and comparative speech, let us honestly record\nour thought upon the total worth and influence of this genius.\nDoes he represent, not only the achievement of that age in which\nhe lived, but that which it would be and is now becoming? And what\nshall we think of that absence of the moral sentiment, that singular\nequivalence to him of good and evil in action, which discredit his\ncompositions to the pure? The spirit of his biography, of his poems,\nof his tales, is identical, and we may here set down by way of\ncomment on his genius the impressions recently awakened in us by the\nstory of Wilhelm Meister.\n\nAll great men have written proudly, nor cared to explain. They knew\nthat the intelligent reader would come at last, and would thank them.\nSo did Dante, so did Machiavel. Goethe has done this in Meister.\nWe can fancy him saying to himself:\u2014There are poets enough of the\nIdeal; let me paint the Actual, as, after years of dreams, it will\nstill appear and reappear to wise men. That all shall right itself\nin the long Morrow, I may well allow, and my novel may wait for the\nsame regeneration. The age, that can damn it as false and falsifying,\nwill see that it is deeply one with the genius and history of all\nthe centuries. I have given my characters a bias to error. Men have\nthe same. I have let mischance befall instead of good fortune. They\ndo so daily. And out of many vices and misfortunes, I have let a\ngreat success grow, as I had known in my own and many other examples.\nFierce churchmen and effeminate aspirants will chide and hate my\nname, but every keen beholder of life will justify my truth, and will\nacquit me of prejudging the cause of humanity by painting it with\nthis morose fidelity. To a profound soul is not austere truth the\nsweetest flattery?\n\nYes, O Goethe! but the ideal is truer than the actual. That is\nephemeral, but this changes not. Moreover, because nature is moral,\nthat mind only can see, in which the same order entirely obtains. An\ninterchangeable Truth, Beauty and Goodness, each wholly interfused in\nthe other, must make the humors of that eye which would see causes\nreaching to their last effect and reproducing the world forever.\nThe least inequality of mixture, the excess of one element over the\nother, in that degree diminishes the transparency of things, makes\nthe world opaque to the observer, and destroys so far the value of\nhis experience. No particular gifts can countervail this defect. In\nreading Meister, I am charmed with the insight; to use a phrase of\nBen Jonson\u2019s, \u201cit is rammed with life.\u201d I find there actual men and\nwomen even too faithfully painted. I am moreover instructed in the\npossibility of a highly accomplished society, and taught to look\nfor great talent and culture under a gray coat. But this is all.\nThe limits of artificial society are never quite out of sight. The\nvicious conventions, which hem us in like prison walls and which\nthe poet should explode at his touch, stand for all they are worth\nin the newspaper. We are never lifted above ourselves, we are not\ntransported out of the dominion of the senses, or cheered with an\ninfinite tenderness, or armed with a grand trust.\n\nGoethe, then, must be set down as the poet of the Actual, not of the\nIdeal; the poet of limitation, not of possibility; of this world,\nand not of religion and hope; in short, if we may say so, the poet\nof prose, and not of poetry. He accepts the base doctrine of Fate,\nand gleans what straggling joys may yet remain out of its ban. He is\nlike a banker or a weaver with a passion for the country; he steals\nout of the hot streets before sunrise, or after sunset, or on a rare\nholiday, to get a draft of sweet air and a gaze at the magnificence\nof summer, but dares not break from his slavery and lead a man\u2019s life\nin a man\u2019s relation to nature. In that which should be his own place,\nhe feels like a truant, and is scourged back presently to his task\nand his cell. Poetry is with Goethe thus external, the gilding of the\nchain, the mitigation of his fate; but the Muse never assays those\nthunder-tones which cause to vibrate the sun and the moon, which\ndissipate by dreadful melody all this iron network of circumstance,\nand abolish the old heavens and the old earth before the freewill or\nGodhead of man. That Goethe had not a moral perception proportionate\nto his other powers, is not then merely a circumstance, as we might\nrelate of a man that he had or had not the sense of tune or an eye\nfor colors, but it is the cardinal fact of health or disease; since,\nlacking this, he failed in the high sense to be a creator, and, with\ndivine endowments, drops by irreversible decree into the common\nhistory of genius. He was content to fall into the track of vulgar\npoets and spend on common aims his splendid endowments, and has\ndeclined the office proffered to now and then a man in many centuries\nin the power of his genius, of a Redeemer of the human mind. He has\nwritten better than other poets only as his talent was subtler, but\nthe ambition of creation he refused. Life for him is prettier,\neasier, wiser, decenter, has a gem or two more on its robe, but its\nold eternal burden is not relieved; no drop of healthier blood flows\nyet in its veins. Let him pass. Humanity must wait for its physician\nstill at the side of the road, and confess as this man goes out, that\nthey have served it better who assured it out of the innocent hope in\ntheir hearts that a Physician will come, than this majestic Artist,\nwith all the treasuries of wit, of science, and of power at his\ncommand.\n\nThe criticism, which is not so much spoken as felt in reference to\nGoethe, instructs us directly in the hope of literature. We feel\nthat a man gifted like him should not leave the world as he found\nit. It is true, though somewhat sad, that every fine genius teaches\nus how to blame himself. Being so much, we cannot forgive him for\nnot being more. When one of these grand monads is incarnated whom\nnature seems to design for eternal men and draw to her bosom, we\nthink that the old weariness of Europe and Asia, the trivial forms\nof daily life will now end, and a new morning break on us all. What\nis Austria? What is England? What is our graduated and petrified\nsocial scale of ranks and employments? Shall not a poet redeem us\nfrom these idolatries, and pale their legendary lustre before the\nfires of the Divine Wisdom which burn in his heart? All that in our\nsovereign moments each of us has divined of the powers of thought,\nall the hints of omnipresence and energy which we have caught, this\nman should unfold, and constitute facts.\n\nAnd this is the insatiable craving which alternately saddens and\ngladdens men at this day. The Doctrine of the Life of Man established\nafter the truth through all his faculties;\u2014this is the thought which\nthe literature of this hour meditates and labors to say. This is that\nwhich tunes the tongue and fires the eye and sits in the silence of\nthe youth. Verily it will not long want articulate and melodious\nexpression. There is nothing in the heart but comes presently to the\nlips. The very depth of the sentiment, which is the author of all the\ncutaneous life we see, is guarantee for the riches of science and\nof song in the age to come. He who doubts whether this age or this\ncountry can yield any contribution to the literature of the world,\nonly betrays his own blindness to the necessities of the human soul.\nHas the power of poetry ceased, or the need? Have the eyes ceased to\nsee that which they would have, and which they have not? Have they\nceased to see other eyes? Are there no lonely, anxious, wondering\nchildren, who must tell their tale? Are we not evermore whipped by\nthoughts;\n\n      \u201cIn sorrow steeped, and steeped in love\n       Of thoughts not yet incarnated.\u201d\n\nThe heart beats in this age as of old, and the passions are busy as\never. Nature has not lost one ringlet of her beauty, one impulse of\nresistance and valor. From the necessity of loving none are exempt,\nand he that loves must utter his desires. A charm as radiant as\nbeauty ever beamed, a love that fainteth at the sight of its object,\nis new to-day.\n\n      \u201cThe world does not run smoother than of old,\n       There are sad haps that must be told.\u201d\n\nMan is not so far lost but that he suffers ever the great Discontent\nwhich is the elegy of his loss and the prediction of his recovery.\nIn the gay saloon he laments that these figures are not what\nRaphael and Guercino painted. Withered though he stand, and trifler\nthough he be, the august spirit of the world looks out from his\neyes. In his heart he knows the ache of spiritual pain, and his\nthought can animate the sea and land. What then shall hinder the\nGenius of the time from speaking its thought? It cannot be silent,\nif it would. It will write in a higher spirit and a wider knowledge\nand with a grander practical aim than ever yet guided the pen of\npoet. It will write the annals of a changed world, and record the\ndescent of principles into practice, of love into Government, of\nlove into Trade. It will describe the new heroic life of man, the\nnow unbelieved possibility of simple living and of clean and noble\nrelations with men. Religion will bind again these that were sometime\nfrivolous, customary, enemies, skeptics, self-seekers, into a joyful\nreverence for the circumambient Whole, and that which was ecstacy\nshall become daily bread.\n\n\nII.\n\nWALTER SAVAGE LANDOR.[6]\n\nWe sometimes meet in a stage coach in New England an erect, muscular\nman, with fresh complexion and a smooth hat, whose nervous speech\ninstantly betrays the English traveller;\u2014a man nowise cautious to\nconceal his name or that of his native country, or his very slight\nesteem for the persons and the country that surround him. When Mr.\nBull rides in an American coach, he speaks quick and strong; he\nis very ready to confess his ignorance of everything about him,\npersons, manners, customs, politics, geography. He wonders that the\nAmericans should build with wood, whilst all this stone is lying in\nthe roadside; and is astonished to learn that a wooden house may last\na hundred years; nor will he remember the fact as many minutes after\nit has been told him: he wonders that they do not make elder-wine and\ncherry-bounce, since here are cherries, and every mile is crammed\nwith elder-bushes. He has never seen a good horse in America, nor a\ngood coach, nor a good inn. Here is very good earth and water and\nplenty of them; that he is free to allow; to all other gifts of\nnature or man his eyes are sealed by the inexorable demand for the\nprecise conveniences to which he is accustomed in England. Add to\nthis proud blindness the better quality of great downrightness in\nspeaking the truth, and the love of fair play, on all occasions, and\nmoreover the peculiarity which is alleged of the Englishman, that his\nvirtues do not come out until he quarrels.\n\nTransfer these traits to a very elegant and accomplished mind, and\nwe shall have no bad picture of Walter Savage Landor, who may stand\nas a favorable impersonation of the genius of his countrymen at the\npresent day. A sharp, dogmatic man, with a great deal of knowledge,\na great deal of worth, and a great deal of pride; with a profound\ncontempt for all that he does not understand; a master of all elegant\nlearning, and capable of the utmost delicacy of sentiment, and\nyet prone to indulge a sort of ostentation of coarse imagery and\nlanguage. His partialities and dislikes are by no means culpable, but\nare often whimsical and amusing; yet they are quite sincere, and,\nlike those of Johnson and Coleridge, are easily separable from the\nman. What he says of Wordsworth is true of himself, that he delights\nto throw a clod of dirt on the table, and cry \u201cGentlemen, there is\na better man than all of you.\u201d Bolivar, Mina and General Jackson\nwill never be greater soldiers than Napoleon and Alexander, let Mr.\nLandor think as he will; nor will he persuade us to burn Plato and\nXenophon, out of our admiration of Bishop Patrick, or \u201cLucas on\nHappiness,\u201d or \u201cLucas on Holiness,\u201d or even Barrow\u2019s Sermons. Yet a\nman may love a paradox without either losing his wit or his honesty.\nA less pardonable eccentricity is the cold and gratuitous obtrusion\nof licentious images, not so much the suggestion of merriment as of\nbitterness. Montaigne assigns as a reason for his license of speech,\nthat he is tired of seeing his Essays on the work-tables of ladies,\nand he is determined they shall for the future put them out of sight.\nIn Mr. Landor\u2019s coarseness there is a certain air of defiance, and\nthe rude word seems sometimes to arise from a disgust at niceness\nand over-refinement. Before a well-dressed company he plunges his\nfingers in a cesspool, as if to expose the whiteness of his hands\nand the jewels of his ring. Afterward, he washes them in water, he\nwashes them in wine; but you are never secure from his freaks. A sort\nof Earl Peterborough in literature, his eccentricity is too decided\nnot to have diminished his greatness. He has capital enough to have\nfurnished the brain of fifty stock authors, yet has written no book.\n\nBut we have spoken all our discontent. Possibly his writings are\nopen to harsher censure; but we love the man, from sympathy as well\nas for reasons to be assigned; and have no wish, if we were able, to\nput an argument in the mouth of his critics. Now for twenty years\nwe have still found the \u201cImaginary Conversations\u201d a sure resource\nin solitude, and it seems to us as original in its form as in its\nmatter. Nay, when we remember his rich and ample page, wherein we are\nalways sure to find free and sustained thought, a keen and precise\nunderstanding, an affluent and ready memory familiar with all chosen\nbooks, an industrious observation in every department of life, an\nexperience to which nothing has occurred in vain, honor for every\njust and generous sentiment and a scourge like that of Furies for\nevery oppressor, whether public or private,\u2014we feel how dignified is\nthis perpetual Censor in his curule chair, and we wish to thank a\nbenefactor of the reading world.\n\nMr. Landor is one of the foremost of that small class who make\ngood in the nineteenth century the claims of pure literature. In\nthese busy days of avarice and ambition, when there is so little\ndisposition to profound thought or to any but the most superficial\nintellectual entertainments, a faithful scholar, receiving from\npast ages the treasures of wit and enlarging them by his own love,\nis a friend and consoler of mankind. When we pronounce the names of\nHomer and \u00c6schylus; Horace, Ovid and Plutarch; Erasmus, Scaliger\nand Montaigne; Ben Jonson and Isaak Walton; Dryden and Pope,\u2014we\npass at once out of trivial associations and enter into a region of\nthe purest pleasure accessible to human nature. We have quitted all\nbeneath the moon and entered that crystal sphere in which everything\nin the world of matter reappears, but transfigured and immortal.\nLiterature is the effort of man to indemnify himself for the wrongs\nof his condition. The existence of the poorest play-wright and the\nhumblest scrivener is a good omen. A charm attaches to the most\ninferior names which have in any manner got themselves enrolled in\nthe registers of the House of Fame, even as porters and grooms in the\ncourts; to Creech and Fenton, Theobald and Dennis, Aubrey and Spence.\nFrom the moment of entering a library and opening a desired book, we\ncease to be citizens, creditors, debtors, housekeepers and men of\ncare and fear. What boundless leisure! what original jurisdiction!\nthe old constellations have set, new and brighter have arisen; an\nElysian light tinges all objects:\u2014\n\n      \u201cIn the afternoon we came unto a land\n       In which it seemed always afternoon.\u201d\n\nAnd this sweet asylum of an intellectual life must appear to have\nthe sanction of nature, as long as so many men are born with so\ndecided an aptitude for reading and writing. Let us thankfully allow\nevery faculty and art which opens new scope to a life so confined\nas ours. There are vast spaces in a thought: a slave, to whom the\nreligious sentiment is opened, has a freedom which makes his master\u2019s\nfreedom a slavery. Let us not be so illiberal with our schemes for\nthe renovation of society and nature as to disesteem or deny the\nliterary spirit. Certainly there are heights in nature which command\nthis; there are many more which this commands. It is vain to call it\na luxury, and as saints and reformers are apt to do, decry it as a\nspecies of day-dreaming. What else are sanctities, and reforms, and\nall other things? Whatever can make for itself an element, means,\norgans, servants, and the most profound and permanent existence\nin the hearts and heads of millions of men, must have a reason\nfor its being. Its excellency is reason and vindication enough. If\nrhyme rejoices us there should be rhyme, as much as if fire cheers\nus we should bring wood and coals. Each kind of excellence takes\nplace for its hour and excludes everything else. Do not brag of your\nactions, as if they were better than Homer\u2019s verses or Raphael\u2019s\npictures. Raphael and Homer feel that action is pitiful beside\ntheir enchantments. They could act too, if the stake was worthy of\nthem: but now all that is good in the universe urges them to their\ntask. Whoever writes for the love of truth and beauty, and not with\nulterior ends, belongs to this sacred class; and among these, few\nmen of the present age have a better claim to be numbered than Mr.\nLandor. Wherever genius or taste has existed, wherever freedom and\njustice are threatened, which he values as the element in which\ngenius may work, his interest is sure to be commanded. His love\nof beauty is passionate, and betrays itself in all petulant and\ncontemptuous expressions.\n\nBut beyond his delight in genius and his love of individual and civil\nliberty, Mr. Landor has a perception that is much more rare, the\nappreciation of character. This is the more remarkable considered\nwith his intense nationality, to which we have already alluded. He is\nbuttoned in English broadcloth to the chin. He hates the Austrians,\nthe Italians, the French, the Scotch, and the Irish. He has the\ncommon prejudices of an English landholder; values his pedigree, his\nacres and the syllables of his name; loves all his advantages, is not\ninsensible to the beauty of his watch seal, or the Turk\u2019s head on\nhis umbrella; yet with all this miscellaneous pride there is a noble\nnature within him which instructs him that he is so rich that he can\nwell spare all his trappings, and, leaving to others the painting\nof circumstance, aspire to the office of delineating character. He\ndraws his own portrait in the costume of a village schoolmaster, and\na sailor, and serenely enjoys the victory of nature over fortune. Not\nonly the elaborated story of Normanby, but the whimsical selection\nof his heads proves this taste. He draws with evident pleasure\nthe portrait of a man who never said anything right and never did\nanything wrong. But in the character of Pericles he has found full\nplay for beauty and greatness of behavior, where the circumstances\nare in harmony with the man. These portraits, though mere sketches,\nmust be valued as attempts in the very highest kind of narrative,\nwhich not only has very few examples to exhibit of any success,\nbut very few competitors in the attempt. The word Character is in\nall mouths; it is a force which we all feel; yet who has analyzed\nit? What is the nature of that subtle and majestic principle which\nattaches us to a few persons, not so much by personal as by the most\nspiritual ties? What is the quality of the persons who, without being\npublic men, or literary men, or rich men, or active men, or (in the\npopular sense) religious men, have a certain salutary omnipresence\nin all our life\u2019s history, almost giving their own quality to the\natmosphere and the landscape? A moral force, yet wholly unmindful of\ncreed and catechism, intellectual, but scornful of books, it works\ndirectly and without means, and though it may be resisted at any\ntime, yet resistance to it is a suicide. For the person who stands\nin this lofty relation to his fellow-men is always the impersonation\nto them of their conscience. It is a sufficient proof of the\nextreme delicacy of this element, evanescing before any but the most\nsympathetic vision, that it has so seldom been employed in the drama\nand in novels. Mr. Landor, almost alone among living English writers,\nhas indicated his perception of it.\n\nThese merits make Mr. Landor\u2019s position in the republic of letters\none of great mark and dignity. He exercises with a grandeur of\nspirit the office of writer, and carries it with an air of old and\nunquestionable nobility. We do not recollect an example of more\ncomplete independence in literary history. He has no clanship, no\nfriendships that warp him. He was one of the first to pronounce\nWordsworth the great poet of the age, yet he discriminates his faults\nwith the greater freedom. He loves Pindar, \u00c6schylus, Euripides,\nAristophanes, Demosthenes, Virgil, yet with open eyes. His position\nis by no means the highest in literature: he is not a poet or a\nphilosopher. He is a man full of thoughts, but not, like Coleridge, a\nman of ideas. Only from a mind conversant with the First Philosophy\ncan definitions be expected. Coleridge has contributed many valuable\nones to modern literature. Mr. Landor\u2019s definitions are only\nenumerations of particulars; the generic law is not seized. But as it\nis not from the highest Alps or Andes but from less elevated summits\nthat the most attractive landscape is commanded, so is Mr. Landor\nthe most useful and agreeable of critics. He has commented on a wide\nvariety of writers, with a closeness and extent of view which has\nenhanced the value of those authors to his readers. His Dialogue on\nthe Epicurean philosophy is a theory of the genius of Epicurus. The\nDialogue between Barrow and Newton is the best of all criticisms on\nthe essays of Bacon. His picture of Demosthenes in three several\nDialogues is new and adequate. He has illustrated the genius of\nHomer, \u00c6schylus, Pindar, Euripides, Thucydides. Then he has examined\nbefore he has expatiated, and the minuteness of his verbal criticism\ngives a confidence in his fidelity when he speaks the language of\nmeditation or of passion. His acquaintance with the English tongue is\nunsurpassed. He \u201chates false words, and seeks with care, difficulty\nand moroseness those that fit the thing.\u201d He knows the value of his\nown words. \u201cThey are not,\u201d he says, \u201cwritten on slate.\u201d He never\nstoops to explanation, nor uses seven words where one will do. He\nis a master of condensation and suppression, and that in no vulgar\nway. He knows the wide difference between compression and an obscure\nelliptical style. The dense writer has yet ample room and choice of\nphrase, and even a gamesome mood often between his valid words. There\nis no inadequacy or disagreeable contraction in his sentence, any\nmore than in a human face, where in a square space of a few inches is\nfound room for every possible variety of expression.\n\nYet it is not as an artist that Mr. Landor commends himself to us.\nHe is not epic or dramatic, he has not the high, overpowering method\nby which the master gives unity and integrity to a work of many\nparts. He is too wilful, and never abandons himself to his genius.\nHis books are a strange mixture of politics, etymology, allegory,\nsentiment, and personal history; and what skill of transition he\nmay possess is superficial, not spiritual. His merit must rest, at\nlast, not on the spirit of the dialogue or the symmetry of any of\nhis historical portraits, but on the value of his sentences. Many of\nthese will secure their own immortality in English literature; and\nthis, rightly considered, is no mean merit. These are not plants and\nanimals, but the genetical atoms of which both are composed. All our\ngreat debt to the Oriental world is of this kind, not utensils and\nstatues of the precious metal, but bullion and gold-dust. Of many of\nMr. Landor\u2019s sentences we are fain to remember what was said of those\nof Socrates; that they are cubes, which will stand firm, place them\nhow or where you will.\n\n\nIII.\n\nPRAYERS.[7]\n\n      \u201cNot with fond shekels of the tested gold,\n       Nor gems whose rates are either rich or poor\n       As fancy values them: but with true prayers,\n       That shall be up at heaven and enter there\n       Ere sunrise; prayers from preserved souls,\n       From fasting maids, whose minds are dedicate\n       To nothing temporal.\u201d               SHAKSPEARE.\n\n\nPythagoras said that the time when men are honestest is when they\npresent themselves before the gods. If we can overhear the prayer we\nshall know the man. But prayers are not made to be overheard, or to\nbe printed, so that we seldom have the prayer otherwise than it can\nbe inferred from the man and his fortunes, which are the answer to\nthe prayer, and always accord with it. Yet there are scattered about\nin the earth a few records of these devout hours, which it would\nedify us to read, could they be collected in a more catholic spirit\nthan the wretched and repulsive volumes which usurp that name. Let\nus not have the prayers of one sect, nor of the Christian Church, but\nof men in all ages and religions who have prayed well. The prayer of\nJesus is (as it deserves) become a form for the human race. Many men\nhave contributed a single expression, a single word to the language\nof devotion, which is immediately caught and stereotyped in the\nprayers of their church and nation. Among the remains of Euripides we\nhave this prayer: \u201cThou God of all! infuse light into the souls of\nmen, whereby they may be enabled to know what is the root from whence\nall their evils spring, and by what means they may avoid them.\u201d In\nthe Ph\u00e6drus of Plato, we find this petition in the mouth of Socrates:\n\u201cO gracious Pan! and ye other gods who preside over this place!\ngrant that I may be beautiful within; and that those external things\nwhich I have may be such as may best agree with a right internal\ndisposition of mine; and that I may account him to be rich, who is\nwise and just.\u201d Wacic the Caliph, who died A. D. 845, ended his life,\nthe Arabian historians tell us, with these words: \u201cO thou whose\nkingdom never passes away, pity one whose dignity is so transient.\u201d\nBut what led us to these remembrances was the happy accident which\nin this undevout age lately brought us acquainted with two or three\ndiaries, which attest, if there be need of attestation, the eternity\nof the sentiment and its equality to itself through all the variety\nof expression. The first is the prayer of a deaf and dumb boy:\u2014\n\n  \u201cWhen my long-attached friend comes to me, I have pleasure\n  to converse with him, and I rejoice to pass my eyes over his\n  countenance; but soon I am weary of spending my time causelessly\n  and unimproved, and I desire to leave him, (but not in rudeness),\n  because I wished to be engaged in my business. But thou, O my\n  Father, knowest I always delight to commune with thee in my lone\n  and silent heart; I am never full of thee; I am never weary of\n  thee; I am always desiring thee. I hunger with strong hope and\n  affection for thee, and I thirst for thy grace and spirit.\n\n  \u201cWhen I go to visit my friends, I must put on my best garments, and\n  I must think of my manner to please them. I am tired to stay long,\n  because my mind is not free, and they sometimes talk gossip with\n  me. But oh, my Father, thou visitest me in my work, and I can lift\n  up my desires to thee, and my heart is cheered and at rest with thy\n  presence, and I am always alone with thee, and thou dost not steal\n  my time by foolishness. I always ask in my heart, where can I find\n  thee?\u201d\n\nThe next is a voice out of a solitude as strict and sacred as that in\nwhich nature had isolated this eloquent mute:\u2014\n\n  \u201cMy Father, when I cannot be cheerful or happy, I can be true\n  and obedient, and I will not forget that joy has been, and may\n  still be. If there is no hour of solitude granted me, still I\n  will commune with thee. If I may not search out and pierce thy\n  thought, so much the more may my living praise thee. At whatever\n  price, I must be alone with thee; this must be the demand I make.\n  These duties are not the life, but the means which enable us to\n  show forth the life. So must I take up this cross, and bear it\n  willingly. Why should I feel reproved when a busy one enters the\n  room? I am not idle, though I sit with folded hands, but instantly\n  I must seek some cover. For that shame I reprove myself. Are they\n  only the valuable members of society who labor to dress and feed\n  it? Shall we never ask the aim of all this hurry and foam, of this\n  aimless activity? Let the purpose for which I live be always before\n  me; let every thought and word go to confirm and illuminate that\n  end; namely, that I must become near and dear to thee; that now I\n  am beyond the reach of all but thee.\n\n  \u201cHow can we not be reconciled to thy will? I will know the joy\n  of giving to my friend the dearest treasure I have. I know that\n  sorrow comes not at once only. We cannot meet it and say, now it is\n  overcome, but again, and yet again, its flood pours over us, and as\n  full as at first.\n\n      \u201cIf but this tedious battle could be fought,\n       Like Sparta\u2019s heroes at one rocky pass,\n       \u2018One day be spent in dying,\u2019 men had sought\n       The spot, and been cut down like mower\u2019s grass.\u201d\n\nThe next is in a metrical form. It is the aspiration of a different\nmind, in quite other regions of power and duty, yet they all accord\nat last.\n\n      \u201cGreat God, I ask thee for no meaner pelf\n       Than that I may not disappoint myself,\n       That in my action I may soar as high,\n       As I can now discern with this clear eye.\n\n      \u201cAnd next in value, which thy kindness lends,\n       That I may greatly disappoint my friends,\n       Howe\u2019er they think or hope that it may be,\n       They may not dream how thou\u2019st distinguished me.\n\n      \u201cThat my weak hand may equal my firm faith,\n       And my life practise more than my tongue saith;\n       That my low conduct may not show,\n       Nor my relenting lines,\n       That I thy purpose did not know,\n       Or overrated thy designs.\u201d\n\nThe last of the four orisons is written in a singularly calm and\nhealthful spirit, and contains this petition:\u2014\n\n  \u201cMy Father: I now come to thee with a desire to thank thee for the\n  continuance of our love, the one for the other. I feel that without\n  thy love in me I should be alone here in the flesh. I cannot\n  express my gratitude for what thou hast been and continuest to be\n  to me. But thou knowest what my feelings are. When nought on earth\n  seemeth pleasant to me, thou dost make thyself known to me, and\n  teach that which is needful for me, and dost cheer my travels on.\n  I know that thou hast not created me and placed me here on earth,\n  amidst its toils and troubles and the follies of those around me,\n  and told me to be like thyself when I see so little of thee here\n  to profit by; thou hast not done this, and then left me here to\n  myself, a poor, weak man, scarcely able to earn my bread. No; thou\n  art my Father and I will love thee, for thou didst first love me,\n  and lovest me still. We will ever be parent and child. Wilt thou\n  give me strength to persevere in this great work of redemption.\n  Wilt thou show me the true means of accomplishing it.... I thank\n  thee for the knowledge that I have attained of thee by thy sons\n  who have been before me, and especially for him who brought me so\n  perfect a type of thy goodness and love to men.... I know that thou\n  wilt deal with me as I deserve. I place myself therefore in thy\n  hand, knowing that thou wilt keep me from harm so long as I consent\n  to live under thy protecting care.\u201d\n\nLet these few scattered leaves, which a chance (as men say, but which\nto us shall be holy) brought under our eye nearly at the same moment,\nstand as an example of innumerable similar expressions which no\nmortal witness has reported, and be a sign of the times. Might they\nbe suggestion to many a heart of yet higher secret experiences which\nare ineffable! But we must not tie up the rosary on which we have\nstrung these few white beads, without adding a pearl of great price\nfrom that book of prayer, the \u201cConfessions of Saint Augustine.\u201d\n\n  \u201cAnd being admonished to reflect upon myself, I entered into the\n  very inward parts of my soul, by thy conduct; and I was able to do\n  it, because now thou wert become my helper. I entered and discerned\n  with the eye of my soul (such as it was), even beyond my soul and\n  mind itself, the Light unchangeable. Not this vulgar light which\n  all flesh may look upon, nor as it were a greater of the same kind,\n  as though the brightness of this should be manifold greater and\n  with its greatness take up all space. Not such was this light, but\n  other, yea, far other from all these. Neither was it so above my\n  understanding as oil swims above water, or as the heaven is above\n  the earth. But it is above me, because it made me; and I am under\n  it, because I was made by it. He that knows truth or verity, knows\n  what that light is, and he that knows it, knows eternity, and it\n  is known by charity. O eternal Verity! and true Charity! and dear\n  Eternity! thou art my God, to thee do I sigh day and night. Thee\n  when I first knew, thou liftedst me up that I might see, there\n  was what I might see, and that I was not yet such as to see. And\n  thou didst beat back my weak sight upon myself, shooting out beams\n  upon me after a vehement manner; and I even trembled between love\n  and horror, and I found myself to be far off, and even in the very\n  region of dissimilitude from thee.\u201d\n\n\nIV.\n\nAGRICULTURE OF MASSACHUSETTS.[8]\n\nIn an afternoon in April, after a long walk, I traversed an\norchard where boys were grafting apple-trees, and found the\nFarmer in his corn-field. He was holding the plough, and his son\ndriving the oxen. This man always impresses me with respect, he\nis so manly, so sweet-tempered, so faithful, so disdainful of all\nappearances,\u2014excellent and reverable in his old weather-worn cap and\nblue frock bedaubed with the soil of the field; so honest withal,\nthat he always needs to be watched lest he should cheat himself. I\nstill remember with some shame that in some dealing we had together a\nlong time ago, I found that he had been looking to my interest in the\naffair, and I had been looking to my interest, and nobody had looked\nto his part. As I drew near this brave laborer in the midst of his\nown acres, I could not help feeling for him the highest respect. Here\nis the C\u00e6sar, the Alexander of the soil, conquering and to conquer,\nafter how many and many a hard-fought summer\u2019s day and winter\u2019s day;\nnot like Napoleon, hero of sixty battles only, but of six thousand,\nand out of every one he has come victor; and here he stands, with\nAtlantic strength and cheer, invincible still. These slight and\nuseless city limbs of ours will come to shame before this strong\nsoldier, for his have done his own work and ours too. What good this\nman has or has had, he has earned. No rich father or father-in-law\nleft him any inheritance of land or money. He borrowed the money with\nwhich he bought his farm, and has bred up a large family, given them\na good education, and improved his land in every way year by year,\nand this without prejudice to himself the landlord, for here he is, a\nman every inch of him, and reminds us of the hero of the Robin Hood\nballad,\u2014\n\n            \u201cMuch, the miller\u2019s son,\n      There was no inch of his body\n      But it was worth a groom.\u201d\n\nInnocence and justice have written their names on his brow. Toil\nhas not broken his spirit. His laugh rings with the sweetness and\nhilarity of a child; yet he is a man of a strongly intellectual\ntaste, of much reading, and of an erect good sense and independent\nspirit which can neither brook usurpation nor falsehood in any\nshape. I walked up and down the field, as he ploughed his furrow,\nand we talked as we walked. Our conversation naturally turned on the\nseason and its new labors. He had been reading the Report of the\nAgricultural Survey of the Commonwealth, and had found good things\nin it; but it was easy to see that he felt toward the author much as\nsoldiers do towards the historiographer who follows the camp, more\ngood-nature than reverence for the gownsman.\n\nThe First Report, he said, is better than the last, as I observe the\nfirst sermon of a minister is often his best, for every man has one\nthing which he specially wishes to say, and that comes out at first.\nBut who is this book written for? Not for farmers; no pains are taken\nto send it to them; it was by accident that this volume came into my\nhands for a few days. And it is not for them. They could not afford\nto follow such advice as is given here; they have sterner teachers;\ntheir own business teaches them better. No; this was written for the\nliterary men. But in that case, the state should not be taxed to pay\nfor it. Let us see. The account of the maple sugar,\u2014that is very good\nand entertaining, and, I suppose, true. The story of the farmer\u2019s\ndaughter, whom education had spoiled for everything useful on a\nfarm,\u2014that is good too, and we have much that is like it in Thomas\u2019s\nAlmanack. But why this recommendation of stone houses? They are not\nso cheap, not so dry, and not so fit for us. Our roads are always\nchanging their direction, and after a man has built at great cost a\nstone house, a new road is opened, and he finds himself a mile or two\nfrom the highway. Then our people are not stationary, like those of\nold countries, but always alert to better themselves, and will remove\nfrom town to town as a new market opens or a better farm is to be\nhad, and do not wish to spend too much on their buildings.\n\nThe Commissioner advises the farmers to sell their cattle and their\nhay in the fall, and buy again in the spring. But we farmers always\nknow what our interest dictates, and do accordingly. We have no\nchoice in this matter; our way is but too plain. Down below, where\nmanure is cheap and hay dear, they will sell their oxen in November;\nbut for me to sell my cattle and my produce in the fall, would be to\nsell my farm, for I should have no manure to renew a crop in the\nspring. And thus Necessity farms it; necessity finds out when to go\nto Brighton, and when to feed in the stall, better than Mr. Colman\ncan tell us.\n\nBut especially observe what is said throughout these Reports of\nthe model farms and model farmers. One would think that Mr. D. and\nMajor S. were the pillars of the Commonwealth. The good Commissioner\ntakes off his hat when he approaches them, distrusts the value of\n\u201chis feeble praise,\u201d and repeats his compliments as often as their\nnames are introduced. And yet, in my opinion, Mr. D., with all his\nknowledge and present skill, would starve in two years on any one of\nfifty poor farms in this neighborhood, on each of which now a farmer\nmanages to get a good living. Mr. D. inherited a farm, and spends on\nit every year from other resources; otherwise his farm had ruined\nhim long since;\u2014and as for the Major, he never got rich by his skill\nin making land produce, but in making men produce. The truth is, a\nfarm will not make an honest man rich in money. I do not know of\na single instance in which a man has honestly got rich by farming\nalone. It cannot be done. The way in which men who have farms grow\nrich, is either by other resources, or by trade, or by getting their\nlabor for nothing, or by other methods of which I could tell you\nmany sad anecdotes. What does the Agricultural Surveyor know of all\nthis? What can he know? He is the victim of the \u201cReports\u201d that are\nsent him, of particular farms. He cannot go behind the estimates to\nknow how the contracts were made, and how the sales were effected.\nThe true men of skill, the poor farmers, who, by the sweat of their\nface, without an inheritance and without offence to their conscience\nhave reared a family of valuable citizens and matrons to the state,\nreduced a stubborn soil to a good farm,\u2014although their buildings are\nmany of them shabby, are the only right subjects of this Report; yet\nthese make no figure in it. These should be holden up to imitation,\nand their methods detailed; yet their houses are very uninviting\nand inconspicuous to State Commissioners. So with these premiums\nto farms, and premiums at cattle-shows. The class that I describe\nmust pay the premium which is awarded to the rich. Yet the premium\nobviously ought to be given for the good management of a poor farm.\n\nIn this strain the Farmer proceeded, adding many special criticisms.\nHe had a good opinion of the Surveyor, and acquitted him of any\nblame in the matter, but was incorrigible in his skepticism\nconcerning the benefits conferred by legislatures on the agriculture\nof Massachusetts. I believe that my friend is a little stiff and\ninconvertible in his own opinions, and that there is another side to\nbe heard; but so much wisdom seemed to lie under all his statement\nthat it deserved a record.\n\n\nV.\n\nEUROPE AND EUROPEAN BOOKS.[9]\n\nIt was a brighter day than we have often known in our literary\ncalendar, when within a twelvemonth a single London advertisement\nannounced a new volume of poems by Wordsworth, poems by Tennyson, and\na play by Henry Taylor. Wordsworth\u2019s nature or character has had\nall the time it needed in order to make its mark and supply the want\nof talent. We have learned how to read him. We have ceased to expect\nthat which he cannot give. He has the merit of just moral perception,\nbut not that of deft poetic execution. How would Milton curl his lip\nat such slipshod newspaper style. Many of his poems, as for example\nthe Rylstone Doe, might be all improvised. Nothing of Milton, nothing\nof Marvell, of Herbert, of Dryden, could be. These are such verses\nas in a just state of culture should be _vers de soci\u00e9t\u00e9_, such\nas every gentleman could write but none would think of printing,\nor of claiming the poet\u2019s laurel on their merit. The Pindar, the\nShakspeare, the Dante, whilst they have the just and open soul, have\nalso the eye to see the dimmest star that glimmers in the Milky Way,\nthe serratures of every leaf, the test-objects of the microscope, and\nthen the tongue to utter the same things in words that engrave them\non all the ears of mankind. The poet demands all gifts, and not one\nor two only.\n\nThe poet, like the electric rod, must reach from a point nearer the\nsky than all surrounding objects, down to the earth, and into the\ndark wet soil, or neither is of use. The poet must not only converse\nwith pure thought, but he must demonstrate it almost to the senses.\nHis words must be pictures, his verses must be spheres and cubes, to\nbe seen and smelled and handled. His fable must be a good story, and\nits meaning must hold as pure truth. In the debates on the Copyright\nBill, in the English Parliament, Mr. Sergeant Wakley, the coroner,\nquoted Wordsworth\u2019s poetry in derision, and asked the roaring House\nof Commons what that meant, and whether a man should have public\nreward for writing such stuff. Homer, Horace, Milton and Chaucer\nwould defy the coroner. Whilst they have wisdom to the wise, he\nwould see that to the external they have external meaning. Coleridge\nexcellently said of poetry, that poetry must first be good sense; as\na palace might well be magnificent, but first it must be a house.\n\nWordsworth is open to ridicule of this kind. And yet Wordsworth,\nthough satisfied if he can suggest to a sympathetic mind his own\nmood, and though setting a private and exaggerated value on his\ncompositions; though confounding his accidental with the universal\nconsciousness, and taking the public to task for not admiring\nhis poetry,\u2014is really a master of the English language, and his\npoems evince a power of diction that is no more rivalled by his\ncontemporaries than is his poetic insight. But the capital merit\nof Wordsworth is that he has done more for the sanity of this\ngeneration than any other writer. Early in life, at a crisis it is\nsaid in his private affairs, he made his election between assuming\nand defending some legal rights, with the chances of wealth and a\nposition in the world,\u2014and the inward promptings of his heavenly\ngenius; he took his part; he accepted the call to be a poet, and sat\ndown, far from cities, with coarse clothing and plain fare to obey\nthe heavenly vision. The choice he had made in his will, manifested\nitself in every line to be real. We have poets who write the poetry\nof society, of the patrician and conventional Europe, as Scott and\nMoore, and others who, like Byron or Bulwer, write the poetry of\nvice and disease. But Wordsworth threw himself into his place, made\nno reserves or stipulations; man and writer were not to be divided.\nHe sat at the foot of Helvellyn and on the margin of Windermere,\nand took their lustrous mornings and their sublime midnights for\nhis theme, and not Marlow, nor Massinger, not Horace, nor Milton,\nnor Dante. He once for all forsook the styles and standards and\nmodes of thinking of London and Paris, and the books read there, and\nthe aims pursued, and wrote Helvellyn and Windermere, and the dim\nspirits which these haunts harbored. There was not the least attempt\nto reconcile these with the spirit of fashion and selfishness, nor\nto show, with great deference to the superior judgment of dukes\nand earls, that although London was the home for men of great\nparts, yet Westmoreland had these consolations for such as fate had\ncondemned to the country life,\u2014but with a complete satisfaction\nhe pitied and rebuked their false lives, and celebrated his own\nwith the religion of a true priest. Hence the antagonism which was\nimmediately felt between his poetry and the spirit of the age, that\nhere not only criticism but conscience and will were parties; the\nspirit of literature and the modes of living and the conventional\ntheories of the conduct of life were called in question on wholly\nnew grounds,\u2014not from Platonism, not from Christianity, but from the\nlessons which the country muse taught a stout pedestrian climbing\na mountain and following a river from its parent rill down to the\nsea. The Cannings and Jeffreys of the capital, the Court Journals\nand Literary Gazettes were not well pleased, and voted the poet a\nbore. But that which rose in him so high as to the lips, rose in many\nothers as high as to the heart. What he said, they were prepared to\nhear and confirm. The influence was in the air, and was wafted up\nand down into lone and into populous places, resisting the popular\ntaste, modifying opinions which it did not change, and soon came\nto be felt in poetry, in criticism, in plans of life, and at last\nin legislation. In this country it very early found a stronghold,\nand its effect may be traced on all the poetry both of England and\nAmerica.\n\nBut, notwithstanding all Wordsworth\u2019s grand merits, it was a great\npleasure to know that Alfred Tennyson\u2019s two volumes were coming\nout in the same ship; it was a great pleasure to receive them. The\nelegance, the wit and subtlety of this writer, his rich fancy, his\npower of language, his metrical skill, his independence of any\nliving masters, his peculiar topics, his taste for the costly and\ngorgeous, discriminate the musky poet of gardens and conservatories,\nof parks and palaces. Perhaps we felt the popular objection that\nhe wants rude truth; he is too fine. In these boudoirs of damask\nand alabaster, one is farther off from stern nature and human life\nthan in \u201cLalla Rookh\u201d and \u201cThe Loves of the Angels.\u201d Amid swinging\ncensers and perfumed lamps, amidst velvet and glory we long for rain\nand frost. Otto-of-roses is good, but wild air is better. A critical\nfriend of ours affirms that the vice which bereaved modern painters\nof their power, is the ambition to begin where their fathers ended;\nto equal the masters in their exquisite finish, instead of their\nreligious purpose. The painters are not willing to paint ill enough;\nthey will not paint for their times, agitated by the spirit which\nagitates their country; so should their picture picture us and draw\nall men after them; but they copy the technics of their predecessors,\nand paint for their predecessors\u2019 public. It seems as if the same\nvice had worked in poetry. Tennyson\u2019s compositions are not so much\npoems as studies in poetry, or sketches after the styles of sundry\nold masters. He is not the husband, who builds the homestead after\nhis own necessity, from foundation-stone to chimney-top and turret,\nbut a tasteful bachelor who collects quaint staircases and groined\nceilings. We have no right to such superfineness. We must not make\nour bread of pure sugar. These delicacies and splendors are then\nlegitimate when they are the excess of substantial and necessary\nexpenditure. The best songs in English poetry are by that heavy,\nhard, pedantic poet, Ben Jonson. Jonson is rude, and only on rare\noccasions gay. Tennyson is always fine; but Jonson\u2019s beauty is\nmore grateful than Tennyson\u2019s. It is a natural manly grace of a\nrobust workman. Ben\u2019s flowers are not in pots at a city florist\u2019s,\narranged on a flower-stand, but he is a countryman at a harvest-home,\nattending his ox-cart from the fields, loaded with potatoes and\napples, with grapes and plums, with nuts and berries, and stuck\nwith boughs of hemlock and sweetbriar, with ferns and pond lilies\nwhich the children have gathered. But let us not quarrel with our\nbenefactors. Perhaps Tennyson is too quaint and elegant. What then?\nIt is long since we have had as good a lyrist; it will be long before\nwe have his superior. \u201cGodiva\u201d is a noble poem that will tell the\nlegend a thousand years. The poem of all the poetry of the present\nage for which we predict the longest term, is \u201cAbou ben Adhem,\u201d of\nLeigh Hunt. Fortune will still have her part in every victory, and\nit is strange that one of the best poems should be written by a man\nwho has hardly written any other. And \u201cGodiva\u201d is a parable which\nbelongs to the same gospel. \u201cLocksley Hall\u201d and \u201cThe Two Voices\u201d\nare meditative poems, which were slowly written to be slowly read.\n\u201cThe Talking Oak,\u201d though a little hurt by its wit and ingenuity, is\nbeautiful, and the most poetic of the volume. \u201cUlysses\u201d belongs to\na high class of poetry, destined to be the highest, and to be more\ncultivated in the next generation. \u201c\u0152none\u201d was a sketch of the same\nkind. One of the best specimens we have of the class is Wordsworth\u2019s\n\u201cLaodamia,\u201d of which no special merit it can possess equals the total\nmerit of having selected such a subject in such a spirit.\n\nNext to the poetry, the novels, which come to us in every ship from\nEngland, have an importance increased by the immense extension of\ntheir circulation through the new cheap press, which sends them\nto so many willing thousands. We have heard it alleged with some\nevidence that the prominence given to intellectual power in Bulwer\u2019s\nromances has proved a main stimulus to mental culture in thousands\nof young men in England and America. The effect on manners cannot be\nless sensible, and we can easily believe that the behavior of the\nball-room and of the hotel has not failed to draw some addition of\ndignity and grace from the fair ideals with which the imagination of\na novelist has filled the heads of the most imitative class.\n\nWe are not very well versed in these books, yet we have read Mr.\nBulwer enough to see that the story is rapid and interesting; he has\nreally seen London society, and does not draw ignorant caricatures.\nHe is not a genius, but his novels are marked with great energy and\nwith a courage of experiment which in each instance had its degree\nof success. The story of Zanoni was one of those world-fables which\nis so agreeable to the human imagination that it is found in some\nform in the language of every country, and is always reappearing\nin literature. Many of the details of this novel preserve a poetic\ntruth. We read Zanoni with pleasure, because magic is natural. It\nis implied in all superior culture that a complete man would need\nno auxiliaries to his personal presence. The eye and the word are\ncertainly far subtler and stronger weapons than either money or\nknives. Whoever looked on the hero would consent to his will, being\ncertified that his aims were universal, not selfish; and he would\nbe obeyed as naturally as the rain and the sunshine are. For this\nreason, children delight in fairy tales. Nature is described in\nthem as the servant of man, which they feel ought to be true. But\nZanoni pains us and the author loses our respect, because he speedily\nbetrays that he does not see the true limitations of the charm;\nbecause the power with which his hero is armed is a toy, inasmuch as\nthe power does not flow from its legitimate fountains in the mind, is\na power for London; a divine power converted into a burglar\u2019s false\nkey or a highwayman\u2019s pistol to rob and kill with.\n\nBut Mr. Bulwer\u2019s recent stories have given us who do not read novels,\noccasion to think of this department of literature, supposed to\nbe the natural fruit and expression of the age. We conceive that\nthe obvious division of modern romance is into two kinds: first,\nthe novels of costume or of circumstance, which is the old style,\nand vastly the most numerous. In this class, the hero, without any\nparticular character, is in a very particular circumstance; he is\ngreatly in want of a fortune or of a wife, and usually of both, and\nthe business of the piece is to provide him suitably. This is the\nproblem to be solved in thousands of English romances, including the\nPorter novels and the more splendid examples of the Edgeworth and\nScott romances.\n\nIt is curious how sleepy and foolish we are, that these tales will\nso take us. Again and again we have been caught in that old foolish\ntrap. Had one noble thought opening the chambers of the intellect,\none sentiment from the heart of God been spoken by them, the reader\nhad been made a participator of their triumph; he too had been an\ninvited and eternal guest; but this reward granted them is property,\nall-excluding property, a little cake baked for them to eat and\nfor none other, nay, a preference and cosseting which is rude and\ninsulting to all but the minion.\n\nExcept in the stories of Edgeworth and Scott, whose talent knew how\nto give to the book a thousand adventitious graces, the novels of\ncostume are all one, and there is but one standard English novel,\nlike the one orthodox sermon, which with slight variation is repeated\nevery Sunday from so many pulpits.\n\nBut the other novel, of which \u201cWilhelm Meister\u201d is the best specimen,\nthe novel of _character_, treats the reader with more respect; the\ndevelopment of character being the problem, the reader is made a\npartaker of the whole prosperity. Everything good in such a story\nremains with the reader when the book is closed. A noble book was\n\u201cWilhelm Meister.\u201d It gave the hint of a cultivated society which we\nfound nowhere else. It was founded on power to do what was necessary,\neach person finding it an indispensable qualification of membership\nthat he could do something useful, as in mechanics or agriculture\nor other indispensable art; then a probity, a justice was to be\nits element, symbolized by the insisting that each property should\nbe cleared of privilege, and should pay its full tax to the state.\nThen a perception of beauty was the equally indispensable element of\nthe association, by which each was dignified and all were dignified;\nthen each was to obey his genius to the length of abandonment. They\nwatched each candidate vigilantly, without his knowing that he\nwas observed, and when he had given proof that he was a faithful\nman, then all doors, all houses, all relations were open to him;\nhigh behavior fraternized with high behavior, without question of\nheraldry, and the only power recognized is the force of character.\n\nThe novels of Fashion, of D\u2019Israeli, Mrs. Gore, Mr. Ward, belong to\nthe class of novels of costume, because the aim is purely external\nsuccess. Of the tales of fashionable life, by far the most agreeable\nand the most efficient was Vivian Grey. Young men were and still are\nthe readers and victims. Byron ruled for a time, but Vivian, with\nno tithe of Byron\u2019s genius, rules longer. One can distinguish the\nVivians in all companies. They would quiz their father and mother and\nlover and friend. They discuss sun and planets, liberty and fate,\nlove and death, over the soup. They never sleep, go nowhere, stay\nnowhere, eat nothing, and know nobody, but are up to anything, though\nit were the genesis of nature, or the last cataclysm,\u2014Festus-like,\nFaust-like, Jove-like, and could write an Iliad any rainy morning,\nif fame were not such a bore. Men, women, though the greatest\nand fairest, are stupid things; but a rifle, and a mild pleasant\ngunpowder, a spaniel, and a cheroot, are themes for Olympus. I fear\nit was in part the influence of such pictures on living society\nwhich made the style of manners of which we have so many pictures,\nas, for example, in the following account of the English fashionist.\n\u201cHis highest triumph is to appear with the most wooden manners,\nas little polished as will suffice to avoid castigation, nay, to\ncontrive even his civilities so that they may appear as near as\nmay be to affronts; instead of a noble high-bred ease, to have the\ncourage to offend against every restraint of decorum, to invert the\nrelation in which our sex stand to women, so that they appear the\nattacking, and he the passive or defensive party.\u201d\n\nWe must here check our gossip in mid volley and adjourn the rest of\nour critical chapter to a more convenient season.\n\n\nVI.\n\nPAST AND PRESENT.[10]\n\nHere is Carlyle\u2019s new poem, his Iliad of English woes, to follow his\npoem on France, entitled the History of the French Revolution. In its\nfirst aspect it is a political tract, and since Burke, since Milton,\nwe have had nothing to compare with it. It grapples honestly with the\nfacts lying before all men, groups and disposes them with a master\u2019s\nmind, and, with a heart full of manly tenderness, offers his best\ncounsel to his brothers. Obviously it is the book of a powerful and\naccomplished thinker, who has looked with naked eyes at the dreadful\npolitical signs in England for the last few years, has conversed much\non these topics with such wise men of all ranks and parties as are\ndrawn to a scholar\u2019s house, until such daily and nightly meditation\nhas grown into a great connection, if not a system of thoughts;\nand the topic of English politics becomes the best vehicle for the\nexpression of his recent thinking, recommended to him by the desire\nto give some timely counsels, and to strip the worst mischiefs of\ntheir plausibility. It is a brave and just book, and not a semblance.\n\u201cNo new truth,\u201d say the critics on all sides. Is it so? Truth is very\nold, but the merit of seers is not to invent but to dispose objects\nin their right places, and he is the commander who is always in the\nmount, whose eye not only sees details, but throws crowds of details\ninto their right arrangement and a larger and juster totality than\nany other. The book makes great approaches to true contemporary\nhistory, a very rare success, and firmly holds up to daylight the\nabsurdities still tolerated in the English and European system. It\nis such an appeal to the conscience and honor of England as cannot\nbe forgotten, or be feigned to be forgotten. It has the merit which\nbelongs to every honest book, that it was self-examining before it\nwas eloquent, and so hits all other men, and, as the country people\nsay of good preaching, \u201ccomes bounce down into every pew.\u201d Every\nreader shall carry away something. The scholar shall read and write,\nthe farmer and mechanic shall toil, with new resolution, nor forget\nthe book when they resume their labor.\n\nThough no theocrat, and more than most philosophers a believer in\npolitical systems, Mr. Carlyle very fairly finds the calamity of the\ntimes, not in bad bills of Parliament, nor the remedy in good bills,\nbut the vice in false and superficial aims of the people, and the\nremedy in honesty and insight. Like every work of genius, its great\nvalue is in telling such simple truths. As we recall the topics, we\nare struck with the force given to the plain truths; the picture of\nthe English nation all sitting enchanted, the poor, enchanted so that\nthey cannot work, the rich, enchanted so that they cannot enjoy, and\nare rich in vain; the exposure of the progress of fraud into all arts\nand social activities; the proposition that the laborer must have\na greater share in his earnings; that the principle of permanence\nshall be admitted into all contracts of mutual service; that the\nstate shall provide at least schoolmaster\u2019s education for all the\ncitizens; the exhortation to the workman that he shall respect the\nwork and not the wages; to the scholar that he shall be there for\nlight; to the idle, that no man shall sit idle; the picture of Abbot\nSamson, the true governor, who \u201cis not there to expect reason and\nnobleness of others, he is there to give them of his own reason\nand nobleness;\u201d and the assumption throughout the book, that a new\nchivalry and nobility, namely the dynasty of labor, is replacing the\nold nobilities. These things strike us with a force which reminds\nus of the morals of the Oriental or early Greek masters, and of no\nmodern book. Truly in these things is great reward. It is not by\nsitting still at a grand distance and calling the human race _larv\u00e6_,\nthat men are to be helped, nor by helping the depraved after their\nown foolish fashion, but by doing unweariedly the particular work we\nwere born to do. Let no man think himself absolved because he does a\ngenerous action and befriends the poor, but let him see whether he so\nholds his property that a benefit goes from it to all. A man\u2019s diet\nshould be what is simplest and readiest to be had, because it is\nso private a good. His house should be better, because that is for\nthe use of hundreds, perhaps of thousands, and is the property of\nthe traveller. But his speech is a perpetual and public instrument;\nlet that always side with the race and yield neither a lie nor a\nsneer. His manners,\u2014let them be hospitable and civilizing, so that\nno Phidias or Raphael shall have taught anything better in canvas or\nstone; and his acts should be representative of the human race, as\none who makes them rich in his having, and poor in his want.\n\nIt requires great courage in a man of letters to handle the\ncontemporary practical questions; not because he then has all men\nfor his rivals, but because of the infinite entanglements of the\nproblem, and the waste of strength in gathering unripe fruits. The\ntask is superhuman; and the poet knows well that a little time will\ndo more than the most puissant genius. Time stills the loud noise of\nopinions, sinks the small, raises the great, so that the true emerges\nwithout effort and in perfect harmony to all eyes; but the truth of\nthe present hour, except in particulars and single relations, is\nunattainable. Each man can very well know his own part of duty, if\nhe will; but to bring out the truth for beauty, and as literature,\nsurmounts the powers of art. The most elaborate history of to-day\nwill have the oddest dislocated look in the next generation. The\nhistorian of to-day is yet three ages off. The poet cannot descend\ninto the turbid present without injury to his rarest gifts. Hence\nthat necessity of isolation which genius has always felt. He must\nstand on his glass tripod, if he would keep his electricity.\n\nBut when the political aspects are so calamitous that the sympathies\nof the man overpower the habits of the poet, a higher than literary\ninspiration may succor him. It is a costly proof of character, that\nthe most renowned scholar of England should take his reputation in\nhis hand and should descend into the ring; and he has added to his\nlove whatever honor his opinions may forfeit. To atone for this\ndeparture from the vows of the scholar and his eternal duties to\nthis secular charity, we have at least this gain, that here is a\nmessage which those to whom it was addressed cannot choose but hear.\nThough they die, they must listen. It is plain that whether by hope\nor by fear, or were it only by delight in this panorama of brilliant\nimages, all the great classes of English society must read, even\nthose whose existence it proscribes. Poor Queen Victoria,\u2014poor Sir\nRobert Peel, poor Primate and Bishops,\u2014poor Dukes and Lords! There\nis no help in place or pride or in looking another way; a grain of\nwit is more penetrating than the lightning of the night-storm, which\nno curtains or shutters will keep out. Here is a book which will be\nread, no thanks to anybody but itself. What pains, what hopes, what\nvows, shall come of the reading! Here is a book as full of treason as\nan egg is full of meat, and every lordship and worship and high form\nand ceremony of English conservatism tossed like a foot-ball into the\nair, and kept in the air, with merciless kicks and rebounds, and yet\nnot a word is punishable by statute. The wit has eluded all official\nzeal; and yet these dire jokes, these cunning thrusts, this flaming\nsword of Cherubim waved high in air, illuminates the whole horizon,\nand shows to the eyes of the universe every wound it inflicts. Worst\nof all for the party attacked, it bereaves them beforehand of all\nsympathy, by anticipating the plea of poetic and humane conservatism,\nand impressing the reader with the conviction that the satirist\nhimself has the truest love for everything old and excellent in\nEnglish land and institutions, and a genuine respect for the basis of\ntruth in those whom he exposes.\n\nWe are at some loss how to state what strikes us as the fault of\nthis remarkable book, for the variety and excellence of the talent\ndisplayed in it is pretty sure to leave all special criticism in the\nwrong. And we may easily fail in expressing the general objection\nwhich we feel. It appears to us as a certain disproportion in the\npicture, caused by the obtrusion of the whims of the painter. In\nthis work, as in his former labors, Mr. Carlyle reminds us of a sick\ngiant. His humors are expressed with so much force of constitution\nthat his fancies are more attractive and more credible than the\nsanity of duller men. But the habitual exaggeration of the tone\nwearies whilst it stimulates. It is felt to be so much deduction\nfrom the universality of the picture. It is not serene sunshine, but\neverything is seen in lurid storm-lights. Every object attitudinizes,\nto the very mountains and stars almost, under the refraction of this\nwonderful humorist; and instead of the common earth and sky, we have\na Martin\u2019s Creation or Judgment Day. A crisis has always arrived\nwhich requires a _deus ex machin\u00e2_. One can hardly credit, whilst\nunder the spell of this magician, that the world always had the same\nbankrupt look, to foregoing ages as to us,\u2014as of a failed world just\nre-collecting its old withered forces to begin again and try to do a\nlittle business. It was perhaps inseparable from the attempt to write\na book of wit and imagination on English politics, that a certain\nlocal emphasis and love of effect, such as is the vice of preaching,\nshould appear,\u2014producing on the reader a feeling of forlornness by\nthe excess of value attributed to circumstances. But the splendor\nof wit cannot outdazzle the calm daylight, which always shows every\nindividual man in balance with his age, and able to work out his own\nsalvation from all the follies of that, and no such glaring contrasts\nor severalties in that or this. Each age has its own follies, as its\nmajority is made up of foolish young people; its superstitions appear\nno superstitions to itself; and if you should ask the contemporary,\nhe would tell you, with pride or with regret, (according as he was\npractical or poetic), that he had none. But after a short time, down\ngo its follies and weakness and the memory of them; its virtues alone\nremain, and its limitation assumes the poetic form of a beautiful\nsuperstition, as the dimness of our sight clothes the objects in the\nhorizon with mist and color. The revelation of Reason is this of the\nunchangeableness of the fact of humanity under all its subjective\naspects; that to the cowering it always cowers, to the daring it\nopens great avenues. The ancients are only venerable to us because\ndistance has destroyed what was trivial; as the sun and stars affect\nus only grandly, because we cannot reach to their smoke and surfaces\nand say, Is that all?\n\nAnd yet the gravity of the times, the manifold and increasing dangers\nof the English State, may easily excuse some over-coloring of the\npicture; and we at this distance are not so far removed from any of\nthe specific evils, and are deeply participant in too many, not to\nshare the gloom and thank the love and courage of the counsellor.\nThis book is full of humanity, and nothing is more excellent in\nthis as in all Mr. Carlyle\u2019s works, than the attitude of the writer.\nHe has the dignity of a man of letters, who knows what belongs to\nhim, and never deviates from his sphere; a continuer of the great\nline of scholars, he sustains their office in the highest credit\nand honor. If the good heaven have any good word to impart to this\nunworthy generation, here is one scribe qualified and clothed for its\noccasion. One excellence he has in an age of Mammon and of criticism,\nthat he never suffers the eye of his wonder to close. Let who will be\nthe dupe of trifles, he cannot keep his eye off from that gracious\nInfinite which embosoms us.\n\nAs a literary artist he has great merits, beginning with the main\none that he never wrote one dull line. How well-read, how adroit,\nwhat thousand arts in his one art of writing; with his expedient\nfor expressing those unproven opinions which he entertains but\nwill not endorse, by summoning one of his men of straw from the\ncell,\u2014and the respectable Sauerteig, or Teufelsdr\u00f6ckh, or Dryasdust,\nor Picturesque Traveller, says what is put into his mouth, and\ndisappears. That morbid temperament has given his rhetoric a somewhat\nbloated character; a luxury to many imaginative and learned persons,\nlike a showery south-wind with its sun-bursts and rapid chasing of\nlights and glooms over the landscape, and yet its offensiveness to\nmultitudes of reluctant lovers makes us often wish some concession\nwere possible on the part of the humorist. Yet it must not be\nforgotten that in all his fun of castanets, or playing of tunes with\na whip-lash like some renowned charioteers,\u2014in all this glad and\nneedful venting of his redundant spirits, he does yet ever and anon,\nas if catching the glance of one wise man in the crowd, quit his\ntempestuous key, and lance at him in clear level tone the very word,\nand then with new glee return to his game. He is like a lover or an\noutlaw who wraps up his message in a serenade, which is nonsense to\nthe sentinel, but salvation to the ear for which it is meant. He does\nnot dodge the question, but gives sincerity where it is due.\n\nOne word more respecting this remarkable style. We have in literature\nfew specimens of magnificence. Plato is the purple ancient, and\nBacon and Milton the moderns of the richest strains. Burke sometimes\nreaches to that exuberant fulness, though deficient in depth.\nCarlyle, in his strange, half-mad way, has entered the Field of the\nCloth of Gold, and shown a vigor and wealth of resource which has no\nrival in the tourney-play of these times;\u2014the indubitable champion\nof England. Carlyle is the first domestication of the modern system,\nwith its infinity of details, into style. We have been civilizing\nvery fast, building London and Paris, and now planting New England\nand India, New Holland and Oregon,\u2014and it has not appeared in\nliterature; there has been no analogous expansion and recomposition\nin books. Carlyle\u2019s style is the first emergence of all this wealth\nand labor with which the world has gone with child so long. London\nand Europe, tunnelled, graded, corn-lawed, with trade-nobility, and\nEast and West Indies for dependencies; and America, with the Rocky\nHills in the horizon, have never before been conquered in literature.\nThis is the first invasion and conquest. How like an air-balloon or\nbird of Jove does he seem to float over the continent, and stooping\nhere and there pounce on a fact as a symbol which was never a symbol\nbefore. This is the first experiment, and something of rudeness\nand haste must be pardoned to so great an achievement. It will be\ndone again and again, sharper, simpler; but fortunate is he who did\nit first, though never so giant-like and fabulous. This grandiose\ncharacter pervades his wit and his imagination. We have never had\nanything in literature so like earthquakes as the laughter of\nCarlyle. He \u201cshakes with his mountain mirth.\u201d It is like the laughter\nof the Genii in the horizon. These jokes shake down Parliament-house\nand Windsor Castle, Temple and Tower, and the future shall echo the\ndangerous peals. The other particular of magnificence is in his\nrhymes. Carlyle is a poet who is altogether too burly in his frame\nand habit to submit to the limits of metre. Yet he is full of rhythm,\nnot only in the perpetual melody of his periods, but in the burdens,\nrefrains, and grand returns of his sense and music. Whatever thought\nor motto has once appeared to him fraught with meaning, becomes an\nomen to him henceforward, and is sure to return with deeper tones and\nweightier import, now as threat, now as confirmation, in gigantic\nreverberation, as if the hills, the horizon, and the next ages\nreturned the sound.\n\n\nVII.\n\nA LETTER.[11]\n\nAs we are very liable, in common with the letter-writing world, to\nfall behindhand in our correspondence; and a little more liable\nbecause in consequence of our editorial function we receive more\nepistles than our individual share, we have thought that we might\nclear our account by writing a quarterly catholic letter to all\nand several who have honored us, in verse or prose, with their\nconfidence, and expressed a curiosity to know our opinion. We shall\nbe compelled to dispose very rapidly of quite miscellaneous topics.\n\nAnd first, in regard to the writer who has given us his speculations\non Rail-roads and Air-roads, our correspondent shall have his own\nway. To the railway, we must say,\u2014like the courageous lord mayor at\nhis first hunting, when told the hare was coming,\u2014\u201cLet it come, in\nHeaven\u2019s name, I am not afraid on\u2019t.\u201d Very unlooked-for political and\nsocial effects of the iron road are fast appearing. It will require\nan expansion of the police of the old world. When a railroad train\nshoots through Europe every day from Brussels to Vienna, from Vienna\nto Constantinople, it cannot stop every twenty or thirty miles at a\nGerman custom-house, for examination of property and passports. But\nwhen our correspondent proceeds to flying-machines, we have no longer\nthe smallest taper-light of credible information and experience left,\nand must speak on _a priori_ grounds.\n\nShortly then, we think the population is not yet quite fit for\nthem, and therefore there will be none. Our friend suggests so many\ninconveniences from piracy out of the high air to orchards and lone\nhouses, and also to other high fliers; and the total inadequacy of\nthe present system of defence, that we have not the heart to break\nthe sleep of the good public by the repetition of these details. When\nchildren come into the library, we put the inkstand and the watch on\nthe high shelf until they be a little older; and Nature has set the\nsun and moon in plain sight and use, but laid them on the high shelf\nwhere her roystering boys may not in some mad Saturday afternoon pull\nthem down or burn their fingers. The sea and the iron road are safer\ntoys for such ungrown people; we are not yet ripe to be birds.\n\nIn the next place, to fifteen letters on Communities, and the\nProspects of Culture, and the destinies of the cultivated class,\u2014what\nanswer? Excellent reasons have been shown us why the writers,\nobviously persons of sincerity and elegance, should be dissatisfied\nwith the life they lead, and with their company. They have exhausted\nall its benefit, and will not bear it much longer. Excellent reasons\nthey have shown why something better should be tried. They want a\nfriend to whom they can speak and from whom they may hear now and\nthen a reasonable word. They are willing to work, so it be with\nfriends. They do not entertain anything absurd or even difficult.\nThey do not wish to force society into hated reforms, nor to break\nwith society. They do not wish a township, or any large expenditure,\nor incorporated association, but simply a concentration of chosen\npeople. By the slightest possible concert, persevered in through\nfour or five years, they think that a neighborhood might be formed\nof friends who would provoke each other to the best activity. They\nbelieve that this society would fill up the terrific chasm of ennui,\nand would give their genius that inspiration which it seems to wait\nin vain.\n\nBut, \u201cthe selfishness!\u201d One of the writers relentingly says, \u201cWhat\nshall my uncles and aunts do without me?\u201d and desires distinctly to\nbe understood not to propose the Indian mode of giving decrepit\nrelatives as much of the mud of holy Ganges as they can swallow, and\nmore, but to begin the enterprise of concentration by concentrating\nall uncles and aunts in one delightful village by themselves!\u2014so\nheedless is our correspondent of putting all the dough into one\npan, and all the leaven into another. Another objection seems to\nhave occurred to a subtle but ardent advocate. Is it, he writes, a\ntoo great wilfulness and intermeddling with life,\u2014with life, which\nis better accepted than calculated? Perhaps so; but let us not be\ntoo curiously good. The Buddhist is a practical Necessitarian; the\nYankee is not. We do a great many selfish things every day; among\nthem all let us do one thing of enlightened selfishness. It were fit\nto forbid concert and calculation in this particular, if that were\nour system, if we were up to the mark of self-denial and faith in\nour general activity. But to be prudent in all the particulars of\nlife, and in this one thing alone religiously forbearing; prudent to\nsecure to ourselves an injurious society, temptations to folly and\ndespair, degrading examples, and enemies; and only abstinent when it\nis proposed to provide ourselves with guides, examples, lovers!\n\nWe shall hardly trust ourselves to reply to arguments by which we\nwould too gladly be persuaded. The more discontent, the better we\nlike it. It is not for nothing, we assure ourselves, that our people\nare busied with these projects of a better social state, and that\nsincere persons of all parties are demanding somewhat vital and\npoetic of our stagnant society. How fantastic and unpresentable\nsoever the theory has hitherto seemed, how swiftly shrinking from the\nexamination of practical men, let us not lose the warning of that\nmost significant dream. How joyfully we have felt the admonition of\nlarger natures which despised our aims and pursuits, conscious that\na voice out of heaven spoke to us in that scorn. But it would be\nunjust not to remind our younger friends that whilst this aspiration\nhas always made its mark in the lives of men of thought, in vigorous\nindividuals it does not remain a detached object, but is satisfied\nalong with the satisfaction of other aims. To live solitary and\nunexpressed, is painful,\u2014painful in proportion to one\u2019s consciousness\nof ripeness and equality to the offices of friendship. But herein we\nare never quite forsaken by the Divine Providence. The loneliest man,\nafter twenty years, discovers that he stood in a circle of friends,\nwho will then show like a close fraternity held by some masonic tie.\nBut we are impatient of the tedious introductions of Destiny, and a\nlittle faithless, and would venture something to accelerate them. One\nthing is plain, that discontent and the luxury of tears will bring\nnothing to pass. Regrets and Bohemian castles and \u00e6sthetic villages\nare not a very self-helping class of productions, but are the voices\nof debility. Especially to one importunate correspondent we must say\nthat there is no chance for the \u00e6sthetic village. Every one of the\nvillagers has committed his several blunder; his genius was good, his\nstars consenting, but he was a marplot. And though the recuperative\nforce in every man may be relied on infinitely, it must be relied on\nbefore it will exert itself. As long as he sleeps in the shade of the\npresent error, the after-nature does not betray its resources. Whilst\nhe dwells in the old sin, he will pay the old fine.\n\nMore letters we have on the subject of the position of young men,\nwhich accord well enough with what we see and hear. There is an\nAmerican disease, a paralysis of the active faculties, which falls\non young men of this country as soon as they have finished their\ncollege education, which strips them of all manly aims and bereaves\nthem of animal spirits; so that the noblest youths are in a few years\nconverted into pale Caryatides to uphold the temple of conventions.\nThey are in the state of the young Persians, when \u201cthat mighty Yezdam\nprophet\u201d addressed them and said, \u201cBehold the signs of evil days are\ncome; there is now no longer any right course of action, nor any\nself-devotion left among the Iranis.\u201d As soon as they have arrived\nat this term, there are no employments to satisfy them, they are\neducated above the work of their times and country, and disdain it.\nMany of the more acute minds pass into a lofty criticism of these\nthings, which only embitters their sensibility to the evil and widens\nthe feeling of hostility between them and the citizens at large. From\nthis cause, companies of the best-educated young men in the Atlantic\nstates every week take their departure for Europe; for no business\nthat they have in that country, but simply because they shall so\nbe hid from the reproachful eyes of their countrymen and agreeably\nentertained for one or two years, with some lurking hope, no doubt,\nthat something may turn up to give them a decided direction. It is\neasy to see that this is only a postponement of their proper work,\nwith the additional disadvantage of a two years\u2019 vacation. Add that\nthis class is rapidly increasing by the infatuation of the active\nclass, who, whilst they regard these young Athenians with suspicion\nand dislike, educate their own children in the same courses, and use\nall possible endeavors to secure to them the same result.\n\nCertainly we are not insensible to this calamity, as described\nby the observers or witnessed by ourselves. It is not quite\nnew and peculiar; though we should not know where to find in\nliterature any record of so much unbalanced intellectuality, such\nundeniable apprehension without talent, so much power without equal\napplicability, as our young men pretend to. Yet in Theodore Mundt\u2019s\naccount of Frederic H\u00f6lderlin\u2019s \u201cHyperion,\u201d we were not a little\nstruck with the following Jeremiad of the despair of Germany, whose\ntone is still so familiar that we were somewhat mortified to find\nthat it was written in 1799. \u201cThen came I to the Germans. I cannot\nconceive of a people more disjoined than the Germans. Mechanics you\nshall see, but no man. Is it not like some battle-field, where hands\nand arms and all members lie scattered about, whilst the life-blood\nruns away into the sand? Let every man mind his own, you say, and I\nsay the same. Only let him mind it with all his heart, and not with\nthis cold study, literally, hypocritically, to appear that which he\npasses for,\u2014but in good earnest, and in all love, let him be that\nwhich he is; then there is a soul in his deed. And is he driven into\na circumstance where the spirit must not live? Let him thrust it from\nhim with scorn, and learn to dig and plough. There is nothing holy\nwhich is not desecrated, which is not degraded to a mean end among\nthis people. It is heart-rending to see your poet, your artist, and\nall who still revere genius, who love and foster the Beautiful. The\nGood! They live in the world as strangers in their own house; they\nare like the patient Ulysses whilst he sat in the guise of a beggar\nat his own door, whilst shameless rioters shouted in the hall and\nasked, Who brought the ragamuffin here? Full of love, talent and\nhope, spring up the darlings of the muse among the Germans; some\nseven years later, and they flit about like ghosts, cold and silent;\nthey are like a soil which an enemy has sown with poison, that it\nwill not bear a blade of grass. On earth all is imperfect! is the\nold proverb of the German. Aye, but if one should say to these\nGod-forsaken, that with them all is imperfect only because they leave\nnothing pure which they do not pollute, nothing holy which they do\nnot defile with their fumbling hands; that with them nothing prospers\nbecause the godlike nature which is the root of all prosperity they\ndo not revere; that with them, truly, life is shallow and anxious and\nfull of discord, because they despise genius, which brings power and\nnobleness into manly action, cheerfulness into endurance, and love\nand brotherhood into towns and houses. Where a people honors genius\nin its artists, there breathes like an atmosphere a universal soul,\nto which the shy sensibility opens, which melts self-conceit,\u2014all\nhearts become pious and great, and it adds fire to heroes. The home\nof all men is with such a people, and there will the stranger gladly\nabide. But where the divine nature and the artist is crushed, the\nsweetness of life is gone, and every other planet is better than the\nearth. Men deteriorate, folly increases, and a gross mind with it;\ndrunkenness comes with a disaster; with the wantonness of the tongue\nand with the anxiety for a livelihood the blessing of every year\nbecomes a curse, and all the gods depart.\u201d\n\nThe steep antagonism between the money-getting and the academic\nclass must be freely admitted, and perhaps is the more violent,\nthat whilst our work is imposed by the soil and the sea, our culture\nis the tradition of Europe. But we cannot share the desperation of\nour contemporaries; least of all should we think a preternatural\nenlargement of the intellect a calamity. A new perception, the\nsmallest new activity given to the perceptive power, is a victory won\nto the living universe from Chaos and old Night, and cheaply bought\nby any amounts of hard fare and false social position. The balance\nof mind and body will redress itself fast enough. Superficialness is\nthe real distemper. In all the cases we have ever seen where people\nwere supposed to suffer from too much wit, or, as men said, from a\nblade too sharp for the scabbard, it turned out that they had not wit\nenough. It may easily happen that we are grown very idle, and must\ngo to work, and that the times must be worse before they are better.\nIt is very certain that speculation is no succedaneum for life. What\nwe would know, we must do. As if any taste or imagination could take\nthe place of fidelity! The old Duty is the old God. And we may come\nto this by the rudest teaching. A friend of ours went five years\nago to Illinois to buy a farm for his son. Though there were crowds\nof emigrants in the roads, the country was open on both sides, and\nlong intervals between hamlets and houses. Now after five years he\nhad just been to visit the young farmer and see how he prospered,\nand reports that a miracle had been wrought. From Massachusetts to\nIllinois the land is fenced in and builded over, almost like New\nEngland itself, and the proofs of thrifty cultivation abound;\u2014a\nresult not so much owing to the natural increase of population, as to\nthe hard times, which, driving men out of cities and trade, forced\nthem to take off their coats and go to work on the land; which has\nrewarded them not only with wheat but with habits of labor. Perhaps\nthe adversities of our commerce have not yet been pushed to the\nwholesomest degree of severity. Apathies and total want of work, and\nreflection on the imaginative character of American life, etc., etc.,\nare like seasickness, and never will obtain any sympathy if there is\na wood-pile in the yard, or an unweeded patch in the garden; not to\nmention the graver absurdity of a youth of noble aims who can find no\nfield for his energies, whilst the colossal wrongs of the Indian, of\nthe Negro, of the emigrant, remain unmitigated, and the religious,\ncivil and judicial forms of the country are confessedly effete and\noffensive. We must refer our clients back to themselves, believing\nthat every man knows in his heart the cure for the disease he so\nostentatiously bewails.\n\nAs far as our correspondents have entangled their private griefs\nwith the cause of American Literature, we counsel them to disengage\nthemselves as fast as possible. In Cambridge orations and elsewhere\nthere is much inquiry for that great absentee American Literature.\nWhat can have become of it? The least said is best. A literature\nis no man\u2019s private concern, but a secular and generic result, and\nis the affair of a power which works by a prodigality of life and\nforce very dismaying to behold,\u2014every trait of beauty purchased by\nhecatombs of private tragedy. The pruning in the wild gardens of\nnature is never forborne. Many of the best must die of consumption,\nmany of despair, and many be stupid and insane, before the one great\nand fortunate life which they each predicted can shoot up into a\nthrifty and beneficent existence.\n\n\nVIII.\n\nTHE TRAGIC.[12]\n\nHe has seen but half the universe who never has been shown the\nhouse of Pain. As the salt sea covers more than two thirds of the\nsurface of the globe, so sorrow encroaches in man on felicity. The\nconversation of men is a mixture of regrets and apprehensions. I do\nnot know but the prevalent hue of things to the eye of leisure is\nmelancholy. In the dark hours, our existence seems to be a defensive\nwar, a struggle against the encroaching All, which threatens\nsurely to engulf us soon, and is impatient of our short reprieve.\nHow slender the possession that yet remains to us; how faint the\nanimation! how the spirit seems already to contract its domain,\nretiring within narrower walls by the loss of memory, leaving its\nplanted fields to erasure and annihilation. Already our own thoughts\nand words have an alien sound. There is a simultaneous diminution of\nmemory and hope. Projects that once we laughed and leapt to execute,\nfind us now sleepy and preparing to lie down in the snow. And in\nthe serene hours we have no courage to spare. We cannot afford to\nlet go any advantages. The riches of body or of mind which we do\nnot need to-day, are the reserved fund against the calamity that\nmay arrive to-morrow. It is usually agreed that some nations have\na more sombre temperament, and one would say that history gave no\nrecord of any society in which despondency came so readily to heart\nas we see it and feel it in ours. Melancholy cleaves to the English\nmind in both hemispheres as closely as to the strings of an \u00c6olian\nharp. Men and women at thirty years, and even earlier, have lost all\nspring and vivacity, and if they fail in their first enterprises they\nthrow up the game. But whether we and those who are next to us are\nmore or less vulnerable, no theory of life can have any right which\nleaves out of account the values of vice, pain, disease, poverty,\ninsecurity, disunion, fear and death.\n\nWhat are the conspicuous tragic elements in human nature? The\nbitterest tragic element in life to be derived from an intellectual\nsource is the belief in a brute Fate or Destiny; the belief that the\norder of nature and events is controlled by a law not adapted to\nman, nor man to that, but which holds on its way to the end, serving\nhim if his wishes chance to lie in the same course, crushing him if\nhis wishes lie contrary to it, and heedless whether it serves or\ncrushes him. This is the terrible meaning that lies at the foundation\nof the old Greek tragedy, and makes the \u0152dipus and Antigone and\nOrestes objects of such hopeless commiseration. They must perish,\nand there is no over-god to stop or to mollify this hideous enginery\nthat grinds or thunders, and snatches them up into its terrific\nsystem. The same idea makes the paralyzing terror with which the\nEast Indian mythology haunts the imagination. The same thought is\nthe predestination of the Turk. And universally, in uneducated and\nunreflecting persons on whom too the religious sentiment exerts\nlittle force, we discover traits of the same superstition: \u201cIf you\nbalk water you will be drowned the next time;\u201d \u201cif you count ten\nstars you will fall down dead;\u201d \u201cif you spill the salt;\u201d \u201cif your\nfork sticks upright in the floor;\u201d \u201cif you say the Lord\u2019s prayer\nbackwards,\u201d\u2014and so on, a several penalty, nowise grounded in the\nnature of the thing, but on an arbitrary will. But this terror of\ncontravening an unascertained and unascertainable will, cannot\ncoexist with reflection: it disappears with civilization, and can\nno more be reproduced than the fear of ghosts after childhood.\nIt is discriminated from the doctrine of Philosophical Necessity\nherein: that the last is an Optimism, and therefore the suffering\nindividual finds his good consulted in the good of all, of which he\nis a part. But in destiny, it is not the good of the whole or the\n_best will_ that is enacted, but only _one particular will_. Destiny\nproperly is not a will at all, but an immense whim; and this the only\nground of terror and despair in the rational mind, and of tragedy\nin literature. Hence the antique tragedy, which was founded on this\nfaith, can never be reproduced.\n\nAfter reason and faith have introduced a better public and private\ntradition, the tragic element is somewhat circumscribed. There must\nalways remain, however, the hindrance of our private satisfaction by\nthe laws of the world. The law which establishes nature and the human\nrace, continually thwarts the will of ignorant individuals, and this\nin the particulars of disease, want, insecurity and disunion.\n\nBut the essence of tragedy does not seem to me to lie in any list of\nparticular evils. After we have enumerated famine, fever, inaptitude,\nmutilation, rack, madness and loss of friends, we have not yet\nincluded the proper tragic element, which is Terror, and which does\nnot respect definite evils but indefinite; an ominous spirit which\nhaunts the afternoon and the night, idleness and solitude.\n\nA low, haggard sprite sits by our side, \u201ccasting the fashion of\nuncertain evils\u201d\u2014a sinister presentiment, a power of the imagination\nto dislocate things orderly and cheerful and show them in startling\narray. Hark! what sounds on the night wind, the cry of Murder in that\nfriendly house; see these marks of stamping feet, of hidden riot.\nThe whisper overheard, the detected glance, the glare of malignity,\nungrounded fears, suspicions, half-knowledge and mistakes, darken the\nbrow and chill the heart of men. And accordingly it is natures not\nclear, not of quick and steady perceptions, but imperfect characters\nfrom which somewhat is hidden that all others see, who suffer most\nfrom these causes. In those persons who move the profoundest pity,\ntragedy seems to consist in temperament, not in events. There are\npeople who have an appetite for grief, pleasure is not strong enough\nand they crave pain, mithridatic stomachs which must be fed on\npoisoned bread, natures so doomed that no prosperity can soothe their\nragged and dishevelled desolation. They mis-hear and mis-behold, they\nsuspect and dread. They handle every nettle and ivy in the hedge, and\ntread on every snake in the meadow.\n\n                \u201cCome bad chance,\n      And we add to it our strength,\n      And we teach it art and length,\n      Itself o\u2019er us to advance.\u201d\n\nFrankly, then, it is necessary to say that all sorrow dwells in a low\nregion. It is superficial; for the most part fantastic, or in the\nappearance and not in things. Tragedy is in the eye of the observer,\nand not in the heart of the sufferer. It looks like an insupportable\nload under which earth moans aloud. But analyze it; it is not I,\nit is not you, it is always another person who is tormented. If a\nman says, Lo! I suffer\u2014it is apparent that he suffers not, for grief\nis dumb. It is so distributed as not to destroy. That which would\nrend you falls on tougher textures. That which seems intolerable\nreproach or bereavement, does not take from the accused or bereaved\nman or woman appetite or sleep. Some men are above grief, and some\nbelow it. Few are capable of love. In phlegmatic natures calamity\nis unaffecting, in shallow natures it is rhetorical. Tragedy must\nbe somewhat which I can respect. A querulous habit is not tragedy.\nA panic such as frequently in ancient or savage nations put a troop\nor an army to flight without an enemy; a fear of ghosts; a terror\nof freezing to death that seizes a man in a winter midnight on the\nmoors; a fright at uncertain sounds heard by a family at night in the\ncellar or on the stairs,\u2014are terrors that make the knees knock and\nthe teeth clatter, but are no tragedy, any more than seasickness,\nwhich may also destroy life. It is full of illusion. As it comes,\nit has its support. The most exposed classes, soldiers, sailors,\npaupers, are nowise destitute of animal spirits. The spirit is true\nto itself, and finds its own support in any condition, learns to live\nin what is called calamity as easily as in what is called felicity;\nas the frailest glass-bell will support a weight of a thousand pounds\nof water at the bottom of a river or sea, if filled with the same.\n\nA man should not commit his tranquillity to things, but should\nkeep as much as possible the reins in his own hands, rarely giving\nway to extreme emotion of joy or grief. It is observed that the\nearliest works of the art of sculpture are countenances of sublime\ntranquillity. The Egyptian sphinxes, which sit to-day as they sat\nwhen the Greek came and saw them and departed, and when the Roman\ncame and saw them and departed, and as they will still sit when the\nTurk, the Frenchman and the Englishman, who visit them now, shall\nhave passed by,\u2014\u201cwith their stony eyes fixed on the East and on\nthe Nile,\u201d have countenances expressive of complacency and repose,\nan expression of health, deserving their longevity, and verifying\nthe primeval sentence of history on the permanency of that people,\n\u201cTheir strength is to sit still.\u201d To this architectural stability\nof the human form, the Greek genius added an ideal beauty, without\ndisturbing the seals of serenity; permitting no violence of mirth,\nor wrath, or suffering. This was true to human nature. For, in life,\nactions are few, opinions even few, prayers few; loves, hatreds, or\nany emissions of the soul. All that life demands of us through the\ngreater part of the day, is an equilibrium, a readiness, open eyes\nand ears, and free hands. Society asks this, and truth, and love, and\nthe genius of our life. There is a fire in some men which demands an\noutlet in some rude action; they betray their impatience of quiet by\nan irregular Catalinarian gait; by irregular, faltering, disturbed\nspeech, too emphatic for the occasion. They treat trifles with a\ntragic air. This is not beautiful. Could they not lay a rod or two\nof stone wall, and work off this superabundant irritability? When\ntwo strangers meet in the highway, what each demands of the other\nis that the aspect should show a firm mind, ready for any event of\ngood or ill, prepared alike to give death or to give life, as the\nemergency of the next moment may require. We must walk as guests\nin nature; not impassioned, but cool and disengaged. A man should\ntry Time, and his face should wear the expression of a just judge,\nwho has nowise made up his opinion, who fears nothing, and even\nhopes nothing, but who puts nature and fortune on their merits: he\nwill hear the case out, and then decide. For all melancholy, as all\npassion, belongs to the exterior life. Whilst a man is not grounded\nin the divine life by his proper roots, he clings by some tendrils of\naffection to society\u2014mayhap to what is best and greatest in it, and\nin calm times it will not appear that he is adrift and not moored;\nbut let any shock take place in society, any revolution of custom, of\nlaw, of opinion, and at once his type of permanence is shaken. The\ndisorder of his neighbors appears to him universal disorder; chaos is\ncome again. But in truth he was already a driving wreck, before the\nwind arose which only revealed to him his vagabond state. If a man\nis centred, men and events appear to him a fair image or reflection\nof that which he knoweth beforehand in himself. If any perversity or\nprofligacy break out in society, he will join with others to avert\nthe mischief, but it will not arouse resentment or fear, because he\ndiscerns its impassable limits. He sees already in the ebullition of\nsin the simultaneous redress.\n\nParticular reliefs also, fit themselves to human calamities; for the\nworld will be in equilibrium, and hates all manner of exaggeration.\n\nTime, the consoler, Time, the rich carrier of all changes, dries the\nfreshest tears by obtruding new figures, new costumes, new roads, on\nour eye, new voices on our ear. As the west wind lifts up again the\nheads of the wheat which were bent down and lodged in the storm, and\ncombs out the matted and dishevelled grass as it lay in night-locks\non the ground, so we let in time as a drying wind into the seed-field\nof thoughts which are dark and wet and low bent. Time restores\nto them temper and elasticity. How fast we forget the blow that\nthreatened to cripple us. Nature will not sit still; the faculties\nwill do somewhat; new hopes spring, new affections twine and the\nbroken is whole again.\n\nTime consoles, but Temperament resists the impression of pain.\nNature proportions her defence to the assault. Our human being is\nwonderfully plastic; if it cannot win this satisfaction here, it\nmakes itself amends by running out there and winning that. It is\nlike a stream of water, which is dammed up on one bank, overruns\nthe other, and flows equally at its own convenience over sand, or\nmud, or marble. Most suffering is only apparent. We fancy it is\ntorture; the patient has his own compensations. A tender American\ngirl doubts of Divine Providence whilst she reads the horrors of\n\u201cthe middle passage;\u201d and they are bad enough at the mildest; but to\nsuch as she these crucifixions do not come: they come to the obtuse\nand barbarous, to whom they are not horrid, but only a little worse\nthan the old sufferings. They exchange a cannibal war for the stench\nof the hold. They have gratifications which would be none to the\ncivilized girl. The market-man never damned the lady because she had\nnot paid her bill, but the stout Irishwoman has to take that once\na month. She however never feels weakness in her back because of\nthe slave-trade. This self-adapting strength is especially seen in\ndisease. \u201cIt is my duty,\u201d said Sir Charles Bell, \u201cto visit certain\nwards of the hospital where there is no patient admitted but with\nthat complaint which most fills the imagination with the idea of\ninsupportable pain and certain death. Yet these wards are not the\nleast remarkable for the composure and cheerfulness of their inmates.\nThe individual who suffers has a mysterious counterbalance to that\ncondition, which, to us who look upon her, appears to be attended\nwith no alleviating circumstance.\u201d Analogous supplies are made to\nthose individuals whose character leads them to vast exertions of\nbody and mind. Napoleon said to one of his friends at St. Helena,\n\u201cNature seems to have calculated that I should have great reverses to\nendure, for she has given me a temperament like a block of marble.\nThunder cannot move it; the shaft merely glides along. The great\nevents of my life have slipped over me without making any demand on\nmy moral or physical nature.\u201d\n\nThe intellect is a consoler, which delights in detaching or putting\nan interval between a man and his fortune, and so converts the\nsufferer into a spectator and his pain into poetry. It yields the\njoys of conversation, of letters and of science. Hence also the\ntorments of life become tuneful tragedy, solemn and soft with music,\nand garnished with rich dark pictures. But higher still than the\nactivities of art, the intellect in its purity and the moral sense in\nits purity are not distinguished from each other, and both ravish us\ninto a region whereinto these passionate clouds of sorrow cannot rise.\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[5] _The Dial_, vol. i. p. 137.\n\n[6] _The Dial_, vol. ii. p. 262.\n\n[7] _The Dial_, vol. iii. p. 77.\n\n[8] _The Dial_, vol. iii. p. 123.\n\n[9] _The Dial_, vol. iii. p. 511.\n\n[10] _The Dial_, vol. iv. p. 96.\n\n[11] _The Dial_, vol. iv. p. 262.\n\n[12] From the course on \u201cHuman Life,\u201d read in Boston, 1839-40.\nPublished in _The Dial_, vol. iv. p. 515.\n\n\n\n\n  TRANSCRIBER\u2019S NOTE\n\n  Obvious typographical errors and punctuation errors have been\n  corrected after careful comparison with other occurrences within\n  the text and consultation of external sources.\n\n  Some hyphens in words have been silently removed, some added,\n  when a predominant preference was found in the original book.\n\n  Except for those changes noted below, all misspellings in the text,\n  and inconsistent or archaic usage, have been retained.\n\n  Pg. 100: \u2018\u03c7\u03cc\u03c3\u03bc\u03bf\u03c2\u2019 replaced by \u2018\u039a\u03cc\u03c3\u03bc\u03bf\u03c2\u2019.\n  Pg. 211: \u2018ageeably entertained\u2019 replaced by \u2018agreeably entertained\u2019.","title":"Natural history of intellect, and other papers","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":60697}