PS 609 A i |&3 f> ^ j EBB* vm ^^amm\c a K - 11 [] 5Ml£|^SO^ (Ins* T < 5\^n^ Rnnk . A 1 COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT 7'»\?vq CHARACTER ^Heroism. »ii'.>-jarf to 0P*iJ-_rt uiVij.vJt _SEE_ XQJSflft J ^ 5 ILo 9 ■A I / Copyright, igoo By H. M. Caldwell Co. Character Character The sun set ; but set not his hope : Stars rose ; his faith was earlier up : Fixed on the enormous galaxy, Deeper and older seemed his eye : And matched his sufferance sublime The taciturnity of time. He spoke, and words more soft than rain Brought the Age of Gold again : His action won such reverence sweet, As hid all measure of the feat. Work of his hand He nor commends nor grieves : Pleads for itself the fact ; As unrepenting Nature leaves Her every act. #4 Character T HAVE read that those who listened to Lord Chatham felt that there was something finer in the man than any- thing which he said. It has been com- plained of our brilliant English historian of the French Revolution, that when he has told all his facts abo^it Mir- abeau, they do not justify his esti- mate of his genius. The Gracchi, Agis, Cleomenes, and others of Plu- tarch's heroes, do not in the record of facts equal their own fame. Sir Philip Sidney, the Earl of Essex, Sir Walter Raleigh, are men of great figure, and of few deeds. We cannot find the smallest part of the personal weight of Washington in the narrative of his exploits. The authority of the name of Schiller is too great for his bcoks. This inequality of the reputa- Character £# tion to the works or the anecdotes is not accounted for by saying that the reverberation is longer than the thun- der-clap ; but somewhat resided in these men which begot an expectation that outran all their performance. The largest part of their power was latent. This is that which we call Character, — a reserved force which acts directly by presence, and without means. It is conceived of as a certain undemon- strable force, a Familiar or Genius, by whose impulses the man is guided, but whose counsels he cannot impart ; which is company for him, so that such men are often solitary, or if they chance to be social, do not need society, but can entertain themselves very well alone. The purest literary talent appears at one time great, at another 3 ^H Character time small, but character is of a stellar and undiminishable greatness. What others effect by talent or by eloquence, this man accomplishes by some mag- netism. " Half his strength he put not forth." His victories are by dem- onstration of superiority, and^ not by crossing of bayonets. He conquers, because his arrival alters the face of affairs. " O Iole ! how did you know that Hercules was a god ? " " Be- cause," answered Iole, " I was content the moment my eyes fell on him. When I beheld Theseus, I desired that I might see him offer battle, or at least gu- de his horses in the chariot-race ; but Hercules did not wait for a con- test ; he conquered whether he stood, or walked, or sat, or whatever thing he did." Man, ordinarily a pendant to 4 events, only half attached, and that awkwardly, to the world he lives in, in these examples appears to share the life of things, and to be an expression of the same laws which control the tides and the sun, numbers and quanti- ties. But to use a more modest illustra- tion, and nearer home, I observe, that in our political elections, where this element, if it appears at all, can only occur in its coarsest form, we suf- ficiently understand its incomparable rate. The people know that they need in their representative much more than talent, namely, the power to make his talent trusted. They cannot come at their ends by sending to Congress a learned, acute, and fluent speaker, if he be not one who, before he was ap- 5 ?H Character pointed by the people to represent them, was appointed by Almighty God to stand for a fact, — invincibly per- suaded of that fact in himself, — so that the most confident and the most violent persons learn that here is re- sistance on which both impudenfce and terror are wasted, namely, faith in a fact. The men who carry their points do not need to inquire of their constitu- ents what they should say, but are themselves the country which they represent : nowhere are its emotions or opinions so instant and true as in them ; nowhere so pure from a selfish infusion. The constituency at home hearkens to their words, watches the colour of their cheek, and therein, as in a glass, dresses its own. Our public assemblies are pretty good tests of 6 Character Hu- manly force. Our frank countrymen of the West and South have a taste for character, and like to know whether the New Englander is a substantial man, or whether the hand can pass through him. The same motive force appears in trade. There are geniuses in trade, as well as in war, or the state, or letters ; and the reason why this or that man is fortunate, is not to be told. It lies in the man : that is all anybody can tell you about it. See him, and you will know as easily why he succeeds as if you saw Napoleon you would compre- hend his fortune. In the new objects we recognise the old game, the habit of fronting the fact, and not dealing with it at second hand, through the percep- tions of somebody else. Nature seems 7 to authorise trade, as soon as you see the natural merchant, who appears not so much a private agent, as her factor and Minister of Commerce. His nat- ural probity combines with his insight into the fabric of society to put him above tricks, and he communicates to all his own faith, that contracts are of no private interpretation. The habit of his mind is a reference to standards of natural equity and public advantage ; and he inspires respect, and the wish to deal with him, both for the quiet spirit of honour which attends him, and for the intellectual pastime which the spec- tacle of so much ability affords. This immensely stretched trade, which makes the capes of the Southern Ocean his wharves, and the Atlantic Sea his fa- miliar port, centres in his brain only ; Character H£ and nobody in the universe can make his place good. In his parlour I see very well that he has been at hard work this morning, with that knitted brow, and that settled humour, which all his desire to be courteous cannot shake off. I see plainly how many firm acts have been done ; how many valiant noes have this day been spoken, when others would have uttered ruin- ous yeas, I see, with the pride of art, and skill of masterly arithmetic and power of remote combination, the consciousness of being an agent and playfellow of the original laws of the world. He too believes that none can supply him, and that a man must be born to trade, or he cannot learn it. This virtue draws the mind more, when it appears in action to ends not 9 #? Character so mixed. It works with most energy in the smallest companies and in pri- vate relations. In all cases, it is an extraordinary and incomputable agent. The excess of physical strength is paralysed by it. Higher natures over- power lower ones by affecting them with a certain sleep. The faculties are locked up, and offer no resistance. Perhaps that is the universal law. When the high cannot bring up the low to itself, it benumbs it, as man charms down the resistance of the lower animals. Men exert on each other a similar occult power. How often has the influence of a true master realised all the tales of magic ! A river of command seemed to run down from his eyes into all those who beheld him, a torrent of strong sad Character H£ light, like an Ohio or Danube, which pervaded them with his thoughts, and coloured all events with the hue of his mind. " What means did you em- ploy ? " was the question asked of the wife of Concini, in regard to her treat- ment of Mary of Medici ; and the answer , was, " Only that influence which every strong mind has over a weak one." Cannot Caesar in irons, shuffle off the irons, and transfer them to the person of Hippo or Thraso the turnkey ? Is an iron handcuff so im- mutable a bond ? Suppose a slaver on the coast of Guinea should take on board a gang of negroes, which should contain persons of the stamp of Tous- saint L'Ouverture : or, let us fancy, under these swarthy masks he has a gang of Washingtons in chains. When they arrive at Cuba, will the relative order of the ship's company be the same ? Is there nothing but rope and iron ? Is there no love, no reverence ? Is there never a glimpse of right in a poor slave-captain's mind ; and cannot these be supposed available to break, or elude, or in any manner overmatch the tension of an inch or two of iron ring ? This is a natural power, the light and heat, and all nature cooperates with it. The reason why we feel one man's presence, and do not feel an- other's is as simple as gravity. Truth is the summit of being : justice is the application of it to affairs. All in- dividual natures stand in a scale, ac- cording to the purity of this element in them. The will of the pure runs 12 down from them into other natures, as water runs down from a higher into a lower vessel. This natural force is no more to be withstood than any other natural force. We can drive a stone upward for a moment into the air, but it is yet true that all stones will for ever fall ; and whatever in- stances can be quoted of unpunished thefts, or of a lie which somebody credited, justice must prevail, and it is the privilege of truth to make itself believed. Character is this moral order seen through the medium of an in- dividual nature. An individual is an encloser. Time and space, liberty and necessity, truth and thought, are left at large no longer. Now, the universe is a close or pound. All things exist in the man tinged with the manners of J 3 -£H Character his soul. With what quality is in him, he infuses all nature that he can reach ; nor does he tend to lose himself in vastness, but, at how long a curve soever, all his regards return into his own good at last. He animates all he can, and he sees all he animates. He encloses the world, as the patriot does his country, as a material basis for his character, and a theatre for action. A healthy soul stands united with the Just and the True, as the magnet arranges itself with the pole, so that he stands to all beholders like a trans- parent object between them and the sun, and whoso journeys toward the sun, journeys toward that person. He is thus the medium of the highest in- fluence to all who are not on the same level. Thus, men of character are the 14 Character H£ conscience of the society to which they belong. The natural measure of this power is the resistance of circumstances. Im- pure men consider life as it is reflected in opinions, events, and persons. They cannot see the action until it is done. Yet its moral element preexisted in the actor, and its quality as right or wrong it was easy to predict. Every- thing in nature is bipolar, or has a positive and negative pole. There is a male and a female, a spirit and a fact, a north and a south. Spirit is the positive, the event is the negative. Will is the north, action the south pole. Character may be ranked as having its natural place in the north. It shares the magnetic currents of the system. The feeble souls are drawn i5 #! Character to the south or negative pole. They look at the profit or hurt of the action. They never behold a principle until it is lodged in a person. They do not wish to be lovely, but to be loved. The class of character like to hear of their faults ; the other class do not like to hear of faults ; they worship events ; secure to them a fact, a connection, a certain chain of circumstances, and they will ask no more. The hero sees that the event is ancillary ; it must follow him. A given order of events has no power to secure to him the satisfaction which the imagination attaches to it ; the soul of goodness escapes from any set of circumstances, while prosperity belongs to a certain mind, and will introduce that power and victory which is its natural fruit, 16 Character H£ into any order of events. No change of circumstances can repair a defect of character. We boast our emancipation from many superstitions ; but if we have broken any idols, it is through a transfer of the idolatry. What have I gained, that I no longer immolate a bull to Jove, or to Neptune, or a mouse to Hecate ; that I do not tremble before the Eumenides, or the Catholic Purgatory, or the Calvinistic Judg- ment-day, — if I quake at opinion, the public opinion, as we call it ; or at the threat of assault, or contumely, or bad neighbours, or poverty, or muti- lation, or at the rumour of revolution, or of murder ? If I quake, what matters it what I quake at ? Our proper vice takes form in one or another shape, according to the sex, 17 #4 Character age, or temperament of the person, and, if we are capable of fear, will readily find terrors. The covetous- ness, or the malignity which saddens me, when I ascribe it to society, is my own. I am always environed by myself. On the other part, rectitude is a perpetual victory, celebrated not by cries of joy, but by serenity, which is joy fixed or habitual. It is disgrace- ful to fly to events for confirmation of our truth and worth. The capitalist does not run every hour to the broker, to coin his advantages into current money of the realm ; he is satisfied to read in the quotations of the market, that his stocks have risen. The same transport which the occurrence of the best events in the best order would occasion me, I must learn to taste 18 Character £# purer in the perception that my posi- tion is every hour meliorated, and does already command those events I desire. That exultation is only to be checked by the foresight of an order of things so excellent as to throw all our pros- perities into the deepest shade. The face which character wears to me is self-sufficingness. I revere the person who is riches ; so that I cannot think of him as alone, or poor, or exiled, or unhappy, or a client, but as perpetual patron, benefactor, and beati- fied man. Character is centrality, the impossibility of being displaced or overset. A man should give us a sense of mass. Society is frivolous, and shreds its day into scraps, its con- versation into ceremonies and escapes. But if I go to see an ingenious man, 19 #4 Character I shall think myself poorly entertained if he give me nimble pieces of benevo- lence and etiquette ; rather he shall stand stoutly in his place, and let me apprehend, if it were only his resist- ance ; know that I have encountered a new and positive quality, — great re- freshment for both of us. It is much^ that he does not accept the conven- tional opinions and practices. That non-conformity will remain a goad and remembrancer, and every inquirer will have to dispose of him, in the first place. There is nothing real or useful that is not a seat of war. Our houses ring with laughter and personal and critical gossip, but it helps little. But the uncivil, the unavailable man, who is a problem and a threat to so- ciety, whom it cannot let pass in si- Character £# lence, but must either worship or hate, — and to whom all parties feel related, both the leaders of opinion, and the obscure and eccentric, — he helps ; he puts America and Europe in the wrong, and destroys the skepticism which says, " man is a doll, let us eat and drink, 'tis the best we can do," by illuminating the untried and unknown. Acquiescence in the es- tablishment, and appeal to the public, indicate infirm faith, heads which are not clear, and which must see a house built before they can comprehend the plan of it. The wise man not only leaves out of his thought the many, but leaves out the few. Fountains, fountains, the self-moved, the ab- sorbed, the commander because he is commanded, the assured, the primary, — they are good ; for these announce the present pressure of supreme power. Our action should rest mathemati- cally on our substance. In nature there are no false valuations. A pound of water in the ocean-tempest has no more gravity than in a midsummer pond. All things work exactly accord- ing to their quality, and according to their quantity ; attempt nothing they cannot do, except man only. He has pretention ; he wishes and attempts things beyond his force. I read in a book of English memoirs, " Mr. Fox (afterward Lord Holland) said, he must have the Treasury ; he had served up to it, and would have it." Xenophon and his Ten Thousand were quite equal to what they attempted and did it; so equal that it was not 22 Character Hr suspected to be a grand and inimitable exploit. Yet there stands that fact unrepeated, a high water mark in mili- tary history. Many have attempted it since and not been equal to it. It is only on reality, that any power of action can be based. No institu- tion will be better than the institutor. I knew an aimable and accomplished person who undertook a practical reform, yet I was never able to find in him the enterprise of love he took in hand. He adopted it by ear and by the understanding from the books he had been reading. All his action was tentative, a piece of the city carried out into the fields, and was the city still and no new fact, and could not inspire enthusiasm. Had there been something latent in the 23 -SH Character man, a terrible undemonstrated genius agitating and embarrassing his de- meanour, we had watched for its advent. It is not enough that the intellect should see the evils and their remedy. We shall still postpone our existence, nor take the ground to which we are entitled, while it is only a thought, and not a spirit that incites us. We have not yet served up to it. These are properties of life, and another trait is the notice of incessant growth. Men should be intelligent and earnest. They must also make us feel that they have a controlling, happy future opening before them, which sheds a splendour on the passing hour. The hero is misconceived and misreported : he cannot therefore wait 24 Character £# to unravel any man's blunders ; he is again on his road, adding new powers and honours to his domain, and new claims on your heart, which will bank- rupt you, if you have loitered about the old things, and have not kept your relation to him by adding to your wealth. New actions are the only apologies and explanations of old ones which the noble can bear to offer or to receive. If your friend has displeased you, you shall not sit down to consider it, for he has already lost all memory of the passage, and has doubled his power to serve you, and, ere you can rise up again, will burden you with blessings. We have no pleasure in thinking of a benevolence that is only measured by its works. Love- is inexhaustible, 25 #? Character and if its estate is wasted, its granary emptied, still cheers and enriches, and the man, though he sleep, seems to purify the air, and his house to adorn the landscape and strengthen the laws. People always recognise this difference. We know who is benevolent, by quite other means than the amount of sub- scription to soup-societies. It is only low merits that can be enumerated. Fear, when your friends say to you that you have done well, and say it through ; but when they stand with uncertain timid looks of respect and half dislike, and must suspend their judgment for years to come, you may begin to hope. Those who live to the future must always appear selfish. to those who live to the present. Therefore it was droll in the good 26 Riemer, who has written memoirs of Goethe, to make out a list of his donations and good deeds, as, so many hundred thalers given to Stilling, to Hegel, to Tischbein ; a lucrative place found for Professor Voss, a post under the Grand Duke for Herder, a pension for Meyer, two professors recom- mended to foreign universities, etc., etc. The longest lists of specifica- tions of benefit would look very short. A man is a poor creature, if he is to be measured so. For all these, of course, are exceptions ; and the rule and hodiernal life of a good man is benefaction. The true charity of Goethe is to be inferred from the account he gave Doctor Eckermann, of the way in which he had spent his fortune. " Each bon-mot of mine 27 -?H Character has cost a purse of gold. Half a million of my own money, the fortune I inherited, my salary, and the large income derived from my writings for fifty years back, have been expended to instruct me in what I now know. I have besides seen," etc. I own it is but poor chat and gossip to go to enumerate traits of this simple and rapid power, and we are painting the lightning in charcoal ; but in these long nights and vacations I like to console myself so. Nothing but it- self can copy it. A word warm from the heart enriches me. I surrender at discretion. How death-cold is liter- ary genius before this fire of life ! These are the touches that reanimate my heavy soul, and give it eyes to pierce the dark of nature. I find, 28 Character no- where I thought myself poor, there was I most rich. Thence comes a new intellectual exaltation, to be again rebuked by some new exhibition of character. Strange alternation of at- traction and repulsion ! Character repudiates intellect, yet excites it ; and character passes into thought, is pub- lished so, and then is ashamed before new flashes of moral worth. Character is nature in the highest form. It is of no use to ape it, or to contend with it. Somewhat is possible of resistance, and of persist- ence, and of creation, to this power, which will foil all emulation. This masterpiece is best where no hands but nature's have been laid on it. Care is taken that the greatly destined shall slip up into life in the 29 #4 Character shade, with no thousand-eyed Athens to watch and blazon every new thought, every blushing emotion of young genius. Two persons lately — very young children of the most high God — have given me occasion for thought. When I explored the source of their sanctity, and charm for the imagination, it seemed as if each answered, " From my non-con- formity ; I never listened to your people's law, or to what they call their gospel, and wasted my time. I was content with the simple rural poverty of my own ; hence this sweet- ness ; my work never reminds you of that, — is pure of that." And nature advertises me in such persons that, in democratic America, she will not be democratised. How cloistered and 3° Character H£ constitutionally sequestered from the market and from scandal ! It was only this morning that I sent away some wild flowers of these wood-gods. They are a relief from literature, — these fresh draughts from the sources of thought and sentiment ; as we read, in an age of polish and criticism, the first lines or written prose and verse of a nation. How captivating is their devotion to their favourite books, whether iEschy- lus, Dante, Shakespeare, or Scott, as feeling that they have a stake in that book ; who touches that, touches them ; and especially the total solitude of the critic, the Patmos of thought from which he writes, in unconsciousness of any eyes that shall ever read this writing. Could they dream on still, as angels, and not wake to comparisons 31 #? Character and to be flattered ! Yet some natures are too good to be spoiled by praise, and wherever the vein of thought reaches down into the profound, there is no danger from vanity. Solemn friends will warn them of the danger of the head's being turned by the flour- ish of trumpets, but they can afford to smile. I remember the indignation of an eloquent Methodist at the kind admonitions of a Doctor of Divinity, — " My friend, a man can neither be praised nor insulted." But forgive the counsels ; they are very natural. I remember the thought which occurred to me when some ingenious and spiritual foreigners came to America was, Have you been victimised in being brought hither ? or, prior to that, answer me this : "Are you victimisable ? " 3 2 Character £# As I have said, nature keeps these sovereignties in her own hands, and however pertly our sermons and disci- plines would divide some share of credit, and teach that the laws fashion the citizen, she goes her own gait, and puts the wisest in the wrong. She makes very light of gospels and prophets, as one who has a great many more to produce, and no excess of time to spare on any one. There is a class of men, individuals of which appear at long intervals, so eminently endowed with insight and virtue, that they have been unanimously saluted as divine, and who seem to be an accumulation of that power we consider. Divine persons are character born, or, to bor- row a phrase from Napoleon, they are victory organised. They are usually 33 #f Character received with ill-will, because they are new, and because they set a bound to the exaggeration that has been made of the personality of the last divine person. Nature never rhymes her children, nor makes two men alike. When we see a great man, we fancy a resemblance to some historical per- son, and predict the sequel of his character and fortune, a result which he is sure to disappoint. None will ever solve the problem of his character according to our prejudice, but only in his own high unprecedented way. Char- acter wants room ; must not be crowded on by persons, nor be judged from glimpses got in the press of affairs or on few occasions. It needs per- spective, as a great building. It may not, probably does not, form relations 34 Character H£ rapidly; and we should not require rash explanation, either on the popular ethics, or on our own, of its action. I look on Sculpture as history. I do not think the Apollo and the Jove impossible in flesh and blood. Every trait which the artist recorded in stone, he had seen in life, and better than his copy. We have seen many counter- feits, but we are born believers in great men. How easily we read in old books, when men were few, of the smallest action of the patriarchs. We require that a man should be so large and columnar in the landscape that it should deserve to be recorded that he arose and girded up his loins and de- parted to such a place. The most credible pictures are those of majestic men who prevailed at their entrance #4 Character and convinced the senses, as hap- pened to the Eastern magian who was sent to test the merits of Zertusht or Zoroaster. When the Yunani sage arrived at Balkh, the Persians tell us, Gushtasp appointed a day on which the Mobeds of every country should as- semble, and a golden chair was placed for the Yunani sage. Then the be- loved of Yezdam, the prophet Zer- tusht, advanced into the midst of the assembly. The Yunani sage, on see- ing that chief, said, " This form and this gait cannot lie, and nothing but truth can proceed from them." Plato said, it was impossible not to believe in the children of the gods, " though they should speak without probable or neces- sary arguments." I should think my- self very unhappy in my associates, if Character H£ I could not credit the best things in history. "John Bradshaw," says Mil- ton, " appears like a counsel, from whom the fasces are not to depart with the year; so that not on the tribunal only, but throughout his life, you would regard him as sitting in judgment upon kings." I find it more credible since it is anteriux information, that one man should know heaven, as the Chinese say, than that so many men should know the world. " The virtuous prince confronts the gods without any mis- giving. He waits a hundred ages till a sage comes, and does not doubt. He who confronts the gods, without any misgiving, knows heaven ; he who waits a hundred ages until a sage comes, without doubting, knows men. Hence the virtuous prince moves, and for ages 37 #4 Character shows empire the way." But there is no need to seek remote examples. He is a dull observer whose experience has not taught him the reality and force of magic, as well as of chemistry. The coldest precisian cannot go abroad without encountering inexplicable in- fluences. One man fastens an eye on him, and the graves of the memory render up their dead ; the secrets that make him wretched either to keep or to betray, must be yielded ; another, and he cannot speak, and the bones of his body seem to lose their cartilages ; the entrance of a friend adds grace, boldness, and eloquence to him ; and there are persons, he cannot choose but remember, who gave a transcen- dent expansion to his thought, and kindled another life in his bosom. 33 What is so excellent as strict rela- tions of amity, when they spring from this deep root ? The sufficient reply to the skeptic, who doubts the power and the furniture of man, is in that possibil- ity of joyful intercourse with persons which makes the faith and practice of all reasonable men. I know nothing which life has to offer so satisfying as the profound good understanding which can subsist, after much exchange of good offices, between two virtuous men, each of whom is sure of him- self, and sure of his friend. It is a happiness which postpones all other gratifications, and makes politics, and commerce, and churches cheap. For when men shall meet as they ought, each a benefactor, a shower of stars clothed with thoughts, with deeds, with 39 -£H Character accomplishments, it should be the festi- val of nature which all things announce. Of such friendship, love in the sexes is the first symbol, as all other things are symbols of love. Those relations to the best men which, at one time, we reckoned the romances of youth, be- come, in the progress of the character, the most solid enjoyment. If it were possible to live in right relations with men ! — if we could abstain from asking anything of them, from asking their praise, or help, or pity, and content us with compelling them through the virtue of the eldest laws ! Could we not deal with a few persons — with one person — after the unwritten statutes, and make an experi- ment of their efficacy ? Could we not pay our friend the compliment of truth, 40 Character Hr of silence, of forebearing ? Need we be so eager to seek him ? If we are related, we shall meet. It was a tradition of the ancient world that no metamorphosis could hide a god from a god ; and there is a Greek verse which runs, " The Gods are to each other not unknown. " Friends also follow the laws of divine necessity ; they gravitate to each other, and cannot otherwise : " When each the other shall avoid, Shall each by each be most enjoyed." Their relation is not made, but allowed. The gods must seat them- selves without seneschal in our Olym- pus, and as they can install themselves by seniority divine. Society is spoiled, 41 #1 Character if pains are taken, if the associates are brought a mile to meet. And if it be not society, it is a mischievous, low, degrading jangle, though made up of the best. All the greatness of each is kept back, and every foible in painful activity, as if the Olym- pians should meet to exchange snuff- boxes. Life goes headlong. We chase some flying scheme, or we are hunted by some fear or command behind us. But if suddenly we encounter a friend, we pause ; our heat and hurry look foolish enough \ now pause, now possession is required, and the power to swell the moment from the resources of the heart. The moment is all, in all noble relations. A divine person is the prophecy of 42 Character Hr the mind ; a friend is the hope of the heart. Our beatitude waits for the fulfilment of these two in one. The ages are opening this moral force. All force is the shadow or symbol of that. Poetry is joyful and strong, as it draws its inspiration thence. Men write their names on the world, as they are filled with this. History has been mean ; our nations have been mobs ; we have never seen a man : that divine form we do not yet know, but only the dream and prophecy of such : we do not know the majestic manners which belong to him, which appease and exalt the be- holder. We shall one day see that the most private is the most public energy, that quality atones for quantity, and grandeur of character acts in the dark, and succours them who never saw it. 43 #4 Character What greatness has yet appeared is be- ginnings and encouragements to us in this direction. The history of those gods and saints which the world has written, and then worshipped, are docu- ments of character. The ages have exulted in the manners of a youth who owed nothing to fortune, and who was hanged at the Tyburn of his nation, who, by the pure quality of his nature, shed an epic splendour around the facts of his death, which has transfigured every particular into an universal sym- bol for the eyes of mankind. This great defeat is hitherto our highest fact. But the mind requires a victory to the senses, a force of character which will convert judge, jury, soldier, and king; which will rule animal and mineral virtues, and blend with the courses of 44 Character £# sap, of rivers, of winds, of stars, and of moral agents. If we cannot attain at a bound to these grandeurs, at least let us do them homage. In society, high advantages are set down to the possessor as dis- advantages. It requires the more wari- ness in our private estimates. I do not forgive in my friends the failure to know a fine character and to entertain it with thankful hospitality. When, at last, that which we have always longed for is arrived, and shines on us with glad rays out of that far celestial land, then to be coarse, then to be critical, and treat such a visitant with the jabber and suspicion of the streets, argues a vulgarity that seems to shut the doors of heaven. This is confu- sion, this the right insanity, when the 45 ?H Character soul no longer knows its own, nor where its allegiance, its religion, are due. Is there any religion but this to know, that wherever in the wide desert of being the holy sentiment we cherish has opened into a flower it blooms for me ? If none sees it, I see it ; I am aware, if I alone, of the greatness of the fact. While it blooms I will keep sabbath or holy time and suspend my gloom and my folly and jokes. Nature is indulged by the presence of this guest. There are many eyes that can detect and honour the prudent and household virtues ; there are many that can discern Genius on his starry track, though the mob is incapable ; but when that love which is all-suffering, all-abstaining, all-aspiring, which has vowed to itself that it will be a wretch 46 Character H£ and also a fool in this world sooner than soil its white hands by any com- pliances, comes into our streets and houses, — only the pure and aspiring can know its face, and the only com- pliment they can pay it is to own it. Heroism M Heroism " Paradise is under the shadow of swords." — Mahomet. TN the elder English dramatists, and mainly in the plays of Beaumont and Fletcher, there is a constant recogni- tion of gentility, as if a noble beha- viour were as easily marked in the society of their age, as colour is in our American population. When any Rod- rigo, Pedro, or Valerio enters, though he be a stranger, the duke or governor exclaims, This is a gentleman, — and profFers civilities without end ; but all the rest are slag and refuse. In har- 5i #4 Heroism mony with this delight in personal ad- vantages, there is in their plays a certain heroic cast of character and dialogue — as in Bonduca, Sophocles, the Mad Lover, the Double Marriage — wherein the speaker is so earnest and cordial, and on such deep grounds of character, that the dialogue, on the slightest additional incident in the plot, rises naturally into poetry. Among many texts, take the following. The Roman Martius has conquered Athens, — all but the invincible spirits of Sophocles, the duke of Athens, and Dorigen, his wife. The beauty of the latter inflames Martius, and he seeks to save her husband ; but Soph- ocles will not ask his life, although assured that a word will save him, and the execution of both proceeds. 5 2 Heroism H£ " Valerius. Bid thy wife farewell. Soph. No, I will take no leave. My Dorigen, Yonder, above, 'bout Ariadne's crown, My spirit shall hover for thee. Prithee, haste. Dor. Stay, Sophocles — with this, tie up my sight ; Let not soft nature so transformed be, And lose her gentler sexed humanity, To make me see my lord bleed. So, 'tis well ; Never one object underneath the sun Will I behold before my Sophocles : Farewell ; now teach the Romans how to die. Mar. * Dost know what 'tis to die ? Soph. Thou dost not, Martius, And therefore, not what 'tis to live ; to die Is to begin to live. It is to end An old, stale, weary work, and to commence A newer, and a better. 'Tis to leave S3 #4 Heroism Deceitful knaves for the society Of gods and goodness. Thou, thyself, must part At last, from all thy garlands, pleasures, triumphs, And prove thy fortitude what then 'twill do. Val. But art not grieved nor vexed to leave thy life thus ? Soph. Why should I grieve or vex for being sent To them I ever loved best ? Now, I'll kneel, But with my back toward thee ; 'tis the last duty This trunk can do the gods. Mar. Strike, strike, Valerius, Or Martius' heart will leap out at his mouth : This is a man, a woman ! Kiss thy lord, And live with all the freedom you were wont. O love ! thou doubly hast afflicted me With virtue and with beauty. Treacherous heart, 54 He My hand shall cast the quick into my urn, Ere thou transgress this knot of piety. Val. What ails my brother ? Soph. Martius, oh Martius, Thou now hast found a way to conquer me. Dor. O star of Rome ! what gratitude can speak Fit words to follow such a deed as this ? Mar. This admirable duke, Valerius, With his disdain of fortune and of death, Captived himself, has captived me, And though my arm hath ta'en his body here, His soul hath subjugated Martius' soul. By Romulus, he is all soul, I think ; He hath no flesh, and spirit cannot be gyved ; Then we have vanquished nothing ; he is free, And Martius walks now in captivity." I do not readily remember any poem, play, sermon, novel, or oration, that our press vents in the last few years, which goes to the same tune. We 55 have a great many flutes and flageolets, but not often the sound of any fife. Yet, Wordsworth's Laodamia, and the ode of " Dion," and some sonnets, have a certain noble music ; and Scott will sometimes draw a stroke like the por- trait of Lord Evandale, given by Bal- four of Burley. Thomas Carlyle, with his natural taste for what is manly and daring in character, has suffered no heroic trait in his favourites to drop from his biographical and historical pictures. Earlier, Robert Burns has given us a song or two. In the Har- leian Miscellanies, there is an account of the battle of Lutzen, which de- serves to be read. And Simon Ock- ley's History of the Saracens recounts the prodigies of individual valour with admiration, all the more evident on the 56 Heroism Hr part of the narrator, that he seems to think that his place in Christian Ox- ford requires of him some proper pro- testations of abhorrence. But if we explore the literature of Heroism, we shall quickly come to Plutarch, who is its Doctor and historian. To him we owe the Brasidas, the Dion, the Epam- inondas, the Scipio of old, and I must think we are more deeply indebted to him than to all the ancient writers. Each of his " Lives " is a refutation to the despondency and cowardice of our religious and political theorists. A wild courage, a stoicism not of the schools, but of the blood, shines in every an- ecdote, and has given that book its immense fame. We need books of this tart cathartic virtue, more than books of political 57 #3 Heroism science, or of private economy. Life is a festival only to the wise. Seen from the nook and chimney-side of prudence, it wears a ragged and danger- ous front. The violations of the laws of nature by our predecessors and our contemporaries, are punished in us also. The disease and deformity around us certify the infraction of natural, in- tellectual, and moral laws, and often violation on violation to breed such compound misery. A lockjaw, that bends a man's head back to his heels, hydrophobia, that makes him bark at his wife and babes, insanity, that makes him eat grass ; war, plague, cholera, famine, indicate a certain ferocity in nature, which, as it had its inlet by human crime, must have its outlet by human suffering. Unhappily, almost 5S He no man exists who has not in his own person become, to some amount, a stockholder in the sin, and so made himself liable to a share in the expia- tion. Our culture, therefore, must not omit the arming of the man. Let him hear in season that he is born into the state of war, and that the common- wealth and his own well-being require that he should not go dancing in the weeds of peace, but warned, self-col- lected, and neither defying nor dread- ing the thunder, let him take both reputation and life in his hand, and with perfect urbanity, dare the gibbet and the mob by the absolute truth of his speech and the rectitude of his behaviour. Toward all this external evil the 59 #? Heroism man within the breast assumes a war- like attitude, and affirms his ability to cope single-handed with the infinite army of enemies. To this military attitude of the soul we give the name of Heroism. Its rudest form is the contempt for safety and ease which makes the attractiveness of war. It is a self-trust which slights the restraints of prudence in the plenitude of its energy and power to repair the harms it may surfer. The hero is a mind of such balance that no disturbances can shake his will, but pleasantly, and, as it were, merrily, he advances to his own music, alike in frightful alarms, and in the tipsy mirth of universal dissoluteness. There is somewhat not philosophical in heroism ; there is some- what not holy in it ; it seems not to 60 Heroism H£ know that other souls are of one tex- ture with it ; it hath pride j it is the extreme of individual nature. Never- theless, we must profoundly revere it. There is somewhat in great actions which does not allow us to go be- hind them. Heroism feels and never reasons, and therefore is always right, and although a different breeding, dif- ferent religion, and greater intellectual activity would have modified, or even reversed the particular action, yet for the hero, that thing he does is the highest deed, and is not open to the censure of philosophers or divines. It is the avowal of the unschooled man, that he finds a quality in him that is negligent of expense, of health, of life, of danger, of hatred, of reproach, and that he knows that his will is higher 61 #t Heroism and more excellent than all actual and all possible antagonists. Heroism works in contradiction to the voice of mankind, and in contra- diction, for a time, to the voice of the great and good. Heroism is an obedi- ence to a secret impulse of an indi- vidual's character. Now to no other man can its wisdom appear as it does to him, for every man must be sup- posed to see a little farther on his own proper path, than any one else. There- fore, just and wise men take umbrage at his act, until after some little time be past : then, they see it to be in unison with their acts. All prudent men see that the action is clean con- trary to a sensual prosperity ; for every heroic act measures itself by its con- tempt of some external good. But it 62 .. _ Heroism f# finds its own success at last, and then the prudent also extol. Self-trust is the essence of heroism. It is the state of the soul at war, and its ultimate objects are the last defiance of falsehood and wrong, and the power to bear all that can be inflicted by evil agents. It speaks the truth, and it is just. It is generous, hospitable, temper- ate, scornful of petty calculations, and scornful of being scorned. It persists ; it is of an undaunted boldness, and of a fortitude not to be wearied out. Its jest is the littleness of common life. That false prudence which dotes on health and wealth, is the foil, the butt, and merriment of heroism. Heroism, like Plotinus, is almost ashamed of its body. What shall it say, then, to the sugar-plums, and cats'-cradles, to the ^3 -SH Heroism toilet, compliments, quarrels, cards, and custard, which rack the wit of all human society ? What joys has kind nature provided for us dear creatures ! There seems to be no interval between great- ness and meanness. When the spirit is not master of the world, then is it dupe. Yet the little man takes the great hoax so innocently, works in it so headlong and believing, is born red, and dies gray, arranging his toilet, at- tending on his own health, laying traps for sweet food and strong wine, setting his heart on a horse or a rifle, made happy with a little gossip, or a little praise, that the great soul cannot choose but laugh at such earnest non- sense. " Indeed, these humble con- siderations make me out of love with greatness. What a disgrace is it to me 64 to take note how many pairs of silk stockings thou hast, namely, these and those that were the peach-coloured ones or to bear the inventory of thy shirts, as one for superfluity, and one other for use." Citizens, thinking after the laws of arithmetic, consider the inconvenience of receiving strangers at their fireside, reckon narrowly the loss of time and the unusual display : the soul of a better quality thrusts back the unreasonable economy into the vaults of life, and says, I will obey the God, and the sacrifice and the fire he will provide. Ibn Hankal, the Arabian geographer, describes a heroic extreme in the hos- pitality of Sogd, in Bokhara. " When I was in Sogd I saw a great building, like a palace, the gates of which were 65 #4 Heroism open and fixed back to the wall with large nails. I asked the reason, and was told that the house had not been shut, night or day, for a hundred years. Strangers may present themselves at any hour, and in whatever number; the master has amply provided for the reception of the men and their animals, and is never happier than when they tarry for some time. Nothing of the kind have I seen in any other country." The magnanimous know very well that they who give time, or money, or shelter, to the stranger, — so it be done for love, and not for ostentation, — do, as it were, put God under obli- gation to them, so perfect are the com- pensations of the universe. In some way the time they seem to lose is re- deemed, and the pains they seem to Heroism ¥& take remunerate themselves. These men fan the flame of human love and raise the standard of civil virtue among mankind. But hospitality must be for service, and not for show, or it pulls down the host. The brave soul rates itself too high to value itself by the splendour of its table and draperies. It gives what it hath, and all it hath, but its own majesty can lend a better grace to bannocks and fair water, than be- long to city feasts. The temperance of the hero pro- ceeds from the same wish to do no dishonour to the worthiness he has. But he loves it for its elegancy, not for its austerity. It seems not worth his while to be solemn, and denounce with bitterness flesh-eating, or wine- drinking, the use of tobacco, or opium, 67 -£H Heroism or tea, or silk, or gold. A great man scarcely knows how he dines, how he dresses, but without railing or preci- sion, his living is natural and poetic. John Eliot, the Indian Apostle, drank water, and said of wine, " It is a no- ble, generous liquor, and we should be humbly thankful for it. But, as I remember, water was made before it." Better still, is the temperance of King David, who poured out on the ground unto the Lord the water which three of his warriors had brought him to drink, at the peril of their lives. It is told of Brutus, that when he fell on his sword, after the battle of Philippi, he quoted a line of Euripi- des, " O virtue, I have followed thee through life, and I find thee at last but a shade." I doubt not the hero is slandered by this report. The heroic soul does not sell its justice and its nobleness. It does not ask to dine nicely, and to sleep warm. The es- sence of greatness is the perception that virtue is enough. Poverty is its ornament, Plenty, it does not need, and can very well abide its loss. But that which takes my fancy most, in the heroic class, is the good humour and hilarity they exhibit. It is a height to which common duty can very well attain, to suffer and to dare with solemnity. But these rare souls set opinion, success, and life at so cheap a rate, that they will not soothe their enemies by petitions, or the show of sorrow, but wear their own habitual greatness. Scipio, charged with pecu- lation, refuses to do himself so great a 69 #4 Heroism disgrace as to wait for justification, though he had the scroll of his ac- counts in his hands, but tears it to pieces before the tribunes. Socrates's condemnation of himself to be main- tained in all honour in the Prytaneum, during his life, and Sir Thomas More's playfulness at the scaffold, are of the same strain. In Beaumont and Fletch- er's " Sea Voyage," Juletta tells the stout captain and his company, "Jul. Why, slaves, 'tis in our power to hang ye. Master. Very likely, 'Tis in our powers, then, to be hanged, and scorn ye." These replies are sound and whole. Sport is the bloom and glow of a perfect health. The great will nor 70 Heroism #4r condescend to take anything seriously j all must be as gay as the song of a canary, though it were the building of cities or the eradication of old and foolish churches and nations, which have cumbered the earth long thou- sands of years. Simple hearts put all the history and customs of this world behind them, and play their own play in innocent defiance of the Blue-Laws of the world ; and such would appear, could we see the human race assembled in vision, like little children frolicking together, though, to the eyes of man- kind at large, they wear a stately and solemn garb of works and influences. The interest these fine stories have for us, the power of a romance over the boy who grasps the forbidden book under his bench at school, our delight in 7i #4 Heroism the hero, is the main fact to our pur- pose. All these great and transcendent properties are ours. If we dilate in be- holding the Greek energy, the Roman pride, it is that we are already domesti- cating the same sentiment. Let us find room for this great guest in our small houses. The first step of worthi- ness will be to disabuse us of our superstitious associations with places and times, with number and size. Why should these words, Athenian, Roman, Asia, and England, so tingle in the ear ? Let us feel that where the heart is, there the muses, there the gods so sojourn, and not in any geography of fame. Massachusetts, Connecticut River, and Boston Bay, you think paltry places, and the ear loves names of foreign and classic topography. But 72 Heroism H£ here we are ; that is a great fact, and, if we will tarry a little, we may come to learn that here is best. See to it only that thyself is here ; and art and nature, hope and dread, friends, angels and the Supreme Being, shall not be absent from the chamber where thou sittest. Epaminondas, brave and affec- tionate, does not seem to us to need Olympus to die upon, nor the Syrian sunshine. He lies very well where he is. The Jerseys were handsome ground enough for Washington to tread, and London streets for the feet of Milton. A great man illustrates his place, makes his climate genial in the imagination of men, and its air the beloved element of all delicate spirits. That country is the fairest, which is inhabited by the noblest minds. The pictures which 73 #f Heroism fill the imagination in reading the actions of Pericles, Xenophon, Colum- bus, Bayard, Sidney, Hampden, teach us how needlessly mean our life is, that we, by the depth of our living, should deck it with more than regal or na- tional splendour, and act on principles that should interest man and nature in the length of our days. We have seen or heard of many extraordinary young men, who never ripened, or whose performance in actual life was not extraordinary. When we see their air and mien, when we hear them speak of society, of books, of religion, we admire their superiority — they seem to throw contempt on the whole state of the world ; theirs is the tone of a youthful giant, who is sent to work revolutions. But they enter 74 Heroism Hr an active profession, and the forming Colossus shrinks to the common size of man. The magic they used was the ideal tendencies, which always make the actual ridiculous ; but the tough world had its revenge the moment they put their horses of the sun to plough in its furrow. They found no example and no companion, and their heart fainted. What then ? The lesson they gave in their first aspirations, is yet true, and a better valour, and a purer truth, shall one day execute their will, and put the world to shame. Or why should a woman liken herself to any historical woman, and think, be- cause Sappho, or Sevigne, or De Stael, or the cloistered souls who have had genius and cultivation, do not satisfy the imagination, and the serene Themis, 75 ?H Heroism none can, — certainly not she. Why not ? She has a new and unattempted problem to solve, perchance that of the happiest nature that ever bloomed. Let the maiden, with erect soul, walk serenely on her way, accept the hint of each new experience, try, in turn, all the gifts God offers her, that she may learn the power and the charm, that like a new dawn radiating out of the deep of space, her new-born being is. The fair girl, who repels interfer- ence by a decided and proud choice of influences, so careless of pleasing, so wilful and lofty, inspires every be- holder with somewhat of her own nobleness. The silent heart encour- ages her; O friend, never strike sail to a fear. Come into port greatly, or sail with God the seas. Not in vain you 76 ! !* » Bnm. i . Heroism H£ live, for every passing eye is cheered and refined by the vision. The characteristic of a genuine hero- ism is its persistency. All men have wandering impulses, fits and starts of generosity. But when you have re- solved to be great, abide by yourself, and do not weakly try to reconcile yourself with the world. The heroic cannot be the common, nor the com- mon heroic. Yet we have the weakness to expect the sympathy of people in those actions whose excellence is that they outrun sympathy, and appeal to a tardy justice. If you would serve your brother, because it is fit for you to serve him, do not take back your words when you find that prudent people do not commend you. Be true to your own act, and congratulate yourself if 11 you have done something strange and extravagant, and broken the monotony of a decorous age. It was a high counsel that I once heard given to a young person : " Always do what you are afraid to do." A simple manly character need never make an apology, but should regard its past action with the calmness of Phocion, when he admitted that the event of the battle was happy, yet did not regret his dis- suasion from the battle. There is no weakness or exposure for which we cannot find consolation in the thought — this is a part of my constitution, part of my relation and office to my fellow creature. Has nature convenanted with me, that I should never appear to disadvantage, never make a ridiculous figure ? Let Heroism £# us be generous of our dignity as well as of our money. Greatness once and for ever has done with opinion. We tell our charities, not because we wish to be praised for them, not because we think they have great merit, but for our justification. It is a capital blunder; as you discover when another man recites his charities. To speak the truth, even with some austerity, to live with some rigour of temperance, or some extremes of generosity, seems to be an asceticism which common good nature would appoint to those who are at ease and in plenty, in sign that they feel a brother- hood with the great multitude of suf- fering men. And not only need we breathe and exercise the soul by assum- ing the penalties of abstinence, of debt, 79 ?H Heroism of solitude, of unpopularity, but it be- hooves the wise man to look with a bold eye into those rarer dangers which sometimes invade men, and to familiar- ise himself with disgusting forms of disease, with sounds of execration, and the vision of violent death. Times of heroism are generally times of terror, but the day never shines, in which this element may not work. The circumstances of man, we say, are historically somewhat better in this country, and at this hour, than perhaps ever before. More freedom exists for culture. It will not now run against an axe, at the first step out of the beaten track of opinion. But whoso is heroic will always find crises to try his edge. Human virtue demands her champions and martyrs, and the trial 80 Heroism Hr of persecution always proceeds. It is but the other day that the brave Lovejoy gave his breast to the bullets of a mob for the rights of free speech and opinion, and died when it was better not to live. I see not any road of perfect peace, which a man can walk, but to take counsel of his own bosom. Let him quit too much association, let him go home much, and establish himself in those courses he approves. The un- remitting retention of simple and high sentiments in obscure duties is harden- ing the character to that temper which will work with honour, if need be, in the tumult, or on the scaffold. What- ever outrages have happened to men may befall a man again ; and very easily in a republic, if there appear any signs of a decay of religion. Coarse slander, 81 #3 Heroism fire, tar and feathers, and the gibbet, the youth may freely bring home to his mind, and with what sweetness of temper he can, and inquire how fast he can fix his sense of duty, braving such penalties, whenever it may please the next newspaper, and a sufficient number of his neighbours, to pronounce his opinions incendiary. It may calm the apprehension of calamity, in the most susceptible heart, to see how quick a bound nature has set to the utmost infliction of malice. We rapidly approach a brink over which no enemy can follow us. " Let them rave : Thou art quiet in thy grave. " In the gloom of our ignorance of what shall be, in the hour when we are deaf 82 to the higher voices, who does not envy them who have seen safely to an end their manful endeavour? Who that sees the meanness of our politics, but inly congratulates Washington, that he is long already wrapped in his shroud, and for ever safe ; that he was laid sweet in his grave, the hope of humanity not yet subjugated in him ? Who does not sometimes envy the good and brave, who are no more to suffer from the tumults of the natural world, and await with curious complacency the speedy term of his own conversation with finite nature ? And yet the love that will be annihilated sooner than treacher- ous has already made death impossible, and affirms itself no mortal, but a native of the deeps of absolute and inextinguishable being. 83 4 190Q