They were about twenty in number, and not greatly distinguis

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T H E K N I C K E R B O C K E R.

VOL. XXIII. MARCH, 1844. NO. 3.

WHAT IS TRANSCENDENTALISM?

BY A THINKING MAN.

This question has often been asked but seldom answered satisfactorily.

Newspaper editors and correspondents have frequently attempted a practical

elucidation of the mystery, by quoting from their own brains the rarest

piece of absurdity which they could imagine, and entitling it

'Transcendentalism.' One good hit of this kind may be well enough, by way

of satire upon the fogginess of certain writers who deem themselves, and

are deemed by the multitude, transcendental _par excellence_. COLERIDGE

however thought that to parody stupidity by way of ridiculing it, only

proves the parodist more stupid than the original blockhead. Still, one

such attempt may be tolerated; but when imitators of the parodist arise

and fill almost every newspaper in the country with similar witticisms,

such efforts become 'flat and unprofitable;' for nothing is easier than to

put words together in a form which conveys no meaning to the reader. It is

a cheap kind of wit, asinine rather than attic, and can be exercised as

well by those who know nothing of the subject as by those best acquainted

with it. Indeed, it is greatly to be doubted whether one in a hundred of

these witty persons know any thing of the matter; for if they possess

sense enough to make them worthy of being ranked among reasonable men, it

could be proved to them in five minutes that they are themselves

transcendentalists, as all thinking men find themselves compelled to be,

whether they know themselves by that name or not.

'Poh!' said a friend, looking over my shoulder; 'you can't prove _me_ a

transcendentalist; I defy you to do it; I despise the name.'

Why so? Let us know what it is that you despise. Is it the sound of the

word? Is it not sufficiently euphonious? Does it not strike your ear as

smoothly as Puseyite, or Presbyterian?

'Nonsense!' said he; 'you don't suppose I am to be misled by the sound of

a word; it is the meaning to which I object. I despise transcendentalism;

therefore I do not wish to be called transcendentalist.'

Very well; but we shall never 'get ahead' unless you define

transcendentalism according to your understanding of the word.

'That request is easily made, but not easily complied with. Have you

Carlyle or Emerson at hand?'

Here I took down a volume of each, and read various sentences and

paragraphs therefrom. These passages are full of transcendental ideas; do

you object to them?

'No,' said my friend; 'for aught I can perceive, they might have been

uttered by any one who was _not_ a transcendentalist. Let me see the

books.'

After turning over the leaves a long while, he selected and read aloud a

passage from Carlyle, one of his very worst; abrupt, nervous, jerking, and

at the same time windy, long-drawn-out, and parenthetical; a period

filling a whole page.

'There,' said he, stopping to take breath, 'if that is not enough to

disgust one with transcendentalism, then I know nothing of the matter.'

A very sensible conclusion. Bless your soul, that is _Carlyle-ism_, not

transcendentalism. You said but now that you were not to be misled by the

sound of a word; and yet you are condemning a principle on account of the

bad style of a writer who is supposed to be governed by it. Is that right?

Would you condemn Christianity because of the weaknesses and sins of one

of its professors?

'Of course not,' replied he; 'I wish to be fair. I cannot express my idea

of the meaning of transcendentalism without tedious circumlocution, and I

begin to despair of proving my position by quotations. It is not on any

particular passage that I rest my case. You have read this work, and will

understand me when I say that it is to its general intent and spirit that

I object, and not merely to the author's style.'

I think I comprehend you. You disregard the mere form in which the author

expresses his thoughts; you go beyond and behind that, and judge him by

the thoughts themselves; not by one or by two, but by the sum and

_substance_ of the whole. You strip off the husk to arrive at the kernel,

and judge of the goodness of the crop by the latter, not the former.

'Just so,' said he; 'that's my meaning precisely. I always strive to

follow that rule in every thing. 'Appearances,' you know, 'are

deceitful.''

That is to say, you go beyond or transcend appearances and circumstances,

and divine the true meaning, the substance, the spirit of that on which

you are about to decide. That is practical transcendentalism, and you are

a transcendentalist.

'I wish you would suggest another name for it,' said my friend, as he went

out of the door; 'I detest the sound of that word.'

I wish we could, said I, but he was out of hearing; I wish we could, for

it is an abominably long word to write.

'I wish we could,' mutters the printer, 'for it is an awfully long word to

print.'

'I wish we could,' is the sober second thought of all; for people will

always condemn transcendentalism until it is called by another name. Such

is the force of prejudice.

'I have been thinking over our conversation of yesterday,' said my friend

next morning, on entering my room.

'Oh, you have been writing it down, have you? Let me see it.' After

looking over the sketch, he remarked:

'You _seem_ to have me fast enough, but after all I believe you conquered

merely by playing upon a word, and in proving me to be a transcendentalist

you only proved me to be a reasonable being; one capable of perceiving,

remembering, combining, comparing and deducing; one who, amid the apparent

contradictions with which we are surrounded, strives to reconcile

appearances and discover principles; and from the outward and visible

learn the inward and spiritual; in fine, arrive at truth. Now every

reasonable man claims to be all that I have avowed myself to be. If this

is to be a transcendentalist, then I am one. When I read that I must hate

my father and mother before I can be a disciple of JESUS, I do not

understand that passage literally; I call to mind other precepts of

CHRIST; I remember the peculiarities of eastern style; I compare these

facts together, and deduce therefrom a very different principle from that

apparently embodied in the passage quoted. When I see the Isle of Shoals

doubled, and the duplicates reversed in the air above the old familiar

rocks, I do not, as I stand on Rye-beach, observing the interesting

phenomenon, believe there are two sets of islands there; but recalling

facts which I have learned, and philosophical truths which I have acquired

and verified, I attribute the appearance to its true cause, refraction of

light. When in passing from room to room in the dark, with my arms

outspread, I run my nose against the edge of a door, I do not therefrom

conclude that my nose is longer than my arms! When I see a man stumble in

the street, I do not at once set him down as a drunkard, not considering

that to be sufficient evidence, although some of our Washingtonian friends

do; but I compare that fact with the state of the streets, and what I know

of his previous life, and judge accordingly.'

Well, said I, you are an excellent transcendentalist; one after my own

heart, in morals, philosophy and religion. To be a transcendentalist is

after all to be _only_ a sensible, unprejudiced man, open to conviction at

all times, and spiritually-minded. I can well understand that, when you

condemn transcendentalism, you object not to the principle, but to the

practice, in the superlative degree, of that principle. Transcendentalism

is but an abstract mode of considering morals, philosophy, religion; an

application of the principles of abstract science to these subjects. All

metaphysicians are transcendentalists, and every one is transcendental so

far as he is metaphysical. There are as many different modifications of

the one as of the other, and probably no two transcendentalists ever

thought alike; their creed is not yet written. You certainly do not

condemn spiritualism, but ultra spiritualism you seem to abhor.

'Precisely so. I did not yesterday give you the meaning which I attached

to transcendentalism; in truth, practically you meant one thing by that

term, and I another, though I now see that in principle they are the same.

The spiritualism which I like, looks through nature and revelation up to

GOD; that which I abhor, condescends hardly to make use of nature at all,

but demands direct converse with GOD, and declares that it enjoys it too;

a sort of continual and _immediate_ revelation. Itself is its own

authority. The ultra-spiritualist contains within himself the fulness of

the Godhead. He allows of nothing external, unless it be brother spirits

like himself. He has abolished nature, and to the uninitiated seems to

have abolished GOD himself, although I am charitable enough to believe

that he has full faith in GOD, after his own fashion. He claims to be

inspired; to be equal to JESUS; nay superior; for one of them lately said:

'Greater is the container than the contained, therefore I am greater than

GOD, for I contain God!' The ultra-spiritualist believes only _by_ and

_through_ and _in_ his own inward light. Let him take care, as Carlyle

says, that his own contemptible tar-link does not, by being held too near

his eyes, extinguish to him the sun of the universe. Now the true

spiritualist makes use not only of his own moral and religious instincts,

but all that can be gathered by the senses from external nature, and all

that can be acquired by untiring consultation with the sages who have gone

before him; and from these materials in the alembic of his mind, with such

power as GOD has given him, he distils truth.'

Truth! Ah, that is the very point in question. 'What is truth?' has been

the ardent inquiry of every honest mind from the days of Adam to the

present time, and the sneering demand of many an unbeliever. Eve sought it

when she tasted the forbidden fruit. But since then, thank GOD! no

prohibition has been uttered against the search after truth, and mankind

have improved their liberty with great industry for six thousand years;

and what is the result? Is truth discovered? How much? and how much of

falsehood is mixed up with what _is_ known to be true? These questions are

constantly suggesting themselves to thinkers, and to answer them is the

labor of their lives. Let them have free scope, ultra-spiritualists and

all. Even these latter go through the same operation which you have just

claimed to be peculiar to the true spiritualist. All do, whether they will

or not, make use of observation, learning, and the inward light. Some

arrive at one result, and some at another, because the elements differ in

each. If any two could be found whose external observations, learning,

intellect and inward light or instincts were precisely equal in volume and

proportion, can it be doubted that these two would arrive at precisely

similar results? But they are _not_ equal; and so one comes to believe in

external authority, and the other refers every thing to a standard which

he thinks he finds within himself. The latter is deemed by the public to

be a representative of pure transcendentalism, and he is condemned

accordingly as self-sufficient.

And privately, between you and me, my good friend, I cannot help thinking

it rather ungrateful in him, after becoming so deeply indebted to his

senses, to books, and the Bible for his spiritual education, to turn round

and despise these means of advancement, and declare that they are mere

non-essential _circumstances_, and that a man may reach the same end by

studying himself _in_ himself. It is as if a man should use a ladder to

reach a lofty crag, and then kick it over contemptuously, and aver that he

could just as well have flown up, and ask the crowd below to break up that

miserable ladder and try their wings. Doubtless they _have_ wings, if they

only knew it. But seriously, I am not inclined to join in the hue-and-cry

against even the ultra-transcendentalist. He has truth mixed up with what

I esteem objectionable, and some truth to which others have not attained;

and as I deem the eclectic the only true mode of philosophy, I am willing

to take truth where I can find it, whether in China or Boston, in

Confucius or Emerson, Kant or Cousin, the Bible or the Koran; and though I

have more reverence for one of these sources than all others, it is only

because I think I find there the greatest amount of truth, sanctioned by

the highest authority. To put the belief in the Bible on any other ground,

is to base it on educational prejudice and superstition; on which

principle the Koran should be as binding on the Mahometan as the Bible on

us. Do we not all finally resort to _ourselves_ in order to decide a

difficult question in morals or religion? and is not the decision more or

less correct accordingly as we refer it to the better or to the baser

portion of our nature?

'Most certainly! I have often said I would not and could not believe in

the Bible, if it commanded us to worship Sin and leave our passions

unbridled.'

Well said! And in so saying, you acknowledge yourself to be governed by

the same principle which actuates the ultra-transcendentalist; the moral

sense or instinct, similar to the 'inward light' of the Friends. After

all, I apprehend the true point in which men differ is, whether this moral

sense is really an instinct, or whether it is evolved and put in operation

by education. How much is due to nature? is the true question. But to

solve it, is important only theoretically, for practically we all act

alike; we cannot, if we would, separate the educational from the natural

moral sense; we cannot _uneducate_ it, and then judge by it, freed from

all circumstantial bias. But whether more or less indebted either to

nature or education, it is to this moral and religious sense that the

ultra-transcendentalist refers every question, and passes judgment

according to its verdict. It is sometimes rather vaguely called the 'Pure

Reason;' but that is only a _term_, hardly a 'mouthful of articulate

wind.'

'You and I shall agree very well together, I see,' replied my friend. 'If

we dispute at all, it will be foolishly about the meaning of a word. All

the world have been doing that ever since the confusion of tongues at

Babel. That great event prophetically shadowed forth the future; for now,

as then, the confusion and disputation is greatest when we are striving

most earnestly to reach heaven by our earth-built contrivances. We may

draw a lesson therefrom; not to be too aspiring for our means; for our

inevitable failure only makes us the more ridiculous, the higher the

position we seem to have attained.'

Very true; but we should never arrive at the height of wisdom, which

consists in knowing our own ignorance and weakness, unless we made full

trial of our powers. The fall of which you speak should give us a modesty

not to be otherwise obtained, and make us very careful how we ridicule

others, seeing how open to it we ourselves are. Every man may build his

tower of Babel, and if he make a right use of his failure, may in the end

be nearer heaven than if he had never made the attempt. Ridicule is no

argument, and should only be used by way of a _jeu d'esprit_, and never on

solemn subjects. It is very hard, I know, for one who has mirthfulness

strongly developed, to restrain himself on all occasions; and what is

solemn to one may not be so to another; hence we should be very charitable

to all; alike to the bigots, the dreamers, and the laughers; to the

builders of theoretic Babel-towers, and the grovellers on the low earth.

'There is one kind of transcendentalism,' replied my friend, 'which you

have not noticed particularly, which consists in believing in nothing

except the spiritual existence of the unbeliever himself, and hardly that.

It believes not in the external world at all.'

If you are on _that_ ground, I have done. To talk of that, would be

wasting our time on nothing; or 'our eternity,' for with that sect time is

altogether a delusion. It _may_ be true, but the believer, even in the act

of declaring his faith, must practically prove himself persuaded of the

falsity of his doctrine.

'You wanted a short name for transcendentalism; if a long one will make

_this_ modification of it more odious, let us call it

_Incomprehensibilityosityivityalityationmentnessism_.'

My friend said this with a face nearly as long as the word, made a low

bow, and departed. I took my pen and reduced our conversation to writing.

I hope by this time the reader has a very lucid answer to give to the

question, _What is Transcendentalism?_ It will be a miracle if he can see

one inch farther into the fog-bank than before. I should like to take back

the boast made in the beginning of this paper, that I could prove in five

minutes any reasonable man a transcendentalist. My friend disconcerted my

plan of battle, by taking command of the enemy's forces, instead of

allowing me to marshal them on paper to suit myself; and so a mere

friendly joust ensued, instead of the utter demolition of my adversary,

which I had intended.

And this little circumstance has led me to think, what a miserable

business controversialists would make of it, if each had his opponent

looking over his shoulder, pointing out flaws in his arguments, suggesting

untimely truths, and putting every possible impediment in the path of his

logic; and if, moreover, he were obliged to mend every flaw, prove every

such truth a falsehood, and remove every impediment before he could

advance a step. Were such the case, how much less would there be of

fine-spun theory and specious argument; how much more of practical truth!

Always supposing the logical combatants did not lose their patience and

resort to material means and knock-down arguments; of which, judging by

the spirit sometimes manifested in theological controversies, there would

really seem to be some danger. Oh! it is a very easy thing to sit in one's

study and demolish an opponent, who after all is generally no opponent at

all, but only a man of straw, dressed up for the occasion with a few

purposely-tattered shreds of the adversary's cast-off garments.

* * * * *

NOTE BY THE 'FRIEND.'--The foregoing is a _correct_ sketch of our

conversations, especially as the reporter has, like his congressional

brother, corrected most of the bad grammar, and left out some of the

vulgarisms and colloquialisms, and given me the better side of the

argument in the last conversation; it is _very_ correct. But it seems to

me that the question put at the commencement is as far from being solved

as ever. It is as difficult to be answered as the question, What is

Christianity? to which every sect will return a different reply, and each

prove all the others wrong.

_Portsmouth, (N. H.)_ J. K. Jr.

LINES SENT WITH A BOUQUET.

BY PARK BENJAMIN.

I.

I've read in legends old of men

Who hung up fruits and flowers

Before the altar-shrines of those

They called Superior Powers:

It was, I think, a blessed thought

That things so pure and sweet

Should be esteemed an offering

For gods and angels meet.

II.

I imitate that charming rite

In this our sober day,

And, when I worship, strew sweet flowers

Along my angel's way:

And, if my heart's fond prayer be heard,

The offering I renew;

For flowers like books have leaves that speak,

And thoughts of every hue.

III.

They are Love's paper, pictured o'er

With gentle hopes and fears;

Their blushes are the smiles of Love,

And their soft dew his tears!

Ah! more than poet's pen can write

Or poet's tongue reveal

Is hidden by their folded buds

And by their rosy seal.

IV.

Mute letters! yet how eloquent!

Expressive silence dwells

In every blossom Heaven creates,

Like sound in ocean shells.

Press to my flowers thy lips, beloved,

And then thy heart will see

Inscribed upon their leaves the words

I dare not breathe to thee!

THE ALMS HOUSE.

BY A NEW CONTRIBUTOR.

It is not my purpose in the following narrative to point out all the evils

arising from the modern practice of relieving the wants of the poor and

destitute which prevails in this country and in England, where the arm of

the law compels that pittance which should be the voluntary donation of

benevolence; one consequence of which system is, that the poor claim

support as a _debt_ due from society at large, and feel no gratitude

toward any of the individuals paying the tax. The payer of the tax, on the

other hand, feeling that he can claim no merit for surrendering that which

is wrung from him by force, and expecting no thanks for the act, and

knowing that in many cases it operates as a bounty on idleness, hates the

ungrateful burthen thus imposed upon him, and strives to reduce it to the

least possible amount. In this way the ties which should bind together the

poor and the rich are sundered. The benevolence of the patron and the

gratitude of the dependent, which formerly existed, is changed to dislike

and suspicion on the one part, and envy and ingratitude on the other.

Doubtless one design of Providence in suffering want and misery to exist

in the world, is that the benevolent virtues should be kept in exercise.

He who was benevolence itself, seemed thus to think, when he said: 'The

poor ye have always with you.' But man in his selfishness virtually says:

'The poor we will not have with us; we will put them out of our sight.'

For in many towns in New-England, and probably in other States, it is

customary to contract with some individual for their support; or, in other

words, to sell them by auction, to him who will support them by the year,

for the least sum per head. To illustrate some of the results of this

system, the following incidents are related from memory, having been

witnessed by me in my native place (an interior town in New-England) at an

age when the feelings are most susceptible. And so deep was the impression

then made on my mind, that I am enabled to vouch for the accuracy of the

details.

A meeting for the purpose of disposing of the poor of the town for the

ensuing year was held at the house of the person who had kept them the

previous year, (and where these unfortunates still were) as well because

it was supposed he would again bid for them, as that those who wished to

become competitors might ascertain their number and condition. It was in

the afternoon of a day in November, one of those dark and dreary days so

common to the season and climate, adding gloom to the surrounding objects,

in themselves sufficiently cheerless. The house was situated on an obscure

road in a remote part of the town, surrounded by level and sandy fields;

and the monotony of the prospect only broken by scattered clumps of

dwarf-pine and shrub-oak; a few stunted apple-trees, the remains of an

orchard which the barren soil had refused to nourish; some half ruinous

out-houses, and a meagre kitchen garden enclosed with a common rough

fence, completed the picture without.

Still more depressing was the scene within. The paupers were collected in

the same room with their more fortunate townsmen, that the bidders might

be enabled to view more closely their condition, and estimate the probable

expense of supporting them through the year. Many considerations entered

as items into this sordid calculation; such as the very lowest amount of

the very coarsest food which would suffice, (not to keep them in comfort,

but to sustain their miserable existence for the next three hundred and

sixty-five days, and yet screen the provider from the odium of having

starved his victims,) the value of the clothes they then wore, and thus

the future expense of their clothing; and other such considerations, which

I will not farther disgust the reader by enumerating.

They were about twenty in number, and not greatly distinguished from the

ordinary poor of a country town in New-England; unless by there being

present three idiot daughters of one poor man, whose low and narrow

foreheads, sunken temples, fixed but dead and unmeaning eyes, half opened

and formless mouths, indicating even to childhood the absence of that

intellectual light, which in those who possess it shines through the

features. Insanity also was there, that most dreadful infliction of

Providence; the purpose of which lies hidden in the darkness which

surrounds His throne. Its unhappy subject was with them, but not of them.

His eyes were fixed upon the scene, but the uncertain fire which illumined

his features was caused by thoughts which had no connection with the

passing scene.

Vice, too, had its representatives; for in a community where wealth is

nearly the only source of distinction, and where Mammon is consequently

worshipped as the true god, the destiny of the unfortunate and of the

vicious is nearly the same. And the 'poor-house' was used, as in other

towns in New-England, as a house of correction, and at this time contained

several professors of vice of each sex. Alas! of that sex which when

corrupt is more dangerous than the other in a like condition, as the most

rich and grateful things are in their decay the most noxious!

The remaining number consisted of the aged and childless widow, the infirm

and friendless old man, the sick, the deformed, and the cripple; the

virtuous poor, in forced and loathed contact with vice and infamy. Those

of society who in life's voyage had been stranded on the bleak and barren

coast of charity, and who were now waiting for death to float them into

the ocean of eternity. While this scene was passing at the alms-house,

another connected with it, and fitted to excite still deeper feelings, was

acting in another part of the town.

A person who was that year one of the select-men,[1] and a deacon in the

church, was delegated by his colleagues to bring to the alms-house the

'lone woman' who forms the chief subject of our homely story. The widow

Selden (a brief history of whom it will be necessary to give) had received

an education suited rather to the respectability and former wealth of her

family, than to its subsequent reduced condition, became in early life the

wife of a merchant of our village, a man of good character and fair

prospects, to whom she was much attached. Traders in New-England where

wealth is so eagerly sought, are, especially in country towns, men of much

consideration, as engaged in a money-making business. Mrs. Selden,

therefore, independently of her personal merits, was not likely to be

neglected. Her company was sought by the best society of our place, and

she exchanged visits on equal terms even with the families of the

clergyman and the village lawyer.

[1] Men who are yearly selected by the inhabitants to superintend

the business of the town, and who, among other duties, have

the charge of managing the poor.

A few years of quiet enjoyment passed, happily varied by the accession of

a fair and delicate little girl, who might be seen at their cheerful meals

seated in her high chair, the common object of their care and attention;

and not only affording in her fragile little person the strongest bond of

union, but the never-tiring subject of conversation. Sad indeed was the

change in this once happy family, when the widow and orphan sat alone at

the cheerless board. Death had entered and taken from them the sun of

their little world. The bereaved wife might have sunk under this calamity,

had not maternal solicitude been mixed with grief. With that admirable

fortitude and submission to duty so common to those of her sex in similar

circumstances, she at once devoted herself with increased solicitude to

the remaining object of her care and affection.

For a time but little change was visible in the family arrangements, for

though a sensitive she was a spirited woman. Her garden, which had been

the pride and delight of her husband, still flourished in perfect

neatness. After the usual time of decent seclusion, she again interchanged

visits with her friends and neighbors, and continued to maintain the stand

in the village society which had always been conceded to her. But this

state of things did not long continue, for alas! the _gathering_ as well

as the _protecting_ hand was removed. Her more aristocratic acquaintances

now began to remark that her table showed less of plenty and variety than

formerly, and that her dress, though perfectly neat, was less new and

fashionable than they expected in _their_ associates; for no where is the

distinction between the rich and poor more rigidly enforced than in

country villages. Most offensively marked is this distinction in the house

of God, where if any where this side the grave ought the rich and the poor

to meet on a level, before Him who regards not the outward estate of his

creatures. But modern Christians have contrived to evade the rebuke of the

apostle by the cunning device of introducing the noisy auctioneer, and

under a show of fairness and equality, 'the man in goodly apparel and

having a gold ring' is assigned the highest seat; and albeit a skeptic, by

the weight of his purse crowds the humble worshippers to the wall and into

the corners of their Father's house.

It was observed that the lone woman declined competition for those seats

so eagerly sought by the more wealthy, and selected those of a humbler

character, and eventually retired to the 'widow's pew,' a pew set apart,

in country churches, for the gratuitous accommodation of those in that

unhappy condition. Sincerely religious, the Christian widow still waited

upon God in the house of prayer, but felt the whole sting of poverty when

slowly and humbly wending her way to her obscure corner, her faded and

well-worn dress was brushed by the new and rich garments of her former

equals as they swept past her to their high seats. The neat and handsome

dwelling with its trim garden was at length resigned for one which barely

sheltered the mother and child from the weather, and was totally devoid of

the cheap luxury of fruit and flowers which had enriched and beautified

their former home.

Time wore on, and Want with its train of sordid attendants visited their

dwelling. Her former associates, one after another declined her society as

an equal. Occasionally calling, they were eloquent in excuses for their

neglect; for when did the prosperous lack an excuse for neglecting the

unfortunate? Counsel and advice were lavished upon her; for I have

observed that advice is the only thing that the rich impart freely to the

poor. Religion too was the frequent subject of their conversation; for how

can benevolence be shown more strongly than by a concern for the

well-being of the soul, which is to exist forever, in comparison with

which, the transient wants of the body are as nothing? Accordingly, the

poor widow, after her scanty meal, and over her dim and cheerless hearth,

was exhorted by her fur-clad and well-fed _friends_, to disregard the

evils of this fleeting life, and receive with resignation the chastenings

of Providence; for we all needed correction, being by nature utterly

sinful and depraved. And after some vague and indefinite offers of

assistance, the good women would take their leave. A way of discharging

duty discovered by modern philanthropists; and when accompanied by the

Societies' tract, seldom fails to convince the unfortunate object of

charity that to Heaven alone should they look for assistance and sympathy.

This lady, as we have intimated, possessed a large share of that generous

spirit so common in her sex, which enabled her to sustain herself amid the

evils which oppressed her. And nobly did the mother strive to shield from

want and ignorance the little orphan, now her only care. Her own education

enabled her in some measure to supply the place of teachers, which she was

unable to employ. And never was maternal care better rewarded than by the

improvement of the gentle being under her charge. But in this blessed

employment the poor mother was interrupted. While health continued, she

had been enabled by the most unremitted exertion to prevent the approach

of absolute want, slight indeed as were her earnings. (The modern

improvements in machinery having destroyed domestic manufacture, properly

so called, and left but little for the female to earn who is not attending

its motions in the noisy factory.) But illness had intervened, and

diminished even that small resource; and it was apparent to all that the

want of suitable food assisted in blanching still more the fair face of

the poor child. Maternal love had conquered the honest pride of the poor

mother so far as to constrain her to accept the slight and uncertain

donations of her neighbors. But this assistance, scanty as it was, could

not continue. The tax-paying husbands of the benevolent ladies who

furnished it, complained that the poor-rates were heavy, and that they had

already helped to pay for a house of refuge for the poor and the

destitute, could not, in addition to this, support them out of it.

She was told it was her duty to place her daughter in some family to be

brought up as a servant. In vain did she assert her ability to maintain

herself and child when health should return. Her advisers could little

sympathize with her feelings, and reproached her with pride. And she was

now harassed with the fear that her delicate and cultivated little girl

would be torn from her, and made a factory slave or household drudge; for

such power had the laws given to the rulers of the town. But this fear,

miserable as it was, was now overpowered by another. The suggestion had

reached the ear of the unhappy woman that she and her child would be

conveyed to the house of the town's poor, the place we have attempted to

describe. God grant that no fair reader of this homely but too true story

should ever feel the misery which this fear inflicted on the mind of this

friendless mother! Oh, that true Charity had been present in the person of

her best representative on earth, a sensible, affectionate and

liberal-minded woman, to minister to the wants, to soothe the mind of her

unhappy sister-woman, and cheer her exertions for self-support! None such

appeared, and the heart of the poor woman sank within her. Her exertions

were paralyzed; for struggle as she might to avoid it, the alms-house,

with its debased and debasing society, was ever before her eyes as her

ultimate destiny. It was in vain that she endeavored to prepare her mind

for this result. She could endure any degree of privation, but not

degradation and infamy.

Time wore on, without any renewed hints of interference, and she began to

hope that she was forgotten. Delusive hope! It was felt as a disgrace that

she should suffer, when the _law_ had provided a remedy, and they had paid

for it. And it was therefore decreed by the magnates of the town that she

must be removed, and the day had arrived (with which we commenced our

narrative,) on which the paupers were to be disposed of for the coming

year. Deacon S---- was the person deputed by his colleagues, as we have

mentioned, to convey Mrs. Selden and her daughter to the alms-house.

However prepared we may suppose ourselves to meet misfortune, the moment

of its arrival takes us by surprise. We will not attempt to picture the

utter desolation of mind and the despair which filled her heart, when this

man arrived at her door, to convey herself, and oh! far worse, her

innocent and intelligent child, to that scene of vice and debasement.

Although her dislike to the measure was known, yet from her quiet and

reserved manners, little opposition was anticipated. The evils of life had

accumulated upon her in a regular gradation, and she had been enabled to

bear their weight, up to this point, with outward composure; looking

forward to, but yet hoping this last cup of bitterness would never be

presented; or if presented, that some means might be found to avert it.

But the dreadful crisis had arrived. Had the whole board of authority been

present, I should be glad to believe, for the honor of humanity, that they

would have been moved to relent, as they would not have been able to shift

the responsibility from one to the other, as is the wont of such bodies

when the members act separately.

When the poor woman had so far recovered from the first shock as to be

enabled to articulate, she pleaded her ability to maintain herself without

assistance, and her choice rather to starve than be removed. She appealed

to him as the father of a daughter, and painted the ruin which would fall

upon her own, exposed to the corruption and example of the place to which

he was taking her. She appealed to him as a Christian, and reminded him

that they had sat together before the sacred desk, and partaken of the

symbols of the body and blood of the Son of Him who was in a peculiar

manner the father of the widow and orphan. But her auditor was destitute

of the imagination which enables the possessor to enter into the feelings

of another; and these affecting appeals fell dead upon his worldly and

unsympathizing nature. The man even extended his hand to urge her forward

to the conveyance provided! At that moment, when all hope was dead within

her, and the worst that could happen in her opinion had arrived, a change

came over the unhappy woman. She suffered herself unresistingly to be led

forward to her doom. The fine chords of the mind and heart, lately so

intensely strung, had parted; her countenance relaxed, and her features

settled down into a dead, unmeaning apathy; never again, during the short

remainder of her life, to be animated by one gleam of the feelings which

had so lately illumined but to destroy.

My kind, my indulgent mother! Her generous heart needed not the eloquence

of my youthful feelings to induce her to rescue the poor orphan, and to

cherish her as her own child. And never was kindness more richly----

I had proceeded thus far in writing this narrative, when I discovered that

I was overlooked; and a gentle voice over my shoulder said: 'You should

not praise your own wife; it is the same as if you should praise

yourself!'

E. B.

APOSTROPHE TO HEALTH.

HYGEIA! most blest of the powers

That tenant the mansions divine,

May I pass in thy presence the hours

That remain, ere in death I recline!

Dwell with me, benevolent charm!

Without the attendance of health

Not the smiles of affection can warm,

And dull are the splendors of wealth.

The pageant of empire is stale

That lifts men like gods o'er their race,

And the heart's thrilling impulses fail

When Love beckons on to the chase.

Whate'er in itself joy can give,

Or that springs from sweet respite of pain,

That mortals or gods can receive,

Blest HYGEIA! is found in thy train!

Thy smile kindles up the fresh spring,

The glad, verdant bloom of the soul;

Thee absent, our pleasures take wing,

And Sorrow usurps her control.

ISABEL.

Hush! her face is chill,

And the summer blossom.

Motionless and still,

Lieth on her bosom.

On her shroud so white,

Like snow in winter weather,

Her marble hands unite,

Quietly together.

How like sleep the spell

On her lids that falleth!

Wake, sweet Isabel!

Lo! the morning calleth.

How _like_ Sleep!--'tis Death!

Sleep's own gentle brother;

Heaven holds her breath--

She is with her mother!

ONE READING FROM TWO POETS.

----My imagination

Carries no favor in it but Bertram's.

I am undone; there is no living, none,

If Bertram be away.

SHAKSPEARE.

Should GOD create another Eve and I

Another rib afford, yet loss of thee

Would never from my heart.

MILTON.

I have this evening, while seated in my lonely chamber, ventured--not, I

hope, with profane hands--to draw one inappreciable gem from out of the

carcanet of each of the two unrivalled masters of the poetry of our

language. I was curious to see the effect to be produced by a close

juxtaposition of these two exquisite specimens of the soul's light; of the

revealment of its original genius; of the intense brilliancy of its Truth,

falling as it does in one ray upon two objects so diverse in their

character as the virgin love of the retired and comparatively humble but

devoted Helena, and the married constancy of the Father of our race.

The effect reminds me of an _échappée de lumière_ that I once beheld in

the gallery of the Vatican, when a sudden emergence of light brightened

with the same gleam the calm face of the Virgin of the clouds, (called di

Foligno,) and at the same instant illuminated the whole principal figure

in the Transfiguration of Raffaelle; floating as it does, and tending

almost with a movement upward, in the air of 'the high mountain' where the

miracle took place----as these two grand paintings then stood, side by

side, in the solemn, in the holy quiet of that lofty and sequestered

apartment. O moment! never to be forgotten, never to be obscured by any

lapse of after time!

And thus, although in a less palpable world, do these two passages of

immortal verse, wearing each its beam of golden light, stand in their

effulgence before the sympathies of the observer alive to the charms and

influences of moral beauty! Surely no other poet has the world produced

comparable to Shakspeare for the revelation of the love of the yet

unwedded girl; and who is there to be named with Milton, in the tenderness

and truth with which he has touched upon conjugal relationship; and that

necessity, that inappeasable requirement of intercommunion that

accompanies, as its immediate consequence, the sacrament of the nuptial

rite where there is destined to exist the real, the progressive, the

indissoluble intermarriage of soul with soul!

How effectually and with what truth does the dramatic Bard raise the veil

and exhibit to us the imagination of this retired girl, bred up in all the

deep earnestness of mind that a country life and comparative seclusion

could induce, dwelling and brooding over the form of one individual

brought into intimate association with her, 'seeing him every hour' where

she had little else to interest her, nor any thing to contemplate, but, as

she says,

'sit and draw

His archéd brows, his hawking eye, his curls,

In our heart's table; heart too capable

Of every trick and line of his sweet favour.

* * * * *

----it hurts not him

That he is loved of me: I follow him not

With any token of presumptuous suit.

I know I love in vain, strive against hope,

Yet, in this captious and intenible sieve,

I still pour in the waters of my love

And lack not to love still.'

Behold her as she sits, the beautiful creation!--delighting to magnify the

qualities of the idol of her affections and to depreciate herself in the

comparison; overlooking, perhaps incapable of once imagining the thought

of his harsh and selfish and impracticable nature, and constantly endowing

him with all the fresher breathings of her spiritual existence--like the

Rainbow of the Waterfall, that clothes, with its own celestial dyes, the

dark and shapeless mass of Rock upon whose bosom it appears to dwell!

faltering, trembling, quivering, fading, disappearing; returning,

resting;--glowing, yet never dazzling; liquid, yet sustained!

'It were all one

That I should love a bright particular star

And seek to wed it, he is so above me:

In his bright radiance and collateral light

Must I be comforted, not in his sphere.

The hind that would be mated by the lion

Must die for love!

This is the way in which these precious irradiations of joy beam and hover

over man; startled and frightened often out of the presence even of his

image while they thus adorn and decorate him; and then they love him for

what they fondly dream to be the halo of his proper spirit; for the light

and tenderness, the purity, the gentleness, the refinement and grace, that

have their life and element and colour, only in the deep yet overflowing

heart of Woman in her Love!

But then comes Wedlock; and often, with wedlock, comes marriage; or

succeeds it; the marriage that GOD bestowed on man in Eve, when, according

to that scriptural and exquisite conception, _they twain become one_. When

the Rock shall as by a miracle receive into all its crevices, interstices,

and pores, the beautiful existence that has played upon it! When the soul

of man opens at every noble passion in succession and at every pulse, to

embrace, imbibe, absorb, receive, possess, acquire, the being that we call

WOMAN! finds her in every former want, or present wish, or bright, or

unfrequented passage of the soul; now all occupied, all satisfied by her;

fancies thoughts to be his thoughts which are her thoughts; and blesses

himself, when he discovers it, that imaginations in themselves so sweet,

should in some visit of her delicate spirit have been breathed into his

ESSENCE from a source so pure! is near her, when distant; is present with

her, when absent; converses with her, without words; gazes upon her,

without sight; listens to her, without sound; watches her, without motion;

and has not yet lost her balmy presence when Death shall long have removed

forever that precious image from his corporal sense. This is MARRIAGE.

Out of this state descends that profound expression of the soul in Milton,

(GOD make us thankful for him!) when he intends the verb that he escapes

in the passage that adorns my Essay, should be supplied by a pulsation in

the breast of Eve:

'yet loss of thee

Would never--from my heart.'

Would never?--would never be torn, out-rooted, obliterated, banished,

extinguished, forgotten, diminished, obscured, from his heart. The throb

of her spirit is to supply the word, or mould the thought, and vivify the

pause so as to satisfy her full affection to its utmost contentment and

desire. _This_ is marriage. This is attainment to that state of more

perfect existence which terrestrial life procures for the soul of man,

never thenceforth in all its future changes to be lost. The incorporeal

mingling, the mystical union of two varied emanations of life; as Light

and Heat intermarry in their offset and passage from the sun; and Truth

and Love from the breast of THE INEFFABLE!

How can I live without thee! how forego

Thy sweet converse and love so dearly join'd

To live again in these wild woods forlorn?

Should GOD create another Eve and I

Another rib afford, yet loss of thee

Would never from my heart: no, no, I feel

The link of nature draw me.

Bone of my bone thou art and from thy state

Mine never shall be parted, bliss or woe.

And shall the passage of one such soul across the mere brook of Death

dissolve affiances so deep, so latent, and so pure as this? This Life of

Life, is it to be so suddenly quenched in man, and man himself continue to

exist? Shall the soul that lingers here still retaining its identity lose

that which has chiefly formed for it a distinctive being? Or entering into

a happier state of existence shall it be dispossessed of all that treasure

of recollection and delight on which its joys and hopes have been so

largely founded? These long remembrances of mutual beneficence and good,

these intertwining and interwoven affections, and the unbounded and

mingling love of their common offspring, shall these all perish and the

soul itself yet be styled immortal? Or,--shall the first-gone spirit meet

its arriving mate upon the border of that further shore, bless it with the

radiant welcome of celestial companionship and guidance, and lead it on to

higher virtue in a happier state, as it hath beamed upon it and in part

educated it on Earth?----Doubt this not, my Heart! Doubt this not, my

Soul!

JOHN WATERS.

WHERE IS THE SPIRIT-WORLD?

BY A NEW CONTRIBUTOR.

Perhaps the World of Spirits

Is the invisible air,

And every soul inherits

Its endless portion there,

When mortal lays its mortal by,

And puts on immortality.

Then round us and above us

Unseen, the souls of those

That hate us and that love us

In motion or repose,

To plan and work our good or ill,

As when on earth, are busy still.

For Enmity surviveth

This transitory life;

Spirit with spirit striveth

In an unending strife;

All roots of evil planted now

Eternally shall live and grow.

So friendship ever liveth

Immortal as the soul,

And purer pleasure giveth

As longer ages roll;

And hope and joy and inward peace

Forever heighten and increase!

Our homes and dwelling-places,

The country of our birth,

The old familiar faces

Endeared to us on earth,

And every source and scene of joy

Our spirits' senses shall employ.