h a more ardent eloquence, and present a whole
more rounded and compact to the imagination. The preten-
sions of the work before us are very modest, and the promise
set forth by its author is more than redeemed. His aim has
been to arrange materials in a graceful order, and furnish
us with good translations of the less known poems and letters of
Tasso, rather than to show his ingenuity and critical adroitness
by defending some theory of his own. Wherever he is clear
in his own mind, he says so, but without attempting to enforce


400
[Jan.
Notices of Recent Publications.
upon the reader his opinion. Thus can we look at the evidence
he has brought forward with a quite undisturbed pleasure.
The papers produced in these volumes alone must convince any
mind, that ever doubted on the subject, that Tasso was not in-
sane, yet that those around him may sometimes have doubted, we
cannot wonder.
There are natures who must always know, before they can
act or feel. Is a thought present to them? – let it become
flesh! The intellect leads the way; turning its dark lantern
carefully from side to side to show the difficult path; perform-
ance comes lagging, oſtentimes halting, after. Truth is their
desire; if not too cold, they attain it; but slowly, and their
light, though pure, is faint.
There are other natures who must always act and feel before
they can know. Does an impulse come to them ?- they act it
out and inquire its meaning through which to enlarge and puri-
fy their lives. Flame-like the soul shoots up from amid such
fuel as existence offers; it sinks as suddenly as it rose; it kin-
dles afresh in its dull bed, and bursts forth more vehement than
ever; it retires into reflection only when all is burned that was
there to be burned ; glimmering more calmly amid the ashes.
There is a nature nobler, wider, from its earliest existence bet-
ter balanced than either. Of this I need not now speak, for Tas-
so belonged to the second class.
Of no speculative force of wing to sustain himself by the
great ideas which alone can steer and harmonize those ardent
and unequal natures, so that, while writing the Jerusalem even,
he doubted not only as to Christ, but the immortality of
the soul, and yet, (oh lamentable weakness of human nature !)
dared not confess these doubts to a priest, lest he might not re-
ceive absolution, and afterwards laid aside his doubts with the
same haste and superficial examination as he had taken them
up; of an imagination that required to be kindled by the pas-
sions, then burning with a beauty more intense than radi-
ant, gave heat rather than light; and finding no security in the
bosom where it was brought forth, required some outward influ-
ence to help it to an altar; seizing the object before him with a
vigor unknown to those of wider ken and steadier pulse, always
over or underrating the moment, through the very splendor of his
powers of conception and illustration ; how could Tasso fail to
be admired by all, loved much by many, despised by those who
admired when his flights suddenly baffled them, loved with con-
stancy only by a nature large enough to understand, larger if
not so deep as his own. Whether he found such an one is
doubtful; doubtful whether the idol of his muse, even, had force to
trust him through his wild moods and alternation of misery and


1842.]
Notices of Recent Publications.
splendor. Petrarch and Dante suffered, yet felt themselves re-
cognised upon the earth at least by one fair soul; but Tasso
writes thus from his imprisonment.
“ Miserable is it, truly, to be deprived of country and despoiled of
fortune; to wander about in poverty and peril; to suffer the treachery
of friends, the injustice of kinsmen, and the mockery of patrons, to be
at once infirm in body, and afflicted in mind, harassed by the melan-
choly recollection of things past, the pains of the present, and the fears
of the future. And miserable is it, that benevolence is repaid with ha-
tred, simplicity with craft, sincerity with fraud, and generosity with
baseness; most miserable, that I should be hated, because I have been
wronged, and even after the injury hated not the offenders ; that I
should pardon acts, while others will not pardon words; that I should
forget injuries received, and others not forget injuries inflicted; that I
should desire the honor of another, even with my own ill, while they
desire my shame without their benefit. But still more miserable is it,
that I have fallen into this wretchedness not from malice, but simplic-
ity; not from fickleness, but constancy ; not from being too eager for
my own advantage, but too neglectful of it; and most miserable is it,
that in all my misery, I have found no sympathy, neither in the begin-
ning of my misfortures, when they affected me deeply, nor since, when
more accustomed to suffering, I endured it with fortitude."
In the full and florid eloquence of this passage, written from
the damp cell of Santa Anna, we see distinctly how this born
brother of Rousseau loved to dwell upon his pain, and deck the
deepest wounds of Earth with the richest verdure. Seizing upon
a passage of sorrow, or a petty and hard character, his fervid
genius so transfused them, that in proportion to the darkness of
the substance was the depth of the glow seen within it.
But the subject is inexhaustible, and I must stop here for the
present. Let me add as the best criticism, for the hearing of
those that will hear, one of those matchless scenes in which
Goethe represents the sudden blazes of eloquence, the fitful
shadings of mood, and the exquisite sensitiveness to all influ-
ences, that made the weakness and the power of Tasso. — It
also presents the relation that probably existed between the
princess and the poet, with more truth than their confessors
could discern it, for the poet is the only priest in the secrets of
the heart.
ACT SECOND, SCENE FIRST.
A Hall.
THE PRINCESS. TASSO.
Tasso.- As with uncertain steps I follow thee,
Wild and disordered thoughts oppress my mind,
VOL. II. — NO. III. 51


402
[Jan.
Notices of Recent Publications.
And ask some hours of solitude, to still
Their feverish tumult. Yet to gaze on thee
Is like the dawning of another day,
And must unloose my bonds. Yes, I must tell thee,
Our unexpected visitor has waked me
With most ungentle touch from my sweet dream,
His words, his presence, have with sudden force
Roused up new feelings to confuse my soul.
PRINCESS.— It is impossible that an old friend,
After an absence passed in scenes unlike
Those which we knew together, should appear,
In the first moment of reunion, near
And dear as when we parted. Yet we should not
Impatient deem that we have lost him. Soon
The strings respond again to their concordance,
And harmony makes glad the waiting heart.
He is unchanged within; the jars arise
But from a change of atmosphere. Antonio,
When he has learned to know thee and thy works,
Will hold forth eloquently in thy praise,
As late in Ariosto's. —
Tasso. —
Ah, believe me,
Those praises were delightful to my ear,
My heart soft whispered as he spoke, “and thou
Mayst thus enkindle in some soul of honor
These incense-breathing fires. Though lowlier-gifted,
Sincere has been thy striving, great thy love." —
What pained me, was the picture of his world,
With all these glowing, grand, and restless shapes,
Which such a man can charm into his circle,
Submissive to the spells his wisdom frames,
For as I gazed, my world sank in the distance
Behind steep rocks,- on which I seemed to fade -
To Echo - to poor shadow of a sound, -
Bodiless, — powerless.
PRINCESS. -
And but now, how dear
Thou felt the ties which bind the bard and hero,
Born to adorn their day with noble rivalry,
By envy unprofaned. The heroic deed,
Which fires the bard, is beautiful; nor less so
The generous ardor which embalms the deed,
The lays whose fragrance breathes o'er far off ages;
Thou must live tranquil, - or thy song is marred.
TAS80. — Here first I saw how valor is rewarded.
I came here at a time when feast on feast
Given to celebrate Ferrara's glory,
Dazzled my boyish eye. — As in the lists
Knighthood displayed its prowess, the first men,
The fairest women of our day looked on,
Flowers of our Fatherland, - bound in one garland.
When the lists opened — when the trumpet sounded,
Helm and shield glittered, coursers pawed the ground;
Pages ran to and fro, - the lances shivered,


1842.]
403
Notices of Recent Publications.
And rising clouds of dust hid for a moment
The victor's triumph, and the vanquished's shame.
Oh what a spectacle of worldly splendor!
I felt my littleness, and shrank abashed.
PRINCESS. — How differently did I pass those moments!
Which sowed ambition in thy heart. The lore
Of sufferance I was painfully receiving;
That feast which hundreds since have vaunted to me,
I could not see. In a far dim apartment,
Where not an echo of this gayety
Could penetrate, I lay. Before my eyes
Death waved his broad black pinions. When the light
Of motley-raying life returned upon them,
It showed as through a dusky veil obscured;
In those first days of unhoped convalescence,
I left my chamber leaning on my women, -
I met Lucretia full of joy and health
And guiding thee, their harbinger, to me.
Thou wert the first who welcomed me to this
New lease of life, — I hailed it as an omen,
And hoped much for and from thee, - nor have I
Been by my hope deceived.
Tasso. —
And I
Who had been deafened by the tumult, dazzled
By the excess of light -- and roused by many
Passions unknown before, -- as with thy sister
I met thee in that long, still gallery,
Was like one much harassed by magic spells,
Beneath the influence of celestial spirits.
And since, when wild desires distracting pant
After their thousand objects, has the mernory
Of that hour bridled them, — and turned aside
My thoughts from their unworthy course. But some
Wildly and vainly search on ocean's sands
To find the pearl, which lies fast locked the while
In its still, secret shell. —
PRINCESS. -
Those were fair days, -
And had not Duke d’Urbino wed my sister,
Our happiness were still unclouded. But
We want her life and courage, her gay spirit,
And various wit. -
Tasso. —
I know that thou
Canst ne'er forget her loss. Oh I have felt it
Often and keenly — often have complained
In solitude, that I could not supply
What thou hast lost in her, could nothing be
Where I desired so much. Oh that I might be something,
And not in words but deeds, express to thee
How my heart worships thee! In vain, alas!
I cannot gladden thee, and often vex thee:
In my bewilderinent have injured those
Thou wouldst protect, — have marred and frustrated
Thy cherished schemes, and still go farthest from thee
When most I sigh to approach.


404
Jan.
Notices of Recent Publications.
PRINCESS.
I have never
Doubted thy wishes towards me; and grieve
Only that thou shouldst hurt thyself. My sister
Can live with every one in his own way,
Mightst thou but find thyself in such a friend!
Tasso. - In whom except thyself can I confide?
PIRNCESS. — My Brother
Tasso. —
He is my sovereign.
Not the wild dreams of freedom bar the way, - .
I know, I feel, man was not born to freedom,
And to a worthy heart, 't is happiness
To serve a worthy prince. But I cannot
Serve him, and trust him as an equal friend,
But must in silence learn his will and do it,
PRINCESS. -
PRINCESS. —
Antonio
Would be a prudent friend. -
Tasso. —
And once I hoped
To have him for a friend - but now despair. -
I know his converse and his counsel both
Are what I need. But when the assembled gods
Showered in his cradle rich and various gifts,
The Graces held back theirs; and whom they slight,
(However favored by all other Powers)
Can never build their palaces in hearts.
s. — Oh, but he is a man worthy of faith. -
Ask not so much he will redeem all pledges
His words and manner give. Should he once promise
To be thy friend, he would do all for thee.
Oh I will have it so! It will be easy,
Unless thou art perverse. But Leonora,
Whom thou so long hast known, and who is surely
Refined and elegant to the degree
Of thy fastidious taste's exaction, why
Hast thou not answered to her proffered friendship?
Tasso. — I had declined it wholly but for thee;
I know not why — I cannot frankly meet her,
And oft when she would benefit a friend,
Design is felt, and her intent repulsed.
PRINCESS. -
This path, Tasso,
Leads through dark valleys and still, lonely woods,
Hope no companion if thou wilt pursue it.
There canst thou only strive that golden time,
Which thine eye vainly seeks, within thy mind
To forin and animate, — even that I fear
Thou vainly wilt essay.
Tasso.
Ah, my Princess,
Do all hearts vainly sigh?' That golden time,
Is it quite gone, that age of blissful freedom,
When on the bosom of their Mother Earth
Her children dreamed in fond security ?
The ancient trees sheltered from noonday heat,
The happy shepherds with their shepherdesses,


1842.]
405
Notices of Recent Publications.
The streams could boast their nymphs. Fawns were familiar,
Snakes had no venom, and the fearless birds,
And unmolested rangers of the forest,
Every gay creature in its frolic play
Taught man the truth, — all which can bless, is lawful.
PRINCESS.
- My friend, the golden age indeed is past,
Only the good have power to bring it back;
And (shal] I frankly tell thee what I think?)
The Poets feign in all their pretty tales
Of that same age. Most like 't was then as now.
United noble hearts make golden days,
Interpret to each other the world's beauty;
Change in thy maxim but one single word,
All is explained. All which is meet, is lawful.
Tasso. - Might then a synod of the wise and good
Decide on what is meet. For now each one
Says that is meet which to himself is pleasing, -
And to the crafty and the powerful
All is permitted, whether just or not. —
PRINCESS. - A synod of good women should decide,
It is their province. Like a wall, decorum
Surrounds and guards the frailer sex. Propriety,
Morality are their defence and fortress,
Their tower of strength, — and lawlessness their foe.
And as man loves bold trial of his strength,
So woman, graceful bonds, worn with composure.
Tasso. - Thou thinkst us rude, impetuous, and unfeeling?
PRINCESS. — Not so — your striving is for distant good,
And must be eager to effect its end.
But ours for single, limited possessions,
Which we would firmly grasp and constant hold.
We have slight hold upon your hearts. — That Beauty
Which wins them is so frail — and when 't is gone
Those qualities to which it lent a charm
Are worthless in your eyes — but were there men
Could know a woman's heart — could feel what treasure
Of truth and tenderness is hoarded there,
Could keep the memory of bygone bliss,
And by its aid could penetrate the veil
That age or sickness o'er her casts; and did not
The gaining of one gem, instead of quieting,
Excite desire for others, then to us
A beauteous day would dawn, and we should know
Our golden age.
Tasso. —
Thy words call up
Sharp pains that long have slept within my heart.
PRINCESS. - What meanst thou, Tasso ? Frankly tell it me.
Tasso. - I hear that noble princes ask thy hand,
I always knew it must be so, yet have not
These trembling apprehensions taught my heart
To encounter such misfortune. Though 't is natural
That thou shouldst leave us, how shall we endure it?
I know not. —


406
[Jan.
Notices of Recent Publications.
TASSO. -
PRINCESS.
Free thy mind
From all such fears, I dare to say, forever,
I do not wish to go, nor shall, unless
My friends disturb my home with vain dissensions.
- Oh teach me but what I shall do for thee,
My life is thine, - my heart beats but to praise,
To adore thy excellence, - my all of bliss
To realize the Beautiful in thee.
The gods are separate and elevate
Far above man, as destiny o'er prudence,
And plans formed by the foresight of us mortals;
Waves which o'erwhelm us with destroying press,
To their wide ken seem but as the brook's ripple;
The wild tornados of our atmosphere
Reach not those azure heights where they are throned;
They hear our wailings with as light regard
As we do children's for their shattered toys;
But thou, serene as they, art not removed
From sympathy, - but oft, sunlike, dost pour
Down from thy heights, floods of consoling light
Upon these eyelids, wet with dew of earth.
Princess. — All women ought to love the bard whose lay
Like thine can praise them. Soft and yet heroic,
Lovely and noble hast thou painted them,
And e'en Armida's faults are half redeemed
By tenderness and beauty.
Tasso. —
From one model
I pictured all, - if any shall be deemed
Worthy of immortality, to that model
They owe it. My Clorinda and Hermione,
Her unheeded but undying faith, Olindo,
His sorrow, and Sophronia's magnanimity,
Are not the children of my fancy; now
They exist, — and if profound reality
Give interest to a picture, shall endure
The story of a nobly-placed devotion
Breathed into song.
PRINCESS. —
Thy poem's highest praise
Is that it leads us on and on; we listen,
We think we understand, — nor can we blame
That which we understand, and thus become thy captives.
Tasso. - Thy words breathe heaven, Princess, – but I need
The eagle's eye to bear the new-born light.
PRINCESS. — No more at present, Tasso. If some things
May suddenly be seized, — yet love and virtue
(Nearly, I think, related to each other)
Ask in their quest, patience and self-denial.
Forget not this, — and now adieu, my friend.
SCENE SECOND.
Tasso alone.
Tasso. — Is it permitted thee to ope thine eyes,


1842.]
407
Notices of Recent Publications.
And look around, above thee? Did these pillars
Hear what she spake? They were the witnesses
How a descending goddess lifted me
Into a new incomparable day!
What power, what wealth, lie in this new-traced circle !
My happiness outruns my wildest dream;
Let the born blind think what they will of colors,
To the cleared eye wakens a novel sense ;
What courage! what presentiment! Drunk with joy
I scarce can tread the indicated path, —
And how shall I deserve the choicest gifts
Of earth and heaven? Patience, self-denial,
Must give me claim to confidence; they shall!
Oh how did I deserve that she should choose me,
What shall I do to justify her choice ?
Yet that choice speaks my worth; yes, I am worthy,
Since she could think me so. My soul is consecrate,
My Princess, to thy words, thy looks. Whate'er
Thou wilt, ask of thy slave; in distant lands
I'll seek renown, with peril of my life,
Or chant in every grove thy charms and virtues ;
Wholly possess the creature thou hast formed, -
Each treasure of my soul is thine. I ne'er can
Express my vast devotion with the pen
In written words. Ah! could I but assist
The Poet's by the Painter's art. — Did honey
Fall from my lips! Now never more shall I
Be lonely, sad, or weak. Thou wilt be with me!
Had I a squadron of the noblest men
To help me do thy bidding, — some great deed
Should justify the boldness of a tongue
Which dared to ask her grace. I meant it not,
I meant not to speak now, - but it is well,-
I take as a free gift what I could never
Have claimed. This glorious future, this new youth!
Rise, heart. Oh tree of Love! may genial showers
Call out a thousand branches toward heaven,
Unfold thy blossoins, - swell thy golden fruit
Until the loved one's hand be stretched to cull it.
We recommend this book, and every good book about Tasso,
to the attention of all, who have time to think and feel, or scan
the thought and feeling of others.
Boston Academy of Music.
While yet full of gratitude to the Boston Academy of Music,
for the happiness, the accession of life and knowledge conferred
by their performance of one of Beethoven's great symphonies, we
are confounded by hearing that they are likely to be obliged to
give up the enterprise, the truly worthy enterprise of forming


408
(Jan. 1842.
Notices of Recent Publications.
the taste of an audience, and cultivating those high feelings of
art, which will never be brought out, but rather destroyed by
concerts in the popular style, for want of means. Might but
this word of gratitude, of sympathy, avail to induce any of
those, who would aid largely if they felt the worth of the cause,
to consider what we are likely to lose for want of a little money.
The opportunity of learning to appreciate the great Art of the
age, through the performance of a series of classical works by
an excellent orchestra, inspired by a genuine feeling of beauty,
must this be taken from us, and these noble enjoyments post-
poned, perhaps for years, for want of a little activity now?
Would that space and time permitted to express our own feel-
ings, and as far as in us lies plead the good cause !
Theory of Teaching. By A TEACHER. Boston: E. P. Pea-
body. 1841.
" The more one loves the art, and indeed the better one studies it, the
less one is satisfied. This made Titian write under his pictures
faciebat, signifying that they were only in progress." - Northcote's Con-
versations.
To treat of this book at length, would occupy great space, if
we should meet the author's statements of experience with that
devotion to the subject, which their energy, talent, and noble
tendency deserve. But as the place for such an essay is in a
Journal of Education rather than in a Miscellany like this, we
must content ourselves with recommending the volume to the
attention of all whose minds are engaged in ascertaining the
best way not to injure children.
At the request of a friend the following notice is inserted of a book
about to be published, called “ The Ideal Man.” Boston: E. P. Pea-
body. 1842.
This book is somewhat out of the common course of Amer-
ican books on manners, morals, and religion. But we think it
had better have been named the Cultivated Gentleman, than to
have assumed the title of The Ideal Man. It is a manual of
good manners, of pure aims, and of honorable and praisewor-
thy conduct, and especially is opposed to that negligence of form
which runs so to excess with us. But it does not recommend
or tolerate anything hollow or unmeaning. The good manners
must signify good taste, good morals, good learning, and sincere
religion. It bears marks of being written by a foreigner, in its
style as well as matter, though he writes in the character of an
American.


THE DIAL.
VOL. II.
A PRIL, 1842.
No. IV.
To the Editor of the Dial.
EsteeMED FRIEND,
The article, “ Days from a Diary," is of too little value to waste
words upon. My interest in it has so moderated, that when I learned
of your want of room in this Dial, I was glad of that pretext for with-
drawing it, and the more if not printed entire. The interest of such
documents, takes its color from the writer's moods and varies as these
change.
I still incline to receive my manuscript, since you cannot print it in
the January Number, for I know it will give me little pleasure to read
the same next April. But you shall do as you please. The Dial
prefers a style of thought and diction, not mine; nor can I add
to its popularity with its chosen readers. A fit organ for such as my-
self is not yet, but is to be. The times require a free speech, a wise,
humane, and brave sincerity, unlike all examples in literature, of which
the Dial is but the precursor. A few years more will give us all we
desire — the people all they ask.
A. BRONSON ALCOTT.
Concord, 6th Dec. 1841.
DAYS FROM A DIARY.
[Literature affords but few examples of the Diary. Yet this of all
scriptures is simplest, most natural, and inviting; and all men delight
in that hospitality, humane as it is magnanimous, which makes them
partakers of the privatest life of virtue and genius. — Nor Gods nor true
persons have secrets. Their lives are made poetic and noble by divine
aims, and to themselves are they spectacles of approbation and hope.
They prosecute life with a sweet and tender enthusiasm, and espouse
interests so large and universal as to lose their own being therein; and
they live, not in the gaze of a selfish and vain egotism, but in the steady
eye of conscience, whose voice and missionary they are. Nor till life
is made thus sincere and poetic shall we have these private documents.
For no man writes worthily who lives meanly. His life degrades his
thought, and this defrauds his pen of all simplicity and elegancy. When
VOL. II. —NO. IV.
52


410
(April,
Days from a Diary.
When true and fair souls come shall we have Records of Persons, and
a frank sincerity shall pervade life and literature - a spirit above reserve,
and open as the light of the sun.]
Concordia, 1841, January.
1. THE FAMILY.
1st. FIRE-SIDE. This family is a mystery. It is of all
institutions most sacred. It is the primeval fact — the
alpha of the social state — that initial dispensation of
which the sacred fables of all people have spoken; and
which appears atwin with the simplest of arts, the planting
of gardens and growing of babes. Great is the house,
fair the household ; the cope of heaven does not cover
a holier fact; and whoso restores its order and divines its
law solves life's problem, and recovers to man his lost
Eden. For this the world waits in hope.
“A married life,” says Hierocles, “ is beautiful. For
what other thing can be such an ornament to a family, as
the association of husband and wife. For it must not be
said that sumptuous edifices, walls covered with marble
plaster, and piazzas adorned with stones, which are ad-
mired by those who are ignorant of the good; nor yet
paintings and arched myrtle walks, nor anything else
which is the subject of astonishment to the stupid is the
ornament of a family. But the beauty of a household
consists in the conjunction of man and wife, who are unit-
ed to each other by destiny, and are consociated to the
Gods who preside over nuptials, births, and houses, and
who accord indeed with each other, and have all things in
common, as far as to their bodies, or rather their souls
themselves; who likewise exercise a becoming authority
over their house and servants; and are properly solicitous
about the education of their children ; and pay an atten-
tion to the necessaries of life, which is neither, excessive
nor negligent, but moderate and appropriate. For what
can be better and more excellent, as the most admirable
Homer says —
• Than when at home the husband and the wife
Unanimously live.'”


1842.]
411
Days from a Diary.
II. THE SACRED FABLES.
7th. Again I have read the “ Paradise Regained, the Co-
mus and Sampson Agonistes,” unfolding the doctrines of
temptation and chastity. Milton's theories of sin and
redemption, though vitiated somewhat by popular tradi-
tions are orthodox on the whole. Beautiful beyond com-
pare is this poem of the Comus; and the Sampson Ago-
nistes is characterized by that universality of insight which
inheres in all his works.
The great poets fable each on those spiritual verities
which are the being of every man. In the Lost Paradise,
Milton adopts the Egyptian, the Christian fable in the
Paradise Regained. The Comus and Sampson Agonistes
are episodes, each complete in itself — the Comus cast in
the Grecian form.
I fancy that the Egyptian and Christian Mythologies
may be wrought into the Greek fable of Prometheus, and
all subordinated to the new Genesis and Apotheosis of the
Soul.
* * * * * * *
IIJ. EXCERPTS FROM DR. HENRY MORE.
10th. Evening. And this rare poem on the Life of the
Soul - Dr. Henry More's — I have read at last. It con-
tains great lines, fine thoughts, but is less a poem than
prose discourse in the Spenserean stanza. The author's
prose is always most poetic; here he moves with grace and
freedom. But the “ Cupid's Conflict,” is truly a poem
throughout, and a fine one. It is a noble defence against
the injustice of his contemporaries; and so I have copied
it for our Dial, as an answer to the literary bigotry of all
time.
I. Lines from the Psyche-zoa, or Life of the Soul.
1. INSPIRATION.
“But all in vain they want the inward skill;
What comes from heaven onely can there ascend,
Nor rage nor tempest that this bulk doth fill
Can profit augut, but gently to attend
The soul's still working; patiently to bend
Our mind to sifting reason, and clear light,
That strangely figured in our soul doth wend.


412
. [April,
Days from a Diary.
Shifting its forms, still playing in our sight,
Till something it present that we shall take for right."
Book III. Cant. I.
. 2. LIKE BY LIKE.
“ Well sang the wise Empodocles of old,
That earth by earth, and sea by sea,
And heaven by heaven, and fire more bright than gold,
By flaming fire, so gentle love descry
By love, and hate by hate. And all agree
That like is known by like."
3. ETERNITY OF THE SOUL.
" But souls that of his own good life partake,
He loves as his own self; dear as his eye
They are to him ; he'll never them forsake;
When they shall die then God himself shall die;
They live, they live in blest eternity."
4. Body.
« Our body is but the soul's instrument,
And when it fails, only those actions cease
That thence depend. But if new eyes were sent
Unto the aged man, with as much ease
And accurateness as when his youth did please
The wanton lasse, he now could all things see;
Old age is but the watry blood's disease,
My hackney fails, not I, my pen, not sciencie.”
II. Great prose is the following, and on the sublimest
themes. The like we have not in this decline of di-
vine Philosophy.
5. THE GODHEAD.
“ Contemplations concerning the dry essence of the Deity
are very consuming and unsatisfactory. 'T is better to drink
of the blood of the grape than bite the root of the grape, to
smell the rose than to chew the stalk. And, blessed be God,
the meanest of men are capable of the former, very few suc-
cessful in the latter. And the lesse, because the reports of
them that have busied themselves that way, have not onely
seemed strange to the vulgar, but even repugnant with one
another. But I should in charity referre this to the nature of
the pigeon's neck rather than to mistake and contradiction.
One and the same object in nature affords many and different
aspects. And God is as infinitely various as simple. Like a
circle, indifferent, whether you suppose it of one uniform line
or an infinite number of angles. Wherefore it is more safe to


1842.]
413
como Diaru.
Days from a Diary.
admit all possible perfections of God, than rashly to deny what
appears not to us from our particular posture.” – Preface to
the Philosophical Poems, 1647.
6. Faitu IN THE SOUL's IMMORTALITY.
“Seeing our most palpable evidence of the soul's immortality
is from an inward sense, and this inward sense is kept alive the
best by devotion and purity, by freedom from worldly care and
sorrow, and the grosser pleasures of the body, (otherwise her
ethereall will drink in so much of earthly and mortall dregs,
that the sense of the soul will be changed, and being outvoted
as it were by the overswaying number of terrene particles,
which that ethereall nature hath so plentifully imbibed, and
incorporated with, she will become in a manner corporeall, and
in the extremity of this weakness and dotage, will be easily
drawn off to pronounce herself such as the body is, dissolvable
and mortal, therefore it is better for us that we become doubt-
ful of our immortal condition, when we stray from that virgin
purity and unspottednesse, that we may withdraw our feet from
these paths of death, than that demonstration and infallibility
would prove an heavy disadvantage. But this is meant onely to
them that are loved of God and their own souls. For they that
are at enmity with him, desire no such instructions, but rather
embrace all means of laying asleep that disquieting truth, that
they bear about with them so precious a charge as an immor-
tall spirit.”
7. INFIDELITY.
"This body, which dissolution waits upon, helpeth our in-
fidelity exceedingly. For the soul not seeing itself, judgeth
itself of such a nature as those things are to which she is near-
est united. Falsely saith, but yet ordinarily, I am sick, I am
weak, I faint, I die; when it is nought but the perishing life
of the body that is in such plight, to which she is so close tyed
in most intimate love and sympathy. So a tender mother, if
she see a knife stuck to the child's heart, would shriek and
swound as if herself had been smit; when, as if her eye had
not beheld the spectacle, she had not been moved though the
thing were surely done. So, I do verily think, that the mind
being taken up in some higher contemplation, if it should please
God to keep it in that ecstasy, the body might be destroyed
without disturbance to the soul; for how can there be or sense
or pain without animadversion." - Preface to Part Second
of the Song of the Soul.


414
(April,
Days from a Diary.
8. INSIGHT.
“Men of most tam'd and castigate spirits are of the best and
most profound judgment, because they can so easily withdraw
from the life and impulse of the lower spirit of the body. They
being quit of passion, they have upon occasion a clear though
still and quiet representation of every thing in their minds,
upon which pure, bright sydereall phantasms, unprejudiced
reason may work, and clearly discern what is true and proba-
ble." - Preface to Book Third of the Song of the Soul.
9. COURAGE.
“Certainly the purging of our natural spirits and raising our
soul to her due height of piety, and weaning her from the love
of the body, and too tender a sympathy with the frail flesh, be-
gets that courage and majesty of mind in a man, that both in-
ward and outward fiends shall tremble at his presence, and fly
before him as darknesse at light's approach. For the soul hath
then ascended her fiery vehicle, and it is noon to her midnight,
be she awake herself.”
February.
iv. CHILDHOOD.
« Thou by this Dial's shady stealth may'st know
Times' peevish progress to eternity.”
8th. Babe. Beside thee, O Child, I seek to compass
thy being. But this idea of thee floating in the depths of
my thought mocks me the while. For thou art older and
more prescient than thought, and I lose myself in thee.
Time stretches backward into the period whence it pro-
ceeded, and forward to its return therein, yet dates not thy
genesis, thine advent, nor ascension. Thou still art,
and wast ever, and shalt remain, the horologue of its
transits. Thy history the hours do not chronicle. Thou
art timeless, dateless. Before time thou wast, and by
reason of this thine eternal existence - dost revive eter-
nal memories. The clock that chimes, the sun that rises,
but give the chronology of thy terrestrial life ; more faith-
ful keepers thou hast of thy spiritual reckoning. For
Times' Dial is set by thee, and the orb of day wheels on
his courses to illustrate the story of thy Soul. Nature
thou art not, but of thee she is the show — Matter is thy
shadow as thou runnest on thy behests. Experience itself


1842.)
415
Days from a Diary.
is lost in thee - perpetuity shines through all thy powers
- thou art prophet and historian of God!
And, O child, thou remindest me of the dawn of mine
own being. I see relics of ages in thee; and thou comest
to me as inhabitant of a clime once mine own; and thy
gentle manners are familiar to me, while yet I seem strange
and a stranger here in Time. But thou knowest of no
change. Thou deemest thyself in the mansions of thy
Father, an inmate of his households, still clad from his
wardrobes — still fed from his board. At home art thou;
and there shall abide while thou retainest memory thereof,
though a dweller the while in these vessels of clay: nor shall
feel this seeming absence — this exile in Flesh — this er-
rand in time — this commerce with matter — this dalliance
with apparitions ; where Seeming is but shadow of Being,
where Apprehension finds never the complement of its
seekings, and Desire yearns ever for what it hath lost;
and where Memory and Hope are but Janus-faces of the
soul, surveying unknowingly, like tracts of her cycle of
years.t - Psyche, 1838.
* * * * * *
V. INSPIRATION.
An Epistle.
Sunday:
22d. You desire, my friend, some exegesis of the Doc-
trine of Inspiration, through its twofold organs of Con-
science and Reason, — with their subordinate functions of
Sight and Sense (Faith and Understanding): and the
authority, original and final, on all Revelations possible
to the Soul. Shall I vex these old questions — tax these
divine problems, with hope of success? I do, indeed,
tempt these spiritual waters with awe; so slender and frail
my line, so short withal — the stillness primeval — the
depths profound. And each soul, moreover, singly, and
alone sails these seas, her own steersman and observer of
the heavens, to find her way unaided, if she may, to the
celestial havens. — But yet I will dare the theme.
t I shall never be persuaded, says Synesius, to think my soul.to be
younger than my body. “Before Abraham was, I am," said Jesus.


416
[April,
Days from a Diary.
Foresight dividivine omnubious, in the ted goods, hour by
They do in hope, foer it all thinnestless Provide history
To the innocent, upright, all is present, instant, in sight.
They have not lapsed into forgetfulness; nor memory nor
foresight divides the intuitions of their souls.* They par-
take of the divine omniscience: they are quick with God.
They do not fumble, dubious, in the memory; nor clutch,
anxious, in hope, for lost or unexpected goods — they are
self-fed — they inherit all things. Day by day, hour by
hour, yea, pulse by pulse, exhaustless Providences minister
to them -- each sequel and complement - history and
prophesy, of the other — the plenitude of Life rushing
gladly into the chambers of the breast, and illuminating
their brow with supernal lights. They are Incarnate Words,
- prophets, silent or vocal, as the divine influx retreats to
its source, or flows over their cloven tongues, bringing glad
tidings to all who have access to the urns of being. And
such are all bards, saints, babes. These reason never —
nor seek truth as lost treasure amidst eruditions, or prece-
dents, of the Past. Having eyes, steadfast, they see;
ears, quick, they hear; hearts, vigilant, they apprehend;
in the serenity of their own souls, they behold Divinity,
and themselves and the universe in Him. These are they,
who “ walk not in darkness but in the light of life, bearing
record of themselves, and knowing their record to be true;
knowing whence they came, and whither they go; who
are not alone, but the Father with them, and witnessing of
themselves, and the Father that sent bearing witness of
them."
But this logic of the Breast is subtile, occult. It eludes
the grasp of the Reason. It is, and perpetually reaffirms
itself — the I Am of the Soul. Inspiration speaks alway
from present, face to face parley with eternal facts. It
darts, like lightning, straight to its quarry, and rends all
formulas of the schools as it illuminates the firmament of
the mind. God enlightens the brain by kindling the heart;
* If souls retained in their descent to bodies the memory of divine
concerns, of which they were conscious in the heavens, there would not
be dissensions among men about divinity. But all, indeed, in descend-
ing drink of oblivion, though some more, and others less. On this ac-
count, though truth is not apparent to all men on the earth, yet all hare
their opinions about it, because a defect of memory is the origin of opinion.
But those discern most who have drank least of oblivion, because they
easily remember what they had then before in the heavens. - PYTHAGO-
RAS.


1842.]
417
Days from a Diary.
he is instant in the breast before he is present in the head.
All reasoning is but self-finding, self-recovery.* And the
head but dreams of the heart, whose oracles are clear, as
the life is pure, dark as it is base.t Conscience receives
the divine ray, and Reason reflects the same on the sense.
The Conscience is an abridgment of God — an Apocalypse
of Spirit — and man reads the secrets of ages therein ; nor
needs journey from his breast to solve the riddles of the
world or divine the mysteries of Deity. Therein, the spiritual
and corporeal law is enacted and executed; and a true life
interprets those to the mind; yea, more, discovers the up-
holding agencies of all things, and works out the Creator's
idea, moulding the worlds anew day by day.
“Reclused hermits oftentimes do know
More of Heaven's glory than a worldling can:
As man is of the world, the heart of man
Is an epitome of God's great book
Of creatures, and man needs no farther look.”
Receiving thus the divine ray into his breast, man needs
not wander from its shining into another's darkness. As-
sured that none comes to the light save as drawn from
within, and that vicarious guidance ever misleads or blinds,
let him wend his course through this world of sense, dis-
trusting its beaten pathways, its proffered redeemers, his
eye fixed perpetually on the load-star within, that by soli-
tary by-roads, leads direct to his birthplace and home.
And this, my friend, is the Doctrine and Method of
* Now all right and natural knowledge, in whatever creature it is, is
sensible, intuitive, and its own evidence. But opinion or doubting (for
they are all but one thing) can only then begin, when the creature has
lost its first right and natural state, and is got somewhere and become
somewhat that it cannot tell what to make of. Then begins doubting,
from thence reasoning, from thence debating; and this is the high birth
of our magnified reason, as nobly born as groping is, which has its be-
ginning in and from darkness or the loss of light. — Law's Way to Di-
tine knowledge.
Every thing is and must be its own proof; and can only be known
from and by itself. There is no knowledge of any thing, but where the
thing itself is, and is found, and possessed. Life, and every kind and
degree of life, is only known by life ; and so far as life reaches, so far
is there knowledge, and no farther. Whatever knowledge you can get
by searching and working of your own active Reason, is only like that
knowledge which you may be said to have got, when you have searched
for a needle in a load of straw, till you have found it. – Law's Way to
Dirine Knowledge.
VOL. II. — NO. IV.
53


418
Days from a Diary..
[April,
Revelation, as taught by the Christs of all time. But,
Christendom, how false to its spirit, and hostile to its dis-
cipline! She leans as of old, on traditions, nor dares
walk erect, a trustful and self-helpful brother, in the light
of that common beam which illuminated the face of her
Prophet and made Him the joy of the nations. She scoffs
at ihe heavenly doctrines of immediate inspiration ; she
pores blindly over Scriptures, and worships not the
word incarnate in Him, but the skirts of his robe. A
Messias, sublimer than Him of Judea, must come to dispel
the superstitions that darken his Life, and divest his doc-
trine from the fables in which it is wrapped. For such
Prophet the world now waits — and his advent is nigh!
I am yours,
in all sacred friendships.
March.
VI. PASSAGES FROM HERAUD'S MONTHLY MAGAZINE.
: Athenæum, Boston.
5th. Of these Foreign Journals Heraud's Magazine in-
terests me most. It is catholic, free, philosophic. It speaks
for universal man, not for sects nor districts, and breathes
a charity humane and diffusive. It compares (or did) fa-
vorably with our Dial, but is more various in its contents and
addresses a wider public. But neither those Journals, nor
others, content me. They fail to report the bosom life of
the hour; they are not Diaries of the Age — scriptures of
the ideas taking body now in institutions and men. But
yet we wait, with a calm patience, for souls who shall
make organs and a public for the life that is in them —
men who shall dial not only the evening and morning ray,
but the broad noon of piety and genius.
I. A Sketch of Jacob Boëhme. By Frances Barham.
"1. Boëhme was, in the opinion of all who have studied his
works, a man of high spirituality and strong original genius.


1842.]
419 :
Days from a Diary.
His mind was of that heaven-scaling and world-defying hero-
ism, which dares all things, and bears all things, in search of
wisdom. By the stern contentions of faith and prayer, by the
struggling energies of unflinching reason, and the logical
analysis of a few theosophic books, he attained many of the
loftiest visions of truth, and completed a system of transcen-
dentalism more brilliant than any which had appeared for ages.
He was one of the few coblers who have proved themselves
capable of judging above the last. From his dingy stall and
workshop issued the Aurora of a theosophic doctrine, which
set Europe in a blaze. None but those personally acquainted
with the works of Boëhme, and the Boehmists, can justly esti-
mate the influence his doctrine has had on the world. It is
not without some reason that such men as Periet, Fenelon,
Ramsey, and Law, have eulogized this extraordinary man.
It is astonishing to me that his solitary genius should have
worked out so many philosophemes resplendent as those of the
Cabalists, the Bramins, the Pythagoreans, whom he had never
read. It is a proof, if any were needed, of the essential
unity and sympathy of true genius in all times and nations.
What would Boëhme have executed had he enjoyed the learn-
ing of Mirondola, Richlin, Agrippa. How many of his ideas
that now loom large in the midst of rhapsody, shadowy and
obscure, yet vast and astounding as the ghosts of the mighty
dead, would have worn the keen edge and effulgent configu.
ration of positive science. But in spite of his disadvantages,
Boëhme is the Plato of Germany, and to him the Kantists
owe their brightest theories.”
II. Foreign Aids to Self-Intelligence, designed as assistance
to the English Student of Transcendental Philosophy. –
These are admirable papers by Heraud, who thus speaks of
Boëhme's Theosophic Doctrines.
.62. With Boëhme all opaque matter had a luminous spirit.
In the seven planets, in the seven days of the week, he found
emblems of the ideas intended by the seven lamps before the
throne; and the seven stars in the Apocalypse, the seven pillars
of the House of Wisdom; the six steps of Solomon's throne
and the throne itself, as emblematic of Sabbatical Rest; the
seven seals, the seven phials, the seven trumpets, and the seven
candlesticks, - all these symbolized the Seven Spirits of God,
which emblem the complete Deity. Our illiterate theologian
dared to soar into this sublime region of speculation, and pre-
sumed to analyze the seven-fold perfection of God. Now how
was he to conduct this analyzation - how declare its results ?


420
[April,
Days from a Diary.
What apparatus had he for the process — what language for its
expression ? Prayer and thought were the instruments of his
operations. For language he might select his illustrations from
the phenomena of mind, or of matter. The philosophy of
mind, however, for him was not; he had to create one for him.
self. And he had conceived the astonishing idea to account
for all material appearances upon spiritual principles, and to
prove the identity of the laws which influenced both Nature
and Spirit. He was, therefore, teaching two sciences at the
same time — Theology and Natural Philosophy — under one
name, Theosophy. And no language had he but what was
common to both, and all words are derived from the objects
of the latter. He, therefore, at once, elected to set forth
spiritual laws by their imperfect resemblances as they are to be
found in the laws of nature; and more perfect symbols, indeed,
may not be found : for the laws of nature are but the forins of
the human understanding. What are both, but as strings in
the Love-Sport,' as Boehme says, ' of the angels.' Well! of
this seven-fold perfection divine, he presumed to call the first
spirit an astringent power, sharp like salt, hidden in the Father.
The second is an attractive power, vanquishing the astringent.
The astringent and attracting powers, he says, by their contra-
riety, produce anguish - a raging sense — not by agent und
patient, but by violence and impatience. This anguish is the
third spirit; it is the cause of mind, senses, thoughts. It is an
Exultation, the highest degree of joy, excited to a trembling
in its own quality. These three spirits are but as millstones
without corn, grinding each other. The raging spirit cannot
deliver itself from the strong bands of the Astringency, and ex.
cites Heat by its struggling, the extremity whereof is Fire.
Now is the corn found for the millstones to grind. Heat is the
fourth spirit, the beginner of life and of the spirit of life; it
generates Light. The food of fire is cold; for want of which
heat and fire would fall into anguish. But Infinity has no
deficience; therefore the fire, by rarefaction, breathes the
sullen cold into liberty of Air. Air, again, by condensation,
(being imposed upon by its father the Cold,) falls to water,
which again, by the kindled element, is licked up by Nutrition.
The fifth spirit, which is the produce of Light, which, as we
have already learned, is intellectual as well as material, is
Love. The sixth spirit is the Divine Word — whence Speech
and Language, Colors, Beauty, and all ornament. And the
seventh spirit is the Body generated out of the six other spirits,
and in which they dwell as in their Sabbath. The seven spirits
are the fountain of all Being. All these spirits together are


1842.]
421
Days from a Diary.
God the Father. The life generated by them all, and generat-
ing the life in them all, in triumph, is the Son of God -- the
second person in the Holy Trinity. The power of the seven
spirits, proceeding continually in the splendor of the life form-
ing all things in the seventh, is the Holy Ghost.
"Reader, unless thou canst thyself give meaning to these
things, we cannot help thee to the significance, but if thou
canst with whatever difficulty understand them, take our word
first, that they are worth understanding. Thou mayest, how-
ever, form some notion of the same by attending a little to the
following illustration, which we have abridged and modernized
from William Law.
“ The first forms of vegetable life, before it has received the
sun and air, are sourness, astringency, bitterness. In a ripened
fruit, these qualities improve into rich spirit, fine taste, fragrant
smell, and beautiful color, having been enriched by the sun
and air. This attraction, astringency, desire, is one and the
same in every individual thing, from the highest angel to the
lowest vegetable. Attraction is essential to all bodies ; Desire,
which is the same thing, is inseparable from all intelligent
beings. And thus, by an unerring thread, may we ascend to the
first Desire, or that of the Divinity. For nothing can come
into being but because God wills or desires it. Its desire is
creative; and the qualities of the Creator must necessarily pass
into the creature. Herein lies the ground of all analogies be-
tween the world withont and the world within. And as veget-
ables by their attraction or astringency, which is their desire,
and as an outbirth of the divine desire, attain perfection by
receiving the Light and Air of the external world, so do all
intelligent beings attain their perfection by aspiring, with their
will and desire, to God, and receiving of the word and spirit of
God.”
These mystic pietists are to me most aromatic and re-
freshing. How living is their faith — deep their thought
- humane and glowing their zeal! Boehme, Guion,
Fenelon, Law — these are beautiful souls. Sad that few
of my contemporaries have apprehension of their thought,
or faith in their intellectual integrity. O Age! thou be.
lievest nothing of this divine lore, but deemest it all moon-
, struck madness, wild fanaticism, or witless dream! God
has ebbed clean from thy heart, and left thee loveless and
blind. But, lo! he is rushing in full blood into the
souls of thy youth, and thy sons and daughters, driven
from the sanctuaries of wisdom and piety, shall prophesy


422
[April,
Days from a Diary.
soon with cloven tongues of fire to thy discomfort and
shame ; for thy priests are godless, and thou a art slave to
the gauds of sense!
III. Let me quote some passages, profound as true, from
papers of J. Westland Marston, another of Heraud's con-
tributors.
3. ATHEISM.
“It is possible to be orthodox in head, and heterodox in
heart. It is possible to be credist in view and infidel in character.
There is an unloveliness of soul, which is the atheism of being,
and this may clothe itself with the surplice, harangue from the
pulpit, marry at the altar, and read prayers at the grave."
4. TRUTH.
“Facts may be true, and views may be true; but they are
not truth. Truth is sincere being: it is not the perception of
man; nor the deed of man; but when it is constituted it be-
comes the heart of man. And take this with you, ye wretched
doctrinnaires, who would almost special plead from God's uni.
verse, the privilege of God's mercy — that all conclusions are
heartless of which the heart is not the premise."
5. COWARDICE.
“ We are poor cravens — we fight no battles — we blazon
the name of some hero on our standard, and art frequent at
parade in unsoiled uniforms. Not thus gay and glittering, in
mirror-like armor, were the champions we venerate. Not thus
marching after some embroidered naine were found Plato,
Aristotle, Socrates, Bacon, Locke, Berkeley, Coleridge, or
Kant. Not thus calling themselves by some human name and
exhibiting to the world in trim costume were Luther, Wickliffe,
and the great reformers of all ages. Their garments were
stained in the conflict; their swords hacked in the warfare.
Say that there were fewer attestations to the merit of tailor and
cutler, yet were there more testimonies to valor, and to earnest-
ness of purpose.”
6. Insight.
“We shall appeal from the recorded belief of every age, to
that which inspired it. We shall not be governed by the codes
of men, but shall test their declarations by those antecedent
intuitions common to us and them. Hitherto we hare gener-
ally too much resembled sailless vessels towed by the more


1842.]
423
Days from a Diary.
fortunate ones which mount their own canvass. We must hoist
our own — we must no longer be attached to the sterns of those
who with us constitute the great feet of humanity. Why
should we be dragged along in the course of others? There is
the same breeze to urge us that impels them. And need we
direction in the voyage to eternity? The wind that wafts is
even the pilot that guides.” — Monthly Magazine.
April.
VII. ORPHIC SAYINGS.
12th. Listen divinely to the sibyl within thee, saith the
Spirit, and write thou her words. For now is thine intel-
lect a worshipper of the Holy Ghost; now thy life is
mystic — thy words marvels -- and thine appeal to the
total sense of man — a nature to the soul.
1. NATURE.
Nature bares never her bones; clothed in her own chaste
rhetoric of flesh and blood — of color and feature, she is
elegant and fair to the sense. And thus, O Philosopher,
Poet, Prophet, be thy words — thy Scriptures ; – thy
thought, like Pallas, shaped bold and comely from thy
brain — like Venus, formed quick from thy side - mystic
as Memnon - melodious as the lyre of Orpheus.
2. IMMANENCE.
There is neither void in nature, nor death in spirit, -
all is vital, nothing Godless. Both guilt in the soul and
pain in the flesh, affirm the divine ubiquity in the all of
being. Shadow apes substance, privation fullness; and
nature in atom and whole, in planet and firmament, is
charged with the present Deity.
3. INCARNATION.
Nature is quick with spirit. In eternal systole and
diastole, the living tides course gladly along, incarnating
organ and vessel in their mystic flow. Let her pulsations
for a moment pause on their errands, and creation's self
ebbs instantly into chaos and invisibility again. The visi-
whole, ine, privation run the all of
RNATION.


424
[April,
Days from a Diary.
ble world is the extremest wave of that spiritual flood,
whose flux is life, whose reflux death, efflux thought, and
conflux light. Organization is the confine of incarnation,
— body the atomy of God.
4. Faith.
Sense beholds life never, — death always. For nature
is but the fair corpse of spirit, and sense her tomb. Phi-
losophy holds her torch while science dissects the seemly
carcase. Tis faith unseals the sepulchres, and gives the
risen Godhead to the soul's einbrace. Blessed is he, who
without sense believeth, - for already is he resurrect and
immortal!
5. UNBELIEF.
Impious faith! witless philosophy! prisoning God in the
head, to gauge his volume or sound his depths, by admeas-
urements of brain. Know, man of skulls ! that the soul
builds her statue perpetually from the dust, and, from
within, the spiritual potter globes this golden bowl on
which thy sacrilegious finger is laid. Be wise, fool! and
divine cerebral qualities from spiritual laws, and predict
organizations from character.
6. ORACLE.
Believe, youth, despite all temptations, the oracle of deity
in your own bosom. 'Tis the breath of God's revelations,
- the respiration of the Holy Ghost in your breast. Be
faithful, not infidel, to its intuitions, — quench never its
spirit, - dwell ever in its omniscience. So shall your soul
be filled with light, and God be an indwelling fact, — a
presence in the depths of your being.
7. HEROISM.
Great is the man whom his age despises. For tran-
scendent excellence is purchased through the obloquy of
contemporaries; and shame is the gate to the temple of
renown. The heroism honored of God, and the gratitude
of mankind, achieves its marvels in the shades of life, re-
mote from the babble of crowds.
8. DESERT.
Praise and blame as little belong to the righteous as to


1842.] Days from a Diary.
495
God. Virtue transcends desert — as the sun by day, as heat
during frosts. Its light and warmth are its essence, cheer-
ing alike the wilderness, the fields, and fire-sides of men,
- the cope of heaven, and the bowels of the earth.
9. Patience.
Be great even in your leisures; making, accepting, op-
portunities, and doing lovingly your work at the first or
eleventh hour, even as God has need of you. Transcend
all occasions; exhausted, overborne, by none. Wisdom
waits with a long patience; nor working, nor idling with
men and times; but living and being in eternity with God.
Great designs demand ages for consummation, and Gods
are coadjutors in their accomplishment. Patience is king
of opportunity and times.
10. SOLITUDE.
Solitude is Wisdom's school. Attend then the lessons
of your own soul; become a pupil of the wise God with-
in you, for by his tuitions alone shall you grow into the
knowledge and stature of the deities. The seraphs de-
scend from heaven, in the solitudes of meditation, in the
stillness of prayer.
11. ATONEMENT.
All sin is original, — there is none other; and so all
atonement for sin. God's method is neither mediatorial
nor vicarious; and the soul is nor saved nor judged by
proxy, — she saves or dooms herself. Piety is unconscious,
vascular, vital, — like breathing it is, and is because it is.
None can respire for another, none sin or atone for anoth-
er's sin. Redemption is a personal, private act.
12. BLESSEDNESS.
Blessedness consists in perfect willingness. It is above
all conflict. It is serenity, triumph, beatitude. It tran-
scends choice. It is one with the divine Will, and a par-
taker of his nature and tendency. There is struggle and
choice only with the wilful. The saints are elect in per-
fect obedience, and enact God's decrees.
* * * *
VOL. II. — NO. IV.
54


426
[April,
.
Days from a Dairy.
May.
VIII. HUSBANDRY.
15th. Garden. I planted my seeds and wed my cur-
rants and strawberries. I wrought gladly all day, - the
air and sun most genial, — and sought my pillow at night
with a weariness that made sleep most grateful and refresh-
ing.
How dignified and dignifying is labor — and sweet and
satisfying. Man, in his garden, recovers his position in
the world ; he is restored to his Eden, to plant and dress
it again. Once more his self-respect is whole and health-
ful; and all men, apostate though they be, award him a
ready and sincere approval.
The New Ideas bear direct upon all the economies of
life. They will revise old methods and institute new cul-
tures. I look with special hope to their effect on the regi.
men of the land. Our present modes of agriculture ex-
haust our soil, and must while life is made thus sensual and
secular; the narrow covetousness which prevails in trade, in
labor, and exchanges, ends in depraving the land; it breeds
disease, decline, in the flesh, — debauches and consumes
the heart. This Beast, named Man, has yet most costly
tastes, and must first be transformed into a very man, re-
generate in appetite and desire, before the earth shall be
restored to fruitfulness, and redeemed from the curse of
his cupidity. Then shall the toils of the farm become el-
egant and invigorating leisures ; man shall grow his or-
chards and plant his gardens, - an husbandman truly,
sowing and reaping in hope, and a partaker of his hope.
Labor will be attractive. Life will not be worn in anxious
and indurating toils; it will be at once a scene of mixed
leisure, recreation, labor, culture. The soil, grateful then
for man's generous usage, debauched no more by foul
ordures, nor worn by cupidities, shall recover its primeval
virginity, bearing on its bosom the standing bounties which
a sober and liberal Providence ministers to his need, -
sweet and invigorating growths, for the health and comfort
of the grower.
su se * * * *


1842.]
427
Days from a Diary.
IX. BANQUET.
19th. I brought from our village a bag of wheaten flour
for our board. Pythagorean in our diet, we yet make
small demands on foreign products; but harvest our dust
mostly from this hired acre. I would abstain from the
fruits of oppression and blood, and am seeking means of
entire independence. This, were I not holden by penury
unjustly, would be possible. But abstinence from all par-
ticipation in these fruits of sin, comes near defrauding one
of his flesh and blood, raiment and shelter, so ramified and
universal is this trade in Providence. One miracle we
have wrought, nevertheless, and shall soon work all of
them, - our wine is water, - flesh, bread, — drugs, fruits,
and we defy, meekly, the satyrs all, and Esculapius.
The Soul's Banquet is an art divine. To mould this
statue of flesh, from chaste materials, kneading it into
comeliness and strength, this is Promethean; and this we
practice, well or ill, in all our thoughts, acts, desires. But
specially in the exercise of the appetites. Thus Jesus, –
“ That which cometh out of the man, that it is which de-
files him. For those things which proceed out of the
mouth come forth from the heart, and they defile the
man.” And to like purpose Philostrates, — “The body is
not corrupted save through the soul.”
The modern doctrines on diet and regimen derive their
authority from man's constitution and wants. Pythagoras
declared them long since, and Porphyry wrote elegantly on
this subject.
“The soul,” he says, “is polluted by anger and desire and
a multitude of passions, in which, in a certain respect, diet is
a coöperating cause. But as water which flows through a
rock is more uncorrupted than that which runs through marsh-
es, because it does not bring with it mud; thus, also, the soul,
which administers its own affairs in a body that is dry, and is
not moistened by the juices of foreign flesh, is in a more excel-
lent condition, is more uncorrupted, and is more prompt for
intellectual energy. Thus, too, it is said, that the thyme, which
is the driest and the sharpest to the taste, affords the best honey
to bees. The dianoetic, therefore, or discursive power of the
soul is polluted; or rather, he who energises dianoetically,
when this energy is mingled with the energies of either the
imagination or doxastic power. But purification consists in a


428
[April,
Days from a Dairy.
separation from all these, and the wisdom which is adapted
to divine concerns, is a desertion of everything of this kind.
The proper nutriment, likewise, of each thing is that which
essentially preserves it. Thus you may say, that the nutriment
of a stone is the cause of its continuing to be a stone, and of
firmly remaining in a lapideous form ; but the nutriment of a
plant is that which preserves it in increase and fructification;
and of an animated body, that which preserves its composition.
It is one thing, however, to nourish and another to fatten; and
one thing to impart what is necessary, and another to produce
what is luxurious. Various, therefore, are the kinds of nutri-
ment, and various, also, is the nature of the things that are
nourished. And it is necessary that indeed all things should be
nourished, but we should earnestly endeavor to fatten our most
principal parts. Hence the nutriment of the rational soul is that
which preserves it in a rational state. But this is intellect, so that
it is to be nourished by intellect; and we should earnestly en-
deavor that it may be fattened through this, rather than that the
flesh may become pinguid, through esculent substances. For
intellect preserves for us eternal life, but the body when fatten-
ed causes the soul to be furnished through its hunger after a
blessed life not being satisfied, increases our mortal part, since
it is of itself insane, and impedes an attainment of an immortal
condition of being. It likewise defiles by corporifying the
soul, and drawing her down to that which is foreign to her
nature. And the magnet, indeed, imparts, as it were, a soul to
the iron, which is placed near it; and the iron, though most
heavy, is elevated, and runs to the spirit of the stone. Should
he therefore, who is suspended from incorporeal and incorrupt-
ible deity, be anxiously busied in procuring food which fattens
the body, that is an impediment to intellectual perception ?
Ought he not rather, by contracting what is necessary to the
flesh into that which is little and easily procured, be himself
nourished, by adhering to God more closely than the iron to the
magnet? I wish, indeed, that our nature was not so corrupti-
ble, and that it were possible we could live without the nutri.
ment derived from fruits. O! that, as Homer says, we were not in
want of meat or drink, that we might be truly immortal :- the
poet in thus speaking beautifully signifying that food is the
auxiliary not only of life, but also of death. If, therefore, we
were not in want of vegetable aliment, we should be by so much
the more blessed, in proportion as we should be more im-
mortal. But now, living in a mortal condition, we render our.
selves, if it may be proper so to speak, still more mortal,
through becoming ignorant that by addition of this mortality,
the soul, as Theophrastes says, does not only confer a great


1842.)
429
Days from a Dairy.
benefit on the body by being its inhabitant, but giving herself
wholly to it. Hence it is much to be wished, that we could
easily obtain the life celebrated in fables, in which hunger and
thirst are unknown, or that, by stopping the every-way-flowing
river of the body, we may in a very little time be present with
the most excellent natures, to which he who accedes, since
deity is there, is himself a God. But how is it possible not to
lament the condition of the generality of mankind, who are so
involved in darkness, as to cherish their own evil, and who, in
the first place, hate themselves, and him who begot them, and
afterwards those who admonish them, and call on them to re-
turn from ebriety to a sober condition of being !” – PORPHYRY
on Abstinence from Animal Food.
*
*
*
*
*
June.
X. EPISTLE.
Cottage.
12th. Our garden and fields remind me whenever I
step into their presence of your promise of spending awhile
with us at the cottage. But lest you should chance to
alight at my door, while I am absent, I write now to say,
that I purpose to breathe those mountain airs, and shall
leave for Vermont on Monday next — so do'nt come till
after my return. I shall then have the more to communi-
cate of the spirit of those hills. Lately I have been sent
journeying to seek the members of that Brotherhood
whom God designs shall dwell together in his Para-
dise. The time is near when the soul's fabled innocency
shall luxuriate as a visible fact, rooted in the soil of
New England; and scribes, wise even as the Hebrews of
old, record their version of the Genesis of Man, and the
peopling and planting of Eden.
I have visited the city, since I saw you, where I met
persons a few of wise hearts and growing gifts and graces.
God is breeding men and women, here and there, for the
new Heaven and Earth. — Have you seen Humanus? He
has been passing a few days with me, and a great promise
he is to me. The youth is rich in wisdom; a child of
deepest and truest life. God has a work for the boy,
and set him about it betimes — while his years scarce


430
[April,
Days from a Dairy.
numbered an halfscore - and now he is great beside his
contemporaries and shall honor his trusts.
Remember I am to see you on my return.
Your friend.
XI. VERMONT.
Green Mountains.
17th. Bland the air, picturesque the scenery of these
hills. This is the Switzerland of our Republic, and these
mountaineers are parcel of their mountains, and love them
as do the Swiss. This, too, is the scenery, this the clime,
these the pursuits, for growing freemen. And here is the
Haunt of Reform ; cherished by these austere ministries
of toil and storm, the Child is waxing in stature, and shall
leap, soon, from hill to hill, sounding his trump to the four
winds of heaven.
Yet over these primeval bills, clothed in perennial ver-
dure — these passes, whose sides are instinct with bleating
sheep and lowing kine, or proudly standing with the
growths of ages — the wizard Trade has swept her wand of
sorceries, and on these shepherds and swineherds are
visited the sordid and debasing vices of the distant towns
they feed !
But, apart, on this Alp, on the summit of this green
range, and in a region of ideas fitly emblemed by the
scene, dwells my friend, above the ignoble toils of men
below. This forest fell prostrate before his sturdy arm,
and gave him these ample ranges for his flocks, with acres
now in pasture and tillage ; and here, under these cliffs
rose his farm house; there more exalted still, his gen-
erous barns. And now visited with humane charities, he
surrenders portions of the same to sincere and simple per-
sons — the weary and heavy laden children of oppressive
institutions — who here find rest in the arms of a Provi-
dence, unsold, unbought, and freed from the anxieties of
want and dependence. Aware of the change passing fast
over all human affairs, he is planting deep in this free soil,
the New Ideas, and awaits in faith the growing of a wiser
and nobler age.
3


1842.)
431
Days from a Diary.
July.
XII. CONVERSATION.
9th. These journeyings reveal to me the state of the
people. They make plain the need of a simpler priest-
hood - a ministry at the field, road, fire-side, bed-side ; at
tables, in families, neighborhoods — wheresoever man meets
man truly. Now all ministries are aloof from human needs.
Societies, senates, preaching, teaching, conversation, game
ignobly with men's hearts; and there is no great and sin-
cere intercourse — souls do not meet; and man, woman,
child, bewail their solitude. Sincerity in thought and speech
can alone redeem man from this exile and restore confi-
dence into his relations. We must come to the simplest
intercourse — to Conversation and the Epistle. These are
most potent agencies — the reformers of the world. The
thoughts and desires of men wait not thereby the tardy
and complex agencies of the booksellers' favor, printers'
type, or reader's chances, but are sped forthwith far and
wide, by these nimble Mercuries. Christianity was pub-
lished solely by the lip and pen, and the Christian docu-
ments—the entire literature of this great fact—is comprised
in a few brief fragments of the Life and Sayings of Jesus,
and the Epistles of his immediate adherents. And thus
shall the New Ideas find currency in our time and win the
people to themselves.
* * * * * * * *
August.
XIII. PROPERTY.
12th. Cottage. Again I have read “ Coleridge's Political
Essays” in “the Friend.” They please me less than formerly.
He distrusts her early dream of realizing a simpler state
of society, and plants his State, not in the soil of individual
conscience, but in the shallows of expediency; and deems
it an institution for the security of freeholds. But to prop-
erty man has no moral claim whatsoever; use, not owner-
ship of the planet and parts thereof, constitutes his sole
inheritance; he is steward of God's estate, and commissa-
ry of Heaven's stores to his brethren ; nor rightfully hoards
or appropriates the same to his own sole benefit.


432
(April,
Days from a Diary.
“Wealth often sours
In keeping; makes us hers in seeming ours;
She slides from Heaven indeed, but not in Danæs' showers."
This sin of appropriation — this planting the state in
ownership of the soil, not in man's spiritual needs — has
been the infirmity of all communities called civilized. But
the New Order must abrogate this ancient error, and thus
remove the fruitful cause of the decline of nations. The
Just own nothing. They trade never in the gifts of Provi-
dence, perverting these to secular ends, but benefits flow
unimpeded through all the channels of household, brother-
hood, neighborhood, and Love is the beneficent Almon-
certo, all members of the social family.
“ All things,” says Grotius, “ were at first promiscuously
common, and all the world had, as it were, but one patri-
mony. From hence it was that every man then converted
what he would to his own use, and consumed whatever
was to be consumed, and a free use of this universal right
did at that time supply the place of property. For no man
could justly demand of another whatever he had thus just
taken to himself; which is the better illustrated by that
simile of Cicero, 'Since the theatre is common for any
body that comes, the place that every one sits in is prop-
erly his own. And this state of things must have continued
till now, had men persisted in their primitive simplicity,
or lived together but in perfect charity.”
* * *
September.
XIV. EMERSON'S ESSAYS.
3d. These Essays are truly noble. They report a wis-
dom akin to that which the great of all time have loved
and spoken. It is a most refreshing book ; and I am sure
of its reputation with those who make fames and ages.
And yet I qualify my admiration of the author's genius.
Great in the isolation of thought, he neither warms nor
inspires me. He writes from the intellect to the intellect,
and hence some abatement from the health of his state-
ments, the depths of his insights — purchased always at
the cost of vital integrity; the mind lapsing in the knowl-


1842.]
433
Days from a Diary.
edge thus gained. · But yet is this the tax on all pure in-
tellect, — the ghost of the heart which it slays to embrace !
A passage in the Essays indicates this fact.
" The most illuminated class of men are no doubt superior
to literary fame, and are not writers. Among the multitude of
scholars and authors, we feel no hallowing presence; we are
sensible of a kneck and skill rather than of inspiration ; they
have a light, and know not whence it comes, and call it their
own ; their talent is some exaggerated faculty, some overgrown
member, so that their strength is a disease. In these instances,
the intellectual gifts do not make the impression of virtue, but
almost of vice, and we feel that a man's talents stand in the
way of advancernent in truth. But genius is religious." And
again, “ Converse with a mind that is grandly simple and litera-
ture looks like word-catching. The siinplest utterances are
worthiest to be written, yet are they so cheap, and so things of
course that in the infinite riches of the soul, it is like gathering
a few pebbles off the ground, or bottling a little air in a phial,
when the whole earth and whole atmosphere are ours. The
mere author, in such society, is like a pick-pocket among gen-
tlemen, who has come in to steal a gold button or a pin. Noth-
ing can pass there or make you one of the circle, but the cast-
ing aside your trappings, and dealing man to man in naked
truth, plain confession, and omniscient affirmation." -Oversoul,
Essay IX.
This tendency to thought leads often the scholar to un-
dervalue in practice the more spiritual, but less intellectual
life of the will of the pietist, or sublimer mystic — those
epic souls to whom the world owes mainly its revelations; -
and of whom scholars and bards, naturalists and philoso-
phers, are but interpreters and scribes. Thought is, in-
deed, but the pen of the soul ; genius the eye ; love the
heart; and all expression, save action, is falsehood fabling
in the ciphers of truth.
I would be just to the literary function, and give it right-
ful place in the soul's order. Character, integrity of will,
to this all men yield hoinage. But thought, the power of
drawing the soul from her sanctuary in the breast, and
representing her life in words, whether by pen or lip,
is in all healthſul and innocent natures subordinate to the
affections of the will. Then intellect becomes the servant
of the moral power; and it is when this function of
thought creates a despotism to itself, that its sway becomes
VOL. II. — NO. IV.
55


434
[April,
Days from a Diary.
evil. Literary men incline to this extreme; their thoughts
tyrannize over their actions ; they think not to live, but
live solely to think. But the man then lives when all his
powers are in willing and contemporaneous exercise; when
feeling, thought, purpose, are instant, consentaneous acts.
And this entireness of life is the condition and essence of
Virtue and Genius.
Two orders of men there are, each fulfilling high trusts
to the world, but serving it in diverse manners. Of the
one, the world inquires after his word — his thought, of the
other, his intent — his act; and both are its redeemers and
saviours — breathing the breath of life into the multitudes.
* * * * * * * *
October.
XV. REFORM. An Epistle.
10th October, 1841.
DEAR SIR,
In addressing you now, I obey an impulse, long felt, to
express my sense of the exceeding import of your labors
on the well being of mankind; and to declare, moreover,
my pleasure in a contemporary who dares, without fear or
stint, utter his word to the world. And to this I am urged
not from a sense of intellectual benefit merely, but of hu-
manity and justice. For I know how sweet and invigorat-
ing is a timely and discerning sympathy to him who suffers
for declaring truths above the apprehension of his time;
and can appreciate that magnanimous self-respect which
appeals greatly from the injustice of contemporaries to the
wiser sight of posterity.
We live when Reform slips glibly off the tongues of
men, and when almost every vital interest has made to
itself zealots, desperate almost in its advocacy, and forged
cumbrous weapons to mitigate the evils in the world. But,
to me, these popular measures seem quite external, inade-
quate; and the charlatanry, and cant of reform, is most
offensive. This puling zeal — this shallow philanthropy -
this wit of the sense, and not of the soul — will neither
heal nor save us. The change must orignate with-
in and work outwards. The inner being must first
be reorganized. And the method of regeneration must be


1842.]
435
Days from a Diary.
learned, not by prescription, but from Experience — from
self-conquest — self-insight: its law revealed by fidelity to
the spiritual constitution. Renovation of being must pre-
cede all outward reformation of organs and functions, and
the whole man be first sanctified by the wholesome dis-
cipline of a true Life.
Hence reform begins truly with individuals, and is con-
ducted through the simplest ministries of families, neigh-
borhoods, fraternities quite wide of associations, and
institutions. The true reformer initiates his 'labor in
the precincts of private life, and makes it, not a set of
measures, not an utterance, not a pledge, merely, but a
life ; and not an impulse of a day, but commensurate
with human existence; a tendency towards perfection
of being.
Viewed in this wise, your statements of the Doctrine
and Regimen of Life, assume great importance in my
thought. They demonstrate, and on a scale coördinate
with facts, the art of moulding man — of planting the
new Eden — of founding the new institutions. They shed
a palpable, practical light over the economies of the house-
hold — the family — the field — and followed in all their
bearings, must give to life, a fullness of comfort, health,
purity, inspiration, piety, peace. They lead men to a re-
recovery of his innocency — reinstate him, a primeval
creature, in his original estate on the earth, in harmony
with nature, the animal world, his fellows, himself, his
Creator: and make sure both the redemption and conserva-
tion of the human race — even as man's hope has divined,
his faith affirmed, bis hand recorded in the Scriptures of
all Time.
These, I conceive, are results, to which the New Ideas,
espoused now by living minds, and traced more specially
by yourself in their vital bearings are tending. A sublimer
faith is quickening the genius of men; and philosophy, sci-
ence, literature, art, liſe, shall be created anew by its heav-
enly inspirations.
I acknowledge, with thanks, though late, the gift of
your Lecture, and learn with hope of your intention of print-
ing soon your book on the Relations of the Hebrew Ritual
to the Constitution of Man. It will deal another and sure
blow, at the superstitions and usages of the popular faith.


436
[April,
Days from a Diary.
all lavate
I wish it were in my power to urge its claims in prospect
on the attention of men ; but I am less in favor with the
public than yourself even ; and shall possibly lose the
privilege of availing myself of the lights of your research-
es — bread, shelter, raiment, being scarce yielded me, by
the charity and equity of my time. But,
. I am the more
Your friend and contemporary.
the
91,
XVI. PYTHAGOREAN SAYINGS.
It is either requisite to be silent or to say something bet-
ter than silence.
11. .
It is impossible that he can be free who is a slave to his
passions.
III.
Every passion of the soul is hostile to its salvation.
iv.
We should avoid and amputate by every possible arti-
fice, by fire and sword, and all various contrivances, from
the body, disease ; from the soul, ignorance; from the
belly, luxury; from a city, sedition ; from a house, discord;
and at the same time from all things, immoderation.
Expel sluggishness from all your actions; opportunity is
the only good in every action.
vi.
Do those things which you judge to be beautiful, though
in doing them you should be without renown. For the
rabble is a bad judge of a good action. Despise therefore
the reprehension of those whose praise you despise.
VII.
It is better to live lying in the grass confiding in divinity
and yourself, than to lie in a golden bed with purturba-
tion.


1842.]
437
Marie van Oosterwich.
VIII.
A statue indeed standing on its basis, but a worthy
man on the subject of his deliberate choice, ought to be
immovable.
ix.
It is not death but a bad life that destroys the soul.
X.
.
The gods are not the causes of evils, and diseases and
calamities of the body are the seeds of intemperance.
X1.
The soul is illuminated by the recollection of divinity.
XII.
When the wise man opens his mouth, the beauties of
his soul present themselves to view, like the statues of a
temple. — JAMBLIChus's Life of Pythagoras.
A. B. Alcott.
MARIE VAN OOSTERWICH.
TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH.
“Why do you blush in speaking to me of him, Marie ?
Is it that you think no longer that the love of the arts
should be your only love ?"
.“ Always, Master, but this young man has talent, and I
could have wished that you would have accepted him as a
pupil,"
“ On his account only, Marie?".
The young girl bent her head, and the old man contin-
ued, kissing her forehead, -
“My noble child, I regret having forbid him entrance to
my studio, for I love thee too much, to give thee pain even
in the person of another.”
And without waiting Marie's answer, he who spoke thus,
laying aside a palette and brushes which he held, hastened


438
[April,
Marie van Oosterwich.
to the door of the studio, and half-opening it, called seve-
ral times to a person who was descending the stairs.
This Master so paternal, this old man who understood
so well a young girl's heart, was Jean David van Heem, a
celebrated painter of Utrecht, to whom all the sovereigns
of Europe had sent patents of nobility, and who excelled
in painting flowers, and the precious vases in which they
bloomed.
The artist had founded at Utrecht a celebrated school,
where many pupils came to form themselves. The Mas-
ter's eye divined genius even in the bud, and the pupil
who possessed this gift was initiated by him into all the
mysteries of the art.
But David van Heem had been a long time without find-
ing any one, in whom he hoped to live again. He saw
that he was growing old, and he felt a sadness mixed with
pride, that he could not have formed a pupil who should
equal him ; it seemed to him that he should die without
posterity. One day, while finishing a masterpiece, this sad
thought drew a tear from his eye. While musing thus, there
was a light knock at the door of his studio, and one of his
servants announced to him that a minister of the reformed
church, accompanied by a young girl, asked to speak with
him. The painter quitted his work, and ordered the
strangers to be introduced. He rose to receive a man
forty years of age, who led by the hand a young girl, who
appeared to be about fifteen. This man had a grave de-
meanor, at once noble and modest. He was habited en-
tirely in black, and his unornamented dress announced the
ecclesiastic. His calm and serene aspect seemed a reflec-
tion of the Gospel, whose holy doctrines he professed.
He was the father of the beautiful child whom he led.
The young girl wore a robe of brown merino, which fitted
closely to her finely rounded figure, and her beautiful fair
hair was imprisoned in one of those coifs of silk and black
lace, worn by the wives and daughters of the Dutch citizens.
Her young face, around which clustered some golden
ringlets, shone forth yet more fresh and rosy under the
black covering of this nun's hood. She kept her large
blue eyes timidly cast down ; she raised them at a word
from her father, and smiling, showed her small pearly
teeth, of dazzling whiteness. This angelic face attracted


1842.] Marie van Oosterwich...
439
the notice of David van Heem, who took the hand of the
young girl kindly, and asked her father what he desired of
him. The Protestant minister took from under his
daughter's arm a portfolio of drawings, and having opened
it, drew from it several sketches which he showed to the
great artist.
6 The child whom you see there has painted these flow-
ers, without a master, notwithstanding the prohibition of
her mother, who would have preferred seeing her at her
needlework. For myself I have opposed her taste for the
arts, for I thought that the life of a woman to be calm and
happy should be retired, that the éclat of talent became
not a young maiden, and that especially for her, there is
less joy than grief in the applause of this world. But her in-
clinations have triumphed over my efforts; all the flowers
of the field have lived again under her inexperienced hand,
which divined drawing, without having learned it; and see-
ing her imitations equal nature, I said to myself, it was
her will not be fatal to her.”
“Say that it will make her glory and her fortune," cried
David van Heem, surveying with a beaming face the
sketches before him. The child who has painted these
flowers is destined to be the ornament of her country.”
“ Approach Marie,” said her father, happy in spite of
himself at the future promise to his daughter; — " ask
our greatest painter to receive you as a pupil, and hence-
forth love and respect him as a father,"
“ And from this day,” replied David van Heem, embrac-
ing the young girl; and pressing affectionately the hand
of the Protestant minister, “ this child shall be treated in
my house like my own child, and I will unfold to her all
the mysteries of my art.”
Some tears fell on Marie's cheeks, but she found no
words to express her gratitude. The family of David van
Heem became hers, his daughters treated her like a
younger sister. Surrounded by love, encouraged by sweet
praises, it seemed to her that she already tasted the first
fruits of that artist-life, which her master had prophesied
for her.
David van Heem understood the tender and enthusi-
astic soul of Marie. He poured out on her all his paternal


440
[April,
Marie van Oosterwich.
bounty. That she might feel less the absence of her fam-
ily, and that she might devote herself with ardor to the
study of painting, he developed in her that love of art,
which had possessed her while a mere child, and soon the
whole world concentred itself for the young girl within
the compass of the studio, where her labors were mingled
with those of her master. David van Heem blessed Heaven
that he had found a pupil worthy of him. Sometimes the
old man took pleasure in making Marie finish one of his
own works, and he was proud as a father, when the ama-
teurs to whom he showed his picture could not distinguish
Marie's touch from his own. Under such a master, who,
far from dreading her rivalry, encouraged it, the progress
of Marie was rapid. After one year's study, she had
mastered the whole science, aud equalled the painter in
execution ; she already knew enough to dispense with les-
sons, but David could not dispense with her. She was the
joy and pride of his age, and often in her bursts of grat-
itude, she promised the old man never to quit him.
The studio of David van Heem presented a charming
picture. The noble old man, palette in hand, standing
before a great canvass, destined for some sovereign of
Europe, was surrounded by his daughters, good and simple
women, who conversed gaily with Marie. The young in-
spired artist made the flowers bloom on the same canvass
with her master. How beautiful she was thus, this young
girl of seventeen! Her blue eyes always so sweet, glowed
then with all the fire of genius ; her cheeks bright with the
animation of labor contrasted with the whiteness of her
neck, upon which her hair fell luxuriantly. Her figure
was of a flexibility full of elegance, and her delicate rosy
hands, which held the palette and brushes, seemed to have
been formed for a model. She was a wholly poetical being,
who realized for her old master the muse of painting.
Baskets of natural flowers, which served for models, ex-
haled their perfunes; precious vases and antique bronzes
from Italy charmed the eye. The portraits of all the sov-
ereigns of Europe, suspended from the walls, attracted the
attention. Among them was preëminent the noble head of
Louis the Fourteenth, full of grandeur. The king of
France bad himself sent his portrait to David van Heem,
and other princes had followed his example, thus the studio


1842.)
441
Marie van Oosterwich.
of the painter was adorned with giſts, which royalty be-
stows upon genius, as from power to power.
How noble was this artist life! how serene and graceful
the interior of the studio! Sometimes the happy laborers
were interrupted by illustrious visitors, who came to
render homage to their talent, and purchase their paintings.
Then only did any news from without reach this sanctuary ;
generally the world was nothing to them in this peace-
ful happiness. Often Marie sang with her master some
solemn and affecting chant, which the daughters of David
van Heem repeated in chorus. They laughed, they played,
they admired an effect of light which the brush sought to
produce, and the present day flowed on as happy as the
past, and the morrow brought the same happiness.
Three years of Marie's life had thus passed away; three
years, which had brought forth in her soul only pure and
calm sentiments, or those quickening inspirations of art,
which kindle the soul, without exhausting it. It is true
that the poetical organization of Marie was tempered by
that transparent and slightly cold nature, which makes the
heart of a German woman beat only by halves. Marie's
thoughts were lost in her musings, and asked nothing be-
yond. Among the pupils of David van Heem, no other
had been admitted to his intimacy, no other had obtained
the praises of the master, or had been distinguished by
him. Marie confounded them in her indifference, her look
never rested on any of them, and she could say with Shak-
speare's Miranda, that she had never seen a man.
On the evening previous to the day when our story be-
gins, Marie was painting near her master, when the door
of the studio opened. A young man asked to speak with
David van Heem.
“ Enter, my friend,” said the artist kindly. “ You
are not unknown to me,” continued he, after having looked
at him; “I have seen you before in my studio.”
“ Yes, and you took no notice of me," replied the young
man with assurance, “therefore I take the liberty to come
and recommend myself by showing you this sketch."
And he placed before the master triumphantly a very re-
markable flower-painting.
“You paint boldly; with strength, but too quickly;
there is somewhat of the furioso in your work.”
VOL. II. —NO. IV.
56


442
[April,
Marie van Oosterwich.
“ Master, that is because I am lazy.” .
“ Singular explanation of the fault with which I reproach
you! It is from laziness then that you work too quick-
ܕܝ ܕ ly
“Yes, master, I work quickly, that I may do nothing af-
terwards."
" And what charm do you find in inaction?"
" When I repose, I travel, I dream, I drink.”
At this last word, Marie raised her head, and cast a look
of disdainful astonishment upon him who had just uttered
it. He continued without appearing troubled, and address-
ing himself to her ;
“Yes, mademoiselle, does that surprise you? does that
seem strange to you ? A half intoxication inspires in my
brain enchanting dreams; then I am surrounded by paint-
ings more exquisite than those of our great master; I con-
template monuments which defy the most magnificent
monuments of antiquity ; I love and am beloved by young
girls nearly as beautiful as you, mademoiselle.”
He said this with assurance, fixing his long black eyes
full of boldness on Marie's look, which immediately fell.
“We have nothing to do with that, my boy,” said David
van Heem ; “you have talent, if you will apply yourself
more closely. You can acquire some day fortune and re-
nown.”
“Let fortune go; as for renown, it is, you see, like the
fog, which passes over our rivers ; I should love as well the
water which flows beneath, though, to say the truth, water
and I are open enemies."
“Truce to these vulgar pleasantries,” said David van
Heem with severity. "If you wish that I should find
you worthy to be admitted into my studio, you must re-
form your language and conduct. Nature has well en-
dowed you ; but there is much yet to be done to aid
nature."
"It is truly admirable !" cried Marie, who had ap-
proached some moments before to look at the young man's
sketch.
And as if speaking to herself, she added in a low tone,
-“I have never done anything so well.”
"Do you hear that praise ?” said David; "it should
make you very proud, for she who has pronounced it is
Marie von Oosterwich, one of our greatest painters."


1842.]
443
Marie van Oosterwich.
“I knew that,” replied the young man ; “but that
which I was ignorant of, and which is worth more, is that
Marie is without doubt the most beautiful woman in the
world."
Speaking thus, he looked eagerly at the young girl.
“ Is not he a child !” said David, smiling ; not being able
to conceal the paternal satisfaction which he felt in the
praises of Marie ; — “I like your frankness, my friend ;
talk less, be modest, and return to work in my studio,” ad-
ded the good master, tapping him lightly on the shoulder.
6. But what is your name ? "
6 Guillaume van Aelst.”
“Ah! I knew your uncle ; a painter of talent, but too
fond of the tavern, and of doing nothing."
" It is a family failing."
“But which can be rooted out,” replied David; “prom-
ise me to drink no more, and to renounce the 'far niente,'
a bad herb brought from Italy.”
“Here I shall have no longer need of the intoxication
that wine gives,” replied Guillaume, glancing again at
Marie ; “ beautiful dreams will come of themselves; but with
these dreams bow sweet will be the far niente.' Labor
opposes thought in its vague excursions."
• Bah, bah!” interrupted David.
“ Cannot one labor while dreaming?" said Marie in her
turn. These were the only words that she uttered. They
escaped from her as the involuntary expression of hope.
“ If one must work, to please you, master, I will work,"
said Guillaume, eagerly; and his look addressed itself to
Marie.
“ Well! to-morrow ; I will retain your sketch to examine
it more closely.”
The young man bowed and retreated slowly, turning
his head at each step; he did not meet Marie's eye.
“What a charming figure that young man has,” cried the
old painter.
“What a fine talent!” said Marie.
“Very well,” said David with an arch smile ; “I make
the remark which you should have made, and you that
which became me; you speak like the old man, and I like
the young girl.”
“ What do you mean, master ?"


444
[April,
Marie van Oosterwich.
“ That you should rather remark the figure of the young
man than his talent, and I rather his talent than his fig-
ure.”
And the happy old man laughed at his own words, and
at the embarrassment of the young girl.
“But,” said she, “I noticed both."
“And in that case, what do you think of them ?"
“I thought his face agreeable, and his talent wonderful.
These flowers, are they not supernatural ? ” said she,
pointing to Guillaume's sketch. “ This cactus, with its purple
flowers, its firm and pointed leaves; these aloes, with their
alabaster bunches, bristling with thorns, are they not admi-
rable? We should say they were preserved at Amsterdam
in the greenhouses of the Stadtholder.”
“How !” said the master, more gaily, “those great
black eyes, veiled with drooping lashes, surmounted by two
arches of ebony, that pure and intellectual brow, that thick
brown hair in wavy masses, that mouth with its coquettish
moustache, adorned with dazzling teeth, that elegant figure,
which a black velvet doublet displays to advantage, does
not all that make a charming cavalier ? Ah! ah ! ah!
you see that I have good eyes.”
Marie smiled not; she threw herself with emotion upon
the paternal bosom of David, and said to him, half trem-
bling;
"Master, do you wish then that I should love this young
man?"
“ And why not, if he should become one of our great-
est painters, if I can render him worthy of thee ? From
to-morrow we will begin his education.” Saying these
words, he went out on business, and left Marie with a new
thought, with a sentiment never before awakened in her
soul. She understood nothing of the unknown reverie,
which took possession of her; she could not explain to
herself why she had abandoned her brushes, and remained
pensive before Guillaume's sketch. This sketch was very
beautiful. She had at first admired it enthusiastically, but
she now saw it no longer ; instead of those Asiatic flow-
ers, with their brilliant colors and their gigantic forms,
which the young painter had designedly chosen to devel-
op the bold and vivid touches of his brush; Marie saw
behind them the passionate and expressive face of Guil-


1842.]
445
Marie van Oosterwich.
laume. She remained thus many hours, absorbed in a
kind of inward contemplation. When David van Heem
reëntered the studio, he gently reproved her idleness, for,
looking at her work, he perceived that she had not done
anything since his departure.
“Are you going to be like Guillaume ? Are you going
to imitate his idleness, and dream so as to do nothing ?"
said the good painter laughing.
“Oh! to-morrow I will atone for the time lost," replied
she, with emotion, “but to-day I am indisposed.”
And the poor child blushed; she thought she had de-
ceived, yet she told the truth ; she was not well; an emotion
at once deep and quiet threw her body and soul into a
soft languor. For the first time in her life she was silent
and pensive at evening, and at night her fair lashes were
not closed ; this was her first sleepless night.
Is love then a grief, that from its first awakening it
should express itself in sadness and tears? Its passionate
transports, its ardent extasies, its most intoxicating felicities
are mixed with dark shadows and melancholy smiles. We
do not enjoy this intense happiness. We dream, we desire,
we call, and believe that we seize it, when we grasp only
its phantom; and when we think that we have lost it, we
weep as if we had possessed it. It is but a celestial mir-
age, but is worth more than all the cases on the earth.
Often he who causes this deceitful vision is ignorant,
or is unworthy of it; then the soul which deceives itself is
the prey of its own dreams, and is consumed in torments
of its own creation. Love, that tyrannical sentiment, often
enchains hearts, that nothing should draw together. It
fixes the virgin thoughts of the young maiden upon the
impure man, who profanes them; it unites a calm, sweet
life to a stormy and licentious being; it casts devotion to
egotism, as a martyr to the lions of the circus.
Marie had none of those forebodings which poison love;
but she wondered in her innocence that her thoughts
could rest on a young man, of such shameless manners
and speech. He was handsome, but of an ignoble beauty ;
he had talent, but presumption without true pride; he was
full of vanity; he was not truly an artist, an inspired artist,
at once proud and modest. He believed not in his own
genius, and had received it from God, without compre-


446
[April,
Marie van Oosterwich.
hending its greatness. Marie felt all this vaguely; but in
the impetuosity of her heart, stronger than her reason and
her purity, she accused herself of judging too harshly and
too quickly one, who, after all, had received from heaven
two marks of special favor, beauty and genius.
On the morrow, Marie's cheeks were pale; yet she had
regained her calm exterior, and painted with her master,
conversing calmly; yet she felt a vague uneasiness ; it was
past noon and Guillaume had not arrived.
"Our young man is late," said her master, as if he had
divined her thought. “He has not boasted falsely, he is
indolent and careless.”
Marie did not reply.
“I have made some inquiries concerning him," contin-
ued David van Heem; “they say that he is disorderly in
his habits, that he works only when urged by necessity;
but that, like the Neapolitan lazzarone, living is for him
doing nothing."
"He has confessed to us all his faults,” said Marie," and
you had hope of correcting them.”
“I have reflected on it, and it appears difficult to me."
“What! even before having undertaken it?"
“ Poor child !” murmured David. She remained silent,
and appeared to muse sadly.
Before admitting Guillaume into the sanctuary of his
studio, David van Heem had made inquiries concerning
his character. At first he had been won in spite of him-
self, by his frankness, the power of his talent, and his
handsome face; but perceiving that Marie had received
the same impressions, he wished to assure himself if he
who caused them was really worthy of them. The good
old man thought of Marie's future life; he pictured it to
himself as calm and brilliant as her present life; and he
would have reproached himself with treason, if he had not
secured the happiness of the angel, sent by God to his old
age. He had learned in the city, that Guillaume, an un-
disciplined child, had quitted his family at the age of
twelve years. Vagabond and idle, he cultivated the talent
with which nature had endowed him, merely to gratify his
passions, wine and play. Hardly had he attained his
nineteenth year, when he was already cited at Utrecht,
where he had been but six months, as a frequenter of tav-
erns.


1842.]
447
Marie van Oosterwich.
Learning Guillaume's conduct, David van Heem regret-
ted having too quickly and easily consented to give the
young painter private lessons, and to admit him into the
chaste society of his dear Marie. He almost reproached
himself with having been imprudent, and he was thinking
how to repair his fault, when Guillaume appeared. He
bowed with a careless air, his hair was in disorder, his dress
retained the scent of wine, his appearance bore marks of
having just left the inn. Marie dared not look at him,
and David gave him a scrutinizing glance.
“I have made you wait,” said he unconcernedly; " par-
don, master ; but before immuring myself in a cloister, I
was obliged to bid adieu to my companions; and I have
just sworn to them eternal friendship, glass in hand.”
“It was a young man of talent, and not a sot, that I :
expected to admit to my studio,” said the old man, fixing
on Guillaume a stern look.
The young man sustained this look with assurance, and
replied smiling ; -
“Do you think, master, that the love of wine prevented
Schoorel and Mabuse from being great men ?”
“I think,” replied David half vexed, “ that we should
imitate their talent, and not their vice. Rubens, the eagle
of painting, had as much grandeur in his sentiments as in
his genius, and was never sullied by those ignoble habits,
that you call relaxations. If the life of Mabuse tempt you,
choose a master who resembles him, I shall not suit you."
" Is it a dismissal that you give me?”
“ Well! yes, go,” said David with some emotion ; " our
peaceful habits are not yours.”
“I could have accommodated myself to them, and found
a charm in them."
The old painter shook his head.
“ It is well,” replied Guillaume haughtily ; “I will take
my sketch, and bid you adieu. Adieu, Mademoiselle."
Marie answered not; she did not raise her head; she
feared lest he might see a tear fall from her long lashes.
But when Guillaume had gone, she attempted to justify
him; and it was then that the good painter, who could not
resist one of Marie's desires, blaming himself for his se-
verity, as he had at first for his indulgence, recalled the
young man, who had already passed the staircase. Guil-


448
[April,
Marie van Oosterwich.
under his Plant, which fired by his work."
laume returned slowly, and reëntered the studio trium-
phantly.
“You have, thought better of it ? ” said he, “and I
think that you are right; I am worth more than I appear
to be, and shall perhaps do you honor.”
And without waiting a word from the Master, he placed
his sketch on an easel, and began to paint. Then his
companions seemed to have disappeared from before
him; he painted with ardor, with rapture; one would
have thought him mastered by his work.
“ The plant, which he reproduced from memory, grew
under his brushes, as from the hand of nature. Marie and
David van Heem looked at him with admiration. When
he had finished according to his fancy his sketch, already
far advanced, he pushed back the easel with his foot, threw
down his brushes and maul-stick, and crossing his arms, he
remained motionless, contemplating Marie. Labor had
animated his features and stamped them with nobleness
and inspiration. His black eye, calm and radiant, had a
penetrating glance, which attracted the notice of the young
girl; without wishing it, Marie looked at Guillaume, and
felt happy in seeing him so handsome. Guillaume smiled
like a man in ecstasy ; but soon his face lost by degrees
every trace of enthusiasm ; a kind of languor overspread
his features, and his head sank on his breast, his eyes
closed, he appeared to sleep.
“He has fainted,” cried Marie, with a kind of fright,
“He is asleep,” said David van Heem calmly.
"It is the fatigue of labor and inspiration," added
Marie, almost with respect.
" It is the fatigue of his voluptuous dreams," murmured
the master, who had observed Guillaume, with the sagacity
of an old man.
And leading Marie away, he left the young man asleep
in his studio.
After some hours of deep sleep, Guillaume awoke, and
taking the picture which he had finished during the day,
went out. He felt the appetite of twenty years; and as
he did not need to pass the night in sleep, he passed it in
good cheer. The following morning, leaving the tavern,
he went to a broker, where he sold for some florins the
masterpiece, which he had finished the preceding evening.


1842.]
449
Marie van Oosterwich.
The landlord of the inn waited at the door, and took
from Guillaume's hands the money that had just been
counted out to him. Remaining without resources for the
day, Guillaume thought on working anew, and regained the
house of David van Heem; it seemed yet buried in sleep ;
no sound was heard; but as the gate of the garden which
fronted the house was ajar, Guillaume repaired to the
studio, where everything was still quiet.
He entered by stealth, and stood some minutes without
perceiving Marie, who was deeply engaged in a prayer-
book. She herself had not heard the sound of his steps,
and Guillaume remained contemplating her, without her
raising her head, — she had ceased reading, and remained
seated on one of those splendid arm-chairs of ebony, with
gothic carvings, so precious in our times. Dressed in a
wbite robe, her arms and shoulders half bare, her hair flow-
ing in golden ringlets over her calm brow and pale cheeks ;
thus leaning her head on her hand, sad and pensive, she
resembled one of those ethereal beings sung by Moore;
celestial beings who suspected not our miseries, and were
initiated into them by love. Marie had passed a tranquil
night; the evening before Guillaume had appeared to her
a noble and earnest young man, full of genius and enthu-
siasm for the arts; she no longer repelled his image ; the
last words which her master uttered had not reached her
ear, and had she heard them, she would not have under-
stood their import. She loved Guillaume, and she knew
not that she ought to forbid herself to love him. He was
a brother, whom God had sent to her, and at this thought
she prayed for him. Suddenly she raised her blue eye, so
clear and pure, but she did not see Guillaume. Her look
rested on the trellised window, near which she was sitting,
and she stretched her hand out mechanically to pluck one
of the climbing bell-flowers, which formed on the lattice a
mosaic of flowers and verdure. Not being able to reach it,
she rose to gather it. The breeze of spring breathing
through the trees of the garden into the studio, made
Marie's dress flutter, and waving the hair from her face,
imprinted on her cheeks a rosy tint as delicate as the flower
of the bind-weed which she twisted in her fingers. The
sunbeams sparkled over her head like a golden halo. She
had an expression so holy, that one must have blessed and
VOL. II. — NO. IV.
57


450
[April,
Marie van Oosterwich.
adored her with reverence; but Marie's beauty was at the
same time so youthful and moving that it inflamed Guil-
laume's passions. He rushed towards the young girl, and
surrounding her with his arms, as if to prevent her flight,
cried ; " Oh ! Marie, how beautiful you are!” — and he
imprinted a kiss on her arm. The innocent girl did
not refuse him ; she looked at him with happiness, and
said to him without blushing; “It is you, ah! it is you,
Guillaume, who are beautiful!" And their looks mingled
with transport. Marie became pale and cold; Guillaume
pressed his burning lips to hers. Then, as if a mysterious
and sudden revelation had penetrated her heart, she freed
herself from Guillaume's embrace; then returning to her-
self with dignity, in her turn she touched with her lips
the forehead of the young man, and said to him with a
trembling voice; -“Guillaume, you are my betrothed,
you are the first whose lips have touched mine ; Guillaume
you will be the last.” And tottering with emotion, she
fell fainting
Fright made Guillaume forget that this young girl was
in his power; fear made him respectful. Seeing her so
pale and cold, terror seized him ; he thought that he had
killed her. He went to seek assistance, when David van
Heem appeared.
Divining the truth, and even more, he seemed to regain
the strength of his youth to hurl down Guillaume, and
drive him from the studio.
"Miserable wretch, what have you done?” cried he,
raising his arm against him.
« Nothing,' answered Guillaume, in a tone of frankness.
- I love her.”
“ You love her, and have insulted her?” cried the old
painter; “Go; I will know the truth from her.”
Guillaume departed. Marie quickly recovered. With the
anxiety of a father, David van Heem dared not at first
interrogate her. But when he saw that the blood again
colored her cheeks, he folded her to his heart, and drying
a tear, he demanded from her instantly the truth. She
answered by tears ; then the avowal of her love escaped
from her in these words; "I love him and I have told him
so."
“ And he ?” replied the old master with vivacity.


1842.]
451
Marie van Oosterwich.
"Oh! he, he loves me also,” said she; and she related
frankly the scene which we have described.
David comprehended this spontaneous development of a
feeling which we have formerly known ; but he foresaw
all the abandonment and danger of it. He made Marie
understand that she ought to resist, not the transports of
her heart, which would be always pure, but Guillaume's
desires, which might mislead her. He made her feel that,
which natural modesty and innocence reveal but by halves;
that love ought to be concealed in the heart of a woman,
until the day, when a boly sanction should come,
to perpetuate by consecrating it. She understood that
until then to avow her love would be to profane it,
and she promised her master, that without retracting the
words which had escaped from her in her innocence, she
would never express 10 Guillaume what she felt for him,-
“ until ” she added, “ you shall tell me. You may love
him, and I shall feel that this love is no longer discordant
with my other sentiments; for, I must confess to you,
master, I should not have chosen this love ; it has come to
me, it astonishes me, it is contrary to my nature ; but I
resist in vain; it triumphs; it intoxicates me, and over-
throws the peace of my life.”
“ It is not love that you must conquer, replied David; it
is he who is the cause of it that must be changed ; there
is good in Guillaume, and if he is to become my child by
being united to thee, I would treat him henceforth as a
son. Go, call him, let him resume his labor. You shall
see him every day, at every hour, but never without me.”
Marie understood the holy thoughts of the old man, and
fell at his kness to bless him. Then, by his order, she re-
called Guillaume, who was impatiently pacing the garden;
he cleared the staircase at a bound, and rushing into the
studio, said with an overflowing heart; — “Well! dear
Marie, are you better ?".
“ So well,” said David calmly, “ that she is going to re-
sume her brush ; come, my children, both to your work."
Guillaume was reassured by Marie's demeanor, by her
sweet smile, by her lieightened color ; he dared not think
of dissimulation towards the old painter. Emboldened by
the presence of her master, Marie addressed Guillaume first.
“ But where is your picture? I have not been able to
find it," said she to him.


452
(April,
Marie van Oosterwich.
Guillaume blushed.
6 Go, seek it, if you have left it at home,” said David van
Heem; “I have apoken of it to a inerchant, who will give
you a good price for it.”
“Master,” murmured Guillaume, making an effort over
himself, and abruptly endeavoring to disembarrass himself,
" there is no longer time; I have sold it from necessity.”
David van Heem did not reproach him; but he continued
with a kindness that Guillaume could not explain :
“My child, that shall be so no longer; I wish that you
should live henceforth at my house ; you will find there all
the pleasures of life, and you can then labor for glory, and
not for those miserable florins, which the brokers will pay
for your talent."
This indulgent kindness confounded Guillaume; he
looked at Marie to know the meaning of it; the face of
the young girl expressed gratitude, and her tears silently
blessed the provident affection of the old man.
The characters of the greater part of the Flemish paint.
ers are a curious study; there are those who unite to a
creative force and richness an uncultivated and slothful
mind, incessantly stupefied by the intoxication into which
their gross passions plunge them. Unpolished diamonds
with a rough surface, these odd geniuses have only sparks
of greatness ; their art makes them touch the sublime, their
nature, the base ; and when youth has consumed this fleet-
ing fire of an imperfect intellect, they die out, squalid and
besotted, on the table of an inn. Guillaume was not yet
so bad ; but the noble David van Heem, who had seen
among his schoolſellows examples of the irregularities and
blemishes of genius, discovered with aflright the low tend-
encies of the young painter; he was born with an instinct
for good, but he had never had the conviction of it. Some-
times he was moved by the example of a great action or a
great sentiment, but he himsell never conceived the inspira-
tion or even the first thought of it. Having from his infancy
broken the salutary and holy restraints of family ties, he had
delivered himself up without restraint to all the fancies which
possessed him, and the habits, to which he had accustomed
himself, bound him all the more strongly, that he felt a
kind of pride in his independence. Guillaume gathered
more from his sensations than from his soul. Beauty moved


1842.]
453
Marie van Oosterwich.
him, a word of love made him start; the sight of deep
grief and a word of despair wrung from the heart would
have found him cold. He had an occasional vivacity,
which came from the blood; but he was so insensible to
the good, that he never had a spontaneous transport for
glory or virtue. Already his fine head became less fine;
retaining yet the life of youth and health, it lost by de-
grees that intellectual expression, so charming in the hu-
man face.
Why does not God grant to woman, in the hour when
he sends her love, one of his piercing glances, which search
to their depths misery and vice! Why do so many trusting,
ingenuous souls yield themselves up fatally to the impure
spirits, that will profane them! Light fails them, while
seeking for happiness; but it shines out and seems to taunt
them in the abyss of sorrow, into which they are cast, de-
prived of her. Marie was the soul; Guillaume was mat-
ter. He loved her for her beauty ; she loved him for the
faith which she had in his genius, and the sentiments,
which she thought must flow from it. But, enlightened
by David, this faith had become less blind. Marie compre-
hended that Guillaume's nature was not identical with
hers, and she feared the same inequality in their loves as in
their tastes; yet so powerful was the charm which attracted
her to Guillaume, that she felt a deep joy in thinking that
he was about to become the guest of his master, and the
constant companion of her labors.
During the first days of his instalment in the house of
the old painter, Guillaume did not quit the studio. He
had begun a new sketch, but he painted with difficulty ; —
his slothful nature triumphed over his feeble will. He
passed hours in looking at Marie, in replying to the words
of the young girl by gestures of love; he could find no
other expressions, for he had nothing in his soul. She,
happy in seeing him, conversed gaily, in accents full of
ardor and vivacity; she spoke art, tenderness, happiness.
She painted with more sentiment and enthusiasm ; love
seemed to redouble her powers, whilst it had stupefied those
of the young man. Did a direct and burning word of love
escape from Marie, if it struck the heart of Guillaume, it
did not draw forth a feeling, expressed by a tender and re-
spectful word ; the lips of the young man moved, but it


454
[April,
Marie van Oosterwich.
was a kiss that they would give ; he inclined towards the
young girl, as if to embrace her; loving yet fearful she
then fled ; her heart was sad and humble, and she wept,
saying, “ He does not love me!” The old painter re-
marked with grief the strife of these two opposite natures,
which were at variance while seeking to approach cach
other; he would have separated them forever, but love,
by a strange fatality, called them together.
The house of David van Heem was a calm sanctuary, a
holy retreat, where virtue secured peace, and the arts that
enthusiasm which embellishes and animates virtue. The
fortune, which the old man had amassed by his talent, af-
forded him an honorable maintenance, but no splendor;
none of that ostentatious luxury, which seeks to produce
a fine outward effect, at the expense of happiness and in-
ward tranquillity. David van Heem's daughters were mar-
ried; he had no one but his adopted child, his dear Marie;
and sometimes he thought in Guillaume's good hours, that
he should be happy to unite them and die surrounded by
their cares. This consoling dream was dissipated each
day; he who had caused it, seemed to seek to destroy it.
The hospitality of the old painter seemed burdensome
to Guillaume. He found at David's house a plentiful
table, but the strong liquors, to which he was accustomed
and which brutalized him, never appeared there. At
evening some distinguished men of the city, some illustri-
ous travellers, some prince passing through Utrecht came
to visit the great painter. They conversed, they became
interested in some question of art, and never to turn the
conversation, did they have recourse to play, that other bad
passion, all powerful in the soul of Guillaume. Enthralled
by Marie's beauty, on which he hung enraptured each day,
he resisted during several weeks the call of his inveterate
habits; but he could not conquer them; he had no resolu-
tion. He had finished a second picture ; it was not a
masterpiece, like the first; it was a work in which the life
was wanting. One evening he took away this picture and
did not appear at supper. Marie feared some misfortune
for him, and wept. His old master foresaw some fault,
and remained sad and silent. It grew late. They waited
in vain for Guillaume; he did not come.
“ Take courage, my noble child," said her master, leaving


1842.]
455
Marie van Oosterwich.
have rejected by it, and not be following days
h love, for involuntari brow. Upe magnificeed
her; “ this man is unworthy of thee.” And these words,
which struck her heart, tortured ber all the night. She would
have rejected an affection so deep and tyrannical, but she
felt mastered by it, and not being able to stifle it, she
abandoned the attempt. The following day, David van
Heem went out, to attend the French ambassador, who
had summoned him. Marie entered the deserted studio,
pale and disheartened ; life seemed to her sad and weary.
She recalled to mind sadly the time when she saw the days
flow on for her so lightly and joyfully ; she stopped before
the picture which she had finished the preceding evening ;
it was a crown of orange flowers and white roses, a nup-
tial crown, destined for the daughter of Madame de la Val-
liere, for M’lle de Blois, who was to marry the Prince de
Conti.
Although at war with their country, Louis XIV
protected the Dutch artists, and had ordered this
picture from Marie van Oosterwich, whose fame had
reached even the court of France. The young girl had
done it with love, for in tracing under her brush this virgin
garland, she thought involuntarily on the day, when one
similar should encircle her pure brow. Upon an urn of
chased gold, Marie had draped one of those magnificent
veils of Flanders lace, whose wavy shadows also adorned
a likeness of the bride. Her brush had given all the deli-
cacy of the rich design of this precious fabric, and upon
this nuptial ornament she had gracefully placed the modest
flowers which completed its decoration. Each orange bud,
each rose in the crown had been to Marie a long and pre-
cious labor; her heart was bound up in this work; she
could not bear to part with it; but the French ambassador
claimed it. A few days and it would be lost to her; she
wished to make a copy, but her strength failed. The
tumultuous feelings which convulsed her soul disturbed the
calmness requisite for those exquisite works of art.
She was still contemplating this crown which she had
made under Guillaume's eye, and thinking on him when
the door of the studio was suddenly thrown open. He
rushed towards her, his hair in disorder, his features dis-
composed, bearing the stamp of despair.
“ Marie, dear Marie," he cried, “ you alone can save me
from dishonor, and I come to you with confidence. I have
elmilar lishe thoualor in trae France. Wich, whooo


456
[April,
Marie van Oosterwich.
been separated from you, one day, from you my guardian
angel, and my evil life has retaken me, body and soul. I
have played, I have lost; I played upon honor, and I
should be abused, trampled under foot, if I did not pay.
They await me, they have given me but a few hours;
Marie, will you save me?".
“What must be done?” said she, happy in seeing him
again, and almost forgetting his offences. “Guillaume, do
you wish that I should speak to iny master ? He is gener-
ous and good ; he will come to our assistance. Do you
wish what I possess? Will my little savings suffice for
you? I have three hundred florins ; take them, Guillaume,
I pray you."
“Alas! it is not enough, said he, making an effort over
himself; I owe eight hundred florins.”
“ Well! I will implore my master, and if he cannot give
you that sum, Guilliaume, I have the diamond Medallion
which the Emperor Leopold sent me; I will pawn it to a
Jew."
“It will be useless, Marie ; the formalities will consume
too much time. I am lost, Marie; adieu, pardon me the
injury that I have done you.”
“Oh! why do you speak of injury?" she cried; I
bless you, for when you are here, I am happy, I suffer no
more. Leave me not again, find happiness with me, and
take my life if thou needest it. Oh! Guillaume, what can
I do to give you peace ?”
And the eyes of the young girl spoke passion. She
pressed the hands of Guillaume with indescribable tender-
ness. At this moment, she forgot that he who implored it
was unworthy of her. The reunion was so sweet an in-
toxication, that all fears were forgotten.
“Marie,” replied Guillaume, “the sacrifice is too great; I
dare not exact it.” .
“My God! Guillaume, would you ask this picture, des-
tined for the King of France, this picture which belongs to
me no longer ? I should break my word, yet I will give it
you."
" What do you say, Marie? Have you divined my mean-
ing? It is this picture which I need, and I dared not con-
fess it to you; the other day, a broker who admired it
valued it at a thousand florins; he said that he would give
eight hundred for it."
Los Moot exact Guilla Francesali


1842.]
457
Marie van Oosterwich.
“ And that is the sum which you have lost? Guil-
laume, take it, I will paint it again from memory, I will
pass nights in labor. Guillaume, go quickly, you will be
too late.”
And as if she had not made an immense sacrifice,
she joyfully put into his hands the masterpiece 'designed
for the daughter of Louis XIV.
“ Marie, I do not deserve your kindness; I am not wor-
thy to bless you; may God reward you!”
He was about to depart, but stopping suddenly, he felt
a kind of remorse.
“I am very guilty, very base; to save myself, I expose
you to the anger of the king of France; what will he say
to the public sale of this picture, destined for his daugh-
ter ? »
“Ah, what are such fears to me? Oh! Guillaume, you
will never understand my love."
And, overcome by emotion, she fell on his neck, and be-
gan to weep; then suddenly freeing herself,
" Go!" she cried, “and may I see you again calm and
free from evil remembrances."
When he had departed, she threw herself on her knees,
and asked pardon of God for her idolatry. Guillaume
hastened rapidly down stairs, and without seeing him,
came full against David van Heem, who had just returned
home. The old painter had recognised him, and when he
found Marie in the studio in tears, he knew all.
“And you have let him carry away that picture,” cried
he with a kind of affright.
“Master, his honor was at stake ; to assist him, I would
have given my life!”
“My child," answered David, deeply afflicted, “misfor-
tune has entered our doors with this man."
“Oh! say rather, happiness!” cried she with passionate
sincerity; "when I see him, I am happy in dying for him.
Even now, it is with joy that I weep. I have given him
repose by a sacrifice which seemed sweet to me.”
“You have given him repose, by destroying that of your
old master. Oh ! Marie, love effaces me from thy heart,
and thy adopted father is no longer anything to thee !”
“ Do not accuse me; can I help loving him ? You have
seen my struggles ; I have striven with my heart; I have
VOL. II. — NO. IV.
58


458
[April,
Marie van Oosterwich.
been conquered ; but this love is not impious; were it
necessary to resign it for you, my father, you know that I
would," said she, with resignation.
“ Marie, the sacrifice which he has wrung from you will
involve us in great misfortunes; the French army is at
our gates; Louis prepares to enter our city as a con-
queror; at the least offence, he can treat us as enemies.
Until now, he has protected us as artists; if we irritate
him, he will persecute us as Dutch and Protestants. The
French ambassador has just summoned me, he has apprised
me of the new successes of the French army. You will see
our powerful monarch, he added, “ he comes to reëstablish
the Catholic religion in your conquered provinces. You,
whom he has named his painter, you, whom he has en-
nobled, you should give an example of submission by re-
turning into the pale of the church. I kept silent, and
the ambassador understood my thoughts. He coldly as-
sured me of his protection; then, as I was about to take
leave, he recalled me to speak of thee, Marie. You have,
he said to me, 'a skilful pupil, from whom our great king
has ordered a picture; this work is expected at court; is
it finished ?'-'Yes my lord.' — Well! I will send for
it to-day, and I will myself go and see if your pupil will be
less rebellious than you to the desires of Louis the Great.'
«« Marie van Oosterwich is the daughter of a Protestant
minister,' I answered ; she cannot renounce her religion
without giving a death-blow to her father.' — The Bishop
of Utrecht, whom France has just nominated, will give her
to understand, that there is an authority yet more sacred
than that of a father ; it is that of a king, emanating from
that of God.' Pronouncing these words, he hastily left
me. You see, my child, we have everything to fear from
these hostile dispositions; we must recover this picture, so
imprudently delivered to Guillaume.”
And without awaiting Marie's answer, David van Heem
gave orders, that the young man should be sought after.
"Master," said she firmly, “it is I alone who am guilty,
and I wish to bear alone the anger of the ambassador; all
this has been done without your counsel ; ah ! I should be
too much punished, should you suffer by it."
“Are you not my daughter ? ” said David tenderly ; "our
griefs like our joys cannot be divided. If the unfortunate
one visit us, we will receive him together."
ar alonfirmly, cam should


1842.]
459
Marie van Oosterwich.
Guillaume returned, pale and cast down like a criminal.
“I have had you recalled,” said David gravely.
“It is too late,” said Guillaume bending down his head.
“I will give you eight hundred florins."
“ It is too late, I tell you ; the picture is sold.”
“Can I not with gold obtain it from the broker ?"
“ It is no longer in his possession."
“And to whom has he sold it?"
“ To the French ambassador,” cried Guillaume in des-
pair. “Oh! pardon me this new misfortune ; I have been
deceived by this man's avidity; he has taken advantage of
my distress ; but, believe me, oh, believe me, I was ignorant
of his intentions."
The old David van Heem was thunderstruck; but he
read so much suffering on Guillaume's features, that he
could not find words in which to reproach him. Marie
began to console them; she pressed her master's hand and
the young man's together.
“Why afflict yourselves thus ?” said she to them ; " to
aid our friends in trouble brings sweeter pleasures than the
favors of princes. I am going to write to the ambassador,
to try and justify myself. If I cannot appease him, why
then, master, we will live in obscurity, during the occupa-
tion of the French. The triumph of the enemies of our
country should indeed humble us, and their protection
seem bitter to us."
“Noble child!" murmured David.
Guillaume appeared not to understand this lofty pride.
While they were consulting on the means to be used to
avoid persecution, a friend of David van Heem, a sheriff
of the city of Utrecht, entered the studio, and said sadly
to the old man; “ What madness has seized you to resist
the king of France ? why furnish our enemies with pretexts
to persecute us? The weak should submit, waiting till they
shall be strong enough to revolt.” And the sheriff, pressed
by questions as to what they had to fear, told David van
Heem, that he entered the house of the French ambassa-
dor, as he was on the point of going out, and that he had
found him very much irritated at the resistance which the
painter had offered to his idea of Catholic proselytism.
The ambassador had wished to convert some of the dis-
tinguished citizens, and see them follow the triumphal


460
[April,
Marie van Oosterwich.
entry, which was in preparation for Louis XIV. He
had not succeeded in his attempt on the painter, and
was thinking how to revenge himself, when the Jewish
broker to whom Guillaume had sold Marie's painting asked
to speak with him. This broker carried on a great trade
in works of art; he owned a Magazine of immense riches,
and already thought of escaping the pillage of the con-
querors by putting himself under the protection of the
French ambassador. Other Jews, to escape losses by the
war, had set the example by sending a considerable tribute
of silver to France. This broker had thought of offering
rare pictures, thinking thus to flatter the sovereign who
had declared himself protector of the arts. When Guil-
laume had delivered Marie's masterpiece to the Jew, the
man saw all the advantage that he could obtain from this
work, by carrying it himself to the French ambassador,
and offering it to him under the respectful form of a re-
stitution. This step of the Jew had all the success that he
had hoped from it. The ambassador learning that the
picture came from the studio of David van Heem had
promised the broker to reward his disinterestedness. At
the same time he broke out in threats against the arrogant
artist, “who," he said, “ dared to revolt against Louis the
Great." Hearing an account of this scene, David under-
stood all the imminence of the danger' which menaced
- him; yet he hoped to escape persecution by leading a re-
tired life during the sojourn of the French in Utrecht.
The sheriff shook his head.
" You are not a man who can be forgotten,” said he to
him; “ if you had slavishly submitted to the will of the
king, he would have loaded you with honors; you have
dared to resist; much more, you have apparently dared
to brave him; Louis XIV. will persecute you, he will
make an example of you. You are celebrated; he
will think to render his authority more imposing by the
severity which he will display towards you.”
“The peace of my old age is destroyed,” said David
van Heem sadly. “What can be done?”
“ Depart with me, master, said Marie ; we will go to
my family at Delft, my native town, an obscure place, that
persecution will not visit; there we shall regain the
peace and security necessary for labor. Master, let us de-


1842.)
461
Marie van Oosterwich.
part, and regret nothing since we shall not be separat-
ed."
She looked at Guillaume; he appeared to reflect.
“ This young girl is right," said the sheriff ; “ you must
depart, and that as quickly as possible. When you shall
be no longer here, I can preserve your house from pillage ;
I will obtain sureties. All your arrangements can be made
during the day; to-morrow be far away from Utrecht; fly
from the persecution, which, doubt not, is preparing for
you.”
“ The will of God be done,” said the old David with
resignation ; “if my last days should be evil, at least may
he watch over those of my child. My friend, I will fol.
low your advice ; I will depart to-morrow, with Marie.”
“And with Guillaume," cried she full of love.
“If he wishes to share our fate,” replied the master.
Guillaume seemed to awake from the reverie in which
he was plunged.
" It is I who have troubled your beautiful and tranquil
life," said he ;'“ but if you forgive me, if you do not fear
the influence of my society, I will never leave you."
“ Never,” said Marie, “and we shall be happy wherever
we go.” She could no longer restrain her love, it over-
flowed in spite of herself.
The departure was decided upon. David gave some orders
to Guillaume, who went to execute them, and during his ab-
sence, he arranged with Marie all that was necessary for
their emigration. While making these sad preparations,
the expression of the old painter seemed more than usually
melancholy ; but by a contrast which existed for the last
time between the sentiments of the master and the pupil,
Marie's beautiful face beamed with an involuntary joy,
while she was actively engaged in all the preparations for
departure. David observed this emotion, and gently re-
proached her for it.
“When I leave in sadness the house where I was born,
and should have died,” said he, “ without a hope of ever
again returning to it," why dost thou not share my afflic-
tion, thou, my daughter, who formerly comprehendedst all
my feelings ? "
“ And you, master,” replied she," why can you not feel
that I am happy, in giving happiness to all; to you, to my


462
[April,
Marie van Oosterwich.
father, to my family, whom we shall again see; to the town
which we shall inhabit ? Oh! it seems to me that our life
will be henceforward one long festival. Guillaume loves
me; this misfortune, which overtakes us, and of which he
is perhaps the cause, has made his love known to me; you
have heard him, Master, he has told us himself that he will
never leave us. Repentance has made him good; and do
you wish me to be afflicted by a misfortune which gives me
his heart ?”
“My God!' grant that she may be happy, for it would
kill her to be deceived !” said David in a low and fervent
tone. “ Yes, my daughter, thy happiness will make me
forget my sorrows. May this happiness be as great as I
desire !"
“ He loves me; I wish nothing more."
“ Trust to my experience to sound Guillaume's heart
upon this love; let me question him. If I find him worthy
of thee, from this evening he shall be thy betrothed. He
will protect thee from the dangers which may menace our
journey, better than I, a poor old man; and if he prove
himself noble and good, on our arrival at your father's
house, your union shall be accomplished.”
“ Master, here he is,” cried Marie, who heard footsteps.
“Ah! let me hear what you say to him ; my heart under-
stands his better than yours can, and I wish to hear his
answer to you."
Then, as Guillaume approached, at a sign of assent
from her master, she concealed herself in a corner of the
carved stone balcony upon which the window of the studio
opened.
Guillaume had been absent several hours; but he had
not been employed all this time in executing the orders
which his master had given him. He had met on his way
the companions of his Bacchanalian orgies, those who the
evening before had won from him the eight hundred florins.
He would have avoided them; but entangled with them,
he had yielded anew to that humiliating ascendency, which
vice exercises over the man, who has once been weak
enough to accept its dominion. Guillaume was dragged
to the inn.
· "I bid you adieu," said he, emptying a glass which had
been just poured out; "I depart to-morrow; I leave Utrecht
for a long time.”


1842.)
463
Marie van Oosterwich.
“What! you depart, when pleasures arrive?” cried all
his friends.
“Do you call the triumphal entrance of our enemies
into this city, which they will pillage to their heart's con-
tent, pleasure ?"
“ There are no enemies but crime and misery," said they,
laughing ; “let us unite ourselves to the victors, and we
shall cease to be the vanquished. A city taken, or one
which opens its gates, is a mine of pleasure for artists;
noisy saturnalia, easy amours, riches quickly gained and
dissipated, all this for him who knows how to enjoy it, and
the “ far niente,' the 'dolce far niente' is assured to us
during this happy season."
Guillaume was allured by these inducements; still he
feebly resisted.
“ I have promised to go," said he, “and I will go."
“Let us see! fate will decide that,” cried several
voices ; "come, take up the dice and try; you go, or you
stay; you go if you win, you remain if you lose ; you must
see that all the chances are in your favor ; though losing,
you still gain, for your departure is doubtless a penance
imposed on you, and from which we shall deliver you.
Good Heavens! to depart at the moment of a military in-
vasion is renouncing the joys of taverns, and confessing
yourself unworthy of them. Come, take up the dice, and
let fate overcome your indecision !”
Guillaume still hesitated, but he yielded to the railleries
heaped on him ; he shook the dice-box, and as the dice
came down,
“ This pledges your word,” said they ; “if you lose, you
remain ; that is your word of honor !”
“ So be it,” murmured he.
“ And now perform
your oath! you will remain with
us."
“'Tis well, I have never failed in a promise at play ;
but I ought not to have done it; I had consented to de-
part, and I dare not go and disengage myself.”
Guillaume spoke truly; cowardly and timid in all his
actions, he was neither proud enough, nor strong enough,
to resist the persuasions of others; and when he had yielded
to them, he had not the courage to avow openly that he


464
Marie van Oosterwich. [April,
and he musi duties, believe fit. Till as the quiet
had done so. To avoid all explanation with David van
Heem, and especially to escape Marie's presence, he had
thought of letting them both depart without seeing them
again ; but a remnant of delicacy prevented him; he had
received money from the old painter to make some purcha-
ses; he must render an account of it.
They made him swear again that he would not depart,
and he must perform this oath; for he, who violated the
most sacred duties, believed himself bound by an oath,
made at play in a drunken fit. Till we meet again, repeat-
ed he; and walked slowly towards the quiet house of
David van Heem, which night already veiled.
Entering the studio, he was happy not to see Marie.
“My son,” said David to him kindly, "you are very
late."
“ Master, here are your purchases; these colors, these
oils, these brushes required selection ; it has taken me a
long time. This is what I have expended, here is the
money due to you."
" It is well, my friend.”
“ Adieu, master; I have now something to do for my-
self.” i
And already he had repassed the threshold of the door.
“ Is the affair which calls you so pressing, that you can-
not listen to me?"
- - Master, I will return."
He sought to avoid an explanation by a falsehood.
David took him by the arm.
“Guillaume, it concerns the happiness that I wish to
give you ; do you love Marie ?"
“She is so beautiful !" said the young man with vivac-
ity, who could understand in this woman, the noblest of
beings, nothing but her beauty.
“ But do you love her ? ” replied the master; “do you un-
derstand the worth of her soul and genius?"
“I understand that I love her, while beholding her.”
“ And when you think of her, do you understand it?"
"I love rather her presence, than the remembrance of
it; a word of love uttered by her mouth, rather than a
word of love that she may write to me; a kiss of love
that she might give me would be sweeter than her acts of
devotion ; but Marie will never understand that; she is
cold as the marble virgins of our temple.”


1842.]
465
Marie van Oosterwich.
Eternal reproach of the libertine to the modest woman,
of the man who mistakes the fire of the blood for warmth
of soul, and believes not in the love which is drowned in
tears, but in that which bursts forth boldly.
“Marie loves you enough," replied David, “ to give you
all the pleasures of which she dreams in her virgin heart,
and those which you might wish to obtain from her.”
“ She loves me in her way, which is not mine; I must
renounce her."
“Renounce her,” cried the old man, pained as if the
blow, which was to strike Marie, had reached him. “ You
believe yourself then unworthy of Marie ? your vices are
then so inveterate that love cannot make you conquer
them ? Guillaume, return to the right path, there is yet
time; an angel and an old man near your heart might
guide you in life; if you repulse them, you will perish in
the mire."
“I am unworthy of you, I am unworthy of her.”
“Unworthy by weakness, unworthy because you do not
Jove ; for love strengthens us and overturns all obstacles ;
it renders easy that which seems impossible to one who
does not love. It melts the soul by its tenderness, it ele-
vates it by its greatness, it illumines it by its brightness.
Guillaume, Marie's love ought to shine on you and re-
generate you." The old man spoke warmly, and the
young man remained cold; he could not understand.
“ The love of this angel will change your nature, con-
tinued David ; it is the happiness which awaits your life;
evil will flee, when you shall have fled from it, you will
return to her pure; let this day efface the past. Banish
the remembrance of the images of vice; you are no longer
the young lawless rover, Guillaume, you may at this mo-
ment become the betrothed of Marie. Say only that you
love her enough to make her happy; that you feel bold
and strong enough to protect her against dangers during our
flight? After this noviciate of happiness, you will be her
husband ; there is the goal, it depends on you to attain it."
Guillaume did not reply. David thought for a moment
that the intoxication of his soul rendered him dumb.
“Come,” he said to him, “ let me bless thee. I will call
Marie, I will place the nuptial ring on your finger ; this
consecration will unfold a new life to you."
VOL. II. — NO. IV.
59


466
(April,
Marie van Oosterwich.
“I will return," murmured Guillaume, bending down
his head with shame.”
t« What is your thought ?” murmured David with deep
emotion, for a dreadful doubt struck him. “If you have an
infamous design, dare at least to avow it."
“I cannot depart,” said Guillaume in a low tone.
“Ah! I knew it,” said David, rushing upon him ; “you
are a scoundrel ; you have drawn misfortune upon the young
girl and the old man; you have pillaged them, and now
you abandon them. You have killed my child; coward,
take my curse; I could wish you dead.”
Guillaume freed himself from the grasp of the unfor-
tunate painter, and meanly quitted that dwelling into
which he had brought despair. Then David hastily went
to Marie ; he had heard the fall of a body, and felt that it
was his dearly loved child who was dying. As if pierced
by a dagger, Marie had fallen under the stroke of a
word that broke her heart. The emotion of the old man
was as violent; but it was all inward ; seeing the base-
ness of Guillaume, that cool baseness which acts without
remorse, he would have crushed him like a reptile, and
when his arm fell powerless, he regretted his youth and
wept. This dreadful hour, this strife of bitter feelings had
at once made David a man of an hundred years. The
preceding evening his vigorous and flourishing old age
gave promise of many and happy years. The thought
that he could die never occurred to those who looked at
him. A sudden change, a death-blow stunning as a stroke
of apoplexy had fallen upon him. Pale, exhausted, his
complexion dull and lifeless, you would have said that his
blood was petrified in his veins, that it no longer circulat-
ed ; looking at him you would have thought that the end
of life was fast approaching. When Marie had recovered,
she fixed her looks on her master, who wept and supported
her in his arms. She was struck by the dreadful change
in his features, and throwing aside the grief which was
killing herself; “Oh! speak to me,” said she to the old
man; do not be so sad and despairing; do not weep for me,
these tears kill you. See, I am strong, I will live for you,
only live for me. My master, my father, forget this dread-
ful dream, and let us again find that peace which we once
had.” And she sought to console him, she who was in-


1842.)
467
Marie van Oosterwich.
consolable; she appeared again to hope, she who hoped no
longer; she spoke of living, while she carried death in her
bosom ; for her eyes had been suddenly opened. This old
man, who had surrounded her with paternal love and true
happiness, might in an instant fall dead beside her, struck
down by a grief which came through her, and which he
felt to the depths of his soul as keenly as she had done.
She understood this exceeding great affection, she saw it
in all its depth, and the idea that he, who lavished it upon
her each day, might die, made that fatal sentiment, that
love which had caused it, appear impious to her. She vio-
lently tore the image of Guillaume from the depths of her
soul ; she rent her bosom, to bury it there, and smiled on
the old man whom her sufferings had overwhelmed.
“We must depart before to-morrow's dawn,” said she calm-
ly; "master, take some rest; I will complete with your ser-
vants the preparations for departure. See, I am well now;
but you, you suffer ? renew the strength necessary for our
journey." — And when he would console her; “fear
nothing,” said she ; “God has cured me.”
David slept deeply and painfully. Marie watched all
the night, sometimes at his bedside, sometimes busy in giv-
ing orders. During this painful watch a feverish trembling
seized her; her thoughts crowded upon one another in her
burning head, and dreadful images passed before her eyes.
Sometimes she appeared to dream ; it seemed to her that
her spirit wandered in a mysterious and dread infinity, an
eternal circle formed in space by grief. She had strange
visions, trances, which annihilated her. It seemed to her
that her body was dissolved, and that her soul suffered
alone in incessant torment. She had no longer a distinct
perception of what had thrown her into this mental deliri-
um. Guillaume was mingled with the phantoms of her
tortured imagination, and by turns before her under the
seducing form of the angel and the impure one of a rep-
tile. Night and misfortune made all their shadows glide
before her ; when the day which began to dawn came to
dissipate her sad dreams, she made a supernatural effort to
free herself from grief, but dragged it with her. She quit-
ted the couch of her master who still slept, and seeking
bitter emotions with a strange avidity, she wished to see
again for the last time the studio, where her beautiful years


468
(April,
Marie van Oosterwich.
had flowed on so calmly and sweetly. She leaned upon
that trellised window, where the bind-weed and the cle-
matis intertwined their flowers. The sun shed its first
beam in the east, and this ray of light glittered among the
leaves, yet sprinkled with pearls of dew. The songs of
birds and the perfume of flowers rose from the garden and
spread around her. Attracted on awaking by the fragrance
and the sweet sounds, she remembered suddenly, that on a
similar morning, two months before, Guillaume had found
her musing on him, in this same place; a word and a kiss
had escaped from their souls at the same time and mingled
on their lips. Marie had given up her life in that kiss ; she
had believed that a new world was opened for her, she had
peopled it with wonders and felicity; and now this world
was bare and waste; grief had sowed it with thorps.
“ Undeceived so soon, oh my God!” cried she, “ what
have I done to deserve this dreadful grief?” She wept;
then she began praying for resignation. Pale and dismayed
like the Magdalen of Canova, there was no longer anything
terrestrial in her touching features; the freshness of youth
and health had left her cheeks ; one night had sufficed to
make her old ; and she also would have been startled at
the change in her features, if she had thought of looking at
them. Prayer had opened her soul to resignation, to that
regenerating virtue, whose worship fills half of the life of
woman, and succeeds her days of blighted hopes. The
young Christian rose grave and sad. She repaired to her
master, to assist him in putting on a travelling dress, and
supporting the sinking old man, she put him into the
modest travelling carriage which was to convey them far
from Utrecht. One faithful servant took charge of the
equipage. When they had lost sight of the house, Marie
felt her heart sink, but she restrained her tears. The old
painter had not the same strength; he wept; he felt that
the adieu was eternal. They travelled on some time in
silence, neither speaking ; they feared lest all their emotion
should betray itself in their speech. The old man spared
the grief of his child, the child that of the old man; at
last emotion overcame them, it broke forth in sobs ; these
paroxysms of grief, which occurred many times during the
journey, completed the wreck of the dying painter's
strength.


1842.]
469
,
Marie van Oosterwich.
The same day that these two exiles departed so sadly
from the sleeping town, it awoke joyful, tumultuous, and
in festal attire to open its gates to the king of France who
had conquered it.
“Louis," says Voltaire, “ made his triumphal entry into
this city, attended by his grand Almoner, his confessor, and
the nominal Archbishop of Utrecht. They repaired with
solemnity to the chief Catholic church. The Archbishop,
who bore only the vain name of one, was for some time
established in a real dignity. The religion of Louis XIV.
made conquests as well as his arms.”
Having arrived at Delft, Marie conducted her old master
to the house where her family lived ; but there a sad trial
yet awaited her. No sound issued from the house, animat-
ed formerly by Marie's little brothers and sisters; all was
sad and desolate at the entrance ; the domestic animals no
longer grazed at the foot of the walls formerly so full of
life. The emigrants knocked at the door with a kind of
dismay, and when an old servant, who had brought Marie
up, opened it to them,
“My father, my mother?” stammered the young girl,
whose emotion altered her voice.
“How! do you not know," replied the servant. “Have
you not then received the letter, in which they inform you
of their flight, telling you to return to Delft, and watch
over your dying grandfather, who could not follow them?
It is then Heaven which has inspired you, leading you
hither. Come my child, come and see your grandfather,
he is expecting you."
Marie followed the good woman to the bedside of the
paralytic old man, whose face already bore the marks of
death; recognising the child of his son, John van Ooster-
wich made a motion ; he would have extended his arms to
Marie, and his strength failing; a tear of grief and tender-
ness escaped from the old man.
“What has become of them?” cried she in anguish;
"why have they left you alone?"
"I forced them to depart," replied the old man feebly,
“ to escape by flight from the Catholic persecution which
menaced them. They have gone to rejoin their brothers
in England; there, the protection of all the people will
again give them a country. Your father would not leave


470
[April,
Marie van Oosterwich.
me; like Æneas, he would have carried away his old father
in his arms; but feeling that I had but few days to live, I
did not wish that my body should be buried in a foreign
land, and I have depended on thee to close my eyes,"
While hearing the old man's words, Marie held her
head bent on her bosom; the sad and calm expression of
her face told that her soul was resigned. God had struck
her without warning, he had extinguished at once the glory
of youth which adorned her brow, and sullied the home of
happiness within her soul. He had cast grief on the young
maiden, under all forms, and she in her virtue had accept-
ed it without murmuring. Yesterday, and her destiny was
brilliant and happy; beauty and genius were resplendent
in her, glory summoned her to its triumphs, love to its fe-
licities ; to-day, prostrated by deceptions and sufferings,
she was bending like an angel between two dying old men;
for the counterpart of all his sorrows had annihilated David
van Heem, and the old painter seeing John van Ooster-
the grave.
Some days after her return to her father's house, Marie
closed the eyes of her grandfather; and when his coffin
was closed, a strong and pious woman, she returned to
watch over the couch on which her old master languished.
The faculties of the artist had been suspended by misfor-
· tune ; you would have said that his intellect, formerly so
keen, was no longer alive except to suffering; all his bril-
liant past seemed effaced from his mind; he had retained
only the remembrance of that dreadful hour, when Guil-
laume had given him his death-blow by destroying the
happiness of his adopted child. As he felt his last mo-
ments approach, this remembrance awoke yet more bitter
and poignant. All the clearness of his thoughts seemed
to return to him; he spoke to Marie of Guillaume, for a
long time, without hatred, coldly, and with that enlight-
ened wisdom which the dying display when speaking of
the passions.
“My daughter,” said he, imprinting a kiss on Marie's
forehead, with his already livid lips, “my daughter, your
career will still be long, you will render it illustrious by
your talents; you will again love glory, which when you
were yet a child smiled on you like a mother, and then


1842.]
Marie van Oosterwich.
471
your brow, brightened once more by her, will regain the
youth and beauty which grief effaces. That hour of con-
solation will come to you, and your destiny will again be
brilliant; then the man who has troubled your youth, weary
of his wandering, miserable life, may seek to shelter him-
self under your glorious and honored name. Oh, my child,
in that hour recollect that he pierced you to the heart,
less through cruelty, than through weakness; recollect
that he could not conquer himself and renounce vice to
render himself worthy of you ; and, if he say to you, that
misfortune has changed him, do not follow the promptings
of your goodness and love. Marie, if you should still love
him, when you again see him, if you feel that his life is
necessary to yours, exact a proof of repentance, demand
that an entire year of diligent labor assure you of the
change in his profligate life. Labor ennobles and purifies
man. If Guillaume should love you enough to devote a
year of his life to labor, virtue, the sap of life, may again
arise in his soul. My child, you understand me, a year of
trial, a year in which love shall not make you weak; you
will be severe to the prodigal child; like an incensed pa-
rent, you will conceal your pardon and tenderness in the
depths of your soul; you will remember me, and in this
remembrance, gather strength to resist. Swear to your
dying master that his will shall be accomplished, and he
will depart with less pain from that world in which he
leaves you without him. The oath which you are about to
make will protect you, and you cannot be absolved from it
but by happiness.”
Marie, melted by the provident tenderness of the dying
painter, swore never to belong to Guillaume, until he had
passed through the trial exacted by the dying painter. A
serene expression shone an instant on the brow of the old
man, and as if his last thought had been uttered, he spoke
no more, and some minutes after ceased to breathe.
• Marie's task was accomplished; what had she to do in
this world? The isolation of her life, the void in her
heart made her desire to repose near those whom she had
lost. She thought not of resuming her brushes; she for-
got her art; grief had effaced everything, and she sought
no longer that great relief which she formerly found in
painting ; sadness enchained her thoughts ; she remained


472
Marįe van Oosterwich.
bowed down under her burden of grief as if condemned
of heaven. She was in this exhausted state, when she
received a letter from her family, emigrants in England.
Her father, who had learned the death of the two old
men, sent for his dearly loved child; he told her that
the King of England had offered to her, through him, the
office of court painter. He spoke to her of fame and for-
tune ; but these goods were no longer anything to Marie.
Besides, would her parents, whom she had not seen from
childhood, understand the sufferings that killed her ? They
knew among the events which had befallen her only the
two deaths of which she had been witness; they suspected
not the more trying changes which had passed in her heart.
In her modest grief, Marie would not reveal her inward
torments; her master alone had learned them by sharing
them, and had carried the secret with him to his grave.
Marie did not feel the strength to confess to her father
this love, which had broken into her life and her career of
talent. Besides, it seemed to her that her days were com-
ing to a close, and she would have reproached herself for
carrying into a family, who awaited her as a consolation,
the sight of the agony of her heart. She wrote to her
father that she would remain in Holland to finish some
works there, and that, wishing to merit the protection which
the King of England offered her, she would finish a work
worthy of him, which she would herself offer at a future
time. This answer, which left her time to die as she
thought in the agony of her grief, was dictated by a feel-
ing which she did not confess to herself; to quit Holland
without again seeing Guillaume, without knowing his fate,
his future life, that was impossible for her heart which had
given itself up wholly to him. Besides, that land where
she had suffered, where she had loved, was dear to her;
like her grandfather, she would be buried there. Notwith-
standing the dejection which overwhelmed her, she impos-
ed on herself the duty of fulfilling the promise which she
had made to her father, began with the languor of an
enfeebled inspiration the picture destined to the King of
England ; and labor like a soft couch soothed the poig-
nancy of her grief. Her soul, fed with sad images and
gloomy recollections, made use of melancholy as of a state
of meditation through which we must pass, before raising


1842.)
473
Marie van Oosterwich.
ourselves to God. The serenity which labor restored shed
around her an atmosphere of peace which resembled hap-
piness, and soon Marie was cited not only as the most
honored and famous woman, but as the most happy in the
little town where she lived. They knew nothing of her
inward sufferings. The old housekeeper, who was present at
her birth and still carefully watched over her, did not divine
the cause of her sadness, and, seeing her calm and resigned,
thought that the mournful scenes of death through which
she had passed already began to be effaced from her mem-
ory. She resumed her brushes, at first without energy,
then the necessity of an active life occurred to her and
roused her weakened powers. She painted several little
pictures in which she reproduced sad and modest flowers,
creations to which she seemed to impart soul and in which
her grief was reflected. Her fame attracted princes and
illustrious travellers to Delft. She fled from the world,
but the world sought her. They imposed tasks on 'her,
loading her with honors. The Empress of Austria and the
Queen of England sent her their portraits set in diamonds.
They cast round her life pleasures which she did not
seek; but the wound which she concealed from all eyes
remained always fresh and bleeding. Many years passed
away thus. She had hoped to die, and she languished in
the midst of a world that worshipped her and believed her
happy. Ah! of what avail to her youth was glory, with-
out love. She felt that she was growing old, without hav-
ing attained the fulfilment of her destiny. She was still
beautiful, but of a saddened beauty, which seemed cold
and dignified when no tender feeling marked it with the
impress of her soul.
In vain had she sought to discover what had become of
Guillaume, during the five years which had passed since
that day when he had blasted her life by his baseness, and
with the same blow struck dead her unhappy master. Since
these sad events she had learned nothing of his fate. She
strove with herself in her long days of solitude and labor ;
she tried to stifle a sentiment which seemed to her guilty;
she reproached herself remorsefully for the remembrance
which linked her to Guillaume, but she could not free her-
self. There are women whose souls are given but once,
and their bodies never. These are angels of purity and
VOL. II. — NO. IV.
60


474
[April,
Marie van Oosterwich.
love, whom God banishes for a time, and who return to
him unsullied by the earth.
Marie's house was at once modest and elegant; modest
in its construction which her father had directed, and
which became the simplicity of a minister of the Gospel;
elegant through the works of art with which Marie had
adorned it, and the gardens which surrounded it from
which the rarest flowers breathed their perfumes. Marie's
studio opened out upon these gardens; by her exertions
this studio now resembled somewhat that, in which she
painted with David van Heem at Utrecht. On his dying
bed her master bequeathed to her all the precious objects
which adorned the sanctuary of his studies, and when labor
had rendered her more calm, Marie surrounded herself with
all these memorials; she sought to revive the past. The
portrait of the old painter himself looked down on her as
formerly with tenderness, and seemed to encourage to ex-
ertion in her hours of depression and grief. In a frame
covered with a veil, which she alone raised, was another
head, whose image was imprinted in her soul, and which
her brush had reproduced with a miraculous truth; it was
Guillaume, young, handsome, and impetuous, as he ap-
peared to her at first. She asked pardon of God and her
old master, for having painted it; but an irresistible desire
had urged her on; she needed to see him again, in fancy,
in dreams; she needed to feel that she saw this phantom
which had eluded her love. For this woman, so illustrious
and still so young and beautiful, the present and future
were nothing; her life was all contained in the days now
vanished; life was for her henceforth nothing but remem-
brance.
In front of the window of the studio, where Marie pass-
ed her days, on the other side of the garden which it over-
looked, rose a small house, whose windows always closed
attracted her sadly wandering eyes in her moments of re-
pose and reverie. She knew that this unoccupied house
formerly belonged to a friend of her father, long since
dead; the heirs had endeavored to sell it, but had not yet
found a purchaser. A door opening into Marie's garden
attested the intimacy which had existed between the pro-
prietors of these two houses which thus faced each other.
But it was long since this door of communication, closed


1842.]
475
Marie van Oosterwich.
by death, had been opened, and the ivy growing in the
cracks already twined itself over the deserted dwelling.
Marie said to herself sometimes; “Why do these windows
remain eternally closed ? Why does not some smiling
friendly face come and bend down over these stone bal-
conies to look at me ? A smile, a look, would do me so
much good ; my heart is cold in this loneliness. Why, if
I should die for it, can I not again see Guillaume ? If he
lived there, this gloomy dwelling would be animated; I
should see him glide behind those windows, where now I
see but empty space. I could love him, without telling
him of it; but I should feel that he was near me, and my
solitude would be peopled, for the torments of an unquiet
life are preferable to the tortures of the repose in which I
am buried. Oh! return, should thy presence be death ;
oh, return, for there are hours when I need to love, and I
can love none but thee; why resist this love; my God,
thou seest the death of my old master could not extinguish
it; it is an affliction which thou hast sent upon me, and
to which I must submit with resignation. A more profound
depression succeeded these transports of her soul. Marie's
health sank under it, and she felt a kind of pleasure in
seeing her strength decrease, in counting the hours of her
life which were passing away.
One summer's day, towards noon, she lay half-reclining
on a bank of turf shaded by two flowering acacias. The
air around was filled with the exquisite perfume from the
alabaster bunches hanging from the branches of the vines.
Marie inhaled this air, and sought to warm herself by the
pale beams of the sun of the North. She felt a kind of
gentle languor free from pain ; while a dreamy veil stole
over her thoughts as if she were falling asleep. Yet, she
saw everything around her; her eyes were not closed ; her
soul alone had ceased to perceive. She heard the sound
of steps, she saw the leaves stirred, a man stood before
her; she rose, looked at him some moments without recog-
nising him ; then as if her soul had sprung from chaos,
“ Guillaume," she cried, and falling in his arms, she
strained him to her heart one minute with the energy of
a long-expected happiness, then suddenly repelling him, as
if conscience-stricken, “Oh!” she cried, “ you have
killed my master!” The shock of her emotions recalled


476
[April,
Marie van Oosterwich.
her to life. The remembrance of the oath which she had
made to the old man, arose between her and her overflowing
love. Grief rendered her calm ; she reseated herself, and
extending her hand to Guillaume; “ You are welcome; I
needed to see you to pardon you; Guillaume, I do not bear
you any ill-will. Are you happy?” and Marie's tears be-
trayed her emotion. Guillaume fell at her feet; he would
have humbled himself before her, and could not find words
to express the mingled sensations of pleasure and love
which it was yet granted to his imperfect nature to feel; he
looked upon her as formerly, but perhaps with less tender-
ness; she seemed to him less beautiful. Guillaume could
not admire this pallid beauty, the saddened reflex of the
soul, which strikes but few even of the chosen. Yet this
divine charm still enchained his earthly desires, and he said
to her with love;
“Marie, I return to you, after many years of misfortunes
and follies ; I will expiate the past, if you do not reject
me; for, I feel it, near you, I can make myself everything
that is good.”
He pronounced these words with that simple and true
accent which enforces conviction.
Guillaume also was changed. If Marie's face bore
traces of the lofty, passionate, and pure sentiments which
filled her soul, his showed the impress of the gross desires
which degraded his life. His eyes were no longer brilliant;
his brow was furrowed by untimely wrinkles; his mouth,
thick and voluptuous, seemed to have retained the stamp
of the strong drink and bad language of taverns. His sallow
and hanging cheeks took from the nobleness and purity
of his features. He was handsome still, but of a degraded
beauty which no longer touched the soul. When she
whose life he had blighted looked at him, she asked her-
self if this was indeed the ideal being, who for five years
had kindled her soul, the man whose fatal power had en-
chained all her faculties, he for whom she died each day.
Disenchanted by his presence, she felt herself strong to re-
sist Guillaume, she who in the delirium of her passion, in
the despair of solitude had given herself up as lost to the
image which she invoked. The ascendency which she re-
gained over her own heart had rendered her calm and tran-
quil; she spoke to Guillaume with the interest of a sister;


1842.]
477
Marie van Oosterwich.
she asked him where had passed his years of absence, what
were his wishes for the future. Touched in what of heart
still remained to him, by that voice so full of kindness, he
replied with eagerness, that she was his future, that he
would never leave her, whom he wished to surround with
love and devotion. “Ah! let me unite my life to yours,"
said he, “and I shall become better. Let your shadow shel-
ter me, let me but feel you always near me, and I shall
follow a noble path. Marie, do not reject me; you once
named me your betrothed, call me now your husband.”
Those words which Guillaume spoke with assurance, struck
Marie's heart, and brought her new illusions. Yet, in the
feeling which prompted Guillaume, there was more ego-
tism than true love. Since he remained at Utrecht, aband-
oning to misfortune so basely the old man and the young
girl, he had passed his vagabond life amidst the hardening
influences of misery and shame. His indolent temperament
preventing him from laboring to satisfy his wants and his
vicious passions, he was reduced at times to the depths of
poverty. Compromised by his losses at play, and his
disputes in taverns, he had shared the malefactors' gaol.
In fine he had sullied, with all the impurities of the world,
the genius with which Heaven had gifted him. He became
weary of this life, because on the little pallet of a hospital
or prison he had no longer the pleasure of vice; and then
that sensuality, which had driven him to vice, recalled him
to virtue. He had travelled in Italy, executed pictures
ordered by princes, sojourned at the court of Tuscany,
where he had been loaded with favors by the Grand Duke,
who, one day, admiring one of his works, sent him, as a
token of his satisfaction, a gold chain and medal of honor.
Raised from his degradation and coming to himself again,
Guillaume remembered Marie, and desired again to see his
country. Marie, who was the pride of Holland, had gained,
by her talents, fortune and independence. By uniting his
life to that of this noble woman, a competency without
labor he thought would be assured to him, and his nature
led him instinctively to this calculation. Without penetrat-
ing the depth of this involuntary selfishness, Marie, resist-
ing his entreaties, recalled the warning of her dying master,
and the trial to which she had promised to subject Guil-
laume, before mingling her pure destiny with his sullied


478
[April,
Marie van Oosterwich.
life. Resolute in opposing her oath to the impulses of her
heart, she replied to the passionate words of Guillaume ;
“I believe in your love ; the sentiment which has filled my
life could not be a stranger to yours; the past unites us,
and it depends on you, that the future should no longer
separate us. You see that uninhabited house ?" said she,
pointing to the deserted mansion which we have described;
“ that dwelling awaits a master. From this evening, pur-
chased for you it belongs to you; this solitude which has
looked gloomy to me will be animated by your presence.
I have for a long time cherished this hope as a dream;
God has realized it. We shall there be near each other;
two fruitful sympathies, labor and love, will make us live in
the same thought. In our hours of relaxation, this door,
always hitherto closed, will be opened. You shall come to
me, Guillaume, to breathe the sweet air of this garden, and
behold the beautiful heaven which we shall look upon with
eyes that understand one another. We will speak of the
happiness which awaits us, when the trial shall be accom-
plished.”
..“Why a trial ?" cried Guillaume; “time hurries on
swiftly; why delay the hour of happiness?"
“ To enjoy it more fully! I wish you to love me, and
be illustrious ; acquire the glory to which your genius is
entitled ; one year of labor, and my life belongs to thee!"
“One year,” murmured Guillaume, “one year lost to
love!"
“One year," cried Marie, with grief, “ one year of sweet
hope, of submission, of love ; one year in expiation of five
years of torture, which I have endured for thee, say, is it
too much, Guillaume ?”
He would have opposed and hurried away the unhappy
one, but she was firm; misfortune had made her resolute.
She required perfect happiness or death; the regeneration
of Guillaume's soul, or his renunciation of her.
Guillaume took possession of the house the same even-
ing. By the cares of this angelic woman, the apartment
which looked upon the garden, was quickly transformed
into a studio, and furnished with works of art. Marie her.
self installed her friend in the house purchased for him,
and of which she made him the gift. Guillaume wished
to retain her, and speak to her of love; she resisted him ;


1842.]
479
Marie van Oosterwich.
then approaching the balcony parallel with that of the op-
posite house on which would open her studio; “ During
our hours of labor,” she said, “we shall see each other, we
shall exchange looks of encouragement, and if you love
me, Guillaume, you will not fail in the trial. According to
the wish of our dying master, you should each day during
a whole year devote eight hours to the study of your art;
you should execute the masterpieces of which you conceive
the design, but which your idle pencil refuses to produce.
You should renounce the bad passions, the indulgence of
which has done you so much evil. Adieu ; this shall be
your initiation to happiness."
,
Making an effort to tear herself from him, she quickly
passed the door which opened into the garden and shut it
after her. Then Guillaume, still leaning on the balcony,
seeing her disappear under the shade of an alley, exclaimed
with vexation ; “ Cold-hearted woman, in thee pride has
destroyed love !” These words struck Marie's heart like
the most cutting raillery ; her strength gave way under her
excitement; she leaned against the trunk of a tree and be-
gan to weep. “Cold,” cried she, in a hollow voice ; “ cold,
because I do not yield to his desires ; cold, while I am dy-
ing of a love which he has never been able to understand.
My God, hasten for me that hour when the passions are
quenched ! my blood and my soul burn; I need repose.
My God, make me cold by death!” And covering her
face with her hands, she remained a long time motionless
under the influence of her vehement thought. Seeing
Guillaume, comparing him with her remembrance of him,
with his image which she had embellished by her passion-
ate reveries, he appeared to her at first, like a fallen being,
whom she had strength to resist ; but when Guillaume
spoke to her of happiness and love, when he revived
in her the fresh hopes which had vanished, the man pre-
maturely grown old suddenly regained his youth under
the fire of his own words ; under Marie's look, his face
again became beautiful, and weary of suffering, she
attached herself with infatuation to an illusion. “Must I
yield myself up wholly to thee, to make thee believe in
my love ?” thought she; “must I renounce those senti-
ments which come to me from God? Well, debase me,
profane my soul, make me die of grief and humiliation;


480
[April,
Marie van Oosterwich.
since thou canst not render me happy, kill me. Come, I
resist thee no longer!..." And the madness was in her
brain and she demanded an hour of happiness at the ex-
pense of eternity. “Come, tell me that you love me, and
I will take the intoxication of thy senses for the tenderness
of thy soul. I need to be deceived, I need to feel my life
confounded with thine, and to die believing that thou hast
loved me." Her heart broke under this ardent aspiration,
her forehead burned within her hands ; she raised her head
to inhale the coolness of the night. Her eyes, wet with
scalding tears, rested on the calm and radiant moon, which
seemed to smile on her. Nature and Heaven were in har-
monious repose. In the presence of this imposing serenity,
Marie felt humbled by the agitation which devoured her.
The contemplation of the heaven recalled to her the soul
of her old master, who watched over her. Fortified by
this thought, she hastened rapidly from this place so near
to Guillaume's abode, and when she had gained her cham-
ber, and when resting on the window, she looked anxiously
on the balcony of the deserted house, where she had left
him ; he was no longer there. Guillaume felt not the rest.
less delirium which overwhelmed his friend.
The words, which he had uttered and which had touch-
ed so deeply the heart of the poor girl, had escaped from
him as a selfish lamentation, as the complaint of the ego-
tist, who saw escape from him the blessings which he had
hoped to enjoy. Yet, pleased with the comfort with which he
saw himself surrounded, he resolved to labor according to
Marie's wishes, less in response to her love, than to make
sure of a position of which he already tasted the
sweets. For nearly a month, Guillaume worked with
zeal; each morning, Marie opening the window of her
studio, saw him, brush in hand, seated before the canvass
on which he painted. They saluted from afar with a
friendly nod, they exchanged some words of love, then said
adieu, and returned to their work; when evening came,
they passed some hours together in the garden, whose
space had separated them all the day. Marie then spoke
of the future ; she told her dreams as a woman and an
artist, the happiness and glory that awaited them, all that
she would do for him ; he replied gratefully, and this sen-
timent lent tenderness to the tone of his voice. But the


1842.)
481
Marie van Oosterwich.
feeling was no longer in his heart; for Guillaume, the feel-
ing was, as we have seen, a kind of desire which was no
longer excited in the presence of Marie, each day more
languid and pale. She seemed to die while waiting for
happiness. Her frame, now frail and drooping, had no
longer that beauty of blood and life which had attracted
the gross organization of the young man, and had drawn
from him formerly words of passion. Marie soon perceived
the change in the feelings with which she inspired him.
She had never felt assured of being beloved, but at times,
some expressions of tenderness uttered by Guillaume had
renewed her illusion. Now these flashes of hope, these
occasional gleams came only to deceive her ; pained by
the presence of him whom she had so much loved, she
would have fled from him, the better to suffer. She felt,
with a kind of consolation, that her life was ebbing away.
One day she told Guillaume, that repose was needful to
her to regain her strength, and that she should not see
him for some time. Without doubt, he did not understand
that she was about to die, for he quitted her without emo-
tion. In the first days of this seclusion which she imposed
on herself, Marie watched eagerly the house opposite hers
where Guillaume lived; she followed bim with her looks
into his studio ; she counted his hours of labor, and when
he was faithful to his promise, a feeble hope awoke in her
heart; but the morning dissipated the illusion of the even-
ing. Soon, she saw Guillaume but a few minutes; he even
forgot to place himself at the balcony to salute her; finally,
he ceased entirely to make his appearance ; he no longer
came to the dwelling of his benefactress to inform himself
if she were better; and Marie, weary with suffering and
hoping in vain, implored death as a deliverer.
One evening she was devoured by fever; she left her
bed, and opening her window, she exposed herself half.
dressed to the cold night-air. Resting on the balcony, she
fixed her looks on the house where Guillaume lived; one
window was lighted; her burning eye darted there with avid-
ity ; she thought she saw two shadows glide past the win-
dow ; one of them was Guillaume's, the other,... she
leaned out of the balcony as if this movement would have
cleared the space, ... the other was the shadow of a
woman!
VOL. II. —NO, IV.
61


482
[April,
Marie van Oosterwich.
Urged on by emotions of rage and jealousy, to which
her pure and resigned nature had heretofore been a
stranger, regaining her strength in the excitement of her
grief, Marie rushed into the garden, devoured the space,
passed the door which communicated with the formerly
deserted house, and with one bound ascending the staircase,
she placed herself like a shadow on the threshold of the
lighted room. Pallid, erect, she resembled a spectre whose
haggard eye comes to interrogate the living. You would
have said that she demanded an account from that man
for the profanation of her life. He was there miserably
crouched at a table covered with empty bottles. With
purple face, drunken eye, drooping and besotted lips, he
smiled on a young villager, seated near him, vigorous,
beautiful, but of a merely carnal beauty. The furniture
was in disorder about them; the most precious works of
art had been profaned ; upon pictures of great price lay
some remnants of the food ; Etruscan vases were filled
with liquor and wine, and this apartment, adorned by the
love of a noble woman, was now stained by orgies and de-
bauchery. Marie remained motionless ; consternation took
from her all power of speech ; she thought herself mad.
Suddenly Guillaume raised his eyes; he saw this white
form, this face where there was no longer life ; he was af.
frighted. The girl who was near him turned her head
to the same side, and full of fear pressed close to Guil.
laume, saying; “what does that phantom want of us ? !
Marie remained motionless ; Guillaume trembled; " Par-
don,” cried he with altered. voice, “ I knew that you were
dying, that you were dead, and I have chosen in life a
woman who resembled you ; this girl is beautiful as thou
wert when I saw thee at Utrecht; she grants me the hap-
piness that you have always refused me; I love her in
memory of thee. Oh! Marie, do not curse me!..."
Intoxication plunged Guillaume in a kind of hallucination
which showed to him, as a spectre escaped from the tomb,
her whom he had killed by his' outrages. At these words,
Marie turned her ardent eye on the young girl, who rested
on the heart where she, alas! could never repose ; she
eagerly scanned her features; and, recalling her own face
before grief had faded it, she recognised the resemblance
which Guillaume had remarked; there was the same car-


1842.]
Silence and Speech.
483
nation, the same form, the same outline ; but the seal of
feeling and intellect was wanting in this effigy. Marie
comprehended then clearly with what love Guillaume knew
how to love; and casting on the man of flesh a last look,
a look of pity for himself, she said to him slowly; “I
pardon thee, adieu. ..." Then she vanished like a
shadow. At these words, which they believed pronounced
by a spectre, struck with terror, Guillaume, and she whom
he held, fell fainting.
Marie van Oosterwich died that night ; her hand was
stiffened while writing the testament of her last wishes;
she bequeathed to her family half of her fortune, and left
the other half to the hospital at Delft, with the reservation,
that they should pay yearly an alimony to Guillaume van
Aelst, leaving him always ignorant of the hand which im-
parted the benefit. She did not wish that he, whom she
had once loved, should pass through the last degrees of
misery and shame.
hacted the benetin. always ignoraalimony to Gu: reservatio
SILENCE AND SPEECH.
A LITTLE pleasant bubbling up
· From the unfathomable ocean,
A little glimmering from the unmeasured sun,
A little noise, a little motion -
Such is human speech :
I to thee would teach
A truth diviner, deeper
Than this empty strife
For thou art the keeper
Of the wells of life.
Godlike Silence! I would woo thee -
Leave behind this thoughtless clamor,
Journey upward, upward to thee,
Put on thy celestial armor.'
Let us speak no more,
Let us be divinities;
Let poor mortals prate and roar;
Know we not how small it is
To be ever uttering,
Babbling and muttering ?


484
[April,
Silence and Speech.
Thou canst never tell the whole
Of thine unmanageable soul.
Deeper than thy deepest speech,
Wiser than thy wisest thought,
Something lies thou canst not reach,
Never to the surface brought.
Masses without form or make,
Sleeping gnomes that never wake,
Genii bound by magic spells,
Fairies and all miracles,
Shapes unclassed and wonderful,
Huge and dire and beautiful,
Dreams and hopes and prophecies
Struggling to ope their eyes,
All that is most vast and dim,
All that is most good and bad,
Demon, sprite, and cherubim,
Spectral troops and angels glad,
Things that stir not, yet are living,
Up to the light forever striving,
Thoughts whose faces are averted,
Guesses dwelling in the dark,
Instincts not to be diverted
From their ever-present mark-
Such thy inner soul, O man,
Which no outward eye may scan,
Wonderful, most wonderful -
Terrible and beautiful !
Speak not, reason not — but live;
Reins to thy true nature give,
And in each unconscious act
Forth will shine the hidden Fact.
Yet this smooth surface thou must break,
Thou must give as well as take.
Why this silence long and deep?
Dost thou wake, or dost thou sleep?
Up and speak — persuade and teach!
What so beautiful as speech?
Sing us the old song,
Be our warbling bird,
Thou hast sealed thy lips too long,
And the world must all go wrong,
If it hath no spoken word.
Out with it - - thou hast it! .
We would feel it, taste it.
Be our Delphic oracle,
Let the Memnon-statue sing,
Let the music rise and swell,
We will enter the ring


1842.]
485
Thoughts on Theology.
Where the silent Ones dwell,
And we will compel
The powers that we seek
Through us to sing - through us to speak.
And hark -- Apollo's lyre!
Young Mercury, with words of fire !
And Jove — the serene Air-hath thundered,
As when by old Prometheus
The lightning stolen for our use
From out his sky was plundered !
Man to his Soul draws near,
And silence now hath all to fear,
Her realm is invaded
Her temple degraded -
For Eloquence like a strong and turbid river
Is flowing through her cities. On forever
The mighty waves are dashing, and the sound
Disturbs the deities profound.
God through man is speaking,
And hearts and souls are waking,
Each to each his visions tells,
And all rings out like a chime of bells.
THE WORD — THE WORD — thou hast it now!
Silence befits the gods above,
But Speech is the star on manhood's brow,
The sign of truth — the sign of love.
THOUGHTS ON THEOLOGY.*
At the present day Germany seems to be the only
.country, where the various disciplines of Theology are pur-
sued in the liberal and scientific spirit, which some men
fancy is peculiar to the nineteenth century. It is the only
country where they seem to be studied for their own sake,
as Poetry, Eloquence, and the Mathematics have long been.
In other quarters of the world, they are left too much to
men of subordinate intellect, of little elevation or range of
thought, who pursue their course, which is “roundly
* Entwicklungsgeschichte der Lehre von der Person Christi con den
Altesten Zeiten bis auf die neuesten, dargestellt. Von J. A. DORNER. a.
0. Professor der Theologie an der Universitat Tubingen. Stutgart: 1839.
1 vol. 8vo. pp. xxiy and 556. [Historical development of the doctrine of
the person of Christ, from the earliest to the latest times, &c.]


486
Thoughts on Theology. [April,
smooth, and languishingly slow," and after a life of strenu-
ous assiduity find they have not got beyond the “ Stand-
ards,” set up ages before them. Many theologians seem
to set out with their faces turned to some popular prejudice
of their times, their church, or their school, and walk back-
wards, as it were, or at best in a circle where the move-
ment is retrograde as often as direct. Somebody relates
a story, that once upon a time a scholar after visiting the
place of his Academic education, and finding the old Pro-
fessors then just where they were ten years before, discussing
the same questions, and blowing similar bubbles, and split-
ting hairs anew, was asked by a friend, “what they were
doing at the old place?" He answered, “One was milk-
ing the barren Heifer, and the others holding the sieve.”
To this rule, for such we hold it to be, in France, Eng-
land, and America, at this day, there are some brilliant
exceptions; men who look with a single eye towards truth,
and are willing to follow wherever she shall lead; men too,
whose mind and heart elevate them to the high places of
human attainment, whence they can speak to bless man-
kind. These men are the creatures of no sect or school,
and are found, where God has placed them, in all the va-
rious denominations of our common faith. It is given to
no party, nor coterie, to old school, or new school, to mo-
nopolize truth, freedom, and love. We are sick of that
narrowness which sees no excellence, except what wears
the livery of its own guild. But the favored sons of the
free spirit are so rare in the world at large ; their attention
so seldom turned to theological pursuits, that the above rule
will be found to hold good in chief, and Theology to be
left, as by general consent, to men of humble talents, and
confined methods of thought, who walk mainly under the
cloud of prejudice, and but rarely escape from the tram-
mels of Bigotry and Superstition. Brilliant and profound
minds turn away to Politics, Trade, Law, the fascinating
study of nature so beautiful and composing; men, who
love freedom and are gifted with power to soar through
the empyrean of thought, seek a freer air, and space more
ample wherein to spread their wings. Meanwhile, the dim
cloisters of theology, once filled with the great and wise of
the earth, are rarely trod by the children of Genius and
Liberty. We have wise, and pious, and learned, and elo-


1842.]
487
Thoughts on Theology.
quent preachers, the hope of the church, the ornaments and
defence of society; men who contend for public virtue,
and fight the battle for all souls with earnest endeavor, but
who yet care little for the science of divine things. We
have sometimes feared our young men forsook in this their
have someones reared our young men,
fathers' wiser ways, for surely there was a time when theol-
ogy was studied in our land.
From the neglect of serious, disinterested, and manly
thought, applied in this direction, there comes the obvious
result; while each other science goes forward, passing
through all the three stages requisite for its growth and
perfection; while it makes new observations, or combines
facts more judiciously, or from these infers and induces
general laws hitherto unnoticed, and so develops itself, be-
coming yearly wider, deeper, and more certain, its numer-
ous phenomena being referred back to elementary princi-
ples and universal laws, — Theology remains in its old po-
sition. Its form has changed ; but the change is not sci-
entific, the result of an elementary principle. In the
country of Bossuet and Hooker, we doubt that any new
observation, any new combination of facts has been made,
or a general law discovered in these matters, by any theo-
logian of the present century, or a single step taken by
theological science. In the former country, an eminent
philosopher, of a brilliant mind, with rare faculties of com-
bination and lucid expression, though often wordy, has
done much for psychology, chiefly however by uniting into
one focus the several truths which emanate from various
anterior systems, by popularizing the discoveries of deeper
spirits than his own, and by turning the ingenuous youth to
this noble science. In spite of the defects arising from his
presumption and love of making all facts square with his
formula, rather than the formula express the spirit of the
facts, he has yet furnished a magazine, whence theological
supplies may be drawn, and so has indirectly done much
for a department of inquiry which he has himself never
entered. We would not accept his errors, his hasty gene-
ralizations, and presumptuous flights, — so they seem to
us, — and still less would we pass over the vast service he
has done to this age by his vigorous attacks on the sensual
philosophy and his bold defence of spiritual thought. Mr.
Coleridge also in England, - a spirit analogous but not


488
[April,
Thoughts on Theology.
similar to Mr. Cousin, - has done great service to this
science, but mainly by directing men to the old literature
of his countrymen and the Greeks, or the new productions
of his philosophical contemporaries on the continent of
Europe. He seems to have caught a Pisgah view of that
land of stream and meadow, which he was forbid to enter.
These writers have done great service to men whose date
begins with this century. Others are now applying their
methods and writing their books, sometimes with only the
enthusiasm of imitators, it may be.
We would speak tenderly of existing reputations in our
own country, and honor the achievements of those men
who, with hearts animated only by love of God and man,
devote themselves to the pursuit of truth in this path, and
outwatch the Bear in their severe studies. To them all
honor. But we ask for the theologians of America, who
shall take rank as such with our historians, our men of
science and politics. Where are they? We have only
the echo for answer, Are they?
We state only a common and notorious fact, in saying,
that there is no science of theology with us. There is
enough cultivation and laborious thought in the clerical
profession, perhaps, as some one says, more serious and
hard thinking than in both the sister professions. The
nature of the case demands it. So there was thinking
enough about natural philosophy among the Greeks, after
Aristotle ; but little good came of it in the way of science.
We hazard little in saying, that no treatise has been print-
ed in England in the present century of so great theologi-
cal merit as that of pagan Cicero on the Nature of the
Gods, or the preface to his treatise of Laws. The work
of Aristotle is still the text-book of morals at the first
university in Christian England.
In all science this seems everywhere the rule. The
more Light, the freer, the more profound and searching the
investigation, why the better; the sooner a false theory is
exploded and a new one induced from the observed facts,
the better also. In theology the opposite rule seems often
to prevail. Hence, while other sciences go smoothly on
in regular advance, theology moves only by leaps and vio-
lence. The theology of Protestantism and Unitarianism
are not regular developments which have grown harmoni-


1842.]
489
Thoughts on Theology.
ously out of a systematic study of divine things, as the
theory of gravitation and acoustics in the progress of phi-
losophy. They are rather the results of a spasmodic ac-
tion, to use that term. It was no difficult thing in philoso-
phy to separate astronomy from the magicians and their
works of astrology and divination. It required only years
and the gradual advance of mankind. But to separate re-
ligion from the existing forms, churches, or records, is a
work almost desperate, which causes strife and perhaps
bloodshed. A theological reformation throws kingdoms
into anarchy for the time. Doctrines in philosophy are
neglected as soon as proved false, and buried as soon as
dead. But the art of the embalmer preserves, in the
church, the hulls of effete dogmas in theology, to cumber
the ground for centuries, and disgust the pious worshipper
who would offer a reasonable service. It is only the living
that bury the dead. The history of these matters is
curious and full of warning. What was once condemned
by authority, becomes itself an authority to condemn.
What was once at the summit of the sublime, falls in its
turn to the depth of the ridiculous. We remember a
passage of Julius Firmicus, which we will translate freely,
as it illustrates this point; “ Since all these things," name-
ly, certain false notions, “ were ill concocted, they were at
first a terror unto mortals; then, when their novelty passed
away, and mankind recovered, as it were, from a long dis-
ease, a certain degree of contempt arises for that former
admiration. Thus gradually the human mind has ventured
to scrutinize sharply, what it only admired with stupid
amazement at the first. Very soon some sagacious observer
penetrates to the very secret places of these artificial and
empty superstitions. Then by assiduous efforts, under-
standing the mystery of what was formerly a secret, he
comes to a real knowledge of the causes of things. Thus
the human race first learns the pitiful deceits of the pro-
fane systems of religion ; it next despises, and at last re-
jects them with dis dain.” Thus, as another has said,
“ Men quickly hated this blear-eyed religion, (the Catholic
superstitions) when a little light had come among them,
which they hugged in the might of their ignorance.”
For the successful prosecution of theology, as of every
science, certain conditions must be observed. We must
VOL. II, — NO. IV.
62


490
[April,
.
Thoughts on Theology.
abandon prejudice. The maxim of the Saint, CONFIDO, ERGO
sum, is doubtless as true as that of the Philosopher, Cogito,
ERGO SUM. But it is pernicious when it means, as it often
does, I BELIEVE, AND THEREFORE IT is so. The theologian
of our day, like the astronomer of Galileo's time, must
cast his idols of the Tribe, the Den, the Market-place, and
the School, to the moles and the bats ; must have a disin-
terested love of truth; be willing to follow wherever she
leads. He must have a willingness to search for all the
facts relative to divine things, which can be gathered from
the deeps of the human soul, or from each nation and
every age. He must bave diligence and candor to examine
this mass of spiritual facts ; philosophical skill to combine
them; power to generalize and get the universal expression
of each particular fact, thus discovering the one principle
which lies under the numerous and conflicting phenomena.
Need we say that he must have a good, pious, loving
heart? An undevout theologian is the most desperate of
madmen. A whole Anticyra would not cure him.
This empire of prejudice is still wide enough a domain
for the prince of lies ; but formerly it was wider, and in-
cluded many departments of philosophy, which have since,
through the rebellion of their tenants, been set off to the
empire of Reason, which extends every century. Theolo-
gy, though now and then rebellious against its tyrant, has
never shaken off his yoke, and seems part of his old an-
cestral dominion, where he and his children shall long reign.
An old writer unconsciously describes times later than his
own, and says, “No two things do so usurp upon and
waste the faculty of Reason, as Enthusiasm and Super-
stition; the one binding a faith, the other a fear upon the
soul, which they vainly entitle some divine discovery;
both train a man up to believe beyond possibility of proof;
both instruct the mind to conceive merely by the wind, the
vain words of some passionate men, that can but pretend
a revelation, or tell a strange story; both teach a man to
deliver over himself to the confident dictate of the sons of
imagination; to determine of things by measures phantas-
tical, rules which cannot maintain themselves in credit by
any sober and severe discourses; both inure the mind to
divine rather than to judge ; to dispute for maxims rather
vehement than solid; both make a man afraid to believe


1842.]
491
Thoughts on Theology.
himself, to acknowledge the truth that overpowers his mind,
and that would reward its cordial entertainment with as-
surance and true freedom of spirit. Both place a man be-
yond possibility of conviction, it being in vain to present
an argument against him that thinks he can confront a rev-
elation, a miracle, or some strange judgment from heaven,
upon his adversary to your confusion. It seems, there is
not a greater evil in the State, than wickedness established
by Law; nor a greater in the Church than error [estab-
lished] by Religion, and an ignorant devotion towards
God. And therefore no pains and care are too much to re-
move these two beams from the eye of human understanding,
which render it so insufficient for a just and faithful dis-
covery of objects in religion and common science. “Pessima
res est errorum apotheosis, et pro peste intellectus habenda
est, si vanis accedat veneratio.'"*
Theology is not yet studied in a philosophical spirit, and
the method of a science. Writers seem resolved to set
up some standard of their fathers or their own, so they
explore but a small part of the field, and that only with a
certain end in view. They take a small part of the hu-
man race as the representative of the whole, and neglect
all the rest. As the old geographers drew a chart of the
world, so far as they knew it, but crowded the margin,
where the land was unknown, “ with shrieks, and shapes,
and sights unholy," with figures of dragons, chimeras,
winged elephants, and four-footed whales, anthropophagi,
and “men whose heads do grow beneath their shoulders,"
so “divines" have given us the notions of a few sects of
religious men, and telling us they never examined the
others, have concluded to rest in this comprehensive gen-
eralization, that all besides were filled with falsehood and
devilish devices. What is to be expected of such methods ?
Surely it were as well to give such inquirers at starting the
result they must reach at the end of their course. It ap-
pears legitimate to leave both students and teachers of
geology, mathematics, and science in general, to soar on
the loftiest thoughts toward absolute truth, only stopping
when the wing was weary or the goal reached; but to
* Spencer's Discourse concerning Prodigies. London, 1665. Preface,
p. XV.


492
[April,
Thoughts on Theology.
direct the students and teachers of things divine, to ac-
cept certain conclusions arrived at centuries ago! If Fara-
day and Herschel pursued the theological method in their
sciences, no harm would be done to them or the world,
if they were required to accept the "standard” of Thales
or Paracelsus, and subscribe the old creed every lustrum.
The method could lead to nothing better, and the conclu-
sion, the inquirer must reach, might as well be forced upon
him at the beginning as the end of his circular course.
The ridiculous part of the matter is this, – that the man
professes to search for whatever truth is to be found, but
has sworn a solemn oath never to accept as truth, what
does not conform to the idols he worships at home. We
have sometimes thought what a strange spectacle, — ridic-
ulous to the merry, but sad to the serious, — would appear
if the Almighty should have sent down the brilliant image
of pure, absoluțe Religion, into the assembly of divines at
Westminster, or any similar assembly. Who would ac-
knowledge the image ?
The empire of Prejudice is perhaps the last strong-hold
of the father of lies, that will surrender to Reason. At
present, a great part of the domain of theology is under
the rule of that most ancient czar. There common sense
rarely shows his honest face; Reason seldom comes. It
is a land shadowy with the wings of Ignorance, Supersti-
tion, Bigotry, Fanaticism, the brood of clawed, and beaked,
and hungry Chaos and most ancient Night. There Dark-
ness, as an Eagle, stirreth up her nest; fluttereth over her
young ; spreadeth abroad her wings; taketh her children ;
beareth them on her wings over the high places of the
earth, that they may eat, and trample down, and defile the
increase of the fields. There stands the great arsenal of
Folly, and the old war-cry of the pagan, “Great is Diana
of the Ephesians,” is blazoned on the banner that floats
above its walls. There the spectres of Judaism, and
Heathenism, and Pope, and Pagan, pace forth their night-
ly round; the ghost of Moloch, Saturn, Baal, Odin, fight
their battles over again, and feast upon the dead. There
the eye is terrified, and the mind made mad with the pic-
ture of a world that has scarce a redeeming feature, with
a picture of heaven such as a good free man would scorn
to enter, and a picture of hell such as a fury would delight
to paint.


1842.]
493
Thoughts on Theology.
If we look a little at the history of theology, it appears
that errors find easiest entrance there, and are most diffi-
cult to dislodge. It required centuries to drive out of the
Christian Church a belief in ghosts and witches. The
Devil is still a classical personage of theology; his existe
ence maintained by certain churches in their articles of
faith ; and while we are writing these pages, a friend tells
us of hearing a preacher of the popular doctrine declare in his
public teaching from the pulpit, that to deny the existence
of the Devil, is to destroy the character of Christ. In
science we ask first, what are the facts of observation
whence we shall start ? next, what is the true and natural
order, explanation, and meaning of these facts ? The first
work is to find the facts, then their law and meaning.
Now here are two things to be considered, namely, FACTS
and NO-FACTS. For every false theory there are a thousand
false facts. In theology, the data, in many celebrated cases,
are facts of assumption, not observation; in a word, are
NO-FACTS. When Charles the Second asked the Royal
Society, “Why a living fish put into a vessel of water
added nothing to the weight of the water ?” there were
enough, no doubt, to devise a theory, and explain the fact,
“ by the upward pressure of the water,” “the buoyancy
of the air in the living fish," " its motion and the reaction
of the water.” But when some one ventured to verify
the fact, it was found to be no-fact. Had the Royal
Academy been composed of “ Divines," and not of Natu-
ralists and Philosophers, the theological method would
have been pursued, and we should have had theories as
numerous as the attempts to reconcile the story of Jonah
with human experience, and science would be where it
was at first. Theology generally passes dry-shod over the
first question, - What are the facts ? — “ with its garlands
and singing-robes about it.” Its answer to the next query
is therefore of no value.
We speak historically of things that have happened,
when we say, that many, if not most of those theological
questions, which have been matters of dispute and railing,
belong to the class of explanations of no-facts. Such, we
take it, are the speculations, for the most part, that have
grown out of the myths of the Old and New Testament;
about Angels, Devils, personal appearances of the Deity,


494
[April,
Thoughts on Theology.
ungs before rehe history ory of the wo
the darkeaching the truscience is that the retro-
miraculous judgments, supernatural prophecies, the trinity,
and the whole class of miracles from Genesis to Revelation.
Easy faith and hard logic have done enough in theology.
Let us answer the first question, and verify the facts before
we attempt to explain them.
As we look back on the history of the world, the retro-
spect is painful. The history of science is that of many
wanderings before reaching the truth. But the history of
theology is the darkest chapter of all, for neither the true
end nor the true path seems yet to be discovered and pur-
sued. In the history of every department of thought
there seem to be three periods pretty distinctly marked.
First, the period of hypothesis, when observation is not
accurate, and the solution of the problem, when stated, is
a matter of conjecture, mere guess-work. Next comes
the period of observation and induction, when men ask for
the facts, and their law. Fnally, there is the period when
science is developed still further by its own laws, without
the need of new observations. Such is the present state
of mathematics, speculative astronomy, and some other de-
partments, as we think. Thus science may be in advance
of observation. Some of the profound remarks of New-
ton belong to this last epoch of science. An ancient was
in the first when he answered the question, “ Why does a
man draw his feet under him, when he wishes to rise from
his seat?” by saying it was "on account of the occult
properties of the circle.” .
Now theology with us is certainly in the period of hy-
pothesis. The facts are assumed; the explanation is
guess-work. To take an example from a section of theolo-
gy much insisted on at the present day, — the use and
meaning of miracles. The general thesis is, that miracles
confirm the authority of him who works them, and authen-
ticate his teachings to be divine. We will state it in a
syllogistic and more concrete form. Every miracle-worker
is a heaven-sent and infallible teacher of truth. Jonah
is a miracle-worker. Therefore Jonah is a heaven-sent
and infallible teacher of truth. Now we should begin by
denying the major in full, and go on to ask proofs of the
minor. But the theological method is to assume both.
When both premises are assumptions, the conclusion will
be, - what we see it is. Men build neither castles nor tem-


1842.]
495
Thoughts on Theology.
ples of moonshine. Yet, in spite of this defect, limitation,
and weakness, it is a common thing to subject other scien-
ces to this pretended science of Theology. Psychology,
Ethics, Geology, and Astronomy are successively arraigned,
examined, and censured or condemned, because their con-
clusions, — though legitimately deduced from notorious
facts, — do not square with the assumptions of theology,
which still aspires to be head of all. But to present this
claim for theology in its present state, is like making the
bramble king over the trees of the forest. The result
would be as in Jotham's parable. Theology would say,
come and put your trust in my shadow. But if you will
not, a fire shall go out from the bramble and devour the
cedars of Lebanon. .
Now as it seems to us, there are two legitimate methods
of attempting to improve and advance theology. One is
for the theologian to begin anew, trusting entirely to medi-
tation, contemplation, and thought, and ask what can be
known of divine things, and how can it be known and le-
gitimated? This work of course demands, that he should
criticise the faculty of knowing, and determine its laws,
and see, à priori, what are our instruments of knowing,
and what the law and method of their use, and thus dis-
cover the NOVUM ORGANUM of thcology. This determined,
he must direct his eye inward on what passes there, study-
ing the stars of that inner firmament, as the astronomer
reads the phenomena of the heavens. He must also look
outward on the face of nature and of man, and thus read
the primitive Gospel God wrote on the heart of his child,
and illustrated in the Earth and the Sky and the events of
life. Thus from observations made in the external world,
made also in the internal world, comprising both the
reflective and the intuitive faculties of man, he is to frame
the theory of God, of man, of the relation between God
and man, and of the duties that grow out of this relation,
for with these four questions we suppose theology is exclu-
sively concerned. This is the philosophical method, and
it is strictly legitimate. It is pursued in the other sciences,
and to good purpose. Thus science becomes the interpre-
ter of nature, not its lawgiver. The other method is to
get the sum of the theological thinking of the human race,
and out of this mass construct a system, without attempt-


496
[April,
Thoughts on Theology.
ing a fresh observation of facts. This is the historical
method, and it is useful to show what has been done. The
opinion of mankind deserves respect, no doubt; but this
method can lead to a perfect theology no more than histori-
cal Eclecticism can lead to a perfect philosophy. The
former researches in theology, as in magnetism and geolo-
gy, offer but a narrow and inadequate basis to rest on.
This historical scheme has often been attempted, but
never systematically, thoroughly, and critically, so far as
we know. In England and America, however, it seems
almost entirely to have dispossessed the philosophical
method of its rights. But it has been conducted in a nar-
row, exclusive manner, after the fashion of antiquarians
searching to prove a preconceived opinion, rather than in
the spirit of philosophical investigation. From such meas-
ures we must expect melancholy results. From the com-
mon abhorrence of the philosophical method, and the nar-
row and uncritical spirit in which the historical method is
commonly pursued, comes this result. Our philosophy of
divine things is the poorest of all our poor philosophies.
It is not a theology, but a despair of all theology. The
theologian, - as Lord Bacon says of a method of philoso-
phizing that was cominon in his time, - “ hurries on rapid-
ly from particulars to the most general axioms, and from
them as principles, and their supposed indisputable truth,
derives and discovers the intermediate axioms.” Of course
what is built on conjecture, and only by guess, can never
satisfy men, who ask for the facts and their law and expla-
nation.
.
Still more, deference for authority is carried to the great-
est extreme in theology. The sectarian must not dispute
against the “Standards” set up by the Synod of Dort, the
Westminster Divines, or the Council of Trent. These
settle all controversies. If the theologian is no sectarian,
in the usual sense of that word, then his “ Standard” is the
Bible. He settles questions of philosophy, morals, and re-
ligion by citing texts, which prove only the opinion of the
writer, and perhaps not even that. The chain of his ar-
gument is made of Scripture sentences well twisted. As
things are now managed by theologians in general, there
is little chance of improvement. As Bacon says of univer-
sities in his day, “ They learn nothing but to believe ; first,


1842.)
497
Thoughts on Theology.
that others know this which they know not, and often,
[that] themselves know that which they know not. They
are like a becalmed ship; they never move but by the
wind of other men's breath, and have no oars of their own
to steer withal.” And again. ´“ All things are found op-
posite to advancement; for the readings and exercises are
so managed, that it cannot easily come into any one's
mind to think of things out of the common road; or if
here and there, one should venture to ask a liberty of judg-
ing, he can only impose the task upon himself without ob-
taining assistance from his fellows; and if he could dis-
pense with this, he will still find his industry and resolution
a great hindrance to his fortune. For the studies of men
in such places are confined and penned down to the writ-
ings of certain authors; from which if any man happens to
differ, he is presently reprehended as a disturber and inno-
vator.” And still farther. “Their wits being shut - up in
the cells of a few authors, did, out of no great quantity of
matter, and infinite agitation of wit, spin cobwebs of learn-
ing, admirable for the fineness of thread and work, but of
no substance or profit.”
There are two methods of philosophizing in general, that
of the Materialists and the Spiritualists, to use these terms.
The one is perhaps most ably represented in the Novum
Organum of Lord Bacon, and the other in Descartes'
Book of Method and of Principles. The latter was early
introduced to England by a few Platonizing philosophers,
- now better known abroad than at home, we fancy,
whose pious lives, severe study, and volumes full of the
ripest thought have not yet redeemed them, in the judg-
ment of their countrymen, from the charge of being mys-
tics, dreamers of dreams, too high for this world, too low
for the next, so of no use in either. But this method,
inasmuch as it laid great stress on the inward and the
ideal, — in the Platonic sense, — and, at least in its one-
sidedness and misapplication, led sometimes to the visiona-
ry and absurd, has been abandoned by our brethren in
England. Few British scholars, since the seventeenth
century, have studied theology in the spirit of the Carte-
sian method. The other method, that of Bacon, begins
by neglecting that half of man's nature which is primarily
concerned with divine things. This has been found more
VOL. II. — NO. IV.
63


498
[April,
Thoughts on Theology.
congenial with the taste and character of the English and
American nations. They have applied it, with eminent
success, to experimental science, for which it was designed,
and from which it was almost exclusively derived by its il-
lustrious author. We would speak with becoming diffi-
dence respecting the defects of a mind so vast as Bacon's,
which burst the trammels of Aristotle and the School-men,
emancipated philosophy in great measure from the theo-
logical method which would cripple the intellectual ener-
gies of the race. But it must be confessed that Bacon's
Philosophy recognises scarcely the possibility of a theology,
certainly of none but a historical theology, — gathering
up the limbs of Osiris dispersed throughout the world. It
lives in the senses, not the soul. Accordingly, this method
is applied chiefly in the departments of natural and me-
chanical philosophy; and even here Englishmen begin to
find it inadequate to the ultimate purposes of science, by
reason of its exceeding outwardness, and so look for a bet-
ter instrument than the Novum Organum, wherewith to
arm the hand of science.* One of the most thorough
Baconians of the present day, as we understand it, is Mr.
Comte, the author of the course of positive Philosophy
now publishing at Paris ; and it is curious to see the results
he has reached, namely, Materialism in Psychology, Self-
ishness in Ethics, and Atheism in Theology. It is not for
us to say he is logically false to his principles.
Some of the countrymen of Bacon, however, have at-
tempted to apply his method in other departments of hu-
man inquiry. Locke has done this in metaphysics. It was
with Bacon's new instrument in his hand, that he struck
at the root of innate ideas; at our idea of Infinity, Eterni-
ty, and the like. But here his good sense sometimes, his
excellent heart and character, truly humane and Christian,
much oftener, as we think, saved him from the conclusions,
to which this method has legitimately led others who have
followed it. The method defective, so was the work. A
Damascus mechanic, with a very rude instrument, may
form exquisite blades, and delicate filagree; but no skill of
the artist, no excellence of heart, can counteract the de-
* See Whewell's Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences, etc. London,
1840. 2 vols. 8vo. See Preface to Vol. I.


1842.]
499
Thoughts on Theology.
fects of the Novum Organum, when applied to morals,
metaphysics, or theology. Hume furnishes another in-
stance of the same kind. His treatise of Natural Religion
we take to be a rigid application of Bacon's method in
theological inquiries, and his inductions to be legitimate,
admitting his premises and accepting his method. A third
instance of the same kind is afforded by the excellent Dr.
Paley. Here this method is applied in morals; the result
is too well known to need mention.
Never did a new broom sweep so clean as this new in-
strument, in the various departments of metaphysics, the-
ology, and ethics. Love, God, and the Soul are swept
clean out of doors.* We are not surprised that no one,
following Bacon's scheme, has ever succeeded in argu-
ment with these illustrious men, or driven Materialism,
Selfishness, and Skepticism from the field of Philosophy,
Morals, and Religion. The answer to these systems must
come from men who adopt a different method. Weapons
tempered in another spring were needed to cleave asunder
the seven-orbed Baconian shield, and rout the Skepticism
sheltered thereby. No Baconian philosopher, so it seems
to us, has ever ruffled its terrible crest, though the merest
stripling of the Gospel could bring it to the ground. The
replies to Locke, Hume, and Paley come into England
from countries where a more spiritual philosophy has for-
tunately got footing.
The consequences of this exclusive Baconianism of the
English have been disastrous to theological pursuits. The
“ Divines" in England, at the present day, her Bishops,
Professors, and Prebendaries, are not theologians. They
are logicians, chemists, skilled in the mathematics; histo-
rians, poor commentators upon Greek poets. Theology is
out of their line. They have taken the ironical advice of
Bishop Hare. Hence it comes to pass, either that theolo-
gy is not studied at all; only an outside and preparatory
department is entered ; or it is studied with little success,
even when a man like Lord Brougham girds himself for the
task. The most significant theological productions of the
last five and twenty years in England are the Bridgewater
* We would not have it supposed we charge these re