of syllabic sound, rhythm may be exquisitely manifested through
language, yet in music alone does it attain its full power and wonderful
complexity. For the _tones_ are not _thoughts_, but _feelings_, and
yield themselves implicitly to the loving hand which would reunite them
and form them into higher unities. These passionate tones, always
seeking for and surging into each other, are plastic pearls on the
string of rhythm, whose proportions may be indefinitely varied at the
will of the fond hand which would wreathe them into strands of
symmetrical beauty; while _words_, the vehicles of antagonistic thought,
frequently refuse to conform to the requisitions of feeling, are often
obstinate and wilful, will not be remodelled, and hard, in their
self-sufficiency, refuse to bear any stamp save that of their known and
fixed value. Like irregular beads of uncut coral, they protrude their
individualities in jagged spikes and unsightly thorns, breaking often
the unity of the whole, and painfully wounding the sense of order.
The true poet overcomes these difficulties. When, in the hands of a
master, they are forced to bend under the onward and impetuous sweep of
the passionate rhythm, compelled to sing the tune of the overpowering
emotions--the chords of the spirit quiver in response. The heart
recognizes the organic law of its own life: _the constant recurrence of
new effort sinking but to recover itself in accurately proportioned
rest, rising again in ever-renewed exertion, to sink again in ever-new
repose_; feeling seems clothing itself with living form, while the
divine attribute, Order, marks for the ear, as it links in mystic Unity,
the flying footsteps of that forever invisible element by which all
mortal being is conditioned and limited: TIME!
'There is no architect
Can build as the Muse can;
She is skilful to select
Materials for her plan.
'She lays her beams in music,
In music every one,
To the cadence of the whirling world
Which dances round the sun.
'That so they shall not be displaced
By lapses or by wars,
But for the love of happy souls
Outlive the newest stars.'
EMERSON.
'OUR ARTICLE.'
'John,' said I to my husband, as he came home from business, and settled
into an armchair for half an hour's rest before dinner, 'I think of
writing an article for THE CONTINENTAL MONTHLY.'
'Humph!' said my husband.
Now 'humph' bears different interpretations; it may argue assent,
indifference, disgust, disapprobation--in all cases it is aggressive;
but this 'humph' seemed to be a combination of at least three of the
above-mentioned frames of mind.
Natural indignation was about taking full possession of me, but
reflection stepped in, and I preserved a discreet silence. The truth is,
no man should be assailed by a new idea before he has dined, and I,
having had three years' opportunity of studying man nature, met my
deserts when the above answer was given. So I still looked amiable, and
behaved very prettily till dinner was over, and then John, having
subsided into dressing gown, slippers, easy chair, and good nature, I
remarked again:
'John, I think of writing an article for THE CONTINENTAL
MONTHLY.'
'How shall you begin it?' said he.
'Well, I haven't exactly settled on a beginning yet, but--'
'Exactly! I supposed so!' remarked this barbarian.
Unfortunately, he knew my weak point, for hadn't he been allowed to see
a desk full of magnificent middles, only wanting a beginning and an end,
and a publisher, and some readers, to place me in the front ranks of our
modern essayists, side by side with 'Spare Hours,' and the 'Country
Parson,' and 'Gail Hamilton?'
The fact is, I have always been brimming over with brilliant ideas on
all sorts of subjects, which never would arrange themselves or be
arranged under any given head, but presented a series of remarkable
literary fragments, jotted down on stray bits of paper, in old account
books and diaries, and even, on one or two occasions, when seized by a
sudden inspiration, on a smooth stone, taken from the brook, a fair
sheet of birch bark, and the front of a pew in a white-painted country
church. Having been subject to these inspirational attacks for many
years, I had decided to take them in hand, and, if they must come,
derive some benefit from them. An idea suggested itself. Claude
Lorraine, it is said, never put the figures in his landscapes, but left
that work for some brother artist. Now I could bring together material
for an article; the inspiration, the picturing should be mine, but John
should put in the figures. In other words, he should polish it, write
the introduction and the _finis_, and send it out to the public, as the
work of 'my wife and I.'
Then a question occurred: how should we divide the honors, supposing
such an article should really find its way into print? Would there not
be material for a standard quarrel in the fact that neither could claim
sole proprietorship? What would be John's sensation, should any one say
to him: 'Mr. ----, I have just been reading your wife's last article;
capital thing!' and, _vice versa_, imagine the same thing said of me.
Could I preserve amiability under such circumstances, and would not the
result be, a divorce in a year, and a furious lawsuit as to the
ownership of the copyright? John certainly is magnanimous, I thought,
but no one cares for divided honors, and there is that middle-aged
relation of his, with a figure like a vinegar cruet, and a voice as acid
as its contents, who never comes here for a day without doing her best
to set us by the ears, and who, in the beginning of our married life,
when we did not understand each other quite so well as now, sometimes
succeeded, to her intense satisfaction.
How she would go about among all the friends and relations, pulling the
poor articles to pieces, giving all the fine bits to John and the
rubbish to me, and hinting generally that my pretensions to authorship
were all very well, but that every one knew John did the work and I
looked out for the credit.
Here I paused. I had been successfully engaged in the pursuit of
trouble, and had conjured up so irritating a picture, that actually a
small tear had left its source, and was running over the bridge of my
nose!
'John,' I said, 'notwithstanding that I never did know how to begin
anything in an effective way, I am still determined to write, and you
must help me.'
Then I opened my heart to him, and told him my plan, and the imagined
tribulation it had given me in the last ten minutes.
'There are too many writers already, Helen,' he said; 'every man who
cannot see his way clear through life--every woman who fancies herself
misunderstood and unappreciated, worries out a book or poem or a set of
essays, to picture their individual wrongs and sufferings, and bores
every publisher of every magazine and paper of which they have ever
heard, till he is tormented into printing, or dies of manuscript on the
brain. I tell you, Helen, we do our share in aggravating the people we
meet daily, without tormenting an innocent man, 'who never did us any
harm;' and I for one, don't want an extra sin on my conscience.
Moreover, I am afraid it would spoil you, should you happen to succeed.
Have you forgotten your old friend Angelina Hobbs? One article ruined
her for life. Until that poem got into print and was favorably noticed,
she was as sensible as ordinary girls, and never imagined herself a
genius. Since then, there is not an 'ism' in America that she has not
taken up and run into the ground; I have met her in every stage, from
the coat and pantaloons of the Bloomer ten years ago to the hoopless old
maid I saw yesterday going into Dodworth's Hall with the last spiritual
paper and a spirit photograph in her hand. Not a literary man or woman
do I know, who has not some crotchet in his or her brain, and who does
not in some way violate the harmonies of life at least once an hour. Be
content as you are: be satisfied to live without seeing yourself in
THE CONTINENTAL MONTHLY, or any other monthly under the sun!'
'John,' I said, 'I am surprised, I am astonished at the view you take of
the case. I don't desire that publishers should be tormented into their
graves; and if they are all as fat and rosy as the two we met the other
day, I think you can dismiss all fears on that score. Moreover, I
believe the world to be better for every book that is written, however
insignificant it may be. The days of the corsairs and giaours, romantic
robbers, and devout murderers, are over: our young ladies and our
servant girls see no fascination in the pages of 'Fatherless Fanny,'
'The Foundling,' or 'The Mysteries of Slabtown.' Arthur's stories and
ten thousand others of the same class have taken their place, and
commonplace as they may often be, have brought a healthier influence
into action. No book written with an honest heart is lost; no poem or
essay, however poor, fails to reach some mark. The printed page that to
you or me looks so barren and poor, may carry to some soul a message of
healing; may to some eyes have the light of heaven about it. And to how
many aimless lives, writing has given a purpose which otherwise never
might have entered it! John, I believe in writing, and this baby shall
be taught to put his ideas into shape as soon as he is taught anything!
I never wish him to settle down in the belief that he is a genius and
can live on the fact; but he shall write if he can, and publish too, if
any one will do it for him. If not, we will have a private printing
press of our own, and get up an original library for our descendants.'
'A genuine woman's answer,' said John; 'only one point in it touching
upon my argument.' Here the baby opened his blue eyes wide. 'There!'
said John; 'just for the present your life has a purpose, and we can
dispense with writing, at least till that fellow is asleep again. When
you have disposed of him, we will find out how many aims it is necessary
for one woman to have, and what arrangement of them it is best to make.'
The baby stayed awake obstinately, but I was reconciled to the fact, for
our discussion might have become hot, and the writing ended for that
evening quite as effectually as the baby had done it.
Night came again, and this time John opened the subject, by placing
before me a large package of foolscap, and a new gold pen.
'I have brought some paper for you to spoil, Helen,' he said, 'for I
foresaw how it would end. Do your best, and I will do mine in the matter
of beginnings. I cannot write easily, you know, but I can suggest and
dictate, when you wish it; and you have been my amanuensis for a year
and more, so it will all seem very natural.'
He looked down, as he spoke, at the scarred right hand and its missing
fingers, carried away eighteen months before by a rebel bullet, and a
little shade passed over his face.
'No, John,' I said, 'don't look there now; look at my two hands waiting
to do the work of that, and tell me if two are not better than one. We
will write an article which shall astonish the critics, and bring
letters from all the magazines, begging us to become special
contributors at once; and we will not quarrel as to who shall have the
glory, but make it a joint matter. And now I am ready to begin, and
propose to speak upon a subject which I wonder greatly no one has taken
up in detail before. Your words last evening brought out some dormant
ideas. 'We do our share in aggravating the people we meet daily,' you
said, and I have been reflecting upon the matter ever since, till now I
am prepared to give my opinions to the world.'
So saying, I arranged the table properly, took out some sheets of the
smooth, white paper, filled my pen, and waited for the dawning of an
idea. To which it came first, I shall not tell you. The results are
before you: which part is John's, which mine, you will never learn from
us. It will be of no avail for you to write to the editors, for they
don't know either, and will not be told. It will be a useful exercise
for you to dissect the article, and set apart the masculine from the
feminine portions. The critics will for once be quite at a loss how to
abuse it, probably. I foresee a general distraction in the minds of our
readers, and already hear ourselves classed as among one of the trials
which I select as the title of 'Our Article.'
SOME OF THE AGGRAVATIONS OF LIVING.
Two thirds of life in the aggregate are made up of aggravations. They
begin with our beginning, and only cease with our ending; perhaps, if
good Calvinists speak the truth, not even then, for, according to their
belief, the souls in torment look always upon the blessed in heaven, and
this surely is the most horrible species of aggravation ever devised by
man or fiend.
From the time when the air first fills the lungs and the infant screams
at the new sensation, to the day when fingers press down the resisting
lids and straighten the stiffening limbs, we are forced to meet and to
bear all manner of aggravations in nine tenths of our daily life.
Has it ever occurred to any of you what an amount of unnecessary
suffering an infant endures, and have you ever watched the operations it
undergoes daily, with reference to the confirming of this fact? If not,
an inexhaustible field of inquiry lies open before you, and after a
week's observation of bandages rolled till the flesh actually
squeaks--of pins stuck in and left, where you know they will prick--of
smotherings in blankets and garrotings with bibs--of trottings for the
wind and poundings for the stomach ache--of wakings up to show to
visitors, and puttings to sleep when sleep is at the other end of the
land of Nod, and will not be induced to come under any circumstances--of
rockings and tossings--of boiling catnip tea and smooth horrible castor
oil poured down the unsuspecting throat--after a week of such
observations, I say, you will decide with me that the baby's life is
only a series of aggravations, and feel astonished the bills of infant
mortality do not double and treble.
As years round out the little life, the hands, reaching out to the tree
of knowledge, find themselves pushed back on all sides. The dearest
wishes are made light of, the most earnest desires slighted, the most
sacred thoughts ridiculed, till one marvels that men can grow up
anything but devils. In the path where Gail Hamilton's feet have trod I
need not follow, for she has told us what these 'Happiest Days' are, in
better words than my pen can find. It warmed my heart as I read her
protest against the platitudes concerning childhood and its various
imagined delights. Mentally I shook hands, for she expressed my ideas so
fully, that the notes I had long ago jotted down upon the subject I
committed at once to the flames, satisfied I never could do any better,
and might possibly do very much worse.
I believe that the major part of sour-tempered, perversely wrong-headed,
and unhappily disposed people, of hot-headed fanatics, victims to one
idea, of once noble souls who sink themselves in sensuality, and so go
down to death, and of all the sad cases one hears and reads of day after
day and year after year, are made so through unceasing aggravation at
the most impressible time of life. Do any of you who may be my readers
know of half a dozen happy families in your circle of friends and
acquaintance? Do you know of half a dozen where boys prefer home and
their sisters to the streets, or where girls do not court the most
uninviting boy in preference to their own brothers?
One would almost imagine spite had been the feeling implanted in all
homes, as they look at the private pinch exchanged between John and
James, the face made by Mary at which Martha cries and is slapped by way
of adjusting matters, and the general refusal of requests made to father
and mother, whether reasonable or not. My own childhood was moderately
happy, and yet I recall now the sense of burning indignation I sometimes
suffered at wrongs done me, which the child's sense of justice told me
were wrongs, and which I now know to have been so. Children are
themselves one of the aggravations of living, but it is because we do
not know how to treat them. I look for a time when every father shall be
just, every mother reasonable as well as loving; when children shall
neither be flogged up the way of life as in times past, or coaxed up
with sugarplums as in times present, but, seeing with clear eyes the
straight path, shall walk in it with joy, and finish their course with
rejoicing.
Another aggravation, and not a minor one either it strikes me, is the
summary way in which youth is put down by middle-aged and aged people.
Youthful emotions are 'bosh and twaddle,' youthful ideas, 'crude, sir,
very crude!' and youthful attempts to be and to do something in the
world frowned at, as if action of any sort, save inaction, before forty,
were an outrage on humanity, and an insult to the Creator.
How fares it with young professional men during the first ten years of
their career? They hope and wait, doubt and wait, curse and wait, labor
to wait, and in the mean time a wheezing old lawyer, with no more
enthusiasm than a brickbat, takes the cases which Justice, if she were
not blind, would have sent to his starving younger brethren, and pockets
fat fees, a tenth of which would have lifted loads from many a heavy
heart. An old family physician, an old minister, an old lawyer, are
excellent in their way, and have a variety of pleasant associations with
them, which it is impossible to pass over to the young aspirant who
steps in to take their place; yet because Dr. Jones, aged sixty-eight,
carried us safely through the measles, does it follow that Dr. Smith,
aged twenty-eight, cannot do the same for our children?
Because for thirty years the Rev. Dr. Holdfast has preached upon
election, and justification by faith, is the Rev. Dr. Holeman to be set
down as presumptuously progressive, because he suggests works as a test
of the faith we profess, and ventures to speak of God, not as the stern
Deity who commands us all to be afraid of Him, and who drops lost souls
into the pit with a calm satisfaction, but as the loving Father of the
world, who wills that all men should come to the knowledge of His truth.
It is well for the old to give us their experience, well for the young
to listen, but every man and every woman lives a life of their own,
which the widest experience cannot touch at all points. No two natures
have ever been nor ever can be exactly alike; no rules of the past can
form the present in the same mould. Girls and boys, young men and women,
must 'see the folly' for themselves, and all the advice and warning of
all the ancestors under heaven cannot prevent it. Therefore, O
middle-aged aunt, or white-haired grandparent, aggravate by unceasing
advice, if you will, but be not aggravated if it isn't taken. Reflect as
to how fully you availed yourself of the experience of _your_
grandparents when you were young, and then make your demands
accordingly. Tell the young the story of your life as a story, and they
will listen and mayhap profit; give it as advice, and you shall see them
keep as far off as circumstances will admit. It is my fixed belief that
until the people in the world have learned how to hold their tongues, it
will be entirely useless to read Dr. Cumming; believe in the Great
Tribulation as much as you please, for it is about us all day long, but
don't look out for the Millennium, which I think will consist entirely
in people's minding their own business.
In the inability or unwillingness of people to let other people alone,
may be summed up all the aggravation of living. The bane of my life has
been never being let alone. People seem to think they have come into the
world with a special mission to give me advice, and from my babyhood up,
I have never been allowed to carry out the best-arranged plan of
operation, without interference. As each man and woman is the
representative of a certain class, I conclude others have had the same
experience with myself; and there is a gloomy satisfaction in reflecting
that there are many who have been made as essentially uncomfortable as
I. The result has been, I have come to the unalterable determination
never, under any circumstances, to either advise anybody or receive it
myself where it can be avoided. If it is ordained that I am to make a
fool of myself, it shall be done on my own responsibility, and not with
the assistance of meddling friends--though if they have any desire to
take the credit of it, I shall make no objections whatever. I doubt if
they will. The longer I live in the world, the clearer appears the fact
that half at least of our unhappiness is unnecessary. We seem perversely
bent on tormenting and being tormented. We visit people for whom we do
not care one straw, because our position in society or our interests
demand it. We sacrifice our own judgment to the whims of others as a
matter of expediency, and almost ignore our own capacity in the
eagerness to agree with everybody. We suffer because a rich snob snubs
us, and agonize over unfavorable remarks made concerning our abilities
or standing. These things ought not so to be. No man can find a
substitute when he lies a-dying;--why should all his years be spent in
the vain endeavor to find a substitute for living? An endless dependence
upon the opinions, the whims, the prejudices of others, is the bane of
living, and the mark of a weak mind, made so oftener by education than
nature.
When the young forget to abuse the old, and the old to run down the
young; when mothers-in-law cease to hate their daughters-in-law, and to
improve all opportunities for sowing strife; when wives take pains to
understand their husbands, and husbands decide that woman nature is
worth studying; when women can remember to be charitable to other women;
when the Golden Rule can be read as it is written, and not 'Do unto
others as ye would _not_ they should do unto you;' when justice and
truth rule men, rather than unreason and petty spite, then the
aggravation of living will die a natural death, and the world become as
comfortable an abiding place as its inhabitants need desire.
Till then, hope and wait. Live the life God gives us, as purely and
truly as you know how. Have some faith in human nature, but more in God,
and wait his own good time for the perfect life, not to be reached here,
but hereafter.
THE LESSON OF THE WOOD.
In the same soil the family of trees
Spring up, and, like a band of brothers, grow
In the same sun, while from their leafy lips
Comes not the faintest whisper of dissent
Because of various girth and grain and hue.
The oak flings not his acorns at the elm;
The white birch shrinks not from the swarthy ash;
The green plume of the pine nods to the shrub;
The loftiest monarch of the realm of wood
Spares not his crown in elemental storms,
But shares the blows with trees of humbler growth,
And stretches forth his arms to save their fall.
Wild flowers festoon the feet of all alike;
Green mosses grow upon the trunks of all;
Sweet birds pour out their songs on every bough;
Clouds drop baptismal showers of rain on each,
And the broad sun floods every leaf with light.
Behold them clad in Autumn's golden pomp--
Their rich magnificence, of different dyes,
More beautiful than royal robes, and crowns
Of emperors on coronation day.
But the deserted nest in silence sways
Like a sad heart beneath a royal scarf;
And the red tint upon the maple leaves
Is colored like the fields where fell our braves
In hurricanes of flame and leaden hail.
I love to gaze up at the grand old trees;
Their branches point like hope to Heaven serene;
Their roots point to the silent world that's dead;
Their grand old trunks hold towns and fleets for us,
And cots and coffins for the race unborn.
When at their feet their predecessors fell,
Spring covered their remains with mourning moss,
And wrote their epitaph in pale wood flowers,
And Summer gave ripe berries to the birds
To stay and sing their sad sweet requiem;
And Autumn rent the garments of the trees
That stood mute mourners in a field of graves,
And Winter wrapped them in a winding sheet.
They seemed like giants sleeping in their shrouds.
DIARY OF FRANCES KRASINSKA;
OR, LIFE IN POLAND DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.
CASTLE OF JANOWIEC,
Wednesday, _May 27th, 1760._
I had hoped too much! He is going, and the memory of the past will
render the days to come very sad. I knew that Monday was an unlucky day:
since my maid gave me such a fright by announcing the approaching
departure of the princes, all has gone from bad to worse.