The knowledge which can lead to such results must be collected, as all

true knowledge is, from the love of it. In the healthy state of the

mind, the state of elastic youth, which would be perpetual in the mind

if it were nobly disciplined and animated by immortal hopes, it likes to

learn just how the facts are, seeking truth for its own sake, not

doubting that the design and cause will be made clear in time. A mind in

such a state will find many facts ready for its use in these volumes

relative to the South Sea Islanders, and other objects of interest.

STORY-BOOKS FOR THE HOT WEATHER.

Does any shame still haunt the age of bronze--a shame, the lingering

blush of an heroic age, at being caught in doing any thing merely for

amusement? Is there a public still extant which needs to excuse its

delinquencies by the story of a man who liked to lie on the sofa all day

and read novels, though he could, at time of need, write the gravest

didactics? Live they still, those reverend seigniors, the object of

secret smiles to our childish years, who were obliged to apologize for

midnight oil spent in conning story-books by the "historic bearing" of

the novel, or the "correct and admirable descriptions of certain

countries, with climate, scenery, and manners therein contained," wheat,

for which they, industrious students, were willing to winnow bushels of

frivolous love-adventures? We know not, but incline to think the world

is now given over to frivolity so far as to replace by the novel the

minstrel's ballad, the drama, and even those games of agility and

strength in which it once sought pastime. For, indeed, _mere_ pass-time

is sometimes needed; the nursery legend comprised a primitive truth of

the understanding and the wisdom of nations in the lines,--

"All play and no work makes Jack a mere toy,

But all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy."

We have reversed the order of arrangement to suit our present purpose.

For we, O useful reader! being ourselves so far of the useful class as

to be always wanted somewhere, have also to fight a good fight for our

amusements, either with the foils of excuse, like the reverend seigniors

above mentioned, or with the sharp weapons of argument, or maintenance

of a view of our own without argument, which we take to be the sharpest

weapon of all.

Thus far do we defer to the claims of the human race, with its myriad of

useful errands to be done, that we read most of our novels in the long

sunny days, which call all beings to chirp and nestle, or fly abroad as

the birds do, and permit the very oxen to ruminate gently in the

just-mown fields.

On such days it was well, we think, to read "Sybil, or the Two Worlds."

We have always felt great interest in D'Israeli. He is one of the many

who share the difficulty of our era, which Carlyle says, quoting, we

believe, from his Master, consists in unlearning the false in order to

arrive at the true. We think these men, when they have once taken their

degree, can be of far greater use to their brethren than those who have

always kept their instincts unperverted.

In "Vivian Grey," the young D'Israeli, an educated Englishman, but with

the blood of sunnier climes glowing and careering in his veins, gave us

the very flower and essence of factitious life. That book sparkled and

frothed like champagne; like that, too, it produced no dull and imbecile

state by its intoxication, but one witty, genial, spiritual even. A

deep, soft melancholy thrilled through its gay mockeries; the eyes of

nature glimmered through the painted mask, and a nobler ambition was

felt beneath the follies of petty success and petty vengeance. Still,

the chief merit of the book, as a book, was the light and decided touch

with which its author took up the follies and poesies of the day, and

brought them all before us. The excellence of the foreign part, with its

popular superstitions, its deep passages in the glades of the summer

woods, and above all, the capital sketch of the prime minister with his

original whims and secret history of romantic sorrows, were beyond the

appreciation of most readers.

Since then, D'Israeli has never written any thing to be compared with

this first jet of the fountain of his mind in the sunlight of morning.

The "Young Duke" was full of brilliant sketches, and showed a soul

struggling, blinded by the gaudy mists of fashion, for realities. The

"Wondrous Tale of Alroy" showed great power of conception, though in

execution it is a failure. "Henrietta Temple" Mr. Willis, with his usual

justness of perception, has praised, as containing a collection of the

best love-letters ever written; and which show that excellence, signal

and singular among the literary tribe, of which D'Israeli never fails,

of daring to write a thing down exactly as it rises in his mind.

Now he has come to be a leader of Young England, and a rooted plant upon

her soil. If the performance of his prime do not entirely correspond

with the brilliant lights of its dawn, it is yet aspiring, and with a

large kernel of healthy nobleness in it. D'Israeli shows now not only

the heart, but the soul of a man. He cares for all men; he wishes to

care wisely for all.

"Coningsby" was full of talent, yet its chief interest lay in this

aspiration after reality, and the rich materials taken from contemporary

life. There is nothing in it good after the original manner of

D'Israeli, except the sketches of Eton, and above all, the noble

schoolboy's letter. The picture of the Jew, so elaborately limned, is

chiefly valuable as affording keys to so many interesting facts.

"Sybil" is an attempt to do justice to the claims of the laboring

classes, and investigate the duties of those in whose hands the money is

at present, towards the rest. It comes to no result: it only exhibits

some truths in a more striking light than heretofore. D'Israeli shows

the taint of old prejudice in the necessity he felt to marry the

daughter of the people to one _not_ of the people. Those worthy to be

distinguished must still have good blood, or rather old blood, for what

is called good needs now to be renovated from a homelier source. But his

leaders must have _old_ blood; the fresh ichor, the direct flow from

heaven, is not enough to animate their lives to the deeds now needed.

D'Israeli is another of those who give testimony in behalf of our

favorite idea that a leading feature of the new era will be in new and

higher developments of the feminine character. He looks at women as a

man does who is truly in love. He does not paint them well, that is, not

with profound fidelity to nature. But, ideally, he sees them well, for

they are to him the inspirers and representatives of what is holy,

tender, and simply great.

There are good sketches of the manufacturers at home, not the overseers,

but the real makers.

Sue is a congenial activity with D'Israeli, but with clearer notions of

what he wants. His "De Rohan" is a poor book, though it contains some

things excellent. But it is faulty,--even more so than is usual with

him, in heavy exaggerations, and is less redeemed by brilliant effects,

good schemes, and lively strains of feeling. The wish to unmask Louis

XIV. is defeated by the hatred with which the character inspired him,

the liberal of the nineteenth century. The Grand Monarque was really

brutally selfish and ignorant, as Sue represents him; but then there

_was_ a native greatness, which justified, in some degree, the illusion

he diffused, and which falsifies all Sue's representation. It is not by

an inventory of facts or traits that what is most vital in character,

and which makes its due impression on contemporaries, can be apprehended

or depicted. "De Rohan" is worth reading for particulars of an

interesting period, put together with accuracy and with a sense of

physiological effects, if not of the spiritual realities that they

represented.

"Self, by the Author of Cecil," is one of the worst of a paltry class of

novels--those which aim at representing the very dregs in a social life,

now at its lowest ebb. If it has produced a sensation, that only shows

the poverty of life among those who can be interested in it. I have

known more life lived in a day among factory girls, or in a village

school, than informs these volumes, with all their great pretension and

affected vivacity. It is not worth our while to read this class of

English novels; they are far worse than the French, morally as well as

mentally. This has no merits as to the development of character or

exposition of motives; it is a poor, external, lifeless thing.

"Dashes at Life," by N. P. Willis. The life of Mr. Willis is too

European for him to have a general or permanent fame in America. We need

a life of our own, and a literature of our own. Those writers who are

dearest to us, and really most interesting, are those who are at least

rooted to the soil. If they are not great enough to be the prophets of

the new era, they at least exhibit the features of their native clime,

and the complexion given by its native air. But Mr. Willis is a son of

Europe, and his writings can interest only the fashionable world of this

country, which, by imitating Europe, fails entirely of a genius, grace,

and invention of its own. Still, in their way, they are excellent. They

are most lively pictures, showing the fine natural organization of the

writer, on whom none, the slightest symptom of what he is looking for,

is thrown away; sparkling with bold, light wit, succinct, and colored

with glow, and for a full light. Some of them were new to us, and we

read them through, missing none of the words, and laughed with a full

heart, and without one grain of complaisance, which is much, very much,

to say in these days. We said these sketches would not have a permanent

fame, and yet we may be wrong. The new, full, original, radiant,

American life may receive them as an heirloom from this transition state

we are in now, and future generations may stare at the mongrel products

of Saratoga, and maidens still laugh till they cry at the "Letter of

Jane S. to her Spirit-Bridegroom."

All these story-books show, even to the languor of the hottest day, the

solemn signs of revolution. Life has become too factitious; it has no

longer a leg left to stand upon, and cannot be carried much farther in

this way. England--ah! who can resist visions of phalansteries in every

park, and the treasures of art turned into public galleries for the use

of the artificers who will no longer be unwashed, but raised and

educated by the refinements of sufficient leisure, and the instructions

of genius. England must glide, or totter, or fall into revolution; there

is not room for such selfish elves, and unique young dukes, in a country

so crowded with men, and with those who ought to be women, and are

turned into work-tools. There are very impressive hints on this last

topic in "Sybil, or the Two Worlds," (of the rich and poor.) God has

time to remember the design with which he made this world also.

SHELLEY'S POEMS[18]

We are very glad to see this handsome copy of Shelley ready for those

who have long been vainly inquiring at all the bookstores for such a

one.

In Europe the fame of Shelley has risen superior to the clouds that

darkened its earlier days, hiding his true image from his fellow-men,

and from his own sad eyes oftentimes the common light of day. As a

thinker, men have learned to pardon what they consider errors in opinion

for the sake of singular nobleness, purity, and love in his main

tendency or spirit. As a poet, the many faults of his works having been

acknowledged, there are room and place to admire his far more numerous

and exquisite beauties.

The heart of the man, few, who have hearts of their own, refuse to

reverence, and many, even of devoutest Christians, would not refuse the

book which contains Queen Mab as a Christmas gift. For it has been

recognized that the founder of the Christian church would have suffered

one to come unto him, who was in faith and love so truly what he sought

in a disciple, without regard to the form his doctrine assumed.

The qualities of his poetry have often been analyzed, and the severer

critics, impatient of his exuberance, or unable to use their accustomed

spectacles in the golden mist that broods over all he has done, deny him

high honors; but the soul of aspiring youth, untrammelled by the canons

of taste, and untamed by scholarly discipline, swells into rapture at

his lyric sweetness, finds ambrosial refreshment from his plenteous

fancies, catches fire at his daring thought, and melts into boundless

weeping at his tender sadness--the sadness of a soul betrothed to an

ideal unattainable in this present sphere.

For ourselves, we dispute not with the _doctrinaires_ or the critics. We

cannot speak dispassionately of an influence that has been so dear to

us. Nearer than the nearest companions of life actual has Shelley been

to us. Many other great ones have shone upon us, and all who ever did so

shine are still resplendent in our firmament, for our mental life has

not been broken and contradictory, but thus far we "see what we

foresaw." But Shelley seemed to us an incarnation of what was sought in

the sympathies and desires of instinctive life, a light of dawn, and a

foreshowing of the weather of this day.

When still in childish years, the "Hymn to Intellectual Beauty" fell in

our way. In a green meadow, skirted by a rich wood, watered by a lovely

rivulet, made picturesque by a mill a little farther down, sat a party

of young persons gayer than, and almost as inventive, as those that told

the tales recorded by Boccaccio. They were passing a few days in a scene

of deep seclusion, there uncared for by tutor or duenna, and with no bar

of routine to check the pranks of their gay, childish fancies. Every day

they assumed parts which through the waking hours must be acted out. One

day it was the characters in one of Richardson's novels; and most

solemnly we "my deared" each other with richest brocade of affability,

and interchanged in long, stiff phrase our sentimental secrets and prim

opinions. But to-day we sought relief in personating birds or insects;

and now it was the Libellula who, tired of wild flitting and darting,

rested on the grassy bank and read aloud the "Hymn to Intellectual

Beauty," torn by chance from the leaf of a foreign magazine.

It was one of those chances which we ever remember as the interposition

of some good angel in our fate. Solemn tears marked the change of mood

in our little party and with the words

"Have I not kept my vow?"

began a chain of thoughts whose golden links still bind the years

together.

Two or three years passed. The frosty Christmas season came; the trees

cracked with their splendid burden of ice, the old wooden country house

was banked up with high drifts of the beautiful snow, and the Libellula

became the owner of Shelley's Poems. It was her Christmas gift, and for

three days and three nights she ceased not to extract its sweets; and

how familiar still in memory every object seen from the chair in which

she sat enchanted during those three days, memorable to her as those of

July to the French nation! The fire, the position of the lamp, the

variegated shadows of that alcoved room, the bright stars up to which

she looked with such a feeling of congeniality from the contemplation of

this starry soul,--O, could but a De Quincey describe those days in

which the bridge between the real and ideal rose unbroken! He would not

do it, though, as _Suspiria de Profundis_, but as sighs of joy upon the

mountain height.

The poems we read then are what every one still reads, the "Julian and

Maddalo," with its profound revelations of the inward life; "Alastor,"

the soul sweeping like a breeze through nature; and some of the minor

poems. "Queen Mab," the "Prometheus," and other more formal works we

have not been able to read much. It was not when he tried to express

opinions which the wrongs of the world had put into his head, but when

he abandoned himself to the feelings which nature had implanted in his

own breast, that Shelley seemed to us so full of inspiration, and it is

so still.

In reply to all that can be urged against him by people of whom we do

not wish to speak ill,--for surely "they know not what they do,"--we are

wont simply to refer to the fact that he was the only man who redeemed

the human race from suspicion to the embittered soul of Byron. "Why,"

said Byron, "he is a man who would willingly die for others. _I am sure

of it._"

Yes! balance that against all the ill you can think of him that he was

a man able to live wretched for the sake of speaking sincerely what he

supposed to be truth, willing to die for the good of his fellows!

Mr. Foster has spoken well of him as a man: "Of Shelley's personal

character it is enough to say that it was wholly pervaded by the same

unbounded and unquestioning love for his fellow-men--the same holy and

fervid hope in their ultimate virtue and happiness--the same scorn of

baseness and hatred of oppression--which beam forth in all his writings

with a pure and constant light. The theory which he wrote was the

practice which his whole life exemplified. Noble, kind, generous,

passionate, tender, with a courage greater than the courage of the chief

of warriors, for it could _endure_--these were the qualities in which

his life was embalmed."

FESTUS.[19]

We are right glad to see this beloved stranger domesticated among us.

Yet there are queer little circumstances that herald the introduction.

The poet is a barrister at law!--well! it is always worthy of note when

a man is not hindered by study of human law from knowledge of divine;

which last is all that concerns the poet. Then the preface to the

American edition closes with this discreet remark: "It is perfectly SAFE

to pronounce it (the poem) one of the most powerful and splendid

productions of the age." Dear New England! how purely that was worthy

thee, region where the tyranny of public opinion is carried to a

perfection of minute scrutiny beyond what it ever was before in any age

or place, though the ostracism be administered with the mildness and

refinement fit for this age. Dear New England! yes! it is _safe_ to say

that the poem is good; whatever Mrs. Grundy may think, she will not have

it burned by the hangman if it is not. But it may not be _discreet_,

because she can, if she sees fit, exile its presence from bookstores,

libraries, centre tables, and all mention of its existence from lips

polite, and of thine also, who hast dared to praise it, on peril of

turning all surrounding eyes to lead by its utterance. This kind of

gentle excommunication thou mayst not be prepared to endure, O

preface-writer! And we should greatly fear that thou wert deceived in

thy fond security, for "Festus" is a bold book--in respect of freedom of

words, a boldest book--also it reveals the solitudes of hearts with

unexampled sincerity, and remorselessly lays bare human nature in its

naked truth--but for the theology of the book. That may save it, and

none the less for all it shows of the depravity of human nature. It is

through many pages and leaves what is technically praised as "a serious

book." A friend went into a bookstore to select presents for persons

with whom she was about to part, and among other things requested the

shopman to "show her some serious books in handsome binding." He looked

into several, and then, struck by passages here and there, offered her

the "Letters of Lady M. W. Montague." She assuring him that it would not

be safe to make use of this work, he offered her a miniature edition of

Shakspeare, as "a book containing many excellent things, though you had

to wade through a great deal of rubbish to get at them."

We fear the reader will have to wade through a great deal of "rubbish"

in "Festus" before he gets at the theology. However, there it is, in

sufficient quantities to give dignity to any book. In seriousness, it

may compete with Pollok's "Course of Time." In "splendor and power," we

feel ourselves safe in saying that, as sure as the sun shines, it cannot

be outdone in the English tongue, thus far, short of Milton. So there is

something for all classes of readers, and we hope it will get to their

eyes, albeit Boston books are not likely to be detected by all eyes to

which they belong.

To ourselves the theology of this writer, and the conscious design of

the poem, have little interest. They seem to us, like the color of his

skin and hair, the result of the circumstances under which he was born.

Certain opinions came in his way early, and became part of the body of

his thought. But what interests us is not these, but what is deepest,

universal--the soul of that body. To us the poem is

"... full of great dark meanings like the sea:"

and it is these, the deep experiences and inspirations of the immortal

man, that engage us.

Even the poem shows how large is his nature--its most careless utterance

full of grandeur, its tamest of bold nobleness. This, that truly engages

us, he spoke of more forcibly when the book first went forth to the

world:--

"Read this, world. He who writes is dead to thee,

But still lives in these leaves. He spake inspired;

Night and day, thought came unhelped, undesired,

Like blood to his heart. The course of study he

Went through was of the soul-rack. The degree

He took was high; it was wise wretchedness.

He suffered perfectly, and gained no less

A prize than, in his own torn heart, to see

A few bright seeds; he sowed them, hoped them truth.

The autumn of that seed is in these pages."

Such is, in our belief, the true theologian, the learner of God, who

does not presumptuously expect at this period of growth to bind down all

that is to be known of divine things in a system, a set of words, but

considers that he is only spelling the first lines of a work, whose

perusal shall last him through eternity. Such a one is not in a hurry to

declare that the riddles of Fate and of Time are solved, for he knows it

is not calling them so that will make them so. His soul does not decline

the great and persevering labors that are to develop its energies. He

has faith to study day by day. Such is the practice of the author of

Festus, whenever he is truly great. When he shows to us the end and plan

of all things, we feel that he only hides them from us. He speaks only

his wishes. But when he tells us of what he does really know, the moods

and aspirations of fiery youth to which all things are made present in

foresight and foretaste,--when he shows us the temptations of the lonely

soul pining for knowledge, but unable to feel the love that alone can

bestow it,--then he is truly great, and the strings of life thrill

oftentimes to their sublimest, sweetest music.

We admire in this author the unsurpassed force and distinctness with

which he casts out single thoughts and images. Each is thrown before us

fresh, deep in its impress as if just snatched from the forge. We admire

not less his vast flow, his sustained flight. His is a rich and spacious

genius; it gives us room; it is a palace home; we need not economize our

joys; blessed be the royalty that welcomes us so freely.

In simple transposition of the thought from the mind to the paper, that

wonder, even rarer than perfect,--that is, simple expression, through

the motions of the body, of the motions of the soul,--we dare to say

_no_ writer excels him. Words are no veil between us and him, but a

luminous cloud that upbears us both together.

So in touches of nature, in the tones of passion; he is absolute. There

is nothing better, where it is good; we have the very thing itself.

We are told by the critics that he has no ear, and, indeed, when we

listen for such, we perceive blemishes enough in the movement of his

line. But we did not perceive it before, more than, when the AEolian was

telling the secrets of that most spirit-like minister of Nature that

bloweth where it listeth, and no man can trace it, we should attempt to

divide the tones and pauses into regular bars, and be disturbed when we

could not make a tune.

England has only two poets now that can be named near him: these two are

Tennyson and the author of "Philip Van Artevelde." Tennyson is all that

Bailey is not in melody and voluntary finish, having no less than a

Greek moderation in declining all undertakings he is not sure of

completing. Taylor, noble, an earnest seer, a faithful narrator of what

he sees, firm and sure, sometimes deep and exquisite, but in energy and

grandeur no more than Tennyson to be named beside the author of Festus.

In inspiration, in prophecy, in those flashes of the sacred fire which

reveal the secret places where Time is elaborating the marvels of

Nature, he stands alone. It is just true what Ebenezer Elliott says,

that "Festus contains poetry enough to set up fifty poets,"--ay! even

such poets, so far as richness of thought and imagery are concerned, as

the two noble bards we have named.

But we need call none less to make him greater, whose liberal soul is

alive to every shade of beauty, every token of greatness, and whose main

stress is to seek a soul of goodness in things evil. The book is a

precious, even a sacred book, and we could say more of it, had we not

years ago vented our enthusiasm when it was in first full flow.

FRENCH NOVELISTS OF THE DAY.[20]

WE hear much lamentation among good people at the introduction of so

many French novels among us, corrupting, they say, our youth by pictures

of decrepit vice and prurient crime, such as would never, otherwise, be

dreamed of here, and corrupting it the more that such knowledge is so

precocious--for the same reason that a boy may be more deeply injured by

initiation into wickedness than a man, for he is not only robbed of his

virtue, but prevented from developing the strength that might restore

it. But it is useless to bewail what is the inevitable result of the

movement of our time. Europe must pour her corruptions, no less than her

riches, on our shores, both in the form of books and of living men. She

cannot, if she would, check the tide which bears them hitherward; no

defences are possible, on our vast extent of shore, that can preclude

their ingress. We have exulted in premature and hasty growth; we must

brace ourselves to bear the evils that ensue. Our only hope lies in

rousing, in our own community, a soul of goodness, a wise aspiration,

that shall give us strength to assimilate this unwholesome food to

better substance, or cast off its contaminations. A mighty sea of life

swells within our nation, and, if there be salt enough, foreign bodies

shall not have power to breed infection there.

We have had some opportunity to observe that the worst works offered are

rejected. On the steamboats we have seen translations of vile books,

bought by those who did not know from the names of their authors what

to expect, torn, after a cursory glance at their contents, and scattered

to the winds. Not even the all but all-powerful desire to get one's

money's worth, since it had once been paid, could contend against the

blush of shame that rose on the cheek of the reader.

It would be desirable for our people to know something of these writers,

and of the position they occupy abroad; for the nature of their

circulation, rather than its extent, might be the guide both to

translator and buyer. The object of the first is generally money; of the

last, amusement. But the merest mercenary might prefer to pass his time

in translating a good book, and our imitation of Europe does not yet go

so far that the American milliner can be depended on to copy any thing

from the Parisian grisette, except her cap.

We have just been reading "Le Pere Goriot," Balzac's most celebrated

work; a remarkable production, to which Paris alone, at the present day,

could have given birth.

In other of his works, I have admired his skill in giving the minute

traits of passion, and his intrepidity, not inferior to that of Le Sage

and Cervantes, in facing the dark side of human nature. He reminds one

of the Spanish romancers in the fearlessness with which he takes mud

into his hands, and dips his foot in slime. We cannot endure this when

done, as by most Frenchmen, with an air of recklessness and gayety; but

Balzac does it with the stern manliness of a Spaniard.

But the conception of this work is so sublime, that, though the details

are even more revolting than in his others, you can bear it, and would

not have missed your walk through the Catacombs, though the light of day

seems stained afterwards with the mould of horror and dismay.

Balzac, we understand, is one of that wretched class of writers who live

by the pen. In Paris they count now by thousands, and their leaves fall

from the press thick-rustling like the November forest. I had heard of

this class not without envy, for I had been told pretty tales of the gay

poverty of the Frenchman--how he will live in garrets, on dry bread,

salad, and some wine, and spend all his money on a single good suit of

clothes, in which, when the daily labor of copying music, correcting the

press, or writing poems or novels, is over, he sallies forth to enjoy

the theatre, the social soiree, or the humors of the streets and cafes,

as gay, as keenly alive to observation and enjoyment, as if he were to

return to a well-stocked table and a cheerful hearth, encompassed by

happy faces.

I thought the intellectual Frenchman, in the extreme of want, never sunk

into the inert reverie of the lazzaroni, nor hid the vulture of famine

beneath the mantle of pride with the bitter mood of a Spaniard. But

Balzac evidently is familiar with that which makes the agony of

poverty--its vulgarity.

Dirt, confusion, shabby expedients, living to live,--these are what make

poverty terrible and odious, and in these Balzac would seem to have been

steeped to the very lips.

These French writers possess the art of plunging at once _in medias

res_, and Balzac places you, in the twinkling of an eye, in one of the

lowest boarding-houses of Paris. At first all is dirt, hubbub, and

unsavory odors; but from the vapors of the caldron evolves a web of

many-colored life, of terrible pathos, and original humor, not

unenlivened by pale golden threads of beauty, which had better never

been.

All the characters are excellently drawn: the harpy mistress of the

house; Mlle. Michonnet the spy, and her imbecile lover; Mme. Coutuner,

with her purblind strivings after virtue, and her real, though meagre

respectability; Vautrim, the disguised galley-slave, with his cynical

philosophy and Bonaparte character; and the young students of medicine,

cheering the dense fog with the scintillations of their wit, and the

joyousness and petulance with which their age meets the most adverse

circumstances, at least in France!

The connection between this abject poverty and the highest luxury of

Parisian life is made naturally by Eugene, connected to his misfortune

with a noble family, of which his own is a poor and young branch,

studying a profession and sighing to live like a duke, and _Le Pere

Goriot_, who has stripped himself of all his wealth for his daughters,

who are more naturally unnatural than those of Lear. The transitions are

made with as much swiftness as a curtain is drawn upon the stage, yet

with no feeling of abruptness, so skilfully are the incidents woven into

one another.

And be it recorded to the credit of Balzac, that, much as he appears to

have suffered from the want of wealth, the vices which pollute it are

represented with as terrible force as those of poverty.

The book affords play for similar powers, and brings a similar range of

motives into action with Scott's "Fortunes of Nigel." If less rich than

that work, it is more original, and has a force of pencil all its own.

Insight and a master's hand are admirable throughout; but the product of

genius is _Le Pere Goriot_. And, wonderful to relate, this character is

as much ennobled, made as poetical by abandonment to a single instinct,

as others by the force of will. Prometheus, chained on his rock, and

giving his heart to the birds of prey for aims so majestic, is scarcely

a more affecting, a more reverent object, than the rich confectioner

whose intellect has never been awakened at all, except in the way of

buying and selling, and who gives up his acuteness even there, and

commits such unspeakable follies through paternal love; a _blind_ love

too, nowise superior to that of the pelican!

Analyze it as you will, see the difference between this and the instinct

of the artist or the philanthropist, and it produces on your mind the

same impression of a present divinity. And scarce any tears could be

more sacred than those which choke the breath at the death-bed of this

man, who forgot that he was a man, to be wholly a father, this poor,

mad, stupid, father Goriot. I know nothing in fiction to surpass the

terrible, unpretending pathos of this scene, nor the power with which

the mistaken benediction given to the two medical students whom he takes

for his daughters, is redeemed from burlesque.

The scepticism as to _virtue_ in this book is fearful, but the love for

innocence and beautiful instincts casts a softening tint over the gloom.

We never saw any thing sweeter or more natural than the letters of the

mother and sisters of Eugene, when they so delightfully sent him the

money of which he had been wicked enough to plunder them. These traits

of domestic life are given with much grace and delicacy of sentiment.

How few writers can paint _abandon_, without running into exaggeration!

and here the task was one of peculiar difficulty. It seemed as if the

writer were conscious enough of his power to propose to himself the most

difficult task he could undertake.

A respectable reviewer in "Les Deux Mondes" would wish us to think that

there is no life in Paris like what Balzac paints; but we can never

believe that: evidently it is "too true," though we doubt not there is

more redemption than he sees.

But this book was too much for our nerves, and would be, probably, for

those of most people accustomed to breathe a healthier atmosphere.

Balzac has been a very fruitful writer, and, as he is fond of jugglers'

tricks of every description, and holds nothing earnest or sacred, he is

vain of the wonderful celerity with which some of his works, and those

quite as good as any, have been written. They seem to have been

conceived, composed, and written down with that degree of speed with

which it is possible to lay pen to paper. Indeed, we think he cannot be

surpassed in the ready and sustained command of his resources. His

almost unequalled quickness and fidelity of eye, both as to the

disposition of external objects, and the symptoms of human passion,

combined with a strong memory, have filled his mind with materials, and

we doubt not that if his thoughts could be put into writing with the

swiftness of thought, he would give us one of his novels every week in

the year.

Here end our praises of Balzac; what he is, as a man, in daily life, we

know not. He must originally have had a heart, or he could not read so

well the hearts of others; perhaps there are still private ties that

touch him. But as a writer, never was the modern Mephistopheles, "the

spirit that denieth," more worthily represented than by Balzac.

He combines the spirit of the man of science with that of the amateur

collector. He delights to analyze, to classify; there is no anomaly too

monstrous, no specimen too revolting, to insure his ardent but

passionless scrutiny. But then he has taste and judgment to know what is

fair, rare, and exquisite. He takes up such an object carefully, and

puts it in a good light. But he has no hatred for what is loathsome, no

contempt for what is base, no love for what is lovely, no faith in what

is noble. To him there is no virtue and no vice; men and women are more

or less finely organized; noble and tender conduct is more agreeable

than the reverse, because it argues better health; that is all.

Nor is this from an intellectual calmness, nor from an unusual power of

analyzing motives, and penetrating delusions merely; neither is it mere

indifference. There is a touch of the demon, also, in Balzac, the cold

but gayly familiar demon; and the smile of the amateur yields easily to

a sneer, as he delights to show you on what foul juices the fair flower

was fed. He is a thorough and willing materialist. The trance of

religion is congestion of the brain; the joy of the poet the thrilling

of the blood in the rapture of sense; and every good not only rises

from, but hastens back into, the jaws of death and nothingness; a

rainbow arch above a pestilential chaos!

Thus Balzac, with all his force and fulness of talent, never rises one

moment into the region of genius. For genius is, in its nature, positive

and creative, and cannot exist where there is no heart to believe in

realities. Neither can he have a permanent influence on a nature which

is not thoroughly corrupt. He might for a while stagger an ingenuous

mind which had not yet thought for itself. But this could not last. His

unbelief makes his thought too shallow. He has not that power which a

mind, only in part sophisticated, may retain, where the heart still

beats warmly, though it sometimes beats amiss. Write, paint, argue, as

you will, where there is a sound spot in any human being, he cannot be

made to believe that this present bodily frame is more than a temporary

condition of his being, though one to which he may have become

shamefully enslaved by fault of inheritance, education, or his own

carelessness.

Taken in his own way, we know no modern tragedies more powerful than

Balzac's "Eugenie Grandet," "Sweet Pea," "Search after the Absolute,"

"Father Goriot." See there goodness, aspiration, the loveliest

instincts, stifled, strangled by fate, in the form of our own brute

nature. The fate of the ancient Prometheus was happiness to that of

these, who must pay, for ever having believed there was divine fire in

heaven, by agonies of despair, and conscious degradation, unknown to

those who began by believing man to be the most richly endowed of

brutes--no more!

Balzac is admirable in his description of look, tone, gesture. He has a

keen sense of whatever is peculiar to the individual. Nothing in modern

romance surpasses the death-scene of Father Goriot, the Parisian Lear,

in the almost immortal life with which the parental instincts are

displayed. And with equal precision and delicacy of shading he will

paint the slightest by-play in the manners of some young girl.

"Seraphitus" is merely a specimen of his great powers of intellectual

transposition. Amid his delight at the botanical riches of the new and

elevated region in which he is travelling, we catch, if only by echo,

the hem and chuckle of the French materialist.

No more of him!--We leave him to his suicidal work.

It is cheering to know how great is the influence such a writer as Sue

exerts, from his energy of feeling on some subjects of moral interest.

It is true that he has also much talent and a various experience of

life; but writers who far surpass him here, as we think Balzac does,

wanting this heart of faith, have no influence, except merely on the

tastes of their readers.

We observe, in a late notice of Sue, that he began to write at quite

mature age, at the suggestion of a friend. We should think it was so;

that he was by nature intended for a practical man, rather than a

writer. He paints all his characters from the practical point of view.

As an observer, when free from exaggeration, he has as good an eye as

Balzac, but he is far more rarely thus free, for, in temperament, he is

unequal and sometimes muddy. But then he has the heart and faith that

Balzac wants, yet is less enslaved by emotion than Sand; therefore he

has made more impression on his time and place than either. We refer now

to his later works; though his earlier show much talent, yet his

progress, both as a writer and thinker, has been so considerable that

those of the last few years entirely eclipse his earlier essays.

These latter works are the "Mysteries of Paris," "Matilda," and the

"Wandering Jew," which is now in course of publication. In these, he has

begun, and is continuing, a crusade against the evils of a corrupt

civilization which are inflicting such woes and wrongs upon his

contemporaries.

Sue, however, does not merely assail, but would build up. His anatomy is

not intended to injure the corpse, or, like that of Balzac, to

entertain the intellectual merely. Earnestly he hopes to learn from it

the remedies for disease and the conditions of health. Sue is a

Socialist. He believes he sees the means by which the heart of mankind

may be made to beat with one great hope, one love; and instinct with

this thought, his tales of horror are not tragedies.

This is the secret of the deep interest he has awakened in this country,

that he shares a hope which is, half unconsciously to herself, stirring

all her veins. It is not so warmly outspoken as in other lands, both

because no such pervasive ills as yet call loudly for redress, and

because private conservatism is here great, in proportion to the absence

of authorized despotism. We are not disposed to quarrel with this; it is

well for the value of new thoughts to be tested by a good deal of

resistance. Opposition, if it does not preclude free discussion, is of

use in educating men to know what they want. Only by intelligent men,

exercised by thought and tried in virtue, can such measures as Sue

proposes be carried out; and when such associates present themselves in

sufficient numbers, we have no fear but the cause of association, in its

grander forms, will have fair play in America.

As a writer, Sue shows his want of a high kind of imagination by his

unshrinking portraiture of physical horrors. We do not believe any man

could look upon some things he describes and live. He is very powerful

in his description of the workings of animal nature; especially when he

speaks of them in animals merely, they have the simplicity of the lower

kind with the more full expression of human nature. His pictures of

women are of rare excellence, and it is observable that the more simple

and pure the character is, the more justice he does to it. This shows

that, whatever his career may have been, his heart is uncontaminated.

Men he does not describe so well, and fails entirely when he aims at one

grand and simple enough for a great moral agent. His conceptions are

strong, but in execution he is too melodramatic. Just compare _his_

"Wandering Jew" with that of Beranger. The latter is as diamond compared

with charcoal. Then, like all those writers who write in numbers that

come out weekly or monthly, he abuses himself and his subject; he often

_must_; the arrangement is false and mechanical.

The attitude of Sue is at this moment imposing, as he stands, pen in

hand,--this his only weapon against an innumerable host of foes,--the

champion of poverty, innocence, and humanity, against superstition,

selfishness, and prejudice. When his works are forgotten,--and for all

their strong points and brilliant decorations, they may ere long be

forgotten,--still the writer's name shall be held in imperishable honor

as the teacher of the ignorant, the guardian of the weak, a true tribune

for the people of his own time.

One of the most unexceptionable and attractive writers of modern France

is De Vigny. His life has been passed in the army; but many years of

peace have given him time for literary culture, while his acquaintance

with the traditions of the army, from the days of its dramatic

achievements under Bonaparte, supply the finest materials both for

narrative and reflection. His tales are written with infinite grace,

refined sensibility, and a dignified view. His treatment of a subject

shows that closeness of grasp and clearness of sight which are rarely

attained by one who is not at home in active as well as thoughtful life.

He has much penetration, too, and has touched some of the most delicate

springs of human action. His works have been written in hours of

leisure; this has diminished their number, but given him many advantages

over the thousands of professional writers that fill the coffee-houses

of Paris by day, and its garrets by night. We wish he were more read

here in the original; with him would be found good French, and the

manners, thoughts, and feelings of a cosmopolitan gentleman.

To sum up this imperfect account of the merits of these Novelists: I see

De Vigny, a retiring figure, the gentleman, the solitary thinker, but,

in his way, the efficient foe of false honor and superstitious

prejudice; Balzac is the heartless surgeon, probing the wounds and

describing the delirium of suffering men for the amusement of his

students; Sue, a bold and glittering crusader, with endless ballads

jingling in the silence of the night before the battle. They are all

much right and a good deal wrong; for instance, all who would lay down

their lives for the sake of truth, yet let their virtuous characters

practise stratagems, falsehood, and violence; in fact, do evil for the

sake of good. They still show this taint of the old regime, and no

wonder! La belle France has worn rouge so long that the purest mountain

air will not, at once, or soon, restore the natural hues to her

complexion. But they are fine figures, and all ruled by the onward

spirit of the time. Led by that spirit, I see them moving on the

troubled waters; they do not sink, and I trust they will find their way

to the coasts where the new era will introduce new methods, in a spirit

of nobler activity, wiser patience, and holier faith, than the world has

yet seen.

Will Balzac also see that shore, or has he only broken away the bars

that hindered others from setting sail? We do not know. When we read an

expression of such lovely innocence as the letter of the little country

maidens to their Parisian brother, (in Father Goriot,) we hope; but

presently we see him sneering behind the mask, and we fear. Let

Frenchmen speak to this question. They know best what disadvantages a

Frenchman suffers under, and whether it is possible Balzac be still

alive, except in his eyes. Those, we know, are quite alive.

To read these, or any foreign works fairly, the reader must understand

the national circumstances under which they were written. To use them

worthily, he must know how to interpret them for the use of the

universe.

THE NEW SCIENCE, OR THE PHILOSOPHY OF MESMERISM OR ANIMAL MAGNETISM.[21]

Man is always trying to get charts and directions for the super-sensual

element in which he finds himself involuntarily moving. Sometimes,

indeed, for long periods, a life of continual activity in supplying

bodily wants or warding off bodily dangers will make him inattentive to

the circumstances of this other life. Then, in an interval of leisure,

he will start to find himself pervaded by the power of this more subtle

and searching energy, and will turn his thoughts, with new force, to

scrutinize its nature and its promises.

At such times a corps is formed of workmen, furnished with various

implements for the work. Some collect facts from which they hope to

build up a theory; others propose theories by whose light they hope to

detect valuable facts; a large number are engaged in circulating reports

of these labors; a larger in attempting to prove them invalid and

absurd. These last are of some use by shaking the canker-worms from the

trees; all are of use in elucidating truth.

Such a course of study has the civilized world been engaged in for some

years back with regard to what is called Animal Magnetism. We say the

civilized world, because, though a large portion of the learned and

intellectual, to say nothing of the thoughtless and the prejudiced, view

such researches as folly, yet we believe that those prescient souls,

those minds more deeply alive, which are the life of this and the

parents of the next era, all, more or less, consciously or

unconsciously, share the belief in such an agent as is understood by the

largest definition of animal magnetism; that is, a means by which

influence and thought may be communicated from one being to another,

independent of the usual organs, and with a completeness and precision

rarely attained through these.

For ourselves, since we became conscious at all of our connection with

the two forms of being called the spiritual and material, we have

perceived the existence of such an agent, and should have no doubts on

the subject, if we had never heard one human voice in correspondent

testimony with our perceptions. The reality of this agent we know, have

tested some of its phenomena, but of its law and its analysis find

ourselves nearly as ignorant as in earliest childhood. And we must

confess that the best writers we have read seem to us about equally

ignorant. We derive pleasure and profit in very unequal degrees from

their statements, in proportion to their candor, clearness of

perception, severity of judgment, and largeness of view. If they possess

these elements of wisdom, their statements are valuable as affording

materials for the true theory; but theories proposed by them affect us,

as yet, only as partially sustained hypotheses. Too many among them are

stained by faults which must prevent their coming to any valuable

results, sanguine haste, jealous vanity, a lack of that profound

devotion which alone can win Truth from her cold well, careless

classification, abrupt generalizations. We see, as yet, no writer great

enough for the patient investigation, in a spirit liberal yet severely

true, which the subject demands. We see no man of Shakspearian,

Newtonian incapability of deceiving himself or others.

However, no such man is needed, and we believe that it is pure democracy

to rejoice that, in this department as in others, it is no longer some

one great genius that concentrates within himself the vital energy of

his time. It is many working together who do the work. The waters

spring up in every direction, as little rills, each of which performs

its part. We see a movement corresponding with this in the region of

exact science, and we have no doubt that in the course of fifty years a

new spiritual circulation will be comprehended as clearly as the

circulation of the blood is now.

In metaphysics, in phrenology, in animal magnetism, in electricity, in

chemistry, the tendency is the same, even when conclusions seem most

dissonant. The mind presses nearer home to the seat of consciousness the

more intimate law and rule of life, and old limits, become fluid beneath

the fire of thought. We are learning much, and it will be a grand music,

that shall be played on this organ of many pipes.

With regard to Mr. Grimes's book, in the first place, we do not possess

sufficient knowledge of the subject to criticise it thoroughly; and

secondly, if we did, it could not be done in narrow limits. To us his

classification is unsatisfactory, his theory inadequate, his point of

view uncongenial. We disapprove of the spirit in which he criticises

other disciples in this science, who have, we believe, made some good

observations, with many failures, though, like himself, they do not hold

themselves sufficiently lowly as disciples. For we do not believe there

is any man, _yet_, who is entitled to give himself the air of having

taken a degree on this subject. We do not want the tone of qualification

or mincing apology. We want no mock modesty, but its reality, which is

the almost sure attendant on greatness. What a lesson it would be for

this country if a body of men could be at work together in that harmony

which would not fail to ensue on a _disinterested_ love of discovering

truth, and with that patience and exactness in experiment without which

no machine was ever invented worthy a patent! The most superficial,

go-ahead, hit-or-miss American knows that no machine was ever perfected

without this patience and exactness; and let no one hope to achieve

victories in the realm of mind at a cheaper rate than in that of

matter.

In speaking thus of Mr. Grimes's book, we can still cordially recommend

it to the perusal of our readers. Its statements are full and sincere.

The writer has abilities which only need to be used with more

thoroughness and a higher aim to guide him to valuable attainments.

In this connection we will relate a passage from personal experience, to

us powerfully expressive of the nature of this higher agent in the

intercourse of minds.

Some years ago I went, unexpectedly, into a house where a blind girl,

thought at that time to have attained an extraordinary degree of

clairvoyance, lay in a trance of somnambulism. I was not invited there,

nor known to the party, but accompanied a gentleman who was.

The somnambulist was in a very happy state. On her lips was the

satisfied smile, and her features expressed the gentle elevation

incident to the state. At that time I had never seen any one in it, and

had formed no image or opinion on the subject. I was agreeably impressed

by the somnambulist, but on listening to the details of her observations

on a distant place, I thought she had really no vision, but was merely

led or impressed by the mind of the person who held her hand.

After a while I was beckoned forward, and my hand given to the blind

girl. The latter instantly dropped it with an expression of pain, and

complained that she should have been brought in contact with a person so

sick, and suffering at that moment under violent nervous headache. This

really was the case, but no one present could have been aware of it.

After a while the somnambulist seemed penitent and troubled. She asked

again for my hand which she had rejected, and, while holding it,

attempted to magnetize the sufferer. She seemed touched by profound

pity, spoke most intelligently of the disorder of health and its causes,

and gave advice, which, if followed at that time, I have every reason to

believe would have remedied the ill.

Not only the persons present, but the person advised also, had no

adequate idea then of the extent to which health was affected, nor saw

fully, till some time after, the justice of what was said by the

somnambulist. There is every reason to believe that neither she, nor the

persons who had the care of her, knew even the name of the person whom

she so affectionately wished to help.

Several years after, in visiting an asylum for the blind, I saw this

same girl seated there. She was no longer a somnambulist, though, from a

nervous disease, very susceptible to magnetic influences. I went to her

among a crowd of strangers, and shook hands with her as several others

had done. I then asked, "Do you not not know me?" She answered, "No."

"Do you not remember ever to have met me?" She tried to recollect, but

still said, "No." I then addressed a few remarks to her about her

situation there, but she seemed preoccupied, and, while I turned to

speak with some one else, wrote with a pencil these words, which she

gave me at parting:--

"The ills that Heaven decrees

The brave with courage bear."

Others may explain this as they will; to me it was a token that the same

affinity that had acted before, gave the same knowledge; for the writer

was at the time ill in the same way as before. It also seemed to

indicate that the somnambulic trance was only a form of the higher

development, the sensibility to more subtle influences--in the terms of

Mr. Grimes, a susceptibility to etherium. The blind girl perhaps never

knew who I was, but saw my true state more clearly than any other person

did, and I have kept those pencilled lines, written in the stiff, round

character proper to the blind, as a talisman of "Credenciveness," as the

book before me styles it. Credulity as the world at large does, and, to

my own mind, as one of the clews granted, during this earthly life, to

the mysteries of future states of being, and more rapid and complete

modes of intercourse between mind and mind.

DEUTSCHE SCHNELLPOST.[22]

The publishers of this interesting and spirited journal have, this year,

begun to issue a weekly paper in addition to their former arrangement.

We regret not to have been able earlier to take some notice of their

prospectus, but an outline of it will be new to most of our readers.

Their journal has hitherto been intended for German readers in this

country, and has been devoted to topics of European interest, but by the

addition of the Weekly, it hopes to discuss with some fulness those of

American interest also; thus becoming "an organ of communication between

Germans of the old and new home, as to their wants, interests, and

thoughts." These judicious remarks follow:--

"The editors do not coincide with those who believe it the vocation of

the immigrant German, by systematic separation from the people who offer

him a new home, by voluntary withdrawal from the unaccustomed, and,

perhaps, for him too vehement stream of their life, in a word, by

obstinate adhesion to the old, to keep inviolate the stamp of his

nationality.

"Rather is it their faith that it should be the most earnest desire of

the immigrant, not merely to appropriate in form, but to _deserve_ the

rights of a citizen here--rights which we confide in the healthy mind of

the nation to sustain him in, all fanatical opposition to the contrary

notwithstanding. And he must deserve them by becoming an American, not

merely in name, but in deed, not merely by assuming claims, but by

appreciating duties.

"But while we renounce this narrow and one-sided isolation, desiring to

integrate ourselves, fairly and truly, with the great family that

receives us to its hospitality, we will hold so much the more firmly to

the higher traits of our own race. We hold to the noble jewel of our

native tongue; the memories of our nation's ancient glory; the sympathy

with its future, as yet only glimmering in the dusk; our old, true,

domestic manners; dear inherited customs, that give to the

tranquillities of home their sanctity--to the intercourse between men a

fresh, glad life.

"So much for our position in general."

They promise, as to American affairs, "to be just as far as in them

lies, and independent, certainly."

We think the tone of these remarks truly honorable and right-minded. It

is such a tone that each division of our adopted citizens needs to hear

from those of their compatriots able to guide and enlighten them. We do

want that each nation should preserve what is valuable in its parent

stock. We want all the elements for the new people of the new world. We

want the prudence, the honor, the practical skill of the English; the

fun, the affectionateness, the generosity of the Irish; the vivacity,

the grace, the quick intelligence of the French; the thorough honesty,

the capacity for philosophic view, and deep enthusiasm of the German

Biedermann; the shrewdness and romance of the Scotch,--but we want none

of their prejudices. We want the healthy seed to develop itself into a

different plant in the new climate. We have reason to hope a new and

generous race, where the Italian meets the German, the Swede, the Jew.

Let nothing be obliterated, but all be regenerated; let each leader say

in like manner to his band. Apply the old loyalty to a study of new

duties. Examine yourself whether you are worthy of the new rights so

freely bestowed upon you, and recognize that only intelligent action,

and not mere bodily presence, can make you really a citizen on any soil.

It is a glorious boon offered you to be a founder of the new dynasty in

the new world; but it would have been better for you to have died a

thousand deaths beneath the factory wheels of England, or in the prisons

of Russia, than to sell this great privilege for selfish or servile

ends. Here each man has before him the choice of Esau--each may defraud

a long succession of souls of their princely inheritance.

Do those whose bodies were born upon this soil reject you, and claim for

themselves the name of natives? You may be natives, in another sort, for

the soul may be re-born here. Cast for yourselves a new nativity, and

invoke the starry influences that do not fail to shine into the life of

a good man, whose heart is kept open daily to truth in every new form,

whose heart is strengthened by a desire to do his duty valiantly to

every brother of the human family. Offer upon the soil a libation of

worthy feelings in gratitude for the bread it so willingly yields you,

and it is true that the "healthy mind of the nation" cannot long fail to

greet you with joy, and hail your endowment with civic rights.

We must think there is a deep root, in fact, for the late bitter

expressions of prejudice, however unworthy the mode of exhibiting them,

against the foreign element in our population. We want all this new

blood, but we want it purified, assimilated, or it will take all form of

comeliness from the growing nation. Our country is a willing foster

mother, but her children need wise tutors to prevent them from playing,

willingly or unwillingly, the viper's part.

There is a little poem in the Schnellpost, by Moritz Hartmann, called

the "Three,"--which would be a forcible appeal, if any were needed, in

behalf of all who are exiled from their native soil. We translate it

into prose, and this will not spoil it, as its poetry lies in the

situation.

"In a tavern of Hungary are sitting together Three who have taken

refuge there from storm and darkness--in Hungary, where the wind of

chance drives together the children of many a land.

"Their eyes glow with fires of various light; their locks are unlike in

their flow; but their hearts--their wounded hearts--are urns filled with

the tears of a common grief.

"One cries, 'Silent companions! Shall we have no toast to cheer our

meeting? I offer you one which you cannot fail to pledge--Freedom and

greatness to the Fatherland!

"'To the fatherland! But I am one that knows not where is his; I am a

Gypsy; my fatherland lies in the realm of tradition--in the mournful

tone of the violin swelled by grief and storm.

"'I pass musing over heath and moor, and think of my painful losses. Yet

long since was I weaned from desire of a home, and think of Egypt but as

the cymbal sounds.'

"The second says, 'This toast of fatherland I will not drink; mine own

shame should I pledge. For the seed of Jacob flies like the dried leaf,

and takes no root in the dust of slavery.'

"The lips of the third seem frozen at the edge of his goblet. He asks

himself in silence, 'Shall _I_ drink to the fatherland? Lives Poland

yet, or is all life departed, and am I, like these, a motherless son?'"

To those and others who, if they still had homes, could not live there,

without starving body and soul, may our land be a fatherland; and may

they seek and learn to act as children in a father's house!

A foreign correspondent of the Schnellpost, having, it seems, been

reproved by some friends on the safe side of the water for the violence

of his attack on crowned heads, and other dilettanti, defends himself

with great spirit, and argues his case well from his own point of view.

We do not agree with him as to the use of methods, but cannot fail to

sympathize in his feeling.

Anecdotes of Russian proceedings towards delinquents are well associated

with one anecdote quoted of Peter, who yet was truly the Great. In a

foreign city, seeing the gallows, he asked the use of that

three-cornered thing. Being told, to hang people on, he requested that

one might be hung for him, directly. Being told this, unfortunately,

could not be done, as there was no criminal under sentence, he desired

that one of his own retinue might be made use of. Probably he did this

with no further thought than the Empress Catharine bestowed, on having a

ship of the line blown up, as a model for the painter who was to adorn

her palace with pictures of naval battles. Disregard for human life and

human happiness is not confined to the Russian snows, or the eastern

hemisphere; it may be found on every side, though, indeed, not on a

scale so imperial.

OLIVER CROMWELL.[23]

A long expectation is rewarded at last by the appearance of this book.

We cannot wonder that it should have been long, when Mr. Carlyle shows

us what a world of ill-arranged and almost worthless materials he has

had to wade through before achieving any possibility of order and

harmony for his narrative.

The method which he has chosen of letting the letters and speeches of

Cromwell tell the story when possible, only himself doing what is

needful to throw light where it is most wanted and fill up gaps, is an

excellent one. Mr. Carlyle, indeed, is a most peremptory showman, and

with each slide of his magic lantern informs us not only of what is

necessary to enable us to understand it, but _how_ we must look at it,

under peril of being ranked as "imbeciles," "canting sceptics,"

"disgusting rose-water philanthropists," and the like. And aware of his

power of tacking a nickname or ludicrous picture to any one who refuses

to obey, we might perhaps feel ourselves, if in his neighborhood, under

such constraint and fear of deadly laughter, as to lose the benefit of

having under our eye to form our judgment upon the same materials on

which he formed his.

But the ocean separates us, and the showman has his own audience of

despised victims, or scarce less despised pupils; and we need not fear

to be handed down to posterity as "a little gentleman in a gray coat"

"shrieking" unutterable "imbecilities," or with the like damnatory

affixes, when we profess that, having read the book, and read the

letters and speeches thus far, we cannot submit to the showman's

explanation of the lantern, but must, more than ever, stick to the old

"Philistine," "Dilettante," "Imbecile," and what not view of the

character of Cromwell.

We all know that to Mr. Carlyle greatness is well nigh synonymous with

virtue, and that he has shown himself a firm believer in Providence by

receiving the men of destiny as always entitled to reverence. Sometimes

a great success has followed the portraits painted by him in the light

of such faith, as with regard to Mahomet, for instance. The natural

autocrat is his delight, and in such pictures as that of the monk in

"Past and Present," where the geniuses of artist and subject coincide,

the result is no less delightful for us.

But Mr. Carlyle reminds us of the man in a certain parish who had always

looked up to one of its squires as a secure and blameless idol, and one

day in church, when the minister asked "all who felt in concern for

their souls to rise," looked to the idol and seeing him retain his seat,

(asleep perchance!) sat still also. One of his friends asking him

afterwards how he could refuse to answer such an appeal, he replied, "he

thought it safest to stay with the squire."

Mr. Carlyle's squires are all Heaven's justices of peace or war,

(usually the latter;) they are beings of true energy and genius, and so

far, as he describes them, "genuine men." But in doubtful cases, where

the doubt is between them and principles, he will insist that the men

must be in the right. On such occasions he favors us with such doctrine

as the following, which we confess we had the weakness to read with

"sibylline execration" and extreme disgust.

Speaking of Cromwell's course in Ireland:--

"Oliver's proceedings here have been the theme of much loud criticism,

sibylline execration, into which it is not our plan to enter at present.

We shall give these fifteen letters of his in a mass, and without any

commentary whatever. To those who think that a land overrun with

sanguinary quacks can be healed by sprinkling it with rose-water, these

letters must be very horrible. Terrible surgery this; but _is_ it

surgery and judgment, or atrocious murder merely? This is a question

which should be asked; and answered. Oliver Cromwell did believe in

God's judgments; and did not believe in the rose-water plan of

surgery,--which, in fact, is this editor's case too! Every idle lie and

piece of empty bluster this editor hears, he too, like Oliver, has to

shudder at it; has to think, 'Thou, idle bluster, not true, thou also

art shutting men's minds against God's fact; thou wilt issue as a cleft

crown to some poor man some day; thou also wilt have to take shelter in

bogs, whither cavalry cannot follow!' But in Oliver's time, as I say,

there was still belief in the judgments of God; in Oliver's time, there

was yet no distracted jargon of 'abolishing capital punishments,' of

Jean-Jacques philanthropy, and universal rose-water in this world still

so full of sin. Men's notion was, not for abolishing punishments, but

for making laws just. God the Maker's laws, they considered, had not yet

got the punishment abolished from them! Men had a notion that the

difference between good and evil was still considerable--equal to the

difference between heaven and hell. It was a true notion, which all men

yet saw, and felt, in all fibres of their existence, to be true. Only in

late decadent generations, fast hastening toward radical change or final

perdition, can such indiscriminate mashing up of good and evil into one

universal patent treacle, and most unmedical electuary, of Rousseau

sentimentalism, universal pardon and benevolence, with dinner and drink

and one cheer more, take effect in our earth. Electuary very poisonous,

as sweet as it is, and very nauseous; of which Oliver, happier than we,

had not yet heard the slightest intimation even in dreams.

* * * * *

"In fact, Oliver's dialect is rude and obsolete; the phrases of Oliver,

to him solemn on the perilous battle field as voices of God, have become

to us most mournful when spouted as frothy cant from Exeter Hall. The

reader has, all along, to make steady allowance for that. And on the

whole, clear recognition will be difficult for him. To a poor slumberous

canting age, mumbling to itself every where, Peace, peace, when there is

no peace,--such a phenomena as Oliver, in Ireland or elsewhere, is not

the most recognizable in all its meanings. But it waits there for

recognition, and can wait an age or two. The memory of Oliver Cromwell,

as I count, has a good many centuries in it yet; and ages of very varied

complexion to apply to, before all end. My reader, in this passage and

others, shall make of it what he can.

"But certainly, at lowest, here is a set of military despatches of the

most unexampled nature! Most rough, unkempt; shaggy as the Numidian

lion. A style rugged as crags; coarse, drossy: yet with a meaning in it,

an energy, a depth; pouring on like a fire torrent; perennial _fire_ of

it visible athwart all drosses and defacements; not uninteresting to

see! This man has come into distracted Ireland with a God's truth in the

heart of him, though an unexpected one; the first such man they have

seen for a great while indeed. He carries acts of Parliament, laws of

earth and heaven, in one hand; drawn sword in the other. He addresses

the bewildered Irish populations, the black ravening coil of sanguinary

blustering individuals at Tredah and elsewhere: 'Sanguinary, blustering

individuals, whose word is grown worthless as the barking of dogs; whose

very thought is false, representing no fact, but the contrary of

fact--behold, I am come to speak and to do the truth among you. Here are

acts in Parliament, methods of regulation and veracity, emblems the

nearest we poor Puritans could make them of God's law-book, to which it

is and shall be our perpetual effort to make them correspond nearer and

nearer. Obey them, help us to perfect them, be peaceable and true under

them, it shall be well with you. Refuse to obey them, I will not let

you continue living! As articulate speaking veracious orderly men, not

as a blustering, murderous kennel of dogs run rabid, shall you continue

in this earth. Choose!' They chose to disbelieve him; could not

understand that he, more than the others, meant any truth or justice to

them. They rejected his summons and terms at Tredah; he stormed the

place; and, according to his promise, put every man of the garrison to

death. His own soldiers are forbidden to plunder, by paper proclamation;

and in ropes of authentic hemp, they are hanged when they do it. To

Wexford garrison, the like terms as at Tredah; and, failing these, the

like storm. Here is a man whose word represents a thing! Not bluster

this, and false jargon scattering itself to the winds; what this man

speaks out of him comes to pass as a fact; speech with this man is

accurately prophetic of deed. This is the first king's face poor Ireland

ever saw; the first friend's face, _little as it recognizes him_--poor

Ireland!"

Yes, Cromwell had force and sagacity to get that done which he had

resolved to get done; and this is the whole truth about your admiration,

Mr. Carlyle. Accordingly, at Drogheda quoth Cromwell,--

"I believe we put to sword the whole number of the defendants. * *

Indeed, being in the heat of action, I forbade them to spare any that

were in arms in the town; and I think that night they put to the sword

about two thousand men, divers of the officers and soldiers being fled

over the bridge into the other part of the town; and where about one

hundred of them possessed St. Peter's Church, steeple, &c. These, being

summoned to yield to mercy, refused. Whereupon I ordered the steeple of

St. Peter's Church to be fired; when one of them was heard to say, in

the midst of the flames, 'God confound me! I burn, I burn!'

"I am persuaded that this is a righteous judgment of God upon these

barbarous wretches who have imbrued their hands in so much innocent

blood; and that it will tend to prevent the effusion of blood for the

future. Which are the satisfactory grounds to such actions, which

otherwise cannot but work remorse and regret. * * This hath been an

exceeding great mercy."

Certainly one not of the rose-water or treacle kind. Mr. Carlyle says

such measures "cut to the heart of the war," and brought peace. Was

there _then_ no crying of Peace, Peace, when there was no peace? Ask the

Irish peasantry why they mark that period with the solemn phrase of

"Cromwell's Curse!"

For ourselves, though aware of the mistakes and errors in particulars

that must occur, we believe the summing up of a man's character in the

verdict of his time, is likely to be correct. We believe that Cromwell

was "a curse," as much as a blessing, in these acts of his. We believe

him ruthless, ambitious, half a hypocrite, (few men have courage or want

of soul to bear being wholly so,) and we think it is rather too bad to

rave at us in our time for canting, and then hold up the prince of

canters for our reverence in his "dimly seen nobleness." Dimly, indeed,

despite the rhetoric and satire of Mr. Carlyle!

In previous instances where Mr. Carlyle has acted out his

predeterminations as to the study of a character, we have seen

circumstances favor him, at least sometimes. There were fine moments,

fine lights upon the character that he would seize upon. But here the

facts look just as they always have. He indeed ascertains that the

Cromwell family were not mere brewers or plebeians, but "substantial

gentry," and that there is not the least ground for the common notion

that Cromwell lived at any time a dissolute life. But with the exception

of these emendations, still the history looks as of old. We see a man of

strong and wise mind, educated by the pressure of great occasions to

station of command; we see him wearing the religious garb which was the

custom of the times, and even preaching to himself as well as to

others--for well can we imagine that his courage and his pride would

have fallen without keeping up the illusion; but we never see Heaven

answering his invocations in any way that can interfere with the rise of

his fortunes or the accomplishment of his plans. To ourselves, the tone

of these religious holdings-forth is sufficiently expressive; they all

ring hollow; we have never read any thing of the sort more repulsive to

us than the letter to Mr. Hammond, which Mr. Carlyle thinks such a noble

contrast to the impiety of the present time. Indeed, we cannot recover

from our surprise at Mr. Carlyle's liking these letters; his

predetermination must have been strong indeed. Again, we see Cromwell

ruling with the strong arm, and carrying the spirit of monarchy to an

excess which no Stuart could surpass. Cromwell, indeed, is wise, and the

king he had punished with death is foolish; Charles is faithless, and

Cromwell crafty; we see no other difference. Cromwell does not, in

power, abide by the principles that led him to it; and we can't help--so

rose-water imbecile are we!--admiring those who do: one Lafayette, for

instance--poor chevalier so despised by Mr. Carlyle--for abiding by his

principles, though impracticable, more than Louis Philippe, who laid

them aside, so far as necessary, "to secure peace to the kingdom;" and

to us it looks black for one who kills kings to grow to be more kingly

than a king.

The death of Charles I. was a boon to the world, for it marked the dawn

of a new era, when kings, in common with other men, are to be held

accountable by God and mankind for what they do. Many who took part in

this act which _did_ require a courage and faith almost unparalleled,

were, no doubt, moved by the noblest sense of duty. We doubt not this

had its share in the bosom counsels of Cromwell. But we cannot

sympathize with the apparent satisfaction of Mr. Carlyle in seeing him

engaged, two days after the execution, in marriage treaty for his son.

This seems more ruthlessness than calmness. One who devoted so many days

to public fasting and prayer, on less occasions, might well make solemn

pause on this. Mr. Carlyle thinks much of some pleasant domestic letters

from Cromwell. What brigand, what pirate, fails to have some such soft

and light feelings?

In short, we have no time to say all we think; but we stick to the

received notions of Old Noll, with his great, red nose, hard heart, long

head, and crafty ambiguities. Nobody ever doubted his great abilities

and force of will; neither doubt we that he was made an "instrument"

just as he professeth. But as to looking on him through Mr. Carlyle's

glasses, we shall not be sneered or stormed into it, unless he has other

proof to offer than is shown yet. And we resent the violence he offers

both to our prejudices and our perceptions. If he has become interested

in Oliver, or any other pet hyena, by studying his habits, is that any

reason we should admit him to our Pantheon? No! our imbecility shall

keep fast the door against any thing short of proofs that in the hyena a

god is incarnated. Mr. Carlyle declares that he sees it, but we really

cannot. The hyena is surely not out of the kingdom of God, but as to

being the finest emblem of what is divine--no, no!

In short, we can sympathize with the words of John Maidstone:--

"He [Cromwell] was a strong man in the dark perils of war; in the high

places of the field, hope shone in him like a pillar of fire, when it

had gone out in the others"--a poetic and sufficient account of the

secret of his power.

But Mr. Carlyle goes on to gild the refined gold thus:--

"A genuine king among men, Mr. Maidstone! The divinest sight this world

sees, when it is privileged to see such, and not be sickened with the

unholy apery of such."

We know you do with all your soul love kings and heroes, Mr. Carlyle,

but we are not sure you would always know the Sauls from the Davids. We

fear, if you had the disposal of the holy oil, you would be tempted to

pour it on the head of him who is taller by the head than all his

brethren, without sufficient care as to purity of inward testimony.

Such is the impression left on us by the book thus far, as to the view

of its hero; but as to what difficulties attended the writing the

history of Cromwell, the reader will like to see what Mr. Carlyle

himself says:--

"These authentic utterances of the man Oliver himself--I have gathered

them from far and near; fished them up from the foul Lethean quagmires

where they lay buried; I have washed, or endeavored to wash, them clean

from foreign stupidities, (such a job of buck-washing as I do not long

to repeat;) and the world shall now see them in their own shape."

For the rest, this book is of course entertaining, witty, dramatic,

picturesque; all traits that are piquant, many that have profound

interest, are brought out better than new. The "letters and speeches"

are put into readable state, and this alone is a great benefit. They are

a relief after Mr. Carlyle's high-seasoned writing; and this again is a

relief after their long-winded dimnesses. Most of the heroic anecdotes

of the time had been used up before, but they lose nothing in the hands

of Carlyle; and pictures of the scenes, such as of Naseby fight, for

instance, it was left to him to give. We have passed over the hackneyed

ground attended by a torch-bearer, who has given a new animation to the

procession of events, and cast a ruddy glow on many a striking

physiognomy. That any truth of high value has been brought to light, we

do not perceive--certainly nothing has been added to our own sense of

the greatness of the times, nor any new view presented that we can

adopt, as to the position and character of the agents.

We close with the only one of Cromwell's letters that we really like.

Here his religious words and his temper seem quite sincere.

"_To my loving Brother, Colonel Valentine Walton: These._

July, 1644.

"DEAR SIR: It's our duty to sympathize in all mercies; and to

praise the Lord together in chastisements or trials, so that we may

sorrow together.

"Truly England and the church of God hath had a great favor from

the Lord, in this great victory given unto us, such as the like

never was since this war began. It had all the evidences of an

absolute victory obtained by the Lord's blessing upon the godly

party principally. We never charged but we routed the enemy. The

left wing, which I commanded, being our own horse, saving a few

Scots in our rear, beat all the prince's horse. God make them as

stubble to our swords. We charged their regiments of foot with our

horse, and routed all we charged. The particulars I cannot relate

now; but I believe, of twenty thousand, the prince hath not four

thousand left. Give glory, all the glory, to God.

"Sir, God hath taken away your eldest son by a cannon-shot. It

brake his leg. We were necessitated to have it cut off, whereof he

died.

"Sir, you know my own trials this way;[24] but the Lord supported

me with this, that the Lord took him into the happiness we all pant

for and live for. There is your precious child, full of glory,

never to know sin or sorrow any more. He was a gallant young man,

exceedingly gracious. God give you his comfort. Before his death he

was so full of comfort, that to Frank Russel and myself he could

not express it, 'it was so great above his pain.' This he said to

us. Indeed it was admirable. A little after, he said one thing lay

upon his spirit. I asked him what that was. He told me it was, that

God had not suffered him to be any more the executioner of his

enemies. At his fall, his horse being killed with the bullet, and,

as I am informed, three horses more, I am told he bid them open to

the right and left, that he might see the rogues run. Truly he was

exceedingly beloved in the army, of all that knew him. But few knew

him; for he was a precious young man, fit for God. You have cause

to bless the Lord. He is a glorious saint in heaven; wherein you

ought exceedingly to rejoice. Let this drink up your sorrow: seeing

these are not feigned words to comfort you, but the thing is so

real and undoubted a truth. You may do all things by the strength

of Christ. Seek that, and you shall easily bear your trial. Let

this public mercy to the church of God make you to forget your

private sorrow. The Lord be your strength; so prays

"Your truly faithful and loving brother,

"OLIVER CROMWELL."

And add this noble passage, in which Carlyle speaks of the morbid

affection of Cromwell's mind:--

"In those years it must be that Dr. Simcott, physician in Huntingdon,

had to do with Oliver's hypochondriac maladies. He told Sir Philip

Warwick, unluckily specifying no date, or none that has survived, 'he

had often been sent for at midnight;' Mr. Cromwell for many years was

very 'splenetic,' (spleen-struck,) often thought he was just about to

die, and also 'had fancies about the Town Cross.'[25] Brief intimation,

of which the reflective reader may make a great deal. Samuel Johnson too

had hypochondrias; all great souls are apt to have; and to be in thick

darkness generally, till the eternal ways and the celestial guiding

stars disclose themselves, and the vague abyss of life knit itself up

into firmaments for them. The temptations in the wilderness, choices of

Hercules, and the like, in succinct or loose form, are appointed for

every man that will assert a soul in himself and be a man. Let Oliver

take comfort in his dark sorrows and melancholies. The quantity of

sorrow he has, does it not mean withal the quantity of _sympathy_ he

has, the quantity of faculty and victory he shall yet have? 'Our sorrow

is the inverted image of our nobleness.' The depth of our despair

measures what capability, and height of claim, we have to hope. Black

smoke as of Tophet filling all your universe, it can yet by true

heart-energy become _flame_, and brilliancy of heaven. Courage!"

Were the flame but a pure as well as a bright flame! Sometimes we know

the black phantoms change to white angel forms; the vulture is

metamorphosed into a dove. Was it so in this instance? Unlike Mr.

Carlyle, we are willing to let each reader judge for himself; but

perhaps we should not be so generous if we had studied ourselves sick in

wading through all that mass of papers, and had nothing to defend us

against the bitterness of biliousness, except a growing enthusiasm about

our hero.

EMERSON'S ESSAYS[26]

At the distance of three years this volume follows the first series of

Essays, which have already made to themselves a circle of readers,

attentive, thoughtful, more and more intelligent; and this circle is a

large one if we consider the circumstances of this country, and of

England also, at this time.

In England it would seem there are a larger number of persons waiting

for an invitation to calm thought and sincere intercourse than among

ourselves. Copies of Mr. Emerson's first published little volume called

"Nature," have there been sold by thousands in a short time, while one

edition has needed seven years to get circulated here. Several of his

orations and essays from the "Dial" have also been republished there,

and met with a reverent and earnest response.

We suppose that while in England the want of such a voice is as great as

here, a larger number are at leisure to recognize that want; a far

larger number have set foot in the speculative region, and have ears

refined to appreciate these melodious accents.

Our people, heated by a partisan spirit, necessarily occupied in these

first stages by bringing out the material resources of the land, not

generally prepared by early training for the enjoyment of books that

require attention and reflection, are still more injured by a large

majority of writers and speakers, who lend all their efforts to flatter

corrupt tastes and mental indolence, instead of feeling it their

prerogative and their duty to admonish the community of the danger and

arouse it to nobler energy. The plan of the popular writer or lecturer

is not to say the best he knows in as few and well-chosen words as he

can, making it his first aim to do justice to the subject. Rather he

seeks to beat out a thought as thin as possible, and to consider what

the audience will be most willing to receive.

The result of such a course is inevitable. Literature and art must

become daily more degraded; philosophy cannot exist. A man who feels

within his mind some spark of genius, or a capacity for the exercises of

talent, should consider himself as endowed with a sacred commission. He

is the natural priest, the shepherd of the people. He must raise his

mind as high as he can towards the heaven of truth, and try to draw up

with him those less gifted by nature with ethereal lightness. If he does

not so, but rather employs his powers to flatter them in their poverty,

and to hinder aspiration by useless words, and a mere seeming of

activity, his sin is great; he is false to God, and false to man.

Much of this sin indeed is done ignorantly. The idea that literature

calls men to the genuine hierarchy is almost forgotten. One, who finds

himself able, uses his pen, as he might a trowel, solely to procure

himself bread, without having reflected on the position in which he

thereby places himself.

Apart from the troop of mercenaries, there is one, still larger, of

those who use their powers merely for local and temporary ends, aiming

at no excellence other than may conduce to these. Among these rank

persons of honor and the best intentions; but they neglect the lasting

for the transient, as a man neglects to furnish his mind that he may

provide the better for the house in which his body is to dwell for a few

years.

At a period when these sins and errors are prevalent, and threaten to

become more so, how can we sufficiently prize and honor a mind which is

quite pure from such? When, as in the present case, we find a man whose

only aim is the discernment and interpretation of the spiritual laws by

which we live, and move, and have our being, all whose objects are

permanent, and whose every word stands for a fact.

If only as a representative of the claims of individual culture in a

nation which is prone to lay such stress on artificial organization and

external results, Mr. Emerson would be invaluable here. History will

inscribe his name as a father of his country, for he is one who pleads

her cause against herself.

If New England may be regarded as a chief mental focus to the New

World,--and many symptoms seem to give her this place,--as to other

centres belong the characteristics of heart and lungs to the body

politic; if we may believe, as we do believe, that what is to be acted

out, in the country at large, is, most frequently, first indicated

there, as all the phenomena of the nervous system are in the fantasies

of the brain, we may hail as an auspicious omen the influence Mr.

Emerson has there obtained, which is deep-rooted, increasing, and, over

the younger portion of the community, far greater than that of any other

person.

His books are received there with a more ready intelligence than

elsewhere, partly because his range of personal experience and

illustration applies to that region; partly because he has prepared the

way for his books to be read by his great powers as a speaker.

The audience that waited for years upon the lectures, a part of which is

incorporated into these volumes of Essays, was never large, but it was

select, and it was constant. Among the hearers were some, who, though,

attracted by the beauty of character and manner, they were willing to

hear the speaker through, yet always went away discontented. They were

accustomed to an artificial method, whose scaffolding could easily be

retraced, and desired an obvious sequence of logical inferences. They

insisted there was nothing in what they had heard, because they could

not give a clear account of its course and purport. They did not see

that Pindar's odes might be very well arranged for their own purpose,

and yet not bear translating into the methods of Mr. Locke.

Others were content to be benefited by a good influence, without a

strict analysis of its means. "My wife says it is about the elevation of

human nature, and so it seems to me," was a fit reply to some of the

critics. Many were satisfied to find themselves excited to congenial

thought and nobler life, without an exact catalogue of the thoughts of

the speaker.

Those who believed no truth could exist, unless encased by the burrs of

opinion, went away utterly baffled. Sometimes they thought he was on

their side; then presently would come something on the other. He really

seemed to believe there were two sides to every subject, and even to

intimate higher ground, from which each might be seen to have an

infinite number of sides or bearings, an impertinence not to be endured!

The partisan heard but once, and returned no more.

But some there were,--simple souls,--whose life had been, perhaps,

without clear light, yet still a-search after truth for its own sake,

who were able to receive what followed on the suggestion of a subject in

a natural manner, as a stream of thought. These recognized, beneath the

veil of words, the still small voice of conscience, the vestal fires of

lone religious hours, and the mild teachings of the summer woods.

The charm of the elocution, too, was great. His general manner was that

of the reader, occasionally rising into direct address or invocation in

passages where tenderness or majesty demanded more energy. At such times

both eye and voice called on a remote future to give a worthy reply,--a

future which shall manifest more largely the universal soul as it was

then manifest to this soul. The tone of the voice was a grave body tone,

full and sweet rather than sonorous, yet flexible, and haunted by many

modulations, as even instruments of wood and brass seem to become after

they have been long played on with skill and taste; how much more so the

human voice! In the more expressive passages it uttered notes of

silvery clearness, winning, yet still more commanding. The words uttered

in those tones floated a while above us, then took root in the memory

like winged seed.

In the union of an even rustic plainness with lyric inspirations,

religious dignity with philosophic calmness, keen sagacity in details

with boldness of view, we saw what brought to mind the early poets and

legislators of Greece--men who taught their fellows to plough and avoid

moral evil, sing hymns to the gods, and watch the metamorphoses of

nature. Here in civic Boston was such a man--one who could see man in

his original grandeur and his original childishness, rooted in simple

nature, raising to the heavens the brow and eyes of a poet.

And these lectures seemed not so much lectures as grave didactic poems,

theogonies, perhaps, adorned by odes when some power was in question

whom the poet had best learned to serve, and with eclogues wisely

portraying in familiar tongue the duties of man to man and "harmless

animals."

Such was the attitude in which the speaker appeared to that portion of

the audience who have remained permanently attached to him. They value

his words as the signets of reality; receive his influence as a help and

incentive to a nobler discipline than the age, in its general aspect,

appears to require; and do not fear to anticipate the verdict of

posterity in claiming for him the honors of greatness, and, in some

respects, of a master.

In New England Mr. Emerson thus formed for himself a class of readers

who rejoice to study in his books what they already know by heart. For,

though the thought has become familiar, its beautiful garb is always

fresh and bright in hue.

A similar circle of "like-minded" persons the books must and do form for

themselves, though with a movement less directly powerful, as more

distant from its source.

The Essays have also been obnoxious to many charges; to that of

obscurity, or want of perfect articulation; of "euphuism," as an excess

of fancy in proportion to imagination; and an inclination, at times, to

subtlety at the expense of strength, have been styled. The human heart

complains of inadequacy, either in the nature or experience of the

writer, to represent its full vocation and its deeper needs. Sometimes

it speaks of this want as "under development," or a want of expansion

which may yet be remedied; sometimes doubts whether "in this mansion

there be either hall or portal to receive the loftier of the passions."

Sometimes the soul is deified at the expense of nature, then again

nature at that of man; and we are not quite sure that we can make a true

harmony by balance of the statements. This writer has never written one

good work, if such a work be one where the whole commands more attention

than the parts, or if such a one be produced only where, after an

accumulation of materials, fire enough be applied to fuse the whole into

one new substance. This second series is superior in this respect to the

former; yet in no one essay is the main stress so obvious as to produce

on the mind the harmonious effect of a noble river or a tree in full

leaf. Single passages and sentences engage our attention too much in

proportion. These Essays, it has been justly said, tire like a string of

mosaics or a house built of medals. We miss what we expect in the work

of the great poet, or the great philosopher--the liberal air of all the

zones; the glow, uniform yet various in tint, which is given to a body

by free circulation of the heart's blood from the hour of birth. Here

is, undoubtedly, the man of ideas; but we want the ideal man also--want

the heart and genius of human life to interpret it; and here our

satisfaction is not so perfect. We doubt this friend raised himself too

early to the perpendicular, and did not lie along the ground long enough

to hear the secret whispers of our parent life. We could wish he might

be thrown by conflicts on the lap of mother earth, to see if he would

not rise again with added powers.

All this we may say, but it cannot excuse us from benefiting by the

great gifts that have been given, and assigning them their due place.

Some painters paint on a red ground. And this color may be supposed to

represent the groundwork most immediately congenial to most men, as it

is the color of blood, and represents human vitality. The figures traced

upon it are instinct with life in its fulness and depth.

But other painters paint on a gold ground. And a very different, but no

less natural, because also a celestial beauty, is given to their works

who choose for their foundation the color of the sunbeam, which Nature

has preferred for her most precious product, and that which will best

bear the test of purification--gold.

If another simile may be allowed, another no less apt is at hand. Wine

is the most brilliant and intense expression of the powers of earth. It

is her potable fire, her answer to the sun. It exhilarates, it inspires,

but then it is liable to fever and intoxicate, too, the careless

partaker.

Mead was the chosen drink of the northern gods. And this essence of the

honey of the mountain bee was not thought unworthy to revive the souls

of the valiant who had left their bodies on the fields of strife below.

Nectar should combine the virtues of the ruby wine, the golden mead,

without their defects or dangers.

Two high claims on the attention of his contemporaries our writer can

vindicate. One from his sincerity. You have his thought just as it found

place in the life of his own soul. Thus, however near or relatively

distant its approximation to absolute truth, its action on you cannot

fail to be healthful. It is a part of the free air.

Emerson belongs to that band of whom there may be found a few in every

age, and who now in known human history may be counted by hundreds, who

worship the one God only, the God of Truth. They worship, not saints,

nor creeds, nor churches, nor reliques, nor idols in any form. The mind

is kept open to truth, and life only valued as a tendency towards it.

This must be illustrated by acts and words of love, purity and

intelligence. Such are the salt of the earth; let the minutest crystal

of that salt be willingly by us held in solution.

The other claim is derived from that part of his life, which, if

sometimes obstructed or chilled by the critical intellect, is yet the

prevalent and the main source of his power. It is that by which he

imprisons his hearer only to free him again as a "liberating God," (to

use his own words.) But, indeed, let us use them altogether, for none

other, ancient or modern, can more worthily express how, making present

to us the courses and destinies of nature, he invests himself with her

serenity and animates us with her joy.

"Poetry was all written before time was; and whenever we are so finely

organized that we can penetrate into that region where the air is music,

we hear those primal warblings, and attempt to write them down, but we

lose ever and anon a word or a verse, and substitute something of our

own, and thus miswrite the poem. The men of more delicate ear write down

these cadences more faithfully, and these transcripts, though imperfect,

become the songs of the nations."

Thus have we, in a brief and unworthy manner, indicated some views of

these books. The only true criticism of these or any good books may be

gained by making them the companions of our lives. Does every accession

of knowledge or a juster sense of beauty make us prize them more? Then

they are good, indeed, and more immortal than mortal. Let that test be

applied to these Essays which will lead to great and complete

poems--somewhere.

CAPITAL PUNISHMENT.[27]

We have had this book before us for several weeks, but the task of

reading it has been so repulsive that we have been obliged to get

through it by short stages, with long intervals of rest and refreshment

between, and have only just reached the end. We believe, however, we are

now possessed of its substance, so far as it is possible to admit into

any mind matter wholly uncongenial with its structure, its faith, and

its hope.

Meanwhile others have shown themselves more energetic in the task, and

notices have appeared that express, in part, our own views. Among others

an able critic has thus summed up his impressions:--

"Of the whole we will say briefly, that its premises are monstrous, its

reasoning sophistical, its conclusions absurd, and its spirit diabolic."

We know not that we can find a better scheme of arrangement for what we

have to say than by dividing it into sections under these four heads:--

1st. The premises are monstrous. Here we must add the qualification,

they are monstrous _to us_. The God of these writers is not the God we

recognize; the views they have of human nature are antipodal to ours. We

believe in a Creative Spirit, the essense of whose being is Love. He has

created men in the spirit of love, intending to develop them to perfect

harmony with himself. He has permitted the temporary existence of evil

as a condition necessary to bring out in them free agency and

individuality of character. Punishment is the necessary result of a bad

choice in them; it is not meant by him as vengeance, but as an

admonition to choose better. Man is not born totally evil; he is born

capable both of good and evil, and the Holy Spirit in working on him

only quickens the soul already there to know its Father. To one who

takes such views the address of Jesus becomes intelligible--"Be ye

therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful." "For with the same

measure that ye mete withal, it shall be measured to you again."

Those who take these views of the relation between God and man must

naturally tend to have punishment consist as much as possible in the

inward spiritual results of faults, rather than a violent outward

enforcement of penalty. They must, so far as possible, seek to revere

God by showing themselves brotherly to man; and if they wish to obey

Christ, will not forget that he came especially to call _sinners_ to

repentance.

The views of these writers are the opposite of all this. We need not

state them; they are sufficiently indicated in each page of their own.

Their conclusions are the natural result of such premises. We could say

nothing about either, except to express dissent from beginning to end.

Yet would it be sweet and noble, and worthy of this late period of human

progress, if their position had been stated in a spirit of religious, of

manly courtesy; if they had had the soul to say, "We differ from you,

but we know that so wide and full a stream of thought and emotion as you

are moved by could not, under the providential rule in which we believe,

have arisen in vain. The object of every such manifestation of life must

be to bring out truth; come, let us seek it together. Let us show you

our view, compare it with yours, and let us see which is the better. If,

as we think, the truth lie with us, what joy will it be for us to cast

the clear light on the object of your aspirations!"

Of this degree of liberality we have known some, even, who served the

same creed as these writers to be capable. There is, indeed, a higher

spirit, which, believing all forms of opinion which we hold in the

present stage of our growth can be but approximations to truth, and that

God has permitted to the multitude of men a multitude of ways by which

they may approach one common goal, looks with reverence on all modes of

faith sincerely held and acted upon, and while it rejoices in those

souls which have reached the higher stages of spiritual growth, has no

despair as to those which still grope in a narrow path and by a

glimmering light. Such liberality is, of course, out of the question

with such writers as the present. Their faith binds them to believe that

they have absolute truth, and that all who do not believe as they do are

wretched heretics. Those whose creed is of narrower scope are to them

hateful bigots; but also those with whom it is of wider are

latitudinarians or infidels. The spot of earth on which they stand is

the only one safe from the conflagration, and only through spectacles

and spyglasses such as are used by them can the sun and stars be seen.

Yet, as we said before, some such, though incapacitated for an

intellectual, are not so for a spiritual tolerance. With them the heart,

more Christ-like than the creed, urges to a spirit of love and reverence

even towards convictions opposed to their own. The sincere man is always

respectable in their eyes, and they cannot help feeling that, wherever

there is a desire for truth, there is the spirit of God, and his true

priests will approach with gentleness, and do their ministry with holy

care. Unhappily, it is very different with the persons before us.

We let go the first two counts of the indictment. Their premises are, as

we have said, such as we totally dissent from, and their conclusions

such as naturally flow from those premises. Yet they are those of a

large body of men, and there must, no doubt, be temporary good in this

state of things, or it would not be permitted. When these writers say,

that to them moral and penal are coincident terms, they display a state

of mind which prefers basing virtue on the fear of punishment, rather

than the love of right. If this be sincerely their state, if the idea of

morality is with them entirely dependent on the retributions upon vice,

rather than the loveliness and joys of goodness, it is impossible for

those who are in a different state of mind to say what they _do_ need.

It may seem to us, indeed, that, if the strait jacket was taken off,

they might recover the natural energy of their frames, and do far better

without it; or that, if no longer hurried along the road by the

impending lash behind, they might uplift their eyes, and find sufficient

cause for speed in the glory visible before, though at a distance;

however, it is not for us to say what their wants are. Let them choose

their own principles of action, and if they lead to purity of life, and

benevolence, and humanity of heart, we will not say a word against them.

But in the instance before us, they do not produce these good fruits,

but the contrary; and therefore we have something to say on the other

part of the criticism, to wit: that "the reasoning is sophistical, and

the spirit diabolic;" for, indeed, in the sense of pride by which the

angels fell, arrogance of judgment, malice, and all uncharitableness, we

have never looked on printed pages more deeply sinful. We love an honest

lover; but next best, we, with Dr. Johnson, know how to respect an

honest hater. But even he would scarce endure so bitter and ardent

haters as these, and with so many and inconsistent objects of

hatred--who hate Catholics and thorough Protestants, hate materialists,

and hate spiritualists. Their list is really too large for _human_

sympathy.

We wish, however, to make all due allowance for incapacity in these

writers to do better; and their disqualifications for their task, apart

from a form of belief which inclines them rather to cling to the past,

than to seek progress for the future, seem to be many.

The "reasoning is sophistical," and it would need the patience of a

Socrates to unravel the weary web, and convince these sophists, against

their will, that they are exactly in the opposite region to what they

suppose. For the task we have not space, skill, or patience; but we can

give some hints by which readers may be led to examine whether it is so

or not.

These writers profess to occupy the position of defence; surely never

was one sustained so in the spirit of offence.

1st. They appeal either to the natural or regenerate man, as suits their

purpose. Sometimes all traditions and their literal interpretations are

right; sometimes it is impossible to interpret them aright, unless

according to some peculiar doctrine, and the natural inference of the

common mind would be an error.

2d. They strain, but vainly, to show the New Testament no improvement on

the Old, and themselves in harmonious relations to both. On this subject

we would confidently leave the arbitration to a mind--could such a one

be found--sufficiently disciplined to examine the subject, and new both

to the New Testament and this volume, as that of Rammohun Roy might have

been, whether its views are not of the same strain that Jesus sought to

correct and enlighten among the Jews, and whether the writers do not

treat the teachings of the new dispensation most unfairly, in their

desire to wrest them into the service of the old.

3d. Wherever there is a weak place in the argument, it is filled up by

abuse of the opposite party. The words "absurd," "infidel,"

"blasphemous," "shallow philosophy," "sickly sentimentalism," and the

like, are among the favorite missiles of these _defenders_ of the truth.

They are of a sort whose frequent use is generally supposed to argue the

want of a shield of reason and a heart of faith.

And this brings us to a more close consideration of the spirit of this

book, characterized by our contemporary as "diabolic." And we, also,

cannot excuse ourselves from marking it as, in this respect, one of the

worst books we have ever seen.

It is not merely bitter intolerance, arrogance, and want of spiritual

perception, which we have to condemn in these writers. It is a want of

fairness and honor, of which we think they must be conscious. We fear

they are of those who hold the opinion that the end sanctifies the

means, and who, by pretending to serve the God of truth by other means

than strict truth, have drawn upon the "ministers of religion" the

frequent obloquy of "priestcraft." How else are we to construe the

artful use of the words "dishonest" and "infidel," wherever they are

likely to awaken the fears and prejudices of the ignorant?

Of as bad a stamp as any is the part of this book headed "Spurious

Public Opinion." Here, as in the insinuations against Charles Burleigh,

we are unable to believe the writers to be sincere. Where we think they

are, however poor and narrow we may esteem their statement, we can

respect it, but here we cannot.

Who can believe that such passages as the following stand for any thing

real in the mind of the writer?

"Indeed, there is nothing that can possibly check the spirit of murder,

but the fear of death. That was all that Cain feared; he did not say,

People will put me in prison, but, They will put me to death; _and how

many other murders he may have committed, when released from that fear,

the sacred writer does not tell us_!"

Why does not the writer of this passage draw the inference, and accuse

God of mistake, as he says his opponents accuse Him, whenever they

attempt to get beyond the Jewish ideas of vengeance. He plainly thinks

death was the only safe penalty in this case of Cain.

"The reasoning from these drivellings of depravity in malefactors is to

the last degree wretched and absurd. Hard pushed indeed must he be in

argument who can consent to dive down into the polluted heart of a

Newgate criminal, in order to fish up, from the confessions of his

monstrous, unnatural obduracy, an argument in that very obduracy against

the fit punishment of his own crimes."

We can only wish for such a man, that the vicissitudes of life may break

through the crust of theological arrogance and Phariseeism, and force

him to "dive down" into the depths of his own nature. We should see

afterwards whether he would be so forward to throw stones at

malefactors, so eager to hurry souls to what he regards as a final

account.

But we have said enough as to the spirit and tendency of this book. We

shall only add a few words as to the unworthy use of the word "infidel,"

in the attempt to fix a stigma upon opponents. We feel still more

contempt than indignation at the desire to work in this way on the

unthinking and ignorant.

We ourselves are of the number stigmatized by these persons as sharing

an infidel tendency, as are all not enlisted under their own sectarian

banner. They, on their side, seem to us unbelievers in all that is most

pure and holy, and in the saving grace of love. They do not believe in

God, as we believe; they seem to us utterly deficient in the spirit of

Christ, and to be of the number of those who are always calling, "Lord,

Lord," yet never have known him. We find throughout these pages the

temper of "Lord, I thank thee that I am not as other men are"--hatred of

those whom they deem Gentiles, and a merciless spirit towards the

sinner; yet we do not take upon ourselves to give them the name of

infidels, and we solemnly call them to trial before the bar of the Only

Wise and Pure, the Searcher of hearts, to render an account of this

daring assumption. We ask them in that presence, if they are not of the

class threatened with "retribution" for saying to their brother, "Thou

fool;" and that not merely in the heat of anger, but coolly,

pertinaciously, and in a thousand ways.

We call to sit in council the spirits of our Puritan fathers, and ask if

such was the right of individual judgment, of private conscience, they

came here to vindicate. And we solicit the verdict of posterity as to

whether the spirit of mercy or of vengeance be the more divine, and

whether the denunciatory and personal mode chosen by these writers for

carrying on this inquiry be the true one.

We wish most sincerely this book had been a wise and noble one. To

ascertain just principles, it is necessary that the discussion should be

full and fair, and both sides ably argued. After this has been done, the

sense of the world can decide. It would be a happiness for which it

might seem that man at this time of day is ripe, that the opposing

parties should meet in open lists as brothers, believing each that the

other desired only that the truth should triumph, and able to clasp

hands as men of different structure and ways of thinking, but

fellow-students of the divine will. O, had we but found such an

adversary, above the use of artful abuse, or the feints of sophistry,

able to believe in the noble intention, of a foe as of a friend, how

cheerily would the trumpets ring out while the assembled world echoed

the signal words, "GOD SPEED THE RIGHT!" The tide of progress rolls

onward, swelling more and more with the lives of those who would fain

see all men called to repentance. It must be a strong arm, indeed, that

can build a dam to stay it even for a moment. None such do we see yet;

but we should rejoice in a noble and strong opponent, putting forth all

his power for conscience's sake. God speed the Right!