Note 38, page 129.I have long been in the habit of measuring the character, mental power and prospects of the young, who are brought by circumstances under my observation, by the power which they evince, to resist the suggestion of the senses. In the same proportion, as I see them capable of rising above the thraldom of their appetites, capable of that energy of will, that gives the intellectual control over the animal nature, I graduate them higher in the scale of moral power and prospect. But if, in their course, they manifest the clear preponderance of the animal; if sloth, sensuality, and the inclinations, which have no higher origin than the senses, sway them beyond the influence of advice and moral suasion, be they ever so beautiful, endowed, rich, distinguished, be their place in general estimation ever so high, I put them down, as belonging to the animal, and not the intellectual orders. They can never reach higher worth and success, than that, which is the blind award of accident.Note 39, page 131.It seems to me, that writers on taste have not seen all the importance of uniting physical with moral ideas, to give them any deep and permanent interest. This subject might be enlarged to any extent, by carrying out the details, suggested by the striking, just, but necessarily very brief views of the author. We have here a clue, by which we may explore a whole universe of the highest and purest pleasures which can touch the heart, and which to the greater portion of the species have no existence.There are travellers more learned, and equally capable of noting facts with M. de Chateaubriand. They have traversedthe same countries, seen the same objects, and collected an immense mass of facts, which they have published, on their return, to be read by none, but kindred spirits, as dull as themselves. In his record of his travels in the same countries, we are beguiled onward, under the spell of a sustained charm. The imagination is constantly in action; the heart swells; images of grandeur and beauty, remembrances of pathos and power are evoked from every side, and the shadows of the past throng round us. Why is it so? The former see brute nature, in its lifeless and motionless materiality, divorced from mind and memory. The latter not only sees that universe with a radiant eye, but holds converse with a superincumbent universe, as much more vast, beautiful, touching, diversified, than the other, as mind is superior to matter. It is this creation of thoughts, remembrances, poetry, and affecting images, in his mind, intimately connected with the other, and overshadowing it, like an illumined stratum over a region covered with palpable mist, by virtue of which he makes nature eloquent. This is the charm spread over all the beautiful passages that abound in his writings; a peculiar aptitude to associate nature, in every position and form, with the universe of thought within him. Such is the endowment of all poets, orators, and painters, that have produced efforts worthy of immortality. Common writers see nature dead, silent, sterile—mere brute and voiceless matter. Endowed minds kindle it into speech, beauty and grandeur; interpreting it by the internal world in their own minds.Note 39a, page 134.These illustrations of the importance of uniting moral with physical ideas, in regard to vision, landscape, painting and music, are as true, as they are eloquent and striking. Who has not had the vivid remembrance of home recalled in a distant land, by a tree, a feature in the landscape, a blue hill in the distance! How readily the shadowy images of memory are evoked! Every one is acquainted with the touching circumstancein the character of the Swiss soldiers serving in foreign countries. Great numbers of them used to serve, as stipendaries, in the French armies. It was forbidden to play, in their presence, the airRanz des vaches. Homesickness and desertion scarcely failed to ensue from hearing it. The wild and plaintive air reminded them of ‘Sweet home,’ their mountains, their simple pleasures, and the range and lowing of their kine. The beautiful Scotch airs derive their charm from their association with mountain scenery, and the peculiar history and manners of a highly sensitive, intelligent and national people. The same may be said of the unrivalledErin go Bragh, in relation to the Irish; in a word of the national music of every people. Associate any idea with sentiment and the heart, and it becomes touching, and sublime, and capable of stirring the deepest fountains of feeling, according to the remembrance with which it is allied.Note 40, page 136.I have heard persons, endowed with keen feelings, repiningly contrast the miseries which they endured from an excess of irritable and unregulated sensibility, with the apparently joyous apathy of fat and fortunate burghers, who seem to find no sorrows and no troubles in life, and who hear with incredulity and, in fact, with an entire want of comprehension, about sufferings resulting from witnessing misery, which we have no means of relieving, and the sorrows, from innumerable sources, to which those of a keenly sensitive nature are subject. I have never seen these contrasts of character in this light. I unhesitatingly believe that a righteous Providence has exactly and admirably adjusted the weights in either scale. The great mass, who are not disturbed with excess of feeling, are, from the same temperament, interdicted from a whole universe of enjoyments, into which those, who possess sensibility, and regulate it aright, have free access.Note 41, page 137.Man seems to contain, according as he is contemplated in different lights, inexplicable contradictions of character; and to be at one time all tenderness of heart; and at another an odious compound of insensibility and cruelty; according to the circumstances with which he is surrounded, and the positions in which he is placed. Who could believe, that it was the same being, that now dissolves into tears at the rehearsal of a tragedy, on reading a romance or witnessing a spectacle of misery, and now hurries from these emotions to see a bull-fight; and in passing to the show, encourages two bullies in the street to form a ring, to bruise each other! Who would believe, that it has always been considered an attribute in the more susceptible sex, to regard duellists with a partial eye; to give a secret place in their kind feelings to those who are reckless of their own and another’s blood; and more than all to look propitiously on soldiers encrimsoned with the fresh stains of the battle field? Nay, more, who reads without astonishment, and almost without unbelief, that a whole people, in the days of the pagan Roman emperors, days of the utmost luxury of taste and refinement, days, in which, in all probability, traits of kindness, generosity and magnanimity were no more uncommon than now, the ladies of the greatest and most splendid city in the world thronged with an irrepressible curiosity, and an intense desire, to see naked gladiators lacerate, and stab each other, and old and feeble men torn in pieces by lions and wild beasts, when merely a movement of a finger would save them!The ministers of the gospel, who attribute the abhorrence, which the same spectacles would excite in the population of a Christian city, to the humanizing influences of our faith, forget that such a city has seen, times without number, its inhabitants pouring forth from its gates, to witness miserable victims burnt to death at anauto da fé, and shouting with joy at the spectacle.Protestant ministers exult, in contrasting the influences ofthe reformed faith with results like these; and yet witness their congregations thronging in crowds to see a wretched criminal swinging in the agonies of strangulation. The same people thrill with horror, as they hear, around their evening fire, how those whom they call savages, dance, and yell round the stake, at which a captive enemy is burning. To the red man it seems the extreme of cold-blooded ferocity, to execute a criminal with a halter, by the hands of a person who bears no ill will to the victim.Far be it from me to question one of the sublime trophies of the gospel, or to doubt its refining and humanizing influences. But the whole aspect of history and society compels me to believe, that fashion and prevalent opinions exert an influence, that will bring men to tolerate almost anything. I much fear, that the spectacles of the Roman Amphitheatre might be revived, if a certain number of any community would pertinaciously conspire, to write in favor of them, and countenance them by their presence.Note 42, page 137.To present, in contrast, the favorable side of human contradictions:—I have seen a man plunge into the water, and put his own life at fearful jeopardy, to rescue a stranger from drowning. I have witnessed instances of disinterested and heroic sacrifice, which present men in the aspect of angels, in every walk of life. Such sublime samples of the capability of our nature are the appropriate theme of oratory, painting and song; and cannot be too much blazoned. Pity it is that history did not select more instances, and dwell upon them with more partial eulogy, instead of amplifying the revolting details of war.Two instances of affecting manifestation of tenderness are deeply impressed upon my memory, simply because they were elicited by common cases of suffering; and had in them nothing of romance, or of uncommon tendency to excite the feelings.I was passing in the streets of one of our northern cities. On the marble door steps of a sumptuous mansion sat a ragged boy, with a look at once dogged and subdued, manifesting long acquaintance with sorrow and want. Near him sat an aged woman, apparently his mother, decrepit, worn and squalid, with her face turned from me. The boy was devouring with voracious greediness a piece of dried herring. Fair and richly dressed children were passing to their morning school. Most of them jeered him, in passing, calling on him to get down from the steps, and asking him if he was very hungry? ‘Yes, and you would be hungry, and sad too, if you was poor and a stranger, and had to take care of an old mother, and had walked as far as I have.’ One of the boys lingered behind, as if ashamed of his feelings. I noticed his broad, high forehead, and eye speaking a soul within. His eyes filled with tears, as he handed the boy money. My own eyes moistened, as I witnessed the angelic expression of this noble boy, who I dare affirm, had not the spirit to do such things by halves.The other was in another extremity of our country, where money and cotton, sugar and slaves, balls and theatres are the all-absorbing objects of interest. A large group of gaily dressed gentlemen and ladies were promenading, in company with an heiress and her intended husband, who were shortly to be married, and they were merely discussing the preparations. A poor, pale boy, apparently a stranger, came up to them, with his written petition for charity; and with the low and subdued tone of voice appropriate to shame, bashfulness and misery, began to tell his little story. The splendid laughers walked on with an incurious carelessness. One of the group lingered behind. He was struggling with the difficulties of obtaining a profession, and aiding in the support of a distant family. But, he bestowed on the boy one of his few remaining dollars. When I see such instances of native tenderness of heart, I thank God that men are not totally depraved.Note 43, page 138.Every one who has had extensive acquaintances, and been exposed to frequent requests for letters of recommendation, and to procure the intervention and aid of opulent friends, must feel the importance and justice of these remarks. We ought not to refuse such letters from indolence, selfishness, or the commonly alleged fear of troubling our friends. But then, the case must be such, as will bear us out, in being measured and scrupulous, in regard to the existence, the actual truth and justice, of what we advance; otherwise our inter-position will soon be rendered cheap and inefficient; and will react, in creating want of respect for the writer, instead of good feeling toward the person recommended. Such, in a great measure, is the result, in the current value of these letters, as they are emitted, according to the common forms of society.Note 44, page 139.A most affecting proof, that the human heart is not intrinsically bad, and that the obduracy and cold-blooded selfishness of the world is adventitious, and the result of our modes and our training, is, that the sisters of charity, the truly beneficent everywhere, create a deep sensation of respect in beholders. Efficient charity is almost the only thing, that no one feels disposed to question, or slander. A corpse was borne slowly by me, to the place of its long sleep. An immense procession followed with sorrow and respect impressed upon their countenances. I asked, whom they were burying. ‘A single woman without wealth or connexions.—But her life has been marked by beneficence.’ If that sex, which so instinctively desire to appear to advantage, knew, in what light a lady, distinguished by fortune and cultivation appears while traversing the dirty and dark lanes of a city, to seek out, and relieve cases of misery, they would practise charity, were it from no higher motive, than to create a sensation,and appear lovely. Every one knows the example of the sublime, quoted by Longinus from Moses. A passage in the Gospel seems to me still more sublime.He went about doing good.All other homage, than that which the heart pays to beneficence, is adventitious. This is real.Note 45, page 141.Of all the pleasures of our earthly sojourn, after those of a good conscience, the most varied, and yet equable, healthful and permanent are those of reading. ‘I have never,’ says a respectable writer, ‘passed a comfortable day without books since I was capable of reading.’ It is certainly pleasant, to be able to converse with the wise and instructed of all countries and all times without formality, without embarrassment, and just as long as we choose; and then dismiss one of them without any apology, and sit down with another. We travel without expense with them. We inhabit the tropics, or the polar circle, the table summits of mountains, or the wide plains, at our choice. We journey by land or by sea. We select congenial minds, and make them converse with us about our congenial pursuits. We throw away no voice. We never dialogue in wrath; and intelligence converses with intelligence, divested of terrene grossness and passion. When detained on long journeys, in some remote interior tavern, by a storm, or inability to find a conveyance, how keenly, while reading almanacks of the past years, and old fragments of books, found on the dusty shelf of the ordinary, have I felt the value of books, as a perfect cure for the impatience of such a position. In this state of privation and intellectual fasting, we master dull and tiresome books, which, under other circumstances, we should not have dreamed of reading. Then the mind is taught to pay the proper homage to these intellectual resources.The pleasures of winter reading, in the sacred privacy of the parlor, are thus finely described by Thomson, the painter of nature.‘There studious let me sit,And hold high converse with the mighty dead;Sages of ancient time, as gods revered,As gods beneficent, who bless’d mankindWith arts, with arms, and humanized a world.Roused at th’ inspiring thought, I throw asideThe long-lived volume; and, deep-musing, hailThe sacred shades, that slowly-rising passBefore my wondering eyes. First Socrates,Who, firmly good in a corrupted state,Against the rage of tyrants single stood,Invincible! calm Reason’s holy law,That voice of God within th’ attentive mind,Obeying, fearless, or in life or death:Great moral teacher! Wisest of mankind!Solon the next, who built his commonwealOn equity’s wide base; by tender lawsA lively people curbing, yet undampedPreserving still that quick peculiar fire,Whence in the laurel’d field of finer arts,And of bold freedom, they unequall’d shone,The pride of smiling Greece and human kind.Lycurgus then, who bow’d beneath the forceOf strictest discipline, severely wise,All human passions. Following him, I see,As at Thermopylæ he glorious fell,The firm devoted chief,[C]who proved by deedsThe hardest lesson which the other taught.Then Aristides lifts his honest front;Spotless of heart, to whom th’ unflattering voiceOf freedom gave the noblest name of Just;In pure majestic poverty revered;Who, e’en his glory to his country’s wealSubmitting, swell’d a haughty rival’s[D]fame.Rear’d by his care, of softer ray appearsCimon sweet-soul’d; whose genius, rising strong,Shook off the load of young debauch; abroadThe scourge of Persian pride, at home the friendOf every worth and every splendid art;Modest and simple, in the pomp of wealth.Then the last worthies of declining Greece,Late call’d to glory, in unequal timesPensive appear. The fair Corinthian boast,Timoleon, happy temper! mild and firm,Who wept the brother while the tyrant bled.And, equal to the best, the Theban Pair,[E]Whose virtues, in heroic concord join’d,Their country raised to freedom, empire, fame.He too, with whom Athenian honor sunk,And left a mass of sordid lees behind,Phocion the Good; in public life severe,To virtue still inexorably firm;But when, beneath his low illustrious roof,Sweet peace and happy wisdom smooth’d his brow,Not friendship softer was, nor love more kind.And he, the last of old Lycurgus’ sons,The generous victim to that vain attempt,To save a rotten state, Agis, who sawE’en Sparta’s self to servile avarice sunk.The two Achaian heroes close the train:Aratus, who a while relumed the soulOf fondly lingering liberty in Greece;And he, her darling as her latest hope,The gallant Philopœmen; who to armsTurn’d the luxurious pomp he could not cure;Or toiling on his farm, a simple swain;Or, bold and skilful, thundering in the field.‘Of rougher front, a mighty people comes!A race of heroes! in those virtuous timesWhich knew no stain, save that with partial flameTheir dearest country they too fondly loved:Her better Founder first, the light of Rome,Numa, who soften’d her rapacious sons;Servius the king, who laid the solid baseOn which o’er earth the vast republic spread.Then the great consuls venerable rise.The public Father[F]who the private quell’d,As on the dread tribunal sternly sat.He whom his thankless country could not lose,Camillus, only vengeful to her foes.Fabricius, scorner of all-conquering gold;And Cincinnatus, awful from the plough.Thy willing victim,[G]Carthage, bursting looseFrom all that pleading Nature could oppose,From a whole city’s tears, by rigid faithImperious call’d, and honor’s dire command.Scipio, the gentle chief, humanely brave,Who soon the race of spotless glory ran,And, warm in youth, to the poetic shadeWith Friendship and Philosophy retired.Tully, whose powerful eloquence a whileRestrain’d the rapid fate of rushing Rome.Unconquer’d Cato, virtuous in extreme;And thou, unhappy Brutus, kind of heart,Whose steady arm, by awful virtue urged,Lifted the Roman steel against thy friend.Thousands besides the tribute of a verseDemand; but who can count the stars of heaven?Who sing their influence on this lower world?‘Behold, who yonder comes! in sober state,Fair, mild, and strong, as is a vernal sun;’Tis Phœbus’ self, or else the Mantuan swain!Great Homer too appears, of daring wing,Parent of song! and, equal by his side,The British Muse; join’d hand in hand they walk,Darkling, full up the middle steep to fame,Nor absent are those shades, whose skilful touchPathetic drew th’ impassion’d heart, and charm’dTransported Athens with the moral scene;Nor those who, tuneful, waked th’ enchanted lyre.‘First of your kind! society divine!Still visit thus my nights, for you reserved,And mount my soaring soul to thoughts like yours.Silence, thou lonely power! the door be thine;See on the hallow’d hour that none intrude,Save a few chosen friends, who sometimes deignTo bless my humble roof, with sense refined,Learning digested well, exalted faith,Unstudied wit, and humor ever gay.Or from the Muses’ hill will Pope descend,To raise the sacred hour, to bid it smile,And with the social spirit warm the heart?For though not sweeter his own Homer sings,Yet is his life the more endearing song.’Note 46, page 142.Whoever has attempted to concentrate his thoughts in fixed contemplation upon the origin of the human race, the object of our present existence, and our prospects beyond it, upon the character and plan of the divinity, and the mode of his being, must have felt a painful vagueness, a dizzying sense of the weakness of our powers, very naturally preparing us for superstitious and terrific views of the first cause. But when, in the clear light of reason, I look upon his creation, on his star-spangled firmament, and the glory of his works, I should as soon doubt my own existence, as the perfect wisdom and goodness of the author of my being. All religion, which does not strengthen our confidence in this, must be a dreary illusion. Horrible dreams, dating their origin from the associations of childhood, and the rant of wild and visionary ministers, may sometimes interpose, in the uncertain moments between sleeping and waking, as among the gloomy presentiments and partial delirium of ill health. But every rational mind must finally settle to repose in that glorious persuasion, which instantly irradiates the moral universe with perennial sunshine. ‘The Lord reigneth; let the earth rejoice.’ In this or any other world, in our present or any other forms of conscious being, we may advance upon the unexplored scenes with a full confidence that we can never travel beyond the beneficence and equity of the infinite mind.One of the standing themes of Christian pulpits is the puerile and absurd views, which the common creed of the Greeks and Romans presented of the rabble divinities of their Pantheon; deities, who fought, intrigued, made love, and intoxicated themselves; deities, who had great power in avalley, and none on the adjoining hills; deities, who were conquered, and transferred with their territory, and became in consequence subservient to their conquerors. I have heard discussions of this kind in the discourse of the sabbath morning: and, in that of the evening, views of Christian theology, scarcely less narrow and unworthy of the Supreme Being. I am compelled to believe, from reading and observation, that the mass of the people, in all churches, have had no other conception of the divinity, than that of a being molded much like themselves. We cannot avoid discovering, that their ideas of a God are gross, material, local, partial; that they behold him, as the God of their place, party and passions. Converse with the fiercer sects, and you perceive, that their views immediately become vague, as soon as they contemplate the Almighty occupied with concerns beyond their sect. It seems beyond their thoughts, to realize, that their denomination bears to the species little more than the proportion of a drop to the ocean: and that the Supreme Being cannot be rationally supposed more concerned about them, than any other equal number of his children.Nothing can be more philosophical, or consoling, than the Scripture views of what has been called aparticular providence. But, as we hear it generally expounded from the press, the pulpit, and in common conversation, it offers views of the divine Being and government, scarcely less weak, monstrous and unworthy, than those entertained by the ancient pagans. What a conception, to suppose that a perfect law, as wise and equitable in its general operation, as infinite wisdom and goodness could ordain, could be continually infringed, to meet countless millions of opposing prayers and interests! What a view of God, to imagine, that earnest and concurrent prayers can at any time divert him from his purpose, and change his plans! What palpable misinterpretation of the Scriptures, to suppose, that they give any countenance to such debasing conceptions of God! Hear rigid sectarians converse, and you discover, that they think little of the divine providence, which has no reference to their individual interests andconcerns. From the tone of their conversations, it is but too manifest, that they have an interior confidence, that they can obtain of the divine power, almost what they will.The testimony of church history and the experience of time testify, that the million, under all degrees of light, shrink from the difficult and philosophical idea of the real Jehovah of the Bible; and form, instead, the easy and natural image of a limited, partial, changeable God, whom importunity can easily induce to swerve from his purpose; and who is, in many respects, such a being as themselves. It is the embodied conception of their own narrow views, assigned to a local habitation. To him the countless millions of other lands, and other forms of worship, are not, like them, as children. Unable to rise to the Supreme Being, they have brought Him down to them.A few minds, from age to age, elevated by endowment and circumstances far above their cotemporaries, have not only embraced, in common with others, the easy and simple sentiments of Him, which the heart entertains, but have raised their contemplations so high, as to behold Him in the light of truth—have seen Him, in some sense,as He is—have been filled with awe and confidence, in the view of his immutability, and with filial and cheerful resignation, in seeing in the universe, its order, mutations and variety, in the mixed condition of man, in a word, in every feature of the natural and moral creation, as in a mirror, a perfect transcript of the divine perfections—a pattern of an archetype without a shade of defect. Instead of bringing the Divine Being down to them, they have raised themselves up to Him. The veil, that screens his glory from the feeble vision of the multitude, has been removed. Being assured, that He has made of one blood all nations, that dwell on the earth, they have seen it to be impossible, that He should look upon one portion of his children with more favor than on another. They have seen, in the superior light and advantages of one part of the species over another, not the indication, of what is technically calledspecial favor, but the natural result of the operation ofhis universal laws. They have seen, that if the inhabitants of one region are enabled to rise higher in the intellectual scale, and pay him a more spiritual and worthy homage—the simple inhabitants ofdistant, barbarous isleshave an organization admitting them to be as happy as their natures will admit, and as full of enjoyment as their measure can contain. If they are unable to offer an intellectual worship, the service of their minds, their hearts are formed for fervent admiration and worship of the thunderer—the being, who raises fruits and flowers, and hangs out his bow on their clouds. They see, in all this,that God, also, hath set one thing over against another.Note 47, page 144.The wisdom of allowing any place to the imagination, among the faculties to be nurtured, I have often heard called in question. The extremes of opinion frequently meet in the same point. The most earnest declaimers against the indulgence of the imagination are commonly found among the class of strict religionists. It is, at the same time, a strong and prominent trait in the system of Mr Owen ‘the philosopher of circumstances,’ and his followers, that we ought to eradicate this faculty, if possible, or at least suppress its exercise; and reduce all mental operations to the cultivation of the reasoning powers. For me, I hold, that we are as much indebted to the author of our being for granting us this faculty, as any other. I see nothing wrong, or unphilosophical in cultivating it to the utmost extent; provided our imaginings would be innocent, if we could render them realities; unless it can be shown, that the indulgence of this faculty enervates the mind, and unfits it for encountering the stern duties and trials of life. So far from believing this to be the natural tendency of its allowed exercise, my experience has led me to suppose, that persons, strongly endowed with this faculty, are most likely to show energy for the discharge of common duties; and constancy and cheerfulness in encountering trials.Are the southern people of Europe, for example, less firm in conflicting with danger and sorrow, or more feeble and remiss in the discharge of duties, than the northern nations, admitted to be far less imaginative? Within the range of my experience, I find those possessed of the most vivid imagination, the most prompt to duty, and the most cheerful in sorrow. The moody advocates of pure and exclusive reason lay feeling, one of the strongest impulses to duty, out of the question; and would extinguish one of the surest supports in sorrow, the power of creating a bright internal world for ourselves, when the external world is involved in unavoidable gloom.They who decry the indulgence of the imagination, must, of course, object to the endowment of poets and painters; and equally to the pleasure derived from reading poetry, and contemplating paintings. The whole empire of these kindred studies is that of the imagination. Let us try the alleged puerility of indulging this faculty. No one will deny, that it is the highest wisdom to seek to be as happy, as we innocently may. When a mental faculty is employed in creating within us a celestial world, peopled with nobler beings, acting from higher motives, and showing a happier existence; and in substituting the beautiful possible for the tame real; if we find innocent happiness in this celestial castle-building, are we not employing reason, only in a different direction from the common? When any one can prove to me, that it is puerile, to make ourselves happy, and from sources always within our own control, then I will admit, that ideal pleasures are unworthy of a reasonable being. Prove only, that the indulgence of the faculty enervates the mind, and indisposes it for duty and constancy in suffering, and I will grant at once, that it should be stifled, or its action restricted or suppressed. So far from believing this to be the fact, I would counsel him, whom I most love, to seek in her whom he would select for his wife, a cheerful and active imagination. It is an egregious mistake, that mathematicians and practical men have generally been found destitute of a good development of this faculty. Contraryto the vulgar and hackneyed theme of pulpit declamation, I have found on examination, that some of the most energetically charitable women, I have ever known, were veteran novel readers; as have also been some of the most profound lawyers that have ever adorned the judgment seat in our country.Note 48, page 145.It is not exactly true, that this faculty can be subjected to the complete control of the will. I know of no point in metaphysics, connected, also, with an important question in rhetoric, upon which less light has been thrown, than the question, how far, and in what way the imagination can be cultivated: and by what methods brought under the control of the will. A system of useful and practical rules for this result is, as far as my reading extends, a desideratum. Dr Johnson, it is well known, believed, that a man’s muse wassua dextra, his own will, industry and habits, and that by a vigorous effort over himself, he could write, for example, at any time. This may be true in efforts, in which imagination is not required; but, where the vivid exercise of this faculty is requisite to excellence, it is not true. Let the most amply endowed poet suffer under mental depression, dyspepsia, a concurrence of small misfortunes and petty vexations. Let him write in a smoky apartment, and look abroad upon a leaden sky, marked with the dulness of winter, without its storms and congenial horrors. He may repair to his rules. He may apply the whip and spur, and invoke the nimble fancies from the vasty deep, and the muses from their hill, but they will not answer, nor come at his bidding.The imagination may be cultivated to a certain extent; and brought by rules and intense concentration of mind, in a certain degree, under the control of the will. Those, who would nurture it, ought intensely to study those rules. But, after all, to be able to exercise it in high measures of vivacity, is an endowment, in the bestowment of which nature has been morecapricious than in almost any other. Even when possessed in copious measures, its province lies so intermediate between corporeal and mental influence, between the prevalent temperament of the period of its action, and the concurrence of external circumstances beyond our control, that we can easily see, why the wise ancients, who thought more justly upon these subjects, and more profoundly than the moderns seem to be willing to apprehend, attributed the successful efforts of the muses to a superior and celestial influence. He, who pushes the theory of our control over this faculty beyond truth, adopts an error, nearly if not quite as dangerous, as he, who holds, that we have no control over it at all.A thousand external circumstances, which it would require a volume to enumerate, must concur with a certain easy and strong excitability in the physical and mental frame; and that excitability called into action by the right sort of stimulants, to impart happy and vigorous action to the imagination. Milton affirmed, that his muse was most propitious in the spring. As far as I can judge, the season of reproduction, and the awakening of the slumbering powers of nature, in the aroma and brilliancy of vegetation and flowers, acts too voluptuously on the senses, to give the highest and best direction to the imagination. The Indian summer days of autumn, with the associated repose of nature, the broad and crimson disk of the sun enthroned in the dome of a misty sky, the clouds sleeping in the firmament, the gorgeous coloring of the forests, the flashing fall of the first leaves, and the not unpleasing sadness of the images, called up by the imperceptible decay of nature, and the stealthy approach of winter, seem to me most favorable to heavenly musing. A cloudless morning, a beautiful sun, the glittering brightness of the dew drops, the renovated freshness of nature, morning sounds, the mists rolling away from the path of the sun, a bland southwest breeze, good health, self-satisfaction, the recent reception of good news, and the right train of circumstances all concur to put this faculty into its happiest action.Every one is acquainted with the unsparing ridicule bestowedon Bayes, in Buckingham’s Rehearsal, for announcing, that he always took physic, before he wrote. Yet the dull coxcomb had reason and truth on his side. Mental action is more dependent upon corporeal, and the ethereal powers upon the right disposition of that organized clod, the body, than most are willing to acknowledge. Who has not felt, when first going abroad from severe sickness, the new aspects of nature, a fullness of heart, and the crowding of innumerable images upon the thoughts, which have no place in the mind, after a turtle feast or a full dinner? When the digestive powers are oppressed with morbid accumulation, the wheels of mental movement, as every one knows, move heavily. Students, orators, painters, poets, imaginative men must live as near famine as may be, and the most useful stimulants are coffee and tea. Every one has read, that Byron’s inspiration was gin. It may be, that the detestible combination of terebinthine and alcoholic excitement may have aroused from the mouldy and terrene dormitories of his brain the images of Don Juan, and the obscene, irreligious, anti-social, and fierce thoughts, that abound in his works. But I would hardly believe, on his own assertion, that he wrote the Prisoners of Children under such an influence. The muse of alcohol is accursed; and her influence is too corroding, dreggy, and adverse to life, to originate ideas worthy of being handed down in immortal verse. If these baleful aids were resorted to at all, I should consider opium a thousand times preferable to alcohol.I know, from my own experience, that this reality of actual and present existence may be imparted to the creations of the imagination, by long habits of subjecting it to the control of the will. The enjoyment, resulting from reality, may be more intense, but it is, also, more tumultuous and feverish. I know of no happiness, more pure, prolonged and tranquil, more like what we may imagine to be the bliss of higher intelligences, than to be able to create this sunshine of the soul, this fair and celestial world within ourselves, and make ourselves free denizens of the country. From these fairy mansions labor,care and want are excluded. The obstacles and impediments of time, distance, and disease, both of body and mind, are excluded. The inhabitants, walking in the light of truth and the radiance of immortal beauty, from sin and death forever free, unite the wisdom of angels to the simplicity and affectionate confidence of children.Note 50, page 146.No people, in my estimation, are farther from true wisdom, than they, who denounce these pleasures of the imagination, as the puerile follies of weak minds. They who are most prompt to bring the charge, are generally destitute of the faculty, and its kindred endowments themselves; and seem to desire that other minds should be reduced to their own scale of sterility. Puerile, to avail ourselves of the power of rendering ourselves innocently happy! To me the puerility belongs to those who mostly abstain from contemplating the few gleams of sunshine, that we can behold between the cradle and the grave. ‘But these joys are unreal!’ What is there in thevain showof life, that is not so? See the greedy scramble of ambition, after honor, wealth and distinction, the painted baubles of insects, who hold all by the frail tenure of life! Life itself, what is it, but a dream, sometimes illumined by the rainbows of imagination and hope?Note 51, page 149.A being endowed with such intense emotions, as man; and so placed, as to have them so strongly called forth by the relations he contracts: so much in the dark in regard to his origin, his end and everything about him, conscious, that he must shortly leave home, all that he loves, the view of the earth and the sky, and that body, which long habit has taught him to consider as himself, to molder back to the soil, should naturally be expected to have this tendency to melancholy. Beautifully said the fabulist, ‘that he who formed us, moistened the clay of our structure not with water but tears.’ The natural expression of the human countenance in sleep isshaded with a slight veil of melancholy. It has been observed, that the national music of all people, and, more especially, of the uncivilized tribes, is on a key of melancholy. Most of the voices of the animal tribes are of this cast. The strain of the nightingale is the deepest expression of this sentiment. Religion should be the grand re-agent, in bringing light and cheerfulness to a universe of sadness and death, by presenting new views of that universe, its author, his beneficence, and the ultimate hope of the soul.‘See truth, love and mercy in triumph descending,And nature all glowing in Eden’s first bloom;On the cold cheek of death smiles and roses are blending.And beauty immortal awakes from the tomb.’Note 52, page 149.With the honorable exception of some towns and districts in our country, the epitaphs and monumental inscriptions are utterly beneath criticism. The greater portion are from Watts, and the other minor poets, too often little more than extravagant, coarse, miserable conceits. Here and there, a beautiful quotation from the Bible, such as ‘Blessed are the dead, who die in the Lord;’ ‘Man cometh forth, like a flower, and is cut down,’ only serve to render the worthlessness of the remainder more conspicuous by contrast. What adds to the unpleasant effect is, that no inconsiderable portion of them are absolutely misspelt, to say nothing of the punctuation. Strange, that survivors should incur the expense of a slab, and permit a stone-cutter to select, spell, and point the inscriptions. It is to be hoped, that some competent writer will, ere long, take in hand this matter, so vital to the literary reputation of our country, and introduce a thorough and general reform, by wiping away this national stain, and introducing that beautiful and sublime simplicity, which ought always to characterize monumental inscriptions.Akin to the bad taste of this sort, is the slovenly manner in which our church-yards are kept, in whole sections of the country. Who has not felt pain, at seeing many and evenmost of these places sacred to memory, in the western county especially, uninclosed, trampled upon by cattle, and the narrow heap of turf disturbed by swine?Of writers, whose works have been immortalized by the muse of melancholy, I am acquainted, in the French language, with Chateaubriand, who has produced occasional passages of this class not to be surpassed; and Lamartine, whose poetry breathes a rich and deep strain of melancholy. Young’s Night Thoughts, Blair’s Grave, and Porteus ‘on Death,’ are celebrated English specimens of this class of poetry. In our country the Thanatopsis of Bryant ranks quite as high as either of the former writers in this walk. Some of the lines are of exquisite beauty, as paintings of the trophies of the tomb. Another age will do justice to many of the thoughts in the Sorotaphion of a young poet, who has written on the remote shores of Red River.The first lines of the inscription on the famous Roman statue of Sleep are the sublimest concentration of melancholy thought:‘It is better to sleep, than wake; and best of all to be in marble.’The same may be said of that of the orphan nun, who died in the prime of youth and beauty: ‘I was alone among the living. I am alone here.’But it is in the book of Job, that poetic images, upon which has been thrown the shade of a sublime melancholy, are set forth, with a power and pathos that leave little more, to succeeding writers in that walk, than to study, combine, and reproduce their features. How perfectly has this author given utterance to the groans of one in utter despondency and bereavement! Here the heart speaks its own language, with a simplicity and truth to make its way to every other heart. These features fix the date of this poem at a period antecedent to the settled art of writing, and plagiarizing the shadow of a shade, more conclusively than volumes of criticism. He copied not; but drank at the fountain; feeling deeply, and expressing what he felt.Note 53, page 150.When in my travels I pass through a town, or village, which I have not seen, if I have sufficient leisure, the first place which I visit, is uniformly the church-yard. The feeling that I am a stranger, that I know not the scenery, and that it knows not me, naturally induces a sort of pensive meditation, which disposes me for that sojourn. I form certain estimates of the taste and moral feeling of the people, from the forms and devices of the slabs and monuments; and the order in which the consecrated ground is inclosed, and kept. The inscriptions are ordinarily, in too bad a taste to claim much interest, though there are few church-yards, that cannot show some monuments, which, by their eccentric variation from the rest, mark character. All this is a matter of trifling interest, compared with the throng of remembrances and anticipations, that naturally crowd upon the spirit of a stranger in such a place. Youth with its rainbows, and its loves; mature age with its ambitious projects; old age in the midst of children, death in the natal spot, or the house of the stranger; eternity with its dim and illimitable mysteriousness; these shadowy images, with their associated thoughts, pass through the mind, and return, like the guests at an inn. While I look up towards the rolling clouds, and the sun walking his unvarying path along the firmament, how natural the reflection, that they will present the same aspect, and suggest the same reflections, that the trees will stand forth in their foliage and the hills in their verdure, to him who comes after me, when I shall have taken my place with the unconscious sleepers about me! I never fail to recollect the charming reflections in a number of the Spectator, that treats upon a visit to Westminster Abbey, the most impressive writing of the kind, as it seems to me, in our language.Here is the place to reflect upon the folly, if not the guilt, of human hatred and revenge, ambition and avarice, and the million puerile projects and cares, that are incessantly over-cloudingthe sunshine of existence. What an eloquent lesson do these voiceless preachers read, upon the wisdom of most of those thoughts and solicitudes, that disturb our course through life!The heart cannot but be made better by occasional communion with these tenants of the narrow house, where—
Note 38, page 129.
I have long been in the habit of measuring the character, mental power and prospects of the young, who are brought by circumstances under my observation, by the power which they evince, to resist the suggestion of the senses. In the same proportion, as I see them capable of rising above the thraldom of their appetites, capable of that energy of will, that gives the intellectual control over the animal nature, I graduate them higher in the scale of moral power and prospect. But if, in their course, they manifest the clear preponderance of the animal; if sloth, sensuality, and the inclinations, which have no higher origin than the senses, sway them beyond the influence of advice and moral suasion, be they ever so beautiful, endowed, rich, distinguished, be their place in general estimation ever so high, I put them down, as belonging to the animal, and not the intellectual orders. They can never reach higher worth and success, than that, which is the blind award of accident.
Note 39, page 131.
It seems to me, that writers on taste have not seen all the importance of uniting physical with moral ideas, to give them any deep and permanent interest. This subject might be enlarged to any extent, by carrying out the details, suggested by the striking, just, but necessarily very brief views of the author. We have here a clue, by which we may explore a whole universe of the highest and purest pleasures which can touch the heart, and which to the greater portion of the species have no existence.
There are travellers more learned, and equally capable of noting facts with M. de Chateaubriand. They have traversedthe same countries, seen the same objects, and collected an immense mass of facts, which they have published, on their return, to be read by none, but kindred spirits, as dull as themselves. In his record of his travels in the same countries, we are beguiled onward, under the spell of a sustained charm. The imagination is constantly in action; the heart swells; images of grandeur and beauty, remembrances of pathos and power are evoked from every side, and the shadows of the past throng round us. Why is it so? The former see brute nature, in its lifeless and motionless materiality, divorced from mind and memory. The latter not only sees that universe with a radiant eye, but holds converse with a superincumbent universe, as much more vast, beautiful, touching, diversified, than the other, as mind is superior to matter. It is this creation of thoughts, remembrances, poetry, and affecting images, in his mind, intimately connected with the other, and overshadowing it, like an illumined stratum over a region covered with palpable mist, by virtue of which he makes nature eloquent. This is the charm spread over all the beautiful passages that abound in his writings; a peculiar aptitude to associate nature, in every position and form, with the universe of thought within him. Such is the endowment of all poets, orators, and painters, that have produced efforts worthy of immortality. Common writers see nature dead, silent, sterile—mere brute and voiceless matter. Endowed minds kindle it into speech, beauty and grandeur; interpreting it by the internal world in their own minds.
Note 39a, page 134.
These illustrations of the importance of uniting moral with physical ideas, in regard to vision, landscape, painting and music, are as true, as they are eloquent and striking. Who has not had the vivid remembrance of home recalled in a distant land, by a tree, a feature in the landscape, a blue hill in the distance! How readily the shadowy images of memory are evoked! Every one is acquainted with the touching circumstancein the character of the Swiss soldiers serving in foreign countries. Great numbers of them used to serve, as stipendaries, in the French armies. It was forbidden to play, in their presence, the airRanz des vaches. Homesickness and desertion scarcely failed to ensue from hearing it. The wild and plaintive air reminded them of ‘Sweet home,’ their mountains, their simple pleasures, and the range and lowing of their kine. The beautiful Scotch airs derive their charm from their association with mountain scenery, and the peculiar history and manners of a highly sensitive, intelligent and national people. The same may be said of the unrivalledErin go Bragh, in relation to the Irish; in a word of the national music of every people. Associate any idea with sentiment and the heart, and it becomes touching, and sublime, and capable of stirring the deepest fountains of feeling, according to the remembrance with which it is allied.
Note 40, page 136.
I have heard persons, endowed with keen feelings, repiningly contrast the miseries which they endured from an excess of irritable and unregulated sensibility, with the apparently joyous apathy of fat and fortunate burghers, who seem to find no sorrows and no troubles in life, and who hear with incredulity and, in fact, with an entire want of comprehension, about sufferings resulting from witnessing misery, which we have no means of relieving, and the sorrows, from innumerable sources, to which those of a keenly sensitive nature are subject. I have never seen these contrasts of character in this light. I unhesitatingly believe that a righteous Providence has exactly and admirably adjusted the weights in either scale. The great mass, who are not disturbed with excess of feeling, are, from the same temperament, interdicted from a whole universe of enjoyments, into which those, who possess sensibility, and regulate it aright, have free access.
Note 41, page 137.
Man seems to contain, according as he is contemplated in different lights, inexplicable contradictions of character; and to be at one time all tenderness of heart; and at another an odious compound of insensibility and cruelty; according to the circumstances with which he is surrounded, and the positions in which he is placed. Who could believe, that it was the same being, that now dissolves into tears at the rehearsal of a tragedy, on reading a romance or witnessing a spectacle of misery, and now hurries from these emotions to see a bull-fight; and in passing to the show, encourages two bullies in the street to form a ring, to bruise each other! Who would believe, that it has always been considered an attribute in the more susceptible sex, to regard duellists with a partial eye; to give a secret place in their kind feelings to those who are reckless of their own and another’s blood; and more than all to look propitiously on soldiers encrimsoned with the fresh stains of the battle field? Nay, more, who reads without astonishment, and almost without unbelief, that a whole people, in the days of the pagan Roman emperors, days of the utmost luxury of taste and refinement, days, in which, in all probability, traits of kindness, generosity and magnanimity were no more uncommon than now, the ladies of the greatest and most splendid city in the world thronged with an irrepressible curiosity, and an intense desire, to see naked gladiators lacerate, and stab each other, and old and feeble men torn in pieces by lions and wild beasts, when merely a movement of a finger would save them!
The ministers of the gospel, who attribute the abhorrence, which the same spectacles would excite in the population of a Christian city, to the humanizing influences of our faith, forget that such a city has seen, times without number, its inhabitants pouring forth from its gates, to witness miserable victims burnt to death at anauto da fé, and shouting with joy at the spectacle.
Protestant ministers exult, in contrasting the influences ofthe reformed faith with results like these; and yet witness their congregations thronging in crowds to see a wretched criminal swinging in the agonies of strangulation. The same people thrill with horror, as they hear, around their evening fire, how those whom they call savages, dance, and yell round the stake, at which a captive enemy is burning. To the red man it seems the extreme of cold-blooded ferocity, to execute a criminal with a halter, by the hands of a person who bears no ill will to the victim.
Far be it from me to question one of the sublime trophies of the gospel, or to doubt its refining and humanizing influences. But the whole aspect of history and society compels me to believe, that fashion and prevalent opinions exert an influence, that will bring men to tolerate almost anything. I much fear, that the spectacles of the Roman Amphitheatre might be revived, if a certain number of any community would pertinaciously conspire, to write in favor of them, and countenance them by their presence.
Note 42, page 137.
To present, in contrast, the favorable side of human contradictions:—I have seen a man plunge into the water, and put his own life at fearful jeopardy, to rescue a stranger from drowning. I have witnessed instances of disinterested and heroic sacrifice, which present men in the aspect of angels, in every walk of life. Such sublime samples of the capability of our nature are the appropriate theme of oratory, painting and song; and cannot be too much blazoned. Pity it is that history did not select more instances, and dwell upon them with more partial eulogy, instead of amplifying the revolting details of war.
Two instances of affecting manifestation of tenderness are deeply impressed upon my memory, simply because they were elicited by common cases of suffering; and had in them nothing of romance, or of uncommon tendency to excite the feelings.
I was passing in the streets of one of our northern cities. On the marble door steps of a sumptuous mansion sat a ragged boy, with a look at once dogged and subdued, manifesting long acquaintance with sorrow and want. Near him sat an aged woman, apparently his mother, decrepit, worn and squalid, with her face turned from me. The boy was devouring with voracious greediness a piece of dried herring. Fair and richly dressed children were passing to their morning school. Most of them jeered him, in passing, calling on him to get down from the steps, and asking him if he was very hungry? ‘Yes, and you would be hungry, and sad too, if you was poor and a stranger, and had to take care of an old mother, and had walked as far as I have.’ One of the boys lingered behind, as if ashamed of his feelings. I noticed his broad, high forehead, and eye speaking a soul within. His eyes filled with tears, as he handed the boy money. My own eyes moistened, as I witnessed the angelic expression of this noble boy, who I dare affirm, had not the spirit to do such things by halves.
The other was in another extremity of our country, where money and cotton, sugar and slaves, balls and theatres are the all-absorbing objects of interest. A large group of gaily dressed gentlemen and ladies were promenading, in company with an heiress and her intended husband, who were shortly to be married, and they were merely discussing the preparations. A poor, pale boy, apparently a stranger, came up to them, with his written petition for charity; and with the low and subdued tone of voice appropriate to shame, bashfulness and misery, began to tell his little story. The splendid laughers walked on with an incurious carelessness. One of the group lingered behind. He was struggling with the difficulties of obtaining a profession, and aiding in the support of a distant family. But, he bestowed on the boy one of his few remaining dollars. When I see such instances of native tenderness of heart, I thank God that men are not totally depraved.
Note 43, page 138.
Every one who has had extensive acquaintances, and been exposed to frequent requests for letters of recommendation, and to procure the intervention and aid of opulent friends, must feel the importance and justice of these remarks. We ought not to refuse such letters from indolence, selfishness, or the commonly alleged fear of troubling our friends. But then, the case must be such, as will bear us out, in being measured and scrupulous, in regard to the existence, the actual truth and justice, of what we advance; otherwise our inter-position will soon be rendered cheap and inefficient; and will react, in creating want of respect for the writer, instead of good feeling toward the person recommended. Such, in a great measure, is the result, in the current value of these letters, as they are emitted, according to the common forms of society.
Note 44, page 139.
A most affecting proof, that the human heart is not intrinsically bad, and that the obduracy and cold-blooded selfishness of the world is adventitious, and the result of our modes and our training, is, that the sisters of charity, the truly beneficent everywhere, create a deep sensation of respect in beholders. Efficient charity is almost the only thing, that no one feels disposed to question, or slander. A corpse was borne slowly by me, to the place of its long sleep. An immense procession followed with sorrow and respect impressed upon their countenances. I asked, whom they were burying. ‘A single woman without wealth or connexions.—But her life has been marked by beneficence.’ If that sex, which so instinctively desire to appear to advantage, knew, in what light a lady, distinguished by fortune and cultivation appears while traversing the dirty and dark lanes of a city, to seek out, and relieve cases of misery, they would practise charity, were it from no higher motive, than to create a sensation,and appear lovely. Every one knows the example of the sublime, quoted by Longinus from Moses. A passage in the Gospel seems to me still more sublime.He went about doing good.All other homage, than that which the heart pays to beneficence, is adventitious. This is real.
Note 45, page 141.
Of all the pleasures of our earthly sojourn, after those of a good conscience, the most varied, and yet equable, healthful and permanent are those of reading. ‘I have never,’ says a respectable writer, ‘passed a comfortable day without books since I was capable of reading.’ It is certainly pleasant, to be able to converse with the wise and instructed of all countries and all times without formality, without embarrassment, and just as long as we choose; and then dismiss one of them without any apology, and sit down with another. We travel without expense with them. We inhabit the tropics, or the polar circle, the table summits of mountains, or the wide plains, at our choice. We journey by land or by sea. We select congenial minds, and make them converse with us about our congenial pursuits. We throw away no voice. We never dialogue in wrath; and intelligence converses with intelligence, divested of terrene grossness and passion. When detained on long journeys, in some remote interior tavern, by a storm, or inability to find a conveyance, how keenly, while reading almanacks of the past years, and old fragments of books, found on the dusty shelf of the ordinary, have I felt the value of books, as a perfect cure for the impatience of such a position. In this state of privation and intellectual fasting, we master dull and tiresome books, which, under other circumstances, we should not have dreamed of reading. Then the mind is taught to pay the proper homage to these intellectual resources.
The pleasures of winter reading, in the sacred privacy of the parlor, are thus finely described by Thomson, the painter of nature.
‘There studious let me sit,And hold high converse with the mighty dead;Sages of ancient time, as gods revered,As gods beneficent, who bless’d mankindWith arts, with arms, and humanized a world.Roused at th’ inspiring thought, I throw asideThe long-lived volume; and, deep-musing, hailThe sacred shades, that slowly-rising passBefore my wondering eyes. First Socrates,Who, firmly good in a corrupted state,Against the rage of tyrants single stood,Invincible! calm Reason’s holy law,That voice of God within th’ attentive mind,Obeying, fearless, or in life or death:Great moral teacher! Wisest of mankind!Solon the next, who built his commonwealOn equity’s wide base; by tender lawsA lively people curbing, yet undampedPreserving still that quick peculiar fire,Whence in the laurel’d field of finer arts,And of bold freedom, they unequall’d shone,The pride of smiling Greece and human kind.Lycurgus then, who bow’d beneath the forceOf strictest discipline, severely wise,All human passions. Following him, I see,As at Thermopylæ he glorious fell,The firm devoted chief,[C]who proved by deedsThe hardest lesson which the other taught.Then Aristides lifts his honest front;Spotless of heart, to whom th’ unflattering voiceOf freedom gave the noblest name of Just;In pure majestic poverty revered;Who, e’en his glory to his country’s wealSubmitting, swell’d a haughty rival’s[D]fame.Rear’d by his care, of softer ray appearsCimon sweet-soul’d; whose genius, rising strong,Shook off the load of young debauch; abroadThe scourge of Persian pride, at home the friendOf every worth and every splendid art;Modest and simple, in the pomp of wealth.Then the last worthies of declining Greece,Late call’d to glory, in unequal timesPensive appear. The fair Corinthian boast,Timoleon, happy temper! mild and firm,Who wept the brother while the tyrant bled.And, equal to the best, the Theban Pair,[E]Whose virtues, in heroic concord join’d,Their country raised to freedom, empire, fame.He too, with whom Athenian honor sunk,And left a mass of sordid lees behind,Phocion the Good; in public life severe,To virtue still inexorably firm;But when, beneath his low illustrious roof,Sweet peace and happy wisdom smooth’d his brow,Not friendship softer was, nor love more kind.And he, the last of old Lycurgus’ sons,The generous victim to that vain attempt,To save a rotten state, Agis, who sawE’en Sparta’s self to servile avarice sunk.The two Achaian heroes close the train:Aratus, who a while relumed the soulOf fondly lingering liberty in Greece;And he, her darling as her latest hope,The gallant Philopœmen; who to armsTurn’d the luxurious pomp he could not cure;Or toiling on his farm, a simple swain;Or, bold and skilful, thundering in the field.‘Of rougher front, a mighty people comes!A race of heroes! in those virtuous timesWhich knew no stain, save that with partial flameTheir dearest country they too fondly loved:Her better Founder first, the light of Rome,Numa, who soften’d her rapacious sons;Servius the king, who laid the solid baseOn which o’er earth the vast republic spread.Then the great consuls venerable rise.The public Father[F]who the private quell’d,As on the dread tribunal sternly sat.He whom his thankless country could not lose,Camillus, only vengeful to her foes.Fabricius, scorner of all-conquering gold;And Cincinnatus, awful from the plough.Thy willing victim,[G]Carthage, bursting looseFrom all that pleading Nature could oppose,From a whole city’s tears, by rigid faithImperious call’d, and honor’s dire command.Scipio, the gentle chief, humanely brave,Who soon the race of spotless glory ran,And, warm in youth, to the poetic shadeWith Friendship and Philosophy retired.Tully, whose powerful eloquence a whileRestrain’d the rapid fate of rushing Rome.Unconquer’d Cato, virtuous in extreme;And thou, unhappy Brutus, kind of heart,Whose steady arm, by awful virtue urged,Lifted the Roman steel against thy friend.Thousands besides the tribute of a verseDemand; but who can count the stars of heaven?Who sing their influence on this lower world?‘Behold, who yonder comes! in sober state,Fair, mild, and strong, as is a vernal sun;’Tis Phœbus’ self, or else the Mantuan swain!Great Homer too appears, of daring wing,Parent of song! and, equal by his side,The British Muse; join’d hand in hand they walk,Darkling, full up the middle steep to fame,Nor absent are those shades, whose skilful touchPathetic drew th’ impassion’d heart, and charm’dTransported Athens with the moral scene;Nor those who, tuneful, waked th’ enchanted lyre.‘First of your kind! society divine!Still visit thus my nights, for you reserved,And mount my soaring soul to thoughts like yours.Silence, thou lonely power! the door be thine;See on the hallow’d hour that none intrude,Save a few chosen friends, who sometimes deignTo bless my humble roof, with sense refined,Learning digested well, exalted faith,Unstudied wit, and humor ever gay.Or from the Muses’ hill will Pope descend,To raise the sacred hour, to bid it smile,And with the social spirit warm the heart?For though not sweeter his own Homer sings,Yet is his life the more endearing song.’
‘There studious let me sit,And hold high converse with the mighty dead;Sages of ancient time, as gods revered,As gods beneficent, who bless’d mankindWith arts, with arms, and humanized a world.Roused at th’ inspiring thought, I throw asideThe long-lived volume; and, deep-musing, hailThe sacred shades, that slowly-rising passBefore my wondering eyes. First Socrates,Who, firmly good in a corrupted state,Against the rage of tyrants single stood,Invincible! calm Reason’s holy law,That voice of God within th’ attentive mind,Obeying, fearless, or in life or death:Great moral teacher! Wisest of mankind!Solon the next, who built his commonwealOn equity’s wide base; by tender lawsA lively people curbing, yet undampedPreserving still that quick peculiar fire,Whence in the laurel’d field of finer arts,And of bold freedom, they unequall’d shone,The pride of smiling Greece and human kind.Lycurgus then, who bow’d beneath the forceOf strictest discipline, severely wise,All human passions. Following him, I see,As at Thermopylæ he glorious fell,The firm devoted chief,[C]who proved by deedsThe hardest lesson which the other taught.Then Aristides lifts his honest front;Spotless of heart, to whom th’ unflattering voiceOf freedom gave the noblest name of Just;In pure majestic poverty revered;Who, e’en his glory to his country’s wealSubmitting, swell’d a haughty rival’s[D]fame.Rear’d by his care, of softer ray appearsCimon sweet-soul’d; whose genius, rising strong,Shook off the load of young debauch; abroadThe scourge of Persian pride, at home the friendOf every worth and every splendid art;Modest and simple, in the pomp of wealth.Then the last worthies of declining Greece,Late call’d to glory, in unequal timesPensive appear. The fair Corinthian boast,Timoleon, happy temper! mild and firm,Who wept the brother while the tyrant bled.And, equal to the best, the Theban Pair,[E]Whose virtues, in heroic concord join’d,Their country raised to freedom, empire, fame.He too, with whom Athenian honor sunk,And left a mass of sordid lees behind,Phocion the Good; in public life severe,To virtue still inexorably firm;But when, beneath his low illustrious roof,Sweet peace and happy wisdom smooth’d his brow,Not friendship softer was, nor love more kind.And he, the last of old Lycurgus’ sons,The generous victim to that vain attempt,To save a rotten state, Agis, who sawE’en Sparta’s self to servile avarice sunk.The two Achaian heroes close the train:Aratus, who a while relumed the soulOf fondly lingering liberty in Greece;And he, her darling as her latest hope,The gallant Philopœmen; who to armsTurn’d the luxurious pomp he could not cure;Or toiling on his farm, a simple swain;Or, bold and skilful, thundering in the field.‘Of rougher front, a mighty people comes!A race of heroes! in those virtuous timesWhich knew no stain, save that with partial flameTheir dearest country they too fondly loved:Her better Founder first, the light of Rome,Numa, who soften’d her rapacious sons;Servius the king, who laid the solid baseOn which o’er earth the vast republic spread.Then the great consuls venerable rise.The public Father[F]who the private quell’d,As on the dread tribunal sternly sat.He whom his thankless country could not lose,Camillus, only vengeful to her foes.Fabricius, scorner of all-conquering gold;And Cincinnatus, awful from the plough.Thy willing victim,[G]Carthage, bursting looseFrom all that pleading Nature could oppose,From a whole city’s tears, by rigid faithImperious call’d, and honor’s dire command.Scipio, the gentle chief, humanely brave,Who soon the race of spotless glory ran,And, warm in youth, to the poetic shadeWith Friendship and Philosophy retired.Tully, whose powerful eloquence a whileRestrain’d the rapid fate of rushing Rome.Unconquer’d Cato, virtuous in extreme;And thou, unhappy Brutus, kind of heart,Whose steady arm, by awful virtue urged,Lifted the Roman steel against thy friend.Thousands besides the tribute of a verseDemand; but who can count the stars of heaven?Who sing their influence on this lower world?‘Behold, who yonder comes! in sober state,Fair, mild, and strong, as is a vernal sun;’Tis Phœbus’ self, or else the Mantuan swain!Great Homer too appears, of daring wing,Parent of song! and, equal by his side,The British Muse; join’d hand in hand they walk,Darkling, full up the middle steep to fame,Nor absent are those shades, whose skilful touchPathetic drew th’ impassion’d heart, and charm’dTransported Athens with the moral scene;Nor those who, tuneful, waked th’ enchanted lyre.‘First of your kind! society divine!Still visit thus my nights, for you reserved,And mount my soaring soul to thoughts like yours.Silence, thou lonely power! the door be thine;See on the hallow’d hour that none intrude,Save a few chosen friends, who sometimes deignTo bless my humble roof, with sense refined,Learning digested well, exalted faith,Unstudied wit, and humor ever gay.Or from the Muses’ hill will Pope descend,To raise the sacred hour, to bid it smile,And with the social spirit warm the heart?For though not sweeter his own Homer sings,Yet is his life the more endearing song.’
‘There studious let me sit,
And hold high converse with the mighty dead;
Sages of ancient time, as gods revered,
As gods beneficent, who bless’d mankind
With arts, with arms, and humanized a world.
Roused at th’ inspiring thought, I throw aside
The long-lived volume; and, deep-musing, hail
The sacred shades, that slowly-rising pass
Before my wondering eyes. First Socrates,
Who, firmly good in a corrupted state,
Against the rage of tyrants single stood,
Invincible! calm Reason’s holy law,
That voice of God within th’ attentive mind,
Obeying, fearless, or in life or death:
Great moral teacher! Wisest of mankind!
Solon the next, who built his commonweal
On equity’s wide base; by tender laws
A lively people curbing, yet undamped
Preserving still that quick peculiar fire,
Whence in the laurel’d field of finer arts,
And of bold freedom, they unequall’d shone,
The pride of smiling Greece and human kind.
Lycurgus then, who bow’d beneath the force
Of strictest discipline, severely wise,
All human passions. Following him, I see,
As at Thermopylæ he glorious fell,
The firm devoted chief,[C]who proved by deeds
The hardest lesson which the other taught.
Then Aristides lifts his honest front;
Spotless of heart, to whom th’ unflattering voice
Of freedom gave the noblest name of Just;
In pure majestic poverty revered;
Who, e’en his glory to his country’s weal
Submitting, swell’d a haughty rival’s[D]fame.
Rear’d by his care, of softer ray appears
Cimon sweet-soul’d; whose genius, rising strong,
Shook off the load of young debauch; abroad
The scourge of Persian pride, at home the friend
Of every worth and every splendid art;
Modest and simple, in the pomp of wealth.
Then the last worthies of declining Greece,
Late call’d to glory, in unequal times
Pensive appear. The fair Corinthian boast,
Timoleon, happy temper! mild and firm,
Who wept the brother while the tyrant bled.
And, equal to the best, the Theban Pair,[E]
Whose virtues, in heroic concord join’d,
Their country raised to freedom, empire, fame.
He too, with whom Athenian honor sunk,
And left a mass of sordid lees behind,
Phocion the Good; in public life severe,
To virtue still inexorably firm;
But when, beneath his low illustrious roof,
Sweet peace and happy wisdom smooth’d his brow,
Not friendship softer was, nor love more kind.
And he, the last of old Lycurgus’ sons,
The generous victim to that vain attempt,
To save a rotten state, Agis, who saw
E’en Sparta’s self to servile avarice sunk.
The two Achaian heroes close the train:
Aratus, who a while relumed the soul
Of fondly lingering liberty in Greece;
And he, her darling as her latest hope,
The gallant Philopœmen; who to arms
Turn’d the luxurious pomp he could not cure;
Or toiling on his farm, a simple swain;
Or, bold and skilful, thundering in the field.
‘Of rougher front, a mighty people comes!
A race of heroes! in those virtuous times
Which knew no stain, save that with partial flame
Their dearest country they too fondly loved:
Her better Founder first, the light of Rome,
Numa, who soften’d her rapacious sons;
Servius the king, who laid the solid base
On which o’er earth the vast republic spread.
Then the great consuls venerable rise.
The public Father[F]who the private quell’d,
As on the dread tribunal sternly sat.
He whom his thankless country could not lose,
Camillus, only vengeful to her foes.
Fabricius, scorner of all-conquering gold;
And Cincinnatus, awful from the plough.
Thy willing victim,[G]Carthage, bursting loose
From all that pleading Nature could oppose,
From a whole city’s tears, by rigid faith
Imperious call’d, and honor’s dire command.
Scipio, the gentle chief, humanely brave,
Who soon the race of spotless glory ran,
And, warm in youth, to the poetic shade
With Friendship and Philosophy retired.
Tully, whose powerful eloquence a while
Restrain’d the rapid fate of rushing Rome.
Unconquer’d Cato, virtuous in extreme;
And thou, unhappy Brutus, kind of heart,
Whose steady arm, by awful virtue urged,
Lifted the Roman steel against thy friend.
Thousands besides the tribute of a verse
Demand; but who can count the stars of heaven?
Who sing their influence on this lower world?
‘Behold, who yonder comes! in sober state,
Fair, mild, and strong, as is a vernal sun;
’Tis Phœbus’ self, or else the Mantuan swain!
Great Homer too appears, of daring wing,
Parent of song! and, equal by his side,
The British Muse; join’d hand in hand they walk,
Darkling, full up the middle steep to fame,
Nor absent are those shades, whose skilful touch
Pathetic drew th’ impassion’d heart, and charm’d
Transported Athens with the moral scene;
Nor those who, tuneful, waked th’ enchanted lyre.
‘First of your kind! society divine!
Still visit thus my nights, for you reserved,
And mount my soaring soul to thoughts like yours.
Silence, thou lonely power! the door be thine;
See on the hallow’d hour that none intrude,
Save a few chosen friends, who sometimes deign
To bless my humble roof, with sense refined,
Learning digested well, exalted faith,
Unstudied wit, and humor ever gay.
Or from the Muses’ hill will Pope descend,
To raise the sacred hour, to bid it smile,
And with the social spirit warm the heart?
For though not sweeter his own Homer sings,
Yet is his life the more endearing song.’
Note 46, page 142.
Whoever has attempted to concentrate his thoughts in fixed contemplation upon the origin of the human race, the object of our present existence, and our prospects beyond it, upon the character and plan of the divinity, and the mode of his being, must have felt a painful vagueness, a dizzying sense of the weakness of our powers, very naturally preparing us for superstitious and terrific views of the first cause. But when, in the clear light of reason, I look upon his creation, on his star-spangled firmament, and the glory of his works, I should as soon doubt my own existence, as the perfect wisdom and goodness of the author of my being. All religion, which does not strengthen our confidence in this, must be a dreary illusion. Horrible dreams, dating their origin from the associations of childhood, and the rant of wild and visionary ministers, may sometimes interpose, in the uncertain moments between sleeping and waking, as among the gloomy presentiments and partial delirium of ill health. But every rational mind must finally settle to repose in that glorious persuasion, which instantly irradiates the moral universe with perennial sunshine. ‘The Lord reigneth; let the earth rejoice.’ In this or any other world, in our present or any other forms of conscious being, we may advance upon the unexplored scenes with a full confidence that we can never travel beyond the beneficence and equity of the infinite mind.
One of the standing themes of Christian pulpits is the puerile and absurd views, which the common creed of the Greeks and Romans presented of the rabble divinities of their Pantheon; deities, who fought, intrigued, made love, and intoxicated themselves; deities, who had great power in avalley, and none on the adjoining hills; deities, who were conquered, and transferred with their territory, and became in consequence subservient to their conquerors. I have heard discussions of this kind in the discourse of the sabbath morning: and, in that of the evening, views of Christian theology, scarcely less narrow and unworthy of the Supreme Being. I am compelled to believe, from reading and observation, that the mass of the people, in all churches, have had no other conception of the divinity, than that of a being molded much like themselves. We cannot avoid discovering, that their ideas of a God are gross, material, local, partial; that they behold him, as the God of their place, party and passions. Converse with the fiercer sects, and you perceive, that their views immediately become vague, as soon as they contemplate the Almighty occupied with concerns beyond their sect. It seems beyond their thoughts, to realize, that their denomination bears to the species little more than the proportion of a drop to the ocean: and that the Supreme Being cannot be rationally supposed more concerned about them, than any other equal number of his children.
Nothing can be more philosophical, or consoling, than the Scripture views of what has been called aparticular providence. But, as we hear it generally expounded from the press, the pulpit, and in common conversation, it offers views of the divine Being and government, scarcely less weak, monstrous and unworthy, than those entertained by the ancient pagans. What a conception, to suppose that a perfect law, as wise and equitable in its general operation, as infinite wisdom and goodness could ordain, could be continually infringed, to meet countless millions of opposing prayers and interests! What a view of God, to imagine, that earnest and concurrent prayers can at any time divert him from his purpose, and change his plans! What palpable misinterpretation of the Scriptures, to suppose, that they give any countenance to such debasing conceptions of God! Hear rigid sectarians converse, and you discover, that they think little of the divine providence, which has no reference to their individual interests andconcerns. From the tone of their conversations, it is but too manifest, that they have an interior confidence, that they can obtain of the divine power, almost what they will.
The testimony of church history and the experience of time testify, that the million, under all degrees of light, shrink from the difficult and philosophical idea of the real Jehovah of the Bible; and form, instead, the easy and natural image of a limited, partial, changeable God, whom importunity can easily induce to swerve from his purpose; and who is, in many respects, such a being as themselves. It is the embodied conception of their own narrow views, assigned to a local habitation. To him the countless millions of other lands, and other forms of worship, are not, like them, as children. Unable to rise to the Supreme Being, they have brought Him down to them.
A few minds, from age to age, elevated by endowment and circumstances far above their cotemporaries, have not only embraced, in common with others, the easy and simple sentiments of Him, which the heart entertains, but have raised their contemplations so high, as to behold Him in the light of truth—have seen Him, in some sense,as He is—have been filled with awe and confidence, in the view of his immutability, and with filial and cheerful resignation, in seeing in the universe, its order, mutations and variety, in the mixed condition of man, in a word, in every feature of the natural and moral creation, as in a mirror, a perfect transcript of the divine perfections—a pattern of an archetype without a shade of defect. Instead of bringing the Divine Being down to them, they have raised themselves up to Him. The veil, that screens his glory from the feeble vision of the multitude, has been removed. Being assured, that He has made of one blood all nations, that dwell on the earth, they have seen it to be impossible, that He should look upon one portion of his children with more favor than on another. They have seen, in the superior light and advantages of one part of the species over another, not the indication, of what is technically calledspecial favor, but the natural result of the operation ofhis universal laws. They have seen, that if the inhabitants of one region are enabled to rise higher in the intellectual scale, and pay him a more spiritual and worthy homage—the simple inhabitants ofdistant, barbarous isleshave an organization admitting them to be as happy as their natures will admit, and as full of enjoyment as their measure can contain. If they are unable to offer an intellectual worship, the service of their minds, their hearts are formed for fervent admiration and worship of the thunderer—the being, who raises fruits and flowers, and hangs out his bow on their clouds. They see, in all this,that God, also, hath set one thing over against another.
Note 47, page 144.
The wisdom of allowing any place to the imagination, among the faculties to be nurtured, I have often heard called in question. The extremes of opinion frequently meet in the same point. The most earnest declaimers against the indulgence of the imagination are commonly found among the class of strict religionists. It is, at the same time, a strong and prominent trait in the system of Mr Owen ‘the philosopher of circumstances,’ and his followers, that we ought to eradicate this faculty, if possible, or at least suppress its exercise; and reduce all mental operations to the cultivation of the reasoning powers. For me, I hold, that we are as much indebted to the author of our being for granting us this faculty, as any other. I see nothing wrong, or unphilosophical in cultivating it to the utmost extent; provided our imaginings would be innocent, if we could render them realities; unless it can be shown, that the indulgence of this faculty enervates the mind, and unfits it for encountering the stern duties and trials of life. So far from believing this to be the natural tendency of its allowed exercise, my experience has led me to suppose, that persons, strongly endowed with this faculty, are most likely to show energy for the discharge of common duties; and constancy and cheerfulness in encountering trials.Are the southern people of Europe, for example, less firm in conflicting with danger and sorrow, or more feeble and remiss in the discharge of duties, than the northern nations, admitted to be far less imaginative? Within the range of my experience, I find those possessed of the most vivid imagination, the most prompt to duty, and the most cheerful in sorrow. The moody advocates of pure and exclusive reason lay feeling, one of the strongest impulses to duty, out of the question; and would extinguish one of the surest supports in sorrow, the power of creating a bright internal world for ourselves, when the external world is involved in unavoidable gloom.
They who decry the indulgence of the imagination, must, of course, object to the endowment of poets and painters; and equally to the pleasure derived from reading poetry, and contemplating paintings. The whole empire of these kindred studies is that of the imagination. Let us try the alleged puerility of indulging this faculty. No one will deny, that it is the highest wisdom to seek to be as happy, as we innocently may. When a mental faculty is employed in creating within us a celestial world, peopled with nobler beings, acting from higher motives, and showing a happier existence; and in substituting the beautiful possible for the tame real; if we find innocent happiness in this celestial castle-building, are we not employing reason, only in a different direction from the common? When any one can prove to me, that it is puerile, to make ourselves happy, and from sources always within our own control, then I will admit, that ideal pleasures are unworthy of a reasonable being. Prove only, that the indulgence of the faculty enervates the mind, and indisposes it for duty and constancy in suffering, and I will grant at once, that it should be stifled, or its action restricted or suppressed. So far from believing this to be the fact, I would counsel him, whom I most love, to seek in her whom he would select for his wife, a cheerful and active imagination. It is an egregious mistake, that mathematicians and practical men have generally been found destitute of a good development of this faculty. Contraryto the vulgar and hackneyed theme of pulpit declamation, I have found on examination, that some of the most energetically charitable women, I have ever known, were veteran novel readers; as have also been some of the most profound lawyers that have ever adorned the judgment seat in our country.
Note 48, page 145.
It is not exactly true, that this faculty can be subjected to the complete control of the will. I know of no point in metaphysics, connected, also, with an important question in rhetoric, upon which less light has been thrown, than the question, how far, and in what way the imagination can be cultivated: and by what methods brought under the control of the will. A system of useful and practical rules for this result is, as far as my reading extends, a desideratum. Dr Johnson, it is well known, believed, that a man’s muse wassua dextra, his own will, industry and habits, and that by a vigorous effort over himself, he could write, for example, at any time. This may be true in efforts, in which imagination is not required; but, where the vivid exercise of this faculty is requisite to excellence, it is not true. Let the most amply endowed poet suffer under mental depression, dyspepsia, a concurrence of small misfortunes and petty vexations. Let him write in a smoky apartment, and look abroad upon a leaden sky, marked with the dulness of winter, without its storms and congenial horrors. He may repair to his rules. He may apply the whip and spur, and invoke the nimble fancies from the vasty deep, and the muses from their hill, but they will not answer, nor come at his bidding.
The imagination may be cultivated to a certain extent; and brought by rules and intense concentration of mind, in a certain degree, under the control of the will. Those, who would nurture it, ought intensely to study those rules. But, after all, to be able to exercise it in high measures of vivacity, is an endowment, in the bestowment of which nature has been morecapricious than in almost any other. Even when possessed in copious measures, its province lies so intermediate between corporeal and mental influence, between the prevalent temperament of the period of its action, and the concurrence of external circumstances beyond our control, that we can easily see, why the wise ancients, who thought more justly upon these subjects, and more profoundly than the moderns seem to be willing to apprehend, attributed the successful efforts of the muses to a superior and celestial influence. He, who pushes the theory of our control over this faculty beyond truth, adopts an error, nearly if not quite as dangerous, as he, who holds, that we have no control over it at all.
A thousand external circumstances, which it would require a volume to enumerate, must concur with a certain easy and strong excitability in the physical and mental frame; and that excitability called into action by the right sort of stimulants, to impart happy and vigorous action to the imagination. Milton affirmed, that his muse was most propitious in the spring. As far as I can judge, the season of reproduction, and the awakening of the slumbering powers of nature, in the aroma and brilliancy of vegetation and flowers, acts too voluptuously on the senses, to give the highest and best direction to the imagination. The Indian summer days of autumn, with the associated repose of nature, the broad and crimson disk of the sun enthroned in the dome of a misty sky, the clouds sleeping in the firmament, the gorgeous coloring of the forests, the flashing fall of the first leaves, and the not unpleasing sadness of the images, called up by the imperceptible decay of nature, and the stealthy approach of winter, seem to me most favorable to heavenly musing. A cloudless morning, a beautiful sun, the glittering brightness of the dew drops, the renovated freshness of nature, morning sounds, the mists rolling away from the path of the sun, a bland southwest breeze, good health, self-satisfaction, the recent reception of good news, and the right train of circumstances all concur to put this faculty into its happiest action.
Every one is acquainted with the unsparing ridicule bestowedon Bayes, in Buckingham’s Rehearsal, for announcing, that he always took physic, before he wrote. Yet the dull coxcomb had reason and truth on his side. Mental action is more dependent upon corporeal, and the ethereal powers upon the right disposition of that organized clod, the body, than most are willing to acknowledge. Who has not felt, when first going abroad from severe sickness, the new aspects of nature, a fullness of heart, and the crowding of innumerable images upon the thoughts, which have no place in the mind, after a turtle feast or a full dinner? When the digestive powers are oppressed with morbid accumulation, the wheels of mental movement, as every one knows, move heavily. Students, orators, painters, poets, imaginative men must live as near famine as may be, and the most useful stimulants are coffee and tea. Every one has read, that Byron’s inspiration was gin. It may be, that the detestible combination of terebinthine and alcoholic excitement may have aroused from the mouldy and terrene dormitories of his brain the images of Don Juan, and the obscene, irreligious, anti-social, and fierce thoughts, that abound in his works. But I would hardly believe, on his own assertion, that he wrote the Prisoners of Children under such an influence. The muse of alcohol is accursed; and her influence is too corroding, dreggy, and adverse to life, to originate ideas worthy of being handed down in immortal verse. If these baleful aids were resorted to at all, I should consider opium a thousand times preferable to alcohol.
I know, from my own experience, that this reality of actual and present existence may be imparted to the creations of the imagination, by long habits of subjecting it to the control of the will. The enjoyment, resulting from reality, may be more intense, but it is, also, more tumultuous and feverish. I know of no happiness, more pure, prolonged and tranquil, more like what we may imagine to be the bliss of higher intelligences, than to be able to create this sunshine of the soul, this fair and celestial world within ourselves, and make ourselves free denizens of the country. From these fairy mansions labor,care and want are excluded. The obstacles and impediments of time, distance, and disease, both of body and mind, are excluded. The inhabitants, walking in the light of truth and the radiance of immortal beauty, from sin and death forever free, unite the wisdom of angels to the simplicity and affectionate confidence of children.
Note 50, page 146.
No people, in my estimation, are farther from true wisdom, than they, who denounce these pleasures of the imagination, as the puerile follies of weak minds. They who are most prompt to bring the charge, are generally destitute of the faculty, and its kindred endowments themselves; and seem to desire that other minds should be reduced to their own scale of sterility. Puerile, to avail ourselves of the power of rendering ourselves innocently happy! To me the puerility belongs to those who mostly abstain from contemplating the few gleams of sunshine, that we can behold between the cradle and the grave. ‘But these joys are unreal!’ What is there in thevain showof life, that is not so? See the greedy scramble of ambition, after honor, wealth and distinction, the painted baubles of insects, who hold all by the frail tenure of life! Life itself, what is it, but a dream, sometimes illumined by the rainbows of imagination and hope?
Note 51, page 149.
A being endowed with such intense emotions, as man; and so placed, as to have them so strongly called forth by the relations he contracts: so much in the dark in regard to his origin, his end and everything about him, conscious, that he must shortly leave home, all that he loves, the view of the earth and the sky, and that body, which long habit has taught him to consider as himself, to molder back to the soil, should naturally be expected to have this tendency to melancholy. Beautifully said the fabulist, ‘that he who formed us, moistened the clay of our structure not with water but tears.’ The natural expression of the human countenance in sleep isshaded with a slight veil of melancholy. It has been observed, that the national music of all people, and, more especially, of the uncivilized tribes, is on a key of melancholy. Most of the voices of the animal tribes are of this cast. The strain of the nightingale is the deepest expression of this sentiment. Religion should be the grand re-agent, in bringing light and cheerfulness to a universe of sadness and death, by presenting new views of that universe, its author, his beneficence, and the ultimate hope of the soul.
‘See truth, love and mercy in triumph descending,And nature all glowing in Eden’s first bloom;On the cold cheek of death smiles and roses are blending.And beauty immortal awakes from the tomb.’
‘See truth, love and mercy in triumph descending,And nature all glowing in Eden’s first bloom;On the cold cheek of death smiles and roses are blending.And beauty immortal awakes from the tomb.’
‘See truth, love and mercy in triumph descending,
And nature all glowing in Eden’s first bloom;
On the cold cheek of death smiles and roses are blending.
And beauty immortal awakes from the tomb.’
Note 52, page 149.
With the honorable exception of some towns and districts in our country, the epitaphs and monumental inscriptions are utterly beneath criticism. The greater portion are from Watts, and the other minor poets, too often little more than extravagant, coarse, miserable conceits. Here and there, a beautiful quotation from the Bible, such as ‘Blessed are the dead, who die in the Lord;’ ‘Man cometh forth, like a flower, and is cut down,’ only serve to render the worthlessness of the remainder more conspicuous by contrast. What adds to the unpleasant effect is, that no inconsiderable portion of them are absolutely misspelt, to say nothing of the punctuation. Strange, that survivors should incur the expense of a slab, and permit a stone-cutter to select, spell, and point the inscriptions. It is to be hoped, that some competent writer will, ere long, take in hand this matter, so vital to the literary reputation of our country, and introduce a thorough and general reform, by wiping away this national stain, and introducing that beautiful and sublime simplicity, which ought always to characterize monumental inscriptions.
Akin to the bad taste of this sort, is the slovenly manner in which our church-yards are kept, in whole sections of the country. Who has not felt pain, at seeing many and evenmost of these places sacred to memory, in the western county especially, uninclosed, trampled upon by cattle, and the narrow heap of turf disturbed by swine?
Of writers, whose works have been immortalized by the muse of melancholy, I am acquainted, in the French language, with Chateaubriand, who has produced occasional passages of this class not to be surpassed; and Lamartine, whose poetry breathes a rich and deep strain of melancholy. Young’s Night Thoughts, Blair’s Grave, and Porteus ‘on Death,’ are celebrated English specimens of this class of poetry. In our country the Thanatopsis of Bryant ranks quite as high as either of the former writers in this walk. Some of the lines are of exquisite beauty, as paintings of the trophies of the tomb. Another age will do justice to many of the thoughts in the Sorotaphion of a young poet, who has written on the remote shores of Red River.
The first lines of the inscription on the famous Roman statue of Sleep are the sublimest concentration of melancholy thought:
‘It is better to sleep, than wake; and best of all to be in marble.’
The same may be said of that of the orphan nun, who died in the prime of youth and beauty: ‘I was alone among the living. I am alone here.’
But it is in the book of Job, that poetic images, upon which has been thrown the shade of a sublime melancholy, are set forth, with a power and pathos that leave little more, to succeeding writers in that walk, than to study, combine, and reproduce their features. How perfectly has this author given utterance to the groans of one in utter despondency and bereavement! Here the heart speaks its own language, with a simplicity and truth to make its way to every other heart. These features fix the date of this poem at a period antecedent to the settled art of writing, and plagiarizing the shadow of a shade, more conclusively than volumes of criticism. He copied not; but drank at the fountain; feeling deeply, and expressing what he felt.
Note 53, page 150.
When in my travels I pass through a town, or village, which I have not seen, if I have sufficient leisure, the first place which I visit, is uniformly the church-yard. The feeling that I am a stranger, that I know not the scenery, and that it knows not me, naturally induces a sort of pensive meditation, which disposes me for that sojourn. I form certain estimates of the taste and moral feeling of the people, from the forms and devices of the slabs and monuments; and the order in which the consecrated ground is inclosed, and kept. The inscriptions are ordinarily, in too bad a taste to claim much interest, though there are few church-yards, that cannot show some monuments, which, by their eccentric variation from the rest, mark character. All this is a matter of trifling interest, compared with the throng of remembrances and anticipations, that naturally crowd upon the spirit of a stranger in such a place. Youth with its rainbows, and its loves; mature age with its ambitious projects; old age in the midst of children, death in the natal spot, or the house of the stranger; eternity with its dim and illimitable mysteriousness; these shadowy images, with their associated thoughts, pass through the mind, and return, like the guests at an inn. While I look up towards the rolling clouds, and the sun walking his unvarying path along the firmament, how natural the reflection, that they will present the same aspect, and suggest the same reflections, that the trees will stand forth in their foliage and the hills in their verdure, to him who comes after me, when I shall have taken my place with the unconscious sleepers about me! I never fail to recollect the charming reflections in a number of the Spectator, that treats upon a visit to Westminster Abbey, the most impressive writing of the kind, as it seems to me, in our language.
Here is the place to reflect upon the folly, if not the guilt, of human hatred and revenge, ambition and avarice, and the million puerile projects and cares, that are incessantly over-cloudingthe sunshine of existence. What an eloquent lesson do these voiceless preachers read, upon the wisdom of most of those thoughts and solicitudes, that disturb our course through life!
The heart cannot but be made better by occasional communion with these tenants of the narrow house, where—