565 THE DIAL: MAGAZINE FOR LITERATURE, PHILOSOPHY, AND RELIGION. VOLUME III. BOSTON: PUBLISHED BY E. P. PEA BODY, 13 WEST STREET. LONDON: J. GREEN, 121 NEWGATE STREET. M DCCC XLIII. 273 BOSTON: THURSTON AND TORRY, PRINTERS, 18 Devonshire Street. 6 car in atleticamorza R.B.R, Perid, 526/ ANDOVER - HARVARCONTENTS THEOLOGICAL LIBRARY CAMBRIDGE, MASS. - 1842-1843 No. I. Lectures on the Times. By R. W. EMERSON We, tary Natural History of Massachusetts . . . 19 Gifts — The Lover's Song – Sea Song—T'he Earth-Spirit L $40 – 44 - Prayer – After-Life - Autumn Leaves . . s Entertainments of the past Winter . . . . . 46 Tact — Holidays - The Amulet - From Uhland — T Castle by the Sea — Eternity – Vespers . Prayers . . . . . . . . . . 77 To Shakspeare . . . . . . . . . 81 Veeshnoo Sarma . 82 Fourierism and the Socialists The Evening Choir . . . The World Chardon Street and Bible Conventions Dolon . . . . . 112 . . Agriculture of Massachusetts 123 Outward Bound . . . . . . . . . 126 RECORD OF THE Montis . . . . . . 127 - 132 INTELLIGENCE . . . . . . . . 132 - 136 · . · · · . 86 . 97 . · · · 99 · . . . 100 . · . · · · . · . . . . . . No. II. Romaic and Rhine Ballads . . . . The Black Knight . . . . . Lectures on the Times .. The Inward Morning — Free Love The Poet's Delay - Rumors from an Æolian Harp Hollis Street Council . . . . . The Moon – To the Maiden in the East. The Summer Rain – The Artist English Reformers James Pierrepont Greaves . . . . . Dirge . . . . . . . . Cromwell . . . . . . . . . 137 . . 181 198, 199 . 200 . 201 • 222 24, 225 227 . 247 . 256 . 258 · · . · · · . · · · . . . . . · · CONTENTS. Lines — Saadi . . . The Gallery . . . Record of the Months . Editor's Table . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 265 . 269 273 – 278 278-280 No. III. James Pierrepout Greaves . . Lectures on the Times A Song of Spring . . . . The Nubian Pyramids. Anna — To Eva at the South — The Brook . 281 297 . 313 314 326 – 328 329, 330 . . . 331 The Laws of Menu . . Death . , The Life and Character of Dr. Follen Prometheus Bound : : LITERARY INTELLIGENCE. RECORD OF THE MONTHS . . : : : 340 343 363 387 – 404 404 – 416 . . No. IV. A. Bronson Alcott's Works Canova : : Anacreon . . What is Beauty ? Ethnical Scriptures .. George Keats . Remarks on Milton, by John Keats To a Stray Fowl — Orphics Sonnets — To * * *— To - The Friends . . Europe and European Books A Leaf from a “Voyage to Porto Rico” Dark Ages . . . Friendship . . . . RECORD OF THE Montas. LITERARY INTELLIGENCE . . CATALOGUE OF Books 417 454 484 490 493 495 500 505 506 - 508 509 . . . 511 522 : 527 . 529 532 - 539 . 540 – 544 545-548 . THE DIAL. VOL. III. JULY, 1842. No. I. LECTURES ON THE TIMES. BY R. W. EMERSON. Introductory Lecture read at the Masonic Temple in Boston, Thursday Evening, December 2, 1841. The Times, as we say — or the present aspects of our social state, the Laws, Divinity, Natural Science, Agricul- ture, Art, Trade, Letters, have their root in an invisible spiritual reality. To appear in these aspects, they must first exist, or have some necessary foundation. Beside all the small reasons we assign, there is a great reason for the existence of every extant fact; a reason which lies grand and immovable, often unsuspected behind it in silence. The Times are the masquerade of the eternities: trivial to the dull, tokens of noble and majestic agents to the wise; the receptacle in which the Past leaves its history ; the quarry out of which the genius of to-day is building up the Future. The Times — the nations, manners, institu- tions, opinions, votes, are to be studied as omens, as sacred leaves, whereon a weighty sense is incribed, if we have the wit and the love to search it out. Nature itself seems to propound to us this topic, and to invite us to explore the meaning of the conspicuous facts of the day. Everything that is popular, it has been said, deserves the attention of the philosopher. And this for the obvious reason, that al- though it may not be of any worth in itself, yet it charac- terizes the people. VOL. III. — NO. I. Lectures on the Times. [July, Here is very good matter to be handled, if we are skil- ful; an abundance of important practical questions which it behoves us to understand. Let us examine the preten- sions of the attacking and defending parties. Here is this great fact of Conservatism, entrenched in its immense re- doubts, with Himmaleh for its front, and Atlas for its flank, and Andes for its rear, and the Atlantic and Pacific seas for its ditches and trenches, which has planted its crosses, and crescents, and stars and stripes, and various signs and badges of possession, over every rood of the planet, and says, “I will hold fast; and to whom I will, will I give; and whom I will, will I exclude and starve:' so says Con- servatism ; and all the children of men attack the colossus in their youth, and all, or all but a few, bow before it when they are old. A necessity not yet commanded, a negative imposed on the will of man by his condition, a deficiency in his force, is the foundation on which it rests. Let this side be fairly stated. Meantime, on the other part, arises Reform, and offers the sentiment of Love as an overmatch to this material might. I wish to consider well this affirm- ative side, which has a loftier port and reason than hereto- fore, which encroaches on the other every day, puts it out of countenance, out of reason, and out of temper, and leaves it nothing but silence and possession. The fact of aristocracy, with its two weapons of wealth and manners, is as commanding a feature of the nineteenth century, and the American republic, as of old Rome, or modern England. The reason and influence of wealth, the aspect of philosophy and religion, and the tendencies which have acquired the name of Transcendentalism in Old and New England ; the aspect of poetry, as the expo- nent and interpretation of these things; the fuller develop- ment and the freer play of Character as a social and polit- ical agent; - these and other related topics will in turn come to be considered. But the subject of the Times is not an abstract question. We talk of the world, but we mean a few men and women. If you speak of the age, you mean your own platoon of people, as Milton and Dante painted in colossal their pla- toons, and called them Heaven and Hell. In our idea of progress, we do not go out of this personal picture. We do not think the sky will be bluer, or grass greener, or our 1842.] Lectures on the Times. climate more temperate, but only that our relation to our fellows will be simpler and happier. What is the reason to be given for this extreme attraction which persons have for us, but that they are the Age? they are the results of the Past ; they are the heralds of the Future. They indi- cate, these witty, suffering, blushing, intimidating figures of the only race in which there are individuals or changes, how far on the Fate has gone, and what it drives at. As trees make scenery, and constitute the whole hospitality of the landscape, so persons are the world to persons. A cunning mystery by which the Great Desart of thoughts and of planets takes this engaging form, to bring, as it would seem, its meanings nearer to the mind. Thoughts walk and speak, and look with eyes at me, and transport me into new and magnificent scenes. These are the pun- gent instructors who thrill the heart of each of us, and make all other teaching formal and cold. How I follow them with aching heart, with pining desire! I count my- self nothing before them. I would die for them with joy. They can do what they will with me. How they lash us with those tongues! How they make the tears start, make us blush and turn pale, and lap us in Elysium to soothing dreams, and castles in the air! By tones of triumph ; of dear love ; by threats; by pride that freezes ; these have the skill to make the world look bleak and inhospitable, or seem the nest of tenderness and joy. I do not wonder at the miracles which poetry attributes to the music of Orpheus, when I remember what I have experienced from the varied notes of the human voice. They are an in- calculable energy which countervails all other forces in nature, because they are the channel of supernatural powers. There is no place or interest or institution so poor and withered, but if a new strong man could be born into it, he would immediately redeem and replace it. A personal ascendency, - that is the only fact much worth considering. I remember, some years ago, some- body shocked a circle of friends of order here in Boston, who supposed that our people were identified with their religious denominations, by declaring that an eloquent man, - let him be of what sect soever, — would be ordained at once in one of our metropolitan churches. To be sure he would; and not only in ours, but in any church, mosque, Lectures on the Times. (July, or temple, on the planet ; but he must be eloquent, able to supplant our method and classification, by the superior beauty of his own. Every fact we have was brought here by some person; and there is none that will not change and pass away before a person, whose nature is broader than the person which the fact in question represents. And so I find the Age walking about in happy and hopeful natures, in strong eyes and pleasant thoughts, and think I read it nearer and truer so, than in the statute book, or in the investments of capital, which rather celebrate with mournful music the obsequies of the last age. In the brain of a fanatic; in the wild hope of a mountain boy, called by city boys very ignorant, because they do not know what his hope has certainly apprised him shall be ; in the love-glance of a girl; in the hair-splitting conscientiousness of some eccentric person, who has found some new scruple to embarrass himself and his neighbors withal ; is to be found that which shall constitute the times to come, more than in the now organized and accredited oracles. For whatever is affirmative and now advancing, contains it. I think that only is real, which men love and rejoice in; not what they tolerate, but what they choose ; what they em- brace and avow, and not the things which chill, benumb, and terrify them. And so why not draw for these times a portrait gallery ? Let us paint the painters. Whilst the Daguerreotype pro- fessor, with camera-obscura and silver plate, begins now to traverse the land, let us set up our Camera also, and let the sun paint the people. Let us paint the agitator, and the man of the old school, and the member of Congress, and the college-professor, the formidable editor, the priest, and reformer, the contemplative girl, and the fair aspirant for fashion and opportunities, the woman of the world who has tried and knows; — let us examine how well she knows. Good office it were with delicate finger in the most decisive, yet in the most parliamentary and unquestionable manner, to indicate the indicators, to indicate those who most ac- curately represent every good and evil tendency of the general mind, in the just order which they take on this canvass of Time ; so that all witnesses should recognise a spiritual law, as each well known form fitted for a mo- ment across the wall. So should we have, if it were rightly 1842.] Lectures on the Times. done, a series of sketches which would report to the next ages the color and quality of ours. Certainly, I think, if this were done, there would be much to admire as well as to condemn ; souls of as lofty a port, as any in Greek or Roman fame, might appear; men of might, and of great heart, of strong hand, and of persua- sive speech; subtle thinkers, and men of wide sympathy, and an apprehension which looks over all history, and every where recognises its own. To be sure, there will be frag- ments and hints of men, more than enough: bloated prom- ises of men, which end in nothing or little. And then truly great men, but with some defect in their composition which neutralizes their whole force. Here is a Damascus blade of a man, such as you may search through nature in vain to parallel, laid up on the shelf in some village to rust and ruin. And how many seem not quite available for that idea which they represent! Meantime, there comes now and then a bolder spirit, I should rather say, a more surrendered soul, more informed and led by God, which is much in advance of the rest, quite beyond their sympa- thy, but predicts what shall soon be the general fulness ; as when we stand by the sea shore, whilst the tide is coming in, a wave comes up the beach far higher than any forego- ing one, and recedes; and for a long while none comes up to that mark; but after some time the whole sea is there and beyond it. But we are not permitted to stand as spectators at the pageant which the times exhibit: we are parties also, and have a responsibility which is not to be declined. A little while this interval of wonder and comparison is permitted us, but to the end that we shall play a manly part. As the solar system moves forward in the heavens, certain stars open before us, and certain stars close up behind us; so is man's life. The reputations that were great and inacces- sible they change and tarnish. How great were once Lord Bacon's dimensions ! he is become but a middle- sized man; and many another star has turned out to be a planet or an asteroid : only a few are the fixed stars which have no parallax, or none for us. The change and decline of old reputations are the gracious marks of our own growth. Slowly like light of morning it steals on us, the new fact, that we, who were pupils or aspirants, are Lectures on the Times. [July; now society: do compose a portion of that head and heart we are wont to think worthy of all reverence and heed. We are the representatives of religion and intellect, and stand in the light of Ideas, whose rays stream through us to those younger and more in the dark. What further rela- tions we sustain, what new lodges we are entering, is now unknown. Let us give heed to what surrounds us. To- day is a king in disguise. To-day always looks trivial to the thoughtless, in the face of an uniform experience, that all good and great and happy actions are made up pre- cisely of these blank to-days. Let us not be so deceived. Let us unmask the king as he passes. Let us not inhabit times of wonderful and various promise without once divin- ing their tendency. Let us not see the foundations of na- tions, and of a new and better order of things laid, with roving eyes, and an attention preoccupied with trifles. But it is time to check the course of these miscellaneous and introductory remarks, and proceed to some sketches of the aspect which our times exhibit to one who looks in the class of the most intelligent and reponsible minds for the omens of the future. The two omnipresent parties of History, the party of the Past and the party of the Future, divide society to-day as of old. Here is the innumerable multitude of those who accept the state and the church from the last generation, and stand on no argument but possession. They have reason also, and, as I think, better reason than is commonly stated. No Burke, no Metternich has yet done full justice to the side of conservatism. But this class, however large, relying not on the intellect but on instinct, blends itself with the brute forces of nature, is respectable only as nature is, but the individuals have no attraction for us. It is the dissen- ter, the theorist, the aspirant, who is quitting this ancient do- main to embark on seas of adventure, who engages our in- terest. Omitting then for the present all notice of the sta- tionary class, we shall find that the movement party divides itself into two classes, the actors, and the students. The actors constitute that great army of martyrs who, at least in America, by their conscience and philanthropy oc- cupy the ground which Calvinism occupied in the last age, and do constitute the visible church of the existing genera- tion. The present age will be marked by its harvest of 1842.] Lectures on the Times. projects, for the reform of domestic, civil, literary, and ec- clesiastical institutions. The leaders of the crusades against War, Negro slavery, Intemperance, Government based on force, usages of trade, Court and Custom-house Oaths, and so on to the agitators on the system of Education and the laws of Property, are the right successors of Luther, Knox, Rob- inson, Fox, Penn, Wesley, and Whitfield. They have the same virtues and vices; the same noble impulse, and the same bigotry. These movements are on all accounts impor- tant; they not only check the special abuses to which they address themselves, but they educate the conscience and the intellect of the people. How can such a question as the Slave trade be agitated for forty years by all the Christian na- tions, without throwing great light on ethics into the gen- eral mind? The fury, with which the slave-trader defends every inch of his bloody deck, and his howling auction-plat- form, is a trumpet to alarm the ear of mankind, to wake the dull, and drive all neutrals to take sides, and listen to the argument and the verdict which justice shall finally pro- nounce. The Temperance-question, which rides the con- versation of ten thousand circles, and is tacitly recalled at every public and at every private table, drawing with it all the curious ethics of the Pledge, of the Wine-question, of the equity of the manufacture and the trade, is a gymnastic training to the casuistry and conscience of the time. Anti- masonry had a deep right and wrong, which gradually emerged to sight out of the turbid controversy. The polit- ical questions touching the Banks; the Tariff; the limits of the executive power; the right of the constituent to in- struct the representative ; the treatment of the Indians ; the Boundary wars; the Congress of nations; are all pregnant with ethical conclusions; and it is well if government and our social order can extricate themselves from these alembics, and find themselves still government and social order. The student of the history of this age will hereafter com- pute the singular value of our endless discussion of ques- tions, to the mind of the period. An important fact in regard to these aspirations of the people, and laborious efforts for the Better, is this, that whilst each is magnified by the natural exaggeration of its advocates, until it excludes the others from sight, and re- pels discreet persons by the unfairness of the plea, the Lectures on the Times. [July, movements are in reality all parts of one movement. There is a perfect chain, — see it, or see it not, — of reforms emerging from the surrounding darkness, each cherishing some part of the general idea, and all must be seen, in order to do justice to any one. Seen in this their natural connexion, they are sublime. The conscience of the Age demonstrates itself in this effort to raise the life of man by putting it in harmony with his idea of the Beautiful and the Just. The history of reform is always identical ; it is the comparison of the idea with the fact. Our modes of living are not agreeable to our imagination. We suspect they are unworthy. We arraign our daily employments. They appear to us unfit, unworthy of the faculties we spend on them. In conversation with a wise man, we find our- selves apologizing for our employments; we speak of them with shame. Nature appears to us beautiful, — literature, science, childhood, beautiful ; but not our own daily work, not the ripe fruit and considered labors of man. This beauty, which the fancy finds in everything else, certainly accuses that manner of life we lead. Why should it be hateful? Why should it contrast thus with all natural beauty? Why should it not be poetic, and invite and raise us? Is there a necessity that the works of man should be sordid ? Perhaps not. — Out of this fair Idea in the mind springs forever the effort at the Perfect. It is the testimony of the soul in man to a fairer possibility of life and manners, which agitates society every day with the offer of some new amendment. If we would make more strict inquiry concerning its origin, we find ourselves rapidly approaching the inner boundaries of thought, that term where speech becomes silence, and science conscience. For the origin of all reform is in that mysterious fountain of the moral sentiment in man, which, amidst the natural ever contains the supernatural for men. That is new and creative. That is alive. That alone can make a man other than he is. Here or nowhere resides unbounded energy, unbounded power. The new voices in the wilderness crying “ Repent,” have revived a hope, which had well nigh perished out of the world, that the thoughts of the mind may yet, in some dis- tant age, in some happy hour, be executed by the hands. That is the hope, of which all other hopes are parts. For 1842.] Lectures on the Times. some ages, these ideas have been consigned to the poet and musical composer, to the prayers and the sermons of churches; but the thought, that they can ever have any footing in real life, seems long since to have been exploded by all judicious persons. Milton, in his best tract, describes a relation between religion and the daily occupations, which is true until this time. “A wealthy man, addicted to his pleasure and to his profits, finds religion to be a traffic so entangled, and of so many piddling accounts, that of all mysteries he cannot skill to keep a stock going upon that trade. What should he do ? Fain he would have the name to be religious ; fain he would bear up with his neighbors in that. What does he, therefore, but resolve to give over toiling, and to find himself out some factor, to whose care and credit he may commit the whole managing of his religious affairs; some divine of note and estimation that must be. To him he adheres, resigns the whole warehouse of his religion, with all the locks and keys, into his custody; and indeed makes the very person of that man his religion ; esteems his as- sociating with him a sufficient evidence and commendatory of his own piety. So that a man may say, his religion is now no more within himself, but is become a dividual move- able, and goes and comes near him, according as that good man frequents the house. He entertains him, gives him gifts, feasts him, lodges him ; his religion comes home at night, prays, is liberally supped, and sumptuously laid to sleep, rises, is saluted, and after the malmsey, or some well spiced beverage, and better breakfasted than he whose morning appetite would have gladly fed on green figs be- tween Bethany and Jerusalem, his religion walks abroad at eight, and leaves his kind entertainer in the shop, trading all day without his religion.” This picture would serve for our times. Religion was not invited to eat or drink or sleep with us, or to make or di- vide an estate, but was a holiday guest. Such omissions judge the church; as the compromise made with the slave- holder, not much noticed at first, every day appears more flagrant mischief to the American constitution. But now the purists are looking into all these matters. The more intelligent are growing uneasy on the subject of Marriage. They wish to see the character represented also in that VOL. III. — NO. 1. 10 (July, Lectures on the Times. covenant. There shall be nothing brutal in it, but it shall honor the man and the woman, as much as the most diffu- sive and universal action. Grimly the same spirit looks into the law of Property, and accuses men of driving a trade in the great boundless providence which had given the air, the water, and the land to men, to use and not to fence in and monopolize. So it casts its eye on Trade, and Day Labor, and so it goes up and down, paving the earth with eyes, destroying privacy, and making thorough-lights. Is all this for nothing? Do you suppose that the reforms, which are preparing, will be as superficial as those we know? By the books it reads and translates, judge what books it will presently print. A great deal of the profoundest thinking of antiquity, which had become as good as obso- lete for us, is now reappearing in extracts and allusions, and in twenty years will get all printed anew. See how daring is the reading, the speculation, the experimenting of the time. If now some genius shall arise who could unite these scattered rays! And always such a genius does em- body the ideas of each time. Here is great variety and richness of mysticism, each part of which now only dis- gusts, whilst it forms the sole thought of some poor Per- fectionist or “ Comer out,” yet, when it shall be taken up as the garniture of some profound and all-reconciling thinker, will appear the rich and appropriate decoration of his robes. These Reforms are our contemporaries; they are our- selves; our own light, and sight, and conscience; they only name the relation which subsists between us and the vicious institutions which they go to rectify. They are the simplest statements of man in these matters; the plain right and wrong. I cannot choose but allow and honor them. So much for the Reforms; but we cannot say as much for the Reformers. Beautiful is the impulse and the theory ; the practice is less beautiful. The Re- formers affirm the inward life, but they do not trust it, but use outward and vulgar means. They do not rely on precisely that strength which wins me to their cause; not on love, not on a principle, but on men, on multitudes, on circumstances, on money, on party ; that is, on fear, on wrath, and pride. The love which liſted men to the sight 1842.) 11 Lectures on the Times. of these better ends, was the true and best distinction of this time, the disposition to trust a principle more than a material force. I think that the soul of reform; the con- viction, that not sensualism, not slavery, not war, not im- prisonment, not even government, are needed, - but in lieu of them all, reliance on the sentiment of man, which will work best the more it is trusted; not reliance on num. bers, but, contrariwise, distrust of numbers, and the feeling that then are we strongest, when most private and alone. The young men, who have been vexing society for these last years with regenerative methods, seem to have made this mistake; they all exaggerated some special means, and all failed to see that the Reform of Reforms must be accomplished without means. The Reforms have their high origin in an ideal justice, but they do not retain the purity of an idea. They are quickly organized in some low, inadequate form, and pre- sent no more poetic image to the mind, than the evil tra- dition which they reprobated. They mix the fire of the moral sentiment with personal and party heats, with measureless exaggerations, and the blindness that prefers some darling measure to justice and truth. Those, who are urging with most ardor what are called the greatest benefits of mankind, are narrow, self-pleasing, conceited men, and affect us as the insane do. They bite us, and we run mad also. I think the work of the reformer as innocent as other work that is done around him ; but when I have seen it near, I do not like it better. It is done in the same way, it is done profanely, not piously; by man- agement, by tactics, and clamor. It is a buzz in the ear. I cannot feel any pleasure in sacrifices which display to me such partiality of character. We do not want actions, but men; not a chemical drop of water, but rain ; the spirit that sheds and showers actions, countless, endless actions. You have on some occasion played a bold part. You have set your heart and face against society, when you thought it wrong, and returned it frown for frown. Excellent: now can you afford to forget it, reckoning all your action no more than the passing of your hand through the air, or a little breath of your mouth? The world leaves no track in space, and the greatest action of man no mark in the vast idea. To the youth diffident of his ability, and full 12 (July, Lectures on the Times. of compunction at his unprofitable existence, the tempta- tion is always great to lend himself to public movements, and as one of a party accomplish what he cannot hope to effect alone. But he must resist the degradation of a man to a measure. I must act with truth, though I should never come to act, as you call it, with effect. I must consent to inaction. A patience which is grand ; a brave and cold neglect of the offices which prudence exacts, so it be done in a deep, upper piety; a consent to solitude and inaction, which proceeds out of an unwillingness to violate character, is the century which makes the gem. Whilst therefore I desire to express the respect and joy I feel before this sub- lime connexion of reforms, now in their infancy around us, I urge the more earnestly the paramount duties of self-reliance. I cannot find language of sufficient energy to convey my sense of the sacredness of private integrity. All men, all things, the state, the church, yea the friends of the heart are phantasms and unreal beside the sanctuary of the heart. With so much awe, with so much fear, let it be respected. The great majority of men, unable to judge of any principle until its light falls on a fact, are not aware of the evil that is around them, until they see it in some gross form, as in a class of intemperate men, or slaveholders, or soldiers, or fraudulent persons. Then they are greatly moved ; and magnifying the importance of that wrong, they fancy that if that fact were rectified, all would go well, and they fill the land with clamor to correct it. Hence the missionary and other religious efforts. If every island and every house had a Bible, if every child was brought into the Sunday School, would the wounds of the world heal, and man be upright. But the man of ideas, accounting the circumstance noth- ing, judges of the entire state of facts from the one cardi- nal fact, namely, the state of his own mind. If,' he says, "I am selfish, then is there slavery, or the effort to establish it, wherever I go. But if I am just, then is there no slavery, let the laws say what they will. For if I treat all men as gods, how to me can there be such a thing as a slave ?' But how frivolous is your war against circum- stances. This denouncing philanthropist is himself a slave- holder in every word and look. Does he free me? Does 1842.) 13 Lectures on the Times. he cheer me? He is the state of Georgia, or Alabama, with their sanguinary slave-laws walking here on our north-eastern shores. We are all thankful he has no more political power, as we are fond of liberty ourselves. I am afraid our virtue is a little geographical. I am not mortified by our vice; that is obduracy; it colors and palters, it curses and swears, and I can see to the end of it; but, I own, our virtue makes me ashamed ; so sour and narrow, so thin and blind, virtue so vice-like. Then again, how trivial seem the contests of the abolitionist, whilst he aims merely at the circumstance of the slave. Give the slave the least elevation of religious sentiment, and he is no slave : you are the slave : he not only in his humility feels his superiority, feels that much deplor- ed condition of his to be a fading trifle, but he makes you feel it too. He is the master. The exaggeration, which our young people make of his wrongs, characterizes themselves. What are no trifles to them, they naturally think are no trifles to Pompey. This then is our criticism on the reforming movement; that it is in its origin divine; in its management and de- tails timid and profane. These benefactors hope to raise man by improving his circumstances : by combination of that which is dead, they hope to make something alive. In vain. By new infusions alone of the spirit by which he is made and directed, can he be re-made and reinforced. The sad Pestalozzi, who shared with all ardent spirits the hope of Europe on the outbreak of the French Revolution, after witnessing its sequel, recorded his conviction, that " the amelioration of outward circumstances will be the effect, but can never be the means of mental and moral improvement." Quitting now the class of actors, let us turn to see how it stands with the other class of which we spoke, namely, the students. A new disease has fallen on the life of man. Every Age, like every human body, has its own distemper. Other times have had war, or famine, or a barbarism domestic or bordering, as their antagonism. Our forefathers walked in the world and went to their graves, tormented with the fear of Sin, and the terror of the Day of Judgment. These terrors have lost their force, and our torment is Unbelief, the Uncertainty as to what we ought to do; the distrust of 14 (July, Lectures on the Times. the value of what we do, and the distrust that the Necessity (which we all at last believe in) is fair and beneficent. Our Religion assumes the negative form of rejection. Out of love of the true, we repudiate the false : and the Religion is an abolishing criticism. A great perplexity hangs like a cloud on the brow of all cultivated persons, a certain im- becility in the best spirits, which distinguishes the period. We do not find the same trait in the Arabian, in the He. brew, in Greek, Roman, Norman, English periods; no, but in other men a natural firmness. The men did not see beyond the need of the hour. They planted their foot strong, and doubted nothing. We mistrust every step we take. We find it the worst thing about time, that we know not what to do with it. We are so sharp-sighted that we can neither work nor think, neither read Plato nor not read him. Then there is what is called a too intellectual tendency. Can there be too much intellect? We have never met with any such excess. But the criticism, which is levelled at the laws and manners, ends in thought, without causing a new method of life. The genius of the day does not incline to a deed, but to a beholding. It is not that men do not wish to act; they pine to be employed, but are paralyzed by the uncertainty what they should do. The inadequacy of the work to the faculties, is the painful per- ception which keeps them still. This happens to the best. Then, talents bring their usual temptations, and the current literature and poetry with perverse ingenuity draw us away from life to solitude and meditation. This could well be borne, if it were great and involuntary ; if the men were ravished by their thought, and hurried into ascetic extrav- agances. Society could then manage to release their shoulder from its wheel, and grant them for a time this privilege of sabbath. But they are not so. Thinking, which was a rage, is become an art. The thinker gives me results, and never invites me to be present with him at his invocation of truth, and to enjoy with him its proceed- ing into his mind. So little action amidst such audacious and yet sincere profession, that we begin to doubt if that great revolution in the art of war, which has made it a game of posts and not a game of battles, has not operated on Reform ; 1842.] 15 Lectures on the Times. whether this be not also a war of posts, a paper blockade, in which each party is to display the utmost resources of his spirit and belief, and no conflict occur; but the world shall take that course which the demonstration of the truth shall indicate. But we must pay for being too intellectual, as they call it. People are not as light-hearted for it. I think men never loved life less. I question if care aud doubt ever wrote their names so legibly on the faces of any population. This Ennui, for which we Saxons had no name, this word of France has got a terrific significance. It shortens life, and bereaves the day of its light. Old age begins in the nursery, and before the young American has got into jacket and trowsers, he says, ' I want something which I never saw before ;' and · I wish I was not I. I have seen the same gloom on the brow even of those adventurers from the intellectual class, who had dived deepest and with most success into active life. I have seen the authentic sign of anxiety and perplexity on the greatest forehead of the state. The canker worms have crawled to the topmost bough of the wild elm, and swing down from that. Is there less oxygen in the atmosphere? What has checked in this age the animal spirits which gave to our forefathers their bounding pulse ? But have a little patience with this melancholy humor. Their unbelief arises out of a greater Belief; their inaction out of a scorn of inadequate action. By the side of these men, the hot agitators have a certain cheap and ridiculous air ; they even look smaller than the others. Of the two, I own, I like the speculators best. They have some piety which looks with faith to a fair Future, unprofaned by rash and unequal attempts to re- alize it. And truly we shall find much to console us, when we consider the cause of their uneasiness. It is the love of greatness, it is the need of harmony, the contrast of the dwarfish Actual with the exorbitant Idea. No man can compare the ideas and aspirations of the innovators of the present day, with those of former periods, without feeling how great and high this criticism is. The revolu- tions that impend over society are not now from ambition and rapacity, from impatience of one or another form of government, but from new modes of thinking, which shall 16 (July, Lectures on the Times. recompose society after a new order, which shall animate labor by love and science, which shall destroy the value of many kinds of property, and replace all property within the dominion of reason and equity. There was never so great a thought laboring in the breasts of men, as now. It almost seems as if what was aforetime spoken fabulously and hieroglyphically, was now spoken plainly, the doctrine, namely, of the indwelling of the Creator in man. The spiritualist wishes this only, that the spiritual principle should be şuffered to demonstrate itself to the end, in all possible applications to the state of man, without the ad- mission of anything unspiritual, that is, anything positive, dogmatic, or personal. The excellence of this class con- sists in this one thing, that they have believed ; that, affirm- ing the need of new and higher modes of living and action, they have abstained from the recommendation of low methods. The fault is that they have stopped at the intel- lectual perception ; that their will is not yet inspired from the Fountain of Love. But whose fault is this, and what a fault; and to what inquiry does it lead! We have come to that which is the spring of all power, of beauty and virtue, of art and poetry; and who shall tell us according to what law its inspirations and its informations are given or withholden ? I do not wish to be guilty of the narrowness and pe- dantry of inferring the tendency and genius of the Age from a few and insufficient facts or persons. Every age has a thousand sides and signs and tendencies ; and it is only when surveyed from inferior points of view, that great varieties of character appear. Our time too is full of activ- ity and performance. Is there not something comprehen- sive in the grasp of a society which to great mechanical invention, and the best institutions of property, adds the most daring theories ; which explores the subtlest and most universal problems? At the manifest risk of repeating what every other Age has thought of itself, we might say, we think the Genius of this Age more philosophical than any other has been, righter in its aims, truer, with less fear, less fable, less mixture of any sort. But turn it how we will, as we ponder this meaning of the times, every new thought drives us to the deep fact, that the Time is the child of the Eternity. The main in- 1842.] 17 Lectures on the Times. terest which any aspects of the Times can have for us, is the great spirit which gazes through them, the light which they can shed on the wonderful questions, What we are? and Whither we tend ? We do not wish to be deceived. Here we drift, like white sail across the wild ocean, now bright on the wave, now darkling in the trough of the sea; - but from what port did we sail ? Who knows? Or to what port are we bound? Who knows? There is no one to tell us but such poor weather-tossed mariners as ourselves, whom we speak as we pass, or who have hoisted some sig- nal, or floated to us some letter in a bottle from far. But what know they more than we? They also found them- selves on this wondrous sea. No; from the older sailors, nothing. Over all their speaking-trumpets, the gray sea and the loud winds answer, Not in us; not in Time. Where then but in Ourselves, where but in that Thought through which we communicate with absolute nature, and are made aware that, whilst we shed the dust of which we are built, grain by grain, till it is all gone, the law which clothes us with humanity remains new? where, but in the intuitions which are vouchsafed us from within, shall we learn the Truth? Faithless, faithless, we fancy that with the dust we depart and are not; and do not know that the law and the perception of the law are at last one; that only as much as the law enters us, becomes us, we are liv- ing men,- immortal with the immortality of this law. Un- derneath all these appearances, lies that which is, that which lives, that which causes. This ever renewing generation of appearances rests on a reality, and a reality that is alive. To a true scholar the attraction of the aspects of na- ture, the departments of life, and the passages of his experience, is simply the information they yield him of this supreme nature which lurks within all. That reality, that causing force is moral. The Moral Sentiment is but its other name. It makes by its presence or absence right and wrong, beauty and ugliness, genius or deprava- tion. As the granite comes to the surface, and towers into the highest mountains, and, if we dig down, we find it be- low the superficial strata, so in all the details of our do- mestic or civil lite, is hidden the elemental reality, which ever and anon comes to the surface, and forms the grand men, who are the leaders and examples, rather than the VOL. III. — NO. I. 18 (July, Lectures on the Times. companions of the race. The granite is curiously con- cealed under a thousand formations and surfaces, under fertile soils, and grasses, and flowers, under well-manured, arable fields, and large towns and cities, but it makes the foundation of these, and is always indicating its pres- ence by slight but sure signs. So is it with the Life of our life ; so close does that also hide. I read it in glad and in weeping eyes: I read it in the pride and in the humility of people : it is recognised in every bargain and in every complaisance, in every criticism, and in all praise : it is voted for at elections; it wins the cause with juries ; it rides the stormy eloquence of the senate, sole victor ; histories are written of it, holidays decreed to it; statues, tombs, churches, built to its honor; yet men seem to fear and to shun it, when it comes barely to view in our imme- diate neighborhood. For that reality let us stand : that let us serve, and for that speak. Only as far as that shines through them, are these times or any times worth consideration. I wish to speak of the politics, education, business, and religion around us, without ceremony or false deference. You will absolve me from the charge of Aippancy, or malignity, or the desire to say smart things at the expense of whomso- ever, when you see that reality is all we prize, and that we are bound on our entrance into nature to speak for that. Let it not be recorded in our own memories, that in this moment of the Eternity, when we who were named by our names, flitted across the light, we were afraid of any fact, or disgraced the fair Day by a pusillanimous prefer- ence of our bread to our freedom. What is the scholar, what is the man for, but for hospitality to every new thought of his time? Have you leisure, power, property, friends ? you shall be the asylum and patron of every new thought, every unproven opinion, every untried project, which proceeds out of good will and honest seeking. All the newspapers, all the tongues of to-day will of course at first defame what is noble; but you who hold not of to- day, not of the times, but of the Everlasting, are to stand for it: and the highest compliment, man ever receives from heaven, is the sending to him its disguised and discredited angels. 1842.] 19 Natural History of Massachusetts. NATURAL HISTORY OF MASSACHUSETTS. Reports — on the Fishes, Reptiles, and Birds ; the Herbaceous Plants and Quadrupeds ; the Insects Injurious to Vegetation ; and the In- vertebrate Animals — of Massachusetts. Published agreeably to an Order of the Legislature, by the Commissioners on the Zoological and Botanical Survey of the State. : PRELIMINARY NOTE. - We were thinking how we might best celebrate the good deed which the State of Massachusetts has done, in procuring the Scientific Survey of the Commonwealth, whose result is recorded in these volumes, when we found a near neighbor and friend of ours, dear also to the Muses, a native and an inhabitant of the town of Concord, who readily undertook to give us such comments as he had made on these books, and, better still, notes of bis own conversation with nature in the woods and waters of this town. With all thankfulness we begged our friend to lay down the oar and fishing line, which none can handle better, and assume the pen, that Isaak Walton and White of Selborne might not want a successor, nor the fair meadows, to which we also have owed a home and the happiness of many years, their poet. EDITOR OF THE DIAL. Concord, Mass. Books of natural history make the most cheerful winter reading. I read in Audubon with a thrill of delight, when the snow covers the ground, of the magnolia, and the Flor- ida keys, and their warm sea breezes; of the fence-rail, and the cotton-tree, and the migrations of the rice-bird ; of the breaking up of winter in Labrador, and the melting of the snow on the forks of the Missouri ; and owe an accession of health to these reminiscences of luxuriant nature. Within the circuit of this plodding life There enter moments of an azure hue, Untarnished fair as is the violet Or anemone, when the spring strews them By some meandering rivulet, which make The best philosophy untrue that aims But to console man for his grievances. I have remembered when the winter came, High in my chamber in the frosty nights, When in the still light of the cheerful moon, 20 [July, Natural History of Massachusetts. On every twig and rail and jutting spout, The icy spears were adding to their length Against the arrows of the coming sun, How in the shimmering noon of summer past Some unrecorded beam slanted across The upland pastures where the Johnswort grew; Or heard, amid the verdure of my mind, The bee's long smothered hum, on the blue flag Loitering amidst the mead; or busy rill, Which now through all its course stands still and dumb Its own memorial, — purling at its play Along the slopes, and through the meadows next, Until its youthful sound was hushed at last In the staid current of the lowland stream ; Or seen the furrows shine but late upturned, And where the fieldfare followed in the rear, When all the fields around lay bound and hoar Beneath a thick integument of snow. So by God's cheap economy made rich To go upon my winter's task again. I am singularly refreshed in winter when I hear of ser- vice berries, poke-weed, juniper. Is not heaven made up of these cheap summer glories? There is a singular health in those words Labrador and East Main, which no des- ponding creed recognises. How much more than federal are these states. If there were no other vicissitudes than the seasons, our interest would never tire. Much more is adoing than Congress wots of. What journal do the persim- mon and the buckeye keep, and the sharp-shinned hawk? What is transpiring from summer to winter in the Caroli- nas, and the Great Pine Forest, and the Valley of the Mo- hawk ? The merely political aspect of the land is never very cheering; men are degraded when considered as the members of a political organization. On this side all lands present only the symptoms of decay. I see but Bunker Hill and Sing-Sing, the District of Columbia and Sullivan's Island, with a few avenues connecting them. But paltry are they all beside one blast of the east or the south wind which blows over them. In society you will not find health, but in nature. Unless our feet at least stood in the midst of nature, all our faces would be pale and livid. Society is always diseased, and the best is the most so. There is no scent in it so wholesome 1842.] 21 Natural History of Massachusetts as that of the pines, nor any fragrance so penetrating and restorative as the life-everlasting in high pastures. I would keep some book of natural history always by me as a sort of elixir, the reading of which should restore the tone of the system. To the sick, indeed, nature is sick, but to the well, a fountain of health. To him who contemplates a trait of natural beauty no harm nor disappointment can come. The doctrines of despair, of spiritual or political ty- ranny or servitude, were never taught by such as shared the serenity of nature. Surely good courage will not flag here on the Atlantic border, as long as we are flanked by the Fur Countries. There is enough in that sound to cheer one under any circumstances. The spruce, the hemlock, and the pine will not countenance despair. Methinks some creeds in vestries and churches do forget the hunter wrapped in furs by the Great Slave Lake, and that the Es- quimaux sledges are drawn by dogs, and in the twilight of the northern night, the hunter does not give over to follow the seal and walrus on the ice. They are of sick and dis- eased imaginations who would toll the world's knell so soon. Cannot these sedentary sects do better than prepare the shrouds and write the epitaphs of those other busy liv- ing men? The practical faith of all men belies the preach- er's consolation. What is any man's discourse to me, if I am not sensible of something in it as steady and cheery as the creak of crickets? In it the woods must be relieved against the sky. Men tire me when I am not constantly greeted and refreshed as by the flux of sparkling streams. Surely joy is the condition of life. Think of the young fry that leap in ponds, the myriads of insects ushered in- to being on a summer evening, the incessant note of the hyla with which the woods ring in the spring, the noncha- lance of the butterfly carrying accident and change painted in a thousand hues upon its wings, or the brook minnow stoutly stemming the current, the lustre of whose scales worn bright by the attrition is reflected upon the bank. We fancy that this din of religion, literature, and philos- ophy, which is heard in pulpits, lyceums, and parlors, vi- brates through the universe, and is as catholic a sound as the creaking of the earth's axle ; but if a man sleep sound- ly, he will forget it all between sunset and dawn. It is the three-inch swing of a pendulum in a cupboard, which the 22 Natural History of Massachusetts. (July, great pulse of nature vibrates by and through each instant. When we lift our eyelids and open our ears, it disappears with smoke and rattle like the cars on a railroad. When I detect a beauty in any of the recesses of nature, I am re- minded, by the serene and retired spirit in which it requires to be contemplated, of the inexpressible privacy of a life, — how silent and unambitious it is. The beauty there is in mosses must be considered from the holiest, quietest nook. What an admirable training is science for the more active warfare of life. Indeed, the unchallenged bravery, which these studies imply, is far more impressive than the trumpet- ed valor of the warrior. I am pleased to learn that Thales was up and stirring by night not unfrequently, as his as- tronomical discoveries prove. Linnæus, setting out for Lapland, surveys his " comb” and “ spare shirt," "leathern breeches ” and “gauze cap to keep off gnats," with as much complacency as Bonaparte a park of artillery for the Russian campaign. The quiet bravery of the man is ad- mirable. His eye is to take in fish, flower, and bird, quad- ruped and biped. Science is always brave, for to know, is to know good; doubt and danger quail before her eye. What the coward overlooks in his hurry, she calmly scru- tinizes, breaking ground like a pioneer for the array of arts that follow in her train. But cowardice is unscientific; for there cannot be a science of ignorance. There may be a science of bravery, for that advances ; but a retreat is rare- ly well conducted ; if it is, then is it an orderly advance in the face of circumstances. But to draw a little nearer to our promised topics. En- tomology extends the limits of being in a new direction, so that I walk in nature with a sense of greater space and freedom. It suggests besides, that the universe is not rough-hewn, but perfect in its details. Nature will bear the closest inspection ; she invites us to lay our eye level with the smallest leaf, and take an insect view of its plain. She has no interstices; every part is full of life. I explore, too, with pleasure, the sources of the myriad sounds which crowd the summer noon, and which seem the very grain and stuff of which eternity is made. Who does not re- member the shrill roll-call of the harvest fly? There were ears for these sounds in Greece long ago, as Anacreon's ode will show. 1842.] 23 Natural History of Massachusetts. “We pronounce thee happy, Cicada, For on the tops of the trees, Drinking a little dew, Like any king thou singest. For thine are they all, Whatever thou seest in the fields, And whatever the woods bear. Thou art the friend of the husbandmen, In no respect injuring any one; And thou art honored among men, Sweet prophet of summer. The Muses love thee, And Phæbus himself loves thee, And has given thee a shrill song; Age does not wrack thee, Thou skiful, earthborn, song-loving, Unsuffering, bloodless one; Almost thou art like the gods.” In the autumn days, the creaking of crickets is heard at noon over all the land, and as in summer they are heard chiefly at night-fall, so then by their incessant chirp they usher in the evening of the year. Nor can all the vanities that vex the world alter one whit the measure that night has chosen. Every pulse-beat is in exact time with the cricket's chant and the tickings of the deathwatch in the wall. Alternate with these if you can. About two hundred and eighty birds either reside permanently in the State, or spend the summer only, or make us a passing visit. Those which spend the winter with us have obtained our warmest sympathy. The nut- batch and chicadee fitting in company through the dells of the wood, the one harshly scolding at the intruder, the other with a faint lisping note enticing him on, the jay screaming in the orchard, the crow cawing in unison with the storm, the partridge, like a russet link extended over from autumn to spring, preserving unbroken the chain of summers, the hawk with warrior-like firmness abiding the blasts of winter, the robin* and lark lurking by warm * A white robin and a white quail have occasionally been seen. It is mentioned in Audubon as remarkable that the nest of a robin should be found on the ground; but this bird seems to be less particular than most in the choice of a building spot. I have seen its nest placed under the thatched roof of a deserted barn, and in one instance, where the adjacent 24 Natural History of Massachusetts. [July, . springs in the woods, the familiar snow-bird culling a few seeds in the garden, or a few crumbs in the yard, and oc- casionally the shrike, with heedless and unfrozen melody bringing back summer again ; - His steady sails he never furls At any time o' year, And perching now on Winter's curls, He whistles in his ear. As the spring advances and the ice is melting in the river, our earliest and straggling visitors make their appear- ance. Again does the old Teian poet sing as well for New England as for Greece, in the RETURN OF SPRING. “Behold, how spring appearing, The Graces send forth roses; Behold, how the wave of the sea Is made smooth by the calm ; Behold, how the duck dives; Behold, how the crane travels; And Titan shines constantly bright. The shadows of the clouds are moving ; The works of man shine ; The earth puts forth fruits ; The fruit of the olive puts forth. The cup of Bacchus is crowned, Along the leaves, along the branches, The fruit, bending them down, flourishes." The ducks alight at this season in the still water, in company with the gulls, which do not fail to improve an east wind to visit our meadows, and swim about by twos and threes, pluming themselves, and diving to peck at the root of the lily, and the cranberries which the frost has not loos- ened. The first flock of geese is seen beating to north, in long harrows and waving lines, the gingle of the song-sparrow salutes us from the shrubs and fences, the plaintive note of the lark comes clear and sweet from the meadow, and the bluebird, like an azure ray, glances past us in our walk. The fish-hawk, too, is occasionally seen at this season sail- country was nearly destitute of trees, together with two of the phebe, upon the end of a board in the loft of a sawmill, but a few feet from the Baw, which vibrated several inches with the motion of the machinery. 1842.) 25 Natural History of Massachusetts. ing majestically over the water, and he who has once ob- served it will not soon forget the majesty of its flight. It sails the air like a ship of the line, worthy to struggle with the elements, falling back from time to time like a ship on its beam ends, and holding its talons up as if ready for the arrows, in the attitude of the national bird. It is a great presence, as of the master of river and forest. Its eye would not quail before the owner of the soil, but make him feel like an intruder on its domains. And then its retreat, sail. ing so steadily away, is a kind of advance. I have by me one of a pair of ospreys, which have for some years fished in this vicinity, shot by a neighboring pond, measuring more than two feet in length, and six in the stretch of its wings. Nuttall mentions that “ The ancients, particularly Aristotle, pretended that the ospreys taught their young to gaze at the sun, and those who were unable to do so were destroyed. Linnæus even believed, on ancient authority, that one of the feet of this bird had all the toes divided, while the other was partly webbed, so that it could swim with one foot, and grasp a fish with the other.” But that educated eye is now dim, and those talons are nerveless. Its shrill scream seems yet to linger in its throat, and the roar of the sea in its wings. There is the tyranny of Jove in its claws, and his wrath in the erectile feathers of the head and neck. It reminds me of the Argonautic expedi- tion, and would inspire the dullest to take flight over Par- nassus. The booming of the bittern, described by Goldsmith and Nuttall, is frequently heard in our fens, in the morning and evening, sounding like a pump, or the chopping of wood in a frosty morning in some distant farm-yard. The manner in which this sound is produced I have not seen anywhere described. On one occasion, the bird has been seen by one of my neighbors to thrust its bill into the water, and suck up as much as it could hold, then raising its head, it pump- ed it out again with four or five heaves of the neck, throw- ing it two or three feet, and making the sound each time. At length the summer's eternity is ushered in by the cackle of the flicker among the oaks on the hill-side, and a new dynasty begins with calm security. In May and June the woodland quire is in full tune, and given the immense spaces of hollow air, and this curious VOL. III. — NO. 1. 26 (July, Natural History of Massachusetts. human ear, one does not see how the void could be better filled. Each summer sound Is a summer round. As the season advances, and those birds which make us but a passing visit depart, the woods become silent again, and but few feathers ruffle the drowsy air. But the solitary rambler may still find a response and expression for every mood in the depths of the wood. Sometimes I hear the veery's* clarion, Or brazen trump of the impatient jay, And in secluded woods the chicadee Doles out her scanty notes, which sing the praise Of heroes, and set forth the loveliness Of virtue evermore. The phæbe still sings in harmony with the sultry weath- er by the brink of the pond, nor are the desultory hours of noon in the midst of the village without their minstrel. Upon the lofty elm tree sprays The vireo rings the changes sweet, During the trivial summer days, Striving to lift our thoughts above the street. With the autumn begins in some measure a new spring. The plover is heard whistling high in the air over the dry pastures, the finches flit from tree to tree, the bobolinks and Hickers fly in focks, and the goldfinch rides on the earliest blast, like a winged hyla peeping amid the rustle of the leaves. The crows, too, begin now to congregate ; you may stand and count them as they fly low and straggling over the landscape, singly or by twos and threes, at inter- vals of half a mile, until a hundred have passed. I have seen it suggested somewhere that the crow was brought to this country by the white man; but I shall as soon believe that the white man planted these pines and * This bird, which is so well described by Nuttall, but is apparently unknown by the author of the Report, is one of the most common in the woods in this vicinity, and in Cambridge I have heard the college yard ring with its trill. The boys call it " yorrick," from the sound of its querulous and chiding note, as it flits near the traveller through the un- derwood. The cowbird's egg is occasionally found in its nest, as men- tioned by Audubon. 1842.) 27 Natural History of Massachusetts. hemlocks. He is no spaniel to follow our steps; but rather flits about the clearings like the dusky spirit of the Indian, reminding me oftener of Philip and Powhatan, than of Winthrop and Smith. He is a relic of the dark ages. By just so slight, by just so lasting a tenure does superstition hold the world ever; there is the rook in England, and the crow in New England. Thou dusky spirit of the wood, Bird of an ancient brood, Flitting thy lonely way, A meteor in the summer's day, From wood to wood, from hill to hill, Low over forest, field, and rill, What wouldst thou say? Why shouldst thou haunt the day? What makes thy melancholy float? What bravery inspires thy throat, And bears thee up above the clouds, Over desponding human crowds, Which far below Lay thy haunts low? The late walker or sailer, in the October evenings, may hear the murmuring of the snipe, circling over the mea- dows, the most spirit-like sound in nature; and still later in the autumn, when the frosts have tinged the leaves, a soli- tary loon pays a visit to our retired ponds, where he may lurk undisturbed till the season of moulting is passed, making the woods ring with his wild laughter. This bird, the Great Northern Diver, well deserves its name ; for when pursued with a boat, it will dive, and swim like a fish un- der water, for sixty rods or more, as fast as a boat can be paddled, and its pursuer, if he would discover his game again, must put his ear to the surface to hear where it comes up. When it comes to the surface, it throws the water off with one shake of its wings, and calmly swims about until again disturbed. These are the sights and sounds which reach our senses oftenest during the year. But sometimes one hears a quite new note, which has for back ground other Carolinas and Mexicos than the books describe, and learns that his orni- thology has done him no service. 28 Natural History of Massachusetts. [July, It appears from the Report that there are about forty quadrupeds belonging to the State, and among these one is glad to hear of a few bears, wolves, lynxes, and wildcats. When our river overflows its banks in the spring, the wind from the meadows is laden with a strong scent of musk, and by its freshness advertises me of an unexplored wildness. Those backwoods are not far off then. I am affected by the sight of the cabins of the musk-rat, made of mud and grass, and raised three or four feet along the river, as when I read of the barrows of Asia. The musk-rat is the beaver of the settled States. Their num- ber has even increased within a few years in this vicinity. Among the rivers which empty into the Merrimack, the Concord is known to the boatmen as a dead stream. The Indians are said to have called it Musketaquid, or Prairie river. Its current being much more sluggish, and its water more muddy than the rest, it abounds more in fish and game of every kind. According to the History of the town, “The fur trade here was once very important. As early as 1641, a company was formed in the colony, of which Major Willard of Concord was superintendent, and had the exclusive right to trade with the Indians in furs and other articles; and for this right they were obliged to pay into the public treasury one twentieth of all the furs they obtained." There are trappers in our midst still, as well as on the streams of the far west, who night and morning go the round of their traps, without fear of the Indian. One of these takes from one hundred and fifty to two hun- dred musk-rats in a year, and even thirty-six have been shot by one man in a day. Their fur, which is not nearly as valuable as formerly, is in good condition in the winter and spring only ; and upon the breaking up of the ice, when they are driven out of their holes by the water, the greatest number is shot from boats, either swimming or resting on their stools, or slight supports of grass and reeds, by the side of the stream. Though they exhibit consider- able cunning at other times, they are easily taken in a trap, which has only to be placed in their holes, or wherever they frequent, without any bait being used, though it is sometimes rubbed with their musk. In the winter the hunter cuts holes in the ice, and shoots them when they come to the surface. Their burrows are usually in the 1842.) 29 Natural History of Massachusetts. high banks of the river, with the entrance under water, and rising within to above the level of high water. Some- times their nests, composed of dried meadow grass and flags, may be discovered where the bank is low and spongy, by the yielding of the ground under the feet. They have from three to seven or eight young in the spring. Frequently, in the morning or evening, a long ripple is seen in the still water, where a musk-rat is crossing the stream, with only its nose above the surface, and some- times a green bough in its mouth to build its house with. When it finds itself observed, it will dive and swim five or six rods under water, and at length conceal itself in its hole, or the weeds. It will remain under water for ten minutes at a time, and on one occasion has been seen, when undisturbed, to form an air bubble under the ice, which contracted and expanded as it breathed at leisure. When it suspects danger on shore, it will stand erect like a squirrel, and survey its neighborhood for several minutes, without moving. In the fall, if a meadow intervene between their burrows and the stream, they erect cabins of mud and grass, three or four feet high, near its edge. These are not their breed- ing places, though young are sometimes found in them in late freshets, but rather their hunting lodges, to which they resort in the winter with their food, and for shelter. Their food consists chiefly of flags and fresh water muscles, the shells of the latter being left in large quantities around their lodges in the spring. The Penobscot Indian wears the entire skin of a musk- rat, with the legs and tail dangling, and the head caught under his girdle, for a pouch, into which he puts his fishing tackle, and essences to scent his traps with. The bear, wolf, lynx, wildcat, deer, beaver, and marten, have disappeared; the otter is rarely if ever seen at present; and the mink is less common than formerly. Perhaps of all our untamed quadrupeds, the fox has ob- tained the widest and most familiar reputation, from the time of Pilpay and Æsop to the present day. His recent tracks still give variety to a winter's walk. I tread in the steps of the fox that has gone before me by some hours, or which perhaps I have started, with such a tiptoe of ex- pectation, as if I were on the trail of the Spirit itself which their's of the chicket with 30 (July, Natural History of Massachusetts. resides in the wood, and expected soon to catch it in its ful curvatures, and how surely they were coincident with the fluctuations of some mind. I know which way a mind wended, what horizon it faced, by the setting of these tracks, and whether it moved slowly or rapidly, by their greater or less intervals and distinctness; for the swiftest step leaves yet a lasting trace. Sometimes you will see the trails of many together, and where they have gambolled and gone through a hundred evolutions, which testify to a singular listlessness and leisure in nature. When I see a fox run across the pond on the snow, with the carelessness of freedom, or at intervals trace his course in the sunshine along the ridge of a hill, I give up to him sun and earth as to their true proprietor. He does not go in the sun, but it seems to follow him, and there is a visible sympathy between him and it. Sometimes, when the snow lies light, and but five or six inches deep, you may give chase and come up with one on foot. In such a case he will show a remarkable presence of mind, choosing only the safest direction, though he may lose ground by it. Notwithstanding his fright, he will take no step which is not beautiful. His pace is a sort of leopard canter, as if he were in no wise impeded by the snow, but were hus- banding his strength all the while. When the ground is uneven, the course is a series of graceful curves, conform- ing to the shape of the surface. He runs as though there were not a bone in his back, occasionally dropping his muzzle to the ground for a rod or two, and then tossing his head aloft, when satisfied of his course. When he comes to a declivity, he will put his fore feet together, and slide swiftly down it, shoving the snow before him. He treads so softly that you would hardly hear it from any nearness, and yet with such expression, that it would not be quite inaudible at any distance. Of fishes, seventy-five genera and one hundred and seven species are described in the Report. The fish- erman will be startled to learn that there are but about a dozen kinds in the ponds and streams of any inland town; and almost nothing is known of their habits. Only their names and residence make one love fishes. I would know 1842.) Natural History of Massachusetts. even the number of their fin rays, and how many scales compose the lateral line. I am the wiser in respect to all knowledges, and the better qualified for all fortunes, for knowing that there is a minnow in the brook. Methinks I have need even of his sympathy and to be his fellow in a degree. I have experienced such simple delight in the trivial matters of fishing and sporting, formerly, as might have in- spired the muse of Homer or Shakspeare ; and now when I turn the pages and ponder the plates of the Angler's Sou- venir, I am fain to exclaim, — “Can these things be, And overcome us like a summer's cloud ?" Next to nature it seems as if man's actions were the most natural, they so gently accord with her. The small seines of flax stretched across the shallow and transparent parts of our river, are no more intrusion than the cobweb in the sun. I stay my boat in mid current, and look down in the sunny water to see the civil meshes of his nets, and wonder how the blustering people of the town could have done this elvish work. The twine looks like a new river weed, and is to the river as a beautiful memento of man's presence in nature, discovered as silently and deli- cately as a foot-print in the sand. When the ice is covered with snow, I do not suspect the wealth under my feet; that there is as good as a mine under me wherever I go. How many pickerel are poised on easy fin fathoms below the loaded wain. The revolution of the seasons must be a curious phenomenon to them. At length the sun and wind brush aside their curtain, and they see the heavens again. Early in the spring, after the ice has melted, is the time for spearing fish. Suddenly the wind shifts from north- east and east to west and south, and every icicle, which has tinkled on the meadow grass so long, trickles down its stem, and seeks its level unerringly with a million comrades. The steam curls up from every roof and fence. I see the civil sun drying earth's tears, Her tears of joy, which only faster flow. In the brooks is heard the slight grating sound of small 32 (July, Natural History of Massachusetts. cakes of ice, floating with various speed, full of content and promise, and where the water gurgles under a natural bridge, you may hear these hasty rafts hold conversation in an under tone. Every rill is a channel for the juices of the meadow. In the ponds the ice cracks with a merry and inspiriting din, and down the larger streams is whirled grating hoarsely, and crashing its way along, which was so lately a highway for the woodman's team and the fox, sometimes with the tracks of the skaters still fresh upon it, and the holes cut for pickerel. Town committees anx- iously inspect the bridges and causeways, as if by mere eye-force to intercede with the ice, and save the treasury. The river swelleth more and more, Like some sweet influence stealing o'er The passive town; and for a while Each tussuck makes a tiny isle, Where, on some friendly Ararat, Resteth the weary water-rat. No ripple shows Musketaquid, Her very current e'en is hid, As deepest souls do calmest rest, When thoughts are swelling in the breast, And she that in the summer's drought Doth make a rippling and a rout, Sleeps from Nahshawtuck to the Cliff, Unruffled by a single skiff. But by a thousand distant hills The louder roar a thousand rills, And many a spring which now is dumb, And many a stream with smothered hum, Doth swifter well and faster glide, Though buried deep beneath the tide. Our village shows a rural Venice, Its broad lagoons where yonder fen is; As lovely as the Bay of Naples Yon placid cove amid the maples; And in my neighbor's field of corn I recognise the Golden Horn, Here Nature taught from year to year, When only red men came to hear, 1842.) 33 Natural History of Massachusetts. Methinks 't was in this school of art Venice and Naples learned their part, But still their mistress, to my mind, Her young disciples leaves behind. The fisherman now repairs and launches his boat. The best time for spearing is at this season, before the weeds have begun to grow, and while the fishes lie in the shallow water, for in summer they prefer the cool depths, and in the autumn they are still more or less concealed by the grass. The first requisite is fuel for your crate; and for this purpose the roots of the pitch pine are commonly used, found under decayed stumps, where the trees have been felled eight or ten years. With a crate, or jack, made of iron hoops, to contain your fire, and attached to the bow of your boat about three feet from the water, a fish-spear with seven tines, and four- teen feet long, a large basket, or barrow, to carry your fuel and bring back your fish, and a thick outer garment, you are equipped for a cruise. It should be a warm and still evening; and then with a fire crackling merrily at the prow, you may launch forth like a cucullo into the night. The dullest soul cannot go upon such an expedition without some of the spirit of adventure; as if he had stolen the boat of Charon and gone down the Styx on a midnight ex- pedition into the realms of Pluto. And much speculation does this wandering star afford to the musing night-walker, leading him on and on, jack-o’lantern-like, over the mea- dows; or if he is wiser, he amuses himself with imagining what of human life, far in the silent night, is flitting moth- like round its candle. The silent navigator shoves his craft gently over the water, with a smothered pride and sense of benefaction, as if he were the phosphor, or light- bringer, to these dusky realms, or some sister moon, bless- ing the spaces with her light. The waters, for a rod or two on either hand and several feet in depth, are lit up with more than noon-day distinctness, and he enjoys the oppor- tunity which so many have desired, for the roofs of a city are indeed raised, and he surveys the midnight economy of the fishes. There they lie in every variety of posture, some on their backs, with their white bellies uppermost, some suspended in mid water, some sculling gently along VOL. III. — NO. 1. 34 (July, Natural History of Massachusetts. with a dreamy motion of the fins, and others quite active and wide awake, - a scene not unlike what the human city would present. Occasionally he will encounter a tur- tle selecting the choicest morsels, or a musk-rat resting on a tussuck. He may exercise his dexterity, if he sees fit, on the more distant and active fish, or fork the nearer into his boat, as potatoes out of a pot, or even take the sound sleepers with his hands. But these last accomplishments he will soon learn to dispense with, distinguishing the real object of his pursuit, and find compensation in the beauty and never ending novelty of his position. The pines grow- ing down to the water's edge will show newly as in the glare of a conflagration, and as he floats under the willows with his light, the song-sparrow will often wake on her perch, and sing that strain at midnight, which she had meditated for the morning. And when he has done, he may have to steer his way home through the dark by the north star, and he will feel himself some degrees nearer to it for hav- ing lost his way on the earth. The fishes commonly taken in this way are pickerel, suckers, perch, eels, pouts, breams, and shiners, — from thirty to sixty weight in a night. Some are hard to be recognised in the unnatural light, especially the perch, which, his dark bands being exaggerated, acquires a ferocious as- pect. The number of these transverse bands, which the Report states to be seven, is, however, very variable, for in some of our ponds they have nine and ten even. It appears that we have eight kinds of tortoises, twelve snakes, — but one of which is venomous, — nine frogs and toads, nine salamanders, and one lizzard, for our neighbors. I am particularly attracted by the motions of the serpent tribe. They make our hands and feet, the wings of the bird, and the fins of the fish seem very superfluous, as if nature had only indulged her fancy in making them. The black snake will dart into a bush when pursued, and circle round and round with an easy and graceful motion, amid the thin and bare twigs, five or six feet from the ground, as a bird flits from bough to bough, or hang in festoons between the forks. Elasticity and flexibleness in the sim- pler forms of animal life are equivalent to a complex system of limbs in the higher; and we have only to be as wise 1842.] 35. Natural History of Massachusetts. : and wily as the serpent, to perform as difficult feats without the vulgar assistance of hands and feet. In April, the snapping turtle, Emysaurus serpentina, is frequently taken on the meadows and in the river. The fisherman, taking sight over the calm surface, discovers its snout projecting above the water, at the distance of many rods, and easily secures his prey through its unwillingness to disturb the water by swimming hastily away, for, gradually drawing its head under, it remains resting on some limb or clump of grass. Its eggs, which are buried at a distance from the water, in some soft place, as a pigeon bed, are fre- quently devoured by the skunk. It will catch fish by day- light, as a toad catches flies, and is said to emit a transpa- rent fluid from its mouth to attract them. Nature has taken more care than the fondest parent for the education and refinement of her children. Consider the silent influence which flowers exert, no less upon the ditcher in the meadow than the lady in the bower. When I walk in the woods, I am reminded that a wise purveyor has been there before me; my most delicate experience is typified there. I am struck with the pleasing friendships and unanimities of nature, as when the moss on the trees takes the form of their leaves. In the most stupendous scenes you will see delicate and fragile ſeatures, as slight wreathes of vapor, dew-lines, feathery sprays, which sug- gest a high refinement, a noble blood and breeding, as it were. It is not hard to account for elves and fairies; they represent this light grace, this ethereal gentility. Bring a spray from the wood, or a crystal from the brook, and place it on your mantel, and your household ornaments will seem plebeian beside its nobler fashion and bearing. It will wave superior there, as if used to a more refined and polished cir- cle. It has a salute and a response to all your enthusiasm and heroism. In the winter, I stop short in the path to admire how the trees grow up without forethought, regardless of the time and circumstances. They do not wait as man does, but now is the golden age of the sapling. Earth, air, sun, and rain, are occasion enough; they were no better in primeval centuries. The “ winter of their discontent" never comes. Witness the buds of the native poplar standing gaily out to the frost on the sides of its bare switches. They express a now is then stances. Thforethough 36 [July, Natural History of Massachusetts. naked confidence. With cheerful heart one could be a sojourner in the wilderness, if he were sure to find there the catkins of the willow or the alder. When. I read of them in the accounts of northern adventurers, by Baffin's Bay or Mackenzie's river, I see how even there too I could dwell. They are our little vegetable redeemers. Methinks our virtue will hold out till they come again. They are worthy to have had a greater than Minerva or Ceres for their in- ventor. Who was the benignant goddess that bestowed them on mankind ? Nature is mythical and mystical always, and works with the license and extravagance of genius. She has her luxuri- ous and florid style as well as art. Having a pilgrim's cup to make, she gives to the whole, stem, bowl, handle, and nose, some fantastic shape, as if it were to be the car of some fabulous marine deity, a Nereus or Triton. In the winter, the botanist needs not confine himself to his books and herbarium, and give over his out-door pur- suits, but study a new department of vegetable physiology, what may be called crystalline botany, then. The winter of 1837 was unusually favorable for this. In December of that year the Genius of vegetation seemed to hover by night over its summer haunts with unusual persistency. Such a hoar-frost, as is very uncommon here or anywhere, and whose full effects can never be witnessed after sunrise, oc- curred several times. As I went forth early on a still frosty morning, the trees looked like airy creatures of darkness caught napping, on this side huddled together with their grey hairs streaming in a secluded valley, which the sun had not penetrated, on that hurrying off in Indian file along some water-course, while the shrubs and grasses, like elves and fairies of the night, sought to hide their diminished heads in the snow. The river, viewed from the high bank, appeared of a yellowish green color, though all the land- scape was white. Every tree, shrub, and spire of grass, that could raise its head above the snow, was covered with a dense ice-foliage, answering, as it were, leaf for leaf to its summer dress. Even the fences had put forth leaves in the night. The centre, diverging, and more minute fibres were perfectly distinct, and the edges regularly indented. These leaves were on the side of the twig or stubble oppo- site to the sun, meeting it for the most part at right angles, 1842.) 37 Natural History of Massachusetts. and there were others standing out at all possible angles upon these and upon one another, with no twig or stubble sup- porting them. When the first rays of the sun slanted over the scene, the grasses seemed hung with innumerable jew- els, which jingled merrily as they were brushed by the foot of the traveller, and reflected all the hues of the rainbow as he moved from side to side. It struck me that these ghost leaves and the green ones whose forms they assume, were the creatures of but one law; that in obedience to the same law the vegetable juices swell gradually into the perfect leaf, on the one hand, and the crystalline particles troop to their standard in the same order, on the other. As if the material were indifferent, but the law one and invariable, and every plant in the spring but pushed up into and filled a perma- nent and eternal mould, which, summer and winter, forev- er is waiting to be filled. This foliate structure is common to the coral and the plumage of birds, and to how large a part of animate and inanimate nature. The same independence of law on mat- ter is observable in many other instances, as in the natural rhymes, when some animal form, color, or odor, has its counterpart in some vegetable. As, indeed, all rhymes im- ply an eternal melody, independent of any particular sense. As confirmation of the fact, that vegetation is but a kind of crystallization, every one may observe how, upon the edge of the melting frost on the window, the needle-shaped particles are bundled together so as to resemble fields wav- ing with grain, or shocks rising here and there from the stubble; on one side the vegetation of the torrid zone, high towering palms and wide-spread bannians, such as are seen in pictures of oriental scenery ; on the other, arctic pines stiff frozen, with downcast branches. Vegetation has been made the type of all growth ; but as in crystals the law is more obvious, their material being more simple, and for the most part more transient and fleeting, would it not be as philosophical as convenient, to consider all growth, all filling up within the limits of nature, but a crystallization more or less rapid ? On this occasion, in the side of the high bank of the river, wherever the water or other cause had formed a cav- ity, its throat and outer edge, like the entrance to a citadel, bristled with a glistening ice-armor. In one place you 38 [July, Natural History of Massachusetts. might see minute ostrich feathers, which seemed the wav- ing plumes of the warriors filing into the fortress; in an- other, the glancing, fan-shaped banners of the Lilliputian host ; and in another, the needle-shaped particles collected into bundles, resembling the plumes of the pine, might pass for a phalanx of spears. From the under side of the ice in the brooks, where there was a thicker ice below, depend- ed a mass of crystallization, four or five inches deep, in the form of prisms, with their lower ends open, which, when the ice was laid on its smooth side, resembled the roofs and steeples of a Gothic city, or the vessels of a crowded haven under a press of canvass. The very mud in the road, where the ice had melted, was crystallized with deep rectilinear fissures, and the crystalline masses in the sides of the ruts resembled exactly asbestos in the disposition of their needles. Around the roots of the stubble and flower- stalks, the frost was gathered into the form of irregular con- ical shells, or fairy rings. In some places the ice-crystals were lying upon granite rocks, directly over crystals of quartz, the frost-work of a longer night, crystals of a longer period, but to some eye unprejudiced by the short term of human life, melting as fast as the former. In the Report on the Invertebrate Animals, this singular fact is recorded, which teaches us to put a new value on time and space. “The distribution of the marine shells is well worthy of notice as a geological fact. Cape Cod, the right arm of the Commonwealth, reaches out into the ocean, some fifty or sixty miles. It is nowhere many miles wide; but this narrow point of land has hitherto proved a barrier to the migrations of many species of Mollusca. Several genera and numerous species, which are separated by the intervention of only a few miles of land, are effectually prevented from mingling by the Cape, and do not pass from one side to the other. * * * * Of the one hundred and ninety-seven marine species, eighty-three do not pass to the south shore, and fifty are not found on the north shore of the Cape.” That common muscle, the Unio complanatus, or more properly fluviatilis, left in the spring by the musk-rat upon rocks and stumps, appears to have been an important arti- cle of food with the Indians. In one place, where they are said to have feasted, they are found in large quantities, at 1842.] 39 Natural History of Massachusetts. an elevation of thirty feet above the river, filling the soil to the depth of a foot, and mingled with ashes and Indian re- mains. The works we have placed at the head of our chapter, with as much license as the preacher selects his text, are such as imply more labor than enthusiasm. The State wanted complete catalogues of its natural riches, with such additional facts merely as would be directly useful. The Reports on Fishes, Reptiles, Insects, and Inverte- brate Animals, however, indicate labor and research, and have a value independent of the object of the legislature. Those on Herbaceous Plants and Birds cannot be of much value, as long as Bigelow and Nuttall are accessible. They serve but to indicate, with more or less exactness, what species are found in the State. We detect several errors ourselves, and a more practised eye would no doubt expand the list. The Quadrupeds deserved a more final and instructive report than they have obtained. These volumes deal much in measurements and minute descriptions, not interesting to the general reader, with only here and there a colored sentence to allure him, like those plants growing in dark forests, which bear only leaves without blossoms. But the ground was comparatively unbroken, and we will not complain of the pioneer, if he raises no flowers with his first crop. Let us not underrate the value of a fact; it will one day flower in a truth. It is astonishing how few facts of importance are added in a century to the natural history of any animal. The natural history of man himself is still being gradually written. Men are knowing enough after their fashion. Every countryman and dairymaid knows that the coats of the fourth stomach of the calf will curdle milk, and what particular mushroom is a safe and nutritious diet. You cannot go into any field or wood, but it will seem as if every stone had been turned, and the bark on every tree ripped up. But after all, it is much easier to discover than to see when the cover is off. It has been well said that “the attitude of inspection is prone.” Wisdom does not in- spect, but behold. We must look a long time before we can see. Slow are the beginnings of philosophy. He has 40 [July, Gifts. something demoniacal in him, who can discern a law, or couple two facts. We can imagine a time when, — “ Water runs down hill,” — may have been taught in the schools. The true man of science will know nature better by his finer organization ; he will smell, taste, see, hear, feel, bet- ter than other men. His will be a deeper and finer experi- ence. We do not learn by inference and deduction, and the application of mathematics to philosophy, but by direct intercourse and sympathy. It is with science as with eth- ics, we cannot know truth by contrivance and method; the Baconian is as false as any other, and with all the helps of machinery and the arts, the most scientific will still be the healthiest and friendliest man, and possess a more perfect Indian wisdom. GIFTS. A DROPPING shower of spray Filled with a beam of light, The breath of some soft day, The groves by wan moonlight; Some river's flow, Some falling snow, Some bird's swift flight; A summer field o'erstrown With gay and laughing flowers, And shepherd's-clocks half-blown, That tell the merry hours; The waving grain, And spring-soft rain; Are these things ours? 1842.] 41 The Lover's Song. - Sea Song. THE LOVER'S SONG. Bee in the deep flower-bells, Brook in the cavern dim, Fawn in the woodland dells Hideth him. I hide in thy deep flower-eyes, In the well of thy dark cold eye, In thy heart my feelings rise, There they lie. Sing, love, — sing, for thy song Filleth the life of my mind, Thou bendest my woes along Like a wind. Green of the spring, and flower, Fruit of the summer day, Midnight and moonlit hour, What say they ? Centre of them thou art, Building that points on high, Sun — for it is in thy heart, Will not die. SEA SONG OUR boat, to the waves go free; By the bending tide where the curled wave breaks, Like the track of the wind on the white snow-flakes, Away, away, — 't is a path o'er the sea. Blasts may rave - spread the sail, For our spirits can wrest the power from the wind, And the gray clouds yield to the sunny mind, - Fear not we the whirl of the gale. VOL. III. NO. I. The Earth-Spirit. – Prayer. (July, THE EARTH-SPIRIT. I have woven shrouds of air In a loom of hurrying light For the trees which blossoms bear, And gilded them with sheets of bright. I fall upon the grass like love's first kiss, I paint the hedge-rows in the lane, And clover white and red the footways bear; To see the ocean lash himself in air ; I throw smooth shells and weeds along the beach, And pour the curling waves far o'er the glassy reach; Swing bird-nests in the elms, and shake cool moss Along the aged beams, and hide their loss. The very broad rough stones I gladden too, Some willing seeds I drop along their sides, Nourish the generous plant with freshening dew, Till there, where all was waste, true joy abides. The peaks of aged mountains, with my care, Smile in the red of glowing morn elate; I braid the caverns of the sea with hair Glossy, and long, and rich as king's estate. I polish the green ice, and gleam the wall With the white frost, and leave the brown trees tall. PRAYER. Mother dear! wilt pardon one Who loved not the generous Sun, Nor thy seasons loved to hear Singing to the busy year :- Thee neglected, shut his heart, In thy being, had no part. 1842.) After-Life. Mother dear! I list thy song In the autumn eve along : Now thy chill airs round the day, And leave me my time to pray. Mother dear! the day must come When thy child shall make his home, His long last home, amid the grass, Over which thy warm hands pass. I know my prayers will reach thine ear, Thou art with me while I ask, Nor a child refuse to hear, Who would learn his little task. Let me take my part with thee, Laugh with thee upon the sea, And idle on the land by night; In the trees I live with thee, In the flowers, like any bee. AFTER-LIFE. They tell me the grave is cold, The bed underneath all the living day; They speak of the worms that crawl in the mould, And the rats that in the coffin play ; Up above the daisies spring, Eyeing the wrens that over them sing : I shall hear them not in my house of clay. It is not so; I shall live in the veins Of the life which painted the daisies' dim eye, I shall kiss their lips when I fall in rains, With the wrens and bees shall over them fly, In the trill of the sweet birds float The music of every note, A-lifting times veil, -is that called to die? Autumn Leaves. (July, AUTUMN LEAVES. Woe, woe for the withering leaves! Flimsy and lank and falling fast, Hither and thither, twirling and whirling In the freshening wind, in the bright blue sky; Glistening and clear and keen is the sky, But it has no mercy, none, For the pitiful pelted driven leaves. I saw ye, leaves! in your cradle lying On that day far back, O where is it now? In your varied velvety hues of green, That softer and softer grew to the eye, As the loving sunlight went glancing by. Out of the dark hard tree, Wonderful things, ye came; A summer hour has passed, Sultry, and red, and still, As life were pressed down by a mighty force; A summer rain has fallen, A liquid light and sound, And dripped the drops from your shivering edge, But they 'll drip no more. Your hour has come; Remaineth the tree, but passeth the leaf Into the damp ground silently sinking, Sinking and matted in mud and in snow. Leaves never more: ye colored and veined, Ye pointed and notched and streaked round about, Ye circled and curved and lateral-lined, Protean shapes of the Spirit of form! With the Sun for a nurse, feeding with light Out of his bosom, and moon with the dew Filched from the air under secret of night. Tenderly nurtured and royally served, A company regal, innumerable, Crowning the hill-top, and shading the vale, Clustering archly the country-home, 1842.] Autumn Leaves. And filling the eye of the passer by, The wanderer's eye with tremulous tears, At the thought of its hidden blessedness, Its fount of life-gladness welling within, Shaded and covered from scorching outside, By greenness and coolness and deep repose. Leaves, the delicate setting of flowers, Tempering the ruby : round the queen-blossom Modestly crowding, never self-seeking, Giving the beauty they seem but to follow ; Living meekly as leaves, only as leaves ; Yet were they reft from wayside and bower, From weed and from tree, – the gaudy flowers, Shameless and bold and tarnished all o'er, Would weary the eye like a shadowless wall, - A glaring day that casteth no night, An eye without lashes, a mind with no thought Deep hid in its cell, a heart with no love, Never uttered, a home with no curtained room. But ye are perishing, perishing fast, So lovely, so soft, so graceful, so good, So many, so varied, why were ye here? Out of night ye sprung, tender and juicy, Unto night ye return, withered and scorned. Birds sung at your birth, and youth leaped to see; But none to the burial gather; not one. Woe, woe to the spent and withering leaves ! I too am a leaf, - one of a forest Seek I to be, and not part of the whole ? The wide Forest laughs, and crushes me carelessly As it sways to the wind of Eternity. Circlets and curves and veinlets and stems Must bow to the sweep of the merciless hour. The Eternal remains, and out of its depths Shall issue the sap, exhaustless and free, In forests as mighty and multitudinous. 46 (July, Entertainments of the past Winter. ENTERTAINMENTS OF THE PAST WINTER. What would the Puritan fathers say, if they could see our bill of fare here in Boston for the winter ? The con- certs, the opera dancing, which have taken place of their hundred-headed sermons, how would they endure? How the endless disquisitions wherever a few can be gathered together, on every branch of human learning, every folly of human speculation? Yet, perhaps, they have elsewhere already learnt what these changes are calculated to teach ; that their action, noble as it was, exhibited but one side of nature, and was but a reaction. That the desire for amusement, no less than instruction, is irrepressible in the human breast; that the love of the beautiful, for its own sake simply, is no more to be stifled than the propensity of the earth to put forth flowers in spring; and that the Pow- er, which, in its life and love, lavishes such loveliness around us, meant that all beings able to receive and feel should, with recreative energy, keep up the pulse of life and sing the joy it is to be, — to grow. Their fulness of faith and uncompromising spirit show but faint sparks among us now, yet the prejudices with which these were connected from the circumstances of the time, still cast their shadows over us. The poetical side of existence, (and here I do not speak of poetry in its import or ethical significance, but in its essential being, as a recre- ative spirit that sings to sing, and models for the sake of drawing from the clay the elements of beauty,) the poetical side of existence is tolerated rather than revered, and the lovers of beauty are regarded rather as frivolous voluptua- ries than the consecrated servants of the divine Urania. Such is the tendency of the general mind. There is indeed, an under current more and more powerful every day ; but the æsthetic side has not yet found an advocate of suffici- ently commanding eloquence to give it due place in the councils of the people. But, as this feeling ripens, it will form to itself an appropriate language. We have been tempted to regret that the better part of the community should have been induced to look so coldly on theatrical exhibitions. No doubt these have been made the instrument of pollution and injury, as has been repre- 1842.) . 47 Entertainments of the past Winter. sented. Still, means of amusement like these, accessible, pliant, various, will never be dispensed with in a city where natural causes must create the class who wish such enter- tainments for their leisure hours. Till men shall carry Shakspeare and Moliere within their own minds, they will wish to see their works represented. To those in whom life is still faint, and who yet have leisure to feel their need and, if they do not find this, they will take refuge in mere variety, such as the buffoon and juggler can offer, and thus their tastes be corrupted each day by the means that ought to exalt and refine them. The Shakspearean drama can- not now be sustained in Boston; but amusements of a low- er order can, to which the youth who were to be protected by frowning down the theatre go and find entertainment which produces none of the good effects that would be received from a noble performance, with all the injury that has been so much deprecated. The genius of the time might not favor the enterprise, for in other countries, where the stage is maintained at that point from which it can bestow a genial and elevating ben- efit, this is done by the private patronage of the most cul- tivated classes, and oftentimes by the favor of a single per- son, who has the advantage of being at once a man of taste and a prince, yet we cannot but feel that an enlarged view of human nature would rather have dictated to men of wisdom and philanthropy, to form themselves into com- mittees of direction for the theatre, than to use their influ- ence to put it down without providing something to take its place more fully than the lecture room. There is, how- ever, not so much reason to regret this, as the drama seems dead, and the histrionic art is dying with it. The last cen- turies carried this to a glorious height, but Garrick, Kem- ble, Talma, Kean are gone. " The great depart; And none rise up to take their vacant seats.” At least none who are the peers of the departed. Now, an inclination for the art seems to be the impression left by a great past, and even Miss Kemble, Miss Tree, and Macready are too ill-seconded, and address audiences too unprepared, fully to possess or enjoy the exercise of their 48 (July, Entertainments of the past Winter. great powers. Now and then appears a wonder, as Made- moiselle Rachel in France lately, worthy to deck again the ancient drama with its diadem and train, but it is said by those who have seen her, that the scene sinks the moment she leaves the stage, and the fustian and farce are seen of an entertainment no longer congenial with the character of those who witness it. The drama blossomed out in Germany, like other pro- ductions of the last century there, a genuine growth. The need of lofty sentiment and a free, widely ranging exist- ence spoke there unreproved. On the stage was seen faithfully represented the attainment, still more, the longing of the popular mind. Upon the stage a Carlos could meet a Posa, and the iron hand of Goetz receive the clasp of the modern Arminius. But the black eagles have shrieked in- to silence these great voices, for the drama cannot live where man cannot walk in the freedom of a hero. That sense of individual greatness which, in Greece, poured its wine through the life blood of whole races, which consecra- ted the involuntary crimes of Edipus, and made possible the simple grandeur of Antigone, filling the stage with God-like forms which no spectator felt to be necessarily mere ideals, which made the shadow of Shakspeare's Tal- bot more commanding than the substance of the hero of one of Knowles's dramas, and gave the buskins of Corneille a legalized dignity, — where is it now? Man believes in the race, but not in his fellow, and religious thinkers sepa- rate thought from action. No man is important enough to fill the scene and sustain the feeling ; let us read novels in our sleepy hours, but never hope, in the society of our con- temporaries, to see before us a Prometheus, or a Cid reali- zing the hope, nay, the belief of all present. No; the drama is not for us, and vainly do young geni- uses pilfer and filter all history and romance for heroes ; vainly break up their soliloquies into speeches to be recited by various persons, or cramp into a five act lameness, the random expressions of modern life. It cannot be. Let them ask themselves, Do the men walk and talk before them so in their solitary hours? Did these forms advance from the green solitudes of the wood, or the dark corners of the chamber, and give themselves to the bard as delegates from the Muse of the age? Did you, as you walked the 1842.] 49 Entertainments of the past Winter. streets meet the demand for these beings from every rest- less, eager eye? Not so. Then let be the dead form of a traditional drama. Life is living, though this be dead. Wait the form that grows from the spirit of the time. Life is living, and art, European art, lives in the opera and ballet. For us we have nothing of our own, for the same reason that in literature, a few pale buds is all that we yet can boast of native growth, because we have no national character of sufficient fulness and simplici- ty to demand it. There is nothing particular to be said, as yet, but everything to be done and observed. Why should we be babbling ? let us see, let us help the plant to grow; when it is once grown, then paint it, then describe it. We earn our brown bread, but we beg our cake; yet we want some, for we are children still. If New England thinks, it is about money, social reform, and theology. If she has a way of speaking peculiarly her own, it is the lecture. But the lecture, though of such banyan growth among us, seems not to bespeak any deep or permanent tendency. Intellectual curiosity and sharp- ness are the natural traits of a colony overrun with things to be done, to be seen, to be known from a parent country possessing a rich and accumulating treasure from centuries of civilized life. Lectures upon every possible topic are the short business way taken by a business people to find out what there is to be known, but to know in such ways cannot be hoped, unless the suggestions thus received are followed up by private study, thought, conversation. This, no doubt, is done in some degree, but chiefly by the young, not yet immersed in the stream of things. Let any one listen in an omnibus, or at a boarding house, to the conver- sation suggested by last night's lecture, see the composure with which the greatest blunders and most unfounded as- sertions are heard and assented to, and he will be well con- vinced how little the subject has occupied the minds of the smart and curious audience, and feel less admiration at the air of devout attention which pervades an Odeon assem- bly. Not that it is unmeaning, something they learn ; but it is to be feared just enough to satisfy, not stimulate the mind. It is an entertainment which leaves the hearer too passive. One that appealed to the emotions would enter far more deeply and pervasively into the life, than these VOL. III. — NO. I. 50 [July, Entertainments of the past Winter. addressed to the understanding, a faculty already developed out of all proportion among this people. There is always a great pleasure in any entertainment truly national. In Catlin's book on the Indians, in Bor- row's book on the Gipsies, we read with this pleasure of the various dances and amusements, because, barbarous though they be, they grow out of, correspond with the character of the people, as much as the gladiatorial games, and shows of wild beasts, the tournament of the middle ages, the Spanish bull-fights, the boxing and racing matches of England express peculiar traits in the character and habits of the nations who enjoy or have enjoyed them. We must not then quarrel with the lecture, the only enter- tainment we have truly expressive of New England as it is in its transition state, cavilling, questioning, beginning to seek, all-knowing, if with little heart-knowledge, mean- ing to be just, and turning at last, though often with a sour face, to see all sides, for men of sense will see at last it is not of any use to nail the weathercock the pleasantest way; better leave it free, and see the way the wind does blow, if it will be so foolish as to blow in an injudicious direction. The lectures answer well to what we see in the streets. Yet it would be scarce worth while to begin to speak of them, as the Dial affords no room for the en- cyclopedia of Entertaining Knowledge. Only a few words of two foreign lecturers, who, in very different ways, have been objects of much interest here. Mr. Giles has been everywhere a truly popular lecturer. His dramatic feeling of his subjects, comic power in narra- tion, great fluency and bright genial talent have endeared him to all classes of hearers. Indeed his narrative passa- ges, such as the story of the fight on Vinegar Hill, and the peasant's recollections of Cromwell, are nearest dramatic rep- resentation, in the kind and degree of pleasure communi- cated, of anything we have bad. He is no orator ; his style of speaking wants repose, wants light and shade. His voice, a little strained from the very beginning, gets into a broken, hysterical tone in the more animated parts, that jars the nerves. He hurries his declamations far too much. But in these very faults his excitable temperament and youthful heart display themselves and conciliate the affections where they dissatisfy the taste of the hearer. 1842.] 51 Entertainments of the past Winter. Mr. Lyell. A very large audience waited on the teach- ings of this celebrated geologist, and their uniform atten- tion and warm interest in his lectures were scarcely less honorable to them than to him. We understand he had been very little in the habit of lecturing, and never to mixed audiences like this, but only to classes of students, or persons prepared, in some measure, for what he had to say, and able to follow bim, gleaning his facts as they could, without expecting or demanding the neat and pop- ular arrangement to which our lecturers are trained, and which often inclines to praise on leaving the lecture-room, in the technics of the shop. "A neat article, sir, a good article." His gesticulation and manner were unpreposses- sing, for though his whole air was that of the gentleman and intellectual man, yet he had not that full-eyed, unem- barrassed air in addressing an audience, which draws it at once to the speaker, and prepares to listen without ennui or reserve. Neither had he the power of arrangement, gradually to wind a stronger thread, to elucidate, to round out, to perfect the design. But for a time the hearer strained after his purpose, then he had forgotten something, flew back to get it, put it out of place, then in again, and it was only at the end of the lecture that one could be sure of having ascertained its scope, thus robbing us of that pleasurable mixture of animation and repose, as in a chari- ot driven by a skilful Jehu through a beautiful country, which attend on the following a mind which combines with richness in fact and illustration a self-possessed grace and the power of design. Yet it was well observed, by a dis- criminating hearer, that the presence of great facts amply made up for these deficiencies, the sense of Mr. Lyell's extensive knowledge, patience, and philosophical habits of investigation, with his simple and earnest manner of ap- proaching his subject made his lectures not only interesting but charming to his audience, and it is to be questioned if the difficulty which they sometimes felt in following him did not even make his lectures of more value, the mind being stimulated to an effort which gave it a glow of real interest, and induced it to follow out the path thus entered. Wherever we went, there was Lyell's Geology on the table, and many of the suggestions made by these lectures lin- gered in conversation through the winter. Goethe's con- 52 (July, Entertainments of the past Winter. clusion at the end of his scores of years was, “It makes this world interesting and pleasant to know something about it," and we must add as corollary, “ It makes a man interesting and pleasant to know something about this world," whatever the Byron school may think, or the so supersensual as to be antisensuous school may think. A fact is a germ of life, from that may spring light, which the gloom of passion or the grey twilight of contemplation never saw, the rosy light of a perpetual day-spring, of a myriad birth. But to come to some of the more beautiful, if less sim- ply intellectual entertainments we had in view from the be- ginning. Of the pleasures, the entertainments of Boston, we can give but an imperfect account. We have not vis- ited the Museum, have not seen “ Love in all shapes,” nor the Indians, real or supposed, nor the lady who advertises “a hundred illusions in one evening," not an offer to be slighted of a December afternoon. Also these and many more as alluring from a distance should be seen duly to appreciate what the real state of feeling is on such sub-. jects. But our time was limited, being not "an intelligent traveller," but a busy citizen, and we shall venture only to speak of what we have seen in music and dancing. We are beggars in these respects, as I said. Our only national melody, Yankee Doodle, is shrewdly suspected to be a scion from British art. All symptoms of invention are confined to the African race, who, like the German lit- erati, are relieved by their position from the cares of gov- ernment. “ Jump Jim Crow," is a dance native to this coun- try, and one which we plead guilty to seeing with pleasure, not on the stage, where we have not seen it, but as danced by children of an ebon hue in the street. Such of the African melodies as we have heard are beautiful. But the Caucasian race have yet their rail-roads to make, and all we shall learn from a survey of exhibitions in the arts which exhilarate our social life, is how far, studying and copying Europe as we do, we are able to receive and enjoy her gifts in this kind. Though music is not a plant native to this soil, it is one that there has always been a desire to cultivate. Churches which possess no other means of aid- ing the intellect through the senses, crave the more the organ and the choir. The piano and flute have long 1842.) Entertainments of the past Winter. been domesticated, and of late the harp and guitar, though it is rarely that we find a tolerable performer on either. Ballad-singing, in a limited range, is really loved. Italian songs are tolerated. Psalmody in country villages is a fa- vorite and pleasing amusement of family and social circles, and has certainly a tendency to cultivate the more pure and graceful feelings, though as to music, the exclusive care for time and tune thus cultivated is hostile to any free accep- tance of the art in its more grand and creative movements. Music is the great living, growing art, and great lives are not yet exhausted in the heaping up this column of glory. We look out through this art into infinity ; its tri- umphs are but begun, and no comparison need be thought of with Greece or any other past life. Here will the in- ward spiritual movement of our time find its asylum, find its voice, and in this temple worship be paid to that relig- ion whose form is beauty, and whose soul is love. All that has spoken such divine words in the other arts, rushes here in great tides of soul; and heart, and mind, and life are melted equally to feed one incense-breathing flame. With a congenial power, the rhythm of the poet, the harmonious design of the painter, and the light that floods the marble, enrapture us, raise us on their strong wings to seek our native home. But music not only raises but fills us, and hope and thought have ceased to be, for all is now. The oratorio and opera have taken place of the drama. Of the opera we know little ; yet the intoxication of feel- ing with which the Somnambula was received, shows what it would be to us. The Somnambula is a very imperfect work, but the pathetic melody which flows through it is of purest sweetness, and the accords which resume the theme at every pause, vibrate on our heart-strings. It is like Romeo and Juliet, though of a very different order of greatness, all one thought of love, and spring, and grief. In the oratorio we have had this winter an opportunity to hear two of the masterpieces of genius, the Creation and the Messiah, not indeed entire, or with full effect; but with Braham's solos and excellent performance of the choruses, from these mighty works what thoughts of cheer were drawn, what clues did they afford into the mysteries of being! Yet the Creation does not seem so much a revelation of the primal efforts of a fash- 54 (July, Entertainments of the past Winter. ioning mind as an intellectual survey of historical facts. It is great, commanding, but elsewhere we have felt far more what is told in the history of Genesis. The first lighting up of this present earth after days of dull rain has told it more. The dawn of a thought in the face of man has brought us nearer, when light has been made, fresh from the very fount of inspiration, and half-moulded clay has been transfused into a harmonious world of infinite ex- pression. The impression made by Haydn's Creation is uniform, but not single and profound. We receive it in detail as a great, a commanding, a manly mood. The im- itative strains in it are so child-like, so truly thoughts, not attempts, that they do not displease, but they engage the thoughts too sensibly. In the exquisite passages “ With verdure clad,” &c. “In splendor bright," we appreciate the peculiar genius of the composer. In the passage “Here shoots the healing plant,” a strain of prolific sweetness seemed to open long avenues into the best hopes of human kind. This healing plant, as brought to light in the music, was the true Ne- penthe, the anti-Circean, all healing, the white root, which man demands, easily bewildered as he is in the for- est of his own inventions. No poison flower of passion could open unscathed near this “healing plant." The young voice that sung this, insipid from its want of expres- sion in parts that demand a range of powers and experience of feeling, was admirable here from its virgin, silvery tone. “In splendor bright.” This Braham gave in a grand, sustained style. The sun is nobly expressed, the moon not beautiful enough, but the strain which announces the stars is of sufficient perspective and nobleness to raise the thoughts, as they do, seen on a sudden. “In native worth and honor clad.” Having heard of this and been filled with expectation ever since childhood, we thought we should hear it from Braham, but, if we did, Haydn fell short of Milton, who falls short of what we know how to expect. An Adam and Eve we hardly hope to see, for even Michel Angelo's 1842.] 55 Entertainments of the past Winter. while they transcend our demand, only stimulate, not sat- isfy our thoughts. But could not all-promising music tell us more of the proper grandeur of our race? The words promise well. “In native worth and honor clad, with beauty, courage, strength adorned, to heaven erect and tall he stands a man, the lord and king of nature all. The large and arched front sub- lime, of wisdom deep declares the seat, and in his eyes with brightness shines the soul, the breath and image of his God. With fondness leans upon his breast the partner for him formed, a woman fair, and graceful spouse. Her softly smiling virgin looks, of flowery spring the mirror, bespeak him love, and joy, and bliss." Here is theme enough. All that can be known or thought or felt might be concentrated here. Little was told. It seemed characteristic of the genius of the artist that the passage that impressed most was, “The large and arched front sublime.” Those were grand moments in which we heard this work. They did not swell the heart, nor break it with a painful sense of beauty, but all was calm, confident, and commanding, obstructions gently gliding from the onward view. But the Messiah seems like another region, sublimer, deeper, sweeter, stronger. This is one of the revelations, for here ages of thought crystallize at last into one diamond. There is nothing fit to be said about it. It is its own word. Sectarians, religionists, rise into men before such a grand interpretation of the universal truth, which, though like a city set on a hill, was unseen, for they had eyes but they saw not. But Handel was a disciple. Handel is a primi- tive Christian, and in the sublime strain, “Behold I tell you a mystery,” his genius seems to announce itself. The mind capable to see the Madonna as Raphael did, shrinks away from the bedizened lady of Loretto, and though it pardons the worshippers who in their humility have lost sight of the beauty of this great type of woman, yet it cannot kneel with them. The heart that would yield itself wholly before the pure might of Jesus, stands aside from the door of churches which purport to be his, 56 [July, Entertainments of the past Winter. yet which are built on dogmas that he would have shaken as dust from his sandals. But as the lordly crest of Han- del stoops like the lion to the lamb, the world falls prostrate with him, and it seems as if there was not a corner of the earth that would not resound to the chorus of “ Wonder- ful ! Counsellor! the mighty God! the Prince of Peace!” The movement of the whole oratorio, with its profound flow of feeling, its soaring onward impulse, its sweetness of inspiration, its ripeness of experience, fills the ear, the heart, the hope. The moral element, which is the one first and easiest deduced from the thought of Jesus, is not the one most favorable to the free development of genius in its grander forms. The Madonna, the Pieta, the saints and martyrs, the infant Jesus, have inspired devotion not un- worthy, and the fruits have been full and fair. But the bards have failed before the theme of Jesus, the Re- deemer, the Messiah. The artists have rarely gone beyond the grace and tenderness of his outward apparition, or his sufferings. One artist has shown him transfigured, the same unequalled soul that has given form to the “ Weep not for me," — and the other no less significant command, - Feed my lambs." With that attainment by which he conveys to us a realizing sense of the presence of a Son of God, Handel may vie in the degree to which he has made manifest a Redeemer, the Messiah of the world. To the sublime chorus, “Lift up your heads, O ye gates be ye lifted up, ye everlasting doors, and the King of Glo- ry shall come in. He is the King of Glory." Handel has a right. These are not words from him, or rather they are true words, not traditional, but from the fulness of the soul. Yet he seems to have had no impatience of the multitude who speak with such imperfect feeling as he ex- presses in the chorus, " The Lord gave the word, great was the company of the preachers.” We owe to Handel's Messiah a life-long debt, and that is all that is worth being said, since the whole could not unless by a life.* Here first we truly heard Braham. We had no idea of him before, but after once hearing the grandeur of his re- * See for a good account of the plan of the Messiah, translated from the German of Rochlitz, Hach's Musical Magazine. 1842.) 57 Entertainments of the past Winter. citative in some parts of the Messiah, we know how to ap- preciate his genius and allow for his inequalities. In “Be- hold and see, if there be any sorrow like his sorrow," the profoundly human simplicity of tenderness was almost in- conceivable in one whom we had heard addressing himself to such vulgar and shallow states of mind. In “ Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron; thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel,” were justified the wonders we had heard of his voice. Such power, such perfectly rounded production of tone is not to be believed till it is heard. Each note flew to its mark with the precision of a dart, and filled the air like thunder. We had afterwards opportunity to admire the range of Mr. Braham's powers at a concert where he did equal jus- tice to the delicate, dreamy graces of “My mother bids me bind my hair," to the playful melody of Ally Croker, and to such songs as “ Scots wha hae,” and “No, no, he shall not perish.” But his excellencies have already been characterized with feeling and discrimination by a writer in Number Four of the Dial. Nowhere can he be heard to so much advantage as in this great oratorio music, where the choruses may represent the history of the world, while the solos are free to declare the inmost religious secret of a single soul, as in “I know that my Redeemer liveth.” Spohr's Last Judgment we heard only once, and without receiving any decided impression from it. Madame Spohr Zahn gave us the pleasure of a fine style of singing, and those who heard her more frequently spoke highly of her powers of expression. She did not give us the idea of high power, but often it requires time to catch the secret of a new voice, a new instrument, or a new mind. In instrumental music we have been so rich that it has seemed one continuous musical life, passing from one sweet disclosure to another in the enchanted realms of sound. As for the pianists, we must confess to little pleasure in them, and do not wonder the great genius sneered at them as " harpsichord knights.” Miss Sloman excited great in- terèst here from her youth, naive manner, and a perform- ance wonderful at her age, or indeed at any, but it seemed to us unjust to compare her with Rakemann, who was the first to introduce to our knowledge the wonderful feats now 80 common in Europe. His performance has an airy ele- VOL. III. — NO. I. 58 [July, Entertainments of the past Winter. gance, an easy command and thorough finish, which Miss Sloman rarely approached and never equalled. That little world, the piano, is certainly invaluable as the means of study and private pleasure. But, for rich and varied compositions, it has not adequate fulness and ex- quisiteness of tone. Compositions which would take us to heaven, if heard from the full orchestra, leave us cold in this miniature representation. It is like an ink outline of one of Titian's pictures, in the effect on the mind, enough for the thoughts, but not enough for the feelings. Sensu- ously it fails of effect because the sound is but a thread in the rooms where we are assembled to hear it. If we are to hear so much attempted without the aid of the orches- tra, let it be in smaller rooms. But we do not like the music that is offered us upon it. With the exception of two or three pieces, (Lizzt's Chromatic Galope is one, it leaves not a trace behind, in the memory, in the soul. It is very well that dexterity should be carried so far, and very pretty, just at the time, to hear the sparks struck out, and fairy footsteps, and rivulets of notes gushing all over the instrument, but this should never take place of the real thing, or a handmaid talent appear to our thoughts as the great winged music itself. It was pleasant to hear the piano with the full orchestra. There as the solo triumphs were achieved and the instru- ments swelled in at each close with bursts of triumphant sound, it was like some delicate young girl, advancing from a crowd of more beautiful but older companions to show her grace and agility in the dance unsustained, while ever and anon, as she achieves a more difficult step, they ad- child their queen, and more stately for their graceful deſer- ence. Of the violin we have heard much, of its marvellous richness and pathos, and have heard it played well enough to recognise the power of this most difficult instrument. From our own violinists we had learned how truly this mas- ter of ceremonies on the gayest occasions, is called also the tearful violin. The able performers whom we have heard this winter have added to our knowledge. Herrwig was the favorite of the audience from his frank and simple manners and his freedom from trick and stage-effect. But nies on cable perform Inowled tank andet 1842.) 59 Entertainments of the past Winter. Nagel's hand seemed in itself a mind, so educated and adroit was its every motion, which his violin obeyed as gen- tly as a reed whispers with the wind. The instrument is worthy of the hand of genius, would be worthy to be its companion in its hours of most impassioned utterance. It must tempt to a voluptuous sadness. De Beriot's compo- sitions have been compared to garlands, and Paganini seems to have made his instrument wail, and proclaim, and fascinate, like a volcanic country in its various moods and fury, of desolation, of perfidious slumberous beauty. Still a higher pleasure have we derived from the violon- cello. This instrument we had never heard so played as to give us an adequate idea of its powers. The wonderful union of deep and grave passion with soft aerial vanishing notes, in the two parts, the slides of such easy transition made the instrument impressive as a spiritual presence in itself, apart from the music played upon it. Often it seemed that the deep searching emotions of life were answered and elevated by an angel's voice. When hearing these aerial notes echoing one another, then vanishing till the last in its remoteness, though still precise and perfect, seemed but the shadow of a sound, one present, not prone to glowing emotion, said, “I hear the farewell of a disem- bodied spirit.” Another, when the deep tones were again heard, calm as with a treasure of repressed feeling, said, " Then it is both male and female." Some wept, and were unwilling to have so much told of those depths of life which words can never speak. And surely it was a true artist that had so tamed the spirit and confined it in this heavy machine. The quiet security, dignity, and grace of his performance was such that, for a great while, we never thought of it. We went to hear Mr. Knoop almost every time he played during his prolonged stay in Boston, and it was only in the last times that we observed himself. So truly was he the musician and the artist that the soul he loved spoke for him and took his place. When we did think particularly of himself, there seemed something impressive in the perfect repose of his manner; in harmony with the great effects he produced. He had none of that air of seeking popular favor which seems to please audiences here. If the music did not speak to them, why should he? He respected himself and 60 (July, Entertainments of the past Winter. his art too much to dream of it. In his eye and gesture there was calm self-assurance ; the eloquence came from his instrument. Sometimes we fancied that larger audi- ences or a more intelligent sympathy would have kindled him to do still more for us, for his performance was of a level and sufficient beauty throughout. He never surpass- ed though he never disappointed the expectation formed from first hearing him. We hope he knew how much he conferred on his limited but faithful audience. To his first concerts large numbers went from mere curiosity, but, afterward, only the few attended who rejoiced to give themselves to hear this noble and tender instrument, as to learn a new mode of life, and those were confirmed and charmed every night in a way that they cannot forget, for this music is “not remembered but a part of memory," so true and homefelt was the joy it gave. But, of all these musical festivals, none conferred so solid a benefit as the concerts given by the Academy of Music throughout the winter where an excellent orchestra, under the guidance of an able leader, gradually acquainted them- selves, and made a constant audience familiar with the beau- ty of several of the really great compositions. Concerts given for immediate gain must, with a public not yet rais- ed to the high standard which exists among a people by nature gifted with a sense for an art, and continually edu- cated by new geniuses following out and fulfilling one another, be made up of uncongenial ingredients, really beautiful music alternating with pieces intended only to catch the ear and prevent those of the hearers, who have not an earnest interest, from being tired. Thus, just as you have risen to a poetic feeling and are engaged in a pleasing flow of thought, you are jarred and let down by flat and unmeaning trifles, or by some even vulgar perform- ance. In this way the taste of the many will never be im- proved, for the performer goes down to them, instead of drawing them up to him. We think they should never do so, and that the need of money is not an excuse. Com- promise, always so degrading, is especially so with those beautiful arts which we expect to lift us above everything low and mercenary, and give us light by which to see the harmony destined to subsist between nature and the soul of man, when mutually purified, perfected, and sustained. Entertainments of the past Winter. These concerts of the Academy were really adapted to form an audience that will require what is good instead of merely tolerating it, and have in their department begun the same work as the Atheneum Galleries in cherishing and re- fining a love for the other arts. Several fine overtures were performed during the winter, and often enough for us to become quite familiar with them. But the great pleasure, and one never to be forgot- ten by those who had the happiness to share it, was the performance of two Symphonies of Beethoven, the Pastor- al and Fifth Symphony. The Pastoral is one of the most famous compositions of this master, indeed it might be styled a popular composi- tion. It does not require a depth in the life of the hearer, but only simplicity to feel its beauties. The bounding and extatic emotions with which the child traverses the enamelled fields on a day of bluest blue sky, of perfect verdure, bloom, and fragrance, the excitement of the peas- ant's dance, with its joyous whirl, hastily pattering feet, and light flashes across of movements of breezy lightness, the joy and plaints of the birds, the approach and burst of the thunder shower, its refreshing haste and vehement bounty, and the renovated lustre of life that succeeds, all these perfections are not unknown to any eye that has ev- er opened on life, — all these glorious gifts nature makes to every man, each “green and bowery summertime.” Beethoven's was one of those souls that prevent nature from being too weary, as she sometimes must incline to become of her prodigal love, for he was great enough to receive her into his heart, great enough to paint a picture of their meeting. But it is only one hour of his true life. But in the Fifth Symphony we seem to have a something offered us, not only more, but different, and not only differ- ent from another work of his, but different from anything we know in the clearness with which we are drawn to the creative soul, not of art or artist, but of universal life. Here with force, and ardent, yet deliberate approach, man- ifold spirits demand the crisis of their existence. Nor is the questioning heard in vain, but, in wide blaze of light and high heroic movement, more power flows forth than was hoped, than was asked. With bolder joy, with a sor- row more majestic, life again demands and meets a yet 62 Entertainments of the past Winter. [July, more god-like reply. New swells of triumph precede powers still profounder, worthy to precede the birth of worlds. These are followed by still sublimer wave and crash of sound smiting upon the centre, then pouring its full tides along. Wide wings wave, and nothing is forgot, all lies revealed, expanded, but below. Human loves flow like silver threads amid the solemn mountains and fair vales, and a divine intelligence showers down the sun and shadow from an equal height. What the Sibyls and Prophets of Michel Angelo de- mand, is in this majestic work made present to us. The sudden uprise of more and more sublimed spirits through Dante's Heaven is before us, and there are no other names amid the prophetic geniuses that called for this congenial and perfected manifestation of themselves, as wide, as deep, as simply grand, and of a more rapturous flood of soul and more full-grown pinions. The effect of the sym- phony on memory is an intimation of that love with its kindred energy, beyond faith as much as beyond sight, for all is present now, and the secret of creation is read. This, not Haydn's, is “ the Creation.” He said “the limits were not yet erected” that man could not surpass, nor never will be, - shall we forget it? when in hours like these, we have flown upborne on these strong wings into the future, not of lives but of eternities. How can that race be sufficiently reverenced which gave birth to such a man? How be disdained or lost the mean- est form that bears lineaments that show a similar design? But enough. To be worthy to speak of men like these we also must live into manly stature, and incarnate the word. What they give is beyond analogies, or memory ; it has become a part of life. Let it animate all the rest. Grateful Pæans from expanded natures should answer the trumpet call of such a genius. It is said that he was ani- mated in this composition by Schiller's divine truth, Be embraced, millions ; This kiss to the whole world, and with like incredulity of injustice, each note declares And if there be one who cannot call A soul his own, on the Earth-round, Let him steal weeping from this bond. 1842.) 63 Entertainments of the past Winter. And of this soul, as of the two others I have named, this all-triumphant soul, we know he had nothing but his art; — no frail prop of outward happiness, and human af- fections. That wand was all he had to reveal the treas- ures of the earth, and point his way to heaven. But enough, since nothing worthy could be said if we wrote forever, and all the gain is in the relief of a tribute of gratitude. We hope those symphonies will never again be divided in the performance. One part modulates naturally into the other, prepares the mind to expect it, and it is most painful to have an interval of talk and bustle, disturbing, almost destroying the effect of a work as a whole. We are sure that any persons, who can enjoy this music at all, would rather have the whole evening's entertainment shortened by the loss of some other piece, than have a break in the middle of a beautiful work which, to be seen truly, must be seen as a whole. The Academy concerts were almost wholly good. The assistance which they occasionally received from other per- formers was of value in itself, and arranged in harmony with their own design, only in one instance the introduc- tion of an ordinary vocalist, who attempted, too, music be- yond his powers, marred, in some degree, the evening. We received much pleasure from the Oboe of Ribas. This sweet pastoral instrument whose “reedy” sound recals gentle streams and green meadows, came in sweetly be- tween pieces of full harmony, and was played with a deli- cacy and unpretending grace, in unison with its character. “ Time presses,” but we cannot close without some ac- count of the talent which fascinated so many in Fanny Ellsler, and which was witnessed by the majority, though prejudice or opinion declared against it. It would be well if the point could be thoroughly discussed and settled by each one in his own way, on what grounds he attends an exhibition of art. Is it to form a friendship with the art- ist as a man, as a woman, or to witness the results of a distinguished and highly cultivated talent? In what de- gree is private character to influence us in buying a book, in ordering a portrait, in listening to a song? Some carry these notions farther. We have not heard of any who would not employ a great lawyer, because they 64 [July, Entertainments of the past Winter. did not approve his moral character, or even exclude him, on that account, from their private acquaintance. But we have known persons so consistent in demanding that the whole man should be worthy their approval, as to canvass the propriety of continuing to employ their shoemaker be- cause they heard he was an infidel. “Infidels then can- not make good shoes ?" — Looks of high moral indigna- tion were the only reply. Yet each one should settle it distinctly for himself whether he who goes to see the actress or dancer on the stage, or he only who calls upon her to make her personal acquaintance, expresses his approbation of her as a private individual. For now, when there is so clear understanding on these points, people sin a great deal, some in going from curiosity, where they do not think it right to go, and as many, or more, in blaming their neighbors for doing so, without ascertaining their mode of reasoning on the sub- ject. Then, is opera dancing to be tolerated at all? This, too, should be setiled, and after full consideration of the sub- ject, not merely answered in the negative because the ex- hibition is offensive to those not accustomed to it. The pros and cons should be well written out somewhere, and glimpses of the theory of æsthetics might thus be gained by those who now stand on lower ground. We shall merely observe that, no doubt, opera dancing must have a demoralizing effect where it is looked upon in any way but as an art, and those who criticize the dancer as they would their neighbor should not witness the ballet. But it has risen to the dignity of an art in Europe, will send its most admired professors wherever, on these shores, wealth and luxury have formed that circle which bestows a golden harvest. It is for thinking persons to consider whether they will form the breakwater against this inevit- able fact, or whether they may not by raising the standard of thought on the subject, and altering the point of view, disarm it of its power to injure. Let them recollect that the same objections have been urged against exhibitions of statuary, and yielded, that everything tends in the civilized world to a reinstatement of the body in the rights of which it has been defrauded, as an object of care and the vehicle of expression, and that the rope-dancer, the op- 1842.] Entertainments of the past Winter. 65 era-dancer, the gymnast, Mr. Sheridan's boxing-school, and Du Crow, are only the comments on the books on physiolo- gy which they keep on their parlor tables and lend to their pale-faced, low-statured friends. So much has, for a long time, the intellect had the upper hand, that we wonder all this shrunken and suffering generation do not snatch the ball and hoop from their children's hands and give their days to restoring to the body its native vigor and pliancy ; nor should we wonder at the pleasure in opera-dancing, if it were merely a display of feats of agility and muscular power. But great as is the pleasure received from the sight of a perfect discipline of limb and motion, till they are so pli- ant to the will that the body seems but thickened soul, and the subtlest emotion is seen at the fingers' ends, and this un- doubtedly is the true state of man, and his body, if not thus transparent, is no better than a soul case, or rude hut in which he lives, this is the lesser half. The range of pantomime is as great as the world, and the rapidity and fulness in the motions of the ballet give it an advantage, on its side, perhaps commensurate with those derived by the drama from the beauty of poetic rhythm, and the elab- orate and detailed expression of thoughts by means of words. In seeing those ballets which were mostly of a light and graceful character, it was easy to perceive that their range might include the loftier emotions, and that it only required a suitable genius in the performer to make Medea a suit- able subject for performance. The charms of M’lle. Elssler are of a naive sportive character, it is as the young girl, sparkling with life and joy, new to all the varied impulses of the heari, half co- quettish, more than half conscious of her captivations, that she delights us. She was bewitching in the arch Craco- vienne, and in the impassioned feeling of life in her beau- tiful Spanish dances. The castanets seem invented by that ardent people to count the pulses of a life of ecstasy, to keep time with the movements of an existence incapa- ble of a dull or heavy moment. Blossoming orange groves, perfumed breezes, and melting moonlight fill the thoughts, and the scene seems to have no darker back- ground. VOL. III. —NO. 1. live of her the health lite 66 (July, Entertainments of the past Winter. The Gipsy is of the same fascinating and luxurious character. It is beautiful, but, lately, in reading Borrow's book upon the Spanish Gipsies, and recalling this ballet, we could not but feel of how much more romantic a char- acter the composition was susceptible. It is but a French Gitana, however graceful and fascinating, that appears in this ballet. La Sylphide seems to require a different order of genius from that of M’lle. Elssler. She is sweetly childlike in her happy play, and evasions of her lover's curiosity. The light hovering motions of the piece, however, suggest an order of grace more refined and poetic than hers, such as is ascribed to Taglioni. In Natalie we saw her to most advantage, and here she appeared to us perfect. The coquettish play of the little peasant queen among her mates, her infantine enchantment as she examines the furniture in the splendid apartment to which she has been conveyed in her sleep, her look when she first surveys herself in a full length mirror, the beautiful awkwardness that steals over her as she prinks and stiffens herself before it, and then the diz- zy rapture of the little dance into which she flutters, her timid motions towards the supposed statue, the perfect grace of her weariness as she sits down tired with dancing before it, and the whole tissue of the emotions she exhibits after it comes down and reveals itself, all this is lovely à ravir, for only with French vivacity could one feel or speak about it. That perfect innocence of gesture which a young child exhibits when it has to ask for some little favor which it hopes to obtain from your overweening fondness, or the at- titude in which one « tired of play” suddenly sinks down leaning on some favorite companion with an entire aban- donment, — these rare graces were displayed by the hack- nied artiste with a perfection that must be seen to be be- lieved, so truer than life were they! We do not know that the effect she produces can be attested better than by saying that one beautiful afternoon when the trees were all in blossom and the fields in gold- en green, looking from a wooded cliff across the fields, across the river, was heard from a house opposite at a great distance, played upon a violin, the first movement 1842.) 67 Entertainments of the past Winter. with which the pas de deux commences in Natalie, and it was easy, it was appropriate to see her form advancing upon the velvet meads, with the same air as on the stage, full of life, full of joy, the impersonation of spring. That must be beautiful and true which will bear being thus called to mind and mingled with the free loveliness of Na- ture. In this pas de deux was sufficiently obvious the need of genius to make a dancer, and the impossibility that good taste and education, here or elsewhere, should alone suf- fice to fill the scene. Her partner, Sylvain, was a light and graceful dancer and understood his part, yet whenev- er, after her part was done, she retired with timid gentle step and an air that seemed to say, “ see how beautiful he will look now. He will show himself worthy of my hand," the light all vanished from the scene, the poetry stopped on the wing, and we saw Sylvain and his steps and thought of the meaning of the dance, distinctly. We wanted to see the prince with the princess, but she was escorted by a gentlemanly chamberlain. And this is only one kind of beauty, of genius of which the ballet is susceptible. Taglioni's is of an entirely dis- tinct character. We will insert here an account of a bal- let composed for her which gives an idea of her style and powers. It is from the Revue de Paris, extracted from a letter dated St. Petersburg, 1839. L'Ombre, ballet in three acts, given 1839 at the Imperial Theatre of St. Petersburg. The expense of giving this ballet must have been enormous, but we must confess it was not without its due results. The costumes were of a surpassing magnificence; as to the decora- tions, both for quantity and quality, they seemed possible only to fairy-land. The four changes of scene in the very first act might astonish eyes habituated to every variety of luxurious display. The second act exhibits only one scene, but it would be pity indeed that it should be changed, so beautiful and novel is it. It is a park and garden of the most enchanting beauty ; how unlike those pitiful landscapes usually exhibited by a few twisted trees at the side scenes. This is a true piece of na- ture, still fresh with the dew of morning, spacious parterres of flowers and verdure stretching out to the very front of the scene, with shrubberies that seem to catch the breeze, and a clear and limpid stream in the background. 68 [July, Entertainments of the past Winter. The next time the curtain rises, we see a saloon decorated with the utmost taste and splendor. The tapestries and cur- tains are masterpieces, of themselves; the arabesques copied from Raphael with a religious precision. By sixty steps they descend into this sumptuous apartment, where three hundred and fifty persons could dance with ease. Look! Would you not think these colossal proportions betokened the remains of some Babylonian palace? The palace totters in fact, and all these riches fall into a heap of ruins. But reassure yourself. With the next stroke of the wand, you will witness a yet more glorious transformation. This place where your ear already presaged the lugubrious notes of the owl, is become the site of an eternal dwelling, and you, still living, find yourself in Elys- ium. What then is the picture which requires so sumptuous a frame? you cry.- Patience, and you shall hear. After all the different creations filled out by Mölle. Taglioni, you may conceive that the choregraphists have been somewhat at a loss to invent for her any new occasion. What new style could they discover for her who had been an Oriental in “ La Revolte au Serail," a Greek divinity in “Le Pas de Diane," a water nymph in “La Fille du Danube," an aerial being, almost an angel in “ La Sylphide," an ardent Spaniard, almost a cour- tezan in “La Gitana.” Has not Taglioni taken possession of all the realms, the air, the water, and the earth? – Her empire reaches from the sea to the stars; in every region we encounter the perfumed and luminous track left by that white wing. And Taglioni belongs to the family of indefatigable artists, urged without cessation towards the ideal by a secret and noble ardor, those laborious geniuses for whom every conquered obstacle is an incentive to seek new obstacles to conquer, and who cannot traverse the same path twice. If you feel this and recall the title of the new ballet, you will not need to have me tell you that the scene is placed in the invisible, and that the heroine of the ballet is but a lovely phantom, the gracious and serene shade of a poor young girl, who died of love. Without wishing to deprive Mons. Taglioni of the merit of inventing this beautiful work, I think he is not the originator of the idea. The writer, who in all France, perhaps, possesses in the highest degree, the artistical instinct and sentiment, he whose pen, among all the critics of the drama, has been most delicately inspired by Mölle. Taglioni, M. Jules Janin, address- ed to her the ravishing and melodious “Adieu, ombre dan- sante !" when the Sylphide, in 1837, took her flight towards St. Petersburg. Une ombre dansante is in fact the theme of our new ballet. A pure young girl appears at first, fair and pale, 1842.] 69 Entertainments of the past Winter. her heart full of love and singing hopes; she has in her hand a bouquet of flowers. This fair child begins to dance; she knows not that death is so near her. Why does she so often press those flowers to her lips? She thinks she breathes from them the love of him whom she loves, but a jealous hand has concealed poison there. Alas! already it circulates in her veins ; her light foot totters, a veil spreads over her eyes; she falls; she is dead ; let us weep. — Not yet, for see she returns into our world, poor ghost who can- not forget a living lover. She glides through the air like a floating cloud, through the tremulous foliage of the willow, over the green grass, or the glittering surface of lakes and riv- ers, seeking everywhere him whose image she has carried away in a corner of her white shroud. She finds him again at last, after many melancholy hoverings and floatings, between heav- en and earth, but what avails it? Can the living arms embrace a shade? But Heaven pities them, and the union of these lov- ers is soon to be realized in a better world. The dance with which Mölle. Taglioni began in the first act is called Le pas du bouquet. You may divine its character from the situation I have delineated to you. It is not yet the dancing shade, not yet the mysterious vision, which will by and by leave its luminous furrow in space like the passage of a sunbeam, No! it is the modest and blushing betrothed, whose brow expands, whose eye sparkles with a timid ecstasy, whose innocent bosom heaves above a palpitating heart. Do you not read in the noble attitudes of this young girl, how much she loves ; in her gay bounding motions, that she is happy as the bird who sings upon the flowering shrub? But also does not something in her air inform you that her last hour is nigh? See from time to time she shows signs of pain and faintness, bending like a half unfolded rose of May, whose lovely stem is touched by the frost. Ah, can it be that death will not relent at sight of so many charms? Will fate be inexorable in cutting short a life so pure and so innocent ? Will no angel descend from heaven to save this virgin so full of graces? Useless prayers, vain hope ! Mölle. Taglioni was especially applauded in this Pas du bouquet, for the qualities which have shone in her so many times, yet seem always new each time they are dis- played, her noble demeanor, the elegance of her motions, the ease of her gestures at the most difficult moments, the enchant- ing delicacy of her pantomime, the exquisite precision of her performance always and everywhere. But the incomparable part, that in which she surpassed herself, and reached the height of a creation, which might with justice be styled supernatural, is the dance of the second act. You remember the beautiful garden, whose delights I was de- 70 (July, Entertainments of the past Winter. scribing ; - in this garden Taglioni, freed from her terrestrial form, gives full play to her sweet inspirations. I do not know of what material the flowers are composed, but you see the di- vine dancer pass over camelias, lilies, jonquils, without their so much as trembling at her touch. You remember Mölle. Taglioni in the Fille du Danube, and the Sylphide ; you thought then, like everybody else, that it was not possible for the human body to attain a greater lightness, yet this miracle is now accomplished. It is no more a nymph, a sylph who dan- ces, but a shade, a soul, and the white feather that the wind wafts away, as it falls from the neck of the swan, would scarce- ly do it justice by the comparison. Nothing that approaches the least in the world to reality, can give an idea of this wonder. Imagine, if you can, a shadowy form, who, withdrawing slowly from the scene where she has hovered long without touching the earth, vanishes at last on the horizon like a celestial being, passing over the water as she goes. This spectacle affects one like a dream. Have you sometimes remarked in a clear and calm night, those long threads of gold that go and come on the tops of the trees, which play capriciously, rapid, and impalpa- ble on the dark front of some silent church, these may give you some idea of the unmaterial dance invented on this occa- sion, by M’lle. Taglioni. I say nothing of the Pas de Trois, where she dances in the last act, and during which she cannot be seized by her lover, to whose eyes only she is perceptible. This dance is of the same kind as those preceding, and ex- ecuted with the same perfection. The next day the emperor, in token of his satisfaction, sent M. Taglioni a fine ring, and a magnificent set of diamonds and turquoises to M'lle. Taglioni. The dilettanti of St. Peters- burg know now where they shall pass the greater number of their evenings this winter. Dec. 1839. And now, to wind up with a word to the scorner in the style of a moral to one of Pilpay's fables. Does any one look on beauty with the bodily eye alone ? that degrades ; it is the lust of the eye, brings sin and death. But to him who looks with the eye of the soul also, every form in which beauty appears is religious, and casts some flower upon the altar of intelligence. We wish to refer here to the last of a course of lectures on the Natural History of Man, by that free and generous thinker, Alexander Kinmont, who, if he had lived, would have cast broad lights on the course of things in this age 1842.] 71 Entertainments of the past Winter. and country, for excellent views on the subject of amuse- ment. We make a brief extract which refers to the pres- ent time. “I speak of the new state of society, to which we are tending, as characterized and to be marked more with the features of stern and uncompromising truth, light, and positive assurance, than any that have preceeded it; but, although I believe and see that such a condition of things will not admit of those pecul. iar kinds of romantic pleasures, derived from poetry and the fine arts, which have before existed, yet I by no means think that there are not other sources of rational and pure delight, of an analogous kind, still in reserve for mankind. Mankind cannot exist, the sweet charities of society cannot be maintain- ed, without some such enjoyments; but what I maintain is that new fountains of poetry and art must be unsealed, which are to correspond with this new state of our social condition. I say they must be unsealed, for that they have not been opened yet in this nation, is certain. But I doubt not these fountains of feel- ing are to be found. O when will the magician go out with his divining rod, and find them, that they may gush forth, and refresh the parched land; for I believe that the souls of the people want song and poetry, or what is analogous thereto, they need a healthy excitement, - a nation cannot live without ex- citement. Good music, good songs, good paintings, which were all new, and truly native, would do more to cure the fa- naticism, and intemperance of the land, than all those artificial societies instituted for such purposes. There is a blank in the public mind, which requires to be filled up. Would society burst forth so frequently into those superstitious ebullitions call- ed Revivals, if the chords of genuine feeling were struck in the human heart, – if the pure tones of devotion were regu- larly, and calmly, and sweetly elicited by the divine touch of art, whether the poetical, the musical, or the graphical ? They should be as original, and native, and as consistent with the ge- nius of the new era, as were the political acts of the worthies of the Revolution, — the ends, the thoughts and expressions of a Hamilton, a Jefferson, and a Madison." Injustice is done by giving a single extract, for Kinmont is not one of those who shine in detached thoughts or fin- ished passages, but a large and living tract of thought, which needs to be seen as a whole, for any part to be seen as it ought. But his enthusiasm on this subject, or any other, was no sudden gleam from a vaporous atmosphere, but the glow of a fire built on a broad hearth, and fed 72 (July, Tact. with the growths of ancient forests. His mind was still immature when he left us, for it was one of those plenteous urns that filter its waters slowly, but it was a mind capa- ble of severe training, and great leadings. TACT. What boots it, thy virtue ? What profit thy parts ? The one thing thou lackest Is the art of all arts. The only credentials, Passport to success, Opens castle and parlour, - Address, man, Address. The maiden in danger Was saved by the swain : His stout arm restored her To her palace again ; The maid would reward him,-' Gay company come, - They laugh, she laughs with them, He is moonstruck and dumb. This clenches the bargain ; Sails out of the bay ; Gets the vote in the senate, Spite of Webster and Clay; Has for genius no mercy, For speeches no heed ; It lurks in the eyebeam, It leaps to its deed; 1842.) 73 Holidays. — The Amulet. It governs the planet, Church and State it will sway; It has no to-morrow, It ends with to-day. HOLIDAYS. From fall to spring the russet acorn, Fruit beloved of maid and boy, Lent itself beneath the forest To be the children's toy. Pluck it now; in vain : thou canst not ; It has shot its rootlet down'rd : Toy no longer, it has duties, It is anchored in the ground. Year by year the rose-lipped maiden, Playfellow of young and old, Was frolic sunshine, dear to all men, More dear to one than mines of gold; Where is now the lovely hoyden ? Disappeared in blessed wife, Servant to a wooden cradle, Living in a baby's life. Still thou playest; - short vacation Fate grants each to stand aside ; Now must thou be man and artist ; 'T is the turning of the tide. THE AMULET. Your picture smiles as first it smiled, The ring you gave is still the same, Your letter tells, O changing child, No tidings since it came. VOL. 111. — NO. 1. 10 From Uhland. [July, Give me an amulet That keeps intelligence with you, Red when you love, and rosier red, And when you love not, pale and blue. Alas, that neither bonds nor vows Can certify possession; Torments me still the fear that love Died in its last expression. FROM UHLAND. THE CASTLE BY THE SEA. “Saw'st thou a castle fair? Yon castle by the sea ? Golden and rosy, there, The clouds float gorgeously. And fain it would descend Into the wave below : And fain it would soar and blend With the evening's crimson glow." Yon castle I have viewed, Yon castle by the sea : The moon above it stood, And the mists hung heavily. “The wind and the heaving sea, Sounded they fresh and strong ? From the hall came notes of glee Harping and festive song ?" The winds and the waters all Rested in slumber deep, And I heard from the moaning hall Music that made me weep. 1842.) 75 Eternity. “Saw'st thou the King and his spouse? Walked they there side by side ? The diadem on their brows, And their mantles waving wide. Led they their cherished one, With joy, - a maiden fair ? Resplendent as the Sun, In the light of her golden hair." Well saw I the royal pair; But without the crown, I wot: Dark mourning weeds they ware: The maiden saw I not. ETERNITY. Urter no whisper of thy human speech, But in celestial silence let us tell Of the great waves of God that through us swell, Revealing what no tongue could ever teach; Break not the omnipotent calm, even by a prayer, Filled with Infinite, seek no lesser boon : But with these pines, and with the all-loving moon, Asking naught, yield thee to the Only Fair ; So shall these moments so divine and rare, These passing moments of the soul's high noon, Be of thy day the first pale blush of morn; Clad in white raiment of God's newly born, Thyself shalt see when the great world is made That flows forever forth from Love unstayed. Vespers. (July, VESPERS. SERENEST évening! whether fall Or dimmer radiance maketh all Like landscapes seen in dreams, I joy apart with thee to walk, I joy with thee alone to talk. With speech is thy clear blue endowed, Thy archipelagoes of cloud:- Of sweetest music and most rare, I hear the utterances there, And nightly does my being rise To fonder converse with thy skies. My home I from thy mists create, Or, with thy fires incorporate, Am lightly to the zenith swinging, Or pouring glory on the woods, Or through some lowly window flinging The sunset's blessed floods. Mine is the beauty of the hour, Mine most, when most I feel its power. II. Behold the vast array of tents For me to sentinel to night; An instant, — this magnificence Has faded out of sight. The tents are struck: the warriors' march Subsides along the stately arch. I saw the sword their leader drew Beneath the banner's crimson edge; ’T was lightning to the common view, To me, a solemn pledge, 1842.) Prayers. Unbroken as the smile of Him Who rules those cloudy cherubim. The sun, His mirrored smile, not yet Upon the loving earth, has set; Happy in his caressing fold, The cottage roofs are domes of gold. To sip the misty surf he stoops, Ontarios of light he scoops In sombrest turf, and still for me Alone his shining seems to be. Mine are his thousand rays that burn, I love, and I appropriate; Who loves enough, creates return, Nor can be desolate. SA. PRAYERS. Not with fond shekels of the tested gold, Nor gems whose rates are either rich or poor, As fancy values them: but with true prayers, That shall be up at heaven, and enter there Ere sunrise; prayers from preserved souls, From fasting maids, whose minds are dedicate To nothing temporal. SHAKSPEARE. PYTHAGORAs said that the time when men are honestest, is when they present themselves before the gods. If we can overhear the prayer, we shall know the man. But prayers are not made to be overheard, or to be printed, so that we seldom have the prayer otherwise than it can be inferred from the man and his fortunes, which are the an- swer to the prayer, and always accord with it. Yet there are scattered about in the earth a few records of these de- vout hours, which it would edify us to read, could they be collected in a more catholic spirit than the wretched and repulsive volumes which usurp that name. Let us not 78 [July, Prayers. have the prayers of one sect, nor of the Christian Church, but of men in all ages and religions, who have prayed well. The prayer of Jesus is, as it deserves, become a form for the human race. Many men have contributed a single expression, a single word to the language of devotion, which is immediately caught and stereotyped in the pray- ers of their church and nation. Among the remains of Euripides, we have this prayer; “ Thou God of all ! infuse light into the souls of men, whereby they may be enabled to know what is the root from whence all their evils spring, and by what means they may avoid them.” In the Phæ- drus of Plato, we find this petition in the mouth of Socra- tes; “O gracious Pan! and ye other gods who preside over this place! grant that I may be beautiful within ; and that those external things, which I have, may be such as may best agree with a right internal disposition of mind; and that I may account him to be rich, who is wise and just." Wacic the Caliph, who died A. D. 845, ended his life, the Arabian historians tell us, with these words; “O thou whose kingdom never passes away, pity one whose dignity is so transient.” But what led us to these remem- brances was the happy accident which in this undevout age lately brought us acquainted with two or three diaries, which attest, if there be need of attestation, the eternity of the sentiment and its equality to itself through all the variety of expression. The first is the prayer of a deaf and dumb boy. “When 'my long-attached friend comes to me, I have pleas- ure to converse with him, and I rejoice to pass my eyes over his countenance; but soon I am weary of spending my time causelessly and unimproved, and I desire to leave him, (but not in rudeness,) because I wish to be engaged in my business. But thou, O my Father, knowest I always delight to commune with thee in my lone and silent heart; I am never full of thee; I am never weary of thee; I am always desiring thee. I hun- ger with strong hope and affection for thee, and I thirst for thy grace and spirit. “When I go to visit my friends, I must put on my best gar- ments, and I must think of my manner to please them. I am tired to stay long, because my mind is not free, and they some- times talk gossip with me. But, Oh my Father, thou visitest heart is cheered and at rest with thy presence, and I am always 1842.] 79 Prayers. alone with thee, and thou dost not steal my time by foolishness. I always ask in my heart, where can I find thee?" The next is a voice out of a solitude as strict and sacred as that in which nature had isolated this eloquent mute. “My Father, when I cannot be cheerful or happy, I can be true and obedient, and I will not forget that joy has been, and may still be. If there is no hour of solitude granted me, still I will commune with thee. If I may not search out and pierce my thought, so much the more may my living praise thee. At whatever price, I must be alone with thee; this must be the de- mand I make. These duties are not the life, but the means which enable us to show forth the life. So must I take up this cross, and bear it willingly. Why should I feel reproved when a busy one enters the room? I am not idle, though I sit with folded hands; but instantly I must seek some cover. For that shame I reprove myself. Are they only the valuable members of society who labor to dress and feed it? Shall we never ask the aim of all this hurry and foam, of this aimless activity ? Let the purpose for which I live be always before me; let every thought and word go to confirm and illuminate that end ; namely, that I must become near and dear to thee; that now I am be- yond the reach of all but thee. “How can we not be reconciled to thy will? I will know the joy of giving to my friend the dearest treasure I have. I know that sorrow comes not at once only. We cannot meet it, and say, now it is overcome, but again, and yet again its flood pours over us, and as full as at first. “If but this tedious battle could be fought, Like Sparta's heroes at one rocky pass, One day be spent in dying,' men had sought The spot and been cut down like mower's grass." The next is in a metrical form. It is the aspiration of a different mind, in quite other regions of power and duty, yet they all accord at last. “Great God, I ask thee for no meaner pelf Than that I may not disappoint myself, That in my action I may soar as high, As I can now discern with this clear eye. And next in value, which thy kindness lends, That I may greatly disappoint my friends, Howe'er they think or hope that it may be, They may not dream how thou 'st distinguished me. Prayers. [July, That my weak hand may equal my firm faith, And my life practise more than my tongue saith ; That my low conduct may not show, Nor my relenting lines, That I thy purpose did not know, Or overrated thy designs." The last of the four orisons is written in a singularly calm and healthful spirit, and contains this petition. “My Father! I now come to thee with a desire to thank thee for the continuance of our love, the one for the other. I feel that without thy love in me, I should be alone here in the flesh. I cannot express my gratitude for what thou hast been and continuest to be to me. But thou knowest what my feel- ings are. When nought on earth seemeth pleasant to me, thou dost make thyself known to me, and teach me that which is needful for me, and dost cheer my travels on. I know that thou hast not created me and placed me here on earth, amidst its toils and troubles, and the follies of those around me, and told me to be like thyself, when I see so little of thee here to profit by; thou hast not done this, and then left me to myself, a poor, weak man, scarcely able to earn my bread. No; thou art my Father, and I will love thee, for thou didst first love me, and lovest me still. We will ever be parent and child. Wilt thou give me strength to persevere in this great work of redemption. Wilt thou show me the true means of accomplishing it. ... I thank thee for the knowledge that I have attained of thee by thy sons who have been before me, and especially for him who brought me so perfect a type of thy goodness and love to men. ... I know that thou wilt deal with me as I deserve. I place myself therefore in thy hand, knowing that thou wilt keep me from all harm so long as I consent to live under thy protect- ing care." Let these few scattered leaves, which a chance, (as men say, but which to us shall be holy,) brought under our eye nearly at the same moment, stand as an example of innu- merable similar expressions which no mortal witness has reported, and be a sign of the times. Might they be sug. gestion to many a heart of yet higher secret experiences which are ineffable! But we must not tie up the rosary on which we have strung these few white beads, without adding a pearl of great price from that book of prayer, the “Confessions of Saint Augustine." 1842.) 81 To Shakspeare. “And being admonished to reflect upon myself, I entered into the very inward parts of my soul, by thy conduct; and I was able to do it, because now thou wert become my helper. I en- tered and discerned with the eye of my soul, (such as it was,) even beyond my soul and mind itself the Light unchangeable. Not this vulgar light which all flesh may look upon, nor as it were a greater of the same kind, as though the brightness of this should he manifold greater and with its greatness take up all space. Not such was this light, but other, yea, far other from all these. Neither was it so above my understanding, as oil swims above water, or as the heaven is above the earth. But it is above me, because it made me; and I am under it, be- cause I was made by it. He that knows truth or verity, knows what that Light is, and he that knows it, knows eternity, and it is known by charity. O eternal Verity! and true Charity! and dear Eternity! thou art my God, to thee do I sigh day and night. Thee when I first knew, thou liftedst me up that I might see there was what I might see, and that I was not yet such as to see. And thou didst beat back my weak sight upon myself, shooting out beams upon me after a vehement manner, and I even trembled between love and horror, and I found my- self to be far off, and even in the very region of dissimilitude from thee." TO SHAKSPEARE. As the strong wind that round the wide Earth blows, Seizing all scents that shimmer o'er the flowers, The sparkling spray from every wave that flows Through the proud glory of the summer hours, Sweet questioning smiles, and gentle courteous glances, The stately ship that stems the ocean tide, The butterfly that with the wild air dances, And radiant clouds on which the Genii ride, Bearing all these on its triumphant way, Sounding through forests, soaring o'er the sea, Greeting all things which love the joyous day, In life exulting, freest of the free; Thus do thy Sonnets, Shakspeare, onward sweep, Cleaving the winged clouds, stirring the mighty deep, VOL. III. —NO. I. 11 82 (July, Veeshnoo Sarma. VEESHNOO SARMA. We commence in the present number the printing of a series of se- lections from the oldest ethical and religious writings of men, exclusive of the Hebrew and Greek Scriptures. Each nation has its bible more or less pure; none has yet been willing or able in a wise and devout spirit to collate its own with those of other nations, and sinking the civil-his- torical and the ritual portions to bring together the grand expressions of the moral sentiment in different ages and races, the rules for the guidance of life, the bursts of piety and of abandonment to the Invisible and Eter. nal; - a work inevitable sooner or later, and which we hope is to be done by religion and not by literature. The following sentences are taken from Charles Wilkins's transla- tion of the Heetopades or Amicable Instructions of Veeshnoo Sarma, according to Sir William Jones, the most beautiful, if not the most an- cient collection of apologues in the world, and the original source of the book, which passes in the modern languages of Europe and America, under the false name of Pilpay. · EXTRACTS FROM THE HEETOPADES OF VEESHNOO SARMA. WHATSOEVER cometh to pass, either good or evil, is the consequence of a man's own actions, and descendeth from the power of the Supreme Ruler. Our lives are for the purposes of religion, labor, love, and salvation. If these are destroyed, what is not lost? If these are preserved, what is not preserved ? A wise man should relinquish both his wealth and his life for another. All is to be surrendered for a just man when he is reduced to the brink of destruction. Why dost thou hesitate over this perishable body com- posed of flesh, bones, and excrements? O my friend, [my body,] support my reputation ! If constancy is to be obtained by inconstancy, purity by impurity, reputation by the body, then what is there which may not be obtained ? The difference between the body and the qualities is 1842.] 83 Veeshnoo Sarma. infinite ; the body is a thing to be destroyed in a moment, whilst the qualities endure to the end of the creation. Is this one of us, or is he a stranger ? is the enumera- tion of the ungenerous; but to those by whom liberality is practised, the whole world is but as one family. Fortune attendeth that lion amongst men who exerteth himself. They are weak men who declare Fate the sole cause. It is said, Fate is nothing but the deeds committed in a former state of existence; wherefore it behoveth a man vigilantly to exert the powers he is possessed of. The stranger, who turneth away from a house with dis- appointed hopes, leaveth there his own offences and de- parteth, taking with him all the good actions of the owner. Hospitality is to be exercised even towards an enemy when he cometh to thine house. The tree does not with- draw its shade even from the wood-cutter.. Of all men thy guest is the superior. The mind of a good man does not alter when he is in distress ; the waters of the ocean are not to be heated by a torch of straw. Nor bathing with cool water, nor a necklace of pearls, nor anointing with sanders, yieldeth such comfort to the body oppressed with heat, as the language of a good man cheerfully uttered doth to the mind. Good men extend their pity even unto the most despica- ble animals. The moon doth not withhold the light, even from the cottage of a Chandala. Those who have forsaken the killing of all; those who are helpmates to all ; those who are a sanctuary to all; those men are in the way to heaven. Behold the difference between the one who eateth flesh, and him to whom it belonged. The first hath a momen- tary enjoyment, whilst the latter is deprived of existence. Who would commit so great a crime against a poor animal, who is fed only by the herbs which grow wild in the woods, and whose belly is burnt up with hunger ? 84 Veeshnoo Sarma. [July, Every book of knowledge, which is known to Oosana or to Vreehaspatee, is by nature planted in the understand- ing of women. The beauty of the Kokeela is his voice; the beauty of a wife is constancy to her husband; the beauty of the ill- favored is science; the beauty of the penitent is patience. What is too great a load for those who have strength ? What is distance to the indefatigable? What is a foreign country to those who have science? Who is a stranger to those who have the habit of speaking kindly? Time drinketh up the essence of every great and noble action, which ought to be performed and is delayed in the execution. When Nature is forsaken by her lord, be she ever so great, she doth not survive. Suppose thyself a river, and a holy pilgrimage in the land of Bharata, of which truth is the water, good actions the banks, and compassion the current; and then, O son of Pandoo, wash thyself therein, for the inward soul is not to be purified by common water. As frogs to the pool, as birds to a lake full of water, so doth every species of wealth flow to the hands of him who exerteth himself. If we are rich with the riches which we neither give nor enjoy, we are rich with the riches which are buried in the caverns of the earth. He whose mind is at ease is possessed of all riches. Is it not the same to one whose foot is enclosed in a shoe, as if the whole surface of the earth were covered with leather ? Where have they, who are running here and there in search of riches, such happiness as those placid spirits enjoy who are gratified at the immortal fountain of happi- ness? All hath been read, all hath been heard, and all hath been followed by him who, having put hope behind him, dependeth not upon expectation. 1842.) 85 Veeshnoo Sarma. What is religion? Compassion for all things which have life. What is happiness? To animals in this world, health. What is kindness? A principle in the good. What is philosophy ? An entire separation from the world. To a hero of sound mind, what is his own, and what a foreign country? Wherever he halteth, that place is ac- quired by the splendor of his arms. When pleasure is arrived, it is worthy of attention ; when trouble presenteth itself, the same ; pains and pleas- ures have their revolutions like a wheel., One, although not possessed of a mine of gold, may find the offspring of his own nature, that noble ardor which hath for its object the accomplishment of the whole assem- blage of virtues. Man should not be over-anxious for a subsistence, for it is provided by the Creator. The infant no sooner drop- peth from the womb, than the breasts of the mother begin to stream. He, by whom geese were made white, parrots are stained green, and peacocks painted of various hues, - even he will provide for their support. He, whose inclination turneth away from an object, may be said to have obtained it. I asked the angels to come to me, the angels I saw in the clouds : They came in a shower of rain, they wrapt themselves in shrouds; Saddened and chilled I turned away, seeking the mortals on earth; They gave me sweet welcoming smiles, and a seat by the glow- ing hearth. 86 (July, Fourierism and the Socialists. FOURIERISM AND THE SOCIALISTS. The increasing zeal and numbers of the disciples of Fourier, in America and in Europe, entitle them to an at- tention which their theory and practical projects will justi- fy and reward. In London, a good weekly newspaper (lately changed into a monthly journal) called “The Pha- lanx," devoted to the social doctrines of Charles Fourier, and bearing for its motto, “ Association and Colonization," is edited by Hugh Doherty. Mr. Etzler's inventions, as described in the Phalanx, promise to cultivate twenty thou- sand acres with the aid of four men only and cheap ma- chinery. Thus the laborers are threatened with starvation, if they do not organize themselves into corporations, so that machinery may labor for instead of working against them. It appears that Mr. Young, an Englishman of large prop- erty, has purchased the Benedictine Abbey of Citeaux, in the Mont d'Or, in France, with its ample domains, for the purpose of establishing a colony there. We also learn that some members of the sect have bought an estate at Santa Catharina, fifty miles from Rio Janeiro, in a good situation for an agricultural experiment, and one hundred laborers have sailed from Havre to that port, and nineteen hundred more are to follow. On the anniversary of the birthday of Fourier, which occurred in April, public festivals were kept by the Socialists in London, in Paris, and in New York. In the city of New York, the disciples of Fourier have bought a column in the Daily Tribune, Horace Greeley's excellent newspaper, whose daily and weekly circulation exceeds twenty thousand copies, and through that organ are now diffusing their opinions. We had lately an opportunity of learning something of these Socialists and their theory from the indefatigable apostle of the sect in New York, Albert Brisbane. Mr. Brisbane pushes his doctrine with all the force of memory, talent, honest faith, and importunacy. As we listened to his exposition, it appeared to us the sublime of mechanical philosophy; for the system was the perfection of arrange- ment and contrivance. The force of arrangement could no farther go. The merit of the plan was that it was a system ; that it had not the partiality and hint-and-fragment 1842.] 87 Fourierism and the Socialists. character of most popular schemes, but was coherent and comprehensive of facts to a wonderful degree. It was not daunted by distance, or magnitude, or remoteness of any sort, but strode about nature with a giant's step, and skip- ped no fact, but wove its large Ptolemaic web of cycle and epicycle, of phalanx and phalanstery, with laudable assidu- ity. Mechanics were pushed so far as fairly to meet spirit- ualism. One could not but be struck with strange coinci- dences betwixt Fourier and Swedenborg. Genius hitherto has been shamefully misapplied, a mere trifler. It must now set itself to raise the social condition of man, and to redress the disorders of the planet he inhabits. The Desert of Sahara, the Campagna di Roma, the frozen polar cir- cles, which by their pestilential or hot or cold airs poison the temperate regions, accuse man. Society, concert, co- operation, is the secret of the coming Paradise. By reason of the isolation of men at the present day, all work is drudgery. By concert, and the allowing each laborer to choose his own work, it becomes pleasure. “Attractive Industry” would speedily subdue, by adventurous, scienti- fic, and persistent tillage, the pestilential tracts; would equalize temperature; give health to the globe, and cause the earth to yield · healthy imponderable fluids' to the solar system, as now it yields noxious fuids. The hyæna, the jackal, the gnat, the bug, the flea, were all beneficent parts of the system; the good Fourier knew what those crea- tures should have been, had not the mould slipped, through the bad state of the atmosphere, caused, no doubt, by these same vicious imponderable fluids. All these shall be re- dressed by human culture, and the useful goat, and dog, and innocent poetical moth, or the wood-tick to consume de- composing wood, shall take their place. It takes 1680 men to make one Man, complete in all the faculties ; that is, to be sure that you have got a good joiner, a good cook, a barber, a poet, a judge, an umbrella-maker, a mayor and aldermen, and so on. Your community should consist of 2000 persons, to prevent accidents of omission; and each community should take up 6000 acres of land. Now fan- cy the earth planted with fifties and hundreds of these phalanxes side by side, — what tillage, what architecture, what refectories, what dormitories, what reading rooms, what concerts, what lectures, what gardens, what baths ! 88 (July, Fourierism and the Socialists. What is not in one, will be in another, and many will be within easy distance. Then know you and all, that Con- stantinople is the natural capital of the globe. There, in the Golden Horn, will be the Arch-Phalanx established, there will the Omniarch reside. Aladdin and his magician, or the beautiful Scheherzarade, can alone in these prosaic times, before the sight, describe the material splendors col- lected there. Poverty shall be abolished; deformity, stu- pidity, and crime shall be no more. Genius, grace, art, shall abound, and it is not to be doubted but that, in the reign of " Attractive Industry," all men will speak in blank verse. Certainly we listened with great pleasure to such gay and magnificent pictures. The ability and earnestness of the advocate and his friends, the comprehensiveness of their theory, its apparent directness of proceeding to the end they would secure, the indignation they felt and ut- tered at all other speculation in the presence of so much social misery, commanded our attention and respect. It contained so much truth, and promised in the attempts that shall be made to realize it so much valuable instruc- tion, that we are engaged to observe every step of its pro- gress. Yet in spite of the assurances of its friends, that it was new and widely discriminated from all other plans for the regeneration of society, we could not exempt it from the criticism which we apply to so many projects for reform with which the brain of the age teems. Our feel- ing was, that Fourier had skipped no fact but one, namely, Life. He treats man as a plastic thing, something that may be put up or down, ripened or retarded, moulded, polished, made into solid, or fluid, or gas, at the will of the leader; or, perhaps, as a vegetable, from which, though now a poor crab, a very good peach can by manure and exposure be in time produced, but skips the faculty of life, which spawns and scorns system and system-makers, which eludes all conditions, which makes or supplants a thousand phalanxes and New-Harmonies with each pulsation. There is an order in which in a sound mind the faculties always appear, and which, according to the strength of the indi- vidual, they seek to realize in the surrounding world. The value of Fourier's system is that it is a statement of such an order externized, or carried outward into its correspondence 1842.] 89 Fourierism and the Socialists. in facts. The mistake is, that this particular order and se- ries is to be imposed by force of preaching and votes on all men, and carried into rigid execution. But what is true and good must not only be begun by life, but must be conducted to its issues by life. Could not the conceiv- er of this design have also believed that a similar model lay in every mind, and that the method of each associate might be trusted, as well as that of his particular Committee and General Office, No. 200 Broadway? nay, that it would be better to say, let us be lovers and servants of that which is just; and straightway every man becomes a centre of a holy and beneficent republic, which he sees to include all men in its law, like that of Plato, and of Christ. Before such a man the whole world becomes Fourierized or Christ- ized or humanized, and in the obedience to his most private being, he finds himself, according to his presentiment, though against all sensuous probability, acting in strict con- cert with all others who followed their private light. Yet in a day of small, sour, and fierce schemes, one is admonished and cheered by a project of such friendly aims, and of such bold and generous proportion; there is an intellectual courage and strength in it, which is superior and commanding : it certifies the presence of so much truth in the theory, and in so far is destined to be fact. But now, whilst we write these sentences, comes to us a paper from Mr. Brisbane himself. We are glad of the op- portunity of letting him speak for himself. He has much more to say than we have hinted, and here has treated a gen- eral topic. We have not room for quite all the matter which he has sent us, but persuade ourselves that we have retain- ed every material statement, in spite of the omissions which we find it necessary to make, to contract his pa- per to so much room as we offered him. Mr Brisbane, in a prefatory note to his article, announ- ces himself as an advocate of the Social Laws discovered by CHARLES FOURIER, and intimates that he wishes to con- nect whatever value attaches to any statement of his, with the work in which he is exclusively engaged, that of Social Reform. He adds the following broad and generous dec- laration. “It seems to me that, with the spectacle of the present mis- ery and degradation of the human race before us, all scientific VOL. III. —NO. I. 12 90 [July, Fourierism and the Socialists. researches and speculations, to be of any real value, should have a bearing upon the means of their social elevation and happiness. The mass of scientific speculations, which are ev- ery day offered to the world by men, who are not animated by a deep interest in the elevation of their race, and who exercise their talents merely to build up systems, or to satisfy a spirit of controversy, or personal ambition, are perfectly valueless. What is more futile than barren philosophical speculation, that leads to no great practical results ? " MEANS OF EFFECTING A FINAL RECONCILIATION BE- TWEEN RELIGION AND SCIENCE. By Albert BRISBANE. The Intellectual History of Humanity has been one se- ries of combats, one ceaseless war. Religion has warred with Religion, Sect with Sect, Philosophy with Philosophy, and System with System. Doubt, uncertainty, and con- tradiction have bewildered the human mind, and the Hu- man Race have been wandering blindly amidst fragments of doctrines and systems, which have choked up and hid- den the road of truth, and led them innumerable times astray upon false routes. The most unfortunate contest, however, which has ta- ken place, is that between Religion and Science, or Faith and Reason. These two means or powers, by which man obtains knowledge, have been completely divided, and ar- rayed in hostile opposition to each other. They have un- dermined reciprocally each other's labors; they have com- batted with, and tyrannized by turns over each other. I call this combat of Faith and Reason the most unfortu- nate, because had they been united, had they combined their powers, — had they aided each other, they would have discovered, centuries since, enough of universal Truth to have put an end to the war of Religions, Sects, and Phi- losophies, which has bewildered human judgment, dispell- ed the deep spiritual gloom in which Humanity is sunk, and put it on the true road of progress to universal knowl- edge. A part only of Universal Truth has descended upon this earth, and that part is broken into a thousand fragments, 1842.] 91 Fourierism and the Socialists. and scattered confusedly among as many sects and systems. So long as the intellectual Powers of Man, that is, Faith and Reason, are in conflict with each other, the human mind will not have strength enough to collect these bro- ken fragments together, and unite them in a harmonious whole. Neither Faith nor Reason alone can do it. All the intellectual Powers in man must combine, and united in their strength, they must drag from out the rubbish of sects and doctrines the fragments of truths which they contain, and unite them together. As universal Truth has not yet descended upon the earth, they then must, to com- plete her divine statue, proceed to an integral study of God and the material Universe, which is the external em- blem and manifestation of his internal activities. * * * * * * * * * To have two concise designations of the two sources of knowledge, I will call the first source Reason, and the second Faith. Faith is first active in the human mind; we find that in the savage state, long before the Reason be- gins to search for first principles, Faith reveals to man the existence of a God, his Immortality, and other great truths. Reason follows later, and only exercises its power, when it is developed and cultivated. Its function is to elucidate, define, and explain clearly the nature of the spontaneous conceptions of the soul, and to discover the exact sciences. The ideas of God and Immortality, which have their source in the spontaneous conceptions of the Soul, become with time so blended with the images and symbols under which they are represented, that the original ideas can no longer be conceived separate from them. Hence to de- stroy the image or symbol, appears to the believer to be the destruction of the idea itself, and hence his tenacious adherence to external forms and symbols, and the accusa- tion of impiety and irreligion, which he casts upon Reason, when it criticizes and attacks them. Reason, on the other hand, generally carries its criticisms to an extreme; it does not separate the forms or dress, in which the ideas of the Divinity and Immortality are cloth- ed, from those grand Ideas themselves ; it does not sepa- rate the Symbols from the truths which they cover, but, confounding the two, wanders so far astray as to deny 92 (July, Fourerism and the Socialists. often the existence of a God and the Immortality of the Soul. It then falls into irreligion and atheism, and a com- plete breach takes place between Faith and Reason. The two means of knowledge in man then clash with, instead of lending to each other their aid. Faith denounces Rea- son as impious, and Reason accuses Faith of a puerile cre- dulity. Which is in the wrong, Faith or Reason, Religion or Science ? Both; the Priesthood should elevate their forms and symbols, as human reason develops itself, and becomes capable of explaining the truths or dogmas of Religion in, a purer and more scientific manner; and Science, instead of criticizing the mere Forms and Symbols in which the truths of Religion are clothed, or attacking, as it so often does, those truths themselves, should have studied them with respect, and endeavored to explain scientifically their nature. To produce a reconciliation and union between Faith and Reason, the latter must discover the nature of the soul, and its origin, and learn that its spontaneous Concep- tions are absolutely true, however false the images and symbols may be in which they are clothed. It must then study and discover the nature of the truths which the soul conceives, and explain them scientifically to Faith, so that the strong aspiration which exists in man to believe may be fully gratified. Thus will Faith which clings to its in- stinctive conceptions, and Reason which clings to its scien- tific deductions, be satisfied, and the contest, which has been so long going on between them, be terminated, and a union effected. Science must progress so far as to understand fully the nature of the soul, and the elements composing it.* When it discovers that the intellectual, active Principle in Man is good, when it discovers its divine Origin, then it will believe in the truths which the Soul spontaneously *Up to the time of CHARLES FOURIER, this had not been done. Science had always condemned human nature as imperfect or degraded, and it could not, under the influence of such a belief, respect and confide in the instinctive conceptions which go forth from the soul. FOURIER has proved human nature to be good, true, and holy, although he rocog- nises that it is now prevented and degraded by our false systems of so- ciety. - A. B. 1842.] 93 Fourierism and the Socialists. conceives, take them as the basis of its researches, and study them with profound respect. When enlightened Faith sees this, it will be satisfied ; it will recognise Rea- son with joy as a sister-partner in the search of Truth, and will accept the full and scientific explanations, furnish- ed by Reason, of the great problems, which it had previ- ously conceived but only in a general or abstract manner. : It will then see that the function of Reason is to explain and demonstrate clearly, what it conceives vaguely and in general terms; and it will then lean upon it and seek cor- dially its aid. Bigotry, we must expect, will hold tenaciously to ancient forms and symbols, and reject ignorantly the progressive enlightenment of Reason, as superficial Reason will al- ways criticize, doubt, and deny, without examining deeply or affirming. But Bigotry is to true Faith, what shallow, criticizing Reason, and empty denial are to that profound Reason, which investigates integrally and scientifically. Thus Faith conceives spontaneously, while Reason an- alyzes and proves scientifically : — these are the two Sources of knowledge in Man. There should be Union and Concert of action between them, - between the two means which the Soul possesses of obtaining knowledge. The intellectual nature of Man is ONE, and all its powers should be directed to the same ends. First come the spon- taneous conceptions of the Soul; they precede the inves- tigations of Reason, and on the light which should guide it on in the great work of discovering universal Truth. Reason follows, and with study and investigation explains the true and full nature of the problems, which before were only indistinctly conceived. . * * * * * * * * In the early history of the Human Race, when the only truths of a universal nature known were those conceived spontaneously by the Soul, all knowledge was confined to the precincts of the Temple, and treasured up by the Priesthood. Later, as human Intelligence developed itself, a new order of truths, separate from those of Religion, began to be brought to light, and sciences, discovered by the observations of the senses and the reflections of reason, were promulgated. Mankind have thus had two teachers of Truth, 94 Fourierism and the Socialists. [July, Faith and Reason, or Religion and Science, and the two institutions which have been established to propagate their instructions, are the Church and the University. Whenever the Priesthood have been powerful, and their sway firmly established, Science has had to bow to and obey Religion, and Reason to be silent; but whenever the power of the Priesthood has been weakened, and its con- trol over Science broken, then Reason has sought retribu- tion for the tyranny to which it had been subjected, and has criticised and attacked the rites, forms, and dogmas of Religion. An epoch of Doubt and Irreligion follows such a movement, as an epoch of simple Faith, and often blind Superstition, preceded it.. I have pointed out the principle which should be proceed- ed upon to effect a final Accord of Faith and Reason, or of Religion and Science. I will now explain briefly the practical means, which must be employed to realize this great object, — an object second in importance to no other. 1. The social condition of the mass of Mankind must be vastly improved; their minds must be cultivated and developed, and their feelings ennobled and elevated. When poverty and harassing cares deaden the Sympathies and noble Impulses of the Soul, and Ignorance and gro- velling pursuits degrade or pervert the Intelligence, how can the one feel with purity, and the other understand scientifically the great truths of the Universe ? So absorb- ed or degraded are the feelings and faculties of the vast Majority, by the miseries, conflicts, discords, wrongs, and prosaic occupations of our false Societies, that the desire and aspirations for universal Truth are smothered, and the power of comprehending it destroyed. So long as the great body of the Human Race are sunk in ignorance and degradation, Religion must present its great Truths to them in the simplest manner, and clothe them in material images and symbols. So long as this is the case, Science will disregard and criticise the simple ex- planations and symbols of Religion, and the contest be- tween them will be continued. They cannot be reconcil- ed until the dogmas of Religion are taught with scientific purity, and there is an intelligent Humanity capable of comprehending them. 1842.] Fourierism and the Socialists. The minds of the Mass cannot be developed, their so- cial condition cannot be greatly elevated in our present false societies. The present repugnant system of Indus- try, the Poverty, Discords, Conflicts of Interest, and the miserable methods of Education which exist, are insur- mountable obstacles in the way. The first practical condi- tion, consequently, of an Accord of Religion and Science is the establishment of a true Social Order, which will lead to the moral and intellectual elevation of mankind. 2. A great Genius must arise, who, piercing the veil that covers the mysteries of the Universe, will discover, or prepare the way to the discovery of the nature and essence of God, — the true Theory of the Immortality of the Soul, the laws of Order and Harmony which govern Creation, and solve the great problems on which Religion and Science are based. This will be declared impossible by the world, for Men have abandoned all hope of comprehending God and the System of Nature ; but the human Mind can arrive at this knowledge, and a Genius equal to the task has arisen, and in our age, and has accomplished it. That Genius is CHARLES FOURIER. An Age never believes in the discoveries of its great minds, and the achievements of Fourier, — the discovery of the theory of Universal Unity in its five cardinal Branches, — will not be understood by the great body even of the educated of the present day. But the few, who have studied thoroughly his discoveries, know that the princi- ples of a true Universa