ated from all generation."
The believers have undoubtedly stronger ground than
conjecture for affirming that the government of the animal
propensities is what is signified by the command to abstain
from the good-and-evil-knowledge tree. “ As the power
of generation was given to man solely for the purpose of
procreation, and not for the gratification of his animal na-
ture, the dignity of his creation required that he should
maintain a greater degree of order and purity in the work
of generation than was required of the inferior part of the
creation, which was governed by the law of nature. This
was the more essential, as the offspring of man were to be
rational and immortal souls. The power was entrusted to
the living and rational soul of man; and the command of
God was sufficient to maintain that power so long as the
soul maintained its obedience. This was the point of trial;
on this depended the state and character of his offspring:
for like begets like; and if parents are alienated from God,
they will of course produce an alienated offspring." p. 124.
Without resorting to repetitions, which, in their discon-
nection, might be more tiresome than convincing, it is not


1843.)
171
A Day with the Shakers.
possible to do justice to their whole argument. In both the
mystic and actual senses there is much truth in the doctrine
of the Female Messiah. As the emblem and personifica-
tion of Moral Love, Woman must ere long give the ruling
tone to society; and Love itself, as the Spirit substance,
must rule in the human heart. So the woman-seed shall
bruise the serpent-head.
Nor are their arguments directed against union under all
circumstances. On the contrary they affirm the generative
law in terms which can scarcely be gainsaid. "The
original law of nature was given of God, and was very
good in its place and order, and might have remained so
till repealed by the Lawgiver, had it not been violated,
and basely corrupted : and that it still continues to be viola-
ted in the most shameful manner, has been sufficiently prov-
ed. Therefore, those who still plead the law of nature, or
the law of God, to justify sexual coition, under a pretended
necessity of maintaining the work of generation, ought
first to examine their secret motives in it; and if they are
able to lay the propensities of lust entirely aside, and enter
upon that work without the influence of any other motive
than solely that of obeying the will of God, in the propa-
gation of a legitimate offspring, to be heirs of the kingdom
of heaven, then they are able to fulfil the law of na-
ture."' p. 145.
“ It may be proper to remark, that it is not the work
of generation, in itself considered, in the order of nature,
which is condemned; but it is that libidinous and lawless
passion which was infused by the serpent at the beginning,
and by which the work of generation has been, and still
continues to be so basely corrupted; it is that which has
filled the earth with abominations, and that is the object of
condemnation. If that cursed nature could be entirely
purged out of the natural man, so that his feelings could
be wholly governed by the will of God, he would feel a
very different sensation in this act, and would be in no
danger of violating the true order of nature by it." p. 146.
To literary minds the Shaker principles may present little
of an attractive nature; as to the artist their external appear-
ances may indicate but a moderate love for the beautiful.
Yet the truth must be affirmed that in the absence of much
literature, of the fine arts, and of those studies which are


172
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A Day with the Shakers.
thought to be essential in human progress, they seem to be
far on the road, if they have not already attained the solu-
tion of a chaste, scientific, and self-sustained life. It was
a notable saying of their mother Ann, “ Put your hands to
work, and give your hearts to God." Here is no provision
made for the disposal of the intellect. Yet they are nei-
ther void of common sense, nor of refinement. Their
simplicity has not descended to rigid forms, nor to ungra-
cious deportment. For economy they have adopted one
fashion in the cut of their garments, though at first glance
it is scarcely observable. The men do not disuse the ordi-
nary courtesies of life. They are not afraid of nodding
their heads to familiar acquaintances, or of bending their
bodies to receive the stranger. This flexibility in behavior
is attributable to their recognition of one principle, which
in theological parties is as rare as it is beautiful; that is to
say, the principle of progress. From what has been quoted
above regarding the eternal presence of Christ as the living
Spirit, we are prepared for this result. But, then, what
sect is there which has not put forth, in its origin, a similar
declaration ? And how soon it has fallen to a verbal dog-
ma! When the Quakers were no older as a sect than the
Shakers now are, they too were an animated, lively, spirit-
moved party. By the time the Shakers are as aged, they
may be as sepulchral and frigid; but from the essential na-
ture and constitution of the society we have higher hopes.
In fact it seems scarcely possible that a church, which, if it
continue in existence at all, must be kept together by the
addition of new and integrally convinced members, should
ever fall into the melancholy mood which characterizes so
many parties, who at their outset most efficiently proclaimed
the Spirit's work in them. The union of the two sexes in
government, in influence, in religion, in chaste celibacy, is
an achievement worthier of renown than many works of
greater fame. The extent of its operation, and its impor-
tant consequences, are yet but faintly discernible. It is
also worthy of remark, that this most successful experiment
of associate life, and community of property, was founded
by A WOMAN.
Ann Lee seems to have had in her mind the true idea of
a holy family ; that of representing through the simplest do-
mestic labors the most exalted spiritual sentiments. In


1843.]
173
A Day with the Shakers.
speaking to a spiritual sister she gave the following coun-
sel: “Be faithful to keep the gospel ; be neat and industri-
ous; keep your family's clothes clean and decent; see that
your house is kept clean; and your victuals prepared in
good order; that when the brethren come home from hard
work, they can bless you, and eat their food with thankful-
ness, without murmuring, and be able to worship God in
the beauty of holiness. Watch and be careful; don't
speak harshly, nor cast reflections upon them ; but let your
words be few and seasoned with grace." p. 29. And her
brother, though he had been bred in the rough school of
the royal Oxford Blues, was so meliorated and humanized
by her spirit, that he was wont to reprove the believers for
walking about in a careless, undignified manner, as if re-
gardless of the divine presence; and would say to them,
“ In your intercourse you should salute or pass each other
like angels."
Like the Roman Catholic church, this people requires of
any one joining the family, that he or she should consecrate
all property to the divine service; but there is no stipulation
for the bringing in of any wealth ; and not many persons
rich in this world's goods have joined them. Although
they have a noviciate process, their family is evidently no
place for those who are merely speculating on the practica-
bility of association. Unless the heart and hands are given
up, a true union is impossible; and where those are really
and sincerely devoted, wealth cannot be retained. The
soul determined to a holy life, as soon as rationally con-
vinced of the stability of the associates, does not wait
to count coins, nor does it stipulate for a possible self-
renegation.
The world as yet but slightingly appreciates the domestic
and humane virtues of this recluse people ; and we feel
that in a record of associative attempts for the actualization
of a better life, their designs and economies should not be
omitted, especially as, during their first half century, a re-
markable success has been theirs. A further proof that
whatsoever is sown in piety, must, under the sun of Divine
grace, ripen to an abundant harvest.
c. L.
JUNE, 1843.
for the Werty to the famil,


174
(Oct.
Youth of the Poet and the Painter.
THE YOUTH OF THE POET AND THE PAINTER.
(Continued from p. 58 of last Number.]
LETTER V.
FANNY ASHFORD TO EDWARD ASHFORD.
Doughnut.
MY DEAR Brother,
No letter from you yet, although you have now been
a fortnight at Lovedale. This is too cruel. So far as I
am concerned, I am willing to have you in the country, and
away from College ; but for mother's sake you should write
her a full account of yourself. She grieves and laments
over your abrupt departure, as if you were ruined for life;
and seems to think you can never retrieve your lost stand-
ing in your class. You know she had set her heart on
your success; and this frightful dissolution of your collegi-
ate bands has created a perfect dismay in her tender heart.
If you will only write her a full account of it, how it all
took place, she will, I doubt not, become perfectly satisfied,
and you will regain your place in her affection.
Who do you think has visited us, to our evident conster-
nation as I fear, but the illustrious head of Triflecut College,
the majestic President Littlego. Of all pompous persons
he is the chief ; and the extreme self-sufficiency of the man
put me out of patience with him in five minutes. He held
a conversation with mother about you, which I will report
for your benefit as nearly as I can.
“Madam,” said the President, “I hope your health is
good. We have had very hot weather this season ; and
the boys returned to their tasks without much spirit. Have
you received any intelligence from your son Edward since
he saw fit to leave his duties ? "
“We heard from him," she replied, “through his friend,
Mr. Hope."
“I hope he did not remark in that letter," said the ma-
jestic Littlego, “ that any too difficult tasks had been
imposed upon him by the several departments in college.
We treat all the boys alike; the utmost republicanism pre-
vails in our system ; and it is impossible that Ashford should


1843.)
175
Youth of the Poet and the Painter.
have been overloaded with requirements. I am surprised
he should have left us, and I am authorized to say by the
board of control, that even now, if he chooses to return
immediately, he will be permitted to again unite himself
with his class. This privilege has been conceded to him
for your sake Madam, no less than his own. I shall feel
it my duty to correspond with Ashford on this subject ;"
and bowing very gravely, this majestic gentleman stalked
slowly out of the parlor.
Poor mother was nearly frightened to death by this visit
of the dignitary, and I fear it will hold as long in her
memory as the visit of “my gracious Prince" to Mrs.
Bellenden in the novel. Since you left, we have had a
little party, as usual, at this time; but it went off poorly,
however, as mother mourns over your absence so se-
verely; and she, you know, is the life of all parties. Your
friend Hope came, out of whom I can make nothing, ex-
cept as being your friend, seemed in capital spirits, and
whenever he talked with mother about you, smiled with
more than his usual brilliancy. Pray write us at once.
Your affectionate
Fanny.
LETTER VI.
EDWARD ASHFORD TO JAMES HOPE.
Lovedale.
I am yet on the river, and love to float on the sparkling
waters; but I feel sad and cold this sunny day. It is too
solitary, I believe, yet much better than the dull noise of
the city, and the stupid form at college. Nature can
never be enough, yet how much better than the society of
most men. I run away to the forest as if I was pursued by
a demon, to avoid the fellowship of these kind-hearted
people, yet know not why. I suppose we were not born
in the same planet, and different colored blood runs in our
veins. What a mistake that we are all brothers in this
world, and how rarely we find a true brother's, or even a
cousin's friendly eye fixed on us.


176
(Oct.
Youth of the Poet and the Printer.
To-day has been pure golden sunshine since morning;
and how the day-god played with the trunks of the trees,
as if the forest were one great harp. In the morning, as I
sat among golden-rods, under the shade of a pine, where
on every side these sunny flowers grew, it seemed as if the
sunlight had become so thickly knotted and intertwined
with the roots and stems of the plants and grasses, that it
could not escape, but must remain and shine forever; yet
the pine tree's shadow, at sunset and before, fell long across
the place, and the gay light bad fled, like the few bright
days of life, which fly so rapid by. The old tell us we
are young, and can know nothing of life; to me, it seems
I have lived centuries, out of which I can reckon on my
fingers the days of pleasure, when my heart beat high. [
fancy, there is a race of men born to know only the loss of
life by its joys, - to live by single days, and io pass their
time for the most part in shadowy vistas, where there is
neither darkness nor light, but perpetual mist. I am one
of these ; and though I love nature, the river, the forest,
the clouds, she is only a phantom, like myself, and passes
slowly, an unexplained mystery, like my own conscious-
ness, which shows through a want of perfect knowledge.
I see myself, only as what I do not know, and others, as
some reflection of this ignorance, an iceberg among other
icebergs, slowly drifting from the frozen pole of birth to
the frozen pole of death, through a sunny sea.
I feel, that within lies a heap of perpetual snow, encir-
cled by a fair ring of grass and flowers, over which the sun
plays, yet this central cold never melts to nourish their roots,
but shines mild and graceful, though never warm. Can I
ever become warın in this snowy peak? I should be, for
there alone does it seem that the air of my life is clear. I
should be resigned to this penance, would society leave me
to myself; but, in addition to this pressure of inward ice, I
am doomed to perpetual conflict with those around; and I
have not only my individual part to play, but to act in do.
mestic tragedies beside.
At the earnest request of a mother, who, if too tender-
hearted, has a real love for me, though of my character she
understands no one part, I went to the college, in hope
to burrow concealed behind stupid folios while in the
house, and leave them to stand and smile grim defiance in


1843.)
177
Youth of the Poet and the Painter.
the face of the tutors while away. I resolved to devote so
much time to one or two languages as would keep up the
appearance of study, for my mother's sake, and for the
rest to wander in the fields, if I could find any in the
mean village of Triflecut. In doing so I felt I was acting
so far for my mother, without making the life too wretched
to bear. I came out of the sanctity of my little chamber
at home, where at least all was in keeping, where I had
memories of many a walk, my favorite books, and a few
pictures, into the barren interior of the staring brick edifice
at Triflecut. I recited some two or three lessons tolerably
I believe, although I felt it was useless work ; and went I
think to five prayers. But the latter, I very soon gave
over, for I could submit no longer to the dull, droning
voice of the college minister, grinding out his requests for
health and happiness, with not near the life of a hand-
organ. I became so perfectly tired of this nonsensical
stuff, that I unconsciously went in any direction sooner
than to the Chapel. On Sunday, I did not go to church,
and was summoned before the President, who told me I must
go like a good boy to church, or be turned away; to which
I replied, that I should do as I thought best, and returned to
my room. I saw that in reciting our lessons to the con-
ceited tutors, who think College is the Universe, and the
President Jupiter, they had the impudence to give us
marks for what we did, as if we, paying them for so much
aid in our lessons, were therefore to be rewarded by them
with a couple of pencil scratches. Such a system as this
fell below the discipline of the school I last attended, where
we had neither marks nor punishments, were neither
kicked nor flattered, blamed nor praised. At College, I
found we were treated, not only as machines, but to be set
up or down, at the discretion of these tutors, who had
merely to scratch down a mark, and thus decide our fates.
This foolery I felt I could not agree to, even for my
mother's sake. I was led, by what predisposition I cannot
say, unless by the general idea I had of a class, called
scholars, to fancy there was something romantic and beautiful
in the life in Colleges. I conjured a ghost from the mid-
dle ages, dim cloisters, retired meditations, and beautiful
persons, who dwelt together in a religious community,
where only sunrise and twilight divided the day, and all was
VOL. IV. - NO. II.
23


178
(Oct.
Youth of the Poet and the Painter.
hority whicharidecuto scho
order, silence, and gentle repose. I saw the pale scholar,
gliding like a shade through the aisles of a solitary chapel,
or studiously bent upon his mighty volume in a recess of
the vaulted library. I should be one of these scholars,
have my gown and spiritual republic with the rest, and take
my place in mysterious debates on subjects too lofty for
the vulgar eye to profane, and feel fear as I wandered in
the retired court-yards, that I should never rise to the
lofty place of the true scholar. I had wove some such
webs, which, it is true, hung on my mother's request, before
I went to Triflecut.
I found here no scholars whatever. Some young men,
deficient in grace, were wearing out the elbows of their
coats, in getting by heart some set lessons of some little
text-books, and striving, which should commit them the
most perfectly to memory. This perfection lay in the
point of a tutor's pencil, and was at last decided on by the
votes of a band of professors, who loved wine and pud-
dings better than literature or art, and whose chief merit
lay in keeping their feet dry. The collegians seemed lost
in the microscopic side of learning; and I felt I could see
no poetry there, nor get any marks, and might either wait
to be formally turned out by the vote of the professors,
headed by the President, or fly myself. I chose the latter.
I have had a little formal letter from the President, in-
forming me, that I may come back, if I will be a good boy,
or stay away, if I will be a bad one ; I shall not reply, for
I have nothing to say. It was childish to go to College,
and yet more childish to stay more than one day, when I
was there.
As I sat on my sand-bank to-day, looking at a finely-shap-
ed arrow-head I had found, I could not but recall the forms
of those uncivilized men who once pitched their wigwams
under the groves on its border. I saw them circling me,
in their mazy dance, like a company of demons come from
the depths of nature, to torment me in my poor condition ;
they shook their long, straight hair, in raven clouds above
their flat foreheads, while some maidens, who sat in a group
apart, smiled on me, with those moon-like watery smiles,
which make me at once frantic and powerless. Apart from
the maidens, and the dancing group, to the trunk of a tree,
bared for the purpose, was bound by tight-drawn sinews


1843.)
179
Youth of the Poet and the Painter.
a youth, whose curling hair, and pale cheeks showed he
had been stolen from some other clime. Those fearful
bands pressed close into his tender flesh, and it seemed the
blood would gush from them every instant; yet the expres-
sion of his countenance was calm and resigned, as if the
patience of years lay within his unaltering eyes ; as the
Indian girls smiled, I saw a fainter smile yet, of the same
cast, flow over his thin cheek, and a tall, muscular chief
from the dancing group raised his heavy spear and balanced
it, in his upraised arm, as if he would throw it.
There was a most glorious sunset this evening, and I
stood on the high bank of the river to watch it. The long
line of dancing light was traced from my feet across
the river, till it sunk at the foot of some black hills. The
sky above was flecked with spots of fused gold, with a
lake of the richest blue, surrounded by yellow banks, and
crimson mountains, rolling and towering into a host of laugh-
ing rosy clouds. This is the setting of the life in the
clouds, while our sunlight here falls into the arms of the
black hills. Still, our little boats dance down the golden
tide, play with the shining foam, and leave behind a long
row of pretty bubbles, which expand and fade in an instant.
I shall love better to play among the purple mountains, and
the silver trees. I am haunted to-day by some figures from
the sky, though O! how seldom they come.
EDWARD.
LETTER VII.
MATHEWS GRAY TO JAMES HOPE.
Easton.
MY DEAR HOPE,
I have received your letter, in which you describe your
friend Edward, and wish to know my opinion, as to what
you can do for him, in his present situation. I am not sure
that I can offer you one suggestion on the subject, which will
clear your mind of doubt, or render your duty as a friend
more easy. It is not unknown to you, that I have long re-
garded Edward, from his connection with you, as one of my


180
(Oct.
Youth of the Poet and the Painter.
friends; and the various conversations we have held upon
him make me feel, though I have never seen him, as if I
was an old acquaintance.
He is one of a class of young persons, who have lately
sprung into existence, as distinct from the youth of the
last generation, as Italians from Icelanders, the children
of the new birth of the century, whose places have not
been found. This mania for what is natural, and this
distaste for conventionalisms, is exhibited as the popular
idea, yet inaccessible to the class in which he was born, and
which is the last to feel the auroral influences of reform.
But not in our day will this new idea of civilization com-
plete itself, and hence these unconscious reformers will be
the last to discover their true position. They cannot
unite themselves with sects or associations, for the centre of
their creed consists in the disavowal of congregations, and
they wander solitary and alone, the true madmen of this
nineteenth century. The youth of our age will be the
manhood of the next, and though Edward will not become
a man of the world so deep are his peculiarities, the great
number of those, who profess a like belief with him, disa-
vow in later life the ideal tendencies of their early years.
The vein in them was not a central one, which ran to the
core of their existence.
I sympathize with what you say of Edward's family, and
especially of his mother. Educated as she was, to say
nothing of her original character, I fear she cannot stand
in the right place, to see him as he is. She feels sensitive
about each new step he takes, without comprehending how
impossible it is for him to run astray in the vices and fol-
lies, which followed the want of occupation, in the young
men she was brought up with, and asks anxiously of his
every movement, how will the world regard this ? forgetting,
how indifferent the world is of her son's affairs. Your
desire, that I should write her on the subject, with her
previous knowledge of my character, I cannot accede to;
for though I am older than you, and better known, she
would have more confidence in what you might furnish.
If you write, I would not insist on Edward's youth, or ad-
vance the old common-places, that years will bring discre-
tion, and experience open closed eyes, as I know you
would, if you happened to be struck with the folly of the


1843.)
181
Youth of the Poet and the Painter.
opinion ; I would calmly ask her to wait for a season, and
not precipitate her judgment, and dwell upon the exquisite
delicacy of her son's character, which I do not believe
either she or her daughter appreciate.
You inquire, “Do you think Ashford a poet, or simply
a lover of verse, who writes by force of imitation ?”
What the world generally calls a poet, I believe he will
never be, that is, to carefully prepare a good many dull
verses, print them on the whitest paper, with notes of in-
troduction, and engage a favorable critic to make them a
pretty review. Whether he publishes anything, I consider
doubtful; but from the poem you showed me, I judge the
production of verse is natural to him, and that by abund-
ant encouragement from his friends, he may be led to write
with more attention to critical rules, though for some
years he will pay the least possible respect to measure and
formal art. He will have a favorable beginning for a poet,
and his verse become the product of necessity and nature.
I am glad he inclines to so much privacy, for this port-folio
literature has long had a charm for me, which I cannot
value too greatly. I would do my best to inspire him with
a belief in his powers, though I should make a very gradu-
al approach to any formal criticism of what he may send.
Above all, I would leave his life to himself. How many
years I required to untie the dexterous noose, which the
stern education of my youth knotted about my faculties,
and in fact, what day passes, in which I do not wage vio-
lent war with the legends of boyhood. How much more
difficult for such a person as Edward, who has scarce-
ly any control over himself, to become free, should he
once fall into the snare of custom. I hope he will remain
at Lovedale, as it pleases him, for I long to hear some one
brought up poetically in nature. Soon enough, time will
hammer his chains of practice, if they are not forging already.
M. G.
LETTER VIII.
RICHARD ASHFORD TO EDWARD ASHFORD.
Doughnut.
My Dear NED,
Thou art no more to be come at than the south shore,
under a north-easter, and I have abandoned all hope of


182
(Oct.
Youth of the Poet and the Painter.
seeing your face again. I have been besought by your
acquaintances, both male and female, excepting your friend
Hope, to communicate with you at Lovedale in person,
and so “beard the lion in his den." To say nothing of
the rheumatism, of which I have had several horrible
twinges lately, I hold any intrusion into your solitude a pal-
try business; I am willing to let you alone, and would not
write you a letter for a Dukedom, was I not the only
medium of communication between the main land and your
island.
You have played us a snug trick, and graduated at a
college of your own founding. I heard a piece of your
letter to Hope, which forced the water out of my eyes, as
if they had been sponges. Your magnificent explosion of
the College, as if it was a fuze, and very wet at that, ex-
ceeds in comic these old plays, I am reading ; and if I was
not a tolerable hand at laughing these many years, I had
become one at reading that. The President took an oath
on the four evangelists, that you were mad as a March
hare ; the Board of Control washed their hands of you
at once, and you are now no more a member of Triflecut,
than of Bedlam. Being free of College, consider within
yourself what line of business you mean to pursue, and
send us word. Your mother's heart is nearly broken, if
that affords you any satisfaction, while your sister thinks
you a cold-hearted villain, just good enough for the State's
Prison, or the Lunatic Hospital. These agreeable conclu-
sions, to which I have arrived from actual inspection, I
fear will throw a fog over your passage, and perhaps in-
duce you to put your helm hard up, and run for some
other beacon. One thing consider settled, you cannot go
back to College, for they are all your mortal enemies there,
except Hope, and he is a quiz.
I am authorized, by your mother, as your oldest male
relative, to inform you, that you can, if you choose, return
to Doughnut, and enter the office of Lawyer Smealmin, to
study law. Smealmin I advised with yesterday. He is a
dry, spare, plugged-looking creature, with more laws in his
head than straws in a wheat-stack. He sits at an angle
of forty-five degrees, and lives on apples and sour milk.
In his office you will be expected to hold a law book be-
tween your face and the fire in winter, and in the summer


1813.)
183
Youth of the Poet and the Painter.
try to keep your temperature low, by drinking iced water,
and playing the flute. In his premises are two other
young gentlemen sucking law, who look plump, and ap-
pear very cheerful. I cannot form an opinion as to your
fitness for the law, as a profession, but will inform you,
what is expected of a lawyer, and then you will be able to
judge for yourself. I was once engaged in a protracted
law-suit, which lasted three years, and then died of con-
sumption, its lungs (the lawyers) having absorbed the
whole substance. If you are a lawyer, you must be able
to eat two dinners every day, one with your client, and the
other with the bar; to purchase a dozen volumes, bound
in law-calf, and full of law-veal, or, as it is sometimes
called, mutton-head. In the morning, you enter your
office at half-past eight, read the paper till nine, and then,
if you feel able, walk as far as the Court-house. There
you are provided with a seat by the Sheriff, and cold water
by the deputy Sheriff. You next stare at the Court, con-
sisting of one or more judges, twelve jurymen, a crim-
inal or civil case, four baize tables, and a lot of attorneys.
You next begin to make motions, which consists in getting
a case put off, or put on, as you happen to feel, and run
your eye over the docket, which is kept at the clerk's table,
in a ledger, for the accommodation of the county, and the
clerk's family. If it is your case which comes on, you open
your eyes wide, talk a great deal about nothing, and dine
with the bar. Occasionally you will feel sleepy after din-
ner, but awake yourself by smoking a cigar, or driving into
the country. This, my dear Ned, is the general life of
lawyers, so far as I have been able to learn, into which you
can be initiated, if you will only say so.
Your mother is equally willing you should study medi-
cine with Doctor Phosphorus, whom I have also consulted.
Of the two, I should prefer to become a doctor. In this
case, you enter the medical College, and attend three
courses of lectures, and pass one examination. Medicine
seems to be a delicious occupation. You have great priv-
ileges at the dissecting room, where you will find a greasy
demonstrator in a red jacket, cutting up the carcase of a
refugee Frenchman, who died at the poor-house of starva-
tion, and as nobody would bury him, took shelter here, in
the pleasant society of the students. You will be in ad-


184 Youth of the Poet and the Painter. (Oct.
dition allowed to visit the public hospital every other day,
and become acquainted with all the Doughnut paupers,
who preferred to be scientifically killed by the doctors, to
unskilful death in the streets by the city authorities. These
form an interesting class of men, and their diseases are so
exceedingly compound, that if they cannot die of one
complaint, they can certainly of some other. Besides this,
there is Doctor Phosophorus' private practice, who physics
all the old women gratis, and produces highly diseased
conditions by artificial methods for the sole benefit of
science and his students. The medical books are all
written in what we sailors call "hog-Latin," and are far
more entertaining, than if they were composed in common
English ; besides nobody can read them, except Doctors.
As a physician you will not only be compelled to work all
day, but frequently be called up at night, to visit a three-
year-old infant, who eat an apple-peel in the morning, and
has the gripes, besides living two miles in a straight line
from your office, and when you prescribe, its affectionate
parent will inform you, that she guesses it will do pretty
well without any physic, and that she only wanted you to
come and look at it. This, my dear boy, is a delicious
manner of passing your earthly existence, and has claims
on your attention, which, I fear, will prove irresistible. —
There is still left to you, if you choose it, to become a
merchant, in which condition many of the most respectable
citizens of Doughnut pass their lives. The great art in
being a merchant is, to look wise, and ride in a carriage,
- to build a large house, and invite your friends to dinner.
At first, very true, you must learn to cipher and write let-
ters, but this will not detain you long, — the great thing is,
to look wise, and ride in a carriage.
I, my dear Ned, have always been accounted a humorist,
since I came home from my last voyage, mounted a wig,
and smoked a pipe; and I believe myself, that I am more
than half. As to what you really mean to do, I will not
venture one word of advice, for I have been to sea all my
days, and can tell nothing about what trades suit the land
best. Only if you begin to do anything, stick to it, like
a burr, and never desert the ship, as long as you can keep
a rag dry. Set your canvass, handle your rudder, and
make straight to some point by the chart of the passage.
Do'nt flounder about, like a lobster-box, without a tie.


1843.)
185
Youth of the Poet and the Painter.
Your mother is willing to set off what property belongs
to you, and let you have the whole control, now and for-
ever, if you choose ; but I advise you to leave it where it is,
for it will burn, like as not, in your pockets.
I have seen more of your friend, Hope, and I maintain
what I said, the fellow is a quiz, whether he knows it or
not. A good boy, though, and I am glad he takes so much
interest in you. The rarest thing in this life is a true
friend. Interest ties us mostly together, and our chains
are made of bank-bills. The golden bracelets of love
unite very few.
Your Uncle,
Dick.
LETTER IX.
EDWARD ASHFORD TO JAMES LOPE.
How much more we see of nature in some moods, than
in others. It seems, I could be for an instant content in the
sunny beauty of the calm, autumn day. I cannot blame
my constitution, that varies its sympathy so often, but I
mourn I am cold and indifferent to the common customs.
and occupations of men. If each man has been entrusted
with the gift of doing some one thing better than another,
how happens it, I discover no pursuit which seems my
rightful destiny ?
At times, I think I must be a poet; and am armed with
a strong resolve to compose some verses, which shall
utter the music of my thoughts. The rhymes come,
the essence is wanting, and what I meant for song, has
only its form. I am desirous to be as humble as a child.
If I am granted any success, how proud I shall feel; I
never ask for a greater blessing. I have this ardent desire
aſter verse, if I begin to write, I can think of nothing else,
either when walking, or in the house. Some spirit in-
habits the else empty chambers of my mind, and leads me
after this mirage, over the bare fields of existence, and
entreats me to quench its thirst at the sweet spring of
poetry. When I write, and see what poor success I meet,
VOL. 10. — NO. II.
24


186
(Oct.
Youth of the Poet and the Painter.
I feel more dispirited than before. Was it once thus with
the masters of song? I should be glad, had they left the
record of their experience in their mighty vocation, for I
might then be better prepared to fail. There remains only
their beautiful success, and it is impossible to believe they
faded beneath these harrowing disappointments, under
which I lie cold and sorrowful. I read the sublime strains
dejected by my feeble trial to follow their daring footsteps,
and have concluded many times, that I cannot be a poet.
Again the desire comes, again I long to sing, and add a
new thorn to my pillow in my failure.
You cannot think how singular it is, you should say I
was born a poet. Your keen eyes, that usually search
every secret, have been blinded by love. You do not see,
with the impartiality of a stranger, of what in another, you
call trifling with the muse, you think, because I send it,
poetry. I lately wrote some verse which I send you, as I
do not feel like writing more lo-day.
E. A.
AUTUMN.
A VARIED wreath the autumn weaves
Of cold grey days, and sunny weather,
And strews gay flowers and withered leaves
Along my lonely path together.
I see the golden-rod shine bright,
As sun-showers at the birth of day,
A golden plume of yellow light,
That robs the Day-god's splendid ray.
The aster's violet rays divide
The bank with many stars for me,
And yarrow in blanch tints is dyed,
As moonlight floats across the sea.
I see the emerald woods prepare
To shed their vestiture once more,
And distant elm-trees spot the air
With yellow pictures softly o'er.


1843.)
187
Youth of the Poet and the Painter.
I saw an ash burn scarlet red
Beneath a pine's perpetual green,
And sighing birches hung their head,
Protected by a hemlock screen.
Yet light the verdant willow floats
Above the river's shining face,
And sheds its rain of hurried notes
With a swift shower's harmonious grace.
The petals of the cardinal
Fleck with their crimson drops the stream,
As spots of blood the banquet hall,
In some young knight's romantic dream.
No more the water-lily's pride
In milk-white circles swims content,
No more the blue weed's clusters ride
And mock the heaven's element.
How speeds from in the river's thought
The spirit of the leaf that falls,
It's heaven in this calm bosom wrought,
As mine among those crimson walls.
From the dry bough it spins to greet
Its shadow in the placid river,
So might I my companion meet,
Nor roam the countless worlds forever.
Autumn, thy wreath and mine are blent
With the same colors, for to me
A richer sky than all is lent,
While fades my dream-like company.
Our skies glow purple, but the wind
Sobs chill through green trees and bright grass,
To-day shines fair, and lurk behind
The times that into winter pass.
So fair we seem, so cold we are,
So fast we hasten to decay,
Yet through our night glows many a star,
That still shall claim its sunny day.


188
(Oct.
Social Tendencies.
SOCIAL TENDENCIES.
“THE DIVINE END IN SOCIETY IS HUMAN PERFECTION.”
[Continued from Dial for July.]
Our organic reforms are not organic enough. Or rather
organic reform throughout all forms and all organism will
never reach to the life which is in the organ, and that most
needs reform. Change the present social order altogether,
and introduce forms entirely new ; let the organs of exhi-
bition and imbibition for social man be newly created, still
man himself, who is the being in the organism, remains
unchanged. He is thereby made no better, and it is bis
bettering which is the one desirable end. Whereas if he
were elevated, the organization and form of society would
necessarily be also elevated. Were man drawn to the
centre, all his circumferential motions would be harmonious.
Few truths are now more obvious than that reformers them-
selves need to be reformed. So will it be visible with regard
to associative experiments. They cannot be better than the
men and women who jointly make them ; upon whom,
after all other expedients, the work of reform has to be
commenced.
It is not then by means of a vision seen from his pres-
ent state, that man can project a better life. But by living
up strictly to-day to his deepest convictions of rectitude,
there may be opened to him new and deeper consciousness
to-morrow. Thus not from day to day will he project new
schemes, but from day to day he lives new life. And in
this faith, both the scoffer and the hopeful may find a com-
mon ground for union. This seems to be the mastering
obstacle. This is the thread which it is so difficult to
wind up, - a golden thread too, hanging down from heaven
to earth preserving unbroken man's celestial relation. Man
appears to progress by a certain law in which time is not
an essential element. He may be as long as he will, before
he takes a second step, but he can never attain to the third
until the second is complete. Social infancy has no fixed
period, but youth must come next, and manhood afterwards.
Let the boy be ever so old in years, yet as long as his de-
light rests in playing at marbles and other childish pursuits,


1843.]
189
Social Tendencies.
he never ranks as an adult. Our social youth stays too
long playing at commerce in the market-house. His com-
mercial marbles have rolled into all places and things, foul
and clean, from heaps of human flesh to linen and silk,
and his fingers are yet unwashed.
Though none of our projectors may yet have alighted
on it, there is undoubtedly somewhere discoverable the true
avenue to human happiness. The idea of a true life is
almost a universal intuition, and by consequence that the
present life is false. Admitted to be possibly in order when
contemplated as a whole from beginning to end, yet by
the pain we experience, we know it to be but the order of
disorder. Invisible, inaudible, intangible as are pain and
pleasure, of their reality none can doubt, and such knowl-
edge should suggest that deeper realities are also in the
hidden and spirit-world. Amongst such realities this of a
true life may there be learnt. In no other quarter may it
successfully be sought. Whence man receives the intuition
of true life, thence he should seek the knowledge of what
it is. They, who have received this information from men
by tradition, will naturally look to men for the solution,
and to scientific facilities as the means. But they, who
have the higher authority of a nature for it in themselves,
will look in the same direction for further advice. To such
the question now remaining is rather that one only,
“ What are the hindrances to the realization of true life ?"
For they no longer doubt that there is a true earthly life
to be realized.
Consistently with their metaphysics, the advocates of the
omnipotence of circumstances may plead, that the great and
prevailing hindrances to heroic and virtuous existence lie
in the very many untoward conditions by which humanity
is surrounded. But the really courageous heart takes a
different view ; and, looking broadly as well as deeply at
the facts, is free to admit that the great difficulties do not
reside in the circumambient materialities or spiritualities ;
neither in the world of actual life nor in that of opinion,
but in the being itself. Human degeneration is a self-act.
To an escape from degeneration human volition is ne-
cessary. The primary hindrance to holy life is to be
found in the Will itself. Men are not yet disposed for it;
they are not yet Willing. In their self-willedness, active and


190
[Oct.
Social Tendencies.
deep, and all-prevalent as it is, there is no room for the
universal will and impulse to enter. To which the circum-
stantial philosopher replies to the effect, that man makes
not his own will or disposition, but that it is made for him
by circumstances. Not to wander too deeply into the ques-
tion of free will, nor to assume more than may without
prejudice be conceded, we may confine the assertion to
these limits, that so far as man knows what is true and
good, and is at liberty to act up to his knowledge, he does
not do so. There is not a resignation to the absolute true
so far as it is revealed. There is not a sect nor perhaps
a man at this moment acting fully up to their knowledge
and perception of right; and that not because of any ob-
structive influence in the circumstances, but from a lack of
courage or self-denial or self-resolution, of which there is
at the best and calmest moments an entire consciousness.
Each one apprehending the inmost truth has to say, it is in
myself that the principal hindrance lies. The primal ob-
struction is in myself, or rather is myself. Something in
the nature of a sacrifice, a giving up, a forbearing to take,
is needful on my part ; and no outward influence prevents
my practising this, which my heart and my head, my feel-
ings and my rational powers alike demonstrate to be the
first great needful step in human melioration.
Either this principle is denied, or it is admitted. If de-
nied, on account of the supremacy of circumstances, then
men must be left to suffer and complain, until the despot
circumstances shall be changed by some other circum-
stances, which are to be generated of circumstances in some
manner yet hidden. But if the principle of man's self-
power, or heaven-derived influence be admitted, then, we
say, the point is clear, and every one has to avow, it rests
with me to let the world be amended. I have a revelation
of the good and true, which is not yet realized so far as I
am capable of elevating it to practice, and I am not justi-
fied in looking abroad for reasons for my inertia, when I
am sensible that the defection is in my own will, in myself,
in the very identity and individuality of my own existence.
Next to the hindrances which a man discovers in his own
inmost existence, may be ranked those moral obstructions
which grow out of his own wilfulness. The opinions,
thoughts, modes of reasoning, which form, as it were, the


1843.]
191
Social Tendencies.
store of his mind, have been all collected or formed by
that will or wilfulness which is his grand misfortune. They
accord with it; they are almost one with it. In case, how-
ever, of a conversion of will, or of a semi-conversion,
which is a disposition to good, these mental stores are seen
to be prejudices, conjectures, and habits difficult to be
overcome. These form the glass through which we doubly
see all other men and all created things. “Such is the
condition of man,” says Dugald Stewart, " that a great
part of a philosopher's life must necessarily be spent, not
in enlarging the scope of his knowledge, but in unlearning
the errors of the crowd, and the pretended wisdom of the
schools." These may be called accumulations on the out-
side of the soul; and amongst these may also be classed
those appetites and passions whose indulgence takes place
through the body. For they do not, as is sometimes as-
sumed, belong to the body. The attractions of eating
and drinking and other sensualities are not attributed
to our physical nature. Greediness is a vice of the
soul, which is only manifested, not originated, in the
body. It is sometimes embodied in heaps of gold and
silver, at other times in popular applause, or private
ease, at others in viands and stimulants, at others in
wife and children. These are but its modes of liſe ;
the passion itself is in the soul; and it but goes forth and
reënters through the portals of the senses. Such are
amongst the most potent obstacles to present progress. It
is not difficult to obtain mental assent to beautiful creeds,
doctrines, or speculations, which demand no practical
change in habits or diminution of personal indulgence ; but
whenever it is proposed in the smallest degree to abridge
gratifications which hinder the soul's clearness, and really
prevent progress in goodness, the intellectual powers be-
come suddenly active, and energies are exbibited which by
their self-origin put to ignominious flight the notion, that
man is always mentally ruled by mental circumstances.
For an original intellect of comparatively surprising acute-
ness suddenly springs up. It is not until these formidable
opponents within doors are subdued, that we need look
abroad for any reasons to account for the non-attainment
of our convictions of true life. These have, however, been
so frequently exposed and so diligently assailed, that there


192
(Oct.
Social Tendencies.
seems little occasion to dwell further on them. They have
their origin in the same source where as our individual obsta-
cles are accumulated. Every opinion and principle, right or
wrong, commenced in an individual mind, and the congre-
gate acceptance of these we call church and state, accord-
ing as they relate to sacred or to secular affairs. The pre-
judices of art, science, taste, and profession are not small,
yet they may all more or less be escaped, until they take the
concrete nature upon them, and become part and parcel
of church or state. So long as they remain unstamped by
either of these seals, their plastic nature remains in a semi-
fluid condition, and the strong-minded individual may
counteract their oppressions. But as soon as warm spon-
taneous thoughts are chilled into orthodoxy, the fluid stream,
which would facilitate our progress, is frozen into an un-
yielding barrier.
The clearness with which men see that the present state
of human affairs is incapable of furnishing to them the de-
sirable results for which they live, is the hopefullest indica-
tion observable in the moral horizon. No noisy demagogue,
no exciting writer is needful to the production of this state
of mind. Even those, who thrive most brilliantly on what
is deemed the prosperous side of social arrangements, are
ready to admit their inefficacy for permanent good. Life
at the heart appears to be a toilsome engagement in a pro-
cess which has no termination; a preparation for which
there is no post-paration; a perpetual circulation of steam-
engine and machinery which do no work beyond moving
themselves; a hunting in which nothing is caught; a shaft
without an aim ; a pursuit without a goal.
These are the feelings and views in considerate minds,
and next follow speculations for the future. Led, or rather
misled, by the rule of experience, men have in vision be-
held a public social state, in which every family being de-
veloped, every want satisfied, every tendency elevated,
existence should become as redolent of bliss as now it is of
woe. Competition, punishment, dogmatism, private prop-
erty being banished, there would remain coöperation,
pleasure, freedom, common property, and a cessation of
every evil would ensue. But on examination it must be
concluded, either that such plans do not proceed far enough,
or that they are projected in a wrong direction. They


1843.]
193
Social Tendencies.
seem to be made too dependent on extensive scientific ar-
rangements, into which we do not glide in an almost un-
observant manner, as the growth of animate bodies pro-
ceeds, but there is a strained effort to a preordained result
more comparable to the erection of a dead granite building
than the perfection of a living being. The future state of
man will not be any one that is scientifically prophesied,
although scientific prophecies may have some influence;
and so far as they are utterances from the law of life in
man, they must influence. But in action, men proceed
socially as they do artistically. Human society is in fact
an art, and not a science. It is erroneous to treat it ex-
clusively in a scientific manner. The “science of society"
is a phrase and an expression of feeling which must be
superseded by that of the “art of society," which includes,
too, the all of science which is needful, but in a subordinate
manner only. The social art is the engagement and occu-
pation of the true artist. And as the divisional artist in-
stinctively proceeds to utter himself through such materials
as he finds lying about, whether they be rough or refined,
so the social artist manifests, by the like unerring instinct,
the law of his being in new life, through whatever social or
human materials may be present. Both work instinctively.
The law of criticism is to be developed from their works,
and their works cannot be constructed according to a pre-
scribed critical dogma. So far as this artist-spirit is born,
there is an actual effort to embody it in some work. The
artist-spirit always recoils from the dictation of science, to
obey which, would indeed seem to be like a submission of the
painter's design to the colors and pencils. Society attempt-
ed wholly on scientific principles, without the central artistic
nature, would be found as impracticable as the opposite at-
tempt of producing an outward work or object of art with-
out the aid of science. It is in the marriage of the two,
that the resulting offspring of an outward social existence
is possible. As to painters, poets, and sculptors, SO
there is a perpetually new revelation to the social artist,
but it comes not through science. Science lies on the
other side ; and it is from the social artistic nature, through
science as a means, that the revelation is to be made man-
ifest. This art, like all others, is progressive ; and the
progress of science, originally an issue from it, yet aids
VOL. IV, NO. II.
25


194
(Oct.
Social Tendencies.
it. The music-art developed musical instruments, and
scientific improvements lend an aid in return to the artist
in his expressions. These are the relative positions of art
and science; and if scientifically arranged associations
have not yet met with that cordial response which their
benevolent projectors anticipated, they should be reminded
that this omission is necessarily fatal. Without the femi-
nine principle, without piety, without poetry, without art,
as the primal origin, the prevalent idea, no project seems
worthy of the time and thought required in the attempt to
realize it,
Society is worthy in the degree in which art, in this
sense, rules in it. Because there is no poetry, no warmth
now in it, is the soul moved to a change. The wrecks of
feudalism served long to sustain the succeeding crafts and
guilds; but these stores being all exhausted, and science
having swept up every scrap of chivalry to be converted
into bread, the skill of political economists being now
worn to its last remnant, some change is demanded to suc-
cor the famished soul. Now, it is very certain that man
in this state will take up that which lies nearest to his
hand. He appears individually incapable of much ; - so
that a bold conduct on the part of scientific projectors may
elicit a support they do not legitimately claim. Such a
course would merely amount to another chapter in the
present order of disorder, a beautifying on the outside, and
would not be very productive of either good or harm. We
shall, in that case, simply have to return, or rather we shall
still have to discover the right course.
Again man will adopt that which next is offered, and un-
less that is in harmony with his true progress, the result is
again disappointment. There are, however, always two
roads lying equally near to his feet. One is really out of
his way, but seductive; the other is the true way, but is at
the outset repulsive. Hitherto he has oftenest travelled out
of his way, or the outer way, and has not really taken up
that pursuit which lay next him. He still looks abroad for
that which he can find only at home. He seeks in science
that which dwells alone in art. Really that which stands
next to a man to do, is to live up this day, this hour, to the
best intuition of which he is sensible. This is an inner
road which it is hard to travel, but the principle is that


1843.)
195
Social Tendencies.
which all moralists have enunciated, and which they who
most diligently pursue, are oftenest charged with deserting
How mistaken men are as to the cause of their unhappi-
ness, or how unready they are to admit it, is evident in the
great variety of subjects to which human misery has been
attributed. Hereditary monarchy, hereditary aristocracy,
a law-established church, corrupt parliaments, national
debts, taxation, machinery, education, ignorance, over-pro-
duction, over-population, excessive commercial enterprise,
banking, and various other facts have been suggested to
account for the discontented condition of man. It
only needs a geographical survey to see that in coun-
tries, where most of these afflictions are unknown), bappi-
ness does not yet attend man. A survey of the old or
eastern continent of the globe shows almost no nations ex-
empt from most of these forms of ill; and from the rest,
the greater part of the new continent is exempt. It is not
to be denied that more or less of physical misery abounds,
as these forms of evil more or less prevail, but the soul-
sickness seems to depend little on these causes. When
the English emigrant escaped from the dark and dismal
miseries of the manufacturing town of his birth, to the
American swamp, he no more left behind him the origin of
unhappiness than he did his mother tongue ; and we must
not be surprised to find his descendants heirs to one, as well
as to the other. Misery they inherit as a generation ;
language they learn to lisp by education. But the initia-
tion of both is equally certain, and from the same source.
This fact is, we trust, becoming too well known to permit ma-
ny more classes of ephemeral reforms or exoteric amendments
to be seriously proposed or extensively relied on by man-
kind. It ought to be well understood that to rely so much
on external plans, which are to be worked by others, is the
most backsliding and treasonable treatment conceivable of
that original impulse which is the basis of our amending
desires. These persons and these plans become the great
deluders. Their operation is that of throwing a tub to the
whale. Minds which leſt alone would become intense in
purpose, clear in thought, and strong in action, have been in-
duced to lean on crutches, which will let them down into the
mire. As soon as the weight is really placed on them, they
break. Echoes of the great sounds of political economy,


196
[Oct.
Social Tendencies.
which but a few years ago promised emancipation to man,
have not all died away. At this forge were to be wrought
machines to support men in every predicament. Yet how
soon these fires are cold, and the hammers silent. Econo-
my as a science has been as little prolific of good, as fac-
tious party politics. So do all short-sighted schemes wear
out, and we have to return to the primitive stimulant which
moves us. Were this the universal course, there would be
no want of outward concurrence. In fact this is the only
sound mode for its attainment. Outward union is not
brought about by calling for it, but by the like spirit work-
ing in all men. We have now to see whether the present
appetite is really one in all the individuals, which is partly
to be known by the sort of food it craves. We have to
ascertain whether the new spirit is an unfolding from the
universal basis, and if it tends to one social order.
Viewed broadly, and as a whole, there is much that is
cheering in the moral prospect. A deeper sense, a purer
tint, seems spread over all moral thought. Wit has possi-
bly run almost to the end of its barren career, and must
await the coming up of affection.
In the general demand throughout the world for reformed
government, we remark one of the workings of the youth-
ful spirit. It is not by an accident; it is not by local asso-
ciation that men have become thus like-minded. Sympa-
thy comes not by the rubbing together of corrupt human
frames. Unity in mind is not generated by the aggregation
of bodies. We may no longer fancy that men are urged
as of old to a demand for political privileges by local or
temporary scarcity of bread. We can no longer believe
that the “vox populi" issues only from an empty stomach,
though in famishment it requires a deeper, bolder, wilder
tone.
Tomin umhers that the room
The politician now seeks rather by the organization
of imposing numbers, than the array of physical instru-
ments, to attain his end. His argument now is accumulation
of minds, not the best dry gunpowder. He is no believer
in force by bodies ; or at least his idea of physical power
is changed from that of muscular energy, to that of mind,
as the mover. This is at length brought in as the
primary element in the new political compound, and is the
heart in the modern tyrants public opinion;" a heart
which joined with an undivided head and an unbroken


1843.]
197
Social Tendencies.
body would be unbearable. But integrity the body never
had, and never can have. Integrity is not constituted of
an aggregate collection, and this is the highest unitive
idea which occurs to the mind of the political reformer.
This is the very infancy of central thought; the crudest
notion of unity. The development of but one leaf more
in the human bud exposes the externality of this object,
and effects a reaction inwards, throwing the mind more
consciously on itself, when the idea of universal education
is next vividly entertained. Hence over-honest politicians
expand into educationists. As soon as it is perceived that
wise and liberal government is only possible with wise and
liberal citizens, the effort is to make them so.
No thinker, at least no benevolent thinker, can have
missed of the idea of universal education. The redemp-
tion of all mankind from the degradation of ignorance is
the aim of every true scholar. The student who labors
incessantly in his closet, apparently for himself only, is
working for the entire human race, whether he knows it or
not; and ultimately he discovers this fact with exceeding
joy. The joy of aiding human emancipation by pure men-
tal means is unknown to the political agitator, who is only
tolerable in the roughest sketchings of social thought.
Even the sluggish conservative joins in schemes of educa-
tion, though with a different motive. For he perceives the
assuaging effects of literature and gentle pursuits, and re-
lies on them to tame the public spirit, and spare him a little
longer the position wherein he stands.
There is a stage in human development where the frivoilty
of politics, and the short-coming of education are rendered
manifest. At this stage, a deeper work is demanded. Po-
litical reform succeeds political reform, and men are no bet-
ter-and no happier. Education proceeds, and with it,
penitentiaries and jails, hospitals and insane asylums are
multiplied. Churches compass sea and land to make one
proselyte, and the result is as of old.
The consciousness of such results frequently drives men
back to individual narrowness. In his fruitless reliance, the
publicist turns misanthrope. In contemplation of perverse
humanity, the mentalist sinks into the book-collector, the
literary critic, or the speculatist. The churchman becomes
a skeptic.


198
(Oct.
Social Tendencies.
Some few, qualified to act a leading part, are neither
misanthropic, nor visionary, nor skeptical under any want of
outward success. They are loveful, real, and faithful.
But they are not found on every hill-side, nor in every
study, nor in every factory. In courts and colleges we seek
them not. With spade, or mallet, or shuttle in hand, they
are to be found, full of youth, and practicality, and hope.
Of what they really stand in need, many such are yet una-
ware. Their immediate object is nearly as obscure as the
deep-moving impulse. Collected, located, united, they
would be as a city seated on a hill; while dispersed, they
are unknown to each other, and are overshadowed by the
dark mass of the world, by which they are either to be
wholly hid from light, or suffered to rise in egotistic splen-
dor equally fatal to all good.
These are willing laborers; they shrink not from physi-
cal nor from mental duties : they desire not to avoid the
outward responsibilities, in making a provision for the in-
ward life. The lower necessities they joyfully submit to,
for the happiness of the higher freedom. The love-spirit
is strong in them potentially, as the labor-principle is pres.
ent in them actually. The unitive means alone seem want-
ing, the mediator between love and labor.
Baffled, beset, or persecuted by the old hindering spirit,
as progressive newness ever has been, the first aim is now,
as in all foretime, to erect a fence against such assaults.
The few new must defend themselves from the many
old. The first duty — spirit-integrity ; the first law
spirit-conservation, demand such a course. The most
beautiful corollary of this law, the conservation of good in
the whole, equally enforces it.
Are the few new yet numerous enough or strong enough
to erect this fence in the outward world ? Are they prepared
to be this stockade ? Are they sufficiently potent and cer-
tain in being ? Rude may be the assaults attempted from
without, but ruder far are those which must be mastered
within. Man meets with a great enemy in the declared
opponent; he finds even a greater in false friendship ; but
his greatest enemies are in his own heart; verily, just where
his greatest friend also abides. And there they are, face to
face, the fiend and the friend. Which shall triumph ?
Shall we have the strength of friendship to join the old


1813.
199
Social Tendencies.
world in its hindering negation, or shall we be embraced
by the love in friendship, and join the new world in its
creative affirmation? Onward we must. The distinguish-
ed mission of the love-enlightened is to create a new
sphere for the acting man ; to construct a new cradle for
the infant humanity, to nurse the new-born, to tend the
weak, to foster the needful, to enlighten the dark, to sym-
pathize with the lowly, to meliorate the arrogant, to
sweeten the bitter.
Creation, construction, generation, not of life itself, but'
of new, beautiful, harmonious modes of it, is now man's
great work. He is to open a place, to clear an arena for
the manifestation of spirit under a new aspect. This pre-
cinct must be kept pure and unspotted from the world, free
from old corruption in food, in raiment, in law, in com-
merce, in wedlock. Holiness, innocence, lustre must over-
spread all things, inspire all acts, permeate all being. Such
a commencement shall be as the Word in the Beginning,
in the ever Beginning; a seed whose tree shall overshadow
all nations, and find sap for its roots in every soil.
Although future events are not to be read out of the
past, yet may the coming be glanced at from the same
point which generated the past, and generates the present.
If there be any one fact in human existence deserving the
character of universal, it is, that every human being enters
the world as the member of a family. The creator, in
using two human instruments to produce a third, maintains
an irreversible decree, which may not be left unconsidered.
The family may now be an example of anything rather
than of amity ; yet exist it must; and from this relation-
ship all action must be dated. Marriage is something more,
and something better than a contrivance for the perpetua-
tion of the animal nature. Universal love rather than old-
bachelor philosophies may suggest that public kind of
treatment of children, which has so often been discussed,
yet at the same time there seems no greater infraction of
universal love in parental than in connubial affection. Mor-
al sympathy is the basis of wedded union ; a mental like-
ness precedes the liking, and these elements, no less than
physical similarity, are repeated in the offspring. Were
entire separation of parents and children decreed at the
earliest movement which physical sustenance permits, sym-


200
[Oct.
Social Tendencies.
pathy and likemindedness would, in no small number of
cases, generate an unerring family register. Affection then
is something; sympathy, passion, tendency, genius, are to
be taken into the account. Falsely fed hitherto, they yet
are true wants in human nature. Universal love is ever
manifested in individual acts, and on individual objects in
different degrees. Divinity itself has not made the tree
and the man susceptible of the same amount of divine
love; yet the love is one. Neither can man, though he
love all objects with the same love, love them all in the
same degree. The family then need not be a hindrance
to a love for the whole human race. Nor indeed is it so;
though not unfrequently is it made the apology and excuse
for unloving conduct. Where the family originates in self-
love, its existence is likely enough to manifest the fact in
the strongest manner. Marriage and children do not gen-
erate selfishness, but selfishness generates them. Marriage
is the mode of it with the married, as is single life with
the bachelor and the spinster. Marriage and its results
are not more corrupting than any other social institution ;
they do but serve to declare in the most marked manner,
the power which rules in humanity. By its fruits the hu-
man tree is known.
Considerations of the kinds here glanced at, indicate the
possibility for human emergence by easier transition than is
presented in extended scientific arrangements. While the
family kindred is a universal ordinance, it is equally cer-
tain that every individual is related to the whole human
race; yet not in the same degree. Divine justice would
scarcely be perceptible in making the improvement or
health of one individual wholly dependent on the improve-
ment and health of every other. In a measure, it is so ;
but the relation of some is so distant, that the influence
scarcely reaches. And, at all events, the more it is so, the
more potent the outward influence may be deemed - the
greater is the urgency for individual healthfulness. So of
the family. In the mere fact of association, families will
not be improved. In the scientific and artistic association
of families, something may be attained, but such an ar-
rangement calls for skill in outward arrangements and
knowledge of human materials, which the world has not
yet witnessed. And, in the mean time, the regeneration of


1843.]
201
.
Social Tendencies.
any one should not be so wholly dependent on the regener-
ation of all. The one willing should not be a victim of
the unwilling many. Moreover it is at least questionable
whether individuals or families can be harmoniously asso-
ciated until harmony reigns in them individually.
The family has no more received justice at the hands of
the world than the individual has. Institutions, laws, cus-
toms, habits, are as opposed to the well-working of true
family as of true individual life. Yet it is the fashion to
condemn the one as the origin of social ill, and to pity the
other as the victim. Public life commits a serious crror,
on its own principles, when it recognizes individuals, or
rather individual man only without admitting female influ-
ences to a like extent. Society is male, not family, not
humane. The sacredness of the family has only been
talked about; while really it never has been profaned.
The supremacy of the family has not so much as been con-
templated. Church, state, commerce, wealth, wit, com-
mand. To the external forms of some of these all family
claims succumb; and although, as an idea, it has been
mentally entertained, and, as a fact, has had its influence,
yet the position which to the family duly belongs has
never been awarded. In this the Church and State should
live. In this alone should they be exhibited in outward
form ; living form. On no other basis can living forms de-
pend. Neither Church, nor State, nor Commerce can pro-
duce one living human being. They are but dead exter-
nals, animated by so much of life as creeps into them from
the family origin. Commerce should consist in the inter-
changes of affection. The State is rightfully the family
economies: in this all questions of law, of government, of
justice should be discussed and determined. The Church
is nowhere, if not in the holy family: its prayers, its sacra-
ments, its praises are hourly, continually repeated.
The necessity for permitting what may be called the
female element in society to grow up in its due proportion,
has recently presssed more and more upon the mind. Wo-
man and her rights, duties, and position, is the theme for
many pens. In almost all cases, whether of male or female
authority, the mistake seems to exist, that whatever advance
woman may make in the social sphere, is to take place by
reason of a concession granted by man. This is clear-
VOL. IV. —NO. II.
26


202
[Oct.
Social Tendencies.
ly so large a vice in the premises, that the consequences
must be vicious too. It must not be so. Man may indeed
cease to hinder woman's just life; but with no other
sentiment than that until now he has been in error; he has
done too much, and he must now do less that the right
may be.
In many other ways, also, we may catch glimpses of a
coming newness, as much broader in outward character than
the present, as it is deeper in spirit-origin. That origin
really may be one, but in the apparent world it works step
by step. First one round of the ladder is mounted, and
then another is attained, leading unto a third. We have
only to be certain that we do go upwards, and are not
merely shifting our feet and coming back continually to the
same level. Clearly this is too much the case; or rather it
has been. Let us hope the world is wiser now. And
there is so much the greater promise, inasmuch as for the
bettering of both man and his conditions, the greater part
of the achievement consists in that easy process of ceasing
to do. The honest man inquires, “ shall I go into trade ?"
and the prompt response is “no.” The aspirant says
" shall I benefit men as a legislator ?” and common sense
replies you cannot elevate man by degrading yourself."
The pious mind would find in a church the fraternal sphere
which conscience tells him the bireling desecrates. How
much of that which exists, must the new man cease to
touch. Neither wealth, nor public life, nor church, as at
present known, presents an attraction to him which he dare
accept. Cleanliness of hand, of head, of heart, are not
found compatible with these things. As the laws against
smugglers, or slave-traders, they are nought to him. He
touches them not; they touch not him ; unless indeed as
affording ground for false accusation, of which no small
share awaits him. In this sense of living out of the pres-
ent order, the progressive man may be said to outlive it.
And daily are the ranks of such progressive men augment-
ed. It is the legitimate order of human progress in this
twofold manner to effect its purpose. He who abstains
from alcohol, effectively destroys the distilleries, and need
not be so unwise as to strike his mallet against the building.
Active destructiveness is not the function of the true man,
but his cessation of use causes by-gone customs to fall off
like tattered garments.


1843.]
203
Social Tendencies.
Practically, the steps will be gained somewhat after this
manner. More and more recruits will daily be enlisted
from the old crowd, and swell the orderly of the new pha-
lanx; but let it not be forgotten that the family relations
cannot be lightly or irreverently treated. Not in public
halls, but around the hearth-stone it ever has happened
that improvement has been first discussed. Not in the noisy
bustle of life where they are preached, but in the quiet re-
cesses of home, all high, dignified, and heroic actions have
their origin. In the family, the last, the noblest, the re-
deeming secret lies hid. Perhaps it is true that in this cir-
cle man's fall originated, and in it is perpetuated ; but
logically and retributively that fact should at least not pre-
clude, if it does not confirm the prognostic, that in the fami-
ly are to be sown the permanent seeds of new life.
Man's healthfullest feelings are of home-origin. Even
the most ambitious will confess this. Catch the busy
scribe, on whose pen the public waits for its miserable
newspaper-wit, or for its political instructions, and he will
own he hopes by his labors to make his family happy. —
Speak in private with the orator, and he will admit that
between the shallow pretensions of his cause, and the
stimulants necessary to keep up his frame, he is a ruined
being. Of the wealth-seeker we need make no inquiry.
His only pretence for chicane is the protection of his family
from his own morally disastrous process. These pursuits
are so foreign to the legitimate purpose of life that devo-
tion to them is social and domestic death; and, as far as
permanent good is concerned, the world has to be ever
begun anew. The public sentiment which now condemns
war, and slave-trading, and hanging of men, must extend
its condemnation to the quieter and subtler contrivances of
legislation, and tradecraft, and presscraft, which more cer-
tainly obstruct the attainment of human happiness. These
institutions are equally fatal to the reign of the human
family, and the highest, purest human affections on earth.
While the sceptre is in the hands of an artificial and facti-
tious father called King, or Governor, or President, it can-
not be with the true parent. All usurped dominion has to
cease before the lawful empire can be commenced. To
this consummation, as we predict, there is a strong tenden-
cy. Notwithstanding the great activity infused into the


204
(Oct.
Social Tendencies.
present order, there is little faith anywhere in its stability.
Thrones, credits, estates, fame, may almost be calculated
at so many years' purchase. But there is not yet so clearly
presented, as some minds desire, that unity on which a new
faith is to be built. Here lies the difficulty in the new
movement. Men cannot give up the old rites and cere-
monies of the church, until they are vitally sensible of the
ever present God within their own hearts. Men cannot
abandon courts of law and state legislation, until they are
fully conscious of the permanence of eternal justice and
divine law in themselves. Men cannot give up the pur-
suit of wealth, until they are quite convinced that they are
themselves the true riches of the earth. It is not on the
exchange, it is not in the public assembly, it is not in the
formal church that men will become aware of these deep
truths. Hence the quivering anxiety to draw them to the
meeting and the mart. The great opponent of death, as
the great friend to life, is privacy. Quiet, serenity, vigor of
soul, originality of thought are fatal to a system which lives
by noise, bustle, decrepitude, and imitation.
Sacred precinct is the family : and supreme it should be
also. Every home-act should be as sacred as the secretest
emotions in the soul; effusing a perpetual sabbath. Eve-
ry humane action is a sacrament, every human effort a work
of art, having for object its own construction. This is the
great end in creation. But humanity can only work in
this order, when connected livingly, purely, generatively
with the creating spirit. Until then, all is disorder, chaos,
profanity. All that attracts men, all that engages their at-
tention, is only tolerated on the excuse of its subserviency
to the sacredness of home; a sacredness which is pre-
tended to be upheld by the very processes which violate its
sanctuary, so that really it is not. Men are hopefully ask-
ing why this illusion should be prolonged. And as no sat-
isfactory response is heard, they ask it more and more
earnestly. Their earnestness is the omen of its downfall.
C. L.


1843.
205
Ethnical Scriptures.
ETHNICAL SCRIPTURES.
CHINESE FOUR BOOKS.
[PRELIMINARY Note. Since we printed a few selections from Dr.
Marshman's translation of the sentences of Confucius, we have received
a copy of the Chinese Classical Work, commonly called the Four
Books, translated and illustrated with notes by the late Rev. David
Collie, Principal of the Anglo-Chinese College, Malacca. Printed at
the Mission Press." This translation, which seems to have been
undertaken and performed as an exercise in learning the language, is the
most valuable contribution we have yet seen from the Chinese literature.
That part of the work, which is new, is the Memoirs of Mencius in two
books, the Shang Mung and Hea Mung, which is the production of Mung
Tsze (or Mencius,) who fourished about a hundred years after Confucius.
The subjoined extracts are chiefly taken from these books.]
All things are contained complete in ourselves. There
is no greater joy than to turn round on ourselves and be-
come perfect.
The human figure and color possess a divine nature, but
it is only the sage who can fulfil what his figure promises.
The superior man's nature consists in this, that benevo-
lence, justice, propriety, and wisdom, have their root in his
heart, and are exbibited in his countenance. They shine
forth in his face and go through to his back. They are
manifested in his four members.
Wherever the superior man passes, renovation takes
place. The divine spirit which he cherishes above and
below, flows on equal in extent and influence with heaven
and earth.
Tsze Kung says, The errors of the superior man are
like the eclipses of the sun and moon. His errors all men
see, and his reformation all men look for.
Mencius says, There is not anything but is decreed ;
accord with and keep to what is right. Hence he, who
understands the decrees, will not stand under a falling
wall. He, who dies in performing his duty to the utmost
of his power, accords with the decrees of heaven. But
he who dies for his crimes, accords not with the divine de-
cree.
There is a proper rule by which we should seek, and
whether we obtain what we seek or not, depends on the
divine decree.


206
(Oct.
Ethnical Scriptures.
Put men to death by the principles which have for their
object the preservation of life, and they will not grumble.
THE SCHOLAR.
Teen, son of the king of Tse, asked what the business
of the scholar consists in ? Mencius replied, In elevating
his mind and inclination. What do you mean by ele-
vating the mind ? It consists merely in being benevolent
and just. Where is the scholar's abode ? In benevolence.
Where is his road? Justice. To dwell in benevolence,
and walk in justice, is the whole business of a great man.
Benevolence is man's heart, and justice is man's path.
If a man lose his fowls or his dogs, he knows how to seek
them. There are those who lose their hearts and know
not how to seek them. The duty of the student is no
other than to seek his lost heart.
He who employs his whole mind, will know his nature.
He who knows bis nature, knows heaven.
It were better to be without books than to believe all
that they record.
THE TAOU.
Sincerity is the Taou or way of heaven. To aim at it
is the way of man.
From inherent sincerity to have perfect intelligence, is
to be a sage by nature ; to attain sincerity by means of
intelligence, is to be such by study. Where there is sin-
cerity, there must be intelligence. Where intelligence is,
it must lead to sincerity.
He who offends heaven, has none to whom he can pray.
Mencius said, To be benevolent is man. When man
and benevolence are united, they are called Taou.
To be full of sincerity, is called beauty. To be so full
of sincerity that it shines forth in the external conduct, is
called greatness. When this greatness renovates others, it
is called sageness. Holiness or sageness which is above
comprehension, is called divine.
Perfection (or sincerity) is the way of heaven, and to
wish for perfection is the duty of a man. It has never
been the case that he who possessed genuine virtue in the


1843.]
207
Ethnical Scriptures.
highest degree, could not influence others, nor has it ever
been the case that he who was not in the bighest degree
sincere could influence others.
There is a divine nobility and a human nobility. Be-
nevolence, justice, fidelity, and truth, and to delight in
virtue without weariness, constitute divine nobility. To
be a prince, a prime minister, or a great officer of state con-
stitute human nobility. The ancients adorned divine
nobility, and human nobility followed it.
The men of the present day cultivate divine nobility in
order that they may obtain human nobility; and when they
once get human nobility, they throw away divine nobility.
This is the height of delusion, and must end in the loss of
both.
OF REFORM
Taou is not far removed from man. If men suppose that
it lies in something remote, then what they think of is
not Taou. The ode says, “ Cut hatchet handles." This
means of doing it, is not remote; you have only to take hold
of one handle, and use it to cut another. Yet if you look
aslant at it, it will appear distant. Hence the superior man
employs man, (that is, what is in man,) to reform man.
When Tsze Loo heard anything that he had not yet fully
practised, he was afraid of hearing anything else.
The governor of Yih asked respecting government. Con-
fucius replied, Make glad those who are near, and those
who are at a distance will come.
The failing of men is that they neglect their own field,
and dress that of others. They require much of others,
but little of themselves.
WAR.
Mencius said, From this time and ever after I know the
heavy consequences of killing a man's parents. If you
kill a man's elder brother, he will kill your elder brother.
Hence although you do not yourself kill them, you do near-
ly the same thing.
When man says, I know well how to draw up an army,
I am skilled in fighting, he is a great criminal.


208
(Oct.
Elhnical Scriptures.
POLITICS.
Ke Kang asked Confucius respecting government. Con-
fucius replied, Government is rectitude.
Ke Kang was harassed by robbers, and consulted Con-
fucius on the subject. Confucius said, If you, sir, were not
covetous, the people would not rob, even though you
should hire them to do it.
Mencius said, Pih E's eye would not look on a bad color,
nor would his ear listen to a bad sound. Unless a prince
were of his own stamp, he would not serve him, and un-
less people were of his own stamp, he would not employ
them. In times of good government, he went into office,
and in times of confusion and bad government, he retired.
Where disorderly government prevailed, or where disorderly
people lived, he could not bear to dwell. He thought that
to live with low men was as bad as to sit in the mud with
his court robes and cap. In the time of Chou, he dwelt
on the banks of the North Ka, watching till the Empire
should be brought to peace and order. Hence, when the
fame of Pih E is heard of, the stupid become intelligent,
and the weak determined.
· E Yin said, What of serving a prince not of one's own
stamp! What of ruling a people which are not to your
mind! In times of good government he went into office,
and so did he in times of disorder. He said, heaven has
given life to this people, and sent those who are first en-
lightened to enlighten those who are last, and has sent
those who are first aroused to arouse those who are last. I
am one of heaven's people who am first aroused. I will
take these doctrines and arouse this people. He thought
that if there was a single man or woman in the Empire,
who was not benefited by the doctrines of Yaou and Shun,
that he was guilty of pushing them into a ditch. He took
the heavy responsibility of the Empire on himself.
Lew Hea Hooi was not ashamed of serving a dirty
Prince, nor did he refuse an inferior office. He did not con-
ceal the virtuous, and acted according to his principles.
Although he lost his place, he grumbled not. In poverty
he repined not. He lived in harmony with men of little
worth, and could not bear to abandon them. He said,
“ You are you, and I am I; although you sit by my side


1843.]
209
Ethnical Scriptures.
with your body naked, how can you defile me?" Hence
when the fame of Lew Hea Hooi is heard of, the mean
man becomes liberal, and the miserly becomes generous.
VIRTUE.
Chung Kung asked, What is perfect virtue ? Confucius
said, What you do not wish others to do to you, do not
to them.
Sze Ma Neu asked, What constitutes perfect virtue ?
Confucius replied ; It is to find it difficult to speak. « To
find it difficult to speak! Is that perfect virtue ?" Confu-
cius rejoined, What is difficult to practise, must it not be
difficult to speak ?
Confucius says, Virtue runs swifter than the royal pos-
tillions carry despatches.
The She King says, “Heaven created all men having
their duties and the means or rules of performing them. It
is the natural and constant disposition of men to love beau-
tiful virtue.” Confucius says, that he who wrote this ode
knew right principles.
Confucius exclaimed, Is virtue far off? I only wish for
virtue, and virtue comes.
Confucius said, I have not seen any one who loves virtue
as we love beauty.
Confucius says, The superior man is not a machine which
is fit for one thing only.
Tze Kung asked, Who is a superior man? Confucius
replied, He who first practises his words, and then speaks
accordingly.
The principles of great men illuminate the whole uni-
verse above and below. The principles of the superior
man commence with the duties of common men and
women, but in their highest extent they illuminate the
universe.
Confucius said, Yew, permit me to tell you what is
knowledge. What you are acquainted with, consider that
you know it; what you do not understand, consider that
you do not know it; this is knowledge.
Confucius exclaimed, How vast the influence of the Kwei
Shin (spirits or gods ). If you look for them, you cannot
see them; if you listen, you cannot hear them; they
VOL. IV, NO. II.
27


210
(Oct.
Via Sacra.
embody all things, and are what things cannot be separated
from. When they cause mankind to fast, purify, and
dress themselves, everything appears full of them. They
seem to be at once above, and on the right, and on the left.
The ode says, The descent of the gods cannot be com-
prehended ; with what reverence should we conduct our-
selves! Indeed that which is least, is clearly displayed.
They cannot be concealed.
VIA SACRA.
Slowly along the crowded street I go,
Marking with reverent look each passer's face,
Seeking, and not in vain, in each to trace
That primal soul whereof he is the show.
For here still move, by many eyes unseen,
The blessed gods that erst Olympus kept,
Through every guise these lofty forms serene
Declare the all-holding Life hath never slept ;
But known each thrill that in Man's heart hath been,
And every tear that his sad eyes have wept.
Alas for us! the heavenly visitants, -
We greet them still as most unwelcome guests,
Answering their smile with hateful looks askance,
Their sacred speech with foolish, bitter jests ;
But oh! what is it to imperial Jove
That this poor world refuses all his love!
C. A. D.


1843.]
211
A Winter Walk.
A WINTER WALK.
The wind has gently murmured through the blinds, or
puffed with feathery softness against the windows, and oc-
casionally sighed like a summer zephyr lifting the leaves
along, the livelong night. The meadow mouse has slept
in his snug gallery in the sod, the owl has sat in a hollow
tree in the depth of the swamp, the rabbit, the squirrel, and
the fox have all been housed. The watch-dog has lain
quiet on the hearth, and the cattle have stood silent in
their stalls. The earth itself has slept, as it were its first,
not its last sleep, save when some street-sign or wood-house
door, has faintly creaked upon its hinge, cheering forlorn
nature at her midnight work. — The only sound awake
twixt Venus and Mars, — advertising us of a remote inward
warmth, a divine cheer and fellowship, where gods are met
together, but where it is very bleak for men to stand. But
while the earth has slumbered, all the air has been alive with
feathery flakes, descending, as if some northern Ceres
reigned, showering her silvery grain over all the fields.
We sleep and at length awake to the still reality of a
winter morning. The snow lies warm as cotton or down
upon the window-sill; the broadened sash and frosted
panes admit a dim and private light, which enhances the
snug cheer within. The stillness of the morning is impres-
sive. The floor creaks under our feet as we move toward
the window to look abroad through some clear space over
the fields. We see the roofs stand under their snow bur-
den. From the eaves and fences hang stalactites of snow,
and in the yard stand stalagmites covering some concealed
core. The trees and shrubs rear white arms to the sky on
every side, and where were walls and fences, we see fantastic
forms stretching in frolic gambols across the dusky land-
scape, as if nature had strewn her fresh designs over the
fields by night as models for man's art.
Silently we unlatch the door, letting the driſt fall in, and
step abroad to face the cutting air. Already the stars
have lost some of their sparkle, and a dull leaden mist
skirts the horizon. A lurid brazen light in the east pro-
claims the approach of day, while the western landscape is


212
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dim and spectral still, and clothed in a sombre Tartarean
light, like the shadowy realms. They are Infernal sounds
only that you hear, — the crowing of cocks, the barking
of dogs, the chopping of wood, the lowing of kine, all
seem to come from Pluto's barn-yard and beyond the
Styx ; - not for any melancholy they suggest, but their
twilight bustle is too solemn and mysterious for earth.
The recent tracks of the fox or otter, in the yard, remind
us that each hour of the night is crowded with events,
and the primeval nature is still working and making
tracks in the snow. Opening the gate, we tread briskly
along the lone country road, crunching the dry and
crisped snow under our feet, or aroused by the sharp clear
creak of the wood-sled, just starting for the distant mar-
ket, from the early farmer's door, where it has lain the
summer long, dreaming amid the chips and stubble.
For through the drifts and powdered windows we see
the farmer's early candle, like a paled star, emitting a
lonely beam, as if some severe virtue were at its matins
there. And one by one the smokes begin to ascend from
the chimneys amidst the trees and snows.
The sluggish smoke curls up from some deep dell,
The stiffened air exploring in the dawn,
And making slow acquaintance with the day;
Delaying now upon its heavenward course,
In wreathed loiterings dallying with itself,
With as uncertain purpose and slow deed,
As its half-wakened master by the hearth,
Whose mind still slumbering and sluggish thoughts
Have not yet swept into the onward current
Of the new day; - and now it streams afar,
The while the chopper goes with step direct,
And mind intent to swing the early axe.
First in the dusky dawn he sends abroad
His early scout, his emissary, smoke,
The earliest, latest pilgrim from the roof,
To feel the frosty air, inform the day;
And while he crouches still beside the hearth,
Nor musters courage to unbar the door,
It has gone down the glen with the light wind,
And o'er the plain unfurled its venturous wreath,
Draped the tree tops, loitered upon the hill,
And warmed the pinions of the early bird;


1843.]
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A Winter Walk.
And now, perchance, high in the crispy air,
Has caught sight of the day o'er the earth's edge,
And greets its master's eye at his low door,
As some refulgent cloud in the upper sky.
We hear the sound of wood-chopping at the farmers'
doors, far over the frozen earth, the baying of the house
dog, and the distant clarion of the cock. The thin and
frosty air conveys only the finer particles of sound to our
ears, with short and sweet vibrations, as the waves sub-
side soonest on the purest and lightest liquids, in which
gross substances sink to the bottom. They come clear
and bell-like, and from a greater distance in the horizon,
as if there were fewer impediments than in summer to
make them faint and ragged. The ground is sonorous,
like seasoned wood, and even the ordinary rural sounds
are melodious, and the jingling of the ice on the trees
is sweet and liquid. There is the least possible moisture
in the atmosphere, all being dried up, or congealed, and
it is of such extreme tenuity and elasticity, that it
becomes a source of delight. The withdrawn and
tense sky seems groined like the aisles of a cathe-
dral, and the polished air sparkles as if there were
crystals of ice floating in it. Those who have resided
in Greenland, tell us, that, when it freezes, “the sea
smokes like burning turf land, and a fog or mist arises,
called frost smoke," which "cutting smoke frequently
raises blisters on the face and hands, and is very pernic-
ious to the health.” But this pure stinging cold is an
elixir to the lungs, and not so much a frozen mist, as a
crystallized mid-summer haze, refined and purified by
cold.
The sun at length rises through the distant woods, as
if with the faint clashing swinging sound of cymbals,
melting the air with his beams, and with such rapid steps
the morning travels, that already his rays are gilding the
distant western mountains. We step hastily along through
the powdery snow, warmed by an inward heat, enjoying
an Indian summer still, in the increased glow of thought
and feeling. Probably if our lives were more conformed
to nature, we should not need to defend ourselves against
her heats and colds, but find her our constant nurse and


214
[Oct.
A Winter Wulk.
friend, as do plants and quadrupeds. If our bodies were
fed with pure and simple elements, and not with a stimu-
Jating and heating diet, they would afford no more pasture
for cold than a leafless twig, but thrive like the trees,
which find even winter genial to their expansion.
The wonderful purity of nature at this season is a most
pleasing fact. Every decayed stump and moss-grown
stone and rail, and the dead leaves of autumn, are con-
cealed by a clean napkiu of snow. In the bare fields and
tinkling woods, see what virtue survives. In the coldest
and bleakest places, the warmest charities still maintain
a foot-hold. A cold and searching wind drives away all
contagion, and nothing can withstand it but what has a
virtue in it; and accordingly, whatever we meet with in
cold and bleak places, as the tops of mountains, we
respect for a sort of sturdy innocence, a Puritan tough-
ness. All things beside seem to be called in for shelter,
and what stays out must be part of the original frame of
the universe, and of such valor as God himself. It is in-
vigorating to breathe the cleansed air. Its greater fine-
ness and purity are visible to the eye, and we would fain
stay out long and late, that the gales may sigh through
us too, as through the leafeless trees, and fit us for the
winter: - as if we hoped so to borrow some pure and
steadfast virtue, which will stead us in all seasons.
At length we have reached the edge of the woods,
and shut out the gadding town. We enter within their
covert as we go under the roof of a cottage, and cross its
threshold, all ceiled and banked up with snow. They
are glad and warm still, and as genial and cheery in
winter as in summer. As we stand in the midst of the
pines, in the flickering and checkered light which strag-
gles but lille way into their maze, we wonder if the
towns have ever heard their simple story. It seems to
us that no traveller has ever explored them, and notwith-
standing the wonders which science is elsewhere reveal-
ing every day, who would not like to hear their annals ?
Our humble villages in the plain, are their contribution.
We borrow from the forest the boards which shelter, and
the sticks which warm us. How important is their
evergreen to the winter, that portion of the summer
which does not fade, the permanent year, the unwithered


1843.]
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A Winter Walk.
grass. Thus simply, and with little expense of altitude,
is the surface of the earth diversified. What would hu-
man life be without forests, those natural cities? From
the tops of mountains they appear like smooth shaven
lanes, yet whither shall we walk but in this taller grass ?
There is a slumbering subterranean fire in nature
which never goes out, and which no cold can chill. It
finally melts the great snow, and in January or July is
only buried under a thicker or thinner covering. In the
coldest day it flows somewhere, and the snow melts
around every tree. This field of winter rye, which
sprouted late in the fall, and now speedily dissolves the
snow, is where the fire is very thinly covered. We feel
warmed by it. In the winter, warmth stands for all vir-
tue, and we resort in thought to a trickling rill, with its
bare stones shining in the sun, and to warm springs in
the woods, with as much eagerness as rabbits and robins.
The steam which rises from swamps and pools, is as dear
and domestic as that of our own kettle. What fire
could ever equal the sunshine of a winter's-day, when
the meadow mice come out by the wallsides, and the
chicadee lisps in the defiles of the wood ? The warmth
comes directly from the sun, and is not radiated from the
earth, as in summer ; and when we feel his beams on
our back as we are treading some snowy dell, we are
grateful as for a special kindness, and bless the sun which
has followed us into that by-place.
This subterranean fire has its altar in each man's breast,
for in the coldest day, and on the bleakest hill, the traveler
cherishes a warmer fire within the folds of his cloak
than is kindled on any hearth. A healthy man, indeed,
is the complement of the seasons, and in winter, summer
is in his heart. There is the south. Thither have all
birds and insects migrated, and around the warm springs
in his breast are gathered the robin and the lark.
In this glade covered with bushes of a year's growth,
see how the silvery dust lies on every seared leaf and
twig, deposited in such infinite and luxurious forms as by
their very variety atone for the absence of color. Ob-
serve the tiny tracks of mice around every stem, and
the triangular tracks of the rabbit. A pure elastic heaven
hangs over all, as if the impurities of the summer sky,


216
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A Winter Walk.
refined and shrunk by the chaste winter's cold, had
been winnowed from the heavens upon the earth.
Nature confounds her summer distinction at this season.
The heavens seem to be nearer the earth. The elements
are less reserved and distinct. Water turns to ice, rain
to snow. The day is but a Scandinavian night. The
winter is an arctic summer.
How much more living is the life that is in nature,
the furred life which still survives the stinging nights, and,
from amidst fields and woods covered with frost and snow,
sees the sun rise.
“The foodless wilds
Pour forth their brown inhabitants.”
The grey-squirrel and rabbit are brisk and playful in the
remote glens, even on the morning of the cold Friday.
Here is our Lapland and Labrador, and for our Esquimaux
and Knistenaux, Dog-ribbed Indians, Novazemblaites,
and Spitzbergeners, are there not the ice-cutter and wood-
chopper, the fox, muskrat, and mink?
Still, in the midst of the arctic day, we may trace the
summer to its retreats, and sympathize with some con-
temporary life. Stretched over the brooks, in the midst of
the frost-bound meadows, we may observe the submarine
cottages of the caddice worms, the larvæ of the Plicipen-
nes. Their small cylindrical caves built around them-
selves, composed of flags, sticks, grass, and withered
leaves, shells and pebbles, in form and color like the
wrecks which strew the bottom - now drifting along
over the pebbly bottom, now whirling in tiny eddies and
dashing down steep falls, or sweeping rapidly along with
the current, or else swaying to and fro at the end of some
grass blade or root. Anon they will leave their sunken
habitations, and crawling up the stems of plants, or float-
ing on the surface like gnats, or perfect insects, hence-
forth flutter over the surface of the water, or sacrifice
their short lives in the flame of our candles at evening.
Down yonder little glen the shrubs are drooping under
their burden, and the red alder-berries contrast with the
white ground. Here are the marks of a myriad feet
which have already been abroad. The sun rises as proudly
over such a glen, as over the valley of the Seine or the
cat insed
their bonder little the flames of the


1843.1
217
A Winter Walk.
Tiber, and it seems the residence of a pure and self-sub-
sistent valor, such as they never witnessed ; which never
knew defeat nor fear. Here reign the simplicity and purity
of a primitive age, and a health and hope far remote from
towns and cities. Standing quite alone, far in the forest,
while the wind is shaking down snow from the trees, and
leaving the only human tracks behind us, we find our re-
flections of a richer variety than the life of cities. The
chicadee and nut-hatch are more inspiring society than
the statesmen and philosophers, and we shall return to
these last, as to more vulgar companions. In this
lonely glen, with its brook draining the slopes, its creased
ice and crystals of all hues, where the spruces and hem-
locks stand up on either side, and the rush and sere wild
oats in the rivulet itself, our lives are more serene and wor-
thy to contemplate.
As the day advances, the heat of the sun is reflected
by the hillsides, and we hear a faint but sweet music,
where flows the rill released froin its fetters, and the
icicles are melting on the trees; and the nut-hatch and
partridge are heard and seen. The south wind melts the
snow at noon, and the bare ground appears with its with-
ered grass and leaves, and we are invigorated by the per-
fume which expands from it, as by the scent of strong
meats.
- Let us go into this deserted woodman's hut, and see
how he has passed the long winter nights and the short
and stormy days. For here man has lived under this
south hill-side, and it seems a civilized and public spot.
We have such associations as when the traveller stands
by the ruins of Palmyra or Hecatom polis. Singing birds
and flowers Perchance have begun to appear here, for
flowers as well as weeds follow in the footsteps of man.
These hemlocks whispered over his head, these hickory
logs were his fuel, and these pitch-pine roots kindled his
fire ; yonder foaming rill in the hollow, whose thin and
airy vapor still ascends as busily as ever, though he is far
off now, was his well. These hemlock bouglis, and the
straw upon this raised platform, were his bed, and this
broken dish held his drink. But he has not been here
this season, for the phæbes built their nest upon this
shelf last summer. I find some embers left, as if he had
VOL. IV. —NO. II.
28


218
(Oct.
A Winter Walk.
but just gone out, where he baked his pot of beans, and
while at evening he smoked his pipe, whose stemless
bowl lies in the ashes, chatted with his only companion,
if perchance he had any, about the depth of the snow on
the inorrow, already falling fast and thick without, or
disputed whether the last sound was the screech of an
owl, or the creak of a bough, or imagination only; and
through this broad chimney-throat, in the late winter
evening, ere he stretched himself upon the straw, he
looked up to learn the progress of the storm, and seeing the
bright stars of Cassiopeia's chair shining brightly down
upon him, fell contentedly asleep.
See how many traces from which we may learn the
chopper's history. From this stump we may guess the
sharpness of his axe, and from the slope of the stroke, on
which side he stood, and whether he cut down the tree
without going round it or changing hands; and from the
flexure of the splinters we may know which way it fell.
This one chip contains inscribed on it the whole history
of the wood-chopper and of the world. On this scrap of
paper, which held his sugar or salt, perchance, or was the
wadding of his gun, sitting on a log in the forest, with
what interest we read the tattle of cities, of those larger
huts, empty and to let, like this, in High-streets, and
Broad-ways. The eaves are dripping on the south side
of this simple roof, while the titmouse lisps in the pine,
and the genial warmth of the sun around the door is
somewhat kind and human.
After two seasons, this rude dwelling does not deform
the scene. Already the birds resort to it, to build their
nests, and you may track to its door the feet of many
quadrupeds. Thus, for a long time, nature overlooks the
encroachment and profanity of man. The wood still
cheerfully and unsuspiciously echoes the strokes of the
axe that fells it, and while they are few and seldom,
they enhance its wildness, and all the elements strive to
naturalize the sound.
Now our path begins to ascend gradually to the top of
this high hill, from whose precipitous south side, we can
look over the broad country, of forest, and field, and
river, to the distant snowy mountains. See yonder thin
column of smoke curling up through the woods from


1843.
219
A Winter Walk.
some invisible farm-house ; the standard raised over some
rural homestead. There must be a warmer and more
genial spot there below, as where we detect the vapor
from a spring forming a cloud above the trees. What
fine relations are established between the traveller who
discovers this airy column from some eminence in the
forest, and him who sits below. Up goes the smoke as
silently and naturally as the vapor exhales from the leaves,
and as busy disposing itself in wreathes as the house-
wife on the hearth below. It is a hieroglyphic of man's
life, and suggests more intimate and important things
than the boiling of a pot. Where its fine column rises
above the forest, like an ensign, some human life has
planted itself, and such is the beginning of Rome, the
establishment of the arts, and the foundation of empires,
whether on the prairies of America, or the steppes of
Asia.
And now we descend again to the brink of this woodland
lake, which lies in a hollow of the hills, as if it were their
expressed juice, and that of the leaves, which are annu-
ally steeped in it. Without outlet or inlet to the eye, it
has still its history, in the lapse of its waves, in the
rounded pebbles on its shore, and on the pines which
grow down to its brink. It has not been idle, though
sedentary, but, like Abu Musa, teaches that “sitting still
at home is the heavenly way; the going out is the
way of the world." Yet in its evaporation it travels as
far as any. In summer it is the earth's liquid eye; a
mirror in the breast of nature. The sins of the wood are
washed out in it. See how the woods forin an amphi-
theatre about it, and it is an arena for all the gevialness
of nature. All trees direct the traveller to its brink, all
paths seek it out, birds fly to it, quadrupeds flee to it,
and the very ground inclines toward it. It is nature's
saloon, where she has sat down to her toilet. Con-
sider her silent economy and tidiness; how the sun
comes with his evaporation to sweep the dust from its
surface each morning, and a fresh surface is constantly
welling up; and annually, after whatever impurities
have accumulated herein, its liquid transparency appears
again in the spring. In summer a hushed music seems
to sweep across its surface. But now a plain sheet of


220
(Oct.
A Winter Walk.
snow conceals it from our eyes, except when the wind
has swept the ice bare, and the sere leaves are gliding
from side to side, tacking and veering on their tiny
voyages. Here is one just keeled up against a pebble on
shore, a dry beach leaf, rocking still, as if it would soon
start again. A skilful engineer, methinks, might project
its course since it fell from the parent stem. Here are
all the elements for such a calculation. Its present posi-
tion, the direction of the wind, the level of the pond, and
how much more is given. In its scarred edges and veins
is its log rolled up.
We fancy ourselves in the interior of a larger house.
The surface of the pond is our deal table or sanded floor,
and the woods rise abruptly from its edge, like the walls of
a cottage. The lines set to catch pickerel through the
ice look like a larger culinary preparation, and the men
stand about on the white ground like pieces of forest fur-
niture. The actions of these men, at the distance of
half a mile over the ice and snow, impress us as when
we read the exploits of Alexander in history. They seem
not unworthy of the scenery, and as momentous as the
conquest of kingdoms.
Again we have wandered through the arches of the
wood, until from its skirts we hear the distant booming
of ice from yonder bay of the river, as if it were moved
by some other and subtler tide than oceans know. To
me it has a strange sound of home, thrilling as the voice of
one's distant and noble kindred. A mild summer sun
shines over forest and lake, and though there is but one
green leaf for many rods, yet nature enjoys a serene
health. Every sound is fraught with the same mysteri-
ous assurance of health, as well now the creaking of the
boughs in January, as the soft sough of the wind in
July.
When Winter fringes every bough
With his fantastic wreath,
And puts the seal of silence now
Upon the leaves beneath ;
When every stream in its pent-house
Goes gurgling on its way,


1843.)
221
A Winter Walk.
And in his gallery the mouse
Nibbleth the meadow hay;
Methinks the summer still is nigh,
And lurketh underneath,
As that same meadow mouse doth lie
Snug in the last year's heath.
And if perchance the chicadee
Lisp a faint note anon,
The snow is summer's canopy,
Which she herself put on.
Fair blossoms deck the cheerful trees,
And dazzling fruits depend,
The north wind sighs a summer breeze,
The nipping frosts to fend,
Bringing glad tidings unto me,
The while I stand all ear,
Of a serene eternity,
Which need not winter fear.
Out on the silent pond straightway
The restless ice doth crack,
And pond sprites merry gambols play
Amid the deafening rack.
Eager I hasten to the vale,
As if I heard brave news,
How nature held high festival,
Which it were hard to lose.
I gambol with my neighbor ice,
And sympathizing quake,
As each new crack darts in a trice
Across the gladsome lake.
One with the cricket in the ground,
And faggot on the hearth,
Resounds the rare domestic sound
Along the forest path.
Before night we will take a journey on skates along
the course of this meandering river, as full of novelty to


222
(Oct.
A Winter Walk.
one who sits by the cottage fire all the winter's day, as
if it were over the polar ice, with captain Parry or
Franklin ; following the winding of the stream, now
flowing amid hills, now spreading out into fair meadows,
and forming a myriad coves and bays where the pine
and hemlock overarch. The river flows in the rear of
the towns, and we see all things from a new and wilder
side. The fields and gardens come down to it with a
frankness, and freedom from pretension, which they do
not wear on the highway. It is the outside and edge
of the earth. Our eyes are not offended by violent con-
trasts. The last rail of the farmer's fence is some sway-
ing willow bough, which still preserves its freshness, and
here at length all fences stop, and we no longer cross any
road. We may go far up within the country now by the
most retired and level road, never climbing a hill, but by
broad levels ascending to the upland meadows. It is a
beautiful illustration of the law of obedience, the flow of
a river; the path for a sick man, a highway down which
an acorn cup may float secure with its freight. Ils slight
occasional falls, whose precipices would not diversify the
landscape, are celebrated by mist and spray, and attract
the traveller from far and near. From the remote in-
terior, its current conducts him by broad and easy steps,
or by one gentle inclined plain, to the sea. Thus by an
early and constant yielding to the inequalities of the
ground, it secures itself the easiest passage.
No dominion of nature is quite closed to man at all
times, and now we draw near to the empire of the fishes.
Our feet glide swiftly over unfathomed depths, where in
summer our line tempted the pout and perch, and where
the stately pickerel lurked in the long corridors, formed
by the bulrushes. The deep, impenetrable marsh, where
the heron waded, and bittern squatted, is made pervious
to our swift shoes, as if a thousand railroads had been
made into it. With one impulse we are carried to the
cabin of the muskrat, that earliest settler, and see him
dart away under the transparent ice, like a furred fish, to
his hole in the bank ; and we glide rapidly over meadows
where lately “the mower whet his scythe," through
beds of frozen cranberries mixed with meadow grass.
We skate near to where the blackbird, the newee, and


1843.]
223
A Winter Walk.
the kingbird hung their nests over the water, and the
hornets builded from the maple on the swamp. How
many gay warblers now following the sun, have radiated
from this nest of silver birch and thistle down.- On the
swamp's outer edge was hung the supermarine village,
where no foot penetrated. In this hollow tree the wood-
duck reared her brood, and slid away each day to forage
in yonder fen.
In winter, nature is a cabinet of curiosities, full of dried
specimens, in their natural order and position. The
meadows and forests are a hortus siccus. The leaves
and grasses stand perfectly pressed by the air without
screw or gum, and the bird's nests are not hung on an
artificial twig, but where they builded them. We go
about dry-shod to inspect the summer's work in the rank
swamp, and see what a growth have got the alders, the
willows, and the maples ; testifying to how many warm
suns, and fertilizing dews and showers. See what strides
their boughs took in the luxuriant summer, - and anon
these dormant buds will carry them onward and up-
ward another span into the heavens.
Occasionally we wade through fields of snow, under
whose depths the river is lost for many rods, to appear
again to the right or left, where we least expected ; still
holding on its way underneath, with a faint, stertorous,
rumbling sound, as if, like the bear and marmot, it too
had hibernated, and we had followed its faint summer trail
to where it earthed itself in snow and ice. At first we
should have thought that rivers would be empty and dry
in mid winter, or else frozen solid till the spring thawed
them ; but their volume is not diminished even, for only a
superficial cold bridges their surface. The thousand springs
which feed the lakes and streams are flowing still. The
issues of a few surface springs only are closed, and they
go to swell the deep reservoirs. Nature's wells are below
the frost. The summer brooks are not filled with snow-
water, nor does the mower quench his thirst with that
alone. The streams are swollen when the snow melts in
the spring, because nature's work has been delayed, the
water being turned into ice and snow, whose particles
are less smooth and round, and do not find their level so
soon.


224
(Oct.
A Winter Walk.
Far over the ice, between the hemlock woods and
snow-clad hills, stands the pickerel fisher, his lines set in
some retired cove, like a Finlander, with his arms thrust
into the pouches of his dreadnought; with dull, snowy,
fishy thoughts, himself a finless fish, separated a few
inches from his race; dumb, erect, and made to be en-
veloped in clouds and snows, like the pines on shore.
In these wild scenes, men stand about in the scenery, or
move deliberately and heavily, having sacrificed the
sprightliness and vivacity of towns to the dumb sobriety
of nature. He does not make the scenery less wild, more
than the jays and muskrats, biit stands there as a part of
it, as the natives are represented in the voyages of early
navigators, at Nootka sound, and on the North-west
coast, with their furs about them, before they were
tempted to loquacity by a scrap of iron. He belongs to
the natural family of man, and is planted deeper in na-
ture and has more root than the inhabitants of towns.
Go to him, ask what luck, and you will learn that he too
is a worshipper of the unseen Hear with what sincere
deference and waving gesture in his tone, he speaks of
the lake pickerel, which he has never seen, his primitive
and ideal race of pickerel. He is connected with the
shore still, as by a fish-line, and yet remembers the sea-
son when he took fish through the ice on the pond, while
the peas were up in his garden at home.
But now, while we have loitered, the clouds have
gathered again, and a few straggling snow-flakes are
beginning to descend. Faster and faster they fall, shutting
out the distant objects from sight. The snow falls on
every wood and field, and no crevice is forgotten; by the
river and the pond, on the hill and in the valley. Quad-
rupeds are confined to their coverts, and the birds sit upon
their perches this peaceful hour. There is not so much
sound as in fair weather, but silently and gradually every
slope, and the grey walls and fences, and the polished
ice, and the sere leaves, which were not buried before,
are concealed, and the tracks of men and beasts are lost.
With so little effort does nature reassert her rule, and
blot out the traces of men. Hear how Homer has de-
scribed the same. “The snow flakes fall thick and fast
on a winter's day. The winds are lulled, and the snow falls


1843.]
225
A Winter Walk.
incessant, covering the top of the mountains, and the
hills, and the plains where the lotus tree grows, and the
cultivated fields, and they are falling by the inlets and
shores of the foaming sea, but are silently dissolved by
the waves." The snow levels all things, and infolds
them deeper on the bosom of nature, as, in the slow
summer, vegetation creeps up to the entablature of the
temple, and the turrets of the castle, and helps her to
prevail over art.
The surly night-wind rustles through the wood, and
warns us to retrace our steps, while the sun goes down
behind the thickening storm, and birds seek their roosts,
and catile their stalls.
"Drooping the lab’rer ox
Stands covered o'er with snow, and now demands
The fruit of all his toil.”
Though winter is represented in the almanac as an old
man, facing the wind and sleet, and drawing his cloak about
him, we rather think of him as a merry wood-chopper,
and warm-blooded youth, as blithe as summer. The
unexplored grandeur of the storm keeps up the spirits of
the traveller. It does not trifle with us, but has a sweet
earnestness. In winter we lead a more inward life. Our
hearts are warm and merry, like cottages under drifts,
whose windows and doors are half concealed, but from
whose chimneys the smoke cheerfully ascends. The
imprisoning drifts increase the sense of comfort which
the house affords, and in the coldest days we are content
to sit over the hearth and see the sky through the chim-
ney top, enjoying the quiet and serene life that may be
had in a warm corner by the chimney side, or feeling our
pulse by listening to the low of cattle in the street, or the
sound of the flail in distant barns all the long afternoon.
No doubt a skilful physician could determine our health
by observing how these simple and natural sounds affected
us. We enjoy now, not an oriental, but a boreal leisure,
around warm stoves and fire-places, and watch the
shadow of motes in the sunbeams.
Sometimes our fate grows too homely and familiarly
serious ever to be cured. Consider how for three months
the human destiny is wrapped in furs. The good Hebrew
VOL. IV. — NO. II.
29


226
Oct.
The Three Dimensions.
revelation takes no cognizance of all this cheerful snow.
Is there no religion for the temperate and frigid zones ?
We know of no scripture which records the pure benig.
nity of the gods on a New England winter night.
Their praises have never been sung, only their wrath
deprecated. The best scripture, after all, records but a
meagre faith. Its saints live reserved and austere. Let
a brave devout man spend the year in the woods of
Maine or Labrador, and see if the Hebrew scriptures
speak adequately of his condition and experience, from
the setting in of winter to the breaking up of the ice.
Now commences, the long winter evening around the
farmer's hearth, when the thoughts of the indwellers
travel far abroad, and men are by nature and necessity
charitable and liberal to all creatures. Now is the happy
resistance to cold, when the farmer reaps his reward, and
thinks of his preparedness for winter, and through the
glittering panes, sees with equanimity "the mansion of the
northern bear,” for now the storm is over,
“The full ethereal round,
Infinite worlds disclosing to the view,
Shines out intensely keen; and all one cope
Of starry glitter glows from pole to pole.”
H.
D.
T.
THE THREE DIMENSIONS.
“Room for the spheres !” — then first they shined,
And dived into the ample sky;
“Room! room!” cried the new mankind,
And took the oath of liberty.
Room! room! willed the opening mind,
And found it in Variety.


1843.)
227
Voyage to Jamaica.
VOYAGE TO JAMAICA.
[Continued from Dial for July.]
The sect which exercises by far the greatest influence
over the colored population, and especially the peasantry,”
as the plantation negroes have been called since their
emancipation, is the Baptist. The people of this sect are
much the most numerous denomination of Christians on
the island, and their preachers espouse the cause of the
laboring blacks, with great zeal. The largest congregation
in Kingston is under the charge of Mr. Killish, a baptist
preacher, whose place of worship is a little way out of
town, on the “ Windward Road.” According to the
“ Jamaica Almanack,” his church numbers more than 1700
communicants. I set out with the purpose of attending
there one afternoon, but a heavy shower of rain delayed
me on the way, and I did not arrive until just as the meet-
ing was breaking up. As the multitude began to spread
out on the green before the house, and more slowly by
groups in different directions, I thought as I looked around
on them, (myself the only white man,) that I had never
before seen happiness so strongly expressed. I do not
know how much the delightful air, just cooled by the
shower, or their religious exercises may have influenced
their feelings, but joy was beaming on every countenance,
both young and old. Their smiles and adieus and kind
friendly words to each other seemed to me of the most
unquestionable sincerity; and I could not but say to myself,
- these are a people strongly disposed to be happy. It
may sound like extravagance, but when I think back on
the many groups of joyous negroes which I saw in Jamaica,
I am always reminded of Wordsworth's beautiful descrip-
tion of the uniform happiness ofi nstinctive life, - of mere
innocent animal existence, as compared with the sad results
to which the various abuses of our powers reduce too
many of our own species.
“ The black-birds in the summer trees
The lark upon the hill
Let loose their carols when they please,
Are quiet when they will.


228
(Oct.
Voyage to Jamaica.
With nature do they never wage
A useless strife; they see
A happy youth, and their old age
Is beautiful and free.
But we are pressed by heavy laws,
And oft, when glad no more,
We wear a face of joy because
We have been glad of yore.”
That there is sorrow and suffering enough among them,
however, and some individual cases too, which may be
traced directly to emancipation, there is no doubt. The
old self-constituted porter of the ice-yard was an instance
of this. The building occupied as the ice-house had been
formerly, and until within two or three years, the dwelling
of a Mr. Pacifico, a merchant to whom the porter had be-
longed. On the day of emancipation, this old man had
been set free among the rest. But from having no relatives,
or from local attachment, or some other cause, (I was un-
able to learn its nature,) he appeared to look for no other
home than the ice-yard. He was very old and decrepit.
His speech was utterly gone. One eye was sightless, and
the other shrunk and faded ; his limbs so paralyzed that
he always walked by the fence; and I never saw him two
rods from the gate, which he, however, always seemed to
make a point of opening in the morning, and closing at
night. He slept on the narrow stair-case leading to the
agent's rooms, with nothing under him but the mat, his
feet hanging down the steps ; and the only evidence, I
observed in him, of direct and active, or any other than a
sort of mechanical intelligence, was, that he always gave a
“ hem," as a warning for me not to tread on him, as I
passed up and down the stairs at night. Mr. Pacifico's
family used generally to send him his food; but sometimes
they neglected it; and then he would get outside the gate,
and beg of the fruit and cake women, or else wait till the
agent returned to dinner, when he would crawl up into the
room and stand leaning against the wall, until something
was given him to eal. I tried once or twice to talk with
him, but it was utterly useless. Besides the loss of sight,
and speech, and the use of his limbs, he had other marks
of great age. His muscles, (for his very scanty clothing
was all in rags,) were entirely shrunken away, and his


1843.
229
Voyage to Jamaica.
nails had grown, almost literally, like bird's claws. To
use a quaint quotation," he looked as if Death had forgot-
ten to strike him," and ought, in mercy, to be reminded
of omission.
The baptist clergy, or missionaries, as they are gener-
ally called, have done much permanent good in Jamaica,
and inuch too, that, no doubt, might be proved to be present
evil. Their influence on the moral and intellectual con-
dition of the colored people, through Sunday and other
schools,* and preaching, has, beyond all question, been
most salutary. Concubinage, that sometime "pleasant vice"
of the Jamaica planter, which has long since become “the
whip to scourge him," is now greatly on the wane, chiefly
through their exertions. They have, it is true, like Pope
Gregory VII., when he enforced the celibacy of the
English clergy, found it much easier to prevent and dis-
solve new, than to break up old connexions. These con-
nexions are no longer so numerous, nor so openly and
shamelessly formed, as they were a very few years ago;
but they are by no means abolished. While the brig was
discharging cargo, I saw a neatly dressed and agreeable,
but rather pensive-looking, young brown woman enter the
ice-yard, with an infant in her arms, and address some in-
quiry to the agent, in a suppressed but anxious tone,
which he answered by a shake of the head; when she
turned and went away with a disappointed air. The
agent said, this was a young woman who had “ lived with "
a friend of his, which friend (an American) had been in
business, a year or two, in Kingston; but some five or six
months before our arrival, he had returned to the United
States. The young woman was ignorant of the fact, that
it was not his intention, when he left, ever to return to
Jamaica, and so, whenever there was an arrival from any
of our Northern cities, she was sure to call on the agent,
with whom the person in question had had some business
connexion, hoping to receive tidings of him. Poor soul!
our brig had brought the tidings of his death. But
this news, the agent said, he could not find in his heart
to tell her. I saw her once afterwards. She had the
* The first Sunday School in Jamaica was established at Spanish-
town, in 1832, by the Rev. Mr. Philipps, a baptist missionary.


230
(Oct.
Voyage to Jamaica.
same little child in her arms, and the same sad, but
patient look. Wrong and misery, such as this, the
baptist missionaries have done much to suppress and
prevent. It is said too, that they have done much to
promote genuine marriage among the plantation negroes.
But they are accused, on the other hand, and no
doubt justly, of stirring up and fomenting the unhappy
dissensions, which at present exist between the planters
and peasantry. They are hated and execrated by the
property-holders generally ; and I scarcely took up a news.
paper while I was in Kingston, which did not contain
something concerning “the hellish machinations of the
agitating baptists.” The truth is, I suspect, these mis-
sionaries are not what are called enlightened men. Like
most very zealous people, they are unable to see but one
side of a question. They have adopted a certain cause, in
which all their powers bad as well as good are enlisted,
and in aiming directly at their main purpose, which they
know to be good, they do some collateral evil. Sir
Charles T. Metcalfe, the present governor of Jamaica, felt
obliged to notice them particularly, in his despatch, last
October, to the Marquis of Normanby, the then Secretary
of colonial affairs. He allowed them all due credit for
their exertions on behalf of the colored population, pre-
vious to the abolition, and for their endeavors 10 promote
the moral and intellectual welfare of this race, since that
event. But he regretted exceedingly that they had felt
themselves called on to assume the position which they had
done, no doubt with the best intentions, relative to the
planters and laborers. He concluded, however, by saying,
that he still believed, that the good they had done the
colony far overbalanced the evil. Ever since the publi-
cation of this despatch, the baptist missionaries have been
the Governor's most bitter enemies. They denounce him
as an oppressor, a persecutor, a traitor to the cause of lib-
erty, and what not. It was even proposed by some of the
brethren, while I was in Kingston, that a donation of fifty
pounds, which the Rev. Mr. Kingdom had received from
the Governor, to assist in the erection of a chapel, should
be returned.* The governor, from all I could learn with
* At one of their meetings, a resolution was passed petitioning the
queen for his recal.


1843.]
Voyage to Jamaica.
231
regard to him, is a man of superior talents, and an en-
lightened and impartial statesman. He has served in
India ; and I judge from a passage in an article of a late
number of the Edinburgh Review, * which I suppose to
have been written by Macaulay, who is good authority on
all Indian affairs, that he has served with much honor to
himself and his country. “If (says the above writer) we
now see men like Munroe, Elphinston, and Metcalfe, after
leading victorious armies, after making and deposing kings,
return proud of their honorable poverty," &c. &c. — and
in the reading room at Kingston, I picked up an East Indian
newspaper, on the corner of which near the “imprint"
was this standing testimony to his merit, “ Sir Chas. The-
ophilus Metcalfe achieved the freedom of the Indian press,
1835." I intended to have made some extracts from the
abovementioned despatch, and also from the governor's
speech, on proroguing the colonial assembly, which would
have afforded you a brief and clear view of the present
difficulties in Jamaica, but I lost the papers containing
them at Havana. With regard to these difficulties, I will
first run over a few preliminary facts, in order to recal
them to your memory, and then proceed to give you a brief
and necessarily imperfect account of them, but which in all
its main features, I believe, is correct.
Jamaica contains, according to the latest estimates, about
415,000 inhabitants. Of these only 37,000 are pure
whites. Before the abolition of slavery, the free colored
people were estimated at 55,000. If these estimates are cor-
rect, the entire colored population is to the white as eleven
to one nearly. The civil disabilities of the free colored peo-
ple were removed in 1831; since which time all offices
have been open to them. Slavery was abolished, and ap-
prenticeship system established in 1834. This was to
continue, with regard to the plantation slaves, or prædials
as they are called, until the first of August, 1840. The
non-prædials, or house servants, mechanics, &c, were to be
emancipated two years sooner, being considered better pre-
* April, 1840, Art. Malcolm's Life of Lord Clive.
+ The number of slaves emancipated in 1834 amounted to 311,700. No
census has ever been taken of the other classes, and I found no one who
was able to give me any idea of what proportion of the whole were in-
termediate.


232
(Oct.
Voyage to Jamaica.
pared for freedom than the agriculturalists. But as the
time drew near for the emancipation of the former class,
the agitation became so great among the abolitionists both
in England and Jamaica, that parliament passed an act, by
a small majority, dispensing with the additional two years
of apprenticeship, contemplated for the field slaves. Min-
isters, however, being determined that the odium or respon-
sibility of the measure should not rest on the administra-
tion, mustered all their force, on the next day, and obtained
its reconsideration, — but immediately sent a despatch to
Sir Lionel Smith, then governor of Jamaica, intimating that
unless the colonial assembly should adopt the above meas-
ure, government would not be answerable for the conse-
quences. The Island government, therefore, with great
reluctance, and impelled only by the strong force of public
opinion, passed an act, establishing full freedom and politi-
cal equality throughout the island, to go into effect on the
first of August, 1838. Since this time, numerous difficul-
ties have arisen between the planters and laborers, chiefly
in relation to rent, wages * on time and amount of labor.
In the summer of 1839, Sir Lionel Smith, having become
very unpopular with the landed proprietors, on account of
partiality, real or supposed, to the interests of the blacks
and their advisers, the baptist missionaries, was“ permitted
to resign.” He was succeeded by the present governor,
who shortly after his arrival, made a tour of observation
through the island, in order to make himself thoroughly in-
formed, as to the nature of these difficulties. The governor,
in the despatch mentioned above, consequent to this tour,
sums up all their difficulties in “a want of labor, which
arises from the want of a sufficient laboring population, and
from the facilities on the part of the peasant, of obtaining a
comfortable subsistence, without laboring for the planter.”
He pronounces the laborers of Jamaica “the best conditioned
peasantry in the world.” By two or three days' labor (he
says ) they can provide for the wants of a week. The laborers,
when slaves, cultivated certain spots on the plantation which
they called their own, as provision grounds. The planters
* It is impossible, from the confusion of rates and methods of pay
ment, to state what are the average daily wages of a plantation laborer -
perhaps for small and large, from 121 a 37), cts. per day.


1843.)
233
Voyage to Jamaica.
now charge them rent for these. This the laborers do not
understand, as they have not been used to it, and they are
unwilling to pay the rent. Again there are certain kinds
of labor which they are unwilling to attend to, as being
less agreeable or profitable than others. Now the interests
of the planter require not only that every department of
his business should be alike well attended to, but they re-
quire also continuous labor; as the neglect only of a very
few days may be the ruin of a whole crop, either of sugar
or coffee. In order to secure these objects, the planier
offers to remit the rent, provided the laborer will give him
continuous labor, and in such departments, as he, the plant-
er, shall appoint. This arrangement does not in general
succeed. The laborer, in many instances, after working a
short time, thinks he can do better elsewhere, - or he
wishes to do something for himself, — or he meets, as he
thinks, with wrong treatment, — or he has supplied his
immediate necessities ; and he therefore absents himself,
and disappoints the planter. Then comes the demand for
rent, and sometimes, too, in order to get rid of the occupant
to make room for a better, the planter demands exorbitant
rent. The special magistrate generally protects the
laborer against exorbitancy, and of course makes such a
decision as dissatisfies the planter, who being unable to
carry either of these points, has in some instances resorted
to violence. He has cut down the cocoa trees, on the
laborer's provision grounds, unroofed his hut, and destroyed
his fences. To be sure, the property so destroyed is the
planter's. But the laborer, very naturally, considers it not
the less a personal injury to himself, and retaliates by firing
out-houses, stealing sheep, or in some other way.
It is easy to see in all this the characteristic defects of
cach race brought strongly into play. The inefficiency
and improvidence of the negroes, no doubt, might be much
corrected by proper management, and kindness, and for-
bearance, but these the planter has never learned to show.
I do not mean to say that I understood this state of things
to be universal. Many of the estates where judicious
management is exercised, are well cultivated; and many of
the negroes are industrious, and work in order to lay up
money. But trouble enough of this kind exists, to affect
seriously the general property of the island. “It is evident,"
vol. IV. — NO. 11.
30


234
[Oct.
Voyage to Jamaica.
says the governor, “ that rent is now regulated on the planta-
tions solely with a view to the exaction of labor;" —
and he recommends that leases should be granted, or small
parcels of land sold to the negro, in order to relieve him
from the necessity of holding land, from which he may
be removed. This the planters are unwilling to do, as
they contend that it would place themselves still more in
the power of the laborer ; and many of them are desirous
of abandoning the rent and ground system altogether, and
to remunerate wholly in wages. But the negro objects again
that this arrangement would give the planter too much
power, as in this case, the former would be obliged to
purchase the necessaries of life entirely of the latter. -
Besides, the negroes have strong local attachments. .
All these difficulties are said to be increased by the
spiritual advisers of the laborers, — the baptist mission-
aries. They call “ agitation meetings" through the country,
and talk to the negroes of liberty and equality, and the
tyranny of their white oppressors. They persuade negroes
to leave such planters as have become obnoxious to them,
and join other planters who have not incurred their
displeasure. Some, I know not how many, are said to
have retired into the more uncultivated parts of the island.
In short, no arrangement appears to have been thus far
effected, by which the planters generally have been able
to secure their crops, as formerly. Many of the cane fields
have run up to weeds, and the rats and ants destroy the
produce; and the coffee decays on the grounds for want
of gathering. The natural consequence of this waste is a
great falling off in the exports of the island, as com-
pared with previous years. I was shown a return of
exports copied from the Journals of the assembly, from
1772 to 1836 inclusive. The highest sugar exportation,
always by far the most important, was I think (for I quote
from memory) in 1805. It amounted in round numbers
to 137,000 hogsheads. The smallest amount exported
during these years was in 1836; its amount in round
numbers, 61,000 hogsheads. In 1838, the last year of the
apprenticeship, the export of this article had declined to
15,000 hogsheads; and at the close of the year 1839, the
amount produced and in the course of exportation, while
I was in the island, was allowed universally to be less than


1843.]
235
Voyage to Jamaica.
28,000 hogsheads. I copy from a newspaper now before
me the following statement, in a message to the assembly,
of the “deficiency of crops in 1839, as compared with those
of 1838."
Of Sugar 18,335 hhds. 3,070 tces. 1,510 bbls.
6 Rum 9,823 pun. 165 " 386 casks.
66 Coffee 4,654,647 lbs.
" Ginger 1,512 casks – 1,062 bags.
I was informed, that during the last three years, the
seasons have been favorable, and that there had been
neither drought nor hurricane in the time. This deficiency
in the staples, therefore, can be referred to no adequate
cause, but the want of labor. In the mean time things are
fast growing worse. One entire year of neglect, it is said,
will destroy a coffee plantation. And when the coffee
plant is once out of the soil, it cannot easily be re-estab-
lished in the same soil, even though that soil has not been
exhausted by long continual culture. It is also said to
require from three to six years of labor in a new soil, before
the coffee shrub begins to make returns. The same
remarks apply in some degree, though not to the same extent,
to other branches of culture. When any grounds are neg-
lected, they will run up to weeds and bushes, and thus one
bad year prepares the way for another still worse. Many
estates are said to be partially, and others wholly thrown
out of cultivation, and many more, unless immediate remedy
be found, will go the same way.
Since my return, I have heard but little about Jamaica.
The little, however, which I have heard, has come through
the occasionally reported speeches of abolitionists. And
in these there appears to be an evident feeling, that it is
incumbent on all friends of abolition to account for the
declining prosperity of the island in some other way, than
by referring it to a want of labor. They suggest that
the seasons have really been less favorable than the plant-
ers and merchants assert. They talk of the disturbed
state of the island currency, (the island paper was at six
per cent discount,) and of the commercial embarrassments,
arising from the political difficulties, and consequent sus-
pension of trade, on the South American continent. Of
these difficulties on the currency, I know but little. But they
-point triumphantly to the rise of landed property, as dis-


236
(Oct.
Voyage to Jamaica.
proving completely all the complaining assertions of the
planter and merchant, and as most decisive evidence of
agricultural prosperity. With regard to this latter, I in-
quired particularly of a merchant of much experience in
the affairs of the island. He said it was partially true ;
that landed property had risen in some parts of Jamaica,
because it had fallen in others; that while the home mar-
ket was kept closed to foreign sugars, the smaller the
quantity produced in Jamaica, the higher its value. And
that its diminished production on some estates, and the
ruin and abandonment of others, increased the value of
those which were more prosperous or in full operation.
This seems reasonable, and I believe it is true. But the
abolitionists appear to think it absolutely essential to the
success of their cause, to show that emancipation is sure to
promote the pecuniary interest of the planter. They feel
bound to paint every thing rose color. They wish to
demonstrate that the atmosphere can be purified by per-
fectly harmless lightning; and that a great revolution can take
place in a community, and a great evil be eradicated from
it, and yet nobody, not even he who has been feeding fat
on the old system of iniquity, be disturbed in his pleasures
or inoney-making. They even diminish the force of their
own theory, which asserts the enfeebling and demoralizing
tendencies of a state of slavery, by attempting to make
out a case of general industry, and steadiness of purpose,
for the recently enslaved blacks. Now this resort to expe-
diences is the system of tactics peculiar to the mere poli-
tician, always the natural enemy of the defender of simple
rights. And the old rule of fighting the enemy with his
own weapons, however good in vulgar political and physical
warfare, seems to me utterly unworthy of men who are
fighting the battles of truth. They forget that the truth is
mighty, and apparently fear, that it will not have consist-
ency enough for practical purposes, unless it be mixed with
earth. They ought to take higher ground. If they would
expect the truth which they offer, to promote health when
taken into the moral circulation, they must present it pure,
and not drugged with expediency. Let them agitate
fairly. Let them — having full faith in its quickening in-
fluence, — evolve, and throw out fearlessly into the atmos-
phere, the whole unmitigated truth of this matter, so that
cament enough appare of trutherly unwant politichemy wi
carih enough for prently fear, thathey forget


1843.]
2:37
Voyage to Jamaica.
all who breathe may receive it, and by this simple process,
as sure as the young grow up, to take the places of the old
who die, just so sure shall they find a new and vigorous
public opinion spring up, which shall be their only efficient
helper. And when the young behemoth is once grown,
he will pierce through all these shares of political expedi-
ency, and move on straight to his object. These deep
politicians, these wise men, - each “ thinking politics a
science in which himself is perfect,” — with their plans for
saving the country, and their tactics, and curious political
machinery, for carrying or obstructing any great measure,
according as it may subserve or oppose the interests of a
party, what are they when unofficial public opinion once
begins to legislate and passes one of her short simple
decrees? We have just seen how this great moral force
wrenched out of the hands of the Jamaica planters two
good years of slavery secured to them by act of parliament,
For myself, I cannot resist the conviction, that the present
landed proprietors of Jamaica will never again know pros-
perity. I think it has received its death blow, and that a
far more genuine prosperity, than the island has ever yet
known, will arise from its ruins. In the mean time the
planters are looking about for something with which to sus-
lain their declining interests. And for this purpose the
assembly * passed on the 11th of April, the “Immigration
Act." This act provides for the raising of £ 50,000 ster-
ling per annuin, for three years, to be expended in im-
porting foreign laborers. A Commissioner of Emigrationt
has been sent to England, by the way of the United States,
to promote the success of the scheme. He appointed
agents of emigration at New-York, Philadelphia, and Bal-
timore, whose duty it should be to induce suitable indi-
viduals, “ one third at least, to be females,” to go out to
Jamaica as laborers. The government is to pay the ex-
penses of emigration, and guarantee the support of the
laborer, for one year after arrival, provided he will work on
the plantations. Emigrants are to sign an obligation at
* Mr. Barclay of the Assembly. A few years ago he wrote a stout
volume in defence of slavery.
+ The seat of government is Spanish-town, the old St. Jago de la
Vela of the Spaniards. It is about thirteen miles from Kingston.


238
[Oct.
Voyage to Jamaica.
the time of embarking, for the repayment of expenses
and passage money, if on their arrival, they shall refuse
to complete or enter into the proposals, shown them, at
the same time. - Agencies were also to be established in
all the home territories, in Malta, and Africa. The mem-
bers of the assembly, who are mostly planters, appear to
have great confidence in the feasibility of the plan. The
act was passed by a large majority. They also look with
much confidence for the assent of the home government.
“ England,” said Mr. Barclay, a prominent member, “ for
more than a century sanctioned the importation of Africans
into the island as slaves; why should she not encourage it
now, when all the blessings of freedoin are secured to
them ? The baptist missionaries and English abolitionists
oppose the act, on the ground that the planters have already
laborers enough, if they will but use, and pay them well.
And they assert, that the planters wish to import this for-
eign laboring population, merely with a view to control the
price of labor, and thus bring down the blacks once more
to the condition of slaves. The merchants appear to have
but little faith in the project. They acknowledge, however,
that it is a forlorn hope, and if this does not succeed, that
nothing else will. Europeans, say they, are not able to come
into this climate, and go at once to severe field labor. The
negroes of the United States, I think, will prove but a
feeble resource. Their strong local attachments will be an
impediment. It may not be very difficult to induce a por-
tion of the idle colored population of our cities, to emigrate;
but I suspect they would prove very inefficient field
laborers. Africa seemed to be considered the main re-
source. But I was unable to ascertain what was to be
their mode of operation on the coast. What may be the
facilities for obtaining emigrants through Sierra Leone and
their other colonies, I do not know. But except through
these, their only resource in Africa must be negotiation
with native chiefs. And this method, it appears to me,
cannot but possess some of the features of the slave trade.
But on this subject, I am not well informed. My impres-
sion is that the plan cannot succeed. It is based on a false
principle. The genuine motives for emigration are a love
of power, gain, or liberty, or the strong hope of, in some
way, very materially improving one's condition. And in


1843.]
239
Voyage to Jamaica.
these motives the project is deficient. It is an emigration
which proposes for its main result, not the good of the
emigrant, but that of the planter. And I am of opinion,
that none but a body of inveterate slave-holders, like the
Jamaica assembly, could ever have come deliberately to
the conclusion, that men of sufficient energy to do them
good service, could be induced to leave their native country,
with the prospect, and indeed, under the express agreement,
of remaining for a term of years in the condition of day-
Jaborers, at the maximum wages of fifty cents per day. The
governor acquiesces in the measure; but according to his
despatch, before referred to, he considers time the only
remedy for the planter. But for this the proprietary sys-
tem of Jamaica cannot wait. Should the proposed
equalization of duties on sugar take place in England, for
which the English people are clamorous, its effect, taken in
connection with the regularly increasing supply of slave-
grown sugar, and the favorable prospects for East India
sugar, must be very disastrous to the interests of the
planter. The prices of sugar in Kingston I found to be
25 per cent higher than those in Boston, for the same
qualities, when I left the latter place. These high prices
are owing to the prohibitory duties in England on all for-
eign sugars. The British government thus protects the
interests of her West India Colonists, or rather those of
the absentee landed proprietors, who make common cause
with the corn law monopolists, against competition. And
she does this at the expense of the great body of the
people, and greatly to their discontent. By an equalization
of the sugar duties, the British market would be thrown
open to Cuba, Porto Rico, and Brazil, which, from the
nature of their soil, cheaper mode of building, and the
abundance of slave labor, which they have at command,
are able to furnish sugar at a much lower price than Jamaica
can furnish it. The trade of Jamaica, in this article, there-
fore, is now merely kept alive by artificial stimulants.
Sugar is the main product of the island, and should this
prop of the prohibitory duties be removed, it is believed
that the trade of the colony will go down with a crash.
I suppose the Governor is right, and that there is no rem-
edy but time. But this will be no remedy for the present race
of planters. They must suffer, — just as in all revolutions,


240
(Oct.
Voyage to Jamaica.
those must always suffer — who have been deriving the
greatest advantage from the previously existing state of
things. Among disinterested persons, who have given the
subject their attention, I suspect there is little doubt, but
that the intermediate is destined to be the dominant race
of this island ; or rather that, in no very long time, it will
be the only race. In amount of native qualities, these
people are the best of the island. The men are fine
looking, and more muscular than the whites ; and the
women, - especially the brown, and yellow varieties, are
much more beautiful and vivacious than those of purely
English origin. These physical capabilities, which they
inherit from their black ancestors, combining with the
European intellect which they have received from their
white progenitors, contribute to give them a force of char-
acter, equal at least, to that of the English Creole. In
short, amalgamation appears to be to the negro a sort of
purifying process, by which the more soft and feeble qual-
ities of his nature are carried off to give place to those of
more refinement and force.
It is still not unusual in the northern states, to hear color
spoken of as intended by nature as a barrier to intercourse
between the white and black race, and to hear amalgama-
tion represented as an outrage. That it is an outrage
against northern prejudice, there is no doubt. I confess
myself one of those who do not like to touch the skin of
a negro. But when any of the laws of nature are
outraged, in this respect, I believe she generally marks
down her resentment, by some feebleness or organic imper-
fection in the result. Now the result of amalgamation
between the whites and blacks is the manifest improvement
of the negro race. This improvement is shown in many
ways, and particularly in the superior business qualifications
of the intermediate race over the blacks. The agency of
this race, in Jamaica, has been by no means contemptible
in the cause of abolition. These people were the enemy
within the camp of slavery, during the long course of
years, that the abolitionists were assaulting it from without.
So far as I can learn, it was not the pure blacks, but the
mulattoes and brown men,- such men as Jorden and
Osborn, the present editors of the “Morning Journal," –
who organized those combinations, and kept up that system


1843.)
241
Voyage to Jamaica.
of agitations, which resulted in the abrogation of all the
civil disabilities of the free colored population of Jamaica,
in 1831. Jorden was one of the chief of those. In 1829,
he was turned out of a large commercial house in Kingston,
in which he was a clerk, on the ground that he was a
leading agitator. He then commenced the publication of
a newspaper, and for an agitation article published in
this, he was charged with high treason, and tried for
his life, but acquitted. His newspaper, however, was
suppressed. He now issued a circular, adverting to the
extent of the combinations formed among the colored
people, and threatening that unless all civil restrictions were
at once removed from the free colored population, they
would proclaim immediate freedom to their own slaves, and
shout havoc until the streets of Kingston should run with
blood. The Jamaica assembly shortly after this removed
the restrictions. Mr. Jorden has now grown rather respec-
table and conservative. The name of his paper has been
recently changed from the “ Watchman” to the “ Morning
Journal.” He is at present a member of the assembly, and
advocates, in his seat and in his paper, the leading measures
for the relief of the planter, — particularly the Immigration
Act. Men who can make themselves felt as Mr. Jorden
has done, it is impossible to despise. Such men have
done much towards breaking down the pride of caste in
Jamaica. I say pride of caste, for that personal antipathy
to color, so strong in New England, is unknown to the
people of the West Indies. A few days after my arrival
from Havana, I met a young man from Demarara, whom
I understood to be the son of a planter. He had been in
New England about a year. After remarking to me, that
the colored population of that colony had been fast rising
in wealth and respectability, since the abolition, — that
prejudice against color was declining, and that many white
merchants and clerks — excluded from the first class of the
colony the planters and officials, — were intermarrying
with the more wealthy colored people, the young man con-
fessed with some appearance of shame and regret, that his
own prejudice against color had become altogether too
weak, sometime before his departure from Demarara; -
“And I thank God,” he gravely proceeded, " for my timely
visit to New England; it has enabled me to imbibe the
VOL. IV. - NO. II.
31


242
(Oct.
Voyage to Jamaica.
northern prejudice against color, which I think will be of
great service to me on my return.” Falstaff, I recollect,
calls hostess Quickly “a thing to thank God on," and there
are no doubt other instances on record of persons who
have been thankful for small favors. But whether our
New England prejudice against color ought to be regarded
as a blessing or not, the West Indians generally will
hardly be able to obtain it, like this young man, by a pro-
tracted residence amongst us; and unless the professors at
Cambridge, by a union of talent, shall discover some
chemico-metaphysical process, by which it can be con-
densed into moral ice, in order that it may be turned, as in
this case it no doubt would be, into an article of trade, I
see not how they are to be supplied.
In the mean time, pride of caste is rapidly melting
away, in Jamaica. Whites and colored people dine at the
same table, and sit in the same pew. Their children
mingle together at school. The professional men plead at
the same bar, * and meet at the same bedside. They legis-
late together, and last, but not least, marriage between
whites and colored people, heretofore confined to the Jews
of the island, who are much despised by the other creoles,
is now beginning to invade the ranks of the “better class."
The week before our arrival, a worthy young white man,
the son of a highly respectable wholesale merchant of
Kingston, married a colored girl, and the circumstance
excited but little remark in the place. This rapid destruc-
tion of caste could not have taken place, unless the balance
of moral power had begun to turn in favor of the colored
race. Were they comparatively few and feeble, no force,
while there is pride in man, could effect such a change.
But the colored people of Jamaica are said to possess an
advantage in point of numbers, of ten to one, t over the
whites. Their best people are, in native powers, equal to
the best of the whites. They are rapidly acquiring a
great accession to their moral force through the public
schools. They are gaining wealth in business. They are
beginning to occupy places of trust and profit. The more
* A young man, whom I understood to be something lighter than a
mulatto, was admitted to the Kingston bar a few months ago.
† According to Mr. Barclay, they are 14 to 1.


1843.]
243
Voyage to Jamaica.
ambitious, even of the peasantry, are beginning to buy piece-
meal parcels of land, thrown out of cultivation, thus
breaking up estates into small freeholds. And as the
peasant can live without the planter, as the produce is
likely still to diminish, and the market to decline from com-
petition and the planter consequently to become still
poorer than he is — this state of things is likely to continue.
Not only this, they have a large interior tract of unculti-
vated land* to fall back on, the same which for more than
a century sheltered the Maroons, — but which they, as free-
dom gives them strength, will make a far more perma-
nent retreat by cultivation. They have scattered through-
out the land such men as Hill, Jorden, and Prescod, -
men of sufficient practical ability and a burning jealousy
of their rights. They have obtained political equality ; and
they will not rest, until all the ancient barriers and land-
marks are swept away from the island.
Nothing short of despotism, in a great disparity of
moral force, can preserve the arrangement in society of
caste over caste, like distinct layers of inanimate matter.
In a country as free as Jamaica now is, the elements of popu-
lation must run into a mass, and combine not arbitrarily,
but according to their natural affinity, and the rulers and
the ruled must be of the same material. While this
change is going on, it is almost a matter of course, that there
should be a decline of commercial prosperity. The evil
disease, which has just been extirpated, must necessarily be
followed by a temporary prostration of strength, before full
health returns. But when the confusion consequent to
great change shall cease, and when all the white blood
of the island shall be absorbed, — then, for the first time
since her discovery, shall Jamaica possess a population
worthy of herself. It will not be a population of hetero-
geneous races and imperfect organs, – one race furnishing
the head, and the other the hand ; - one with the capacity
to acquire, and the other to enjoy the good things of life;
one scorning, and the other fearing; — mutually cankering
and corroding each other's best qualities by a forced and
unwholesome contact ; but the two races by blending shall
not only throw off or absorb the injurious effects of this
* About one third part of the island has never been under cultivation.
Much of this land, formerly planted, has become forfeited.


244
(Oct.
The Mother's Grief.
contact, but also supply each other's characteristic defic-
iences, and present in combination qualities, both moral
and physical, far better adapted to the climate, than either
possessed separately.
We know not how far the adverse influence of climate
may be counteracted by a thorough union of races such as
this; it seems however but fair to conclude, that they will
then form a community somewhat inferior perhaps in
enterprise and force of character, to the people of the
northern temperate latitudes, — but certainly not in moral
and social qualities : and when their character shall be
perfectly established, and all their energies developed by
freedom, it may not be unreasonable to hope, that in a
union of practical, moral, and intellectual powers, these
Anglo-Africans will surpass every other people of the
tropics.
THE MOTHER'S GRIEF.
I STAND within my garden fair
Where flowers in joyous beauty spring,
Their fragrance mingles in the air,
The birds most sweetly sing.
And in that spot a lonely mound,
Spread o'er with grasses heavily,
My infant sleeps within the ground,
Nor may the garden see.
The wind sighs sadly, and the sun
Shines down to dazzle weary eyes;
That buried form the truest one,
The rest its mockeries.


1843.)
245
Sweep Ho.
SWEEP HO!
SWEEP ho! Sweep ho!
He trudges on through sleet and snow.
Tired and hungry both is he,
And he whistles vacantly;
Sooty black his rags and skin,
But the child is fair within.
Sweep ho! Sweep ho!
He irudges on through sleet and snow.
Ice and cold are better far
Than his master's curses are.
Mother of this ill used one, -
Couldst thou see thy little son!
Sweep ho! Sweep ho !
He trudges on through sleet and snow.
At the great man's door he knocks,
Which the servant-maid unlocks ;
Now let in with laugh and jeer,
In his eye there stands a tear.
He is young, but soon will know
How to bear both word and blow.
Sweep ho! sweep ho!
In the chimney, sleet and snow.
Gladly should his task be done,
Were't the last beneath the sun :
Faithfully it now shall be ;
But soon spent, down droppeth he ;
Gazes round as in a dream;
Very strange, but true, things seem ;
Led by a fantastic power
Which sets by the present hour,
Creeps he to a little bed,
Pillows there his aching head,
Falls into a sudden sleep,
Like his childhood's sweet and deep;
But, poor thing! he does not know
Here he lay long years ago.


246
[Oct.
The Sail.
THE SAIL.
A CLOUDLESS sky, a sun that brightly shone
On rippling waves, a wind that swiftly bore,
As on some seabird's pinions we had flown,
Our little vessel from the sandy shore,
So quietly, that as we sailed before
The wind, all motionless we seemed to be,
As if with outstretched wing we hovered o'er
The water, like high sailing hawk we see
So poised, we know not if the clouds do move, or he.
So glided from our view the rapid scene
Of sandy beach, of scattered town and hill,
With many a barren spot or pleasant green,
Where one might lie and dream, and rocks so still
And lonely, that their presence seemed to fill
The air with knowledge, that they there did lie,
Sleeping in such repose, it seemed, that till
That moment they had never felt the eye
So full upon them look of the allseeing sky.
Now whether from the rocks and hills and sea,
Their spirit were concentered in our own,
Or ours diffused o'er all things seemed to be
Their spirit breathing with a deeper tone,
Reflecting back the light that on them shone;
Or if in closest sympathy there dwelt
One soul pervading all, may not be known;
But as these scenes into our souls did melt,
We seemed like silent rocks, and they like things that felt.
Our winged vessel parted the still sea,
And we fed onwards still in central space,
And there was certain heaven wherever we
Were running Time-like our unmoving race;
And those dim sails which unstrained eyes could trace
Around the horizon's edge, seemed not so blest
As ours, which, by the universal grace,
Had privilege at the heart of heaven to rest;
For so those circling ships and clouds and sun confessed.


1843.]
247
The Comic.
THE COMIC.
It is a nail of pain and pleasure, said Plato, which fas-
tens the body to the mind. The way of life is a line be-
tween the regions of tragedy and comedy. I find few
books so entertaining as the wistful human history written
out in the faces of any collection of men at church or
court-house. The silent assembly thus talks very loud.
The sailor carries on his face the tan of tropic suns, and
the record of rough weather, the old farmer testifies of
stone walls, rough woodlots, the meadows and the new
barn. The doctor's head is a fragrant gallipot of virtues.
The carpenter still measures feet and inches with his eye,
and the licensed landlord mixes liquors in motionless pan-
tomime. What good bargains glimmer on the merchant's
aspect. And if beauty, softness, and faith, in female forms,
have their own influence, vices even, in slight degree, are
thought to improve the expression. Malice and scorn add
to beauty. You shall see eyes set too near, and limited
faces, faces of one marked and invariable character. How
the busy fancy inquires into their biography and relations !
They pique, but must tire. Compared with universal
faces, countenances of a general human type, which pique
less, they look less safe. In such groups the observer does
not think of heroes and sages. In the silentest meeting,
the eye reads the plain prose of life, timidity, caution, ap-
petite, ignorance, old houses, musty savors, stationary,
retrograde faculties puttering round (to use the country
phrase) in paltry routines from January to December.
These are the precincts of comedy and farce. And a
taste for fun is all but universal in our species, which is the
only joker in nature. The rocks, the plants, the beasts,
the birds, neither do anything ridiculous, nor betray a per-
ception of anything absurd done in their presence. And
as the lower nature does not jest, neither does the highest.
The Reason pronounces its omniscient yea and nay, but
meddles never with degrees or fractions, and it is in compar-
ing fractions with essential integers or wholes, that laughter
begins.
Aristotle's definition of the ridiculous is, " what is out


248
(Oct.
The Comic.
of time and place, without danger." If there be pain and
danger, it becomes tragic; if not, comic. I confess, this
definition, though by an admirable definer, does not satisfy
me, does not say all we know. The essence of all jokes,
of all comedy, seems to be halfness; a non-performance of
what is pretended to be performed, at the same time that
one is giving loud pledges of performance. The baulking
of the intellect, the frustrated expectation, the break of
continuity in the intellect, is what we call comedy; and it
announces itself physically in the pleasant spasms we call
Laughter.
With the trifling exception of the stratagems of a few
beasts and birds, there is no seeming, no halfness in nature,
until the appearance of man. Unconscious creatures do
the whole will of wisdom. An oak or a chestnut under-
takes no function it cannot execute, or, if there be phe-
nomena in botany which we call abortions, the abortion is
also a function of nature, and assumes to the intellect the
like completeness with the farther function, to which in
different circumstances it had attained. The same thing
holds true of the animals. Their activity is marked by
unerring good sense. But man, through his access to Reason,
is capable of the perception of a whole and a part. Reason
is the Whole, and whatsoever is not that, is a part. The
whole of nature is agreeable to the whole of thought, or to
the Reason; but separate any part of nature, and attempt
to look at it as a whole by itself, and the feeling of the
ridiculous begins. The perpetual game of Humor is to
look with considerate good nature at every object in exist-
ence aloof, as a man might look at a mouse, comparing it
with the eternal Whole ; enjoying the figure which each
self-satisfied particular creature cuts in the unrespecting
All, and dismissing it with a benison. Separate any object,
as a particular bodily man, a horse, a flour-barrel, an um-
brella, from the connection of things, and contemplate it
alone, standing there in absolute nature, it becomes at once
comic; no useful, no respectable qualities can rescue it
from the ludicrous.
In virtue of man's access to Reason or the Whole, the
human form is a pledge of wholeness, suggests to our im-
agination the perfection of truth or goodness, and exposes
by contrast any halfness or imperfection. We have a pri-


1843.]
249
The Comic.
mary association between perfectness and this form. But
the facts that transpire when actual men enter, do not
make good this anticipation; a discrepancy which is at
once detected by the intellect, and the outward sign is the
muscular irritation of laughter.
Reason does not joke, and men of reason do not; a
prophet, in whom the moral sentiment predominates, or a
philosopher, in whom the love of truth predominates, these
do not joke, but they bring the standard, the ideal whole,
exposing all actual defect; and hence, the best of all jokes
is the sympathetic contemplation of things by the under-
standing from the philosopher's point of view. There is
no joke so true and deep in actual life, as when some pure
idealist goes up and down among the institutions of society,
attended by a man who knows the world, and who sympa-
thizing with the philosopher's scrutiny, sympathizes also
with the confusion and indignation of the detected skulk-
ing institutions. His perception of disparity, his eye wan-
dering perpetually from the rule, to the crooked lying
thieving fact, makes the eyes run over with laughter.
This is the radical joke of life and then of literature.
The presence of the ideal of right and of truth in all
action, makes the yawning delinquences of practice re-
morseful to the conscience, tragic to the interest, but droll
to the intellect. The activity of our sympathies may for
a time hinder our perceiving the fact intellectually, and so
deriving mirth from it, but all falsehoods, all vices seen at
sufficient distance, seen from the point where our moral
sympathies do not interfere, become ludicrous. The
comedy is in the intellect's perception of discrepancy.
And whilst the presence of the ideal discovers the differ-
ence, the comedy is enhanced whenever that ideal is em-
bodied visibly in a man. Thus Falstaff, in Shakspeare, is
a character of the broadest comedy, giving himself unre-
servedly to his senses, coolly ignoring the reason, whilst he
invokes its name, pretending to patriotism and to parental
virtues, not with any intent to deceive, but only to make
the fun perfect by enjoying the confusion betwixt reason
and the negation of reason, in other words, the rank ras-
caldom he is calling by its name. Prince Hal stands by,
as the acute understanding, who sees the Right and sym-
pathizes with it, and in the heyday of youth feels also the
VOL. IV. — NO. II.
32


250
(Oct.
The Comic.
full attractions of pleasure, and is thus eminently qualified
to enjoy the joke. At the same time, he is to that degree
under the Reason, that it does not amuse him as much as
it amuses another spectator.
If the essence of the comic be the contrast in the in-
tellect between the idea and the false performance, there is
good reason why we should be affected by the exposure.
We have no deeper interest than our integrity, and that we
should be made aware by joke and by stroke, of any lie
that we entertain. Besides, a perception of the comic
seems to be a balance-wheel in our metaphysical structure.
It appears to be an essential element in a fine character.
Wherever the intellect is constructive, it will be found.
We feel the absence of it as a defect in the noblest and
most oracular soul. It insulates the man, cuts down all
bridges between him and other men. The perception of
the comic is a tie of sympathy with other men, is a pledge
of sanity, and is a protection from those perverse tenden-
cies and gloomy insanities into which fine intellects some-
times lose themselves. A man alive to the ludicrous is
still convertible. If that sense is lost, his fellow men can
do little for him.
It is true the sensibility to the ludicrous may run into
excess. Men celebrate their perception of halfness and a
latent lie by the peculiar explosions of laughter. So pain-
fully susceptible are some men to these impressions, that if
a man of wit come into the room where they are, it seems
to take them out of themselves with violent convulsions
of the face and sides, and obstreperous roarings of the
throat. How often and with what unfeigned compassion
we have seen such a person receiving like a willing martyr
the whispers into his ear of a man of wit. The victim who
has just received the discharge, if in a solemn company,
has the air very much of a stout vessel which has just
shipped a heavy sea ; and though it does not split it, the
poor bark is for the moment critically staggered. The
peace of society and the decorum of tables seem to require
that next to a notable wit should always be posted a phleg-
matic bolt-upright man, able to stand without movement of
muscle whole broadsides of this Greek fire. It is a true
shaft of Apollo, and traverses the universe, unless it en-
counter a mystic or a dumpish soul, and goes everywhere


1843.]
251
The Comic.
heralded and harbingered by smiles and greetings. Wit
makes its own welcome, and levels all distinctions. No
dignity, no learning, no force of character can make any
stand against good wit. It is like ice on which
no beauty of form, no majesty of carriage can plead
any immunity, — they must walk gingerly, according
to the laws of ice, or down they must go, dig-
nity and all. “Dost thou think because thou art virtuous,
there shall be no more cakes and ale ? " Plutarch very
happily expresses the value of the jest as a legitimate
weapon of the philosopher. “Men cannot exercise their
rhetoric unless they speak, but their philosophy even
whilst they are silent or jest merrily ; for as it is the highest
degree of injustice not to be just and yet seem so, so
it is the top of wisdom to philosophize yet not appear to do
it, and in mirth to do the same with those that are serious
and seem in earnest ; for as in Euripides, the Bacchæ,
though unprovided of iron weapons and unarmed, wounded
their invaders with the boughs of trees, which they carried,
thus the very jests and merry talk of true philosophers
move those that are not altogether insensible, and unusu-
ally reform."
In all the parts of life, the occasion of laughter is some
seeming, some keeping of the word to the ear and eye,
whilst it is broken to the soul. Thus, as the religious sen-
timent is the most vital and sublime of all our sentiments,
and capable of the most prodigious effects, so is it abhorrent
to our whole nature, when in the absence of the sentiment,
the act or word or officer volunteers to stand in its stead.
To the sympathies this is shocking, and occasions grief.
But to the intellect, the lack of the sentiment gives
pain; it compares incessantly the sublime idea with the
bloated nothing which pretends to be it, and the sense of
the disproportion is comedy. And as the religious senti-
ment is the most real and earnest thing in nature, being a
mere rapture, and excluding, when it appears, all other con-
siderations, the vitiating this is the greatest lie. Therefore,
the oldest jibe of literature is the ridicule of false religion.
This is the joke of jokes. In religion, the sentiment is
all; the rite indifferent. But the inertia of men inclines
them when the sentiment sleeps, to imitate that thing it
did; it goes through the ceremony omitting only the will,


252
(Oct.
The Comic.
makes the mistake of the wig for the head, the clothes for
the man. The older the mistake and the more overgrown
the particular form is, the more ridiculous to the intellect.
There is excellent humor in the part taken by Captain
John Smith, the discoverer of New England, when the
society in London, who had contributed their means to con-
vert the savages, hoping doubtless to see the Keokuks,
Black Hawks, Roaring Thunders, and Tustanuggees of that
day, converted into church wardens and deacons at the
least, pestered the gallant rover with frequent solicitations
out of England, respecting the conversion of the Indians
and enlargement of the church. Smith, in his perplexity
how to satisfy the London churches, sent out a party,
caught an Indian, and despatched him home in the first
ship to London, telling the society, they might convert one
themselves.
The satire reaches its climax when the actual church is
set in direct contradiction to the dictates of the religious
sentiment, as in the famous account of our Puritan politics
in Hudibras.
Our brethren of New England use
Choice malefactors to excuse,
And hang the guiltless in their stead,
Of whom the churches have less need;
As lately it happened in a town
Where lived a cobler, and but one,
That out of doctrine could cut use,
And mend men's lives as well as shoes.
This precious brother having slain
In times of peace an Indian,
Not out of malice, but mere zeal,
Because he was an infidel;
The mighty Tottipotimoy
Sent to our elders an envoy,
Complaining loudly of the breach
Of league held forth by brother Patch,
Against the articles in force
Between both churches, his and ours ;
For which he craved the saints to render
Into his hands, or hang the offender,
But they maturely having weighed
They had no more but him of the trade,
A man that served them in the double
Capacity to teach and cobble,


1843.)
253
The Comic.
Resolved 10 spare him ; yet to do
The Indian Hogan Mogan too
Impartial justice, in his stead did
Hang an old weaver that was bed-rid.
In science, the jest at pedantry is analogous to that in
religion which lies against superstition. A classification or
nomenclature used by the scholar only as a memorandum
of his last lesson in the laws of nature, and confessedly a
makeshift, a bivouac for a night, and implying a march and
a conquest to-morrow, becomes through indolence a bar-
rack and a prison, in which the man sits down immovably,
and wishes to detain others. The physiologist, Camper,
humorously confesses the effect of his studies in dislocating
his ordinary associations. “I have been employed," he
says, “six months on the Cetacea ; I understand the oste-
ology of the head of all these monsters, and have made
the combination with the human head so well, that every
body now appears to me narwhale, porpoise, or marsouins.
Women, the prettiest in society, and those whom I find less
comely, — they are all either narwhales or porpoises to my
eyes.” I chanced the other day to fall in with an odd
illustration of the remark I had heard, that the laws of
disease are as beautiful as the laws of health ; I was hast-
ening to visit an old and honored friend, who, I was in-
formed, was in a dying condition, when I met his phy-
sician, who accosted me in great spirits, with joy sparkling
in his eyes. "And how is my friend, the Doctor ?" I
inquired. “Oh, I saw him this morning; it is the most
correct apoplexy I have ever seen ; face and hands livid,
breathing stertorous, all the symptoms perfect ;” and he
rubbed his hands with delight; for in the country we can-
not find every day a case that agrees with the diagnosis
of the books. I think there is malice in a very trifling
story which goes about, and which I should not take any
notice of, did I not suspect it to contain some satire upon
my brothers of the Natural History Society. It is of a
boy who was learning his alphabet, “ That letter is A,"
said the teacher; A, drawled the boy. “ That is B,” said
the teacher, B, drawled the boy, and so on. “ That is W,"
said the teacher, “The devil !” exclaimed the boy, "is
that W?"
The pedantry of literature belongs to the same category.
In both cases there is a lie, when the mind seizing a classi-


254
(Oct.
The Comic.
fication to help it to a sincerer knowledge of the fact, stops
in the classification ; or learning languages, and reading
books, to the end of a better acquaintance with man, stops
in the languages and books; in both the learner seems to
be wise and is not.
The same falsehood, the same confusion of the sympa-
thies because a pretension is not made good, points the
perpetual satire against poverty, since according to Latin
poetry and English doggrel,
Poverty does nothing worse
Than to make man ridiculous.
In this instance the halſness lies in the pretension of the
parties to some consideration on account of their condition.
If the man is not ashamed of his poverty, there is no joke.
The poorest man, who stands on his manhood, destroys the
jest. The poverty of the saint, of the rapt philosopher,
of the naked Indian, is not comic. The lie is in the sur-
render of the man to his appearance; as if a man should
neglect himself and treat his shadow on the wall with
marks of infinite respect. It affects us oddly, as to see
things turned upside down, or to see a man in a high wind
run after his hat, which is always droll. The relation of
the parties is inverted, — hat being for the moment master.
The multiplication of artificial wants and expenses in civ-
ilized life, and the exaggeration of all trifling forms, present
innumerable occasions for this discrepancy to expose itself.
Such is the story told of the painter, Astley, who going out
of Rome one day with a party for a ramble in the Cam-
pagna, and the weather proving hot, refused to take off his
coat when his companions threw off theirs, but sweltered
on ; which, exciting remark, his comrades playfully forced
off his coat, and behold on the back of his vest a gay cas-
cade was thundering down the rocks with foam and rain-
bow, very refreshing in so sultry a day; - a picture of his
own, with which the poor painter had been fain to repair
the shortcomings of his wardrobe. The same astonishment
of the intellect at the disappearance of the man out of
nature, through some superstition of his house or equipage,
as if truth and virtue should be bowed out of creation by
the clothes they wore, is the secret of all the fun that cir-
culates concerning eminent fops and fashionists, and in like
manner of the gay Rameau of Diderot, who believes in
nothing but hunger, and that the single end of art, virtue


1843.]
255
The Comic.
countencee it not so amone
and poetry, is to put something for mastication between the
upper and lower mandibles.
Alike in all these cases, and in the instance of cowardice
or fear of any sort, from the loss of life to the loss of
spoons, the majesty of man is violated. He, whom all
things should serve, serves some one of his own tools. In
fine pictures, the head sheds on the limbs the expression
of the face. In Raphael's Angel driving Heliodorus from
the Temple, the crest of the helmet is so remarkable, that
but for the extraordinary energy of the face, it would draw
the eye too much; but the countenance of the celestial
messenger subordinates it, and we see it not. In poor
pictures, the limbs and trunk degrade the face. So among
the women in the street, you shall see one whose bonnet
and dress are one thing, and the lady herself quite another,
wearing withal an expression of meek submission to her
bonnet and dress; and another whose dress obeys and
heightens the expression of her form.
More food for the comic is afforded whenever the per-
sonal appearance, the face, form, and manners, are subjects
of thought with the man himself. No fashion is the best
fashion for those matters which will take care of themselves.
This is the butt of those jokes of the Paris drawing-rooms,
which Napoleon reckoned so formidable, and which are
copiously recounted in the French Memoires. A lady of
high rank, but of lean figure, had given the Countess Du-
lauloy the nickname of “ Le Grenadier tricolore,” in allu-
sion to her tall figure, as well as to her republican opinions ;
the countess retaliated by calling Madame " the Venus of
the Pere la Chaise," a compliment to her skeleton which
did not fail to circulate. “ Lord C.” said the Duchess
of Gordon, “Oh, he is a perfect comb, all teeth and
back.” The Persians have a pleasant story of Tamerlane,
which relates to the same particulars. “ Timur was an
ugly man; he had a blind eye and a lame foot. One day
when Chodscha was with him, Timur scratched his head,
since the hour of the barber was come, and commanded
that the barber should be called. Whilst he was shaven,
the barber gave him as usual a looking-glass in his hand.
Timur saw himself in the mirror and found his face quite
too ugly. Therefore he began to weep; Chodscha also
set himself to weep, and so they wept for two hours. On
this, some courtiers began to comfort Timur, and entertained


256
(Oct.
The Comic.
thuch wea because e mirror, nur to Ojamain, Odscha cedit all
him with strange stories in order to make him forget all
about it. Timur ceased weeping, but Chodscha ceased
not, but began now first to weep amain, and in good
earnest. At last, said Timur to Chodscha, “Hearken!
I have looked in the mirror, and seen myself ugly. Thereat
I grieved, because although I am Caliph, and have also
much wealth, and many wives, yet still I am so ugly;
therefore have I wept. But thou, why weepest thou with-
out ceasing?' Chodscha answered, 'If thou hast only seen
thy face once, and at once seeing hast not been able to con-
tain thyself, but hast wept, what should we do, we who see
thy face every day and night ? If we weep not, who
should weep? Therefore have I wept.' Timur almost
split his sides with laughing."
Politics also furnishes the same mark for satire. What is
nobler than the expansive sentiment of patriotism, which
would find brothers in a whole nation ? But when this
enthusiasm is perceived to end in the very intelligible max-
ims of trade, so much for so much, the intellect feels again
the half man. Or what is fitter than that we should espouse
and carry a principle against all opposition ? but when the
men appear who ask our votes as representatives of this
ideal, we are sadly out of countenance.
But there is no end to this analysis. We do nothing
that is not laughable, whenever we quit our spontaneous
sentiment. All our plans, managements, houses, poems, if
compared with the wisdom and love which man represents,
are equally imperfect and ridiculous. But we cannot afford
to part with any advantages. We must learn by laughter,
as well as by tears and terrors; explore the whole of na-
ture,—the farce and buffoonery in the yard below, as well as
the lessons of poets and philosophers upstairs, in the hall,
and get the rest and refreshment of the shaking of the sides.
But the comic also has its own speedy limits. Mirth quickly
becomes intemperate, and the man would soon die of in-
anition, as some persons have been tickled to death. The
same scourge whips the joker and the enjoyer of the joke.
When Carlini was convulsing Naples with laughter, a
patient waited on a physician in that city, to obtain some
remedy for excessive melancholy, which was rapidly con-
suming his life. The physician endeavored to cheer his
spirits, and advised him to go to the theatre and see Car-
lini. He replied, “I am Carlini."


1843.]
257
Ode to Beauty.
257
ODE TO BEAUTY.
Who gave thee, O Beauty !
The keys of this breast;
To thee who betrayed me
To be ruined or blest?
Say when in lapsed ages
Thee knew I of old;
Or what was the service,
For which I was sold ?
When first my eyes saw thee,
I found me thy thrall,
By magical drawings,
Sweet tyrant of all !
Love drinks at thy banquet
Remediless thirst;
Thou intimate stranger !
Thou latest and first !
Lavish, lavish promiser !
Nigh persuading gods to err;
Guest of million painted forms
Which in turn thy glory warms,
The frailest leaf, the mossy bark,
The acorn's cup, the rain drop's arc,
The shining pebble of the pond,
Thou inscribest with a bond,
In thy momentary play,
Would bankrupt nature to repay.
Ah! what avails it
To hide or to shun
Whom the Infinite One
Hath granted his throne ?
The heaven high over
Is the deep's lover.
VOL. IV. - NO. II.
33


258
[Oct.
Ode to Beauty.
The sun and sea,
Informed by thee,
Before me run
And draw me on,
Yet fly me still,
As Fate refuses
To me the heart Fate for me chooses.
Is it that my opulent soul
Was mingled from the generous whole, -
Sea-valleys and the deep of skies
Furnished several supplies,
And the sands whereof I'm made
Draw me to them self-betrayed.
I turn the proud portfolios,
Which hold the grand designs
Of Salvator, of Guercino,
And Piranesi's lines;
I hear the lofty pæans
Of the masters of the shell,
Who heard the starry music
And recount the numbers well ;
Olympian bards who sung
Divine Ideas below,
Which always find us young,
And always keep us so.
Oft in streets or humblest places
I detect far-wandered graces,
Which from Eden wide astray
In lowly homes have lost their way.
Thee gliding through the sea of forın,
As the lightning through the storm,
Somewhat not to be possessed,
Somewhat not to be caressed,
No feet so fleet could ever find,
No perfect form could ever bind.
Thou, eternal fugitive,
Hovering over all that live,
Quick and skilful to inspire


1843.]
259
Allston's Funeral.
Sweet extravagant desire,
Starry space and lily bell
Filling with thy roseate smell,
Wilt not give the lips to taste
Of the nectar which thou hast.
All that 's good and great, with thee
Stands in deep conspiracy,
Thou hast bribed the dark and lonely
To report thy features only,
And the cold and purple morning
Itself with thoughts of thee adorning;
The leafy dell, the city mart,
Equal trophies of thine art;
E’en the flowing azure air
Thou hast touched for my despair ;
And if I languish into dreams,
Again I meet the ardent beams.
Queen of things ! I dare not die
In Being's deeps past ear and eye,
Lest there I find the same deceiver
And be the game of Fate forever.
Dread Power, but dear! if God thou be,
Unmake me quite, or give thyself to me!
ALLSTON'S FUNERAL.
The summer moonlight lingered there,
Thy gently moulded brow to see,
For art in thee had softened care,
As night's mild beams the dying tree.
That storied smile was on thy face,
The fair forgetfulness of fame,
The deep concealment of that grace,
Thy tender being's only aim.


260
[Oct.
To the Muse.
TO THE MUSE.
Wather? hast thou then faded ?
No more by dell, or spring, or tree?
Whither ? have I thy love upbraided ?
Come back and speak to me;
Shine, thou star of destiny!
O simple plains and quiet woods,
Your silence asks no poet's strains,
For ye are verse-like solitudes,
Your leaf-like paths the sweet refrains
The muse awakens but in pains.
Yet shines above undauntedly
The star-wreathed crownlet, heaven's great fame,
And azure builds the dome-like sky,
Nor should I make my nature tame,
Lest distant days shall hide my name.
“ Thou bearest in these shades the light,
That piled the rugged height of leaves,
Thou rob’st with artificial night
These dells so deep ; - he who believes,
The muse enchants not, or deceives.
And let the deep sea toss the shore,
Thy infinite heart no motion hath ;
Let lightning dance and thunder roar,
And dark remembrance crowd thy path,
Thy spirit needs some wider wrath.
That verse, – the living fate within,
Shall truly find its tone to save,
Its adamantine goal to win
Demands no voice, descends no grave,
They sing enough who life-blood have."


1843.]
261
William Tell's Song.
O placid springs which murmur through
The silken grass so glistening ;
Are fed your veins with silent de