chool in this country on the spiritual principles of which they are
the earnest and enlightened advocates.
We copy from M. Vericour's book on Modern French Literature
the following account of the French Journals.
" It has hitherto been found impracticable to maintain a French Re-
view on the plan of the best English Reviews, for which we cannot
well account. It may be that the impossibility arises from the public
mind in France being too versatile and transient, and from parties and
opinions undergoing such rapid and frequent changes and modifica-
tions. * * * * * We are justified in affirming that the only Reviews,
which possess the recommendation of long standing and general popu-
larity, are the Revue des Deur Mondes and the Revue de Paris, and they
are published inore in the form of the English Magazines than of the
great Reviews. And yet scarcely a year passes but painful efforts to
establish new critical periodicals are witnessed, which invariably prove
abortive; the puny productions perish for lack of sustenance, after the
most ephemeral of existences. One exception, however, must be noted
in favor of the Revue de Progrès, which is edited with powerful ener-
gy by M. Louis Blanc. It has drawn the attention of the French pub-
lic, by the strong democratic principles it upholds, the bold tenets it has
avowed in the face of the world, and the host of superior men who
coöperate in its publication. The Revue de Paris is a weekly journal,
containing critical notices, light tales, and worldly chit chat, always
elegant and sprightly in tone and matter, and especially calculated to
beguile the leisure hours of the boudoir. The Revue de Deux Mondes
frequently gives masterpieces of criticism ; such are the articles of De
Carné, Saint-Beuve, Mignet, Marmier, Lerminier, Chasles, Charles Mag-


280
(Oct. 1842.
Editor's Table.
nin, and others. * * * With respect to Reviews, we have specified the
only two that have had any standing and permanency of merit. As to
the monthly review called Journal des Savants, it would be a gross
error to rank it among the ordinary periodicals of any country. It is
in fact a review of the highest order, but at once private and national ;
it only notices works of the first merit and utility ; it is printed by the
royal press, and the committee of authors, who prepare its articles, is
composed of sixteen members belonging to the various sections of the
Royal Institute. It is in the Journal des Savants that the admirable
classical dissertations of Letronne and Burnouf, the valuable scientific
investigations of Biot and Libri, the philosophical analyses of Cousin
and Villemain, are found.”
Berlin. We alluded in our last Number to the installation of Schel-
ling, as Lecturer on Philosophy at Berlin. The seventh volume of
Hegel's Works, containing the second part of the Encyclopädie now
in the course of publication, we have since received. The editor
Michelet speaks thus in the preface respecting Schelling, his author's
successor in the professional chair.
“ That the appearance of this work should happen to be cotempora-
neous with the arrival of Schelling in Berlin, is one of those turns of
fate in which history is rich. Here let the author of the Natur Philoso-
phie behold the completion of the edifice, of which he could only lay the
foundation. Here let him salute the Genius of the friend who came
after him in a work, from which he himself, as the father of this science,
among all the living derives the greatest honor. But if he supposes it
to be his mission to conduct philosophy out of the undeniably difficult
position in which it now finds itself,' and to save it from miserable
shipwreck and the destruction of all great convictions,' in order to ac-
tually lead it through into the promised land of philosophy ;' he must
not expect that he can resume the sceptre of philosophy long since
wrested from his grasp, without a scientific refutation of these genuine
children of his own philosophizing. The · leaf in the history of philo-
sophy,' which he left half written forty years ago, has long since been
turned over by his successor and filled up. The results have been de-
duced and acknowledged by life. The history of philosophy has not
been silent, because Schelling held his peace. Philosophy has not
wanted a 'free, unembarrassed, on all sides unfettered movement,' be-
cause Schelling, on account of his inward nature,' feels himself ham-
pered and uncomfortable in the scientific strictness of a dialectically
progressive method. If he does but repeat again in this Metropolis
of German philosophy, where its fortunes are to be decided,' the prom-
ises of forty years — if the whole world is still to misunderstand him —
if his first philosophy has yielded only the unthinkable' (das nicht zu
gion without the rational; then, notwithstanding his most explicit as-
surances to the contrary, he has sacrificed the genuine freedom of sci-
entific reasoning, and will founder against the shadow of the giant,
" At all events we await him here on the battle ground, where the
hero-forms of modern German philosophy still go about ; and so far
'dispose of hin,' we may see cause to ascribe his relapse into a philo-
sophy of Revelation to the impossibility of remaining still on the dizzy
height of the youthful stand-point of his intellectual intuition."


Jamn ? blanke
THE DIAL.
VOL. III.
JANUARY, 1843.
No. III.
JAMES PIERREPONT GREAVES.
(Continued from the last Dial, page 255.)
Vigor, rather than elegance, must necessarily be a prin-
cipal characteristic in the intelligent manifestations from a
truly deepened soul. By such a being all antique lore and
modern science are contemplated, from a position the very
opposite of that whence they are viewed by the literary
student. The course of the latter is to be introduced to
the recorded wisdom, or rather to the record of the sayings
of the wise, and step by step he comes into these as acquire-
ments or possessions, which, like money for the commercial
man, are made the end of his pursuits. The former, the
true student, on the contrary, expands from within, reaches
from a central point into all circumferential points; fills
out old expressions with new life; and animates scientific
axioms from a depth and purpose, of which even their
enunciators were mostly unconscious. Accordingly we
find that whether in conversation, in correspondence, or in
books, the untiring spirit in Mr. Greaves constantly descend-
ed in livingness, in warmth, in energy, into every various form
or terminology presented to it. Whatever may have been
the terms offered, the interpreting power laid hold of them
and turned them inwards, giving to every expression a
newer and larger value. As far as any theory or plan may
be attributed to him, as a preconception in his own mind, it
appears to have been constantly to throw the speaker, or
writer, or reader from the exterior to an interior or antece-
dent position, from doing and knowing, to being. When-
ever the sentence or sentiment had a relation to either of
the former, he would invert or introvert it to the latter, as
VOL. II]. — NO. 111. .: 36


282
[Jan.
James Pierrepont Greaves.
one instance may elucidate. For instance, in his copy of
the Nicomachian Ethics, the following passage occurs, thus
amended.
“ Science is the knowledge of things necessary."
Pre-science is the presence of things essential.
As this mode originated in the psychic depths, so the re-
sult of such treatment upon the speaker's or reader's mind
was almost sure to be ihe opening of a new and deeper
vein of thought, not unfrequently preparatory to the ger-
mination of new being. Terminologies were rent asunder,
and by this flexible and fluent pouring in of an essential,
vital meaning to any phraseology, he at once was preserved
from sinking into the narrowness and miserable fixedness of
a verbal philosophy, and opened to every author a higher
value than he originally designed for his own words.
It was with the intention of a public benefit by this pro-
cess, that in the year 1827 the Contrasting Magazine was
published for a short period. The following extracts will
in some degree exemplify the corrections which he would
have suggested to the respective authors, though it may be
remarked that in subsequent years he would have given a
still deeper rendering to many passages.
LOCKE ON THE CONDUCT OF THE UNDERSTANDING.
INTRODUCTION. SECTION 1.
The last resort a man has recourse The last resort a man ought to
to, in the conduct of himself, is his have recourse to, in the conduct of
understanding. For though we dis- himself, is his understanding. For
tinguish the faculties of the mind, though we distinguish the faculties
and give the supreme command to of the mind, and attribute the clear-
the will, as to un agent, yet the truth est conception to the understanding,
is, the man, which is the agent, as to the distinctive fuculty; yet,
determines himself, to this or that the true course of nuture is the man,
voluntary action, upon some prece. which is the agent, ought to deter.
dent knowledge, or appeurance of mine himself to this or that volun.
knowledge, in the understanding. tary action, upon some primitive
motive in the feelings, which can
No man ever sets himself about never be an apparent one. No man
anything but upon some view or ever should set himself about any.
other which serves him for a reason thing upon some view or other, and
for what he does. And whatsoever thus make the effect of what he does,
faculties he employs, the under- serce him for a reason for what he
standing, with such light us it has, does; and whatsoever faculties then
well or ill informed, constantly he employs, the feelings, with that
leads; and by that light, true or love which must be developed in them,


1843.)
283
James Pierrepont Greaves.
false, all his operative powers are ought constantly to lead ; and, by
directed.
the light in the understanding, the
operative powers ought only to be
The will itself, how absolute and ruled. The will itself, how loving
uncontrollable soever it may be and disinterested soever it may be
thought, never fails in its obedience thought, must ulways fail, if obedi-
to the dictates of the understanding. ent to the dictates of the under-
Temples have their sacred images, standing. Schools have their sacred
and we see what influence they rules, and we see what influence
have always had over a great part they have always had over a great
of mankind. But, in truth, the part of mankind. But, in truth,
ideas and images in men's minds ihe faith and love in men's minds
are the visible powers that con- are the invisible powers that con-
stantly govern them, and to these stantly ought to govern them, and,
they all universally pay a ready sub- to these alone, truly developed minds
mission. It is therefore of the pay a ready submission. It is there-
highest concernment, chat great care fore of the highest concernment,
should be taken of the understand that great care should be taken of
ing, to conduct it right in the search the feelings, to conduct them right
of knowledge and in the judgments in the development of their fuith,
it makes.
and in the love from which they act.
SERMON BY T. WAITE, D. C. L.
From the Sacred Scriptures alone From the development of the di-
have the knowledge of God and dine germ in mun alone have the
the practice of true religion, in all knowledge of God and the practice
ages, been derived ; for where di- of true religion, in all ages, been
tine revelation has not been known, indrawn; for where the divine germ
the worship of the true God, and an in man has not been developed,
uniform observation of the duties of though the Sucred Scriptures have
morality, have never existed. been known, the true worship of
God, and an uniform observation of
the duties of godliness, have never
existed.
SWEDENBORG'S HEAVENLY MYSTERIES.
GENESIS. CHAPTER XII. Nos. 1383 ET SEQ.
Amongst other wonderful things Amongst other spiritual but little
experienced in another life, are to observed things experienced in
be reckoned perceptions, of which man's interior life, are to be reck-
there are two kinds. One that is oned intuitions, of which there are
angelic, consisting in the perception two kinds. One that is divine, con-
of what is true and good, and of sisting in the intuition of the source
what is from the Lord, and what of all truth and goodness, and the
from self; and also in the perception distinction between the divine prin-
of the ground and quality of ciple and the principle of selfishness,
thoughts, words, and actions. The and thereby in the intuition of the
other kind is what is common to all, ground and quality of thoughts,
but is enjoyed by the angels in the words, and actions. The other kind
highest perfection, and by spirits, is the human intuition, which never
according to the quality of each ; con- arrives at full clearness, ercept by
sisting in this, that they discern the the presence of the divine nature,


284
[Jan.
James Pierrepont Greaves.
nature and temper of another, the and is proportionate in every indi-
instant he appears in view.
vidual to the degree of his interior
development ; consisting in this, that
we discern our own nature and cha-
racter the instant we turn our view
inwards.
There are spirits who belong to There are men who attach them.
the province of the skin, especially selves to exterior things, especially
that part of it which is rough and to all such as are visible and palpa-
scaly, who are disposed to reason ble, who are disposed to reason on
on all subjects, having no percep. all subjects, having no intuition of
tion of what is good and true. what is good and true. Nay, the
Nay, the more they reason, the less more they reason, the less intuition
perception they have, inasmuch as they have, inasmuch as arguing
they suppose wisdom to consist in often suppresses wisdom, putting on
reasoning, and in appearing to be its appearunce only.
wise.
I have sometimes discoursed con- I have sometimes discoursed con-
cerning perception with those in cerning intuition with men confined
another life, who, during their to exterior life, who, in consequence
abode in the world, supposed them- of the experience they have acquired,
selves able to penetrate into all suppose themselves able to pene-
things, and to understand that the trate into all things, and to under-
angels perceive, that they think and stand that man may be taught by the
speak, will and act from the Lord, spirit of God, so as to think and
but still they were not able to con- speak, will and act, from the Lord;
ceive what perception is ; supposing, but still they were not able to con-
that if all things thus entered by ceive what intuition is, – supposing
influr, they would be deprived that if all ideas thus were to be de-
thereby of all life, because thus rived from a divine power within
they would think nothing from them, ihey would be deprived there.
themselves, or their own propriety, by of all life, because thus they
in which they conceived all life to would think nothing from them-
consist.
selves, or their own essence, in
which they conceived all life to
consist.
These contrasts were not limited to authors with whose
doctrines he might wholly or in part disagree, but were
bestowed upon such as he justly admired. For instance,
William Law, whose writings every profound, as well as
merely talented reader will acknowledge as first of their
class, did not fail to excite his pen to this coördinate com-
mentary, and the greater depth of the writer was not the
hindrance to his Auency, but the more certain invitation.
Two writers only appear to have remained uncontrasted in
his library, namely, Plato and Behmen ; but these he read
when it was his custom to make marginal notes: thus in
Behmen's “ True Regeneration, chap. 3, sec. 12.
“Thus the creature stirreth up with its desire, good and evil,


1843.]
285
James Pierrepont Greaves.
life and death. The human angelical desire standeth in the
centre of the eternal nature, which is without beginning, and
wherein it kindleth itself, whether in good or in evil, it accom-
plisheth its work in that."
Note.-An increase of happiness comes to man, when his
state of regeneration is such, that he can decompose the air in
which he lives, and hold in solution and precipitation just that
which is suitable to his active and passive existence. J. P. G.
From his own manuscript records it is not easy to select
passages, which should raise in the reader's mind those
glowing sensations and kindling sensibilities, those super-
rational convictions , of a supreme inliving love-power,
which his own peculiar emphasis and the flash from his
singularly bright eye were almost sure to effect. Every
bearer felt that those penetrating orbs were not employed
to scan body, but were as well inlets as outlets to soul.
Each became more or less conscious that he was seen. His
presence was not an ordinary event. Neither his word nor
his mere company could pass for nothing. His entrance
into a party, how numerous soever, was acknowledged
in an actual sympathy, if not in words. There needed
not the science of phrenology to impress the beholder
with the fact, that the exalted head, the towering, ex-
pansive brow denoted a being of unusual character. Nor
could so benign a mouth, so well rounded a chin, and
a nose of fair dimensions, slightly Roman or aquiline, re-
quire a Lavater to assure us that a heart was there, not cast
in the every-day mould for every-day traffic. He was indeed
formed for the manifestation of love in the deepest sense,
and had there not been born in him a profound conscious-
ness of universal duty, which transcended all thought of
individual affection, his friendships alone would have ren-
dered him an associate of the most attractive kind.
We require of such a being that he should be robed.
He carries us inward to that ideal which we see represent-
ed outwardly in the Grecian statue. The plain blue coat
and vulgar neckerchief do not satisfy our notion of external
propriety. And when in Mr. Greaves these mental indica-
tions exist in companionship with a robust frame, of goodly
height, the impression produced on the auditory when he
rose, at the close of the conversations held at his house, to


286
(Jan.
James Pierrepont Greaves.
sum up the sentiments expressed during the evening, and
to bind them in one offering to the Spirit, which is by true
seeking to be found in every bosom, could only be en-
hanced by those delicious tones, trembling occasionally on
the verge of treble, and those deep aspirations which all
must feel were true indications of the soul's more real
ardency.
Amongst the publications issued by him, and which were
either wholly written by him, or consisting of his closer
manuscripts a litile amplified or diluted by some literary
coadjutor, were two small volumes ; one entitled, “Three
hundred Maxims for the consideration of Parents," and the
other, “Physical and Metaphysical Hints for Every Body.”
The former has found a rather extensive circulation, as it
was written in a mode appealing to, and calculated to reach
the mother's heart. It afterwards arrived at a second edi-
tion, besides the approval of an American reprint, under
the title, “ Thoughts on Spiritual Culture," with some ad-
ditional matter. A larger volume was also presented to the
world in the year 1827, consisting of Pestalozzi's Letters to
himself, agreeably translated from the German by Dr.
Worms, but not with that strict fidelity which they de-
served. It is a feeling with some literary men, that it is
their duty rather to write down to the supposed position of
the public, than to adhere as strictly as possible to the
high truths given them to utter. The latter only is the
faithful and dutiful course ; for the greatest breach in faith
is manifested in the supposition, that what is spoken from
the depths of the sincere mind will not be heard in a cor-
responding manner.
The great design in these efforts was to reawaken in the
public mind the fact, that man must not only believe, not
only be convinced, but feel with the same certitude with
which he feels his own existence; that there is one univer-
sal love-truth, which is the same to all individuals, at all
times, in all places, and under all circumstances. That
man must feel that this love-truth is not a dead word, nor
a thought to be defined, or described, or expressed in dead
words, but that it is the one living Spirit manifesting itself
in all things; in the works of nature, in the clear thoughts,
in the noble sensations of the human soul. That man must
feel this living Love-Spirit has an abode within, and that


1843.)
287
James Pierrepont Greaves.
if he be but humble enough to lay before it his own errors
and his own miseries, it will dash to the ground, in him
and through him, all the errors and miseries of the world
around, and open to his view the prospect of that perfect
order and harmony, wherein the complaining voice of re-
bellion and selfishness is no more heard. To an aim so
lofty, so generous as this, neither a ready nor a general
echo could be expected. It is sufficient, however, to
know, that seeds were thus scattered, which afterwards
sprung up in divers places; or, to use a more appropriate
figure, an atmosphere was thus produced, favorable to the
awakening in man of that Divine Spirit which so long had
slept.
The incidents pertaining to a life so devoted cannot vary
materially from each other. Where there is not a vulgar
ambition for power or fame, a love of wealth or desire for
martyrdom, even the ordinary intuitions of the love-spirit,
how faint soever they are, by human clamor, allowed to be,
will preserve an individual of great endowments from those
actions, which hitherto have claimed the larger share of the
historical reader's attention. The peace of heart and soul,
which surpasseth all understanding, is not of a kind to
thrust individuals into those predicaments, in which an emi-
nence of doubtful renown is achieved at the cost of per-
manent virtue. This peacefulness was at all events too
conscious and too copious in Mr. Greaves, to permit him to
wander for one moment from the peaceful and peacemak-
ing path. Few outward varieties therefore shall we be
able to remark in his career. In all countries, at all times,
amongst all people, there is almost the same difficulty in
obtaining from the greater number admission for expression
of the highest truth, when it is urged to conforming action,
as there is a ready recipiency by the few. Accordingly it
was generally Mr. Greaves's fate to be vehemently opposed,
or most cordially beloved. So decided a mind could not
possibly stand in neutral relationship to any. The power
and practice of penetrating, through all films of words and
sophistications of logic, to the very centre of thought and
will, cannot, under any circumstances, fail of such results.
When at the universities of Basle and Tubingen, in the
course of his German tour, in or about the year 1922, he
undertook to give to such students as might feel disposed


288
[Jan.
James Pierrepont Greaves.
stions to whicho have never frated Strauss, and men,
to accept them, lessons in the English language, his al-
most entire ignorance of the German tongue did not frus-
trate, nor for one moment obstruct this design. At the
former place he is, from his own verbal report, understood
to have collected around him about fifty young men,
amongst whom was the since celebrated Strauss, and other
eminent minds, who have never forgotten the animating
questions to which be called upon them to reply. For his
method did not consist in the tiresome and almost vain ef-
fort to load upon the memory the equivalent word in anoth-
er language, for the things or facts already known in our
own, but first to awaken or develop the idea in the mind,
and then let the idea take up or expand itself into the suit-
able expression. His interrogations, therefore, were not
calculated to draw forth answers from his pupils which they
could adopt, on mechanical principles, from their printed
grammars and wordbooks. Nor were they limited to the
physical substances present before their outward eyes, which
he used as introductions and illustrations to those psychical
facts it was his aim to open to their own interior conscious-
ness. The facts of and in their own life, the very law in
their being, it was his aim to render evident to them, and
language as the highest, or one of the highest, expressional
modes, was merely the avenue to this greater end.
The vivacity, the interest, the love for the teacher and
the pursuit, manifested in this class, as contrasted with the
heavy and method-bound systems of formal teaching, could
not fail to draw the attention of the authorities; and in-
quiries were privately made by the timorous government,
and we believe were, in the first instance, or as far as the
scholastic professors were concerned, satisfactorily answer-
ed. Although the practitioners in any art are not usually
those who introduce new improvements into it, yet at least
they are not unfrequently passive or friendly to progressive
movements when adventured by others. But a fixed order,
in which the highest good is conceived to be the rigid
maintenance of everything as it exists, is not able to toler-
ate inquiry, much less innovation. In this instance it was
felt, that the newly animated seed was too certain to ex-
pand ; throughout Germany there were then too many
soul-stirring elements in the moral atmosphere to per-
mit another and a better to be added; and the man of


1843.]
289
James Pierrepont Greaves.
peace and love was advised to withdraw to some more
accepting sphere.
While the external events in such a career are scanty,
the internal experience is as eminently abundant. There
are individuals who can travel round the world, encounter-
ing many things and really seeing nothing, and some who,
remaining geographically unmoved, become acquainted with
all things. There is a France, a Germany, a Rome, an
India in the soul, which must be intravelled and introspect-
ed. At this period there was not perhaps a mental posi-
tion in which one could be placed for this mental voyage
better than Pestalozzi's establishment. Not because there
were to be found there pupils or observers from every
country in Europe, but because the congregation of free
minds in a pure and noble purpose generates a state of
things outward and inward, a physical order and a moral
atmosphere which no where and no how can be constituted
by a solitary one, though the most potent measure of love
be his.
The intercourse between Pestalozzi and Greaves, we
have before remarked, was not by means of that ofttimes
equivocal instrument the tongue. The latter was wont to
describe it by the term magnetic, as being above all ordi-
nary influences by sympathy or talent. Indeed, Pestalozzi's
whole life and conduct, at this period, was of this bigh cha-
racter. He would salute Mr. Greaves each morning, as is
somewhat customary in the country, by a kiss, and he not
only felt but declared that of all the persons, either native
or foreign, who came to witness his proceedings, none un-
derstood them so well, none appreciated him so truly as
Greaves. It may not be too much to say that the latter
was the more profound.
Pestalozzi's absence of mind, (for so, in default of better
and affirmative terms, the super-sensuous life must be spoken
of,) has frequently been reported. Mr. Greaves was scarcely
more attentive to outward things ; but as it fell to him to be
the exponent, as far as words can accomplish it, of Pesta-
lozzi's principles, to all the Englishmen who came to the
establishment, he had frequently to explain, as best he
could, the reason why the leader was so very negligent in
dress and the usual external proprieties. So difficult was
it, however, to withdraw his attention from deeper things,
VOL. III. —NO. III. 37


290
[Jan.
James Pierrepont Greaves..
that Mr. Greaves was obliged to take away his old gar-
ments in the night, replacing them by the new that he
would not submit to be measured for, and, when he discov-
ered his strange metamorphosis, he allowed Mr. Greaves to
complete it by cutting his hair. The friendship cementing
these two men was not such as the world commonly wit-
nesses, and was equally grateful and encouraging for both.
While the spirit which united these men prevailed at
Yverdun, the place was truly a university, for the universe
spirit ruled them, and that only can constitute a university.
This spirit continually and fervently actuating the leader,
others, approximating to that state, were, by a law in their
nature, attracted around him, and thus a comparatively
large circle was collected, to be in which can alone induce
any idea of such life. Mr. Greaves was too intent in the
work of creating this new world, to engage in the business
of making a written record of it; and, therefore, we shall
in vain expect from his pen any notes concerning its pro-
gress. This, however, is scarcely to be considered a loss,
as even by the acutest observer they could scarcely be ren-
dered into language intelligible to the inexperienced reader.
Several attempts have since been made to constitute a
collective association, not on the principle of common in-
terests, but on that of unity or oneness in spirit, and just as
far as the latter prevailed, and there was an acknowledg.
ment of the highest, in all actions and details, a remarkable
spiritual success has attended them, though small may be
the gratulation in the pecuniary aspect. One of the latest
acts of Mr. Greaves's life was the aiding in the foundation
of such a point at Ham, a few miles from London. If, in
some respects, it aimed at less than Pestalozzi accomplish-
ed or had in view, in other respects, it aimed at more. It
was smaller in extent, but it was larger in intent. It was
inferior in numbers, but it was superior in practice. It
comprehended more points of being, for it was desired to
include all being. This establishment, therefore, if an eye-
witness and a heart-witness may affirm, offered another
opportunity for an experience of that estate of life which
ever distinguished Pestalozzi's circle. To very many it
has confessedly been the means of opening the mind to an
interior life, not previously imagined, nay stoutly denied.
To both children and adults it was the bright green spot


1843.]
291
James Pierrepont Greaves.
in the wilderness of the world : and parents who searched
Europe for a successor to Pestalozzi, disappointed every-
where else, fixed on it as the nearest approximation to their
idea. Its disciplines in respect to diet appeared to the
thoughtless as unnecessarily rigid : its mental lessons, on
the other hand, seemed to the learned, far too desultory;
but where a due regard was held for the moral purpose,
which underlay this order or this freedom, the means were
acknowledged to be harmoniously subservient. Its obser-
vers have been many ; its inmates not a few, for either
longer or shorter periods; and, perhaps, it may fairly be
stated, that none quitted it without such beneficial results
and memorable sensations, as will remain permanent. For
so humble an effort, perhaps, there never was an instance
of such deep human results.
This educative endeavor was partly modified by some
improvements, in America, in the treatment of children,
successful in those particulars to which they were applied.
Miss Martineau, on her return from the United States, in-
troduced the printed works to Mr. Greaves's notice, namely,
“ Conversations with Children on the Gospel,” by A. B.
Alcott, and the “ Record of a School,” by the same. Hence
the establishment at Ham was designated “ Alcott-House
School.” It was Mr. Greaves's intention also, at a recent
events did not, for want of more frequent written commu-
nication, arrive at that point.
For the purpose of preserving a unity of idea, we have
joined two operations which were severed by many years
and many miles. On the subject of the “Education Idea,”
we could, and in justice perhaps, ought to enlarge, in order
to render justice to the memory of one so active in all its
modes, and in constantly endeavoring to connect and re-
connect them with the living principle. For, that " Idea”
is still but lowly appreciated, and coldly felt, even in that
tender seat to which it was so eloquently addressed, the
maternal bosom. The high duty of recalling parents to
the fact, that something more than the culture of the un-
derstanding is needful to the happiness of their offspring
and of themselves, still presses on the benevolent mind.
Neither can a schooling of the heart ever be bought of the
best vicarious teacher, whom the parent may bire. No-


292
James Pierrepont Greaves. [Jan.
thing short of a total submission on the part of the parents
themselves, in all their thoughts, designs, and actions, to
that power under whose dominion their wish is, that the
child should be brought, can secure a good education.
Putting forth so large a demand as this, there can be little
surprise that no very extensive popularity in practice has
resulted, though an unresisting approbation in sentiment
has been awarded.
To return to that point of time when the recent return
of Mr. Greaves from Germany, and the freshness of these
thoughts made him the living centre of every moral circle,
we may remark that he was ever ready to lend his best aid
to every worthy proposition. At all times, abiding with the
true mover, we find our friend always devoting his atten-
tion, and bending his best energies to whatever was, at the
moment, most forward and progressive. This conduct
necessarily brought him in contact with all the liveliest, as
well as most honest and zealous minds, for the new and
heterodox idea always comes from, and always attracts the
original, genetic, unvitiated soul. To trace his occupa-
tions by his note-books, would afford an interesting psy-
chological pursuit, and would furnish aphorisms on every
popular moral subject for several years, commencing with
phrenology, which excited much attention in the year 1826,
and concluding with Magnetism or Socialism, which oc-
cupied the public mind in the year 1841.
METAPHYSICS.
“ Man is the connecting medium between God and Nature,
and as such, not a single fact must be separated from his being,
nor must his being be either in thought, word, or deed, for a
moment separated from unity.
“A synthetical mind can relate every fact, at a glance, to it-
self, and itself as a whole to unity, and this is effected by a cul-
ture in spirit.
“Synthetical culture is more than moral and intellectual cul-
ture; it is a wholing culture, and holds the inmost and outer-
most relations in entireness.
“Spirit alone can whole. Intellect in its best efforts can only
divide, and division is death.
“ Kant shows by what means a knowledge of the absolute is
not, NOT to be obtained ; and this is precious to man.
“ When we begin to analyze or destroy, we lose that very


1843.]
293
James Pierrepont Greaves.
power that made and held together the whole, outward, inward,
inmost."
MYSTICISM.
" There is but one mystical fact for the spiritual and scientific
man to realize, and this is, his conceptive union with spirit; a
fact more certain than his union with matter."
ART.
“A man cannot from a representative get at the idea, which
the artist had when he represented the same; but we must, as
he did, conceive the idea from art or spirit, and then correct or
make a representation of it.
“We must be known of art; this is the grand point in the
representation of its conceptions."
BEHAVIOR.
“Let a cheerful freedom, a generous friendship, always ap-
pear in our countenance, and mark our steps in the spirit.
" Let spirit alone make our whole carriage civil and affable.
“Let spirit alone make our address to each other open and
free.
“ Let spirit alone make our friendships dear, and our com-
munions sweet.
“ If we hold communion with the spirit, we may do to each
other as we have been done unto.
" What is the good of a formal acquaintance with each other,
if we have not found an intimate intercourse with the spirit ?
" Reservedness of manner comes not from the spirit, but
from the spirit of this world.
“Why offer the mind a welcome and deny the spirit a wel-
come? Why invite the mind and neglect to invite the spirit;
nay, why reject the spirit, when we are offering an apparent
welcome to both mind and body?
“Our sympathy with our brethren is not worth much, if it be
not divine sympathy.
“Let us attend far more to what we are doing with the spirit
within, than what we are doing with all the world besides without.
.“ We ought to approve ourselves to the spirit, before we try
to approve ourselves to men : they are blind, but the spirit sees
us in our blindness.
“ If we are not in a right state with the spirit, we must be in
a wrong state with men and with things.
“We ought to avoid giving offence to the spirit in any brother.
We are to welcome the spirit as well as the spiritual and the


294
[Jan.
James Pierrepont Greaves.
natural. If no cover be provided for the spirit, the spirit leaves
us to our uninspired spiritual enjoyments.
“ If we cannot have much fellowship with any particular
man, we may have a fellowship with the spirit in that man."
OCCUPATION.
“ Whenever we are outwardly excited, we should cease to act;
but whenever we have a message from the spirit within, we should
execute it with calmness.
“A fine day may excite one to act, but it is much better that
we act from the calm spirit in any day, be the outward what it
may.”
GENERATION.
“ Diseases proceed altogether from generation, let the condi-
tions be what they may.
“Man's first duty is to have the curse removed from his exist-
ence, and to generate offspring without the curse; and this he
can only do by a marriage in, from, and for God.
“ It is obvious, that man's uncursed existence, and his pro-
perly exercising it, would entirely alter the state of society in
every nation in the world.
“Why do not parents try to transmit the good nature to their
children?
“Why educate for goodness, and propagate badness? Why
propagate badness, and by education try to reform it? Why
not renounce badness, and propagate goodness; or why try to
put goodness on badness ?”
RESPONSIBILITY.
“ Man cannot too much cast responsibility on the spirit that
rules him. Let not a wish nor an inclination be twined to self,
and then the spirit will do more than man can suppose.
“ The spirit's government is absolute because it is the alone
responsible; and man will find himself free, the moment he is
determined to give up his own freedom, that which he by trans-
gression has procured for himself.”
GOVERNMENT.
“ The soul needs not obey anything but goodness; all other
obedience it has a right to refuse, as nothing below goodness
can in every respect satisfy it.
" The soul in alliance with goodness is able to suffer martyr.
dom with satisfaction, and this is the test that goodness is suffi-
cient for it in every respect.
“ If no man can make a law to govern himself, how can he,
as a part of the national council, make laws for the nation ?”'


1843.]
295
James Pierrepont Greaves.
EDUCATION.
“Human education ought to take the side of the spirit in-
stead of the side of nature.
“ Education fails in its duty, when it brings the free-will spirit
to uniformity in matter, instead of unity in the love spirit: when
it gives an external straightness, instead of internal rectitude.
" Very vague ideas prevail of a truly spiritual culture, that is,
a culture of spirit with spirit prior to a cultivation of mind with
mind.
" The teacher must quicken spirit with spirit, and not try to
quicken spirit with knowledge, or with exterior and inferior
circumstances.
“A child's faith has much to encounter, having spirit for its
standard, and meeting with its senses nothing but matter.
“Let a child meet spirit in every human being, that it may
be quickly turned from matter to spirit, and then from spirit
(individual) to spirit (universal.)"
MUTUAL AND SELF-INSTRUCTION.
" I ask * * * to write a sketch of what goes on within
him in any twelve hours of the day, and then see if it be better
to preserve or to burn it.
To If he burns it, he will be convinced by this typic illustration,
that some internal burning is necessary.
“ Any person may test himself in this manner, and then doc-
trines or arguments are unnecessary.”
SPIRIT.
“ Man's return is from science to conscience, and from con-
science to spirit.
“ Learning will not supply the place of spirit, but spirit will
supply the place of learning. Spirit is the wisdom in words,
and the life in practice.
“When we are with the spirit, acting with the spirit, we can-
not do anything wrong, but when we are acting for the spirit,
we may fail, as we may have mistaken our directions or our
duty, and the more likely as the spirit acknowledges no works
but those which it is present at the doing of.
“ Man makes a sad mistake when he relates himself to con-
sequences, and forgets his more precious and antecedent rela-
tion with spirit. The longer he does this, he so confounds him-
self in his own deeds, that he forgets he, himself, is a deed, or
a work of a higher, not yet in a finished state, and which he
interrupts greatly by his darkening and deteriorating measures."


296
[Jan.
James Pierrepont Greaves.
PHRENOLOGY.
“ Phrenology explains to us, that besides our animal organi-
zation, we have a spiritual organization, which spiritual organi-
zation needs a spirit-culture, and without which spirit-culture,
man remains but a rational animal."
REFORM.
“What a nation should and ought to possess, it must not
have until it has progressed to the ground for the same, or until
it be acting from the permanent ground.
« The permanent change will render the outward change
necessary; but the want of a change will not bring about the
permanent change.
“What man has gained for himself within, from the spirit, the
spirit will give him an authority to ask for without, and assist
him to obtain it.
“Man's fitness is himself, not his wishes or desires. As the
foot is, so should the shoe be, and not otherwise."
- ASSOCIATION.
“We must agree together in some third if we are to act
together; it is not two but three that are to make the two, and
that which unites them.
“The thing to be done will not unite the doers.”
MEMORY.
purpose. Memory is performed in spirit; and man is not spirit,
but spiritual. If the spiritual be not with spirit, where is mem-
ory? If the spiritual be only with matter, memory is as little
in man as in the trees.
“If memory were not spirit, how could it act in its oneness
as it does ? if it were spiritual, it would like spirituality be
participable; but as spirit it is absolute unity.
“ Without the spirit there would be no oneness, and memory
in man is this oneness, this spirit, this antecedent that is abso
lutely indivisible.
“Memory is that which carries on all the uniting processes
in man. Whatsoever the faculties hold to it, it holds together ;
and what does not obtain hold of it, is seen by the faculty's fail-
ing. Man in some of his faculties may have worked in spirit
and with spirit, and in other faculties not; and this will account
for the readiness and backwardness of man's particular relation
with memory.”


1843.)
297
Lectures on the Times.
LECTURES ON THE TIMES.
[Read at the Masonic Temple in Boston, in Dec. 1840, and Jan. 1841.)
BY R. W. EMERSON.
LECTURE III. THE TRANSCENDENTALIST.
The first thing we have to say respecting what are call-
ed new views here in New England, at the present time, is,
into the mould of these new times. The light is always
identical in its composition, but it falls on a great variety of
objects, and by so falling is first revealed to us, not in its own
form, for it is formless, but in theirs ; in like manner, thought
only appears in the objects it classifies. What is popularly
called Transcendentalism among us, is Idealism ; Idealism
as it appears in 1842. As thinkers, mankind have ever
divided into two sects, Materialists and Idealists; the first
class founding on experience, the second on conscious-
ness; the first class beginning to think from the data of the
senses, the second class perceive that the senses are not
final, and say, the senses give us representations of things,
but what are the things themselves, they cannot tell. The
materialist insists on facts, on history, on the force of circum-
stances, and the animal wants of man; the idealist on the
power of Thought and of Will, on inspiration, on miracle, on
individual culture. These two modes of thinking are both
natural, but the idealist contends that his way of thinking is
in higher nature. He concedes all that the other affirms,
admits the impressions of sense, admits their coherency,
their use and beauty, and then asks the materialist for his
grounds of assurance that things are as his senses represent
them. But I, he says, affirm facts not affected by the illu-
sions of sense, facts which are of the same nature as the
faculty which reports them, and not liable to doubt; facts
which in their first appearance to us assume a native supe-
riority to material facts, degrading these into a language by
which the first are to be spoken; facts which it only needs
a retirement from the senses to discern. Every material-
ist will be an idealist; but an idealist can never go back-
ward to be a materialist.
The idealist, in speaking of events, sees them as spirits.
VOL. 111. —NO. III.
38


298
[Jan.
Lectures on the Times.
He does not deny the sensuous fact; by no means ; but he
will not see that alone. He does not deny the presence of
this table, this chair, and the walls of this room, but he
looks at these things as the reverse side of the tapestry, as
the other end, each being a sequel or completion of a spir-
itual fact which nearly concerns him. This manner of
looking at things, transfers every object in nature from an
independent and anomalous position without there, into the
consciousness. Even the materialist Condillac, perhaps the
most logical expounder of materialism, was constrained to
say, “ Though we should soar into the heavens, though we
should sink into the abyss, we never go out of ourselves;
it is always our own thought that we perceive.” What
more could an idealist say ?
The materialist, secure in the certainty of sensation,
mocks at fine-spun theories, at star-gazers and dreamers,
and believes that his life is solid, that he at least takes no-
thing for granted, but knows where he stands, and what he
does. Yet how easy it is to show him, that he also is a
phantom walking and working amid phantoms, and that he
need only ask a question or two beyond his daily questions,
to find his solid universe growing dim and impalpable be-
fore his sense. The sturdy capitalist, no matter how deep
and square on blocks of Quincy granite he lays the founda-
tions of his banking-house or Exchange, must set it, at last,
not on a cube corresponding to the angles of his structure,
but on a mass of unknown materials and solidity, red-hot
or white-hot, perhaps at the core, which rounds off to an
almost perfect sphericity, and lies floating in soft air, and
goes spinning away, dragging bank and banker with it at a
rate of thousands of miles the hour, he knows not whither,
- a bit of bullet, now glimmering, now darkling through
a small cubic space on the edge of an unimaginable pit of
emptiness. And this wild balloon, in which his whole ven-
ture is embarked, is a just symbol of his whole state and
faculty. One thing, at least, he says is certain, and does
not give me the headache, that figures do not lie; the
multiplication table has been hitherto found unimpeacha-
ble truth ; and, moreover, if I put a gold eagle in my safe,
I find it again to-morrow ; - but for these thoughts, I know
not whence they are. They change and pass away. But
ask him why he believes that an uniform experience will


1843.]
299
The Transcendentalist.
continue uniform, or on what grounds he founds his faith
in his figures, and he will perceive that his mental fabric is
built up on just as strange and quaking foundations as his
proud edifice of stone.
In the order of thought, the materialist takes his depart-
ure from the external world, and esteems a man as one'
product of that. The idealist takes his departure from his
consciousness, and reckons the world as an appearance.
The materialist respects sensible masses, Society, Govern-
ment, social art, and luxury, every establishment, every mass,
whether majority of numbers, or extent of space, or amount
of objects, every social action. The idealist has another
measure, which is metaphysical, namely, the rank which
things themselves take in his consciousness; not at all, the
size or appearance. Mind is the only reality, of which men
and all other natures are better or worse reflectors. Nature,
literature, history, are only subjective phenomena. Although
in his action overpowered by the laws of action, and so,
warmly coöperating with men, even preferring them to bim-
self, yet when he speaks scientifically, or after the order of
thought, he is constrained to degrade persons into represen-
tatives of truths. He does not respect labor, or the products
of labor, namely, property, otherwise than as a manifold sym-
bol, illustrating with wonderful fidelity of details the laws of
being; he does not respect government, except as far as it
reiterates the law of his mind; nor the church ; nor chari-
ties; nor arts, for themselves; but hears, as at a vast dis-
tance, what they say, as if his consciousness would speak
to him through a pantomimic scene. His thought, — that
is the Universe. His experience inclines him to behold the
procession of facts you call the world, as flowing perpetu-
ally outward from an invisible, unsounded centre in himself,
centre alike of him and of them, and necessitating him to
regard all things as having a subjective or relative existence,
relative to that aforesaid Unknown Centre of him.
From this transfer of the world into the consciousness,
this beholding of all things in the mind, follows easily his
whole ethics. It is simpler to be self-dependent. The
height, the deity of man is to be self-sustained, to need no
gift, no foreign force. Society is good when it does not
violate me ; but best when it is likest to solitude. Every-
thing real is self-existent. Everything divine shares the


300
[Jan.
Lectures on the Times.
self-existence of Deity. All that you call the world is the
shadow of that substance which you are, the perpetual cre-
ation of the powers of thought, of those that are dependent
and of those that are independent of your will. Do not
cumber yourself with fruitless pains to mend and remedy
remote effects ; let the soul be erect, and all things will go
well. You think me the child of my circumstances: I
make my circumstance. Let any thought or motive of
mine be different from that they are, the difference will
transform my whole condition and economy. I— this
thought which is called I, - is the mould into which the
world is poured like melted wax. The mould is invisible,
but the world betrays the shape of the mould. You call it
the power of circumstance, but it is the power of me. Am
I in harmony with myself? my position will seem to you
just and commanding. Am I vicious and insane? my
fortunes will seem to you obscure and descending. As I
am, so shall I associate ; as I am, so shall I act; Cæsar's
history will paint out Cæsar. Jesus acted so, because he
thought so. I do not wish to overlook or to gainsay any
reality ; I say, I make my circumstance: but if you ask me,
Whence am I? I feel like other men my relation to that
Fact which cannot be spoken, or defined, nor even thought,
but which exists, and will exist.
The Transcendentalist adopts the whole connexion of
spiritual doctrine. He believes in miracle, in the perpetual
openness of the human mind to new influx of light and
power; he believes in inspiration, and in ecstasy. He
wishes that the spiritual principle should be suffered to de-
monstrate itself to the end, in all possible applications to
the state of man, without the admission of anything un-
spiritual ; that is, anything positive, dogmatic, personal.
Thus, the spiritual measure of inspiration is the depth of
the thought, and never, who said it ? And so he resists all
attempts to palm other rules and measures on the spirit
than its own.
In action, he easily incurs the charge of antinomianism
by his avowal that he, who has the Lawgiver, may with
safety not only neglect, but even contravene every written
commandment. In the play of Othello, the expiring Desde-
mona absolves her husband of the murder, to her attendant
Emilia. Afterwards, when Emilia charges him with the
crime, Othello exclaims,


1843.]
301
The Transcendentalist.
ent, Jacobilel instan measure ate spiruirtue.
with othecobi, refusins of the pros been a vi
“ You heard her say herself it was not I.”
Emilia replies,
“The more angel she, and thou the blacker devil.”
Of this fine incident, Jacobi, the Transcendental moralist,
makes use, with other parallel instances, in his reply to
Immanuel Kant. Jacobi, refusing all measure of right and
wrong except the determinations of the private spirit, re-
marks that there is no crime but has sometimes been a virtue.
“I,” he says, “am that atheist, that godless person who,
in opposition to an imaginary doctrine of calculation, would
lie as the dying Desdemona lied; would lie and deceive as
Pylades when he personated Orestes; would assassinate
like Timoleon ; would perjure myself like Epaminondas,
and John de Witt; I would resolve on suicide like Cato;
I would commit sacrilege with David ; yea, and pluck ears
of corn on the Sabbath, for no other reason than that I was
fainting for lack of food. For, I have assurance in myself
that in pardoning these faults according to the letter, man
exerts the sovereign right which the majesty of his being
confers on him; he sets the seal of his divine nature to the
grace he accords.'*
In like manner, if there is anything grand and daring in
human thought or virtue, any reliance on the vast, the un-
known; any presentiment; any extravagance of faith, the
spiritualist adopts it as most in nature. The oriental mind
has always tended to this largeness. Buddhism is an ex-
pression of it. The Buddhist who thanks no man, who
says, “ do not flatter your benefactors,'' but who in his con-
viction that every good deed can by no possibility escape its
reward, will not deceive the benefactor by pretending that
he has done more than he should, is a Transcendentalist.
You will see by this sketch that there is no such thing as
a Transcendental party; that there is no pure Transcen-
dentalist; that we know of none but the prophets and her-
alds of such a philosophy; that all who by strong bias of
nature have leaned to the spiritual side in doctrine, have
stopped short of their goal. We have had many harbin-
gers and forerunners; but of a purely spiritual life, history
has yet afforded no example. I mean, we have yet no
* Coleridge's Translation.


302
[Jan.
Lectures on the Times.
man who has leaned entirely on his character, and eaten
angels' food ; who, trusting to his sentiments, found life
made of miracles; who, working for universal aims, found
himself fed, he knew not how; clothed, sheltered, and
weaponed, he knew not how, and yet it was done by his
own hands. Only in the instinct of the lower animals we
find the suggestion of the methods of it, and something
higher than our understanding. The squirrel hoards nuts,
and the bee gathers honey, without knowing what they do,
and they are thus provided for without selfishness or dis-
grace.
Shall we say, then, that Transcendentalism is the Satur-
nalia or excess of Faith ; the presentiment of a faith proper
to man in his integrity, excessive only when his imperfect
obedience hinders the satisfaction of his wish. Nature is
transcendental, exists primarily, necessarily, ever works
and advances, yet takes no thought for the morrow.
Man owns the dignity of the life which throbs around
him in chemistry, and tree, and animal, and in the in-
voluntary functions of his own body; yet he is baulked
when he tries to fling himself into this enchanted circle,
where all is done without degradation. Yet genius and
virtue predict in man the same absence of private ends,
and of condescension to circumstances, united with every
trait and talent of beauty and power.
This way of thinking, falling on Roman times, made
Stoic philosophers ; falling on despotic times, made patriot
Catos and Brutuses ; falling on superstitious times, made
prophets and apostles; on popish times, made protestants
and ascetic monks, preachers of Faith against the preach-
ers of Works; on prelatical times, made Puritans and Qua-
kers; and falling on Unitarian and conservative times,
makes the peculiar shades of Idealism which we know.
It is well known to most of my audience, that the Ideal-
ism of the present day acquired the name of Transcenden-
tal, from the use of that term by Immanuel Kant, of Konigs-
berg, who replied to the skeptical philosophy of Locke,
which insisted that there was nothing in the intellect which
was not previously in the experience of the senses, by
showing that there was a very important class of ideas, or
imperative forms, which did not come by experience, but
through which experience was acquired ; that these were


1843.]
303
The Transcendentalist.
intuitions of the mind itself; and he denominated them
Transcendental forms. The extraordinary profoundness
and precision of that man's thinking have given vogue to
his nomenclature, in Europe and America, to that extent,
that whatever belongs to the class of intuitive thought, is
popularlycalled at the present day Transcendental.
Although, as we have said, there is no pure transcenden-
talist, yet the tendency to respect the intuitions, and to
give them, at least in our creed, all authority over our ex-
perience, has deeply colored the conversation and poetry of
the present day; and the history of genius and of religion
in these times, though impure, and as yet not incarnated in
any powerful individual, will be the history of this tendency.
It is a sign of our times, conspicuous to the coarsest
observer, that many intelligent and religious persons with-
draw themselves from the common labors and competitions
of the market and the caucus, and betake themselves to a
certain solitary and critical way of living, from which no
solid fruit has yet appeared to justify their separation.
They hold themselves aloof: they feel the disproportion
between their faculties and the work offered them, and they
prefer to ramble in the country and perish of ennui, to the
degradation of such charities and such ambitions as the city
can propose to them. They are striking work, and cry-
ing out for somewhat worthy to do! What they do, is
done only because they are overpowered by the humanities
that speak on all sides; and they consent to such labor as
is open to them, though to their lofty dream the writing of
Iliads or Hamlets, or the building of cities or empires seems
drudgery.
Now every one must do after his kind, be he asp or
angel, and these must. The question, which a wise man
and a student of modern history will ask, is, what that kind
is? And truly, as in ecclesiastical history we take so much
pains to know what the Gnostics, what the Essenes, what
the Manichees, and what the Reformers believed, it would
not misbecome us to inquire nearer home, what these com-
panions and contemporaries of ours think and do, at least
so far as these thoughts and actions appear to be not acci-
dental and personal, but common to many, and so the in-
evitable flower of the Tree of Time. Our American liter-
ature and spiritual history are, we confess, in the optative


304
[Jan.
Lectures on the Times.
mood; but whoso knows these seething brains, these ad-
mirable radicals, these unsocial worshippers, these talkers
who talk the sun and moon away, will believe that this
heresy cannot pass away without leaving its mark.
They are lonely; the spirit of their writing and con-
ral society; they incline to shut themselves in their cham-
ber in the house, to live in the country rather than in the
town, and to find their tasks and amusements in solitude.
Society, to be sure, does not like this very well; it saith,
Whoso goes to walk alone, accuses the whole world ; he
declareth all to be unfit to be his companions; it is very
uncivil, nay, insulting; Society will retaliate. Mean-
time, this retirement does not proceed from any whim on
the part of these separators; but if any one will take pains
to talk with them, he will find that this part is chosen both
from temperament and from principle; with some unwil-
lingness, too, and as a choice of the less of two evils; for
these persons are not by nature melancholy, sour, and
unsocial, - they are not stockish or brute, - but joyous,
susceptible, affectionate; they have even more than others
a great wish to be loved. Like the young Mozart, they
are rather ready to cry ten times a day, “But are you
sure you love me?" Nay, if they tell you their whole
thought, they will own that love seems to them the last
and highest gift of nature; that there are persons whom
in their hearts they daily thank for existing, - persons
whose faces are perhaps unknown to them, but whose
fame and spirit have penetrated their solitude, - and for
whose sake they wish to exist. To behold the beauty of
another character, which inspires a new interest in our
own; to behold the beauty lodged in a human being, with
such vivacity of apprehension, that I am instantly forced
home to inquire if I am not deformity itself; to behold in
another the expression of a love so high that it assures
itself, -- assures itself also to me against every possible
casualty except my unworthiness ; — these are degrees on
the scale of human happiness, to which they have ascend-
ed; and it is a fidelity to this sentiment wbich has made
common association distasteful to them. They wish a just
and even fellowship, or none. They cannot gossip with
you, and they do not wish, as they are sincere and re-


1843.]
305
The Transcendentalist.
ligious, to gratify any mere curiosity which you may enter-
tain. Like fairies, they do not wish to be spoken of.
Love me, they say, but do not ask who is my cousin and
my uncle. If you do not need to hear my thought, be-
cause you can read it in my face and behavior, then I will
tell it you from sunrise to sunset. If you cannot divine
it, you would not understand what I say. I will not
molest myself for you. I do not wish to be profaned.
And yet, when you see them near, it seems as if this
loneliness, and not this love, would prevail in their circum-
stances, because of the extravagant demand they make on
human nature. That, indeed, constitutes a new feature in
their portrait, that they are the most exacting and extor-
tionate critics. Their quarrel with every man they meet,
is not with his kind, but with his degree. There is not
enough of him, – that is the only fault. They prolong
their privilege of childhood in this wise, of doing nothing,
- but making immense demands on all the gladiators in
the lists of action and fame. They make us feel the
strange disappointment which overcasts every human youth.
So many promising youths, and never a finished man!
The profound nature will have a savage rudeness; the
delicate one will be shallow, or the victim of sensibility;
the richly accomplished will have some capital absurdity;
and so every piece has a crack. "T is strange, but this
masterpiece is a result of such an extreme delicacy, that
the most unobserved flaw in the boy will neutralize the
most aspiring genius, and spoil the work. Talk with a
seaman of the hazards to life in his profession, and he will
ask you, "Where are the old sailors ? do you not see that
all are young men ?" And we, on this sea of human
thought, in like manner inquire, Where are the old ideal-
ists? where are they who represented to the last genera-
tion that extravagant hope, which a few happy aspirants
suggest to ours? In looking at the class of counsel, and
power, and wealth, and at the matronage of the land,
amidst all the prudence and all the triviality, one asks,
Where are they who represented genius, virtue, the in-
visible and heavenly world, to these? Are they dead,
taken in early ripeness to the gods, -as ancient wisdom
foretold their fate? Or did the high idea die out of them,
and leave their unperfumed body as its tomb and tablet,
VOL. III. — NO. III.
39


306
[Jan.
Lectures on the Times.
announcing to all that the celestial inhabitant, who once
gave them beauty, had departed? Will it be better with
the new generation ? We casily predict a fair future to
each new candidate who enters the lists, but we are frivo-
lous and volatile, and by low aims and ill example do what
we can to defeat this hope. Then these youths bring us
a rough but effectual aid. By their unconcealed dissatis-
faction, they expose our poverty, and the insignificance of
man to man. A man is a poor limitary benefactor. He
ought to be a shower of benefits — a great influence, which
should never let his brother go, but should refresh old
merits continually with new ones; so that, though absent,
he should never be out of my mind, his name never far
from my lips; but if the earth should open at my side, or
my last hour were come, his name should be the prayer
I should utter to the Universe. But in our experience,
man is cheap, and friendship wants its deep sense. We
affect to dwell with our friends in their absence, but we do
not; when deed, word, or letter comes not, they let us
go. These exacting children advertise us of our wants.
There is no compliment, no smooth speech with them ;
they pay you only this one compliment, of insatiable ex-
pectation ; they aspire, they severely exact, and if they only
stand fast in this watch-tower, and persist in demanding
unto the end, and without end, then are they terrible friends,
whereof poet and priest cannot choose but stand in awe;
and what if they eat clouds, and drink wind, they have
not been without service to the race of man.
With this passion for what is great and extraordinary,
it cannot be wondered at, that they are repelled by vulgar-
ity and frivolity in people. They say to themselves, It is
better to be alone than in bad company. And it is really
a wish to be met, — the wish to find society for their hope
and religion, — which prompts them to shun what is called
society. They feel that they are never so fit for friend-
ship, as when they have quit mankind, and taken them-
selves to friend. A picture, a book, a favorite spot in the
hills or the woods, which they can people with the fair and
worthy creation of the fancy, can give them often forms
so vivid, that these for the time shall seem real, and society
the illusion.
But their solitary and fastidious manners not only with-


1843.]
307
The Transcendentalist.
draw them from the conversation, but from the labors of
the world; they are not good citizens, not good members
of society ; unwillingly they bear their part of the public
and private burdens; they do not willingly share in the
public charities, in the public religious rites, in the enter-
prizes of education, of missions foreign or domestic, in the
abolition of the slave-trade, or in the temperance-society.
They are inactive; they do not even like to vote. The
philanthropists inquire whether Transcendentalism does not
mean sloth. They had as lief hear that their friend was
dead as that he was a Transcendentalist; for then is he
paralyzed, and can never do anything for humanity.
What right, cries the good world, has the man of genius
to retreat from work, and indulge himself? The popular
literary creed seems to be, 'I am a sublime genius; I ought.
not therefore to labor.' But genius is the power to labor
better and more availably than others. Deserve thy ge-
nius: exalt it. The good, the illuminated, sit apart from
the rest, censuring their dulness and vices, as if they
thought that, by sitting very grand in their chairs, the very
brokers, attorneys, and congressmen would see the error
of their ways, and flock to them. But the good and wise
must learn to act, and carry salvation to the combatants
and demagogues in the dusty arena below.
On the part of these children, it is replied, that life and
their faculty seem to them gifts too rich to be squandered
on such trifles as you propose to them. What you call
your fundamental institutions, your great and holy causes,
seem to them great abuses, and, when nearly seen, paltry
Temperance, say Calvinism, or Unitarianism, — becomes
speedily a little shop, where the article, let it have been at
first never so subtle and ethereal, is now made up into
portable and convenient cakes, and retailed in small quan-
tities to suit purchasers. You make very free use of these
words “great and holy," but few things appear to them
such. Few persons have any magnificence of nature to
inspire enthusiasm, and the philanthropies and charities
have a certain air of quackery. As to the general course
of living, and the daily employments of men, they cannot
see much virtue in these, since they are parts of this vicious
circle; and, as no great ends are answered by the men,


308
(Jan.
Lectures on the Times.
there is nothing noble in the arts by which they are main-
tained. Nay, they have made the experiment, and found
that, from the liberal professions to the coarsest manual
labor, and from the courtesies of the academy and the
college to the conventions of the cotillon-room and the
morning call, there is a spirit of cowardly compromise and
seeming, which intimates a frightful skepticism, a life with-
out love, and an activity without an aim.
Unless the action is necessary, unless it is adequate,
I do not wish to perform it. I do not wish to do one
thing but once. I do not love routine. Once possessed
of the principle, it is equally easy to make four or forty
thousand applications of it. A great man will be content
to have indicated in any the slightest manner his perception
of the reigning Idea of his time, and will leave to those
who like it the multiplication of examples. When he has
hit the white, the rest may shatter the target. Every
thing admonishes us how needlessly long life is. Every
moment of a hero so raises and cheers us, that a twelve-
month is an age. All that the brave Xanthus brings home
from his wars, is the recollection that, at the storming of
Samos, “in the heat of the battle, Pericles smiled on me,
and passed on to another detachment.” It is the quality
of the moment, not the number of days, of events, or of
actors, that imports.
New, we confess, and by no means happy, is our con-
dition : if you want the aid of our labor, we ourselves
stand in greater want of the labor. We are miserable
with inaction. We perish of rest and rust. But we do
not like your work.
• Then,' says the world, show me your own.'
We have none.'
• What will you do, then ?' cries the world.
• We will wait.'
"How long ??
• Until the Universe rises up and calls us to work.'
But whilst you wait, you grow old and useless.'
Be it so: I can sit in a corner and perish, (as you call
it, but I will not move until I have the highest command.
If no call should come for years, for centuries, then I
know that the want of the Universe is the attestation of
faith by this my abstinence. Your virtuous projects, so


1843.]
309
The Transcendentalist.
called, do not cheer me. I know that which shall come
will cheer me. If I cannot work, at least I need not lie.
All that is clearly due to-day is not to lie. In other
placés, other men have encountered sharp trials, and have
behaved themselves well. The martyrs were sawn asunder,
or hung alive on meat-hooks. Cannot we screw our cour-
age to patience and truth, and without complaint, or even
with good-humor, await our turn of action in the Infinite
Counsels?'
But, to come a little closer to the secret of these per-
sons, we must say, that to them it seems a very easy matter
to answer the objections of the man of the world, but not
so easy to dispose of the doubts and objections that occur
to themselves. They are exercised in their own spirit
with queries, which acquaint them with all adversity, and
with the trials of the bravest heroes. When I asked them
concerning their private experience, they answered some-
what in this wise: It is not to be denied that there must
be some wide difference between my faith and other faith;
and mine is a certain brief experience, which surprised me
in the highway or in the market, in some place, at some
time, - whether in the body or out of the body, God
knoweth, - and made me aware that I had played the
fool with fools all this time, but that law existed for me
and for all; that to me belonged trust, a child's trust and
obedience, and the worship of ideas, and I should never
be fool more. Well, in the space of an hour, probably,
I was let down from this height; I was at my old tricks,
the selfish member of a selfish society. My life is super-
ficial, takes no root in the deep world; I ask, When shall
I die, and be relieved of the responsibility of seeing an
Universe which I do not use? I wish to exchange this
flash-of-lightning faith for continuous daylight, this fever-
glow for a benign climate...
These two states of thought diverge every moment, and
stand in wild contrast. To him who looks at his life from
these moments of illumination, it will seem that he skulks
and plays a mean, shiftless, and subaltern part in the
world. That is to be done which he has not skill to do,
or to be said which others can say better, and he lies by,
or occupies his hands with some plaything, until his hour
comes again. Much of our reading, much of our labor,


310
[Jan.
Lectures on the Times.
seems mere waiting : it was not that we were born for.
Any other conld do it as well, or better. So little skill
enters into these works, so little do they mix with the
divine life, that it really signifies little what we do, whether
we turn a grindstone, or ride, or run, or make fortunes, or
govern the state. The worst feature of this double con-
sciousness is, that the two lives, of the understanding and
of the soul, which we lead, really show very little relation
to each other, never meet and measure each other: one
prevails now, all buzz and din; and the other prevails
then, all infinitude and paradise ; and, with the progress
of life, the two discover no greater disposition to reconcile
themselves. Yet, what is my faith? What am I? What
but a thought of serenity and independence, an abode in
the deep blue sky? Presently the clouds shut down
again; yet we retain the belief that this petty web we
weave will at last be overshot and reticulated with veins
of the blue, and that the moments will characterize the
days. Patience, then, is for us, is it not? Patience, and
still patience. When we pass, as presently we shall, into
some new infinitude, out of this Iceland of negations, it
will please us to reflect that, though we had few virtues or
consolations, we bore with our indigence, nor once strove
to repair it with hypocrisy or false heat of any kind.
But this class are not sufficiently characterized, if we
omit to add that they are lovers and worshippers of Beauty.
In the eternal trinity of Truth, Goodness, and Beauty,
each in its perfection including the three, they prefer to
make Beauty the sign and head. Something of the same
taste is observable in all the moral movements of the time,
in the religious and benevolent enterprises. They have
a liberal, even an æsthetic spirit. A reference to Beauty
in action sounds, to be sure, a little hollow and ridiculous
in the ears of the old church. In politics, it has often
sufficed, when they treated of justice, if they kept the
bounds of selfish calculation. If they granted restitution,
it was prudence which granted it. But the justice which
is now claimed for the black, and the pauper, and the
drunkard, is for Beauty - is for a necessity to the soul of
the agent, not of the beneficiary. I say this is the ten-
dency, not yet the realization. Our virtue totters and
trips, does not yet walk firmly. Its representatives are


1843.]
311
The Transcendentalist.
austere; htey preach and denounce; their rectitude is not
yet a grace. They are still liable to that slight taint of
burlesque which, in our strange world, attaches to the
zealot. A saint should be as dear as the apple of the eye.
Yet we are tempted to smile, and we fee from the work-
ing to the speculative reformer, to escape that same slight
ridicule. Alas for these days of derision and criticism !
We call the Beautiful the highest, because it appears to us
the golden mean, escaping the dowdiness of the good, and
the heartlessness of the true. — They are lovers of nature
also, and find an indemnity in the inviolable order of the
world for the violated order and grace of man.
There is, no doubt, a great deal of well-founded objec-
tion to be spoken or felt against the sayings and doings of
this class, some of whose traits we have selected; no doubt,
they will lay themselves open to criticism and to lampoons,
and as ridiculous stories will be to be told of them as of
any. There will be cant and pretension; there will be
subtilty and moonshine. These persons are of unequal
strength, and do not all prosper. They coinplain that
everything around them must be denied ; and if feeble, it
takes all their strength to deny, before they can begin to lead
their own life. Grave seniors insist on their respect to this
institution, and that usage; to an obsolete history; to some
vocation, or college, or etiquette, or beneficiary, or charity,
or morning or evening call, which they resist, as what does
not concern them. But it costs such sleepless nights, and
alienations and misgivings, – they have so many moods
about it; — these old guardians never change their minds;
they have but one mood on the subject, namely, that
Antony is very perverse, – that it is quite as much as An-
tony can do, to assert his rights, abstain from what he
thinks foolish, and keep his temper. He cannot help the
reaction of this injustice in his own mind. He is braced-
up and stilted ; all freedom and flowing genius, all sallies
of wit and frolic nature are quite out of the question; it is
well if he can keep from lying, injustice, and suicide.
This is no time for gayety and grace. His strength and
spirits are wasted in rejection. But the strong spirits over-
power those around them without effort. Their thought
and emotion comes in like a flood, quite withdraws them
from all notice of these carping critics ; they surrender


312
[Jan.
Lectures on the Times.
themselves with glad heart to the heavenly guide, and
only by implication reject the clamorous nonsense of the
hour. Grave seniors talk to the deaf, - church and old
book mumble and virtualize to an unheeding, preöccupied
and advancing mind, and thus they by happiness of greater
inomentum lose no time, but take the right road at first.
But all these of whom I speak are not proficients, they
are novices; they only show the road in which man should
travel, when the soul has greater health and prowess. Yet
let them feel the dignity of their charge, and deserve a
larger power. Their heart is the ark in which the fire is
concealed, which shall burn in a broader and universal
fame. Let them obey the Genius then most when bis
impulse is wildest ; then most when he seems to lead to
uninhabitable desarts of thought and life ; for the path
which the hero travels alone is the highway of health and
benefit to mankind. What is the privilege and nobility of
our nature, but its persistency, through its power to attach
itself to what is permanent ?
Society also has its duties in reference to this class, and
must behold them with what charity it can. Possibly some,
benefit may yet accrue from them to the state. In our
Mechanics Fair, there must be not only bridges, ploughs,
carpenters' planes, and baking troughs, but also some few
finer instruments, – rainguages, thermometers, and tele-
scopes ; and in society, besides farmers, sailors, and weav-
ers, there must be a few persons of purer fire kept specially
as guages and meters of character; persons of a fine, de-
tecting instinct, who betray the smallest accumulations of
wit and feeling in the bystander. Perhaps too there might
be room for the exciters and monitors; collectors of the
heavenly spark with power to convey the electricity to
others. Or, as the storm-tossed vessel at sea speaks the
frigate or line-packet' to learn its longitude, so it may not
be without its advantage that we should now and then en-
counter rare and gifted men, to compare the points of our
spiritual compass, and verify our bearings from superior
chronometers.
Amidst the downward tendency and proneness of things,
when every voice is raised for a new road or another stat-
ute, or a subscription of stock, for an improvement in dress,
or in dentistry, for a new house or a larger business, for a po-


1843.]
313
A Song of Spring.
litical party, or the division of an estate, — will you not
tolerate one or two solitary voices in the land, speaking for
thoughts and principles not marketable or perishable ?
Soon these improvements and mechanical inventions will
be superseded; these modes of living lost out of memory;
these cities rotted, ruined by war, by new inventions, by
new seats of trade, or the geologic changes: — all gone,
like the shells which sprinkle the seabeach with a white
colony to-day, forever renewed to be forever destroyed.
But the thoughts which these few hermits strove to pro-
claim by silence, as well as by speech, not only by what
they did, but by what they forbore to do, shall abide in
beauty and strength, to reorganize themselves in nature, to
invest themselves anew in other, perhaps higher endowed
and happier mixed clay than ours, in fuller union with the
surrounding system.
A SONG OF SPRING.
Leaves on the trees,
And buds in the breeze,
And tall grass waving on the meadow side,
And the showerlet sweet,
While the soft clouds meet
Again in their golden robes, when day has died.
The scholar his pen
Hath mended again,
For the new life runs in his wearied veins ;
While the wild child Aies
Mid the flowers' fresh dyes,
And the happy bird gushes with sudden strains.
VOL. III. NO. III.
40


314
[Jan.
The Nubian Pyramids.
DISCOVERIES IN THE NUBIAN PYRAMIDS.
[Translated from the (Vienna) Jahrbücher der Literatur.]
Dr. C. G. Carus, on the discovery of valuable golden ornaments
in a Nubian pyramid, by Dr. Ferlini, of Bologna.
On the 22d of April, 1841, on my return from Florence, I
passed a day in Bologna, where the rich collections of Professor
Alessandrini, in Comparative Anatomy, might well offer me
sufficient objects of consideration. At noon, after I had attend-
ed a sitting of the Academy of Sciences, and had particularly
enjoyed an interesting discourse of Professor Calori, I visited
some collections of art, and among others it was proposed to me
to see a collection of antiquities, which a Bolognese physician
had brought with him from Egypt about four years before. My
interest was increased by the fact, that it was a physician who
had collected these treasures, and I delayed not to enter. Dr.
Ferlini himself was not at home; a young black (whom he had
also brought home with him) opened the door to me, and I found
first, a small number of stuffed Egyptian animals of little variety;
also, oriental weapons and utensils; but in addition, a very re-
markable collection of rich golden ornaments, with the model
of the Pyramid, in which this so valuable treasure was found.
The sister of Dr. Ferlini, a friendly, well-bred lady, appeared,
and explained very pleasantly the different pieces of the collec-
tion; and also at parting gave me an opportunity to buy a little
quarto volume, in which her brother has himself given a report
of his researches and this important discovery, with a catalogue,
and drawings of the most remarkable pieces. The volume is
entitled — Relation historique des fouilles opérés dans la Nubie,
par le docteur Joseph Ferlini, de Bologne. Rome, 1838.
The treasure found, and here collected, has not failed to at-
tract the attention of antiquarians; and the more, because
many other travellers, who have made researches, furnished with
ample means, and commissioned by governments, (as for in-
stance the learned Rosellini,) have not succeeded in discovering
anything of consequence wrought in gold. The king of Bavaria
has indeed already, at considerable cost, procured a small part
of Ferlini's treasure for the gallery at Munich. Yet it was not
all this, which particularly interested me in this discovery. The
interest, with which it inspired me, came especially from the
psychological side.
I did not fail to make myself thoroughly acquainted with the


1843.]
315
The Nubian Pyramids.
history of Dr. Ferlini's discoveries, and will presently lay before
my readers in a translation, the most important parts of his ac-
count. For two reasons this will draw to itself the whole at-
tention of every one, who is not accustomed to stop at the sur-
face of what he sees. First indeed, that in a man who for twen-
ty years had led a very active life as a practising physician in
Albania, Greece, and Egypt successively, and might now at
length return with a well-earned fortune to his home, – the de-
termined impulse should at once arise, to seek for curiosities
and treasures among these mysterious relics of a grey antiquity,
- even risking the loss of his property so laboriously acquired.
And in the second place, that this quite irresistible attraction,
resting merely upon a dim presentiment, spite of all obstacles,
and after it already seemed that all hope must be given up, has
yet actually led to a result so splendid, a reward so rich.
It must be allowed that the whole affair is a little disenchant-
ed and brought down, by the circumstance, that Ferlini himself
cared little for finding any but particularly costly objects. Not
the less does his decided presentiment, and its complete confir-
mation through this discovery, remain a remarkable psychologi-
cal fact. Certainly, when a Columbus stakes everything on a
like undoubting presentiment of the existence of transatlantic
countries, year after year moves high and low to assist in the
execution of his plans, — at last actually discovers a fourth
quarter of the globe, we feel more deeply the meaning of that
beautiful saying of Schiller,
- Nature is ever in alliance with Genius;
The one keeps the promise of the other.”'
And yet with Columbus also it was originally rather instinct,
the unconscious presentiment, that the reality must respond to
his effort; and if he thought of the advantages of a possible dis-
covery, they were far more material and nearer at hand, rather
contemplating his own emolument and that of the crown, than
any distinct internal prophecy of the development of European
humanity in a transatlantic region. In short, we always come
back to this; - a presentiment lay in the mind, a possibility of a
foreseen future and destiny, through some means, which as yet
has no existence, or as yet exists not for us ; - and it is the
same, which moves strongly in the animal world, leading the
bird of passage upon his journey, and guiding with certainty to
her young the dove who has been carried more than fifty miles
from her nest. But it is interesting, when we meet such facts
in the life of man, to consider and preserve them. And as a
fact of this kind, we may certainly regard these discoveries of
Ferlini. I hope, therefore, that his own communications, which
follow, will not fail to excite the interest of our readers.


316
[Jan.
The Nubian Pyramids.
He tells his story thus.
“Ever since my residence in Greece and Egypt, I had had
the idea of making some discovery useful to history. For this
end I sought to gain the good opinion of the Governor. After
some months an opportunity occurred of asking his permission
to undertake excavations in the places where old monuments
were found. The Pacha was astonished at my request, and
told me of all the dangers to which my undertaking was ex-
posed; he also represented to me that, though he had given me
permission, he would only allow me to work, upon my promising
to pay the laborers. I also ran the risk of losing my savings for
full four years. He advised me to satisfy myself with what I
had, and even told me that I exposed myself to certain death by
my covetousness, since the blacks, whom I must employ, were so
malicious and cruel, that in case I should discover anything of
value, I might be certain they would take my life, in order to
possess themselves of my treasure. Finally, the Governor told
me, that since he had no great authority in the desert, through
which the way to Sabdarad lay, he could give me no perfect
guarantee of my safety. As the Governor saw meanwhile, that
his remarks made no great impression upon me, he promised
me, that he would grant my wish, as soon as another physician
could be procured to take my place.. As soon as I heard that
my successor had set out from Cairo, I called upon Sig. Anto-
nio Stefani, an Albanian, and made him a partner in my under-
taking, since he knew the country better than I, having already
carried on a trade there for fifteen years. I promised him half
the fruits of our discoveries, gave him four hundred Spanish
dollars, and sent him to Musselamiah to buy camels, ropes, grain,
leather bags, and the necessary instruments for excavation.
Musselamiah is a large village three days journey from Cartum,
in the interior of the peninsula, where a market is held once a
week. I bought large stores of meat and cut it in strips, which
were dried in the sun, as is the custom of the country.
“I took into my service thirty resolute young men, and prom-
ised each of them two Spanish dollars a month, and his food.
After fourteen days came Stefani with twenty-seven camels,
provisions, and tools. We now only waited for Sig. Gallina, my
successor, who arrived the 10th of August, 1834. The next
morning I sent forward the camels, the servants, and some
slaves by land, and embarked with Sig. Stefani and our fami-
lies.
“At Vod-Benaga, after three days journey, I sent my com-
panion to the Turkish governor of the village, who lived in
Sendih, to show him the form of permission which the Pacha
had given me. The Governor commanded all the servants of


1843.)
317
The Nubian Pyramids.
the state to let me dig unmolested wherever I would, and guar-
anteed the reward which I was to give the workmen, since hith-
erto no enterprise of the kind had been ventured upon in his
district. My family and Sig. Stefani's remained in Vod-Bena-
gas. We took servants, provided ourselves with water and food,
and set out toward the desert named Galah-Volet-Mamouth,
eight hours' distance from the Nile, where stands a very beauti-
ful temple, whose outside is covered with hieroglyphics. We
passed the first day in making strong hedges of thorny twigs, to
protect us from the lions, which are very numerous in these re-
mote places. The next morning we explored with great care
the outside of the temple; and since it was half buried in sand,
we tried to clear this away by help of baskets made of ox-skin,
which I had had made at Vod-Benaga. We tried particularly
to remove the sand from the eastern side, in hope of finding the
entrance, but it was without success; then we attempted it at
the principal facade, but our efforts were no more fortunate.
Afterward, we began on the west side, but as we saw that all our
efforts were unsuccessful, we wholly gave up this undertaking.
“ We were indeed constrained to this by many other urgent
reasons; five of our camels had died, the others were sick, ex-
hausted, and worn out by the long marches which they must
make to the Nile; the water and the food were unhealthy, our
people had the colic, and a little negro, the son of a female
slave, who prepared our wretched meals, had already died. We
journeyed away, therefore, and turned toward Volet-Ahsan, to
seek less dangerous places, and thus approached within two
hours' journey of the Nile. We found here another temple still
smaller than the former. We first made an enclosure of thorns,
to protect ourselves from the lions, who, urged by hunger,
howled every night in our neighborhood. I began then to ex-
amine the temple, but found after three days, that in our want
of good nourishment and fresh water, we were in no situation
to continue so laborious a life. That we might no longer labor
without result, and so lose our money, we set out to return to
our families. The day after our return to our tents, we receiv-
ed visits from a great number of the inhabitants of the little
neighboring villages, who came to beg for employment. We
gave to each the fifteenth of a dollar. Their beasts of burden
supplied us with water, while our camels went to the Nile,
where they found rich pastures, that they might thus restore
their exhausted strength. There are at Vod-Benaga many pil-
lars standing, the remains of an old temple of very rude work-
manship. I sought out the part, which had served the ancient
inhabitants as a burial place, and began my excavations as soon
as I had found it. First, I discovered a large antechamber,


318
[Jan.
The Nubian Pyramids.
similar to the subterranean galleries of the Roman catacombs.
This antechamber was many fathoms in circumference, and
contained a number of closely covered Burmes, a sort of vases
made of burnt clay, such as the blacks still use in their houses
for carrying water.
“The discovery of these vases excited great astonishment
among the workmen, who believed that they should find gold in
them. To undeceive them, I raised one of the vases in my
hand, and dashed it to the ground so that it broke. It contained
nothing but earth kneaded with water. I examined this earth
in hope of finding in it some amulet or a scarabæus ; I found
nothing either in this vase or in the others, which I afterward
broke. I made a final examination in the depths of the gallery,
and saw by the lamplight in a pit several feet deep many corpses,
which showed nothing remarkable, except the one which lay in
the middle and under a stone. This one had a sabre on the
one side, a lance on the other, and a bow and arrows. Hardly
had I touched them, when the oxydized weapons broke, with
the exception of some arrows, which were covered with a sort of
plating. I carried away these relics, which seemed to me to be
interesting.
“After some days of unprofitable labor, I determined to have
excavations made in the town, where I had found some remains
of pillars, and I very soon found at that place a splendid pilaster
of red granite and quadrangular form. Each side was three
fathoms high, half a fathom broad. At about a third of the
height the pilaster was ornamented on every side with a band
formed of hieroglyphics, which enclosed various symbolic fig-
ures. On one side were two men and a woman, all naked ; on the
other side two other figures. The two remaining sides were simi-
lar, but with different figures. Since it was impossible to trans-
port this large stone on the backs of our camels, I attempted to
break off the lower part of it, that I might at least have the
hieroglyphics, but the granite was so hard that the attempt fail-
ed. I tried to get off a tolerably large piece of it, by cutting
with saws and with water, but could only make a superficial
impression. I was obliged to give up the undertaking, and gave
the pilaster in charge to the chief of the town of Vod-Benaga,
with injunctions not to part with it without my orders. I after-
wards presented it to M. Minaut, the French consul at
Cairo.
“ As we continued our excavations, we discovered a place
paved with red bricks, in the middle of which stood a pillar.
This building had probably served the Egyptians as a dwelling,
since it had still the diminutive form of the houses of the present
day. I found there a little mask cut in jet, which I took away


1943.)
319
The Nubian Pyramids.
with me. Farther on, we discovered a red granite similar to
the first, but larger and better carved. I let it be again covered
with earth. At last we found a temple in ruins, of which the
savages had injured the decorations. With this we ended our
examinations, whose insignificant results were neither sufficient
to pay the cost, nor to reward us in the least for our labor. We
proceeded no farther in our examination of Vod-Benaga, left the
town, and turned toward Begaraviah, where the great Pyramids
are. In this still region, the seat of ancient greatness, I had
already long designed to seek some monuments, which were
fitted to throw light upon the history of so interesting a part of
the world, which had hitherto been visited only first by Sig.
Belzoni, and by me.
“We fixed our tents near the village of Begaraviah, which is
not far distant from the Nile, and hired some negro-huts. We
employed a part of our people in making baskets of ox-skin,
which were designed for the removal of the earth. The rest of
the slaves must remain to take care of the camels. We then
went to the Pyramids, which we saw at an hour's distance.
“We first passed through the old town of Meröe, which is al-
most wholly covered with sand, and found there only some
sphinxes of black granite, which were injured and partly de-
stroyed. Not far from the town many simple pyramids are to
be seen in ruins, and we found a hill in the neighborhood,
whose summit was crowned with one-and-twenty pyramids,
ruined principally on the top. A single one was yet nearly un-
injured. On the east of it we found eight other smaller ones,
which were in very good preservation. At the foot of the hill
we saw still others, smaller, of which only the Portico or Sanc-
tuarium, covered with hieroglyphic inscriptions, remained unin-
jured. Here I wished to begin my labors, but my friend Sig.
Stefani induced me first to make a trial in the town, which lay
near the avenue of the Sphinxes. Four days after our arrival
we set up our encampment, and requested laborers from the
Sheik, or lord of the village. At first they came unwillingly,
fearing that they should not be paid, but afterward so many
offered themselves that we had to send them away. We began
our digging in a sort of dwelling, which seemed to have been
destroyed by the hand of man. We found in it a head of a mace
covered with a blue enamelled lacker, and an ichneumon of
serpentine. We continued to explore, in the hope of finding
something valuable, but in vain. We must go farther. I left
Sig. Stefani, and took a hundred men with me to examine the
great Pyramids. Some days later my friend discovered another
larger dwelling, but there was no advantage from this either,
since he found nothing but a little idol of burnt and lackered


320
[Jan.
The Nubian Pyramids.
clay. In the mean while I had searched through the remains of
a small pyramid, which lay at the foot of a little hill. When I
came to the base of the hill, I found that it consisted of black,
flat stones, which seemed to have been laid there by the hand of
man. I tried to come nearer the foundation by the help of the
pickaxe; and after I had cleared away a little earth, I plainly
saw a step. It was the first stair of a flight, which led into the
interior of a monument. After this I discovered a second stair,
then a third, and so on. Night surprised us; we must desist
from our labors; but the next day I summoned Sig. Stefani,
his people, and the Arabs who were with him; we were in all
three hundred and fifty persons; that was just the number
of people that we needed, to dig out and carry away the earth.
The Arabs, who saw that we paid our people daily, (to which
they had hitherto not been accustomed,) were now eager to pitch
their tents in the neighborhood of the work. These tents are
made of long inwoven straw; the Arabs call them Birs.
"I uncovered the staircase by degrees, till I came to the ninth
step, which was the last. It led to a little vaulted grotto, where
I found at first only bones of camels, horses, and other smaller
skeletons, which I took to be hounds. I next found two differ-
ent sorts of riding-gear; one seemed to be the packsaddle of a
camel, the other a horse-saddle; finally, some pieces of metal
also, in the form of bells, upon which birds and deities were
engraved.
* In the depths of the grotto I saw a large stone, which formed
the entrance to a burial-monument. I ordered it to be raised,
and found an oval opening wrought in the rock by means of the
chisel. It was filled up with earth kneaded with water. I had
it dug out and carried away. But the heat and dampness in
this opening were so stilling, that even the workmen, though
accustomed to extreme heat, could not remain in the grotto
longer than five minutes. I let them work by turns. After we
had wholly cleared out this burial place, I found opposite the
door of entrance a grave like that just described. It contained
a heap of human bones, thrown one upon another, and no
weapons, nor any other ornaments were found among them.
“During this time Sig. Stefani, who had employed himself with
demolishing the other pyramid, had only come to the top of the
portico. Some days later he succeeded in finding the staircase
to the vault. Among the corpses one was found covered with
à stone. They dug at the side of the head to remove the stone,
when a laborer, as he struck with his mattock upon a round
body, as large as an ostrich egg, brought to light a number of
objects made of glass, which were of firm, white, and transpa-
rent quality..
0
22 22


1843.]
321
The Nubian Pyramids.
“While Sig. Stefani superintended this work, I had explored
the ruined pyramid, from which I obtained no good result, find-
ing nothing but a block of stone in the portico, upon which
two figures were engraven. It will perhaps be surprising to
hear with what patience and constancy I prosecuted my search,
in so very doubtful hope of seeing the fruit of my labor. I
openly confess, that I was often overcome by sorrow, when I
after long days of labor returned into my tent with my friend,
and the laborers who followed us, springing and uitering a
frightful howling, held out their hands to us to receive the re-
ward of a labor which I must regard as lost. Our food too was
wretched, and, considering our continued night-watches to se-
cure our lives from the plots, which might threaten us at any
moment, (Sig. Stefani and I were obliged to watch half the
night by turns, through fear of the treachery of our people and
the malice of the negroes ;) withal an intolerable heat, and
finally, the fear of losing in a moment all prospect of a fortunate
issue to so expensive an undertaking, which I had prosecuted
with the greatest constancy - it must be confessed, that these
circumstances were fitted to depress a stronger spirit than mine.
At least they had so great effect upon me, that I was on the
point of giving up my plan. But when I saw the workmen
with their miserable sustenance digging with the greatest per-
severance in the mere expectation of a trifling reward, I took
courage again, and to such a degree, that I determined either to
return without a sous, or as the possessor of a treasure. And so
when I had dug through one building without success, I passed
on to another.
“When Sig. Stefani had ended his labors in the pyramid, I
proposed to him to begin another work elsewhere, namely, be-
tween the village and the west side of the pyramid, where, upon
a hill, are standing the remains of an old town. This attempt
produced no favorable result; but the natives encouraged me,
and assured me, that they certainly knew from an old tradition
of their country, that treasures were there concealed worth more
than forty Ardeb of Gold, (about four thousand livres). I saw
in this declaration only a design to induce me to prosecute my
labors, to afford food and money to these wild men; and I was
the more confirmed in this design, because the excavations of
Sig. Stefani were still fruitless, since he found nothing but a
wooden figure, of which the right cheek and right arm were
half colored red.
“I had no greater success than my companion. I searched
through the fourth Pyramid without finding anything worth car-
rying away. As I was retiring, I found a large ferule of sap-
VOL. III. —NO. III.


322
[Jan.
The Nubian Pyramids.
phire-like chalcedony, conically prolonged and flattened at the
end.
“Vexed at the ill success of my researches in the small Pyramids,
I determined to make a last attempt with one of the large ones,
which lay at the end of the hill, and preferred that which seem-
ed to me still untouched. This Pyramid was the same, which
Mons. Caillaud of Nantes describes, in the account of his jour-
ney to the White and Blue rivers. It is therefore unnecessary
that I should stop to describe this beautiful monument ; I will
only remark that it consists of 64 steps, each half a fathom high,
so that it thus had a height of 32 ells or 28 metres. On each
side it was about 48 ells long, thus having an area of 1764
square metres. When I had climbed with four laborers to the
suimit of the Pyramid, to begin the work, I saw at the first
glance that the removal would be easy, since the right hand of
Time had already been busy there. After the first stones were
taken away, I encouraged my laborers anew. While they were
throwing the stones of this step to the ground, I went with Sig.
Stefani to rest in the shade of a neighboring pyramid, since I
could no longer bear the heat of the sun, which had reached a
height of 48 degrees. Suddenly I was called by my faithful
servant. I immediately re-ascended the pyramid with my friend,
and felt my heart already beat with joyful expectation. I saw
my servant lying flat, so as to cover with his body the opening
which they had just made. The blacks, tormented with curios-
ity, would have driven away my servant by force, and have
thrust their covetous hands into the inside of the opening. We
resisted them firmly, and with arms in our hands forced them to
descend. We now called our other servants upon whom we
could rely, and let them go on with the removal of the stones in
our presence. The opening showed us a wide room, containing
objects which we could not yet distinguish. This room was
formed of great stones irregularly laid. We caused the great
stones which covered the top, to be removed, and saw a cell,
which formed a long parallelogram, and consisted of large
stones fitted to each other, which formed the four side walls
answering to the sides of the pyramid. This cell was four feet
high, and from six to seven feet long. The first thing we no-
ticed was an object covered with a cotton cloth of dazzling
whiteness, which fell into dust at a touch. It was a sort of
table or altar, (mensa sacra, or ara domestica,) supported by four
column-like feet, and surrounded by an elegant enclosure,
which consisted of high and low wooden railing. This rail-
ing was carved, and represented symbolic figures. Under this
table was a bronze vase, which contained the most valuable
articles of the prize, golden bracelets, rings, scarabæi, amulets,


1843.]
323
The Nubian Pyramids.
clasps, &c., which were wrapped in a cloth similar to that just
described. Near the vase, on the floor of the cell, were neck-
laces, glass ornaments, colored stones, &c., arranged regularly
by means of strings. I found also some talismans, little idols,
a cylindrical étui, of metal, little turned boxes, filled with a
powdered substance, whose analysis I will give hereafter; a
saw, a chisel, and various other articles.
“I secured all these things immediately in little leather sacks,
and so withdrew the gold from the sight of the Arabs. As I
came down from the Pyramid, all the workmen thronged round
me to see what I had found. But I showed myself firm, and
after I had taken my arms, I sternly bid them go on with their
work. When the blacks saw my weapons, they quickly drew
back, since they believed the very sight of the arms might be
deadly. At evening, when the blacks had withdrawn into their
huts, and our servants were fast asleep, Sig. Stefani and I ex-
amined more at leisure the interesting collection of valuable
objects, the sight of which filled my heart with inexpressible joy.
(This rich collection takes up the greater part of my catalogue.)
I was surprised at the quantity and beauty of the gold work,
and saw directly that they far surpassed in value everything of
the kind hitherto in the different European museums. As to
carved stones, I could quickly see that they were not only equal
to the best of such work among the Greeks, but that these were
even surpassed by mine. While I surrendered myself thus to
the sweet feelings, which such an occurrence, as fortunate as
unexpected, must naturally awaken in me, I observed that my
friend appeared very melancholy. I remarked upon it to him,
and he communicated his anxiety to me, that he believed we
should do well to flee with our treasures, since we had every-
thing to fear from the avarice of the blacks. I on the contrary,
who had been accustomed for five years to rule these savages,
and hence knew their cowardice, rejected this proposal, and
determined to try my fortune in still farther discoveries. I thus
quieted my friend, and proposed to bury our treasures in the
sand. We made a pit at a little distance from our tents, con-
cealed our valuable articles in it, and covered them with earth
and sand. The next morning at sunrise we returned to the
Pyramid; all our laborers had already gone to work; there
were no less than five hundred. Although I did not now need
so many people, yet I considered that it would not be wise to
offend these men by sending back the new laborers. I ordered
new excavations in the vicinity, but they were altogether with-
out result.
“In continuing my account of the farther removal of the Pyra-
mid, I must first remark, that it appeared, after we had demol-


324
[Jan.
The Nubian Pyramids.
ished the little cell in which the table and the treasure were
found, that the rest of the structure was composed of large
stones which were united by a cement. This made the demo-
lition very difficult; we were fourteen days in removing the
Pyramid to about half the height. At this height we found
nothing but straw plaited into cords, and pieces of wood in the
form of mallets. All these objects were nearly destroyed. In
the centre of the pyramid was a niche, or cell, formed of three
blocks of stone. We removed these blocks, and found first
cotton cloth, which seemed to cover other objects — my heart
beat quickly; I believed that we should again find articles made
of gold — but although we found nothing of this precious metal,
I was yet in a measure rewarded by the discovery of two bronze
vases of the most elegant form, and so well preserved, that it
might be supposed they had just come from the hand of the
workman. These vases contained a black powdered substance,
of which we shall hereafter give the analysis. From the height
above given, I had in twenty days come so far as to have remov-
ed the pyramid to the level of the hill. I found nothing but
large flat pieces of a kind of black stone, which is called in
Numidia, Gallah. The vestibule was yet uninjured, and below
and on one side, the name of Caillaud was engraved upon the
stone. This vestibule was covered with many rows of carved
hieroglyphics. Opposite the door of entrance was seen a ma-
jestic, manly form, sitting upon a lion, and holding something
in his hand, the exact form of which I could not discern. For
the benefit of science I wished very much to bring away with
me one of these interesting stones, but their weight was so con-
siderable, that it was impossible to transport them over these
immense deserts. I satisfied myself with taking a piece of the
stone which was opposite the door, and which I thought the
most remarkable for the designs which were engraved upon it.
I hoped to find a staircase in the interior of the pyramid, like
that which I had found in the smaller ones, and by which the
descent was made to the burial-hall, but I was deceived in my
hope, being withheld by the significant position of the stones
called “ Gallah.” I tried to open a way for myself by following
the traces of a footpath, which led under the vestibule into a
space of about eight feet, and descended to the declivity of the
hill. I directed them to dig under the vestibule; but we could
advance but a little way, since we came again to blocks of stone
united by cement. Still I wished to prosecute my researches in
this region, and since I no longer needed so many workmen, I
sent away a great number of them; but notwithstanding this
they came to work though not wanted, and looked upon our
labors with threatening gestures, and armed with their lances.


1843.]
325
The Nubian Pyramids.
This fierce attitude awakened my suspicion. I charged my
negroes and the other servants to watch these men, who began
to be dangerous to us. Six days later I was informed by
one of my faithful slaves, who understood the language of the
natives, and had mingled with them, that these armed savages
were plotting to overpower me, and rob me of my treasure. I
at first determined to attack them, and to scatter them with the
help of my people; but Sig. Stefani counselled me against it. I
had sympathy with our wives and the family of the Albanese ; I
also considered that if anything serious should happen, which
should reach the ears of the governor, my discoveries might also
become known, and I should run the risk of losing all. Thus,
then, determined rather to take flight with my treasures, I await-
ed the night.
“ I sent three of my most faithful slaves with the camels to
Berber, a place where the caravans assemble, which journey
through the great desert Coruscah, and I with Sig. Stefani and
our families embarked on the Nile, at the place nearest my en-
campment, in a government vessel, which lay always at my dis-
posal.
“ After three days I arrived at Berber, and was very well re-
ceived there by Abas-Aga, who was vice-governor of Nigritia.
I must remain eight days with him, since he would readily have
taken me under his protection. In compliance with his instruc-
tions, he offered me camels and guides, for a journey through
the desert. I thus left Berber, and came after two days' journey
to Abu-Achmet, the last village on the way along the Nile.
The Biksarah dwell here; a people so accustomed to journey in
the desert, that they can travel days long without eating or
drinking. Here I took in a supply of water, and turned toward
the great desert Coruscah, which the blacks call “the sea with-
out water.” On the first day I remarked some gaziah-trees here
and there, but the six other days I found myself in a wholly
barren desert, between stones and burning sand. I had col-
lected some natural curiosities in Nubia, such as beetles, dan-
cing-spiders, crocodiles' eggs with the embryo, grey and crested
cranes, white Ibis, a falcon, a calao, an ichneumon, and many
fruits. I also collected in this desert some remarkable stones;
they are of nearly globular form, with a very hard shell on the
outside, consisting of a ferruginous substance, and the inside
filled with sand of various colors. I could compare them to
nothing but a peach or an apricot, especially when this fruit is
cut in halves. The empty space which remains for the kernel,
corresponds to the space occupied by sand in the stone.
“On the seventh day we found a fountain with very bad water,
· which spouted forth from openings among stones. Still I took


326
[Jan.
Anna.
in a supply from it, and continued my journey. On the twelfth
day I came to a place which is called “The Gates." Here be-
gins a long mountain-chain of black granite ; we passed it in
two days, and came at last to Coruscah, situated on the east side
of the Nile, between the first and second cataract. I returned
to Cairo by the usual way. I received my discharge and the
arrears of my salary through the medium of the French Consul,
Mons. Minaut. I presented him with the pillar of red granite,
which I have mentioned as entrusted to the chief of Vod-Ben-
aga. After having received my discharge, and endured still
new dangers from the plague which was desolating this region,
I at last obtained the happiness of seeing my native land again."
And who indeed would not congratulate Sig. Ferlini, after
so much hardship, on finding himself at last at home in safety,
with these remarkable treasures? Let no lover of art passing
through Bologna omit to seek out the little dwelling, which still
contains the greater part of these valuables, but from which they
may ere long be dispersed to the great Museums of sovereigns.
But whilst he enjoys these skilfully-wrought works, admires the
elegant workmanship of the broad golden bracelets, and consid-
ers the mysterious forms adorned with four hawk's-wings, which
form the clasp, whilst he scans the mystic signs upon the rings,
and sees even the vases of the golden scarabæi ornamented with
hieroglyphic figures, he will involuntarily recall to his mind the
history of the singular presentiment, to whose powerful incite-
ment alone we are indebted for their discovery; since however
mysterious are these signs, and seldom as we are able to pene-
trate their meaning, yet is the region of these peculiar presenti-
ments, these auguries, this unconscious life of the soul in us, far
more dim and mysterious.
ΑΝΝΑ.
Thou golden figure of the shaded sun,
Thou stately streamlet singing on thy way,
T'hou harp that beauty plays its notes upon,
Thou silver image of departing day,
O summer charm, how shall the winter glow,
While thou serenely shinest through the air,
Clothing with rosy tints the once pale snow,
Until the frosts rich crimson flowers upbear.


1843.]
327
To Eva at the South.
TO EVA AT THE SOUTH.
The green grass is bowing,
The morning wind is in it,
'Tis a tune worth thy knowing,
Though it change every minute.
T is a tune of the spring,
Every year plays it over
To the robins on the wing,
And to the pausing lover.
O’er ten thousand thousand acres
Goes light the nimble Zephyr,
The Flowers, – tiny sect of Shakers,
Worship him ever.
Hark to the winning sound !
They summon thee, dearest,
Saying, “We have drest for thee the ground,
Nor yet thou appearest.
O hasten ! 't is our time,
Ere yet the red Summer
Scorch our delicate prime
Loved of the bee, – the tawny hummer.
O pride of thy race !
Sad in sooth it were to ours,
If our brief tribe miss thy face,
We poor New England flowers.
Thou shalt choose the fairest members
Of our lithe society ;
June's glories and September's
Shall show our love and piety.


328
[Jan.
The Brook.
Thou shalt command us all,
From April's early clover,
To the gentian in the fall,
Blue-eyed favorite of thy lover.
O come, then, quickly come,
We are budding, we are blowing,
And the wind that we perfume,
Sings a tune that's worth the knowing.
THE BROOK.
All the eyes I ever knew
In this my strange life-dream,
Hazle, grey, and deepest blue,
Are mingled in this stream.
It wins its way into my soul,
Awakes each hidden feeling,
Gives me a rapture beyond control,
High love fills all my being.
In earnest eyes I chiefly live,
All words to me are nought,
For me they neither take nor give,
In the eye the soul is caught,
And now to see all that I love,
And have gazed at many an hour,
Blended together, — has heaven above
A greater joy in store !


1843.]
329
The River. - Life.
329
THE RIVER.
THERE is an inward voice, that in the stream
Lends forth its spirit to the listening ear,
And in a calm content it floweth on,
Like wisdom welcome with its own respect.
Clear in its breast lie all these beauteous thoughts,
It doth receive the green and graceful trees,
And the gray rocks smile in its peaceful arms,
And over all floats a serenest blue,
Which the mild heaven sheds down on it like rain.
O fair, sweet stream, thy undisturbed repose
Me beckons to thy front, and thou, vexed world, -
Thou other turbulent sphere where I have dwelt,
Diminished into distance, touch’st no more
My feelings here, than the soft swaying
Of the delicate wave parted in front,
As through the gentle element we move
Like shadows gliding through untroubled realms,
Disturbs these lily circles, these white bells.
And yet on thee shall wind come fiercely down,
Hail pelt thee with dull words, ice bind thee up;
And yet again, when the fierce rage is o'er,
O smiling river, shalt thou smile once more,
And as it were, even in thy depths, revere
The sage security thy nature wears.
LIFE.
It is a gay and glittering cloud,
Born in the early light of day,
It lies upon the gentle hills,
Rosy, and sweet, and far away.'
NO. III.
42
VOL. III. —


330
[Jan.
То
It burns again when noon is high;
Like molten gold 't is clothed in light,
'Tis beautiful and glad as love, -
A joyous, soul-entrancing sight.
But now 't is fading in the west,
On the flowering heaven a withered leaf,
As faint as shadow on the grass
Thrown by a gleam of moonshine brief.
So life is born, grows up, and dies,
As cloud upon the world of light;
It comes in joy, and moves in love,
Then, - gently fades away in night.
TO
There is a grace upon the waving trees,
A beauty in the wide and lowing sea,
A glory is there in the rushing breeze,
Yet what are all these fairy things to me,
What by the side of such an one as thee?
They weigh as dust against the purest gold,
And all the words of fine society,
And all the famous thoughts great men have told,
By side of thee seem dull, — dull, heavy, and most cold.
If thou art lost to me, farewell, my heart !
There is one jewel for thy prizing here,
But how companionless and chill thou art,
If this great lustre, unto thee so dear,
Fall like an autumn leaf withered and sere,
And leave thee on the shore of time, — alone.
So shall this living earth be thy true bier,
Its every sound a wretched, mournful tone,
And all thy passion's tears turned into hardest stone.


1843.]
331
The Laws of Menu.
THE LAWS OF MENU.
[In pursuance of the design intimated in onr Number for July, to give
a series of ethnical scriptures, we subjoin our extracts from the Laws of
Menu. We learn, from the preface of the translator, that “ Vyasa, the
son of Parasara, has decided that the Veda, with its Angas, or the six
compositions deduced from it, the revealed system of medicine, the Pura-
nas, or sacred histories, and the code of Menu, were four works of su-
preme authority, which ought never to be shaken by arguments merely
human." The last, which is in blank verse, and is one of the oldest
compositions extant, has been translated by Sir William Jones. It is
believed by the Hindoos “ to have been promulged in the beginning of
time, by Menu, son or grandson of Brahma,” and “first of created
beings.” Brahma is said to have " taught his laws to Menu in a hundred
thousand verses, which Menu explained to the primitive world in the
very words of the book now translated.” Others affirm that they have
undergone successive abridgments for the convenience of mortals," while
the gods of the lower heaven, and the band of celestial musicians, are
engaged in studying the primary code."
"A number of glosses or comments on Menu were composed by the
Munis, or old philosophers, whose treatises, together with that before us,
constitute the Dherma Sastra, in a collective sense, or Body of Law."
Culluca Bhatta * was one of the more modern of these.]
CUSTOM.
• Immemorial custom is transcendent law."'.
“The roots of the law are the whole Veda, the ordinances
and moral practices of such as perfectly understand it, the
immemorial customs of good men, and self-satisfaction."
"Immemorial custom is a tradition among the four pure
classes, in a country frequented by gods,-- and at length
is not to be distinguished from revelation.”
TEMPERANCE.
“The resignation of all pleasures is far better than the
attainment of them.”
“ The organs, being strongly attached to sensual de-
lights, cannot so effectually be restrained by avoiding in-
centives to pleasure, as by a constant pursuit of divine
knowledge."
“ But, when one among all his [the Brahmin's) organs
fails, by that single failure his knowledge of God passes
away, as water flows through one hole in a leathern bottle."
* In the following selections his gloss is for the most part omitted, but
when retained is printed in Italics.


332
[Jan.
The Laws of Menu.
“He must eat without distraction of mind.”'
“Let him honor all his food, and eat it without con-
tempt; when he sees it, let him rejoice and be calm, and
pray, that he may always obtain it."
“Food, eaten constantly with respect, gives muscular
force and generative power; but, eaten irreverently, de-
stroys them both."
"It is delivered as a rule of the gods, that meat must
be swallowed only for the purpose of sacrifice; but it is a
rule of gigantic demons, that it may be swallowed for any
· other purpose.”
PURIFICATION AND SACRIFICE.
“By falsehood, the sacrifice becomes vain; by pride,
the merit of devotion is lost; by insulting priests, life is
diminished; and by proclaiming a largess, its fruit is de-
stroyed."
“To a king, on the throne of magnanimity, the law
ascribes instant purification, because his throne was raised
for the protection of his people, and the supply of their
nourishment.”
“The hand of an artist employed in his art is always
pure.”
“Bodies are cleansed by water; the mind is purified by
truth; the vital spirit, by theology and devotion; the un-
derstanding, by clear knowledge."
“If thou be not at variance by speaking falsely with
Yama the Subduer of all, with Vaivaswata the Punisher,
with that great divinity who dwells in the breast, go not
on a pilgrimage to the river Ganga, nor to the plains of
Curu, for thou hast no need of expiation."
“Whoever cherishes not five orders of beings, — the
deities, those who demand hospitality, those whom he ought
by law to maintain, his departed forefathers, and himself,
that man lives not, even though he breathe.”
" To all the gods assembled let him throw up his obla-
tion in open air ; by day, to the spirits who walk in light;
and by night, to those who walk in darkness.”
“Some, who well know the ordinances for those obla-
tions, perform not always externally the five great sacra-
ments, but continually make offerings in their own organs.”


1843.]
333
The Laws of Menu.
“Some constantly sacrifice their breath in their speech,
when they instruct others, or praise God aloud, and their
speech in their breath, when they meditate in silence ;
perceiving in their speech and breath, thus employed, the
imperishable fruit of a sacrificial offering.”
“ The act of repeating his Holy Name is ten times
better than the appointed sacrifice; a hundred times better,
when it is heard by no man; and a thousand times better,
when it is purely mental.”
“Equally perceiving the supreme soul in all beings, and
all beings in the supreme soul, he sacrifices his own spirit
by fixing it on the spirit of God, and approaches the nature
of that sole divinity, who shines by his own effulgence.”
TEACHING.
“A Brahmin, who is the giver of spiritual birth, the
teacher of prescribed duty, is by right the father of an old
man, though himself be a child.”
“ Cari, child of Angiras, taught his paternal uncles and
cousins to read the Veda, and, excelling them in divine
knowledge, said to them · Little sons.
"They, moved with resentment, asked the gods the
meaning of that expression; and the gods, being assem-
bled, answered them, “The child has addressed you prop-
erly ;'
“For an unlearned man is in truth a child ; and he who
teaches him the Veda is his father: holy sages have always
said child to an ignorant man, and father to a teacher of
scripture.”
“Greatness is not conferred by years, not by gray hairs,
not by wealth, not by powerful kindred; the divine sages
have established this rule : "Whoever has read the Vedas,
and their Angas, he among us is great."".
“ The seniority of priests is from sacred learning; of
warriors, from valor; of merchants, from abundance of
grain; of the servile class, only from priority of birth.”
“A man is not therefore aged, because his head is gray;
him, surely, the gods considered as aged, who, though
young in years, has read and understands the Veda.”
“Let not a sensible teacher tell what he is not asked,
nor what he is asked improperly ; but let him, however
intelligent, act in the multitude as if he were dumb."


334
[Jan.
The Laws of Menu.
« À teacher of the Veda should rather die with his
learning, than sow it in sterile soil, even though he be in
grievous distress for subsistence.”
REWARD AND PUNISHMENT.
“ Justice, being destroyed, will destroy; being preserved,
will preserve; it must therefore never be violated. Be-
ware, O judge, lest Justice, being overturned, overturn
both us and thyself.”
“ The only firm friend, who follows men even after
death, is Justice; all others are extinct with the body."
- The soul is its own witness; the soul itself is its own
refuge: offend not thy conscious soul, the supreme inter-
nal witness of men."
"O friend to virtue, that supreme spirit, which thou
believest one and the same with thyself, resides in thy
bosom perpetually, and is an all-knowing inspector of thy
goodness or of thy wickedness."
“Action, either mental, verbal, or corporeal, bears good
or evil fruit, as itself is good or evil; and from the actions
of men proceed their various transmigrations in the highest,
the mean, and the lowest degree.”
"Iniquity, committed in this world, produces not fruit
immediately, but, like the earth, in due season; and, ad-
vancing by little and little, it eradicates the man who com-
mitted it."
“Yes ; iniquity, once committed, fails not of producing
fruit to him who wrought it; if not in his own person, yet
in his sons; or, if not in his sons, yet in his grandsons."
“He grows rich for a while through unrighteousness;
then he beholds good things; then it is, that he vanquishes
his foes; but he perishes at length from his whole root
upwards."
“If the vital spirit had practised virtue for the most
part, and vice in a small degree, it enjoys delight in celes-
tial abodes, clothed with a body formed of pure elementary
particles.”
“But, if it had generally been addicted to vice, and
seldom attended to virtue, then shall it be deserted by
those pure elements, and, having a coarser body of sensi-
ble nerves, it feels the pains to which Yama shall doom it.”


1843.)
335
The Laws of Menu.
“Souls, endued with goodness, attain always the state
of deities; those filled with ambitious passions, the con-
dition of men; and those immersed in darkness, the nature
of beasts: this is the triple order of transmigration."
“Grass and earth to sit on, water to wash the feet, and
affectionate speech, are at no time deficient in the mansions
of the good.”
THE KING
"He, sure, must be the perfect essence of majesty, by
whose favor Abundance rises on her lotos; in whose favor
dwells conquest; in whose anger, death."
WOMEN AND MARRIAGE.
“ The names of women should be agreeable, soft, clear,
captivating the fancy, auspicious, ending in long vowels,
resembling words of benediction.”
In the second quarter of the Brahmin's life, when he
has left his instructor, to commence house-keeping, —
“Let him choose for his wife a girl, whose form has no
defect; who has an agreeable name; who walks gracefully,
like a phenicopteros, or like a young elephant; whose hair
and teeth are moderate respectively in quantity and in size;
whose body has exquisite softness.”
THE BRAHMIN.
“When a Brahmin springs to light, he is born above
the world, the chief of all creatures, assigned to guard the
treasury of duties religious and civil.”
“Whatever exists in the universe, is all in effect the
wealth of the Brahmin, since the Brahmin is entitled to it
all by his primogeniture and eminence of birth.”
“ The Brahmin eats but his own food; wears but his
own apparel; and bestows but his own in alms: through
the benevolence of the Brahmin, indeed, other mortals
enjoy life.”
“Although Brahmins employ themselves in all sorts of
mean occupation, they must invariably be honored; for
they are something transcendently divine."
“He must avoid service for hire.”
“He may either store up grain for three years, or garner


336
[Jan.
The Laws of Menu.
up enough for one year, or collect what may last three
days, or make no provision for the morrow.”
« Let him never, for the sake of a subsistence, have
recourse to popular conversation ; let him live by the con-
duct of a priest, neither crooked, nor artful, nor blended
with the manners of the mercantile class."
“Let him not have nimble hands, restless feet, or volu-
ble eyes; let him not be crooked in his ways; let him not
be flippant in his speech, nor intelligent in doing mischief.”
“He must not gain wealth by any art that pleases the
sense; nor by any prohibited art; nor, whether he be rich
or poor, indiscriminately."
“Though permitted to receive presents, let him avoid
a habit of taking them ; since, by taking many gifts, his
divine light soon fades."
“A twice-born man, void of true devotion, and not
having read the Veda, yet eager to take a gift, sinks down
together with it, as with a boat of stone in deep water."
“A Brahmin should constantly shun worldly honor, as
he would shun poison; and rather constantly seek dis-
respect, as he would seek nectar.”
- For, though scorned, he may sleep with pleasure; with
pleasure may he awake; with pleasure may he pass through
this life: but the scorner utterly perishes.”
“All that depends on another gives pain; all that de-
pends on himself gives pleasure ; let him know this to be
in few words the definition of pleasure and of pain."
As for the Brahmin who keeps house,
“Let him say what is true, but let him say what is
pleasing; let him speak no disagreeable truth, nor let him
speak agreeable falsehood: this is a primeval rule.”
"Let him say well and good,' or let him say well'
only; but let him not maintain fruitless enmity and alter-
cation with any man.”
“Giving no pain to any creature, let him collect virtue
by degrees, for the sake of acquiring a companion to
the next world, as the white ant by degrees builds his
nest."
“ For, in his passage to the next world, neither his
father, nor his mother, nor his wife, nor his son, nor his
kinsmen, will remain in his company: his virtue alone will
adhere to him."
IE


1843.]
337
The Laws of Menu.
“Single is each man born; single he dies; single he
receives the reward of his good, and single the punish-
ment of his evil, deeds.”
“When he leaves his corpse, like a log or a lump of clay,
on the ground, his kindred retire with averted faces; but
his virtue accompanies his soul.”
“Continually, therefore, by degrees, let him collect vir-
tue, for the sake of securing an inseparable companion ;
since, with virtue for his guide, he will traverse a gloom -
how hard to be traversed!"
« Alone, in some solitary place, let him constantly medi-
tate on the divine nature of the soul; for, by such medi-
tation, he will attain happiness.”
“ When the father of a family perceives his muscles
become flaccid, and his hair gray, and sees the child of
his child, let him then seek refuge in a forest:"
" Then, having reposited his holy fires, as the law di-
rects, in his mind, let him live without external fire, with-
out a mansion, wholly silent, feeding on roots and fruit;"
“Not solicitous for the means of gratification, chaste as
a student, sleeping on the bare earth, in the haunts of
pious hermits, without one selfish affection, dwelling at the
roots of trees ;"
"— for the purpose of uniting his soul with the di-
vine spirit.”
"Or, if he has any incurable disease, let him advance
in a straight path, towards the invincible north-eastern
point, feeding on water and air, till bis mortal frame to-
tally decay, and his soul become united with the Supreme.”
“A Brahmin having shuffled off his body by any of those
modes, which great sages practised ; and becoming void of
sorrow and fear, rises to exaltation in the divine essence.”
“ Departing from his house, taking with him pure imple-
ments, his waterpot and staff, keeping silence, unallured
by desire of the objects near him, let him enter into the
fourth order."
“ Alone let him constantly dwell, for the sake of his own
felicity; observing the happiness of a solitary man, who
neither forsakes nor is forsaken, let him live without a com-
panion,"
“ Let him have no culinary fire, no domicil: let him,
VOL. III. — NO. III.
43


338
[Jan.
The Laws of Menu.
when very hungry, go to the town for food; let him patient-
ly bear disease; let his mind be firm: let him study to
know God, and fix his attention on God alone."
“ An earthern water-pot, the roots of large trees, coarse
vesture, total solitude, equanimity, toward all creatures,
these are the characteristics of a Brahmin set free."
"Let him not wish for death ; let him not wish for life ;
let him expect his appointed time, as a hired servant expects
his wages.”
Entirely withdrawn from the world, -" without any
companion but his own soul, let him live in this world,
seeking the bliss of the next.”
"Late in the day let the Sannyasi beg food : for missing
it, let him not be sorrowful; nor for gaining it let him be
glad ; let him care only for a sufficiency to support life,
but let him not be anxious about his utensils.”
“Let himi reflect also, with exclusive application of mind,
on the subtil, indivisible essence of the supreme spirit, and
its complete existence in all beings, whether extremely high,
or extremely low."
“Thus, having gradually abandoned all earthly attach-
ments, and indifference to all pains of opposite things, as
honor, and dishonor, and the like, he remains absorbed in
the divine essence."
"A mansion with bones for its rafters and beams; with
nerves and tendons for cords; with muscles and blood for
mortar; with skin for its outward covering, filled with no
sweet perfume, but loaded with fæces and urine;"
“A mansion infested by age and by sorrow; the seat of
malady, harassed with pains, haunted with the quality of
darkness, and incapable of standing long ; such a mansion
of the vital soul, let its occupier always cheerfully quit.”
“ As a tree leaves the bank of a river, when it falls in,
or as a bird leaves the branch of a tree at his pleasure, thus
he, who leaves his body by necessity, or by legal choice, is
delivered from the ravening shark, or crocodile, of the
world.”
GOD.
“Let every Brahmin with fixed attention consider all
nature, both visible and invisible, as existing in the divine
spirit; for, when he contemplates the boundless universe


1843.]
The Laws of Menu.
339
existing in the divine spirit, he cannot give his heart to
iniquity :"
i The divine spirit is the whole assemblage of gods; all
worlds are seated in the divine spirit; and the divine
spirit, no doubt, produces the connected series of acts per-
formed by embodied souls."
“ He may contemplate the subtil ether in the cavities of
his body; the air in his muscular motion and sensitive
nerves; the supreme solar and igneous light, in his diges-
tive heat and his visual organs; in his corporeal fluids,
water; in the terrene parts of his fabric, earth ;"
" In his heart, the moon; in his auditory nerves, the
guardians of eight regions; in his progressive motion, Vish-
nu; in his muscular force, Hara ; in his organs of speech,
Agni; in excretion, Mitra; in procreation, Brahma :"
“But he must consider the supreme omnipresent intelli-
gence as the sovereign lord of them all; a spirit which can
only be conceived by a mind slumbering ; but which he
may imagine more subtil than the finest conceivable es-
sence, and more bright than the purest gold.”
“ Him some adore as transcendentally present in ele-
mentary fire ; others in Menu, lord of creatures ; some, as
more distinctly present in Indra, regent of the clouds and
the atmosphere; others, in pure air ; others, as the most
High Eternal Spirit.”
Thus the man, who perceives in his own soul the su-
preme soul present in all creatures, acquires equanimity
towards them all, and shall be absorbed at last in the high-
est essence, even that of the Almighty himself."
DEVOTION.
“ All the bliss of deities and of men is declared by sages
who discern the sense of the Veda to have in devotion its
cause, in devotion its continuance, in devotion its ful-
ness."
“Devotion is equal to the performance of all duties; it
is divine knowledge in a Brahmin ; it is defence of the
people in a Cshatriya; devotion is the business of trade
and agriculture in a Vaisya ; devotion is dutiful service in
a Sudra.”
“Perfect health, or unfailing medicine, divine learning,


340
[Jan.
Death.
and the various mansions of deities are acquired by devo-
tion alone; their efficient cause is devotion."
“Whatever is hard to be traversed, whatever is hard to
be acquired, whatever is hard to be visited, whatever is
hard to be performed, all this may be accomplished by true
devotion ; for the difficulty of devotion is the greatest of
all."
DEATH.
BENEATH the endless surges of the deep,
Whose green content o'erlaps them evermore,
A host of mariners perpetual sleep,
Too hushed to heed the wild commotion's roar;
The emerald weeds glide softly o'er their bones,
And wash them gently mid the rounded stones.
No epitaph have they to tell their tale,
Their birthplace, age, and story, all are lost,
Yet rest they deeply, as within the vale
Those sheltered bodies by the smooth slates crossed,
And countless tribes of men lie on the hills,
And human blood runs in the crystal rills.
The air is full of men, who once enjoyed
The healthy element, nor looked beyond, -
Many, who all their mortal strength employed
In human kindness, of their brothers fond, -
And many more, who counteracted fate,
And battled in the strife of common hate.
Profoundest sleep enwraps them all around,
Sages and sire, the child and manhood strong,
Shed not one tear, expend no sorrowing sound,
Tune thy clear voice to no funereal song,
For, oh! Death stands to welcome thee and me,
And life hath in its breath a steeper mystery.


1843.)
341
Death.
I hear a bell, that tolls an empty note,
The mourning anthem, and the sobbing prayer ;
A grave fresh-opened, where the friends devote
To mouldering darkness a still corse, once fair
And beautiful as morning's silver light,
And stars which throw their clear fire on the night.
She is not here, who smiled within these eyes,
Warmer than spring's first sunbeam through the pale
And tearful air, — resist these flatteries ; —
O, lay her silently alone, and in this vale
Shall the sweet winds sing better dirge for her,
And the fine, early flowers her death-clothes minister.
0, Death! thou art the palace of our hopes,
The storehouse of our joys, great labor's end;
Thou art the bronzéd key, which swiftly opes
The coffers of the past; and thou shalt send
Such trophies to our hearts, as sunny days,
When life upon its golden harp-string plays.
And when a nation mourns a silent voice,
That long entranced its ear with melody,
How thou must in thy inmost soul rejoice,
To wrap such treasure in thy boundless sea !
And thou wert dignified, if but one soul
Had been enfolded in thy twilight stole.
Triumphal arches circle o'er thy deep,
Dazzling with jewels, radiant with content;
In thy vast arms the sons of genius sleep,
The carvings of thy spheral monument,
Bearing no recollection of dim time,
Within thy green and most perennial prime.
And might I sound a thought of thy decree, –
How lapsed the dreary earth in fragrant pleasure,
And hummed along o'er life's contracted sea,
Like the swift petrel, mimicking the waves' measure ; -
But though I long, the sounds will never come,
For, in thy majesty, my lesser voice is dumb.


342
[Jan.
Death.
Thou art not tender of thy precious fame,
But comest, like the clouds, soft-stealing on;
Thou soundest in a careless key the name
Of him, who to thy boundless treasury is won;
And yet he quickly cometh; for to die
Is ever gentlest, to both low and high.
Thou, therefore, hast humanity's respect;
They build thee tombs upon the green hill-side,
And will not suffer thee the least neglect,
And tend thee with a desolate, sad pride;
For thou art strong, O Death, though sweetly so,
And in thy lovely gentleness sleeps woe.
O, what are we, who swim upon this tide,
Which we call life, yet to thy kingdom come?
Look not upon us till we chasten pride,
And preparation make for thy high home;
And, might we ask, make measurely approach,
And not upon these few, smooth hours encroach.
I come — I come — think not I turn away!
Fold round me thy gray robe! I stand to feel
The setting of my last, frail, earthly day;
I will not pluck it off, but calmly kneel,
For I am great as thou art, though not thou,
And thought, as with thee, dwells upon my brow.
Ah! might I ask thee, spirit, first to tend
Upon those dear ones whom my heart has found,
And supplicate thee, that I might them lend
A light in their last hours, and to the ground
Consign them still. Yet think me not too weak;
Come to me now, and thou shalt find me meek.
Then let us live in fellowship with thee,
And turn our red cheeks to thy kisses pale,
And listen to thy song as minstrelsy,
And still revere thee, till our heart's throbs fail,
Sinking within thy arms, as sinks the sun
Beyond the farthest hills, when his day's work is done.


1843.)
343
Life and Character of Dr. Follen.
THE LIFE AND CHARACTER OF DR. FOLLEN.*
There are two classes of men that have a wide and re-
formatory influence on the world ; who write out their
thoughts and sentiments, not in words only, but in things.
The one consists of men of great intellectual power, but no
special goodness of heart. They see, in the “ dry light” of
the understanding, what is false, what wrong, what ludi-
crous in man's affairs, and expose it to be rejected, to be
abhorred, or to be laughed at. Their eye is keen and far-
reaching in the actual ; but their insight is not the deepest,
nor does the sphere of their reason include all things of
human concern. Of these men, you do not ask, What
was their character ? how did they live in their day and
their place ? but only, What did they think of this thing
and of that? Their lives may have been bad, their motives,
both for silence and for speech, may have been ignoble and
selfish, and their whole life, but a long attempt to build up
for themselves a fortune and a name, — but that does not
mar their influence, except in the narrow sphere of their
personal life. The good they do lives after them; the
evil sleeps with their buried bones. The world looks on
them as half-men; expects from them no wholeness of
action, but takes their good gift, and first forgives and then
forgets their moral obliquity, or defects. It is often painful
to contemplate such men. The brightness of their intel-
lect leads us to wish for a corresponding beauty on their
moral side. If a man's wisdom does not show itself in his
works; if his Light does not become his Life, making his
pathway radiant - why our moral anticipation is disappoint-
ed, and we turn away in sadness. Men of a giant's mind and
a pigmy's heart; men capable of spanning the Heavens, of
fathoming the depths of all human science, of mounting
with vigorous and untiring pinions above the roar of the
crowd and the prejudice of the schools, and continuing
their flight before the admiring eyes of lesser men, till dis-
tance and loftiness swallows them up; men, who bring
back from their adventurous voyagings new discoveries for
* The Works of Charles Follen, with a Memoir of his Life, in five
volumes. Boston: Hilliard, Gray & Co. 1841.


344
[Jan.
Life and Character of Dr. Follen.
human wonder, new truths for daily use — men too, that
with all this wondrous endowment of intellect are yet capa-
ble of vanity, selfish ambition, and the thousand little arts
which make up the accomplished worldling, — such men
are a sore puzzle to the young and enthusiastic moralist.
“What,” he says, “is God unjust? Shall the man, whose
eye is ever on himself, keen as the Eagle's, to look for his
own profit, yet dull as the Blindworm's or the Beetle's to
the shadows of wrong in his own bosom, — shall he be
gifted with this faculty to pierce the mystic curtains of na-
ture, and see clearly in his ignoble life, where the saint
groped for the wall, and fell, not seeing ?” Such is the
fact, often as he may attempt to disguise it. The world,
past and present, furnishes us with proofs that cannot be
winked out of sight. Men capable of noble and reforma-
tory thought, who lack the accomplishment of goodness
and a moral life — we need not pause to point out men of
this character, both present and departed; that would be
an ungrateful work; one not needed to be done.
The other class is made up of men of moral powers.
Their mental ability may be small or great, but their good-
ness is the most striking, and the fundamental thing. They
may not look over a large field, nor be conversant with all
the nooks and crevices of this wondrous world, where sci-
ence each day brings some new miracle to light, — but in
the sphere of morals they see as no others. Fast as
Thought comes to them it turns into action; what was at
first but Light, elementary and cold, is soon transformed into
life, which multiplies itself and its blessings. These men
look with a single eye to the everlasting Right. To them
God's Law is a Law to be kept, come present weal, or pres-
ent woe. They ask not, What shall accrue to me or
praise or blame? But contentedly they do the work of
Righteousness their hands find to do, and this with all
their might. They live faster than they see — for with a
true moral man, the Spontaneous runs before the Reflec-
tive, as John outran Peter in seeking the risen Son of Man.
When these men have but humble minds, they are worthy
of deep homage from all mankind. In solitude and in
silence, seen by no eye but the All-seeing, they plant with
many and hopeful prayers the seed that is one day to
spread wide its branches, laden with all manner of fruit, its


1843.)
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Life and Character of Dr. Follen.
very leaves for the healing of the nations. How often has
it happened that some woman, uncouth, not well bred, and
with but little of mind, has kindled in some boy's bosom a
love of Right, a sense of the sweetness of Charity, of the
beauty of Religion, which grew with his growth, and
strengthened with his strength, and at last towered forth,
strong and fame-like, in the moral heroism of a man whom
Heaven employs to stir the world, and help God's king-
dom come! It was only a Raven which the boys, resting
at noon-day beside the brook Cherith, saw slowly flying
towards the mountain. But he bore in his beak food for
the fainting prophet — the last of the faithful.
When this moral power is found with great intellectual
gifts, as it sometimes is, then have we the fairest form of hu-
manity; the mind of a giant, and an angel's heart. These
act, each on each. The quickening sentiment fires the
thought; this gives the strength back again to the feelings.
The eye is single; the whole body is full of light. The in-
tellect of such an one attracts admiration ; his moral excel-
lence enforces love. He teaches by his words of wisdom; by
his works of goodness. Happy is the age that beholds a con-
junction so rare and auspicious, as that of eminent genius
and moral excellence as eminent. A single man of that
stamp gives character to the age; a new epoch is begun.
Men are forced to call themselves after his name, and that
may be said of him which was said of Elias the Prophet,
“ After his death, his body prophesied.” But such are the
rarest sons of God.
Dr. Follen belonged to the class of men that act on the
world chiefly by their MoRAL power. Certainly it was that
which was most conspicuous in him ; in his countenance;
his writings; his life. Some live for Study; their books,
both what they read and what they write, are their life;
and others for Action. They write their soul out in works -
their name may perish; their usefulness remains, and wi-
dens, and deepens, till time and the human race shall cease
to be. Dr. Follen belonged to the class then, of men of
moral action. In saying this, we do not mean to imply,
that there was little of intellectual force only that the
moral power cast it into the shade; not that he could not
have been eminent in the empire of abstract thought, but
only that he chose the broad realm of benevolent action.
VOL. III. NO. III.
44


346
Jan.
Life and Character of Dr. Follen.
Others, better fitted for the task, and with more space and
time at command, will doubtless judge his writings from
the intellectual point of view, and mankind will pass the
irreversible decree on his recorded thoughts, and bid them
live or die. We shall confine ourselves to the first volume
of his works, containing a biography, written by his wife,
and only attempt a delineation of the moral life and works
of the man.
The main points of his history are briefly summed up.
Charles Theodore Follen was born on the 4th of Septem-
ber, 1796, at Romrod, in the western part of Germany;
became obnoxious to the government at an early age ; fed
to Switzerland for an asylumn in 1820; came to America,
as the only civilized land that offered him life and liberty
in 1824, and ceased to be mortal in the beginning of 1840.
There is a rare unity in his life, such as we scarce re-
member to have noticed in any modern biography. It is a
moral-heroic drama, in one Act, though the scene shifts
from the college to the camp; from the thundering storm
of a meeting of Reformers to the Christian pulpit, and the
Sunday school, where children are taught of the Great Re-
former of the world. Dr. Follen's work began in early
life; while yet a stripling at college we see the same
qualities, working for the same end, as in the very last
scenes of his life. His pious love of freedom; his abhor-
rence of all that had the savor of oppression about it; his
disinterested zeal for mankind; his unconcern for himself,
so long as God saw him at his post and his work — these
began early; they continued till the last. His whole life
was a warfare against Sin, that had slain and taken pos-
session of what belongs to mankind. But we must speak
of the details of his history more minutely.
He was the son of a counsellor at Law, and judge in
Hesse Darmstadt. When a child he was serious and earn-
est beyond his years. He received his education at the
Seminary and University of Giessen, devoting himself
to the study of the Law. His enthusiasm against the
French kindled with the uprising of his Father-land, and
in 1813, we find him a soldier in the army of Patriots.
The return of Peace, the next year, restored him to his
studies at the University. At the age of twelve, says his
re minute law, and and earn-


1843.)
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Life and Character of Dr. Follen.
biographer, he had conceived thoughts of a Christian soci-
ety far different from all that is now actual on the earth,
and while at the University, "consecrated himself to the
work of a reformer, by a perfect subjection of himself to the
law of justice and universal brotherhood, as taught by Je-
sus." His attempts to reform his fellow students brought
him into trouble, and rendered him an object of suspicion
to the government. At the age of twenty he began to
lecture, in a private capacity we suppose, on " various parts
of Jurisprudence," at the University of Giessen. At this
period doubts respecting Religion came over him. He met
the enemy face to face; studied the writings of Skeptics,
Pantheists, and Infidels, and found the books written against
Christianity, next to the Gospel itself, were the most effi-
cient promoters of his belief in its divine truth. This fear-
less examination of all that had been said against Religion,
showed him that it rested on a rock which neither its foes
nor its friends could ever shake. He never afterwards
feared that the most valuable of all man's treasures could
be blown away by a few mouthfuls of wind. Did a man,
who knew religion by heart, ever fear that it would
perish?
In 1818, some towns in Hesse engaged this youth, in
his twenty-second year, to help them in escaping an artful
design of their government to oppress them. His noble
attempt succeeded. Of course “the influential persons"
whose object he defeated, and the government whose ille-
gal designs he exposed, were offended at him. He became
the object of a bitter and unrelenting persecution. His
hopes blighted in his native kingdom, he accepted an invi-
tation to the University of Jena. Here he cominenced a
course of lectures on the Pandects, before a respectable audi-
ence, though it was thought extraordinary for so young a
man to undertake a branch so difficult. Here also his
reformatory and liberal principles stood in the way of his
promotion. He was tried as an accomplice of George
Sand, in the murder of Kotzebue — a tool of despotism ;
was acquitted, but forbidden to lecture in Jena. He re-
turned to Giessen ; suspected by the government; treated
with coolness by some of his “ friends," for they thought
his cause without hope, and “left him to strive alone in
his hour of trial and suffering." The excellence of his


348
[Jan.
Life and Character of Dr. Follen..
character was pleaded as proof of his innocence of ill.
“ So much the worse,” said one opposer, who knew what
he was about, “I should like him better if he had a few
vices.” The government, thinking him the handle of the
axe, which they knew lay, ready and sharpened, at the
root of the tree, intended to imprison him. He escaped
by flight to Strasburg, thence to Paris, and became ac-
quainted with Lafayette. But all foreigners were soon
ordered to quit France, for this was in 1820, and the same
spirit ruled in Paris as in Giessen. A lady invited him to
Switzerland. Here he was invited to become a professor
in the Cantonal School of the Grisons, one of the higher
seminaries of education. Here again his liberal spirit raised
up enemies. But at this time it was the church, not the
state, that took offence at his freedom. In his lectures on
history, he ascribed the Christian revelation to the efficacy
of two great principles, namely, the doctrine of one God,
and that all men ought to love one another, and strive after
godlike perfection. Some were inspired to lead men to
this great aim. The clergy were alarmed, and declared
that he denied the Godhead of Jesus, total depravity, and
original sin. Dr. Follen's resignation of his office was the
result of this clerical alarm. However, he was soon ap-
pointed as a public lecturer at the University of Basle,
where he taught natural, civil, and ecclesiastical law, and
philosophy in its application to religion, morals, legislation,
and the fine arts. But even here, “where the free Swit-
zer yet bestrides alone his chainless mountains," he was not
secure, while in the Canton of the Grisons, the Congress of
Troppau demanded that he should be given up. While
at Basle, in 1824, the government of Basle received three
notes from the governments of Austria, Prussia, and Rus-
sia, demanding that he should be given up to the tribunal
of inquisition. The result of all was, that he fled from
Basle — hid under the boot of a chaise – to Paris, and
thence to America, where he arrived in December, 1824.
His subsequent story may be briefly hinted at. He was
successively teacher of Ethics and Ecclesiastical History at
the Divinity School, and Teacher of German in the Uni-
versity at Cambridge, a preacher of the Gospel at Boston,
New-York, Lexington, and other places; and as a philan-
thropist, engaging in the benevolent works of the day.


1843.]
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Life and Character of Dr. Follen.
Dr. Follen was eminently a Christian man. By this we
do not mean that he had learned by rote a few traditional
doctrines, whose foundation he never dared examine, and
condemned all such as could not accept them; not, that
he loved to say there was no salvation out of the Pro-
crustes-bed of his own church; not, that he accepted the
popular standard of conventional morals, cursing all that
fell below, and damning such as were above, that standard.
We know this is too often a true description of the secta-
rian or popular Christian : a man with more Memory than
Thought; more Belief than Life; more Fear than Love.
With Dr. Follen, Christianity took a turn a little different.
To serve God with the whole mind, was not, necessarily,
to think as Anselm and Augustine in religious matters, but
to think truly and uprightly; to serve Him with the whole
heart and soul was to live a life of active goodness and
holiness of heart. He was not one of the many who
have days to be Christians, and days to be men of the
world ; but, a Christian once, was a Christian always. We
do not mean to say he had no stains of human imper-
fection, weakness, and evil. Doubtless he had such. The
prurient eye may read traces of such on this monument,
where conjugal love solaces its bereavement by tracing,
with affectionate pen, the tale of his life, his trials, his
temptations, and his endurance.
In a moral character so rich as this of Dr. Follen, it is
difficult, perhaps, to select a point of sufficient prominence,
by which to distinguish the man, and about which to group
the lesser elements of his being. But what strikes us as
chief, is his love of FREEDOM. He felt Man was superior
to all the circumstances, prosperous or adverse, which
could be gathered around him. Therefore, he saw the
weakness of men beneath the trappings of a monarch's
court, and did not fear to lift up his juvenile voice for
human rights and everlasting truth; therefore, he saw the
greatness of men under the squalid garments of the beggar
or the slave, and never despaired of raising them to the
estate of a man, but toiled and prayed for this great end.
This love of Freedom was conspicuous in his youth,
breathing in the “Great Song ;” and shone more and
more, as years gave him the meditative mind. It appears
in all his writings; in all his life. At an early age, he


350
[Jan.
Life and Character of Dr. Follen.
joined the army, to fight for freedom and his Fatherland,
in the tented field; the chief cause he engaged in as a
lawyer was the cause of Right against Oppression. For
this he was an exile in a strange land, and in that land
he but continued in manhood the work begun in youth.
This love of freedom appeared in his sermons, where,
some think, it does not often appear. So, one day, after
preaching, a friend, “who had a kind heart, but an arbi-
trary character,” took him by the button, and said, “ Your
sermon, sir, was very sensible; but you spoil your dis-
courses with your views about freedom. We are all
wearied with hearing the same thing from you. You
always have something about freedom in whatever you say
to us. I am sick of hearing about freedom; we have too
much freedom. We are all sick of it; don't let us hear
any more such sermons from you.” – Vol. I. p. 250.
He saw the great stain that defiles the government of
the Union — the stain of slavery. With his characteristic
zeal, he espoused the cause of the oppressed and down-
trodden African. His attention was first called to the
subject by accident. As he returned from preaching, one
rainy day, he overtook a negro, apparently not well able to
bear the storm. He took him into the chaise. The negro
talked of Slavery; of Mr. Walker's “incendiary publica-
tion;" of the suspicious death of Mr. Walker. This
awakened the attention of Dr. Follen to the subject. He
soon visited Mr. Garrison, whose efforts in the cause of
Abolition have been so justly celebrated. “He found him
in a little upper chamber, where were his writing-desk, his
types, and his printing-press; his parlor by day, his sleep-
ing-room by night; where, known only by a few other
faithful spirits, he denied himself all but the bare neces-
saries of life, that he might give himself up, heart and
hand, to the despised cause of the negro slave.”
Here he did not find many of the more conspicuous
men of the land to join him. There is a time when every
great cause, that is one day to move the millions, rests on
the hands and in the hearts of a few men; noble hearts,
and strong hands; heroes of the soul, whom God raises
up to go on the forlorn hope of humanity, and shed their
life where others shall one day wave the banner of triumph,
and, walking dry-shod, sing pæans of victory, though often


1843.]
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Life and Character of Dr. Follen.
unmindful of those by whom the day was won. In 1833,
Dr. Follen writes to Dr. Bowring, and says, he has been
seven years in the land, and found but two eminent men,
Dr. Channing and Clement C. Biddle, who will not con-
nive at slavery for any purpose !” Dr. Bowring's reply is
worthy to be pondered: “I am not surprised at the way
you speak of the slavery question. It is indeed the oppro-
brium of the United States. There is no escape from the
palpable, the prominent, the pestiferous fact, that human
beings are bought and sold by men, who call themselves
Republicans and Christians. It is thrown in our teeth,
it is slapped in our faces, it is branded on our souls, when
we talk of your country, and hold up your institutions to
admiration and imitation. You must indeed labor day
and night, at sun-rising and sun-setting, at home and
abroad, with the influential above, with the influential be-
low you.” — p. 338.
In the days of peril which came over the anti-slavery
cause, Dr. Follen did not shrink from fidelity to his prin-
ciples. He faced the evil like a man, neither courage nor
calmness forsaking him. We would gladly, for our coun-
try's sake, tear out many pages of the book that records
his life; for they are pages of shame to the free State we
live in ; but what is done cannot be undone by silence.*
But there was one as true in this matter as himself. His
wife writes thus: “ There were some of my friends, who
thought that I should feel very badly at seeing my husband
one of this little company of insulted men; but, as he
stood there, [before a committee of the Legislature,) bat-
tling for freedom of speech in this free land, surrounded
by the rich, and the powerful, and the favorites of the
world, and condemned by them all for it, I would not
have had him exchange positions with any one of them.
The unruffled calmness of his soul took possession of mine."
Page 401. This is not the only instance of the same spirit
in her. Before this, she had bid him above all things to
be true to his convictions. One day, he said to his wife,
“I have been thinking of joining the Anti-Slavery Society;
what do you think of it?” “That you ought to follow
the light of your own mind,” was the reply; “why should
* See, especially, pages 387-403, not to name other places.


352
[Jan.
Life and Character of Dr. Follen.
you hesitate ?” “I know that it will be greatly in the
way of my worldly interests.” “Very like," says the wife.
“I feel,” he replied, " as if I ought to join them.” “Then
why not do it?” “ It is a serious thing to relinquish my
worldly prospects altogether. If I join the Anti-Slavery
Society, I shall certainly lose all chance of a permanent
place in college, or perhaps any where else. If it were
only for myself, I should not be troubled about it; but to
involve you and Charles in the evils of real poverty, -
I shrink from that.” “You have,” replied the same ad-
viser, “sacrificed your country, your home, and all that
makes home dear, for the sake of freedom and humanity;
do not think that we are not able to make the slight sacri-
fices, which we may be called on to make in this cause.”
“He knew,” says the biographer, “ that there are evils
belonging to all associations; he never vindicated nor ap-
proved of abusive language in the Abolitionists, any more
than in their opposers; but, when a young friend raised
this objection to joining the Anti-Slavery Society, he re-
plied to him, 'I did not feel at liberty to stand aloof from
a Society, whose only object was the abolition of slavery.'”
- pp. 340, 341.
Were his fears ill-grounded? To be true, one must
always pay the price. “A clergyman made a most vehe-
ment attack upon Dr. Follen [though only in words] for
his devotion to the cause of Abolition. It was in the
street.” One Thanksgiving-day, while preaching at New
York, in part of his sermon he spoke of the subject of
slavery: “Before he had concluded the first sentence of
his remarks, two gentlemen rose and went out of the
church, looking very angry. Many others showed signs of
displeasure and alarm, and his words evidently excited a
strong sensation through the whole society." Dr. Follen
himself writes as follows about the matter: “It is some-
what doubtful now whether they will settle me here per-
manently. I feel sure that, if I had known the conse-
quences, I should have changed nothing, either in matter
or manner. So we feel easy, come what may.” He him-
self attributed his failure with that society to his expression
of the obnoxious opinions about slavery. But we will
speak no more of this theme.
While a minister at New York, he labored to convert


1843.]
353
Life and Character of Dr. Follen.
men from Infidelity, — to apply religion to daily life. He
rejoiced in having that city for the sphere of his action,
where misery, vice, and irreligion are supposed to act with
a deeper intensity of violence than elsewhere in the land.
His heart was in his calling. His biographer speaks of his
ministerial character and conduct: “When he saw a crowd
of human beings assembled around him, he did not look
upon them as rich or poor, weak or powerful, wise or
simple, gentlemen or ladies, but literally and simply as
immortal spirits, absent from their true home, and seeking
the way back to their Fatherland. He thought none so
pure that he might not fall; none so degraded that he
might not rise; and he always preached with the feeling
that the salvation of souls might be the consequence of the
truths he should declare. He sought to make the house
of the minister common ground for Humanity, where the
rich and the poor might meet together, as representatives
of the Common Image of Him that is the Maker of them
all. So he invited the whole society to meet him Wednes-
day evenings."
“We made no preparation, except to light our rooms, and
gave no entertainment, except a glass of water to those who de-
sired it. It was understood that all should come in their usual
dress; that those who were so disposed might wear their bonnets,
and that from seven till eleven o'clock in the evening, all should
come and go as they pleased.
“ These social parties were eminently successful; in fair
weather our room was always full, and, even when it was stormy,
there were some who did not fail to come. We had the pleas-
ure of introducing to each other many, who had found the
divisions of the pews impassable barriers to a friendly acquaint-
ance, and who have since become true and warm friends. The
rich in worldly goods, they who were gifted with the heavenly
dowry of genius, the artisan and the artist, the flattered favorites
of the world, and its poor forgotten pilgrims, the homebound
conservative, the republican stranger, whose home was the
world, and the exiled philanthropist, the child and his proud
grandparent, the learned and the unlearned, the grave and the
gay, all met at our house, and passed a few free and happy
hours in an unrestrained and friendly intercourse, recognising
the bond of brotherhood which exists between the members of
God's human family. Few things ever gave Dr. Follen so true
a pleasure as these meetings, not merely on account of his own
actual enjoyment of them, but as they established the fact, that
VOL. III. — NO. III.
45


354
[Jan.
Life and Character of Dr. Follen.
such social meetings were practicable, and that the vanity, and
expense, and precious time, that are lavished upon show parties
are not necessary, in order to obtain all the higher purposes of
social intercourse; and as a proof, that people have a purer and
better taste than they have credit for. It was also a high grati-
fication to his republican heart, to see that it was possible to do
away some of those arbitrary distinctions in society, which pre-
vent the highest progress and improvement of all. One of these
Wednesday evenings a lady was present, who belonged to a fam-
ily, that, if such a term could be used without absurdity in this
country, might be called patrician, but who had herself a patent
of nobility from Him, who is the giver of all things. I said to
her, “That gentleman, who has just sung the Scotch song so
well, is a hair-dresser; his wife, who, as well as himself, is from
Scotland, and who has been talking very intelligently of Mr.
Combe's lectures, which she attended in her own country, is a
dress-maker. That highly intelligent woman, who has held a
most interesting correspondence with my husband upon some
theological questions, is a watch-maker's wife. That saintly old
lady is the wife of a man who makes India-rubber shoes, &c.,
and that very gentlemanly and agreeable man is a tailor." “I
hope,” she replied, “ that the time will come when such things
will not be mentioned as extraordinary." When I repeated this
to my husband, after the company were gone, “ That is beauti-
ful," he said, with his face radiant with joy. He never forgot it;
and when we last went to New York, he said, “We must go
and see that truly republican lady.” Dr. Follen often said that
our freedom was a fact, rather than a principle, and that no-
where was opinion so tyrannical, as in this boasted land of lib-
erty. He resolved, in his ministry in New York, to be truly
faithful to his own principles. He took his market-basket daily
to market, and brought home our dinner himself. He practised
the strictest economy, that he might have something to give to
the poor. Mr. Arnold, and Mr. Channing, who had been the
ministers to the poor, had both left the city. Provisions were
dear, and the sufferings of the poor were severe; Dr. Follen
volunteered his services, and devoted all his leisure to this
difficult and painful, though interesting duty. His labors
were very arduous; the poor Germans, when they knew he was
their countryman, besieged our door ; and, during the incle-
ment part of the season, it was seldom that we took any meal
without some poor sufferer waiting till it was finished, that he
might tell his sad story, and receive his portion of our frugal
repast." Dr. Follen's labors among the poor would have been a
sufficient employment without his duties in his parish, and
preaching on Sunday, and he was often so exhausted, that I


1843.)
355
Life and Character of Dr. Follen.
feared he would lose his health entirely; but he felt such a deep
interest, such an inspiring joy, in these occupations, that he
never complained of the weariness of his body.” – Vol. I., pp.
459-462.
His love of freedom, and his practical exhibition of this
love in searching for the grounds of religion, gave him an
interest in the eyes of Infidels — men whom worldliness or
the popular theology had led to despise Religion itself. In
the course of Sermons he preached on Infidelity, he did
not use scorn and contempt; though these, it is well known,
are the consecrated weapons too often used by the Pulpit in
this warfare.
“He reviewed, during this course of lectures, all the most
celebrated writers and theories of infidelity; the French Ency-
clopedists, Hobbes, Hume, Tom Paine, and Fanny Wright.
He vituperated none, he sneered at none, he treated them all
with respect. He took Paine's 'Age of Reason' into the pulpit,
and read an eloquent passage from it, proving that he believed
in God and in the immortality of the soul, and simply stated,
that in the same pages were to be found the grossest indecen-
cies. He pointed out the inconsistencies of unbelievers, the
false grounds of their arguments, and showed that, in spite of
themselves, they could not get rid of a belief in immortality.
He then showed, that fair and free inquiry would lead to faith.
Christianity, rightly understood, instead of checking free in-
quiry, invites it, and opens to it an infinite sphere."
“ Christianity is," he said, "the most efficient skepticism,
when directed against imposition and blind credulity. Christi-
anity is the deepest science, the most sublime philosophy, adapt-
ed to the capacity of a little child, yet transcending the wisdom
of the wisest.” He dwelt most eloquently upon the importance
to the cause of religion, that believers should have a deep and
well-grounded faith themselves, before they attempted to convert
others. “Those who reject Christianity because of its supposed
inconsistency with nature, experience, and reason, can be con-
vinced of their error only by those who have embraced it, be-
cause of its perfect agreement with the demands of reason, the
teachings of experience, and the deepest wants of human nature.
The atheist in his pride is more imperfect than the most rude
and confined worshipper of Deity; for the former wants entirely
that deepest and greatest effort of the mind, of which the other
possesses at least a degree. The principles of man's immor-
tality being acknowledged in the New Testament ought not to
be considered a check to our inquiry, whether this doctrine has
any other foundation beside that evidence. God has given us


356
[Jan.
Life and Character of Dr. Follen.
this infinite desire of extending our knowledge as far as possi-
ble; and if we have not made this use of our endowments, we
do not feel assured that there are no reasons for doubting.
Many think that calling in question the truths of the doctrines
of the New Testament is a kind of irreverence; but to me it
seems, on the contrary, that the true foundation of our abiding
belief in its truth is, that its fundamental doctrines may at all
times be put to the test of fair reasoning, that its principles are
not a mere matter of fact and history, but of free investigation
and conviction. The Bible gives us only means of arriving at
truth, not truth itself. I believe in the Bible because the Bible
believes in me. I find the law and the prophets in my own soul."
— Vol. I., pp. 447-449.
We know not the result of these lectures. The effect
of a sermon no man can tell. He, who preaches as a man
to men, casts a seed into the river of human life, and knows
not on what shore it shall be cast up, or whether the waters
close, cold as ever, over his living word, and quench its
fiery life. But can it be that a good word is ever spoken
in vain? Who will believe it? The last time Dr. Follen:
preached at New-York,
“He spoke affectionately, as a brother would speak to breth-
ren whom his heart yearned to bless, and whom he was to leave
for ever. After service he remained in the desk purposely, to
avoid meeting any one, for his heart was too full to speak any
more. When he came down to meet me, thinking all others
were gone, a man and his wife came forward, who had been
waiting for him. The man took his hand, and said, “You have,
Sir, during your ministry here, changed an unhappy atheist to a
happy, believing Christian. I am grieved to think that I shall
worship no more with you in this church; but you have given
me the hope that I may yet worship with you in a higher, a
heavenly temple.” Tears ran fast down his and his wife's
cheeks as he uttered these words, and pressed Dr. Follen's hand
and departed. “ That,” said my husband, “is reward enough
for all my toils and disappointments.” — Vol. I., p. 484.
He did not fail or fear to acknowledge goodness and
moral purpose in a philanthropist, though lacking the
strength and beauty of Religion. The remarks he made
on Mr. Darusmond, " the husband of Frances Wright,"
full of sadness as they are, may well be pondered by the
“ rigid righteous.”
“ There is that noble old man spending his thoughts, his
time, and his money, for what he considers the highest good of


1843.)
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Life and Character of Dr. Follen.
his fellow men, with a youthful devotedness and enthusiasm of
benevolence, carrying in his heart the evidences of his immor-
tality, and yet tenacious of the belief, that he and his beautiful
child, and all that he loves best in the world, and all his gener-
ous and exalted purposes and hopes, are but a part of the dust
he treads on. What a lesson does his magnanimous love for
his fellow-beings teach to the multitudes of cold, calculating
men and women we see, who take the name of him who was
the first and greatest of all philanthropists, and who call him an
infidel, and are eager to condemn him.” – Vol. I., p. 473.
There are some things in this book on which we do not
feel competent to decide, and therefore shall hold our peace;
– many others on which we would gladly dwell, did time
and space permit. But there is one trait of his character
on which we would dwell; that is, his HOPEFUL RESIGNA-
TION. His disappointments, whatever was their cause, did
not sour his temper, nor make him less sanguine for the
future, nor less confident of his own conviction of Right.
He did not complain in adversity; and when persecuted
for righteousness' sake, took it patiently, and went on his
way rejoicing. We do not say that traces of indignation
could not be found in the fair chronicle of this biography
- indignation that is not Christian, as we think. But let
a candid — yes, an uncandid reader search for these traces,
and he will marvel that they are so rare. A friend said he
was “a Christian up to the arms, the heart Christian, the
arms somewhat violent, and the head directed to the out-
ward world.”
When disappointed,
“He turned directly to some present duty, or he talked with
his friends of the future, which he still trusted had some un-
looked-for good in store for him. His near friends were in the
habit of rallying him upon his sanguine anticipations, and this,
even after their failure, might have produced some sensitiveness
upon the subject; but how sweetly did he join in the laugh at
his own confiding credulity, that led him to measure the good
he expected from others, not by the history of his own expe-
rience, but by the overflowing bounty of his own heart. One
instance of this I cannot resist relating. One New Year's day
I observed him, in the morning, putting away some books that
he usually kept on his study table, and apparently making room
for something. I asked him what he was preparing for. 'I am
making room on my table for our New Year's presents,' he re-
plied. I smiled. “I see,' he said, 'that you do not expect any,


358
[Jan.
Life and Character of Dr. Follen.
but I do.' I was right ; we had not a single New Year's gift,
but his unfeigned merriment at his ungrounded hopes, and the
many hearty laughs, which the remembrance of his mistake,
when like disappointments in more important affairs befel us,
proved that he possessed that, which made such things of little
importance. No one thought less of the intrinsic value, or
rather of the market price, of a gift from a friend, than he; and
no one that I ever knew thought more of the active love that
prompted such testimonials of affection; he was truly child-like
in these things.
“We practised, necessarily, this winter, the strictest econo-
my. Through mud, and cold, and storms, Dr. Follen walked
out seven miles to the church where he was engaged to preach.
Far from uttering a complaint at the cold, or fatigue, or incon-
venience, which he occasionally had to endure, he always re-
turned home with a smile upon his face, that seemed to say,
'I have been about my Father's business.' Never did he once
say, I wish I had a chaise; and when I urged him in bad weath-
er to take one, he always answered, 'I like walking better;
having no horse to take care of, I have my mind free, and I
often compose my sermons by the way.'” – Vol. I., pp. 500,
501.
“Dr. Follen occasionally, at these times, but not often, al-
luded to the fact, that his whole life, as it regarded worldly suc-
cess, had been a series of failures, never with any bitterness,
seldom with anything like despondency. “Had I been willing,'
he has said, 'to lower my standard of right, the world would
have been with me, and I might have obtained its favor. I have
been faithful to principle under all circumstances, and I had
rather fail so, than succeed in another way; besides, I shall do
something yet; I am not discouraged, and we are happy in spite
of all things.' He was, however, very weary of the continual
changes we had made, and more especially of a continual
change of place; he longed for a more permanent local home."
— Vol. I., p. 541.
One winter he attempted a course of lectures in Boston,
on Switzerland. But few came to hear it: not enough to
defray the expenses.
“On one day only I saw him stop from his writing, and rest
his head between his hands for a long time upon his paper.
What is the matter?' I asked. “I find it very hard to write
with spirit under such circumstances,' he replied. We always
returned to Lexington on the evening of the lecture. It was a
long way, the road was heavy, and the weather was cold; and
it was dark and often very late when we got home. Usually he
was so full of lively conversation, that it seemed neither long nor


1843.)
359
Life and Character of Dr. Follen.
dull; but one night he was very silent. "Why,' I asked, “are
you so silent to-night ?' 'I do feel this disappointment,' he
replied; it shows me how little I have to hope from public fa-
vor in Boston.' 'Perhaps,' I said, you have made a mistake
in your subject. People now-a-days prefer speculations to facts;
let us consider this merely as a mode, not very expensive, of
seeing our friends once a week; it is not, after all, a costly
pleasure. Your history of Switzerland will be written, and
will be a valuable possession. That is right,' he replied; 'it
shall be so; henceforward we will look at it only as a pleasant
visit to our friends ; it is a good thing for me to have this course
of lectures written, they will yet be of use to me, and it is
pleasant to see our friends once a week.'” – Vol. I., p. 552.
But we must bring our paper to an end. Yet, not with-
out noticing his love of the Beautiful. “Nature was a
perpetual joy to him.”
“His love of the beautiful was intense, in its most humble as
well as sublime manifestations. I have seen him gaze at the
wings of an insect till, I am sure, he must have committed all
its exquisite coloring and curious workmanship to memory. One
Sunday, when he had walked far into the country to preach, he
was requested to address the children of the Sunday School. He
gave them an account of a blue dragon-fly that he had seen on
his way. He described it, with the clear blue sky shining
through its thin gauzy wings, and its airy form reflected in the
still pure water over which it hovered, looking doubtful whether
to stay here or return to the heavens from whence it apparently
came. He sought, by interesting the children in its beauty, to
awaken feelings of admiration and love towards all the creatures
that God has created.” — Vol. I. pp., 534, 535.
We must come to the last scenes of his life. He left
New York to go to Lexington and preach the dedication
sermon in the new church, built there after a plan of his
own; the church he hoped should be the scene of his fu-
ture labors. He had prepared a part of the discourse to be
delivered on the occasion. He read this to, his wife, and
added :
“ I shall explain to the people the meaning and use of symbols
in general, and then explain the meaning of those carved on the
pulpit.' These were of his own designing, and were a candlestick,
a communion cup, a crown of thorns, a wreath of stars, and,
in the centre, a cross. 'I shall not write this part of my sermon,'
said he, “but I will tell you what I shall say, and that will make
it easier when I shall speak to the people. I shall tell them,


360
[Jan.
Life and Character of Dr. Follen.
that the candlestick is a symbol of the light which should ema-
nate from the Christian pulpit, and from the life of every indi-
vidual Christian. The crown of thorns is a representation of
the trials and sufferings which the faithful Christian has to en-
dure for conscience sake. The cup signifies that spiritual
communion, which we should share with all our brethren of
mankind, and that readiness to drink the bitter cup of suffering
for their sake, and for conscience' sake, which He manifested,
who offered it to his disciples before he was betrayed. The
cross is a type of Him who gave his life for us all, and whose
example we must stand ready to follow, even though it lead to
death. The circle of stars represents the wreath of eternal
glory and happiness, which awaits the faithful soul in the pres-
ence of God.'” – Vol. I., pp. 578, 579.
The simple words of his biographer best describe his
departure:
“ He arranged his papers against his return. He was going
to take his lectures on German literature with him, but I urged
him to leave them with me, to be put in my trunk, where they
would be kept in better order. He made a little memorandum
of what he had to do when he returned. One article was to get
the Selections from Fenelon' reprinted; the next, to inquire
about a poor German, who was an exile, and a sufferer for free-
dom's sake. The last was to get a New Year's gift for a poor
little girl, whom he had taken to live with us. Just as I left the
door at Lexington, I told this child, that if she was a good girl,
I would bring her a New Year's gift from New York. Dr.
Follen over heard me; I never spoke of it to him. My illness
and anxiety had put it out of my head, but he remembered it.
As he put his sermon in his pocket, he said, 'I shall not go to
bed, but devote the night to my sermon ; I want to make some-
thing of it that is worth hearing.' He gave Charles some money,
and told him to go presently and get some grapes for me at a
shop where he had found some very fine ones. “They are good
for your mother,' he said, 'and you must keep her supplied till
my return.' 'Be of good courage till you see me again,' he said
to me as he took leave of me. ' Be a good boy, and obey your
mother till I come back again,' were his words to Charles, as he
took him in his arms, and kissed him.” – Vol. I., pp. 580, 581.
The partner of his joys; the prime cheerer of his sorrows,
has built up a beautiful monument to his character. How
beautifully she has done her work ; with what suppression
of anguish for shattered hopes, and buds of promise never
opening on earth, we have not words to tell. But the
calmness, with which the tale is told ; the absence of pane-


1843.]
361
Life and Character of Dr. Follen.
gyric; the sublime trust in the great principles of Religion,
apparent from end to end of this heart-touching record of
trials borne and ended, these show that she likewise
drank at that fountain, whence he derived his strength and
his joy. We would gladly say more ; but delicacy forbids
us to dwell on the mortal. Let us pass again to him who
has put off this earthly shroud.
This record of life is to us a most hopeful book. It
shows a man true to truth; an upright man, whom Fame
and Fortune could not bribe ; whom the menace of Mon-
archs and the oppressions of Poverty could never swerve
from the path of Duty. Disappointment attended his steps,
but never conquered his Spirit, nor abated his Hope. He
had the consolations of Religion ; that gave him strength,
which neither the Monarchs, nor Poverty, nor Disappoint-
ment, nor the neglect of the world, nor the attacks of men
narrow-minded and chained down to bigotry, could ever
take from him. How beautifully he bears his trials. In
the balance of adversity God weighs choice spirits. In
their hour of trial he gives them meat to eat, which the
world knows not of. But Dr. Follen did not stand alone.
Not to name others, there was one brave soul, in a Pulpit,
whose counsel and sympathy gave new warmth to his heart,
new energy to his resolution; one like himself, whom Fear
could not make afraid. They rest from their labors. The
good they have done shall live after them; the kind words
they spoke, the pure lives they lived, shall go up as a testi-
monial to Him that liveth for ever; their example kindles
the fire in earnest hearts on earth, a light that never dies.
Dr. Follen was fortunate in his life. Talents God gave
him, and an occasion to use them ; Defeat gave him courage,
not dismay. Deep, rich blessings fell on him,
“ Large was his bounty, and his soul sincere;
Heaven did a recompense as largely send;
He gave to misery all he had, - a tear;
He gained from Heaven, - 't was all he wished, - a Friend.”
Some men will look on his life, and say, as the skeptic in
the Bible, “How dieth the Wise ? as the Fool ; one event
happeneth to them all; for there is no remembrance of the
Wise more than of the Fool forever. Why should I be
more wise?" Let a modern poet answer, in his Complaint
and Reply.
VOL. III. —NO. III.
46


362
[Jan.
Life and Character of Dr. Follen.
“COMPLAINT.
“ How seldom, friend, a good, great man inherits
Honor or wealth, with all his worth and pains ;
It sounds like stories from the land of spirits,
If any man obtain that which he merits,
Or any merit that which he obtains.”
“REPLY.
“ For shame, dear friend! renounce this canting strain,
What wouldst thou have a good great man obtain ?
Place ? titles ? salary? or gilded chain ?
Or throne of corses which his sword hath slain ?
Greatness and goodness are not means, but ends!
Hath he not always treasures, always friends,
The good great man? Three treasures, Love and Light
And CALM THOUGHTS, regular as infant's breath!
And three firm friends, more sure than day and night,
HIMSELF, his MAKER, and the Angel DEATH.”
We cannot but apply the words of Milton, weeping over
his loved Lycidas”:
“ Weep no more, woful shepherds, weep no more,
For Lycidas, your sorrow is not dead,
Sunk though he be beneath the watery floor:
So sinks the day-star in the ocean's bed,
And yet anon repairs his drooping head,
And tricks his beams, and with new spangled ore
Flames in the forehead of the morning sky.
So Lycidas, sunk low but mounted high,
Through the dear might of him that walked the waves,
Where other groves and other streams along,
With nectar pure his oozy locks he laves,
He hears the unexpressive nuptial song.
In the blest kingdoms meek of joy and love,
There entertain him all the saints above
In solemn troops and sweet societies,
That sing and singing in their gay muse,
And wipe the tears forever from his eyes.” *
P.
* The following lines of Grotius are not misapplied :
Felix et ille quisquis et ambitu liber
Nec dana captans lucra, nec ledes plausus,
Cælestiores excitatus ad curas,
In Astra tendit et Deum studet nosse.
Cui charitate temperata Libertas
Certat manere dissidentibus concors;
Piæque purus æquitate affectus
Damnatus aliis ipse neminem damnat;
Modestiæque limitem premens, donat
Nunc Verba Vero, nunc Silentium Paci.
Grotii Poemata ; Lug. Bat. 1637, p. 306.


1843.]
363
The Prometheus Bound.
THE PROMETHEUS BOUND.
[We present our readers with a new and careful translation of the
tragedy of Æschylus, in which fidelity to the text, and to the best text,
is what is mainly attempted. We are the more readily drawn to this
task, by the increasing value which this great old allegory is acquiring
in universal literature, as a mystical picture of human life, and the most
excellent work in that kind that exists in Greek poetry. Coleridge said
of this play, that“ it was more properly tragedy itself, in the plenitude
of the idea, than a particular tragic poem.”]
PERSONS OF THE DRAMA.
Kratos and Bia, (Strength and Force.)
HEPHAISTUS, (Vulcan.)
PROMETHEUS.
CHORUS OF OCEAN NYMPHS.
OCEANUS.
Io, Daughter of Inachus.
HERMES.
KRATOS and BIA, HEPHAISTUS, PROMETHEUS.
KR. We are come to the far-bounding plain of earth,
To the Scythian way, to the unapproached solitude.
Hephaistus, orders must have thy attention,
Which the father has enjoined on thee, this bold one
To the high-hanging rocks to bind,
In indissoluble fetters of adamantine bonds.
For thy flower, the splendor of fire useful in all arts,
Stealing, he bestowed on mortals; and for such
A crime 't is fit he should give satisfaction to the gods;
That he may learn the tyranny of Zeus
To love, and cease from his man-loving ways.
Heph. Kratos and Bia, your charge from Zeus
Already has its end, and nothing further in the way;
But I cannot endure to bind
A kindred god by force to a bleak precipice,
Yet absolutely there's necessity that I have courage for these
things;
For it is hard the father's words to banish.
High-plotting son of the right-counselling Themis,
Unwilling thee unwilling in brazen fetters hard to be loosed
I am about to nail to this inhuman hill,
Where neither voice you 'll hear,) nor form of any mortal
See, but scorched by the sun's clear flame,
Will change your color's bloom; and to you glad


364
[Jan.
The Prometheus Bound.
The various-robed night will conceal the light,
And sun disperse the morning frost again;
And always the burden of the present ill
Will wear you; for he that will relieve you has not yet been
born.
Such fruits you've reaped from your man-loving ways,
For a god, not shrinking from the wrath of gods,
You have bestowed honors on mortals more than just,
For which this pleasureless rock you 'll sentinel,
Standing erect, sleepless, not bending a knee;
And many sighs and lamentations to no purpose
Will you utter; for the mind of Zeus is hard to be changed;
And he is wholly rugged who may newly rule.
KR. Well, why dost thou delay and pity in vain ?
Why not hate the god most hostile to gods,
Who has betrayed thy prize to mortals ?
Heph. The affinity indeed is appalling and the familiarity.
KR. I agree, but to disobey the Father's words
How is it possible ? Fear you not this more?
Heph. Aye you are always without pity, and full of confidence.
KR. For 't is no remedy to bewail this one;
Cherish not vainly troubles which avail nought.
HEPH. O much hated handicraft!
KR. Why hatest it? for in simple truth, for these misfortunes
Which are present now Art 's not to blame.
Heph. Yet I would 't had fallen to another's lot.
KR. All things were done but to rule the gods,
For none is free but Zeus.
HEPH. I knew it, and have nought to say against these things.
KR. Will you not haste then to put the bonds about him,
That the Father may not observe you loitering?
Heph. Already at hand the shackles you may see.
KR. Taking them, about his hands with firm strength
Strike with the hammer, and nail him to the rocks.
HEPH. 'T is done, and not in vain this work.
KR. Strike harder, tighten, no where relax,
For he is skilful to find out ways e'en from the impracticable.
HEPH. Aye but this arm is fixed inextricably..
KR. And this now clasp securely; that
He may learn he is a duller schemer than is Zeus.
HEPH. Except him would none justly blame me.


1843.]
365
The Prometheus Bound.
KR. Now with an adamantine wedge's stubborn fang
Through the breasts nail strongly.
HEPH. Alas! alas! Prometheus, I groan for thy afflictions.
KR. And do you hesitate, for Zeus' enemies
Do you groan? Beware lest one day you yourself will pity.
HEPH. You see a spectacle hard for eyes to behold.
KR. I see him meeting his deserts ;
But round his sides put straps.
Hepa. To do this is necessity, insist not much.
KR. Surely I will insist and urge beside,
Go downward, and the thighs surround with force.
HEPH. Already it is done, the work, with no long labor.
KR. Strongly now drive the fetters, through and through,
For the critic of the works is difficult.
HEPH. Like your form your tongue speaks.
KR. Be thou softened, but for my stubbornness
Of temper and harshness reproach me not.
Heph. Let us withdraw, for he has a net about his limbs.
KR. There now insult, and the shares of gods
Plundering on ephemerals bestow; what thee
Can mortals in these ills relieve ?
Falsely thee the divinities Prometheus
Call; for you yourself need one foreseeing
In what manner you will escape this fortune.
PROMETHEUS, alone.
O divine ether, and ye swift-winged winds,
Fountains of rivers, and countless smilings
Of the ocean waves, and earth, mother of all,
And thou all-seeing orb of the sun I call.
Behold me what a god I suffer at the hands of gods,
See by what outrages
Tormented the myriad-yeared
Time I shall endure ; such the new
Ruler of the blessed has contrived for me,
Unseemly bonds.
Alas! alas! the present and the coming
Woe I groan; where ever of these sufferings
Must an end appear.
But what say I? I know beforehand all,
Exactly what will be, nor to me strange
Will any evil come. The destined fate
As easily as possible it behoves to bear, knowing
Necessity's is a resistless strength.
But neither to be silent, nor unsilent about this


366
[Jan.
The Prometheus Bound.
Lot is possible for me ; for a gift to mortals
Giving, I wretched have been yoked to these necessities;
Within a hollow reed by stealth I carry off fire's
Stolen source, which seemed the teacher
Of all art to mortals, and a great resource.
For such crimes penalty I pay,
Under the sky, riveted in chains.
Ah! ah! alas! alas !
What echo, what odor has flown to me obscure,
Of god, or mortal, or else mingled, -
Came it to this terminal hill
A witness of my sufferings, or wishing what?
Behold bound me an unhappy god,
The enemy of Zeus, fallen under
The ill will of all the gods, as many as
Enter into the hall of Zeus,
Through too great love of mortals.
Alas! alas! what fluttering do I hear
Of birds near? for the air rustles
With the soft rippling of wings.
Everything to me is fearful which creeps this way.
PROMETHEUS and CHORUS
Ch. Fear nothing; for friendly this band
Of wings with swift contention
Drew to this hill, hardly
Persuading the paternal mind.
The swift-carrying breezes sent me;
For the echo of beaten steel pierced the recesses
Of the caves, and struck out from me reserved modesty;
And I rushed unsandalled in a winged chariot.
Pr. Alas! alas ! alas ! alas !
Offspring of the fruitful Tethys,
And of him rolling around all
The earth with sleepless stream children,
Of father Ocean; behold, look on me,
By wbat bonds embraced,
On this cliff's topmost rocks
I shall maintain unenvied watch.
CH. I see, Prometheus; but to my eyes a fearful
Mist has come surcharged
With tears, looking upon thy body
Shrunk to the rocks
By these mischiefs of adamantine bonds ;
Indeed new helmsmen rule Olympus;
And with new laws Zeus strengthens himself, annulling the old,
And the before great now makes unknown.
Pr. Would that under earth, and below Hades
Receptacle of dead, to impassible
Tartarus, he had sent me, to bonds indissoluble


1843.)
367
The Prometheus Bound.
Cruelly conducting, that neither god,
Nor any other had rejoiced at this.
But now the sport of winds, unhappy one,
A source of pleasure to my foes I suffer.
Ch. Who so hard-hearted
Of the gods, to whom these things are pleasant ?
Who does not sympathize with thy
Misfortunes, excepting Zeus ? for he in wrath always
Fixing his stubborn mind,
Afflicts the heavenly race;
Nor will he cease, until his heart is sated;
Or with some palm some one may take the power hard to be
taken.
PR. Surely yet, though in strong
Fetters I am now maltreated,
The ruler of the blessed will have need of me,
To show the new conspiracy, by which
He's robbed of sceptre and of honors,
And not at all me with persuasion's honey-tongued
Charms will he appease, nor ever
Shrinking from his firm threats, will I
Declare this, till from cruel
Bonds he may release, and to do justice
For this outrage be willing.
Ch. You are bold; and to bitter
Woes do nothing yield,
But too freely speak.
But my mind piercing fear disturbs;
For I'm concerned about thy fortunes,
Where at length arriving you may see
An end of these afflictions. For manners
Inaccessible, and a heart hard to be dissuaded has the son of
Kronos.
PR. I know, that - Zeus is stern and having
Justice to himself. But after all
Gentle-minded
He will one day be, when thus he's crushed,
And his stubborn wrath allaying,
Into agreement with me and friendliness
Earnest to me earnest he at length will come.
CH. The whole account disclose and tell us plainly,
In what crime taking you Zeus
Thus disgracefully and bitterly insults;
Inform us, if you are nowise hurt by the recital.
Pr. Painful indeed it is to me to tell these things,
And a pain to be silent, and every way unfortunate.
When first the divinities began their strife,
And discord ʼmong themselves arose,
Some wishing to cast out Kronos from his seat,


368
[Jan.
The Prometheus Bound.
That Zeus might reign, forsooth, others the contrary
Striving, that Zeus might never rule the gods;
Then I the best advising, to persuade
The Titans, sons of Uranus and Chthon,
Unable was; but crafty stratagems
Despising with rude minds,
They thought without trouble to rule by force;
But to me my mother not once only, Themis,
And Gaea, of many names one form,
How the future should be accomplished had foretold,
That not by power, nor by strength
Would it be necessary, but by craft the victors should prevail.
Such I in words expounding,
They deigned not to regard at all.
The best course therefore of those occurring then
Appeared to be, taking my mother to me,
Of my own accord to side with Zeus glad to receive me;
And by my counsels Tartarus' black-pitted
Depth conceals the ancient Kronos,
With his allies. In such things by me
The tyrant of the gods having been helped,
With base rewards like these repays me,
For there is somehow in kingship
This disease, not to trust its friends.
What then you ask, for what cause
He afflicts me, this will I now explain.
As soon as on his father's throne
He sat, he straig