from the pathos, the wit, or the brilliant description which may be
imbodied in it, but may exist equally in prose--consists in the fine
perception and vivid expression of the subtle and mysterious analogy
which exists between the physical and the moral world--which makes
outward things and qualities the natural types and emblems of inward
gifts and emotions, or leads us to ascribe life and sentiment to every
thing that interests us in the aspects of external nature. The feeling
of this analogy, obscure and inexplicable as the theory of it may be, is
so deep and universal in our nature, that it has stamped itself on the
ordinary language of men of every kindred and speech: that to such an
extent, that one-half of the epithets by which we familiarly designate
moral and physical qualities, are in reality so many metaphors, borrowed
reciprocally, upon this analogy, from those opposite forms of
expression. The very familiarity, however, of the expression, in these
instances, takes away its political effect--and indeed, in substance,
its metaphorical character. The original sense of the word is entirely
forgotten in the derivative one to which it has succeeded; and it
requires some etymological recollection to convince us that it was
originally nothing else than a typical or analogical illustration. Thus
we talk of a sparkling wit, and a furious blast--a weighty argument, and
a gentle stream--without being at all aware that we are speaking in the
language of poetry, and transferring qualities from one extremity of the
sphere of being to another. In these cases, accordingly, the metaphor,
by ceasing to be felt, in reality ceases to exist, and the analogy being
no longer intimated, of course can produce no effect. But whenever it is
intimated, it does produce an effect; and that effect we think is
poetry.
It has substantially two functions, and operates in two directions. In
the _first_ place, when material qualities are ascribed to mind, it
strikes vividly out, and brings at once before us, the conception of an
inward feeling or emotion, which it might otherwise have been difficult
to convey, by the presentiment of some bodily form or quality, which is
instantly felt to be its true representative, and enables us to fix and
comprehend it with a force and clearness not otherwise attainable; and,
in the _second_ place, it vivifies dead and inanimate matter with the
attributes of living and sentient mind, and fills the whole visible
universe around us with objects of interest and sympathy, by tinting
them with the hues of life, and associating them with our own passions
and affections. This magical operation the poet too performs, for the
most part, in one of two ways--either by the direct agency of similies
and metaphors, more or less condensed or developed, or by the mere
graceful presentment of such visible objects on the scene of his
passionate dialogues or adventures, as partake of the character of the
emotion he wishes to excite, and thus form an appropriate accompaniment
or preparation for its direct indulgence or display. The former of those
methods has perhaps been most frequently employed, and certainly has
most attracted attention. But the latter, though less obtrusive, and
perhaps less frequently resorted to of set purpose, is, we are inclined
to think, the most natural and efficacious of the two; and it is often
adopted, we believe unconsciously, by poets of the highest order;--the
predominant emotion of their minds overflowing spontaneously on all the
objects which present themselves to their fancy, and calling out from
them, and colouring with their own hues, those that are naturally
emblematic of its character, and in accordance with its general
expression. It would be easy to show how habitually this is done, by
Shakspeare and Milton especially, and how much many of their finest
passages are indebted, both for force and richness of effect, to this
general and diffusive harmony of the external character of their scenes
with the passions of their living agents--this harmonizing and
appropriate glow with which they kindle the whole surrounding
atmosphere, and bring all that strikes the sense into unison with all
the touches the heart.
But it is more to our present purpose to say, that we think the fair
writer before us is eminently a mistress of this poetical secret; and,
in truth, it was solely for the purpose of illustrating this great charm
and excellence in her imagery, that we have ventured upon this little
dissertation. Almost all her poems are rich with fine descriptions, and
studded over with images of visible beauty. But these are never idle
ornaments; all her pomps have a meaning; and her flowers and her gems
are arranged, as they are said to be among Eastern lovers, so as to
speak the language of truth and of passion. This is peculiarly
remarkable in some little pieces, which seem at first sight to be purely
descriptive--but are soon found to tell upon the heart, with a deep
moral and pathetic impression. But it is, in truth, nearly as
conspicuous in the greater part of her productions; where we scarcely
meet with any striking sentiment that is not ushered in by some such
symphony of external nature--and scarcely a lovely picture that does not
serve as an appropriate foreground to some deep or lofty emotion. We may
illustrate this proposition, we think, by the following exquisite lines,
on a palm-tree in an English garden.
It waved not through an Eastern sky,
Beside a fount of Araby
It was not fanned by southern breeze
In some green isle of Indian seas,
Nor did its graceful shadows sleep
O'er stream of Africa, lone and deep.
But far the exiled Palm-tree grew
Midst foliage of no kindred hue;
Through the laburnum's dropping gold
Rose the light shaft of orient mould,
And Europe's violets, faintly sweet,
Purpled the moss-beds at his feet.
There came an eve of festal hours--
Rich music filled that garden's bowers:
Lamps, that from flowering branches hung,
On sparks of dew soft colours flung,
And bright forms glanced--a fairy show--
Under the blossoms, to and fro.
But one, a lone one, midst the throng,
Seemed reckless all of dance or song:
He was a youth of dusky mien,
Whereon the Indian sun had been--
Of crested brow, and long black hair--
A stranger, like the Palm-tree, there!
And slowly, sadly moved his plumes,
Glittering athwart the leafy glooms:
He passed the pale green olives by,
Nor won the chestnut-flowers his eye;
But, when to that sole Palm he came,
Then shot a rapture through his frame!
To him, to him its rustling spoke:
The silence of his soul it broke!
It whispered of his own bright isle,
That lit the ocean with a smile;
Ay, to his ear that native tone
Had something of the sea-wave's moan!
His mother's cabin home, that lay
Where feathery cocoas fringed the bay;
The dashing of his brethren's oar;
The conch-note heard along the shore;--
All through his wakening bosom swept;
He clasped his country's Tree--and wept!
Oh! scorn him not! The strength whereby
The patriot girds himself to die,
The unconquerable power, which fills
The freeman battling on his hills--
These have one fountain deep and clear--
The same whence gushed that child-like tear!
ENNUI, AND THE DESIRE TO BE FASHIONABLE.
BY LORD JEFFREY.
There are two great sources of unhappiness to those whom fortune and
nature seem to have placed above the reach of ordinary miseries. The one
is _ennui_--that stagnation of life and feeling which results from the
absence of all motives to exertion; and by which the justice of
Providence has so fully compensated the partiality of fortune, that it
may be fairly doubted whether, upon the whole, the race of beggars is
not happier than the race of lords; and whether those vulgar wants that
are sometimes so importunate, are not, in this world, the chief
ministers of enjoyment. This is a plague that infects all indolent
persons who can live on in the rank in which they were born, without the
necessity of working; but, in a free country, it rarely occurs in any
great degree of virulence, except among those who are already at the
summit of human felicity. Below this, there is room for ambition, and
envy, and emulation, and all the feverish movements of aspiring vanity
and unresting selfishness, which act as prophylactics against this more
dark and deadly distemper. It is the canker which corrodes the
full-blown flower of human felicity--the pestilence which smites at the
bright hour of noon.
The other curse of the happy, has a range more wide and indiscriminate.
It, too, tortures only the comparatively rich and fortunate; but is most
active among the least distinguished; and abates in malignity as we
ascend to the lofty regions of pure _ennui_. This is the desire of being
fashionable;--the restless and insatiable passion to pass for creatures
a little more distinguished than we really are--with the mortification
of frequent failure, and the humiliating consciousness of being
perpetually exposed to it. Among those who are secure of "meat, clothes,
and fire," and are thus above the chief physical evils of existence, we
do believe that this is a more prolific source of unhappiness, than
guilt, disease, or wounded affection; and that more positive misery is
created, and more true enjoyment excluded, by the eternal fretting and
straining of this pitiful ambition, than by all the ravages of passion,
the desolations of war, or the accidents or mortality. This may appear a
strong statement; but we make it deliberately; and are deeply convinced
of its truth. The wretchedness which it produces may not be so intense;
but it is of much longer duration, and spreads over a far wider circle.
It is quite dreadful, indeed, to think what a sweep of this pest has
taken among the comforts or our prosperous population. To be though
fashionable--that is, to be thought more opulent and tasteful, and on a
footing of intimacy with a greater number of distinguished persons than
they really are, is the great and laborious pursuit of four families out
of five, the members of which are exempted from the necessity of daily
industry. In this pursuit, their time, spirits, and talents are wasted;
their tempers soured; their affections palsied; and their natural
manners and dispositions altogether sophisticated and lost.
These are the great twin scourges of the prosperous: But there are
other maladies, of no slight malignity, to which they are peculiarly
liable. One of these, arising mainly from want of more worthy
occupation, is that perpetual use of stratagem and contrivance--that
little, artful diplomacy of private life, by which the simplest and most
natural transactions are rendered complicated and difficult, and the
common business of existence made to depend on the success of plots and
counterplots. By the incessant practice of this petty policy, a habit of
duplicity and anxiety is infallibly generated, which is equally fatal to
integrity and enjoyment. We gradually come to look on others with the
distrust which we are conscious of deserving; and are insensibly formed
to sentiments of the most unamiable selfishness and suspicion. It is
needless to say, that all these elaborate artifices are worse than
useless to the person who employs them; and that the ingenious plotter
is almost always baffled and exposed by the downright honesty of some
undesigning competitor. Miss Edgeworth, in her tale of "Manoeuvring,"
has given a very complete and most entertaining representation of "the
by-paths and indirect crooked ways," by which these artful and
inefficient people generally make their way to disappointment. In the
tale, entitled "Madame de Fleury," she has given some useful examples of
the ways in which the rich may most effectually do good to the poor--an
operation which, we really believe, fails more frequently from want of
skill than of inclination: And, in "The Dun," she has drawn a touching
and most impressive picture of the wretchedness which the poor so
frequently suffer, from the unfeeling thoughtlessness which withholds
from them the scanty earnings of their labour.
THE INFLUENCE OF PERSONAL CHARACTER.
The immense importance of personal character is a subject which does not
enough draw the attention of individuals or society, yet it is to the
power of gaining influence, what the root is to the tree,--the soul to
the body. It is doubtful if any of us can be acquainted with the
infinitely minute ramifications into which this all-pervading influence
extends. A slight survey of society will enable us, in some degree, to
judge of it. There are individuals who, by the sole force of personal
character, seem to render wise, better, more elevated, all with whom
they come in contact. Others, again, stand in the midst of the society
in which they are placed, a moral upas, poisoning the atmosphere around
them, so that no virtue can come within their shadow and live. Family
virtues descend with family estates, and hereditary vices are hardly
compensated for by hereditary possessions. The characters of the junior
members of a family are often only reflections or modifications of those
of the elder. Families retain for generations peculiarities of temper
and character. The Catos were all stern, upright, inflexible; the Guises
proud and haughty at the heart, though irresistibly popular and
fascinating in manner. We _see_ the influence which men, exalted and
powerful, exert on their age, and on society; it is difficult to
believe that a similar influence is exerted by every individual man and
woman, however limited his or her sphere of life: the force of the
torrent is easily calculated,--that of the under-current is hidden, yet
its existence and power are no less actual.
This truth opens to the conscientious a field of duty not enough
cultivated. The improvement of individual character has been too much
regarded as a matter of personal concern, a duty to ourselves,--to our
immediate relations perhaps, but to no others,--a matter affecting out
individual happiness here, and our individual safety hereafter! This is
taking a very narrow view of a very extended subject. The work of
individual self-formation is a duty, not only to ourselves and our
families, but to our fellow-creatures at large; it is the best and most
certainly beneficial exercise of philanthropy. It is not, it is true,
very flattering to self-love to be told, that instead of mending the
world, (the mania of the present day,) the best service which we can do
that world is to mend ourselves. "If each mends one, all will be
mended," says the old English adage, with the deep wisdom of those
popular sayings,--a wisdom amply corroborated by the unsettled
principles and defective practice of too many of the self-elected
reformers of society.
It is peculiarly desirable, at this particular juncture of time, that
this subject be insisted upon. Man, naturally a social and gregarious
animal, becomes every day more so. The vast undertakings, the mighty
movements of the present day, which can only be carried into operation
by the combined energy of many wills, tend to destroy individuality of
thought and action, and the consciousness of individual responsibility.
The dramatist complains of this fact, as it affects his art, the
representation of surface,--the moralist has greater cause to complain
of it, as affecting the foundation of character. If it be true that we
must not follow a multitude to do evil, it is equally true that we must
not follow a multitude even to do good, if it involve the neglect of our
own peculiar duties. Our first, most peremptory, and most urgent duty,
is, the improvement of our own character; so that public beneficence may
not be neutralized by private selfishness,--public energy by private
remissness,--that the applause of the world may not be bought at the
expense of private and domestic wretchedness. So frequent and so
lamentable are the proofs of human weakness in this respect, that we are
sometimes tempted to believe the opinion of the cold and sneering
skeptic,[112] that the two ruling passions of men are the love of
pleasure and the love of action; and that all their seemingly good deeds
proceed from these principles. It is not so: it is a libel on human
nature: men,--even erring men,--have better motives, and higher aims:
but they mistake the nature of their duties and invert their order; what
should be "first is last, and the last first."
It may be wisely urged, that if men waited for the perfecting of
individual character, before they joined their fellow men in those great
undertakings which are to insure benefit to the race, nothing would ever
be accomplished, and society would languish in a state of passive
inertness. It is far from necessarily following that attention to
private should interfere with attention to public interests; and public
interests are more advanced or retarded than it is possible to believe,
by the personal characters of their agitators. It is difficult to get
the worldly and the selfish to see this, but it is, nevertheless, true;
and there is no wisdom, political or moral, in the phrase, "Measures,
not men." Measures, wise and just in themselves, are received with
distrust and suspicion, because the characters of their originators are
liable to distrust and suspicion. Lord Chesterfield, the great master of
deception, was forced to pay truth the compliment of declaring, that
"the most successful diplomatist would be a man perfectly honest and
upright, who should, at all times, and in all circumstances, say the
truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth." So the rulers of
nations ought to be perfectly honest and upright; not because such men
would be free from error, but because the faith of the governed in their
honour would obviate the consequences of many errors. It is the want of
unselfishness and truth on the part of rulers, and the consequent want
of faith in the ruled, that has reduced the politics of nations to a
complicated science. If we could once get men to act out the gospel
precept, "Do unto others as ye would that they should do unto you,"
nations might burn their codes, and lawyers their statute-books. These
are the hundred cords with which the Lilliputians bound Gulliver, and he
escaped. If they had possessed it, or could have managed it, one cable
would have been worth them all. Much has been said,--much written,--on
the art of governing. Why has the simple truth been overlooked or
suppressed, that the moral character of the rulers of nations is of
first-rate importance? Except the Lord build the city, vain is the
labour of them who build it; except religion and virtue guide the state,
vain are the talents and the acts of legislators. Is it possible that
motives of paltry personal advancement, or of pecuniary gain, can induce
men to assume responsibilities affecting the welfare of millions? The
voice of those millions replies in the affirmative, and their
reproachful glances turn on _you_, mothers of our legislators! It might
have been yours, to stamp on their infant minds the dispassionate and
unselfish devotedness which belongs to your own sex,--the scorn of
meanness; the contempt of self, in comparison with others, peculiar to
woman. How have you fulfilled your lofty mission? Charity itself can
only allow us to suppose that its existence is as unknown as its spirit.
The important fact, then, of the great influence of personal character,
can never be too much impressed upon all; but it is peculiarly needful
that women be impressed with it, because their personal character must
necessarily influence that of their children, and be the source of their
personal character. For, if the active performance of the duties of a
citizen interfere, and it undoubtedly does so, with the duty of
self-education, of what importance is it that men enter upon them with
such a personal character as may insure us confidence while it secures
us from temptation? The formation of such a character depends mainly on
mothers, and especially on their personal character and principles. The
character of the mother influences the children more than that of the
father, because it is more exposed to their daily, hourly observation.
It is difficult for these young, though acute observers, to comprehend
the principles which regulate their father's political opinions; his
vote in the senate; his conduct in political or commercial relations;
but they can see,--yes! and they can estimate and imitate, the moral
principles of the mother in her management of themselves, her treatment
of her domestics, and the thousand petty details of the interior. These
principles, whether lax or strict, low or high in moral tone, become, by
an insensible and imperceptible adoption, their principles, and are
carried out by them into the duties and avocations of future life. It
would be startling to many to know with what intelligence and accuracy
motives are penetrated, inconsistencies remarked, and treasured up with
retributive or imitative projects, as may best suit the purpose of the
moment. Nothing but a more extensive knowledge of children than is
usually possessed on entering life, can awaken parents to the perception
of this truth; and awakened perception may, perhaps, be only awakened
misery. How important is it, then, that every thing in the education of
women should tend to enlighten conscience, that she may enter on her
arduous task with principles requiring only watchfulness, not
reformation; and such a personal character as may exercise none by
healthy influences on her children!
FOOTNOTES:
[112] Gibbon.
ON THE MEANS OF SECURING PERSONAL INFLUENCE.
The qualities which seem more especially needful in a character which is
to influence others, are, consistency, simplicity, and benevolence, or
love.
By consistency of character, I mean consistency of action with
principle, of manner with thought, of _self_ with _self_. The want of
this quality is a failing with which our sex is often charged, and
justly; but are we to blame? Our hearts are warm, our nerves irritable,
and we have seen how little there is, in existing systems of female
education, calculated to give wide, lofty, self-devoted principles of
action. Without such principles, there can be no consistency of conduct;
and without consistency of conduct, there can be no available moral
influence.
The peculiar evil arising from want of consistency, is the want of trust
or faith which it engenders. This is felt in the common intercourse with
the world. In our relations with inconsistent persons, we are like
mariners at sea without a compass. On the other hand, intercourse with
consistent persons gives to the mind a sort of tranquillity, peculiarly
favourable to happiness and to virtue. It is like the effect produced by
the perception of an immutable truth, which, from the very force of
contrast, is peculiarly grateful to the inhabitants of so changeable a
world as this. It is moral repose.