'The papers I wrote for Miller'sEuropean Magazinehave been generally attributed to no less a person than Washington Irving—a man whom I resemble just about as much in my person as in my writing. He, Addisonian and Goldsmithian to the back-bone, and steeped to the very lips in what is called classical literature, of which I have a horror and a loathing, as the deadest of all dead languages; he, foil of subdued pleasantry, quiet humor, and genial blandness, upon all subjects. I, altogether—but never mind. He is a generous fellow, and led the way to all our triumphs in that 'field of the cloth of gold' which men call theliterary'.
'The papers I wrote for Miller'sEuropean Magazinehave been generally attributed to no less a person than Washington Irving—a man whom I resemble just about as much in my person as in my writing. He, Addisonian and Goldsmithian to the back-bone, and steeped to the very lips in what is called classical literature, of which I have a horror and a loathing, as the deadest of all dead languages; he, foil of subdued pleasantry, quiet humor, and genial blandness, upon all subjects. I, altogether—but never mind. He is a generous fellow, and led the way to all our triumphs in that 'field of the cloth of gold' which men call theliterary'.
Neal went to England a sort of Yankee knight-errant to fight for his country. He had the wisdom to fight with his visor down, and quarter on the enemy. He took heavy tribute fromBlackwoodand others for his articles vindicating America, which came to be extravagantly quoted and read. His article forBlackwoodon the Five Presidents and the Five Candidates, portraying General Jackson to the life as he afterward proved to be, was translated into most of the European languages. I transcribe another paragraph from an old letter. It is too characteristic to remain unread by the public:
'For my paper on the Presidents,Blackwoodsent me five guineas, and engaged me as a regular contributor, which I determined to be. But I ventured to write for other journals without consulting him; whereat he grew tetchy and impertinent, and I blew him up sky-high, recalled an article in type for which he had paid mefifteenguineas, (I wish he had kept it,) refunded the money, (I wish I hadn't,) and left him forever. But this I will say:Blackwoodbehaved handsomely to me from first to last, with one small exception, and showed more courage and good feeling toward 'my belovedcountry' while I was at the helm of that department, than any and all the editors, publishers, and proprietors in Britain. Give the devil his due, I say!'
'For my paper on the Presidents,Blackwoodsent me five guineas, and engaged me as a regular contributor, which I determined to be. But I ventured to write for other journals without consulting him; whereat he grew tetchy and impertinent, and I blew him up sky-high, recalled an article in type for which he had paid mefifteenguineas, (I wish he had kept it,) refunded the money, (I wish I hadn't,) and left him forever. But this I will say:Blackwoodbehaved handsomely to me from first to last, with one small exception, and showed more courage and good feeling toward 'my belovedcountry' while I was at the helm of that department, than any and all the editors, publishers, and proprietors in Britain. Give the devil his due, I say!'
This escapade withBlackwoodmight have been a national loss; but happily, Neal had accomplished his purpose—vindicated his country by telling the truth, and by showing in himself the metal of one of her sons. He had silenced the whole British battery of periodicals who had been abusing America. He had forced literary England to a capitulation, and he could well enough afford to leave his fifteen guineas atBlackwood's, and go to France for recreation, as he did about this time.
In 1826 he returned to America, and applied for admission to the New-York bar. This started a hornet's nest. He had been 'sarving up' too many newspaper and other scribblers, to be left in peace any longer. With an excellent opinion of himself, his contempt was often quite as large, to say the least of it, as his charity; and he had doubtless, at times, in England, ridiculed his countrymen to the full of their deserving; knowing that if he admitted the debtor side honestly, he would be allowed to fix the amount of credit without controversy. His Yankees are alarming specimens, which a growing civilization has so nearly 'used up' that they are now regarded somewhat like fossil remains of some extinct species of animal.
About the time Neal applied for admission to the New-York bar, a portion of the people of Portland, stimulated by the aggrievedliteratiabove mentioned, determined to elevate themselves into a mobpro tem., and expel him from Portland. In the true spirit of his Quaker ancestry, who, some one has said, always decided they were needed where they were not wanted, Neal determined to stay in Portland, The mobocrats declared that he was sold to the British. Neal retorted, in cool irony, that 'he only wished he had got an offer.' They asserted that he was the mortal enemy of our peculiar institutions, and that therefore he must be placarded and mobbed. Hand-bills were issued, and widely circulated. But they did not effect their object. They only drove this son of the Quakers toswearthat he would stay in Portland. And he did stay, and established a literary paper, though he once said to us that 'he would as soon have thought of setting up aDaily Advertiserin the Isle of Shoals three months before.'
His marriage took place about this time, and was, as he used to say, his pledge for good behavior. His wife was one of the loveliest of New-England's daughters, and looked as if she might tame a tiger by the simple magic of her presence. It is several years since we have met Neal, and near a dozen since we saw him in his home. At that time he must have been greatly in fault not to be a proud and happy man. If a calm, restful exterior, and a fresh and youthful beauty, are signs of happiness, then Mrs. Neal was one of the happiest women in the world. The delicate softness, the perfection of youth in her beauty, lives still in our memory. It is one of those real charms that never drop through the mind's meshes.
Judging from Neal's impulsive nature, he was not the last man to do something to be sorry for; but his wife and children looked as if they were never sorry. We remember a little girl of some five or six years; we believe they called her Maggie. Her dimpled cheek, her white round neck and arms, and the perfect symmetry of her form, and the grace of her motions, have haunted us these twelve years. We would not promise to remember her as long or as well if we should see her again in these days. But we made up our mind then, that we would rather be the father of that child than the author of all Neal had written, or might have written, even though he had been a wise and prudent man, and had done his work as well as he doubtless wishes now that he had done it. Neal is only half himself away from his beautiful home. There, he is in place—an eagle in a nest lined with down, soft as eider. There his fine taste is manifest in every thing. If we judge of his taste by his rapidly-written works, we are sure to do him injustice. We find in him a union of the most opposite qualities. We can not say a harmonious union. An inflexible industry is not often united with a bird-like celerity and grace of movement. With Neal, the two first have always been combined—the whole on occasions, which might have been multiplied into unbroken continuity if he had possessed the calm greatness that never hastens and never rests. He did not rest; but through the first half of his life, he surely forgot the Scripture which saith: 'He that believeth shall not make haste.' It has often been asserted, that power which has rest is greater than a turbulent power. We shall not attempt to settle whether Erie or Niagara is greater, but we should certainly choose the Lake for purposes of navigation.
Many men are careless of their character in private, but sufficiently careful in public. The reverse is true of Neal. He has never hesitated to throw his gauntlet in the face of the public as he threw his letters of introduction in the fire when he arrived in Europe. But when he comes into the charmed circle of his home, he is neither reckless nor pugilistic, but a downright gentleman. We don't mean to say that Neal never gets in a passion in private, or that he never needed the wholesome restraint of a strait-waistcoat in the disputes of aPortland Lyceum or debating-club. We do not give illustrative anecdotes, because a lively imagination can conceive them, and probably has manufactured several that have been afloat; still, we dare guess that the subject has sometimes given facts to base the fictions on.
We speak of the past. A man with a forty-wildcat power imprisoned in him is not very likely to travel on from youth to age, keeping the peace on all occasions. Years bring a calming wisdom. The same man who once swore five consecutive minutes, because he was forbidden by his landlady to swear on penalty of leaving her house, and then made all the inmates vote to refrain from profane language, and rigidly enforced the rule thusdemocraticallyestablished, is now, after a lapse of more than thirty years, (particularly provoking impulse aside,) a careful and dignified gentleman, who might be a Judge, if the public so willed.
That a long line of intellectual and finely developed ancestry gives a man a better patent of nobility than all the kings of all countries could confer, is beginning to be understood and believed among us; though the old battle against titles and privilege, and the hereditary descent of both, for a time blinded Americans to the true philosophy of noble birth.
Neal's ancestors came originally from Scotland, and exemplify the proverb that 'bluid is thicker than water,' in more ways than one. They have a strong feeling of clanship, or, in other words, they are convinced that it is an honor to be a Neal, and many of the last generation have given proof positive that their belief is a fact. The present generation we have little knowledge of, and do not know whether they fulfill the promise of the name.
Neal has done good service to the Democracy of our country in many ways, besides being one of the first and bravest champions of woman's rights. He has labored for our literature with an ability commensurate with his zeal, and he has drawn many an unfledged genius from the nest, encouraged him to try his wings, and magnetized him into self-dependence. A bold heavenward flight has often been the consequence. A prophecy of Neal's that an idea or a man would succeed, has seldom failed of fulfillment. We can not say this of the many aspiring magazines and periodicals that have solicited the charity of his name. We recollect, when brass buttons were universally worn on men's coats, a wag undertook to prove that they were very unhealthy, from the fact that more than half the persons who wore them suffered from chronic or acute disease, and died before they had reached a canonical age. According to this mode of generalization, Neal could be convicted of causing the premature death of nine tenths of the defunct periodicals in this country—probably no great sin, if it really lay at his door.
In a brief outline sketch, such as we have chosen to produce, our readers will perceive that only slight justice can be done to a man in the manifold relations to men and things which contribute to form the character.
John Neal's personal appearance is a credit to the country. He is tall, with a broad chest, and a most imposing presence. One of the finest sights we ever saw, was Neal standing with his arms folded before a fine picture. His devotion to physical exercise, and his personal example to his family in the practice of it—training his wife and children to take the sparring-gloves and cross the foils with him in those graceful attitudes which he could perfectly teach, because they were fully developed in himself—all this has inevitably contributed to the health and beauty of his beautiful family.
Few men have had so many right ideas of the art or science of living as John Neal, and fewer still have acted upon them so faithfully. When we last saw him, some ten years since—when he had lived more than half a century—his eye had lost none of its original fire, not a nerve or sinew was unbraced by care, labor, or struggle. He stood beforeus, a noble specimen of the strong and stalwart growth of a new and unexhausted land.
Note,—The foregoing must have been written years ago, if one may judge by the color of the paper; and as the writer is now abroad, so as not to be within reach, the manuscript has been put into the hands of a gentleman who has been more or less acquainted with Mr. Neal from his boyhood up, and he has consented to finish the article by bringing down the record to our day, and putting on what he calls a 'snapper.'
Note,—The foregoing must have been written years ago, if one may judge by the color of the paper; and as the writer is now abroad, so as not to be within reach, the manuscript has been put into the hands of a gentleman who has been more or less acquainted with Mr. Neal from his boyhood up, and he has consented to finish the article by bringing down the record to our day, and putting on what he calls a 'snapper.'
Most of what follows, if we do not wholly misunderstand the intimations that accompany the manuscript, is in the very language of Mr. Neal himself word for word; gathered up we care not how, whether from correspondence or conversation, so that there is no breach of manly trust and no indecorum to be charged.
'As to my family,' he writes, in reply to some body's questioning, 'I know not where they originated, nor how. Sometimes I have thought, although I have never said as much before, that we must have come up of ourselves—the spontaneous growth of a rude, rocky soil, swept by the boisterous north-wind, and washed by the heavy surges of some great unvisited sea. Of course, the writer you mention, who says that my ancestors—if I ever had any—'came from Scotland,' must know something that I never heard of, to the best of my recollection and belief. Somewhere in England I have supposed they originated, and probably along the coast of Essex; for there, about Portsmouth and Dover, I have always felt so much at home in the graveyards—among my own household, as it were, the names being so familiar to me, and the grave-stones now to be seen in Portsmouth and Dover, New-Hampshire, where the Neals were first heard of three or four generations ago, being duplicates of some I saw in Portsmouth and Dover, England.
'Others have maintained, with great earnestness and plausibility, as if it were something to brag of, that we have the blood of Oliver Cromwell in us; and one, at least, who has gone a-field into heraldry, and strengthens every position with armorial bearings—which only goes to show the unprofitableness of all such labor, so far as we are concerned—that we are of the 'redO'Neals,' not thelearnedO'Neals, if there ever were any, but the 'red O'Neals of Ireland,' and that I am, in fact, a lineal descendant of that fine fellow who 'bearded' Queen Elizabeth in her presence-chamber, with his right hand clutching the hilt of his dagger.
'But, for myself, I must acknowledge that if I ever had a great-great-grandfather, I know not where to dig for him—on my father's side, I mean; for on the side of my mother I have lots of grandfathers and great-grandfathers—and furthermore this deponent sayeth not—up to the days of George Fox; enough, I think, to show clearly that the Neals did not originate among the aborigines of the New World, whatever may be supposed to the contrary. And so, in a word, the whole sum and substance of all I know about my progenitors, male and female, is, that they were always a sober-minded, conscientious, hard-working race, with a way and a will of their own, and a habit of seeing for themselves, and judging for themselves, and taking the consequences.
'Nor is it true that I am a 'large' or 'tall' man, though, in some unaccountable way, always passing for a great deal more than I would ever measure or weigh; and my own dear mother having lived and died in the belief that I was good six feet, and well-proportioned, like my father. My inches never exceeded five feet eight-and-a-half, and my weight never varied from one hundred and forty-seven to one hundred and forty-nine pounds, for about five-and-forty years; after which, getting fat and lazy, I have come to weigh from one hundred and sixty-five to one hundred and seventy-five pounds, without being an inch taller, I am quite sure.'
Mr. Neal owns up, it appears, to the following publications, omitted by the writer of the article you mentioned: 'Rachel Dyer,' one volume; 'Authorship,' one volume; 'Brother Jonathan,' three volumes, (English edition;) 'RuthElder,' one volume; 'One Word More;' 'True Womanhood,' one volume; magazine articles, reviews, and stories in most of the British and American monthlies, and in some of the quarterlies, to the amount of twenty volumes, at least, duodecimo. In addition to which, he has been a liberal contributor all his life to some of the ablest newspapers of the age, and either sole or sub-editor, or associate, in perhaps twenty other enterprises, most of which fell through.
He claims, too—being a modest man—and others who know him best acknowledge his claims, we see—that he revolutionizedBlackwoodand the British periodical press, at a time when they were all against us; that he began the war on titles in this country, that he broke up the lottery system and the militia system, and proposed (through theWestminster Review) the only safe and reasonable plan of emancipation that ever appeared; that with him originated the question of woman's rights; that he introduced gymnasia to our people; and, in short, that he has always been good for something, and always lived to some purpose. 'And furthermore deponent sayeth not.'
When Charles Dickens expressed regret for having written his foolishAmerican Notes, andMartin Chuzzlewit, he 'improved the occasion' to call us a large-hearted and good-natured people, or something to that effect—I have not hispeccaviby me, and write from 'a favorable general impression.'
It is not weak vanity which may lead any American to claim that in this compliment lies a great truth. The Americanislarge-hearted and good-natured, and when a few of his comrades join in a good work, he will aid them with a lavish and Jack-tar like generosity. Charity is peculiarly at home in America. A few generations have accumulated, in all the older States, hospitals, schools, and beneficent institutions, practically equal in every respect to those which have been the slow growth of centuries in any European country. The contributions to the war, whether of men or money, have been incredible. And there is no stint and no grumbling. The large heart is as large and generous as ever.
The war has, however, despite all our efforts, become an almost settled institution. This is a pity—we all feel it bitterly, and begin to grow serious. Still there is no flinching. Flinching will not help; we must go on in the good cause, in God's name. 'Shall there not be clouds as well as sunshine?' 'Go in, then'—that is agreed upon. Draft your men, President Lincoln; raise your money, Mr. Chase, we are ready. To the last man and the last dollar we are ready. History shall speak of the American of this day as one who was as willing to spend money for national honor as he was earnest and keen in gathering it up for private emolument. Go ahead!
But let us do every thing advisedly and wisely.
In the first flush of war, it was not necessary to look so closely at the capital. We pulled out our loose change and bank-notes, and scattered them bravely—as we should. Now that more and still more are needed, we should look about to see how to turn every thing to best account. For instance, there is the matter of soldiers. Those who rose in 1861, and went impulsively to battle, acted gloriously—even more noble will it be with every volunteer whonow, after hearing of the horrors ofwar, still resolutely and bravely shoulders the musket and dares fate. God sends these times to the world and to men as 'jubilees' in which all who have lost an estate, be it of a calling or a social position, may regain it or win a new one.
But still we want to presenteveryinducement. Already the lame and crippled soldiers are beginning to return among us. The poor souls, ragged and sun-burnt, may be seen at every corner. They sit in the parks with unhealed wounds; they hobble along the streets, many of them weary and worn; poor fellows! they are greater, and more to be envied than many a fresh fopling who struts by. And the people feel this. They treat them kindly, and honor them.
But would it not be well if some general action could be adopted on the subject of taking care of all the incurables which this war is so rapidly sending us? If every township in America would hold meetings and provide honorably in some way for the returned crippled soldiers, they would assume no great burden, and would obviate the most serious drawback which the country is beginning to experience as regards obtaining volunteers. It has already been observed by the press, that the scattering of these poor fellows over the country is beginning to have a discouraging effect on those who should enter the army. It is a pity; we would very gladly ignore the fact, and continue to treat the question solelycon entusiasmo, and as at first; but what is the use of endeavoring to shirk facts which will only weigh more heavily in the end from being inconsidered now? Let us go to work generously, great-heartedly, and good-naturedly, to render the life of every man who has been crippled for the country as little of a burden as possible.
Dear readers, it will not be sufficient to guarantee to these men a pauper's portion among you. I do not pretend to say what you should give them, or what you should do for them. I only know that there are but two nations on the face of the earth capable of holding town-meetings and acting by spontaneous democracy for themselves. One of these is represented by the Russian serfs, who administer theirmiror 'commune' with a certain beaver-like instinct, providing for every man his share of land, his social position, his rights, so far as they are able. The Englishman, or German, or Frenchman, isnotcapable of this natural town-meeting sort of action. He needs 'laws,' and government, and a lord or a squire in the chair, or a demagogue on the rostrum. The poor serf does it by custom and instinct.
The Bible Communism of the Puritans, and the habit of discussing all manner of secular concerns in meeting, originated this same ability in America. To this, more than to aught else, do we owe the growth of our country. One hundred Americans, transplanted to the wild West and left alone, will, in one week, have a mayor, and 'selectmen,' a town-clerk, and in all probability a preacher and an editor. One hundred Russian serfs will not rise so high as this; but leave them alone in the steppe, and they will organize amir, elect astarosta, or 'old man,' divide their land very honestly, and take care of the cripples!
Such nations, but more especially the American, can find out for themselves, much better than any living editor can tell them, how to provide liberally for those who fought while they remained at home. The writer may suggest to them the subject—they themselves can best 'bring it out.'
In trials like these it is very essential that our habits of meeting, discussing and practically acting on such measures, should be more developed than ever. We have come to the times whichtestrepublican institutions, and to crises when the public meeting—the true corner-stone of all our practical liberties—should be brought most boldly, freely, and earnestly into action. Politics and feuds should vanish from every honorable and noble mind, and all unite in cordialcoöperation for the good work. Friends, there isnothingyou can not do, if you would only get together, inspire one another, and do yourvery best. You could raise an army which would drive these rebel rascals howling into their Dismal Swamps, or into Mexico, in a month, if you would only combine in earnest and do all you can.
Hitherto the man of ease, and the Respectable, disgusted by the politicians, has neglected such meetings, and left them too much to the Blackguard to manage after his own way. But this is a day of politics no longer; at least, those who try to engineer the war with a view to the next election, are in a fair way to be ranked with the enemies of the country, and to earn undying infamy. The only politics which the honest man now recognizes is, the best way to save the country; to raise its armies and fight its battles. It is not McClellan or anti-McClellan, which we should speak of, but anti-Secession. And paramount among the principal means of successfully continuing the war, I place this, of properly caring for the disabled soldier, and of placing before those who have not as yet enlisted, the fact, that come what may, they will be well looked after, for life.
As I said, the common-sense of our minor municipalities will abundantly provide for these poor fellows, if a spirit can be awakened which shall sweep over the country and induce the meetings to be held. In many, something has already been done. But something liberal and large is requisite. Government will undoubtedly do its share; and this, if properly done, will greatly relieve our local commonwealths. Here, indeed, we come to a very serious question, which has been already discussed in these pages—more boldly, as we are told, than our cotemporaries have cared to treat it, and somewhat in advance of others. We refer to our original proposition to liberally divide Southern lands among the army, and convert the retired soldier to a small planter. Such men would very soon contrive to hire the 'contraband,' get him to working, and make something better of him than planterocracy ever did. At least, this is what Northern ship-captains and farmers contrive to do, in their way, with numbers of coal-black negroes, and we have no doubt that the soldier-planter will manage, 'somehow,' to get out a cotton-crop, even with the aid of hired negroes! Here, again, a bounty could be given to the wounded. Observe, we mean a bounty which shall, to as high a degree as is possible or expedient, fully recompense a man for losing a limb. And as we can find in Texas alone, land sufficient to nobly reward a vast proportion of our army, it will be seen that I do not propose any excessive or extravagant reward.
Between our municipalities and our government,muchshould be done. But will not this prove a two-stool system of relief, between which the disbanded soldier would fall to the ground? Not necessarily. Let our towns and villages do their share, pledging themselves to takegoodcare of the disabled veteran, and to find work for all until Government shall apportion the lands of the conquered among the army.
And let all this be donesoon. Let it forthwith form a part of the long cried for 'policy' which is to inspire our people. If this had been a firmly determined thing from the beginning, and if we haddaredto go bravely on with it, instead of being terrified at every proposal toact, by the yells and howls of the Northern secessionists, we might have cleared Dixie out as fire clears tow. 'The enemy,' said one who had been among them, 'have the devil in them.' If our men had something solid to look forward to, they too, would have the devil in them, and no mistake. They fight bravely as it is, without much inducement beyond patriotism and a noble cause. But the 'secesh' soldier has more than this—he has the desperation of a traitor in a bad cause, of a fanatic and of a natural savage. It is no slur at the patriotism of our troops to say that they would fight better forsuch a splendid inducement as we hold out.
We may as well do all we can for the army—at home and away, here and there, with all our hearts and souls. For it will come to that sooner or later. The army is a terrible power, and its power has been, and is to be, terribly exerted. If we would organize it betimes, prevent it from becoming a social trouble, or rather make of it a great social support and ahelpinstead of a future hindrance and a drag, we must be busy at work providing for it. There it is—destined, perhaps, to rise to a million—the flower, strength, and intellect of America, our productive force, our brain—yes, the great majority of our mills, and looms, and printing-presses, and all that is capital-producing, are there, in those uniforms. There, friends, lie towns and cities, towers and palace-halls, literature and national life—for there are the brains and arms which make these things. Those uniforms are not to be, at least,should notbe, forever there. But manage meanly and weakly and stingilynow, and you destroy the cities and fair castles, the uniform remains in the myriad ranks, war becomes interminable, the soldier becomes nothing but a soldier—God avert the day!—and you will find yourself some day telling your grand-children—if you have any, for I can inform you that the chances of war diminish many other chances—how 'thingsmighthave been, and how finely wemighthave conquered the enemy and had an undivided country—God bless us!'
Will the WOMEN of America take no active part in this movement?
Many years ago, a German writer—one Kirsten—announced the extraordinary fact, that in the Atlantic States the proportion of women who died unmarried, or of 'old maids,' was larger than in any European country. It is certainly true that, owing to the high standard of expenses adopted by the children of respectable American parents—and what American is not 'respectable'?—we are far less apt to rush into 'imprudent' marriages than is generally supposed. But what proportion of unmarried dames will there be, if drafting continues, and the war becomes a permanent annual subject of draft? The prospect is seriously and simply frightful! The wreck of morality in France caused by Napoleon's wars is notorious, for previous to that time the French peasantry were not so debauched as they subsequently became. But this shocking subject requires no comment.
On with the war! Drive it, push it, send it howling and hissing on like the wild tornado, like the mad levin-brand, right into the foe! Pay the soldier—promise—pledge—do any thing and every thing; but raise an overwhelming force, and end the war.
Up and fight!
It is better to die now than see such disaster as awaits this country if war become a fixed disease.
'Hence with the lover who sighs o'er his wine,Chloes and Phillises toasting;Hence with the slave who will whimper and whine,Of ardor and constancy boasting;Hence with Love's joys,Follies and noise.The toast thatIgive is: 'The Volunteer Boys!''
'Hence with the lover who sighs o'er his wine,Chloes and Phillises toasting;Hence with the slave who will whimper and whine,Of ardor and constancy boasting;Hence with Love's joys,Follies and noise.The toast thatIgive is: 'The Volunteer Boys!''
Bulwer, in narrating the literary career of a young Chinese, states how one of his works was very severely handled by the Celestial critics: one of the gravest of the charges brought against it by these poll-shaved, wooden-shod, little-foot-worshiping, Great-Wall-building mandarins of literature being its extreme originality! They denounced Fihoti as having sinned the unpardonable literary sin of writing a book, a large share of whose ideas was nowhere to be found in the writings of Confucius.
But how strange such a charge would sound in our English ears! With us, if between two authors the most remote resemblance of idea or expression can be detected, straightway some ultraist stickler for originality—some Poe—shrieks out, 'Some body must be a thief!' and forthwith, all along the highways of reviewdom, is sent up the hue and cry: 'Stop thief! stop thief!' For has not the law thundered from Sinai, 'Thou shalt not steal'? True, plagiarism is nowhere distinctly forbidden by Moses; but have not critics judicially pronounced it author-theft? Has not metaphor been sounded through every note of its key-board, to strike out all that is base whereunto to liken it? Have not old Dr. Johnson's seven-footed words—the tramp of whose heavy brogans has echoed down the staircase of years even unto our day—declared plagiarists from the works of buried writers 'jackals, battening on dead men's thoughts'?
And yet, after a vast deal of such like catachresis, the orthodoxy of plagiarism remains still in dispute. What we incorporate among the cardinal articles of literary faith, China abjures as a dangerous heresy. But neither our own nor the Chinese creed consists wholly of tested bullion, but is crude ore, in which the pure gold of truth is mingled with the dross of error. That is a golden tenet of the tea-growers which licenses the borrowing of ideas; that 'of the earth, earthy,' which embargoes every one unborrowed. We build upon a rock when interdicting plagiarism; but on sand when we make that term inclose author-theft and author-borrowing. The making direct and unacknowledged quotations, and palming them off as the quoter's, is a very grave literary offense. But the expression of similar or even identical thoughts in different language, in this age of the world must be tolerated, or else the race of authors soon become as extinct as that of behemoths and ichthyosauri; and, indeed, far from levying any imposts upon author-borrowing, rather ought we to vote bounties and pensions to encourage it.
Originality of thought with men is impossible. There is in existence a certain amount of thought, but it all belongs to God. Lord paramount over the empire of mind as well as matter, he alone is seized, in fee simple right, of the whole domain: provinces of which men hold, as fiefs, by vassal tenure, subject to reversion and enfeoffment to another. Nor can any man absolve himself from his allegiance, and extend absolute sovereignty over broad tracts of idea-territory; for while feudal princes vested in themselves, by conquest merely, the ownership of kingdoms, God became suzerain over the empire of thought by virtue of creation—for creation confers right of property. We do not, then, originate the thoughts we call our own; or else Pantheism tells no lie when it declares that man is God, for the differentia which distinguishes God from man is absolute creative power. And if man be thought-creative, he can as well as God give being unto what was non-existent, and that, too, not mere gross, perishable matter, but immortal soul; for thought is mind, and mind is spirit, soul, undying, immortal. Grant that, and you divide God's empire, and enthrone the creature in equal sovereignty beside his Maker.
All thought, then, belongs exclusively to God, and is parceled out by him, as he chooses, among his creature feudatories. As the wind, which bloweth where it listeth, and no one knoweth whence it cometh, save that it is sent by God, so is thought, as it blows through our minds. Over birds, flying at liberty through the free air, boys often advance claims of ownership more specific than are easily derived from the general dominion God gave man over the beasts of the field and the birds of the air; yet, 'All those birds are mine!' exclaims a youngster in roundabout, with just as much reason as any man can claim, as exclusively his own, the thoughts which are ever winging their way through the firmament of mind.
But considered apart from the relation we sustain to God, none of us are original with respect to our fellow-men. Few, indeed, are the ideas we derive by direct grant, or through nature, from our liege lord; but far the greater share, by hooks or personal contact, we gather through our fellow-men. Consciously, unconsciously, we all teach—we all learn from, one another. Association does far more toward forming mind than natural endowments. As not alone the soil whence it springs makes the oak, but surrounding elements contribute. Seclude a human mind entirely from hooks and men, and you may have a man with no ideas borrowed from his fellows. Such a one, in Germany, once grew up from childhood to manhood in close imprisonment, and poor Kasper Hauser proved—an idiot. It can hardly be necessary to suggest the well-known fact, that the greatest readers of men and books always possess the greatest minds. Such are, besides, of the greatest service to mankind. For since God has so formed us that we love to give as well as take, a great independent mind, complete in itself and incapable of receiving from others, must always stand somewhat apart from men; and even a great heart, when conjoined—as it seldom is—with a great head, is rarely able to drawbridge over the wide moat which intrenches it in solitary loneliness. Originality ever links with it something of uncongeniality—a feeling somewhat akin to the egotism of that one who, when asked why he talked so much to himself, replied—for two reasons: the one, that he liked to talk to a sensible man; the other, that he liked to hear a sensible man talk. Divorcing itself from fellow-sympathies, it broods over its own perfections, till, like Narcissus, it falls in love with itself. And so, a highly original man can rarely ever be a highly popular man or author. By the very super-abundance of his excellencies, his usefulness is destroyed; just as Tarpeia sank, buried beneath the presents of the Sabine soldiery. A Man once appeared on earth, of perfect originality; and in him, to an unbounded intellect was added boundless moral power. But men received him not. They rejected his teachings; they smote him; they crucified him.
But though the right of eminent domain over ideas does and should inhere in one superior to us, far different is the case with words. These 'incarnations of thought' are of man's device, and therefore his; and style—the peculiar manner in which one uses words to express ideas—is individually personal. Indeed, style has been defined the man himself; a definition, so far as he is recognized only as a revealer of thought, substantially correct. In an idea word-embodied, the embodier, then, possesses with God concurrent ownership. The idea itself may be borrowed, or it may be his so far as discovery gives title; but the words, in their arrangement, are absolutely his. All ideas are like mathematical truths: eternal and unchangeable in their essence, and originate in nature; words like figures, of a fixed value, but of human invention; and sentences are formulæ, embodying oftentimes the same essential truth, but in shapes as various as their paternity. Words, in sentences, should then be inviolate to their author.
Nor is this to value words above ideas—the flesh above the spirit of which it is but the incarnation. It isnot the intrinsic value of each that we here regard, but the value of the ownership one has in each. 'Deacon Giles and I,' said a poor man, 'own more cows than any five other men in the county.' 'How many does Deacon Giles own?' asked a bystander. 'Nineteen.' 'And how many do you?' 'One.' And that one cow, which that poor man owned, was worth more tohimthan the nineteen which were Deacon Giles's. So, when you have determined whose the style is which enfolds a thought, whose the thought is, is as little worth dispute as, after its wrappage of corn has been shelled off, the cob's ownership is worth a quarrel.
As thoughts bodied in words uttered make up conversation, thought incarnate in words written constitutes literature. The gross sum of thought with which God has seen to dower the human mind, though vast, is finite, and may be exhausted. Indeed, we are told this had been already done so long ago as times whereof Holy Writ takes cognizance. Since that time, then, men have been echoing and reëchoing the same old ideas. And though words, too, are finite, their permutations are infinite. What Himalayan piles of paper, river-coursed by Danubes and Niagaras of ink, hath the 'itch of writing' aggregated! And yet, Ganganelli says that every thing that man has ever written might be contained within six thousand folio volumes, if filled with only original matter. But how books lie heaped on one another, weighing down those under, weighed down by those above them; each crushed and crushing; their thoughts, like bones of skeletons corded in convent vault, mingled in confusion—like those which Hawthorne tells us Miriam saw in the burial-cellar of the Capuchin friars in Rome, where, when a dead brother had lain buried an allotted period, his remains, removed from earth to make room for a successor, were piled with those of others who had died before him.
It is said Aurora once sought and gained from Jove the boon of immortality for one she loved; but forgetting to request also perpetual youth, Tithonus gradually grew old, his thin locks whitened, his wasting frame dwindled to a shadow, and his feeble voice thinned down till it became inaudible. And just so ideas, although immortal, were it not for author-borrowers, through age grown obsolete, might virtually perish. But by and by, just as some precious thought is being lost unto the world, let there come some Medea, by whose potent sorcery that old and withered idea receives new life-blood through its shrunken veins, and it starts to life again with recreated vigor—another Æson, with the bloom of youth upon him. Besides in this way playing the physician to save old ideas from a burial alive, the author-borrower often delivers many a prolific mother-thought of a whole family of children—as a prism from out a parent ray of colorless light brings all the bright colors of the spectrum, which, from red to violet, were all waiting there only for its assistance to leap into existence; or sometimes he plays the parson, wedlocking thoughts from whose union issue new; as from yellow wedded to red springs orange, a new, a secondary life; or enacts, maybe, the brood-hen's substitute. Many a thought is a Leda egg, imprisoning twin life-principles, which,, incubated in the eccaleobion brain of an author-borrower, have blessed the world; but without such a foster-parent, in some neglected nest staled and addled, had never burst the shell.
Author-borrowing should also be encouraged, because it tends to language's perfection, and thus to incrementing the value of the ideas it vehicles; for though a gilding diction and elegant expression may not directly increase a thought's intrinsic worth, yet by bestowing beauty it increases its utility, and so adds relative value—just as a rosewood veneering does to a basswood table. There may be as much raw timber in a slab as in a bunch of shingles, but the latter is worth the most; it will find a purchaser where the former would not. So there may be as much truly valuable thought in a dullsermon as in a lively lecture; but the lecture will please, and so instruct, where the dull sermon will fall on an inattentive ear. Moreover, author minds are of two classes, the one deep-thinking, the other word-adroit. Providence bestows her favors frugally; and with the power of quarrying out huge lumps of thought, ability to work them over into graceful form is rarely given. This is no new doctrine, but a truth clearly recognized in metaphysics, and evidenced in history. Cromwell was a prodigious thinker; but in language, oh! how deficient. His thoughts, struggling to force themselves out of that sphynx-like jargon which he spake and wrote, appear like the treasures of the shipwrecked Trojans, swimming 'rari in gurgite vasto'—Palmyra columns, reared in the midst of a desert of sentences. And Coleridge—than whom in the mines of mental science few have dug deeper, and though Xerxes-hosts of word-slaves waited on his pen—often wrote apparently mere bagatelle—the most transcendental nonsense. Yet he who takes the pains to husk away his obscurity of style will find solid ears of thought to recompense his labor. Bentham and Kant required interpreters—Dumont and Cousin—to make understood what was well worth understanding. These two kinds of authors—thought-creditors and borrowing expressionists—are as mutually necessary to each other to bring out idea in its most perfect shape, as glass and mercury to mirror objects. Dim, indeed, is the reflection of the glass without its coating of quicksilver; and amalgam, without a plate on which to spread it, can never form a mirror. The metal and the silex are
'Useless each without the other;'
but wed them, and from their union spring life-like images of life.
But it may be objected that in trying to improve a thought we often mar it; just as in transplanting shrubs from the barren soil in which they have become fast rooted, to one more fertile, we destroy them. 'Just as the fabled lamps in the tomb of Terentia burned underground for ages, but when removed into the light of day, went out in darkness.' That this sometimes occurs, we own. Some ideas are as fragile as butterflies, whom to handle is to destroy. But such are exceptions only, and should not preclude attempts at improvement. If a bungler tries and fails, let him be Anathema, Maranathema; but let not his failure deter from trial a genuine artist. Nor is it an ignoble office to be thus shapers only of great thinkers' thoughts—Python interpreters to oracles. Nor is his work of slight account who thus—as sunbeams gift dark thunder-clouds with 'silver lining' and a fringe of purple, as Time with ivy drapes a rugged wall—hangs the beauties of expression round a rude but sterling thought. Nay, oftentimes the shaper's labor is worth more than the thought he shapes. For if the stock out of which the work is wrought be ever more valuable than the workman's skill, then let canvas and paint-pots impeach the fame of Raphael; rough blocks from Paros and Pentelicus, the gold and ivory of the Olympian Jove; tear from the brow of Phidias the laurel wreath with which the world has crowned him. Supply of raw material is little without the ability to use it. Furnish three men with stone and mortar, and while one is building an unsightly heap of clumsy masonry, the architect will rear up a magnificent cathedral—an Angelo, a St. Peter's. And so when ideas, which in their crudeness are often as hard to be digested as unground corn, are run through the mill of another's mind, and appear in a shape suited to satisfy the most dyspeptic stomachs, does not the miller deserve a toll?
Finally, author-borrowing has been hallowed by its practice, in their first essays, by all our greatest writers. Turn to the scroll on which the world has written the names of those it holds as most illustrious. How was it with him whom English readers love to call the 'myriad-minded?' Shakespeare began by altering old plays, and his indebtedness to history and old legends is by no means slight. How with him who sang 'of man's first disobedience' and exodus from Eden? Even Milton did not, Elijah-like, draw down his fire direct from heaven, but kindled with brands, borrowed from Greek and Hebrew altars, the inspiration which sent up the incense-poetry of a Lost Paradise. And all the while that Maro sang 'Arms and the Man,' a refrain from the harp of Homer was sounding in his ears, unto whose tones so piously he keyed and measured his own notes, that oftentimes we fancy we can hear the strains of 'rocky Scio's blind old bard' mingling in the Mantuan's melody. If thus it has been with those who sit highest and fastest on Parnassus—the crowned kings of mind—how has it been with the mere nobility? What are Scott's poetic romances, but blossomings of engrafted scions on that slender shoot from out the main trunk of English poetry—the old border balladry? Campbell's polished elegance of style, and the 'ivory mechanism of his verse,' was born the natural child of Beattie and Pope. Byron had Gifford in his eye when he wrote 'English Bards and Scotch Reviewers,' and Spenser when he penned the 'Pilgrimage.' Pope, despairing of originality, and taking Dryden for his model, sought only to polish and to perfect. Gray borrowed from Spenser, Spenser from Chaucer, Chaucer from Dante, and Dante had ne'er been Dante but for the old Pagan mythology. Sterne and Hunt and Keats were only