of those sensitive natures which reflect themselves naturally in
soft and melodious words, pleading for sympathy with their joys and
sorrows, every literature is full. Nature carves with her own hands
the brain which holds the creative imagination, but she casts the
over-sensitive creatures in scores from the same mould.
There are two kinds of poets, just as there are two kinds of blondes.
[Movement of curiosity among our ladies at table.--Please to tell us
about those blondes, said the schoolmistress.] Why, there are
blondes who are such simply by deficiency of coloring matter,--
_negative_ or _washed_ blondes, arrested by Nature on the way to
become albinesses. There are others that are shot through with
golden light, with tawny or fulvous tinges in various degree,--
_positive_ or _stained_ blondes, dipped in yellow sunbeams, and as
unlike in their mode of being to the others as an orange is unlike a
snowball. The albino-style carries with it a wide pupil and a
sensitive retina. The other, or the leonine blonde, has an opaline
fire in her clear eye, which the brunette can hardly match with her
quick, glittering glances.
Just so we have the great sun-kindled, constructive imaginations,
and a far more numerous class of poets who have a certain kind of
moonlight genius given them to compensate for their imperfection of
nature. Their want of mental coloring-matter makes them sensitive to
those impressions which stronger minds neglect or never feel at all.
Many of them die young, and all of them are tinged with melancholy.
There is no more beautiful illustration of the principle of
compensation which marks the Divine benevolence than the fact that
some of the holiest lives and some of the sweetest songs are the
growth of the infirmity which unfits its subject for the rougher
duties of life. When one reads the life of Cowper, or of Keats, or
of Lucretia and Margaret Davidson,--of so many gentle, sweet natures,
born to weakness, and mostly dying before their time,--one cannot
help thinking that the human race dies out singing, like the swan in
the old story. The French poet, Gilbert, who died at the Hôtel Dieu,
at the age of twenty-nine,--(killed by a key in his throat, which he
had swallowed when delirious in consequence of a fall,)--this poor
fellow was a very good example of the poet by excess of sensibility.
I found, the other day, that some of my literary friends had never
heard of him, though I suppose few educated Frenchmen do not know
the lines which he wrote, a week before his death, upon a mean bed
in the great hospital of Paris.
"Au banquet de la vie, infortuné convive,
J'apparus un jour, et je meurs;
Je meurs, et sur ma tombe, où lentement j'arrive,
Nul ne viendra verser des pleurs."
At life's gay banquet placed, a poor unhappy guest,
One day I pass, then disappear;
I die, and on the tomb where I at length shall rest
No friend shall come to shed a tear.
You remember the same thing in other words somewhere in Kirke
White's poems. It is the burden of the plaintive songs of all these
sweet albino-poets. "I shall die and be forgotten, and the world
will go on just as if I had never been;--and yet how I have loved!
how I have longed! how I have aspired!" And so singing, their eyes
grow brighter and brighter, and their features thinner and thinner,
until at last the veil of flesh is threadbare, and, still singing,
they drop it and pass onward.
----Our brains are seventy-year clocks. The Angel of Life winds them
up once for all, then closes the case, and gives the key into the
hand of the Angel of the Resurrection.
Tic-tac! tic-tac! go the wheels of thought; our will cannot stop them;
they cannot stop themselves; sleep cannot still them; madness only
makes them go faster; death alone can break into the case, and,
seizing the ever-swinging pendulum, which we call the heart, silence
at last the clicking of the terrible escapement we have carried so
long beneath our wrinkled foreheads.
If we could only get at them, as we lie on our pillows and count the
dead beats of thought after thought and image after image jarring
through the overtired organ! Will nobody block those wheels,
uncouple that pinion, cut the string that holds those weights, blow
up the infernal machine with gunpowder? What a passion comes over us
sometimes for silence and rest!--that this dreadful mechanism,
unwinding the endless tapestry of time, embroidered with spectral
figures of life and death, could have but one brief holiday! Who can
wonder that men swing themselves off from beams in hempen lassos?--
that they jump off from parapets into the swift and gurgling waters
beneath?--that they take counsel of the grim friend who has but to
utter his one peremptory monosyllable and the restless machine is
shivered as a vase that is dashed upon a marble floor? Under that
building which we pass every day there are strong dungeons, where
neither hook, nor bar, nor bed-cord, nor drinking-vessel from which
a sharp fragment may be shattered, shall by any chance be seen.
There is nothing for it, when the brain is on fire with the whirling
of its wheels, but to spring against the stone wall and silence them
with one crash. Ah, they remembered that, the kind city fathers,--
and the walls are nicely padded, so that one can take such exercise
as he likes without damaging himself on the very plain and
serviceable upholstery. If anybody would only contrive some kind of
a lever that one could thrust in among the works of this horrid
automaton and check them, or alter their rate of going, what would
the world give for the discovery?
----From half a dime to a dime, according to the style of the place
and the quality of the liquor,--said the young fellow whom they call
John.
You speak trivially, but not unwisely,--I said. Unless the will
maintain a certain control over these movements, which it cannot stop,
but can to some extent regulate, men are very apt to try to get at
the machine by some indirect system of leverage or other. They clap
on the breaks by means of opium; they change the maddening monotony
of the rhythm by means of fermented liquors. It is because the brain
is locked up and we cannot touch its movement directly, that we
thrust these coarse tools in through any crevice by which they may
reach the interior, and so alter its rate of going for a while, and
at last spoil the machine.
Men who exercise chiefly those faculties of the mind which work
independently of the will,--poets and artists, for instance, who
follow their imagination in their creative moments, instead of
keeping it in hand as your logicians and practical men do with their
reasoning faculty,--such men are too apt to call in the mechanical
appliances to help them govern their intellects.
----He means they get drunk,--said the young fellow already alluded
to by name.
Do you think men of true genius are apt to indulge in the use of
inebriating fluids?--said the divinity-student.
If you think you are strong enough to bear what I am going to say,--
I replied,--I will talk to you about this. But mind, now, these are
the things that some foolish people call _dangerous_ subjects,--as if
these vices which burrow into people's souls, as the Guinea-worm
burrows into the naked feet of West-Indian slaves, would be more
mischievous when seen than out of sight. Now the true way to deal
with these obstinate animals, which are a dozen feet long, some of
them, and no bigger than a horse-hair, is to get a piece of silk
round their _heads_, and pull them out very cautiously. If you only
break them off, they grow worse than ever, and sometimes kill the
person that has the misfortune of harboring one of them. Whence it
is plain that the first thing to do is to find out where the head
lies.
Just so of all the vices, and particularly of this vice of
intemperance. What is the head of it, and where does it lie? For you
may depend upon it, there is not one of these vices that has not a
head of its own,--an intelligence,--a meaning,--a certain virtue, I
was going to say,--but that might, perhaps, sound paradoxical. I
have heard an immense number of moral physicians lay down the
treatment of moral Guinea-worms, and the vast majority of them would
always insist that the creature had no head at all, but was all body
and tail. So I have found a very common result of their method to be
that the string slipped, or that a piece only of the creature was
broken off, and the worm soon grew again, as bad as ever. The truth
is, if the Devil could only appear in church by attorney, and make
the best statement that the facts would bear him out in doing on
behalf of his special virtues, (what we commonly call vices,) the
influence of good teachers would be much greater than it is. For the
arguments by which the Devil prevails are precisely the ones that
the Devil-queller most rarely answers. The way to argue down a vice
is not to tell lies about it,--to say that it has no attractions,
when everybody knows that it has,--but rather to let it make out its
case just as it certainly will in the moment of temptation, and then
meet it with the weapons furnished by the Divine armory. Ithuriel
did not spit the toad on his spear, you remember, but touched him
with it, and the blasted angel took the sad glories of his true shape.
If he had shown fight then, the fair spirits would have known how to
deal with him.
That all spasmodic cerebral action is an evil is not perfectly clear.
Men get fairly intoxicated with music, with poetry, with religious
excitement,--oftenest with love. Ninon de l'Enclos said she was so
easily excited that her soup intoxicated her, and convalescents have
been made tipsy by a beef-steak.
There are forms and stages of alcoholic exaltation, which, in
themselves, and without regard to their consequences, might be
considered as positive improvements of the persons affected. When
the sluggish intellect is roused, the slow speech quickened, the
cold nature warmed, the latent sympathy developed, the flagging
spirit kindled,--before the trains of thought become confused, or
the will perverted, or the muscles relaxed,--just at the moment when
the whole human zoöphyte flowers out like a full-blown rose, and is
ripe for the subscription-paper or the contribution box,--it would
be hard to say that a man was at that very time, worse, or less to
be loved, than when driving a hard bargain with all his meaner wits
about him. The difficulty is, that the alcoholic virtues don't wash;
but until the water takes their colors out, the tints are very much
like those of the true celestial stuff.
[Here I was interrupted by a question which I am very unwilling to
report, but have confidence enough in those friends who examine
these records to commit to their candor.]
A _person_ at table asked me whether I "went in for rum as a steady
drink?"--His manner made the question highly offensive, but I
restrained myself, and answered thus:--
Rum I take to be the name which unwashed moralists apply alike to the
product distilled from molasses and the noblest juices of the
vineyard. Burgundy "in all its sunset glow" is rum. Champagne,
"the foaming wine of Eastern France," is rum. Hock, which our friend,
the Poet, speaks of as:
"The Rhine's breastmilk, gushing cold and bright,
Pale as the moon, and maddening as her light,"
is rum. Sir, I repudiate the loathsome vulgarism as an insult to the
first miracle wrought by the Founder of our religion! I address
myself to the company.--I believe in temperance, nay, almost in
abstinence, as a rule for healthy people. I trust that I practise
both. But let me tell you, there are companies of men of genius into
which I sometimes go, where the atmosphere of intellect and
sentiment is so much more stimulating than alcohol, that, if I
thought fit to take wine, it would be to keep me sober.
Among the gentlemen that I have known, few, if any, were ruined by
drinking. My few drunken acquaintances were generally ruined before
they became drunkards. The habit of drinking is often a vice, no
doubt,--sometimes a misfortune,--as when an almost irresistible
hereditary propensity exists to indulge in it,--but oftenest of all
a _punishment_.
Empty heads,--heads without ideas in wholesome variety and
sufficient number to furnish food for the mental clockwork,--
ill-regulated heads, where the faculties are not under the control
of the will,--these are the ones that hold the brains which their
owners are so apt to tamper with, by introducing the appliances we
have been talking about. Now, when a gentleman's brain is empty or
ill-regulated, it is, to a great extent, his own fault; and so it is
simple retribution, that, while he lies slothfully sleeping or
aimlessly dreaming, the fatal habit settles on him like a vampyre,
and sucks his blood, fanning him all the while with its hot wings
into deeper slumber or idler dreams! I am not such a hard-souled
being as to apply this to the neglected poor, who have had no chance
to fill their heads with wholesome ideas, and to be taught the
lesson of self-government. I trust the tariff of Heaven has an
_ad valorem_ scale for them,--and all of us.
But to come back to poets and artists;--if they really are more
prone to the abuse of stimulants,--and I fear that this is true,--the
reason of it is only too clear. A man abandons himself to a fine
frenzy, and the power which flows through him, as I once explained
to you, makes him the medium of a great poem or a great picture. The
creative action is not voluntary at all, but automatic; we can only
put the mind into the proper attitude, and wait for the wind, that
blows where it listeth, to breathe over it. Thus the true state of
creative genius is allied to _reverie_, or dreaming. If mind and
body were both healthy, and had food enough and fair play, I doubt
whether any men would be more temperate than the imaginative classes.
But body and mind often flag,--perhaps they are ill-made to begin
with, underfed with bread or ideas, over-worked, or abused in some
way. The automatic action, by which genius wrought its wonders, fails.
There is only one thing which can rouse the machine; not will,--that
cannot reach it; nothing but a ruinous agent, which hurries the
wheels awhile and soon eats out the heart of the mechanism. The
dreaming faculties are always the dangerous ones, because their mode
of action can be imitated by artificial excitement; the reasoning
ones are safe, because they imply continued voluntary effort.
I think you will find it true, that, before any vice can fasten on a
man, body, mind, or moral nature must be debilitated. The mosses and
fungi gather on sickly trees, not thriving ones; and the odious
parasites which fasten on the human frame choose that which is
already enfeebled. Mr. Walker, the hygeian humorist, declared that
he had such a healthy skin it was impossible for any impurity to
stick to it, and maintained that it was an absurdity to wash a face
which was of necessity always clean. I don't know how much fancy
there was in this; but there is no fancy in saying that the lassitude
of tired-out operatives, and the languor of imaginative natures in
their periods of collapse, and the vacuity of minds untrained to
labor and discipline, fit the soul and body for the germination of
the seeds of intemperance.
Whenever the wandering demon of Drunkenness finds a ship adrift,--no
steady wind in its sails, no thoughtful pilot directing its course,--
he steps on board, takes the helm, and steers straight for the
maelstrom.
----I wonder if you know the _terrible smile_? [The young fellow
whom they call John winked very hard, and made a jocular remark, the
sense of which seemed to depend on some double meaning of the word
_smile_. The company was curious to know what I meant.]
There are persons--I said--who no sooner come within sight of you
than they begin to smile, with an uncertain movement of the mouth,
which conveys the idea that they are thinking about themselves, and
thinking, too, that you are thinking they are thinking about
themselves,--and so look at you with a wretched mixture of
self-consciousness, awkwardness, and attempts to carry off both,
which are betrayed by the cowardly behavior of the eye and the
tell-tale weakness of the lips that characterize these unfortunate
beings.
----Why do you call them unfortunate, Sir?--asked the
divinity-student.
Because it is evident that the consciousness of some imbecility or
other is at the bottom of this extraordinary expression. I don't
think, however, that these persons are commonly fools. I have known a
number, and all of them were intelligent. I think nothing conveys
the idea of _underbreeding_ more than this self-betraying smile. Yet
I think this peculiar habit, as well as that of _meaningless blushing_,
may be fallen into by very good people who meet often, or sit
opposite each other at table. A true gentleman's face is infinitely
removed from all such paltriness,--calm-eyed, firm-mouthed. I think
Titian understood the look of a gentleman as well as anybody that
ever lived. The portrait of a young man holding a glove in his hand,
in the Gallery of the Louvre, if any of you have seen that collection,
will remind you of what I mean.
----Do I think these people know the peculiar look they have?--I
cannot say; I hope not; I am afraid they would never forgive me, if
they did. The worst of it is, the trick is catching; when one meets
one of these fellows, he feels a tendency to the same manifestation.
The Professor tells me there is a muscular slip, a dependence of the
_platysma myoides_, which is called the _risorius Santorini_.
----Say that once more,--exclaimed the young fellow mentioned above.
The Professor says there is a little fleshy slip called Santorini's
laughing-muscle. I would have it cut out of my face, if I were born
with one of those constitutional grins upon it. Perhaps I am
uncharitable in my judgment of those sour-looking people I told you
of the other day, and of these smiling folks. It may be that they
are born with these looks, as other people are with more generally
recognized deformities. Both are bad enough, but I had rather meet
three of the scowlers than one of the smilers.
----There is another unfortunate way of looking, which is peculiar
to that amiable sex we do not like to find fault with. There are
some very pretty, but, unhappily, very ill-bred women, who don't
understand the law of the road with regard to handsome faces. Nature
and custom would, no doubt, agree in conceding to all males the
right of at least two distinct looks at every comely female
countenance, without any infraction of the rules of courtesy or the
sentiment of respect. The first look is necessary to define the
person of the individual one meets so as to avoid it in passing. Any
unusual attraction detected in a first glance is a sufficient
apology for a second,--not a prolonged and impertinent stare, but an
appreciating homage of the eyes, such as a stranger may
inoffensively yield to a passing image. It is astonishing how
morbidly sensitive some vulgar beauties are to the slightest
demonstration of this kind. When a _lady_ walks the streets, she
leaves her virtuous-indignation countenance at home; she knows well
enough that the street is a picture-gallery, where pretty faces
framed in pretty bonnets are meant to be seen, and everybody has a
right to see them.
----When we observe how the same features and style of person and
character descend from generation to generation, we can believe that
some inherited weakness may account for these peculiarities. Little
snapping-turtles snap--so the great naturalist tells us--before they
are out of the egg-shell. I am satisfied, that, much higher up in
the scale of life, character is distinctly shown at the age of --2 or
--3 months.
----My friend, the Professor, has been full of eggs lately. [This
remark excited a burst of hilarity, which I did not allow to
interrupt the course of my observations.] He has been reading the
great book where he found the fact about the little snapping-turtles
mentioned above. Some of the things he has told me have suggested
several odd analogies enough.
There are half a dozen men, or so, who carry in their brains the
_ovarian eggs_ of the next generation's or century's civilization.
These eggs are not ready to be laid in the form of books as yet;
some of them are hardly ready to be put into the form of talk. But
as rudimentary ideas or inchoate tendencies, there they are; and
these are what must form the future. A man's general notions are not
good for much, unless he has a crop of these intellectual ovarian
eggs in his own brain, or knows them as they exist in the minds of
others. One must be in the _habit_ of talking with such persons to
get at these rudimentary germs of thought; for their development is
necessarily imperfect, and they are moulded on new patterns, which
must be long and closely studied. But these are the men to talk with.
No fresh truth ever gets into a book.
"----A good many fresh lies get in, anyhow",--said one of the company.
I proceeded in spite of the interruption.--All uttered thought, my
friend, the Professor, says, is of the nature of an excretion. Its
materials have been taken in, and have acted upon the system, and
been reacted on by it; it has circulated and done its office in one
mind before it is given out for the benefit of others. It may be
milk or venom to other minds; but, in either case, it is something
which the producer has had the use of and can part with. A man
instinctively tries to get rid of his thought in conversation or in
print so soon as it is matured; but it is hard to get at it as it
lies imbedded, a mere potentiality, the germ of a germ, in his
intellect.
----Where are the brains that are fullest of these ovarian eggs of
thought?--I decline mentioning individuals. The producers of thought,
who are few, the "jobbers" of thought, who are many, and the
retailers of thought, who are numberless, are so mixed up in the
popular apprehension, that it would be hopeless to try to separate
them before opinion has had time to settle. Follow the course of
opinion on the great subjects of human interest for a few
generations or centuries, get its parallax, map out a small arc of
its movement, see where it tends, and then see who is in advance of
it or even with it; the world calls him hard names probably; but if
you would find the man of the future, you must look into the folds
of his cerebral convolutions.
[The divinity-student looked a little puzzled at this suggestion, as
if he did not see exactly where he was to come out, if he computed
his arc too nicely. I think it possible it might cut off a few
corners of his present belief, as it has cut off martyr-burning and
witch-hanging;--but time will show,--time will show, as the old
gentleman opposite says.]
----Oh,--here is that copy of verses I told you about.
SPRING HAS COME.
_Intra Muros_.
The sunbeams, lost for half a year,
Slant through my pane their morning rays;
For dry Northwesters cold and clear,
The East blows in its thin blue haze.
And first the snowdrop's bells are seen,
Then close against the sheltering wall
The tulip's horn of dusky green,
The peony's dark unfolding ball.
The golden-chaliced crocus burns;
The long narcissus-blades appear;
The cone-beaked hyacinth returns,
And lights her blue-flamed chandelier.
The willow's whistling lashes, wrung
By the wild winds of gusty March,
With sallow leaflets lightly strung,
Are swaying by the tufted larch.
The elms have robed their slender spray
With full-blown flower and embryo leaf;
Wide o'er the clasping arch of day
Soars like a cloud their hoary chief.
--See the proud tulip's flaunting cup,
That flames in glory for an hour,--
Behold it withering,--then look up,--
How meek the forest-monarch's flower!--
When wake the violets, Winter dies;
When sprout the elm-buds, Spring is near;
When lilacs blossom, Summer cries,
"Bud, little roses! Spring is here!"
The windows blush with fresh bouquets,
Cut with the May-dew on their lips;
The radish all its bloom displays,
Pink; as Aurora's finger-tips.