l Science are now in the possession
of mankind. He has opened the Book of Beauties, in
which Humanity henceforth can read, he has explained the
nature of Man, and pointed out how, from this and other
knowledge, he can attain to a comprehension of the nature
and essence of God; he has proved scientifically the Im-
mortality of the Soul, shown the Destiny of the Human
Race upon the Earth, and explained in detail the Organi-
zation of a true system of Society, which will secure the
moral, intellectual, and physical elevation of Mankind, and
give to all a higher degree of mental Culture and Devel-
opment, than the most favored have yet attained.
I will repeat briefly, in concluding, the conditions which
must be fulfilled to effect a reconciliation and union of Re-
ligion and Science, as it is important to have them clearly


96
[July,
Fourierism and the Socialists.
before the mind. The first condition contains properly
two within itself, and I will separate them for the sake of
greater clearness.
1. A true Social Order must be discovered and estab-
lished, which will give Education, or intellectual develop-
ment, and abundance of pecuniary independence to Man, and
which will direct and develop properly his passions.
2. The condition of Mankind must be morally and intel-
lectually elevated, so that they can feel purely and compre-
hend scientifically universal Truth, the Exaltation and Ex-
planation of which are the aims of Religion and Science.
3. Genius must discover the system of the Universe,
and give a full and scientific Elucidation of its laws. Such
an Elucidation will open to Man views of God, a future
state, and the scheme of Creation, infinitely more sublime
than his Faith, or the spontaneous conceptions of the Soul,
have yet conceived. It will in consequence exalt his Faith,
while it satisfies his Reason, and will unite and harmonize
them fully.
* * * * * * * * *
The age is ready for a great movement; the human Mind
has, during the last three centuries, broken the chains of
intellectual despotism, and run through an epoch of doubt-
ing, criticising, and inconclusive philosophy, and is now pre-
pared for a work of reconstruction,-both in a scientific and
religious sense.
The world has nearly thrown off also another despotism,
that of the warrior interest, and it is planting the peaceful
standard of Production and Industry in its place. Human
Intelligence has matured beyond all precedent, during the
last hundred years, and must now be capable of compre-
hending the grand idea of a Social Reform, and the elevation
of the Human Race. The Disciples of Fourier hope and
trust that it is so, and that the dawn of Universal Truth and
Human Happiness is now breaking upon this earth, so long
sunk in ignorance, and so long the abode of Tyranny and
Misery.


1842.]
97
The Evening Choir.
POEMS FOR THE DIAL.
BY JONES VERY.
THE EVENING CHOIR.
The organ smites the ear with solemn notes
'In the dark pines withdrawn, whose shadows fall
Motionless on the moonlit path which leads
To the house of God, within whose porch I stand.
Behold the stars and larger constellations
Of the north hemisphere; glitter more bright
Their ranks, and more harmonious they seem,
As from within swells out the holy song.
The pillars tremble with the waves of sound !
There is in these deep tones a power to abide
Within us; when the hand is mouldered
Of him who sweeps its keys, and silent too
Her voice, who with the organ chants so sweet,
We shall hear echoes of a former strain,
Soft soul-like airs coming we know not whence.
I would that to the noisy throng below,
Which paces restless through the glimmering street,
Might reach this anthem with its cadence soft,
And its loud rising blasts. Men's ears are closed,
And shut their eyes, when from on high the angels
Listen well pleased, and nearer draw to the earth.
Yet here the blind man comes, the only constant
Listener. In the dim-lighted Church, within
Some pew's recess, retired he sits, with face
Upturned as if he saw, as well as heard,
And music was to him another sense :
Some thoughtless at the gate a moment stand,
Whom a chance-wandering melody detains,
And then, forgetful, mingle with the tide
That bears them on; perchance to wonder whence
It came, or dream from a diviner sphere
'T was heard.
VOL. III. — NO. 1.
13


98
[July,
The Evening Choir.
Tomorrow is the Sabbath-time;
Refreshed by sleep this tired multitude,
Which now by all ways rushes through the city,
Each hurrying to and fro with thoughts of gain,
And harried with the business of the world,
Men with children mixed clamorous and rude,
Shall, all at once, quit their accustomed streets,
And to the temples turn with sober pace,
And decent dress composed for prayer and praise.
Yon gate, that now is shut upon the crowd,
Shall open to the worshippers; by paths
Where not a foot 's now heard, up these high steps
Come arm in arm the mother, father, child,
Brother, and sister, servants and the stranger
Tarrying with them, and the stated priest
Who ministers in holy things. Peace be
On this House, on its courts! May the high hymn
Of praise, that now is sung preparative,
Quiet the rough waves that loud are breaking
At its base, and threatening its high walls.
I would not, when my heart is bitter grown,
And my thoughts turned against the multitude,
War with their earthly temple; mar its stones;
Or, with both pillars in my grasp, shake down
The mighty ruin on their heads. With this
I war not, nor wrestle with the earthly man.
I war with the spiritual temple raised
By pride, whose top is in the heavens, though built
On the earth; whose site and hydra-beaded power
Is everywhere; — with Principalities,
And them who rule the darkness of this world,
The Spirits of wickedness that highest stand.
'Gainst this and these I fight; nor I alone,
But those bright stars I see that gather round
Nightly this sacred spot. Nor will they lay
Their glittering armor by, till from heaven's height
Is cast Satan with all his host headlong!
Falling from sphere to sphere, from earth to earth
Forever ; — and God's will is done.


1842.)
99
The World.
THE WORLD.
'Tis all a great show,
The world that we're in,
None can tell when 't was finished,
None saw it begin ;
Men wander and gaze through
Its courts and its halls,
Like children whose love is
The picture-hung walls.
There are flowers in the meadow,
There are clouds in the sky,
Songs pour from the wood-land,
The waters glide by;
Too many, too many
For eye or for ear,
The sights that we see,
And the sounds that we hear.
A weight as of slumber
Comes down on the mind,
So swift is Life's train
To its objects we're blind;
I myself am but one
In the fleet-gliding show,
Like others I walk,
But know not where I go.
One saint to another
I heard say 'How long ?'
I listened, but nought more
I heard of his song;
The shadows are walking
Through city and plain, —
How long shall the night
And its shadow remain ?


100.
(July,
Chardon Street and Bible Conventions.
How long ere shall shine
In this glimmer of things
The Light of which prophet
In prophecy sings;
And the gates of that city
Be open, whose sun
No more to the west
Its circuit shall run!
CHARDON STREET AND BIBLE CONVENTIONS.
In the month of November, 1840, a Convention of
Friends of Universal Reform assembled in the Chardon
Street Chapel, in Boston, in obedience to a call in the
newspapers signed by a few individuals, inviting all per-
sons to a public discussion of the institutions of the Sabbath,
the Church, and the Ministry. The Convention organized
itself by the choice of Edmund Quincy, as Moderator,
spent three days in the consideration of the Sabbath, and
adjourned to a day in March, of the following year, for
the discussion of the second topic. In March, according-
ly, a three-days' session was holden, in the same place, on
the subject of the Church, and a third meeting fixed for
the following November, which was accordingly holden,
and the Convention, debated, for three days again, the
remaining subject of the Priesthood. This Convention
never printed any report of its deliberations, nor pretended
to arrive at any Result, by the expression of its sense in
formal resolutions, — the professed object of those persons
who felt the greatest interest in its meetings being simply
the elucidation of truth through free discussion. The daily
newspapers reported, at the time, brief sketches of the
course of proceedings, and the remarks of the principal
speakers. These meetings attracted a good deal of public
attention, and were spoken of in different circles in every
note of hope, of sympathy, of joy, of alarm, of abhor-
rence, and of merriment. The composition of the assem-


1842.] Chardon Street and Bible Conventions.
101
bly was rich and various. The singularity and latitude of
the summons drew together, from all parts of New Eng-
land, and also from the Middle States, men of every shade
of opinion, from the straitest orthodoxy to the wildest her-
esy, and many persons whose church was a church of one
member only. A great variety of dialect and of costume
was noticed ; a great deal of confusion, eccentricity, and
freak appeared, as well as of zeal and enthusiasm. If the
assembly was disorderly, it was picturesque. Madmen,
madwomen, men with beards, Dunkers, Muggletonians,
Come-outers, Groaners, Agrarians, Seventh-day-Baptists,
Quakers, Abolitionists, Calvinists, Unitarians, and Philos-
ophers, — all came successively to the top, and seized their
moment, if not their hour, wherein to chide, or pray, or
preach, or protest. The faces were a study. The most
daring innovators, and the champions-until-death of the
old cause, sat side by side. The still living merit of the
oldest New England families, glowing yet, after several
generations, encountered the founders of families, fresh
merit, emerging, and expanding the brows to a new breadth,
and lighting a clownish face with sacred fire. The as-
sembly was characterized by the predominance of a cer-
tain plain, sylvan strength and earnestness, whilst many of
the most intellectual and cultivated persons attended its
councils. Dr. Channing, Edward Taylor, Bronson Alcott,
Mr. Garrison, Mr. May, Theodore Parker, H. C. Wright,
Dr. Osgood, William Adams, Edward Palmer, Jones Very,
Maria W. Chapman, and many other persons of a mystical,
or sectarian, or philanthropic renown, were present, and
some of them participant. And there was no want of fe-
male speakers ; Mrs. Little and Mrs. Lucy Sessions took a
pleasing and memorable part in the debate, and that flea
of Conventions, Mrs. Abigail Folsom, was but too ready
with her interminable scroll. If there was not parliament-
ary order, there was life, and the assurance of that consti-
tutional love for religion and religious liberty, which, in all
periods, characterizes the inhabitants of this part of Ameri-
ca.
There was a great deal of wearisome speaking in each
of those three-days' sessions, but relieved by signal passa-
ges of pure eloquence, by much vigor of thought, and es-
pecially by the exhibition of character, and by the victories


102
[July,
Chardon Street and Bible Conventions.
of character. These men and women were in search of
something better and more satisfying than a vote or a defi-
nition, and they found what they sought, or the pledge of
it, in the attitude taken by individuals of their number, of
resistance to the insane routine of parliamentary usage, in
the lofty reliance on principles, and the prophetic dignity
and transfiguration which accompanies, even amidst oppo-
sition and ridicule, a man whose mind is made up to obey
the great inward Commander, and who does not anticipate
his own action, but awaits confidently the new emergency
for the new counsel. By no means the least value of this
Convention, in our eye, was the scope it gave to the ge-
nius of Mr. Alcott, and not its least instructive lesson was
the gradual but sure ascendency of his spirit, in spite of
the incredulity and derision with which he is at first receiv-
ed, and in spite, we might add, of his own failures. More-
over, although no decision was had, and no action taken
on all the great points mooted in the discussion, yet the
Convention brought together many remarkable persons,
face to face, and gave occasion to memorable interviews
and conversations, in the hall, in the lobbies, or around
the doors.
Before this body broke up in November last, a short
adjournment was carried, for the purpose of appointing a
Committee to summon a new Convention, to be styled' the
Bible Convention, for the discussion of the credibility and
authority of the Scriptures of the Old and New Testa-
ments. A Committee was agreed upon, and, by their in-
vitation, the new Association met in the Masonic Temple,
in Boston, on the 29th of March, of the present year. This
meeting was less numerously attended, and did not exhibit
at its birth the same vigor as its predecessors. Many per-
sons who had been conspicuous in the former meetings
were either out of the country, or hindered from early at-
tendance. Several who wished to be present at its delibera-
tions deferred their journey until the second day, believ-
ing that, like the former Convention, it would sit three
days. Possibly from the greater unpopularity of its ob-
ject, out of doors, some faintness or coldness surprised the
members. At all events, it was hurried to a conclusion on
the first day, to the great disappointment of many. Mr.
Brownson, Mr. Alcott, Mr. West, and among others a Mor-


1842.]
103
Chardon Street and Bible Conventions.
mon preacher took part in the conversation. But accord-
ing to the general testimony of those present, as far as
we can collect it, the best speech made on that occasion was
that of Nathaniel H. Whiting, of South Marshfield. Mr.
Whiting had already distinguished himself in the Chardon
Street meetings. Himself a plain unlettered man, leaving
for the day a mechanical employment to address his fel-
lows, he possesses eminent gifts for success in assem-
blies so constituted. He has fluency, self-command, an
easy, natural method, and very considerable power of
statement. No one had more entirely the ear of this au-
dience, for it is not to be forgotten that, though, as we
have said, there were scholars and highly intellectual per-
sons in this company, the bulk of the assemblage was made
up of quite other materials, namely, of those whom reli-
gion and solitary thought have educated, and not books or
society, — young farmers and mechanics from the country,
whose best training has been in the Anti-slavery, and Tem-
perance, and Non-resistance Clubs. Mr. Whiting has been
at the pains to draw up, at our request, a report of his
speech on that occasion, on the subject of miracles and
the authority of the Bible, which we gladly present to our
readers, as a fair specimen of the spirit of the debates
serve of an assembly in all respects noteworthy.
SUBSTANCE OF MR. WHITING'S REMARKS.
The advocates for what may be called technical Christianity
rest their claim for the special and plenary inspiration of the
Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, mainly upon cer-
tain external circumstances attending their promulgation among
men; - the principal of which are the material miracles which
are recorded in them, but which, however, have no necessary or
legitimate connexion with the facts they accompany.
Now it seems to me there is a radical defect in this sort of
evidence, inasmuch as truths which pertain to the soul cannot
be proved by any external testimony whatever; and can only
be wrought out and demonstrated by the experience of the soul
itself. I might, perhaps, write my own faith ; but that scripture
could not be taken as conclusive evidence of the truth of that
faith, even though it might be accompanied by all the “signs
and wonders” of which history bears record. So that, even
if these miracles could be proved beyond the possibility of


--
-
-
104
Chardon Street and Bible Conventions.
[July,
-
-
-
doubt, this could never settle the question of the divine nature
and the absolute truth of the sentiments with which they
are associated, as this can only be done by the nature of the
doctrines taught, and not by any extraneous or adventitious
circumstances attending their utterance. But the pertinacity
with which the supporters of Christianity cling to these miracles,
and the prominence given to them in nearly all arguments to
establish its exclusive claim, as a religion of divine origin and
authority, upon the confidence and belief of mankind, and its
singular and sole power to elevate and redeem the race, would
seem to indicate that they are regarded as an essential part of
the system ; the literal truth of which can never be questioned,
without sapping the very foundation of the whole Sacred Canon.
I do not think, however, that this is the case ; on the contrary,
I apprehend that these supposed miracles do little else than
mystify and obscure the real beauty of the great truths which
the Bible does actually contain ; and thus neutralize in a great
degree the healing and saving influences which they would
otherwise exert upon the destinies of men. And this because
they so bewilder the imagination, and bias the judgment, that
they can never receive that full and free investigation into
their nature and tendency, and that deep and searching analysis
which their influence upon human welfare demands.
If miracles are indeed fundamental to, and a necessary part
of, Christianity, as is contended by its advocates, then it is es-
sential that these should not only be wrought in one age, but
in all ages; not only by one of its advocates, but by all of them.
Absolute truth, as the axiom, " Thou shalt love thy neighbor as
thyself,” is eternal, — needs no external support, and can re-
ceive none. It is intuitive to the soul, and meets a cordial
response in every human breast. But a miracle, being a sup-
posed suspension of the laws of the universe, for a specific and
individual purpose, rests entirely upon external evidence; and
must, therefore, require to be renewed, from day to day, and in
the presence of all who are to be converted to the creed it is
intended to confirm and enforce. If it is necessary for one
man to see miracles performed in order to believe other truth,
it is so for all surely. Of what avail is it to me that miracles
were wrought eighteen hundred years ago, before men who
have been long since dead? Or of what avail is it that they
should be performed before others even now? It is necessary
that I should see them as well as others. I require the same
evidence of truth that they do. But what have we now to prove
the truth of Christianity, supposing it to rest upon the external
basis claimed by its advocates, but a meagre and very ques-
tionable record of miracles, said to have been wrought hundreds
and thousands of years ago! Surely our credulity is greater


1842.]
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Chardon Street and Bible Conventions.
than that of those who lived in those days. They required
ocular demonstration ; but we are to be satisfied with such evi-
dence as we can pick up among the ruins of the ages, that such
things were. I insist that it is as necessary for preachers of
Christianity to work miracles now, as at any former period. The
Catholic and the Mormon have seen the importance of this.
Hence, I believe, they claim to be in possession of that power,
and at times to perform miracles each in evidence of the di-
vinity of his own faith.
If a miracle settles anything in regard to the truth of Chris-
tianity, how much and what does it prove? Does it prove that
those who have wrought miracles could never err, because they
were infallible? This will not be pretended in the face of the
record itself. If they were mistaken in one thing, why might
they not be in another ? Even the immediate disciples of Jesus
were notoriously ignorant in regard to the nature of the truths
taught, and were for a time utterly at fault with reference to
the mission he was sent to accomplish ; while the very arch
traitor of them all, Judas Iscariot, for aught that appears to the
contrary, wrought miracles as well as the rest.
If the power to work miracles does not prove infallibility on
the part of those who have it, it is certainly desirable to know
precisely what it does prove, and what subjects are placed be-
yond the reach of question by its exhibition; so that on those
subjects the understanding and the conscience may go to sleep,
for to me there can be in so far no sort of use for their exercise.
But the truth is, a miracle proves nothing whatever beyond it-
self. It testifies of itself, and the power requisite to its per-
formance, and nothing else.
One argument, however, in favor of the miracles recorded
in the Bible, and one which may be worthy of a passing notice,
is, that the people were so ignorant and sensual when its writers
lived, that they required some such supernatural exhibitions to
induce them to reflect upon the truths which were uttered. If
miracles were ever needed for this purpose, they are now. For
men were never more confined to sense than at the present day.
Universal skepticism prevails. It would seem, then, that we
need as signal an exhibition of divine power to-day as ever.
But what effect can such exhibitions as are recorded in the
Scriptures have on men, but to foreclose the judgment, and
shut out the reason ? Truth cannot be viewed with that search-
ing glance which is essential to its perfect understanding,
when its enunciation is accompanied by “signs and wonders "
which no one can comprehend. I love truth for itself, and not
because he who utters it is able to perform acts which elude the
grasp of reason, and therefore produce nothing in the witness
but stupid wonder. Besides, all these things transpired so long
VOL. III. —NO. I.
14


106
(July,
Chardon Street and Bible Conventions.
ago, and in such a dark age of the world, that there must ever
hang a doubt upon them; and the proof of their reality can
never be given to the satisfaction of unbiassed, reflecting minds.
Thus the real value of the Gospel is in a great measure lost, by
coupling it with acts and events to which the understanding can
never give credence, and which, if true, could not add one par-
ticle of value to the great truths upon which it is based.
These old traditions, which have come down to us amid the
ruins of the past, were probably founded on some fact; but it is
difficult, if not impossible, at the present time, to ascertain
what the primitive fact was. Neither is it of the slightest con-
sequence to the progress of the race that we should ever know.
The great conservative and renovating principle of the universe,
Love, yet abides. This shall suffice for all the purposes of re-
demption and salvation.
It seems to be supposed by those who tax our credulity to the
enormous extent, requisite for belief in the literal miracles of
Hebrew and Christian Scripture, that there were as great facili-
ties for the detection of error, and for the apprehension and pres-
ervation of truth, as at the present day; and that, all the evi.
dence taken into the account, there is no hazard in giving
implicit faith to these ancient records. But, in the first place,
these things were performed in the darkest ages of the world,
among a people addicted to the grossest superstition, and igno-
rant of the most common rules of science. In the second
place, passing by this fact, we find it hard to get at the ex-
act truth in relation to any important subject in our day, with
all our multiplied means of detecting error; much more surely
must this be the case in dealing with events which have been
mingled with, and modified by, the changes and revolutions of
whole thousands of years.
We should always receive with great allowance, if not with
absolute unbelief, records which contradict the present experi-
ence of the entire race; and which therefore rest wholly upon
external testimony for their support. It is doubted whether the
miracles recorded in the Bible are any better authenticated than
the Salem witchcraft; or, at least, than the miracles said to
have been wrought by Ann Lee, the female Jesus of the Sha-
kers. Few have now any sort of faith in the witchcraft in the
one case, or in the miraculous power of the Shaker Jesus in the
other.
If, therefore, Christianity does indeed rest on such a founda-
tion as these historical miracles, if it have not absolute, living
truth, which will commend itself to the understanding and con-
science of every man, independent of, and totally aside from,
the supposed miracles of its authors; then indeed it must pass
away, and be superseded by clearer and brighter light, as it has
supplanted the grosser and darker superstitions of the past.


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Chardon Street and Bible Conventions.
Taking this view of the nature of miracles and their influ-
ence, the only valid and indestructible argument for Christian-
ity must be some such one as that of Soame Jenyns, in his
work, called, “ A View of the Internal Evidence of the Chris-
tian Religion." He very wisely sets aside the whole question
of miracles, including the miraculous birth of Jesus, and rests
his cause upon the intrinsic nature of the doctrines which
Christianity inculcates. This is right. Many of the sayings
and acts of “ Jesus of Nazareth” are all over radiant with the
Divine Spirit from which they emanated; and will continue to
pour an ever-increasing flood of light upon the great problem of
man's nature and destiny, when the thousand dogmas, that have
been professedly elaborated from them, shall have crumbled be.
neath the touch of “time's effacing fingers," and be remem-
bered, if at all, but as way-marks to indicate the weary and
painful steps of human progress. Well would it be, if they
were suffered to complete their work of regeneration, unob-
structed by the creeds, and forms, and claims to exclusive divin-
ity, with which they have been environed and fettered, and
which have been the parent of so much superstition, cruelty,
and death.
The great error of such advocates of Christianity, as Jenyns,
consists in the assumption that, “ from the Bible may be ab-
stracted a system of religion entirely new, both with regard to
the object and the doctrines, not only infinitely superior to, but
unlike, everything which had ever before entered into the mind
of man.” The truths which Jesus shadowed forth have their
foundation deep within the human soul. They have flashed
across the world, more or less distinctly and emphatically, all
down the history of the race. They have ever been mirrored,
feebly and dimly perhaps, but yet surely and divinely, by all of
human faith and human hope. All religions are, in some re-
spects identical, — have a common foundation; to wit, the na-
ture of man. The forms which they assume may vary, - the
result of accidental circumstances as they are; but they all
have some truth. They could not live without. No man can
subsist on chaff alone. There must be some grain mixed with
it. So of religion, of whatsoever name. It cannot be wholly
false. If it were, it could not be. When, therefore, these men
take the ground that the Christian religion is unlike everything
which had previously entered into the mind of man, they occu-
py a false position, which would not only destroy their own reli-
gion, but also the religious nature of man.
It is admitted that the old philosohers had some idea of a
future state, which was incorporated into their system's of gov-
ernment; but only, we are told, for the purpose of making men
live better here, while the object of Christianity is said to be


108
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to prepare men for the kingdom of heaven in another world.
If there be, as is contended, a wide difference between these
two systems, it is in favor of the ancient religion, so far as that
is based upon the absolute good of virtue, in opposition to the
doctrine, that its exercise gives rise to suffering in this world,
which can only be compensated by a state of felicity in the
next. There is in reality, however, little difference, except in
the form of words, between the motives held out in the ancient
religion, and those presented by the advocates of Christianity.
They both stand upon the position, that virtue is a sacrifice, in-
stead of a positive and permanent good; requiring the external
motives of future rewards and punishments to balance the supe-
rior attractiveness of vice in this life. In this respect, they are
alike false. Man should do right, because that alone is the ap-
propriate food for his mind to feed upon — is alone adapted to
the wants of his nature, and can alone produce health, and
strength, and happiness. For precisely the same reason that
we should take good and wholesome food into the physical
stomach, should we live in the exercise of virtue alone. No
man can do wrong with impunity, any more than he can take
poison into his physical system, without suffering the penalty
which is attached to such a violation of the law of his being.
He cannot escape. The penalty follows the violation as surely
in the one case as the other. He may boast that he does not
feel it, that he is conscious of no evil result to himself here from
his vicious practice. But, as has been justly remarked, by one
of the most beautiful of modern writers, “The brag is on his
lips, the conditions are in his soul." It is written in the very
constitution of his being, that Good alone is life, and that Evil
is death. If it be otherwise - if it be true that vice gives life,
that virtue produces death, then, indeed, is this world inevitably
a “vale of tears." Then the woe of a blighted universe may
well ascend to heaven in one loud wail of despair. The sun
of hope must be blotted from the human soul, and set forever
in the blackness of a starless and endless night.
It must be admitted that the great truth, upon which Chris-
tianity is professedly based, is more clearly developed by it than
by any other system. But then the grand idea of Jesus, Love,
was proclaimed, almost in his identical words, by Confucius,
Terence, and others. Jesus, doubtless, more clearly appre-
hended its nature, and its far-reaching application, than they
did; and perhaps this is more clearly seen at the present day
than ever he or his disciples saw it. Jesus was unquestionably a
great Soul, - probably the sublimest Incarnation of the Great
Spirit, which has ever appeared in our world, to unlock the dark
prison-house, and break the fetters in which humanity has so
long been bound. But he was a man — subject to like passions


1842.]
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Chardon Street and Bible Conventions.
and infirmities with other men. He lived a glorious life, only
for the same reason that other men should ; — because the law
of his being demanded it of him. He was not the Saviour of
the world, any more than any one is who, like him, lives a true
and genuine life. The truths which he inculcated are a part,
perhaps the substance, of the universal law of man. As such,
and alone as such, are they interesting and valuable to us, who
live so many centuries after his advent.
The book from which Christians professedly “extract” their
faith, may not inaptly be compared to the Common Law of Eng-
land and America. This Law consists of precedents and de-
cisions of courts, running through many centuries, and as
various and diverse in character, as the individuals by whom,
and the circumstances under which, they were given. When
a question comes before the courts, it is settled not by justice
alone, but by an appeal to the authority of precedent. So the
Counsel upon the different sides search the old records to find
what the courts have done before, which may be made favor-
able to the cause they have in charge. Thus they respectively
quote from my Lord Mansfield, or my Lord Coke, or Sir Wil-
liam Blackstone; and he, who can produce the greatest number
of these so called precedents, is considered entitled to judg-
ment in his behalf. It is of very little consequence what the
naked right of the matter is; what do the books say? how have
questions of this character been decided heretofore ? — these
giving righteous judgment; but they dare not do it on the sim-
ple equity of the case. They search the books and bring up
the case of “Hobson versus Snobson," to show that their de-
cision is in accordance with the law, as expounded before, in
other courts.
I never knew but one question that was settled in our so call-
ed courts of justice, by an appeal solely to the law of God, as
written upon the heart of man; and that was in the instance of
the Vermont Judge, who refused to give up a fugitive slave, un-
til the pretended owner could bring a bill of sale from the Al-
mighty. He did not search the records to ascertain what my
Lord Mansfield or Judge Story said on the subject. He went
to the source of all law; and demanded of him who claimed
to hold his brother as an article of merchandise, that he should
present his title deed, signed and sealed by Him who alone has
the right to dispose of the work of His own hands. I do not
know, however, but that this is a solitary instance in the histo-
ry of human jurisprudence. At all events they are not com-
mon occurrences.
The Bible, like the Common Law, is a collection of biogra-
phies and sayings, running through many ages, and of the most


110
Chardon Street and Bible Conventions. (July,
opposite and irreconcilable nature. When an existing relation,
or any practice, or craft, which affects society, is arraigned
for judgment, the question by the people is not, what is its in-
trinsic nature, but what does the “ Book" say about it? Then
the opposite side commence piling up their texts of scripture;
and he, who is most successful in the accumulation of this sort
of authority, secures the victory, - in his own estimation at
least.
Behold the various sects throughout Christendom, each of
them vehemently quoting text after text to prove that it is right,
that all others are wrong; and that one which can furnish
the greatest array claims judgment in its favor, on just such
principles as we have seen applied in the case of Common Law.
Few there are who dare appeal to the God within their bo
soms, and decide all questions according to their own under-
standing and conscience. Even in the case of Slavery, that
most flagrant of all wrongs, seldom do we see one who ventures
to rest the cause of human freedom on the axiom that “life,
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” are the common birth-
right of the human race; most men pore over the “ Book," to
see if that will not sustain a truth which is as self-evident as
their own existence. Here the oppressor meets them on their
own ground; and with no small degree of success, he, too,
quotes from Moses, and Jesus, and Paul, to show that this most
monstrous outrage upon God and man is in strict accordance
with the precepts of this Common Law of morality.
Thus men involve themselves in inextricable mazes of confu-
sion; and stumble, even at noonday, over the sayings of dead
men, and in questions which concern the welfare of the soul
they bind themselves to the letter of books written by men, who,
to say the least, were as fallible and as ignorant as themselves.
The Common Law contains much truth, and probably had its
foundation in strict justice, viz. the unwritten law of human
nature. But it has become so cumbrous and unwieldy, and
withal so mystified and corrupted, by the fraud or ignorance of
its expounders, that it is now little better than an engine of tyr-
anny; and answers scarcely any other purpose than to aid in
the support of a class of men, who live by means of the prac-
tical belief kept up in the minds of the people, that their ser-
vices are absolutely necessary to save them from being defraud-
ed of possessions and rights.
The above remarks will apply, in a greater or less degree, to the
various parts of the Bible. The books, which have been written
from age to age to explain and enforce its precepts, were they
all piled up together, would not only “ o'ertop old Pelion," but
would almost literally verify the declaration of John, with refer-
ence to the unwritten words of Jesus, " that the world would


1842.] Chardon Street and Bible Conventions.
111
not be able to contain them." These all aid somewhat in the
maintenance of the spiritual lawyer or doctor, who is retained
to explain truths, which are said to be so plain that the way-
faring man though a fool need not err in relation to them.
The Bible contains many great and sublime truths ; perhaps
more than any other book extant. These truths are valuable,
not because they are there, but for their influence upon the
welfare of man. Nevertheless, the idolatry which is inculcated
and practised with reference to the letter of that book is highly
mischievous, and of incalculable injury to the world. It de-
grades the present, denies the eternity of God, and the integrity
of the soul. It makes men slaves to the past, and the walking
shadows of buried ages. It impugns the judgment, throttles
reason, and hoodwinks the mind. In fine, it denies the pres-
ence of God in the soul — the ability of man to know anything
now. It declares that all the truth which he can have, - all he
can know of God, or his own immortality, is to be found with-
in the lids of this book, and was proclaimed by some Moses, or
Isaiah, or Jesus, or Paul, centuries ago. Nothing can be more
fatal to human advancement than this idea, which is the prevail-
ing one of Christendom.
The Bible also contains much which in its letter is false, -
evil and only evil. There are no crimes committed among
men, that are not attempted to be, ay, and that may not be jus-
tified by an appeal to some parts of the Bible. Slavery, War,
Intemperance, licentiousness, and fraud of all kinds are sus-
tained by an appeal to its pages. Now, so long as men declare
this book to be beyond the reach of criticism, not to be touched
by the understanding, or the conscience, such things will be,
and great evils must flow therefrom.
But, when we adopt the principle that the Bible, like every
other book, is to be judged by the light of the present hour,
and be received or rejected in accordance with the intuition
and experience of the soul, there is hope of the final triumph
of truth over all error. The Bible, then, is to be valued, like
other books, for what it contains, to enlighten, quicken, and
renovate the soul, and redeem the race. It is not to be received
for what it has been, or what it has done, but for what it is now.
What is it doing for man to-day? that is the question. Is it
doing more good than evil? Its claims should be canvassed
fearlessly and impartially. Whatever of good it does, or incul-
cates, embrace — of evil, cast away.
But above all things maintain the right of the living soul
of every individual man, to judge, unhesitatingly and unquali-
fiedly, everything in the past and all of the present; remem-
bering always that the Soul is its own authority, is bound by its
own laws, does not live in the past, but is now. It is greater


112'
[July,
The Two Dolons.
than all books -- is antecedent to them all. It is the maker of
them; and cannot be made subject to them, until the Creator
can be placed in bondage to his own workmanship. When this
great truth shall fill the human heart, and be shadowed forth in
human life, then the morning of the Universal Resurrection will
dawn, then man shall arise from his grovelling position, among
the coffins, the bones, and ashes of a buried Past, and live, and
grow, and expand, in the bright sunlight of that Eternity in
which he dwells.
THE TWO DOLONS.
FROM THE MS. SYMPHONY OF DOLON.
THE FIRST DOLON.
Dolon, wont to be much in the air, in the fields and
woods, beneath the sky, the clouds, the branches and
leaves, and in the mists, those clouds of earth, almost lived
in nature, like a sea-fairy in the ocean, everywhere in
which it is at home, and has a place where it may be as if
it sought it by roaming; - the gurgle-reserved silent
meadows of high green waving grass, the atmosphere and
air-like water, the rocks over which the waves oscillated
reflected sunniness, like shadows on the country landscape
of clouds passing overhead, the rocks ivied over with sea-
weed and vines and grass, like ruins of the sea-ages, the
woods and caves of tree-coral, as if petrified forests of an
ancient race of human fishes, and the coral edifice-like
places with interwoven open intricate roofs, like the pine-
woods, and near the surface, which was like the high heav-
en of the sea-earth, where seemed to be sky and clouds,
which were outwardly only reflected to the sight of men,
though to men it seems as if the light in the ocean must
be air-like, or grave moon-light, for even the sunlit noon
surface is like a bright day moonlight. Dolon had always
been in Nature, unspecially and really as if in his proper
place. Nature is not. primarily a sentiment to children;
sentiment may be a feeling in it, but it is place and not


1842.]
113
Dolon.
sentiment which leads them to it. A child will act from
the fulness of its affections and feelings as if from con-
sciousness, but these are the spirit which thus affect him,
and he acts from them as facts which buoy him up and
Aoat him; not as sentiment which is need of the fact, and
makes him a seeker, as men, who away from their home,
or outwardly related to their sphere, feel that which de-
velops in them sentiment and aspiration, but does not put
them in the natural position of the sentiment, and the
sentiment thus acts, out of its place, from depths which
the surface in its hurried action, is as if dissevered from.
Children do all in the fact, as a mermaid may joy and
frolic in the water which it is alway in, and as one who is
out in the night may see shooting stars ; the direct act is
as if extra, while the regular course goes on, an exuber-
ance of the real from the real. A child's whole person, as
well as nature, (of which Dolon was an ideal-like though
most natural exemplification, for the most natural is the
most ideal and common, shows that its proper sphere is
Nature; out of Nature it is more of an individuality, like
a king in un-state relations, ihan of an individual thing in
life which individualizes by giving all things a place in it,
and leaving them to their life in their own places like pas-
sengers in a vessel ; a flower in the house is a flower in
form, but in nature the form is the flower, the flower in
life, and the flower is by its life rather than by that which
is a form called self which Life has taken, as a boat is not
a boat till it is launched. Life is the unpersonalizer of
persons, the unifier of individuals, as playing is of a stage-
company; the relation of things to things, and a rotatory
circle like the earth, which, by moving on its axis, faces all
parts of the infinite space around it. Dolon, restrained in
the house, would seek nature like a caged bird the air.
Those deep, heaven-like eyes required the broad and high
beautiful realities of nature, if only for freedom, and space,
and color, - which is somewhat of a good substitute for
nature in houses, especially if of forms, as in carpets. The
individual things of nature are related to man, as well as
man is to man; and man must be with stars, and trees,
and grasses, as he must with man, to be at ease. Life lives
in her forms, and is evolved from them, like rays of light
from the sun, and we truly live only in her atmosphere;
VOL. II). NO. I.
15


114
[July,
Dolon.
individualities are thus universalized, as if in the whole
they neutralized each, and kept each other in active rela-
tion to her, like spans of horses ; for, left to itself, the vital
becomes a centred isolation in the individual, like water
in anything whose pores are closed ; as if individuality
was only a form which Life, like Genius, had taken, and
which has no life in itself, but by being in life ; and out
of it, it ceases to be, like rays of light separated from the
sun. All things in nature are centred to face each other,
and the relation, represented to men by influence, is sure,
however they may be as persons; the sea and the sky face,
and the mutual relation goes on, though the sea tosses
about, and the sky is covered with clouds; men receive
influence from Nature, though they never look at her or
think of her, and are busy in some mechanical labor, if
only they be in her. There is as it were a quiet inward
depth and gentle positiveness-like reserve, in men who live
in the air ; they have not the prominence and selfness of
those who live in the house, and Nature is around them
mighty and absolute as a Monarch, and gentle, quiet, and
familiar-like, like a great family dog lying by the doorsteps
in the yard, where the children are playing and the men
are working. Children are troublesome or noisy, and often
restless, within the house and in their present mode of
life; for they are shut out from their life-place; the life
which would be developed as unobviously and quietly as
fruit grows, gives them an excitement or uneasiness of
which activity is the effect. Nature is their play-ground
and place, and their activity is modified from its original
spirit of gentleness and unity, by its being without the Na-
ture which acts on them, as the moon on the tides, and in
which they are Beings in Life, and not, as in the house,
beings who, the only Being, (like Noblemen from the city-
Court alone in the country places,) are not only free, but at
needs to be Persons, for they are living things, and life is
not around them to meet life, and they create a life for
themselves out of their own life, like sailors at sea forming
their cabin into a homelike room out of such materials as
they have, or like parrots who encaged and taken from
their native clime and woods, talk with the men instead of
singing with their mates. Children in the house are as if
obtrusive, and men interfere with men ; that which in the
air and great natural house would be harmony, is a noise


1842.]
115
Dolon.
in the small artificial house, as even music makes a noise
if confined ; in Nature all sounds harmonize and blend;
and children are more sociable with man by not being
given to themselves in Nature, in which fact they recognise
the greatness of man, as if next representative to Nature
and theirself. A child is not so inquisitive and talkative
in Nature ; life answers there for itself, and all else, all out-
wardly seen, is Mystery, and inspires no questions, but a
quiet, subdued wonder, like an under-current of comprehen-
sion in the mind's state of worship; and a child's looking
is unoutward, as if the child saw by its personal power of
motion, as if it could fly around like a bird up among stars,
but the Being abode fast, and as the child-person remained
there, took its own time, and the child instinctively ac-
knowledges its reality by making no subject-personal of
aught, and only gratifying his impulses. He talks and
prates as he goes along in the horseman's arms, as if he
were the horseman ; but even the horseman will have no
cause to find fault with him, for any want of a deep down
practical quiet realizing of his dependence and happiness-
expressed gratitude. The infinite senses of man which
are adapted to this infinite-like finite, great Nature, are
disused and closed by his present life, and his nature be-
comes estranged from it, and he is as if a stranger in it,
and when in it, its beauty comes to him rather through
sight and feeling than unity. Deep and great is the soul's
long denied appetite ; it is as if faint to loss of conscious-
ness, and slow is the reformation of the soul's form. Man
in Nature is in an infinity; though there seems a limit, the
difference is real between the effect as a reality and ap-
pearance; the horizon-enclosed lake will not answer for
the ocean, though to the sight it is as large; there is a
depth below the earth as well as above it, and the ground
is as a solid-floored tree-top, like those which the birds
alight on, though merely as tops the shrubs would answer
as well. Men have made substitutes for the great Natural
Building which is God's theatre and concert room, and
though we can see and hear them wherever they are,
neither they nor the music are as if they were on his stage,
where living is the acting, and where voices rise in infinite
fading cadences, like ripples disappearing as they go over
the surface of the water like a sail. Men hear their own


116
[July,
Dolon.
voices now like finished echoes, and they can seldom get
beyond themselves ; for they carry their own limit about
with them, from which they rebound, like waves in an
enclosed place upon themselves; and all life radiates, and
returns nor Jingers. The purest holy incense rising from
the altar will form a cloud in the roof of the greatest Ca-
thedral, and smoke the pictures of Raphael and Guido on
the walls.
When a little boy, Dolon loved to hear fairy stories,
though he heard them as one hears music which is an at-
mosphere to the ear as air is to the lungs, and does not re-
quire listening, the sounds creating feelings which are in their
kind and place what the blood is in its kind and place;
and he sat much on the ground in the woods, as if a
fairy land, and fairies were all around him, and he felt and
seemed as if he saw them. He was a beautiful boy, with
long auburn-brown hair, a fair and delicate complexion,
light blue eyes, and eyelids which at the side-view lay
gently-heavily folded over his eyes, as if the eyes were
homes, like heaven air, for two little heavenly fairies, like a
spring-fountain in the fresh meadows for little fishes, and
the lids were curtains which opened them to the world
and covered them from mortal sight, like a cave opening
into a forest, and the eyes seemed inlets into the boy's
being, and one could find him there as Dolon found fairies,
and men find God, in the air, which was so like his eyes,
only they were like a soul which had taken the eye for a
form. We do not see the expression in eyes, when we
look at them for it a second time; for when we first look,
the spiritual in the eye suggests a form to us, and then we
look as on a form for the type of the form that it created
within us, and spirit is not to be bodily seen.
At length, his father said he must go to a regular school,
and that it would not do for Dolon to be growing up so
visonary and romantic. He did not see that the so-called
visionary was as real to the inner sense, as the so-called
real is to the outward sense ; that Poetry is a fertility of
humanity, and the real life of the deep and substantial part
of man, in which also great experience goes on, even like
that wbich a life in the world would give, only it is deeper
and more individual within the man ; and that the outward
is not for the individual as an outward person, but as an


1842.]
117
Dolon.
feeling nature ind i
inward related soul, whose human feelings and life are ex-
pressed by poetry. Men's relations to Nature are closed
by their coming between the realities of soul and Nature ;
their life is erected into a sense, and is not diffused around,
like the ocean with its great proportionate surface. Hu-
man nature, if left to itself, will be full of life, like the great
western forests and standing water, and Poetry is the
physical inworld of the spiritual nature, with its life de-
veloped in forms; forms are not mere forms continent of
life, but forms which are formed life. Dolon's living rela-
tion to things answered at school for activity and readiness
in the usual course of systematic learning ; for life is ready
and willing to meet all that comes before it, and his
teacher saw he learned in this spirit of life, by the natural
way of the correspondence of means to ends, and that if
lessons were given him he so earnestly, singly, and simply,
and unconsciously made his own use of them, that he
allowed him to learn after his own natural manner, and
felt towards him as what he was and not as what, canon-
judged, he outwardly did ; and his mother liked to have
him free, and sent him to school only half of the day, so
that he had all the rest for the air and fields and woods.
His father wanted him to learn more decidedly, but always
saw that Dolon had better be left to himself, at least for
the present, and he had a quiet unconscious pride in his
son, and felt he did not know how to inanage such a
being, who was so positive by being himself, though so
gentle, and whose only resistance to formal elementary
study was an indifference, an unrealizing, as of objects by
a blind man, as one placed in a relation by a master of
ceremonies, but for what depended upon something to be
developed or completed, like children who are being col-
lected in a room and position by the elder sisters of their
child-host, who smile in their silent designs which are not
to be told till all is ready to begin, as if in the humor of
mystery. Life is life's teacher, and children deal only with
life; all that they make is an imitation of life, and knowl-
edge, as imparted by the present old method, is the only
positive thing to them in all nature ; all things are to them
by being towards them; they do not know and use means,
but go along enjoying all, like one on a beautiful road on
his way to a place which he does not keep in mind; na-


118
[July,
Dolon.
ture carries them and leaves them free to look and feel as
they please, like an infant unconsciously borne in the
nurse's arms to a family friend.
At school, Dolon loved to hear about the classic Mythol-
ogy, (of which the teacher talked and read to him,) as
before he had about the fairies. The sky and earth were
full of undefined God-Beings, at the same time that there
was a history in the theogony, and much which gave local
significances and associations, and humanized natural ob-
jects, the stars, the pine trees, the reeds, the laurel, and so
forth; and the Gods being more human and heroic, and
more spiritually expressive, answered his advance in life.
There is less intellectualness in the relations of youth than
of men to the imaginary, for it is more as to the real, and
they experience as if from the real; the beautiful is not
music and sympathy to them, but has its natural, physical-
like effect; the thing which is beautiful acts as a thing
upon the child, and Being answers Being rather than looks
at each other, and each feels the other as what they inter-
nally are. Genius is matured youth living with life within it,
which before was out of it or with it. It is as if nature
was continented within it, and lived through its own life, as
before it lived in the general life. All forms are facts to
youth, and recognised by them as beings, not as persons;
the sunshine reflects itself in their eyes, and all things are
true to them by the realizing of their natures; the cause is
known and believed through its effect.
Dolon loved to go and sit on a large rock within a wood
which bordered on an old potatoe moss-hilled field, separ-
ated from the house by a large hay-field. The woods
sloped down from the rock toward the western and south-
ern sky, and Dolon came and sat here, almost regularly,
every pleasant late afternoon and early evening. Under-
neath a part of the rock which was separated from the part
on which he sat by an imperfect ravine, was a small cave
within a cleft.
Dolon had. often heard sounds like footsteps on the dry
leaves among the bushes around the rock, as of a person
moving stationarily about, but he never saw any one, and
thought the sound was of some animal. One afternoon,
sitting in the sunset upon the rock, he rose and raised his
eyes up to a pine tree which overhung one end of the


1842.]
119
Dolon.
rock; seated on branches near the top, in an opening of
branches which had been broken off, or interlashed aside,
was a man earnestly and inwardly, as if in contemplation,
looking down on Dolon. It was as if Dolon had been
moved to rise by something, which was himself without
any thought or consciousness of his; their souls faced by
their faces; each involuntarily started at first, but the man
continued to look as unconsciously as if he thought he was
invisible, and Dolon's combined surprise and wonder was
lost in the innocence and simplicity of the reality. The
man was dressed in a crimson tunic over a white dress,
with a fillet on his head, and the golden light of the setting
sun shone on a strong profile, and heightened the effect of
his dress in the dark tree, and the pale shade of the other
half of his face gave a mysterious effect to his whole form.
Just at this time, Dolon's attention was diverted by the
voices of his father and mother approaching the rock
with some company, and on immediately looking up to the
man again, he saw he was hastily descending and in an
instant disappeared behind the edge of the rock ; Dolon
hastened to the edge to see him, but it was sloping and
slippery with dead pine-leaves, and when he got there, the
man was with self-possessed eagerness hastening into the
bushes. The people had reached the rock, and Dolon
asked if they had seen the man, and when they inquired
about him, told them what he had seen. The women
affrightedly exclaimed, “oh that must be the man"; and
proposed to instantly return home. Dolon, gently amazed,
asked if they knew who he was, and his mother said, there
was a crazy man about, who believed in all the Greek and
Roman Gods and Goddesses, and that it was thought he
carried out the whole worship and made sacrifices, for
sheep and calves had been found killed, bedecked with
flowers before stone-piled altars; and said, that she was
afraid to have Dolon go about so alone in the woods.
"Oh how beautiful,' said Dolon, 'I wish I could see him
and talk with him.' One of the company said, that he had
been a great scholar, and living so in the old Greek litera-
ture had turned his head, and that he was of a most re-
spectable family, and had been a remarkably pure and
earnest character, and did not seem crazy, except in this
belief of his, yet was decidedly so, and all his family
belipest character, and had been a robe was of an


120
(July,
Dolon.
thought so, he was so sincere and earnest in his belief, but
they never thought he would so carry it out, or they would
have confined him before he left home.
Dolon was in a retired state, as if thinking or lost, but a
youth's reflection is the person in a passive relation to his
nature, as if the personality had aerially vanished, unseen,
like the raising of an eyelid, and the Being had incarnated
itself in human form, like the soul of man in Jesus, and
had become the person. Men in absence of mind are
somewhat youthlike, though their Being-Nature is less free
and full and formed than in youth, and they are as if their
personality were folded aside, and they were quietly get-
ting at their Being, while a youth is freshly individual, and
his Being comes out as if his nature, and personality disap-
pears, as a soul from the body at death. The youth in-
stinctively, unconsciously, waits before his Being for his
nature to act through it, and the Being not merely assists
one who answers the call or want of a child by going to it
and doing all for it.
Dolon went home with the others, and was serious all
not as a man's, himself in a state ; his nature is affected as
is the temperature of water by the condition of the sky,
but its form remains a form, and its relations continue in
all its parts, though all are modified yet in equal propor-
tion, and it recedes together and in order, like a highly
disciplined army. The youth neither introverts or extra-
verts, but is as he is affected.
Dolon continued in this state, and was all the three next
days in Nature, and toward the sunset, sat as usual upon
the rock, and they were the nights of the new moon.
Something had met him which required the conformation
of his nature to meet, and which in men would have given
need of a high consciousness, as the sleeper in the dark,
awaked by something which has touched him, or is near
him, cannot sleep again till he ascertains it, and he looks
about in the dark with eyes which, though open, cannot see
till they are used to the darkness. The crazy man as a fact,
combined with Dolon's condition from the general experi-
ence of his humanity, of which this event was crisis-like,
had made this impression on him as if his nature was relat-


1842.]
121
Dolon.
ed to them as to things which, as inner principles, acted
upon it; and this was the first intellectual development of
a youth who had lived in Nature, and been a Being of
Nature, but whose relations also comprehended men as
they are, as, his parents, the school, and this crazy man,
and whose nature partook of this modified humanity,
though it so naturalized it by being a form of it, such as it
was, as if a primitive condition, like air and water, which
remain elements, though their essences are in different pro-
portions from those of the optimum, and a lake enclosing
hills, rocks, and cataracts; whereas men are forms of the
original humanity which has become incomplete and dis-
harmonized by the disproportionate development of parts,
like a full-formed tree whose sap ceases to equally circulate.
It was a relation of his nature, not of his intellect, wbich
looks out of one's nature as from an observatory; its con-
sciousness was in the relation of his Being to the Nature
which thus was around him, as a blind man's sense is in
his feelings. As a person, Dolon had a kind of instinctive
quiet consciousness, as if God had put into his soul a ce-
lestial flower-plant on which were heavenly little fairies,
and the consciousness was a feeling of an experience, like
natural effects, going on within him ; the life lives within
him, and he neither sees, orders, or interferes with it. He
did not think, though it was as if thoughts were taking
forms within him, and taking their place as forms in the
fresh spiritual inworld of his humanity. He was quiet and
passive, and himself, as though there was an opening in the
state of his humanity, and the forms there were shone upon
by the sky, but the opening was of his own nature, like the
cleft in a rock, and though the forms rose near the surface,
did not rise beyond a level with himself, like stars brightly
appearing in heaven. He was in Nature, and at unity
with it, though he was as if there was something instinct-
ively engaging him, like a child keeping by its mother's
side, with its hand in hers, while it has a certain care of
doing or seeing something, it has not defined to itself
what.
The experience going on within him was as if Poetry
which he heard, and was quietly and really related to, as to a
tale which a child realizes, (so far as it does realize, the effect
upon him taking care of itself ; ) and what in men would
VOL. III. — NO. I.
16


122
(July,
Dolon.
be thought and consciousness, was in Dolon the Poet,
whose effect, however, was deeper by being within him,
and being him. Thought and consciousness may be con-
ditions of the Being in a certain state, to which the Person
is passive, having a life towards the life which thus out-
wardly comes to him. His being was, unconsciously, be-
fore the Great Mystery of Nature, the Universe, Truth,
Man, God. It was acting below an instinctive sense of his
childhood's relation to nature in his fairy faith, and his life, -
(and for the first time he felt his fairy relation had gone ;)
of the Mythologies which had been faiths to men somewhat
like his fairy faith, and of their bearing on Nature; of this
Nature with its self-derived-like life, and its invisible, un-
formed, in effect unreal God or Gods; of the crazy man's
belief in that which had been ages before a belief, and of
the difference between his outward and inward relation to
it, in which Dolon acknowledged the sanity and insanity of
the man, at the same time; of the difference between this
man's and his own relation to the Mythology; of belief
and its subjects, and of faith.
While all this experience was taking place, Dolon had
the self-possession and patience and repose, the being of
Life. Even a child's plaintiveness is sometimes tragically
serene and possessed.
As Dolon sat on the rock in the bright soft moonlight,
on the evening of the third day, his face as it were trans-
figured, he thought he heard a sound, like the voice of a
man engaged in low prayer and invocation ; but as he list-
ened, it stopped, and the trees were murmuring in the
gentle night-breeze, and he did not know that the crazy
man, who had been fasting all day as before a great sacrifice,
was performing an ante-sacrificial service in the cave below.
Presently he heard a rustling on the dry-leaved ground, and
there was a bowing of the trees as of an audience gathered
to welcome. There was a sound behind him of something
ascending the rock, and looking, he saw just rising from the
rock, in the face of the moon, the man, whom he instantly
recognised as if he knew, dressed in a surplice-like robe,
gathered in at the waist by a white tasseled girdle, and a
wreath of laurel and wild lilies of the valley on bis left arm.
A repose was on his spiritual expressive face, but there was
a character in it which showed it was not primitive, soul's


1842.]
123
Agriculture of Massachusetts.
repose. Their faces faced, but he did not look at Dolon
· as before, though the same expression was in reserve in his
face, but as one who was earnestly, reverently, and com-
posedly, to do something. He took the wreath from his
arm, and approaching, laid his hand on Dolon's head, on
which he put the wreath, looking earnestly up to heaven,
and taking a sacrificial knife from his girdle, plunged it in
Dolon's breast. For a moment, as if looking from an
absent sense, he bent over the body, which had fallen back-
wards on the rock and lay facing heaven, and then with
his hands clasped on his breast, slowly and solemnly de-
scended, and threw himself prostrate before the rock as be-
fore an altar.
N.
AGRICULTURE OF MASSACHUSETTS.
In an afternoon in April, after a long walk, I traversed
an orchard where two boys were grafting apple trees, and
found the Farmer in his corn field. He was holding the
plough, and his son driving the oxen. This man always
impresses me with respect, he is so manly, so sweet-tem-
pered, so faithful, so disdainful of all appearances, excellent
and reverable in his old weather-worn cap and blue frock be-
daubed with the soil of the field, so honest withal, that he al-
ways needs to be watched lest he should cheat himself. I
still remember with some shame, that in some dealing we
had together a long time ago, I found that he had been
looking to my interest in the affair, and I had been looking
to my interest, and nobody had looked to his part. As I
drew near this brave laborer in the midst of his own acres,
I could not help feeling for him the highest respect. Here
is the Cæsar, the Alexander of the soil, conquering and to
conquer, after how many and many a hard-fought summer's
day and winter's day, not like Napoleon hero of sixty battles
only, but of six thousand, and out of every one he has
come victor; and here he stands, with Atlantic strength
and cheer, invincible still. These slight and useless city-
limbs of ours will come to shame before this strong soldier,


124
[July,
Agriculture of Massachusetts.
for his have done their own work and ours too. What
good this man has, or has had, he has earned. No rich
father or father-in-law left him any inheritance of land or
money. He borrowed the money with which he bought
his farm, and has bred up a large family, given them a
good education, and improved his land in every way year
by year, and this without prejudice to himself the landlord,
for here he is, a man every inch of him, and reminds us of
the hero of the Robinhood ballad,
“Much, the miller's son,
There was no inch of his body
But it was worth a groom.”
Innocence and justice have written their names on his
brow. Toil has not broken his spirit. His laugh rings with
the sweetness and hilarity of a child; yet he is a man of a
strongly intellectual taste, of much reading, and of an erect
good sense and independent spirit, which can neither
brook usurpation nor falsehood in any shape. I walked
up and down, the field, as he ploughed his furrow, and we
talked as we walked. Our conversation naturally turned
on the season and its new labors. He had been reading
the Report of the Agricultural Survey of the Common-
wealth, and had found good things in it; but it was easy
to see that he felt towards the author much as soldiers do
towards the historiographer who follows the camp, more
good nature than reverence for the gownsman.
The First Report, he said, is better than the last, as I
observe the first sermon of a minister is often his best, for
every man has one thing which he specially wishes to say,
and that comes out at first. But who is this book written
for ? Not for farmers; no pains are taken to send it to
them ; it was by accident that this copy came into my
hands for a few days. And it is not for them. They
could not afford to follow such advice as is given here;
they have sterner teachers; their own business teaches
them better. No; this was written for the literary men.
But in that case, the State should not be taxed to pay for
it. Let us see. The account of the maple sugar, — that
is very good and entertaining, and, I suppose, true. The
story of the farmer's daughter, whom education had spoil-
ed for everything useful on a farm, - that is good too,


1842.]
125
Agriculture of Massachusetts.
and we have much that is like it in Thomas's Almanack.
But why this recommendation of stone houses ? They
are not so cheap, not so dry, and not so fit for us. Our
roads are always changing their direction, and after a
man has built at great cost a stone house, a new road is
opened, and he finds himself a mile or two from the high-
way. Then our people are not stationary, like those of
old countries, but always alert to better themselves, and
will remove from town to town as a new market opens, or
a better farm is to be had, and do not wish to spend too
much on their buildings.
The Commissioner advises the farmers to sell their
cattle and their hay in the fall, and buy again in the spring.
But we farmers always know what our interest dictates,
and do accordingly. We have no choice in this matter;
our way is but too plain. Down below, where manure is
cheap, and hay dear, they will sell their oxen in November;
but for me to sell my cattle and my produce in the fall,
would be to sell my farm, for I should have no manure to
renew a crop in the spring. And thus Necessity farms it,
necessity finds out when to go to Brighton, and when to
feed in the stall, better than Mr. Colman can tell us.
But especially observe what is said throughout these
Reports of the model farms and model farmers. One
would think that Mr. D. and Major S. were the pillars of
the Commonwealth. The good Commissioner takes off his
hat when he approaches them, distrusts the value of “his
feeble praise,” and repeats his compliments as often as
D. with all his knowledge and present skill, would starve
in two years on any one of fifty poor farms in this neigh-
borhood, on each of which now a farmer manages to get a
good living. Mr. D. inherited a farm, and spends on it
every year from other resources; otherwise his farm had
ruined him long since ; — and as for the Major, he never got
rich by his skill in making land produce, but by his skill in
making men produce. The truth is, a farm will not make
an honest man rich in money. I do not know of a single
instance, in which a man has honestly got rich by farming
alone. It cannot be done. The way, in which men who
have farms grow rich, is either by other resources; or
by trade; or by getting their labor for nothing; or by


126
[July,
• Outward Bound.
other methods of which I could tell you many sad anec-
dotes. What does the Agricultural Surveyor know of all
this ? What can he know? He is the victim of the
“ Reports,” that are sent him of particular farms. He
cannot go behind the estimates to know how the contracts
were made, and how the sales were effected. The true
men of skill, the poor farmers who by the sweat of their
face, without an inheritance, and without offence to their
conscience, have reared a family of valuable citizens
and matrons to the state, reduced a stubborn soil to a
good farm, although their buildings are many of them
shabby, are the only right subjects of this Report; yet these
make no figure in it. These should be holden up to imi-
tation, and their methods detailed ; yet their houses are
very uninviting and inconspicuous to State Commissioners.
So with these premiums to Farms, and premiums at Cattle
Shows. The class that I describe, must pay the premium
which is awarded to the rich. Yet the premium obviously
ought to be given for the good management of a poor
farm.
In this strain the Farmer proceeded, adding many special
criticisms. He had a good opinion of the Surveyor, and
acquitted him of any blame in the matter, but was incor-
rigible in his skepticism concerning the benefits conferred
by legislatures on the agriculture of Massachusetts. I be-
lieve that my friend is a little stiff and inconvertible in his
own opinions, and that there is another side to be heard ;
but so much wisdom seemed to lie under all his statement,
that it deserved a record.
OUTWARD BOUND.
I would take thee home to my heart, but thou wilt not come
to me;
Oh, lonely art thou sailing far out upon the stormy sea;
And lonely am I sitting with the cold dark rocks around,
Weary the sight of heaving waves, weary their thundering
sound.


1842.)
127
Record of the Months.
RECORD OF THE MONTHS.
The Zincali : or an Account of the Gypsies of Spain ; with an
Original Collection of their Songs and Poetry. By GEORGE
Borrow. Two Volumes in one. New York: Wiley &
Putnam.
Our list of tribes in America indigenous and imported wants
the Gypsies, as the Flora of the western hemisphere wants the
race of heaths. But as it is all one to the urchin of six years,
whether the fine toys are to be found in his father's house or
across the road at his grandfather's, so we have always domesti-
cated the Gypsey in school-boy literature from the English tales
and traditions. This reprinted London book is equally sure of
being read here as in England, and is a most acceptable gift to the
lovers of the wild and wonderful. There are twenty or thirty
pages in it of fascinating romantic attraction, and the whole book,
though somewhat rudely and miscellaneously put together, is an-
imated, and tells us what we wish to know. Mr. Borrow visited
the Gypsies in Spain and elsewhere, as an agent of the British and
Foreign Bible Society, and seems to have been commended to
this employment by the rare accomplishment of a good ac-
quaintance with the language of this singular people. How he
acquired his knowledge of their speech, which seems to have
opened their hearts to him, he does not inform us; and he ap-
pears to have prospered very indifferently in the religious objects
of his mission; but to have really had that in his nature or edu-
cation which gave him access to the gypsy gang, so that he has
seen them, talked confidentially with them, and brought away
something distinct enough from them.
He has given us sketches of their past and present manner of
life and employments, in the different European states, col-
lected a strange little magazine of their poetry, and added a
vocabulary of their language. He has interspersed some anec-
dotes of life and manners, which are told with great spirit.
This book is very entertaining, and yet, out of mere love and
respect to human nature, we must add that this account of the
Gypsy race must be imperfect and very partial, and that the
author never sees his object quite near enough. For, on the
whole, the impression made by the book is dismal ; the pov-
erty, the employments, conversations, mutual behavior of the
Gypsies, are dismal ; the poetry is dismal. Men do not love to
be dismal, and always have their own reliefs. If we take Mr.
Borrow's story as final, here is a great people subsisting for cen-


128
[July,
Record of the Months.
turies unmixed with the surrounding population, like a bare
and blasted heath in the midst of smiling plenty, yet cherishing
their wretchedness, by rigorous usage and tradition, as if they
loved it. It is an aristocracy of rags, and suffering, and vice,
yet as exclusive as the patricians of wealth and power. We in-
fer that the picture is false; that resources and compensations ex-
ist, which are not shown us. If Gypsies are pricked, we believe
they will bleed; if wretched, they will jump at the first oppor-
tunity of bettering their condition. What unmakes man is essen-
tially incredible. The air may be loaded with fogs or with fetid
gases, and continue respirable; but if it be decomposed, it can
no longer sustain life. The condition of the Gypsy may be bad
enough, tried by the scale of English comfort, and yet appear
tolerable and pleasant to the Gypsy, who finds attractions in his
out-door way of living, his freedom, and sociability, which the
Agent of the Bible Society does not reckon. And we think
that a traveller of another way of thinking would not find the
Gypsy so void of conscience as Mr. Borrow paints him, as the
differences in that particular are universally exaggerated in daily
conversation. And lastly, we suspect the walls of separation
between the Gypsy and the surrounding population are less firm
than we are here given to understand.
Ancient Spanish Ballads, Historical and Romantic. Trans-
lated, with Notes. By J. G. LOCKHART. New York : Wiley
& Putnam.
The enterprising publishers, Messrs. Wiley & Putnam, who
have reprinted, in a plain but very neat form, Mr. Lockhart's
gorgeously illustrated work, have judiciously prefixed to it, by
way of introduction, a critique on the book from the Edinburgh
Review, and have added at the end of the volume an analytical
account, with specimens of the Romance of the Cid, from the
Penny Magazine. This is done with the greatest propriety, for
the Cid seems to be the proper centre of Spanish legendary po-
etry. The Iliad, the Nibelungen, the Cid, the Robin Hood
Ballads, Frithiof's Saga, (for the last also depends for its merit
on its fidelity to the legend,) are five admirable collections of
early popular poetry of so many nations; and with whatever
difference of form, they possess strong mutual resemblances,
chiefly apparent in the spirit which they communicate to the
reader, of health, vigor, cheerfulness, and good hope. In this
day of reprinting and of restoration, we hope that Southey's
Chronicle of the Cid, which is a kind of “ Harmony of the
Gospels ” of the Spanish Romance, may be republished in a
volume of convenient size. That is a strong book, and
makes lovers and admirers of “ My Cid, the Perfect one, who


1842.)
129
Record of the Months.
was born in a fortunate hour." Its traits of heroism and bursts
of simple emotion, once read, can never be forgotten; “I am
not a man to be besieged ;” and “ God! What a glad man was
the Cid on that day," and many the like words still ring in
our ears. The Cortes at Toledo, where judgment was given
between the Cid and his sons-in-law, is one of the strongest
dramatic scenes in literature. Several of the best ballads
in Mr. Lockhart's collection recite incidents of the Cid's his-
tory. The best ballad in the book is the “ Count Alarcos
and the Infanta Solisa,” which is a meet companion for Chau-
cer's Griselda. The “ Count Garci Perez de Vargas " is one
of our favorites; and there is one called the “ Bridal of An-
dalla," which we have long lost all power to read as a poem, since
we have heard it sung by a voice so rich, and sweet, and pen-
etrating, as to make the ballad the inalienable property of the
singer.
Tecumseh ; a Poem. By George H. Colton. New York :
Wiley & Putnam.
This pleasing summer-day story is the work of a well read,
cultivated writer, with a skilful ear, and an evident admirer of
Scott and Campbell. There is a metrical sweetness and calm
perception of beauty spread over the poem, which declare that
the poet enjoyed his own work ; and the smoothness and literary
finish of the cantos seem to indicate more years than it appears
our author has numbered. Yet the perusal suggested that the au-
thor had written this poem in the feeling, that the delight he has
experienced from Scott's effective lists of names might be repro-
duced in America by the enumeration of the sweet and sonorous
Indian names of our waters. The success is exactly corre-
spondent. The verses are tuneful, but are secondary; and re-
mind the ear so much of the model, as to show that the noble
aboriginal names were not suffered to make their own measures
in the poet's ear, but must modulate their wild beauty to a for-
eign metre. They deserved better at the author's hands. We
felt, also, the objection that is apt to lie against poems on
new subjects by persons versed in old books, that the costume
is exaggerated at the expense of the man. The most Indian
thing about the Indian is surely not his moccasins, or his cal-
umet, his wampum, or his stone hatchet, but traits of character
and sagacity, skill or passion; which would be intelligible at
Paris or at Pekin, and which Scipio or Sidney, Lord Clive or
Colonel Crockett would be as likely to exhibit as Osceola and
Black Hawk.
VOL. III. —NO. I.
17


130
(July,
Record of the Months.
Twice-Told Tales. By NATHANIEL Hawthorne. Boston :
James Munroe & Company. 1842.
Ever since the “Gentle Boy” first announced among us the
presence of his friend and observer, the author of the “ Twice-
told Tales” has been growing more and more dear to his read-
ers, who now have the pleasure of seeing all the leaves they
had been gathering up here and there collected in these two
volumes.
It is not merely the soft grace, the playfulness, and genial
human sense for the traits of individual character, that have
pleased, but the perception of what is rarest in this superficial,
bustling community, a great reserve of thought and strength
never yet at all brought forward. Landor says, “ He is not
over-rich in knowledge who cannot afford to let the greater part
lie fallow, and to bring forward his produce according to the
season and the demand.” We can seldom recur to such a
passage as this with pleasure, as we turn over the leaves of a
new book. But here we may. Like gleams of light on a noble
tree which stands untouched and self-sufficing in its fulness
of foliage on a distant hill-slope, — like slight ripples wrinkling
the smooth surface, but never stirring the quiet depths of a
wood-embosomed lake, these tales distantly indicate the bent of
the author's mind, and the very frankness with which they im-
part to us slight outward details and habits shows how little yet
is told. He is a favorite writer for children, with whom he
feels at home, as true manliness always does; and the “ Twice-
told Tales” scarce call him out more than the little books for
his acquaintance of fairy stature.
In the light of familiar letters, written with ready hand, by a
friend, from the inns where he stops, in a journey through the
varied world-scenes, the tales are most pleasing ; but they seem
to promise more, should their author ever hear a voice that truly
calls upon his solitude to ope his study door.
In his second volume, “ The Village Uncle," " Lily's Guest,"
“ Chippings with a Chisel," were new to us, and pleasing for
the same reasons as former favorites from the same hand. We
again admired the sweet grace of the little piece, “ Footprints
on the Sea-shore."
“ Chippings with a Chisel,” from its mild, common-sense-
philosophy, and genial love of the familiar plays of life, would
have waked a brotherly smile on the lips of the friend of Dr.
Dry-as-dust.
It is in the studies of familiar life that there is most success.
In the mere imaginative pieces, the invention is not clearly
woven, far from being all compact, and seems a phantom or
shadow, rather than a real growth. The men and women, too,


1842.]
131
Record of the Months.
flicker large and unsubstantial, like “shadows from the evening
firelight," seen “ upon the parlor wall.” But this would be oth-
erwise, probably, were the genius fully roused to its work, and
initiated into its own life, so as to paint with blood-warm col-
ors. This frigidity and thinness of design usually bespeaks a
want of the deeper experiences, for which no talent at observa-
tion, no sympathies, however ready and delicate, can compen-
sate. We wait new missives from the same hand.
Biographical Stories for Children. By NATHANIEL Haw-
THORNE. Tappan & Dennet, Boston.
Thanks once more to the manly and gentle spirit which has
taken these fine anecdotes, which have wet the eyes or expand-
ed the breasts of the fathers, and given them now in so pleas-
ing a form to the children, that the fathers must needs glisten
and sigh over them again. They are stories selected from the
traditions concerning Benjamin West, Isaac Newton, Samuel
Johnson, Oliver Cromwell, Benjamin Franklin, Queen Christina.
The Cambridge Miscellany of Mathematics, Physics, and As-
tronomy. April, 1842.
We rejoice in the appearance of the first number of this
Quarterly Journal, edited by Professor Peirce. Into its Math-
ematics we have not ventured; but the chapters on Astron-
omy and Physics we read with great advantage and refresh-
ment. Especially we thank Mr. Lovering for the beautiful Es-
say on the internal equilibrium and motion of bodies, which is
the most agreeable contribution to scientific literature which
has fallen under our eye, since Sir Charles Bell's Book on the
Hand, and brings to mind the clear, transparent writings of
Davy and Playfair. Surely this was not written to be read in a
corner, and we anticipate the best success for this new Journal.
On our table still lie not unread, although we have no room
yet for general notices ; -
The True Messiah, or the Old and New Testament examined
according to the principles of the language of nature, by G.
OEGGER. A very remarkable tract. It is the Introduction of
the whole work, which will be printed in like manner in two
more pamphlets, if it appear to be wanted. We shall come
back to this book again.
Günderode. E. P. Peabody. A translation from the Ger-
man, of which so fair a specimen has already been given in the
Dial, that we have not called the attention of our readers to
this new publication.


132
(July,
Intelligence.
A Letter to Rev. W. E. Channing, D. D. By 0. A.
BROWNSON ; an earnest, singular tract, of which we have the
promise of a critical notice from a correspondent for the next
number.
Henry of Ofterdingen. Translated from the German of
Novalis. Cambridge, John Owen. We hail the appearance
of this book. The translation appears to be faithful, and the
poetry is rendered with great spirit.
Chapters on Church Yards. By Caroline Souther. Wi.
ley & Putnam, New York. Another reprint from the inex-
haustible English stock, and a book pleasing to those who de-
light in sketches of the Wilson and Howitt school.
The London Phalanx for June. We regret that we have no
room for some extracts from this paper.
INTELLIGENCE.
Exploring Expedition. The United States Corvette Vin-
cennes, Captain Charles Wilkes, the flag ship of the Explor-
ing Expedition, arrived at New York on Friday, June 10th,
from a cruise of nearly four years. The Brigs Porpoise and
Oregon may shortly be expected. The Expedition has execu-
ted every part of the duties confided to it by the Government.
A long list of ports, harbors, islands, reefs, and shoals, named
in the list, have been visited and examined or surveyed. The
positions assigned on the charts to several vigias, reefs, shoals,
and islands, have been carefully looked for, run over, and found
to have no existence in or near the places assigned them.
Several of the principal groups and islands in the Pacific
Ocean have been visited, examined, and surveyed; and friendly
intercourse, and protective commercial regulations, established
with the chiefs and natives. The discoveries in the Antarctic
Ocean (Antarctic continent, - observations for fixing the South-
ern Magnetic pole, &c.) preceded those of the French and Eng-
lish expeditions. The Expedition, during its absence, has al-
so examined and surveyed a large portion of the Oregon Terri-
tory, a part of Upper California, including the Columbia and
Sacramento Rivers, with their various tributaries. Several ex-
ploring parties from the Squadron have explored, examined, and
fixed those portions of the Oregon Territory least known. A
map of the Territory, embracing its Rivers, Sounds, Harbors,
Coasts, Forts, &c., has been prepared, which will furnish the


1842.]
133
Intelligence.
information relative to our possessions on the Northwest Coast,
and the whole of Oregon. Experiments have been made with
the pendulum, magnetic apparatus, and various other instru-
ments, on all occasions, — the temperature of the ocean, at va-
rious depths, ascertained in the different seas traversed, and full
meteorological and other observations kept up during the cruise.
Charts of all the surveys have been made, with views and sketch-
es of headlands, towns or villages, &c., with descriptions of all
that appertains to the localities, productions, language, customs,
and manners. At some of the islands, this duty has been at-
tended with much labor, exposure, and risk of life, — the treach-
erous character of the natives rendering it absolutely necessa-
ry that the officers and men should be armed, while on duty,
and at all times prepared against their murderous attacks. On
several occasions, boats have been absent from the different ves-
sels of the Squadron on surveying duty, (the greater part of
which has been performed in boats,) among islands, reefs, &c.,
for a period of ten, twenty, and thirty days at one time. On one
of these occasions, two of the officers were killed at the Fiji
group, while defending their boat's crew from an attack by the
Natives
Association of State Geologists. After holding annual meet-
ings in New York and Philadelphia, the Geologists assembled
in April of this year in Boston, to the number of forty, from
the most distant points of the Union. Members were present
from Natchez and Iowa. Mr. Lyell from London was present.
From we know not what inadvertence, the notice of so unusual
a scientific union failed to reach the ancient ears of the Univer-
sity, at three miles' distance. Neither its head nor its members,
neither the professor of Geology nor the professor of Physics
arrived to welcome these pilgrims of science, from the far East
and the far West, to the capital and University of New England.
The public Address was made by Mr. Silliman, and reports and
debates of the most animated and various interest, by the
Messrs. Rogers of Pennsylvania and of Virginia, Dr. Morton of
Philadelphia, and others, a full report of which is in the course
of publication. The next annual meeting is to be holden in
Albany, N. Y.
Harvard University. The Chair of Natural History, vacant
since the resignation of Mr. Nuttall, is filled by the appoint-
ment of Asa Gray, M. D., known to the botanists as the associ-
ate of Mr. Torrey of New York. In the Divinity College, the
Chair of Pulpit Eloquence and Pastoral Care, vacant by the
resignation of Henry Ware, Jr., is to be filled by Dr. Convers
Francis. A generous subscription by several friends of the


134
[July,
Intelligence.
College has resulted in a fund of more than 20,000 dollars for
the purchase of books for the College Library. The College has
also received a bequest which promises at a future day to be a val-
uable foundation. Benjamin Bussey, Esq. has provided in his will
for the application of the income of his property to the benefit of
certain heirs therein named. At the decease of the survivor of
them, and subject to the payment of any annuities then existing,
he gives all his property to Harvard University for the following
purposes. His Estate in Roxbury is to be held forever as a Sem-
inary for “instruction in practical agriculture, in useful and
ornamental gardening, in botany, and in such other branches of
natural science, as may tend to promote a knowledge of practical
agriculture, and the various arts subservient thereto, and con-
nected therewith.” The government of the University is also
“ to cause such courses of lectures to be delivered there, at such
seasons of the year and under such regulations as they may
think best adapted to promote the ends designed; and also to
furnish gratuitous aid, if they shall think it expedient, to such
meritorious persons as may resort there for instruction." One
half of the net income of his property is to be appropriated to
maintain that institution; and the residue of the income is to
be divided equally between the Divinity School and the Law
School of the University. Mr. Bussey's property is estimated
at not less than three hundred and fifty thousand dollars.
On the subject of the University we cannot help wishing that
a change will one day be adopted which will put an end to the
foolish bickering between the government and the students, which
almost every year breaks out into those uncomfortable fracases
which are called 'Rebellions.' Cambridge is so well endowed,
and offers such large means of education, that it can easily as-
sume the position of an University, and leave to the numerous
younger Colleges the charge of pupils too young to be trusted
from home. This is instantly effected by the Faculty's confi-
ning itself to the office of Instruction, and omitting to assume
the office of Parietal Government. Let the College provide the
best teachers in each department, and for a stipulated price re-
ceive the pupil to its lecture-rooms and libraries; but in the
matter of morals and manners, leave the student to his own con-
science, and if he is a bad subject to the ordinary police. This
course would have the effect of keeping back pupils from Col.
lege, a year or two, or, in some cases, of bringing the parents
or guardians of the pupil to reside in Cambridge ; but it would
instantly destroy the root of endless grievances between the
student and teacher, put both parties on the best footing, - in-
dispensable, one would say, to good teaching, -and relieve the
professors of an odious guardianship, always degenerating into
espionage, which must naturally indispose men of genius and
honorable mind from accepting the professor's chair.


1842.]
135
Intelligence.
From London we have Mr. Wordsworth's new volume of
poems, which is not a bookseller's book, but a poet's book. We
have read them all with great content, and very willingly for-
gave the poet for writing against the abolition of capital pun-
ishment, for the sake of the self-respect and truth to his own char-
acter, which the topic and the treatment evinced. We should
say the same thing of his sonnet levelled at Mr. Thomas Car-
lyle. But the name of Wordsworth reminds us of another mat-
ter far less pleasant than poetry, namely, the profligate course
recently adopted by some of the States of the Union in relation
to their public debt. The following is an extract from a letter
of Mr. Wordsworth to Bishop Doane of New Jersey. “The
proceedings of some of the States in your country, in money
concerns, and the shock which is given to the credit of the State
of Pennsylvania, have caused much trouble under our roof, by the
injury done to some of my most valuable connexions and friends.
I am not personally and directly a sufferer ; but my brother, if
the State of Pennsylvania should fail to fulfil its engagements,
would lose almost all the little savings of his long and generous
life. My daughter, through the perfidy of the State of Mis-
sissippi, has forfeited a sum, though but small in itself, large for
her means; a great portion of my most valued friends have to la-
ment their misplaced confidence. Topics of this kind are not
pleasant to dwell upon, but the more extensively the injury is
made known, the more likely is it, that where any remains of
integrity, honor, or even common humanity exist, efforts will be
made to set and keep things right.” We have learned also with
mortification that John Sterling, whose poems have been lately
reprinted in this country, had invested L2000 in the worthless
stock of the Morris Canal Company, and later, that Mr. Car-
lyle had invested $1000 in stock of the State of Illinois, which
presently proved worthless. In this way the heavens have ta-
ken care that the character of our rotten public stocks and the
doctrine of 'Repudiation’ shall be damned to fame.
Alfred Tennyson, moved by being informed of his American
popularity, has given himself to the labor of revising and re-
printing a selection of his old poems, and adding as many new
ones, which he has sent to Mr. Wheeler of Harvard University,
who is republishing them here.
Henry Taylor, too, the author of Van Artevelde, announces a
new dramatic poem in press in London. John Sterling is still
engaged on a tragedy, “Strafford,” which should have been fin-
ished before this time, but for the ill health of the poet, which
has driven him to the south of Italy. Thomas Carlyle is un-
derstood to be engaged on the Life of Oliver Cromwell.


136
[July, 1842.
Intelligence.
Berlin. From Berlin, “ The City of Criticism,” we learned,
in the past months, that the king of Prussia was gathering
around him a constellation of men of science. The city was
already the residence of Humboldt, of Bettine von Arnim, of
Raumer, of Ranke, of Ritter, and of Ehrenberg. G. F.
Waagen is director of the Royal Gallery; and now Cornelius,
the great fresco painter ; Ruckert, the poet; Tholuck, the the-
ologian ; and, greatest of all, Schelling, from Munich, are there.
The king is discontented with the Hegel influence, which has
predominated at Berlin, and, we regret to say, set himself to
suppress the “ Hallische Jahrbucher”; which, though published
at Halle, depended for its support mainly on Berlin. With this
view, also, he summons the great Schelling, now nearly seventy
years old, to lecture on the Philosophy of Revelation. We have
private accounts of these lectures, which began in the last No-
vember. The lecture room was crowded to suffocation ; the
pale professor, whose face resembles that of Socrates, was
greeted with thunders of acclamation, but he remained pale and
unmoved as if in his own study, and apparently quite uncon-
scious that he was making a new epoch in German history.
His first lecture has been published at Berlin. Such are the
social and aesthetic attractions of this city, that it is said to
acquire a new population of six thousand souls every year, by
the residence of travellers, who are arrested by its music, its
theatre, and the arts.
New Jerusalem Church. We learn from a communication from
Dr. Tafel of Tubingen, in Germany, published in the Philadel-
phia New Churchman, that a dissenting party has arisen among
the disciples of Swedenborg in that country, and that a periodical
has appeared, called the “ Christenbote," (Christian Messenger,)
claiming to issue from the New Church, but deviating from
the faith of the majority, among other things in the following
points. 1. It recommends new revelations, such as those of
Tennhardt, which not only contradict those given by Sweden-
borg, but even dare to put themselves on a par with those of the
prophets and apostles. 2. It establishes the idea, that the New
Church has only two fundamental principles; whereas, says Dr.
Tafel, the New Church has acknowledged the writings of Swe-
denborg as her symbolical books.“ True it is, if we had only two
fundamentals, namely, the acknowledgment of the Lord, and the
life of his Commandments, such contradictory revelations might
be received alongside of each other, - though merely externally;
for internally we cannot hold fast anything contradictory. 3. It
inculcates the belief in a general conversion of the Jews, rely-
ing, in this case likewise, upon Tennhardt, and 'peculiar
revelations.'"


THE DIAL.
VOL. III.
OCTOBER, 1842.
No. II.
"ROMAIC AND RHINE BALLADS.
“I never could trust that man nor woman either, nor ever will, that
can be insensible to the simple ballads and songs of rude times; there is
always something wrong in them at the core.”
Since such is the opinion of a contemporary, we hope
that his friends, at least, will rejoice in having their attention
directed to collections as fine, in different ways, as those
of the old English or Border ballads, which have fallen into
our hands just when they were most needed, refreshing
episodes in such a life as is led here.
First in order, though not first in favor, comes Rhein-
sagen aus dem Munde des volks und Deutscher Dichter,
Traditions of the Rhine from the mouths of the people
and German poets. By Karl Simrock.
A happy man is this Simrock, a “ Dr.” too, Doctor of
Romance, for at the end of this volume are printed adver-
tisements of the Nibelungen lied, translated by K. S. -,
twenty lays of the Nibelungen restored according to the
intimations of Lachmann, by K. S. —, Wieland, the Smith,
German heroic Saga, together with ballads and romances
by K. S.
A happy man, a pleasant life! to dwell in this fair coun-
try, to bathe and grow from childish years in the atmo-
sphere of its traditions, its architecture, and the aspect of
nature by which these were fostered ; then, as a grown
man, to love, to understand them, and find himself in them,
so that he became their fit interpreter. Such are the only
VOL. III. — NO. II.
18


138
[Oct.
Romuic and Rhine Ballads.
interpreters, children of the era of which they speak, yet
far enough remote to see it in memory. This tender fidel-
ity, this veneration for the ancient institutions of the
fatherland is not only remote from, but inconsistent with
anything tame, servile, or bigotted in character ; for to fulfil
the offices of this natural priesthood supposes great life in
the priest, intellectual life to comprehend the past, life
of the affections to reanimate it, life of faith to feel that
this beauty is not dead but sleepeth, while its spirit is re-
born into new and dissimilar forms. This gentleness, this
clearness of perception, combined with ardent sympathy,
this wide view are shown in the manner of preparing this
garland with which
“the Rhine
May crown his rocky cup of wine."
It is good for us in this bustling, ambitious, superficial
country, where every body is trying to do something new,
where all the thought is for the future, and it is supposed
the divine spirit has but just waked up, and that the blun-
ders, committed on the earth during this long slumber, are
now at once to be corrected by the combined efforts of
men still crude and shallow-hearted, or the scheme of
some puny intellect; it is good for us to look abroad
and learn to know the weakness which waits upon our
strength by seeing the benefits of that state, where men
believe that God rules the past as well as the future, that
love and loyalty have bloomed and will bloom like the rose,
the common ornament of each of his years, and that hate
and falsehood have been, as they will be, permitted condi-
tions of man's willing choice of virtue. It is good to hear,
sometimes the silver trumpet, sometimes the rude fish-horn
blown by breath that stifles in the utterance, calling to
Repent, for the acceptable year of the Lord is come ; but
it is also pleasant to see men watering flowers upon a grave,
gazing up with reverence to the ivied ruin and placing
their gifts on the ancient shrine, pleasant to see them sing-
ing the songs and copying the pictures of genius now past
from us, and translated elsewhere ; for He the Lord hath
spoken, then as now, hath spoken the word that cannot
grow old, and whose life to-day alike interprets and recre-
ates its life of that other day.


1842.)
139
Romaic and Rhine Ballads.
Every genius is a reformer, but if he is a radical re-
former, it may be to loosen the earth and let in sun and
rain to the root, rather than to pull it up. This piety of the
Germans has its two excesses, making them sometimes
Phantasts, sometimes Pedants, but the soaring temper is
always subject to the one danger, the severe and devout to
the other. They are good people, and like the knights, and
priests, and cathedral-loving monarchs of whom these Sagas
sing, except in a less martial glance or grasp of the hand,
for now the vocation is changed, and their eyes are bleared
over the chronicles of men who lived in warmer blood a
hastier life, and the hand has lost all cunning save that of
the pen, but could the old time come again, it would find
the same stuff of which to make the same men. It would
find its religion in the form of skepticism, and its love hid
under a stranger mask, but still doing as of old the appoint-
ed work, and with that vigilance and loyalty which mark
the clime.
Rivers, like men, have their destiny, and that of the
Rhine, one would think, must have been worked out. Not
a step does the stream advance, unmarked by some event of
obvious beauty and meaning. The castle and cathedral,
with their stories and their vows, have grown along its
banks as freely as the vine, and borne as rich a harvest. All
things have conspired to make the course of the river a
continuous poem, and it flows through this book almost as
sweet and grand, as beneath its proper sky.
The book commences with the ballad called Staveren.
It is written in the old woman's negligent, chronicle mea-
sure, and forms an admirable prologue to the book. It is
the famous story of a city swollen by prosperity to that
pitch of pride and wickedness that make its destruction
inevitable. The devotees to money need not go to the deso-
late plains of Syria for their admonition, they may find it
in a common voyage, if they will pause upon the waters of
the Zuyder Sea.
It is a fine thing for a ballad to suggest so naturally and
completely its pictures, as this does. Its burden is, “ look
down into the waters, and see the towers and spires of
Staveren," and then look landward and you have before
you the sudden rush of the sea which, in a manner so sim-
ple, wrought this doom.


140
(Oct.
Romaic and Rhine Ballads.
whored city, cases given by a Staveren.iling master bring
Sodom must perish, but the intercession of Abram,
whose pious mind is expressed in his strivings for the
wicked city, casts a gleam of light into the pit of sin.
A gentle warning given by a good man sheds a similar
soft hue upon this story of Staveren. A maiden, the
richest heiress of the city, summons her sailing master, and
says, “ take twelve moons' time for your voyage, and bring
me back as cargo the noblest that earth can produce.” He
replies, “At once I obey and weigh the anchor, but tell
more nearly what you want; there are so many noble
productions of the earth. Is it corn or wine? Is it amber
or silk, gold or spices ? Is it pearls or emeralds? It costs
thee but a word, and it shall be my cargo, were it the
world's most precious treasure.”
But she bids him guess, and will give him no help. He
sails away in doubt, but after much thought makes up his
mind, as becomes a substantial wise German,
What can be more precious than the golden grain ?
Without this common gift of earth, all others would be vain,
With this I 'll lade the skiff and shun her anger's pain.
So he loads his vessel with wheat from Dantzic, and is
back at the end of the half year. Ile finds in the ban-
quet hall his lady, who receives him with looks of scornful
surprise.
Art thou here, my captain, in such haste?
Were thy ship a bird, that bird had flown too fast !
I fancied thee just now on Guinea's golden shore,
What hast thou brought me, quickly say, if not the precious
ore?
The poor captain well sees he has failed of his errand,
and answers reluctantly, —
The best wheat I bring, potent lady, to thee!
No better can be found far as the land meets the sea.
At the news she expresses the greatest scorn and anger.
Did I not bid thee, she cries, bring me the noblest, the
best that the earth holds, and didst thou dare to bring me
“ miserable wheat of which these loaves are made ?”.
Then answered the old man, Despise not that by which we're
fed,
God bids us daily pray him for our daily bread.


1842.]
141
Romaic and Rhine Ballads.
How highly I esteem it, she cries, thou soon shalt see,
On which side did you take in this trash you bring for me?
On the right, he replies. Very well, she says, then throw it
all into the sea from the left. Prepare to do this immedi-
ately, and I will come myself to see that you obey.
He went, but not to do the bidding at which his soul
revolts. He calls together the hungry poor, and assembles
them on the landing, thinking her hard heart will be touch-
ed at the sight, and she will not dare to offend God by this
wanton waste of his gifts.
But the crowd of famished wretches implored in vain
a little of the wheat to give them just one day, free from
suffering. She persisted in her whim of pride, and all
was thrown into the sea. The poor people looked on,
wringing their hands, but the ship-master can no longer
contain himself. He curses her, and predicts that she will
yet be compelled to pick up the wheat, grain by grain,
from the mud of the streets. She jeers at him. How-
ever, within the year the curse falls on her, losses are an-
nounced from every quarter, all is gone, and she begs from
door to door the bread everywhere denied her, and at last
sobs away her miserable life alone on a bed of straw.
This example does not warn her countrymen. They
persist in their course of luxury, selfishness, and arrogance,
when lo! a miracle comes to punish them, by stopping up
the source of their ill-used wealth. Where the wheat had
been thrown into the sea rose up a sand-bar, known by
the name of Frauen sand. On this grows a plant unlike
any known before, it is like corn, only there is no grain in
the ear. This mysterious obstacle barred up their haven,
spoiled their trade, their city sunk into poverty ; — one
morning they drew up fish when they went to the wells,
and, in a few hours, the sea made good its triumph over
Staveren.
Though written into prose, the thread of this story must
show its texture. The legend is put into its present form
by Simrock, and as well as most of those by his helpers,
is graceful, vigorous, and of an expression whose simplicity
and depth does not suffer by comparison with the volks
lieder, even when they are on the same subject. The
manner is different, but the same spirit dictates both, each
in the manner of its own time.


142
[Oct.
Romaic and Rhine Ballads.
In a perhaps not less pious, though less meek spirit,
comes a tale a little farther on. Prince Radbot is about
to be baptized, he has his foot in the water's brink when
he bethinks himself to ask the priest, "where now are all
my ancestors who died without baptism ? "
“In hell,” replied the pious bishop,
“ Thy fathers who died as heathens,
King Radbot, are now in hell.”
That enraged the valiant Degen (blade).
“ Base priest,” cried he,“ my fathers,
My fathers were valiant men;
Rather will I, yes, by Wodan I swear it,
Be with those heroes in their hell,
Than with you in your priests' heaven.”
He spake it and walked away in defiance.
The anecdote resembles one well hacknied, but the sen-
timent is so based on truth, that it might be expressed
anywhere.
The Swan plays a distinguished part in Rhine poesy.
This bird which the always most discerning Greeks con-
secrated to the service of genius, rather than birds of fre-
quent song, this most beautiful bird seems always floating
before us on the Rhine. In some of these poems the
peculiar feeling of delight mixed with expectation you
have in looking up stream is made to take shape as the
approaching swan. There are two, one a volks lied, the
other modern, founded on the same tale and called
Schwanen Ritter, Knight of the Swan. It is a tale of a
lady left by her father's death under the power of a bad
servant, who will only set her free from prison on con-
dition of marrying him. She has no hope but in prayer,
and as she beats her breast in anguish, a little silver bell
attached to her rosary is made to ring. Its sound is very
soft in her chamber, but vibrates loud as thunder in distant
lands to call the destined knight to her rescue. This bell
was to me a new piece of ballad furniture, and one of
beautiful meaning. Looking down from her lonely window,
she sees the knight approach in a boat to which a swan is
attached by a golden chain, both as pilot and rower. He
greets her with a proud calmness, lands, fights the good
fight, wins back her inheritance, and becomes her husband.


1842.]
143
Romaic and Rhine Ballads.
But he asks for one boon, that she will promise never to
inquire his name and birthplace. The usual catastrophe
follows; she asks him “at each favorable time” zu jeden
frist. He resists her importunities with dignity and pathetic
warnings as to what must ensue if she does not rise above
this weakness. But she, at last, is so unworthy as to en-
treat him, if he loves their children, to tell her. He no
longer refuses, declares his princely descent, divides among
his three sons the fairy accoutrements of sword, horn, and
ring, each of which is the pledge of a ducal inheritance.
The swan-drawn boat appears, and the frail beauty is left
to bear the heavy years of a widowed and degraded life.
The volks lied is the answer of the mother to the ques-
tions of the children, orphaned by her fault, and her account
of the vision of purity and bliss which once shone before
her is answered naturally enough,
O Mutter, das ist seltne Mär.
O this is a strange tale, mother.
So must young children answer, if told by their pa-
rents of visions of purity and bliss that had shone on their
young eyes, and might have remained the companions of a
whole life, had they been capable of self-denial and con-
stancy. But when they hear that eye now so cold and dull
has ever seen the silver swan approach on the blue stream,
they may well reply
O this is a strange tale, mother.
In the German tales men are as often incable of absti-
nence and faith to their word, as women. The legends of
Nixenquell and Melusine may be balanced against this of
Schwanen ritter. The fairness of feeling towards women, so
conspicuous when Germany was first known to the Romans,
is equally so in all these romances. Men and women are both
frail, both liable to incur stain, but also both capable of the
deepest religion, truth, and love. The ideal relation between
them is constantly described with a delicacy of feeling, of
which only the highest minds in other countries are sus-
ceptible.
- Swan-rings” are another subject, expressing the thoughts
of which the bird is an emblem. Charlemagne has lost the
beautiful Svanhild. He cannot be drawn away from the


144
[Oct.
Romaic and Rhine Ballads.
body. He will not touch food, nor attend to the most urgent
business. All expostulations only draw from him a few ago-
nized words, “ You are all mistaken: she is not dead, she
only sleeps, see how beautiful she is, I cannot leave her till
she awakes.” On the evening of the third day he sinks,
exhausted, into sleep beside the corpse. The good bishop
Turpin wishes to have him removed, but finds it impossible;
his hold of the cold hand cannot be loosed. Suspicion be-
ing aroused, the bishop exercises till he finds in the mouth
of Svanhild, one of those rings, on which was engraved
the swan. He takes it away, and puts it on his own finger.
The king awakes, and at once orders the now disenchant-
ed body to be buried, but turns all the folly of affection to
Turpin, on whom he hangs like a child, enumerating all his
charms and virtues. The bishop, terrified at being invested
with this power of witchcraft, rushes down to the river,
and throws the ring in. The monarch, who has followed
with hasty steps, gazes wistfully into the blue depths, seek-
ing the magnet, but not able to recover it, fixes near the
spot his royal dwelling, and thence Aix arose.
Very grand are the lineaments of Charlemagne as de-
scried in these national memories. The ballads which de-
scribe him crossing the Rhine, where the moon has made
him a bridge of light, to bless the vines on either shore,
rousing the ferry-man to go with his shadowy host to fight
the battles of his sometime realm against one as great in
mind, but not in soul as himself, and those of his confession,
and Eginhard and Emma, paint the noblest picture, and in
the fulness of flesh and blood reality. He is a king, indeed,
a king of men, in this, that he is most a man, of largest
heart, deepest mind, and most powerful nature. See in
Eginhard and Emma his meeting with his peers, and way
of stating the offence, the fearful yet noble surrender of the
self-accused Eginhard, the calm magnanimity with which
the inevitable sentence is pronounced, and then his grief for
the loss of his child.
Equally natural and sweet is the conduct of the lovers,
wandering forth on different sides of the road, the princess
now in pilgrim's weeds, not daring to speak to one another
for days. Then the kindness of the good woodmen, and
the sleep which total weariness found at last in the open
forest. There is no violent transition in their lives from a


1842.] Romaic and Rhine Ballads.
145
palace to a hut woven of boughs and twigs. The highest
rank there grew up naturally from the lowest, was not
severed from it. All ate at the same table, and he whose
place was on the Dais knew the savor of the poor man's
salt. The life of a noble was splendid, but no way ener-
vating or factitious. It was as easy for the princess Emma
to use her husband's helmet for a milk pail, as for Ulysses,
or the pious Æneas, to cut down trees and build their ships
with their own hands, when thrown upon a foreign coast.
It was not distressing, but refreshing, to see people in those
times cast down into the lowest adversity. We knew they
would not yield, nor lie crushed in the ditch. There was
strength in all their members to rise and stride boldly on
afoot, since their chariots were taken from them.
In the other ballad the aged monarch has upon his soul a
sin so great, that he wants force to name it even to his con-
fessor. The monk reproves his weakness, urges upon him
that it ought to be no added pain to speak to man that
which he has dared keep in his thoughts to be seen of God.
The king admits the truth of this, and tries again, but tears
and sobs choke his utterance. The confessor bids him
write it then. Alas! he replies, the years when he might
have learned to use the pen were wasted in vain pleasures,
or spent in knightly toils. It is not too late, cries the zeal-
ous monk, I will teach you ; and, accordingly, this task-work
goes on day after day, till Charlemagne can write "joining-
hand.” Then they come to confession again, and the
monk once more urges him to command himself and speak,
and he tries, but the effort causes a still more suffocating
anguish than before. Then he begins to write, with slow,
stiff hand; the monk, from afar, sees the large letters form-
ing on the page, but when he draws near to read the fin-
ished scroll, he finds it a blank. He turns to the monarch
for an explanation, but the amazement of both is equal, till
turning to the page again they find written by a heavenly
pen, " Thy sins are forgiven.” Thus the sin, so deeply
felt, that it would have broke the heart if spoken, was ab-
solved above the region of words to the patient penitent.
In the same tone are stories of the Cathedrals, especially
of the bells. The high feelings about this voice of the
church, expressed in Schiller's Song of the Bell, have given
birth to these stories. One Master, unsuccessful with his
VOL. III. — NO. 11.
19


146
(Oct.
Romaic and Rhine Ballads.
bell under the influences of prayer, and his best mood,
swears and curses, and is immediately successful; but when
the ceremony of consecration came, the bell gave out tones
so fearful that it could be used only at times of fire and
other calamity. Another Master, summoned from afar on
account of his great skill, substituted tin for a part of the
silver with which he was entrusted. At the consecration,
the emperor pulls the bell-rope but cannot make it stir; he
cannot guess what the difficulty is and calls the Master.
The Master advances, pale with guilt and fear, pulls the
rope, and, at his touch, the clapper falls and kills him.
The ballads about the bishops are worthy those about the
churches. From several, all good in different ways, take
the following.
The lords of Thum it did not please
That Willegis their bishop was,
For he was a waggoner's son;
And they drew to do him scorn
He found them in chamber, found them in hall,
But the pious Willegis
Could not be moved to bitterness.
Seeing the wheels upon the wall,
He bid the servants a painter call
And said, “My friend, paint for me
A wheel of white on a field of red,
Underneath, in letters plain to be read,
Willegis, bishop now by name,
Forget not from whence you came.”
The lords of Thum were full of shame,
They wiped away their works of blame,
They saw that scorn and jeer
Cannot wound the wise man's ear,
And all the bishops who after him came,
Quartered the wheel with their arms of fame;
Thus came to Willegis
Glory out of bitterness.
This gentle humility is like that of Manzoni's Borromeo,
that expressed in the following like his Cristoforo.
Gunhild lived a still, pious life in her little convent cell,
Till her confessor made her stray by a wild passion's spell,


1842.] Romaic and Rhine Ballads.
147
She filed with him into the world, awhile they lived in strife
and sin,
He gamed and cheated, poorer grew, must robbery begin.
Gunhild, poor lost girl, Gunhild what wilt thou do?
Alone in a strange land, a robber he who wrought thee wo.
She wept her eyes all red, she said, “ Alas, that ever I this
course begun,
I will return to my old home, whatever penance must be done.”
She begged her way through many lands; she begged from door
to door,
Till she saw the Rhine, the woods, the cloister stood before.
She knocks upon the cloister gate, quickly it open flies,
She stands before the Abbess, she says with weeping eyes,
“O Mother take back the lost child, from her safe fold who ran,
And let the hardest penance release the church's ban.”
“Gunhild, my child, what ails thee ? safe in thy little cell
Do I not find thee every hour employed thy rosary to tell,
Singing hymns so wondrous sweet both day and night
That all our hearts are lifted with ravishing delight.
If thou, holy child, must seek penance for thy sin,
Where must I, poor wretch, to make atonement for my life be
gin?"
They led her to the cell, what to think she could not guess,
Till away flew the angel who had filled her place.
Those, who look into their bosoms by the light of
a tale like this, will not need to see the angel that has taken
their place, while thought strayed to forbidden baunts, be-
fore they prepare a thank-offering to the “ Preventing
God.”
The same nation, the same state of religious feeling,
which gives Gunhild this guardian angel to protect her
against her passion-stirred fancy, or curiosity, and long-
suffering, is generous of chances for repentance, when a
poor monk walks forth doubting and reasoning as to the
interpretation of a passage of Scripture, lets him lose him-
self in the wood, where, as a penance, he doubts, reasons,
and wanders for a hundred years far from his home, his


148
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-
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two wafer into stical legen
church, and yet never attaining an inward certainty. In
our time the scale of sin would reverse the place of the
two faults.
There are also fine mystical legends, one on the loss of
the consecrated wafer into a field of corn, many about the
Virgin, and two about the children, St. Hermann Joseph,
and St. Rupert. Those on the holy Ottilia are among the
noblest. One resembles that of " my Cid” when he meets
St. Jago as a leper.
There are others of deep and painful import, where unne-
cessary martydom waits on the spirit's choice. The Maid of
Bodman is one of these. Its holy sweetness cannot recon-
cile us to the desolation over which it hovers, like some
pale, half-frozen seraph, lost in a temperature for which
his organs were not made. This deep religious feeling
occasions sometimes a dalliance with it, for men are not
afraid to play with what they feel and know to be true, but
only with what they wish may be true, but fear to be false.
There are several playful legends of this character, of which
two founded on the presumption of St. Peter are good.
The following is in the true German style of humor, a
bit of playful wisdom. It is called
THE DEATH OF BASLE.
When I was a young man, I took a stone-old wife,
Before three days were over I rued it well,
I went into the church-yard, and prayed to dear Death,
Ah, dear, kind Death of Basle, take away the old wife.
And next time I went to the church-yard, the grave was dug.
“You bearers, walk softly that she may not awake,
Heap on the earth, the gravel; the old, the cross wife,
How she has already worn out my young life.”
When I came home again every corner was too wide,
Three days had not passed before I took a young wife;
The young wife that I took, she beats me every day,
Ah, dear Death of Basle, might I but have the old one back.
Some of the best are those which give the impression of
a particular scene, as the Lorelei ballads, which represent,
by the legend of the unhappy fay, the wild and melancholy
beauty of a certain part of the Rhine. The poor Lorelei !
her beauty bewitched all who saw it from a distance, and
lured them to the dangerous heights, but her love floated


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disdainful in a ship upon the stream, she must throw her-
self down to reach him.
Drachenfels is a place that inspires whatever springs
from it with its own character. In this book is a legend of
a Christian Maiden, exposed here by heathens, but before
the cross on her pure breast the dragons flee and throw
themselves from the precipices. But that is long since, and
they seem again to shed their expression over their seat of
royalty, not to be dispelled, except by some pure ray of
living light, such as is expressed in this ballad.
The Fraulein von Windeck, a modern ballad by Chamisso,
is singularly happy in giving this aspect of a peculiar scene.
The young knight has been lured by the apparition of a
stag to the ruins of Windeck. There the stag vanishing
through the ruined gate, he knows not how, he stands
gazing on the mighty walls. The sun burns down, all is
so lovely and still, he wipes the drops from his brow and
cries, O that some one would bring me a single drinking
horn of the wine that must be stored in these cellars.
Hardly had the words passed from his lips before the at-
tentive cup-bearer issued from the wall. It was a slender,
most beautiful maiden, in a white robe, with the keys at
her girdle, the drinking-cup high in her hand. He sipped
the wine with thirsty lips, and at the same time drew con-
suming flames into his bosom. He supplicates this lovely
being for her love. She smiles on him with a tender com-
passion, and vanishes without a word.
From that hour he wandered round the ruins of Win-
deck, unable to free himself from the spell; he knew no
rest, nor peace, nor hope.
He wandered like a dreamer, ghost-like, pale, and thin,
He faded, but he could not die, much less new life begin.
They say that after many years she came to him again,
And pressed upon his lips a kiss which freed him from his
pain.
The profound loneliness of a sunny noon, and the effect
of the light upon the ruins amid the leaves, making the
stag vanish and the lady appear, is admirably exhibited in
this poem. The following which grows also out of the
character of the scenery pleases me no less.


:
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Romaic and Rhine Ballads.
HEIDENLOCH. Br A. LAMEY.
GALLUS.
Father ! how long in this dark solitude
Must I abide;
Where only deer and bears visit the wood
That waves so wide ?
How bright and cheerful spreads the distant plain,
Far from the world of men why must I here remain ?
MARTIUS.
O peace, my son. The Gods who here command
Thou shalt obey ;
I fled with thee from a far distant land
Before the new God's sway.
But once our Gods the wide earth-ball controlled,
Great were the nations in those times of old.
GALLUS.
And what for thee alone to tend their shrine
Can now avail ?
If they had ruled the earth by right divine
Would they thus fail ?
These pallid statues on the stone altar,
Is't these, my father, who so mighty were ?
MARTIUS.
Yes ! Rome and Athens through their mighty name
Rose to such fame!
And with that fame fell courage, honor true,
Then came the new;
Will a blind world no more due homage give,
The more are favored those who still believe.
ALLUS.
O father, yesterday I ventured forth
Upon the chase;
I saw a maiden on the sunny turf
Giving her lamb fresh grass.
She greeted me with smiles, the lovely child,
And knelt before a figure shrined, and just so angel mild
MARTIUS.
Enough! the rest thou hast no need to tell,
My son, farewell !


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In vain with thee far from the Cross I run; -
A moment has my toil undone.
With thy dead mother we will find our home,
I and my Lares, in her lonely tomb..
This struggle between the old and the new has not ceas-
ed yet, in Germany, nor, indeed, anywhere in the world,
where the influence of ancient literature is still felt.
Opposed a whole heaven's breadth between, to the spirit
of the Charlemagne ballads, are a few scattered up and
down about the great modern, who, after the lapse of
centuries, seemed to open to the sun's path the same sign
of the zodiac. Charlemagne does not excite more love and
reverence in that region, than Napoleon hatred, and a con-
tempt even to loathing. These feelings are expressed in
the following ballad perhaps better than in any.
The original is one of the best street ballads I ever saw.
It has the real jingle, doggrel ease, and fire beneath the
ashes that please in such. As it is placed among the his-
torical ballads, it ought to record a fact, although I had al-
ways supposed the title of “ Little Corporal” was only a pet
name given by his army to the little great genius.
CORPORAL SPOHN.
They name in Coblentz and the vale
Still Spohn, as the great Corporal.
What did this Spohn to win the name,
Does he deserve a lasting fame?
Spohn was a true, a faithful man,
Find a truer none may nor can.
His Emperor truly served Spohn,
His Emperor, named Napoleon,
Who had in the Drei-Kaiser fight
Ventured too forward from his might.
Sudden he turns his horse to fly,
Both left and right the foe are nigh.
Kossacks are they on their swift steeds,
The Emperor spurs as well he needs.
A thicket stops him in his flight,
And he to life must bid good night.


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This saw Spohn, he did not lag,
Sir King, he cries, give me the nag;
Me the well known, three-cornered hat;
Fly; — all your part I play with that.
To the ground sprang Napoleon,
On the gray horse quick sat Spohn.
The famous hat upon his head,
The foe no deception dread.
But spring that way, and cry “He's taken,"
And see too late how they've mistaken.
When they saw who the prisoner was,
They hewed him down with fifty blows.
The Emperor flew far that day,
A Corporal's hat on, all the way. .
Since that time, so goes the tale,
He's called the little Corporal;
The great Corporal was Spohn,
Was greater than Napoleon.
Very unlike all the others are the Nibelungen ballads.
One of these Tennyson has taken as the groundwork of his
“ Day Dream;" but except in the gorgeous description of
the "Sleeping Beauty," it loses infinitely by any change from
its first simplicity. Brunhild's quarrel with Odin, the style of
her housekeeping, the woven wall of fire which daunts all
the faint-hearted, but proves to the true knight only a wall
of sunbeams as he dashes through; all are in the best style
of the romantic ballad, grand, fresh, and with dashes of fun
between.
Siegfried is the native hero of the country, on the true he-
roic Valhalla basis, unchristianized, unchristian, arrogant, no-
ble, impetuous, sincere, overbearing, generous, no reflective
wisdom, no side thoughts, no humility, no weakness. He ex-
ults as a strong man to run a race, and he does run it, and
come in at the goal as he promised. He takes pleasure in
outshining others, because he is the noblest. Came a no-
bler he would yield with joy! How he would have stared
at such night thoughts as
“Forgive his faults, forgive his virtues too."


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Romaic and Rhine Ballads.
Or,
“Have I a lover — who is noble and free,
I would he were nobler — than to love me.”
Siegfried shows that he was educated at the forge and
bathed in the dragon's blood. His triumphant energy
fills with light the black forests, where the wild boar holds
at bay the bravest huntsman. Of a stately native growth
were the timbers from which this ship of Germany is built,
all oak, proud, German oak.
I have lightly touched upon the characteristics of the
Rhine ballads, lightly, for the hand becomes fearful and
maladroit, when obliged to choose among materials so rich
as to make rejection a pain at every step. They express a
nation in the early years of a pious, a valorous, an earnest
and affectionate manhood, innocent, but not childishly so,
playing antics sometimes in the gayety of health and
strength, but never light or vain. What culture it possesses
is expressed in character. They were full of faith and they
always acted upon it. They had clear eyes, but the life
blood beat too quick to let them spend their days in look-
ing about them. Their superstition was no incubus, it
head; for each man felt himself capable of loyalty and
tenderness. The assembled princes boast the value of
their different provinces. Everhard, Duke of Wirtemberg,
when it comes to his turn says; My land is not of the
richest. But when I meet a Wirtemberger in the black
pine wood, I lie down and sleep in his lap as I should in
my mother's. He paused, and his eye shone clear and
friendly, as if he had just waked from sleep in a Wirtem-
berger's arms. Such a heart beat in the German people !
And their good swords are rust,
Their souls are with the saints, we trust."
We know.
Of an entirely different character is the other book, I
have before me, “ Modern Greek popular Songs, collected
and published by C. Fauriel, translated and furnished both
with the French editor's explanations and his own, by Wil-
VOL. III. — NO. II.
20


· 154
[Oct.
Romaic and Rhine Ballads.
helm Müller. Neu Griechische Volkslieder, gesammelt
und herausgegeben von C. Fauriel. Uebersetzt und mit
des Franzosischen herausgebens und eigenen erläuterun-
gen versehen von Wilhelm Müller.
The former book gave the mind of a people at a period
of national dignity, of high culture and development, as
respected character. On that soil was seen to rise the sub-
lime architecture of an established religious faith, inter-
spersed with homes sacred with honor and the affections.
As the river pierced the land it talked all along with a rich
and multiform life. The grape was its proper emblem, and
the juice of that vine has been carried to every part of
the civilized world ; and though we gladly return to quaff it
in the vineyard from which it was born, the pleasure is not
new, only keener than before. But in this other book it
is wholly new. A breath fresh with the snows late fallen
from heaven blows from Olympus and Pindus, where the
Greek Klepht, stately if not serene as the gods who there
in olden days feasted at the golden tables, waged a war
which, for the traits of individual heroism that signalized
it, and the indomitable love of freedom that made it glori-
ous, might have made Greece more proud in her day of
highest pride.
This mountain life has always given one aspect to the
men driven into the natural fastnesses, to keep off those who
would not allow that they should breathe heaven's air and
be cheered by its light at their pleasure. The flashing eye,
the body hardened to pain and famine, the light hold on
life, the eagle gaze at death, the sudden love, the stead-
fast hate, the readiness of resource, and the carelessness of
plan, these mark the wild chamois gesture of man, who
seeks not to be rich, be great, or wise, or holy, but simply
to be free. A small portion this of his proper life; yet to
see him vindicate it gives the same pleasure as the instinc-
tive motion of the infant, or the career of the wind.
The whortleberry, not the grape, is the fruit that express-
es what these ballads are. I abridge an account of their
origin from Müller's introduction.
“We have here a poetry of the people in the truest sense of
the name; a voice from the people in which nothing vibrates,
but what can be felt and understood by every Greek; a poesy


1842.]
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Romaic and Rhine Ballads.
which neither has its birth nor death on paper; but springing up
as living song, hovers on the same wings from mouth to mouth,
and dies away entirely, when the period is past whose spirit and
thought were expressed by it.
“The modern Greek lays of this class may be divided into
domestic, historical, and romantic or ideal ; that is to say, those
of which the material is not taken from the actual life, either
of the past or the present.
“Among the domestic we count all those made to be sung at
household festivals. The feast days, which are especially com-
memorated in such, are the day of the holy Basilius, and the
first of March.”
Of the latter the account is very interesting. The swal-
low's song, sung on this day by little boys, who carry a
wooden effigy of the bird from door to door, is peculiarly
charming. But of these and the songs of betrothal, of
marriage, and mourning the account must be omitted. I
have room only for this passage which exhibits one of the
most interesting features of national character.
“The desire for knowledge, persecutions, or the need of
gaining and assuring a maintenance, for which his own country
affords little opportunity, these and similar motives and circum-
stances compel many Greeks to leave their home for a long
time, and nothing is so tragical to them as this freewill banish-
ment. The Greek clings with a love so tender to the land of
his birth, that he, despite all dangers and ill treatment to which
he is there exposed from his barbarous rulers, can find nowhere
else a heaven on the earth, and regards each foreign land as a
place of exile and sorrow. But what makes still sadder to the
Greek a separation from his home and those he loves, is his
uncertainty as to their destiny during his absence. Shall he
ever see them again ? Will the Turk leave his house and kin
unassailed during his absence? The same apprehensions are
in the hearts of those he is leaving behind; for they feel that
their lives, honor, and fortunes are in the hands of rude ty-
rants.
“Hence may be explained the solemn observance shown to the
day when the Greek takes leave of his familiar circle. His
friends and relations assemble in his house, partake with him
the last meal, and then accompany him- some miles on his way.
Songs are usual on this occasion, some sung at the table,
others as they go with him on his way. Many of these are
handed down from ancient time, and common through all
Greece; others applicable to the present occasion and locality


156
[Oct.
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These farewell songs are of a most pathetic cadence, and exer-
cise a power over the Greeks, almost beyond belief elsewhere,
as the following history bears witness.
“In the district of Zagori, near the old Pindus, lived a family
to which three brothers belonged, the youngest of whom, by a
singular variation from the usual order of nature, was an object
of aversion to his mother. After he had long, in silent submis-
sion, endured her unjust severity, he, at last, resolved to seek
happiness at a distance. He announced his intention to go to
Adrianople. The usual solemnity of the banquet passed, his
friends accompanied the youth five miles, and then halted to
take leave in a wild valley of Pindus. After several relations
and friends had sung their songs, the poor youth ascended a
high rock and sang one composed by himself, in which he had
painted in the most tender manner his sorrow at leaving the
fatherland, and all whom he loved, but worst of all, leaving
in his home a mother who did not love him. This poem, sung
with deep emotion, enhanced by the sad loneliness of the place,
and the accompaniments of the scene, conquered at last the
heart of the mother. While they all wept, she rushed to the
arms of her son, and promised in future to be a better mother
to him. And she kept her word.”
The festivals of marriage and mourning have given oc-
casion for fine songs; but I pass on to the historical, which
are the most interesting of all.
“ Among these the most numerous and expressive are the
combat with the soldiers of the Pachas and Beys. To under-
stand these it is necessary to know the political and social rela-
tions on which the origin and power of these robber-bands rest.
“ Klepht originally meant Robber; but since it has been ap-
plied to the heroes of the Greek mountains, the word has gained
a new and noble meaning.
“In part they were from the native Greek militia, Armatoli,
who, on occasions of extraordinary aggression or treachery
from the Turk, would fly to the mountains, and there make a
stand against his power. These Armatoli, are bred to the use
of arms; their weapons are handed down from father to son.
They are, therefore, not unprepared for this mode of life."
“A different occasion called out the Armatoli of Thessaly.
When the conquering Turk broke in here, the dwellers of the
fruitful plain bent to the yoke without resistance. But the
shepherds of Olympus, of Pelion, of the Thessalian ridges con-
nected with Pindus, and the heights which now bear the name


1842.]
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Romaic and Rhine Ballads.
of Agrapha, refused to yield. With arms in hand, they often
rushed down from their natural fortresses on the cultivated
plains and rich cities, and plundered the conquerors, and also,
sometimes, those to whose cowardice they thought the national
shame and sorrow were due. Thus they received the name of
Klepht, given at first by their foes as a term of abuse, but which
they willingly adopted and used with pride, to distinguish them-
selves from the peaceful Rajas of the plain, the slaves of the
Turk. Thus in these ballads it is obvious that they use this.
name as a title of honor.
“ The Turks were soon weary of living in perpetual war with
these Klephts, a war in which they alone could be the losers,
as complete victory would have added nothing of value to their
possessions. They offered them peace on such conditions as
most of the Klephts were willing to accept, leaving them the
right to govern themselves by their own laws, to live independ-
ent in their mountain districts, to bear arms for their own de-
fence, only paying for these privileges a small tribute to the
Turkish government. Some of the inhabitants of the wildest
and least accessible heights refused even this, and have maintain-
ed absolute freedom down to this time."
Those who accepted the treaty banded themselves
again under the name of Armatoliks. The remaining
Klephts lived in hamlets in the recesses of the moun-
tains. But soon the Turks found that too much had been
granted, and a course began of treachery and indirect tyran-
ny, which was continually rousing the resistance of those
who had submitted ; so that, often, an Armatolik would fly
again to the mountains, and a band of well disposed Palli-
karis* be turned into Klephts in a day.
Thus began a course of romantic and ceaseless war-
fare. The Klepht, on his guard all the time against
his treacherous and powerful foe, with no friends, but his
sword, his mountains, and his courage, was trained to the
utmost hardihood, agility, presence of mind, and brilliant
invention. In self-reliance and power of endurance he was
like our Indians. The spirit in which he looks on life and
nature is the same ; but his poetical enjoyment of his wild
life is keen, as befits the mercurial Greek.
A thousand interesting details might be gathered from
* Name given to each member of the band. The lieutenant was chief
or first Pallikari.


158
[Oct.
Romaic and Rhine Ballads.
the introduction and notes of Müller; but I must hasten to
let the ballads tell their own story.
These songs are sometimes composed by the Klephts
themselves, but more generally by blind beggars, who seem
to have copied the part of the ancient Rhapsodists with a
fidelity somewhat astonishing.
There are few beggars in Greece, for almost all can find
a sustenance. The blind are an exception ; yet these even
cannot with correctness be said to live on charity. For the
songs with which they entertain the people are as needful
and as valuable to lives like theirs, as anything that can be
bought with gold. These blind, both on the continent and
in the islands, learn as many popular songs as they can, and
wander with them from city to city, from hamlet to hamlet,
rather preferring the latter. They prefer stopping near the
gates, or in the suburbs, where they readily find a circle of
hearers. Everywhere they seek the common people. The
Turks never listen to them, partly from a disdainful insen-
sibility, partly because they do not understand Greek.
They sing to the accompaniment of an instrument which
retains the form and the name of the ancient lyre. It is
played with a bow; and when complete has five strings, but
more frequently only two or three are seen. For the most
part they wander about singly, but sometimes they unite to
form choruses for their songs.
These Rhapsodists may be divided into two classes.
The one, and naturally the most numerous, is satisfied
with learning and reciting the songs of others; the second
and higher class has also the gift of composition ; these
sing both the lays of others and their own. Always on the
watch for some new story, they never lack materials in the
state of things we have described.
They use all subjects likely to be popular ; but among
these the stratagems and exploits of the Klephts are the
favorites, and in regard to them they deserve the name of
Annalists. Many of them compose their own music as well
as verse.
Among the blind Rhapsodists is found here and there
one able to improvise his songs. Towards the end of the
last century there was such an Improvisatore in Ampelakia
of Thessaly not far from Mount Ossa, who was of high ce-
lebrity. He was named Gavojannis, the blind Johannes, and


1842.]
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Romaic and Rhine Ballads.
distinguish vast numbe any
lived to a great age. He improvised with facility on any
theme that was given him. He knew a vast number of
histories of the Klephts. Being distinguished above others
of his craft, both for his richness in subjects, and his man-
ner of treating them, he fixed his abode in this place, and
became a sitting Rhapsodist. People were very willing to
come to him ; and Albanians in the pay of the Pacha paid
him often a high price to celebrate them in a few verses.
In the memories of these old men then, and of women,
have been preserved the lays which describe the life of the
mountaineers, their watch by day, and their enjoyments by
night ; for in the dark they are secure from those who do
not know the paths like themselves; their beautiful costume,
and fine observances, both of domestic feeling and super-
stition, their brilliant valor in sallies upon the enemy, their
stern pride when taken captive, and the wild breeze of the
mountains sweeps through all the simple verse, there is no
trace of any life but their own.
The ballads are often fragments, both because parts have
sometimes been lost, and because the heroes were so well
known to the audience that there was no need of any in-
troduction to the bare fact. Sometimes the narrator
is a bird, or three birds talk together, as in one of the oldest
called,
CHRISTOS MILIONIS.
Three birds lighted down there in the camp upon the hill,
The one looked towards Armyros, the other towards Valtos,
The third, that which the fairest is, laments and cries,
My lord, what has become of Christos Milionis ?
He is not to be seen in Valtos nor in Kryavrissis.
They tell us he has gone out towards Arta,
And there has taken captive the Cadi, the two Agas;
And when the Moslem heard that, he was high in wrath.
He called to Mauromartis and Muktar Klissara :
You, if you would have bread, if you would have high honors,
Go and slay Christos for me, the Captain Milionis !
This command the Sultan gave and sent out his Firman.
Friday's sun rose up, I had it never shone!
And Soliman was sent, to go forth and seek him.
He met him by Armyros, as friends they both paid greeting;
They drank together all night through, till day began to dawn,
Then called Soliman to the Captain Milionis :


160
[Oct.
Romaic and Rhine Ballads.
Christos, the Sultan sends for thee, and the Agas they must
have thee!
So long as Christos lives, he bows not to the Turk.
Then they ran upon one another with their guns,
Fire upon fire they gave and fell upon the spot.
BUKOVALLAS.
What noise is that which rises there? What is that great ala-
rum ?
Are they killing oxen? Are they fighting with wild beasts?
No: they are not killing oxen, not fighting with wild beasts.
Bukovallas stands in fight against a thousand and five hundred,
Between Kerassovon and the town of Kenuria.
A fair maiden looks out from a window of the house;
Johannes, stop the fight, stop awhile the shooting,
Let the dust sink to the ground, let the smoke fleet away,
That we may count the troop and see how many fail.
The Turks counted theirs three times and five hundred failed,
The sons of Robbers counted theirs, and but three braves were
absent;
One was gone to fetch us water, one for bread,
The third and the bravest lies there on his gun.
They use, like our Indians, the word brave, braves, as
the highest title for a man. The Grave of Dimos also
corresponds with the thought of the “ Blackbird's Grave,"
as related by Catlin.
THE GRAVE OF DIMOS.
The sun is sinking now, and Dimos gives command,
Bring water, children, and partake the evening meal,
And thou, Lampraki, nephew mine, sit down here by my side,
Here take my arms and be their leader now.
But you, my children, take my orphaned sword,
Go, hew green boughs, and with them make my bed,
And bring a father confessor, that I may tell all sins
That I have ever done, and be by him absolved.
Was Armatole for thirty years, for twenty was I Klepht,
And now the death hour comes, and this hour I will die,
O make my grave and make it a broad and high one,
In which I could stand up to fight, and load my gun in the
middle,
And on the right side leave for me a little window open,
At which the swallows may fly in to tell me when the spring
comes,
And where in fair May moons the nightingales may sing.


1842.]
161
Romaic and Rhine Ballads.
They resemble the Indians, too, in their treatment of
prisoners; and that they showed the same respect to women
is proved by the haughty conduct of the female captive
in the following ballad.
SKYLLODIMOS.
Skyllodimos sat at supper beneath the lofty fir-trees;
At his side he had Irene, that she might fill his wine.
Pour out, O fair Irene, be my cupbearer till daybreak,
Until the morning star shall rise, the Pleiades shall set,
When I may send thee home with ten of these my braves.
Dimos, I am not thy slave, to fill the cup for thee.
I am the bride of a Proestos, the daughter of an Archon,
And see at break of day two wanderers approach;
Their beards are long, their faces black, and they greet Skyllo-
dimos,
O Skyllodimos, a good day. O Wanderers, you are welcome,
But, wandering strangers, how knew ye that I am Skyllodimos ?
We bring thee words of love from thy own absent brother,
We saw him in Janina, we saw him in his prison ;
On his hands were chains, and on his feet were fetters.
Then Dimos wept aloud, rose quickly to depart;
Where art thou going, Dimos, whither, ( valiant Captain ?
It is thy brother's self, come here, that he may kiss thee.
And then the Captain knew him and took him in his arms,
They kissed each other tenderly both on the eyes and lips;
And now asked Dimos him, thus spake he to his brother,
Come here, my brother sweet, sit here and tell thy story;
How hast thou so escaped the hands of the Albanians ?
By night I loosed my hands, I drew off both the fetters,
I broke the iron bar in two and leaped into the trench,
I found a little bark and rowed upon the lake,
Last night I left Janina and reached the mountains.
“Skillodimos was the name of an ancient Armatoli family in
Akarnania. In later times there were four brothers of the name,
two of whom are introduced in this song. The one who appears
here as the robber captain was not of much celebrity. The
youngest, Spyros Skillodimos, is properly the hero of the lay.
In 1805 he fell into the hands of Ali Pacha, who shut him up
in a subterranean dungeon of the castle of Janina. Many
months this unfortunate dragged his chains from side to side
in the mud of his narrow dungeon. At last by the help of
VOL. III. — NO. II.
21


162
[Oct.
Romuic and Rhine Ballads.
a file, of his long girdle and wonderful agility, he reached and
sprang from a window of the tower in which his prison was.
But a wide and deep piece of water surrounds the castle of
Janina, and Skillodimos was forced to pass three winter days
and nights in the swamps overgrown with reeds which border
it, before he could find a bark to take him across. Afterwards,
through the most difficult paths he found his way to the moun-
tains of Akarnania."
The few lines on Kontoghiannis point to a noble life.
INSCRIPTION ON THE SWORD OF KONTOGHIANNIS.
Who trembles not at tyrants' word,
Frankly and freely walks the earth,
Esteems his fame than life more worth,
To him alone belongs this sword.
KONTOGHIANNIS. A FRAGMENT.
What has befallen Gura's hills, that they so mournful stand?
Has the hail laid them waste? Presses them the hard winter ?
No hail has laid them waste, presses them no hard winter ;
Kontoghiannis wages war in winter as in summer.
This refers to one known from her connexion with the
hero, and is worthy of reading for its own beauty.
THE SORROWFUL EMBASSY.
She sleeps, wife of the noble captain, son of Kontoghiannis,
Under a golden coverlet, and gold-embroidered sheets.
I am afraid to wake her, I dare not tell her,
So I will take nutmegs and throw at her;
Perhaps she will feel the perfume and awake.
And see by the perfume of the many nuts
The noble captain's wife is waked, and asks with sweet tongue,
What bringest thou for news from our captains ?
I bring bitter news from our captains;
Nicholas is a captive, Constantine is wounded ; —
Where is my mother ? Come to me, come, and hold my temples,
And bind them, bind them hard while I sing the mourning song.
For which of both shall I weep first, for which sing the mourn-
ing song ?
I weep for them, for Constantine, for Nicholas, for both
Were flags upon the heights and banners in the field.


1842.)
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Romaic and Rhine Ballads.
The mountains find a brave clear voice.
OLYMPOS.
Olympos and Kissavos* the two high peaks were striving ;
Olympos turns itself to Kissavos, and says,
Strive not with me, Kissavos, thou trodden in the dust,
I am the old Olympos, through the wide world so famous,
With two and forty peaks, with two and sixty sources,
Beside each source a banner waves, by each tree stands a Klepht,
And on my highest summit there is an eagle sitting,
And in his talons holds he fast the head of a dead hero.
“O Head, what hast thou done? tell me how didst thou sin ?
Eat, Eagle, feed thee on my youth, feed on my strength and
valor,
Till thy wings be ell-thick, and span-thick be thy talons,
In Luros and Xeromeros I was an Armatole,
In Chasia and on this mount, twelve years long a Klepht,
Sixty Agas have I slain and burnt, too, all their hamlets,
And what I left upon the place, both Turks and Albanese
So many were they, bird of mine, that they cannot be numbered; *
Yet at the last to me the lot came too, at last I fell in battle."
The following presents a new Penelope.
KALIAKUDAS.
Were I a bird that I might fly, might hover in the air,
Then I might seek another land, seek Ithaca the lonely,
That I might hear Lukina, might hear the wedded wife of Lukas,
How there she weeps and mourns, dark tears in streams out-
pouring;
She like a partridge hangs the head, unfeathered like a duck,
She wears a robe that is as black as is the raven's wing,
At her window sits she, out-gazing o'er the sea,
The skiffs as they sail by she questions every one,
Ye barks, who sail so swift, ye golden Brigantines,
Have ye not seen my husband, seen Lukas Kaliakudas ?
Last night we left him, left him beyond Gaurolimi,
His band were roasting lambs, roasting wethers at the fire,
And they had with them Agas five to turn around the spits.
This might serve as a battle song.
STERGIOS.
Although the passes Turkish be beset by the Albanians,
So long as Stergios lives, he cares not for the Pachas ;
* Kissavos is the Ossa of the ancients.


164
[Oct.
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So long as snow falls on the hills we yield not to the Turk,
Up, let us make our camp where wolves have found their home;
In cities on the plains among the rocks dwell slaves,
The valiant have their city in clefts of desert rocks;
O rather with the wild beasts dwell than with the Turk.
The Suliote war furnishes ballads enough to make a Ho-
meric canto by itself. Here the women play their part, as
heroines. Throughout the ballads their position is com-
manding, living constantly in the open air, their beauty is
healthy and majestic. The uncertainties and dangers
which beset their lives, while taking from them their natu-
ral office of making home quiet and lovely for the rest of
man, develop the higher qualities of generous love, forti-
tude, and a ready helpfulness. The maiden is sometimes
introduced feeding the horse of her lover, sometimes with
the gun in her hand. The following describe women
with accessories that fit them as well as the harp, or the
work-table.
TSAVELLINA.
There came a little bird and sat upon the bridge,
It mourns in a loud voice and speaks, it speaks to Ali Pacha;
This is not thy Janina, not here the waters of Janina,
This is not Prevesa, where thou canst build thy fortress;
No! this is the famous Suli, Suli the high-famed,
Where little children stand in fight, and women, and maidens,
Where Tsavellina stands in fight, the steel in her right hand,
The nursling in one arm, in the other the gun,
Her apron full of cartridges, walks she in the sight of all.
THE DEATH OF DESPO.
A great sound is heard, many gunshots fall;
Are they shooting at a marriage, shooting at a feast of joy?
They are shooting at no marriage here, at no feast of joy ;
It is Despo who fights, with her daughters in law and daughters,
She was besieged in the tower of Dimulas by the Albanians.
Give up thy arms, thou wife of Georgos, thou art not in Suli,
Thou art the slave of the Pacha, the slave of the Albanians.
Has Suli laid down arms, and is Kiapha Turkish ?
Never yet had Despo, never will have Turks for masters!
She seizes a firebrand, calls to daughters in law and daughters,
Let us not go into slavery, up, children, up and follow me!
And she throws fire into the powder, and all perish in the flames.


1842.]
165
Romaic and Rhine Ballads.
A SULIOTE-FIGHT.
There in Tseritsana on the high borders of Suli,
There by the old hill chapel stand the Bulumbashaws,
And look down on the fight to see how Suliotes fight,
How little children stand in fight, and women with the men,
And the captain Kutsonikas called down from his post,
O my children, stand your ground! O stand like valiant men,
For Muktar Pacha comes, and with him come twelve thousand.
Then he turned about and called to the Turks,
Where goest thou, Muktar Pacha, whither thou rascal Turk?
Here is not Chormovon, here not Saint Basilis,
Where you make children slaves, where you take women cap-
tives,
This is the bad Suli, famous through the world,
Where Tsavellina stands in fight, like a worthy hero,
She carries in her apron cartridges, and in her hand the sabre,
And with her loaded gun she goes before them all.
ANOTHER.
The priest's wife called down, down from Avarikos,
Where are you, children of Bozzaris? Where, children of
Lampros?
Many black clouds draw hither with horses and with men;
It is not one, it is not two, it is not three and five,
But there are eighteen thousand, truly nineteen thousand,
Let come the Turkish pack. What hurt can they do us?
Let them come and see a fight, and see the Suliote guns,
Learn to know the gun of Georgos, know the sword of Lampros,
And the arms of Suliote women, of the farfamed Chaido!
When the fight had begun, and the guns were flashing,
Then called Lampro Tsavellas to Bozzaris and Zervas,
Now let come the time of sabres, let alone the guns,
But Bozzaris answered down from his post,
The time of sabres, shouted he, is not yet come,
Stay yet in the thicket and hold fast to the rocks,
For there are many Turks, and few Suliotes.
Now cries the clear voice of Tsavellas to his braves,
Shall we await them longer, the Albanian dogs ?
Then they all broke the sheaths of their sabres,
And chased the Turks before them like goats.
Veli Pacha called to them not to turn their backs,
And they answered him with tears in their eyes,
This is not Delvino, we are not in Vidini,
No, this is the famed Suli, famed throughout the world,
This is the sword of Lampros, bathed in Turkish blood,


166
[Oct.
Romaic and Rhine Ballads.
He is the cause that all Albania wears black mourning garments,
That mothers for their children weep, and wives for their hus-
bands.
These give a specimen of the Suliote ballads which are
all radiant with the same spirit. The war lasted twelve
years.
“The mountain range of Suli is in that part of ancient Epi-
rus, formerly called Thesprotia, and now Chamuri, and extends
eastward out of the great mountain range of Mezzovo from the
banks of the Acheron, or Mauropotamos. Vehement torrents rush
down from the rock chasms to the valley, through which this
stream flows, and among them the Suli, probably the Sellers of
the ancients is the most considerable. A hundred and fifty years
ago shepherds fled with their flocks from the country of Gardiki in
Albania into this wild mountainous district, to escape the ill treat-
ment of the Turks. They were joined by others persecuted or
discontented, and in the course of a few years these fugitives
had formed a community of the Patriarchal kind, whose point of
union was a hamlet which took the name of the mountain chain
and district. In the year 1792, this little independent state offered
triumphant defiance to the powers of the dreaded tyrant of
Epirus, waged constant war with him, and were subjugated and
destroyed at last by treachery, not valor. The few Suliotes, who
survived the conquest of their mountain fastnesses, retired to the
Ionian isles and enlisted beneath the French or Prussian ban-
ners against the barbarous oppressor of their country. To these
belonged the Leonidas of Karpenissi, Marco Bozzaris.
“Suli seems intended by nature herself for a mountain cita-
del of freedom. Long, deep ravines, narrow, winding passes,
high, steep rock-walls are nowhere interspersed by a fertile spot,
likely to allure the step of a conqueror. The hamlets of the
Suliotes, eighteen in number, lay partly on the mountain peaks,
partly in the strips of vale between. The oldest were Suli, or Kako
Suli, Avarikos, Samoniva, Kiapha, and Kaki-Kiapha, together
named Tetrachorion, which, from their situation on the ridge of
a steep rock to which only one pass led, winding with many and
long turns, were the chief fortresses of the Suliotes, being pro-
vided with walls and towers by the giant hand of nature. The
Heptachorion was composed of seven hamlets, colonies of the
before-named, and included the plain at the foot of the moun-
tain. The eleven hamlets included the proper race of Suliotes ;
but with these were connected fifty or sixty little villages in the
vicinity, inhabited by a mixture of Greeks and Albanians, who
under the name of Parasuliotes stood in a serviceable relation to
the mountaineers.


1842.]
167
Romaic and Rhine Ballads.
“ The population of the eleven hamlets never were above five
thousand, and half of these lived in the chief village, Suli.
Their government was wholly Patriarchal. A union of several
families formed a Phara. Sali counted eight hundred families,
and these were divided into forty-seven Pharas. Each family
had its head, and the oldest and wisest of these was chief of the
Phara. There were in Suli neither written laws, nor courts of
justice; the customs of their fathers stood to them in place of the
former, and all strifes were composed by the heads of families
and of the Phara.
"This arrangement held good in war as in peace. The heads
of the family commanded their own in battle, the heads of the
Phara these. When a foe approached their borders, the dwellers
of the plain fled to the hills. No plan was made for the war,
but each Suliote was trained from his childhood to use the gun
and sabre he inherited, and knew every cleft and den of his na-
tive mountains, as a fox his hole. So each one stood for and
by himself, as in the old hero-wars; and only this unity was
among them, that they all fought for one cause, for their freedom
and fatherland, for their women and children, and the graves of
their ancestors. There were never more than fifteen hundred
fighting men engaged against the Pacha. They fought on foot,
for their country afforded no pasture for horses.
"The women followed the men to the fight; they carried the
provisions and amunition, and when there was need, often took
an active part, as we see Moscho, the wife of Lampros Tsavellas,
in these songs.
“ The war of Ali Pacha with the Suliotes lasted, without
much intermission, from 1792 till 1804, and ended in the sur.,
render of their fastnesses to Veli Pacha, the son of Ali, who
availed himself of the treaty to fall on the remnant of their fight-
ing men, on their way to the seacoast, exhausted by long famine,
and almost wholly to destroy them. Then it was that in the dis-
trict of Zalongos the mothers of the Suliotes threw their child-
ren down the precipices, and, hand in hand, sprang after them,
for no choice remained except between death and slavery.
" After the massacre, the Turks hastened to Reniassa, where
there were left only women and children. In this hamlet is a
tower, called the tower of Dimulas. The Suliote, Georgos
Botsis, to whom this tower belonged, was absent, and only his
wife Despo was there with seven daughters and sons' wives, and
three children. When these eight Suliote women saw the foe
approaching, they armed themselves and received them with
gun-shot. But they soon found defence would only avail them
a short time longer. Then Despo called them all together, and
asked, holding a firebrand in her hand, · Will you rather die, or


168
[Oct.
Romaic and Rhine Ballads.
be slaves to the Turks ?' Die, they called out with one accord,
and Despo threw the brand into a chest full of cartridges. The
tower flew into the air with its garrison of women, the children,
and the nearest Turks. The Suliote ballads conclude with that
on the heroine Despo.”
What success might be expected to follow from the
policy which bore such fruit, this story shows.
“Ali Pacha, who had had the best opportunity for knowing
Klephts, did not undervalue his foe. After a long course of
treacherous intrigues, not succeeding in exterminating, he re-
solved to win them to be his instruments. In 1805, he invited
the Klephtish chiefs from all parts of Greece to Karpenissi in
Ætolia, with the purpose of making permanent peace with
them. They did not refuse to come, and they met, the generals
of the Pacha with their troops, the Klepht-captains with their
Pallikaris. Jussuf, the Arab, Ali's foster brother, the most
dreaded official of the tyrant, and the worst foe of the Klephts,
was astonished at their number, knowing better than any what
their losses had been, and turning to the captain Athanasius,
with whom he had formerly been acquainted, he said; How
is it that, when we have waged incessant war upon you these
five years, your bands are as numerous as ever?' 'Seest
thou,' replied the captain, these five young men in the
front rank of my right wing? Two of these are brothers, two
cousins, and one the friend of one of my braves whom you put
to death. All five flew to me, that they might take vengeance,
under my banner, for the death of their friend and kinsman.
Yet some years of persecution and war, and all Greece will be
with us.'"
These truly Homeric Greeks know little about their for-
bears in the olden time that Homer sung, neither have
they heard of the heroes of the Persian wars, and they
know nothing of the gods and goddesses, who once were sup-
posed to dwell on the very mountains that are their homes.
Olympus, Pindus are names that to them speak only of
fresh breezes, starlight nights, of free joy, and a homefelt
delight that even the wild crag is their own. A few traces
of the old mythology linger still, mixed up with their own
superstitions. Charon is known to them; and in his old
capacity, though now exercised on the firm land, and in
new circumstances.


1842.]
169
Romaic and Rhine Ballads.
THE SHEPHERD AND CHARON.
A bold gay lad was coming down from the high mountain,
His cap was put on sideways, and his hair was braided,
Charon who was waiting for him on the high peak,
Went down into the valley and met him there,
O young man, say, whence comest thou? O young man
whither goest? —
I come from my herd, I am going to my house,
I shall take there a loaf and then go back.-
But God has sent me down here to take away thy soul.-
O Charon let me free, I pray thee, let me live,
I have at home a young wife, she is not fit for a widow,
If she walked lightly, they would say she sought another hus-
band,
If she walked slowly, they would say, that she was proud.
I have also little children, and they would be orphans.-
But Charon would not hear, and tried to take him. -
O Charon, if thou wilt not hear, and art resolved to take me,
Come, let us wrestle here upon this marble rock,
And if thou art the victor, Charon, take my soul,
If I should get the better, go thou where thou wilt. —
Then they came and wrestled from morning to midday,
And not till the vesper hour, could Charon throw him down.
THE MAIDEN AND CHARON.
A young maiden boasted that she was not afraid of Charon,
Who had many great houses, also four palaces,
And Charon was a little bird, like a black swallow,
He flew past and shot his dart into the heart of the young maiden.
And then her mother wept, thus bewailed her mother,
O Charon, how thou mak'st me mourn for my one daughter,
For my one only one, for my fair daughter.
And see, then came Kostas from a valley of the mountain,
With him five hundred men and sixty-two musicians.
Stop the marriage jubilee. Stop awhile the music,
I see a cross at the door of my father-in-law,
One of my new brothers may be wounded,
Or my father-in-law is dead, or else perhaps his father.
He spurs his black steed, he gallops to the church,
He finds the sacristan digging a grave,
O Sacristan, be greeted, for whom is that grave ?
For the fair maiden, her with the dark eyes,
She who had nine brothers, and Kostas for her bridegroom,
He who has many great houses, also four palaces.
VOL. III. — NO. II.
22


170
(Oct.
Romaic and Rhine Ballads.
O Sacristan, I pray thee dig the grave
A little wider, large enough for two to lie there.
He drew out his golden sword, and thrust it into his heart,
And they both were buried in one grave together.
Here love works with exactly the opposite result, to
that marked by Wordsworth on a similar occasion.
“O mercy, to myself I cried,
If Lucy should be dead."
Both are equally true to nature. The treasure of the
heart seems so precious that it cannot remain with us,
we tremble every moment lest some conspiracy of Fate
and Time should break out to deprive us of it. — Again, it
seems so truly all that we need, the complement of our
being, the only means of life to us, and the only reality,
that it seems more possible for any and all objects to totter
and fall into dust than this one only one.
I have seen notices of the following ; perhaps it is known
to many.
CHARON AND THE SOULS.
Why are the hills so black in their mourning robes ?
Is it because the stormwind blows, and the rain beats upon them?
No! the stormwind does not blow, nor the rain beat upon them,
Charon is passing over with a band of the dead,
He drives the young, foremost, and behind, the old,
And he holds upon his saddle the tender children.
The old pray to him, the young supplicate him,
O dear Charon, stop in the village, stop at the cool fountain.
I will not stop at the village, nor at the cool fountain,
Mothers who go there for water would know their children,
And man and wife would know one another, and could not be
separated.
THE VOICE OF THE GRAVE.
All Saturday we were carousing, all the dear Sunday,
And, when Monday morning came, all our wine was gone,
Then the captain bade me go and bring more wine.
A stranger am I, I know not the paths,
And went into wrong ways, and untrodden paths,
One of these took me up a high hill,
All covered with graves, the graves of the valiant;
A single one stood alone, away from the others,


1842.)
171
Romaic and Rhine Ballads.
I saw it not, I stepped on it and stood at the head,
Then heard I from the lower world a cry and a thundering.
Why dost thou moan so, grave? Why dost thou sigh so deeply?
Do the clods press hard, or the black stone-plate ?
The clods press not hard, nor the black plate,
But I have grief and shame and a great cumber,
That thou despisest me, thus to step on my head;
Was I not also a young man? Was I not a brave?
Have not I too wandered abroad in the moonlight ?
Here is a Romaic Lochinvar.
moble
As lately I was sitting and drinking at my marble table,
My horse neighed loud, my sabre clashed;
And my heart understood it well, my love is given in marriage,
They are giving her in marriage to another,
They bless her, they crown her with another man.
I went out to my horses, to my five and seventy,
Which is there of my horses, of my five and seventy,
Which like a flash flies to the east, and again is in the west?
And none of them would answer, none would promise,
But an old horse, covered with forty wounds,
Said, I am old and unseemly, not fit for a journey,
But I will go the long way for my fair mistress,
Who has fed me kindly from her round apron,
Who has carefully given me drink from her joined hands.
He saddles quick his horse, he quickly rides away,
0! wind, my master, round the head a cloth seven ells long,
And be not like a dainty youth, but use the spurs,
Else soon I shall feel my youth like a foal,
And scatter your brains over nine ells of land.
He gives the switch to his horse and it runs forty miles,
He gives it a second time, then runs it five and forty,
And on the way as he rode, he prayed to God,
Let me find my father pruning vines in his vineyard;
He spoke it like a Christian, he was heard as a saint,
He found his father pruning vines in the vineyard.
Hail to thee, old man, all good be with thee, to whom belongs
this vineyard ?
To woe, alas, to dark grief, to Jannes, my son,
To day they give his love to another wooer,
They bless her, they crown her with another man.
O say to me, old man, shall I find her at table?
If thou hast a swift horse thou may'st find her at table,
If thou hast a slow horse, thou wilt find her at the marriage.
He gives the switch to his horse and it runs forty miles,


172
(Oct.
Romaic and Rhine Ballads.
He gives it a second time, then runs it five and forty,
And on the way as he rode he prayed to God,
Let me find my mother, watering her garden,
He spoke like a Christian, he was heard as a saint,
And he found his mother, watering her garden;
Hail, mother, good be with thee. To whom belongs this gar-
den?
To woe, alas, to dark grief, to Jannes, my son,
To-day they give his love to another wooer,
They bless her, they crown her with another man.
O say to me, mother, shall I find her at table ?
If thou hast a swift horse, thou wilt find her at table,
If a slow horse, thou wilt find her at the marriage.
He gives the switch to his horse, and it runs forty miles,
Gives it a second time, the horse runs five and forty.
The horse began to neigh, and the maiden knew him,
O my bride, who speaks with thee? Who holds talk with thee?
My first brother is it, he brings the bridal presents.
If it is thy first brother, go and fill the cup for him,
If it is thy first bridegroom, I will come and kill him.
Truly, it is my first brother, he brings the bridal presents.
Then took she a gold goblet and went out to fill for him,
Stand on my right, fair bride, fill the cup with the left.
He flies away swift as the wind, the Turks take their guns,
But the horse they saw no more, not even the dust,
Who had a swift horse, he saw the dust,
Who had a slow horse saw not even the dust.
How children love these repetitions which keep up the
cadence of the thought, and make the ballad or fairy story
musical as rippple after ripple on some little lake!
There are many pretty poems of a playful sort. The
Greek grace is seen in these, just as when in the age of
Pericles they prefaced the keenest irony with, O best one.
I go into a garden, find an apple tree
Richly laden with apples, in the top sits a maiden;
I say to her, come down and let us be friends,
But she plucks the apples and stones me with them.
The Wish is only to be paralleled in its range with
“ Ye gods annihilate both time and space,
And make two lovers happy.”


1842.]
173
Romaic and Rhine Ballads.
Here below, in the neighborhood, below in the street,
There dwells an old woman with an old man ;
She has a cross dog, and a fair daughter,
Heavens ! might the old woman only die with the old man,
And were the dog poisoned too, I might have the maid.
THE CURSE.
My loved, golden, clear moon, now sinking to thy rest,
Take a greeting to my dearest, the conqueror of my heart.
He kissed me and said, I will never leave thee,
And now he has left me, like stubble on the empty field,
Like a church under ban, like a ruined city.
I meant to curse him, but I feel tenderness again,
Yet better is it that I curse. Heaven do as it will,
With my sighs, my pains, with flames and curses,
If he climb a cypress tree to pluck its flower,
May he fall from the top, fall to the ground,
May he break in two, like glass, may he melt, like wax!
Have five doctors to hold him, ten to heal him!
ANOTHER.
I passed by thy door and saw thee in anger,
Thy head lay down-sunken on thy right cheek,
Then my heart beat so high that I must ask thee,
What grief thou hast at heart, that I may bring thee comfort.
Why dost thou ask, false one? Well thou knowest what,
Since thou hast forsaken me and gone after another.
My dove, who has said that ? Who, my cool fountain ?
My love, he who has said that may he die this very week!
If the Sun said it, let him be quenched, if a star let it fall down!
And if a maiden said it, may she find no wooer !
DISCOVERY OF LOVE.
O maiden when we met, 't was night, who could have seen us?
Night saw us, and dawn, the moon, and the stars,
And from the sky fell a star that told it to the sea,
The sea told it to the oar, the oar to the sailor,
And the sailor told it at the door of his love.
« The sailor told it to his fair,
And she - she told it everywhere,"
is a modern addition.


174
[Oct.
Romaic and Rhine Ballads.
The tenderness is just as graceful.
THE FAREWELL.
O thou my red pink, my blue hyacinth,
Bow thyself down to me, let me give thee a sweet kiss,
I must go from this land, my father bids me go.
O thou, my red pink, my blue hyacinth,
Bow thyself down to me, let me give thee a sweet kiss,
I must go from this land, my mother bids me go.
Come is the day and hour when we must part,
We shall not meet again, and, ah, my heart bleeds,
That we must part here and meet never again,
My eyes swim in tears, and turn about like wheels,
That we must part here and meet never again.
The dying chief cries,
Bird,
On thy wings let me write three black letters,
One to my mother, another to my sister,
The third and last to my ardently beloved;
The mother reads hers, and my sister weeps,
The sister reads hers, and my beloved weeps,
My beloved reads hers, and all the world must weep.
THE SAILOR.
He who has a daughter to be wooed and taken in marriage,
Let him give her to an old man rather than to a young sailor.
The sailor, the unhappy, has many griefs to suffer,
Who eats at noon, eats not at night, who makes his bed, but
sleeps not ;
Unhappy the youth who lies sick upon the deck,
No mother looks upon him, no wife will bewail him,
He has no brother, has no sisters, has no human soul,
The captain only speaks to him, and the master of the vessel.
Heida, stand up thou sailor, thou well taught sailor,
Reckon now the right time to run into the haven.-
You say to me, stand up, stand up, I say to you, I cannot,
Come take hold of me and lift me up and let me sit down,
And bind two handkerchiefs hard about my head,
With my love's gold handkerchief bind my cheeks;
Now bring me the chart, the sorrowful chart,
See this mountain, this one here, and there above the other,
They have clouds about their heads and mists at their feet,
Go, and cast anchor there, — there is a deep haven,


1842.
175
Romaic and Rhine Ballads.
The little anchor on the right, the cable on the left,
And cast the great anchor into the sea towards the south.
I pray my captain, and also the master of the ship,
That they will not bury me in church, nor in cloister,
No but on the sea beach, deep down in the sand.
Then will come the sailors, I shall hear their voices,
And the Yoho, at hauling in the anchor, Yoho casting it out.
Then his eyes closed and saw never more.
So we see the Greek did not fail to cast his eye on the
blue sea, too.
Two of the best, The Unexpected Marriage, and the
Night Journey, I saw long since translated by — Sheri-
dan, with great spirit, but with that corruption of their na-
tive simple beauty to which a rhymed translation almost al-
ways leads.
The song of the Swallow, the Cradle songs, and one
“ serenade,” even, contained in this volume, are of great
beauty, but enough have been given to show the character
of the whole. The account of the Myriologia corresponds
with one of the same ceremonies in a province of France I
think, that I saw not long since in a book of Balzac's,
« The Country Physician.” I suppose the account was
meant to be received as stating facts. If it is authentic, the
correspondence is striking.
“ The poems on funeral occasions are, from their nature, im-
provisations, painting a new and fresh grief. There are indeed
handed down for this purpose, certain forms and common-places
in the introductions, transitions, and closes, but the varying cir-
cumstances oblige always to inprovise under cover of these.
They have a slow, dragging measure, ending in a high tone, as
if to express the cry of grief. It is wonderful to see timid and ig-
norant women at once transformed into poets by these occa-
sions. Grief which, among us, robs the weaker sex even of the
power of speech, becomes with them the source of inspiration, of
which they had felt no presage in themselves, and they find
courage to express their deepest feelings before the crowd who
have their eyes upon them, waiting to be agitated and roused to
tender emotions.
“ It is hardly necessary to say that not all the women of
Greece exhibit this wonderful gift in like degree. Some are
especially famed for it, and are invited to sing at the funerals of
those with whom they are not connected. The women love to
practise this art, while at work in the fields, singing their ex-


176
[Oct.
Romaic and Rhine Ballads.
tempore laments in imaginary cases, sometimes for the loss of a
friend or neighbor, sometimes of a flower, a bird, or a lamb.
“Few of these poems are preserved; they are the gift of the
moment and pass away with it; the poetesses, themselves, can
rarely remember what they have sung. Single thoughts or im-
ages remain in the memory of the hearers, but seldom the
whole song. In the absence of the poems, the account given
by a friend of one of these ceremonies, at which he was present,
may be acceptable.
“A woman of Mezzovon on Pindos, about five and twenty
years of age, had lost her husband, who had left her with two
little children. She was a poor peasant of simple character,
and had never been in the least remarked for her intellect.
Leading her children by the hand, she appeared before the
corpse, and began her song of sorrow by the story of a dream,
which she addressed to the departed. “A little while ago, she
said, I saw, before the door of our house, a youth of majestic
form, with a threatening aspect, and at his shoulders, white, out-
spread wings. He stood upon the threshold, with a drawn
sword in his hand. "Woman,' he asked, 'is thy husband in
the house?' 'He is within,' I answered ; "he is combing our
little Nicholas, and coaxing him that he may not cry. But go
not in, terrible young man, go not in. Thou wouldst frighten
our child.' But the youth, with the white wings, persisted that
he would go in. I tried to push him back, but was not strong
enough. He rushed into the house, he rushed on thee, my
boloved, he struck thee with his sword, thee unhappy. And
our son, the little Nicholas, too, he wished to kill.'
“ After this beginning, whose tone, as she delivered it, made
the hearers tremble, some of whom were looking to the door
for the youth with the white wings, she threw herself sobbing
on the body, and they with difficulty drew her away from it.
Then while her little child clung sobbing to her knees, she
renewed her song with still more inspiration. She asked her
husband, how she should now live with their children ; she re-
minded him of their wedding day, of all they had done together
for their children, of her love for him, and did not cease till
she sank exhausted to the ground, pale as the clay of him she
bewailed.”
The Irish wake, probably, degenerates in this country;
but even here, the poor bricklayers and ditch-makers com-
bine with its coarse sociality something of this poetical
enjoyment. Only a few months since I heard from one of
the most ignorant Irish, an account of a wake almost as
poetic as that given above. It was that of a young hus-


1842.]
177
Romaic and Rhine Ballads.
band who left his widow with an infant child. She, too,
threw herself on the body, and bewailed her fate with ex-
pressions and images of striking and simple beauty. All
present were moved to tears. “He was a poor red-headed
man, too,” added my narrator. The Irish have a rich vein
of feeling, and it runs in the same direction with that of
these Greeks, though not, 'tis true, with so pure a wave.
Indeed, wherever nature is not overlaid with decencies and
phrases, a death is always of this poetic value, stimulating
to deeper life, and a sincerer thought; it is one legible
sentence in the volume of nature.
A few more details.
“The Klephts bivouacked and were upon their guard all day
long, but at night they felt themselves secure and could lie
down peacefully to sleep. Their beds were of leaves, and their
goatskin dresses protected them against the rain. When they
made a sally, they took the night for it, preferring a right dark
and stormy one. Their march was so rapid that they seldom
failed to fall unexpectedly on the enemy.
“The Klepht used the same arms as the Armatole, but was
distinguished by a cord or sash around his waist, with which
he bound those whom he took prisoners. They fought without
any order, wherever they found a good post, whether a crag, a
tree, or a heap of slaughtered foes. They fired standing or
kneeling, and loaded again, lying on the back or side. When
hemmed in and pressed hard, they seized their sabres and
rushed upon the foe in a body.
“Their favorite amusement, when at leisure, was shooting at
a mark, and in this they attained the greatest dexterity. They
also practised throwing the discus, leaping, and running.
Wonderful stories are told of their agility. It was said of the
captain Niko-Tzaras that he could leap over seven horses, or
even three wagons laden high with corn. Many could run as
fast as a horse could gallop, and it was popularly said of the
captain Zacharias that, when he ran, his heels touched his ears.
To this great swiftness they were indebted for many an advan-
tage over the Turks. They were equally remarkable for their
power of enduring hunger, thirst, and tortures; although those
to which they were put by the Pachas, were so cruel that they
would, if possible, kill themselves rather than be dragged to a
prison. Thus it was for them a natural greeting of kindness in
festive hours to wish one another a good bullet,' meaning one
which would hit the right spot and put an end to all uncertain-
ties in a moment.
“Next to being taken captive nothing was dreaded more than
VOL. III. —NO. II.
23


178
[Oct.
Romaic and Rhine Ballads.
having the head cut off by the enemy, and carried away to be
insulted and abused before all eyes. So it was, always, the
most urgent and sacredly respected prayer to a brother in arms,
to cut off the head of his slain friend, and carry it away from
the Turks. This trait is often brought forward in the lays, -
of one, only this passage is preserved. 'Friend, take my head
that the approaching enemy may not cut it off, and make a
show for every passer by. My foes would see it, and their
hearts would laugh for joy; my mother would see it and die of
grief.'
“Naturally, they thought it a disgrace to die in a bed, de-
formed by slow sickness into an unhandsome corpse.
“It might be supposed that under such circumstances they
would become savage and cruel, but it was not the case. If
they reserved their prisoners for ransom, they treated them gen-
erously, women always with respect, even when their own fami-
lies had been maltreated by the foe. If cruel to the men, it
was always in retaliation for cruelty. Generally, though they
gave not easily his life to the Turk, they put him to death on
the spot, without inventing tortures, like those of Ali Pacha.
“ They were most scrupulous in religious observances, in keep-
ing the festivals of the church, and even often made long pil-
grimages.
“The captain Blachavas went, as a pilgrim, to Jerusalem in
his seventy-sixth year, with his gun at his back, and attended
by his Protopallikari. He died, as he hoped he might, in the
Holy Land. No inducement of honor or safety could make
them apostates from their religion. Andrutzos, when offered
his choice between the honors of Islamism and the pest-house,
chose the latter.
“Their devotion in friendship was not to be surpassed ; life
was not felt by the Pallikari to be a great sacrifice for his chief,
and the story of Diplas and Katzantonis may vie with the beau-
tiful fable of Orestes and Pylades.
“Those who consider comfort and peace necessary to the en-
joyment of life may fancy the Klephts unhappy in their precari-
ous and dangerous life amid the woods and mountains. On the
contrary this life, full of adventure and variety, and passed in
the open air, had such a charm for them, that few of those who
submitted to the Pacha could endure the idle repose to which
they had condemned themselves. They walked about, sad and
downcast, often turning their longing eyes to the mountains, for
which even the charming climate, safety, and freedom of the
Ionian isles could not console them.
“Their mountains, though not so high as the Alps, or even
the Pyrenees, are uninhabitable a part of the year. In the sea-
son of snow they must leave them. They wrapped in linen


1842.)
179
Romaic and Rhine Ballads.
their arms and accoutrements, hid them in the clefts or caverns,
and went forth, some to the houses of friends and relations,
others to the Ionian isles. Here the Klepht was known at
once amid the crowd by his proud bearing, his wild glance, and
picturesque dress. The Greeks, or all of them who retained a
spark of national feeling, looked with pride on men before whom
the Turks had often trembled; the story of their exploits passed
from tongue to tongue, and the children of the villages fought,
for their play, in Klepht and Turkish bands, of which the
former were pretty sure to remain the victors, for the strongest
and most spirited boys were always on that side."
These extracts are abridged from the German, not with-
out injury, and a risk of confusion, for there are no super-
fluous words or details in the book. It should be read;
considering that it has been published so many years, very
few, in proportion to its merit, can have had the benefit of
it, or allusion to its subjects would be more frequent. .
He who was the “sitting Rhapsodist,” of the early
Greek time would hail the heroism, the self-sufficing power
and resource, the free poetic spirit of the Klephts. They
have not the rich frame in which his figures are set, but
they are well worthy of a shield of Achilles. Their ma-
chinery is very simple. A bird stops a moment on the
a prince in his heart, and a poet in his eye, whose life, if
rude, was single, and well filled with passages, that tried his
higher powers. All that relates to them is important in
their eyes, as may be seen by the high-flown descriptions
of the few accessories they had or needed. Their horses
are shod with silver, their bits are of gold. The sword is
in all countries a theme for poetical hyperbole, for it is the
symbol of a warrior's life. This pleasure in details marks
the reality of their existence ; whatever they had or did
was significant. In this, as in so many other respects,
they represent our Indians, softened by the atmosphere
which a high civilization, though mostly forgotten, does not
fail to leave behind, and a gentler clime. Whatever we
can obtain from our aborigines has the same beauty with
these ballads. Had we but as complete a collection as
this! Some German should visit this country, and aid
with his power of selection, and critical discernment, the
sympathy, enthusiasm, and energy of Catlin.


180
Oct.
The Black Knight..
The German translator observes, “ What characterizes
the mountain lays is a vigorous tone, a wild intrepidity in
thoughts and images, and a mood which takes up the most
marvellous subject, and treats it as freely and familiarly
as the most common. The bards sing, as the Klephts
strike. They are all marked by a like patriotic enthusiasm,
hatred for the Turk, love for freedom and independence.
Not only the air of the mountains blows upon us, but the
steep and wild forms of the rocks, from whose clefts they
echo, are to be found in these ballads."
They present a striking contrast to the Rhine ballads in
this; they are entirely destitute of that symbolical charac-
ter which gives such interest to the minutiæ of the latter.
The Romaic are a plain transcript of realities, which hap-
pen to be of the class called Romantic. They please by
their scenery and exhibition of character. The Rhine bal-
lads are the growth of a national thought, and a relig-
ious faith.
TIIE BLACK KNIGHT.
Be sure your fate
Doth keep apart its state,
Not linked with any band,
Even the nobles of the land ;
In tented fields with cloth of gold
No place doth hold,
But is more chivalrous than they are,
And sigheth for a nobler war;
A finer strain its trumpet sings,
A brighter gleam its armor flings.
The life that I aspire to live
No man proposeth me,
Only the promise of my heart
Wears its emblazonry.
H. D. T.


1842.)
181
Lectures on the Times.
LECTURES ON THE TIMES.
BY R. W. EMERSON.
LECTURE II. THE CONSERVATIVE.
Read at the Masonic Temple in Boston, 9 Dec. 1841.
The two parties which divide the state, the party of
Conservatism and that of Innovation, are very old, and
have disputed the possession of the world ever since it
was made. This quarrel is the subject of civil history.
The conservative party established the reverend hierar-
chies and monarchies of the most ancient world. The
battle of patrician and plebeian, of parent state and colony,
of old usage and accommodation to new facts, of the
rich and the poor reappears in all countries and times.
The war rages not only in battle-fields, in national councils,
and ecclesiastical synods, but agitates every man's bosom
with opposing advantages every hour. On rolls the old
world meantime, and now one, now the other gets the day,
and still the fight renews itself as if for the first time, under
new names and hot personalities.
Such an irreconcilable antagonism, of course, must have a
correspondent depth of seat in the human constitution. It
is the opposition of Past and Future, of Memory and Hope,
of the Understanding and the Reason. It is the primal
antagonism, the appearance in trifles of the two poles of
nature.
There is a fragment of old fable which seems somehow
to have been dropped from the current mythologies, which
may deserve attention, as it appears to relate to this sub-
ject.
Saturn grew weary of sitting alone, or with none but
the great Uranus or Heaven beholding him, and he cre-
ated an oyster. Then he would act again, but he made
nothing more, but went on creating the race of oysters.
Then Uranus cried, 'a new work; O Saturn ! the old is
not good again.'
Saturn replied. 'I fear. There is not only the alter-


182
(Oct.
Lectures on the Times.
native of making and not making, but also of unmaking.
Seest thou the great sea, how it ebbs and flows ? so is it
with me; my power ebbs; and if I put forth my hands, I
shall not do, but undo. Therefore I do what I have done ;
I hold what I have got; and so I resist Night and Chaos.'
O Saturn,' replied Uranus, Thou canst not hold
thine own, but by making more. Thy oysters are barna-
cles and cockles, and with the next flowing of the tide,
they will be pebbles and sea foam.'
"I see,' rejoins Saturn, thou art in league with Night,
thou art become an evil eye; thou spakest from love ; now
thy words smite me with hatred. I appeal to Fate, must
there not be rest?' -'I appeal to Fale also,' said Ura-
nus, 'must there not be motion ?'- But Saturn was si-
lent and went on making oysters for a thousand years.
After that, the word of Uranus came into his mind like a
ray of the sun, and he made Jupiter ; and then he feared
again ; and nature froze, the things that were made went
backward, and to save the world, Jupiter slew his father
Saturn.
This may stand for the earliest account of a conversa-
tion on politics between a Conservative and a Radical,
which has come down to us. It is everthus. It is the
counteraction of the centripetal and the centrifugal forces.
Innovation is the salient energy ; Conservatism the pause
on the last movement. "That which is was made by
God,' saith Conservatism. He is leaving that, he is en-
There is always a certain meanness in the argument of
conservatism, joined with a certain superiority in its fact.
It affirms because it holds. Its fingers clutch the fact, and
it will not open its eyes to see a better fact. The castle,
which conservatism is set to defend, is the actual state of
things, good and bad. The project of innovation is the
best possible state of things. Of course, conservatism
always has the worst of the argument, is always apologizing,
pleading a necessity, pleading that to change would be to
deteriorate; it must saddle itself with the mountainous
load of all the violence and vice of society, must deny the
possibility of good, deny ideas, and suspect and stone the
prophet; whilst innovation is always in the right, trium-
phant, attacking, and sure of final success. Conservatism


1842.]
183
The Conservative.
stands on man's incontestable limitations; reform on his
indisputable infinitude; conservatism on circumstance;
liberalism on power; one goes to make an adroit member
of the social frame; the other to postpone all things to the
man himself; conservatism is debonnair and social ; reform
is individual and imperious. We are reformers in spring
and summer, in autumn and winter we stand by the old ;
reformers in the morning, conservers at night. Reform is
affirmative, conservatism negative; conservatism goes for
comfort, reform for truth. Conservatism is more candid to
behold another's worth ; reform more disposed to maintain
and increase its own. Conservatism makes no poetry,
breathes no prayer, has no invention; it is all memory.
Reform has no gratitude, no prudence, no husbandry. It
makes a great difference to your figure and to your thought,
whether your foot is advancing or receding. Conservatism
never puts the foot forward ; in the hour when it does
that, it is not establishment, but reform. Conservatism
tends to universal seeming and treachery, believes in a neg-
ative fate ; believes that men's temper governs them; that
for me, it avails not to trust in principles ; they will fail
me; I must bend a little ; it distrusts nature; it thinks
there is a general law without a particular application, -
law for all that does not include any one. Reform in its
antagonism inclines to asinine resistance, to kick with
hoofs; it runs to egotism and bloated self-conceit; it runs
to a bodiless pretension, to unnatural refining and elevation,
which ends in hypocrisy and sensual reaction.
And so whilst we do not go beyond general statements,
it may be safely affirmed of these two metaphysical antag-
onists, that each is a good half, but an impossible whole.
Each exposes the abuses of the other, but in a true
society, in a true man, both must combine. Nature does
not give the crown of its approbation, namely, Beau-
ty, to any action or emblem or actor but to one which
combines both these elements ; not to the rock which re-
sists the waves from age to age, nor to the wave which lashes
incessantly the rock, but the superior beauty is with the
oak which stands with its hundred arms against the storms
of a century and grows every year like a sapling; or the river
which ever flowing, yet is found in the same bed from age
to age; or, greatest of all, the man who has subsisted for


184
[Oct.
Lectures on the Times.
years amid the changes of nature, yet has distanced him-
self, so that when you remember what he was, and see
what he is, you say, What strides! what a disparity is
here!
Throughout nature the past combines in every creature
with the present. Each of the convolutions of the sea-
shell, each of its nodes and spines marks one year of the
fish's life, what was the mouth of the shell for one season,
with the addition of new matter by the growth of the
animal, becoming an ornamental node. The leaves and a
shell of soft wood are all that the vegetation of this sum-
mer has made, but the solid columnar stem, which lifts
that bank of foliage into the air to draw the eye and to
cool us with its shade, is the gift and legacy of dead and
buried years.
In nature, each of these elements being always present,
each theory has a natural support. As we take our stand
on Necessity, or on Ethics, shall we go for the conserva-
tive, or for the reformer. If we read the world historical-
ly, we shall say, Of all the ages, the present hour and cir-
cumstance is the cumulative result; this is the best throw
of the dice of nature that has yet been, or that is yet possi-
ble. If we see it from the side of Will, or the Moral Sen-
timent, we shall accuse the Past and the Present, and
require the impossible of the Future.
But although this bifold fact lies thus united in real
nature, and so united that no man can continue to exist in
whom both these elements do not work, yet men are not
philosophers, but are rather very foolish children, who by
reason of their partiality see everything in the most absurd
manner, and who are the victims at all times of the nearest
object. There is even no philosopher who is a philosopher
at all times. Our experience, our perception is con-
ditioned by the need to acquire in parts and in succession,
that is, with every truth a certain falsehood. As this is
the invariable method of our training, we must give it
allowance, and suffer men to learn as they have done for
six millenniums, a word at a time, to pair off into insane
parties, and learn the amount of truth each knows, by the
denial of an equal amount of truth. For the present then,
to come at what sum is attainable to us, we must even
hear the parties plead as parties.


1842.]
185
The Conservative.
That which is best about conservatism, that which
though it cannot be expressed in detail inspires rever-
ence in all, is the Inevitable. There is the question not
only, what the conservative says for himself? but, far
deeper, why he must say it? What insurmountable fact
binds him to that side? Here is the fact which men call
Fate, and fate in dread degrees, fate behind fate, not to be
disposed of by the consideration that the Conscience com-
mands this or that, but necessitating the question, whether
the faculties of man will play him true in resisting the
facts of universal experience? For although the commands
of the Conscience are essentially absolute, they are his-
torically limitary. Wisdom does not seek a literal recti-
tude, but an useful, that is, a conditioned one, such a one
as the faculties of man and the constitution of things will
warrant. The reformer, the partisan loses himself in drive
ing to the utmost some specialty of right conduct, until his
own nature and all nature resist him ; but Wisdom attempts
nothing enormous and disproportioned to its powers, noth-
ing which it cannot perform or nearly perform. We have
all a certain intellection or presentiment of reform existing
in the mind, which does not yet descend into the char-
acter, and those who throw themselves blindly on this
lose themselves. Whatever they attempt in that direction,
fails, and reacts suicidally on the actor himself. This is
the penalty of having transcended nature. For the exist-
ing world is not a dream, and cannot with impunity be
treated as a dream; neither is it a disease ; but it is the