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GRAHAM’S MAGAZINE.
VOL. XXX. March, 1847. No. 3.
Table of Contents
Fiction, Literature and Articles
Thomas Carlyle and His Works
Law and Love. Or Gaining a Case.
My Aunt Fabbins’s Old Garret
Game-Birds of America.—No. V.
Singleton Snippe. Who Married for a Living
The Oath of Marion
Life in New York. A Sketch of a Literary Soiree
The Islets of the Gulf. Or, Rose Budd.
Old Maids. Or Kate Wilson’s Morning Visit.
American Indians
Review of New Books
Poetry and Fashion
Song
The Midshipman’s Farewell
A Prayer
Heart Struggles
Fanny
Lines
The Love Dial
The Brickmaker
To Mrs. A. T.
Le Follet
Transcriber’s Notes can be found at the end of this eBook.
* * * * *
[Illustration: drawn by J. Smillie from a sketch by T. Addison Richards
Graham's Magazine 1844. Eng^d by Rawdon, Wright, Hatch & Smillie
FALLS OF THE TOWALAGA]
* * * * *
GRAHAM’S MAGAZINE.
VOL. XXX. PHILADELPHIA, MARCH, 1847. NO. 3.
* * * * *
THOMAS CARLYLE AND HIS WORKS.
BY HENRY D. THOREAU.
Thomas Carlyle is a Scotchman, born about fifty years ago, “at
Ecclefechan, Annandale,” according to one authority. “His parents ‘good
farmer people,’ his father an elder in the Secession church there, and a
man of strong native sense, whose words were said to ‘nail a subject to
the wall.’” We also hear of his “excellent mother,” still alive, and of
“her fine old covenanting accents, concerting with his transcendental
tones.” He seems to have gone to school at Annan, on the shore of the
Solway Firth, and there, as he himself writes, “heard of famed
professors, of high matters classical, mathematical, a whole Wonderland
of Knowledge,” from Edward Irving, then a young man “fresh from
Edinburgh, with college prizes, &c.”—“come to see our schoolmaster, who
had also been his.” From this place, they say, you can look over into
Wordsworth’s country. Here first he may have become acquainted with
Nature, with woods, such as are there, and rivers and brooks, some of
whose names we have heard, and the last lapses of Atlantic billows. He
got some of his education, too, more or less liberal, out of the
University of Edinburgh, where, according to the same authority, he had
to “support himself,” partly by “private tuition, translations for the
booksellers, &c.,” and afterward, as we are glad to hear, “taught an
academy in Dysart, at the same time that Irving was teaching in
Kirkaldy,” the usual middle passage of a literary life. He was destined
for the church, but not by the powers that rule man’s life; made his
literary début in Fraser’s Magazine, long ago; read here and there in
English and French, with more or less profit, we may suppose, such of us
at least as are not particularly informed, and at length found some
words which spoke to his condition in the German language, and set
himself earnestly to unravel that mystery—with what success many
readers know.
After his marriage he “resided partly at Comely Bank, Edinburgh; and for
a year or two at Craigenputtock, a wild and solitary farm-house in the
upper part of Dumfriesshire,” at which last place, amid barren heather
hills, he was visited by our countryman Emerson. With Emerson he still
corresponds. He was early intimate with Edward Irving, and continued to
be his friend until the latter’s death. Concerning this “freest,
brotherliest, bravest human soul,” and Carlyle’s relation to him, those
whom it concerns will do well to consult a notice of his death in
Fraser’s Magazine for 1835, reprinted in the Miscellanies. He also
corresponded with Goethe. Latterly, we hear, the poet Stirling was his
only intimate acquaintance in England.
He has spent the last quarter of his life in London, writing books; has
the fame, as all readers know, of having made England acquainted with
Germany, in late years, and done much else that is novel and remarkable
in literature. He especially is the literary man of those parts. You may
imagine him living in altogether a retired and simple way, with small
family, in a quiet part of London, called Chelsea, a little out of the
din of commerce, in “Cheyne Row,” there, not far from the “Chelsea
Hospital.” “A little past this, and an old ivy-clad church, with its
buried generations lying around it,” writes one traveler, “you come to
an antique street running at right angles with the Thames, and, a few
steps from the river, you find Carlyle’s name on the door.”
“A Scotch lass ushers you into the second story front chamber, which is
the spacious workshop of the world maker.” Here he sits a long time
together, with many books and papers about him; many new books, we have
been told, on the upper shelves, uncut, with the “author’s respects” in
them; in late months, with many manuscripts in an old English hand, and
innumerable pamphlets, from the public libraries, relating to the
Cromwellian period; now, perhaps, looking out into the street on brick
and pavement, for a change, and now upon some rod of grass ground in the
rear; or, perchance, he steps over to the British Museum, and makes that
his studio for the time. This is the fore part of the day; that is the
way with literary men commonly; and then in the afternoon, we presume,
he takes a short run of a mile or so through the suburbs out into the
country; we think he would run that way, though so short a trip might
not take him to very sylvan or rustic places. In the meanwhile, people
are calling to _see_ him, from various quarters, very few worthy of
being _seen_ by him, “distinguished travelers from America,” not a few,
to all and sundry of whom he gives freely of his yet unwritten rich and
flashing soliloquy, in exchange for whatever they may have to offer;
speaking his English, as they say, with a “broad Scotch accent,”
talking, to their astonishment and to ours, very much as he writes, a
sort of Carlylese, his discourse “coming to its climaxes, ever and anon,
in long, deep, chest-shaking bursts of laughter.”
He goes to Scotland sometimes to visit his native heath-clad hills,
having some interest still in the earth there; such names as
Craigenputtock and Ecclefechan, which we have already quoted, stand for
habitable places there to him; or he rides to the seacoast of England in
his vacations, upon his horse Yankee, bought by the sale of his books
here, as we have been told.
How, after all, he gets his living; what proportion of his daily bread
he earns by day-labor or job-work with his pen, what he inherits, what
steals—questions whose answers are so significant, and not to be
omitted in his biography—we, alas! are unable to answer here. It may be
worth the while to state that he is not a Reformer, in our sense of the
term, eats, drinks, and sleeps, thinks and believes, professes and
practices, not according to the New England standard, nor to the Old
English wholly. Nevertheless, we are told that he is a sort of lion in
certain quarters there, “an amicable centre for men of the most opposite
opinions,” and “listened to as an oracle,” “smoking his perpetual pipe.”
A rather tall, gaunt figure, with intent face, dark hair and complexion,
and the air of a student; not altogether well in body, from sitting too
long in his workhouse, he, born in the border country and descended from
moss-troopers, it may be. We have seen several pictures of him here;
one, a full length portrait, with hat and overall, if it did not tell us
much, told the fewest lies; another, we remember, was well said to have
“too combed a look;” one other also we have seen in which we discern
some features of the man we are thinking of; but the only ones worth
remembering, after all, are those which he has unconsciously drawn of
himself.
* * * * *
When we remember how these volumes came over to us, with their
encouragement and provocation from mouth to mouth, and what commotion
they created in many private breasts, we wonder that the country did not
ring, from shore to shore, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, with its
greeting; and the Boons and Crockets of the West make haste to hail him,
whose wide humanity embraces them too. Of all that the packets have
brought over to us, has there been any richer cargo than this? What else
has been English news for so long a season? What else, of late years,
has been England to us—to us who read books, we mean? Unless we
remembered it as the scene where the age of Wordsworth was spending
itself, and a few younger muses were trying their wings, and from time
to time, as the residence of Landon; Carlyle alone, since the death of
Coleridge, has kept the promise of England. It is the best apology for
all the bustle and the sin of commerce, that it has made us acquainted
with the thoughts of this man. Commerce would not concern us much if it
were not for such results as this. New England owes him a debt which she
will be slow to recognize. His earlier essays reached us at a time when
Coleridge’s were the only recent words which had made any notable
impression so far, and they found a field unoccupied by him, before yet
any words of moment had been uttered in our midst. He had this
advantage, too, in a teacher, that he stood near to his pupils; and he
has no doubt afforded reasonable encouragement and sympathy to many an
independent but solitary thinker. Through him, as usher, we have been
latterly, in a great measure, made acquainted with what philosophy and
criticism the nineteenth century had to offer—admitted, so to speak, to
the privileges of the century; and what he may yet have to say, is still
expected here with more interest than any thing else from that quarter.
It is remarkable, but on the whole, perhaps, not to be lamented, that
the world is so unkind to a new book. Any distinguished traveler who
comes to our shores, is likely to get more dinners and speeches of
welcome than he can well dispose of, but the best books, if noticed at
all, meet with coldness and suspicion, or, what is worse, gratuitous,
off-hand criticism. It is plain that the reviewers, both here and
abroad, do not know how to dispose of this man. They approach him too
easily, as if he were one of the men of letters about town, who grace
Mr. Somebody’s administration, merely; but he already belongs to
literature, and depends neither on the favor of reviewers, nor the
honesty of book-sellers, nor the pleasure of readers for his success. He
has more to impart than to receive from his generation. He is another
such a strong and finished workman in his craft as Samuel Johnson was,
and like him, makes the literary class respectable. As few are yet out
of their apprenticeship, or even if they learn to be able writers, are
at the same time able and valuable thinkers. The aged and critical eye,
especially, is incapacitated to appreciate the works of this author. To
such their meaning is impalpable and evanescent, and they seem to abound
only in obstinate mannerisms, Germanisms, and whimsical ravings of all
kinds, with now and then an unaccountably true and sensible remark. On
the strength of this last, Carlyle is admitted to have what is called
genius. We hardly know an old man to whom these volumes are not
hopelessly sealed. The language, they say, is foolishness and a
stumbling-block to them; but to many a clear-headed boy, they are
plainest English, and despatched with such hasty relish as his bread and
milk. The fathers wonder how it is that the children take to this diet
so readily, and digest it with so little difficulty. They shake their
heads with mistrust at their free and easy delight, and remark that “Mr.
Carlyle is a very learned man;” for they, too, not to be out of fashion,
have got grammar and dictionary, if the truth were known, and with the
best faith cudgelled their brains to get a little way into the jungle,
and they could not but confess, as often as they found the clue, that it
was as intricate as Blackstone to follow, if you read it honestly. But
merely reading, even with the best intentions, is not enough, you must
almost have written these books yourself. Only he who has had the good
fortune to read them in the nick of time, in the most perceptive and
recipient season of life, can give any adequate account of them.
Many have tasted of this well with an odd suspicion, as if it were some
fountain Arethuse which had flowed under the sea from Germany, as if the
materials of his books had lain in some garret there, in danger of being
appropriated for waste paper. Over what German ocean, from what
Hercynian forest, he has been imported, piece-meal, into England, or
whether he has now all arrived, we are not informed. This article is not
invoiced in Hamburg, nor in London. Perhaps it was contraband. However,
we suspect that this sort of goods cannot be imported in this way. No
matter how skillful the stevedore, all things being got into sailing
trim, wait for a Sunday, and aft wind, and then weigh anchor, and run up
the main-sheet—straightway what of transcendant and permanent value is
there resists the aft wind, and will doggedly stay behind that
Sunday—it does not travel Sundays; while biscuit and pork make headway,
and sailors cry heave-yo! it must part company, if it open a seam. It is
not quite safe to send out a venture in this kind, unless yourself go
supercargo. Where a man goes, there he is; but the slightest virtue is
immovable—it is real estate, not personal; who would keep it, must
consent to be bought and sold with it.
However, we need not dwell on this charge of a German extraction, it
being generally admitted, by this time, that Carlyle is English, and an
inhabitant of London. He has the English for his mother tongue, though
with a Scotch accent, or never so many accents, and thoughts also, which
are the legitimate growth of native soil, to utter therewith. His style
is eminently colloquial—and no wonder it is strange to meet with in a
book. It is not literary or classical; it has not the music of poetry,
nor the pomp of philosophy, but the rhythms and cadences of conversation
endlessly repeated. It resounds with emphatic, natural, lively, stirring
tones, muttering, rattling, exploding, like shells and shot, and with
like execution. So far as it is a merit in composition, that the written
answer to the spoken word, and the spoken word to a fresh and pertinent
thought in the mind, as well as to the half thoughts, the tumultuary
misgivings and expectancies, this author is, perhaps, not to be matched
in literature. In the streets men laugh and cry, but in books, never;
they “whine, put finger i’ the eye, and sob” only. One would think that
all books of late, had adopted the felling inflexion. “A mother, if she
wishes to sing her child to sleep,” say the musical men, “will always
adopt the falling inflexion.” Would they but choose the rising
inflexion, and wake the child up for once.
He is no mystic either, more than Newton or Arkwright, or Davy—and
tolerates none. Not one obscure line, or half line, did he ever write.
His meaning lies plain as the daylight, and he who runs may read;
indeed, only he who runs _can_ read, and keep up with the meaning. It
has the distinctness of picture to his mind, and he tells us only what
he sees printed in largest English type upon the face of things. He
utters substantial English thoughts in plainest English dialects; for it
must be confessed, he speaks more than one of these. All the shires of
England, and all the shires of Europe, are laid under contribution to
his genius; for to be English does not mean to be exclusive and narrow,
and adapt one’s self to the apprehension of his nearest neighbor only.
And yet no writer is more thoroughly Saxon. In the translation of those
fragments of Saxon poetry, we have met with the same rhythm that occurs
so often in his poem on the French Revolution. And if you would know
where many of those obnoxious Carlyleisms and Germanisms came from, read
the best of Milton’s prose, read those speeches of Cromwell which he has
brought to light, or go and listen once more to your mother’s tongue. So
much for his German extraction.
Indeed, for fluency and skill in the use of the English tongue, he is a
master unrivaled. His felicity and power of expression surpass even any
of his special merits as a historian and critic. Therein his experience
has not failed him, but furnished him with such a store of winged, aye,
and legged words, as only a London life, perchance, could give account
of; we had not understood the wealth of the language before. Nature is
ransacked, and all the resorts and purlieus of humanity are taxed, to
furnish the fittest symbol for his thought. He does not go to the
dictionary, the word-book, but to the word-manufactory itself, and has
made endless work for the lexicographers—yes, he has that same English
for his mother-tongue, that you have, but with him it is no dumb,
muttering, mumbling faculty, concealing the thoughts, but a keen,
unwearied, resistless weapon. He has such command of it as neither you
nor I have; and it would be well for any who have a lost horse to
advertise, or a town-meeting warrant, or a sermon, or a letter to write,
to study this universal letter-writer, for he knows more than the
grammar or the dictionary.
The style is worth attending to, as one of the most important features
of the man which we at this distance can discern. It is for once quite
equal to the matter. It can carry all its load, and never breaks down
nor staggers. His books are solid and workmanlike, as all that England
does; and they are graceful and readable also. They tell of huge labor
done, well done, and all the rubbish swept away, like the bright cutlery
which glitters in shop-windows, while the coke and ashes, the turnings,
filings, dust, and borings, lie far away at Birmingham, unheard of. He
is a masterly clerk, scribe, reporter, and writer. He can reduce to
writing most things—gestures, winks, nods, significant looks, patois,
brogue, accent, pantomime, and how much that had passed for silence
before, does he represent by written words. The countryman who puzzled
the city lawyer, requiring him to write, among other things, his call to
his horses, would hardly have puzzled him; he would have found a word
for it, all right and classical, that would have started his team for
him. Consider the ceaseless tide of speech forever flowing in countless
cellars, garrets, _parlors_; that of the French, says Carlyle, “only
ebbs toward the short hours of night,” and what a drop in the bucket is
the printed word. Feeling, thought, speech, writing, and we might add,
poetry, inspiration—for so the circle is completed; how they gradually
dwindle at length, passing through successive colanders, into your
history and classics, from the roar of the ocean, the murmur of the
forest, to the squeak of a mouse; so much only parsed and spelt out, and
punctuated, at last. The few who can talk like a book, they only get
reported commonly. But this writer reports a new “Lieferung.”
One wonders how so much, after all, was expressed in the old way, so
much here depends upon the emphasis, tone, pronunciation, style, and
spirit of the reading. No writer uses so profusely all the aids to
intelligibility which the printer’s art affords. You wonder how others
had contrived to write so many pages without emphatic or italicised
words, they are so expressive, so natural, so indispensable here, as if
none had ever used the demonstrative pronouns demonstratively before. In
another’s sentences the thought, though it may be immortal, is, as it
were, embalmed, and does not _strike_ you, but here it is so freshly
living, even the body of it, not having passed through the ordeal of
death, that it stirs in the very extremities, and the smallest particles
and pronouns are all alive with it. It is not simple dictionary _it_,
yours or mine, but IT. The words did not come at the command of grammar,
but of a tyrannous, inexorable meaning; not like standing soldiers, by
vote of parliament, but any able-bodied countryman pressed into the
service, for “sire, it is not a revolt, it is a revolution.”
We have never heard him speak, but we should say that Carlyle was a rare
talker. He has broken the ice, and streams freely forth like a spring
torrent. He does not trace back the stream of his thought, silently
adventurous, up to its fountain-head, but is borne away with it, as it
rushes through his brain like a torrent to overwhelm and fertilize. He
holds a talk with you. His audience is such a tumultuous mob of thirty
thousand, as assembled at the University of Paris, before printing was
invented. Philosophy, on the other hand, does not talk, but write, or,
when it comes personally before an audience, lecture or read; and
therefore it must be read to-morrow, or a thousand years hence. But the
talker must naturally be attended to at once; he does not talk on
without an audience; the winds do not long bear the sound of his voice.
Think of Carlyle reading his French Revolution to any audience. One
might say it was never written, but spoken; and thereafter reported and
printed, that those not within sound of his voice might know something
about it. Some men read to you something which they have written, in a
dead _language_, of course, but it may be in a living _letter_, in a
Syriac, or Roman, or Runic character. Men must _speak_ English who can
_write_ Sanscrit; and they must speak a modern language who write,
perchance, an ancient and universal one. We do not live in those days
when the learned used a learned language. There is no writing of Latin
with Carlyle, but as Chaucer, with all reverence to Homer, and Virgil,
and Messieurs the Normans, sung his poetry in the homely Saxon tongue;
and Locke has at least the merit of having done philosophy into
English—so Carlyle has done a different philosophy still further into
English, and thrown open the doors of literature and criticism to the
populace.
Such a style—so diversified and variegated! It is like the face of a
country; it is like a New England landscape, with farm-houses and
villages, and cultivated spots, and belts of forests and
blueberry-swamps round about it, with the fragrance of shad-blossoms and
violets on certain winds. And as for the reading of it, it is novel
enough to the reader who has used only the diligence, and old-line
mail-coach. It is like traveling, sometimes on foot, sometimes in a gig
tandem; sometimes in a full coach, over highways, mended and unmended,
for which you will prosecute the town; on level roads, through French
departments, by Simplon roads over the Alps, and now and then he hauls
up for a relay, and yokes in an unbroken colt of a Pegasus for a leader,
driving off by cart-paths, and across lots, by corduroy roads and
gridiron bridges; and where the bridges are gone, not even a
string-piece left, and the reader has to set his breast and swim. You
have got an expert driver this time, who has driven ten thousand miles,
and was never known to upset; can drive six in hand on the edge of a
precipice, and touch the leaders anywhere with his snapper.
With wonderful art he grinds into paint for his picture all his moods
and experiences, so that all his forces may be brought to the encounter.
Apparently writing without a particular design or responsibility,
setting down his soliloquies from time to time, taking advantage of all
his humors, when at length the hour comes to declare himself, he puts
down in plain English, without quotation marks, what he, Thomas Carlyle,
is ready to defend in the face of the world, and fathers the rest, often
quite as defensible, only more modest, or plain spoken, or insinuating,
upon “Sauerteig,” or some other gentleman long employed on the subject.
Rolling his subject how many ways in his mind, he meets it now face to
face, wrestling with it at arm’s length, and striving to get it down, or
throws it over his head; and if that will not do, or whether it will do
or not, tries the back-stitch and side-hug with it, and downs it
again—scalps it, draws and quarters it, hangs it in chains, and leaves
it to the winds and dogs. With his brows knit, his mind made up, his
will resolved and resistless, he advances, crashing his way through the
host of weak, half-formed, _dilettante_ opinions, honest and dishonest
ways of thinking, with their standards raised, sentimentalities and
conjectures, and tramples them all into dust. See how he prevails; you
don’t even hear the groans of the wounded and dying. Certainly it is not
so well worth the while to look through any man’s eyes at history, for
the time, as through his; and his way of looking at things is fastest
getting adopted by his generation.
It is not in man to determine what his style shall be. He might as well
determine what his thoughts shall be. We would not have had him write
always as in the chapter on Burns, and the Life of Schiller, and
elsewhere. No; his thoughts were ever irregular and impetuous. Perhaps
as he grows older and writes more he acquires a truer expression; it is
in some respects manlier, freer, struggling up to a level with its
fountain-head. We think it is the richest prose style we know of.
Who cares what a man’s style is, so it is intelligible—as intelligible
as his thought. Literally and really, the style is no more than the
_stylus_, the pen he writes with—and it is not worth scraping and
polishing, and gilding, unless it will write his thoughts the better for
it. It is something for use, and not to look at. The question for us is
not whether Pope had a fine style, wrote with a peacock’s feather, but
whether he uttered useful thoughts. Translate a book a dozen times from
one language to another, and what becomes of its style? Most books would
be worn out and disappear in this ordeal. The pen which wrote it is soon
destroyed, but the poem survives. We believe that Carlyle has, after
all, more readers, and is better known to-day for this very originality
of style, and that posterity will have reason to thank him for
emancipating the language, in some measure, from the fetters which a
merely conservative, aimless, and pedantic literary class had imposed
upon it, and setting an example of greater freedom and naturalness. No
man’s thoughts are new, but the style of their expression is the never
failing novelty which cheers and refreshes men. If we were to answer the
question, whether the mass of men, as we know them, talk as the standard
authors and reviewers write, or rather as this man writes, we should say
that he alone begins to write their language at all, and that the former
is, for the most part, the mere effigies of a language, not the best
method of concealing one’s thoughts even, but frequently a method of
doing without thoughts at all.
In his graphic description of Richter’s style, Carlyle describes his own
pretty nearly; and no doubt he first got his own tongue loosened at that
fountain, and was inspired by it to equal freedom and originality. “The
language,” as he says of Richter, “groans with indescribable metaphors
and allusions to all things, human and divine, flowing onward, not like
a river, but like an inundation; circling in complex eddies, chafing and
gurgling, now this way, now that;” but in Carlyle, “the proper current”
never “sinks out of sight amid the boundless uproar.” Again: “His very
language is Titanian—deep, strong, tumultuous, shining with a thousand
hues, fused from a thousand elements, and winding in labyrinthic mazes.”
In short, if it is desirable that a man be eloquent, that he talk much,
and address himself to his own age mainly, then this is not a bad style
of doing it. But if it is desired rather that he pioneer into unexplored
regions of thought, and speaks to silent centuries to come, then,
indeed, we could wish that he had cultivated the style of Goethe more,
that of Richter less; not that Goethe’s is the kind of utterance most to
be prized by mankind, but it will serve for a model of the best that can
be successfully cultivated.
* * * * *
But for style, and fine writing, and Augustan ages—that is but a poor
style, and vulgar writing, and a degenerate age, which allows us to
remember these things. This man has something to communicate. Carlyle’s
are not, in the common sense, works of art in their origin and aim; and
yet, perhaps, no living English writer evinces an equal literary talent.
They are such works of art only as the plough, and corn-mill, and
steam-engine—not as pictures and statues. Others speak with greater
emphasis to scholars, as such, but none so earnestly and effectually to
all who can read. Others give their advice, he gives his sympathy also.
It is no small praise that he does not take upon himself the airs, has
none of the whims, none of the pride, the nice vulgarities, the
starched, impoverished isolation, and cold glitter of the spoiled
children of genius. He does not need to husband his pearl, but excels by
a greater humanity and sincerity.
He is singularly serious and untrivial. We are every where impressed by
the rugged, unwearied, and rich sincerity of the man. We are sure that
he never sacrificed one jot of his honest thought to art or whim, but to
utter himself in the most direct and effectual way, that is the
endeavor. These are merits which will wear well. When time has worn
deeper into the substance of these books, this grain will appear. No
such sermons have come to us here out of England, in late years, as
those of this preacher; sermons to kings, and sermons to peasants, and
sermons to all intermediate classes. It is in vain that John Bull, or
any of his cousins, turns a deaf ear, and pretends not to hear them,
nature will not soon be weary of repeating them. There are words less
obviously true, more for the ages to hear, perhaps, but none so
impossible for this age not to hear. What a cutting cimiter was that
“past and present,” going through heaps of silken stuffs, and glibly
through the necks of men, too, without their knowing it, leaving no
trace. He has the earnestness of a prophet. In an age of pedantry and
dilettantism, he has no grain of these in his composition. There is no
where else, surely, in recent readable English, or other books, such
direct and effectual teaching, reproving, encouraging, stimulating,
earnestly, vehemently, almost like Mahomet, like Luther; not looking
behind him to see how his _Opera Omnia_ will look, but forward to other
work to be done. His writings are a gospel to the young of this
generation; they will hear his manly, brotherly speech with responsive
joy, and press forward to older or newer gospels.
* * * * *
We should omit a main attraction in these books, if we said nothing of
their humor. Of this indispensable pledge of sanity, without some
leaven, of which the abstruse thinker may justly be suspected of
mysticism, fanaticism, or insanity, there is a super-abundance in
Carlyle. Especially the transcendental philosophy needs the leaven of
humor to render it light and digestible. In his later and longer works
it is an unfailing accompaniment, reverberating through pages and
chapters, long sustained without effort. The very punctuation, the
italics, the quotation marks, the blank spaces and dashes, and the
capitals, each and all are pressed into its service.
Every man, of course, has his fane, from which even the most innocent
conscious humor is excluded; but in proportion as the writer’s position
is high above his fellows, the range of his humor is extended. To the
thinker, all the institutions of men, as all imperfection, viewed from
the point of equanimity, are legitimate subjects of humor. Whatever is
not necessary, no matter how sad or personal, or universal a grievance,
is, indeed, a jest more or less sublime.
Carlyle’s humor is vigorous and Titanic, and has more sense in it than
the sober philosophy of many another. It is not to be disposed of by
laughter and smiles merely; it gets to be too serious for that—only
they may laugh who are not hit by it. For those who love a merry jest,
this is a strange kind of fun—rather too practical joking, if they
understand it. The pleasant humor which the public loves, is but the
innocent pranks of the ball-room, harmless flow of animal spirits, the
light plushy pressure of dandy pumps, in comparison. But when an
elephant takes to treading on your corns, why then you are lucky if you
sit high, or wear cowhide. His humor is always subordinate to a serious
purpose, though often the real charm for the reader, is not so much in
the essential progress and final upshot of the chapter, as in this
indirect side-light illustration of every hue. He sketches first with
strong, practical English pencil, the essential features in outline,
black on white, more faithfully than Dryasdust would have done, telling
us wisely whom and what to mark, to save time, and then with brush of
camel’s hair, or sometimes with more expeditious swab, he lays on the
bright and fast colors of his humor everywhere. One piece of solid work,
be it known, we have determined to do, about which let there be no
jesting, but all things else under the heavens, to the right and left of
that, are for the time fair game. To us this humor is not wearisome, as
almost every other is. Rabelais, for instance, is intolerable; one
chapter is better than a volume—it may be sport to him, but it is death
to us. A mere humorist, indeed, is a most unhappy man; and his readers
are most unhappy also.
Humor is not so distinct a quality as for the purposes of criticism, it
is commonly regarded, but allied to every, even the divinest faculty.
The familiar and cheerful conversation about every hearth-side, if it be
analyzed, will be found to be sweetened by this principle. There is not
only a never-failing, pleasant, and earnest humor kept up there,
embracing the domestic affairs, the dinner, and the scolding, but there
is also a constant run upon the neighbors, and upon church and state,
and to cherish and maintain this, in a great measure, the fire is kept
burning, and the dinner provided. There will be neighbors, parties to a
very genuine, even romantic friendship, whose whole audible salutation
and intercourse, abstaining from the usual cordial expressions, grasping
of hands, or affectionate farewells, consists in the mutual play and
interchange of a genial and healthy humor, which excepts nothing, not
even themselves, in its lawless range. The child plays continually, if
you will let it, and all its life is a sort of practical humor of a very
pure kind, often of so fine and ethereal a nature, that its parents, its
uncles and cousins, can in no wise participate in it, but must stand
aloof in silent admiration, and reverence even. The more quiet the more
profound it is. Even nature is observed to have her playful moods or
aspects, of which man seems sometimes to be the sport.
But, after all, we could sometimes dispense with the humor, though
unquestionably incorporated in the blood, if it were replaced by this
author’s gravity. We should not apply to himself, without qualification,
his remarks on the humor of Richter. With more repose in his inmost
being, his humor would become more thoroughly genial and placid. Humor
is apt to imply but a half satisfaction at best. In his pleasantest and
most genial hour, man smiles but as the globe smiles, and the works of
nature. The fruits _dry_ ripe, and much as we relish some of them, in
their green and pulpy state, we lay up for our winter store, not out of
these, but the rustling autumnal harvests. Though we never weary of this
vivacious wit, while we are perusing its work, yet when we remember it
from afar, we sometimes feel balked and disappointed, missing the
security, the simplicity, and frankness, even the occasional magnanimity
of acknowledged dullness and bungling. This never-failing success and
brilliant talent become a reproach. To the most practical reader the
humor is certainly too obvious and constant a quality. When we are to
have dealings with a man, we prize the good faith and valor of soberness
and gravity. There is always a more impressive statement than consists
with these victorious comparisons. Besides, humor does not wear well. It
is commonly enough said, that a joke will not bear repeating. The
deepest humor will not keep. Humors do not circulate but stagnate, or
circulate partially. In the oldest literature, in the Hebrew, the
Hindoo, the Persian, the Chinese, it is rarely humor, even the most
divine, which still survives, but the most sober and private, painful or
joyous thoughts, maxims of duty, to which the life of all men may be
referred. After time has sifted the literature of a people, there is
left only their SCRIPTURE, for that is WRITING, _par excellence_. This
is as true of the poets, as of the philosophers and moralists by
profession; for what subsides in any of these is the moral only, to
re-appear as dry land at some remote epoch.
We confess that Carlyle’s humor is rich, deep, and variegated, in direct
communication with the back bone and risible muscles of the globe—and
there is nothing like it; but much as we relish this jovial, this rapid
and detergeous way of conveying one’s views and impressions, when we
would not converse but meditate, we pray for a man’s diamond edition of
his thought, without the colored illuminations in the margin—the fishes
and dragons, and unicorns, the red or the blue ink, but its initial
letter in distinct skeleton type, and the whole so clipped and condensed
down to the very essence of it, that time will have little to do. We
know not but we shall immigrate soon, and would fain take with us all
the treasures of the east, and all kinds of _dry_, portable soups, in
small tin canisters, which contain whole herds of English beeves, boiled
down, will be acceptable.
The difference between this flashing, fitful writing and pure
philosophy, is the difference between flame and light. The flame,
indeed, yields light, but when we are so near as to observe the flame,
we are apt to be incommoded by the heat and smoke. But the sun, that old
Platonist, is set so far off in the heavens, that only a genial
summer-heat and ineffable day-light can reach us. But many a time, we
confess, in wintery weather, we have been glad to forsake the sun-light,
and warm us by these Promethean flames.
Carlyle must undoubtedly plead guilty to the charge of mannerism. He not
only has his vein, but his peculiar manner of working it. He has a style
which can be imitated, and sometimes is an imitator of himself. Every
man, though born and bred in the metropolis of the world, will still
have some provincialism adhering to him; but in proportion as his aim is
simple and earnest, he approaches at once the most ancient and the most
modern men. There is no mannerism in the Scriptures. The style of
proverbs, and indeed of all _maxims_, whether measured by sentences or
by chapters, if they may be said to have any style, is one, and as the
expression of one voice, merely an account of the matter by the latest
witness. It is one advantage enjoyed by men of science, that they use
only formulas which are universal. The common language and the common
sense of mankind, it is most uncommon to meet with in the individual.
Yet liberty of thought and speech is only liberty to think the universal
thought, and speak the universal language of men, instead of being
enslaved to a particular mode. Of this universal speech there is very
little. It is equable and sure; from a depth within man which is beyond
education and prejudice.
Certainly, no critic has anywhere said what is more to the purpose, than
this which Carlyle’s own writings furnish, which we quote, as well for
its intrinsic merit as for its pertinence here. “It is true,” says he,
thinking of Richter, “the beaten paths of literature lead the safeliest
to the goal; and the talent pleases us most, which submits to shine with
new gracefulness through old forms. Nor is the noblest and most peculiar
mind too noble or peculiar for working by prescribed laws; Sophocles,
Shakspeare, Cervantes, and in Richter’s own age, Goethe, how little did
they innovate on the given forms of composition, how much in the spirit
they breathed into them! All this is true; and Richter must lose of our
esteem in proportion.” And again, in the chapter on Goethe, “We read
Goethe for years before we come to see wherein the distinguishing
peculiarity of his understanding, of his disposition, even of his way of
writing, consists! It seems quite a simple style, [that of his?]
remarkable chiefly for its calmness, its perspicuity, in short, its
commonness; and yet it is the most uncommon of all styles.” And this,
too, translated for us by the same pen from Schiller, which we will
apply not merely to the outward form of his works, but to their inner
form and substance. He is speaking of the artist. “Let some beneficent
divinity snatch him, when a suckling, from the breast of his mother, and
nurse him with the milk of a better time, that he may ripen to his full
stature beneath a distant Grecian sky. And having grown to manhood, let
him return, a foreign shape, into his century; not, however, to delight
it by his presence, but, dreadful, like the son of Agamemnon, to purify
it. The matter of his works he will take from the present, but their
form he will derive from a nobler time; nay, from beyond all time, from
the absolute unchanging unity of his own nature.”
But enough of this. Our complaint is already out of all proportion to
our discontent.
Carlyle’s works, it is true, have not the stereotyped success which we
call classic. They are a rich but inexpensive entertainment, at which we
are not concerned lest the host has strained or impoverished himself to
feed his guests. It is not the most lasting word, nor the loftiest
wisdom, but rather the word which comes last. For his genius it was
reserved to give expression to the thoughts which were throbbing in a
million breasts. He has plucked the ripest fruit in the public garden;
but this fruit already least concerned the tree that bore it, which was
rather perfecting the bud at the foot of the leaf stalk. His works are
not to be studied, but read with a swift satisfaction. Their flavor and
gust is like what poets tell of the froth of wine, which can only be
tasted once and hastily. On a review we can never find the pages we had
read. The first impression is the truest and the deepest, and there is
no reprint, no _double entendre_, so to speak, for the alert reader. Yet
they are in some degree true natural products in this respect. All
things are but once, and never repeated. The first faint blushes of the
morning, gilding the mountain tops, the pale phosphor and
saffron-colored clouds do verily transport us to the morning of
creation; but what avails it to travel eastward, or look again there an
hour hence? We should be as far in the day ourselves, mounting toward
our meridian. These works were designed for such complete success that
they serve but for a single occasion. It is the luxury of art, when its
own instrument is manufactured for each particular and present use. The
knife which slices the bread of Jove ceases to be a knife when this
service is rendered.
[_Conclusion in our next._
* * * * *
SONG.
BY WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT.
These prairies glow with flowers,
These groves are tall and fair;
The mocking-bird with music fills
The fragrant morning air.
And yet I pine to see
My native hill once more,
And hear the sparrow’s friendly chirp
Beside its cottage door.
And he for whom I left
My native hill and brook,
Alas! I sometimes think I trace
A coldness in his look.
If I have lost his love,
I know my heart will break;
And haply they I left for him
Will sorrow for my sake.
* * * * *
THE MIDSHIPMAN’S FAREWELL.
BY MRS. CORNELIA DA PONTE.
When slumber seals those heavenly eyes,
And dreams of rapture round thee glow,
When angels watch, for angels love
To guard the pure from ills below,
Mine in that hour must keep the watch
Alone upon the midnight sea,
As winds and waves with hated speed
Bear me away from home and thee.
Yes, mine shall fix their silent gaze,
Nor shrink if danger hover near;
This hand that trembles now in thine,
Must grasp the sword without a fear;
And for the music of thy voice,
The stormy wave with shout of men,
For whispers soft, words stern and cold
Must be the sounds that hail me then.
The hour has come, fresh blows the gale,
Our ship moves down yon tide afar,
Away, away beyond that tide
Thy image follows as a star;
Farewell to thee, farewell to all,
My native land and skies above;
O who will greet the wanderer now
With soothing words or smiles of love?
Remember me, ’tis all I ask,
When others gaze, when others sigh,
When others plead with bending knee,
And drink the beauty of thine eye,
Remember then, for e’en in dreams,
Though bright they come, this heart shall weep,
My thirsting spirit vainly seek
Thy image on the lonely deep.
* * * * *
LAW AND LOVE.
OR GAINING A CASE.
BY ICHABOD JONES.
“So, Oliver, you have a case with which to commence your career at the
bar?”
“Yes, thanks to Uncle Scott, I have.”
“And will you allow me to ask what it is?”
“Well, to tell you that, I must first know myself. I believe it to be in
relation to a contested will, but as to the particulars you are as wise
as I.”
“A will case, eh! I have heard old lawyers say they were the best of
cases, as far as fee is concerned.”
“To-morrow I am to have an interview with my client. My uncle gave such
a glowing description of her that he has quite raised my curiosity.”
“A lady for a client! why that’s better yet. By the bye, Oliver, you
seem somewhat indifferent to the divine sex; and yet you have a warm
heart.”
“For friendship, James, but how can I think of love, the owner of the
six chairs, book-case and table you see, and nothing but my profession
to rely on for the future. Love never flourishes in so stern a climate.”
“We have the best authority for knowing that it lives through the
fiercest tempest, as well as under the beautiful skies of Italy. What do
you think, Oliver, of a rich wife?”
“I think such advice comes very badly from you. Let me ask in turn why
you are about to connect yourself with a penniless girl, when you might
win the greatest fortune in town.”
This question came to the point, but it received no other answer than a
light laugh as the young man turned on his heel to go.
“Well, Oliver, I wish you great success in the cause of this lovely
client. Good day,” said he, in the gleeful tone of a heart free from
care. And, indeed, if this could be the condition of any mortal in this
care-worn world, it was that of James Ashly. Thus far in life his path
had been strewn with flowers, and in the horizon of the future no clouds
were visible. The son of an opulent merchant, endowed by nature with a
good mind, and possessing in a rare degree that animation only to be
acquired by intercourse with gay society, he was an unusual favorite
with those in whose company he mingled, especially the fairer portion,
whose gentle hearts are ever gracious, to that easy air and manner, too
much neglected by their fancied lords and superiors. But he joined with
these superficial graces of address, a cultivated intellect, stored with
much useful information, which are so seldom united as to be deemed
inconsistent, if not antagonistical. By the latter he retained all the
good will and esteem which by the former he gained.
In his extensive acquaintance no friend was more valued than Oliver
Barton, a young lawyer, in whose office the above conversation occurred,
and whose fortune consisted of little more than a well-furnished mind
and generous heart—a kind of wealth little appreciated in this
matter-of-fact world. He had been educated by a maternal uncle, who
rejoiced in the name of Scott, and having made choice of the legal
profession, was fitted in due course for the bar. In the maiden speech
he delivered, shortly after his admission, he gave promise of future
eminence and distinction. Unlike his friend, he was reserved and
somewhat diffident, but his intrinsic worth and handsome form won favor
and respect by less striking, but equally certain means. It was only
when well known that those nice shades of merit, which so permanently
recommend their possessor, could be discovered in his character. His
prominent forehead and rather heavy brow gave a slight shade of
melancholy to his countenance, but their intellectual expression,
increased by the steady light of a dark eye, commanded admiration. When
he smiled a row of glistening teeth revealed themselves, and his
features were lit up with a life and joy rendered more striking by their
usual thoughtful repose.
CHAPTER II.
The next day Oliver Barton proceeded to his office at an earlier hour
than usual; so early indeed that most of those adjoining were still
closed. Being of a meditative turn of mind, and even inclined to
castle-building, this era of his life afforded much subject for thought.
“If I succeed,” thought he, “it will be the commencement of an extensive
practice.” Forthwith, upon this contingency, he proceeded to erect a
magnificent superstructure in the air, which was finally blown away by
it occurring to him that he might _not_ succeed. Unwilling to
contemplate this side of the picture, and remembering his client was a
lady, he took from the table before him “Chesterfield’s Letters,” in
hopes of finding something there both useful and entertaining.
Notwithstanding the agreeable wit and advice of his lordship, the hours
passed heavily. At last in came Uncle Scott, a little, genteel-looking
person, in tight pantaloons and well-brushed coat, carrying his
ivory-headed cane under his arm. He looked the very personification of a
precise old bachelor, who had lived in the great world and grown wise by
experience.
“Here I am, according to appointment,” said he, pulling a showy watch
from its fob, “just half past twelve, and we are to be at Miss Medford’s
at one.”
“I’m ready, uncle,” returned Oliver, after having changed his coat and
settled his hat before the glass with extra attention. Mr. Scott, like
most old bachelors, was very punctual in fulfilling engagements.
“You told me, I believe, that Miss Medford was an orphan?” said Oliver,
when they had reached the street.
“Yes, poor thing,” answered Mr. Scott, “she lost her mother while still
an infant, and it has now been ten years since her father, Charles
Medford, died. He was a generous, noble-hearted fellow, but too much
given to fine company and expense. I recollect him well, for we were
young men together, and dashed about in the same gay society. He married
a beautiful woman for love,” and Uncle Scott sighed, “with her face for
her fortune, and as his own amounted to little more, the match was any
thing but happy. To be deprived of the only parent she had ever known
nearly broke Clara’s heart, and she wept long and bitterly. So touching
was her grief it affected the heart of her uncle, John Medford, who, as
he was a bachelor, adopted her, and resolved to cherish her as his own.
He was one of the most singular men I have ever known. Withered and
forbidding in appearance, crabbed in temper, and particular about money
matters even to parsimony, he was no attractive object to so tender a
flower as Clara. But, by her childish love and attention, she insinuated
herself into his unkindly heart, and soothed the many cares of the
declining years of his life—so that even he blessed her. At his death
the principal amount of his property was bequeathed to her, but with
this singular provision, that if she marry within ten years it was to go
to some distant relative. Among the many whims of the old man, he
particularly hated a branch of his family, the children of a disobedient
sister. These are now endeavoring to prove the illegality of the will in
question, as they are entirely cut off by it from all share in his
estate; but you shall hear more of the circumstances from her own lips.”
They were now at their destination, and in a few moments found
themselves seated in a spacious and richly furnished parlor, containing
many indications of female taste and attention. On the centre-table lay
a small boquet of beautiful flowers, blushing with the freshness of the
field, but which, on a closer inspection, were found to be artificial,
doubtless moulded under the delicate fingers of the presiding fairy. A
number of beautifully shaded landscape sketches next attracted Oliver’s
attention, and as he turned from one to another he would have forgotten
the dry subject on which he came, but for the promptings of Mr. Scott.
They had not waited long before Clara Medford entered. If Oliver had
been affected by her story he was still more touched with her winning
grace and beauty, enhanced rather than obscured by the deep mourning in
which she was dressed. She was somewhat pale, but he would have found no
difficulty in accounting for this in her late affliction, had not the
sweet expression of her hazel eye more than atoned for it. Her mien was
so easy and unaffected that Oliver, who had dreaded the awkward
formality of so embarrassing an interview, felt at once perfectly
self-possessed. There was something serene and even childlike in her
countenance, which was extremely interesting, and she seemed polite,
rather because it was natural to her, than in obedience to the
requirements of custom.
We leave them to converse over the business of the suit, of which the
reader already knows sufficient for the purposes of our narrative.