"One evening, by the light of a splendid moon, which was
reflected from the sea of Marmora, and the violet summits of
Mount Olympus, I sat alone under the cypresses of the 'Ladders
of the Dead;' those cypresses which overshadow innumerable
tombs of Mussulmans, and descend from the heights of Pera to
the shores of the sea. No one ever passes at that hour: you
would suppose yourself an hundred miles from the capital, if a
confused hum, wafted by the wind, was not occasionally heard,
which speedily died away among the branches of the cypress.
These sounds weakened by distance; the songs of the sailors in
the vessels; the stroke of the oars in the water; the drums of
the military bands in the barracks; the songs of the women who
lulled their children to sleep; the cries of the muetzlim, who,
from the summits of the minarets, called the faithful to
evening prayers; the evening gun which boomed across the
Bosphorus, the signal of repose to the fleet--all these sounds
combined to form one confused murmur, which strangely
contrasted with the perfect silence around me, and produced the
deepest impression. The seraglio, with its vast peninsula, dark
with plane-trees and cypresses, stood forth like a promontory
of forests between the two seas which slept beneath my eyes.
The moon shone on the numerous kiosks; and the old walls of the
palace of Amurath stood forth like huge rocks from the obscure
gloom of the plane-trees. Before me was the scene, in my mind
was the recollection, of all the glorious and sinister events
which had there taken place. The impression was the strongest,
the most overwhelming, which a sensitive mind could receive.
All was there mingled--man and God, society and nature, mental
agitation, the melancholy repose of thought. I know not whether
I participated in the great movement of associated beings who
enjoy or suffer in that mighty assemblage, or in that nocturnal
slumber of the elements, which murmured thus, and raised the
mind above the cares of cities and empires into the bosom of
nature and of God."--(III. 283-284.)
"Il faut du tems," says Voltaire, "pourque les grandes reputations
murissent." As a describer of nature, we place Lamartine at the head of
all writers, ancient or modern--above Scott or Chateaubriand, Madame de
Staël or Humboldt. He aims at a different object from any of these great
writers. He does not, like them, describe the emotion produced on the
mind by the contemplation of nature; he paints the objects in the scene
itself, their colours and traits, their forms and substance, their
lights and shadows. A painter following exactly what he portrays, would
make a glorious gallery of landscapes. He is, moreover, a charming poet,
an eloquent debater, and has written many able and important works on
politics; yet we never recollect, during the last twenty years, to have
heard his name mentioned in English society except once, when an old and
caustic, but most able judge, now no more, said, "I have been reading
Lamartine's _Travels in the East_--it seems a perfect rhapsody."
We must not suppose, however, from this, that the English nation is
incapable of appreciating the highest degree of eminence in the fine
arts, or that we are never destined to rise to excellence in any but the
mechanical. It is the multitude of subordinate writers of moderate merit
who obstruct all the avenues to great distinction, which really
occasions the phenomenon. Strange as it may appear, it is a fact
abundantly proved by literary history, and which may be verified by
every day's experience, that men are in general insensible to the
highest class of intellectual merit when it first appears; and that it
is by slow degrees and the opinion oft repeated, of the really superior
in successive generations, that it is at length raised to its deserved
and lasting pedestal. There are instances to the contrary, such as Scott
and Byron: but they are the exceptions, not the rule. We seldom do
justice but to the dead. Contemporary jealousy, literary envy, general
timidity, the dread of ridicule, the confusion of rival works, form so
many obstacles to the speedy acquisition of a great living reputation.
To the illustrious of past ages, however, we pay an universal and
willing homage. Contemporary genius appears with a twinkling and
uncertain glow, like the shifting and confused lights of a great city
seen at night from a distance: while the spirits of the dead shine with
an imperishable lustre, far removed in the upper firmament from the
distractions of the rivalry of a lower world.