643













James Freeman Clarke











THE DIAL:
MAGAZINE
FOR
LITERATURE, PHILOSOPHY, AND RELIGION.
VOLUME II.
BOSTON:
PUBLISHED BY E. P. P E A BODY,
109 WASHINGTON STREET.
LONDON:
JOAN GREEN, 121 NEWGATE STREET,
M DCCC XLII.


272
CAMBRIDGE PRESS :
TORRY AND BALLOU.


[R.BR.]
ANDOVER - HARVARD
THEOLOGICAL LIBRARY
CAMBRIDGE, MASS,
Period. 526.1
r.2
1841-1842
CONTENTS.
.
.
.
.
.
No. I.
Goethe . I .M. - . . .
Two Hymns . . . . . . .
Night and Day. ... . . .
The Blind Seer . . . . . .
Wheat Seed and Bolted Flour ..
Song . . . . . . . .
Need of a Diver . . .
Clouds . . . . . .
The Future is better than the Past .
August Shower . . . .
The Pharisees . . . . . .
Protean Wishes . .
Painting and Sculpture .
Sic Vita . . . . .
Bettina . .
Prophecy — Transcendentalism - Progress
Sonnet to
. . . . . .
Letter . . . . . . .
Lines. -Sonnet . . . . . .
.
59
.
.
81
.
82
83
•
:
.
.
121
. 122
129
.
NOTICES OF RECENT PUBLICATIONS. "
Essays and Poems. By Jones VERY
130
On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History.
By Thomas CarlyLE
A Year's Life. By James Russell Lowell . 133
131


CONTENTS.
Hayward's Faust, and Goethe's Correspondence with a
Child
The Hour and the Man. By Harriet MartinEAU ...
Tennyson's Poems. - Stirling's Poems. — Festus
The Plain Speaker . . . . . .
To Contributors . . . . . . .
134
134
135
135
136
No. II.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Cupid's Conflict . . . .
Lives of the Great Composers . .
Light and Shade . . . .
Friendship . . . . . .
Painting and Sculpture
Fate . . . . . . .
Woodnotes. No. II
A Glimpse of Christ's Idea of Society .
Poems on Life . . . . .
Windmill . . . . . .
E S.M.F Festus . . . . . .
RW.E Walter Savage Landor. . . .
Inworld . . . . . .
. 137
. 148
. 203
. 204
205
. 205
207
. 214
, 228
. 230
. 231
. 262
. 271
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
No. III.
.
.
.
.
First Principles . . . . . .
Yuca Filamentosa . . . . .
Inworld . . .
. . .
Outworld
. . . . .
Primitive Christianity .
Bettine Brentano and her Friend Günderode
Sonnets . . . . . . .
Sonnet to Irene on her Birthday . .
The Hour of Reckoning
Sonnet to Mary on her Birthday . .
De Profundis Clamavi... . . .
. 273
. 286
. 288
. 290
292
313
: 357
. 358
358
. 359
. 359
.
.
illon
.
.


CONTENTS.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Music. To Martha
Plan of the West Roxbury Community
The Park
. . . . .
Forbearance . . . .
Grace . . . . . .
The Senses and the Soul . .
Epilogue to the Tragedy of Essex .
.
.
.
360
. 361
373
. 373
373
. 374
380
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
EDITOR'S TABLE.
Transcendentalism
.
.
.
.
.
.
382
$.3.6.
NOTICES OF RECENT PUBLICATIONS.
Plan of Salvation . . . . . . . 385
Motherwell's Poems. Boston: Published by William D.
Ticknor . . . . . . . . . 393
Egmont, a Tragedy in five Acts. Translated from the
German of Goethe. Boston : James Munroe and Co.
1841 . . . . . . . . . 394
Monaldi, a Tale. Boston: Charles C. Little and James
Brown. 1841 . . . . . . . 395
Conjectures and Researches concerning the Love, Mad-
ness, and Imprisonment of Torquato Tasso. By R. H.
Wilde. New-York: Alexander V. Blake. 1842 . 399
Boston Academy of Music .
. . 407
Theory of Teaching. By a Teacher. Boston: E. P.
Peabody. 1841 . . . . . . . 408
The Ideal Man . . . . . . . 408
.
.
.
.
No. IV.
. .
. .
. .
. .
. .
.
.
Days from a Diary
Marie Van Oosterwich
Silence and Speech
Thoughts on Theology
Herzliebste . .
.
.
.
.
.
. 409
. 437
. 483
. 485
528
.
.
.
.
.
.
.


CONTENTS.
RECORD OF THE MONTHS.
The Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences, founded upon
their History. By the Rev. William WHEWELL, B. D. 529
On the Foundation of Morals: Four Sermons preached
before the University of Cambridge. By the Rev.
WILLIAM WHEWELL, &c. . . . . . . 530
Institutes of Ecclesiastical History, Ancient and Modern.
By John LAURENCE Von Mosheim, D.D. . . . 531
German Anti-Supernaturalism. Six Lectures on Strauss's
“Life of Jesus.” By Philip Harwood . . . 535
REPUBLICATIONS.
The History of Christianity from the Birth of Christ to
the Abolition of Paganism in the Roman Empire. By
the Rev. H. H. Milman. New-York : 1841 . . 540
The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.
By EDWARD GIBBON, Esq. New-York: 1841 . . 542


et aan
en die
THE DIAL.
Vol. II.
JULY, 1841.
No. I.
GOETHE.
Nemo contra deum nisi deus ipse.
Wer Grosses will muss sich zusammen raffen ;
In der Beschrankung zeigt sich erst der Meister,
Und der Gesetz nur kann uns Freiheit geben.
ft Books of dr Of turning ride the “ Parting oof his
The first of these mottoes is that prefixed by Goethe to
the last books of “ Dichtung und Wahrheit.” These
books record the hour of turning tide in his life, the time
when he was called on for a choice at the “ Parting of the
Ways.” From these months, which gave the sum of his
youth, the crisis of his manhood, date the birth of Egmont,
and of Faust too, though the latter was not published so
early. They saw the rise and decline of his love for Lili,
apparently the truest love he ever knew. That he was not
himself dissatisfied with the results to which the decisions
of this era led him, we may infer from his choice of a
motto, and from the calm beauty with which he has in-
motted the ring the celese per totellect mind
The Parting of the Ways! The way he took led to
court-favor, wealth, celebrity, and an independence of
celebrity. It led to large performance, and a wonderful
economical management of intellect. It led Faust the
Seeker from the heights of his own mind to the trodden
ways of the world. There, indeed, he did not lose sight
of the mountains, but he never breathed their keen air
again.
VOL. II. —NO. I.
not lopen ai
mountains, but hide, indeed," heind to the inst the


Goethe.
(July,
than of intelliests. to us is one of less of piety, and the
After this period we find in him rather a wide and deep
Wisdom, than the inspirations of Genius. His faith, that
all must issue well, wants the sweetness of piety, and the
God he manifests to us is one of law or necessity, rather
than of intelligent love. As this God makes because he
must, so Goethe, his instrument, observes and recreates
because he must, observing with minutest fidelity the out-
ward exposition of nature, never blinded by a sham, or
detained by a fear, he yet makes us feel that he wants
insight to her sacred secret. The calmest of writers does
not give us repose, because it is too difficult to find his
centre. Those flame-like natures, which he undervalues,
give us more peace and hope through their restless aspi-
rations, than he with his hearth-enclosed fires of steady
fulfilment. For, true as it is, that God is everywhere, we
must not only see him, but see him acknowledged. Through
the consciousness of man “shall not Nature interpret
God ?” We wander in diversity, and, with each new
turning of the path, long anew to be referred to the
One.
Of Goethe, as of other natures, where the intellect is
too much developed in proportion to the moral nature,
it is difficult to speak without seeming narrow, blind, and
impertinent. For such men see all that others live, and,
if you feel a want of a faculty in them, it is hard to
say they have it not, lest next moment they puzzle you by
giving some indication of it. Yet they are not, nay know
not, they only discern. The difference is that between
sight and life, prescience and being, wisdom and love.
Thus with Goethe. Naturally of a deep mind and shallow
heart, he felt the sway of the affections enough to appre-
ciate their working in other men, but never enough to
receive their inmost regenerating influence.
How this might have been had he ever once abandoned
himself entirely to a sentiment, it is impossible to say.
But the education of his youth seconded, rather than bal-
anced his natural tendency. His father was a gentlemanly
Martinet; dull, sour, well-informed, and of great ambition
as to externals. His influence on the son was wholly arti-
ficial. He was always turning this powerful mind from side
to side in search of information, for the attainment of what
are called accomplishments. The mother was a delightful


1841.]
Goethe.
person in her way; open, genial, playful, full of lively
talent, but without earnestness of soul. She was one of
those charming, but not noble persons, who take the day
and the man as they find them, seeing the best that is
there already, but never making the better grow there.
His sister, though of graver kind, was social and intellec-
tual, not religious or tender. The mortifying repulse of
his early love checked the few pale buds of faith and ten-
derness that his heart put forth. His friends were friends
of the intellect merely; - altogether he seemed led by
destiny to the place he was to fill.
Pardon him, World, that he was too worldly. Do not
wonder, Heart, that he was so heartless. Believe, Soul,
that one so true, as far as he went, must yet be initiated
into the deeper mysteries of Soul. Perhaps even now he
sees that we must accept limitations, only to transcend
them; work in processes, only to detect the organizing
power which supersedes them; and that Sphynxes of fifty-
five volumes might well be cast into the abyss before the
single word that solves them all.
Now when I think of Goethe, I seem to see his soul,
all the variegated plumes of knowledge, artistic form
“und so weiter” burnt from it by the fires of divine love,
wingless, motionless, unable to hide from itself in any
subterfuge of labor, saying again and again the simple
words which he would never directly say on earth -
God beyond Nature — Faith beyond Sight - the Seeker
nobler than the Meister.
For this mastery that Goethe prizes seems to consist
rather in the skilful use of means than in the clear mani-
festation of ends. His Master, indeed, makes acknow-
ledgment of a divine order, but the temporal uses are
always uppermost in the mind of the reader. But of this
more at large in reference to his works.
Apart from this want felt in his works, there is a little-
ness in his aspect as a character. Why waste his time in
Weimar court entertainments ? His duties as minister
were not unworthy of him, though it would have been,
perhaps, finer, if he had not spent so large a portion of
that prime of intellectual life from five and twenty to forty
upon them.
But granted that the exercise these gave his faculties,


Goethe.
(July,
the various lore they brought, and the good they did to
the community made them worth bis doing, - why that
perpetual dangling after the royal family, why all that
verse-making for the albums of serene bighnesses, and
those pretty poetical entertainments for the young princess-
es, and that cold setting himself apart from his true peers,
the real sovereigns of Weimar, Herder, Wieland, and the
others? The excuse must be found in circumstances of
his time and temperament, which made the character of
man of the world and man of affairs more attractive to
him than the children of nature can conceive it to be in
the eyes of one who is capable of being a consecrated
bard.
The man of genius feels that literature has become too
much a craft by itself. No man should live by or for his
pen. Writing is worthless except as the record of life ;
and no great man ever was satisfied thus to express all his
being. His book should be only an indication of himself.
The obelisk should point to a scene of conquest. In the
present state of division of labor, the literary man finds
himself condemned to be nothing else. Does he write a
good book ? it is not received as evidence of his ability to
live and act, but rather the reverse. Men do not offer
him the care of embassies, as an earlier age did to Petrar-
ca; they would be surprised if he left his study to go
forth to battle like Cervantes. We have the swordsman,
and statesman, and penman, but it is not considered that
the same mind which can rule the destiny of a poem, may
as well that of an army or an empire.* Yet surely it
should be so. The scientific man may need seclusion
from the common affairs of life, for he has his materials
before him ; but the man of letters must seek them in life,
and he who cannot act will but imperfectly appreciate ac-
tion.
The literary man is impatient of being set apart. He
feels that monks and troubadours, though in a similar po-
sition, were brought into more healthy connexion with man
and nature, than he who is supposed to look at them
ter Scott is prouder of being a good sheriff and farmer,
• Except in “ La belle France."


1841.)
Goethe.
Per H. Dave, who hadamas in
than of his reputation as the Great Unknown. Byron
piques himself on his skill in shooting and swimming.
Sir H. Davy and Schlegel would be admired as dandies,
and Goethe, who had received an order from a publisher
“ for a dozen more dramas in the same style as Goetz von
Berlichingen,” and though (in sadder sooth) he had already
Faust in his head asking to be written out, thought it
no degradation to become premier in the little duchy of
Weimar.
Straws show which way the wind blows, and a comment
may be drawn from the popular novels, where the literary
man is obliged to wash off the ink in a violet bath, attest
his courage in the duel, and hide his idealism beneath the
vulgar nonchalance and coxcombry of the man of fashion.
If this tendency of his time had some influence in mak-
ing Goethe find pleasure in tangible power and decided
relations with society, there were other causes which work-
ed deeper. The growth of genius in its relations to men
around must always be attended with daily pain. The
enchanted eye turns from the far off star it has detected
to the short-sighted bystander, and the seer is mocked for
pretending to see what others cannot. The large and
generalizing mind infers the whole from a single circum-
stance, and is reproved by all around for its presumptuous
judgment. Its Ithuriel temper pierces shams, creeds, cov-
enants, and chases the phantoms which others embrace,
till the lovers of the false Florimels hurl the true knight
to the ground. Little men are indignant that Hercules,
yet an infant, declares he has strangled the snake; they
demand a proof, they send him out into scenes of labor to
bring hence the voucher that his father is a God. What
the ancients meant to express by Apollo's continual dis-
appointment in his loves, is felt daily in the youth of
genius. The sympathy he seeks flies his touch, the objects
of his affection jeer at his sublime credulity, his self-reli-
ance is arrogance, his far sight infatuation, and his ready
detection of fallacy fickleness and inconsistency. Such is
the youth of genius, before the soul has given that sign
of itself which an unbelieving generation cannot contro-
vert. Even then he is little benefited by the transforma-
tion of the mockers into Dalai-Lama worshippers. For the
soul seeks not adorers but peers, not blind worship but


Goethe.
[July,
intelligent sympathy. The best consolation even then is
that which Goethe puts into the mouth of Tasso : “ To me
gave a God to tell what I suffer.” In Tasso Goethe has
described the position of the poetical mind in its prose
relations with equal depth and fulness. We see what he
felt must be the result of entire abandonment to the high-
est nature. We see why he valued himself on being able
to understand the Alphonsos, and meet as an equal the
Antonios of every-day life.
But, you say, there is no likeness between Goethe and
Tasso. Never believe it, such pictures are not painted from
observation merely. That deep coloring which fills them
with light and life is given by dipping the brush in one's
own life-blood. Goethe had not from nature that charac-
ter of self-reliance and self-control in which he so long
appeared to the world. It was wholly acquired and so
highly valued because he was conscious of the opposite
tendency. He was by nature as impetuous though not as
tender as Tasso, and the disadvantage at which this con-
stantly placed him was keenly felt by a mind made to
appreciate the subtlest harmonies in all relations. There-
fore was it that, when he at last cast anchor, he was so
reluctant again to trust himself to wave and breeze.
I have before spoken of the antagonist influences under
which he was educated. He was driven from the severity
of study into the world, and then again drawn back, many
times in the course of his crowded youth. Both the
world and the study he used with unceasing ardor, but not
with the sweetness of a peaceful hope. Most of the traits
which are considered to mark his character at a later pe-
riod were wanting to him in youth. He was very social,
and continually perturbed by his social sympathies. He
was deficient both in outward self-possession and mental
self-trust. “I was always,” he says, “ either too volatile
or too infatuated, so that those who looked kindly on me
did by no means always honor me with their esteem.”
He wrote much and with great freedom; the pen came
naturally to his hand, but he had no confidence in the
merit of what he wrote, and much inferior persons to
as worthless what it had given him sincere pleasure to
compose. It was hard for him to isolate himself, to con-


1841.1
Goethe.
sole himself, and, though his mind was always busy with
important thoughts, they did not free him from the pres-
sure of other minds. His youth was as sympathetic and
impetuous as any on record.
The effect of all this outward pressure on the poet is
recorded in Werther, a production that he afterwards un-
dervalued, and to which he even felt positive aversion. It
was natural that this should be. In the calm air of the
cultivated plain he attained, the remembrance of the
miasma of sentimentality was odious to him. Yet sen-
timentality is but sentiment diseased, which to be cured
must be patiently observed by the wise physician ; so are
the morbid desire and despair of Werther the sickness of
a soul aspiring to a purer, freer state, but mistaking the
way.
The best or the worst occasion in man's life is precisely
that misused in Werther, when he longs for more love,
more freedom, and a larger development of genius than
the limitations of this terrene sphere permit. Sad is it
indeed if, persisting to grasp too much at once, he lose all
as Werther did. He must accept limitation, must consent
to do his work in time, must let his affections be baffled
by the barriers of convention. Tantalus like, he makes
this world a Tartarus, or like Hercules, rises in fires to
heaven, according as he knows how to interpret bis lot.
But he must only use, not adopt it. The boundaries of
the man must never be confounded with the destiny of
the soul. If he does not decline his destiny as Werther
did, it is his honor to have felt its unfitness for his eternal
scope. He was born for wings, he is held to walk in lead-
ing strings; nothing lower than faith must make him re-
signed, and only in hope should he find content, a hope
not of some slight improvement in his own condition or
that of other men, but a hope justified by the divine jus-
tice, which is bound in due time to satisfy every want of
his natulich is boen, but proven
Schiller's great command is, “Keep true to the dream
of thy youth.” The great problem is how to make the
dream real, through the exercise of the waking will.
This was not exactly the problem Goethe tried to solve.
To do somewhat became too important, as is indicated
both by the second motto to this essay and by his, maxim,


Goethe.
(July,
“It is not the knowledge of what might be, but what is,
that forms us."
Werther, like his early essays now republished from the
Frankfort Journal, is characterized by a fervid eloquence
of Italian glow, which betrays a part of his character al-
most lost sight of in the quiet transparency of his later
productions, and may give us some idea of the mental
conflicts through which he passed to manhood.
Exceedingly characteristic of his genius is a little tale,
which he records as having frequently been told by him to
his companions when only eight or nine years of age. I
think it is worth insertion here.
THE NEW PARIS.
“ The night before Whitsunday I dreamed that I stood before
a mirror, examining the new summer clothes which my kind
parents had ordered to be made for me to wear on that occa-
sion. This dress consisted, as you know, in handsome leather
shoes, with large silver buckles, fine cotton stockings, black
sarsnet trowsers, and a green coat with gold trimmings. The
vest of gold stuff was cut out of the vest my father wore at his
wedding. My hair was curled and powdered, so that the locks
stood out from my head like wings. But I could not manage
to finish dressing myself, for always one thing would fall off as
I put on another. While I was in this dilemma came up a
handsome young man and accosted me in the most friendly
manner. “Ey, you are welcome,' said I, 'I am delighted to see
you here.' 'You know me then,' said he with a smile. "Why
not,' said I, smiling also, 'you are Mercury; I have often seen
your picture.' 'Yes,' said he, 'that is my name, and the gods
have sent me to you with an important commission. Do you
see these three apples?' He stretched out his hand and showed
me the three apples, so large that he could hardly hold them,
and very beautiful, one red, one green, and one yellow. I
thought them jewels to which the form of those fruits had been
given. I wished to take hold of them, but he drew back, say-
ing, ' you must first understand that they are not intended for
yourself. You must give them to the three handsomest young
men in the city, who then, each according to his lot, shall find
consorts such as they would wish. Take them and do well
what I ask of you. So saying he put the apples into my hands
and went away. They seemed to me to have grown larger ; I
held them up to the light and found that they were transparent.
As I looked at them they lengthened out into three beautiful,


1841.1
Goethe.
beautiful ladies, not larger than dolls, whose clothes were each
of the color of her apple. They glided gently up my fingers,
and, as I tried to grasp them, or at least to hold fast some one
of the three, floated up into the air. I stood astonished, hold-
ing up my hands and looking at my fingers as if there were still
somewhat to be seen there. Suddenly appeared dancing on the
points of my fingers a lovely maiden, smaller than the others,
but elegantly shaped and very lively. She did not fly away like
the others, but kept dancing up and down while I stood looking
at her. But at last she pleased me so much that I tried to lay
hold of her, when I received a blow on the head which felled
me to the earth, where I lay senseless till the hour came to get
ready for church.
“During the service, and at my grandfather's, where I dined,
I thought over again and again what I had seen. In the after-
noon I went to a friend's house, partly to show myself in my
new dress, my hat under my arm, and my sword by my side,
partly because I owed a visit there. I did not find the family
at home, and hearing that they had gone to their garden, I
thought I would follow and enjoy the afternoon with them. My
way led past the prison to that place which is justly named that
of the bad wall, for it is never quite safe there. I walked slow-
ly, thinking of my three goddesses, and still more of the little
nymph; often, indeed, I held up my finger, hoping she would
have the politeness to balance herself on it. While engaged
with these thoughts, my attention was arrested by a little door
in the wall, which I could not recollect ever to have seen before.
It looked very low, but the tallest man could have passed
through the arch above it. Both arch and wall were most ele-
gantly ornamented with carving and sculpture, but the door es-
pecially attracted my attention. It was of an ancient brown
wood, very little adorned, but girt with broad bands of iron, on
whose metal foliage sat the most natural seeming birds. But
what struck me most was that I saw neither key-hole, latch, nor
knocker; and I thought the door could be opened only from
within. I was right, for as I drew nearer and put my hand upon
the ornaments, it opened, and a man appeared, whose dress was
very long, wide, and of singular fashion. A venerable beard
flowed on his breast, which made me fancy he might be a Jew.
But he, as if he guessed my thought, made the sign of the holy
cross, thus giving me to understand that he was a good Catho-
lic. “How came you here, young gentleman, and what do you
want ?' said he with friendly voice and gesture. 'I am admir-
ing,' said I, the workmanship of this door; I have never seen
anything like it, though there must be specimens in the cabinets
of amateurs.' 'I am glad,' said he, that you like the work.
But the door is much more beautiful on the inner side; come
VOL. II. — NO I.


10
(July
Goethe.
in and examine it, if you like. I did not feel perfectly easy as
to this invitation. The singular dress of the porter, my solita-
ry position, and a certain something in the atmosphere disturb-
ed me. I delayed therefore, under the pretext of looking a lit-
tle longer at the outside, and stole a glance into the garden, for
it was a garden which lay behind the wall. Immediately oppo-
site the door I saw a square, so overshadowed by ancient lin-
dens, planted at regular distances one from another that a very
numerous company could have been sheltered there. Already
I was upon the threshold, and the old man easily allured me a
step farther. Indeed I did not resist, for I had always under-
stood that a prince or sultan would not in such a situation in-
quire whether he was in any danger. And had I not a sword
by my side, and should I not easily be even with the old man, if
he should manifest a hostile disposition? So I went confidently
in, and he put to the door, which fastened so easily that I
scarcely observed it. He then showed me the delicate work-
manship of the door within, and seemed really very kind. Quite
set at ease by this, I went yet farther to look at the leaf-work
of the wall, and admired it very much. I saw many niches
adorned with shells, corals, and minerals, also Tritons spouting
water into marble basins, cages with birds and squirrels, Guinea
pigs running up and down, and all sorts of such pretty crea-
tures. The birds kept calling and singing to us as we walked,
especially the starlings said the oddest things; one would call
Paris, Paris, and the other Narciss, Narciss, as plain as any
schoolboy could speak. I thought the old man looked earnest-
ly at me whenever the birds called these names, but I pretend-
ed not to observe him ; indeed I was too busy with other mat-
ters to think much about it, for I perceived that we were going
round and that the lindens inclosed a circle, probably much
more interesting. We reached the door, and the old man
seemed inclined to let me out, but my eyes were fixed on a gol-
den lattice which I now saw surrounded the middle of this
marvellous garden, though the old man had tried to hide it by
keeping me next the wall. As he was about to open the door,
I said to him with a low reverence, you have been so very po-
lite to me, that I venture on asking one other favor before I go.
Might I look nearer at the golden grate which seems to sur-
round the centre of the garden?! Certainly,' he replied, .if
you will submit to the conditions.' 'What are they?' I asked
hastily. You must leave behind your hat and sword, and I
must keep hold of your hand all the while.' Willingly,'
cried I, laying my hat and sword on the nearest stone bench.
He then seized my right hand and drew me forward with force.
When we came near the grate, my admiration was changed into
astonishment; nothing like it had I ever seen! On a high


1841.)
Goethe.
ledge of marble stood innumerable spears and partizans ar-
ranged side by side, whose singularly ornamented upper ends
formed a fence. I looked through the interstices, and saw
water flowing gently in a marble channel, in whose clear current
I saw many gold and silver fishes, which, sometimes singly,
sometimes in numbers, sometimes slow, and sometimes quickly,
moved hither and thither. Now I wanted to look beyond this
canal and see what was going on in the heart of the garden;
but I found to my great trouble, that there was on the opposite
side a similar grate, and so made, that there was a spear or a
partizan opposite to every interstice of the one at which I stood,
so that, look what way I would, I could see nothing beyond it.
Beside, the old man held me so fast that I could not move with
any freedom. But the more I saw the more curious I grew,
and I summoned up courage to ask if I could not pass the
grates. "Why not?' said he, 'yet are there new conditions.'
When I asked what they were, he gave me to understand that I
must change my dress. I consented, and he conducted me to
a neat little room near the wall, on whose walls hung many
dresses, in fashion very like the oriental costume. I was soon
drest in one, and my guide, to my horror, shook all the powder
out of my hair, and stroked it back under a variegated net. I
looked in a large mirror and was well pleased with my new
apparel, which, I thought, became me far more than my stiff
Sunday dress. I made some gestures and leaps, like what I had
seen at the theatre at the time of the fair. Looking in the glass
as I did this, I saw behind me a niche, where on a white ground
were some green cords, wound up in a way I did not under-
stand. I asked the old man about it, and he very politely took
down a cord and showed it to me. It was a green silk cord of
some strength, whose ends drawn through two cuts in a piece
of green morocco, gave it the air of being intended for no very
agreeable purpose. This disturbed me, and I asked the old
man what it meant. He answered in a kind and sedate man-
ner, 'It is intended for those who abuse the trust that is here
shown them. So saying, he hung the noose up again and de-
sired me to follow him. This time he did not take my hand,
but left me free.
“I was most of all curious to see where the door or bridge
might be, by which I was to cross the canal, for I had not been
able to find anything of the sort. I therefore looked earnestly
at the golden grate as we went up to it, but I almost lost the
power of sight, when suddenly spears, halberds, and partizans
began to rattle and shake, and at last all their points sank
downwards, just as if two squadrons, armed in the old-fashioned
way with pikes, were to rush upon one another. Eyes and ears
could scarcely endure the clash and confusion. But when they


12
(July,
Goeihe.
were all lowered, they covered the canal, making the finest of
bridges, and the gayest garden lay before me. It was divided
into many beds, which formed a labyrinth of ornaments, all set
in green borders of a low, woolly plant, which I never saw be-
fore. Each bed was of some particular sort of flower, and all
of kinds that grow but little way from the ground, so that the
eye could pass with ease over the whole parterre and take in its
design. This beautiful scene, now lying in full sunshine, com-
pletely captivated my eyes. The winding paths were of a pure
blue sand, which seemed to represent on earth a darker sky, or
a sky in the water. In these I walked, my eyes cast downwards,
sometimes by the side of the old man, till at last I perceived in
the midst of this flower garden a circle of cypresses or poplar-
shaped trees, through which the eye could not penetrate, be-
cause their lower branches seemed to come directly from the
ground. My guide led me into this circle, and how was I sur-
prised to find there a pavilion supported by pillars, with entran-
ces on every side. Even more than the sight of this beautiful
building enchanted me the celestial music that proceeded from
it. Sometimes I seemed to hear a harp, sometimes a lute,
sometimes a guitar, and at intervals a tinkling unlike any of
these instruments. We went to one of the doors, which opened
at a slight touch from the old man. How astonished was I to
see in the portress a perfect likeness of the pretty little maiden,
who in the dream had danced on my fingers. She greeted me
with the air of an acquaintance, and asked me to come in.
The old man remained without, and I went with her through
an arched and highly ornamented passage, into the saloon,
whose fine, lofty dome immediately excited my attention and
wonder. Yet my eyes were soon diverted by a charming spec-
tacle. On a carpet spread directly underneath the cupola, sat
three women in the three corners, drest in the three different
colors, one red, the second yellow, the third green; the seats
were gilt, the carpet a perfect flower-bed. They held the three
instruments which I had been able to distinguish from without,
but had stopped playing on my entrance. You are welcome,'
said she who sat in the middle facing the door, drest in red, and
holding the harp. 'Sit down beside Alerte and listen, if you
love music. Now I saw a rather long bench placed obliquely,
on which lay a mandolin. The little maiden took it, sat down,
and called me to her side. Then I looked at the lady on my
right, she wore the yellow dress, and had a guitar in her hand.
And as the harp player was of stately shape, dignified aspect,
and majestic mein, so was the guitar player gay, light, and at-
tractive in her appearance and manner. She was slender and
flaxen-haired, the other had dark chestnut tresses. But the va.
riety and harmony of their music could not prevent my fixing


1841.]
13
Goethe.
my attention on the beauty in green, whose performance on
the lute seemed to me peculiarly admirable and moving. She
it was also, who seemed to pay most heed to me, and to direct
her playing to me, yet I knew not what to make of her, for she
seemed sometimes tender, sometimes whimsical, sometimes
frank, and then again capricious, according as she varied her
move me, sometimes as if she made a jest of me. But do what
she would she won little on me, for my little neighbor, by whom
I sat elbow to elbow, charmed me, and seeing in the three
ladies the sylphides of my dream, and the colors of the three
apples, I well understood, that they were not to be obtained by
me. I should willingly have laid hold of the little one, had I
not too well remembered the box of the ear with which she had
repulsed me in the dream. Hitherto she had not used her
mandolin, but when her mistresses had finished, they bid her
play some lively air. Scarcely had she begun the merry dancing
tune, than she jumped up. I did the same. She played and
danced. I imitated her steps, and we performed a sort of little
ballet, with which the ladies seemed to be well pleased; for
when we had finished, they bade the little maid give me some-
thing good, to refresh me until supper should be prepared.
Alerte led me back into the passage through which I had come.
It had at the sides two well arranged rooms, in one in which
she lived she set before me oranges, figs, peaches, and grapes,
and I enjoyed with keen appetite the fruits of foreign lands and
of this season. There was also confectionary in abundance,
and she filled for me a crystal cup of foaming wine, but I had
sufficiently refreshed myself with the fruit, and did not need it.
•Now let us go and play,' said she, and led me into the other
room. Here it looked like a Christmas market, yet at none
did you ever see such splendid, elegant things. There were all
sorts of dolls, dolls' clothes and furniture, kitchens, parlors,
and shops, and single playthings innumerable. She led me
about to all the glass cases in which these fine things were kept.
But the first one she soon shut, saying, I know you will not
care for these matters. From this next we might take building
blocks, and make a great city of walls and towers, houses, pal-
aces, and churches. But I don't like that; we must find some-
thing which may entertain us both.' She then brought some
boxes, full of the prettiest little soldiers that ever were seen.
She took one of these and gave me the other. We will go to
the golden bridge,' said she, 'that is the best place to play with
soldiers, the spears make lines on which it is easy to arrange
the armies. When we reached the golden floor, I heard the
water ripple, and the fishes plash beneath me, as I knelt down
to arrange my lines. All the soldiers were on horseback. She


14
(July,
Goethe:
boasted of the Queen of the Amazons with her host of female
troopers, while I had Achilles, and a squadron of stately Greek
horsemen. The armies stood opposite one another. Never
was seen anything finer. These were not flat, leaden horsemen,
like ours, but both man and horse round and with perfect
bodies, worked out in the most delicate manner. It was not
easy to understand how they kept their balance so perfectly,
for each stood by itself without the aid of a foot-board.
“After we had surveyed them for a while with great satisfac-
tion, she gave the signal for the attack. We had found artillery
in the chests, namely, boxes full of polished agate balls. With
these we were to fight at a given distance, but under the ex-
press condition, that no ball was to be thrown with force enough
to hurt a figure, only to throw it down. For a while, the can-
nonade went on agreeably enough. But, when my antagonist
observed that I aimed truer than she, and was likely to beat her,
she drew nearer, and then her girlish way of throwing the balls
was very successful. She threw down my best men in crowds,
and the more I protested, the more zealously she threw her
balls. This vexed me, and I declared I would do the same.
Then I not only went nearer, but in my anger threw my balls
so violently, that two of her little centauresses were snapt in
pieces. In her eagerness, she, at first, did not remark this;
but I stood petrified, as the broken figures, joining together
again and becoming a living whole, left the golden bridge at full
gallop, and after running to and fro as in the lists, were lost, I
know not how, against the wall. My pretty antagonist no soon-
er was aware of this, than she broke out into loud weeping and
wailing. She cried, that I had been to her the cause of an ir-
reparable loss, far greater than she could say. But I, who was
in a passion, was rejoiced to vex her, and threw a couple more
balls with blind fury into her army. Unluckily I hit the Queen,
who was not engaged in our regular play. She fell in pieces,
and her adjutants were also shattered, but they recovered them-
selves like the others, galloped through the lindens, and were
lost against the wall.
“ My antagonist scolded and abused me, while I stooped to
pick up other balls, which were rolling about on the golden
spears. In my anger I should have destroyed her army, but she
sprang upon me, and gave my ears a box which made my head
resound. I, who had always heard, that when a maiden boxes
your ears, a good kiss is to follow, seized her head in my hands
and kissed her again and again. But she screamed so loudly,
that she frightened me, and luckily I let her go, for at that mo-
ment the flooring began to quake and rattle. I observed the
grate was rising, and was fearful of being spitted on one of the
spears, as indeed the partizans and lances, as they rose up, did


1841.]
15
Goethe.
tear my clothes. I scarcely know how I got away. I lost my
sight and hearing. When I recovered, I found myself at the foot
of a linden, against which the now erected barricade had thrown
me. My anger was again aroused by the jests and laughter of
my antagonist, who probably had fallen more gently on the other
side of the grate. I jumped up, and, seeing my little army had
been thrown down with me, seized Achilles, and threw him
against a tree. His recovery and flight pleased me doubly, as
gratifying my resentment, and giving me the prettiest sight in the
world, and I should have sent all his Greeks after him, but that
at once water began to spout and sprinkle from the wall, stones,
branches, and ground, wetting me on every side. My light robe
was soon wet through; it was torn before, and I did not hesitate
to cast it from me. Then I threw off my slippers, and piece by
piece all the rest of my apparel, and began to think it very
pleasant to have a shower bath on so warm a day.
"I then walked up and down with a grave, dignified mien,
amid this welcome water, and enjoyed myself highly. As my
anger cooled I wished nothing more than to make peace with
the pretty maiden. But now in an instant the water ceased to
spout, and I stood dripping on the wet ground. The presence
of the old man, who now approached me, was far from welcome.
I wished I could, if not hide, yet at least cover myself. Asham-
ed, shivering, trying in some way to cover myself, I made but a
pitiful figure; and the old man took the occasion to reprove me
severely. What hinders me,' cried he,' from using the green
cord if not upon your neck, at least upon your back?' I was
much incensed by this threat. "You had best,' cried I, avoid
such words, or even such thoughts, if you would not ruin your-
self and your mistresses. Who are you,' said he, contemptu-
ously, 'that you should presume to speak thus?' 'A darling
of the gods,' said I, 'on whom it depends, whether those ladies
shall find proper bridegrooms, or whether they shall languish away
and grow old in this magical cloister. The old man drew back
several steps. "Who has revealed this to thee?' asked he, as-
tonished and thoughtful. Three apples,' said I, 'three jew-
els.' 'And what dost thou ask as a reward?' said he. ‘Above
all things,' I replied, 'the little creature, who has brought me
into this annoying situation. The old man threw himself on
his knees before me, without regarding the wet and mud; then
he rose, quite dry, and taking me affectionately by the hand,
led me into the dressing-room, and assisted me to put on my
Sunday clothes, and dress my hair. He said no word more,
but as he let me out, directed my attention by signs to the oppo-
site wall, and then again to the little door. I understood well,
that he wished I should impress these objects on my memory, in
order that I might be able again to find the door, which shut


16
(July,
Goethe.
suddenly behind me. I now looked attentively at the opposite
side. Above a high wall rose the boughs of some ancient wal-
nut trees, partly covering the cornice which finished it. They
reached to a stone tablet, whose ornamental border I could
perceive, but could not read what was inscribed upon it. It
rested on the projection of a niche, in which an artificially
wrought fountain poured its waters, from cup to cup, into a ba-
sin, as large as a little pond, imbedded in the earth. Fountain,
tablet, walnut-trees, stood directly one above the other. I could
paint the spot just as I saw it.
"You may imagine how I passed this evening, and many fol.
lowing days, and how often I repeated to myself the particulars
of this history, which I myself can hardly believe. As soon as
possible I went in search of the place, in order at least to refresh
my memory, and look once more at the wonderful door. But, to
my astonishment, I found things much changed. Walnuts rose
indeed above the wall, but not near one another. There was a
tablet, but far to the right of the trees, and with a legible in-
scription. A niche on the left hand contains a fountain, but
one not to be compared with that I saw the other time, so that
I was ready to believe the second adventure as much a dream
as the first, for of the door I found no trace The only thing
that comforts me is to observe, that these three objects seem
constantly to be changing place, for in my frequent visits I think
I see that trees, tablet, and fountain seem to be drawing nearer
together. Probably when they get into their places, the door
will once more be visible, and I will then attempt to take up
again the thread of the adventure. I cannot say, whether it may
be in my power to tell you the sequel, or whether it may not
expressly be forbidden me."
“This tale, of whose truth my companions were passionately
desirous to convince themselves, was greatly applauded. They
visited singly, without confiding their intention to me or to each
other, the spot I had indicated, found the walnuts, the tablet,
and the fountain, but at a distance from one another. They at
last confessed it, for at that age, it is not easy to keep a secret.
But here was the beginning of strife. One declared the objects
never changed their places, but preserved always the same dis-
tance from one another. The second, that they changed, and
went farther apart. A third agreed that they moved, but thought
they approached one another. A fourth had seen something still
more remarkable, the walnut-trees in the midst, and tablet and
fountain on the sides opposite the spot where I had seen them.
About the door they varied as much in their impressions. And thus
I had an early example how men, in cases quite simple and easy
of decision, form and maintain the most contrary opinions. As


1841.)
Goethe.
I obstinately refused a sequel to the adventure, a repetition of
this first part was frequently solicited. I took care never mate-
rially to vary the circumstances, and the uniforinity of the nar-
ration converted fable into truth for my hearers." — Dichtung
und Wahrheit.
The acting out the mystery into life, the calmness of
survey, and the passionateness of feeling, above all the
ironical baffling at the end, and want of point to a tale
got up with such an eye to effect as he goes along, mark
well the man that was to be. Even so did he demand in
Werther, even so resolutely open the door in the first part
of Faust, even so seem to play with himself and his con-
temporaries in the second part of Faust and Wilhelm
Meister.
Yet was he deeply earnest in his play, not for men, but
for himself. To himself as a part of nature it was impor-
tant to grow, to lift his head to the light. In nature he
had all confidence; for man, as a part of nature, infinite
hope ; but in him as an individual will, seemingly not
much trust, at the earliest age.
The history of his intimacies marks his course ; they
were entered into with passionate eagerness, but always
ended in an observation of the intellect, and he left them
on his road as the snake leaves his skin. The first man
he met of force sufficient to command a large share of his
attention was Herder, and the benefit of this intercourse
was critical, not genial. Of the good Lavater he soon
perceived the weakness. Merck, again, commanded his
respect, but the force of Merck also was cold.
But in the Grand Duke of Weimar he seems to have
met a character strong enough to exercise a decisive influ-
ence upon his own. Goethe was not so politic and worldly,
that a little man could ever have become his Mæcenas.
In the Duchess Amelia and her son he found that practi-
cal sagacity, large knowledge of things as they are, active
force, and genial feeling, which he had never before seen
combined.
T'he wise mind of the Duchess gave the first impulse to
the noble course of Weimar. But that her son should
have availed himself of the foundation she laid is praise
enough, in a world where there is such a rebound from
VOL. II. — NO. I.
but the Feakness. Merche good La
ind of the Duche But that he laid is praise


18
Goethe.
(July,
parental influence, that it generally seems that the child
makes use of the directions given by the parent only to
avoid the prescribed path. The Duke availed himself of
guidance, though with a perfect independence in action.
The Duchess had the unusual wisdom to know the right
time for giving up the reins, and thus maintained her au-
thority as far as the weight of her character was calculated
to give it.
Of her Goethe was thinking when he wrote, “ The ad-
mirable woman is she, who, if the husband dies, can be a
father to the children.”
• The Duke seems to have been one of those characters,
which are best known by the impression their personal
presence makes on us, resembling an elemental and per-
vasive force, rather than wearing the features of an indi-
viduality. Goethe describes him as “ Dämonische," that
is, gifted with an instinctive, spontaneous force, which at
once, without calculation or foresight, chooses the right
means to an end. As these beings do not calculate, so is
their influence incalculable. Their repose has as much
influence over other beings as their action, even as the
thunder-cloud, lying black and distant in the suminer sky,
is not less imposing than when it bursts and gives forth its
quick lightnings. Such men were Mirabeau and Swift.
They had also distinct talents, but their influence was from
a perception in the minds of men of this spontaneous
energy in their natures. Sometimes, though rarely, we
see such a man in an obscure position; circumstances
have not led him to a large sphere; he may not have ex-
pressed in words a single thought worth recording; but by
his eye and voice he rules all around him.
He stands upon his feet with a firmness and calm security,
which make other men seem to halt and totter in their
gait. In his deep eye is seen an infinite comprehension,
an infinite reserve of power. No accent of his sonorous
voice is lost on any ear within hearing; and, when he speaks,
men hate or fear perhaps the disturbing power they feel,
but never dream of disobeying.
But hear Goethe himself.
“The boy believed in nature, in the animate and inanimate,
the intelligent and unconscious to discover somewhat which
manifested itself only through contradiction, and therefore


1841.]
19
Goethe.
could not be comprehended by any conception, much less de-
fined by a word. It was not divine, for it seemed without rea-
soll, not human, because without understanding, not devilish,
because it worked to good, not angelic, because it often betray-
ed a petulant love of mischief. It was like chance, in that it
proved no sequence; it suggested the thonght of Providence,
because it indicated connexion. To this all our limitations
seem penetrable; it seemed to play at will with all the elements
of our being; it compressed time and dilated space. Only in
the impossible did it seem to delight, and to cast the possible
aside with disdain.
"This existence which seemed to mingle with others, some-
times to separate, sometimes to unite, I called the Dämonische,
after the example of the ancients, and others who have observed
somewhat similar.” – Dichtung und Wahreit.
“The Dämonische is that which cannot be explained by rea-
son or understanding; it lies not in my nature, but I am sub-
ject to it.
"Napoleon was a being of this class, and in so high a degree,
that scarce any one is to be compared with him. Also our late
Grand Duke was such a nature, full of unlimited power of ac-
tion and unrest, so that his own dominion was too little for him,
and the greatest would have been too little. Demoniac beings of
this sort the Greeks reckoned among their demi-gods.” — Con-
versations with Eckermann.
This great force of will, this instinctive directness of
action, gave the Duke an immediate ascendancy over
Goethe, which no other person had ever possessed. It
was by no means mere sycophancy that made him give up,
the next ten years, the prime of his manhood, to accom-
panying the Grand Duke in his revels, or aiding himn in
his schemes of practical utility, or to contriving elegant
amusements for the ladies of the court. It was a real
admiration for the character of the genial man of the
world and its environment.
Whoever is turned from his natural path may, if he will,
gain in largeness and depth what he loses in simple beauty,
and so it was with Goethe. Faust became a wiser if not
a nobler being. Werther, who must die because life was
not wide enough and rich enough in love for him, ends
as the Meister of the Wanderjahre, well content to be
one never inadequate to the occasion, “ help-full, comfort-
full.”


20
(July,
Goethe.
A great change was during these years perceptible to
his friends in the character of Goethe. From being al-
ways “either too volatile or infatuated,” he retreated
into a self-collected state, which seemed at first even icy
to those around him. No longer he darted about him the
lightnings of his genius, but sat Jove-like and calm, with
the thunderbolts grasped in his hand, and the eagle gaih-
ered to his feet. His freakish wit was subdued into a calm
and even cold irony, his multiplied relations no longer
permitted him to abandon himself to any, the minister and
courtier could not expatiate in the free regions of inven-
tion, and bring upon paper the signs of his higher life,
without subjecting hiinself to an artificial process of isola-
tion. Obliged to economy of time and means, he made
of his intimates not objects of devout tenderness, of dis-
interested care, but the crammers and feeders of his intel-
lect. The world was to him an arena or a studio, but not
a temple.
“Ye cannot serve God and Mammon.”
Had Goethe entered upon practical life from the dictate
of his spirit, which bade him not be a mere author, but a
living, loving man, that had all been well. But he must
also be a man of the world, and nothing can be more un-
favorable to true manhood than this ambition. The citizen,
the hero, the general, the poet, all these are in true rela-
tions, but what is called being a man of the world is to
truckle to it, not truly serve it.
Thus fettered in false relations, detained from retire-
ment upon the centre of his being, yet so relieved from
the early pressure of bis great thoughts as to pity more
pious souls for being restless seekers, no wonder that he
wrote
“ Es ist dafür gesorgt dass die Bäume nicht in den Himneel wachsen.”
Care is taken that the trees grow not up into the heavens.
Ay, Goethe, but in proportion to their force of aspiration
is their height!
Yet never let him be confounded with those who sell all
their birthright. He became blind to the more generous
virtues, the nobler impulses, but ever in self-respect was
busy to develope his nature. He was kind, industrious,


1841.)
21
Goethe.
wise, gentlemanly, if not manly. If his genius lost sight of
the highest aim, he is the best instructer in the use of
means, ceasing to be a prophet poet, he was still a poetic
artist. From this time forward he seems a listever to
nature, but not himself the highest product of nature,
a priest to the soul of nature. His works grow out of
life, but are not instinct with the peculiar life of human
resolve, as Shakspeare's or Dante's is.
Faust contains the great idea of his life, as indeed there
is but one great poetic idea possible to man, the progress
of a soul through the various forms of existence. All his
other works, whatever their miraculous beauty of execu-
tion, are mere chapters to this poem, illustrative of particu-
lar points. Faust, had it been completed in the spirit in
which it was begun, would have been the Divina Com-
media of its age.
But nothing can better show the difference of result be-
tween a stern and earnest life, and one of partial accom-
modation, than a comparison between the Paradiso and
that of the second part of Faust. In both a soul, gradu-
ally educated and led back to God, is received at last not
through merit, but grace. But O the difference between
the grandly humble reliance of old Catholicism, and the
loop-hole redemption of modern sagacity. Dante was a
man, of vehement passions, many prejudices, bitter as
much as sweet. His knowledge was scanty, bis sphere of
observation narrow, the objects of his active life petty,
compared with those of Goethe. But, constantly retiring
on his deepest self, clearsighted to the limitations of man,
but no less so to the illimitable energy of the soul, the
sharpest details in his work convey a largest sense, as his
strongest and steadiest flights only direct the eye to heavens
yet beyond.
Yet perhaps he had not so hard a battle to wage, as this
other great Poet. The fiercest passions are not so dan-
gerous foes to the soul as the cold skepticism of the under-
standing. The Jewish demon assailed the man of Uz
with physical ills, the Lucifer of the middle ages tempted
his passions, but the Mephistopheles of the eighteenth
century bade the finite strive to compass the infinite, and
the intellect attempt to solve all the problems of the soul.
This paih Faust had taken: it is that of modern ne


22
(July,
Goethe.
cromany. Not willing to grow into God by the steady
worship of a life, man would enforce his presence by a
spell ; not willing to learn his existence by the slow pro-
cesses of their own, they strive to bind it in a word, that
they may wear it about the neck as a talisman.
Faust, bent upon reaching the centre of the universe
through the intellect alone, naturally, after a length of trial,
which has prevented the harmonious unfolding of his na-
ture, falls into despair. He has striven for one object,
and that object eludes him. Returning upon himself, he
finds large tracts of his nature lying waste and cheerless.
He is too noble for apathy, too wise for vulgar content
with the animal enjoyments of life. Yet the thirst he has
been so many years increasing is not to be borne. Give
me, he cries, but a drop of water to cool my burning
tongue. Yet, in casting himself with a wild recklessness
upon the impulses of his nature yet untried, there is a
disbelief that anything short of the All can satisfy the im-
mortal spirit. His first attempt was noble, though mis-
taken, and under the saving influence of it, he makes the
compact, whose condition cheats the fiend at last.
Kannst du mich schmeichelnd je belügen
Dass ich mir selbst gefallen mag,
Kannst du mich mit Genüss betrügen:
Das sey für inich der letzte Tag.
Werd ich zum Augenblicke sagen:
Verweile doch! du bist so schön!
Dann magst du mich in Fesseln schlagen,
Dann will ich gern zu Grunde gehen.
Canst thou by falsehood or by flattery
Make me one moment with myself at peace,
Cheat me into tranquillity ? Come then
And welcome, life's last day.
Make ine but to the moment say,
Oh fly not yet, thou art so fair,
Then let me perish, &c.
But this condition is never fulfilled. Faust cannot be
content wth sensuality, with the charlatanry of ambition,
nor with riches. His heart never becomes callous, nor his
moral and intellectual perceptions obtuse. He is saved at
last.
With the progress of an individual soul is shadowed
forth that of the soul of the age, beginning in intellectual


1841.)
23
Goethe.
skepticism, sinking into license, cheating itself with dreams
of perfect bliss, to be at once attained by means no surer
than a spurious paper currency, longing itself back from
conflict between the spirit and the flesh, induced by Chris-
tianity, to the Greek era with its harmonious developinent
of body and mind, striving to reëmbody the loved phan-
tom of classical beauty in the heroism of the middle age,
flying from the Byron despair of those, who die because
they cannot soar without wings, to schemes, however nar-
row, of practical utility, -redeemed at last through mercy
alone.
The second part of Faust is full of meaning, resplen-
dent with beauty ; but it is rather an appendix to the first
part than a fulfilment of its promise. The world, remem-
bering the powerful stamp of individual feeling, universal
indeed in its application, but individual in its life, which
had conquered all its scruples in the first part, was vexed
to find, instead of the man Faust, the spirit of the age, -
discontented with the shadowy manifestation of truths it
longed to embrace, and, above all, disappointed that the
author no longer met us face to face, or riveted the ear by
his deep tones of grief and resolve.
When the world shall have got rid of the still over-
powering influence of the first part, it will be seen that the
fundamental idea is never lost sight of in the second.
The change is that Goethe, though the same thinker, is no
longer the same person.
The continuation of Faust in the practical sense of the
education of a man is to be found in Wilhelm Meister,
Here we see the change by strongest contrast. The main-
spring of action is no longer the impassioned and noble
Seeker, but a disciple of Circumstance, whose most marked
characteristic is a taste for virtue and knowledge. Wilhelm,
certainly prefers these conditions of existence to their op-
posites, but there is nothing so decided in his character as
to prevent his turning a clear eye on every part of that
variegated world-scene, which the writer wished to place
before us.
To see all till he knows all sufficiently to put objects
into their relations, then to concentrate his powers and use
his knowledge under recognised conditions, such is the pro-
gress of man from Apprentice to Master,


24
(July,
Goethe.
'Tis pity that the volumes of the “ Wanderjahre” have
not been translated entire, as well as those of the “ Lehr-
jahre," for many, who have read the latter only, fancy that
Wilhelm becomes a Master in that work. Far from it, he
has but just become conscious of the higher powers that
have ceaselessly been weaving his fate. Far from being
as yet a Master, he but now begins to be a Knower. In
the “Wanderjahre" we find him gradually learning the
duties of citizenship, and hardening into manhood, by ap-
plying what he has learnt for himself to the education of
his child. He converses on equal terms with the wise and
beneficent, he is no longer duped and played with for his
good, but met directly mind to mind.
Wilhelm is a Master when he can command his actions,
yet keep his mind always open to new means of know-
ledge. When he has looked at various ways of living,
various forms of religion and of character, till he has
learned to be tolerant of all, discerning of good in all.
When the astronomer imparts to his equal ear his highest
thoughts, and the poor cottager seeks his aid as a patron
and counsellor.
To be capable of all duties, limited by none, with an
open eye, a skilful and ready hand, an assured step, a mind
deep, calm, foreseeing without anxiety, hopeful without the
ad fun, such there state of mabod.This
attained, the great soul should still seek and labor, but
strive and battle never more.
The reason for Goethe's choosing so negative a charac-
ter as Wilhelm, and leading him through scenes of vul-
garity and low vice, would be obvious enough to a person of
any depth of thought, even if he himself bad not announ-
ced it. He thus obtained room to paint liſe as it really
is, and bring forward those slides in the magic lantern
which are always known to exist, though they may not be
spoken of to ears polite.
Wilhelm cannot abide in tradition, nor do as his fathers
did before him, merely for the sake of money or a stand-
ing in society. The stage, here an emblem of the ideal
life as it gleams before unpractised eyes, offers, he fancies,
opportunity for a life of thought as distinguished from one
of routine. Here, no longer the simple citizen, but Man, all
Men, he will rightly take upon himself the different aspects
of life, till poet-wise, he shall have learnt them all.


1841.)
25
Goethe.
so doubt characihelmestion, le freene real. Wilhe exi
No doubt the attraction of the stage to young persons
of a vulgar character is merely the brilliancy of its trap-
pings, but to Wilhelm, as to Goethe, it was this poetic
freedom and daily suggestion, which seemed likely to offer
such an agreeable studio in the green-room.
But the ideal must be rooted in the real, else the poet's
life degenerates into buffoonery or vice. Wilhelm finds
the characters formed by this would-be ideal existence
more despicable than those which grew up on the track,
dusty and bustling and dull as it had seemed, of common
life. He is prepared by disappointment for a higher am-
bition.
In the house of the Count he finds genuine elegance,
genuine sentiment, but not sustained by wisdom, or a de-
votion to important objects. This love, this life is also
inadequate.
Now with Teresa, he sees the blessings of domestic
peace. He sees a mind sufficient for itself, finding em-
ployment and education in the perfect economy of a little
world. The lesson is pertinent to the state of mind in
which his former experiences have left him, as indeed
our deepest lore is won from reaction. But a sudden
change of scene introduces him to the society of the sage
and learned Uncle, the sage and beneficent Natalia. Here
he finds the same virtues as with Teresa, and enlightened
by a larger wisdom.
A friend of mine says, that his ideal of a friend is a
worthy Aunt, one who has the tenderness without the
blindness of a mother, and takes the same charge of the
child's mind, as the inother of its body. I don't know but
this may have a foundation in truth, though, if so, Auntism,
like other grand professions, has sadly degenerated. At
any rate, Goethe seems to be possessed with a similar feel-
ing. The Count de Thorane, a man of powerful character,
who made a deep impression on his childhood, was, he
says, “ reverenced by me as an Uncle.” And the ideal
wise man of this common-life epic stands before us as
“ The Uncle."
After seeing the working of just views in the establish-
ment of the Uncle, learning piety from the Confessions of
a Beautiful Soul, and religious beneficence from the beau-
tiful life of Natalia, Wilhelm is deemed worthy of admis-
VOL. II. — NO. I.


26
(July,
Goethe.
sion to the society of the Illuminati, that is, those who
have pierced the secret of life, and know what it is to be
and to do.
Here he finds the scroll of his life“ drawn with large,
sharp strokes,” that is, these truly wise read his character
for him, and “mind and destiny are but two names for
one idea.”
He now knows enough to enter on the Wanderjahre.
Goethe always represents the highest principle in the
feminine form. Woman is the Minerva, man the Mars.
As in the Faust, the purity of Gretchen, resisting the
demon always, even after all her faults, is announced to
have saved her soul to heaven; and in the second part
she appears, not only redeemed herself, but by her inno-
cence and forgiving tenderness hallowed to redeem the
being who had injured her..
So in the Meister, these women hover around the narra-
tive, each embodying the spirit of the scene. The frail
Philina, graceful though contemptible, represents the de-
gradation incident to an attempt at leading an exclusively
poetic life. Mignon, gift divine as ever the Muse bestowed
on the passionate heart of Man, with her soft mysterious
inspiration, her pining for perpetual youth, represents the
high desire that leads to this mistake, as Aurelia the desire
for excitement; Teresa, practical wisdom, gentle tran-
quillity, which seem most desirable after the Aurelia glare.
Of the beautiful soul and Natalia we have already spoken.
The former embodies what was suggested to Goethe by
the most spiritual person he knew in youth, Mademoiselle
von Klettenberg, over whom, as he said, in her invalid
loneliness the Holy Ghost brooded like a dove.
Entering on the Wanderjahre, Wilhelm becomes ac-
quainted with another woman, who seems the complement
of all the former, and represents the idea which is to guide
and mould him in the realization of all the past experi-
ence.
This person, long before we see her, is announced in
various ways as a ruling power. She is the last hope in
cases of difficulty, and, though an invalid, and living in
absolute retirement, is consulted by her connexions and
acquaintance as an unerring judge in all their affairs.
All things tend towards her as a centre; she knows all,
governs all, but never goes forth from herself.


1841.]
27
Goethe.
From here you men a feelinsystem, and Pected, that she
Wilhelm, at last, visits her. He finds her infirm in body,
but equal to all she has to do. Charity and counselato
men who need her are her business ; astronomy her pleas-
ure.
After a while, Wilhelm ascertains from the Astronomer,
her companion, what he had before suspected, that she
really belongs to the solar system, and only appears on
earth to give men a feeling of the planetary harmony.
From her youth up, says the Astronomer, till she knew
me, though all recognised in her an unfolding of the high-
est moral and intellectual qualities, she was supposed to
be sick at her times of clear vision. When her thoughts
were not in the heavens, she returned and acted in obedi-
ence to them on earth; she was then said to be well.
When the Astronomer had observed her long enough,
he confirmed her inward consciousness of a separate ex-
istence and peculiar union with the heavenly bodies.
Her picture is painted with many delicate traits, and a
gradual preparation leads the reader to acknowledge the
truth, but, even in the slight indication here given, who
does not recognise thee, divine Philosophy, sure as the
planetary orbits and inexhaustible as the fount of light,
crowning the faithful Seeker at last with the privilege to
possess his own soul.
In all that is said of Macaria,* we recognise that no
thought is too religious for the mind of Goethe. It was
indeed so; you can deny him nothing, but only feel that
his works are not instinct and glowing with the central
fire, and, after catching a glimpse of the highest truth, are
forced again to find him too much afraid of losing sight of
the limitations of nature to overflow you or himself with
the creative spirit.
While the apparition of the celestial Macaria seems to
announce the ultimate destiny of the soul of Man, the
practical application of all Wilhelm has thus painfully ac-
quired is not of pure Delphian strain. Goethe draws as
he passes a dart from the quiver of Phoebus, but ends
as Esculapius or Mercury. Wilhelm, at the school of
the Three Reverences, thinks out what can be done for
* The name of Macaria is one of noblest association. It is that of
the daughter of Hercules, wbo devoted herself a voluntary sacrifice for
her country. She was adored by the Greeks as the true Felicity.


28
(July,
Goethe.
man in his temporal relations. He learns to practise mod-
eration, and even painful renunciation. The book ends,
simply indicating what the course of his life will be, by
making him perform an act of kindness, with good judg-
ment, and at the right moment.
Surely the simple soberness of Goethe should please at
least those who style themselves, par excellence, people of
common sense.
The following remarks are by the celebrated Rahel, von
Ense whose discernment as to his works was highly prized
by Goethe.
“Don Quixote and Wilhelm Meister!
“ Embrace one another, Cervantes and Goethe !
“ Both, using their own clear eyes, vindicated human nature.
They saw the champions through their errors and follies, look-
ing down into the deepest soul, seeing there the true form.
The Don as well as Meister is called a fool by respectable peo-
ple, wandering hither and thither, transacting no business of
real life, bringing nothing to pass, scarce even knowing what
he ought to think on any subject, very unfit for the hero of a
romance. Yet has our Sage known how to paint the good and
honest mind in perpetual toil and conflict with the world, as
it is embodied, never sharing one moment the impure confu-
sion, always striving to find fault with and improve itself, al-
ways so innocent as to see others for better than they are, and
generally preferring them to himself, learning from all, indulg-
ing all except the manifestly base; the more you understand,
the more you respect and love this character.
“ Cervantes has painted the knight, Goethe the culture of
the entire man, — both their own time.”
But those who demand from him a life-long continuance
of the early ardor of Faust, who wish to see throughout
his works, not only such manifold beauty and subtle wis-
dom, but the clear assurance of divinity, the pure white
light of Macaria, wish that he had not so variously unfold-
ed his nature, and concentred it more. They would see
him slaying the serpent with the divine wrath of Apollo,
rather than laming it to his service, like Esculapius. They
wish that he had never gone to Weimar, had never become
an universal connoisseur and dilettant in science, and
courrier as “graceful as a born nobleman,” but had borne
the burden of life with the suffering crowd, and deepened


1841.]
29
Goethe.
his nature in loneliness and privation, till Faust had con-
quered, rather than cheated the devil, and the music of
heavenly faith superseded the grave and mild eloquence of
human wisdom.
The expansive genius which moved so gracefully in its
self-imposed fetters, is constantly surprising us by its con-
tent with a choice low, in so far as it was not the highest
of which the mind was capable. The secret may be found
in the second motto of this slight essay.
"He who would do great things must quickly draw together his
forces. The master can only show himself such through limitation,
and the law alone can give us freedom."
But there is a higher spiritual law always ready to super-
sede the temporal laws at the call of the human soul.
The soul that is too content with usual limitations will
never call forth this unusual manifestation.
If there be a tide in the affairs of men, which inust be
taken at the right moment to lead on to fortune, it is the
same with inward as with outward life. He, who in the
crisis hour of youth has stopped short of himself, is not
likely to find again what he has missed in one life, for
there are a great number of blanks to a prize in each
lottery.
But the pang we feel that “those who are so much are
not more," seems to promise new spheres, new ages, new
crises to enable these beings to complete their circle.
Perhaps Goethe is even now sensible that he should not
have stopped at Weimar as his home, but made it one sta-
tion on the way to Paradise; not stopped at humanity, but
regarded it as symbolical of the divine, and given to others
to feel more distinctly the centre of the universe, as well
as the harmony in its parts. It is great to be an Artist, a
Master, greater still to be a Seeker till the Man has found
all himself.
What Goethe meant by self-collection was a collection
of means for work, rather than to divine the deepest truths
of being. Thus are these truths always indicated, never
declared ; and the religious hope awakened by his subtle
discerniment of the workings of nature never gratified,
except through the intellect.
He whose prayer is only work will not leave his treasure
in the secret shrine.


30
[July,
Goethe.
One is ashamed when finding any fault with one like
Goethe, who is so great. It seems the only criticism
should be to do all he omitted to do, and that none who
cannot is entitled to say a word. Let one speak who was
all Goethe was not ; noble, true, virtuous, but neither wise
nor subtle in his generation, a divine ministrant, a baffled
man, ruled and imposed on by the pigmies whom he spurn-
ed, a heroic artist, a democrat to the tune of Burns :
“The rank is but the guinea stamp,
The man's the gowd for a' that.”
Hear Beethoven speak of Goethe on an occasion which
brought out the two characters in strong contrast.
Extract from a letter of Beethoven to Bettina Brentano,
Töplitz, 1812.
“Kings and Princes can indeed make Professors and Privy
Councillors, and hang upon them titles; but great men they
cannot make ; souls that rise above the mud of the world, these
they must let be made by other means than theirs, and should
therefore show them respect. When two such as I and Goethe
come together, then must great lords observe what is esteemed
great by one of us. Coming home yesterday, we met the whole
Imperial family. We saw them coming, and Goethe left me
and insisted on standing one side; let me say what I would,
I could not make him come on one step. I pressed my hat
upon my head, buttoned my surtout, and passed on through
the thickest crowd. Princes and parasites made way; the
Arch-duke Rudolph took off his hat; the Empress greeted me
first. Their Highnesses KNOW ME. I was well amused to see
the crowd pass by Goethe. At the side stood he, hat in hand,
low bowed in reverence till all had gone by. Then have I
scolded him well. I gave no pardon, but reproached him with
all his sins, most of all those towards you, dearest Bettina;
we had just been talking of you."
If Beethoven appears, in this scene, somewhat arrogant
and bearish, yet how noble his extreme compared with the
opposite! Goethe's friendship with the Grand Duke we
respect, for Karl-August was a strong man. But we re-
gret to see at the command of any and all members of the
ducal family, and their connexions, who had nothing but
rank to recommend them, his time and thoughts, of which
he was so chary to private friends. Beethoven could not
endure to teach the Archduke Rudolph, who had the soul


1841.]
31
Goethe.
duly to revere his genius, because he felt it to be “ hof-
dienst,” court-service. He received with perfect non-
chalance the homage of the sovereigns of Europe. Only
the Empress of Russia and the Archduke Karl, whom he
esteemed as individuals, had power to gratify him by their
attentions. Compare with Goethe's obsequious pleasure,
at being able gracefully to compliment such high person-
ages, Beethoven's conduct with regard to the famous
Heroic Symphony. This was composed at the sugges-
tion of Bernadotte, while Napoleon was still in his first
glory. He was then the hero of Beethoven's imagina-
tion, who hoped from him the liberation of Europe. With
delight the great artist expressed in his eternal harmonies
the progress of the Hero's soul. The symphony was fin-
ished, and even dedicated to Bonaparte, when the news
came of his declaring himself Emperor of the French.
The first act of the indignant artist was to tear off his
dedication and trample it under foot, nor could he endure
again even the mention of Napoleon till the time of his
fall.
Admit, that Goethe had a natural taste for the trappings
of rank and wealth, from which the musician was quite
free, yet we cannot doubt that both saw through these
externals to man as a nature; there can be no doubt on
whose side was the simple greatness, the noble truth. We
pardon thee, Goethe, - but thee, Beethoven, we revere ;
for thou hast maintained the worship of the Manly, the
Permanent, the True.
The clear perception which was in Goethe's better na-
ture of the beauty of that steadfastness, of that singleness
and simple melody of soul, which he too much sacrificed
to become “the many-sided One,” is shown most dis-
tinctly in his two surpassingly beautiful works, The Elective
Affinities and Iphigenia.
Not Werther, not the Nouvelle Heloise, have been as-
sailed with such a storm of indignation as the first named
of these works, on the score of gross immorality.
The reason probably is the subject; any discussion of
the validity of the marriage vow making society tremble
to its foundation ; and secondly, the cold manner in which
it is done. All that is in the book would be bearable to
most minds, if the writer had had less the air of a specta-


32
(July,
Goethe.
tor, and had larded his work here and there with ejacula-
tions of horror and surprise.
These declarations of sentiment on the part of the
author seem to be required by the majority of readers, in
order to an interpretation of his purpose, as sixthly, sev-
enthly, and eighthly were, in an old-fashioned sermon, to
rouse the audience to a perception of the method made
use of by the preacher.
But it has always seemed to me that those who need not
such helps to their discriminating faculties, but read a
work so thoroughly as to apprehend its whole scope and
tendency, rather than hear what the author says it means,
will regard the Elective Affinities as a work especially what
is called moral in its outward effect, and religious even to
piety in its spirit. The mental aberrations of the consorts
from their plighted faith, though in the one case. never
indulged, and though in the other no veil of sophistry is
cast over the weakness of passion, but all that is felt ex-
pressed with the openness of one who desires to legitimate
what he feels, are punished by terrible griefs and a fatal
catastrophe. Outilia, that being of exquisite purity, with
intellect and character so harmonized in ferninine beauty,
as they never before were found in any portrait of woman
painted by the hand of man, perishes, on finding she has
been breathed on by unhallowed passion, and led to err
even by her ignorant wishes against what is held sacred.
he is the only one who stifles the voice of conscience.
There is, indeed, a sadness, as of an irresistible fatality
brooding over the whole. It seems as if only a ray of
angelic truth could have enabled these men to walk wisely
in this twilight, at first so soft and alluring, then deepening
into blind horror.
But if no such ray came to prevent their earthly errors,
it seems to point heavenward in the saintly sweetness of
Outilia. Her nature, too fair for vice, too finely wrought
even for error, comes lonely, intense, and pale, like the
evening star on the cold wintry night. It tells of other
worlds, where the meaning of such strange passages as
this must be read to those faithful and pure like her, vic-
tims perishing in the green garlands of a spotless youth to
atone for the unworthiness of others.


1841.]
Goethe.
An unspeakable pathos is felt from the minutest trait of
this character, and deepens with every new study of it.
Not even in Shakspeare have I so felt the organizing power
of genius. Through dead words I find the least gestures of
this person, stamping themselves on my memory, betray-
ing to the heart the secret of her life, which she herself,
like all these divine beings, knew not. I feel myself
familiarized with all beings of her order. I see not only
what she was, but what she might have been, and live
with her in yet untrodden realms.
Here is the glorious privilege of a form known only in
the world of genius. There is on it no stain of usage or
calculation to dull our sense of its immeasurable life. What
in our daily walk, amid common faces and common places,
fleets across us at moments from glances of the eye or
tones of the voice, is felt from the whole being of one of
these children of genius.
This precious gem is set in a ring complete in its
enamel. I cannot hope to express my sense of the beauty
of this book as a work of art. I would not attempt it, if
I had elsewhere met any testimony to the same. The
perfect picture always before the mind of the chateau, the
moss hut, the park, the garden, the lake, with its boat and
the landing beneath the platan trees; the gradual manner
in which both localities and persons grow upon us, more
living than life, inasmuch as we are, unconsciously, kept at
our best temperature by the atmosphere of genius, and
thereby more delicate in our perceptions than amid our
customary fogs; the gentle unfolding of the central
thought, as a flower in the morning sun; then the conclu-
sion, rising like a cloud, first soft and white, but darkening
as it comes, till with a sudden wind it bursts above our
heads; the ease with which we everywhere find points of
view all different, yet all bearing on the same circle, for,
though we feel every hour new worlds, still before our eye
lie the same objects, new, yet the same, unchangeable, yet
always changing their aspects as we proceed, till at last we
find we ourselves have traversed the circle, and know all
we overlooked at first.
For myself, I never felt so completely that very thing
which genius should always make us feel, that I was in its
circle, and could not get out till its spell was done, and its
VOL. 11. - NO. I.


34
(July,
Goethe.
last spirit permitted to depart. I was not carried away,
instructed, delighted more than by other works, but I was
there, living there, whether as the platan tree, or the
architect, or any other observing part of the scene. The
personages live too intensely to let us live in them, they
draw around themselves circles within the circle, we can
only see them close, not be themselves.
Others, it would seem, on closing the book, exclaim,
“ what an immoral book !" I well remember my own
thought: “ It is a work of Art!" At last I understood
that world within a world, that ripest fruit of human nature,
which is called Art. With each perusal of the book my
wonder and delight at this wonderful fulfilment of design
grew. I understood why Goethe was well content to be
called Artist, and his works, works of art, rather than
revelations. At this moment, remembering what I then
felt, I am inclined to class all my negations just written on
this paper as stuff, and to look upon myself, for thinking
them, with as much contempt as Mr. Carlyle, or Mrs.
Austin, or Mrs. Jameson might do, to say nothing of the
German Goetheans.
Yet that they were not without foundation I feel again
when I turn to the Iphigenia; a work beyond the possi-
bility of negation; a work where a religious meaning not
only pierces, but enfolds the whole; a work as admirable
in art, still higher in significance, more single in expres-
sion.
There is an English translation (I know not how good) of
Goethe's Iphigenia. But as it may not be generally known,
I will give a sketch of the drama. Iphigenia, saved at the
moment of the sacrifice made by Agamemnon in behalf of
the Greeks, by the goddess, and transferred to the temple
at Tauris, appears alone in the consecrated grove. Many
years have passed since she was severed from the home
of such a tragic fate, the palace of Mycenæ. Troy had
fallen, Agamemnon been murdered, Orestes had grown
up to avenge his death. All these events were unknown
to the exiled Iphigenia. The priestess of Diana in a bar-
barous land, she had passed the years in the duties of the
sanctuary, and in acts of beneficence. She had acquired
great power over the mind of Thoas, king of Tauris, and
used it to protect strangers, whom it had previously been
the custom of the country to sacrifice to the goddess.


1841.]
Goethe.
35
She salutes us with a soliloquy, of which this is a rude
translation.
Beneath your shade, living summits
Of this ancient, holy, thick-leaved grove,
As in the silent sanctuary of the Goddess,
Still I walk with those same shuddering feelings
As when I trod these walks for the first time.
My spirit cannot accustom itself to these places,
Many years now has kept me here concealed
A higher will to which I am submissive;
Yet ever am I, as at first, the stranger;
For ah! the sea divides me from the beloved ones;
And on the shore whole days I stand,
Seeking with my soul the land of the Greeks,
And to my sighs brings the rushing wave only
Its hollow tones in answer.
Woe to him who, far from parents, and brothers, and sisters,
Drags on a lonely life. Grief consumes
The nearest happiness away from his lips;
His thoughts crowd downwards
Seeking the hall of his fathers, where the Sun
First opened heaven to him, and kindred-born
In the first plays knit daily firmer and firmer
The bond from heart to heart. — I question not the Gods,
Only the lot of woman is one for sorrow;
In the house and in the war man rules,
Knows how to help himself in foreign lands,
Possessions gladden and victory crowns him,
And an honorable death stands ready to end his days.
Within what narrow limits is bounded the luck of woman!
To obey a rude husband even is duty and comfort; - how sad
When, instead, a hostile fate drives her out of her sphere.
So holds me Thoas, indeed a noble man, fast
In solemn, sacred, but slavish bonds.
O with shame I confess that with secret reluctance
I serve thee, Goddess, thee, my deliverer;
My life should freely have been dedicate to thee,
But I have always been hoping in thee, O Diana,
Who didst take in thy soft arms me, the rejected daughter
Of the greatest king; yes, daughter of Zeus,
I thought if thou gavest such anguish to him, the high hero,
The godlike Agamemnon;
Since he brought his dearest, a victim, to thy altar,
That, when he should return, crowned with glory, from Ilium,
At the same time thou shouldst give to his arms his other treas-
ures,
His spouse, Electra, and the princely son,
Me also thou wouldst restore to mine own,
Saving a second time me, whom from death thou didst save,
From this worse death, the life of exile here.
These are the words and thoughts, but how give an


36
(July,
Goethe.
idea of the sweet simplicity of expression in the original,
where every word has the grace and softness of a flower
petal.
She is interrupted by a messenger from the king, who
prepares her for a visit from himself of a sort she has
dreaded. Thoas, who has always loved her, now left
childless by the calamities of war, can no longer resist his
desire to reanimate by her presence his desert house. He
begins by urging her to tell him the story of her race,
which she does in a way that makes us feel as if that most
famous tragedy had never before found a voice, so simple,
so fresh in its naiveté is the recital.
Thoas urges his suit undismayed by the fate that hangs
over the race of Tantalus.
Was it the same Tantalus,
Whom Jupiter called to his council and banquets,
In whose talk so deeply experienced, full of various learning,
The Gods delighted as in the speech of oracles ?
IPHIGENIA.
It is the same, but the Gods should not
Converse with men, as with their equals.
The mortal race is much too weak
Not to turn giddy on unaccustomed heights.
He was not ignoble, neither a traitor,
But for a servant too great, and as a companion
Of the great Thunderer only a man. So was
His fault also that of a man, its penalty
Severe, and poets sing - Presumption
And faithlessness cast him down from the throne of Jove
Into the anguish of ancient Tartarus;
Ah, and all his race bore their hate.
THOAS.
Bore it the blame of the ancestor or its own?
IPHIGENIA.
Truly the vehement breast and powerful life of the Titan
Were the assured inheritance of son and grandchild,
But the Gods bound their brows with a brazen band,
Moderation, counsel, wisdom, and patience
Were hid from their wild, gloomy glance,
Each desire grew to fury,
And limitless ranged their passionate thoughts.
Iphigenia refuses with gentle firmness to give to gratitude
what was undue. Thoas leaves her in anger, and, to make her


1841.]
37
Goethe.
feel it, orders that the old, barbarous custom be renewed,
and two strangers just arrived be immolated at Diana's
altar.
Iphigenia, though distressed, is not shaken by this piece
of tyranny. She trusts her heavenly protectress will find
some way for her to save these unfortunates without violat-
ing her truth.
The strangers are Orestes and Pylades, sent thither by
the oracle of Apollo, who bade them go to Tauris and
bring back “ The Sister," thus shall the heaven-ordained
parricide of Orestes be expiated, and the Furies cease to
pursue him.
The Sister they interpret to be Dian, Apollo's sister, but
Iphigenia, sister to Orestes, is really meant.
The next act contains scenes of most delicate workman-
ship, first between the light-hearted Pylades, full of worldly
resource and ready tenderness, and the suffering Orestes,
of far nobler, indeed heroic nature, but less fit for the day,
and more for the ages. In the first scene the characters
of both are brought out with great skill, and the nature of
the bond between “the butterfly and the dark flower" dis-
tinctly shown in few words.
The next scene is between Iphigenia and Pylades.
Pylades, though he truly answers the questions of the
priestess about the fate of Troy and the house of Agamem-
non, does not hesitate to conceal from her who Orestes
really is, and manufactures a tissue of useless falsehoods
with the same readiness that the wise Ulysses showed in
exercising his ingenuity on similar occasions.
It is said, I know not how truly, that the modern Greeks
are Ulyssean in this respect, never telling straight-forward
truth, when deceit will answer the purpose ; and if they
tell any truth, practising the economy of the king of
Ithaca, in always reserving a part for their own use. The
character which this denotes is admirably hit off with few
strokes in Pylades, the fair side of whom Iphigenia thus
paints in a later scene.
Bless, ye Gods, our Pylades,
And whatever he may undertake!
He is the arm of the youth in battle,
The light-giving eye of the aged man in the council.


38
(July,
Goethe.
For his soul is still; it preserves
The holy possession of Repose unexhausted,
And from its depths still reaches
Help and advice to those tossed to and fro.
Iphigenia leaves him in sudden agitation, when informed
of the death of Agamemnon. Returning, she finds in his
place Orestes, whom she had not before seen, and draws
from him by her artless questions the sequel to this terrible
drama wrought by his hand. After he has concluded his
narrative in the deep tones of cold anguish ; she cries,
Immortals, you who your bright days through
Live in bliss throned on clouds ever renewed,
Only for this have you all these years
Kept me separate from men, and so near yourselves,
Given me the childlike employment to cherish the fires on
your altars,
That my soul might, in like pious clearness,
Be ever aspiring towards your abodes,
That only later and deeper I might feel
The anguish and horror that have darkened my house.
0, Stranger,
Speak to me of the unhappy one, tell me of Orestes.
ORESTES.
O might I speak of his death!
Vehement flew up from the reeking blood
His Mother's Soul !
And called to the ancient daughters of Night,
Let not the parricide escape;
Pursue that man of crime. He is yours.
They obey, their hollow eyes
Darting about with vulture eagerness,
They stir themselves in their black dens,
From corners their companions
Doubt and Remorse steal out to join them,
Before them roll the mists of Acheron,
In its cloudy volumes rolls
The eternal contemplation of the irrevocable,
Bewildering round the head of the guilty.
Permitted now in their love of ruin they tread
The beautiful fields of a God-planted earth,
From which they had long been banished by an early curse.
Their swift feet follow the fugitive,
They pause never except to gather more power to dismay.
IPHIGENIA.
Unhappy man, thou art in like manner tortured,
And feelest truly what he, the poor fugitive, suffers !
ORESTES.
What sayest thou, what meanest of " like manner.”


1841.)
39
Goethe.
IPHIGENIA.
Thee, too, the weight of a fratricide crushes to earth; the tale
I had from thy younger brother.
ORESTES.
I cannot suffer that thou, great soul,
Shouldst be deceived by a false tale,
A web of lies let stranger weave for stranger,
Subtle with many thoughts, accustomed to craft,
Guarding his feet against a trap;
But between us
Be Truth; -
I am Orestes ; — and this guilty head
Bent downward to the grave seeks death,
In any shape were he welcome.
Whoever thou art, I wish thou mightst be saved,
Thou and my friend; for myself I wish it not.
Thou seem'st against thy will here to remain;
Invent a way to fly and leave me here, &c.
Like all pure productions of genius, this may be injured
by the slightest change, and I dare not flatter myself that
the English words give an idea of the heroic dignity ex-
pressed in the cadence of the original by the words
“ zwischen uns
Seg Wahrheit!
Ich bin OREST!”
where the Greek seems to fold his robe around him in the
full strength of classic manhood, prepared for worst and
best, not like a cold Stoic, but a hero, who can feel all,
know all, and endure all. The name of two syllables in
the German is much more forcible for the pause than the
three syllable Orestes.
“between us
Be Truth!”
is fine to my ear, on which our word Truth also pauses
with a large dignity.
The scenes go on more and more full of breathing
beauty. The lovely joy of Iphigenia, the meditative soft-
ness with which the religiously educated mind perpetually
draws the inference from the most agitating event, impress
us more and more. At last the hour of trial comes. She
is to keep off Thoas by a cunningly devised tale, while
her brother and Pylades contrive their escape. Orestes


40
Goethe.
(July,
has received to his heart the sister long lost, divinely re-
stored, and in the embrace the curse falls from him, he is
well, and Pylades more than happy. The ship waits to carry
her to the palace home she is to free from a century's
weight of pollution, and already the blue heavens of her
adored Greece gleam before her fancy.
But oh! the step before all this can be obtained. To
deceive Thoas, a savage and a tyrant indeed, but long her
protector, — in his barbarous fashion her benefactor. How
can she buy life, happiness, or even the safety of those
dear ones at such a price!
Woe,
O Woe upon the lie. It frees not the breast,
Like the true-spoken word; it comforts not, but tortures
Him who devised it, and returns,
An arrow once let fly, God-repelled, back
On the bosom of the Archer!”
O must I then resign the silent hope
Which gave a beauty to my loneliness?
Must the curse dwell forever, and our race
Never be raised to life by a new blessing?
All things decay, the fairest bliss is transient,
The powers most full of life grow faint at last,
And shall a curse alone boast an incessant life?
Then have I idly hoped that here kept pure,
So strangely severed from my kindred's lot,
I was designed to come at the right moment,
And with pure hand and heart to expiate
The many sins that spot my native home.
To lie, to steal the sacred image!
Olympians, let not these vulture talons
Seize on the tender breast. O save me,
And save your image in my soul.
Within my ears resounds the ancient lay,
I had forgotten it, and would so gladly;
The lay of the Parce, which they awful sang,
As Tantalus fell from his golden seat
They suffered with the noble friend, wrathful
Was their heart, and fearful was the song.
In our childhood the nurse was wont to sing it
To me and the brother and sister. I marked it well.
Then follows the sublime song of the Parcæ, well known
through translations.
· But Iphigenia is not a victim of fate, for she listens
steadfastly to the god in her breast. Her lips are incapable


1841)
41
Goethe.
of subterfuge. She obeys her own heart, tells all to the
king, calls up his better nature, wins, hallows, and purifies
all around her, till the heaven-prepared way is cleared by
the obedient child of heaven, and the great trespass of
Tantalus cancelled by a woman's reliance on the voice of
her innocent soul.
If it be not possible to enhance the beauty with which
such ideal figures as the Iphigenia and the Antigone ap-
peared to the Greek mind, yet Goethe has unfolded a part
of the life of this being, unknown elsewhere in the records
of literature. The character of the priestess, the full
beauty of virgin womanhood, solitary but tender, wise and
innocent, sensitive and self-collected, sweet as spring, dig-
nified as becomes the chosen servant of God, each gesture
and word of deep and delicate significance ; — where else
is such a picture to be found ?
It was not the courtier, nor the man of the world, nor
the connoisseur, nor the friend of Mephistopheles, nor
Wilhelm the Master, nor Egmont the generous free liver,
that saw Iphigenia in the world of spirits, but Goethe in
his first-born glory, Goethe the poet, Goethe designed to
be the keenest star in a new constellation. Let us not in
surveying his works and life abide with him too much in
the suburbs and outskirts of himself. Let us enter into
his higher tendency, thank him for such angels as Iphi-
genia, whose simple truth mocks at all his wise “Beschran-
kungen," and hope the hour when, girt about with many
such, he will confess, contrary to his opinion, given in his
latest days, that it is well worth while to live seventy years,
if only to find that they are nothing in the sight of God.
F
VOL. IL — NO. 1.


41
(July,
Two Hymns.
TWO HYMNS.
God of those splendid stars! I need
Thy presence, need to know
That thou art God, my God indeed,
Cold and far off they shine, they glow.
In their strange brightness, like to spirit's eyes,
Awful intensely on my naked soul :
Beautiful are they, - but so strange — so cold,
I know them not :- I shrink, I cling
Like a scared insect to this whirling ball,
Upon whose swelling lines, I woke, one morn,
Unknowing who I was, or whence I came:
And still I know not — fastened to its verge
By a resistless power, — with it, I speed
On its eternal way, and those strange eyes,
Those starry eyes look ever on me thus, -
I wake, I sleep, but still they look on me,
Mild yet reproachful, beautiful but strange.
Visions are round me, - many moving things,
In clothing beautiful, soft and colored forms
With drooping heads caressing, - eyes, so meek,
And loving and appealing, - but they hold
A nature strange and different, - each enwrapt
In its own mortal mystery, — near they are,
And yet how distant! familiar, fond,
Yet strangers all. I know not what they are.
And higher forms, from out whose mystic eyes,
Gracefully curved and vestal-like, obscured
By shading lashes, — looks a being out
That seems myself and is not :- kindred linked
Yet most communionless, — I know them not,
Nor they know me:— nearest, yet most apart,
Moving in saddest mystery each to each,
Like spell-bound souls, that coldly meet in dreams,
Which in some waking hour had intertwined.
Yet some too, woven with me, in a veil,
Viewless, but all-enduring, - kindred love: -
Their eyes are on me, like awakening light:
They touch my forehead, press my given hand,
Smile rare or oft, or sit most silently,-
Yet all is understood, — the watchful care,
The sympathetic joy, and the unutterable wealth
Of helping tears : all, all is understood:
Sure these are me: sure my affections, theirs,
Awe-stricken thoughts and over-rushing sins,
My hopes, my loves, my struggles, and my straits


1841.)
Two Hymns.
Are theirs to bear, to know, to carry out,
To sift, to learn, to war and wrestle through:
Ah no, oh no, for every spirit round
There is a circle, where no other comes.
Even when we lay our head upon the breast
And pour our thoughts, as liquid jewels, out,
And feel the strength, that comes from soul beloved
Steal through our own as steals the living heat,
Nurture, and bloom, into the opening leaves.
Yet is the spirit lone, - its problem deep,
No other may work out, — its mystic way,
No other wing may try : passionate hopes,
Mighty yet powerless, and most awful fears,
Its strength, ne'er equal to the burden laid,
Longings to stop, yet eagerness to go,
Is its alone: a wall unscalable
Circuits the soul,- its fellows cannot pass ;
The mother may not spare the child, to take
Its youthful burden on her willing heart,
Nor friend enfranchise friend. Alone, alone
The soul must do its own immortal work;
The best beloved most distant are; the near
Far severed wide. Soul knows not soul;
Not more, than those unanswering stars divine.
God of these splendid stars! I need
Thy presence, need to know
That thou art God, my God indeed.
Shield me, mid thine innumerable worlds ;
Give me some point, where I may rest,
While thy unceasing ages flow :
Hide me, from thine irradiated stars,
And the far sadder light, untraceable
Of human eyes,- for strangers are they all.
A wandering thought on the resistless air;
A questioning wail, o'er the unlistening sea.
Recal, Eternal Source! and reassume
In thine own essence, peace unutterable!
II.
A Night of Stars!
Thick studded o'er the sky
From line of vision, vanishing high,
Into the far immensity,
To where the dark horizon bars
The earth-restricted eye.
Brilliantly serene,
In the near firmament,
The brighter planets beam ;


Two Hymns.
(July,
While from the void supreme
The paler glories stream,
Making earth radiant,
As an angelic dream!
Athwart the gilded dome,
Sudden the meteor glides,
The gazer starts, lest doom
Of chance or change had come,
On that eternal home,
Whose still sublimity abides
Through ages come and gone.
The moon is fondly near,
Pale, watchful, mother-like,
She smileth on our cheer,
She husheth up the tear;
But with a holy fear,
These starry splendors strike
The distant worshipper.
Where mighty oceans sweep,
They shine afar,
Where softer rivers leap,
Where trickling fountains weep,
Where the still lakelets sleep,
Gleams back each star,
Like torches from the deep.
In rapturous mood,
Silent with clasping hands,
And earnest brow subdued,
The ancient Shepherd stood,
As night to night he viewed
These glory-clustered bands
In Heaven's vast solitude.
Borne on the mighty sway
Of thought, his spirit ran
O'er the resplendent way,
Leaping from ray to ray,
To uncreated day;
Then – what is man?'.
He sang — the child of clay.'
A spirit answered,
Midst bursts of wavy light,
Meekly and glad he heard, —
Man is the Son, the Word,
The best beloved of God,
With glory crowned and might,
And stars are his abode


1841.)
Night and Day.
NIGHT AND DAY.
“Why finish it,” exclaimed the sculptor, as he flung
from him into a corner of the studio, his large chisel and
heavy hammer; “ why attempt to finish this figure of Day?
The Day of Manhood has not yet broke."
And standing back, with folded arms, he gazed at the
monstrous block, half hewn, upon which he had been deal-
ing his prodigious strokes, splintering and chipping the mar-
ble, with an eye that never wavered, and a hand that never
missed, the whole night through.
The lamp, hung in the roof of his studio, glared down
upon the artist, and with broad light and shadow brought
out in bold relief the expression of his grand head and face.
Half a century of noble passions and stern will, of medita-
tion and disappointment, of glorious plans, and constant
toil, and rich experience, had inspirited with lines of feeling
his massive countenance. It had the firmness of a moun-
tain, the depth of a sea, and was eloquent in every feature
with calm strength. As the light fell on the matted hair
thrown backward, the wrinkled forehead, the hanging brow,
beneath which shone liquid and bright the profoundly
thoughtful eye, the wide-dilated nostril, the compressed
mouth, half-hidden in the beard, that hung heavily beneath
the chin, - on the broad chest, across which were grasped
the arms, with tense and swelling muscles, and on the whole
figure, that, pliant at once and sturdy, rose like a bronzed
statue from the floor, he seemed an incarnation of Force.
It was Michael Angelo; and the form which he had been
softening from stiff rock into vigorous life, was the famous
Day, that now leans his colossal, half-wrought trunk and
limbs upon the sarcophagus in the chapel of the Medici.
“Ay!" continued the sculptor, in his deep-muttered
tones, “why finish it? Is it not now the fit symbol of hu-
manity in this age of savage crime? Let it lie there,
brawny and stiff with life's unmeaning drudgery, unsmooth-
ed and rough. It were mockery to give it roundness and
polish. Let the head, with its air of stubborn resolution,
mutely look out upon the slaving field of time, with half-
marked features, like a morning in the mist. Ready, though
hopeless art thou, thou Samson ! ready for care, andtoil,


46
(July,
Night and Day.
and burdens. Work enough is there for thee, thou un-
couth Hercules ! labor, countless, to slay earth's monsters
and cleanse her filth. Lie there, thou unborn angel! as a
protest against a senseless, wretched, false, and wicked
age. Man is not yet, nor man's beauty ; what is he but a
half-formed giant? The God, that is in thee, shall one
day step forth in his young symmetry, to grace redeemed
earth in an age of Truth, and Beauty, and Peace. Then
shall it be Day."
"But now is it Night,” murmured he, with a sense of
pure, indignant greatness, as the thought of the corruptions
of his time and land, of the luxurious idleness, and petty ty-
ranny, and rotten hypocrisies of prelate and noble, of the vex-
atious obstacles cast by envy in the path of his brave endeav-
ors, of the eight precious years wasted in the stone quarry,
of the corruption and quarrel all around, and above all, of
the crushed people of his loved Italy, came over him," now
is it Night.”
And he turned to look at the female form, which, in
rounded beauty, was sunk in sleep at the opposite end of
the sarcophagus, - a sleep so profound, that it seemed as
if the jar of elements contending could not rouse her.
“Wake not, wake not, beautiful one! In thy still heaven
of dreams shine worlds of loveliness, whose light has never
reached us here. There all is purity and joy and peaceful
triumph of unchanging good. Far shine in mellow splen-
dors the stars of that Eternity. Veiled are thy eyes, with
their deep life; the music of thy hidden thoughts sounds
not on our dull ears. Shadows of doubt brood over us ;
the groans of earth, like the voice of a sleep-walker amid
phantom-fiends, drown the soft melodies of heaven. Wake
not, oh, wake not."
The walls of the apartment seemed like a prison in his
choking emotions, and dashing open the door, he plunged
into the free air.
It was morning, cool, balmy morning. Softly up the
deep, deep blue skies spread the golden flush; softly over
the girdling Appenines, with their snowy peaks, mantled
the rosy lustre ; the waking earth was blushing to greet
the sun. Far beneath in silver winding was his loved
Arno; and on its banks swelled up into the flooding light,
the stately Rome, the airy Campanile, the sombre tower of


1841.)
The Blind Seer.
the palace. Florence, his Florence, dear amid her errors,
magnificent amid her woes, glittered before him in the
valley, with her massive edifices and her shining walls. In
her glory, had not a dawn already broken upon slumbering
man? As the crowds of his prophets and sybils, the im-
ages of his Moses and his Christ, and the countless forms
of embodied poems, yet sitting in silent dignity in the
chambers of his mind, like princes prisoned in their own
palace homes, rose up in memory, there came over his
spirit a dim anticipation, like rays of breaking light, of the
future greatness of the human race. The future greatness?
Yes; and were not these very majestic presences reflec-
tions, in his grateful reverence, of the greatness of the Past
now sunken? In the full prophecy of the hour he con-
ceived his Morning and Twilight. Man had been once ;
man again should be. The darkness of the present fled
away before the blending splendors of Ages gone and Ages
coming.
THE BLIND SEER.
FROM morn till night the old man sitteth still;
Deep quenched in darkness lie all earthly sights ;
He hath not known since childhood swayed his will,
The outward shows of open-eyed delights.
But in an inner world of thought he liveth,
A pure deep realm of praise and lowly prayer,
Where faith from sight no pension e'er receiveth,
But groweth only from the All-True and Fair.
That Universal Soul, who is the being,
The reason and the heart of men on earth,
Shineth so broad o'er him, that though not seeing,
He walketh where the Morning hath its birth.
He travelleth where the upper springs flow on;
He heareth harmonies from angel choirs ;
He seeth Uriel standing in the Sun;
He dwelleth up among the heavenly fires.


48
(July,
Wheat Seed and Bolted Flour.
And yet he loveth, as we all do love,
To hear the restless hum of common life;
Though planted in the spirit-soil above,
His leaves and flowers do bud amid the strife
Of all this weary world, and shine more fair
Than sympathies which have no inward root,
Which open fast, but shrink in bleaker air,
And dropping leave behind no winter fruit.
But here are winter fruits and blossoms too;
Those silver hairs o'er bended shoulders curled,
That smile, that thought-filled brow, ope to the view
Some symbol of the old man's inner world.
O who would love this wondrous world of sense,
Though steeped in joy and ruled by Beauty's queen,
If it were purchased at the dear expense
Of losing all which souls like his have seen?
Nay, if we judged aright, this glorious All,
Which fills like thought our never-doubting eyes,
Might with its firm-built grandeur sink and fall
Before one ray of Soul-Realities.
WHEAT SEED AND BOLTED FLOUR.
Saints and Heroes ! Alas! even so. Good people tell
us we must try, try, try to be Saints and Heroes. So we
cease to be men. We trim our native shrubs and trees
into stiff ornaments for the convent garden, till the tassels
hang no more upon their sprays, and the birds, who love to
tilt upon elastic boughs, forsake us. In other words, to
read the riddle, we destroy all naturalness, by seeking to be
more than human, until every free and joyous impulse dies.
Oh! kind heaven! Break in some tempest one twig away,
and bear it to a shady nook, to grow as thou lovest.
II.
Spirit of the Age! Buzz, buzz! thou biggest humbug in
the web of cant; buzz away, and free thyself, and carry off


1841.1
49
Wheat Seed and Bolted Flour.
the web. Why cannot our hearts, as in the good old time,
open like flowers to drink in the noon of present existence ?
The root lies brown and shapeless beneath the soil; the
blossom will wilt and crumble into dust; the sun of the
hour will ripen the seed; some seasonable wind will shake
it to the ground. Meanwhile, why not live? Oh! could
we get these cobwebs of cant, which catch all the dews of
refreshment that heaven sends, but fairly brushed from the
calix.
III.
The soul lies buried in a ruined city, struggling to be
free, and calling for aid. The worldly trafficker in life's
caravan hears its cries, and says, it is a prisoned maniac.
But one true man stops, and with painful toil lifts aside
the crumbling fragments; till at last, he finds beneath the
choking mass a mangled form of exceeding beauty. Daz-
zling is the light to eyes long blind ; weak are the limbs
long prisoned ; faint is the breath long pent. But oh!
that mantling blush, that liquid eye, that elastic spring of
renovated strength. The deliverer is folded to the breast
of an angel.
IV.
What are another's faults to me? I am no vulture,
feeding on carrion. Let me seek only the good in others
evermore, and be a bird of paradise, fed on fresh fruits
and crystal waters.
v.
Disappointment, like a hammer, breaks the rough coat-
ing of custom to show the hidden pearl.
VI.
Oh Radical! why pull at the corner-stone of that old
tower, where thy fathers lived, and which now, tottering
to its fall, is only upheld by the vines which entwine
it, like grateful memories. Leave it for the tempest to level.
Oh Conservative ! Seest thou not that my darling boy
loves to hide in its galleries, and hunt the bat from his
hiding place? Will he not be crushed one day by the
falling ruin?
VOL. II. NO. I.


50 Wheat Seed and Bolted Flour. (July,
VII.
It is the day of burying the corpse, and “the mourners
go about the streets.” Let the friends of the family un-
disturbed perform the funeral rites. Gardens of seclusion
are there, where the Young Band, who stand ready to wel-
come the Prince of a New Day, may twine their brows with
budding garlands.
VIII.
How grandly simple was the faith of the Patriarchs.
God was their Friend. Why should he not at even-tide sit
at the tent-door? Had we but their unabashed confidence!
Great is the buoyant joy of him, whom fear does not crip-
ple. Yet higher, grander is the disinterestedness of the
children of our day, who seek no peculiar friendship, who
in simple self-forgetfulness would be One with the Eternal,
by ceasing to be anything.
IX.
How ridiculous, to agitate these controversies. Oh de-
bater! that meteor burst long ago, and already grass grows
over the scattered splinters.
We long for obscurity, for shade not from Nature's sun,
but from Vanity's torches. Welcome the former! for in its
warmth gladly, and ever fresh, expands the oak and sensi-
tive plant alike; but far from us be the latter! for it
blackens the boughs, and sickens the flowers with falling
soot.
XI.
Psalmist! still thy bursting liturgies! Chorister, hush
thy chant! Take not in vain the name of Jehovah. Long-
ing heart! whisper not even “ Father.” Wonder in silent
awe! Let the sands ever sparkle bright in the fountain of
thy heart, through which well up the waters of life ; be its
brink ever sweet with fresh flowers.
XII.
There is no Past; there is no Future. Now alone is.
The Past is the circulating sap; the Future is the folded
petal. Now is the Life; and God is now; and now is
God. And what meanest thou, O irreverent one, by this ?


1841.]
51
Wheat Seed and Bolted Flour.
Why ruffle with this sand of sophistry the calm depth of
All? Believe only in that Being of beings! Wonder
still !
XIII.
Fierce, intellectual enthusiasm, like Phæton, burns dry
the flowery earth of common affections. Bathe in the twi-
light of earlier thought, and in the flooding lustres of the
coming day ; drink in the warmth and glory of experience's
noon. But mount not the sun, in thy wild philosophy.
The day, as it passes, gives light enough.
XIV.
Hard is it to avoid uttering Cant. It is a sort of rag
currency, once a sign of bullion; but giving promises to
pay now from empty coffers. Not that one wishes to be
false ; but it is so much easier to utter common places,
which pass in the market, than to melt and stamp with
clear values the ore of our experience.
XV.
Marvellous is the power of all that is vitally true. Its
influence is so large, and deep, and still, that we cannot
put it into thoughts. We can no more break up into dis-
tinct ideas the abiding impression of a friend's mind upon
us, than we can parcel out and bottle up and label the
sunlight.
XVI.
The passion for notoriety sows itself like the misletoe on
lofty trees, and with its hardy greenness saps their strength.
Then Enthusiasm changes into Fanaticism. A mind grand-
ly simple is a miracle. No wonder that a star hung over
Bethlehem.
XVII.
Religion is Philosophy expressed in a synthetic form.
Philosophy is Religion expressed in an analytic form. The
former is a cavern in a quarry; the latter is a mass of
blocks ready for the mason. Happy will be the age when
an Orpheus comes to rear these mighty masses into a temple
beneath the sunlight, more beautiful than the sacred cave.
XVIII.
The burden of the Past makes us skeptics. Fear clings


52
(July,
Song.
to us, like a drowning man, to drag us beneath the flood.
Our own meannesses, like wet garments, check the free
stroke of the swimmer's arm. Worse still ! the precious
coin of past creeds, which we dare not cast from us, sinks
us to the bottom.
XIX.
We are such poor specimens of men, that we dare not
be pious. No wonder the Persian climbed the mountain,
in the early morning, to worship the sun. Only in lonely
thought, in simplicity as of youth, can we see God's bright-
ness. How mysterious, that we know him as God best,
when we think of him as God least. Amen. Hush and
worship in the constant sacrifice of a grateful alacrity, a
humble willingness, a trust turning ever towards his beams,
as flowers seek the sun.
xx.
Oh man of many thoughts and a dusty heart. Talk not,
preach not! Thy crop'is scarcely large enough to give
seed-corn for a coming spring; grind it not into meal.
Bury thy thoughts in the soil of common life; and may the
soft rains and gentle dews of daily kindness quicken them
to a richer harvest.
T. T.
SONG.
LIKE seas flashing in caves
Where stalactites gleam,
Like the sparkling of waves
Where Northern lights beam;
Like the swift drops that fall
Where the sun brightly shines,
Like a clear crystal hall
Amid clustering vines;
Like emerald leaves
All transparent with light,
Where the summer breeze weaves
Its song of delight,
Like wild flickering dreams,
Is the light which lies,
Which flashes and beams
In Angela's eyes.


1841.]
Need of a Diver.
Like ripples slow circling
Where a stone has been thrown,
Like a sunny spring gushing
In a meadow alone;
Like a fair sea-girt isle
All blooming with flowers,
Is the joy of her smile
In our wild-wood bowers.
Deep as the sea,
As the voice of the night,
Lofty and free
As the vast dome of light,
Are the thoughts which live
In the soul of this being,
To her God did give
The true power of seeing.
Comprehending by love
What love did create,
She seeks not above
Like one weary of fate,
And longing to see
A bright world to come,
Where'er she may be
Is her beautiful home.
NEED OF A DIVER.
" Far o'er the track of dreary, stormy ages,
Kind winds one blossom wafted from the tree
Of life that grew in Eden, and this, cast
Into their garden, made it what you see,
A bloom upon the face of hard Necessity." - MS.
The Phænix darted on glittering wing in quest of our
earth. For an Angel had placed in his beak a kernel
from the fruit of the tree of Life, and said, Not far from
the sun of yonder system is one poor world, where this
tree is not known. Its inhabitants deck themselves with
blooms that wither, they feed on fruits that never satisfy.
Feeding they famish, living they die. Many among them
are too degraded even to dream of a better life. But
there are others who, with sweet laments that pierce the
skies, accuse their destiny, and call upon an ineffable love


54
(July,
Need of a Diver.
to answer their continually balked desires. These are call-
ed, in the language of their world, Poets. Of late, passing
near it, I was arrested by the music one of them was
drawing from an ivory lute. I hovered nearer and nearer;
he seemed to feel my approach, for his music grew to
more imploring sweetness. But as I was about to de-
scend and embrace him, he drew from the chords some
full notes of triumph, drooped his head, and died.
I shall never forget the fair, sad picture. He sat be-
neath a noble oak, and had bound his head with a chaplet
of its leaves. His feet were bare and bleeding ; his robes,
once of shining white, all torn and travel-stained. His
face was still beautiful; the brow calmly noble; but over
the cheeks many tears had flowed ; they were wan, thin,
and marked by the woes of earth. His head leaned
forward on the ivory lute, from which drooped a chaplet of
faded roses and broken laurel leaves.
I saw that he had been so wasted by famine, that the
approach of sympathy was too much for his frail frame.
I tasted the springs round about; every one was brackish.
I broke the fruit from the trees, and its very touch put
fever in the veins. Then I wept my first tears for the
perished nightingale ; and flew to bring some balsam for
this suffering race.
I may not return, for not oftener than once in a hundred
years is it permitted one of our order to visit this sorrow-
ful sphere. But thou, my bird, who, like the aloe and the
amaranth, art a link between it and us, do thou carry this
kernel and plant among them one germ of true life. It is
the kernel of the fruit which satisfied my thirst for all
eternity, and if thou canst plant it on earth, will produce
a tree large enough for the whole race.
Swift sped the golden wing on this best mission. But
where to plant the kernel! It needed a rich soil, and the
mountains were too cold ; a virgin soil, and neither plain
nor valley had kept themselves unprofaned, but brought
forth weeds and poison as well as herbs and flowers. Even
the desert sands had not forborne, but cheated the loneli-
ness with flowers of gaudy colors, but which crumbled at
the touch.
The Phenix flew from region to region, till even his
strong wings were wearied. He could not rest, for if he


1841.)
55
Clouds.
pauses on the earth he dies. At last he saw amid a wide sea
a little island, with not a blade of vegetation on it. He
dropt here the kernel, and took refuge as swiftly as pos-
sible in another sphere.
Ah, too hasty Phænix! He thought the island a vol-
canic birth, but it was the stony work of the coral insects,
and as yet without fertility. The wind blew the precious
seed into the sea.
There it lies, still instinct with divine life, for this is
indestructible. But unless some being arise, bold enough
to dive for it amid the secret caves of the deep sea, and
wise enough to find a proper soil in which to plant it when
recovered, it is lost to the human race forever. And when
shall we have another Poet able to call down another
Angel, since He died of his love, and even the ivory lute
is broken.
CLOUDS.
YE clouds!- the very vagaries of grace
So wild and startling, fanciful and strange,
And changing momently, yet pure and true,
Distorted never, marring beauty's mould:
But now, - ye lay a mass, a heaped up mass
Of interwoven beams, blue, rose, and green,
Not blended, but infused in one soft hue,
That yet has found no name. A sudden thrill,
A low, sweet thrill of motion stirred the air,
Perhaps a tremor of self-conscious joy,
That the contiguous breezes, moving slow,
Transmitted each to each:- instant as thought,
Yet imperceptibly, your form dissolved
Into a curtain of so fine a stain,
The young sky-spirits, that behind it clung,
Betrayed their glancing shapes : a moment more,
Solid and sleep and piled like earthly mount,
With juts for climber's foot, upholding firm,
And long smooth top, where he may gladly fling
His palpitating form, and proudly gaze
Upon a world below, and humbly up,
For Heaven is still beyond.
Stretches now
The gathering darkness on the silent West,


Clouds.
(July,
Smooth-edged yet tapering off in gloomy point,
With that long line of sultry red beneath,
As if its tightly vested bosom bore
The lightning close concealed.
Ye fair and soft and ever varying Clouds!
Where in your golden circuit, find ye out
The Armory of Heaven, rifling thence
Its gleaming swords ? — Ye tearful Clouds !
Feminine ever, light or dark or grim,
I fear ye not, I wonder and admire,
And gladly would I charter this soft wind,
That now is here, and now will undulate
Your yielding lines, to bear me softly hence,
That I might stand upon that golden edge,
And bathe my brow in that delicious gloom,
And leaning, gaze into the sudden gap
From whence the Lightning passes!
Night has come, and the bright eyes of stars,
And the voice-gifted wind, and severed wide,
Ye flee, like startled spirits, through the sky
Over and over to the mighty North,
Returnless race, forgetting and forgot
Of that red, western cradle whence ye sprung!
As wild, as fitful, is the gathering mass
Of this eventful world, - enlarging heaps
Of care and joy and grief we christen Life.
Like these, they shine full oft in green and gold,
Or brightly ravishing foam :- utterly fond,
We seek repose, confiding on their breast,
And lo, they sink and sink, most noiseless sink,
And leave us in the arms of nothingness.
Like these, they pass, in ever-varying form,
As glancing angels, or assassin grim,
Sharp-gleaming daggers, 'neath concealing garb!
Might we but dwell within the upper Heaven!
Of stars serene, and suns and cloudless moons,
Ranging delighted, while far down below
The Atmosphere of life concocts its shapes
Evil or beautiful, and smile on all,
As gorgeous pictures spread beneath the feet.
Oh Thou, supreme infinitude of Thought!
Thou, who art height and depth ! whither is Life,
And what are we, but vanishing shadows all
O'er the eternal ocean of thy Being !
It is thy will, the sunbeam of thy will
That perviates and modifies the air
Of mortal life, in which the spirit dwells :
Thou congregatest these joys and hopes and griefs,
In thee they beam or gloom. Eternal Sun!


1841.)
57
The Future is better than the Past.
Let them not come between my soul and thee;
Let me rejoice in thy o'erflooding light,
Fill up my being's urn, until a Star,
Once kindled, ne'er extinct, my soul may burn
In the pure light of an excelling love,
Giving out rays, as lavishly as given !
" THE FUTURE IS BETTER THAN THE PAST."
Not where long-passed ages sleep,
Seek we Eden's golden trees,
In the future, folded deep,
Are its mystic harmonies.
All before us lies the way,
Give the past unto the wind;
All before us is the Day,
Night and darkness are behind.
Eden with its angels bold,
Love and flowers and coolest sea,
Is not ancient story told,
But a glowing prophecy.
In the spirit's perfect air,
In the passions tame and kind,
Innocence from selfish care
The real Eden we shall find.
It is coming, it shall come,
To the patient and the striving,
To the quiet heart at home,
Thinking wise and faithful living.
When all error is worked out,
From the heart and from the life;
When the Sensuous is laid low,
Through the Spirit's holy strife ;
When the Soul to Sin hath died,
True and beautiful and sound;
Then all earth is sanctified,
Upsprings Paradise around.
Then shall come the Eden days,
Guardian watch from Seraph-eyes ;
Angels on the slanting rays,
Voices from the opening skies.
VOL. II. —NO. I.


58
(July:
August Shower.
From this spirit-land, afar,
All disturbing force shall flee;
Stir nor toil nor hope shall mar
Its immortal unity.
AUGUST SHOWER.
THE gladsome music of the shower!
The hasting, tripping, mingling sound,
Above, beneath me, all around,
On bank and tree and flower.
The rose lifts up its lip serene,
The insect's still, that restless thing,
He makes no noise, he stirs no wing,
So fresh he grows and clean.
The branches thrill and drip and bow,
Luxurious to the air;
How green they look, how sweet and fair
They gladly seem to know.
And still it pours, the welcome rain
Far down its rivers creep
The very roots are bathing deep
The fainting roots of grain.
Yet more! exhaustless 't is, as Love,
The bladed grass is full,
The pebble-stones are beautiful,
So cool and wet above!
A pause, - again, - it's almost past,
The flowers seem to think,
As gasping eagerly, they drink
The fresh, the sweet, the last.
The Earth is like recovered child,
Heeding not, how an hour ago
It panting lay and faint and low,
So glad it is and wild.
The lighted West! Oh God of Love !
Below, in silvery streams,
Like to Aurora's softest beams,
While gold bursts out above!


1841.)
59
The Pharisees.
THE PHARISEES.
If we may trust the statement of grave philosophers, who
have devoted their lives to Science, and given proofs of
what they affirm, which are manifest to the senses, as well
as evident to the understanding, there were once, in very
distant ages, classes of monsters on the earth, which dif-
fered, in many respects, from any animals now on its sur-
face. They find the bones of these animals " under the
bottom of the monstrous world," or imbedded in masses of
stone, which have since formed over them. They discover
the footprints, also, of these monstrous creatures, in what
was once soft clay, but has since become hard stone, and
so has preserved these traces for many a thousand years.
These creatures gradually became scarce, and at last dis-
appeared entirely from the face of the earth, while nobler
races grew up and took their place. The relics of these
monsters are gathered together by the curious. They
excite the wonder of old men and little girls, of the sage
and the clown.
Now there was an analogous class of moral monsters in
old time. They began quite early, though no one knows
who was the first of the race. They have left their foot- .
prints all over the civilized globe, in the mould of institu-
tions, laws, politics, and religions, which were once pliant,
but have since become petrified in the ages, so that they
seem likely to preserve these marks for many centuries to
come. The relics of these moral monsters are preserved
for our times in the histories and institutions of past ages.
But they excite no astonishment, when discovered, because,
while the sauri of gigantic size, the mammoth and the mas-
todon, are quite extinct, the last of the Pharisees has not
yet been seen, but his race is vigorous and flourishing now
as of old time. Specimens of this monster are by no means
rare. They are found living in all countries, and in every
walk of life. We do not search for them in the halls of a
museum, or the cabinets of the curious, but every man has
seen a Pharisee going at large on the earth. The race, it
seems, began early. The Pharisees are of ancient blood;
some tracing their genealogy to the great Father of Lies
himself. However this may be, it is certain, we find them


60
(July,
The Pharisees.
well known in very ancient times. Moses encountered them
in Egypt. They counterfeited his wonders, so the legend
relates, and “ did so with their enchantments." They fol-
lowed him into the desert, and their gold thrown into the
fire, by the merest accident, came out in the shape of an
idol. Jealous of the honor of Moses, they begged him to
silence Eldad and Medad, on whom the spirit of the Lord
rested, saying ; “Lord Moses rebuke them.” They trou-
bled the Messiah in a later day; they tempted him with a
penny; sought to entangle him in his talk; strove to catch
him, feigning themselves just men. They took counsel
to slay him soon as they found cunning of no avail. If one
was touched to the heart by true words — which, though
rare, once happened, - he came by night to that great
prophet of God, through fear of his fellow Pharisees. They
could boast, that no one of their number had ever believed
on the Saviour of the nations, — because his doctrine was a
new thing. If a blind man was healed, they put him out
of the synagogue, because his eyes were opened, and as he
confessed by the new Teacher. They bribed one of his
avaricious followers to betray him with a kiss, and at last
put to death the noblest of all the Sons of God, who
had but just opened the burthen of his mission. Yet they
took care, - those precious philanthropists, — not to defile
themselves by entering the judgment hall, with a pagan.
When that spirit rose again, they hired the guard to tell a
lie, and say, “His disciples came by night, and stole the
body, while we slept.”
This race of men troubled Moses, stoned the prophets,
crucified the Saviour, and persecuted the apostles. They
entered the Christian Church soon as it became popular and
fashionable. Then they bound the yoke of Jewish tradition
on true men's necks, and burned with fire, and blasted
with anathemas such as shook it off, walking free and up-
right, like men. This same race is alive, and by no means
extinct, or likely soon to be so.
It requires but few words to tell what makes up the sum
of the Pharisee. He is at the bottom a man like other
men, made for whatever is high and divine. God has not
curtailed him of a man's birthright. He has in him the
elements of a Moses or a Messiah. But his aim is to SEEM
good and excellent; not to be good and excellent. He


1841.]
The Pharisees.
wishes, therefore, to have all of goodness and religion ex-
cept goodness and religion itself. Doubtless, he would
accept these also, were they to be had for the asking, and
cost nothing to keep, but he will not pay the price. So
he would make a covenant with God and the devil, with
Righteousness and Sin, and keep on good terms with both.
He would unite the two worlds of Salvation and Iniquity,
having the appearance of the one, and the reality of the
other. He would work in deceit and wickedness, and yet
appear to men with clean hands. He will pray in one di-
rection, and yet live in just the opposite way, and thus at-
tempt, as it were, to blind the eyes, and cheat the justice
of all-knowing God. He may be defined, in one sentence,
as the circumstances of a good man, after the good man has
left them. Such is the sum of the Pharisee in all ages and
nations, variously modified by the customs and climate of
the place he happens to dwell in, just as the rabbit is white
in winter, and brown in summer, but is still the same rab-
bit, its complexion only altered to suit the color of the
ground.
The Jewish Pharisees began with an honest man, who
has given name to the class, as some say. He was moral
and religious, a lover of man and God. He saw through
the follies of his time, and rose above them. He felt the
evils that oppress poor mortal man, and sought to remove
them. But it often happens that a form is held up, after
its spirit has departed, and a name survives, while the re-
ality which bore this name is gone forever. Just as they
keep at Vienna the crown and sword of a giant king,
though for some centuries no head has been found large
enough to wear the crown, no hand of strength to wield
the sword, and their present owner is both imbecile and
diminutive. So it was in this case. The subsequent races
of Pharisees cherished the form, after the spirit had left it,
clinging all the closer because they knew there was nothing
in it, and feared, if they relaxed their hold, it would col.
lapse through its emptiness, or blow away and be lost, leav-
ing them to the justice of God and the vengeance of men
they had mocked at and insulted. In Christ's time, the
Pharisee professed to reverence the law of Moses, but con-
trived to escape its excellent spirit. He loved the Letter,
but he shunned the Law. He could pay tithes of his mint,


62
(July,
The Pharisees.
anise, and cummin, which the law of Moses did not ask
for, and omit mercy, justice, and truth, which both that and
the law of God demanded. He could not kindle a fire, nor
pluck an ear of corn on the Sabbath, though so cold and
hungry, that he thought of nothing but his pains, and looked
for the day to end. He could not eat bread without going
through the ceremony of lustration. He could pray long
and loud, where he was sure to be heard, at the corners of
the streets, and give alms in the public places, to gain the
name of devout, charitable, or munificent, while he devour-
ed widow's houses or the inheritance of orphans in pri-
vate, and his inward part was full of ravening and wick-
edness.
There are two things, which pass for religion in two
different places. The first is, the love of what is Right,
Good, and Lovely, the love of man, the love of God. This
is the religion of the New Testament, of Jesus Christ ; it
leads to a divine life, and passes for religion before the
pure eyes of that Father of all, who made us, and the stars
over our heads. The other is a mere belief in certain
doctrines, which may be true or false, a compliance with
certain forms, either beautiful or ludicrous. It does not
demand a love of what is right, good, and lovely, a love of
man or God. Still less does it ask for a life in conformity
with such sentiments. This passes for religion in the
world, in king's courts, and in councils of the Church, from
the council at Nice to the synod at Dort. The first is a
vital religion ; a religion of life. The other is a theo-
logical religion; a religion of death ; or rather, it is no re-
ligion at all; all of religion, but religion itself. It often
gets into the place of religion, just as the lizard may get
into the place of the lion, when he is out, and no doubt
sets up to be lion for the time, and attempts a roar. The
one is the religion of men, and the best men that have ever
lived in all ages and countries; the other is the religion of
Pharisees, and the worst men in all ages and in all coun-
tries.
This race of men, it has been said, is not yet exhausted.
They are as numerous as in John the Baptist's time, and
quite as troublesome. Now as then, they prefer the praise
of men to the praise of God; which means they would
rather seem good, at small cost, than take the pains to be


1841.)
63
The Pharisees.
good. They oppose all reforms as they opposed the Mes-
siah. They traduce the best of men, especially such as are
true to Conscience, and live out their thought. They per-
secute men sent on God's high errand of mercy and love.
Which of the prophets have they not stoned? They build
the tombs of deceased reformers, whom they would calum-
niate and destroy, were they now living and at work.
They can wear a cross of gold on their bosom, “ which
Jews might kiss and infidels adore.” But had they lived
in the days of Pilate, they would have nailed the Son of
God to a cross of wood, and now crucify him afresh, and put
him to an open shame. These Pharisees may be found in
all ranks of life; in the front and the rear; among the rad-
icals and the conservatives, the rich and the poor. Though
the Pharisees are the same in nature, differing only super-
ficially, they may yet be conveniently divided into several
classes, following some prominent features.
THE PHARISEE OF THE FIReside. He is the man, who
at home professes to do all for the comfort and convenience
of his family, his wife, his children, his friends; yet at the
same time does all for his own comfort and convenience.
He hired his servants, only to keep them from the alms-
house. He works them hard, lest they have too much
spare time, and grow indolent. He provides penuriously
for them, lest they contract extravagant habits. Whatever
gratification he gives himself, he does entirely for others.
Does he go to a neighboring place to do some important
errands for himself, and a trifle for his friend, the journey
was undertaken solely on his friend's account. Is he a
husband, he is always talking of the sacrifice he makes for
his wife, who yet never knows when it is made, and if he
had love, there would be no sacrifice. Is he a father, he
tells his children of his self-denial for their sake, while they
find the self-denial is all on their side, and if he loved them
self-denial would be a pleasure. He speaks of his great
affection for them, which, if he felt, it would show itself,
and never need be spoken of. He tells of the heavy bur-
dens borne for their sake, while, if they were thus borne,
they would not be accounted burdens, nor felt as heavy.
But this kind of Pharisee, though more common than we
sometimes fancy, is yet the rarest species. Most men drop


64
(July,
The Pharisees.
the cloak of hypocrisy, when they enter their home, and
seem what they are. Of them, therefore, no more need be
spoken.
THE PHARISEE OF THE PRINTING Press. The Pharisee
of this stamp is a sleek man, who edits a newspaper. His
care is never to say a word offensive to the orthodox ears of
his own coterie. His aim is to follow in the wake of pub-
lic opinion, and utter, from time to time, his oracular gen-
eralities, so that whether the course be prosperous or un-
successful, he may seem to have predicted it. If he must
sometimes speak of a new measure, whose fate is doubtful
with the people, no one knows whether he would favor or
reject it. So equally do his arguments balance one anoth-
er. Never was prophecy more clearly inspired and imper-
sonal. He cannot himself tell what his prediction meant
until it is fulfilled. “If Creesus crosses the Halys, he shall
destroy a great empire,” thunders the Pharisee from his
editorial corner, but takes care not to tell whether Persia or
Lydia shall come to the ground. Suggest a doubt, that he
ever opposed a measure, which has since become popular,
he will prove you the contrary, and his words really have
that meaning, though none suspected it at the time, and he,
least of all. In his, as in all predictions, there is a double
sense. If he would abuse a man or an institution, which
is somewhat respectable, and against which he has a private
grudge, he inserts most calumnious articles in the shape of
a " communication,” declaring at the same time his “col-
umns are open to all.” He attacks an innocent man, soon
as he is unpopular; but gives him no chance to reply,
though in never so Christian a spirit. Let a distinguished
man censure one comparatively unknown, he would be
very glad to insert the injured man's defence, but is pre-
vented by “a press of political matter,” or “a press of
foreign matter," till the day of reply has passed. Let an
humble scholar send a well written article for his journal,
which does not square with the notions of the coterie; it is
returned with insult added to the wrong, and an "edito-
rial" appears putting the public on its guard against such as
hold the obnoxious opinions, calling them knaves, and fools,
or what is more taking with the public at this moment,
when the majority are so very faithful, and religious,


1841.]
65
The Pharisees.
“infidels ” and “atheists." The aim of this man is to
please his party, and seem fair. Send him a paper, reflect-
ing on the measures or the men of that party, he tells you
it would do no good to insert it, though ably written. He
tells his wife the story, adding that he must have meat and
drink, and the article would have cost a “subscriber." He
begins by loving his party better than mankind; he goes
on by loving their opinions more than truth, and ends by
loving his own interest better than that of his party. He
might be painted as a man sitting astride a fence, which
divided two inclosures, with his hands thrust into his pock-
ets. As men come into one or the other inclosure, he bows
obsequiously, and smiles ; bowing lowest and smiling sweet-
est to the most distinguished person. When the people
have chosen their place, he comes down from “ that bad
eminence,” to the side where the majority are assembled,
and will prove to your teeth, that he had always stood on
that side, and was never on the fence, except to reconnoitre
the enemy's position.
THE PHARISEE OF THE STREET. He is the smooth
sharper, who cheats you in the name of honor. He wears
a sanctimonious face, and plies a smooth tongue. His
words are rosemary and marjoram for sweetness. To hear
him lament at the sins practised in business, you would
take him for the most honest of men. Are you to trade
with him, he expresses a great desire to serve you ; talks
much of the subject of honor; honor between buyer and
seller; honor among tradesmen ; honor among thieves.
He is full of regrets, that the world has become so wicked ;
wonders that any one can find temptation to defraud, and
belongs to a society for the suppression of shoplifting, or
some similar offence he is in no danger of committing,
and so
* Compounds for sins he is inclined to,
By damning those he has no mind to."
Does this Pharisee meet a philanthropist, he is full of plans
to improve society, and knows of some little evil, never heard
of before, which he wishes to correct in a distant part of the
land. Does he encounter a religious man, he is ready to build
a church if it could be built of words, and grows eloquent,
talking of the goodness of God and the sin of the world, and
VOL. II, — NO. I.


66
(July,
The Pharisees.
has a plan for evangelizing the cannibals of New Zealand, and
christianizing, forsooth, the natives of China, for he thinks
it hard they should "continue heathens, and so be lost.”
Does he overtake a lady of affluence and refinement, there
are no limits to his respect for the female sex; no bounds
to his politeness; no pains too great for him, to serve her.
But let him overtake a poor woman of a rainy day, in a
lonely road, who really needs his courtesy, he will not lend
her his arm or his umbrella, for all his devotion to the fe-
male sex. He thinks teachers are not sufficiently paid, but
teazes a needy young man to take his son to school a little
under price, and disputes the bill when rendered. He
knows that a young man of fortune lives secretly in the
most flagrant debauchery. Our Pharisee treats him with
all conceivable courtesy, defends him from small rumors ; but
when the iniquity is once made public, he is the very loud-
est in his condemnation, and wonders any one could ex-
cuse him. This man will be haughty to his equals, and
arrogant to those he deems below him. With all his plans
for christianizing China and New Zealand, he takes no
pains to instruct and christianize his own family. In spite
of his sorrow for the wickedness of the world, and his zeal
for the suppression of vice, he can tell the truth so as to
deceive, and utter a lie so smoothly, that none suspects it
to be untrue. Is he to sell you an article, its obvious faults
are explained away, and its secret ones concealed still deep-
er. Is he to purchase, he finds a score of defects, which
he knows exist but in his lying words. When the bargain
is made, he tells his fellow Pharisee how adroitly he de-
ceived, and how great are his gains. This man is fulfilled
of emptiness. Yet he is suffered to walk the earth, and
eat and drink and look upon the sun, all hollow as he is.
The PAARISEE OF Politics. This, also, is a numerous
class. He makes great professions of honesty; thinks the
country is like to be ruined by want of integrity in high
places, and, perhaps, it is so. For his part, he thinks sim-
ple honesty, the doing of what one knows to be right, is
better than political experience, of which he claims but
little ; more safe than the eagle eye of statesman-like sagac-
ity, which sees events in their causes, and can apply the
experience of many centuries to show the action of a par-


1841.]
67
The Pharisees.
ticular measure, a sagacity that he cannot pretend to. This
Pharisee of Politics, when he is out of place, thinks much
evil is likely to befal us from the office-holders, enemies of
the people; if he is in place from the office-wanters, most
pestilent fellows! Just before the election, this precious
Pharisee is seized with a great concern lest the people be
deceived, the dear people, whom he loves with such vast
affection. No distance is too great for him to travel; no
stormy night, too stormy for him, that he may utter his
word in season. Yet all the while he loves the people but
as the cat her prey, which she charms with her look of
demure innocence, her velvet skin and glittering eyes, till
she has seized it in her teeth, and then condescends to sport
with its tortures, sharpening her appetite, and teazing it to
death. There is a large body of men in all political
parties,
“who sigh and groan
For public good, and mean their own."
It has always been so, and will always continue so, till men
and women become Christian, and then, as pagan Plato
tells us, the best and wisest men will take high offices cheer-
fully, because they involve the most irksome duties of the
citizen. The Pharisee of Politics is all things to all men,
(though in a sense somewhat different from the Apostle,
perhaps,) that he may, by any means, gain some to his side.
Does he meet a reformer, he has a plan for improving and
finishing off the world quite suddenly. Does he fall in with
a conservative, our only strength is to stand still. Is he
speaking with a wise friend of the people, he would give
every poor boy and girl the best education the state could
afford, making monopoly of wisdom out of the question.
Does he talk with the selfish man of a clique, who cares
only for the person, girded with his belt; he thinks seven
eighths of the people, including all of the working class,
must be left in ignorance beyond hope; as if God made
one man all Head, and the other all Hands. Does he meet
a Unitarian, the Pharisee signs no creed, and always be-
lieved the Unity; with a Calvinist, he is so Trinitarian he
wishes there were four persons in the Godhead to give his
faith a test the more difficult. Let the majority of voters, or
a third party, who can turn the election, ask him to pledge
himself to a particular measure, this lover of the people is
de may, hewhat dit is all th


68
(July,
The Pharisees.
ready, their “ obedient servant,” whether it be to make prop-
erty out of paper, or merchandise of men. The voice of his
electors iş to him not the voice of God, which might be
misunderstood, but God himself. But when his object is
reached, and the place secure, you shall see the demon of
ambition, that possesses the man, come out into action.
This man can stand in the hall of the nation's wisdom, with
the Declaration of Independence in one hand, and the Bi-
ble, the great charter of freedom, in the other, and justify,
- not excuse, palliate, and account for, — but JUSTIFY,
the greatest wrong man can inflict on man, and attempt
to sanction Slavery, quoting chapter and verse from the
New Testament, and do it as our fathers fought, in the
name of “God and their country.” He can stand in the
centre of a free land, his mouth up to the level of Mason
and Dixon's line, and pour forth his eloquent lies, all free-
dom above the mark, but all slavery below it. He can cry
out for the dear people, till they think some man of wealth
and power watches to destroy them, while he wants au-
thority; but when he has it, ask him to favor the cause of
Humanity; ask him to aid those few hands, which would
take hold of the poor man's son in his cabin and give him
an education worthy of a man, a free man; ask him to help
those few souls of great faith, who perfume Heaven's ear
with their prayers, and consume their own hearts on the
altar, while kindling the reluctant sacrifice for other hearts,
so slow to beat; ask him to aid the noblest interests of
man, and help bring the kingdom of Heaven here in New
England, - and where is he? Why, the bubble of a man
has blown away. If you could cast his character into a melt-
ing pot, as chemists do their drugs, and apply suitable tests
to separate part from part, and so analyze the man, you
would find a little Wit, and less Wisdom; a thimble-full
of common sense, worn in the fore part of his head, and so
ready for use at a moment's call ; a conscience made up of
maxims of expediency and worldly thrift, which conscience
he wore on his sleeve to swear by when it might serve his
turn. You would find a little knowledge of history to
make use of on the Fourth of July and election days; a con-
viction that there was a selfish principle in man, which
might be made active; a large amount of animal cunning,
selfishness, and ambition, all worn very bright by constant


1841.]
69
The Pharisees.
use. Down further still in the crucible would be a
shapeless lump of faculties he had never used, which, on
examination, would contain Manliness, Justice, Integri-
ty, Honor, Religion, Love, and whatever else that makes
man Divine and Immortal. Such is the inventory of this
thing which so many worship, and so many would be.
Let it also pass to its reward.
Moses a They ainted to be much des
THE PHARISEE OF THE CHURCH. There was a time
when he, who called himself a Christian, took as it were
the Prophet's vow, and Toil and Danger dogged his steps;
Poverty came like a Giant upon him, and Death looked
ugly at him through the casement as he sat down with his
wife and babes. Then to be called a Christian, was to be
a man; to pray prayers of great resolution, and to live in
the Kingdom of Heaven. Now it means only to be a
Protestant, or a Catholic; to believe with the Unitarians, or
the Calvinists. We have lost the right names of things.
The Pharisee of the Church has a religion for Sunday, but
none for the week. He believes all the true things and
absurd things ever taught by popular teachers of his sect.
To him the Old Testament and the new Testament are
just the same, and the Apocrypha he never reads, -
Books to be worshipped and sworn by. He believes most
entirely in the Law of Moses and the Gospel of the Mes-
siah, which annuls that Law. They are both “ translated
out of the original tongues, and appointed to be read in
churches." Of course he practises one just as much as
the other. His Belief has cost him so much he does
nothing but believe; never dreams of living his belief.
He has a Religion for Sunday, and a face for Sunday, and
Sunday books, and Sunday talk, and just as he lays aside
his Sunday coat, so he puts by his talk, his books, his
face, and his Religion. They would be profaned if used
on a week day. He can sit in his pew of a Sunday –
wood sitting upon wood — with the demurest countenance,
and never dream the words of Isaiah, Paul, and Jesus,
which are read him, came out of the serene deeps of the
soul that is fulfilled of a divine life, and are designed to
reach such deeps in other souls, and will reach them if
they also live nobly. He can call himself a Christian, and
never do anything to bless or comfort his neighbor. The
is fulfilled of other souls, aimself a Christian. The


70
(July,
The Pharisees.
only for are inc, daily breta
poor pass and never raise an eye to that impenetrable face.
He can hear sermons and pay for sermons that denounce
the sin he daily commits, and think he atones for the sin
by paying for the sermon. His Sunday prayers are beau-
tiful, out of the Psalıns and the Gospels, but his weekly
life, what has it to do with his prayer? How confounded
would he be if Heaven should take him in earnest, and
grant his request! He would pray that God's name be
hallowed, while his life is blasphemy against Him. He
can say “thy kingdom come,” when if it should coine, he
would wither up at the sight of so much majesty. The
kingdom of God is in the Hearts of men ; does he wish it
there, in his own heart? He prays “thy will be done,”
yet never sets a foot forward to do it, nor means to set a
foot forward. His only true petition is for daily bread,
and this he utters falsely, for all men are included in the
true petition, and he asks only for himself. When he
says “ forgive us as we forgive,” he imprecates a curse on
himself, most burning and dreadful; for when did he give
or forgive ? The only “ evil” he prays to be delivered
from is worldly trouble. He does not wish to be saved
from avarice, peevishness, passion, from false lips, a wicked
heart, and a life mean and dastardly. He can send Bibles
to the Heathen on the deck of his ship, and rum, gun-
powder, and cast-iron muskets in the hold. The aim of
this man is to get the most out of his fellow mortals, and
to do the least for them, at the same time keeping up the
phenomena of Goodness and Religion. To speak some-
what figuratively, he would pursue a wicked calling in a
plausible way, under the very windows of Heaven, at in-
tervals singing hymns to God, while he debased his image ;
contriving always to keep so near the walls of the New
Jerusalem, that when the destroying flood swept by, he
might scramble in at a window, booted and spurred to ride
over men, wearing his Sunday face, with his Bible in his
hand, to put the Saviour to the blush, and out-front the
justice of all-mighty God. But let him pass also; he has
his reward. Sentence is pronounced against all that is
false. The Publicans and the Harlots enter into the king-
dom of God before that man.
powdern is to get them, at the Seligion. To Calling in
The PHARISEE OF THE PULPIT.
The Scribes and


1841.]
The Pharisees.
Pharisees sat once in Moses' seat; now they go farther up
and sit in the seat of the Messiah. The Pharisee of the
Pulpit is worse than any other class, for he has the faults
of all the rest, and is set in a place where even the slight-
est tarnish of human frailty is a disgrace, all the more
disgraceful because contrasted with the spotless vestments
of that loftiest spirit that has bestrode the ages, and stands
still before us as the highest Ideal ever realized on the
Earth, — the measure of a perfect man. If the Gold rust,
what shall the Iron do? The fundamental sin of the
Pharisee of the Pulpit is this. He keeps up the Form,
come what will come of the Substance. So he embraces
the form when the substance is gone forever. He might
be represented in painting as a man, his hands filled with
husks, from which the corn had long ago been shelled off,
carried away and planted, and had now grown up under
God's blessing, produced its thirty, or its hundred-fold,
and stands ripe for the reaper, waiting the sickle, while
hungering crowds come up escaping from shipwreck, or
wanderings in the desert of Sin, and ask an alms, he gives
them a husk — only a husk; nothing but a husk. “ The
hungry flock look up and are not fed,” while he blasts
with the curses of his church all such as would guide the
needy to those fields where there is bread enough and to
spare. He wonders at “the perverseness of the age,”
that will no longer be fed with chaff and husks. He has
seen but a single pillar of God's Temple, and thinking that
is the whole, condemns all such as take delight in its beau-
tiful porches, its many mansions, and most holy place.
So the fly, who had seen but a nail-head on the dome of
St. Peter's, condemned the Swallow who flew along its
solemn vault, and told the wonders she had seen. Our
Pharisee is resolved, God willing, or God not willing, to
keep up the form, so he would get into a false position
should he dare to think. His thought might not agree
with the form, and since he loves the dream of his fathers
better than God's Truth, he forbids all progress in the
form. So he begins by not preaching what he believes,
and soon comes to preach what he believes not. These
are the men who boast they have Abraham to their father,
yet, as it has been said, they come of a quite different stock,
which also is Ancient and of great renown.


72
(July,
The Pharisees.
The Pharisee's faith is in the letter, not the spirit. Doubt
in his presence that the Book of Chronicles and the Book
of Kings are not perfectly inspired and infallibly true on
those very points where they are exactly opposite ; doubt
that the Infinite God inspired David to denounce his ene-
mies, Peter to slay Ananias, Paul to predict events that
never came to pass, and Matthew and Luke, John and
Mark, to make historical statements, which can never be
reconciled, and he sets you down as an infidel, though
you keep all the commandments from your youth up,
lack nothing, and live as John and Paul prayed they
might live. With him the unpardonable sin is to doubt
that ecclesiastical doctrine to be true, which Reason revolts
at, and Conscience and Faith spurn off with loathing. With
him the Jews are more than the human race. The Bible
is his Master, and not his Friend. He would not that you
should take its poems as its authors took them ; nor its
narratives for what they are worth, as you take others.
He will not allow you to accept the Life of Christianity;
but you must have its letter also, of which Paul and Jesus
said not a word. If you would drink the water of life,
you must take likewise the mud it has been filtered
through, and drink out of an orthodox urn. You must
shut up Reason, Conscience, and Common Sense, when
you come to those Books which above all others came out
of this triple fountain. To those Books be limits divine
inspiration, and in his modesty has looked so deep into
the counsels of God, that he knows the live coal of Inspi-
ration has touched no lips but Jewish. No! nor never
shall. Does the Pharisee do this from true reverence for the
Word of God, which was in the beginning, which is Life,
and which lighteth every man that cometh into the world?
Let others judge. But there is a blindness of the heart,
to which the fabled darkness of Egypt was noon-day light.
That is not the worst skepticism which, with the Sadducee,
denies both angel and resurrection ; but that which denies
man the right to think, to doubt, to conclude ; which
hopes no light save from the ashes of the past, and would
hide God's truth from the world with the flap of its long
robe. We come at Truth only by faithful thought, reflec-
tion, and contemplation, when the long flashes of light
come in upon the soul. But Truth and God are always on
said not a wo have its lettercept the life you take other


1841.)
73
The Pharisees.
our side. Ignorance and a blind and barren Faith favor
only lies and their great patriarch.
The Pharisee of the Pulpit talks much of the divine
authority of the Church and the Minister, as if the one
was anything more than a body of men and women met
for moral and religious improvement, and the other any-
thing but a single man they had asked to teach them, and
be an example to the flock, and not “ Lord of God's heri-
tage.” Had this Pharisee been born in Turkey, he would
have been as zealous for the Mahommetan church, as he
now is for the Christian. It is only the accident of birth
that has given him the Bible instead of the Koran, the
Shaster, the Vedam, or the Shu-King. This person has
no real faith in man, or he would not fear when he essayed
to walk, nor would fancy that while every other science
went forward, Theology, the Queen of Science, should be
bound hand and foot, and shut up in darkness without
sun or star; no faith in Christ, or he would not fear that
Search and Speech should put out the light of life ; no
faith in God, or he would know that His Truth, like virgin
gold, comes brighter out of the fire of thought, which
burns up only the dross. Yet this Pharisee speaks
of God, as if he had known the Infinite from His boy-
hood; had looked over his shoulder when he laid the
foundations of the earth, had entered into all his counsels,
and known to the tithing of a hair, how much was given to
Moses, how much to Confucius, and how much to Christ;
and had seen it written in the book of fate, that Christiani-
ty, as it is now understood, was the loftiest Religion man
could ever know, and all the treasure of the Most High
was spent and gone, so that we had nothing more to hope
for. Yet the loftiest spirits that have ever lived have
blessed the things of God; have adored him in all his
works, in the dewdrops and the stars; have felt at times
his Spirit warm their hearts, and blessed him who was all
in all, but bowed their faces down before his presence, and
owned they could not by searching find him out unto per-
fection; have worshipped and loved and prayed, but said
no more of the nature and essence of God, for Thought
has its limits, though presumption it seems has none.
The Pharisee speaks of Jesus of Nazareth. How he
dwells on his forbearance, his gentleness, but how he for-
VOL. II. — NO. I.
10


74
[July,
.
The Pharisees.
gets that righteous indignation which spoke through him ;
applied the naked point of God's truth to Pharisees and
Hypocrites, and sent them back with rousing admonitions.
He heeds not the all-embracing Love that dwelt in him,
and wept at Sin, and worked with bloody sweat for the
oppressed and down trodden. He speaks of Paul and
Peter as if they were masters of the Soul, and not merely
its teachers and friends. Yet should those flaming apostles
start up from the ground in their living holiness, and tread
our streets, call things by their right names, and apply
Christianity to life, as they once did and now would do
were they here, think you our Pharisee would open his
house, like Roman Cornelius, or Simon of Tarsus ?
There are two divisions of this class of Pharisees; those
who do not think, — and they are harmless and perhaps
useful in their way, like snakes that have no venom, but
catch worms and flies, — and those who do think. The
latter think one thing in their study, and preach a very
different thing in their pulpit. In the one place they are
free as water, ready to turn any way; in the other, con-
servative as ice. They fear philosophy should disturb the
church as she lies bed-ridden at home, so they would
throw the cobwebs of Authority and Tradition over the
wings of Truth, not suffering her with strong pinions to
fly in the midst of Heaven and communicate between man
and God. They think "you must use a little deceit in
the world,” and so use not a little. These men speak in
public of the inspiration of the Bible, as if it were all in-
spired with equal infallibility, but what do they think at
home? In his study, the Testament is a collection of
legendary tales; in the pulpit it is the everlasting Gospel;
if any man shall add to it, the seven last plagues shall be
added to him; if any one takes from it, his name shall be
taken from the Book of Life. If there be a sin in the
land, or a score of sins tall as the Anakim, which go to and
fro in the earth, and shake the churches with their tread ; let
these sins be popular, be loved by the powerful, protected
by the affluent; will the Pharisee sound the alarm, lift up
the banner, sharpen the sword, and descend to do battle ?
There shall not a man of them move his tongue; "no,
they are dumb dogs, that cannot bark, sleeping, lying
down, loving to slumber ; yes they are greedy dogs, that


1841.)
75
The Pharisees.
can never have enough.” But let there be four or five
men in obscure places, not mighty through power, renown,
or understanding, or eloquence; let them utter in modesty
a thought that is new, which breathes of freedom, or tends
directly towards God, and every Pharisee of the Pulpit
shall cry out from Cape Sable to the Lake of the Woods,
till the land ring again. Doubtless it is heroic thus to fight a
single new thought, rather than a score of old sins. Doubt-
less it is a very Christian zeal thus to pursue obscurity to
its retreat, and mediocrity to its littleness, and startle hum-
ble Piety from her knees, while the Goliath of sin walks
with impudent forehead at noon-day in front of their ar-
mies, and defies the living God; — a very Christian zeal
which would put down a modest champion, however true,
who, declining the canonical weapons, should bring down
the foe and smite off the giant's head. Two persons are
mentioned in the Bible, who have had many followers ;
the one is Lot's wife, who perished looking back upon
Sodom; the other Demetrius, who feared that this our
craft is in danger to be set at nought.
Such, then, are the Pharisees. We ought to accept
whatever is good in them; but their sin should be exposed.
Yet in our indignation against the vice, charity should al-
ways be kept for the man. There is “ a soul of Goodness
in things evil,” even in the Pharisee, for he also is a man.
It is somewhat hard to be all that God made us to become,
and if a man is so cowardly he will only aim to seem
something, he deserves pity, but certainly not scorn or
hate. Bad as he appears, there is yet somewhat of Good-
ness left in him, like Hope at the bottom of Pandora's
box. Fallen though he is, he is yet a man, to love and
be loved. Above all men is the Pharisee to be pitied.
He has grasped at a shadow, and he feels sometimes that
he is lost. With many a weary step and many a groan,
he has hewn him out broken cisterns that hold no water,
and sits dusty and faint beside them; "a deceived heart
has turned him aside," and there is “a lie in his right
hand.” Meantime the stream of life hard by falls from
the Rock of Ages; its waters flow for all, and when the
worn pilgrim stoops to drink, he rises a stronger man, and
thirsts no more for the hot and polluted fountain of Deceit
and Sin. Farther down men leprous as Naaman may dip
and be healed.
one has gras with mat brokende th


76
[July,
The Pharisees.
den therethn and Paul hacer Goodness and
While these six classes of Pharisees pursue their wicked
way, the path of real manliness and Religion opens before
each soul of us all. The noblest sons of God have trod-
den therein, so that no one need wander. Moses and
Jesus and John and Paul have gained their salvation by
being real men; content to seek Goodness and God, they
found their reward ; they blessed the nations of the earth,
and entered the kingdom of religious souls. It is not
possible for Falseness or Reality to miss of its due recom-
pense. The net of divine justice sweeps clean to its bot-
tom the ocean of man, and all things that are receive their
due. The Pharisee may pass for a Christian, and men
may be deceived for a time, but God never. In his im-
partial balance it is only real Goodness that has weight.
The Pharisee may keep up the show of Religion, but what
avails it ? Real sorrows come home to that false heart,
and when the strong man tottering calls on God for more
strength, how shall the false man stand ? Before the Jus-
tice of the All-seeing, where shall 'he hide ? Men may
have the Pharisee's Religion if they will, and they have
his reward, which begins in self-deception, and ends in
ashes and dust. They may if they choose have the Christian's
Religion, and they have also his reward, which begins in
the great resolution of the heart, continues in the action of
what is best and most manly in human nature, and ends
in Tranquillity and Rest for the Soul, which words are
powerless to describe, but which man must feel to know.
To each man, as to Hercules, there come two counsellors;
the one of the Flesh, to offer enervating pleasures and unreal
joys for the shadow of Virtue; the other of the Spirit, to
demand a life that is lovely, holy, and true. “Which will
you have"? is the question put by Providence to each of
us; and the answer is the daily life of the Pharisee or the
Christian. Thus it is of a man's own choice that he is
cursed or blessed, that he ascends to Heaven, or goes
down to Hell.


1841.]
Protean Wishes.
PROTEAN WISHES.
I would I were the Grass,
Where thy feet most often pass,
I would greet thee all the day;
Or but a Drop of Dew,
Then gladdened at thy view,
I'd reflect thee all the day;
I would rise a purple cloud!
I would weave a fairy shroud,
And attend thee all the day.
I would I were the Night,
For when banished by thy light,
I would praise thee all the day.
I would I were the Sun,
Then wherever I shone
I would sing thee all the day.
I would I were the Skies,
For then with thousand eyes,
I would see thee all the day.
But I'd rather be the Air,
Then in thy presence fair,
I'd be blest all the day.
How blest is he who sits beside
Thee his Maiden, thee his Bride;
Like the Gods is he.
He hears thee speak, he sees thee smile,
With rapture burns his heart the while,
Yet beateth mild and tranquilly.
The lingering sun-beams round thee play,
And in their warm, rejoicing ray
Thy golden tresses shine.
Who calls thee Friend is richly blest:
Sister or Child — has heavenly rest :
Who calls thee Wife becomes divinea


78
(July,
Painting and Sculpture.
PAINTING AND SCULPTURE.
In the days of Michel Angelo, perhaps even in the
earlier time of Grecian Art, certainly often since, the ques-
tion has been discussed of the comparative dignity of
Painting and Sculpture. The generous critic shrinks from
the use of the words higher and lower, when applied to
art, and yet I sometimes feel that these terms of com-
parison are among the limitations to which we must sub-
mit, while we continue human, as we accept our bodies
and language itself, availing ourselves of them as best we
may, until we gain that mount of vision, from which noth-
ing is high nor low nor great nor small. Doubtless for
everything that is gained something is lost, and yet if the
thing gained is more than the lost, then comes in legiti-
mately the idea of superiority. In my lonely hours of
thought, I love to substitute, for these objectionable terms
of comparison, those of means and ends, results, causes and
effects, and so forth, and though deeply conscious of my ig-
norance on the subject of Art, I have often thought of the
relation of its different departments to each other, and
always end with the conclusion that Sculpture is the result
of all the other arts, the lofty interpreter of them all; not
in the order of time, but in the truer one of affinities.
Phidias sits by the side of Plato uttering in marble, as his
brother philosopher in words, his profound interpretation
of all that had gone before, the result of his deep pene-
tration into what Greece had acted, Homer sung, and
Æschylus and Sophocles elevated into the region of sculp-
ture and philosophy. The Homeric poem, the Orphic
hymn, the Delphic temple, the Persian war, each was en-
tire of itself, and contained within itself the hint, the germ
of all that after time might ever be, but it waited the
sculptor's touch, the sage's insight, to tell its history, to
detect its immortality, to transmute it from an historical fact
to a prophecy. The preparatory art of painting probably
existed too in Greece, as certainly as the epic and the
drama, though the traces of this art are faint in her his-
tory ; for painting is the epic poem, the drama, uttering
itself in another form, and the soil that produces one will
produce the other. My theory is confirmed to me by the


1841.]
79
Painting and Sculpture.
drama hat for its by philosophe departingelf as it in this last
experience of life. With every individual, after the feel-
ing that prompts to action has died away, and the action
is achieved, the mind pauses, and without any conscious
reviewing of the details of experience, looks with quiet
eye into its present state, which is the result of all before.
This state of lofty contemplation, of deepening knowledge
of oneself and the universe, is the end for which feeling
warms and action strengthens the intellect. He that doeth
shall know. Love prompted the divine essence to pass
into the varied existence of this fair outward creation.
Then followed the pause, and the sentence passed in the
three words, “it is good,” contains all that the highest
thought has since discovered of the universe in which we
dwell. Sculpture is the pause of art in the swift current
of the life of nations, which is depicted glowing in the
drama and on canvass; poetry and color idealizing it
somewhat for its master's hand. The drama and painting
are transfigured by philosophy and sculpture, as the human
countenance by death. The departing soul, in the pause
between its two lives, impresses itself as it never did
before on the form of our friend. We read in this last
impress the interpretation of its past history, the clear
prophecy of its high possibilities, always deciphered con-
fusedly before amid the changing hues, the varying lights
and shadows of its distracted earthly life.
It seems to me that sculpture has not completed its
circle. It is finished for Grecian life, and so is philosophy;
but the modern world, modern life, is yet to be stamped
with the seal of both. The materials for a future philoso-
phy will be less pure and simple, but richer and more
varied than those of the elder world. There can be no
pure epic, no single motive for a nation's action, no se-
verely chaste drama (almost approaching sculpture in its
simplicity), no bursting forth of burning lyric, one gush
from the soul in its primal freshness. Modern life is too
complicated for this, but a nobler and sterner sculpture in
words or marble, than our race has yet known, may be in
reserve for it, -gifted with a restoring power that may
bring it back to unity. Jesus loved and lived, then came
the pause — It is finished. This little sentence summed
up all the agitated moments of his yet unrecorded indi-
vidual earthly history. The Plato of Christianity is yet
impress the its high possihanging hues, the


80
(July,
Painting and Sculpture.
waited for. “The hands of color and design” have re-
produced to Christendom every event of Jesus's sacred
history, working in the church and for the church. Will
the gazing world wait in vain for the Christian Phidias,
who shall lift this history out of the dim twilight of expe-
rience, and plant it in marble for eternity ?
The old fable of the stones arising and forming them-
selves into noble structures at the sound of the lyre, has
been used to prove that Music and Architecture are sister
arts. Does it not prove quite the reverse, that Architec-
ture arose at the bidding of Music, is kindred, but inferior;
not a vassal or equal, but an humble friend, unless the
Scripture announcement holds good in arts as in the moral
world — let him that is greatest among you be as a ser-
vant ?
Such are the limitations of humanity that inequality is
a proof of the inspiration of our work, perhaps also of our
life. We are vessels too frail to receive the divine influx,
except in small measure, at wide intervals ; hence the
patched up nature, the flagging and halting of an epic,
often of a drama of high merit.
Goethe has said that “art has its origin in the effort of
the individual to preserve himself from the destroying
power of the whole.” This for the origin of the useful
arts seems an adequate explanation, but not for the fine
arts; for if any one thing constitutes the difference be-
tween the two, is it not that the useful resist nature, and
the others work with it and idealize it? Architecture, as it
arises protectingly against the unfriendly external powers,
takes a lower place than the other fine arts, and at its
commencement can hardly be considered as one of them.
It is hardly a satisfactory definition of art, though nearly
allied to Goethe's, that it perpetuates what is fleeting in
nature; not even of statuary, which snatches the attitude
and expression of the moment, and fixes it forever.
I have been watching the flight of birds over a meadow
near me, not as an augur, but as a lover of nature. A
certain decorousness, and precision, about their delicate
course has, for the first time, struck my eye. They are
free and bold — but not alone free and bold. Perhaps
perfect freedom for man would have the same result, if
he grew up in it, and did not ruffle his plumage by con-


1841.]
81
. Sic Vita.
tending for it. If it were his unalienable birthright, and
not his hard-earned acquisition, would he not wear it
gracefully, gently, reservedly? Poor human being, all
education is adjusting fetters to thy delicate limbs, and all
true manhood is the strife to burst them; happy art thou,
if aught remains to thee but strength!
SIC VITA.
I am a parcel of vain strivings tied
By a chance bond together,
Dangling this way and that, their links
Were made so loose and wide,
Methinks,
For milder weather.
A bunch of violets without their roots,
And sorrel intermixed,
Encircled by a wisp of straw
Once coiled about their shoots,
The law
By which I'm fixed.
A nosegay which Time clutched from out
Those fair Elysian fields,
With weeds and broken stems, in haste,
Doth make the rabble rout
That waste
The day he yields.
And here I bloom for a short hour unseen,
Drinking my juices up,
With no root in the land
To keep my branches green,
But stand
In a bare cup.
Some tender buds were left upon my stem
In mimicry of life,
But ah! the children will not know
Till time has withered them,
The wo
With which they're rife.
NO. 1.
VOL. II.
11


82
[July,
Bettina.
But now I see I was not plucked for nought,
And after in life's vase
Of glass set while I might survive,
But by a kind hand brought
Alive
To a strange place.
That stock thus thinned will soon redeem its hours,
And by another year
Such as God knows, with freer air,
More fruits and fairer flowers
Will bear,
While I droop here.
H. D. T.
BETTINA!
Like an eagle proud and free,
Here I sit high in the tree,
Which rocks and swings with me.
The wind through autumn leaves is rattling,
The waves with the pebbly shore are battling;
Spirits of ocean,
Spirits of air,
All are in motion
Everywhere.
You on the tame ground,
Ever walking round and round,
Little know what joy 't is to be
Rocked in the air by a mighty tree.
A little brown bird sate on a stone,
The sun shone thereon, but he was alone,
Oh, pretty bird! do you not weary
Of this gay summer so long and dreary?
The little bird opened his bright black eyes,
And looked at me with great surprise ;
Then his joyous song burst forth to say -
Weary! of what? - I can sing all day.


1841.]
Prophecy.
PROPHECY - TRANSCENDENTALISM - PROGRESS.
One of the most philosophical of modern preachers has
written, — “The practice of taking a passage of scripture,
when one is about to give a discourse, is not always con-
venient, and seldom answers any very good purpose." I
shall not discuss this proposition, but leave it for the de-
cision of those, whom it more immediately concerns. I
have found it convenient thus to preface a lay sermon, a
word of “prophecy in the camp ;” chiefly in the hope
that it will answer the good purpose of bespeaking a fa-
vorable consideration of the doctrine it is believed to con-
tain. The passage selected is contained in the 29th verse
of the 11th chapter of the 4th book, called Numbers, of
the history of the Hebrew nation attributed to Moses.
“ WOULD GOD, THAT ALL THE LORD'S PEOPLE WERE PROPHETS."
I feel warranted in using the term prophet and prophecy
in a larger signification than is usually attached to them.
In the text, and other places where they occur in the He-
brew scriptures, and the writings of the Christian apostles,
they cannot, without violence, be interpreted in the sense
of literal prediction. Much unnecessary embarrassment,
as it seems to me, has been placed in the way of Christi-
anity, by resting its credibility upon the success of the
attempt to establish the strict relation of literal prophecy
between particular facts of the Christian history, and pas-
sages of the Old Testament. This is to degrade it from a
system, bearing within itself the testimony of its divinity,
and reposing upon the innate and indestructible convic-
tions of the human mind, to a system of ambiguous au-
thority, depending upon the authenticity of ancient records,
and subtilties of verbal interpretation. Instead of being a
revelation to the individual mind, it has become a mere
inference from historical credibility; a conclusion of logic
from certain possibly true premises, instead of a self-evi-
dent truth, whose witness is always the same, and always
accessible, amid all the ambiguities and mutations of lan-
guage, the revolutions of literature, and convulsions of
empires.


Prophecy.
[July,
It is, however, sufficient for me at present, to verify the
remark, that, in the text and other places, prophecy has a
different, and more indefinite meaning than foretelling.
It appears from the history, that Moses, being disquieted
and perplexed by the complaints of the Hebrews on ac-
count of their sufferings in the wilderness, selected seventy
of the elders of Israel to assist him in “ bearing his bur-
dens.” Sixty-eight of the seventy came up to the taber-
nacle of the congregation, and “prophesied, and did not
cease.” But two of them did not go up to the tabernacle;
however, the Spirit rested on them also, and they “ prophe-
sied in the camp.” The people seem to have been shock-
ed by this irregular field preaching, and some of them, in
their zeal for the sanctity of the tabernacle, ran and told
Moses, that Eldad and Medad were prophesying in the
camp. Joshua, the son of Nun, was particularly scandal-
ized, and urged Moses to forbid them. But Moses said, —
“ Enviest thou for my sake? Would God, that all the
Lord's people were prophets, and that the Lord would put
his spirit upon them."
Whatever may have been the precise functions, for
which the seventy were selected, it would seem that the
exigencies, which made their appointment necessary, would
not require the power of literal prophecy; but rather the gift
of insight, the faculty of communication, instruction, persua-
sion, a deep sense of the mission to which Moses had called
their nation, a profound faith, and the earnest eloquence,
which could infuse their own convictions into the minds of
their countrymen, and animate and encourage them amid
the difficulties under which they were almost sinking in
despair.
This view of prophecy is illustrated and confirmed by
the words of Paul, in his first letter to the Corinthians ; -
“ Follow after charity, and desire spiritual gifts ; but rather
that ye may prophesy. For he, that speaketh in an un-
known tongue, speaketh not unto men, but unto God.
But he, that prophesieth, speaketh unto men, to edification,
and exhortation, and comfort.”
And again ; — " If all prophesy, and there come in a
man unlearned, or that believeth not; he is convinced of
all, he is judged of all, and thus the secrets of his heart
are made manifest, and so, falling down upon his face, he


1841.]
85
Prophecy.
will worship God, and report that God is with you of a
truth."
The gift of literal prophecy would seem to be as barren
and ineffectual for the conversion of the unbeliever, as the
gift of tongues, with which the apostle is contrasting it,
and even as unintelligible to the hearer. To work the
effects attributed to it, the mind of the hearer should be
able to comprehend the utterance of the prophecy ; the
prophet must address some common principle of the hu-
man mind, appeal to ideas already existing there, and
produce conviction by giving form and a voice to the
slumbering intuitions of the soul, which have but awaited
the fit time to awake into life.
The gift of prophecy is one to be acquired; for Paul,
as the conclusion of the whole matter, gives the exhorta-
tion, — "Wherefore, my brethren, covet to prophesy."
It may aid in admitting this view of prophecy, to re-
member that, in several of the ancient languages, the same
word was used to denote the prophet and the poet; pro-
phecy and poetry were regarded as identical. Thus Paul,
in his letter to Titus, quoting a Greek poet, calls him a
prophet. The poets, or prophets, were the earliest legis-
lators and civilizers of mankind. Moses, the founder of
the social system of the Hebrews, whose institutions at
this day, after the lapse of thousands of years, modify the
habits, and influence the destinies of his countrymen, was
a poet of the highest order, and owed his unbounded au-
thority over his countrymen as much, perhaps, as to any
cause, to his deep prophetic, or poetic, insight. What
Moses was to the Hebrews, Orpheus, and especially Homer,
were to the Greeks, and through them to all modern civil-
ization.
It may not be an unnecessary remark, that poetry does
not consist in versification. Rhyme is an easy, and almost
purely mechanical acquisition ; and facility in its use is
attained in perfection by multitudes, in whom is discerned
scarce the faintest breathing of the poetic spirit. Measure,
too, is only one of the forms in which poetry utters itself; but
rhythm, no more than rhyme, must be confounded with it.
The utterance of poetry must not be mistaken for the feel-
ing. Poetry is thought, sentiment, insight; and the gar-
ment of words, in which it may be clothed, is not its sub-


86
[July,
Prophecy.
stance, more than the form, or the hues, of the leaf are
the perfume of the flower. Poetry is prophecy, and the
poet is a prophet. For what is poetry, the poetic spirit,
but the faculty of insight of the Good, the Beautiful, and
the True, in the outward universe, and in the mysterious
depths of the human spirit; that inward sense, which
alone gives significance and relation to the objects of the
material senses; by which man recognises and believes in
the Infinite and the Absolute; through which is revealed
to his soul the spiritual in the material, the unseen in the
visible, the ideal in the actual, the unchangeable in the
ever-changing forms of external nature, incorruption in
decay, and immortality in death ; that faculty, by which,
in his own consciousness, the vast expansiveness of his
intellect, the insatiable and ever-enlarging wants of his
soul, the power and comprehension of his affections, the
force and freedom of his will; he discerns his relation to
all being and to eternity. Such revelations are prophecy
in the highest and truest sense; and they who receive
them are inspired. Only when he discerns the « open
secret of the universe," is able to look through the veil
of the visible, and read the deep, infinite significance,
which it contains and shadows, are man's eyes truly open.
He then becomes a prophet, a seer of the future, and his
utterance is with power.
The days of prophecy are not, as is commonly and vain-
ly asserted, past. The generation of the prophets is not
extinct; and while the earth, and the heavens, and man
endure, the universe will have its revelations to make to
every soul, that bows a pure ear to hear them. “ The
human mind, in its original principles, and the natural
creation, in its simplicity, are but different images of the
same Creator, linked for the reciprocal development of
their mutual treasures.”
If I have succeeded in the attempt to show the true
significance of prophecy, I may be permitted to say, that
it is, in other words, the utterance of what is called in a
modern system of philosophy, the Spontaneous Reason,
the intuitions, the instincts of the soul. The reality of this
power of intuition is denied, and the question of its reality
is the main point of controversy, if I have not misappre-
hended it, between the adherents of the prevailing phi-


1841.]
87
Transcendentalism.
losophy of the last century and a half, and the more re-
cently revived school, which is known by the name of
transcendental. The former deny, except, perhaps, in a
small, and very inadequate degree; the latter affirm the
power of intellectual intuition, the power of the mind
to discover absolute truth. This is not a strife about
words, as too many a philosophical controversy has been;
but about realities. Rather, it may be said, the decision is
to determine whether there is any such thing as reality ;
whether all, that we appear to see, all that we believe, our
faith and hope, our loves and longings, earth, heaven, God,
immortality, are aught but chimeras; nay, whether we
ourselves are but unsubstantial pageants, mere shadows of
dreams.
Transcendentalism, by that name, seems to be but little
understood; and the vague notions, that are entertained
respecting it, are derived chiefly from the distorted repre-
sentations of its opposers, or the ridiculous grimaces of
scoffers. To many minds, the word may bring up sad, or
ludicrous associations, accordingly as it has been presented
to them in the gloomy portraitures of those, who profess
seriously to fear its unbelieving tendencies; or in the
amusing caricatures of others, who have found food for
mirth in the illustrations of some of its disciples, which
they affected to consider fantastic and unintelligible. By
some it is regarded as a mere aggregation of words, having
the form, and giving the promise of a high, mysterious
meaning; but when analyzed, being without significance,
- mere sound, signifying nothing. By others, again, it is
supposed to place the reveries of the imagination above
the deductions of reason, and to make feeling the only
source and test of truth. But though thus viewed, by its
name, with suspicion, scorn, or dislike, I apprehend that it
is, in reality, the philosophy of common life, and of com-
mon experience. It will be found that all men, mostly,
perhaps, unconsciously, believe and act upon it; and that
even to those, who reject it, and argue against it, it is the
practical philosophy of belief and conduct. Every man
is a transcendentalist; and all true faith, the motives of all
just action, are transcendental.
A brief history of the origin of this philosophy, as a
scientific system, will serve to explain its distinguishing
when anthe promisregation intelligib) which


88
[July,
Transcendentalism.
characteristic, and at the same time illustrate my leading
proposition.
In the latter part of the seventeenth century, the cele-
brated Locke published his “ Essay concerning the human
understanding”; the professed purpose of which was to
“ inquire into the original, certainty, and extent of human
knowledge, together with the grounds and degrees of be-
lief, opinion, and assent.” In answer to this inquiry, he
began by denying that the mind had any ideas of its own
to start with ; that there are “any primary impressions
stamped upon the mind, which the soul receives in its very
first being, and brings into the world with it." The mind
he supposed to be " white paper void of all characters,"
and affirmed that it is furnished with ideas only from ex-
perience. Experience is two-fold ; the experience of the
senses, furnishing much the greater part of the ideas from
the outward world, which ideas are, therefore, called ideas
of sensation. The notice, which the mind takes of its
own operations, with the ideas thus acquired by sensation,
furnishes another set of ideas, which are called ideas of
reflection. From sensation and reflection, then, according
to this theory, all human knowledge is derived.
It seems obvious at first sight, that, denying to the mind
any primary principles, and reflection being, by the defini-
tion, only the notice which the mind, this blank piece of
paper, takes of its own operations, reflection can add
nothing to the stock of ideas furnished by sensation. It is
a mere spectator ; its office merely to note impressions.
The operations of the mind, being confined to the sensible
idea, can originate no new idea; can deduce nothing from
the sensible idea, but what is contained in it; according to
a well known and fundamental rule of logic. It cannot
compare and infer, for there are no ideas in the mind, with
which to compare the sensible idea ; and by comparing
one sensible idea with another, no result can be obtained
beyond them. Besides, the very act of comparing implies
the abstract ideas of identity and difference, which must,
therefore, have been prior to sensible experience. Ab-
stract ideas are entirely beyond the province of the senses.
The eye conveys to the mind the idea of a tree. Reflec-
tion can only note the operation of the mind upon this
idea ; that is, note the impression it makes. The tree is a


1841.]
89
Transcendentalism.
tree, and that is all. Reflection can do no more with a
second, a third, a thousandth. Without the prior abstract
ideas of number, identity, relation, beauty, and others, or
some idea still more abstract, from which these are derived ;
I see not how reflection can deduce more from a thousand
than from one. There is a tree, and that is all. So that,
after all, these two sources of ideas are resolved into one,
and sensation, the experience of the senses, is the only
foundation of knowledge. Give reflection the largest
power that is claimed for it; so long as original ideas, the
faculty of intuitive perception, of primitive and direct
consciousness, is excluded; it cannot advance beyond the
outward and the visible ; it cannot infer the infinite from
finite, the spiritual from the material. The infinite and
spiritual are absolutely unknown and inconceivable. Or,
at the best, faith is only the preponderance of probabili-
ties; immortality an unsubstantial longing ; and God is
reduced to a logical possibility. In short, mind is subordi-
nated to matter, bound down by the fetters of earth to the
transitory and corruptible, and cannot rise, with an unfal-
tering wing, into the region of the infinite and imperish-
able.
Adopting, and seriously believing, Locke's theory, Mr.
Hume deduced from it, by the severest logical induction,
a system of universal skepticism, and demonstrated that
universal doubt, even of one's personal existence, nay,
doubt even of the fact of doubting, is the only reasonable
state of mind for a philosopher. The doctrines of Locke
were also adopted in France, and led, with some modifica-
tions, to their ultimate, legitimate conclusions, the almost
universal atheism, which characterized the French literati of
the last century, and the early part of the present. Un-
happy as were these logical results of the system, it was
long received as true, without much question. Men of
earnest faith embraced it, and defended it, and denying
the justness of its infidel conclusions, continued to doubt,
“in erring logic's spite ;” as Locke himself was eminently
religious in defiance of his philosophy. His faith and life
were a noble, living refutation of his philosophy. This
system has long been prevalent in this country, and is now
found as one of the text-books of instruction in intellectual
philosophy in our oldest American university.
VOL. 11. — NO. 1.
12


90
Transcendentalism.
[July,
But the ideas of the spiritual, the infinite, of God, im-
mortality, absolute truth, are in the mind. They are the
most intimate facts of consciousness. They could not be
communicated to the mind by the senses, nor be deduced
by reflection from any materials furnished by sensible ex-
perience. They cannot be proved by syllogism, and are
beyond the reach of the common logic. They are ideas,
which transcend the experience of the senses, which the
mind cannot deduce from that experience; without which,
indeed, experience would not be possible. Are these ideas
true? Are they realities? Do they represent real exis-
tences ? Are spirit, eternity, truth, God, names, or sub-
stances ?
The philosophy of sensation, even if we absolve it from
strict logical rules, and give it the widest latitude, is abso-
lutely unable to give us certainty upon this subject. It
leaves the mind in doubt concerning the highest questions,
that can occupy it. In the place of an unambiguous an-
swer, on which the soul can calmly repose, and abide
events, it gives only a possible probability. The transcen-
dental philosophy affirms their truth decisively. Not only
are they true, but the evidence of their truth is higher
than that of the visible world. They are truths, which
we cannot doubt, for they are the elements of the soul.
As they are the most momentous of truths, so their proof
is higher and surer than that of any other truths; for they
are direct spiritual intuitions. Belief in them is more reason-
able and legitimate, than belief in the objects of sensible
experience; inasmuch as these transcendental truths are
perceived directly by the mind, while sensible facts are
perceived only through the medium of the senses, and
belief in them requires the previous certainty of the accu-
racy and fidelity of the material organs. The former are
truths of immediate and direct consciousness, the latter of
intermediate perception. Transcendentalism, then, is "the
recognition in man of the capacity of knowing truth in-
tuitively, or of attaining a scientific knowledge of an order
of existence transcending the reach of the senses, and of
which we can have no sensible experience.” The origin
and appropriation of the name will be perceived from this
definition. This name, as well as that of the Critical
Philosophy, was given by Kant, a German philosopher,


1841.]
91
Transcendentalism.
who first decisively refuted the theory of sensation, and
gave a scientific demonstration of the reality and authority
of the Spontaneous Reason. I know nothing of the writ-
ings of Kant; but I find his doctrine thus clearly stated
by one of his English interpreters. “ Kant, instead of at-
tempting to prove, which he considered vain, the existence
of God, virtue, and immortal soul, by inferences drawn, as
the conclusion of all philosophy, from the world of sense ;
he found these things written, as the beginning of all
philosophy, in obscured, but ineffaceable characters, within
our inmost being, and themselves first affording any cer-
tainty and clear meaning to that very world of sense, by
which we endeavor to demonstrate them. God is, nay,
alone is; for we cannot say with like emphasis, that any-
thing else is. This is the absolute, the primitively true,
which the philosopher seeks. Endeavoring, by logical ar-
gument, to prove the existence of God, the Kantist might
say, would be like taking out a candle to look for the sun;
nay, gaze steadily into your candlelight, and the sun him-
self may be invisible.”
That man possesses this intuitive power of discerning
truth might be inferred from his creation. God is absolute
truth; and man is created in his image. God is a spirit;
and therein too man still bears his likeness. Can it be,
that this spiritual creation, though clothed with a material
covering, should have no power of recognising directly
its spiritual relations ? that it should bear within itself no
traces of its origin? that it should be absolutely dependent
upon the flesh, and possess no other means of attaining
the higher knowledge, which is its birthright, than the
treacherous avenues of its material organs ?
• O Zeus! why hast thou given a certain proof
To know adulterate gold, but stamped no mark,
Where it is needed most, to know immortal truth?”
This is to deny the likeness in which it was formed; to
reverse the whole order of creation, and the attributes,
which man's instincts, as well as his own revelations,
ascribe to the Creator. The divine is not thus subjected
to the earthly; the immaterial mind to its corruptible and
decaying lodgment. The spirit is still a spirit, with the
inherent power of spiritual discernment; and it is su-


92
[July,
Transcendentalism.
preme, even amid the incumbrances and hindrances of its
material tabernacle. The inspiration of the Almighty still
gives it understanding, and the voice of prophecy yet
speaks to it in a language, which it can interpret and re-
peat.
And this is the practical faith, the actual life of all
men ;- of all men, at least, who act with a purpose, and
for an end; in whom their material environments have not
extinguished, if that were possible, the consciousness of a
higher life. Every act even of sensible experience is a
refutation of the philosophy, which denies the reality and
truth of human instincts. How much beyond and above
the deductions of logic are the thoughts and emotions ex-
cited in the mind by the impressions of external nature
through the senses. Whence does the song of the early
bird borrow its melody, as it rouses the ear of the sleeper
from its morning slumber, and seems like audible tones of
a universal harmony, echoing voices from that far land,
where he has wandered in his so-called dreams ? Whence
the eloquent stillness of the evening sky, when man stands
reverent beneath it, with uplifted eye? Sense beholds
nought there but a misty circle of mountains, surmounted
by a blue canopy, studded with shining points. Whence
come the tones of its silent harmonies ? Whence “ that
tune, which makes no noise?” How break forth those
mute bills into singing ? What fills that azure vault with
thousand-voiced stars? Whence arises that light, which
comes up into the soul from the bosom of that obscurity ?
And what does logic report of the birth of the year, —
that loosing of the earth from its chains of frost, — that
springing forth of the leaf after the death of winter, — that
resurrection of insect life from its frozen tomb? Sense reports
nothing more, nor even the probability of more. The tree
sheds and renews its foliage from year to year, perhaps
for ages. But there comes a period even to the rock-
rooted oak, which has for centuries defied time and the
elements. Time's hour of conquest comes at length, and
there, too, death at last gathers in his harvest. The report
of science is but little more satisfactory. That may inform
us with some degree of plausibility, that the material ele-
ments, of which these falling and decaying masses are
composed, do not perish, but enter into new combinations.


1841.]
93
Transcendentalism.
But the time-honored monarch of the forest has yielded to
the destroyer; its individuality is gone; it is no longer the
same; it is no longer.
“Great Cæsar's body, dead and turned to clay,
May stop a hole to keep the wind away;"
and that is all that sense and logic can say about it. Beyond
that they are deaf, dumb, and blind. Whence, then, comes
that voice, which is borne into the inward ear of man on the
breezes of spring, whispered by the budding leaf, breathed
to his soul by the unfolding flower, and set to music, and
repeated in prolonged melodies by the winged minstrels of
the year?
And the ocean, boundless and restless, as we stand
before it on its everlasting cliffs ! The senses discourse to
us of its blue waters, its briny taste, its ceaseless ebb and
flow, and science discloses to us its secret elements, com-
pels it to yield up its salts, and acids, and alkalies, for
man's inspection and use, and publishes the laws of its
tides. But they have not, and they cannot, reveal to us
its higher mysteries, its loftier symbols. Not their voices
bring to us the tidings of the spirit, which are borne upon
its murmuring swell. It is not the eye, which reads the
revelation of eternity and power, that is written upon its
heaving bosom, or in its deep repose. It is not the ear,
wbich hears the unwearied chant, that arises to the Invis-
ible from all its fathomless depths.
The spreading landscape has its mysteries, too. But
sense, nor science can read, much less interpret them.
They can only tell of the outward, describe in detail the
visible features; the sunny slopes, the expanded meads,
the wooded steeps, the hanging cliffs, the flowery vales,
the falling cascade, the roaring cataract, and all the pic-
turesque groupings. They cannot pluck out the heart of
its mystery. Their vocation is with the mere surface of
the material. Not theirs is the mission to develop the
soul of beauty, which reposes there, nor unfold the deep
sublimities of the spirit, which are there encolsed. They
see the rock, the wood, the water, and the earth; but the
spirit of the earth, the wood, the water, and the rock, come
not forth at their conjuration.
It is not, then, the senses, nor reasoning, which disclose


94
[July,
Transcendentalism.
to us the living reality, which is in everything that exists.
The senses perceive the outward appearance, but cannot
attain to the inner spirit; to the revelations of the Good,
the Beautiful, the True, which every creation of God's
hand contains for those, who seek it truly, for every one,
who reverently opens the inward ear to hear it, and bows
a pure heart to catch its inspiration. Not from sense, nor
science, do we learn the emphatic truth of the approbation,
which the Creator bestowed upon his successive works,
when he pronounced them good. The prophetic spirit
of man beholds them, and feels that they are glorious and
divine.
As the philosophy of sensation disrobes earth and nature
of their chief splendor, so does it deprive Christianity of
its highest evidence, and brings it down to the level of
human systems. Denying to man the intuition of the
infinite and true, it compels us to scrutinize the claims of
religion with the poor and fallible logic of sensation ; to
rest its truths exclusively upon the authenticity of old
manuscripts, of which the original writing is to be deci-
phered, and by a laborious process restored, and brought
up from under the later glosses, which have been written
over and nearly obliterated it; - upon the interpretation
of Greek and IIebrew particles; — upon scattered frag-
ments of the fathers of the first centuries, picked up here
and there amid the accidental relics of ancient literature;
upon the agreement of certain events in the Christian
history, with vague and isolated passages of the Jewish
writings; upon the reality of certain miracles reported in
the writings of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John - sensation
being all the while unable to define or recognise a miracle,
or to show how it may prove the divine authority of him
who works it; and all the other proofs depending upon
the competence and integrity of those historians; and
upon the question, whether the histories, which we have
received as theirs, are the veritable histories written by the
Apostles. Be all these points determined as clearly as
they be by philology and logic, verbal criticism and bal-
ancing of testimony; the highest conviction they can
produce is only a probability that Christianity is true.
However high the degree of probability attained, the result
still leaves a portion of doubt in the mind. As a consequence,


1841.]
95
Transcendentalism.
too, it becomes a religion of the letter; and its rites, from
spiritual symbols, become the substance of holiness. Chris-
tianity is not a revelation to this age, and to all time; but
a cunning historical problem for learned men and scholars
to discuss. For, it is to be observed, that the great mass
of mankind have not access to the historical testimony, by
which the problem is to be solved. The great mass of
men, therefore, can have no warrant for their faith in
Christianity, but the naked authority of the learned. But
the learned differ in their conclusions ; draw contradictory
inferences from the historical investigation. The great
mass, then, are without the miserable support of learned
authority for their faith. Even the learned can have no
direct faith in Christianity; their belief terminates logically
in its evidences. The unlearned cannot have this poor
substitute for a living faith. They are leſt to float helpless,
and without a guide upon the shoreless ocean of conjec-
ture, doubt, and despair. “ They are absolutely disinherited
by their Maker, placed out of the condition of ascertaining
the probable truth of that which they must believe, or have
no assurance of salvation.”
Not thus has the Universal Father left his children de-
pendent for spiritual food. Not by such a faith was the
noble army of martyrs sustained, who periled life, and
poured out their blood like water, as a testimony to the
truth. Not before the power of a historical probability
did the pompous rites of ancient paganism recede, and its
idols crumble into dust; nor by such a power has Christi-
anity kept on its march of eighteen centuries of conquest.
Not such a hope has poured the gladness of heaven into
the dwellings of suffering and sorrow; nor that the light,
which can fill the ignorant mind with the radiance of
divine truth. The masses, though they have never seen
by the glow-worm light of logic, have always believed in
Jesus, as the Christ, and with a faith infinitely surer than
authority, or tradition, or historical testimony can impart.
Here it is seen of a truth, that “the testimony of Jesus is
the spirit of prophecy.” This is the spirit of prophecy,
that true light, which enlighteneth every man that cometh
into the world, and gives to every one that does his will,
to know of the doctrine, whether it be of God. This is
the spirit of prophecy, the intuition of the true, the faculty


96
[July,
Transcendentalism.
of discerning spiritual truth, when distinctly presented;
which gives “the ultimate appeal on all moral questions,
not to a jury of scholars, a hierarchy of divines, or the
prescriptions of a creed, but to the common sense of the
human race."
I have said that atheism is the direct logical result, the
ultimate word of the philosophy, which derives all know-
ledge from the experience of the senses. As it takes from
Christianity its only sure support, so it robs the universe
of its Creator. The senses can attain only to phenomena,
but can give no information of causes. In the action of
external things upon each other, the powers by which they
are mutually affected, it can note only the naked facts, or
at most, only the precedence and succession of facts. The
rising of the sun, and the illumination of the earth, are
simply facts, which the senses present to the mind; but
nowise in the relation of cause and effect. The intuitive
element is so closely interwoven in every act of sensible
experience, that it is not easy, without some attention and
analysis, to perceive the precise limits of the information
conveyed to the mind by sensible phenomena. Especially
is this the case in those phenomena, which involve the
idea of causation, one of the most active intuitions. In
observing the succession of certain phenomena, we imme-
diately perceive that one is the cause of the other, and
too hastily conclude that this idea of their relation is the
result of sensation, as well as the ideas of the phenomena
themselves. But it may be easily seen, that this idea is
one of the very earliest of which the mind indicates a con-
sciousness. It is shown in the first unfolding of the infant's
mind, before the reflective faculty can be supposed to have
come into action, or only with the most feeble and imper-
fect endeavor. In the highest reasonings of the pro-
foundest philosopher, this idea is not manifested more
decisively than in the first conscious efforts of the child, in
his earliest attempts at philosophizing with his coral and
ratile. When looking at the phenomena involving causation,
therefore, it is necessary to abstract every element of expe-
rience, except sensation, and consider the effect, by itself,
which sensation produces. Thus, analyzing the phenomena
referred to, it will be found that the mind gets only the
ideas of the sun's rising, and the earth enlightened; without


1841.)
97
Transcendentalism.
any relation between them, excepting, possibly, that of the
order of time. These ideas being attained, the mind, that
blank piece of paper, can deduce nothing from them for
reflection to note, but what is contained in them. The idea
of cause therefore, so far as the senses are concerned, not
being contained in them, cannot be inferred from them.
It may be admitted, indeed, that the idea of cause and effect
is involved in them, as the materials of flame and fire are
hidden in a lump of ice. But lumps of ice, or a lump of
ice and a flint may be rubbed together a good while, before
a spark is struck out. They will be lump of ice and fint
still. It requires the electric current to bring out the flame
and the fire. Ideas involving causation may be multiplied
indefinitely, without helping the matter. Mere multitude
will not aid in elaborating that relation. The senses, alone,
can by no possibility arrive at the idea of cause, and are,
therefore, impotent to furnish the first link in one of the
chains of argument most relied on to demonstrate the reality
of a First Cause. “Every effect must have a cause."
True; but how will you prove it by your logic? or how
will your senses enable you to determine which is effect
and which cause ? Intuition is the only electric current,
that can evolve it. The idea of causation is a pure intel-
lectual intuition.
Even if it were possible for sensation to attain to the
knowledge of intermediate causes, the logic, which denies
to the mind the power of directly percieving the Infinite,
is unable to reach the idea of the ONE First Cause. Uni-
ty is still beyond its power. It could only trace an inter-
minably ascending series of effects and causes, to which it
could " find no end, in wandering mazes lost;” and the
universe would still be without a Sovereign and Head.
To a similar result must every attempt come, which
seeks to demonstrate the reality of the Absolute from out-
ward phenomena alone, and discards the transcendental
element of the mind. The insufficiency of these premises
alone, and the fallacy of such reasoning, have been again
and again shown. Skeptics have disproved, by unimpeach-
able logic, everything but the possibility of the existence
of a Supreme Cause. Why then, if the philosophy of
sensation be true, is not the whole world buried in atheism
and despair? Why is it, that the unknown nook of earth
VOL. II. —NO 1.
13


98
[July,
Transcendentalism.'
has not yet been discovered, where man, however deeply
plunged in barbarism, and faint and few the traces of his
original brightness, does not recognise, and in some form,
however rude, worship a higher Power, which created him
and all things? Will the obscure tradition of an original
revelation to the first beings of the race, as some assume,
account for it? But human traditions are not thus con-
stant, permanent, and universal. Other traditionary beliefs,
which for ages the hoariest tradition had consecrated, have
disappeared from the creeds of nations. From articles of
religious faith, they degenerate into superstitions, become
poetic legends, and having served their turns as nursery
bugbears or lullabies, vanish utterly, or remain as monu-
ments in history of the progress, or decline of mankind.
“ The intelligible forms of ancient poets,
The fair humanities of old religion,
The power, the beauty, and the majesty,
That had their haunts in dale, or piny mountain,
Or forest by slow stream, or pebbly spring,
Or chasms and watery depths; all these have vanished.”
Why has not this belief, too, perished with the rest? or
become a superstition, or an idle legend ; instead of con-
tinuing to be the most solemn conviction of universal man,
in all stages of his progress? Is it not because the revela-
tion is made to every human soul? Is it not, because his
relation to the Infinite and the Highest is an indestructible
element of man's consciousness; and that the doctrines of
the skeptic produce “a harsh dissonance with the whispers
of that voice, which is uttered clearly, though faintly in
the heart of every human being ?” Is it not, that “the
God felt in the soul of man is a thing, which logic cannot
dispute out of him?”
In this view the faith of every generation is a new testi-
mony and confirmation of the truth. Man begins to doubt
only when he forsakes his intuitions, and betakes himself
to his logic. The orthodox symbol is by no means with-
out significance, when truly interpreted, which teaches the
necessity of distrusting the conclusions of mere reason, as
reason is commonly defined and understood. Reasoning,
the faculty of drawing inferences from the facts of sensible
experience, is indeed a blind guide, leader of the blind.
Error, and doubt, and denial are the characteristics of en-


1841.]
99
Transcendentalism.
lightened communities, in which the faculty of syllogistic
logic is most developed and honored; and that higher
faculty, the true Reason, the divine in man, which appre-
hends truth by the force of intuitive evidence, is dis-
paraged and neglected.
Something like this idea is illustrated in the beautiful
romance of Picciola. It is related that the grateful prisoner
Charney sought assiduously and long to discover the scien-
tific name and classification of the mysterious flower of his
prison-yard, whose silent eloquence had rescued bim from
the darkness of unbelief and despair, and made his prison
walls the inner courts of immortality. His search, we are
told, was unsuccessſul. And so it should have been. His
search was idle, and his disappointment full of meaning.
He had discerned the soul of the flower, and its leaves
had been for the healing of his spirit. What had he to do
with its material accidents, its nomenclature, its stamens
and pistils, its class and order? Technological science
could not enter that inner shrine without desecrating it.
The plain why and because would have robbed it of some
of its truthful mystery ; made it partial and exclusive in-
stead of universal. It was a flower, from which he had
learned the high meaning, of which all flowers are the
emblems. It would have become a mere meaningless
Polyandria Polyginia.
Do not imagine, that in this discussion I am reviving a
useless, or an exploded and forgotten controversy. If I
have not entirely failed of my purpose, it is seen, that the
relations of man to outward nature, the foundation of re-
ligious faith and hope, and the grounds of the certainty of
all human knowledge are involved in it. It cannot, then,
be useless. The subject is, at this moment, the ground of
earnest debate in one portion of our community ; and the
theory of sensation is the standard philosophy of our an-
cient university. I am not, then, calling up the shadows
of the past. The question, besides its intellectual and re-
ligious aspects, has social and political relations of the
highest importance. The transcendental philosophy alone
legitimates human freedom, and vindicates, and at the
same time assures, social progress. It cannot, then, be a
matter of unconcern to any one, who prizes his individual
liberty, and earnestly striving hopes for the universal eman-
cipation of the race.


100
(July,
Transcendentalism.
The philosophy of sensation denies the inward light,
and deals only with the outward. Hence it recognises
man only in his accidents, his external environments. Let
it be observed, that the practical conduct of those, who
profess this belief, is not always such as properly follows
from their creed. Man's intuitions, however they may be
denied, still assert their supremacy. How far short soever
he may come of the ideal towards which he strives, he is
always wiser in his thought than his logic, and better in
his life. I am, therefore, only speaking of logical conse-
quences. Sensation, then, does not, and by its own terms
cannot, see man but in his outward condition, and his
personal and social rights are such only, as can be logically
inferred from the circumstances in which he is placed.
Whatever is, in relation to society, is right, simply because
it is. That an institution exists is an ultimate reason, why
it should exist. Hence it is conservative of the present
organization of society, whatever it may be; and resists
improvement, except that, which consists in levelling down
to a certain point. The idea of bringing up what is below
does not result from any of its logical formulas. It finds
man everywhere divided into high and low in social posi-
tion, and concludes that gradation of ranks is of divine
appointment. The few have in all ages lorded it over the
many, and this determines that the masses are born for
servitude. The earth is not the common heritage of the
race; because a small minority has monopolized the whole
of it, and it would disturb the existing social order estab-
lished by Providence to call upon them to give an account
of their titles. The masses are steeped in misery to the
lips ; oppression strides ruthlessly with its iron heel over
the necks of the prostrate millions ; avarice snatches from
the mouth of famishing despair its last crust; monopoly
robs industry of its wages, and builds palaces with its
fraudulent accumulations. This philosophy looks calmly
on, and bids these ignorant, starving, scourged, and bleed-
ing millions take comfort, for their lot is ordained by des-
tiny; that though the earth spreads out provisions liberally
for all her children, the arrangements of nature would be
defeated, if all should partake of them. It knows nothing
of the infinite, and therefore cannot promise them a higher
life hereafter, where their sufferings shall be compensated;


1841.)
101
Transcendentalism.
but instead thereof, in the freer communities, it bids them
take courage and submit; for in some of the changes of
condition, which are daily taking place, their children's
children may rise, and they shall be avenged in their pos-
terity. It then turns complacently to the favored few, and
bids them thank God, that they are not shut out from the
light of earth, as well as that of Heaven, like those poor,
starving helots; and discourses with unction of charity,
and the liberal hand that maketh rich.
It has scarcely a word of reproach for that most ferocious
and guilty form of oppression, which exists in this country,
whose very existence is transcendental ; whose right to be
a nation was broadly and unequivocally legitimated upon
the intuitive truth of the principle of the equality and
brotherhood of universal man. Yet here it sees a system
of the most bloody injustice perpetrated; man made a
chattel by law, bought and sold like the ox in the market,
his body marked with scars, and stripes, and mutilations, a
faint, though fearful, image of the deeper wounds, and
more horrible mutilations inflicted upon his God-created,
and God-imaged soul ; a system, which combines and em-
bodies all that is conceivable of mean and despicable in
selfishness, of fraud and cruelty in oppression ; a system
of mingled hypocrisy, treachery, and impiety, defying
Heaven, outraging earth, and filling all the echoes of hell
with the exulting shouts of de