'My informant, (an intelligent and reliable eyewitness,) voluntarily gave the credit of reducing the forts to the bomb fleet. The fort was so much shaken by this firing, that it was feared the casemates would come down about their ears. The loss of life by the bombs was not great, as they could see them coming plainly, and avoid them, but the effect of their fall and explosion no skill could avert.'About one shell in twenty failed to explode; even those that fell in the water going off. It is worth noticing, that the bombs that fell in the ditches close to the walls of the fort and exploded there, shook the fort much more severely, than any of those that buried themselves in the soft ground.'The fort was in perfect order when the bombardment commenced, the dirt which now disfigures everything is the accumulation of a few days. The water did not enter the fort until the levee had been broken by the bombs; during the summer of 1861, when the Mississippi was even higher, the parade ground remained entirely dry.'
'My informant, (an intelligent and reliable eyewitness,) voluntarily gave the credit of reducing the forts to the bomb fleet. The fort was so much shaken by this firing, that it was feared the casemates would come down about their ears. The loss of life by the bombs was not great, as they could see them coming plainly, and avoid them, but the effect of their fall and explosion no skill could avert.
'About one shell in twenty failed to explode; even those that fell in the water going off. It is worth noticing, that the bombs that fell in the ditches close to the walls of the fort and exploded there, shook the fort much more severely, than any of those that buried themselves in the soft ground.
'The fort was in perfect order when the bombardment commenced, the dirt which now disfigures everything is the accumulation of a few days. The water did not enter the fort until the levee had been broken by the bombs; during the summer of 1861, when the Mississippi was even higher, the parade ground remained entirely dry.'
The above statistics and information show, that the surrender of the forts was caused by the terrific bombardment of the mortar fleet, a fact which should always remain identified with the brilliant achievements, that ended in the recapture of the second commercial city of our country.
All arts are one, howe'er distributed they stand,Verse, tone, shape, color, form, are fingers on one hand.'
The first volume of this work contains an inquiry into the principles of art, and an attempt to present a rational solution of the delight felt in the contemplation of Beauty. The related thoughts upon art and beauty, found scattered almost at random over so many pages, and in so many different tongues, have been brought together, and, closely linked in logical sequences, placed in such connections that they now mutually illustrate and corroborate one another. No longer drifting apart in the bewildering chaos of multitudinous pages, they now revolve round a common centre, the heart of all artistic beauty, through whose manifestations alone it gains its power to charm the human soul: viz., 'the infinite attributes of the Author of all true Beauty.'
These thoughts on Art and Beauty have been carefully compiled, condensed, and arranged from many writers of eminence: Tissandier, Ruskin, Schlegel, etc., etc.; and are interwoven with much original matter, placing their great truths in new relations, and developing their complex meanings. By working upwith themthe thoughts suggestedby them, the author has sedulously endeavored to form them into a whole of higher power.
The first volume being devoted to the theory of art, an attempt has been made in the second to bring the more general thoughts to a focus, and concentrate their light upon the vexed and confused subject of versification. The second volume may indeed be considered as a 'Manual of Rhythm,' for the mostpracticalrules are given for its construction and criticism, and simple and natural solutions offered of its apparent irregularities and anomalies; while examples of sufficient length are cited from our most musical poets to give just ideas of the characteristics and power of all the measures in use in English versification.
That the book may prove useful to the reader, is the earnest wish of the author!
When the busy little sailor bird builds himself a nest in which he—with his mate and their tiny brood—may swing secure through the sudden storms of fitful springs, and find shelter from the heats of summer, sewing it so tightly together that the rain cannot permeate it, nor the wild winds waft away the light beams and rafters of the swinging home, we do not quarrel with the little architect because he has industriously gleaned such materials as were needed for his purpose, because he has torn his leaves from the great forest book of nature. The leaves are freely given by God, and the little builder has a natural right to play the artist with them, if he can succeed in forming them into anew whole, fitted for the maintenance of a higher order of life. Thus the thoughts of great men are the common heritage of humanity.
Or, when we eat of the fragrant honey, we do not quarrel with the thymy bees because they have blended for us the sweets of Hybla. The flowers from which they were drawn are lovely and perfumed as before, but the workers have made from them anew whole, in which the pilfered sweets have gained a higher value from their perfect union. Those who prefer the dewy juice as it exists in the plant, may usetheir own powers to extract it, for the bee has not injured the flowers, and they may still be found blooming in the keen mountain air; but let those who may not scale the heights, nor work the strange transmutation, who yet love the fragrant honey, eat—blessing the little artist for his waxen cells and winged labor.
Who would quarrel with a friend because he had roamed through many a clime to find flowers for a wreath woven for our pleasure? Virgin Lilies from the still lakes of Wordsworth, Evergreens from the labyrinthine forests of Schlegel, Palm from the holy hills of Tissandier, Amaranth with the breath of angels fresh upon it from the Paradise groves of Ruskin, interwoven with Passion Flowers and Anemones of his own wilds,—shall we not acknowledge our wreath as a new whole, seeing that the isolated fractions are raised to a higher power in becoming essential parts of a new unity?
Eugene, the wreath of Lilies, Evergreen, Palm, and Amaranth—the honey of Hybla—the many-leaved nest of the little architect, in which you may swing through the storms of the finite, into the deep and cloudless blue of the infinite,—are now before you!
Will you not look up from the fleshless and skeleton perfection of the problemed forms, which start at your slightest touch from the formal squares of the chess board,—forms which confuse me with their complexity, bewilder me in the mazes of their ceaseless combinations, dazzle me with their chill erudition, and appal me with want of life,—and smile acceptance on the glowing gifts here lovingly tendered you?
'The awful shadow of some unknown PowerFloats, though unseen, among us, visitingThis various world with as inconstant wingAs summer winds that creep from flower to flower.'Shelley.
A philosophical theory of poetry and the fine arts should consider, in the first place, the fundamental and general laws of Beauty; in the second place, analyze the faculties necessary for the perception or creation of the Beautiful; and, in the last place, should strive to account for the pleasure always experienced in its contemplation. Such an analysis is necessary, as an introductory study, to the full and complete comprehension of any specific branch of art.
On the other hand, every specific art has its own special theory, designed to teach the limits of its means, and the difficulties peculiar to the medium through which it is to manifest the Beautiful, with the various rules by which it must be regulated in its realization of the fundamental laws of Beauty.
A clear, deep, and comprehensive view of the origin and nature of the Fine Arts, is the work most needed by the readers and thinkers of the present century. Some noble attempts have indeed been made in this direction, but, valuable as such essays may be, they do not yet correspond to the growing, requisitions of the public mind. It is true such a work would be one of great difficulty, exacting immense stores of information, and highly cultivated tastes. The writer must possess the logical power requisite for the most subtle analyses; he must have thecreativegenius to combine the scattered facts of natural beauty, with their varied effects upon the human consciousness, into one great whole; while, at the same time, the tenderness and susceptibility of thereceptivegenius must be equally developed in him. He should blend the loving and devout soul of a Fra Angelico with the logicalacumen of a Bacon. How seldom is the creative genius sufficiently tender and humble to be, in the full sense of the term, at the same time,receptive!
After its treatment of the philosophical theory of Art, such a work should also throw its light upon the special theories, and more general rules of specific arts; for such rules, when true, are never arbitrary, but spring from the fundamental laws, of universal Beauty. They are but the external manifestation, through material mediums, of eternal laws.
The compiler of the present article can offer no such great work to the reader. An earnest effort will however be made to bring together the related thoughts upon Art and Beauty. They are found scattered almost at random over so many pages; to link them together by arranging them in their logical sequences, placing them so that they will illustrate and mutually corroborate one another: and, working up with them the thoughts suggested by them, the author has labored to form of them a compact and easily perusedwhole.For the ideas selected areessentially related, and, scattered as they may have hitherto been, naturally gravitate round a common centre. No longer drifting apart through the chaos of multitudinous pages, they are now formed into a system of order, a galaxy of which the central sun is—the Divine attributes as manifested through the Beautiful.
If the writer shall succeed in suggesting to some lucid and comprehensive mind the fact that a noble field for the culture of the human heart and soul remains almost unexplored, and induce one worthy of the task to undertake its cultivation; or if her humble work shall induce one lover of pure art to direct his attention to the glorious promises which it reveals to him of a closer communion with the Great Artist, the beneficent Creator of the Beautiful—she will feel herself more than compensated for her 'pleasant labor of love.'
All true art is symbolic; a thought, an idea, must always constitute the significance, the soul of its outward form. The mere delusive imitations, the servile copyings of the actual shapes of reality, are not the proper objects of art. To form a master work of art, the idea symbolized must be pure and noble; the technical execution, faultless. No heavier censure can, however, be passed upon an artist, than that he possesses only the technic or rhetoric of art, without having penetrated to its subtle essence of forming thought.
Man is chiefly taught throughsymbolism. Living in a symbolic world of sensuous emblems, he seeks in them a substitute for the wondrous powers of immediate cognition which he lost in his fall. His highest destination issymbolical, for is he not made in the Divine image? Through the symbolism of the matter is the soul taught its first lessons in the school of life: when it is known and felt that nature is but the symbol of the Great Spirit, the instinct of our own immortality awakes. In the Old Covenant, the twilight of faith was studded with the starry splendor of a marvellous symbolism; and the new era of the ascending and ever-brightening dawn still bears on its front the glittering morning star of symbolic Christian art.
Notwithstanding its earthly intermixture, however it may have wandered from its true source, however sensuous and worthless it may have become, art, in its essence, is still divine. Men devoted to the pursuit of mere material well being, have been too long in the habit of regarding poetry and the arts as mere recreations, to be taken up at spare moments, pursued when we have nothing better to do; as a relief for the ennui of idleness, or an ornament for the centre table; without remembering how many good and great men have given up their whole lives toits advancement; without considering into how many hearts it has borne its soothing lessons of faith and love.
Men look upon art as if it were to be pursued merely for the sake of art, for the egotistic pleasure of the artist, and not as a moral power full of responsibility and dignity. We might as well suppose that science is to be pursued merely for the sake of science, that we are to think only that we may think. But while everything has its determinate end in the lower world of matter, concurring in its degree to the life of the whole; can there exist faculties and tendencies without aim in the soul; permanent, regular, and general facts without a final cause? Can art exist as an accidental fact in the bosom of society? Is it not rather an important means for the development of the finer feelings of the heart, the higher faculties of the soul?
Man was created 'to glorify God and enjoy him forever,' says the elementary catechism of the sternest of all creeds. Anything, therefore, which sets before us more preëminently the glory of God, thus placing more vividly before us the only source of all true enjoyment, must be, in the highest sense of the word, useful to us, as enabling us to fulfil the very end of our creation. Things that only help us to draw material breath, are only useful to us in a secondary sense: if they alone are thought of, they are worse than useless; for it would be better we should not exist at all, than that we should guiltily disappoint the purposes of our existence. Yet men in this material age speak as if houses and lands, food and raiment, were alone useful; as if the open eye and loving appreciation of all that He hath made were quite profitless; as if the meat were more than the life, the raiment than the body. They look upon the earth as a stable, its fruit as mere fodder, loving the corn they grind and the grapes they crush better than the gardens of the angels upon the slopes of Eden, so that the woe of the Preacher has fallen upon us: 'Though God has made everything beautiful in his time, also He hath set the world in their heart, so that no man can find out the work that God maketh from the beginning to the end.'
'The age culls simples.With a broad clown's back turned broadly to the glory of the stars;We are gods by our own reck'ning, and may well shut up our temples—And wield on, amid the incense steam, the thunder of our cars.'For we throw out acclamations of self-thanking, self-admiring,With, at every mile run faster, 'Oh, the wondrous, wondrous age,'Little thinking if we work our souls as nobly as our iron,Or if angels will commend us at the goal of pilgrimage.'
Utility has a nobler sense than a mere ministering to our physical wants, a mere catering to our sense of luxury. Geology is surely higher when refleshing the dry bones and revealing to us the mysteries of a lost creation, than when tracing veins of lead and beds of iron; astronomy, when opening the houses of heaven for us, than when teaching us the laws of navigation. That these things are useful to us in a lower sense, is God's merciful condescension to the wants of our material life;—that we may discern their eternal beauty, and so glorify their Maker in the enjoyment of His attributes, is an earnest, even here, of our blissful immortality.
If art has frequently fallen from its high mission, if it has often failed to incarnate the divine ideas from which all its glories must flow, it must be attributed in part to the artists themselves; in part to the public for whom they labor, and whom they too often seek only to amuse. They clutch at the ephemeral bouquets of the passing passions of a day, not caring to wait for the unfading crowns of amaranth. If the artist will stoop to linger in the Circean hall of the senses, he must not be astonished if good and earnest menshould reproach him with the triviality of a misspent and egotistic life.
If we should pause and examine into the reasons for the different estimation in which art is held by different persons, we should find them in the various definitions of the Beautiful which would be offered us by the individuals in question. Let us linger for a moment to examine such definitions.
One class of men would tell us that the Beautiful is that which is agreeable to the senses of sight and hearing. They would admire, in painting, the delineation of naked flesh, luxuriant as it glows upon the canvas of Vandyke and Rubens; in statuary, they would seek voluptuous and sensual positions; while in music, they would love that which titillates the ear, which lulls them into an indolent yet delicious languor. Such men are the dwellers in the halls of Circean senses; they can appreciate only the sensuous. The poets of this class are very numerous. They never rise to those general ideas which are found in the universal consciousness, but are forever occupied with fugitive thoughts, passing as the hour in which they are born. They delight in representing theaccidental, the exceptional, the peculiar, the fashion, mode, or exaggeration of the flying hour. They never sing of the high and tender feelings which pervade the human heart; of the joys and sorrows of the soul in its mystic relations with God, its sympathetic affections with humanity; but delight in describing furtive sensations, passing impressions, individual and subjective bliss and woe. Never daring to grapple with the sublime yet tender simplicity of nature, they sport with eccentricity, delight in fantastically related ideas, revel in surprises, in sudden and unforeseen developments. Their style is full of individualities and mannerisms, ornaments and intricacies; thecoloringis always worth more than theform, the sensation than the idea. Their heroes and heroines are grotesque beings, sentimental caricatures, souls not to be comprehended, always placed in unnatural situations, and surrounded with dark, gloomy, and impenetrable mysteries. If their readers can be made to exclaim at every page: 'Inconceivable! astonishing! original!' they consider their work perfect. Such poets seldom attempt long poems; if they should imprudently do so, we find but little sequence, and nothing of that clear order, of that marvellousunity, which mark the works of the masters. Everything is sought to flatter that pretentious vanity of the limited understanding which piques itself on its stereotyped knowledge, always striving to usurp the higher empire of the divining soul. Such writing certainly requires subtlety of intellect, for talent is required to discover that which no one can see; to invent relations where none exist. We may, indeed, often observe great perfection in the details, high finish in the execution, keen intellect in the analysis; but nothing in the thoughts which appeals to the universal heart. Brilliant pictures succeed to brilliant pictures, decoration to decoration, but there is an utter want of essential unity. Absorbed in the sensuous gorgeousness of highly colored details, if they can but glue together startling and overwrought images, they are satisfied, even while neglecting the principal idea. They seize everything by the outside; nothing by the heart.
The painters of this class give us glaring colors and violent contrasts; the musicians, antitheses, concetti, ingenious combinations,tours de force, rather than flowing melodies or profound harmonies. The power theywish, to possess spoils that theyreally have; alltrueinspiration abandons the hopeless artist in the midst of his ingenious subtleties; it flies before his fantastic conceits; laughs at the follies of his prurient fancies; and withdraws its solemn light from the vain and presumptuous intellect, doting ever over its own fancied superiority. Inspiration, that holy light only vouchsafed to the loving soul, speaks to man in the silence of the subjective intellect. If the heart is tossed by a thousand passing and selfish passions, how can its solemn but simple and tender voice be heard? Suffering such inflated spirits to plume themselves upon the transitory admiration they are always sure of obtaining, it allows them to take the evil for the good; the grotesque for the beautiful; the meteors of vanity for the heaven stars of truth.
Such artists love not the mighty arches of gothic architecture, in whose vast curves and dim recesses lurks the mystic idea of the infinite; they take no interest in the ascetic faces which the old masters loved to picture, worn into deep furrows of care by penitence and holy sorrow, though lighted with the triple ray of Faith, Hope, and Love. They have no sympathies with the saints and heroes who have been great through self-abnegation, for such lives are a constant reproach to their own sybaritical tendencies. Constantly mistaking the effervescence of passion for the fire of genius; viewing the sublime realities of religion only as fantastic dreams; seeing nothing but the gloom of the grave beyond the fleeting shadows of the present life; granting reality to nothing but that which is essentially variable, phenomenal, and contingent; forever revelling in the luxuriousness of mere sensation—they understand only that which can be seen and handled. But the devotion to the True in art is a disinterested worship—a worship requiring the most heroic self—abnegation; for the love of fame, of self, of pleasure, will so bewilder and confuse the artist, that he will never be able to sound the depths of any art. And now, can we wonder if pure and earnest men utterly refuse to acknowledge the dignity and worth of art, when manifested to them through the works of fantastically sensuous, or voluptuously sensual artists? This misconception of the true aim of art, of the meaning of the Beautiful—with its natural consequence, merely sensuous manifestations of Beauty through the medium of different arts—has been one of the causes of the violent and inveterate prejudices which have arisen against art itself in the minds of many good men; and, were this view of beauty and art the true one, we could not deny that such prejudices or opinions would be but too well founded. To combat such debasing and false views of the aims of art, will be the chief object of the present volume. If art were to be degraded into the servant and minister of the senses, we would be among the first to condemn it. But all Beauty proceeds from the All Fair, who hath pronounced all 'good,' and 'loveth all that He hath made.'
Leaving the 'men of the senses' in their Circean sleep, we proceed to question the 'men of the schools' with regard to their conception of art, their definition of the Beautiful. Erudite as they may be, their response to our question is scarcely more satisfactory. The Beautiful, in their estimation, is but the realization ofknown rules, fixed and sanctioned by long usage. Such men are the connoisseurs in art, the students of manuals, who are familiar with all the acknowledgedchefs d'œuvre, and all the possible resources of art; they have traced for genius itself the path in which it must walk, and will accept none as true artists who wander from it. They are not ashamed to take a poet such as Shakespeare, to compare his wonderful creations with the rules they have acquired with so much labor, and, seeking in his living dramas only the application of the principles with whichtheyare familiar, scruple not to condemn the immortal works of the greatest of all uninspired writers. Madame de Staël truly says: 'Those who believe themselves qualified to pronounce sentence upon the Beautiful, have more vanity than those who believe they possess genius.' Taste inthe fine arts, like fashion in society, is indeed considered as a proof ofhaut-ton, a claim to fashionable and personal distinction. Should a man of the most cultivated mind and soul, venture to pronounce a judgment upon the character of some great architectural work, without being versed in the terms and technics of scientific architecture—remark with what profound contempt his opinion on its effect will be received by the pompous men of the schools! Or, let him venture to take pleasure in a musical composition not approved by the musical savants, in which they have detected various crimes against the laws of harmony, the fixed rules of counter point—and behold the men of the schools, how they will shrug their classic shoulders in contempt at his name and besotted ignorance! Or, should he venture to delight in the original and naive lyrics of some untaught bard of nature, without being able to justify his admiration by learned citations from Virgil and Horace, to say nothing of the categories of Aristotle—he is considered as an ignoramus, who might possibly impose upon those ignorant as himself, but who should at least have the modesty to yield up at once his opinion to the conclusive decisions of the great literary pundits! In vain may he assert that such and such a passage is touching and noble; in vain, may he say it has appealed to his inmost soul, and awakened deep and holy emotions, that it has made him a better man;—the same wise shrug of contempt greets him; he is told 'such effects are impossible, for the work in question offends a fixed rule!'
Yet what great diversity of opinion obtains among the very band of self-constituted elect! How few possess the requisite mastery of the rules, and what an immense number of the human race would thus be excluded from the elevating sources of enjoyment to be found in poetry and the fine arts! Such scholastic critics confound two things to be distinguished in every work in all branches of art; viz., thepure idea, and thematerial formthrough which it is manifested. It is indeed necessary that the artist should make severe studies, and thoroughly master the technics of his chosen art, whatever it may be; for, as means to facilitate the clearest manifestation of his conceptions, such formulæ are of immense importance;—but an erudite acquaintance with the technics of art is not necessary for the comprehension of theidea, manifested; for theideaitself is ever within the range of the human intellect, and the soul may always consider the thought of the soul, when appropriately manifested,face to face. 'Imbibe not your opinions from professional artists,' says Diderot; 'they always prefer the difficult to the beautiful!'
Artistic judgment is, indeed, too apt to be satisfied with correct drawing and harmony of colors; harmony and keeping of plastic forms; harmony of tones; harmony of thoughts in relation to one another; without considering that to these necessary harmonies two more, primarily essential, must be added: harmony of thought with the eternal, with the divine attributes of truth, infinity, unity, and love; and harmony of expression with what ought to be—which is indeed to assert that true Beauty is neither sensuous nor scholastic, but vitally and essentially moral. True Beauty lingers not in the soft halls of the Circean senses; it wanders not in the trim paths, beaten walks, or dusty highways of the schools, though the artist must indeed be familiar with all the intricacies of their windings, that he may there master the laws and proportions of the form through which he is to manifest the supernal essence through our senses to our souls; it dwells above, too high to be degraded by our low sensualism, too ethereal to lose its sweet freedom in the logically woven links of our scholastic trammels. 'Ye shall know thetruth, and it shall make you free,' is a proposition notonly of moral, but of universal artistic application.
Disgusted by the idle pretensions and stilted pedantry of the men of the schools, can we wonder if good and earnest men still refuse to acknowledge the high worth and dignity of art, which, in accordance with such definitions, would be nothing but a manifestation and studied application of the rules and laws of the limited and pedantic human understanding? To prove art essentiallymoral, in exact correspondence with the triune being of man addressing itselfthroughhis senses, in accordance with the requisitions of his understanding,tohis soul—and that it is only delightful to the soul created for the enjoyment of God, in so far as it is successful in manifesting or suggesting some portion of the Divine attributes—are the chief objects of the book here offered to the reader. If art were indeed to be degraded into nothing higher than the exponent or incarnation of the logical data and rigid formulæ of the limited understanding of man, the writer would be frozen to death in the attempt to plant its chilling banner. She too would regard it but as a solemn trifling with time and the fearful responsibilities of eternity.
Having failed to obtain any elevated or satisfactory definition of Art and Beauty from the men of the senses, or the men of the schools; as the supporters of a government founded upon a belief in the virtues of the people, we turn to them in our despair to ask for deeper insight into these important subjects. Alas! they are as yet too busy and too ignorant to formulate for us a definite reply! But from them must come the sibylline response, for the true artist has no home upon earth save the heart of humanity! The kingdom of the Beautiful belongs not exclusively to the luxurious, nor to any aristocracy of the refined and cultivated, but, like the blue depths of God's heaven arch, spans the world, everywhere visible, and everywhere beneficent!
As they may not formulate for us a definite reply, let us place our ears close to the throbbing heart of the masses, that we may hear what effect the Beautiful, as manifested in art, has upon the electric pulses. And now our despair passes forever, for men made in the image of God, when not degraded by a corrupting materialism, nor lost in the bewildering mazes of a luxurious sensualism, nor puffed up with the vain conceit of the limited understanding, and thus holding themselves above all the high enthusiasm and holy mysteries of art, always seem able to recognize that which awakens in them noble thoughts or tender feelings; so that when a poet sings to them of heroism, of liberty, of fraternity, of justice, of love, of home, of God, if he can succeed in causing their hearts to throb with generous emotions, they stop not to consult the critics, they listen only to the voice of their own naive souls, and at once and with one accord enthusiastically cry: 'Beautiful! beautiful! how beautiful!' La Bruyère himself says: 'When a poem elevates your mind, when it inspires you with noble and heroic feeling, it is altogether useless to seek other rules by which to judge it; it is—it must be good, and the work of a true artist.' Such is really the criterion consulted by the people, and on this broad and just base rests the general correctness of their judgments.
Uncultured as they may be, is it not, indeed, among the people that we see the most vivid sympathies with the really great artists, the true poets? It is among them we most frequently find that glowing enthusiasm which excites and transports them until they lose all selfish thoughts; contrasting strongly with the measured calm, the still and prudent reserve of the elite, the connoisseurs, which an impassioned artist (Liszt) truly says 'is like the glacés on their own tables.' Let the artist but strike some of the simple but sublime chords which, the Creator has tuned tothe same harmony in human bosoms, and they will respond from the heart of the people in an instantaneous thrill of noble instincts and generous emotions. It is ever with the people that the artist meets with that profound andlovingadmiration which so greatly increases his own powers, and which always leads them to noble acts of devotion for those who have succeeded in touching the harmonizing chords vibrating through the mighty bosom of humanity made in the image of God!
If we would learn something of the effect of art on the soul, and understand the secrets of its power, we should go to a representation of one of Shakspeare's tragedies, and mark the attentive crowd silently contemplating the high scenes which the poet unrolls before them. Immersed in poverty and suffering as they may themselves be, we will see that at the words 'glory, honor, liberty, patriotism, love'; at the sight of the courageous struggle of the just against the unjust; at the fall of the wicked, the triumph of the innocent,—the furrowed and rugged faces glow with sympathy, all hearts proclaim the loveliness of virtue, or are unanimous in the condemnation of vice. Full of just indignation against the aggressor, of generous sympathy with the oppressed, shall the palpitating throng stay the quick throbbing of their hearts to inquire of the men of the senses if they mayadmire, or of the critics and schoolmen if they mayapprove? Their intuitions have already decided the question for them. Why do the masses always accord in their estimation of the just and unjust? why do they always agree about glory and shame, vice and virtue, courage and cowardice? why do they always find Beauty in the success of suffering virtue, the triumph of oppressed innocence, the rescue of the wronged and helpless? The answer throws its light over the whole world of art: Because God's justice, even when it condemns themselves, is one of the Divine attributes for whose enjoyment they were created; because it stands pledged that whatever may be the disorder visible upon earth, it will rule in awful majesty over the final ordering of all things. The soul, urged on by an unconscious yet imperative thirst for the Absolute, having in vain tried to find its realization in a world furrowed by vanities and scared by vices, takes its flight to the clime of the ideal, to find there the growth of eternal realities. The poet builds ideal worlds in which he strives to find the absolute, adorning them with all the beauties for which the human heart pines: heroism, patriotism, devotion, love, take form and find appropriate expression; for all is wisdom, power, liberty, and harmony in the artistic realms. Art is a celestial vision which God sends to his exiled children, to give them news of the invisible world for which they were created, to soothe their sorrows, to turn their thoughts and affections to their true centre. Art is the transient realization, the momentary possession of the desires of the soul!
There is then a Beauty inaccessible to the senses, above the narrow limit of technical laws, which a simple and uncorrupted people intuitively feel and love, for which the masses reserve their most profound admiration, and which it is unquestionably the province of the true artist to manifest through whatever medium he may have chosen as his specific branch of art. The delight felt in the Beautiful arises from the fact that it manifests or suggests, in a greater or less degree, some portion of the Divine attributes for whose enjoyment we were created. Is it not then time that the good and earnest men of our own broad land should cease to ignore, if not to persecute, art; should indeed reverently pause to inquire into the resources and capabilities of the mighty symbolism used and wielded by the fine arts?
We are engaged in a life-and-death struggle for our national existence—for the preservation of the Union, for these are synonymous. To succeed, we need an animating spirit that shall carry us through all obstacles; that shall smile at repeated defeat; that shall ever buoy us up with strong hope and confidence in the ultimate success of our efforts. Such a spirit cannot flow from a simple love of opposition, excited by the wicked bravado of our opponents; nor from a desire to prove ourselves the stronger: neither can it flow from the mere wish to destroy slavery. None of these motives singly, nor all of them combined, are sufficient to sustain us in this hour of trial, or to carry us clear through to the desired goal. The only motive which can do this, and which, in the heart of every loyal man, should be of such large proportions as immensely to dwarf all lower ones, is one that can flow only from a clear comprehension of the value of the Union, coupled with a conviction, arising out of this intelligent valuation, that the Union, being what it is—containing within itself untold, and yet undeveloped blessings to ourselves and to the human race at large—is nothing less than a most precious gift of God; given into our charge, to be ours as long as we deserve its enjoyment by our individual and national adherence to truth and right; a conviction also, that our Union, from the very marked Providential circumstances attending its establishment, is in no small sense a divine work; and hence, that we may rest in the sure hope that God will not permit His own work to be destroyed, except by our refusing to coöperate with Him in its preservation.
All our blessings, natural and spiritual, are enjoyed by us only in the degree of our free and voluntary coöperation with the intentions of the Divine Giver. No good thing is forced upon us, and nothing that we ought to have is withheld if we put forth the power granted us to obtain it. The atmosphere surrounds us, but the lungs must open and expand to receive it. The food is before us, but the mouth must open, and the hands convey it thither, or it is of no service. Light flows from the sun, but the eye must open to enjoy it. And so with the blessings which we enjoy in the Union; we must use our active powers to profit by them; and at this crisis we must not only act to enjoy them, but must strain every nerve to preserve them. The nation is now on its trial, to be tested, as to whether it adequately values the divine gift of the Union. If it does thus value it, it will use diligently and carefully all the abundant resources which lie around it and within it, like an atmosphere—wealth, population, energy, intelligence, mechanical ingenuity, scientific skill, and all the neededmaterièlof warfare. It is rich in all this, far more so than the South. All this, Providence lays at the feet of the nation. It can do no more. The nation, as one man, must now doitspart, or continue to do as it has done; it must coöperate, must put forth a determinedwill—a will tenfold more resolute, more fixed and immovable to preserve the Union, than is that of its enemies to destroy it. This will cannot exist without a clear, intellectual appreciation of the worth of the Union; of its value as an agent, which, if rightly employed, will continue to develop increasing power to humanize and Christianize men, and to elevate, to broaden, and intensify human life and happiness more thanany form of political institution that the world has ever witnessed.
Full of this conviction, we shall then, individually and collectively, be resolved that this noble continent, stretching three thousand miles from ocean to ocean, and opened like a new world to man, just at an epoch when religious and political liberty, starting into life in Europe, might be transplanted into this virgin soil, where thus far they have developed into this fair republic—we shall then be resolved that this broad, rich territory shall be forever devoted
To man's development—not to hisdebasement.To liberty and free order—not despotismand forced order.To an ever-advancing civilization—notto a retrograding barbarism.To popular self-government—not tothe rule of a slave-holding oligarchy.To religion, education, and morality—notto irreligion, ignorance, andlicentiousness.To educated and dignified labor—notto brutalized labor under the lash.To individual independence andequal rights—not to individualsubjugation to caste.To peace—and not to border wars betweenconflicting States.To unity, harmony, and nationalstrength—not to disunity, civil discord,and subjection to foreignpowers.
All these blessings on the one hand are guaranteed in the Union, and only there—all their opposite horrors are involved as inevitably and certainly in the Southern lunacy, resting on slavery and secession as its corner stones! Madness most unparalleled!
We will look now at a singular and beautiful fact—for fact it is, account for it as we may. It is this: The course of civilization upon this globe has apparently followed the course of the sun. Sunlight and warmth travel from east to west. The moral and intellectual illumination of the nations has travelled the same route. From central or farther Asia, it goes to Assyria, and successively to Egypt, to Greece—thence to Italy and Rome—then to western Europe, England, France, Spain. From thence it leaps the Atlantic. The Bible, church, and school house, with the Pilgrims and other colonies, scatter the primeval darkness and savagism from the Atlantic coast. Still 'westward the march of empire takes its way' to the Alleghanies, to the Mississippi; thence, by another leap, across two thousand miles of continent, where it sparkles with a golden lustre on the queenly California, enthroned upon the far-off Pacific shore (yet by the miraculous telegraph within whispering distance). There the newest and highest civilization comes face to face with the oldest on the earth—hoary with ages; greets it in China across the wide Pacific, and the circle of the globe is joined.
Now the civilization inaugurated upon our continent, in these United States, may be said to be, indeed is, the result of all that have preceded it. It combines somewhat of the elements of all the civilizations that have been strung along the earth's eastern semi-circumference, besides others, peculiar to itself. And why should it not be considered as the bud and opening flower growing out of the summit of all the past, and for which the long ages have made toilsome preparation. Long time does it take for stem and leaves to unfold, but in the end comes the flower, and then the fruit. But here, in this bud of splendid promise, the American Union, lurks the foul worm of slavery, threatening to blast the fondest hopes of mankind by destroying this glorious augury of a mature civilization, where man shall develop into the full earthly stature of a being created in the divine image. Shall it be? Not if the North is faithful to God, to mankind, and to itself.
Let us take courage. The westward-travelling sunbeams have ever to oppose the western darkness, but they conquer always. So American civilization, also, has its darkness and barbaric elements to battle with, but they too, God willing, shall vanish before it.
Why have we been forced into this desperate, unexpected conflict? One reason may possibly be, that by it, we may be aroused to a living sense of the great value of our inheritance, the Union, when threatened with its loss. 'Blessings brighten as they take their flight.' Benefit's daily enjoyed, with hardly a care or effort on our part, are not prized as they should be. When, however, we are threatened with their loss, we awaken from indifference. A new sense of their value springs up, and a severe contest for their preservation stamps their true worth indelibly on the heart. Threaten to cut off the air a man breathes, the food and drink that sustains him, and you rouse all his energies into new life; and he now prizes these common but unthought-of blessings as he never did before. And so it will be one effect of this contest, to arouse us as a nation to see clearly our vantage ground in the world's progress, and to stir us up as individuals, to lead higher and truer lives, each for his own and for his country's sake. And when this Southern insane wickedness is quelled, and the great American nation can rest and breathe freely once more, it will then calmly ponder the past, and survey the future. In the degree of its religion and virtue, and next of its intelligence and energy, it will, in the course of time, clearly perceive and wisely inaugurate a new social and industrial life, which will be as far in advance of the present system of free labor as the latter is itself in advance of slavery. What that is, cannot here be stated. It will, however, be but the inevitable result of agencies and influences now at work, and only interrupted and endangered by this pro-slavery rebellion.
With these remarks, we enter upon our topic: 'Why is the Union priceless?'
There are two reasons, among others, why it is so, upon which we shall dwell at some length.
The first is involved in the great fact that such is man's nature as bestowed by the Creator, that only in the society of his fellows can that nature be developed into all its grandeur, and thus bestow and receive the utmost amount of happiness. The old adage, 'the more, the merrier,' might be truly amplified in many ways. When numbers are engaged in common pursuits, common interests, common views, common joys—each one zealous, earnest, life-giving and life-receiving—the happiness of the whole flows in upon each, and multiplies it a thousandfold.
Now if we look at history, keeping in mind the fact that the sole end of the Creator is the happiness of his creatures, and that this happiness is multiplied in proportion to the number of those who can be brought into accord and concert of action (and action, too, as diversified as possible)—looking at history, we say, under the light of this fact, it would seem as if Providence, in the course of human events, was in the continual effort, so to speak, to bring mankind into ever closer, more harmonious, and more multiplied and diverse relations; ever striving to mass the human race more and more into larger and larger communities; the different portions of which should still retain all the freedom they were prepared for, or needed to enjoy, while at the same time, they were in close but free membership with the common body and its central head.
We say that this seems to be the aim of Providence; while on the other hand, there is just as evidently to be seen the working of an opposing force, viz., human selfishness, human ignorance, individual ambition, ever seeking its own at the expense of others.A selfish, energetic, and ignorant spirit of individualism (as distinguished from an enlightened, large-minded,socialindividualism, which only becomes more marked and healthily developed by wide social intercourse), has in all ages tended to split up society into smaller parts, animated by mutual rivalry, jealousy, and hostility. When these antagonisms have been carried to a certain length the evil cures itself, by the rise of a despotism, which, as the instrument in the hands of Providence, brings all these clashing communities under a strong government, that binds them over, as it were, to keep the peace. By this, leisure and opportunity are given for the cultivation of the arts, the sciences, and industries, which tend to humanize men, and lessen the restless war spirit.
Thus the massing of many petty and warring tribes of barbarians into one large nation, and under a strong despotic monarchy, without which they could neither have been brought together nor kept together, is so much gained for human progress.
After this has continued for a time, when certain changes, certain ameliorations have been effected in the intellectual, social, and moral character of the nation, from the cultivation of the arts of peace, it is then allowed to be broken up, as the period may have arrived for the infusion of new elements and agencies of social progress which shall place men upon a higher plane of national existence. It falls to pieces through its own corruption and degeneracy, or by the invasion of stronger neighbors. It is swallowed up by the destroying force, and its people, its institutions, its ideas, its arts and sciences, its customs, laws, modes of life, or whatever else it may have elaborated, become mingled with those of surrounding nations, and a new political and social structure, formed out of the old and the new elements recombined anew and useless matter eliminated—stands forth in history; a structure tending still more than previous conditions to raise men in the scale of civilization—to bring them into closer relations—to enlarge and multiply their ideas—to quicken their moral and social impulses—to rub off the harsh angles of a selfish, narrow-minded individualism, and, in a word, to advance them yet more toward that degree of virtue and intelligence which is absolutely indispensable to the union of large masses of men into a nation, whose political system shall at once unite the utmost freedom for each individual with the most perfect general order also.
For the establishment of such a government we think the world has been carried through a long educational process; for in such a government, men will find the greatest earthly happiness, and also the greatest facilities and inducements to live in such a way as shall secure the happiness that lies beyond. And we think that the course of events in history will show that such a method as that described has been pursued by Providence, gathering men from the isolation and warfare of petty and independent tribes, into large despotisms, where the lower, rude, and selfish passions of wild men being held in restraint, some opportunity is given for peaceful pursuits and the development of a higher range of mental qualities—breaking these despotisms up again at certain periods, and massing their constituent elements into larger or differently constituted governments, with new agencies of progress added, according as human mental conditions and needs required.
That those great ancient monarchies, as the Assyrian, Persian, etc., had this effect, cannot well be doubted. But in the rise and fall of the great Roman empire, this appears very plainly. How many nations and small communities—far and near—isolated, independent, and more or less engaged in wars among themselves or in the constant apprehension of it—how many, we say, of such communities were gathered under the broad wings of the Roman eagle! From Spain and England on the west, to the borders of India on the east—from the Baltic on the north, to the deserts of Africa on the south—all were brought under the Roman sway; were brought under a common tranquillity (such as it was), under a common government, common laws, a common civilization more or less. All these countries were raised from a lower to a higher condition by their subjection to Roman domination. How far superior in England was the Roman civilization, its laws, manners, institutions, to the rude Anglican and Saxon life!
Rome thus established a grand humanizing unity over all these different regions, which otherwise had remained divided, hostile, or isolated from each other.
In the next place, through the instrumentality of this Roman unity, Christianity was established with comparative ease over the greater part of the then known world. This would perhaps have been very difficult if not impossible had these regions been occupied by a multitude of independent, and most likely, warring sovereignties.
Christianity thus widely planted, and firmly rooted upon this Roman civilization and by means of it, and this civilization, now perfected as far as it was capable of being, or standing in the way of further human progress, the empire fell to pieces, to make room for a new order of things, in which Christianity, the remains of Roman civilization, and the peculiar features of northern barbarian life, were the ingredients. These elements, after numberless combinations, dissolutions, and reconstructions, have resulted in the civilization of modern Europe. The progress toward this civilization has everywhere exhibited a constant tendency to larger and larger national unities—parts coalescing into wholes, and these into yet larger units. Witness the reduction of the number of German principalities, from one hundred or more to forty in the present day—the movement now on foot in Germany for a federal union among these forty—also the new Italian nationality. These we mention but incidentally, not intending here to trace the steps of this advance.
This progress toward unity has also been accompanied with a constant though slow advance in the principles of religious and political freedom.
But now, out of this European civilization, the result itself of the breaking up of the Roman semi-pagan, semi-Christian empire, and the multiplied interminglings, changes, and reconstructions of the Roman, the ecclesiastical, and northern barbarian elements—out of this European civilization, with its movements toward large nationalities—its progress toward religious and political freedom, and toward the acknowledgment and recognition of human rights; the substitution of constitutional monarchies for absolute, and the creation of representative bodies from the people as part of the government—out of all this, there springs as the fruit of all the long turmoil, the wars, the blood and treasure, the groans and tears, the martyrdoms of countless human lives, that during these long ages have, apparently in vain, been offered up in the cause of liberty, of order, of national peace, unity and freedom, of the right of man to the full and legitimate use of all his God-given faculties—there springs, we say, as the fruit, the result of all this suffering, our glorious American republic! our sacred—yes, our sacred Union! The fairest home that man has ever raised for man! To lay violent hands on which, should be deemed the blackest, most unpardonable sacrilege. It is the actualization of a dazzling vision, that may have often glowed in the imagination of many a patriot and statesman of olden times—which he may have vainly struggled to realize in his own age and nation, and died at last, heart-broken, amid the carnage of civil strife.
Our republic, we repeat, is the fruit of European struggles. If Europe had not passed through what she has, the United States would never have arisen. The principles of religious and political liberty sprang to birth in Europe, but there they have been of tardy growth, because surrounded and opposed by habits and institutions of early ages. They needed transplantation to a new and unoccupied soil, where they could enjoy the free air and sunshine, and not be overshadowed by anything else.
Here then we have our American civilization, formed out of what was good in European, combined with much else that has had its origin upon our own shores—the result of free principles allowedalmostunobstructed play.
Let us survey the many elements of unity which we possess.
First in large measure, a common origin, viz., from England—that country of Europe farthest advanced of any other in religion, in politics, in freedom, and in science and industry.
Next, a common birth, as it were, in the form of numerous colonies, from the mother country; planted almost simultaneously, it may be said; possessed of common charters, which differed but slightly—containing systems of colonial administration, full of the spirit of popular rights and representation.
Next, a common language, a common literature, a common religion, and common interests, that should bind us together against all foes.
Lastly, a common territory, washed by the two remote oceans—a territory, in the present advanced state of science and of improved modes of travel and of communication, without any material dividing lines or barriers; but having, on the contrary, an immense river in the centre, stretching its arms a thousand miles on either side, as if on purpose to keep the vast region forever one and united.
Never was the birth of a nation so full of promise—so full of all the elements of a prosperous growth. If any one event can be said to be, more than another, under the divine guidance, then, all the circumstances attending the colonization of these shores and the formation of this Union, have been most minutely and marvellously providential. 'Here at last,' we may conceive some superior being to exclaim, who from his higher sphere has watched with deep sympathy the weary earth-journey of the human race, 'here at last, after these long ages of discipline and suffering, has a long desired goal been reached. Here a portion of the human family, having attained to such a degree of virtue and intelligence, combined with skill in political arrangements, and a commensurate knowledge of art, and science, and industrial pursuits—may be intrusted with liberty proportioned to their moral and intellectual advancement. Here they shall begin to live unitedly, more and more in accordance with the divine intentions than man has ever yet done. Millions on millions shall here be banded together into one vast, free, yet orderly community, where each individual shall enjoy all the liberty to which he is entitled by his moral character, and possess all possible facilities for the full and healthy development of his entire nature. Here, under the combined influence of true religion, intelligence, and freedom—and these must go hand in hand—the millions composing this great nation must become ever more and more united, prosperous, and happy.
This then, is the first reason why the Union is priceless—because in this Union, Providence appears to have reached an end, a goal, to which it has long been in the effort to conduct the human race, viz., the bringing a larger and more rapidly increasing population into a more free, united, and happy life, one more in accordance with human wants, and with the measurelessdivine benevolence, than has ever yet been brought about in the annals of mankind.
We proceed now to consider the second reason why the Union is priceless.
This reason lies in themethodof the organization of this Government.
What is this plan or method?
We reply that the immense value of the Union rests also upon the incontrovertible fact (perhaps not widely suspected, but evident enough when looked for) that the system of government of these United States, the mode in which the smaller and larger communities are combined into the great whole, together with the working of all in concert,comes the nearest of any other political structure to the Creator's method of combining parts into wholes throughout the universe.
Wherever we behold a specimen of the divine creative skill, whether in the mineral, vegetable, animal, or human kingdoms; whether it be a crystal, a tree, a bird, or beast, a man, or a solar system, in all these we observe one universal method of grouping, common to all conditions. This method is that of grouping parts around centres, and several of such groups around larger centres, upward and onward indefinitely; while in living beings, according to their complexity, each individual part, and each individual group of parts with its centre,is left free to move within its own sphere, yet at the same time is harmonized with the movements of its neighbors through the medium of the common centre.
Every such work of the Creator is anE pluribus unum, a one out of many—a unit composed of many diversified parts, exhibiting a marvellous unity, with an equally wonderful variety. Look at yonder tree, examine its parts, leaves, twigs, branches, trunk, all endowed with a common life. Yet each little individual leaf lives and moves freely upon its centre or twig, which is a common centre for many leaves. Many little twigs in their turn, each free to move by itself within a certain limit, are ranged along their common centre, a branch. Many branches cluster around a large one, and all the largest branches in their turn cluster around the common trunk, or great centre supporting the whole fabric. Each leaf and twig and branch contributes its share to the life of the whole tree, and is in turn supported by the general life and circulating sap.
All this is repeated with far greater fulness and complexity in the living animal, or in the human body. How numerous are the parts composing a single organ! How many organs go to one system, how many systems, bony, muscular, fibrous, circulatory, nervous, combine to make up the entire body! Then again, all the members of the body move,within a certain limit, in perfect independence of all the rest. The finger can move without the hand, the hand can move without the arm, the forearm without the upper arm, the entire arm without any other limb; and yet all the parts of one limb, and all the limbs together, are harmonized in action by the central brain.
So also in the solar system. The moons move around the planets; the planets around the sun; our group of suns around their magnetic axis, the milky way; yet each of these heavenly bodies rolls freely in its own orbit. In all these instances we have the great problem solved, of reconciling liberty with order, liberty of the individual parts with perfect order in the whole.
As far then as human governments imitate this divine method of organization seen in created objects, so far do they solve this problem in the sphere of political arrangements, making due allowance of course for the disturbing influence acting in man's own mental constitution, by reason of his fall from the innocence and holiness in which he was created. It is just because this divine and universal method has beenunconsciously followed by the good and wise and immortal framers of the national Constitution, and also because the morality and intelligence of the people were adapted to this wise political structure, that the American nation has prospered as it has, and become the envy of the world.
Is it asked in what consists this resemblance? We reply that it is in the grouping of