ILLUSIONS.

Some years ago, in company with an agreeable party, I spent a long summer

day in exploring the Mammoth Cave in Kentucky. We traversed, through

spacious galleries affording a solid masonry foundation for the town and

county overhead, the six or eight black miles from the mouth of the cavern

to the innermost recess which tourists visit,--a niche or grotto made of

one seamless stalactite, and called, I believe, Serena's Bower. I lost the

light of one day. I saw high domes, and bottomless pits; heard the voice of

unseen waterfalls; paddled three quarters of a mile in the deep Echo River,

whose waters are peopled with the blind fish; crossed the streams "Lethe"

and "Styx"; plied with music and guns the echoes in these alarming

galleries; saw every form of stalagmite and stalactite in the sculptured

and fretted chambers,--the icicle, the orange-flower, the acanthus, the

grapes, and the snowball. We shot Bengal lights into the vaults and groins

of the sparry cathedrals, and examined all the masterpieces which the four

combined engineers, water, limestone, gravitation, and time, could make in

the dark.

The sights and scenery of the cave had the same dignity that belongs to all

natural objects, and which shames the fine things to which we foppishly

compare them. I remarked, especially, the mimetic habit, with which Nature,

on new instruments, hums her old tunes, making night to mimic day, and

chemistry to ape vegetation. But I then took notice, and still chiefly

remember, that the best thing which the cave had to offer was an illusion.

On arriving at what is called the "Star-Chamber," our lamps were taken from

us by the guide, and extinguished or put aside, and, on looking upwards, I

saw or seemed to see the night heaven thick with stars glimmering more or

less brightly over our heads, and even what seemed a comet flaming among

them. All the party were touched with astonishment and pleasure. Our

musical friends sung with much feeling a pretty song, "The stars are in

the quiet sky," &c., and I sat down on the rocky door to enjoy the serene

picture. Some crystal specks in the black ceiling high overhead, reflecting

the light of a half-hid lamp, yielded this magnificent effect.

I own, I did not like the cave so well for eking out its sublimities with

this theatrical trick. But I have had many experiences like it, before and

since; and we must be content to be pleased without too curiously analyzing

the occasions. Our conversation with Nature is not just what it seems. The

cloud-rack, the sunrise and sunset glories, rainbows, and northern lights

are not quite so spheral as our childhood thought them; and the part our

organization plays in them is too large. The senses interfere everywhere,

and mix their own structure with all they report of. Once, we fancied the

earth a plane, and stationary. In admiring the sunset, we do not yet deduct

the rounding, coordinating, pictorial powers of the eye.

The same interference from our organization creates the most of our

pleasure and pain. Our first mistake is the belief that the circumstance

gives the joy which we give to the circumstance. Life is an ecstasy. Life

is sweet as nitrous oxide; and the fisherman dripping all day over a cold

pond, the switchman at the railway intersection, the farmer in the field,

the Irishman in the ditch, the fop in the street, the hunter in the woods,

the barrister with the jury, the belle at the ball, all ascribe a certain

pleasure to their employment, which they themselves give it. Health and

appetite impart the sweetness to sugar, bread, and meat. We fancy that

our civilization has got on far, but we still come back to our primers.

Thackeray's "Vanity Fair" is pathetic in its name, and in his use of the

name. It is an admission from a man of the world in the London of 1850,

that poor old Puritan Bunyan was right in his perception of the London of

1650. And yet now, in Thackeray, is the added wisdom or skepticism, that

though this be really so, he must yet live in tolerance of and practically

in homage and obedience to these illusions.

The world rolls, the din of life is never hushed. In London, in Paris, in

Boston, in San Francisco, the carnival, the masquerade is at its height.

Nobody drops his domino. The unities, the fictions of the piece it would be

an impertinence to break. The chapter of fascinations is very long. Great

is paint; nay, God is the painter; and we rightly accuse the critic who

destroys too many illusions. Society does not love its unmaskers. It was

wittily, if somewhat bitterly, said by D'Alembert, "_Un état de vapeur

était un état très fâcheux, parcequ'il nous faisait voir les choses

comme elles sont._" I find men victims of illusion in all parts of life.

Children, youths, adults, and old men, all are led by one bawble or

another. Yoganidra, the goddess of illusion, Proteus, or Momus, or Gylfi's

Mocking,--for the Power has many names,--is stronger than the Titans,

stronger than Apollo. The toys, to be sure, are various, and are graduated

in refinement to the quality of the dupe. The intellectual man requires a

fine bait; the sots are easily amused. But everybody is drugged with his

own dream, and the pageant marches at all hours, with music and banner and

badge.

Amid the joyous troop who give in to the charivari, comes now and then

a sad-eyed boy, whose eyes lack the requisite refractions to clothe the

show in due glory, and who is afflicted with a tendency to trace home the

glittering miscellany of fruits and flowers to one root. Science is a

search after identity, and the scientific whim is lurking in all corners.

At the State Fair, a friend of mine complained that all the varieties of

fancy pears in our orchards seem to have been selected by somebody who had

a whim for a particular kind of pear, and only cultivated such as had that

perfume; they were all alike. And I remember the quarrel of another youth

with the confectioners, that, when he racked his wit to choose the best

comfits in the shops, in all the endless varieties of sweetmeat he could

only find three flavors, or two. What then? Pears and cakes are good for

something; and because you, unluckily, have an eye or nose too keen, why

need you spoil the comfort which the rest of us find in them? I knew a

humorist, who, in a good deal of rattle, had a grain or two of sense.

He shocked the company by maintaining that the attributes of God were

two,--power and risibility; and that it was the duty of every pious man

to keep up the comedy. And I have known gentlemen of great stake in the

community, but whose sympathies were cold,--presidents of colleges,

and governors, and senators,--who held themselves bound to sign every

temperance pledge, and act with Bible societies, and missions, and

peacemakers, and cry _Hist-a-boy!_ to every good dog. We must not carry

comity too far, but we all have kind impulses in this direction. When the

boys come into my yard for leave to gather horsechestnuts, I own I enter

into Nature's game, and affect to grant the permission reluctantly, fearing

that any moment they will find out the imposture of that showy chaff. But

this tenderness is quite unnecessary; the enchantments are laid on very

thick. Their young life is thatched with them. Bare and grim to tears is

the lot of the children in the hovel I saw yesterday; yet not the less they

hung it round with frippery romance, like the children of the happiest

fortune, and talked of "the dear cottage where so many joyful hours had

flown." Well, this thatching of hovels is the custom of the country. Women,

more than all, are the element and kingdom of illusion. Being fascinated,

they fascinate others. They see through Claud-Lorraines. And how dare

any one, if he could, pluck away the _coulisses_, stage effects, and

ceremonies, by which they live? Too pathetic, too pitiable, is the region

of affection, and its atmosphere always liable to _mirage_.

We are not very much to blame for our bad marriages. We live amid

hallucinations; and this especial trap is laid to trip up our feet with,

and all are tripped up first or last. But the mighty Mother who had been

so sly with us, as if she felt that she owed us some indemnity, insinuates

into the Pandora-box of marriage some deep and serious benefits, and some

great joys. We find a delight in the beauty and happiness of children, that

makes the heart too big for the body. In the worst-assorted connections

there is ever some mixture of true marriage. Teague and his jade get some

just relations of mutual respect, kindly observation, and fostering of each

other, learn something, and would carry themselves wiselier, if they were

now to begin.

'Tis fine for us to point at one or another fine madman, as if there were

any exempts. The scholar in his library is none. I, who have all my life

heard any number of orations and debates, read poems and miscellaneous

books, conversed with many geniuses, am still the victim of any new page;

and, if Marmaduke, or Hugh, or Moosehead, or any other, invent a new style

or mythology, I fancy that the world will be all brave and right, if

dressed in these colors, which I had not thought of. Then at once I will

daub with this new paint; but it will not stick. 'Tis like the cement which

the peddler sells at the door; he makes broken crockery hold with it, but

you can never buy of him a bit of the cement which will make it hold when

he is gone.

Men who make themselves felt in the world avail themselves of a certain

fate in their constitution, which they know how to use. But they never

deeply interest us, unless they lift a corner of the curtain, or betray

never so slightly their penetration of what is behind it. 'Tis the charm

of practical men, that outside of their practicality are a certain poetry

and play, as if they led the good horse Power by the bridle, and preferred

to walk, though they can ride so fiercely. Bonaparte is intellectual, as

well as Cæsar; and the best soldiers, sea-captains, and railway men have

a gentleness, when off duty; a good-natured admission that there are

illusions, and who shall say that he is not their sport? We stigmatize the

cast-iron fellows, who cannot so detach themselves, as "dragon-ridden,"

"thunder-stricken," and fools of fate, with whatever powers endowed.

Since our tuition is through emblems and indirections, 'tis well to know

that there is method in it, a fixed scale, and rank above rank in the

phantasms. We begin low with coarse masks, and rise to the most subtle and

beautiful. The red men told Columbus, "they had an herb which took away

fatigue"; but he found the illusion of "arriving from the east at the

Indies" more composing to his lofty spirit than any tobacco. Is not our

faith in the impenetrability of matter more sedative than narcotics? You

play with jackstraws, balls, bowls, horse and gun, estates and politics;

but there are finer games before you. Is not time a pretty toy? Life will

show you masks that are worth all your carnivals. Yonder mountain must

migrate into your mind. The fine star-dust and nebulous blur in Orion, "the

portentous year of Mizar and Alcor," must come down and be dealt with in

your household thought. What if you shall come to discern that the play and

playground of all this pompous history are radiations from yourself, and

that the sun borrows his beams? What terrible questions we are learning to

ask! The former men believed in magic, by which temples, cities, and men

were swallowed up, and all trace of them gone. We are coming on the secret

of a magic which sweeps out of men's minds all vestige of theism and

beliefs which they and their fathers held and were framed upon.

With such volatile elements to work in, 'tis no wonder if our estimates

are loose and floating. We must work and affirm, but we have no guess of

the value of what we say or do. The cloud is now as big as your hand,

and now it covers a county. That story of Thor, who was set to drain the

drinking-horn in Asgard, and to wrestle with the old woman, and to run

with the runner Lok, and presently found that he had been drinking up the

sea, and wrestling with Time, and racing with Thought, describes us who

are contending, amid these seeming trifles, with the supreme energies of

Nature. We fancy we have fallen into bad company and squalid condition, low

debts, shoe-bills, broken glass to pay for, pots to buy, butcher's meat,

sugar, milk, and coal. "Set me some great task, ye gods! and I will show

my spirit." "Not so," says the good Heaven; "plod and plough, vamp your

old coats and hats, weave a shoestring; great affairs and the best wine

by and by." Well, 'tis all phantasm; and if we weave a yard of tape in

all humility and as well as we can, long hereafter we shall see it was no

cotton tape at all, but some galaxy which we braided, and that the threads

were Time and Nature.

We cannot write the order of the variable winds. How can we penetrate the

law of our shifting moods and susceptibility? Yet they differ as all and

nothing. Instead of the firmament of yesterday, which our eyes require, it

is to-day an eggshell which coops us in; we cannot even see what or where

our stars of destiny are. From day to day, the capital facts of human life

are hidden from our eyes. Suddenly the mist rolls up, and reveals them, and

we think how much good time is gone, that might have been saved, had any

hint of these things been shown. A sudden rise in the road shows us the

system of mountains, and all the summits, which have been just as near us

all the year, but quite out of mind. But these alternations are not without

their order, and we are parties to our various fortune. If life seems

a succession of dreams, yet poetic justice is done in dreams also. The

visions of good men are good; it is the undisciplined will that is whipped

with bad thoughts and bad fortunes. When we break the laws, we lose our

hold on the central reality. Like sick men in hospitals, we change only

from bed to bed, from one folly to another; and it cannot signify much what

becomes of such castaways,--wailing, stupid, comatose creatures,--lifted

from bed to bed, from the nothing of life to the nothing of death.

In this kingdom of illusions we grope eagerly for stays and foundations.

There is none but a strict and faithful dealing at home, and a severe

barring out of all duplicity or illusion there. Whatever games are played

with us, we must play no games with ourselves, but deal in our privacy with

the last honesty and truth. I look upon the simple and childish virtues of

veracity and honesty as the root of all that is sublime in character. Speak

as you think, be what you are, pay your debts of all kinds. I prefer to be

owned as sound and solvent, and my word as good as my bond, and to be what

cannot be skipped, or dissipated, or undermined, to all the _éclat_ in the

universe. A little integrity is better than any career. This reality is the

foundation of friendship, religion, poetry, and art. At the top or at the

bottom of all illusions I set the cheat which still leads us to work and

live for appearances, in spite of our conviction, in all sane hours, that

it is what we really are that avails with friends, with strangers, and with

fate or fortune.

One would think from the talk of men, that riches and poverty were a great

matter; and our civilization mainly respects it. But the Indians say, that

they do not think the white man with his brow of care, always toiling,

afraid of heat and cold, and keeping within doors, has any advantage of

them. The permanent interest of every man is, never to be in a false

position, but to have the weight of Nature to back him in all that he does.

Riches and poverty are a thick or thin costume; and our life--the life of

all of us--identical. For we transcend the circumstance continually, and

taste the real quality of existence; as in our employments, which only

differ in the manipulations, but express the same laws; or in our thoughts,

which wear no silks, and taste no ice-creams. We see God face to face every

hour, and know the savour of Nature.

The early Greek philosophers Heraclitus and Xenophanes measured their

force on this problem of identity. Diogenes of Apollonia said, that unless

the atoms were made of one stuff, they could never blend and act with one

another. But the Hindoos, in their sacred writings, express the liveliest

feeling, both of the essential identity, and of that illusion which they

conceive variety to be. "The notions, 'I am,' and 'This is mine,' which

influence mankind, are but delusions of the mother of the world. Dispel,

O Lord of all creatures! the conceit of knowledge which proceeds from

ignorance." And the beatitude of man they hold to lie in being freed from

fascination.

The intellect is stimulated by the statement of truth in a trope, and the

will by clothing the laws of life in illusions. But the unities of Truth

and of Right are not broken by the disguise. There need never be any

confusion in these. In a crowded life of many parts and performers, on a

stage of nations, or in the obscurest hamlet in Maine or California, the

same elements offer the same choices to each new comer, and, according to

his election, he fixes his fortune in absolute nature. It would be hard to

put more mental and moral philosophy than the Persians have thrown into a

sentence:--

"Fooled thou must be, though wisest of the wise;

Then be the fool of virtue, not of vice."