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Title: The Yale Literary Magazine (Vol. I, No. 5, July 1836)
Author: Students of Yale
Release Date: December 12, 2021 [eBook #66934]
Language: English
Produced by: hekula03, sf2001, and the Online Distributed Proofreading
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE YALE LITERARY MAGAZINE (VOL.
I, NO. 5, JULY 1836) ***
THE YALE LITERARY MAGAZINE.
CONDUCTED BY THE
=STUDENTS OF YALE COLLEGE=.
[Illustration: “Dum mens grata manet, nomen laudesque Yalenses
Cantabunt Soboles, unanimique Patres.”]
NO. V.
JULY, 1836.
NEW HAVEN:
HERRICK & NOYES.
MDCCCXXXVI.
CONTENTS.
Page.
On the Simplicity of Greatness, 169
Contentment, 171
The Heart, 172
The Sister’s Faith, 175
To ********* ******, 185
Metrical Translations of a Latin Stanza, 186
The Influence of Moral Feeling on the
Pleasures of the Imagination, No. III, 189
A Misanthrope’s Farewell to the World, 192
The Coffee Club, No. III, 193
Hora Odontalgica, 204
Greek Anthology, No. V, 207
THE
YALE LITERARY MAGAZINE.
VOL. I. JULY, 1836. NO. 5.
ON THE SIMPLICITY OF GREATNESS.
Great men are always simple--strikingly so; simple in their thoughts
and feelings, and in the expression of them. Nor is this an unimportant
characteristic. For to one who reflects how few artless men there
are--how much there is that is factitious, in the character of almost
every one whom he meets; most of all, in the character of those who
ape this same simplicity; how much many men consult fashion, custom,
and mode for their thoughts and feelings, instead of their own hearts
and minds, till they almost cease to have any of their own; and when
it is not so, how much rules of thinking and of feeling insensibly
influence us;--to such a one, true simplicity will appear worthy the
name of a rare virtue, and further, of an important one--especially, if
he considers how much even the smallest act of cunning or affectation
impairs the honesty and high-mindedness of him who allows it. As such,
we might express our admiration of it in the great man, and derive from
thence a strong recommendation.
But it may bring out more important results to ask why, especially by
what peculiar mental habits it is, that minds which might, with the
best reason, make a parade of their powers, are apparently so utterly
unconscious of them, and so thoroughly simple. A chief reason is, that
a great mind is completely absorbed in the objects before it, to the
entire forgetfulness of self. The objects must be great certainly, thus
to fill the mind; there must also be great powers to grasp them. Both
these things are supposed in the truly great man. But the peculiar
feature of his mind is this complete absorption in the objects of
contemplation. It is carried forth beyond the cares and complexities of
what most men call self, and for a time, at least, identifies itself
with its object. His own powers, as things of selfish pride, are the
last to concern his thoughts, and are only instruments of bringing
before him the truth. In this he approaches what may be regarded as
perfect mental action. For what are these powers but instruments? And
what is the mind in itself apart from its objects? Truths so plain seem
to be forgotten by those who idolize mental power in themselves and
others, more than they revere the truth, on which it is, or should be
employed.
To this it may be added, that the great mind is generally absorbed by
single objects. The one truth which absorbed the mind of Newton, was
that of the law of universal gravitation. All the energies of Bacon’s
mind were active in the elucidation of the single truth, that facts are
at the foundation of reasoning. The same has been true of those who
have made plain great moral truths. Indeed the end of every mind which
acts to purpose is more or less definitely the perception of unity. But
many minds mistake the single truth which explains the whole subject,
or assuming that which is false, or taking up minor relations, or
seeking complication for the love of it, go a-raving amid cycles and
epicycles, extent of knowledge only making the confusion greater.
You shall see men disquieting themselves in vain, and plunging into hot
and endless debate, all for the overlooking of some single truth which
puts an end to all question. It is this tendency towards unity dimly
seen in ordinary minds, which is brought out into a distinct habit,
in minds of a higher order, and gives them their peculiar oneness and
simplicity.
But we have not spoken of that which leads to this absorption of the
mind in its objects. It is the love of truth--of all truth. Not that
other minds have none of it, but it lies mixed, often insensibly,
with other desires which reflect upon self, or reach out towards some
foreign end, and thus mar its simplicity. There is the love of favor,
the ambition of rivaling some admired forerunner or competitor, the
desire of seeming superior to the vulgar crowd, the love of victory in
discussion. More laudable than these, there is the desire of success
in some pursuit or project, or a desire of acquiring what may be
useful. More nearly affecting the mind’s operations, there is the love
of novelty for novelty’s sake, the love of system, and the desire of
bringing forth to the world something new. Besides these there are a
thousand prejudiced feelings, aside from the simple love of the truth,
which influence men in forming their opinions and in searching after
truth. It is easy to see how all these differ in their nature from
love of truth for the truth’s sake, and, of course, when blended with
it destroy its simplicity. It is not a sense of duty even which mainly
influences the great mind in its pursuit of truth. The love of it in
such a mind is a passion, an appetite, which asks simply the reception
of its natural food; an appetite ever enlarging itself, “growing
by that it feeds on.” From these peculiar habits of mind, namely,
absorption in its objects, and for the most part in single objects,
guided by a simple love of the truth, there arises further, great
simplicity in the feelings with which the truth is contemplated when
it is discovered. There is nothing of a feeling of arrogance in the
great mind--a feeling that it has established a separate domain, about
which it alone is competent to legislate, and which none but itself may
touch or enter. Nor is there any thing like envy in such a mind. On
the contrary, he is ready to welcome with the hand and the heart of a
brother, and with warm gratitude, any who shall make new revelations of
that which he most loves and adores. Nor has he any such love of system
as would lead him knowingly to overlook any one truth. Still less is
there a feeling of triumph after discussion, except as the triumphs of
truth are his own. Least of all is there a feeling of pedantry, the
self satisfied glee with which little minds chuckle over their small
apartment in the world of mind, ready to give battle to any one who
shall dispute that it is a magnificent temple. The feelings of a great
mind are as different from these as possible. His is the simplicity of
reverence. He gazes upon some truth, till it rises before him in its
full dimensions, and to it he pays humble adoration. Inspired by this
feeling he forgets himself, and comes forth with simplicity to deliver
his message to others, seeking not their praise, and caring not for
their censure. He needs not, and does not comprehend the arts which
others use to attract applause, for he can afford to be simple.
His again is the simplicity of wonder. “_Nil admirari_” is a maxim
of none but common minds, who can contrive to wrap themselves up in
self-sufficiency of intellect, while they trust in it and laugh at
the absurdity and childishness of him who finds any thing at which to
wonder. Thus such an one will exultingly go forth in the full pride
of scientific attainment, esteeming all things as certain when he has
ascribed them to the laws of nature; not thinking of the mysterious
agency ever at work to maintain those laws. Such a mind has no wonder,
because it has no powers to carry it forward into the mysterious and
illimitable in the universe. Another feeling of the great mind in view
of great objects, is that of simple ignorance. It has gone forth, and
seen its own narrow limits, and then it pauses and is humble, conscious
how like a child it is. Such are some of the features which a great
mind exhibits, and such the results to which it tends, the expression
of which is marked by that simplicity of which we have spoken.
G.
CONTENTMENT.
Give me a heart with all its wants supplied,
And those wants few--and I will ask no more;
For thus, I’m at so proud an altitude
On Fortune’s ladder, that I can look down
Upon the proudest monarch of the globe.
THE HEART.
ADDRESSED TO MISS ----.
“A lady asks the Minstrel’s rhyme.”
The Minstrel hears--for his the prime
When words are sweet as sweet bells’ chime,
If Beauty calls;
And Love keeps sentry for the time,
In Faery halls.
And Love peeps o’er the Minstrel’s shoulder--
Love makes the Minstrel’s spirit bolder--
And Love sighs that he is not older--
Else he, apart,
Would weave a wreath of flowers, and fold her
Into his heart.
And Love is in his hey-day dress,
And Love has many a soft caress;
And laughing cheek, and glossy tress,
And dimpled hand,
Glance in the Minstrel’s eye, and bless
His dreaming land.
And softly swells, and sweet accords
The melody that earth affords--
Glee, life, the melody of birds,
And things that come
Into the heart, like childhood’s words,
Nestling at home.
Then should the Minstrel mark the tone--
The look, the tongue would half disown--
The heart, when its disguise is thrown
Freely away--
And chant his sweetest fytte, and own
His lady’s sway.
Soft was the melody it gave--
Soft, as a wind-dissevered wave--
Soft, as the melody the brave
Hear, soothing, deep,
When in the patriot’s earth-wept grave,
They sink to sleep.
Yet softer far than each, and all--
Than note of bird in forest hall--
Than angel hymns when patriots fall,
Now be the lay;
For Love _must_ answer Beauty’s call,
And we obey.
And yet, the theme--the heart! strange thing,
And worthy of a nobler string!
Varied as is a zephyr’s wing
The lyre should be,
That sings as ever lyre should sing,
O, heart! of thee.
Thine are the thoughts that bring and bless,
Thine are the feelings that distress,
Thine are the passions that oppress
And wake our fears,
Man’s curse, and yet man’s happiness--
Man’s joys and tears.
And wonderful thy power that flings
O’er all, its moods and colorings,
Turns joy to gloom--gives grief the wings
Of Fays that, free,
Revel about the forest springs,
Or haunted tree.
The light--when morn and music come,
The bird--within its forest home,
The house-bee with its rolling drum,
Aye! and each flower,
And winds, and woods, and waters dumb--
These by thy power,
Become distinct and separate images,
Link’d to the mind by closest ties--
A treasure-house where gather’d lies
Food for long years,
When after life the spirit tries
With toils and tears.
And thus, insensibly, we feel
A soothing passion o’er us steal,
Binding for aye, for “wo and weal”
Our souls to Nature,
Till, like a mirror, they reveal
Her ev’ry feature.
And then, when comes adversity,
And loves grow cold, and friendships die,
And aches the heart, and clouds thy eye,
Shadows of pain--
The mind can on itself rely,
And live again.
And thus--above earth’s petty things,
Its gorgeous gauds, and glitterings,
Its camps, and courts, and crowds, and kings,
Castle and hall--
The mind can ruffle its proud wings
And scout them all.
Grandeur and greatness--what are they!
Playthings for fools: the king to day,
To morrow, is a lump of clay;
And yet, elate,
We worry through Life’s little way--
To rot in state.
And what is fame? Ask him who lies
Where cool Cephissus winding hies;
Ask him who shook Rome’s destinies--
Shatter’d her state!
There’s not a dungeon wretch that dies,
But is as great.
What’s the world’s pride! What it _hath_ been--
A thing that’s groveling and unclean--
A spur to lust--a cloak of sin--
Seemingly fair;
Yet when the damp grave locks us in,
How _mean_ we are.
What’s the world’s love! An empty boon,
Witness it, Bard of “Bonny doon.”
Witness it, He with “Sandal shoon,”
And Abbotsford--
A light burnt to its socket, soon
A quip--a word.
And then, as seeks the wounded bird
The deepest shades to moan unheard,
The heart turns from each friendly word,
And comfort flies--
Feels the full curse of “hope deferred,”
Despairs, and dies.
And such the heart’s bad passions. Let
Its greener laurels flourish yet--,
Hope, friendship, ne’er let earth forget
How sweet they are;
For the poor heart’s not desolate
When love is there.
Love--tis earth’s holiest principle!
From every thing we catch its spell!
But more, from the sweet thoughts that dwell
In woman’s breast--
Friendship and faith immutable
By her possess’d.
Then, lady! be it all thy care,
To be as wise as thou art fair;
Be wary--think each smile a snare--
Shun pleasure’s lure;
Farewell! thou _hast_ the Minstrel’s prayer--
Be good--be pure.
THE SISTER’S FAITH.
‘Our affections are
Heaven’s influences, that by the good they do,
Betray their origin.
‘So I have seen
A frail flower that the storm has trampled on--
Lovely in ruins; for though broken quite
With its affliction, ’twas a flow’ret still,
And ask’d from me affection.’
The allotments of providence are as various as are our several
necessities. To one is granted wealth, to another talents, to a third
family; every man, however humble, finds himself the possessor of some
separate good the which has not been equally vouchsafed to all, and in
that particular good whatsoever it be is treasured his individual sum
of human happiness. It is a beautiful thing that this is so, for hence
a greater degree of comfort among men, as each is pleased with his own;
and to a thinking man it is fraught with deep and powerful truths, that
tell greatly both upon the understanding and the heart. In it is seen
the kind plan of an ever present, ever watchful Deity, studious for our
comforts; and the mind is at once fired with a nobler energy, and the
heart is quickened with newer faith to works of obedience, and taught
to look with renewed confidence and an unclouded eye through sorrows
here, and rest on that star of hope beyond the grave.
Among the blessings of providence, there is none which exceeds the
rich love of a sister. He who has been blessed with such, whether he
knows it or not, has ever had near him a fountain of sweet thoughts
and gentle sympathies, that could have made the darkest day cheerful.
Especially has he been blessed, if circumstances have contrived to
break him from all other ties of consanguinity, and in joys and
sorrows he has witnessed the development of those beautiful principles
which enter so largely into the composition of her character, for the
development of those principles must have been attended by such love
and considerateness on her part, as only served to make them more
beautiful, and bring them nearer the attributes of angels.
A sister’s love is disinterested, and therefore invaluable. No one has
ever doubted but that the female heart generally is richer in feelings
than a man’s; that among our sweetest consolations when earthly ties
are sundered, and ‘thick coming fancies’ crowd in upon the brain till
it is black with sadness, are placed those alleviations which her
tenderness and her solicitude can offer. But yet the love of another
than a sister, from the very grounds of such preference and its means
of perpetuity, cannot be other than a selfish and mixed passion. It
is far more the result of circumstances; these have power to modify
it, and they are eternally changing. With a sister there is nothing of
this; with her it is the involuntary promptings of nature, and to call
such a selfish or mixed passion, is to call truth falsehood. There is
no chilling calculation, no selfish wish for a reciprocate sympathy,
and a latent purpose within to be _ruled_ by this in the degree of her
own affection. She never thinks to ask if there is a chance of the
better feelings of her heart’s running to waste; nor can she lean to
the side of an overweening prudence, and coolly measure out her love in
just proportion to the worth of him to whom she gives it. No! she can
do none of these;--on the contrary, the most eminent instances of her
warmest devotion are found, where the recipients of it were the least
worthy. Cases innumerous might be cited, in which, against difficulties
to daunt other than her, her love has seemed to grow purer and more
enduring, even as a green and luxuriant vine seems to take newer
beauty, as it clambers about a scathed oak or melancholy ruin.
A sister’s love is pure, and therefore invaluable. No truth is
more obvious than this, that those who have been favored with the
sweet sympathies and affections of a sister, and educated in that
unrestrained intercourse so favorable to the development of domestic
virtue, possess a softness of character and purity of feeling, to which
other men are strangers. I know it has been objected to this, that
such a character is effeminate, and altogether unfitted for the sphere
to which men are called. Now were the charge of effeminacy admitted,
we have yet to learn that true fortitude is not equally the property
of gentle as well as rugged natures, and that the manifestation of it
in one person more than another, is not traceable altogether to other
and opposite causes. But we do not admit it; the characteristic above
referred to is not effeminate; it is too sacred not to be a treasure,
and it is too beautiful to be an error. It is a spirit like His who
stood upon the waves, passing over and stilling the angry waters of
human passion; a breath of spring sent upon the world calling the moss
and ivy to their high dwellings, and scattering the flowers upon the
slopes and in the vallies; a beam of sunshine thrown down from a summer
sky, casting into shade the roughness of the landscape, and softening
all into beauty. A character matured under the circumstances referred
to, need lose nothing of its firmness by the process. On the contrary,
the native energies of the mind may expand with greater freedom (for
many of those things which usually retard it are removed) and it can
ruffle its wings with a wider sweep, and stoop for the quarry with a
nobler vision. As for the charge, that our capacities for misery are
increased in an increased ratio by that refinement of feeling which
is induced by feminine intercourse, we hardly think it worth the
refutation. The fact that that French fool, Rousseau, could start a
question which involves this, has not succeeded in raising it above
contempt; and we shall quit the subject therefore with the simple
statement of our own belief, viz.--that Heaven never endowed man with
any superfluous faculties, that at every successive stage of moral
and mental culture there is more than a proportionate increase of
positive happiness, and that it is only when every power of the mind is
in requisition and each taxed to its extreme capacity, that the mind
approaches its perfection.
A sister’s love is eternal, and therefore invaluable. Much ink has
been wasted on the subject, of the power of female affection--for
which subject we have the current phrases of ‘dying for love,’ ‘broken
hearts,’ ‘Cupid’s achievements,’ and other such classical appellatives.
Poets have worn the matter thread-bare, and novelists have picked up
the shreds to patch garments for their heroes. One gentleman less
scrupulous than another, has dared raise a doubt of the matter,
somewhat withholding from the ladies the exclusive privilege of dying
thus heroically; another conceiving this a challenge to his gallantry,
has most manfully seized the crab-stick and fallen to work pell-mell on
the other side. Now amid such a clash of fire arms as this we suppose
it behoves us to walk circumspectly, and somewhat question whether
the fair bevy of our acquaintance would not cry us heretic, did _we_
call in question this same right, viz., of dying for this or that
thing just as suits them without asking leave of judge or jury. But
the truth of it is we have a belief on the matter, and sorry are we to
say that for lack of something better we feel called upon to divulge
it, deprecating however from our souls every intention of making any
unpleasant expositions, and professing a love for the truth and nothing
but the truth. To begin then;--we boldly make the remark, that many a
woman has gone to her grave from ill-requited affection. The man who
denies this, has either never mingled in society, or has kept his eyes
shut while there, or is a fool. But--and here is the rub--whether the
passion which resulted in the breaking of this or that heart was an
unmixed one, a thing which of itself destroyed the heart, this I say
‘puzzles the will,’ and is a sad problem for solution. We make the
following remarks: any one who looks closely at society, and looks
at the little springs which operate on this side and on that to keep
the whole machinery in operation, will be wonderfully struck with the
great discrepancy betwixt real truths and those admitted as such by
the world. He will see that to trace an act to its cause, to find that
principle and trace it into generalities, is to frighten him at the
artificiality of society and the extreme ignorance of the human race.
Effects which he had been accustomed to assign to certain causes as
things of course, he finds are traceable altogether to other causes.
The strangest phenomena does he meet with; causes producing effects as
opposite to their apparent tendencies as possible; causes misnamed
effects; effects taken for causes; in short, terms misapplied and
jumbled together with most admirable confusion. Now to apply these
remarks, we beg leave to add--that men _may_ have made a mistake in
reference to the subject in question. For ourselves we have known a
case of misplaced affection--a lovely girl, fair as the first star that
peeps through the net-work of twilight, and gentle as the bonniest May
flower of the season. And yet she died; and when the first burst of a
generous indignation had passed off and space was given for reflection,
for the life of us we could not make other conclusion, than that the
_pity_ of the world and her extreme susceptibility to ridicule were
enough of themselves to destroy her. The truth of it is, it is one
of the subtlest passions of our nature, yet not the most powerful;
and though it gain the same end, first subjecting the other powers to
itself and _thus_ breaking down the spirit, it does this rather by its
extreme cunning than by any energies of its own. But a sister’s deep
faith, what alloy find we here! what sentiment that the pure heart
might not offer at the throne of God! This is that star which brightens
and brightens as it comes up from the horizon and pours its undimmed
beauty upon the world! It is one of those flowers that sometimes spring
up by the path-way of life to tell us how bright was the primitive
world, and give us a glimpse of the brightness and profusion of the
one to come! And the eye brightens, the heart expands, and the soul
bounds exultant on its heavenward mission as we gaze upon it, till the
veil seems rent in twain, and we think and see and _feel_ our certain
immortality!
A circumstance fell under my observation not many years since in
a part of the state of New York, with which I shall close these
remarks--indeed, it forms not an inappropriate conclusion. It made a
great impression on me at the time, and the reader perhaps will thank
me for rescuing from oblivion one of those touching incidents in real
life which sometimes occur, and cast into shadow the wildest dreams of
fiction.
Any one who has visited the little town of P---- in Ulster County,
remembers well enough that there’s no way of entering it from the
west, save through a long defile cut as it would seem by art through
the heart of a mountain, and he also remembers what a scene of beauty
is presented as he emerges from the pass and sends his gaze before
him. A common of about half a mile square, surrounded by neat and in
some instances very elegant dwellings, in the center of which with its
neat bow windows and little spire, is the only church of the village.
The village has an air of life and business; a stream tumbles off
from the hills on the north supplying a large factory on the lower
grounds, and from the more elevated parts may the eye catch the bends
of the lordly Hudson in the distance, and in clear still mornings may
the ‘yo-heave-yo’ of sailors or the clatter of steam boats be faintly
heard, as they pass and repass on the river.
It was into this little village that I jogged with a quiet pace one
warm afternoon, and began to look around for an inn. It was the heat of
summer, and for no less than forty good English miles had myself and
horse stumped it since morning, and over as dusty a road withall as one
would like to travel on; and my horse seeming to feel his necessities
as well as myself began to move a little faster, and by a sort of
instinct, point his ears straight towards a large sign board swinging
directly over the road, on which was a rampant lion large as life his
fiery tongue lolling part way from his mouth, and a sort of dare-devil
threat in his eye that he was about to leap down on the passengers.
This however was yet a good half a mile off; and as I passed along, the
village church-yard lay upon the left. I had come nearly to the end
of this, when a light form sprang over the wall, and running up to me
seized my horse by the bridle, while it said--
“O, sir, do come--they’ve left him all alone there, and I’ve called
to him and sung to him, and he wont hear me--do come, sir, won’t
you?”--and it pulled gently by the bit as it spake, and my horse
stopped.
I was thunder-struck. The creature before me was a faded girl, and as I
should think in the last stages of the consumption. She must have been
exceedingly beautiful once, for her form was still symmetry itself,
and her features were as regular as if shaped with a chisel. Her face
however was very pale. The blue veins were traceable on a forehead of
silver by the ridges they made, though almost as white as the skin
about them. Her eye-brows were regular as if struck out with a compass,
and beneath them her eyes large, dark, and full, flashed as bright and
as wild as stars in a wintry night. Her lip was as thin as paper. Her
dress lay loose and low, and surely no lovelier neck and bosom (though
they were shrunken) ever came into a poet’s vision, than that which
rose and sank there painfully rapid as she stood waiting my answer.
The hand which still lay on my bridle-bit was so thin and attenuated,
that actually the sun shone through it almost as easily as if it were
a piece of glass; and her small feet and ankles which were without
covering, gave equal evidence of sorrow and abandonment. The only
thing about her which still retained all its former beauty, was her
hair, long, dark, and silky--that ornament of woman which death cannot
destroy--which she still possessed, and in thick masses of luxuriant
brown it hung about her with all the grace of a Madonna.
I know not but nature has given me an undue quantum of sensibility, but
I was melted to tears by this poor creature before me. I have described
her features--these the reader will see; but the whole expression, the
thing which cannot be conveyed to paper, that must be imagined. Its
wo, its extreme wo; the circumstances too, so near a populous village,
and yet alone; the church yard at hand, and the few incoherent words
dropped from her lips; these at first came over me with a sort of
sickening fear, and I trembled lest the figure before me should, like
the witches that met Macbeth on the heath, ‘change into the air.’
Just at that moment a dull dolt of a farmer came along the common,
cracking his whip and bellowing most lustily. Seeing me stopped in
the road, the girl by my bridle gently pulling it and eyeing me with
a beseeching look, he cried out, “Hillo, you Luce! what the d--l are
you at there with that gentleman’s bridle? out of the way ye’--using
a term I shall not repeat--‘and let me get by, wont ye?” Seeing my
cheek burning with an indignation that tempted me to knock the rascal
down, he said as he drove by and in a much softer tone, “It’s only Luce
Selden, the mad gal--don’t mind her, sir.”
I turned towards her thus designated--poor creature! she had sunk down
at my horse’s feet like a young flower which the wind has passed over
too roughly, her long hair disheveled in rich masses on the turf,
and her hand grasping a few dead flowers she had brought with her.
Springing to the ground I lifted her delicate form in my arms, and
bearing her to a runnel of water which wimpled near, I cast some of it
upon her face and bosom. Slowly opening her eyes she seemed at once to
feel my kindness, and wreathing her emaciated arms about my neck, her
pent heart poured itself forth into my bosom.
O never tell me of the equal distribution of happiness in this world!
Let the mad dreamer preach it if he list to those equally mad, and
for his own sad purposes; but let not man, immortal man, man gifted
with reason and obedient to the voice in every enlightened one’s soul,
herald such a monstrous absurdity! What had this young and faded
creature gained--what joy--what blessing--what blissful moments had
been hers--what bright dream had she dwelt in--what fond hallucination
had enrapt her young being in her few brief days of infancy and
childhood, that now just bursting into the pride and prime of woman,
such a cloud should come over her fair sky, and with its folds, its
thick folds, shut from her gaze every star of hope forever! Dwelt
she in a fairy-land--where bright wings glanced hither and thither,
touching and retouching its soft airs--its mellow sunsets--its streams
and golden fountains with a newer beauty! and had her life like an
unshadowed current in Eastern fable, moved on in one unbroken flood
of happiness! Had fancy been hers--and imagination--and the dangerous
gift of poesy--and the faculty to shape out her own existence unmoved
by the realities of life--and her being been lifted up in high revel
and communion with the great and good of former days, and the far
remote treasures of purer existences! Had such blessings been hers! and
in return for them must the wick of the lamp thus early burn to its
socket--must society cast this flower from its bosom--must reason lose
her dwelling place--and her young life just opening upon her with its
flowers, and feelings, and passionate thoughts, and innocent gushes
of tenderness, turn out a blank, a dead letter, and at one fell blow
be cut off--and she like a useless weed or wreck tossed up by Ocean,
be thrown out from her proper sphere--scorned--crushed--slandered--an
insulted yet still beautiful thing--a mark for the rabble’s jeers,
the clown’s coarse brutality, and the damning pity of a mock-charity
close-fisted world! _Let her unambitious story give answer._
Luce Selden was a twin child. Her mother died in giving her birth,
leaving her and a beautiful boy to their remaining yet now broken
hearted father, and a victim to those sad crosses which motherless
children must meet with from the very nature of the case--though that
father was all in all to them, and though it was his pride to watch
over and nourish these beautiful blossoms of a love, as pure as it
was imperishable. He had married in New York, and came to P---- while
a young man and just starting in life, and by industry and very fine
talents had by the time he reached the meridian of life, amassed a
splendid fortune. His talents and wealth forced the meed of praise from
the rich, and his very uniform disinterested and noble charities won
the blessings of the poor, and fortune seemed to have nothing to do but
shower down her favors on his head.
But prosperity cannot always last. No! let the prosperous man ever
tremble at any long succession of blessings; for it is then that
sorrows are nearest, and those sorrows the worst and heaviest. If it
is not so in reality--if the reverses which we witness here and there
coming upon the rich and the fortunate--if they are not worse than
those which overtake other men, they are so at least to all intents
and purposes, for the hackneyed adage is a true one despise it who
may, ‘prosperity unfits us for adversity.’ The noble scorn with which
this or that man learns to look upon a run of ill luck, or the heroism
and devotedness of woman, may take a charm when hallowed by the pen of
Irving, but they are after all but as the creations of the poet, mere
creations having no parallel in real life. That there is philosophy
enough in the human soul even this side of stoicism, to enable a man to
look unmoved on the changes about him, we do not doubt; but that the
philosopher has yet risen who has discovered the treasure, of this we
do as unhesitatingly declare a disbelief.
If it is so, Mr. Charles Selden had never learned it, and it was at the
demise of his wife that he began to date the commencement of his ill
fortunes, which like rising waves seemed heavier and heavier as the
shattered bark was less and less able to endure their fury. This was
the first blow, the death of his wife--and he bent beneath it. Yet his
character seemed to have that elasticity, that springiness in it which
recovers itself again; and he once more mingled with men, pursued his
profession, and smiled with the same cheerfulness. Yet there were times
when his language seemed too light, too rapid, too artificial, so to
speak, for a perfectly happy man; and his friends sometimes whispered
to their own hearts that all was not as it should be, that there was
something wrong within, that that fine and delicate organization, his
mind, did not act as formerly; and they sometimes marked a kind of
perverse vehemence, which did not tally well with that uniform sound
sense and remarkable discrimination which had characterized the efforts
of his earlier years. Ah! they guessed well--there _was_ something
wrong. There was a fountain in his heart which had been chilled, and
which kept bubbling up its cool waters to remind him continually of his
wretchedness; and there were moments, when withdrawn from business and
the world shut out, he gave himself up to that deadly yet sweet sorrow
which sooner or later saps the springs of existence.
Grief should never be alone. It is one of the most selfish of our
passions. The man of sorrows should be forced into the world--into
the bustle, and roar, and change, and activity of life, where against
himself outward and passing events shall catch his eye, and force him
off if but for a moment from his wretchedness. It will finally loose
the grasp of the disease, and thought by degrees may be turned into
other channels, and the heart beat with its accustomed excitation.
But even this did not save the bereaved husband. Perhaps it might had
no other ills assailed him; but he had become reckless--had risked
much--had entered largely into the excitements and speculations of the
day; and every thing working against him, losses succeeding losses, the
poor man sank under it and died--a bankrupt.
But the saddest of my story is yet to come.
There are some men in this world from whom nature seems to have
withholden the commonest feelings of our race--men who have no humanity
about them--men who despise and disclaim every thing like sympathy as
troublesome and out of place, and who would as lief dwell in a desert
or on an island shut out from the whole world, as any where else--save
perhaps that they should not have their fellow creatures to prey on. In
short, your cool, calculating, miserly souls, whose feelings all begin
in self and end in self, and who can like Judas or Shylock, coolly set
off so much suffering and so many ounces of human blood against so much
money, with the same callousness that they could barter dog’s flesh.
It was into the hands of such a wretch, a Mr. Saxelby, that these
orphan children fell now entering upon their twelfth year, and their
privations it may be relied on were proportionate to _his_ wickedness.
The little that had been saved from the wreck of their once splendid
fortune he contrived to sink by one means and another, and by the time
they were sixteen it was formally announced that their means were
exhausted, and that master Lyle Selden and his sister--must either work
or starve.
It was like a thunder clap. The brother had hoped to study his father’s
profession; his talents were commanding, his industry unexampled, and
he had proudly looked forward to the moment when he should redeem that
father’s lost reputation, and lift his lovely, ah, how lovely sister!
into the station which her exceeding beauty seemed so eminently to fit
her for, and of which she would become such a witching ornament.
This brother was a marked character. His person was manly, his voice
firm, and his countenance the index of a soul that showed plain enough
he was not born to be overlooked in the world. He was sensitive and
exceedingly proud, yet a nobler heart never knocked against the ribs
of mortality. But such a character as this is not calculated to gain
friends. He was too open--gave his opinions too freely--and his talents
were altogether too commanding and brilliant. Your popular fellows are
your middling ones. Lyle Selden was no middling fellow--you would find
it out by the first word that fell from him though he were half asleep
at the time, and though the subject were as trite as those about which
we witness the first volitation of your incipient poetasters. He was an
original--a marked man--and his opinions though they might be sneered
at, had nevertheless more weight than half the school put together. As
he was sensitive so was he often unhappy, and though he met the taunts
brought to his ears by his few real friends, with ‘I care not,’ yet
he _did_ care--his heart inly bled, and his lonely hours were often
embittered. As he was proud, this got him into difficulties; for though
it was quite the reverse of vanity and self was the last one he thought
of, yet it made his character a complex one which none understood
unless he chose to enlighten them, and this save to a few his pride
would not descend to. Hence he was thought callous and distant, when
in reality his heart was the seat of every gentler feeling; and to
those that _had_ skill to look beneath the surface, he was linked by
a friendship as unyielding as it was noble. But these were few, and
his character is best told in one sentence,--_he was respected and
disliked_.
His sister was an opposite character. She scarcely ever thought for
herself, and in person she was rather lovely than beautiful, and had
that touching feminineness about her which is rather to be felt than
told of. She was too gentle to be independent, one of those rare
specimens of loveliness that are shaped by associations, that can be
moulded into any thing by the energies of a master mind. In short, she
was too trusting, and had a spice of that credulous confidence in her
composition, which, if fortune does not try it sorely, makes a woman a
perfect nympholepsy and a vision.
Such were these orphan children, and in a world as we well know not
famous for its charities. It will be taxing my reader’s patience--who
is anxious I see to come to the end of my story--to trace their lives
minutely through the two or three following years. Their lot was a
hard one. Thrown out of a station to which their birth entitled them,
the trials to which they were exposed had the same effect on them as
it does upon every body else under similar circumstances, viz. made
young Selden suspicious and fretful, soured his temper, and took from
him even the little amiableness which the world had ever allowed was in
his composition. While his sister, his too gentle sister, like the vine
round the tree which supports it and moves with it as that is moved by
the forest wind, so she changed with her brother though winning still,
for in her any thing like harshness was softened down by a sweetness
which nothing could destroy.
What I am now about to lay before the reader, is one of those black
passages in the catalogue of human suffering that may well make me
shudder as I write, and if the facts are doubted as here laid down, my
authority for them shall be given hereafter.
Lyle Selden, despised and trampled on by the world, neglected and
contemned by those that had abundant reasons for loving him, opposed
by fortune in every shape, and seeing that all his best and most
strenuous exertions to win his way availed not, but served only to heap
up greater difficulties, committed a forgery, and that too under the
signature of his guardian. That he was in a measure justified in taking
some means to gain back the fortune stolen from him, may be admitted
by all; but the law is not supposed to make any distinction in favor
of such circumstances, and its dread sentence now hung over him, with
nothing but the selfish griping hand of Saxelby to stay the blow. The
event was not yet public, and here only was the last desperate hope of
mercy.
The agony of Luce’s mind at this dread climax of suffering, must be
imagined, not written. Every means was thought of--every compromise
was proffered--every suggestion that a tender and delicate girl almost
maddened by the threatening evil could suggest, was resorted to, but
they availed not. The hard hand of Saxelby could not yield--his ear
could not catch the voice of mercy--his heart responded not to any
cry--he must have justice.
Luce was in the prisoner’s dungeon, and worn with watching and grief
and suffering, hung clinging to the neck of that brother who had
wept and toiled for her so many years. She saw that brother broken
down, the high purpose had flagged at last, the spirit had quailed,
the spring had broken, and the heart that had beat so true and firm
for her was now at her feet, and the storm had beaten it nigh to its
death. Was there no hope? Could she do nothing? Was there nothing left
for a brain on the brink of madness? No dreadful, desperate, damning
resort? Ah! there was--it smote her like lightning--she lingered a
moment--rose--clasped her brother--kissed him--and with a wild look
burst from the prison.
In a moment she was at the door of Saxelby, in the next at his feet.
There she poured out her soul--proffered him all--all that woman
values, life, soul, honor--_it was accepted_.
It broke her brother’s heart.
She became a maniac.
Such is a story of facts, and the half dead creature I held in my
arms was that same unfortunate sister. I conveyed her to the inn
of the village where I learned that she was a great trouble to the
place, and to one or two excellent families who treated her with every
affection. They were obliged to confine her. Yet she always baffled
them and resorted immediately to her brother’s grave, where she would
spend night and day sitting on the turf, and singing some little ditty
of former days. I learned also to my eternal indignation, that save
these two or three families, the village thought her little better
than a wanton--for Saxelby had died, and the facts were known. Oh,
cursed, and doubly cursed be this queasy prudery of the world! Cursed
be the spirit that casts out the repentant lost one, who craves our
forgiveness! Cursed be they who rant so noisily of virtue, and prate of
self-government! Tremble, and be merciful!--_ye have not been tried_.
The story of this girl made an impression on me never to be forgotten,
and having so well as I was able made arrangement for her future
comforts, I left the village.
I afterwards passed through the place and learned that she was dead.
She had continued as formerly to spend her time at the church yard,
pulling the flowers from this or that mound to scatter them over her
brother, singing her little songs and talking half-reasonable and
half-wild to every chance passenger. Thus she continued until late
fall, when she was found one cold morning stiff upon his grave--one arm
bent beneath her and her lips softly apart, as if the last words that
passed them was her brother’s name.
*
TO ********* ******.
I love to watch the twilight sky
When in it glows the star of even,
For then it seems that Love’s own eye
Is looking kindly down from heaven;
But oh, more deeply love I far,
Than twilight sky or evening star,
The soul-reflecting beam to view,
That sweetly lights thine eye of blue.
I love to watch the waving grain
When o’er it floats the summer breeze;
I love to view the rippling plain
When winds are sporting on the seas;
Yet love I more the smile divine
Which flits across that face of thine,
When o’er thy soul doth gently move
The breathing joyousness of love.
I love to read in Eastern lore,
About the goddess-queens of old,
So fair that Nature never more
Could forms of equal beauty mould;
Yet, more than all, I love to know
There is not on this earth below,
Nor in the deep, nor in the air,
A form that can with thine compare.
I love to hear the gentle swell
Of music on the midnight air;
I love to tread the lonely dell--
I love the torrent-music there;
But oh, more charming far to me
Than music’s sweetest notes can be,
Is that confiding, trembling tone,
Which hangs upon thy lips alone.
METRICAL TRANSLATIONS OF A LATIN STANZA.
On the cover of the Magazine is a picture of old Governor Yale, with
two lines of Latin poetry beneath it. These lines are part of an
inscription sent to the College at an early period by the Governor,
and are written beneath an engraving which now hangs in the Trumbull
Gallery. The engraving, we understand, was for many years mislaid,
and was at last discovered, so much injured that it could scarcely be
deciphered. The inscription is as follows:
Effigies clarissimi viri D. D. Elihu Yale,
Londinensis Armigeri.
En vir! cui meritas laudes ob facta, per orbis
Extremos fines, inclyta fama dedit.
Aequor arans tumidum, gazas adduxit ab Indis,
Quas Ille sparsit munificante manu:
Inscitiæ tenebras, ut noctis luce coruscâ
Phoebus, ab occiduis pellit et Ille plagis.
Dum mens grata manet, nomen laudesque Yalenses
Cantabunt Soboles, unanimique Patres.
Here is a translation in the old Spenserian stanza:
Behold the man whose honored name enrolled
On Fame’s proud tablet ever ought to stand,
For deeds illustrious through the world extolled.
His riches, brought from India’s distant land,
He scattered widely with a liberal hand.
The night of Ignorance from the West he drove
As morning rays the clouds from Ocean’s strand.
While gratitude exists, still with their love
Yale’s generous deeds shall Sons and Sires unite to approve.
Again:
Behold the man to whom praise well deserved
Illustrious fame has given for actions wrought
In Earth’s remotest regions. Wealth, preserved
In India, o’er the boisterous seas he brought,
And lavished wide from hands with bounty fraught.
The shades of Ignorance, as the sun the night
From western climes he drove, by Justice taught.
While gratitude exists Yale’s glory bright,
And spotless name, shall Sires and Sons to praise unite.
We will bid farewell for the present to Spenser, for after all,
the intricacies of his stanza are least of all adapted to the mere
translator. We will now take the common ten syllable verse, and
endeavor to give as accurate a line-for-line and word-for-word
translation, as is consistent with the measure.
Behold the man whose deeds illustrious claim
Through Earth’s extremest bounds the meed of fame;
His Indian wealth o’er swelling seas he bore,
Then freely shared it, from this Western shore
To drive the clouds of Ignorance away,
As flies the night at Phœbus’ dawning ray.
Let Sires and Sons, till gratitude shall fail,
Together sing the praise and name of Yale.
Again:
Behold the man whose fame illustrious stands
For deeds performed in Earth’s remotest lands;
Ploughing the deep, from India wealth he bore,
And scattered widely from a bounteous store;
The clouds of Ignorance he banished far,
As flies the night before the morning star.
While grateful hearts remain, the name of Yale
Let Sons and Sires with praises join to hail.
There is a difference in the translation of a part of the first two
verses in these two stanzas;
....er orbis
Extremos fines, * *
To what does this clause refer? We are rather inclined to give our
preference to the former reading, though after all it must be a
question of taste rather than of criticism. But have we succeeded the
better for confining ourself to fewer lines and to the easier stanza?
We think not. In particular, we have entirely omitted, in the second
stanza, all mention of _His_ munificent designs upon the Western
shores; which in a son of Yale is indeed an unpardonable omission. We
will e’en go back to Spenser, and try our luck again under the banner
of this prince of versifiers.
Behold the man whose deeds with justice ring
Through Earth’s remotest bounds, deserving fame;
O’er boisterous seas did he his treasure bring
From India’s shore, and scattered round the same
With liberality where’er he came;
The clouds of Ignorance, like the shades of night
From morning rays, flee from before his name.
While gratitude exists, with luster bright
Yale’s praise and name shall Sons and Sires to sing unite.
Behold the man, whose deeds on every shore
Fame’s hundred tongues are whispering to the wind!
Asiatic wealth o’er boisterous seas he bore,
With just munificence to bless mankind.
The clouds of Ignorance which veiled the mind
Of this wide West, he burst; as Phœbus’ rays
Light up the night. Yale’s fame and name combined,
Till gratitude expires, shall fire our lays,
While Sons and Fathers join in sweet accordant praise.
This last translation has at least the merit of getting over the
difficulty in the translation of the first and second verses. Reader,
we have done. We have finished our chime. We have rung all the changes
we could at present upon our little bell. We throw down the rope. Draw
from it if you choose still sweeter music, and so brighten the love you
bear to her who will hereafter be your Alma Mater.
For “praising what is lost makes the remembrance dear.”
G. H.
THE INFLUENCE OF MORAL FEELING ON THE PLEASURES OF THE IMAGINATION.
No. III.
The influence of moral feeling tends to heighten the pleasure which we
derive from beholding the works of nature.
“Our sight,” says Addison, “is the most perfect and most delightful of
all our senses. It fills the mind with the largest variety of ideas,
converses with its object at the greatest distance, and continues the
longest in action without being tired or satiated with its proper
enjoyments.” Hence those pleasures of the imagination which are
perceived through the medium of this sense, must necessarily be of a
high order. Besides, they have this advantage above their fellows, that
they are more obvious, and more easy to be acquired. We have but to
open our eyes, and the scene in all its beauty and power enters. The
colors paint themselves on the fancy, with scarcely a single effort of
thought, and each object in the view, as it catches our glance, sends
its appropriate impression to the mind, with an approach as gentle, and
almost as imperceptible as the dawn of the morning.
This exhibition of nature is free to all. It is unfolded with equal
beauty and variety to the humble peasant, as he treads homeward his
weary way from the labors of the field, and the man of science and
taste who can enjoy it at his leisure. For each the same glorious sun
rises and sets, the same landscape of hill and valley and river is
spread out, the same rich colors glow, the same fragrance perfumes the
air.--In its full and ever changing variety, there is something to
suit the disposition and character of every one. The sons of sorrow,
whose only inheritance is melancholy and gloom, and in whose minds the
bright things of earth meet no response, may find in the still sadness
of the lonely vale, or in the steeps of the giant hill, a spirit in
unison with their own. And they, over whose fair visions the cloud of
disappointment has never flung its shade, whose souls are radiant with
the hope and gladness of life’s young morn, may find their companions
too in the joyous revels of nature. The gentle whisperings of the
summer breeze, the gay sparkle and the rushing fall of the cascade,
the mellow richness of the grove, the gorgeous drapery of sunset, with
these, with every thing that breathes the spirit of joy, they can claim
a kindred feeling.
The scene is ever before us in its unchanging beauty. It is not like
the bright shadows that charm us on in boyhood and youth, only to
vanish for ever from the sober realities of manhood. The breeze,
that cooled the brow of the child in his early sports, plays with the
same freshness around the wrinkles of age--the meadows wear as rich a
green--the flowers bloom with equal loveliness--and nature, still fair
and attractive, as when the morning stars first sang together, feels no
decay from the lapse of years. What a barren and cheerless waste would
be presented to the eye of man, were all this world of coloring to
disappear with its ever varying distinctions of light and shade--what
a rich source of innocent gratification had been wanting, if these had
never been created. But
“The feet of hoary time
Through their eternal course, have traveled o’er
No speechless, lifeless desert;”
and the confidence of the future is founded upon the promise that seed
time and harvest, summer and winter, shall never fail.
This power in the beauties of the natural world to excite and gratify
the imagination, is emphatically the poetry of nature, sending out its
appeal from every object which greets the eye. There is poetry in the
pathless wood, when the summer breeze sweeps over the waves of its dark
green foliage--in the bold scenery of the mountain’s height, inspiring
the soul with feelings of grandeur and sublimity--in the green valley
throwing a charm of hallowed tranquility around the spirit. It dwells
in the rising and the setting sun, in the wild flowers of the forest,
in the mighty winds, in the dark blue skies, in the golden and silver
clouds of heaven, in the rainbow, in the seasons.
“Coming ever more and going still, all fair,
And always new with bloom and fruit,
And fields of hoary grain.”
It is written like a legible language on the broad face of the
unsleeping ocean. It dwells among the stars of heaven. It is abroad
in the tempest, girt with the stern magnificence of the storm-cloud,
careering on the vollied lightning, and uttering its voice of sublimity
in the deep-toned thunder.
“’Tis in the gentle moonlight--
’Tis floating mid day’s setting glories; night
Wrapt in her sable robe, with silent step
Comes to our bed and breathes it in our ears.”
In all these dwells the spirit of poetry, and it is the highest office
of the imagination, to extract from these the divine element. Is she
the less able to do this, when from nature’s works she looks up with
filial awe to nature’s God? By our admiration of the character and
attributes of the Great Creator, are we led to regard the works of
his hand, with emotions less enthusiastic and poetical? Strike out
of our minds, when contemplating the features of the natural world,
those ideas of system, order, and adaptation to wise and beneficent
purposes so clearly expressed by them all--bid us ascribe all this
glorious mechanism, so exquisitely formed and so skillfully arranged,
to the unguided instinct of blind chance--and the tie that bound us in
such an endearing relation to the scenes of earth, and sanctioned the
communion of our better feelings with their ever eloquent spirit, is
sundered for ever. There is a religion in every thing around us--and
the spirit of poetry, that spirit which carries home to the imagination
the pleasures of uncorrupted taste, is almost one and the same with the
former. It is a religion which the creeds of men have never perverted,
or their superstitions overshadowed. It is fresh from the hands of the
Author, and is ever reminding us, with its still small voice, of the
Great Spirit, whose presence pervades and quickens it. It glows from
every star that sparkles in the far concave. It is among the hills
and the vallies of the earth, where the desert mountain-top rears his
snow-crowned summit into the frosts of an eternal winter, or the lowly
dell slumbers in the quiet of a summer’s sun. It is this, uttering its
appeal from the unbreathing things of nature with an ever faithful
voice, that fills the spirit with lofty aspirings, until it struggles
to cast off the chains which this earthly has thrown around her giant,
though infant energies, and soar away beyond the influence of the
cold sluggish atmosphere of sense--to attain something etherial and
thrilling--something which shall satisfy her large desires, and open to
the imagination a world of spiritual beauty and holiness.
And he, who reads the volume of nature’s works, a stranger to this
blessed influence, does not read aright. He is blind to that peculiar
grace and loveliness which characterize them as a part of the great
system of universal order and harmony. It is to the imagination,
chastened and elevated by moral feeling alone, that nature makes her
choicest revelations. Indeed it is a libel upon the Author of the human
mind to suppose that He has endowed it with powers that are to receive
their most exquisite gratification without the pale of virtue. We are
of those, who believe that the intellect of man is to receive its
highest and noblest, as well as purest energies, in its nearest moral
conformity to the first, infinite and eternal Intellect. And if the
character of this creating Mind is impressed on the visible creation,
he who sees the most excellence in the former will feel the strongest
love for the latter. Those aspects of nature, which to the unsanctified
taste are without form or comeliness, are to him invested with a most
religious charm.
“Not a breeze
Flies o’er the meadow, not a cloud imbibes
The setting sun’s effulgence, not a strain
From all the tenants of the warbling shade
Ascends, but whence his bosom can partake
Fresh pleasure unreproved.”
C.
A MISANTHROPE’S FAREWELL TO THE WORLD.
“Ferte per extremos gentes, et ferte per undas,
Qua non ulla meum femina norit iter.
* * * * *
Hoc, moneo, vitate malum.”
_Propertius._
To distant climes of earth I flee,
Mid savage wilds my home to make,
Away beyond the raging sea,
Where man my quiet ne’er shall break.
For now my hardened heart to feeling steeled,
No more to human sympathy will yield.
No more shall woman’s witching smile
E’er haunt the recess of my cell;
No more my trusting heart beguile,
Which now has learned these tricks--too well:
For I have found her fickle, false, and vain,
And once deceived, will never be again.
Nor shall she in my summer bower,
When day has sped with all its care,
E’er greet me--at soft twilight’s hour,
In love to hold sweet converse there.
For passions rage and burn without control,
Where love, like poisoned daggers, stings the soul.
Fair Wisdom be the lovely maid
Whom I shall call to my embrace,
In whom my hopes of bliss are laid,
Since other love I now efface.
And happy thus, I then will spend my life
Free from the world’s temptation, toil, and strife.
M.
THE COFFEE CLUB.
No. III
“At last he is as welcome as a storm; he that is abroad shelters
himself from it, and he that is at home shuts the door. If he intrudes
himself yet, some with their jeering tongues give him many a gird, but
his brazen impudence feels nothing; and let him be armed on free-scot
with the pot and the pipe, he will give them leave to shoot their
flouts at him till they be weary.”
_Fuller’s Profane State._
Summer, with its transforming influence upon all things natural and
artificial, has come, and the Coffee Club feels somewhat of its
power. We introduced you, reader, to our room in the depth of winter,
we welcomed you with a blazing hearth and the cheerful light of an
astral, and our mystic tripod lustily bore witness to the strife of
the hostile elements. But now the aspect of the room and the temper of
its occupants is changed. A solitary taper with _all_ its light, can
scarce effect a dim obscure--the thick warm carpet is superseded by a
flimsier texture of straw--the point of concentration is transferred
from the glowing fire to the open window--the center-table is drawn
back and relieved from its superincumbent load, that the eye may not
be oppressed with a sense of heaviness--in every chair you find a lazy
pillow, and even the sofa which would once contain all four, will
scarce suffice for the extended length of Apple Dumpling--our coffee
simmers over the sickly flame of a spirit lamp, and is quaffed in
cooler draughts, and from comparatively tiny cups.
The temper of its occupants is likewise changed. That equable hilarity
which seldom rose to jollity and _never_ sank below cheerfulness, is
gone; and its place is ill supplied by a fitful state of noisy mirth
and moody silence. Tristo is alternately more melancholy and less
so--Nescio, more entirely sensual, or more acutely intellectual, as
the whim seizes him--Pulito is absorbed in attention to earthly nymphs
one week, and shuts himself up in his room with the heaven-born muses
the next--and Apple, who formerly, like some auxiliary verbs, had but
one _mood_, is now variable through the whole paradigm. The disturbing
influence of warm weather and bewitching moonlight is also perceptible
in the irregularity of our meetings. But few, very few times have we
been together this term, and then we have employed ourselves in the
most random conversation. Even to-night we have but an unpromising
prospect before us. Pulito and Apple are not here, and Tristo and
myself have hitherto kept our thoughts to ourselves with most unsocial
chariness. But hark! Pulito’s ‘light fantastic toe’ is on the stairs,
and he must say _something_ as he enters.
_Pulito._ “Good evening, gentlemen. You certainly have the true
atrabilious aspect; ’twould spoil my face for a week to sit in close
proximity with two such melancholy phizes. With your leave, therefore,
Messieurs, I will take a cup, adjust my flowing locks, and be off. What
beautiful little acorn-goblets you have here, Nescio, and then the
delicacy of the beverage, so nicely adapted to the season. You have a
rare taste in these matters, Quod.”
_Tristo._ “Ah! Pulito, you are always the same careless fellow, and
’twere vain to hope for any thing else from you; but cannot you sit
down for one evening and have a long and sober talk. You know some of
us leave town soon, and we may not have another opportunity.”
_Pulito._ “Indeed, Tristo, I am sorry to disappoint you; but _this_
evening I have an engagement from which I really cannot get excused;
the rest of the term I am entirely at your service.”
_Nescio._ “I’ll wager any thing from a pin’s head to ‘this great globe
itself’ that there’s a lady in the case.”
_Pulito._ “Weel, an there be, gude Maister Quod.”
_Nescio._ “Why you remember your boastful resolution to eschew all
connection with any thing more substantial than ‘Fancy’s daughters
three,’ during the hot weather.”
_Pulito._ “And whether these be ‘Faith, Hope and Charity,’ or
‘Wine, Women and Coxcombry,’ depends very much upon the _fancier_’s
temperament.”
_Tristo._ “I am afraid, my dear Pulito, that your aspirations after
learning are becoming less ardent; and unless you are more earnest,
your poetic ambition will fain be contented with being laureate of the
Coffee Club.”
_Pulito._ “‘What is learning but a cloak-bag of books, cumbersome for a
gentleman to carry? and the muses fit to make wives for farmers’ sons?’
What Fuller, in his ‘degenerous gentleman’ says in irony, I would adopt
in sober earnest.”
_Nescio._ “Well, I perceive we shall get nothing from you to-night, so
you may go. But first tell us if you have seen any thing of Apple.”
_Pulito._ “Indeed, I have, and bring quite a message from him, which,
but for your suggestion, I should have forgotten. By my troth, in my
head, ‘_dies truditur die_,’--one idea thrusts out another. But for
the story--I met Apple walking most abstractedly with the huge roll of
his autobiography under his arm. When I asked him what he was thinking
about, he obstinately confined his information to the mysterious
remark that he was ‘_coming up_’ this evening. As soon, however, as he
discovered that I did not intend to be there, he unfolded his whole
purpose--under an express injunction of secrecy, which I ought to
keep, and which I will keep--though I will give you an inkling of it,
as it may afford you some sport. He will probably appear particularly
brilliant, and converse more like himself, his peculiar self. Verb. sat
sap. Make fun of him if you can, for I owe him a grudge for a spiteful
pun, which he made on a lady’s name. However, my masters, after I have
given my neck-kerchief the blameless tie, and curled my hair with the
twist extatic, I will leave you to your dull coffee, and bask me in the
warmth of thy sunny eyes, oh beautiful *---- *----.”
Here Pulito made his exit, singing “di tutti palpiti,” with an air of
Cox-comical affectation, half assumed, half natural.
_Tristo._ “A handsome fellow, and a bright. But the day will come when
a strong mind, and a well-stored memory, will be worth more than the
vanished rapture of a woman’s smile. What a pity youth can never temper
pleasure with----, hist! that stumbling step sounds like Apple’s.”
_Nescio._ “’Tis his,--let’s slip into the bed-room and see what
Dumpling will do.”
_Tristo._ “Agreed; I promise myself materiel for laughter.”
[Enter _Apple_, with a look of pleased importance, and a mouth
apparently ready to discharge a witticism.] “Ha! Pulito! Tristo! Quod!
What, not a soul here but myself, who am _solus_, he! he! pretty
good! I’ll lay that by, and use it when they come. What an ass that
Tristo must be, never to laugh at my puns. However, he cannot help
himself to-night. I have various good things, aside from puns. If the
conversation turns upon wit, I shall say, ‘A witty sentence should
be like a scorpion, the sting in the tail, but should not, like a
scorpion, sting itself to death!’ If Tristo goes to rating me for
smoking, I shall say, ‘A cigar is the _summum bonum_, pity its _fumes_
are not _per_fumes!’ If Nescio says, ‘I am your host’--‘Yes,’ quoth
I, ‘and in yourself an _host_.’ That stone will kill two birds; it
is at once a pun and a compliment. Ah me! what is the literary world
coming to? They all seem bent upon being dull, and the greatest of
scriptorial (scriptural?) sins is to say a witty thing. Volumes of
poetry and philosophy and oratory and the like come forth, and never
a bit of fun in ’em all. Now in my view even a sermon would be vastly
better, if the preacher, especially in the application, would discharge
at the hearer a few judicious puns of a devotional _cast_. Bless me!
where--where--confusion worse confounded! where are my cigars? I can
never shine without them. I should be like Sampson shorn of his locks.
I shall have to go by a dozen colleges to ----’s to get some. Well!
‘_leve fit, quod bene fertur_,’ ‘that’s a light fit, which is well
borne.’ Ha, ha, good! remember that.”
As Apple leaves the room, Quod and Tristo, bursting with laughter,
issue from their _latebræ_.
_Tristo._ “Bravo, Dumpling, bravo.”
_Nescio._ “Capital! capital! What if we appear to have just come in
when he returns, and give him a chance to be witty--ha, ha!”
_Tristo._ “Constat--it is a covenant. But here he comes.”
[Enter Apple, puffing with haste, a bunch of cigars in his hand, and a
lighted one in his mouth.]
_Apple_, (amazed.) “What! you here.”
_Tristo_ and _Quod_. “Yes, we’ve just stept in. You, I suppose, didn’t
think there was a soul here.”
_Apple_, (chuckling.) “No, faith: I expected to be _solus_, myself!”
_Quod._ “Why, Dumpling, you are witty to-night.”
_Apple._ “A witty sentence should be like a scorpion, the sting in the
tail, but should not, like a scorpion, sting itself to death, ha! ha!”
_Tristo._ “Excellent! but do, dear Apple, fling away your vile cigars.”
_Apple_, (winking.) “A cigar, my dear fellow, is the _summum
bonum_--pity its _fumes_ are not _per_fumes.”
_Tristo._ “Your wit should not hinder your politeness. I dislike them,
and I am your host.”
_Apple._ “Yes, and in yourself an _host_, ha! ha!”
_Nescio._ “Why, Apple, where on earth do you get so many good things?”
_Apple_, (vainly.) “Oh! I don’t know: I believe it comes
natural--impromptus.”
_Nescio._ “Impromptus! Ha! Ha! Why, Apple, we were in the bed-room
here, when you came in before, and heard you practising on your
impromptus!”
_Apple_, (coloring with shame, vexation, and alarm.) “How--how--what,
you did, did you? Pretty good hoax, though, wasn’t it? Don’t tell the
fellows ’twas _your_ hoax. But being Dumpling, I’ve got the _dumps_,
ha! ha! so I think I’ll go home and write on my autobiography.”
_Tristo._ “Do so, and don’t forget this chapter.”
(Exit Apple with a hang-dog air.)
_Tristo._ “Incorrigible!”
_Nescio._ “Utterly! ha! ha! it’s worth a dozen comedies.”
* * * * *
As if by a secret and common impulse, the laugh and jest ceased, and
both became silent. Nescio sat by one window, emitting from a fragrant
Havana languid and infrequent puffs. His varying countenance expressed
a train of thoughts as motley as his mind, where the weighty and
the sober were linked and mingled with the light and the ludicrous,
and feelings and reflections came trooping by, robed in a livery of
serio-comic strangeness. He was thinking of the mystic links that bind
together the seen and the unseen--of the glorious, expansive, elastic
mind--that ‘_sine fine fines_’--of the invisible shadings of the mental
into the passionate, and of the passionate into the corporeal--of the
attenuated conduits that bear reciprocally between the mind and body a
gush of joy or a thrill of anguish. He turned from the puzzling maze,
and by no unnatural diversion, his thoughts passed to some of the most
wonderful emanations from this mysterious source--the productions of
the ‘world’s sole demigod’--Ariel and Caliban and Puck--the sisters
three, and Titania with her faery train--and Falstaff, and the good
king Malcolm, and the maddened Lear--poor, shattered Hamlet, and
Othello ‘the dusky Moor,’
----“Whose hand,
Like the base Judæan, threw a pearl away
Richer than all his tribe.”
Then came up in re-awakened life the fond musings of his own early
boyhood, and he was pleased with the contemplation, all groundless and
fruitless as they were, for he smiled at his former folly, and thought
himself too wise to be again deceived.
They had crowded one after another upon ‘Fancy’s ardent eye,’ bright
and incessant like waves from the sun; and as he thought of their
number and their futility, his mind was neither spent with weariness,
nor darkened by regret. His feelings were still as vigorous and varied,
as they were, before they went forth in quest of happiness and returned
without even an olive-branch, as an earnest of security and peace.
He had been thus vibrating between thought and revery for perhaps an
hour, when he started from his waking dream, and remembered that he
was not alone. Tristo was sitting at the other window, with averted
face and eyes gazing on vacancy, while in his hand lay an open volume
of the sensitive and melancholy Cowper. Nescio, I grieve to say it, is
not always felicitous in his address. He lacks that quick tact, which
may be denominated an instinctive sense of present propriety. He felt
a reaction in himself, and wished to confirm the dominion of mirth in
his own breast, by awakening it in that of others. He laid his hand on
Tristo’s shoulder, and giving him a friendly shake, said “Wake up, man,
what are you dreaming of? Come, sing us a song, _pour passer le temps_.
Pray Heaven, no pretty girl has crossed your line of vision. If so, be
not thou cast down--I can give you a charm, a very talisman to gain
her, in the whiff of a cigar, _ut ait Apple_. Sigh and flatter, sit up
late o’ nights so as to appear pale--seem for a time to prefer another,
and then assure her that your heart is, was and will be all, all her
own. In that moment of delighted conviction press hard--the fort is
yours.” Tristo was too sad to be angry. He merely replied while his lip
quivered with emotion--“Nescio, you know not how you wound me.”
_Nescio._ “Indeed, indeed, I did not mean it, you _know_ I _could_ not.
But why should you be always so gloomy? It vexes me to see you thus.
Why should you not smile more often and more willingly?”
_Tristo._ “Do I not smile?”
_Nescio._ “O such a smile! ’tis worse than tears--’tis like the forced
laugh in the play. ‘_Male qui mihi volunt, sic rideant._’ But why
should your thoughts be so dark amidst the glittering activity of life?”
_Tristo._ “And why should they not be _entirely_ dark? The breath
of this vast world sounds in my ear as the up-going of one deep and
universal sigh, and can the thought be other than a thought of pain.
My grief is not for myself alone, though that were enough. But where
is the man who is happy at all? unless, indeed, it be the happiness of
_apathy_. Where is the man of open heart and aspiring mind, whose plans
succeed even in the outline, or if the outline be realized, the filling
up is not a mixture of care and vexings--and failure and regret? When
we have reached some fancied goal of youthful promise, which shone
to the far off eye like the battlements of Heaven, does not widowed
hope put on her weeds, and mourn over her children, and refuse to be
comforted because they are not?”
_Nescio._ “With such views of human life, where do you find any relief
from your melancholy?”
_Tristo._ “To what should a mind saddened by its own afflictions look
for consolation. The world of _realities_, as I have said, presents
but a gloomy and scarred waste. Ah! then the greatness of the _poet’s_
power and the dignity of his art are most manifest. Then, that which in
our grosser moods, we had deemed light, pretty, and only fit to while
away an hour, becomes _mighty_, and _almost_ adorable. For the wearied
and broken spirit, which all the riches of learning could not soothe,
nor the gift of kingdoms elate, may by the witchery of poetry be wrapt
into a calm, satisfied enjoyment.”
_Nescio._ “I wonder not that an early father, in holy abhorrence,
called poesy, _vinum dæmonum_, the wine of fiends, if its influence be
such as you assert. For surely it supplies to the educated and refined,
the same refuge from corroding thought and disturbing conscience, which
the intoxicating cup offers to the sensual and brutish.”
_Tristo._ “It is so in some measure, but with this difference,
which will immediately rescue this ‘divina facultas’ from injurious
reflections. The inebriating draught, the actual ‘uvæ succus’ offers
its poor and transient relief to _all_. The unfortunate and the guilty,
those upon whom melancholy has settled like a mist from the ground,
causeless and undeserved, though unavoidable--and those upon whom an
outraged conscience inflicts its scourgings in righteous retribution,
may there seek and find oblivion. But only a pure life, a cultivated
mind, a _religious nature_, (let not the phrase breed heresy,) can
secure to one the healing influence of poetry.”
_Nescio._ “The idea is a sublime one. But is it not merely a beautiful
_idea_? Can you bring forward any evidence to make it manifest, or even
any illustration to render it probable?”
_Tristo._ “With ease. Indeed, were I to search far and wide
through the whole circle of English poetry, I could not find a more
pertinent illustration than in the passage which I have just been
reading, and on which my finger now rests.”
_Nescio._ “What is it? Read it.”
_Tristo._ “Even its title is affecting. ‘On the receipt of
my mother’s picture.’ It must be familiar to you, yet I will read a few
lines.
‘O that those lips had language! Life has pass’d
With me but roughly since I saw thee last.
Those lips are thine--thy own sweet smile I see,
The same, that oft in childhood solaced me;
Voice only fails, else how distinct they say,
‘Grieve not, my child, chase all thy fears away!’
The meek intelligence of those dear eyes
(Blessed be the art that can immortalize,
The art that baffles Time’s tyrannic claim
To quench it) here shines on me still the same.’
Suppose now the case of two individuals, of equal refinement,
intellect, and sensibility, (save that in one the edge of all these
qualities must have been blunted by moral defection) nay--that by
making the parallel closer, the contrast may be more obvious--suppose
them to be brothers. In early life they both were trained in the path
of moral rectitude, from which the one has never swerved, but the other
has been constantly making wider and wider deviations. Place them
now in the situation of the poet, and let them read these lines. The
image recalled, the object of their contemplation is the same--their
early associations are the same. But the effect is far different. The
conviction is present with one, that he has persevered in that course,
which his mother toiled and wept to place him in, and in pleased
sadness he will repeat with Cowper,
‘And while the wings of Fancy still are free,
And I can view this mimic show of thee,
Time has but half succeeded in his theft--
Thyself removed, thy power to soothe me left.’
The other is melancholy, but his is the melancholy of remorse. Each
vivid recollection but ‘adds hot instance to the gushing tear,’ and all
that soothed his brother, but protracts _his_ pain. He feels in all its
force the solemn truth, so quaintly expressed by the old dramatist,
Suckling:
‘Our sins, like to our shadows
When our day is in its glory, scarce appeared:
Towards our evening how great and monstrous
They are!’
His feelings are sympathetically described by Byron:
‘So do the dark in soul expire,
Or live like scorpion girt by fire;
So withers the mind remorse hath riven,
Unfit for earth, undoom’d for heaven,
Darkness above, despair beneath,
Around it flame, within it death.’
_Nescio._ “You have quoted Byron, rather unfortunately for your
argument, I think, Tristo. For he is an instance of the existence of
high poetic power, in a mind depraved by the baseness of his moral
sentiments.”
_Tristo._ “You mistake my meaning, if you infer from it that I think
the _existence_ of poetic power incompatible with moral degradation,
for there are many, too many instances of this kind. My position
was that a pure and unsophisticated character was essential to the
_enjoyment_ of this faculty in one’s self, or as displayed by others.
And of this Byron is as strong a case as I could wish. Every spark of
genius, but assisted in lighting the flame, which scathed and consumed
his heart. ’Twas so with Shelly, and in the later years of his life,
with Burns. Moore is the only similar author who approaches to an
exception to this rule. But how widely different with the opposite
class of poets. Can you read a page of Cowper, or Wordsworth, without
feeling that they derive pure and exquisite pleasure from their
inspiration. Indeed to the former it was almost his _only_ source of
enjoyment--without it he would have been wretched, in truth, for his
nature was too sensitive for a rough and jostling world.”
_Nescio._ “I cannot deny it. You have, however, a higher idea of the
value and interest and influence of poetry than is current now-a-days.
I myself have been disposed to regard the high pretensions of this
‘divina gens’ with something of distrust. I have dipped into our poetic
literature as extensively, probably, as most of my age; I have been
pleased and profited, but never have I been blessed with an admission
into the _penetralia_. My most diligent search (as Pausanias records of
the petitioner at Pion’s tomb) has been rewarded by _smoke_.”
_Tristo._ “I know that to the unreflecting crowd the life and
labors of the poet seem poor and paltry. He is one by himself--a
flower-gathering, shade-loving idler in a garden, where others are
busily plying the mattock and the spade. To them he appears engaged
neither in lessening the evils, nor in adding to the blessings of
life. His musings they deem like the dreams of the sleeper, where
fancy, and vanity, and passion, draw scenes of glory and of pleasure
with the bold tracery of an unfettered hand; but to the waking eye
in the light of reason, those pictures are changed to the ungraceful
lines, and uncolored objects of ordinary life.”
_Nescio._ “I am by no means satisfied that their view is not a correct
one. It seems to me that the allurements of poetry and the splendors of
romance are all lymphatic draughts to inebriate the mind, and, as ‘the
subtle blood of the grape,’ exalts and quickens the animal spirits,
only thereafter to retard and depress, so do these unearthly potations
elevate the soul, but leave it dull, drooping and disgusted. Especially
pernicious in their influence are the trashy productions of ephemeral
minds, which ‘dream false dreams and see lying visions,’ which clothe
the children of their fancy in perfections to which man is a stranger,
and fill the untaught soul with hopes and aspirations, which earth can
never realize. Byron certainly, and, I think, even Shakspeare, exert
an evil influence in their portraitures of character. Their actors are
so sublime, or so lovely, that they first inspire the mind with false
hope, and then fill it with vain despair.”
_Tristo._ “You speak the language of a half philosopher, who
generalizes a few isolated facts into an all-embracing theory. Even
Byron’s evil influence results not from the unnatural beauty of his
characters and scenery, but rather from the fact that he does not seem
to conceive of virtue even in the abstract; he no where shows regard
for aught but self, and no where recognizes even by accident a standard
of right and wrong. As for Shakspeare, nature is visible in all his
writings; virtue and vice are strangely mingled, even as among the
scenes and occurrences of life. If he ever deviates from the actual
and the known, it is either in the delineation of some creature of
professedly ideal existence, such as Ariel and Puck; or else in the
combination of circumstances which produces characters, that all will
allow to be natural, though such they have never seen in actual life
and motion.”
_Nescio._ “Suffer me for a moment to interrupt you, and ask what
is _nature_? Shakspeare is certainly more natural than most of his
successors, and yet, for the life of me I cannot point out the
difference, where it is, or in what it consists. For the incidents of
that great master are sometimes not merely improbable, but impossible.”
_Tristo._ “The difference is this, Shakspeare brings together
improbable occurrences in almost impossible conjunctions; yet he
_always_ makes the _words_ and _actions_ of his characters consistent.
Other dramatists have their plots sufficiently probable, and their
junctures and transitions natural and easy--this is the effect of
study; but their actors have no individuality--and this is a defect of
genius, that no study nor midnight watchings can supply: their figures
are sometimes one thing, sometimes another: the _contour_, air, and
attitude, are all shifting and various. This is more particularly
observable in works of the tragic or semi-tragic cast, than in the
comic productions of the older writers. In Dryden, for instance, the
comedies are many of them laughable and good; but the tragedies,
saving here and there a splendid spangle, are cold, inflated fustian.
Even in scenes of the most intense excitement, when grief is wrought
up to agony, and passion foams with ungovernable rage, he makes his
characters talk, talk, talk, instead of acting. In place of some brief
and stormy exclamation, such as nature prompts and passion utters,
they stand still, gesticulate by rule, and bring out long similitudes
of studied elegance, and elaborate perfection. Their ruined hopes
they liken to a blighted tree, and coolly pursue the track of the
lightning from the topmost leaf to the downmost root, showing you
how _here_ it grazed, and _there_ cut to the very heart. Oh agony!
Their words are hot--hot enough in all conscience, when taken one by
one--_minutatim_--but collectively they are verbiage, not pathos.”
_Nescio._ “I have been thinking that a natural may be distinguished
from an unnatural author, in that you can not only clearly conceive,
but distinctly remember the form and bearing of the characters in
the one, while the actors in the other leave no definite impression.
The Falstaff of Shakspeare, and the Arbaces of Bulwer, are good
illustrations of my meaning. Both are characters, which, we are
certain, never _did_ exist. How, then, is Falstaff natural, and Arbaces
the reverse? The former _might_ exist; the latter _never could_ have
being. The _former_ is a collection of qualities, carried, it may be,
to excess; the _latter_ is a union of contradictions. The _former_
is witty and sensual and boastful beyond reality, but not beyond
possibility; the _latter_ is a lumbering conception of a grand and
gloomy _something_--a shadow of magnificent shapelessness--it has no
_identity_, and its shifting outline it would puzzle Proteus to trace.
In the language of the schools, Falstaff is in _posse_, but not in
_esse_--while Arbaces is neither in _esse_, nor _posse_, nor any where
else save in Bulwer’s head.”
_Tristo._ “I believe you are right. But I was about to state why
poetry is a valuable--aye, an _in_-valuable gift. Now, observe--I
mean, not rhyme, ‘the drowsy tintinnabulum of song’--nor the display
of those poetical words, which, like trite coins, have no image
nor superscription left--nor yet, ‘in linked sweetness long-drawn
out,’ those brilliant figures, which have come down unimpaired from
Homer, and serve to conceal the deficiency of sense--but I mean
the pure ‘poetry of the heart’--the rich essence of feeling and of
thought--whether its expression be prose or verse, ‘oratio soluta,’ vel
‘constricta.’ It is true, without exception, that the purer and less
hackneyed are the feelings, the richer and more gushing is this ‘poetry
of the heart.’ And this proves its excellence. To the eye and the ear
of childhood, the ‘visible face of nature,’ the green beneath, and the
‘skyey blue’ above, with the thousand voices, that come quivering from
the forest-depths, are all one vast _poem_, modulated to a measure of
dulcet melody, and awakening sympathies inexplicably sweet. Thought to
them is a rambling revery, and existence is a thrilling dream. As they
lie upon the green grass, and view the sky, and gaze, and gaze upon
the unutterable depths, the yearnings for something beyond, beyond,
_beyond_, are quick, and strange, and powerful within them. As they
grow old, and hardened, and thankless, and wicked, does not poetry
vanish, and fancy flee? Are not the dreams of purity, and kindness,
and affection, which were but the strugglings of the youthful spirit
to attain the blessedness it was made for, supplanted by hard plans,
and cold calculations of wealth, and luxury, and restlessness, and
pride? Hope and Love, the birds of Paradise, that nestled in the boyish
heart, and fluttered with many-colored wings over their warm progeny
of kindling wishes, and bright resolves, are banished from their early
home, and in their place, with gloomy pinions, settle a thousand
cormorant birds, with the vultures of remorseless Ambition, and
Greediness for _more_. Who does not feel that it is only in his holier
and nobler hours that poesy creeps through him like a spirit, and
thoughts of grandeur cause his flesh to quiver, even as the forest is
shaken by the footsteps of the wind? Can one, who has but now stained
his soul with knavery or meanness, read that unparalleled monologue of
Hamlet, and surrender his heart to the greatness of its power? Can any,
save he whose spirit is daily and deeply filled with the sublimity of
rectitude, appreciate Milton’s sonnet upon his blindness, a specimen
of moral grandeur in thought and purpose, which has found no equal in
the walks of mind? I say not that even in the bosoms of the vicious
and the hardened, the perusal of sublime or lovely conceptions will
fail to produce emotion--deep, strong emotion--for, wound and abuse
it as you may, there will still, even at three-score years and ten,
remain something of that ardent pulse, which, in boyhood, burned at
the sight of beauty, and bounded at the voice of song. But poesy will
no longer gush continually upward from the fountains of his heart,
like refreshing waters from a perennial spring. And what a glorious
thing must it be for a Pitt or a Webster, when worn in the defense of
Freedom, and weary with the hopelessness of their toil, in the pages of
Scott to bury for a time the projects of ambition, and the chicanery of
courts! When they bow their own mighty intellects at the still mightier
shrines of Milton or of Shakspeare, is not theirs the sacred thrill
of the eastern pilgrim, when he falls and worships at the tomb of his
fathers? Wo be to him, who would lessen his hours of poetic enthusiasm;
for those hours are a backward vista to an earlier and better state.
True poetry is the basis of devotion; and devotion added to poetry is
the ‘Pelion upon Ossa,’ by which mortals may climb once more to the
heaven from which they fell.”
Ego.
HORA ODONTALGICA.
“Again the play of pain
Shoots o’er his features, as the sudden gust
Crisps the reluctant lake.”
_Byron._
(_Throb_--_throb_--_throb_--) Oh this marrow-piercing, jaw-torturing,
peace-destroying pain!--(_throb_--_throb_--_throb_--) Sure the rack
were a plaything, lunar-caustic a balsam, aqua-fortis the very essence
of pleasure, compared with this soul-and-body-distracting torment--this
anguish double-refined, this agony of agonies. “A little patience,
my dear sir,” interrupted a soothing voice. ‘Patience!’ exclaimed I,
‘talk of patience to a cubless bear, a dinnerless wolf, an officeless
demagogue--but not to me. Would you look for moderation in a maniac?
wisdom in an idiot? gentility in a clown? Who expects patience of a man
driven to distraction by the tooth-ache?--(_Throb_--_throb_--_throb_--)
Oh! that arrow-like pang----the most excruciating of all!--And I
clapped my hands to my jaws, and springing from my chair, shrieked in
agony. “Let’s see your tooth,” grumbled a rough unfeeling voice--and
before me stood a veteran Esculapian, with his lancet and forceps
fearfully conspicuous. ‘On with your instrument, Doctor,’ exclaimed
I, ‘and out with it, though I die under the operation.’ My head was
soon made stationary between two brawny hands, and my jaws extended
to their widest angle; the knife had unbared the offending dental,
and the dreaded instrument was ready for its work--but suddenly the
pain subsided--my feelings changed--I looked on the ‘cold iron’ with
horror--‘No! I’ll not have it out now;’--and the man of forceps left me.
Again felt I the pangs of a ‘jumping’ tooth-ache.
Powders--drops--essential oils--remedies of every genus and species
were tried in vain. Even red-hot iron was of no avail--the nerve was
fire-proof. Throwing myself into a rocking chair, with elbows on my
knees and hands on my jaws, I leaned over the fire in moody anguish.
“The mind,” say physicians, “exerts a sympathetic influence upon the
body.” ‘Perhaps then,’ thought I, ‘the disease may not be wholly
physical, after all;’--and I began to reflect that suffering often
apparently finds relief in association and sympathy. The hard-featured
mariner takes delight in tales of naval misery; the veteran warrior,
in descriptions of battles; the love-lorn maiden, in ‘doleful tales
of love and woe;’ the disappointed suitor in dark maledictions and
long-drawn vituperations, against all that bear the name of woman.
With this in mind, I glanced at my book-case for some treatise adapted
to my own circumstances. Nothing presented itself more to the point
than the ‘Works of Robert Burns.’ His ‘Address to the Tooth-ache’
was soon before me. I read it from beginning to end with profound
attention. The difficult Scotticisms were explained in the glossary. I
sought the meaning of every word--I entered fully into the spirit of
the piece. How beautiful!
“My curse upon thy venom’d stang,
That shoots my tortur’d gums alang;
An’ thro’ my lugs gies monie a twang,
Wi’ gnawing vengeance;
Tearing my nerves wi’ bitter pang,
Like racking engines!
When fevers burn, or ague freezes,
Rheumatics gnaw, or colic squeezes,
Our neighbor’s sympathy may ease us,
Wi’ pitying moan;
But thee--thou hell o’ a’ diseases,
Ay mocks our groan!
Adown my beard the slavers trickle!
I throw the wee stools o’er the meikle,
As round the fire the giglets keckle
To see me loup;
While raving mad I wish a heckle
Were in their doup.
O’ a’ the num’rous human dools,
Ill har’sts, daft bargains, _cutty-stools_,
Or worthy friends rack’d i’ the mools,
Sad sight to see!
The tricks o’ knaves, or fash o’ fools,
Thou bear’st the gree.
Where’er that place be priests ca’ hell,
Whence a’ the tunes o’ mis’ry yell,
And ranked plagues their numbers tell,
In dreadfu’ raw,
Thou, Tooth-ache, surely bear’st the bell
Amang them a’!
O thou grim mischief-making chiel,
That gars the notes of _discord_ squeel,
Till daft mankind aft dance a reel
In gore a shoe-thick;
Gie a’ the faes o’ Scotland’s weel
A towmond’s Tooth-ache!”
Never before had it appeared in half so favorable a light. Never
before was I so thoroughly convinced that to appreciate the beauties
of an author, we must enter into his feelings--possess his spirit.
This I could now do perfectly. And those brief stanzas--where was
there ever such genuine poetry as in them? Byron, in comparison, was
fustian; Milton bombast; Shakspeare a mere poetaster, and Homer a
sleepy-head--‘_quandoque bonus dormitat Homerus_.’
The effect was astonishing. Ere I had finished the fifth reading, my
sufferings were so much alleviated, that I could even recognize my
own countenance in a mirror--though still somewhat distorted. After
the tenth reading, however, the kindly influence ceased. In vain
did I persevere; the fifteenth perusal was accomplished; but all to
no purpose. The twang--twang--twang--and the gnawing, wrenching,
screwing sensation still continued. Again I leaned over the fire in
silent despair. I revolved in my mind the poem I had just read--the
sentiment--the meter--the rhyme. A thought struck me. This eternal
snap, snap, snap, said I to myself, is meter; this perpetual recurrence
of similar pains is rhyme; these momentary cessations of agony are
intervals of stanzas. Surely the tooth-ache, thought I, is a poetical
subject. Coleridge lay open on my table. My eye rested on a scrap of
rhythmical Latin.
“Dormi, Jesu! Mater ridet,
Quae tam dulcem somnum videt,
Dormi Jesu! blandule!
Si non dormis, Mater plorat,
Inter fila cantans orat
Blande, veni, somnule.”
The hint was sufficient. Ainsworth and the glossary soon enabled me to
metamorphose Burns’s Scotch into Monkish Latin. If the meter appear
sometimes lame, or the syntax barbarous, the blame be on the torturing
pulsations that guided the movement--on the disorganizing twinges that
convulsed my whole mental fabric.
AD DENTIUM DOLOREM.
Exsecrandum venenatum
Hunc dirumque mî dolorem,
Qui maxillam cruciatam
Nunc percurrit; ac sonorem
Dat in auribus frequènter,
Cum sevitiâ rodente;
Nervi quoque lacerantur,
Quasi machinâ torquente!
Febri, quidèm, aestuante,
Rheumatismo commordente,
Vel rigore congelante,
Sive colicâ premente,
Nos vicini miserentur,
Luctuoso comploratu;
Sed, Inferne morbos inter,
Nostro ludis ejulatu!
Barba madet mea sputis;
Atque sterno locum sellis,
In cachinnum nunc solutis
Antè foculum puellis,
Cùm saltare me viderent;
Memet interim volente
Ut in pectines urgerent,
Ex dolore, tam demente.
Inter omnes cruciatus,
Quibus homines premuntur,--
Sive messes devastates,
Sive pacta quae franguntur,
Sive funus amicorum,
Sive poenitentium sedeis,
Sive dolos improborum,--
Longè plurimùm tu lædis!
Ubicunque locus iste--
Orcum sacerdotes ferunt--
Unde planctus fremunt tristè,
Ac in ordinem sederunt
Mala valde luctuosa--
Istìc, uti mî videtur,
Odontalgia probrosa!
Istìc palma _te_ tolletur.
O, maligne tu torveque
Cacodæmon, instigare
Tot rixarum soliteque,
Ut in tabo saltitare
Cæci homines cogantur!
Fac, qui hostes sunt Scotorum,
Anni spatium cruciantur
Dirum dentium per dolorem!
Before I had finished the closing stanza, the pain entirely left
me--whether it was owing to the exorcizing qualities of the Latin, the
soothing influence of the verse, the defiance-breathing spirit of the
sentiment, or to the _length of time_ requisite for the performance,
I am unable to decide. Suffice it to say, that if any one, in making
trial of the remedy himself, after translating ten English stanzas into
Latin rhyme, experiences no relief, let him take an hundred stanzas. If
after this performance the pain still continues, let the prescription
be a thousand stanzas; and unless the patient be an uncommonly rapid,
or an unpardonably careless versifier, we hesitate not to predict that
ere he has accomplished half his task, one of two things will prove
true--either the tooth-ache will have left him for ever, or _he_ will
have bidden farewell to the tooth-ache, and, with it, to all the pains,
and sorrows, and sufferings of this ‘vale of tears.’
GREEK ANTHOLOGY.--No. V.
Whew! baked, parched, roasted, toasted, seethed, stewed, boiled,
broiled, and all the other synonymes of igniferous horror. Oh! ye
dark-skinned Ethiops, how I love you! Verily I am an amalgamationist.
“Ye are black, but comely as the tents of Kedar, as the curtains of
Solomon.” Though angry Phoebus did once pour his fierceness upon your
sweating brows, till they were dusky as the wings of night, yet are ye
not misimproved thereby; for your impenetrable nigritude, surmounted
by your oily fleece--more precious than that golden one, after which
sailed Jason and the Argonauts--can bid defiance to the heat of
Hyperion. One would think young Phoebus had again mounted the car of
the far-flinging Apollo, when, as Ovid has it,
“Inferiusque suis fraternos currere Luna
Admiratur equos; ambustaque nubila fumant.”
The winds are currents of fused lead, and the atmosphere is a huge
sudorific. What relation has the weather to Greek Anthology? “Much
every way.” The heat unnerves the body, the body depresses the mind,
and the weakness of the mind deteriorates Greek Anthology. Yet now that
the god of day is on the outmost skirts of the horizon, let me invoke
thy still descent, Oh! Muse of Evening, in the exquisite words of
Collins.
“Oh, Nymph reserved, while now the bright-haired sun
Sits in yon western tent, whose cloudy skirts,
With brede ethereal wove,
O’erhang his wavy bed--” &c. &c.
’Tis of no use. Inspiration cannot be awakened to-night. The summit of
Soracte is no longer ‘white with snow’--the waters of Helicon stand
at blood-heat--the fountain of Bandusia, “_splendidior vitro_,” has
seethed its own frogs--and the gushings of Arethusa herself are hot
enough to boil eggs. Nevertheless, one draught, oh goddess.
‘Extremum hunc, mihi concede laborem.’
_Upon Magnasus, by Lucillius._
With nose so huge, Olympicus, beware
How thy mad feet approach a fountain cool,
And in thy wanderings, shun with heedful care
The sleeping mirror of the mountain-pool,
For, like Narcissus of unhappy fate,
Thy wondrous phiz will through the waters shine,
And as he died of love, so thou of hate
Wilt gaze astonished, and with anguish pine.
The following is trite, yet true. The ambitious might, but will not
profit thereby. What is so obvious is forgotten.
All names, all ranks are levelled by the grave,
The bloom of beauty, and the pride of state,
And he, who, living, was a humble slave,
Death renders even as the monarch great.
_To a statue of Venus at Cnidos, by Praxiteles._
No! not the artist’s skillful hand,
Nor chisel wrought that form divine;
For thus didst thou on Ida stand,
And thus before the shepherd shine.
* * * * *
Around the pillar, that surmounts my tomb,
No garlands wreathe, and scatter no perfume,
Nor burn the watch fire--’tis an empty stone--
Thy waste is useless, for my race is run.
Give what thou hast, while life is in its bud--
These late libations turn my _dust_ to _mud_.
The buried drink not; for, with life’s last charms,
Forgetfulness enshrouds them in her arms.
There is very little poetry in the following commemoration: but, if the
poor fellow did actually perform the _subscribed_ feats, and that for
fame, he deserved to be immortalized.
_To the statue of Phayllus, a Crotonian, and victor in the_ five games.
Feet fifty-five Phayllus leaped,
(At which the Muses wondered)
And when the disc he raised and hurled,
He conquered full five hundred.
_The tettix (a species of balm-cricket) to its shepherd-captors._
Why, oh ye shepherds, from the dew-moist boughs
With thriftless chase the tettix do ye take,
The Dryads’ wayside singer, who arouse
The lonely echoes, till the woods awake,
And chant at mid-day, where the wood-nymph dwells
Among the mountains and the darkling dells.
The black-bird, starling, and the thrush assault,
For they are daily plunderers of you;
’Tis right that they should perish for their fault;
But who is jealous for the morning-dew?
TO CORRESPONDENTS
An essay “On the reason of animals not the reason of man,” is accepted,
and shall appear soon.
An essay “On the study of human nature in the works of the
imagination,” is under consideration.
Lines “to Miss W.” and a “Vision,” are declined.
“Washington,” and “Poetica Falsa,” both possess considerable merit; but
from press of matter, we are compelled respectfully to decline them.
“The Weather,” and a “Review of the past, No. 1.” are inadmissible.
P.’s remonstrance is received. Upon reconsideration, we perceive the
impropriety of publishing the stanzas without the “Prolegomena;” and
the Prolegomena are too long for insertion. The inference is obvious.
“On Death,” by D., in several respects is unsuitable for publication.
“On the death of an aged friend,” is received, and shall appear. We
would request, however, the liberty of making a few alterations.
“An address to the Sun,” the counterpart of the “Apostrophe to the
Moon,” from which we quoted in our first number. The author must have
suffered from a ‘stroke of the sun,’ before he wrote his address, e. g.
“Great and glorious Sun!
High ’mid etherial mete
Thou dost wheel thy burning car,
And through all thine empire afar,
Dost diffuse light and heat,
For this begun,
Thy course is run,
Till time shall be no more, and thou art done.”
“And what though thou, fair Sun!
May’st boast a mighty sway?
That earth, moon and every planet
Roll round thee their imperial seat,
And thy power obey?
From him begun
Thou brilliant Sun,
And all ye hosts of heaven your course to run.”
We have been accused of too great severity in our notes to
correspondents. We ask pardon of our contributors for our impoliteness,
and offer no further justification than that afforded by the old
proverb, ‘Evil _communications_ corrupt good manners.’
PROSPECTUS OF THE YALE LITERARY MAGAZINE.
TO BE CONDUCTED BY THE STUDENTS OF YALE COLLEGE.
An _apology_ for establishing a Literary Magazine, in an institution
like Yale College, can hardly be deemed requisite by an enlightened
public; yet a statement of the objects which are proposed in this
Periodical, may not be out of place.
To foster a literary spirit, and to furnish a medium for its exercise;
to rescue from utter waste the many thoughts and musings of a student’s
leisure hours; and to afford some opportunity to train ourselves
for the strife and collision of mind which we must expect in after
life;--such, and similar motives have urged us to this undertaking.
So long as we confine ourselves to these simple objects, and do not
forget the modesty becoming our years and station, we confidently
hope for the approbation and support of all who wish well to this
institution.
* * * * *
The work will be printed on fine paper and good type. Three numbers to
be issued every term, each containing about 40 pages, 8vo.
_Conditions_--$2,00 per annum, if paid in advance, or 75 cents at the
commencement of each term.
Communications may be addressed through the Post Office, “To the
Editors of the Yale Literary Magazine.”
* * * * *
This No. contains 2½ sheets. Postage, under 100 miles, 3¾ cents;
over 100 miles, 6¼ cents.
Printed by B. L. Hamlen.
Transcriber’s Notes
A number of typographical errors were corrected silently.
Cover image is in the public domain.
There are two instances where the name “Tristo” was substituted for
“Pulito” in the original publication:
_Tristo._ “With ease. Indeed,
_Tristo._ “Even its title is affecting.
Earlier in the text Pulito exits and there is nowhere in the text
where he returns.
Here Pulito made his exit, singing
It is likely this substitution restores the intent of the author.
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