The interests of an endless state,
Beyond the feverish life of man,
Are crowded with their awful weight!
Prayers may ascend--the soul may pour
Its trembling supplications here,
That when time's fitful hour is o'er,
Its hopes of heaven may blossom there.
_Philadelphia._ W.G.C.
EDITING AND OTHER MATTERS.
A CHAPTER FROM AN UNPUBLISHED VOLUME.
THE 'LITERARY GAZETTE' created a great sensation. Frank was
congratulated by his friends on the excellence of his hebdomadal.
His editorial brethren bestowed liberal commendation; and he was
bespattered with praise, where he expected to be flattered by
criticism. To be sure, there were some croakers, who thought it a
little too light, and some blithe hearts thought it a little too
heavy; but generally, great satisfaction was expressed with its
contents. Subscribers flocked in, and every thing went on swimmingly.
But however lightly Frank's bark danced at first, he soon found that
there were clouds, storms, and rough waters, to be encountered, as
well as sunshine and soft winds. An author whom he reviewed with
deserved severity, was sure to regard what was said as an emanation
of jealousy. Rejected fi'penny rhymists reported him unfriendly to
the 'infantile efforts of genius.' Bilious moralists condemned him
for what their evil-seeking imaginations tortured into profligacy.
In this way, his judgment and goodness of heart were underrated;
and although he won more smiles than frowns, yet he sighed when
he thought of the goodness of his motives, and the abominable
constructions which were frequently put upon them.
In addition to these grievances, the drudgery of preparing matter for
his paper soon became sickening. At times, heavy demands were made
on his exhausted brain; and then the ungentle efforts to lash his
mind into a fury; to spread the wings of an imagination borne down
by lassitude; to wake up reluctant thought; were most unpleasant.
And yet he knew it must be done, and that his readers would judge
him by his weakness rather than his strength. This knowledge, with
his desire to please, placed him often in a dilemma which nothing
but kindred experience can appreciate. When he was in the mood,
composition was an agreeable occupation; but when draft after draft
had been made upon his labors, a sense of fatigue would come over
him, and he knew that the stream of thought yet in motion under such
cloudy auspices, would reflect but little brilliancy on the vision
of his readers. The misery of editorship is, that one dull article
will receive more reprobation than a score of successful ones can
remove. Men are prone to judge of things by the worst lights. The
virtue which one practices, will seldom be considered expiatory of
his vices; the day is judged of by the minute of cloud, rather than
the hour of sunshine; and a line of dulness will condemn a page of
vivacity. We look at the specks on the sun, the mole on the cheek
of beauty, and the blemish on the statue otherwise perfect in its
symmetry.
Often, while revelling in visions of happiness, Frank would be
recalled to his earthly duties, by the entrance of the boy from the
printing-office, y'clept, _par excellence_, the devil. Every editor
is aware of the felicity which these intrusions into his sanctum
afford. Fixed in his arm-chair, with a horizontal line of leg before
him, while his fancy is with his sweet-heart, or his wife and little
ones, as the case may be, he feels quite comfortable. At the next
instant, all his glistening thoughts and fairy fancies are 'knocked
into _pi_,' by the entrance of the imp of the printing-office, with a
face streaked with ink, round-aboutless and vestless, and having on a
pair of inexpressibles hitched up on one side by a twine string, who
shrieks out, in a merciless tone, 'I'm come for copy, Sir!' Cowper
said that the bray of an ass was the only unmusical sound in nature;
but the poet had never experienced the discord occasioned to an
editor's mind, by an inopportune demand for 'copy,' or he would have
make one more exception.
Often did Frank hold with the dirty-faced urchin such a dialogue as
the following:
_Devil._ 'They want more copy, Sir.'
_Frank._ 'What's become of that I sent before?'
_Devil._ 'It's used up, Sir.'
_Frank._ 'Isn't it enough?'
_Devil._ 'Not by a jug-full, Sir.'
_Frank._ 'How much more is wanting?'
_Devil._ 'Three columns, Sir.'
_Frank._ 'When will it be wanted?'
_Devil._ 'Why, I've been here twice before this morning, and I
couldn't get in. The foreman's mad as h--ll, and says how as that
the paper can't be got out in time.'
_Frank._ 'Well, be off. I'll have some copy ready in an hour.'
Devil goes off, with a sunken aspect, muttering, as he goes, 'I gets
more kicks than coppers. The foreman kicks me for not getting copy,
and the editor kicks me for coming for it. Deuce take 'em both! As to
the paper, she may be late, for me; and as to the press, I wish she
was blow'd to the mischief!'
The 'devil' talks upon the common principle, when he speaks of the
paper and the printing-press as belonging to the feminine gender.
Your statesman, speaking of the country's prosperity, says, '_Her_
commerce, _her_ manufactures, and _her_ arts, are flourishing,
and will soon advance _her_ high in the respect of nations.' The
backwoods-men say of Cincinnati, '_She_ is the western _queen_.' A
Kentuckian will pet his rifle, and say, '_She's_ leetle the slickest
bore in these parts, and her voice is sweet as Nannie's, and that's
saying a heap for _her_.' Some go so far as to sex learned bodies,
and to say of congress, 'The constitution does not confer such powers
on her, and beyond those delegated she cannot rightfully act;'
thus flinging a petticoat over this venerable body of gray-haired
bachelors, husbands, and orators.
The fact is, it is quite difficult to understand the reason why the
neuter gender is not applied to all things neither male nor female.
Every vessel that skims the billow, in common nomenclature, belongs
to the feminine gender. There is not a steam-boat that ploughs the
river, however hoarsely it may bark, or however it may fling volumes
of smoke above, like streamers, that belongs to the masculine gender.
Every ricketty yawl or skiff that is battered to pieces by the tides,
belongs to the lovely and ever-to-be-beloved sex. If a pleasure-boat,
with its white sail kissing the wave which its prow proudly spurns,
wins a compliment, it is sure to be uttered after this wise: 'See how
finely she sails!--and
'_She_ walks the water like a thing of life.'
Is not the male sex somewhat scandalously neglected in this
matter? Why should not a noble ship, daring and adventurous--a
merchant-_man_, perhaps an India-_man_--belong to the masculine
gender? If _it_ be female, why not be grammatically consistent, and
talk of merchant-_woman_, and India-_woman_? If it be necessary that
inanimate structures be sexed, why not do it with some reference to
their qualities? Let a ship be called _she_, by all means; for a lady
is beautiful, and a ship bearing steadily away over the waters, is
beautiful to look upon, too; and a lady, though not freighted down
with bales and packages by the ton, yet is she burthened with those
articles in the dry-goods line which are worn by _the ton_. Streamers
wave from the flag-staff of the one, and ribbons flutter gaily from
the main-top of the other. Therefore, let a ship and a woman be of
the same sex. But let there be some limits to the license. We take
it, there is nothing that floats, which looks less like our own dear
sweet-heart, than an old worm-eaten canoe, scooped out of a dead
trunk; and yet, when a paddle is applied to the ugly thing, you look
at it and say, '_She_ moves!'
We admit and feel the romance and propriety of sexing 'the poetry of
heaven.' Blessings be yet again on benighted Egypt, for she taught
us to speak of Osiris and Isis, instead of the sun and moon! Blessed
for ever be the spirit of him who first conceived the idea of sexing
the starry hosts, from the Cynosure to Sirius! How much more poetical
is night in consequence--especially such as Moore speaks of in the
Epicurean:
----'Sweet nights,
When Isis, the pure star of lovers, lights
Her bridal crescent o'er the holy stream!'
All who have been in love, feel that the soft influence which comes
down from the face of Isis is feminine in its witchery. She is
friendly to love affairs, although Miss Diana, when in Greece,
would have nothing to do with the masculine deities; and although
she banished Calisto, and transformed Acteon, yet did these same
Greeks scandalize the virgin, by reporting that she forgot her
fastidiousness when she was smitten by the charms of an Endymion on
the Carian Mount. To return. We are glad that the poets of the olden
time sexed the stars pretty much as their fancies thought proper, and
that we Christians still perpetuate these beautiful fictions of their
mythologies; for there is a charm in the classical association which
now comes upon the mind, when viewing the heavens, that we should
regret to part with, however heathenish and anti-utilitarian it may
be.
The owners of bright eyes have astronomy enough to recognise
Venus, the beautiful star of evening; and yet they perversely and
anti-mythologically call her _it_, when they should know that _she_
is all that is now left of that beautiful being of the cestus,
who, like a wreath of foam, was born of a billow near Cythera. Let
us be consistent, and call Venus _she_, even as we call the moon
she, and her lord and master, 'the eye of the universe,' he. It
is proper to speak of Saturn, and _his_ rings, of Mars, and _his_
belligerent front; and we should, to be consistent, _she_ Pallas,
Juno, and Vesta, every one of them. Let us also call this great
heap of dirt and water which we tread on, and sail over, and speak
of, as our _mother_ earth, feminine. Our wretchedly-abused planet
is spoken of as belonging to no sex in particular, now-a-days,
although she was once called Terra and Titæa; and then she was a
beauty, and a charming one, too, as we should judge from some of her
heart-stealing, bright-eyed daughters.
Poetry demands that we still continue to sex the stars. Let us regard
Jupiter as a great big lubberly fellow, making love to the shy and
bashful Vesta, and waking up jealousy in the bosom of his elder
sweet-heart, Juno. Let us have Mars getting up assignations with the
all-loving Venus, as of old; and Saturn and Pallas felicitating each
other in the manner becoming two heads, the one so full of justice,
and the other of wisdom, as are theirs. How delectable it would be,
to fancy Madame Earth flirting with the long-yeared Herschel, to the
utter astonishment of her neighbor Mercury, who would either have to
live an old bachelor, or look up a mistress in some of the systems
which revolve in the far-off regions of space!
Our imagination has run riot long enough through the heavens; and
we therefore return back to our starting-place, the earth. We were
speaking of the incongruity of the sexual designations now in vogue.
Why is it, that once introduced, the system of sexing things was
not carried out farther? Why not give sex to a tree, a carriage, a
wind-mill, and our pantaloons, as well as to a yacht, a watch, and
every scrabbling village in the land? We love to think upon the
Mississippi as the 'Father of Waters,' and the Ohio as '_La belle
Riviere_;' for to the masculine strength and stature of the one, we
offer our admiration, and to the feminine beauty and grace of the
other, we have yielded up our heart.
We were speaking, before we got on this mad-cap digression, of the
miseries in which the editorial fraternity in general, and Frank
Thornton in particular, were sometimes plunged, by ill-timed demands
for that bane of the craft called 'copy.' At such times, Frank would
disenchant himself of his fond visions, pick up his pen, arrange
his paper, and--think, or try to think, of a subject. He would look
over the newspapers for topics; whip up his brain for a suggestion,
or look out at the window, and seeing his friend James Summers,
who prided himself on being a man of the world, he would conclude
to write an article on men of the world in general, much after the
manner of the fragment below.
* * * * *
'FIELDING says, that in order to understand men, it is necessary
that one should be born with a genius for that purpose.' Your men
of the world think so too; hence, they are the favorites of nature,
and as such, are superior to ordinary mortals, and have a right, in
consequence, to look down on inferiority. We are not going to upset
Fielding, Bulwer, _et id omne genus_; we only say, that we detest the
boast and swagger which your men of the world take upon themselves as
a natural right, peculiar to those who come into the world with an
extra eye to read that volume of mysteries, the human heart, locked
up, like the ark of old, from the vision of the vulgar.
'Your man of the world is the most bustling of bodies, and looks
like Atlas with the globe incumbent on his shoulders. His lips form
an oracle of human wisdom, and it is rank profanity to question
aught that emanates from so holy a source. His contempt for inferior
understandings is most supreme; and his humor, like a foaming
cataract, flows and boils with sublime rage, if impertinence dare
question his profundity, or contest his right to monopolize the
gleams of knowledge which light up the human mind. He is the greatest
and most orthodox of bigots, and takes good care that the stultified
head of heresy be scathed by the lightnings of his indignation. He
uses old saws with a wink; and if he chooses to bless you with a
squint, you are unpardonable, if you do not cheer him with a smile.
He is a stickler for antiquity, and hates smooth chins and black
heads, for their greenness and folly. He is the repository of all the
fragments of wisdom that are left of shipwrecked ages, which have
floated down on the stream of time. He gathers together the bits
and ends of sayings which go to make up the traditionary lore of a
country; and this unbooked knowledge renders him sager than a man of
much reading. In fine, your man of the world is a very great man, and
is to be respected, whether he discourses of the evangelists at a
horse-race, or flourishes political eloquence, and that Helicon which
inspires it, a beer-mug, in the unquiet recesses of some venerable
ale-house.
'This may be called an 'outline in pencil' of a man of the world,
when the shadows of fifty years or so are upon him; when he has
exhausted the fountains of his wild blood, and turned out sage and
philosopher. A man must run a long and labyrinthine gauntlet, under
the scourge of the vices, before he can aspire to the character.
Of course, it is right that such an one should usurp the throne
of wisdom, as his shoulders have been legitimately invested with
the purple of sin. The right to rule can only be predicated on a
youth of prostitution, a manhood of degradation, and an old age of
impenitence.
'Perhaps you may have seen a man of the world, under the shadow
of a tavern sign-post, discoursing wisdom to the simple-hearted
villagers. He has the infallible marks of a truly great man legible
in his face; bloated veins, and an indented excrescence surmounting
his nose, and flaming like a fiëry beacon with the condensed heat of
unnumbered barrels of all 'proofs.' His libations to Bacchus have
given a remarkable clarification to the emanations of his intellect,
as is discoverable in the vividness with which his wisdom glares
on the understandings of all who hear him. A flippant attorney
is, perhaps, at his side; and the worthy twain discuss national
policies, while the unsophisticated lookers-on stand mute, admiring
the prodigious display of genius. The village magistrate imbibes
ideas which astonish his natural stock of well-behaved ones, that
never strayed beyond the hill-top in the distance, or flew off on
a wild goose-chase after the phantoms of knowledge. The man of the
world lays down his positions, and fortifies them with the maxims
he learned from his predecessor, who sleeps in the church-yard. The
pettifogger capitulates to his invincible adversary, and acknowledges
in him one whose dogmas it were irreverent to doubt.
'Your man of the world never goes to church. His own experience
furnishes principles for the government of men, vastly superior to
all that Christianity ever dreamed of. He has an intuitive perception
into the minds of children, and can predict, to a nicety, the amount
of power their intellectual machinery will be able, in time to come,
to generate. He believes that scarcely an honest man, beside himself,
lives; and as to women, they are not a whit better than they ought to
be. Lastly, your man of the world is the chief light of the world,
and when he dies, the heavens will be hung in gloom, and the edifice
of society will fall into dilapidation; as he, while living, was its
chief prop and support.'
* * * * *
ON the afternoon of the day on which the above article appeared, Mr.
James Summers, who sat for the portrait of the 'Man of the World,'
ordered his paper to be stopped, as he could not 'conscientiously
patronize one devoted to Billingsgate interests, and edited by a
person who had evidently received a diploma for his proficiencies,
from the college of Saint Giles!'
This is a specimen of one class of miseries to which editors are
subject. They rack their weary brains for subjects; and when they
dissect them properly, it frequently happens that some subscriber,
who fancies himself aggrieved, says, with poor Dennis the critic,
'That means _me_!'--and forthwith sends in a peremptory order to have
'his paper discontinued.' And thus the editor not only loses some
one's friendship, but, what is of more importance, his subscription.
Subscribers! one word to you. Support your editor through his
difficulties; and whatever else you neglect, be sure you do not
forget to pay for your intellectual provant; that is, if you would
pass decently through this world, and reach heaven at last!
THE SEA-ROVER.
'O'ER the glad waters of the dark blue sea,
Our thoughts as boundless, and our souls as free,
Far as the breeze can bear, the billows foam,
Survey our empire, and behold our home!'
* * * * *
I HAVE no ties to bind me
To any spot on earth;
I leave no love behind me,
No warm familiar hearth;
But I roam with the changeful wind
Upon the changeful sea,
Mid isles that shed their fragrance forth
Like the blessed Araby;
And in the deep and cloudless night,
We watch each dewy star,
And our fancies rove through that shadowy light,
Where the gentle spirits are:
Nor while upon the deep
We wander far and free,
Are we mariners without
Our own wild minstrelsy;
And the night-breeze seems to catch the song,
And bear it on its wing:
And the laughing waves seem to echo far
The voice of our carolling:
And then we see the unwelcome shark
Gliding beneath our lee;
Gently he looketh up, but we
Trust not his love of harmony;
Strange playful fish are gambolling
Around our white-winged bark,
All harmless, gladsome things are they,
Except that soft-eyed shark.
When the foam, torn from the billow,
Flies furious and fast,
And the good mast, like a sapling,
Bends to the mighty blast,
With steady heart and ready arm,
Fearless, unmoved, we stand--
(Our bright bow flashing through the sea,)
My own, my gallant band!
O! who would be a man
Fettered, instead of free!
A sluggard at his hearth,
With a bantling on his knee!
While there are seas to pass,
While there are winds to blow,
O! who would be content
With tales of long ago!
While there is knowledge waiting,
As fruit upon a tree,
Which we for others gather,
Over the mystic sea!
I like not traveller's stories,
Told at the blazing hearth,
Of wild and wondrous wandering
On ocean and on earth;
When the wine foams in the goblet
With its glorious ruby light,
Imagination sparkles
Proportionately bright.
I loathe to see the simple eye
In wonder opened wide,
At hair-breadth 'scapes from shot and steel,
From rock and tempest tide.
As each adventure wilder grows
Of the traveller's bold career,
The listeners gather closer round,
And cross themselves for fear;
And many an anxious glance is cast
Around the shadowy room,
As if some horrid spectacle
Lay lurking in the gloom.
But I love, in my own good bark,
And with my gallant crew,
To wander free where fancy leads
Over the waters blue:
To speak with new-found people,
Of the world a fresh-turned page;
O! grateful bounds my spirit,
That I live in a gallant age!
O! if the tame ones of the earth
Could taste the deep delight,
Of feeling free upon the main,
Whose sway is the bold man's right,
The sea would swarm with rovers,
Whose zeal would never sleep,
While anxiously they gathered
The treasures of the deep!
_Montreal, August, 1837._ A. A. MACNICOL.
RANDOM PASSAGES
FROM ROUGH NOTES OF A VISIT TO ENGLAND, SCOTLAND, FRANCE,
SWITZERLAND, AND GERMANY.
NUMBER FOUR.
PARIS, AUGUST, 1836.--After due deliberation respecting the various
routes, viz.: first, by Southampton to Havre, and up the Seine;
second, by Brighton and Dieppe; third, by steam-boat direct to
Calais, or Boulogne; fourth, (the older and most frequented,) by
Dover and Calais, or Boulogne; I chose the latter; and in order to
be in Paris before Saturday evening, (to-day is Wednesday,) took my
outside seat in the night coach to Dover. It was a fine evening, and
as we rode out of London through 'the main artery of the right hand
of the world,' Charing-Cross, down Whitehall and Parliament-street,
over Westminster bridge, and through the villages of Deptford and
Greenwich, I had the finest sunset view of the great metropolis,
which I had yet seen. A glorious full-moon rose soon after we took
leave of the more dazzling luminary, and of course the ride in
such an evening was most agreeable. We passed through Gravesend, a
bustling and noted town on the Thames, and our course lay for some
distance along the margin of the river. At eleven, we stopped for
supper at Rochester. The night which looked so promising, was not to
be very delightful; a change came over the face of it, in the shape
of a cold, thick fog; moreover, that useless and annoying animal,
y'clept 'the guard,' kept us awake by a hideous bellowing with a long
tin-horn; and altogether, I was abundantly satisfied with my first
experiment in riding all night. Day-light came at last, just as we
were entering the ancient and honorable town of Canterbury, as weary
pilgrims as ever went there in the days of worthy old Chaucer. The
cathedral is entirely surrounded by ordinary dwelling-houses, and the
massive entrance was at this hour of course closed. We could only
get a glimpse of its fine towers. At six A. M., we were set down at
the 'Ship Hotel,' at Dover, and only had to pay five shillings more
than the regular fare, beside three shillings to the guard, etc., for
keeping us awake, and two shillings more for porters, ladders, etc.,
to the boat, a pigmy affair, y'clept the Britannia, on board of which
we _descended_, after a poor breakfast at the hotel; and in a few
minutes we were rapidly receding from the 'white cliffs of England.'
The hills along this coast appear to be entirely of chalk, and from a
short distance, the shore looks as if partly covered with snow. The
castle and heights tower above the town, and the latter give it the
appearance of our Brooklyn. The morning was brilliant and cloudless,
and the sea scarcely ruffled. So we glided over this far-famed and
much-dreaded channel as gently as we should cross from New-York to
Jersey City, only taking somewhat longer time to do it. Before we
had lost sight of Dover, the coast of 'La Belle France' was very
distinct; indeed the two coasts may always be seen from each other,
in clear weather. We had three or four baskets of carrier-pigeons on
board, which were liberated at intervals, to announce our progress.
They are used to communicate important intelligence, and never fail
of arriving at their destination in about ten minutes.